by Simon Clark
Tom turned to Nicola. Her fair hair now seemed almost dark compared with the extreme paleness of her skin. Her eyes were white globes. Each one possessed a sharp black dot that was the pupil. She was still beautiful. Really beautiful. He found himself leaning towards her, aching to feel her body pressed against his.
As Tom drew closer, he saw the way Nicola had fixed that penetrating gaze of hers on the cut on his face. Or, rather, she fixed her gaze on the blood seeping from the wound.
His blood. He felt it trickling down his cheek.
Her mouth parted as if ready to kiss him. She moved closer, too. He could feel the beat of blood pulsing through the arteries in his neck. His wife looked so uncannily beautiful. I want this . . . I want to hold her . . .
Abruptly, she froze. ‘No, Tom,’ she whispered. ‘I mustn’t let you touch me.’
‘Your mother said you’d turn into some kind of monster. But, don’t you see? You know what you’re doing. You can beat this.’
‘I feel different inside. That’s where the important change is happening.’
‘Fight it. Don’t let yourself be controlled by those things that your ancestors worshipped. You are Nicola Westonby. You are strong. You decide your own actions.’
‘Nicola Westonby. I didn’t dream it? I really did get married?’
‘Yes, you married me. We’ve got the rest of our lives together. What you must do now is destroy this thing that’s attacking your body and making you change.’
Her brow furrowed. Tom sensed that she pushed against some powerful force. She struggled to resist the evil that had begun to spread through her veins and her flesh.
She gave a sudden cry of pain. ‘I’m sorry, Tom . . .’
‘Fight it, Nicola.’
‘I can’t fight it any more. I’ve tried. I’ve been trying ever since we got married. I can’t, though. It’s too strong.’
‘Try.’
‘I’m so sorry, Tom.’
Then she gave him a look that drove a penetrating coldness through his body. Because Tom had seen that exact look before on another face he’d loved. The same expression of regret was on his grandmother’s face as she lay in a hospital bed. She’d been battling cancer for months, and there had always been a fiery spark of defiance in her eye. Not that day, though, when the family gathered at her bedside; her eyes were growing dull and faraway. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she’d whispered. ‘I can’t fight the cancer any more. I’m going to have to let it take me . . .’ An hour later his grandmother was dead.
Now the same expression poured from those other-worldly eyes of Nicola’s. She’d fought and she’d fought. Now she couldn’t fight the curse any more.
‘Tom, forgive me. This is too strong now. I’m going to keep changing. And then I will hurt you. The worst of it is I’ll know that I’m hurting you, but I won’t be able to stop myself.’
‘Nicola, we can make you well again.’
‘No, Tom.’ There was such deep sadness in the slow shake of her head. ‘I know I can’t resist it. You must be strong and let me go.’
Earlier that day, he’d watched the river engulf the village; now he felt an overwhelming emotion engulf him. The grief hurt so much that he wanted beat his fists against the stone wall. Broken bones, however, couldn’t hurt any more than this sense of desolation and loss.
‘Let me go, Tom. This is the only way now.’ Her voice became tougher. ‘Don’t you dare make me suffer by allowing me to hurt you. Because I will – I know I will. The curse is turning me into a vampire. So, when the moment comes for me to leave, say “goodbye” and keep smiling as you say it.
‘Nicola, please . . .’
‘When all this is over I’ll keep remembering your smile. That will be something I can hold onto.’
‘Just give me one more hour.’
‘No, Tom. I have to go now, while I still have control over what I do.’
He knew she was right. Even so, he felt incredibly bleak inside, and he dreaded what the next few minutes would bring. ‘OK, how do we do this?’
‘I’ll go down and call for Helsvir. He always did his best to protect me in the past. I’m sure he will again.’
‘But you’ll be condemned to exist like some wild animal.’
‘Remember, Tom. When you say “goodbye”, smile. Keep smiling until I can’t see you any more.’
With a heavy heart Tom followed her down the steps and back into the ancient building. Chester, Joshua, and the others stood at the far end of the church near the altar. Mrs Bekk watched Tom and Nicola. Her expression was clear: she knew what her daughter intended.
Tom thought Nicola might have said her farewells to her mother. However, she moved faster now – an urgency gripped her. Time was running out.
Within seconds, they were outside on the strip of dry ground. Tom could see lights moving along the flooded backstreets. Rescuers were searching the houses there before venturing into the village’s centre. Fortunately, Bolter’s corpse lay on the far side of the tower; at least they’d be spared his presence, even in death, when they said their goodbyes.
‘Helsvir.’ Nicola’s call sounded so light, and so normal. She could have been gently calling a dog to her. ‘Helsvir.’
‘We convinced him to leave,’ he said. ‘Helsvir won’t come back.’
She gave a stuttering sigh. Her body stiffened. The changes to her flesh – and to her mind – were accelerating.
‘Helsvir. Come.’
Tom wished the creature wouldn’t come back. These were his last few moments with his wife. Just days ago he’d met Nicola – and they’d been such magical, enchanting days. He’d fallen in love with her; what’s more, he’d soon decided she was the person who would be at the centre of his life. He’d fought some bitter battles as well: with his father, with Chester, and with Bolter. And he’d finally won through. He’d married Nicola tonight. Now this bitter twist of fate. They’d finally been defeated by an ancient curse that was intended to safeguard the Bekk family bloodline. Yet that curse had ultimately ended a dynasty. There would be no more Bekk children after Nicola.
How ironic.
And he still loved her so much. Love conquers all. But that glib phrase now ripped wounds across his heart. Love hadn’t conquered this monstrous change in Nicola.
‘Helsvir, come.’
Nicola anxiously scanned the floodwater with those eerie eyes. She wanted so much for Helsvir to surge from the depths.
Don’t come, was Tom’s desperate thought. Don’t show yourself here.
Because I’m having one last good time before I die. One last happy moment with Nicola before they nail down the lid . . . That’s what it felt like. This was like his death. Because he was losing Nicola forever.
She gasped with pain. ‘I can’t stay here, Tom. I don’t even feel like me any more.’
‘We could go back inside for a while?’ Any excuse to delay the inevitable . . . Just a few more minutes together . . .
But his wife was having none of it. Nicola firmly shook her head. ‘Tom, I’m leaving you tonight. I don’t want to, but there’s no turning back. The Viking gods might have lost most of their power, but boy-oh-boy do they know how to hold a grudge.’ A ghost of a smile had appeared on her lips as she said those words, then she added with grim emphasis, ‘If those evil, mean-spirited gods of my ancestors get the chance to make human beings suffer then that’s exactly what they’re going to do. That is their nature – they demand vengeance at any cost. I rejected them, and their so-called protection, and now they’re punishing me.’
Once again, he had to force himself not to reach out and embrace her with a comforting hug.
‘Helsvir,’ she called. ‘Helsvir, come.’ The moonlit waters were smooth. No sign of the creature. Then came the moment he’d dreaded. ‘I’ll leave in the boat,’ she told him. ‘The current will carry me far enough away so I can’t hurt you.’
Tom seized the moment to embed this scene in his memory: here’s the church where I married the wom
an I love. And this is the final time that I’ll stand close enough to kiss her.
Even so, he was deprived of that intimacy. If he kissed Nicola, then maybe that would break down the last barrier of her resistance and the change to vampire would be complete. No, he wouldn’t risk that, because Nicola was so scared of losing control and harming him.
So Tom Westonby did what had to be done.
Quickly, he grabbed the prow of the boat and pulled it up higher on to dry land, so Nicola could step in. As he did so, one of his feet slipped into the water. He felt its wetness against his skin. The trivial accident seemed to anchor the tragedy of what was happening to reality. And seeing his wife step into the boat was even more heartbreakingly real, because he’d done something as mundane as getting his foot wet.
Here goes . . .
Gently, he pushed the boat. At first it scraped across the ground, then everything became fluidly smooth as it glided across the flooded graveyard.
He watched her – so pale and still in the moonlight. A slender figure standing in the prow of the boat. And she watched him. He knew she was locking the scene inside her own memory. What she saw now – her husband standing there – would last her for an eternity.
Tom raised his hand in farewell. ‘Nicola – I’m smiling. Can you see? Just like you asked, I’m smiling.’ He wished he could sink into the earth to join the dead in their graves and be at peace. But he forced himself to keep smiling. ‘Goodbye, Nicola. I love you.’
The boat drifted out over the submerged wall of the graveyard. Currents caught hold; soon they were carrying the little vessel, and Nicola, along the flooded street towards the part of the valley, which lay in shadow. He didn’t let the smile die for a moment. With sheer force of will he held that smile on his lips.
Moments later, the water stirred beside the boat as a glistening, rounded hump appeared.
Helsvir . . .
He watched Nicola step from the boat on to the back of her old friend. Slowly, she lowered herself until she sat astride its back. A girl on a steed from a magic dream. Helsvir would protect her now. He would know a safe place.
And so Nicola, his beautiful Nicola, the last child of the Bekk dynasty, rode the magnificent dragon of the Vikings away into the valley. They seemed to be passing out of this world and into a world where ancient gods were as real as a wet foot in a sodden shoe. Where dreams had the bite of reality. Perhaps to a place where people that we have loved, and who have died, wait patiently for us to cross over that bridge, which we build from love.
He watched until she’d gone – and all that remained on the water was shadow. He stood there and watched until the sun rose.
And then even the shadow was gone.
SIXTY-SIX
Six months later . . .
The flood had gone. So had Nicola Westonby.
Tom mixed up a batch of mortar for the rebuilding of the living-room wall. This was Skanderberg, and this is where he lived now. Or, more accurately, he lived in the timber cabin behind the house. The fire that Bolter had started six months ago, on the same day the flood raged through Danby-Mask, had badly damaged the part of the house that contained the kitchen and living room.
Tom reclaimed masonry from the fallen walls, cleaned it, then used the stone blocks to rebuild the ancient structure. He loved the solitude. A forest in winter has its own serenity. Every morning, when he made breakfast, he’d watch red deer from his cabin window as they nuzzled among the fallen leaves for shoots.
Mrs Bekk lived in the converted barn next door to Mull-Rigg Hall. His parents and Owen had moved into the main house. They were happy there. What’s more, they were happy that Tom was friends with his father again. In the summer, Chester Kenyon had married Grace, and Tom had been best man. Now the couple expected their first child. The dive school had opened in Greece, although Tom played no part in the business, which was operated by Chris Markham. Quietly, he and Chris were going their separate ways. After all, friends occasionally drift apart without a trace of envy or bad-feeling – so, no worries. It’s OK. That’s just the way life flows sometimes.
More than anything, Tom found contentment living out here in the wilderness. He looked forward to rising early every day in order to gradually reassemble the Bekk family home. He sincerely believed Nicola would be proud of him for rebuilding Skanderberg.
Three days ago, he’d collected twenty straight-backed chairs from Mull-Rigg Hall. Then, as if preparing for some quirky woodland concert, he’d set them out amongst the trees that grew just beyond the garden fence.
Today, Tom hoisted a particularly special stone back into place. There it was again: the carving of Helsvir that must have been made by one of Nicola’s ancestors a thousand years ago. Unlike the weather-worn image on the archway out there in the garden, the lines that formed the creature in this etching were sharp and crisp. He could clearly see the circles that adorned its flanks and back – those circles were its many heads. An array of limbs bristled from beneath its large body. Tom Westonby had grown to like Helsvir, even though he’d not seen it since that night in the flooded village. After all, the creature was taking care of Nicola now. Wherever she was. Because he’d never seen her with her vampire brothers and sisters, who seemed content to mysteriously reappear from time to time in order stand out in the forest at midnight . . . as still as death, and never speaking.
After the flood, Danby-Mask, and this remote valley, had returned to their ways of age-old seclusion. If anyone should mention rumours of eerie figures glimpsed in the forest, or the day a gigantic creature prowled the village’s flooded streets, then such sightings were judiciously dismissed as that’s just the ale talking, or the result of a practical joke played by mischievous children.
When Tom was satisfied that the carving was level in its wall niche, he applied mortar to the edges of the slab. He worked so diligently, and was so wrapped up in memories of Nicola – especially when she’d told him how she’d played amongst those chairs at Mull-Rigg Hall as a child – that he didn’t notice night had fallen.
Winter had pulled darkness into the forest so quickly that he could barely find the path back to the cabin, even though it stood no more than forty paces from the cottage.
On the way he saw her. A lone figure sitting on one of those straight-backed chairs that he’d brought from his parents’ house and placed amid the trees. The beautiful woman was as pale as the moon; her blonde hair fell softly over her shoulders; those white eyes of hers carefully watched his face.
Nicola remained in the chair for only a moment. Then she disappeared as fast as a blink of an eye – some malicious force had tugged her back to wherever that enemy of love had banished her. Yet he knew in his heart of hearts that she was trying to find a way back to him.
And just as she had been transformed into a vampire six months ago, wasn’t there a chance that she could change back into that most wonderful of human beings again in the future?
Yes – and YES again.
Of course, this was just the start of Nicola’s return journey. This wouldn’t be easy. There’d be a host of obstacles, problems and dangers to overcome before he was fully reunited with her. Nevertheless, at the same moment as snowflakes started to fall through the trees to brush against his face, he knew that all-important flame of hope had begun to burn inside of him.
Tom Westonby also knew that he’d never let the precious flame die. Not while he had life in his body and breath to speak the name of his bride.
