Black Hearts Rising (Wardens of the Black Heart Book 2)

by Rob Campbell

  He stood up, looking in my direction. I hoped that he couldn’t see my tears from his position, and I quickly wiped my eyes as he made his way towards me.

  “Thank God!” he said. “My back and legs are killing.”

  “Mine too.”

  He looked at Abram’s grave. “Is that it?”

  “Looks like it to me.”

  “I expected something different.”

  “Really?” I asked, turning to him in surprise. “He wasn’t that well-known. He probably died a pauper. That’s what they say about most artists.”

  We stood side-by-side, each left to our own thoughts. I had to remember that Monkey was an orphan, and I wondered whether this brought back any painful memories for him. He didn’t talk much about his dad’s death, a fact that made me feel self-conscious and selfish if I mentioned my dad’s cancer to him too often. But here, amongst the graves, he didn’t appear to be affected.

  “What is it about us in graveyards at night?” I quipped, thinking back to our first meeting at my dad’s grave.

  He gave a silent laugh, his shoulders moving once. “I don’t know. Sort of spooky, don’t you think? Maybe you should write a story about it.”

  “One day, I just might.” I was glad of Monkey’s company and his easy conversation. I’d lost track of time whilst we’d been searching the graveyard, but we must have been here a good half hour. It wasn’t fully dark yet, but dusk had the place in its grip, and soon the last light of the day would be snuffed out like a used-up candle.

  “I knew it would be you,” said a voice, breaking the silence such that I stepped back in shock, involuntarily grabbing Monkey’s arm for balance. The face of the vicar, lit by the weak glow of a nearby streetlight, looked on through the gloom, appearing like some figurehead on the prow of a boat as it poked through the mist.

  I felt Monkey tense.

  “If it's about the church roof...” Monkey blabbered, clearly believing that the vicar was seeking some recompense for the tiles that he’d dislodged from the roof during his daring cat rescue.

  “Well, actually, it is,” the vicar responded, his shoes crunching the stones on the path as he closed the gap to us.

  To say that I was surprised was an understatement. “What do you mean?”

  “I need to know what you know,” he said cryptically.

  * * *

  The vicar led us back through the grounds and into the relative warmth of the church.

  To my eyes, his demeanour was in stark contrast to the man that Monkey and I had seen at the scene of the plane crash. There, he had looked like a man on the edge. Here, whilst his face had the same waxy pallor, he seemed calmer, surer of himself. He invited us to take a seat in the front row of pews whilst he reached for a dimmer switch in a nearby recess. Electric lights fixed to a lower part of the church ceiling came softly to life.

  “Candles are fine, but sometimes you can’t beat a bit of modern technology,” he explained. Pulling up a chair in front of our pew, he sat down, crossed his legs and seemed to consider us for a few seconds.

  “What do you want to know?” asked Monkey, the tremor in his voice betraying his nervousness.

  “What do you know about the artist, Abram?” the vicar asked.

  I had the distinct impression that he was asking Monkey; he was certainly staring intently in his direction, but when my friend didn’t answer, I felt the need to step in.

  “Not much. Only what I heard about at the lecture the other night. Were you there?”

  “No. What about you?” he asked Monkey.

  “Me? Same as Lorna.”

  “And that’s all?”

  We both nodded simultaneously.

  The vicar pursed his lips as if preparing to ask another question, but when the silence had stretched to an uncomfortable length, I decided to ask a question of my own.

  “Do you mind me asking what this is all about?”

  “I've been the vicar here for six years, and I can tell you that as assignments go, this has been pretty easy,” he said, suddenly appearing more animated. “Aside from sometimes having to get out of bed before five in the morning, the occasional funeral and playing peacemaker for members of the parish council when they’re arguing over the price of the fairy cakes at the church fair, I'd say that it's been idyllic.”

  He sighed. “That was until a couple of months ago when some of my parishioners started coming to me to tell me about their nightmares.”

  The vicar’s words jogged a memory from the night of the plane crash. Before we’d heard the news, when we’d been in the Recorder office, Mick had mentioned something about the vicar having to deal with members of his congregation suffering dark visions. In the interest of finding out more, I put on my best poker face and played dumb.

  “Really? What sort of nightmares?” I punctuated my two statements with an appropriate gasp.

  “The sort of things that you hear about in far-fetched films: dark shadows stalking the streets, fields on fire, winged demons, you know, Book-of-Revelation-type stuff.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of films the vicar watched in the twilight hours. “Like you said yourself, it's far-fetched. Is that why that guy walks around town with the sandwich board telling everybody that the end is nigh?”

  “No. That's Toby Barnes – he's harmless enough. Although between you and me, he's always been a bit of a conspiracy theorist. Only last year, he was convinced that Mrs Sheerwater was putting LSD into the cakes that she baked for the Easter fair.”

  Try as I might, I struggled to square the image of the sandwich board man with somebody who would be concerned about cakes. LSD or not.

  “No, I'm not talking about him,” the vicar continued.

  “So, what's all this got to do with the church roof?” asked Monkey, clearly bothered that this was some prelude to the vicar handing him a bill for the damaged roof tiles.

  “Well, between all of this theatrical nonsense about winged demons, Mrs Jones, who's as level-headed as the day is long, came to me in a right state. Says that she'd been suffering from a recurring dream that she couldn't get out of her head. Something about a boy on a church roof.”

  I had to laugh at that. “Well, that explains it! Isn't it obvious what's going on? You remember, Monkey, there was quite a crowd that day.”

  Monkey nodded enthusiastically.

  “Your Mrs Jones; she was obviously there when Monkey climbed on the church roof, and it's formed a lasting image. Aren't all our dreams made up of fragmented memories?”

  “I quite often have dreams where I'm climbing a tall building,” Monkey interjected. “Then I fall, but before I hit the ground, I wake up.”

  If he thought that his anecdote would loosen the vicar up, he was wrong. The vicar’s face said that he was anything but amused. “So how about when Mrs Jones comes to me and says that the dreams have changed. Now the boy climbs up on the church roof, and he's looking out over a field that's on fire – the sun having fallen from the sky.”

  “And?”

  “This was the night before the plane crash.”

  “Co-incidence,” I said flatly.

  “You're right to think that. It's only natural,” he responded in a sombre tone.

  “Is this why you looked so frightened that night?”

  “You were there?” For the first time in the conversation, the vicar looked surprised.

  “Yes.”

  The vicar stood up from his chair, the bones in one of his knees making an audible crack, a sound that was accompanied by a wince. I had no idea how old he was. Mid-fifties, maybe sixty, but in that brief moment as he raised himself from the chair, he had the demeanour of a much older man. He paced across towards the altar before turning back towards us.

  “Remember I said earlier that I'd been here for six years? About how everything had been routine? Well, that's mostly true – except for my first week. Like all other resident vicars over the years, when I moved in, I took over stewardship of the paris
h records.”

  “Parish records?” I wondered what kind of information might be kept by the church.

  “Mostly the ramblings of my predecessors,” the vicar explained dismissively. “Their observations on life in Culverton Beck, and yet this caught my eye.” He reached over to a small desk that was adjacent to the altar and pulled out an old envelope, which he held out between his thumb and first finger.

  “What’s that?”

  “This letter contains the last testimony of Josiah Abram.” He held the letter in front of us, pausing for a few seconds to let his words sink in before passing it to Monkey.

  The paper of the envelope was yellowed with age, giving it the look of some old parchment. Monkey stared down at the words written on its front, seemingly caught in a trance.

  “Can I?” I asked, gently prising the envelope from his loose grip before he had a chance to acknowledge. I was eager to discover what the vicar was so keen to show us, and Monkey didn’t appear to be in a rush to open it.

  The words were handwritten in an elaborate curling script. The ink was smudged in one or two places, combining with the aged paper to give the envelope an air of authenticity. I read the words aloud as if I was giving some reading in church.

  I make no claim as to the authenticity of the events described in the enclosed letter, only that I was present when Mr Abram related the words that are written by my own hand. For the sake of clarity, my own thoughts are recorded, and clearly marked, where appropriate. In accordance with Mr Abram's explicit instructions, this letter is to remain sealed and held in the parish records, until such time as the boy who climbs on God's roof comes to claim it.

  The Reverend James Hutton, vicar of St Stephen’s parish, Culverton Beck, 19th September 1907.

  I joined Monkey in staring slack-jawed at the envelope.

  “So, now you can see why I feel more than a little unnerved,” said the vicar. “That first week here, I read what you've just read and put it back in the records, but I often think back to that moment.”

  “The temptation to open it must have been huge,” I whispered, still struggling to come to terms with what I’d read.

  “It was. I've no doubt that some of my predecessors have opened it and then resealed it. Look at the seal – it's hardly a neat line.”

  I turned the envelope over. The line where the two sides of the seal met was wavy to say the least, suggesting a secret opening and resealing, maybe more than once over the years.

  “So, what do we do now?” asked Monkey.

  Before the vicar had a chance to answer, there was a scraping sound from the back of the church.

  “Who's back there?” shouted the vicar, looking over our heads into the gloom near the church doors. I turned to look over my shoulder but couldn’t see anything untoward.

  For a few more seconds, the vicar stared uncertainly towards the back of the church before returning to the conversation. “It's your choice. It’s clearly meant for you.”

  “Me? How do we know it's meant for me? How could it be meant for me?” Monkey stumbled from one sentence to the next, the shock of some words about the boy who climbs on God's roof clearly having had a profound effect on him. “Those words were written over one hundred years ago. I’m only fourteen!” There was a desperation to his voice. I got the distinct impression that he’d much rather the vicar be handing him some bill for a few missing roof tiles after all.

  “Don’t fret, Monkey. We need to think about this. I’m sure there’s some rational explanation.” I placed my hand on his shoulder in a gesture of reassurance. Monkey forced a thin smile in return.

  “So that’s it?” I asked the vicar. “Just like that. You give us a one-hundred-year-old letter, and you’re not even slightly curious what might be inside?”

  “Of course I’m curious,” he replied indignantly. “But I take my duties very seriously. That letter,” he said, stabbing a finger at the envelope in my hands, “has been in the care of fifteen different vicars down the years.” He paused before delivering his final thoughts. “But that letter is your problem now.”

  I felt an anger boiling up inside me, but remembering that we were in the house of God, I managed to bite back any immediate retort. This was a supposed man of God, and he was washing his hands of the whole affair, shifting the responsibility for the letter into the hands of a fourteen-year-old orphan. It was despicable. Or maybe I was reading too much into the incident.

  “I’m here if you need to talk to me,” he added graciously.

  “We’ll take it to Anja and Mick,” I declared boldly. “They’ll know what to do.”

  Another scrape at the back of the church. This time when we turned around, a faint sliver of streetlight was momentarily visible through the door before it swung shut. In that brief instant, the tail of a black coat was visible.

  “The man in the long black coat,” whispered the vicar.

  A black coat. I thought back to the night of the lecture and remembered Frank giving chase to the mysterious Dylan Fogg. He’d been wearing a long black leather coat that night. Could it have been him? If so, he was making a habit of slipping out of doors and into the night.

  Chapter 13

  The drive to Lester’s house gave me more time to mull over the events of the past few days. As agreed, Frank had picked us up outside Burger Bonanza. He focused on the winding road ahead, talking only briefly to make off-handed observations about the state of the road or the beauty of the trees. Questions about Dylan Fogg were burning through my mind, the desire to ask Frank once again what he knew leaving me with an almost unbearable urge to try one more time. Eventually, I’d reasoned that we’d be at Lester’s in less than ten minutes, and so it wasn’t worth the risk of upsetting Frank when we’d have our answers soon enough.

  After last night’s revelations at St Stephen's, I was glad that our visit to see Lester had been delayed. Although there was no definitive evidence that the elusive Mr Fogg had made an appearance in church last night, I couldn’t shake the image of the black coat slipping through the doors, and this gave our questions for Lester added impetus.

  On Monkey’s insistence, I’d kept the letter that the vicar had handed over in my bedroom for safekeeping. It was certainly safer there than with him at the Crow Hill Orphanage. A year ago, if I’d been in the same situation, I would have laughed off the whole episode as some elaborate prank. How could a fourteen-year-old boy be the intended recipient of a letter that was written more than a century ago? It was preposterous. Yet Monkey seemed genuinely shaken up by it. After hearing Lester’s warnings about the Wardens of the Black Heart last year, and with the shadow of Charles Gooch lurking, I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore.

  Monkey had been insistent that he didn’t want to open it. When I’d suggested seeking the opinion of Anja and Mick, he’d been less than enthusiastic. He was the one who’d become an evangelist on the possibility of supernatural forces, yet last night, he’d seemed shaken to the core, once again retreating into his shell.

  So, tonight, we’d quiz Lester on the subject of Dylan Fogg. Then there was Victoria Halfpenny and her request to see Lester’s Abernathy paintings. Maybe tomorrow we’d worry about the envelope and what it might contain.

  As Frank steered around the final bend before the gates to Lester’s house came into view, we were met by the sight of several police vehicles on either side of the gravel driveway, beyond the open gates.

  “What in God’s name is going on here?” asked Frank rhetorically.

  He stopped the car, and we emerged into a group of police officers, who were coming and going through the front door. Lester was standing in the hallway, arguing with a man in a suit.

  “I demand to know what you are looking for!” yelled Lester, from a position mere centimetres in front of the man’s face.

  “Mr Hawkstone, please calm down.”

  “This is an invasion of privacy!” Lester stalked away, arms planted firmly on his hips, his whole posture tense, only to t
urn around immediately and get in the man’s face once again. “Has he put you up to this, officer? Has he?”

  The man, who I now realised was the officer in charge of whatever was going on here, looked perplexed but held his arms out, palms down, suggesting that he was trying his level best to defuse the situation. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know who you are referring to.”

  “He has, hasn’t he?” At this point, Lester spotted us entering his front door. “Frank, you tell him that Gooch is behind this, and he’s up to no good!”

  “Have you got a warrant for this search?” asked Frank.

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” Lester said. “Maybe I should call my solicitor.” It seemed that Frank’s intervention had Lester thinking more clearly.

  “There’s no need for that, sir. As I already assured you, we just want a quick look around, and then we’ll be on our way.”

  “What’s this all about, Mr Hawkstone?” Frank asked his boss.

  Lester waved his hand dismissively. “Seems like somebody told them that I had some dangerous materials,” he said under his breath. “Gooch is behind this, I know it!”

  A spotty-faced young policeman in uniform trotted up to his superior. “Sir, there are steps leading down from the hallway just over there.” He pointed towards the stone steps that I knew from past experience led to Lester’s vault.

  “You can’t go in there!” Lester ranted.

  Whilst the two policemen went towards the steps, Frank placed a reassuring arm on Lester. “Keep it down,” he whispered. “You’ll only get them more suspicious.”

  “They can’t go down there, Frank,” Lester seethed.

  “Frank’s right,” I said. “Shouting about it will only make them want to go in more. You need to play it cool.”

  “Cool. Right, yes, thank you, Lorna. Got to play it cool,” Lester muttered, sounding anything but cool. He paced away as if trying to shake the nervousness out of his system.

  The senior policeman strode purposefully back towards us.

  “This doesn’t look good,” said Monkey.