Chapter Nineteen

The following night my waking thoughts were filled by a mutinous girl’s face and her sulky comments. I had no idea where Jake and Luke had taken Nikki, but I could make a very educated guess. ‘A nice quiet mausoleum’ had been Luke’s suggestion, and there were plenty of those in Highgate Cemetery.

Poor child, a renegade fledgling she may be, but she was still little more than a child. I pulled on jeans and a strappy T-shirt, which made me think of Nikki again. Grabbing my hairbrush from the shelf I began to brush my hair with a vengeance. Will came into the bathroom at that moment, and frowned. He took the brush from me and continued to brush my hair in a more gentle fashion. When he put the brush down, he walked behind me and pulled me back against his chest.

‘You smell delicious,’ he said. ‘Good enough to eat.’

I turned in his arms so I could look up at him. ‘What will happen to her? Nikki?’

He sighed. ‘My tender-hearted Elinor. What am I to do with you?’

‘Tell me.’

‘Also extremely tenacious.’ His lips twisted in a small smile as he ran his fingers through the length of my hair. ‘We cannot even think of keeping her, my love. I fear she will have to be destroyed. There is no alternative.’

‘If that’s the case, why didn’t you do it last night? Or did you?’

‘I suppose I was hoping for another solution to present itself – which it has not.’

‘But we kept Daniel.’

‘One renegade lodger is more than enough.’

‘Can’t she stay with one of the others?’

He pulled me in close to his body, and wrapped his arms around me. His voice sounded sympathetic as he spoke against my hair. ‘You must realise the danger she could bring. Thomas can track any one of us through his connections to his fledglings. You saw how he can still control the boy even after all these weeks. None of us are safe whilst they both live.’

A sick feeling of dread ran through my body like a sharp knife and Will’s arms tightened around me.

‘I know how you feel about the boy, which is why – for you – I am prepared to keep him under my protection. But the girl cannot be under my roof. Two fledglings that can be controlled by a powerful master vampire may precipitate our own ultimate destruction. I cannot risk it.’

‘What will you do with her?’

‘I have not yet come to a decision.’

‘You intend to stake her … don’t you?’

He made no reply, but somehow I knew that would have to be his decision. Deep down I knew he was right, and he only had his vampires’ safety in mind after all. However, the wave of sadness that suddenly engulfed me, didn’t agree.

‘We need to go to the cemetery.’

I nodded. ‘I know.’

‘Would you prefer to remain here with Luke and the boy?’

‘I want to be with you.’

‘As you wish.’

He turned and led the way out of the bathroom and back upstairs. Luke, Jake and Daniel were sitting around the kitchen table, each nursing coffee mugs which I knew didn’t contain coffee. Other than their choice of beverage, they looked like any other trio of good-looking men, just sitting around talking about football and girls.

Jake stood up as we entered the room. ‘Are you ready to go?’

Will inclined his head. ‘Indeed, let us get this over with.’ He turned back to me. ‘Are you absolutely sure about this Elinor?’ His green eyes appraised me. I knew he wouldn’t think any less of me if I chose to take the coward’s way out. But I felt so paranoid at the moment. I couldn’t bear to let him out of my sight. Although half of me would have quite liked to stay in the relative normality of the kitchen, swapping stories with Luke and Danny, but the other half of me wanted to be with Will at any cost.

‘Yes.’ My voice sounded thin and just a little shaky.

Will put a gentle hand to my face, his expression tender. ‘Very well.’

He led the way from the kitchen and I followed him with Jake bringing up the rear.

I felt surprised when Will and Jake got into Jake’s car. The cemetery was only a short walk away after all. I got into the back seat.

‘Why the car?’

Will turned to face me from the front seat. ‘There is a possibility we might need to get away from the place with haste.’

Not helping my feelings of utter foreboding. Not at all.

Jake started the car, and drove smoothly away.

I gave an involuntary shiver, and Will reached for my hand. As I put my hand in his, his fingers clasped mine, and I felt grateful for his intuition.

‘For once I wish you had chosen to stay with Luke,’ he said.

Jake stopped the car, and my stomach lurched. It had taken all of five minutes to get close to Swain’s Lane. Will and I usually walked to the cemetery, and I enjoyed strolling the pretty tree-lined streets that led to the lane. I loved the beauty of the densely wooded area where the cemetery nestled in all its gothic splendour. But nothing we did was very normal at the moment – that is, if anything ever is normal for vampires.

Jake parked in a side road, and we all got out of the car to walk towards the cemetery.

Swain’s Lane still has all the appearance of a country road. It’s narrow and steep, and the high walls of the cemetery rise up from the road itself on one side. Tall, graceful trees grow high above the cemetery walls, and almost interlock with each other across the lane.

Everything appeared peaceful enough. We were the only people around tonight. It was a little too early for the pubs to be turning out, and too late for people to be on their way out for the evening.

Moonlight picked out the shapes of the summer leaves on the trees as they rustled in the balmy breeze. Somewhere above us an owl hooted, sounding solitary and mournful. I shivered again, and Will put his arm round my waist. Jake led the way to one of the side gates. Will produced a key and quietly unlocked it. We all slipped inside.

Will and Jake took off at breakneck speed, and I just about kept up with them – at least I kept them in sight. We ran past ivy-covered tombstones and mouldering mausoleums, and then we ran right into the gloomy depths of the cemetery.

Will stopped by a small, almost unobtrusive mausoleum, for which he also had a key. I didn’t want to ask, but I had no doubt he had ways and means of obtaining anything he wanted.

He slipped the key into the lock, and pushed the door. It creaked slowly ajar on its rusted hinges. Will exchanged glances with Jake.

‘Elinor, please stay behind Jake.’ No argument from me for a change. I’ve never been the brave type anyway. Will pushed at the door just enough for it to open wider. The cavernous interior looked like a yawning mouth of dense black, and not somewhere I particularly fancied entering.

Will went in without making a sound and Jake followed. I was close behind Jake when I heard Will curse, and Jake stopped so suddenly that I banged into him.

‘Elinor, go outside.’

Exasperation flooded me as I angrily shoved Jake out of the way in order to confront my ‘Master’.

‘No I will not bloody-well wait outside. I’m sick of being ordered around like a child …’ The rest of my rant froze on my lips, when my eyes were drawn down to whatever Will had been looking at.

A head. A newly-decapitated head too, by the look of it. A head with short dark hair and terrified, staring eyes. Nikki.

I found it impossible to tear my gaze away from the grisly thing that only twenty-four hours ago had been animated and petulant. The sight held me frozen to the spot, when suddenly, in front of my horrified eyes, the head began to deteriorate in true vampire fashion. Yet still I couldn’t stop staring at it.

‘Elinor.’

I heard Will’s voice as though through a mist, but I continued to look at the thing on the floor. The head had taken on a grotesque look now – it appeared to be melting, almost like a parody of a waxwork dummy, or the Wicked Witch of the West. But this was not a scene from The Wizard of Oz.

In seconds there was nothing left.

Finally I looked up at Will’s face, with realisation forming heavy blocks of ice in my stomach.

‘You knew,’ I said, and my voice cracked with shock. ‘You knew he’d come for her.’

I turned and ran from that dreadful place. Escape was the only thing I could think of. The compulsion to get away was paramount, the need to be somewhere … anywhere else. I knew Will would follow, but I didn’t think I could be with him at this moment in time. My flight was swift and careless. My eyes saw nothing of my surroundings and still I forced myself to run faster.

Because I wasn’t paying attention, and because all I wanted to do was escape, I failed to see the man who stepped out in front of me until it was too late. A nondescript-looking man, with heavily gloved hands, who flung a loop of silver chain around my neck, and pulled it tight. So tight that it caused me to scream in agony. Something like a concrete mallet smashed into my face, and the last thing I heard before the darkness took me, was Will’s distant voice calling my name.