Joe Coffin [Season 4]

by Preston, Ken

  She had held her head in that slightly odd way of hers so that her hair hung over one side of her face just so. But as the evening wore on she had slowly adjusted her position so that he hair fell away, revealing her slightly elongated jaw, the slight protrusion of her teeth.

  I was born this way, she had explained.

  She had allowed him to touch her jaw, just lightly with his fingertips.

  Does it hurt? he had said. Is it uncomfortable?

  No, it’s fine. I hardly notice it.

  On the second night she had sat down next to him he had offered her his sleeping bag, and they had cuddled up together inside it. She almost lost all of her self-control that night. To feel his body warmth, his touch, to smell his breath and sense the throb of his heart inside his chest.

  She would have ripped his throat open in a moment if not for those other desires at war with her need for fresh blood. The desire for his company, for the touch of his skin upon hers.

  Very human desires.

  A sense memory of her life before this life.

  She couldn’t remember that much about it now. There was a gap between the two, a huge chasm of darkness. She knew she couldn’t go back. This was her life now, feeding on the blood of others.

  And yet . . .

  Still she had flashes of memories, of feelings, of what it had been like to be that other person.

  What’s your name? he had asked her on their second night together.

  And she’d had to stop and think.

  Her name.

  Yes, she’d had a name once.

  I’m sorry, he’d said, once the silence had stretched out between them. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.

  Julie Carter, she said, the name dropping into her mind even as she was speaking it.

  Later, after he had fallen asleep, his arms wrapped around her, she had to fight the tide of memories flooding her mind. She had lain under the bridge, eyes wide open, thinking of her family, her mother, her Uncle Frank and the night she was taken by that man and kept captive on the narrowboat with the child vampire.

  And the other woman, she remembered her too. It was the woman’s fault that Julie had been turned into a vampire. If not for her, the man who had abducted her might have let Julie live.

  But as the memories returned of her previous life, it seemed they turned sour and rancid. As though there had always been something dreadful about that life.

  As though by becoming one of them she had been set free.

  She had left her new friend in the early hours of the morning before the sky began to grow light. After peeling herself slowly and carefully from his sleeping embrace she had gone back to her hidden spot where she could stay safe from the sun.

  She told herself not to go back to him.

  She told herself that the next time she saw him she might not be able to help herself.

  That she would kill him.

  The following evening, as night slowly replaced day and the city lights blinked into life, she awoke from dreams of blood. She stretched, cat like. The hunger was strong within her.

  What had woken her?

  Something . . .

  Something gossamer thin, a sensation on her face, a brief touch, a caress almost.

  There, again. The briefest of touches, a dark shape darting past.

  Another one.

  She could see now.

  Bats.

  More of them, gathering like a cloud of wings and fur and teeth and dark, shining eyes.

  They gathered around her, hanging from the iron railings, from the arched brickwork. More and more of them. Filling the dark of the evening with an even blacker night.

  She felt no fear. She felt almost at one with these creatures.

  The canal water glittered dark beneath the lights of the city.

  She was curled into a dank corner, away from prying eyes. But there was somebody there now, a figure amongst the bats flitting through the air, watching her. Standing quite still, unconcerned by the winged creatures swarming around her.

  Yes, it was a woman, she could see that now as she approached.

  The bats had filled the space now, seemed like they were part of the air, part of the fabric of being. A hand reached out of the darting, flickering mass and she reached up herself and she took hold of the hand.

  The woman pulled her to her feet.

  Leaned in close until her lips were brushing her ear.

  ‘Julie,’ she whispered. ‘Your name is Julie and you are one of us.’

  A fountain of heat bloomed in Julie Carter’s stomach, spreading into her chest and neck, flushing her pale face.

  ‘You are a beautiful creature, Julie,’ the woman whispered. ‘You are one of us, one of the night creatures.’

  She ran her fingers down Julie’s face.

  Down her neck.

  The bats dived and turned and skittered over and around them. As though they could sense the excitement, the tension in the air.

  ‘Go,’ the woman whispered. ‘Go and be with him and then come find me.’

  The woman lowered her hand, and it brushed over Julie’s chest and her abdomen, and then she stepped back and disappeared into the mass of bats.

  Moments later and the bats had gone, and Julie was left on her own.

  A crowd had gathered on a footbridge overlooking the canal. Julie stared at them and they stared back.

  ‘Are you all right?’ someone shouted.

  She ignored them and turned away.

  Once again she wandered up and down the tow path and through the crowds, and she knew that this was the last time she would do this. The desire, the need, for blood was too strong. And what was the point? Why did she torture herself in this way?

  Had it been simply an unconscious longing to go back to who she had once been?

  The hours crept by as she trudged up and down, up and down. She avoided walking by her new friend’s spot. She knew she couldn’t see him anymore. She had to leave, find somewhere else to feed and hunt. Find others like her.

  But finally, in the early hours of the morning after all the bars and the clubs had closed, and the streets were empty, she found herself standing by his slumbering form. The night had grown colder, and he was curled up in his sleeping bag, a hat pulled down low over his head.

  He was the only one since that night she had been kidnapped and then murdered who had shown her any kindness.

  She had sat down beside him on the cold floor.

  He had stirred. Smiled when he saw her.

  Where have you been? he had whispered.

  She had shushed him and climbed into the sleeping bag with him.

  She had held him.

  He said, You’re trembling? What’s wrong?

  Nothing, she had replied, and clamped her teeth on his throat and ripped it open.

  you a monster

  ‘Hey, girl, it been a while.’

  Leola froze. She couldn’t see him, but she knew him right away. She would know that voice anywhere.

  She was standing outside Angellicit. The club was throbbing with people inside, but out here, on the street, she was alone.

  At least she had been.

  The Priest stepped out of the shadows as though he was materialising from the darkness. No, as though the darkness was creating him, bringing him into the world.

  Even in the light of a street lamp he was still barely visible. With his black overcoat and chimney stack hat, his black, tattooed skin and eyes and teeth, he was more of a shadow than the shadows around him.

  It was as though he was an empty, man shaped space in the fabric of reality.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Leola said.

  ‘I done gone travelled halfway round the world to come see you girl,’ he replied. ‘Ain’t you got nothin’ more to say to me than that?’

  ‘You never leave the Bayou,’ Leola said. ‘You never go anywhere, not anymore. Not since . . .’

  ‘Thought it was `bout time I saw somethi
n’ o’ the world again.’ He chuckled softly. ‘It’s been a long time.’

  He drew closer. His clothing rustled. He held a black, leather bag in his right hand.

  Leola knew what was in there. His tattoo equipment. The Priest carried that bag with him everywhere.

  ‘Don’t lie to me,’ Leola said. ‘You never go anywhere, you said you never would, ever again.’

  ‘Things change girl.’ The Priest grinned. ‘The times, they change. Ain’t nothing no one can do `bout that, that’s for sure.’

  He looked behind her, at the club doors, the door handles formed into angel shapes.

  ‘Angellicit,’ he said, and breathed deep. ‘Now ain’t that a name to toy with the mind. I `magine all manner o’ shit goes on in there.’

  ‘You can’t go in,’ Leola said.

  The Priest cocked an eyebrow. ‘Ain’t you gone introduce me to Mr Joe Coffin? I heard so much `bout him, I just dyin’ to meet him.’

  ‘No.’

  Leola took the Priest by the arm, the fabric of his coat sleeve stiff to the touch. She led him away from the doors, away from the eyes of the bouncer who had been watching them from just inside the open doorway.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she whispered as they walked. ‘You never leave, you never go anywhere. How did you even make it here, this far?’

  ‘You `shamed o’ me, girl? Is that it?’

  Leola stopped walking, turned to face him. ‘No. But I came to you when I needed you. After I killed that man, Stone, I came to you and you tattooed me and gave me absolution. So why are you here?’

  ‘Like I said, things they are changin’.’

  ‘What does that even mean?’

  The Priest leaned in close. She could smell aniseed on his breath.

  ‘Ain’t you felt it?’ he whispered. ‘Somethin’ big happennin’. Somethin’ gone change everythin’.’

  ‘What?’ Leola said, and for the first time in over a hundred years she felt a chill running up her back and along her shoulders.

  The Priest leaned back and chuckled. ‘I don’ know, girl. If’n I knew already I wouldn’t need to git on one o’ those big iron birds an’ fly here now, would I?’

  He adjusted his hat, grinning all the while.

  Leola shook her head, still unable to believe her eyes and her ears. ‘I don’t even know how you got through customs, how you weren’t even noticed and stopped.’

  ‘Oh, I’s stopped all right,’ the Priest said. ‘I’s stopped lots, an’ they searched me an’ they axed me questions, that’s what they did. Axed me so man’ questions it like they want to perplex me, but I didn’t get perplexed. I just answered their questions until they let me go on my way.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’ Leola said.

  ‘Oh I gots mysel’ a room in the city,’ the Priest said. ‘It gone turned out to be an entertainin’ stay already, that’s for sure. I should travel more often, I kinda forgot how interestin’ it could be.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Leola said.

  The Priest chuckled. ‘No don’ you go worryin’ your pretty little head, girl. I ain’t gone break the faith, you know better’n that.’

  Leola looked up and down the street. It was deserted as it had been since the vampire breakout. The only time it was busy was when young people arrived in taxis, or were dropped off by family or friends in cars. And then it was straight from the waiting vehicle and into the club.

  People were stupid. Didn’t they realise the vampires could go anywhere? Including in clubs and pubs and bars.

  Being inside was no protection.

  ‘You can’t stay here, you should go.’

  ‘Go where, girl? Where’s I got to go that worth being?’

  ‘Home, go home back to the Bayou. Back where you belong.’

  The Priest sighed. ‘I don’ belong nowhere, you know that. You don’ belong nowhere too.’

  Leola sighed. ‘Come on, let’s walk.’

  They stepped back out onto the main road and began walking. The city centre was eerily silent, shop windows ablaze with light. Leola’s ears picked out laughter in the distance, the hum of chatter from the bars. A single car cruised past, the driver looking left and right out of his windows as though looking for someone or something he had lost.

  ‘Did you know Chitrita is back?’ Leola said.

  The Priest stopped walking and grabbed Leola’s upper arm. ‘You gon’ tell me that again, girl.’

  Leola pulled free. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  Even through the ink, the Priest’s face suddenly looked drawn and tight. ‘What you said, girl, I’m axin’ you again, you gon’ tell me that once more.’

  ‘Chitrita, she’s back,’ Leola said.

  ‘She dug herself out o’ her grave?’ the Priest said.

  ‘No, Guttman was paying to have all the old ones exhumed. Bring them back, give them life again. Joe finished them off, thought he had killed them all, but Chitrita.’ Leola paused. ‘She’s alive, she’s young again.’

  ‘You seen her then?’

  ‘No, but I know.’

  ‘That’s what I bin feelin’, what’s bin gettin’ me so antsy these last few months, like spiders crawlin’ an’ chewin’ at me. That’s the change, sho’ ’nuff.’

  Leola peered into the Priest’s dark eyes. She had never seen him this rattled before. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Chitrita, she one o’ the old ones, one o’ the powerful ones. That feelin’ o’ mine, it bin growin’ while she bin gettin’ stronger.’

  They walked some more in silence. A taxi drew up full of people, young men and women spilled out of the vehicle giggling and chatting, and ran into the nearest bar. Two bouncers stopped them, got them to open their mouths so they could inspect their teeth before letting them inside.

  ‘People, they ain’t go no sense,’ the Priest said. ‘Cattle gone die soon, that’s for sure.’

  Leola sighed. ‘I was about to come back, I told Joe that very thing today. There was nothing for me here anymore.’

  ‘You bin sleepin’ with that man name o’ Coffin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This Coffin, he know all `bout you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘An’ yet he still puts his cock in you, like you a normal woman, like you ain’t infected. Why he do that then?’

  Leola stopped walking. Closed her eyes. ‘I don’t know. He trusts me. Sort of.’

  ‘You should stay away,’ the Priest said. ‘You a monster, girl. The good Lord’s forgiven you an’ absolved you o’ your sins, but you still a monster.’

  Leola opened her eyes, looked up at the Priest. ‘Is that true? Is that what we both are? Monsters?’

  ‘Sure, girl. You know that, you don’ need me to tell you.’

  ‘Then what makes us any different from the others? From Chitrita and Guttman?’

  ‘They don’ know they’re monsters,’ the Priest said. ‘But we do.’

  ‘Take me back to your place,’ Leola said. ‘Show me where you’re staying.’

  They started walking again.

  ‘You sure you want to do this?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘What about Mr Coffin, ain’t he gone wonder where you gone?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ Leola said. ‘Doesn’t matter at all.’

  gilligan

  Gilligan didn’t give a fuck about vampires. He’d seen them, seen what they could do. Once you’d seen something, once you’d been in the thick of it, been scarred by it, it didn’t matter anymore.

  So Gilligan wasn’t scurrying like a frightened rabbit from bar to bar. He owned these fucking streets, he did. Not some half dead creature from a fucking Hammer Horror flick.

  The first bar he’d tried getting into after he left Coffin and the others at the Punchline he’d been stopped at the door by a big gorilla in a suit, the lower half of his face covered in black, thick hair whilst his scalp was shaved smooth. The bouncer had placed his hand on Gilligan’s chest and told h
im to open his mouth. Gilligan had resisted the urge to spit in his face and did what he was told. After a quick look at his teeth the bouncer let him inside.

  This was what it had been like, every bar he went to. People looking suspicious at you if you weren’t part of a group. How quickly the city had been plunged back into living in fear.

  But not Gilligan.

  A bloody vampire could drop down in front of him right now and he would break its fucking neck.

  Gilligan knew he’d drunk too much. Knew he should head back, sleep it off.

  That wasn’t going to happen. Twice today he had been fucking humiliated. His face still burnt with the shame of it, even now with all the drink inside of him.

  That fucking soldier boy had been faster and stronger than Gilligan expected. Easy to get a reaction out of, fucking pitiful how easy it had been. But Gilligan hadn’t expected the beating that the soldier boy had given him.

  Gilligan couldn’t let that go, couldn’t let that slide. A thing like that, it followed you around the rest of your life. A monkey on your back, taunting you, shaming you. A thing like that, it got out, folks wouldn’t let you forget it. Make a person a laughingstock, it would.

  Like that fat bastard Gosling. He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew, he knew enough just from looking at Gilligan. The others did too. That fucker Shaw, laughing at him.

  Bastard.

  Gilligan had to put it right. If he didn’t, then he would never get that monkey off his back.

  Gilligan’s mobile buzzed.

  He pulled it from his pocket, glanced at the screen.

  Shaw.

  Was this the call Gilligan had been waiting for?

  ‘Yeah?’ he said.

  ‘Where the fuck are you? Joe’s in a foul mood.’

  ‘And?’

  There was a moment of silence on the phone, and then Shaw said, ‘Joe’s been attacked again, at the cemetery this time.’

  ‘Seriously? Fuck.’

  ‘You should come back. The job’s happening, we’ve got to get ready.’

  ‘When’s it happening?’

  ‘Tomorrow night.’ Silence again, just for a moment. ‘Get yourself back here, Gilligan. Joe’s going to have a fit if you don’t.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m on my way,’ Gilligan said, finishing the call.