Written in the Blood

by Stephen Lloyd Jones

  Behind her Georgia crouched in front of Luke. She threw his arms over her shoulders and heaved him up.

  Outside, the moon hid behind racing clouds. The cicadas were back, cheering them on. Hurry, their voices chorused.

  Hurry hurry hurry hurry.

  ‘Go,’ Georgia urged. ‘Don’t look back. Don’t look at what’s behind you.’

  Regan ran up the veranda’s front steps. The others followed. She opened the screen door. Tested the handle of the door behind it. It swung wide, revealing a wedge of darkness.

  ‘Inside,’ Georgia told her.

  Behind them, back on the drive, Angel heard something. A stirring. A muttering.

  Regan heard it too. She flinched, as if expecting someone to grab her, and threw herself forward into the house. Elliot crashed after her, then Hope.

  Angel was next. She hesitated on the threshold. Something felt wrong.

  Of course it feels wrong. You’re in a nightmare. Move!

  She stumbled through the doorway, hearing Georgia bringing up the rear. The woman used her elbow to flick on a wall switch. Above them, in a cobweb-infested chandelier, a single bulb winked on, painting the hall with a dirty yellow light.

  Dust everywhere. On the floor, a tattered rug, its colour faded to grey. A steep wooden staircase ascending into gloom. A grandfather clock against one wall, the hands of its face frozen at twenty minutes to midnight. A cracked mirror on another, liver-spotted with age. In one corner, a rotting heap of clothing. The floorboards groaned as they crossed them.

  ‘Try through there,’ Georgia whispered to Regan, nodding towards a closed door. ‘Search for a phone.’

  Regan, her eyes huge, looked like she was going to refuse, and then she saw her brother in the woman’s arms. The sight seemed to rally her. She hurried to the door. Threw it open. Stepped inside.

  Angel followed, mouth so dry she could barely take a breath without gagging.

  Only then, as she moved into darkness so heavy it seemed to drag her towards the floor, did she catch the smell – that same meat stench – of something dying, and she flung herself around, knowing that she had to get out, that all of them had to get out of this house right now.

  But the woman from the RV was blocking the door. She let go of Luke, allowing his body slip through her arms to the floor, and when she flicked a switch beside her two wall lamps along one side of the room bled out a sordid light. Angel saw what greeted them and opened her mouth to scream, to deny what she saw, but her throat was silent, the words refusing to come.

  All she could do, all any of them could do, was stare.

  Velvet curtains screened the windows at the far end of the room. Moths had feasted on them, puckering the material to rags. A fireplace held white ashes and the black stumps of logs. Newspapers lay strewn across the floor.

  Arranged in a half-circle, at the very centre of the room, stood five mouldering armchairs. And in every chair sat a corpse, hunched and dry. Each face was a blister of cracked skin and sunken cheeks, so old it was impossible to tell whether it had belonged to a man or woman. Skeletal fingers gripped chair arms, and just then Angel realised that she had been wrong, that the shrunken corpses weren’t corpses at all, because one by one they began to open their eyes, and when they saw the five children gathered before them their jaws cracked open and their mouths snapped into grins.

  Angel turned to the woman with the seaweed eyes and the sunlight hair, and saw her smile.

  ‘Welcome,’ she said, eyes shining, and when the word slipped from her lips, Angel smelled corruption on her breath. It reminded her of the corporeal stink rolling off Ty. But as potent as her step-dad had been, he seemed positively fresh compared to this. Georgia’s corruption seemed older, deeper: more foul than anything Angel had experienced before. Or would ever experience again.

  The door swung closed. The five creatures in the armchairs began to rise. And the lights, as if to show mercy, flickered out.

  CHAPTER 18

  Calw, Germany

  Hannah Wilde was walking in the woods with Gabriel and Ibsen when her phone started trilling in her pocket. The late autumn sun was low in the sky, and she could feel the faint heat of its rays struggling through the bare branches of the trees above her head. Gabriel’s fingers were interlaced with her own. So precious she found these snatched moments of togetherness. So rare.

  It was the handset’s standard ring, which was unusual: she had assigned the few people who knew this number individual tones. ‘Let me get this,’ she murmured, disentangling herself from Gabriel and digging into her pocket. She answered the phone and thought, for a moment, that she heard the woods grow still in expectation.

  A pause, then a voice. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Leah said. ‘I couldn’t let anyone know.’

  When Hannah caught the distress in her daughter’s tone, it closed her throat. She struggled to get her words out. ‘I know, darling. It’s OK. Are you safe?’

  ‘I’m fine. Really.’

  Trying to calm her heart enough to think, Hannah said, ‘Listen to me. I know what you intend to do. I know you’ve decided to make contact and I understand why, but if you go near—’

  ‘I already have.’

  The girl’s admission shocked Hannah into silence. Down by her feet, Ibsen woofed. She heard Gabriel take a breath, felt his hand press lightly against her back, supporting her. Instinctively, she leaned into him.

  ‘We talked about this once, you and I,’ Leah said. ‘You remember, don’t you? We pretty much agreed that one day the kirekesztett might be our only hope.’

  ‘You’ve really met them?’ Hannah asked, once she’d recovered her breath enough to speak.

  ‘Yes. They . . . they haven’t been at all like I imagined.’

  ‘Don’t romanticise them, Leah.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘If the tanács find out where you’ve gone, what you’re trying to do—’

  ‘That’s why I need your help. Gabriel’s too. Because I’ve already made some headway. Four women willing to take a chance with us. Perhaps a fifth, if I’m lucky. But I can’t bring them back to Calw.’

  ‘No. The tanács have been all over us here.’

  ‘So if this is going to work, we’ll need another location, somewhere we can gather without it being broadcast far and wide. I promised the kirekesztett women that they could meet some of the children before they start the process.’

  Hannah felt the energy going out of her limbs. She wanted to sit down but she wouldn’t give in to her fatigue. ‘This is so risky, Leah.’

  ‘I know. But I think the mothers will understand. I think they’ll want to help. We just need a venue.’

  Hannah thought for a moment. ‘The place at Lake Como.’

  ‘Can you arrange it? It means involving Catharina. But I think she’ll agree.’

  ‘If the tanács find out about this, that without consulting them we’ve gone to the kirekesztett and offered—’

  ‘I don’t care. I don’t think you do either. Half of them probably agree it’s the only option left. And the others – well, their ideas are so medieval . . . someone needs to explain that we’re not living in the goddamned Middle Ages any more.’

  Hannah laughed at that, buoyed by the spirit and conviction she heard in her daughter’s voice. She knew Leah was right: it was the only option left. Even so, by acting unilaterally, the girl exposed herself to more danger than she’d faced in her entire adult life, and not just from the fanatical voices inside the tanács. Hannah had spent the last fifteen years living in this community of hosszú életek, but with the exception of Jakab she had never met one of the kirekesztett. Other than her daughter’s assurances, she had nothing by which she could judge them.

  Isn’t that the point? It’s neither your right, nor your privilege, to sit in judgement of anyone. Certainly not a people about whom you know so little.

  ‘Are you there?’ Leah asked.

  ‘I’m here.’

  Listening to the crack and
hiss of the connection, feeling every inch of the physical distance that separated her from the daughter she had striven so long to protect, Hannah conceded that her years as Leah’s guardian had come to an end. She could advise, and she knew that her daughter would listen, but she recognised the steel in Leah’s voice, recognised it as a trait that linked her to the girl just as it had linked her to her own mother, Nicole. ‘You can rely on me for what you need,’ she said. ‘Gabe too. I’ll speak to Catharina. We’ll be there, waiting. How long before you arrive?’

  ‘Four days, maybe? I haven’t been in England for years. There are a few places I need to visit before I fly home.’

  ‘Don’t hang up,’ Hannah said. ‘Not yet. There’s something else I need to tell you. Something the tanács mentioned when they were here.’ She paused. ‘Leah, has anyone told you of the lélek tolvajok?’

  The girl hesitated. ‘Odd you should ask, but yes.’

  ‘You need to listen very carefully. If what I’ve heard is true, the tanács might be the least of our worries.’

  CHAPTER 19

  Budapest, Hungary

  1880

  Two days before the season’s kezdet végzet – first of the four social engagements that would decide the futures of so many young hosszú életek – Dr András Benedek summoned Izsák to his study in the north wing of Tansik House. It was only the second time Izsák had visited the doctor’s consulting chamber since Trusov’s assault on him, all those years distant.

  On the more recent occasion, András had brought him there to tell him of his oldest brother’s killing at the hands of the kirekesztett known as Jakab. Izsák had cried for a day and a night at the news, and at the knowledge – so unutterably bleak – that the number of living souls with whom he shared a connection had, once again, contracted.

  A year had passed since that day, and seven years had rolled by since the doctor had brought Izsák to Tansik House. So much had happened in those intervening years. He’d discovered the awful secrets the doctor’s home hid from the world, and had fallen in love with one of its treasures.

  Now, sitting in a leather armchair beside a window looking into the gardens, he watched the doctor pour two glasses of pálinka and took the one that was offered.

  András sat in a chair opposite. As usual, the man looked scrubbed and fresh, his fingernails like perfect white crescent moons. An occasional table beside him displayed a collection of framed photographs - mementos of his travels around Europe. Izsák recognised the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile and the Notre Dame de Paris, but his eyes were drawn to a more unusual image: the bust of a woman wearing a seven-pointed crown. Her face was arresting in itself, but it was the scale that shocked him. Located in parkland, she dwarfed the surrounding trees.

  András followed Izsák’s eyes and he smiled. ‘Taken at the Exposition Universelle. Two years ago now. And what a sight she was.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom. They’re sending her to New York once she’s finished. With her torch, she’ll stand a hundred and fifty feet. Astonishing accomplishment, if they manage it.’

  The doctor sipped his pálinka, and his smile faded. ‘If circumstances had been kinder,’ he said, ‘we’d be celebrating your végzet year. But life deals its blows, and we must make the best of what remains. Your father disgraced himself before the tanács and he paid the price. Your brother chose the path of murder rather than atonement, and one day, willing or not, I’m sure he’ll face his accusers.

  ‘Your blood is tainted, Izsák, and there is nothing we can do about that. But you’ve been an obedient house guest for most of your time here, and a willing student. I’m pleased with the progress we’ve been able to make with you.’

  András paused, and Izsák knew he waited for some expression of gratitude. He could not bring himself to voice it.

  Unfazed, the doctor sipped from his glass. ‘You’re a man now, as much as you’ll ever be, which means it’s time for you to leave us.’

  Izsák stared. ‘Where should I go?’

  ‘That’s up to you. It’s a large world out there. Filled with possibilities. Honestly? I’d travel, if I were you. Far from here. See something of the world. Try to work out how you can leave it a better place. You’re the last of the Balázs line. Your father enjoyed a good reputation before your brother destroyed it. Perhaps you can find some small way of rebuilding it.’

  ‘My father’s reputation remains intact.’

  ‘I know we’ll never agree on that, so let’s not dwell on it. You’ll be leaving us next week. Come and see me before you go – you’ll have travelling expenses and a small amount of money, as is your right. In the meantime . . .’

  The doctor rose and went to his desk, where he searched through a drawer. Finally he found what he was looking for. When he turned back to Izsák, he held a gold watch on a chain. ‘Although you won’t attend the végzet, I see no reason to withhold this from you. After Balázs József was executed, the Főnök passed this to me for safekeeping. I understand it was the last your father ever made.’

  Open-mouthed, Izsák took the watch from the doctor. It was his father’s work, no doubt of it. Even all these years later, he could pick a single Balázs József piece from a hundred lesser imitations. This was a particularly fine example.

  Opening its hunter case, he gazed down at the enamelled face hand-painted with black numerals, and was instantly transported back to his father’s workshop in Gödöllö, smelling the dried apple aroma of József’s pipe, seeing the thatch of the man’s eyebrows knitting together as he concentrated at some task.

  Turning the watch over, Izsák saw the inscription on the back plate.

  Where perhaps his father had hoped, one day, to engrave a date, a blank space waited. That day, and that date, would now never fall. Izsák slid his thumb over the indentations, realising that József might have chiselled those letters only hours before his execution at the Citadella.

  Izsák still remembered the horologist’s last words as he stood with lifted chin on the rickety wooden stage inside Budapest’s oldest fort.

  ‘Izsák is not yet twelve years old. He is an innocent. A victim of this situation as surely as anyone else. Please: watch over him. Allow him to grow. And help him to heal.

  ‘I am to be judged today. But tomorrow, in the way you treat an innocent, you will all be judged. Tell him I loved him. Tell him his mother loved him. And show him that he is loved still.’

  Even in his last moments, József had thought not of himself but of his youngest son. If only Izsák could have learned from that example, and lived his own life as selflessly. Now, sitting in the doctor’s study, looking down at this priceless piece his father had created for him, that treacherous old thought rang in his head.

  What will happen to me?

  The tanács had not heeded József’s plea. But at least his father had tried, using what powers of oratory he still possessed, to make them listen.

  A tear dripped on to the watch case. Izsák wiped it off, dismayed that András might see his feelings laid bare, furious at this demonstration of his own weakness even as he recollected his father’s greatest act of strength.

  Stiffly, he begged the doctor’s leave, pocketed the watch and hurried out of the study. Upstairs, back in the south wing that had been his home these past seven years, he sought out Béni.

  The young man was sitting beside the window in his room, smoking tobacco from the ribbed clay pipe that had become his recent habit. At the desk, Pig moved the pieces of a jigsaw around on its surface. The crumbs of his last meal clung to the downy hairs around his mouth.

  ‘You’ve heard the news,’ Béni said, exhaling a streamer of tobacco smoke.

  ‘We’re being turned out,’ Izsák replied, envious of his friend’s display of indifference.

  ‘Nonsense. We’re graduating. That’s how I see it. We – the three of us, I mean – survived Tansik House, against all the odds. That’s something worth celebrating, d
on’t you think?’ He held out a bottle of spirit, eyebrows lifting mischievously.

  Izsák declined. ‘But where will we go?’

  ‘That’s up to us.’

  ‘What will we do?’

  ‘We’ll rule the bloody world, Izsák. That’s what we’ll do.’

  ‘What about Pig?’

  ‘Pig’s one of us. Aren’t you, Pig?’

  Their companion snorted his agreement.

  ‘Is everyone leaving?’ Izsák asked.

  ‘No, just those of age. Us three. Etienne. That’s it.’

  ‘Trusov’ll be heartbroken.’

  ‘He’ll find himself another whore. Save your sympathy for the river men spending their wages in Tabán next week. They won’t know what hit them.’

  ‘Don’t, Béni. It’s not funny. None of it.’

  The older boy sucked on his pipe and shrugged.

  Katalin came to him the night before the kezdet végzet, while the rest of Tansik House slept. She arrived bundled up in a shapeless brown robe, face hidden in the shadows beneath its hood. Izsák lit his oil lamp and turned up the wick, bathing the room in light. When Katalin let her robe fall to the floor, he gasped in awe.

  She wore her végzet outfit. The dress, a shimmering kingfisher blue, was of crinoline but it hugged her hips closely, retaining her silhouette while bunching out behind. Although the recent fashion in Budapest favoured a high collar, Katalin’s dress was of a more classic design, with a low square décolletage that revealed her throat and the firm slopes of her breasts.

  Her arms were bare. Her hair was piled into ringlets on top of her head. A delicate strip of blue silk masked her face just below her eyes; the fabric moved against her lips as she breathed. Strange, but despite her radiance, Izsák saw that she was nervous.

  Katalin took his hands. ‘I wanted you to see.’

  His lungs filled with her perfume, a scent of everything that could not be. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he told her. ‘Truly.’