The Reformed Vampire Support Group (17 page)

‘What do you think?’ I asked, in hushed tones. ‘Do you think Father Ramon’s trick worked?’

I was referring to the priest’s fake homicide scenario. Dave must have understood that, because he shrugged.

‘I dunno,’ he softly replied. ‘Maybe.’

‘Except that we don’t have our mobiles,’ I fretted. ‘Why would he have taken them away?’

Dave didn’t answer; he was already crawling towards the only exit, leaving a dim tangle of rope and fabric behind him. As I groped around for my sunglasses (which seemed to have vanished, along with my phone), he gave one of the doors a tentative push.

To my utter astonishment, it swung open.

‘Shit!’ Dave jerked back, sucking air through his teeth. All at once he was silhouetted against a silver-gilt landscape of stones
and saltbush. My heart sank when I saw the corner of a tin shed. Our van was still parked where we’d left it.

‘Shh,’ Dave warned, placing a finger to his lips. He thrust his head outside, glancing around with great caution. At last he gave me a thumbs-up.

When I hesitated, he beckoned urgently.

‘Quick!’ he muttered. ‘Before anyone sees us!’

‘But where are you going?’ I was confused. ‘Isn’t Father Ramon supposed to be driving us away? Shouldn’t we be waiting right here?’ Seeing him frown, I added, ‘We were all wrapped up, just like he promised. The plan must have worked.’

‘If the plan had worked, we’d be back home by now,’ Dave retorted, under his breath. ‘And we’d still have our mobile phones.’ He craned his neck once more, scanning our immediate vicinity. ‘I think we should check things out before we decide what to do. Otherwise we might end up making a big mistake.’

He was right. I could see that. So I followed him out of the van and helped him to close the door as quietly as possible. A stiff breeze soughed through the branches of a nearby peppercorn tree, masking the crunch of our footsteps.

Dave put his lips to my ear.

‘I’m going to sneak around and make sure that nobody’s in the driver’s seat,’ he buzzed. ‘You keep an eye out.’ Before I could protest, he was edging along the side of the van, keeping its bright orange bulk between himself and the McKinnons’ kitchen window. I recognised this window because it was all lit up; a golden glow poured through the familiar pineapple-print curtains drawn across it. Apart from the moon, it was the only source of illumination in an area that must have been about half the size of Switzerland.

I was feeling a little woozy at this point. Nevertheless, I had the presence of mind to notice that our van was no longer surrounded
by other vehicles. I could see only a dirty white ute parked nearby, next to a plum-coloured four-wheel drive that fairly bristled with antennae and bullbars. I was trying to memorise the ute’s numberplate when the pineapple-print curtains suddenly disappeared. Someone had snapped off the kitchen light. Within seconds, a screen door banged as Barry and his son emerged from the house, talking loudly.

But by that time I had already ducked out of sight, so I didn’t witness their exit. I only heard it.

My retreat was so abrupt that I ran headlong into Dave, who seized my arm and dragged me behind the tin shed. Though I’m convinced that we must have stepped on loose gravel and dry sticks, we didn’t alert the McKinnons. They were too busy arguing with each other about who was going to drive the van.

In the end, Barry prevailed. He secured the van for himself, while Dermid agreed to drive the ute. Not once was Father Ramon mentioned by either man. As engines fired and doors slammed shut, I pinched Dave’s elbow. I suppose that I was seeking reassurance, but I didn’t get it. The look on his face made my stomach lurch.

Like me, he must have been wondering if Father Ramon was dead.

‘Just wait,’ he whispered. And that’s what we did. We stood there, frozen in the shadows, until our van and the McKinnons’ ute had roared off into the night. Only when the sound of their engines was just a faint and distant hum did we finally emerge from our hiding place.

But even then Dave remained cautious.

‘There might be someone else inside,’ he muttered, squinting towards the house. I did the same.

‘Are we – I mean – do we actually need to go inside?’ I queried. It was little more than a rhetorical question, because I knew we didn’t
have much choice. Father Ramon might still be in the house, along with a phone, or a gun, or even the key to the remaining vehicle.

Outside the house, there was nothing. Nothing as far as the eye could see.

Dave cleared his throat. ‘We’ll arm ourselves,’ he suggested gruffly, stooping to pick up a piece of discarded fence post. ‘You take this. I’ll find something else.’

‘We shouldn’t go in together.’

‘What?’

At long last my brain was beginning to function. ‘We should split up,’ I proposed, in a very small voice. ‘I’ll go to the front door first. If someone’s inside, he’ll be concentrating on the front door—’

‘Which means that I can sneak in the back, through that open window over there.’ Dave didn’t seem to approve of my plan. In the faint wash of moonlight I could easily make out his troubled expression. ‘I dunno, Nina,’ he said. ‘I dunno if we should split up. You’ll be all on your own …’

‘So will you,’ I rejoined. ‘And you must be feeling just as sick as me.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘It’s our best chance.’ I was convinced of this. ‘Anyway, all the lights are off. I don’t think anyone’s inside.’

‘Except maybe Father Ramon,’ Dave mumbled. We exchanged another long, anxious look. Then Dave handed me the fence post.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You try the front door. I’ll find an axe or something, and go round the back. This place is bound to be knee-deep in things you can hurt people with.’

‘Dave?’

‘What?’

I swallowed before speaking. ‘Where do you think the were-wolves are?’ My question hit him like a punch. His whole body
drooped. It was apparent that the werewolves had momentarily slipped his mind.

I felt bad about jogging his memory.

‘They must have changed into people by now,’ I said, making a feeble effort to comfort him. ‘And if they haven’t, they’ll be locked up somewhere. Even Barry McKinnon wouldn’t let them roam around loose.’

‘Oh Christ, Nina.’ Dave put out a hand, propping himself against the corrugated wall of the shed. His voice was ragged. ‘I dunno. I dunno what we’re going to find in there. Maybe we should just start walking.’

‘No.’ That was out of the question. ‘We can’t. It’s too risky. The sun might rise before we get anywhere.’ I took a deep breath, and squared my shoulders. ‘Let’s just get this over with,’ I exhorted, with a courage born of pure desperation. ‘Before Barry comes back.’

I can’t pretend that I waltzed up to the McKinnons’ front door with steely eyes and a kick-ass attitude, like Zadia Bloodstone. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I nearly didn’t make it at all. At one point I froze in my tracks, too scared to take another step. But the thought that Father Ramon might be bleeding to death somewhere underground finally propelled me forward; after a brief, internal struggle, I somehow made myself cross that creaky veranda, and turn that tarnished doorknob.

When the latch clicked, I couldn’t have been more surprised. It had never occurred to me that the McKinnons would drive away
without locking up their house
. Perhaps people in the country are more honest than people in the city. Or perhaps securing your property is the kind of thing that you forget to do, when you’re about to get rid of two human corpses.

I gave the door a gentle shove, wincing as its hinges squealed.

‘Nina?’

If I had died of shock, right then, it would have been Dave’s fault. As it was, I almost fainted. He had armed himself with a shovel, and his big, shaggy, ill-defined figure would have terrified even Zadia Bloodstone.

I suppose he must have been on the point of letting me in.

‘For God’s sake!’ I hissed. ‘You practically gave me a heart attack!’

‘Sorry. The back door was unlocked.’

‘Is anyone here?’

‘Not that I can see.’

‘Have you checked downstairs?’

‘Nope.’

‘What about the bedrooms?’

‘I had a quick look. They’re empty.’

‘Are there any lights on?’

Dave shook his head.

‘Then we’re safe,’ I decided. ‘If you’re a normal person, you don’t walk around in the dark.’

‘Let’s check downstairs,’ he said.

I followed him along a high, dim corridor lit by two dangling bulbs. The rooms that we passed obviously hadn’t been painted (or even cleaned) in years, and they were full of really horrible things: animal skulls, pig-shooting magazines, bloodstained clothes, chewed apple cores. There had been no attempt to match curtains, repair blinds, or make beds.

The whole place smelled bad.

‘Right,’ whispered Dave, upon reaching the kitchen. ‘I’ll check the basement while you stay here and keep watch.’

‘There’s a light on down there.’

‘Yeah. I can see that.’

‘Be careful, Dave.’ My voice cracked; I didn’t want to be left on my own. ‘Don’t open any doors unless you know what’s behind them.’

‘It’s okay,’ he assured me. ‘I’m not brave enough to do anything stupid.’

Then he began to descend the staircase.

My gaze didn’t linger on him. Instead it skipped from the grubby green cupboards to the peeling wallpaper; from an overflowing rubbish bin to a china bowl full of silver bullets. When I spotted the empty wooden knife block, I wondered if I should search the room for a weapon that was slightly more efficient than my fence post.

But I didn’t want to make too much noise, crashing through drawers full of cutlery. The ticking of the clock on the wall was loud enough. What with that, and the sighing of the wind, and the humming of the refrigerator, I found it hard to listen for approaching vehicles.

The sudden swell of a murmured conversation underfoot made my job even more difficult. Though I strained to catch the words, I couldn’t make them out. As far as I could tell, the tone of the dialogue was excited rather than fearful. Nevertheless, my nerves were stretched to breaking point by the time a muffled voice said, ‘
Nina? Are you still up there?
’

‘Dave!’ I cried. ‘Are you okay?’

‘
I sure am
,’ Dave answered. ‘
And so is Father Ramon
.’

I couldn’t even respond to that. My throat closed up as tears sprang to my eyes. It’s funny how things hit you, sometimes: things that knock you sideways because they’re such revelations. The fact that you’re really a vampire, say. Or the fact that you care about someone a great deal, and you didn’t even know it.

The relief that flooded me was so overwhelming that I nearly dropped my fence post, and had to lean against the kitchen table.

‘Nina? What’s wrong?’ Dave’s head had appeared, popping out of the hole in the floor. ‘Are you feeling sick?’

‘No. I’m fine.’ Though I wasn’t, of course. ‘What are we going to do now? Look for a key?’

‘We don’t have to. They didn’t lock the cell door. They just bolted it from the outside.’ Having reached the topmost step, Dave moved aside to make way for Father Ramon. ‘We’d better not turn on any lights, Father. Just in case the McKinnons come back and see them from a distance.’

‘Oh, I don’t think they’ll be coming back anytime soon,’ Father Ramon replied, before he, too, began to emerge from the hole in the floor: first his head, then his shoulders, then his torso. He didn’t look any different; there were no bruises on his face or rips in his clothes, and his thick grey hair was no more dishevelled than usual.

He didn’t see me until I moved towards him.

‘Nina!’ he said with a smile. ‘You’re okay, are you?’

‘Yes. Oh, yes.’ I was about to fling my arms around him when I heard an unexpected creak. And my heart seemed to do a backflip.

Someone else was mounting the stairs behind Father Ramon.

‘
Who’s that?
’ I yelped.

‘Don’t worry. It’s all right.’ The priest stepped forward, inserting himself between me and the stranger. ‘It’s only Reuben.’

My jaw dropped.

‘Reuben won’t hurt you,’ Father Ramon added quickly. ‘He didn’t before, and he won’t now. Reuben – you remember Nina, don’t you? She’s not dead, as you can see. Or maybe you can’t.’ He gave an embarrassed chuckle. ‘I’m afraid it’s a bit dark in here.’

You might be wondering what I did, upon being formally introduced to my very first werewolf. I’m afraid that I didn’t do anything much. I just stared and stared, with my mouth hanging open.

Because Reuben was gorgeous.

It’s a mystery to me how that mangy, skulking, ill-formed beast
from the pit could have turned into such a beautiful boy. Not that he looked particularly well-groomed, or anything – far from it. His clothes were soiled and torn. His fingernails were dirty. Dried blood was smeared across his neck and chest, and was soaking through the bandage that had been wrapped around his left forearm. I doubt that his hair had been cut in years; it was a mane of snarled brown curls that hung down to his shoulders. If he hadn’t been so young, he probably would have been sporting a beard down to his navel, instead of the scrubby growth that covered his chin like moss.

But despite being unkempt, unshaven and thoroughly uncared for, Reuben was still the most stunning guy I’d ever seen. Though he wasn’t very tall, his proportions were perfect. So were his teeth, and his nose, and his high, sculptured cheekbones. He had enormous green eyes ringed by jet-black lashes, and a lean, wiry, muscular build. Though adorned with many scabs and scars, his hands were as finely modelled as his face, with long fingers and strong wrists.

What I most admired about him, however, was his vibrancy. You could tell at a glance that he wasn’t a vampire, because no vampire ever had such a warm olive complexion, or such luminous eyes. No vampire ever moved in such an energetic way, as if he could barely restrain his enthusiasm or his impatience. Even when he was standing still, Reuben seemed restless. You could almost feel the nerves twitching under his skin.

When he scrutinised me, his whole head lunged forward – and I have to admit that I fell back a few steps. I suppose that I still nursed a lingering, irrational fear that he was going to pounce like a panther.