The Iscariot Sanction

by Mark Latham

  She threw the prince roughly to the floor and cut away the lower portion of her dress with the knife, to improve her mobility. Leopold averted his eyes instinctively.

  ‘There’s no point playing the gentleman now, Your Royal Highness,’ Lillian scoffed. ‘That ship has sailed.’

  ‘My mother shall hear of this,’ he squawked. And then lucidity dawned in his eyes for a moment, before he wailed again, ‘Mother! Mother!’

  Lillian made to grab Leopold once more by the hair and drag him towards the great doors of the hall, but another explosion against the castle walls caused the ballroom to shake, and huge lumps of stone to fall from the high ceiling. Lillian pushed the prince out of the path of a tumbling gargoyle, and almost wrenched his arm from his socket dragging him back towards the dais as the lintel above the doors was shaken from its niche and crashed to earth, bringing half the wall with it.

  Lillian wove her way through the falling debris and screaming bodies of the slaves that now plummeted from the ceiling. The prince’s tarrying almost got them both crushed several times, and with each passing second Lillian regretted not tearing out his throat earlier. Something within her still clung to the idea of redemption; she knew that it was the thought of John. If he still lived, and she prayed he did, he would never forgive her for succumbing to her rage and killing Leopold before the prince could face trial for his crimes.

  Behind the heavy curtains at the rear of the stage were further rooms, now in darkness, which Lillian felt sure must lead somewhere. She heard distant gunfire—either troops were entering Scarrowfall, or the guards were firing upon would-be invaders. Like as not she would be shot as an enemy of either side, given her condition.

  She was about to opt for the left-most room, when she heard the frantic scurrying of claws from the hall behind her, and the hideous, high-pitched trilling of ghouls. She turned to see them in their dozens, scurrying down the walls from the balconies, gleaming eyes fixed upon her. One of them pounced catlike to the floor and at once began to feast upon a fallen slave. The remaining creatures advanced cautiously. Lillian knew not whether they came for her or for the prince, or were simply acting on instinct, having lost their masters.

  She acted quickly, racing to the massive braziers that flanked the stage, pushing at them with all her might while the prince sobbed, ‘My God, we are to die!’ over and over to no one in particular. The first toppled reluctantly, spilling blazing coals across the floor, which flared brightly, sending a handful of ghouls retreating in ape-like bounds.

  Lillian raced to the other side of the stage, aware that even her body would only endure so much. She had lost half a yard of pace, and now the ghouls reached her, lashing at her with jagged claws, snapping with elongated, pointed teeth. She slashed one across the throat, threw a second from the dais where it rolled into the spreading flames, and barely managed to grapple a third as it leapt upon her. She redirected its strength, tripping it as Mrs. Ito had taught her, but it clung to her ferociously, so bestial in its ungainly fury that the eastern arts were ineffective. Lillian readjusted her balance, and instead threw herself and the ghoul bodily into the brazier’s heavy iron supports. It toppled as she crashed to the ground, rolling the creature from her just in time to avoid the slashing claws of two more.

  The brazier fell backwards towards the heavy curtains, contents spilling across the wooden stage. Flames licked up the drapes almost at once. The lacquered wooden platform hissed as the coals met it.

  Lillian forced herself to her feet, lashing out blindly. She fumbled for the sword that she had dropped in the scuffle and hacked left and right desperately—she had come so far, been through so much. To be killed by these base creatures would be an insult.

  Even as the exertion began to tell, and her sword arm started to disobey her almost wilfully, the ghouls faltered, their eyes reflecting red and orange flame, noses sniffing at the smoky air. One by one they stopped their assault, and then backed away, whimpering. Lillian risked a glance over her shoulder, and saw what they saw: the heavy stage-curtains were fully ablaze. The ancient timbers overhead had caught fire also. The stage upon which she stood was burning.

  Scarrowfall was ablaze.

  Lillian cursed. Her plan had been born of desperation—now she would perhaps die in a fire rather than by the hands of the ghouls. The ignominy of such a fate was just as wretched.

  Turning her back on the wretched beasts, which even now retreated from the billowing smoke, she ran to where the prince crouched, head tucked under his arms. Lillian grabbed him by the collar and dragged him with her, plunging both of them through a small gap in the curtains, flames licking at her, smoke stinging her eyes.

  * * *

  The human guards, armed with rifles, raced past John’s hiding place towards the sound of distant gunfire.

  John emerged from the scullery once the coast was clear, looking for an exit from the vast kitchen in which he had found himself. He moved stealthily, picking up a carving knife from a table as he went, testing the heft of it in his left hand while gripping the Tesla pistol in his right.

  Whatever was happening in Scarrowfall, no one seemed to have any time for him. The few servants John had encountered had looked the other way; the guards had all been so preoccupied with the battle outside that they had been easily evaded so far.

  John stepped from the kitchen into a dark hallway, crowded with debris and filled with smoke, which swirled as it was sucked out through open door. A cold waft of air gave John hope—he had found a way outside, though he knew not whether the best course of action was to find Smythe and join the assault proper, or to venture deeper into the castle to search for Lillian.

  He paused, crouching beneath a stairway as he heard footsteps treading upon it. Two sets, moving swiftly. John chanced a look at the figures as they reached the foot of the stair. He froze.

  John would have recognised the silhouette of Lucien de Montfort anywhere, even without the customary swagger. Beside him was a tall, bald-headed hunter in a flowing black coat, carrying a banded wooden chest. John could not make out what de Montfort was saying, but the vampire lord strode confidently from the castle into the night air, beckoning on his monstrous servant.

  The decision was made. Though John wanted nothing more than to find Lillian and rescue Prince Leopold, the prospect of doing either in a burning building while the real villain escaped justice was not one John could accept.

  He followed the shadowy pair as close as he dared. Beyond the door was a small yard surrounded by a low wall. Beyond that, what looked like an ancient graveyard stretched along the edge of a rocky cliff-top, as far as the eye could see in the first weak light of dawn. John watched de Montfort and his servant moving quickly down a narrow, winding path between jagged monuments and ancient tombs. The wind whipped more fiercely; John had not been aware that Scarrowfall was so precariously close to the edge of a high cliff, and yet he heard the sound of crashing waves so near that they almost drowned out the booming report of the naval guns.

  John dashed to the wall, crouching behind it. For the first time, he looked up at the castle that had been his prison. Scarrowfall was an ancient, rambling construction of tall hexagonal towers and tumbledown ramparts. Half-timbered galleries shored up against curtain walls of thick stone; conical spires thrust towards the blood-red sky. Smoke poured from windows and arrow-slits, obscuring the tallest towers. Men—or perhaps vampires—scurried around the battlements, carrying guns, barking commands that were carried away from John’s ears on the wind. He left them to their battle, remaining in cover as much as he could so as not to be noticed. It hardly seemed likely that anyone in Scarrowfall would pay much heed to a lone prisoner now, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

  Once he picked up the path that de Montfort had trod, John saw the extent of the vampires’ domain, which stretched for miles towards crooked perimeter walls, and thence on to the vast moors. Across acres of fields and gardens, hundreds of shadowy forms fled the castle with preternatur
al swiftness. John heard fighting amongst them—pistols cracked, sabres rattled. Officers shouted sharp commands, while inhuman screeches signalled the feasting of vampires upon human soldiers. John had no true plan; he followed de Montfort with a single-mindedness worthy of his headstrong sister, guilt growing within him that he was helping neither Lillian nor his comrades by leaving Scarrowfall. And yet his sense of duty, his desire for vengeance for the ruination of his country, of Apollo Lycea and, above all, the murder of his father, burned hotly in his breast.

  Onwards he went, falling behind the two vampires despite his best efforts at stealth and swiftness. The sound of guns became more distant; the cliff curved obtusely around towards the rising sun, so that John was soon able to look back on the black shape of Scarrowfall, flames now licking the great walls, dense smoke filling the air.

  The forest of gravestones thinned, giving way to wild thickets of gorse and bramble. John saw ahead a boundary wall, and a large iron gate near the cliff’s edge, beside which de Montfort now stopped, gazing across the cove towards the castle. John circled as wide as he could, reaching the wall further inland and creeping along it, keeping in the shadows even though he was quite sure the vampires could see perfectly well in darkness. It made him feel better nevertheless. As he drew nearer, he heard the snorting of horses beyond the gate—a carriage. Was de Montfort stealing away like a thief in the night?

  De Montfort was speaking to the hunter, who stood straight and tall like an enormous statue. He gesticulated towards the castle, and John crept closer to eavesdrop.

  ‘Do not be down-heartened, Ezekiel,’ de Montfort was saying. ‘It is a shame about the prince, though it is of little consequence. After all, what kingdom will the humans have to rule when all is said and done? Though even the Artist could not have foreseen such destruction, it is merely a symbol of rebirth. The old order will be cleansed, and the new shall rise from its ashes. By the time we have finished, there will not be a cabal of elders left who do not pay fealty to us, and give their very life-blood to the cause of progress. Know that your freedom is assured, and that none shall ever suffer as you have. The new seat of kings shall be Montfort Hall. The next time our people celebrate All Hallows, you shall sit by my right hand, and the feasting table shall be filled with new highborns, created from stock of our choosing. We have taken a bold step here, my old friend. We have rejected degeneracy, and embraced the future!’

  The hunter made some low, keening sound.

  ‘There, there, Ezekiel. There is nothing good that can come without first paying a price. It is apt that when I visited the Artist, he recited to me lines from Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall”. Mayhap he was referring to the end of Scarrowfall. How does it go, now? “Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt; Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow—”’

  ‘“For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.”’

  De Montfort and the hunter spun around as one, as John finished the line for them, stepping from the shadows.

  Before John could blink, the hunter had dropped the wooden chest and was within arm’s reach, but the vampire had not paid full attention to the weapon in John’s hand. The Tesla pistol discharged with a blinding flash of light; the range was so close that John smelt his own hair singeing along with the vampire’s dead flesh.

  The creature’s scream was deafening. It collapsed to the ground in a charred heap, its long black coat in flames as flickers of blue lightning danced across its body.

  John had no time to savour his triumph. A fist clubbed him in his cracked ribs so hard he was lifted from his feet. He landed, crumpled and winded, in a tangle of thorny brambles that conspired to keep him from his feet. De Montfort stood above him, the vampire’s mask of calm replaced by a bestial snarl.

  ‘Wretch! Muck-snipe! Hairless ape! Ezekiel was the first among my followers; the most gifted and the most promising of all my subjects. You would kill him without a thought, and in doing so remove all hope for his kind? Truly you prove why humans are to be despised.’

  The Tesla pistol was lost in the thorns, and John gasped for breath, trying desperately to think of a plan. He felt cold hands upon his throat, lifting him effortlessly from the undergrowth, hard fingers tightening like steel bands. He saw stars. His legs kicked thin air.

  ‘We started this dance in Hyde,’ de Montfort said. ‘I should have made certain to kill you then. I shall not repeat the mistake.’

  John felt himself being carried away; the crimson sky swirled above him, and he searched deep within for some escape, some tactic, or weapon.

  With every ounce of resourcefulness he had left, John grabbed the kitchen knife from his belt. He had no time to think; he certainly could not aim his thrust. Instead, he plunged the knife forwards with all of his strength, and felt the blade pierce hard flesh.

  The pressure around John’s throat was relinquished at once, and he fell to the ground. His head lolled over the edge of the cliff, and for a moment his discombobulation caused him to think he was falling. Everything spun, the rocks below lunged up at him invitingly. With a hoarse gasp, he rolled away from the precipice as fast as he could.

  De Montfort was already rising, plucking the knife from between his ribs, growling like a cornered wolf. His eyes gleamed in the growing light, though he squinted against the sliver of sunlight that cut through the flaming sky. John remembered the speculation that sunlight might weaken the vampires, or certainly hurt their eyes. The shadows all about grew thinner by the second; John forced himself to his feet, knowing that de Montfort was at as much of a disadvantage as was possible.

  The vampire looked at the knife in disbelief, glared again at John, and advanced.

  ‘That is twice you have cut me,’ de Montfort said. ‘Let us see how you like it.’

  John had nowhere to go—the stone wall blocked his escape on one side, and the precipice on the other. He kept the sun—and the cliff’s edge—at his back. He put up a pleading hand, and allowed his pain and tiredness to show, knowing that his vulnerability would encourage the popinjay. Only when the vampire came within striking distance did John pull a snub-nosed pistol from his pocket, firing it before it was even fully levelled. The first bullet struck de Montfort’s knee, the second his belly.

  De Montfort stumbled forwards, his leg buckling beneath him. A lesser man would have crumpled, but John reminded himself that this was no man he faced. John pulled the trigger a third time, but de Montfort was already on his feet, and deflected the pistol with a swipe of his hand. He took a swing at John with the knife; even though he was squinting against the rising sun, he still found his mark. John could not parry the blow, and there was nowhere to escape to. He felt the blade cut into his face beneath the eye, slice into cheek and gum, crack into his jawbone. John cried out in abject pain. De Montfort snarled in triumph.

  John’s agony was so great he could not keep his feet. He crawled on his belly, sensing de Montfort standing over him, and rolled onto his back to face his enemy. De Montfort stooped, the knife aimed at John’s throat. The vampire was a silhouette against the sun now, a black shadow of death.

  The sun was at his back; the precipice was right behind him…

  Digging deep into all of his reserves of fortitude, John kicked out at de Montfort’s wounded knee, and fired every bullet he had. All but one flew wide. That one struck de Montfort a glancing blow upon the head, spinning him around. John pushed himself upwards, and delivered a shove into the vampire’s back. It was feeble, but it was enough.

  De Montfort’s shiny shoes slipped upon the rocks, and he pirouetted almost gracefully as he fell from the cliff-top, down towards jagged rocks and foaming sea.

  John flopped down upon the edge of the cliff, his body ablaze with agony, muscles numb from exertion. He reached to the chest that the hunter had carried, and clicked open its latch. Within was a king’s ransom in gold. John laughed bitterly. Whateve
r else de Montfort was, he could add thief to the list.

  John stared out across the cove as more gunboats arrived, flying the Union Jack. He fancied he would just sit until someone came to find him. He had nothing left to offer Queen and country this day.

  ‘So, brother, you have denied me my revenge.’

  John closed his eyes at the sound of Lillian’s voice. He did not know whether to be thankful, or whether to curse her timing. A moment’s respite was all he wanted.

  He turned, astonished to see her dragging Prince Leopold along behind her.

  ‘De Montfort was mine to kill,’ she said.

  ‘I think we both had enough cause,’ John replied. ‘Besides, it was him or me. And as your timing was so bad, I’m rather afraid it had to be him.’

  She nodded, and turned to the prince. ‘There you go, Your Royal Highness,’ she said. ‘John has avenged your mother. You should be glad.’

  John staggered to his feet, Lillian offering a hand to help him. He looked at her most sternly.

  ‘Do not forget our father so lightly,’ he chided.

  ‘What of him?’ Lillian asked, and John realised then that she had not heard.

  ‘Oh, dear sister, forgive me. I mistook your ignorance of the matter for coldness.’

  ‘Tell me, John.’

  ‘Father is… he is dead, Lillian. He died in the attack on London, at the Queen’s side.’

  ‘I do not believe it,’ Lillian said.

  ‘I saw him myself. He is gone. Dear Lillian, I am sorry. When I said I had cause to kill de Montfort, that is what I meant, for he was the engineer of our family’s misfortune.’

  Lillian bowed her head for a moment. When she looked up, her demeanour had changed. She looked cruel, reptilian almost.

  ‘He was not alone,’ she said, her voice like ice.

  The next instant, she had thrown Leopold to his knees, and had her garrotte about the prince’s throat.

  ‘This is your doing, you pathetic coward,’ she cried. ‘Your selfishness, your treachery. You gave de Montfort all he needed to destroy the Empire… the world! You do not deserve to live.’