Bent Arrow, page 10
I was surprised nobody had appeared through the long night and early morning, but the place was as dead as the vampires we'd killed without remorse. Maybe they hadn't had time to send word to anyone else, maybe nobody cared? Or maybe they figured these clowns would have dealt with it? More likely, they were waiting to take us out later. Although, they wouldn't know who we were, would they? Trying to think back, retrace our steps, was hard. My thoughts were sluggish, everything too mixed up. Had we left a trail? Probably. Would those at the top of the Vamp2 food chain know that the Freaky Finders were on the warpath? Most likely. Did we need to get this over with one way or another very soon? For sure.
Did I need a nap and some food first? You betcha.
A deep unease settled over me, and I could tell the others felt it too now the high of danger had eased. We had set something in motion there was no turning away from now. We were messing with the big boys, the uber-evil tyrannical overlords who controlled a drug known throughout the world for its power and utterly addictive qualities. I couldn't even begin to imagine the money involved, the kinds of people who ran the operation and kept it running anywhere there were vampires in enough numbers to set up a distribution network.
Just how many vamps were there anyway? Our little seaside town was brimming with the buggers, but this had always been an Odd Ones hotspot. But I knew there were other towns in the UK like ours, not to mention little pockets of Freaks at every turn. Vamps liked to congregate in certain areas though, at least those who took an active role in their community. There were plenty who lived quiet, almost Normal lives too, who treated their vampire nature the same as their caffeine addiction and just got on with life as best they could.
What did all of this mean for us? It meant, and we'd all known it from the start, that we could never win, never destroy this thing worldwide. Could merely try to stop it happening here and hope the word would spread and others did something about it elsewhere. That wasn't such a bad goal, was it? Either way, it would have to do. Now all we had to do was get a plan at the plan shop. A good one this time.
"Come on, let's go home," I told the others.
Damp of spirit, and clothes, we piled into the vehicles and headed back to base, to the warmth and dry. There had better be bacon. I was famished.
We get a Visitor
Furball almost knocked me off my feet the moment we entered the kitchen. He slammed into my stomach and I stumbled back, hitting the wall hard. He rumbled with the joy and contentment only a trans-dimensional being from behind the fridge can.
"Nice to see you too, buddy." I stroked his body and felt the power of the Soother wash over me. "How did you know, eh? I needed this so much." I smiled as the stresses and strains of recent events washed away like the tide receding and taking all my worries with it. Sailing out to open seas, lost in the vastness.
Oh, how easy it would be to sink deeper and deeper, let Furball's power remove all my senses, leave me empty and at peace, lost to the world, just a shell. No cares, no worries, no nothing.
"Sorry, dude, there's work to be done." I patted his rump, or his head, or whatever, and then let him go. Rather than drop, he hovered there in front of me then vanished through a Gap. I joined the others at the table where we all sat, expectantly.
It got uncomfortable after a few minutes. Everyone shifted about awkwardly, nobody saying a word.
"Okay, fine," shouted Mimi. "I'll say it, shall I?" Everyone mumbled noncommittally. "Who's making bloody breakfast? And don't anyone look at me. Um, apart from now, as I'm talking. I make dinner nearly every night. Someone else can cook the bloody breakfast."
"No bacon," said Boris, close to despair. I'm sure I saw a tear.
"We have eggs," said Aunty brightly. "And beans. There's bread too. That'll be good, right?"
"But we need bacon," I whined. "Am I right or am I right?"
Everyone agreed. We needed bacon. It wouldn't be right without it.
"That still doesn't tell me who's cooking."
"Aunty should do it," I said, pointing a finger at her.
"Yes, Aunty should," said Hanna, who hardly ate anyway and I think only did it to fit in, what with her being dead but not dead. Kinda. It's still confusing.
"Boris agree."
"Hang on, why should I do it? What abut Boris? He never, ever cooks."
Everyone laughed, even Boris.
"Boris can't do it," I told Aunty, like I was talking to a young child.
"Why not?"
"Um, because Boris never cooks. He gets his pies, who knows where from, but he—"
"Greggs," said the big guy, drooling.
"Yes, thank you Boris. He gets his pies but we never see him go get them, and that's it. He never cooks."
"Maybe he should."
We took a moment to think about it, then shook our heads and laughed. Somehow it would be too weird to see the big guy actually cooking.
"So, that's settled then. Aunty will go and buy loads of bacon then make us a lovely breakfast. Damn, I'm starving. Thank you, Aunty."
"Hey, I didn't agree to anything. Someone else do it. You bloody well do it," she told me.
"Can't. Too tired. And besides, I'm the boss. I deserve a break. It's very tiring being in charge. Takes it out of you. Plus, don't wanna."
Everyone slapped me, even Boris, and he had to move to do it. I sulked. Mimi's stomach rumbled. Boris banged his head on the table. Hanna chewed off her own pinkie.
"Fine, I'll do it," scowled Aunty. "But no bacon. I'm not going to the shops, especially not looking like this."
"You do look awful," I agreed to cheer her up. Everyone else agreed too. We might have said the wrong thing as Aunty began to cry.
"Okay, okay, no bacon it is." There, that would make her happy as Larry.
"Boris want bacon."
"Me too, buddy, but Aunty's in one of her moods. We'll just have to make do." Aunty banged the pans about. Damn, but she was moody sometimes.
I closed my eyes for a moment, summoning up the energy to begin to think about maybe having a shower and slipping between the sheets after Aunty made her inadequate breakfast, but I didn't have the energy to even think about thinking about beginning to think about any of it.
CRASH!
Moo.
Crash? Huh?
Moo? Double huh?
Should I open my eyes? Probably not. Did I? Yes. Did I close them again? Damn straight.
I took a deep breath, then I opened my eyes again as everyone shouted and the table, now in pieces, was trampled into little bits. Pans flew everywhere, Aunty dropped the eggs, and Furball hovered above us, looking inordinately pleased with himself.
"Um, bacon comes from pigs, Furball, but nice try, buddy." I winked at the little dude. He hung his non-head in shame then winked out of existence.
"At least he tried," said Aunty.
"Yeah, I'll give him that. He's a trier."
"Trying, more like," said Mimi as she dragged her chair away from the very startled cow who was staring at us as though it was our fault.
"Hey, don't you diss Furball. He knew we wanted bacon and was just trying to help. He has made a bit of a mess though," I conceded.
The cow stood on the tabletop, the legs smashed. Chairs were akimbo, and just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, the admittedly shocked cow did what cows are well known for.
Splat. Splat. Splaaaaat.
"Anyone got a shovel?" I asked.
"There's one in the shed," said Hanna.
"Then go get it," I told her with a winning smile.
"No way."
"Hanna, I am not going in that shed. I bet you and Boris have been playing your games again and it's full of your corpses. If I'm wrong, I'll clean up. If I'm right, you do it as punishment. I warned you."
"Fine, but I'm not happy about it." Hanna skulked off to find the shovel amongst her own rotting corpses.
"So, we may not have bacon, but anyone for steak?" I asked brightly.
Weirdly, it cheered us all up no end.
Yes, the steaks were fresh, but they were damn lovely.
We get Another Visitor
Once clean, and boy did it take a while, especially as I had to unclog the shower drain, which is just about the grossest job in the world, I slipped under the covers and pulled the sheet over my head to block out the world. I was asleep in moments. I slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted. No dreams, no movement, no nothing. Beautiful oblivion.
Shame I didn't wake in such a pleasant manner.
In fact, it was downright crap.
"Hurry up, hurry up," shouted a disheveled looking Aunty, standing over me, shaking me by the shoulder, wearing nothing but her dressing gown.
"Huh? What's going on?"
"We have a visitor."
"So? Leave me alone. I hate visitors, they keep, er… visiting!" I tried to crawl back under the covers, but Aunty whipped the sheet off and left me there on my hands and knees halfway down the bed.
"Spencer! You're naked! Look at the state of you."
"I'm naked because I'm in bed. You know I run hot. Hence the sheet even though it's bloody freezing without it."
"If you run hot how are you freezing?" she asked. I got the feeling she was staring at my bum.
"Just am. Can I have my sheet back?" I pleaded, as I turned to face her and pulled it up to my waist for modesty's sake.
"No!" She whipped it off again and stormed to the door. "Hurry up. He's waiting, and he doesn't seem like the type that likes it."
"Who is it?" I asked, pulling on some boxer shorts then taking clean jeans from a hanger. I slipped them on then picked a dark shirt with pearl buttons.
"A vampire," she said breathlessly, then moonwalked back out the door like Michael Jackson but absolutely nothing like him.
"Bloody women. Bloody vampires. Bloody crap moonwalk."
"I heard that."
"I know you did. I said it out loud." At least I think I did. Sometimes I got the impression Aunty had more gifts than she liked to let on about.
Heading for the stairs, I woke up properly and jumped to the wall. Nothing happened. Normally, it was a free-for-all, everyone barging past to try to get to the kitchen first to get the last dregs of milk or steal the last slice of toast, although, I guess it's just bread in its un-toasted state.
Nothing. No shoving. No shouting. No tripping up and broken bones as someone tumbled arse-over-tit? Could it be I was the last one up?
Cautiously, I padded down the stairs, wiping the sleep from my eyes. Damn, I needed a pee. Up I went, had a pee, then it was straight back to see what was going on.
We didn't get many visitors, and even fewer vampires. Was this it? Were they about to do unspeakable things to our most private of parts that involved teeth and lots of cackling? And pointing? Would they point? And this was just them playing with us?
Guess I'd find out.
They weren't in the office, although they should have been as that's where we conducted business, but maybe this wasn't business. Back in the hallway, I heard laughing and joking from the kitchen so could only assume the vamp was dead and everyone was having a nice cup of tea to celebrate. Maybe doing a jig on his cold corpse. Already buoyed, I wandered on in, whistling a tune, expecting a mushed-up body and a steaming mug of something brown and murky.
There was tea. There was also a very handsome young man who appeared to be in his early twenties, with short-cropped blond hair, wearing pristine converse, very tight jeans, and a loose, pale blue t-shirt with rolled-up sleeves. The blue brought out the color of his eyes perfectly.
"Damn, but you're handsome."
The lad, or man, I guess, blushed almost imperceptibly then smiled widely, showing his fangs. They were whiter than Aunty's bum in winter. "You're not so bad yourself."
Was he flirting with me? I think he was.
"Ooh, such a lovely voice too," crooned Aunty, her dressing gown "somehow" falling open a little.
Our guest smiled at her then at the rest of us. Mimi was watching him carefully, Hanna was almost horizontal on a chair, Boris was staring at what should have been the table but was conspicuously missing what with the cow thing and all.
"Let me pour your tea," said Aunty, salivating. She handed him a lovely cuppa. It was in the good mug, too!
"Um, don't I get one?"
"Get your own," she snapped, then realized the impression she was making and said, "Of course, Spencer, would you like sugar?"
"Two please."
She smiled sweetly and handed me my drink. We should get vampires in more often. I glanced at the clock. We'd all slept through the morning and past lunch time. No wonder my stomach was feeling emptier than our biscuit barrel.
Recent events caught up with me as the sugary tea hit the spot. What was wrong with us? Why were we being so relaxed when we probably had the whole vampire ecosystem after us by now. Drug kingpins and evil vampire overlords plotting our imminent demise. We needed to get our act together. We needed to get dressed. We needed sandwiches, and lots of them.
The silence became strained.
"Um, been here long?" I asked our visitor.
"A while. This gentleman let me in. He had a pie."
"He always has a pie." I glanced over at Boris. He had a pie.
"So, here we all are then," I ventured. Hoping for an explanation.
"Indeed." He sipped his tea.
I'd be damned if I was going to push this any further. He was in our house, he could explain why he was here without us begging.
We sipped our tea, we listened to Boris munching, Hanna snoring, the cats devouring their lunch, and Aunty's heavy breathing. The vampire remained cool, calm, and collected. I leaned against the counter, casual as you like. It was sticky, and I began to notice the funky smell. That'd be the cow, I presumed. Or maybe it always smelled like this?
Time passed. Did this man have nothing else to do? What was with him?
"Okay, I give up. You win. Come on, we have things to do. What do you want? Why are you here?" I hated myself for caving first, but this dude was unnerving me and we might just be hanging around while thousands of vampires surrounded the house, ready to burst in and do nasty vampire things to us while we politely asked them to stop gnawing on our bones and sucking all our lovely juices.
"Oh, haha, I thought you'd never ask. Sorry, I wasn't sure what the polite thing to do was. I must say, I was feeling most uncomfortable. Sorry for the slow start. I'm, er, not used to being in the presence of humans. Haha, I still have a lot to learn. Sorry."
"Hey, that's okay," I told him. "We all have to learn sometime, right? So, er, you mostly hang with the vamps, do you?"
"Oh yes, most of the time. Not that I have much choice, what with the teeth and all." He pointed to his fangs in case I didn't understand.
"Ay, yes. The teeth."
"I am here to offer my services. My assistance." He stared at us hopefully.
"Your assistance? For what?"
"Yes. Um, not just mine, of course. Our community, in fact a large majority of us, we want to help. We know what you have been engaged in, what happened yesterday, so do those we have never been able to reach. We want to help."
"And what exactly do you want to help with?" Could this be real? Was it a trap? Surely he was up to something.
"Vampires may be cruel, we may kill, we may slaughter the odd innocent, but let's get real here. We are vampires. It is our nature. Can't be helped," he said brightly with a bloody awesome smile. Damn, I was half-tempted to offer him my neck right then and there. "But," he held a finger up, "we have a code, morals of our own, and Vamp2 is destroying us. Our way of life, our purity. We want it gone, eradicated. So, we want to help you. We want you to help us. In it together, so to speak. Does that make sense? Is it agreeable?"
"One moment please?" I told him. "Team, into the office, quick smart." I marched out the kitchen and into the office. I waited. Nobody came. I marched back into the kitchen only to find everyone staring at our guest. I still didn't know his name. "What's your name?"
"Malcolm."
"Oh. Right, okay. Bit average sounding, isn't it?"
"I didn't choose it."
"Yes, of course. Um, team?"
They stared at me blankly.
"The office? Now, please?"
I marched back out again. This time they followed.
"Okay, group huddle." We huddled together and I whispered, "What do you all think?"
"YES!" came the resounding reply.
"And break," said Mimi.
"Hey, that's my job. And break," I shouted, but they'd already broken. "So, you want the vamps to join us? Us to join the vamps? You know we can't trust them, that we always get into bother if we deal with vampires?"
"What choice do we have?" asked Aunty. "No way can we do this on our own."
"What!?" I spluttered. "This whole thing was your bloody idea. You wanted to get rid of Vamp2 even though we all told you we couldn't. That we'd end up dead, that there are mega-players involved and they'd destroy us."
"Did you? Did you really?"
"Yes!" we all shouted.
"Oh, then it's a good job the vamps hate it as much as we do. Or we'd be screwed."
Everyone wandered back to the kitchen.
Guess that was settled then.
Freaky Finders were now on Team Vamp.
It'll be awesome.
Not.
Team Vamp
"So, um, Malcolm, how come you're here and not some bigwig?"
"I assume they felt I would be more of a friendly face. Some of the older ones are rather, ah, set in their ways shall we say? A bit long in the tooth. They wanted youth, someone more relatable." He shrugged his wide swimmer's shoulders. Damn, his clothes fit like everything was bespoke. Maybe they were.
"Makes sense," I mused. "So, why haven't you lot done anything before?"
"Because that isn't our way. Our kind do as they wish with minimal interference. But Vamp2 has got out-of-hand. Your actions have spurred us on, made us decide to do something. We are co-ordinating worldwide as we speak. Clans and families and large groups are on the move, destroying the dealers, the supply chain, those who make Vamp2. It is up to us to do the same here, to rid our kind of this evil stain on our illustrious history."
