by Mark Latham
‘What have you done with him?’ Lillian asked through gritted teeth.
‘Me? Why, nothing. I have long since forgiven your foolhardy brother for his transgressions against me, for I am not the sort to hold a grudge. But his sort are not exactly welcome at Scarrowfall, and so he has been consigned to the dungeon for the time being, while those of the Blood Royal decide what is to be done with him.’
‘I suppose there is something I must do to secure John’s release?’
‘Only hear me out. Once you have done so, I trust that you will act according to your conscience. And I am confident you will find our causes better aligned than you may presently imagine.’
Lillian scoffed, but nodded acquiescence regardless. De Montfort’s smile grew into a parody of warmth.
‘Then, madam, I shall leave you to dress and then we shall talk. I will have a maid come to attend you in… shall we say, twenty minutes?’
‘If it please you,’ Lillian said, in mock servitude.
‘Very good,’ said de Montfort, opening the bedroom door a fraction. ‘Oh, and I am sure I need not say it, but just so that there is no misunderstanding—you will find that your quarters, although comfortable, are most secure, and that Scarrowfall is very remote. I trust you will not feel the need to verify either assertion.’
Lillian glared at the odious creature as he bowed, slipped through the door and closed it behind him. She heard a key turn in the lock.
She set about disobeying de Montfort at once. Lillian moved to the door, and heard muffled footsteps moving away. A shadow passed the crack of light beneath the door; a guard, she assumed. She went next to the window, throwing open the curtains to find iron bars set deep into the frame. Lillian squinted into the darkness, and saw a rugged coastline stretching out before her, upon which Scarrowfall sat precariously close to the edge. Moonlight gleamed off a rough, inky black sea. Beyond that she could see little—she was on perhaps a third floor, but her view was obscured by parapets and buttresses of aged stone, giving her prison the appearance of an abbey or castle rather than the country pile she had expected.
She shook the bars out of frustration, but they were solid and did not so much as rattle. Lillian took a deep breath and tried to compose herself, to ask herself what John would do. Or, indeed, what John was doing right at that moment.
Lillian closed her eyes, and exhaled slowly. What John would do, she felt sure, was dress for dinner and reveal some cunning plan later. If only she had such a plan.
* * *
John worked the small metal tools within the manacle lock, his hands shaking as much from tiredness as from fear. He wished he was as deft as Lillian when it came to lockpicking. John felt the thing in the shadows watching him; he smelt its foul breath and heard its shuffling paces upon the cellar floor.
The mechanism clicked, and John took heart, redoubling his efforts. If the creature were to pounce, he doubted he would stand much of a chance unarmed and weakened as he was, but he would rather die fighting than chained to the wall. Why it had not attacked already was beyond him.
Another click; he was getting closer to freedom. But then he stopped.
He heard a different sound, from further off in the darkness. A groan at first, and then a low moan. It was not one of the creatures—or, at least, he did not think so. Indeed, it sounded like a woman.
Lillian? Had they brought her here too?
The thought lent urgency to his hands, and he began again in earnest, forgetting the numbness in his fingers for a moment and twisting the pins within the lock’s mechanism. The woman’s pained murmurs grew louder, more fearful. Even before the final click of the lock, the scraping of clawed feet on stone became frenetic, and louder.
The manacle fell from John’s ankle, and instinctively he threw himself back towards the wall as the creature burst from the shadows. Glittering eyes announced a pale form, yellowed claws illuminated by faint moonlight as they reached for their prey. The hands stopped inches from John’s face, grasping frantically. Chains rattled; the creature grunted.
John knew at once that the ghoul was chained just as he had been. He pressed himself against the wall, out of the creature’s reach. It could have attacked him at any time. Perhaps it was starving, or weak. Perhaps it had been commanded to leave him be unless he tried to escape. Regardless, now it was awake, and hungry.
John felt his way around the edge of the cell, which was much larger than he had first thought. The creature tracked his every move, until he had gone far beyond its reach and it had faded away into the darkness again, its eyes becoming violet pinpricks of light. Its growls quietened to a low, frustrated clicking sound.
As John moved away from the creature, praying that he did not stray unwittingly into the reach of another, he heard again the cry of the woman. It did not sound like Lillian, but he continued regardless, for if there were any others down in these foul depths he would help them if he could.
He had not moved much further when he saw cracks of faint yellow light some distance ahead, almost certainly outlining a door. John paused and collected himself, listening carefully to gain his bearings. He heard a sob from somewhere ahead and to his left.
‘Hello? Who’s there?’ John ventured. He heard the chink of chains from the far end of the room from where he’d come. The ghoul? John tried to pinpoint the crying again, but infuriatingly it stopped at the sound of the chains.
‘I… is there… someone there?’ The voice was weak, nervous. It was a woman, young by the sounds of it. Uncultured, judging by the hint of an accent, and frightened.
‘Yes. Are you hurt?’
‘My… baby,’ she said, and grunted with pain. John realised that the woman must be pregnant.
‘Try to stay calm; I will come to you,’ he said.
‘Hurry… please.’
John abandoned the wall reluctantly, having gained an idea of the woman’s position, and moved forwards stealthily and slowly, hands out.
He touched flesh. He recoiled, as did the figure, but with a frightened gasp that revealed it as the woman he sought.
‘Shh,’ John whispered. ‘My name is John; I’m here to help you.’
He reached out again, this time feeling a bare foot, ice-cold and clammy, with a manacle about it. He moved along the floor, being careful as he went, until he thought he could make out the outline of the woman by the faint light.
‘How did you escape?’ she asked through ragged breaths.
‘I have my ways,’ John said, being careful not to divulge too much intelligence in case the woman was there to trick him. ‘What is your name?’ he asked.
‘H… Hetty,’ she said. ‘Please, help me.’
‘What can I do?’
‘The baby is coming, I can feel it,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to die down here.’ Her small hand gripped John’s, and squeezed it tight.
Chains rattled, and the bobbing violet eyes of the ghoul drew nearer. A low growl rumbled in the creature’s throat. John swore he heard lips smacking.
The woman squeezed John’s hand harder, and let out such a scream that John flinched.
‘Try to hold still,’ he hissed, and set about picking the lock of her manacle, willing his tired hands to stop shaking.
Hetty cried out again, trying in vain to stifle her moans. The creature strained against its shackles, snarling like a mistreated dog. John’s wrists and fingers ached with the repetitive action of lockpicking. The woman’s cries would surely draw the wrong kind of attention.
The door was flung open. Light spilled into the room, and for a moment John was half blinded. He forced himself to stand, but even as he tensed ready for a fight he felt hands upon him. Two men restrained him; large, thuggish brutes with podgy faces and dull eyes. Not vampires, but docile serfs. The figure that entered behind them, however, was very much one of the Knights Iscariot. A tall, slender figure, with a long black coat, fitted at the waist and flowing past the knee, giving the impression that it glided into the room rather than
walked. Its head was bald, face gleaming white. Scars spread out from its mouth and branched around its face, in places pierced by golden rings. One ear was missing, leaving a horrid, puckered crater in the side of its head. The creature cocked its head to one side, studying John as he struggled against the lumbering oafs, whose strength was prodigious. It turned its violet eyes to the woman, and hissed, at which two more creatures entered the chamber. These were female vampires, thin and bald, and immodestly dressed. Their scarred flesh was also pierced, their scalps adorned with hooks and barbs, with jewels and chains hanging from them. They moved at once towards Hetty, who John saw for the first time was a slip of girl, much younger than Lillian, with wasted, hollow features and a swollen belly. The creatures whispered to each other, ‘She is ready’; ‘Yes, take her. Take her!’
John roared at them to leave the girl alone, and for his efforts was lifted from his feet by a blow from the tall vampire. He felt a clawed hand upon his chin, forcing his head up to watch as Hetty was lifted by the two pale women, hoisted into the air as though she weighed nothing, and carried off into the torch-lit passage beyond the open door. Before he knew what was happening, John was being dragged back into the depths of the cell, which he now saw was littered with bones around the chained ghoul’s deadly radius. He was too winded still to protest, and could only moan despairingly as he was once more fastened into manacles. This time John’s jailers patted him down roughly, finding one more lockpick concealed within the lining of John’s trousers at the hem, tearing it out with a knife. John gritted his teeth as the blade bit his flesh, and warm blood ran down to his bare feet.
As his guards left the dungeon cell, John took a mental picture of the room, of the corridor beyond, and of the vampire overseer. He committed every detail to memory, so that he could begin to plan his escape.
And then the girl’s screaming began. It was a long time in ending.
* * *
Lillian looked around the great dining room, which was every bit as opulent as she expected from de Montfort, who sat at the opposite side of the great table to her. Behind the Majestic, a hunter stood tall, eyes fixed ahead like a soldier.
In each corner of the room stood a human, tired, sickly and timid. Three women and one man, all trembling and fingers touched nervously to their temples, eyes closed in concentration. Majestics.
‘I am glad you decided to join me, Lillian,’ de Montfort said. ‘May I call you Lillian?’
Lillian shrugged.
‘May I offer you sustenance? Blood—harvested humanely, I might add—or wine. It is up to you.’
‘I am not thirsty,’ Lillian said. It was a lie—the thirst had raged within her from the moment she had woken. Every time she so much as glanced at the humans in the room she had to fight down the urge to leap from her chair and attack them. The human maid whom de Montfort had sent to attend Lillian was lucky to be alive. Lillian was disgusted with herself, sickened by her own unnatural cravings. What de Montfort meant by ‘humanely’ was anyone’s guess, although Lillian recalled Sir Valayar Shah’s assertions that some young men of the north gave their blood willingly to their vampire overlords.
‘Very well,’ de Montfort said, sipping from his own glass. ‘I will tell you now, that within these four walls, in the presence of these Majestics, we may speak freely. Elsewhere in Scarrowfall our liberty is less assured.’
‘Our liberty? Are you not the favoured ambassador of the Knights Iscariot?’ Lillian put the question as scathingly as she could, but she was puzzled nonetheless.
‘Let us just say that not all of us who speak for the Knights Iscariot are welcome to dine at the top table. I am sure you are familiar with my position, having a similar status yourself within the Order of Apollo, no?’
His words stung, and Lillian was thankful to her half-dead flesh for once for not betraying her feelings. She maintained her composure. ‘But if you find yourself at odds with your “king”, why involve me? I owe you no allegiance. Far from it.’
‘You owe me more than you realise, but that is not why I take you into my confidence, Lillian. Rather, I am confident that your opposition to the Nameless King shall far outweigh your enmity towards me.’
‘That remains to be seen. Your “Nameless King” is not the one who did this to me. He is not the one who killed my friend.’
‘Ah. I see you have not yet shed the irrational consequences of your former emotions. I would ask that you at least try to set them aside for now, for those feelings, vestigial as they are, will prove your undoing within Scarrowfall. Here, there are eyes and ears everywhere, and no one can be trusted.’
‘Except for you, of course?’
‘Oh, good heavens no. You should trust me least of all, for I have ambition, and an ambitious man is a dangerous man. But at least reserve your hatred for those more deserving. What I have done, I have done to secure the future of my kind. Is that so wrong?’
‘You have done it at the expense of mine!’ Lillian snapped, but checked herself at once.
‘Ah, despite your words, I think you come to see it at last. You are one of us, not one of them. I have saved you from the ravages of time and the predations of the Riftborn. And I shall save many more now that I know the Iscariot Sanction is a success.’
‘You seek to… turn all of humanity into vampires?’
‘Not all—that would be unsustainable. But enough to have us step once and for all from darkness, and to carve our own place within a world that we have only tangentially influenced for centuries. The Nameless King, on the other hand, would use the Iscariot Sanction for a much darker purpose.’
‘Which is?’
‘He wishes to enslave humanity, to shackle every man, woman and child like animals.’
‘This differs from your plan how, precisely?’
‘You do me a disservice, though I confess I understand your animosity. My intention has only ever been to create a fairer world, one in which my kind can live free of the tyranny of an ancient and crumbling monarchy, and co-exist in relative peace with humans. You did not ask for this gift to be bestowed upon you, I know, and yet here you are.’
‘I would not call it a gift,’ Lillian said, glaring at the hideous features of the snub-nosed hunter standing behind de Montfort—features that she suspected she might one day possess.
‘Not yet, but it is, believe me. I have both human and vampire parents. I was elevated beyond my humble station by happenstance; the Awakening made me both Majestic and Intuitionist—an almost unprecedented event in anyone’s books, let alone the wampyr—and that is the only reason I sit here now. I am afforded freedoms that others of my blood are denied. My flirtation with the Blood Royal has made me strong of body, but I shall never be one of them. You, however, are. You may not think it now, but you will one day be stronger than I can ever be. You will probably outlive me, unless I can find some way to alter my own nature as I did yours. You are, physically and scientifically, a highborn.’
‘But that would mean I was transfused with the Blood Royal?’ Finally, Lillian thought she might glean some answers.
‘Correct.’
‘And yet, it was you who bestowed the Iscariot Sanction upon me. Your blood that I…’ She stopped, realising that de Montfort’s smile had become a smirk, and that he had raised an eyebrow in mockery of her slow-wittedness. ‘So it was not your blood. Then… whose?’
‘Lillian—perhaps I should have given you more time in the company of your club’s scientists. Your education on this matter is frightfully deficient. Here, I shall inculcate in you some knowledge of your… condition.
‘The remarkable thing about wampyr blood, I have found, is that it cannot be diluted, but rather carries its properties to anything it comes into contact with—human blood, for example. If, let’s say for argument’s sake, one of the Blood Royal were to feed on a human, its blood would, for a time, become palatable to other wampyr—this is how they give the gift to those like me. If, however, I were to glut myself wholly on the
Blood Royal, beyond the point of mere satiation, I would effectively carry their entire essence in my veins, at some small discomfort to myself. Theoretically, through the process of transfusion, I could pass this essence on to a suitable host. Not a vampire, unfortunately, as our physiology cannot be altered for reasons that as yet elude me. But for a human…’ He smiled, pleased with himself. ‘And yet my experiments failed time and again, until now. You see, it is not a matter of simply exchanging blood. I had to distil his blood using all my scientific skills, to create from that accursed ichor the very essence of the wampyr; the spark of divine blessing that once bred a line of kings, but now breeds only madness and degeneracy. I found God in that blood. Or perhaps the Devil. In any case, I imbibed it; I took the essence within myself. Then I gave it to you.’
‘So… you killed a Blood Royal for your experiment?’ Lillian understood now why de Montfort had taken such precautions with his security. He had committed treason.
‘Not killed, exactly. I starved him for a while, then made him drink, then opened his throat and collected his blood. Every last drop. He has not the strength to recover from his wounds, but he lives still, if it can be called living.’
‘And… Sir Arthur,’ Lillian asked, feeling at last a well of emotion other than anger. ‘Why him? Why did you…’ She could not finish.
‘Why not? He set himself against us, and paid the price. But this was not mere revenge. He was nothing more than a commodity.’
‘Commodity?’ Lillian almost choked on the word.
‘Human blood is needed to sate the fledgling hunger. Without it, the transfusion would not have taken, and you might have died. I took your blood as recompense for the vital fluid lost to me. I gave you his so that you would not die. I confess, I could have chosen one of the villagers, but what harm had they done me? They were loyal to my cause—well, to the Nameless King, but why split hairs? And perhaps it is in my nature to be a little cruel. It is in yours, too—you will have surely felt it by now.’
‘You are giving me little cause to trust you,’ said Lillian. ‘If you would betray your own kind—’