The Pilgrims of the Damned: A Vampire Thriller, page 31
“Who could possibly tamper with Drest’s memories?”
“Nothing good,” the doctor said.
Miles filed all of the conversation away. If there was another Dusk out there communicating with him, it was a problem for another day.
“What happens if Ulfrik actually wakes up?” Miles asked.
“Well, it would be bad for everyone,” the doctor said. “He’s an exceptionally powerful individual. A warrior, a man who is capable of horrific violence on a whim. He would slaughter his way across this state, and any other he cared to move into. The Assembly would have to stop him, and there would be a lot of casualties, as people chose to side with the species a lot of vampires consider their gods. If he wakes up, he’ll need to be stopped before he hurts a lot of people.”
“How do you stop a Dusk, apart from sunlight?”
“An Abrams tank?” Dr. Davies suggested. “Lots of them. Maybe some attack helicopters, too.”
The world went black, and all of a sudden Miles was back in the tower. He felt lightheaded for a moment before the worst headache he’d ever experienced exploded behind his eyes. He rolled onto his back as he clutched his head in his hands.
“It’ll pass,” the doctor said, trying to comfort Miles.
Miles couldn’t speak, couldn’t see, his blood pounded in his ears, and he felt something wet drip out of them, drip out of his nose too, more wetness trickle down his cheeks. And then it was gone.
Miles lay on the ground panting as the agony faded. His hands were covered in blood.
“Your face and hair are a mess,” Dr. Davies said. “You might want to clean up and drink a blood pouch.”
Miles rolled onto all fours and saw the pool of blood that had been expelled from his body. He was hungry. He snatched the offered blood pouch out of the doctor’s hands and devoured it as if he had gone weeks without sustenance.
When he finally felt normal again, Miles got to his feet and walked to the window, looking down at the ground which held the towers. “We need to get out of here,” he said. “There’s an enormous number of desolate converging on Waterville, and judging by who those werewolves work for, there are very bad people who want to find you.”
“The desolate sleep in the ruins during the day,” the doctor said.
“Why do these werewolves want you anyway?” Miles asked. “Apart from to take you to Stuart or Liam, or someone else equally as bad.”
“I don’t know,” the doctor said. “I haven’t had time to ask.”
“Any idea why they came here to begin with?” Miles asked, ignoring the obvious lie that the doctor had just said.
“No,” the doctor said. “I wish I did.”
Miles rubbed his temples, removing the idea he’d had to leave through the front door of the ruins during the daylight hours. “You really don’t know what’s going on, then.”
“Not as much as I’d like to,” the doctor said. “I have no idea.”
“Any chance you’ve seen something you shouldn’t have before you came here?” Miles asked.
“I think it would be difficult for me to know what I had and hadn’t seen that might have been out of context,” the doctor admitted.
“A valid point,” Miles conceded. “Where’s the First Priest in all this?”
“No idea,” the doctor said. “I saw him a few days before we came here, he was talking about staying in Ellsworth. Apparently, there’s a dig going on there.”
Miles stared at the doctor for several seconds.
“You can’t possibly think the First Priest is involved,” the doctor said.
“Why not?” Miles asked.
“He’s the First Priest,” the doctor said, incredulous.
“People in positions of power are often unhappy with just how much power they have,” Miles pointed out.
“I just can’t see it,” the doctor said. “He’s such a nice man.”
“Okay, any chance that the building in Ellsworth, where the First Priest said there was a dig, is Ulfrik’s burial ground?”
The doctor considered it. “I would suggest that’s a possibility.”
“Which means the First Priest might be trying to raise Ulfrik?”
“I will admit that is also possible,” the doctor said slowly. “I guess. Although I have no idea why he would want…”
Miles waited for the doctor to finish his thought.
“House Idolator,” the doctor said. “If they could prove the Dusk were real, and then reveal the Dusk that helped create part of their House, that might help them get back into Major House territory.”
“So we need to go to Ellsworth and see the First Priest,” Miles said.
“It would be prudent to do so.”
Miles considered his next words carefully before he spoke. “Stuart was looking for a vampire to help heal him. Any chance that a Dusk would be a much better proposition?”
“I don’t honestly know,” the doctor said. “We’re getting into the realm of conjecture. We need to talk to the First Priest before we make any decisions.”
“But it’s possible that Stuart and Liam are here, in Maine, to help the First Priest in the hope of finding a cure for Stuart? Or to help the Magistrate somehow?”
“I have long since learned that almost anything is possible among those who seek power,” the doctor said.
“What else could someone be getting out of waking up a Dusk?”
“If they could control Ulfrik, he would be a powerful weapon,” the doctor said.
“I don’t see that happening,” Miles said.
“Me neither,” the doctor agreed.
“If Liam and Stuart are working with the First Priest, and the Magistrate, I see only two possible ways for them all to work,” Miles said. “Either Liam and Stuart will betray the Magistrate, or they’ll betray the First Priest. I’m not quite putting all of the pieces together. We need more information. We’d better go back to Bangor, maybe we’ll get answers there.”
“I think Bangor is in trouble. If you’re trying to raise a long-dead vampiric god, and there’s a bunch of people who might try and stop you should they discover your plan, and they’re mostly in one place, and it’s on the way,” the doctor said, “wouldn’t you send your forces to deal with the problem?”
“I-95 goes from Waterville to Bangor,” Miles said. “That road still in one piece?”
“I-95 from Augusta back to the border is a mess, but no one wanted to destroy it from Augusta up. First Priest Pedro de Moxica had a chat with the council of Bangor, when First Lord Fuller was there a few years back. They floated the idea of rebuilding Augusta, clearing it out, making the journey safer. It was the Priest’s idea originally, I believe. If he’s working to bring back Ulfrik, it’s been a plan a long time in the making.”
“Would all of those desolate just milling around above decide they need to go to see their long-dead creator?” Miles asked.
“I think the desolate who are created by a Dusk have some level of control over those who aren’t,” the doctor said. “Like a sort of weakened Desolate Royalty.”
Miles stared at the doctor. “I think Bangor might be in a lot of trouble.”
“Those werewolves senses will be screwed up for a while yet, I hope,” Dr. Davies said. “But if they do see or smell us, I don’t think they’ll fall for the perfume bomb trick more than once.”
“We go across the walkways,” Miles said. “Go back the way we came, out of these ruins. I hope you’re okay with swimming. It’ll take us to the arse end of Waterville, where we’ll get a lift back to Bangor.”
The doctor remained quiet.
“You know, there’s something bothering me,” Miles said. “Those images you showed me, they’re so real.”
“The paintings are quite lifelike,” the doctor said, and for the first time, Miles saw the nervousness in his eyes.
Miles stared at the doctor as he became visibly uncomfortable. “I didn’t see it when we were in the memory, but now that we’re out, I’m pretty sure if you were human, you’d be sweating bullets. Where did you really get all of that information, Doctor?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the doctor said.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Miles told him, getting to his feet. “Those werewolves down there want to find you a lot more than they want to go back to their boss and say they didn’t do the job. Why are they really after you?”
The doctor looked out of the window.
“Doc, I genuinely don’t have time to fuck around. So, you can tell me what you did, or I’m just going to leave you here to figure out those werewolves by yourself. No lies this time.”
The doctor sighed. “Let me show you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Miles followed the doctor out of the library and up several flights of stairs to the walkway high above where they’d both been. The doctor opened the door to the walkway, and Miles grabbed him before he could take a step forward.
The doctor looked afraid for a moment, before he noticed Miles pointing down.
“We can’t fucking find him!” one of the werewolves shouted as they walked along the walkway directly beneath where Miles and Dr. Davies crouched.
One of the werewolves sniffed the air. “Still got that fucking perfume in my nostrils, but I think I smell something.”
The doctor removed a small perfume grenade from his pocket, and Miles motioned for him to pass him the small sphere, which after a little trepidation, the doctor did.
Miles threw the sphere across the room as hard as he could, aiming for one of the towers across from where he stood. The sphere hit the middle walkway connecting the central tower of the three to the one adjacent to it, exploding upon impact and raining pieces of glass down over the side of the walkway.
“What was that?” one of the werewolves asked.
“Up there!” the second one shouted, followed by a low rumbling growl.
Miles looked through the gap in the walkway as two huge werewolves vaulted off the walkway below and landed on the ground after a fifty-foot drop, before running toward where the sound had been.
The doctor looked back at Miles, who held a finger to his lips and motioned for him to go to the door opposite.
When they were both in the tower opposite to the one they’d left, the doctor said, “I’ve been dodging them for maybe two days now. Going from place to place, never staying in one area for long. I was in here for a day before they turned up again. I thought I’d lost them in another cavern farther south.”
“Surprised they didn’t find you yet,” Miles said. “What did you do? Because we both know they’re not putting this effort into finding you because you opened the door to the ruins.”
“You’ll see,” the doctor said a little sadly.
Whatever the doctor had done, Miles got the impression he wasn’t all that proud of it. Which meant, considering the context, it was either something deeply embarrassing or horrific.
They continued down two flights of stairs, and the doctor stopped outside of a door that had the aroma of death seeping through the cracks. He removed a key that looked as if it was made of glass from his pocket, and unlocked the door.
Miles took a step to the side, just in case the doctor had arranged something unpleasant to happen, but when Dr. Davies opened the door and stepped inside, it was obvious that the contents of the room weren’t meant to be anything more than a prison cell for its only occupant.
Miles stepped into the room and the doctor closed the door, locking it behind them.
“What the fuck, Doc?” Miles asked as he stared at the lone occupant of the room. A desolate sat cross-legged on the ground, his hands in thick metal manacles. Its skin was a sickly green, and its eyes were not like any desolate Miles had seen before. There was an intelligence to the creature.
“Hello,” the desolate said, making Miles take a step back.
“A talking desolate?” Miles asked. “What the fuck are you?”
“Tired,” the desolate said.
“The accent,” Miles said, looking between the doctor and the desolate. “That’s Scandinavian. You’re a Viking, aren’t you?”
“I am,” the man said, smiling broadly, showing rotting teeth and a black tongue. “You’re one of the Celtic tribes, I think.”
“Scottish is fine,” Miles told him.
“Scottish,” the desolate repeated. “I remember that word. I think someone must have said it at some point. I’ve never been there, is it nice?”
“Aye,” Miles said, unsure what he was meant to say. “This is all very fuckin’ weird. You’re a desolate?”
“I am, yes,” the man confirmed cheerfully.
“And you’re, what, a thousand years old?”
“A little more, but close,” the man said.
“Do you have a name?” Miles asked.
“I did,” the Viking said. “I don’t remember it. I’ve been in a sort of… frozen… thing for a long time.”
“Stasis?” Miles asked.
“Yes, that’s what the doctor said it was,” the Viking said. “It’s not entirely true. We were in a deep slumber, connected to my king until he one day would wake up and our slumber would be over. Until I was woken up by another man, who wasn’t my king Ulfrik. A lot of us woke at the same time, but it wasn’t done properly, and our minds were jumbled. There was a man, he had a part of Ulfrik’s power, and he used it to enslave my brethren before we could fully wake. He turned them into guards and builders. But I escaped, and the good doctor found me down here. I think he was going to kill me until I explained that I could tell him all about the great vampire city we find ourselves in.”
“A talking desolate is like a talking horse,” the doctor said. “You kind of have to see where it goes when you find one.”
“You haven’t tried to eat me,” Miles pointed out to the desolate Viking.
“No,” he said with genuine disgust. “I do eat people. Quite like it. But it would be considered rude to eat a friend of the doctor. The man who helped to clear my head. To remember who I was.”
“There’s a lot happening here,” Miles said. “I’d quite like it explained to me. Use small words.”
“I woke up,” the Viking said. “I already said that, but I didn’t remember anything. Actually, that’s not true, I never really slept. I would see snatches of memories from people, from vampires within Maine. I saw them build the tunnels under the state, I saw them move the desolate from our place of slumber to under what the doctor tells me is called Augusta. I saw the… tram…” The Viking looked over to the doctor, who nodded.
“Well done,” the doctor said, as if he were congratulating a small child.
The desolate beamed. “Tram. The people moved the desolate from our slumber to Augusta. King Ulfrik’s royal guard. All desolate. The desolate of the Dusk. We had our minds linked. We maintained our minds, to a degree, although we still require feeding. There are not many of us left.”
“You saw them experiment on the desolate?” Miles asked.
The Viking nodded. “They took so many of us who were in… our slumber. Brought them to Augusta, performed experiments. They assumed we were just normal desolate who were found. But we were linked to our king, and the stones were wrong. He sleeps, but his power is not fully contained. When one of his children died, a part of the power contained within us would return to him, weakening those measures put in place to ensure he remained asleep. Until one day, the power that returned to him was too much for the defences that had been placed there, and the power inside them tore through the land.”
“The miasma in the air,” Miles said.
“Yes,” the doctor agreed.
“So the scientists caused the fall of Maine by experimenting on a bunch of desolate who were linked to a Dusk,” Miles said, wanting to get the details right. “And with every desolate they killed, they weakened the defences keeping the Dusk’s power in check, until the dominoes all fell and unleashed horror upon the area. Including ten thousand desolate that were still hidden… in ruins like this one?”
“Not all of the desolate have my… intelligence. Not all were turned by the king himself.”
“You came to America with him,” Miles said. “I saw your memories. It was your memory, yes?”
“Yes,” the doctor confirmed.
“So you didn’t learn all of this from just books, Doctor,” Miles said.
“A slight fabrication,” the doctor replied. “I wasn’t entirely sure how you’d handle this meeting.”
Miles figured that was probably fair. “You stayed here with him for hundreds of years before the Pilgrims arrived,” Miles said to the desolate. “You were building this whole time.”
“A city for the children of Dusk,” the desolate said. “It was to be King Ulfrik’s crowning achievement before his sleep.”
“You think a lot of him,” Miles said.
“He is the greatest man I have ever known,” the Viking said. “A man of vision, who wants to make this world better for all of us. Or was.”
“Was?” Miles asked.
“Things changed,” the Viking said, making it sound as if he was unwilling to go further on the matter.
“You said there was a man who had part of your king’s power,” Miles said, changing the subject. “You mean the talisman?”
The Viking nodded.
“Stuart Murphy?” Miles asked.
The desolate looked confused.
“A witch,” the doctor said.
“Ah, the witch,” the desolate said with no shortage of disdain. “No, it was another man. A vampire. He wore the talisman, and the desolate would wake for him, but he was angry that he couldn’t do the same for Ulfrik.”
“They found Ulfrik?” Miles asked, suddenly a great deal more concerned.
