Alchemy, Book Two of the Mercian Trilogy

by K. J. Wignall

  Rachel said, “What about you, Will? When can we take you back?”

  “Please, don’t worry about me. I have some things to attend to here in the city. I’ll go back late tomorrow night, but I’ll take a taxi – one driver in particular is becoming quite used to me.”

  They laughed, and so did Eloise in a distracted way, and she looked surprised when Will stood.

  “In fact, I will need to go now.” He reached for Eloise’s hand, but she instinctively withdrew it. Then she caught herself and held him, her fingers warm, a warmth which had made him feel alive, but which now made him feel all the more dead and frozen. “I’ll be back too late to see you tomorrow, I suspect, but the next night?”

  “Of course.”

  He nodded and Chris said, “I’ll see you out.”

  As they walked down the stairs, Will said, “Try, if you can, to find out where Wyndham lives. He’s a mortal man, whatever his powers, so he must live somewhere.”

  “I’ll try, but he seems to be an expert at keeping under the radar.”

  “Perhaps if you check which buildings are owned by The Breakstorm Trust – he might use that as a way of concealing where he lives.”

  “I’ll do that. You’re sure you don’t want a lift tomorrow night? If it’s late, the café will be closed anyway.”

  “It might be even later than that, but I prefer to go alone when I can – I will no doubt call on you enough in the months ahead.”

  Chris nodded, and then as they reached the back door, he said, “Don’t take it personally. You know, Eloise being a bit awkward around you all of a sudden – she’s had a shock, that’s all.” Will smiled and Chris laughed as he said, “Of course, how stupid – I’m giving relationship advice to someone who’s seven hundred years older than me.”

  “Not stupid at all,” said Will. “Goodnight to you.”

  And he left and walked the streets for a little while before heading to the cathedral. It was cold again and the shelter was recruiting – he saw the same young woman who this time offered him a friendly wave, but didn’t speak. Perhaps it was less cold and there would be potential victims, but he did not want to feed; he wanted the hunger to consume him.

  There was destiny, and the centuries of leading up to this point, but Will couldn’t help but think that the best thing for Eloise would be if he took to the earth now and rose again after she’d died. Yes, her own destiny might be thwarted in the process, but she would lead a short, happy life and marry someone and have children, and remember these past weeks as if they’d been a dream.

  But he could not go back to the earth, it wasn’t within his power to choose, and so he would keep going until this had come to a conclusion of one kind or another. He would spend the rest of the night and the following day in his chambers.

  He’d go back to Marland as soon as it got dark. He’d told her otherwise only to excuse her the obligation of having to meet him that evening. Nor did he want to meet with Eloise. If he wanted to talk to anyone now, it was Marcus Jenkins.

  20

  He didn’t have the taxi drive him up to the new house but had him stop on the road nearby. It was just after five and Will preferred to be cautious, allowing for the possibility of some caretaker or other being there late into the afternoon.

  But the house was in darkness as he approached. He made his way to the side of the building, but as soon as he opened the door, he realised someone was inside. He could pick up the scent on the air and then, as he hesitated near the door, he heard a voice.

  He walked slowly through the rooms, and as he neared the large room that now served as the gift shop, Will spotted a torch beam and realised there was only one person, and that he was talking and laughing to himself as he went about his business.

  Will stood to the side of the door and looked into the room, ready to step back out of sight, and out of harm’s way, if the torch beam moved in his direction. It was a boy of sixteen or seventeen, dressed in dark clothes, including a dark woollen hat pulled down far enough that only a little of his hair was visible from behind.

  Will wondered how he’d got here, whether perhaps there was a bike left nearby, because he had to have come from one of the nearby villages, or from the outskirts of the city itself. A bike seemed most likely because as the boy looked through the items on display, he took only those small enough to fit into the bag he was carrying.

  He was robbing the place, that had been immediately apparent. The cash till had been opened, the tray thrown aside on to the floor, though Will knew no money was left in there during the closed season. Now he was helping himself to various cheap souvenirs, perhaps unaware that the house contained many more valuable items.

  The boy was mumbling to himself, laughing at some private joke. He reached a table laid out with various books for sale and tipped it over without looking at any of the volumes that fell to the floor in a small avalanche of pages. He moved to look at another display and the torch beam jumped towards the doorway. Will stood back against the wall, but his mind and body were racing against each other now, both heading towards the same conclusion.

  His body told him that this was someone young and healthy, his blood carrying enough life force to last for months, even in these heightened times. Will’s hunger intensified, the need feeling all the greater now that there was a potential way of feeding it.

  His thoughts tumbled over each other too because this was a perfect victim. Yes, he probably had a family and would be missed in that sense, but what were the chances that he would have told anyone he was coming here to commit a crime? And if he had told anyone, wasn’t it even less likely that they would reveal as much to the police?

  Will could feed on this boy. He would be just one more of those many young people to walk out on an unprivileged life, to disappear without trace. People might search for him, but it was unlikely they would search for him here.

  The boy headed to the door, but stopped as he got there and turned round to take one more look at the gift shop. Will took the opportunity to step out from the doorframe and stand behind him. The boy was looking at the wreckage, pleased with himself.

  He produced one last little laugh at that private joke of his and turned directly into the path of Will’s gaze. There was a moment of shock, of terror, as if he understood intuitively that this was about more than being discovered in the act of committing a crime, and then he was locked in and the torch dropped to the floor.

  Will took the boy’s gloved hands and lowered him until he was sitting on the floor, looking baffled, as if he couldn’t think why he’d decided to sit down, only that he had. Will knelt down beside him, pulled off the gloves, pushed up the sleeves on the boy’s top.

  The boy looked down, as mesmerised as a spectator by his own murder, as Will took his small knife and drew a neat incision up the inside of his forearm.

  Not a drop fell to the floor, Will locking his mouth on to the iron richness of the wound, greedily drinking in the warmth. The sense of nourishment was instant, the boy’s life flooding in through his blood, filling the void at the centre of Will’s own being.

  As he moved to the other arm, he looked up at the boy’s freckled face, his reddish-brown hair. He was still staring at his own arm in a state of mild confusion, slowly pulling his gaze away to look at Will. The boy’s soul was still there, Will was certain of it, a presence behind the eyes that seemed untouched by the slow death of the body it inhabited. Will believed it to be so, and had to believe it to make his own existence bearable.

  Once the boy was dead, Will pulled the sleeves down on his top to ensure no stray drops of blood fell when he moved the body. Then he took the boy’s bag into the gift shop, replaced the items, straightened up the mess he’d made here and there.

  Finally he toured the house. The only other thing he could see that was missing or moved was the sabre – he was certain he’d put it back, but in his starved and desperate state he’d perhaps left it in the tunnels or in the cellars. He searched for the
point of entry too. There were no broken windows or locks, and no bike outside that he could see, but he found a door that was open, which was better still – it meant there was nothing to suggest anyone else had been in the house.

  Once he was certain everything was secured, Will returned to the body. The brief sense of completion that came with feeding had already subsided, and now, as he looked at the boy’s wide-eyed stare, he felt only a mild feeling of regret – no life, thought Will, could be so worthless as to be ended like this.

  He picked up the torch and turned it off, putting it in the empty bag which he threw over his shoulder. He lifted the boy then, lighter than he’d expected, and carried him through to the library. He opened the first secret door, put the body on the floor and opened the wall to the steps.

  He carried the body through the labyrinth to a point as far distant as he could find from the house, and laid it there, conscious that it would probably mummify rather than decompose in the air down there. He walked away, but turned and looked at the boy once more.

  It was true he had been caught in an act of crime, something that throughout most of Will’s long existence would have resulted in him being hanged and thrown into a common grave. But Will still felt he deserved more dignity than this, his body left in the open in a hidden tunnel.

  The floor underneath was stone, and burying him in the parkland or woods above ran too much risk of the grave being found. Will went back to the house and down to the cellars, some of which were crammed with more materials than anyone would miss.

  Over the next couple of hours he collected and transported three wooden crates, knocking all but two of the ends out of them, using the leftover wood to nail them together. He took a dust sheet, wrapped the body inside it, then placed it in the makeshift coffin.

  Once that was done, he went to the large cellar that was used for storing unwanted furniture and ornaments. Each piece had a tag attached to it with a catalogue number, but Will doubted it was ever checked. On one of his previous wanderings he’d spotted a large crucifix for mounting on a wall and he took it back to the tunnels now, and placed it on top of the coffin.

  He stood before the boy and thought for a moment, unsure whether he should say anything. He had seen funerals take place, but had never afforded any of his previous victims this courtesy. Nor had he actually attended a funeral since his own childhood.

  In the end, Will offered one simple line of prayer, the only words he could think of that meant anything, that he hoped might one day be offered for him.

  “Grant unto him eternal peace.”

  Will bowed his head, left the labyrinth and headed across the park. He felt stronger now, more firmly fixed to the world, but his spirits fell when he realised how long he’d been at the house. The evening was almost at an end and the Dangrave House common room looked deserted at first sight.

  As Will reached his normal position he was able to see the only two people in that school who mattered to him in one way or another. Eloise was sitting on one of the sofas, reading a book. Nearby, Marcus Jenkins was playing chess, his opponent out of view beyond the frame of the window.

  Eloise looked as beautiful as he’d ever seen her. She was reading, but looked distracted, and every now and then she glanced towards the window. She didn’t look directly at him, just towards the window, in the general direction of where she knew Will usually stood.

  The only thing Will didn’t know was what she thought as she looked out, seeing only a reflection of the common room, but imagining the wintry park beyond. Was she hoping for his return, worrying about him, or was she looking with dread in her heart, wishing he would disappear from her life as suddenly as he had walked into it two months before?

  Whatever the answer, he doubted he would find out tonight. She closed the book and left the room, bidding goodnight to Marcus and the other boy. Will decided to wait for a while, but he knew somehow that she wouldn’t come out, and not just because he had lied and said he wouldn’t be back from the city until late.

  As he stood there, he glanced up at the darkened window high above, realising that for the first time in many days, no one was observing him from up there. He didn’t want to think of the obvious conclusion – he’d also told Chris that he wouldn’t be back until late in the night, so perhaps word had got back to Wyndham’s spies that they could take a night off from their duties.

  His attention was drawn downwards again by movement in the common room. Marcus’s opponent, his regular one, appeared as he prepared to leave. There seemed to be a brief discussion about putting the board away, but Marcus must have offered to do it because his friend left.

  Marcus took his time placing the pieces back into the box, then putting the box and the board on a set of shelves on the far side of the common room. It looked for a moment as if he might simply leave then, but he stood for a moment, turned and looked directly at Will.

  It unnerved Will no less than it had the first time he’d done it, and he took a step back before correcting himself. How Marcus always knew he was there was a mystery, but it was Marcus he’d come to see. Will walked forward until he was close enough to the window to be visible.

  Again Marcus immediately understood the significance of Will appearing like that and put a hand up, telling Will to wait for a moment. Marcus left the room and Will retreated back into the shadows. A few minutes later, Marcus came out of the side door and walked towards Will with surprising speed.

  Even before he’d reached Will, Marcus said, “What happened to Eloise?” His breath plumed out into the freezing air.

  “What do people think happened to her?”

  Marcus stopped a short distance from Will, momentarily deflected from his course by Will’s question.

  “No one thinks anything’s happened to her. But it has, I can tell, and she didn’t come out to see you tonight.”

  “She didn’t think I’d be here – I returned early unexpectedly.” He looked once more towards the room on the top floor, still unable to feel the watcher’s eyes on him, which was probably all the better for Marcus. “You’re right though. There are tunnels under the old abbey. We were searching them when Wyndham used his powers to move the walls around us. Eloise became trapped in a chamber, and before I could rescue her, Wyndham made her see things, horrific things.”

  Marcus didn’t seem to doubt any of the events that had happened, but said, “How do you know it was Wyndham?”

  “There are many factors pointing to him – I have no doubt about it.”

  Marcus nodded, thinking to himself, idly stroking his scar.

  “Is it because I told him about you looking in the maze?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I need to be more careful about the things I tell him. Because I meant what I said about not hurting her – I won’t.”

  “What about me?”

  Marcus laughed and said, “You? What do you think I could do that’d hurt you?” He shivered. He’d come out in just the clothes he was wearing indoors and the cold was starting to eat its way through him.

  “You should go inside,” said Will. “But I wanted to ask you, and I understand if your loyalty prevents you from answering, did you ever visit Wyndham’s house?”

  Marcus took a moment, then said, “No, I can tell you that. I did, but it was night-time and the car he took me in had blacked-out windows. He took me in the same car when he brought me here and that time the windows were just tinted, so it must be something he does.”

  “So you don’t know where the house is?”

  Marcus paused, thinking the question over before responding.

  “I don’t believe you’re everything he’s said about you, I don’t even know if I believe any of it, but it’s true what you said about loyalty. And like I said, he’s paying my way. You can’t expect me to …”

  “No, I don’t, and I quite understand. I hope only that you’ll change your mind at some point. For now I’ll bid you goodnight.”

  Marcus nodded again as
if acknowledging that Will had backed down on a point of principle. He walked away, but stopped after a few paces and said, “I’ll tell you one thing about him though. He grew up around here somewhere, but it wasn’t recent.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “When we came here the first time, he said to me he knew this house when he was young. I asked if he went to school here. He was kind of daydreaming, you know, and he said no, it hadn’t been a school then, but he’d known the family that lived here. Well, it’s been a school for over a hundred and fifty years.” Marcus gave a little laugh, taking some pleasure in being able to share his deductions with someone. “So either Mr Wyndham’s not all there in the head, or he’s got more in common with you than you realise.”

  He raised his hand in a wave, just as he’d done that night by the river, then turned and walked back into the school. Will watched him go, intrigued and confused by the things Marcus had told him. How could Wyndham be so old if he was a normal living human, and how could it be that he had known the Dangraves?

  Most of all, he wondered, if he and Wyndham had so much shared history in this city and its surrounds, was it possible that they had encountered each other before? Could that be the real key to Wyndham’s determination to destroy him?

  21

  My journey home took longer and was more troublesome than I would have liked, and it was early in the year 1800 when I finally reached the city. I took rooms in an inn on the first night, given that I arrived late and that the city was shrouded in fog.

  Beyond that, I had thought to return home, but as I lay in bed that first night, I came to think that I no longer had a home. Though I had grown up there, I had failed to grow old. I had become a stranger this last half-century, and not only because of my continued absence.

  The next afternoon, with the fog still hanging densely over a frozen landscape, I had my coachman take me the five miles or so to the home of my childhood. And when I reached the house and asked for Lord Bowcastle, I didn’t even know if I would be met by my brother or by his son, such had been the lack of communication between us in recent years.