Joel didn’t reply right away. He stood up, went over to his holdall, unzipped a side pocket and took out his grandfather’s notebook.
‘The thing I’m looking for is described in here. It’s called the cross of Ardaich.’
With a sudden crash, the coffee cup fell from Alex’s fingers and landed on the table in front of her.
The glass top shattered with the impact. Jagged shards and spattering coffee rained down onto the carpet. Alex’s eyes had opened wide and she was suddenly pale; then she quickly regained her composure. ‘Shit, look what I’ve done.’ She dropped down to her knees and started picking up the pieces of glass.
‘Let me help,’ Joel said. He quickly stuffed the notebook in his pocket and crouched down beside her.
‘I have a dustpan and brush in the kitchen,’ Alex said. She hurried away to fetch them while Joel carried on gathering up the bits of glass, fishing out the long, pointed shards first before moving on to the small slivers that glistened everywhere on the carpet.
As Alex returned from the kitchen, he glanced up at her. For a moment he found himself thinking how good she looked – and that moment’s lapse of concentration was enough for him to gash his finger on a razor edge of broken glass. He drew his hand away. The blood was oozing out rapidly. ‘Damn. I’m dripping on your carpet. Where’s the bathroom?’
She didn’t reply for a moment, and he noticed the way she was gazing fixedly at his bleeding finger, a peculiar look in her eyes. Maybe she was squeamish, he thought.
‘Oh…yes, sorry,’ she said, collecting herself. ‘Through there. Are you okay?’
‘It’s just a nick,’ he replied as he walked to the bathroom door, cupping his other hand under the cut finger to avoid leaving a trail of red splashes across the floor.
He cursed himself for his stupidity as he washed away the blood at the washbasin in her plush bathroom. As he wrapped his finger up with his handkerchief, he couldn’t resist glancing round the room. In his experience, women’s bathrooms, however big, always seemed to be cluttered with an extensive and mysterious arsenal of beauty products, soaps and gels, shampoos and hair accessories, and to reek of perfumes and lotions. But Alex Bishop’s bathroom looked as though it had never been used. He shrugged. In a place this size, she probably had her own en suite.
When he rejoined her in the living room, she’d finished gathering up the glass and was mopping up the coffee stains from the carpet.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how I managed to do that. The cup just slipped.’
He wagged his bandaged finger. ‘We’re both clumsy, then.’ His grandfather’s notebook was lying on the armchair he’d been sitting on. He picked it up and slipped it in his pocket.
‘Let’s go outside. I fancy a breath of air, don’t you?’ She led him through the sliding door that led out onto the balcony, where a table and two chairs overlooked the view of the river.
‘Anyway, about the cross…’ he said tentatively.
Alex’s face tensed a little at the mention of it. ‘How did you hear about that?’
‘Is it true? It really exists?’
She nodded solemnly. ‘But it was supposed to have been lost, a long time ago.’
‘That’s what my grandfather said, too.’
‘Your grandfather?’
‘Let me start at the beginning,’ he said.
Chapter Fifty-Three
As they sat there in the pale afternoon sunlight and Alex listened intently with her eyes fixed on his, her hair blowing in the breeze, her chin cupped in her hand, Joel told her everything…
…Except for one detail. He couldn’t bring himself to confess what he’d done to the beloved old man.
Nor did he mention the fact that, just a few hours ago, he’d killed a man with his bare hands.
‘I know they’re after me,’ he finished. ‘It’s not safe for me to go back home, until I find that cross. That is, if I find it, and if it really has the powers that it’s supposed to have. Personally, I find that kind of thing very hard to believe. But it’s all I’ve got.’
‘There are a lot of things people don’t readily believe,’ she said, ‘but which are true. Let’s have a look at this notebook of yours.’
He took it out of his pocket and handed it to her.
‘It’s old,’ he said. ‘Not in great condition.’
‘So I see.’ As she carefully turned the pages, the torn-off, folded-up back cover of the map slipped out.
‘That’s where I copied out the bits I could read,’ Joel explained. ‘Which isn’t much to go on, is it?’
‘Your grandfather was obviously a very clever man,’ she said. She’d already reached the final page.
‘You’ve read it all? So fast? It took me ages.’
‘I’m a speed reader.’
‘Does any of it make sense to you?’
‘Let’s go through it. You see this list of words here?’
‘I couldn’t figure those out at all.’
‘You wouldn’t, unless you’d studied ancient languages. This one, Vetalas? Sanscrit, meaning vampire. Moroi is an old Slavic word for the same thing. Your grandfather probably jotted these down to remind him of what to look for in the ancient texts he found in all these libraries.’
‘Lamashtu?’
‘A goddess worshipped by the Babylonians. She was said to have drunk human blood. As you see, vampire mythology goes back a lot further than most people know.’
Joel clicked his tongue impatiently. ‘Okay, this is all very educational. But what about the cross?’ He reached out to take the notebook from her hand. ‘It’s cold out here. Do you want to go inside?’
‘I’m fine.’
Joel opened the notebook at the page that described the origins of the cross and the travels of the enigmatic Ringan. ‘Who was Ringan?’
‘I don’t have the answer to that,’ she replied. ‘And I think your grandfather might have been wondering about it himself. See how he put an N in brackets after the name, with a question mark? Who was “N”? Good question.’ She fished in the pocket of her jeans, and came out with a BlackBerry smartphone.
Joel couldn’t help but smile to himself as he watched her dial up a Google search and type the name ‘Ringan’ on the tiny keys. He liked the intensity of this woman. She was already hooked. He could feel it, and was glad he’d come to her. She was someone who’d been through the same things he had. Someone he could trust.
She shook her head. ‘Ringan comes up all over the place. But not the Ringan we’re looking for, unless he was some pop star’s kid or some kind of Indian recipe.’
‘How about keying in “Ringan Scotland”?’
‘I’ll try.’ She tapped the keys, scrolled down. ‘Nothing.’
‘Shit.’
‘Wait. Here’s something. From the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. St Ringan’s Chapel, in Stirlingshire.’ She read out loud. ‘“An old chapel called St Ringan’s, where those who died of the plague in 1645 were buried. The chapel was in existence by 1497 although no trace of it survives.”’
‘No good to us,’ Joel said. ‘We’re looking for something much older than that. My grandfather said fifth century.’
She grimaced. ‘You’re right. Hold on. Take a look at this.’
Joel shifted towards the edge of his seat. ‘What’ve you found?’
‘The alternative name of St Ringan’s Chapel is St Ninian’s Chapel.’
He looked at her. ‘Ninian. The N in brackets.’
‘Let me dig a little deeper here.’ Alex stroked a few more keys on the BlackBerry, then smiled. ‘Here. “In Scotland, Ninian is also known as Ringan.” Same guy. Good old Wikipedia. Now—’
Joel was tense as he watched her retracing the research footsteps of his grandfather decades earlier.
‘Okay,’ she said with a flourish. ‘We can start filling in the gaps. According to three history sites I’ve just checked out, legend has it that long before he was ev
er beatified, Ninian was sent to Scotland during the fifth century on the orders of St Martin, who ordered him to bring Christian teachings to the Pictish people who later became the Scots. St Martin sent a contingent of stonemasons along with him to build his church there.’
Joel checked the scribbles on the back of the map. ‘So on his travels, Ninian meets this holy man—’
‘—Who entrusts him with the rock he tells Ninian has magic powers. I don’t know if Ninian believed him at the time, but seemingly he got the chance to find out for himself when locals approached him for help with their Baobhan sith problems.’ She pronounced it ‘baa-van-shee’.
‘Sounds like you know what a Baobhan sith is, then,’ he said.
‘Guess.’
‘A vampire?’
‘Yup. They were also called “The White Women of the Highlands”. They took the form of beautiful young women who seduced men by inviting them to dance, lured them somewhere quiet and then drank their blood.’ Alex smiled.
‘What’s funny?’ he asked.
‘Nothing. I was just thinking about something.’
Joel couldn’t read the look in her eye. He glanced back at the notebook. ‘So this lump of rock supposedly had powers against these vampire creatures. And then, according to what my grandfather wrote, after he saw what it could do, he had one of the stonemasons sculpt it into a cross.’ He paused. ‘Which means, I guess, that whatever powers the cross apparently possesses don’t have anything to do with the power of God, forces of good warding off evil spirits and all that kind of thing. There’s some other reason why it can do what it does. But being a good Christian, Ninian felt he had to rework it into a religious icon. I suppose that was the only way they could understand it.’ He frowned at Alex. ‘Just what are we dealing with here?’
‘I really don’t know,’ she replied. Joel thought there was a slight nervous tone to her voice, but he was too taken up with the mystery to dwell on it. He traced his finger along one of his grandfather’s sketches of the ancient artefact. ‘If the stone was only just a bit larger than a man’s head, the cross can’t be that big. Fifteen inches tall, maybe. Question is, where did it go after that?’
‘April 1975. Your grandfather travelled to Venice,’ Alex said. ‘Looks like he tracked it that far. But did he find it?’
‘He got close,’ Joel said. ‘But he never found it. Maybe he was planning to go and look for it again one day. I don’t know.’ He sighed. ‘I just wish he’d told me more about his work. I was just a kid, and my father didn’t like it when the old man used to try to talk to me about these things. They used to argue endlessly about it. And then…then it happened, and it was too late.’
Alex leaned back in her seat. The afternoon was wearing on, and the sun was dipping slowly over the London skyline. A cold wind was blowing in from the river, streaming her hair across her face. She brushed it away pensively.
‘I’m sorry they suspended you from your job,’ she said. ‘But, like you said, now you have some time on your hands.’
‘And not a lot else,’ he said.
‘You’re serious about finding this cross, aren’t you?’
‘I’ve no choice in the matter.’
‘Then how do you feel about a trip to Venice?’
Chapter Fifty-Four
Darkness was beginning to fall by the time Alex skidded the Jag into the Schuessler & Schuessler parking lot and made her way up to the top floor. Rumble was in his office talking to Xavier Garrett when she barged in without knocking. Both vampires turned as she marched up to Rumble’s desk.
She jerked her thumb at the door. ‘Take a hike, Garrett. I have some news to tell Harry.’
Garrett looked at Rumble. Rumble nodded quietly. Garrett scowled ferociously at Alex as he left the room.
‘I’m listening,’ Rumble said, and Alex spent the next five minutes telling him about her meeting with Joel Solomon.
‘The Federation rules expressly forbid fraternisation with a human,’ Rumble warned her. ‘You know the penalty.’
‘Then it’s time to start making exceptions to the rules. Without him, we wouldn’t know that Stone is hiding out at a stately home near Henley-on-Thames. It’s called Crowmoor Hall.’
Rumble stared. ‘How does this Solomon know that?’
‘Remember the Hallowe’en party? The kid who thought he saw vampires? He didn’t imagine it.’ She perched herself on the edge of Rumble’s desk. ‘This is our chance, Harry. We can take them.’
‘And how do you propose to do that? Storm the place? Maybe you’ve forgotten that these are the same guys who just relieved us of enough Nosferol to destroy every vampire on the planet. They have it all, and we have just about none. I’d say the balance of power has shifted a little in their favour. And you want to go in there like Rambo.’
‘I didn’t mean now,’ she said impatiently. ‘I meant when I get back from Venice.’
‘Now you’ve totally lost me. Why would you go to Venice?’
‘Because that’s where Joel Solomon believes he’s going to find the cross of Ardaich.’
There was a long silence. Rumble pushed his glasses up his nose and stared at her hard.
‘I don’t have time to explain it all right now, Harry. When I get back, you’ll know everything. What I need you to do now is authorise an expense account for me. No limits.’
‘What about the FRC conference in Brussels? I’d have liked you there with me.’
‘What about it? Don’t you think this is more important?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Listen to me, Harry. This is the only chance we have. Just as you said, the balance of power has tipped away from us. Stone has all the guns. But what if we could find the cross? And what if the legends are true?’
‘Yeah, what if?’
‘But suppose they are. We can take Stone and all his followers out, just like that.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘It would stop this insurrection in its tracks.’
‘There’s a problem with your logic. You’re a vampire, Alex. And vampires can’t even go near the cross of Ardaich. That thing even gets pointed at you, you’ll wish Stone had shot you with one of your own Nosferol bullets.’
‘I can’t be the cross bearer,’ Alex said. ‘But Joel Solomon can. And he wants this more than anything. He hates vampires. He told me so.’
‘Where is the human now?’
‘He’s at my place.’
‘Alex, if anyone at FRC got wind that you were harbouring a human in your own home—’
‘But they won’t. Will they, Harry?’
‘You’re making me an accomplice, for crying out loud.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve covered for me.’
‘This is different.’
‘Well, apparently this is war,’ she said.
Rumble paused, thinking hard, then let out a long sigh. ‘Say this cross really is in Venice. Which is improbable. And say you and he are able to find it. Which is highly unlikely. You’d be putting yourself at enormous risk.’
Alex shrugged. ‘You know me, Harry. I’ve taken risks before.’
‘And by allowing you to recover it, I’d be endangering all of us. What if this Solomon finds out who you really are, and about VIA?’
‘He won’t.’
‘You’re sure about that? Have you thought about how you’re going to explain to him that you can’t go near the damn thing? Won’t he find that just a teeny bit odd?’
‘I’ll think of something, Harry. I always do, don’t I?’
Rumble mulled it over for a while, then pulled a face. ‘I don’t like it. Not one little bit.’
‘But you don’t have any better ideas. Do you?’
Chapter Fifty-Five
Not long returned from his journey, Gabriel Stone was still fresh with the memory of his meeting with his Masters as he paced his subterranean study.
All seemed to be going well. All, that was, but for one thing that continued to plague his mind: the cros
s, and the accursed human who claimed he’d found it. Finch was supposed to have been giving him a report. Where was he? There was no sign of him, and that made Stone uneasy.
That question was still burning in his mind when the phone rang. He hesitated to pick it up. He was expecting no calls. That meant that to answer the phone could mean having to converse with a human, something he only did for one of two reasons: either because that human was useful to him in some way; or because that human’s blood was shortly to become a meal. The rest was trivial and distasteful to him. Such things were Finch’s duties.
He hesitated a moment longer, then picked up the phone. ‘You may speak,’ he said stiffly. The human protocol was alien to him, and he had no time for it.
There was a second’s surprised silence on the end of the line, followed by a voice that told him they were calling from Thames Valley Police.
‘What seems to be the problem?’ Stone asked cautiously.
‘I’m afraid I may have some bad news, sir. You have an assistant called Seymour Finch?’
‘I have.’
‘The body of a man has been recovered from the Isis River earlier this afternoon. He had no papers on him and so far we’ve been unable to make a formal identification, but one of our officers called out to a previous incident at your home thought he recognised the deceased as Mr Finch.’
‘I see,’ Stone replied slowly. ‘Tell me, officer, what was the cause of death?’
‘I’m afraid we are treating it as suspicious, sir. A firearm was involved in his death. I’m very sorry.’
‘As am I,’ Stone said, without a trace of emotion.
‘We’ve been unable to locate any next of kin for Mr Finch. I’m afraid that means I have to ask you, as his employer, to identify the body here at the police morgue before we launch a full criminal investigation. We can send a car to collect you if necessary.’
Stone turned to read the antique clock on the mantelpiece. A few minutes after five. ‘Is it dark yet?’
‘Beg your pardon, sir?’
‘I said, has night fallen?’
‘Ah, I understand,’ the stupid human said. ‘We appreciate how busy you are, sir. No, the facility will be open until late. We can send the car for you any time.’
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