jumper.
He sat by the fire to finish the rest of the chicken soup, trying to shut out the memories that kept returning.
When the flask was empty, it was time to explore the house. He reluctantly got to his feet.
The white circle of torchlight bobbed ahead of him as he climbed the stairs.
There were just two doors leading off the cottage’s poky landing. One lay ajar. Joel remembered it as the bedroom in which he and his parents had slept on their visits here. He didn’t look inside. He turned the handle of the other door and pushed.
His grandfather had called it his ‘sanctus sanctorum’, the hallowed space where he spent hours deeply immersed in his ‘work’. Joel’s father had never let him venture in there. Maybe because, for all the scornful remarks that he made about Crazy Nick’s bizarre obsession with the supernatural, he’d respected his wish not to be disturbed. Or maybe just because he didn’t want his son’s head to be filled with any more of that nonsense than it already was.
The young Joel had formed a vivid image in his mind of what the mysterious room must look like: his grandfather bent over his desk, surrounded by piles of ancient books, poring over abstruse manuscripts, written in ancient, forgotten languages, lost in his quest to discover the secrets of vampires. His child’s imagination had pictured every detail, down to the pipe rack on the desk, the pot full of rich-smelling tobacco from some exotic land, the inkwell and quill pen. Maybe a rumpled bunk in the corner where his grandfather would retire, exhausted, after his hours of study.
Joel opened the door, shone the torch inside, and saw for the first time that the room was nothing like he’d imagined. It was a plain, simple bedroom, nothing more. A single bed, a wooden chair, a dressing table and a big solid antique wardrobe that took up most of the opposite wall. No books, no desk, no rolled-up manuscripts, no vampire-killing paraphernalia to be seen.
So what had his grandfather been doing up here all those hours? Napping?
On the dressing table sat a picture frame. The photograph inside was mildewed and discoloured with age and damp. Joel picked it up and wiped away the cobwebs from the dusty glass. He swallowed as he gazed at the photo. He could remember the day it had been taken, with the self-timer on his father’s old camera. It showed the four of them sitting on the stone wall outside the cottage. Joel’s grandfather was smiling and had his arm around his grandson’s shoulder, squeezing him to his side.
Everyone looked so happy. Just a few hours later, three of the four would be dead.
Joel set the picture down and yanked open a drawer of the dressing table. There wasn’t much inside. A dusty pair of spectacles. An old mechanical day/date wristwatch that had stopped just before four o’clock on March 13. A tortoiseshell comb with a few white hairs snagged in its teeth. Joel touched them, feeling a wave of sadness rise up inside him.
He didn’t even know exactly what it was he was looking for. It seemed impossible that his grandfather hadn’t kept some record of his dark, mysterious ‘work’.
There had to be something here about vampires. Something about the cross of Ardaich that he’d talked about so often.
Joel heard his voice again in his mind.
‘It must be a very special cross, Grandfather.’
‘Oh it is, my boy. Very, very special, and quite unique. The ancients spoke of its incredible powers against the forces of evil. It is like no other cross.’
‘What does it do to a vampire?’
‘Even just to go near the cross would mean the most horrible end for them, Joel.’
‘It kills them?’
‘You can’t kill something that’s already dead. No, it destroys them. Completely and utterly, so they can never, ever come back.’
‘Where is it now?’
‘It was lost, Joel. Many, many years ago. Some people have thought it was just a myth, but I know it exists. The world will be a much safer place once it’s been rediscovered, believe me.’
Joel closed the dressing table drawer and went over to the wardrobe. Its door creaked on rusty hinges as he opened it to shine the light inside. Again, there was nothing, just a few old clothes. A cardigan he remembered his grandfather wearing, now thick with dust and mould. He shut the door and kept searching — but he was fast running out of places to look.
His heart jumped when he found two cardboard boxes under the bed. Kneeling in the dust, he dragged them out and started rooting through them. He found yellowed receipts, a warranty for a fridge-freezer, a rail ticket dated 1977, a tin full of old coins, a maintenance manual for a Series II Land Rover, a yellowed photo of his grandfather in naval uniform, standing in a leafy park with his arm around a pretty brunette Joel barely recognised as the grandmother he’d only ever known as a white-haired old woman.
Just then, a sound from behind him made his heart squirm with fear. He dropped the torch and the room went black.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Dec’s world was a swirling tunnel of disconnected thoughts, colours and sounds.
He saw a child, running, laughing, and realised it was himself. Then his mother’s face appeared in his mind, distorted like a reflection in a warped mirror. Her voice was muffled and faraway. What are you doing with that thing, he heard her say before her image dissolved and he was drifting away on a soft current. Just drifting through the darkness. A fuzzy white blur began to take shape, coming closer. He didn’t know what it was but he felt himself drawn towards it. Then he smiled as the shape enveloped him in its warmth. The touch of her lips. The sharp sting that made him wince, pain mingled with pleasure. Her soothing voice in his ear.
‘Hello, Declan.’
‘Kate,’ he muttered. ‘Kate. I love you. Ka—’
Tap. Tap.
Dec stirred. Where was he? His eyelids fluttered open and he could suddenly feel the seat pressing against his back.
He was in the car. It was dark. Shafts of light from outside, diffused by the condensation that misted the windscreen. Cars passing. Someone was tapping on the window next to where his head was slumped against the door. He turned groggily and narrowed his eyes at the face that was peering at him through the glass.
‘Oi, Dec. Roll your window down, you dozy bugger.’
Dec rubbed his eyes. He groped for the window button and felt the cold, damp wind on his face as the glass whirred down.
‘What’re you doing in your mum’s car?’ the voice said.
Dec stared, trying to place the face of the young, blond, tousle-haired guy who was grinning in at him. ‘Who are you?’
‘Jesus, mate, you’re right out of it. Sat stalled in the middle of fucking Wallingford. You’re just asking for the cops to find you here. In enough trouble already, don’t you think?’
Dec nodded slowly. ‘Matt,’ he mumbled.
‘Yeah, yeah. Remember me? Only the guy you work with. Christ, what a state.’
Matt from the garage. He remembered now.
‘I’m not pissed,’ he slurred.
‘Could have fooled me, mate. Come on. Get out of the car. You can’t stay here.’
Dec fumbled for the door catch, and the next thing he knew he was sprawled on the wet ground.
‘I’m going to be sick.’
He felt Matt’s hands gripping his arm, helping him stagger to his feet. He leaned against the side of the Clio,
