Blood Page 9

  He looked real enough, his face full of the same mean hatred, but this was no living boy. He stared at Will blankly and spoke in a voice that was distant. “You want it? Come on, Goth boy!”

  Will didn’t have time to respond. Taz swung the pole fiercely towards his head. Will raised his sword in a reflexive defence, but moved away from the force of the blow at the same time.

  Pole hit sword, sending sparks skittering across the gloomy chamber. As if he’d used such a weapon his whole life, Taz immediately swung a second blow, this one shuddering through the blade of the sword, convulsing violently up his arm and into his body.

  Another two blows followed quickly afterwards, both so powerful that Will feared the blade of his sword would shatter under the impact. He hadn’t used a sword since the sixteenth century and the shock of the attack was leaving him with little choice but to fight defensively.

  But as he fought off the blows, he kept reading his opponent’s movements. He was impressed, thinking that in many ways Taz fought in much the same way he did— he was even a fellow left-hander. But that in turn made Will realize that Taz also shared some of his weaknesses, and in particular, a tendency to fight high and leave his underbelly exposed.

  Thwack! The next crashing blow came in, then another, but this time, as the metal pole swiped through the air towards him, Will dropped to the floor and immediately lunged forwards, thrusting the blade of his sword up towards Taz’s chest.

  But he stopped short of pushing the sword in. Just in time, he remembered that the demon had disappeared each time he’d stabbed it, first with the key, then with the scaffolding pole, and he didn’t want it to disappear. It wasn’t enough to destroy each demon—he had to find out why they were attacking him. So he pressed the sword firmly against Taz’s chest, but didn’t break the surface.

  Taz stopped abruptly and dropped the metal pole on the floor. He looked down at the point of the sword on his chest, then up at Will. He jumped backwards from the blade then, and before Will could respond, he turned and ran into the passage.

  Will started after him, but was stopped when Eloise called out, “Will?”

  He looked back at her. “This demon, it’s feeding off me in some way, off the things I’ve seen. It even fights just like me. I have to find out why.”

  He ran into the passageway as Eloise said, “I’m coming with you.” And he could hear her footsteps behind him as he ran. There were none in front, but the animal scent was enough to tell him the Taz demon hadn’t disappeared.

  As Will reached the bottom of the steps, he could see Taz at the top, pushing clear the stone up into the crypt. Even as Will started running up the stairs, Taz jumped up with a single leap into the room above. Will did the same when he got to the top, and looked around urgently, but saw no one.

  He heard Eloise behind him, her pace slowing with fatigue as she reached the top of the steps. He turned and pulled her up, then stepped into the open as she said, “Where did he go?”

  He was wondering the same thing because the animal scent hung in the air of the crypt.

  Will walked over and checked the gate—it was locked, though he hardly imagined that being a barrier to a demon that could shift its shape so easily. He turned to face Eloise again and caught her shocked expression a moment too late, just as a sudden and powerful blow struck his back. It was as if Taz had emerged from the black iron of the gate itself.

  Will flew heavily across the crypt, narrowly missing Eloise who scrambled out of the way. He crashed heavily against the far wall, with such a thud that he expected the mortar to fall from between the stones.

  He jumped to his feet quickly, but Taz was already striding towards him. Will was ready this time. He stepped forwards and grabbed Taz by the arm, swinging him around and hurling him against the wall at the far end of the crypt.

  Taz crashed into it with an impact that seemed to shake the foundations, and as with the others, he appeared to lose his shape, reforming briefly into a taller, broader human form before gelling back into the scrawny bully they’d met by the river.

  He spotted Will and once again started towards him, but Will didn’t give him a chance. He ran at full speed and slammed himself into Taz’s body, knocking him backwards. There was another explosive crash as they hit the wall. Once again, Taz’s face altered visibly, and the face it became was somehow familiar to Will, but it had changed back before he could identify it.

  Will guessed there was only one way to get a second look, so he grabbed Taz by the collar and threw him across the crypt, on a direct course for the tomb of Will’s half-brother. But just as Will expected to hear a deafening crash, Taz’s body passed through the stone and vanished.

  Will stared in disbelief as Eloise said, “Did you see that? He went right through the stone, like it wasn’t even there.”

  Will suddenly heard his name called out, a child’s voice, yet eerie, a voice full of fear as if crying for help. “Will!”

  Will and Eloise looked at each other and both stepped towards his brother’s tomb, because it was from there that the cry had emerged.

  “Will!” The cry came again as if somewhere that child searched for him.

  As they reached the tomb, Taz emerged from the top of it and stood looking at them. He was still half submerged and was visible only from the waist up. He looked like he was standing in a stone-gray pool.

  Taz didn’t try to attack this time, but gazed around the crypt and at Will in some degree of confusion. It was as if this was no longer a demon at all, but the boy himself, transported into the confusing dream of his life.

  But then, like that dog with pepper on its nose, Taz shook his head violently and there standing in front of Will was the face he’d seen in only the briefest snatches as he’d slammed the demon against wall after wall.

  And yet, if Will wasn’t mistaken, the face still wasn’t completely fixed. As it stared at him, it seemed to be changing constantly, not in likeness but in age. And as it fleetingly reached its own childhood before melting into its older self, Will finally realized why it had looked so familiar and why this tomb had proved no barrier to it.

  “Edward,” said Will, his shock arising out of the immediate familiarity of that child’s face even after seven and a half centuries. Edward, a fellow left-hander, taught to fight by Will, with Will’s strengths and also his weaknesses—he understood everything about the demons now, even if he couldn’t quite understand why Edward had sent them.

  Whatever the reason, it hardly mattered at the moment, so overcome was he by the potent mix of emotions he felt at seeing Edward again. The tension and the anger rippling beneath his brother’s face counted for little when set against the comfort that face provided, a glimpse back into the living world of his childhood, one that he thought he’d lost forever.

  He turned and said to Eloise, “It’s my brother.”

  By the time he turned back, it was the sterner older man who faced him, the man his brother had become, and even though the face occasionally lurched back to versions of its younger self, this was the dominant side of him, and the side that spoke now, snapping Will back into the present.

  “So you recognize me, Will—I am pleased.” A yelp emerged from the tomb and suddenly a small wire-haired terrier leapt through the stone lid and into Edward’s arms. Edward looked down at it dotingly as he stroked its head. “There you are, boy.” Then he said to Will, “He was buried with me, and our pagan ancestors were right—they do keep us company in the afterlife. I’m only sorry they didn’t bury my horse with me—”

  Will interrupted him and said, “What do you want, Edward? Why have you been attacking me? Why do you want my death?” Despite all the efforts he’d made, Edward now seemed uninterested in addressing his brother, but fussed instead over his dog, which he held in his arms like a baby. Will decided to draw him out and said, “By the way, I recognize your appearance. I recognize you as my late half-brother, but don’t think I will ever recognize your title.”

  �
��You died!” The angry response was instant, Edward’s voice thundering with such rage that the small dog leapt once more from his arms and disappeared back through the stone as easily as it would once have dived into the river. “You died the night we burned the witches. Accept that fact! You were never the Earl of Mercia. You died.”

  “If I am dead, what business have you with me now?”

  At first, Edward could find no answer, but then his face grew threatening and he said, “I have no choice in this. It is a dark business that keeps you walking and now you seek to make it darker. You have become a devil and your destiny is a path of destruction.” His tone softened a little. “I know not what remains of the brother I worshipped, but if there is anything of Will left within you, I implore you to stop.”

  Will shook his head, saying, “Edward, I am still entirely the brother you knew. I cannot stop, whatever my destiny proves to be, because for seven centuries and more, while you have been at peace, this body has been my prison, and I must find out why.”

  “So be it,” said the ghost. “If you will not stop of your own accord, I will stop you and will not rest until the death is yours that you’ve so long refused to accept. The honor of our family demands it!”

  “You think this fate has been of my choosing?” Edward did not answer. “And do you not think the honor of our family has been uppermost in my thoughts across all these centuries?”

  Edward found his voice again, tinged with sadness, perhaps even shame, as he said, “Then tell me, Will, what honor do you bring to our family now, a parasite, surviving by bringing death to the people it was once your duty to protect? What honor is there in that?”

  “None,” said Will, feeling wounded, his heart pierced by the thought that his own brother could look upon him with such contempt.

  He stumbled backwards, as if he’d lost his balance, and then he heard Eloise, her voice cracking slightly as she said, “Why now?” He looked at her and she cleared her throat and said, “You’ve been undead for seven centuries—ask him why he’s waited till now.”

  Will turned and met Edward’s stern gaze. “Why have you waited all this time, Edward?”

  Edward’s composure flickered, but he collected himself quickly and said, “What is time to the dead?”

  “But why now?” Will stepped forwards, keeping his eyes fixed on his brother. “I have been a prisoner for hundreds of years, and it is true, I’ve brought little honor to our family in that time, but now it seems I might finally find the truth of what happened to me, perhaps avenge the act itself and regain the very honor you speak of. So why? Why would you choose to destroy me now? I am your brother, Edward—why would you deny me this opportunity of redeeming myself in your eyes?”

  “I don’t know, I …”

  “You must!”

  “You don’t understand …” Edward cocked his head to one side, almost as if he could hear someone speaking far away. “I had to come.”

  Will was insistent. “But why, Edward?”

  “I don’t …”

  Edward began to look flustered and confused, and as he did so, the years swept from his face, leaving him younger and younger, until finally he was once again the child Will had known.

  The young Edward looked around as if he could see things that were not there, and then stared helplessly at his brother and said, “I’m afraid, Will. I’m afraid.”

  “Why did you come, Edward? I can’t protect you if you don’t tell me.” And even as Will said the words, he felt guilty because he could offer his brother no protection at all.

  Perhaps Edward saw the lie in it, too, because he immediately transformed back into his older self and said sadly, “How can you protect me? You’re only a boy.”

  “It’s true, I’m only a boy, so I ask you again, why do you seek to destroy me?”

  The flicker of uncertainty vanished and Edward looked fierce as he said, “Because you are a thing of darkness. You look and talk and move like my brother only because you have imprisoned his soul.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Then come with me now.” Edward paused after issuing the challenge, then added, “If you are my brother, what do you have to fear in death? It’s where you belong, with your family, with the world you knew. If you were my brother, you would relish the opportunity of such a reunion.”

  Will felt himself drawn to the comforting warmth of that past, but even as his thoughts raced away into the sunlit morning of his childhood, he heard himself say, “I can’t. I have unfinished business here.”

  “Exactly, because you are not my brother, not anymore. You are a thing possessed and I will not cease until I bring you death and give my true brother the peace he deserves.”

  Eloise whispered insistently, “He still hasn’t said why he came now. You have to push him.”

  Will ignored her and said, “You want me to come with you now?”

  “That is all I ask,” said his brother.

  “Will, you can’t!”

  “How about we arm-wrestle for it?”

  Edward looked a little confused by the suggestion, but Eloise was outraged, saying, “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “How about it, Edward? You win, I come with you. I win, you leave me alone.”

  “Will, please don’t do this. It’s crazy!”

  He turned and smiled at her, trying to offer some reassurance, even though he knew it probably did sound like madness to Eloise. By the time he turned back, Edward’s elbow was resting on the surface of the tomb in readiness. Will leaned opposite and clasped his brother’s hand.

  They looked into each other’s eyes and, without needing to say any more, they braced. Edward had the strength of the man he’d become, but had apparently brought little more than that from the spirit world. Will was easily stronger, but he exerted just enough pressure to push his brother’s hand slowly towards the surface of the tomb.

  “You remember this, Edward? You remember we did this as children?”

  “Never mind that,” said Eloise. “Just keep pushing.”

  “I remember,” said Edward, who stared at his own hand as if unable to explain the imbalance of strength.

  Edward’s hand was only centimeters away from the tomb but now Will gradually eased the pressure, allowing his brother to steal back a centimeter, then another. This was how easy it would be, he thought, to surrender himself to the grave. Talking to Edward had made him so homesick for that world.

  Eloise was frantic, shouting, “Will, come on! You almost had him!”

  He let her words fall unheeded, and now his hand was back past the halfway mark and Edward was straining hard. Will pushed back hard enough to make it difficult, but not enough to stop Edward’s victorious momentum. And as Will’s hand finally hit the hard surface of the tomb, he only hoped he’d judged his brother correctly.

  “No!” shouted Eloise. She looked devastated and said, “But I’ve only just met you.”

  “It’s fine,” said Will. “Really, it’s fine.”

  Edward had already let go of Will’s hand and was staring at him in shock. Far from being triumphant, it was he who looked as if he’d seen a ghost, as if in the simple course of that contest, Will had demonstrated a truth and love that still held after seven centuries and more.

  “You always did let me win,” said Edward, moved by the memory of it. And as Will had hoped, it had been enough to bring Edward to the fore, the recollection of those childhood years when Will had been so much bigger than him and yet had always let Edward win.

  “Yes, I did, brother, but this I ask: it is your turn to let me win.”

  “I can’t,” said Edward automatically.

  “Do you not accept that I am fully your brother?”

  “How could I ever have doubted it?”

  “Then let me go.”

  “I can’t,” he said again, though in his eyes he appeared to be fighting it.

  “Why?”

  “I can’t. He …” Edward stopped abruptly, as if
his mind had run into a solid obstacle. He reached out and clasped Will’s hand in both of his and closed his eyes, a look of intense concentration gripping his face, as if he was trying to overpower some hypnotic trance into which he’d been placed, and when he spoke again, he had to fight to get the words out. “I … was … summoned. He … has me in … his power.”

  “Who?”

  It was almost painful to watch him struggle so, but at last, he seemed to break through the barrier and said clear and strong, “Wyndham!”

  Wyndham—at the mention of this name the very stones of the crypt rumbled and moaned around them. There were other noises, too, far off, the sound of horses galloping, of wails and cries, anguish, the clatter of battle. And laughter.

  But the laughter was Edward’s, apparently happy that he’d finally defied the person who had raised him from the underworld, the person whose bidding he’d been doing until now.

  “Who is Wyndham?”

  A hand leapt out of the stone and started to pull at Edward’s arm. He let go of Will and prized it off casually, still smiling, victorious as he said, “A sorcerer, Will.” The walls and floor of the crypt were vibrating now, and the disturbed noises coming from the depths were loud enough that Edward had to raise his voice to be heard. He was struggling physically, too, as more tortured hands clawed at him, trying to pull him back into the tomb. He fended them off as he said, “He’s a sorcerer, and he will not stop until he destroys you, but he will not use me again, I swear to it.”

  He was being pulled down, back into the tomb, and was already submerged to the chest.

  Urgently, Will asked, “This Wyndham, is he also known as Lorcan Labraid?”

  Edward laughed, even as the hands clawed at his face. “Lorcan Labraid! Will, you must know that Wyndham is dangerous, and powerful, too, powerful enough to summon me from beyond, to hypnotize me with thoughts of destroying you. You forgive me, Will, don’t you?”

  “Of course, Edward.”

  Edward nodded, even as he was pulled lower. “Wyndham is dangerous, but even he fears Lorcan Labraid—there is no greater evil in the world, and be warned, Will, your destiny will lead you there.”