by G. P. Taylor
‘What would you have done – what would any of us have done? We were prisoners until a time came that it would be safe for us to leave.’ Jago looked at the open door. He realised his words had gone beyond the room. ‘I don’t even trust Henson,’ he whispered.
‘What do you mean?’ Biatra asked.
‘Haven’t you noticed something about the house? Everything is different. The panel and the secret door in the hall are sealed. All the pictures have been moved, the Labyrinth has gone and Mrs Jarvis didn’t come back to the house.’
‘Henson told me she had trouble at home and we would meet her in the morning,’ she answered.
‘How do we know? She could be here to spy on us.’
‘Why would they do that?’
‘Because they know that I am the child of Strackan. That is why I haven’t been killed. Somehow they have found out,’ he said quietly, reluctant to speak the words. ‘Or they have known all along.’
Jago looked about the room and felt he was being watched. The candle flickered on the table by the window. The house creaked and groaned as if it were taking a long and laboured breath.
‘It isn’t possible. You only found out before Ezra Morgan was killed, so who else could know?’ she asked.
‘But is he dead? That is the face in my dream. You saw the serpent. Is he dead?’
‘We were there. The train exploded – Kinross, Blaine, Vibica, Ezra Morgan – all dead …’ Biatra answered.
‘There is only one way to be sure,’ Jago protested. ‘If Morgan is dead, then his face will be in the painting of the Vampyre Quartet. That is the law, when they die, their faces appear in the painting. If we can see it, then we will know for sure.’
‘But the door is sealed,’ she answered as she stood by him at the window.
‘Convenient … Henson wouldn’t answer when I asked him why,’ Jago said urgently, his mind racing to find an answer.
‘I know a way to the secret room. We could go there and see for ourselves.’
‘Where?’ he asked.
‘There is a door behind the fire. An entrance cut in the stone. It leads to the cave. I found it when you had gone with Toran Blaine. We could go to the room and look at the painting. Henson isn’t working for the Maleficarum,’ she protested.
‘How do you know? We have been away for years, anything could have happened,’ Jago said hoping no one else was listening.
‘He hates Vampyres. He would never work for them and … he’s our friend,’ she said.
‘We have no friends – we are Vampyres, and there is a curse on us all.’
Jago’s words were bitter and final. They had fermented in his heart for many years. He stared at Biatra. She looked the same as she always had. Her face was smooth, her skin soft. The moon-shaped birthmark had never faded.
‘I’ll always be with you,’ she said softly, her voice broken.
Jago looked away at the rain dripping down the window glass, beaten into small tears by the wind. He drew breath and sighed. All she could see in his mind was a swirl of thoughts.
‘This isn’t the place for us,’ he said softly. ‘We should get away from here. There has to be somewhere we can be free.’
Biatra took hold of his hand and entwined her fingers in his. She smiled as she kissed him on the cheek.
‘Wherever you go, I will be with you,’ she said. ‘You are all I have left.’
‘Hugh mentioned a bank in London that had the money belonging to the family. He said that if we ever were in trouble we could go there. Hugh gave me a key to a deposit box. He told me not to tell you unless I had to. Now is the time.’
‘How would we get there?’ she asked.
‘The night train from York.’
‘How would we find Hugh?’ Biatra asked.
‘The Sinan – the Vampyre compass. Henson kept it when we went to Scotland. He would never give it away,’ Jago said.
‘But if he is in league with the Maleficarum – they could have taken it.’
‘It’s a chance we shall have to take. You could ask him sweetly as you always do,’ Jago laughed.
Biatra waited at the top of the stairs as Jago crept down to the hallway. He trod lightly on the final tread, knowing the board was loose. It held his weight without making a sound. He beckoned for Biatra to follow. She made slow progress through the darkness as she listened to every sigh of Hawks Moor.
As she passed by, she listened to the door of Henson’s room. She could tell he was sleeping deeply as he rolled and snored on the four-poster bed and dreamt of the sea. It took all her strength not to open the door and look inside. In the corner of her eye, she could see Jago far below. He stood by the large stone fireplace where the floor was still stained with the burn mark of Julius Cresco. It was sealed within the freshly polished floor like a memory that could never be forgotten.
The memory of the betrayal was still bitter. It cut his heart to think of it. He remembered the night when Cresco had tried to kill him. Jago had taken the whale-oil lamp and thrown it across the room. He had watched helplessly as Cresco was overwhelmed in scorching flames like a tinder-dry human candle. He looked on, not moving, as the Vampyre burnt like a corn-doll. Cresco had staggered towards Jago and held out his burning fingers as he got closer and closer. ‘I loved you,’ he had said, before everything Cresco had been was subdued by the flames.
The blackened carcass had slumped to the floor like a falling tree. Ash splintered over the flagstones as his body fragmented. All that was left of his former companion were broken bones, dry and charred.
‘It’s behind the fire,’ Biatra said, breaking the memory as she held the candle she had taken from the hall table. ‘You were thinking of Julius Cresco.’
‘It was like a ghost. I could see it in my mind.’
‘They would have killed you. It was the only way,’ she replied as she put a hand on his shoulder.
Jago hesitated for a moment, listening to the sounds of the house and the wind whistling down the chimney.
‘How do we find the entrance?’ he whispered.
‘Behind the fire cradle – on the left.’
Jago stared at the burning embers of the fire. They were held in place by the long iron grate that stood proudly in the centre of the inglenook. There was just enough room to slip by. He moved quickly; the stones were hot from the fire. Biatra followed and, turning to the left, they were both soon in a narrow passageway stained with a hundred years of black soot.
Biatra walked on. The stones were soon cooler as the passage widened. Jago held tightly to the back of her jacket as they took the hand-cut steps.
‘How do we get out of here?’ he whispered as the roof to the tunnel got lower and lower.
There was a sharp turn. Biatra climbed three steps to a small wooden door. She pushed against it and the panel opened as a secret mechanism spun the floor beneath their feet and they were suddenly in the room.
Jago took the candle from Biatra and held it high above his head. He remembered the room well from the first day he had seen it all those years ago. Nothing had changed. The large gilded frame hung on the wall where it had done for centuries. Jago stepped closer and then stopped.
‘Where is the painting?’ Biatra asked before he could speak.
Jago stared at the empty frame that hung on the wall. The ornate painting of the four Vampyres – Draigorian, Cresco, Morgan and Trevellas – had gone. Fragments of old canvas stuck to the frame where a knife had cut it away from the wood. The painting had been roughly and hurriedly taken.
‘Do you think Henson knows it has gone?’ Jago asked.
‘He said he did the restoration of the house. He must have known,’ she answered.
‘Why didn’t he tell us?’ Jago asked.
‘Because they forbade me to,’ Henson answered as he stepped from the shadows.
‘You were asleep. I could see your dreams,’ Biatra said, alarmed by his presence.
‘I was asleep until I heard you speaking,’ Henson
answered. ‘I knew you would come to this place. I tried to tell them but they wouldn’t listen.’
‘Tell who?’ she asked.
‘Who do you think?’ he asked. ‘The Lodge Maleficarum has ways of making people do what they want.’ Biatra looked at Jago and wondered how he already knew. ‘I thought you would soon understand.’
‘Mrs Jarvis?’ Jago asked.
Henson laughed.
‘You are a wily boy, Jago Harker. She is a guardian of the Lodge. Not that you would think it to look at her.’ Henson took the candle from Jago and pulled at a piece of wood in the wall panel. ‘I have something that I managed to keep hidden from them. When they came to the house they took everything that would incriminate them. I managed to hide a box of papers in the library and this,’ he said as a small drawer in the wall snapped open.
‘The Sinan – the Vampyre compass,’ Biatra said. She watched him slide the neatly rolled parchment from the drawer.
‘I knew they should never find it. I told them that it had been lost in the fire when the steam engine exploded.’
‘And they believed you?’ Biatra asked, knowing that they would have searched his mind to see if he told the truth.
‘I was married for so many years that I know how to confuse my thoughts so they can’t be pried upon,’ Henson laughed.
‘How can we trust you? You work for the Lodge,’ Jago snapped before Henson could hand him the Sinan.
‘I never thought those words would drop from your lips, Jago Harker. I have watched over you from the day you arrived in Whitby and went to Streonshalgh Manor. Wasn’t it I who protected you?’ he asked.
Jago stood back and looked at the shadows around him. ‘Why are you helping them?’ he asked, his voice still sharp.
‘I have no choice. They know things – said they would tell people in Whitby. I would lose my job and everything,’ he replied sullenly. ‘They have ways of making you do what they want. Sometimes they are hard to resist. I was told to look after Hawks Moor.’
‘Blackmail?’ Biatra said without thinking.
‘It could be called that. Mrs Jarvis said it was just being compliant to their wishes.’ Henson shrugged. ‘But compliance only goes so far.’
‘Do they know where Hugh is hiding?’ Jago asked.
‘The truth is Jago, Hugh isn’t in hiding. They have taken him somewhere. Mrs Jarvis said it was for his safety, but I am not convinced. She is not an ordinary woman.’
‘Where is she now?’ Biatra asked.
‘She is meeting the train at York and bringing someone to Whitby. She said you were to have a new guardian until all this was sorted out. The trouble is –’
Jago butted in. ‘Ezra Morgan is still alive and so is Strackan. That is why they took the painting of the Vampyre Quartet.’
‘That is the truth,’ Henson said with a sigh as he pulled the cord tighter on his thick woollen housecoat. ‘Everyone believed that he was dead, but the painting refused to change. They waited for weeks before they finally took it away. They don’t want anyone to know.’
‘Where is he?’ Jago asked. ‘I have dreamt of him many times.’
‘No one knows. He has not been heard of since the time of the fire. What they worry about is that if he is alive, then who else? Kinross wanted to kill as many Vampyres as he could to cleanse the strain. It had nothing to do with the Lodge. Mrs Jarvis said that they were better off without him, now that there were so few of them left.’
‘But didn’t they find the bodies?’ Biatra asked. ‘I read in the paper that they had a funeral for Noel Kinross – he was the Prime Minister.’
‘Propaganda. They had to bury something. Trouble is, the fire burnt so intensely that there was nothing left.’
‘Vampyres burn, I have seen it with my own eyes,’ Jago said, remembering the sight of Julius Cresco burning to cinders.
Henson handed Jago the Sinan and watched him unfurl the vellum.
‘I know what you will do with that, but you will have to be careful. Mrs Jarvis will be watching everything.’
‘When will she be back?’ Jago asked. He looked at the scroll and saw that the ink on many of the names had faded away, leaving blank spaces.
‘In the morning,’ Henson answered.
‘So many have gone,’ Jago whispered soulfully, his eyes blinking in the candlelight as he scanned the list of names.
‘This is the first time I have been in here for many years.’ Henson smiled. ‘When they took the painting and sealed the room I thought the Vampyre compass would be lost for good. Then Biatra came back and I saw her disappear behind the fire and knew she had found another way.’
Jago didn’t speak; he ran his finger down the scroll, noting the number of empty spaces.
‘Are they all the Vampyres who have died?’ Biatra asked as she followed his finger with her eyes.
‘Hundreds and hundreds,’ Henson said. He tried to count the number of missing names on the scroll.
Jago stopped and looked up. His breath was panting in surprise and fear as he read some of the names on the scroll that, etched in black, were still clearly legible.
‘Ezra Morgan – Toran Blaine – Vibica de Zoete – Ozymandias … They are all alive.’
[ 5 ]
Guardian
LATE IN THE EVENING of the next day the storm that had been darkening the sky finally broke over Hawks Moor. The rain fell in dark rods, rattling the roof tiles and battering the ground. Rivers of water cut deep valleys in the gravel road and spilled over the cliff top.
Jago looked out of the drawing-room window at the dark sky. He had spent the day waiting for the arrival of Mrs Jarvis. The hours had passed slowly. Biatra had sat by the fire and watched the flames. They had talked little. In the five years they had been locked away in a Scottish castle, Jago thought he had said everything. Now, as he waited by the window, he found it hard to fight against a deep desire to run and feel the rain on his face. He felt like a caged beast. He walked back and forth, looking out through the leaded glass panes. He wanted to race through the woods and along the beach, to dive through the waves and swim out to sea, never to return.
‘Still no sign of them?’ Henson asked as he brought more wood for the fire. ‘I suppose the road from Whitby will be flooded. They could come tomorrow.’
‘They are near,’ Biatra answered without taking her gaze from the fireplace. ‘They will be here soon.’
Jago never questioned how she knew. Since he had been blooded, he had also changed. He could taste things on the wind, his eyesight was sharper and he could hear the most distant sounds. Biatra was different to him: she could sense things that could not be seen and look at the thoughts of others as if they were dancers on a stage.
‘Who is coming?’ Jago asked. ‘Did Mrs Jarvis say who it would be?’
‘She never said a thing – just that she would bring a new guardian who would be better suited to looking after you both.’
‘A new guard, more like,’ Biatra grumbled. ‘Turned Hawks Moor into a prison.’
‘It’s just until all this can be sorted out,’ Henson answered. ‘Anyway, who is to say you will still be here tomorrow?’ Henson reached into his pocket a slipped a key into her hand. ‘It’s in the garage. Blaine’s old motorbike. It has plenty of fuel – easily enough to get you to York. I wouldn’t go to Whitby, too many people looking out for you.’
Biatra looked at the key and then at Jago. He smiled back.
‘Not a word,’ Jago said.
‘Not a thought,’ Biatra answered.
It was then that the headlights of an old taxi turned into the driveway of Hawks Moor. They faded in the darkness of the storm, the rain blotting out the light. The car juddered to a halt outside the front door.
‘I’ll go and see her,’ Henson said, almost running from the room. ‘You wait here and give nothing away.’
The door to the taxi opened quickly. A large black umbrella was pushed out as if to prod the clouds. It opened suddenly and covered the fa
ce of the woman who tightly gripped its long bone handle.
Jago could see her thin white fingers that gripped it securely. A long red nail tipped each finger. He watched as Henson paid the driver and shut the car door. Soon, he could hear them in the hallway.
‘It is so good to be here. You must be Henson?’ the woman asked in an English voice that sounded quite young. ‘Terrible journey – road blocked for hours, flooding …’
Jago picked out the words he could hear. ‘Not a problem. They are in the drawing room,’ Henson said, his voice respectful.
The door opened. As the woman stepped inside she pulled the long pins from her hat and slid them into the lapel of her black jacket.
‘Biatra and Jago?’ she asked in matronly way. ‘I am here to look after you. I am Mina Karlstein.’
Jago looked her up and down very slowly. He didn’t care that she noticed. His eyes fixed on her face. She could be no more than twenty years old. Her lips were painted red, her eyes lined with kohl. Mina Karlstein was taller the Jago, with broad shoulders and an angular jaw.
‘Have you seen enough? Do I have your approval?’ she asked as she shook her woollen coat.
‘He always does that, wants to see everything of a person before he speaks. He was like that before,’ Biatra said, cutting short her words and not wanting to remember the time when he was not a Vampyre.
‘I am twenty-five, a twin. I was born in 1698. My mother died of the plague. My doctor, who was also a Vampyre, saved me. Is that what you would like to know?’ she asked humbly as Jago continued to stare at her. ‘I wear these clothes for comfort and not for fashion. I only take blood that has been freely given and I never hunt.’
‘Why are we here?’ he asked, ignoring all she had said, not caring for the plain jacket and trousers she wore. Jago could not see her thoughts; they were just a cloud to him. For all he knew she could be lying.
Mina Karlstein looked at Henson. ‘I thought that Henson would have told you by now?’ she asked.
‘He works for the Maleficarum. Why should he tell us anything?’ Jago snapped quickly. ‘So – why are we here?’