His Vampyrrhic Bride (23 page)

Danby-Mask receded behind him. Ahead, trees arched over the roadway. Thick banks of cloud were turning the day into a strange-looking realm that lingered between light and darkness. His mouth was so dry it felt like he’d eaten a handful of dust.

He murmured: ‘Nicola . . . I’m coming for you. Hang on.’

Driving to Skanderberg, Nicola’s home, wouldn’t be possible. No roads led to the house. Instead, he decided to follow the forest tracks. He knew of one which would take him within a quarter of a mile of the house. The rest of the way could be done quickly enough on foot. Very quickly. Because he knew that he’d run like a hare to reach the place.

Tom turned off the main road on to the forest track. Wet mud sprayed from the tyres as he accelerated. The entire car wiggled from side to side. The slimy gloop that passed for a road surface wouldn’t allow the rubber treads a proper grip. Nevertheless, he continued to push uphill through the trees. Here, the forest was a dark place. Roe deer flitted through the gloom. Every so often, he caught a glimpse of their startled dark eyes as they watched the noisy mechanical intruder roar past.

At the top of the hill there was a small clearing in the forest.

‘No. I don’t believe it. No, no!’ Tom braked hard, bringing the car to a sliding stop.

In seconds, he’d scrambled out of the seat. He didn’t believe the sight that met his eyes. From up here he could see the curve of the swollen river. He should also have been able to see the red tiles of Nicola’s cottage.

He didn’t see the roof. He didn’t see the strange, ancient walls of the building. No, what he saw, rising forbiddingly into the sky, was a tower of black.

I’m too late
. He stared in horror at a pyramid of fire that occupied the clearing where Skanderberg should have sat.

Suddenly, Tom pictured Nicola and her mother lying dead in the place.
Bolter killed them. Then he set fire to the house. He threatened to hurt Nicola, didn’t he?

Emotional shock hit Tom so powerfully that he stumbled backwards until he struck the car. He stood there, panting, his eyes locked on the inferno. In his mind’s eye, he could see a sorrowful scatter of bones across a bedroom floor; a fleshless skull, flames jetting from its empty sockets.

An explosion detonated inside Tom’s own head. Somehow he found himself in the car. He was driving again. He didn’t know where, and he was screaming at the top of his voice. ‘I’ll kill you! You’re dead! You’re dead! I’m going to RIP YOU APART!’

The car roared downhill, back towards the main road.
This is war. I’m going to kill Bolter. I’m going to rip him apart bit by bit . . .

He entered a dark tunnel formed by trees that completely arched over the dirt track. Tom’s screams of fury fused with that of the engine. The trees blurred, he was travelling so fast.

Then –
BANG!
A white disk slammed into the side window next to his shoulder. An impression of staring eyes, a wild mass of hair, an open mouth locked into a desperate scream.

Tom braked so hard he nearly flipped the car end over end.

Jesus, what was that?

He twisted back in the seat, looking through the rear window, convinced he’d just run down a human being.

Nothing there . . . just furrows where wheels had churned the mud.

BANG!

He turned forwards again to see a fist smashing against the window.

Bolter . . . if that’s Bolter I’ll kill him!
Before he could even reach the handle, the figure on the other side of the door had wrenched it open.

The next second he was looking into a pair of wide eyes.

‘Mrs Bekk?’ He stared at the woman.

She was more like a wild, elemental apparition than a flesh and blood human being. Her white hair stuck out from her head in long spikes, almost like the spokes of a wheel. Her clothes were rumpled, flecked with leaves. Her feet were covered with mud. She must have been running through the forest as if demons had been chasing her.

‘Mrs Bekk, are you alright?’

‘There was a man from the village,’ she panted. ‘I know him. I know his family. Bolter. Our families have been enemies for hundreds of years.

‘Mrs Bekk—’

‘It was a Bolter that killed my grandfather in 1932.’

‘He set fire to your house, didn’t he?’

She nodded. ‘Skanderberg will be rebuilt. Those devils from Danby-Mask have burned it down before.’

Tom scrambled out of the car. ‘Where’s Nicola? What’s happened to her?’

‘This is your fault. If you hadn’t been pawing after her, this would never have happened.’

He grabbed her by her shoulders. He felt thin bones under her skin. ‘Where is she, Mrs Bekk?’

The blue eyes that were uncanny duplicates of Nicola’s gazed out from beneath the heavy eyelids. She’d stiffened. He’d even felt her muscles harden under the skin of her shoulders. This wiry creature could be a fighter when she wanted to be.

He took his hands away. ‘Please, Mrs Bekk,’ he begged. ‘Tell me what happened to Nicola.’

The woman pressed her lips together. She slowly shook her head.

‘I love your daughter. I really do love her.’

When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly tender. ‘You can’t, son. You can’t love her. She can never be your bride.’

He glanced at the black smoke rolling over the trees. ‘Is she hurt?’ His heart lurched and his blood ran cold. ‘Is she still alive?’

Mrs Bekk lifted her blue eyes to meet his. She held his gaze for a moment. The woman seemed to be reading the real thoughts inside his head. Mrs Bekk sighed as she seemed to realize he genuinely cared for her daughter. ‘Yes, son. She’s still alive. But you can’t grasp what will become of her if you continue this courtship, can you?’

‘All I want right now is to make sure she’s safe.’

‘When Nicola realized the flood was coming she went to your house to warn you.’

‘I haven’t been there all day! I was in the village when the river burst its banks.’

Mrs Bekk spoke softly: ‘Then if she’s not at Mull-Rigg Hall, she’ll be trying to find you. Because I can tell: Nicola does love you.’ She suddenly gripped his wrist. ‘There’s another fact you should know:
you’re the first boy she’s ever loved.
’

Tom nodded at the car. ‘Get in. We’ll find her together.’

Within seconds, he thundered down the track towards Mull-Rigg Hall. He thought about Nicola desperately searching for him. And he thought about Bolter on his mission to hurt Nicola.

Tom couldn’t help but wonder what he’d find when he finally reached home.

A
fter hurtling through the driveway gates, Tom skidded to a stop outside the front door. Within seconds, he’d run round the back of Mull-Rigg Hall. Tom had been seized by the wild notion that he’d find Nicola paddling in the spring-water pool again, wearing a broad, happy smile. Instead, he found the back lawn to be deserted. There wasn’t a soul in the orchard – just those apple trees, which forlornly dripped rainwater. Tom raced back to the driveway to find Mrs Bekk climbing out of the car; she gazed up at the bedroom windows as if expecting to see her daughter’s face there.

Quickly, he unlocked the door and ran inside. Mrs Bekk followed. She moved slowly, the expression on her face said all too starkly:
I knew this would happen. You’ve brought calamity on yourself. You should have kept away from my daughter. Now you’re going to suffer.

What was uppermost in Tom’s mind was this:
find Nicola. Bolter might know where she is. He could be following her. Then again, he might already have her.

‘Nicola!’ he shouted, though he knew she couldn’t possibly be in the house. The doors were all locked when he left that morning.

Then he almost threw himself at the telephone. If Nicola couldn’t reach him on his phone – after all, it had been stolen by Bolter – she might have used the landline. He hit the play button of the answer machine. The message played over the speaker so Mrs Bekk heard every word. And every word made Tom sick to the stomach.

‘Hello, Tom.’ The voice belonged to his mother. ‘Tom. We’ve just heard from the builder; he’s told us that it’s best if no one’s living in the house when he strips off the roof tiles. So Dad and I have decided that you should come home and live here with us until the job’s finished; we still have plenty of time before the lease expires and we have to move out. We’ll pick you up tomorrow morning at ten. We’re sorry to spring this on you at short notice. But you’ll realize it’s for the best if—’

Tom stabbed the off button, killing the voice dead. Then he stared at the telephone with nothing less than fury. His parents had fired him from working here. Now they’d schemed up a nice little way to force him out of the house and back to their home, which lay over a hundred miles away.

Mrs Bekk read the expression on his face. ‘Your parents don’t want you to have anything to do with Nicola either, do they?’

‘If Nicola and me want to see each other . . . if we want to get married . . . then it’s entirely up to us. You’re not going to stop us. My parents can’t stop us. Nobody will stop us! OK?’

Mrs Bekk wore an expression of gentle sympathy. ‘But something will stop you from spending your life with Nicola.’

‘No, they won’t. I’ll fight anyone over this. Just send them to me.’ Rage boiled in his veins. ‘I won’t let them beat me.’

‘There are greater powers than you can imagine at work on Nicola . . . Tom, I need to explain some things to you.’

He stubbornly shook his head. ‘I’m going to find Nicola.’

‘She might have gone to the village to find you. I’ll come along and tell you what you need to know. Then you’ll realize that there never can be a wedding.’

F
ind Nicola. Find her now.
The consequences of not finding Nicola filled him with dread.

Tom Westonby pushed the car hard. Huge oak trees stretched their branches across the road, giving the impression the car plunged through a gloomy tunnel as he headed back to Danby-Mask.

In the space of thirty minutes, he’d discovered that Bolter had torched the ancient cottage, and now he drove with Mrs Bekk by his side. The woman appeared remarkably calm. Her house had gone up in flames. All those impossible-to-replace treasures would be destroyed – family photographs, and the important souvenirs which mothers collect as their children grow: that lock of silky-fine baby hair, the first drawing brought back from school, Mother’s Day cards – all gone. Maybe she had more substantial problems on her mind? Ones far, far bigger than the loss of her home.

Tom left the vast forest behind, with its thousands of trees, which created such a mysterious wilderness. Here, meadows flanked the road. A lone black and white cow watched him hurtle past.

He glanced at Mrs Bekk as she calmly gazed ahead. To his surprise, he realized how much Nicola resembled her mother. Yes, Mrs Bekk’s hair was white now, rather than the pale blonde of Nicola’s, yet she had the same clear blue eyes and delicate features.

When Mrs Bekk spoke she was perfectly in control of her emotions. Again, a voice like Nicola’s: so pleasant on his ear. There was a kindness there. A thoughtfulness – as if she’d decided the time had come to be both open and honest with her daughter’s boyfriend. ‘What I told you of our family history is true, you know? My ancestors were Vikings. They travelled by longship from Denmark to this part of England over a thousand years ago. They weren’t like the Vikings in films. They didn’t have horned helmets; they never rampaged through the countryside, burning down monasteries. The fact is, they loved their families, and because there was famine in Denmark they were driven here to Yorkshire to start a new life. See how fertile it is? How green those fields are? My ancestors made the dangerous journey across the North Sea in an open boat, because this place was their last hope to save their children from starvation.’

Tom said, ‘I grew up in parts of Africa where children die because they don’t have clean water. There are still millions of parents today who struggle to keep their children from starving.’

Mrs Bekk nodded. ‘I believe you have a good heart, Tom.’

‘So you’ll appreciate I want to make Nicola happy?’

‘Yes, but you’re also headstrong.’

‘How come?’

‘You don’t realize that as you try to give Nicola a good life you’ll be destroying her.’

He turned a bend in the road to see Danby-Mask in the valley below. Or, rather, what remained of it. The scene was strangely beautiful. There was a sense of peace – even if it was the deathly peace after the life had gone out of something, whether it be a human body, or in this case a community. Sunlight transformed the floodwaters into a smooth sheet of gold that glowed so brightly that Tom was dazzled. Set in that vast, shining lake were roofs covered with dark red tiles. The effect was of rubies studding a gigantic slab of gold.

The sight was so amazing that it nearly cost Tom and his passenger their lives. A line of tractors straddled the narrow road. With no room to pass, he had to crush down on the brake pedal. Then hope for the best. With a piercing shriek of rubber grazing the tarmac, the car slid to a stop. Even when it seemed likely he’d slam into the back end of the slow-moving convoy, Mrs Bekk remained uncannily calm.

Tom had to make a real physical effort to uncurl his fingers from the steering wheel after the car had stopped. ‘Where the hell is that convoy going?’

‘When there’s a flood the local farmers help the people in the village. Families load their possessions – and then themselves – on to the back of the trailers. After that, the tractors take them out of the flood to high ground.’

‘Which means we’re now stuck.’

‘That means I have a proper chance to talk to you.’

‘But I need to get to the village! I must find Nicola.’

‘We’ll still get there,’ she said. ‘Believe me, Tom, we really do need to talk. This is important.’

Tom eased the car forwards at ten miles an hour. Tractors, hauling flatbed trailers, snaked along the highway. He couldn’t overtake them, and he knew he couldn’t honk the farmers to the side. If he did so, as they executed their mission of mercy, they’d simply give what they took to be an impatient idiot a cold, pitying glance, then ignore his frenzied honking. So he’d have to muster his patience, then follow the dignified procession.