Secrets of the Highwayman (22 page)

He tried to read what she was feeling in her face, but she turned away and wouldn’t allow it. “Melanie?”

“Don’t,” she spoke harshly, and pulled away altogether, sitting with her back to him. “I feel unclean,”
she said, and her voice was filled with disgust and horror. “We have to stop him, Nathaniel, for your sake, for my sake, for the sake of everyone in this world.” And then she told him what she had seen in her dream, and what it meant.

Mr. Trewartha lived in a town house in a quiet
cul-de-sac. Lights showed through the windows as Suzie eased the Aston Martin car into the curb and switched off the engine. By now it was almost dark. “You may as well stay here,” she said to Eddie. “I’ll go and see if he’s ready.”

“Fine,” he replied, leaning back in the squishy leather seat with a smile. Eddie had discovered luxury. Suzie was glad she’d persuaded Melanie to let her drive the boss’s car.

There was a mock-Victorian streetlamp on the sidewalk, and she could see that the town house was built of a smooth dark red brick, with two windows top and bottom, and a steep pitch of grey slate roof. The garden appeared not to have been tended for a while. She walked along the path, flanked by an untidy box hedge, and rang the doorbell.

There was movement inside, and a wavery voice called out. “Come in! The door’s open.”

Suzie gave the heavy door a push. It swung open into a dimly lit hall cluttered with antiques.

“I’m sorry, I…” the voice dissolved into coughing.

Concerned, Suzie pushed past dusty chairs and a marble bust on a pedestal, down the hall. “Mr. Trewartha?” she said. “Are you all right?”

“I wonder if you wouldn’t mind…”

He was coughing again. It sounded serious. As she reached the doorway and stepped inside the room, Suzie was trying to remember the basics of the first-aid course she’d done five years ago, but she’d been more interested in the good-looking instructor than what he was saying.

The curtains were drawn and all she could see was a shape, standing in the middle of the room.

“Mr. Trewartha?”

He moved toward her then, faster than she could ever have imagined, and the light from the hall spilled onto his face. “Suzie,” he croaked, “it’s so nice to meet you…” And his hand closed on her arm.

Nathaniel lounged in Miss Pengorren’s old desk chair, swinging it gently from side to side, as he watched Melanie dart about, making notes, checking lists. She’d dressed in a dark skirt that stopped just above her knees, and a jacket in the same cloth, worn over a lime green blouse. She imagined she looked serious and professional, but the glamour was stronger than ever, and every time he glanced at her he had to remind himself to keep breathing.

“They should be here,” she said. “Do you think there’s a problem?”

“Maybe Trewartha and Eddie are fighting a duel over their respective theories. Pens at twenty paces.”

“Very funny.”

“I wonder if Pengorren has ever read
The Raven’s Curse
? He’d enjoy it. It’d be like murdering me all over again, only this time it’s my character and my memory being assassinated.”

Anger was simmering below the surface, but he held it in check. Nevertheless, Melanie gave him a sideways glance—it was all they could manage at the moment. “You shouldn’t be here when he comes, Nathaniel. This is business, that’s all, nothing to do with his views on history. I want to get this meeting over and done as soon as possible. You know that.”

He shrugged.

“I’m sorry.” Her shoulders sagged in defeat. “I wish this didn’t have to happen. I’m hoping I might be able to put him off doing the listing for a couple of weeks, so that you can carry on with your search. If I tell Mr. Foyle things are more complicated than we thought, he should let me stay on a bit longer, too. I mean, he trusts me, I don’t see any problems.”

She’d risk her job for him. He knew how much it meant to her, she’d told him. Determined to put aside his bad temper, Nathaniel pulled himself out of the chair and stood up.

“I’ll go down and take a look at Neptune,” he said. “Let me know when he’s gone.”

“Thank you.” She smiled.

Alone in the room, Melanie tried to settle her thoughts. It wasn’t easy. All the things she’d believed important
now seemed mere distractions from the truly urgent task of finding Pengorren and putting an end to his evil. In a matter of days her priorities had taken a giant shift, her whole life had been changed irrevocably. Whatever happened next, Melanie knew she would never be able to go back.

Downstairs, the front door opened.

Annoyed that she hadn’t heard the car arrive, Melanie hurried out onto the landing. In the dim light of the single bulb, she could see the man standing in the hall below her. He was wearing a hat with a brim, the sort that men like Frank Sinatra used to wear, and a heavy dark coat buttoned up to his chin.

“Mr. Trewartha?”

Even as she spoke she felt it rushing toward her. Strong, dark…evil. Creeping into her mind, over her skin, filling the house like black acrid smoke.

Pengorren.

He wasn’t so bent anymore and although his face was incredibly wrinkled it was no longer just a skull. His eyes were shining like blue penlights, fixed on her as he shuffled forward with a rustle like dry paper.

“Melanie,” he croaked.

She shook her head, but it was more of a denial of what he was, not who he was.

“You are mine…my blood, my flesh, my seed.”

“I’m not yours!” her voice was shaking with revulsion. “I’m nothing to do with you!”

He laughed like a creaking hinge. He took off his hat and his hair wasn’t quite so white anymore, more like pale blond, and he was bigger, bulkier, his body filling
out. Right in front of her eyes he was growing as he moved toward the stairs.

She tried to steel herself as she stepped back. He needed her, so he wasn’t going to kill her just yet. “Nathaniel won’t let you win,” she said, breathless. Dark flecks were beginning to spin at the edges of her vision, and she realized he must be taking her energy. He was sucking her life out of her because that’s what he did. Fed off the lives of others.

Pengorren laughed again. He was gazing up at her as he came. “Nathaniel is easy meat. The dear boy rushes in and doesn’t stop to think, he never has. You don’t need him. You’re far superior to him.” His blue eyes gleamed with a warped paternal pride.

“I love him,” she flung back at him.

“Love?” he sneered. “Our kind don’t love, Melanie. We use and destroy, and we live on. Forever.”

He stumbled, forgetting to watch his steps in his passion, and the chain about his neck swung forward. He was wearing something. The locket with the key inside it.

Get me the key and I will give you what it is you wish for.

Melanie could have run then, but she made a conscious decision to stay.

“How old are you?” she whispered, with a sort of horrified wonder. “Why aren’t you dead and buried, where you belong?”

“I am older than you can imagine.”

Suddenly Melanie felt her knees buckle, and Pengorren’s face slid out of focus. Even if she’d wanted
to run now, she couldn’t. She shook her head, desperate to clear her sight. Pengorren was bulking up even more, and his cadaverous face was plumping out, the skin smoothing, becoming young again. His eyes still glowed eerily but now they were more like eyes, and they crinkled at the corners when he smiled. She was beginning to feel the effects of his glamour, like a meteor drawing closer and increasing in strength and brightness.

“Why do you do it?” she whispered. “Murder people, take their lives?”

He grinned, and he had teeth, white and strong. “Normal mortals are of no use to me. Their essence is puny. It is only if there are lots of them, if there’s a mass death, then I can take power from them. I need the essence of those with my own blood to keep me strong. Before my children and grandchildren were born, I needed to bring a sailing ship onto the rocks to stay alive. But you know that, don’t you, Melanie, my clever girl?”

His crooning voice lulled her. He’d almost reached her, and again her eyes were drawn to the locket. The chain looked strong for all its fineness, but one sharp tug might do it. She must reach out and grab it. She must try. He wouldn’t be expecting her to do that, and she could take him by surprise.

“I have developed a way of farming the essences, the souls, that I need,” he continued, as if proud of his perversion. “I create my own, with my own blood in them. I sired many brats on the women of Ravenswood, and then those brats had their own families. Plenty of fodder, or so I thought. But my plan wasn’t quite as successful as I’d hoped. Some of my descendants didn’t
inherit much of my power at all, and that meant I had to take so many at a time that my line began to dwindle. I grew weaker. Lately I have been too weak to leave my home. You have no idea how grateful I am that you came to Cornwall, Melanie.”

“You’ve killed your own flesh and blood to stay alive.”

“Of course.”

“You’re a monster.”

“I am a god!” Pengorren roared.

Melanie lunged forward, fingers crooked, but she was too slow and he easily evaded her.

“Don’t be silly now,” he scolded, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder.

She pulled away, staggered, and fell against the wall. And that was when she remembered something she should have remembered as soon as she saw Pengorren, alone, in the hall. Alarm made her voice more breathless than it was already, and she was filled with a sense of dread.

“Where’s my sister? Where’s Suzie?”

Restlessly, Nathaniel kicked at the straw in
Neptune’s stall. The big horse was restless, too, ears pricked, skin twitching. Nathaniel tried to persuade him to eat, but he ignored the feed, lifting his head to stare at the door.

“Do you think that bastard Trewartha will stay long?” Nathaniel murmured, and Neptune turned to him, as if interested in the question. “I wish I could tell him what I really think of him. Pengorren and Trewartha…they make a fine pair.”

Pengorren and Trewartha, they were both destroyers in their own way. Pengorren, who traveled through time and lived in different time periods, and was still here, somewhere. Trewartha, who was old and had lived in Cornwall for a very long time. Pengorren was old, too. He imagined that Pengorren would enjoy reading Trewartha’s book, and gloating over the blackening of Nathaniel’s memory. It was like something Pengorren
would do himself. In fact, such a sly and underhand act was very characteristic of Pengorren…

“Oh God.”

He’d been an idiot. How could he have missed the clues? Pengorren
was
Trewartha. And Melanie was alone in the house with him.

Nathaniel ran to the stable door and flung it open.

Just as something big crashed into him, sending him backward onto the floor. He hit the stone flags hard and lay there, helpless, with the breath knocked out of him. A shadow fell over him, and then a heavy weight pressed down on his chest, and he felt the warmth of his own blood on his face.

“Ah yes. Dear Suzie.” Pengorren straightened up as he reached the landing. “Unfortunately she didn’t have your power, did she? I’m afraid to say she was hardly worth the effort. Still, it was enough to get me this far.”

Instinctively, Melanie edged along the wall, shaking, dizzy. “I hope you suffer for all eternity, you murdering monster,” she said, her voice trembling with grief. It couldn’t be. He was lying to her. Suzie couldn’t be dead. Not now when they were just beginning to find each other again after all these years.

“Poor Suzie,” Pengorren mocked.

He was towering over her now, and his shoulders were so broad, his feet planted apart. Imposing, terrifying, and almost completely regenerated.

She wanted to throw herself at him and bite and scratch him, to hurt him as he’d hurt her. But it was too
late. She was sliding down the wall, her senses swimming. The end couldn’t be far away. Her mind was fading. She realized, with a pang, that she’d never see Nathaniel again…

“Pengorren!”

For a moment she thought she’d dreamed his voice, but it was coming from the bottom of the stairs. Why was he down there? He should be up here, with her. And then she could hear the sharp click of claws on wood, the rush of something moving swiftly, and a deep angry growling.

His voice had the desired effect. Nathaniel watched as Pengorren spun around, staggering slightly—for all he looked like himself it was clear he didn’t yet have a young man’s strength. He climbed the stairs after Teth, and it wasn’t until he was halfway up that he saw Melanie on the floor near Pengorren’s feet. Her face was pure white, and she was slumped against the wall, her eyes sunk back into their sockets as if she had some terrible illness.

He shouldn’t have gone away and left her alone. He should have guessed. As he’d lain on the floor, with Teth licking his face—the warm wetness hadn’t been blood after all—he’d cursed himself for his lack of wits. Pengorren had bested him again.

Teth lunged, all demon. Pengorren let out a scream and fell back against a small table. They crashed to the landing, Teth on top, snarling, teeth fastened on the neck of Pengorren’s coat. Cloth ripped. Pengorren rolled over onto his front, lifting his arms to protect
his head, but Teth grabbed hold of his sleeve, shaking it and making terrible noises in his throat.

Nathaniel stepped hastily around them and bent down to pick Melanie up in his arms. She was weak, almost too weak to lift her head as he shifted her so that she could rest her cheek against his shoulder. He began to back away down the corridor, carrying her with him.

“The key…” she managed, hardly more than a whisper. “He’s wearing it, Nathaniel…Take it…we must…”

He hesitated, glancing back at the writhing mass that was Pengorren and the hound. His first instinct was to take Melanie far away, to somewhere safe. But she was right. They had to have the key. He compromised, and carried her into one of the nearer bedchambers. It was a child’s room, musty with disuse, and he set her gently down on the narrow, iron-framed bed.

“Suzie,” she breathed, her eyes fluttering shut. “He has Suzie.”

He felt a pang. If Pengorren had Suzie, then she was probably dead. Eddie, too. But Melanie looked so ill lying there, so different from the bedazzling woman he was used to, he couldn’t tell her the truth.

“I’ll find her,” he said, and touched her cheek. “Stay here.”

She managed a smile, her eyes fluttering closed. She trusted him. Leaving her was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.

Out on the landing, Pengorren was still shouting and cursing. Teth had drawn blood and torn a long strip from his coat. The locket was dangling outside his
clothing. Nathaniel edged in closer and grabbed hold of it.

Pengorren, realizing what Raven was up to, snatched for his hand, but it was too late. Nathaniel gave the chain a hard tug, and it snapped. The locket was his.

Pengorren threw back his head in a shriek of rage, and at the same time Teth saw his chance and dived in to bite his cheek. The flesh tore. Pengorren roared and lashed out with his fist, knocking Teth off-balance. The hound gave a bloodcurdling howl as he struck the banisters. He rolled down several of the stairs and sprawled there, stunned.

That gave Pengorren enough time to get to his feet and stagger backward until he was hard up against the wall. His clothing was ripped, he was disheveled and hurt, with blood dripping from his hands and his face; but when he turned his gaze to Nathaniel, his eyes were the same gleaming, savage blue they’d always been.

“Call off your mongrel!” he shouted.

Teth was back on his feet again, growling, but he was limping badly. He made a feint at Pengorren, forcing him to take a step sideways down the corridor. Immediately Nathaniel thought of Melanie, lying defenseless in the bedchamber, and took a step of his own, toward the stairs. He held up the locket, letting it dangle from the broken chain, and Pengorren’s gaze swiveled to him and narrowed.

“Want this, Hew?”

Pengorren swallowed, and pushed a swath of fair hair out of his eyes. The gash on his cheek was deep and brutal, and there was a long scratch on his neck. It was comforting to see he bled red, like ordinary mortals.

“Nathaniel,” he said with soft menace, “you’re making a terrible mistake. Give it to me now, and I might let you go.”

Nathaniel laughed. “I don’t think so.”

He was moving away, down the stairs, and Teth came with him, hobbling on three paws. Pengorren hesitated and glanced behind him, looking for Melanie, but there was no sign of her. Nathaniel could see his indecision, but he hoped Pengorren would think she’d escaped down the back stairs.

“How does this thing work, Hew?” he said, twirling the locket chain so that the locket spun crazily.

To his relief, Pengorren turned to him at last and began to follow. He showed Nathaniel his teeth in what was meant to be a smile. “I’m going to enjoy killing you,” he said.

The lights went out.

Melanie didn’t know how long she’d been lying on the narrow bed with the worn, patchwork cover, only that it was dark and she was freezing and so very tired. Her bones seemed to ache, even her fingernails, and when she moved, she felt as if she’d aged a hundred years.

Gradually it came to her that she must get up, that it was extremely urgent she move. Pengorren was here—he could be standing outside the door right now—and both she and Nathaniel were in terrible danger. She didn’t let herself think about Suzie and Eddie. Not yet, not now. Blame and grief would come later.

Slowly, she eased her legs off the bed to the floor and, gripping the iron railings on the bedhead, dragged
herself upright into a sitting position. At once the darkness started to swim, and she dropped her head into her hands with a groan. It seemed to take ages for her vision to clear, and longer again for her to feel it was safe to get to her feet. The first step was the worst, but the next was better.

Her strength was returning. Slowly but surely, it was coming back. She really
was
powerful. She hadn’t understood until now just how strong she was. As powerful as Pengorren? Perhaps. One thing was for certain, she wasn’t going to let him destroy her without a fight. He’d had his way for far too long.

The corridor was so dark she had to stand a moment and let her eyes adjust. The whole house seemed to be blacked out, and she wondered if someone had done that on purpose or if it was an electrical fault. Maybe Nathaniel was trying to confuse Pengorren, or vice versa.

She hoped Nathaniel was okay. She didn’t remember the fight very clearly, but from what she did remember it was Pengorren, not Nathaniel or Teth, who was getting the worst of it.

But where were they now? Everything was so quiet.

Suddenly she realized she’d stopped breathing and was feeling dizzy again. She gulped some air, but that was worse, so she forced herself to slow it down and take even, steady breaths.

As she grew calmer, her mind began to open up, tentatively reaching out beyond the corridor to the landing, then down the stairs and into the hall. There was nothing there, so she sought farther afield, her mind tiptoeing a little at a time, afraid of what she might find.

Despite her caution she landed herself right in the middle of it before she could stop. Dark, gooey, and unpleasant. Pengorren. Mentally she backed away, terrified, wondering if he could sense her as she was able to sense him. But after a moment, when he hadn’t come after her mentally or in the flesh, she gave a sigh of relief.

Next time he found her, he wouldn’t hesitate, she knew that. He’d kill her, and then spread his evil once more throughout the world.

The corridor was dark and airless. She’d have to move, but the thought of creeping through the black house was terrifying. She took a slow, cautious step, and then another, pausing to check it was safe. Soon she’d reached the top of the stairs.

Her eyes were adjusting to the dark now—better than they ever had, but she didn’t want to think about that, or what she was becoming. She could see that the table on the landing was upended, one of the legs smashed, signs of the struggle between Teth and Pengorren.

Who had won? She didn’t even know that. The fact that she’d felt Pengorren’s presence meant he was still around, still alive. She could only pray that Nathaniel and Teth were, too.

Clutching the banister with one hand, Melanie began to descend the staircase.