Dark Season: The Complete Box Set (2 page)

Patrick

Her body goes limp in my arms. I stop and look down at her face. She's not supposed to die yet, but she's hurt so badly: there's a bloody gash on one side of her head, a cut on her lip, and the beginning of a black eye. I can already feel as I hold her that some of her bones aren't right, as if they're broken. She's still breathing, just about, but that wound on her head is worrying me. It's not that it's gushing with blood, just that it's continually dripping a steady flow and doesn't seem to be clotting at all.

Am I too late? Did I wait too long before going to get her?

I take her to the door of my father's study. I know I'm supposed to knock before I enter, but sometimes he makes me wait for hours, so I carry Sophie straight inside. My father looks up from the maps he's been studying. He opens his mouth to berate me for interrupting, but then he sees what I have in my arms. He rushes over and immediately begins to examine her, telling me to put her on the couch by the bookcase. Then he sends me off to get a bucket of warm water and some cloths. When I get back, he's already begun to dab at her wounds. This continues for a few minutes, until suddenly my father stops and stares at her, and then he looks up at me, an expression of shock across his face. I think he just realized who she is, and why we have to save her life.

As he gets to work, I stand back and close my eyes. I can feel her heartbeat in my mind. It's her. After all these years, I've found her at least.

Sophie

I wake up suddenly, nearly coughing my guts out. I roll onto my side, convinced I'm going to throw up, but it's just dry retching. My head is pounding with the most intense headache of my life, and my body aches all over. After a full couple of seconds of this, I finally start to catch my breath, and it's now that I realize I'm not at home. I look up and realize I'm about as 'not at home' as I could possibly be.

I'm on a blanket on a red leather couch, next to a huge bookcase that fills an entire wall, packed with old books. There are candles burning on a nearby table, and on the other side of the room there's a large writing desk next to an old globe. There's an ornate looking chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room, but there must be something wrong with it because it's not hanging straight down, it's hanging down at an angle. In fact, the whole room seems 'off' somehow, but I can't quite work out why...

I look at the window. It's dark outside, so I can't see anything. As I try to sit up all the way, I feel at first as if my balance is totally off, but then I realize it's not my balance that's the problem, it's the room: the whole room is tilting by about 30 degrees. If you put a marble on the floor, it'd run straight down to one end. For a moment, I wonder if I'm on a boat, but I soon realize that there's no movement at all. Quite the opposite: everything is very still. Still as a dream...

"You're awake, then," says a voice from behind me. I turn to see an old man standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, smiling with a face that's so friendly I don't think it could possibly be faked. He looks to be in his 80's at least, with an old-fashioned, almost Dickensian sense of fashion. "Don't worry, you're safe. Tell me how you feel."

I look around at the room again. It's as if I've gone back in time about a hundred years. Either that, or I'm dreaming. I guess that makes more sense. I'm asleep right now, or dead. One of the two. Perhaps I'm even in a coma.

"It's natural to be nervous," says the man, entering the room and limping slowly over to a small table to pour a glass of water. "You're quite welcome to leave as soon as you wish, although I'd prefer you to stay for a few hours until I'm sure there's no concussion." He comes over and hands me the glass of water, which I've already decided I don't want to drink. "It's okay," he adds, "I'm a doctor. Among other things."

"This isn't a hospital," I say cautiously.

"No," the man says. "Well, it is in
some
ways. You're certainly not the first person who has been brought down here to be healed." He nods at the water. "It's quite potable," he says, then grins. "Oh, I know our facilities might seem a little basic compared to what you're used to, but we get along perfectly well and I manage to keep up to date with modern techniques. But you know, sometimes all those machines in real hospitals rather get in the way, and they beep too much. I don't like all the beeping."

I take a sip from the water. It certainly tastes safe enough. And this man seems nice, although I remember reading that's how sociopaths hook their prey: they're all friendly until you're relaxed, then they whip out an ax and start slicing you up. Still, if he wanted to do something like that, he could have done it while I was unconscious.

"My name is Vincent," says the man, extending a hand which I cautiously shake. "You're a very lucky young lady. Not a broken bone anywhere."

"Got an X-ray machine down here, have you?" I ask, frowning as I run a hand along my legs to check for damage. I swear to God, I have this vague memory of getting beaten to a pulp, and I'm sure I remember my bones being broken. Did I imagine all that?

Vincent holds up his old hands for me to see. "These are the only machines I need." There's an awkward silence. "I'm sorry," he says. "I don't mean to make you blush. You did have
some
broken bones, just a few, but they're all healed now." He wriggles his fingers like they're worms, and smiles like a child at them.

"How long have I been here?" I ask.

"Almost two hours," he says, as if that explains everything. "We can get a lot done in two hours down here, Sophie. There are no machines to slow us down."

"How do you know my name?" I ask. "How did I get here?"

"My son brought you," he says. "He found you up above and he brought you down here. He found you in a terrible state and he hoped I could take a look at your wounds. He was quite right, of course. We couldn't possibly have left you in such a state. You'd have died."

I stand up, aching all over, feeling the way an old lady must feel on her hundredth birthday. "What wounds?" I ask. I sort of half remember something happening, but it's all a bit vague. Taking a deep breath, I realize that this whole experience is almost certainly a dream. Any minute now, I'm going to wake up and find that I've passed out somewhere. It's the only thing that makes sense. I guess the attack was a dream too.

"You were beaten by some men," he continues, very matter-of-factly. "Very badly beaten, in fact. You would definitely have died without immediate medical attention. Your neck was fractured in three places, you had breaks and fractures in all four limbs, and your back was fractured. You also had several cuts, including one deep one on your forehead. And your skull was broken."

I raise a hand to touch my forehead. It's sore, but I can't feel any cuts. I'm more convinced by the second that this is all a dream.

"You're okay now," says Vincent. "As I said, we get along perfectly well without all the modern techniques. Now, would you like to come and meet Patrick?"

I'm still a little groggy. "Patrick?"

"My son," says Vincent. "Well... that's not quite accurate. He's not
really
my son, not exactly. But I'm his father, that's for sure. He's the one who saved you and brought you down here." He smiles and waits for me to say something, but I'm not really sure how to react. "Come on," he says after a moment, smiling as he heads over to the door. "I think you and Patrick will get on very well indeed."

"Sure," I say, deciding to just let this crazy dream take its course. As long as it doesn't turn into a nightmare, I don't see why I shouldn't see what my subconscious can cook up. "Why not?" I add, walking stiffly through to the hallway.

As we step out of the front door, I realize that the whole house is inside a huge rocky cavern. The walls are like sheer cliffs, leading up to a dark and jagged ceiling maybe thirty meters above us. The ground is covered in dirt and soil and there's some antique furniture pushed up against the rocks, while the remains of a smashed chandelier are scattered nearby, as if an attempt to hang it from the ceiling came to nothing. The only light is from candles in the windows of the house, turning the whole cavern into an eerie midnight chamber. It feels hollow and holy in here. The whole place seems like some kind of vast inside-out cathedral.

I turn and look at the house, and there's another shock: it's a fairly normal-looking, old brick townhouse, but it's at an angle, as if it's been dropped into position from a great height and has landed roughly, and no-one thought to set it straight.

"I know what you're thinking," says Vincent, surprising me from behind by wrapping a blanket around my shoulders, "and yes, the house
did
actually fall down here. Quite literally." He points to the roof of the cavern above the house, where there's a large gap leading into a dark section. "Subsidence," he says. "The house used to be number 315 Beacon Avenue until 1925, when a sinkhole opened up and the whole house fell down here."

"No-one missed a house?" I ask, still not sure what to believe.

"Oh, they missed it," he replies. "But they just covered up the hole, reinforced it, and built a new house on top. No-one bothered coming down to get the old one back. They even left all the furniture and cutlery, for which we are very grateful."

I nod and look around at the cavern. It's hard to believe a place like this exists beneath the streets of Dedston.

"Are you feeling okay?" asks Vincent.

I nod. "Yeah, thanks."

"No dizziness or nausea?"

"No."

"Definitely no concussion, then. Which means, I suppose, that you're free to leave. It's almost morning; I imagine your parents will be very concerned that you've been out all night."

"I doubt anyone'll notice," I say.

"I'm sure they will, the -" He opens his mouth to answer, but then his attention is caught by something behind me.

Following his gaze, I turn and see someone standing a few feet away from us. I don't know how, but as soon as I see him, I know this is Patrick, the one who saved me. He looks young, younger than I expected - twenty, twenty-one, about my age. He's tall, with an athletic build under a large black, baggy and thick coat. He has dark brown hair, and the most amazing eyes that have a depth to them that I've never seen in anyone before. I'm immediately struck by the belief that these are eyes that have seen things I could never possibly imagine.

"Patrick, meet Sophie," Vincent says, stepping back. "Sophie, this is my son."

"Thanks for helping me last night," I say, feeling a little awkward.

Patrick stares at me.

"If you hadn't come along," I continue, before my voice trails off.

Patrick is still just staring at me.

"He won't say much," says Vincent. "He doesn't speak. But don't let that fool you. He's all there." He taps the side of his own head. "More than you can imagine."

"Can't speak?" I ask. "Or
won't
speak?"

"A little of both," says Vincent. "The last couple of centuries have been... traumatic for him."

I nod, understanding; then, suddenly, I realize I don't understand at all. "Couple of
centuries
?" I ask.

Vincent smiles. "You mustn't be shy. He's what your people might call a vampire. It's not an entirely accurate term, but it's the name humans give them, and I'm afraid it's rather stuck over the years."

I turn to Vincent.

"I'm not lying," he says with a smile. "I'm afraid, Sophie, there are things in this world that you can't possibly understand."

"Yeah," I say, taking a deep breath. Something tells me I'm in the company of a pair of real maniacs, and right now I just want to get out of here. Glancing across the chamber, I try to spot the nearest exit. The whole experience feels so real, I have to keep reminding myself that it's just a dream. I mean, it
has
to be a dream, doesn't it?

"You don't believe me," Vincent continues. "That's okay. Frankly, if you did, I'd question your sanity. I'm sure you'll understand eventually, though."

"I'm sure I will," I say cautiously.

"Patrick will show you out," Vincent adds. "I'm sure you want to be getting back home. If you experience any dizziness or light-headed moments, you must go and see a doctor. For now, though, I think I've done as much as I can." He pats my shoulder. "I hope to see you again soon."

"Yeah," I say, glad to be getting out of here. "Thanks. You too."

I turn to look at Patrick. He's barely moved since I first saw him, but now he smiles at me and slowly turns, heading for an opening in the rock face that I assume must be the way out. I decide to follow. The weird thing is that, although I know there's no way Patrick could actually
be
a vampire, he's doing a very convincing impression. He's really got the moody silent thing worked out, and from the look in his eyes I could definitely believed that he's hundreds of years old.

Vincent calls after us. "Sophie, do you mind if I ask you one more question?"

I turn. "Sure."

"Have you ever seen a ghost?" he calls across the cavern.

I stare at him for a moment. "A ghost?"

He nods. I think he's serious.

"No," I say. "I've never seen a ghost."

He seems satisfied with this answer. "Good," he says. "Well, I hope we shall see one another again some time." He turns and heads back into the house.

I look at Patrick. For the first time, he has a look of puzzlement on his face, as if he doesn't quite know what's happening. He looks at me for a moment, as if he's trying to understand; then, just when I think that one of us might say something, he carries on walking, and after a moment I follow. Whatever's going on here, I really don't think I want to interrupt the strange world that Patrick and Vincent have got going on down here. I'm almost certain that I'm dreaming this whole thing, but just in case I'm
not
, I figure I'd better get out of here as fast as possible.