Samuel was entranced by the girl in the cafe. She was so excited by the prospect of going looking for books. He could empathise with how she felt. He was excited too. First of all because he was so close to achieving his life’s ambition that he could barely keep still. Secondly, maybe there was more fun to be had.
He knew he should be focusing on his task, on the work that needed to be done. But he couldn’t stop looking at the girl. She had a soft innocence to her face, she had never known true fear, never contorted her face in terror, never screamed for mercy. Did he have time to introduce her to those things? Perhaps. She was pretty too. How would she look running away from him? Begging him to stop? Would she look like Martha did? Would Martha look like that this time?
He watched the girl go out of the door, the wind blowing in for a brief second, making the sugar sachets on his table shift towards him. Once she was gone, he stood up. A tiny part of him wanted to follow her but he had to remind himself to concentrate. Things were moving on at a fast pace and now was not the time to get distracted.
He walked out of the cafe and through the town, making his way amongst all the day-trippers, none of them knowing how important he was, how he was going to save them all, how he would have willingly sliced the throats of any of them if they should get in his way.
Once he reached the holiday cottage near the castle, he headed through the gate and into the private garden. He was about he go inside when he heard a voice drifting towards him. His ears immediately picked it up, it was her. She was in the grounds of the castle, just the other side of the hedge. He could also hear music coming from the cottage next to his but he tuned that out, honing in on her voice, feeling a flare of jealousy as he realised she was talking to a man.
The cottage was one of three in a row. The first two were owned by Peter Robertson, custodian of the castle. The third was run privately, having been sold off back in the 1920s. Samuel was staying in the one nearest the visitor centre. The cottage itself was a detached house, built of yellowing stone with pantiled roof. It was surrounded by a tall beech hedge, most of the leaves orange and red, ready to fall. The hedge towards the back of the house was the only thing dividing the garden from the grounds of the castle. It was originally part of the surrounding lands, where the serfs would have farmed on behalf of their Lord. On the other side of the hedge, approximately ten feet from where Samuel stood, Martha and Ben were sitting on a bench talking about their respective families.
Samuel walked quietly over to the hedge, making sure he couldn’t be seen through it, standing perfectly still and listening.
He needed her more scared than this. The scourge was supposed to have set her on edge, the knight to have intensified her fear. From listening to her, she hardly sounded scared at all. That would never do.
He needed her terrified. If the offering was going to succeed, she needed to be utterly petrified. The Gods he worshipped did not like calm, they liked fear, they devoured it. He would provide it for them but he was clearly going to have to work harder to make sure she was ready.
As he listened to her voice, he thought about how lucky he was. Modern technology had worked in his favour. First Lisa and then Chloe. Both of them had mobile phones containing fingerprint recognition. Lisa’s phone, accessed with the touch to her hand, had brought him to Martha.
Accessing Chloe’s phone had been just as simple. Bound in place, all he had to do was wrench her cold hand away towards the side of the phone, press her finger in place. That was it. Her phone was unlocked. If she was still alive, he might have been able to get the PIN needed to unlock it. But dead, she couldn’t give him the number. He had cursed himself, thinking he had gone too far, that his plans were about to become unstuck. But then he had found his luck held, her finger on the phone and he gained access. It was so simple to send Martha messages, telling her how ill Chloe was, how she wouldn’t be coming into work for at least a few days, all written in the first person.
Martha would have no reason to suspect the messages weren’t coming from her colleague. By the time the truth came out, it wouldn’t matter anymore.
He thought about how she’d looked when he spoke to her. How scared would she have been if she’d known what he’d done already. In the cellar of the holiday cottage Chloe lay silently. They could find her after he was done. It wouldn’t matter then. He had one thing he needed to do and he had given no consideration to after. All his attention was fixed on the offering. After didn’t matter.
But the girl in the cafe had thrown him. What if there was an after? What if he was still around? Would the Gods be kind to him? Was his mother already up there? Would she persuade them to let him have a reward? A girl like that would make a perfect reward. He could keep her forever, like a pet. His own special pet who he’d love and feed and clothe and torture. It was a pleasant thought.
Through the hedge he heard another woman’s voice, Martha was needed for a tour. He didn’t think for another second. He jogged out of the garden and around to the visitor centre, joining the back of the queuing tour group. He was going to see her up close. He was going to stare at her and she wouldn’t have a clue what was planned for her.
He’d look at her, knowing what her body looked like under those clothes. None of the others would know but he would. The queue began to move into the visitor centre. He shuffled forwards with them, a smile flickering across his lips.