The Tyburn Convent was an unremarkable-looking building, slightly inset between the properties either side and with a very strange little abode adjoining on the left that – according to Fenton – was London's smallest house, built to stop grave-robbers from scuttling down the alley to plunder St George's cemetery of all the riches amongst the corpses and coffins.
I wasn't sure what I had expected. A beam of light from the Heavens maybe, alighting the roof of the convent like some celestial stadium floodlight. Or maybe I had expected to stand in front of it and feel a sense of peace, as if the building emitted a kind of heavenly calm encapsulating all those who passed by, offering them brief sanctuary from the chaos of the city before they went on their way.
I certainly didn't feel calm or peaceful as I stood in front of the stone steps. I felt anxious and jittery out here in the open, practically a stone's throw away from Oxford Street where I used to shop with Brandon. The air seemed weighty and oppressive as if the blackened clouds were much lower overhead than usual, crushing everything beneath them, yet as much as I tried to convince myself this spiritual claustrophobia was just due to the fact we were risking our lives to be here, I knew it was far more than that.
The demon's words still haunted me and no matter how hard I tried to brush it all off as lies, I couldn't help but imagine Garrick trapped somewhere, tortured beyond the most horrible imaginings. The anger and hurt had raged through me ever since, all knotted together by this sense of utter failure – because wherever he was, I couldn't help him. Instead, I was here, standing in front of a convent of all places, seeking out clues to help me solve this damn mystery that was confounding me more and more with each rising of the moon. A huge part of me couldn't help but wonder why I was putting my energies into searching for someone who clearly didn't want to be found and who clearly didn't give a toss about me, instead of seeking out the one person who needed me the most.
A frustrated sigh escaped my lips.
"He's a Garrick," Harper said softly, instinctively reading my mood and tickling the palm of my hand with his fingertips as he stood beside me. "Bartholomew's blood runs in his veins and wherever he is, he will be putting up one hell of a fight, just as he always did in life."
I'd told Harper everything, of course. Not that I'd had much choice when he'd found me curled up on the floor in the classroom, with tears streaming down my face and Lucius standing not far away, a single glove discarded at his feet. I'd hated seeing the hurt tattoo Harper's features, hated seeing that flicker of pain dull his eyes for a moment, but there seemed little point in keeping it from him.
"Do you really believe that?" I asked. The hope in my voice was desperate, verging on pathetic even.
Harper gripped my hand tighter. "I have to. Because I can't accept any alternative. I won't accept it." He shot me a brief grin which offered little in the way of comfort because I knew he was struggling with this, just as much as I was. I squeezed his hand back and interlocked my fingers with his.
Fenton approached from along Bayswater Road, shaking his head and muttering to himself. He was scowling as he reached my side, his lips pursed together thinly, accentuating the sharp contours of his cheekbones. "It's hard enough to find somewhere to park in this bloody city," he grumbled. "Then they have to charge you an arm and a leg for it as well."
"We could get bikes?" I shrugged.
Fenton grinned, a spark of exhilaration in his eyes. "Funnily enough, I've always fancied a Harley."
"I'd ride a Harley," Harper retorted. "You'd ride a 50cc hairdryer."
"Why do you get to ride the Harley?"
Harper snorted. "I'm better looking."
I rolled my eyes. "Now, now, boys, let's not get into this who's got the biggest machine between their legs thing right now, okay?"
"Yeah, still me," Harper drawled, with a wink.
"Can we not do this here?" I sighed, gesturing to the convent in front of us.
Fenton's eyes travelled over the unassuming building and raked his fingers through his hair. "Good point. I must admit, I'm already worried about getting a thunderbolt from the Heavens straight up the arse for walking in there, I don't think we need to give the big guy any more ammunition to fry us."
"Guilty conscience?" I asked with a wry smile.
"I was raised a Catholic by a very devout grandmother," he shot back. "I practically dined on guilt for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When you had a grandma like mine, not even years of harsh military training could wash that away."
I looked up at the convent again, suddenly wondering if there was anything in what Fenton said. I hadn't been raised a Catholic, or raised under any other religion for that matter, but I still felt that same apprehension. I was a vampire. I had killed people. I had revelled in the taste of their blood. Okay, so a crucifix would do me no harm, but that didn't mean the significance was lost on me. Creatures like me weren't welcome in places like this, we never had been and never would be and yet here I was, apparently being granted access.
How far would we get before they realised what we were? How far would we get before they realised just what they had let through their doors?
"Well," I said, gritting my teeth. "I guess it's time to get fried."
*****
I pressed the doorbell twice and was about to press it a third time when I heard the sound of bolts being unlocked and the big door finally opened, to reveal a bespectacled, rosy-cheeked nun, who greeted me with a warm smile. The smile wavered noticeably as she took in the sight of my two tattooed male companions.
"Mother Hildegarde?"
She nodded in response.
"Mother Hildegarde, my name is Megan Garrick. We spoke on the phone?"
The smile returned in full force. "Ah yes, Miss Garrick. Apologies, I wasn't aware you were bringing guests?" I remembered the soft Australian accent from our earlier phone call, full of warmth and welcome which soon turned wary and unsure when I told her exactly why I was calling.
"I'm sorry, I should have mentioned it, I know. I hope it's not inconvenient?"
Her gaze drifted slowly over my shoulder again. "No, no, it's not inconvenient at all, although I do have to request that you both remain downstairs," she said to Harper and Fenton. "We have a recreation room. You can have a cup of tea perhaps while you wait?"
The stunned silence that greeted her question almost conjured a giggle from me as I felt Harper and Fenton behind, struggling to know how to respond. Finally, clearing his throat before he spoke, Harper said, "That won't be necessary, but thank you all the same."
"Oh, you're not from these shores, Mr....?"
Harper shifted uncomfortably. "Uh, no, I'm not. I'm originally from Boston, Massachusetts. And it's Cain. Harper Cain."
"Goodness," she beamed, looking at Fenton. "I trust your name is not Mr. Abel? Wouldn't that be a coincidence if it was?"
Fenton made a small choking sound and looked like he wanted to bolt.
Interesting, I smiled inwardly, happy to face a seven-foot tall Varulfur but can't handle a nun.
"May we come in, Mother Hildegarde?" I interjected quickly, before Fenton spontaneously combusted under the weight of all his Catholic guilt.
"Of course, of course, do come in."
She opened the door wide and we stepped inside, one by one, and waited in the foyer as she closed and locked the door behind us, carefully sliding each bolt back into place with loud clicks that echoed along the long hallway.
As soon as that door closed, I was struck by the silence, as if closing the door had somehow transported us to another realm, one without the chaos and confusion of busy Bayswater Road. I found myself wishing I could throw open the door and bring the voice of London back again. After a time, I'd come to learn that if I focused on other sounds, it helped me drown out the tortured whispers of the souls that followed me wherever I went. The hustle and bustle of a crowded street, the jarring shriek of car horns and the rumble of bus engines, all seemed like music to my ears in comparison to the pained wails and cries. In the cloistered halls of Tyburn, where the outside world seemed so very far away, I realised that silencing the dead was going to prove very difficult indeed.
The sister gestured to a room off to the left, just past a large notice board fixed to the wall, covered in photographs, notices and newsletters, all pinned very neatly to the cork base. "The recreation room is just through there, if you gentlemen would like to take a seat. Are you sure I cannot get you a cup of tea, maybe?"
Harper and Fenton both shook their heads, although Fenton looked more like he might prefer to kill himself than accept a cup of tea from the nun, such was the panic that seemed to emanate from every pore in his body. I looked pointedly at Harper, mentally bombarding him with a plea to take charge of the situation before Fenton's frayed nerves spooked Mother Hildegarde and prompted her to throw us all out.
"Thank you for your hospitality, sister." Harper flashed her his most winning smile. "We'll wait just in here." Clapping a hand on Fenton's shoulder, he steered him into the room, leaving me to trail after Mother Hildegarde.
"Americans, always the charmers," the sister mused with a chuckle as she led me down the silent hallway. The click of my boots against the polished floor seemed much louder than it should, each step making me wince at the invasive noise.
"He has his moments," I agreed. "You're not from these shores yourself, Mother Hildegarde?"
"No dear," she said. "I'm from down under, as they say, although I've lived here now for fifteen years. You'll find that many of the sisters here are from far flung places, we have sisters from Germany, Nigeria, Thailand, the Philippines and Peru to name but a few."
I stopped briefly at a large open doorway on the right. A large chapel room stood beyond, the walls a stark white, as was the decoration in the rest of the convent I had seen so far. Sturdy wooden pews lined the room and at the far end, a tall metal grille separated the public area of the chapel from the sanctuary. Just on the other side of the grille, a nun knelt in front of a candlelit shrine, her head bowed. For a moment I was blinded by images of Caelan with Lucius in her arms, dancing a never-ending waltz around the shrine, leaving bloodied footprints in her wake and I had to lean on the doorway for support, closing my eyes to banish the ghoulish image from my sight.
"Miss Garrick?" Mother Hildegarde said, in barely more than a whisper. "Are you okay?"
My eyes flickered open. "Yes, yes, I'm fine."
"Would you like to take a moment for some silent contemplation in the chapel?"
Fenton's panic seemed contagious then, as a flutter of butterfly wings brushed madly against the walls of my stomach. "No, really, I'm okay, thank you." I dared to cast my gaze back towards the sanctuary, thankful that Caelan had vanished and I could only see the praying nun, her clean white robes splayed out behind her. "How can you bear it? The silence I mean?"
Mother Hildegarde gestured for me to follow her once again, the sound of her habit brushing the floor magnified as we walked together. "I admit I found it quite difficult at first. I'm naturally a very talkative person and Mother Superior General had to lecture me many times after my arrival. You should hear me during recreation hour, you can't stop me from talking then." She giggled as we reached a wide staircase leading up. "But I soon learned and now the silence is one of the things I could not do without. Oh and my habit of course, I couldn't be without that now, could I?"
I stared at her in amazement, my mouth curling up into a grin at her ever-so-slightly risqué joke.
She leaned closer, almost conspiratorially as she whispered. "Don't be surprised dear, we sisters might have given up all material possessions, but we don't give up our sense of humour with it."
A faint scent of bleach hung in the air as we ascended as if the stairs had been recently scrubbed and I felt overwhelmed but the cleanliness and purity of the convent and couldn't help but look behind, wondering if I had left a trail of city grime behind me.
Finally, we reached the top and Mother Hildegarde led me along the landing, until we reached another staircase, one that curled upwards. A large curtainless window looked out onto the city and I could see the amber orbs of the streetlights lining the edge of Hyde Park. The dark clouds looked no less ominous than they did before.
As I followed the curve of the staircase, a huge wooden cross with an intricately carved almost life-size Jesus, adorned the wall in the stairwell, the dark wood in contrast to the stark ivory walls. The weight of his wooden gaze seemed to follow me and I forced myself to look away only to be met by Mother Hildegarde's questioning but kind scrutiny as she waited at the top.
"Forgive me," she said. "I can't help but wonder. Lapsed Catholic, maybe?"
"Uh...no," I stuttered, feeling my cheeks redden. "Why would you think that?"
"It's just you seem very uncomfortable here and sister was so very insistent that she meet with you when I told her of your call. I just wondered whether maybe you knew her from her days at St Augustine's?"
I shook my head. "I'm afraid not. In fact, we've never met before."
Mother Hildegarde's smile froze for a moment. "How very odd," she murmured. "Sister was so convinced that she had met you many times before." She shrugged off her confusion with a wave of her pudgy hands. "Not to matter, she must have been mistaken. She is very old now I'm afraid and does often say the most peculiar things."
Turning away, she rapped gently on the wooden door, opening it to reveal a small box room, lit only by a row of tea-lights on a low level bookshelf by the single bed. The room was so small and cramped, there was barely room for anything besides the bed and bookshelf and one armchair which was close to the window.
Seated in the chair, a tiny woman who looked more bone than flesh, craned her neck to look at me as I hovered in the doorway. A white beaded rosary chain was wound around her hand, the little wooden cross dangling and hitting the arm of the chair as it swung slowly to and fro.
"Sister Agnes Catherine?" I asked, almost timidly.
Sister Agnes Catherine - once known as Catherine Arden and also Bartholomew's hooded woman of the Deadly Never Green Tree - who, just over thirty years before, had visited Josiah Hope on a quest that would leave the seer temporarily blinded for seven days, relaxed back into her chair, exhaling an audible sigh. When she spoke, her voice was clear and crisp and not at all what I had expected from someone, who by my calculations, was now a staggering one hundred and five years old.
"Come closer, child," she instructed. "Do not linger over there where I cannot see you. I have waited a great many years for you, I was starting to think you would never come and now you are here, the clock is ticking faster than it ever has. We don't have much time."
*****
I sat on the edge of the small bed, in the small room, facing the small woman in her small armchair and yet I felt her presence like she filled every corner of the room, every nook, every cranny, every crack in the wall and every fissure in the ceiling.
Josiah's words rang loud and true in my head. As gloomy as the room was with just a few candles to do battle with the shadows, Sister Agnes Catherine seemed to glow with an effervescence that left me almost breathless. I had been in the presence of great power before, but this was different. This wasn't about power, it was about something else entirely. Something that overwhelmed me with such emotion, that I felt on the verge of tears and yet infused with a sense of such happiness and joy that I hadn't experienced in a long time.
With the assurance of Sister Agnes, Mother Hildegarde had left, closing the door behind her and leaving the elderly nun and I together and it had taken me a few seconds to force my feet to move and sit on the bed, as Sister Agnes instructed me to do. And now, after having so many questions I needed her to answer, I was struck-dumb and could do nothing except for stare at her in a manner that might appear to some, more than a little rude.
If Sister Agnes thought it rude, she didn't show it and, in fact, stared right back at me, her scrutinising gaze sweeping over my form. I wondered if she approved and immediately realised just how much I wanted her approval. The butterflies in my stomach were whirling like a dervish now and I knew it was dread that I felt. I dreaded her saying that I was a disappointment, that I was not worthy of Michael's power. After all this time of rejecting something I had neither asked for, nor wanted, I found myself wanting her to tell me that I was the one, that Michael had made the right choice.
"You are not what I expected," she said finally and my heart sank. "Of course, he warned me you would be different from the others, but I was certainly not expecting just how different you would be."
I clasped my hands together in my lap, digging my nails into my palms. "You know what I am?"
"Yes, child, I know."
"And you're not afraid?"
She laughed then, her soft wrinkled skin pulling taut over her cheekbones. "Miss Garrick, let me tell you, I have seen and experienced a great many terrifying things in my long life, but you are not one of them. I'm quite sure that to many you are the stuff of nightmares, but to me, you are anything but. Besides, how can I be terrified of someone so clearly full of fear herself?"
"You think I'm afraid?"
"My dear, you are petrified. Fear cloaks you like a shroud. Tell me exactly what you are afraid of and don't leave anything out. It's important."
My eyes drifted towards the window, to the city sparkling with lights, to the heavy black skies above. "Everything," I whispered. "I'm frightened of what I am. I'm frightened I'm not good enough. I'm frightened I will never understand how to be what he made me to be. I'm frightened of failing. I'm frightened that I won't be able to protect those that I love. I'm frightened I will be forced to hurt those I once loved. Everything frightens me, everything." A tear broke free and slipped sluggishly down my cheek.
"And?" Sister Agnes raised an eyebrow, her gaze boring into me with an intensity that made me dig my nails in deeper, enough to sting my palms.
"And that's it, what else could there be?"
"Much more than you're clearly willing to admit and we don't have time for you to omit your confessions. He knows that you're here and he will send his servants to stop you."
The hair on my neck prickled, sending little shockwaves buzzing across my skin. "You mean Lucifer?"
Sister Agnes nodded. "You are getting too close, child and the closer you get to the truth, the further you get from him. He cannot afford for you to lose faith in him."
I gawped at her. "What? Wait, I don't have faith in Lucifer!"
The wooden crucifix swung faster as she tapped her fingertips against the arm of the chair. "You have met with him, have you not? You need not answer, child, I can see it in your eyes. Everyone who has met with the Devil, carries the weight of that contact with them for eternity. It is not evil that lays heavy on their heart, is it love. That is the Devil's power. He makes you doubt everything that you have been taught to believe and then he makes you love him. First he wins your sympathy, you feel sorry for him; you can't help it. His story is so compelling that it starts to make perfect sense to you. Then he wins your trust by convincing you that he is not the beast you believe him to be, that he is merely misunderstood and plagued by stories of age-old falsehood and lies. He will do something for you, something to make you trust in him. Finally, you will love him and then you will be undone. Those who have met the Devil and escaped his clutches, still carry the burden of their time with him, however brief that might have been, because they know they could have loved him with an ease that is terrifying."
She smiled. "You are frightened because you know that is the truth. You are frightened because there is a part of you, however small, that believes in his story. You are frightened because you like him, and no, I'm not talking love – not yet, anyhow – but you do like him."
I hesitated and she nodded again, as if my reluctance to confess it somehow confirmed everything she had said. Clearing my throat, I tried to make sense of everything I thought and felt about Lucifer, instinctively knowing that the only way I was going to get any answers from Sister Agnes, was if I found a way to articulate everything that was spinning around in my head – things that I had scarcely admitted to myself, let alone anyone else.
"I don't know what to think about him, if I'm being honest. You're right, he's not the creature I always believed him to be, or maybe he is underneath it all, but so far he's done absolutely nothing to make me think otherwise. He's been....." I swallowed hard. ".....nice, for want of a better word. He's been...."
"Charming? Sympathetic? Understanding?"
"Yes," I whispered, bowing my head, feeling the shame of that confession hit me harder than I ever thought it would. "Yes, he's been all those things. And yet...."
"Yet what?" she asked.
"I saw him," I replied. "It was a brief glimpse, the very last time I saw him, but I felt like I was seeing the beast they all speak of. Oh, he still looked the same, he was still beautiful, but I saw his power. I witnessed his fury and as soon as I saw it I knew....."
"What did you know?"
"That he frightens me."
"Good. Then stay frightened, child. Because the moment you forget your fear, you forget who and what he really is. Hold onto your fear of him, it might just be the only way you can defeat him."
"Is that how you defeated him, Sister Agnes?"
She gathered the rosary beads into her palm and ran her finger over the edges of the wooden cross. "Defeat him? Miss Garrick, I am but a nun, it is not within my power to defeat the Devil. It is for the Archangels to achieve such a thing. I could only reject him."
"So Lucifer did try? Josiah Hope told me how they tormented you."
"Ah yes, the seer. A good, if somewhat troubled man. How is Mr. Hope these days?"
I smiled and hoped that it looked at least half-convincing. "He's doing better. So it is true? The demons really did try to get to you?"
"I'd like to think they practically exhausted themselves with their efforts. At first, it was nothing but dreams, nightmares, I would wake during the night hearing terrible whispers and believed I was imagining things. Sometimes though the nightmares and voices seemed so real that I began to feel scared of going to sleep. At the time, I was assisting the Mother Superior General, doing what Mother Hildegarde does now, taking on one of the only speaking roles within the convent and communicating with the outside world as and when necessary. That's when the phone calls started. Apart from the Mother Superior, I was the only one with access to the one telephone we have here and I began to receive calls from them. They would say nasty, poisonous things. Things about my family, things about me, about my life before I joined the convent and only things that I would know. We are encouraged to forget our past lives when we enter the convent and we don't discuss them with any of our sisters yet these vile creatures knew things that no one could have known. I was petrified but for many reasons. I was already an old lady by then and was scared that my mind was unravelling. After all, who would believe that I was receiving phone calls direct from Hell? And if it wasn't my mind that was failing me, why were these monsters tormenting me? After all those years, why me? So I sought out Mr. Hope, it was a last resort but quite frankly I was desperate for someone to help me."
"But he didn't help you. He didn't give you the answers, he wasn't allowed to."
"Ah yes, but you see, that solved one of my questions at least. Possibly the most important question and that was that there was nothing wrong with my head. I wasn't suffering from dementia as I had feared. The fact that something out there was trying to stop him made me realise that I wasn't losing control of my faculties, so I returned to the convent and the next time they called, I told them that I was not afraid of them and the calls stopped."
My eyes widened. "Just like that? They stopped harassing you?"
"They stopped calling. I said nothing about them not harassing me. Oh no, they tried many more times after that. Strange people began to loiter outside on the street, people who would wait for me to look out my window and then their faces would twist into the most horrific masks you have ever seen. Their skin would literally melt before my eyes. I knew there was no point telling the Mother Superior or any of the other sisters, because they would see nothing. They were there for me and me only. Then when I refused to react, they took the form of those volunteers who help us here, the ones who bring clothes and other supplies, the ones who post our letters to loved ones. They pulled that stunt many times and yes, I was petrified to see the face of people I had come to trust and to know that they were anything but."
It was my turn to nod in agreement because I knew that feeling all too well. It was as fresh as an open wound.
Sister Agnes continued and I noticed how she was gripping the rosary tighter. "Finally, when everything else failed, he came. We Benedictine nuns rarely leave the convent, however I had come to experience some health issues and needed to seek medical help and it was then, whilst waiting in the doctor's surgery not far from here, a young man struck up a conversation with me. I was naturally wary of outsiders, having lived the life of a cloistered nun for many years, but he was inquisitive and seemed genuinely intrigued and so, to pass the time, we conversed. I found him extraordinarily pleasant, incredibly charming and respectful and it was some time before I realised that we had been speaking for so long and I had not yet been called to see the doctor. When I looked around the waiting room, everyone was perfectly still, frozen in place, as if someone had stopped time itself. He smiled at me, such a beautiful smile, full of calm and warmth and although he appeared to bear me no malice, I knew immediately who he was and I was full of fear. Of course, he assured me that he wished me no harm and merely wanted to talk but I knew it was nothing but lies. The Devil rarely makes such an effort with humans unless he really wants something very badly indeed."
"And what did he want?" I gripped the edge of the bed, transfixed by her tale but feeling the crushing weight of those ominous black clouds heavier than I ever had.
"Why, my dear, he wanted to turn me from my path, of course. He wanted me to fail in my one task in life, the one task I had been assigned when Michael first visited me when I was nothing but a teenage girl." She leant forward, a move that seemed to take much effort as her frail body fought against her, and grabbed my hand, squeezing it gently. "He wanted to prevent this from ever happening. He wanted to make sure that you and I would never meet."
Her hand was warm on mine but I felt cold then, so terribly cold. The butterflies in my stomach had turned to blocks of ice and were freezing me from the inside out.
"Why?" I gasped. "Why didn't he want us to meet?"
"Because, child, I can help you find out just what he has done with Michael. I can help you find your maker."