Taming the Lion (20 page)

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Jon came to with a throbbing pain in his skull. He put his left hand to his temple. When he brought it away, his fingers were smeared with blood.

Scraps of memory came back to him. The altar on the bedroom table. Henry’s anger. The knife… How long had he been lying there, dead to the world?

His right hand hurt as badly as his head. The wound Henry had inflicted was probably deep enough to need stitches, but for now all he could do was bandage it somehow. He got up slowly, taking a moment longer than he’d have liked to gather his equilibrium.

If you’d come in here first, none of this would have happened. You and Kaspar could be on your way home now, repeating Henry’s choicest lines to each other in the car. Instead, you’ve left Kaspar at the mercy of a guy with a load of nasty little secrets. A guy who’s played you for a fool.

He found a handkerchief in his pocket. He wrapped it hastily around his palm before knotting it in place, his movements made awkward by having to use his ‘wrong’ hand. Then he dashed downstairs.

“Kaspar?” he called out. “Henry?”

He didn’t get an answer. Anxiety churned in his gut.

The dining room door stood ajar. When he pushed it open all the way, the room was empty. Kaspar’s chair had been dragged away from the table and the napkin he’d been using lay on the floor. Yet there didn’t appear to be any sign of a struggle. Had Kaspar gone willingly with Henry? If so, where?

He hurried to the front door. Looking out into the street, he noticed Henry’s car was missing from its parking space.

This isn’t good. What the hell is Henry up to? Think, man…

Jon closed his eyes. His thoughts drifted to the etching on the guest room wall, the image of Leweilun, and everything fell into place. Kaspar had been telling the truth when he’d talked about sacrifices taking place at the Foolish Brothers. Those items he’d seen on the makeshift altar—the ring, the broken watch—had come from the victims. They were the proof he needed to convince the police Henry was involved.

‘If you speak to them now, they’ll get a whiff of the alcohol on your breath and they’ll dismiss everything you have to say.’
The words he’d spoken when Kaspar had first wanted to take his suspicions to the police returned to haunt him.

He needed to find Henry, stop him doing whatever he had planned. Assuming he wasn’t too late and the worst hadn’t already happened…

It would be so easy if he could just ring Kaspar and make sure he was safe. But Kaspar had left his phone charging in the house. He fumbled in his trouser pocket and retrieved his car keys. He suspected he wasn’t in any fit state to drive, even though he’d sobered up considerably on finding both Kaspar and Henry missing. But he had no choice. He had to get to the stones.

He clambered into his car and started the engine. When he gripped the steering wheel with his injured hand, fire seemed to burn up his arm but he gritted his teeth against it. If nothing else, the pain would help to clear his head.

Stanton Combe was a good fifteen minutes away—less if he put his foot down. At this time of night, the roads would be quiet, though that didn’t mean there might not be a patrol car lurking, waiting to stop anyone breaking the speed limit. It was a risk Jon was willing to take.

As he drove, one thought repeated in his mind.
Please let Kaspar be okay.
He couldn’t help recalling the expression on Henry Mortimer’s face in the moment when the mask had slipped and the calculating fiend in him had been revealed. Henry wasn’t one of the benign pagans he’d discussed with Kaspar, who just played at witchcraft and thought respecting nature would make the world a better place. No, he obviously believed in the darker aspects of the religion, attempting to achieve his aims through bloodletting and death.

Men like Henry had existed throughout the centuries. Evidence of them had been found in so many archaeological digs. They had buried servants alive in tombs so they could accompany their master to the afterlife and slaughtered innocents in order to divine the future from their dying spasms. They had believed sacrifice could bring a fruitful harvest or pacify an angry god. He had no idea why Henry might have chosen to revive such a hideous practice but he had the feeling he was about to find out.

He took a turn in the road too fast and the car’s wheels locked. Jon fought to pull it out of a skid, sure he was about to end up smashing into a hedgerow. Hauling on the steering wheel so hard the cut on his palm opened up again, he managed to regain control of the vehicle once more. When he caught sight of his reflection in the driver’s mirror, his face was ashen and his eyes wide with terror. He put his foot on the brake for a moment, taking a deep breath to try to calm his racing heartbeat. Getting himself killed on the way to the stones wasn’t going to help Kaspar.

Slowing his speed to a safer level, Jon covered the last couple of miles to Stanton Combe. He drove along the village’s single street, looking for Henry’s car. Here and there, a light glowed behind bedroom curtains, but he saw no other signs of activity. Wasn’t there one cottage that stood on its own, up close by the stones? He seemed to recall it from his previous visits to the Foolish Brothers.

The turn-off was half hidden by low-hanging foliage, but Jon eventually found the small, rutted roadway that led to the cottage. Henry’s black saloon was parked before it. Barely had Jon killed the engine before he was out of the car and running up the path. Caution told him not to advertise his presence by banging on the front door. He’d been on the wrong end of Henry’s temper already tonight.

The curtains in the front window were open a crack, and Jon peered through them, hoping to spot signs of movement. He saw only an empty room. Keeping his head low to the ground, he crept round to the rear of the cottage.

The kitchen door stood open. Jon couldn’t decide whether that was a good or bad sign. He waited for a moment but heard no voices. The whole house appeared deserted but he needed to satisfy himself that Kaspar was not there.

He stepped inside and glanced around. A wooden knife block stood on the kitchen counter. On impulse, he grabbed a sturdy, long-bladed cook’s knife and pulled it free. He prayed he wouldn’t need to use it.

It took the briefest of inspections to assure himself there was no one in any of the downstairs rooms. The remnants of a meal stood on the dining room table—plates containing gnawed chop bones and puddles of gravy, and half-empty bottles of Chateau Margaux. Whoever these people were, they shared Henry’s tastes for the finer things in life.

He was about to climb the stairs when a noise floating in on the breeze from outside caused him to stop. A drum, being beaten in a slow, steady rhythm. The sound turned Jon’s blood to ice. He thought of the accounts he’d read of rituals that had used drumming, chanting and dancing to drive the participants to frenzied behavior. In such a state, they would commit acts that would be unthinkable otherwise.

Forgetting his need to be cautious, Jon dashed out of the house and across the back lawn, guided by the sound of the drum. Its pace had picked up, grown more urgent. Through the trees, he could see candle flames flickering. At the point where the tree cover gave way to the grassland where the Foolish Brothers were located, he stopped. He pressed himself flat against a tree trunk. He’d only caught a glimpse of the figures gathered in the middle of the stone circle but it told him enough to know something very bad was about to happen.

He risked another peek, taking in the full details this time. Kaspar, who had been stripped of his clothes, stood between Henry and a wild-haired, bearded man Jon didn’t recognize, both of whom had tight hold of one of his wrists. Even through his mounting fear, Jon couldn’t help thinking that Kaspar looked truly magnificent, bathed in moonlight.

Three other men faced the little group, two holding candles and the third a drum. They were also naked, their cocks fully erect.

Henry let go of Kaspar’s arm. Before Kaspar could try to break free of the other man’s grasp, he’d been pushed face forward onto the fallen stone. Kaspar seemed to have been winded in the process because he made no move to try to get up.

Henry raised his arms to the sky. As he did, Jon realized he held the dagger he’d taken from the altar in his guest room.

“Oh, Leweilun, great Lion Father, hear us,” Henry called out. “We have brought a willing boy for you as a sign of our devotion, and we will use him in the way you have demanded of us.”

No, you won’t. Not if it takes my last breath to stop you…

Jon took a step forward, then another. Apart from Henry, none of the men appeared to be carrying a weapon. He wondered whether the element of surprise would give him time to take Henry out of the equation before they could respond.

Not concentrating on where he was going, he walked straight into a thin, whippy branch at head height. He let out a pained yelp and every head turned in his direction.

“Someone’s there,” Henry said. “Dane, Andrews, bring him to me.”

The two men who’d been holding candles came rushing toward Jon’s hiding place. No longer caring about the consequences, he charged toward the center of the stones, brandishing his knife. The bearded man grabbed him, trying to wrest the weapon from his grip.

Jon caught sight of Kaspar, who had rolled up into a crouching position on the stone. He had an impression of Kaspar’s body beginning to shift, his lover’s human form giving way to that of a snarling lion, ready to pounce.

Then all hell broke loose.

Chapter Twenty-Five

His prayers had been answered. Jon had come for him.

Kaspar saw the knife in his lover’s hand. Blood had seeped through a handkerchief that was tied around Jon’s palm and crusted over a wound at his temple.

In the brief moment of confusion that followed Jon’s unexpected emergence from his hiding place, Bulmer stepped into the fray, grappling with Jon and trying to make him drop his weapon.

This ends now.
They could do whatever they wished to him but no one threatened his mate. Kaspar dropped to all fours and let the transformation begin. Raw energy surged through him and he felt muscle and sinew rearrange itself at lightning speed. He threw his head back and roared. The watching man whose name Kaspar hadn’t managed to learn let out a terrified scream before turning to flee through the woods. Dane and Andrews shot anxious glances at each other before following their companion. Though Kaspar saw them go, his focus was completely on Bulmer.

He leaped, slashing at Bulmer with his claws. The man howled as Kaspar gouged at the naked flesh of his back.

Jon wriggled out from underneath Bulmer, who rolled into a fetal position, hugging his arms around himself in obvious pain.

Kaspar could have finished his opponent with another swipe of his paw but he left him where he lay, in favor of turning his fury on Henry Mortimer.

Henry held the dagger in one trembling hand. The smug certainty had disappeared from his expression and he stared at Kaspar, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he saw. “Oh, blessed Lion Father, protect me,” he mumbled.

Kaspar stalked toward him, his tail swishing back and forth, his movements slow and deliberate. Henry scrambled backwards, his bare feet slipping in the blood from Bulmer’s wounds that had begun to pool on the ground.

“Kaspar, don’t. He’s not worth it,” Jon said.

But he wasn’t listening. Innocent men had died here, and Henry was responsible. Either he’d wielded the knife himself or he’d encouraged one of his colleagues to do it. It didn’t really matter. Everything happened here because Henry willed it. He’d tried to kill Jon, too, and he’d been prepared to sacrifice Kaspar in pursuit of some stupid fantasy of power and glory. Would have made him service all the men present before that, he had no doubt. Henry had to pay for what he’d done.

“Lion Father, please…” Henry looked around frantically, as if expecting his god to materialize and save him.

Kaspar placed one paw in the middle of Henry’s chest. He glanced over to Jon, trying to convey that though he regretted what he was about to do, it was all too necessary.

Then he closed his teeth around Henry’s throat, biting down hard and ending the man’s futile prayers.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The sun was rising by the time they made it to bed. Even then, they couldn’t sleep. Kaspar kept thinking about the aftermath of the attempted sacrifice. Worried by the extent of Bulmer’s injuries, Jon had called the emergency services, asking them to send police and an ambulance up to Stanton Combe.

They’d had an anxious wait while help had arrived but it had given him and Jon time to get their account of events straight. Henry had attacked Jon in the rectory, kidnapped Kaspar and brought him here to take part in some pagan ritual. Terrified that they were about to be killed, everything they’d done had been in the name of self-defense. Henry, Jon claimed, had slipped in Bulmer’s blood during their struggles and fallen throat-first on the blade of the dagger. He and Kaspar had done their best to staunch his wound but they’d been unable to save Henry’s life. Even to his own ears, the story sounded weak but the young police sergeant had dutifully noted it down.

As he was being loaded into the ambulance, Bulmer had started babbling about a giant lion that had manifested on the altar. Jon told the police the man must have suffered a hallucination brought on by whatever herbal mixture he and his colleagues had ingested before the ritual. He’d spoken with a natural authority on the subject. It had clearly impressed the sergeant.

What had been of most concern to the investigating officers, however, was Kaspar’s assertion that other men had been killed as part of similar rituals and he’d heard Bulmer talking about disposing of a body. Not wanting to give any indication that he’d been in these woods on the night of the previous sacrifice, he’d claimed this had been let slip while Bulmer was bathing him.

When they’d finally been allowed to leave, they’d walked back down to where Jon had left his car. He’d driven them back to Ellie’s house in virtual silence, obviously not wanting to talk any further about what they’d seen and done.