Hidden (Marchwood Vampire Series #1) (33 page)

Morris and
Esther came round about half-an-hour after Dr Wilson had left.
Maddy was annoyed. He must have told them about Ben. What happened
to doctor-patient confidentiality?

‘
Looks like he’s got the same flu I had,’ Maddy told Morris
and Esther. She saw the look that passed between them. Well, let
them think what they like, she thought. It’s none of their business
anyway and I haven’t got the energy to worry about them
now.

‘
You don’t need to stay,’ she continued. ‘You should go home
and enjoy the rest of your Christmas. Me and Ben are fine
here.’

Morris nodded
his head in acceptance, but Esther spoke up.

‘
We’ll pack a bag and stay in the room upstairs for a few
days, until his fever breaks.’

‘
No honestly. We’ll be okay,’ Maddy said.

‘
I’ll go downstairs and have a quick tidy round. Morris, you
bring us a few clothes and the wash bag, while I tend to things
here.’

‘
Right, then. See you shortly,’ he replied.

Esther swept
out of the room before Maddy had a chance to protest further. To be
honest, she found she didn’t actually care what they did. She felt
too worried about Ben, who was still white hot and sweating
buckets. So, this was to be their first Christmas at Marchwood. Not
quite the day she had planned.

Why had her
brother gone down there? What could have made him go into the
cellar? And she would have to do something about those creatures.
They’d had a hold over her for too long. She had to get rid of them
and start to live her life properly.

She’d wasted hours mooning around over that thing. Was it
just because it was so beautiful? Was she really that shallow? She
had to kill it, before it did any more harm. She just prayed her
little brother would come out of the fever soon. Dr Wilson hadn’t
seemed overly worried. He’d been more concerned with the
cause
of the
fever.

Madison spent the whole of Christmas Day and Boxing Day at
Ben’s bedside. He hadn’t shown any signs of improvement and Maddy
swung from being hysterical with worry, to calmly telling herself
this is what
she
had been like and
she
hadn’t woken up for three days.

On the morning
after Boxing Day, Dr Wilson said if Ben’s condition hadn’t improved
by the evening, he would recommend he be moved to hospital for
intravenous antibiotics. Maddy started praying and playing the game
where she bargained with God: If you make my brother better, you
can send me back to foster care, you can take all this wealth away
and I’ll work in Angie’s supermarket for the rest of my life, I’ll
be really nice to Esther, even if she’s being a total bitch.

Something must
have worked, whether it was Maddy’s prayers or Dr Wilson’s
treatment, or just that things had run their natural course, but by
that afternoon Ben’s fever broke and he now slept peacefully.
Madison changed his sheets again and looked at his small
pyjama-clad body. He looked so vulnerable lying there and, not for
the first time, she felt like it was all her fault. She had to face
the truth that she knew what those things in the cellar were. She’d
been kidding herself now for too long. She should just admit it …
they were vampires.

There were
five vampires sleeping in the cellar. One of them had sucked her
blood, one of them had sucked her brother’s blood and she had to do
something about it.

*

The minute
Morris and Esther left the house, Maddy gritted her teeth and
marched down into the cellar with a new halogen light. Ben was
still asleep upstairs. He hadn’t opened his eyes yet and Maddy’s
rage was returning. It was rage against herself as much as it was
against the vampire who had done this to her brother. Fury engulfed
her and she wanted to shatter its stone body into a million
bits.

She shoved the
empty crates away from the entrance and picked up the pick axe,
trying to clear her mind of everything but the pulsing anger,
trying not to see his beautiful face in her mind. She pushed off
the lid to the crate and caught a blurred glimpse of dark eyebrow
and white cheek, but she steeled herself against him, swinging the
axe above her head with two hands.

She aimed for
his chest and brought the metal tip of the pick axe crashing down.
The shock of the impact travelled up her arms, to her shoulders and
into her teeth, which shook painfully in her mouth. She let go of
the axe and looked through half-closed eyes at the carnage she
expected to see.

She opened her
eyes wide and then frowned in disbelief. His jacket and shirt were
torn. She knelt down, ripping the material apart to reveal a
perfect, gleaming chest - there was not a single mark on him. Not a
scratch or a nick - nothing. She yelled in frustration and wielded
the pick axe again. She ignored the burning in her arms as she
attacked him with fury.

After a minute she ran and got the sledgehammer, trying to
smash any part of him she could. When her energy was truly spent
and her muscles screamed in pain, she looked and saw that apart
from his torn suit, he
… it
was still completely unharmed.

Madison sank
to the ground in exhaustion. It hadn’t even tried to fight back. It
had just lain there and absorbed the blows. What was she going to
do? She pushed herself up onto her feet and walked out of the room,
thinking hard.

That
afternoon, she came better prepared. She felt faintly ridiculous,
but she wasn’t dealing in the realms of normality and she was ready
to try anything. Thinking about all the vampire movies she had
seen, she made a list of all the things that were supposed to kill
them – garlic, crosses, a stake through the heart, daylight. She
was almost embarrassed to be considering these things, but what
other options did she have? She was dealing with something
supernatural that couldn’t be harmed with a pick axe or a
sledgehammer, so she had to improvise. 

She went up to
the crate and put bulbs of garlic inside, around the creature’s
body and face, watching intently for any signs of revulsion or
discomfort. She put a small gold cross on its forehead, half
expecting the metal to burn into its skin, like in the movies.
Nothing so far.

Standing in
front of the crate she held out a sharpened piece of hardwood and
positioned it on its chest exactly where she thought its heart
should be (if the evil bloodsucker actually had a heart). She held
it in place and raised the hammer, banging it down hard onto the
wooden stake with all the force she could muster. The stake snapped
without even making a mark on his skin. So that was the ‘stake
through the heart’ theory out of the window. What had she expected?
That the creature would disappear in a puff of smoke or
disintegrate into dust? What now?

‘
Yes!’ she said out loud. ‘I know. I know just what I’m going
to do with you.’

She raced
upstairs and outside into the chilly afternoon air. Although the
sun was shining, traces of frost still clung to the more shaded
areas of lawn. But Madison barely noticed the cold. She was on a
mission to destroy and she was absolutely sure she would succeed
this time. Her 4x4 sat in the garage and she hopped in; this time
having absolutely no trouble with clutch control and steering. Over
the past couple of months she had been taught very patiently by
Travis and she now felt entirely confident with her new driving
skills.

Madison roared
out of the garage and took the Defender onto the driveway, as close
as possible to the huge front door. She jumped out, released the
winch and pulled the cable through the house and down into the
cellar. She hooked the cable on to the front of the crate, then ran
back up the stairs and outside to the purring Land Rover. She
locked the winch, hopped back in and reversed slowly.

She was going to try and tow the crate outside. She had to
get that vampire out of the house and out here, under the sun’s
rays. Surely
that
would destroy it. Why else would it have been bricked up in a
dark cellar, safe and sound? She drove backwards for a few yards,
feeling the resistance, and then the vehicle stopped dead. She
didn’t want to put too much pressure on the accelerator, in case
the handle ripped off the crate.

Maddy ran back down to the cellar and saw the problem - the
crate was stuck at the bottom of the steps. She looked down at the
beautiful vampire. It still slept. She heaved the end of the crate
up onto the first and second steps.
There!
That should do it.

The house sat
in an elevated position, commanding a south westerly view over the
valley and the sun was already bleeding down into the trees. She
would have to hurry, before it sank out of sight and the daylight
disappeared. The sun would put an end to him. It would put and end
to all five of them. She locked the winch and reversed the vehicle
again.

Down in the
cellar, the crate was slowly and awkwardly dragged, jolted and
bumped up the winding steps. It burst through the utility room
door, into the kitchen and smashed against the kitchen table,
knocking chairs flying. It slid quickly and smoothly along the
flagstones in the entrance hall, rushing inexorably towards the
front door. It flew over the three curved entrance steps, finally
landing with a thump and a crunch onto the sweeping driveway. It
now lay still, beneath the setting sun.

Madison leapt
out of the Land Rover with the pick axe in her hand.

‘
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,’ she whispered over and over
to herself. But she didn’t let herself think of the terror, she
just charged at the crate. If that thing was awake, she had to be
fully prepared to attack it, in case the sun had no
effect.

Inside the
crate, the vampire was indeed awake. Eyes wide open, jerking
uncontrollably as if electrocuted. Its back arched, arms and legs
flailing wildly. The sunlight was altering the creature’s
appearance. Its sculpted white skin became darker, more human. As
Maddy approached, the vampire threw itself out of its crate and
crawled across the gravel driveway. It dragged itself up the front
steps and into the house.

Shocked that
her plan had actually worked, the sight of this live creature
terrified her, made her eyes widen, her heart hammer and the blood
almost freeze in her veins. But she kept the image of Ben in her
mind; of him lying on the cellar floor after the vampire had
attacked him and she knew she had to destroy it. Anger warmed her
blood and made it flow again.

‘
Oh no you don’t!’ Maddy yelled, as it clawed its way into the
house. ‘Get back out here!’

She pursued it
into the entrance hall and raised the pick axe above her head,
ready to strike.

The vampire
half-crouched, half-leant against the wall in the entrance hall,
still shaking and convulsing, its features contorted in shock. As
Madison approached with the axe, it moved down the hallway, using
the heels of its feet and the palms of its hands to propel itself
backwards, away from her. It went until it could go no further and
was backed into a dark corner, next to the closed door of the
dining room.

He was a large
figure and Madison was just five foot two, but she felt powerful
and vengeful as she stood above him.

‘
Non!’ he cried. ‘No! Please ...’ He appeared terrified and
cringed backwards against the wall. ‘Je vous en supplie! I beg of
you!’ His voice was hoarse and he spoke with an accent. He stared
beseechingly at Maddy.

She ignored
his cries for mercy, closed her eyes and swung the axe
downwards.

Chapter
Twenty

1881

*

Alexandre
opened his eyes. He lay in a blissfully darkened chamber - a
cellar. And he could sense a human male sleeping in the house
somewhere above him. He felt Leonora awakening nearby. The others
still slept.

Standing up,
he felt weightless. He flexed his limbs. They were powerful, supple
and responsive, like he could climb a mountain in a single leap.
His whole body tingled. He flicked open the lid to Leonora’s box to
see her staring up at him. She hissed. She actually hissed!
Alexandre opened his mouth to say something, but was shocked to
hear a hissing sound come from his own lips. He put a hand to his
mouth and tried again.

‘
What is this?’ his voice sounded foreign to his ears, low and
vicious, a harsh whisper. ‘You are different.
We
are different.’

‘
I feel strong,’ she said. ‘But I am also frightened.’ Leonora
stood in a single fluid motion. Her dark hair tumbled in waves down
her back and her pale skin glowed with radiance and
vitality.

‘
You look wonderful,’ Alexandre said.

‘
And you.’ Leonora stared at him.

‘
Do you remember?’ he asked, knowing she did.

She replied
with a tilt of her head.

‘
Perhaps we are in hell. I thought I had died. Are we demons?
Like the others?’

‘
If we are demons, then we must be in hell,’ she replied. ‘But
I do not feel evil. I feel the same, only stronger and ... better
somehow. And if we are in hell, it looks remarkably similar to
Marchwood House, where I grew up.’

‘
Do you feel the thirst?’ he asked, knowing she
did.

She nodded and
looked up, beyond the ceiling. ‘First there is someone I must see.
My father is upstairs.’

‘
Aah,’ Alexandre nodded, realising this must be the human male
he sensed earlier. ‘So we are in your house?’