by Amy Cross
“He hasn't been back,” Shelley says. "Look at the place. No-one's been here since we came down last week."
“Maybe he wants us to think that,” I say as we reach the house. “Maybe this is all part of his attempt to put us off his tracks”.
“Do we have to go inside?” she asks.
I turn to her. “I'm going in,” I say. “You can go back if you want”.
“No no no,” she says. “I'm coming with you. I just... If we die today, I'm blaming you, okay?”
“I'll blame me too,” I say, pushing the door to the house open and stepping inside. The hallway is dark and quiet. It really does seem to be completely undisturbed. “I saw a ghost in here once,” I say. “Upstairs. Except it wasn't a ghost, it was me”.
“That makes sense,” Shelley says. “And thanks, your little ghost story totally didn't make me even more terrified than I already was”.
I head through to the study. This is where Vincent healed me when I first came down here. At the time, I barely questioned how he managed to fix my wounds and save me from death so fast. Now I can't help wondering what kind of tricks he knew.
“I'm going to be really brave and go look through here,” Shelley says, heading into the next room. “Really, really brave. Please take note of that fact”.
While she's busy, I take a look at the papers on Vincent's desk. He was always reading, always studying books. Again, I never really questioned his behavior at the time, but now I can't help wondering what he was reading, and why he seemed to be studying things so urgently. I pick up one of the books and read the title from the spine: A Heliographical Cartography of the Known World Along the Equator. There's another one nearby, titled The Lives of the Forbidders. Looking at the other books, it becomes clear that they're mostly full of maps and accounts of journeys. All except one: a small, old book titled A History of Neratovice. I open it to take a look inside.
“Fuck!” Shelley shouts out, stepping back from the next room. She turns to me, her face as white as a sheet.
“What?” I ask, putting the book down.
“That old man who died here,” she says, her voice trembling. “He's in here”.
“What do you mean?” I ask, going over to her. “Vincent?”
“Yeah,” says Shelley. “He's in that fucking room right there. I didn't see him at first 'cause it's dark, but he's in there”.
I step through, and I immediately see what Shelley's talking about. In the corner of the room there's what appears to be a small bed, and Vincent's body has just been dumped there. I'd assumed that Patrick took the body and buried it somewhere, but apparently he just left Vincent where he died. The body looks thin and gaunt, but the eyes are still open and staring up at the ceiling. He doesn't seem to have started to rot or anything, and it's almost as if he could turn at any minute and start talking, except that his eyes seem glazed over and the pupils are almost white.
“At least he doesn't smell,” Shelley says from the other room.
“Yeah,” I say, staring at the body. "At least there's that." Vincent used to answer all my questions and tell me what was happening. I'd give anything to be able to speak to him again, to ask him what to do. When Vincent was around, Patrick was different: he was more thoughtful, he was kinder, and he seemed less angry and more in control. But since Vincent died, Patrick has seemed unstable. When Vincent was alive, I wasn't scared of Patrick. These days, I'm terrified of him.
“There's no baby here,” Shelley calls out. “There's nothing here. He knows you'd come to look for him at the house. There's no way he'd be stupid enough to come back”.
The truth is, I think Shelley's right. The way Patrick has just left Vincent's body here is a strong indication that Patrick has completely abandoned this place, never to return. In which case, perhaps he must have completely abandoned Dedston as well. I get this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Patrick could be anywhere in the world with that baby. It never really occurred to me before that I might never, ever be able to track him down. He might have simply vanished forever, and I'll never know whether there really was a baby, and whether it really was mine, and I'll never know whether Patrick really felt anything for me or whether he was just using me to get what he wanted.
“Sophie,” Shelley calls out. “Come here”.
I stare at Vincent's body. Should we bury him? Or is this what he wanted? It seems cold and uncaring, but perhaps it's what vampires do? I probably shouldn't interfere, but it seems wrong to just leave him here like this. It almost looks as if he's waiting for something, as if he's waiting around for the right moment to... To what?
I stare at his eyes. He's dead. He's definitely dead. So why can't I shake this uneasy feeling?
“Sophie!” Shelley calls again, with added urgency in her voice. “Can you get over here right now?”
“What is it?” I call back.
“There's someone here”.
I turn to look at the door. “What?”
I wait for her to answer, but she doesn't. I rush over to the door and find that Shelley isn't in the next room at all. Going through to the hallway, I still can't find her.
“Hey!” I call out. “Where are you?”
Nothing.
Then -
“In here!” she calls out from another room.
I hurry through, not sure what I'm going to find. Sure enough, Shelley isn't alone. But the person – or thing – with her doesn't look human at all. Its face is burned and its white, round eyeballs stare at me from a partially-exposed skull. It also looks horribly familiar, like a nightmare that has crawled from my dreams and is standing before me. It takes me a moment, but finally I realize who I'm facing.
"Hello," he says with a smile. "Miss me?"
Patrick
The snow falls gently. Too gently. Up here, far from Dedston, there's no-one around, just trees standing tall. But the serenity also brings danger, and I have to be constantly on my guard. There are animals around, creatures that know nothing of the world I inhabit, creatures that might be so hungry that they would try to take things that don't belong to them. Wolves, cougars, eagles... I have to keep an eye on the snow, to learn to watch out for certain tracks that might indicate that there's danger ahead. Awareness, as ever, is the key. As long as I know what's coming, I can defend our home against anything. But I'm tired. I want to sleep, and it's at times like this that I know I might make a terrible mistake, the kind of mistake that I once believed it would be impossible for me to make but which I now understand so well. Also, I am still injured. I need time to repair my body, but I have no time to spare.
I don't dare to venture far from the cave where we have made our home. While we wait for our visitor, I have to gather food and wood. The wood isn't too hard to find, but food is more difficult. There are rabbits up here in the mountains, and a few other creatures, but they're so small and fast it's hard to catch them. Sometimes I long for a bear to wander into view. A bear would be much easier to take down and use for food, but the bears seem not to be here this year, so I'm left to hunt for smaller prey. The food I manage to bring home is barely enough for the two of us. With my injuries still slowing me, I am seriously handicapped.
I need time to heal. I need to rest. So far, however, I've been unable to do anything other than care for the child. The truth is, I'm totally unprepared for this responsibility. I struggle along as best I can, but I'm undermined by the knowledge that everything I do is wrong. This child is suffering due to my inability to look after it. If I don't do something soon, the child will be irreparably scarred. Although I am the child's father, I have no idea how to deal with this situation.
So I do the only thing that I can possibly do.
I tell the child to be patient.
And then I wait.
Finally, on the third day, our visitor arrives, forcing her way through the blizzard. We say nothing to one another, because there is nothing to say: she knows why I have called her here, and she has been waiting for this mom
ent for many, many years. Although she sees my injuries and offers to help me heal, she understands when I ignore her concern. She knows that she is not here for me, that I am not worthy of her assistance. She recognizes the sin in my eyes, and she sees that my comfort is not what is important right now. She helped deliver the child last year, and now she has returned to help raise her.
I lead her to the cave and show her what she has come to look after. She falls to her task with ease, with a kind of gracefulness and tenderness that I have long been conspicuously lacking. I am instantly relieved, as if finally I can afford to relax and allow her to take control. In truth, I have not been very good at this latest role into which I have been cast. Once again, I have proven myself to be a bad father, but I suppose there is no surprise there. All fathers are bad.
Now that there is someone else to look after the child, I can go and heal my body. In the weeks since I was crushed by the collapsing hospital, I have been walking with various broken bones and tattered strips of flesh. I'm sure my appearance has traumatized the child and will lead to many nightmares. Now I can finally cocoon myself in the darker recesses of the cave, to rest and regenerate my body. It will be a long process, taking many days, perhaps even a couple of weeks. When it is complete, however, I will be strong again and I will be able to get back to the task at hand. It has been many years since I last felt strong.
Sophie
Despite his burnt face, his round white eyeballs, his torn body and the blood that seems to be constantly oozing from his unhealed wounds, he's instantly recognizable. Although I thought he was dead, it seems obvious now that I never saw his body. A long time ago, I saw this man try to kill Patrick, and then I saw Patrick take his revenge by ripping this man's neck out. I begged Patrick to show him some mercy, but I always assumed Patrick had ignored me and had killed him anyway. He's alive, though, so I guess Patrick listened to me after all.
“Dexter Logan,” he says in his thick Southern accent, reaching out a black, burnt hand for Shelley to shake. “Mild-manned reporter, and vampire aficionado, at your service”. Despite his injuries, he still has that distinctive southern accent.
Shelley shakes his hand. “Crisp,” she says, grimacing a little. As she withdraws her hand from his, little flakes of Dexter's burned skin fall to the ground.
“Forgive me,” Dexter says, “I've had a bad couple of years. Lost a lot of skin, blood, stuff like that”.
It's so strange seeing Dexter again. After all, he helped me meet Patrick in the first place, and for a while I thought he was a friend. That was before he tried to cut me up in an attempt to draw Patrick out into the open. There was always something dangerous but also pathetic about Dexter. I was sure he was dead, though. I saw Patrick kill him. Or at least, I saw Patrick take Dexter away to kill him, and I heard the screams. I just assumed he'd finished the job.
“It's rude to stare,” Dexter says, smiling at me. As he moves his face, I can hear his dried, burnt skin crinkling.
“You were at the hospital,” I say, staring at him. Suddenly it hits me: back in the psychiatric hospital, in the basement, the man I saw in the shadows was Dexter. “I saw you, but I didn't recognize you”.
“Ah,” he says, “so that's why you were so rude. I just thought you didn't like me very much”.
“There's that too,” I say. And it's true: I don't like Dexter, and I don't trust him. He's dangerous.
“Do you want some cream for that... body?” Shelley asks him, staring at Dexter's burnt form.
“I've learned to live with the pain that the vampire inflicted upon me,” he replies. “It's good for the soul to suffer, yet to remain righteous. Some friends in high places fixed me up. Benjamin and the Watchers can be very generous, if they're in the right mood”.
“We were just leaving,” I say. I reach out and grab Shelley's arm, ready to lead her away. Things are already pretty crazy, and the last thing we need is to have to deal with Dexter.
“We want the same thing,” Dexter says suddenly. “We want to find the vampire and rescue that child. Neither of us can do it alone, but together we have a chance. You have no loyalty to the vampire anymore, so what do you say? Are you finally ready to help me?”
I turn to him. “What child?”
He smiles. Again, his skin crinkles. “The child”.
I step toward him.” What do you know about a child?”
“More than you,” he replies, “but I had the advantage of not being in love with the vampire, so my head wasn't turned. I had time to snoop around”. He grins. “I've seen it. Don't you remember?”
“We're out of here,” Shelley says, sensing my unease and trying to usher me toward the door.
“You don't remember that year, do you?” Dexter says. “A whole year spent with Patrick, the man of your dreams. Your belly getting bigger and bigger, and finally giving birth to that child. And then what happened? He tossed you away like a piece of scrap and he took the child, which was all he'd ever wanted anyway. Now you're alone. Doubly alone, because you have a sense of what is missing. The child whose face you'll never see. And still a prophecy hanging over your head”.
“There's no prophecy,” I say. “There's no such thing”.
“Isn't there?” Dexter asks. “The Book of Gothos has always claimed that eventually the last vampire would meet a girl named Sophie Hart, and that she would carry his child, and that eventually the vampire would kill Sophie. As far as I can see, the prophecy's been completely accurate so far." He pauses for a moment. "I'm offering you a chance to slip between the cracks in that prophecy. Nowhere does it say who's supposed to raise the child. You can get her away from Patrick. You can save her from becoming like him."
“What's in it for you?” I ask.
He grins. “I get the vampire. It's all I've ever wanted, to have his body. To cut it open. It's him or you. Do you let him win, kill you and keep the child to raise it as whatever he desires? Or do you take the child, raise it, know it, and let the vampire suffer the consequences of his actions? You and me, together, can do what neither of us can do apart. I can help you get that child back from the vampire, and you can help me get the vampire's body. Benjamin has sent a lot of people after Patrick, but they've all failed. Nimrod, Keller, all of them. I can succeed. I can do this, with your help”.
I shake my head. “What makes you think I'd ever help you after what you did?”
“Because you need me,” he says confidently. “You know the true nature of the vampire now, you know that he doesn't deserve your loyalty. It's okay, he fooled you but, hey, he's a vampire. That's what they do. You got your head turned by him, it's totally understandable. The point is, you need to focus on the child now. Forget about Patrick”.
I back away from him. “Shelley, we're leaving,” I say.
“I saw what he did to your friend,” Dexter says, stopping me in my tracks. “The boy who died in the car crash. Adam. I was there. I tried to stop him, but with this old body I couldn't do anything. I tried to pull poor Adam out of the car, but the flames were too strong and by the time I got there it was too late. I'm sorry. I really tried”.
“You saw what happened?” I ask.
He nods. Again, his charred skin cracks as he moves. “The vampire jumped out at his car. Forced him off the road. I tried to stop him, I really did, but look at me!” He holds out his ragged, damaged hands. “I can barely walk. What hope did I have of stopping someone as powerful as Patrick? I'm so weak, I can barely even talk”.
Shelley turns to me. “If he really killed Adam -”
“We don't know that,” I say.
“I can prove everything,” Dexter says. “I know we did kind of get off on the right foot before, but things have changed. You've seen the true nature of the vampire now, and I've mellowed. We could be a great team, and I'm the only chance you have if you ever want to see that child”. He grins, waiting for me to answer. “I can help you,” he says. “All I ask is that you help me in return. What does it matter to you if Pat
rick's body is used for research purposes once he's dead?”
I pause for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Looking over at Shelley, I can see in her eyes that she has doubts, but I'm overcome with a desire to rescue this child from Patrick, and to show him that I can't simply be ordered about. Sure, Dexter has been untrustworthy in the past. Hell, I don't imagine he's changed too much since the last time I saw him. But I have a feeling I can handle him. If I can get the child away from Patrick, Dexter can get what he wants, that's fine by me. Screw Patrick. I only care about the baby.
“Okay,” I say finally.
“Sophie,” says Shelley cautiously, “are you sure about this?”
I nod. “If it's a choice between my child and Patrick, I'm going to choose the child”.
Dexter smiles, and nods. “Excellent,” he says. “The first thing we have to do is destroy the vampire's home. We have to burn this place to the ground”.
Patrick
I dream about the war that killed us all.
For the first thousand days, I stood guard at the Bone Emporium, making sure that no-one could cross the Bridge of Brides, or pass through the Door of Compassion, or enter the Library of Whispers that floated in the Swallowed Ocean. During that time, I fought and killed countless fellow vampires, some of whom had once been my friends, some of whom had even been my brothers. Even Cassandra attempted to get past me, and I threw her down to the pits of the Eleventh Circle. I was a good soldier and I knew my role. It's just that, as time passed, I began to question my orders. I saw that the war was never going to end.
Eventually I realized I must take another course. I burned the library to the ground and I set out on foot for Gothos. There, I found a vampire communion engaged in a desperate attempt to encourage the Others to return to our world and fight. The Others were nowhere to be found, however, and would not answer any attempts to communicate with them. There was much discussion about whether the Others were ignoring the vampires, or had removed themselves so far that they could not hear our cries, or had simply ceased to exist. I suppose it doesn't matter now: they didn't come, that is all there is to it.