The Iscariot Sanction (33 page)

Lillian could not believe what she was hearing. De Montfort raised his arms aloft as though proclaiming her eternal salvation, yet she knew that, if what he said was true, the opposite was the case. She wanted to weep; more than that, she wanted to die.

‘It is a shock to you, I can see it writ large on your face. And yet we have whispered this secret to your government. The Queen knows it. The Prime Minister knows it. Your father knows it. This is the true reason that they would not outright deny us. The real threat of the Knights Iscariot is that we would turn all of you into vampires, and usurp the human race. What few of your kind remained would be little more than cattle. This is the first experiment in a long line, and who better to serve as an example than the daughter of Lord Hardwick? Who better to bring our message to the great and the good of London society? The time of humanity is in decline, Lillian Hardwick, and has been since the Rifts began to open. The time of the Knights Iscariot is dawning. And what a glorious dawn it shall be!’

She tested her limbs. Strength was returning, but not sensation. Other than a sense that she was very cold, her flesh was numb, and that lack of feeling gave way to a rising fear. Even so, she flexed the muscles of her legs, and forced herself to stand.

‘I am impressed,’ de Montfort said. ‘I did not expect you to take so readily to your new condition. You are, after all, a child given the form of a god. You are—’

Lillian did not allow another word to cross his thin, hateful lips. She rushed towards him, surprised at her own speed and strength. De Montfort looked, for a moment, surprised. He backed away, and tried to step aside gracefully from her desperate lunge, but she managed to pre-empt him, twist towards him, and grasp his throat with her left hand. She squeezed. It was hard as iron.

‘Oh, this is wonderful!’ he cried. ‘This really is—’

Lillian pulled him towards her as her right arm delivered a straight punch to the bridge of his nose with all the force she could muster. It was a manoeuvre direct from the dojo, her target point not the man himself, but the space behind him, so that her full impetus was directed
through
him. His nose crumpled. He reeled backwards, tearing himself from her grip.

She crouched low, preparing to pounce. In an instant, the two lithe she-creatures were upon her, dragging her back into the slippery pool of Arthur’s blood. She flailed and fought, but they were stronger than she. She turned and bit one of them on the face, tearing a chunk of bloodless flesh from its cheek, and drawing no more than the smallest grunt of pain, if indeed it could be called such.

‘Witch! Abbess! Adventuress!’ de Montfort cried, holding his nose.

‘What do you want?’ Lillian screamed, vision blurring through tears as she wrestled impotently against the two women. ‘Do you want my thanks?’

De Montfort glowered at her. ‘Perhaps I expected too much of you,’ he growled. ‘But you should indeed thank me.’

‘I’ll kill you,’ she said.

‘I am already dead, girl, as are you. Unlike you, however, I died within an hour of my birth, and never knew the comforts of human feeling, the taste of good food, the full heat of the summer sun upon my skin… You have lived a life, and now I hope you will find something even more wondrous in the walking death I have granted you.’

‘Murderer!’ Lillian screamed, her voice ringing in her own ears. And the tone with which it was delivered was more one of sorrow than of hate.

De Montfort laughed. ‘Oh, Lillian, I did not think such humour possible, but you have instilled in me great joy. For that, it is I who should thank you. You love this man? This Majestic? I never knew, even though I have shared your heart and mind these past days. Oh, how delicious the pain you must be feeling. How I wish I could feel it too.’

Lillian broke down in tears, the strength draining from her in her grief. Her feet slipped in the blood, and the she-creatures dropped her to the floor.

‘I will kill you,’ she whispered.

‘Listen to me!’ de Montfort snapped. ‘I have done you the greatest service imaginable. Oh, do not look at me so; I speak not of the gifts you have received, for I am sure you will find them as much a curse as a blessing. No, I speak of the fate that would have been yours were it not for my intervention. You recall the time that I was in your head? The time that I tracked you and spoke to you, though many miles lay between us?’

‘How?’

‘A quirk of my Majestic gifts. The poor creature that scratched you was a distant relative—on my mother’s side, of course. From then until the wound began to heal, I called to your blood, and it answered. However, my power is not quite unique. There is one other of my kind whose telepathic skills surpass even my own. When you and I shared our… special bond… there was another eavesdropping on our thoughts. The Nameless King, the true leader of the Knights Iscariot. He was so taken by your courage and guile, that he selected you as his own, his bride—one of many. He would have taken you as a human concubine, destined to be torn apart by his spawn once he had finished with you. But now, your destiny is greater. Now, you are of the Blood Royal!’

‘Like you? A go-between? A servant?’ she asked, the words as ash in her mouth.

‘Ah, not quite. There is more to my little experiment, but that is for another time. I am sure you have reached the limit of your understanding… for now.’

Lillian had indeed reached her limits; she had done so some considerable way through de Montfort’s speech. She looked up to see de Montfort treading gingerly through the blood towards her. His nose was broken, though he did not bleed. He stooped in front of her, taking her chin in his hand and raising her eyes to meet his.

‘The time has come to set you free. Remember your experiences in Commondale; the postmaster of that backwater was warned of your coming. He hid in the cellar until such time as he could strike in our name. Our servants are everywhere—our eyes, everywhere. You will see us no more, but we shall know your movements. Now, listen to me carefully: what I do now, I do for your own good, though I am sure you will not understand. When next we meet, I hope it will be under better circumstances, for I really am very fond of you, believe that. Sadly, I fear your… rebirth… will make trouble for us both. When you leave here, you shall be all alone in the world, for the time being. You shall experience such agony, and such madness, that you may wish for death, but death has no dominion over you, and never shall. When finally you are able, you will fly home, little bird, and show your old masters what you have become. And then, when they reject you, you shall return to me, and embrace your new family. You may not believe a word of this, you may think you hate me and will never join me; but you are wrong. It is in your nature now.

He leaned in closer, and kissed her on the cheek. As he did so, he whispered in her ear so quietly that she almost did not hear it.

‘I am being watched at all times. When next we meet, I shall explain all, and you will find me a valuable ally. Trust me.’

He withdrew, the congealed blood from Lillian’s face on his lips. The darting of his sparkling eyes suggested that the dark figures around the room were not just his servants, but his warders. Lillian knew not what she was now involved in, and hardly cared; she had far more pressing matters to concern her.

De Montfort stood. As he did so, there came a soft groan from behind him. He turned; Lillian’s eyes widened. Sir Arthur Furnival stirred.

‘Arthur…’ Lillian managed. That Arthur was alive, beyond all hope, gave her more will to resist.

‘Impossible…’ de Montfort murmured. He snapped his attention back to Lillian. ‘I am sorry you will not have the chance to say goodbye,’ he said. He nodded to someone behind her. ‘I am truly sorry.’

Lillian did not follow what was happening, but for the second time that night a sudden pain exploded in the back of her skull, knocking her once more into the black depths of unconsciousness.

* * *

John gazed across the bay towards the Scarborough docks as freezing salt-spray hit his face, which was already chapped and pinched. He felt nothing.

He had sat upon the foredeck of the
China
, Pickering’s swift little steamer, for much of the journey from Hull. He had willed the going to be quicker, and yet every toss and bob on every wave had felt like a laborious mountain to climb. Their progress had appeared to John so ponderous that they might as well have set sail into an ocean of treacle.

He still clutched the telegram from his father in his hand, the paper crinkled from exposure to the rough coastal elements. He glanced down at it, crumpled within his clenched fist. He did not need to read it again.

PRINCE IS LOST STOP TWO AGENTS MISSING STOP LAST MESSAGE RECEIVED MIDNIGHT STOP COMMMONDALE ON YORK MOORS STOP CAUTION ADVISED NAZELING

John shook his head ruefully. Caution advised. ‘Nazeling’—‘do only what is necessary’. And yet his father had just told him that Lillian and Arthur were missing in action. Marcus Hardwick remained resolute even in the knowledge that his own daughter was lost behind enemy lines.

John had been sent into an impotent rage by the missive, for Pickering would not be swayed from the agreed plan. And so, a full eight hours after Lillian’s last message had been received, John had set off on what seemed like an interminably long voyage to Scarborough, in the hopes that passage aboard a westbound train could be secured.

Unsteady footsteps fell on the deck behind him, and John felt a firm hand squeeze his shoulder. Smythe stood beside him, resting his hand on John’s shoulder as much to steady himself on the choppy waters as to provide comfort. He said nothing; there was nothing to say.

The picturesque bay arced before them, its tall, gaily painted houses and small fishermen’s cottages clustered beneath the cliffs, the pink sky making them appear to glow beyond the veil of grey drizzle, like imprecise daubs of oil on canvas. The promontory above them was but a ghost of an outline. A few gulls braved the elements, riding the bluster above the boat, heralding the coming of the enemy in shrill cries.

The boat turned towards the harbour, heading for the small commercial dock. The equable, chugging rhythm of the steam engine slowed, taking on a deeper resonance and causing the grey water about to foam and chop as the
China
dropped its speed. John pulled up the collar of the battered overcoat that he had been given to conceal his identity. It smelled like herring.

‘Keep your chin up, Lieutenant,’ Pickering called out from the wheelhouse. ‘You’ll be away soon enough.’

John remained sullen; it would not be soon enough. Not by a long chalk. Now he did unfold the telegram and scan it again, and felt Smythe reading it over his shoulder. What did his father mean when he said ‘missing’? Had Lillian and Sir Arthur been separated from the others, or was the entire delegation missing? Had Lillian sent a telegram home, or had someone else sent the message? In the latter case, was Lillian even alive? That thought chilled John more than the cold sea air ever could. Surely his father would have forewarned him if that were so? Or perhaps grief had clouded the old man’s reason. John became gripped by the thought that Lillian was dead, perhaps Arthur too, and he read the lines over and over, expecting each time to hit upon some hidden meaning that would explain all.

‘We’ll find her, Hardwick,’ Smythe said at last. ‘Probably still at Commondale, wherever that is. Middle of nowhere, I expect, well away from trouble. Don’t you worry, we’ll find her.’

John knew Smythe’s feelings about Lillian all too well. He knew his fellow agent was trying to reassure himself more than anything, and by his tone he was doing an inadequate job of it. By the time the boat landed at a small wooden dock, John had started to fear the worst.

* * *

John and Smythe loitered in the shadows, dressed in scruffy fisherman’s garb and carrying all their belongings in old kit bags. John imagined from the odd glance they received that they resembled tramps, or homeless stowaways from a merchant ship. Over by the train sheds, Pickering and one of his men bargained with a crook-backed railwayman, who glanced in John’s direction periodically with a look of deep suspicion.

‘I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of the enemy,’ Smythe muttered. ‘And there’s nobody about in this inclement weather. I’d rather we simply chanced our luck at the ticket office and procured first-class tickets to this backwater village.’

‘I’d normally agree with you,’ said John, ‘but we must trust Pickering. If he says there are traitors about, we have to be careful. He should know, after all.’ Smythe sighed, and John found it hard to fault his companion’s feelings on the matter. In the scant years that he had served the Crown, John had rarely had to ‘rough it’, always preferring to play whatever role would secure him the best rooms and the finest cuisine. This affair was different: this was Lillian, and John would do whatever it took to find her safe and well. Travelling third class would be a small price to pay.

‘It is done, Lieutenant,’ Pickering said as he approached. ‘Mr. Dawkins over yon has pledged to make an unscheduled stop at Commondale. It cost a pretty penny to arrange, I can tell you.’

‘I can assure you, Mr. Pickering, money is no object, and you will be reimbursed in full,’ John said.

Pickering held up a hand. ‘It does not matter a jot to me. All I care about is that the plight of the north is at last recognised by this so-called government. Assuming you return to London in one piece, may I have your word that you will relay our situation accurately, and tell those in Whitehall that a resistance, though small, waits for the word to rise up?’

‘You have my word, a thousand times over,’ said John. He extended a hand, and Pickering shook it firmly.

‘Once is enough, Lieutenant, for I see in your eyes that you are a man of honour. I am sorry I could not secure you more comfortable travelling conditions, but the journey is a short one.’

Pickering nodded towards the man, Dawkins, who loitered nervously next to a pair of wood-planked freight cars, one of which was emblazoned with Pickering’s name.