Vampire Unseen (Vampire Untitled Trilogy Book 2)

by Lee McGeorge

  “She makes dramas,” Jacqueline whispered softly.

  “Exactly,” Sue added. “That’s exactly what she does. She makes dramas. If she meets a man she likes and he doesn’t call then we all have to suffer as she cries and needs attention.”

  “Is that what happened with McGovern?”

  “No. Nisha got really drunk and embarrassed herself. She’d just broken up with a boyfriend and was on the rebound. She and I were at a party...”

  “James Donovan’s party?”

  “Yes... How did you know that?... So we’re at this party and this guy in a Halloween mask comes up to Nisha and within a minute she dragged him upstairs. The next day I told her off for being so loose. She was cool with everything that had happened until I gave her a hard time for it and she started shifting the blame onto him. Later on this guy, McGovern, whose name she had even forgotten by that time, called up to talk to her and she tried to claim that he forced her into sex. She was shouting at him about how he had taken advantage of her in a drunken state. When she started telling us the story she salted the tale with the drama of how he coerced her and took advantage of her drunkenness, then the next time she told the story he positively forced her, then he was ripping her clothes off by the third time, then it was outright rape. Every time she told the story it got bigger.”

  “She makes dramas,” Jacqueline reiterated. Sue motioned with her palm for Cornel to take heed of what Jacqueline was saying. “She’s done it a few times. Makes dramas out of her own mistakes.”

  “And that is Paul McGovern,” Sue said. “I only saw him without his Halloween mask for a minute or two. I’ve never spoken to him.”

  “You don’t know him any more than that?”

  Sue shook her head. “The only reason we know his name is because Nisha shouted it so many times.”

  “Until she met Steven,” Jacqueline added.

  “That’s right,” Sue said. “A week later she met a new boyfriend and forgot all about the drunken rape drama.”

  ----- X -----

  Corneliu was in a taxi heading back to the hotel. The day had ended. The friends of Nisha were a bust. They’d given him a description of her clothes; a light mackintosh style raincoat and a signature purple beret that she always wore. Other than that there was nothing to go on but still the name was teasing a connection in his mind of some kind.

  He took his phone and called Noica.

  “Buna seara, eu sunt Detectiv Latis.” He rubbed his eyes with thumb and finger as he spoke to the lady answering the phone. “Pot vorbi cu Lucian Noica?”

  He waited.

  Waited.

  Wait.

  “Corneliu? It’s Lucian, how are things?”

  “A slow day today. But the reason I’m calling is something is bugging me and I can’t understand why. There’s a girl gone missing in London, her name is Nisha Khumari and...”

  “Nisha!” Noica’s voice almost exploded down the telephone when he said her name.

  Latis sat up straight, alert. “Why do I know her name?”

  “Fuck Nisha, kill the bitch! - It was something scrawled onto the pages McGovern had on his apartment wall. You know in all of those notes he had...”

  “Oh, FUCK!” Latis felt the vague connection solidify and smash him in the face. It was in the crime book. Photographs of McGovern’s Romanian apartment. Notes on paper, pinned to one of the walls. The slogan ‘Fuck Nisha, Kill the bitch!’ had been scratched so angrily the pen had gone through the paper to damage the plaster of the wall underneath. McGovern’s notes were mostly neat but this was angry and scratched. It stood out.

  Fuck Nisha.

  Kill the bitch!

  It was photographed and in the crime book. He’d seen it a hundred times. That was why her name was standing out.

  “Lucian, I’ve got to go. I’ll call back later.” He ended the call and dialled Blackwell.

  “D.C.I. Blackwell.” The phone manner was formal.

  “Peter, this is Corneliu Latis. I’ve just uncovered something you need to know. There’s a missing girl in West London called Nisha Khumari. She’s been missing for a few days and was reported missing to the police station on...” he checked his notes. “Oxbridge Road in Shepherds Bush... When Paul McGovern was in Romania he wrote ‘Fuck Nisha. Kill the bitch,’ on his living room wall. I’ve just spoken to this girl’s housemates and they confirm a link between her and McGovern... they were sexual partners for a one-nighter, but there appears to be animosity there.”

  “Let me paraphrase that,” Blackwell said. “McGovern wrote on his living room wall a threat to kill a girl called Nisha.”

  “That is correct.”

  “You uncovered an old girlfriend of his called Nisha and she is reported missing, is that correct?”

  “It is, yes.”

  “OK, I’ll get the details from Shepherds Bush and we’ll work that angle as a priority. There is something to update you with. One of the ISP’s has already searched their records and is telling us that up until a few weeks ago, the MAC address of McGovern’s laptop was connecting to the internet through a pub in King’s Cross called The Talbot. I’ve emailed the server data we’re allowed to share to you. His last connection was a few weeks ago, but providing it was him using the computer we might be able to find out what he was doing from the server logs.”

  “He was connecting through a pub? Was he staying there?”

  “No. I don’t think so. They have free Wi-Fi so he may have just used it for a free internet connection. But at least we know where he might have been.”

  Latis felt a surge of excitement. He was supposed to be doing background research but suddenly the noose was closing around Paul McGovern. The hunt was on.

  ----- X -----

  Paul left the lights off as he entered the squat. His eyesight had improved of late. Crystal clarity, especially in dimly lit places. There was moonlight coming through the kitchen window, rain streaking down the glass, the pitter-patter sound of water hitting puddles outside.

  There was no sound from the basement.

  He took off his overcoat, folded it and placed it on the draining board next to Nisha’s clothes. He ran his fingers through his beard and pushed his hair back, feeling the water that had soaked in. His fingers trembled slightly as he placed the key into the padlock at the top of the stairs.

  Control.

  Don’t behave like a madman.

  It didn’t work, his fingers still trembled slightly; it felt more like he was jacked up on caffeine. His heart fluttered and his fingers shook. Excitement.

  He unlocked the padlock and descended the stairs quietly. The lower door was in dead blackness save for the thinnest peach light coming under the door. He found the padlock easily, part by touch and part by imagined vision. It was like he could see the lock even though he knew he shouldn’t be able to. Stranger still he could sense the position that Nisha was in through the walls. A sixth sense of detecting her form.

  As he pushed the door open he heard the sound of chains coiling. Nisha was in the far corner, exactly where he had imagined. She had her knees to her chest and the blanket pulled around her. Even under the dim glow of the night-light he could see that she looked ill, her face gaunt and shallow. There was a strange smell to the basement he’d not noticed before. Something organic and rotten, a mild scent of decaying vegetables. She didn’t speak or make any sound other than to pull tighter into the corner jangling the chains.

  Paul took hold of the chain that went through the ceiling eyebolt and started pulling but Nisha quickly moved with it, dropping the blanket and positioning herself under the ceiling bracket before he could drag her there by the noose.

  “Please don’t hurt me... I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I won’t fight or resist. But please don’t hurt me.”

  Her voice was borderline tearful. The words sounded rehearsed. Paul scrutinised her for a second. She’d sat here for a day, stewing, festering, feeling the slices to her hands. She knew what he co
uld do, she knew she was powerless. It was her only bargaining chip. Don’t hurt me and I’ll do whatever you want. If only she realised her only purpose left was to give him pleasure as she died.

  “You’ll do anything?” Paul asked.

  Nisha nodded.

  He slowly took hold of the knives against his chest, popped the holding studs and gently withdrew the blades.

  “You’ll do anything?” He asked again.

  She sobbed. Her eyes stayed on the knives but became waterfalls as she screwed up her face. Her forearms raised to cover her breasts, she tucked her fists below her chin and stuck her bottom out behind to try and conceal herself. “Please don’t hurt me!” She cried it out as a terrified screech. “Please... please don’t hurt me... don’t hurt me... I’ll do anything.” She wailed and wailed, then dropped to her knees, the chain making a clinking sound as it dragged back through the eyebolt. She clasped her hands in prayer, looking up at him, imploring, begging, praying for safety. “Please don’t hurt me...”

  Paul felt himself wanting to grin widely but managed to fight it down. The corners of his lips turned up in a thin smile. The poor stupid girl. He hadn’t done anything yet, but she had worked herself into a state of emotional jelly, wailing and blithering with prayer and pleas.

  “Get on the mattress. Lay on your back.”

  Nisha complied instantly, loping across the basement, the chains dragging behind her. She assumed the position. Her hands were by her sides, clenched in fists. Her body shook uncontrollably and her breathing became pants and gasps.

  Paul rested the knives by his feet and slipped the yoke off his shoulders. He crouched and unfastened his boots. He stood them together by the door. He slipped off his socks, rolled them and placed them inside one of the boots. He watched Nisha as he unbuttoned his shirt. She was staring at the ceiling, intermittently opening her eyes, then squeezing them closed, then opening them again. Tears were pouring from the corner of her eyes and over her cheeks but she wasn’t making noise. Paul continued to undress, folding his shirt carefully then removing his trousers, then his shorts, all of which were folded into a neat pile of garments.

  He was naked.

  He took hold of his knives.

  His penis was erect already.

  The anticipation, the boldness, the decision to do all of this had been empowering and he felt stronger at this point than at any moment before in his life. Strong, fast, clever, capable.

  He took slow steps to Nisha and she clamped her eyes closed when she realised he was naked. Her little fists were tight against her hips and Paul stepped across to straddle her, then lowered to his knees, pinching her arms against her flank, putting his weight on her stomach, resting his balls on her sternum.

  “Open your eyes, Nisha.”

  She did. She wailed. His cock stood off her skin but was aligned between her breasts, his hands held two knives, he had her arms locked with his thighs. “Please... don’t.... don’t....” she mumbled before turning her head to the side and clasping her eyes closed again.

  Paul rested both blades on her breasts, lateral lines across both nipples. He pressed down firmly then sliced outwards with a quick flash movement. There was a split moment where he saw the wounds open across her nipples, the areolas opening like small mouths, the next split moment they were cascading with blood. He reached back and rested the knives on the floor, cautious, ensuring they were away from Nisha’s reach.

  Then she cried out. She was looking. She had felt the blades, turned her head to look and saw her breasts sliced open and weeping rivers of blood. The wail was the trigger, the excitement. Fuck her and kill her.

  Paul moved his legs between hers. Her hands grabbed her breasts the instant they were free. He forced, pushed hard, spread her legs with his and tried to enter her. He couldn’t find her vagina. She screamed shrilly, holding her breasts trying to stem the flow of blood. He grabbed a hand down, raking his fingers, feeling for the slit. She jolted forward in reflex, her head raising like she was spring loaded. A finger went into a dry hole. Two fingers, spread them, stretch, fuck the bitch, it’s only Nisha. He pushed her back to the mattress and tried to penetrate again. It wasn’t happening. Frustrating. She was screaming and wailing in his ear. Her legs were open but he couldn’t get...

  FUCK YOU, NISHA!

  Paul swung a punch to the side of her head. A blow to shut her up. A punch to regain control and make her compliant.

  When the blow struck he could tell something had gone wrong.

  Horribly wrong.

  His own hand seemed to fold and collapse and he suspected he’d broken his fingers or knuckles; but it was on Nisha where the damage was done. In one punch her face looked like it had been hit by a train. Her jaw hung slack, her open mouth gaped in a lopsided oval, her cheekbone had inverted, her eye lashes didn’t match up with her eye socket. her whole head had deformed in a single punch. Skull fracture. Jaw fracture. Holy Fuck?

  How hard had he hit her?

  Nisha’s face was frozen and expressionless, like a deformed mask over her real face, but from the gaping black mouth came a vibrating moan. It sounded like the moo of a cow but it warbled and caught on something to scrape as a ragged sound.

  Paul sprung to his feet and grabbed his knives in defence. In defence of what he wasn’t sure, but Nisha looked more monster than human. She inhaled through the maw of her lifeless face and moaned the same grating mooing. Her face was completely frozen, unmoving, unable to make an expression as though the skin had come away from the bone. She pulled herself to a sitting position and her hands lifted to cup her jaw as the blood poured from her breasts. It was as though her entire lower jaw had come off on one side and sat broken within the bag of skin over her head. Her skull looked as though it had been crushed in a vice... and she was still alive.

  Blood ran down her body.

  She made the moaning mooing sound, inhaled, made it again.

  Her form was horrifying.

  Paul put his knives on top of his clothes, put his boots on top of those and carried them upstairs to the kitchen. He put the pile on the draining board and pulled on his shorts and trousers quickly. he splashed some water on his chest to wipe away some blood. He could hear Nisha mooing and moaning from the cellar. This was bad. This was really fucking bad. He’d made her hideous. So hideous he was frightened to go back downstairs.

  He dressed. His hands trembled as he tried to fasten his shirt buttons. Too much speed, too much haste and all the while he had to listen to the horror of Nisha’s crushed face. He ran his hands under the cold tap to numb the pain in his hand and splashed water onto his face and beard. He locked his knives back into the yoke.

  He had to kill her.

  For the first time since he’d begun to change he felt genuinely frightened. He was scared to go and see Nisha. Scared to get too close to her. The sound she was making was too unnatural, too otherworldly. Human beings shouldn’t make that noise.

  He went back down the stairs and readied his knife. He looked into the basement to see her still sitting in the same position but now cupping her sliced breasts rather than holding her face.

  Her face.

  HER FACE!

  Holy fucking shit... He didn’t dare go near her. Darkness, do it in darkness. He took hold of the peach night-light and pulled it from the wall sending the basement into an endless black. Even with his improved night vision he couldn’t see.

  The chains coiled, Nisha was moving. Her mooing became almost a scream but it rattled and moaned through her larynx like a witch. Paul was too scared, he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t go into the black and feel around to finish her in darkness.

  He backed away and closed the door.

  He heard her screaming as he padlocked her into a pitch black prison.

  He set the mobile phone tripwire.

  He backed up the stairs and padlocked the top door.

  He pulled on his coat and stepped outside into the rain.

  He would never come back
here. He wouldn’t kill Nisha. She could bleed to death, or starve to death, or become infected from an open wound; but he wouldn’t actively kill her. Nature would take its course one way or another. He flexed his hand knowing there was something very wrong with it. He suspected he’d fractured a bone against Nisha’s cheek. There wasn’t much pain, but when he massaged it something felt broken inside. Never mind. He would heal. He would get better. He should go home and try to relax; he would try to put all of this out of his mind and forget about it.

  It was finished.

  ----- X -----

  Corneliu spent the evening wishing the telephone would ring. A few jigsaw pieces had clipped together and it had woken him up. Normally, piecing together a network took time and patience and diligence. It was normally slow work. It hadn’t been his job to find McGovern but he’d turned up clues that gave a direction, the British had turned up evidence and enacted proactive electronic surveillance. In his experience when an investigation started uncovering information like this, it snowballed.

  He poured a drink.

  Checked his email.

  The server logs from the ISP were there but they didn’t tell him anything other than McGovern’s laptop was being used in the UK. He hadn’t tried to run for America as Noica had thought. He was here in Britain, surfing the net and his internet usage was written down as dates, times and IP addresses. Cornel copied the first IP address from the spreadsheet and pasted it into the browser. It came back as medicallexicon.org. Latis tried the next IP address, another one visited frequently, it came back as diseasedatabase.net. Interesting. Corneliu tried a few more IP addresses and all of them resolved to medical and mental health websites. Noica would like to know this. It was a shame he could only resolve to the host with this method, he wanted to know the actual web pages McGovern was looking at.

  He typed an email to Noica and attached the spreadsheet.

  ‘Lucian. Here is a list of websites accessed with McGovern’s computer. It is likely, but not confirmed that McGovern was the one using the device. Whoever used it was doing so to research diseases and mental illnesses. I think McGovern realises there is something wrong with him.’