The Dead Travel Fast Read Free Page A

legacy seems a bit extreme just to get at him. That’s what hooked me; because, if after all the centuries, his family had struggled to keep it, he was happy to be out of it, there must be some good reason and that brought me back to the code. Now, looking back, I see I was led back to that cursed document: I’d been strung along, played. Well, I found out why the Davenports feared the place alright.
    The code was crude; not difficult, once you recognised the simple pattern and re-positioned the letters, even though the writing was poor and crabbed. I’ve always been good with puzzles and had plenty of time to do them. Yet I thought this had defeated me because I found it hard to credit what I was reading. You don’t expect to read about demons in historical family documents and if, or when, you do, you laugh.
    I don’t think anyone would laugh after reading this. I won’t read it again, I thought of burning it but something stopped me; perhaps my training as an archivist. I’ve hidden it away where no one can read it, but if in desperate times you need it look in my reading record in Ryland’s. It’s another code, crack it and you’ll find the thing and if you ever come to that I pity you.
    Sorry, I’m starting to ramble again: back to the point. I’m not going to tell you much; it would stop your sleep. The fragment of code was written by Sir Hugh Davenport, if that’s what he still was. But I will tell you why this gruesome story should be of interest to you, Steve.
    In November 1387 Davenport betrayed his master Sir Thomas Molyneux in a skirmish at Radcot Bridge. He then disappears from the record until 1392 when we find him in the service of Henry of Lancaster on his progression to the crusade in Lithuania. But as we know, the war ended before they arrived, leaving them at a loose end; so Henry decided to proceed across Europe and visit Jerusalem. In November they reached Venice. Davenport’s journal becomes very strange on the subject of his arrival in Venice; it talks of a man or thing that follows them. The text is unclear.
    What is clear is that he is the only one who can see it. He travels no further with Henry, perhaps he is dismissed or perhaps he betrays Henry as he did Molyneux. Henry’s journal notes his relief at the absence of “that which did till of late greatly disturb us.”
    Davenport lives in Venice for a time and sets himself up as a magus or sorcerer; a type of English Pico della Mirandola. He spends his time “attempting to see things as they truly are, not as people see them”. The way he describes what is true I cannot bring myself to write about, except that it’s what I saw at the edges of that hideous painting in Venice and I know I will never feel clean again. If I’d not seen it myself I’d say he made it up because his mind was destroyed, and perhaps it was. He spread evil and pollution then moved on to Nice.
    Nice, where I sit in my hotel room as the shadows grow and lengthen while I write this. “Look to see me at the Palais Lascaris,” that thing had shouted to me in Venice, and here I am. I never meant to come here, I tried to fight it.
    Here, although it’s high summer, I feel chilled. I hear whispering but there’s no one there when I look, like the footsteps in Venice. Today I went to the Palais Lascaris. It’s a dark tall narrow building in the warren of filthy alleys in the old town. On each dark floor there are pictures and tapestries, musty with age and strange. Yet when you have learnt to “see things differently” theyare truly terrible, not only at the margins, but all the way through; be very glad you can’t see them.
    He was there. I didn’t see him. Every time I looked he’d gone but I knew he was there, waiting for me. The worst thing there is a picture “Ruines Avec Obelisque”, distorted, black at the heart. I had followed the Davenport trail, you can see him in the pictures and you can see where he went from here. And do you know where he