The Thirteen Hallows (28 page)

Vyvienne allowed her consciousness to slip out of her body.

Twisting, she looked down at her sleeping body, white flesh startling and vivid against the black sheets Ahriman favored. Her hands lay crossed over her full breasts, right hand to left shoulder, left palm resting against her right shoulder. Her ankles were crossed. Even though she had traveled the Astral plane since she was a child, she still found it eerie to be looking down on herself, knowing that only the faintest of threads—gossamer and golden—connected her body to her spirit.

This was one of the few images the majority of humans carried with them from the Astral world: that of floating above one’s own body. Few humans realized that their spirits roamed free in the Astral while they slept, their dreams but fragments of their adventures in the gray Otherworld.

Spinning away from her sleeping body, Vyvienne drifted higher. This, the lowest level of the Astral, was crowded with the spirits of sleeping humans, insubstantial figures moving aimlessly across the sere landscape. Most were naked, their bodies copies of their human forms, complete with imperfections. Only when they had advanced in learning would they discover that in the Astral plane, form was mutable and they could adopt any shape or image they desired. Once they had achieved this understanding, they would delight in assuming a score of forms at night, human, animal, and those in between. Later still, when that novelty had paled, they would revert to their human forms, thought usually enhancing their physical appearances slightly, allowing them to become taller, broader, and always more handsome or beautiful.

Vyvienne rose to a higher Astral level, and immediately the number of forms diminished. She drifted higher still, and the figures became even rarer, though now there were hints of other presences, nonhuman shapes in the Astral: the Ka’s. Vyvienne had long since learned to ignore them, understanding that many were simply the shades of the long dead, flickers of powerful consciousness that had left echoes in the fabric of the Astral; a few, however, were truly alien presences and completely incomprehensible.

Once she had tuned out the commonplace shapes and figures, most of the lights and presences in the landscape disappeared. Vyvienne then concentrated on the Hallows’ telltale signatures of power, shimmering spirals of intricate knotwork. Even though the Hallows were shielded and locked with lead and ancient magic, there was enough seepage to mark their presence, and directly below her the Astral plane blossomed with the ghostly images of eleven of the Hallows.

And across the undulating gray landscape, two more approached.

Vyvienne raced toward the source of the two Hallows, falling through the layers of the Astral until she was able to see into the physical world—the Incarnate World—below.

She could see Owen Walker and Sarah Miller in a crowded bus, traveling to Madoc. And they were carrying the Broken Sword and the Horn of Bran. The two final Hallowed objects.

As Vyvienne drew back, she realized that the air about her was full of the presences of the Ka’s. She glimpsed images of men and women in the costumes of a decade of centuries, of mail-clad warriors and fur-wrapped women. They were gathered in the Astral, watching the couple intently…and then as one, they turned and looked at Vyvienne, and the wave of loathing that washed over her sent her spinning back into her own body.

She jerked awake and found herself wondering whom they hated: Owen and Sarah…or herself.

“Well?” Ahriman demanded. He was sitting in a high-backed chair set against the wall. With the first threads of dawn silver and mercury in the east, he was a shadowed, sinister shape.

“They’re coming on a bus bringing people to the festival. They’ll be here within the hour.”

“And we’ll be waiting.”

I had the strangest dream,” Sarah mumbled, her voice sticky with sleep.

Owen slid his fingers through hers and squeezed her hand in response. He was staring into the east, watching the dawn break over the distant mountains. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the dawn. It looked as if it were going to be a glorious day.

“I dreamt I was standing on a platform or stage of some sort. I was naked, and all around me—”

“Were men and women wearing the costumes and dress of a score of different ages.”

Sarah stared at him. “You too?”

“And I dreamt that a demon tried to break through the circle of bodies, but they drove it back.”

Sarah nodded quickly. She drove the heels of her hands into her eyes, rubbing furiously. “They were the previous Hallowed Keepers,” she said decisively.

“How do you know?”

“I know,” she said firmly. Suddenly she pointed to a road sign. “Madoc twenty miles.” She smiled. “Nearly there.”

They continued to hold hands in silence for the rest of the ride.

THE OLD
man in the last seat didn’t look too much out of place among the shabbily dressed youths. His army surplus coat, trousers, and ragged sneakers were identical to many of theirs, though his was in the decrepit state to which the bohemians could only aspire. Among the smells of unwashed flesh and beer and the sweeter stink of hash, his stale odor went unnoticed.

Ambrose had watched the gathering of the Demonkind in the Astral above, drawn by the interlocking spirals of power that emanated from the two journeying Hallows.

He had also watched the bright point of blue-black light approach, falling from the rarefied heights of the upper Astral, wrapped around the ghostly image of a black-haired woman. He longed to use a tiny percentage of his immense power to blast the creature but knew that he had to remain shielded. But he would find her; all he had to do was follow the stench of evil, and he would destroy her.

And now he was returning to Madoc.

It would end where it had begun, not seventy years ago, not seven hundred years ago, but nearly two thousand years ago in a tiny village at the edge of the mountains. Ambrose was finally going home.

Madoc was a sleepy community of twenty-five hundred people, nestled on the border of England and Wales.

The ancient village was featured in the Domesday Book and had appeared in some of the Arthurian legends. The local museum contained artifacts from the distant Neolithic age, and the meager coal seams of the nearby mountains had yielded fossils from both the Jurassic and Triassic periods. When the mines started closing in the seventies and eighties, many of the young men had left Madoc, seeking work in Cardiff, Liverpool, Manchester, and London. Having sampled the city life, few ever returned to the quiet town.

In the early eighties, Madoc had followed the examples set by some of the French villages in northern Brittany, the crofts in the Scottish Highlands, and some of the smaller towns in the west of Ireland and made a deliberate effort to revitalize their Celtic heritage. A modest interpretative center re-creating Bronze Age village life had proven to be surprisingly successful. Reproductions of Celtic crafts—leatherwork, wood carving, jewelry making—had established the foundations of a series of increasingly successful cottage industries, and now Madoc Celtic silversmithing and leatherwork were exported all over the world.

And when a local schoolteacher and celebrated academic had suggested the all-embracing Celtic-themed festival to the village council, it had been unanimously accepted. It seemed only natural that it should take place on All Hallows’ Eve, one of the sacred days in the old Celtic calendar: Samhain, commonly known as Halloween.

The schoolteacher had been instrumental in creating the Celtic revival that had saved the village from the fate of so many others in rural Wales, and the council listened to his suggestions. Not only did he want to create a music festival that would rival Glastonbury, he wanted to create an event. This would be more than a music festival: There would be music, arts, theatrical installations, performances, storytelling, food, and theater. Out of his own pocket, he funded an expensive interactive website that had spread word of the event across the world, and there were inevitable comparisons to Nevada’s Burning Man and Vermont’s Firefly. The local organizers had been surprised by the response. Within weeks of the initial announcement, the event was a sellout, and now there were estimates that up to one hundred and fifty thousand people would attend.

HAND IN
hand, Sarah and Owen wandered through the tiny village of Madoc. Although it was not yet eight in the morning, the small village was crowded, most of the shops were already open, and the main street, which had been designed for horse-drawn carriages and never widened, was jammed solid with cars, minibuses, and coaches.

“I’m guessing this was not the best weekend to come here,” Owen shouted to be heard over the noise.

Sarah grinned. “The locals look a bit shell-shocked,” she said.

The young couple walked slowly along the crowded streets, enjoying their anonymity, the early morning sun warm on their faces. But the moist country air was already spoiled with the odors of burning food and myriad perfumes. From the far end of town, high-pitched static howled, setting the crows wheeling into the air.

“What do we do now?” Sarah asked. She had managed barely two hours of uncomfortable and troubled sleep on the coach, and she was exhausted, her eyelids gritty. She had a sour taste in her mouth, and there was a constant buzzing in her ears. More than once she had twisted around, eyes wide, thinking she’d heard the sound of a hunting horn.

“We eat,” Owen said firmly, feeling his own stomach rumble. “I could do with some breakfast.” He stopped outside a cake shop and stared at the bread and confectionery. A short, stout, elderly red-faced woman stood in the doorway, arms folded across her massive bosom. She smiled at the young couple, and Owen nodded in return. “Excuse me?”

“Yes, dear?” The woman’s accent was light and lyrical, a little girl’s voice in an old woman’s body.

“We’re here for the festival,” Owen said, pitching his voice low, drawing the woman closer to him. It was a trick he often used with older women when he flirted with them. “We are looking for someplace to stay. Have you any recommendations?”

The red-faced woman bellowed a hearty laugh. “If you haven’t booked, then it’s unlikely you’ll find anyplace. The hotel is full and the guest houses are all booked out. I’ve heard the tent village is fully booked, too. You might find something in Dunton,” she added.

“Oh. Well, thanks anyway,” Owen said. “I guess we’ll settle for buying some of your bread. It smells fantastic.”

“It tastes even better than it smells,” the woman said simply.

Owen followed her into the shop, blinking in the gloom. He breathed deeply, savoring the odors of warm bread. “Smells like my aunt’s kitchen.”

“Your aunt likes to bake?”

Owen nodded, abruptly unable to speak, his throat closing, tears welling in his eyes.

“It’s the flour dust,” the woman said kindly.

“Our aunt Judith loved to bake,” Sarah said quickly. “In fact…” She stopped and looked around. “Would this shop have been here years ago, during the war?”

“My grandfather opened it in 1918 when he came back from the war. The first war,” she added. “Why do you ask?”

“Our aunt was evacuated to this village during the war; she used to speak about a wonderful bread shop. I wonder if it was this one?”

“This is the only one in the village,” the old woman said, beaming. “It must have been here. My mother and my aunties ran it then.” She leaned her dimpled forearms across the glass-topped counter, pushing aside the do not lean on glass sign. She shook her head, smiling at the memory. “I played with the evacuees. What was your aunt’s name?”

“Judith Walker,” Sarah said softly.

The baker frowned, looking at Sarah’s hair. “I don’t remember any red-haired girls….”

“My aunt had jet black hair. I get this color from my father’s side of the family. He’s Welsh,” she added.

“Welsh. From where?”

“Cardiff. I’m Sarah. This is my…brother, Owen.”

“Owen—a good Welsh name, of course. I can see the resemblance,” the woman added. She shook her head. “Gosh, I remember those wartime days. I shouldn’t say it, of course, but they were amongst the happiest in my life. And Millie Bailey, one of the evacuees, was my best friend.” She turned her head and looked out the door at the crowds streaming past, trapped in her memories. “Poor Millie, she would have loved this. She’s gone now. And your aunt Judith?”

“Gone too. Recently,” Owen said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re here. Visiting the places that were important to her.”

“Memories are important,” the old woman said.

Owen and Sarah waited in silence.

“How long would you be staying?” the woman asked suddenly.

“A night. Two at the most,” Sarah said quickly.

“Do either of you smoke?”

“No, ma’am,” Owen said quickly.

“I have a room, a single room,” she suggested. “It’s my son Gerald’s room, but he’s in London, working in the theater. You’re welcome to use it.”

“We’re most grateful,” Owen said immediately. “We’ll pay, of course….”

“No, you won’t,” the woman said simply. “Now you wanted some bread.”

We were expecting ten, maybe twenty thousand people…so far we’ve got about one hundred thousand, with maybe another fifty thousand expected,” Sergeant Hamilton said quietly, his Welsh accent lending the words a musical cadence. “It’s completely out of control.”

He looked from Victoria Heath to Tony Fowler. “I’ve got officers on loan from constabularies all across Wales, but we’re hoping the festival will more or less police itself. There are over fifteen hundred volunteers and they’re using the Glastonbury festival as their model.” The big man smiled. “I think we’re going to be fine. Everyone is here for a good time.”

“Not everyone, I’m afraid. I have every reason to believe that Sarah Miller, whom we want to interview in connection with half a dozen murders and the kidnapping of a young American, is here in this village.”

Sergeant Hamilton nodded toward the crowd streaming past the window of the small police station. “All my officers are assigned to duty. I’ve no one to spare….”

“I can see that,” Tony said. He reached over and pulled the phone across the desk. “Let me see if I can get some more men.”

Victoria Heath turned to look through the diamond-paned windows of the police station into the crowded street below. “If she’s here, she could be anywhere.”

“Let’s wait till everyone settles down for the night,” Hamilton said. “We’ll check the hotel and the guest houses, and then I can have the men sweep through the tent village down in the Mere. If she’s there, we’ll find her.”

Tony Fowler slammed down the phone. “Let’s just hope we find her before she kills again.”

“That’d certainly ruin the festival,” Hamilton muttered.