“Juliana had offered us rooms! Why didn’t you take her up on the offer?”
“Hmmph!” said the man irritably. “Rooms. Could have been just one room. That creepy girl and her mother just wanted to make money out of us. And the way she was looking at you. Most improper. This sort of thing might be okay for the Midlanders, but not us.”
“What irritates you more, dear – the fact she wanted us in separate rooms, or that Juliana was looking at me?”
“Stop such infantile talk. I cannot believe we are having this conversation.”
“What is infantile, dear, is travelling on such a night when the road ahead is closed.”
“What?”
“There’s no way through. We will have to turn back. You’ll see. The horseman will turn around in a moment.”
The man ignored his wife. The drink must have been stronger than both of them could manage. His wife was rambling, thinking that someone else was looking at her with desire, least of all – another woman.
The horses whinnied and slowed to a trot, and without saying anything, the horseman about-turned the carriage. The man shouted out to him to continue ahead, but the horseman shook his head, and pointed towards the road ahead, which looked like it had been torn apart. By what, or by whom, it was not known.
All that was known, was that there was no way to traverse the gap in the road.
There was no escape from Birmingham, and no way to go to Derbyshire. With no other options available to them, they headed back to the Blood and the Raven.
Night Terrors
Seth’s continuance of the tale was broken by Daisy, who shrieked as the light on her candle flickered, almost put-putting out as she spoke.
“Seth, come on now. There would be other routes out of Birmingham, not just one way.”
She hugged herself. “God, it’s cold. How much more of the story, Seth?”
“When I’m done, I’m done,” replied Seth. “When any of you interrupt me, it slows the tale up, and breaks my concentration. May I remind you that two candles have already blown out? Why would you want to mess with that, Daisy?”
“I’m not messing with anything,” answered Daisy, in far more sharp a tone than she meant to. “I’m just cold.”
“Tell the truth, Daise,” smirked Joel, whose candle had already burned out, and refused to be lit again. “You’re scared. Maybe it’s the silent horseman. Maybe it’s the raven. Maybe you’re freaked out about what Seth said, that when the tale is told, people begin to die.”
“Maybe I am just wanting Seth to finish, so we can be out of this Godforsaken place, and I don’t have to listen to you anymore,” said Daisy stiffly, whilst at the same time acknowledging to herself that Joel’s barbs were hitting close to the bone, and held more truth than she would like to admit.
“Stay lit, stay lit,” she whispered to the candle, which barely held its flame.
“You’ll be going down with Joel and me,” laughed Anna. “Our candles burned out long ago.”
“Just quit that, will you?” snapped Daisy. “Seth? I hope you are just pulling our legs about the whole people die once they hear this story, thing.”
Seth did not reply directly to Daisy’s question, electing instead to ask one of his own.
“May I continue? The night is no longer young, and the candles are burning down.”
His words did not sound like those of a modern teenager. This was old-world speak, and it made Daisy even more uncomfortable.
“Okay Seth,” said Daisy, with barely disguised irritability in her voice. “Just crack on.”
Gretchen nodded in agreement, whilst Joel and Anna continued to make ghoul and ghost sounds. Seth gave them a disparaging look, and decided to carry on. He had to finish the tale, because he needed to lift the curse, and selfishly, that was all that mattered to him.
***
The horse carriage containing the man and his young wife trotted back slowly to the Inn of the Blood and the Raven. The horses seemed reluctant, and trudged their hooves through sodden clay, that barely hung well enough together to qualify as a road.
The couple travelled on in silence. There was an uneasy feeling about returning to the Inn, though the woman was secretly intrigued to be seeing the young Juliana again. For the man’s part, his thoughts were all about the voluptuous Mariana.
On arrival at the Inn, the couple’s excitement dimmed as the place appeared to be in complete darkness. Could it really have emptied that quickly? The man checked his watch, and he could scarcely believe his eyes. Three hours had passed, and the hands were striking three in the morning.
He made huge exclamations to his wife; in the vein of how is this possible, and what kind of place is this?
She merely shrugged, and suggested that they hope someone will answer them at the Inn. How she really hoped to see Juliana again. This strange girl had really enchanted her. Mesmerised her. Yes, mesmerised. That was a much better word to describe her feelings towards this young woman. She just had to see her again. Why this was, she had no idea. There was just something unearthly about the girl. In her short life, she had never encountered anyone like this before.
The couple stood outside the main door. A bird clung to the pub sign, which creaked above them.
“A blackbird,” said the man. “One which has found the wrong sign to cling to. There’s no need to be nervous, my dear.”
“I’m….not nervous,” replied his wife. Not at all. That said, she was not convinced the avian was a blackbird, it seemed much too large for that. The bird suddenly squawked, and the woman could have sworn that the bolts on the door had slid to an unlocked position.
There was no need to bang the door down, as it simply swung open.
“How strange,” said the man. “Well, at least we can find shelter for the night.”
But the Inn was in darkness, and their carriage left as soon as they had vacated it.
They walked along the corridor, and their eyes strained to see what lay ahead.
The man shouted out, but no-one replied. Finally, after looking in each room, one door, which appeared to lead towards downstairs, could not be opened. A cold, dank air emitted from the keyhole slot. And something else, thought the man.
“It smells like death down there,” said the man. “I don’t like this at all.”
Whatever the man had inhaled, in the cold night air the vapour passed from his mouth and into his wife.
What happened to them next would change their lives forever.
***
“Perhaps we should just look elsewhere for shelter,” said his wife wearily. “It’s late, or early, depending on your disposition. I for one, require rest. Make a decision, will you?”
She had not meant to sound so impertinent, but this had already been such a strange night; and where was Juliana anyway? The woman could not explain why, but she was anxious to see her again.
Whilst she ran this thought through her head, the previously locked door opened, and something pulled the man inside, before the door slammed shut again. The woman caught a gust of the dead air, which first filled her nostrils and then; her stomach, with disgust. She retched a little before managing to compose herself.
“Dear? Where are you? Where did you go?”
She banged on the door, but its metal was damaged by the rust of many years. Even so, it had opened and shut without any apparent difficulty. Her husband had not disappeared, but was merely on the other side. That was her reasoning, and she was sticking by it.
Her worry turned to joy as she felt the presence of someone. She could not see who it was, but she could feel her. Yes, definitely Juliana.
She seemed to have materialised out of nowhere. But the woman forgot all about that. To her, Juliana was magical. Magical.
“You need rest,” said Juliana simply. “Come. I will show you to your room.”
The woman followed Juliana. Neither of them mentioned the missing man. The Inn, deceptively small on the outside, was massive on the inside
. Juliana never looked back towards to the woman to see if she was still following her. She walked – no, glided ahead of the woman, a half-smile on her face.
Her skin was pearl white, but with the pub’s sepia lighting, she looked all-aglow.
However, only small candle-light provided any illumination to the dark surroundings. But as the woman was in the company of Juliana, she noticed only her; not any of the surroundings. Even though they seemed to be walking for a very long time, and covered some distance, they seemed no closer to a bedroom.
Finally, Juliana stopped moving. They had been going north for quite while, then perhaps a slight deviation to the western point of the building. Juliana produced a key, a large, oversized one that looked like it belonged to the Queen herself. A key that surely had no place in opening doors, but should have been carried on a velvet cushion, as was the tradition in the palace of Westminster.
She placed it in the lock, and before the woman’s eyes, the key appeared to turn itself, before disappearing into the lock, far from view. A satisfying click was heard, and the door opened slowly.
“You may go in now. You will have an excellent sleep, I’m sure. I will check on you later.”
The woman said nothing. For a reason that escaped her entirely, she found herself in awe of the beguiling, resplendent Juliana.
The room was elegant, and full of wondrous detail. A gold wallpaper with an embossed red crest. Several paintings, most of them portraits. One of them was of Juliana. Two others were of boys, one with a cheeky impish grin. The other had an innocent look about him, but was looking over his shoulder, as if he was being chased by someone or something. Chased, or hunted.
In hotel rooms, a bible was often found in one of the drawers on the dresser. In this room, the woman checked, but there was no Holy Bible to be found. There was sometimes a crucifix on the wall. Not so here. In fact, there were no religious items of any kind to be found.
From her earliest recollection, the woman had bore an aversion to jewellery. Her husband had purchased a watch for her, only for it to stop functioning within a day of her wearing it on her slender wrist. She wore only a simple necklace with a pendant on it.
The room also felt unusually cold. The main public house seemed to be warm, she recalled. Still, the bed had a generous amount of blankets, plump pillows, and a duvet full to bursting with duck feathers.
Juliana had said so, hadn’t she?
You’ll have an excellent sleep, I’m sure.
What in the world did she mean by that?
The woman slipped into the bed, and she could soon understand. This bed, was without, the most comfortable bed she had ever slept in. The mercury may have dropped in the room, but the woman hardly noticed.
Her eyes flickered open, then shut, in the kind of uncomfortable condition that insomniacs find themselves.
I’ll check on you later.
There was no need to do that, surely? It was after three a.m. There was no need to check on anything. Except to know where her husband was.
Whilst she was pondering that mystery, she fell into the deepest sleep.
In the dream, she could see the gates leading towards her driveway, which was about a half mile long in itself. Whilst her husband worked in London, they lived in Ascot. But she accompanied him on the journey on many occasions, meeting friends in the city to while away their time.
The pleasant homely image passed into something else. She could feel something on her, holding her down. A woman, with long nails, and a unique perfume about her. Her hair caressed the woman’s cheeks, and she could see something around her neck.
A cross.
No. It had been a cross at one time, but it had burned itself onto the woman, branding her forever. This woman was known to her.
Juliana.
I’ll check on you later.
Was she checking on her now? In her dream-like state?
The woman woke from her tormented sleep to find the vampire biting deep into her neck. Her strength was incredible; her vice-like grip inescapable.
She tried to speak, move, react, do something or anything; but there was no way she could overpower this…whatever this was.
The woman was dizzy, for she realised that she was not merely being bitten, on her neck, no less, she was being drained. Her fingers trembled, her arms contorted, her back stiffened as the vampire pulled her closer and bit harder and deeper.
Finally, she pulled away, blood on her mouth, and spoke to the woman, trying to allay her fears.
“You see your blood on my lips. The blood is the essence of life. Were it to leave your body, you face death. Is this what you want? Or do you still desire that which you call a life, with that man?”
“I-I don’t know,” said the woman, who appeared to be in a trance-like state. “I don’t know. It….it hurts when you….what did you do?”
The woman felt around her neck and her fingers could soon trace the puncture wounds that felt icy to the touch. She regarded Juliana, who was knelt on the bed in front of her. She wore a pale yellow nightdress that barely encased her considerable cleavage. She would have appeared beautiful, like an angel from heaven, but for the blood on her mouth, which she made no attempt to remove. Her skin looked almost ivory in colour. It was not a normal pallor.
Then, all these strange questions. The ones she was asked would provide no answers of any comfort. The ones she was asked would only serve to heighten her sense of terror.
Juliana’s allure and playfulness was lost in that moment. “You saw it in your dreams, didn’t you?”
The woman could barely nod a yes, but Juliana took it as such.
“The raven.”
“Yes,” she replied, an unsteadiness in her voice. “I have seen it, even before I came to this place. Wings beating at my window. Black feathers strewn over my bed, and my husband’s throat – ”
She paused, as if each word was like walking barefoot on hot coals.
“Go on,” Juliana replied, but it seemed more like an order to continue than a request. “What was the raven doing?”
“It appeared for all the world to be feeding on my husband’s flesh. Goring his neck and chest. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“You know why, don’t you?”
“I don’t wish to say. It is a matter between a man and his wife.”
The woman slumped back on the bed, blood oozing from her neck. Juliana moved quick-as-lightning to her side, grabbed her wrist with one hand, and touched her forehead with the other.
“This is a matter between you and your life. Do you not you owe it better than this? If you must be mute, then I’ll tell you what I know. Three years long and yet, your marriage has not been consummated. Your husband looks old enough to be your father and….he is impotent. At least, that is what he told you, is it not? The truth now!”
The woman was weary from the night’s events. But her eyes widened at Juliana’s perceptiveness.
“He is so, but he is a good man. He looks after me.”
“Just like he’s looking after you right now?”
There was a creeping sense of menace in the vampire’s voice.
“Shall I tell you where he is at this moment? Or perhaps you should see, before death takes you.”
The woman began to walk towards Juliana, as if to say something. Her legs brushed awkwardly by the bed, and she slowed to a crawl.
“I feel…I feel unwell. I must lie down.”
“You are beginning to feel anew. Your body is playing its part. Don’t be frightened.”
The woman maintained her unsteady stance, and wavered as if intoxicated.
“I don’t wish to take your life. I’m simply offering you a new one. You can feed, and feast, on a new man every night. Or a woman. I would stay away from animals though if I were you.”
“You’re a monster!”
“Both you and your husband are the monstrosities, trying to convince those around you of the charade you call a marriage. Fraudsters, the pair of
you!”
The woman found she could no longer stand, and collapsed on the bed. “I’m not a fraud.”
“Oh really?” asked Juliana whimsically. “Then it must be your husband who is the fraud, pleasuring my mother as he is now, instead of you.”
The woman appeared to be losing consciousness. Juliana leaned over her and breathed on her neck. “Not yet. You cannot go just yet. Besides, I have not taken enough blood for you to die. Should you want to die, I can do that.”
“You talk as if I have options.”
Three Tales of Vampires (The First Three Books in the Tale of Vampires Series) Page 7