Jane Vows Vengeance jb-3

by Michael Thomas Ford

“Then I’m certain he’ll be in a fine mood when he arrives,” Orsino said.

  As if on cue, Brodie’s voice boomed through the air. “Walter!” he called out. “Look who I found!”

  Jane looked up to see the Australian approaching with his arm around a woman. She was about Jane’s height, with curly brown hair that was cut short and a pug nose that gave her a boyish look. She was dressed in jeans and a red shirt that Jane was almost certain came from the most recent L.L.Bean catalog.

  “Sam!” Walter cried. He got up and walked around the table to give the woman a hug. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “You too,” said Sam in a husky but pleasant voice. “It’s been a long time.”

  Lucy leaned across the table. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” she whispered to Jane.

  Walter turned around. “Jane, this is Sam,” he said.

  “It’s good to finally meet you,” said Jane. “I’ve heard so much about you.” This of course was a lie, but if Walter caught it, he showed no indication of it.

  “Brodie tells me the two of you got married today,” Sam said, looking between Walter and Jane. “Congratulations.”

  An uncomfortable silence settled over the table. Jane had assumed that Walter had told everyone about the interruption to their wedding. Apparently he had not. Jane, not knowing how to respond, waited anxiously as the seconds ticked by.

  “Thank you,” Walter said. He didn’t look at Jane as he smiled broadly and added, “We’re thrilled to be able to celebrate it with good friends.”

  Jane, who had never known Walter to be deceitful in any way whatsoever, couldn’t decide if she was horrified or proud. Mostly she felt ashamed. Walter would never have had to lie if she hadn’t made a mess of things. If Joshua hadn’t made a mess of things, she corrected herself. Not that it mattered who exactly was to blame. The end result was the same.

  Orsino, sensing that Walter probably wanted to sit beside his supposed wife, returned to his original seat on Chumsley’s right. Sam sat next to him, with Walter and Jane filling the rest of that side of the table. Brodie took the end seat, facing Chumsley across the table, with Ben and Lucy to his right. That left a seat between Lucy and Miriam. This was occupied by Lilith, whom Miriam had once again presented as a helping dog to a dubious but ultimately acquiescent hostess. The little dog was curled up, asleep but snoring loudly.

  A waiter appeared not long after and took their orders. Jane, with feelings of nostalgia, ordered bangers and mash. She hadn’t had it in years, and although she of course didn’t have to eat due to her undead digestive system, she enjoyed the ritual of it. As she waited for the food to arrive, she listened to the conversations going on around her. Walter, busy catching up with Sam, was turned away from her, and she felt the urge to reach beneath the table and hold his hand. She resisted it, afraid he would pull away.

  “Nasty little bugger,” she heard Brodie say.

  “Who is?” she asked.

  “McGuinness,” Brodie replied. “Man’s a right berk.”

  Jane was intrigued. The previous night Brodie had seemed more or less indifferent to McGuinness. Now she detected a distinct note of dislike in his voice. She wondered if he’d had enough drinks to let his true feelings for the man show.

  “Did I tell you we went to school together?” Brodie asked.

  “No,” Jane said.

  “We did,” Brodie continued. “Dalhousie University in Halifax. Wonderful school. I don’t know how the hell McGuinness got in. His designs were shit.”

  “If he was so incompetent, how did he get a degree?” Lucy asked.

  Brodie held up one thick finger. “A very good question,” he said. “The way he gets everything he gets—by cheating.”

  “It seems to me it would be rather difficult to cheat at designing a building,” Ben remarked.

  “Not if you steal other people’s designs,” said Brodie. “Thieving bastard.”

  The tone of his voice suggested a personal experience with McGuinness’s treachery, and Jane couldn’t help asking, “Did he ever steal from you?”

  Brodie snorted, sounding not unlike an angry rhino. “Course he did,” he said. “Stole one of my best ideas. It was my own fault for telling him about it in the first place, but I didn’t know then what a sly one he is. Clever as a shithouse rat. Pardon the expression, ladies.”

  “Surely you told the professor what he’d done,” Lucy said.

  “Wouldn’t have done a bit of good,” he said. “He was having a naughty with her every afternoon while her husband was off teaching the history of Canada to undergrads. No way she would believe me over him.” He took a long pull on his ale. “Anyway, that’s all in the past. Still, I wouldn’t mind if someone kicked him down a flight of stairs.”

  At that point several servers arrived carrying plates of food, and for the next half an hour Jane focused on her bangers and mash. They were just as wonderful as she remembered, and for the time it took to finish them she forgot all about her unfortunate predicament. Walter too seemed to forget, chatting with her amiably about his fish and chips and exchanging bites with her.

  Then, as the empty dishes were being taken away and the waiter was suggesting sticky toffee pudding for dessert, Jane felt a twinge in her stomach. At first she thought it was merely a reaction to the onion gravy (onions had had this effect on her ever since she was a child). But when another cramp came, much stronger than the first, she knew it was something else. She needed to feed. And this time bangers wouldn’t do the job. She needed blood.

  Chapter 9

  Wednesday: Cripple Minton

  A train at eight-twenty in the morning is a sleepy thing.

  Jane, having not yet had an opportunity to feed, was particularly lethargic, and the gentle whump-whump-whump of the train passing over the tracks made her even more so. Her hunger made it impossible to sleep, however, and so she planned on spending the hour and a half it would take to travel from London to Warwick staring out the window. Walter, who could fall asleep anywhere, had done so within five minutes of the train leaving Marylebone station. His head was against Jane’s shoulder and his breath was hot in her ear, which was irritating.

  She felt guilty being irritated about Walter’s close proximity. She knew she should be grateful that he hadn’t broken things off. But when she was hungry she hated to be touched, not least of all because she could feel the blood coursing beneath the surface of the skin of the person touching her and it took enormous force of will not to bite. At the moment she was grinding her teeth, trying to keep her fangs locked in place.

  “Good morning.”

  Jane turned her head. “Oh, good grief,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  Joshua, dressed in the same dark suit he’d been wearing the previous day, sat down in the seat across from Jane and Walter. Jane glanced anxiously at Walter, afraid he would wake up.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Joshua said, scratching idly at his beard. “If he wakes up, I’ll glamor him and he’ll think it was all a dream.”

  “Why do you have to glamor him?” Jane asked. “What makes you think I can’t do it?”

  Joshua ignored her, which was annoying. Byron does the same thing, she thought. They really are very much alike. “I did some asking around about Crispin’s Needle,” he said.

  “And?”

  “Nobody’s entirely sure it exists,” said Joshua. “Some vampires think it’s a legend. Others think it exists but that it doesn’t really work. And some believe in it.”

  “That isn’t terribly helpful,” Jane remarked.

  “No,” Joshua agreed. “It isn’t. However, I did find out one useful piece of information. Have you heard of the Tedious Three?”

  Jane shook her head. The movement jostled Walter, who opened his eyes and yawned. “Are we there?”

  Joshua placed his hand in front of Walter’s eyes. “Back to sleep,” he said, and Walter’s head fell against Jane’s neck.

  “How did y
ou do that?” she asked.

  “You mean you can’t?” Joshua said, lifting an eyebrow. “Interesting. So, have you heard of the Tedious Three?”

  “No,” Jane snapped. One more vampire trick I don’t know about, she thought, irritated.

  “Librarians,” Joshua explained. “Names of Zenodotus, Callimachus, and Eratosthenes. Each was at one time a librarian at the Library of Alexandria. Since being turned they’ve dedicated their lives to recording the history of the vampires.”

  “How interesting,” Jane said.

  “You’d think so,” said Joshua. “But they manage to make it boring. Nobody can stand them. For one thing, they’re forever correcting your grammar.”

  “One’s grammar,” Jane said under her breath.

  “If anyone knows about Crispin’s Needle, it’s them.”

  “They,” said Jane. “I mean, where do we find them?”

  “That’s the tricky bit,” Joshua replied. “They’re so annoying that no one wants to spend time with them. Nobody I spoke to can remember where they live.”

  “Why is everything so difficult?” said Jane. “What good is having vampire librarians if you can’t ask them anything?”

  “That’s where you’re lucky,” Joshua said. “Their last known whereabouts happen to be in Warwickshire. If you can find someone there who knew them then—”

  “And just how am I supposed to do that?” Jane interrupted. “Is there a vampire directory? Can I just stop in at the visitors’ center and ask them to point me to the nearest vampire?”

  “You’re in a foul mood this morning,” Joshua said.

  “And whose fault is that?” said Jane. “If you hadn’t shown up, I would be married right now and very, very happy. By the way, how did you know I was getting married anyway?”

  “Word gets around,” Joshua said. “But let’s focus on the task at hand. You need to find a vampire.”

  “You’ll help me, of course,” said Jane.

  Joshua shook his head. “I’m heading straight back to the city,” he said. “I’m having lunch with my publisher.”

  “Your publisher?” Jane said. “You mean someone is actually publishing your poems?”

  “I’ll have you know I’m quite popular with the undead,” Joshua said proudly.

  “We have our own publisher?” Jane said. “You mean I didn’t have to wait almost two hundred years to be published again?”

  Joshua looked sheepish. “Actually, he doesn’t much care for your work,” he said. “He finds it all a bit twee.”

  Jane, incensed, started to reply, but just then Chumsley passed through the car. “We’ll be arriving in five minutes,” he called out. “Warwick station in five minutes.”

  “Just find a vampire,” Joshua told Jane as he got up. “It won’t be difficult.”

  “You don’t know me very well,” said Jane.

  “If you’re meant to find Crispin’s Needle, you’ll find the way,” Joshua said. “Now farewell, my sweet. Until we meet again.”

  Jane exhaled loudly. “Stupid Romantic poets,” she muttered. “Always blathering on about fate and destiny. Moony dreamers, the lot of them.”

  “What?” said Walter, who had woken up and was stretching.

  “I said we’re here,” Jane replied.

  As the train came to a stop they gathered up their things and walked to the door. Most of the others were already there, all looking less than awake. Jane realized that Joshua had probably glamored the entire car to make sure no one remembered seeing him. Perhaps he’s not as stupid as I think he is, she mused.

  As they exited the train they were herded toward a small bus into which their luggage was also being loaded. Chumsley, after three or four pints the night before, had offered to allow Miriam, Lucy, and Ben to travel with the rest of the group whenever there was room, thereby saving them a great deal of trouble, not to mention taxi fares. Now they all piled into the bus and took their seats. Jane couldn’t help but notice that Enid’s guests—and Miriam—all sat on one side, while Chumsley’s sat on the other.

  The first destination being of Chumsley’s choosing, he was in charge, and as the bus made its way toward the hamlet of Cripple Minton he briefed them on the site.

  “We’re going to be touring Pitstone Vicarage,” he said. “As the name suggests, it was once home to the presiding vicar of the neighboring church, which is also owned by the family and no longer used for services. However, the church is of little interest to us. It’s the vicarage we’ve come to see. It is, I do not hesitate to say, one of the hidden gems of British architecture.”

  Lucy, who was sitting behind Jane, leaned forward. “Can we go look at the church anyway?” she asked. “I don’t think I can stand a tour this early in the morning.”

  “I agree,” Jane said. “Besides, I suspect they don’t really want us tagging along.”

  She conferred with Walter, who seemed a little disappointed that she didn’t want to see the vicarage but didn’t try to get her to change her mind, which Jane interpreted as his way of agreeing that it would probably not interest her very much. She was equally relieved when, as the bus arrived in Cripple Minton and pulled to the side of the narrow road on which Pitstone Vicarage was situated, Miriam announced that she and Lilith would be staying with the group. This left Jane, Lucy, and Ben free to investigate the church.

  As Chumsley had noted, the church was not particularly distinctive, although it was charming in the way that all English churches of a certain age are. The stones out of which the walls were built were cunningly composed so that no other supports were needed. The wooden pews glowed with a soft shine created by the behinds of the faithful polishing them year upon year. And the stained glass that filled the windows glowed faintly in the winter morning light.

  Jane went to the nearest window and looked more closely. The scene depicted showed a group of three women being menaced by two men. Two of the women knelt on the ground, their hands lifted to heaven. The third woman stood defiant, pointing an accusing finger at the men. A small plaque beneath the window read: ST. APOLLONIA THE BLESSED REFUSES TO RENOUNCE HER FAITH.

  The next window was most unusual. The woman Jane now knew to be St. Apollonia had her arms held behind her by two men. Her mouth was open and a third man was reaching inside with a pliers-like instrument. It gripped one of Apollonia’s teeth. The saint’s lips were bloody, and at her feet were scattered a dozen small white objects also dotted with blood. The identifying plaque read: ST. APOLLONIA THE BLESSED HAS HER TEETH REMOVED BY HER TORMENTORS.

  “That seems an odd thing to do,” Jane said to Ben, who had come to stand beside her and was peering at the window.

  “Not really,” Ben told her. “They did all kinds of weird things to the martyrs. Well, allegedly. I suspect most of these stories are made up out of whole cloth.”

  “That may be true,” said a woman’s voice. “But we do have several of St. Apollonia’s teeth in a reliquary.”

  Jane and Ben turned to see a very pretty young woman standing behind them. Her age was difficult to determine, but Jane put her at no more than thirty. Her long blond hair fell loosely about her shoulders. She was wearing a deep blue cashmere turtleneck sweater and black pants.

  “I’m Clare Marlowe,” the woman said. “My family owns the house your group is touring, as well as the church.”

  “It’s lovely to meet you,” said Jane. She introduced herself, as well as Lucy and Ben.

  “How did your family come to own a church?” Lucy asked.

  “The church dates from the eighteenth century,” Clare said. “The first vicar was Bartholomew Marlowe. His family—our family—was very wealthy. But Bartholomew wasn’t interested in money. He was more of a scholar, with a particular interest in religion. When he was twenty his parents and only sister were killed in a boating accident. Bartholomew inherited a fortune, which he used to build this church and the vicarage. Since then a Marlowe has always lived in the house.”

  “Was the church ever
used for services?” asked Ben. “Or has it always been private?”

  “At first it was used by the public,” Clare said. “Bartholomew liked the idea of being a country vicar. But his son, Tallway Marlowe, wasn’t interested in it at all, and after his father’s death he closed the church to the public and it’s been closed ever since. Occasionally people come to see it, but I’m afraid it’s mostly been forgotten.”

  “That’s a pity,” Jane said. “It’s so lovely. These windows are particularly beautiful, although I confess I’ve never heard of St. Apollonia.”

  Clare laughed. “Not many people have,” she said. “She’s a bit obscure. She lived in the third century, in Alexandria. According to church history, she was a virgin dedicated to the service of God.”

  “Aren’t they always?” Lucy said. “Virgins, I mean.”

  “It does seem to come with the territory,” said Clare. “Apollonia was of course a convert to Christianity, which annoyed her pagan neighbors. One day a group of men rounded up Apollonia and several other Christian women and ordered them to recant or be burned alive. That’s what you see in the first window. When Apollonia refused, they tortured her by pulling out all of her teeth.”

  Clare moved on to the third window and continued the story. “Seeing what was done to Apollonia, the other women threw themselves into the water in order to drown,” she said.

  Indeed, the window showed two women bobbing in what could only be the ocean, their raised hands clasped in prayer. Their captors stood on the shore, looking on angrily and shaking their fists.

  “The men threw Apollonia in after them,” Clare said. “But she didn’t drown.” She indicated the fourth window, in which a very much alive Apollonia was being lifted from the water by what appeared to be an angel. “Although the other women perished, Apollonia was delivered from death.”

  “Why just her?” Ben asked. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “I suppose it depends on how you look at it,” said Clare. “Apollonia was willing to suffer for God. The other two killed themselves rather than go through that. Perhaps God didn’t think they were worthy.”