Sentinel (18 page)

“You want me to come with you to see him,” Liberty noted.

“If you have the time. I understand it is an enormous favour to ask, but–”

“I’ll come,” Liberty interrupted. “Anything I can do to help. Besides, I know how much you despise asking favours, Mr Wilkins. It would take something of vast importance to drag you here.”

“Sam, please,” the old man corrected with infinite patience.

Liberty turned suddenly to the TV. She reached for the remote and turned it on.

“The break-in, we’re told, took place at 11.35pm last night,” a pretty news reporter was saying. She was standing in front of the Fitzwilliam Museum, huddled in a winter coat. “Though police are unable to give full details of the events at this early stage, these crime scene tents–” the camera panned to reveal a couple of big white canopies “–have been erected as examinations continue on the remains of the museum’s famous lion statues. They are now little more than piles of rubble. An act of vandalism, or something altogether more sinister? It’s too early to say. Perhaps the saddest part of this most unusual of stories is the death of a sixty-five-year-old security guard who has yet to be named. His body was removed from the scene first thing this morning. He is believed to have suffered a heart attack.”

“What is going on at the moment?” Liberty wondered out loud, turning the TV off again. “First that missing child, now this. Cambridge is turning into a war zone.”

“Missing child?”

“A boy disappeared two days ago,” Liberty told the old man. “Eight years old. He was out walking the dog with his aunt on the Gog Magog Downs, and he just vanished. No trace of him.”

“What a week,” Sam tutted. “Think the two are related? The break-in and the missing child?”

“Too early to tell,” Liberty said. “I’ll see if I can stop by the museum at some point as well. As for Richard, I’m free in the morning; I can drop Francesca at my mother’s.”

Sam’s face flooded with gratitude.

“Tomorrow, then,” he said.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Sentinels

N
ICHOLAS FOLLOWED
J
ESSICA AS SHE MADE
her way down the stairs and into the vast, circular lobby. He stared up at the round window in the ceiling, his mouth gaping open. Feeling dizzy, the boy hurried after Jessica and they moved down a number of hallways. The house was like a maze; bigger than it looked on the outside, if that was possible, and there were more doors than he could count. As they moved through it, he became quickly disorientated, as if the house itself wanted to confuse him.

Finally they entered a cosy parlour. A fire blazed in the hearth and before the fireplace a low table had been laid with a silver tray bearing food and drink. It was only when he saw the food that Nicholas realised just how hungry he really was.

“Go ahead,” Jessica said, having noted his eagerness.

“Cheers.”

Nicholas sat on the floor in front of the table, digging into a plate of cooked meat and vegetables.

Jessica seated herself on the nearby sofa, watching him patiently. There was a contented air about her, a constant smile in her eyes.

“You were hungry,” she observed, watching the cat as it entered the room. It had clearly tired of exploring. Jessica took a saucer of milk from the table and placed it on the floor. The cat ran keenly to it, lapping loudly.

“Do you live alone?” Nicholas asked between mouthfuls.

“I do,” Jessica nodded.

“It’s a big house to live alone in,” Nicholas said. “Must get lonely.”

“I have grown accustomed to my own company,” Jessica stated. “Besides, I am not alone here for long, I have visitors now and again.” She paused. “The house belonged to a friend of mine a long time ago. I spent much of my youth here, and grew up under her care. When she was gone, I inherited it. I suppose I don’t feel alone here because this is where I have always been.”

“You talk like you’re older,” the boy observed.

Jessica merely smiled.

“Where’s Sam?” Nicholas asked, realising that he hadn’t seen the elderly man since falling asleep.

“He had to leave,” Jessica told him. “He is a very busy man, as I’m sure you are aware.”

“He never stays still for long, I don’t know how he does it.”

“You will see him again soon.”

Having finished its milk, the cat moved over to the fireplace, purring as it licked its whiskers. Then it rolled onto its side and began its ritual of self-cleaning, preening its jet-black fur with experienced proficiency.

“How did you know my parents?” Nicholas asked. He speared a piece of white meat and chewed on it. “They never mentioned you to me, not even once. But you’re my godmother.”

“Complicated relations,” Jessica murmured. She seemed to become mesmerised by the flames frolicking in the hearth. “There is no simple way for me to explain.” Her gaze met Nicholas’s. “You have questions, I know. And I have much to tell you.”

Nicholas rested the knife and fork on the plate, suddenly stuffed.

“Sam wouldn’t tell me anything,” he said, fighting the drowsiness that inevitably came with a full belly.

“Do not hold that against him,” Jessica said softly. “There is a time and place for certain things. You asked how I knew your parents. They were fine people. I met them years ago, long before you were born, before they were even married.” She raised a hand as Nicholas opened his mouth to speak. “They belonged to a different world, Nicholas. But I think you have suspected that. They belonged to my world.”

Nicholas resisted unleashing the torrent of questions that were building up in his throat. He sat quietly and watched the elfin woman on the sofa take up a glass of water.

“Picture the ocean, if you will. The surface is a place inhabited by birds and fishermen and revellers,” she said. “They live in the sun, breathing the air, mostly ignorant of that which resides below. There is a divide, and below the rippling waters dwell the monsters of the deep. This is the world that we inhabit, so close to the ordinary, and yet always just out of sight; always apart.”

Nicholas nodded, understanding. “The Sentinels.”

“The Sentinels,” Jessica echoed. The firelight twinkled in the gold thread of her dress and she looked almost inhuman. She set the glass back down on the table.

“What is a Sentinel?” she said, as if reading his mind. “A Sentinel is a guard. A detective. A killer. There are Sentinels stationed all over the world, watching for the dark creatures that inhabit the night. It is a Sentinel’s duty to destroy those creatures, to protect the weak and the vulnerable. The world you come from knows nothing of the Sentinels and their cause. It is perhaps a thankless existence, but their duties must be carried out nonetheless.”

“My parents… they were Sentinels. And Sam?”

“Yes. As were their parents before them, and theirs before them, stretching all the way back into the youth of the world, when the sun was new and the land rich with possibilities.”

“I never knew my grandparents,” Nicholas said. “They died when I was young.”

“As is often the way. The Sentinel life is one fraught with risk, something you have experienced in the past weeks. Ordinary people are ignorant of the dangers that surround them every day, heartbeats away. It is the job of the Sentinel to keep watch, to enter the shadows where the everyman dares not tread, to eradicate any threat that may be uncovered there.”

“What sort of threats?” Nicholas asked. “Why don’t people know about them?”

“People see what they want to see,” Jessica explained. “The world that you grew up in, protected from the Sentinel way, is ordered very specifically. That world depends on a delicate equilibrium. For example, it is taken as a fact of nature that humans are the most intelligent beings walking the Earth. Now, this may not necessarily be true, but people depend on this belief to go about their daily lives. The everyman believes that he, and nothing else, is the controller of his own destiny. Anything that happens that is not of his doing is accredited to chance, luck – good or bad – and that ominous being ‘God’.”

She stopped, casting Nicholas a look.

“Perhaps I am losing you, and none of this is really important. You must forgive me; I tend to wander off in my thoughts. A consequence of living alone, I’m sure.”

“It’s okay,” Nicholas said. “I think I sort of get it. You’re saying that people like to think that they’re in control of their lives, but they aren’t. The Sentinels are the ones who make sure that nothing hurts them… us. But… what is it that’s so dangerous? What are the Sentinels watching for?”

“Just as there is a barrier between the Sentinels and the ordinary people, so too is there a barrier between our world and an uglier place.” Jessica’s face darkened. “Terrible things were banished from this plane of existence centuries ago, but they are forever seeking ways to get back in. Call them what you will; evil spirits, devils, monsters, demons, they all add up to the same. They are the emissaries of the Dark Prophets.”

“Prophets?”

Jessica nodded, her expression grave. “As in all things, there is a hierarchy. At the very top reside the Dark Prophets, the foulest of all creatures whose sole purpose is to destroy. They are forever fighting to reclaim the Earth, to fashion it in their own corrupt image. The Prophets are served by their Adepts, the strongest of all demons, and the Adepts in turn are served by their faithful Familiars. Most demons reside in the Other World, but Familiars are often humans who have sold their souls for dark powers.”

Nicholas’s head was spinning.

“These Prophets,” he said, “what are they?”

“Nobody knows for certain. They were defeated centuries ago by the Trinity, the divine figures whom all Sentinels bow to and revere.”

“Are you a Sentinel?” Nicholas asked.

Jessica pondered this before answering. “Yes and no,” she responded finally. “I was not born into Sentinel ancestry, though I have been a part of it for a long time. In the old tongue they call me the
Vaktarin
; the Guardian. I watch over the community, act as council and guide, aid when bid. I am a site for refuge and sanctuary. It is my magic that protects this house from evil forces. My place is here and I will never leave.”

“And that’s why I’m here?”

“It is. As well as Anita and Max being dear friends, you are a Sentinel yourself. The godmother business is just a way of getting around the paperwork that non-Sentinel men love so much,” Jessica said. She paused, offering him a knowing smile before adding: “Did Sam tell you the name of this place?”

He shook his head.

“It’s called Hallow House,” the woman told him. “Years ago, it was occupied by your ancestors, and it has retained that name ever since. So, you see, your arrival here is almost prophetic – you’re home, Nicholas.”

“My ancestors owned this place?” Nicholas marvelled, peering around the parlour. “They must’ve been loaded.”

Jessica laughed. The ring of it made the hairs on Nicholas’s arms stand on end.

“I still don’t understand why my parents never told me any of this,” he said.

Jessica nodded sadly. “They were dreamers,” she explained gently. “They wanted you to live out your childhood free from the knowledge of sinister, ugly things. You would have found out in your sixteenth year, as is tradition in the more progressive corners of the community.”

“I’ll be sixteen in a few weeks,” Nicholas murmured regretfully. “They should have said something.”

“They couldn’t have known they wouldn’t be here for you now.” Jessica took on a faraway look. “You have come to me in a time of change and uncertainty; I fear that we are on the brink of war. Only time will tell. The weather is a sign. Balances are shifting; the equilibrium is becoming distorted. The seasons do not remember where they belong – already a manner of madness is slipping into the world.” She stopped abruptly, appearing to remember her company. “I do not mean to scare you, I apologise. I forget how strange and new this must be; I have lived it for so long.”

As Nicholas looked at her, he could see that she was not as youthful as her delicate features suggested. There was something old about her, something brittle. She was porcelain. Hardened but fragile. She had witnessed and survived a lot. As he contemplated her pale features, Nicholas could tell that Jessica had faced horrific things; he could see the mark that they had left on her. Before he could stop himself, he found himself asking: “How – how old are you?”

The despondency lifted immediately from the woman’s face and the familiar chiming laugh spilled from her throat.

“I have lost count of the years,” she said. “There have been so many. Let us say I am older than I look and leave it at that.”

“There’s one more thing I need to ask,” Nicholas ventured.

Jessica smiled. “Please ask it.”

Nicholas struggled to find the words. “There was a woman who attacked Sam and me,” he started. “She was strange, not like normal people. She was one of those evil things, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, I believe she was.”

“She said things to me,” Nicholas continued. “That I was… different, a threat. She said I was dangerous.” As he said this, the boy thought Jessica looked briefly troubled. She blinked and the look was gone. “And I’ve sort of felt… strange things. Before we were attacked I think I knew it was going to happen. And I heard whispers back at home, there was this weird thing with cows, and I found a secret room…”