by Grey Durose
When she got back to the restaurant car she found George already sat at the table with his back to her. As she joined him, George half raised himself from his seat in that old school way of responding to a lady coming to the table, it almost made her giggle it was so sweet,
'I thought you'd run off and abandoned me, for a moment.' He said, half teasing her and half wondering who she really was.
'No chance. I just had to freshen up.' She smiled at George, meeting his gaze reassuringly, I know what you've been up to, she thought, behind innocent, deep brown eyes.
They both had had their suspicions confirmed, and the magic had left the air. After a little while, Jacqueline began to yawn and George produced an exaggerated stretch and before long they were saying their goodnights and parting ways at Jacqueline's cabin door.
They were both sleepless, lying on their bunks contemplating each other, staring at the partition between their cabins. Jacqueline's concerns were for the list, what it meant, is George a cultist or is he responsible for killing them?, she tried to balance it in her mind but couldn't decide either way.
George was contemplating the events the night before. Jacqueline was definitely the woman who'd broken in to his house, but why? How did she find me, and how come she still manages to recognise me every time we meet? There was something supernatural about Jacqueline - if that was even her real name - but did that mean she was a danger? If she wasn't one of the cultists then perhaps she was something George needed now more than ever before: an ally.
They both awoke from restless nights, still distracted from their cause by each other's presence. With some careful timing, George successfully managed to avoid bumping in to Jacqueline but this could also be put down to her doing exactly the same. The views were of wintering vineyards and olive groves on the side of mountain slopes and rolling hills which from time to time disappeared in to the sea, revealing the distant visage of some old fishing village. Even the scenes passing the window weren’t enough to occupy an unquiet mind. Occasionally the train would stop at a city or town but it still made solid progress down along the thigh of Italy. Before very long it had arrived at the kneecap: Rome.
George sat on his bunk with his bags at the ready, waiting for Jacqueline to pass his window. When her head finally bobbed past, he got off the train and stepped out on to the platform. He made sure he maintained a good distance between them but kept her within his line of sight, until they exited the station on to the busy streets of the City. He emerged in to the sunshine and looked around: Jacqueline was getting in to a taxi and would be away in no time. He rushed down to the taxi rank, arriving just as her taxi pulled away. George raised his hand to signal for the next taxi to pick him up but this seemed to cause a bit of a race, with another car pulling around the lead taxi and screeching to a halt in front of him, George jumped in, ignoring the complaints of the aggrieved driver behind.
'Follow that car!' he demanded in hasty, half-formed Italian and motioning urgently at Jacqueline's taxi, secretly pleased at being able to use the line.
'No problem.' the driver replied without hesitation.
The car started off with a squeal and a puff of tyre smoke, as rapidly as it had arrived, and was doing a good job of tailing Jacqueline. Just as George was about to tell the driver not to get too close his taxi shot off down a side road, sending him sliding across the PVC seat cover. 'What are you doing? We're going to lose them!' George cried, a little higher pitched than he would have liked.
'Short-cut. Wait and see, uh?' The man behind the wheel assured him, with languid nonchalance.
The driver seemed confident but George couldn't see this road being a short-cut of any kind and he began to get a bad feeling. 'Stop the car. I'll find my own way.' He couldn't disguise his anger and hoped the driver got the point.
'Just around this corner.' The driver continued ignoring George's demands and took a right turn into dead end, in the opposite direction Jacqueline had been going when they had stopped following.
'What the hell is this? You bloody idiot!' George spat, as the car came to a halt.
'Now you can get out, sir.' The driver motioned at the door looking at George over his sunglasses and giving him a broad, white-toothed smile.
George snatched up his luggage and jumped out, slamming the door hard behind him for emphasis. He looked up to get his bearings but as he did, he noticed four men stepping out on to the street ahead of him, spreading themselves across the road to make it clear they intended to block his path. George span around but three more men were waiting for him in that direction. All wearing dark suits, of various ages, shapes and sizes, the men were all walking with one hand in their inside jacket pockets.
He heard the shunt of the car doors locking, preventing him from jumping back in. He'd have no choice but to fight. George threw down his backpack and began to search through the other bag for his knife, this prompted his antagonists to break in to a trot, and suddenly a stampede of flat-soled Italian shoes were slapping on tarmac and paving stones. To his surprise, the hands emerged from the men's pockets holding Tasers rather than something lethal. He drew out his knife but, before he could take any more action, the Tasers began to fire.
A couple of them missed, one scraped across the car door and the other chinked on the pavement, but three hit him, two in the back and one in the front of his left thigh. His body jolted uncontrollably as the electricity began to pulse and his muscles strained and relaxed in rhythmic pain. His tongue flopped out for a second then whipped back in as his head jolted back a moment before his jaw clamped shut. Drool spilled from one corner of his mouth as he fell to the ground and lost consciousness.
Chapter Nineteen
When George opened his eyes, he was still in one piece; which surprised him. In the last moments before he fell he'd assumed that that was it for him. Instead he was lying on his back on a bed in a rather sparse, grey-stone cell, with a poky little barred window. Not dissimilar to a medieval dungeon in appearance but without the muck and straw on the floor.
He heard the whirring of a small motor and looked up at the corner of the cell's ceiling; there was an old-fashioned surveillance camera rotating slowly to face him. He sat up and dusted himself off, casually assessing the door and its lock from a distance. Before he could make a move towards the exit the sound of a key mating with the cell's lock interrupted. The ancient ring-handle of the door squeaked and the latch lifted with a soft clank, there was a brief pause before the door slowly opened. One of the men he'd seen on the street entered the room and stood next to the wall by the open door, his hands crossed in front of his groin, half covering the handgun he was holding. He said nothing, he didn't even look in George's direction, instead his gaze was fixed on the corridor, waiting.
The rhythmic sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor and in to the cell, they were slow and deliberate but not heavy. A deep shadow fell across the doorway and a second man entered the cell. He was older than the others had been, by a considerable margin and his skin was several shades darker. From appearances, George estimated he must have been at least ninety years old and he had no meat left on him. Despite his age and overly slender form, he showed no sign of a stoop and he stood well over six feet tall. His suit was well tailored but of a style George had not seen worn in his lifetime, not outside a period drama. It reminded him a little of the old, Italian suits Master Giovanni had worn when George was just a boy.
The gaunt elderly figure stopped a few feet in front of George and swept back a lock of thick white hair with a bony hand, 'George Horrendo, I believe.' The old man's voice crackled a little but it still had a deep, reverberative quality to it, which caused it to bounce off the walls and ceiling of the cell and vibrate through George's chest.
'And who might you be?' George bristled, determined to go down fighting if this was to be the end.
'You may call me Antonio. I stopped using my real name long ago.' The old man seemed calm, almost emotionless as he spoke, he kept his hands at his sides and any t
hought he might have had about George remained unwritten on his face.
'Okay, Antonio, what am I doing here? I'm guessing you don't intend to just kill me now, you could have done that while I was unconscious.' George restarted the conversation in a more civilised tone.
'Quite correct. I wouldn't dream of slaying the only remaining Master. Given my nature it would be impossible for me to approach you under most ordinary circumstances. Without one of us ending up dead or badly injured, that is.' Antonio's peculiar accent made his words seem more sinister than perhaps they were intended; it had a strong Italian influence but there were notes of something more Eastern intermingled.
'What do you mean by: my nature?' George was intrigued by Antonio's reply.
'There is plenty of time for that, and it is a very long story. If you give me your word that you will not attempt anything ridiculous until you have heard my story, perhaps we could resume this conversation somewhere more comfortable.' The old man suggested.
'I'll hear you out but, after that, all bets are off.' George stated.
Antonio motioned for George to rise, then guided him out of the cell, down a stone corridor, up a spiral staircase and in to the living area of the building. The two men eventually came to a double door on the second floor of the grand old palazzo. Two guards followed from a distance but when Antonio ushered George in to the room he gave them explicit orders not to disturb them.
Beyond the doors was a large old fashioned sitting room. The décor continued seamlessly and Antonio led George to the far wall where a huge marble fireplace was flanked by a pair of high-backed seats, whose firm but giving upholstery welcomed them in. The fire was smouldering, clinging on to just enough life to offer some relief from the chill of an autumn day. A pot of fresh coffee and a small dish of delicate biscuits sat to one side of George, and Antonio encouraged him to partake. George noticed that only one cup had been provided, which made him suspicious but thirst overpowered paranoia.
Over the next few hours, Antonio told his guest a long and winding tale, which began many thousands of years earlier. To George's amazement Antonio was an utterly frank and honest fellow. He didn't hesitate to confess that his nature could be described as vampiric but explained that he was not a vampire, and certainly not in the same sense as the creatures George had already encountered. Antonio distinguished himself by explaining he had been created by the Nameless One, whereas the others had been created from It.
He told of an ancient land - lost to the modern world - where mankind had built its first civilisation. They had settled down in tiny cities, farmed for the first time and began to develop tools and principles never before seen or heard of among the peoples of Earth. Then one day, the Nameless One had come. It had used Its power, and the fear It could inspire, to enslave the people of that once happy land. As the creature had grown in power It demanded greater sacrifice. The people could no longer sustain Its thirst and so It selected the largest and strongest of their menfolk and used Its powers to alter them, cursing their beings with an eternal lust for blood and the desire to please only It.
Along with the curse had come many blessings but these blessings were tainted, as they could only be used in Its service, as long as It ruled. The beast made ten of these servants and sent them out to command Its armies. The people would no longer work the fields, instead they struck out in to the world beyond to enslave their neighbours and tend them like cattle, to feed their master and themselves. The word of this terrible beast, spread across the lands of the world and all who heard it were told to send tribute, lest they all be rounded up and herded to Its palace.
So it continued for hundreds of years. The beast became bored with feasting and turned Its attention to other pleasures: torture, depraved orgies and eventually It began to experiment with the very form of the fauna that roamed those lands. Unnatural creatures emerged from Its dungeons, winged horses and lions, horses with the bodies of men rising above their forelimbs and reptiles of enormous size and uncanny intelligence. Antonio explained that nearly all the creatures of human mythology stemmed from that time but not all the beasts were as the Nameless One had intended. Many rebelled against their master, leaving Its lands and travelling to places where their creator had far less control. This was the beginning of the end for the Nameless One, as the creatures he created for his amusement sought out allies to help bring It down.
The end came suddenly, the beast, Its palace and all Its lands were swallowed up by the tide and only the most fortunate had escaped with their lives. Rumours from the years that followed spoke of a lone man who'd sought out the assistance of a great sleeping power, to help him and his allies to bring about this disaster.
Among the survivors were the Nameless One's altered generals. Their bodies had been destroyed in the disaster but they rose again by feeding upon the weak. Antonio had been one of those generals. 'It was a long time before my brothers and I learnt the error of our ways. It took the separation from the power of the beast for us to finally realise how cruel and profane our lives had become. We resolved to make things right.' Antonio explained.
George could hear the pain and regret in Antonio's voice, even after all this time. 'So, how did you achieve this atonement?' He asked.
A wan smile appeared on Antonio's lips as he began to speak again. 'That, my young friend, is where your kind entered my life.'
'How so? If you know anything of me at all, you surely must know that my tradition is solitary and unknown, by the living.' George insisted. He was a little put out by the recent breaches of his code and was starting to wonder if he might be destined to be the grand failure that brought an ancient tradition to its end.
'My brethren followed the rumours, the hushed word of the Ahur N'doa, the Great Master. We knew that if anyone could release us of our accursed existence, it would be the man who had so nearly destroyed our master.' Antonio replied, smoothing a bushy eyebrow.
'You're telling me you've been aware of my people for thousands of years?' George asked incredulously.
'Do not dismay, we found the Great Master after only five hundred years of searching. Our first encounter was nearly a fight to the death as, like you, he was suspicious of our motives. However, we were too strong for him to overcome and, once we had the upper-hand, we took the opportunity to demonstrate that we meant him no harm. I told him the story, as I have told it to you and he took pity on us.' Antonio's head nodded gently as his eyes glazed a little and he was transported back to that moment millennia ago.
'You've been watching me, Giovanni and all the other Masters ever since?' George was quite perplexed, why has no one passed this knowledge on? He wondered.
The old man jolted back in to the present and continued his story; 'Yes, we have had eyes on the Masters ever since. Not in secret - at first - at one time the members of your tradition welcomed our counsel. They grew both in power and in numbers, until they settled upon six Masters and a Grandmaster, each with an apprentice chosen from their offspring.' Antonio revealed.
'Seven of them? Offspring?' George exclaimed loudly, barely believing his ears. 'How could this have been kept from me? How did we come to be a tradition of one? And since when did a Master have children?' He rattled off the questions as if in an internal dialogue.
'It happened about seven centuries ago. The Masters had been mixing among their own kind for a long time, each generation becoming strengthened by their bloodline, as well as their magics. So much inbreeding is not good for a family and especially when such powerful magic is warping their bodies and minds. They became increasingly powerful individuals, my brethren and I tried to warn them of the dangers of following this path but they would not listen and realised their error too late.' Antonio sighed and picked up a poker, stirring the embers of the fire, a half burnt log crackled as a flame leapt from it. 'One of the Masters was corrupted, he became seduced by a cult.'
'One of my people switched sides? I have trouble believing that.' George was incredulous; he'd been brought
up to believe he was part of a continuous, ancient tradition of incorruptible warriors.
'Yes. He left the system of Masters and struck out on his own, adopting dark practices, forbidden by your kind. This was the end for the Grandmaster of your craft, he could not allow this to happen again, so he began a new tradition. All the Master's and apprentices were ordered to abandon their craft, save for the Grandmaster himself and his own apprentice. None of them or their kin folk were to speak of the tradition again. The Grandmaster left the comfort of his clan, to begin again in isolation. Never again would a Master take a wife or a have child of his own, instead, he would choose an apprentice from the orphans of the world.' Antonio explained, knowing that what he was saying would not be received well.
'I don't suppose you have any evidence for anything you've told me?'
Antonio got up and walked over to a desk in the corner, he pulled a pile of ancient papers from a drawer and brought them back to his guest, dropping them in his lap. George studied the parchments, letters and documents from centuries past. They bore the right markings and all seemed quite genuine – he knew the handwriting of some past Masters - more importantly, they confirmed the last part of Antonio’s story.
'I still don't understand why I was never told about this.' George's world was turning upside down and he didn't like the feeling, it made him dizzy, his world was spinning out of control.
'The Grandmaster made the decision to remove this knowledge from the tradition, so it could never become common practice again. It was not the first time such a decision had been made, the knowledge of the Nameless One had been left behind thousands of years earlier, so that not even a Horrendo would be aware of the details of the history of the beast and therefore stand a chance of bringing It back to this world.' Antonio spoke softly over the crackle of the fire.
'And that's when you stopped advising my predecessors?' George asked, trying to get the timeline of events straight in his head.