As Orabis spluttered and choked to a halt, Kingsley’s expression changed from rapt awe to anger. ‘What have you done?’ He hauled George to his feet and slammed him back against the massive boiler of one of the larger pumps.
‘Nothing,’ George gasped. ‘Well, nothing much. I just rerouted some of the pipes, changed the direction of flow.’ He did his best to shrug while being held tight against the hot boiler.
There was a clamour from overhead. A dark shape appeared high above George – someone climbing rapidly down the ropes from the opening in the roof. The coughing and choking was getting more emphatic and desperate, but it was barely audible now over the noise of the steam engine at the end of the hall as it shuddered and hissed frantically.
Kingsley’s grip slackened slightly as he too looked up. George braced himself, ready for any opportunity.
‘I swapped over the tubes,’ he told Kingsley.
Kingsley looked round confused, checking the state of the various systems. ‘But the pump is working. The flow is open and the pipes are full.’
‘Yes,’ George admitted. ‘But it isn’t blood that’s being pumped round your precious Lord’s body any more. It’s water from the drains.’
As soon as he said it, as soon as Kingsley registered with horror what had been done, George tore himself from the vampire’s grip. He turned to run.
Only to find Sir Harrison Judd was standing at the bottom of the ropes that looped up over the pulleys into the chamber above. Blocking George’s escape.
His body heaved and bucked as the Lord of the Undead coughed and spat. He was dripping with oily water. It seeped from the points where the pipes and tubes attached to his body, glistening like perspiration as his body continued to pulse and swell. With a frantic effort, Orabis pulled at the gold ankh hanging round his neck. The chain broke and he reached out, the ankh dangling from his trembling hand.
‘The heart!’ the Coachman roared, having ordered Sir Harrison Judd into the catacombs below to discover what was wrong. ‘He must have his heart.’ He waved back the vampires that were pressing forward to help. ‘No – the heart must be given in accordance with the ceremony.’ His skull face turned towards Sir William and Liz. ‘By his bride!’
‘Your cue,’ Sir William murmured.
Desperately trying to remain in character as a vampire, Liz stepped solemnly back up on to the dais. The Coachman took the gold ankh on its broken chain from the trembling hand of Orabis and gave it to Liz. ‘They thought they could taunt our Lord by burying him with the key of life. Believing he could never use it.’ A shuddering laugh escaped from his bloodless lips. Then he lifted the canopic jar and held it out like an offering.
‘Unlock the jar. Remove the lid. Take the heart. Place it in his chest and it will take root. It will strengthen and heal him. All will be well.’
The ankh was a key, Liz realised. The way the Coachman had handed it to her made that obvious. The empty eyes of his skull-like face were deep and dark, boring into Liz, eating into her as she slotted the end of the ankh into the lock and turned.
The retaining catch sprang open, and Liz lifted the carved scorpion from the top of the jar. She could hear Big Ben starting to chime midnight as she peered into the dark interior of the jar. Deep inside, something was moving, beating … alive.
The Coachman lowered the jar slightly so that Liz could reach inside. As he did so, the light spilled in, illuminating the inside of the jar. Liz gasped in astonishment.
‘I cannot give him his heart,’ she said in a trembling voice.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it isn’t there.’
The ceramic interior was stained red. Lumps of grey meat spattered the inside. And the bat that Eddie had slipped into the jar beat its leathery wings in time to the chimes of midnight and sucked the last drops of blood from the remains of the heart of Orabis.
Some light filtered into the ventilation shafts from vents and grilles and narrow openings. In five of the many shafts that drew the hot air from the Palace of Westminster to allow cooler fresher air to be sucked in, a child paused as Big Ben struck midnight.
The warm air was drawn past Eddie in a breeze that ruffled his hair. The basket in front of him was trembling and juddering.
Eve fumbled with the catch on her basket. She had to hold the lid down to undo it, feeling it shaking and rattling under her palm.
Finally Mikey got his undone. He took a deep breath of humid air and closed his eyes.
Whoever this Eddie was, Alex thought, he was certainly more than a pickpocket. He let go of the lid of his basket.
The lid whipped open, and Jack clasped his hands over the back of his head as a black cloud enveloped him. The black shapes were drawn along the shaft by the breeze.
Through half-closed eyes, Eddie watched in fascination as the bats thundered through the near-darkness. The transformation was incredible. In the house on Mortill Street they had been dormant and still, hanging immobile from the rafters. Collecting them and putting them into the wicker baskets had been easy. Now they were swarming aggressively through the shafts – awake, and scenting blood.
Without the constant chanting Kingsley could hear the protesting hiss and clank of the huge engine at the back of the hall and hurried to investigate, leaving Sir Harrison Judd to deal with George.
George backed slowly away, trying to circle round and get past the furious vampire. But other figures were appearing from the tunnel outside now, watching George hungrily from the doorway.
‘You will die for this,’ Harrison Judd hissed. ‘We shall drain the blood from you slowly, drop by drop.’
The vampires in the doorway were pressing inwards, advancing on George. Something struck his shoulder as he backed away, and he whirled round, ready to fight for his life.
But it was the swinging end of the rope that Harrison Judd had climbed down. George was directly under the hole in the roof. He could see the throne of the Lord of the Undead. Water was splashing down like rain, and George wanted to laugh. It had worked. His legs knocked into a huge, heavy, hessian bag of earth – the counterweight at the end of another rope that had hoisted Orabis up into the chamber above. He stumbled and almost fell, grabbing at the rope.
The vampires closed in.
The sound of the tortured engine at the other end of the hall reached a crescendo. George had stoked the fire, and closed off all the valves, even the safety valve. The water would be boiling furiously inside the metal drum, the steam unable to escape, the pressure building and building, until –
The boiler exploded. Huge chunks of twisted metal were hurled across the Hall of Machines. A plate torn from the side of the boiler sliced through Christopher Kingsley as he was caught in the blast. At once the whole place was full of steam, rolling like fog between the engines and pumps and swallowing the light.
But that wasn’t why George had sabotaged the engine. The far side of the boiler was almost touching the back wall. As it exploded it ripped into the ancient brickwork and tore apart the wall, gouging a hole deep into the area beyond.
A trickle of murky water splashed through. Becoming a small stream that washed the hole ever bigger as the pressure of the water behind bore down on it.
Then the river Thames erupted through the broken wall into the catacombs.
A massive wave crashed down on the engines, smashing them from their fixings and hurling them across the hall. The vampires advancing on George turned in shock and fear. One went flying as the water swept him off his feet. Then another.
Sir Harrison Judd’s clawed hands grabbed George and slammed him back against the wall. ‘You’ll die for this!’
‘Very probably,’ George admitted. ‘But you’ll drown before I do.’
They struggled to stay on their feet as the water reached their waists. Harrison Judd’s face was a mask of terror. ‘But I can’t die!’ he protested.
The water surged onwards. The lifeless body of a vampire woman floated past and was carried out into th
e tunnels beyond. The grip on George was slackening. He could hear the crash of the water from the other side of the wall as well now. Shrieks and screams.
‘You’ll drown,’ George told Harrison Judd. ‘You’ll all drown!’ The water was up to his neck.
Harrison Judd was spluttering and coughing, struggling to keep his head above the water. ‘You’ll drown with us,’ he roared. Then the water rolled over his head.
George ducked down. The world was in darkness. Sound was muted and distant. He fumbled round in the black water until he found what he was searching for. A bag of earth attached to a rope. His cold, numb fingers struggled with the knot.
He managed at last to get it undone. He couldn’t hold his breath any longer. Bubbles rose in front of his face. A hand grabbed his neck.
The Lord of the Undead was trying to stand up. He ripped out tubes and pipes. Water spurted from the holes they left. He was retching, great gasps of murky river water spattering the dais.
But the assembled vampires hardly noticed. A dark cloud was rising from the narrow vents close to the floor. Another was falling from the vents under the ceiling. The air was thick with the leathery shapes of the wolf bats. The beating of their wings was like applause as they rose and descended on their prey.
Shouts, cries, screams. A sudden crush of panic as they all tried to get out of the chamber of the House of Lords. But it was the same throughout the Palace of Westminster. In the Commons too, vampires fought towards the exits, disappearing under the black cloud.
In the Central Lobby, a woman in a faded dress tore at the creatures lodged in her hair until the last blood was drained from her undead body and she slumped to the floor, beside so many others.
Sir William stood unflinching before the dais. He saw Mrs Brinson tearing at the dark shapes that clawed and tore at her. A single bat lodged on the unconscious Gladstone’s neck, drawing out the infected blood. Anthony Barford lunged at Sir William, his face contorted with rage. But before he got close, his whole body was covered with bats. Several slammed into his face, their wings tangling with his hair and his beard. Flailing and shouting, he collapsed to the floor, smothered by a black wave.
Just Sir William and Liz stood unscathed.
And the near-bloodless Coachman. He swatted away the few bats that came at him. He clawed at the bats now descending on the swollen form of Orabis, ripping them off his Lord and hurling them away. But as quickly as he pulled them away more appeared. Until the whole of the Lord of the Undead disappeared under a pulsating blanket of darkness.
With a muffled scream of agony, fear, and defiance, Orabis, Lord of the Undead exploded. His whole swollen body burst open from the pressure of the water still pumping into it. Wolf bats went flying off in all directions. Thames water sloshed across the dais, murky dark and mixed with blood. The throne disappeared through the floor of the House of Lords as it fell back into the Hall of Machines below.
Standing beside the hole in the floor, the Coachman lashed out and grabbed Liz’s arm. He dragged her towards him.
Sir William tried to get to them, but the way was blocked by the writhing, dying bodies of the vampires and the air was thick with the bats as they sought fresh blood. He forced his way through, eyes fixed on Liz as the Coachman drew her to him.
‘You may have defeated us,’ the Coachman rasped as he held the struggling woman tight. ‘You may have made fools of my colleagues and destroyed my Lord, but now – before I die – in my sister’s memory and to avenge her, I shall feed again at last.’
Sir William was still ten feet away as the Coachman’s teeth descended on Liz’s neck.
With the rope untied and free of the heavy bag of earth, the weight distribution changed. George had been hoping he was lighter than the large bag. But the hand on his neck was holding him down. He kicked at the floor, pushing himself upwards.
George broke the surface of the water. It was over ten feet deep now. Sir Harrison Judd’s face was close to his, coughing and gulping air.
‘We drown together,’ Judd gasped.
‘I don’t think so,’ George managed to say. The vampire had been weakened by his time in the water. George looped his arm round the rope, gripping it tight, as he prised Judd’s fingers from his neck.
As he loosened the last finger, he felt the rope pulling. The weight holding George back – the weight of Sir Harrison Judd – fell back into the water with a cry. The counterbalanced weight of the throne high above was now far heavier than the weight of George on the rope. The throne fell.
And George was hauled up and out of the surging water towards the square of light far above.
As he neared the top, speed increasing, the throne crashed into the rising water below, smashing apart. Wooden struts from the arms and back bobbed and floated on the surface.
George caught a brief confused view of the adjacent chamber as he neared the roof and saw over the high dividing wall. The water in there was rising too, seething and churning. A hand clutched at the air before sinking. Pale bodies floated face down. The sound of the Thames rushing through the catacombs was an almighty roar as George raced upwards.
Liz felt the cold prick of the teeth on her skin. She had managed to pull one arm free and thumped and slapped at the Coachman. But with no effect.
Then someone grabbed her arm.
With a gasp of astonishment she saw George rising rapidly from the centre of the dais where the throne had been. He caught hold of her, and she was pulled suddenly, painfully up and out of the Coachman’s grip as George continued to rise towards the roof of the House of Lords.
‘George! Oh thank God.’
George was staring at her nervously as they rose rapidly into the air. ‘Liz – are you …?’
She shook her head. ‘Just an act. Make-up and jam.’
‘Jam?’
Bats flew out of their way. Liz clung on tight, grateful for George’s strong arm round her as they stared down at the carnage so far below. Dark bats and pale bodies and red blood. The Coachman was looking up at them. He reached for the rope.
‘He’s coming up after us,’ Liz realised in horror.
Before his skeletal hand caught the rope, it was knocked aside. Sir William had hurled himself across the dais, catching the Coachman in the chest. Sir William sank exhausted to the wet floor.
The Coachman staggered back, right to the edge of the hole in the floor. He teetered for a moment on the brink, arms flailing as he tried to regain his balance. Then he fell backwards into the churning waters below.
Even from high above, Liz could hear the sickening crunch as he landed on a strut of wood from the shattered throne. The Coachman stared down at the wooden stave emerging from his chest. Then the waters closed over him and he disappeared for ever.
Gasping for air and feeling exhausted, Eddie hauled himself out of the vent. He flopped down on the floor, breathing heavily, and wiped his face on his sleeve. After giving himself a few moments to recover, he went to find the others.
Pretty soon, all five of them were hurrying up to the floor above.
‘It’s very quiet,’ Mikey said.
‘You can talk,’ Eddie told him. Then he laughed. ‘You can talk.’
‘He’s right though,’ Eve said.
‘I wonder where all those bats went.’ Jack was hurrying to keep up on the stairs.
‘What is it with the bats anyway?’ Alex wanted to know.
They found the first body at the top of the stairs – a man lying crumpled, his legs bent under him. His face was a withered dry husk that had collapsed in on itself. Beyond him, Eddie could see many, many more.
‘Did we do this?’ Jack asked, awestruck.
There was a breeze through the Palace of Westminster. Maybe the children had been blocking the ventilation as they crawled through, or perhaps it was something more elemental, but the breeze whipped at the clothes of the desiccated husks lying along the corridors and in the debating chambers of the Commons and the Lords.
‘Look at
that,’ Eddie breathed as the dry features of the fallen man fell away, crumbling to dust.
The wind stirred the dust, drew it up into the air and out through the vents and grilles. Until all that was left were empty funeral suits and mourning dresses, the clothing of the dead.
Sir William looked round the House of Lords. The breeze was gone as quickly and inexplicably as it had arrived. Its last gasps rippled the empty clothes.
Gladstone was sitting ashen-faced on one of the cross-benches, his ministers silent and confused close by.
‘You had a lucky escape,’ Sir William told the Prime Minister. ‘We all did. The wolf bats drew out the infected blood. You still had enough of your own to survive. You’ll probably feel a little weak for a while. Shocked too.’
‘I shall remain shocked, sir, for the rest of my life.’ Gladstone looked round warily. ‘And the bats? What happened to them?’
‘Flew up into the rafters. They’ll sleep now until they scent more food.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I would suggest you leave them there. Don’t disturb their sleep.’
He peered up at the high, vaulted roof of the chamber, trying to make out the dark shapes of the bats. But the sound of a voice drew his attention.
‘I say!’ George called down from where he and Liz were suspended high above the chamber. ‘The other end must still be attached to something heavy. Can you possibly give us a hand to get down from here?’
Eddie and the workhouse children lined up with Liz, George and Sir William. The Prime Minister had despatched his key ministers to get the police and assess the damage done by the events of the night. Then he insisted on hearing the whole story.
‘We must keep these events to ourselves,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘I’m sure there will be some form of recognition, although I must thank the Good Lord that Her Majesty was not here tonight. And I do mean the Good Lord.’
The Parliament of Blood Page 26
