A Shade of Vampire 27: A Web of Lies (4 page)

I
found
myself running the familiar route to Shayla and Eli’s penthouse. Shayla wasn’t at home, and neither was Eli, of course—he’d gone with the League to the ogres’ realm.

I headed for the hospital, to the apothecary, where she usually hung out if she wasn’t busy with a patient. I found her bending over a test tube.

I approached her cautiously, arriving at her side and drumming my knuckles against the table.

She glanced up at me, raising a brow. “What’s up, Grace?”

I hesitated a little before answering. “I’ve been doing some more thinking about Georgina,” I said. “But more than thinking, I’ve been doing some research.”

“Oh?”

I explained to her what I’d found out—that Atticus had been lying to us. At this, she stood back from whatever concoction she was brewing and gave me her full attention.

“So what are you thinking exactly?” she asked.

“I would like to go and visit Georgina’s parents. The obituary said that she spent the last week of her life there before the accident and… I would just like to ask them some questions about Atticus. And about Lawrence.”

She heaved a sigh. I couldn’t miss the reluctance in her eyes. “Grace, I can’t help but think that we’re prying a little too much into this family. Lawrence is back with his father. I don’t think it’s any of our business what happens next, and I’m sure the boy is in a better condition now than when he was here… dying.”

I found that hard to swallow. Just because a person was family didn’t mean that they had one’s best interests in mind. My great-grandmother on my father’s side, Camilla, was a prime example of that. As well as, for that matter, my great-grandfather Gregor.
Come to think of it, my family on my father’s side is pretty messed up in general.

When I persisted, Shayla said, “Okay, I understand you want to go. But I can’t take you this time, Grace. I’m sorry. I’ve just got too much going on here. I can’t go gallivanting around. Go and ask Arwen to take you.”

I frowned. “Arwen? She’s here? I thought she left with the others.”

Shayla shook her head. “You know how much ogres creep her out.”

I smirked to myself. That was true. She had a phobia of ogres—since she’d been a kid she’d been terrified of stories about them, and always went out of her way to avoid Bella and Brett, even though they were, at heart, really more like teddy bears than ogres. Though it was certainly true that most ogres weren’t like Brett and Bella.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll ask her.”

With that, I left Shayla to get on with her potion, while I raced to the Sanctuary. In theory, Arwen should be at school today, but I knew that girl. More than likely, she would use “recovery” from her trip to The Woodlands as an excuse to skip a day of school before starting again tomorrow.

I was right in that guess. When I arrived outside the door and knocked, she emerged in the doorway less than a minute later. She was wearing pajamas and fluffy white slippers, her curly rich brown hair trailing down her shoulders.

Her face immediately took on a scowl when she laid eyes on me, though it wasn’t a real scowl. There was a smile behind her eyes.

“Don’t tell me you’re still in a huff with me and Heath,” I said.

“That was a really crappy thing to do,” she replied.

I rolled my eyes, even as I invited myself inside and closed the door behind me. I wasn’t in the mood to start bantering about her and her lover boy Brock. I had much heavier thoughts weighing down my mind.

“Arwen,” I began, “seeing as you’ve obviously taken the day off school, I guess you don’t have much to do.” I didn’t give her a chance to confirm or deny as I steamrolled on. “I would be really grateful to you if you could take me to Bristol, in England.”

She furrowed her brows. “Why do you want to go there?”

I groaned internally. It was such a long story to tell given that she probably hadn’t heard anything about the Lawrence saga yet, other than perhaps that he’d left the island. But I sat down with her and started from the beginning, from the time I’d met Lawrence to everything that had happened while I was with him and all that I had discovered since. By the time I was finished, her jaw hung open.

“Of course I’ll take you,” she said. “I don’t know how to get there, though… But I’ll check my mom’s maps.”

She gripped my hand and pulled me out of the living room where we had been sitting and into her mother’s study. It was so crowded with books, there was hardly room for anything else. Arwen moved to one of the teakwood cabinets and drew open the glass doors. She took down a huge pile of world maps from one of the shelves and laid them down on Corrine’s desk. She found one of England, and I helped her pinpoint the city.

I reached into my backpack that I had brought with me from home and pulled out my trusty notebook and a pen. I turned to the page where I had noted down the address of the pub.

Once Arwen had studied the map for several more minutes and seemed fairly confident about where we were heading, she looked up at me. “Okay,” she said, resolute. “I'll get dressed, and then… we'll go, girl.”

A
rwen naturally wasn’t as experienced
a traveler as Shayla, but since we weren’t trying to locate a place in the middle of nowhere, we located the pub fairly easily. The sky was gray and rainy as we found ourselves standing outside a small cozy-looking pub with old-fashioned single-glazed windows. We stepped inside to find it mostly empty. A young brunette stood behind the bar, sifting through a pile of bills.

“Excuse me,” I said, clearing my throat.

She glanced up at us, her eyes widening. I guessed Arwen and I were rather a strange pair to arrive at the pub. Arwen especially looked out of place. Although as a witch, she was practically indistinguishable from a human, she looked rather otherworldly with her exotic features.

“I’m here to see Mr. and Mrs. Hulse,” I said.

“I’m Emily, the manager,” she said. “May I ask why you’d like to see the owners?”

I glanced around the pub uncomfortably. “It’s a rather, uh, personal issue. I don’t mean to take up much of their time but… it really is quite important that I speak to them.”

Emily eyed the two of us a moment longer before saying, “All right. They live in the flat upstairs. I’ll call up and ask.”

She moved away from the counter and through a door into a back room. Arwen and I waited tensely in silence before she returned a few minutes later. “Okey-dokey,” she said with a bright smile. “They’re up to visitors.”

She led us into the back room with her, in the corner of which was a narrow staircase leading upward. We climbed the stairs and arrived outside a green door.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Emily said, before returning downstairs.

I wet my lower lip before raising a fist and knocking gently. Footsteps shuffled, keys clinked and then the door handle turned and clicked open. The door swung open slowly to reveal an elderly man who I guessed was in his seventies. What was left of his hair was white, and he wore a tweed waistcoat the color of mud and black corduroy pants. His back was hunched slightly as he gazed from me to Arwen.

“What can we help you young ladies with?” he asked kindly, if not a little loudly.

“You are Mr. Spencer Hulse?” I clarified.

He squinted and said, “Can you speak a tad louder?” He chuckled dryly. “Hard of hearing, you see.”

I hadn’t exactly been whispering but I asked again, louder this time, at a similar volume to his speech. “You are Mr. Spencer Hulse, is that correct?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Who is it, Spence?” the frail voice of a woman called from behind him.

“Well, that’s what I’m trying to decipher here,” he called back, looking amused.

“I’m a friend of your grandson, Lawrence Conway,” I said quickly.

At this, his jaw dropped. “Lawrence? Really?”

I nodded.

“Oh my, my, my. Come in. Come in!” He pushed open the door wider, allowing Arwen and me to step inside.

“Any friend of our Lawrence is welcome in our humble abode,” he said as he led us into a dimly lit corridor lined with seaside oil paintings.

We followed him into a small sitting room where a fireplace crackled in its center. A floral-patterned sofa stretched the length of one of the wallpapered walls, with two rocking chairs on either side—one of the chairs was occupied by an old woman I could only presume to be Mrs. Hulse.

Her wrinkled face lit up in a smile as she took in the two of us. “Did I hear you say Lawrence?”

When she made no attempt to stand up, but rather reached out a hand for us, I took it that she was probably unable to stand, or at least did so with difficulty. I moved to her and took her hand, shaking it and curtsying a little.

“Would you like some tea and biscuits?” Mr. Hulse offered.

“Ah, no, thank you,” I said. “We really don’t want to take up much of your time.”

“Then take a seat.” He gestured to the sofa, which we sank into, while he seated himself in the second rocking chair opposite his wife.

“This may seem like a strange question,” I began, “but… when was the last time you saw your grandson?”

The old couple’s eyes immediately filled with melancholy.

“Not since our daughter Georgina’s funeral,” Mr. Hulse said. “Thirteen years ago.”

“Why is that?”

Mrs. Hulse sighed. “Well, it all stems from the life Georgina chose to lead,” she replied heavily.

“And what kind of life was that?” I asked, leaning forward so much my butt almost slipped off the edge of the sofa.

“She joined the International Bureau for Supernatural Investigation when she was just a girl,” Mr. Hulse replied.

“Only eighteen,” Mrs. Hulse interjected.

“She moved up to Scotland,” Mr. Hulse went on, “and was sworn to secrecy, as is the case for many of their recruits.”

“By secrecy, you mean what exactly?” I asked.

“They’re not allowed to tell anybody anything, not even their closest relatives,” Mr. Hulse replied.

“Not even about their personal lives,” Mrs. Hulse added. “Since the two are very much intertwined in the life of an IBSI employee. At least, that’s what Georgina always told us.” She sighed again wearily. “We didn’t even know she had a boyfriend until she called us up one day and invited us to a small, private wedding ceremony. And then, soon after Lawrence was born, she and Atticus—”

“Our son-in-law,” Mr. Hulse clarified.

“—moved to America,” Mrs. Hulse finished. “We never got much of a chance to know or see Lawrence. We got to speak to him over the phone every other week. But he too has been following in his mother’s footsteps and interning with the organization. He’s also not allowed to talk much about anything really.”

“So when was the last time you talked to Lawrence?” I asked.

“He stopped calling so regularly once he became a teenager,” Mr. Hulse said. “Last time we spoke I think was…” He paused, scratching his head. “Maybe four months ago?”

I drew in a breath. Another lie from Atticus. Lawrence had been involved with the hunters all along, and it sounded like Atticus had been too… “Was Atticus also a hunter?”

“A hunter?” Mr. Hulse frowned.

“Oh, I mean an IBSI member,” I said quickly. We in The Shade were so used to calling them hunters that I forgot that wasn’t the term the rest of the world used for them.

“As far as we are aware, yes,” Mr. Hulse replied. “Georgina did tell us that much. Though, as odd as it sounds, that is pretty much all we know about our son-in-law. Their visits as a family were always… superficial.”

“Why did Georgina join the IBSI?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Pride shone in the couple’s eyes.

“Our girl was always a fighter,” Mrs. Hulse replied. “Always filled with courage and the burning desire to contribute to society. She wasn’t satisfied with just any old profession. She wanted to be of service to humanity. Of course, the logical career was with the IBSI.”

Of course.
I smiled bitterly to myself. To the outside world, that was exactly how the IBSI made themselves out to be—fighters for good, protectors of the world—and that was how they attracted so many young people. They genuinely believed that the IBSI was a force for good, and the highest form of service was to join their ranks.

Mr. Hulse stood up and walked over to the mantelpiece. He took down a small framed photograph and handed it to me. “That’s her,” he said, pointing to a pretty, smiling blonde young woman in the picture. She had rosy cheeks and brown eyes, the same shade as Lawrence’s. And in her arms she cradled a sleeping baby.
Baby Lawrence.

“So now are you going to tell us how you know our Lawrence?” Mrs. Hulse asked.

Replacing the photograph on the mantelpiece, I moved back to the sofa before starting from the beginning. Although the couple appeared anxious and taken aback by the end of it, I had expected them to react more strongly. I had been expecting their jaws to be hanging open in utter shock. I’d just told them that Lawrence had been used as a test experiment and had been on the verge of losing his life. After my story had sunk in, Mrs. Hulse simply said, “Well, I’m sure that Lawrence had his reasons for volunteering. And I’m sure that whatever experiment they had been in the process of was important, otherwise he never would’ve done it.”

I stared at them, taken aback. I was tempted to tell them what I really thought—that there was no glory whatsoever in serving the IBSI—but I bit my tongue. It wouldn’t be sensitive, given that it was a cause their deceased daughter had given her life to. They seemed to worship the ground IBSI walked on. Brainwashed.

I paused, swallowing my words. Then I asked, “So, um, your daughter… she came to stay with you, just before the accident, right?”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Hulse replied. “She had been visiting their old home in Scotland with Lawrence, but then she came alone to visit us. She said that she wanted a break to get some headspace and some work done. She had left Lawrence with his nanny. She wasn’t able to spend much time with us at all, which was disappointing. She locked herself up in her old room here, glued to her laptop the whole time—very busy with work. Though we were used to that.”

“So you didn’t detect anything odd or out of the ordinary with her?” I asked.

They shook their heads. “Nope. She just seemed preoccupied, but that was nothing unusual. She lived a demanding life, had a demanding job,” Mr. Hulse replied. Then in a more somber tone she said, “We did consider the idea that she might have committed suicide. But neither of us could bring ourselves to believe that she would. She was far too full of enthusiasm and appreciation for life. Besides, all signs pointed to it being an accident.”

Hm
.

“Her room,” I dared venture after a beat, “have you changed it?”

Mr. Hulse shook his head. “We’ve left it exactly the way it was when she left…even the possessions she left are in the same place. We move them only for cleaning.”

Hoping that I wasn’t about to cross a boundary, I hesitated again before asking, “Would you mind showing it to me?”

The old couple looked to one another. Mrs. Hulse appeared a tad reluctant, but Mr. Hulse shrugged.

“All right,” Mr. Hulse said, frowning. He led us out of the living room and up a wooden staircase. We reemerged on the top floor. He took us past a blue tiled bathroom to a tiny room with a bed, a wooden chair and desk, and a bedside table. Amidst the furniture, there was hardly any room to walk around. Floral cotton curtains lined the window, similar to the fabric of the sofa in the living room, and through the glass was a view of the shop-lined street.

Mr. Hulse cleared his throat, planting his hands on either side of the back of the chair, from which hung a cream cardigan. He watched Arwen and me as we looked around the room.

I felt the urge to spend more time in here… just to think. Live for a few moments in the same space Georgina had before she died. But I couldn’t think of how to explain to Mr. Hulse my desire to remain in the room. Besides, it was rude to intrude for much longer. The elderly man continued to watch us, making me feel awkward. I needed to return to this room with Arwen, when we could be alone.

“Okay,” I said to Mr. Hulse. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” he said, still looking at us curiously.

We returned downstairs, thanked the couple and said goodbye. But as they were on the verge of closing the door, I said, “Oh, one more thing, if you don’t mind. You didn’t comment at all regarding Atticus lying to us about Georgina’s death… I can’t help but wonder why he did that.”

Mr. and Mrs. Hulse shrugged. “Well,” Mr. Hulse replied, scratching his head, “of course, he was probably desperate to get Lawrence back from you. Perhaps he thought that story would tug on your heartstrings and you’d be more likely to hand our grandson over.”

Hm.
That had been a speculation that I had come up with on my own already. Since neither of them offered any more information than that, I was forced to accept it and say, “Okay. Thanks again.”

We headed down to the pub and then back outside onto the damp street.

“Now what?” Arwen asked, raising a brow.

“Make us invisible, and vanish us back to Georgina’s room.”

* * *

M
r. and Mrs. Hulse
were downstairs— I could hear them muttering to each other, comments about our visit. Mostly complimentary things about us, though they were confused about our random visit.

Inside Georgina’s old room, Arwen closed the door noiselessly. I sat down on the edge of the bed, letting out a shallow breath as my eyes wandered once again around the room. It was odd to think that this bedroom would have been the last place Georgina had slept before she died.

I couldn’t help but wonder why, in truth, she’d come here—all the way from the United States—just to lock herself up in a room and work on her laptop. If she’d wanted to get some headspace and time alone, why not just check into a hotel somewhere? Why travel halfway across the globe to come to England?

Maybe that was just something she did. Her parents didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about it. I stood up and ran my hands along the cashmere cardigan that hung from the back of the wooden chair. Pulling the chair outward, I sat on it, planting my palms on the desk’s surface.