Vampire State of Mind, page 5
‘But it’s not yours though, is it? Doesn’t it belong to Rachel? Don’t you ever want to have your own place, properly yours? There’s a nice cottage in Farndale. Reasonably cheap. Needs work, but it could be lovely.’
Abbie is fourteen years older than me and sometimes she behaves more like my mother than my mother does.
‘We were thinking of moving up north,’ my dad, balancing a cup and saucer on his knee and with Jasper comfortably occupying the central portion of his lap, waved a hand, ‘maybe getting a croft on the islands. You could come with us, Jessie. Try a change of career.’
‘And what if Rachel gets married? You’ll have to move out then, and Mum and Dad won’t have room for you, and you can’t come to me – I suppose you could always rent somewhere in the suburbs.’
‘The Orkneys are very beautiful, I’ve always thought.’ Dad carried on his parallel, and not quite continuous, conversation. ‘Bit chilly, but the grazing’s good, apparently.’
Nice. Abbie, much as I love her, have always loved her, tends to plan her life out in ten-year segments, which drives me mad. And, I noticed, she’d got Rach married off but never contemplated that it might be me settling down. And Dad was always trying to get me to do something other than Liaison work, but even by his standards, moving to the Orkneys was a bit extreme. I ignored both of them and pretended to dust a shelf, a move they would both have seen through at once, since dust and I had a complicated, and slightly symbiotic, relationship.
My mother came in from the kitchen, carrying a plate of Battenberg. I noticed, with a sudden shock, that she was looking old. Her face was more lined than it had been last time I’d seen her, her hair more wispy and she was stooping. I’d been a ‘last-chance’ baby, born when my mother was forty-three and my Dad forty-eight, so I’d been used to her being the oldest mum in the playground, but she’d always worn her years lightly. Although her hair had started going grey before I was born she’d kept it pinned up so the white hairs didn’t show, then later she’d started dyeing it strange colours, meeting me from school with purple hair or electric blue – just to see my face. Now, however, it was completely white. My heart squeezed.
‘Mum.’ I shuffled up on the sofa to make room for her. ‘Are you all right? You look a bit tired.’
‘We’ve lambed forty ewes this spring, it takes it out of an old body. You ask your dad about it. It was his bright idea to buy in some Jacobs, and they’re stroppy old buggers at the best of times.’ She settled back against the cushions and fiddled in the sleeve of her cardigan for a handkerchief. ‘But I’m all right really.’
I looked up, and met Abbie’s eyes. She has our parents’ eyes, bright blue like cornflowers, although Mum and Dad’s have faded a little over the years to a bleached version of their former glories; I’m the odd one out with my orange-brown pair. ‘Different milkman,’ Mum always used to say when people remarked; apparently I was the spitting image of her grandfather. Only without the pipe-and-whisky habit and the inexplicable fixation with Bakelite that I’d heard about from Dad.
Abbs was giving me a ‘tight-mouthed’ look, as if something was my fault. When the parents had left to go and watch their film, I cornered her. ‘So? What’s been going on?’
‘Nothing.’ Abbie coaxed her large frame into a particularly unflattering tweed coat. ‘I’d better go, I promised to drop in on some friends while I’m in town and then give the parents a lift home after the film. I’m on duty in the morning.’
‘You’re not going until you tell me what’s up with Mum and Dad! They both look worn out, and you’ve been doing bum face at me over their heads all evening.’
‘They’re worried about you! Can’t you see that? At the moment all they seem to talk about is you; getting you away from York, wondering if they can persuade you to leave your job. All this wrestling with vampires stuff, they are absolutely terrified that something is going to happen to you!’ She sounded bitter, with reason. Our parents had never worried that much about her. But then, they’d never had to. She spent her spare time helping around the smallholding and working at the local Cats’ Protection League; was large, unfashionable and, if it hadn’t been for her twelve-year marriage to the deceased Andrew, a born spinster.
I was always described as the young, flighty one, but I think my parents’ definitions could use some work. Thirty-one is barely young and working for the council is kind of the antithesis of flightiness. ‘I’m perfectly safe! Honestly, Abbs, you can tell them, I know my job looks weird but it’s about as dangerous as giving out parking tickets, and about as interesting.’ Carefully not even thinking about Harry and Eleanor and this afternoon’s high strangeness, I patted the tweedy arm. ‘Abbs, I like what I do. I’m good at what I do. It’s not a patch on what you do, of course, but it’s me.’
In my back pocket my mobile rang.
‘Well, as long as you’re careful.’
‘I don’t really need to be careful, Abbs, honestly, my job is bagging and tagging and watching a computer screen. The newspapers like to blow everything out of proportion and make the Otherworlders sound exotic and dangerous but really they’re as interested in keeping everything running smoothly as we are. No-one wants …’ I stopped. Abbie remembered the Troubles. I didn’t need to remind her of how it had been. ‘Honestly,’ I repeated. Then I flipped open my phone and Liam’s breathless voice spoke, louder than necessary.
‘You’d better get down here, Jessie. We’ve got a live one, and they reckon they need you.’
I gave a kind of apologetic grin at my sister. ‘Where are the Hunters, Liam? This is their call, surely?’
‘They’re there, but they reckon the detectors are going insane, what with all the Otherworld activity, so they need a reliable person and, guess what, your name came up.’
‘What do they expect me to do, alphabetise something to death?’ I muttered.
‘They can’t see what’s coming at them, that was the message I got. Well, the actual message was ‘Ahhhhh, fuck, what the fuck … can’t tell … get help,’ but you see what I mean.’
‘And?’
‘And you’re the nearest person that can tell a vampire from one of the Hunters up for the Run. Someone gets downed, it had better be an Otherworlder otherwise things are going to get messy, so … guess it’s you, Jessie.’
Sweat broke out on the palms of my hands. ‘That sounds like a posh name for bait.’
‘Jessie, the place is swarming with Hunters. Plus, you know how to handle yourself. You went on the self-defence courses, didn’t you?’
I had, but only because I thought they would be full of blokes. All fourteen of us girls who’d signed up had thought the same. ‘Yes, but administering a groin-kick to a padded-up ex-rugby player isn’t the same as fighting something that wants to fight back.’
‘It’s double time, evening rates.’
‘Wow. And suddenly I’m interested.’ I still owed Rach last month’s rent. Liaison came way down the list of priorities when it came to pay rises and I swear we were still being paid at 1988 levels. ‘What is it, a vamp gone rogue?’ That wasn’t too scary; all I’d have to do was point the Hunters at the right body. I could be home in time for Shameless. ‘Where and when?’
‘It’s in the Museum Gardens, you know? Near the river?’
As I struggled into my jacket, Abbie gave me a surprising hug. ‘Take care, sis,’ she said, squeezing rather tightly. ‘I don’t want anything to happen to you.’
‘Not as much as I don’t,’ I said, squeezing back. ‘Tell Mum and Dad everything is OK. Tell them, oh, I’m fine, work is fine, you can even tell them that I’ve met a nice man if you like. I haven’t, obvs, but it should keep them quiet for a bit.’
We smiled at each other, a sisterly smile of complicity, then she left to go visiting and I left to go detecting.
Chapter Six
It felt odd to be passing through, under the Enforcement-green chequered Incident Scene tape, past the stationary ambulances with their ominously still sirens into the unusually quiet park beyond. Normally this part of York was crowded out with picnickers and visitors to the Museum, but now it was only occupied by little clusters of Hunters, edgily smoking in tight groups and keeping half-an-eye open for Hello magazine telephoto lenses.
‘Where’s it all happening then?’ I said, approaching the nearest group. They were locals, Paul Smithed to the eyeballs, discreet little tie-pins proclaiming their identities.
‘You tell us.’
‘That’s what you’re here for.’
I sighed, and looked towards the only woman in the group, who’d dressed like something out of The Matrix, all black leather and dark glasses. Hoping for some kind of female-affinity, I spoke to her. ‘Is it true all the detectors are on the blink?’
‘Are you getting anything?’ Her voice was as tight as her hold on her gun, nervous, wound-up. No solidarity here.
‘I’d hardly be standing here talking to you if I could tell a vampire was about, would I? Or is this what it’s all about, use me as a human canary – when I run, you all run?’
The group followed me as I inched forward over open ground. If there was a vampire about – and I couldn’t feel anything at the moment – then it would attack from cover. As long as we stayed away from the bushes and trees, we’d see it in plenty of time and the vamp would be coming at us half-blind.
Creeping along, I wondered. Something had glamoured Harry and Eleanor. Something powerful enough to get past the usual Enforcement screens. Something that knew malfunctioning detectors and mistaken identity could have got the blame for my death. Was that ‘something’ here, now, hiding in the increasing darkness and the ridiculously Gothic ruins that littered the park as though a vampire Capability Brown had designed the place?
As we moved across the park, other small knots of Hunters joined us, circling slowly on the periphery of our group. From above we must have looked like a very well-dressed puff of smoke, coiling our way inevitably towards the ruins of St Mary’s, which hung against the skyline. A few of the less agile of the Hunters stumbled over the scattered stones, too busy scanning the horizon to watch their feet – which is a nice kind of metaphor for the Hunters themselves.
‘Oh!’ I stopped suddenly, half-under one of the arches and three Hunters cannoned into me from behind. I noticed that the stress of the situation didn’t stop one of them from feeling my bottom. ‘It’s here.’
The whole group dropped into an instant crouch, guns bristling in every direction. ‘Where?’ someone hissed.
‘It’s not a vampire.’
And as soon as I’d realised that, and all my assumptions about attack from cover were wrong, it attacked.
It came from above, took the first Hunter in the shoulder, wrenching him backwards and dropping him to the ground while the others waved their guns around, desperately searching for the right ammo to load against what suddenly wasn’t what they’d been expecting.
‘It’s a demon!’
I caught a sudden view of it, full face, raising its head to sniff at the air, while the wounded Hunter shuffled backwards, heeling himself out of range to crouch behind some decorative stonework; huge pointed ears above a dog-like muzzle, viscous body like mist formed from treacle. ‘It’s a hell-hound!’ I shouted back, not knowing if anyone could hear me above the yelling and the demonic screaming, flattening myself back against the stonework of the Abbey and hoping that those red eyes wouldn’t notice me as fifteen separate guns emptied fifteen separate magazines into the creature.
They were good and they were efficient. Within seconds the creature was gone, two Hunters were bending over their fallen colleague, several were forming a protective circle around me, and the one Hunter who hadn’t been hiding behind the door when the sociability gene was handed out, was patting my shoulder.
‘It’s okay,’ he said, ‘it’s dealt with.’
I found I was shaking a bit. This wasn’t what I was here for. I’d come to identify a vampire, something that could be taken down by a good shot; sod it, distract the vampire with a 50 per cent sale leaflet from the Designer Outlet and you wouldn’t even need to aim. This was something else, something serious. ‘No, it –’
There was an abrupt ‘uggh’ from beyond us, a dragging sound, all over in about two seconds, then everyone was on their feet again.
‘It took Daz!’ someone called. ‘Came from nowhere, and took him!’
It had left his hat, though. Hell-hounds have a comic-book sense of style.
‘No, he’s here!’ Another voice shouted a reply. ‘We need a medical team, stat, he’s wounded.’
‘You can’t kill it.’ I tried to measure my voice carefully, knowing that they’d only listen if I sounded as though I had authority. ‘You’ll have to trap it, tie it to the earth.’
A suddenly much-tighter bunch of Hunters grouped around me. ‘How do we do that?’
My stomach lurched. People could die. I could feel the adrenaline-sting in my blood as shock shouldered all my emotions out of the way to make room for action.
And then, there it was, sliding up from the earth to form on our side of the wall, hanging for a second between reality and nightmare. Truncated muzzle, tiny red eyes like glass beads in a plague-pit and a mouth which swept open, loops of stained saliva roping from it and smelling of everything sour.
Watching me.
‘What do we do?’ The whisper was urgent, as a matter of reflex the guns were all raised and aimed but we all knew how much good they were. ‘You’ll have to tell us, Jess.’
I kept my eyes on the creature in front of me. ‘Look. There’s an ice-cream van abandoned down the path there; we came past it on the way up. Empty out the freezers.’
I don’t know how it was communicated, but two Hunters from the back of the group moved slowly away, peeling off towards the path. The hell-hound didn’t seem to notice. It was watching me. Still.
And now it was getting dark, too. The stone arches of the ruins stood stark against the dying light. The vampires were gathering down by the river. I could feel them and their interest; they’d be able to smell the blood by now.
So quickly that I didn’t see it coming, the hell-hound struck. Snaked forward as though growing through its own skin, bulging towards me and I turned and fled through the limestone eyebrows of St Mary’s with the Hunters at my back, three of them helping the injured Hunters to run. There was another burst of gunfire – you had to hand it to them, they kept trying – and a muffled yell and then we were all running, flat out across the open parkland, heading downhill towards the path where the ice-cream van was innocently parked.
The demon wasn’t fast, it wasn’t particularly agile, but it could dematerialise and reappear anywhere. It could also keep this up all night – forever, if it had to. It was hunting us, herding and chivvying, safe in the knowledge that we were vulnerable, squashy and tasty and I was damned if I’d let some overgrown demonic Labrador finish me off before I’d ever had the chance to own a pair of Jimmy Choos.
‘Here!’ I led the running band into the shelter afforded by the flimsy side of the ice-cream van, where we all collapsed against each other. ‘I thought you lot worked out!’
‘What for?’ A be-suited Hunter wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘We kill. There’s not a lot of working-out you can do to prepare for killing.’
‘Don’t you ever have to chase anything?’
He patted his gun. ‘Ammo does the chasing, not us.’
‘It’s gone.’ One of the more observant Hunters, the Matrix-Trinity-lookalike, I think, was watching round the side of the van. ‘Just, kind of, sank into the earth.’
‘Then it’s moving in the Underworld, coming round in front of us,’ I said.
‘How do you know this stuff?’ Ken Symes, our Visitor from Dorset, was slumped on the other side of me, still wheezing.
‘I watched Buffy,’ I said, shortly. They stared at me. ‘You know, Buffy the Vampire Slayer? TV programme? Teenage girl who fights demons?’
‘Yeeeesss,’ said one of the York Hunters, impeccably dressed but with mud marks on both knees, ‘but we never thought of using it as an instruction video.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Right. We need to be ready. Everyone grab as much ice-cream as they can carry. The big plastic buckets for preference, but lollies will do.’
‘This is a wind-up.’
‘No, this is extemporisation,’ and then I had to add, ‘it means, thinking on your feet. As soon as you see it start to come back up, we need to tip all the ice-cream over the top of it.’
‘What?’
‘Just do it!’
‘There it is!’
The bubbling pool of smoky-black was beginning to rise, trickling up through the earth on our side of the van, and I jumped for it. The others, thankfully, followed, copying me when I emptied the sludgy, half-melted contents of my plastic container over the ground, sloshy yellow foam and chunks of vanilla cascading in a waterfall of rancid lumping.
The earth shrugged aside and the beast burst free, but the running pool of artificial additives, flavouring and colours flowed smoothly over the top. Where it encountered the smoke-like semi-formed lines of the hell-hound it solidified into a sticky entangling web. The creature shook its head, trying to break the bounds, but the stickiness was tying it, binding it, making its insubstantiality into something concrete and solid.
‘Do you carry tranqs?’ A small pistol was passed over someone’s shoulder and I fired the unfamiliar weapon into the neck of the hell-hound, once, twice, until I felt the creature stop struggling and go limp. ‘Mr Whippy, one, hell-hounds, nil.’ Someone at the back applauded. ‘We tied it to the earth.’ I was surprised at how strong my voice sounded. ‘They can’t fight that. You’ll need to call Enforcement to deal with it now, but make it quick because once the ice-cream has dried it will go all stiff and they’ll never get it in the van.’
