Seeker (32 page)

* * *

It had seemed like such a good idea, but it had ultimately been a bust. Other than getting a good look at the room Willem had been in, they had learned nothing of interest. Except that whatever was blocking Frederick's connection to Willem had been powerful enough to knock out both he and Celeste. He had awoken several hours later, with the worst headbang he had ever experienced. A migraine would have been preferable.

Frederick had got off lightly, compared to Celeste. She did not wake up. Being the more powerful mind trawler, she had experienced the full brunt of the psychic backlash. Frederick had carried her to her bed, and called on the services of Nate, who was tasked with watching over her. Normally Frederick would have made it his own priority, but he had neither the strength nor the energy.

Not well enough to travel, Frederick had spent the rest of the night at the factory, unable to sleep but equally unable to do anything useful. He went over the details of the room, to see if he'd missed something, but nothing new came to him. By the morning he was feeling much better, helped no end by the breakfast of rare and very bloody steak prepared for him at the behest of Nate who had been sent to check on him by Celeste. Once he felt a bit more up to strength, Frederick popped in to see Celeste. She only had a vague memory of what she had seen in Willem's mind before passing out, and hoped that as her strength returned through the day so, too, would her recollection.

Reassured that Celeste would be okay, Frederick had decided to head off before Erwyn could collar him. Celeste would not have been happy, but he needed time alone and she was in no state to keep track on him. He didn't know what was blocking him and Will, but he knew that forcing his way through would only end up with him taking another journey into the Land of Nod. So he decided it was best to let the connection surface in its own time.

Not to say that he would be complacent in his searching for Willem. He hadn't learned a whole lot more, but he did know that Will was staying near the seafront somewhere. The length of the seafront from Canvey all the way down to Shoeburyness covered several miles, but Frederick already had a starting place in mind.

He left the island and took a trip down to the Southend Eastern Esplanade, towards the carvery at which Charlie Connelly worked. It was a distinct possibility that Willem had returned to Charlie, his only real connection to Southend.

He entered the building and walked straight up to the bar. A young woman, probably only just eighteen, stood there. He ordered a pint of Peroni and as she pulled it he asked after Charlie, certain from his previous research that the man would be working on a Wednesday. The woman pointed towards the raised area left of the bar, and Frederick looked. Charlie was sitting at a tall table, pulling his mobile phone out of his trouser pocket and handing it to a female police officer.

Frederick quickly exited the pub, ignoring the look of annoyance on the barmaid's face. He walked along the side of the building and stopped by the closest window to Charlie and the police officers. He sat on the bench, and closed his eyes, focussing on the voices within.

“Can you describe the man you saw with Mr. Townsend?” the male officer was asking.

“Pretty much, yes. Didn't occur to me at the time, but I served him here that morning. It was only after that I'd realised I'd seen him before, but at the time…well, those eyes, you see?” Charlie paused, and Frederick smiled at the wavering of his voice. Charlie proceeded to give a pretty good description of Frederick to the police.

This wasn't going to end well, he just knew it. Of course he'd expected Willem to be listed as missing, and Stephen had already confirmed that, but he hadn't expected the police to move so quickly. They should have shooed it away, just another adult running away from his life. But all it took was a sympathetic officer at the initial reporting stage…

His thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of his phone. He removed it, noticed the caller ID, and flipped it open.

“Reisha,” he said, still watching Charlie and the officers through the window, “good afternoon. This call going to make me happy?”

“Here's hoping,” she replied, her voice very jolly for so early in the day. Of course, it was around one o'clock and so not really
that
early, but thanks to last night's failed experiment Frederick was still feeling a bit sluggish, making the day appear to be longer than it actually was.

“My contact has been in touch, called me early this morning. But I had a birthing class so couldn't contact you until now. Anyway, anyway, thing is she told me that she's been sensing a new upyr presence up in the Chalkwell area the last couple of days.”

Frederick balked. Checking so close to home would not have occurred to him, after all it was in Southend that Willem underwent the pontus, so what reason would he have for going to Chalkwell? Frederick smiled. Maybe Willem had been drawn there by the connection he shared with Frederick. He knew it was a vain hope, but he couldn't conceive of any other reason.

Frederick stood up quickly, as he noticed the police officers shaking hands with Charlie. “That's really helpful,” he told Reisha, starting on his way up the esplanade, “I can feel myself getting closer.” He turned the corner onto Plas Newydd and headed up in the direction of Southend East station. “Once I've found him I will introduce you to Ai Ling…”

“Who will explain to me the whole Rebirth thing?” Reisha chuckled. “From birthing classes to Rebirth. Seems an obvious step to me. Thank you, Frederick,” she added, her tone now serious, “I've been waiting my whole life for this.”

Frederick knew she had, which is why she made such a perfect choice for a new upyr. She just didn't realise that, with the Seeker out there, she'd be initiated into a truly glorious era, one of the first generation of upyr to live in the presence of their creator.

He ended the call and continued on his way past Southchurch Park. A quick train ride to Chalkwell and then he'd see if he could sense Willem.

Soon
, he thought,
soon we'll be together again
.

* * *

Erwyn hated to admit it, but he had a very bad feeling about the whole Willem situation. Celeste was still resting, but she was looking stronger with every hour. He had done some research, trying to find out what could cause a mind trawler of Celeste's ability to pass out in such a way. Everything led to one immutable fact; only a more psychically adept mind could shut down another. But what troubled Erwyn so much was that the mind in question was that of a new upyr.

Now, he didn't know the Book of Sekhmet as well as he liked, and only knew the passage pertaining to the emergence of the Seeker because it was one often quoted by Frederick.

But before he is known pain will rage in him; he shall be rejected by his past and the fires of truth will explode in the hunger
.

So much about Will's Rebirth was off key, according to Frederick, including an amazing hunger while in the pontus, which only served to accelerate the whole process. Erwyn considered this, and was forced to wonder if perhaps Willem was indeed the reincarnated Onuris, as Frederick had first thought. What if Onuris only emerged after the pontus? What if the shroud of humanity only fell once he had an upyr body?

Erwyn was no expert on the brain, but surely it would be a very traumatic experience to have a new identity overwrite a previous one? It was surely possible that they had all misread the way Onuris's emergence would occur.

For the first time in hundreds of years Erwyn found himself in the annoying position of starting to believe Frederick, and doubting Julius.

He jumped off his chair, and made to leave the meeting chamber so he could make a private call to Julius. They needed to talk. Erwyn needed to be convinced that he was doing the right thing, that he
had
been doing the right thing since the revolution of 1788. He barely reached the door when the little-used phone that sat in one corner of the chamber began to ring. He stopped and looked at it. Very few people had the number, being a direct line to the Three, and for it to ring meant something important was happening. Erwyn felt his mobile in his pocket, eyeing the phone in the corner.

If the call wasn't connected to Willem he'd have been very surprised. He picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Erwyn. Oh, it's you.”

Erwyn smirked, not put out by the disappointment in Rochelle's voice. “Yes, it's me. Suppose you were hoping to speak to Celeste, weren't you?”

“I was, actually, yes. Is she about?”

“She's occupied, 'en she? What's the problem?”

Rochelle sighed. “Okay, very well. We've been keeping watch on the Lucy Road alley, as Celeste suggested, just in case Willem returned there. And sure enough he has. What's more he's just collapsed, so if you get the clean-up crew there quick enough you should be able to pick him up before anyone else spots him.”

Erwyn narrowed his eyes. To hell with Dai's clean-up crew, he intended to be on hand himself. Celeste was too weak to move, but he and Theodor could take care of it. Celeste would agree. Erwyn said thanks, slammed the phone down, and rushed out of the chamber.

Talking to Julius was one thing, and it might have helped, but talking to Willem himself would be much more preferable.

Erwyn just hoped that he and Theodor could get to Southend before anyone else found the unconscious man.

* * *

“You should have called me,” Frederick said, anger coursing through him like a surge of electricity.

“There's a lot of “shoulds” going around, Frederick,” Celeste responded, her voice a lot calmer than Frederick's. Easy for her, she wasn't the one whose future was being controlled. “One of them, lest I have to remind you,” she continued, “is that you
should
have told me about Willem. But you did not, and in this instance I thought it best that Willem be brought in before alerting you. Having you around would only confuse the situation.”

“Now I'm not getting that. I'm the one he trusts.”

“It's all academic now,” Celeste pointed out, a sharp sting in her voice, “since he wasn't there. By the time Erwyn and Theodor navigated the traffic, Willem was long gone. We've been in touch with Rochelle, but she was busy removing the taped evidence, and her man stopped viewing the footage after she went off to inform us. So we have no idea where Willem is now.” Celeste stopped, as if just speaking was tiring her out. Frederick wanted to reach out to her, but he was still angry, however he realised that her calmness of tone had nothing to do with her usual serenity, but rather her tiredness from the psychic barrage of last night.

“Yes, again,” Frederick said, his voice still carrying the harshness he felt inside. Regardless of how tired Celeste might have been, she should have at least contacted him, if only to keep him updated and ask him to not get involved. Of course, Frederick knew he'd never listen. As soon as he heard Willem was in Southend he would have headed back there. If that complicated things then so be it. He needed to see Willem.

He looked around Chalkwell Park. It was late afternoon and the schools were out, resulting in a park slowly filling up with teens who had little else to do than hang around.

“I have to go,” Celeste said. “Rest some more.”

“Have you remembered anything further?”

She was quiet for a moment before answering. “Merely shadows of memories, nothing that makes any kind of sense. I will let you know when I do.”

The call ended.

Frederick walked out of the park, his mind a mass of contradictions. On the one hand he was trying to get a sense of Willem, who hopefully had returned to Chalkwell where he was staying, but on the other he couldn't help but think Celeste was lying to him. She knew much more than she was letting on. That she would keep him out of the loop was unheard of. Sure, over three centuries they had done many things solo, gone their own way from time to time, but they never lied and hid things. But hadn't he done such a thing since Friday night? And now the tables were reversed.

Things were changing. Erwyn's involvement with the Brotherhood, whatever it was, and the deceit between Celeste and Frederick. The wind was blowing through the upyr world, shifting things around. Like the Book of Sekhmet had promised, before their creator returned much would change, certainties would become uncertain, loyalties would switch, and the most trusted would betray. And somehow Willem's arrival on Friday had precipitated such events. When Frederick had gone to meet Willem on that train everything had seemed so certain in his world, but now? Nothing seemed to be the same. It was as if Willem was the catalyst for the upheaval the Book had promised.

So much was no longer understood. The Book said nothing of an upyr emerging before the Seeker, although there were other texts, also written in Sumerian, which mentioned a rival to the Seeker. A man of power who would play a pivotal role. The author of the text was a mystery, but carbon dating had it as old as the earliest writings of Wamukota, circa AD33.

Frederick never held much stock in the text, but now he wondered. Whatever was happening to Willem, and indeed had happened, was powerful enough to cause one of the strongest mind trawlers to melt down.

With a sense of dread Frederick was forced to consider that Willem might well have been the “man of power” of which the old Sumerian text spoke. Either way, his fate was clearly linked to that of prophecy.

* * *

He'd spent the evening surfing the net. There were plenty of websites about upyr, written by both human scholars and upyr alike, most pertained to sightings over the years, myths and legends. So many accounts that seemed contradictory, detailing vampire lore from almost every country across the globe. Although most human scholars were unaware of it, what they were detailing was the natural evolution of the vampire, although most of them missed the events of 1788 when the vampire world began to turn into the more civilised and structured upyr world of today. Fortunately there were plenty of scholars who were upyr, and their sites, although harder to find, continued the true story of the upyr. Talk of the Seeker was rare, though, despite it being known to most upyr. It was one secret the majority of upyr wished to keep away from prying human eyes, but those few sites that did talk of the Seeker myth attempted to correlate the teachings spread by the Brotherhood with those taught by the Three.