by G. P. Taylor
‘There was a time, Jago, when the life of a Vampyre was going to the opera, eating at a fine restaurant and taking the train to Rome for the winter. Some of us drank the blood of our companions and others chose to hunt for their prey. Everything was done with great sophistication. Strackan lived in the north and was just a legend and the Lodge Maleficarum kept order. Then you were born. The rumours of your birth soon spread. Where you lived was kept secret but we all knew that trouble was just a few years away. It was your birth that divided the Maleficarum. There were no angels, no shepherds – just the knowledge that destruction would come to us all.’
‘So there is more to come?’ Jago asked.
‘I think you know well that once you had killed all of the Vampyre Quartet then Strackan would be the only one left to be destroyed?’ Lucca asked.
‘That is what was said,’ he answered.
‘The gate of death is open,’ Lucca said softly.
‘He is my father,’ Jago answered.
‘Then best do it quickly before he comes for you. Strackan will know that you are alive and already those of our kind that are left here will begin to conspire,’ Lucca said as he handed Jago the Vampyre compass. ‘Track him down and kill him and then we will all be safe. He is the whirlwind, the destroyer of lands and the bringer of war. I have money for you here and took the liberty of putting right everything at Hawks Moor. I fancied living there myself.’
‘I would have to go alone, Hugh and Bia are …’
‘Luna Negri?’ Lucca asked, his voice filled with disillusion. ‘I have been there myself for a crime I did not commit. They will feel well rested when they wake.’ The man rolled the scroll in his fingers. ‘But they are still alive – their names are on the scroll.’
‘It is a list of the damned that would be better burnt,’ Jago said as he took the parchment from Lucca. Looking at the names that were left on the scroll, he counted them one by one. Jago searched for the name of Lana Karlstein. ‘It’s not there …’ he said as he searched again.
‘Who is it you are looking for?’ Lucca asked.
‘Lana … Lana Karlstein,’ Jago answered.
‘She will not be found. That was never her real name. Karlstein was the man who took their lives. He too changed his name. To find her you will have to find the name she was given at birth.’ Jago looked at the paper as his hand trembled. Lucca saw his distress. ‘Perhaps she will come looking for you – if your bond is strong, she will find you.’
*
Five hours later Jago stood on Platform 9 at King’s Cross station and listened to the train hiss and heave as coal and water were loaded onto the engine.
The platform was empty. Jago clutched the bag that Lucca had given to him. In it was a bundle of five-pound notes wrapped in newspaper, the Sinan and a sealed envelope. Lucca had told him that within would be everything he needed to start a new life at Hawks Moor. In his hand was the key that Lucca had handed him for the house. It was new and polished and without a turning mark. It warmed in his hand as the first few passengers walked towards the open doors of the carriages.
His mind was cast back to the day his mother had died and he followed the line of children on to the train. Now there were no soldiers or guards. The barrage balloon that had hovered over the station was gone. The platform was swept and the smell of coffee and bacon filled the air.
Jago followed a tall man in a long black coat. The man seemed familiar, and he smiled as he passed by and doffed the peek of his hat with a gloved hand. His face was thin, with cheek bones that looked as though the skin was pulled tight across them, and his chin was dimpled.
Jago pulled up the collar of his coat and then felt for the diamond in his pocket. It filled the palm of his hand. For a moment he felt like throwing it down on the line so that no one would find it. Then he quickly changed his mind, as if the stone itself begged to be kept.
The man in the black coat stepped onto the train and then looked back. Jago thought nothing of it. He had travelled through France and into Denmark before he had taken the ferry back to England. He had been on many trains, often doubling back on his journey to make sure he wasn’t being followed, and by now he didn’t care. The Maleficarum was no more. Ozymandias and Ezra Morgan were dead. Jago felt free – and more than that, he felt safe. As he walked to the train he planned that within the year he would return to France and wait for Hugh and Bia to wake from Luna Negri. He would hire a car and a driver and take them back with him to Hawks Moor. In that time he would find Lana Karlstein and they would be together.
All these thoughts jumped through his brain faster than he could remember them. They danced and dived back and forth, swirling like the fog that now rolled in under the cavernous steel arches of the station.
‘All stations to the north,’ the guard shouted as he raised his green flag and then blew three short blasts on his whistle. Last call passengers for York and Edinburgh.’
Those places seemed far away. Jago shuddered as he stepped on to the train. As he thought of returning to Hawks Moor alone, his heart missed a beat and then pounded in his chest. He thought it was the blood he had drunk with Lucca before he had left. It had been warm and thick, and had tasted of chocolate. Jago had mixed his with some cream and sprinkled cinnamon seeds on the top. He disliked drinking alone and was glad that Lucca had offered him food before his journey.
As he stepped into the long carriage, Jago found a seat by the window. He held the First Class ticket in his hand, feeling like he didn’t belong. He remembered the sheep he had shared the journey with long before.
A fat guard scurried towards him as the wheels on the train began to roll and glide faster and faster.
‘This is First Class – can’t be having you in here,’ the man said until he noticed the colour of his ticket. ‘Ah, Whitby … Change at York and then at Scarborough – enjoy the journey.’ He tried to smile at him as he spoke, his raised eyebrow the only sign that he was puzzled as to how Jago had been able to buy the ticket.
The steam train hauled the carriages through the outskirts of London. Alone in his compartment, Jago looked at the remains of the bombed-out houses and derelict streets until they broke into scattered fields and then unbroken countryside. The sky was bright blue and not marred by a single cloud. Except for the billows of steam that occasionally blotted out the morning sun, it stretched clear from horizon to horizon.
As the train sped through the dark and sooty station of Doncaster, the door to the carriage opened and the man in the long black coat walked through. He carried a small bag in his hand and counted the seats as he walked along. Seeing Jago, the man smiled. Jago tried to look away.
‘Travelling alone?’ the man asked. ‘Do you know how long it will take to get to York?’
Jago looked at his watch, not wanting to speak and wondering why the man had chosen to take the seat opposite.
‘Twenty minutes,’ he answered.
‘Darius Malmquist,’ the man said, holding out his hand. ‘I never like to speak to strangers.’ He laughed.
‘Jago – Jago Harker,’ he replied.
The man held his hand for an uncomfortable amount of time. ‘Nice to share this part of the journey,’ he said, finally letting go of Jago’s hand and moving to sit next to him. ‘I always get nervous that I will miss my stop and be taken far to the north.’
Jago looked at him closely. He seemed to be human – there was the usual rattle of trivial thoughts that Jago could feel. His face was lined but not to the extent that Jago would say the man was old. There was a glint on the short tufts of thick hair that stuck out from under the black fedora. They looked as if they had been dyed black. But it was the skin of the man that made Jago more concerned. The flesh on his face was mottled; it was as if he had been burnt and then new skin had re-grown to cover the scars.
‘Are you changing at York?’ Jago asked, trying to break the uncomfortable silence. He knew that he had seen the man before but could not remember where. It was as if he were a living dream.
‘I am staying there for a few days. I am a publisher of books and I am visiting a woman who owns a tea room. She has written a cookery book that she wants me to publish.’ The man spoke excitedly, as if the book would change the world. He opened his case and pulled out a tattered manuscript and pointed to the title. ‘A Year of Family Recipes,’ he said. ‘Do you know of Betty’s Tea Room? I have never been to York before but hear it is in St Helen’s Square and looks like the interior of an ocean liner.’
‘I don’t live there,’ Jago replied, wanting the man to leave him.
‘I have a ration voucher for coffee,’ the man said, pressing a crumpled ticket into his hand. ‘Perhaps if you ever visit you could have a drink on me. Tell Betty you met me on the train. I am sure she will make you most welcome.’
The bag that Jago had been carrying suddenly dropped to the floor. The man picked it up, quickly putting it back on the seat. Darius Malmquist then got to his feet and nodded to Jago. ‘I will have to make ready for the arrival at York.’
‘But there is plenty of time,’ Jago answered.
‘That may be so, but I cannot wait …’
‘Ten minutes?’
‘I must be by the door ready to step from the train. It is something that has always bothered me. I would hate to get left behind.’
Jago looked at the stitching on the cuff of the black coat. It was perfect in every detail. Everything about the man was incredibly precise. The cuffs of a white linen shirt could just be seen, pinned together by glinting diamond cufflinks.
‘Perhaps I will see you at Betty’s Tea Room,’ Jago said as Malmquist turned to walk away.
‘Perhaps …’ the man replied without looking back.
It seemed to take an age for the train to arrive in York. But eventually the engine slowed, rattling the compartment, and slid alongside the platform like a slowly docking ship. Jago stepped onto the stone flags and watched Darius Malmquist as he walked briskly towards the stone arch and the taxi rank outside the station. It was then that he saw the man stop, look back and then wave at him.
Jago instinctively lifted his hand and gestured as the man opened the door of a waiting cab and quickly disappeared inside. Crossing the platform to find his connection, Jago held the coffee voucher in his hand and looked at the lettering. There, in the corner of the ticket, was the familiar wolf’s-head sign of the Banco Perazzi.
‘Vampyre,’ he said to himself with a smirk as he crossed the bridge and found the small train about to depart from Platform 3.
The afternoon went quickly as the train made its way to the coast. Clouds gathered and a blustery wind blew old newspapers along the platform at Scarborough Station. Jago changed trains again and watched the coast come nearer as the steam engine crawled towards Ravenscar. It was a one-class carriage. Farmers were packed in next to women in service returning to Whitby from their day off. Jago stood for the journey and looked down across the horseshoe bay towards Hawks Moor. When the engine stopped to take on water, Jago slipped from the crowded compartment and walked across the track. Taking the cart road, he trudged towards Baytown. In an hour, he stood outside the doors of Hawks Moor.
The house had changed. All of the ivy was stripped from the walls. Fresh gravel filled the driveway and the windows had been re-glassed and painted.
Taking the key from his pocket, he slipped it into the lock and turned it slowly. The door opened with a wheeze of air. The house didn’t smell the same as the last time he could remember. Now it had the fragrance of toffee and roses. As he walked in everything seemed different.
In the hallway, three leather sofas now hemmed in the stone fireplace. A Byzantine rug covered the stone floor and on the wall above the mantelpiece was the painting of the Vampyre Quartet. Each face was in place – even Ezra Morgan stared down with lifeless eyes. The painting was now complete and as bright as the first day that Julius Cresco had put the paint on the dry canvas. He looked around the room. The staircase wall was hung with old swords and shields. Looking down from the landing was the stuffed head of a wild boar.
Jago felt something deeply fulfilling. It was as if a job had been done and a purpose achieved. He was home, Hawks Moor now belonged to him, and in a year Hugh and Bia would wake from Luna Negri.
‘Mr Lucca telephoned,’ a voice said as the kitchen door opened.
‘Henson?’ Jago shouted in excitement as his old friend walked towards him with a tray of tea.
‘It is good to see you again, Jago,’ Henson said, as tears rolled across his cheeks.
[ 28 ]
Slugwert
THE AFTERNOON FADED into long cups of tea and cosy conversation by the fire. Henson explained that after he and Biatra had been taken from Hawks Moor they had let him go in Whitby. It was Biatra they wanted; he himself was superfluous, irrelevant, and Jago thought that Jack Henson looked far older than he could have ever imagined. His hands were wrinkled and the lines around his eyes were deep and grooved. Even the strands of long hair were now thinning. He was ageing like an ancient tree nearing the end of its life.
There came the unwelcome thought that Henson was old and one day soon would die – Jago tried to rid the idea from his mind but something must have given it away.
‘I am not as young as I once was,’ Henson said as he smiled at Jago. ‘And yet you have changed very little.’
‘I feel older, and …’ He sighed, not finishing what he wanted to say.
‘So becoming a Vampyre was not as you expected?’ Henson asked.
‘Do you ever wish you could go back in time?’ he replied abruptly, reaching out his hands towards the fire.
‘Often. There is so much in my life that has gone wrong, so much that I have done that I regret. I long to revisit the past and perhaps I could have saved my wife and child.’
‘I would never have come to Whitby if I had known what was to happen. This has been a fateful place.’
‘The Vampyre Quartet had your life controlled. Now they are dead,’ Henson answered hesitantly. ‘But there is one still alive.’
Jago looked up from the sofa at the portrait of the Vampyre Quartet. He stared at each face. Cresco, Trevellas, Morgan and Draigorian all looked down at him with benign smiles, as if they could tell what weight pressed on his heart.
‘Strackan?’ he asked.
‘After the entire Quartet has been killed, then his life can be taken. He is defenceless,’ Henson said as he stacked three more logs on the fire and watched the flames engulf each one. ‘It is what has to be done.’
‘He is my father,’ Jago replied reluctantly.
‘He is a monster who tricked your mother and controlled your life. If he had his way you would be dead. Strackan would show no remorse in killing you. Remember that, Jago. He is a killer – that is all.’
‘When I saw him last he was almost dead and could only do his work through a Lestrigon,’ Jago said.
‘Blood zombies and skin-reapers, that’s all they are. Half dead and never alive – puppets.’ Henson spat the words angrily. ‘Strackan is a coward who should be hunted down and killed just like you once said you would do.’
Jago looked at the flames in the large stone fireplace. Outside Hawks Moor a gust of wind rattled the eaves of the houses. Far away he could hear the waves crashing against the rocks. The sounds were comfortably familiar and yet they chilled his bones.
‘I never thought I would ever get to this time,’ he said as he listened to the moaning of the oak beams above his head. ‘When I was in France, I thought I was going to die. If it hadn’t been for Ezra Morgan I think I would.’
He stopped, suddenly aware of his surroundings. This house knew too much. It had been a witness to much death and destruction. Hawks Moor was more than stone and lime mortar; it had memories and thoughts of its own, it harboured centuries of greed and malice.
Jack Henson smiled. ‘It has to be done. I will help you in any way I can. Whatever you think, Strackan has to die. That is what you have to do. Kill him like you kil
led the others.’ He ran his long fingers through his hair like the spines of a comb.
Jago thought for a while.
‘I have the stone that Ezra Morgan cheated from Walpurgis. It is supposed to be an oracle that can tell the future. I have to find the Temple of Constantine and hide it by the east window.’
Henson laughed. His shoulders hunched up and down and his face went red. His mouth burst open with mirth as he wheezed his breath. ‘Temple of Constantine?’ he asked as he laughed again. ‘Who told you of that place?’
‘It was Vibica de Zoete. She told me on the night I escaped from the cave. Do you know where it is?’ Jago asked.
‘They are always so dramatic, the damn Vampyres. They can never tell a straight truth.’ Henson laughed again. ‘Constantine was Roman. In 306 he was proclaimed Emperor in the Principia of Eboracum. Many years later, on that site was built the Church of St Peter. That is where you have to leave the Oracle diamond.’
‘Eboracum?’ Jago asked.
‘York.’ Henson laughed. ‘It has been under your nose all this time. Some say that Constantine was a Vampyre and that he even faked his death so that he could live on without being recognised. Some even say that he is Strackan and that there is a tomb in the crypt beneath the church that belongs to him. It is covered by a Doomstone carved with images of those being thrown into hell.’ Henson shuddered. ‘He had to return to the dirt that spawned him. Vampyres are all the same – can’t escape the place where their blood was taken.’
Jago ran his tongue over his teeth and looked at him. ‘How do you know these things?’ he asked his friend suspiciously.
‘When my wife was killed I had to find out who did it. I had heard of the beast Strackan and all the legends of the Vampyre Quartet, but I had to know the truth. I went to the Church of St Peter and broke into the crypt. I found an ancient carving of a monster and then I knew that a Vampyre had taken her. I have dug graves in Whitby all of my life and been privy to some things that most minds could never understand. On the night before my wife disappeared, I was visited in the graveyard by a young man who offered me a job. I had to work for him as his companion. The man told me he was a Vampyre and needed me to protect him from what was to come. When I refused, he said he would make sure I lost something very close to me. The next night they took my wife and child.’