Brian Helsing: The World's Unlikeliest Vampire Hunter Box Set 1 - Missions 1-3

by Gareth K Pengelly

  Scylla followed his gaze, puzzled, to spy a huddle of young chav boys chatting, laughing and shoving each other against the harbour wall.

  “What’s wrong? It’s only a few youths.”

  “Yeah, the same lads who stole my surfboard. And I, err, may have been a bit overzealous when I stole it back from them. And I don’t think they’re the type to forget being embarrassed in a hurry. Come on, let’s cross the road and try to avoid a scene.”

  Too late, the lead boy from before the one Brian had nicked the trousers from, saw them out of the corner of his eye and his spotty face twisted with rage beneath his faux-Burberry cap.

  “Oi! Lads, it’s ‘im! That lanky twat from before. Get ‘im!”

  “Oh, bugger.”

  Scylla laughed and glanced up at Brian, placing a hand on his arm.

  “Don’t worry, allow me.”

  “Promise not to kill them.”

  “Oh, I won’t.”

  “What? Promise? Or kill them?”

  As the group of incensed young oiks came racing towards Brian, they caught sight of Scylla, standing there, sultry and seductive as she brushed her long hair back behind her ear. Their sprint slowed to a slow zombie shuffle.

  “Hi boys,” she smiled.

  “Cor, Callum. Would you look at her?” one of the youths murmured to the lead teen.

  “Aye. What’s your name, miss?”

  “Scylla,” she replied in a sultry whisper, batting her eyelashes as Brian stood on, perplexed. “What’s yours?”

  “Erm, Callum,” he gulped.

  “Could you do something for me, Callum?”

  “Err, sure. Whaddya want?”

  “You look like a strapping young lad. Bet you’re a strong swimmer, aren’t you? Why don’t you jump over that wall there, into the harbour, show me how good you are.”

  “Whu… what?”

  She stared at them, head cocked to one side, eyes wide and imploring, a warm smile on her face. Brian shivered. She put him in mind of a cobra about to strike.

  “The wall. Jump over it, all of you. I want to see who’s the strongest swimmer out of you all.”

  A brief pause, as though time had stood still, as their teenaged minds rebelled at the idea, knowing subconsciously that it would be a very stupid thing to do indeed. And yet that voice, that face, those curves. How could they resist?

  “Well, it’s me, obviously,” Callum declared.

  “Nuh-uh,” his friend protested. “Yer ‘avin’ a laugh mate. I’ve always swum better than you.”

  As Brian watched on in amazement, the group of teens all but scrabbled over each other for the chance to be the first over the harbour wall, fake Nike trainers fighting for grip on the stone as they climbed and flung themselves into the air. Scylla laughed, while Brian made his way to the wall and peered down the twenty feet into the water. The youths spat and flailed in the cold brine, shouting at each other in angry confusion.

  “What the fuck was that about, Callum? Why the hell did we jump into the water?”

  “I dunno,” Callum blubbed to his friend. “Help me! I can’t even swim!”

  Brian had to chuckle as Scylla dragged him away, the pair continuing on their way towards the town centre.

  “Colour me impressed,” he whistled.

  “Being a supernatural spirit has its advantages at times.”

  “So it seems.”

  Up ahead, in the narrow high-street, Nando’s glowing chicken sign signalled their destination drawing near. And in the street, a crowd of noisy spectators, watching some dramatic confrontation unfold.

  “Oh god,” Brian groaned. “Why do I have a feeling this is your sisters’ doing?”

  “Because it probably is,” she replied.

  Chapter Sixteen: Cheeky Nando’s

  Brian barged his way through the thong, Scylla following in his nigh-seven foot wake, the crowd parting before them like arctic floes before a breaker. As he forced his way to the front of the crowd, he stopped and slumped at the scene before him.

  “Pandora,” he groaned. “Put the poor bloke down.”

  The Nymph looked at him, face still etched with annoyance. She was clad in her supernatural disguise, that of a beautiful, blonde-haired young woman. But that didn’t seem to lessen the fear felt by the charity collector who was held nonchalantly in her grasp by the front of his coat, high in the air, his feet kicking uselessly above the ground.

  “He wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept following me, pestering me, telling me about all these poor starving orphans in Africa. Why would I care about orphans in Africa? I don’t even care about orphans here! But he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “They do that,” he explained. “It’s nothing personal; it’s just their job.”

  “Well it’s a terrible job,” she replied. “Going round trying to make people feel guilty about things they have no control over.”

  “I won’t argue with that, but it’s no reason to kill the man. Now put him down and let him go change his pants.”

  With a last look at the terrified man, as if weighing up whether to snap his neck or not, she finally dropped him unceremoniously to the ground with a splat. The man darted a nod of thanks to Brian, before running away at full pelt. Even as the man vanished, the crowd surged inwards, but no braying mob this, eager to exact vigilante justice.

  “Are you alright?” one man asked.

  “Such a horrible man, hounding you like that,” consoled an old woman.

  Brian stared, nonplussed. Hadn’t they just seen the girl holding a petrified and helpless man high in the air with one hand? Did that enormous strength not strike them as odd coming from such a slender and petite looking girl? He glanced down to Scylla, who met his gaze.

  “Glamour,” she explained.

  “Ah yes. Glamour.” He turned to the crowd, wafting them away as though guiding a jumbo jet in to land. “Alright people, break it up. The lady’s fine and we’ve an appointment to get to.”

  As the crowd dispersed, only Brian, Scylla and the other gathered Nymphs remained outside the Nando’s. The Nymphs each wore a different human disguise, some blonde, brunette, redhead, each and every one strikingly beautiful in their own way. Their strange eclectic attire, no doubt comprised of whatever they could steal or else had washed down to their watery domain, combined to lend them the appearance of a group of fashion-blind, weather-resistant cat-walk models on some budget winter seaside jolly. As Brian watched them, he noticed Pandora staring at the passers-by, licking her lips.

  “They all smell so… tasty,” she murmured.

  “Then let’s get you inside,” Brian countered, “before you do something everyone will regret.”

  Herding the group of sea-spirits into the building, Brian inhaled deeply and smiled.

  “Now that’s the smell of real food,” he told the group.

  “Something’s burning,” one of the Nymphs declared, casting about with suspicious eyes.

  “No, something’s cooking. There’s a difference.”

  “What is this ‘cooking’ of which you speak?”

  “It’s where you roast food over open flames.”

  “Yes. Burning.”

  “Whatever,” Brian sighed. “Come on, let’s find a table.” He made to move, before noticing that the girls had all spread out, picking up bottles, prodding at other diners’ lunches, much to their astonishment. Brian turned to Scylla. “Fuck’s sake, how do you deal with this on a daily basis? It’s like trying to herd cats.”

  “You’ve got to appeal to their stomachs,” she explained, before placing her fingers in her mouth and whistling. “Girls; sit down or you don’t get dinner.”

  A flurry of motion and the Nymphs huddled about Brian, clambering over each other as they sat down about a long table, looking up at him with wide, expectant eyes.

  “Awesome,” he nodded. “Some order at last. Now what are we having?”

  Pandora shrugged.

  “Never eaten here before, what�
�s good?”

  “Do they serve man-flesh?” a voice called from the other end of the table.

  “No, they bloody well don’t serve man-flesh,” he gasped. “That’s the point. We’re getting you to try something new. They serve chicken and, by God, they do it well.”

  “I don’t eat meat,” came Scylla’s voice from beside him.

  “Well, why don’t you try some halloumi?” he suggested.

  “What’s it like?”

  He wracked his brain to think of a favourable description.

  “It’s like salty rubber.”

  “Oh. Well, why not, I’m game.”

  Leaving the Nymphs to all chat amongst themselves, talking about whatever the hell it was such creatures had to talk about, Brian made his way to the counter to order. The young lad who came to take his order kept glancing over to the table, as did Brian, if for different reasons.

  “You’re a lucky fella,” the man declared. “Being in the company of so many gorgeous women.”

  “Lucky?” Brian scoffed. “Mate, they’re like foxes in a chicken coop, if you’ll pardon the pun. Get us some food on the go and be quick about it, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll all survive this.”

  “What will it be?”

  Brian stared at the laminated menu.

  “Everything,” he said. “Several times over.”

  “Fries with that?”

  “Did I fucking stutter? Everything, mate. I’m determined to throw as much shit as I can at this wall, in the hopes that some of it will stick.”

  The man rang up the order, then gulped.

  “That’ll be five hundred and ninety two pounds, please.”

  With a sigh, Brian handed over his card. Newquay had proved an expensive trip thus far. How he’d explain the bills to Heimlich, he had no idea. Finally, bill paid and food on its way, Brian went and sat back down at the table next to Scylla, joining halfway through a very bizarre conversation.

  “And I said to him, ‘how the hell did you think I was a manatee? Have you seen this figure?’ And he laughed, and I laughed, and then I ripped off his head. His mates took exception to that. Luckily I was well under the waves by the time they opened up with their muskets.”

  The gaggle of women broke down into hysterics, all bar Scylla who simply rolled her eyes as if she’d heard the tale a thousand times, and Brian, who paled. As the laughter subsided, the Nymphs all turned to look at him, puzzled as to why he hadn’t found their grisly story hilarious.

  “Must have had to be there,” he shrugged. Then he frowned. “Muskets?” He turned to Scylla who looked at him, curious. “How old are you?”

  “I dunno. When was the Spanish Armada?”

  “Erm… the sixteenth century?”

  “Yeah, I was spawned a bit before that.”

  He stared at her pale, flawless skin and youthful, glistening eyes.

  “You look good for five hundred years old.”

  She blushed.

  “Thank you. I think the salt water is good for your skin.”

  “I imagine it helps exfoliate, whatever that means.”

  The table descended once more into violent anecdotes that the other Nymphs found amusing and Scylla, tedious, Brian just sitting and listening in, part in horror, part fascination. There was talk of Narwhals, of gods, hushed whispers of nameless Old Ones. Mermaids were a frequent topic, spoken about with much bitchiness.

  “To a lot of humans, you guys would be considered mermaids, you know,” Brian made the mistake of commenting.

  “You take that back!” Pandora spat. “We’ve nothing in common with those whores.”

  “Well,” Brian continued, digging himself further into his hole. “You both take the form of beautiful ladies, both live in the sea, both lure people to their grisly deaths with your looks. I mean, you have to admit, there’s similarities there.”

  “Mermaids are just vain attention-hounds,” Pandora retorted. “They sit there combing their hair, singing away, looking all pretty. Do they ever actually go out and work for their meals? No, they let their menfolk do it for them. And if some handsome sailor comes along, offering them a life of luxury, they forsake their people in an instant and swan off to some ivory tower.”

  “That’s basically the plot of the Little Mermaid,” Brian noted.

  “Indeed. And never a truer tale has been told. So don’t compare us to those vacuous bitches. It’s like comparing sharks to angel-fish.”

  Brian didn’t know which was which, though he had an inkling, so wisely he kept his mouth shut. Thankfully, the food chose that moment to appear. A veritable army of Nando’s servers streamed up to the table in a procession of chicken, leaving plate after plate after plate of fried goodness before the suspiciously staring Nymphs.

  “Tuck in,” Brian told them.

  “It looks… oily,” one of the Nymphs proclaimed, prodding the food, a redhead who he’d gathered through listening to their conversation was named Ariadne.

  “It is, but that’s what makes it so tasty. Watch.” He grabbed a chicken wing from one of the precariously leaning piles and bit into it with relish. “Mmm,” he drawled. “Lovely. Far better than human flesh.”

  “You’ve never eaten human flesh,” Pandora retorted, eyeing the drumstick in her hand warily as though it might bite.

  “Then prove me wrong,” he told her.

  She slowly, ever so slowly, moved the peri-peri chicken closer to her mouth, as the other Nymphs craned their necks, waiting for her reaction with bated breath. Not as bated as Brian’s, however. His heart beat a fierce tattoo in his chest. If this didn’t work, then a bloodbath might ensue as the hungry Nymphs decided to feast upon their fellow diners. Razor teeth bit into drumstick and Pandora chewed slowly, a thoughtful expression on her face, before swallowing.

  “By Poseidon’s curly-fucking-beard,” she whispered. “He’s right.”

  The other Nymphs, as if by some unspoken command, all launched into their dinners with gusto, trying a bit of this and a bit of that, babbling excitedly to each other through mouthfuls of meat as they did. Brian slumped back into his chair, relief surging through every fibre of his being. Even Scylla seemed to be enjoying her strips of salty, fried car tyre, giving him a thumbs up. Brian smiled at her, then caught the attention of a server walking past.

  “Can we get a round of drinks in please, miss?”

  “Sure, what would you like?”

  “Anything,” he told her. “Just make sure it’s got some alcohol in it.”

  Chapter Seventeen: Old Faces, New Friends

  It was far later in the afternoon, getting on almost for evening now, as Brian and Scylla strolled along the prom. The other girls were tottering on up ahead, eating trays of chips, with saveloys, kebab meat, battered sausages and lashings of salt and vinegar. The thought of man-flesh now well and truly dashed from their minds, they were on a crusade to eat everything devised by the people they once thought of as cattle, starting it seemed, with the very basics. If they kept up their voracious appetite, Brian thought, they might end up getting fat. The idea of a round Water Nymph seemed strangely amusing.

  Scylla seemed almost melancholy as the pair walked, her usually excitable mood somewhat sombre for once. When she turned to speak to him, her voice was low, almost sad.

  “I’m assuming, now your mission’s done, you’ll be returning home to Penzance?”

  Brian stared down at her, then smiled.

  “Well, I’m staying for at least one more night,” he laughed. “I’m pissed again, third night in a row. Starting to worry for my liver.”

  She smiled back at him, then hooked her fingers through his. They were cool to the touch, as befitted a creature of the great, deep ocean.

  “Good,” she said. “Because I’d like to see a lot more of you.”

  “Hah, not sure what else this is you could see that you haven’t already. Well, there’s one small thing.”

  “Small?”

  Brian grimaced.

  “Po
or choice of words. I meant enormous. Huge thing.”

  She laughed.

  “I don’t even have anything to compare it to,” she giggled. “I’m afraid you’ll be my first.”

  Brian stared for a moment.

  “Really? You, the beautiful possessor of bewitching glamour who happens to frequent seedy nightclubs? How have you, in five hundred years, not been swept off your feet by some dashing man under your spell?”

  “Never found the right one, I suppose,” she mused. “Funny that the one man I have a connection with is the one tasked with hunting down such creatures as myself.”

  A sudden noise from the encroaching evening gloom high above them. A voice painfully familiar and even more painfully inevitable.

  “Star-crossed lovers, indeed,” came Cassandra’s cold laugh.

  She was sat atop the horizontal part of a streetlamp, some twenty feet above the ground, kicking her feet and eyeing the pair with amusement.

  “What do you want?” Scylla growled. “Brian not kick your ass enough last night? Back for another thrashing? I have to warn you, I’m not half as drunk as I was then and you won’t find me as easy a prospect.”

  The vampire dropped down to land lightly before them like a cat, rising and stalking slowly towards them with a smile on her fanged lips.

  “My dear, don’t flatter yourself; I’ve killed more Nymphs than you’ve had fish dinners.”

  “I’m a vegan.”

  “And I really don’t care.” She fixed Brian with steely cold eyes. “And besides, it’s not you I’m after; it’s that scrawny excuse for a Helsing. You surprised me with your tricks last night, but I shan’t make that mistake again. No flaming sword in your hand. No car nearby to summon with a whistle – yes, I saw the Youtube video, and that was a cheap trick – so your death shall be quick.”

  Brian, despite her threats, laughed.

  “I’d make yourself scarce, Cassandra, and pretty sharpish.”

  “Really? Who’s going to make me? You and your mermaid girlfriend?”

  “Oi!” came a shout from behind her. “Say that word one more time. I dare you.”

  Cassandra turned, to spy the half a dozen Nymphs standing, half-eaten trays of chips still held in their hands. Her smile faded.