Chapter 7

Chapter

Seven

T he taxi driver was as taciturn on the return journey as he’d been on our way to the restaurant. Now his silence suited me; I wanted the time to chew over everything I’d learned from Athair, who’d been surprisingly chatty during the second half of the evening. Although it would have been easy to dismiss the information he’d given me as little more than colourful background to his early life, there might be nuggets that could prove useful.

Once we drove onto the long drive that led to Pemberville Castle, my thoughts turned to Hugo. Although I was worried about him, I didn’t really believe that his sneaky venture to Athair’s lair would result in disaster. Hugo was one of those people who skated through mortal danger with ease; he was far too intelligent and capable to allow anything truly bad to happen. Not that I’d tell him that – his ego managed perfectly well without my intervention.

Fortunately I didn’t have to wait long for reassurance because I spotted him as soon as we drew close to the front of his ancestral home. He was chatting casually to Duchess. The taxi driver grunted and parked as far away as possible; he’d clearly seen enough of Duchess already and had no desire to get close to her.

I thanked him and tried to give him a tip, but he declined so forcefully that I guessed Athair had ordered him to refuse my money – and an order from Athair wouldn’t be pleasant. I gave up and climbed out of the taxi. The driver took off with such speed that he almost collided with Slim and Miriam who were right behind us.

I watched them for a few seconds until I was sure that Athair had kept his word and left them in peace, then I spun towards Hugo. It had only been a few hours but, damn, I was beyond glad to see him.

I strode up, several burning questions on my lips. ‘You’re ba?—’

Hugo didn’t let me finish my sentence before his mouth descended on mine, stifling my words. I felt a flicker of annoyance at being prevented from talking but that was quickly superseded by desire when his hands slid around my body and his kiss deepened. Hot fire flared through me, though the sensation started to dissipate when Hugo lifted me and cradled me against his chest. I didn’t like being treated as if I were helpless – and Hugo damned well knew it.

Otis coughed in embarrassment and zipped ahead through the massive front door and into the castle where he could save his blushes. Hester stayed beside us watching Hugo’s every move. ‘Your technique could do with some improvement,’ she said to him. ‘And can’t this wait? Tell us what?—’

Duchess’s huge, clawed hand snapped out and enclosed Hester’s tiny form in her fist. Oh. I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t allowed to finish their sentences. Suddenly dread trickled down my spine.

Hugo’s mouth left mine, dipping in order to trail across my jawline. ‘Stay quiet,’ he muttered in my ear, his dark tone at odds with his affection.

I turned my head and tried to scan the dark line of trees beyond the castle without seeming too obvious. It was pointless: I couldn’t make out anything. I quickly gave up and leaned against Hugo’s chest instead.

Neither Miriam nor Slim spoke but I knew they were behind us from the crunch of their footsteps on the gravel. Hugo kissed me again, nodded at Duchess and carried me across the castle threshold as if I were some sort of ridiculous blushing bride.

My nose wrinkled. A very strange, very unpleasant smell clung to his clothes and hair. Whatever he’d been doing had been interesting – and probably not in a good way – but I held my tongue.

Slim, Miriam and Duchess entered the castle too, the latter with Hester still captured in her fist. When the troll paused to close the huge oak front door and bar it from the inside, my sense of foreboding grew. She was usually more comfortable outside and beneath her bridge, especially at this time of night. I’d never seen her lock that door and hamper her own exit before now.

Hugo didn’t put me down immediately so I wriggled to indicate my displeasure. ‘Pity,’ he murmured, finally allowing me to stand up. ‘I was enjoying that.’

Yeah, yeah. I rolled my eyes and suffered his answering grin, then drew in a breath to speak but he shook his head minutely in warning. I raised an eyebrow, stalked across to the nearest shiny suit of armour and lifted up the visor to peer mockingly inside. Nobody was lurking within. Surprise, surprise. I shrugged pointedly at Hugo but he only offered me an uncomfortable smile.

Then Duchess screamed. The sound was like nothing I’d ever heard before, high-pitched and so drawn out that it was a miracle the windows didn’t shatter. Within seconds, I’d unsheathed Gladys and adopted a defensive stance. Miriam had pulled out her sword too, and Hugo and Slim were bristling with magic ready to attack any and all comers.

‘You bitch!’ Duchess roared. ‘I’m going to eat you whole!’

‘Oh yeah? Come and get me then!’

I looked upwards. Hester was hanging onto the chandelier above our heads and glaring down at Duchess. The troll’s hand was open and a dribble of blood was leaking from a small wound in her fleshy palm.

‘She bit me!’ Duchess gave me a narrow-eyed look that suggested it was my fault. She thumped her chest and pointed at Hester. ‘Vengeance is mine by right!’

‘You grabbed me in your sweaty, smelly paw and wouldn’t let me go,’ Hester shouted. ‘What else was I supposed to do?’

Duchess snarled and leapt upwards, swiping at Hester. She succeeded in reaching the chandelier, knocked several crystal shards away and made it swing ominously. Hester, who had already darted away, stuck out her tongue.

Duchess jumped again. ‘I’m going to roast you alive, brownie!’

Otis zoomed out from the hallway. ‘What are you doing to my sister?’ he yelled. ‘If you hurt her, I will kill you!’

Another crystal shard tumbled from the chandelier and landed on my head. I scowled and threw as much authority into my voice as I could muster. ‘Enough! If I could get through dinner with Athair without bloodshed then you lot can stop this now!’

Duchess whirled. ‘Oh yeah? Who made you queen?’

For fuck’s sake.

‘She’s gotten all uppity since she became a lady,’ Hester said. She put on an affected voice. ‘“ Do this. Do that. Keep yourselves busy while I shag Hugo’s brains out .” It’s never-ending.’

My mouth dropped. How had I ended up as the bad guy here? Hugo snickered and I glared at him. ‘Don’t you start.’ I folded my arms. ‘What’s going on? What’s with all the secrecy?’

‘Bone Zone first,’ he said, referring to the large office at the back of the castle that was used for treasure-hunting business. ‘Then we’ll talk.’ He raised an eyebrow at Duchess. ‘Some calm would be appreciated.’

‘The grumpy goth started it,’ she retorted.

Hester opened her mouth to start yelling again. ‘No!’ I said sharply. Clearly everyone was feeling the tension of the evening far more than I’d appreciated, and there was something sinister underlying the atmosphere that I didn’t understand.

I marched towards the Bone Zone as quickly as I could. Tempers were high but nobody was dead. That was important. Things were not that bad. Nobody was badly hurt and, I repeated silently, nobody was dead.

‘Oh, he was definitely dead,’ Hugo said. ‘And he had been for some time.’

I pressed the base of my hands into my temples. With every member of the Primes in attendance, plus Hester, Otis, Duchess and me, the Bone Zone meeting table was crowded. Unsurprisingly, Duchess’s large body took up a lot of the space and there was no chair – or even a window seat – that would hold her massive frame. She was at least twice the size of any bogle.

Hugo had altered the door several weeks ago, enlarging it so that she could get into the Bone Zone if need be. He’d reasoned that she sometimes had knowledge and ideas that the rest of us did not, but mostly he’d been trying to keep her quiet and happy; however, as we were frequently reminded, that was an ongoing process. She was currently sitting on the floor on top of several squashed cushions, displeasure emanating from her every pore.

‘Take me through it from the beginning,’ I said, ‘Tell me what happened after I got into that taxi.’

Hugo nodded. ‘We noticed them almost as soon as you’d gone,’ he said.

Duchess cleared her throat pointedly and shot him an icy glare. ‘We?’ she demanded.

‘Duchess noticed them,’ he amended. ‘At least half a dozen vampires, all watching the castle. There’s no way of telling how long they’d been out there – there’s enough tree cover for them to hide out during the day without receiving too much sun damage.’

The troll jerked her yellowing thumb at Hugo. ‘He wouldn’t let me kill them.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘He does not want me to enjoy myself. And there is nothing more fun than crushing vampire bones.’ She licked her lips.

Becky, the youngest and often most enthusiastic member of the group, looked at Duchess earnestly. ‘We’ve been through this. If they’re reporting back to Athair, which seems the most likely scenario, we can use them for our own purposes and feed them misinformation.’

It was a reasonable plan; it wasn’t that which was upsetting me. ‘So you made sure we didn’t say anything when we were outside that might alert them to what you’ve been doing this evening,’ I said. ‘I get that. But why were you still concerned once we were inside?’

Several of the Primes twitched uncomfortably and when I looked at Hugo I realised he was barely containing his fury. The tips of his pointed ears had turned bright red and his knuckles were white. The last time I’d seen him look that pissed off was when we’d met for the first time and he’d realised I was a spider’s silk user.

‘Hugs left for Culcreuch from the rear of the castle to avoid being noticed by the vamps.’ Becky was aware of his anger and speaking softly as a result. ‘When he did, we discovered signs of an intruder. One of the old store rooms has a smashed window and a small amount of food has been stolen from the kitchen.’

‘That was probably Duchess,’ Hester said, folding her arms.

The troll bared her teeth. ‘It was not! I don’t sneak around stealing chocolate brownies like you do. I don’t know why you eat them anyway. Isn’t it like cannibalism, a brownie eating a brownie?’

I spoke up before anarchy descended again. ‘You think someone in Athair’s employ might have gained access and be hiding here?’

Hugo growled because he didn’t want to believe it, but several of the Primes nodded. I passed a hand in front of my eyes. Cumbubbling bollocks.

‘Why can we talk freely in here then?’ Otis asked.

‘Because with the door closed, no sound will escape these walls and nobody else can possibly have come in here,’ Hugo said. ‘A while back somebody sneaked into this room and tried to steal a valuable object. Afterwards I had a witch come by and set up a ward to prevent anything like that from happening again.’

I eyed him. ‘That was me. I sneaked in and tried to steal the dragon’s egg.’

‘Yep. Your attempt made it clear that we were more vulnerable than I’d realised. It’s not practical to keep the entire castle warded, but one room is manageable. Anyone not in this room at this moment is not keyed into the ward magic and will find it almost impossible to enter.’ His jaw tightened. ‘And in the unlikely event that someone is lurking in the castle, we will find them.’

‘We’re under siege,’ Otis whispered. ‘From within and without.’

There were a lot of pale faces around the table. Hugo and his Primes were used to putting their lives on the line but they weren’t used to being attacked in their own home. None of us were.

‘Okay.’ I tried not to look too worried. ‘Okay. Tell me about Culcreuch Castle. What happened there?’

Hugo launched into his tale. ‘I got to the castle without too much difficulty. There were more vampires, but I was expecting them. They were outside the castle walls and busy feeding, so they were preoccupied and easy enough to avoid.’

Hester squeaked. ‘They were feeding?’

‘On chickens,’ Hugo said. ‘Not people. There was a crate of live chickens out front.’

‘Athair is keeping his vampires from starvation,’ Rizwan muttered. ‘But he’s not satisfying them enough to prevent them from being useful.’

‘Because there’s nothing more useful than a hungry vampire.’ Hester rolled her eyes.

‘Not when you’re a fiend,’ Otis told her. She shuddered, and she wasn’t the only one.

I looked at Hugo. ‘Go on,’ I said.

‘I skirted around the vamps at the back of the building. There were several possible routes into Culcreuch Castle but I didn’t want to leave any trace of myself so I didn’t want to break through any of the windows or doors. I knew from my previous investigation when we time travelled that there was a tower. I headed there and used air magic to reach the top. A trapdoor led inside.’ Hugo smiled tightly, displaying not only a flash of his dimple but also a glimmer of satisfaction. ‘It wasn’t locked and it wasn’t warded.’

‘I knew it,’ I muttered. ‘I knew Athair’s over-confidence would let him down. You went in?’

‘You bet your sweet arse I did, Daisy.’ We grinned at each other.

‘There wasn’t much to find inside,’ he continued. ‘Some IKEA furniture but not much else of note.’

I blinked. ‘IKEA furniture?’

Hugo took out his phone and thumbed through the photos before holding it up.

Rizwan frowned. ‘That’s a Billy bookcase.’ He was right.

I could only assume that Athair had no interest in interior design; as functional and sleek as such furniture was, it was hardly in keeping with a medieval castle. I wondered if he’d assembled the bookcase and the other items himself; it was hard to imagine him with an Allen key in one hand and a set of instructions in the other.

Hugo went on. ‘I took care not to touch anything but I’ve got photos of all the books and papers that were on display. Let’s just say that Athair has eclectic tastes.’

I peered at the books: the memoirs of the Marquis de Sade were standing next to what appeared to be a volume of seventeenth -century love poetry. Uh-huh. Eclectic indeed.

‘One of the most interesting things was this.’ Hugo found another photo. ‘It’s a pinboard with a map of the British Isles on it. Several locations are marked with numbers. I have no idea what it refers to, but I took several photos.’

‘I’ll get a larger version printed tomorrow so we can examine it in more detail,’ Mark said.

I nodded. ‘What about the dead body?’ I asked quietly. ‘Where was it?’

‘In a dungeon at the bottom of the tower.’ Hugo passed his phone to Miriam.

She sucked in a breath. ‘Not just any dungeon. That’s a bottle dungeon.’ She looked up. ‘Also known as an oubliette. Essentially, it’s a hole in the ground that holds prisoners. There’s not enough room inside for them to lie down. Unless they possess incredible skills – or magic – there’s no escape.’

Any satisfaction had vanished from Hugo’s face. ‘There certainly wasn’t any escape for this poor man. I’m no pathologist but he must have been down there for a few years at least, judging by the decomposition of the body. There were some deep scratches in the stone walls that he’d probably made when he’d tried to get out. I couldn’t lower myself inside in case I became trapped too, but I saw enough from the top. That man didn’t have an easy death.’

His voice became quieter. ‘There was a lot of dried blood. I couldn’t risk disturbing the body too much – Athair mustn’t know that I broke into his home – but I took several close-up photos. There wasn’t much on the body to help identify him but he had dark hair and he looks human. Definitely Caucasian.’

Miriam squinted at the photos. ‘He’s wearing a football shirt.’

Becky leaned across. ‘Manchester United,’ she said. ‘It’s one of their older strips. If we can date the football shirt, we might pinpoint how long he’s been down there. It could help identify him.’

She sounded doubtful but Slim was enthusiastic. ‘Good call.’

‘What’s that?’ Becky asked, pointing at the same photo.

Miriam zoomed in on the image. ‘Some sort of signet ring. There’s a design on it.’ She twisted the phone around so we all could see it.

‘It’s a lion,’ Rizwan said. ‘Well, three lions to be exact. Lions are one of the national symbols of England.’

‘So between that ring and the football shirt, we can assume he was probably English.’ Hester frowned. ‘That narrows it down to – what? Thirty million possibilities?’

Hugo grimaced. ‘Far fewer if we focus on missing persons, but there’s still not a lot to go on.’

‘The ring might help,’ Rizwan argued.

Miriam nodded. ‘The least we can do is to try and find out who he was and discreetly let his family know what happened to him.’

I stared at the ring and wondered what its owner had done. What had made Athair throw him into an oubliette and leave him to die? Whoever that poor man was, he’d deserved better than that. Everyone did.

‘His family deserves closure,’ I said and glanced at Hugo. ‘We’ve learned a lot tonight. Between what Athair told me at dinner and what you found at the castle, we know a lot more about him than we did a few hours ago.’ None of it was good news but there was a lot to work with. ‘As long as we don’t rush into anything and we’re careful, we?—’

I was interrupted by an almighty crash. We all stiffened in alarm.

‘Is anyone else in the castle?’ Slim asked urgently.

‘Everyone who should be here is in this room,’ Hugo said grimly. ‘I think we can agree that our intruder is still here.’

I stood up, determination coursing through my veins. ‘Well, it’s fortunate that we’re all hunters. Let’s go hunting and take care of them before they cause any real problems.’

The dark gleam in Hugo’s blue eyes was reflected in everyone else’s eyes, too. A moment later, we were all heading for the door.