Blood Loss: A Vampire Story

by Andy Maslen

  25

  Hunt Book of Ariane Van Helsing, 2nd November 2010

  Today, we sat around the table and decided what to do about David Harker. Caroline was there, of course. Her concern is the man, mine the work. He must be stopped and I do not care overmuch how we do it. It would be a relatively simple matter to send Tomas up there on his own to silence David and cut off the source of the solution. But we must try the more difficult route first.

  Lily suggested a course of action that will keep everybody happy for now. We must travel to Norfolk and destroy the lab itself and all David’s work. On paper, on computers, in the cloud: wherever he has recorded the result of a single experiment, we must be there to wipe the record clean. Once we have achieved that goal, we will return to London bringing David with us. The lovers can be reunited and we can continue with our programme of eradication.

  One matter deserving of further consideration is whether David himself has been turned. Caroline recalled seeing plasters on his neck when she went to meet Peta Velds. His explanation sounded a little forced to me. If she has bitten him, then, inevitably, we will have to deal with him. But we will give him the benefit of the doubt. For now.

  26

  New York Times website, 7th November 2010

  In town for a week to handle business, noted socialite and business big-hitter Peta Velds is to give the keynote speech at next weekend’s skin cancer fundraiser at the Waldorf Astoria.

  27

  Caroline Murray’s Journal, 7th November 2010

  Peta Velds is in Manhattan, to give a speech to a cancer charity. You could laugh at the irony if it wasn’t so bloody terrible. But with her out of the way for a week, we have the chance we need to get David back. Tomorrow, Lily, Shimon and I will drive up to Norfolk and get David back. We also have to destroy his work and I just know that is going to kill him. He’s one of those dear, sweet men who could end up working for the wrong side just because they enjoy the intellectual challenges. Now and again he needs reminding that ethics aren’t just for the social scientists whom he despises.

  Our plan looks so simple on paper. Enter the lab posing as Health & Safety Executive inspectors – more irony – get David to wipe the servers clean of all his experimental research, then burn the place to the ground and be back in London three days from now. I keep wanting to scream “I’m a lawyer!” and run to the police, but Ariane just keeps assuring me in that annoying voice of hers that this is not a matter for the authorities. She’s probably right. I’m not sure any of the police officers I’ve met would give us much airtime for a story that mentioned vampires.

  I’ve discovered one of Tomas’s special abilities. He’s a forger. A very, very good one. The IDs he’s created for us are utterly convincing. I suspect he may not always have been playing for the white hats though he is extremely cagey when I ask him any questions about his past. Which convinces me that he has one.

  While we are in Norfolk, Ariane and Tomas will travel to New York. It’s so rare to see Peta Velds in public apparently that they’re going to attempt to kill her while she’s there. Quite how you stick a celebrity CEO with a willow-wood stake in one of the busiest cities in the world is beyond me, but then, I’m not a cutter.

  28

  Hunt Book of Ariane Van Helsing, 10th November 2010

  We are in Manhattan. The cutter here is Frederick Arnold. It was he who destroyed Warhol: using that woman to deliver the coup de grace was a masterstroke. Frederick has agreed to work with us to take down Peta Velds. His house is a brownstone on the Lower West Side. They have been working more with firearms than we have – typical Americans! – and have developed bullets filled with salcie usturoi that shatter on impact. Apparently with great and instantaneous effect. We may get the chance to use them although Tomas and I remain committed to the blades and the bows for our work.

  Tomorrow, Velds addresses the charity gala. We shall be waiting for her afterwards.

  29

  Website of the Judy and Brian Shapiro Foundation for Skin Cancer Research, 11th November 2010

  Last night, our annual fundraising gala dinner was graced with the presence of Peta Velds. Ms Velds is one of the most powerful women on the planet, and we are honoured that she made time in her busy schedule to address the donors, friends and supporters of the Foundation.

  Her speech was received with a standing ovation and we reproduce it here:

  Mister Mayor, Senator, honoured donors, friends:

  As I look out into the audience here tonight, I see representatives from some of the greatest families in New York. Names that resonate down through the centuries, much as my own name does in what I suppose I should call, “the old country”. [laughter]

  I also see those whom history will crown the progenitors of great dynasties of the future. All of us here have become wealthy enough to redistribute some of our good fortune to causes dear to our hearts. And whether our fortunes are fresh-minted or inherited does not matter – we can be justifiably proud of the excellent work our gifts make possible. [applause]

  Inheritance, whether of wealth, property or character, can be a difficult burden for some. In my own case, alongside the Velds fortune, I inherited something less welcome. A chromosomal abnormality called Reiser-Strick Syndrome. It has a single effect: it renders the carrier unable to tolerate sunlight, however diffuse, without suffering from a virulent cancerous mutation that destroys the very cells of which the skin is built.

  This mutation led me to my interest in the work of the Foundation, and I must offer you, Judy and Brian, my sincere gratitude for the research into all skin cancers that you have so generously made possible. [applause]

  Living with cancer is like living in darkness when you know the sun is shining on others; so I should like to ask you, Mayor Bloomberg, ladies and gentlemen, to raise your glasses and join me in a toast.

  To standing in the sunlight.

  [applause]

  30

  Hunt Book of Ariane Van Helsing, 11th November 2010

  Disaster! Tomas is gone.

  We were in position by nine o’clock last night. The dignitaries were all arriving in chauffeur-driven cars and there was a veritable jam of them around the back in a parking garage. We watched Velds arrive. Her driver was a huge, ugly brute. After she arrived, Tomas followed the limousine around the corner of the street. We discussed his attack down to the last detail. While the driver waited for his turn to drive into the parking lot, Tomas simply opened the rear door of the car, slid inside, closed the door and placed the tip of his blade under the nose of the driver. The smell was enough to ensure compliance and the lamia followed his new instructions. I watched them pull out of the queue and head down a side street – little more than an alley between two blocks. I followed on foot and when the big lamia exited the car, I was there with my crossbow.

  After we cleaned off the blood from the side of the car, Tomas drove me back to the queue and we were parked and ready twenty minutes later.

  All the other drivers had vanished, presumably to smoke or gossip: whatever these people do to while away the interminable hours while their charges sip champagne or listen to chamber quartets.

  Our plan was beautifully simple. We would wait until all the other cars had left to collect their passengers, then we would follow, leaving a gap. We would pick up Velds from outside the building, take her down to the East River and send her back to hell.

  Clearly, clapping one another on the back and praising each other’s generosity of spirit takes time, and it was after midnight when the mobile phone buzzed on the dashboard of the car. The message was short. “Come now”. We watched, and waited, as, one by one, the other limousines moved off round to the front of the building, a procession of glossy black beetles. Who knew how many would soon be carrying parasites as disgusting and evil as Peta Velds? Tomas texted back. “Engine trouble. Five minutes.”

  We waited until the parking garage was empty. Then Tomas started the car and we rolled around to the fron
t of the building. I have always deplored these cars with their blacked-out windows – why should their occupants be invisible? But now I was grateful for them. Tomas had retrieved the driver’s peaked cap and although it was several sizes too big, and somewhat wet, he padded it out with screwed up paper and wore it pulled down low over his eyes. I sat in the rear passenger seat, the one that would be furthest from the kerb when we stopped outside the front doors. My crossbow was loaded, my blade unsheathed. On Frederick’s insistence, I carried a pistol loaded with the filled bullets. His armourer is a very talented woman. There was no smell of either garlic or willow acid above the leathery aroma of the car itself.

  As we pulled into the kerb outside the building, I sensed something was wrong. There was nobody there. No grateful hosts waiting with the keynote speaker. And no speaker, either.

  “Where is she?” Tomas asked, turning round in his seat.

  Then there was a huge bang and the roof deformed inwards. Twenty rips in the headlining fabric of the car told their own story. A sinewy arm punched the glass out of the windscreen and hauled Tomas out and onto the bonnet of the car. I struggled to free my crossbow but I had been expecting her to enter the car through the door and had no clear aim between the front seats. All I could do was watch as she ripped his throat out. Then she crawled to the smashed window and looked in at me, eyes engorged, blood smeared all over the lower part of her hideously extended face.

  “He tasted bad!” she hissed at me. “Maybe next time I’ll come for you, cutter.” Then she sprang onto the roof and was gone.

  Poor Tomas. I held him as the life left his body. He looked into my eyes with that sad gaze of his and motioned for me to come closer.

  “You know what you must do, Ariane,” were his last words. Then he died.

  The street was deserted. So I did not hesitate. I took one of my quarrels and plunged it into his heart then walked away.

  Now I am alone here except for one burning question. How did Peta Velds know of our plan?

  31

  Facebook message from Lucinda Easterbrook to Peta Velds, 12th November 2010

  Peta,

  Did you get my last text? I told you I would be helpful to you. I found Caroline’s notes for their plan to kill you and I told you. Doesn’t that prove my devotion?

  I’m going back tonight to have another poke around. Caroline is staying at the cutter’s house so I can come and go as I please.

  Lucinda

  32

  Email from David Harker to Caroline Murray, 13th November 2010

  caro its me david peta is away and I feel like ive been asleep or tripping for the last couple of months i wrote this really primitive email program on the labs mainframe its only capable of sending im afraid nobody even knows its there apart from me its a bit inelegant but on the other hand it’s a hundred percent secure im using some pretty funky protocols I wont bore you with but unless you’re the cia i reckon its invisible and before you start criticising my punctuation i didnt have time to code it ooh i know x there is that better x listen there is some seriously fuckedupshit going on here x its not skin cancer research at all x shes got us looking at genetic mutations that cause heliophobia you know what that is right it means fear of the sun x well not fear so much just those animals that live deep underground or at the bottom of the ocean and they like explode or die of massive cell disintegration if you expose them to sunlight x gotta go someones coming x i love you xxx

  33

  Caroline Murray’s Journal, 14th November 2010

  Thank God. David’s OK. Clever boy has written his own email program on the lab computer. From what I could decipher, and put together with what Ariane told me, it seems Peta Velds is using David to research a cure for her kind’s inability to tolerate sunlight. Knowing him, he’ll find one. Even if she’s changed the terms of reference, he’ll keep plugging away at the problem. It’s what he does. And then one day, he’ll just punch the air, yell “Eureka!” and that will be that. Vampires who can go bloody sunbathing. We have to get him back before he does it.

  34

  Hunt Book of Shimon Gregorius, 16th November 2010

  We travelled up to Norfolk yesterday. The weather was beautiful as it only can be in this country. Crisp, cold air, but the bluest of skies with high cirrus clouds streaking the heavens. Since her kill with Ariane the other night, Caroline has changed. She is still prone to her legalese now and then, but more and more she speaks like a huntress – like a cutter. Partly it is her love for David, though I fear that most precious of emotions will be sorely tested in the days and weeks ahead. Partly, though, there is something in her character, something buried deeply. I think the girl has a warrior in her genes.

  For our mission, we needed certain supplies. A few gallons of petrol, some explosives and, perhaps most important of all, a virus. A computer virus, to be exact. I used our contacts in Moscow: there are plenty of extremely talented hackers out there who can write anything – if you pay them enough gelt! Sergei knew of a young girl, just 17, but already commanding the highest fees for her work. Sheer artistry according to Sergei. So, £50,000 and a brand new BMW and we received a thumb drive through the mail. I asked why no email and Sergei just laughed. Called me naïve and an old dinosaur. Email is for the rubes, apparently. Too easy to track and monitor. So, we have what we need to destroy David’s files on the site. He will need to log on to whatever remote servers he uses for backups. Procuring the explosives and the gasoline was Lily’s job. She has contacts in military circles and the construction industry, so the boot of the car is stuffed full of C4 and sloshing Jerry cans. I pray no idiot rear-ends us or we will all meet again in God’s presence. Tomorrow we visit the laboratory and, I hope, rescue David.

  We arrived at the lab at dawn. The carpark was brightly lit but we found a shaded area near the rear corner of the building. Lily walked in through the front door, and explained to the receptionist – this Renfield character – that her car had broken down out on the main road. Caroline and I waited out of sight around the side of the building. Lily had made sure to tie her hair up, exposing that swan’s neck of hers and we felt sure it would prove enough of a lure to get the man out into the open.

  Sure enough, after a minute, out she came, with Renfield following on her heels. His eyes were focused on her rear, which she was swinging from side to side like a baboon in heat: I defy any man not to forget himself in its presence. My bolt entered his head through his right ear. He was dead before his fat corpse hit the ground. Caroline, Lily and I dragged the body out of sight behind a hedge – the deception didn’t need to be perfect as the whole place would be ashes before too long. I retrieved the bolt and wiped it on Renfield’s disgusting blue jumper before replacing it in my quiver and leaving it, and my crossbow, outside the door.

  It was only once we regained the inside of the building that we realised one hugely important mistake. We had no idea where in the building we were to find David. Lily sat at the chair so recently vacated by Renfield and swung this way and that looking, I suppose, for some sort of building directory or staff telephone book.

  “Here it is,” she called. “The building plan. He’s on the ground floor. Over there!”

  She pointed to a pair of double doors away on the left of the reception area and we all ran for the door. Although Peta Velds was in New York with Le Fanu, we knew Stoker would be prowling about.

  The doors led to a sort of airlock affair – a short hallway with a card-operated security door at the far end. We were expecting this. Lily slid in a dummy card connected by a ribbon of multicoloured wires to a little box of tricks Tomas had assembled before leaving for New York. There were no flashing lights or bleeps – Tomas explained those were just for the movies. Instead, after a couple of seconds, the door lock itself clicked and a red light turned green. Lily pushed the door and we were inside David’s lab.

  At first we couldn’t see him. There were a couple of white coats tending computers and a centrifuge of spinning tes
t-tubes like a miniature carousel such as you might find at a county fair. Both young – research students, maybe. A boy and a girl. Both looked startled as we burst in and looked towards a door at the far end of the lab. David’s office, I assumed.

  “Can we help you?” the boy asked. He didn’t look particularly convinced when Caroline, in her best lawyer’s voice, announced that we were from the Health and Safety Executive.

  “We’re shutting this facility down, effective immediately,” she barked. “Unlicensed radioactive isotopes. Please leave with us now. Is there a David Harker working here, too?”

  “Yes,” the girl said. “He’s in his office.” She pointed at the door to which they’d directed their gaze when we arrived.

  “Hold on,” the boy said. “Before we do anything, I think we’d like to see some ID, please. If it’s not too much trouble.”