As was to be expected for a church that had been abandoned for more than six hundred years, it was bare inside, though its status as an ancient monument had also ensured that it had been well-maintained. It was also clear that it had once served a prosperous village.
There were broad aisles on either side of the nave, and because the chancel was distinguished now only by a small step, the inside of the church seemed cavernous. At first glance, there appeared no hiding place, but Will knew there could be many.
Eloise, Rachel, and Chris drifted towards the space where the altar had once stood at the chancel end, their lights dancing awkwardly against the pillars and the stained glass of the windows. Will took the other direction and stepped through the archway that led to the tower.
“Wait there, Will.” Eloise came back to join him. He thought Chris and Rachel would follow, but they were chasing their torch beam into what he guessed had been the vestry.
“Stay behind me,” said Will. He’d already seen the two sets of steps, one leading up into the tower, the other down into the crypt. The thunder cracked and rumbled above.
Will started down into the crypt. He was tempted to draw his sword now, knowing they had already lost any element of surprise, but he resisted, reminding himself that even if Asmund knew they were there, he could hardly know that Will wished him harm. After all, if the prophecies were right, Asmund probably saw himself merely as Will’s guide on the next stage of the journey— assuming that Asmund knew about his part in the prophecies.
The steps spiraled down and finally opened out into a small empty chamber. Will stepped into the middle of it and though she tried to keep it away from him, the space was so small that he had to shield his eyes from the dancing of Eloise’s lantern.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s not your fault.” As an afterthought, he said, “Perhaps if you put it on the floor.”
She placed the lantern at her feet and he walked around the edges of the small crypt, running his hands along the walls, looking at the floor, searching for signs of an opening into another chamber or a deeper recess. But there was nothing, just this small square space, less than ten paces across. Yet if this crypt was not Asmund’s lair— the thought hit home—there had to be another hiding place!
His nerves clawed up on themselves as Will realized he’d made an appalling mistake by allowing them all to come here, by leaving Chris and Rachel up in the church, by not stressing the dangers clearly enough.
As the dreadful truth crystallized in his mind, he said, “There’s another crypt!”
He didn’t even wait for Eloise, but leapt up the stairs and was only vaguely aware of Eloise running after him, the beam of her lantern chasing him up the spiral steps. Perhaps she was panicked at being left down there alone, but there was no danger behind them, he knew that.
He ran back out into the nave and saw Rachel and Chris, standing on the step of the chancel, facing him. He walked towards them, then stopped abruptly and made ready to draw his sword as he realized they’d been hypnotized.
A part of him was curious—he only ever seemed able to mesmerize people for as long as he remained in their presence. There was no sign of another being in the church, and yet they both looked lost in a deep trance. Their eyes were staring out across the nave as if they were still fixed upon the person who’d mesmerized them.
“Do you look for me, William of Mercia?” The voice was powerful and deep, with the hint of a distant accent.
Asmund was behind him. And so was Eloise. Her lantern clattered to the floor and rolled, sending out whirling spirals of light before coming to rest.
Will turned, realizing too late that Asmund had been hiding in the tower—he couldn’t believe he’d been so careless. He saw Eloise first, looking apologetic, as if this was her fault and not his. Then he saw the man who stood directly behind her, his hands resting firmly on her shoulders.
He was perhaps younger than thirty in his person, with sandy blond hair pulled back behind his head, a close beard. He was dressed in the style of a Norse warrior, although his clothes looked as if they’d been acquired from slightly more recent victims.
Most alarmingly, he was large. Eloise was almost as tall as Will, but the top of her head barely reached her captor’s chest and he looked twice as wide across the shoulders.
“You don’t remember me,” said the man, and Will noticed that his canines were long. “My name is Asmund and I was an Earl, too, in another life.”
His face wasn’t even familiar to Will, and he found it hard to imagine him walking unnoticed among the spectators of the burning all those years before. But walk among them he had because Will knew in his marrow that this was him, and above all, he had one vital question.
“Why did you do this to me?”
Asmund looked puzzled, even offended, and said, “Are you not pleased? I gave you immortality.”
“You gave me an eternal half-life.”
“A half-life?” He sounded outraged. “Did I not prepare your chambers in every regard? Did I not ensure that you would have an entire city at your disposal? And through the centuries of your half-life, I have waited here for this day, surviving on an unfortunate vagrant now and then. Think back over all those years you were active, Will Longshanks, and think on this—I was here, awaiting your arrival, waiting without distractions, with nothing!”
Calmly, Will asked, “Why did you choose me?”
“Choose you?” Asmund was bemused, but in a cruel, hard-edged way. “I didn’t choose you. I was sent. You were chosen long before you were even born. I did my master’s bidding in biting you and gave you what was rightly yours, just as for more than seven hundred years I have waited to help fulfill your destiny. Not mine—yours. So …” He lifted one large hand and stroked Eloise’s hair as if patting a dog. “Could you not be even a little grateful?”
“Let her go,” said Will with calm authority.
“Oh, she can stay here for a little while.” His tone was playful, but concealed a threat. “I like the smell of her.”
Changing tactics, and trying to distract him from the thought of Eloise, Will said, “If you’d left me at least some knowledge of my condition, I might not have kept you waiting so long.”
Asmund shrugged and said, “That was not my choice to make. Besides, I’m only three hundred years older than you—what makes you believe I have so much more knowledge than you do? I know only what my master instructs me and what I’ve come to understand for myself.”
“And who is your master? Lorcan Labraid? Or Wyndham?”
Asmund laughed menacingly, and for the first time, Eloise looked afraid. Perhaps she’d been afraid from the start—Will found it hard to believe otherwise—but she could no longer conceal it.
“You are a scholar, it seems. The name Wyndham means nothing to me. I serve my master and my master serves Lorcan Labraid, as do we all, but I have never met him.”
“But you know who he is?”
Asmund looked down at Eloise and smiled in a way that made Will uneasy, but then he looked up again and said, “Before your people ruled here, before mine, all of this belonged to Lorcan Labraid, a great king, one of the four, and the only one who survives still.”
“Is he the Suspended King?”
Asmund shrugged and said, “I’ve heard it, but that does not matter. All that matters, William of Mercia, is that he calls to you, through me, through others—he calls to you.”
“Why?”
“It’s not for me to know. All I am permitted to know, all that governs my existence, is that he needs you alive. For centuries I’ve helped you stay that way, always unseen, and after I tell you the things I must tell you here tonight, my task is finally done.”
“So tell me,” said Will. “We’ve both waited all this time—why should we wait any longer?”
Asmund nodded, as if giving the point some thought, but it was clear he had something else in mind. “That is so, it’s why we’re here, but in the lives of great men there are many tests, and the price for destiny is often high.” Will drew his sword in response, throwing the sheath to one side. Asmund looked mildly surprised and said, “You act rashly for someone who has lived so long. I wish merely to remind you that I arose when you did, several days ago.”
“What of it?”
“You know my meaning—we’re the same, you and I. So have you fed, William?” Will didn’t answer. “Exactly, but I haven’t and I need blood. It’s all I ask, from one of our kind to another: the knowledge I possess in exchange for her blood.” He lowered his eyes towards Eloise.
Will was sympathetic, knowing how it felt to need blood and not have it, but even if they were the same kind, and even if he had known Eloise for only a few days and she would most likely die in his lifetime, he couldn’t offer up her life for any amount of knowledge. Would he sacrifice her, when the time came? The answer was no.
“Why didn’t you feed on them?” He gestured towards Rachel and Chris. “They have plenty left in them. Why her?”
Asmund smiled, malevolent, making clear that it wasn’t just about hunger, but about forcing Will to make the one sacrifice he was least prepared to make. “You know yourself, there’s blood, and then there’s blood.”
“You and I are not alike. And if this is meant to be a test, then I’ve failed because I won’t let you take her.” Even as he said it, another voice in his head was yelling at him to accept the deal, gnawing away with the argument that her life was worth less than his future, but he wouldn’t yield. He wouldn’t surrender her.
“I can make her one of us,” said Asmund. “You don’t have that power, but I do.”
Astonishingly, Eloise, who’d looked terrified until now, looked urgently hopeful and tried to catch Will’s eyes with her plea, a silent repeat of her wish to be made like him. But he knew instinctively that Asmund was lying, that he had no more power than Will to transform people, and after all these centuries, he finally knew why.
“Asmund, you’ve just helped me understand something that’s puzzled me across the ages. I see only now that you and I became like this because it was already within us.”
Asmund smiled and said, “It’s taken you all this time to understand that, why you’re drawn to some healthy people and not others? You thought it was a choice? Did it never occur to you that you chose not to feed off some people because, deep down, you knew their blood would give you nothing, that your bite would only awaken within them what mine awoke within you? Yes, it is in our blood from the beginning, and but for me you would have died a normal death without ever knowing it.”
Will was as amazed by this realization as he was embarrassed at having remained blind to it for so long. This had been in him from the start, just as it was in many others, most of whom would live and die in happy ignorance of their inherited “gift.” But one thing had not changed— Eloise was not one of those people.
“If you bite Eloise, she’ll die, and I repeat, I won’t allow you that life. I would sooner kill you and live in ignorance.”
“Then you will never know the truth. You’ll be destined for nothing, condemned to this same existence across thousands of years.” As he spoke, his hand slid down Eloise’s arm, and Will had the feeling that he would try to tear at the limb before Will could intervene, so determined was he, or so great had his craving become. “When all civilizations have perished and the land has become barren, you will remain, alone, dying inside for the lack of victims on which to feed.”
Asmund yanked at Eloise’s arm, pulling it towards his mouth. Eloise screamed, but Will was ready and immediately lunged forwards, swinging the sword for Asmund’s neck. It worked in as much as he let Eloise go, so suddenly that she fell to the floor and immediately scrambled away towards the nearest pillar. But to Will’s amazement, Asmund caught the blade of the sword in mid-flight.
Will didn’t hesitate. He quickly pulled the sword from Asmund’s grasp and stepped back a couple of paces. Asmund’s hand looked undamaged, even with the sharpness of the blade, but he looked furious.
His voice was full of contempt as he said, “You fool! You would discard your own future to save a girl!” He looked up at the roof then, taking a deep breath before saying, as if to someone unseen, “Enough! I refuse. A thousand years I have done your bidding, but no more, not for this ingrate!”
It was his master he was calling and his master apparently heard because Asmund’s face instantly became racked with pain, and he held his head as if trying to prevent it from blowing apart. This was his punishment for his act of defiance, but the torture only seemed to increase his anger and his determination.
Will saw there would be only one outcome, and that one of them at least would perish here tonight. And even if fortune favored him, he knew now that vengeance wouldn’t be enough, that killing Asmund would still leave him unsatisfied because he’d come here to learn something far greater than the fragments Asmund had given him.
It infuriated him to know that he’d been so close to finding the truth of what Lorcan Labraid wanted from him, his destiny, the answers he’d been yearning for all these centuries. He was giving up all of it for a girl he’d known only days, and ironically, it was a desire for the same girl’s blood that had persuaded Asmund to turn his back on his part in that destiny.
“Hurt me as much as you will,” shouted Asmund to the heavens. “But when the boy is dead, you’ll have no more hold over me!”
He took his hands away and inhaled deeply, breathing through the pain, then reached over his shoulder and drew an enormous broadsword that he was wearing on his back.
“The girl or you,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Me,” said Will, and lunged, the samurai sword immediately piercing Asmund’s body.
Asmund looked down and nodded approvingly, but jumped nimbly back off the blade and said, “You have a lot to learn, and very little time in which to learn it.”
He swung the broadsword with terrifying speed. Will managed to duck beneath the blade, but in one fluid motion, Asmund swung back and hacked diagonally. Will jumped backwards and the blade rang like a bell against the stone floor.
He had only a moment, but he ran around the nearest pillar and leapt at Asmund from behind, trying to use his agility against the might of the broadsword. He struck at Asmund again, trying for the side of his neck, but the larger man swung effortlessly around and the broadsword smashed explosively against his own.
Will watched as one half of the samurai blade broke off and flew through the air with such force that it became embedded in the stone of one of the pillars. He noticed Eloise, too, running behind the pillars to the vestry end of the church, passing the still frozen Chris and Rachel on the way.
Will hurled the remains of his sword the way he’d once seen a knife thrower hurl a blade at the circus. It struck Asmund in the chest, and even with a broken blade, it buried itself deep.
Asmund nodded again, and as he pulled the broken sword from his chest and threw it to one side, he said, “Now that was almost a good idea! If it had reached my heart, it might have caused me problems. So perhaps I could have made a warrior of you yet.”
“You think yourself a warrior? I was a boy when I was bitten. What excuse did you have? Could you not fight off your attacker, a man of your stature?”
Asmund laughed and said, “If you knew my master, you’d understand the foolishness you speak. He …” He stopped, smiling as he realized the trap Will had tried to lead him into, getting him to reveal the things he’d come here to discover. He looked as if he was about to say something else, but suddenly swung the sword again, a swift and vicious stroke.
Will darted back behind the pillar and ran into the center of the nave, standing just in front of the step on which Rachel and Chris were perched. He saw Eloise and then realized that she was throwing something to him. He caught it—the torch—and turned.
Too late. Asmund was standing ready. He grabbed hold of Will’s coat at the chest and lifted him off the ground, holding him at arm’s length. Will immediately turned on the torch and fired the beam directly into Asmund’s eyes.
He screamed, a deep, booming scream that would have drowned the thunder. And he cursed in his own ancient language, but at no point did he loosen his grip or lower his arm.
Will couldn’t reach him and knew it was useless to hit him with the torch. He was trying desperately to think what else he could do when Asmund pulled him closer and sank his fangs with lightning speed into Will’s hand. The torch dropped to the floor and Asmund loosened his bite, but before he could extend his arm again, Will seized his opportunity.
He swung his fist hard into the side of Asmund’s head, then delivered a second shuddering thump to the other side. It worked, the blows so powerful that Asmund dropped him and staggered back a pace or two.
But even as Will fell to the floor, he knew he’d only have moments before Asmund recovered. He spotted the remains of the samurai sword and scurried towards it. Once it was in his hand, he spun around, still on his knees—Asmund had gone.
He turned again, but saw nothing, only a blur of vision before he felt the force of Asmund’s foot blasting into his face. The kick knocked him to within a few meters of the chancel step. He tried to get up, but found himself briefly unable to move, so great had been the impact, and then he couldn’t move at all because Asmund stood over him, one foot resting heavily on the base of Will’s chest.
As Will looked up, Asmund appeared even more of a giant, and it seemed ridiculous now that he’d ever hoped to defeat him in combat, a man who’d probably been a fearsome warrior even before developing the strengths they both shared.
Asmund seemed to be catching his breath, but Will knew that he was actually fighting through the pain that came with defying his master. And when he spoke, his words were labored, his jaw muscles making an agony of each movement.
“Sunlight and fire will make you wish for death, but won’t kill you. The stake, as I believe you know, will imprison you. But there is only one certain way to kill our kind—chop off our heads.”
He drew back his broadsword, ready to strike. After nearly eight centuries, the moment had come and Will prepared himself for death, overtaken with a mixture of fear and overwhelming relief that it would end at last. He regretted only that he could do no more to protect Eloise, and as if to emphasize that regret, she called out now.
“Stop!” Her voice was surprisingly firm, but still sounded small and faint after the clatter of fighting. Yet Asmund lowered the sword again and laughed to himself, amused enough to allow the diversion. “Take my blood. Let him live and you can have my blood.”
Will answered her, shouting, “Eloise, run, now! Get to the car and drive away.”
“I can’t drive.”
“Perhaps you could try!”
“I’m staying,” came her defiant answer. “And the offer stands.”
Asmund shook his head. “Too late, girl. I kill him first, then take your blood, not one or the other. Both. And he was telling you the truth—you die tonight. We walk through death, we are gods, but you are nothing more than food.”
Will felt his hand tightening around the hilt of the broken samurai sword in anger. He felt ashamed that he had been about to go to his death so willingly and that he had so very nearly left Eloise to this monster. He felt ashamed, too, because he realized he would have been sacrificing her just as much by dying as if he’d given her up willingly.
“I’m ready,” he said. “Do your worst.”
“As you wish,” said Asmund, and raised the sword a second time.
Eloise screamed, but Will was ready now and determined, and in the brief moment that the broadsword threw Asmund’s balance, he drove the broken samurai sword into his calf muscle and pushed up as hard as he could, shoving the foot up off his chest.
Asmund crashed to the floor, the broadsword smashing down next to him, but still within his grip. Will sprang to his feet and immediately kicked at Asmund’s hand, sending the heavy weapon clanging across the nave, dangerously close to Chris’s legs.
Will scrambled after it but as he turned with the broadsword in his hands, it was no surprise to find Asmund already recovered enough to be standing facing him just a few meters away. The samurai blade was still skewering his lower leg and he reached down and pulled it out as if it was little more than an inconvenience.
He laughed again, mocking Will, pretending to throw the broken sword. Then, as if to prove that he had nothing to fear, Asmund studied the thin blade, rubbing his finger along it before throwing it carelessly aside. He reached instead to his belt and pulled free a battleaxe.
“How I separate your head from your body is of no importance.” Will could hear Eloise behind him and off to one side, fumbling with something or other, and the noise was distracting him, making it hard to concentrate on studying Asmund’s movements. “Come then. Be a warrior!”
He sprang violently towards Will, the axe arm trailing behind him as if ready to swing a blow with the full force of his body. Will raised the sword, realizing that he’d have to strike before Asmund got too close, that his timing would have to be perfect. And then he knew what Eloise had been fumbling with because, once again, a light scorched into Asmund’s eyes.
His step faltered, only for a moment, but enough. Even as he charged towards him, Will swung the broadsword with a fierce sweep. For a fraction of a second, he thought he’d missed, but then he felt the satisfying resistance of flesh and bone as the blade sliced through Asmund’s neck.
Asmund’s head flew into the air at the same time as his body crashed into Will, knocking him to the ground and pinning him down. The head never landed, and no sooner had Will crunched onto the stone floor than the body on top of him disappeared into a dazzlingly cold blue flame, which died immediately away.
Even the sword in Will’s hand disappeared. It was as if everything that had been connected with Asmund had been sucked away into another dimension by the very act of beheading him. So this was how their kind met their end, and how one day his real death might come to claim him.
He was torn from his thoughts by astounded voices behind him.
“What happened?”
“Oh my God, that was so …” It was Chris and Rachel, released from their spell. He heard their voices, but didn’t comprehend their words, then heard Eloise speaking to them, but couldn’t quite focus on what she was saying either.
He sat up and heard something fall from his chest on to the floor in front of him. It seemed not everything of Asmund’s had disappeared. A metal pendant, its strap cut by the sword’s blade, had survived. Will slipped it into his pocket, then stood to face the others.
They stopped and looked at him. Eloise looked as if she wanted to run to him, but she stayed where she was and said, “Thank you.”
“For what?” Will was astonished. “It’s me who should thank you, for blinding him, for offering to sacrifice yourself.”
She smiled a little and said, “I knew you wouldn’t let that happen.” She looked almost embarrassed and turned to Chris and Rachel. “How much of that did you see?”
“All of it,” said Chris, and then to Will, “Sorry, we were completely useless.”
Rachel said, “It was horrible, like we were trapped in ice and could see everything happening, but couldn’t …”
She stopped in mid-sentence and stared over Will’s shoulder, alarmed. Chris and Eloise followed her gaze and adopted the same look of alarm. And even before he turned, Will could feel that the atmosphere had changed, that it was distorting in some way or other.
By the time he turned, six women had already emerged from the walls of the church, three on each side, their robes like ragged mist, their faces pale and almost entirely featureless, only faint shadows to suggest where once there had been eyes, mouths, noses.
They now stood silent guard between the pillars and a seventh woman emerged from the archway at the tower end of the church. She half floated, half walked along the nave until she stood facing him a few meters away. It was the spirits from the cathedral, the ones who’d been so fearful that he would sacrifice Eloise.
For a moment, the seventh woman appeared frozen, but then the shadowy remains of her mouth opened and she said in a detached, otherworldly voice, “Beware, William of Mercia, you heeded not our warnings and you can no longer turn back, but the path ahead is strewn with danger, to you, and to those who travel with you. This is but the beginning. The legions of the underworld await you, armies will seek to destroy you, but only you can know the true course.”
“Why have you tried to help me?” Will wasn’t even sure that they had tried to help him, but he was certain at least that they meant him no harm.
“We serve another,” said the woman.
“Who?”
She didn’t answer, but said instead, “Remember, William of Mercia, sever the head and the body will fall.”
She began to turn, but Will asked urgently, “Who is Lorcan Labraid?”
The air seemed to crackle as if it was electrically charged. The other six women looked charged as well, as if they might suddenly explode into flames. The woman turned back to face him and after another eerie pause, she spoke again.
“He is the evil of the world, but you know this already. Beware, William, he calls to you and you cannot help but answer.”
“But what does he want, and why has he waited till now, why all this time?”
“Just as planets must align, so are you but half of what he needs.”
She turned her head, staring at something over Will’s shoulder, briefly transfixed by it. Will turned, too, and saw that she was staring at a slightly alarmed Eloise. By the time he faced forwards again, the woman was walking away from him.
More questions tumbled over in Will’s head, but he couldn’t put any of them into words. The six women were already disappearing into the walls, and the seventh was almost back at the archway that led to the bell tower.
And then it came to him—the seven women, the strangely melted features. “I’m sorry,” he called out. The woman stopped and turned. “I’m sorry for what we did to you.”
She turned to face him again, and appeared to consider his apology before bowing her head in acknowledgment, and within a few seconds more, she had disappeared into the night’s fabric.
“They were the witches, weren’t they?” It was Eloise. He turned and nodded.
Rachel looked from Eloise to Will and said, “The witches who were burned?”
“I think so. And yet it seems they were trying to protect us, even me.”
“I’m sure they had good reason,” said Chris, trying to sound relaxed, but unable to conceal his true feelings—he was scared, so deeply that it would probably never leave him. He looked around the church and tried to adopt a casual tone again as he said, “Speaking of which, do we have any good reason not to be getting out of here?”
Will shook his head and said, “No, let’s go.”
They recovered the lantern and torch, and the remains of the samurai sword and stepped out into a transformed night. The world was calm again and stars were faintly visible, dimmed only by the light of the moon, which was close to full.
As they walked down the hill, Will looked at his hand. The wound had already healed and Asmund’s fang marks were only just visible, the last physical remnants of his existence.
Asmund had poisoned his life, and those of countless others, and in a final act of madness had tried to kill the person he had been ordered to serve. He had probably been a bad person even before the sickness, and yet even though Will had come here in the very hope of destroying him, he felt sad for him now.
He wasn’t sure why, whether it was because Asmund had been cursed just as much as he had, or perhaps he was saddened by the loss. For whatever his faults, Asmund had been the first of his own kind that he’d ever met, and together they might have had much to discuss. And Asmund had made him what he was, whether he liked it or not, so in some strange way, perhaps it was the sadness of a boy who has lost his father.