She didn’t think she’d put that to the test and just as well Mr. Watson wasn’t up yet. She’d never have been able to tell as much as she had with him there.
The Sergeant opened the door for her.
“Thanks again,” Gloria said, “for breakfast and for believing me.”
“You trusted me with that, will you trust me with what you are?” he asked.
For one hideous minute she thought he meant her Other nature, but he couldn’t. Impossible. “You know who I am. I’m just the district nurse,” she replied. “Nothing special about me.”
He smiled. “Take care of yourself, Nurse, we need you.”
“Bad news,” Howell Pendragon said to himself as he washed up the mugs and plates. But bad news wasn’t the same as a bad end. They had time. Pity the little nurse wouldn’t trust him with her nature, but he understood. It didn’t do to broadcast one’s Otherness. She’d trusted him with quite enough already. Now it was up to him to make sure the place was checked for land mines or whatever.
Good thing really the lad had stayed out last night. Howell gave a dry chuckle. Nothing like youth; pity they were always too young to appreciate it. Well, the doctor could do a lot worse, and the lad seemed able to handle Otherness.
Good luck to them.
Now what to do about Nurse Prewitt’s news?
Someone had better be alerted. But he’d shave and put on a clean shirt first then go and talk to Helen.
She’d know how to get the word out without actually physically telling anyone.
“I feel a total and utter fool doing this.”
Peter squeezed her hand. Safe enough in the car. “Think she’ll refuse to talk to you?”
“Not at all. She’ll be thrilled to have me coming to her for help. We’ve had…” What had gone between them?
“Confrontations?” Peter suggested.
“Nothing that far. You could say we’ve competed over patients. Lots of the villagers go to her first, and when her remedies don’t work, they come to me much sicker.”
“Could be the ones she cures don’t need to come to you.”
“Peter, are you on my side or not?”
“I’ll always be on your side, love, but if I can open my mind to Dragons and Pixies, can’t you concede herbal potions and cures might sometimes work? Isn’t aspirin some sort of tree bark?”
“That would be easy. It’s ‘My grandmother told me to ask you about vampires’ that I’m going to choke over.”
“Best get on with it then. That way you get the choking over with.”
Not the reply she wanted, but when had Gran ever let her down? “Alright, let’s go and make fools of ourselves.”
“Well, I never, it’s the doctor!” Mother Longhurst grinned as she recognized Alice and Peter. “And her helper. What can I do for you? Need a linctus do you? A cure? Bad headaches? Not sleeping enough?”
That Alice would not respond to. “I don’t need a cure or potion, Mother Longhurst. Gran sent me here.”
“Which one does she want? More rosehip tea?”
“We’re not here for your herb lore, Mother Longhurst; your Other knowledge is what we need.”
She grinned, a sly look in her eyes. “And what would that be? How best to keep the greenfly off your roses?”
“I know that,” said Peter. “My grandmother told me that one: soap suds.”
That got a cackle from Mother Longhurst. “Sharp as you look, eh, young man? Well then, what do you both want from me?”
“Mrs. Burrows said you could tell us how magic and time sundered.”
“She did, did she?” For a few seconds she seemed to ponder slamming the door on them, but seemed she liked Peter. “Best come in then.”
Wasn’t a gracious invitation, but they were in her cottage.
After the bright morning, the place seemed gloomy in the extreme. The table was covered with papers and packets. A pot of tea and the heel of a stale loaf sat among the mess. Mother Longhurst walked over the to fireplace where a large pot simmered on the iron range.
“Sit down,” she said as she settled in the rocking chair, “This will take time.”
There wasn’t another chair, not even a stool.
Oh, well. Alice sat down on the rug by the fire, and Peter did the same. Mother Longhurst, obviously enjoying having them at her feet, smiled. “Ready, are you?”
Alice nodded.
“Yes, Mother Longhurst,” Peter said.
He did have better manners than she had, but drat it, sitting at the feet of one’s old adversary wasn’t exactly comfy. Even if she did have a massive sheepskin spread in front of the fireplace.
Alice ran her fingers through the thick fleece. She’d no doubt poached it when out gathering.
“Are you here to listen or scowl, girl?”
Had she been so obvious? Alice felt the blush rise. It would be the easiest thing in the world to get up and go. But Gran insisted Mother Longhurst could help.
“Sorry, I’m a bit worried.”
“Should be what with bombs dropping, people dying and breaking legs and getting arrested as spies. To say nothing of all the Other stuff going on right now.”
There was the term “Other” again. The way she said it put a capital on the word. Alice shivered; she was one of those Others.
“Mother Longhurst, can you tell us the story?” Peter asked.
“You’re the one rescued those children from the vicarage, right?”
“With help, yes.”
She grinned a sly knowing grin. “You had good help, I’ll tell you that.”
“Yes.”
“So you want the old story, do you?”
“Please.” They both spoke at once.
“Better listen then, I’m not doing this for entertainment.” She had a swig of tea from a mug perched on the fender, put the mug back down, drew herself up, took a deep breath, and began singing.
Her voice was surpassingly clear for her age and the words were easy to make out. But it was the same ballad Alice’d heard umpteen times from Gran. All this for something she already knew. But leaving would be rude in the extreme and Peter was listening, rapt. She might as well.
It wasn’t quite the same. It was longer, verses added that Gran had never sung, and the ending sounded like a dirge.
“So,” Mother Longhurst said in the silence after she finished. “You heard it. What did you learn?”
That the song was a lot longer that she’d thought? Better not.
“Mother Longhurst,” Peter asked while Alice fumbled for something polite to say. “The timeless in the song, the ones who left. They were vampires?”
Again that cackle. Did witches practice it? “Not bad, young man, not bad. You’ve a more open mind than our doctor here. Some call them vampires. Once they were called timeless. The ones who never aged.”
“But could die?”
“Could be extinguished.”
“How,” Alice asked, thinking hard, “could anyone extinguish them?”
“Wrong question, Doctor,” she replied with the same annoying cackle. It had scared Alice as a child, now it just got on her nerves. “You should have asked, ‘Why?’”
Alright, if she wanted to play games, Alice could play. “Why would anyone extinguish them?”
“Jealousy, fear, hate, lust for their power, to rid the earth of them. Hard to do that since they come of the earth.”
“How?” Hopefully this was the time to ask that.
“Takes more than you have, Alice Doyle.”
“More than Alice and I have?” Peter asked.
She smiled and shook her head.
“What about more than Peter, Gran, and myself?”
“And why would you want to know?”
She was getting tired of talking in circles.
“Mother Longhurst,” Peter said, “there’s a vampire in the village bent on harm. We have to get rid of it.”
“And how do you know there’s one? Gossip? Drunken talk at the Pi
g and Whistle?”
“I’ve faced it. Twice.”
Her old eyes all but popped. “And you sit here now and tell about it? It wasn’t one of the timeless.”
“I believe it was. It was a dark presence full of horror and fear.”
“And what did you do, give it the hex sign and tell it to run away?”
Miserable old skeptic, but Peter wasn’t put off. “No. Both times I was fortunate. Someone with powers I don’t possess thwarted and repelled it.”
“Then you were lucky with your choice of company, young man.”
“I was.” He gave Alice a sideways smile. “We think it has harmed and killed and plans to do worse.”
“If it’s a vampire, harm and injury are part of their nature. They’re dangerous, very dangerous.”
That much they’d worked out for themselves. “Will you help us destroy this one?” Alice asked.
That cackle was beginning to get on Alice’s nerves. “Come to me at last, have you, Doctor? Remember that next time you fuss at one of your patients for taking my cures.” And with that, she stood up and walked out of the door.
Alice turned to Peter. He turned to her. Their eyes met and as she opened her mouth to speak, he put his finger on his lips and shook his head. She’d humor him. He seemed to have a feel for all that and she was well out of her depth.
They stayed put. Just as Alice was thinking enough was enough and she was darn well going home, Mother Longhurst reappeared with a bundle in her hand.
A bundle of what looked like filthy rags.
“I wouldn’t keep this in the house. Too powerful. You have to be careful, magic has a way of twisting back. But this will extinguish a vampire.” She unrolled the bundle and spread the dingy cloth on the table. “Come and look at it then. I didn’t climb up a tree at my age to get this for fun!”
Peter gave Alice a hand and they both stood.
Two steps brought them to the table.
Alice fought to keep back the sneer. It was a dirty old knife. “What is it?”
“A knife of power. Touch the hilt, if you will. Avoid the blade.”
Both blade and hilt were covered with strange markings. Some ancient alphabet perhaps? Alice touched the hilt. “It’s stone?” She’d heard tales of sacrificial druid knives. Surely this couldn’t be that old?
“Petrified wood. Hard enough to slay a vampire. Drive that though his heart and he will not heal.”
A knife through the heart, any knife, tended to kill. “Why this knife and not any other?”
“Any other knife he’ll heal from. Only wood kills them and only if it stays in their flesh.”
“If the wood’s taken out they don’t die?”
“As hard as it is to get it in them in the first place, who in their right mind would take wood from a vampire’s flesh?”
She’d skip answering that.
“So,” Peter said, guessing her confusion, no doubt. “We stab him with this and that’s it?”
“If it works.”
“Does it?” he persisted.
“I’ve never used it. That was handed to me by my grandmother, who had it from hers, who had it from hers, and back through the ages. I don’t know when it was last used.”
Or would even work? But the bit about wood in the flesh and taking it out certainly rang true.
“Any hints to help make sure it does?” Heaven bless Peter, he did ask the right questions.
“They say coating the blade with mistletoe adds to its power.”
It would. It was poison.
“Is there anything we should do to keep this safe?” he asked.
“Safe?” Mother Longhurst shook her head. “It will never be safe. Isn’t that why you want it?”
“But what if someone else touches it and gets hurt?”
“That’s the risk. Power can recoil and often does but if you set out to attempt the near impossible, you take risks.”
Easy for her to say, safe in her poky little cottage. For two pins Alice would tell her to keep her battered knife.
“Thank you,” Peter said, rewrapping the knife in the tattered cloth. “We’ll only use it for its intended purpose. And then we’ll get it back to you.”
“We’ll see. We’ll see.”
What did one say after that odd comment? “Thank you” seemed the best bet.
“May the strength of the ancients be with you,” Mother Longhurst said as she opened the door. “Gods and goddesses befriend you both.”
“Er…thank you,” Alice replied.
She almost ran to the car.
“Next stop, the Pig and Whistle,” Peter said as he opened the car door for her.
“A pity it’s so early. I could use a stiff drink.”
Peter’s grin suggested he was of the same mind. “That was a bit odd, wasn’t it?”
“I’m still not sure how helpful all that was. Apart from lending us an ancient knife designed to kill vampires. All very well and good, but we’ve got to get awfully close to the thing once we identify it if we want to get a stab at it.”
“If Fred Wise can give us his name, we’ll have a start.”
“We’d better be damn sure it’s the right person. That knife would do injury to anyone, vampire or not. As for rubbing the blade with mistletoe, it’s a bit early in the season for berries.”
“She didn’t say it had to be berries. Maybe the leaves or branches would work.”
“We’ve still got to find it and climb and get it.”
“I don’t think that’s the hardest job ahead of us.”
Chapter 37
Helen Burrows took a seat by the window and the bus took off. It was a good thing she’d left the house in a huff. If she’d stopped to think about this, she’d still be safe in her own kitchen.
She was really getting too old for this sort of lark, but if Alice could go asking favors of Mother Longhurst, whom she mistrusted to the point of active dislike, maybe paying an unannounced social call on a vampire wasn’t too much of an undertaking.
Assuming, of course, he was still there, would see her if he was, was willing to help, and let her walk away unharmed at the end of it.
That last was a bit of a worry, but in all the years since she’d lived in Surrey, she’d never heard word or whisper of any vampire doing harm. Not that it was the sort of thing they put in the local paper, but one heard these things, if one knew what to listen for.
This particular vampire had lived here quietly and unobtrusively. She was one of the few, maybe the only, living soul who knew him for what he was. That in itself was a bit of a worry. But there was no point in getting off the bus now that she was halfway there.
She did wonder how Alice and Peter were getting on, aside from the obvious, long-term aspect, which was so clear to anyone with half an eye. She really didn’t understand why it wasn’t the talk of the village. It would be soon.
Good.
She always enjoyed a wedding.
Of course, first they had to dispose of this nasty vampire presence in the village. Not an easy task.
Which was why she’d jumped on the first bus to Epsom, waited the better part of an hour in the High Street, watching the hands creep on the clock tower, and finally caught a bus going to the Downs. How she was getting back, given the sketchy bus service, was another problem entirely. One thing at a time.
“Mum?” the driver called back at her. “Next stop’s yours. Tatteneham Corner.”
This was it.
“Thank you,” she said as she alit. The bus drew away. A brisk wind blew across the Downs, making her wish she’d worn more than a short jacket.
Actually having an address also would have made it easier. But she had a name, hopefully the current one, and could speak the language. The first two houses she tried were unoccupied. The third, the door was answered by a trim parlormaid who had never heard of a Mr. Jude Clarendon. Back down the path, Helen sighed: She was indeed a very foolish Pixie to think she could find a man, alright, vampire, on
the strength of a name alone.
If she knocked on every door and asked, it could take her weeks. And they didn’t have weeks. As she turned left, heading up the lane, a mail van passed and stopped a few yards farther along the road alongside a bright red pillar-box.
She all but ran to catch the postman before he finished emptying the postbox. “Excuse me.” She was almost out of breath. “Do you know this area?”
He looked up from catching a cascade of letters and packages into a heavy mailbag. “Indeed I do. Lost are you, mum?”
“I’m looking for a house. Someone asked me to pop in and see an old friend for them, and I lost the address. Do you know where a Mr. Jude Clarendon lives? I know it’s somewhere around but my memory isn’t what it was.” The latter was no lie.
“Mr. Jude Clarendon, Summerhaven on Green Lane. You’re close, just five minutes down the road then turn left.” He stood upright and slammed the postbox shut and locked it before looping a strap around the top of the bag he held. “Tell you what, mum. If you don’t tell on me, I’ll give you lift down to the corner.”
She gladly climbed into the van and he set off. “Know Mr. Clarendon well, do you?”
“Not well, just through friends, but I was in Epsom and promised Helen I’d look him up.” Perfect truth. She had promised herself to do everything she could to find him.
Good thing she took up his offer of a lift. It was a five minute drive, and most of it uphill.
“Here you are.” He pulled to the curb and reached over to open the door for her. “Go up the lane forty, fifty yards and you’ll see the house on the left. A bungalow: Summerhaven.”
“Thank you so much. Saved me a long walk.”
“Don’t mention it, mum, we’ve all got to stick together these days, haven’t we?”
He had no idea how right he was.
She found the house easily, a pantile-roofed bungalow with a wide veranda. A dark green roadster stood in the drive and a tall, fair-haired, heavyset man was loading a suitcase into the boot.
Wasn’t many times in her life Helen Burrows had been plain petrified, but this was one of them. She was either looking at the vampire, or his servant, or was completely off course and about to accost some respectable citizen. No point in delaying. At the sound of the gate opening, the man, creature, whatever he was, straightened and looked right at her.
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