Guildhall Guardian: Thamesian #1 (Thamesians) (6 page)

    "Considering you're the one being singled out, it has to do with accessing the Guildhall. Did you buy something of value, lately? You're the only one with the vault's code."

  "Why would they shoot me like a deer, if they wanted the code? No, it must be something else..."

  "Maybe a diversion. Check among the quarter's inhabitants. No one acting out of character? Newcomers?"

Immediately, Gioia's face appeared before his eyes. Was she a bait? Who could have possibly designed so unreliable a plan? It did not made any sense.

No, it was something he had done which held the key. No one would waste such an amount of money hiring a hunter without a strong incentive. Was it the Quarter?

    "The Guildhall's website!" he exclaimed.

    "What about that?"

    "I hired a photographer  to launch the new design of our website.  He took incredibly detailed photos of the surroundings to attract tourists. That's it!''

    ''Well, it's not the average tourist you attracted this time." said Brand wryly.

*

   I spent the next twenty-four hours just going through the motions.

Unable to come to terms with my discovery, stuffing myself with chocolate snacks and chips, taking shortcuts through the city centre and feeling in an awful bad mood.

I couldn't linger by the Cathedral and the Guildhall anymore. The thought of the mossy graves and shadowed buildings gave me shivers.

Vampire. It explained the obsession with security, the misfitting air of old, the yellow eyes.  But I was why to convince myself the veracity of that revelation?

In short this could become my story: Roman Catholic girl meets insanely attractive British bloodsucker. Girl freaks out and take the next plane back home. Girl never forgets Roydon Thamesian and her life is screwed. The end.

Of course, I had no proof of anything. What was I supposed to look for?

A list would be a good start:

Saffron eyes, check.

Hypnotizing voice, check.

Wealth and magnetism, check.

Fancy name, check.

A lair, well, a Guildhall, check.

Super fast speed, check.

Super strong, check.

Amazing kisser, no sharp teeth, check. So no fangs. Damn.

A bona fide job, and a knack for technology, hum it didn't fit.

Wine lover, dubious.

BMW driver, not relevant.

A brother, well it could be a vampire brother, no?

Immortal. Double check, thanks for the confession.

The odds were in favour of Roydon being some kind of vampire, I guess.   He was either a vampire or we wasn't. Or could it be there was an in-between?

My mind was working hard on every hypothesis.

Nice way to spend the week-end, cowering in my armchair, Cadbury  induced sugar rush, trying to summon the guts to type "real vampires signs" in my Google tool bar.

I heard Mrs. Pickle greeting a neighbour before entering the house.

It was hard to believe that in the very same city, on the same territory as this dormant suburbia, something much darker was hiding in plain sight.

Roydon himself had summed it up on our first meeting "I like my tourists scarred and bloody."

There was a knock at my door.

   "Yes?"

Mrs Pickle's head shown through the threshold. "You've been very quiet.Do you want a cup of tea, darling?" she asked kindly.

I smiled, trying to hide my confusion.

  "That's very nice of you, no thank you."

  "Oh, you working on the computer?"

She was mistaken, I could only look  so collected and focused when I was terrified of falling to pieces.

*

  Roydon had compelled Gioia to forget.  He ought not to feel guilty about saving her from his like.

He  just wished he could do the same to himself.

Brand had looked quite unaffected yet, but then his brother was not bound by the fabric of his memories and he seemed to cope much more.

He was quickly disintagrating.  Saor Wholesale Ltd was the only vintner of this kind. Had been for three centuries now. 

   With only one gulp he would have been able to lose the reminiscence of soft, rosy lips crashing against his hardened mouth. To annihilate every bit of pleasure Gioia had sparked into his undead being, to erase the sinful mortal down to her name.

He browsed the Guildhall's website but was totally unable to concentrate.

With the surge, too much information to process for his brain, he was losing the ability to dissociate the recent events from the much older memories.

A whiff of Gioia's perfume clogged his nostrils and the face of Mary flickered briefly, to the kiss succeeded death, he saw the medieval streets and the corpses of the Black death. 

Then his father was sweeping his hands, spreading the smell of rotten fish all around him.

Roydon groaned. Flooded by the sensations of his primeval life, he was close to  surrendering. As an hybrid he needed not to drink the blood of innocents.  But the withdrawal was bringing out a more vicious side of him, as the head of the Medieval Quarter, he needed a remedy.

For the first time ever, he would drink a Stonehenge.

*

  It turned out, the internet being this bottomless well of curiosities, that I wasn't alone believing in vampires. Okay, that might also be the reason why asylums are crowded these days. After removing the first layers of TV shows and movies references, Dracula was not an option either, I was seeking a more...how could I put it, a more rational way to think about it? A pratical knowledge of bloodsuckers.

It was bound to be stuck somewhere in the twilight zone of webpages.

It only took me four hours to sniff the beginning of a trail, not so bad.

Generating information through a multitude of keywords, more or less subtle such as "immortal", "crypt", "graves", "vampirism", "sepultures", "supernatural", "artifacts", "tombs", "heritage".

The first glimmer of hope was a forum link leading to an auction website in .co.uk .  The layer was very sober, less is more, all black with a  thin, red outline.

It had a countdown until the opening of the auction in 4 days, 11 hours, 32 minutes. Unfortunately everything else was locked, no access to any information. When switched to code or HTML version it revealed nothing more. Crap.

*

  Roydon scrolled down, now pumped up with the liquor.

The Stonehenge had an immediate quenching effect, it was the side effects he dreaded much, a very strong beer made for hybrids and human alike it chemically overpowering and said to breed madness.

The photographer's job was good if even a little redundant. It made the Guildhall and its surroundings look nice and and sunny, the light caught in the stained glass.

Cathedral, statue, bench, lamplight, Guildhall porch, streets signs, Guildhall again.

He scanned the pictures, looking for details, forwarding all the photos to Rob, asking him to analyse them in depth.

The graveyard. One picture had gone unnoticed at first, it was a view of the small graveyard from behind the stonewall, a ray of light falling over a very visible tombstone. Quite the blunder. He should have checked this thoroughly before going along with it.  The graves should never appear in any shot. The leaflets even forbade the tourists about it, and there so carelessly it was featured on the website.

Bloody hell.

After so much centuries going smoothly, the worst worry of his masters vampires was actually happening.

Get rid of the Guardian and you could destroy the slumbering vampires.

Simple as that.

Roydon's time to keep true to his word and fulfill his role was up.

V

   What better way to spend my Sunday than deciding to find the Guildhall again and go pester Roydon the vampire.

At 10AM I left the house, my laptop in my bag, ready to launch my very  own version of the Inquisition on the Thamesian's edifice of secrecy.

Somehow, he had tricked my memory into forgetting the exact location of the Medieval Quarter, quite a feat when you consider it was not such a big city to begin with. Okay, I just had to retrace my steps back, to push through all this nonsensical stuff of hypnotism and keep calm.

So, first the bridge, then the mall into the city centre, the fountain, going straight.

The Cathedral I would not be able to miss, unless Roydon Thamesian really had me brainwashed. Come on, he was no warlock, instinct should be better than persuasion.  The small supermarket, I got round a pub and a Tesco, a flight of stairs, crap again I found myself before the University buildings.

Damn your vampire psychic tour Roydon, I will find you again.

I admit it stinged to believe he was so keen on getting rid of me that he had done this. After all it was the humans fleeing from vampires, not the other way around.

A Subway, a small yard, HSBC bank, I had never seen this part of the city, I was sure.

It was like being stuck in a fishbowl.  I reluctantly took a look at my map.

Hum, right, I was directionally challenged.

I turned right into an unknown street, leading to a park. I sighed.

And then, above the trees, as I looked up to the other direction, I saw the faraway spire of the Cathedral. Yay!

Knock, knock Mister Thamesian, guess who is coming for lunch. Hopefully I would not be the main course...

*

Five hundred and eighty-four years ago, Roydon Thamesian had experienced a fall then a rise.  Drove by despair and ambition he had sworn his life to become the eternal, faithful protector of rich patrons.

The Stonehenge dulled the spikes of memories. 

They had come into town as men from the Court, Lancaster visiting on behalf of young King Henry VI who was only nine at the time.

Little had he known he was sealing his destiny for ever.

*

  Here I was again. The Guildhall's wooden door and the intercom. I had some doubts.

It was almost noon, in broad daylight. Maybe Roydon was not even there, maybe he was napping in his grave. Running toward an encounter with a man I firmly believed was a vampire and not even a weapon. What if he turned mad and decided to drink me until the last drop, what if -ridiculous music blaring at the back of my mind, he realized my blood (gasp)sung to him?

I just stopped with the nonsense.

My lust trumped my fear, and I buzzed at the door.

  "Gioia Di Terzi, to see Roydon Thamesian" I said at once.

The door immediately opened.

Welcome back into the den. My heart was beating loud and unrhytmically, at the thought of facing Roydon. Nice Gioia, repeating the mistake, hoping to making it good this time.

Epiphany.

Not a single thing could keep me away from coming back to Roydon Thamesian.

Rationalizing as much as I could, talking myself out of it, nothing worked. When came the moment to go to him I just followed the call.

Uh-oh.  I almost crashed into the old, dignified butler who was standing still as a statue in the lobby, at the bottom of the stairs.

  "Madam''he bowed slightly ''I will show you too Mr Thamesian's office."

Okay, no turning back.

*

  "A Miss Gioia Di Terzi, for you, Sir" said butler.

Roydon nodded.  Couldn't stay away, could you? he thought.  He  smiled.

Persistent scoundrel.  The Stonehenge made his composure looser than usual.

Gioia entered, her voluptuous hair carelessly plaited and wearing a brown shirt and black jeans.  He restrained himself from crashing into her.

  "Hello Ms. Di Terzi" he said with a predatory smile.

  "Surprised to see me again?" she asked straigthforwardly.

  "Quite yes."

She was stubbornly clutching her bag, her blue eyes almost grey again.

  "I have something for you."

How interesting, she seemed intent on not losing time.  And this new side of her was even more appealing.

  "Do tell"he said.

  ''In fact I have many things in store for you."

He couldn't help his mind from going there. Was she here for some kinky afternoon session? Lunch intercourse could be interesting. But he doubted it.

She quickly put her laptop on his desk, her moves determined.

She took hold of one of the chairs.

  "I think I'd better sit down for that."

He was intrigued to the utmost point.

*

    I was on the verge of divulging too much at the same time. It would come out messy or not at all, it seemed.  I couldn't stand Roydon's amber stare without feeling the hammer in my chest and butterflies of excitement. I tried to steady my hands as I connected my computer to the Internet.