by Amy Cross
Shelley's eyes open wide. “You? A baby?”
“With Patrick,” I say. “And I don't remember any of it, but if it's out there... I don't know what to do. Patrick's not gonna tell me anything, and I can't find it by myself”.
“We'll find a way,” says Shelley. “I don't know how right now, but we'll find a way”.
I smile. “So you're not going out with Rob anymore?”
“Fuck no,” she says. “He got a job at this electronics store and now he's totally boring. He cut his hair, and he threw out all his cool clothes. Doesn't dress like a vampire at all. He's got this short haircut and an earring and a little beer belly, it's like... It's like he's a totally different person. He can just fuck right off”.
I nod. “Is it possible that I could have given birth... that I could be a mother... and I don't remember? I don't feel any different, I don't have any kind of connection with the baby, but my body feels different and... Is that possible?”
“Dunno,” says Shelley. “Remember that time I was pregnant? That was weird, but I guess it's not the same thing, is it?”
“Not really,” I say.
“You need to find Patrick,” she continues. “You need to find him and make him tell you what happened”.
“I don't know where he is,” I say.
“You need to find him,” she replies firmly. “If he's still around Dedston, if he hasn't fucked off completely, there's only so many places he could be, especially if he's looking after a baby”.
She's right. So why do I feel so lost? “The fire crew found some bodies in the basement of the hospital,” I say. “They found Alex. He was my friend in there for a while. And they found Dr. Lucas, and they found an unidentified man who I think must be John Tarmey”.
“But no sign of Patrick?”
“No sign of Patrick”.
“Then he's out there,” Shelley says. “And we'll find him”.
“I'm scared of him,” I say. “Actually, properly scared of him”. It's true. I look over at the window. I used to long for Patrick to appear there every night, but now I'm terrified that he wants to hurt me. Still, if he's been messing me around, and if he really did get me pregnant, steal the baby and then wipe my memory, then he kind of owes me an explanation. So I'm going to find him. Even though I'm terrified of him, I'm going to track him down. And I'm going to make him talk to me. If it's the last thing I do, if it kills me, I'm going to make him talk. Despite the prophecy that says he's going to kill me one day, I have to make a stand. There's a child's life at stake. My child.
Book 8
Dead End
Prologue
Neratovice, Eastern Europe – Two thousand years ago
The knock on the door came in the middle of the night. Slowly, groggily and slightly aggrieved at being woken, Hanmar rose and listened to the noise outside his home. He knew he had to be careful, with so many bands of killers and raiders in the area. Then again, killers and raiders tended not to knock politely. They tended to just smash down the door and take whatever they wanted. Hanmar looked over at his ax. If this was a bunch of raiders, he knew he would have no chance of surviving, but at least he might be able to take a few of them with him. He reached over to grab the ax.
Another knock.
Hanmar relaxed. Anyone looking to do him harm would surely not knock on the door like this. It must be an idiot. “Who's there?” he called out.
“Open the door!” shouted a woman's panicked voice.
Hanmar raised his eyebrows. This was odd. He didn't know any women. He walked to the door, unbolted it and pulled it open, at which point a woman in a shawl rushed in, carrying something in her arms. She turned and pushed the door shut, reaching down and pushing the bolt back across, and then she turned to Hanmar and revealed what she was carrying: a newborn baby, wrapped in a few sheets, its face not even cleaned from birth.
“You have to hide this child!” she said to Hanmar, with desperation in her voice. “You have to raise it as your own, and treat it as if it is just another little...” She began to sob. “Treat it as if it is your child. Do you promise?”
Hanmar looked down at the child, and the child looked back up at Hanmar. It was a curious, non-crying child, with a gentle smile. It seemed fascinated by Hanmar's face, although Hanmar was somewhat unsettled by its expression.
“I don't want a child,” Hanmar said. “I don't need a child. I live here alone”.
“The child needs you,” the woman said. “If you don't take it in, they will hunt it down and slaughter it”.
Hanmar tried to hand the baby back to the woman. “No-one would slaughter a child,” he said. "At worst, they would put it to work when it gets older, or just trade it now for food."
The woman backed away, unbolted the door and looked out into the dark night. “They would rip it apart if they understood what it was going to become,” she said. She turned back to Hanmar. “Just raise the child. Once it reaches adulthood, once it turns sixteen, it will be more than capable of looking after itself, long after you are dead and in your grave”.
“Why can't its father take care of it?” Hanmar asked. “Or are you a whore? Do you not know the father's name?”
The woman closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them, calmer now. “The father must never know that the child exists,” she said finally, "or there will come a dark season upon us all, and... On the battlefield, and at Gothos, and finally at the Door of Compassion, it will do the child no good to know its father's name”.
“This child would do better elsewhere,” said Hanmar, desperate to avoid the responsibility.
The woman sighed. “The child will be a good strong worker for you, and you will be glad of him. But...” She looked out into the darkness for a moment, as if concerned that someone might have followed her, and then she returned her gaze to Hanmar. “When the child approaches his sixteenth birthday, you will begin to see differences in him. Do not fight those differences. He is what he is, and it will do no good to deny his nature. Just let him grow and, when the time comes, let him embrace his identity”.
With that, the woman turned and ran. Hanmar stepped forward to follow her, but he realized he could not run while holding the baby. Sighing, Hanmar looked down at the child. “I don't even know your name,” he said to the little creature that wriggled as it looked back at him. “My father was named Patrick,” Hanmar said finally. “It's a good name, and he was a good man. You shall be called Patrick too”.
After taking one more look out at the cold night, Hanmar shut the door and carried the baby over to the other room, to find somewhere for it to sleep. He was not sure how to raise a child, but he felt it could not be too difficult. He would do the best he could, and trust that the child would soon enough have some common sense of its own. So he made sure the child was warm, and he found some simple food for it, and eventually – against his better judgment – he tried to sing a song for it. Finally, as darkness closed around the little house, the child began to cry.
Prologue 2
Dedston - Today
With a screaming metal sound, the car lands upside down, bounces along the forest floor and finally smashes head-first into a large oak tree. Glass flies everywhere, and metal twists, making a terrible crunching sound, and the dark of night is briefly lit up by a blinding flash of flame from somewhere behind the drivers' seat. Somewhere in all of this I feel my left leg jolt and I get this terrible pain in my hip, and some kind of liquid sprays all over my face. Finally, although the engine is still revving and the wheels are still spinning, the car comes to a halt with me hanging upside-down in the seatbelt.
I try to unbuckle myself, but in the dark it's impossible to find anything. Anyway, I think the buckle is wrecked. Feeling around, trying to find the release button, I find instead something large and hot and wet. It takes me a moment to realize that it's my own leg, and the hard thing I feel in my hand is a jutting piece of bone. The pain is intense but I'm in so much shock, it's hard to think about anything.
I guess it's the survival mechanism kicking in. I have to get out of here. I'll worry about the damage later. I turn and try to get the door open, but it seems to be jammed.
I suddenly become aware that there's someone outside the car. Although it's dark, I can see a shape moving nearby, and the shadow of a person briefly moves across the windshield. It seems too good to be true, almost like a miracle.
“Help!” I shout against the sound of hissing, broken machinery. “Help!”
I wait for the person to help me. Surely, any second the door will open and the rescuer's arms will reach in and save me. Then again, how did this person get down here so fast? I grimace as the pain in my leg intensifies. The CD player starts to spark, and gives me enough light to see my mangled leg. Fuck, I think I might lose the whole leg. To make matters worse, I'm covered in something wet, which I think is gasoline. Something is hissing behind me. I turn and see that flames are starting to ripple across the rear passenger seats.
“Help!” I shout again. “Get me out of here! It's gonna burn!”
For a moment, I can't work out where the person has gone, but suddenly a face appears next to me on the other side of the driver's window. At first I can't make the face out, although it looks vaguely familiar. Finally, though, I stare in shock at the grinning, skeletal image staring back at me, its face burnt and twisted, with bright white round eyeballs twitching in a blackened, charred skull. It's the same face I saw a moment ago, the same face that I swerved to avoid, and it's just staring at me, making no move to try to help me. It's as if it just came to watch me die.
“Help,” I plead. “Please help me. Please get me out of here”.
Still, the face just stares at me impassively. And then, slowly, it seems to smile and I see a row of perfectly white teeth.
“Get me out of here!” I shout. “I'll die if you don't help me!”
I hear a rushing sound. Turning, I see that the whole back of the car is now in flames. I look back at the window and the face is still there, watching me like I'm a goldfish in a bowl.
“Get me out of here!” I scream, twisting and tugging and trying to force my way out of the seat.
I feel an intense pain on my back and shoulders. Turning to look, I see that I've caught fire. I scream as the car is filled with a bitter smell, and something nearby starts to hiss. I look straight ahead and see fresh flames starting to spread over the whole of the front of the car. Opening my mouth, I find I can't scream anymore. Then, finally, there's a blinding white flash and a rush of heat and my entire body is consumed with pain until finally, mercifully, everything just stops, and I'm dead before the final scream has left my body.
Sophie
There wasn't much of Adam left. When the firefighters found the car, it was just a metal frame with a few charred bones still trapped in the passenger seat. Experts were puzzled about the intensity of the heat, since even a full tank of gas couldn't have generated such a fire. Eventually they decided that – unlikely as it sounds - he must have had a load of spare cans in the trunk. They also decided that he must have been drunk, which is bullshit. But these lies persist, so the funeral is a subdued affair, with most people believing the official explanation. There's even a coffin, even though we all know that there wasn't enough left of him to bury. This whole funeral is just a pageant of lies and misinformation.
“Do you have a tampon?” Shelley whispers to me.
I turn to look at her.
“Don't make me explain,” she says, frowning.
"Sorry," I reply. Trust Shelley to ask me something like that during a funeral.
I can't help wondering if everyone knows who I am. After all, I was the last person to see Adam alive. He'd been at my house until midnight. We just talked, mainly about how things were going between us. We broke up a while ago and he'd been out of Dedston, but he came back to visit his grandmother and he seemed to feel as if he had a duty to check up on me. He's also heard about my disappearance and my stay at the hospital, so he was concerned. We talked and talked, and eventually we decided to remain friends. Then he drove away, and the following morning I heard that he'd been killed in a car wreck.
“This is fucked-up,” Shelley whispers to me. “Adam wasn't religious. Why have they got priests and shit like that here? When I die, I want to be left out for wild animals to rip me apart. Circle of life and all, you know? Or just toss me in a volcano”.
I shrug. “Funerals aren't for the people who died,” I whisper back. “They're for the family. And Adam's parents are like Catholic or something, so...”
Shelley sighs. “It's crazy,” she says. “That's not even him in the coffin. Just a few bits of ash that they think -” She sees the way I'm looking at her, and she stops. “Sorry. I'm right, though”.
“It's okay,” I say. The priest is still talking. “Did you read the report into the accident?” I whisper.
Shelley shakes her head.
“Part of the car survived the fire,” I whisper. “Part of the back. And guess what? It had scratch marks all over it”.
“It was in a wreck,” Shelley says. “It probably had a lot of scratch marks”.
“Not those kind of scratches,” I say.
“Oh, come on,” says Shelley, sounding tired of the conversation. “Why would Patrick kill Adam?”
“Because he saw us together!” I whisper back at her. “I was with Adam a few hours before the crash happened. Nothing happened, but the curtains were closed. Maybe Patrick got jealous?”
“You think Patrick would do that?”
I nod. “He's got a temper,” I say. “He doesn't always make the right decision”.
“I thought he was long gone?” Shelley asks. “I thought you said he'd run off with this baby you had, and there was no way he was ever coming back?”
“Maybe I was wrong,” I say.
“Plus,” Shelley continues, “you said he just used you so he could get the baby, in which case, why would he be jealous? Why would he care?”
“I was wrong again,” I say. “Maybe I was wrong about everything. Maybe he's still around, and maybe he saw me with Adam and he viewed him as some kind of threat”.
There's silence between us for a moment. “Yeah,” Shelley says eventually. “Maybe. Or maybe Adam just had an accident and you're reading too much into it”.
I glance over at Shelley's sometime-boyfriend Rob, who has shown up in his usual wannabe vampire outfit. “What's he doing here?” I ask.
“Same as us,” Shelley says. “Mourning Adam”.
“And what's that in his mouth?” I ask.
Shelley looks at him for a moment. “It's an ice cream. He likes ice cream and he's hungry. Do you want him to be sad on an empty stomach?”
Rob turns to look at us. To his credit, he does look genuinely distressed about Adam's death, even though the pair of them didn't really know each other very well. Sitting next to him, Shelley's friend Alice is staring blankly at the priest. God knows why Alice turned up.
“I have to find Patrick,” I whisper to Shelley.
“You've been saying that for weeks,” she whispers back.
“I have to find out if he killed Adam,” I say, "and I have to find out if there's really a baby, and if there is, where is it? If it's real, then I'm it's mother and... You understand, right?”
She puts an arm around me. “Of course I do. Kind of. I mean, the mothering instinct is a bit of a mystery to me, but I'll help you. If Patrick's out there somewhere, we'll track him down. I don't know how, but we will. Okay?”
I nod. “I know where to start,” I say calmly.
“It's not a cave full of bats, is it?” Shelley asks.
I close my eyes for a moment. “I don't think he actually turns into a bat, Shelley”.
Then again, what do I know? I've never really got to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Patrick. Who he really is, where he came from, what he wants... I don't know what powers he has, and I don't know what limits there might be to those powers. All I know is t
hat he seemed to have feelings for me once, and then he used me and spat me out as if I didn't matter anymore. He just wanted me to carry a child for him, and now I guess he doesn't need me anymore.
After the funeral, I lead Shelley straight to the forest. Since I have no idea where to find Patrick, I figure the time has come to check the cavern again. We were here last week, but there was no sign of him; this time, I'm hoping that there might be some sign that it's been disturbed. If he doesn't show up back at the old house, I have no idea where I'm going to find him. I guess it's possible that I might have lost track of him forever.
“You really think he'd come back here?" Shelley asks with a sigh as we head down the tunnel. "After everything that's happened?”
“I don't know,” I say. “But if we're going to find him, we have to start somewhere. Do you know anywhere that vampires tend to hang out?”
Shelley shrugs. “Cemeteries?”
“This is his home," I continue. "Think about it. He's been hanging around this crappy little town for so long, there must be a reason. He could go anywhere, do anything, but he's chosen to stay in Dedston. Why?”
“Maybe he likes meatballs,” Shelley says.
I give her a puzzled glance.
“There's a place on Hanmar Street that serves the best meatballs I've ever tasted,” she says. “Okay, I know it's ridiculous. But people do weird shit for weird reasons. You can't always second-guess them”.
“There's got to be a reason,” I say. “Think about it. You're a vampire, hundreds of years old, and you decide to spend your days stuck in this place. There has to be a reason”.
We reach the end of the tunnel and finally we're in the cavern where Patrick and Vincent's house sits. It's an old house, and – according to a legend that I'm not entirely sure I believe – it fell through from the street above many years ago, landing down here. Rather than go to the expense of hoisting it back up, the owners simply had the hole in the ground filled in, and they built a new house, leaving this one to rot. Fortunately, there are enough cracks to let in just enough light for us to be able to see our way around.
