Blood Hunter (The Grandor Descendant Series) (6 page)

Chapter 3- What’s in a Name?

Lancaster Titles Office was a long drive from the airport. The roads were icy and covered with silt, making navigating through the treacherous weather time consuming. As they drove, Ari watched the sweeping dark countryside slowly begin to thin, replaced by small towns and eventually the thriving city of Lancaster. Dotted amongst the residential blocks were remnants of magnificent castles and churches; like Ragon’s estate, these appeared to be centuries old, built from stone and adorned by crumpling statues. Here and there were old bridges fashioned in a similar manner; along many of the rivers were rows of weeping willows, whose bent and gnarled branches hung low over the water, giving Lancaster an enchanted atmosphere.      

By the time they arrived at the Lancaster Titles Offices, a little before 10pm, the building was shut. From the driver’s seat, Ragon looked up at the poorly lit building and then to a busy side street, where Latin music was playing and many small restaurants with dim lighting, housed people indulging in food or dance.

“Finally,” said Clyde, jumping out of the car to stretch. “I thought Bramond was still driving.”     

“Not nice,” said Ari, hitching her scarf tightly around her neck, so as to protect against the chilly mist that seemed to hover around her, despite the many high buildings that were acting as a wind break.

“This way,” Ragon said, moving towards the Titles Office.

“What are you doing?” asked Ari, watching the pair slink towards the closed building.

Ragon turned to stare at her, one eyebrow raised just as Clyde said, “Seriously? Do I need to paint you a picture?”

“You’re going to break in?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Clyde scoffed, as if the notion was indignant, “
we’re
going to break in.”

Ari looked over to Ragon, who nodded, and reluctantly she followed the pair, trying not to look guilty as she passed a restaurant filled with rosy faced patrons, all drinking merrily in celebration of the coming New Year.

It took them a good half an hour to break into the building. They were slow moving with Ari, but staying true to his promise, Ragon had included her. Ari had been flabbergasted when Ragon pointed out that the only way to get into the building was to climb it. What was Ragon thinking? Was she supposed to pretend to be some sort of monkey?

“Go on,” Clyde had said, looking at her with his ever present cheeky grin, which had apparently been temporarily revitalised following his blood meal, “you wanted to be here. How are you going to get in?”

Ari stared at him in confusion, but wanting to prove that she deserved to be there, tried to shimmy up the thick gutter pipe in front of her.

“Enough,” said Ragon, smiling at her efforts.

He and Clyde had wasted a good 5 minutes watching Ari, until finally taking mercy on her. Still smiling he threw her onto his back; immediately she locked her legs and arms around him, holding on tightly while he scaled up the building. Her eyes had been shut for most of the journey until Ragon whispered for her to open them, and she did so. The second she peaked out from behind her eyelids, her eyes grew large and round.

As soon as she had stopped focusing on the drastic drop below, she was able to appreciate just how beautiful it was, looking down on the city of Lancaster. Though it was late at night, the street lamps provided adequate lighting to highlight the old buildings on either side of them. Immediately to their left was what looked like an old church; the orange brickwork was timeworn and stained, with many small gargoyles jutting out from the sides. The gargoyle’s faces were macabre and distorted looking, many years of wear eating at the once smooth stone and leaving bizarre expressions on their crumpling faces. 

When finally they reached the roof, Ari avoided looking down and walked a little shakily away from the edge, her knees trembling uncontrollably.

“Lucky you had a couple of vamps handy,” Clyde said; he had reached the top several minutes before Ragon and Ari, and had already jimmied the lock to the fire escape door open. “You would probably still be humping that water pipe.”

Ari glared at him as he held the door open and then the three entered the building, climbing down a narrow flight of stairs before they reached the next door.

The building smelt of turpentine, as if it had been painted recently, and Ari found it difficult to navigate around the dark rooms with only the emergency lights for guidance. Fortunately Ragon and Clyde, whose eyes were adapted for such conditions, were easily able to locate the room they sought. After a few more minutes, in which Clyde showed off his lock picking skills yet again, they entered the files department.

The room was large, with many leather bound volumes placed neatly into labelled bookshelves, and a large desk at the edge of the room, where an ancient computer sat expectantly. Ari watched as Clyde turned the computer on. At the same time she reached for one of the books lining the walls and flipped it open. She knew immediately from the lists of names, preceded by initials such as
Sgt.
,
Prvt.
and
Lt.
, followed by next of kin details, that this particular edition must have detailed the participants of a war.

“Ok,” said Clyde, turning expectantly to face Ragon just as the dusty computer engine rebooted, “so what’s the plan?”

“All the names on Ari’s family tree that I could find in Australia are deceased. The last relative was Lady Geraldine Grant,” Ragon explained, and Clyde sat down at the desk and began typing the name into the search bar. “I am hoping that if we can find more of Ari’s relatives, we might be able to find one that’s still alive. Maybe she isn’t the only one who can do what she can do.”

“Remind me why we couldn’t do this from Australia?” Clyde asked, tapping his foot impatiently as the computer rebooted.

“They Lancaster receptionists weren’t exactly helpful over the phone; besides, I figured any living relatives in these records would probably be over here.”

At Ragon’s explanation, Ari felt a great wave of sadness rush over her; her mother and father had been killed by Kiara while her brother had died when he was just 2 years old. Though she had been raised in an orphanage, she’d always dreamed that somewhere there was a large family looking for her. The more she found out about her family tree, the less she thought this was possible.     

“Alright,” Clyde read, placing his finger against the computer monitor, “we want Estate keepings, Edition 423, page 72.”

Instantly Ragon scanned the books before him. Though there were easily a thousand books all lined up neatly in several towering bookshelves, they had been well organised; it didn’t take him long to find the right book and flip it open to page 72. With one finger scrolling down the page, he finally found the entry and read aloud.

“Lord James Grand. It says here that he was married to Lady Geraldine Grand, and that they had one daughter, Georgina, and a son that died during child birth. James was lord of Sussex and his father was Lord Commander Philip Grand,” Ragon finished, looking up at Clyde, who had already begun typing the new names into the computer’s search engine.  

They continued like this for a while. It was tedious work, having to trace both parentage lines and then cross check these with the computer files. They couldn’t find any relatives of Ari’s that were still living, although after an hour, they were finally rewarded when one name stood out.

“Ok, 1690, Mary Grandor, burnt at the stake for practising witchcraft,” said Ragon, reading out of a particularly old and dusty book.  

“Witchcraft?” said Clyde, looking up quickly. “But does that mean… do you think Ari could be a witch?”

Ragon shook his head, though his face hinted that he was contemplating this possibility.

“I’ve heard the name Grandor before,” Ari said slowly, trying to recall exactly when and where she had heard it.

For some reason a series of stars popped into her head. At first Ari thought of Orion’s belt, of the three bright stars that shone in a line; she had often seen the constellation from her bedroom window in the Grace Valley Orphanage. But why was she thinking the name Grandor had anything to do with stars?

“Wait a minute,” said Ragon. “I’ve heard it too; when we went on our first date at the planetarium. There was a star constellation that I showed you called Grandor, remember?”

“That’s right,” said Ari, struggling to remember exactly what the story behind the constellation was. “But what has that got to do with me?”

“What constellation?” Clyde asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“When we were in Australia and I took Ari to the planetarium, there was a book of stars and their positions. One of them was called Grandor. I can’t remember the story exactly, but it had something to do with Grandor’s heirs being marked, I think.”

“But it’s just a story,” said Clyde, shrugging indifferently. “That doesn’t mean-”

“-just like how vampires are make believe and stopping time, and witches and wraiths?” retorted Ragon. “We came here to find out why Ari is different, how she can do things none of us has ever seen before. This legend could explain all of that.”

“What legend? It’s just a stupid constellation. Besides, a lot of legends could explain why she can do weird things? Maybe she is Zeus’s long lost daughter, or perhaps Aphrodite sneezed on her when she was a baby?” said Clyde, sneering. “Just because some stars were named Grandor and one of Ari’s relative has the same surname, I don’t think we should jump to conclusions. I think it’s far more likely that this Mary Grandor was a witch, who was burnt at the stake, and that Ari is also a witch.”

“How many witches do you know who can do what Ari can?”

“Well-” Clyde began to say, but Ragon cut him off.

“-and how many witches do you know who can create magic without spells. Ari’s doesn’t chant anything when she stops time. She doesn’t use herbs or tools to see into the future… she just does it. Witches rely on spells to do magic, but Ari isn’t performing spells.”

Ragon and Clyde stood frozen in contemplation, while Ari glanced down at the entry detailing one of her relatives, Mary Grandor, wrestling with the strange thoughts that pulled at every corner of her mind. Why was Clyde so determined that the legend behind the Grandor constellation was just a story? And what if it wasn’t just a story? What if it did have something to do with her abilities? All of these questions swarmed through her head, so that when the three of them finally left the Lancaster Titles Office and Ragon was scaling down the building with her on his back, she barely noticed the drop below.  

They had kept a torn exert from the book which detailed Ariana’s relatives, and Ragon clutched onto this in one hand, while hailing a cab with the other. The first cab they saw drove straight past them, already full of passengers, just as Ari heard the unmistakable sound of sirens blurring in the distance. Soon the flash of blue and red lights lit up the street.

“Where the hell did they come from?” asked Clyde, craning his head around to look at the police cars, which were pulling up in front of the Lancaster Titles Office.

“Oh no; we must have tripped a silent alarm,” said Ari, her heart hammering in her chest, while Clyde began cursing.

Just then crowds of people celebrating New Year’s Eve spilled out all around them, as couples and merry friends all gathered outside onto the paved street. No one seemed to care that police were now searching the area with torchlights, or storming into the closed neighbouring building, rather everyone was looking up at the night sky expectantly, everyone except Ragon, Ari and Clyde, who were watching the uniformed officers nervously.

“What do we do?” asked Clyde. “There are way too many cops to lull them all, and we can’t escape easily with Ari.”

“Just act natural,” said Ragon, though his eyes were thin slits as he searched for an escape route.

Then everyone around them began counting down to midnight, their enthusiastic voices chanting so loudly in unison that Ari could hear nothing else at all.

“
Ten, nine, eight
,” Ragon’s eyes darted down the end of the street, where two policemen were making their way towards them, “
seven, six, five
,” Clyde and Ragon grimaced, their eyes resting on another handful of policemen that were also looking at them suspiciously, “
four, three, two,”
without second guessing herself, Ari swept over to Ragon and embraced him, pressing her lips to his as she kissed him passionately.