Thicker Than Blood (Marchwood Vampire Series #2) (13 page)

‘
Jacques!’ Isobel
said.

‘
Thanks for your input,
brother. But thankfully I have a little more optimism than
you.’

‘
Sorry, Alex,’ Jacques
said. ‘But now we’re here, I’m just starting to realise this isn’t
going to be easy.’

‘
Of course it isn’t! But
what do you suggest? Should we repack ourselves into our crates and
go home? Would you leave Maddy to her fate?’

‘
Of course not, Alex. I’m
sorry. Ignore me, I was just talking nonsense.’

‘
It’s not nonsense,
Jacques,’ Isobel said. ‘We all feel nervous.’

‘
Come on,’ Freddie
interrupted. ‘Let’s go. Talking about it is making me doubt
everything.’

‘
You’re right, Freddie,’
Alexandre said. ‘We won’t know what’s out there until we
go.’

They went out onto the terrace
of their suite which perched halfway up the side of the cliff and
looked out onto the valley and cliffs beyond, which were dotted
with more cave dwellings - some dark and empty, others glowing with
warm yellow lights. Thankfully it was far too cold for the other
hotel guests to make use of the outdoor areas. They were all
cosily
tucked up in bed or lounging beside crackling
fires.

‘
We must head north,’
Alexandre said.

‘
I remember,’ Isobel
sighed. ‘As if I could ever forget.’

Alexandre clasped his sister’s hand. ‘We
will finish this thing here. We will end it once and for all and
put it behind us.’

‘
I hope you are right,’
she said, closing her eyes and stepping off the terrace. The others
followed and Alexandre watched them drop down the side of the
cave-studded rock face and move up and over to the top of the
opposite cliff. They stood on the grassy summit, four dark shapes
against the blue black sky. Alexandre paused, took a breath and
joined them.

*

Esther bustled around the steamy kitchen for
a few minutes, before finally putting two plates on the kitchen
table. She sat down in front of one of them.

‘
Don’t mind if I join you,
do you?’ she asked Ben. ‘Keep you company.’

‘
No, course not.’ He sat
opposite the housekeeper and eyed his plate: a cheese and
mushroom
omelette
, chips and salad. ‘This is great.
Thanks.’ But he couldn’t stop thinking about the piece of paper in
his pocket. It had taken the edge off his appetite.

‘
Eat up, then,’ Esther
said, looking across at him.

He still hadn’t even lifted his knife and
fork.

‘
What’s the matter? Too
tired to eat?’

‘
No, no, this is great.’
He grabbed his fork and speared a chip. Was he just being paranoid?
Maybe the note paper wasn’t the same at all, maybe it was just his
memory playing tricks on him. But no. He knew it was exactly the
same. So why then had it ended up in the recycling box in their
house?

Uncomfortable conclusions kept springing to
the front of his mind and he tried to shove them away. It was
Esther who had brought them the original note in the first place.
But it couldn’t be anything to do with her … surely. Why would she
have written it? She had no reason. Yes, she and Maddy clashed a
bit, but not so much that she would betray her like that. No.
Esther was a good person. She had nursed Maddy and Ben back to
health after their first vampire encounters and she and Morris had
come to their rescue in London when Maddy and the others were
trapped in Blythe’s underground facility. She wouldn’t have looked
after them only to sell them out in the end.

Anyway, it had been Esther who had asked him
to empty the recycling box and she wouldn’t have done that knowing
he might find the note paper in there. Not unless she was really
stupid, which she wasn’t. God, he felt ultra-disloyal even thinking
about it. How could he even look her in the face. He stared down at
his omelette.

‘
Worried about your
sister?’ she asked. ‘Don’t be. Morris will bring her back safe. And
don’t eat if you don’t want to. You can always heat it up later. I
expect you’re tired out after all that work.’

‘
I’m okay.’ He blushed,
convinced she must know what was going through his mind.

‘
Your face has gone all
red. Hope you’re not coming down with something. Although I
wouldn’t be surprised after all the dramas we’ve had going on
around here.’

‘
I’m fine.
Honestly.’

‘
I shouldn’t have got you
doing all that work. It was probably too much, what with your
bruised hand and all.’

Ben let her ramble on. It was no good
disagreeing, or even agreeing for that matter. When Esther spoke it
was like a force of nature, you just had to let it run its course.
She said what she said and that was that.

Maybe he’d give Jacques or Freddie a call
later. See what they made of the note thing. Alex might not take it
seriously and he was probably too busy with too much on his mind.
He might think Ben was being over paranoid. But maybe Freddie would
have an idea about it. Ben chewed on a piece of omelette, but it
was no good. His appetite had completely deserted him.

‘
D’you mind if I go
upstairs?’ Ben asked. He knew she wasn’t his mum or his boss or
anything like that, but he thought he’d better ask. He didn’t want
to offend her, not after she’d gone to all that trouble of making
him dinner.

‘
I think that’s a good
idea,’ she replied. ‘You go on up and have an early night. I don’t
know what I was thinking getting you to do all that work. I didn’t
want you to brood, that was all.’

‘
It’s okay. I kind of
enjoyed it.’

‘
There! I knew you would.
Took your mind of things for a little while didn’t it.’

Not really, he thought.

‘
Good. Right. Well, you go
on upstairs and hopefully you’ll feel better tomorrow.’

Ben got up from the table and left the
kitchen. He took the stairs two at a time and pulled his mobile
from his jeans pocket. There was a message from Morris. How had he
missed that? As he entered his bedroom, he opened the message and
sank down onto the floor to read it. He leant back against the bed
and sighed. All it said was that they’d landed. Ben hadn’t really
thought they’d have any news yet, but part of him had hoped for
something more.

He tossed his phone onto the rug and eased
the crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. The paper was quite
thick. He smoothed it out on the floor. It was rectangular shaped,
smaller than A4. Maybe it was A5. Ben held the paper out in front
of him, his head tilted to the side. No, not quite A5. It looked
like one side was uneven, at an angle like it had been cut. Ben
wished he had the real note to compare this one against. Why would
one side have been cut? Had this been part of the actual note and
they had cut off this blank piece? But that wouldn’t make any
sense. He stuck out one side of his bottom lip and puffed his
fringe out of his eyes. Maybe it was just an innocent piece of
paper which happened to look like the paper the note was written
on. Maybe it was just as simple as that.

Chapter Fifteen

Cappadocia, 575 AD

*

Winter melted into spring, and spring soon
became summer. Aelia’s days with the widow had a reassuring rhythm
and she had mixed feelings about returning to her village. She
wanted to see her family, of course she did, but how would everyone
else feel about her return? Would her friends be allowed to
associate with her? Did her sisters even know what she had done?
And what about Lysus? Would he be there too? Part of her didn’t
ever want to see him again, but another part of her wanted to look
him right in the eye with the full measure of scorn and hatred he
deserved.

Today, Aelia and the widow were negotiating
their way down a narrow goat track cut into a steep gorge. At the
bottom, in the relative shade of the valley, they would find wild
mushrooms and asparagus. As well as being edible, they needed
asparagus for treating jaundice, toothache and as an antidote for
venomous spider bites.

The sound of running water grew louder and
Aelia spied flashes of silver at the foot of the gorge, where the
river peeked out from beneath its canopy of poplars and pistachio
trees. The way down was precarious and took much concentration.
Aelia was aware that one misplaced step might have her plummeting
to her death, but in front of her, Widow Maleina looked sure-footed
and confident.

Aelia sighed as she thought about the widow.
She was being contrary and refusing to talk about the invasion.
Every time Aelia had tried to broach the subject, she would either
snap at her or pretend she hadn’t heard her speak. Aelia didn’t
know what to do. How could she leave the old woman alone to be
slaughtered or enslaved? She was a crotchety old thing, but the
widow had saved her life and given her a home.

The morning sun grew stronger and a trickle
of sweat ran down Aelia’s back. Only a couple of days now remained
until Midsummer, the day she was to travel back to her village and
begin living underground. Aelia hadn’t thought to ask her father
how long they were all supposed to remain down there. It would
surely be for several weeks; maybe even months. How strange it
would be to live in darkness, to never see the sky or the trees.
She felt a little frightened by the whole idea of it.

Growing up, Aelia had always pictured a
simple life for herself – a dutiful daughter who would marry and
have children. Now she realised nothing was ever certain in life.
Perhaps she might eventually have those things, but it was getting
harder and harder to imagine. Who would want to marry her now?
Perhaps she would end up like the widow – living alone in a cave on
the fringes of society. It wasn’t such a bad life. At least you got
to be independent. But then, to live for so long without love must
be a terrible thing. Maybe that’s why the widow was so cantankerous
– she had no one to soften the edges.

‘
You’re dawdling.’ The
widow’s voice cut through her thoughts. ‘I have no use for idlers
and layabouts. Do you think you’re a princess surveying your lands?
You are an outcast, girl. Do not forget it.’

Aelia flushed, lowered her eyes and picked
up her pace. Over the past few days, Widow Maleina had said some
particularly hurtful things to her. Aelia thought it might be
because of the approaching invasion. Perhaps the woman was
frightened. But Aelia dismissed the thought as soon as she had it.
She didn’t think the widow would be frightened of anything. She had
a suspicion that these digs were supposed to put her off returning
home. Words like ‘outcast’ were stark reminders of what she had
left behind.

‘
So will you come with
me?’ Aelia asked, not put off by the widow’s jibes.

‘
To your underground
tomb?’ The widow cackled.

‘
It’s not a tomb. It’s a
refuge. It’s only temporary.’

‘
That’s what you
think.’

‘
What do
you
think?’ Aelia said.

‘
I think you talk too
much.’

And so, as always, the conversation
ended.

Back home, later that evening, Aelia began
preparing the evening meal. They had collected an abundance of
herbs and vegetables and Aelia was excited to cook something new
for the widow – a summer vegetable dish she remembered helping her
mother with.

‘
I’ll prepare the food
tonight,’ the widow said, shuffling over to the spring, where Aelia
was washing some lettuce leaves.

‘
Oh, no that’s alright. I
was going to make us …’

‘
I said, I’ll prepare it.’
The widow snatched the lettuce out of Aelia’s hands, causing her to
drop most of it into the spring where it was carried away
underground.

Aelia was shocked and more than a little
angry. The woman was getting ruder by the day. She stood up, dried
her hands on her tunic and stalked off. It was a good thing she was
leaving in a couple of days and if the widow didn’t want to come
along, well that was just fine. She could stay here to be savaged
by the barbarian horde. No, she didn’t really mean that, but the
woman was impossible.

Aelia stepped outside the cave and held up
her hand to shield her eyes from the sun which was throwing out
bright shafts of light as it slid down into the rocky landscape.
Only two more days and she would be back with her family. She’d
just have to grit her teeth and put up with the widow’s moods a
little longer. She sat cross-legged on the dusty ground and watched
a few birds streak across the sky, trying to make it home before
nightfall. A warm breeze swirled about her and she closed her eyes
for a moment. She sat there like that for a while, trying to rid
herself of her annoyance at the widow’s behaviour.

‘
Supper is
ready.’

Widow Maleina’s voice interrupted her
meditation. She turned around, but the widow had already returned
to the cave. Aelia sighed and got to her feet. She wouldn’t even
attempt a conversation this evening. It was too exhausting and a
complete waste of time.

Aelia saw that the widow had made a stew. In
Aelia’s opinion, it was far too hot for such a meal, but at least
it smelled good. She realised she was starving, sat down and took a
huge spoonful.

‘
I didn’t mean to be quite
so abrupt with you earlier,’ Widow Maleina said.

Aelia almost choked on her
food.
Was
the woman apologising?