Eldren: The Book of the Dark (29 page)

He reached for the holster, at the same time pulling the creature around so that it was between him and the female who was getting up off the floor.

She would never be a beauty again, that was for sure. His blow had flattened her nose across her face; loose flaps of skin hanging from exposed, ivory white bone. But she smiled as she stood and came for him.

The youth’s fangs finally hit a vein, and Jim felt hot wetness spurt over his forearm and wrist. He didn’t have much time left. He managed to free two bolts from the holster, holding them clenched in his fist with only two inches of the point protruding. He brought them down, hard, at the nape of the youth’s neck.

It stiffened, and its mouth opened in a soundless scream, enough for Jim to free his hand and grab at its head. He locked one arm tight around its neck and pulled it off balance, using the momentum given by its falling weight to twist and tug, hard. The crack as its spine broke echoed loudly in the room.

He let the body fall to the floor and moved quickly to one side. It wasn’t dead, but it was out of commission as long as he didn’t get in reach of its fangs.

The woman had her hands outstretched, her curved, painted fingernails less than six inches from him. He kicked out, hitting her kneecap, forcing his foot through the joint. She fell, forwards, and he wasn’t fast enough to get out the way. Her head hit the top of his thigh and she bit down hard.

The material of his trousers didn’t protect him...her fangs went through it and deep into the flesh of his inner thigh.

Suddenly the room seemed even darker. He was vaguely aware of a struggle behind him, and he knew that more creatures could be coming out of the door at any moment, but the woman had clamped herself firmly on his leg and he was getting weak fast.

He tried to reach for the garlic packets in his pocket, but his legs gave way beneath him. One of the bones in his left leg...the one the woman was still gripping, seemed to slide out from above his knee and cracked, punching out through the skin with a sudden flare of pain.

Jim was unconscious before he hit the ground.

~-o0O0o-~

When the door banged open Tony swung the lamp towards the sound, more from instinct than from any desire to see what had happened. He barely had time to register the first two who came through...they were out and onto the man before Tony could call out.

It was the third figure that caused him to stiffen, his mouth open in a shout that never came.

The hulking figure of his father peered out of the doorway, looking almost unsure as to what to do next. His bare chest gleamed sweatily in the lamplight, and his feet were caked black with dirt.

He wore pajama trousers that were torn and shredded as high up as the knee, and Tony tried not to look too hard at the slug like thing that was hanging from the open fly...the thing that swelled and grew as the vampire spotted Margaret Brodie.

It came across the floor fast, skipping past the other two and heading straight for the teacher.

Tony stepped into its path. He hadn’t even thought about what he would do next, it just seemed like the natural thing to have done. He held up a hand, as if to plead, but his father didn’t even stop.

He came through Tony as if he wasn’t there, brushing him aside with sheer weight, knocking him sprawling to the ground.

Tony fell away to the left and screamed as his hand was caught under his body, but he forced himself upright fast.

He had underestimated the teacher. She must have reacted as soon as the door slammed. The sports bag was lying open at her feet and she held the croquet mallet in both hands.

Even as Tony was still turning round she swung it over her right shoulder and brought it round like a broadsword, catching the vampire flush on the side of the head.

There was a soft thump, like a steak being tenderized, but the vampire didn’t fall. There was only a momentary stagger, a sudden lurch to one side, familiar enough to Tony who had seen his father complete a similar dance most Friday nights.

Tony had the lamp shining full into the man’s eyes, so he couldn’t miss the smile that spread across his face as he came forward. The vampire had his hands clenched tight into fists, so tight that Tony knew they would feel like rocks when they made contact with your body.

Margaret stepped back, raising the mallet again, but the vampire stepped inside her swing, the handle of the mallet striking uselessly against the creature’s shoulder. It swung out one meaty fist in a roundhouse blow that seemed to lift Margaret off her feet like a rag doll. The vampire’s pajama trousers fell to the ground and it stepped out of them, completely naked, as it loomed over the unconscious teacher.

Tony staggered across the floor, aware of a grating and tearing somewhere inside his rib cage, as if bone was sliding against bone where he had been hit.

The vampire was tearing at the teacher’s trousers as Tony reached the sports bag, and he had succeeded in pulling them down over her knees as Tony’s hand grasped the cool wood of the stakes. Tony tried not to look too closely as his father’s hands pawed at Margaret’s underwear. When his father lay full length on top of the teacher, the fangs reaching for her neck, he screamed, running forward, the stake raised high over his head.

He brought it down hard, the first three inches disappearing into the flesh of his father’s back. But there was no blood, no sudden wail of despair. The wood was jerked out of his hands as his father turned, the stake still protruding from his back.

“Fuggin Ba’tard,” the vampire said and rose to its feet like a great bear coming out of sleep.

There was a deep hatred in its eyes. That, and a hunger. The fangs slid down and out of the gums, its mouth filling with blood. It smiled and a deep red trickle ran from the corner of its mouth, only to be lapped up by a gray, somehow slimy, tongue.

“Dad,” Tony said. “It’s me. Tony.”

There was no recognition in the vampire’s eyes.

Tony backed away, the vampire stalking him like a cat after a small bird. Tony couldn’t take his eyes from its face, afraid to break the stare that seemed to hold them apart.

It was only then that he remembered the garlic round his neck. He lifted a hand and crushed one of the bulbs between his fingers. Immediately the vampire’s eyes began to water and there was a deep groan, as if a sudden cramp had hit it in the stomach.

“Dad?” Tony said again, this time there was a tremor in his voice.

The vampire’s stare seemed to soften, and its fangs partly receded.

“Tony?” it said. “Son?”

Then it screamed, a high wail that drove everything else from the boy’s mind. There was a dull thud, and two inches of bloody wood burst from the vampire’s chest sending a fine spray of warm redness over Tony’s face.

The vampire fell away to one side, its eyes staring sightlessly at the roof, to reveal Margaret standing behind it; the mallet raised high above her head.

“Got you, you bastard,” she said, then swayed. At first Tony thought she would fall, but she only dropped the mallet to her side, letting it swing as if it was a golf club.

There was a sudden silence in the room, only the heavy panting of Margaret’s breathing. Then he heard it, the soft sucking, like a baby feeding.

He stepped over the vampire’s body. He didn’t look down...his father wasn’t there any more, had not been there for a long time. He swung the lamp towards the sound and gasped.

The man, the vampire killer, was lying on the floor, his eyes closed. An old woman, a vampire, was bent over his groin, and at first Tony thought they were doing the thing he’d seen in the books Billy had showed him. But then he heard the sucking again.

His next actions came as if they were instinct. He walked over to Margaret and took the mallet from her. She stared at him but she didn’t blink, and Tony thought he saw a tear glisten in the corner of her eye. He went to the sports bag and lifted out a second stake.

He felt nothing as he strode over to the vampire and placed the stake against her back. He had to hold the mallet half way up the handle, but he felt strong as he brought it over and down. The vampire stiffened, but there was no scream and only a small tickle of blood stained her dress where the stake went in.

He saw why as she fell away from the man. The stake stood out proud from just under her left breast, and blood pumped from around it like water from a tap, a fountain of red that jetted more than three feet from the body.

The vampire sighed, an exhalation that went on and on, as if it was a balloon that was slowly deflating. But finally it was still and the blood stopped flowing.

The room was deathly quiet as Tony swung the torch around once more.

Margaret was still standing in the same place, unmoving. The vampire killer lay at Tony’s feet, and he didn’t seem to be moving. Tony knelt down beside the man and shone the lamp full in his face, but there wasn’t even a flinch. The man’s skin looked gray and waxy and he seemed to be still, as still as the two vampires.

Tony stood up, wincing at the grating pain in his chest. He looked up, hoping to see some light above him, but there was only blackness.

“Margaret?” he said. “I think we should go.”

He swung his torch, trying to find the teacher.

Instead his light shine on something white, something massive, with blood red eyes that caught him in their stare.

The mallet fell from Tony’s hands, but he didn’t notice.

~-o0O0o-~

Donald Allan took Brian’s hand and started to walk. Brian took a step and blinked.

And when his eyes opened he was at the end of the street. When he looked back his house was thirty yards behind him.

Donald Allan winked.

“Quite a trick, eh?” he said. “It takes a bit of learning, so stick with me for now.”

They took another step, and the town seemed to pass by in a blur, houses and streets streaming on either side like a river under a bridge. Brian suddenly felt nauseous and had to hold down an acidic surge in his throat.

Donald Allan stopped and looked at him, concerned.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and this time Brian did laugh, loudly.

“There’s only so many impossible things a man can take in one day. I think I’ve just exceeded my limit. I....”

He stopped, the words suddenly frozen in his throat.

They were on the hill above the town, at least two miles from his house. Two miles in as many seconds. But that wasn’t what had stopped him.

The whole of the top half of the town seemed to be in flames, complete streets of houses sending sheets of flame into the air. In the distance the pop pop of automatic gunfire carried on the night air.

“What’s going on?” Brian said, unable to take his eyes from the scene.

“It looks like they’ve called in the army,” Donald Allan said. “Probably the SAS...they’ve got the experience.”

The implications took several seconds to sink in.

“You mean that the army knows about...about vampires?”

“Oh yes. It’s one of those conspiracy theory things that are actually true...they’ve known for centuries...they’ve just never told the general public about it.”

“What did you mean...they’ve got the experience?”

Donald Allan laughed, but it was a cold thing.

“There have been quite a few ‘outbreaks’ in the past. The army usually deals with it, then covers it up with talk of some natural disaster or other.”

Donald Allan mentioned two names, one a plane crash, one a chemical explosion. They had made huge headlines at the time, but there had been no mention of vampires.

“You’ve got to remember,” the vampire said, “We have been around as long, if not longer, than the sons of Adam. It would be very strange indeed if no one knew of our existence.”

Brian watched the town burn, aware that the flames were spreading east, towards his house. Strangely he wasn’t concerned.

A hand touched his shoulder and Donald Allan spoke.

“All their work will be for nothing if we don’t get to the Hansen House. Shoa will not be stopped so easily.”

Brian took the vampire’s hand again and had time for just one look back at the town before they took the last step.

~-o0O0o-~

Margaret was locked away somewhere deep inside herself.

There was a dead man on the ground at her feet...she knew that much. Somewhere in her brain a tape was running, an endless loop playing the same noise over and over, the sharp thud of wood on wood. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t associate the noise with any action she had taken.

But everything faded like the remnant of a dream as soon as the white vampire entered the room and caught her in his stare.

The room faded around her, like falling into a deep sleep when exhausted.

~-o0O0o-~

She woke.

She had fallen asleep in front of the fire. It must have been the food. Brian had cooked a curry...all the trimmings. It had taken nearly an hour to eat it all. She rubbed her eyes and Brian smiled at her over the top of his wineglass.