Absolution - The First Book Of The Vampire Immortalis Trilogy

The First Book Of
The Vampire Immortalis Trilogy

by Elizabeth Mitchell

Also by Elizabeth Mitchell

Confession - The Second Book Of The Vampire Immortalis Trilogy

Purgatory - The Third Book Of The Vampire Immortalis Trilogy

www.VampireImmortalis.com

CHAPTER ONE

Brother Archibald screamed out in sheer terror. The beast was upon him in seconds, its blood-curdling howl heralding impending doom for whoever stood in the way. Scrambling to his feet, the young Cistercian monk desperately swung his battle axe. The sharp blade cut deep into the monster's sinewy flesh, but still Archibald feared the worst. He closed his eyes and held his axe high in one final act of defiance in the name of the Lord God Almighty, but his faith was not to be tested again that night. The Hundeprest had been stopped in its tracks by that one mighty blow. As quickly as it had materialised, the monstrosity disappeared into the darkness of the graveyard where Brother Archibald had faithfully stood vigil.

Archibald should never have been left alone to face such a creature. The abbot had explicitly instructed four monks to stand guard over the Hundeprest's grave from dusk until dawn, but when the witching hour passed without incident, the other monks had abandoned their duties for the warmth of a hearth. It was, admittedly, a truly bitter cold winter's night, and their genuine belief was that the Hundeprest would not appear. Even the abbot himself had wondered aloud whether the Hundeprest might only exist in the intoxicated imaginations of credulous townsfolk. It was therefore little wonder that the older monks had melted away so readily, leaving the novice Archibald, quite literally, out in the cold.

In life, the Hundeprest had been well known to the monks who lived at Melrose Abbey. Like them, he was a man of the cloth, but while the monks led by example, following a simple and austere life devoted to work, prayer and self-denial, the Hundeprest trod a very different path. His name had come from his love of hunting with hounds, but he was certainly no gentleman, and his regular bouts of drunken debauchery brought great shame upon the church. He also took great delight in lording it over the poor while allowing the rich to buy his favours. There wasn't a sin that he couldn't absolve you from, providing, of course, that you had the wherewithal to pay for absolution.

At the age of 36, and still very much in his prime, the Hundeprest had contracted a fatal dose of the King's Evil, tuberculosis of the neck. He spent his last few days picking at his festering sores, coughing up blood, and castigating God for not sparing his life. It was even said that he offered his soul to the Devil in exchange for a life beyond what was certain death.

Whether it was God or Satan working in mysterious ways, the Hundeprest certainly found no peace in death and his tormented spirit was offered no rest. When darkness fell, he would rise from his grave, a man no more, desperately searching for blood, the liquid of life. Cattle and roe deer bore the brunt of the Hundeprest's nocturnal savagery, but there wasn't a man, woman or child, who did not now fear for their own life. Terrified to venture out after dark, the good people of Melrose had turned to the abbey for help, pleading with the abbot to take action, hence the night time vigil at the Hundeprest's graveside that culminated in the showdown between Archibald and the beast.

When the monks returned to the graveyard at first light, they found Archibald a gibbering wreck, frozen to the spot where he had done battle with the Hundeprest. Nobody doubted a single word of Brother Archibald's horrifying account of his encounter, least of all Abbot William, the man responsible for the running of the abbey and the town's spiritual well-being. The monk's blood-splattered habit bore full testament to a violent and frantic struggle between good and evil.

The Hundeprest had been willing to kill Brother Archibald, that was beyond doubt, and its bloodlust would only continue to spiral out of control unless action was taken. It was equally clear what had to be done if the Hundeprest's reign of terror was to come to an end. His body would need to be exhumed then burned and his ashes scattered far and wide.

With the abbey still shrouded in the penetrating mist of the early morning, the abbot and his monks stood watch as two lay brothers dug up the grave of the Hundeprest with mattock and shovel. Almost immediately, the clay earth ran thick with blood and the air became choked by a vile stench. When they came upon the Hundeprest's body, the terrible wound inflicted by Archibald's axe was there for all to see.

A fire made, it was a fittingly chilling wind that would blow the Hundeprest's ashes across the River Tweed and in the direction of the Lammermuir Hills and Edinburgh beyond. But not before a good number of those ashes had travelled no further than the walls of the abbey where they clung desperately to the damp stonework that overlooked the graveyard.

As a final mark of respect to a lost soul, and to sanctify the bloody ground from which the Hundeprest's body had been taken, a simply-decorated metal cross, the size of a man's fist, was placed into the empty grave and then covered with earth. Prayers were said and the monks were then sent to their work in the fields.

Abbot William subsequently sent news of what had happened to his good friend, Herbert, the Bishop of Glasgow, who in turn notified the Holy See in Rome. It was from the Lateran Palace in Rome that a trusted cardinal was then sent in secret to inform the Grand Council of the Immortalis. The Church could do no more than what it had already done. God forbid, but if the Hundeprest was ever to return, it would be the Immortalis who would have to stand in its way.

The year was 1162 and that was the last the town of Melrose would see of the Hundeprest. Until today.

CHAPTER TWO

Peter Cameron stopped again to take yet another swig of cheap spirits from his whisky flask. He kidded himself that it was to ward off the chill of the night, but in truth, alcohol was a crutch that he couldn't do without. If he had been at home, sat in front of a blazing fire, instead of traipsing back to Melrose in the driving rain, he would still have been drinking himself into a drunken stupor. It had been that way since his wife left him four years ago.

Peter and Yvonne had been married for 14 years before she walked out on him. Up until the very moment she left, he had always thought of himself as a happily married man. He blamed his work for the break-up. A long distance lorry driver, Peter often left Yvonne for days on end to transport loads to and from the Continent. A typical week would see him leave the Scottish Borders around noon on a Sunday to catch the overnight ferry from Hull to Rotterdam. The ten hour crossing would put him in Holland in time for breakfast the next morning, then it was a hundred mile drive to the German border. He might make two or three deliveries that afternoon before collecting a load to take back to the UK the following day. Often that meant going further afield, into Poland or occasionally as far as Romania. Depending on where in the UK his return load was to be taken, he wouldn't be back in Scotland until Wednesday or Thursday.

It was on one such Wednesday that he had returned home from a particularly tiring trip to find Yvonne had packed her bags and left, taking their fourteen-year old son, Liam, with her. A neighbour told Peter that a van had come on the Monday and taken the two of them away, together with an assortment of boxes and suitcases. Yvonne left a note on the kitchen table saying that it was over, that she had fallen in love with Gordon, and that she and Liam were going to live with him in Kelso, a town about 11 miles from Melrose. It might as well have been to the other end of the world, such was the devastation that engulfed Peter as he read those words. The heavy drinking had started almost immediately, leading to the loss of his job. He hadn't done a day's work since.

Gordon. Gay Gordon. At least that's what the town gossips called the well-to-do hairdresser with salons in Kelso, Jedburgh, and Melrose. Yvonne had worked for Gordon as a receptionist in the Melrose salon for two years and Peter had never suspected a thing. Why would he? Gordon was as camp as a row of tents. Even the increasingly frequent “girls' nights out” hadn't raised any suspicions, even if Yvonne wasn't getting back home until two or three in the morning.

Liam hated Gordon. He blamed him for his parents' break up and for having to move away from Melrose. Their increasingly bitter arguments almost escalated out of control one evening when Gordon tried to lay down the law about the boy being late home. Liam had threatened him with a kitchen knife. The police were called, but Yvonne convinced Gordon not to press charges and the matter was dropped. On his sixteenth birthday, Liam returned to live with his Dad, but by then it was too late for Peter. His entire life was now consumed by the need for alcohol.

Spurred on by the recent discovery of a huge horde of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver in Staffordshire, Peter had spent the last three hours trudging up and down a wet and muddy field at what was once the site of a Roman fort at Newstead, on the outskirts of Melrose. Locals say that the ghostly sound of marching footsteps can often be heard after dark, but not even battle-hardened phantom soldiers would be joining Peter on a thoroughly miserable night like this. Not that he wanted company. He preferred to work solo, particularly when he was metal detecting on land without permission.

The Staffordshire find by an amateur metal detector was said to be worth millions, but there would be no need for TV cameras tonight. Peter might as well have been searching for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow because a crushed Irn Bru can and an old penny coin were all he had to show for his night's work. Throwing in the towel, the 47 year old returned to Melrose via the woodland pathway that runs between Priorswalk and Melrose town centre, a route that took him right past the abbey. He could not help but look over at the floodlit ancient walls standing steadfast against the battering wind and rain. He had often wondered what secrets the abbey's grounds held. Surely, he thought, there must have been times when the monks had hidden their treasures rather than see them fall into the hands of the English armies that had attacked the abbey on a regular basis during its heyday. Maybe tonight was the time to find out.

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” he muttered to himself as he stashed his flask in his find bag and clumsily scaled the iron railings that protect the abbey from the outside world. He would need to be careful that he wasn't seen, although the chances of that happening were slim given the weather and lateness of the hour. He hadn't seen a soul all night, but even so, he decided to confine his detecting to the graveyard area so that he could duck behind a gravestone if he was in danger of being spotted.

He had been in the abbey's grounds for a little over ten minutes when his metal detector began to sing. It was singing loudly, too. The strength of the signal had him digging frantically with his trowel, cutting quickly through the neatly trimmed grass and into the moist dirt below. Within seconds, metal hit against something equally solid. “Bingo!”

Not wishing to damage whatever it was that he had found, he dropped to his knees and went to work with his bare hands, carefully removing the heavy soil from around the object. And then there it was. A metal cross almost as big as his hand! Peter could hardly contain his excitement. It was just the sort of thing that could well be worth a small fortune to the right museum or a private collector!

Still kneeling on the sodden ground, he lifted the cross up to the sky. “Thank you, God!” he shouted, his rain-drenched face now alive with the possibilities of life after such an incredible find. Laughing with joy, he opened his mouth wide to drink in the rain that had been his foe until this amazing discovery.

As he continued to hold the cross aloft, the gusting wind continued to blow across the graveyard. Only now, it wasn't just rain that the wind carried. Barely visible pieces of ash were being plucked from the abbey's walls and blown in Peter's direction. As if orchestrated by an invisible power, the ashes came swirling together and made directly for the open mouth of the man with the cross. Peter spluttered as the first few ashes lodged in his throat, but soon he was coughing, choking, struggling to breathe. He tried to get to his feet, but this was a battle that he was never going to win. Gasping for air, he fell back to the ground and quickly lost consciousness.