by Jenny Doe
"Don't hold back, brother," I said dryly. "Tell it as it is."
"Well, we could say executed, if it would make you feel better."
"Come and say it here," I told him, grinning.
"Ha! No thanks. Anyway, it appears that the blood drinking vampires have the same father, and six different mothers between them. That father is likely to be Jack, and if it is, he’s at least two hundred years old. Oscar, the one you smelled outside Rebecca’s school is about one hundred and sixty, and he’s not even the oldest of the sons."
"There seems to be quite a lot of inbreeding going on too," Marcus interrupted. "Jack appears to have fathered more vampires with his daughters."
"Gross," said Mark.
Fergus laughed. "Hey Mark, did you get the package?"
"Yes, thanks! I was going to drop you a line tonight."
"Looking forward to it. Keep an eye on those two for us." As if I wasn’t even in the room. Click.
"One day I’m going to educate them about hello and goodbye," said Mark.
"Yeah, good luck with that," I said wryly. He chuckled.
"Thanks for the coffee, Angus. I’d better go and set up my new laptop so I can actually email Fergus tonight. I wouldn’t like to have a vampire mad at me!" He laughed loudly and long as he walked out of the door.
CHAPTER 2
Rebecca
I woke up with a face full of white fur. The kitten had migrated up to my pillow as I slept, and was curled around my head like some kind of weird hat. I noticed an unfamiliar but somehow comforting weight around my left ring finger. Angus walked in then, carrying a steaming mug of coffee. I dragged my hand out from under the covers and gazed at the ring encircling my finger.
"Like it?" Angus smiled at me and placed the mug gently on the bedside table.
"It’s beautiful," I sighed. "Mum’s going to do her nut."
"We can keep it a secret if you want," he suggested slowly.
"Nah. I'd better man up and confess. They will find out about it eventually, and Mum will be hurt that I kept it from her. What time are we going across?"
"Ten minutes. That supper that I ordered has just arrived - vegetarian lasagne. We can carry it across and pretend we made it ourselves..." His voice trailed off as he grinned at me.
"She'd never buy it," I told him flatly. "She's tasted my cooking far too many times, poor woman. I'll get dressed and be down in a few minutes," I hinted.
"OK, OK, I'm leaving. Nice hat, by the way." He ducked out and shut the door behind him as I picked up a pillow and laughingly hurled it at him. The kitten woke up and stretched nonchalantly, while I sat sipping my coffee and contemplating the evening ahead.
Yup, Mum was definitely going to do her nut.
Angus
Rebecca’s mother took the news of our impending nuptials remarkably well. It was turning out to be something of a habit of hers. She just seemed to absorb the most astonishing and improbable news with uncharacteristic calm.
Joe looked a bit bewildered, and Mark just grinned like a maniac throughout, clearly enjoying the show. Rebecca, who resembled a deer in the headlights for the first few minutes, seemed to relax as she realised that nobody was having hysterics at the news. The food I had ordered from a nearby catering company was delicious, and we polished it off, the boys going back for seconds and even thirds. I left them just after nine. I had a few things that needed doing tonight, and the Hardings were all starting to yawn in earnest. Cat included.
I walked back to where my car was parked on the road outside. Fergus had texted the details of the person who had posted the video of Rebecca's altercation on YouTube, as promised; name, age, address. It was more than enough - I had often had to work with much less. I locked up the house and armed the security system Fergus had had installed a few days ago. I had a couple of handguns and a sniper rifle of very dubious provenance in the safe, and I didn’t want anyone getting their hands on them. Finding the thieves would be easy enough, but it would take time, and I didn't need any distractions now.
I drove to within a mile or so of my destination. I didn’t want my car to be seen anywhere near the vicinity of an assault. Although I wasn’t absolutely certain that there would definitely be an assault, I knew that it was pretty likely. People nowadays seemed to regard filming other people in various situations to be a harmless activity. That footage often made it onto the net, and to me it was an unacceptable breach of privacy. I would try to explain how wrong it was to do something like that for fun, but words don't always suffice.
This particular individual lived with his mother and older sister in a small, detached bungalow near a small river. There were open fields on either side of the river, and the house faced out onto one of those fields. Nice area, nice home. Poverty was obviously not going to be an excuse here.
There was a pub nearby, and as I walked past it in the direction of my target, half a dozen drunk teenagers stumbled out of the doorway. I stepped around them, and continued walking, hoping they wouldn't decide to try and cause trouble. The young people in the UK had a reputation for random viciousness, and although the majority of youngsters were pleasant enough, the reputation was not undeserved. These kids milled around outside the pub for a few seconds, appeared to come to some sort of decision, and then started walking purposefully behind me. I sighed. Just what I needed.
I turned abruptly onto one of the public walkways that hugged the river, and started walking purposefully towards a derelict barn that was situated in one of the open fields. The river lay between the bungalow and the barn. Once I had dealt with these idiots, who, true to type, had turned to follow me along the pathway, I would return to the road, cross the bridge and resume my mission. But now I needed a quiet place to persuade these youngsters that attacking a solitary, unarmed man was not always a good idea. I grinned in the dark.
The first attack came just as I reached the doorway of the barn. My assailant was one of the bigger lads, with spiky hair and numerous facial piercings. He tried to rush me from behind, and swung a fist at the back of my neck. I ducked the blow easily, and trotted into the barn. I didn’t want anyone witnessing what I was about to do.
They misconstrued my actions, as I had known they would, and hurried in after me, taunting me and laughing in eager anticipation of what they thought they were about to do. Yeah, right. What they were about to do was get a nasty surprise.
I turned to face them, my arms hanging loosely by my sides. The spread out in a semicircle opposite me, grinning and laughing.
"Gonna teach you a f***ing lesson, pretty boy!" The spiky haired thug grinned, showing a mouthful of yellowed teeth. Potty mouth in more than one way. Charming.
Niceties over, he lunged at me, his right hand balled into a fist and aimed at my belly. I sidestepped lightly, grabbed his fist, and punched him in the ear as I pulled him past my right side. He went down. His friends roared their rage and came at me. I grabbed the first to arrive, twisted his right arm up behind his back until I felt the tissues in his shoulder straining. He screamed in defiance and pain. I increased the pressure until felt his shoulder pop as it dislocated, and then I pushed him at the remaining four. He went down, taking two more with him.
The two remaining on their feet charged at the same time. I charged back, slamming my shoulder into the belly of the one on the right as I reached out with my other hand and snapped the nearest ankle of the one on the left. The one on the right sat down abruptly, obviously winded. I broke his nose.
The last two struggled to their feet, looked at their fallen friends and tried to run. I caught them before they even reached the door. I held them lightly by the throats. They could breathe, but only just. I wondered how many times these young thugs had gotten away with similar attacks. I lined them up in a row against the crumbling wall of the barn, and hurt each one of them just enough to slow and stutter their thoughts, so that I could slam home that silvery cognitive wedge that I had used on Rebecca’s hit-and-run driver. It had served me well in the
past, and I knew its effects. They wouldn’t hurt another living thing ever again, and they would have no memory of what had happened here. I had left the one with the broken nose with two unbroken legs to walk on. He would be able to get help for the others when his brain eventually unscrambled itself.
I left them in the relative shelter of the barn and walked back up to the road. It was deserted. I crossed the bridge, and strolled down the walkway that meandered alongside the other bank of the river. I picked out my target’s bungalow, closed my eyes, and reached out carefully into the building with my mind. There were two female minds inside, and they were both thinking about the same thing. The other member of their household, the target I sought, was missing. He had gone out for drinks with some friends tonight and was not yet back. An image flickered in my mind, and I knew that the son and brother that they were worrying about would be home eventually, broken nose and all.
Once he remembered how to walk, of course.
CHAPTER 3
Friday 18 January
Rebecca
Angus dropped me at school the next morning again. There were fewer stares directed at the car, but a lot more at Angus. Once again he had climbed out of the driver’s seat, and walked around the car. He stood in front of me, his hands curled around my upper arms, his dark eyes watching mine intently, his brow furrowed slightly with some hidden concern. God, he was beautiful, this man of mine. I smiled up at him and reached up to touch the pale smooth skin of his face. His lips curled suddenly, the furrows disappeared, and he leaned down to kiss me. I closed my eyes, shutting out the world so that there was just him. He pulled back too soon, his eyes burning black, nostrils flaring. I knew that he was fighting to control himself, and I shuddered with the secret thrill of having so much power over this formidable man. I was feeling dizzy again, obviously not immune myself.
“People are staring,” he murmured.
“I don’t care,” I said, but I blushed anyway. He grinned, clearly pleased with himself.
“I’ll pick you up this afternoon.”
I nodded, knowing that it was going to be a long day without him. I wondered if I would ever not feel like this. It seemed impossible.
School was a lot less tedious today. People seemed to have stopped regarding me as some sort of victim, for which I was profoundly grateful. One of my classmates, a girl called Susie, had taken it upon herself to extract as much information as she could about Angus. He appeared to have made an impression. I wasn’t one bit surprised, and answered most of her questions as evasively as I could without being rude.
I had debated long and hard this morning over whether I should wear my engagement ring to school. Logic had suggested that I leave it at home, or run the risk of creating a mild furore. But logic had very little to do with how I felt about Angus, so I wore the ring. I did wear gloves for most of the morning, but I had to remove them in biochem just after lunch, and, yup, it did cause a stir. You’d think people wouldn’t notice a simple ring in amongst all the bling flashing around the classroom, but they did. I fielded a few more questions, and then finally admitted that I was engaged to the good-looking man who had dropped me off that morning. I sidestepped the question of when the event was going to be held by saying that we hadn’t set a date yet. I smiled. Nine days and counting. I was getting better at lying all the time.
Then someone dropped the bombshell.
"Hey Becky, you know that there was someone asking around about you this morning?" The speaker was one of the creepier guys in the class. He had greasy black hair and little dark piggy eyes. There was always a revolting innuendo in every single word he said. It was no different today. He grinned at me lecherously. “You a bit of a slag now, or what?”
I ignored the insult, forcing myself to stay calm. “What did he look like?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he taunted me. I thought briefly about mashing his nose against his face. I could do it too, easily. I’d increased my iron intake to seven hundred milligrams of pure elemental iron per day. Seven tablets. I was starting to feel a big difference in my strength and energy levels. Things were even starting to smell stronger, and I heard more.
“Shut up, Shaun, you toe-rag.” One of the other girls spoke now. She was a decent sort, and kept to herself quite a lot. Nobody bullied her much – she had a vicious temper, and a biting wit. I had liked her because she never bothered me, and now I liked her even more. She clearly had taste.
She looked at me. “Nice looking guy, really nice looking. Hot. Big too, like your chap.”
“Yeah, he was well fit!” interjected somebody else.
I felt sick. I didn’t know what Jack looked like, but I had a bad feeling about this. I pretended to be intrigued and tried to get as much of a description from my classmates as I could, but they were rubbish witnesses. The mystery man was alternately tall, and really tall; built, whatever that meant; he had longish hair like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2, except that it was brown or blonde or maybe something in between. There was one consensus – he was very good-looking. Well, that sure sounded like a vampire to me. Crappity crap.
I spent the rest of the day nervously looking over my shoulder, waiting for the end of the school day when Angus would fetch me and I could feel safe again. I was really starting to think that maybe finishing my A levels was not such a good idea after all. School was a weak spot for me, a place where I was vulnerable and exposed. I would have to talk to Angus about this. Maybe we could move somewhere else after the wedding. I thought about my family and how I would miss them. Fine. We’d take them with us. Poor Mum. Life was certainly becoming even more chaotic for her, and I knew it was going to get worse before it got better.
The final bell rang eventually, and I walked cautiously towards the main gates, looking for Angus’ car. Next thing Angus was standing next to me, his hand laid protectively on my elbow.
“There’s trouble,” he said briefly, as he escorted me to the car, glancing around all the time, his eyes scanning the sea of faces around him.
“I know,” I said glumly. He looked at me sharply.
“You know?”
“Yes. Someone was asking about me this morning, apparently. They described him. Sounds like a vampire,” I said sourly.
He nodded, and opened the passenger door, waited until I had slid into the seat and buckled up, and closed it again. It looked like he wasn’t taking any risks. Good. He climbed into the driver’s seat, started the engine and pulled off smoothly.
“So what does a vampire sound like?” he wanted to know.
“Oh you know. Tall, unbelievably good-looking. Like you.” I grinned up at him. He chuckled.
“Do you think I’m good-looking?” he asked, glancing sideways at me.
“I think you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.” Well, he did ask.
He seemed slightly stunned by this, but he recovered his equilibrium after a few moments.
“I could smell him.”
“Was it Jack?” I don’t know why I asked. Angus had never smelled Jack, even when he’d destroyed his little band of vampires up in Scotland.
“I don’t think so,” he said speculatively. “Jack is most likely a blood-drinking vampire. This one smelled different, like he eats normal food and takes iron supplements. Like us,” he added.
“What?” I had been so sure that it was Jack that had been asking after me. Or one of his minions.
“I know. A little over a week ago, my brothers and I thought we were all alone. Now it looks like this place is crawling with vampires.”
Oh, boy. Fun and games.
Angus
I phoned Fergus as soon as we got home. That same vampire smell was here too, but more so at the Harding’s house than mine.
“Fergus. We have a problem.”
“Shoot.”
“There’s another vampire been asking around about Rebecca. He was over at her school this morning, and he’s been at her house too.”
“One of Jac
k’s?”
“I don’t think so. This one smells like one of us.”
“I knew it!” Marcus was jubilant. “There had to be more like us out there!”
“This is not necessarily a good thing, Marcus,” I told him. “He’s probably after Rebecca.”
“Hmmm.” Fergus sounded thoughtful. “He’ll be different to Jack and his lot, though, won’t he? It might be worth speaking to him.”
“No.” I wanted none of it. There was too much at stake here, and I wasn’t about to risk trusting someone who was potentially as strong as I was to be reasonable. I glanced over at Rebecca. She sat curled in her favourite spot on the sofa, listening intently.
“Well, I can’t think of anything else we can do, brother. The wedding is in nine days time, and we can’t move it any closer, because she’ll still be underage then, which makes it all very complicated.”
“I don’t like this situation, Fergus. I can protect Rebecca, sure, but her family are vulnerable, especially when they’re at work or school.” Rebecca frowned.
“You’re right. You’re going to have to move them out of there. You’ll have to come back for the wedding, unfortunately, but I could organise a family holiday in a nice isolated spot, where you can spot someone coming from a mile away.”
“Sounds like a good idea. But I was thinking of staying here. We are going to have to confront these monsters eventually, and with her family safe out of the way, I’ll be able to be more on the offensive than defensive. And I am very good at offensive."
"No need to tell me that, brother. I know exactly how offensive you can be." There was the sound of raucous laughter for a few seconds, as Fergus appreciated his own joke.
“I’m staying too,” Rebecca said firmly when he finally stopped chuckling.
“Hello, little sister,” Fergus sounded pleased that she was here.
“Hello Fergus,” she said, blushing slightly. “I’m staying,” she repeated, her jaw set stubbornly.
“That’s a good idea, actually. Angus will be less savage with you around, plus he’ll be able to keep an eye on you. We don’t want you to kill all the vampires, Angus.”
