Janus the Arrival (The Janus Trilogy Book 1) (22 page)

   
Charlie didn’t
reappear until the early part of the evening, just as the family were about to
sit down for dinner together. Anna firmly believed that they should all sit and
eat their meals together whenever possible, especially as this whole tradition
had begun to disappear throughout the entire country, according to many of the
news reports she’d watched and read. This caused a major lack of communication
and resulted in the breakdown of family values in her eyes. It certainly wasn’t
something that the latest generation should be proud of.

   
Gazing over at Charlie, Anna couldn’t help
but notice that he had a rather moody expression on his face, for some reason
best known to himself.

   
‘So how do you like your new nanny young
man?’ she asked.

   
‘She’s alright I suppose!’ he replied,
without even bothering to look up, before continuing. ‘Gran! Can
you
put me to bed tonight,
please?’

 
  
‘Okay my love. She replied. Knowing that
she’d be more than happy to do so. She really loved reading to him, especially
as he liked older books, rather than children’s ones.

   
‘But just for tonight, do you hear?’ she
added as an afterthought. Anna studied Vicky in order to gauge her reaction.
She really didn’t wish to offend her, especially as she imagined she’d be
wanting to get into some sort of routine at the start.

   
‘You don’t mind if it’s just for one night.
Do you?’

   
‘No! That’s fine with me,’ she replied,
giving Charlie a warning look behind Anna’s back, which she knew he couldn’t
fail to notice.

It
was well past ten o’clock in the morning before Charlie finally appeared
downstairs. He wore a pair of denim jeans with a red polo-necked shirt that
Anna had treated him to on their last shopping trip into town. He also had a
pair of black leather shoes on his feet, which had never seen a spot of polish
since the day they’d been bought.

   
‘What time do you call this young man?’
Anna asked jokingly, as he entered the main dining room.

   
‘It’s not like you to sleep in normally,’
she continued.

   
‘Oh! I was just playing in my room for a
while,’ he replied, gazing around the room to see who else was there.

   
‘Where’s Vicky gone?’ he asked politely,
grabbing a slice of toast from the table as he did so.

  
 
‘She
decided to go out for an early morning stroll down by the lake with your
grandfather. He’d promised to show her around the grounds as soon as he had a
chance, and that seemed as good a time as any.’

   
Two minutes later, despite Anna’s protest
that he should stop and have some breakfast, Charlie was running through the
dense undergrowth back towards the main barn. That was probably the best place
to get a decent view of the lakes, as far as he could make out. Once he reached
there, just as he approached the main doors, he was very surprised to hear
strange noises coming from inside on the upper level. This appeared to be
getting even louder the closer he got, and he’d never heard anything like it
before. Maybe someone was hurt and needed his help. Yet, as fate would have it,
Charlie had arrived just in time to witness the pleasurable moans of a woman
just about to reach climax during an orgasm. In all his innocence, Charlie
crept silently up the ladder to find out what could possibly making such a noise.
As he drew level and his young eyes focused on the scene before him, he simply
couldn’t avoid what happened next. Seeing his grandfather’s naked buttocks
moving up
and down on top of his smiling
nanny, a slight whimper accidentally escaped his lips. This automatically
caused the two startled figures to move apart and scramble to their feet in a
complete state of undress. Grabbing at any item of scattered clothing he could
put his hands on, Duke William had gone completely red in the face and felt
absolutely awful about what had just happened. He was feeling highly
embarrassed, while Vicky, who’d half expected something like this to happen,
just stood stark naked, staring at the young boy who was balanced rather
awkwardly at the top of the ladder. It was obvious to her that he was
completely unsure about what to do next. However, realising his vulnerability
at that moment, Charlie’s Dra-Na-Zee instinct for survival suddenly kicked in.
It warned him that Vicky would try to dislodge him from the wooden rungs in an
attempt to send him plummeting to the floor below. Feeling slightly foolish at
all that had just gone on, he felt an inherent anger starting to build up
inside. It was this factor that enabled his power to finally surface, and when
it did so, it caught Vicky completely by surprise when the first ray hit her
low in the shoulder. For some unknown reason, she’d grabbed a top and thrown it
on, yet this had opened a gaping hole in the unbuttoned blouse, which now
turned dark red as blood seeped into the material. The pain was really intense.
A searing heat scored a path through her flesh, partially cauterising the wound
as it started to set to work inside her. Already cautious of the boy and having
dodged a second ray that had passed close by her head before hitting one of the
haystacks behind her, Vicky responded with a shot that would have been
perfectly on target if the Duke hadn’t got in the way at the exact same moment.

   
William couldn’t believe his eyes. It was
like being caught in the middle of a futuristic gunfight; at least that’s what
he was thinking up until the moment that he was hit directly in the chest. The
power of the shot was incredibly strong, and this caused the big man to plunge
over the edge and drop to the floor. While this was all happening, the haystack
from Charlie’s earlier shot began to smoulder away in the background. It was a
little slow at first, but once the flames started to appear, they soon began to
flicker and catch at the edges, while William lay unable to move from his
injury. The man was still in a state of shock, but as the fire caught hold and
started to spread to some of the adjoining bales, they started to fall apart
and drop over the edge, catching light to more of the bales that were stacked
at ground level.

  
 
In
desperation, Vicky leapt up giving Charlie no chance to plan his next shot as
she delivered a flying kick to his upper body. Fortunately for her, it was a
perfectly placed shot, as her left foot connected ever so firmly with the boy’s
head. The impact of the kick forced it completely backwards, and this in turn,
snapped his spinal cord in one quick movement. Charlie’s body immediately
contorted as his eyes went wide. His head suddenly lolled sideways and his
fingers lost their grip on the ladder. This caused him to plunge like a rag
doll to the hard surface of the floor below, just as his grandfather had
earlier.
The fire spread rapidly and had
already engulfed the neighbouring haystacks. It acted like an un-caged beast
with snakelike tendrils reaching out in every conceivable direction, looking to
consume anything and everything that stood in its path. William screamed out in
absolute agony as the smoke entered his already aching lungs. His chest heaved
with each breath, his lips blistered and his vision started to become all
blurry, as his eyes dried out in the unwavering heat. A few seconds later, a
series of flames suddenly caught the bottom of his trousers and seized the
opportunity to spread up his body. The Dukes white nylon shirt melted against his
flesh as the dying man flailed around in great distress. William attempted to
beat out the countless flames that attacked him with his bare hands, but it was
all in vain and way beyond his control as they continued on with their mission
and devoured his flesh. It was a dreadful, sickening sound as his body crackled
loudly. Luckily for him, William had finally lost consciousness soon after, as
his mind had chosen to switch off to the horror going on all around him. What
remained of his fat, blackened corpse, eventually turned to a large ball of
fire and simply blended in with the rest of the surroundings. It would
certainly prove to be a messy job for anyone wanting to investigate what had
gone on.

Vicky
had finally managed to recover enough from Charlie’s attack, to be able to
carry on. Carrying a loose piece of burning wood that she’d found laying close
by on the floor, she cauterised the rest of her wound, thereby fusing together
a mix of open tissue and blood vessels in her shoulder and preventing any further
blood loss once the wound was sealed. Satisfied with her temporary handiwork
and feeling a good deal of strength finally returning to her body, she eased
her way carefully down the ladder, having already gathered the remains of her
clothing, to ensure that no traces of her being there had been left behind.
Reaching ground level without any further incident she looked over and bade
farewell to the still smoking, charred remains of Duke William. Knowing she’d
have to move very swiftly, as large bits of loose debris were dropping from
above, she approached the crumpled body of Charlie and knelt down beside him in
the hope of finding some sign of life. Just as she placed her hand on the boy’s
chest, his eyes suddenly sprung open and caused her to step back in alarm. Yet
the expected attack didn’t occur at all, and as she moved forward to look at
the body again, she realised that the reaction must have been triggered by some
kind of dying impulse inside. Searching her mind for information gained from
the disks, she saw that this had come via the nervous system, which had reacted
to her touch. She was made aware that the human body still maintained a small
amount of electrical and electrochemical charge, and that this was in order for
the body to achieve the full cycle of the breakdown process. Vicky hadn’t meant
to kill the boy in that way. Yet she knew she’d had no choice at the time,
otherwise it could just as well have been her lying there, dead and burnt on
the barn floor. Her initial plan had been to simply transfer him to Pagos
alongside Jamie, in the exact same way as she’d done before. Now it was far too
late however, and that meant she’d have to alter things a little, and therefore
make all the necessary changes to get everything back on track. In William’s
case, he’d merely been unfortunate at having been in the wrong place at the
wrong time. Nevertheless, it was at that instant, as she stepped out into the
open and sucked fresh air into her smoke filled lungs, that Vicky realised how
inhuman she’d become. She found it quite hard to comprehend the fact that she
felt little, or no remorse for either of her victims, whose burning bodies had
now become one with the old barn, which stood blazing away behind her, totally
engulfed in flames.

Anna
was alerted about the fire by one of the farm hands, who’d deliberately come
running to seek her out and warn her. She looked across at the spiralling
plumes of smoke in the far distance and immediately put on her boots, while
trying her best to keep calm about it. Panicking would certainly be of no use
to anyone. Having grabbed a jacket from the back of the door and shouted for
someone to call the fire brigade, then gaining a response that it had already
been done, she immediately set off at speed in the general direction of the
barn. Using the shortest route she knew of, Anna reached the cutting in the
woods in no time at all. Once there, she automatically navigated her way around
the trees and was far too busy worrying about what was going on, to notice the
dishevelled figure of Vicky passing through on another path. She was busy
fleeing in the opposite direction, without stopping or giving a single glance
back at the devastation she’d managed to create. Anna instinctively knew that
something was seriously wrong with each step she took. Tears had already
started to gather on her cheeks, as she finally entered the clearing and caught
site of the blazing building just ahead. She’d arrived just in time to watch
the roof give way, while the whole structure seemed to twist and turn, then let
out a long painful groan as it slowly began to collapse in on itself.

Dana
had been severely reprimanded by her boss for gallivanting out to Findon Manor on
her own without warning anyone, or taking Huey, Duey and Luey with her. This
was her newly thought up pet name for the Feds and in her opinion, that suited
them perfectly as far a she was concerned. As soon as she’d been informed about
the fire in the barn, she immediately thought back to her near miss with the
chauffeur driven Mercedes. Once again, she recalled that strange feeling of
being watched and the shivers having shot down her spine when she’d spotted the
darkened outlines of the male and female passengers sitting in the back. Now it
emerged that the new nanny’s name had been Victoria and she’d not only gone
missing, but she fitted Vicky’s description perfectly. Dana was extremely
annoyed at herself for not flowing her instincts at the time. It also appeared
from the latest news reports, that two sets of charred remains had been pulled
from the debris of the barn, once it had been dowsed down and finally made
safe. Following a lot of hard work by the fire brigade, with one of the fire
fighters getting slightly injured, the remains had eventually been positively
identified as those of a young boy and an elderly man. Dana had been informed
that it would still take another few hours to confirm these as being Charlie
and Duke William de Pre’ from their dental records,
 
assuming it was them. Yet Dana already knew
what the answer would be, especially as the pair of them were still both
missing.

   
Damn it! If she hadn’t been dealing with
her other cases at the same time, there would have been a strong possibility
that this whole thing could possibly have been avoided. She already felt guilty
enough about everything that had happened so far, and now she was wondering if
she were to blame for this whole bloody mess as well. Deciding to confront her
boss, once he’d come out of a meeting later that afternoon, Dana was shocked to
discover that he’d been asked by the FBI, following a call from America, to
remove her from the case without any further delay. According to what he’d been
told, it was felt that she was becoming far too involved emotionally. At which
point he shrugged his shoulders and gave her a look that showed he totally
disagreed with this request, before going on to explain that he would promise
to stand by her one hundred percent. He’d also started to say how he’d told
them that she was not budging from the case, because he believed she was doing
an excellent job. However, he then put the niceties aside and then warned her
that he still expected her to be a little more professional in the future, or
otherwise she would be out, and his hands would be completely tied. To say that
she was a little perturbed at this, would have been a complete understatement.
Dana foe all she was worth, was absolutely fuming as she stormed past Huey,
Duey and Luey in the corridor. A short while later, having visited the washroom
and regained her utmost composure, she’d thought things logically through, and
eventually emerged with a whole new sense of purpose. Dana made a direct
bee-line for the office she knew she’d find them hiding in, and in a calm,
controlled manner, she shouted.

   
‘Come on you lazy lot, we’ve got a journey
to make to the wonderful sunny West Sussex,’ which certainly shook them up and
got them up on their feet in a hurry.

Approximately
an hour and a half later, Dana sat talking to Anna de Pre’ in the already
familiar surroundings of the larger than life drawing room. In the meanwhile,
Huey, Duey and Luey had got dressed in safety gear and taken a look over the
remains of the burnt out barn, before returning to search Charlie and Vicky’s
bedrooms. Dana had explained that they merely wanted to see if they could find
any clues that would help in establishing exactly what had gone on, and it was
obvious that Anna had been more than pleased to see Dana’s friendly face once
again, especially following so many strange goings on happening around the
place. Anna had made it very clear on her arrival that she hadn’t held her to
blame for anything that had happened, before thanking Dana for trying to warn
her in the first place. She told her how sorry she was for not having taken her
more seriously during her initial visit to the manor, and promised to be
prepared to listen to the experts in future. What did trouble Dana however, was
the very fact that the Duchess didn’t appear to be all that upset about her
sudden loss, which she was finding very strange indeed. Maybe it was simply
down to shock, or something she was just having trouble coming to terms with?
Alternatively, it could have been something much deeper? Just as before, Sarah
had been summonsed to bring in a fresh jug of coffee, along with the obligatory
cherry cake. Dana assumed that this must be something that tended to be dished
out to all visitors, come rain or shine. The cake cupboard was probably a very
large one by all accounts. She certainly wouldn’t put it past them. Yet, as
Sarah entered the room, Dana couldn’t help but notice the dark rings that had
gathered under her eyes, which were normally telltale signs of someone having
been crying or suffering from a distinct lack of sleep.
They both politely thanked the maid as she placed the
tray on the table, but once she was certain that
she’d left the room, Dana looked at Anna, as if to question why Sarah appeared
to be so upset. At this point, Anna’s guard suddenly fell away and she finally
showed her true colours as her shoulders dropped, before letting out a deep and
somewhat burdened sigh. She seemed to age suddenly, as she sat with a look of
total resignation across her face, before lifting her head and staring straight
into the younger woman’s eye’s. She then began to explain.

   
‘Well you might as well know the truth! It
may explain why I seem to come across as such a callous bitch at times. At the
end of the day, I have absolutely nothing to hide or feel guilty about, I can
be thankful of that at least.’ The woman looked around the room, just to make
sure that they were still on their own. Then she looked up again, just to make
sure that she still had Dana’s undivided attention, before continuing. ‘There’s
no doubt whatsoever that William was a womaniser, which believe it or not, may
possibly come as a bit of a surprise to some people. He’d always been that way,
ever since I’d first met him. It was part of his in-built nature, and I knew
that he was screwing every bit of skirt he could get his grubby little hands
on, especially when he stayed in our Chelsea pad, down in London.’

   
Anna wasn’t aware that her voice was
continuously rising as she told Dana the story. She happily let out her true
feelings, in an attempt to vent the deeply hidden frustrations that had
obviously been festering deep down inside her for years.

   
‘That’s the reason why Sarah is so
distraught about his death,’ she went on.
   

   
‘She was simply another one of William’s
many conquests along the way.’

   
‘But you must have loved him in some way?
Otherwise how on earth did you manage to stay married to him for such a long
time?’ Dana asked, as gently as she could.

   
‘Ahh!
 
Well that’s a question that I’ve often asked myself. In fact why do we
do such things when we know that something’s not quite right in the first
place? I guess I loved him once, a very, very long time ago, but eventually we
drifted into our own separate routines, not unlike people in so many other marriages
do, that’s for sure. Eventually, as time went on, he naturally ended up
spending a lot more of his time in London, playing with his money and gambling.
As a consequence, he ended up buying that damned love nest in Chelsea, and
believe it or not? He laughably called it
our
second home. What a joke that was! I only ever visited the place twice,
and on both of those occasions William made pathetic little excuses for us not
stopping over together.’ Dana’s heart most definitely reached out to the poor woman,
just before she decided it was a good time to ask the next question.

   
‘So what about little Charlie! Surely you
miss him?’ Once again the woman faced the young detective inspector directly,
and then replied.

   
‘To be honest I never wanted him here in
the first place. Especially at my age. Marie was a spoilt little junkie, who
somehow managed to conceive that bastard child through her own downright
stupidity.
The poor little mite never stood
a chance from the beginning.’ Dana had never heard her sound so bitter before.
Then, just at that moment, the door swung open and the three federal agents
meandered in and across the room to join the two women. Anna never spoke
another word about her family from that moment on, and once the farewells were
finally completed, with Dana having asked Anna to keep in touch, the four of
them left the grounds together. They immediately headed straight back towards
the motorway. Dana decided it would be in her own best interest to relay
certain parts of her recent conversation. Then, letting them know, what they
probably needed to hear, in order to keep them satisfied for the time being,
she felt a little more vindicated at doing so.

She
lay completely submerged in the steaming hot water, and relaxed as it washed
over her. The wound was almost entirely healed, and her mind was presently
mulling over how she’d managed to get caught up in the whole damned mess in the
first place. Vicky had long since realised she was in quite deep. She was sadly
caught up in circumstances far beyond her control, but the fact remained that
things were definitely going from bad to worse right at this moment. She could
also feel Janus desperately fighting against her from the inside, and she knew
that he was getting stronger and stronger with every passing minute. He was
frantically trying to regain control of his body, and all she that could do,
was to continue struggling on in the attempt to complete her plan. After all,
there was only one more boy left to eliminate, even though disposing of him
would probably be the hardest task she would be likely to face so far.

Police
security had been stepped up quite considerably in the area, and in the
meantime, both Rachel and Danny had been kept fully up-to-date on a
need-to-know basis. The situation at the moment was that they both needed to
know; it was as simple as that. Both had agreed to carry on as though nothing
was wrong, which suited them just fine under the circumstances. Dana had spoken
to Rachel a few times recently, mainly whenever they had a chance, with so much
going on. She knew that despite her seemingly acting all calm and collected
about the whole thing, this woman was slowly starting to show definite signs of
weakness, which she hoped wouldn’t hinder the operation too much. At first
Dana’s boss had suggested they remove all signs of police cover from the scene.
He personally felt that Vicky may be scared off, but it was Dana who’d finally
convinced him that even if he called in the army, Vicky would still attempt to
finish off what she’d set out to do. Well that was according to her limited
knowledge of these creatures, although he felt she probably knew more about
them than anybody else did for now.

Dana
lay awake for most of that night. She was completely unable to sleep, as her
mind was constantly going over every conceivable way on how Vicky, with her
special powers, could feasibly get close to young Danny. It was also very humid
in London and its outskirts, following the recent spell of hot, muggy sunny
days they’d suffered just lately. Yet despite having her bedroom window as wide
open as they would go, the air in the room still seemed to remain terribly
still. Her sheets had become uncomfortably damp through the perspiration coming
from her body, and she continuously tossed and turned in a desperate attempt to
settle down for the night. As she rolled over to face the opposite direction
for the umpteenth time, she couldn’t help but notice that the bright green
digits on her alarm clock appeared to be illuminating the entire room. Catching
sight of the time, which she’d really been trying her best to avoid up until
that point, her brain automatically began to calculate how long was left,
before it finally began to screech, as it let out its incredibly annoying early
morning wake up call. In the end, Dana couldn’t stand it any longer, so she
threw back the sheets, leapt out of bed and set off towards the kitchen to get
a drink. Her throat literally felt as if it had been sandpapered from the
inside and moments later with a refreshing glass of fresh orange juice topped
with ice cubes clasped firmly in her hand. Reaching down the side of the sofa,
knowing exactly where to find it, Dana pointed, then pressed the green button
on the televisions remote control. She then chose to sit down naked in front of
the idiot’s lantern, to nonchalantly watch a group of youngsters awarding so
many points out of ten, for a set of films that they’d apparently been sent to
review by the programme makers. She just hoped that she didn’t fall asleep.

Jamie
had finally chosen to move the four female newborns into the cave with him. His
living quarters were a complete masterpiece of nature’s most natural resources,
with stalactites forming grand terraces as they hung from the cavernous
ceiling. In some areas they met halfway and basically formed huge columns,
having virtually combined as one, with the towering stalagmites that grew
upward towards them. There were certain periods in the day when rays from the
two Pagosian suns would shine through a series of openings in the cave. This
caused a long-lasting spectrum of stunning colours to cast their magic right
around the large open area, reflecting their colours in places not normally
reached. This display never failed to excite Jamie, and it was even more glorious
than the planet Earth’s aurora borealis, found at the north-pole and caused by
a bombardment of gases in the atmosphere. Jamie had been lucky enough to have
viewed this on more than one occasion in the stone disks, just before his
abduction. They were one of the things that he definitely missed a lot.