The Twilight Circus (22 page)

“What're you doing?” asked Fish in surprise. “It's
freezing
out here.”

“Same as you, I expect,” said Nat. “Thinking about what happened this afternoon.”

“I wouldn't dwell on it for too long.” Fish smiled wearily. “It'll give you bad dreams.”

Nat gave her a ghost of a smile. “How's Del?”

Fish shrugged. “Same as he was before. Nat, I'm —”

“Scared,” broke in Nat. “We didn't get the head vampire, did we?”

Fish shook her head miserably.

Back in the moonlit forest, Woody still chased the other Wolven. It was bigger and faster than he was, and there were times he thought he had lost it, but then he would spot it in the distance, waiting up ahead, tongue lolling, tail wagging. But when at last Woody felt he could run no more, the other Wolven disappeared from view. Woody looked around him, sniffing the freezing night air, but he could neither smell nor see it anymore. Anxiously, he paced the perimeter of a circular clearing in the trees.

Despite his disappointment at losing the Wolven, Woody felt he was in a special place. In the thaw it would be a perfect oasis with a pool of fresh water fed by a gushing waterfall. But with the current temperatures way below freezing, the waterfall hung in suspended animation, a thick curtain of enormous icicles and sheets of ice above the frozen pool. Woody ate some snow and let it melt in his mouth as he figured out what to do next.

Where'd it go
? Woody chuffed and whined, hoping the other Wolven would hear him and come back and show itself. His keen vision could make out the scene as though it was daylight. The ice shone midnight blue in the light
of the moon, and the waterfall glinted and sparkled like cold diamonds. Panting, he leaped easily onto the rocky ledge beneath the waterfall. Negotiating his way around the back of the frozen curtain of water was tricky, and his claws were barely able to stop him from sliding off the frozen rock, but when he edged his way farther in he realized he was in a cavernous chamber.
So this is where the other Wolven went
! Excited, he trotted to the back of the cave, where there was a small fissure in the rock. Woody could feel the difference in the air temperature. Warmer air filtered through the crack, which was just big enough for a large wolflike creature to squeeze through. Pressing his body low onto the rocky floor, Woody crawled forward on all fours, gripping the rough surface with his claws. Flattening himself as much as he could, he pulled himself through, scrambling down from the rocks on the other side into what seemed to be another chamber, a subterranean cavern below the cave.

Woody had been in the presence of magic before, and this place fairly thrummed with it. The chamber was as big as a medium-sized village church, and about the same shape. Up ahead, nestled in niches within the rocky
ceiling were hundreds—
No, make that thousands
, thought Woody to himself—of tiny twinkling orbs of golden light, which gave off a warm glow, like a sunrise on a summer dawn. Toward the front of the chamber were placed a number of oblong objects in a large circle, each about the width and length of a man. Woody padded over to investigate.

He growled in surprise. The oblong objects (and Woody counted twelve) appeared to be stone tombs. Each tomb had the effigy of the occupant in delicately sculpted marble on the top, and he stared at these in morbid fascination. It looked to him as though the gentlemen whose remains lay at rest underneath were reclining in the armor of the Knights Templar, and he shivered up to his hackles at the expressions on their marble faces. Each grave face looked rather haughty for Woody's comfort, some appearing cross, as though they had been greatly inconvenienced at finding themselves dead. Each effigy was armed with a huge sword, and lying at each pair of marble feet was an enormous marble wolf creature—a
Wolven
!

What is this place
? Woody asked himself. He was beginning to feel well and truly spooked by the whole
thing, and wished again that Nat was there to share it with him. But on reflection, Woody doubted that a human could have squeezed through the gap in the cave unless there was another way in, and anyway, Nat was claustrophobic—he hated being underground. There was a sort of raised area behind the tombs, like an altar, and under the strange lighting shone a stronger light, like a great golden halo. Woody walked into the light, and if he had been in human shape he would have gasped.

Coffers of golden treasure shimmered and glimmered in front of him, winking under the sparkling lights. Treasure far beyond a king's ransom lit up Woody's fur with an eerie Midas glow as he tried to take it all in. He narrowed his eyes to blot out the light and mentally added another question to the list forming in his mind.
Was this the lost cargo of Templar treasure—treasure searched for across the globe for almost a thousand years
? Iona de Gourney had told both Woody and Nat about the legendary lost Templar gold, which had fueled the imagination of millions of people for centuries. Iona's ancient ancestor Sir William de Gourney had even speculated in his chronicles that the
treasure included priceless holy relics such as the Grail or even the Ark of the Covenant! Woody panted with excitement and awe.
What if the two things that humans had searched for over hundreds of years were here in this underground church, guarded by the King's Wolven? What if—
?

Woody forgot about the gold abruptly. Sometime during his ponderings, the other Wolven had come back. To Woody's overwhelming joy, more followed, their eyes alight with the same wonder that Woody felt as he gazed upon his clan. Then they were upon him, squealing with delight, tails wagging ecstatically, all wanting to touch him.

“
Dear one
.” The Wolven clan spoke as one.
He was home
.

Deep inside Crescent's soul lurked the mind of Lucas Scale, and it hurt her. The viselike grip was back. Crescent's will was no match for the evil Scale's; his manipulating presence inside her head was steering her away from reason and sanity. Even when the boar had gored Salim and Woody had licked his wounds clean, she had known she would betray them all.
Scale wanted her to spy on Woody, to follow him and find his clan. Only then would he let go of her mind
.

Crescent had her chance. The old boar was brought down at last and Otis, Ramone, and Salim had been too busy ripping it to shreds to notice her skulk away. She tracked Woody swiftly and skillfully, staying far enough back for the freezing wind to hide her scent. She followed his trail, stopping at a deserted clearing in the forest. There were two sets of tracks in the snow! Putting her head down, she sniffed. One set was Woody's, but whose was the other? She stared at the sheet of frozen water sparkling like diamonds in the moonlight. Crescent loped toward it, her slim body squeezing through the narrow opening easily. She closed her eyes against the pain of her brain being gripped by another. When they opened again, they belonged to Lucas Scale
.

Agent Alex Fish felt the stirrings of unease. Before she had left NightShift HQ, she had brushed up on all reported cases of vampirism archived in the creepy underground vaults in Middle Temple Lane, and re-examined the first and, up until this afternoon, the
only
vampire hive she had exterminated. In all the cases she had read about, any victims of vampire attacks recovered fully
so long as the head vampire was slain
. In the case of the Threadneedle Street Hive, this had been proven when some builders had been attacked. As soon as the hive was really and truly dead (not just undead), the victims made a swift and full recovery. NightShift agent Jack Tully had followed it up and reported the improvement was almost immediate.

But when Del Underhill failed to show up at the celebratory dinner to rejoice in Christmas and the extermination of the hive, the nagging doubt she had felt earlier turned
into gut-wrenching feelings of dread. Fish had hoped to give Del the best Christmas present ever, by slaughtering the hive and giving him his life back.

She knocked gently on the door of the satyrs' trailer. When Paddy answered her knock, she knew by the expression on his face that things had not improved. Following him into the cozy depths, she had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.

“He can't stand the light,” explained Paddy. “It hurts his eyes, so I keep it dark.”

Fish went over to the bunk where Del lay. His white face shone unnaturally in the dim light, and his long, black lashes contrasted starkly with his pallid skin. Fish's heart sank, because if anything, the poor satyr looked as though he was getting worse. His skin was clammy and his breathing shallow and wheezy. Every now and then he would moan in his sleep: a lost, despairing sound. Careful not to awaken him, Fish gently examined the spiteful wound on his neck and was horrified to see it still looked as poisonous as it had at first bite. Then Paddy reported that his brother still couldn't eat because food made him sick, and he couldn't tolerate the tiniest chink
of light peeping through the curtains. Alex Fish's fears were real.

Alex Fish knew that being a successful NightShift operative was all about having a backup plan. Looking back, she admitted it had all been too easy. Maybe there was another hive hiding somewhere else. She shuddered at the thought.
How many were there
? The head vampire wouldn't be as accessible as the rest of the hive; she should have known that. Closing her books thoughtfully, a brilliant but very risky plan formed in her mind.

When Nat found out that Fish's cunning plan involved communicating with the dead, he was slightly uncomfortable. But Fish was firm.

“So, like, how many people d'you need for a séance?” asked Nat as they went in search of likely candidates. Fish admitted she didn't actually know, but thought that four would be an even number. Natalie and Scarlet were her top choices to join them, as they were sensible enough not to mess about and give “negative energy” to the proceedings. It wasn't much use asking anyone else; the grown-ups would be horrified and the cryptids
and shape-shifters would be too scared to take part, as they were frightened of spirits. Fish had the devil of a job persuading Scarlet and Natalie to leave the celebrations until she shared her fears with them. She had given Nat a list of stuff they needed for the séance and she had set up a table in the black circus tent, onto which she placed three candles, a pack of Lexicon cards with the alphabet, and an empty glass.

“Have you done this before?” asked Scarlet, watching Fish's face glare orange in the momentary light of the match as she lit the candles.

“Loads of times,” said Fish airily. “It's better than the Internet.”

“But
why
are we trying to contact the dead?” asked Nat. “How can they help us find the head vampire?”

“We're going to try to contact the
half
dead, the revenants,” explained Fish patiently, “beings who were once human and who have served the vampire for one or more centuries. When they are too old to be of any use, they can't die. They remain in purgatory, neither dead nor alive. Only when the head vampire is killed once and for all can their souls be released.”

“That's
awful
,” cried Scarlet.

“Is … is it safe to contact the half dead?” asked Natalie, shivering slightly.

Fish polished her spectacles with the tiny piece of cloth that fastidious people keep in their spectacle cases specially for polishing.

“As long as we are respectful and don't mess about, it's safe,” assured Fish, pushing her specs firmly into position. “All we're doing is connecting with half lives on another frequency, but just to be on the safe side, if anything unsettling happens, Natalie, you turn the lights on and I'll blow out the candles, signifying the end of the séance.”

“
Whoa
, hang on,” said Nat nervously, “what d'you mean by ‘unsettling'?”

“You'll know if it happens,” said Fish grimly.

As they sat down, Fish placed the Lexicon cards around the table and the glass tumbler in the center. Every letter of the alphabet was laid out in a circle with “Yes” and “No” at strategic points.

“Now, place the index finger of your right hand on the top of the glass,” instructed Fish, “and good luck, everyone.”

Nat pressed his lips together firmly. Although he was a bit scared, he still thought séances belonged in stupid old horror movies or to old ladies trying to find out which loose floorboard their dead husband's money was under. The thought of Fish chatting to dead people seemed more ridiculous than frightening.

Agent Fish closed her eyes and drew a deep breath.

“Dear revenants of the undead, we respectfully ask that you honor us with your presence this Christmas evening,” she intoned, her eyes still closed. “We respectfully ask for your help with an urgent matter of life and death.
Is there anybody there
?”

Nat had been prepared to go along with it until that point. A loud snort of laughter shot out of his mouth and nose, followed by a fit of explosive giggles from Natalie and Scarlet. Fish snapped her eyes open and gave them her most withering of withering looks, but it was a good two minutes before she had their complete attention again.

“
What
?” She glowered at them. “What's so funny?”

Nat was wiping away the tears of hysteria. “Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled, trying to smother another gale of laughter that threatened to bubble up. “It was just when
you said the last bit, it … well … it was really funny.”

Fish gave him another narrow-eyed look of disgust. “What was? The bit where I ask is there anybody there?”

Natalie and Scarlet covered their faces, their bodies trembling convulsively as they tried to stop laughing again.

“Oh, don't … don't say it again,” cried Nat weakly. “It … it just sounds so …
corny!'
”