by Tim O'Rourke
With a broad smile on his face, Trent stuck out one large hand. “Good to meet you at last, Mila Watson,” Trent said, taking my hand in his and pumping it up and down. “My name is Trent Baron.”
So close to him, I could see that he hadn’t aged at all from the way he looked in the photograph I had found. He looked at me as if to study my face, something that seemed not to go unnoticed by Rea as she took another small step closer to him.
“Pleased to meet you,” I said.
He released his somewhat crushing grip on my hand.
“I’m sorry that I haven’t stopped by before and introduced myself,” Trent said. “But I sustained a few injuries on my travels and I needed to take some time to heal up.”
I casually looked the man up and down and couldn’t see any signs of any injuries that he might have. “I’m sorry to hear that. How bad were your injures?” I asked.
“Not too bad,” he said with a broad smile. Then rapidly changing the subject, he added, “And what about you? Have you settled in okay?”
“Yes, thanks,” I nodded.
“Rea tells me that you have taken the old schoolteacher’s house?” he said.
“Was she so old?” I smiled, trying to pass off my question as light banter.
“I meant old as in previous,” Trent said.
“So why did you leave Shade?” I asked, remembering how Rush had told me that the villagers stayed hidden behind the walls for their own safety.
“I like to go from time to time and see what the world is like on the other side of the wall,” he said. “If nothing else, the tales I have to tell on my return entertain the villagers.”
“You’re a storyteller then?” I asked.
“I don’t know about that,” Trent said with a shrug of his broad shoulders, looking a little flattered by my comment. Rea took another step forward. If she got any closer she’d end up in Trent’s lap. Rush stood a few feet away, listening to our conversation. Was he jealous too? He had no reason to be. Trent was definitely good-looking, but way too old. Talking to him reminded me of my uncle. Not in looks, but in the fact that just like my uncle, Trent appeared to leave Shade in search of stories and news. Had Trent ever ventured as far as Maze?
“I hear you have become quite a good shot,” Trent said, filling the silence that had fallen over the four of us.
“I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “I’ve only really had one lesson.”
“Then perhaps you should take a little more practice,” Trent said, unfastening his belt and handing it to me. It was made of stiff brown leather and bullets were fixed along the length of it. The belt felt heavy in my hands.
“I can’t take this…” I started.
“You’re going to need all the practice you can get if you’re going to join us in the woods tonight,” Trent said. “We’re going to need you to help us protect Shade, Mila. Now if you will excuse us, we need to go and make plans for tonight.”
Turning, Trent left the church, Rea at his side.
“And what about you?” I called after Trent.
“What about me?” he said, glancing back over his shoulder.
“Don’t you need your belt – the bullets?” I asked him.
“I have another belt and plenty more bullets,” he said, before striding away again.
I stood alone in the church with Rush. He looked at me. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “But promise me you’ll go and get some more practice. It’s going to be dangerous tonight, Mila, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Stepping close to me, Rush kissed me softly on the cheek before setting off after Trent and Rea.
Chapter Eight
I left the graveyard and stood in the narrow lane that led back toward the village. I watched Trent, Rea, and Rush disappear into the distance. Alone again, I fixed the belt Trent had given me about my waist. It felt heavy. There were so many bullets fixed to it, that I lost count. What was Trent expecting to find in the woods tonight? I couldn’t help but wonder. But whatever it was, Trent obviously wanted me to be prepared – he wanted me to be able to defend myself. So turning in the direction of the field where the derelict red-brick building stood, I made my way along the uneven track. Crows squawked in the distance as they fluttered up from the barren fields. The wind made a whistling sound as it swept down off the hills that surrounded Shade. I looked into the distance and found it hard to believe that the village was surrounded by not only a vast wooden wall, but by a wall of magic too.
Trent had spoken of a magic spell that had been cast over Shade, but I hadn’t felt any resistance the night I’d crept through the gap in the wall and into Shade. Had the magic that Trent had described been weakened already and that’s why I had no difficulty in getting into Shade? Were then the villagers partially right and someone or something unseen by me had followed me through the gap I had found in the wall? Whatever the reason, I had been left feeling excited by what Trent had said at the village meeting. The fact that Trent had spoken of magic and spells suggested only one thing to me – witchcraft. I knew nothing of such things – as much as I knew about the Beautiful Immortals – but I could remember my mother and father telling me tales of the beautiful young witch. Was it she who had cast the spell over Shade? It had to be. From all the stories I had ever heard, there had only ever been one witch and it had been she who had saved the humans – saved the world. All I knew from the tales that I’d listened to or overheard about the young witch was that her hair had been raven black and her skin as white as snow. It was believed that this beautiful young woman had bewitched both the vampires and werewolves, turning them all to stone, which over time had turned to nothing but dust. But I believed I had seen a werewolf in Shade – it had come each night and sat at the end of my garden path. I had watched it shapeshift into something that looked half man. It had come into my room into my bed… whatever had happened, that creature hadn’t been made of stone. It hadn’t been a statue. Its touch had been warm, its kiss against my neck tender, the beat of his heart…
I shook such thoughts from my head. Hadn’t all of that been a dream like Rush had said? I climbed over the stile and into the field. I headed toward the hill where the red brick building waited for me on the other side. But what had this witch’s name been? Why had everyone I’d ever known been too scared to say it? And as I made my way up the hill, the belt Trent had given me feeling heavy about my waist, I couldn’t help but remember how my uncle had once hushed me by placing one finger against my lips as I dared speak of the witch. Before my father’s disappearance, I’d asked him about the witch too. I’d told him that I doubted that the stories about her were true and that she hadn’t really existed.
Of course she existed, Mila, I could hear my father say as if he was at my side and climbing the hill with me. All the werewolves and vampires had gone. She turned them all to stone – to statues.
But how can you be sure? I remembered myself asking him as a nine-year-old.
Because there is a statue of her too, I heard my father whisper as if his voice was somehow entwined with the wind that swept over the brow of the hill I climbed. It is the only statue of the beautiful immortals that still remains. Unlike the other statues, the statue of this woman has never crumbled to dust.
“But where is this statue?” I asked out loud, repeating the same question I had once asked him all those years ago.
There was no answer for me on the wind as I reached the brow of the hill – just like my father had been unable to answer me as I sat with him before the fire as a child. It was a question that had seemed to puzzle my parents as it now did me. It was the answer to that question that they had come to Shade in search of. It was partly the reason that I had followed in their footsteps. With my hands on my hips and my hoodie pulled up, I looked back from the hill and toward the village of Shade, and however baffled I still felt, I also had the nagging feeling that perhaps, bit by bit, I was getting closer to the truth. The arrival of Trent and his talk of magic suggested to m
e that my parents had been right to come to Shade in search of the witch that we humans claimed had saved us. And perhaps she had. Trent said that the witch had placed a spell over Shade to protect them. But why protect the people in Shade and not the people of Maze where I had come from?
“Hang on!” I suddenly gasped out loud as if I’d been slapped across the face. Rush had told me that his people had arrived from Switzerland ten years ago and the people of Shade had already vanished. How then had they gotten into Shade if it had been protected by some kind of magic? Trent had said that the spell had only just begun to weaken. If there had been no such spell when Rush and his people had arrived in Shade, who then had cast it?
“Are you going to stand there admiring the view all day long or are you going to take the chance to get in some shooting practice before all hell breaks loose tonight?”
“Huh?” I gasped, spinning around to find Calix leaning against the wall of the old red brick house.
Chapter Nine
“What are you doing out here?” I asked, heading down the grassy bank toward where he was propped against the building. He had both hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans. His coat was open and it flapped in the wind. I could see that, just like always, he wore no T-shirt beneath the coat and I could see that strange writing scrawled across his chest and stomach.
“I thought you might need some help…” he started.
“You thought wrong,” I cut in, brushing past him and stepping into the building. I hadn’t taken more than two steps when Calix grabbed me. He spun me around to face him.
“Why do you always have to be so uptight the whole goddamn time?” he said, his face just an inch from mine. “I’m just trying to help you.”
“And that’s the problem,” I said, pulling away. “You’re always trying to help yourself to me far too much.”
“Stop being so arrogant and prissy the whole fucking time,” Calix said.
“Me – arrogant?” I scoffed. “Have you tried looking in the mirror lately? You’re a complete and utter jerk the way you strut about the place.”
“Look, doll, you can think about me what you like, but tonight when the shit hits the fan you’re gonna want me watching your back,” Calix warned. “And I’m going to need you watching mine.”
“Really?” I mocked again, stepping away from him. “The way you were acting so cocky in the woods the other day when I tried to tell you that it was a werewolf that had killed Annabel, you couldn’t wait to take the piss out of me and make me look stupid. So why all the panic now? Or is it you just can’t bear to admit that I was right all along.”
“You were wrong,” Calix said, looking hard at me with his cool blue stare.
“So what did kill Annabel? What was it that you, Rush, and Rea were shooting at last night in the wood?” I asked.
“Are you really that fucking blind?” Calix said. Now it was his turn to scoff at me. “Can’t you see what’s staring you right in the face?”
“See what?” I shot back.
Grabbing me by the arm he dragged me to the far end of the building where those weird drawings of the stretched figures had been marked out with chalk. “What the fuck do you think these are? What do you think we’re practicing shooting at when we come out here?”
I glanced at the long, thin, stick-like people with their pencil-thin hands that had been drawn on the wall. “I thought that whoever drew these people wasn’t particularly good at drawing…” I started.
“Oh, Christ, I don’t believe what I’m hearing – this isn’t some kind of freaking painting competition, Mila, this is real life!” he said, sounding suddenly exasperated. He looked me up and down and added, “And I thought the whole bimbo thing was just an act – just your way of trying to play hard to get like the whole damsel-in-distress routine.”
“What are you talking about?” I gasped. “I haven’t been trying to play hard to get with anyone – especially not with you.”
Looking somewhat stunned, Calix said, “You really have no idea what these drawings are of, do you? You haven’t the faintest idea what’s coming to visit Shade tonight, do you?”
“No,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Vampires, Mila! Fucking vampires!” Calix said, sounding frustrated.
“But the vampires are all dead,” I told him. “I’ve heard stories that the young witch turned the vampires and werewolves to stone – into statues and that they turned to dust…”
“Jesus wept,” Calix said, shaking his head. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing. They were just stories, Mila. It was all just a bunch of bullshit like silver bullets kill werewolves and crucifixes and holy water make vampires melt. Christ, you’ll be telling me that you believe in the fucking tooth fairy next. I thought you were taking the piss – you know having a laugh when you arrived in Shade with that crucifix and silver bullets. I didn’t think for one moment you actually believed all that crap. I knew it was a mistake to let you stay in Shade.”
“So where did all those stories come from?” I asked, feeling suddenly very stupid and naïve in front of Calix.
“That bullshit was made up by the Beautiful Immortals,” Calix said. “Do you really think they would tell humans how to kill them? They made up all that crap about silver bullets and holy water. They lied to confuse humans.”
“So how do you kill a vampire?” I asked, feeling shocked and bewildered at what Calix was telling me.
“You shoot the fuckers in the face, that’s how you kill them,” Calix said. “Ripping out their black fucking hearts works too.”
“So you’ve killed vampires before then, as you seem to know so much about it all,” I said not in a patronising way, but I was now very curious and wanted to know more.
“I’ve seen them being killed – back home – where I came from…” he started, then stopped.
“Go on,” I urged him.
“Look, we don’t have time to stand hear chatting shit,” Calix said. “I’ve told you what you’re gonna be up against tonight. So you can either let me help you become a better shot or you can die on your arse tonight just like Annabel did.”
For what seemed like the longest time, I looked back into his eyes. Whether I liked Calix or not was irrelevant now. He had at least been honest with me about what I was going to be confronted by in the woods tonight. I was grateful to him for that at least. With my eyes still locked on his as we stood just a foot apart, I slid the gun from the holster.
Gripping it in my fist, I said, “What do I need to do?”
Without further hesitation, Calix removed his coat. I had come accustomed to the idea of him doing that every time we were together. Did he get off on flexing his muscles in front of me? Or were such thoughts arrogance on my part? Was there another reason Calix felt the urge to strip half naked every time we were together that had nothing to do with me whatsoever? Then just like he had the day before, Calix turned me to face the drawings – the outlines of those people I now knew were vampires. How had my Uncle Sidney got everything so wrong? He had told me that the village of Shade was deserted and it wasn’t. He had brought me up to believe that vampires and werewolves were dead – turned to dust by a witch. But it now seemed that not one word of it had been true. But my uncle had obviously believed the lie that the Beautiful Immortals had sold to us humans as he had given me a crucifix, gun, and silver bullets to protect myself once I had left Maze. But what I couldn’t understand was why he had given them to me if he too believed that all of the Beautiful Immortals were truly dead.
“Concentrate,” Calix said in my ear, pressing himself tight against me from behind. “Relax.”
“I’m trying,” I grunted, pushing thoughts of my uncle from my head. “Do you really have to stand so close…?”
“Shhh,” he breathed into my ear, making my flesh suddenly tingle. Calix gripped my wrist, slowly raising my hand and the gun in the direction of the drawings chalked against the far wall. “Take aim,” he whispered.
&nbs
p; Screwing one eye shut, I looked down the barrel of the gun, pointing the end of it at the drawing of the vampire.
“Aim for the face,” Calix said, his voice soft and low.
“I am,” I whispered back, fully focused now.
“Then what are you waiting for, just…”
Before Calix had the chance to say the word ‘fire’ I had released a volley of shots into the head of the drawing of the vampire at the far end of the brick building. Red dust plumed into the air as the bullets thundered into the brick wall. The roar of the exploding bullets boomed off the walls. With smoke curling up from the barrel of the gun and the acrid smell of gun powder wafting fresh in the air, Calix let go of me and stepped away.
“Very good,” he said.
“Did I hear right” I said, looking at him. “Did you just pay me a compliment?”
“I’ve paid you plenty of compliments,” Calix said.
“Like when you said I had a scrawny arse, is that what you mean?” I reminded him.
“Something like that,” he half smiled. And for the first time since meeting Calix, the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips wasn’t an arrogant smirk, but a genuine smile. He actually looked good when he smiled.
“You should smile more often,” I said without thinking.
Snatching up his coat, he looked at me and said, “I don’t often have much to smile about.” He then strode from the building.
“Where are you going? Is that it – no more practice?” I called after him.
“Follow me,” I heard him say as he continued to walk away.
