Chapter Five: Home Truths
Clarkson was at the station when they returned, his gear already loaded on the helicopter. As McGregor lifted the chopper off Archi soil, Mitchell locked eyes with Paddington and tapped his watch: Estika, midday tomorrow.
It was still too light for the Andrastes to be awake, so marching up to the manor and demanding answers could wait until Paddington had seen to a few practicalities. First among them: transport.
“Chief,” Charlie said when he answered the door of his little hut. He was a big man by nature and time as a fisherman had done nothing to shrink him. Days pulling in nets had hardened what was flab on most Archians and was, on Paddington, non-existent. Charlie covered his frame with a rough red sweater that looked as comfortable and warm as a hessian sack. For the past few years, Charlie had helped Lisa trade plants with the Mainland. Today, using terms like “official police business” and, more importantly, “two-hundred pounds”, Paddington convinced him to transport something bigger.
That sorted, Paddington prepared to drive to the Andraste manor. He was less than halfway across the island when the radio call came through to return to the station. Paddington hit the siren and pushed the car to its meagre limits, expecting to find the building on fire or surrounded by an angry mob that had assembled to protest the Mainlanders setting foot on their home again.
As he turned into the street, some of his fears proved unfounded: the station was intact and the parking lot clear of mobs. It housed a few more cars than usual, though, and Paddington recognised all of them. Inside he found their owners: the other members of the werewolf pack, all sitting pleasantly in the waiting area. Before Paddington was more than a few steps in, Tony was out of his chair and in his face. Tony was the biggest of them and keen to throw his bulk around. Where Paddington kept himself lean and fit, Tony had let himself relax into an easy life since the pack had been freed of Adonis’s rule. Too many pies at the Church of Enanti’s annual fête. Too much religion could kill a man.
“Is it true?” Tony asked from a few inches away.
News travelled fast. “The Andrastes are gone, yes.”
“What do we do?” Curt asked. He was the youngest, only twenty-one. Not a bad sort, really, once you knew him. He was just… loyal, and easily-led, and didn’t necessarily think. For instance, when the old alpha of the pack had wanted someone to torture Paddington no questions asked, he’d chosen Curt.
“We go after them,” Will said. Broad-shouldered and roughly attractive, he always paused unnervingly before speaking. Words didn’t come easily to him, so he chose each with great care.
“No, I go after them.” Paddington circled his desk and sat. “Charlie is taking me to the Mainland at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll deal with this.”
“Why you?” Tony asked. It would be nice if he’d stop leaning over Paddington like he was about to punch him.
He didn’t flinch. “Because I’m the chief constable, because I brokered the truce, and because I know the Team.”
“You’re trusting Mainlanders over us?” Will asked. That was a bad sign. If Will was against an idea, pretty soon the rest of the pack realised they were against it as well.
“This is what they do,” Paddington said. “They have access to weapons, equipment.”
“I know,” Will said. “But this is Archi business.”
Yes and as an Archian, Paddington was going to deal with it. Or did they mean…
“Really? You lot want to go to the Mainland?”
These men were, without fail, devout Archians. They had been chosen to become werewolves based on their loyalty. They were usually the first to shun anyone who had been to the Mainland – him and Lisa, for instance – and denounce them as tainted. Dom had been the exception, and only because a social pariah like Lisa was the only girl he was ever likely to get.
It wasn’t that Dom was ugly, exactly. It was just that… There was something about Dom that seemed pitiful. His hair was darker and greasier than the others’, he had less muscle, he was shorter. He was, in many ways, the runt of the pack.
“We don’t want to,” Will said, “but we will.”
“I only told you so you’d know what was happening, I didn’t mean for you to volunteer.”
“This is our business, Jim.”
“He’s right, sir,” Constable Rick said. Rick was with them too?
Time for a different tactic. “What if you come back from the Mainland and no one talks to you?”
“I can stand being disliked,” Pete said. “I can’t stand being someone’s fool.” Pete had taken Adonis’s manipulation of the pack harder than the others.
Paddington took a long moment to look each of them in the eyes, one after the other. “All right,” he said at last. “Nine a.m. at the south dock.” Paddington rubbed his forehead. “You realise you might not all come back? If they see all of you, they’ll think we’re there for war.”
“We will be,” Pete said.
The impromptu meeting was over with that sentence. The pack remained in the waiting area a little while chatting about their days while Paddington tried to talk them out of it and Will assured him it wasn’t necessary. Then they left, all except Rick, who lingered in front of his desk.
“Are you mad, sir?”
Paddington sighed. “A bit. But I should have expected you’d call them.”
Asking a member of the Church of Enanti to keep a secret from the others was just about the biggest sin there was.
“What are you going to do, sir?” Rick asked. He probably meant what was Paddington going to do to him, but Paddington answered the question that was asked.
“I’m going to have a little chat with whoever is left at the duke’s manor,” Paddington said. Most likely it was their butler, but it was worth checking. Adonis must have told him something before he left, even if it was just a lie. Maybe the type of lie would give something away.
Paddington stopped beside the manor’s gates and pushed the buzzer. After a moment, the butler’s voice rang through. “Detective chief constable?”
“I know I’m a bit early for everyone to be up; I just need to ask Adonis some questions in relation to a local burglary.”
Paddington wasn’t sure the butler believed him – he’d never been a convincing liar because his mother had always clamped down hard on his boyhood attempts at deception – but the gates swung open, so he counted that as a success.
Today, the long driveway was especially full of foreboding thoughts and worrying ideas because this time he didn’t just suspect, he knew the Andrastes were up to something. And he didn’t know what it was.
When Paddington stopped out the front, the manor seemed as it had years ago: a place shrouded in mystery and legend, larger than life, dangerous. Maybe he should have dusted off his gun and brought it with him. He didn’t usually carry it, partly because he’d lose it if he became the wolf but mostly because he hated the idea that a single binary decision could end a life. He didn’t trust himself with that kind of power.
No gun, then. Besides, guns hadn’t helped the Team against the vampires and they were much better shots than Paddington.
Wits it was then. No weapon. No plan. Just… go in and see what happens.
Paddington knocked on the front door and stepped in when it opened. “I’ll keep my coat this time,” Paddington told the figure behind the door. “I won’t be staying long.”
The massive front door made a lovely deep sound like sealing a tomb as it closed. “Of course, sir.”
“Where’s Adonis?” Paddington asked. He tried to make it sound casual and innocent – just a cop needing to report something to his superior – but some of his tension came through.
“The master is indisposed at present.”
“And Lilith?”
“Also, alas, unavailable.”
Paddington glared at him. The butler had no hair on his face and no expression either. Utterly blank. It was like trying to read an egg.
“Should I continue individually, or shall we cut to the part where you tell me they’re all sadly inaccessible?”
“M’lady Guenevere is upstairs in the communications room.”
Really? Why had Guenevere remained behind? To keep an eye on him? Warn the others? Sever the radio and internet connections? Kill him?
“I’ll go on up, then,” Paddington said.
The butler nodded acquiescence. That was unexpected. Even when Paddington was invited, he was made to wait in the lounge and the Andrastes came down to him. Now he was stomping through their house and they were letting him? The knot in his stomach tightened a turn.
The main staircase was, like everything, huge and old and elegant. Paddington had only been upstairs a few times, but knew it well enough to find the communications room. It was a study much like Adonis’s private library downstairs, but with more technology. Books lined the antique shelves, but pride of place was held by a computer on the giant wooden desk. All of Archi’s Mainland communications ran through that computer – radio, telephone, internet – and seated at it was Guenevere Andraste.
She was fourth of the nine Andraste children and looked about twenty-four. She had fair hair and pearly skin on the usual catlike rounded face, though her grey-blue eyes were harder to read than most of her siblings’.
“Chief.” Guenevere released the computer’s mouse and placed her bare feet on the ancient desk. Everything past the ankle was hidden beneath a long red dress that had a much more modest neckline than her sisters’ usual attire. “I wondered if you would drop by.”
“M’lady,” Paddington said. This was a delicate situation. Yes the Andrastes had broken the treaty, but if Paddington wanted to escape alive he’d have to be firm but not aggressive; polite but not submissive; honest but not rude. Which he found difficult at the best of times.
“I know why you’re here,” said Guenevere; “you needn’t dance around the point.”
Oh good. He wouldn’t then.
“They’re gone, aren’t they?” Paddington asked. “The rest of your family.”
“Yes.”
“Why now?”
“Because your wife is pregnant.” Guenevere had a casual air that the other Andrastes lacked. She wasn’t as casual as Clarkson, but then neither were some Hawaiian shirts. According to Clarkson, she was also the only Andraste daughter he hadn’t slept with. Maybe she was the only one with standards.
She was certainly different.
She was still here, for a start.
“Is that supposed to make sense?” Paddington asked.
Guenevere shrugged. “It doesn’t to me, but that’s what father said.”
“And that’s all you know?”
“We had a falling out.” She whipped her feet off the desk and approached him, her steps smooth. She might have been gliding. Or stalking.
“Why?” Paddington asked.
Her effortless slide wavered a step and she stopped short. “Because he gave me to a vile man, without my consent, and never asked forgiveness.”
Oh Three-God… Paddington knew that vampirism spread through sex, but he’d never given a thought as to which Andraste had sired Thomas Brown, or whether the act was consensual.
Now he knew: Adonis had whored his daughter for the sake of a prophecy. Held words in a book more dear than his flesh and blood.
No wonder they’d had a falling out.
“I’m sorry,” Paddington said. What else could he say? Enemy or not, no one should have been put through that. “But you’ve been by his side all the years since. Why not now?”
“I don’t serve the Three-God the way he does.”
“You don’t believe?” he asked.
“I believe,” she said sharply. “I wish I couldn’t, but you and I, chief… our experiences force belief. Atheism would be denial of our very senses.” Her cat-slitted eyes were fixed on him. Paddington didn’t doubt that she could kill him before he’d removed his overcoat, let alone the rest of his clothes, let alone transformed into a wolf. So why didn’t he feel threatened?
“I was never one for denial,” said Guenevere. “I believe in the Three-God, but I have no faith in Her.”
“Her” not “Them”. Interesting, but not a thought for now.
“So you’re not with your family?” Paddington asked.
“I’m not ‘with’ anyone, chief. I want no part in the coming conflict.”
“Then why cover up their leaving?”
“To preserve their lives and your innocence a few days longer.”
His innocence? He’d lost that at the age of thirteen. “You’re a bit late for that.”
Guenevere merely shrugged, as if arguing the point would be too taxing. There was something terribly sad about her. Usually an Andraste’s eyes burned with lust or anger or passion. Guenevere’s had been extinguished.
“What does it matter whether Lisa is pregnant?” Paddington asked. Blunt seemed best: he might get a straight answer just by asking a straight question.
She met his eyes and Paddington found himself drawn in to them; the way the colour went all the way to the edges, no whites, creating patterns so much bigger and more interesting than in a human eye. Her immaculately-neat eyebrows were drawn down and together in a sad frown. “Because there is another prophecy.”
“What’s it say?”
“I’ve no idea. Father is the only one to have seen it in many years.”
In the Book of Idryo or Enanti, no doubt. “I think I’ll search your father’s study before I leave.”
“As you wish,” said Guenevere. “I doubt he left you anything; you’ll probably have to pry it from him by force.”
“I don’t want war and death,” Paddington said. “Help me avoid it. Hel—”
“No.” She turned from him and returned to the desk. “I have no interest in revenge. I wish to be left alone, that is all.” She looked back. “No one lives long in the sight of the Gods.”
Was she telling him to stay here? Warning him? How could he, if there was another prophecy? Was he just supposed to let Adonis destroy the world? And she’d mentioned Lisa. Was Lisa in danger?
Guenevere peeked out the curtains. “The sun has set. I should like some fresh air.” So saying, she left the room and walked up the staircase to the roof. Paddington followed, since the conversation didn’t seem to be over. He hadn’t been dismissed yet.
The night was cold, a powdery snow drifting down, and their breaths frosted in front of them. Paddington buttoned his overcoat. How Guenevere didn’t freeze when all she wore was a long red dress Paddington didn’t know. Vampires ran hotter than humans, but still.
“You came here with my father once,” said Guenevere. Paddington remembered: Adonis had promoted him to detective constable and asked him to keep quiet about the zombie he’d discovered. Paddington had agreed, despite countless unanswered questions and reservations.
“Yeah, I bet he was pleased with me,” Paddington said. “Obedient little pawn.”
“Not at all,” said Guenevere.
“Bending a peasant to his will didn’t make him happy? He must be getting grumpy in his old age.”
“The demon was supposed to decry Archi. You didn’t.”
How had Adonis known he was the demon back when he’d been a common bobby? “He knew what I was even then?” Paddington asked.
“He suspected.”
Paddington stepped closer to Guenevere. Close enough to shove her off the top of the manor. Not that he would, but it was nice to put the thought in her mind. “Be less vague,” he said. “Right now.”
“Of course. Drink?”
Paddington heard footsteps behind him. Had another Andraste stayed behind? Was this all a ploy? No; if an Andraste were sneaking up on him, he wouldn’t hear a thing.
A silver tray with a single glass of red wine on it slid into his vision, then the butler holding it.
“No more stalling,” he said.
“I’m not stalling, I’m being hospi
table.” Guenevere paused to look at the night’s first stars. “You have such short lives. You rush around, trying to do everything, trying to ‘get it done’, whatever ‘it’ is this week.” She turned to him, her stare somewhat like a schoolteacher. “The world will not end because you paused to enjoy a fine wine, James Paddington.”
“This feels an awful lot like stalling.”
She sighed. “I’m attempting to establish time and scale. And you’re ruining it. My father awaited your birth for hundreds of years, James. That is your current life fifteen times over. Can you conceive of so long a time? For over a million days he imagined what your life would be like. And in one moment, you shattered all of that by being an… obedient little pawn.”
Adonis had been waiting for his birth now? How far back did this go? “How did he know I was the demon? The heavens? Strange birthmark? More omens and portents?”
“Hardly,” said Guenevere. “It was to do with your birth, I know that much, but I never took an interest in the prophecies.”
“What about my birth?” Paddington asked.
“I honestly don’t know. I wasn’t there. But it was on the night of your birth that father first locked up the Books of Three, I remember that. Themis was inconsolable for several years.”
“Why hide this prophecy? He was bold enough last time.”
Guenevere shrugged, her mouth curling up in a weak smile. “You’ll have to ask him.”
“And that’s all you know?” Paddington asked, staring hard.
Guenevere smiled. There was something motherly or condescending in it. Actually, those two were usually the same thing in Paddington’s experience. “It is. But I am confident that if you dig into your family history, detective chief constable, you will uncover the rest.” She turned away to stare at the roofs of Archi visible beyond the forest.
Now he was dismissed.