by Philip Henry
She gasped. ‘Me’s guests will have to leave without dessert. Is very rude of me.’ She reached inside her coat and took out a baby bottle filled with blood and suckled on the teat. When she had drank her fill she put it back inside her coat. She raised her arms up to Hal, wanting to be lifted.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Hal said under his breath.
Jacqui burped and immediately started giggling.
It was going to be a long night.
The funeral had been hard on Sarah. Tom had been with her almost constantly since her uncle broke the news of her mother’s murder. She had cried a lot but since the funeral a new drive had consumed her. She tried to find out everything she could about Kaaliz; the vampire who had killed her mother. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to find. He was a comparatively young vampire and seemed to disappear for long stretches at a time.
She had learned where he had been for the last ten years from her Uncle Derek. He had told her about burying Kaaliz in the concrete. They had gone to the building site the day after the funeral. It wasn’t hard to figure out which house he had been buried under. When they arrived there was yellow police tape cordoning off the whole area. Ambulance men carried out body bags while forensics specialists examined bone fragments in the fireplace. The house stank; it had taken a long time for the bodies to be discovered. The neighbours, experts in looking the other way, could finally bear the smell no longer and called the police.
Rek spoke to the police officer in charge and he let them in. They all stared at the hole in the basement floor. Rek blamed himself for everything; Kaaliz’s return, his sister’s death, everyone Kaaliz had killed and would kill before he was caught again.
After a thorough search of the house provided no clues to where Kaaliz might go, they all went back to the car. Another body bag was carried out. Rek stared at the house. Sarah sat beside him. Tom sat quietly in the back.
‘It’s not your fault,’ Sarah said.
‘But it is,’ Rek answered coldly. ‘I could have just killed him. If I’d just killed him, none of this would be happening.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ Sarah asked. It was the one question she had been dying to ask since he told her.
‘I wanted him to suffer,’ he said. ‘After everything he did to your mother…’
‘Everything?’
Rek put his head in his hands and rubbed his face, he pushed his hands back through his hair and took a deep breath. ‘I hoped… we both did… we hoped you’d never find this out, Sarah. We hoped we’d never need to tell you.’
She was scared now that the awful realisation was dawning on her. ‘Tell me.’
He sniffed. ‘You and Tom have probably put your heads together by now and figured out what you are.’
‘A dhampir.’
Rek stared at the dashboard. He said quietly, ‘Yes.’
‘Are you trying to tell me...?’
‘He’s your father, Sarah. That murdering piece of shit is your father.’
Sarah’s shoulders shook and she started crying. This wasn’t the romantic, doomed relationship she had imagined. She thought her mum had been in love with some vampire with smouldering good looks and a brooding personality. A vampire desperate to regain his humanity. One of those nice, dull Stephenie Meyer-type vampires; good-looking but as threatening as a wet sock. A vampire who would sacrifice his life for the sake of his love and his unborn child. Not this killer. This murderer. ‘No, mum would never…’
‘He raped her,’ Rek shouted. Then quieter, ‘That bastard raped her repeatedly and then beat her half to death. That’s why I wanted him to suffer.’
Sarah opened the car door and ran. Rek reached for his door handle but Tom stopped him. ‘No, I’ll go after her. I’ll see you back at home later.’ Tom got out of the car and ran after Sarah. Rek dropped his head to the steering wheel and cried. He wished Nicholl hadn’t left already.
Father Fox stepped off the train onto the platform. He looked both ways. Everyone was leaving. No-one loitering behind. No-one was watching him. No-one was still on the train. He was wearing a long coat and put the cardboard tube inside it and clamped it with his arm. He joined the crowd walking towards the exit. He looked behind himself a couple of times but didn’t see anyone following.
He reached the porter at the end of the platform and gave him his ticket. The porter clipped it and handed it back. Father Fox didn’t move on. ‘This is the port of the rushed?’ he asked in a thick Italian accent.
The porter nodded. ‘Port-rush, that’s right.’
Father Fox took out a scrap of paper from his pocket and showed it to the porter. ‘You know this woman?’
The porter looked at the paper. ‘Chloe Knight? Yeah, I know of her. The town doesn’t have too many millionaires, and even less that look like her, know what I mean?’ He laughed and nudged the priest. His coat fell open and the porter saw his collar. ‘Oh, maybe you wouldn’t. Sorry, Father.’
‘This address is close?’
‘Not too far. There’s a taxi rank just across the street – they’ll get you there.’
Father Fox nodded. ‘Gracias.’
‘No bother, Father.’
Father Fox stepped out of the train station and onto the pavement. He looked left and saw the taxi rank. He looked right and saw a man drop a cigarette and grind it into the ground then start quickly towards him. Father Fox turned and ran towards the nearest crowd, which had assembled outside a nightclub. He ploughed through the midst of the teenagers until he was out the other side. None of the teenagers had accosted Father Fox about his behaviour because they had seen the collar, but his pursuer didn’t get the same pass. A tall teen blocked his path and stopped him with a confrontational gaze that would surely impress the girls around him. The man reached into his pocket and drew out a gun. Everyone screamed and the crowd parted like the Red Sea before Moses. Bullets ripped through the air almost silently from the end of the long barrel. The man fired several shots at Father Fox, who was now running into a large amusement complex a few hundred yards away. The man ran after him.
Father Fox ran inside the amusement complex. The bright flashing colours all around and the electronic screams disoriented him. He stumbled against the nearest wall and his coat stencilled a bloody shape on the white paint. He reached inside his coat and his fingers came back red. Sweat was pouring down his face. The cardboard tube began to slip and he reaffirmed his hold on it. He ran forwards, deeper into the amusements.
It seemed like everyone was looking at him. Faces seemed to drift close then disappear. He hid behind a penny-push machine and watched the entrance. The man entered and concealed his gun before anyone noticed it. He then began scanning the area, squinting off into the distance. Father Fox lost the strength in his knees and collapsed to the ground. He turned, ignoring the pain in his side and saw the man rushing towards him again.
Father Fox pushed himself to his feet and hobbled deeper into the amusements. He ran through the maze of fruit machines and almost got kicked in the head by a hobby-horse. The brightly coloured horses spun before him as children held tightly to their reins. He staggered sideways and noticed a crowd standing by the bumper-cars. He made his way over and tried to lose himself among them. He looked back and saw his pursuer slowly walking around the hobby-horse ride. He turned his head slowly, looking for sudden movements in the crowd. He saw none and made his way to the back doors that led to the rollercoaster. He looked back over his shoulder one last time. Father Fox crouched down behind a tall woman carrying a child. When he looked up again the man had run outside towards the rollercoaster.
‘You’re bleeding, Father,’ the woman with the child said.
Father Fox looked down and saw a small pool of blood below him. ‘I’ll be fine.’ He patted the woman’s shoulder and ran towards the entrance. He came to a stop beside the ghost train. He stared at the doors and saw two of the unholy enter. They spotted him immediately and started towards him.
Father Fox’s strength wen
t again and he collapsed. The cardboard tube fell from his coat and rolled across the floor. He tried to crawl towards it and blood spurted faster from his wound. He saw the tube next to the barrier for a ride called The Experience. Several teenagers were screaming their enjoyment of the ride, being spun round and round and upside down at great speed.
An employee appeared from behind Father Fox and knelt down next to him. ‘Oh my god, what happened to you?’ she asked, genuinely concerned.
Father Fox was coughing up blood now. He couldn’t get the words out. He pointed at the cardboard tube. He glanced at the approaching evil. He pointed again and tried to lurch forward towards the tube.
‘It’s going to be all right. My name’s Anne-Marie.’ She took out her phone and dialled 999. ‘Just don’t move. I’ll have an ambulance here soon.’
The two vampires stopped before them. They looked down. Father Fox tried to scramble backwards but hadn’t the strength.
‘Baby’s made a mess,’ Jacqui said.
Anne-Marie looked up at the pair and said, ‘Listen, can you just step back and give him some air.’
Jacqui hung her head and mumbled, ‘Me doesn’t like being scolded.’
Hal smiled and said to Anne-Marie, ‘She really doesn’t.’
Jacqui grabbed Anne-Marie by the head and lifted her up to her feet. She was ripping at her throat before Anne-Marie could say a word. Blood from her jugular sprayed Jacqui’s face as she fed sloppily from her prey. The phone in Anne-Marie’s hand dropped to the floor and the emergency operator, who had been becoming more and more worried by what he was hearing, was finally cut off.
Jacqui dropped the body, her face and clothes drenched in the mortal’s blood.
Hal looked at her and said, ‘Baby needs a bib.’
Jacqui smiled and her eyes danced. They both looked down at the squirming priest below them. The screams all around them were no longer from the thrill of being spun at high speed or winning a prize, they were screams of blind panic as everyone flooded towards the doors, front and back.
Hal bent down to the priest and bullets ripped into his chest. Hal fell backwards, more out of years of conditioning than any real pain. He had been shot. He lay on the ground and actually panicked for a few seconds before he realised what he was now. He was pretty sure bullets couldn’t hurt him and when his fingers searched his chest for holes, he found he was right. He sat up and started laughing. The man walking slowly towards him slapped another magazine into his gun and unloaded it into Hal’s chest. He continued laughing. He looked around for Jacqui but couldn’t see her.
The man with the gun kept glancing to his right. Hal followed his look and saw a blood-stained cardboard tube lying by the barrier. Hal shuffled across and snatched it into his grasp. Smoke rose from his fingers and pain shot through his entire body. He dropped it again.
Hal turned to the priest, who was now barely conscious and said, ‘That’s sneaky. What have you done to it?’ He put his hand inside his coat pocket and reached to lift the tube with his hand covered. Again came the smoke and the pain. He turned back to the priest. ‘You’re a tricky one, aren’t you?’ Hal stood and kicked the tube so it was between his legs. He turned and faced the gunman. ‘You want this?’ He tapped the tube with his shoe.
Hal had heard the man’s gun click empty but still he held it before him like it might save him. The gunman didn’t know what to say. He gestured with the gun that Hal should step back. Hal glanced behind the gunman and then put up his hands. ‘OK. It’s a fair cop.’ Hal took two steps backwards from the tube on the floor and then turned his back to the gunman.
The gunman saw his chance and ran for the tube. He didn’t make it two steps before Jacqui dropped on him from the ceiling. She clutched him around the neck like she wanted a piggy-back and bit into his throat. Hal, his back still to them, heard the sound of someone choking on their own blood, closed his eyes and smiled. He had come to love that sound.
When he opened his eyes and turned back, the gunman was lying on the floor. Jacqui stood up and took a deep breath. She took a pack of baby-wipes from her pocket and cleaned her face. Hal knelt down to the priest and said, ‘Who are you guys? And what are you doing in my town?’
The old priest said a Latin prayer in barely more than a whisper, then died. Hal walked over to the gunman, bent down, and opened his coat. He reached into the inside pocket and brought out his ID. He read it with interest. ‘Vatican police. You’re a long way from home.’ He looked to Jacqui for her reaction, but she just pulled a lollypop from her pocket and began sucking it. Hal looked at the tube lying on the floor. ‘Whatever that is, I think the Master will want to see it.’ He stood up and looked at Jacqui. ‘Any ideas how we get it back to him when we can’t touch it?’
Jacqui stared at him vacantly, sucking on her lollypop, then said, ‘Put the baby in a pram.’
‘Good idea. I’m sure there’s a basket or a trolley around here somewhere. Wait here, I’ll be right back.’
It took Hal almost ten minutes to find something suitable to carry the tube in; a student’s backpack would do nicely once he emptied out the books and got rid of the student attached to it. He dropped from the sky outside the amusement complex and ran inside.
Jacqui wasn’t there. Neither was the cardboard tube. The two bodies still lay where they had fallen, but there was no one else around.
The door to the ghost train opened and Sarah stepped out carrying the tube. ‘You looking for this?’
Hal eyed her cautiously then said, ‘No. Just here to try to win a stuffed toy on the grappler.’
‘Those things are a rip-off.’
Sarah knelt down and felt for a pulse on the priest’s neck while still keeping her eyes on Hal. ‘You did this?’
Hal shrugged. ‘You a follower of the carpenter now?’
‘I’ve got their greatest hits album, does that count?’ She covertly took a piece of blood-stained paper from the priest’s grasp and put it in her pocket.
‘Maybe you’re just here for the candy-floss. Maybe you need to get a bag and leave, Sarah. While you still can.’
‘I’m here for you, Hal. But first I want to know what you know about this.’ She stood up and held the tube before her. ‘And I do know this is what you came back for. That crazy bitch you were here with tried to pick it up a few times when we came in but she couldn’t. Is that what the backpack’s for?’
Hal dropped the backpack. ‘Where is Jacqui?’
‘Tom and her went out the back to talk things over. Kudos on your choice of girlfriend, by the way.’
‘Yeah, I always seem to pick the bitch of the bunch, don’t I?’
She waved the tube at him. ‘You going to tell me what this is?’
‘I don’t know what it is.’
Sarah eyed him as he got closer. ‘Do you know a vampire called Kaaliz?’
‘No.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘I find that a very racist statement. Just because I’m a vampire you assume I know every other vampire. Next you’ll be saying we all look alike.’
‘He killed my mother, Hal.’
Hal hung his head. ‘I am sorry about that, Sarah, but you’ve made your choice and I’ve made mine.’ Hal charged at her and knocked her off her feet. The tube rolled across the floor. Hal grabbed it and screamed as he ran a few steps towards the backpack with it. When he couldn’t hold it any longer he dropped it and shook the pain from his hands.
Sarah kicked him in the stomach, then quickly twice to the head before swinging a punch that sent him hurtling backwards. She grabbed the tube and ran through the doors of the ghost train. Hal got to his feet and shook the dizziness from his head, then ran through the doors after her.
Hal felt the train tracks below his feet and followed them. He could see in the dark, but there was nothing to see. Blank walls. He walked faster. A skeleton jumped from the wall followed by a loud screaming noise. Hal swung instinctively and punched it, shattering the plastic frame into pieces.
He chastised himself for being so easily spooked. He walked on and a mummy pounced forward. He ignored it. Then a witch. Then a vampire in a long cloak. Hal stopped and smiled at it for a second, then continued. Some rubber bats flew in his face. Frankenstein’s monster made an appearance. A werewolf with red eyes. A white-sheeted ghost. Sarah with a jug of water. She threw it in his face. He raised his hands to his face, expecting the inevitable burning that accompanied holy water. It didn’t come.
He blinked his eyes and smiled at Sarah. ‘Sorry, I don’t think that was holy water.’
Sarah struck a match. ‘I know it wasn’t.’ She threw the match at him and his chest and face exploded in flames. Hal screamed and beat helplessly at the fire. He ran screaming back the way he had come, bumping into the walls like a pinball. Sarah ran after him.
Sarah burst out the doors of the ghost train just in time to see a six-foot ball of flames rise into the air and head towards the sea, which was only a couple of hundred yards away.
Tom ran up behind her, out of breath. ‘We need to go.’
‘Did you kill the other one?’
‘She flew away when things got rough. We really shouldn’t leave the house without weapons. I could have had her a dozen times if I’d had a stake.’ Tom bent over and took deep breaths. ‘Next time, for sure.’
Sarah looked at the cardboard tube in her hands and then at the dark sky that moments ago had been lit by fire. ‘Yeah. Next time.’
taken in
The two agents stank. Their car stank. Their clothes stank. Their breath certainly stank, and their mood most definitely stank. So when the two agents appeared to relieve them, the handover was short and to the point.
‘That’s the door you have to watch. Twenty-four-hour garage half-a-mile that way has a good shop, microwave and public toilet. Chip shop is four streets that way: they do a nice kebab. Nothing to report. See you in forty-eight.’
The two new agents parked in the same position as their colleagues had and watched the green metal door. And they watched. And they watched.