The Dark Side of the Road

by Simon Green

  ‘There’s no one home,’ Jeeves said heavily. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘After you,’ I said.

  I let him lead the way back down the noisy wooden stairs, mostly so he wouldn’t see me scowling as I struggled to think things through. I couldn’t help feeling I was missing something. Learn to think like the prey, the Colonel always said, So you can out-think them. But the prey I went after was usually alive, in some form or another. My cases usually tended more to the super-scientific than the supernatural. I knew such stuff existed; you couldn’t operate in my world and not know. But the Colonel had other agents for that. So why had he called for me, specifically, to come and help him? If he suspected Sylvia was a vampire, why not call on a more suitable agent? Could it be that he didn’t trust them like he trusted me? I would have liked to think so.

  I felt a little easier once we were back in the entrance hall with the open door in front of us. All the way down the stairs, I’d had the horrible suspicion that when we got to the bottom we’d find Sylvia there, waiting for us. Smiling her awful smile. But she wasn’t. Jeeves and I hauled furniture out of the living rooms and into the hall, and piled it up. Then we took turns dousing it with bottles of wine we’d found, until the whole hall stank of alcohol. Jeeves and I slipped out the front door, while I left a careful trail of booze behind us, and then Jeeves got to do the business with his Zippo again. The furniture went up in a moment, and a great blast of heat shot out the open doorway. If we hadn’t been so thoroughly wrapped up, the intense heat might well have taken our eyebrows off. The entire frontage of GravelStone Cottage was soon wildly ablaze. Jeeves took his gloves off and happily warmed his bare hands against the fierce heat. He pulled down his scarf, so he could grin at me.

  ‘First time I’ve felt warm since we left the Manor! Look at the place go … And you’re not even sweating!’

  ‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘Mostly.’

  We turned our attention to the long row of terraced cottages. Stretching away for as far as we could see, with the furthest end disappearing into the fog. Everywhere we looked, the doors all stood properly shut, with not a light showing anywhere. Sylvia could have been hiding behind any of the darkened windows, watching and waiting, and we would never have known.

  ‘It’s going to take far too long to search each cottage individually,’ I said. ‘And it’ll give Sylvia far too many chances to launch an ambush. I say … we don’t go inside at all. Just light them up. You set fire at the far end, I’ll take this one; we’ll let the fires spread from cottage to cottage till they meet in the middle.’

  ‘And then?’ said Jeeves.

  ‘And then we wait for the fires to drive Sylvia out, knock her down, stake her … and then cut her head off, just to be sure.’

  ‘You really think it’s going to be that easy?’ said Jeeves.

  ‘Well, no,’ I said. ‘I was just trying to sound positive.’

  ‘You haven’t even got a wooden stake!’

  ‘I will acquire one, before the need arises,’ I said.

  ‘You really don’t inspire confidence, you know that?’ said Jeeves. He looked down the long row of cottages. ‘You think it’s a good idea for us to split up and go off on our own?’

  ‘I don’t see that we have a choice,’ I said. ‘If we both start at the same end, she could just make a run for it. So … stay in sight as much as you can, and don’t let yourself get distracted. Set the fire, and get the hell back here. Call me if you even think you see anything.’

  ‘Same to you,’ said Jeeves.

  We nodded briefly to each other. There wasn’t anything else to say. Jeeves went stomping off into the snow, while I looked over my end of the cottages. I did look after him once, but Jeeves had already disappeared into the grey walls of fog and falling snow.

  It didn’t take me long to set fire to my end of the terrace. Kick in the first door, pile up the furniture, soak them with anything incendiary that came to hand, and then light it up. I stopped to sniff the air, now and again, but there was never any trace of blood or decay. Never a sound of anything moving, or even a feeling I wasn’t alone. That bothered me. Sylvia had to be here, somewhere. There was nowhere else she could be hiding. I used my own lighter to set the fires. I don’t smoke, never have, but a lighter is still a useful thing to have about you. Never know when a sudden inferno will come in useful.

  My end cottage went up quickly, and the flames jumped swiftly on to the next. The whole terrace was really just one big fire trap. The first two cottages burned quickly, filling the cold night air with blasting heat and thick black smoke. But when I looked down to the far end of the cottages, there was no sign of Jeeves and no trace of any fire. Something had gone wrong.

  I ran past the middle cottages, slamming through the snow, and the far houses slowly appeared out of the mists. No fire, no broken-in doors, not even a shattered window. And no sign of Jeeves, anywhere. I considered calling out to him, and then thought better of it. I sniffed hard at the air, but all I could smell was smoke.

  I heard a sound and looked up. And there they were, Jeeves chasing Sylvia across the slanting snow-covered roofs. She still looked like a rotting corpse, dressed in filthy old clothes as she danced lightly along the cottages, laughing easily. Jeeves had to struggle to keep up with her. He had his gun in his hand, but he hadn’t fired it yet. I could hear his footsteps, slamming and sliding across treacherous snowy slates, but I couldn’t hear Sylvia’s. No wonder I couldn’t smell her, all the way up there. I could hear her laughing, hear Jeeves cursing breathlessly. He stopped where he was, took careful aim, and opened fire, but if his bullets did hit Sylvia, they didn’t even slow her down.

  I don’t know how they got up there. Whether Sylvia lured Jeeves from one floor to another, then up through an attic opening up on to the roof … Something like that, no doubt. And then one last chase, with her beckoning him on, just for the fun of it.

  Jeeves went after her again. I called up to him, yelling for him to stop and come down so we could take her the way we’d planned. But either he couldn’t hear me, or he didn’t want to, caught up in the heat of the chase. He slipped and slid on the treacherous snowy roofs, but somehow still drove himself on, with sheer strength and stubbornness. He almost fell several times, but somehow saved himself at the last moment. Sylvia seemed to float along, supernaturally sure-footed, never losing her balance for a moment. And then she stopped abruptly and spun around, to face Jeeves. He couldn’t stop so quickly, stumbling forward, and while he was distracted she launched herself at him. She flashed forward across the snowy roof, so fast she was just a blur, crossing the intervening distance in just a few seconds.

  And there was nothing I could do to help him.

  She slammed into Jeeves, driving him back several steps. She grabbed his shoulders with both hands, and Jeeves cried out at the horrid strength in her undead grasp. I heard his shoulder-bones break, one after the other. Jeeves struggled anyway, fighting back with everything he had, but he couldn’t break free. He tried to bring up his gun, but there was no strength left in his arms.

  Sylvia looked down at me, and I knew this had all been arranged for my benefit. A show, staged up on the roofs so I couldn’t interfere. Jeeves had been right, after all; she’d just been waiting for us to separate, so she could catch one of us on our own. And have fun with them.

  Her head snapped forward, and Jeeves cried out. A horrid despairing sound as her teeth sank deep into his neck. Blood spouted, steaming thickly on the cold air. More blood ran down his chest, soaking into his coat. Sylvia worried at his throat, like a dog with a fresh piece of meat, her sharp teeth tearing at the flesh. The noises she made as she fed weren’t even animal; they were somehow more basic, more primordial, than that.

  There was nothing I could do. No way I could get up there, before it would all be over.

  Sylvia supported Jeeves’ entire weight with her undead strength. His legs had gone limp, just dangling. She buried her face in the great wound
she’d made in his throat, gulping down his blood. I could hear the awful sounds quite clearly. Jeeves slowly turned his face away, to look down at me. And then he opened his hand and let go of his gun. It clattered down the side of the roof, hit the guttering, and spun out into space, falling down and down through the air. I moved quickly forward and caught it.

  Sylvia pulled her face away from Jeeves’ neck. She glared down at me, her eyes unnaturally bright in her rotting face. Her mouth and teeth dripped gore. When she spoke, I could hear her as clearly as though she were standing right in front of me.

  ‘See what I’m doing, Ishmael? I’m going to do this to all of them! One by one, until you’re the only one left. You get to watch them suffer, and you get to suffer too, for the sin of inconveniencing me. So really this is all your fault, isn’t it? And when I finally come for you … oh, the things I’ll do to you! But for now, just watch …’

  Jeeves’ body was entirely limp, no strength left in it. He was only held up by the vampire’s strength. But he was still looking down at me, and I knew why he’d dropped his gun: for me to catch. I raised the gun and took careful aim. Sylvia saw and laughed at me. And I shot Jeeves in the head, twice. I might not like weapons, but I knew how to use them.

  It was all I could do for him. To stop his suffering, and to make sure Sylvia couldn’t bring him back as one of her kind.

  Sylvia screamed with rage as half of Jeeves’ head was blown apart, right in front of her. She threw his body away from her, as though it was suddenly contaminated. Jeeves fell through the air, turning and tumbling, until he finally slammed into the snow-covered ground before me, with such force I heard his bones break. I knew he had to be dead, but I knelt down beside him and checked anyway. Because I had to be sure. He would have done the same for me.

  When I looked up again, Sylvia was gone from the roofs. Nothing up there but the swirling snow. I’d cheated her out of one small revenge, at least.

  The cottages were burning nicely. The fires would reach the far end soon enough. There was nowhere left for Sylvia to hide, now. Only one place left she could go. Back to Belcourt Manor.

  Back to the bait I’d left there, waiting for her.

  Eleven

  Blood Sacrifice

  The wind was gathering its strength, blowing out of the coldest hell there was. The snow battered against my face as I headed back towards Belcourt Manor, stinging my narrowed eyes. I had to destroy the vampire while it was still trapped here. If I didn’t, Sylvia would just kill everyone in the house, wait out the storm, and then walk away. To do it all again, somewhere else. I fought my way through the storm, refusing to let the cold slow me down or hold me back. A normal human probably couldn’t have done it.

  When I’d left the manor house with Jeeves, I’d known there was a good chance Sylvia might get away. That we wouldn’t be able to stop her. That was why I insisted we set fire to the outbuildings. To drive Sylvia back to the one place of shelter left. Belcourt Manor. I could have taken the others with us, to hunt the vampire. Kept the group together. Safety in numbers, and all that. But I needed to be sure where Sylvia would go if she got away. I needed bait, for my trap.

  Penny, and Leilah, and Alexander.

  I needed to destroy the vampire. For what she did to the Colonel. For all those she’d killed, and for all those she would go on to kill if she wasn’t stopped. But I also needed to save the lives of those I’d left in the house. Because that was what a human being would do.

  The Manor slowly appeared out of the swirling mists. As I drew nearer, I could see the front door was still firmly closed. That was something. I paused, a cautious distance away, to look the place over. There were no signs to show Sylvia had got there ahead of me. And then the lights went out.

  The glimmers of light shining past the heavy wooden shutters over the drawing room windows just snapped off. And since no one in that room had any reason to do such a thing, it meant Sylvia must have already broken into the house and ripped out the fuses. Good tactic. It was what I would have done. She’d had more than enough time over the weekend to find out where everything was and plan ahead. Predators often prefer to hunt in the dark …

  I hurried forward, slamming through the piled-up snow, sending it flying to either side of me as I headed for the front door. I grabbed the door handle and rattled it hard, and found the door was still securely locked. How had Sylvia got inside? I stepped back and looked up, craning my head right back, and there it was … a single top floor window open, its shutters pulled away and hanging loose. The same window where I’d thought I’d seen someone watching me when I arrived. Sylvia must have skittered up the outside wall …

  And now she was inside the house with the others.

  I hammered on the front door with my fist, making the heavy wood shake and shudder in its frame, and only then remembered Jeeves’ special knock. I hit the door three times quickly, two hard and short, and then I stood there breathing hard, planning what I would do when I got inside. After a worryingly long pause, I heard the door being unlocked from the inside. It swung inwards, and there was Penny. She smiled quickly, her face full of relief on seeing me again, and then her smile fell away as she realized Jeeves wasn’t with me.

  I hurried forward, into the gloom of the unlit hall, and she fell back. Freezing air and quick bursts of snow followed me in. Penny slammed the door shut in the face of the storm and locked it again. I glared about me into the dark hall. ‘Have you seen Sylvia?’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Penny. ‘I thought she was still outside! Oh bloody hell, the lights! That was her, wasn’t it? We all thought it was just the storm.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘She’s inside, somewhere.’

  Penny helped me struggle out of my many layers of coats. I dropped them to the floor and kicked them aside. The outer layers were covered with snow, the inner layers soaked with sweat. I was glad to be rid of them. I scraped layers of frost from my face with my numb fingers, and then headed quickly for the drawing room door. It stood slightly open, spilling warm yellow light into the hall.

  ‘Leilah is lighting candles,’ said Penny, hurrying along beside me. ‘There’s always lots of candles around. Daddy saw to that. Said it was an important part of the Christmas atmosphere. We used to rely on them a lot, back when I was a little girl and we hadn’t quite got the hang of the generator yet … Sorry. I’m babbling. Ishmael … Where’s Jeeves? What happened to Jeeves?’

  ‘He didn’t make it,’ I said.

  ‘Sylvia killed him?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Oh God … But he was a professional!’

  ‘So am I,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Penny, trying for a smile. ‘But a professional what?’

  ‘That sounds about right,’ I said.

  More light fell out of the drawing room. I took one last look around the empty hallway, pushed the door open, and went in, with Penny all but treading on my heels.

  Just inside the door, half the room’s furniture had been piled up to form a barricade. It was pushed to one side now, to let Penny out. I pushed it further back, with one hand, as I entered. It felt solid and heavy enough, but I had no doubt Sylvia could smash right through it without even slowing. I’d always known that. I only encouraged the others to build a barricade because it would give them something to do and help them feel safer.

  I closed the door. Firelight and candlelight gave the drawing room an almost cosy atmosphere. Someone had built up the fire, piling the coal and wood high. It blazed fiercely in the massive stone fireplace. I went straight over to the fire and stood before it, letting the heat sink into my body. I hadn’t realized just how cold I was, how much my time in the storm had slowed me down. Cold is insidious; it sneaks up on you. I turned around, letting the fire toast my backside, and looked round the room. Candlesticks and candelabras, big and small, stood on every surface. Warm, organic light to push back the shadows.

  Leilah looked at me, and one look told her everything. She didn’t
need me to tell her why Jeeves wasn’t with me. She seemed to fall in upon herself, looking suddenly old and tired … and then she slowly straightened up again, wearing her strength as armour, taking on her old authority again. Because that was the job; and that was all she had left, now. She met my gaze squarely. ‘Just … tell me he died well,’ she said.

  ‘He died fighting,’ I said. ‘Defiant, to the end.’

  What else could I say to her? I couldn’t tell her the truth. That would have been cruel.

  I deliberately looked away. Someone had picked Melanie up off the floor and put her back in her chair. She sat slumped, her head tilted back so that she stared up at the ceiling. Presumably someone had tried to close her eyes, but it’s often harder than you think to get them to stay shut. The wooden stick still protruded from her blood-soaked chest.

  Khan stood off to one side, looking lost. As though he had no idea what to do. Probably a new experience for a man like Khan, who was used to being in charge and in control. He caught me watching him and saw something in my face. ‘It wasn’t the storm put the lights out, was it?’ he said. His eyes were wide and staring, like a deer caught in the headlights. ‘Is Sylvia back in the house with us?’

  ‘Looks that way,’ I said.

  ‘Why didn’t you kill the bitch?’ said Khan, his voice rising even more.

  ‘We did try,’ I said. ‘Jeeves died trying.’

  ‘It’s different for you,’ said Khan, defiantly. ‘You’re trained for weird shit like this. All I did at Black Heir was push papers around, remember?’

  I turned away from him. ‘Penny; where’s the fuse box?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ said Penny. ‘How would I know something like that?’

  ‘It’s your house!’ said Khan. ‘How can you not know where your fuses are?’

  ‘Because I’m just visiting!’ Penny shot back at him. ‘This hasn’t been my home for ages! Anyway, do you know where your fuses are?’