Colm & the Lazarus Key (11 page)

C
olm put the key in the lock. For one horrible moment he thought it wasn’t going to turn, but it was just rusty and with a bit of effort he managed to open it. He pressed his fingers to his lips letting The Brute know he should be quiet, but there was no need. His cousin just sat silently on the ground, his head resting on the edge of the bed.

He eased the door open and snuck out into the corridor. The carpet softened his footsteps and he was as quiet as a mouse. He reached the stairs and peered through the banisters. He couldn’t see all of the lobby from up there, but it looked like the coast was clear and he wasn’t going to waste any more time just waiting. He’d already done too much of that.

His heart was thumping as he crept down the stairs. With every step he took he expected the boards beneath the carpet to creak and for someone to come running, but the stairs didn’t creak and nobody appeared. He walked past the paintings and glanced up at the strange portrait of the man with the scar and the long black hair. And the blood-red eyes.

That must be Hugh DeLancey-O’Brien, was his first thought. Well d’uh, was his second. He should have known that ages ago. There was something about this hotel that clouded the mind, stopped people thinking clearly. Either that or he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was.

He stepped on to the tiled floor and looked around more carefully than he would if he was crossing a busy road. Still nobody around.

Fog slipped beneath the front door. He’d never seen that happen before. It didn’t worry him too much, but it didn’t make him feel good either.

The reception desk was only a few yards away. His heart beat even faster, if that was possible, and his legs wobbled like a giraffe on stilts. His brain told him to walk out the front door and keep walking out the driveway until he was far, far away from here. There was no doubt about it. He was afraid. And he couldn’t shake it off.

That was the thing about fear. It grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and refused to let you go. He knew that. He didn’t know that it also made you want to pay a visit to the bathroom. His stomach was churning. This was what his mother must have meant when she said she got butterflies in her stomach when she was nervous. If there were butterflies in his stomach then it felt like they were armour-plated and carrying machine-guns.

He had to block out the fear somehow. He wasn’t going to be able to help anyone if he gave in to it. He closed his eyes for a second and tried to think calm thoughts. What made him calm? Watching the National Geographic channel. He tried to think of something he’d seen on a nature programme. Antelopes peacefully drinking at a waterhole. That’d do. But then another image popped into his head. Antelopes being chased by a bloodthirsty lion. Not helpful at all. He tried to get the image out of his head, but it just stuck there as if someone had superglued it to his brain.

He didn’t have time for this. He tiptoed to the reception desk and slowly, carefully lifted the phone from its cradle. He listened for the dialling tone. Nothing. Zip. Nada. The line was as dead as a wasp in a jam jar of water.

Either Mrs McMahon hadn’t paid her telephone bill or someone had disconnected the line. Why would they do that? Because they don’t want someone – me – ringing the Gardaí, he thought. What now? His dad had a mobile, but he didn’t know where that was. They’d probably taken it from him. Unless he’d left it in the car. He might have. He was always leaving his mobile lying around the place. It was worth a look.

Before he took a step towards the front door – a shroud of fog seemed to be building up around it – he heard the raised voices somewhere off to his right in the direction of the restaurant. Without thinking, he crossed the lobby and pushed through the swing doors.

Fifteen tables all neatly laid out. No diners. Creepy.

The voices were clearer now and he knew they were coming from the kitchen. He was sure of it. He inched his way through the restaurant. Halfway there he realised that if someone came out of the kitchen they’d see him straight away. There wouldn’t be time to hide by ducking under one of the tablecloths. Stupid decision to come in here Colm, he said to himself. Should he keep going or turn back? When he overheard the words ‘Lazarus Key’ he decided to keep going.

The door to the kitchen was half-open. He pressed himself against the wall off to the side. Not a great place to find cover. He was too exposed, but if he wanted to find out what the argument was about this was where he needed to be. How come James Bond or Sherlock Holmes were never stuck like this? At least now he could hear the voices clearly. Drake and Mrs McMahon. Those two were definitely in there.

He slid down the wall, lowering himself to the ground until he was on his haunches. Through the thin gap between the door hinges he could see a sliver of the kitchen. Legs dangled from a counter. The shoes looked like Lauryn’s. That must be her, he thought. And there was her mother. She kept moving in and out of sight, a teapot in her hand.

‘So are you going to tell me or not?’ Mrs McMahon asked.

Drake lit up yet another cigarette.

‘You know by now that your daughter works for me at the university in Philadelphia. Has done for years. She’s my invaluable assistant and I couldn’t do without her
,
’ Drake said.

Mrs McMahon nodded. It was as grim as a nod can be.

‘I’m a Professor of Antiquities. That means I’m involved with items or relics from ancient times
,
’ Drake said.

‘I know what antiquities means
,
’ barked Mrs McMahon. ‘Get to the point.’

‘Seven days ago a man arrived in my office. Not the type of man you’d usually find in a university. He looked like a thug, didn’t he, Marie?’

‘Yes
,
’ she said somewhat anxiously.

‘He was carrying a briefcase. It looked out of place in his possession.’

Mrs McMahon sighed.

‘I’m getting to it. Let me remind you that I’m not the one who wants to waste valuable time telling this story
,
’ Drake said.

‘All right, all right, carry on,’ said Mrs McMahon.

‘The man laid the briefcase flat on my desk and opened it up. It was full of money. I’d estimate that there must have been in the region of one hundred thousand dollars in there. He said that the money was mine if I helped him in his quest
,
’ Drake said.

‘To find the Lazarus Key
,
’ said Mrs McMahon.

‘Yes, how did you know?’

‘Because it’d be a pretty pointless story if he was looking for something else, wouldn’t it?’

Drake coughed to cover up his embarrassment. ‘Quite so.’

He drew something on a piece of paper and held it up for them to see. His back was to the door so that it was impossible for Colm to make out what it was.

‘This is the Key
,
’ Drake said, pointing to the picture he’d drawn. ‘I had come across it before, although it was only mentioned briefly in text books. It was thought to be more of a myth or legend than a true relic. Something like UFOs or the Loch Ness monster. An interesting story, but unlikely to be true.

‘There were rumours that there were three Keys ori-
ginally
,
’ Drake continued.

‘What’s that got to do with us?’ Mrs McMahon asked.

‘He’s getting to that, Mom,’ said Marie.

‘Don’t call me Mom. Your daughter may be American, but you’re Irish. Call me Ma or Mammy
.
’

‘Sorry, Ma
.
’

‘Can we focus, please?’ Drake said. ‘Time is passing quickly and he will find us. The man has many resources at his disposal
.
’

‘Go on, so
.
’

‘The Key is mentioned in some historical texts along with its supposed powers.’

His voice was almost a whisper now and Colm had to strain to hear what he was saying.

‘Naturally, as a man of logic and reason, I didn’t believe in these so-called supernatural powers, but my research and the events of the last few days have made me change my mind. What I have uncovered has me worried. And this is vitally important. If you know how to use it, then whoever has the Key will not die. Ever. It is an evil thing. When your body fails you and you die as people normally do at the end of their lives, you will come back again. You will not be human, not as we know it, but you will live. Something in the Key – magic, something we do not understand – draws life from those around you. Hugh DeLancey-O’Brien, the last known holder of the Key, never died.’

‘Of course he did. They buried him, didn’t they?’

‘You know the stories. When he died the maid took the Key in her hand. She died the following morning. All the life in her transferred into the Key and when it was buried with DeLancey-O’Brien he drew her life’s power back into him. He rose again. He is not dead, he is not living, he is something in between.’

‘So if I hold the Key in my hand
…
’

‘Then the creature that was once Hugh DeLancey-O’Brien will come and take it from you. But it isn’t only the Key that he seeks, it is your life. The life that is held in the Key. It will sustain him and you will die
.
’

‘The lesson then is not to hold the Key, isn’t it?’ said Mrs McMahon.

‘Well, yes. Anyway, back to my visitor at the university. I couldn’t understand why the man was so anxious to lay his hands upon it. Certainly it would be of some value to a museum or a collector of relics, but nothing in the region of the amount of money he was offering me to track it down. He told me he had been after it for many years, but no one had been able to find it for him. He said I was his last hope. I accepted his offer. I was intrigued and it was far too much money to turn down. I spent the night researching the Key and uncovered some interesting points about it, but nothing concrete. Then I got lucky. At least at the time I thought it was luck. I showed my evening’s work to Marie. She recognised the Key for what it was immediately. She had heard stories about DeLancey-O’Brien and a secret society when growing up. And in her youth she had read
The Book of Dread
, the account of a poor unfortunate who had searched for the Key.

‘I now realised how dangerous the Key was and I re-gretted accepting the man’s offer, but even then I didn’t realise what a black valley it would lead me to. The man himself knew something of the Key – that it had been in the possession of a secret society in Boston some time in the 1800s. They were a powerful sect, but no one knew how they maintained that power. A more evil bunch of villains never existed. Their leader lived for an exceptionally long time, longer than anyone had any right to live and he held the city in his iron grip.

‘That is until the Key was stolen by someone as treacherous as them. Someone who joined the gang and under cover of night robbed the Key. They believed he was an Englishman and for decades afterwards they sent members of the society to England scouring the country for the traitor who had taken their precious relic. They never found that man.’

‘Because he was here,’ said Lauryn. ‘It was Hugh DeLancey-O’Brien.’

‘He stole it. The blackguard,’ Mrs McMahon said. ‘He was the type all right. There were plenty of stories about him. Even when I was growing up. And he died a long time before I was born
.
’

‘Except he didn’t die
,
’ said Drake.

·•·

The Brute stirred as if waking from a marathon sleeping session. He yawned and stretched his arms. He had stopped sweating. In fact, he was feeling a lot better than he had in hours. The sickness had passed. He still felt weak and he didn’t feel up to standing yet. For some reason he thought of Colm. Where was his cousin? He half-remembered him leaving the room and saying he’d be back in a minute. And had he tried to lift him on to the bed? He wasn’t sure if they were memories or dreams. Maybe he’d just lie here for a few more minutes even though some part of his brain, something deep down, was telling him to get up and go downstairs. Nah, he’d lie here. He didn’t like being told what to do, even when it was his own mind doing the telling.

·•·

Despite the situation he was in, Colm began to feel giddy. He almost had to stop himself from laughing. What was wrong with him? He wasn’t enjoying this situation so why did he suddenly feel so good? He felt better than he had in ages. Weird.

‘DeLancey-O’Brien made one mistake though. He didn’t know how the Key worked. Not properly. That was his downfall. If he had understood it he would still be here today, living in this house. There were plenty who knew how to use it though. Over the years there have been rumours about the Key. Scrawled passages in ancient scripts. As far as we can tell there were originally three Keys. One was buried with Attila the Hun. Another was lost with Rasputin.’

Mrs McMahon looked at him blankly.

‘He was a monk in Russia who had many enemies, but no matter how often they thought they had killed him he came back to life. He finally died beneath a frozen river. The theme of the river and ice is mentioned throughout all the accounts of the Lazarus Key. As far as I am aware it is only this that can destroy it.’