The Mammoth Book of Vampires: New edition (Mammoth Books)

by Stephen Jones

  “Goodnight,” said Reynolds, calling after him.

  Gavin didn’t reply, nor did he pick up any money on his way out. Let him have his tombstones and his secrets.

  On his way to the front door he stepped into the main room to pick up his jacket. The face of Flavinus the Standard-Bearer looked down at him from the wall. The man must have been a hero, Gavin thought. Only a hero would have been commemorated in such a fashion. He’d get no remembrance like that; no stone face to mark his passage.

  He closed the front door behind him, aware once more that his tooth was aching, and as he did so the noise began again, the beating of a fist against a wall.

  Or worse, the sudden fury of a woken heart.

  The toothache was really biting the following day, and he went to the dentist mid-morning, expecting to coax the girl on the desk into giving him an instant appointment. But his charm was at a low ebb, his eyes weren’t sparkling quite as luxuriantly as usual. She told him he’d have to wait until the following Friday, unless it was an emergency. He told her it was: she told him it wasn’t. It was going to be a bad day: an aching tooth, a lesbian dentist receptionist, ice on the puddles, nattering women on every street corner, ugly children, ugly sky.

  That was the day the pursuit began.

  Gavin had been chased by admirers before, but never quite like this. Never so subtle, so surreptitious. He’d had people follow him round for days, from bar to bar, from street to street, so dog-like it almost drove him mad. Seeing the same longing face night afte night, screwing up the courage to buy him a drink, perhaps offering him a watch, cocaine, a week in Tunisia, whatever. He’d rapidly come to loathe that sticky adoration that went bad as quickly as milk, and stank to high Heaven once it had. One of his most ardent admirers, a knighted actor he’d been told, never actually came near him, just followed him around, looking and looking. At first the attention had been flattering, but the pleasure soon became irritation, and eventually he’d cornered the guy in a bar and threatened him with a broken head. He’d been so wound up that night, so sick of being devoured by looks, he’d have done some serious harm if the pitiful bastard hadn’t taken the hint. He never saw the guy again; half thought he’d probably gone home and hanged himself.

  But this pursuit was nowhere near as obvious, it was scarcely more than a feeling. There was no hard evidence that he had somebody on his tail. Just a prickly sense, every time he glanced round, that someone was slotting themselves into the shadows, or that on a night street a walker was keeping pace with him, matching every click of his heel, every hesitation in his step. It was like paranoia, except that he wasn’t paranoid. If he was paranoid, he reasoned, somebody would tell him.

  Besides, there were incidents. One morning the cat woman who lived on the landing below him idly enquired who his visitor was: the funny one who came in late at night and waited on the stairs hour after hour, watching his room. He’d had no such visitor: and knew no-one who fitted the description.

  Another day, on a busy street, he’d ducked out of the throng into the doorway of an empty shop and was in the act of lighting a cigarette when somebody’s reflection, distorted through the grime on the window, caught his eye. The match burned his finger, he looked down as he dropped it, and when he looked up again the crowd had closed round the watcher like an eager sea.

  It was a bad, bad feeling: and there was more where that came from.

  Gavin had never spoken with Preetorius, though they’d exchanged an occasional nod on the street, and each asked after the other in the company of mutual acquaintances as though they were dear friends. Preetorius was a black, somewhere between forty-five and assassination, a glorified pimp who claimed to be descended from Napoleon. He’d been running a circle of women, and three or four boys, for the best part of a decade, and doing well from the business. When he first began work, Gavin had been strongly advised to ask for Preetorius’ patronage, but he’d always been too much of a maverick to want that kind of help. As a result he’d never been looked upon kindly by Preetorius or his clan. Nevertheless, once he became a fixture on the scene, no-one challenged his right to be his own man. The word was that Preetorius even admitted a grudging admiration for Gavin’s greed.

  Admiration or no, it was a chilly day in Hell when Preetorius actually broke the silence and spoke to him.

  “White boy.”

  It was towards eleven, and Gavin was on his way from a bar off St Martin’s Lane to a club in Covent Garden. The street still buzzed: there were potential punters amongst the theatre and movie-goers, but he hadn’t got the appetite for it tonight. He had a hundred in his pocket, which he’d made the day before and hadn’t bothered to bank. Plenty to keep him going.

  His first thought when he saw Preetorius and his pie-bald goons blocking his path was: they want my money.

  “White boy.”

  Then he recognised the flat, shining face. Preetorius was no street thief; never had been, never would be.

  “White boy, I’d like a word with you.”

  Preetorius took a nut from his pocket, shelled it in his palm, and popped the kernel into his ample mouth.

  “You don’t mind do you?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Like I said, just a word. Not too much to ask, is it?”

  “OK. What?”

  “Not here.”

  Gavin looked at Preetorius’ cohorts. They weren’t gorillas, that wasn’t the black’s style at all, but nor were they ninety-eight pound weaklings. This scene didn’t look, on the whole, too healthy.

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” Gavin said, and began to walk, with as even a pace as he could muster, away from the trio. They followed. He prayed they wouldn’t, but they followed. Preetorius talked at his back.

  “Listen. I hear bad things about you,” he said.

  “Oh yes?”

  “I’m afraid so. I’m told you attacked one of my boys.”

  Gavin took six paces before he answered. “Not me. You’ve got the wrong man.”

  “He recognised you, trash. You did him some serious mischief.”

  “I told you: not me.”

  “You’re a lunatic, you know that? You should be put behind fucking bars.”

  Preetorius was raising his voice. People were crossing the street to avoid the escalating argument.

  Without thinking, Gavin turned off St Martin’s Lane into Long Acre, and rapidly realised he’d made a tactical error. The crowds thinned substantially here, and it was a long trek through the streets of Covent Garden before he reached another centre of activity. He should have turned right instead of left, and he’d have stepped onto Charing Cross Road. There would have been some safety there. Damn it, he couldn’t turn round, not and walk straight into them. All he could do was walk (not run; never run with a mad dog on your heels) and hope he could keep the conversation on an even keel.

  Preetorius: “You’ve cost me a lot of money.”

  “I don’t see—”

  “You put some of my prime boy-meat out of commission. It’s going to be a long time ‘til I get that kid back on the market. He’s shit scared, see?”

  “Look . . . I didn’t do anything to anybody.”

  “Why do you fucking lie to me, trash? What have I ever done to you, you treat me like this?”

  Preetorius picked up his pace a little and came up level with Gavin, leaving his associates a few steps behind.

  “Look . . .” he whispered to Gavin, “kids like that can be tempting, right? That’s cool. I can get into that. You put a little boy-pussy on my plate I’m not going to turn my nose up at it. But you hurt him: and when you hurt one of my kids, I bleed too.”

  “If I’d done this like you say, you think I’d be walking the street?”

  “Maybe you’re not a well man, you know? We’re not talking about a couple of bruises here, man. I’m talking about you taking a shower in a kid’s blood, that’s what I’m saying. Hanging him up and cutting him everywhere, then leaving him on my fuckin’
stairs wearing a pair of fucking’ socks. You getting my message now, white boy? You read my message?”

  Genuine rage had flared as Preetorius described the alleged crimes, and Gavin wasn’t sure how to handle it. He kept his silence, and walked on.

  “That kid idolised you, you know? Thought you were essential reading for an aspirant bum-boy. How’d you like that?”

  “Not much.”

  “You should be fuckin’ flattered, man, ’cause that’s about as much as you’ll ever amount to.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’ve had a good career. Pity it’s over.”

  Gavin felt iced lead in his belly: he’d hoped Preetorius was going to be content with a warning. Apparently not. They were here to damage him: Jesus, they were going to hurt him, and for something he hadn’t done, didn’t even know anything about.

  “We’re going to take you off the street, white boy. Permanently.”

  “I did nothing.”

  “The kid knew you, even with a stocking over your head he knew you. The voice was the same, the clothes were the same. Face it, you were recognised. Now take the consequences.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Gavin broke into a run. As an eighteen year old he’d sprinted for his county: he needed that speed again now. Behind him Preetorius laughed (such sport!) and two sets of feet pounded the pavement in pursuit. They were close, closer – and Gavin was badly out of condition. His thighs were aching after a few dozen yards, and his jeans were too tight to run in easily. The chase was lost before it began.

  “The man didn’t tell you to leave,” the white goon scolded, his bitten fingers digging into Gavin’s biceps.

  “Nice try.” Preetorius smiled, sauntering towards the dogs and the panting hare. He nodded, almost imperceptibly, to the other goon.

  “Christian?” he asked.

  At the invitation Christian delivered a fist to Gavin’s kidneys. The blow doubled him up, spitting curses.

  Christian said: “Over there.” Preetorius said: “Make it snappy,” and suddenly they were dragging him out of the light into an alley. His shirt and his jacket tore, his expensive shoes were dragged through dirt, before he was pulled upright, groaning. The alley was dark and Preetorius’ eyes hung in the air in front of him, dislocated.

  “Here we are again,” he said. “Happy as can be.”

  “I . . . didn’t touch him,” Gavin gasped.

  The unnamed cohort, Not-Christian, put a ham hand in the middle of Gavin’s chest, and pushed him back against the end wall of the alley. His heel slid in muck, and though he tried to stay upright his legs had turned to water. His ego too: this was no time to be courageous. He’d beg, he fall down on his knees and lick their soles if need be, anything to stop them doing a job on him. Anything to stop them spoiling his face.

  That was Preetorius’ favourite pastime, or so the street talk went: the spoiling of beauty. He had a rare way with him, could maim beyond hope of redemption in three strokes of his razor, and have the victim pocket his lips as a keepsake.

  Gavin stumbled forward, palms slapping the wet ground. Something rotten-soft slid out of its skin beneath his hand.

  Not-Christian exchanged a grin with Preetorius.

  “Doesn’t he look delightful?” he said.

  Preetorius was crunching a nut. “Seems to me—” he said, “—the man’s finally found his place in life.”

  “I didn’t touch him,” Gavin begged. There was nothing to do but deny and deny: and even then it was a lost cause.

  “You’re guilty as hell,” said Not-Christian.

  “Please.”

  “I’d really like to get this over with as soon as possible,” said Preetorius, glancing at his watch, “I’ve got appointments to keep, people to pleasure.”

  Gavin looked up at his tormentors. The sodium-lit street was a twenty-five-yard dash away, if he could break through the cordon of their bodies.

  “Allow me to rearrange your face for you. A little crime of fashion.”

  Preetorius had a knife in his hand. Not-Christian had taken a rope from his pocket, with a ball on it. The ball goes in the mouth, the rope goes round the head – you couldn’t scream if your life depended on it. This was it.

  Go!

  Gavin broke from his grovelling position like a sprinter from his block, but the slops greased his heels, and threw him off balance. Instead of making a clean dash for safety he stumbled sideways and fell against Christian, who in turn fell back.

  There was a breathless scrambling before Preetorius stepped in, dirtying his hands on the white trash, and hauling him to his feet.

  “No way out, fucker,” he said, pressing the point of the blade against Gavin’s chin. The jut of the bone was clearest there, and he began the cut without further debate – tracing the jawline, too hot for the act to care if the trash was gagged or not. Gavin howled as blood washed down his neck, but his cries were cut short as somebody’s fat fingers grappled with his tongue, and held it fast.

  His pulse began to thud in his temples, and windows, one behind the other, opened and opened in front of him, and he was falling through them into unconsciousness.

  Better to die. Better to die. They’d destroy his face: better to die.

  Then he was screaming again, except that he wasn’t aware of making the sound in his throat. Through the slush in his ears he tried to focus on the voice, and realised it was Preetorius’ scream he was hearing, not his own.

  His tongue was released; and he was spontaneously sick. He staggered back, puking, from a mess of struggling figures in front of him. A person, or persons, unknown had stepped in, and prevented the completion of his spoiling. There was a body sprawled on the floor, face up. Not-Christian, eyes open, life shut. God: someone had killed for him. For him.

  Gingerly, he put his hand up to his face to feel the damage. The flesh was deeply lacerated along his jawbone, from the middle of his chin to within an inch of his ear. It was bad, but Preetorius, ever organised, had left the best delights to the last, and had been interrupted before he’d slit Gavin’s nostrils or taken off his lips. A scar along his jawbone wouldn’t be pretty, but it wasn’t disastrous.

  Somebody was staggering out of the mêlée towards him – Preetorius, tears on his face, eyes like golf-balls.

  Beyond him Christian, his arms useless, was staggering towards the street.

  Preetorius wasn’t following: why?

  His mouth opened; an elastic filament of saliva, strung with pearls, depended from his lower lip.

  “Help me,” he appealed, as though his life was in Gavin’s power. One large hand was raised to squeeze a drop of mercy out of the air, but instead came the swoop of another arm, reaching over his shoulder and thrusting a weapon, a crude blade, into the black’s mouth. He gargled it a moment, his throat trying to accommodate its edge, its width, before his attacker dragged the blade up and back, holding Preetorius’ neck to steady him against the force of the stroke. The startled face divided, and heat bloomed from Preetorius’ interior, warming Gavin in a cloud.

  The weapon hit the alley floor, a dull clank. Gavin glanced at it. A short, wide-bladed sword. He looked back at the dead man.

  Preetorius stood upright in front of him, supported now only by his executioner’s arm. His gushing head fell forward, and the executioner took the bow as a sign, neatly dropping Preetorius’ body at Gavin’s feet. No longer eclipsed by the corpse, Gavin met his saviour face to face.

  It took him only a moment to place those crude features: the startled, lifeless eyes, the gash of a mouth, the jug-handle ears. It was Reynolds’ statue. It grinned, its teeth too small for its head. Milk-teeth, still to be shed before the adultform. There was, however, some improvement in its appearance, he could see that even in the gloom. The brow seemed to have swelled; the face was altogether better proportioned. It remained a painted doll, but it was a doll with aspirations.

  The statue gave a stiff bow, its joints unmistakably creaking, and the absurdity, the s
heer absurdity of this situation welled up in Gavin. It bowed, damn it, it smiled, it murdered: and yet it couldn’t possibly be alive, could it? Later, he would disbelieve, he promised himself. Later he’d find a thousand reasons not to accept the reality in front of him: blame his blood-starved brain, his confusion, his panic. One way or another he’d argue himself out of this fantastic vision, and it would be as though it had never happened.

  If he could just live with it a few minutes longer.

  The vision reached across and touched Gavin’s jaw, lightly, running its crudely carved fingers along the lips of the wound Preetorius had made. A ring on its smallest finger caught the light: a ring identical to his own.

  “We’re going to have a scar,” it said.

  Gavin knew its voice.

  “Dear me: pity,” it said. It was speaking with his voice. “Still, it could be worse.”

  His voice. God, his, his, his.

  Gavin shook his head.

  “Yes,” it said, understanding that he’d understood.

  “Not me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  It transferred its touch from Gavin’s jawbone to its own, markingout the place where the wound should be, and even as it made the gesture its surface opened, and it grew a scar on the spot. No blood welled up: it had no blood.

  Yet wasn’t that his own, even brow it was emulating, and the piercing eyes, weren’t they becoming his, and the wonderful mouth?

  “The boy?” said Gavin, fitting the pieces together.

  “Oh the boy . . .” It threw its unfinished glance to Heaven. “What a treasure he was. And how he snarled.”

  “You washed in his blood?”

  “I need it.” It knelt to the body of Preetorius and put its fingers in the split head. “This blood’s old, but it’ll do. The boy was better.”

  It daubed Preetorius’ blood on its cheek, like war-paint. Gavin couldn’t hide his disgust.

  “Is he such a loss?” the effigy demanded.

  The answer was no, of course. It was no loss at all that Preetorius was dead, no loss that some drugged, cocksucking kid had given up some blood and sleep because this painted miracle needed to feed its growth. There were worse things than this every day, somewhere; huge horrors. And yet—