Sleeping Angel (Ravenwood Series) Read online

  ‘Dammit,’ muttered April. She had been so flustered by the Faces, she had followed her feet and found herself back in Pond Square. You don’t live here anymore, numbskull, she scolded herself and turned down Swain’s Lane towards the tube. To April it seemed as though she couldn’t do anything right at the moment. She was failing to help Gabriel, she was being out-played by Dr Tame and she couldn’t even convince the Suckers to be her friends. She couldn’t really blame them. Gabriel was always saying vampires were suspicious by nature and April must be deeply suspect to them. She had emerged from Mr Sheldon’s bonfire unscathed – either that meant she was very lucky, or she had something going on that they didn’t know about. And vampires didn’t like uncertainty, she knew that much. They would be watching her closely – very closely.

  As she came to the black wrought iron of the cemetery’s North Gate, she stopped to peer through. It was hard to pass it without thinking about her first experience of the cemetery, that night with Isabelle and Gabriel and the unseen force with the dark eyes. Now it looked so peaceful, with the sun breaking through the canopy of trees here and there, the dust and the insects whirling in the light. What was the darkness which had descended on this peaceful place? Was there real evil here? Was there even such a thing as “real evil”? Just then a movement caught her eye and she froze. Standing at the end of the pathway, perhaps two hundred yards ahead of her was a man – and she immediately recognised him: the caretaker she had met on her ill-fated tour of the cemetery.

  ‘Hey!’ she shouted. ‘Over here! It’s me, April Dunne!’

  The man turned and their eyes met, just for a moment. ‘Oh my God, it is him,’ she whispered to herself. So much weird stuff had happened to April since that encounter, she had almost managed to convince herself that he had been a figment of her imagination, some sort of spook conjured up by her grieving mind. ‘Please!’ she shouted. ‘I need to talk to you!’

  He had to have heard her – she knew he had seen her – but the man turned and moved off down into the trees.

  ‘Hey, no, come back!’ she shouted again. ‘NO! Don’t go!’

  April quickly looked up, thinking that perhaps she could climb over the gate, but there were spikes at the top and she wasn’t at all sure she would be able to make it in her school skirt.

  ‘Bugger this,’ she said and ran down the hill, keeping the cemetery’s high brick wall to her right, hoping she was following the caretaker’s path, and maybe could even cut him off. Her feet pounded against the road, then skidded as she stopped by the cemetery’s entrance. She grasped the black bars, pushing her face into the gap, desperate to catch sight of the man. Where was he? If he had continued down the hill, he should have come to this open courtyard.

  ‘PLEASE!’ she shouted desperately. She knew she probably looked utterly mad, but something told her that this man could tell her something about her father’s disappearance. “I look after the graves” – isn’t that what he had said the first time she’d seen him? She turned and ran to the main gate, rattling it against the lock. Dammit, she thought, knocking on the window of the cemetery office.

  ‘Miss Leicester!’ she cried, ‘It’s April, April Dunne! Can you let me in?’

  There was a pause, then the old woman appeared. Her face had none of the sympathy April had seen at their last meeting. Her mouth was a fixed line; she looked annoyed at having been disturbed.

  ‘What is it, Miss Dunne?’ she said, unlocking the gate, but keeping it half-closed, her body blocking the way.

  ‘Please, Miss Leicester, I need to get in. It’s important.’

  The woman pursed her lips. ‘I’m not sure it’s appropriate, April,’ she said.

  April shook her head, confused. ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘Access to the cemetery is for the relatives of people interred here.’

  ‘That’s me, isn’t it?’ April said impatiently, craning her neck to look behind the old woman. Why was she stalling?

  ‘No, April, that isn’t you – not any more. I don’t wish to seem indelicate, but your father is no longer here. You’re no longer an official relative, are you?’

  April looked at her. ‘You’re kidding me right?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. If you took the time to look at the regulations we send out to every mourner, it clearly states ...’

  ‘Look, I haven’t got time for this,’ snapped April. ‘I don’t even want to go to my dad’s grave, I just want to get inside to talk to your caretaker.’

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘Caretaker? What caretaker?’ she said.

  ‘I can’t remember his name – I met him once and I’ve just seen him at the North Gate; I think he might know something about my dad’s disappearance.’

  Miss Leicester gave her a strange look. ‘April, I really don’t think there’s anyone here who can help you. The police interviewed all of the staff – if anyone had any information, they would have passed it on in the proper way.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, you old witch, will you just let me in?’ April shouted.

  ‘April? What’s going on?’

  She jumped as she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Mr Gordon,’ said April, relieved to see the vicar, ‘Thank God you’re here. Please can you tell Miss Leicester to let me in? I need to speak to someone I saw inside. It’s very important.’

  She saw the vicar exchange a look with Miss Leicester. Mr Gordon was a kind man, but she knew that look – “humour the loony in case she goes nuts”.

  April closed her eyes and let her shoulders sag. She knew it was too late; she had missed her opportunity. The caretaker – or whoever he was – clearly hadn’t wanted to speak to her, and by now he could be anywhere in the cemetery. If someone wanted to hide, the cemetery was the ideal place. Besides, calling Miss Leicester an “old witch” probably hadn’t been a great move. Silently cursing herself, she turned back to the woman, whose face was now a vivid pink.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Really, I shouldn’t have said any of those things. It’s just I thought I saw something, I didn’t mean ... I suppose I’m not at my best at the moment.’

  ‘Let’s just forget all about it, shall we?’ said Miss Leicester tightly. ‘Perhaps it’s better if you come back later, hmm? I’m sure we could arrange a scheduled supervised visit to the tomb if that’s what you’d like? Perhaps with your mother?’

  April gave a thin smile. ‘Yes, thank you. That’s nice of you.’

  The last thing she wanted to do was visit the cemetery with Silvia, but she nodded gratefully. At least the horrid old bat wasn’t banning her outright. The woman pointedly closed the gate with a clang.

  ‘Would you like me to walk you back?’ said the vicar once Miss Leicester had gone.

  ‘No, I’m heading to the tube. I’m living with my grandad in London now. My mum and I ... we’re not really speaking at the moment.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Anything I can do? Talk to her, perhaps?’

  ‘That’s kind, but I don’t think that’ll make much difference.’

  ‘Well, do you mind if I accompany you to the station?’ asked the vicar, falling into step beside her as she walked down the hill. ‘I need to take some leaflets down to the library anyway.’

  April nodded mutely and they walked a little way together in silence. April knew she had screwed up badly, but somehow the caretaker – or whoever he was – had felt like a direct link to her father. She realised in a rush that was why she had become so emotional – over the past few weeks, since his remains had disappeared, she had been losing her connection to her dad. Before the tomb had been opened, April had been visiting her father on a regular basis, talking to him, giving him her news, acting as though he was still there. But now? All trace of him was gone. And it hurt. It really hurt.

  After a while, April glanced over at the vicar. ‘What do you think happened, Mr Gordon?’ she asked.

  ‘Happened?’

  ‘You know, the vandalism, the stuff in the
cemetery – Inspector Reece said there had even been sacrifices.’

  The priest was quiet for a moment. ‘I don’t know. But it’s not good, April,’ he said. ‘I hardly need to tell you that. But it’s not just the cemetery – they attacked the church as well.’

  ‘Really? What happened?’

  ‘Oh, nothing anywhere near as serious as the terrible thing with your father. Just slogans daubed on the walls, a few things left outside the back door, kids stuff really, but I’m worried that it ... that it might get worse.’ He looked at her and his expression was bleak. ‘It’s a dark time, April.’

  She nodded. She certainly wasn’t going to argue about that. She thought about telling him about the animal tongue she had seen at Jessica’s, but that made her think of something more important. ‘Mr Gordon, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I was wondering about Isabelle. Isabelle Davis. Remember you told me she had come to you looking for a book?’

  When April had visited St Michael’s looking for the Albus Libre, the vicar had delivered the disquieting news that Isabelle had been there before her, seeking the same thing.

  ‘Isabelle ... yes, of course. Poor girl. What about her?’

  ‘I went to the bookshop you told me about and spoke to the owner there. She said she thought Isabelle was a bad sort.’

  Mr Gordon paused, frowning. ‘Isabelle was a troubled girl, there’s no doubt about that, and I was certainly worried that she had fallen in with a bad crowd. I had the sense that somebody was – not using her, that’s not quite the right phrase, but that she was under the influence of somebody, maybe a man she was in a relationship with?’

  April shrugged. It was possible. She didn’t really know much about Isabelle beyond the few snippets she had picked up from Jessica. ‘What do you think she was up to? You know, with this book and everything?’

  ‘The occult,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  ‘The occult? Like devil worshipping?’

  The vicar shook his head slightly. ‘No, more like she had filled her head with a load of silly ideas about spells and potions. I think she truly believed they would work. I think she also believed that they were her tickets to wealth and power.’

  ‘And you don’t believe in that?’

  He gave a wry smile. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’

  ‘That’s from Hamlet, right?’ said April. ‘We studied that last term.’

  Mr Gordon smiled. ‘The point is, I believe there are plenty of things out there we can’t understand – your father and I agreed on that much at least – but if there is magic in the world, then surely it affects all of us, not just the privileged few.’

  April nodded. He was right – vampires did exist and, while there were only a few of them compared to the billions of humans alive, their very existence threatened all of those people. It wasn’t just about the Suckers, it was about what the Suckers could do, how they could upset the balance. And he was right, even with all she knew, there were things out there that not even she could understand or explain away. Like the caretaker.

  ‘Mr Gordon, you’ve spent a lot of time in the cemetery. Have you ever seen anyone inside? Like, someone who shouldn’t be there?’

  ‘The vandals you mean?’

  ‘No, not them. I mean more like things that shouldn’t be there.’

  He gave a nervous chuckle. ‘Like ghosts?’

  ‘Sort of. That sort of thing, but ... not. Like this caretaker guy I saw.’

  The vicar stopped walking and looked straight at April. ‘Of course,’ he said quietly. ‘Ghosts, spirits, whatever people might like to call them, but certainly things that defy explanation.’

  ‘Really? You have?’

  The vicar gave a soft laugh. ‘It’s not just me, April. Look it up on the Internet; people have been seeing things in the cemetery for decades. All that nonsense about the Highgate vampire, for example. That all began because somebody saw a spectral presence lurking in the cemetery one night. No doubt many of those sightings are optical illusions, wishful thinking, or something to do with the fact that we’re on a direct route from The Gatehouse and the Rose and Crown.’

  ‘But what have you seen, Mr Gordon? Why do you believe me, when nobody else does?’

  ‘Because I’ve seen far too much, April. I’d be a fool to deny it.’

  April felt relief washing over her. For a moment she had believed that she was losing her mind. It was ridiculous, of course; April knew for a fact that vampires – legendary creatures from the depths of human imagination – lived among them, sitting next to her in the school canteen and queuing behind her for carrot cake in Americano. But there was something real about the vampires. Perhaps scientists hadn’t been able to explain it yet, but to April, the vampires were not supernatural, they were simply human – with all the humanity taken out. The caretaker, on the other hand, he seemed to be something else again, something that went beyond what she could see, or hear, or understand. There was no evidence for it – after all, he could just be some old bloke who’d hopped over the fence; it wasn’t like he was levitating or anything, but he just felt ... wrong somehow.

  ‘There are things going on in that cemetery I can’t explain,’ said Mr Gordon, ‘Either as a rational modern man or as a spiritual man. I can’t say I’ve seen your caretaker, but I’ve seen people or “things”, as you put it, that shouldn’t exist.’ He smiled at her. ‘I suppose it’s kind of funny; after all, things you can’t see are sort of my job, aren’t they? The church is always asking people to have faith, to believe in things beyond the ordinary, to put themselves into the hands of the God they can neither see or even, in most cases, understand. But when I’m actually confronted with something like that, it still freaks me out.’

  April laughed despite herself. It was good to hear somebody like the vicar admit to feeling the same way.

  ‘So what do you think it is? What is going on in the cemetery?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, but I can say for certain that something is wrong in Highgate. A darkness.’

  ‘A darkness?’ repeated April, thinking about the graffiti she had seen in the school only that afternoon.

  ‘It’s only a feeling, April, but I’ve noticed that feeling getting stronger over the last few months.’

  ‘Since I got here, you mean?’

  The vicar took a deep breath. ‘To be frank with you, yes. I think it does have something to do with you and your family. Your dad had a theory that there was some sort of badness, some sort of evil, under the ground – that it was somehow leaking up through the cemetery. I don’t know whether that was right, but too much has happened around you and your family to deny that you’re involved.’

  For a moment, April thought about telling him everything, about how she was a Fury, about how she was in love with a vampire, about how she was involved in some kind of holy war between the undead and – who? With a jolt April realised she didn’t even know who she was fighting for. But April was painfully aware of the fact that virtually everybody she had confided in over the past few months had either ended up dead or in danger. Mr Gordon was a good man, and she had no desire to see him hurt.

  ‘What should I do? How can I stop this darkness?’

  ‘Fight, April. I’m sure my bishop would throw a fit if he heard me giving you such advice. But I don’t see how you have any choice. Sometimes you have to choose a side.’

  ‘What about turning the other cheek?’

  ‘What if somebody tears that cheek off? I can’t tell you what to do, but if it was me, I would take the fight to them.’ A smile played on the vicar’s lips. ‘Kick ‘em in the balls, April. It’s what Jesus would have done.’

  April burst out laughing and Mr Gordon joined in.

  ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Of course the Lamb of God would have chosen a more peaceful route – but Jesus wasn’t above using violence to make a point. O
verturning the money-lenders’ tables in the temple, sticking Doubting Thomas’s fingers into his wound, that sort of thing.’

  April frowned – perhaps she hadn’t been listening hard enough in RE. The idea of Jesus as some ass-kicking ninja didn’t really fit into her Sunday school picture-book notion of what he looked like. ‘Didn’t he tell off one of his disciples for slicing some Roman guard’s ear off?’

  ‘Yes, that’s true, but that’s because he wanted to be crucified.’

  ‘He wanted to be crucified?’

  ‘I know it sounds strange – but it’s actually the whole basis of Christianity. Jesus allowed himself to be captured and crucified to expose the hypocrisy of the Romans and the Jews. He was making a point about dying for our sins, yes, but on a social level, he was also showing his followers how far they had to go to win.’

  They stopped in front of a church and Mr Gordon pointed up at the carvings of Christ on the cross. ‘See? Our religion was built on the blood of martyrs – you’ve heard about Christians being fed to the lions in the Roman arena? – but death often has more power than life in the minds of the living. If Jesus hadn’t understood the power of an idea backed up by action, Christianity might well have stayed as some backwater cult.’

  ‘You’re saying I need to sacrifice myself?’

  ‘No, I’m saying you need to make a choice. I know I sound like some sort of mad preacher, but making a choice was all Jesus did. Bad things were happening to the people around him, so he stood up and said “enough”. He gave people an alternative, set a personal example they could aspire to, even if they couldn’t follow him up onto the cross.’