The residual odours of the steelworks’ manufacturing would not be detected by the human nose when so far from its source in terms of both time and distance, but his senses had become heightened since he had transitioned to his vampiric status. It came with the territory. Nobody knew why that was, or why the degree of sensory and emotional amplification varied between vampires. Kasper suspected that it had something to do with innate skill, previous experience, knowledge, practice and refinement. Ferrers had taught him that it paid to be observant, and he was correct. No dark arts were involved in their uncanny perception of the world and the people in it; it was just about paying attention and making deductions.
It was his keen sense of smell that alerted him to the sweet smell of decay. It swelled until it filled the air completely. He didn't need to breathe, but he did it out of habit. It also helped when mixing with humans. The odour was pungent and hot and sticky. It wasn't fresh, but it wasn't old; a few days, a couple of weeks at most.
He shut his eyes and let the stink wash over him. It wasn't human. Experience told him that it was most likely a dog. But another scent lingered with it, mingled with it. It was vampire.
The thought of another vampire so close to Julie agitated him. If there was another vampire close by, and it was inexperienced and debased enough to leave dead dogs lying around for all to see, then it was dangerous; dangerous because it was untrained and had little sense of boundaries. It could put his anonymity at risk; it could put Julie at risk. This vampire could mean trouble. He wouldn't allow anything to interfere with his goal. He had to find Julie, he had to satisfy himself that she was well, and he had to know if he had a daughter.
Killing another vampire to protect a human was something that he hadn't yet done; although he had firmly retained the belief in the sanctity of human life and the principle that he should do what he could do to preserve it within reason. It was not always possible. He'd made mistakes in his early days and fed too much on a few occasions, but he carried the burden of that guilt with him. The guilt lessened with each day, but the remnants still clung to his soul. He had tolerated the excesses of his European brethren because of his need for money and for companionship, but he had tried to educate them when he could and moderate their behaviour when there was opportunity. He likened it to having a domestic cat who hunts birds. You chastise it and try to discourage it, but on some level, you still know that it is in its DNA to kill and, while you may not approve, you learn to accept it. In his case, he also felt like the cat.
There was no denying that he had used his vampire kin, and indeed his own instincts, when it suited him. There was, for example, the unfortunate occasion when he had used them to extract information from a youth in Antwerp to find out more about the strange woman at the bar who he suspected was his child. It had got out of hand and they'd killed him. But hadn't he stopped them from killing the other boy with him? Didn't that count for something, he asked himself? He visited the limits of his diminishing morality, lingered there for a while and withdrew. The longer he was a vampire, the longer he would stay there on the fringes of what he currently deemed as acceptable. Soon he would stay there forever, over the line and in the land of those who see humans as nothing more than prey.
The scent of vampire and dead dog became more intense as he approached a break between a short run of houses, a dark lane lined by dense hedges on each side.
Gnarled bone, matter fur, claws blunted in the fray. The metallic scent of blood permeated the air, although it held none of the erotic, musky smell of sweet human blood. The crumpled mass of canine flesh lay semi-concealed under the thick leaves of the flora. It was not surprising that the carcass had gone unnoticed, or perchance it had and had simply been ignored, a problem for someone else to clean up. The animal lacked a collar. Perhaps nobody had even missed it. Still, no way to go - it hadn't been a clean kill.
The scent of vampire kissed the leaves around the corpse and danced about the air like a whisper, eventually dissipating into nothingness. The vampire was long gone.
Kasper nudged the remains into the undergrowth with the edge of his shoe. As a young man, he would have felt sad, but still have taken a photograph, honouring the dead animal with his immortal lens. Now he did neither; it was time to move on. Julie's house would be no more than ten minutes away.
The cocktail of salt, MSG and all things bad filled my stomach until it swelled. I pushed the plate of half-eaten chilli beef away from me and sank back into the rubber wood chair. Mickey was valiantly trying to win a fight with a particularly oily portion of chow mien.
"You're going to need your strength for tomorrow," I said, unbuttoning my jeans at the waist to gain some breathing room.
"You make it sound like I'm doing an Iron Man challenge,” Mickey smirked mischievously, revealing his charmingly crooked teeth.
"That may be more fun."
Charlie jumped on my lap, forcing an "ugh" from me as he commenced a ritual pawing of my squishy stomach. I was too stuffed and exhausted to push him away. I tickled him behind one ear and he eventually settled.
"Your mammy sounds lovely,” Mickey said. "I'm braced for a grilling, although we've faced worse. It can't be as bad as smashing in vamp teeth with a wrench."
"I know. You're right. I don't mean to sound negative. Mum is lovely; it's just that I've never brought a guy home before so it's a big deal. Plus, you have to admit that your sudden appearance will raise an eyebrow or two." My words hurt him although it hadn't been my intention. "I didn't mean..." I didn't know what the appropriate words were. I left my meaning to hang silently in the air.
"Ach, I know," he said, shrugging. I was pleased that his resignation to reality did not lead him into thoughts of Sean, of Antwerp or the events that had followed, including his own physical beating. Any aura of sadness in that moment could be attributed to the fleeting nature of his visit. It provided a peculiar sense of comfort.
Charlie, finally bored of my attention, vacated my lap and plodded across the kitchen and through the cat flap to the stillness of the night air. It was time for his customary constitutional.
"I'm having a baby," I said, grinning. "A food baby."
I rubbed my bulging belly with a perverse sense of pride. Mickey studied his chow mien, resigned to defeat, and pushed the plate to one side. He reached across the table and gently patted my stomach. "It's my wee pumpkin belly,” he grinned.
I held his hand in place for a moment and our eyes met, sharing a flicker of a future we didn't know if we'd ever be able to have. We hadn't discussed what this relationship meant; we'd shared no words of love, but we didn't have to. The moment was interrupted by the sound of Charlie leaping over the garden gate and for the first time in a while I felt safe.
Kasper experienced an increased sense of familiarity and protectiveness as he traversed the worn pavement through Bethesda. It was not that the landscape reminded him of his old home in Denmark -the densely packed, tiny terraces and tin houses bore no resemblance to the urban constructions of Copenhagen or to the larger, timber homes of his familial neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city. The air had a still dampness to it that smelled of rain, although none had fallen. Yes, it was different.
Was it the sense of hirwaeth which Julie had mentioned to him, a Welsh concept akin to an overwhelming desire to be back in your homeland? But how could he feel that sensation? He'd never been to the UK, let alone to Bethesda. Did he simply feel at home as she had spoken about it with such fondness? He knew it was impossible, but every fibre of his body was screaming to him that he belonged, that he was meant to be there for some reason. He ached with a comforting swell of emotion, a pull towards something he couldn't identify. His head began to spin and for a moment, he was overcome. Could it simply be the anticipation of seeing her?
The sensation surprised him and he sat for a moment on a low, stone garden wall to compose himself. He hadn't experienced such a wave of emotion since becoming a vampire. It was almost - no wait - it couldn't be co
uld it? Could his sire be near? Why would Ferrers be here? Thoughts raced through his mind in an effort to make sense of the situation. It was true that the feeling was close to that early sense of connectivity and belonging he had felt to Ferrers, the vampire who had made him. Ferrers was English; in real terms he wasn't that far away, a few hours perhaps, but why would he be here? He tried to shrug the feeling away.
Kasper felt anger bubble up inside him at the thought of Ferrers’ being close to his Julie and possibly to his potential daughter. He heard the sound of his fangs ripping through his gums before he felt them. It shook sense into him and he breathed slowly and deeply to focus his thoughts, rather than to oxygenate his brain and body. He closed his eyes to shut the world out until he had composed himself. In his desire to see Julie, he had lost control. He had been far too laissez faire, in terms of his thoughts and behaviour. He hadn't paid attention to his feeding needs and had been sloppy with the boy as a result. He'd got worked up by the thought of Ferrers and risked a passer-by seeing his true nature. Squeezing his eyes shut even tighter, he willed himself into togetherness. His fangs retracted, his pupils constricted and all was as normal as it could be.
When he eventually opened his eyes, a large ginger cat was sniffing his leg. They stared at each other for a second or two, before the animal rubbed his head and sauntered off.
This is a strange place, Kasper thought, a very strange place indeed.
5
To the outside world, Kurt Andersen was much like any of the other middle-aged academics on campus - handsome once, but now quintessentially beige, a remnant of 1970s liberalism and social action wrapped up in a tweed jacket and brown suede Hush Puppies. He wore his collars open, and his shirt sleeves rolled up, down and unbuttoned when jacketed. He held two doctorates, one in Sociology and the other in Anthropology, which melded together to deliver more than fifteen years as one of the leading experts on comparative religion. He had conducted more than five successful studies, all published, as well as numerous papers on the socio-economic purposes of cults. He had lectured in the Netherlands, the Baltics, Barcelona and Paris, before securing an invitation to head up the Social Sciences department at the University of Wales.
He had visited Wales on several occasions in the years before he accepted the position, but these were fleeting visits. Cardiff reminded him of his native Copenhagen in many ways, except for the lack of canals. He missed Christianshavn and the canals sometimes, but Cardiff Bay had been substantially redeveloped during the ten years of his tenure and he enjoyed the fresh air when he strolled in the evenings after the last of his seminars. Kurt's home was a small Victorian villa on Cathedral Road, a short walk to the university and to the city centre. A ten-minute drive to the north took him to the M4 motorway and to Bethel, to Swansea or further up into the Rhondda valleys, depending on the direction. It was a perfect location for him. Convenient and close - close to everything he needed and within comfortable reach of everything he wanted.
Tonight, he was exactly where he needed to be. He pushed his sandy hair away from his face and held it there with one hand while he poured over the manuscript, absorbing the information in through horn-framed lenses and cigarette smoke the same shade of grey that streaked his hair. He had spent years searching for this type of text, this type of documentary evidence. It had been his life's work, and here it was laid out tentatively on a metre squared sheet of muslin on the mahogany table in the heart of his dining room. He had paid a high price for the document on the black market, simply because those fools in Istanbul didn't know what they had. He had travelled the world and found it quite by accident, being auctioned off in a dingy back room as part of a private sale - private as the owners of the rare collection didn't know that it was for sale, robbed by thieves who had taken the haul without even knowing its true value. They were probably dead now, but that was not his concern. His priority now had to be for his own safety and that of the manuscript.
It had taken him the majority of the Christmas holidays to decipher it; his Latin was adequate but rusty, given his academic leaning towards cults and alternative religions, he had not needed it for a long time, so reading the ancient language was like trying to understand a secret underworld code. There were words that were Latin, some that weren't, and symbols inserted in the place of words.
He couldn't ask for help, of course - he couldn't be sure who he could trust. He knew many clerics due to his field of study, with good relationships with most, plus there was the university chaplain, but who knew how they might respond? It was difficult to believe that they would even acknowledge that vampires existed, let alone that this ancient prophesy could be true, that it could become real here of all places; here in little, unassuming South Wales.
He took another drag from his Marlboro and sat back in his chair. He had wanted this for so long, but now he didn't know what to do with it. The document could be a fake, but that didn't mean that this short text about the future of vampirism didn't reflect the truth - that vampires exist and more! He knew vampires existed; he'd studied lore, conducted hundreds of interviews and he'd seen the evidence.
Yes, he'd seen evidence with his own eyes. A few weeks earlier, he'd seen what he was convinced had been a vampire - part itinerant, part animal, part ghoul. The man, no - the creature - was mad, possibly suffering from starvation or the effects of whatever disease or condition that caused vampirism. He had been returning from Bristol where he'd gone to see a performance of an American blues-folk singer he'd admired. On the way back from St Georges Hall, just out of the city, it had stumbled in front of his car. In shock, Kurt had kneeled over the crumpled body to provide assistance and was promptly attacked in return. Thankfully, despite the middle-age spread, his active youth have provided him with an inherent strength which he used to propel his fist into the man's head and into the tarmac of the road. It had been enough to debilitate the already injured creature and he had thrown him on the back seat of the car with the intention of taking him to the nearest hospital. As he drove, the creature awoke, lurched towards him and attempted to bite him.
The sight of the fangs in the rear view mirror immediately alerted him to what this thing was - yes, he was right, they exist, real vampires. He slammed on the hand-brake, grabbed the small emergency fire extinguisher from the doorwell and swung it hard into the creature's face. It collapsed back into the rear seat, arms flaying and mouth spitting sounds of hate and anger. He whacked it again and a second time; he didn't want to kill it, but he wanted it out cold. He wasn't sure what he would do with it, but he wanted to keep it alive. He'd need to take it somewhere, question it.
It should have been secure in the boot of his car, but it had thrashed around till eventually it found the release mechanism and made its escape. Kurt was almost at the exit for Bethel when he heard the rhythmic thud of the body bouncing off the tarmac and saw the blur of the creature limping off into the undergrowth at the start of the bypass. He stayed awake all that night, and the night after, inhaling packets of cigarettes and the bottle of malt whiskey which he had been keeping for a special occasion. Part of him had wanted to pursue the demon. After all, if it were a vampire, it was now running around close to a densely populated area; it was no doubt hungry and annoyed. He wondered if he would see the creature again - after all he knew people in and around Bethel, he spent time there. The rest of him wanted to forget it and he tried to persuade himself that he was mistaken; there were no fangs, nothing in the mirror except a vagrant hopped up on drugs and alcohol.
He had considered searching for the vampire and had done a few drive-bys around the area but had found nothing. He had tried to track suspected vampires before, although the search was an academic one rather than a real one with blood and guts and the threat of danger. His hunt for vampires had purely been a paper-based practice. He'd tried to track the movements of people he was certain were vampires, but this had been difficult considering the often transient nature of his academic research.
Altho
ugh the trails may have gone cold, he'd amassed enough data to be convinced they were real. One stood out to him - a Margeaux Renard. His stint in Paris had first alerted him to her, the rumours of the young starlet seducing and feeding from the humans in her boudoir. It didn't take him long to secure a transcript of a painting of her - a trawl through cyberspace and some specialist software used by the anthropology department flagging up a match with a society "it-girl" in a Brussels magazine. It was enough to convince him - not that he needed much. Despite his analytic and often cynical mind, he knew in his gut that vampires existed. The incident in Bristol had confirmed a suspicion that he had long harboured.
He did not see the vampire again, but something else of interest did come into his possession - the document.
The manuscript was just under two sheets of A5 paper in size, drafted in now faded ink on aged parchment. The text was large, as if the scribe had failing eyesight, the hand a little shaky. From the tone of the language, it felt like it was part of a letter, perhaps the final farewell or confession of someone finally leaving this world.
The author appeared to be describing a story, half-legend, half-warning, about a Halfling girl - a child born from both human and vampire. Even his rudimentary knowledge of biology told Kurt that that was sheer nonsense. How could a vampire possibly procreate? Returning to the document for the tenth time that evening, he re-read each line, cross-referenced each word with his dictionary and notes. The story never changed...
Sophie Morgan (Book 2): Death in the Family Page 6