The Thirteen Hallows (6 page)

Her smile was savage. “Checkmate.”

Iinsist,” Sarah said firmly.

Judith Walker shook her head slowly but remained silent. She needed this young woman to think that she was making her own decisions.

“I’m afraid I would be an enormous imposition,” Judith proffered weakly.

Sitting in the backseat of the police car, Sarah nodded emphatically, convincing herself that this was a good idea. “Where else are you going to go? You can’t stay here, not until the place is cleaned up.” She smiled wanly. “I’ll have to warn you that my mother may be a bit difficult, but we’ve definitely got the space. Stay the night, and in the morning, I’ll contact your nephew and together we’ll help you get your place back together.”

“Really, I really—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sarah interrupted, but without the same insistent certainty. What was she doing? She’d met this woman only hours earlier, and now she was offering her a bed for the night…. Her mother was going to go ballistic.

Judith heard the sudden indecision in the young woman’s voice and touched the hilt of the newspaper-wrapped sword, drawing power from it. She then reached out and squeezed Sarah’s hand. “It’s an extremely generous offer.”

Sarah smiled, her dimples accentuating her understated beauty. “I’ll have the police drop us at my house in Crawley.”

“You need to phone your office,” Judith suggested quietly. “They’ll be worried about you. You’ve been gone all afternoon.”

Sarah nodded. There was no sense even trying to go back to work. “I’ll tell them I can’t make it back by the end of the day,” she added, pulling out her phone.

Judith listened as Sarah tried to explain to her puzzled boss why she was taking the rest of the day off. She could hear the man’s irritated grumbles across the line, and she watched the girl’s exasperated attempts to placate him. In any other circumstance, Judith would have felt guilty about using the power of her will to manipulate Sarah in this way; however, this was a special situation.

She had to protect the sword—at all costs.

LATER, WHILE
she was lying in the strange bed, watching the reflection of the streetlights dancing on the ceiling, Judith Walker listened to the vague sounds of voices drifting up from the kitchen below. She recognized Ruth Miller’s strident clipped delivery drowning out Sarah’s softer protestations and knew she was the subject of the heated quarrel. Judith reached beneath the pillow and touched the paper-wrapped sword, concentrating on Sarah, trying to pour a little strength into her. She felt a strange sorority with this young woman, a kinship, which even after seventy-four years of experiences she didn’t quite understand.

The Miller family had welcomed Judith’s presence with cool politeness. They lived quiet suburban lives in a quiet suburban neighborhood and obviously resented this bizarre intrusion.

Tea had been a frostily civil affair.

Ruth Miller had engaged Judith in brittle inconsequential conversation, while James, Ruth’s latest lover, had barely spoken. Sarah’s younger brothers, obviously warned by their mother to be on their best behavior, had nattered in hurried whispers throughout the meal and ignored the stranger at their table. Much to everyone’s relief, Judith claimed exhaustion following the events of the day and retired immediately after tea. She had been given the youngest boy’s bedroom, a tiny box room decorated with posters of NASCAR drivers, football stars, and a scantily dressed tween rock star whom Judith Walker didn’t recognize. In the middle of the floor sat an elaborate train set and a scattering of stuffed animals. She found the contrast between the burgeoning testosterone-driven sexuality of the posters and the plush toys vaguely disturbing; she guessed the boy was no more than ten. Another sign of the times: Innocence was one of the first sacrifices to the modern age.

Sitting up on the bed, Judith unwrapped the sword and ran her fingers down the rusted metal. Holding it by the hilt, she brought the broken blade to her lips and felt the familiar surge of power that tingled through her hands and into her arms.

Old magic, ancient power, rising.

Judith felt the warmth flood through her body. Aches and pains from stiffened joints vanished; tired, worn muscles relaxed; her sight grew sharp and her hearing distinct as her senses expanded. She was young again. Young and vital and…

Old magic, ancient power, fading.

The power left as soon as it had arrived, and her newly keen sight swiftly dissolved to an unfocused blur. Her hearing became muted. And the aches and pains returned.

Sighing, she wrapped the sword in a faded cotton nightdress and tucked it beneath her pillow. When she lay back, she could feel the hardness of the old iron against her skull. As a child, she’d slept with it beneath her pillow every night, and the dreams…the dreams then had been extraordinary. The sword had been her gateway to portals of imagination, lost worlds, and wondrous and magical adventures. Those dreams had shaped her early imagination and sowed the seeds of her later career. When the book critics lauded her wonderfully detailed imagination and fully realized worlds, they had no idea that she was simply repeating and reporting on the places she’d seen.

As she grew older, Judith had hidden the sword away in her brother’s old woolen military jacket that hung at the back of the closet. The dreams then came only sporadically, and she began treating them clinically, divesting them of their chilling powers by converting them into marketable fantasy and adventure books for children. There were times when she almost forgot about the power of the Hallow that had so shaped her life.

Almost, but not quite.

But someone still believed that the Hallows were powerful; someone was prepared to kill in order to acquire the artifacts.

And Sarah, where did she fit into the overall scheme? Was her appearance, her intervention, more than coincidence? Even dormant, the Hallows attracted certain types of people—either those sensitive to the tremulous aura they exuded but unaware of their powers or those who deliberately sought the ancient objects of power still scattered throughout the world. Over the years, she’d encountered her fair share of both. And Sarah…Judith was convinced she was the former, but there was more to her. There was a strength to her that even the young woman did not recognize.

The argument downstairs finally ended with a slammed door, then stairs creaked. There was a gentle tap on the door.

“Come in, Sarah,” Judith Walker said softly, sitting up in the bed.

Sarah Miller stepped into the room, smiling sheepishly. Her cheeks were red and flushed, and her hands were trembling slightly. “I just came to see how you were,” she said quietly.

“I’m fine, thanks to you.” Judith patted the bed. “Sit for a moment.”

The young woman perched on the edge of the bed, her eyes moving about the familiar room, looking anywhere but at Judith’s face.

“I’m afraid I haven’t made you very popular with your family.”

Sarah shrugged. “I’ve never been popular with them. But they’re fine. They were just a bit surprised, that’s all.”

“I imagine your mother suspects I’m here for the rest of my life.”

Sarah shook her head quickly, though Ruth Miller had indeed suggested that very idea. “Once these people move in, they never leave,” she had preached.

“No. Nothing of the sort,” Sarah said.

Judith reached out and touched the girl’s hands. In that instant, she felt a tinge of regret for what she had done—using the girl to provide her with a secure shelter for the night, a place that couldn’t be traced. “What you did today was something you should be proud of,” she said, her voice low and insistent. “You acted in the finest traditions of old; you came to the aid of a damsel in distress.” She squeezed Sarah’s fingers and smiled.

Sarah nodded, suddenly feeling confident and sure about her actions. She
had
been sure she’d done the right thing—they had seemed
right…
until her mother had explained the hundred different reasons why she should have left the situation alone. Ruth Miller simply could not comprehend why her daughter hadn’t looked away and crossed the street.

“Do you believe in a higher power?” Judith asked suddenly.

Sarah shrugged. “We’re Church of England.”

“No, I’m not talking about a church. I’m not talking about a god or gods or anything so specific. Do you believe in a Being, a Spirit, a force for Good?”

Uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking—maybe her mother was right; maybe the old woman was mad—Sarah shrugged again. “I suppose. Why?”

“Because what you did today was
right
. It was good. Do not allow people to belittle what you did.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure why I did it,” Sarah admitted. “But when I saw them attacking you, something happened to me. I just got so angry. I couldn’t walk away….”

Judith smiled, deep wrinkles crinkling along her eyes and mouth. “In my youth, the elderly could walk the streets in safety,” she said. “But that was a long time ago.” She laid down and closed her eyes, indicating that the conversation was over.

Sarah sat with the old woman until her breathing deepened and slowed to whispered breaths. Suddenly, the young woman was acutely aware of the house around her. She felt odd, as if a sixth sense had been granted to her. She was able to tangibly experience the feelings swirling about her: her mother’s radiated anger from the kitchen below, her brothers’ dull annoyance, especially little Freddie, who had to give up his room. Sarah smiled grimly, returning to her reality. She’d managed to do it again; she’d managed to alienate them all in one go. It was a gift. Christ! Her mother’s words came flooding back: She had it all, and yet she still managed to fuck it up; she was twenty-two, in a good job, with a great future, and earning a good salary.

Sarah Miller’s smile turned bitter.

She was twenty-two, in a lousy, dead-end job she hated, and she handed over most of her salary to her mother. She should have gotten a flat when she’d had the chance. But she hadn’t taken it, and in the last couple of years she’d begun to think that maybe she never would. She’d watched her friends move away from home, get apartments in the city, find boyfriends and girlfriends, and
live
. Some of them were even married now.

Sarah gently disengaged the old woman’s fingers from her hand and stood looking down at the frail, tiny woman in the bed. Today, she’d done something positive, something good…and her mother had scolded her like a naughty little girl. Well, maybe she shouldn’t have brought Judith Walker home, but she couldn’t leave her in that horrible house, and somehow, bringing her here had seemed like the only decision to make.

It had been the right thing to do. A good thing.

Besides, the old woman would be gone in the morning, and everything would return to normal, although she knew it would be a long time before her mother would let her forget about it. She turned away, shaking her head, and quietly opened the door. She had to get out of this house before it sucked all the life out of her.

Judith’s eyes snapped open when she heard the door click shut. She listened to Sarah step into the room next to hers, heard the bedsprings creak, the tinny crackle of a television or radio. Even without the sword to enhance her senses, the old woman could feel the girl’s un-ease and discomfort. Sarah was obviously dominated by her mother, which explained how Judith had been able to take control of her so easily. Yet that still didn’t explain why the girl had come to her aid in the first place. Her type always walked away…but not this time.

That night, Judith dreamed of the girl.

The dreams were dark and violent, and in them, the girl was fighting for her life…. The sword was in the dream, too. However, Judith couldn’t make out if the girl was using the sword to destroy…or if the sword was destroying the girl.

The white king was magnificent. Three inches of solid crystal, incised and carved in marvelously intricate detail, down to the delicate design on the sword blade he held aloft. The queen was a masterpiece, the expression on the face perfect and made all the more human by the mole high on the left cheekbone. “How old are they?” Vyvienne ran her index finger down the length of the white queen. Richard Fenton’s blood had stained the white crystal darkly crimson. The old man had guarded his secret until close to the end. Only in the depths of his absolute agony, when she had stripped the flesh from his chest and back with the tiny flensing knives and then started on his inner thighs, had he revealed the secret of the location of the chessboard he had guarded for most of his life.

The man known as Ahriman stepped across the blood that gathered in the tiles at the edge of the pool, picking his way through gossamer strips of flesh that coiled with the consistency of old paper. He carefully lifted the crystal queen from the woman’s long-nailed fingers and dipped it in the pool, cleansing it. “A thousand years, certainly,” he said eventually. “And possibly another thousand beyond that.” Holding the piece up to the light, he tilted it, admiring the ancient craftsmanship. “The Chessboard of Gwenddolau,” he whispered, “each piece based upon a living figure. Each piece imbued with a fragment of the soul of that person.” He smiled thinly. “Or so the legend has it.”

“And do you believe in legends?” the woman asked, looking at the chess pieces in the velvet padded box.

Slowly, sensuously, he rubbed the queen across her pale face, pressing it between her moist lips, pushing it into her mouth. “
These
are legend.”

Vyvienne grabbed the chess piece, feeling its surge of power that charged her mentally and aroused her physically. As she clenched the piece in her palm, she undressed, allowing her spectacular body to reflect in the pool’s glass surface. As Ahriman’s hands caressed her body and she held the piece, Vyvienne turned her attention to the middle of the pool, where Richard Fenton’s frozen expression of sheer terror gaped at her as his body slowly sank to the bottom.

The corpse was barely recognizable as human.