Blood Read online

  Will spun around, immediately fearing that this was just the prelude to yet another attack, but there was nothing, no sound, nothing in the air. Whatever had attacked him had been destabilized enough to retreat, but he had a feeling this wouldn’t be the end of it.

  He gathered up the dropped candle and returned quickly to his lair. Even as he sealed the chamber door with the stone, he knew that it would be no protection from whatever demon had just shown itself to him in the church above.

  What defense could he have against something that had the ability to appear and disappear at will, to shift itself from one form to another, a demon that seemed to match him for strength? Its only weakness seemed to be an inability to hold its shape when a great enough violence was done to it.

  He wondered, too, why it had come to him in those forms, as a busybody old woman and a wiry black dog. Was it somehow reading his mind, making itself into the people and creatures he’d encountered in the recent past? Perhaps it would come to him next as Jex or the fireman or the girl by the river.

  He opened the chest that contained his library, a collection of just a hundred or so books, accumulated over the centuries, some of them taken from the library in the church above, some from the wider city. He’d read many thousands of books across the centuries, but had discarded most, even from his memory.

  This chest held all those Will considered important enough to treasure. He looked at them now, heavy volumes stacked upon each other, their ancient pages and covers, vellum and hide, protected from dust and time by the chest in which they were locked away.

  There were volumes in Latin and Greek, and many more in English, or rather in many varieties of English, charting the course of his language over all this time. He could still read the handwritten and illuminated English of his childhood as easily as he could read the scribblings he’d found in Jex’s notebook, even though they were almost two separate languages.

  The thought of the notebook made him lower the lid of the chest again. He knew there wouldn’t be anything in the books of his library that would help him understand what had just happened in the church. If anything, if there were answers, they’d be found in the notebook itself because he was convinced the events were related.

  He felt a slight prickling on his skin, a sixth sense telling him that the sun had broken over the horizon in the city above. He knew how differently the city looked now, but when he thought of it at dawn, he couldn’t help but see the early mornings of his childhood and it filled him with a wrenching sadness, for the mother he’d never known, for the half-brother who’d overtaken him and grown old and died, for the father who’d mourned his death, for the lost world of that other England.

  Will slumped into a chair with the notebook and flicked through its pages. This is what that world had become, Jex and his dogs living in a disused warehouse where once there had been fields, surrounded by light and noise and machines where once there had been tranquility.

  But his mood lifted when he thought of all that had remained the same over the centuries, the city walls, some of its buildings and streets, and above all this church, standing proud like a beacon across time. And the people themselves, some of whom might have stepped with him from his own past, stopping only for a change of clothes.

  He caught a glimpse of the girl’s picture and stopped, opening the notebook to look at it once more. Something about her had enchanted him and he didn’t know whether it was simply her beauty, for she was beautiful in an unhappy way, or a deeper sense that she was a part of all of this.

  He didn’t entirely believe in omens and portents, but Jex had given him a strange and demented sign in the form of this book and his dying words. It implied a destiny, just as the demon above had suggested there were forces that wanted to keep him from that destiny. And if Will had understood correctly, this girl was a part of it, perhaps even the key. If she was the girl Jex had spoken of then Will needed her, and though she probably didn’t know it, she needed him.

  7

  The door of the old coffee merchant’s warehouse was clearly her preferred home for the night, but now that Will was looking at her again, he was less certain that she’d be willing to guide him anywhere.

  The girl looked freshly unfriendly, a hostility that seemed turned inwards at the moment, but that he guessed would be redirected at anyone foolish enough to talk to her or try to befriend her.

  Why was she there? he wondered, and what had happened to her that she felt it would be better to live the winter in a derelict doorway? Perhaps there was no particular reason for her unhappiness—he knew himself that sadness never needed to explain itself, and that more often than not, it arrived unannounced and uninvited.

  The unfriendliness was more of a problem. Will wanted to know her name and who she was, but to do that he had to speak to her, and for all the years he had over her, he couldn’t imagine what he might say that would give him any more success than he’d had the previous night.

  Right now, he wasn’t even on the same side of the river. He was standing watching her from the shadows of a gutted warehouse on the opposite bank. He’d been there for close to an hour and in that time she had hardly moved. She sat like someone in a trance of misery, staring out at the darkness as if she could see all her misfortunes there in front of her.

  At first, Will had been hopeful that she might be waiting; even, if she didn’t know it, waiting for him. And he cursed himself for not bringing the notebook, thinking he’d have been able to sway her to his cause by showing her the picture Jex had drawn.

  But as the hour had crept by, he’d become less convinced of everything. He no longer believed that she’d be able to help him or that she would want to. He even began to doubt that the things written in the notebook were anything but insane ramblings brought on by some drug or other—only the attack in the church convinced him otherwise.

  Even so, he was coming to the conclusion that tonight he would just say hello in passing, allowing her to become more familiar with the sight of him before trying any more meaningful conversation. Maybe it would take several days before she was ready, but what did time matter to him?

  He was distracted from his thoughts by a noise coming from near the bridge and the warehouse that was in the process of being rebuilt. A group of older boys, all dressed almost entirely in bright white clothes and shoes, a strangely joyless white, were standing around as one of them attacked the scaffolding with a metal pole he’d found nearby.

  The clanging of metal against metal rang out hoarsely through the night, like an alarm warning of some terrible approaching danger. The others shouted encouragement in a coarse tongue, the words of which he could hardly make out.

  After a minute or so, a man came out on to one of the balconies of the building that had already been turned into living accommodation and shouted at them. They hurled abuse back at him, but started to move on. The boy with the pole swung it around above his head and threw it. The pole didn’t travel far for all his efforts and fell into the river with a dull splash.

  The boys continued aimlessly, jostling each other, shouting and laughing. These were the lower classes, thought Will, and there was clearly no work for them, just as there had been none for their fathers back in the 1980s, and no power of law over them either.

  He glanced back at the girl and realized that the boys were heading towards her. She didn’t seem concerned, and paid no attention to them as they approached, but he was suddenly desperately worried for her and found himself hoping that they’d turn before reaching her.

  He saw one of them pointing between two of the warehouses and heard him say something about a fire. Will guessed he was suggesting they explore the warehouse that had burned down the night before and he was willing the rest of the gang to take the bait, but they weren’t tempted and continued on their way.

  The girl still didn’t stir from her corner in the deep shadows of the doorway and for a moment it looked like the group of boys would pass by without even noticing
her. But then the last, the one who’d expressed an interest in the fire, saw her and said something, which in turn attracted the attention of the others.

  Will couldn’t understand it, but he felt slightly sick as he looked on, fearing that some violence was about to be done to her. And even though, for the first minute or two, the boys appeared to keep their distance and talked to her in low voices, he knew instinctively that they were looking for sport of some kind.

  Finally, it happened, though it was less of an attack than he expected, for now at least. The one who’d wielded the pole darted into the doorway and skipped back out again, laughing, holding a black bag aloft.

  The girl stood up, surprisingly tall and certainly taller than some of her tormentors, even allowing for the step on which she was standing.

  “Give it back!” Her voice rang out clearly and only now did Will notice the difference between her voice and those of her attackers—she tried to cover it, but she spoke with the tone of someone who’d known privilege, who’d been educated well, brought up well, at least until whatever calamity had left her living in a doorway.

  The boys were throwing the bag from one to the other, with no apparent curiosity as to what was inside it, but their mood was becoming ugly.

  “Give it back,” she said again.

  The one holding the bag sneered. “Or what?”

  Before she could answer, the tallest in the group, who was fat and red-cheeked, but without appearing jolly, said, “You should sit down.” He pushed her hard in the chest and she fell backwards into the doorway, landing on her larger bag.

  The boys laughed harder and seemed excited, as if they were just beginning to realize the entertainment they could have at her expense. The pole boy had the bag again and he started to unfasten it as he said, “Let’s see what’s in here, eh?”

  Will saw no more. He walked out of the building he was in and down the side of it, away from the river. After about ten paces, he turned and ran back towards the river, leaping from the stone wharf that made its bank.

  It was maybe ten meters, but he knew he could do it, not because he’d ever jumped it before, but because he instinctively knew what his body was capable of doing. As confidently as he’d jumped a brook as a child, so he landed on the opposite bank with such ease that they didn’t even hear him.

  As he approached, the pole boy took a paperback book out of the black bag, looked at it dismissively, and tossed it over his shoulder. It hit the still water with a satisfying dunk and the gang jeered.

  The ringleader was about to go back into the bag, when suddenly he spotted Will and stopped. He looked full of hate, but Will thought there was something ugly about these boys, too—their faces were pinched and spiteful, their hair short but greased flat to their heads, which in turn looked oddly shaped. They wore earrings and had tattoos on their necks and hands.

  The pole boy pointed and laughed, causing the others to turn and stare at Will as he said, “It’s Countess Dracula. Come to save the witch, have ya?”

  It was such a strange thing to say that Will didn’t know how to respond immediately. He thought of the witches burning all those years ago, knowing now that they had been nothing of the sort, merely women who had not belonged, victims of spite and greed and suspicion.

  More importantly, he wondered briefly if this boy knew who he was, but he dismissed the thought quickly enough. He’d addressed Will as a woman because of his long hair, as Dracula because of the black clothes, the pale skin. These boys were cowards, he could tell, and if they’d had even the vaguest idea of who he really was, they’d have run already.

  He came back to himself, remembering why he was here. He turned first to the tall, fat boy and said, “Never strike a lady again.” The fat boy looked incredulous, and was still struggling to find an appropriately abusive response when Will hit him across the face with the back of his hand.

  It was meant to insult rather than cause damage, but he felt something give inside the boy’s cheek, possibly a tooth being dislodged, and the side of his mouth split against Will’s knuckle. The blow knocked him over, and Will immediately caught the scent of blood on his own hand—he didn’t need blood, and wouldn’t now for some time, but the smell of it was tempting and disturbing.

  The other boys bristled, but they were looking nervously at their friend who lay groaning in pain on the floor. He noticed that they’d shuffled a step away from him. They kept throwing quick, nervous glances at the pole boy, too, and it was obvious that he was their leader even though he was far from being the tallest or most physically imposing.

  For his part, the pole boy appeared to be deciding what to do. He looked Will up and down and said, “So, hard man, think you can take all of us, do ya?”

  Before Will could answer, he flung the bag at him with some force. Will caught it and threw it lightly on to the step. The girl was still lying on her other bag and he wondered if she’d hit her head as she’d fallen. She was alive, he knew that much.

  He turned back to the pole boy, whose face had become even more pinched and full of venom, and immediately spotted the glint of a knife blade. A true coward, thought Will.

  One of the others said, “Leave it, Taz, it’s not worth it.”

  Another joined in, the one who’d wanted to visit the scene of the fire, saying without any conviction, “Yeah, Taz-man, chill.”

  The fifth member of his gang didn’t say anything. He was the youngest by a year or two, perhaps fourteen or fifteen. Will could sense this boy staring at his face, could sense that he alone was possessed of enough intuition to know that Will was not what he appeared to be.

  Taz, for that seemed to be the pole boy’s name, was having none of it. He jabbed at the air with the knife and said to Will or to the others or perhaps even himself, “I’m chilled. You want it? C’mon, Goth boy.”

  Will took a quick step towards him. As he did so, he noticed Taz’s advisers backing away. The fat boy was still groaning on the floor and cursing about his tooth. Only the fifth boy kept his ground, staring, mesmerized.

  The blade flashed again as Taz made a panicky lunge, and then he looked alarmed as he realized that Will had caught his fist in his own hand and was now holding him firmly. His mouth looked on the verge of speaking, but Will’s hand was crushing his fingers around the blade of the knife and the pressure was beginning to tell.

  Will stared into his eyes, catching him with a hook that pulled him out of the world he knew. Taz could no longer see or hear his friends, no longer knew whether it was day or night or where he was. He’d lost the power to cry out, so even as the pain twisted his face, he remained mute and his tear-filled eyes never once strayed from Will.

  Will tightened his grip further and felt the pressurized crack as one finger broke against the handle, then another. The noise of slowly breaking fingers was enough to send two of the gang running into the night.

  He listened to their footsteps thumping away towards the background noise of the city traffic, then let go and heard the knife drop to the floor. He smiled and said softly, “Run away home, Taz, and never come back here again.”

  Will stood aside and watched as Taz came back to himself, as he looked down at his shattered hand and cried and stumbled forwards, breaking into a run. His fat friend shouted after him and, realizing he was being left, scrambled to his feet and lumbered off in the same direction, still cursing about his tooth.

  There was a sudden movement in the doorway as the girl came to with a start, letting out an offended, “Ow! Bloody hell!” She was holding her head with one hand, searching for her bag with the other.

  But Will didn’t go to her. He looked instead at the fifth member of the gang who still stood exactly where he’d been the whole time. He didn’t appear afraid in any way, but nor did he seem threatening—he looked like someone who’d experienced a revelation or a religious conversion.

  Without saying anything, he bent down and picked up a couple of small objects, the things Taz had discarded from the ba
g before Will’s arrival. He walked over then and held them out. It said something for his spirit that he didn’t even flinch as Will reached out and took them from him.

  “Sorry about the book,” said the boy. Up close, Will noticed that he had the ghost of a scar on his left cheek.

  “Thank you,” said Will, and the boy stroked the scar as if it bothered him, and then walked away towards the road.

  He looked back several times, and when he reached the road, he stopped for a moment before raising his hand in a wave. Will raised his hand in return, and the boy disappeared into the city.

  “What happened?”

  Will turned to look at the girl who was sitting on the edge of the step, rubbing her head.

  “I think you banged your head.”

  “Cute but dumb, just my luck.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Nothing. I know I banged my head. What I mean is …” She sounded incredulous as she said, “Did you beat them up or something?”

  “No, not really,” he said, relieved that she hadn’t seen most of what had happened.

  “So I don’t owe you anything?”

  “Of course not, nor would you if I had fought with them.” He remembered the items in his hand and held them out to her. “He took these from your bag. He took a book, too, but he threw it in the river.”

  One of the items was an oddly-shaped metal pendant on a leather strap, the other a piece of plastic. She looked massively relieved to see them and for the first time let her guard down, laughing as she took them from his hand.

  “Thank! God! I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d lost this.”

  He imagined she was talking about the pendant and said, “Perhaps if you wore it?”

  She looked puzzled for a second, then laughed again and said, “No, not the necklace, the memory stick.” She held up the piece of plastic. “It’s got all my stuff on it. Seriously, my whole life is on this thing.”