by steve higgs
‘Let get back to the movie, shall we?’ I asked getting up.
Jagjit nodded his approval to my suggestion and pushed his chair back under the dining table as I reached down to the printer. The wad of paper got a staple through the top left corner to keep it in order, then left on the desk for another time.
As Jagjit headed out of the room, I paused and went back to the computer, calling that I would be through in just a second. I wanted to reply to Amanda and had a question that would keep me awake.
I wrote:
Amanda,
Many thanks for the case file and the trust. I shall not let you down.
I do have an unrelated question though, which is entirely because I am a man and we are confused easily: Why did you kiss me?
Tempest
I hovered my finger over the send button wondering if I should reword it or not but chastised myself once again for being indecisive and clicked on the send icon.
Now, back to Statham.
Bluebell Hill. Monday, September 27th 0705hrs
As he settled into the seat of his BMW i8, Simon Munroe considered that it was cooler today than he had expected. Cool enough, in fact, to make him wish he had started the car ten minutes ago while he was still having breakfast. He rubbed his hands and blew on them while he waited for Michelle. Simon Monroe felt that he had done well in life. He lived in a large house at the top of Bluebell Hill which overlooked the Kent Weald. He owned and ran a successful Public Relations business and had a very pretty girlfriend who was spending most nights at his place now. He liked having her stayover as her presence meant sex every night and most mornings. This morning she had joined him in the shower, which was an absolute favourite. It was only six weeks into the relationship though, he mused to himself as the passenger door opened. Too early to get excited.
‘Ready, fair lady?’ he smiled across at her as she settled into her seat.
She turned to him, slid a hand across to cradle his stubbled chin and pulled him into a light kiss. ‘Take me home so I can get ready for work.’
‘Yes, ma'am.'
He pulled the car off his drive, turned left and headed towards town. Michelle fiddled with the radio, bringing up a channel that she favoured and when he next glanced at her she was scrolling through her phone. He checked the clock to see that it now read 0714hrs. He had plenty of time to drop Michelle off and get to his office. He liked to be first in so that he could see his staff arriving and know that he was putting in more hours than anyone else.
As he shifted his eyes back to the road, Michelle started screaming. Properly screaming. On the road ahead of them was the most enormous creature. It appeared to be crossing the road from left to right just a few metres away and he was closing on it fast. He yanked the wheel to the left and squeezed around behind the creature, clipping the hedgerow with his mirror as he went. It must be at least seven feet tall, he thought. The observation causing him to stare into his rear-view mirror as it disappeared into the treeline behind him.
‘What the hell was that?' He asked, more to himself than Michelle who was out of breath from screaming and now hyperventilating in the seat next to him.
His next thought was to question whether the dashcam was on or not, but as he brought his eyes back from the rear-view mirror to the road, he saw that he had allowed the car to drift. It clipped a bush on the left just as he twitched the wheel to avoid doing so. He overcompensated and in the narrow confines of the country lane, immediately found himself pointed towards trees with too little time to avoid them.
Aiming for a gap, he hit a small silver birch with the left front corner of his car just inboard of the left-hand headlight. A branch smashed through the passenger's window, showering Michelle in glass. She screamed again while he pumped the brake and fought the wheel, but the car was no longer his to control. The area was called Bluebell Hill for topological reasons as much for the local flora. He was heading down a steep decline and gathering speed.
Bouncing off another silver birch the light sports car span, then slid sideways until a few feet later the wheels on his side dug into the soft soil. The car flipped, then barrel rolled enough times that he lost count before it slammed mercilessly into the unyielding trunk of an oak tree.
At the top of the slope, the creature looked down at the wrecked car, hesitated, then hurried away.
Vampire Killers. Monday, September 27th 0936hrs
The morning had started off normally enough. Perhaps if I had turned on the local news, I would have seen what was to come, but I sipped my tea and ate my rolled oats blithely oblivious to the craziness ensuing just a few miles away.
My plan for the day was to swing past the office to check physical mail and to go over email messages. I get emails to my phone like everyone else, but a quiet hour in my office would allow me to sift them properly and to respond to any client enquiries I had received yesterday and had so far given only a cursory response to. I wondered again if I needed an assistant. It was not the first time I had acknowledged the potential need. I even started writing an ad to put in the local paper once. However, I had stopped when I could not work out how I would advertise a job at a paranormal investigation agency without getting morons dressed as the Ghostbusters, or whatever, turning up to be interviewed.
The roads were quiet, so I parked the car in its usual spot, opened the door leading up to my office and then decided to pop into the coffee shop across the road so that I could flirt with Hayley. My mental clock told me she would be there.
Flirting aimlessly with Hayley started several months ago when I saw her nudging her colleague and discussing me as I looked at their sandwiches. From the expression the pair of them had at the time, they were either laughing at me because I had something stuck to my head or were making salacious comments to each other the way people do when they spot someone they fancy. Putting my paranoia aside, I chose at the time to assume they were being naughty, so I had cranked the charm up to eleven and left a big tip. Hayley was short, maybe a shade over five feet and a good few pounds over what the world would consider ideal. I didn't care about that one bit and she was very cute, perhaps mid-twenties, large breasted with straight brown hair that fell to her waist and she smiled all the time.
‘Good morning ladies,' I hailed to them both from halfway across the room.
‘Hi, Tempest,’ I got back from Hayley while her colleague continued serving.
‘One of your delightful sticky-toffee Mochaccinos please, Hayley.'
‘Skinny, sugar-free syrup, no cream, in a cup to go?'
‘Yes, please.’
‘Anything else you feel tempted by?’ she asked, clearly not meaning the cakes.
‘I do have unsatisfied appetites,’ I replied, locking her eyes with mine. She had a paper cup in one hand and a pen in the other to write my name and order but had frozen in place, staring at me while the heat amped up. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips as if she were about to speak.
The door chimed behind me as more people entered. Hayley glanced across at them, which broke the spell and we both looked away. Hayley smiled at me once more, her cheeks tinged with pink as she hustled off to make my drink.
I moved to the end of the counter to wait the few moments required and pulled out my phone. No messages this morning, I doubted that would last. Slipping my phone away, I looked up to see three gentlemen dressed as Dog the Bounty Hunter, by which I mean they were clad head to toe in black, wearing big boots and full-length, black leather coats. At the counter, the tallest of them, he must have been six feet and five inches tall, was ordering. Straight blond hair fell to his shoulders, and as he moved, I could see a silver earring dangling from his left ear. Next to him was a shorter man dressed much the same, although his coat nearly touched the floor as if they could not get one short enough for his body frame and he could not consider a different style. His hair was black and spiked, and he had on sunglasses. The rearmost of the three locked eyes with me as I moved my gaze to take him in, he appear
ed to be trying to look mean. I had no need of pointless distractions, so I broke eye contact.
Hayley brought me my beverage, we exchanged smiles again and I left the shop.
Across the road, Tony Jarvis was waving off an elderly couple from the front step of his Travel Agency. He shook the old fella’s hand and he was smiling so my guess was that he had made a sale.
‘Hi, Tony. Business doing okay?’
‘Not too bad. Just sold a round-the-world trip to that lovely couple for a little over ten thousand pounds. They have been coming to me for over thirty years to book their holidays. I could do with a few more customers like them.'
‘I’m sure we all could,’ I agreed.
‘How about you then, Tempest? Can I interest you in a city break? A week skiing? You look the sort for some winter sun. There must be a young lady you need to take away somewhere.' Tony tried the salesman's approach of sale-by-bombardment every time I ever spoken to him and it was a recognised long-running joke now.
I had never once spent so much as a pound in his shop but the thought of a week skiing in a fabulous resort sounded pretty darned good. Maybe if I got my act together, I could shoehorn something in after Christmas. The trouble was, I always had a case, or cases, ongoing and was too invested in the business to not be available when the phone rang. It was something to consider though.
‘Tempting Tony, tempting, but not this time. I need to catch a few more ghosts before I can afford your rates.’ I joked.
Up in my office, I set my coffee down and popped the top off so that it would cool to drinking temperature more quickly. I had a few pieces of mail on the mat but they all looked like rubbish. I opened Outlook Express, scrolled to the start of yesterday and began reading and responding to my mail. I had not received a text or email from Amanda regarding my message to her the night before, which was disappointing me a little. There was nothing I could do about it though and while I was itching somewhat to send her another message, checking that she got the first one, there was no way I would permit myself to make so desperate a move.
I had sixty-three emails in total, although many were offering cruises to the Caribbean or drugs to enlarge my penis, so I probably only had ten-real ones. Near the top was one from an odd address that my eye was pulled to: [email protected]. Ghidorah was a mythical three-headed dragon. Yes, only a geek would know that. Okay. I clicked on it ahead of the other mail.
Mr. Michaels,
Stay away from my quarry little man. You are messing with creatures you cannot hope to survive. Back off and let the professionals tackle this beast.
Vermont Wensdale
Okay, that was fairly weird.
Before I could give it any more thought, I spotted another email two above this one from an equally odd address: [email protected]. Bloodnet? Really? So, what did this one say? I clicked.
Mortal,
You have attacked my followers. I have been killing your kind for over one thousand years and will do so for thousands more. You will die this week, as will all your kin. I will end your bloodline and bathe in your soul.
Ambrogio
The wierdometer was cranked all the way up today. I pushed back in my chair and swivelled to look out the window while I contemplated the two emails. I had one guy telling me to stop pursuing his quarry, although I had no idea which quarry he was referring to, and another that was threatening to kill me and all my family for involving myself in the first place. Involve me in what though?
I knew nothing about Vermont Wensdale nor Ambrogio Silvano, so I performed a most basic google search. Ambrogio Silvano was simply not in there, although it did reveal that Ambrogio was an Italian word meaning immortal. Vermont Wensdale, however, produced loads of hits. He was a famous American that killed vampires and werewolves and other supernatural creatures for a living. He had several books one could buy which I assumed would chronical his activities. I wondered if he was a genuine nutbag or just an author who had found a great way to promote his books. The picture of him looked like the chap in the coffee shop, the tallest of the three Dog the Bounty Hunters. I further searched for Ghidorasmite to see if that was a company name but turned up nothing except Wikipedia references to the three-headed dragon. Bloodnet, however, did produce a result. It was a cyberpunk game from the nineties and a forum for Angel and Buffy fans. Not a lot of help there then.
I bet myself that Frank would know more about the subject so got up out of my chair and went to see him.
Mystery Men Bookshop. Monday, September 27th 1124hrs
Frank Decaux turned up at my office on the morning the first advert for Blue Moon Paranormal Investigations ran. He was nearly foaming at the mouth with excitement that there was another true believer with which he could converse. He had expected to find Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the Winchesters from Supernatural, so was thoroughly deflated to discover I had no belief in the paranormal and simply sought to exploit the foolish nonsense my numerous clients clung to. He had bounced back quickly though, determining that he would be my inside source, my font of knowledge and that through my investigations I would prove to myself that there were occurrences that could not be explained. That werewolves, ghouls and other creatures were, in fact, living amongst us and not just fictional. Frank was mental. Safe mental though and weighed less than fifty kilograms so could not easily be dangerous without getting hold of some decent weaponry.
He owned and ran an occult bookshop called Mystery Men just around the corner from my office, so I was at his door in under a minute. It was an odd little place which he had opened straight out of school in the mid-eighties. Upstairs from a florist, in what would once have been a back bedroom of a terraced house, he had dark fantasy and horror novels stacked floor to ceiling. On the walls leading up the stairs to the shop were posters from old horror movies or sci-fi movies and grainy pictures of beasts and creatures taken years ago, such as the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot. In the shop, the piles of books arranged on numerous shelves at first appeared to be completely haphazard, but soon one discovered that rather than alphabetically by author or title, they were arranged by creature and then by fiction and non-fiction. The more serious the book, the closer it was to the counter. Inside the glass counter at the front were old leather-bound books that one should probably call grimoires.
There were a few limited-edition models around that had unbelievable price tags on them, such as a model of Buffy the Vampire Slayer dispatching a pair of Vampires. One was caught mid-dust as the stake hung in the now exploded body and the other was reeling from a freshly delivered spin kick to the head. It was perhaps fifteen inches tall and the price tag was twelve thousand pounds. I wanted to scoff but had once checked out Mystery Men on Companies House and found that it was doing very well. I had to acknowledge that he knew what he was doing.
As I went up the stairs past the posters, I wondered if Frank's assistant Poison would be working today. Although I doubt Poison is her actual name, it is the one on her name badge and what she appears to be called by everyone. She wears goth make-up, or should that be Emo now? Regardless, that is the style she goes for, she has black nails and several piercings, hair which changes colour quite often. She is nineteen, athletic and is super, super hot. She also flirts openly every time I see her. I say flirts, but a not uncommon opening sentence from her would be: "So when are you going to let me bed you?" I can’t for the life of me work out why I am resisting, but there seems something wrong with bedding girls that are easily young enough to be my children. Plus, I am not sure if her flirting is serious, given that she could have virtually any man she chose and might very well flirt with every customer as a sales tactic.
With that thought dying on my brow, I pushed open the door, which Frank has rigged with a chime that does not chime but creaks like a crypt door being opened. Inside the shop, with their backs to me, I found the three Dog the Bounty Hunter looking chaps from the coffee shop. The tallest of the three was at the counter flanked by the other two on e
ither side like guards. The pair of them both turned to lock eyes with me. A beat passed with me stood in the doorway. I was looking at them, they were looking at me. I glanced to the till to see Poison, but not Frank, then the spell broke as Frank emerged from a back room behind the till.
He was carrying a large grimoire and spoke before looking up. ‘Rasfell's Undead Guide should provide all the information you require gentlemen.' He set the book on the counter carefully then looked up. ‘Oh.'
‘Good morning, Frank.’ I closed the door and moved into the shop which had barely enough room now that there are six of us in it. I was damned certain I was not going to hang around by the door looking intimidated and had no reason to be. These chaps dressed uniquely but they had given no indication of animosity thus far.
‘Be with you in a moment, Tempest. I’ll just help these gentlemen out and…’
‘Tempest?' interrupted the one with the long blond hair, turning around. ‘Tempest Michaels?'
‘Yes. Pleased to meet you.' I recognised him immediately as I had been looking at his face online just a few minutes ago. It was Vermont Wensdale. I reached into my pocket for a card, but his friends moved forward to block me and I could hear their leather gloves creaking as they curled their fists. I took a step back to give myself moving room, already feeling my pulse quicken. ‘Not a great place to fight, chaps,' I said through gritted teeth.
‘Now, gentlemen,’ interjected Frank, but I cut him off
‘Let’s take this outside before we destroy the shop, shall we?’
Vermont raised both his hands, palms towards me and blocking his companions. ‘Stand down,’ he instructed them, which resulted in the pair instantly relaxing and visibly losing interest in me. He was very clearly the boss. ‘I apologise for my associates,’ he drawled slowly in an American accent. I couldn’t place the accent to any region, I was not worldly enough for that but somewhere among the Southern states was accurate enough for me. ‘I am Vermont Wensdale of the Vermont Wensdales. You will have received an email from me this morning but have negated my desire to seek you out by finding me instead.’