The Parliament of the Dead

by T. A. Donnelly

  First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Books of the Dead

  40 Dartmouth Row, London SE10 8AW

  The Parliament of the Dead

  by T.A. Donnelly

  copyright T.A. Donnelly 2013

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author

  ISBN 978-1-291-45913-5

  The Parliament

  of the Dead

  A Ghost Story

  by T. A. Donnelly

  To Iona, for letting me borrow your name,

  and to Sophia and Dylan

  for not minding that I didn’t borrow yours this time.

  Prologue

  The Hunters Gather

  The tall priest loaded cartridges into his shotgun. He gave a slight nod of approval to his three colleagues, as they loaded their weapons. He had close-cropped dark hair, with flecks of grey above his ears. He reached inside his cassock, a full-length black robe, and adjusted the straps on his bullet-proof vest. His muscled body was almost entirely devoid of fat: his exercise regime was as strict and austere as his prayer and Bible study. His chin was marked with three white scars that forked out from a point under his lip, clearly visible through his neatly trimmed goatee beard.

  When the priests stopped they saw a stunning view of the rugged countryside of the east coast of Scotland, but as night fell, a freezing rain blew into their faces and the landscape was enveloped in cold, wet darkness. They had been travelling all day, but as the darkness gathered they could see the faint light of their destination. Once everyone was ready the priest signalled for them to move out. Four shadows moved across the countryside, as silent and grim as the grave. The wind whipped at their robes making them appear almost supernatural, like avenging angels, or demons.

  Once they arrived in the yard of the old farmhouse they fanned out in a well-rehearsed pattern, making sure they could cover all the exits.

  The tall priest wrapped a rosary around his fist as he marched up to the front of the house. He waited until he was sure his colleagues were in place then took a step back and braced himself to kick down the front door.

  Chapter One

  The Lovecraft Vampire

  Sometimes Iona amazed herself. Her powers of persuasion were impressive for a sixteen year-old girl, especially where the gullible boys in her school were concerned. This, however, was her greatest triumph so far: she had persuaded four of the boys in her year to break away from the official tour during their school trip to St Paul’s Cathedral and join her on a‘vampire hunt’in the crypt.

  She had been feeding them stories for weeks about the‘Lovecraft Vampire.’ Between classes she could be seen surrounded by boys eager to hear her gruesome and mysterious tales. The boys gazed into her intense dark eyes, which were framed with smudges of carelessly removed black eye make-up. She applied this make-up every morning, and every morning her form tutor forced her to wash it off. The eyeliner matched her clothes: her entire wardrobe consisted of one colour - black. The few items that were not black had been presents from her despairing mother, but they always ended up in a scrunched mess under her vintage Doc Martin boots at the bottom of her wardrobe.

  Iona did not fit in to her class, especially among the other girls, but when she spoke she always managed to gain an audience. “Edgar Lovecraft, the last of his accursed line, was searching in Eastern Europe for a cure to the terrible affliction that had beset his family,” she whispered, as if afraid that some creature-of-the-night would overhear. The boys huddled around, hanging on her every word. “None of the men in the family lived beyond the age of thirty-five. Some died in accidents, some of disease, some died in war, but one way or another, every male in the Lovecraft family died before their thirty-sixth birthday.”

  The boys huddled closer as Iona continued:“Edgar tried speaking to fortune-tellers and witches, he studied occult books and secret texts. He conducted séances to consult with the dead, yet even he disappeared.” There were gasps. “He was missing for ten years. His family thought he had fallen victim to their curse; they even held a funeral. But one night, in the small hours of a Winter’s morning he returned.”

  From the grim smile that played across Iona’s lips, her audience knew the news would not be good. “But he came back with a curse more dreadful than any that touched his ancestors. He returned with the curse of the Nosferatu –he was a Vampire!”

  The boys looked at one another, not really believing Iona, but not wanting to spoil the magic of the moment. “And then what happened?”

  Iona spun a seductive tale of terror, of corpses found drained of blood, and empty graves; of missing children, and long dead lovers returning to take their lost sweethearts back to hell with them. The story was irresistible.

  When the school trip finally arrived the boys were enthralled. They huddled around once more, this time on the back seat of the bus.

  Iona spoke in a whisper: “Wooden stakes?”

  “Check.” One of the boys enthusiastically held up several cricket stumps he’d spent the last four evenings sharpening to lethal points.

  “Garlic?”

  “Check.” Another boy produced a crumpled plastic bag full of slightly mouldy garlic bulbs.

  “OK,”began Iona,“take one bulb each.”

  The boys reached into the bag, jostling slightly in an attempt to find the least rotten.

  Once everyone had their garlic Iona continued:“Break it apart.”

  With some struggle they broke their bulbs into cloves.

  “OK, good. Now pick a big clove, chew it up and rub the juice round your neck.”

  The boys stared at her in disbelief.

  “Go on,”she urged. “We’re not playing games here. We’re dealing with the undead, I don’t want any of you taking risks.”

  Iona had to work hard to maintain her serious expression as one after another the boys bit into their garlic cloves and each pulled pained and revolted expressions as their eyes watered and they fought back the urge to be sick.

  They spat the garlic mush into their hands and obediently rubbed it into their necks.

  “Hey!”One of the boys protested through his curtains of lank hair,“Why aren’t you doing it?”

  “I sorted myself out before coming on the bus”Iona lied.

  The boy looked at her doubtfully, but did not want to think that Iona was making a fool of him, so he carried on trying to scrape the burning garlic juice off his tongue.

  Equipped with wooden stakes and stinking of raw garlic they set off on the tour of the cathedral.

  After touring the crypt, which was in the middle of being converted into an expensive caféfor the tourists, Iona and her followers remained behind, while the others climbed the stairs to return to the nave.

  “Quick,”Iona hissed,“spread out and look for the tomb marked‘Edgar Lovecraft.’”

  She had researched the cathedral on the internet, and had fabricated an entire life story for‘Edgar Lovecraft’whose tomb was in the crypt.

  A long-haired boy found the tomb: a large stone coffin, engraved with the Lovecraft family crest–an design that included a gigantic squid-like creature and a sailing ship. The tomb had been moved as part of the renovations, and Iona was thrilled to see that the seal on the lid had been broken–she could open it!

  She instructed the boys to slide back the stone lid, which inch by inch revealed a skeletal corpse.

  They all stared at it in silence. Even Iona was temporarily speechless. The body was dressed in dusty black, faded to grey. The skin of the face was yellowish-grey, unnaturally wrinkled and shrivelled: the dry skin
lying too close to the skull. On the eyes were two large, green-tarnished coins.

  Snapping out of it, Iona asked for a stake. With his eyes still fixed on the body, the long-haired boy passed her his cricket stump.

  Iona gasped and, pointing a trembling finger at the corpse, exclaimed“It moved!”

  In an instant the colour drained out of the face of the boy who had handed her the stake. He jumped back from the tomb and ran screaming across the crypt and up the stairs. The noise echoed unnaturally off the tombs, and Iona stifled a giggle when she saw the terrified looks on her remaining companions’faces.

  “Quick!”she hissed,“we won’t have long now.” It was too late to back out; Iona was breathing deeply; she had not really thought it would get this far. Iona looked at the body. She wondered what effect the sharpened stick would have on the hollow chest cavity. She took a deep breath and prepared to find out.

  Iona gripped the cricket stump firmly with both hands and raised it above her head. She took a deep breath but was stopped dead by a shout from the other end of the crypt.

  “Iona Ward! Just what do you think you are doing?” Her teacher had returned to find the missing group members.

  It was fortunate for Iona that she had been caught by a teacher who was so worried about the school’s reputation that she would not reveal to any members of the cathedral staff what Iona had been doing. As her head teacher told her (several times) desecrating human remains was a serious crime, and she was lucky that the Police were not involved.

  * * *

  Two weeks’suspension followed by a term of detentions! Iona tried to look on the bright side. When she was at school she was always trying to get away - she tried to see her punishment as a bonus holiday. She wanted to confront the system, but being forced out of it felt like the school was refusing to play any more: it took all the fun out of the conflict. Worse still was her mother’s reaction. Iona quite enjoyed winding her mother up, but when she heard her teachers giving her mum a hard time Iona just felt uncomfortable, guilty and embarrassed.

  Tiggy Ward, Iona’s mother, had brought up her child alone since she was six years old. Daughter and mother could not have been more different: Iona was fascinated with death, graves and tales of ghosts, which was something that upset and frustrated her rational and practical mother. Despite (and perhaps a little because of) Tiggy’s lectures on the unwholesome nature of her interests, Iona persisted in reading ghost stories, watching TV shows and renting films about ghosts, ghouls, mummies and the unquiet dead. However, she did realise that breaking into a grave was possibly going a bit too far.

  * * *

  Iona knew she had upset her mum, her teachers and the gullible boys, but there was someone else whom she had offended and upset, someone Iona was not aware of. Since the incident in his tomb, Edgar Lovecraft had been sulking. He sat high in the ceiling of the cathedral muttering to himself.

  “Vampire indeed!” He tutted,“Just because I’m dead, there’s no need to call me names!”

  Chapter Two

  The Exorcists

  Harold had been dead for nearly fifteen years, but he helped around the house much more than when he had been alive. Morag, his wife, sat in a chair by a log fire in their cottage on the Scottish coast. She shivered, and called out to her husband in a wavering voice,“Harold, the fire is getting low!”

  A log floated through the air and placed itself on the flames.

  “Och, thank you dear,” Morag smiled, “would you be a dear and put the kettle on?”

  She sighed with satisfaction as the kettle seemed to fill itself with water and float onto the fire.

  “Bless you Harold.”

  Morag watched the sparks dance around the base of the smoke-blackened kettle. She enjoyed the comforting crackle of logs on the fire.

  Without warning the sound of splintering wood shattered their strange domestic peace. The front door of the small cottage burst open and a split-second later the back door was also smashed from its hinges.

  A tall priest, dressed in black, except for a glinting white collar, stood in the doorway. He had a rosary with a large, dangling silver crucifix in one hand, a sawn-off shotgun in the other, and a look of grim determination on his face. A shorter, broader man stood behind him, and Morag could hear two more entering the house through the kitchen. They were cloaked and hooded, and also dressed in black.

  “Where is he?” Demanded the tall priest, pointing his gun at the old woman’s head,“I’ve heard reports from the village, I know he’s here.”

  The woman was trembling with fear, but she gathered her courage and answered as defiantly as she could manage:“I dinnae ken who you are, I dinnae ken what you’re talking aboot, I dinnae ken what you want, but you must get oot’o here’afore I call the Police.”

  “Who we are is in unimportant. I think you doknow what we are talking about. What we want is your late husband.” The priest spoke in a precise clipped voice. His accent betrayed his Irish roots and his college education and hinted at a former career in the military.

  “Dear God!” Morag looked to heaven, her arms outstretched as she spoke,“He never did anyone any harm, alive or dead.”

  “He has no right to be here.”

  “He only stayed to look after me; it’s me legs.”

  “The Holy Church can look after you. The dead have no business cavorting with the living.”

  “Cavorting!”The woman half-laughed despite her fear,“Dear, dear God! It’s years since there’s been any cavorting, even when he was alive!”

  The priest’s lips tightened. He released the safety-catch and moved forward until the cold metal of the gun barrel touched the old woman’s forehead.

  A sudden movement caught Morag’s eye. Two burning logs rose up from the fire and flung themselves at the priest.

  One of his assistants leapt forward and blocked the logs with his arm. There was a sickening crunching noise but the man didn’t flinch. He drew a shotgun from under his cloak and fired in the direction of the hearth.

  The fireplace was ripped apart. Splinters of wood and tiny fragments of china ornaments sprayed in all directions. To Morag’s surprise the room filled with the sweet smell of incense.

  The shotgun cartridges were filled with grains of frankincense and bitter herbs and impregnated with holy water. They were put together with complicated rituals to ensure they were lethal to spirits, yet they also retained the ability to harm the flesh of the living.

  The shot revealed Harold’s ghostly shape for a moment. He was an elderly man, almost bald, leaning on a walking-stick. His eyes met those of his wife as the mystical power of the blast took effect and he blew apart like smoke in the wind.

  “I love you Morag!”cried a faint voice which sounded as though it was coming from far away.

  The four men left. After the door slammed the only noise was the sobbing of the old woman. Harold was finally gone.

  * * *

  Once they were outside the house, one of the black clad figures, a stocky man with curly black hair and rich olive skin, cleared his throat. “Father Pious?”he asked in a heavy Italian accent.

  The leader grunted.

  “Ess many mile to London Town, Yes?”

  “More than five hundred, but let us take one step at a time. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’Matthew’s Gospel, chapter six, verse thirty-four.”

  The clergymen walked back to their camp where the injured man had his arm bound in two wooden splints.

  They checked their weapons, packed up their tents and continued their journey.

  Chapter Three

  Crap Floats

  Iona’s mother was even more distracted than usual. Tiggy Ward worked for a television company - which Iona thought should be really cool; but making documentaries - which Iona felt was a terrible waste of her mum’s potential.

  Currently she was working on a series about the history of the House of Lords. She had very little time for anything else; when she was not f
ilming in the Chamber of the House she was interviewing lords in a succession of Westminster’s swankiest restaurants.

  With Iona suspended from school,

  Tiggy had no choice but to take her daughter to work with her.

  “Now Iona, listen,”scolded Tiggy fiercely, in the hope that she would not need to later,“this is reallyimportant.”

  “OK,”muttered Iona, shaking her head in irritation and pulling a face to show that of the two of them she was the most fed up being stuck together.

  “We are going to meet some really important people.”

  Iona sighed deeply. “OK, I'll be good.”

  “Well,”her mother hesitated for a moment before continuing in a rush,“like I said, these are extremely important people; I can’t tell them you have been suspended from school for desecrating a cathedral. I’ll tell them you are on work-experience.”

  Iona wondered if her mum would even admit to having a daughter.

  * * *

  They met Lord Garton in a small, quaint and ridiculously overpriced tea-shop close to Westminster Abbey. While the cameras were being unpacked and assembled Tiggy chatted to the Lord. Iona lurked in the background trying to spike up her hair as high as it would go.

  Iona had been following her mum around like a sarcastic shadow, tutting and sighing every time Tiggy had been gushingly polite and complimentary to members of the House of Lords.

  “Lord Garton, it is sokind of you to agree to give us some time from your busy schedule.”

  Iona coughed loudly and her mother thought she heard the word‘crawler’hidden in the noise.

  If Lord Garton heard it he did not respond.

  “I’m afraid we have to meet here,”Lord Garton began in his deep rich voice, too loud for the small establishment -“the Romulian Club, where I usually take lunch, does not allow the fairer sex.”