Cronin's Key III (12 page)

“
It’s no problem, Kennard,” Alec replied. “I just wish you’d
have called us. We could have come
to visit. I could have kicked your ass in Grand Theft Auto
until you felt better. I kick Eiji’s ass all the time.”

Eiji shrugged and
Kennard chuckled quietly. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in
mind. But your matter of importance, Alec. Haven’t happened across
another ancient madman that needs slaying?”

Alec made a face. “Well, about that…
.”

Kennard’s
mouth fell open. “Seriously? Alec, what is it with you and
weird?”

Alec sighed. “I’m actually considering contacting
Merriam
-Webster and Oxford
and asking them to reevaluate their definition of weird, because
it’s just not cutting it anymore.”

“
What is it this time?” Kennard asked. “
The Yersinians are dead, the last of the
Illyrians were taken care of, all the Egyptian gods have been sent
back to the afterlife, even the Terracotta Army went back to
statues when we left Qin’s tomb. I mean, who else is there? Did
those clay soldiers start to move again?”

Alec smiled at h
im.
“Well actually, these are lycan-type creatures who came through a
portal that seem to have the ability to stop time.”

Kennard blinked.

“
Oh,” Alec added. “And I’m
the only one who can see them.”

Kennard
glanced at each of them in turn, and seeing the seriousness on
their faces, he sighed loudly. “Really, Alec? You’re just not happy
unless you’re the center of attention, are you?” Alec barked out a
laugh, and Kennard shook his head. “Alright, alright. So how are we
going to kill them?”

* * * *

After Alec had explained the whole
story of the Zoan—complete with showing him the memories of each
encounter—Kennard was a lot more serious.

As the elder of the London coven, he’d already called
a
council meeting, not only
for England but for all of Great Britain. Telling Alec he’d even
suffer through a meeting with the Scots and the Welsh. Hell, he’d
even call the Irish just for him. Alec could see in Kennard’s mind
that while he took the piss out of the Scots and Irish, he would
also defend them like family.

“
There are some notable gargoyles around London,” Cronin
said. “I’d hoped we could check them out while we’re
here
. With your permission,
of course.”

Covens were fiercely territorial, and although none of them
would probably mind if non-London vampires
, such as Alec, started poking around their city,
Cronin was showing a mere common courtesy by asking.

“
Permission?” Kennard repeated. “For you, my dear friends, I
shall give you a grand and personal tour.”

* * * *

The gargoyles that graced the Tower
Bridge were simply stone carvings. Alec hadn’t known what to
expect, but it was obvious the grotesques were simply ornamental
design features.

The gargoyles at Westminster Abbey
were plenty in number, but once again, strictly man-made with the
purpose of either diverting roof water, or to ward away evil
spirits. Which was funny to Alec, considering five vampires were
inspecting them.

Even with Alec’s perfect vampire vision,
t
he cover of night gave the
carved stone features an even more disturbing look. The play of
shadows distorted the already unnerving characteristics.

Leaping i
nside the
cathedral, inspecting vaults and hidden basements was easy enough,
but Alec wasn’t convinced any of the statues were anything but
man-made. They were remarkable and fascinating, but not what he was
looking for.

Eiji and Jodis
had
gone to search one of the vaulted undercrofts of the Abbey for any
kind of gargoyle that might be a clue, and Kennard had searched the
bell tower, while Alec and Cronin searched the Abbey
itself.

Bored with
their lack of findings, Alec took Cronin’s hand and led him, as
regally as he possibly could, to sit in the Coronation Chair. “Your
seat, my king.”

Cronin laughed and the sound echoed fantastically
throughout the high
-ceilinged
room. He held his arms out from his body with poise, gracefully
turned, and sat, rather dramatically, on the chair.

Eiji and
Jodis walked into the Abbey, and Alec extended his arm and bowed to
them and announced, “I present to you the King of
Scotland.”

Cronin waved and raised his chin. He laid on a thick
Scottish brogue. “
Aye. Beat
the heart of a king, only for the man at his side.”

Eiji bowed down
. “And
the Oscar goes to….”

Kennard cleared his throat from the side of the
Abbey. He walked in and gave a
petulant sniff. “I’m sure the Queen of England would be impressed
with that performance.”

Cronin grinned at him. “And I shall
decree, be it noted in script and stone, that all Scots are better
in bed and battle than ye Englishmen.”

Kennard scowled at him. “Of all the
things this country’s Queen would call sacrilege of you sitting in
that chair—not that you’re a vampire, or gay, or even married to an
American—is that you’re a bloody Scot.”

Alec laughed at them. “That’s King of
Scots, thank you very much.”

Kennard rolled his eyes and c
hose to ignore them. “I found nothing. Not that I truly
know what to look for. I’ve seen nothing of the like of what Alec
has shown me from his memories.”

“
Nor us
,” Jodis said.
“There’s nothing here.”

Cronin tapped the fragile wooden
armrest. “Except this fabulous chair.”

Alec snorted. “Think it would look
good in our apartment?”

Kennard
hissed. “You’re not taking the Coronation Chair!”

Cronin laughed, stood up
, and stepped down from the chair. “Where to
next?”

“
Canterbury Cathedral,” Kennard said.

Cronin put his hand out. “Let’s go then.”
Alec, Jodis, and Eiji put their
hands atop of his.

“
Wait!” Kennard cried. He darted up to the Coronation Chair
and sat in it. “Just so the last one to sit in it was
English.”

Cronin laughed again, and when Kennard
came back over and put his hand over the others, Cronin leapt them
to another famous English church.

Canterbury Cathedral was huge. A
nother cathedral built in the eleventh century, Gothic
style, and quite frankly, Alec found it daunting. They searched the
outside first, inspecting the hundreds of gargoyles: some large,
some tiny, none of them what they were after.

Inside, t
he nave was
huge, spectacular, and nothing short of a masterpiece of its time,
but it was also sparse and cold—not in temperature but in feeling.
Alec stared at the choir screen in particular. “Why are churches so
damn creepy?” he whispered.

Cronin took his hand. “To humble the
sinners, maybe?”

“
To remind the poor that there is untouchable wealth in
organized religion, which they shall give to yet never receive,
or
receive an eternity in
damnation,” Kennard added. Then he shrugged. “Or maybe I’m cynical
about such things.”

“
Maybe.” Jodis snorted delicately. “We’ll take the library
and chapel houses to the north,” she said, and she and Eiji
disappeared.

“
I’ll take the south,”
Kennard said.

“
That leaves the crypts
and tombs to us,” Cronin said.

“
Oh, goodie,” Alec
moaned.

“
How does it fare that you, of all vampires, are spooked by
a building?” Cronin asked as they took the stairs down to the
crypt.

“
Maybe there’s some truth in
these places warding out evil.” Alec said, looking around
the crypt.

Cronin stopped and stared at him. “You
are not evil.”

Alec barked
out a laugh that echoed sharply right back at him. “I’m not exactly
what humans would call good, either, Cronin.” He walked through the
columns, lightly touching the stone pillars with his fingers. “You
know, when I was little, I thought vampires lived in huge castles
in Transylvania or somewhere, all made from stone.” He looked up at
the vaulted ceilings. “But I couldn’t think of anything
worse.”

Cronin studied him curiously for a moment.
“This is just a building, Alec. Rich
in history, yes. A place of worship for some, but still just a
building. When it was constructed, there was no such material as
drywall.”

Alec shrugged it off and gave Cronin a smile. “I know. It’s
still creepy
,
though.”

Cronin held out his hand. “Come on.
There’s nothing down here.”

They walked back u
p
the steps to the presbytery where they waited for the others. Alec
could hear their thoughts as they searched the walls, ceilings, and
the hidden compartments for any sign of the Zoan, gargoyles, lycan,
or anything.

“
They found nothing,” Alec
whispered.

Cronin sat
in the Archbishop’s throne. “I prefer the other chair,” he said,
trying to rouse a smile from Alec. It worked for a fleeting
moment.

“
The other one was more
your era,” Alec said.

“
Always having a dig at my
age,” Cronin said wistfully. “One day you shall be a thousand years
old and I’ll remind you of this.”

“
I might be a thousand,”
Alec agreed, “but you’ll be two thousand. Geriatric, by anyone’s
standards.”

Cronin gasped, faking horror. He put
his hand to his heart. “You wound me, m’cridhe.”

Kennard was first to come back, declaring what Alec already
knew. There was nothing here. Eiji and Jodis came back next, and
while
they bickered and joked
about getting Cronin his very own throne, Alec wandered down to the
burial tombs and the stained glass windows behind them.

He studied them, taking in the highest
frames, which a human would need a twenty foot ladder to do. And he
found something reoccurring throughout the Miracle
Windows.

“
Cronin,” he
murmured.

They stopped their joking and joined
him in front of the magnificent stained glass windows. “Alec, what
is it?”

He nodded
toward the highest window. “Second frame from the top, in each
section, can you see that?”

There in fragments of colored glass, each over eight
hundred years old, was a knight with a lion blazoned on
his chest, spearing a blackened
devilish creature. No doubt thought to be symbolic of the slaying
of evil, Alec saw it for what it was.

The blackened, devilish creature had a
wolf-like face, complete with a muzzle full of sharp teeth,
razor-like talons, and wings.

“
Zoan,” Cronin
whispered.

Alec nodded. “Yes.”

“
What is the age of these
windows?” Eiji asked.

“
Twelfth century,” Kennard
answered.

“
There might not be stone gargoyles here, but we’re on the
right track,” Jodis said. She smiled at Alec
, clearly happy at some kind of development.
“This is good.”

“
He looks like Saint George,” Alec noted. “And each man
spearing a creature has the lion on his chest. Is that to depict
the British monarchy or to ward off evil vampires?”

“
S
aint George is the
patron saint of the Royal Family,” Kennard said.

“
To protect
them from
those dragon-like creatures?” Alec asked. “The Zoan?”

Kennard looked up at the stained glass
windows. He took a moment to answer. “Possibly.”

“
Where to next?” Cronin
asked.

“
Rochester Cathedral,” Kennard replied.

“
These glass pictorials resemble Saint George,” Eiji said.
“Shouldn’t we be going to Saint George’s Cathedral?”

“
S
aint George’s
Cathedral wasn’t built until the 1800s,” Kennard told them. He
looked back up at the windows. “There’ll be no such histories as
these. And Rochester was built even before this place.”

Alec nodded. “
To
Rochester Cathedral then. You know, I read books about this once.
Dan Brown made a fortune. Maybe I should start writing this shit
down.”

Kennard laughed but the others didn’t
get the reference. Alec sighed. “Never mind.”

Alec leapt them this time
and landed them in the main aisle of the nave. The first
thing he saw was the pulpitum screen statues: religious men carved
from stone, perched eerily on the wall. “I have a healthy distrust
of stone statues,” Alec said. “After Egypt and China….” He
shuddered. “Look at them! They’re creepy as hell.”

The church itself wasn’t too bad, less
foreboding somehow, but still, Alec felt a general sense of
unease.

Cronin put his hand on Alec’s arm.
“Alec, are you well?”