Her Vampyrrhic Heart (24 page)

With the heel of his hand, he wiped his eyes. ‘Made out of stone? Yes, you're right. Turning my heart to stone was the only way of surviving what happened to Nicola. That's what it felt like … it seemed like I gradually exchanged one living cell for one cold splinter of rock. If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have had the guts to stay here, living alone. And I'm determined to be here, because I've convinced myself that one day there'll be a knock at the door … I'll open it and find Nicola standing there.' He shook his head grimly. ‘What a stupidly impossible fantasy … Nicola comes back; we live happily ever after? Yup, I'm living a lie, aren't I?'

‘No more stupidly impossible than my dying mother meeting my vampire father.' Smiling, she kissed him on the cheek. ‘Perhaps we only have to believe hard enough, and it will happen.'

‘You mean, you're hoping for some kind of miracle tonight?' He smiled back, wanting to believe with all his heart that she might be right.

‘Let's make it happen, Tom. After all, what have either of us got to lose?'

They made the coffee together. After that, they went back to the room where the fire blazed so brightly it seemed as if a piece of the sun occupied the fireplace. Mrs Valko sat in the armchair, perhaps daydreaming about the time she met a handsome, blue-eyed man from a faraway valley. Tom and June sat side-by-side on the sofa, where they both gazed into the fire without speaking. After a while, June reached out and held his hand. Whatever tonight would bring – good, bad, miraculous or evil – they'd face it together as friends and allies.

T
he war is coming … the battle's getting nearer. Soon you'll have to fight for your life.
The words pounded through Jez Pollock's head as he paced his bedroom that Monday evening. He didn't know exactly what form the battle would take, but an instinct for danger (perhaps bordering on paranoia) warned him that trouble was on its way. Every sound made him rush to the window. The police would come soon. They'd take him away; blame him for causing the accident.
But I didn't do it. The accident wasn't my fault.
He took another swallow of vodka. The drugs and alcohol were cooking together in his stomach. Flashes of scarlet exploded behind his eyes. His arm hurt. Why didn't the painkillers work? He picked up the packet, debating whether to take another one. A car door slammed. He scrambled to the window and wiped furiously at the condensation, not even aware that he used the arm with the cast; it clattered loudly against the glass. COPS! He angled his head to look downwards. The car pulled away from the front of the house. No … not cops. It was the Volvo belonging to Ken Hughes who owned the neighbouring farm.

Jez sent a text to Owen.
Arm hurts so much I want to cut it off.
Quickly, he fumbled another painkiller out of the pack, swallowed it, then chased the pill down with a gulp of voddy. The sense of panic grew worse. By tomorrow, he'd be in police custody, he was certain. All the other kids would be going to school, while he, Jez Pollock, sat in a police cell. Even though he didn't realize he'd done it until he'd hit send, he'd texted Owen again.
Cops will put me in jail. Didn't crash into bus. Honest.
Straight away, he sent another text to Kit Bolter:
There's a monster out there. Smacked the truck into it.

Footsteps sounded outside his door. He lay down on the bed, pretending to sleep.

His father stepped into the bedroom. ‘Jez. Jez?'

‘Uh?'

‘I didn't want to wake you, but we have to go out.'

‘Where?'

‘Ken Hughes called round. There's a problem with the milking machine. Your mother and I are going to help him flush the pipes, otherwise we won't be able to milk the herds tomorrow.'

‘OK.' Jez lay on his side with his back to his father, hugging the vodka bottle to his stomach so his father wouldn't see.

‘We don't want to leave you alone, son. Do you want to come with us?'

‘I'm fine.'

‘How's the arm?'

‘Hurts.'

‘You could sit in the car while we clean up the milking machine?'

‘No. I want to get some sleep.'

‘That sounds like a good idea. Can I get you some more milk?'

‘Shit, no.'

His father sighed. ‘I don't blame you for swearing, son. If I were you I'd be using some real humdingers of words.'

‘I love you, Dad.'

‘What's that, son? I didn't catch what you said.'

‘Nothing.' Jez pressed his face into the pillow.

His father told him that they'd be gone for an hour or so. Once again he told Jez that he hated leaving him alone. A little while later, Jez's mother and father drove away down the lane. The milking depot lay half a mile away. Jez accepted that farming often involved crisis management. There were always fences to fix, sick animals to treat or machinery to be repaired. Getting the milking equipment working again by tomorrow would be vital. The cows would suffer if the milk couldn't be drawn out of their udders.

Yes, absolutely. Jez accepted the facts of a hard farming life. What he couldn't accept were the police pointing accusing fingers at innocent people – and he was definitely innocent. Jez began to pace the room again as tension began to build. Pains raced through his arm – white hot bullets of agony. His heart pounded.
The war is coming … the battle's getting nearer. Soon you'll have to fight for your life
. But who would he fight? Who was the enemy? The enemy had to be the cops. Stood to reason. If he hadn't swallowed all those painkillers, washed down by vodka, and if his mind wasn't still ripped up by shock, he'd have used the word
paranoia
to describe his mental state right now. Paranoia: the irrational belief that you are being persecuted; the loopy conviction that people are out to get you.

Jez Pollock, however, had a gut feeling that something bad was headed this way. A vicious enemy. An enemy determined to hurt him. An enemy dedicated to making his life hell. In the midst of this mental turmoil, he identified the enemy as the police.

That was why he went downstairs to find his father's pump-action shotgun. As he climbed the stairs back to his bedroom he fed cartridges into the weapon. The cast on his arm made it difficult, but he persevered and eventually managed to load that satisfyingly heavy instrument of death.

Sweating, unsteady on his feet, he felt a delirious sense of excitement. ‘OK … Jez Pollock is ready for war. I'm waiting for you …' He grinned as he stood there swaying, with the gun pointing at the window. ‘Come and get me, cops … come and get me, if you dare.'

A
t the same moment that Jez Pollock stood aiming the gun at the window, waiting for his own personal war to start, Kit Bolter pulled on his boots, coat and fleece hat. Kit was just about to leave the warmth of the kitchen and go for a walk with his girl. OK, so it was dark out there; it was snowing; his girl was a monster; she'd begged him to help her die … but he felt as if he'd left the real world behind. Normal rules no longer applied. Mentally, he'd crossed over a boundary to where the impossible would become possible.
No – the impossible will become inevitable!

His phone chirped. Freya looked quizzically at the device in his hand as he checked the text that Jez had sent:
There's a monster out there. Smacked the truck into it.

Kit knew that Jez had suffered intense psychological shock due to the accident. What's more, Kit had seen how the strong painkillers had affected his friend, sending him trippy to say the least. However, Kit wouldn't dismiss the text about the monster. Because here he stood in the kitchen with a woman in a summer dress who had skin as white as milk. Black veins wormed under the skin of her throat. Somehow she could walk through the snow barefoot, too, and not be affected by the intense cold. If this unearthly creature could be here with him, then perhaps Jez really had crashed the truck into a monster.

Freya seemed so interested in the phone that he held it out. She took the device with those uncannily white fingers. Even the nails were bluish white. She studied the text on-screen. ‘It's a television,' she murmured in astonishment. ‘A tiny television.'

‘You can watch stuff on it like films,' he said. ‘It's also a phone, and you can access the Internet, play games, take photographs, read books.'

‘A phone? Where is the wire?'

‘Doesn't need one.'

‘There's no dial.'

‘You just touch the screen.' He showed her how the phone worked as she held it; her fingers were ice cold. ‘See. There's a video clip of my friends. We were at a burger place in Whitby.'

Those colourless eyes, with the fierce black pupils, scrutinized a pair of teenagers squirting ketchup all over their fries, while they laughed and joked. Kit smiled. The way she seemed so astonished by the phone pleased him. He'd impressed her, that felt good.

‘Are there more of these machines?' she asked, ‘Or is this your invention?'

‘My invention?' He laughed. ‘Everybody has phones like these. You can buy them from supermarkets, and from all kinds of places.'

‘It must be valuable.'

‘Not really. Wait … you haven't seen one of these phones before, have you?'

‘No.'

‘Where have you been for the last million decades?' He spoke jokingly, forgetting for a moment that Freya wasn't like any girl he'd met … or like any human being he'd met, come to that.

She pressed her lips together. ‘I want to hurt you. Remember when I attacked you out in the yard? Well, that feeling – that urge – is still there.' The black veins in her neck began to pulsate as if her heartbeat quickened. ‘I have to fight my instincts. It would be so nice to break open your skin and taste your blood.' Her respiration grew louder. ‘That is why I want you to help me die. I need to be set free of this curse.' She gripped his wrist with such force he grunted in pain. ‘But you won't help me die, will you?'

He shook his head. ‘You know that's impossible. I'd never hurt you, Freya.'

‘You wouldn't be hurting me, you'd be saving me.'

‘Don't ask me to help you commit suicide.'

‘You don't understand what I am.'

‘I know that I like you. I've never met anyone like you before.'

She gave a grim smile. ‘I hope you will never meet anyone like me again.'

‘Don't say that, Freya.'

‘When you look at me, what do you see?'

‘You are beautiful.'

‘No, Kit. Look at my eyes; they're not exactly human, are they? I come to you at night barefoot in the snow. You show me that little machine that's a television and a phone and a camera and goodness knows what else. Why do you think I've never seen one of those things before?'

‘I don't know.'

‘It's because I stopped being a living eighteen-year-old girl in 1965. I hated this valley so I ran away to London. Then I started to notice changes in my skin and my eyes. Gradually, I began to transform into what I am now. I'd invoked the Bekk curse. Do you understand?'

‘I don't want to understand,' he growled. ‘You're special. I like being with you. That's enough, isn't it?'

Just for a second, colour flooded back into her eyes. They became a bright, sparkling blue. That was when she kissed him on the cheek.

Freya gave a melancholy sigh. ‘Kit, there are things you should know about me.'

‘For as long as you want to talk, I'll listen.'

‘You are such a lovely, kind boy.' She rested her hand on his arm. ‘It will be easier for you if I show you things that you can see with your own eyes. Then you'll begin to understand.'

‘Then show me.'

She hesitated, a worried expression appearing on her face. ‘You will see extraordinary things. Some will frighten you.'

‘I'm still coming with you, Freya.' He collected a torch from a shelf. ‘Because the more I learn about you the more I'll be able to help. And that doesn't involve killing you, OK?'

Smiling, she took his hand in hers. They stepped out of the house, and then she led him by the hand through the falling snow to the forest.

She murmured, ‘After you've seen what's out there, you'll change your mind. You'll understand that my death will be a blessing.'

Once again, Kit Bolter's instincts told him he'd left the natural world behind. Somehow, this realm of ancient oak and frozen earth would be a place of both wonder and terror. Whatever lay behind this mysterious veil of trees would change his life for ever. He was certain of that fact.

OK, here goes …
A moment later the darkness swallowed them.
Whatever happens now, there's no turning back.

‘W
hat are you going to show me?' Kit asked Freya as they walked through the forest.

‘You'll see them soon enough.'

‘Them?'

She didn't answer, so Kit allowed himself to be led by the hand. Here beneath the trees the night was as black as it could get. He made out enormous oaks standing there – ancient giants that presided over this wilderness. Snow falling through branches had formed patches of white on the ground. He could see little more than that – in fact, it was so dark Freya had become a silhouette. Even though he had brought the flashlight he held off from using it. Being together in darkness brought a sense of intimacy.

What Freya had told him just a few moments ago restlessly circled his mind. She'd claimed she didn't know about modern phone technology. Furthermore, she'd claimed that something had happened to her in 1965 that had turned her into this … this …
No
, Kit told himself,
I can't bring myself to call Freya a creature.
Just then, moonlight broke through the cloud. There she was: a beautiful woman, with a delicately boned face, and the thick Rapunzel plait hanging forward over her shoulder. He'd put her age at no more than eighteen. So if she had been eighteen in 1965 then whatever affected her had stopped the ageing process.