The Secret City

by C. J. Daugherty

  Dropping her bag by the door, Louisa threw herself onto the first bed.

  ‘A real bed,’ she sighed. ‘I may never wake up again.’

  Once they’d cleaned their teeth and changed – Taylor into sleeping shorts and t-shirt, Louisa into an outfit nearly identical to the one she’d been wearing before – they turned off the lamp. But, tired as she was, Taylor couldn’t seem to rest.

  Shadows skittered outside the window. Deide’s words – Nowhere is safe – seemed to echo in her mind. Each time she closed her eyes, she saw Mortimer, destroying everything she loved. Monsters with scorched skin lumbering towards her. Bringers holding out their hands summoning pain.

  She sat up.

  In the next bed, Louisa was still – her breathing slow and even. The house was very quiet – she could hear a clock ticking somewhere, slow and methodical.

  I’ll just have a look, she told herself. Then I can sleep.

  Careful not to wake Louisa, she slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the window.

  Through the glass she could see the little courtyard out front. It was empty. Water still poured from the statue’s urn.

  Beyond the front wall, a single light illuminated a row of elegant town houses, and an empty street. Everything was quiet.

  Taylor let out a long breath.

  It was fine. There was nothing there.

  She was just turning back towards bed, when something moved in her peripheral vision.

  Hurriedly, she whipped around, pressing her face against the glass.

  She watched with growing horror as a shadow detached itself from the abbey wall and stepped closer.

  Still in darkness, it was hard to make it out. Then the moon moved out from behind a cloud and she thought she saw the long shadow of a walking cane.

  Gasping, Taylor recoiled.

  Swearing under her breath, she went back to the window and forced herself to peer outside again. Her heart thudded hard in her chest and she pressed her hand against it, as if it might escape.

  There was nobody there. Suddenly a hand gripped her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t scream,’ Louisa whispered. ‘Is it him?’

  Taylor couldn’t seem to speak. Her entire face felt frozen. She had to force the words out.

  ‘I thought I saw him. But now…’

  Moving past her, Louisa looked out the window. Taylor stared at her, barely breathing.

  ‘There’s nothing there. What did you see?’

  Taylor described the shadow. The way it moved.

  ‘I thought… it was him. His cane.’ She took a sobbing breath. ‘But then he wasn’t there anymore. He disappeared.’

  Louisa thought for a moment.

  ‘Come on.’ Grabbing Taylor’s hand, she dragged her from the room.

  They ran down the stairs, their bare feet silent on the wood floor.

  The ground floor was dark and quiet as they sped down the main corridor towards the front door.

  They skidded to a stop.

  Louisa pressed her hand against it, and the complex locks released with a series of loud clicks.

  The door swung open.

  The night was cool. The air smelled fresh, with a promise of rain. Nothing moved.

  They stood side by side in the courtyard, scanning the street for any sign of Mortimer. Taylor found nothing – just a faint hint of Dark power, like an oil sheen on water, that could have been her imagination.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Alastair appeared in the doorway behind them, barefoot in jeans and a St Wilfred’s t-shirt, his face blurry with sleep. ‘Are you running away?’

  ‘Taylor thought she saw Pierce,’ Louisa said.

  Instantly alert, he strode out to join them. ‘Where? Any sign of him?’

  ‘It’s like earlier.’ Louisa gave him a significant look. ‘Only faint traces.’

  His face darkened. ‘Dammit. How is he doing this? And what does it mean? Is he tracking us? Is it something new?’

  ‘I don’t know. But let’s get Taylor inside, just in case.’ Louisa took Taylor’s arm and hustled her towards the door. ‘Where’s Sacha?’

  ‘In our room, asleep,’ Alastair said.

  Even in the confusion, Taylor was relieved Sacha was fine. At least there was that.

  Inside, Louisa grabbed a pair of shoes at random from a pile in front of the door and began yanking them on. Taylor watched her worriedly.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To take a look. I need to make sure he’s really gone.’

  ‘I’m going with you,’ Alastair said.

  ‘I’ll come, too.’ Taylor reached for some shoes, but Louisa stopped her.

  ‘You can’t come, Taylor,’ she said firmly. ‘I know you want to, but we have to keep you safe. That’s the point of everything. Stay here.’

  Taylor bristled. It was her power that had defeated Bringers and zombies. Her strength that saved them, over and over again.

  But she didn’t want an argument right now. So she bit her tongue.

  Cautiously, with Alastair at her shoulder, Louisa opened the door. Taylor got a brief glimpse of the quiet street outside. Smelled the cool night air.

  And then they disappeared into the darkness.

  * * *

  They were gone for hours.

  Taylor waited for a while, moving to the living room as time ticked by, and eventually lying down on the sofa.

  It was so quiet.

  Despite the danger, exhaustion won out. At some point she must have fallen asleep because, when she opened her eyes, light was streaming through the windows and she could hear voices talking quietly.

  Instantly wide awake, she leaped to her feet and followed the sounds to the kitchen.

  Sacha, Alastair and Deide were sitting on tall stools around the kitchen island, clutching mugs of coffee. The only person missing was Louisa. The butcher block table top bore the remnants of a breakfast of bread, cheese and fruit.

  ‘There she is,’ Deide said, as she walked through the door. He wore a crisply ironed white shirt and jeans and looked relaxed. As if last night hadn’t happened at all.

  ‘Why didn’t anyone wake me?’ Taylor asked accusingly. ‘What happened? Is everything OK? Where’s Louisa?’

  ‘Outside.’ Alastair yawned, rubbing his eyes. ‘Standing guard.’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ Deide said. ‘No sign of Pierce.’

  ‘I can’t believe I missed all the excitement.’ Sacha’s expression was gloomy. ‘You let me sleep through it all.’

  ‘There was nothing to see,’ Alastair said, swallowing his coffee.

  ‘We’re leaving as soon as Louisa gets back,’ Deide told Taylor, handing her a large cup of cafe au lait.

  Sacha slid a baguette and knife towards her. ‘We saved you some food.’

  His dark hair was rumpled. He wore a clean black t-shirt and jeans without a belt. Seeing him made her feel a little better. A little safer.

  Pulling out an empty stool, Taylor sat down next to him and forced herself to take a bite of bread, but she couldn’t taste it. She didn’t have an appetite.

  ‘If he wasn’t there, what did I see?’ she asked. ‘Did I dream it?’

  Deide took a seat across from her. ‘We don’t know for sure. We suspect he tracked Alastair and Louisa somehow. It’s possible that your enhanced abilities just allowed you to process it all differently. They sensed Darkness, you saw shadows.’ He shrugged. ‘All we can hope is that our defences worked, and he couldn’t detect your presence in the house.’

  ‘What if he follows us today?’ Sacha asked. ‘If he followed us before, won’t we lead him right to the next safe house?’

  ‘Lou and I searched this town from one end to another,’ Alastair said. ‘If Mortimer’s here he’s completely invisible.’

  Deide put down his cup. ‘We must take different routes again. We’ll all leave at the same time, making it impossible to follow all of us.’

  ‘What should we do if we sense him?’ Taylor asked.

/>   ‘If you sense you’re being followed, don’t go to the safe house,’ Deide said. ‘That goes for all of you. Stop somewhere and call us. We’ll figure out a way to get you back.’

  ‘We can’t lead him right to us a second time,’ Alastair agreed.

  The front door opened with a bang, and they all jumped.

  Louisa’s biker boots clumped on the wood floor as she stormed down the hallway. She wore a dark hoody with black trousers, her eyes were puffy from lack of sleep.

  ‘It’s raining,’ was all she said.

  Deide looked at her. ‘All clear?’

  ‘Completely empty,’ she said. ‘No sign of him. We should go now before the miserable bastard wakes up and starts stalking us again.’

  Turning back to the table, Deide looked at his watch.

  ‘Allons-y. It’s nearly six o’clock,’ he said. ‘We should be out of this house in the next fifteen minutes. I suggest you pack quickly.

  ‘It’s time to go to Carcassonne.’

  Twenty-Seven

  Sacha and Taylor kept to the back roads as they headed south.

  It rained all morning, making the journey treacherous and forcing Sacha to keep his speed down. They crawled through sleepy villages, and wide, empty pastures.

  After the disturbed night, Taylor felt vulnerable and exposed. She had the constant sense of being watched but, whenever she turned around, no one was there. Not once did she sense Mortimer.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t there.

  As planned, they’d all left the house at the same time. Louisa had given Taylor a quick, fierce hug before climbing into the van.

  ‘Be safe,’ she’d said. ‘No chances.’

  ‘You guys, too,’ Taylor replied fervently.

  Deide had climbed into a surprisingly smart black sports car – nothing too flashy, but snazzier than you’d expect for an English teacher.

  ‘I’ll see you in Carcassonne,’ he’d said, pulling on a pair of sleek sunglasses.

  Sacha and Taylor had followed the others as far as the main intersection in the town, at which point they’d sped off in three separate directions.

  Since then, there had been no communication from the others at all. Taylor could only hope they were all safe.

  After the beauty of the French countryside, the unsubtle indicators of a busy tourist town were jarring as they neared Carcassonne. The roads teemed with tour buses and rental cars. The lush, green landscape was littered with billboards advertising cheap hotels, fast food, youth hostels.

  The directions called for them to turn off the main road before they reached the town, and soon they found themselves back on a quiet country road. All around them gently rolling hills were covered in vineyards. Dark green grapevines heavy with fruit stretched as far as they could see in all directions.

  They were on a peaceful stretch of road, when Sacha stopped the bike and drew the directions from his pocket.

  Lifting his helmet off, he scanned the landscape.

  ‘This must be the right place,’ he said. ‘But it says to turn left at a windmill. Do you see a windmill?’

  The sun was dipping low in the sky, which was turning from blue to vivid magenta. A chilly wind blew off the long, low hills. Taylor could see nothing but vines.

  ‘No sign of it,’ she said.

  Sacha rubbed his hand across his jaw. ‘Maybe we took a wrong turn a few miles back.’

  The thought was daunting. It would be dark soon. After that it would be even harder to find what they were looking for. There were no street lights out here. Few houses. No landmarks at all.

  ‘Let’s go on a bit further,’ she suggested. ‘Just to the next village. If we haven’t found it by then, we’ll turn back and try again.’

  They continued on, searching for any sign of the elusive windmill. The sunset was flaming red on the horizon when Taylor thought she saw it.

  She tapped his shoulder and pointed.

  Far off the main road, down a rutted lane, a squat, ancient wooden windmill sat still and silent. It didn’t look anything like the windmills she’d seen in England. It was so tiny and decrepit, it was hard to believe this was really what they sought.

  Sacha stopped the bike.

  Their instructions were to follow the lane past the windmill to the safe house, but right now they couldn’t see anything behind the old structure except trees.

  ‘This must be it.’ There was doubt in his voice. ‘I guess we should check it out.’

  He turned down the rocky drive.

  The old lane was so uneven, they slowed to a crawl. The low sun sent long shadows stretching out towards them like claws.

  It wasn’t until they passed the windmill that they finally saw the house, so overgrown it seemed to peer out from a thicket of trees.

  Chateau D’Orbay was an imposing three-storey building with two long wings. It had once been a distinguished grey but its walls were so pitted and covered in dark green ivy, the colour was hard to identify.

  Still on the bike, the two stared up at the towering front doors. A sun and moon had been carved into the stone on either side of the door. A triangle within a circle was carved at the very top.

  There was no question this was the place. Taylor sensed a strange energy coming from the structure – it seemed to… hum.

  ‘It looks empty,’ Sacha said.

  ‘It’s not empty,’ she told him. ‘I think it’s… alive.’

  Before he had the chance to ask what she meant by that, the front door swung open and Louisa glared down at them, her hair aquamarine in the last of the sun’s rays.

  ‘Are you just going to sit there all day? Or are you coming in?’

  * * *

  They stowed the motorcycle next to Alastair’s van in a rickety outbuilding at the side of the chateau before following Louisa back around to the front.

  The heavy main door swung open at the touch of her hand. Inside, it was dark as night, and smelled strongly of dust and mildew. It took Taylor’s eyes a moment to adjust. What she saw, took her breath away.

  The rooms were huge and filled with furniture that must once have been exquisite, but which now was falling to pieces. Priceless silk wallpaper was slowly rotting on the walls. The intricate plasterwork on the high ceilings was still beautiful, but was crumbling away to dust in places. The wood around the massive, floor-to-ceiling windows was water damaged and stained.

  Ruined beauty filled every corner. Statues of shapely Greek nudes peered out from the gloaming, shoulders white and slim, blank eyes staring at nothing.

  In the front lounge, a chandelier hung high overhead, its crystal brilliance muted by grey dust and a delicate netting of spider webs.

  Through it all Taylor could feel the strange, underlying vibration she’d sensed from outside. It reminded her of being on an airplane – an odd sense of large engines working, unseen.

  She and Sacha hung back, trying to take it all in, but Louisa walked briskly, as if nothing around them was at all unusual.

  ‘This way,’ she said, heading down a long shadowy hallway past a sweeping spiral staircase.

  ‘This is the safest place we know of in this entire region,’ she explained. ‘There is no place as hidden as this. It may not look like much but, trust me, the locks are incredible.’

  She turned off through a pair of wide double doors.

  ‘What the hell?’ Sacha murmured as they stepped through behind her.

  Taylor couldn’t blame him. It was like they’d stepped into a different house.

  Here, the surfaces were clean and the floors polished. Huge windows gleamed. Ancient but serviceable chairs with fussy carved legs were clustered in groups. Candles in tall candelabra glimmered in every corner. Oil lanterns glowed on tables.

  The scale of it was so overwhelming, Taylor almost didn’t notice Alastair, stretched out on a sagging chaise longue in the far corner of the huge parlour. He was snoring softly, one arm flung over his eyes.

  ‘We can only have candles back here,
’ Louisa explained, picking up an old-fashioned oil lantern. Its flame flickered, casting her face in moving shadows. ‘The front stays dark. There’s no electricity but there’s water. Drop your bags here. Cup of tea?’

  Without waiting for their answer, she headed towards a door at the end of the room. Exchanging a look of mute astonishment, Sacha and Taylor hurried after her.

  ‘This place is massive,’ Louisa said over her shoulder. ‘Avoid the cellars. Those belong to the rats. But the rest is OK, as long as it doesn’t rain. Oh, and the stairs are dodgy.’

  ‘Where’s Deide?’ Sacha asked.

  Louisa pushed open the door into the kitchen. ‘In town.’

  ‘In Carcassonne?’ Taylor asked, surprised. ‘By himself?’

  ‘Looking for Mortimer.’ She paused, frowning. ‘I take it you didn’t see any sign of him today?’

  Taylor shook her head.

  ‘No one did.’ This fact didn’t seem to please her.

  The daylight had faded now, and the kitchen was dim – lighted only by Louisa’s lantern – but Taylor could see it was a large, square room, with a sturdy oak table on one side. The other end of the room was dominated by an ancient cast-iron, wood-fired stove. An old-fashioned black kettle sat on top of it. The air smelled faintly of burning wood.

  Setting the lantern down on the well-scrubbed counter, Louisa opened a cupboard and pulled out three delicate porcelain cups and tea bags.

  ‘It’s a bit dodgy using the stove,’ she confessed, using a towel to pick up the kettle. ‘Someone might notice the smoke. But we’re English. We can’t function without tea.’

  After filling the cups, she rifled through a plastic cooler on the floor – it seemed jarringly modern in this setting – for milk.

  ‘This place is incredible,’ Sacha said when she handed him his cup. ‘What is the story?’

  ‘Yeah, I keep sensing this weird energy from it,’ Taylor said. ‘Like it’s buzzing or something.’

  Louisa tilted her head at the door. ‘Let’s talk in there where the lights are. We won’t disturb Alastair. He could sleep through a Category 4 hurricane.’

  Back in the parlour, she directed them to a quiet corner. They all perched on the spindly chairs, balancing fragile cups on their knees.