He bit the inside of his cheek while a thought tugged at his mind. As a trained archaeologist, he knew he should ignore it; the idea was reckless, unscientific, yet he desperately wanted to know what secret it held. The object probably dated back to the time of the Old Testament. It was an object of unparalleled historical importance. People had killed for it. He himself had almost lost his life over it. Mary, the homeless woman, would know she had lost it by now. Meet her at midnight at Crossbones Graveyard, she had said. Standing perfectly still in the centre of the room, Blake weighed all the possibilities in his mind.
Just then the front door crashed open.
Chapter 42
Blake quickly covered the rod in the folds of his coat and darted for the door. It was Rosalind.
‘Holy shit, what happened to you?’ she said loudly and more in tune with the crowded bar she had just come from.
‘There was an explosion in the City. I got hit.’
‘Explosion, terrorists?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Blake, watching his sister steady herself on the edge of the hallway bookcase.
‘You okay?’ she said with a slight slur.
‘I’m fine, just some scratches. Shall I put some coffee on?’
‘I much prefer the look of that,’ said Rosalind after spying the opened bottle of whisky through the living room door.
‘Do you think you should?’
‘So what’s good enough for my brother is too good for me. Is that what you are saying?’
He sensed she was only half joking.
‘Rosalind, you are not long out of rehab. I don’t think getting pissed is part of the programme.’
‘I’ve had a couple of drinks with some old theatre school mates. You think I’m pissed?’
Blake didn’t answer and instead just watched his sister weave a haphazard route into the living room and onto the armchair next to the fireplace.
Before joining Rosalind in the living room, he headed for the kitchen and filled the kettle. Returning quickly, he found his sister sitting in the armchair with one knee drawn up, a full mug of whisky resting on top of it.
‘This is the brand Dad used to drink, isn’t it?’
‘I guess it reminds me of him.’ Blake sat next to his coat on the sofa.
‘I had a long chat with Sarah today. She wanted to know what you were like when you were growing up.’ Rosalind took a long sip and playfully gnawed the side of her mug.
‘Bloody hell, I hope you didn’t tell her the truth,’ he said with a wink that pulled at his stitches.
‘She knows what happened to mum?’
‘Most of it. Why do you ask?’ he said.
‘She was just asking about what her grandma was like before she went into hospital, that’s all.’
After the arson attack on the family bookshop, their mother had suffered a mental breakdown and had lived in a psychiatric hospital ever since.
Rosalind took another sip. ‘Dad would have been very proud of her.’
Blake gave a small nod. He cleared his throat and leant back into the sofa.
‘She loves school, not like me,’ he said, casting a knowing look Rosalind’s way. ‘I used to walk to school with a knife in one pocket and a book in the other.’
‘You were always in some kind of scrape or another.’ Rosalind took another draw of whisky.
After the fire, Blake and his sister had come under the care of their godfather, who had sent them away to boarding school. Though a brilliant student, Blake had often been in trouble and had been threatened with expulsion on more than one occasion.
‘Always squaring up to authority,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry I didn’t tell Sarah. But I did tell her that you were always walking. Where’s Vincent? He’s wandered off again, looking for some castle or another,’ teased Rosalind. ‘What were those castles you used to go on and on about?’
‘No idea what you’re talking about,’ said Blake. After boarding school, Blake had embarked on a year-long solo walking trip from Istanbul to Jerusalem following the routes of the Crusades, a distance of over 2,000 km. During this time, he developed a passion for medieval history and the Crusader Knights of the Middle Ages. Years ago he had shared with Rosalind the profound effect his walk across the Middle East had had on him. But tonight he wasn’t going to take the bait.
Blake’s attention had wavered for a moment but snapped back to Rosalind on the other side of the living room when he realised she was saying something to him.
‘How’s about it then? Me and you, let’s go out one evening this week. Alina can babysit, can’t she?’
Blake’s body tensed slightly at the suggestion, but his face accepted it with a tired smile.
‘Sure,’ he said.
‘It’s a date.’
Rosalind finished her whisky and wiped her lips with the side of her hand.
‘I think it’s time for bed for me,’ she said, getting herself to her feet. ‘You going to be long? You look fried.’
‘Not long.’
‘Don’t forget to have a word with Alina about babysitting,’ said Rosalind as she negotiated the coffee table in the middle of the room.
‘She’s a good-looking woman,’ she said, ruffling her brother’s hair as she passed him on the sofa. ‘See you in the morning.’
‘Night,’ said Blake, his cheeks slightly flushing.
He waited motionless until Rosalind’s footfalls ascended the stairs and the door to her bedroom clicked shut. Then his hands were all over his coat, patting it down, hunting for the rod. For a second, he panicked when he couldn’t feel its distinctive shape. But after throwing the coat onto the back of the sofa, he found the rod lodged between two cushions. He plucked it out of the gap and jumped to his feet. Quickly he felt for the junction line in the wood an inch from its end. His thumbnail clicked over the ridge in its surface.
Feeling a knot of tension build in his stomach, he heard the voice of his Oxford archaeology professor ringing in his ears: ‘Vincent you are an archaeologist with a great future ahead of you, young man. Never forget: it is your responsibility to conserve and protect the archaeological record by your good stewardship.’
The words kept echoing in his mind. It is your responsibility.
Something in his head snapped. ‘It is my responsibility to find the truth,’ Blake said out loud, his words ringing in the silence of the room.
Gripping the rod like a champagne bottle, he pressed his thumbs down onto the neck of the rod just above the junction line. Gradually he increased the pressure to ease the top free. His face thickened with exertion. It wouldn’t budge, cemented in place over thousands of years. His eyes were locked onto the junction line, urging it to break. His upper body trembled as the force of his arms transferred through his whitened thumbs to the rod. Suddenly, it shifted in his hands, the top section shooting free from its housing. Blake held his breath and looked down at the pieces in his hands. He was right: there was something hidden within the rod’s interior bore. Tipping the rod at an angle, he shook the hidden object free from the wooden cylinder. He gasped as he held it up to the light.
Chapter 43
The cobblestones were slippery under foot, and Blake had to flatten his footsteps as he turned the corner into Redcross Way. A carpet of milky fog enveloped the pavement leading to the metal gates that guarded the entrance to Crossbones Graveyard. As he approached the gates, a chilly wind blew across his face. The stitches in his forehead were still sharp and raw, and the cold air made them throb with a pulsing ache.
Blake had known nothing about Crossbones Graveyard until he had typed the name into his computer’s search engine. Thankfully, the search had given the location of the site and something of its sad and strange history. Blake read that even though today Crossbones Graveyard was nothing but a tiny piece of derelict wasteland tucked between Southwark Cathedral and the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, the ground hid a tragic secret. Under the crumbling tarmac lay the bodies of over 15,0
00 people.
According to the website, the area had been part of a seventy-acre area known as the ‘Liberty of the Clink’. The Liberty had been exempt from the jurisdiction of the Sheriff of London and instead had been controlled by the Bishop of Winchester, who also usually held the office of Chancellor or Treasurer to the King. Until the mid-seventeenth century, the Winchester bishops represented a major power centre in England. Blake couldn’t believe his eyes when he read that, in 1161, the Bishop of Winchester was granted the authority to licence prostitutes and brothels in the area of the Liberty south of the Thames. Tragically, these unfortunate women were refused burial in consecrated ground due to their sinful profession and were found land far away from the local parish church. This land became known as Crossbones Graveyard. He read that the gate bordering the derelict land had been made into a makeshift tribute to London’s outcast and forgotten dead, and sure enough the bars of the gate were adorned with countless ribbons blowing in the crisp night air.
Seeing that there was no lock, he tried the gate. He pushed against the scraping resistance of its hinges, opened up a gap and edged through. It didn’t take long to find her. Blake could make out Mary’s outline, sitting cross-legged on a stack of wooden packing crates, illuminated by the streetlights bleeding through the fog. At her side stood her constant companion. The black dog barked at Blake’s approach, with its eyes fixed upon his every move. Blake had to stay alert. He didn’t know whether he was being played or whether he would finally find out more about the enigmatic Mary, who always seemed to be two steps ahead of him. Coming to this deserted location in the middle of the night without back-up meant he was flying blind. As he walked, he glanced to his left and right trying to discern any movement in the shadows.
‘Mary,’ he spoke into the chilled air as he cautiously eyed up the dog.
Her eyes snapped open. It took a moment for Mary’s focus to find Blake’s profile in the chalky mist.
‘Vincent.’ The word almost oozed from her lips. Under the sodium glare of the streetlight, she looked like a ghost, her skin not quite white, but the colour of pale lead.
‘Do you have the rod?’ she said, her voice turning anxious.
‘It’s in a safe place,’ said Blake.
‘Where is it? I need to get it back.’ Concern clouded her face.
‘Not so fast. You need to tell me what the hell is going on,’ said Blake. ‘Do you know where Enoch Hart is?’
At first she offered nothing, her expression rigid.
‘I know you and Hart knew each other back at the shelter. The shelter at the Servant Church.’
Mary looked down at her dog and then eased herself off the wooden crates onto her feet.
‘You saved our lives last night,’ she said, running her hand down the animal’s neck. ‘We are both in your debt. I guess that makes us even.’
‘You mean at St Paul’s?’ he said, referring to his blurred recollection of Mary’s connection to his rescue deep in the foundations of the cathedral.
She nodded.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I guess it does. Now tell me what’s going on?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘What happened at the shelter between you and Hart?’ said Blake.
Mary let out a long sigh, her breath visible in the cold air.
‘I became very sick whilst I was staying at the shelter. Enoch Hart saved me, like you saved me last night.’
‘Saved you? Saved you from what?’
‘From a demon,’ she said solemnly.
For a second, Blake didn’t say anything. Somehow, he had hoped that Angelo Ricard’s story of exorcism had been just an embellishment of Mary’s mental breakdown.
‘You think you were possessed by a demon?’
‘I know I was,’ she said. ‘Since I was a young girl, I have always been sensitive to the things around me. The flows of energy that course through us and around us. I see things that other people cannot.’
‘Things like?’ asked Blake.
‘I see auras,’ she said. ‘There are colours, always colours. Energy rushing and bending in the air. Things would be so different if others could see what I see. People wouldn’t be judged by their exterior appearances. They would be seen in their true nature. The true nature of their souls.’ She paused. ‘That’s how I knew you were different. When we met that day at St Paul’s Cathedral.’
‘You saw my aura?’ said Blake.
‘I saw it then, and I see it now. Your path was written long ago, Vincent Blake.’
‘Is this for real?’
‘It’s very real,’ said Mary. ‘You see this city as a physical place, fixed in time and space, made of brick and concrete. I see that too, but I also feel the true nature of the place. London pulses with energy, some light, some dark,’ she said, rocking from foot to foot. ‘There are beacons of light in the city, sanctified places like St Paul’s Cathedral. There, I can feel pure energy surging under my feet. Your aura Vincent Blake is of the same energy. Your life has been baptised in the same stream of holy power that is present in that place.’
Before Blake could say anything, Mary’s rocking quickened.
‘Then there are the pits of blackness,’ she said, as she drifted to a faraway place in her mind. ‘Ancient evil places that draw darkness into themselves. Like the Minories in the East End.’
‘What did you say?’ He struggled to recall what he knew about the location. Without giving Mary time to reply, he said, ‘The Druid stone circle?’
Mary nodded.
‘The ancients knew of the terrible, dark power that lay in the ground there. They built a great magic circle of unhewn stones around the place to keep the evil locked in the earth. Once the Romans came, they tore it down, thinking it to be a temple of pagan witchcraft. The London Stone was the last remnant of the circle. A great Roman mausoleum was built, its foundations located at the centre of where the circle once stood. But with the circle gone, the darkness in the ground began to seep upwards again into the city.’
Blake could hardly believe what he was hearing.
‘I felt its power the day I fell sick. It was somehow connected to the shelter.’
‘The shelter of the Servant Church of London?’ said Blake.
She nodded. ‘I didn’t know then, but the shelter had been built on the foundations of a church built by Nicholas Hawksmoor.’
‘St John Horsleydown,’ said Blake.
Mary nodded.
‘There, I felt a line of dark energy surging through the very fabric of the church building and heading off northwards through the ground. We followed it,’ she said, glancing down to the dog. The tone of her voice turned grave. ‘Eventually we came to the Minories. The direction of the dark energy led us off the main road and onto a piece of disused land with an iron fence. As we squeezed through a gap in the fence, a large black raven landed directly in front of us. I can remember to this day, its small black eyes staring right through me. It flew off to the side of a grassy bank running along one side of the disused plot. The bird disappeared behind a large rock embedded in the side of the bank. As we walked closer, I could see a dark recess lying further behind the rock. I hacked away at the undergrowth and saw that it was actually an entrance to a small tunnel into the bank. I could feel the dark energy being drawn into the tunnel.’ She took down a gulp of air and composed herself. ‘I had a cigarette lighter with me, so we could see a little in the dark. Together we travelled down the tunnel. As we scrabbled through the passageway, a burning smell like sulphur came off the walls. Then I felt something fly out from the shadows. It was the raven.
‘It clawed at my hair and its beak drew blood from my neck. Its talons dragged me backwards onto the floor. As I lay there with my friend snapping up at the bird, I saw something take form in the darkness, all twisted and misshapen. It came closer and soon I felt a growing circle of darkness envelop me. I couldn’t move, my will powerless to fight such a force pulling me down.’ Mary’s eyes glistened with te
ars.
‘What happened?’ said Blake gently.
‘I don’t know. The next thing I remember clearly was Enoch Hart praying over me at St. George’s church. He had just performed the exorcism to drive out the demon that had entered me on that day. It felt as if a dark fist that had been clenching at my heart was suddenly released.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Blake caught the outline of a figure spring out from the shadows. He tried to whip his head around, but his motion was halted by a gun barrel at the base of his neck. From behind his shoulder, a cold voice whispered, ‘Give me the rod.’
Chapter 44
Blake shot Mary a white-hot glare. She had set him up. Milton had been right all along. She had been part of the problem, not the solution. He chided himself for not accepting it. Hell, he should have known better. He had taken the bait and now was getting reeled in to have his throat cut.
‘Turn around slowly,’ the voice said from behind his head.
Blake complied with the instruction and was soon staring down the barrel of a gun into the face of Enoch Hart. Rubbing away the soreness in his neck where the gun had been, Blake sized up the UK’s most wanted man.
Enoch Hart, ex-SAS soldier and hunted serial killer. Searching through dozens of police photos as Blake had over the last few months, Hart’s face had become imprinted onto his brain. Even though his unruly beard was gone and his hair was now razored close to his scalp, his features were unmistakable.
He was athletically built; not bulky, but lithe like a triathlete. His skin was swarthy, and deep lines bracketed his mouth and forehead. His nose looked like it had been broken a multitude of times, and his eyes were chilling in their intensity. With his free hand, Hart pulled something from his back pocket and handed it to Mary.
‘Cuff him,’ he said.
Blake stood rigid as he watched Mary push the arms of the handcuffs tight around his wrists. As the cuffs’ ratcheted teeth locked firmly into place, a surge of anger roared up through Blake’s body. Had Hart and Mary been working together all along? Is that why she had been seen at the crime scenes? His fists tightened, railing against the chain. Was he going to be executed here and now? He thought of Sarah and his neck turned rigid with fury.
The Devil’s Architect: Book Two of the Dark Horizon Trilogy Page 16
