Eldren: The Book of the Dark (19 page)

Robert took the bag from my hands softly, almost reverentially.

“The old books were right. And if I’ve read them right these few ashes have the power to return the dead. Rejoice my friends, for tonight we will have the Bruce with us.”

He produced a gold goblet from under his robes, its surface gleaming redly in the candlelight, and poured the ashes into it before stepping into the circle.

“Remember,” he said to both of us. “You must not enter the circle until the conjuration is complete.”

Jamie and I nodded in unison...it was not the first summoning we had attended, but I had the feeling it would be the most memorable.

Robert raised the goblet above his head and began to chant as the air above us thickened and soured.

I won’t try to reproduce the words...they were barbarous and strange, the like of which I had never heard. There was a great swirling in the air, a red mist that foamed and bubbled, lit by its own inner fire.

“The knife,” Robert said, and Jamie drew his dagger, throwing it underhand into the circle where Robert caught it with a deftness and skill he had never previously possessed. He placed the goblet on the floor in the middle of the circle and held his arm out over it.

Without saying anything else he slashed down hard at his flesh, blood welling immediately.

And as the blood hit the ashes they bubbled and boiled in fury, overflowing the goblet and spreading in a red puddle on the floor, a puddle that heaved and pulsated with each new drop of Robert’s life.

The puddle spread and grew until the whole of the inner circle of the pentagram was a pool of gore with Robert standing in its center.

“I summon and conjure you to appear before me,” Robert called out, and the red pool began to thicken and coalesce, as the mist around us grew thicker still until it was a noxious choking fug.

Both Jamie and I were almost overcome by the fumes, reduced to helpless, coughing invalids. There was a scream from the pentagram and the red mist lifted to reveal a scene of horror.

Robert was still in the pentagram, and he was not alone.

A great pale demon stood there, a creature from legend, its eyes burning in the candlelight. It looked at Robert with naked hunger and, before either Jamie or I could move, it pounced, gripping Robert in its strong arms and fixing its fangs into his neck.

Jamie screamed. “No. The Bruce. We were promised the Bruce,” and stepped forward, his right foot breaking the circle.

And hell came to Dunnotar.

Robert fell to the floor, his eyes staring blindly, and I saw that he was already dead, but by then I had other things to divert my attention.

Jamie had the creature held in a bear hug and was crushing it, his arms locked tight across its back. For a second I felt that he might prevail, but then the creature laughed and broke the hold as if he had been held by no more than two pieces of fine thread.

The fire in its eyes held me and I was unable to move, frozen still as I was made to watch it feeding on my last friend.

And when it was done it came for me.

“I am Shoa,” it said, “and now you are mine.”

That was four hundred years ago.”

~-o0O0o-~

“I served him for nearly thirty years,” the stranger said, “until one came like I came for you. But that is another story.”

Brian blinked, dispelling the last of the visions from his mind.

“What am I?” he said, his voice coming harsh and painful.

“Like me,” the stranger said. “That’s all I can say. Names mean little, as you’ll no doubt discover, but the people who can walk under the sun call us vampires.”

“WHAT IS the matter with everyone tonight?” Bill Reid asked. “First the boy and now you Margaret. Has someone been putting something in the food up at the school?”

Margaret looked up at the Minister. She could see in the set of his jaw that he had made a decision about something, but deep in his eyes, behind the jocularity and the mask of his cloth, she saw a flickering fear that she recognized in herself.

She risked making a fool of herself, but she knew what she had seen up at the house, what Tom Duncan had become.

“I asked for a reason,” she said. “I need your help.”

“You need a doctor,” Bill Reid said. “A doctor and a good night’s sleep. And I’ll hear no more of vampires. Not tonight.”

He turned away, back to the whisky bottle, pouring himself another large measure and downing it in one swift gulp. His eyes watered, but he didn’t cough and it all stayed down.

“Have you seen it as well?” a small voice said, and Margaret noticed the boy for the first time.

“Tony?” she said. “Tony Dickie? What in God’s name are you doing here?”

The boy looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. His eyes were rimmed in deep black shadow and looked too old for his face...eyes that had seen things a boy should only ever fantasize about.

And then she remembered the scene in the boiler room...she still had the picture in her head...the still dead body of Ian Kerr lying on the floor, and the twin grooved wounds in his neck. It was only now that she realized what had been wrong with the picture...considering the nature of the wounds there had been too little blood...far too little blood.

She shivered and clutched tighter to the glass in her hand.

“There’s something going on here, isn’t there?” she asked, and the boy nodded, his eyes wide.

“There’s a vampire out there. And he’s after me,” he said, and looked like he would burst into tears. He seemed to be waiting for a response and he trembled all over.

He needs someone to believe him, Margaret realized and was about to reply when the Minister snorted in disgust.

“All that’s going on here is that there’s a psychopath running around the country. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was him that’s causing all this mayhem.”

“He’s not a psychopath,” Tony shouted, his fists clenched so tight that the white of the knuckles was showing. “He’s not. He’s a vampire killer...like Captain Kronos.”

“That’s enough,” the Minister said, raising his voice until he too was shouting. He stood over Tony, so close that Margaret flinched, expecting him to hit the boy.

“The man Kerr escaped from a psychiatric prison earlier this week. He’s a murderer...that’s all. An insane, evil murderer. And the police are going to catch him. Maybe then we can all settle down and get back to normal.”

“Who is this murderer?” Margaret asked.

Things were moving too fast for her...she couldn’t get a handle on anything and her mind seemed to be sliding away from any thoughts that might bring everything into focus. She took another sip of whisky, but that didn’t help.

“His name is Jim Kerr,” the Minister said. “But surely you saw it...it was all over the papers a couple of days ago. The police say he’s dangerous...he killed more than a dozen people ten years ago. He shoots them with a crossbow, and always leaves a clove of garlic in their mouths...it’s his trademark. Now can we please change the subject?”

“He kills vampires,” Tony said his voice soft and low. “And he put an arrow into that old man in the churchyard to stop him coming back. I saw him.”

“What old man?” Margaret asked. “There was an old man killed in the churchyard?”

Bill Reid signed loudly.

“Old Sandy...you know, the one who walks all over the place...the one with all the stories about ghosts and ghouls. Well maybe now he knows what it’s really like on the other side.”

“That’s unnecessary,” Margaret said, suddenly angry. “If the old man is dead then he deserves your so-called ‘Christian Charity’ rather than your contempt. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

The Minister stiffened as if she’d physically struck him. He wiped a hand across his brow.

“Of course. You’re right. I’m sorry...I’m just tired. It’s been one hell of a night.”

He tried a smile but it didn’t quite work. Not that Margaret noticed. She could almost feel cogs and wheels clicking into place in her head as bits of the situation began to come together.

“Tell me what happened,” she said.

Bill Reid shook his head. “I’m having nothing more to do with this. I’m sorry, but I’ve had enough,” he said and left the room without saying another word.

Margaret turned to Tony.

“Tell me,” she said.

The boy sat on the arm of her chair and told his story again. Through it all Margaret sat quietly, barely moving except to take small sips of whisky. She eyed the bottle hungrily but fought down the urge...a clear head would be needed to face this.

When the boy finished speaking he showed the teacher the book. She held the cracked leather in her hands, she looked at the thin paper that poked from the rip in its covers, but she couldn’t figure out where it fitted in. She put the paper back in the book and gave it back to the boy. Tony made sure the paper was secure before tucking the book inside his belt.

“What are we going to do?” the boy asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “We could go the police, but I don’t think they’d believe us...they’d be more likely to lock us up in that psychiatric ward. I thought that Bill might help us...that he might know something being religious and all, but it looks like it’s just you and me kid.”

She held out her arms and the boy came into them. She hugged him tight to her, ignoring the sudden flaring pain in her hand.

“I know something though,” she said, almost to herself, “If there’s a way to get Brian back, then I’ve got to go back to that old house.”

~-o0O0o-~

Bill Reid leaned over the kitchen sink and splashed cold water over his face, again and again, but the heat inside him couldn’t be cooled that easily.

Bloody vampires…It’ll be witches and broomsticks next.

But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself, there was coldness in his heart. The book had shaken him, shaken him hard. And then there were the two people in his study.

When it had just been the boy he could pass it off as a combination of shock and an overactive imagination. But now there was Margaret Brodie as well. He knew her as a hardheaded, practical kind of woman, someone not prone to flights of fancy. In fact, quite the opposite – he’d thought of her as a pragmatist, and one of little imagination at that.

He splashed more water on his face and breathed deeply.

Too much whisky and not enough sleep
, he thought.
Things will be clearer in the light of day.

It was only when he turned off the tap that he heard it...the swell and crash as someone pounded at the organ in the church, the noise loud enough and the vibration so severe as to send the light above the table swaying wildly.

It was no hymn that was being played. Bill didn’t recognize the tune, but a church organ was never meant for twelve bar blues, no matter how well it was being played.

He ran into the hall and found Margaret and the boy already there, staring wide eyed at him.

“Stay here,” he told them. “There’s someone messing around in the church. I’ll get the policeman to sort them out.”

As he opened the door and stepped out into the night he wondered why the policeman had not already apprehended whoever was in the church. But the abuse of the organ had lit anger in him, something that he could focus on, a tangible fact that he could do something about.

There was no sign of the young policeman in the church grounds...only the tarpaulin- covered body and the garish colors of the tape marking the scene of the crime. Bill took a second, longer look, but there was still no movement.

“He must be in there already, “Bill muttered, and as if to confirm it, the sound of the organ suddenly stopped.

Bill walked across the short path to the church, aware that he still wore his carpet slippers, feeling the dampness settle into his socks.

“Probably catch my death of cold,” he muttered to himself.

The church door stood open, and anger flared stronger inside him as he stepped over the threshold.

“Did you catch them?” he shouted, but there was no reply.

“Constable?” he shouted, aware that he hadn’t even bothered to ask the young policeman his name. “Are you there?”

His voice echoed back at him and deep at the back of the church there was an answering giggle. The whole place shook as the organ kicked in, the bass lines pounding through the old building threatening to shake it to the ground.

Bill could barely see the nearest pew to him, and the rest of the church sat in deep shadow. He reached out and leaned against a stone pillar, taking comfort from its age and stability, feeling the rough grain of the stone against his chin. He ran his face over the stone, feeling his morning stubble rasp against it...surely proof that he was awake and this was not a dream.

He had seen off vandals before...usually just kids who saw something inherently funny in desecrating a church, but once it had been more serious...one morning he’d found a headless black cockerel in the aisle, and black, greasy candles in the pulpit. He had reported that one to the police and they had passed it off as kids, but he hadn’t been so sure. Maybe this was the same lot again. If so, he would still see them off.

He wasn’t afraid.

Not here in his own church.

Not yet.

“I warn you,” he shouted, trying to make himself heard above the organ, “There’s a policeman outside...and I’ll make sure that you get charged with trespassing.”

The music stopped abruptly, and there was another giggle, this one higher pitched, more childlike, that echoed around the rafters along with the vestiges of the organ’s drone.

“The House of God is always open,” a voice said, almost a chant. “A resting place for weary sinners. And we are so weary.”

There was another giggle, one that went on and on, rising until it was a laugh, a hoarse mocking laugh that rang in the rafters.

“Go on. Call the police. But I think he’s too far away to hear you,” another voice said, this time from his left, a girls voice...a very young girl.

For the first time Bill started to feel afraid.

There was a crash and the pew beside him fell heavily to the stone floor. Bill stepped forward, aware that he was getting further from the door.

“This is indeed a House of God, and I’d ask you to respect that,” he called into the darkness.

A deep chord boomed out from the organ, and although it was only the same instrument that he heard every week, there was a tone of defiance in the sound. And then there was more giggling, a whole chorus this time, at least four, and possibly five different voices.

He moved further into the church. For the first time in his experience the building felt cold, a bitter biting iciness. There was no sense of the warmth he usually felt, none of the joy in his faith.

“Come out here where I can see you.”

The organ boomed again, a fast ragtime version of the funeral match.

“I don’t think you want to see us,” a child’s voice called out of the darkness. “But we’ll see what we can do.”

Bill could just about make out the looming bulk of the pulpit ahead of him, but there was something about it that was wrong, a darker shadow near the top of the structure.

Even as he tried to make out what it was, it moved, the shadow hardening until he realized that he was looking at the silhouette of a child.

“Get down from there,” he shouted, but before the words were out of his mouth the child had jumped, six feet up and eight feet away, but it covered the space between them in one leap, striking Bill hard in the chest and sending him sprawling against the pews.

He wasn’t given time to react, much less catch his footing. They were on him in less than a second, small hands grasping at his clothes, at his hair and at his skin.

He tried to sit up, but there was a dead weight pressed against his chest, a weight that began to shift and crawl up towards his chin. A hand gripped a handful of his hair at the back of his neck, pulling his head up and back and the weight on his chest moved, faster than he would have thought possible.

There was a sudden, sharp pain just under his dog collar and he felt a hot wetness pour down inside his shirt followed by moist, sucking sounds just under his ear. After a little while he stopped struggling.

He prayed, but he got no answer.

~-o0O0o-~

The Jaguar pulled up outside Brian’s house, but he almost didn’t recognize the place.

The grass of his small patch of lawn glowed silver and emerald, and the conifers leading up the driveway shone in a blue gold aura that swayed and flowed in the night air. His privet hedge crawled and slithered as if alive and the whole front garden sang in a high soprano.