Chapter Eleven

 

 

 

I will tell you one thing I learned about driving a Jag with nearly four hundred break horsepower that accelerates from zero to sixty in less than five seconds. You don’t ever press your foot down on the accelerator. Never. Not unless you have a penchant for getting kicked in the ass by four hundred horses all at the same time. What you do is, you think about brushing the gas pedal with the air particles between the sole of your shoe and the pedal then you grip the steering wheel, close your eyes and pray for a painless death.

I put it in gear, let out the clutch, touched the gas—and screamed. This monster lunged out of the garage, hit the gravel spewing stones into the air, gripped the path with its claws and hurled itself toward the gate, making a noise like a starving leviathan trying to eat a pack of crazed lions. I made the mistake of shifting up to second gear and exited the gate sideways, torturing the tires. I changed up to third, put my foot on the gas and began to enjoy myself. Fourth, and I was surfing a giant tsunami on steroids through a narrow funnel of light. The hedgerows were the skeletons of banshees and hags that sprang out of the blackness, reaching at me with gnarled arms and fingers. The huge V6 growled and the wraiths were swept away into the shadowlands behind me.

I got to Little Sodbury in about twelve minutes. The town was dark but for a few melancholy street lamps in the main square, set around the village green. I slowed to a rumbling crawl, looking for the church spire. A fox loped across the common, its shadow eerily stretched and dancing in the dull, amber light. From the hedgerows, small eyes caught my headlamps for an instant and glowed a weird green. Then, like a ghastly shroud rising out of the graveyard, the church tower rose, not tall and pointed but squat and pale with battlements in the Norman style.

I killed the engine and climbed out. The car door slammed loudly in the stillness and the echo of my feet ricocheted off the slumbering shops and houses. I felt certain people must be hearing me and going to their windows to peer out, to see who was violating their peace. I stepped into the graveyard. The trees, tall poplars and massive yews, closed about me. An owl hooted and made the skin crawl on the back of my neck. I scanned the area and saw the great bird spread its wings and take off, silent as a shadow, into the night.

The church tower was an ink stencil against the sky, surrounded by the indistinguishable black shapes of trees and rooftops. I stumbled up the path, listening for any sound that might help me to find Ciara or her dad but hearing only the rustles, whispers and snuffles of small, secret animals in the shadows—not vampires, but hedgehogs, foxes, owls and cats. Yet these sounds seemed merely to whisper across the face of a darkness that lurked beneath them, like an emptiness from which only evil could emerge. I reached the top of the path and came to the vast Norman door set in the bell tower. I pushed at it, but it was locked and as solid as a block of granite. I peered through the keyhole but saw nothing.

The path encircled the church and I guessed it led to the vicarage at the back. Only this wasn’t a vicarage, I reminded myself. It was a Catholic church, and that was why her dad had come here to protect his daughter. Something about that troubled me, but at that moment, my mind was too occupied to see exactly what it was. I got to the back and searched along the path, not sure what I was looking for. I really hadn’t planned this properly. But how could I? I was making it up as I went along. I had no other choice.

At first, it seemed like everything was dark and still and silent. I sighed with frustration, wondering what the hell to do next. I was about to turn back when something caught the corner of my eye. I froze and scanned the area again. I know there are things you can see with your peripheral vision that you cannot see straight on, so I moved my head around as though I was just about to turn away, trying to capture again what I had glimpsed before. If anyone had spotted me, they would have thought I was out of my mind, but it worked. Just where the church wall bent in to meet the later building of the priest’s residence, there was an almost invisible glow of light on the grass.

I sprinted over to it as silently as I could. I had struck the jackpot. At ground level, there was an arched window a foot across and not more than six inches at its highest point. It had three iron bars set in it, and there was light filtering out. I dropped to my belly and peered in. It was hard at first to make out what I was seeing because of the grime on the glass and the angle I was at. But finally, I saw them. There was a middle-aged man in black with a shock of white hair swept back from his face. He was standing and seemed to be talking, though I could hear nothing of what he was saying. There was another man sitting opposite him. He was harder to make out, but he appeared to be about forty-five or fifty, and he was dressed in a tweed jacket and dark pants. I guessed he was Michael Fionn, because Ciara was sitting next to him, staring at her feet with her hands between her knees.

I had found her. That, at least, was something.

Then I became aware of something else. It was a pair of feet in very shiny black shoes. Because of where I was looking from, I couldn’t see any more than the feet and two slim legs in black trousers from just below the knees. They were standing at right angles to the guy in black, whom I assumed to be the priest. They were quite still while the priest talked. Ciara’s dad appeared worried and Ciara seemed depressed. For some reason, those black feet made me feel really uncomfortable.

Then they moved. They stepped forward and turned toward Ciara and her dad. Now I could see the whole body, but from above and to the side. I could see the top of the head and the silhouette. It was a man. He was also dressed all in black. He was slim and young and athletic, and there was something about him that was familiar. Then he stepped forward and hunkered down just in front of Ciara and took her hands in his. She looked up into his face. I couldn’t decipher her expression, but her body language was receptive. My heart skipped and there was a hot pellet in my belly. I knew him. I knew him very well and I knew he was very dangerous.

It was Dicky Nixon.

My mind was suddenly on fire. What is he doing here? What is he saying to her? Why does she seem to be smiling at him and listening? Can’t she see him for what he is? I was suddenly in a fever. For a fraction of a fraction of a second, I was going to read her mind, but I recoiled from the thought. It would be the ultimate betrayal of our trust, and there would be no coming back from that. But him? I owed him nothing and I knew—like I knew I had bones in my body—that he meant her no good. I fastened my mind on him and focused.

And I was hit by an express train. I was actually knocked back an inch from the window. My head was reeling. I stared down and saw that he was staring straight up at me. His eyes were locked on mine like a vise. He was rising to his feet, moving toward me, and I could feel the steel fingers of his mind reaching inside mine, gripping at me, and I could hear him demanding, “Who are you? Who are you?”

I wrenched myself away and rolled. I scrambled to my feet and ran. My head was reeling with questions, but one thing I was absolutely certain about was that my presence there was putting Ciara at risk. I had to go. For her safety—for her life—I had to get out of there. Now!

I ran like all the hosts of Hell were on my heels. For all I knew, they were. I skidded around the corner and raced down the path. I vaulted a stone tomb, stumbled and fell. But I was on my feet again and running practically before I’d hit the ground. Something big and black swooped overhead. The trees rustled. I vaulted another stone tomb and skidded to the gate, grabbed the post then skidded around it and I was running across the common toward the Jag.

A voice bellowed, “Oi! You! Stop!”

I skidded for the third time, stopped and turned back. It was a cop—what the Brits call a bobby—standing in the middle of the common, staring at me. His face was in shadow under his helmet, under the street lamp. There was no cop car. He was just standing there, looking at me. I thought I heard him say to come over there, but as I went to step toward him, I realized I hadn’t heard him speak. I swore—“Shit!”—turned, ran and jumped into the Jag convertible without opening the door. I hit the ignition and was burning rubber, screaming out of there while he was sprinting across the square toward me.

I side-slid into the corner, and as I accelerated away, back toward Oxford, I could see him in my rearview, thumping down the road after me freakishly fast. My heart seemed to be doing two-forty to the minute and my breathing was ragged. I felt sick and my hands were trembling. My mind was in turmoil. I had left Ciara back there with those creatures, but I knew beyond any doubt that if I had stayed, it would have been disastrous for her. It might have cost her her life.

I needed to think—coldly, rationally. I had to think!

I was swerving wildly on the road, fighting to control the machine. I looked at the speedometer. I was doing one hundred miles per hour on a winding country road. Something black swooped overhead. I glanced up. The black stencil of a giant bat or an eagle swooped over me and soared up into the night sky, banked and glided across the moon. I inhaled deeply, steadied my breathing, relaxed my arms on the wheel and eased off the gas to pull over. I had to stop the storm in my mind. Stop the chaos. Still waters. Blue skies. Stillness. I focused on these. A still lake. A still lake under a still, blue sky. Stillness.

What did I know for a fact? I knew that I’d had to leave or it would have cost Ciara her life. Fact. I knew I could not leave her there. I had to rescue her. Fact. Therefore, inescapable deduction, I had to return, better prepared with foreknowledge and with a plan how to get her out.

I knew that Friday was the day when they were going to go for her. Fact. I knew it was already Friday. Fact. And I knew that Dicky was there with her, that he was an invincible swordsman and a mind reader. He had to be one of them—or us! Fact. So, the inescapable deduction was that they already had her. I could feel the wild storm starting again in my chest and in my brain. I breathed. Still waters. Still sky.

Another fact was that I could not do this alone. I needed help. I needed a plan and I needed help to make it and carry it out, and there was only one person I knew I could count on. I checked the clock on the dash. It was two-twenty a.m., and we both had school in the morning. And I had a debate—a debate that would decide whether I stayed at the Anglo-American or was kicked out. A debate for which I hadn’t even written the first words.

I buried the thought as soon as it reared its head. That was the least of my worries. Ciara’s life was in danger. She had been kidnapped along with her father—whose car I had stolen—and I had supernatural shape-shifters chasing me. I pulled my cell from my pocket, opened Whatsapp and found Sebastian.

 

U awake?

 

Twenty seconds later, I got a response.

 

Of course I’m not awake. It’s 2.20 in the morning, you ass!

 

I need ur help.

 

At 2.20 in the morning? Go back to sleep, Jake.

 

I’m not in bed. I’m in Michael Fionn’s Jag. I stole it.

 

He went off line and a few seconds later the phone rang. I put it on speaker.

“Are you out of your tiny, fucking mind?”

“I can’t explain now, Sebastian. This is huge. It is bigger than we thought. It’s a mess. You have to help me. I have no one else to turn to.”

“Shut up, Jake. Don’t get your bloody knickers in a twist. Of course I’m going to help you. What do you want?”

“I’ll pick you up at the corner of your street in ten minutes. We need to talk. And we need to act tonight.”

I heard him groan and he hung up. The car and the night felt suddenly desolate, empty and lonely in the immense darkness. Above my head, I saw the black silhouette pass over the moon again—circling, hunting. And as the reality of what was happening hit me, I felt a piercing terror go through my body.

I stared hard at the road, gripped the wheel and started driving.