Butterfly Catchers – Part XIII

From the roof of the guildhall he could see half the city, laid out before him in shades of black and silver in the moonlight. Silent. Asleep. A small part of his mind told him that it was beautiful, and he angrily pushed the knowledge away. Over the decades he had trained himself to keep watch, long silent hours, immobile, not a muscle quivering, only his eyes moving ceaselessly to scan the ground. Keeping his body still was easy – a matter of refusing the twitches and urges that danced in every sinew after a while, keening at him to move. They could be denied. The focus of his thoughts withdrawn from them so that they ceased to plague him. But his mind – to keep it focussed and attentive, not straying for one moment lest someone or something slip under his guard – that was a different matter. Perhaps with time that too would become easy.

He could see the front-door of their house, the path from the back-door, and most importantly the light from the parlour. Darla was obsessively cautious of fire and she would normally never leave a light in an unattended room. The light burned steadily, casting a broad band of yellow across the grass. And as the cathedral clock solemnly rang the passing of another quarter of an hour, Angelus allowed himself to wonder if he had miscalculated. Perhaps she really wasn’t coming.

There had been another light briefly in Will’s bedroom and then after less than five minutes it had moved to Dru’s, where it still stubbornly shone. Angelus drove his nails into the rime of frost, one of the brittle tiles flaking and cracking under his fingers, until with a slither it slid down to shatter on the cobbles fifty feet below. For a moment there was absolute silence. Then simultaneously Darla’s form appeared at the bow window of the parlour, staring into the garden, and the window casement of Dru’s room slid a few inches open and Will’s head poked cautiously out.

‘The pig will visit the moon tonight.’

‘Hush, Dru.’ The whisper carried clear across the silent rooftops. Will dropped one leg over the sill, looking back into the room. ‘You must be quiet, sweetheart. I won’t be long.’ Then in one fluid move, Will squirmed over the sill, hung for a second by his fingertips and dropped to the ground with a thump. He stood up a little shakily, as if the landing had jarred him, and looked quickly back up at the window. But Dru had shut it already.

Will waited a little longer, then seemed to deflate, blew a kiss in the direction of the window, and slipped off with exaggerated caution. Through the parlour window, Darla watched him go with a small, smug, smile.

Damn them both.

Angelus rose onto the balls of his feet and stood up. He stalked along the roof ridge, not caring that he must be outlined, a dark shape against the twinkling stars for all to see, glaring down at Will.

When Will came to the end of the street, Angelus clenched his fists, willing Will to turn towards the pub, to just be a disobedient fledgling sneaking out for his own amusement. But the pub was cold and empty, respectably shut for hours. Will looked behind himself, snuffling at the air like a puppy nosing at someone’s hand, then cast a couple of nervous glances back and forth before finally squaring his shoulders and moving off again in the direction of the little wicket gate that led towards the cathedral.

Angelus lost him once, slinking between two houses so quietly that he seemed to vanish in an instant, and Angelus had to jump quickly across to the opposite roof and hunt about for a bit before he caught sight of the fair head again. Not that Angelus doubted where Will was going.

Angelus could smell him even from the rooftops – coal smoke, boot blacking, metal polish and the cigarettes that he’d taken to stealing again and that Angelus kept turning a blind-eye to. Strong enough to cover any hint of his being a fledgling vampire so no other demon would give him a second glance in a crowd of humans, but leaving an obvious trail that Angelus could follow for hours, even on as cold a night as this. He dropped to the ground and followed the bright strong young scent that was cutting clean across to the cathedral close.

He caught Will by the alms-houses, knocking him flat with a cuff that turned him three times over before he lay in a limp heap against the iron railings in front of the deanery.

‘Stay down.’

Angelus allowed himself to turn slightly and gaze for one long moment up at the organist’s house. The windows were dark, the curtains of the little upstairs bedroom tightly pulled.

Will coughed and spat something dark onto the glistening frost, pushing himself up on one hand.

‘I told you to stay down.’

‘Am staying down.’

Angelus wound a fist into Will’s collar. ‘You are going to wish you had never been made.’

Will scowled, probing at his split lip with his tongue then slurping up to catch the trickle of blood running from his nose. ‘Leave me alone,’ he mumbled.

Angelus hit him again, until Will groaned, folding over his belly, only held up by Angelus’s fist at his collar.

‘I was only…’

Angelus snatched Will’s cap off the ground from where it had fallen and hauled him to his feet. He wanted him away from the organist’s house, away from the boy.

‘Only what?’

Angelus thrust the cap at Will and then yanked so Will flailed off balance again with a yip of protest.

‘Only letting me down – again. Only ignoring everything I’ve said to you – again.’

Angelus began to walk briskly, Will’s boots scrabbling and skidding on the frozen flagstones beside him.

‘I thought we had an understanding, boy.’

They reached the first of the lime trees that formed an avenue to the great west door of the cathedral. Darker shadow in the darkness, the thick mass of bare branches above them making a grid-work of black bars against the sky. Angelus rammed Will against the trunk, curling his lip at Will’s grunt of pain.

‘I thought I could trust you.’

Will dropped his eyes.

‘Can I trust you?’ Angelus asked softly.

‘Yes.’

‘So why, Will?’

‘Because she told me to.’

‘Dru?’ He desperately wanted it to be Dru, needed it to be just another incidence of Will playing the fool to impress his beloved.

‘Darla.’ Will sighed, soul deep, and he wouldn’t meet Angelus’s eye. And Angelus found he was frozen, had not even the energy to shout or cuff.

‘She said I had to come here, watch that house.’ He didn’t point, Angelus had very carefully taught him not to point when hunting, but he flicked his eyes in the direction of the organist’s house. ‘She said I must watch and wait for her, and kill anything that came near that house.’

‘What else?’

‘She had me deliver a letter – nights ago – to the house with the blue door. And then another one, last night. I think she’s known about them all along. She said something about Florence.’

Florence. Seventeen sixty-three. Young Alfredo dying in the gutter from a stab wound to the belly – an Impresario’s unmistakable tusk thrust but he had been too blind to realise it. And that fat pig’s simpering protégé taking Alfredo’s rightful place in the opera the very next night. No wonder the name Harmonia had been familiar! He thought of Darla playing her fear of the Impresarios, the little quiver in her lip as she had leant against him – how could he have been such a fool? And he ran.

He was too late. The parlour light was gone, leaving only the single flicker from Dru’s bedroom. Angelus swore and bent over the ground, casting for the plume of Darla’s scent. He thought he caught it once, a faint drift of dry blood and lemons, fine as dust, but then some waft of air – the updraft from the swirl of his own coat as he paced back and forth – snatched it from him and it was gone.

He worked it an age longer, eyes peeled for any imprint of her footsteps in the frost, nose rippling at every suggestion of something new, and then he threw his head back with a snarl.

‘Sir… I know where they’re meeting.’

Angelus turned and stared at the impish figure, standing at a cautious distance, blood still smeared under one nostril, eyes wide and worried.

‘I read the last letter, see. Steamed it open in the kitchen before I took it. Want me to show you, sir?’

‘Run,’ Angelus snarled.

Angelus ran after him, feeling the iron hard ground rigid beneath his feet, always aware that at any moment the treacherous frost could send him sliding. But he felt alive, the motion sending the blood pounding round his body. Ahead of him ran a young creature, weaker than he, scared, with a scent of blood. And his eyes turned yellow, the night coming clear and sharp around him.

The boy was lying. He would always lie if he could; it came as naturally to him as breathing once had. And this would be a trick like all the rest. There would be no Darla, no Harmonia. She must have arranged it all, must even now be moving in on James behind him. He growled.

He could hit Will again. He could thrash him, grind his flesh to pulp, break, smash and burn until nothing was left. And then he would kill the bitch, spread her dust across the cathedral close. And Drusilla too. He would be rid of them all. Free. Just him and James.

Will stopped. They were near the market place, in the tangle of streets called the Shambles, approaching the ancient butter-cross. Will set one hand on the crumbling plasterwork of a timbered house, his skin creamy white against the mud-spattered grey, and leaned a little round the corner. Then he looked back at Angelus, grinning.

Angelus walked softly up and followed his gaze, setting one hand on Will’s shoulder.

The butter-cross was about a hundred yards off. The three steps rose up into a pinnacle of creamy stone, carved into curls and turrets more ancient than parts of the cathedral. And in the shadow of one buttress was a deeper shadow, one that sent a tingle down his spine. Darla.

‘Mr Harmonia’. Her voice was low, not the girlish giggle she so often adopted with him but something altogether darker, more solitary. And as she took a step forward, into the moonlight, he was reminded, as he not often was, of the woman who had first gazed at him across her shoulder with a little smile that sealed his fate outside a tavern in Galway.

‘Madam?’ Footsteps came from across the marketplace, limping but still confident, and Harmonia came up to her, stooping his fat face over her extended hand, his body jerking into a bow. ‘You have a proposition for me, I believe?’ Even in his human form his broken tusk was making him lisp.

‘Indeed. Mr Harmonia. It was time to leave off a mere correspondence and meet face to face.’ She tilted her head, letting a little curl of hair slip across her cheek. ‘You must forgive a woman’s weakness, Mr Harmonia, I find it difficult to act directly in these matters, I hesitated when I should not have done and there have been regrettable occurrences. Most regrettable. But now I believe the time has come for us to act together.’

He puffed and simpered. ‘Whatever you wish, madam. So charming, so very charming.’

‘There is a boy.’

Angelus growled, a drone buzzing at the back of his throat, his fingers digging into Will’s neck. Beneath him, he felt Will squirm.

‘A boy.’

‘The boy is valuable to you, yes?’

Harmonia, perhaps not quite as stupid as he was behaving, shrugged. ‘There are many boys. In England, in Europe, many boys.’

‘But you, I believe, Mr Harmonia, want this boy. And I, I assure you, do not. So there is an obvious solution to both our difficulties.’ She smiled at Harmonia.

Harmonia’s eyes narrowed, and he cast his red glare to left and right, but Darla only smiled on and he suddenly seemed to realise that maybe this was indeed the solution he was looking for because his face abruptly melted, the eyes returning to chocolate brown as he once again kissed her hand. ‘Dear lady, what do you propose?’

‘It is simple. I will remove my family from this town. You will remove your clan. We will both have nothing to do with one another again and it will be as if this little incident never occurred.’

‘You can control this Angelus?’

‘Mr Harmonia, Angelus is my childe – of course I can control him.’

Harmonia seemed to freeze and then slowly he digested the information. ‘And the boy?’

‘Someone will bring him to you. You may do with him whatever you wish.’

Harmonia’s lips curled upwards in a triumphant smile.

That was enough. Angelus thrust Will aside and roared as he hurled himself across the cobbles, his fangs descending, his fists curling to attack.

Harmonia turned, red eyes blazing, his tusks sliding out – one the length of his forearm, the other a jagged bleeding stump. ‘Vampire.’

‘Ah, Angelus,’ Darla was warbling, ‘how good of you to…’

Angelus bounded past her, leaping to reach Harmonia before he could move, right fist arcing for Harmonia’s face.

Harmonia met Angelus with a toss of his head, ripping his tusks upwards in a blur of blood and foam flecked ivory, so that Angelus had to twist, desperately throwing himself sideways, feeling the hot, stinking gust as the tusk passed, jagged stone smashing into his shoulder as he crashed back and down.

He pushed himself up, jerking his hand as the flesh of his palm sizzled with the burn of the butter-cross, rolling back onto his feet to find Harmonia was on him again, his sweating bulk inches from Angelus’s face, tusks slashing upwards. The brute must have turned on a sixpence.

Angelus took a step back, fists weaving to try to land a blow, but Harmonia blocked him with rapid jabs, tusks flashing from side to side in a flurry of spit and grunting roars.

Angelus swept out with his legs, low, beneath the razor sharp tusk, aiming to sweep Harmonia’s feet out from under him.

Harmonia was suddenly just inches from Angelus, a snarl of triumph and contempt on his features as he charged forward into and over Angelus’s attack. A blow pounded onto Angelus’s chest, thudding through Angelus’s whole body, and Angelus was on his back, the shudder as he hit the ground blinding all his senses for a fraction of a second. Sickeningly aware that Harmonia had wanted exactly this. He threw his arm up and felt the tusk slice through cloth and skin, grating against the bone, pain flaring up to his shoulder. But he lashed his hand back, feeling his knuckles thump into the flesh of Harmonia’s throat.

Harmonia squealed, and Angelus rolled, seeking a way out from under Harmonia’s crushing frame, trapped by a cage of limbs.

The tusk slashed again, a thrusting sword wound tearing up into his chest.

And again, within inches of his heart.

Angelus roared, bringing his knee up between Harmonia’s legs, feeling it connect with a judder.

Harmonia froze, a look of puzzled agony on his piggy face, and then with a little sigh he slumped, resting his head down on Angelus’s chest, a dribble of blood and saliva trickling out from beside the broken tusk.

Angelus looked at him for a second, then wriggled out from under the bloated mass.

Will was panting, half bent over, hands on his knees, staring at the small brown knife stuck in Harmonia’s neck.

‘Did I get him?’

Angelus toed Harmonia’s body. Already it felt soft, the tissues collapsing as it started to melt.

Will straightened up cautiously. ‘That was what you wanted, yeh?’

No, he’d wanted to kill Harmonia himself. ‘It will do.’

Will grinned. ‘I got him!’ He leapt up, tossing his cap in the air with a whoop fit to wake all the good citizens. ‘I got the bastard!’

‘Be quiet, damn you, boy.’

‘I killed him!’

‘Yes, well be quieter about it.’

‘Bloody hell, Angelus, what more do you want from me? I’m doing my sodding best. He’s dead, isn’t he? And that was what you wanted, so now what’s the matter?’ His eyes suddenly went wide. ‘You’re jealous!’

‘I am not jealous. I’m—’

‘Yes you are. I killed the demon and you couldn’t – admit it, you’re jealous.’

‘Don’t you dare—’

‘You’re jealous.’

‘I am damn well not jealous! And… what are you even doing out here? You know you aren’t allowed out without permission.’

‘What?’ Will stared at him in disbelieving shock. ‘No, you bastard, you right b— She gave me an order.’ He pointed at Darla furiously. ‘She told me to go to the close, you know she did.’

‘Do I? I know nothing of the sort.’

Darla lifted her skirts, picking her way around the oozing fatty scum that was all that was left of Harmonia. ‘So,’ she said, ‘if you have finished, Angelus?’

‘Oh, I’ve not finished,’ he said coldly. ‘Well, Darla, did you order him to go to the close? Did you tell him to wait outside a particular house and kill anything that came near it until you arrived, whilst you were here, arranging to sell me out to an Impresario?’

She made a show of avoiding some piece of gristle on the ground.

‘I have no idea what you are talking about, Angelus,’ she said. ‘I had no notion that man was an Impresario until he attacked me and you were noble enough to step in to my defence.’

‘I see. So Will is yet again proving he’s an irresponsible brat, not to be trusted to tell the truth or do as he’s told?’

She looked at Will, briefly, then away, playing with her gloves. ‘I imagine so.’