by E. C. Hibbs
I smiled, glancing around to the small dining room table tucked against the wall. It was covered in a spread of papers and old photographs, as well as a crudely-drawn family tree.
“Hey, Michael,” I called, and Frank looked at me over his shoulder, “what’s this?”
He peered around the doorframe from the kitchen to see. “Oh. That’s just some family history stuff that I’ve been working on. Sorry I left it out, I’ve been getting really stuck into it and I was doing some work on it before you came. I’ll tidy it up in a sec.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it!” I replied. Frank came over and rested his chin on my shoulder, and I flicked his nose with the tip of my finger. The large surname JONES had been written across the top of the paper covered in the family tree, but my eyes instantly transformed into tunnel-vision.
Frank noticed and frowned. “Hey, what is it?”
I ignored him and gently picked up the topmost photograph, turning it in my hand so that it was the right way up. The edges were frayed slightly, and the picture tinted sepia; the browns slightly washed out with age. But the figures in the paper oval-shaped frame were crisp.
“What is it?” Frank asked again softly, looking at the picture over my shoulder. It showed a young couple standing side by side, the woman clutching a lace-covered baby in her arms, which couldn’t have been more than two months old. She was wearing a high-necked collar fronted with a simple cameo pendant, and blonde ringlets hung down around her face. I was amazed at how much she looked like Lucy. It was literally as though I was seeing my best friend in period costume.
Then I noticed the man beside her. His long black hair was pulled back and tucked behind his ears, blending in with a dark jacket. He stood tall and proud, and a ring was around the third finger of his left hand, which he rested fondly on the young woman’s waist. Her head was inclined slightly towards him as the two of them stared coolly across the years.
My eyes hadn’t left his face. His perfect face.
“How much sugar do you have in your tea?” Michael called from the kitchen. His voice jolted me back into the present and I looked around to see Frank, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“Michael?”
He appeared with a tea towel in his hands. “Yeah?”
I held out the photograph. “Michael, who... who is this?”
Frank’s eyes flitted between me and Michael as he approached, peering at the picture. He touched the edge of the paper gently.
“It’s my great, great, great grandparents,” he answered, raising his eyes in concentration as he counted the number of generations. Then he motioned to the baby and frowned at me. “And that’s my great, great grandmother. Why?”
I looked at Frank and spoke in an undertone. “It’s him.”
That registered like lightning and he moved to get a better look at the photo, scrutinising the young man with interest.
“You sure?” he whispered, brows lowering.
“Yes.”
Michael caught my eye. “What’s the matter?”
I swallowed, and cleared my throat. “Uh... could you tell me about him, please? All of them?”
Michael looked perplexed, but he nodded. “Sure.”
CHAPTER XXII
Michael quickly prepared the tea and brought three cups in on a tray. He rested the carnations – their stems freshly cut and resting in a vase of water – between the photographs on the mantelpiece. Then we all sat down at the table, the ancestry papers sprawled out in front of us. I took an anxious sip and tried to still the butterflies in my stomach. There was too much milk in it, but I didn’t care; I was too engrossed in this new discovery. Engrossed – and at the same time, shocked. It had never occurred to me that we might happen across the demon’s true identity, least of all in England; and especially not through Michael.
Michael pulled the family tree out of the pile and pointed to two names near the top. “That’s him and her,” he said. “I haven’t managed to get much further back yet.”
My eyes latched onto the male name scrawled across the paper. “Jonathan Calvin?” I read out, and frowned. That wasn’t Hungarian in the slightest.
“That was what was on his birth certificate,” Michael explained. “But on his marriage certificate – and the census – he’s listed as János Kálvin.”
“It’s the same thing,” I explained quickly, the name instantly making sense now. “It’s been Magyarised, to fit with the Hungarian. His mother must have called him János, with the Hungarian pronunciation...” My voice trailed off into a whisper as I carried on reading. “Born, 1853... died, 1875?”
I glanced at the picture again, which Michael had placed beside the tree. Twenty-two: the same age as me. It was essentially the age that he looked in the photograph. And the age that he still looked, over a century later.
“Yep, sure was young, wasn’t he?” Michael said. “Well, that’s what it looks like, anyway: that he died. He disappeared not long after this picture was taken; it’s dated the same year. My guess is that he was murdered or something. In any case, he left these two behind. Mirriam...” he pointed to the young woman, then to the baby, “... and Éva.”
Mirriam...
I gently touched the photograph and Frank shot me a silent glance. “Do you know any more about him?”
Michael shifted his weight. “How come you’re so interested?”
I hesitated. “I... think I might have just seen a picture before. Or... something.”
I felt worried that he wouldn’t believe me, but whether he did or not, he just shrugged and pointed back to the photo, tapping his finger over the image of the dark-haired man. It seemed he was so proud and of all he had found out, he had no problem sharing it with anyone who cared to listen.
“This is where my Hungarian ties come in, what I told you about ages ago,” Michael said. “His father was an English soldier, sent to the Ukraine just before the outbreak of the Crimean War. And he met a Hungarian woman who was living there and married her. But not long after Jonathan – I’ll say Jonathan; it’s a bit easier for me – was born, the War started and he went away, so his wife took Jonathan back to her old home in Budapest.
“I don’t know much else about him, really – except that he married Mirriam Takács when he was twenty-one and she was sixteen; and Éva was born a few months later. Mirriam was from quite a wealthy family, so they lived in relative luxury – you can probably tell that from the photo. But around the time Jonathan disappeared, they went bankrupt, so Mirriam went to stay with her uncle, Alexander. Funny, actually – his surname is exactly the same as yours, Bee – but I found out it’s quite a common one, so he’s probably not related to you. He lived in a village in east Hungary...” He rummaged in a notebook. “Hattyúpatak. Yes, that’s right. Have you ever heard of it?”
Frank and I exchanged a shocked glance, but then I shook my head. “I... know the name very vaguely, but not where it is.”
“It’s right in the east, very close to the border with Romania,” Michael explained.
I looked away. Underneath the table, my fingers even strayed to my arm and pinched. I finally understood why he had become a Lidérc even though he was only half Hungarian, and hadn’t even been born there. If he had been brought up in a Hungarian way then it would work. I glanced at the photo again, and remembered the painting of the Final Purge. That had happened four years after Michael had it written that he’d died, in 1875 – but I knew in my gut that wasn’t true. He’d never died. He had just become what he became.
“What about these two?” Frank asked, motioning to Mirriam and Éva.
“Mirriam died in 1879, four years after Jonathan,” Michael said, and my eyes shot up. “I’m not sure exactly what happened to her. I think she was killed too; I never found anything to suggest she died from any kind of illness. Poor couple: both of them dying so young... and within years of each other, too.”
I pressed my lips together. “So... what happened to Éva?”
�
�Well,” Michael smiled, “Jonathan’s father survived Crimea and he found out about her, so he summoned her back to live with him up in the North of England. Later, she married a guy called Benjamin Jones. And the rest,” he gestured to himself, “is history. But Éva didn’t live for too long, either. She had a kid with Benjamin, but from what I can gather, she went insane a year or so after she came to England. Didn’t have much luck, did they, the three of them?”
I shook my head distantly, but in truth I’d lost track of time. It took what seemed like an age to verbally reply, but when I finally did, it was as though my voice had been through a sieve.
“That’s... incredible.”
“Isn’t it?” Michael grinned, and he began to arrange the papers into a somewhat tidier pile. I watched as the photograph disappeared amongst marriage certificates and rough notes, and took a sip of my tea. As Michael had been talking, the pressure had risen in my head, and now it was aching quite badly. I held a hand to my eyes.
“You alright?” Michael asked.
I nodded. “I’ve just got a bit of a headache, that’s all. Nothing serious.”
“Ah, okay. Do you want some painkillers?”
“That’d be great. Thank you.”
He hurried to the kitchen to fetch them for me, and Frank shot me a strange look.
“What is it?” I asked him under my breath as he felt my forehead with the backs of his fingers.
“You’re warm,” he said.
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “I haven’t drunk a lot today. It’s just dehydration... hey!”
Despite my protesting, he took hold of my face gently and pulled down the skin at the bottom of my eyes to check them. “Look up,” he said.
“Frank –”
“Look up.”
I sighed impatiently, but raised my eyes and focused on the ceiling. That used to annoy me: the way he’d hover over me – but I’d learned to trust him, because it was well-founded. He let go just as Michael returned with two white pills and a glass of water. I muttered thanks and swallowed them, then drunk it all. Even though I didn’t feel much better for it – like I wasn’t actually too thirsty – I didn’t put the glass back down on the table until it was drained, to prove some kind of point.
Michael asked us if we were ready for dinner, and when we nodded he returned to the kitchen. The gas clicked as he turned on the oven. I was staring blindly into space when I felt Frank’s hand on my arm.
“Bee,” he said gently, “when you said that you hadn’t drunk a lot today...”
I knew what he was getting at immediately, even though my throat was beginning to burn. “I had my fill with you the other day, that’s enough for a month,” I reminded him, equally quiet. But his eyes didn’t move from mine and he slid two fingers onto the underside of my wrist to check my pulse.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. He didn’t answer, too busy counting my heartbeats. Then he stretched out my fingers and examined my nails. I looked too. They seemed fine enough; a little bluer and darker than normal, but it was winter. What did he expect?
“Frank, what is the matter?” I asked again as he pulled down my scarf and felt the pad of his thumb over my throat. I frowned; when his hand had been on my wrist, it was his usual, comforting, human warmth. But on my neck – on the scar – he felt freezing.
“Crap,” I heard him mutter under his breath. If I weren’t so close, I wouldn’t have picked it up. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, and was startled at how much his face had hardened.
I grasped his hand, unable to hide the urgency in my voice. “What is it? Tell me!”
He pressed his lips together and his eyes darted towards the scar again. Realisation numbed me.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “No! Not now!”
I quickly lowered my voice so I wouldn’t attract Michael’s attention, and glanced towards the kitchen to check he was still busy before turning back to Frank. My blood pressure rose and he held my hands firmly.
“Alright, listen to me,” he said. “Keep calm. Okay? It’s not going to happen right this minute, this is just the start. You’re just getting ready for it. Nothing’s going to happen, so keep calm.”
It? That word filled my head. What would happen? I would collapse on the floor like I was having a seizure, and not be able to speak with the pain? Would I even be able to scream? Would it be so agonising that I wouldn’t feel it?
“Bee!” Frank snatched my face and forced me to look at him. My breath was beginning to tremble. “Bee, breathe. Come on. In...and out. In...and out... alright?”
I swallowed and copied him shakily, holding onto his arms like my life depended on it.
“Alright, here’s what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’m going to tell Michael that I need to take you home, and I’ll stay with you, okay?”
I frowned. “But... what about –”
“Forget the food, it’s you that’s important,” he replied, cutting me off. “I need to get you away from him. In the next few hours, you’re going to need a lot of blood, and if there are people around, then you might go straight for them. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I’ve got a unit in the car; you can have that on the way home.”
I blinked. “You have a unit in the car?”
“I’ve been keeping one in the glove compartment ever since you moved in, just in case this happened,” he replied simply as he brushed down his top.
I stared. “And you can turn around to me and say that a policeman would get a shock if he found me with my knife? What if he decided to have a good look at your little old Beetle?”
Frank couldn’t help but grin as he stood and held out a hand. “You’ll thank me. Come on.”
I went to reach for him, but a sudden feeling of dread settled over me, and before I could really think, I’d glanced up – straight into the mirror. The demon was standing right behind me.
I shrieked and leapt to my feet, only just remembering to support myself on the tabletop. Frank jumped in fright and Michael appeared in the doorway.
“Bee!” Frank grasped my shoulders, and both of them looked at the mirror, but then turned back, frowning. “Bee, what is it?”
I stared at Frank, trying to tell him with my eyes. But when I turned around, the Lidérc wasn’t there. I wheeled back, and he was still glaring at me with horrid black eyes, existing only in the mirror. And where he was standing was where Frank’s reflection should have been; the hands holding onto me were tipped with black nails.
I am your turner. I am only in your mind; that silky voice said. They cannot see me, Farkas. Only you. Igen, only you.
I clutched my amulet, the Hungarian spilling out of my mouth. “What the hell are you doing here? How are you here? You’re in Budapest!”
“What’s she saying? What’s the matter with her?”
“Michael, could you get me another glass of water? Now, please...”
The Lidérc moved his face towards my shoulder, a horrid smirk on his face. The mist billowed out from around his ankles. I watched my reflection and his phantom one, transfixed with fright. His hands moved down to my wrists, and I felt Frank’s grip on my arms disappear.
I spun around, and cried out as I saw him melting, like water running down chalk. His face was just a blur of brown and peach, and the room itself gradually washed away. My heart hammered faster than it ever had before.
“What are you doing?”
The Frank-smudge gave a distorted reply, but then was gone completely, and all I could see was an endless fog. The icy laugh was right behind me and I stood frozen to the spot. He released me. I distantly sensed a body – that felt alarmingly like my own – plummet onto the floor in a dead weight, and a dull pain coursed through my head.
Oh, you poor fool. You cannot outrun me. Surely you have not forgotten that? Surely, of all things, that is a lesson you have learned?
I ground my teeth and screwed my eyes up against him. “This is not happening,” I hissed. “I’m drea
ming again. I’ve fainted. I know I have, I felt it. You aren’t here. You aren’t real, you’re not here.” The redness prickled behind my lids and my hand curled into a fist.
“I said,” I growled furiously, “you are not here!”
I forced my eyes open and wheeled around to hit out at him, but he was gone, and I stumbled backwards at what I saw. The pointed tower-like roof of an old church reared against a brilliant full moon. A huge crowd of people stood huddled together, their faces white with terror, but yet somehow lit up with a hidden strength. They wore simple clothes, their hands were in the air and the wind carried the sound of their voices – all of them rising in song.
“Isten, áldd meg a magyart
Jókedvvel, bőséggel...”
Himnusz. The familiar lyrics coursed with some new energy that I’d never heard before, as though each syllable was dealing a separate blow. I turned around as a new, forceful voice joined the fray.
“Elmegy!” a middle-aged man was shouting next to me. He was dressed in a long black robe, and a large crucifix was hanging around his neck. His face was tired and crossed with more wrinkles than I’d ever seen, but his eyes were blue and shining with purpose. He had his hands in the air, too, but there was more to his movements than the villagers behind him.
“Go away!” he shouted again. “In the name of God, leave us, I command!”
I stared at him, but he paid me no attention; just carried on brandishing his arms furiously, a burning birch branch clutched in his hand. My heart slammed and I glanced back at the crowd.
“...Megbűnhődte már e nép
A múltat s jövendőt!”
I turned around to the direction that everybody was facing, and the fear in their eyes shot into mine. A huge black mass waited, like a storm cloud had fallen out of the sky – and inside it was a writhing, shrieking throng. The painting that I’d seen on Frank’s laptop leapt back into my head. But unlike that depiction, the beings in the cloud weren’t horrid or ugly. Through the thrashing bat-like wings and occasional flashes of bright fire, all of them were human. Or, they looked human. They had human bodies, with human arms and legs, but their eyes flashed with malice.
