Vampire Trilogy Series (Book 3): Vampire Equinox

by Philip Henry

  Hal decided then and there.

  Sarah marched back up the corridor feeling only slightly better than before. She really needed some advice. Should she go see her doctor? Would he be able to tell if she had been raped? She probably shouldn’t have taken a shower. She didn’t know why, but after speaking to Hal, she thought maybe he was telling the truth about that one thing. Or maybe she was just deluding herself. She took out her phone and dialled her mum again. This time she answered.

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s me. Where are you?’

  Her mum paused before answering. ‘There was a bit of an emergency last night with your Aunt Chloe.’

  ‘Is she all right? I’m at the hospital now if…’

  ‘No, no, she’s fine. We’re on our way back to her house now. Why are you at the hospital?’

  ‘I had to see Hal about something. Ah, when do you think you’ll be home?’

  ‘I’m not sure, why?’

  Sarah didn’t know what to say. If there was something wrong with Chloe, who wasn’t really an aunt, just a friend of her mum’s, then she had enough to deal with at the moment.

  ‘Sarah, is something wrong?’

  ‘No. It’s nothing, mum. It can wait. I’ll see you when I see you.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Bye.’

  Anna slid her phone closed. Chloe looked over at her from the passenger’s seat. ‘Everything OK with Sarah?’

  Anna dropped the phone back in her pocket. ‘She says so.’

  ‘You don’t believe her?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Probably just boy trouble,’ Chloe said with a grin.

  ‘She said she had just been speaking to Hal. You’re probably right. Are you warm enough?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘The doctors said you have to keep warm. Your body’s had a terrible shock.’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Anna. I can’t wait to get into my own bed. You can just drop me off and then go and see what’s happening with Sarah.’

  Anna didn’t answer and Chloe was suspicious of the silence, but said nothing. She pulled down the car’s sun-visor and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked like a zombie. Pale, too thin, she didn’t even think she looked like a woman anymore. She was androgynous; it was impossible to guess her sex just by looking at her face. That haircut had been a mistake. Very few women can pull off short hair; Audrey Hepburn, Winona Ryder – that’s about it. The latest in a long line of mistakes made by Chloe Knight.

  She leaned her head against the window and watched the countryside pass by. In truth she dreaded reaching her home. A huge mansion she had bought for herself when she sold The Fist of Merlin. She thought it was her dream house until she had to live in it by herself. Eighteen rooms for one zombie with a bad haircut. It was a joke. In the early days of course she had the Daves for company, but now even they had moved on, both married and working if you can believe it. The whole world was moving on and she was standing still.

  Anna was the only close friend she had left in the area. But she had met someone now, too. Tall, good-looking, good-natured. She would be the next to move on. Another bridesmaid’s dress. With every wedding she attended Chloe grew more and more sure that she was going to spend the rest of her life alone. Something inside her told her so. No matter what she tried, she never met anyone who measured up.

  The money had only complicated things. She had millions in the bank. She was slim (maybe too slim) and back in her dating (and pre-bad-haircut) days she had been pretty. You would assume there would be no end of male suitors for such a catch. And there were, in the beginning. They fell into two categories; 1) old money, who looked down on Chloe for being new money and not knowing five-hundred years of in-bred etiquette, and 2) himbos (the male equivalent of bimbos), who looked very attractive when hung over your arm and would gladly accept all manner of presents, but were sorely lacking in any real personality. Her last real boyfriend was called Pedro. A Latin beauty with a vacuum between his ears. Other women used to drool over him, but they didn’t have to live with him. He really was the most boring person she had ever met. He had left her, and taken quite a lot of valuables with him, while she was out shopping one day. That was two years ago. Two years she’d spent rattling around those eighteen rooms alone. She compared herself to Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, except she had no wedding dress to wear.

  Maybe she would get some cats, just to seal her spinster status. She could fill the eighteen rooms with cats. She could be known locally as the Crazy Cat Lady. When she died she would leave the house to the cats, just to piss off any relatives that might surface. And on her gravestone would be written Chloe Knight, spinster of this parish, Crazy Cat Lady, a life of no consequence.

  ‘Are you crying, Chloe?’

  Chloe wiped her face. ‘No. I’m fine.’ She looked out and saw they were on the driveway up to her house. Home sweet home. Chloe’s boat was sitting on a trailer, moored in her front garden. Round the back of the house was a helicopter. And in the garage two sports cars, a four-wheel-drive SUV and three motorcycles (two vintage and one brand new). The toys of the rich. Failed distractions to her loneliness.

  Anna pulled the car close to the door and stopped. Chloe reached to her trouser pocket then quickly turned to Anna. ‘My keys. Did the ambulance men lift…?’

  She stopped mid-sentence as the door to her house opened and Lynda stepped out. Chloe looked at Anna.

  ‘I called her last night. I hope you don’t mind.’

  There were tears in Chloe’s eyes, but they were tears of gratitude. She smiled at Anna and nodded. Chloe opened the door and ran to Lynda. They hugged on the doorstep as Anna unloaded the few belongings Chloe had in hospital. She followed the two women inside.

  Lynda had made breakfast and they all ate. Chloe did her best but couldn’t finish what was on the plate. Afterwards they all went to the living room with mugs of coffee and talked.

  Lynda was showing them the latest photos of her children.

  ‘They’ve got so big since the last time I visited,’ Chloe said.

  ‘Well, that was nearly a year ago.’

  ‘Was it?’

  Lynda sat forward. ‘Yes. Why didn’t you come at Christmas like you said you were going to?’

  ‘I didn’t like to. I know you invited me and all, but, well, it’s a time for family isn’t it?’

  ‘Hey, I wouldn’t have invited you if I didn’t want you to come. I had planned to set you up with this doctor friend of Frank’s.’

  Chloe forced a smile.

  Anna joined in. ‘A doctor, eh? What’s he like?’

  ‘If I weren’t a happily married woman, I wouldn’t say no!’ Lynda and Anna laughed.

  Chloe smiled a little more naturally. ‘I don’t know if I can stand striking out in the north and south of Ireland.’

  ‘Now what sort of attitude’s that?’ Anna asked.

  Lynda was staring at her solemnly now. Chloe’s jokes masked a deep sadness inside her. They were all friends so the best thing was to ask her straight. ‘Chloe,’ she started. ‘This accidental overdose…’

  Chloe lowered her head, avoiding both women’s eyes. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It was accidental, wasn’t it?’

  It took her a long time to come back with, ‘I think so.’ She took a sip of coffee and continued. ‘I don’t remember too much from before. But I remember… I think I almost died.’

  ‘You did,’ Anna said. ‘The ambulance men said they barely made it in time.’

  ‘I felt it coming; death, and you know what was going through my mind as I died? What have you done? You leave no children behind, you haven’t made the slightest difference to the world, even with all the charities I support; they try, but nothing ever changes. I’m leaving the world the same as I found it. I might as well not have lived at all for all the impact I made. And then I thought, now I’m going to die on my bathroom floor. Not even a heroic death. Not even dying so someone more worthy
can live. When I thought of how many people have died fighting vampires over the years, people with families, people who would be missed, and I thought, why not me?’

  Lynda sat forward and took her hand. ‘Chloe…’

  Chloe stood up and said, ‘Let me show you something.’ She quickly left the room.

  Lynda and Anna exchanged worried looks. ‘How long are you staying?’

  ‘I told Frank it would be a few days at least. He has some time off so he can take care of the wee’uns.’

  Anna leaned in. ‘I think one of us should stay with her at all times.’ Lynda nodded.

  Chloe came walking back in carrying a scrap-book. She sat between Anna and Lynda and they both leaned in close. Chloe opened the scrap-book to page one. Stuck there was a yellowed news article with the headline JEDI? KNIGHT. The picture showed Chloe flipping in mid-air clutching a baby as two cars crashed below her. ‘This is the first vampire I ever killed,’ she said. ‘The first and the last,’ she added. ‘His name was George. He wasn’t much of a vampire really, but he gave me a good run for my money. As he was trying to escape he pushed this baby out into traffic. I grabbed the baby out of its pram and launched myself into the air just as two cars crushed the pram below me. Some tourist took this photo of it happening and I was big news for a few weeks. And then…’ She flipped over the rest of the pages of the scrap-book. They were all empty.

  ‘Is that what you want?’ Lynda asked. ‘To be on the front page of The Coleraine Times?’

  Chloe shook her head. ‘It’s not the fame I want. It’s… knowing, that I made a difference. That in some small way, the world is better because of me. That’s all I want before I die.’

  ‘You’ve still got a lot of years left before then. Plenty of time to make your mark,’ Anna offered. Chloe hung her head and didn’t answer.

  ‘You have helped, anyway,’ Lynda said. ‘You’ve helped the Ministry more times than enough. OK, you may not be on the front lines anymore, but you’re doing your part.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ Chloe mumbled.

  The doorbell rang. Chloe looked confused.

  Anna got up. ‘I’ll get it.’

  Lynda looked at Chloe, trying to catch her eye. Chloe made a point of avoiding her gaze. After a few moments Anna walked nervously into the living room again.

  ‘Who was it?’ Chloe asked. ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses or door-to-door salesman?’

  ‘No,’ Anna said. ‘It’s my brother.’

  Rek Hughes and Agent Nicholl walked into the living room. Chloe got to her feet, her eyes dancing with anticipation.

  Agent Nicholl stepped forward. ‘Chloe, we need your help.’

  Chloe smiled widely, her eyes full of tears.

  returning

  Kaaliz lay naked among the bodies of The Sisterhood of the Kissed. His form was so wasted after all those years of not feeding that it had taken all their blood to regenerate his body. Afterwards he had felt quite dizzy and had passed out while his body repaired. He had no doubt the skeletal hand wrapped around his heart quickened his recovery. When he woke he could sense it was still daylight. That was OK. If all that time not being able to move had taught him anything, it was patience. He wandered around the basement and found an old radio that still worked. The DJ mentioned the date. Kaaliz couldn’t believe it. Ten years he had been buried in that concrete. How had the world changed? Were there more of his kind now, or less? And most importantly, where was Sin?

  Alone in the cold darkness as the immeasurable time passed, days just as dark as nights, he had waited for her. As insects crawled over his face and he couldn’t raise his arm to move them, he waited for her. As he lost his mind a thousand times and then regained it, he waited for her. She was looking for him. That much he was sure of. Unless she were dead. And if she were, whoever killed her would pay.

  In his underground prison he had focussed his rage. If he couldn’t use his limbs, he would use his mind. He could sense when there were people close. His mental abilities had been limited to controlling the actions of flies and mice previously. He had never successfully kept a human under his control. Now all he had was time to learn. And learn he did. Strong wills could not be broken, but a weakened mind, like a child’s or an adult who was tired, or someone who watched a lot of reality shows was easily manipulated. Sometimes the connection was so strong, he saw flashes of what was happening through their eyes. He saw them hurt and kill. Their bodies carrying out his desires.

  Unfortunately, he could not hold the subject under his power over distance; as soon as they left the area immediately above him, he lost the connection. But his hold on those close to him was getting stronger all the time; culminating in the moment that hapless woman had walked through the door. She had been so easy to control. Maybe she had low intelligence or was weak of will, or maybe in the years since the last visitors his powers had increased. Either way, she had set him free.

  Kaaliz walked around the basement and found an old mirror. He rubbed the dust from it and wished he could see his reflection; his body restored to perfection. The clothes he had been wearing were rotted and he had ripped them off during his attack on the women. For some of them, the sight of a naked man scared them more than his pointed teeth. And this had aroused him. He had taken ten years of sexual frustration out on the best looking one of the bunch; the mouthy one that had wanted to be his friend. He was sure Sin would understand.

  The temperature of the air in the basement changed minutely, but it was a change all vampires were subconsciously attuned to. The sun had gone down. Kaaliz was heading up the basement stairs when he realised he was still naked. He looked at the dead women below him. Most of their clothes were saturated in blood. He pulled a pair of dark trousers off one. They were too big for him so he secured them with a belt from another. None of their footwear fitted him. In the end he ripped the laces out of a pair of trainers and squeezed them onto his feet. The only top that didn’t have a noticeable amount of blood on it was an old woman’s cardigan. It was beige. He put it on and buttoned it up. He ran up the stairs again and pulled the locked door off its hinges. He walked up the hall and out the open door into the night air. He breathed in its sweet fragrance; fresh air for the first time in ten years.

  He was in the middle of a housing estate. He started walking. He could have flown, but walking was a simple pleasure he had been dreaming about for years while his legs had been unable to move.

  He hadn’t been walking long when he came to a clearing; a large patch of grass in the middle of the housing estate. There was a pond in the middle where a species of amphibious shopping trolleys seemed to be thriving. Two youths sat on a bench by the pond smoking cigarettes and no doubt feeling very grown-up about it. They saw him approach and started laughing.

  ‘What is you wearing, man?’ one asked.

  His friend turned and said, ‘Transvestites just don’t put in the effort they used to.’ They both laughed. They jumped down off the bench, discarded their cigarettes and blocked Kaaliz’s path.

  ‘What is you doing here, homes? You don’t belong in this ‘hood.’

  ‘Fo’ Sho’. That’s the true, baby,’ his friend agreed.

  Kaaliz wondered why these two boys with complexions nearly as white as his own were doing their best to be black. ‘My attire is quite laughable,’ Kaaliz said.

  ‘His attire!’ they both said and then laughed.

  ‘Dawg, those threads is nasty. You is charity shop chic gone every kind of wrong.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Kaaliz eyed the clothes they were wearing.

  ‘Who is you, man?’

  ‘Yeah, login, fool. Let’s see your I.D.’

  Kaaliz reached into their minds. They weren’t tired, but there was something suppressing their higher brain functions. He guessed they were probably high on something. ‘You don’t need to see my identification.’

  They turned to each other and repeated. ‘We don’t need to see his identification.’

  ‘These aren’t the d
roids you’re looking for.’

  ‘These aren’t the droids we’re looking for.’

  ‘I can go about my business.’

  ‘You can go about your business.’

  ‘And I should take your clothes with me.’

  The two boys started undressing. Kaaliz took the cleanest pair of underwear and socks, a pair of black jeans, a pair of trainers that actually fitted, a black T-shirt, a black hoodie and a long black coat. He told the two naked boys to throw the rest of their clothes -- and his transvestite gear -- into the pond, which they obligingly ran off and did. When he was a few hundred yards away Kaaliz heard the boys’ shouts of confusion and laughed. He opened his arms and lifted off into the night sky.

  He still remembered the code. The outline of the heart was even more weathered now, but the four letters were still distinguishable. He pressed A, P, M, T. Behind him a square of the ground lifted and ripped the weeds that had overgrown it up by the roots. The lift raised to full height and the doors opened. Kaaliz stepped inside and pressed the down button. The lift car began to sink into the earth again.

  The doors opened and he stepped back into Project Redbook. It was dark, cold and quiet. But something was alive down here. He could sense it. He flipped the main switch at the lift and the lights flickered on all over the huge space.

  She isn’t here.

  He knew it right away. Sin had a distinct odour. She hadn’t been here in a long time. Kaaliz walked forward and entered the room with the holding cells. The screams and roars made him wince. They were all still here. Fifty vampire/Che’al hybrids pulled at the bars of their cages, all with the single intent of ripping to pieces this living thing that had entered the room.

  Why had they never been released? he wondered.

  Something had gone very wrong with the plan.

  He was the youngest one on the bus by at least forty years. He had gone with a small local firm in the hope he could slip over the border and into Portstewart unnoticed. The bus was a sixteen-seater and was filled to capacity. His hope of having a double seat to himself had been thwarted immediately when he got on the bus in Dublin. Molly had approached him before his backside had touched the seat.