Whitby Vampyrrhic (14 page)

‘I'm staying here.' Sally shuddered. ‘I hate that rotten hole.'

Beth took her friend's arm. ‘Sally, you'll do no such thing. I promised you I'd look after you in Whitby. I'm not going to leave you up here if the bombs start to fall.'

‘But it's horrible down there.'

‘Alec and I will be with you.'

He smiled. ‘I'll sing old Scottish ballads to you. My voice is guaranteed to take your mind off bombs and horrible old basements. Ladies?' He held open the door for them.

Sally went grudgingly. ‘But will it take my mind off Eleanor's brother? Who do you suppose made all those scars on this chest? They were bite marks, weren't they? And made by human teeth?'

Beth guided her friend with a firm grasp. ‘Now isn't the time to speculate. Those bombers could be here at any moment.'

Alec opened the basement door. ‘We can talk to our hearts' content once we've got that protective masonry over our heads.'

Despite having been in a café that took a direct hit from a bomb just a couple of weeks ago, Beth realized the man was remarkably calm. All he'd suffered was a cut to the eye. She gazed at his face. The eyepatch must be a constant reminder to him of the event that had cost his colleagues their lives. And the female casting director was more than a colleague.
Because the man escaped death, does he now believe he's invincible? And is he convinced that he's been spared in order to fulfil some great quest?

They entered the basement. A single light bulb illuminated the vaulted ceiling. Just as before, the chairs were clustered together. As they crossed the floor, Sally froze. She stared at that forbidding iron grille set into the stonework. Beth noticed the expression on her friend's face, as if she'd suddenly remembered something that appalled her.

‘Sally? What's wrong?'

‘Earlier, I came down here, when we were searching for Theo. I . . . Something wasn't right. I . . .'

Alec turned a chair towards her. ‘Sit down, dear. You've turned very pale.' Sally's eyes bulged, as they remained locked on that pit of shadows, one from which frigid air rose.

Beth put her arm around Sally. ‘What happened? You can tell me.'

Sally refused to sit, her muscles so tense that her entire body quivered. ‘I came down here. Then I had a dizzy turn. I would have fainted dead to the floor, if Eleanor hadn't caught me. She'd come to tell me that you'd found Theo.' She swallowed, as if an unpleasant taste leeched across her tongue. ‘I blacked out. Only for a few seconds, but I dreamt that a man was in there.' She pointed at the iron bars. ‘He stood beneath the grate . . . He was looking up at me and saying things. His eyes were so . . .' She shuddered. ‘He wanted to shake hands with me. He even pushed his hand up through the bars. All I can think about are those eyes . . .'

Alec brought a straight-backed chair to her. Gently, he encouraged her to sit. ‘You'll feel better in a moment. And, remember, a dream can't hurt you.'

Sally gripped Beth's hand. ‘Only, I'm not so sure now. It's too clear for a dream. And I'm certain I remember seeing the man
before
I fainted. But what with the shock of Theo being out there on the roof it all got jumbled inside my head. In fact, the more I think about it now, the more I'm convinced I saw a man standing down there in that hole in the floor. He wore a white shirt. His eyes . . . Beth, there was no colour in them. No irises. Just whites, with black pupils in the centres. He looked just awful. And he wanted to shake my hand. But there was more to it than that. He . . . He planned to do something when he got hold of me.'

Alec went to stand over the grate. His eyes widened in surprise, as he looked down at something beneath the bars. ‘My good God.'

Beth joined him. Cold air vented up into her face. She heard a flurry of whispers.

Sally blurted in panic, ‘What's wrong, what's happening!'

‘It's the sea,' Alec marvelled. ‘It's flowing into the bottom of the hole.'

Sally cried out in fear.

‘Hear that whispering sound?' He sounded full of glee. ‘It's the waves washing against the stonework.'

Groaning, Sally looked as if she'd faint again.

Beth rushed to comfort her. ‘It's nothing to worry about. Remember, Sally, Eleanor told us that sometimes, if the tide was really high, seawater would flow along the tunnel.' She turned to Alec. ‘It connects with the harbour.'

‘Splendid.' He grinned. ‘It's bound to be one of those old smuggler tunnels. They'd have unloaded tobacco and brandy, and all that naughty contraband from the boats, and brought it up here to be hidden. Ah, I wonder if there's a nice bottle of Cognac still secreted here?'

‘If the tunnel leads to the harbour, someone might have got in.' Sally's anxiety grew. ‘He could creep up the tunnel and break into the hotel.' She grimaced. ‘And I never want to see his rotten eyes again. They made my blood run cold.'

‘Sally, it was a dream; you must've been in a dead faint for longer than you thought.'

‘Or some local peeping Tom.' Alec crouched in order to study the grating. ‘He sneaks into the tunnel, so he can look up ladies' skirts.'

‘Alec,' Beth scolded.

He became serious again. ‘There's nothing to worry about, Sally. See this grate?' He stomped his boot on it. ‘Solid as a rock. One man couldn't lift that. Even if some local lad managed to get into the tunnel he wouldn't get any further than this.' He laughed. ‘It'll even keep Adolf himself out and all his ruddy Storm Troopers.'

Beth tilted her head. ‘There goes the all-clear siren.'

‘So, nothing to worry about. Back to the bar, ladies.' Alec now adopted a jovial all's-well-with-the-world persona, evidently to reassure Sally. ‘Maybe we can persuade Eleanor to serve us all a snifter or two. I daresay we could do with a tot of the strong stuff.'

Beth told Alec to lead the way with Sally. The woman still shot fearful glances back at the grate. When the pair had left the basement, Beth returned to the grate. Below her feet, dark waters swirled. The smell of brine prickled the sensitive membranes of her nose. From this angle, she could just make out the throat of the tunnel through which the waves entered. Certainly, it would be big enough for a man to pass through. Then she transferred her attention from the pulsating body of water to the bars themselves. A moment later she plucked something from a flake of rust.

How did you describe him, Sally? A man wearing a white shirt?
Between her fingers a strand of white cotton fluttered in that blood-freezing updraught.

Seven

Through Whitby's dark and deserted streets they came. Six figures moved swift as panthers along narrow canyons formed by unbroken lines of cottages. Not a light showed through the blacked-out windows. Clocks struck midnight. In gun emplacements on the cliff top, soldiers had to clap their heavily gloved hands together to chase away the cold. For now, the sky remained empty of Nazi bombers. Though the troops were alert to threats from both sea and air, they did not see the boy run silently by the abbey ruins in the direction of the graveyard of St Mary's Church. Loping alongside him, a sleek, black dog.

Many a time the boy had watched the pack of figures led by the man in white. The predatory way they moved had always persuaded him not to get too close. But he noticed that now more people had joined the group. Tonight, a lady in a pale nightdress ran with them. Their eagerness to reach their destination, coupled with an air of excitement, encouraged the boy to follow, albeit in secret. Swiftly, the pack descended the long flight of cliff-side steps to the houses below. For now, they seemed no more substantial than flitting shadows. When they reached the Leviathan Hotel, they didn't even pause. They climbed the smooth walls, with the same ease they'd raced along Church Street. There, they went from window to window, trying to peer in past the heavy blackout material. When that failed, they pressed their ears to the glass panes to listen to whatever occurred within.

Accompanied by the dog, the boy followed as far as the wall that encircled the rear yard. There he concealed himself in all-engulfing darkness to wait and see what the strange, predatory figures did next.

In the cottage, Theo stood in the dark, the light out and the curtains open wide. His eyes were fixed on the figures swarming over the hotel's exterior. They moved across the walls with fluid grace, their fingertips hooking into the gaps between the bricks. Moving swiftly from window to window, they appeared to be searching for someone. One figure, in a pilot's uniform, complete with goggles and leather flying helmet, tried to see through Eleanor's bedroom window. A woman in a billowing nightdress climbed up to the roof to where he, himself, had stood earlier. Then, Theo had been listening to the call of the
many
from the cave. They were growing restless. They'd been trapped for centuries. They wanted out.

Theo heard their call, which sounded like a song shot through with a haunting melody – such yearning; such an unquenchable desire that excited them yet pained them, too. The woman ran lightly, and utterly without fear, around the low wall that separated the hotel roof from forty feet of thin air. The pale nightdress fluttered.

Theo saw another figure. This one he recognized as Gustav Kirk . . . or at least it had been once. On all fours Theo scurried up the brickwork to Eleanor's apartment. There he tried to work his fingers into the gap between the frame and the window in order to slide it open.

Theo sensed Gustav's longing. He sensed it in the other men and women, too. Still gazing at the intruders, he ran his fingers over the scars on his chest. Dimly, he recalled the sensation of teeth crunching through the skin. How they'd gnawed at his torso in excitement. How the vampire's mouth had pulsated, as she sucked hard. Viciously, she'd drawn the blood from his veins. Those memories made the bite-marks tingle. Theo longed to join Gustav and his friends, but Eleanor had made sure that he wouldn't run with his kind.

He closed his eyes, fingered the tingling stigmata on his chest, and listened to the song of those still trapped in the cave. But not trapped for long. Theo was certain of that.

Sally worked in her room, the film script in front of her. Lines always gave her trouble; sometimes, shamefully, she'd corpsed in the plays she'd performed in. Yet she was determined to memorize her part to perfection. Heaven help her, she'd be word perfect. If she made a success of this, her first film, she'd be hired for other roles. Since she'd been a little girl she'd dreamt of being an actress. Whenever she sat in the cinema all her worries evaporated the moment the titles rolled up on the screen.

Sally knew people thought she was overexcitable, giggly, and sometimes downright scatterbrained. Her father had been forced to retire from work when he'd hurt his back at the factory. When she played the fool, or got ridiculously excited over something as trivial as her mother baking a cake, it made her disabled father smile. So, through her childhood, Sally had developed the habit of being silly and scatterbrained in order to distract Dad from that gnawing back pain. To her, it was the right thing to do. And what others thought of her? Well, they could go scoot; this was a small price to pay, if she could shine a little happiness into her father's life. Now she'd do everything in her power to make a career in films. Already, she could send money home from time to time.

Sally went to the mirror to act out the scene. ‘Nathan, I don't care that our families have been feuding for fifty years. I'm going to marry you. Your parents will have to accept me as their daughter-in-law. See this ring on my hand . . .'
No, get it right!
‘See this ring on my finger. It means . . .'

Sally paused. Wasn't that a tapping at her window? A bird, perhaps? She shook her head, drew a deep breath, then launched herself back into the role. ‘See this ring on my finger. It means we're betrothed. If I'm not going to let those Nazi nitwits stop this wedding, I'm not going to let our families stop it, either.'
Nazi nitwits?
Would Alec agree to the phrase being changed? Maybe ‘Nazi henchmen'? The ‘nitwits' phrase made it too much like comedy.

The tap sounded again on the window. An insistent tapping. But she was three floors from the ground. Curious, she approached the window, wondering what could be causing it.

Eleanor continued her preparations. In her self-contained apartment within the hotel, she worked steadily. She'd barely noticed the hands of the clock creep past midnight as she wielded the sharp knife. Carefully, she cut along chalked lines on the sheet of black rubber. Because the material couldn't be sewn she had to hammer brass rivets through it when she needed join the pieces together. Utterly focused on the task, she connected strips of black rubber that would serve as belts, so she could fasten the garment at the back. It had been tempting to simply add fabric strips that could be quickly tied, rather than fiddling with cumbersome buckles. But she knew that no cotton-based fabric could be used in the garment. It must be rubber and metal. Lastly, she riveted the section that would form a high, protective collar around the front of her throat. Not that it could be too high, as she'd have to be able to manoeuvre her head freely in order to see either her next phase of works, or, later, her prey. She set down the hammer, then absently ran her fingers over the puncture wounds that so steadfastly refused to heal on her wrist. Tonight they tingled. A permanent reminder of a past tragedy. Sighing, she put the sensation to the back of her mind. Nothing must distract her.
It's taken me twenty years to decide to act. I've been a fool to leave it so long. Nothing, but nothing, must stand in my way.