When they approached him where he stood behind the cash register, the man set the back of his hand theatrically to his forehead.
“I know who you are!” he proclaimed in a dramatic tone.
“You do?” Andre inquired politely.
“Americans,” Smith said as if it were an accusation.
“That we are.”
Father Faith set both hands on the counter, shaking his head. “You’re here because of the dreadful situation going on. I’m afraid more will fall into grave danger. Because—forgive me, I don’t wish to be offensive—people come here fascinated by the malevolence that lurks, brought to life by…evil people.”
“I definitely believe in evil people,” Andre agreed.
“The police need to be looking for Satanists,” Smith continued as if Andre hadn’t spoken. “They bring evil unto the Earth.”
“How do they recognize a Satanist when they see one?” Cheyenne asked.
His gaze shifting dramatically in her direction, Smith pointed two fingers toward her and then toward his own eyes. “You look deep,” he said. “There’s something back there. Something that gleams. That shows a communion with the devil.”
Cheyenne gasped as if enthralled. “You really believe a vampire has been raised from the dead?”
He regarded her solemnly. “I never deny possibilities. Very bad things are happening here. Have happened. Seriously, dear lovely lady, this is not a good time for Americans to be in London—at Highgate.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Cheyenne said. She smiled and gestured to the shelves. “Well, what do I need to protect myself?”
Smith glanced at Andre as if waiting for approval.
“Everyone should be protected.” Andre nodded.
William Smith hustled to retrieve several of his kits, laying them out on the counter and describing the different components and their uses—as he had done with the customer before them.
Everything was outrageously expensive, but Cheyenne didn’t say so.
She listened intently, nodding and frowning in concentration.
“I’ll have to think on this,” she said finally when he finished his spiel and turned to watch her expectantly. “That’s…well, frankly, a lot of travel money.”
“Think on it,” he said. Then he reached inside one of the kits. “This. I insist you take. From me. A welcome gift to our friends from across the pond.”
It was a silver necklace.
Cheyenne demurred. “I’m sorry. I can’t take anything so valuable.”
Smith placed it on the counter and shook his head. “It looks like silver, but it’s a cheap metal. And it will last for your stay here, I believe. Pull the lower section of the cross.”
Glancing at Andre, she picked it up and did as Smith requested. The lower portion of the cross separated to reveal a small but sharp dagger.
Smith returned to his Father Faith persona, more mystic than shopkeeper. “It just might save your life.”
“I—”
“Oh, take it, Special Agent Donegal,” he said, causing her to arch her brows.
He smiled. “I’m friends with Inspector Claude Birmingham, Inspector Michael Adair’s partner. Birmingham considers the two of you to be a bit daft and didn’t want to meet with you. I told him it would be his bloody loss, but the bugger is a bit of a prig, you know. Knocks my shop, but I do quite well here. Ah, and he’ll leave you be. Much as he mocks me, he’s still my friend. I knew you’d show up. Please, do take this little gadget, Special Agent Donegal. A sign we’ve long ago forgiven that whole Revolution thing, you know?”
She smiled. “Sure. And thank you.”
“If it’s quite all right with you, sir,” he inquired of Andre.
Andre shrugged. “Cheyenne makes her own decisions in all things. But it’s a lovely gesture. If she wants my opinion.”
“Brilliant. Then be off, my new friends. I believe you have a tour coming up.”
They thanked Smith and left the shop.
“What do you think?” Cheyenne asked.
“I think it’s an interesting gadget. And you never know, that’s a pretty damned sharp little blade. It could come in handy.”
“I mean about the man.”
“Well, I know I don’t like Birmingham.”
“We don’t know him.”
“It wasn’t his place to tell others what we were doing.”
“Ah. Maybe he thinks we need looking after.”
“I don’t know. I don’t like it. Anyway, we’ve got three minutes. We need to hurry down the lane. I think the main entry is ahead.”
And it was. Huge, stark, and in Gothic decay despite revitalization, the main entry awaited them. They rushed ahead, ready to meet their guide.
And enter the Highgate realm of the dead.
Chapter 4
Cheyenne quickly determined that Monte Bolton was a good guide. From the start, he seemed eager to meet them, curious, friendly, and ready to answer any questions.
He was in his early forties but moved with the agility and enthusiasm of a much younger man and was obviously very knowledgeable.
Cheyenne immediately liked him and his easy manner.
He wore a simple tailored shirt and jeans, brushing a lock of sandy hair from his forehead before they shook hands.
“I hear you two are intrigued. And I’m impressed,” he gushed. “You’re from Louisiana, right? They have quite amazing cemeteries there, as well, yes? Cities of the Dead! One day, I’ll get there.”
“Yes, we’re from Louisiana, but we live in D.C. now,” Andre told him. “And this…well, it’s huge, for one. And the landscaping…remarkable.”
“So many buried here,” Monte told him. “You don’t mind walking, do you?”
“Not at all,” Cheyenne assured him. “We’re grateful to you.”
“Not a problem. My, uh, cousin asked me to do this,” he said.
“Your cousin?” Andre asked.
“Inspector Michael Adair.” Monte lowered his voice slightly, though there was no one around to hear.
“He and old Birmingham get along all right, but Mike thinks Birmingham is being a wanker. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be here—and helping if possible. So, cousin Mikey called to make sure I gave you the old A-1 tour. And I hope to!”
“We’re sure you will.”
“The stakes are high for me, eh? I mean, you come from Louisiana. I’ve seen pictures and have read up on some of your places. Fantastic.” Again, he lowered his voice. “And this Krewe thing of yours…it’s intriguing. Do you really solve just about everything?”
“We try our hardest,” Cheyenne said.
“Deep, dark secrets of the investigations?” he asked.
“We go through the academy. We work all hours of the day. Pretty much like any law enforcement officers,” Andre said.
They headed through the cemetery, Monte pointing out various special graves, either because of the person buried there or the funerary art.
One grave with an obelisk marker set by a stunning weeping angel, caught Cheyenne’s attention. The epitaph was beautiful.
Here lies she in beauty and grace,
Kind in soul and gentle in face,
And surely now with angels she soars,
Watching over all she adores,
For goodness ruled her every breath
Stolen so cruelly, unto death.
Oh, bitter loss, while we shed tears
Let her killer know new fears
For in Heaven she will gently tread
Eternal, while flames shall fill the other with dread.
“Lovely, and so sad! I’m taking this to mean she was murdered?” she asked softly, thinking Andre was still at her side. But he was a bit away, studying a small mausoleum tomb created in the Egyptian style.
She thought he looked at the tomb but also…
Beyond it.
Monte was talking and moving ahead. “See the cherubs? Several children are buried here. There wa
s a time in London when four out of five children died at tender ages.”
Cheyenne and Andre looked at one another and smiled. Their guide assumed they were still with him, so they hurried to catch up.
Art was plentiful, diverse, and fantastic in the cemetery. There were various styles of monuments such as pianos and other instruments, those that celebrated pets and animals and, of course, weeping angels, life-size Christ statues, and children with lambs. Many graves were merely headstones, but others were so much more.
“The owners of the cemetery could no longer maintain it back in 1975, so it was closed, and the gates were locked. But, eventually, the Friends of Highgate Cemetery took over and did a tremendous amount of work restoring what they could. Imagine first the ground. It rises and falls. Over time, it shifts naturally. Trees and underbrush take over. But a good deal of work has preserved much of what was,” Monte informed them as they moved.
“It’s a beautiful place,” Cheyenne observed.
“Yes, it follows the concept of a garden cemetery. First, think back to Christian history. Burials were customarily done in churchyards, but then populations soared, and space became scarce. In England, entrepreneurs created private burial grounds, but corruption was rampant, coffins were re-used, and bodies were dumped. And, of course,” Monte said, “there were ghouls who stole bodies to sell to medical schools and then took to creating their own corpses—à la the infamous Scots, Burke and Hare! Now, the great architect—and scholar, astrologist, mathematician, and so on—Sir Christopher Wren, was ahead of his time. In the 1600s, he stated that cemeteries should be at the city limits. But after people started to complain—especially after fever outbreaks—that it was terribly unhealthy and that the dead were killing the living, the idea became far more mainstream. It took a few hundred years, more increases in population, fevers, and so on, but the great Victorian cemeteries sprung up around London. Highgate opened in 1839. There are in-ground burial spots, tombs, small family mausoleums, huge family crypts, catacombs, statues, monuments, and more.”
He stopped and spread out his arms, indicating the area where they now stood. “There is nothing else in the world like this. The Circle of Lebanon. These magnificent—or magnificently creepy—catacombs we see here, allowed for families to be together. Or individuals to be buried. The Egyptian thing—some people wanted their remains to be above ground. Remember, the Victorians were fascinated by all things Egyptian, so you have Egyptian Avenue, the beautiful arch, the chapel, and so much more. But there are so many types of graves and tombs and mausoleums and catacombs here. Approximately one hundred and seventy thousand people rest here, in fifty-three thousand graves.”
The catacombs or mausoleum that they now entered was fascinating. Coffins lined some shelves, but others were empty. Some were sealed, and some were not. Some lids were broken and hung at odd angles.
“They had an interesting problem here,” Monte continued as they wandered through the crypt. “Victorians believed that death gasses caused disease. And, so, being interred here meant being in a lead-lined coffin. But gasses built up, and they had a problem with exploding coffins. They solved that with pin holes that allowed a small bit of gas to escape, bit by bit, and small fires were lit to destroy the gasses during the first weeks.”
He stopped speaking. “Beautiful and sad. Especially here. You must remember, while restoration efforts have been massive, some things were lost.” He shrugged. “Relatives, for one. Sometimes, there are no descendants to worry about the bodies of loved ones and…coffins break, remains are lost, stones shift. Well, you’ve seen the terrain here. Underground, above ground, things change. That’s nature. And, as you know, Swain’s Lane is steep!”
“Very,” Andre agreed.
They emerged into daylight once again. “I can only imagine what it was like in the 1960s and 1970s before the Friends of Highgate Cemetery stepped in. There’s footage, of course, of the insanity when the vampire scare hit its peak, and people rushed the place by the scores, hopping the gates with their vampire-killing kits!”
He’d been grinning, but his smile faded. He looked at them, intensity in his eyes.
“I guess someone is playing vampire again, in a bloody horrid way.”
“Yes,” Cheyenne murmured.
“Any ideas? I mean, you don’t think a real vampire like old Count Dracula has truly awakened within the cemetery, do you? What with you being with the Krewe of Hunters and all.”
“We’re more into the concept that someone might like to play at being a vampire, or make it appear as if the old legend might be true,” Cheyenne said.
“No deep thoughts on it?”
“We’ve barely gotten started here,” Andre said. “But, again, we thank you. It’s good to visit the cemetery the vampire was known to haunt years ago—and is supposedly haunting again.”
Monte remained silent for a few minutes as if waiting for one of them to speak again, or ruminating on a question of his own.
“Well,” he said at last, “I’ll get you back. Oh, just so you know, it’s still a working cemetery, should you want a plot to investigate. They close down sometimes for funerals. And even where you must be with someone like me, if you have a loved one buried here, you can get a pass to…uh, visit them without the benefit of a guide.”
“Interesting,” Andre said.
“Now, you’re welcome to wander the other side,” Monte said. “Until closing. That will be at five this afternoon. But you need to see Karl Marx. His monument is a giant head!”
He led them back. Cheyenne wasn’t sure what Andre wanted to do. She was pretty sure that seeing the grave of Karl Marx—giant head or no—wouldn’t be the most important part of their day.
Turned out he did want to wander the east side of the cemetery.
They had just started off on their own when Andre said, “He’s following us.”
“Monte?”
“Let’s lose him.”
They did. Thankfully, the winding paths, trails, tombs, and overgrowth of the cemetery allowed them leeway to shake the man.
“Interesting character,” Andre said.
“Suspect?” Cheyenne asked.
“I don’t know, but something was a bit off. Anyway…he’s not lurking behind us anymore, so we need to take up position somewhere.”
“Huh?”
“Didn’t you see her?”
“Her? Who?”
“I don’t know who,” he said. “A woman. About thirty or thirty-five. Attractive, Victorian attire, blue dress, white lace.”
“No,” Cheyenne said. “But if she was on the other side of the cemetery—”
“I think she saw us and noted I saw her, as well. And I believe she started following us. There aren’t people ahead. Let’s take that path and head deeper in. She seems curious about us and might want—and be able to—talk with us.”
“All right.”
They took a path that led through a row of small family tombs, perhaps housing six to ten coffins each. The architecture of the mausoleums was gracefully Gothic. The structures surrounded by overgrown brush with trees here and there throughout the area.
They stood alone by one of the elegant, gated buildings and waited.
A moment later, Cheyenne saw her.
Whoever she was, she’d been beautiful in life, and had died long before that beauty faded.
She seemed shy and hesitant but also eager to reach them. She paused just once in the path and then came their way.
“Hello?” the woman said softly.
“Hello,” Cheyenne replied.
“You do see me. Hear me.” She smiled. “So very rare! I see people shiver when I’m near. And one young man…well, I was quite sorry. I believe I terrified him, and that was not my intent. The passage of time is so different for me now. But it has been years I believe since I have been gifted enough to find those with this particular sight.”
“I’m Andre Rousseau, and this is Cheyenne Donegal,” Andre said politely, g
iving the ghost a slight bow. “And, yes, we both see and hear you clearly.”
“Elizabeth Miller,” she said. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance.”
Cheyenne gasped softly. “Of course!” She thought of the epitaph she had read. She’d been so taken by the words that she had barely noted the name. But, yes, it had been Elizabeth. Elizabeth Miller.
“I saw your tomb on the other side of the cemetery. I’m so sorry. You died young—oh!” She fell silent, remembering the inscription on the tomb.
“Yes?”
“Life was…stolen from you. You were murdered,” Cheyenne finished softly. “I am so sorry!”
“It was 1855,” Elizabeth said. “But, please, don’t look so stricken. My dear husband lay dead of a fever, and his sister lost her senses, striking out at me. I forgave her. She was not in her right mind. It was long ago, and I’m not at all vengeful. I don’t usually haunt these decaying grounds. I have always enjoyed watching the street life in Highgate. Modern life goes on, while there remains a bit of respect for the past. Perhaps because of the culture retained in these old stones.” She smiled. “I left behind five children. My descendants come here to this day when their time comes, and I often help them move on. And I watch. Perhaps I have stayed to save another from my fate. But it seems I have failed quite miserably in that as young women have died —and I was not able to help them.”
“And still, you stay,” Andre said.
“I was well known for my hospitality and my care of others, particularly my peers and the poor,” she said lightly. “And, as I said, I like to believe the time will come when I can help. I may have failed thus far, but these killings will go on. And maybe, just maybe…”
“I am sure you will help,” Cheyenne murmured. “Lady Miller. There was a larger obelisk. I didn’t have time to read it, but I believe it was to…your husband and you, as well as other family members.”
Elizabeth inclined her head. “I was born nobility—my father was an earl—and married into it as well…as was fitting in my day. Though, truly, perhaps I have also stayed to see more. Marriage between parties of all colors, choices…it was quite sad when so many things were not acceptable. When love was not acknowledged unless it was with the right class and the right color and the right sex.”
Blood Night Page 4