Alchemy, Book Two of the Mercian Trilogy

by K. J. Wignall

  Wyndham’s apparition sounded confident as it said, “It would be a mistake to follow Edgar’s advice. For one thing …”

  Will turned and threw his sword at a small box fitted to the wall above the door where they’d entered. It sparked and fused and the apparition disappeared.

  He turned to Eloise and said, “We’ll do as Edgar said.”

  She nodded. “We can’t leave Marcus in here though – I can’t bear the thought of him being burned as well.”

  “I’ll carry him outside.”

  “I’ll find something to light the fires.”

  “You’re sure you feel well enough?”

  She nodded, though he could tell from her movements that she was still tender. He could tell too that she needed to be doing something, that the psychological wounds of this night would take longer to heal than the physical.

  He picked up Marcus’s body and carried him out, up the stairs and through the main hall. He carried him outside, a little distance from the house, on what he thought might be the drive, and laid him down in the snow. It was still falling heavily and Will feared it would cover the body before it was found.

  He stood for a moment, but was distracted by a sound he recognised. He looked to his left and the three guard dogs were trotting towards them through the snow. There was no attack in them and when they came close, they edged round Will, still nervous of him. Then they lay in the snow, one near Marcus’s head, the others at either arm, facing outwards as if guarding the body.

  Will took a step back, but the dogs did not stir, and he looked at the odd cruciform shape they made with Marcus’s body at the centre. And he could not help but think again of the skull in the ossuary at Marland. For here in front of him, though his life had denied it till the very end, was a true warrior.

  When Will got back to the house, he called for a taxi and, despite the earlier driver’s doubts about the weather, it was agreed instantly. He was about to head back down the cellar steps when Eloise called out, “Will, I’m in here.”

  He walked through into a drawing room where she had made a small bonfire of possessions, various small pieces of furniture stacked round a curtain she’d pulled from the windows. She was pouring liquid from a bottle on to the pyre.

  “Formaldehyde. There’s another bottle on the table there, and two more at the top of the cellar steps. I think enough got spilt in the cellar already without us worrying about that.”

  Will nodded and carried one of the bottles into the next room, a library and study. As much as it pained him to destroy books, he doused the shelves with the liquid, then carried the second bottle through to the dining room on the other side of the hall as Eloise walked off to find the kitchen.

  He could hear her busily doing something, opening drawers, smashing glass, as he soaked the furnishings and the curtains, and could still hear her as he took the remaining two bottles and smashed them in the upstairs rooms.

  When he came back down, she was in the hall with three wine bottles, each with a piece of ripped cloth stuffed into the neck. She held a box of matches.

  “One for the cellar, one for the library, one for the bonfire in the drawing room.” She looked momentarily lost, but said, “The rest should take care of itself.”

  “I’ll take the one for the cellar.”

  She shook her head. “I know you’re not good with fire. I’ll do them all.”

  Will didn’t argue, but followed her down to the cellar. She lit the cloth in the end of the bottle and said, “Get ready to slam the door as soon as I throw this.”

  He nodded and she threw the bottle. Will slammed the door shut as the cellar went up in a percussive thud of flames. They ran up the stairs then and lit the two others, but this time Will insisted on taking one, much as the flames troubled him.

  He threw it into the library and retreated, and as they reached the hall again, Eloise threw the last one at the makeshift bonfire in the drawing room. The pile of furniture was immediately swept with flames, shooting up towards the ceiling, licking at the walls. They watched for a moment then left.

  Eloise stopped a little way from the house to look at Marcus, his features already lost beneath a thin white crust of snow, but his position marked by the dogs, which refused to move. They looked at Will as he passed, but were quite passive now.

  And as Will and Eloise walked down the drive, Will thought of that bonfire she’d built in the drawing room and how, as it burned, it had reminded him of the pyre on which those women had been killed so long ago. Where were the witches now, he wondered. Why did they not come to advise and give comfort as they had done after Asmund’s death?

  But no spirits came and the two of them walked alone through the falling snow. When they reached the road, Will closed the gates again and tied the broken chain tight around them to slow the progress of any fire engine that came. The house was already glowing bright with flames in several of the windows.

  They waited in silence for a while, and Eloise reached out and put her hand in his. Only as the taxi pulled in did Will say, “You should go to a hospital.”

  “I’m fine, really.”

  “Someone should look at you.”

  She looked at him and said, “OK, but not the hospital,” and he understood who she meant.

  The taxi driver lowered his window and said, “Blimey, is that place on fire?”

  Will leaned in to give him his instructions.

  30

  Given the late hour, they went to the back door and knocked. They waited only a few seconds before Rachel appeared, her face becoming immediately wracked with concern and fear as she opened the door.

  “Oh my God! What’s happened?”

  “I took a bit of a knock, that’s all. Will wanted me to go to the hospital, but I’m fine, really I am.”

  “Come in, quickly.” She ushered them in and brushed the snow off Eloise’s coat, then turned without thinking and did the same for Will. “Where are you hurt?”

  “Just my head, and my ribs maybe.”

  “OK, come upstairs, but I’m warning you, if it’s beyond my first-aid skills, I’m calling a doctor.” They headed out of the kitchen as Rachel said, “Make yourself comfortable, Will.”

  He walked through into the room with the sofas and bookshelves and sat down. He was there for some minutes before Chris emerged from his office, as if he’d only just become aware that they had visitors.

  “Hello, Will! What brings this …”

  “Eloise is hurt. Rachel’s taking a look at her.”

  “Not seriously?”

  Will shrugged and said, “We went to Wyndham’s house.” Chris appeared to be struggling to find the right response so Will continued, “He was keeping vampires imprisoned in his basement, some of them among those who were meant to help me, but they’d become so deranged with his tortures, it was pointless.”

  “So what happened to them?” He sat on the sofa opposite Will.

  “All killed, as was a new friend of ours, and very nearly Eloise.” He looked Chris in the eyes as he said, “Is it still so hard to believe this is the Wyndham you know?”

  “Actually, yeah, it is, but … I guess Wyndham wasn’t there.” Will shook his head. “So you wasted your time.”

  “Oh, it was no victory for me, but it was most certainly a defeat for Wyndham. We destroyed the vampires he’d captured and Wyndham’s house will by now have been razed to the ground.”

  As he said the words, Will saw the irony in them. They had wiped out a nest of vampires and destroyed it in flames – could Wyndham not see that his hateful pursuit had turned things upside down, to the extent that their roles were now reversed?

  He heard Rachel and Eloise making their way back down as Chris said, “Then at least you struck a blow against him, even if it was at a heavy cost.” His thoughts appeared to be racing, his eyes jumping about, and he added, “A shame though, that you didn’t find out anything from the vampires before you killed them, but if they were deranged like you say �
�”

  Will said, “The frustration is no less than it was with Asmund, that none of these creatures seem capable of telling me what I must know, but I’ve come to understand that we are told things even when we think we are not.” Chris offered a weak smile, confused. “I learned a great deal this evening.”

  Rachel and Eloise came into the room and Rachel said, “She’s made of tough stuff, this one – I don’t think there’s any lasting damage.” She looked sternly at Eloise though, and said, “But remember, if you have any of the symptoms I mentioned, it’s straight to the hospital.”

  Eloise nodded and said, “Thanks, for everything,” and gave Rachel a hug.

  As she pulled away again, Rachel said, “I’ll make you some tea, or do you want to get back to school?”

  Eloise threw a glance at Will who understood immediately and said, “I think Eloise could use some tea, but we won’t be going back to the school. We’ll be staying in the city for a few days.”

  They remained only half an hour longer, the conversation trailing over the same ground already covered by Will and Chris. Rachel’s questions and concerns prevented Chris asking anything further.

  And when they left, the city streets were deep with snow, though it had finally stopped falling. They walked to the church through the hollow air, immune to the beauty of it, lost in silence and in thoughts they both shared.

  When they entered at the side door, Eloise said, “Do you mind if I have a moment?” She looked towards the altar.

  “Not at all.”

  He walked along the nave with her, but she turned off into the Lady Chapel where she knelt, head bowed in her own private prayer. Will stayed some distance away. He thought he heard her weeping quietly at one point, but when she arose, her eyes were dry and she looked stronger.

  They descended to the crypt and from there to his chambers, and once he’d lit the candles, they lay together on the daybed. She held on to him and leaned her head against his chest. Will put his arm round her shoulder in return and idly stroked her hair. For all that had happened this evening, these recent days, to be with her and hold her was enough to give him some peace.

  They lay like that for a long time, until finally Eloise spoke, her voice hushed as she said, “What did you learn?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Earlier, you told Chris you’d learned a lot tonight.”

  “Less than I would have liked, and though we have dealt Wyndham some sort of blow, I fear there’s so much more he can do. I said that in part because I have little doubt that Chris will tell Wyndham.”

  Eloise didn’t question his logic this time, but said hopefully, “But you did learn something?”

  “I learned from Edgar that we are close to Lorcan Labraid, though perhaps he did not know that the labyrinth is now impassable.” He thought back to noble Edgar, the only one among those creatures he wished he could have spared, and to the words they’d exchanged. “Of course, I told him that, and yet he remained insistent, so perhaps he refers to some other place, or some other way of gaining entrance to the gateway.”

  “If only you’d learned as much from the queen.”

  “I learned something more precious from the queen, something that offers both more hope and also more danger for you.”

  Eloise looked up at him before lowering her head back to his chest as she said, “What?”

  “I need you, you need me, Jex said so, the medallion said so, the witches believe it, yet both Asmund and Elfleda tried to kill you.”

  “Only because they were so desperate for blood.”

  “Possibly, and yet their whole existence was apparently aimed at fulfilling my destiny. But more, when I told Elfleda that you were the girl spoken of in the prophecies, she said, ‘Don’t you think I know that,’ before trying to feed from you. Why would someone who had endured so much to fulfil my destiny, to see the prophecies realised, why would she respond in such a way to learning your identity?”

  Will had already had time to consider it, but he was impressed that within a few seconds, Eloise turned, leaning with both hands on his chest, looking into his eyes as she said, “Because the prophecies conflict! Because you have two possible destinies! She tried to kill me because you need me to help you reach that other destiny, the one that frees you from Lorcan Labraid.”

  She looked joyful for a moment, then hopeful, then a little less so as she accepted there was more hope than fact in this. She moved back into her previous position, putting her head back on Will’s chest.

  “Everyone wants to kill me,” she said.

  “I don’t,” said Will, stroking her hair again now that she was settled.

  “No, you don’t.” She was silent for a little while, then said, “I wish we could stay here forever.”

  “Me too.”

  He thought of the city far above, covered with snow, and imagined that snow never melting, the world falling into an enchantment that would not be broken. For so many centuries he’d despaired of being trapped in this body forever, in these chambers, yet right at this moment, he could think of no better fate.

  31

  This is not the end, far from it. This is the beginning. I never imagined it would be easy, that there would not be casualties. And I cannot deny that my thoughts and emotions are conflicted by the turn of events.

  This is evil I am facing, I have no doubt of it, but is the battle worth the cost? I don’t know. I continue only in the knowledge that good must always triumph over evil, no matter what price we pay for that victory. If I surrender now, how can I know what terrors will be visited upon the world?

  But the losses! It seems he betrayed me, Marcus Jenkins, or rather that I misread his character or underestimated my enemy’s powers of persuasion. Yet he was brave, I’ll give him that, and honourable, and would have made a fine gentleman if given the chance. What future he would have had where he grew up, I don’t know, but that makes it no easier to accept his death, a death I lured him to with empty promises of a brighter future.

  If there’s a greater conflict within me than that surrounding the death of young Marcus, it’s my feelings regarding William of Mercia himself. Perhaps I’m confused only because it’s the first time I’ve seen him in the flesh, so to speak, the person my entire life has been dedicated to destroying, even before I knew it.

  When I saw him, it was within the context of battle and yet still he seemed somehow more decent, more honourable, more … human than I had imagined. His love for the girl is plain for anyone to see. And as shocked as I was by the ferocity with which he killed the vampire queen, I am certain he was driven by the fury of seeing her murder Marcus.

  I have witnessed a humanity of sorts in these creatures before, most notably in Baal, but William of Mercia behaved in a way that almost fills me with admiration. Almost, but not quite.

  It was impossible too for me to fail to observe that he was a handsome boy, tall and charismatic, and I cannot but wonder at my mother’s fixation with him. Did the young Arabella Harriman fall in love with this demon? And was the shock of seeing him so many years later born as much out of those impassioned, adolescent feelings as from the impact of seeing him unchanged?

  Has the course of my entire life been determined by the fact that my mother’s first love failed to grow old?

  If that is the case, how appropriate that she should inadvertently confer the same wretched fate on her own child.

  You may wonder that I speak as if cursed, but at this moment, I wonder if I was, if by appearing beside my mother’s carriage that night, William of Mercia handed me the curse of being his arch-enemy.

  Is it not a curse to lose the world in which you belong? Yes, I have adapted, in my language and my dress and my customs. I pass for a modern man more readily than these demons could ever manage to do, so much so that I would now be a stranger if returned to my own time. But the world I knew and belonged to has disappeared, and no matter how long you live, you are always tied in your heart to the time of your y
outh.

  I became an alchemist, yet the real alchemy is that which already lies within us, that makes us live and love and grow old, a magic we hand on to our children and they to theirs. I thought my alchemy had stopped time, but time continued relentlessly and merely left me behind. Yes, a part of me is locked eternally in the summer of 1753, the sports and the pastimes, the society of my family and its connections, the pretty smile of Lady Maria Dangrave.

  That is why I cannot stop, because nothing can get me back to the summer of 1753 and that smile. My mother’s experiment cast me ashore here, in this distant future, and I was sent here to destroy the evil that is carried within the person of William of Mercia.

  I’ll grant the possibility that he does not know the evil he carries within, that he is merely a vessel, but he carries it nevertheless, and even if it is my last act, you have to understand that I have no choice but to destroy him. If you had seen the same things as I have, understood them as I have, I assure you that you would feel the same.

  32

  The sun had been shining all day and the snow, deep as it lay, was thawing quickly. After weeks of bone-jarring cold, milder weather was promised, together with the hope that the worst of the winter might be behind them.

  From the back of the car, Chris looked out at fields that still glowed white in the twilight and the part of him that was still young felt saddened that it would have all melted within a day or two. For weeks to come the world would probably look damp and dreary.

  “Be glad when this has all gone,” said Field. “Seen enough snow for one year, don’t you think?”

  Chris looked at him, head shaved, tattoos creeping up from beneath his collar as if they were slowly growing up his neck. Field was solidly built, but carried another whole body’s worth of padding. Apart from the possible uses of his doorman’s bulk, Chris couldn’t quite understand what Field was doing with them.

  They turned into the school gates and Chris started to tap his foot without realising he was doing it, a sudden release of nervous energy.