By the time they reached the school they were covered with snow. It was not yet in total darkness and they stopped for a moment in Will’s usual position and looked at the few remaining people in the common room. Marcus’s usual chess partner was reading a book.
Will looked up at the darkened window on the top floor, but for the second night running he could tell that no one was there. Briefly he wondered if the watcher had been Alex Shawcross, if that was why he’d been absent these last two nights.
Perhaps Eloise would have felt differently about him if she’d realised the boy might have been the one who’d drawn the chalk diagram beneath her bed, who’d played a part in trying to kill her. But Will said nothing, not wanting to raise any subject that might remind her of the negative emotions they’d so recently left behind.
Eloise said, “Which is the best door, do you think, if we want to get to the chapel without being seen?”
Her question was addressed to Marcus. It was a nice touch, thought Will, given that she knew the school a lot better than the new boy – it suggested a desire to include him, which in turn suggested she now accepted him.
Marcus turned to Will and said, “Can you open any door?”
“Yes.”
He turned back to Eloise and said, “The door to the kitchens. There’s a back corridor from there that takes us close to the steps down to the chapel.”
Eloise looked at Will, smiling as she said, “He’s right. Round the back.”
They walked the long way around rather than pass the front of the school, walking past one of the other common rooms which Eloise and Marcus looked at with mild contempt, though to Will it looked much the same as their own.
They also passed Dr Higson’s office. Despite the late hour, he was still in there, reading through paperwork at his desk.
Marcus said, “Have you seen Dr Higson? He’s sprained his wrist or something, got his hand all bandaged up.”
“How?”
“Fell on his morning run.”
“Poor him,” said Eloise and turned to Will. “That’s the headmaster in there. He’s such a sweet man – when I came back after Christmas, he couldn’t have been nicer about it really. Didn’t lecture me about running away or living rough, just asked if I needed any help catching up. So cool.”
Will nodded, staring in like a visitor being shown the sights. Clearly Chris and Rachel had forgotten to tell Eloise that Will would be speaking with Higson about her more recent absence – perhaps she thought they’d made her excuses for her. It was equally clear that neither Eloise nor Marcus suspected Higson or thought there might be another explanation for his injury.
The kitchens were empty and they moved through them quickly, into the wood-panelled back corridor and out through another door, which itself was designed to look like a panelled wall from the other side. They turned right and down the steps into the short corridor that led to the chapel.
Once inside with the door closed, Eloise turned on one of the lights and said, “Don’t worry, we won’t be heard in here – you can’t hear a thing from the other side of that door.”
Will nodded and walked up the aisle, struck by how large it was for a family chapel, if not for the school that now used it. Had it been an act of guilt perhaps, built to make amends for having gained so much from the destruction of Marland Abbey itself?
It was charming in its own way, but very much of its age, full of fine artwork. It didn’t come close to the simple, monumental beauty of Will’s church, a building which he sometimes thought looked as if it had sprung out of the rock fully formed, a natural wonder rather than a man-made one. But this chapel was beautiful nonetheless.
He noted the steps leading down to a gate and a crypt beyond. He could explore it in due course, and if it proved unsafe to return to the new house for a time, he could quite possibly stay here. If what Marcus had said about Wyndham’s powers failing in this chapel was true, it could be the perfect lair for Will.
That in itself raised a question though. This was just a family chapel, built by his brother’s descendants, so why could Wyndham not work his magic here. He had managed to attack Will in the heart of the city cathedral, in his own chambers deep beneath it, so why should this holy place prove a barrier to him?
Marcus had sat down on the front pew, placing the sabre next to him, but Will walked over to him and said, “Did Wyndham tell you why his powers don’t work in here?”
“He doesn’t know. He told me to avoid confronting you in here – not that he told me to confront you at all – because his powers didn’t reach here and he wouldn’t be able to protect me.”
Eloise came and sat on the altar step facing Marcus. “Has he protected you elsewhere?”
“Not that I know of – he didn’t do much tonight, did he?”
Will said, “About the chapel?”
Marcus nodded. “I asked him, is it because it’s a church, and he got a bit funny with me, said why would a church stop the powers of good from destroying evil? Then he calmed down and said he didn’t know why this particular chapel was a problem for him. It just is.”
Will smiled, thinking how he’d misdirected Chris by pretending the chapel was significant, and now it seemed it really was. He looked up at the roof and around the walls, and said to himself as much as to them, “I suspect Henry would know, if only he was here to share his secret.”
Marcus followed Will’s gaze and said, “Who’s Henry?”
“The man who built it,” said Eloise. “What do you know about Wyndham?”
“Not much. He’s old. What I mean to say is, he looks about fifty, I’d say, grey hair, always wearing a suit. But he’s old. I think he’s at least two hundred, but probably more.”
“How can you be so certain?”
Will answered for him. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you. Marcus said Wyndham knew this place when he was young, but before it was a school – he knew the family that lived here. And as Marcus pointed out, it’s been a school since the mid-nineteenth century.”
Eloise was wide-eyed as she said, “And the family that lived here …”
“Was my family. I have to allow for the possibility that Wyndham’s determination to destroy me is as much personal as a simple fight between good and evil.”
“Oh, I’d say it’s personal,” said Marcus. “He told me that destroying you was his life’s work.” He turned to Eloise and said, “That’s not normal, is it, talking like that?”
Eloise laughed and said, “No, I don’t suppose it is.” She looked at Will then, her expression full of meaning as she said, “Should we tell Marcus about our progress so far, what we’ve learned, or is it best he doesn’t know?”
Will had no doubt that Marcus could be trusted – he was as sure of it as he was unsure of Chris and Rachel – and if anything, he suspected the more Marcus knew the more he would be wedded to their cause.
“Yes, tell him everything. I’m just going to look in the crypt.”
“Do you want me to …?”
“No, I’m looking out of curiosity, nothing more. You tell Marcus our story.”
Will started down the steps as Eloise began by saying, “You know Will was born in 1240, right?”
The gentle murmur of her voice escorted him through the gate at the bottom of the steps, into the small crypt, more fitting than the chapel above for the family it was built to serve. Another room opened off it, housing slightly less ornate tombs, and beyond that, an ossuary, the door to which was locked.
He opened it and stepped inside. It was a small room, but the bones were piled high, skulls filling every wall from floor to ceiling, with other bones slotted in between as if to complete the decorative effect. Will couldn’t understand where these bones had come from.
There was no churchyard nearby from which they would have needed to be removed. Nor had the land this house occupied been a burial ground. Will thought back to his youthful memories of Marland and was certain this area had been meadows back then.
He moved about the room, and saw now that many of the skulls were damaged, possibly broken as they were excavated, but equally possibly suggesting death in combat. He wondered if these bones had been found in the ground during the building work, the remains of some much more ancient burial site.
He stepped outside and locked the door again, then walked slowly around the two rooms of the crypt, feeling the walls, listening to the sounds of his own steps on the floor, trying to get a sense of whether some other chamber was hidden here, but finding nothing.
When he came back up into the chapel, Eloise stopped talking and looked at him, her expression asking if everything was OK. Will smiled and said, “There’s a small room at the back of the crypt that’s locked – it would be a convenient place for me to hide during daylight hours if I need to.”
“So you won’t go back to the new house?”
“Yes, but perhaps not today.” He looked at Marcus and said, “How much of our story is left to tell?”
“Eloise just told me about Asmund – Wyndham never mentioned anything about that, not to me. I don’t think he mentioned Lorcan …?”
“Labraid,” said Eloise.
“Yeah, I don’t think he’s mentioned him.”
Will said, “Unfortunately the trail has gone cold since I killed Asmund. We came here, and judging by Wyndham’s efforts to thwart us, we’ve come to the right place, but in truth he would be as well served in leaving us alone because we have no idea where to turn next and no one to tell us.”
“What do you mean, no one to tell you?”
Will looked at Eloise, but she said, “No, you tell him the last of it.”
“Asmund has a master, and that master himself serves Lorcan Labraid. Though I had never met another of my kind until I met Asmund, it seems others like me have gone to great lengths to protect me and ensure my comfort all these centuries. Yet now, when I need guidance most, none of them is to be seen.”
Marcus laughed, loud enough that Eloise looked concerned, fearing the heavy chapel door might not contain that much noise. He jumped up from the pew then, unable to restrain himself, and stood on the altar step along from where Eloise sat.
“You know why they haven’t shown themselves? Wyndham!”
“I don’t understand. What has he done that would …”
“He’s caught them – a few of them anyway.”
“Caught?” Eloise said, standing up too.
“Caught! He’s got them locked up in his cellars. I saw two of them, no three, and one of them talks all the time about you, telling him where you are, stuff like that.”
Will and Eloise looked at each other. If she saw the implication of that last comment, she didn’t let on. But Will realised he might have done Chris and Rachel a terrible injustice in not trusting them. If a captive vampire was giving Wyndham information, he hardly needed Chris to do the same.
“So Wyndham will know I’m here now.”
“Not for sure – this vampire’s half crazy because of the stuff he does to them, because they don’t get any blood. I guarantee right now it’s shouting ‘Marland’ again and again. That’s what it does.”
“Then what hope have we if Asmund’s master is half-crazed?”
Marcus shook his head. “I doubt that one’s Asmund’s master. There’s another one, but he keeps it in a separate room and he wouldn’t let me see it – said it was too dangerous.”
Will said, “It?”
“Wyndham often calls them it, like they’re animals, and some of them don’t look human. Not you though; he always refers to you as he. So yeah, he wouldn’t let me see it, said it was best I didn’t.” He looked from Will to Eloise and back again. “Well, what do you reckon? Maybe the one that’s hidden away is the one you’re looking for, and that’s why no one’s paid you a visit.”
Will’s thoughts were reeling. His destiny had not been hidden from him or made difficult on purpose. It was Wyndham at every turn, determined to stop him, to destroy him or keep him locked within this eternal torment.
It raised another question though. All along Wyndham had acted as if he feared an encounter with Will himself, always sending spirits and demons, turning nature against him, trying to kill Eloise, yet apparently he had no fear of vampires at all. If he had imprisoned Asmund’s master, it seemed unlikely he would be fearful of Will.
“I don’t understand,” said Will. “If Wyndham has captured other vampires, why does he not engage me in direct combat? Why all these sorcerer’s tricks, why attack Eloise, when he has it within his power to fight and triumph over my kind?”
“Because you’re not just another vampire,” said Eloise. “You’re William of Mercia and Lorcan Labraid calls to you, not to anyone else, to you. Think about it. You shouldn’t have been able to defeat Asmund – he was bigger than you and stronger – but you killed him. Wyndham isn’t afraid of vampires, he’s afraid of you.”
“She’s right,” said Marcus.
Will wasn’t convinced, but there was no question. If Wyndham had imprisoned vampires, they had to find where he lived, to take the battle to him at last, to give him something to fear.
“We have to find out where his house is.”
“That’s easy,” said Marcus. “I know where it is.”
“You said the windows of the car were blacked out.”
“But I saw the house, and I know how far we drove, and I’ve lived around here my whole life. It’s a mansion in the country on the other side of the city – I recognised it right away, saw it from the school bus once when we were on a trip.”
Will nodded, imagining this house. His mind flew, away across the city with the cathedral spire standing proud, back out into the darkness with the snow falling in heavy flakes, seeing a house, perhaps as large as this, a house holding a secret. That secret, he thought, was not imprisoned vampires, but Wyndham’s fear. He feared William of Mercia, and now Will was determined he would give him something to base that fear upon.