Deep in thought, he paced around me several times. Finally he grabbed a chair and sat opposite me. I noted that he took great care not to allow any part of either the chair or his body to cross the salt circle. If nothing else, at least I knew that I was still someone to contend with even after four lazy years of early retirement.
‘There are some things that you have to understand,’ he said.
If William mentioned the greater good, I’d throw a hissy fit.
‘Alan was correct on several fronts,’ he continued. ‘Yes, there is a maze. Yes, inside that maze there is a monster and, yes, that monster demands to be fed. For a long time, it appeared to be in hibernation. It has only recently awoken.’
‘How recently?’
‘About eighteen months ago,’ he admitted.
Unbelievable. ‘So that means that up to eighteen people have been sacrificed.’
He shook his head. ‘Initially three vampires were taken, roughly one every month. It took us a while to realise what was happening but then we started trying to appease the monster. We tried bringing a cow to the maze but it was left untouched.We offered sheep but they were also not acceptable. Two more vampires went missing, then a visiting troll.’
He gazed into the distance. ‘We sent a team of five highly trained vampires into the maze. Only two returned, and they had spent ten days completely lost. They never saw the monster. They couldn’t get close to it.’
I watched him and I waited.
‘After that the disappearances and the killings seemed to stop.’
‘Because the sacrifices began,’ I snarled.
To William’s credit, he answered truthfully. ‘Yes. Thralls to begin with. After we banned the thralls from the Understream, there were others.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘You were right. Deep down we knew – we all knew. But we were too afraid to do anything about it.’
‘As long as you’re not the one getting eaten then it doesn’t matter,’ I said flatly. ‘But you know the poem, right? The one by Pastor Martin Niemoller?’
He did. ‘First they came for the Communists,’ he quoted, ‘And I did not speak out.’ He looked away and whispered the next line, ‘Because I was not a Communist.’
William didn’t need me to spell it out for him; he knew exactly what he’d done. He might not have dragged people to their deaths like Alan had done, but he was guilty all the same. All the vampires were.
‘He came here, didn’t he?’ I asked. ‘You were tracking my whereabouts and Alan came here to find out where I was.’
William didn’t deny it. ‘I thought he was being helpful. He brought you here to begin with, so it made sense that he felt responsible for your well-being.’
I snorted. I was beginning to think that Alan had had designs on me as a monster sacrifice from the very start.
‘I’m not defending his actions but Alan didn’t start any ofthis,’ William continued quietly. ‘The sacrifices weren’t his idea.’
‘Let me guess. Chester Longchamps?’
He nodded. ‘He’s gone now. He entered the maze and never came back out. He said he had a plan. He made a video…’
I blinked. ‘A video?’
He smiled faintly. ‘Unusual in Coldstream, I know.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘There’s no point. Longchamps makes a brief, self-aggrandising speech then strides into the maze like an all-conquering hero. That’s all you need to know.’
‘Alan mentioned a map,’ I persisted.
William shrugged helplessly. ‘I heard something along those lines. Chester didn’t mention it in the video but I know he entered the maze with a bellarmine jug. I think it contained a map that he believed would lead him to the monster. Chester thought that he could take it out if he could approach it unawares.’
‘Maybe he did. Maybe he got lost on his way out.’
‘Ms McCafferty, I wish I could believe that. I truly do.’
