Vampire Trilogy Series (Book 3): Vampire Equinox

by Philip Henry

‘You don’t need to do this, Lynda.’

  ‘Neither do you.’

  ‘You have a family. You don’t have your dhampir powers anymore. I don’t want to have to tell your kids you aren’t coming home.’

  ‘Like I said before, I think we’re all supposed to be here, me included. I’m not a big believer in coincidences. And whether that kid knows it or not, he’s my little brother, and I’d like to get to know him. So anything I can do that might help keep him alive… I’m going to do it.’

  Chloe nodded. ‘OK, I see your mind’s made up.’

  ‘Chloe.’ She let the word hang for few seconds before continuing, ‘If someone has to… call Frank and the kids. I want you to do it.’

  Chloe nodded. Lynda forced a smile and walked out.

  Chloe walked over to the sideboard in the hall and opened the drawer. She looked down and saw her Last Will and Testament. She left the drawer open and walked out the door.

  Deirdre Goose sat slouched in her favourite armchair before her favourite late night TV debate show. During the commercial break she had slid down the chair so far that she was now peering over her stomach to see the screen. It was the most comfortable she had ever felt in this chair but the obstruction before her was ruining it. The ‘few extra pounds’ she had admitted to carrying had taken advantage of all the exercise that she hadn’t got around to. She looked at the landscape of her torso; it was dominated by a belly that had sprung up in the last two years to become the major feature of her physique. The valley between her bosoms had widened to such an extent that her breasts looked like they were suffering from subsidence and falling into her armpits.

  Fugitive Wotsits and M&M’s were dotted over her T-shirt like sheep on a hillside. She didn’t remove them because she didn’t intend moving for the foreseeable future, so what was the difference in setting them on the side of the chair or letting them sit where they were? She decided they could be free-range snacks and she would let them roam until she was hungry. The commercials were over and she returned her attention to the important issues being discussed.

  The show’s title was: ‘No one will hire my transsexual puppeteer boyfriend!’ The exclamation point said it all: the American public was furious that this problem had been ignored for so long. It was, after all, fundamental to their way of life that these people were not discriminated against.

  The poor Patsy-in-a-suit they had dragged up onstage to take the flak was doing just that. He had refused to hire the man for a church social in response to the concerns of parents who found his appearance ‘confusing and scary.’ He took the insults from everyone with quiet good humour until an elderly, skinny woman with sharp, unforgiving features suggested that he was, ‘Worse than Hitler!’

  With that, the man calmly got to his feet, buttoned his jacket and said, ‘The average IQ in this room is about the same as a warm day in the Antarctic.’ He walked off to a largely silent audience who were wondering if they had just been insulted.

  A huge, angry woman in an equally huge T-shirt bearing the legend: I’m with Stupid decided to pick up the baton and waddle with it. She asked the heavily made-up performer, ‘Why don’ts you gets a real job?’ The fickle crowd roared its approval of this, before unthought-of, suggestion.

  ‘Because I’m an entertainer – that’s who I am! I am a joy-bringer!’ was his riposte, and then he broke into an overly melodramatic fit of sobbing and hugged his partner (whose gender was anyone’s guess).

  Deirdre wondered why Americans seemed so obsessed with defining who they were and, once they decided who they were, were so defensive about anyone suggesting they do something other than their dream job. Just because this guy was a ‘joy-bringer’ did that mean he was physically incapable of flipping burgers or washing cars?

  Deirdre stretched her legs out and ploughed a furrow in the empty crisp packets, sweet wrappers, kebab containers, pizza boxes and Diet Coke cans that surrounded her chair. By chance, her stretch made her catch sight of the framed photo on the sideboard. It showed her, four years before, wearing cycling shorts and matching top with a large gold medallion around her neck. Her belly was flat - more than flat - it was well toned and rock-hard. She slapped her hand on her stomach (hoping it was just her T-shirt that was making her look fat), and the resulting ripple caused a free-range M&M to plummet to the ground.

  The picture had been taken after she was given the David Award for Crucial Service to Mankind. The award, named after Goliath’s executioner, was a long held tradition of the Ministry, given to the person who made the biggest difference in the fight against evil. They had surprised her with the award while she was out jogging, which is why she wasn’t in a long evening dress and adorned with jewellery. The picture had even been published in the local paper the following week with the single line below saying: Deirdre Goose: winner of the CSM award. They couldn’t publicly announce what the CSM award was; most people assumed it was some kind of sports trophy, but those in the know knew better. She had been proud that day, proud of what she had accomplished and proud of who she was – The Slayer.

  The trouble nowadays was she had no motivation. Two years without a single call-out! It was hard to run yourself ragged at the gym every day in preparation for a night watching TV. The Slayer had always been the financial responsibility of the Ministry, so even if she lay at home all day and did nothing they would still pay her a generous lump sum every five years. It was like a retainer, so she would always be close at hand if they needed her. But no one had needed her in a very long time.

  In the first few weeks of staying at home she was restless. She was used to being up all night fighting vampires and resting all day, but now her days and nights were free.

  She had always steered clear of anything that might turn out to be a long-term relationship. She might be needed in New Orleans, or Peru, or Auckland, and might not be back for months or years. Boyfriends wouldn’t understand that so (apart from a few brief but enjoyable one-nighters back in her slimmer days) she didn’t try to find one.

  Deirdre waited at home, busying herself with the minutia of daily life. She trained in the beginning, keeping herself physically alert and ready to fight a murderous cult of vampires on a moment’s notice. But as the months went by and the call never came, her enthusiasm for training waned. She put on weight and watched TV from morning to night. Friends and family suggested that she needed to find something to do. A job, any job. It didn’t matter what it paid because the Ministry were paying her anyway, just something to get her out of the house. Deirdre had scoffed at the very idea. She was The Slayer, what did they expect her to do; flip burgers or wash cars?

  Deirdre was suddenly stirred by two knocks on the door. Two knocks? Who used two knocks? The pizza guy was four, the kebab guy was three and the Chinese take-away guy was a rapid seven. Who was two? She couldn’t remember ordering any food, though she had so many standing orders she rarely knew what was coming to the door and just ate whatever arrived. But it was three-thirty in the morning – nothing was due at this time. It was an intriguing mystery. It was almost worth getting up and going to the door to see who it was – but only almost. She continued watching her show. The door was banged five more times. Five? What were they trying to tell her? It was a puzzle all right. She’d mull it over later and try to work out who had been at the door. She cursed the poor design of her peephole, which you couldn’t see through if you were sitting ten feet away with your back to the door. She thought briefly of getting a window put in the door and carefully positioning a mirror above the TV, which would enable her to see mysterious callers with erratic knocking patterns from the comfort of her chair.

  ‘Deirdre,’ a female voice shouted from outside.

  ‘She knows my name,’ she said. ‘The plot thickens.’

  The doorknob was tried and the door opened. She’d forgotten to lock it again. She was usually in such a rush to get the food delivery back to her armchair and start enjoying it, things like home security often took a backseat.r />
  Lee-Anne stepped in and was almost pushed back out again by the stench of the fast-food graveyard that lay about Deirdre. Taking a deep breath she walked in.

  ‘Holy Christ! Is that you, Deirdre?’

  Deirdre couldn’t tell by the smell what this girl was delivering so she was forced to crane her pudgy neck around. ‘Who are you? Why aren’t you carrying any bags of food?’

  ‘Deirdre, it’s me, Lee-Anne. From the Ministry? Why didn’t you answer your phone?’

  Deirdre kicked her feet and rolled back and forth until she had gained enough momentum to get off her chair. She stood up and brushed the food from her T-Shirt. She stood as straight as her belly would allow and put her hands by her side. ‘Sorry. I must have forgotten to charge it. Slayer Goose ready for duty.’

  ‘Ready for duty? I’ve got a busload of people outside and our ace-in-the-hole, our secret weapon is… what the hell happened to you?’ Lee-Anne pushed the door closed behind her.

  As the door clicked back into its latch, the heap of junk-mail that had been displaced by the door opening slid back to its original place under the mouth of the letterbox. Lee-Anne walked over and looked at Deirdre. She was wearing a T-shirt that would have been loose-fitting on the Slayer she knew. It was now skin-tight over her round belly and straining to reach her waist but only making it part of the way – it looked like a giant eye trying desperately to close. Loose grey jogging pants that were stained with tomato puree, curry sauce and at least a dozen other patches of dried food, emerged from somewhere under her stomach. Lee-Anne looked at the food spillages on the carpet beneath her seat and thought she could probably camouflage herself quite well in those pants. Her hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks and, if Lee-Anne wasn’t mistaken, there was part of a chicken-wing hiding in it just below her right ear. The Slayer looked embarrassed so Lee-Anne tried not to stare.

  Lee-Anne looked around the room for a place to sit. There was only one other chair and it had three unopened boxes of crisps stacked on it. She edged backwards, perched herself on the sideboard and lifted the framed photograph.

  ‘You need me?’ Deirdre asked timidly.

  Lee-Anne turned the frame to her and showed her the photo. ‘Actually, I need her,’ she said.

  ‘The Endtime?’

  Lee-Anne nodded.

  ‘I thought it was getting close. I had this feeling, but wrote it off as gas.’ Deirdre was excited again. She had made the best of this humdrum life but now she was going to get back to what she did best. She missed the glory of heroism and the satisfaction of helping mankind. She missed how every guy had wanted to shag her and every girl had wanted to be her (and some of them wanted to shag her too). ‘OK,’ she said brightly, ‘In just a few weeks…’ She grabbed a handful of belly in each hand. ‘…this will be gone. I guarantee it. I’ll be back to…’

  ‘It’s happening tonight,’ Lee-Anne said solemnly. ‘We’re on our way there now. You think you’re up to it?’ she asked, subtly nodding at Deirdre’s belly.

  Deirdre tried to pull the T-shirt down but there simply wasn’t enough material to cover the area, so she pulled her jogging-pants up and bridged the gap. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said confidently.

  ‘OK, let’s go,’ Lee-Anne said, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. She was not looking forward to the looks she was going to get when she marched Deirdre onto the bus.

  A curious blend of fear and excitement were being mixed in Deirdre’s belly as she pulled her trainers on (were her feet always that far away?). She pulled on her jacket and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She sighed, disappointed with the reflection, and wondered if there was any chance the mirror wasn’t working properly. It was a long-shot.

  She shrugged and said, ‘Oh well, at least the butterflies in my stomach have plenty of space to fly around.’

  Lee-Anne gave her a flat smile.

  Deirdre looked in the mirror again and winced. She wasn’t even dressed like a Slayer, but none of her sexy, tight Spandex outfits would consider stretching to such extremes. That was a shame because she used to look so good in them. Her mentor had told her that a moment’s distraction can give the chance for destruction (roughly translated: give the vampire the horn and stake him while he’s looking at your tits). Deirdre realised she was going to have to fight this fight without sex-appeal, without the agile acrobatics she was known for and… without any new puns! She was badly unprepared. She cursed herself for not watching Comedy Central more often.

  ‘You ready?’ Lee-Anne asked.

  ‘Yep, just need to… where did I?’ She ran into the bedroom and came back wiping the dust off her samurai sword with the sleeve of her jacket. She held it up to Lee-Anne. ‘I had my pants hanging on it in front of the radiator.’

  Lee-Anne nodded and walked out the door. Deirdre took one last look at her apartment, then followed her.

  into battle

  Tom and Sarah roared towards Mussenden Temple on their motorcycles. The night was unusually quiet. Not just free from traffic, but it seemed the whole world was holding its breath, waiting. Sarah took the lead, as Tom wasn’t sure where they were going. The full-moon hung over them, ever-watchful.

  Something seemed to move in the air. Tom looked around. He couldn’t see anything. He looked at Sarah’s tail-lights. She wasn’t slowing down or looking around. Maybe it had just been his imagination. Though what were the chances on a night like this? This was the night when everything you feared would probably happen. Tonight every movement in the trees was a monster lying in wait. He felt it again. Something in the air. He had to warn Sarah. He twisted down on the throttle and started to move closer to her.

  A dark shape flew from the sky and plucked Sarah off her motorcycle. Tom raced forwards and grabbed her sword from the bike. A second later the front wheel wobbled and the bike collapsed and skidded across the road amid a hail of sparks. Tom looked up and saw Sarah fighting with the vampire. It was carrying her higher and higher.

  Chloe saw what had happened and raced forwards in the helicopter. The sniper in the back slid open the door and took aim. ‘Get closer!’ he shouted to Chloe over the wind noise. Chloe pushed on the cyclic stick and dove towards the struggling pair. The sniper hadn’t held a gun for six years but it was all coming back to him. He turned on the infra-red sight and took aim. Sarah was punching furiously at the vampire holding her. He just needed her to be still for a second. Just one second. He took a deep breath and held it. Sarah twisted in mid-air and exposed the vampire’s back to the sniper. He smiled and fired.

  The vampire burst into flames and dropped Sarah. Tom looked up and saw her falling. He twisted the throttle and lined himself up under her. Sarah slammed into his lap. The bike wobbled but Tom managed to keep it upright. Sarah smiled at him then climbed behind and put her arms around his waist.

  The shrivelled corpse of the vampire dropped onto the road as the helicopter flew over. The sniper reloaded and said to Chloe, ‘That worked great.’ Chloe raised a thumb above her head. The sniper turned the ammunition over in his hand. Glass bullets filled with holy water. How come no-one at the Ministry ever thought of that? Those Daves were geniuses.

  Sarah tapped Tom on the shoulder. He turned and looked up into the sky. At least a dozen vampires were flying above them. Sarah grabbed her sword and turned around, now sitting back-to-back with Tom. A vampire swooped down at them. Sarah raised herself up, standing on the exhaust pipes and lopped its head off.

  These vampires are stupid, she thought to herself. Newly-Made. Inexperienced. She had told the Master they had a weapon out at the temple. He must have gone out and Made as many as he could to stop us getting there. How could he sire so many by himself? It was impossible. What the hell was he?

  Another vampire swooped in. Sarah grabbed it by the throat and landed a few punches to its face before taking its head off, too. The sky above them was being illuminated by puffs of fire. Sarah winced but couldn’t see what was going on. Another vampire came st
raight at her. She raised her sword.

  The vampires were bombarding the helicopter. The sniper was firing as fast as he could and Chloe had managed to dice a couple with the rotor-blades. The sniper was reloading when a vampire flew inside the helicopter and grabbed him. He was cool. It wasn’t the first time he had fought a vampire with his bare hands. He held it by the throat and landed punches as hard as he could. He’d forgotten how strong these fuckin’ things were. Chloe banked left and right, trying to stop any more from flying inside. The sniper and the vampire got tossed from one side of the helicopter to the other.

  Glass bullets were rolling around the floor. The sniper grabbed one and shoved it up the vampire’s nose as hard as he could. The vampire recoiled with pain and raised his hands to his face. The sniper kicked him hard in the face, smashing the bullet in his nose. The vampire screamed as the inside of his head started to burn. The sniper gave him another kick and knocked him out of the helicopter. Another vampire flew towards him. The sniper grabbed the rifle and brought it around just in time to shoot the vampire in the face at point blank range.

  He looked outside and saw vampires circling the helicopter. They were everywhere. He started to reload, heavily.

  Tom raced through the Lion’s Gate and up the grass towards Mussenden Temple. Still a couple of hundred yards away, he skidded to a stop.

  ‘What are you stopping here for? Go all the way up to…’ Sarah stopped as she turned around and saw what Tom was seeing. A line of thirty vampires stood before them. ‘Oh, shit.’

  Tom turned off the motorcycle and dropped the kickstand. They both got off. Tom grabbed his sword and they faced the vampires.

  Hal stepped forward from behind the line. ‘It was always going to be you and me, Sarah.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Hal. Think about what you’re doing.’

  ‘Oh, I have. My friends and I are going to dice your little playmate, then you and I are going to be together, forever.’