by Paul Magrs
‘Oh yes?’ he said cautiously. She was a wily old monster, this one. He still got goosebumps at the sound of that voice. It took him straight back to his days under her terrible thrall at the Christmas Hotel.
‘I’ve had wind of something awful,’ she went on. ‘Some ghastly news. Whispers on the air. Something is stirring. Something’s about to happen to a mutual . . . friend of ours. Someone whom we both care about, a great deal.’
He frowned. ‘Who?’ What was she playing at?
‘I’m talking about Effryggia, of course,’ purred Mrs Claus. Did he imagine it, or was there a touch of genuine concern in her bold vibrato? ‘I happen to know that Effie has dug herself quite deeply into a vile situation, and that she is looking for a way out. Any way out. Desperate remedies. She should turn to her friends, to those who care. But instead she has made a woeful choice.’
Pause. ‘I know,’ Robert told her.
‘You know, do you?’
‘Yes. We think it’s a bad idea too. Assuming it’s real. Assuming it can be done. It’s a very bad idea.’
‘I’m glad we see eye to eye. What are we going to do about it?’
Now there was the question.
‘We want to stop her,’ he told Mrs Claus. ‘The ritual is at midnight tonight, by all accounts.’
‘And what are you going to do? Go dashing into The Spooky Finger? Causing a scene and a great big hullabaloo, hoping for the best as usual?’
Mrs Claus was right. That was about the extent of their usual kind of plan. ‘Well, what do you suggest?’ he asked her.
‘I’m not doing it. I mean it, lovey. I’m not going round there,’ Brenda said decisively. She drew herself up to her full height. ‘Why do we need help from that old bag? When has she ever been on our side?’
They were by the reception desk at the Miramar. Brenda had winded herself dashing up the hill. She looked incredulous that Robert wanted to go straight to the Christmas Hotel. He said, ‘I think she really wants to help. She cares about Effie.’
‘My foot,’ Brenda snapped. She was frustrated and teetering on the edge of an extremely bad mood. She had been banging on Effie’s front door for ages. She had gone round the back and tried shinning up a drainpipe and knocked her elbow quite badly. There had been no sign of Effie at all. Her house and the shop below looked as if they had been shut up for months and no one was planning on coming back.
Robert knew that Brenda’s mood was one of suppressed panic. She burst out: ‘You know what I think? We should get straight round that bookshop and give Marjorie Staynes what for. She’s encouraging Effie to believe in all sorts of nonsense. I could see it right from that first meeting I went to. That bookshop woman is involved in things she hardly comprehends.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ Robert told her. ‘But we should take whatever help we can get to save Effie.’
‘We don’t need help from Mrs Claus.’
‘I think we do.’
Brenda glowered at him. She knew he wouldn’t back down, though. She had seen him like this before and knew that he would stick to his guns.
‘I’m sorry, Robert,’ she relented. ‘I don’t know where I am any more. Just the other night I was keeping Effie prisoner in my en suite. I hardly know where my loyalties are . . .’
‘Yes you do,’ he told her firmly. ‘Your heart’s always in the right place.’
She looked at him miserably and he wondered if he’d been tactless, referring to her anatomy in such a direct way. But she smiled at him. ‘Where’s Penny gone?’
‘She’s already at The Spooky Finger. If there’s a ritual on, like there is tonight, all the Qab cult members have to assemble.’
‘If I’d have joined I could have got myself in there . . .’ Brenda sighed. ‘But I wanted nothing more to do with it. I told Henry, I’m backing off from the whole thing.’
I told Henry, Henry told me. Henry says this, Henry says that. Had Brenda really given up all her volition to that old man of hers?
Now they were out of the hotel and hastening down the back streets in the early evening gloom. The moonlight was harsh on the dirty, frozen slush. It was slippery going as they reached the elegant streets of the Royal Crescent.
‘I don’t understand how Mrs Claus thinks she can be of help,’ Brenda said. ‘Or why, even.’
‘Effie’s been going round there quite a bit recently,’ Robert said. ‘These little meetings with Mrs Claus.’
‘I know.’ Brenda shrugged heavily. ‘I was sort of ignoring that. I didn’t like it, but what can you say? I just thought it was all a part of Effie going to the bad.’
They stepped inside the hotel, where the Christmas festivities were still in full swing. For the rest of the world the New Year had already arrived and the decorations were feeling a bit old hat and faded. But not at the Christmas Hotel. There was a huge amount of noise coming from the dining rooms and the residents’ bar. There was a cabaret going on in the ballroom. Some pensioners were playing blind man’s buff in the foyer. In the buff.
The ancient concierge seemed to be expecting them. They were to be ushered straight into the inner sanctum. An elf appeared at their side to accompany them, but they brushed him off.
‘This is a waste of time,’ Brenda hissed. ‘All this palaver.’
Robert whispered back, rather sharply, ‘We always rush into things. That’s where we go wrong. We go barrelling in too soon and cock things up.’
She looked at him, rather hurt, as they shuffled through twisting corridors, deep inside the Edwardian hotel. ‘Cock things up?’
‘We need to plan things out more. Have more of a strategy, kind of thing.’ It sounded lame, even as he said it. Brenda looked highly sceptical.
‘And you think Mrs Claus can help with that, eh?’
But he knew Mrs Claus was a shrewd old bird. She was cunning. She knew more than she would ever say. Robert understood that they would have to listen to her tonight. He glanced at his watch. It was only nine. They had time in hand.
‘Look,’ gasped Brenda.
They were passing one of the smaller bars in the Christmas Hotel. The Pine Lodge, it was called. It was always a favoured place when Robert worked there, for staff and guests both, being rather more select. Tonight there were a number of younger drinkers milling about. Not the usual old folk in their cocktail dresses and military blazers.
‘Walkers,’ Brenda said hollowly.
And she was right. They had massive rings around their eyes, those young blokes, like they hadn’t slept in a week. They were very pale under the fairy lights. About a dozen of them. They had chased out the usual guests.
‘Why’s Mrs Claus inviting Walkers into her establishment?’ Brenda mused. As they passed through, all the young men looked up as one to observe. It reminded Robert of once being at a zoo and going past a paddock full of wolves. They moved all of one accord, eyes narrowed, clocking his progress. It gave him the chills then, and it did now.
‘Henry is right,’ said Brenda. ‘There’s more of them than we thought. Alucard and Effie have been very busy . . .’
Robert still couldn’t credit it. He couldn’t believe that Effie would be doing such a thing. Seducing them. Biting them. Converting them. Helping Alucard build some kind of army of pale and languid young men.
But here was the evidence. Vamps out in the open. Propping up the bar, for God’s sake, drinking pints of bitter and eating pork scratchings.
Maybe we were getting complacent, Robert thought. Thinking we could deal with anything. These past few days, Whitby had seemed a whole lot less of a cosy place.
One of the young Walkers got up from his bar table and planted himself firmly in the way. He didn’t look especially vampy, except for the pallor of his flesh. He was in a normal T-shirt and trackie bottoms. He was a vampire in Primark menswear casuals.
There was a blazing intensity in his eyes. A malign intelligence. He snapped at Robert and Brenda: ‘You can stop interfering in her life, you know. She doesn’t want
you.’
Brenda gasped. She drew up her hard, shiny handbag, as if preparing to defend herself with its sharp corners. ‘We don’t have time to exchange pleasantries with the likes of you,’ she said.
The Walker laughed and jeered at her. He glanced at his mates and they joined in. The ones playing pool stopped what they were doing and gathered around the newcomers.
‘Just you let us through,’ Robert said, and it was everything he could do to prevent himself from stammering. ‘We’re here on important business.’
‘Yeah?’
It was bad, he knew, but he couldn’t help thinking: what a common lot. What a rough lot. They’re like lads that hang around by the arcades. Jobless druggies. Dropouts. Troublemakers. Rough trade. That was who Effie and Alucard have been preying on and recruiting. A shiver went through him. He had been with fellas like these. He had picked them up and, sometimes, let himself be picked up by them. When he looked around at them now, he felt they were fencing him in. They seemed so amused to see both him and Brenda squirming anxiously.
‘Let us pass!’ Brenda called out suddenly. ‘Avaunt!’ She had been taking lessons from Henry Cleavis, Robert thought. Sure enough, she reached into her bag and produced a silver crucifix big as an egg whisk, plus a plastic bottle of mineral water, though Robert guessed it had come from a font.
The Walkers simply laughed at her.
The one who’d got up first – their leader, he seemed like – took a step towards her and sneered. Robert hated himself for it, but he noticed how handsome this lead vamp was. That flattened, almost Roman nose. That thuggish brow. That whole rough lad look. Why, oh why, thought Robert, must we have scally vampires?
The leader wrenched the crucifix out of Brenda’s hand. ‘What gives you the right to wave stuff like this about?’ he said. ‘You’re just as cursed as we are.’
Robert looked at her, and he knew straight away what she was going to do.
He yelled out, ‘Brenda, no!’ in the instant before she punched the Walker in the mouth.
He was straight back on his feet and all his fellows were diving in. It was the cue they had been waiting for.
Robert and Brenda were caught in a punch-up.
Sometimes Robert thought Brenda secretly enjoyed this kind of thing. When the words ran out. When exasperation got the better of her. When she was frightened and at her wits’ end. She liked to roll up her sleeves and give her opponents a bloody good thrashing.
And she was good! Really, Robert was amazed every time. She seemed to rear up to twice her height. She set her jaw in this very fierce way. Usually that was enough to send most enemies packing. But these lads were feral. They weren’t easily scared. And there were a dozen of them: surely too many for Brenda and Robert to deal with.
A few of them she sent sprawling in the first few moments. But sheer weight of numbers was her undoing. And Robert’s. He got a few jabs and kicks in. But the Walkers didn’t seem to feel a thing. They were laughing.
They grabbed hold of both Brenda and Robert, pulling them about. Pushing them from one to another. Toying with them. Waiting to get the signal to go for the kill.
We’ve done it now, Robert thought. We’ve really messed it up.
We’re at their mercy.
Of course, he should have known that this kind of thing would not be tolerated for long at the Christmas Hotel. If there was any funny business, it was all at the command of Mrs Claus. Anything else was to be quashed immediately. She ran a very tight ship at the edge of the West Cliff.
It was the elf they’d brushed off who raised the alarm. Within seconds of their fracas in the Pine Lodge escalating into a full-scale brawl, the place was filled with elves in their figure-hugging felt outfits. They were stronger than they looked, flinging themselves at the Walkers and dragging Brenda and Robert out of danger.
There was a livid glint of excitement in Brenda’s eye, Robert noticed. He would be all cuts and bruises tomorrow, but it looked like there was barely a mark on the old lady.
And here came another old lady entering the fray. The noise was such in this select bar that Robert didn’t hear her motorised Bath chair until she was on top of them.
‘What the buggery bollocks do you lot think you’re doing?’
Her voice was fruity and shrill as iced limoncello. Her blazing eyes darted around the room accusingly. She was quite a formidable sight.
It had been a while since Robert had seen Mrs Claus livid as this. Her fury filled the room, and even the jukebox fell silent. The Walkers stood still. Naughty schoolboys shouted down by their headmistress.
‘You lot! I let you come in here. Gawd knows why. I should never have let you anywhere near. You rabble. You scum. But I felt sorry for you, didn’t I?’ She curled her thickly glossed lips at them and her tinselled earrings jangled as she tossed her coiffed hair. ‘Pity! On you! You scabby bunch. How DARE you attack my friends!’
Brenda darted a sideways glance. Friends! she was thinking. She wanted none of this old dame’s friendship. But she kept her counsel, wisely. She bit her tongue. She stowed her vamp-hunting paraphernalia back inside her handbag.
The head honcho of Mrs Claus’s undead lads’ club spoke up. ‘We didn’t know they weren’t supposed to be here.’ He nodded brusquely at Brenda. ‘We thought it was a chance to nab her. While she’s away from her fancy man. The killer. We thought we should scrag her while she was undefended.’
Huh! thought Robert. So my presence stands for nothing then, obviously. They never even thought of him as any obstacle. In fact, no one spared him a second glance during this whole face-off.
Mrs Claus ground her tiny pearly teeth together. ‘I decide what goes on under my roof. Me and me alone. I’m not having you setting upon old ladies and trying to do them in. No matter how justified you think you are.’
‘We are sworn to destroy her. And her old man,’ the young man said. ‘You might protect her while she’s in this dump. But not outside. We’ll get her. She has to pay.’
‘Dump!’ screeched Mrs Claus. ‘Dump, indeed!’
‘This was a mistake, coming here,’ Brenda muttered, setting her beehive straight. ‘Come on, Robert. Let’s—’
‘No!’ shouted Mrs Claus. ‘You’re here for a good reason. These flaming louts need to understand that.’
‘What?’ jeered the leader of the louts.
‘They’re here to try to save Effie,’ said Mrs Claus. ‘That’s why I’ve asked them here. You don’t see, do you? Effie’s Brenda’s best friend. Even after everything. And she’ll do anything to save her. That’s why she’s come here. For my help.’
The Walkers looked unconvinced.
‘You want Effryggia to stay here, don’t you?’
The ruffian said, ‘Effryggia’s going nowhere. She belongs to us.’
Brenda and Robert darted an alarmed glance at each other. How awful to hear Effie talked about like this.
‘Effie’s on her way out of here,’ Mrs Claus said. ‘She’s leaving tonight. At midnight. She’s making a most unorthodox exit to a place that you probably wouldn’t be able to credit, even if you knew where it was.’
The vamps were stirring, miserably roused at her words. They were all a bit thick, Robert realised. Thicker than ever they were alive.
Their leader said, ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. Where’s she off to? The last Leeds train has gone by now, and the Middlesbrough one doesn’t—’
‘She’s going somewhere by magic,’ said Mrs Claus. ‘You know she’s a witch, don’t you? Well, she’s got another witch to help her. That Marjorie Staynes one. The one who runs The Spooky Finger bookshop on Silver Street.’
The Walkers nodded. They knew the place. ‘She’s leaving tonight? Midnight?’
‘You can’t let her leave town,’ said Mrs Claus. She was smiling now. Licking her chops with pleasure. She was twisting these hooligans around her chubby little finger.
Brenda saw at once what she was doing. ‘You mustn’t send them round
there!’
Mrs Claus rolled her eyes. ‘We all want the same thing, don’t we? We don’t want Effie to leave town. We want this meeting – this arcane ritual – nipping in the bud, don’t we?’
Already the lads were putting down their pints and yanking on their jackets. All twelve of them. Their leader was winding a scarf around his beautiful, scarred neck. ‘We’re going. We’ll stop them. Effie’s going nowhere.’
Brenda was looking at Robert in alarm. They were both frozen there.
All Robert could think was that Penny was in that shop. Incognito in the cult of Qab. And so was Gila. He was working there as usual. Being the loyal servant of Marjorie Staynes. The two of them were in there, along with Effie, and none of them would have any idea that the Walkers were abroad in the night.
And coming for them.
Robert and Brenda watched helplessly. Brenda stood in the doorway briefly before she got pushed aside.
‘No! You can’t! There’ll be a massacre! There’ll be murder!’
Mrs Claus spread her hands like she could do no more. She had wound these boys up and there was no stopping them now. ‘We want Effie back, don’t we? She’s fallen into the clutches of the Staynes woman. Only this way can I bring her back.’
Deadlock. Brenda and Mrs Claus stared at each other as the last of the boys flitted from the room, cackling at the idea of the coming fun.
Robert was hunting in his jacket pockets for his mobile. He had to ring Penny. Warn her. Warn them all about what was coming.
‘I should have known,’ spat Brenda. ‘I should have known what kind of help you would be. You’re just making it worse. Like you always do.’
‘Poppycock!’ Mrs Claus shrieked. She gurgled with laughter and gestured to the elf behind the bar. ‘Let’s have a lovely drink and talk this over.’
‘You delight in horror,’ Brenda accused her. ‘You’re in your element, commanding those Walkers . . . those boys . . .’
‘It’s lucky they were here,’ said Mrs Claus. ‘We have a job needs doing and they’re more than happy to do it.’