Irina reached out to take my arm. “No time,” she said and pulled me towards the door. “Your ride is here.”
I stepped outside, then almost collapsed in shock. A large blue range rover had been parked up in front of the cottage. The driver’s door stood open and the driver himself, consulting a large ordnance survey, was in conversation with his navigator.
The navigator was none other than my great-grandmother, who obviously had some knowledge of the area. And the driver?
George.
After a whirlwind journey via range rover, private jet and then limousine (both of the latter loaned to Wizard Shadowmender by Sabien Laurent of all people) I arrived back at Whittle Inn just over fourteen hours later.
We’d stopped over briefly in London, where Silvan had been taken to a private hospital just off Celestial Street. I’d wanted to stay with him, but for a variety of reasons that hadn’t been allowed. “You need to be debriefed,” Penelope Quigwell had snipped at me. Debriefed I had been, for the next three hours.
But now, as the limousine wound its way down the motorway and along the back roads that led to Whittlecombe, Gwyn and Archibald had spent most of the journey catching up on their prior shared experiences in Transylvania, while Ross Baines tapped away at his laptop, his brow furrowed, his fingers moving at lightning speed. Everyone had ignored me for most of the journey.
George had driven all the way. At our final fuel stop at the motorway services, I’d grabbed a bathroom break and a steaming hot cup of coffee. Then before Penelope could protest, I’d slipped out of her grasp and plonked myself in the passenger seat. I put my feet up on the dash and glanced across at him. “So?” I asked. Even my voice sounded exhausted. “Would you care to explain?”
George shrugged tiredly. He had every right to look a little jaded given he’d been driving for hours both here and in Transylvania and through Romania, and like me had only had a few hours rest on the plane.
But ha! That faded in comparison to what I’d been through over the past few days.
“What can I tell you?” He told me now. “Wizard Shadowmender called me and asked for my assistance. He said you were in trouble. How could I turn him down?”
I smiled, touched that the detective still cared enough to come to my aid. “I’m grateful. Thank you.”
“Don’t any of you witches drive?” George asked. “Couldn’t they have sent someone else? I don’t know why you have to rope me in.” He didn’t sound like he minded though, to be honest.
“I drive,” I pointed out to him, although he knew that of course.
“Oh that’s right. You drive. After a fashion.”
I poked him in the ribs.
“Do you mind? I’m trying to concentrate here.”
I snorted and took a sip of my coffee. It was still too hot and burned my mouth. I wafted at my mouth. “Ow.”
“Serves you right,” George muttered.
We drove in silence for a while, the hills rising and falling on either side of the road, the terrain becoming increasingly forested.
Nearly home.
“Will Silvan be okay?” George asked eventually.
“Of course!” I said this with huge confidence even though I had no real idea. Silvan had nine lives. Now we’d arrived back in the UK he would receive the medical treatment he needed; he would be fine. They’d assured me of that. But when would I hear from him again? Like Shadowmender, Silvan didn’t carry a phone. He claimed to have no need of one.
“Good,” George said.
I nursed my thoughts for a while. George watched the road. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to tell him. I took a deep breath.
“George? About Silvan.”
George took one hand off the steering wheel and held it up. He turned his head slightly and met my eyes. He looked a little sad. “It’s fine.” He shook his head.
“It’s fine?”
How was it fine? How could George know it was fine? Now we were home would Silvan forget what we’d said to each other. Had either of us meant it? My feelings were a maelstrom, but according to George, Silvan and I were ‘fine’.
“Yes.” George turned his attention to the road once more.
He’d expected the news. How had he known about us? Was I the last to know?
It appeared so.
Whittle Inn was peculiarly silent.
Still devoid of guests, the inn had been shut up for nearly a week. Kat and Marc had been removed for their own safety. The rooms seemed unusually spacious without anyone in them although the ghosts had obviously remained in residence, most notably Florence. A fire burned in the grate in the bar at least, and a pile of baking books and a note pad and pens littered one of the dining tables. She’d clearly been working hard on her book in my absence.
Zephaniah appeared in front of me. “Welcome home, Miss Alf, and Mrs Daemonne.” He nodded respectfully at Gwyn. She stood behind me, either inspecting the mantlepiece for dust, or admiring her portrait above the fire, one of the two. “Shall I collect your luggage?”
“I don’t have any,” I said. “I had to leave it all there.”
“Such a goddess-forsaken castle, that one.” Gwyn glowered. “You should be glad you abandoned everything, my dear. In fact anything you did bring back with you will need burning.”
I looked down at the robes I’d been wearing for what felt like days. It probably wasn’t a bad idea. I plucked my wand from one pocket and my mobile phone with its cracked screen from another and set them on the bar.
“I could really do with a hot chocolate or something, Zephaniah. Is Florence around? Or Monsieur Emietter?”
“Florence is seeing to the bedrooms, Miss,” Zephaniah replied. I frowned. Whose bedrooms?
“Never mind hot chocolate. You look like you’re in need of a stiff drink,” Gwyn said.
“I think we could all do with one,” Penelope said. She and Ross were setting up their laptops on a spare table. It looked like they were settling in for the immediate future.
“Are you staying?” I asked.
“Yes.” Penelope peered over the top of her spectacles at me. “Is that a problem?”
I withered in her glare. “No. Of course not.”
I turned to George, expecting him to say goodbye. “Make mine a whisky,” he said.
“You’re staying too?” I asked in confusion.
“Wizard Shadowmender asked me to. Just for a few days.”
“He did?”
George nodded and I looked about at the clan gathered around me. Why had Wizard Shadowmender wanted everyone here?
I couldn’t figure it out and a sudden wave of giddiness put paid to me actually trying. Exhausted I waved at everyone present and turned for the stairs.
“I’m going to bed,” I said.
I drifted upwards on a downy cushion of heavenly comfort, floating on a warm breeze. I thought the sun was shining, but the pitter patter of soft raindrops suggested otherwise. I didn’t want to wake up. I’d be happy staying right there where I was, safe and warm.
Mr Hoo had other ideas, for it was he who pitter-pattered around the top of my duvet cover, peering down at me hopefully. When I finally opened my eyes and blinked up at him he twitted a welcome.
“Of course I’m alive,” I mumbled, and tried to return to that sanctuary of sleep I’d been forced to forsake.
“Hoooooo. Hooooooooo.”
“No it isn’t,” I said. He’d just told me it was nearly midday. That would mean I’d been asleep for ten hours. “It can’t be.” I reached for the little alarm clock on my nightstand and blinked at the numbers until I could focus on them. My little owl friend had not been making it up.
I huffed sadly. “I’d better get up then.” Not least to find out why I had an inn full of people, none of whom were paying guests.
I took a bath. Not one of my long luxurious bubble baths, but a rather functional-dip-with-added-hair-wash. I certainly felt better afterwards, a little more awake, and in need of some serious
sustenance. Hoping I’d be able to drag Florence away from her books so she could drum me up a hearty late breakfast I headed downstairs.
I can’t say I was entirely surprised to find that Wizard Shadowmender had arrived from Surbiton and Mr Kephisto from nearby Abbotts Cromleigh. Unfortunately, it looked as though breakfast would have to remain on hold.
“What’s going on?” I asked as soon as greetings had been exchanged.
“Well, Penelope, with the able assistance of young Ross here, have been digging around and they’ve found a little intelligence that you might find interesting.”
“That’s good news,” I said, thinking longingly of scrambled egg on hot toast with lashings of fresh butter and a good sprinkle of pepper.
“We want to nip The Vampire Nation’s attack on you—and on witches in general—in the bud. Once and for all.”
“Yes. That would be good.” I wondered how many mugs of tea I could drown in five minutes and would it be standard Yorkshire Tea or English Breakfast?
“And we also have a plan,” Wizard Shadowmender confided.
“Ah,” I said, pleased I no longer had to strive to be the adult in the room. “Thank goodness someone has one of those.”
A little after midnight the bats returned to Whittle Inn.
I’d been sitting alone on the front step for an hour or so, wrapped in a large old cardigan that Millicent had once given me, a scarf around my neck and nursing a dark rum and coke. I’d hated to do it, but I’d locked Mr Hoo inside my bedroom. I hadn’t wanted him on the loose.
I pretended not to notice the bats arriving, and to be sure they had done so quietly and without fuss. However, every one of my senses, every nerve and fibre had strained to feel for them. Inwardly I shuddered with revulsion, remembering the feeling of Grigor’s repulsive dry hands around my neck and the way his elongated yellow claw of a thumbnail had penetrated the delicate skin at my throat.
No doubt he was up there in one of the huge oak trees at the end of the drive, right now, watching me as I drained the last of my drink. I stood and stretched out my back and neck and stiffly turned to walk inside, heading for my cheerful fire and perhaps a refill.
Silly me. I had neglected to close the front door properly.
I walked to the fire, the only light in the room, keeping my back to the door, and placed my glass on the mantelpiece. Before I could turn back I heard the flip flap of tiny wings, and a blast of icy air heralded the arrival of the vampires.
Grigor.
I had known he would come, but I still found his presence in my beloved inn unnerving. The old vampire stood in the middle of the lounge bar area, flanked on each side by half a dozen of his kind, for the most part young and beautiful. Neither Sabien nor Melchior were among them, but there was one there I did recognise, and my gaze lingered on him.
“Alfhild.” The familiar reptilian tongue slithered a greeting. The drooling of a man centuries old. One who now struggled to hunt and to feed to find the nutrients he needed to revitalise his appearance.
“Prince Grigor.” I nodded, pouring ice into my expression.
“Your arrogance is your undoing, my child. Did you imagine I wouldn’t follow you here? We have business that remains unfinished.”
“Your trial was a complete sham.” I finally found my voice. “It was meaningless. You can’t touch me here.”
“I passed sentence.”
I lifted my chin. “Your sentence will not stand here. I have friends in high places, and you should not dare to touch me.”
Grigor made a tsk-ing sound. “Such defiance. Justice must be served. You were found guilty.”
I shook my head. “You should leave while the going is good, Prince Grigor.”
He cackled, a screeching high-pitched breathless hilarity that reminded me of nails on a chalkboard. “Not until I have done what I came here to do. And it is truly fitting that it should happen here where my son met his unnatural end. You cannot escape, Alfhild. Judgement was passed and the sentence must be carried out on the one who murdered my son—”
“I didn’t kill Thaddeus.”
“That sentence was death!” He snarled like a wild bear. I’d forgotten how fast he could move, but suddenly he was on me. Maybe I’d imagined I was ready for the onslaught that I knew would come my way, but he moved so quickly, and he was so strong, that he still took me completely by surprise. I buckled under the weight of him as he forced me to my knees, yanking my hair back hard so that my throat was exposed.
A glint of bright white fang and the flashing of the blackest of eyes, and then we were both bowled over. I sprawled on the floor coughing and hacking, beating at the air, dangerously close to the grate where the fire burned. Grigor’s cloak of blue wafted over my head as he jumped to his feet and reacted to whatever had knocked us over.
“Quiescat.” The command floated serenely out of the air and everything stopped at once. “Lights,” the voice ordered. Instantly the bar was flooded with illumination as every light and lamp in the room was switched on, every candle burst into flame. The vampires stood stock still, eyes twitching nervily as they surveyed the legion of witches surrounding them, wands drawn and faces grim.
Gwyn, Penelope, Mr Kephisto, Finbarr, Mara and Millicent, along with a dozen others we had invited from around the region who had heeded our urgent clarion call. They all stood to attention, focused entirely on the threat in front of us. Wizard Shadowmender stepped out of their ranks and gently aimed his wand at Prince Grigor who’d been caught red-handed when the lights went on, kneeling over George.
George had been the missile that had knocked us both to the ground. Now pale, he’d been pinned to the floor. Grigor’s leathery hand was wrapped around the detective’s smooth neck.
“If you would be so good as to unhand DS Gilchrist, I would be much obliged,” Wizard Shadowmender said, his wand emitting tiny sparks, a warning of what might occur if Grigor refused.
“What is the meaning of this?” Grigor hissed. “You can’t come at me mob-handed. I’m a diplomat.”
Shadowmender flicked his wand. Electricity buzzed through the air between him and the elderly vampire. Grigor released his hold of George and stood. One of the younger vampires moved against the wizard, covering the ground between them in a nanosecond.
But Penelope was faster. “Lignumatus!”
The young male vampire shrieked and fell to the floor with a heavy thud, his limbs stiff, his face in rictus.
Grigor halted mid-step, glancing down at his young protégé in horror. “You will pay for that,” he snarled at Penelope.
“Come, come now, Grigor,” Wizard Shadowmender urged him as though they were merely embarking on a game of Tiddlywinks. “All these threats of retribution. They won’t get you anywhere.”
“The Vampire Nation seek justice for the loss of my son. The Vampire Nation—”
“Have no further interest in your case against young Alfhild here. They have dropped all charges and have disavowed your Vampiri clan as a credible part of their organisation.”
Grigor’s pale face turned sour. “They have no right to—” he thundered, but Wizard Shadowmender held up his hand.
“They have every right, Grigor, as you well know.” He looked over at me. “Are you alright, Alfhild?”
I nodded, a little shaken, but pleased to see George climbing to his feet too. I rolled away from the fire and reached for George. Taking his arm, I led him out of harm’s way.
“Murderess,” Grigor hissed after me.
“You are much mistaken Grigor, and it makes you appear weak and foolish.” Wizard Shadowmender pointed at the other vampires in the room. “One of your young hanger’s-on knows the truth.”
Grigor looked around uncertainly. “But I already established motive,” he said. “Alfhild Daemonne hates vampires just as her great-grandmother before her did.”
“Your hatred of her great-grandmother blinded you to the truth. You merely established a possible motive for one suspect. You haven’
t considered any others.” Wizard Shadowmender’s wand picked out one handsome young man in particular. “Including one of your other sons.”
The young man in question stepped forward with menace. “Don’t listen to them, Father.”
“Absurd.” Grigor waved the suggestion away.
“Isn’t it the case that this young man, Gorka Corinthian I believe, stayed here with Thaddeus when they both attended the wedding last October?”
“Yes, I was here for the wedding. I was supporting my friend Melchior,” Gorka said, but the elderly Wizard ignored him, addressing the old prince once more.
“And isn’t it true that none of your sons have ever really seen eye-to-eye? That there’s always been a great deal of rivalry for both your limited affection and your substantial wealth?”
Gorka interjected again, “Ignore this nonsense, Father.”
“And since the disappearance of your oldest son, wouldn’t it be fair to suggest that your remaining sons, Thaddeus and Gorka became even more combative?”
Grigor regarded Gorka for the first time. “My number three son always had a rivalry with his older brothers. But he would never kill Thaddeus—”
Wizard Shadowmender shrugged. “There’s only one castle to inherit. Thaddeus was successful in his own right, but Gorka has always had to rely on others to support his lifestyle.”
I was impressed. Penelope and Ross had done their homework. They’d briefed the wizard on all of Gorka’s various business failures and property development fiascos.
“Perhaps Gorka wanted a larger slice of the pie?” Wizard Shadowmender suggested.
Penelope nodded. “We have no evidence, but we believe that Gorka may have had something to do with the mysterious disappearance of your oldest son too. Naturally we will leave that to Vampiri to investigate in the future.” Having said her piece, she bowed and stepped back into the circle of witches.
Grigor frowned.
Wizard Shadowmender pressed home his point. “Whoever tied Thaddeus to that chair needed superhuman strength. I’m not sure Alfhild could have managed that on her own. It seems more likely that one of his own kind was able to overcome your son. They tied him to the chair and positioned him very precisely. They then sabotaged the lights in this room, knowing full well that in the morning, someone would open the curtains and Thaddeus would be dead before anybody could react.”
Vengeful Vampire at Wonky Inn: Wonky Inn Book 8 Page 17
