The King's Vampire (22 page)

“Aye, lad, it’s late, but I’ll return for that price if you’re willing to pay.”

Inside the cemetery, Amelia grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and they raced across the cemetery, dodging uneven tombstones as they ran. “Come, there are stone steps over here leading down to the crypt where the family tomb is located,” Amelia said.

An owl hooted, and the sliver of moonlight ducked behind a cloud. Wind blew the fog away, and the silvered gravestones were easily seen in the scant light. Before they reached the stone steps, Amelia stopped short, causing Elizabeth to bump into her. A shriek of anguished, animal-like pain burst from Amelia when she spotted her husband’s body lying in a pool of blood, his head beside his body, mouth opened wide, as though in a sympathetic scream matching Amelia’s own great grief.

She collapsed into a heap beside her husband, one hand touching his chest, and the other reaching out to touch the cheek of his poor decapitated head. Her sobs came out in great, ripping tears.

Elizabeth dropped down next to her, whispering, “Amelia, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

But Amelia, apparently oblivious to her friend’s puny efforts at comfort, continued to wail. After all, what was there to say in the face of such a horrible desecration? Elizabeth stroked her arm in a vain attempt at comfort.

A noise that sounded like a sympathetic moan to Amelia’s raw pain came from just over the knoll above them. Elizabeth dashed to where the sound came from. Her heart clenched tight and ached when she saw it was Darius, lying helpless on the damp grass. Fearful he was dead, too, she rushed over, but when he saw her, he warned her away. “Stop, lad, these are live pythons binding my arms and legs.”

Tossing her Cavalier hat down to the ground, and letting her auburn hair ripple over her shoulders, Elizabeth said, “It’s me, Darius, what can I do?”

“Don’t come any closer,” he said between gritted teeth.

“I’m not leaving you here. There must be something I can do.”

“Did you come alone?”

“Amelia is with me, but she’s not in any shape to help.”

“Who says I can’t help.” Amelia came marching over the knoll, even though the blood of her husband streaked across the front of her shirt and the side of her cheek. “What must we do?”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

“I’ll never be right again, but we’ve got to release Darius before we can put John down in the crypt.”

“Of course, you’re right.” Elizabeth stepped closer to Darius. “There must be a way we can get the pythons to release you.”

“What if you do release them, and then they come after you or Amelia? I can’t take that chance.” Darius tried to pull his arms free but the pythons held him bound even tighter. “Go to the George and Dragon to find more vampires to help.”

“You know we haven’t the time. We’re willing to take that chance.” Elizabeth gazed at the pythons, and then she looked toward her friend for help, but Amelia shrugged helplessly.

“I think it was Lance who said there was a spell to release the snakes, but I don’t know what it is.” Elizabeth thought hard of all she knew about basilisks, but her knowledge was slim at best.

She’d been reading some manuscripts on psychic demons, witches, and basilisks, and she recalled that staring directly into the eyes of a snake was one way to hypnotize the creature. The only problem was the basilisk could take control of her if she wasn’t strong enough to overpower him. She knew these pythons came from Julian’s abyss, and they must be powerful indeed, but there still had to be a way to thrall them.

First, Elizabeth walked back over the knoll to where the crypt was located. She stepped down the stone steps and discovered an enormous granite stone blocking the way inside the crypt. Next to the stone, a hole about three feet wide served as the entrance. She peered down, but all she could see was a great, gaping blackness.

“Hell and damnation,” she muttered. Fear squeezed her heart, but she forced aside those feelings and marched back to Amelia and Darius.

“I’m going to thrall these basilisks and lead them down into the crypt. Once I get them down there, I have only one thing to ask of you both.”

“What’s that,” Darius asked.

“Get me the hell out.”

“Darling, it’s too dangerous.” Darius looked at her with pleading eyes. “You and Amelia leave now, before it’s too late. Go seek help.”

“Who’s to help us? We’ve got to do something before it gets light and Amelia and I are turned to ash beside John.”

“What do you want me to do?” Amelia asked.

“Do you still sing?”

“Excuse me?”

“Basilisks are supposed to be enthralled with music.”

“You know that I do.”

“Well, start singing now.”

Amelia’s crystal clear soprano voice rang out through the cemetery. She sang one of the songs written especially for King Charles after the Restoration, “The King Whose Presence.”

Elizabeth didn’t know if the singing soothed the pythons, but at least it was comforting to hear her friend’s beautiful voice. She drew right up to Darius and lay down beside him. He winced, but remained perfectly still. Her eyes locked with the red glowing eyes of the python wrapped around his shoulders and wrists. She drew in a deep breath and sensed the power in her own eyes was heating up the eye sockets of the snake.

The snake’s forked tongue flickered out of his mouth to the rhythm of Amelia’s song, nearly touching Elizabeth’s own lips, but she refused to cringe or break concentration.

“My God, get away, Elizabeth,” Darius said in a choked, hoarse whisper.

Imperceptibly she saw the snake’s stranglehold loosen around Darius’s massive shoulders before he slithered off him and started to wrap his reptilian body around her. Not daring to speak, she quickly rolled out of reach of the first snake, flipping around upside down and locking her gaze with the python that had entwined around his legs and feet. Only in the back of her mind was she aware Amelia was coming to the close of her song. The last words that rang out were, “Long live the king.”

Elizabeth found herself thinking, “To hell with the king, long live us!”

Just when those final words were sung, as though that was what he’d been waiting for all along, the second python unloosed himself from Darius. Now both snakes remained on either side of Elizabeth.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Darius raise his arms to throw flames of energy at the snakes, but nothing happened. With dread, she realized the snakes must have drained his energy.

Even while fear seized her heart, sheer determination made her stand up slowly and head toward the steps leading to the crypt. Refusing to flinch and not daring to look back, she heard the whisper of the snakes slithering through the grass at her heels. She wasn’t sure at all how long a thrall on a snake would last, but she feared she’d soon find out.

She reached the gaping hole of the crypt and lightning crackled across the sky, then thunder rolled. The sky seemed to split open and rain pressed down in torrents. Resisting the impulse to run away, she forced herself to remain calm. She lowered herself through the hole in the ground, into the deep blackness, using her arms and legs to brace herself, before dropping at least four feet down, hitting the dirt floor in a crouch.

The snakes slithered in after her, and the glow of their red eyes lit up the crypt enough, so combined with her own keen eyesight, she could see where she was going. An old rusted iron casket rested in the corner of the room. Slowly, ever so slowly, she crept nearer to it with the snakes hissing alongside of her.

When she tried to lift the lid, the metal buckled and flaked away, but she noticed a hole had formed in the lid. She lifted a large stone from the crypt floor and pounded viciously at the lid until the hole grew large enough for the pythons. She forced down panic as the snakes kept wrapping around her legs. Going on instinct, she knelt and shifted her gaze to encompass first one, and then the other snake, willing them into the casket.

She shuddered as one of the snakes circled tantalizingly around her ankles before sliding toward the coffin. His enormous, silvered body eased up the rusting iron casket, which creaked in protest at the pressure of his weight until he slithered inside.

“Bloody hell,” she said aloud. Would the other serpent ever get into the casket? She hummed the tune Amelia had been singing in order to encourage the basilisks to move.

Once the first snake slivered into the box, she realized she’d lost half her light in the crypt, so even with her sharp night vision, it was difficult to see. She lifted the stone once again and drew closer to the casket, while still humming and mentally urging the other snake inside. After the second snake entered the box, she placed the heavy stone on top of the hole, praying it would keep both snakes inside.

Now she’d have to wait until Darius and Amelia rescued her, stuck here alone inside the musty old crypt with only dead bodies and two pythons she prayed would stay put. With both snakes enclosed in the casket, the darkness was so complete, even with her keen eyesight, she felt enveloped in blackness. All she heard was the sound of her own ragged breathing and the sibilant hissing of the snakes while they rattled around inside the casket.

She moved away from the snakes, but then bumped her head on the sharp edge of a tomb. Feeling warm blood trickle from her scalp, dripping down the back of her neck, Elizabeth froze where she was, afraid to move any farther. She felt trapped, buried alive. Sweat streamed down her face, her lungs constricted, her breathing labored, and her heart palpitated so fast it left her feeling nauseated. She tried not to listen to the snakes rustling restlessly around in their box.

After only a few minutes, but feeling much more like a lifetime or two, she heard scratching and scrabbling and a dull thud. Someone had made it through the hole in the crypt. Suddenly, she saw the light of a torch glowing in the distance, and Darius call out, “Elizabeth where are you?”

“Over here,” she shouted, and her voice cracked with relief at the sound.

She saw Darius’s silhouette in the torchlight. He appeared to be carrying a bundle over his shoulder, while Amelia walked beside him. Elizabeth found herself gasping aloud when she saw her friend carried John’s head tenderly wrapped in her arms.

“I wasn’t leaving him behind,” Amelia said defiantly.

“I know that, of course I do,” Elizabeth said, her hand flying to her mouth. “He must have a proper burial.” She forced herself to stay calm, even though she could have sworn the rustling of the snakes grew louder.

Darius stared around the crypt. “Where are the basilisks?”

“I forced them into that old rusty casket over there, but I don’t know how long the stone covering the top will keep them in.”

A rattling clap of thunder shook the walls of the crypt, and rain poured in from the hole, streaming down the walls.

“We must hurry and get you women home before daybreak. We haven’t much time left.”

“Let’s get this done then. Elizabeth is standing next to the Denham family tomb,” Amelia said. “We need to get John inside and then we can leave. How are we to open it?”

“If you forgive me, Amelia, if my powers have returned, I think I can open the metal lock on this iron-gate, and we can get inside.”

“Do what you have to, but please hurry.” Amelia tugged at his arm.

He noticed that Elizabeth’s shirt was now stained with crimson. “You’ve been hurt.”

“It’s all right. Open the tomb.”

He tore off his shirt and wrapped it around her head, while the blood dripped down her shirt.

Darius then lifted his arms, but only puny flames of energy flew from his fingertips. He drew in his breath, and beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. Elizabeth watched his jaws clench and his brow furrow as he raised his arms one more time. This time, orange flames hit the lock and it broke away.

They pushed open the iron-gate and stepped inside the mausoleum. Darius ducked to keep from bumping his head on the low, stone archway. Eight caskets nestled inside individual niches carved out of the stone walls.

“Do you want him inside one of the caskets?” he asked.

“The caskets are sealed shut. We haven’t time. Just set his body on top of his grandfather’s casket over in that corner.” Amelia gently placed his head on his grandmother’s casket. “Would you please say some words over him?” She looked at Darius while teardrops slid down her cheeks.

He folded his hands and bowed his head. “We are lying to rest my good friend, John Ashley. Please may he rest in peace throughout eternity. He was brave and deserving of a restful sleep. Good-bye, my dear friend.”

“I love you, John,” Amelia said. She gently placed her fingers to his lips. Elizabeth slipped one arm around her friend’s waist and drew her near, even while she clutched the other hand to her head to staunch the bleeding.

Darius led them toward the opening of the crypt. When they drew near, they splashed through puddles of water caused by the rain. At the opening, Darius handed Elizabeth the torch and he leaped up, grasping the sides of the rock walls and pulling himself out of the hole. He reached down and held out a hand.

Elizabeth held the torch, and motioned for Amelia to go next. “Go on, just be careful. I’ll go last.”

Elizabeth gave Amelia a boost upward, when she heard a snap, a crack, and a thud. Next thing she knew four red glowing lights were coming in her direction. The basilisks hissed and rustled. They were headed toward the opening.

“Amelia, I don’t want to rush you, but the pythons are coming this way.”

Darius must have heard, because he yanked Amelia up so quickly stones crumbled and fell from the wet walls of the crypt.

Elizabeth placed the torch she’d been clutching into a crack in the wall. She gripped Darius’s strong hand, and felt him pulling her up, but then a more powerful tug on her ankle dragged her back down. Her hand slipped out of Darius’s clutching fingers, and she fell to the floor of the crypt with a splash.

She couldn’t see Darius, but she heard his voice call out, “Are you all right?”

One python had coiled itself around her legs and the other tightened his body around her chest, constricting her lungs.