The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3) (50 page)

T
hey came for him.

Darius looked pleased to see that Viktor had already donned the robe, and he ordered Dante to replace the burlap hood. They left his hands and feet unbound, but Dante kept the tip of his knife on Viktor’s back, guiding him the entire time.

Viktor had no thought of attempting an escape: He knew he was no match for Dante, let alone the numerous voices joining the entourage once they left the bedroom. His mouth tightened when he heard Oak’s belligerent growl.

Viktor heard a door open and felt a rush of cool outside air. He also heard the sound of falling water, guessing from the fragrant smell that they had entered a garden. The noise from the waterfall drew closer and then faded. He heard the creak of another door, and then Viktor became disoriented. They walked for a long time in what felt like the prescient silence of a wood. When they stopped, Viktor estimated the journey had taken twenty minutes.

The chatter ceased, and someone yanked his hood away. “Behold your place of execution,” Darius said. “I think you’ll find it quite appropriate.”

Viktor’s gaze swept his surroundings. He and Darius and a small entourage were standing on a wide, raised mound of earth encircled by a pathway ten feet below. Contiguous stone tombs and vaults crowded the pathway on both sides, the impressive architecture a mix of Gothic, classical, and Egyptian. He saw the spot of darkness heralding the entrance tunnel he knew was
called Egyptian Avenue, with its obelisks and lotus-flower columns waiting on the other side. And in the darkness beyond the circle of tombs, he knew an enormous Victorian cemetery formed a sepulchral barrier between Viktor and the outside world. Finally, with him on the small hill, he saw the cedar tree that still haunted his dreams.

Yes, he knew at once where they were. It was a site he could never forget, not just because of the unique location but because this place had been forever scraped into the fabric of his soul, a festering wound that no medicine could heal.

He was standing in a spot called the Circle of Lebanon, a landmark in London’s Highgate Cemetery.

The exact place where Eve had taken her own life.

Swain’s Lane was all the way across London, north of Camden Town and just east of Hampstead Heath. Grey balled his fists in frustration at the clogged late-night traffic in central London. His cabdriver pulled onto Swain’s Lane just after eleven p.m., and a few blocks later they arrived at the address for Niles Widecombe, an ivy-covered Italianate mansion with grounds that stretched into the darkness. By the light of the moon Grey could make out the tops of the twisted oaks dotting the cemetery grounds that backed onto the property. A large wall enclosed the sides and rear of the grounds, which rang true with Anka’s story.

Grey had the cabbie drop him a few doors down the street. He hurried towards the side of the mansion, looking for a way to scale the wall and gain rear access. When he stepped onto the manicured lawn, a door opened and a man stepped out brandishing a large handgun. Grey dove behind a clump of trees and bushes, coming up behind a large elm, his own gun at the ready.

No shots were fired, which didn’t surprise him. Grey flattened and then crawled forward to get a better view. Despite the fact that someone had a pistol pointed in his direction, he felt only the thrill of hope that an armed
guard had been set.
They don’t want anyone calling the police, and they don’t want anyone snooping around this house
.

Before he could decide on a course of action or scan the grounds, a voice called out from the direction of the house. “Grey?”

Grey stilled. He knew that voice. “Dickie?”

“You’re taking the mickey out of me. What the bloody hell’re you doing?”

Grey peered beside the tree, still hidden from view by a line of bushes in the darkness. Dickie stood in the front door, now holding his handgun sideways, like an amateur gangster. “You know what,” Grey said. “Drop the weapon.”

“Can’t do that.”

Grey focused his weapon on Dickie, both hands gripping the hilt, thumbs forward, elbows steady. “You’re not trained like that,” Grey said, “and you know it.”

No response. He had a clear shot at Dickie, and if he tried to reenter the house, Grey would take it. “My partner’s about to be killed by these animals,” Grey said. “That’s not what you’re about.”

Dickie swung the gun around, trying to pinpoint Grey’s voice. “Forget it.”

Grey’s index finger hovered over the trigger. “I won’t ask again.”

“Like I said, they scare me even more than you do.”

“And you were wrong then, too,” Grey said.

Grey saw Dickie pull a cell phone out of his pocket. Grey rose to a crouch and shot him in the shoulder, thankful he had picked up that silencer. Dickie dropped the gun and fell into the house, and Grey moved towards him as fast as his leg would allow, gun leveled at his chest. “Don’t even think about it, Dickie. Just stay on the floor.”

Dickie lay on his back, gasping in pain. Grey pocketed Dickie’s cell and kicked the gun out of reach.

“Damn you, Grey.”

“Where are they?”

“I’m just a driver.”

“With a semiautomatic?” Grey said. “I’m going to ask you one more time before I shove this gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. I already told you the stakes.” He took Dickie by the collar with one hand, holding the gun to his face with the other. “You know me, you know what I’m capable of, and you know I’m telling the truth.”

“Fuck me.” He started shaking in Grey’s grasp, whether from pain or fear Grey was unsure. Nor did he care.

“Last chance, Dickie.”

“You don’t get it, the things I’ve seen them do. They won’t just kill me for this.”

“Then help me end it,” Grey said.

Grey pried the gun into Dickie’s mouth, cocking the trigger. Dickie mumbled, “The cemetery.”

“How?”

“There’s an entrance in the back, through the wall. I’ve no idea where they are or what they’re doing.”

“How many?” Grey said.

“Plenty, plus Dante. And he’s enough.” He pointed at Grey’s lame leg. “You can’t beat him like that.”

“We’ll see.”

“Help me, Grey. Get me out of here before you go in.”

“Close your eyes,” Grey said.

“No, mate, don’t—”

Grey struck him in the temple with the butt of his gun, leaving him sprawled on the ground. Then he sent a text to Jacques and stepped farther inside the mansion.

T
he tapestries, chandeliers, and high-end art floated at the periphery of Grey’s vision as he moved through the Swain’s Lane mansion. He was in a hyperaware state, eyes sweeping the minutia of his surroundings for signs of danger. Except for Dickie, the house appeared empty.

Grey hobbled through the dining hall and past an indoor swimming pool before entering a covered patio at the rear, wide French doors leading to the vast grounds in the back. On the far side the yard sloped uphill, topped by a rock garden with a waterfall spilling into a koi pond. Another detail corroborating Anka’s story.

She had been to this house, whether in the way she told it or not.

The grounds were deserted, and Grey followed a path through the rock garden. Behind the waterfall he found a door set into the twelve-foot-high stone wall.

He took a few deep breaths to prepare himself mentally for the fight he knew was coming, readied the handgun at chest level, and opened the door.

A narrow cavity led through the wall, to another door a few feet away. The next door had no handle, so he pushed gently on it. It creaked as it swung open. Grey pushed harder and stepped through, finding himself three feet behind two startled guards, one in a black leather jacket, the other a wool overcoat. Grey didn’t want to alert the entire cemetery if he could avoid it, so he reversed his grip on the handgun and pistol-whipped the first guard in the
temple before he could react, dropping him. The next guard reached for his weapon, and Grey’s blow glanced across his face. As the guard reeled, Grey dropped his gun and pounced, covering the man’s mouth and driving his head back with one hand, holding the hand that might reach for the gun with his other. Grey spun him in a circle and then reversed his movement, striking him violently on the back of the neck with his stiffened forearm. The guard was unconscious before he hit the ground.

After making sure no one else was around, Grey pulled the guards behind a bush and surveyed his surroundings with a grimace of pain. His own leg had almost crumpled during that fight.

The moon hovered above like a swollen gray eye. He was standing in the middle of an unkempt wood, darkness pooled like blood, creepers and the spindly branches of moss-covered trees spreading throughout the gloom. Up ahead he could see a jumble of tombstones among the undergrowth, most leaning to one side or split by roots and vines. Behind him, the cemetery wall stretched in both directions.

The door must have swung shut and blended into the wall, because it was now invisible. Grey was going to bet that the other benefactors of the cemetery weren’t using this entrance.

He took a flashlight from one of the guards, and risked pointing the light at the ground. A path of flattened grass led deeper into the undergrowth, past a huge oak tree—yet another tidbit from Anka’s story—set twenty feet behind the wall.

Grey followed the path for a hundred yards until it intersected with a two-foot-wide stone path that curved deeper into the cemetery. Grey had no idea how big this place was, no idea if he was even moving in the right direction.

All he knew was that he had to hurry.

A few minutes later the presence of two more guards confirmed his route choice, and he wasted precious minutes slipping into the undergrowth and circling behind them. He was in no condition to try to surprise the guards, nor could he risk a shot being fired or a cry being raised.

After he rejoined the pathway his surroundings changed, the undergrowth on both sides becoming more manageable, most of the crypts and sarcophagi now free of vines and waist-high weeds. The tombs grew more frequent, fronted by mythological statues and carvings, some encased in marble vaults and mausoleums. The footpath wound among the atmospheric gravesites while the branches and undergrowth clutched at him from all sides, wraiths yearning for his warm flesh.

Twice more he had to waste precious minutes avoiding guards by stepping off the gauntlet of twisted pathways and into the undergrowth. The cemetery was enormous, and Grey cursed his maimed left leg and the man who had damaged it. It had to be close to midnight. He felt as if Viktor’s life were an hourglass in Grey’s hands, each second whisking away the remaining grains of sand.

He kept going until he saw a strange sight: an arched entranceway set into a high stone wall, next to a pair of obelisks disappearing into the gloom above. Ornate pillars flanked both sides of the entrance, and the iron gate had been left ajar. Grey couldn’t see what lay on the other side of the archway, but he could hear the faint murmur of voices coming from the other end of what Grey assumed was a tunnel.

He moved forward. Just before the archway he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye, from the top of the wall. Grey spun to the right, but a tornado of pain erupted along his left arm, and he saw the hilt of a knife sticking out of his arm below the shoulder. If he had not moved at the last second, it would have struck his heart.

Grey dove into the undergrowth, yanking out the knife as he rolled. It wasn’t lodged into bone, but it had torn into the muscle, and deep shudders of agony rolled through him. He could hear his assailant jumping off the wall, and Grey willed his mind clear, knowing if he let the pain affect him he wouldn’t live through the next minute. He might not anyway, since he had dropped the gun when the knife struck him.

He scrambled to his feet and saw Dante stalking him from ten feet away, searching for an opening to throw another knife he was balancing in his hand.
Grey moved like a mix between a boxer and a cat, stalking forward to close the distance, bobbing and weaving to give Dante a moving target. Both knew that if Dante threw the knife and missed, or struck a glancing blow, then Grey would have a temporary advantage. As Grey drew closer Dante shifted his body from a throwing posture to an infighting stance and withdrew another knife. He held both knives in front of his body, weaving them through empty air as Grey closed the final few feet.