The Parliament of Blood Read online

  There were heavy footsteps on the stairs behind her, but Liz hardly heard them, was hardly aware of Malvern hurrying into the bedroom.

  She was hugging her father’s lifeless body, her tears dripping on to the bed, her hand fumbling for his wrist to check for a pulse. She could feel nothing.

  ‘Let me.’ Malvern gently eased her back, and bent his head to listen to the old man’s chest.

  ‘There was something …’ She could barely get the words out.

  ‘I don’t think he’s breathing,’ Malvern said anxiously.

  ‘On the pillow. Black. Horrid. A bird.’

  Malvern looked up abruptly. ‘A bird? You think there was a bird in the room?’

  ‘No, not a bird,’ Liz realised. A part of her mind was analysing what she had seen. A dispassionate part of her had picked up her father’s shaving mirror from the dressing table by the door.

  ‘Then – what? What did you see?’

  ‘It was a bat,’ Liz told him. But she was too upset, too distracted as she approached the bed to see the fear in Malvern’s eyes. She saw only her father’s immobile body, drained of life.

  CHAPTER 10

  It was not George Archer who came for him the next morning. Nathaniel Blake regarded the tall, gaunt stranger with suspicion. But the man assured him that Mr Archer was already waiting for them at the British Museum.

  ‘He said he’d come himself if he needed anything else,’ Blake said. ‘Got some other mysteries he wants cleared up, eh?’

  The tall man’s voice was loud and confident. ‘There is something to be cleared up, yes.’

  ‘Well, it has to be more stimulating than sitting around here,’ Blake admitted.

  The carriage was certainly impressive. Blake settled his more than ample form into the plush red seat. There had been a symbol on the door, like a coat of arms. But he had not caught the detail of it as the early morning light was filtered through a heavy smog.

  There was a chill in the air, and the driver of the carriage had been visibly shivering inside his heavy cloak. Coming down with a chill, perhaps, Blake thought. It didn’t do to hang about out in the cold and damp for too long.

  It was difficult to see anything of the journey through the heavy air, and Blake settled back and closed his eyes. His mind drifted back to younger days – to his time at Lacock with Talbot; making his own way as a photographer; his wife Sarah – God rest her soul …

  He jerked awake as the carriage stopped. Bleary-eyed, he squeezed himself out and followed the tall man to the door of the large imposing building where they had stopped.

  ‘This is not the Museum,’ he said, confused.

  ‘Please – Mr Archer is waiting.’

  Blake hung back. There was something forbidding about the place that made him feel uneasy. ‘You said Archer was at the British Museum.’

  ‘He was. But he wants to meet you here. This is where the mystery is. This is …’ the man smiled. ‘This is his club.’

  Blake grunted. ‘Rum sort of place, if you ask me.’

  Inside, the building seemed cold and empty. Dust hung in the air and the lights were turned down low. Behind Blake, the driver in his cloak and hat stepped into the entrance hall.

  Immediately a young woman appeared in a doorway opposite. She was dressed in a scarlet evening dress, and hurried to greet the driver.

  ‘You are no better?’ she asked, concerned.

  ‘I’ll recover. You were lucky to escape unharmed.’ The driver’s voice was scratchy and cold. Blake shuddered as he caught sight of the man’s face beneath his wide-brimmed hat. It was like staring at a skull.

  ‘I was nearer the door. We’ll make him pay for what he did,’ the woman said. ‘It’s lucky you have not drunk for so long.’

  ‘Look, what is going on here?’ Blake demanded. ‘I was brought here to see George Archer, not to discuss this coachman’s ailments.’

  ‘Don’t worry about his ailments,’ the tall man who had brought Blake here said.

  ‘Better to worry about your own,’ the driver snarled.

  ‘Anno Domini is the only ailment I suffer from, young man,’ Blake snapped.

  There was silence for a moment, then the woman laughed. She turned from the driver and walked slowly over to Blake, still laughing.

  ‘Old age?’ she said, standing right in front of him.

  ‘You have no idea what that is,’ the driver said.

  ‘And you never will,’ the woman added. Her eyes were deep, dark pools that seemed to get bigger and bigger as she leaned towards Blake. Then he felt the tall man grab him from behind, holding him immobile. Over the woman’s shoulder, Blake could see another man – tall and thin with pale features. A man he knew. A man he had seen at the British Museum, and before that in Lacock – the man he had tried to photograph.

  The man was slowly shaking his head, his expression a mixture of sympathy and horror.

  As the woman opened her mouth.

  Eddie ran for longer than he could remember. Even when he was absolutely sure that no one was following from the Damnation Club, he kept running. By the time he stopped – too exhausted to be frightened any more – he had no idea where he was. Dawn was breaking through the usual layer of smog that hung over London, turning the air from black to grey.

  Eddie needed to talk to someone about the events of the night, but would George believe him? Or would he berate Eddie for being out all night? In any case, it was too late to get home in time to see George before he left for work. Eddie could try to catch him at the Museum, but the last thing he needed now was a lecture about how he should be in school. No, he had a better plan.

  The workhouse was already a bustle of activity when Eddie arrived. Breakfast had finished, and men and women were heading for the areas where they would work. Eddie had no idea where he would find his friends, but he knew roughly where the dormitories were. He turned a corner, and came almost face to face with John Remick.

  Quick as lightning, Eddie turned and ran. He sprinted to the nearest corner and found himself in a yard full of men pulling old hemp ropes apart. Through that, and he was in another where women were making wicker baskets. They all worked in silence – grim-faced and emaciated. Eddie did not loiter. He could hear Remick yelling for Pearce. Maybe he’d be better hiding inside, he thought and headed for a doorway across the next yard.

  There was a trestle table set up close to the door that Eddie was aiming for. Several old men sat on stools, chopping small logs into kindling with hand axes. One of them glanced up at Eddie, his face cracked like old stone.

  ‘Pearce is in there,’ he warned, his voice tired and husky with age. ‘And it sounds like John Remick isn’t too happy with you neither.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Eddie looked round for somewhere to hide until Remick had gone and the Workhouse Master was well out of the way. As the door started to open, he dived under the table.

  He had a good view of Pearce’s legs as the man strutted out of his workhouse. The legs paused in front of the table, and Eddie could hear him picking over the bits of wood.

  ‘Shoddy,’ Pearce rasped. ‘But it’ll have to do. Buck your ideas up, or you’ll get short rations come supper time.’

  A second set of legs arrived hurriedly – Remick. Eddie could hear the boy whispering urgently to his master.

  ‘Then you’d best find him,’ Pearce replied quietly. ‘Sounds like the brat who gave me lip the other day. I reckon he’d be just what the Coachman wants. Yeah, I reckon he’d pay handsomely for that lad. And sure as hell is hot, no one will miss him.’

  The legs moved off, followed almost immediately by a splash of throaty spit. Eddie waited a few moments, then emerged from under the table. ‘Thanks for the warning,’ he said to the man with the crazy-paving face.

  The man nodded. ‘Reckoned you’d need a bit of help if you’re not to end up like Charlie and the others.’

  ‘You know what happened to Charlie?’

  The man shrugged. ‘I know it was nothing good.
Kids disappear. Always the ones Pearce thinks won’t be missed. Fat lot he knows. He thinks us old ’uns are all deaf as well as dumb here.’ He glanced round. ‘Anyway, he’s gone now. Dragged poor Remick off by the ear, though there’s not many will feel any sympathy for him. Best you leg it while you can. Mood he’s in, Pearce’ll flog you to within a farthing of your life.’

  Mention of a farthing made Eddie pat his pockets with sudden embarrassment. ‘I ain’t got nothing to give you,’ he apologised.

  The old man laughed. ‘That’s all right, lad. I’d have no use for it anyway.’

  Eddie thanked the old man and his friends at the wood-chopping table again, then made a hurried escape from the workhouse. He ducked into the shadows by the side of the forbidding building as he caught sight of Pearce in the road outside. He was with a younger man – little more than a boy. They were standing beside a coach.

  A coach with a distinctive red symbol on the black door. The driver was muffled inside his cloak, his face hooded. He climbed down from the coach to speak to Pearce.

  Keeping to the shadows, Eddie crept closer, straining to hear what was being said.

  ‘Oh yeah, I got one for you,’ Pearce was saying. ‘Thought we’d found just the one, but he gave us the slip. So, we’ll have to make do.’

  ‘With this one?’ The Coachman’s brittle voice reached Eddie as he peered round the corner of the building.

  As the Coachman spoke, Pearce grabbed the boy, twisting his arms viciously up behind his back. ‘Go on, quick. He’s strong this one – use your ’fluence. Put the spell on him. Mesmerise him like the others so he’ll quit squirming.’

  The boy was struggling and shouting. But a single look from the Coachman, and he lapsed into docile silence. Then, as Eddie watched, Pearce opened the door and the boy climbed inside without protest.

  ‘He will do,’ the Coachman said.

  ‘He’ll more than do. He’s just what you wanted. Full of fire and he certainly won’t be missed.’

  ‘You expect thanks?’

  ‘I expect money.’

  The Coachman said nothing, but turned back towards his carriage.

  Pearce grabbed the man by the sleeve. But as the Coachman turned, Pearce backed away. ‘Sorry, sir. Didn’t mean nothing by that. I just – well, I reckon I deserve what’s mine. What you promised.’

  ‘You mean money?’

  Pearce looked round as two men turned the corner of the street, on the other side from the carriage. ‘Not here,’ he hissed. ‘Not with people watching.’

  ‘You are scared?’ The Coachman seemed amused by Pearce’s nervousness.

  ‘I’m careful. That’s why I can still help you. But it can’t go on much longer.’

  The Coachman walked slowly away – heading towards where Eddie was hiding. ‘Indeed it can’t,’ he said. ‘And it won’t. It will all be over soon.’

  Eddie did not wait to hear any more.

  Life was a dull haze that went on around her. People spoke to Liz, and she answered. But she had little idea of what they said or how she replied. The doctor that Malvern sent for; the neighbours; the rector from St Bartholomew’s and the undertaker’s assistant …

  The rehearsal at the Parthenon was a welcome relief. It was a set sequence of actions and words that she could lose herself in. For a few precious hours she could let her mind be still and not feel guilty for leaving her father to die alone in an empty house.

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ Marie Cuttler said quietly to Liz through a deadening fog as the other actors left. ‘Sit with me for a moment.’

  Marie looked more pale than ever. Even in her distracted state Liz could see the woman was not well. She seemed tired and weak, though she laughed off any sympathy or suggestion she should rest.

  ‘Tell me about him,’ Marie said as they sat together in Marie’s dressing room. The words were simple, but they unlocked an unexpected rush of emotion, and Liz turned and cried into the older woman’s shoulder.

  ‘He was so very private,’ she said at last, wiping her eyes. ‘My own father – yet I feel I didn’t really know him at all. I always thought that one day we would talk. When he was better – he was frail for so long. Not ill health so much as a tiredness of life. I know he loved me, but he missed my mother more than he could ever say. He blamed himself, somehow, for her loss. And for the death of his sister before that, I think.’

  ‘And was he to blame?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Liz said sharply. ‘How could he have been?’

  Marie nodded and smiled sadly. ‘And you are not to blame either. How could you be?’ she echoed.

  Liz turned away. ‘Oh but I am. If only I had been there …’

  The woman took Liz’s hands between her own. ‘You’re grieving, upset, confused. You’re angry with yourself because when your father died you were enjoying yourself. But there’s no shame in that. It’s how he would want you to be. However little you think you know about him, you must know that.’

  Liz nodded, biting back the tears. ‘There was so much I wanted to talk to him about, and yet so little I could talk to him about.’

  ‘Like your work here?’

  Liz nodded.

  ‘Like Henry Malvern?’ Marie asked quietly. Liz looked at her sharply, but Marie simply laughed. ‘Something else that confuses you, I fancy.’

  Liz looked away. Thinking of her father. Thinking of Henry Malvern.

  Thinking of George Archer, whom she had not seen at the ball – had not seen for days. Was he somehow so lodged in her mind that she saw his face when he wasn’t there?

  ‘You must take life as it comes, seize the moments you have. Nothing lasts for ever,’ Marie said sadly. ‘Not even actresses.’

  The carriage door opened easily. Inside, the boy was sitting in shadow and Eddie could not make out his face.

  ‘You all right?’ he hissed. ‘They’ll be back in a minute.’

  There was no answer. Eddie glanced quickly in the direction that the Coachman and Pearce had taken before climbing into the carriage. ‘What’s he done to you?’

  ‘I must wait for my instructions.’ The voice was flat and lifeless. The boy’s eyes stared unfocused into space.

  Eddie sighed. ‘Why the heck did it have to be you?’

  John Remick turned slightly to look at Eddie. But his eyes were still glazed. ‘Instructions,’ he said again.

  ‘You want instructions? Right then. You get out of here and go to this address I’m going to give you and you make sure you see George Archer. No one else. And you tell him what’s happened, what’s going on. Everything you know. Which has got to be more than I know.’

  ‘George Archer,’ Remick echoed.

  ‘That’s right.’ Eddie gave him George’s address. ‘Tell him Eddie sent you. And tell him …’ Eddie hesitated. Was this really a sensible thing to do? He looked into Remick’s staring eyes, and he thought of how Charlie had looked at the end. ‘Tell him I’ve taken your place. Tell him I’ll find out what the Coachman and his mob are up to if it’s the last thing I do.’

  Sir William looked up in surprise as his office door swung open. ‘To what do I owe this honour?’ he asked as his visitor closed the door behind him.

  ‘When you came to see me last night,’ Lord Ruthven said, ‘I was not sure that I could help you. Not sure that I should help you.’

  ‘And now?’ Sir William waved him to a chair.

  ‘Circumstances change. Things are getting out of hand. I think you are right. We need to talk.’

  ‘Really?’ Sir William leaned back in his chair. ‘And what should we talk about? Photographs, perhaps? Ancient Egypt, maybe? The real significance of certain artefacts until recently in the care of my department?’

  ‘All of these and more,’ Lord Ruthven conceded. His voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘But, most of all, we need to talk about vampires.’

  CHAPTER 11

  There was silence for a long time. Sir William sensed that Lord Ruthven needed a whil
e to gather his thoughts and to summon up his courage. Eventually, Ruthven nodded slowly and sat down, as if he had come to a momentous decision. His voice was low and Sir William leaned forward, listening keenly.

  ‘There are so many stories. So very many. I’m sure you have heard a hundred and that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. From the ancient Egyptian Book of the Undead to the Necronomicon, from the Forbidden Tablets of Myrkros to the writings of Thomas Prest just a few years ago … So many stories.’ He lapsed into silence again, eyes unfocused.

  ‘Do you mind if we draw the curtains?’ Lord Ruthven said at last.

  The smog of the early morning had burned off and the sunlight was falling across the desk. Sir William got up and closed the curtains.

  ‘You were talking about stories,’ he prompted as he sat down again. ‘I take it that you have a story to tell me? About vampires?’

  ‘Ah, but that’s the point. They are just stories. They may have a basis in fact, but the whole notion of vampirism is a fiction. There is no such thing as a vampire – how could there be?’

  ‘How indeed?’ Sir William waited a while, before clearing his throat and continuing. ‘As you say, a fiction. Stories and myths. A popular idea with little basis in fact. An age-old legend of a creature that looks like a man – that was once a man – who now survives by drinking the blood of others. A parasitic creature that shuns sunlight …’ He let the last comment hang in the air.

  ‘You can understand how the stories started,’ Lord Ruthven said. ‘They sprang from tragic but ordinary circumstances, of course. Attempts to rationalise the effects of plague. A way of explaining the preservation of a dead body. Even to mitigate the horror of premature burial. How can we believe that a loved one we sealed in a coffin below the earth was not actually dead – that they scratched and scraped and screamed inside what became their tomb.’