Page 18 of Kept 2
I had almost had a heart attack when he surprised me in the hallway earlier. But it turns out he is ‘open to adventure’ in his words, ‘fucking stupid to get involved’ in mine.
Either way, here we are together, exploring by candlelight because putting the lights on might reveal someone was present where they should not be.
As I peruse the shelves, we hold a whispered conversation.
“If it is all so tedious and stuffy downstairs why on earth are you planning on following your father into politics?”
“Oh, I’m not,” he laughs, “I’m planning a future in renewable energy – totally enthused about it since I’ve seen how far advanced they are in Mexico, a place you might least expect it. I spent several months there last year, loved every minute, and the food, my God, I could live on the stuff – so much more flavour than our English stodge.”
I frown at the mention of Mexico. It is just too close to home for me at the moment; making me think of my missing-presumed-dead best friend.
“You still haven’t explained why you are here, though?”
“Oh, yes, well. I use every possible moment to push my energy barrow to these pollies.”
“Oh,” I turn briefly to smirk at him, “so you’re not actually going to go into politics yourself?”
“Not if I can help it,” he shakes his head and rolls his eyes, “but, I never say never. There may come a time when the only way progress can be made with the Greenhouse issue is if people like medorun this bloody country.”
“Well, I’ll keep my eye on the news in the future, for Prime Minister Parker,” I laugh, turning back to the task at hand.
Seeing the gaps in the journal order, I slide the first into its home and walk to the other end of the library to return the last. On the way I note that Lord Montague has kept up the journal tradition – there is one for every year of his very, very long life. I estimate he must be close to 500 years old and mentally tally a victim a week for that duration, but give up, the number is too great for my maths-challenged brain.
Returning to my bag, I pull out my phone and walk to the journals, carefully withdrawing number two.
“Now what are you doing?” he chuckles.
“I’m going to film this one, so I don’t have to lug a dead person around in my bag,” I mutter, opening the pages and preparing to photograph them rapidly, one after the other. I’m only a few dozen pages in, however, when the library door slams open and we both look up into the horrified eyes of the butler.
I stop beside the largest of the headstones, it is black and stands out a mile in the small cemetery.
Reading the words carved into the stone, I shake my head sadly and I trace the lettering with my fingers: Hora E Sempre.
I know what it means because I’d finished reading the vampire’s first diary last night after Daniel and I were kicked out of the library. I was sent packing; his reputation and status the only reason I had not been hauled up before the police. I had been fired though, so there was that.
Reading the last entries in the first journal had solidified something to me though, something that made me want to visit this grave before I catch a lift tomorrow and leave this place for good. Lord Montague was not always bad. At one time, he had loved deeply. I imagine what it might be like to be so wholly and completely loved, but I can’t. Except for my mother and father, I had never known a love like the one the man trying to kill me had once known. And given that he is planning to murder me, I guess I never will.
I pull out my phone to re-read his last entries.
New Entry
One day until I return to Ereston for Easter, one day more of travel before I must look into Constance’s sweet face and reveal why I have not written for so long; my shame, my debauchery, my utter helplessness in the face of the will of the King of England.
And yet, my heart is glad to be free of the depravity of the court, the endless intrigues, the political and religious machinations that permeate the very air of that vile place. To be free to ride once more on horseback, to feel the air on my face, smell the sweat of my steed, the scent of the trees – my heart already feels lighter, despite all that I must reveal.
It is evening as I record this. I sit by the fire of a roadside inn and revel in the ability to think and write undisturbed, without the threat of a required visitation to the creature, Countess Elsbeth.
I know now that she is the very epitome of evil, a monster, but my warnings to the king and all who would listen have fallen on deaf ears, and I alone am left to pleasure a beast. No one will believe me when I say she kills, that she drinks the blood of her victims, that the bodies so regularly floating in the Thames are the people who were escorted to her suites weekly – never to be seen again.
I have no real proof of this, only I see whom her henchmen deliver by the secret stairwells, and it was by chance a few weeks ago that I passed a bloated corpse on the water’s edge and recognised the face. But since then, I have ridden daily by the river and witnessedthis time and again. And I know she drinks blood – for nightly she sips mine.I have become more certain these past months, that she is something from Hades. I hope that when I return to Ereston, the Catholic priest who married Constance and I may be able to give me some help to combat such wickedness, some Godly relic or weapon that will render her powerless.
The king laughed at my claims.
“She is not a pious woman, of that we both agree,” he chuckled, “but Nicholas, your aversion to her, and to doing your duty, clouds your judgement. She is no monster.”
“But Sire, I have seen her drink people’s blood, suck from their necks – she bites me regularly, struggle as I might, her strength and speed is beyond reckoning. She is a succubus, a creature, the very devil itself.”
“The devil? If you wish to see a devil take a look at the portrait of the ugly bitch whom I am expected to marry next, and try to imagine bedding that! You are the lucky one, friend. Now be gone, I am too busy for your whining, and the lady awaits you.”
