Alchemy, Book Two of the Mercian Trilogy Read online

  EGMONT

  we bring stories to life

  First published in the United Kingdom by Egmont UK Ltd, 2012

  First published in the United States of America by Egmont USA, 2012

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 806

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © K. J. Wignall, 2012

  All rights reserved

  www.egmontusa.com

  www.kjwignall.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wignall, Kevin.

  Alchemy / by K.J. Wignall.

  p. cm. — (The Mercian trilogy; bk. 2)

  Summary: “An ancient vampire continues his search for the world’s greatest evil with the help of the girl he loves”— Provided by publisher.

  eISBN: 978-1-60684-382-6

  [1. Vampires–Fiction. 2. Good and evil–Fiction.

  3. Fate and fatalism–Fiction. 4. Alchemists–Fiction. 5. Horror stories.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.W63939Alc 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012003792

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  v3.1

  For B

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgements

  1

  A demon ended my childhood. The year was 1742 and I was just eight years old. I was not bitten, do not think that of me, but in a very real sense I was infected, and the darkness of that creature crept into my heart. It is lodged there still, and the only way I’ll ever be free of it is to rid the world of the demon itself, and of the evil that comes with it.

  I was born, then, in 1734, the youngest son of the fourth Lord Bowcastle. My father was a benign and generous man, inclined to view his two sons and two daughters in a spirit of wonder and benevolence. My mother, for the first eight years of my life, was spirited and beautiful and full of good humour. She kept the beauty thereafter, but the spirit of Lady Bowcastle, formerly Miss Arabella Harriman, only daughter of Sir Thomas and Lady Harriman, was broken beyond repair that night in 1742.

  She’d accompanied my eldest sister, who’d just come out into society, to some happening or other in the city. I remember the beginning of the evening well, not least as my final moment of undiluted happiness. I remember telling my sister how beautiful she looked. And my mother danced with me in the hall as they waited for the carriage to be brought around.

  I was in bed by the time they returned and the next day I knew only that my mother was unwell. But in the days and weeks that followed, young as I was, I became my mother’s confidant. The story within the house was that Lady Bowcastle had seen a spectre as she’d stepped down from her carriage, a wraith or some such thing. Only I was told the truth.

  What my mother had seen that night was a demon, a demon that had haunted her youth. She had perhaps long consigned those youthful encounters to the deepest recesses of her mind, but seeing him again, completely unchanged after almost thirty years, was enough to bring it all to the surface and unsettle her well-being.

  Had the demon not been there that night, or had she looked the other way and failed to see him, everything would have been different. Only he was there, and she did look and did see. It destroyed her health and changed the course of my life even before I knew it.

  From that night forward, she determined that I would become the defender of her soul, that I would learn to understand such demons, this demon in particular, and that I would destroy them wherever I encountered them. She determined, young as I was, that I would become a champion for the cause of good.

  And that, in short, is how I came to be the man I am: warrior, alchemist, sorcerer. My name is Phillip Wyndham and I have lived through a quarter of a millennium and more because of my mother’s foresight and conviction, and because the demon itself still lives despite my promise that I would destroy it. The demon also has a name of course, and its name is William of Mercia.

  2

  The parkland was frozen, a thick hoar frost painting each branch white against the night sky. There had been no snow since the week after Christmas, but now, nearing the end of January, more was forecast to fall in the days ahead.

  The weather made little difference to Will, but he was very conscious of how visible he was, a lone, dark figure crossing the frost-lit lawns as he made his way to what was now known as the ‘old’ house, Marland Abbey School. It loomed up in front of him, a jumble of Jacobean towers with cupola roofs and flagpoles, dotted with lit windows which seemed inviting even to him.

  For the last few weeks, Will had been living in the cellars of the new house, a Gothic creation meant to recall the abbey, the ruins of which stretched away from the east lawns. Built in the nineteenth century, the new house had marked the beginning of the end for his brother Edward’s descendants, the titles evaporating with an absence of sons, the estates with a series of foolish schemes and bad investments.

  Now it was owned by the National Trust and run as a tourist attraction. It was closed for the winter, which made Will’s residence easier, although he couldn’t help but be filled with sadness that it was no longer home to his family, the Mercian Earls, the Dangraves – the Heston-Dangraves as they’d become after the titles had gone. Had this been the point of it all, to leave two beautiful buildings set in two hundred acres of parkland?

  He stopped walking, having come as close to the school as he dared approach so early in the evening. He could see all he needed to anyway. From here he had a clear view through the windows of the Dangrave House common room – Eloise’s house – and watched now as the students strolled in after dinner.

  Eloise had told him Marland was a progressive school, offering more freedoms to students than was usual, and this showed itself in an odd way with their uniforms.

  From a distance, they all appeared to be dressed alike, pale blue and white striped shirts without ties, all worn with the collars turned up for some reason, green jumpers, the boys in pale grey trousers. Some of the girls wore trousers too, while others, including Eloise, wore tartan skirts over pale grey tights. Will wasn’t entirely sure where the Scottish connection came from.

  On closer inspection though, the green jumpers varied in size and shape, all looking home-knitted, some of them cardigans rather than pullovers. It appeared to be the one element of the uniform through which the students were allowed to express their personalities, albeit in green. It added in some way to their relaxed and easy manner as they walked into the common room – there was no question that this was a privileged and comfortable existence. They flo
pped into armchairs and sofas or stood chatting in small groups full of laughter.

  Will envied them, the warmth of their world, the companionship, the sense of belonging. He envied them most, of course, for the fleeting nature of the life they were leading right now. Good or bad, these intense heady schooldays would be over in the blink of an eye and would melt away as quickly as the frost beneath even the weakest winter sun.

  These people in front of him, some looking younger, a few even looking older than Will, their lives would all move on. He’d failed to leave his own youth behind, so looked on longingly at that quality in the lives of others, cursing himself, wishing it might have been other than this.

  And then his spirits lifted at the sight of the one thing that did give meaning to the last eight centuries of torment. Eloise walked into the room, deep in conversation with another girl. Eloise. The sight of her contented him and held his soul fast. She’d leave him behind too, but he didn’t want to think of that now, he wanted only to watch and wait for her.

  She crossed the room and sat on the arm of a chair, suggesting in her body language that she wouldn’t be staying long. Then someone stood between her and the window, obscuring her from view, and Will spotted another student, Marcus Jenkins, the boy who’d joined the school at the beginning of term. His jumper, Will noted, looked suitably home-made, but fitted a little too well, marking him out as a new boy.

  He was listening intently to other boys, but as if sensing Will’s gaze, he turned and looked directly towards him. It unsettled Will, even though he knew the boy could only be staring at his own reflection in the window. There was something strange in the boy’s bearing, stranger even than his sudden appearance here at Marland.

  Will remembered him of course. At first he hadn’t been able to place where he’d seen him before, but then he’d spotted the white ghost of a scar on Marcus’s cheek and it had all come back to him – this was one of the boys who’d harassed Eloise that night by the river.

  Briefly, Will wondered whether he would have come to know Eloise at all had it not been for rescuing her from those boys. But his memories fixed on Marcus again, whose name he had not then known, whose appearance was now so very different, and who’d been the only one of Taz’s gang not to run in fear.

  They hadn’t encountered each other here at Marland, but Will had the feeling that Marcus Jenkins knew he was here, and that meant other people knew it too. Though Asmund had failed to mention it, though Jex’s notebook hadn’t referred to it, Marland seemed to hold the key to finding Lorcan Labraid and the truth of Will’s destiny.

  Marcus turned away and at the same time Will realised Eloise had left the common room. She would change before coming out to him, but he prayed for her to hurry. He could feel a familiar and sickly emptiness taking hold deep inside and he was certain her presence could keep it at bay.

  But this wasn’t the pining of a lovesick youth, this was his need for blood resurfacing, too soon after he’d fed from Jex. Of course, Jex had been no ordinary victim so it should hardly have been a surprise that the poor homeless man’s youth and health had sustained Will for so short a time. A life stolen just two months before, and yet here were the first pangs of a spiritual hunger that would build over the days and weeks ahead until he could think of nothing else.

  It was as if the changes taking place in his world were using up his energy more greedily. He’d come to know how much life was in a person’s blood and how long it would last, even without understanding the ‘why’ or ‘how’ of it, but as with everything else, the rhythms he’d established over centuries now counted for nothing.

  Was it because of the energy expended fighting Asmund – surely a battle to the death with the creature who’d infected him would have taken its toll – or combating the demons conjured up by Wyndham? Or was it something more fundamental – was everything speeding up now as Will gained speed himself, hurtling towards his own destiny?

  He heard a door open somewhere nearby and instinctively stepped back, though the whitened lawns offered no immediate hiding place. Some of the teachers would occasionally come outside in the evenings to talk on their phones, and he didn’t want one of them to alert the school to a possible prowler.

  He needn’t have worried though, and was perhaps less visible than he’d thought because he heard Eloise’s uncertain and hushed voice call, “Will?”

  “I’m here.”

  She changed course and came directly towards him. As she reached him, she smiled, but then looked concerned and put her hand on his arm as she said, “Are you OK?”

  He watched her breath rising in a cloud of mist in the cold air, felt the warmth of her hand on his arm, the scent of her. It should have made his hunger worse, but as he’d hoped, her presence relaxed him.

  He smiled and said, “I’m fine.”

  Even as he said it, he looked up at one of the darkened windows high above, sensing that someone was looking down at them. He glanced back at the lit window of the common room where Marcus was playing chess, studying the board – so at least it couldn’t be him. But Will definitely felt they were being watched.

  “Are you sure? You look …”

  “Pale?” She laughed and he said, “Truly, I’m fine, but let’s walk – I don’t like being here so early in the evening.”

  She nodded and they set off across the lawns, two black-clad figures.

  “You don’t get unwell,” said Eloise as they walked. “But you did look unwell, just now.”

  “I could argue that I’ve been unwell for a very long time. But you shouldn’t worry – it’s something that comes and goes, something I’m familiar with.”

  “But …” Eloise didn’t stop walking because, he assumed, it was so cold out here as to discourage standing still, but the mental leap she’d just made required some physical response and she clutched his arm as she said, “It can’t be! You need blood? But you said Jex’s blood would last a long time.”

  Will put his hand on hers in an attempt to offer reassurance, but she slipped her hand out from under his in response. Perhaps it was a direct reaction to the coldness of his touch, or perhaps revulsion because this had reminded her of what he really was. He could hardly blame her for rejecting him.

  “I thought it would, and I cannot understand why it hasn’t.” He walked a few paces in silence. Their footsteps crunched softly on the frozen grass. “But I’m glad of it in one sense. It allows you to see and understand what I have told you many times, that I’m a monster. It’s no longer just a homeless man who died before I met you. I will have to kill somebody. For the moment I can withstand it, but within weeks the need will become so bad that even you would not be safe – you saw the way Asmund had become.”

  At first he thought Eloise might not respond, but then she said, “How soon?”

  “As soon as I find someone suitable. I may need to spend a night or two in the city, at least within the next two weeks.”

  “There’s no other way?” She was hopeful, even though she knew the answer. Then she said, “Promise me you’ll …” But that line of thought also dried up.

  “Eloise, there is no way to justify this. I pick people who won’t be missed, people who have slipped through the cracks of society, but two months ago that could easily have been you. No life is worth so little as to excuse my taking it.”

  “But you’re not a monster, and I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pull my hand away – it was the shock of how cold you are out here, that’s all.”

  “Am I very cold?”

  She nodded, giving a small, almost regretful smile. “I don’t want you to kill anyone else. I know you have to, but I don’t want you to, so maybe that’s just a sign that we have to move faster. The more we learn, the more we find out why this happened to you, the more chance we have of … breaking the cycle, I suppose.”

  Will smiled back at her, touched by her innocent optimism, as if she felt he might be cured in some way. Briefly, that thought planted a seed of optimism in
his own soul, but he knew there could be no cure for this disease, except perhaps the one that Wyndham wanted for him.

  They passed around the edge of a small plantation of trees, designed to screen one house from the other, then started towards the desolate shadows of the new house.

  At the sight of it, Will said, “I’m glad we’ve talked about this, but it completely distracted me from what I had to tell you. I’ve made a discovery.”

  This time Eloise did stop walking as she said, “So have I! But yours first. What have you found?”

  “A tunnel. Or tunnels, and I’m certain they lead under the old abbey.”

  “From where?”

  He pointed as he said, “From the house.”

  They walked on, but Eloise said, “I don’t get it – you’ve searched the cellars again and again.”

  “True, and I was determined I would find something. I have half a memory from my childhood visits here, talk of tunnels underground, tunnels that long predated the abbey itself. And I know too that if Asmund’s master or even Lorcan Labraid himself is here at Marland, he must be underground. That’s why I kept searching.”

  “I don’t get it – underground, but not in the cellars?”

  “The cellars would be too obvious perhaps. A passage leads down from the house itself, rather fittingly from the library – we always seem to return to books.”

  Eloise knew that Will stayed in the cellars during the day and so she said, “Did you find them last night, or – surely not this evening?”

  “Just this evening. I haven’t even explored them myself. I found them and came directly to meet you.”

  She looked pleased by that, knowing that they would explore the tunnels together for the first time. And that in itself sparked misgivings in his own mind. He could no longer deny Eloise’s part in this, but he realised he should have searched the tunnels on his own first. As it was, he had no idea what he was about to lead her into.

  3

  Once inside the house, Will took Eloise by the hand and led her through the unlit rooms to the library – there was unlikely to be anyone for miles around who might see lights on in the house, but it was still safer to leave it in darkness. Eloise couldn’t see a thing, but walked confidently, trusting him entirely.