Eat Local

by King, Danny

  “They want to exterminate us,” Angel pointed out.

  “Yeah, well, they’re probably saying the same thing over there about now, so why don’t you go out and see what their best offer is? It can’t hurt.”

  Henry wondered if Sebastian might have stumbled upon something. After all, this was what this whole evening had been about in the first place: talking; negotiating; resolving; the settling of differences through mutual agreement, albeit amongst themselves originally. Why not simply extend the conversation to the enemy outside? If nothing else, it might at least give them an insightinto their foe’s resolve.

  “So, how do we do that?” Henry asked, his negotiating skills a little ring rusty from five hundred years of simply taking whatever he wanted.

  “You’re not seriously asking him for advice are you?” Boniface objected vehemently.

  “Hey hey hey, I know the score, mate. I’ve been around,” Sebastian reassured the Coven with a little roll of the shoulders.

  Boniface glared thunder at Sebastian as though he were being asked to explain his actions to an ant. “I’m over two thousand years old, boy. I fought at the Battle of Arbela. I followed Alexander through Asia. We conquered the known world and ruled as Gods.”

  Sebastian took this into consideration and then invited the ancient warrior to take a look at his current situation. “Yeah well, that’s all well and good, shipmate but what have you done lately?”

  Boniface was speechless. He had indeed trodden the known world, sacked cities, overthrown kings and taken the lives of thousands, both deserving and otherwise, but in all that time he’d never met anyone quite like Sebastian. How was it that this guy was even still alive? And Boniface didn’t just mean tonight. In general terms. How had Sebastian not been murdered by someone already? It was almost inconceivable. He was exactly the sort of person who should’ve met with some grisly encounter long before now and yet here he was, in the presence of vampires, serial killers and a death squad outside, sticking his head into the AGA to light his withered cigarette whilst metaphorically flicking elastic bands at Boniface’s testicles. It defied logic that he should’ve even been here in the first place and it was clear from the smirks on Henry and Angel’s faces that they felt the same. But then, perhaps that was why Sebastian was still here. Because his continued being was so improbable that he’d crossed the threshold from unlikely to miraculous, summoning up St Jude, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes, to guide Sebastian to safety, just as he had done with the crew of Apollo 13 and Leicester City Football Club a few years earlier.

  A scream rang out in the night to break the tension. It was a female voice but not a human one. The scream was too powerful, too primal, too incensed. No mortal woman could’ve mustered that much hatred.

  “Vanessa,” Henry deduced. “She’s still alive.”

  And so she was. High on the hill, and beneath a silvery moon, the Colonel’s men tethered her by her hands and feet to a titanium A-frame that had been designed to hoist artillery pieces into place but was now struggling to contain Vanessa’s fury. The Colonel oversaw the procedure and instructed his men to choke her every time she struggled, which was most of the time.

  When she was finally secured to the frame, the relieved soldiers were able to safely withdraw their snare poles and beat a tactical retreat. Vanessa continued to protest her outrage at Bingham and Larousse but neither man moved. Bingham watched on impassively whilst Larousse itched to plunge his long hot stake between her ribs. In fact the feeling was so strong in him that it had almost taken on a sexual connotation, made all the more intense by Vanessa’s helpless vulnerability. Vanessa could sense it. Colonel Bingham could sense it. An off-duty lighthouse man in John O’Groats could sense it. Larousse’s intensions were transmitting so loud and clear that half the tellies in Sussex were currently being slapped.

  “You’re hurting me. Cut me down you bastards! Cut me down, you filthy scuttling roaches,” Vanessa protested, gyrating this way and that against the ropes that held her fast. She had a great body and Larousse made free with his eyes, ogling the long rips in her clothing to take in her milky flat belly and curvaceous white thighs. How he would’ve loved her all to himself. His inner sadist could’ve found an exquisite release but the Colonel wasn’t about to leave him alone with their golden goose – at least not until she’d feathered all of their nests.

  “What’s your name?” Bingham asked, taking a cautious step towards her.

  “Death. And I’m coming for you,” Vanessa replied, flashing Bingham her fangs to underline the point.

  The Colonel caught her by surprise with a punch to the face that would’ve ordinarily felled an ox, but Vanessa shook it off with a flick of the head and resumed her glower.

  “You should know better than to hit a lady?” she told him.

  “You are no lady, my dear. I don’t know what you are, but I do know how to kill you and this man will do just that you if you try anything,” he said, ushering the soldier with the crossbow forward to stand guard over her.

  The threat was clear and Vanessa reined in her fury. She would die tonight, of that she sure, but until her heart had actually been ripped in two, there was still a chance. There was always a chance. She hadn’t lived for a thousand years without coming close on a few occasions so while her outlook was bleak her best hope was to play for time.

  Larousse shadowed Bingham and edged nearer for a closer look but the Colonel told him in no uncertain terms: “If you touch so much as a hair on her head, lay a finger on her funny parts or harm her in any way at all, you will die. Do you understand that?”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” Larousse replied, reluctant to appear cowed in front of Vanessa.

  “Maybe not. But there’s a science team arriving at dawn who do and you know what I say; always best to leave these things to the professionals,” the Colonel said, trudging back down the hill and to his forward position.

  “And then what?” Larousse called after the Colonel.

  “Then me and my men are retiring, somewhere far from here,” the Colonel called back, adding as an afterthought; “and very fucking sunny.”

  When Bingham was gone Larousse turned back to Vanessa and continued his appraisal.

  “Like what you see?” she whispered softly as he examined her more closely. “Because it could be yours, every night, and in every way conceivable way… for all eternity.”

  It was not an offer without its merits but Larousse was a man of God — and he reminded himself of that fact as much as he could as Vanessawrithed before him in the most alluringly wicked ways imaginable.

  CHAPTER 22

  18 kept his eyes on the farm. He’d barely taken them off it all night. As long as he knew where they were, he knew which way to run should he suddenly find the need. Fear lay in the unknown. Monsters of the imagination lurked in the darkest of shadows. Whilst on active service in Sierra Leone, 18 had seen some truly awful things but the thing that had disturbed him the most had been a huge great hairy black spider lollygagging on his cot. 18 had grabbed a bat to dispatch it with but in the blink of an eye it was gone. He’d torn his cot and his bivouac apart looking for it but never saw it again – except in his imagination… every time he closed his eyes and tried to get to sleep.

  18 had no intention of losing sight of the monsters in the farm just as he had that spider. If he did, sleep would be all he’d ever know. And it would last for an eternity.

  Colonel Bingham approached 18’s position and dropped down beside him.

  “Anything?”

  “It looks like the other three erm… er…” 18 stuttered, unable to say the word out loud.

  “It’s okay, you can call them vampires if you like. No one’ll laugh,” Colonel Bingham reassured him.

  “Oh, well the other three vampires are back in the farm with two warm bodies,” 18 said, rechecking the thermal image detector to make sure they were still where they were meant to be. Sure enough two red silhouettes appeared on the s
creen standing in what was left of the kitchen while the odd ripple of heat shimmied to and forth between them to suggest they were alone.

  “Probably the vampires’ clothing,” 18 explained, “catching a few degrees of heat each time they pass in front of the AGA.”

  Colonel Bingham reached for the thermal image detector to look for himself. “Who are the two warm bodies? Ours?”

  “Negative sir, I’m guessing it’s the farmer and that other one: the one they brought with them.”

  “Why haven’t they killed them?” Colonel Bingham pondered out loud, watching the red silhouettes pacing the room freely like lion tamers inside circus cage.

  “Perhaps they’re keeping their options open,” 18 hedged a guess. “It’s what I’d do.”

  Colonel Bingham liked 18’s thinking. It was outside-the-box logic. After all here they were, three inhuman monsters, whose sole purpose in life, according to Larousse, was the exportation of death, and yet they were happily tolerating, nay even allying themselves with their prey in the face of an even greater threat outside. This suggested some sort of tactical thinking, which meant the creatures inside were no mere inhuman monsters but an enemy in the truest sense. Firepower and strength would not be enough to defeat them. It would also require brains.

  “So tell me 18, what will their next move be? What would you do?” Colonel Bingham asked. A second opinion always helped, particularly from an out-of-the-box thinker like 18.

  “If it was me, sir?” 18 said, thinking on the predicament for a moment or two before concluding; “I’d make a deal.”

  *

  Less keen on deals or truces with the enemy was the pious Larousse.

  The vampires were right where he wanted them, trapped inside a house with guns on all sides and the dawn fast approaching. All he now required of them was their screams as they roasted alive before him. Tomorrow promised to bring about a glorious rebirth for Larousse. It should’ve been something to rejoice but the Colonel’s treachery had threatened to spoil his buzz. Larousse had to make him see the folly of his ways. These creatures were not to be underestimated. And there was only one way to do that – with information.

  “How many of you are there?” Larousse asked Vanessa, pacing backwards and forwards as she hung spread-eagled against the A-frame before him.

  “Enough to farm you like cattle if we wanted to,” Vanessa cackled in reply.

  “Then why don’t you?” Larousse asked, stopping to stare at her.

  “We prefer our meat free-range too,” she replied, adding for mischief; “as God intended.”

  Larousse duly bit and flared his nostrils in indignation. “What do you know of God?” he scowled.

  “More than you I’d wager,” Vanessa teased him with a wink.

  Larousse flushed scarlet but reluctantly concluded she was probably right. If this foul temptress was indeed an envoy of Satan, then she would’ve known more about God than he, just as someone playing for Arsenal would’ve been more familiar with the boys at Spurs than even the most ardent Spurs fan would. Vanessa was an insider playing the greatest game of all, that of good versus evil, while the Larousse was on the sidelines, an outsider who’d simply picked a team to support.

  Until now.

  “How old are you?” he asked, getting back to his interrogator’s script.

  “Now you’re just getting personal,” Vanessa pouted coyly, stoking Larousse’s secret fires as well as his curiosity.

  Larousse picked up his bag of tricks and pulled something out.

  “What is that?” a voice beside him asked.

  “Just a light,” he assured his crossbow-toting sentry. “May I?”

  The sentry was reluctant to give permission without the Colonel’s express say so but then again he was equally reluctant to refuse the man who, up until an hour ago, had been paying him. He decided to take the middle road and simply reply with his feet, turning around to look the other way.

  The small neon tube was obviously more than “just a light”. It could emit different wavelengths – infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma etc – to reveal an object’s true appearance under different frequencies. Larousse had tested in on certain types of butterflies to reveal the full spectrum of their wing displays (before pulling them off obviously) but this would be the first time he’d used it on one of them.

  He turned the light to infrared and ran it up and down Vanessa’s body to confirm she was ice cold, no heat pattern whatsoever. Now he switched the neon tube to Ultra High Frequency and tried again.

  “My God,” he said, when he saw the results.

  Where up until now the woman before him had appeared young and almost airbrushed, the light revealed an altogether different picture. Between the tears in her clothing her body looked ravaged by the sands of time. Black veins and a leathery skin reflected back against the orange hue. Larousse traced the light over her withered breasts, across her desiccated throat and up towards her demonic face. Vanessa grinned like a medieval gargoyle at the horrified look on Larousse’s face.

  “You should see me in daylight darling. It’s even less flattering,” she told him.

  “Oh I plan to,” he replied dourly. “Make no mistake about that. When the Colonel’s got what he needs from you, you will see the light.”

  Vanessa laughed. Her gambit had paid off. She’d reeled him in and now, without him realising it, he was standing within striking distance of her. Quick as a flash she struck out against the ropes, lunging at his hand and sinking her fangs into his knuckles.

  Larousse yelped in pain and tried to snatch his hand away but Vanessa hung on for dear life, sucking on his juices and crunching bone until his arm ran with blood.

  His and hers.

  Larousse finally fell to the floor and clutched at his gnawed knuckles, howling in pain and about to call a medic when a terrible thought occurred to him. Vanessa confirmed his worst fears when she looked down and laughed; “Now we can enjoy it together, darling”.

  Larousse’s blood turned to ice. Yet this was no mere shock but a permanent state of affairs. His temperature was plunging as his nature life ended. Now he was through the looking glass. Now he was off the sidelines and into the game for real.

  “Colonel Bingham!” the sentry called, shifting the aim of his crossbow onto Larousse. “Colonel, we’ve got a situation here!”

  This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not to Larousse. There had to be a mistake.

  “Wait, no, please!” he pleaded, but like Vanessa’s pleas only minutes earlier, his words found deaf ears and merciless hearts.

  CHAPTER 23

  Down in the farm, the vampires were unaware of the latest and most surprising addition to their Coven.They were far too busy arguing amongst themselves over how to save their asses — their souls were beyond redemption. As ever, when confronted with a clash of ideals, they had reverted to what they knew and put Sebastian’s proposal to the vote.

  Boniface stood in the middle of the room, his hand aloft, and looked around at the others in resentment.

  “Okay, one,” counted Henry, just to make things official. “And who says we go with Sebastian’s plan?”

  Four hands shot up as Boniface put down his but he objected to one of them and snatched at Mr Thatcher’s hand. “He doesn’t get a vote,” he snapped cantankerously.

  Even with Mr Thatcher’s ballot disqualified it was still a landslide by any margin so Henry turned to Sebastian and gave him the floor.

  “Okay, it’s decided. So, what’s your big idea?” he asked, eager to hear what tricks Sebastian had up his sleeve. It was a complicated strategy but luckily Sebastian had a way simplifying it so that even he (as in himself) could understand it.

  “Well, have you ever seen a film called Zulu?” he asked.

  Four stony expressions stared back at him to tell him he might need to elaborate. Mr Thatcher vaguely remembered the movie and thought it starred Michael Caine and Stanley Baxter whereas Angel remembered the public’s reaction to the a
ctual battle, having picked off one or two tasty morsels who’d toasted the Royal Engineer’s eleven Victoria Crosses a little too heartedly on the home front.

  And yet neither of them could see what relevance it held for them now.

  *

  As a military tactician, Colonel Bingham could’ve probably helped shed some light on Sebastian’s idea but unfortunately for him he had other things on his mind, namely a second A-frame to break out and assemble to accommodate his latest prisoner.

  “No no no, please don’t do it. I am God’s envoy, appointed by the Synod and ordained by the Bishop of Rome himself,” Larousse was howling as they shackled him to the frame. He was considerably easier to restrain than Vanessa had been. His strength had yet to materialise while his shock had yet to abate. He was putty in their hands; a compliant rag doll and the Colonel took particular pleasure in exacting as much terror from him as he was able to. Unlike Larousse, Bingham wasn’t a sadist by nature, but there were of course exceptions and this was one of them.

  “I hope the irony’s not lost on you, Mr Larousse,” Colonel Bingham smiled as he pulled Larousse’s wrists above his head with a yank of the ropes.

  “Please Colonel, please, set me free, I implore you. I’ll do anything for you. Anything you want. I don’t want to die,” Larousse began blubbering, almost pricking the Colonel’s sympathies – almost, but not quite.

  “Be grateful it’s me still in charge. There are some around here who would see you burn in the morrow’s sunlight,” he reminded him, only too happy to expose Larousse’s puritanical streak for the evil it was.

  Vanessa chuckled with delight as Larousse wailed in despair.

  “You have your subject now, Colonel. Why not let bygones be bygone and set me free?” she proposed.

  Bingham stared at her in the moonlight. She was indeed a magnificent creature. He had no personal grudge against her but he couldn’t let her go. Not if he wanted to walk away from this place tonight with his throat intact. What was the expression?When you sup with the devil bring a long spoon. As such the Colonel was reluctant to leave the table until his spoon stretched across several time zones.