Read His Vampyrrhic Bride Online
Authors: Simon Clark
His Vampyrrhic Bride
Table of Contents
Recent Titles by Simon Clark from Severn House
LONDON UNDER MIDNIGHT
THE MIDNIGHT MAN
VENGEANCE CHILD
WHITBY VAMPYRRHIC
Simon Clark
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First world edition published 2012
in Great Britain and in the USA by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.
Copyright © 2012 by Simon Clark.
All rights reserved.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Clark, Simon, 1958-
His vampyrrhic bride.
1. Horror tales.
I. Title
823.9'2-dc23
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-294-8 (Epub)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8184-7 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-445-5 (trade paper)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
He sees her . . .
T
om Westonby’s life changed the moment he saw the woman.
She shouldn’t have been there. Certainly not at this time of night.
But there she was. Tom looked out of the window and watched the stranger walk across the lawn. Moonlight flooded the valley. That other-worldly radiance gave the white cotton dress she wore a spectral glow. While her pale, yellow hair had the appearance of a luminous mist that cascaded down around her shoulders.
She was beautiful. Uncannily beautiful. Somehow dangerously beautiful. As well as tingles of physical attraction, he felt the cold, tingling sensation of an inexplicable fear trickling down his spine.
So, what was this striking, yet ghostly figure doing gliding across his lawn at midnight? The question made him wonder if he’d fallen asleep on the sofa again. These fourteen-hour working days were exhausting. Maybe he was busily dreaming about the remarkable, luminous vision dressed in white?
‘My God,’ he breathed, ‘what on earth is she doing?’
The stranger lifted the skirts of her dress before stepping into the little pool in the garden that was fed by a natural spring. She took a deep breath as her bare feet entered the cool water. At the same time she raised her face to the moonlight, an expression of sheer bliss spread across her face. She closed her eyes, a smile touched her lips. Even from this distance, Tom could tell she loved the sensation of chilled liquid stroking her skin.
The expression on her face sang out:
this is ecstasy!
He had two choices. Either turn away, forget he’d seen the woman, or go out there and find out what the hell she was doing on his lawn. Tom Westonby wasn’t one to back down from a challenge. He decided to learn more about the mysterious beauty dipping her bare toes in the spring pool.
The possibility that this was a dream vanished when his hip smacked into the table as he strode across the room to the patio door. The blow hurt. So maybe it was the pain that made him act out of character, because a dangerous, reckless spirit seized control. He decided to confront the woman. No, he’d do more than that. This was going to get physical. His heart pounded, his breath vented in gusts through gritted teeth. A wild excitement ignited his blood.
The moment he opened the patio door and stepped out into the night air he passed the point of no return. Something significant would happen tonight. No . . . More than significant.
Tonight will be momentous.
He follows her . . .
Tom Westonby knew that in the next few minutes life as he’d lived it would die. Nothing would ever be the same again.
The sound of his feet on the patio immediately warned the woman that she wasn’t alone.
His midnight visitor turned towards him. Her eyes locked on his. There wasn’t any sense of fear, or even surprise. It was as if she’d expected all along that he’d come out of the house. If she’d stayed there, then what happened next would never have happened at all.
But even though she’d held his gaze for a moment without any sign of being frightened of him, she suddenly ran. Her bare feet splashed through the shallow pool. Moonlight caught the drops of water, turning them into glittering gems that flew up to speckle her white cotton dress. By the time she left the pool those sparkling drops of water were caught in her fair hair. Twinkling diamonds flung outwards as she quickly twisted her head to watch what he’d do next.
He followed.
No. Not followed.
Chased.
With a mixture of dread and excitement, Tom realized this was more than a chase.
I’m hunting her
, he thought.
I’m actually hunting her, like she’s prey.
A small voice inside his head told him to stop. But it was the massive, roaring voice that erupted from some primeval hunting instinct that issued the orders now: CATCH HER. FORCE HER TO TELL YOU WHAT SHE WAS DOING IN THE WATER.
Sheer hunt-lust had its teeth in Tom Westonby. He focused hearing and sight on to the woman. He heard her bare feet whisper across the grass. He saw the searing white flash of her dress. Even when she’d darted out of the moonlight and into the deep, dark shadow of Thornwood Vale he still kept his eyes nailed on her. He was a wolf pursuing the vulnerable fawn. Instinct ruled his movements. Nothing else mattered. He was determined to catch the woman – seize her tightly by the arms, and . . .
. . . and then what? Rationally, he didn’t know what he’d do when he caught her.
Irrationally, though? Oh, the irrational side of his brain supplied him with vivid images. That ancient beast segment of brain told him EXACTLY what he must do to her, once he’d got his hands on her.
The chase took them deeper into the forest. Mull-Rigg Hall, the house he’d just raced from, was the only property for miles. Nobody else ventured into this remote English valley at midnight.
He and the woman were alone. Just the two of them. Nobody would see. No witnesses. No one to stop the madness of what would happen next.
His dangerous thoughts . . .
The chase took them by the river. These turbulent rapids gushed down from the surrounding hills. At this time of night the water was black. Tom Westonby caught a glimpse of an eager figure that seemed to be on a vital mission. To Tom’s surprise he realized that the eager figure, with the wide, staring eyes, was him. He’d seen his own reflection there in the dark waters.
What had come over him? Why was he driven to catch the woman that he’d watched dipping her bare toes into the spring pool?
As he ran through the forest he kept that blazing stare of his on the slender feminine shape. Yet other thoughts, which seemed strangely disconnected from the present, floated through his head. He remembered working long, fourteen-hour days to empty the big house of accumulated rubbish. All those heavy brown wood chairs that filled every room. His aunt must have been obsessed with them. Who knows? Maybe before she’d died she’d been planning to seize the world record for having the greatest number of uncomfortable, straight-backed chairs crammed into one house.
Yesterday, Chris Markham had phoned. Chris was his business partner – at least, he would be once they raised enough capital to open the scuba-diving school in Greece: something they’d been planning ever since they were at college together. After devoting weeks searching for suitable premises, Chris had discovered the perfect place just yards from the beach.
The big problem was this: the building’s owner had demanded seventeen thousand dollars in cash. Five thousand dollars bond, twelve thousand for a year’s rental in advance.
‘I don’t know why he wants dollars not euros,’ Chris had said over the phone. ‘He just does.’
‘Where are we going to get that kind of money?’ Tom had asked. ‘We don’t have anything like seventeen thousand dollars.’
‘Tom, we’ve got to have this place. It’s next to a whole bunch of hotels; think of the passing trade. It’s perfect.’
‘It’d be easier for us to raise the Titanic than raise seventeen thousand!’
Chris had begged Tom to somehow find the cash. What’s more, he must have it by the end of the week, otherwise the landlord would find other tenants. ‘Get that seventeen thou, Tom. We’ll never find another place as good as this.’
Before ending the call, Chris had reminded Tom that serious girlfriends were forbidden until they’d got the dive school up and running. DIVE SCHOOL FIRST. MARRY THE GIRL OF YOUR DREAMS LATER. That’s the rule they’d agreed upon back in their college days. Not that they’d taken a monastic vow of celibacy. Both had enjoyed casual dating; quite a few girls had featured in their lives.
Tom murmured the words, ‘Seventeen thousand,’ as he pursued the stranger . . . or was it his intended victim . . . down the forest path.
Seventeen thousand dollars. Where am I going to get seventeen grand by the end of the week?
He’d thought about nothing else all day. Even tonight, when he’d been clearing the basement of yet more wooden chairs, he’d been so preoccupied with schemes for mustering the cash that he’d accidentally kicked over a big glass jar that contained a green spirit. Probably the kind of stuff used to clean paintbrushes, though there must have been half a gallon at least. In that confined place its stench had made him dizzy.