Something Rotten: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (The Ghosted Series Book 2)

by David Bussell

  With that business out of the way, I went to the address I’d lifted from the hearse’s TomTom and staked the place out.

  Castle Dracula it was not.

  The vampire den turned out to be a semi-detached house on a nice, leafy street; well looked-after once, but gone to the dogs now. Its empty driveway was strewn with uncollected rubbish; crisp packets, cigarette butts and old, sun-bleached Coke cans. The front garden had been left to grow wild, and the manicured ivy that climbed the front of the house now crept over the window panes and into the gutters.

  I pulled out my mobile, scrolled through my contacts and gave Stella a bell. I promised Jazz Hands I wouldn’t tackle these guys solo, and I intended to keep my word.

  The phone rang, and rang, then went to voicemail. ‘Stella, it’s Jake Fletcher, the Ghost with the Most. I’ve got a situation going on with some vampires. Call me when you get this, it’s urgent.’

  I stayed where I was, stood across the road from the house, casing the joint. Hours passed. It was getting on for five in the morning when I heard a car engine and looked up to see a hearse pull up around the corner and park in the driveway.

  As I watched from the shadows, two men stepped out of the vehicle and headed inside the property. I checked my watch. The sun would be up soon and they’d be sound asleep in their coffins. There’d be no better time to strike.

  I tried Stella’s number again. Still no answer. Shit. If I didn’t do something soon I was going to miss my window. I couldn’t let that happen. I said I wouldn’t go in there alone, but what else was I supposed to do? Lives were at stake, and I sure as hell wasn’t putting DCI Stronge at risk by dragging her into a vampire den.

  I patted the grenades in my pockets. ‘Sorry, Jazzer. A job’s a job.’

  I cracked my knuckles and crossed the road to the house.

  As I passed through the rusty front gate and crept up the house’s cracked concrete path I checked the windows to make sure I wasn’t being spied on through the gaps in the ivy. Unlike regular folks, vampires can see ghosts, so I had to be extra careful. This wouldn’t be a welcome house call.

  I walked up the steps of the front porch and entered the house without breaking my stride. No need for magic this time. Instead, I phased through the front door and arrived directly in the house’s hallway, no tarting about.

  The place was as much an eyesore on the inside as it was the out. The polished teak wood floor had turned dull from neglect, and a thick layer of dust lay on every surface. The place was a mess. As I passed along the hallway I took a peek in a room off to one side. It was a baby’s bedroom, with a colourful mural of a monkey on the far wall and a crib in its centre. Just like the rest of the house, this too was blanketed in dust.

  I felt a knot in my stomach.

  Returning to the hallway I saw a framed picture, face down on a sideboard. I made my hand corporeal and carefully stood it up. It was a family photo; a studio portrait of a single mother, and sat on her shoulders, a little girl of maybe six months old. My jaw tightened. The vampires had done something terrible here. A mother and her child, drained dry, their bodies done away with, their happy home turned into a tomb. Judging by the state of the front garden the intruders had been squatting here for months too, which meant no one had come calling. The vamps had done their homework. All this mother and daughter had was each other, and those bloodsucking bastards had snacked on them like two fingers of a Kit Kat. I lay down the picture and took out one of my grenades. Those fuckers were going to pay for that.

  At the end of the hallway I found a wooden door under the house’s main staircase. Beyond the door was a flight of steps that dipped into the thick darkness of the cellar like a quill into an inkwell. I crept down the steps slowly, not because I was worried about upsetting a creaky floorboard—I don’t weigh anything—but to savour the moment. I smiled, relishing the prospect of turning these parasites into a pair of smoking ash piles.

  The cellar was low-ceilinged, dank, and covered in mould. Its tiny, street-level windows had been painted black and covered with pieces of cardboard. The only light came from the faint glow of the hallway upstairs, which outlined various piles of junk; overstuffed bin liners, battered boxes, and cobwebbed exercise equipment.

  I expected to find some coffins down there in the gloom, maybe a sarcophagus or two, but instead I found a couple of piles of rags with a waxy body lying on each, arms folded across their chests. It was a healthy reminder that real vampires aren't the romantic creatures from a Bram Stoker novel, or sultry teenagers glittering like ravers in a gay club. Real vampires are pink-eyed scumbags that leech off the living. Oversized vermin.

  I felt the weight of the grenade in my hand and tossed it into the air a couple of times like a tennis player readying for a serve. Time to put these bastards out of commission for good. I took a step forward and readied for my shot—

  —when my phone rang.

  Shit.

  The vampires came up from their rag piles like coiled springs, hissing and spitting.

  I raised the grenade over my head. ‘Hold it there, Count Fuckulas,’ I said. ‘This thing’s harmless to me, but it'll turn the two of you into little bitty ashes.’

  They froze. They could see in my eyes that I wasn’t mucking about.

  Since they were awake now, I figured I might as well get some answers from them before I dropped the literal bomb. ‘So, go on then,’ I said, ‘why did you do it?’

  The vampires looked to one another with their albino eyes. ‘Do what?’ replied the larger of the two.

  ‘The street kid with the track marks and tattoo,’ I said. ‘You picked him up on your rounds a couple of nights back and dumped his body on the Heath. Why?’

  They looked at each other again, then back to me.

  ‘Dumped him on the Heath?’

  ‘Cut the shit, I know full well it was you.’

  The smaller one curled his lip. 'We only drank the blood. The husk was taken from us.'

  I laughed. ‘You expect me to believe that? What kind of a mug do you take me for?’

  ‘It’s the truth. We were about to dig a hole for the body out back when a visitor came.’

  ‘Go on then,’ I said, enjoying the yarn. ‘Who was it? Father Christmas?’

  The vampires both sneered this time. ‘A man knocked at the door,’ said the taller one. ‘We did not know him, but he said he wanted to come inside.’

  ‘And you just let him in?’

  ‘He was… very persuasive.’

  I found the idea of a suave, midnight caller a bit hard to swallow, but I played along anyway. 'So this mystery visitor of yours, what did he look like?'

  ‘It is hard to say. He wore a hood.’

  ‘What kind of a hood? A Klan hood?’

  ‘No, the opposite kind,’ he spat. ‘The man was a negro.’

  Charming. That’s the way it is with vamps though, they might look young, but most of them have been around since before slavery was abolished. Plus, being descended from a guy who planted babies on spikes doesn’t exactly add to your chill.

  ‘So, let me get this right,’ I said, kneading the bridge of my nose with my non-grenade hand, ‘a black man in a hoodie shows up at your door asking to take a corpse away and you said okey dokey?’

  ‘His words... he made us do as he asked,’ replied the smaller one. ‘Besides, he did us a favour taking the body. Saving us from having to dig another hole in the garden.’

  ‘You want to know what I think?’ I asked, certain they didn’t. ‘I think you made this hooded bloke up. I think you dragged Fergal’s body to the Heath, put a rock in his hand and made him bash in some bloke you were having a barney with.’

  ‘You are wrong.’

  ‘You know nothing, ghost,’ said the other.

  It seemed they were sticking to their story. Fine. Their testimony was obviously bullshit, which made them the guilty parties. Soon as I’d dealt with them, Fergal got his wings and this case was closed.

  ‘W
ell, it’s been nice talking to you gents,’ I said, giving the grenade one last squeeze, ‘but I reckon I’m going to call it a day.’

  Time to light the place up. I pulled the pin, wound up my throwing arm and tossed the UV bomb into the centre of the room—

  —But just as it landed, the smaller of the vampires snatched a tin bucket from a pile of junk, flipped it over, and slammed it down on the ground, muffling the explosion.

  Poof.

  The grenade detonated harmlessly under the light-proof container.

  Bugger.

  There was one frozen second, then I saw two sets of pink eyes flick my way.

  ‘Easy there, lads,’ I said, backing up.

  The vampires pounced, fangs bared, saliva streaming down their waxy chins.

  If you’ll permit me to take a quick pause here, I’d like to spend a moment talking about fighting.

  See, there are two kinds of brawls. First there’s the movie kind: all Jackie Chan leg sweeps and bullet-time balletics. Then there’s the real kind: scrappy, awkward, and done in a few seconds.

  This was the second kind.

  The real kind.

  I didn’t take my opponents down with a devastating double face kick.

  I didn’t make a nimble side-step and turn one’s power against the other.

  No.

  I clocked the little vampire in the chin, and while he was flapping around on the floor, I kicked his mate square in the knackers.

  Wallop. Wallop.

  No pissing about.

  Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Where did this guy learn to throw a punch?” you ask. I get it. You see a bloke in a sharp suit and a tidy haircut and you think, “if it comes to a ruckus, this one’s going home with his head on backwards.” It’s cool, I can see your confusion. I know I don’t look like I’d be much use in a scuffle, but believe me when I tell you I’ve learned to hold my own over the years. After that business with Mark and the handcuffs I decided I’d had enough of getting kicked around. An all-boys Catholic school is no place for a victim, so instead of taking it on the chin the next time one of the big kids decided he wanted to boost his ego at my expense, I knocked some teeth down his throat.

  I got tough.

  Picked up some weights. Did some boxing. Tried out a martial art or two.

  It didn’t come easy. I took a lot of lumps on my way to being a half-decent scrapper. A lot of lumps. See, the thing about fighting is, you only really get good at it by doing a lot of it. Lucky for me, I was given plenty of opportunity to brush up on my skills. Day in, day out those kids came at me, and every time, I fought my corner. It didn’t feel like I was being done any favours at the time, but here, outnumbered two-to-one and fighting on someone else’s turf, I was grateful for every shove, every punch, every Chinese burn. Whatever happened to me next, it wouldn’t happen quietly.

  While the big vamp lay on the floor clutching his undead unmentionables, his pal staggered to his feet and came at me again. I put up my dukes and went to plant another fist in his face, but he was quick and managed to duck my swing.

  He caught me with the butt of his shoulder and barged me to the ground.

  Crash.

  The pair of us went south in a messy heap, smashing through a stool piled high with old magazines and sending splintered wood and yellowed pages every which way. As we hit the concrete floor, I tried to roll with the fall so I ended up on top of my attacker, but he was having none of it. Instead, he kept the high ground and started raining down blows on my face. I got my arms up to defend myself though, which forced him to find a new spot to inflict pain on.

  Shifting his weight, he dug his knee into my chest and pressed down hard. He did it with such force and with such conviction that I felt the bones of my ribcage buckle and spread. Being a ghost, pain isn’t something I get to feel every day. Physically speaking, most things pass right through me, whether I want them to or not. For that reason, it’s easy to lose touch with the simple sensation of… well, touch. Blinding agony? That’s something I hadn’t felt for a good, long while. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I enjoy the act of getting hurt, but sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that I am at least semi-alive. Not that I was about to thank the bloodsucker crushing my ribcage for it.

  I elbowed the vampire in the jaw but it only served to piss him off. Snarling, he went to put my eyes out with his claws, but I managed to get my hands around his wrists just in time. He was unnaturally strong though, and despite my best efforts, the pointed tips of his thumbnails edged closer and closer to my eyeballs. As he bore down on me with all his might, I turned my head to avoid a blinding.

  That’s when I saw it.

  A broken stool leg, snapped from its seat during our fall.

  The vamp saw what I was looking at and pressed down even harder.

  He managed to get his hands to my face and hooked his thumbs into my eye sockets.

  I felt the tip of his claws graze my eyelids.

  Felt them scrape against the fragile membranes.

  I saw the wooden leg. Saw its sharp, splintered end.

  I’d only get one chance at this.

  One chance to snatch it up and plug it in this fucker’s back.

  But turning a hand solid enough to do that required concentration.

  The kind of concentration the vampire wasn’t leaving much room for.

  ‘Die!’ he hissed.

  It was now or never.

  I let go of his wrist and shot a hand out for the chair leg.

  Felt my fingers wrap around it.

  And with everything I had, I rammed it home.

  The sharp end entered his back right between the shoulder blades and sank in deep.

  The vampire’s eyes shot open wide. ‘Wha—?’ he gurgled and coughed up a glob of rich, red blood.

  I whacked the chair leg with the heel of my palm, driving it home so hard it almost shot through the vamps’ chest.

  ‘Have some of that!’ I roared, as he gasped and went slack on top of me.

  Jazz Hands was right.

  No one likes a stake through the heart.

  I rolled the bloodsucker off and clambered to my feet just in time to see his mate, Billy Big Bollocks, untwist his nutsack and come at me for round two.

  I’d had enough of the rough stuff for one day, so I went for the second grenade and pulled the pin.

  I shielded my eyes, expecting the cellar to be flooded with brilliant, cleansing light. Instead, the grenade fizzled like a soggy firework, and with one final sputter, died.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ I said.

  ‘You’re going down,’ said the vamp with a razor blade smile, and he darted towards me, teeth gnashing.

  Panicking, I did the only thing I could think to do with the dud grenade and hurled it at the nearest blacked-out window. Thankfully, my aim was true, and the lump sailed over the vamp’s shoulder and tore through the glass.

  A knife of sunlight struck him in the back and sent him sprawling, and I used on the moment of opportunity to slam my heel down on his skull. As he lay there floundering, I grabbed him by the neck and rammed him against the nearest wall.

  ‘Tell me the truth!’ I demanded.

  ‘What truth?’

  ‘About the body!’ I screamed. ‘Why did you do that with Fergal’s body?’

  With both hands on the vampire’s throat, I forced him towards the lozenge of sunshine that had settled on the brick wall. As I inched the vamp’s head into the light, strands of his hair caught fire, burning to their roots like lit fuses. He fought and hissed and spat, but I clung onto him, refusing to let go.

  ‘Do you want to die?’ I hollered.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then admit it! Admit that you fitted Fergal up!’

  Smoke poured from the bloodsucker as I pushed him fully into the light. I was grilling him in every sense of the word. The flesh on his forehead began to pucker and crisp, sizzling like cooked bacon.

  ‘We had nothing to do with that!’ th
e vamp screamed, then, with one last, desperate, pain-fuelled burst of adrenalin, fetched me a blow to the skull that dropped me like a bag of hammers.

  Crack.

  My head was spinning.

  I shook off the tweeting birdies and looked up to see the vampire looming over me.

  ‘Did you really think you could beat me, ghost?’ he asked, ejecting a set of needle-sharp claws.

  ‘Beat you?’ I replied. ‘Mate, I’m going to bury you so deep Google won’t be able to find you.’

  He chuckled. ‘That’s good. You’re a funny man, you know that?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I replied. ‘One way or another I’ll have you in stitches…’

  I sprung up and slugged the vamp in the face. He recoiled, stunned, and I followed up with a barrage of blows, punching, kicking, kneeing, putting some real divots in the guy. I wouldn’t take him down—a bloke his size could take whatever I threw at him—but the plan was never to deck him. The plan was to get him to the other side of the room. To get him to the window covered by that flimsy piece of cardboard...

  Darting out a hand, I snatched a corner of gaffer tape and whipped off the makeshift blind. Sunlight streamed through the window, providing a firewall between the two of us that the vampire couldn’t cross. Matter of fact, he couldn’t even get out from his corner. I had him boxed in good and proper.

  ‘Ready to talk now?’ I asked.

  The vampire crouched into a panting ball.

  ‘It won’t do you any good staying schtum, mate,’ I told him. ‘The sun’s coming up still, and at the rate it’s moving your way, you’re gonna be toast in about five minutes flat.’

  He shuffled backwards, drawing tight into his corner, the sunlight nibbling at his bare toes. ‘Go to Hell,’ he hissed.

  ‘Reckon that’s more your department,’ I replied, watching as he drew back his feet and pulled his knees into his chest. ‘Of course, I could always put that bit of cardboard back and we could call this a day. I mean, just so long as you tell me what Fergal’s body was doing out there on the Heath.’

  ‘How many times do you need to hear it?’ he screeched. ‘A man came. A man in a hood. He took away the body and that’s all I know!’

  I narrowed my eyes at him. Even under duress, the vamp was sticking to his story. For all the implausibility of it, it was starting to sound annoyingly like the truth.