The Asylum (The Vampire Diaries 18)

s cracks in the limestone.

“Look!” Cora called in excitement. She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she said abashedly. “It’s just … there’s a hole there,” she said, pointing to a crack at the base of the tower.

“Cora, I’m a vampire, not an elf.” The entrance, if that was what it was, couldn’t have been more than a foot high. It was a triangular gap where one limestone block had become loose from its neighbor.

Cora gave me a quick smile before crouching down and sticking her hand inside the hole. “I’m going to try it,” she said. So subtly I assumed it was a trick of the light, the hole began to grow. Cora put her arm farther in, and the hole grew bigger still. She turned to me, eyebrow raised.

Ephraim must be powerful to have such an enchanted entrance to his lair.

“I’ll go first,” I decided. I slid inside and Cora followed. We found ourselves in a narrow tunnel facing a winding set of stairs that seemed to rise to the heavens. Silently, we began to ascend.

“Stefan,” Cora said, her voice wavering. “What if this is a mistake? What if Ephraim is beyond reason?”

“It’ll be all right. We’re almost there,” I said, even though I had no idea. I wondered if the stairs, too, were not what they seemed. For all I knew, they were rotating below our feet, keeping us suspended in darkness while we climbed endlessly. Anything was possible.

Just as I was considering the worst, the stairs ended abruptly. We faced an iron door. I pushed at it tentatively, not sure if we were going to set off a trap or burst into flames.

“Who goes there?” a voice boomed, seeming to come from all places at once.

“I come as a friend,” I said, suddenly calm. We were here now and there was no backing out, so what would be would be.

I glanced at our surroundings. The room was tiny and octagonal. At most, it could hold five people, and I had to duck to keep my head from grazing the sloping, cob-webbed stone ceiling. The voice had come from a man sitting on a lone concrete block in the center of the tiny room. Burning candles dotted the damp floor, and a single opening, no larger than a brick, was cut into one wall. Through it, all of London was laid out beneath us. Across from us was another archway, which must have held the clock itself. I could see the large brass elements moving ponderously around an enormous circle. I wondered why Ephraim had chosen to reside in Big Ben, and if anyone knew he lived here.

The man turned from the window. He looked to be in his fifties and wore a tattered robe. Unlike James, he wouldn’t stand out as grotesque on the streets, although there was something about his bearing that would unnerve strangers—a nervous tension resonating throughout his body, giving the sense that he was always on high alert, prepared to attack or flee at a moment’s notice.

He eased toward me, sniffing the air as though he were a dog meeting another dog on the road. With James’s warnings in mind, I stood still, allowing him to continue this unorthodox mode of introduction. Cora remained at my side, her hands clasped demurely at her waist.

“She’s a human?” the man asked. “Ephraim likes humans. Ephraim doesn’t like vampires.”

Cora stepped forward. “Yes,” she said with a slight nod, causing her hair to fall over her eyes. “I am a human, but Stefan is not a typical vampire.”

“Ephraim will be the judge of that.”

“Can we speak with Ephraim?”

I heard a cawing sound as a large black raven flapped its wings and flew from a corner onto the man’s shoulder. I remembered the story Cora had told me: If the ravens were ever to leave the Tower of London, then all of England would fall. I wondered if the same were true of Ephraim in Big Ben. Maybe he was embedded there, stuck forever in the lore and legend of England. I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck.

The man regarded the raven thoughtfully, then turned back to us.

“I am Ephraim,” he proclaimed. “Why have you come?”

“Vampires,” I said simply.

“Vampires!” Ephraim spat. He gently stroked the raven’s wing with two of his swollen, misshapen fingers. While his face appeared middle-aged, his hands looked as withered and gnarled as the branches of an ancient oak. “Vampires remind Ephraim of leeches. And Ephraim knows leeches are good for spells, but not for company.”

While James had not underestimated Ephraim’s animosity toward vampires, I wondered if he had perhaps underestimated his madness.

“You don’t know him,” Cora said; her voice was clear as a clarion.

Ephraim chuckled. “We don’t know him!” he said to the raven in a singsong voice.

“Good morning!” the raven croaked, in such a perfect English accent that I blinked in surprise.

“He’s a good man,” Cora continued, unperturbed by the talking bird. She laid one of her thin hands on Ephraim’s wrist. “Just like James. And James was the one who sent us to you,” she explained, passing him the paper.

“What else did James have to say about Ephraim?”

Cora shook her head. “James said you’d had a tough time with vampires. But he said you could help us. And I believe you can. Please.”