by G. P. Taylor
‘The man with the beard?’ Walpurgis asked.
‘It covers the scars on his face.’
‘And he sent you to kill me – how will that be done?’
‘You will jump from the train and be found on the side of the track. I will say that you attacked me and I fought back. The police will think you are a drunken Englishman.’
As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness of the compartment he began to make out the shape of the woman. She sat in the chair by the window. In her hand she held a gun. Walpurgis could see the long barrel of the silencer pointed towards him.
‘How did you get in the room?’ he asked.
‘It is amazing what a man will do for a beautiful woman. The steward has been most helpful.’
‘He is a witness.’
‘No, Heston, he is dead,’ the woman said calmly. ‘My friend needed to eat and there was nothing on the menu that he wanted.’
‘So – Ozymandias wants me dead and that is it.’ He sighed as if resigned to his fate.
‘And then we go on to find the Oracle,’ she answered, confident in what she was about to do.
‘Does it exist?’ he asked. ‘I don’t believe that a diamond could have such power.’
‘It is more than just the diamond. There is an old monastery in the hills near to here. There is a rumour that the Oracle has been hiding there since before the war,’ she said, Walpurgis sensing that she wanted to tell him more. He had met her kind before. A couple of kills and the confidence began to rise. They wanted the applause, the limelight, the adulation. He knew she would tell him more than he would ever need to know.
‘It is a shame I will not be alive to see the Oracle. Is it near to here?’ he asked.
‘The Cave of Magdalene. Two of the monks were recently found dead. The legend is that they were killed by a wolf, but we know different,’ she said boastfully.
‘A Vampyre?’ he replied tempting her to answer.
‘Of course – the Vampyre is the Oracle.’
‘Are you sure? I could always help you find it. I am an archaeologist.’
The woman laughed louder than she should have. ‘Orders, my dear Heston, orders … It would have been nice, but I have been a companion for too long. I am promised that once you are dead I will become like they are.’
‘What? Fat and with a beard?’ He laughed.
‘You are a cruel man, Heston Walpurgis,’ the woman said, her voice soft and expectant.
‘You could never imagine exactly how cruel I really am,’ he answered.
Before the woman could speak she slumped forward and dropped the gun. Walpurgis slid his silenced Walther pistol back under the side of the bed. He lifted the woman from the floor and swathed her head in a towel from the small bathroom to stop the blood going on the sheets. Then he wrapped her in the bedclothes, opened the carriage window and slipped her to the track. She fell roughly. Walpurgis looked out just as the train began to move. The blanket caught in the wheels and dragged her beneath. He closed the window and picked her gun from the floor.
It was then he noticed the small bag by the chair. Walpurgis clicked the switch and opened the catch. He looked through the purse, taking the wad of francs and putting them in his pocket. In a small flap was a sepia photo of a man with a woman by his side holding a child. It was easy to tell they were a family. The child was the image of its father. He flicked it around in his fingers, looking for a name. On the back some words were scrawled in thick pencil: To my beloved wife, eternally yours, Erik Von Leonhardt.
Walpurgis didn’t know the name. He slipped the photograph into the pocket of his coat and began to tidy the room. Then came a gentle knock at the door.
‘Valissa! Valissa!’ the man said as he turned a key on the outside.
Quickly pulling the door open Walpurgis dragged the man into the room by the scruff of his jacket. The bearded fat man fell in, stumbling across the low bed and falling against the wall.
‘Have me killed, would you?’ Walpurgis asked in anger as he grabbed the man, lifted him up and pushed him out of the door.
‘Valissa!’ the man screamed, as if she might appear like a summonsed spirit.
The man stumbled in the corridor as the train emerged from a tunnel and shook. Walpurgis dived for him. The man got to his feet and ran towards the empty dining car. He slammed the glass door and held it shut as Walpurgis pushed at it. The man let go and ran hoping to escape. Walpurgis chased on, the pain throbbing in his leg.
Through one door and then another the man ran until he pushed through the last door and and into the guard’s van. It was dark and stacked with bags, cases and crates of old wine. The window on the door was open. A cold mountain wind blew around the van. Walpurgis could see no one but knew that the man was hiding.
‘If you come out, I will allow you to live,’ Walpurgis shouted above the roar of the wind, sensing the man was hiding behind a large mail sack stacked in the corner.
There was a sudden movement. The man looked out from his hiding place.
‘Why should I trust you?’ he asked.
‘Don’t tell me – this is your first time?’ Walpurgis asked.
‘Valissa – it was her idea. I was just told to keep her safe,’ the man argued, his voice fearful.
Walpurgis rubbed his hands together and then cracked the knuckles on each finger of his right hand.
‘I need information,’ he said as he grabbed the man and pulled him to the door of the van. ‘Information about who you are and who sent you.’
‘I can’t – please,’ the man protested. He tried to drop to his knees as Walpurgis pushed him to the open window.
‘Who sent you?’ Walpurgis insisted as he forced the head of the man out of the window.
‘Please, no,’ the man shouted as the steam train billowed and thundered and he saw a distant tunnel screaming towards him. The steam engine shook. Walpurgis tightened his grip on the man as he begged for his life.
‘I need to know – you haven’t long,’ Walpurgis shouted. ‘Tell me!’
‘I can’t!’ the man answered belligerently. He began to fight for his life as the tunnel in the mountain grew closer by the second.
‘A name – was it Von Leonhardt?’ he screamed as the train rattled faster and the tunnel got closer and closer. Walpurgis pushed the man further out of the window so his back was arched away from the door and he had no way of escape.
‘No – it was Ozymandias!’ he screamed. ‘Please, my –’
There was a look of horror on the face of the man and then a sudden crash. Blood splattered the walls of the carriage. The man was pulled violently from Walpurgis’s grasp and then fell forward. Walpurgis grabbed him again, his hands smeared with blood as he held the headless corpse.
[ 21 ]
Gare de Mort
JAGO HARKER felt uncomfortable in the tweed suit, although it was finely cut and a perfect fit. He felt older. Lana had insisted that he brush the strands of long hair back across his forehead, and she had brushed his cheeks, which had been sallow and white, with a powdering of blusher. Jago was hungry. As they walked the concourse of the railway station, he looked at the passengers waiting for the train, feeling quite wicked inside as he eyed each one as if they were a potential meal.
One woman in particular caught his eye. She was in her thirties and obviously alone. She carried a small case made of battered leather. It dangled from her long and ringless fingers as if it were half empty. It was obvious that she was nervous. She kept looking up to the display on the notice board above her at the end of the platform. Lana smiled at Jago, knowing what he was thinking.
‘There would be time,’ she whispered. ‘The train is delayed. The announcement says it is due to unforeseen circumstances.’
Lana pointed to the board. Jago could not read the words. He smiled at her.
‘How would we do it?’ he asked as he watched a covered stretcher being taken from the train and slipped into the back of a mortuary van.
�
��Just watch,’ Lana said as she walked towards the woman and smiled at her. ‘What is wrong with the train?’ she asked in French, Jago unable to understand her words.
‘I heard the gendarme say it was a murder. They found a body in the guard’s van,’ the woman answered with a shrug of the shoulders.
‘My brother and I are travelling with you – do you know of a place we could have coffee?’ Lana asked.
The woman hesitated as she looked at Jago. He smiled instinctively and touched the brim of the hat that Lana had forced him to wear. It was a gesture of welcome that was received with a slight move of the head.
‘There is a café outside the station across the street,’ the woman said as she leant back against the ornate stone pillar that supported a large glass chandelier high above them.
Lana hesitated and looked at Jago as if she was unsure about something.
‘We are not from here – where did you say?’
The woman took her by the arm and laughed to herself. ‘I will take you. The Police said it would be at least another hour before the train can go. I could do with a coffee.’
‘My brother doesn’t speak French,’ Lana said as they walked towards Jago. ‘I have had to translate everything.’
‘You have a perfect accent,’ the woman replied in English. ‘I thought you were French. Your brother is cute,’ she whispered.
‘And he knows it,’ Lana answered as they locked arms and walked together as if they had known each other for a lifetime. ‘I am Lana and this is Jago, and you?’
‘Marie,’ the woman said. ‘The coffee is this way.’
Together they walked through the grand entrance of the station. The street outside was empty but for three taxi cabs. The drivers looked expectant and then, when they realised they could be of no service, grouped back together in conversation.
Crossing the avenue they walked into the alley that led to the Rue d’Alsace. Jago could see the lights of an all-night café. The tables outside were empty. The woman spoke quickly to Lana, swapping from French to English with ease. Jago walked behind. He felt sick and could feel the blood pulse through him as the excitement made him shiver. He watched Lana to see what she would do.
‘Are you going far, Marie?’ she asked the woman.
‘To Paris. My mother is sick and I need to go and see her. I know she will be well when I get there. She calls me her forgetful daughter.’ Marie giggled. It seemed out of place.
Lana stumbled on the heels of her shoes and fell against the wall of an alleyway beside a small hotel with blacked-out windows.
‘My ankle,’ she whispered.
Marie dropped her case and turned to help. In an instant, Lana had taken her by the arms and pulled her silently into the darkness. Jago breathed hard, looking back and forth, hoping they had not been seen. He grabbed the case as he heard a gentle whimper come from the darkness.
‘Lana?’ he asked.
‘Quickly, Jago – she is still alive,’ Lana answered.
Jago stepped into the alleyway. He could see the woman on the floor. Lana cowered over her like a lioness. The neck of the woman was smeared with blood. She looked up, her eyes frozen as if she were unconscious. Jago could sense her dying thoughts as she screamed inside. No one needed to tell him what was to be done. Jago pushed Lana out of the way and bit on the neck of the woman, feeling the heartbeat grower fainter and fainter until it stopped. He slumped back from the body.
‘What shall we do with her?’ he asked, his stomach sated.
‘The dumpster,’ Lana said as she pointed across the yard. ‘If it belongs to the hotel, no one will find her until tomorrow.’ Lana looked at him and pulled a white handkerchief from her pocket. ‘You are a messy eater, Jago …’
Leaving the alley, Lana carried the small suitcase as if it had been with her every day of her life. She crossed the Avenue Thiers and walked towards the station. As the mortuary truck crossed in front of them, the driver slowed down and looked at Lana. It was a long, hard glance, as if he wanted to take in as much as he could of her face. Jago saw Lana smile at the man, then she took Jago by the hand and led him across the street as if he were a small child.
They waited together in silence. With a a mixture of fear and exhilaration, Jago could not stop thinking of what he had done. He could feel the blood fill his stomach but felt nothing for the woman.
Lana stood by the gate, tapping the heels of her shoes against the cold stone. A small group of people gathered around them, waiting for the train. Jago knew they were talking about the murder on the Train Bleu. An old man spoke with his hands, his fingers curling around every word he said as if he were a painter.
‘What now?’ he asked Lana.
She turned and pulled him close. ‘If only I could tell you, Jago – but this is far too public a place.’
‘Are we still going to Zurich?’
Lana sighed as she smelt the blood on his breath. ‘We have our tickets. But things are changing so quickly.’
‘But will we ever get away from them? If they want me that badly, surely they will keep looking for me?’
Lana thought for a moment as she bit her lip and looked around the station. ‘We could take the war to them. There is only a handful left. I know people who would fight with us,’ she said in a reluctant breath.
‘Fight who?’ he asked.
‘Ezra Morgan, Ozymandias, Walpurgis …’ Lana said as if the words were a kind of prayer at a funeral mass. ‘They want you dead – if they were no more …’
The sound of the steam engine stopped the conversation. The gate to the platform opened and the crowd filed through.
The old man ranted at the gendarme. ‘Vichy, Vichy …’ he said again and again. ‘Peutagne …’
The gendarme looked at the old man and laughed as he pushed him through the gate and then, as if the words had moved him, he walked away.
Jago and Lana followed the crowd and boarded the train. They sat in an empty First Class carriage. The lights from the station chandeliers reflected on the windows.
Lana snuggled closer to Jago and buried her head in his shoulder. ‘We should go to London, find Ezra Morgan and kill him,’ Lana said in a whisper, as the door to the compartment was slammed shut from the outside and the engine rumbled.
For the next hour they didn’t speak. Jago could not get the picture of the woman in the alleyway from his mind. He could see her eyes staring up at him as she held on to life. It was as if the bite from Lana had paralysed her like the toxic venom of a spider.
The express rattled through the remains of the night, following the line along the coast. It was the way they had driven from Cannes before dumping the car. Lana had feared that the old Vampyre Renoir would have told those back in London where they were. As they drove to Nice she had said that they would leave the car by the harbour; when discovered, it would be presumed that they had taken the night ferry to Sardinia.
As Jago sat and stared at the approaching dawn through the window of the train, he felt hopeless. He was like a rat in a pipe, guided to the entrance and knowing that someone was waiting to kill him. He had played this game at school in London. They would linger by the drain and lure the creature from the sewer with the smell of cheese. Someone would wait with a bludgeon and as the rat peeked out, consumed by hunger, it would be struck dead. He tried to think what could be ahead of him. Biatra and Hugh were but a distant memory. Jago had trouble remembering what they looked like; he could see the outline of Biatra’s face in his mind but the details were vague and elusive.
Lana held him close to her. He knew she wasn’t asleep. She had been a Vampyre far too long to be in need of reminding what human life was like. As each day went by he desired less and less of his old life. The need for food was now all but gone. He still liked to drink coffee and could taste the burnt cinnamon clinging to the back of his throat, but even that gave him no pleasure. One by one, the habits of his old life dropped away.
As the train approached St Raphael Lana sti
rred from her rest. She sat up quickly, as if she had heard someone call her name. At the same time, the engine whistled and steamed as it went slowly into a long tunnel. The lights in the carriage dimmed to darkness.
Lana gripped Jago’s hand.
‘I feel something near. I have not sensed this for a long time, Jago. We have to get away from here.’
‘It’s just the tunnel – that’s all,’ Jago insisted as the train slowed and the wheels screeched on the track.
‘I can sense it. They are here – we have to go.’ Lana was panicking. Her words were short and quick.
‘But –’
Lana stood up in the darkness as if she was waiting for the carriage door to open. The tunnel slowly filled with smoke from the engine.
‘Quickly, Jago, we have to get off the train. They are here.’
‘Who?’ Jago asked as Lana walked blindly along the carriage, trying to find her way out.
‘It’s her. I know she is here, I am her twin. But she is supposed to be dead.’
‘Mina?’ Jago said, the word sticking in his throat.
‘And Medea – they are calling my name, I can hear them. They have come for you, Jago. They will kill us both …’
‘But she is your sister,’ Jago said as he tried to find her in the complete blackness that now swirled around him like an impenetrable tomb.
‘It matters not,’ she answered, her voice in a faraway whisper. ‘I have betrayed her. I fell in love with you and that is enough.’
Jago heard the door of a carriage slam shut, and footsteps clattered from the carriage behind him. He stepped forward as he heard the screams of the passengers.
‘Lana?’ he shouted as he stumbled against the door. Finding the lock, he turned it quickly.
‘Here,’ she answered as the lights flickered.
Jago turned. Lana was hiding in the far doorway. ‘We have to leave, now.’
‘Open the door, Jago Harker. What have you done to my sister?’ Mina screamed from the other side. ‘Don’t make me come for you, Jago … Lana, what has he done to you?’
