The Monster Hunter Read online

  ‘So I hear,’ said the nanny and nodding to the girl she passed through a doorway into a black-and-white tile-lined stairway. She had always loved this stairway as a child. It always felt like the climb you had to take to see Jack and his friend Kent (she refused to call him his batman) even though a few other doors also led from the stairwell.

  She stood before the dark-green door that led into his apartments. There was a mat for wiping your feet, something she knew neither her brother nor Kent ever used, although they would insist on others wiping their feet as if the duo’s dirt was the only honest dirt in London worthy of being traipsed across their carpets. The door had two stained-glass windows in it, so that Jack could see the shape of a caller before he opened the door, and the designs were of octopus reaching up from the depths but Jack had them deliberately put in upside down so they appeared to be reaching down from the clouds as he said they looked more accurate to his eyes that way. A big bell pull was set into the framework with the word ‘PULL’ written on the ceramic knob in case a caller needed help – and they often did if they were coming to see Jack. Nanny Belle, however, knocked hard on the glass. The bell was for callers only; to family and friends this was an inner door and so was therefore knocked.

  A moment later the door opened to the cheerful blond-bearded face of Kent. To Nanny Belle, he had always looked more like a Viking than an American, although as his accent was more Middle England neither was accurate.

  ‘Trinity!’ he gushed and threw his big arms around her.

  ‘Nice to see you too, Kent.’ She patted him gently on the back as Jack had taught her to do – a sign that the hug was over – and he broke away, nodding his head appreciatively.

  ‘If you weren’t Jack’s sister I would propose in a heartbeat,’ he said happily.

  Trinity raised an eyebrow. ‘You have proposed, Kent – often – and I have always turned you down because you are married already with a little daughter of your own.’

  The big man laughed. ‘There is always that. Come in – don’t worry about your boots, you’re family.’

  They walked down the hallway past display cases of things picked up by Jack on his travels and into the main room. Jack was sitting by the window. There were two cups of tea on a small round table beside his chair.

  ‘I watched you walking down the street. You still haven’t shaken that limp from Edinburgh,’ he said without looking up.

  Nanny Belle turned to Kent and whispered, ‘He’s in one of his moods I see. Best I talk to him alone.’

  Kent nodded understandingly and disappeared back into the hallway and took a side door to his personal quarters, something that always amused Nanny Belle as he hadn’t officially lived with her brother since he had married three years previously. She turned back to her brother and walking over she said in a louder voice:

  ‘It’s the cold, Jack; it brings back all manner of niggles and injuries.’ She picked up the other cup of tea and sat opposite her brother in the window. Both were quiet. She sat, tea in hand, sipping occasionally while he watched out into the street.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked compassionately, already well aware of the answer.

  ‘Ceylon – a little place called Noralia… It’s where they grow the tea. I picked up some while I was there. Got you some too, to take away.’ He lifted his cup to his lips and took a sip, enjoying the bitter flavour on his lips.

  ‘Did it help?’ she asked, her voice straining under her own held-back emotion. She hoped that her moist eyes did not give her away.

  ‘Does it ever help?’ he seemed to ask of the world beyond the window and took another sip of his tea.

  ‘Are you going to tell the boy?’ she asked, her thoughts going to Ben who was doing so well at the orphanage and the oyster factory that she felt he was already turning his back on Ceylon and the horrific events of his past.

  Jack looked at his sister. ‘My God, Trinity – dry your eyes, girl.’ He handed her a handkerchief from his pocket and she realised that, indeed, her cheeks were already wet with tears. ‘I wasn’t quick enough to find her and I certainly wasn’t there to save her. The world moves on and we move on with it.’

  ‘She was your wife, Jack, and he’s your son. I know you feel it, however hard you make your heart. You don’t have to keep doing it alone. You can stop, live the life of a proud father, the Crown would let you go, I’m sure of it.’ Her words were meant to be compassionate but she quickly felt her brother’s anger rising to the surface.

  Jack turned his hazel eyes upon his sister. ‘I am proud. I couldn’t be more proud. He took out a Psammead and a Bogle at the age of fourteen. He has his mother’s warrior blood coursing through his veins. A bit brutal in his delivery perhaps, but that will temper with age. He will learn style and finesse.’

  Jack took a sip of tea and smiled. ‘I once saw his mother move through a room of lycanthropes with such grace it was as if it were a deadly ballet.’

  Nanny Belle smiled as well. ‘You told me that once before but I would love to hear all those stories again.’

  Jack chuckled. ‘And you will!’ His tone became serious. ‘But the boy can never know. You must keep it from him and others. I have enemies and he would be an easy target, as well his mother knew, which is why she took him far away and why I never looked for them.’

  Nanny Belle reached into her bag. ‘I have something for you.’ She handed Jack the leather-bound book with the carved resin face. ‘I think it’s better in your care than in mine. Besides, the more Ben reads of this, the more he will want to hunt the monsters down. It’s possibly best he doesn’t know all your secrets just yet.’

  Jack leant forward and took the book. ‘Ben,’ he said distantly. ‘It suits him but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.’

  Nanny Belle nodded. She hated that her brother should be separated from his son but at least in that way he was to some degree protected.

  ‘Will he be safe now he is in England?’ she asked, concerned.

  ‘He’ll never be safe, Trinity. Safety is an illusion we have built up over many years. But he will be watched over. When he was born I remember his mother asked me if he would be safe and I remember my words to her: “Between you and me, my love, there is always someone watching.”’