Her Vampyrrhic Heart (12 page)

The framed poster showed a beautiful woman and a handsome, strong-jawed man standing face-to-face with the silhouette of Whitby's ruined abbey behind them. Searchlights picked out planes in the sky. Bold letters proclaimed:

THE MIDNIGHT REALM

Starring Beth Layne, George Crofton & Sally Wainwright

~ Written & Directed by Alec Reed ~

‘They defied terror from the skies!!!'

‘Is that your grandmother on the poster?' Tom asked.

‘Beth Layne.' The woman nodded. ‘She moved to Hollywood in the 1950s to appear in a television crime series. It ran for over ten years. Ah … there she blows.' Freshly brewed coffee trickled from a chrome sprout. ‘It always worked faster when Electra was in charge. But we finally got there.'

‘Thank you.' Tom handed over the money. He knew he hadn't thanked her for the coffee alone; he'd been grateful to occupy this bright, normal world for a while with a friendly human being. Five years of living a solitary life as a recluse isn't healthy. He realized that fact, just as he realized that as a twenty-eight-year-old he should be living life to the full. But he felt to the depths of his heart that somewhere out there was Nicola. One day he'd find her. He'd bring her back home. That was a certainty.

The manageress said she'd take the food order in a few minutes, and vanished back through the door. Tom stood at the counter, sipped his coffee and relished the normality of it all: being in this warm room with its seats upholstered in red velvet made such a pleasant change from the rustic stonework of the cottage. The sounds of people laughing and enjoying one another's company drifted from the main bar. He savoured the conviviality of the place. The friendly atmosphere. The air of genteel comfort. This world was far away from his world of vampires and a savage monster created by embittered and vengeful gods.

Tom Westonby glanced out of the window. Dark clouds gathered there. They were ominous, somehow dangerous-looking. Already the forces of nature were getting ready to inflict a withering storm. Tom sensed that there were other forces at work, too. These were definitely
not
natural. They were the supernatural entities that occupied their own realm parallel to this one. The gut feeling that dangerous times lay ahead filled him with a sense of foreboding. In his mind's eye, he could see Death getting ready to step into his world once more. But who would Death claim this time? June Valko? His brother, Owen? Or would he, Tom Westonby, feel its icy hand upon his heart?

At three o'clock June Valko walked into the room. He nodded and she nodded back. They had no need for small-talk. The time had come to plan what they'd do next.

Hail struck the windows. The falling ice sounded as if Death itself tapped on the glass pane with fingers of bone. The breeze blew harder, drawing a long, sobbing cry from the chimney pots. Tom Westonby shivered. The real horror was just about to begin …

J
une Valko sat facing him across the table. The pair were alone in the hotel lounge bar. Despite it only being only a shade after three o'clock on that Saturday afternoon, darkness had already engulfed the town.

Tom asked, ‘Would you like a drink?'

‘I ordered in the other bar, but thanks anyway.' She leaned forward, plaiting her fingers together on the table as if about to say a prayer. ‘Tom, I've been thinking. You shouldn't go back home. That house in the woods is too isolated.'

‘I have to be there.'

‘Why?'

That's when he told her in more detail about Nicola, and about what happened five years ago. How he'd first met Nicola after seeing her barefoot in the garden pond at his parents' house. Following that there had been a hurricane of a relationship. June listened carefully when he explained that Nicola's mother had revealed the history of the Bekk family, and the fact that any Bekk moving out of the area or marrying a partner who didn't worship the pagan Viking gods would trigger an ancient curse. Then had come the most horrific part: Tom described Nicola's transformation from a beautiful, healthy woman into a vampire after their wedding on the night of the flood.

He said, ‘Nicola's skin turned unnaturally white, the veins on her neck stood out in dark lines, like roads on a map. The colour bleached out of her eyes, so they were just plain white. The pupils remained, but they became these strange, fierce black dots that were so alien-looking.' He shivered. ‘Nicola said she must leave me, because she was frightened of losing self-control. You see, what scared her most was realizing that she'd eventually see me as prey, and that she'd attack me.'

‘What happened next?'

‘The flood water had surrounded the church where we'd been stranded all night. Meanwhile, Nicola's transformation was accelerating. At any moment she might have attacked me.' He gazed through the window without even seeing the street outside. Instead, memory pulled him down into that terrible graveyard of the mind, where horrific memories lie buried – but they're never buried quite deep enough. All too easily they can rise up to cause torment and pain. In his mind's eye, he saw his bride waiting anxiously at the edge of the floodwaters as she desperately called out to Helsvir. ‘Do you remember the carving in my house? The one of the creature called Helsvir? According to legend he was created by the Viking gods to protect the Bekk family. Nicola wanted the creature to take her away. She realized she had to travel to some place from which she couldn't easily return. Because if she did come back she might not be able to stop herself from hurting me … or even turning me into one of those creatures you saw last night.' He gave a melancholy smile. ‘I wouldn't mind becoming one of those things. At least I'd be with Nicola. In fact, we could be together for ever. We'd be immortal.' His mouth went dry. ‘That's what I need, June. To be with Nicola. I don't want to be alone any more. Being there in the cottage by myself is a living death.'

June reached across the table, took his hands in hers, and squeezed them – a gesture of absolute compassion. He felt her sympathy and the warmth of her humanity. And after not holding hands with another human being for so long he thought the emotion would shatter him.

‘I'm sorry for taking so long.' A young waitress hurried in with a glass of orange juice. ‘It's the Christmas shoppers. We're rushed off our feet. Would you like to order your meal?'

‘Hungry?' he handed June a menu.

‘Food's fuel,' she replied. ‘Something tells me we'll need to keep our strength up.'

The waitress suspected that they had erotic activity in mind, because her cheeks went pink. ‘Today's special is a casserole made with black pudding.'

‘Black pudding?' June echoed.

‘Black pudding is a kind of thick sausage,' explained the waitress. ‘It's made from blood – pig's blood, I think.'

‘Blood pudding.' Tom shuddered as the notion of blood cuisine sank in. ‘No thanks. I'm not a vampire yet.'

The waitress chuckled politely at the joke. He found himself laughing as well. Such a strange laugh, too. It had its origins so deep inside him that his stomach muscles seemed to be shaking the laughter free. Soon he laughed so hard that tears rolled down his face, and then he realized he wasn't laughing at all. He wept for the girl he loved. He wept at the frustration of not being able to find Nicola again – even though he suspected that sometimes she was near to him. Sometimes hidden in a shadow of a tree, perhaps, or the inky darkness of the river, or even the night time cry of a fox.

Before the waitress realized that his laughter had turned to grief he wiped his eyes, and said, ‘June, what would you like?'

June met his gaze and understood what he was really feeling. ‘I'll steer clear of the vampire special, although I'm sure it's delicious. Uhm … mushroom pizza, please.'

Tom brought his voice under control. ‘The Leppington Premier Burger. Thanks.'

The waitress tapped the order on to a tablet. ‘Do you want slaw, fries and extra bacon?'

Tom smiled. ‘Why not?' Outside, clouds of hail swept by the window – a parade of deathly, white ghosts. ‘I'll have a pint of Black Dog ale, too. And would you let them know at reception that I'll be booking a room for tonight?'

The waitress left them alone again. June's electric blue eyes were bright as she stared at him, as if wondering what this brooding man with all that volcanic, pent-up emotion was planning.

‘You're going to stay the night?' she asked. ‘Here, at the hotel?'

He nodded. ‘We've lots to talk about. Besides, I was going to ask you to do me a favour.'

‘Oh?' Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, I see … at least I think I do …'

K
it Bolter returned to the house he shared with his mother. Hailstones stung his face, which made him even angrier. Why had Owen brought that girl? Kit had been unable to concentrate on his forensic examination of the area where Owen had found the camera pod. Kit had played gooseberry to Owen and Eden Taylor: the bottom line was he felt so uncomfortable with the girl making goo-goo eyes at Owen.

When hailstones slammed into his eyes they made them water.

‘Damn it, Owen, you went and ruined the afternoon.' He hunched his shoulders against the cold. ‘She'll be telling her friends about us … they'll be laughing.'

Kit had found some interesting clues. But Owen hadn't given a crap. All he'd wanted to do was talk to Eden. Kit shook his head. This afternoon should have been great. The two of them exploring and finding those fascinating marks on the trees where something huge had scraped away the bark. Angrily, he kicked open the gate. His mother stared out of the window at him; her eyes were vacant, and he wasn't even sure if she realized that her son was there.

Normally, Kit Bolter would do anything to protect his friendship with Owen, but bringing that smirking girl on their own private adventure had been a stab in the back. So he made a decision.
I'm going to confront Owen. I wasn't going to do this, but he's forced my hand. I'll tell him that there are rumours that Tom Westonby killed my uncle. What's more, some people are saying he murdered Nicola Bekk and hid her body. Let's see what Owen Westonby has to say about that.

Kit pushed aside any suspicion that he was becoming overwrought, or even irrational.
No, Owen's brought this on himself.
Kit couldn't wait to see the expression on Owen's face when he said,
Hey. Didn't your brother kill my uncle?
Or would it have a more devastating impact if he said:
Owen, I heard your brother murdered his girlfriend?

Whichever accusation he went with first would be fantastic. Owen would be so shocked that he wouldn't give Eden Taylor a second thought. SHOW TIME!!!

I
n the Station Hotel, Tom and June ate their meal in the lounge bar. After that they talked. They discussed the attack on Tom again, and how he'd nearly been drowned by the menacing figure. Tom also explained that he'd discovered how the vampires had cut the electricity to the cottage. Not that there was much of a mystery attached to that particular incident – the electric meter was fixed to a wall outside the property. There was also a mains power switch. The vampire had simply flipped the switch and plunged the cottage into darkness. Tom had rectified the situation by flicking it back into the ‘on' position again.

June had brought a hefty file stuffed with documents and photographs. Those electric blue eyes of hers earnestly studied pictures of her father. These were taken in happier times – in some of them he stood alongside a dark-skinned woman who was pregnant with June.

June scrutinized a photograph. ‘I'm trying to find a resemblance to the man who attacked you and who climbed down the chimney.'

‘Do you see any resemblance?'

‘Just when I think I do …' she sighed. ‘That's when I tell myself I can because I want to believe it was my father.'

‘The first time it was dark when we were on the river bank, the second time he was surrounded by fire. It'd be a tough call to identify anyone in circumstances like those.'

June went to the bar and came back with another beer for him and a large white wine for her. ‘What's been really worrying me, Tom, is what if you're attacked again? You're alone out there in the forest.'

‘Your being there was the trigger.'

‘They … those vampires … let's not be shy about using the word. Those vampires have never done anything like this before?'

‘Not to me. They're elusive. I don't think anyone's seen them apart from me in recent years. They tend to haunt the wood, for the want of a better word. They don't move, don't say anything, and I keep well away from them.'

‘You see other members of the Bekk family, but never Nicola?'

‘I've glimpsed her once or twice, or believed I have, which might not be the same thing.'

‘So you really believe I triggered the attack?'

He sipped the beer. ‘I'm certain you're the trigger. Your father believed I was attacking you in the forest, some residual instinct to protect his daughter kicked in, and
wham
! I ended up face down in the water.'

‘Even if he was my father, he couldn't know what I look like.'

‘He'd have sensed you. Maybe he knew you share the same blood as him, or at least a percentage of it. They might not be the usual kind of vampires you see in films but, believe me, those guys have powers we can only dream about.'

‘So, will you stay away from the house? At least for the time being?'

‘If you're not there, those vampires will return to normal – or what's normal for them. Inert. Harmless.'

She looked him in the eye. ‘But what if you're wrong?'