Traitors' Gate

by Nicky Peacock

  “Name it,” Nicholas replied.

  “She must go into the Tower with us.”

  “I’ve never been in the Tower of London. It might be fun,” I say.

  “You should probably ask what’s going on here first, before agreeing.” Tolliver kicks a piece of raven over to my foot. He makes a good point, albeit a disgusting one.

  The Elder swiftly moves to stand before us. “My brothers and I have just returned from the battle of Camporto. Our enemies there have been vanquished, but one had already been captured by the English knights and taken here to be interrogated. He is being kept here in the Tower.”

  “You want us to go in and get to him?” Nicholas asks.

  “Not exactly. He’s not the one we wish you to recover. The two young princes, Edward and Richard, are being kept in the Tower.”

  “What has happened here?” Tolliver asks, “Why are the princes in danger?”

  “The new prisoner is an enchanter by the name of St. John Swan.”

  “An enchanter?” I ask before I can keep my question to myself.

  “A warlock,” Philippe replies.

  I shiver again, stroking the fur of my cloak.

  Nicholas suddenly pulls me behind him and launches himself at the Elder, who simply moves out of his way with little effort.

  Tolliver grabs Nicholas and holds him back. “You would send in a human girl against an enchanter!” Nicholas yells.

  “She must prove herself, brother,” Tolliver whispers.

  “We will all go into the Tower, we’ll find the princes, and our job will be done.” Philippe slips his hand in mine as he says it.

  “Perhaps not as easy as you think.” The Elder stares at the diced Raven on the ground.

  “Has St. John cast a spell on the Tower?” I ask.

  “It would seem that he has infected the prisoners within the Tower with the Reverent affliction. If the princes are still alive, they are to be brought to me.” The Elder then throws me an oddly bored expression and disappears into the night.

  The thought of those two little boys surrounded by monsters is almost too much to bear. Even without vampire companions, I’d have still ventured in to find them. “Let’s get started!” I say and turn to get on the boat that will take us into the Tower’s grounds.

  Nicholas shakes his head. “I’m not letting you go in there.”

  “I can deal with warlocks and revenants,” I say.

  “Do you even know what revenants are?”

  “Zombies, the living dead,” Tolliver adds.

  “Well, I’ve managed to survive vampires, Lord Hands McGrabby and my father, so this should be a ball. Let’s go and get it over with.”

  “If this St. John has just turned prisoners, then they should still all be locked up. One would presume that the human guards have all been spirited away to safety by the other Elders.” Philippe’s reasoning softens the look on Nicholas’s face.

  “I’ll be okay.” I reach up and caress Nicholas’s cheek. I see in his eyes that he hasn’t quite decided my true fate yet, and in honesty, the decision belongs only to him.

  “We will take care of her, brother,” Tolliver says.

  “All right, but we get the boys, and we get out. The Elders can clean up their own damn zombie mess. The deal was that she was to go in, nothing else.” Nicholas quickly catches my lips with his. They are cold and soft and feel wonderful. A surge of bravery rises in me and I break our kiss to whisper in his ear, “I will be strong, fast and deadly.”

  He pulls me into a hard embrace and I feel his hands beneath my cloak caressing the skin of my back.

  “He’ll make her regardless of the Elders, won’t he?” Tolliver asks Philippe.

  “And we will stand by them both regardless.”

  Chapter Ten

  The boat ride into the Tower is surprisingly long, even with Philippe and Tolliver rowing, but the closer we get, the more I can smell the foulest of odors. It’s a mixture of curdled milk and rotted pig meat.

  “What is that stench?”

  “The revenants would not be rotten so quickly. I think it must be the animals,” Philippe answers me.

  “The Tower has a menagerie of exotic animals, gifts from foreign kingdoms.” Tolliver points toward the Tower’s courtyard.

  “Are they loose?” I ask, suddenly imagining having to fight lions and zombies at once like some supernatural gladiator waiting for a thumbs-down from the gods.

  “They weren’t, but there’s no telling now,” Tolliver replies, not looking at me, but staring into the distance.

  We fall into a comfortable silence listening to the water smack the side of our boat and soon, as we get closer, we hear the cries of myriad unknown dangers.

  “Can animals be revenants?” I ask.

  “No, darling, magic shouldn’t work on them,” Nicholas whispers to me, pulling me closer to him so I’m all but sat on his lap.

  I’m just starting to enjoy the moonlight boat ride in the arms of my soon-to-be husband when we clunk into the tiny dock. Philippe jumps out and offers me his hand, which I take. He helps me off the boat and surprisingly does the same for both Nicholas and Philippe. The man is a true gentleman and I find I’m growing even fonder of him. Tolliver has still retained his original mood, but even as I think this he reaches inside his cloak and produces a small sword, which he hands to me.

  “She won’t need it,” Nicholas says.

  “Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.” Tolliver flips the sword so that the handle is pointed at me. I gently take it from him. “Thank you,” I say. He smiles a little at me for a moment, then I’m pretty sure he remembers that I really don’t belong with them, and that I especially don’t belong here, and then the smile is gone.

  Our walk toward the main Tower is slow and deliberate. We kill an undead raven here and there, although the vampires beat me to all of them with their super-speed and senses.

  I try to think of all this as some sort of game, so I attempt to ignore the cries emanating from the Tower. I’m sure that it isn’t unusual for them to echo about England’s most notorious prison, but the pitch of the cries is somehow different: more guttural, less human.

  “Everything is going to be okay.” Nicholas squeezes my hand. The vampires’ stride quickens as they approach the wooden door to the main tower, encrusted with giant spikes. They push it open and an even more horrendous smell smacks my face so hard I stumble backwards.

  “That is the smell of revenants,” Tolliver explains.

  “Wonderful,” I say, lifting my fur cloak to my nose in an attempt to block out some of the stench.

  The guards have obviously evacuated their stations as there are only a few candles still burning. Shadows and darkness melt into one another, making the scenery around me like a black blanket smothering my senses. I cling tighter to Nicholas’s arm as we walk further in.

  For a reason that I cannot fathom, it feels colder inside the Tower than outside. My hand, although gloved, feels numb around my sword’s handle—so much so, I have to tap the blade to my leg as we walk to reassure myself that it’s still there.

  “All the prisoners must still be locked up,” Tolliver says, but his tone is more of a question than a statement.

  “Where would the princes imprisoned?” I ask.

  “The top of the Tower. They are not actually prisoners,” Nicholas replies.

  “Really, is that what you think, brother?” Even in the near darkness I see Tolliver’s face contort in disbelief.

  Nicholas grunts and walks a little faster, slightly dragging me behind him.

  We seem to walk forever, then finally reach the first room of the Tower. It is lightly furnished in red and purple velvet. There’s a carpet runner on the floor beneath our feet and thick curtains over the small windows. I let go of Nicholas’s hand and move toward a window. I open the curtain and breathe in fresh air. Looking out of the window, I see that we are much higher up than I thought. I b
ack away and turn to see all three vampires looking at me.

  “Let her out, Nicholas. We can lower her out of one of these windows, then pick her up on the way back. No one needs to know,” Philippe says.

  “Good idea, let’s do it.” Nicholas grabs a nearby curtain and yanks it down. He then makes a strange noose out of it and approaches me.

  I put up my hands and back away from him. “You’re not doing that. I said I’d help save the little princes, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Please, just let me…”

  “No, Nicholas. Those young boys are probably frightened out of their minds. Vampires shouldn’t add to their nightmare tonight. I’m going to get them out of here.”

  He drops the curtain and smiles at me. “I love you, you know.”

  I never imagined any man saying that to me, and it takes everything I’ve got not to run into his arms and kiss him till the sun comes up.

  “Okay, let’s get this romance on the road, there might not be any princes left to rescue if we don’t get moving.” Tolliver kicks the abandoned curtain out of the way and strides off through a door.

  Nicholas offers his hand, which I eagerly take again, and we follow Tolliver deeper into the dark, foul-smelling bowels of the Tower.

  The vampires hear it before me. I know they do, because Nicholas’s hand tenses around mine. I hear it minutes later and it makes my stomach turn.

  Chapter Eleven

  The groans that we had heard coming into the Tower’s grounds were nothing compared to this. Cages line the next corridor and inside each one we pass is a confined, tightly pressed mob of the undead, reaching and screaming to get at our flesh. Some push so hard at the bars that the zombie closest to them is sieved through the iron posts into a twitching pile of splintered bones, squashed flesh and putrid innards. And still those piles are trying to find a way to get to us. Tolliver has now fully taken the lead and is chopping off parts here and there. Philippe is gently slipping his rapier through ears and eye sockets. Nicholas wraps me in his arms, shuffling me forward from behind. At least they are all still caged. If they had been free, I’m not sure I would have survived this zombie gauntlet to get to the top of the Tower.

  Finally, we reach a steep, narrow staircase that leads to the princes’ prison. We open the door and scan the room. It is a decadent cell, but a cell nonetheless. It is also empty.

  “Where could they have gone?” Tolliver asks.

  I move into the center of the room and look around. There’s only one door, the one we used, so either they got out on their own and are somewhere lost in the Tower, or they are still here… I look at the two beds, still immaculately made, with long, thick woolen blankets draped over them. I tiptoe toward the nearest one and lift the edge up. A frightened little face stares back at me. “It’s okay, we’re here to rescue you,” I say.

  I’m not sure he’s really understood in what I’ve said, since he doesn’t move or speak. I reach under the bed, gently take his arm and slide him out. “There, that’s better isn’t it? We can see each other properly now.”

  As I say this, another little boy crawls out from under the other bed and jumps into my arms. He hugs me so hard I stop breathing. “It’s okay,” I whisper to him, “we’re going to get you out of here.”

  “I know,” the little boy in my arms whispers back to me. “I saw you in my head, you’re Lucinda and that is Nicholas, Tolliver and Philippe. They’re vampires.” My eyes widen.

  Tolliver claps his hands together. “Edward has the gift. That’s why they were locked up.”

  “Would the English monarchy be so cruel to a child?” Philippe asks.

  “Yes, if they think that unexplained visions of the future might be considered the Devil’s work. The War of the Roses has made the lineage of the King uncertain, and they could lose support if their lords thought their family was touched by Lucifer,” Tolliver says.

  Nicholas nods in agreement and all three vampires bend down to shake hands with the little boy. His younger brother, Richard, still almost catatonic, curls into my body. He now has a thumb lodged in his mouth and his stare is lost somewhere in the middle distance. “Will he be all right?” I ask Nicholas.

  “Yes, we just need to get him out of here.”

  Nicholas tries to hoist the boy into his arms, but he squirms and lets out a short, sharp wail. I quickly shift him back into my own arms, allowing his surprisingly hefty weight to settle on my hip. Richard puts his face into my shoulder and begins to chew on my fur cloak.

  “I’m sorry about my brother. I tried to tell him that we’ll be okay, but he doesn’t always listen to me.” Edward reaches up and pats his brother’s back.

  I wrap my arms around Richard to stop him from falling, although I think it might be a fruitless gesture as his legs are python tight around my body.

  “Let’s go,” says Tolliver taking Edward’s hand in his.

  Just as we begin to move out of the room, an ominous grinding metal sound echoes up the stairs.

  “He’s letting the zombies out now,” says Edward.

  Chapter Twelve

  We quickly close the door, trapping ourselves in the boys’ room. Philippe drags a nearby chest of drawers in front of it and Nicholas grabs a tapestry chaise longue to push on top of that, barricading us in.

  “There’s no other way out,” Tolliver says, looking round.

  “There’s the window,” I yell. I move toward it, albeit slower due to my child baggage. I push the heavy curtains aside and stare out of the hole that claims to be a window. We’re far too high up to jump and below are now a clump of undead prisoners. Some are pushing themselves onto the stones of the tower, trying to grip on, while others are feasting on the remains of one of the Tower’s lions. I put my hand up to be sure that Richard has his face turned away. I can’t stop staring at the scene below; even if I could the sounds are enough to make you vomit, insistent groaning coupled with sloppy slurping and skin being ripped asunder. As I watch, Nicholas edges beside me to see what I’m looking at. He murmurs something in a language I’ve never heard before and starts to pull me away. As I’m gently guided backward I see the half-eaten lion twitch and stumble to its feet. Didn’t Nicholas say that the animals wouldn’t be affected?

  The zombies then lose interest with their meal and all of them start to clamber up the Tower’s wall. I tense my body, stopping Nicholas’s efforts to get me further back in the room. Now there are more of them, they can climb onto one another’s backs and pull themselves further up the wall. Some reach up and grab onto jutting stones. They start to pull themselves up, creeping up to the open window of the Tower.

  A loud bang makes me jump and I turn to see the door shiver and one of the drawers from the chest clatter to the floor.

  “Can we go out the window?” Tolliver asks.

  “They’re climbing the walls,” I whisper.

  “What do we do?” Philippe asks as he places his back against the now jumping furniture blockade.

  Nicholas turns to me. He looks worried. A look I’ve never seen before.

  “We can fight them,” I say. “We can funnel them through the door with the furniture. With your strength and speed, we should be able to quickly dispatch them as they stumble in. They may be dangerous, but they’re not as dangerous as vampires.”

  All eyes are on me. Nicholas smiles.

  “I think I kind of love her too,” Philippe says with a grin.

  I take both boys to the back of the room and cover them in a blanket to shield their eyes. Philippe begins unstacking the barricade and Nicholas and Tolliver place the furniture either side of the doorframe, making a kind of makeshift corridor. They then lift one of the wooden bed frames and place it in front of me and the boys. As they move to their positions, I catch Nicholas’s hand and pull him to me. I angle my face upward and gently catch his bottom lip in my mouth. He puts his palms on my cheeks and holds me to him. I close my eyes and wonder if this is our last kiss and if v
ampires are allowed into Heaven, or even if I will be if things go horribly wrong.

  “We will have a wonderful eternity together,” Nicholas whispers to me.

  I open my eyes and a thousand things I want to say crush together into my mouth and nothing comes out, so I lift his hands and place a chaste kiss on each of his palms, hoping our love will make his sword true.

  “That’s enough of that, let’s focus!” Tolliver yells at us.

  Nicholas turns from me and all the vampires unsheathe their swords. I sit on the floor with the boys and wait…

  The wood of the door seems to bulge, then suddenly splinter in two. Zombie prisoners fall through into a heap at the vampires’ feet. With fast strikes, they begin beheading the foul creatures. Part of me wants to close my eyes till it’s over, to hide under the blanket with the princes, but the more dominant part of me demands I watch every tumbling head, every slash and slice, because it’s that side of me that knows I was born to be a vampire.

  I have an arm hugging each of the boys, so if a zombie were to make it through the line, I’d have to move quickly to stop it. Realizing this error, I get to my feet and stand in front of them, sword out and ready to spill some dead blood. As I take my arm from Edward’s narrow shoulders, he grips my hand and looks sad.

  “It’ll be okay,” I say to him, but his eyes are glassy and unfocused.

  “He’s getting a vision,” whispers Richard.

  I really want to know what he’s seeing, even if I’m unsure as to whether to believe it or not. As far as I know their scheming uncle has tricked Edward into thinking he has visions as an excuse to get rid of his royal competition.

  I pull the boys into one another’s arms and stand up in front of them. Just as I do, a zombie lunges past Tolliver and falls toward me. Its head lolls back exposing red and yellow teeth. I poke out with my sword, hoping to skewer it through the eyeball, but misjudge the angle and instead scrape its ear clean off. The momentum of the motion pulls me forward into its waiting arms. I grab its shoulders and steady myself. I quickly drive a knee into the zombie’s groin, which of course does very little other than to anger it. A string of violent vowels drip from its mouth along with a trail of pinkish saliva. I flip my sword back up and thrust again. This time it buries itself in the zombie’s mouth.