The Thirteen Hallows (9 page)

Judith Walker sat on the park bench, her arms wrapped tightly around the bag on her lap, the weight of the ancient metal heavy on her frail legs. She’d left Crawley on the first train the previous morning and returned to Bath. She’d been sitting on the wooden bench since, petrified to go back to her devastated home. A Frisbee landed by her feet, and Judith smiled at the young man who darted in and quickly picked it up. The park was teeming with children, full of laughter and life, full of hope for their futures. She watched them, mothers and fathers playing with their children, brothers and sisters running, all squalling and screaming around one another.

She’d be joining her brothers soon: her older brother, who had died in the war, and her much younger brother, who was killed in a car accident with his wife several years earlier, leaving her nephew, Owen, an orphan. The boy had grown up in America and was very much an American, right down to the accent. Despite the fact that he had recently moved to London for work, she hadn’t seen much of him. She still remembered the mischievous curly-haired toddler who stayed with her on long holidays all those years ago. He would scamper up into her attic, creating a fortress of wooden boxes, and then tuck himself in to read his aunt’s books and create his own illustrations in pencil and crayon. But that had been a long time ago.

Focusing on the present, Judith fixed her eyes on the metallic sheet of dirty pond water before her. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine herself reaching into the bag, pulling out the paper-wrapped bundle, and tossing it into the center of the pool. In her dreams, no hand rose out of the water to grasp it, and it sank without a trace.

But it would change nothing.

She’d heard about the tragic Miller family
accident
on the six o’clock news—
gas leak wipes out entire family
—and she’d known for certain that it had been no accident. One of the reasons she had left the house so early the previous morning was to try to minimize any risk to Sarah and her family. But it was too late. A whole family destroyed…and for what? A rusted hunk of metal. And people would continue to die as long as this scrap of the sword remained in the world. Far simpler to cast it into the center of the pool and allow it to rot.

Judith reached into the bag and touched the metal through the torn newspaper. Immediately, a warm tingling sensation spread up along her arthritic fingers into her wrist and flowed up her arm. This wasn’t just a rusted chunk of metal. This was Dyrnwyn, Sword of Rhydderch, the Sword That Is Broken.

An iron age chunk of metal, a relic of another time.

And one of the Hallows of Britain.

Judith’s fingers moved slowly, sensuously, across the rusted metal, no longer feeling the flaking slivers of oxidized iron, the metal now polished smooth beneath her touch, gold wire twisted around a leather-wrapped hilt, a cut chunk of quartz deep-set into the pommel, the blade smooth, deeply grooved, the metal ragged and torn where it had been shattered just above the hilt. When she opened her eyes she saw, for a single instant, the sword as it had been before, before it blurred and shifted to the shapeless chunk of rusted metal it was now.

Someone was prepared to kill to possess this.

At least six of the Hallowed Keepers had been slain. Richard Fenton, arrogant, aggressive, double-dealing Richard, who’d sown the seeds of his fortune on the black market after the war, had been the most recent killing. It had taken place on the same day she’d been attacked. The brief radio report said that he’d been found dead in his pool and mentioned his heart condition.

Six dead—six that she knew about, though no doubt some of the others had been slain also, their deaths disguised to look like accidents and so remain unreported, quiet little obituaries of a forgotten generation tucked neatly into a small square of type on the obit page.

And it seemed that she was the only one who had figured it out.

But why had the Keepers been slain in such brutal fashion? Once upon a time, the Thirteen Hallows, both individually and collectively, had been incredibly powerful, invested with a fragment of ancient power that linked them to Britain’s primeval past. Her research into the Hallows revealed that many of the artifacts had been blessed in blood and flesh, skin and fluid, in order to heighten their latent powers—

Judith stopped, her heart suddenly racing as the grim realization dawned. The Hallows were being
fired
.

Legend had it that there were certain blood rituals that could
fire
the Hallows, reviving their ancient power, bringing them to life.

The Once Kings knew the grisly rituals; they had used human flesh and pain to feed the latent power. The Land Wed Rulers had practiced the old dark magic and had ruled through the powerful Hallows. With the passage of time and the dispersion of the Hallows, the rituals had been forgotten—though not entirely. There was evidence that Henry VIII and Brandon, his court magician, and later his daughter Elizabeth, under the guidance of Dr. John Dee, had fired their individual Hallows. Henry owned the Chessboard of Gwenddolau and had sacrificed at least two of his wives to the Hallowed chessmen, bathing the crystal pieces in their blood. Similarly, Elizabeth had worn the Crimson Cloak, and legend had it that Dee had possessed the Pan and Platter of Rhygenydd. There were rumors that Elizabeth had ordered Essex’s death—and Mary’s, too—to appease the ancient rituals and consolidate her rule.

The Hallows could be fired only by the blood sacrifice of significant people. Not just any human sacrifice would do; they had to be people of power. Once, only the blood of kings would have been sufficient to bring the sacred objects to life; now, it was the blood and skin of the hereditary Keepers, the old men and women who had protected the artifacts since their childhood.

Judith stood up, her stiff hip immediately protesting as she began the long walk around the pond, heading back toward the park gate. She couldn’t keep hiding. If the Hallows were being collected, she needed to warn her old friends. She had to return home. She had to speak to Brigid and Barbara. She must tell Don….

She needed to warn all the surviving Hallowed Keepers that they had each been marked for sacrifice.

Robert Elliot liked playing doctor. He relished the power of the white coat as he walked unhurriedly down the hospital corridor, head bent, hands thrust deep into his pockets. It was a uniform that carried tremendous power and unquestioned authority.

Elliot stopped at the nurses’ station on the fifth floor and thumbed through the pile of manila patient files. The pretty young Indian nurse busily writing her patient reports didn’t even glance up.

The small, blank-faced man pulled out one file at random.

“Sarah Miller.”

Elliot was abruptly aware of the big, hard-faced man standing in front of the nurses’ station and the younger blond woman behind him, and he knew instinctively that they were both police. He shifted his body slightly, turning away from them, and concentrated on a file.

“Where is she?” the man snapped. “We’ve just been to her room and it’s empty. I thought she was still supposed to be under sedation.”

Elliot made notes in the file.

The nurse looked up and was about to protest when the woman produced identification, confirming Elliot’s suspicions. “Ms. Miller signed herself out two hours ago,” the nurse said quickly. “Dr. Castrucci tried to stop her…,” she began, but the two police officers had already turned and walked away.

Tucking the chart under his arm, Elliot strode off in the opposite direction.

Where was the girl going to go? As far as Elliot knew, there were no relatives living in England and few friends. Robert Elliot smiled grimly; if he’d been in the girl’s shoes, he’d want answers. And only Judith Walker could give her those answers. The small man glanced at his Baume & Mercier watch; if Sarah Miller had gone immediately to Judith Walker’s home, she would get there precisely as his associates were finishing their business. And they could kill, literally and figuratively, two birds with one stone.

After a while, the pain vanished.

Judith knew that it was possible to feel so much pain that one’s entire body becomes completely numb as it realizes it is about to cross the bridge from life to whatever lies beyond.

The faces of the mocking, grinning youths had faded into indistinct, almost abstract masks, the room had dissolved, melting the walls and floors together into swirling patterns of color. She watched the colors for a long time, concentrating on them, knowing that if her attention was to falter, even for a second, her consciousness would drift back into the basement of the violated house, where she was tied to a chair while the cold-eyed youths hurt her, again and again and again.

If she lost focus, she would feel the pain, and she couldn’t afford to die. Not yet.

They had come for the sword.

The Broken Sword.

Dyrnwyn, Sword of Rhydderch.

The image of the sword grew in her mind, flowing out of the colors, solidifying into a solid bar of golden light. Judith Walker concentrated on the light, which allowed her to focus on another time, a more innocent age, when thirteen children were drawn together from all across Britain to a village in the shadow of the mountains to fulfill an ancient destiny.

The tiny portion of her psyche locked into the present was aware of the pain’s intensity: a searing precipice of agony threatening to break through the images, the stink of burning flesh strong in her nostrils.

Her burning flesh.

Judith focused on the image of the sword. In its shiny blade, she saw the face of the tramp, the battered, one-eyed tramp with the sour, bitter breath who had given each of the chosen children one of the thirteen ancient objects. He had whispered arcane secrets to them, tales of the origin of their especial hallowed object. The tramp’s face was just as she remembered it, skin so deeply creased with wrinkles that it seemed scarred, the left half in perpetual shadow from a drooping, broken-brimmed hat, half concealing the triangular patch that covered the left eye. There was a question she wanted to ask him, a question she had wanted to ask him more than seventy years ago. Then, she had wanted to know why she had been chosen to receive the sword…now, she wanted to know why she was being tortured…why she was suffering so much pain…why…

SARAH MILLER
wandered through the streets in a confused daze. The events of the past few days had condensed and flowed together, whirling into a foggy jigsaw of images, most of which were dark and terrifying, stained with innocent blood.

A concerned doctor had tried to prevent her from leaving the hospital, but Sarah had ignored him as she’d dressed, and just once, when the doctor had touched her, urging her back into bed, Sarah had given the man a look. All of the pain, anguish, and rage that bubbled inside had blazed through her eyes, and in that moment the doctor had backed off.

The young woman’s last clear memories were from forty-eight hours earlier, when she had first encountered Judith Walker: two short days that seemed like an entire lifetime. A make-believe world in which she had a life, a family, a future.

That world was gone now, lost forever.

The jigsaw images returned. They were mostly faces: those of her mother and of James, Martin, and Freddie. Little Freddie. She would never be able to wipe that image from her memory: her brother’s face, forever frozen in a terrified mask….

Her fault.

Sarah shook her head savagely. No, not her fault: Judith Walker’s fault. A frail, silver-haired old woman who had brought death and destruction into her home.

ALTHOUGH ALL
the streets in this part of Bath looked identical—rows of postwar houses, bay windows, pocket gardens, metal railings, multicolored for sale signs sprouting in every third garden—Sarah recognized the street the moment she stepped into it.

The voice on the phone had said that Judith Walker had given her something. Sarah knew she hadn’t, and her family had been butchered because of it. Judith Walker was the catalyst; she had destroyed Sarah’s ordered world. She would have the answers.

The gate squealed as she pushed it open, one end dragging across the path in a short arc. Sarah slowed as she reached the front door and then stopped with her hand on the brass knocker, suddenly wondering what she was going to say. She lifted the lion’s head and allowed it to fall. The sound echoed hollowly inside the house. She heard the faintest of scuffling sounds and knocked again, harder this time, the sound resonating in the silent street. Movement rasped and slithered within again.

Sarah pushed open the letter box and called through, “Judith, it’s Sarah Miller. I know you’re in there.”

The smell wafted through the open letter box, a mixture of excrement and stale sweat coupled with the bitter metallic odor of blood. The jigsaw images locked together, and suddenly she was home again, standing in her darkened hallway, smelling the same odors, so alien…so terrifying.

“Judith?…” Pressing her hand against the door, she pushed. It swung inward silently, and a sudden scream stopped Sarah in her tracks, raising the hackles at the back of her neck. The sound was human, but only barely so, a raw scream of absolute agony, high-pitched and terrible. It was coming from the direction of the stairs. She should turn and run, get the police, get help…but almost unconsciously, she stepped forward into the devastated hallway. There was a door under the stairs.

“Judith?”

Sarah stopped with her hand on the handle of the low door and pressed her face against the wood. The smell was stronger here, a mixture of blood and feces and something else…the stale, acrid odor of burned meat.

“Judith?” Sarah asked, pushing open the door.

“JUDITH…”

The one-eyed man had turned his head; only the slightest sparkle in his single eye provided evidence that he was facing her. Had he called her name?

“Why, Mr. Ambrose, why?” Seventy years and she’d never forgotten his name.

“Judith?…”

“Because you are the Keepers of the Hallows. The blood of the blessed flows in your veins, diluted certainly, but there. You are the descendants of those chosen to bear the Hallows and keep the land. Only the bloodline are worthy enough to keep the sacred Hallows.”

Had he spoken, or had she imagined the answer, culled it from years of research into the artifacts?

“Judith?…”

The voice broke through her consciousness, shattering the images, pulling her back, making her feel the pain.

“DEAR GOD!”

Sarah clapped both hands to her mouth, feeling her stomach heave. The figure tied to the chair in the tiny cellar was barely recognizable as human; in the glow of the single bulb, it looked more like a side of meat from a butcher’s window.

“Judith?” Her voice was a rasp, barely audible in the noisome closeness of the cellar. Sarah wondered how long the woman had survived the incredible agony. Shockingly, the woman raised her head, blood-filled eyes turning to the sound. Her torturers had spared her face, making the damage to her body all the more obscene.

“Judith…” Sarah reached out to touch her, then drew back her hand, realizing that every movement must be agony.

Incredibly the woman recognized her voice. Judith Walker smiled. “Sarah?” Her voice was a gargled mumble.

“I’ll get the police…and an ambulance.”

“No.” She attempted to shake her head and cringed with the effort. “Too late…much too late.”

“Who did this?” Sarah knelt in the blood and fluids and worked at the thin wire bonds that secured the old woman to the chair. They had obviously been twisted shut with pliers, and in places the wire had sunk deeply into her flesh.

“They came for the sword….” Judith’s voice was a thread now, rasping, sobbing.

“The what?” Sarah eased a wire away, blood weeping from the torn skin.

“Dyrnwyn, the Broken Sword. Listen to me. There’s a bag in the kitchen upstairs. From Tesco. It’s on the table, a shopping bag filled with notes and papers and what looks like a rusted piece of metal.” She coughed suddenly, fine blood misting the air. “Take them to my nephew, Owen…his address is in the bag.” Suddenly her free hand shot out, flailing blindly until it touched Sarah’s shoulder, bloody fingers biting deeply into the young woman’s flesh. “Promise me this. You must give it into his hands. His and no one else’s. Promise me. You must protect the sword. Promise.”

“I promise.”

“Swear it.” Her body was trembling now, shivering wildly. “Swear it.”

“I swear it,” Sarah said.

“Bring him the bag…and tell him I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“For what’s going to happen.”