‘Mr Knightly’s a hero,’ Dec said defensively, but the old man just went on chuckling to himself. Just a bit strange in his ways, Dec thought. Probably not such a bad old fucker once you get to know him. ‘So you’ve been with the Knightly family a long time, yeah?’ Dec said out loud, in an attempt at polite conversation.

Griffin shook his head and muttered something in Welsh.

‘Say again?’ Dec said.

‘Knightly this, Knightly that. Knightly my arse,’ Griffin muttered with an evil look as he finished gathering up the bits of straw.

Dec stared at him. ‘But—’

‘Dibble,’ Griffin croaked.

‘Beg your pardon?’

‘Reg Dibble. That’s his name. Had this draughty mouldy old place less than a year. Bought it with the money from that book.’

‘Look, mister,’ Dec protested. ‘That can’t be right. This house has been in the Knightly family for generations. Yer man in armour, on the horse there, he was his ancestor, so he was.’

Griffin leaned on the broom handle as his thin old shoulders quaked with mirth. ‘Sir Useless Knightly. Aye. That pile of old tin came from a secondhand shop.’

Dec boggled. ‘No, no! He was the first vampire hunter in the family, so he was. First in a long line.’

‘Vampires!’ Griffin wiped a tear of laughter from his wrinkly cheek. ‘Never more killed a vampire than you or I have. Shit in his pants if he ever saw one, I reckon. Duw, duw.’

A bewildered Dec was lost for words when the armoury door opened again and Knightly strolled into the range. ‘There you are, Declan. Good, good. Sorry I’m a bit late for our session. Been on the phone to my agent. Just the usual business matters I won’t bore you with. A day in the life of a bestselling author, you know.’ He sighed and gazed importantly out of the window at the view across the bay.

‘Did you upload the video clip, then?’ Dec asked, still reeling from what the old man had just told him.

‘There for all to see,’ Knightly replied. ‘Did it this morning. Oh, Griffin, there you are. Go and make up one of the other bedrooms, will you, there’s a good chap? We’re expecting another guest shortly.’

‘Aye, aye, aye.’ The old man shot him a begrudging look as he shuffled off, carrying the enormous broom, and slammed the door behind him.

A visitor? Dec thought that was strange. He hadn’t spoken to Joel an hour ago. Could he have got here so fast? Come to think of it, Dec hadn’t even mentioned it to Knightly. ‘Did he phone you, then?’ he asked.

She,’ Knightly corrected him with a generous smile. ‘Yes, she did, early this morning. A young lady who read my book and is desperate for my expert advice. It seems her father has been attacked by a vampire. I always look after my fans, Declan. And she sounded very nice. Well, she’s certainly coming to the right place.’ Knightly clapped his hands. ‘Now, our training session. Today I’m going to instruct you on the mastery of one of the most vital weapons in our anti-vampire arsenal.’

‘The crossbow?’ Dec asked hopefully.

‘The sword, Declan, the sword. Now these,’ he said, walking over to the rack and taking one down, ‘are something really special. Japanese katanas, specially made for me by a venerable swordsmith in Kyoto. The blades are solid silver. Well, silver plated, in point of fact. Here, feel the balance.’

‘Nice,’ said Dec, who’d never held a sword before. ‘Are you really Reg Dibble?’ he wanted to ask — but kept his mouth shut.

‘Formidable tool,’ Knightly went on proudly. ‘Available to order from my website. I offer a ten per cent discount to readers of my book. Of course, we’re not going to fight with these. I wouldn’t like to injure you by accident.’ Opening a large drawer beneath the rack, he lifted out two flexible nylon training swords and tossed one to Dec. ‘Now, let me show you the moves. You go and stand over there. Good. Now, imagine, Declan, that you are the vampire and I am the hunter. I’m going to attack you by surprise and slice off your head. Have no fear, my boy: I’ve done this many times. The blade will stop just short of your neck. Stand very still.’

Hefting the training sword, Knightly limbered up with a few awkward leg-bends and arm-swings. Then he took a couple of deep breaths, let out a sudden roar and rushed at Dec with the sword raised, pirouetted like an ungainly ballet dancer and whooshed the nylon blade through the air, missing Dec by several feet and smashing one of the overhead neons, which rained bits of glass down on his head.

‘Of course,’ he panted, red-faced from the exertion, brushing glass out of his hair and crunching fragments underfoot, ‘that was deliberate. Just to give you an idea of the destructive range and power of this fearsome weapon.’

‘You carry on like that with a real sword, you’re going to slice your own head off,’ said a voice behind them.

The training sword fell out of Knightly’s hand. He and Dec whirled round simultaneously to see a young woman standing there. She was wearing a fleecy denim jacket, faded jeans, and there was a bag hanging off her shoulder. Her thick blond curls were tangled from the wind.

‘W-Who are you?’ Knightly stammered.

‘Old guy let me in here,’ she said, jerking her thumb back over her shoulder. ‘I’m Chloe Dempsey.’

Chapter Forty-Three

London

Horns blared angrily and headlights flashed as Ash cut up the afternoon traffic. After years of drifting around the countryside on foot it had been a long time since he’d been at the wheel of a car, and the fast BMW Gabriel Stone had provided for him was a thrill to drive. He could get used to this, he thought as he carved aggressively through another narrow gap, forcing a bus to squeal its brakes.

He wasn’t so sure he could get used to the suit and tie, though, or the false teeth he had to wear. He’d ditch them as soon as he could. Till then, they were all part of Stone’s plan and Ash wasn’t about to question the strict, detailed orders he’d been given.

Ash’s blinded eye had stopped suppurating now, but the lids were badly swollen shut and the black bruise had spread from cheekbone to eyebrow. He didn’t care about the pain, any more than he did about his lacerated right forearm. The pain just drove him on harder.

He smiled to himself as he glanced at the slim attache case on the passenger seat. Inside, surrounded by a thick layer of lead lining, the cross nestled in a bed of soft velvet. He’d listened intently as Stone described exactly what he was to do with it. In order to become what he wanted to be, first he must destroy many of his future kind. Ash wasn’t interested in the reason why. There was nothing he wouldn’t destroy to win his reward. A whole undiscovered dreamworld had opened up in front of him and nothing could possibly stand in his way.

Which made it all the more frustrating when the traffic up ahead suddenly thickened and slowed to a standstill. More horns honked and blared impatiently all around him, but this time they were directed at the snarl-up that seemed to be caused by an accident a couple of hundred yards further up the street. An ambulance and a cop car were pulled up at the side of the road. In the flashing blue of their lights, Ash caught a glimpse of paramedics carting some old guy into the back of the ambulance.

He thought about the blood-encrusted sword that lay wrapped up in his old greatcoat in the BMW’s boot. The old Ash, the one who hadn’t given a fuck about anything except killing people, would have got out of the car right now, popped the boot open and taken the sword out. These people who dared block his progress would soon have got out of the way when he started chopping a path through them. Police? Bring ‘em on, he’d have thought to himself. Fuck ‘em.

But that had been then, and this was now. Now things were different. Now he had something to lose by being reckless. And something to gain — an unimaginably huge amount to gain — by being smart.

As he watched, he saw a policewoman threading her way back down the line of waiting traffic, pausing to speak to the drivers. He sat impassively with his hands resting on the wheel until she reached his BMW, then rolled his window down and gave her a smile. It had been years since Ash had been able to smile without scaring a fellow

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