Otis frowned. ‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Could there be treasure there that he doesn’t want us to find?’ Becky mused.
‘I don’t know that either.’ I paused. ‘But it’s worth investigating.’
Otis still looked doubtful.
‘I’d say so.’ Hugo flashed his dimple. ‘We can be in Lincolnshire by nightfall.’
Mark folded his arms. ‘I hate to be the ghost at this party, but we don’t know where to go or what to look for. That’s a vast area to cover – it’d be like looking for a needle in a haystack when we don’t know what a needle looks like.’
I grinned. ‘That’s why we don’t go there. We do what Athair wants. Hugo, the brownies and I will investigate the Staffordshire Hoard and he’ll believe he has us under his thumb. We’ll go on our own because then we’re deliberately separating ourselves from the rest of you to keep you safe. You lot stay here under the watchful eye of those bastard vampires outside. In the meantime, you find what we should really be looking for.’ I stepped up to the map and waved my hand. ‘It will be in the one place where Athair doesn’t want us to go.’
Chapter
Eleven
It wasn’t a perfect plan but it was the best we had; in this scenario there was no such thing as a perfect plan. Until something else presented itself to us, we agreed that this was the best option.
We made a big show of it, taking our time to load our gear into Hugo’s jeep before performing a set of elaborate farewells in front of Pemberville Castle for the benefit of any vampires who might be passing on information to my bastard birth father.
Despite my trepidation, I couldn’t deny that the upcoming journey felt good. We were taking action. We might not be successful but we weren’t puppets on Athair’s string, and we weren’t going to yield to his fiendish desires. Whatever he did, whatever tricks he pulled, I would never be his. I’d be dead before I’d be a fiend.
It was early evening by the time we arrived in Hammerwich, the village close to where the Staffordshire Hoard had been found in 2009. It was a pretty place overlooked by a large white windmill. There was a parish church, a small shop that sold the usual daily necessities from newspapers to milk to bars of chocolate, and two well-kept parks. In the dappled sunshine of the dying day, the village exuded a quiet appeal though it was nota hive of activity. Fewer than five thousand people lived here – and it showed.
Hugo parked by the side of the main street while Hester stared out of the window and huffed a bored sigh. ‘It’s not a terribly exciting place, is it?’
‘Perhaps, Hes, you’d rather be enslaved by a fiend,’ Otis said sniffily. ‘Perhaps that would provide the sort of excitement you’re after.’
Oh dear: this was the longest I’d ever seen the siblings argue. I’d hoped that the journey, not to mention the hunt, would be enough to settle their differences. It appeared that I’d been wrong.
Hester flew to my shoulder and said in an extraordinarily loud voice, ‘Tell Otis that I would not be stupid enough to get myself caught by a fiend in the first place.’
Hugo and I exchanged looks.
Otis replied equally loudly, ‘Tell Hester that if she did get caught by a fiend, nobody would want to rescue her.’
This was becoming ridiculous. ‘Enough already,’ I said. ‘You’re arguing over nothing.’
‘Are not,’ Otis sniped.
‘Are too,’ Hester yelled.
I pinched off a headache. ‘You know what? The two of you should stay here until you sort yourselves out. We have far bigger problems to worry about and we don’t need this.’ I unclipped my seatbelt and stepped out of the Jeep.
A second later, Hugo joined me. ‘Are you sure that leaving them alone together is a good idea?’ he asked.
‘They’ll work things out between them.’ I gave him an arch look. ‘After all, we did.’
He pursed his lips. ‘Yes, but that’s because I’m irresistible.’ He pointed to his face. ‘How could you possibly say no?’
‘It’s one of the great mysteries of life,’ I replied.
Hugo smirked and draped an arm around my waist. ‘You love me really.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I do.’ I pushed myself up and gave him a lingering kiss. ‘They love each other, too. They’ll sort it out.’
