Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
All hell broke loose. Many of the vampires started screaming, creating a panic-stricken stampede as if I were about to start staking the lot of them. For such long-lived, nigh-on immortal creatures, some of them were very flighty indeed.
But not all of them reacted that way. Several vamps rushed to Alan and I wondered if they thought they could save him.
I’d felt the tip of that stake pierce his heart, however, and I didn’t need to see his fallen body to know that he was already a corpse.
He wouldn’t immediately turn to ash, not without sunlight, but his flesh would decay far more rapidly than a non-vamp’s.
Some vampires came towards me, determined to stop me killing anyone else. I had already dropped the stake and was raising my hands in surrender when I was rugby tackled to the ground. Ouch. That was no way to treat a middle aged lady with aching muscles and sore bones.
‘Drop the stake!’ a female vampire with dark hair and furious scarlet eyes screamed. Her razor-sharp fangs loomed above my face and I could smell old blood on her breath. ‘Drop the fucking stake!’
‘I’ve already dropped the stake,’ I muttered from my inelegant position sprawled on the ground.
‘I’ve got it, Gloria,’ I heard Thomas say. I twisted my head and saw him handling the weapon like a spitting snake. ‘It’s alright.’
The air around me filled with the buzz of magic. William, who seemed considerably calmer than the others, was casting a spell. Score one for the office worker; perhaps he was one of those vamps who guzzled Jing’s Tonic when no-one was looking.
‘She’s contained,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Move away, Gloria.’
The hissing vampire slapped me, stinging my cheek with the force of her blow, then laughed in triumph as if she’d won.
I’d experienced far worse than a slap in my time so if she thought that gave her a win, she could have it.
At least she backed away; her stale-blood breath had been most unpleasant.
The spell was an impressive one. I could feel magic binding my muscles, trapping me in place and ensuring that I was no longer a threat, no matter what physical or preternatural skills I might possess.
But even from where I was laying, I could see what it had cost William to cast it.
His skin was paler than usual and his jaw was set with tension.
Beads of sweat were appearing on his forehead.
I gave him five minutes before he collapsed from the effort.
‘Pick her up,’ he said in a strained whisper. ‘Take her to my office.’
‘We should take her to the cells!’ somebody else yelled.
‘Better yet, slit her throat,’ another person muttered.
Despite the lack of control I had over my body, I felt incredibly calm.
I had no sense of euphoria at Alan’s death and that was good; it was important to me that I hadn’t killed him out of revenge or spite, or because deep down I was nothing more than a killer.
I’d staked him because he was dangerous, not just to me but to anyone who crossed his path.
As two vampires reached down and picked me up as if I were little more than a bag of flour, I shuddered inwardly at the thought of how many innocent people had been sacrificed to the maze monster. The greater good. What an utter crock of cat urine-drenched rubbish.
I was half-dragged, half-carried towards William’s office, but instead of going into the room where he worked I was hauled into another one where the décor was less like an office suite and more like an interrogation room.
The walls were bare, the floor was cold and nothing but a few chairs graced the space.
At least there weren’t any obvious bloodstains.
The vampires shoved me onto the nearest chair and somebody produced a rope. ‘Here.’ The first vampire bound me tightly with it.
Another vamp appeared in the doorway holding a set of iron chains that were unpleasantly reminiscent of the ones in front of the maze. ‘Will these help?’
‘Definitely.’
The chains were wrapped around my lower legs. I wondered what I was supposed to do when I needed to pee, but thankfully my bladder told me that would be a problem for another time.
‘What if she turns into a cat again?’
There were several huffs of concern. The third vampire produced a small bottle. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some ward salt. We can circle her then it won’t matter if she’s human, cat or fucking cockroach.’
The others nodded enthusiastically and he scattered the powder around me. Now I was bound in every sense of the word – and not a moment too soon. William staggered into the room visibly trembling and a second later the spell snapped out of existence. William and I sagged with perfect synchronicity.
I gently tested the rope and the chains, but those vampires knew what they were doing. It would take a miracle to free myself without help. Fighting was pointless so I relaxed, lifted my head and waited, curious to learn what they were planning to do with me.
‘Leave us,’ William ordered.
‘Are you sure?’ one of the vamps asked.
William drew in a breath and composed himself. ‘Leave,’ he repeated. This time his voice was stronger. The spell he’d used on me may have been short lived but so were its after-effects. Bravo.
‘We’ll be right outside,’ the vampire said. One by one they trooped out, sending warning looks in my direction. From the muffled thud after they closed the door, at least one of them had barred the way out. They weren’t taking any chances.
‘Feels like overkill, don’t you think?’ I asked conversationally. ‘I’ve been tied up with rope, bound with chains, placed within a magical ward, and those mates of yours out there are still nervous.’
William gave me a long-suffering look. ‘No, Ms McCafferty. It does not feel like overkill in the slightest.’
I grinned. He might be a bureaucratic worker but he was certainly smart. ‘Look me in the eye and tell me that killing Alan Vennington was the wrong thing to do,’ I said softly.
William looked me in the eye but he didn’t say a word. His silence spoke volumes.
Once an appropriate moment had passed, he spoke. ‘Three of your generations have passed since an above grounder ventured into the Understream and killed one of our own. When I first met you, I did not think that you would be the one to break that record.’
‘I certainly wasn’t planning on killing anyone when I came down here. I don’t seek out murder.’ Not any more. ‘But I wasn’t planning on being chained to a pole and left as a monster’s breakfast either.’
William sighed. ‘That should not have happened.’
‘On that we most definitely agree,’ I told him. ‘Somebody ought to look for that thrall, you know. He left the maze cavern with Alan but I didn’t see him in the marketplace. You need to make sure he’s alright. His name is Eric – he was Chester Longchamps’ thrall.’
Although William nodded, his lack of interest in Eric’s wellbeing was palpable.
Deep in thought, he paced around me several times.
Finally he grabbed a chair and sat opposite me.
I noted that he took great care not to allow any part of either the chair or his body to cross the salt circle.
If nothing else, at least I knew that I was still someone to contend with even after four lazy years of early retirement.
‘There are some things that you have to understand,’ he said.
If William mentioned the greater good, I’d throw a hissy fit.
‘Alan was correct on several fronts,’ he continued. ‘Yes, there is a maze. Yes, inside that maze there is a monster and, yes, that monster demands to be fed. For a long time, it appeared to be in hibernation. It has only recently awoken.’
‘How recently?’
‘About eighteen months ago,’ he admitted.
Unbelievable. ‘So that means that up to eighteen people have been sacrificed.’
He shook his head. ‘Initially three vampires were taken, roughly one every month. It took us a while to realise what was happening but then we started trying to appease the monster. We tried bringing a cow to the maze but it was left untouched. We offered sheep but they were also not acceptable. Two more vampires went missing, then a visiting troll.’
He gazed into the distance. ‘We sent a team of five highly trained vampires into the maze. Only two returned, and they had spent ten days completely lost. They never saw the monster. They couldn’t get close to it.’
I watched him and I waited.
‘After that the disappearances and the killings seemed to stop.’
‘Because the sacrifices began,’ I snarled.
To William’s credit, he answered truthfully. ‘Yes. Thralls to begin with. After we banned the thralls from the Understream, there were others.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘You were right. Deep down we knew – we all knew. But we were too afraid to do anything about it.’
‘As long as you’re not the one getting eaten then it doesn’t matter,’ I said flatly. ‘But you know the poem, right? The one by Pastor Martin Niemoller?’
He did. ‘First they came for the Communists,’ he quoted, ‘And I did not speak out.’ He looked away and whispered the next line, ‘Because I was not a Communist.’
William didn’t need me to spell it out for him; he knew exactly what he’d done. He might not have dragged people to their deaths like Alan had done, but he was guilty all the same. All the vampires were.
‘He came here, didn’t he?’ I asked. ‘You were tracking my whereabouts and Alan came here to find out where I was.’
William didn’t deny it. ‘I thought he was being helpful. He brought you here to begin with, so it made sense that he felt responsible for your well-being.’
I snorted. I was beginning to think that Alan had had designs on me as a monster sacrifice from the very start.
‘I’m not defending his actions but Alan didn’t start any of this,’ William continued quietly. ‘The sacrifices weren’t his idea.’
‘Let me guess. Chester Longchamps?’
He nodded. ‘He’s gone now. He entered the maze and never came back out. He said he had a plan. He made a video…’