Revenge is Sweet Page 16

  ‘We need to go to the cemetery.’

  I nodded. ‘I know.’

  ‘Would you prefer to remain here with Luke and the boy?’

  ‘I want to be with you.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  He turned and led the way out of the bathroom and back upstairs. Luke, Jake and Daniel were sitting around the kitchen table, each nursing coffee mugs which I knew didn’t contain coffee. Other than their choice of beverage, they looked like any other trio of good-looking men, just sitting around talking about football and girls.

  Jake stood up as we entered the room. ‘Are you ready to go?’

  Will inclined his head. ‘Indeed, let us get this over with.’ He turned back to me. ‘Are you absolutely sure about this Elinor?’ His green eyes appraised me. I knew he wouldn’t think any less of me if I chose to take the coward’s way out. But I felt so paranoid at the moment. I couldn’t bear to let him out of my sight. Although half of me would have quite liked to stay in the relative normality of the kitchen, swapping stories with Luke and Danny, but the other half of me wanted to be with Will at any cost.

  ‘Yes.’ My voice sounded thin and just a little shaky.

  Will put a gentle hand to my face, his expression tender. ‘Very well.’

  He led the way from the kitchen and I followed him with Jake bringing up the rear.

  I felt surprised when Will and Jake got into Jake’s car. The cemetery was only a short walk away after all. I got into the back seat.

  ‘Why the car?’

  Will turned to face me from the front seat. ‘There is a possibility we might need to get away from the place with haste.’

  Not helping my feelings of utter foreboding. Not at all.

  Jake started the car, and drove smoothly away.

  I gave an involuntary shiver, and Will reached for my hand. As I put my hand in his, his fingers clasped mine, and I felt grateful for his intuition.

  ‘For once I wish you had chosen to stay with Luke,’ he said.

  Jake stopped the car, and my stomach lurched. It had taken all of five minutes to get close to Swain’s Lane. Will and I usually walked to the cemetery, and I enjoyed strolling the pretty tree-lined streets that led to the lane. I loved the beauty of the densely wooded area where the cemetery nestled in all its gothic splendour. But nothing we did was very normal at the moment – that is, if anything ever is normal for vampires.

  Jake parked in a side road, and we all got out of the car to walk towards the cemetery.

  Swain’s Lane still has all the appearance of a country road. It’s narrow and steep, and the high walls of the cemetery rise up from the road itself on one side. Tall, graceful trees grow high above the cemetery walls, and almost interlock with each other across the lane.

  Everything appeared peaceful enough. We were the only people around tonight. It was a little too early for the pubs to be turning out, and too late for people to be on their way out for the evening.

  Moonlight picked out the shapes of the summer leaves on the trees as they rustled in the balmy breeze. Somewhere above us an owl hooted, sounding solitary and mournful. I shivered again, and Will put his arm round my waist. Jake led the way to one of the side gates. Will produced a key and quietly unlocked it. We all slipped inside.

  Will and Jake took off at breakneck speed, and I just about kept up with them – at least I kept them in sight. We ran past ivy-covered tombstones and mouldering mausoleums, and then we ran right into the gloomy depths of the cemetery.

  Will stopped by a small, almost unobtrusive mausoleum, for which he also had a key. I didn’t want to ask, but I had no doubt he had ways and means of obtaining anything he wanted.

  He slipped the key into the lock, and pushed the door. It creaked slowly ajar on its rusted hinges. Will exchanged glances with Jake.

  ‘Elinor, please stay behind Jake.’ No argument from me for a change. I’ve never been the brave type anyway. Will pushed at the door just enough for it to open wider. The cavernous interior looked like a yawning mouth of dense black, and not somewhere I particularly fancied entering.

  Will went in without making a sound and Jake followed. I was close behind Jake when I heard Will curse, and Jake stopped so suddenly that I banged into him.

  ‘Elinor, go outside.’

  Exasperation flooded me as I angrily shoved Jake out of the way in order to confront my ‘Master’.

  ‘No I will not bloody-well wait outside. I’m sick of being ordered around like a child …’ The rest of my rant froze on my lips, when my eyes were drawn down to whatever Will had been looking at.

  A head. A newly-decapitated head too, by the look of it. A head with short dark hair and terrified, staring eyes. Nikki.

  I found it impossible to tear my gaze away from the grisly thing that only twenty-four hours ago had been animated and petulant. The sight held me frozen to the spot, when suddenly, in front of my horrified eyes, the head began to deteriorate in true vampire fashion. Yet still I couldn’t stop staring at it.

  ‘Elinor.’

  I heard Will’s voice as though through a mist, but I continued to look at the thing on the floor. The head had taken on a grotesque look now – it appeared to be melting, almost like a parody of a waxwork dummy, or the Wicked Witch of the West. But this was not a scene from The Wizard of Oz.

  In seconds there was nothing left.

  Finally I looked up at Will’s face, with realisation forming heavy blocks of ice in my stomach.

  ‘You knew,’ I said, and my voice cracked with shock. ‘You knew he’d come for her.’

  I turned and ran from that dreadful place. Escape was the only thing I could think of. The compulsion to get away was paramount, the need to be somewhere … anywhere else. I knew Will would follow, but I didn’t think I could be with him at this moment in time. My flight was swift and careless. My eyes saw nothing of my surroundings and still I forced myself to run faster.

  Because I wasn’t paying attention, and because all I wanted to do was escape, I failed to see the man who stepped out in front of me until it was too late. A nondescript-looking man, with heavily gloved hands, who flung a loop of silver chain around my neck, and pulled it tight. So tight that it caused me to scream in agony. Something like a concrete mallet smashed into my face, and the last thing I heard before the darkness took me, was Will’s distant voice calling my name.

  Chapter Twenty

  When I opened my eyes, I didn’t remember what had happened at first, and tried to call out to Will. An excruciating pain sliced through my tongue, and I froze in terror. I couldn’t move my tongue at all without inflicting further mind-numbing pain. The taste of my own blood filled my mouth – salty and metallic.

  My head felt heavy – unreal – as if it didn’t belong to my body – almost like it had been encased in a heavy metal cage of some kind. Ridiculous … I had to be hallucinating. My body, however, had been tightly bound in heavy chains, that much I knew to be true, although luckily for me, they weren’t silver. Someone had propped me up against a damp wall and the floor beneath me felt cold and unyielding. The little I could see of the wall showed wallpaper, green and mouldy with spores of damp, its pattern having faded long ago. Some of the damp patches had peeled away and hung from the wall in tattered strips. My arms were secured above my head, held by handcuffs, and I couldn’t move any part of myself without inflicting more pain.

  Whoever the ‘someone’ was, had done a very good job of making sure I would never be able to move, and now the mists had cleared from my fuddled brain, I knew exactly who it was.

  ‘Ah the wench awakens.’ A man’s voice spoke from somewhere behind me.

  I tried to turn and see him, but the chains were too tight and any kind of movement seemed like a very bad idea.

  Obligingly, the owner of the voice stepped into my line of vision. Thomas. Who else could it be? He appeared, just as Daniel had described him. Ordinary. Average height, average build, with mousey-coloured, medium-length hair, muddy-coloured eye
s, a nondescript face in fact … so very ordinary. There was absolutely nothing memorable about him at all, and should he ever be in a police line-up, he would be the one everyone overlooked. Or simply never noticed at all. Perhaps that was his problem. The unnoticed, nondescript man.

  I tried to speak, and once again, intense pain sliced through my tongue, bringing tears to my eyes. What the hell?

  ‘You will be more comfortable if you do not attempt to speak,’ said Thomas with a self-satisfied smile. ‘What you are wearing is a Scold’s Bridle, especially designed to punish shrewish women and concubines.’

  I raised my eyes to look at him. Cold, dead eyes stared back. I’d heard of the Scold’s Bridle of course. I’d even seen one in the Tower of London. But I certainly never thought I’d be wearing one. This little beauty even had spikes studded into the metal plate that held my tongue in place. No wonder I’d been in so much pain. Every time I moved my tongue, the spikes sliced into it. I tried again to move my body, but found that impossible too.

  ‘The Scold’s Bridle has always been the punishment for a woman with a loose tongue,’ Thomas continued, ‘I think it is a fitting punishment for the trashy little consort of the Elder of London.’

  I so desperately wanted to say something – anything – to wipe the self-satisfied smirk off his boring face. Damn this stupid contraption.

  ‘Fledglings should be for amusement only,’ he dragged a wooden chair in front of me and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. ‘But you wanted more didn’t you? Little hussy.’ He virtually spat the last two words out before he continued, ‘When William was a Duke, you would merely have been summoned to his bed whenever he so desired and discarded when he did not. You need to be taught your place. As he seems unable to do so, the task has befallen to me.’

  Arrogant bastard. My thoughts were furious and hurtling around my head again. I tried to calm down, tried thinking of Will, but the stupid man kept talking.

  I became aware of someone else coming into the room, I couldn’t see who … couldn’t turn my body.

  ‘What the hell have you done?’ A woman’s voice. Sarah of course.

  ‘Never question me.’ Thomas’s voice sounded cold and harsh. ‘The reason for the strumpet being here, I would have thought, is obvious. The Elder will stop at nothing to reclaim her. He will come for her, and then the games will begin.’

  ‘Why have you put the bridle on her?’

  Thomas stood so suddenly that the chair fell over with a crash. He grabbed the woman with a blur of speed, and hauled her by the neck until she stood in front of me. He dug cruel fingers into her cheeks, twisted her face around so she could look at me, and snarled, baring fangs.

  ‘She wears the bridle to stop inane chatter, but I am beginning to think it would suit you better.’

  ‘Thomas, I’m sorry … forgive me.’ The woman sounded terrified, and who could blame her? As the wearer of the contraption in question, I could heartily recommend avoiding it at all costs.

  Closing my eyes to shut out the sight of the other two vampires, I tried to clear my mind. I had no doubt at all that Will would find me, but he’d be walking straight into some kind of trap and to be honest, I’d rather sit here wearing this infernal thing for eternity than have that happen. Suddenly aware that Thomas was speaking to me again, I opened my eyes.

  ‘Reflect on your crimes fledgling,’ he said. ‘Reflect and repent.’

  He sounded like a zealous preacher. But it was no religion I wanted to subscribe to.

  Releasing his hold on the woman, his cold eyes stared down at me, and she gave me a poisonous look. Clearly she thought everything was my fault. She was perfectly groomed as usual. Her gleaming blonde hair swung loose today and she wore a short black dress, which screamed either Chanel or Armani.

  Simple gold bangles adorned her slender wrists and diamonds shone in her ears. The epitome of elegance, in fact. Obviously being chained, I couldn’t check out my own outfit in my usual paranoid fashion, but then I already knew my simple T-shirt and jeans wouldn’t hold their own against her clothes.

  ‘How lovely to see you under these circumstances,’ she said with a spiteful smile. ‘I shall look forward to giving a very warm welcome to your master when he comes looking for you.’

  ‘Enough, Sarah. Her master will join us soon enough.’ Thomas took hold of her arm and propelled her from the room. Just before they left, she risked another triumphant look over her shoulder. I felt glad now that Will had broken her wrist. To think I’d almost felt sorry for her.

  I closed my eyes as I heard a door close behind them. Getting incarcerated in cellars seemed to be a habit of mine. Although as I noticed earlier, the walls in here had been wallpapered at some time, which suggested it had once been an ordinary room.

  My whole body hurt, and my tongue felt sore and swollen. I began to worry about the speed of vampiric healing. Would my tongue heal around the metal curb? Perhaps I would just start to decay from lack of blood, and my flesh would wither and fall from my bones. I knew that’s what happened when vampires were starved, Will had told me. A living death. To think that only a couple of days ago, I was worrying about a wedding date – or the lack of one. Pathetic.

  Sort yourself out Ellie. Try to contact Will. I clenched the fingers on my left hand and felt untold relief when I realised the Ring of Porphyry was still there. No doubt we’d soon find out whether it really would protect me against holy items, and if it could help Will to find me.

  Will

  The look on Elinor’s face as she stared at the girl’s remains pierced my heart. Her angry, shocked words struck me like physical blows. ‘You knew.’ She said. She is correct of course. I had always known Thomas would come to claim his own. But I had not been convinced he would destroy her. I can only assume it was punishment for her failure to deliver the boy.

  I reached out to Elinor, but she turned from me and ran away like the wind. I knew Thomas could not be far away, as the kill of the girl had been a fresh one. My one thought was for Elinor’s safety and I immediately ran after her, the cold fingers of dread clutching my heart.

  When I emerged from the mausoleum, she had already disappeared from sight. Few can rival me for speed, but I think her anger spurred her on. Feeling more fear than I have ever experienced before in my long existence, I ran in the direction I knew she had taken.

  Suddenly I heard her scream out in pain, and doubled my speed. I would tear her assailant limb from limb if he had hurt her. I reached the place where she had been – just mere seconds before – but found no-one. The peaceful scene mocked me, as I looked frantically around. How could she have disappeared so quickly?

  In desperation I called her name, but there was no answer. I looked closer at the mossy ground, and could see the signs of a struggle, so I knew beyond any doubt that my worst fears were confirmed. He had taken her. Thomas. Of all the hideous crimes that creature had committed thus far, this one – for me – had to be the most heinous.

  Needing to vent my anger at something – anything – I wrenched a tombstone from the ground and hurled it away from me, using all my strength. It landed some thirty feet away, splintering into many pieces when it smashed into another gravestone. Let the Friends of Highgate wonder how the hell that had happened.

  ‘Elinor!’ Shouting her name into the empty night sufficed only to make me feel worse. I tore a Celtic cross from the earth and flung it towards a distant mausoleum. That, too, splintered on impact. The sound of shattered stone floated back to me. ‘Elinor!’

  A red mist covered my eyes as I turned to wrench yet another gravestone from its place and hurled it back the way I’d come, narrowly missing Jake, who emerged from the leafy undergrowth, talking urgently into his phone. ‘For fuck’s sake get here now! He’s going to wreck the sodding cemetery.’

  I snarled at him as he approached me, and he stopped at once, hands held palms out in front of him.

  ‘Thomas has taken her.’ I spat the words.

  He nodded
, and stayed still, keeping a safe distance from me.

  Striving to hold on to my sanity, I headed for the main gates. I have no idea why exactly, but I just knew I could not be still. The road outside stood silent and empty.

  Too slow. The one time in my miserable existence when time mattered more than anything else ever has – and I had been too bloody slow. I would tear the whole city apart in order to find her, and when she was safe again, then I would deal with Thomas.

  Luke suddenly dropped down from the top of the wall, followed by the boy. He ran towards me, leaving the boy with Jake.

  ‘Thomas?’

  I bit back a torrent of abuse and merely nodded.

  The boy began to shout. ‘Why didn’t you stop him? How could you let him take her?’

  Incandescent rage welled up inside me instantly, and with an enraged growl I started towards him in order to stop his infantile prattling once and for all. This time I would kill the boy. Luke leapt on me and wrapped his arms around my body to hold me back. If he had not, there would have been one less renegade vampire child by the end of this night. I would have ripped his head from his neck without compunction.

  ‘Daniel, shut the hell up if you value your existence,’ Luke shouted, without releasing me.

  The boy looked angry, but mercifully kept his mouth shut.

  ‘Will, calm down for god’s sake’ Luke spoke to me quietly, and gradually I began to feel calmer. I shook my head to clear the mists of anger.

  ‘Are you certain they have left the cemetery?’ Luke asked.

  I broke free from his restraining grip. ‘If I were not sure, would I still be standing here wasting valuable time when I could be removing the bastard’s head?’

  Luke raised both hands in apology. ‘Then let us get back to the house and think what to do.’

  I acquiesced. What else could I do for the moment?

  Thomas had her. He might even kill her. But I could not think like that, I had to remain convinced that he needed her alive – in order to get to me. He had the one thing on this earth I would stop at nothing to save, and unfortunately he knew that only too well. My one and only true love. Elinor.