by Andy Maslen
20
Diary of an Actress: the Life of Lucinda Easterbrook, 29th October 2010
So, what have I learned this week? One, I may have a slightly kinky, lesbian thing going for one of the richest women in the world. Two, she’s a vampire. Three, it would appear I’m one too. Wot larks!
She texted me today. She summoned me – there really is no other word for it – to her office in the City. The building’s called The Point. Bloody great tower looking down on St Paul’s Cathedral.
“No need to take a cab,” she said, “my driver will bring you to me.”
I was so happy. After the other night, well, I began to wonder whether I’d dreamt the whole thing. Until I killed another homeless man, obviously. I’m not totally sure where this leaves my career but I suppose matineés are out! Sorry. Flippant.
Lurch, that’s what I’ve dubbed him, like a bloody great animated cadaver with a driving licence, was standing on my doorstep at 10.00 this morning, holding a huge umbrella like a bat over his head. It was raining rather heavily and the drops were bouncing off the taut black nylon canopy. He escorted me to the car, taking care to keep the brolly down low over my head. I noticed a distinctly unpleasant tingling on my skin – perhaps it was acid rain, who knows? After a dreary ride across London, we arrived at Peta’s office. I must say, the architect had let her imagination overrule her common sense. I say “her” because there was a stainless steel plaque just inside the lobby outlining the woman’s philosophy of architecture. Some gobbledegook about “neo-Bauhaus within a dream framework”. Translation: straight lines, lots of white paint and more steel, and a curving staircase within the atrium festooned with mythical beasts and oversized gemstones.
I think I recognised the receptionist from the other night at Peta’s house. Not completely sure as she had her clothes on this time, but her green eyes were looking right through me. She flashed me a bright smile – no fangs I was relieved to see – and directed me to the lifts with a flirty instruction to “go all the way to the top”.
Peta was waiting for me when the lift doors opened. She looked amazing. You wouldn’t call her beautiful exactly, but she just radiates sexiness. Maybe it’s that gaze of hers. I just feel like I’m the only person who matters to her. She put her hand out like a parent waiting for a child, and I took it. The difference in our height amplified the effect – I was in flats and she was sporting another pair of monster heels. There was a tiny zap of static electricity as our fingers brushed, then she enfolded my hand in hers and led me into her office.
We sat on a sofa in front of a low table.
She held both my hands in her lap and pulled me close enough that I could smell her perfume. Then she spoke. Words I will never forget.
“My daughter. My blood. Welcome to the real life. Welcome to my family.”
Then she kissed me with open mouth, looking deep into my eyes. I felt those long, pointed teeth with my tongue.
I don’t know where my answer came from. It felt like it had always been there, lodged somewhere in my soul.
“My Mother. My blood. Accept me. Nurture me.”
She drew away and smoothed her skirt over her knees.
“Lucinda. You know what is happening to you, don’t you?”
“I think so,” I said.
“You are becoming like me. You are joining the O-One. The process takes a few months, during which time you will feed and grow stronger. Your body will change and so will your habits.”
“How will it change?”
“Your body fat will burn away and your muscles will strengthen. Your mouth will alter. Like mine.”
As she said this she opened her mouth. It kept on opening. I wasn’t afraid. Which by rights I should have been. Her lower jaw sort of came adrift with a plopping sound and hinged back almost onto her neck. Those teeth like long glass needles unfolded behind her human teeth, and this sort of ring of pink tissue expanded inside her mouth like a big sucker. It should have disgusted me but it was just beautiful. Our perfect adaptation.
“Body fat? Like, my bum, you mean? Because that seriously won’t be a problem.”
“All your body fat. We are lean by design, Lucinda. Predators. When was the last time you saw a fat lioness?”
I admitted that in all the nature documentaries I’ve ever watched, the lionesses always looked pretty fit to me.
“Now. Daughter. There is something you can do for me. You are friends with Caroline Murray. She wishes to take David Harker back. I cannot allow this. He is too important to me, to my plans for my family.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. I know this sounds cold, but I would have agreed to anything just to please Peta. On my own I can still feel traces of the person I used to be; in her presence I feel like a giddy teenage girl on her first date.
“I want you to find out what she is planning. She has a new friend. A woman called Ariane. Talk to Caroline. Invite her out for a drink or dinner, or to your flat for a meal. Then bring your news back to me. Now, come.”
Then she unbuttoned her blouse and I felt a prickling behind my top teeth. I can’t write any more. It’s getting dark and the memory of what we did on her sofa has made me hungry again.
21
Hunt Book of Lily Bax, 30th October 2010
We have been stalking one of the rarer males of the Velds family. In many ways he is magnificent. He stands almost seven feet tall. His musculature is superb, with a triangular torso dominated by massive pectorals, and lattissimus dorsi muscles like wings adorning his back. His skin is blue-black and his limbs are long and symmetrical, with thick veins protruding above the muscles. He has a way of crouching over his kills, like a falcon mantling its prey with its wings. His male parts are hairless, as with all of his kind, and he grows erect when feeding. He is very fast and dodged Shimon’s bolt only a month ago. His hearing is acute, even for a lamia, and we have had to retreat beyond the range of our crossbows to avoid detection.
Yesterday we decided he could be allowed no further kills. I spent most of the day soaking crossbow bolts in salcie usturoi. As he emerged from their house we immediately set up our tail, all four of us taking turns to track him through the city streets. I think he suspected something but we had refined our tracking strategy in response to his heightened sensory responses. He picked up the scent of some homeless: we saw him lift his nose to the air. Then he was off, loping across the road between cars, almost floating on those long legs. He ran down a side street and then leapt a barrier into a disused carpark. There were a group of them there, homeless, not lamia: three men and a woman. Sharing a bottle of cider round a brazier. The lamia stopped behind a concrete pillar and removed his clothes. We watched as the claws on his hands and feet extended. Then that terrible yawn. Out clopped the jawbone from its hinges. Down came the fangs. Forward came that obscene funnel of tissue.
The problem with a four-person kill is that you cannot surround the target. We are all good marksmen but to miss would be to risk hitting one of our own. So we formed a crescent, each of us moving in close enough to be sure of a hit. The bloodlust deafens the lamia, we suspect it is simply the pounding of their blood in their ears, not some sensory override. It matters not.
The lamia stalked towards the homeless, arms wide, at least seven feet from talon to talon. They saw him and began hooting with laughter. I have seen similar reactions before. Often that laughter is the last sound to escape the victim’s lips. One of the men waved the cider bottle at him and asked if he wanted “a wee shot of the good stuff”.
I looked at Tomas, then Ariane and Shimon. We nodded and placed our fingers to our brows, lips and hearts: the old signal. Together, we fired. The four willow quarrels left our crossbows with sharp snaps, pigeon-feather flights hissing through the dank air towards their home.
His speed, his anticipation, were incredible. Not one of our bolts hit him; he twisted and bent like a worm on a hook and left empty space where flesh should have been. They clattered harmlessly against pi
llars and dropped to the cold floor.
Then Ariane called out.
“Lamia! Tonight is your last on Earth!”
The lamia advanced on us, hissing loudly, flicking out his tongue. His eyes were partially filled with blood and disgusting drool was leaking from his fangs. We still had the advantage of numbers but I don’t mind recording that I was frightened. Not the pang of danger we all use to sharpen our reflexes on a normal hunt. This was primal. For the first time, I thought I might succumb to the bite of the lamia.
He stopped ten feet short of us. He looked at each of us in turn, up and down, assessing us for weakness. There was no time to reload so we each drew our blade. Ariane and Tomas favour knives; Shimon and I, swords. All four weapons were anointed with salcie usturoi – even a glancing blow would be enough to destroy the lamia. But with his stature, even Shimon and I would have to be inside his reach to strike the fatal blow.
Before I could calculate a plan of action, Ariane took a step forward and dropped her knife on the floor. It rang out in the gloomy space, echoing off the low concrete and steel ceiling. Then she simply tilted her head to the right, exposing that long pale neck of hers. I fancy even I could hear the blood surging through the vessels in her throat.
Its eyes rolled up, fully engorged, and it sprang at her. That was its last volitional movement in this life. She sidestepped and ducked as Shimon whirled round and drove the point of his blade deep into the lamia’s side. With a screech, it fell to its knees, clawing at the rent in its skin as if it would pull the poison from the wound by force. But too late. Its skin bubbled and rippled like a tide running back over pebbles, then the shuddering of its muscles began. We retreated to a safe distance and watched as splits opened up in its skin and its skull swelled. With an inhuman howl, the lamia burst open as its organs, blood vessels, body fluids and bones were obliterated by the chemical action of the salcie usturoi.
Shimon cleansed his blade and resheathed it under his coat. We others followed him, then turned to the boozers, still clustered around their fire, but now wide-eyed. As Ariane approached them they clutched each other. The woman started gabbling in a rusty voice, hands held palms out, like a supplicant.
“Don’t, love. We ain’t done nothing to you. Don’t do us, too. Please. We won’t say nothing. Nobody’d believe us anyway, bunch of old winos. Joff there, he thinks he sees Jesus. Local coppers just move us on, they never listen.”
Arian spoke, to calm them.
“We won’t hurt you. We protected you from the lamia. Have you seen others like him?”
“I have,” one of the men piped up. His skin was a uniform brown-black, though whether he was that colour because God made him like that or from his unclean way of living I couldn’t tell. “They’re everywhere. Used to be, right, you could find a gaff to kip in for the night and only have to worry about other dossers nicking your stuff, or some pissed-up city types who get off on giving us a kickin’. Then, be about five years ago? This other lot turned up. Rich, like. Nice clothes. They’d offer you money and a bed for the night. Well, it’s tempting innit? I mean, the younger ones, well, they sussed it out straight off. Sex trade, innit? But beggars can’t be choosers, know what I mean? They don’t care anyway. Most of them is strung out on crack, or heroin or they’re just huffin’ into them crisp bags. Trouble is, they never came back.”
“Five years ago,” I said. “You’ve done well to survive that long on the streets.”
He puffed his chest out. “Know what I’m doing, don’t I? That’s the secret, knowing what you’re doing.”
“And you do.”
“And I do. But they’ve changed. Used to be the young ones only. Well, that’s who I’d pick. I mean, you got a bit of cash and a taste for rough trade, you’re not going to want to go home with old wrecks like Molly or Joff or me, are you?”
“Changed how?” Ariane said.
“They started doing us out in the open, didn’t they? Last six months, I seen ‘em take three of us. What happens is, they come out of the shadows, stark-bollock naked, sorry ladies, and they’re seriously fuckin’ weird. You saw him, that one just now. Like him, they are, all muscly with them claws and those horrible mouths of theirs. Females are worse then the males, somehow, I mean, it’s wrong, innit? A woman should be nurturing like your Mum, not bleeding you dry till you’re just a husk?”
“Do the police ever come around?” Tomas said. “Asking about them? About anyone else?”
“The police? Do me a favour! There’s cuts or hadn’t you heard? Open a case and you got to close it haven’t you? And who’s going to pull lates trying to solve who murdered a dosser or a wino? Nobody, that’s who. And, no, since you ask, they ‘aven’t been around asking after you either.”
“I didn’t mean us,” Tomas said.
“‘Course you didn’t! Don’t want the Old Bill cottoning on there’s a bunch of vigilantes roaming the streets doing their job for them, now do we? Vampire vigilantes.” He folded his arms across his scrawny chest after he said those last two words. He jerked his chin at the crossbows. “They what you use, then? To kill ‘em?”
Ariane took a step closer. Reached out her hand for his. “I would like to help you. And maybe you can help us too. Are you hungry? Would you like a bath and some clean clothes?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, turning his hand to grab hers, then pumping it vigorously up and down.
We left his companions without a backward look. The gelatinous puddle that had been the lamia was congealing and already two rats were licking at the edge of it, their little yellow teeth bright against the dark red.
22
Hunt Book of Ariane Van Helsing, 30th October 2010
We killed our biggest one yet tonight. A real brute. Unnaturally fast, and for a species already at odds with nature, an outlier. The moves I have been working on with Shimon will pay off, I am convinced. If others of its kind develop the same reflexes we will perforce have to adopt new tactics. I intend to ask Lily to develop protective gear for us. Some sort of lightweight collar. Maybe gauntlets too and something for the femoral arteries. In the meantime, we have acquired an ally from a surprising quarter.
His name is Jim. He says he prefers to keep his surname to himself. I suspect he has a background in law enforcement since he seems so confident about police procedures. Perhaps he left with a stain or two on his record. Not my business, for now, at any rate.
I intend to recruit Jim. The others are not so sure, but I feel it in him. A violence. Or a willingness at least. He could be useful. Anyone who has survived on the streets since the lamia arrived is someone I want on my side, fighting them. He can go back on the streets at night and sleep here during the day: our spy in the midst of their hunting grounds. We can disguise him again and with skin and clothes soaked in salcie usturoi he will come to no harm.
He is sleeping now in one of the guest rooms. Belly full of Shimon’s soup and beef with dumplings. Tomorrow I will test him. See how deep his hunger runs. The lamia we captured for Caroline still waits in the basement.
23
Texts Between Peta Velds and Lucinda Easterbrook, 31st October 2010
THE CUTTERS TOOK ONE OF MY SONS LAST NIGHT. HE HAD BEEN WITH ME FOR 17 YEARS SINCE I TOOK HIM IN MANHATTAN. HE WAS A BANKER. HE RELISHED HIS NEW LIFE AS HE DID BLOOD. WE WILL AVENGE HIM. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED OF CAROLINE MURRAY AND HER FRIENDS?
Oh, how awful for you :-( I’m afraid I haven’t had a great deal of luck, really. Going through the change as I call it has left me just starving all the time. Not much time for socialising. But I will, I promise. Find stuff out, I mean. oxoxo
IT IS URGENT. I WANT TO KNOW THEIR PLANS. IF YOU CANNOT SEE HER, GO TO HER FLAT. BREAK IN. CHECK HER LAPTOP. ANYTHING. DO NOT DISAPPOINT ME.
I would never disappoint you. You must believe me. I’ll do it. Tonight. I’ll call her. x
24
Caroline Murray’s Journal, 1st November 2010
Odd night tonight. Had dinner wi
th Luce. My, she looks healthy. Positively glowing. Didn’t eat anything though. Said she was on a detox after that business in Norfolk. Funny kind of detox if it includes the amount of wine she knocked back, but that’s Luce for you. Clearly Ariane doesn’t know everything about vampires – the whole “turning” thing must be superstition even if the rest of the wretched business is true. There’s obviously nothing the matter with Luce, especially in the dental department! God, the way she throws her head back when she laughs you can see her tonsils, never mind her teeth. She even said she’d been on a sunbed at the hairdresser’s – that accounted for the glow and pretty much scotched the idea she’s one of them now.
The thing is, she seems to know an awful lot about Ariane. She was asking me all sorts of questions about her. Where she lives, what she wears, what she does all day, who her friends are. I thought it best to be discreet. I don’t imagine Ariane exactly welcomes publicity. I asked Luce why she wanted to know and how she even knew about Ariane in the first place. And she said it was for a part she’s up for. Some off-Broadway thing, apparently. She’s auditioning for the part of one of the sisters in The Cherry Orchard. She came upon the Van Helsings in an old history book in the Royal School of Drama’s library. Luce being Luce she knew nothing about Dracula, so the reference sailed right over her head. She just picked on Ariane’s family because they seemed “so mysterious, so right”.
Long story, short, I had to stonewall her all evening. Every time I managed to get the conversation onto more neutral matters, and believe me, for Luce, “neutral” encompasses quite the range of intimate topics, she’d drag it round to Ariane again. In the end I had to plead tiredness and left her in the restaurant. Last thing I saw before I went was her flagging down the waiter and pointing at the wine list.