Millicent tilted my head to the light to get a better look at my eye. “That’s nasty. Bats can carry rabies, you know?”
“Don’t remind me,” I grumbled.
She tsk-ed and tutted and parted my hair so that she could examine my scalp. “Some deep scratches here too.”
“Do you have anything that can help?” I asked, my voice plaintive and needy.
“Poor Alf.” Millicent smiled, understanding immediately than I needed a mother’s love. “Let me see what I can do for you.”
She poked around in her potions bag and drew out several bottles, then began to mix a few drops of this and a couple of drops of that into a small mixing bowl. She carefully decanted the mix into a small bottle and gave it a good shake.
“What is that?” I asked as she poured a suspicious looking magenta liquid onto a wad of cotton wool.
“Tincture of iodine, white willow bark and a couple of teaspoons or turmeric oil.”
“Okay,” I said and relaxed a little as she began to dab at the wounds on my scalp.
“Laced with a little bromethalin and a crushed grain’s worth of phosphorus.”
I jerked away from her in alarm. “What?”
“Sshhh. You just have to trust me. You do trust me, don’t you, Alf?”
“Isn’t bromethalin what they use in rat poison?” I protested.
Millicent poked me. “You make such a fuss. Do you want to die of bat poisoning?”
Was that a possibility? No. I didn’t. So I gave in to her ministering, all the while my mind cogitating on whether you should ever trust anyone that asked you to trust them.
“There, I think that takes care of your scalp.” Millicent stood back to admire her handiwork. “I should perhaps have warned you that it might turn your hair green in places.”
“Are you serious?” I asked, my voice two octaves higher than normal.
“Don’t worry, Miss Alf,” Florence floated into the room, a pile of notebooks and pens trailing in her wake. “Remember when Miss Charity had green hair. I believe the expression you used was that she ‘rocked’ that look.”
“But that was Charity,” I reminded my housekeeper. “She rocks all of her hairstyles because she has the sort of hair and the sort of face that… enable her to do that. Meanwhile, I’ve been afflicted with wild red hair, and you know what they say.”
“Red and green should never be seen,” Gwyn chipped in archly.
I wrinkled my nose at my great-grandmother. “Exactly.”
Gwyn smirked. “What about her eye, Millicent? Do you think you’ll be able to save her sight?” I did a double take. My eye wasn’t that bad was it?
“What do you mean?” I wailed. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Florence giggled. “I never knew you were such a baby, Miss Alf. I think they’re pulling your leg.”
Kat and Marc were able to join Finbarr and myself for supper once night had fallen. I’d persuaded Florence to cook a vegan vegetable and bean hotpot with lots of herbs from Gwyn’s herb garden that would suit Marc. But although it looked and tasted wonderful, with the exception of Finbarr, we were all a little downhearted and listless. The Irish witch attacked the hot pot with gusto. For a little fellow, he sure could eat a lot.
Inspecting myself in the back of a serving spoon I reached the conclusion that I looked a tad more human. My hair had turned green in places, but I’d been in the shower and gently soaked out the rest of Millicent’s tincture. She’d headed home but left me with a couple of ointments. She told me that the one for my eye had been concocted from witch hazel, calendula and mallow—but let’s face it, it probably contained the viscous liquid drained from a one-eyed demon. There was also some ‘TCP’ for the cuts on my hands.
But that bottle was actually labelled TCP and had a price sticker from Whittle Stores on it, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
At dinner, I’d placed the orb on the kitchen table next to me, still waiting for Wizard Shadowmender to get in touch, but so far he was still AWOL. I mused on his silence.
“What about if we just jump back in the Volkswagen and turn around and go back where we came from?” Kat was asking. She was twitchy and with good reason.
Marc shook his head. “We can’t, my love.”
“They’ve flushed you out now. They’ll be watching the inn to be sure,” Finbarr added, scooping another ladleful of hot pot onto his plate.
I agreed with him. “We managed to avoid them knowing where you were for so long. We can’t risk them following you from here to your safe house.” I could have kicked the pair of them for being daft enough not to double check that the invitation to the inn had been genuine. What had they been thinking?
“When do you think they’ll make another move?” Kat asked.
Finbarr and I looked at each other. “Don’t you be worrying your little self about that now.” Finbarr smiled at Kat to reassure her. “They can’t be getting in here. It’s locked up tighter than—”
“Yes, quite.” I interrupted Finbarr, not quite sure where he was going with his analogy. He returned to shovelling food into his mouth quite happily. Fortunately his pixies were nowhere in sight but no doubt they’d be around to polish off whatever dinner was left over.
“Perhaps they won’t come. They made a play and failed after all.” Marc, ever the optimist, threw his arm around Kat.
“Mmm,” I agreed doubtfully. Secretly I figured the vampires had begun testing the water and were now waiting to see what we could come after them with.
Marc smiled my way. “But… you know… Sabien and I… and Melchior… we go back a long way. I’m sure I could talk sense into them. Everything will be fine.”
“I think you’re missing the point here,” I said, as politely as I was able. Marc just didn’t appear to understand how much danger we were all in and yet he should have known, after all he’d lived among that twisted nest for a long time. I pointed at my swollen eye. “This wasn’t inflicted by someone ready to talk sense. If it hadn’t been for Mr Hoo, the bat would have tried to burrow into my brain.”
“Alfhild,” Gwyn interrupted me. When I looked her way she gently shook her head, discouraging me from scaring Kat and Marc unnecessarily. She was right. What we didn’t need were the pair of them trying to bolt away in the middle of the night. We’d end up with a massacre on our hands one way or the other.
Darn it. What was keeping Wizard Shadowmender from returning my call?
“You would think Melchior would have got over himself by now,” Kat ruminated, as she stroked Marc’s hands. Seriously, those two never seemed to stop touching each other. “I think I was not such a good prize for him, you know? Not the one for him. He always had so many girlfriends that I imagined he would find somebody new quite quickly.”
“Or hook up with one of the old ones, certainly,” Marc agreed.
“I expect he has.” They were right. Melchior wasn’t one for letting the grass grow under his feet. He would have moved on. “But the thing is… just because he’s taken up with some other poor woman won’t mean he’s forgiven you, will it? And besides—” I glanced at Gwyn in case she wanted me to remain schtum. “I have a nasty feeling this is actually more to do with the death of Thaddeus.”
“Thaddeus?” Marc repeated. “My goodness. I’d forgotten about him. Yes, of course. Poor Thaddeus.”
How could he have forgotten? The memory of that sunny morning when Charity had flung open the curtain and Thaddeus, chained to his seat in the bar, had burned to a crisp had been indelibly scored onto my retina. I shivered.
“Tell me what you knew about him,” I asked, curious as to what Marc would say.
Marc shrugged. “Thaddeus Corinthian. Turned when he was twenty-five or so. Lived in Paris near Sabien. He also had a beautiful chateau near Reims somewhere, but I think his family were from Transylvania originally. At least that’s where the family seat is.”
“There’s a family seat?” That sounded rather impressive.
�
��I don’t know the ins and outs,” Marc replied. “He used to joke that he was a Prince, but you know with all the historical complexity that is the Transylvanian region, he may have been making that up.” He shrugged. “He had an awful lot of money though—as most vampires seem to. I visited his apartment in Paris, and he had a genuine Van Gogh on the wall of his lavatory. He found that funny.”
“Hilarious.” I thought for a moment, wondering if Gwyn would object to me re-hanging her rather severe looking portrait in one of the guest lavatories. “So who killed him?”
Marc shook his head slowly, his eyes wide. “We all thought you guys did.”
“We?” I prompted.
“Yeah. Like… that’s what Melchior and Sabien and Gorka were saying.”
“It wasn’t us,” I said, my voice firm.
“Alfhild?” Gwyn, standing by the window and looking outside, called to me.
My nerves twanged. What had she seen? I didn’t want to go out there again tonight for another showdown with a bunch of killer-bats. Finbarr was on his feet immediately, the remainder of the hotpot forgotten. He and I crowded into the bay window and peered out.
The bats were back, circling the house; evidently, they’d invited their friends. There were far more of them out there than the previous night.
From behind me came a sharp intake of breath. Kat, both hands to her mouth, looked about ready to scream the place down.
“They’re not getting in here,” I reassured her, and squeezed her arm. “Come on Kat. You’re made of sterner stuff than this.” Her eyes filled with tears at my words, and I wondered where that strong stoic woman I’d known twelve months ago had disappeared to.
“You don’t understand,” she whispered and looked at Marc, her eyes beseeching him.
He shrugged and looked a little bashful. “We’re having a baby,” he explained.
“You are?” I laughed in surprise. “But that’s wonderful! I didn’t know that was possible—” I thought twice about continuing that line of conversation and simply threw my arms around Kat. “I’m very happy for you!”
“As am I,” Gwyn nodded. “But I can see why you’re so concerned. We have to make sure you’re safe.”
Finbarr planted a kiss on Kat’s cheek and shook Marc’s hand. “The house is secure. You have my word on that,” Finbarr told her.
I took a few steps towards the door, but Kat clutched at my arm. “You’re not going out there are you?”
I shook my head and glanced at Finbarr because I couldn’t speak for him or what he proposed to do. “The perimeter in the woods is fine. I’m happy to stay in tonight,” he confirmed.
“Grandmama?” I asked. “Are you intending to go out there and blast them out of the sky again?”
Gwyn pursed her lips. “No, my dear. I think I’ve had my fill of those ghastly creatures too. I’ll head up to the attic and keep an eye on what is happening in the roof.”
She began to fade. “Keep trying Wizard Shadowmender. It’s not like him to be so remiss at getting back to people. I’m beginning to wonder whether something has happened to him.”
“I will,” I called after her.
Finbarr nodded. “I’m going to patrol the inn tonight, so you folks don’t need to worry.” He directed a quick knowing look my way. “I’ll free the pixies, Alf. If that’s okay?”
Under the circumstances what could I say? I nodded. “Alright. Just shout if you need any help.”
“You get some rest,” he said.
As he exited the bar I stole another quick glance outside. A large dark shape flew past the window, startling me, but it was only Mr Hoo soaring gracefully around, circling the lawn, disrupting the bats as they tried to pelt the roof of the inn. As I watched, worrying for his safety, I spotted another three owls flying towards the inn evidently intending to join him.
The bats had invited their friends.
So Mr Hoo had too.
And I never knew he had any!
I couldn’t sleep.
Not surprising really. The orb sat quietly on my bedside table, Wizard Shadowmender not returning any of my calls. Mr Hoo was still hard at it outside, scattering bats left, right and centre. I heard him and his feathery friends calling to each other from time to time even through my closed window.
It actually sounded as though they were having a blast.
With Gwyn in the attic and Mr Hoo outside, I found myself sitting up in bed and feeling a little lonely. Marc and Kat had retreated to their attic bedroom, and although I occasionally heard light footsteps outside my door as Finbarr walked past, I felt oddly isolated. My thoughts turned to Silvan.
“I wish you were here,” I whispered into the darkness. I could imagine how he would look at me if he could hear me. He would arch an eyebrow and smile at me with that smug knowing grin of his. “It’s not because I like you,” I hurriedly added. “Not at all. It’s just because you would know what to do. How to fight off this threat.”
I lay down and blinked at the ceiling, remembering all the times he had been there for me. His reassuring strength, his soft voice as he comforted me or issued instructions. The way he scolded me when I didn’t have my wand at the ready, or I held on to too much tension and hadn’t softened my knees when I began an attack. You can’t make good magick when you’re tense, he’d stated time and time again.
“I’m really tense now,” I told him. Not that he could hear or would even appreciate the predicament I now found myself in. “I don’t know what it is about vampires. They really give me the heebie-jeebies.”
Let them go for now. His voice drifted out of the darkness. You’ll be no good to anyone if you don’t get some sleep.
“Are you here?” I asked as my body grew heavy.
I’m always with you.
I awoke just over four hours later. It had gone three in the morning. I lay still, feeling peaceful and warm, considering a visit to the bathroom, wondering why I was awake. The inn was quiet.
Too quiet perhaps.
I couldn’t hear Mr Hoo or his buddies. It might not mean anything untoward, but it was worth checking.
Reluctantly I extricated myself from the bedclothes and padded over to the window. There wasn’t a huge amount of light out there given the cloud cover. I couldn’t spot any bats either.
“Good work guys,” I said assuming the owls had seen the critters off.
A glint to my left alerted me to something travelling up the lane towards the end of the drive. Headlights? A car?
I squinted into the distance. The progress of the light was slow. That was a good thing. There were potholes in the lane that could ruin your suspension and disable your axles if you weren’t careful.
My inner witch twitch began to pulse.
“It’s a car. Someone who has taken a wrong turning,” I said out loud as if saying it would make it so.
Except of course it didn’t make it so.
The light was blue.
And it bobbed as it advanced.
I knew exactly what it was.
“No,” I cried. “No, no, no, no, no.”
I turned about in panic but then spun back to the window again, making myself giddy. Maybe I’d imagined it.
I hadn’t. “No!”
There was nothing for it but to head downstairs and ward off this latest unwelcome visitor. Grabbing my dressing gown and stuffing my feet into slippers, not easy when you’re moving, I raced for the stairs.
Finbarr had obviously heard the commotion I’d been making or had also seen the light travelling down the lane, because he joined me on the front step of the inn just as I finished knotting my dressing gown cord.
He closed the door behind us to prevent access—or exit—from anyone or anything else and together we watched the slow procession of a single horse-drawn hearse. Unlike the previous visit from the vampire clan that Whittle Inn had ‘enjoyed’—when there had been a dozen carriages, a dozen hearses, each pulled by six blinkered black horses wearing tall plumes of shiny black fe
athers—this was a solitary procession and yet still extraordinarily eerie.
The horses moved slowly, the wheels of the carriage spitting gravel as they trotted onto the drive. The masked driver pulled on the reins and the horses halted in front of us.
The driver stepped down as the horses whinnied and shook their heads, their harnesses jangling. The sound carried in the still night. I glanced around, pondering where Mr Hoo and his friends were and spotted a pair of gold eyes glinting at me from an oak tree on the edge of the drive. A single coachman alighted from the rear of the vehicle where he’d been clinging to the footplate. He began to untie leather straps, ready to free the coffin within the glass carriage.
“Whoa, hold your horses there, partner.” I jumped off the step to confront him, but the driver moved in front of me and blocked access.
“Do you mind?” I glared at him. “This is private property and neither you nor your cargo are welcome here.”
The driver stood a good ten inches taller than me and was probably twice as broad. I found his sheer physical size intimidating. Even working together with Finbarr—shorter and skinnier than me—we would struggle to make a dent in this guy’s armour. Unless we used magick of course.
But I, as usual, had forgotten to pick up my wand. It remained in place, lying uselessly next to my mute communication orb.
The driver, staring down at me with dead eyes, reached inside his long wool cloak and pulled out an envelope. Red ink on nauseatingly familiar parchment.
My repulsion overrode my nerves and my fingers were surprisingly steady as I ripped the envelope open.
Ms Daemonne
Forgive this unexpected intrusion. Recent events have meant it is imperative that I visit with you at Whittle Inn.
You may have every confidence that you and your friends are safe. At least from me.
I travel alone.
Please stow my coffin safely and I will attend you tomorrow after dark.
In the meantime, in the interests of your continued wellbeing, accept no other visitors. None.
Vengeful Vampire at Wonky Inn: Wonky Inn Book 8 Page 5