Flight of the Falcon (Byrdes of York #1)

21. Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Hugh

H ugh and Robin were having fun mapping the tunnels with the odometer. They’d started at the Minster after Francis got the entrance opened temporarily so they could access that tunnel directly. Once they’d finished the mapping, the Minster would be closing that entrance completely. The Chapter had been very surprised to hear about the tunnels, even though Francis hadn’t given them the complete story. He had told them that Father John had known about them since he was a young man. One of the older Canons had been set the task of trying to find any records or notes relating to previous knowledge of the tunnels and rooms under the Minster.

John’s funeral had come and gone whilst Hugh and Falcon had been in Manchester with Imogen. Robin had represented his brothers and attended with his father. The two of them had kept an eye out for Swales, or any of his associates, but none of them had turned up, for which Francis was grateful.

Robin was measuring and Hugh was noting down the direction of the tunnels from the one at the Minster. So far, they’d found a couple of small offshoots that ended in dead ends where the bedrock and been scraped but not dug out completely. All the time Hugh was keeping his eyes peeled for spell traps. He hadn’t found any yet, but didn’t want either himself or Robin to fall into one.

They had just left the Minster and were going to head toward the entrance in the boiler room on Ogilvy Street when Robin looked at his phone and grinned.

“Text from Falcon. He’s up. Shall I ask if he wants to meet us?”

“Good idea. Tell him to meet us at the ice cream stand near the Minster,” Hugh said, gesturing to the stand in front of them. “Come on, I’ll treat you.”

Robin grinned again and sent his brother the text. Hugh bought three ice creams, and they sat on one of the benches along the walkway behind the Minster. It wasn’t long before Falcon joined them. Hugh handed over his ice cream.

“Thanks.” He took the cone from him and settled back on the bench. They sat for a while enjoying their cold treats. Hugh looked around, remembering following Falcon through here a few weeks ago when he was going to meet Father McKenzie. He couldn’t believe how much had happened since then. There was another school group visiting, and they moved around the grassy area before settling down to have their packed lunches. He remembered doing something similar himself as a schoolboy.

Robin, in the meantime, was showing Falcon the progress they’d made that morning and explaining the dead end tunnels to him.

“It’s though they were being deliberate in leaving some of them like that,” said Hugh, joining in the conversation. “From the looks of it most of them are about the same age, but some of them are much, much older.”

“Is it possible to tell how old?” Falcon asked.

“I’m not sure,” Hugh answered. “It’s not something I can tell. I think you’d maybe need an archaeologist to do some exploratory digging. Not sure how practical that would be.”

They were quiet whilst they finished their ice creams, enjoying the mid-May sunshine. Then Robin picked up the odometer wheel and suggested they got on with the measuring.

They entered the tunnel through the old boiler room and immediately began to map out and measure the tunnel. As they got to where the rooms were, Hugh pulled out a builder’s tape measure to help with getting the dimensions of the inner rooms.

“Is Francis joining us at any point?” Hugh asked.

“Dad said this morning he’d join us down here after lunch.” Robin looked at his watch. “Shouldn’t be too long now. I know he wanted to get a look at our vampire. He’s hoping he knows them. It will help when we bring them out of their sleep, if we can put a name to them.”

“Do you think it’s okay to move them?” Hugh asked, drawing out where the doors in the sarcophagus room were.

“Dad seems to think it will be okay,” Robin replied. “We had a good talk about it last night after you guys had left. I stayed over. It was just like old times.”

Hugh laughed. “You mean you enjoyed being spoilt.” “I certainly did!” Robin agreed.

Falcon stopped what he was doing and listened. Hugh could hear something in the tunnels too.

He gestured for everyone to be quiet. It was most likely to be Francis, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Even with Ollie and Raven monitoring the entrances that they knew about, they couldn’t be too careful. He moved behind the open door, breathing slowly and quietly. The door creaked open a little more and Francis popped his head around it.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

There was an almost audible sigh around the room.

“Just being extra cautious,” Falcon said, as he greeted his father.

“I don’t blame you.” Francis looked around the sarcophagus room with interest. It was the first time he’d been in any of the rooms.

Hugh led the way over to the black sarcophagus and put his hand on the symbol on the front of the marble. The Latin inscription glowed as Hugh pressed down. The lid of the sarcophagus became opaque, allowing them to see the vampire in more detail.

Francis drew in his breath and whispered, “Malik!”

“You know him?” Falcon asked.

Francis nodded. “I had my suspicions as he disappeared around the time we’re talking about. When I returned from Paris in the 1890s, I asked after him. None of the other vampires I knew had seen him for years. There was a suggestion he’d been killed, though I was hoping otherwise. He was turned about the same time I was. We were from different Greek states, and we fought against each other at the beginning. Then we fought together in many wars. We were in the same clan for a time, when vampires first gathered in clans for safety. Then he went one way and I another. We still tried to keep in touch, though. As much as you could in the days before there was a proper postal service.”

Hugh whistled. “I can’t get over how old you are.”

Francis shrugged. “It’s just getting on with your life, living each day as it comes.

Same as anyone, really.” He continued, “I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s been going through.”

“It’s okay, Dad. We’ll make sure he’s alright before we wake him up.”

Francis nodded, looking around the rest of the room in fascination. “Do we have any idea of what the Hispana Nonus were trying to do here?”

Hugh and the others shook their heads. “Not a clue.”

Falcon

Falcon left Hugh and Robin to get on with measuring and mapping the tunnels. They’d brought Robin’s laptop with his CAD program on it and were currently set up in the ‘gentleman’s club’ room copying their morning’s work on to it. He joined his father who was studying the sarcophagus.

“It’s a remarkable piece of work,” Francis said as he surveyed the hand carved marble. “It looks like part of it was originally used as a marble headstone. Amazing.”

Falcon nodded and opened his inner eye to follow along with his father as he ran his hand over the marble. Several inscriptions were visible, many of them in Latin. He took out his phone and began writing the inscriptions down in a notes app, to investigate later. Maybe he’d send them to Percy and Walker, see what they made out of them.

“Do you think we will be able to safely extract him?”

“I think so. Though it will take careful manoeuvring to get the sarcophagus out of here and through the tunnels. It’ll probably have to be done under cover of darkness. I wouldn’t want to take him out of the sarcophagus until I’ve got something set up at the safe house near the Minster.”

Falcon looked at the black marble and wondered how much it weighed. He groaned. They’d need a large dolly to move it down the corridors and it would take some going to get it up the stairs and through the boiler room.

“Sooner the better then,” he said and made a note on his phone to hire a large dolly and find a way to weigh the marble.

“I agree.” Francis continued to run his hand over the sarcophagus. “Robin?” he raised his voice a little.

“Yes?” Robin poked his head around the door.

“Let me have that tape measure you’ve got for a moment please. I need to measure this.”

Robin handed the tape measure over and Falcon and Francis measured the sarcophagus. It was just under 2 metres in length, 1.2 metres in width and half a metre tall. Falcon wrote the details down, then returned the tape measure to his brother in the ‘gentleman’s club’ room.

Francis joined them and sat in the wingback chair. Falcon could see that his father was sorting things out in his mind, likely making a plan to safely move the sarcophagus.

He wandered over to one of the bookshelves. No time like the present , he told himself. Whilst the others were engaged about their various tasks, he began pulling books off the shelves and looking at them. They all needed cataloging.

“What are you doing?” Hugh appeared at his shoulder a moment later, holding out a cold bottle of water to him.

“Thought I’d get a start on the cataloging,” he answered, absently taking the water from his lover.

“Good idea.” Francis stood up. “Maybe you’ll find something there that will help us work out why Malik is here, and how they put him into such a deep sleep.”

“And why,” Hugh put in.

Falcon nodded. He was very curious about that as well. What had happened that made the Hispana Nonus go to the trouble of getting a vampire, using a spell to put him to sleep, then just leaving him there for nearly two centuries? None of it made sense.

“What’s the connection?” Hugh muttered and Falcon looked at him. “Connection?”

“Between these rooms, the Hispana Nonus and Ian Swales. Why is he interested? What is it that draws him here?”

“It has to be something he can use,” Francis mused, joining them. He chewed on a power bar and swallowed before he said anymore. “Ian was never one to be interested in the arcane and the paranormal. He was always the practical twin. So what was it that drew him here and why?”

“It doesn’t make sense on the surface,” Falcon agreed. “Something must have changed for him to be chasing this so hard.”

“The only thing I can think of is that he came across something that mentioned the tunnels and probably something about what was down here. For all we know he has no interest in Malik at all and just wants the books or other artefacts that are down here.”

“Hmm… I for one would love to corner him and find out. I can’t fathom it otherwise,” said Hugh.

“It’s on my list of questions too,” Francis replied, squeezing Hugh’s arm, then hugging Falcon and Robin. “Well, I’m off to see if I can sort out some of the practicalities of moving Malik. Shall we meet up in your study later, Fal?”

They agreed to meet that evening about 7pm to share what they had discovered that day. Robin and Hugh went back to the CAD program and Falcon continued taking photos of the books, covers and inside front matter.

Falcon ordered pizza for their discussion that night and Ollie joined them, having handed over guarding the tunnels to Raven and Gray, a friend of theirs. They’d let them know if there was any action around any of the entrances. At least one thing had been confirmed that day – all the entrances were now mapped out and there weren’t any they were unaware of.

Conversation was general as they ate the pizza, and the brothers enjoyed ribbing Falcon and Hugh about their burgeoning relationship.

“So, Hugh,” Robin began, grinning, “when are you moving to York? As I can’t see this one moving to Manchester!”

“Ha ha!” Falcon replied, grimacing. “We haven’t talked about it yet, so keep your nose out, Rob!”

Secretly Falcon was hoping that Hugh would move to York. He was getting used to having the other man in his bed. Used to him being there in the morning, sharing breakfast with him and discussing the books they’d both read.

Hugh had gone red, and he coughed in embarrassment. “What he said! Though before I do anything else, I have to sort out whether I still have a job.”

“Why’s that?” Ollie asked.

“The agency no longer exists,” Hugh replied. “The powers that be sent a text out to the whole team to tell us they were terminating the contract. Normally it would be up to Robert to decide what happens next, but it looks like he’s not going to be in any kind of fit state to do that for some time to come.”

Falcon leant in and kissed his boyfriend, not caring that his brothers were hooting and cat calling. Hugh needed the comfort only a lover could give. Falcon knew his job status had been bothering him, and he was also worried about Imogen and Gil’s long-term futures. He put his hand on Hugh’s cheek and looked into his eyes.

“We’ll sort it,” he assured him.

Hugh moved and kissed the palm of his hand. “Thank you.”

“If it comes to it,” Francis said, from where he was sitting opposite the couple, “I’d be happy to take both you and Gil on as paranormal investigators. Imogen too, if she’d be interested.”

Hugh drew in a breath and turned to Francis. “Thank you for the offer. I’ll think on it and mention it to the others. I’ll get back to you.”

“It’s an open-ended offer, any time,” Francis said kindly

Falcon wiped a stray tear from under Hugh’s left eye. He knew the other man was completely touched by his father’s offer. Hugh hadn’t said too much about the situation, but he knew he’d been more worried about Gil and Imogen than he’d let on.

“Okay,” Francis announced, putting his plate aside. “Time to get down to the business of moving Malik. I say the earlier the better, and to that end, I’d like to move tomorrow night.”

Falcon drew in his breath. That was soon. “Can we be ready?” Robin asked.

“I wouldn’t suggest it unless I thought it was doable,” Francis answered his son. “Falcon has hired a large dolly to use to transport the sarcophagus. Raven has agreed to keep an eye on us from the sky, with Falcon along if needed.”

“Where are we moving him to?” Hugh asked.

“We have a safe house not far from the Minster.” It was Ollie who answered. “I’ve been checking out the best route from Ogleforth to there. We should be able to avoid most of the CCTV cameras and if we move at about 3am, the streets should be practically deserted.

“I can help with that as well,” Francis informed them. “If anyone sees us, I can use my vampire charm to convince them they didn’t see a thing.”

“Very useful.” Hugh smiled.

“It is. I don’t use it too often, but it can be a very handy skill.”

They set to organising and working out the practicalities of moving Malik. Then, as they were tidying everything up and throwing rubbish out, there came a loud banging at the shop door.

Falcon immediately stood up and headed that way, closely followed by Hugh. As they got through the shop, they could see Jack Speight, the newly promoted Detective Constable at the door.

“Jack!” Hugh exclaimed as Falcon opened the door to let the other man it. “What is it?”

“Hugh. Been trying to reach you all night. Your phone not working?”

“We’ve had our phones on silent,” Hugh said, as Jack followed them back to Falcon’s study.

“What’s going on, Jack?” Hugh asked, turning towards him.

The younger man took a deep breath. “I’m sorry but Gil Summers has been kidnapped by Swales’s men.”

“What! He was supposed to be under police protection!” Hugh swore under his breath.

“He was,” Jack replied sadly. “Both officers were knocked out and have severe concussions. They were lucky they didn’t die.”