The Dark Side of the Road

by Simon Green

  Penny watched all this from a safe distance, only moving occasionally to kick a burning coal back into the grate, if it rolled too far and tried to set light to the carpet. With the fire gone, I forced myself into the grate and looked up the wide chimney. The smell of Diana’s perfume was suddenly stronger.

  Penny made a sudden shocked sound. ‘Ishmael; no! She can’t be …’

  I forced my shoulders into the chimney gap, reached up into the dark, and found a single dangling hand. I took a firm hold and pulled Diana’s body down out of the chimney and into the grate. She’d been pushed a fair way up and packed in tight, which spoke of a great deal of strength from the killer. But I was stronger and more determined.

  I backed away, hauling Diana’s body out of the grate. Penny fell back, making shocked noises as I laid Diana out on the carpet. Exposure to heat and smoke had seriously distorted the skin, but it was still Diana. I recognized the clothes and the perfume. I sat on the floor beside the body.

  Penny crouched down beside me. ‘Ishmael; let me see your hands.’

  ‘They’re fine.’

  ‘They can’t be; you just pulled a fire apart. Let me see how badly you’re burned.’

  ‘They’re fine!’ I showed her my hands. They were flushed red, but not burnt.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Penny.

  ‘Concentrate on what’s important,’ I said. ‘Diana’s dead.’

  Penny looked at me dubiously, and then gave her attention to the body. ‘It’s just like the old Edgar Allan Poe story,’ she said. ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue! But in that story the killer turned out to be an orang-utan. No. I can’t believe that … Are you sure that’s Diana? I mean, the face is …’

  ‘It’s her,’ I said. ‘I know her. Her clothes, her perfume, her body. I know everything about her.’

  I gathered Diana up in my arms and held her close, rocking her back and forth, like a parent with a sleeping child. I didn’t cry, but there must have been something in my face, because Penny knelt in close beside me. She didn’t try to touch me, didn’t say anything; just stayed with me, giving me what comfort she could with her presence. Diana felt light, almost weightless in my arms, as though everything that mattered of her was gone.

  ‘You should have seen her dance, Penny,’ I said finally. ‘When she was young and talented and so full of life. Featured dancer at the Crazy Horse, in Paris. When she moved on that stage … she was a wonder to behold.’

  ‘What?’ said Penny. ‘I’m sorry, Ishmael; I don’t understand.’

  ‘She didn’t deserve to die like this,’ I said.

  ‘Neither did Roger, or James,’ said Penny.

  I stood up, still carrying the body effortlessly in my arms, and moved across the room to lay Diana out respectfully on the bed. I crossed her hands on her chest. Mercifully, her eyes were shut.

  Penny hovered beside me. ‘Why did the murderer do this?’ she said. ‘Why kill poor old defenceless Diana? She didn’t have any money, or … And why is the killer doing these awful things to the bodies?’

  ‘So many questions,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t Sylvia notice Diana was missing?’

  ‘I suppose … all she could think of was Roger and the terrible thing that had been done to him,’ said Penny.

  ‘Could Diana have been killed after Sylvia left the room?’ I said slowly. ‘Could Diana have been murdered here, while we were all distracted with Roger?’ I looked at Penny. ‘Did you notice anyone missing from the group, at any time?’

  ‘No,’ said Penny. ‘I was totally focused on what had been done to Roger. Anyone could have come and gone …’

  ‘Same here,’ I said. ‘And again, look around the room. No sign of any struggle. No overturned furniture; not even any scuff marks on the carpet. As though the murderer just … killed Diana, and then stuffed her straight up the chimney. All in a few moments …’

  ‘But why put her up there?’ said Penny, almost desperately. ‘Why stoke up the fire afterwards? Why saw off James’ head and set Roger on fire? Why do all this, after they were already dead!’

  ‘Assuming there is a reason,’ I said, slowly. ‘Not just some psychotic, sending a message that only makes sense to them … Why did the killer need to go to such lengths with the bodies? All of them hidden, disfigured … Yes! That’s it! All the bodies were damaged, disfigured, to hide some specific injury to the bodies! Snow, fire, heat and smoke … To hide the true method of murder! I’ve smelt the same thing at all three bodies, Penny: blood. But there’s never been a trace of spilled blood, anywhere near the bodies. So where did all the blood go?’

  I leaned over the bed and examined Diana’s body up close. It took a while, but finally I found what I was looking for. Teeth marks, on her throat. Right over the main veins. And not just pin pricks, or a pair of puncture marks: a full set of human-sized teeth, sunk deep into the meat. Heat and smoke damage would have disguised and hidden the marks from a cursory examination. And after two or three days stuck up that chimney, you’d have needed a full autopsy to uncover the wounds. I straightened up and stood a while, thinking. Penny looked at me anxiously.

  ‘What do all three bodies have in common?’ I said finally. ‘Marks of violence, but no blood spilled. Because there was no blood left to spill …’

  I turned and ran out of Diana’s room, all the way back down the corridor. Penny sprinted after me, trying to keep up. I didn’t stop to unlock Roger’s door, just kicked it off its hinges and burst in. I leant over the chair and pushed the burned head back to expose the neck, ignoring the loud cracking from the bones. Now I knew what to look for I soon found teeth marks, disguised by the burns. I pointed them out to Penny, but she didn’t want to get that close.

  ‘All right!’ she said, just a bit breathlessly. ‘I’ll take your word for it. Teeth marks on the necks. The killer bit them. What for; to leave his mark?’

  ‘Not as such,’ I said.

  I let go of Roger’s head and stepped back from the body. I looked at Penny for a long moment, and then drew the slender dagger I keep in a sheath on my left forearm, hidden up my sleeve.

  ‘I thought you said you don’t like weapons?’ said Penny.

  ‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘But they can be useful, sometimes.’

  I knelt down and made a long incision in Roger’s left wrist, where it rested on the arm of the chair. The razor-sharp edge sliced easily through the charred flesh, severing the main veins, but not a drop of blood fell out.

  ‘This body has been drained of blood,’ I said to Penny. ‘So was Diana. And the Colonel was beheaded not to kill him or hamper identification, but to preoccupy people. So they wouldn’t realize the whole point of beheading was to damage the neck so much that teeth marks wouldn’t show. The killer was still expecting to get away, then. He had time to mess with the body and move it outside into the grounds, and then hide it in the snowman; he didn’t expect the body to be found until the thaw, by which time he’d be long gone. He didn’t know a storm was coming to trap him here. He’s having to improvise now to hide his feeding.’

  I stood up, still holding the dagger, and looked steadily at Penny. ‘I’m sorry. There’s no easy way to break this to you. Our killer isn’t human. We’re dealing with a vampire.’

  Penny looked at me for a long moment, torn between shock and nervous laughter. ‘What? Are you serious? You really expect me to believe that, Ishmael? That’s your great deduction? We’re being picked off by Count Dracula? No. No! I’ve gone this far with you, but now you’ve jumped right over the edge. I want an explanation. Right now. About you, Ishmael. Who are you; really? Just what kind of work did you do, for your Colonel?’

  ‘I hunt monsters,’ I said. ‘Because I don’t want to be one.’

  I explained, as best I could. About the star that fell from the heavens, in 1963. About the transformation machines, and being made human. About working for the Organization. Penny’s eyes grew wide, but she never said a word.

  ‘I am human,’ I said finally.
‘In every way that matters. It’s just that I was made, not born. I’m stronger, faster, than most people. My senses are sharper. I see and hear things that most people miss.’

  ‘You honestly expect me to believe this … bullshit?’ said Penny. ‘How can I believe something like this?’

  ‘Because it’s true,’ I said. ‘And you know you can trust me.’

  ‘That was when I thought you were a sane person!’

  ‘They say seeing is believing,’ I said.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ said Penny. ‘I’m sorry, Ishmael, but you’re crazy! You have to be.’

  ‘I did consider that option quite seriously, for some time,’ I said. ‘Until I had an accident.’

  ‘Ishmael?’ Penny said carefully. ‘Why are you still holding that knife?’

  I set the dagger against my left wrist and made a deep incision. Blood ran down my wrist, and it was golden. Penny made a sound, deep in her throat, and backed away, putting half the room between us. The golden blood stopped dripping as the wound healed. I stropped the blade clean on my sleeve and slipped the dagger back into the sheath under my sleeve.

  ‘Seeing,’ I said, ‘is believing.’

  ‘All right,’ Penny said hoarsely. ‘You have … golden blood. How about that. If I hadn’t seen it for myself I wouldn’t … There’s no way you could have faked that. So … I’m still not sure I can accept … everything you just told me, but I’ll go along, for now. And have some seriously noisy hysterics later, when I’ve got time. A Close Encounter, in the middle of a country house murder mystery … Not what I expected, this weekend. Is everyone who works for the Organization an alien?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’d have noticed.’

  ‘Well, that’s something, at least. So! An alien passing for human is here to track down a vampire passing for human. Did the Colonel know about this …?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘Remember what he wrote in his letter: A horror has come to Belcourt … ’

  ‘Well, why didn’t he just say it was a vampire!’

  ‘Perhaps he wasn’t sure,’ I said. ‘Such things are rare. I’ve never encountered one before. Don’t know anyone who has. But the Colonel must have been given reason to … suspect something. That’s why he wanted me here so urgently. He needed one monster to take down another.’

  ‘So he knew … what you are?’

  ‘I never asked,’ I said. ‘I have gone to great pains to keep my true nature secret.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to end up in a cage,’ I said. ‘Or on a vivisection table. This planet is not very welcoming to illegal aliens.’

  ‘Do we tell the others?’ said Penny.

  ‘Probably not a good idea,’ I said. ‘They’ve got enough on their minds as it is. And, I have to wonder, how is it that two of the people in this small gathering know me from earlier times in my life? Diana in the sixties, and Alexander Khan in the eighties.’

  ‘Wait a minute!’ said Penny. ‘You mean: when Alex recognized you … it was you and not your father? That was you? And Diana really did know you from Paris? You really are that old? Holy shit …’

  ‘I worked beside Alex, in a Government department known as Black Heir,’ I said. ‘And Diana and I were lovers, long ago.’

  ‘Lovers?’ said Penny. ‘Oh, ick …’

  ‘She was as beautiful as you, once,’ I said.

  ‘You seem to have got over her death pretty quick,’ said Penny.

  ‘I have learned to keep my emotions inside,’ I said. ‘Because they aren’t always, entirely, human. I will avenge her. And the Colonel.’

  ‘And Roger?’ said Penny, pointedly.

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘But I still want to know why two people from my past are here, for the same Christmas weekend. Coincidence? Or something the Colonel arranged? He always did think he knew how to run my life better than I did. I’ll never know, now he’s gone. He hid me from the world for fifteen years. Who’s going to protect me, now he’s gone?’

  I was genuinely lost for a moment, not knowing what to say or think.

  Penny moved slowly forward across the room, to stand before me. ‘This isn’t the time to get lost in the past, Ishmael. Concentrate on the present, on what’s happening right now. We’re in danger here. You and I, and everyone downstairs, is in danger from a vampire. There. I said the v-word. We’re all depending on you, Ishmael.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s all right, Penny. I’m back. You’re quite right, of course. I won’t let you down.’ I stopped and looked at her for a long moment. ‘Penny … I’m still me. I haven’t changed. I’m still the person you believed you could trust.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Penny. ‘I do trust you. Whatever you are.’

  We shared a smile. And then we left Roger’s room and went back out into the corridor, together.

  We stood side by side at the top of the stairs, looking down. I could hear faint voices, from the drawing room. Just enough to know they were all there.

  ‘What do we know about vampires?’ I said. ‘I mean, really know? As opposed to what we think we know, from all those movies and television shows and weirdly romantic paperback novels. That always struck me as … odd. I mean, there’s nothing romantic about a leech.’

  ‘I know Dracula didn’t start out as an historical novel,’ said Penny. ‘I studied the book at college. We’re used to seeing it presented as a period piece. But when Bram Stoker’s novel first appeared, Count Dracula moved through the world of the reader, the world outside their windows. And the vampire is surrounded by all the latest technology of his time. Railways, motor cars, telegrams and blood transfusions. Dracula was a supernatural creature, invading a civilization based on science.’

  ‘I have encountered many strange things,’ I said. ‘Hell, I am a strange thing. And I’m still having trouble coming to terms with this. We need to sort out what parts of vampire lore are likely to be real, and what’s just superstitious folk lore and legend.’

  ‘Well,’ said Penny, ‘I know for a fact that everyone here has been outside in the daylight, at one time or another. And they certainly didn’t bring a coffin with them to sleep in. Jeeves would have noticed. We all ate and drank the same things; hell, we all had chicken kiev last night, with bags of garlic … No one’s reflection has been missing from a mirror …’

  ‘Crucifixes?’ I said.

  ‘I haven’t seen one hanging up anywhere,’ said Penny, frowning. ‘Daddy’s never been very religious. But no one’s been bothered by any of the religious elements in the Christmas celebration. What are vampires, really?’

  ‘A corpse that has risen from the grave,’ I said. ‘Broken out of its coffin and dug its way up out of the earth. To walk the world undead and feed on the living. A predator, hiding its true nature behind a glamour. A pleasing appearance. A telepathically-broadcast illusion. To make us see it as just another human being, instead of an undead walking corpse. Which is why I can’t see or smell anything different about them. Actually, I probably can; it’s just that I’m being prevented from noticing. Mentally compelled not to notice. That’s actually quite spooky. Like when we didn’t notice Diana was missing from the crowd outside Roger’s room.’

  ‘Until everyone else went downstairs!’ Penny said excitedly, bouncing up and down on the spot. ‘Does that mean the vampire’s range is limited?’

  ‘Could be,’ I said. ‘It must know it’s in danger now. In danger of being recognized and revealed for what it really is. It must know it’s going to have to kill all of us, to be safe. Pick us off, one at a time. Not for the blood; it must be sated by now. For the security. It can’t afford to leave any witnesses … Anyone who might spread wild stories about a vampire … People are actually more superstitious these days than they ever were. They’ll believe anything. No; it will kill us all, just to make itself feel safe, wait here for the storm to die down, and then head for the nearest village. And disappear. Nothing left behind but a house full of bodies. Or perhaps it’ll b
urn the Manor down. So no one will ever know what happened here. Just another unsolved mystery.’

  ‘Why hasn’t the vampire already left?’ said Penny. ‘Just, made a run for it? The cold wouldn’t affect the undead, would it?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ I said. ‘Really, I don’t know, Penny! Vampires aren’t my field. I never expected to run into one.’

  ‘What is your field, then?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ I said.

  ‘You’d better,’ said Penny.

  ‘We have to identify which of the remaining people here is the vampire,’ I said. ‘And deal with it.’

  ‘But Ishmael, what if we’re wrong? We can’t just drive a stake through someone!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘We won’t do anything until we’re sure. Beyond all reasonable doubt.’

  I always was good at lying with a straight face.

  ‘Why is it picking us off one at a time?’ said Penny. ‘Why not just … wipe us all out?’

  ‘Probably because it isn’t nearly as powerful as it would like us to think,’ I said.

  ‘That’s the first reassuring thing you’ve said so far,’ said Penny.

  Nine

  More Deaths, and Something That Isn’t Dead Enough

  I glanced thoughtfully at Penny as we made our way down the long curving stairs to join the others in the drawing room. I thought she was taking things rather well, all things considered. In all my time on planet Earth, I’d only revealed my true nature to five people. And four of those hadn’t gone at all well. So when we got to the foot of the stairs I stopped Penny and looked at her steadily.

  ‘We can’t tell the others about me,’ I said.

  ‘Oh good,’ said Penny. ‘Because I wouldn’t know where to start.’

  ‘But,’ I said. ‘We do have to tell them about the vampire.’

  ‘Let’s think about that for a moment,’ said Penny. ‘It’s all right to tell them our killer is a supernatural creature of the night, but not that you’re a little green man from outer space? Why?’