Vampire Trilogy Series (Book 3): Vampire Equinox

by Philip Henry

  ‘The south. Dublin. My mum’s relations.’

  ‘Did you ever think about me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You never wrote. You never called.’

  ‘My mum wouldn’t let me. There were a lot of people trying to kill me. Vampires and humans. All because of this prophecy.’

  ‘What was your life like?’

  ‘Just an ordinary life. I went to school, played sports, practised sword-fighting every night with my mother – you know, the usual.’

  ‘What are you going on for?’

  ‘What, you mean as a career? I have no idea. If I survive this, then I’ll think about it. What about you? What are you going to be when you grow up?’

  ‘I thought about journalism maybe.’

  ‘Not a super detective?’

  Sarah’s body shook as she laughed quietly into his shoulder. ‘I still have my badge, you know?’

  ‘Good. That means I can deputize you.’ Tom stroked her hair. ‘Hey, remember the time we all went down to the beach to investigate this big piece of driftwood?’

  ‘It took all of us to carry it back to your house so you could run lab tests on it.’

  Tom laughed. ‘That’s right. We got it back to my dad’s shed and we all went home and came back with all different kinds of liquids.’

  ‘Why did we do that?’

  ‘Benny said that if all liquids rolled off it then it must belong to a ship, probably a pirate ship, and if we found the right liquid it might reveal a treasure map on the wood, like invisible ink.’ Tom and Sarah laughed quietly to themselves. ‘Whatever happened to Tim and Benny? I’ll have to catch up with them while I’m in town.’

  ‘Tim joined the army as soon as he was old enough.’

  ‘And Benny?’

  There was a few seconds pause before she answered, ‘Benny’s dead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Vampire attack. Three years ago. Newspapers recorded it as a car accident, but if you move in the right circles, you hear the truth.’ Tom said nothing so Sarah looked up. She saw the tears running down his face as he stared into the fire. She sniffed back her own tears and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. She turned his face towards her own and said, ‘We’re going to stop this, Tom.’ Tears spilled down her face as she reaffirmed, ‘You and I are going to put an end to this, once and for all.’

  Nicholl was sitting on the sill of the bay-window talking on her phone when Rek walked in. They were staying the night in one of Chloe’s spare bedrooms. Nicholl was wearing one of Chloe’s Def Leppard T-shirts that was long enough to serve her as a nightie. She said her goodbyes quickly and put her phone down.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Just Mitzi and Emma,’ Nicholl answered.

  Rek sighed deeply.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t ever play poker, Mand.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Rek took off his shirt and twisted it in a bundle before throwing it to the ground. He walked over and sat opposite her on the window-sill. ‘You always phone your sisters just before you do something really stupid.’

  ‘Rek, I was just calling them to see…’

  ‘You were just calling them in case you don’t make it back.’

  Nicholl lowered her head.

  ‘I don’t like this plan, Mand.’

  ‘You never like my plans.’

  ‘This is different and you know it. If all the big, scary things in that prophecy come to pass… I don’t think we can handle it by ourselves.’

  ‘That’s why we need the plan.’

  Rek hung his head. Nicholl got up and came to him. She sat on his lap with her arms around his neck. ‘I know the risks are higher, Rek. But the rewards are, too. If this works we can put an end to vampires forever.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t work, vampires take over the Earth.’

  ‘We’re here to see that doesn’t happen.’

  He looked into her eyes. ‘I have a really bad feeling that this is one battle we’re not all going to be walking away from.’ He pulled her close to him and held her tightly.

  Sergeant Finlay’s jacket had shrunk again. He inhaled and managed to slip the last silver button into its hole as he left the station. His jacket had been shrinking every week since his wife walked out on him. He didn’t miss her. What was there to miss? Her bitching about eating too much fast-food? Her nagging him about stopping for a burger on the way home from work? Those endless bloody salads and low-calorie meals. She just didn’t get it. Being a policeman is an active job; whatever extra calories he put on through the occasional burger he would soon work off walking the beat or chasing bad guys through the streets of Portrush. OK, so maybe his desk duty didn’t actually allow him to do any of that stuff, but he kept up his fitness level just in case.

  Like now, he could have got one of the officers to drive him home, but he was going to walk. It was good exercise and would more than negate the kebab he was going to pick up on the way. ‘You shouldn’t eat late at night!’ That was another phrase he wasn’t missing. Sure he missed some of the things his wife did. The washing was piling up, for instance. And this problem with the shrinking jacket, he wondered how she had stopped that happening. He didn’t want to call her and ask her because he wanted to show her he could get by just fine without her.

  Maybe his mother would know how to stop his jacket shrinking. Yes, his mother would know – it’s probably one of those things all housewives know but keep to themselves. He saw the neon lights of the kebab shop in the distance. He began to salivate at the thought of a doner kebab piled high with strips of lukewarm, highly-processed lamb drenched in garlic butter. Maybe he should get two, just to keep up appearances. He didn’t want everyone to know his wife had gone. Yeah, he’d get two. And if word had reached the kebab community that his wife was surplus to requirement, well… that would be even better! Everyone would assume he had already found himself a new woman. Yeah, a younger model; better bodywork, bigger headlights and no problem with fuel consumption. Two kebabs was definitely the way to go. Two kebabs, two drinks and maybe a portion of chips (between them). Yes, the kebab community would fill in the all the blanks from that order. He increased his pace, eager to get there.

  A pale man dropped from the sky and landed, facing Finlay. There was a twinge in Finlay’s left-hand side. The shrunken jacket must be pinching under the arms. He would worry about his washing methods later. Even though he had never seen one personally, he had lived in the area long enough to know what was standing before him. He wished he had that kebab and garlic butter inside him already. That’ll teach him to walk. ‘Wha… what… do you want?’

  ‘I want to know who the Ministry’s representative is these days,’ the vampire answered.

  ‘The… the… Ministry closed down their field office here back in…’

  ‘I know that. But don’t tell me they didn’t leave a lighthouse keeper. Someone to keep an eye on things just in case someone like me showed up.’

  ‘I don’t know… I don’t…’

  Kaaliz grabbed the lapels of his ill-fitting jacket and flew him up to the top of the Dunluce Centre’s tower. The domed peak of the entertainment complex’s tower seemed a lot higher than it looked from the road. Finlay’s feet scrambled and skidded on the dome.

  Kaaliz held him upright by his lapels. ‘Now, are you going to tell me what I need to know, or shall we see if all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can put you back together again?’

  Finlay screamed as a particularly dangerous wobble almost caused him to fall. ‘Ch.. Ch.. Chloe. Chloe Knight. The big mansion on the coast road.’ Kaaliz released the policeman. Finlay dropped onto his stomach and hugged the top of the dome tightly. He looked all around. The vampire was gone. His hand crept up and inside his jacket. A silver button popped off as he fished around his inside pocket. He watched the little silver disc slide off the dome and hit the ground far below. Damn shrinking jacket. He pulled the phone from hi
s inside pocket.

  Several numbers occurred to him. His police station. The fire brigade. Ministry HQ. The kebab shop’s delivery service. They could all wait. He made his decision and dialled. ‘Hi, honey. Listen, I love you. I miss you. Can we talk? Yeah, OK, great.’ He listened for a few seconds. ‘You’re at your mother’s? No, I can’t come right away.’ His face changed as he looked around again, listening. ‘Why not?’

  She was never going to believe this.

  Anna closed her eyes tightly, but sleep was not to be found. Chloe squirmed in the bed beside her. The restlessness of her friend wasn’t the only thing keeping her awake, though. She didn’t like leaving Sarah alone. She knew what she was; that was how she had met Chloe in the first place. Her daughter was a dhampir and better equipped than most people to fight the undead, but to Anna she would always be her daughter first and a dhampir second, and it was her job to worry about her. She was also worrying about Rek and Amanda. She had never known her brother so happy and she already felt that Amanda was part of the family. This plan was foolhardy, but she had to agree with Agent Nicholl; if they didn’t do something, who else would?

  She had phoned her boyfriend before going to bed and left a message on his voicemail. He was away on business for the next couple of weeks, travelling through Eastern Europe. He had said that he probably wouldn’t be able to get a signal on his phone. He was checking out some prospective sites for his employers to set up a new factory. The cheapest labour was often found in the poorest areas, hence no mobile phone towers.

  She had been seeing him three months now. It had lasted longer than she thought it would. The longevity of their relationship was probably helped by the fact that he travelled so much and was rarely home. But when he was home, they had fun together. The only trouble was his age. He said he was twenty-nine, though Anna suspected he was lying to make her feel better. Even if he was, by some miracle, as old as twenty-nine, that still made her sixteen years older than him. It was a lot. It was probably the reason she hadn’t introduced him to her friends. Sarah had met him a couple of times and seemed to like him, but sixteen years! Not that he wasn’t mature for his age, but Anna couldn’t help thinking every once in a while that he would eventually find someone his own age (whatever that really was).

  She decided she would enjoy it while it lasted. She liked being wooed and she felt like a teenager when she was with him so maybe a sixteen-year age difference wasn’t as creepy as she thought. But it was only a matter of time before they would have to have ‘the talk’ and figure out where, if anywhere, their relationship was going. At least she didn’t have to have the even more terrifying, ‘So, are you aware that vampires really exist?’ talk.

  He knew that vampires existed. He said he had heard the stories for years when he was growing up and his father had fought in the 1986 street battle in Portstewart. She had dated men before and they had always bolted as soon as she mentioned vampires. Understandable, she supposed, in normal relationships, but she’d never had a normal relationship.

  Telling him about Sarah was a gamble, but she felt it was also the right thing to do; you don’t invite someone into a minefield without telling them to watch where they step. He had taken the news of a dhampir in the family with excited fascination more than anything else. She smiled to herself. He was what her mother would have called ‘a keeper.’

  Chloe twisted over again and yanked the duvet.

  ‘For God’s sake, Chloe!’

  ‘Sorry. I’m just not tired. All the time I was in hospital I did nothing but sleep.’ She turned over again and faced Anna. ‘Besides, aren’t you just buzzing? These are some proper, history-making events about to go down. The final smackdown.’

  Anna turned over and faced Chloe. She didn’t like the way Chloe had embraced her role in this plan without a second thought. ‘This is dangerous, Chloe. Really dangerous.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You don’t sound like you know. You sound like you’ve just been invited onto a gameshow.’

  She considered her response then said, ‘I just want a chance to prove myself.’

  ‘You’ve done enough over the years. You’ve given more than anyone I know to the fight. You’ve made your mark.’

  ‘Others gave more.’

  The implications of what she had just said hung in the air. Anna thought it best not to pursue them. ‘How about I make you a milky drink. Hot chocolate?’

  ‘Irish hot chocolate?’

  Anna smiled and got out of bed. ‘OK. Back in a sec.’ She stopped and looked at the window. From the corner of her eye she thought something had moved past but wasn’t sure. She shrugged it off and left the bedroom.

  Kaaliz moved to the next window. The two women in bed had said (or done) nothing of interest to him. The next bedroom had a man and a woman sleeping in bed together. He could sense the post-coital satisfaction in them both. He concentrated on the woman. She was in a deep sleep so her mind should be open to visitors. The fragments came slowly at first.

  The streets of Japan.

  A vampire samurai warrior.

  Kissing. Holding. Touching. Rek.

  Sisters. Holding her sisters’ babies.

  Prophecy. Vampires. The plan.

  Chloe. Rek. Sarah. Dhampir. Tom. Tom Ford. Back in town. The chosen one. Claire. Xavier. Dead. The bridge. Carrick-a-rede. Sheridan. Sin. Vampire. Betrayed. Jumping. Stabbing. Falling. Fighting. Impaled. Sheridan. Sin. Dead. Killed. Murdered. Executed.

  Kaaliz seethed. The old rage that used to rule his life rushed back to the surface. The woman stirred in bed next to her lover. This is the woman he had been looking for. Agent Amanda Nicholl of the Ministry. She had killed Sin. He would make her pay, starting with killing everyone in this house. The door clicked to his left below him and he looked down. A woman walked outside and lit a cigarette. She looked vaguely familiar to him. Kaaliz looked back inside the Ministry bitch’s head.

  Anna. Rek. Sister. Sister in law?

  Her lover’s sister. She would do for a start. Kaaliz flew at her as fast as he could. She looked up a split-second before he reached her. Terror blossomed in her face. Two decades of the most hellish nightmares imaginable were made flesh before her eyes. She opened her mouth to scream and her cigarette dropped. Kaaliz was drinking from her neck before the cigarette hit the ground. The screams inside her were never released. She struggled but was no match for him. Soon she was limp and he was feeling even more powerful. He dropped her lifeless body to the ground and approached the doorway. Inside the kitchen a kettle boiled. Two cups and a bottle of whiskey sat beside it. Kaaliz stepped forward but the threshold pushed him back. The sun would be up soon.

  Nicholl sat up in bed with a start, waking Rek. She grabbed her chest and felt her pounding heart begin to slow down now that reality had been restored. She took deep breaths.

  ‘Hey, you OK?’ Rek asked.

  ‘Just a nightmare.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I can’t remember. I just feel… violated. Scared. Something…’

  The window smashed as Anna’s body came crashing through. Nicholl jumped back against the headboard. Rek jumped back too and put an arm around her. The vampire stood before them, hovering in mid-air, framed by the broken window.

  He pointed to Nicholl. ‘You. You killed her,’ he said softly.

  Nicholl winced and said, ‘Kaaliz?’

  ‘You killed her!’

  ‘Who’s he talking about?’ Rek whispered.

  ‘Sheridan,’ Nicholl answered and glanced at her sword standing in the corner of the room. ‘Yeah, I killed her,’ she said loudly. ‘Bitch deserved it.’

  Kaaliz flew forward and hit the invisible barrier. He punched and scratched at it for a few seconds before levelling his gaze at Nicholl and saying, ‘Your family, your friends, anyone you ever cared about. Anyone you ever fucking met! I’m going to kill them all, and their blood will be on your hands.’ Kaaliz turned and was gone in a second.

  Rek got out of
bed and knelt by the body lying at the foot of their bed. He had thought it had been some random victim Kaaliz had snatched, but as he pushed the hair out of her face he saw his sister’s eyes looking up at him. He crumpled to the floor and started crying. Nicholl got out of bed and saw Anna lying dead on the floor.

  She walked to the window-sill and lifted her phone. She watched Rek cry as she waited for it to be answered. ‘Hi. Mitzi, it’s me. No, I don’t know what time it is. Listen, I need you to get the whole family together and go to Aunt Heather’s.’ She looked over at Rek and tears ran down her face. ‘Yes, everyone! I don’t care, just do as I say!’ Her voice was breaking as she tried to sniff back the tears. Her sister finally understood the severity of the warning and promised to get everyone up immediately. Nicholl hung up the phone and let it drop to the floor. Rek lifted his sister’s body and hugged it.

  Nicholl put her back against the wall and slid down to the ground. For the first time in years, she let herself cry.

  the legend of fairhead

  Ballycastle, 87 B.C.

  Congal’s horse was galloping as fast as it could through the fields. Torloch’s arrow had wounded the beast and slowed its retreat. Congal could see its silhouette hobbling in the distance and whipped his horse again. The beast was trying for the safety of the trees, free of the moon’s gaze. Congal drew his sword and directed his horse toward the fleeing creature. They were both going to reach the trees at the same time. Congal knew if it got in there he would lose it. This beast had eluded him too many times so far. He would not let it escape this time. Congal jumped from his horse and landed on the beast, rolling them both along the ground.

  The beast lunged at Congal’s throat. He punched the hilt of his sword into the creature’s mouth with all his might. The beast’s teeth shattered. Congal used the creature’s disorientation to pounce on its back. He held the creature’s face in the dirt with one hand while his other sought out a rock in the grass and brought it crashing down repeatedly on the beast’s head until it was still. Taking no time to enjoy his victory, Congal began binding the hands of the creature as quickly and tightly as he knew how. Then he bound its feet. When he was certain of the knots’ strength he relaxed and waited for Torloch to find them.