Downstairs in the drawing room Ruthven had lit a fire and pulled most of the curtains shut to block out the greyness of the afternoon. “Look, I don’t suppose you particularly want to think about this all that much,” he said, “but I’ve been messing about plotting all the recent attacks on a map of the city, and I wondered if you’d have a look at it and tell me if anything strikes you as corresponding to a pattern.”
Varney settled in an armchair by the fire. “Please? I’m … it’s so wearying to feel completely useless.”
“Don’t I know it. All right, back in a minute.”
Rain spattered against the tall windows, and the applewood of the fire crackled. Varney was conscious of the sheer comfort of the juxtaposition and sat up a little straighter, for once not tempted to rub at the hole in his chest. It really was a nice room, he reflected. He’d not been in any condition to appreciate its harmonious proportions before. Old Turkish rugs, a huge mahogany sideboard clustered with big crystal decanters and stacks of National Geographic back issues; books stacked on the floor, books on desks and tables, books packed on built-in bookshelves up to the high ceiling, with an antique set of library steps resting against the highest shelf. There was a comfortably beat-up globe in one corner. The furniture was a disorganized mixture of baroque Victorian pieces, including what appeared to be a genuine horsehair chaise longue, and more comfortable and contemporary sofas and armchairs. A large flat-screen TV lurked in one corner, atop an unobtrusive cabinet containing an entertainment system. It fit Ruthven quite well, Varney thought. A mixture of ages.
Ruthven came back with a laptop, setting it down on an exquisite little inlaid eighteenth-century table, and turned it so Varney could see the screen: it showed a shot of central London on Google Maps. Ruthven had put in little pushpins at the location of each of the “Rosary Ripper” murders, and a further set of markers for the attacks on his friends. Kensington, Crouch End. The path Cranswell had taken from the British Museum was marked in small blue dots.
Varney peered at the computer, and his eyes widened. “My God, there’s been … eleven murders now?”
“It seems to be speeding up,” Ruthven said. “Multiple killings in one day. And they’ve found the same sort of cheap plastic rosary at each scene.”
Varney squinted at the screen and adjusted the angle. “They must have some way of getting around the city, quickly and easily, without being seen. I doubt they have invisibility cloaks, or a group of very sympathetic cabbie friends, and dressed up like Benedictines they would not escape notice.”
“The Underground,” said Ruthven. “Right? They’re using the tube tunnels. Have to be.”
“It does seem likely.” Varney turned the laptop back to him. “Although I don’t know how easy it would truly be to creep around in the tunnels without being caught.”
“Transport for London does get awfully intense about people wandering around restricted areas,” Ruthven said, thoughtfully. “Especially since the bombings back in 2005, and the attacks in Europe. I’d imagine they’re being extremely vigilant with their security cameras and patrols and so on. Maybe the disused stations … or there’s some other tunnels, must be, for power cables and steam …”
Varney sat back in his armchair, thinking. “What I find unsettling is the … the uncertainty of the nature of these creatures. These people. They are human, or they are so close as to be able to pass for human, and yet the blue eyes are very much not.”
“I know,” said Ruthven. “In the book Cranswell found, the Gladius Sancti were just people, humans like any other order of rather obsessive zealots who took things too far in the name of God. It didn’t mention blue-glowing eyes. I have a feeling that would have been included.”
“And why is this happening now?” Varney said. “I have been in and out of London for centuries, as have you and, I gather, several other creatures of our kind; why are madmen, human or otherwise, suddenly objecting to our presence now?”
“Why would a secret society like the Gladius Sancti surface in the modern world at all, for that matter, and where the hell did they get those spikes and the magic stuff to put on them, is what I want to know.” Ruthven sighed. “They were supposed to have brought the recipe for their demon-slaying poison out of the Holy Land back in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, but the book didn’t mention what they did with it after that. Or what it actually contained.”
“Do you suppose,” said Varney, slowly, the idea coming to him like something large and unpleasant rising to the surface of still water, “do you suppose that someone has actually found it?”
Ruthven sat back, looking at him. “The recipe?”
“And the knives. And their … particular scripture. The verses that tell them what to do.” Varney could recall only snatches of it, but it had sounded very biblical indeed—but no part of the King James he could remember specifically covered the hunting of demons.
Ruthven was still looking at him, the silver eyes narrowed in consideration. “I don’t think it’s impossible that something could have survived undiscovered for this long, just … vanishingly improbable.”
Varney laughed, a hollow sound that echoed in his chest. “One thing I have learned beyond the shadow of a doubt throughout my existence is that anything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong. If there were some hidden cache of thirteenth-century manuscripts containing the instructions for this … this holy poison … and the original blades to carry it, and if this cache could be found by someone of a mind-set to put them to use instead of into a museum, then …” He spread his hands, shrugging. It was one of the first things he had really come to understand about his half-existence, in the early years; it explained why everything he ever attempted to achieve had ended up the same way, at the point of a sword, the tines of a pitchfork, the flames of a torch.
Ruthven was looking at him with a surprised, and faintly pitying, expression. “Well,” he began, and Varney could hear the diplomacy being applied. Ruthven didn’t believe him; well, why should he? He had a beautiful house and an espresso machine and two automobiles, and a number of imperial dressing gowns, and actual human friends who enjoyed spending time with him, and he apparently found it entirely untroubling that he belonged to a tribe of undead monsters used to frighten children into obedience. Varney was abruptly, suddenly exhausted, tired almost to the point of nausea. The wound in his shoulder itched like fire.
“I don’t suppose it matters, much,” he said, cutting Ruthven off in mid-platitude. “The fact is that they’re here, they have these weapons, and they are … using them. Whether or not they are entirely human. And we need to know how they are getting around.”