Vampire "Untitled" (Vampire "Untitled" Trilogy Book 1) (25 page)

“Oh my,” Ildico purred. “Do we have some latent
homosexuality? Or do we despise Nealla in a sexual way?

Ildico took Paul’s blood stained hand and pressed it
against her breast to leave a bloody handprint on her chest. “Very nice,
lover,” she said. She raised the vampire’s hand a little higher and used his
finger to wipe blood around her mouth. “I will love you so much when you kill
him,” she mouthed. “I love you now, Paul, but I will love you so deeply when
you kill him, please kill him for me, kill him. Please...”

No second invitation was required.

It didn’t really matter anyway. After all, this was
only a dream and Paul was somehow consciously aware that it was a dream.

But the reality was slightly more intense than that.

It wasn’t ‘just’ a dream.

It was a rehearsal, preparation, mental conditioning.
By the morning it would be complete. By the morning, he would have all the
mental prerequisites to do this in real life.

These were dark things he was imagining; dark things
he could make true should he choose. They were the dark things he wanted.

----- X -----

“I’m
going back to London,” Paul said sipping coffee. “I’m going into Brasov today, I’ll get my return ticket validated and booked on a flight, then I’m going
home to see my doctor.”

“Do you still think you are sick with strigoi?” Ildico
asked.

“I am sick.” Paul struggled to find the vocabulary, it
was all so misery inducing. “I don’t know what it is. I’m not right, mentally
not right. I’m thinking things and imagining things that are very wrong.” He
thought for a second as he tried to bring some logic to his thoughts. “Things
won’t work out if I stay here. I mean, look at me!” The bruises from
yesterday’s beating had ripened to plum-like blackened welts around his cheek
and eye socket and his lip had a thick crusty scab to it. “I’m smashed up. I
can’t sleep and when I do sleep I’m consumed with nightmares.”

Ildico made a delicate nod in agreement. “What about
your book?”

“I’ll write it somewhere else. That’s not a
consideration. The money is more important, I’ve spent money on this place and
I’m not going to use it. My health and wellbeing are now the issue. Mentally,
I’m in no state to try and write anything. I need to remove myself from the
situation.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is not how things are
supposed to be. I think...” she paused, her shoulders sinking and her face
dipped away. “I think perhaps I am some cause of this.”

“No, you’re not.”

“But I am. If you didn’t meet me and be my friend then
Nealla doesn’t care. If you don’t meet me then you can make your work without
problem. This all happen because me.”

“No,” Paul interjected. “This happens because Nealla
makes it happen. It has nothing to do with you.”

Ildico shrugged.

It wasn’t her fault but he could sense it would be
impossible to reason with her, even if he had the strength to argue, which he
didn’t, it would be redundant.

“Will you come with me?” Paul asked.

“Come with you, where?”

“To Brasov. My plane ticket. It’s an open return, I
need to go to a travel agents to reserve the flight home. It would be a big
help for me in case I need to understand Romanian.”

Ildico nodded dejectedly.

“Come with me,” Paul said. “I would love you to come
with me. Let me take you out to lunch before I go home.”

----- X -----

As
they stepped from the apartment block Paul was hit by how hot he felt. The sun
was high and the sky was clear; the winter air should have kept him cool, but
he was suddenly sweating around the eyes and brow.

“Are you alright?” Ildico asked.

Paul unzipped his coat whilst sucking in some big
gasps of air. He nodded a fake answer rather than speaking it and started
walking towards the bus stop to duck the question.

The last twenty four hours had felt like a week. This
time yesterday he had got on a bus to Brasov and spent the day depressed. Since
then his life had seemed to fall apart. As much as he wanted to stay and write,
he knew it would be foolish. There was an element of failure to going home and
there was the possibility that he would return to London, get checked out by
the doctor and be fine and well in a few days. He still had the option to
return if he wanted, but he doubted it. The way Paul reconciled it, getting
better would be a good thing, but he couldn’t imagine getting better here.
Something was wrong here; this place was broken and damaged but beyond his
understanding as to why. Something about this place was unsettled.

As they arrived at the bus stand, that unsettled
feeling hit him square in the face. Further along the road he saw Big Man. He was simply standing, hovering where there seemed no reason to do so. There
wasn’t a bus stop and it was an inconvenient place to be picked up with a car;
then Boy appeared. It looked like he’d slipped through a hole in the fence. Big
Man hooked one of his arms around Boy’s shoulders and led him across the road
and into the forest.

Paul looked to Ildico; she had seen as well as he had.
“I don’t like the way that guy is with that kid,” he said.

“It is for sex,” Ildico mumbled.

“Sex? That guy and the little kid?”

Ildico nodded. Paul’s mind ran a flashback of finding
Boy amongst the garbage. He was holding his stomach, doubled over in pain and
crying. Tears had streamed down his dirty face.

“You know that kid is autistic or something,” Paul
said.

“He is only twelve years old,” Ildico replied. “But he
looks older.”

“He’s what? Twelve? And that guy is doing what to
him?” Paul suddenly felt exasperated, unable to find words for what he was
feeling. “But he’s... he’s... I don’t know it’s like he can’t decide mentally
what’s right... Twelve? That big guy is sexually abusing a retarded twelve year
old boy, is that what you’re telling me?”

Ildico nodded but kept her eyes cast down.

“Is this true or is it just some rumour? How do you
know this for a fact?”

“Everybody knows. He always has young boys.”

“And Nealla?”

“No,” Ildico said spitting each word with venom.
“Nealla likes girls.”

“But why does everybody know? Why don’t the police get
involved? Why is he allowed to do this with impunity? What the fuck is wrong
with this place?”

“You don’t understand, Paul,” Ildico said quietly.
“This place is different.”

“Different? Different to where? Why can people take
kids and abuse them?”

“Before...” She struggled for the words. “Before Raul
and Nealla were both in prison.”

“Who is Raul?”

“Raul.” She said it like he should know, then pointed
down the street. So, Big Man had a name. “They were in prison, Paul. They were
in prison for fighting with swords in gangs.”

“Fighting with swords? Well, now he fights with a
razor. What’s the difference? They should put him in prison again.”

“With razor is white weapon, is not more than ten
centimetres, but he was using sword, black weapon, illegal.”

“What’s your point, Ildico?” Paul snapped, suddenly
feeling a burst of rage spreading out from his heart. “What I asked is why
don’t the police stop him?”

“Because people are scared of him.”

The conversation halted at this most simple statement
and all of the complexities evaporated to a simple truth. People were afraid.
This broken down backwards village where people were afraid of vampires and
hooligans was populated by cowards; none of them had the spine to stand up to
something being wrong. A grown man sexually abusing young boys? Don’t get
involved. That seemed to be the silent mantra, bury your head, close your eyes
and pretend it isn’t happening. Violent men terrorising others with a razor,
just avoid them and don’t get involved. Killing people because you’re scared of
vampires? Bury them and pretend it didn’t happen, it will go away eventually.

“This place is shit,” Paul said.

He looked along the street to see Big Man Raul and Boy
slip into the forest on the other side of the road. Involuntarily, or at least
only making the decision subconsciously, Paul was walking that way, following.

Ildico grabbed his arm. “Where are you going?” She
knew where, the question should have been to ask why he was going. Paul brushed
her aside and continued. He didn’t have an answer, other than some form of
militant curiosity that had to be satisfied. Just because Ildico believed the
gossip that Big Man Raul sexually abused pre-teen boys didn’t mean he would
believe it without evidence. That was why he was going, to get evidence, to see
for himself, to hope it was true...

He was cognizant of the thought for a moment. He hoped
it was true. Why? So he could rage and unleash bloody hell? He put that thought
away quickly.

Then he had another thought; he recognised that he
couldn’t possibly go up against Big Man Raul all by himself. Nealla had kicked
the shit out of him yesterday and Big Man was twice the size of Nealla.

Paul put that thought aside too. Don’t worry about
such things. Just get there. See what the situation is. Don’t think in advance,
don’t plan. Work on instinct. See what happens. Follow the Big Man to the
forest and see what adventure awaits.

That thought was enticing, tempting.

It made Paul run; and he sneered whilst he ran.

----- X -----

He
felt as though he should be out of breath. He wasn’t. He was ready, primed for
action. He’d gotten to the spot where Big Man Raul and Boy had stood on the
road. There was a slender alley, no more than three feet wide, between a
collection of small holdings. Boy must have come out here, but to where?

Paul scanned the surroundings. On the opposite side of
the road was a boundary of year-round bushes along the edge of the road.
Directly opposite the pathway was a slight gap in the foliage. Paul crossed and
slipped between the bushes to find a wide picnic area just inside the forest at
the foot of the mountain. It was a surprise. There were six picnic benches
placed sporadically amongst a handful of trees and some rusty old swings for
children to play on in summer; at this time of year they had twelve inches of
snow on each seat and deadly looking icicles hanging overhead.

He saw movement. Big Man Raul perhaps. He thought it
was him. Further up the mountain, to the far side of the picnic area. If Big
Man hadn’t been so tall Paul would have missed him. There was a movement behind
bushes. It was brief, half a second or so, but with nobody else here it had to
be him.

Paul jogged through the snow, desperate not to lose
them, but the trek up the mountainside was physically difficult. He could see
the upper edge of the picnic area, a row of bushes that made a natural border
at least one hundred and fifty yards steeply uphill from the road. He saw two
sets of footprints in the snow and felt the surge of excitement. He was
following them, tracking them. They weren’t trying to hide their tracks and
following was easy, but the very act of stalking made him feel like a hunter, a
predator and it energised and empowered him despite the exertion.

When he made it to the top of the hill he knew he had
to pause to catch his breath. He crouched low and eased around the bushes. Big
Man Raul and the Boy were nowhere to be seen, but their footprints led off
clearly as two roughly dragged trails through virgin snow. Paul allowed himself
thirty seconds to get his breath back then moved on.

What would he do if he saw them? Nothing, he thought.
He just wanted to see, to know, not to confront. He told himself in soft spoken
words, “Just observe. Don’t engage,” as though this affirmation of common sense
was the red line not to be crossed. Only a week ago he would never have dared
follow them. A week ago making eye-contact would have been the red line. Had he
really changed so much in only a week? The strigoi, it would seem, is a
powerful drug for boosting one’s confidence... or one’s stupidity.

It didn’t take long to discover them, but it wasn’t
entirely clear what was happening. If he was in an unforgiving mood he would
say Boy had his hand inside Big Man’s trousers, holding his penis, masturbating
him. The reality was he didn’t see it clearly and it seemed somehow odd and out
of place that a paedophile could find nowhere more convenient to get his cock
out than standing in twelve inches of snow in sub-zero temperatures.

Boy saw him first. It sounded like he said,
“Engleizoule.” That nickname again, English.

Raul turned away to either zip up his jacket or his
trousers.

Who was Paul kidding, the guy was a fucking pervert
and was forcing the kid. “Hey You!” Paul yelled as fiercely as he could. “What
the fuck are you doing?” He was running to them; any thought of not getting
involved had been forgotten. He was acting on impulse, on instinct, on a new
found aggression that wouldn’t sit quiet.