CHAPTER 13.
Did He who made the lamb make thee…
John Harvey remembered his reading of Blake as his enemies marched into the room
A tall, fragile looking man with trim, but thinning blonde hair and a short beard, wearing an immaculate evening suit and a look of utter distain. The Count de Sainte Germaine, appearing unchanged after centuries. Despite his thinning hair and slight build, there was an odd robustness about him. A spectator would have guesses his age to be at around forty years old, as they would have guesses a hundred years ago, or a hundred years before that, or a hundred years before that. On his flank was the white skinned man in the white suit, his face a mask of hatred. Behind him two of the largest men anyone in the room had ever seen, like shaved, undead gorillas forced into evening suits.
The two giants flanked the door like sentries, trying to stare down the bikers. The Count and the man in white advanced to the bar, where John met them.
“John Harvey I gather,” the Count said, his voice slick with French accent and at the same time dry like an old, old man. “I am The Count de Saint Germaine, come to take my debt.”
“This is my pub, Germaine,” John stood At Ease like a Guardsman as he spoke. “And you and your men are barred. Get out.”
For a second, The Count snarled, his civilised persona replaced by the beast. Then he smiled.
“This is my pub now, Harvey. The beginning of the debt which you owe me. Hand over the keys and walk away.”
“Get out.”
The Count took a step closer, so that his face was a foot from John’s, with only the bar between them. The man in white stood rigid, staring unnervingly into John’s eyes. The two gorillas in suits paced forward, there huge hands locked in fists.
“Or what?” The Count asked softly.
In a single fluid motion, John drew his sword, swung it up, and pointed it to The Count’s throat. The point of the blade touched his neck, and John’s arm was bent, poised like a spring to strike.
With equally fast reflexes, The Count reached into his inside pocket-
-Just as Tony appeared from nowhere, wielding a bar stole which he smashed over The Count’s head. The Count fell to the ground, unfired pistol falling from his hand. Wooden shrapnel flew at the man in white, forcing him to stagger back in shock.
Tony held one remaining leg of the stole like a javelin, ready to push the improvised stake into The Count’s heart.
The man in white recovered and pulled a tiny revolver from his belt and pointed it at Tony.
The two giant thugs both advanced and produced pistols. One aimed at Tony. One aimed at John.
“If you shoot Tony, your’re all fuckin’ dead!” one of the bikers shouted.
All the bikers where on their feet and inside the pub. One had a revolver. Three had sawn-off-shotguns. The rest held knifes or baseball bats.
Molly and Charlotte were on their feet. Molly had a knife aimed to throw and Charlotte had produced an axe from her handbag. Olly had his spanner in one hand and a bottle in the other. Dave, having seen its effective use as a weapon, held a stole.
“Every one put their bloody guns down,” John said.
“Fire away! I cannot die,” cried The Count.
His men were less sure.
The giants looked around at all the guns pointed at them and lowered their weapons.
Tony stared down at The Count, his face hard as iron, his stake ready.
The man in white kept his gun trained on Tony.
At that moment, Victoria walked in. She gasped, but held her ground.
In a moment Molly and Charlotte were beside her, standing between her and the giants, weapons in hand.
The giants did not know what to do. Things were moving too quickly. They weren’t being paid enough for this. One of them raised his gun and pointed it vaguely at Tony, the other turned to the girls but kept his weapon down.
“Tell your men to back down, or you all die,” The Count hissed at Tony from a bleeding and broken face.
“Fuck off. My lads are good,” Tony stated.
“Stop pointing guns at my mate or I’m going to start shooting!” one of the bikers shouted.
The man in the white suit’s hands started to shake. John noticed that the safety catch was still on his revolver.
The giants dropped their guns.
John vaulted across the bat, striking the man in white’s arm, causing him to drop his gun. As he landed he struck the man in white with the flat of his blade, knocking him down. Then he kick The Count’s gun across the floor towards Olly. The Count was at his feet.
Olly picked up the gun and held it over the fallen body of the man in white.
“Right, you two get against the wall,” he told the giants.
The bikers kept their guns trained on the big men. Molly collected their pistols from the floor. Charlotte stood with one arm protectively around a silent Victoria, and with her axe in the other.
“This is over Germaine,” John told him.
“This is not over. Give me what is mine,” The Count snarled.
“Can I kill the stupid bastard?” Tony asked.
“No.”
“Let me at the arsehole,” Molly snapped.
“No.”
“Silly girl,” The Count hissed at her.
Molly ran over to behind the bar, trampling The Count on the way, and came back with her hockey stick. She began laying into him like some savage Amazon.
The man in white tried to move, so Olly hit him with his spanner. The giants stared at the ground- they knew they had lost. Tony relaxed.
John sighed and took a step back.
“I’m going to allow this,” he said to the room in general.
Molly hacked away. Her stick red with blood. There were audible cracks as bones broke. The hockey stick rose and fell, again and again.
“I think that’s enough, darling,” Charlotte said.
Molly stopped, wiped her pretty brow and looked down at her work. The Count was a mess, and probably unconscious, but he would live.
“You two,” John pointed his sword at the big men. “Get your boss and his messenger out of here, and don’t ever let me see you again.”
The giants did as they were ordered. Moving awkwardly amongst the armed bikers, they picked up The Count and the man in white and carried them away.
It was only then that John really noticed Victoria. He leaned his sword against the bar, picked up the bunch of lilies and strode over to her.
“Good evening Victoria,” he said, presenting the flowers.
“Good evening Mister Harvey,” she replied calmly. “I expected your tavern to be interesting, but not quite this interesting.”
“It’s not normally like this. Sorry lady.”
“I see,” she said with a warm smile as she inspected the flowers.
“Please take a seat, I shall get you a drink whilst we tidy up this mess.”
“Thank you.”
Victoria sat with Charlotte, who had returned her axe to her handbag and looked as though she was perfectly at home with the situation; because, on the grand scheme of things, she was. John puts his sword away, poured her a glass of wine and then asked Molly and Olly to tidy the pub.
“What should I do with all the guns?” Olly asked him.
“Do you want some more guns Tony?” John enquired.
“Alright, cheers son,” Tony replied. “You might want to keep one yourself though…”
John had always been more keen on blades than guns, and tried to keep on the convenient side of the law, but when he considered recent evens he thought it prudent to keep one.
“Right you are Tony,” he said, handing over all of the guns except for the small revolver which he put in his pocket. “You and your men are drinking for free tonight.”
“Cheers.”
Like some medieval king with his hoard, Tony distributed the remaining guns amongst his best men. John mopped up the blood whilst Molly and Olly had cleared the broken bar stole and put the room back in order.
“Are you okay?” Charlotte asked Victoria.
“Yes, but I was a little afraid before, when there were so many guns,” Victoria blushed a little. “Where you not afraid, Charlotte?”
“No,” Charlotte replied in a matter of fact manner. “I am Freya’s woman, I shall die when She pleases.”
When things were back as they should be, he joined Victoria.
“Am terribly sorry,” he said to her. “Did not want you to be involved in this.”
“Actually, I thought it was all rather dashing,” she said.
“Really?”
“Quite. A pleasant diversion from the monotony of work… But may I ask what on earth it was all about?”
“One of those men was an enemy of mine from a long time ago. He was trying to take my tavern away from me, amongst over things.”
“How terrible. It did not look like he will be bothering you again.”
“Certainly hope not. Would you like another drink?”
“No thanks you, a stroll to the graveyard you mentioned would be nice thought.”
“Ought to stay here until closing and-
“Molly and I will look after things here,” Charlotte interrupted. “Get your selves gone.”
John thanked everyone in the pub and told them to have a good night, then left with Victoria. As soon as they were outside she took his hand, and they strolled off into the night.
Victoria and John sat hand in hand against an ancient yew tree, its massive roots forming a rugged armchair for them. Beside them stood an old grave stone which tree roots had grown around and pushed to an absurd angle. More grave stones stood on the gently sloping ground before them, most of which were cracked or coated in moss. Beyond that stood a large Victorian mausoleum, more trees of yew and oak, and yet more age worn grave stones.
“I was around in The Great War,” he told her. “I remembered only a few days ago.”
She looked up at him and smiled, clasping his hand tighter.
“I thought somehow that you would have been,” she said. “How did you remember?”
“A plane flew overhead, in my mind in was a biplane, and I was in the trenches. It lasted only a moment. It was not good. Remember nothing more…How can one forget an entire life time, it is so strange.”
“So many things in this world are so strange.”
“Aye. Wish that I had known you then.”
“Maybe you did.”
“I would not have forgotten you.”
She kissed him then, briefly, on the lips.
Then they just sat together in the night. A Wood-pigeon hooted in the trees, and far away a cat’s bell jingled.
“I do not understand how our kind can be soldiers, surely you must fight in the light,” she said. “My grandfather was not like us, of course, if he knew of us or that I was different, he kept it to himself. But so many of us have fought over the years…”
“Much of a soldier’s work is done at night. Lloyd and I used to scout for your grandfather, ranging ahead of the army, fighting the French in the night. Sometimes we wore smoked glasses in the day time. We still kept grace with God back then, the light did not hurt as much. At Waterloo, I did not notice the sun at all, we were too busy…. At Agincourt, I was still living as a human…”
“Agincourt?” she said, then accepted it with a smile. “It almost makes sense for us to be soldiers, we are predators, we are made to kill men.”
“That is not all that we are.”
“I hope not… But I see that you are good at it.”
“Do not like it.”
“Good.”
She leaned close to him, and he wrapped his arm around her. All the time he was overly aware of the weight of the revolver in his pocket. He remembered the impact of his sword against the man in white, the look of hatred on The Count’s face as Molly beat him, Charlotte’s serenity as she watched a fight which was nothing compared to the battles she had witnessed over the millennia.
He brushed the memories aside. Now was the only time which mattered. Now was good.
“Who was the man who attacked your tavern?” she asked.
“He claimed to be The Count de Sainte Germaine.”
“And was he?”
“He looked like him, but it was so long ago that we last met.”
“I have heard of him. They say he lived for over a hundred and fifty years, extending his life through alchemy.”
“It is not possible, even for us. We live and die and are reborn. Things change. No one lives forever.”
“The world is terribly strange.”
“Aye.”
“Why does he hate you?”
“Because he is my enemy, has been since we first met.”
“Why?”
John had hoped to avoid this question, but he could not lie to her.
“Long ago, before Napoleon even, I kissed his wife. I was a young man, I did not know…He has hated me ever since.”
“That is why? He has hated you for so long, risked men’s lives, nearly ended his own life, because someone once kissed his wife more that two centuries ago?”
“Aye.”
“That is frightfully silly.”
“He is insane.”
“This world is insane.”
“Right here and now, lady, the world is perfect.”
She kissed him again, on the neck that time, and held him tighter.
The first faint glow of dawn began to show in the east.
“It grows late, lady, may I walk you to your hotel?”
She looked at him, her eyes bright in the fading darkness.
“I really rather hoped that I might stay with you tonight… We have been acquainted for a while now.”
The Count de Saint Germaine lay in a luxuriously padded coffin in a tomb dark room. The man in the white suit stood beside him, his hands held behind his back, his head bowed, his face gaunt with concern and fear, white skin contrasting sharply with vivid blue bruises where the sword and the spanner had struck him.
The Count’s eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling, as cold as death.
Most of the cuts and bruises which he had sustained had healed already, but his ribs and arms and legs were still broken, and a foul scar stretched across his pale face.
The Count’s dead eyes rolled in his sockets, then he blinked. He slowly turned his head, the only part of his body which he could move, to face the man in white.
“Mathew, I thirst,” he whispered in hoarse French.
“Yes, my Lord,” Mathew, the man in white, replied in the same language.
Mathew bowed, then left the room.
A minute latter he returned, leading a tall, thin girl in a white dress. Her deathly pale face was blank, her eyes deep and dark, her ebony hair hanging to her waist in un-kept ringlets.
She walked to the coffin and dropped to her knees. Mathew took one of her slender arms and held her wrist to the Count’s face. With his other hand he drew a cut-throat razor from his pocket and slit her wrist, another horizontal cut next to countless identical scars.
When her blood began to flow, red against her white flesh, The Count leaned forward to drink.
For a few moments he lapped up her blood like a starved cat, then his head collapsed against the coffin.
“Thank you lady,” he whispered.
She ran a slender hand affectionately through his white hair, and then bowed her head.
The Count’s mind was cleared, some of the pain faded. It was then only hatred which overwhelmed him.
How had it come to this?
He, The Count de Saint Germaine- the greatest occultist of all time, the advisor to kings and friend of tyrants- beaten by an old soldier, a handful of thugs and a girl with a stick.
It was all Harvey’s fault.
The bastard.
He had underestimated his enemy. Harvey had been cunning, had led him into a trap and cheated like the dog he was. Animal cunning and superior numbers- that was all.
The bastard.
The Count’s thin lips smiled dryly.
When he had healed, and when Harvey least expected it, he would take what was due to him.
“There will be vengeance,” he hissed to Mathew.
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