Under a Ghostly Moon (Jerry Moon Supernatural Thrillers Book 1)

by William Moore

  Sonia shook her head. "But what about what Uri said about vampires not needing to kill to eat?"

  "There are three of them, Sonia. Even if what Uri says is true they could drain someone in a couple of sittings and who's going to miss the odd Goth if the scene here's as changeable as you say it is?"

  "Yeah, but Uri and the girls have been around for years… People have only been going missing for the last few months."

  "You mean you've only noticed they've been going missing now. Perhaps they've grown a bit careless and over-confident recently and taken a few people that were less isolated and alone than the others. They could have been quietly disappearing people to their private larder for years. This could have been going on for a decade or more if they chose their victims well."

  They were walking through St Augustine's Parade, which was surprisingly empty at that time of night, considering the rabble that would descend after throwing out time. They decided not to risk walking along the Waterfront at night, and instead walked up to College Green, which separates the Cathedral from the bottom of Park Street with the 'Council House'; the City Council Offices making the third side of a rough triangle. From there they took a side street that ran between the Council House and some of the Bristol University Buildings towards Hotwells and the docks. Once they had passed these imposing buildings, the grandeur quickly fell away. The road became a rather grubby back street until it reached the roundabout at the junction of Hotwell Road and Jacob's Wells Road. In the dingy lamplight, half a dozen tiny blue fireflies hovered along behind the lovers, who were too caught up in each other's presence to sense their ghostly followers’ purposeful pursuit.

  The left side of the road had once been un-reclaimed dockland but the recent astronomic rise in property prices had resulted in blocks of luxury flats shooting up like mushrooms with selling prices in the £250,000 to £350,000 range. In a fit of devilment Moon had once phoned the developers and asked if he could view the 'affordable key-worker property' that the Government had promised would be included in any new housing development. The response had been short and obscene. He had barely resisted the temptation to sneak round and throw rocks through the windows in reply.

  Sonia pulled her thin coat tighter around her body. "It gets windy around this bit where it's open to the harbour," she said.

  Moon put his arm around her shoulders. "Here, is that better?"

  "Yeah." She kissed him on the cheek. "You know, I really don't want to get home tonight. It means I won't be seeing you for a while. I've enjoyed the last two days so much despite Dominic dying and everything."

  "Well, I could pop round tomorrow evening if you'd like. I'm not working until Tuesday night, then I'll be out of circulation until Friday, I'm afraid, but I can still call you."

  "Why don't you come for tea tomorrow, then?" said Sonia. "It won't be much. Turkey burgers and chips, you know - that sort of thing. I'm afraid I'm not much of a cook."

  "Turkey burgers will be fine," replied Jerry as they stopped on the steps of her building.

  "Okay, get here for about six then. I'd ask you in but I really mean it about needing to get eight hours."

  "That's okay; it's quite a walk back anyway." They kissed long and hard, desperate not to waste a moment of each other's company. "I'll need your phone number," he said, drawing out his mobile.

  They spent a few more minutes programming each other's numbers into their mobile phones by the light of the porch lamp then Moon said, "Good night, Sonia."

  Sonia kissed him one more time before closing her front door. "Don't let the vampires bite, Jerry," she quipped.

  "Damn! I left the garlic and crucifix in my other jacket!" he replied. As Sonia closed the door Moon wondered whether he might really need them.

  Chapter 9

  It was a bit of a scary walk at night but the quickest way for Moon to get back to his flat was to climb straight up the hill from Hotwells, cut through St Andrew's Cemetery and then across Whiteladies Road and into Redland, where he lived. If he kept up a decent pace he should be home in just over half an hour. The climb out of Hotwells was only a little short of vertical, including, as it did, the shallower part of the cliffs that rear up on either side of the Avon Gorge. Moon was glad that his nursing kept him reasonably fit. The way was paved and there were steps at the steeper parts, so the climb wasn't too much of an obstacle. He was only mildly breathless when he emerged at the top of the hill via a road junction near Bristol University's Monica Wills hall of residence, which lay just opposite a narrow pathway that led up to the entrance to the cemetery.

  On the right side of the entrance, what had once been the church's front churchyard was shadowed by several mature trees, predominantly holly, oak and yew with some whitethorn filling in the gaps. There had once been a huge willow near the gate but all that marked its passing now was a wide shallow stump displaying the dark hollow of its diseased core. It had been felled to preserve the safety of passers-by. Moon saluted it as he walked past as he would the grave of a lost friend. He had been fond of the tree for its size and beauty. His sideways glance caught something pale flashing briefly in the shadows over the flattened tombstones that paved the frontage. He peered curiously into the gloom under the trees but nothing was there so he dismissed the fleeting image as his overactive his imagination, which had been playing tricks since the creepy experience of interviewing Uri and his two consorts.

  The bright three-quarter moon was high as he crossed the open area where the church used to be. It filled the rough quadrangle with a sinister mixture of pale light and sharply contrasting shadows. Before him, the entranceway to the path through the cemetery was a forbidding dark tree covered cave under the moon's stark, grey light. Moon was slightly unnerved by this because Bird Cage Walk was usually reasonably well lit at night. Chiding himself for being spooked by the dark, he stepped briskly into the shadows and opened his psyche to greet the healing presences that had communed with him in this place only the day before. However, no sooner had the words of welcome left his mind than he wished that he hadn't uttered them. Suddenly, he felt like a minnow that had swum unwittingly into the territory of a hungry shark and had just realised it was the only thing on the menu. Spider-like patterns of shadow crept together from underneath the trees and gravestones, pooling into an area of deeper darkness directly in front of him. The fathomless obsidian form of the malicious presence seemed to twist and turn like a nest of writhing snakes. He wasn't entirely certain if this thing was real but he was sure as hell in no hurry to find out. There were other ways to get home that didn't involve braving this shadowy horror. Without further hesitation he turned and ran. Unnoticed in his panic, his six tiny glowing companions flew past him at breakneck speed and scattered to hide themselves in the nearby flowerbeds.

  He made all of two paces before the dreadful realisation dawned that his feet had been frozen in place. Fighting a growing sense of panic, he looked down and, to his horror, saw that his lower legs were entangled in smoky tendrils of shadow - cold, paralysing and unbelievably solid shadow. He started to shiver uncontrollably as the murky tentacles crept up towards his thighs, they moved like a stop- frame recording of climbing ivy. Suddenly, they tightened like the coils of a dozen pythons and tugged backwards. He barely managed to extend his arms in time to prevent himself cracking his chin on the stone paving - instead the impact jarred his palms and elbows. It winded him badly and left him gasping for breath as he writhed in the chilly grip of the strangling darkness.

  He fought desperately to fill his lungs with air and twisted his torso to glance down his body towards the source of his peril but all he could see was thick inky blackness filling the tunnel of trees. The uncanny darkness drowned out the lamps which usually lit the pathway from above, reducing them to pitiful points of greenish luminescence without warmth or power. In the thing’s centre was a pit of blacker and apparently endless darkness, from which emanated an unearthly chill. Above this void of a mouth floated the tiniest hint of two glitt
ering black eyes, which radiated cold malevolence as they seemed to bore into his soul.

  A high, persistent keening came from that open maw, piercing his brain with ice-hot needles as he was drawn slowly towards its chilly emptiness. He tried to fight against the relentless pull. In desperation, he clawed his fingers and scrabbled for purchase against the paving stones but this only to left them bruised and broken-nailed. Finally, the darkness surrounded him entirely. It felt like concentrated terror, which clamped his straining heart in a frozen vice. He could feel his life being sucked out from him and he fought to hold onto those ebbing dregs, even as he realised with chilling certainty that he would die this night.

  "Cease!" The deep baritone command penetrated the night like a thunderclap heralding a storm. "Let him go! Leave him I say!" A dark clad figure alighted before him on the path as gracefully as the first snowflake from a winter sky. It was surrounded by a pale nimbus of glowing blue fire.

  With grudging reluctance, the creature’s chilling grip on Moon's heart withdrew and its attendant darkness dispersed into the cemetery on either side like dark mist before a rising wind. "Thanks, Uri," Moon managed to stutter as the vampire's flame dwindled to a mild shimmer that most normal mortals wouldn't notice. "What the hell was that thing? This place is usually quite friendly, spiritually speaking."

  "That, my friend," replied Uri, tidying his pale locks back from his face, "was a haunt, a boggart, a goblin. Or, to put it in more modern terms, a negative thought form. It was a shadow beast that was originally summoned into being by the locals' fear of this burial ground and then sustained by the many decades of belief that followed. It thrives on the legend that this place is haunted. It was also trying to kill you."

  "You don't say?" Moon replied sarcastically, shuddering as he remembered the vile creature’s icy tendrils tightening around his heart.

  "Oh, yes, indeed," Uri continued, oblivious to the sarcastic edge Moon had set to his comment. "It would have sucked out all of your energy and in the morning some early rising jogger or dog-walker would have stumbled upon the pale-faced corpse of just another heart attack victim. Reports of your mysterious death would also, of course, add to the legend of this place. It would add fuel to the core of belief that provides that black parasite with its wretched existence."

  "Speaking of black parasites, what do you care? You're a vampire." Moon was aware that this probably wasn't a wise line of questioning but for some reason he felt that Uri had no inclination to harm him, for the moment at least.

  Uri sighed wearily. "Certainly, Moon, I am a vampire; I shun daylight and sleep in a coffin - I fly by moonlight and occasionally have to drink human blood but never, I promise you, from anyone who is unwilling. Charli, Roanne and I have a few close confidants who allow us to take from them what we need. We don't kill… we never take by force and by doing this we attempt to be as 'good' as our condition allows. We also try to avoid making others like ourselves, no matter how much we might be entreated, for an eternal life that is lived only in darkness is a very mixed blessing, I can assure you."

  "I thought being irredeemably evil came as part of the whole vampire package?" Moon's natural inquisitiveness took over once he realised that he was no longer in danger.

  "Is this to be another interview, Moon?" Uri replied archly. "Which of the dreadful rags you write for would publish an ‘interview with a vampire’? Besides, it has already been done, has it not? I think a certain author might sue you for pinching her ideas, no?"

  Moon snorted a short laugh. Uri was as disarming out here in the darkened cemetery as he had been earlier in the pub. Could he really trust this charming monster not to kill him, or worse? Finally, he decided to go with his gut instinct. "Look, I'm on my way home now but I happen to be a late night type myself. I only live over in Angel Terrace, why don't you come back to my place and you can tell me what it really means to be a vampire over a coffee. Or don't you drink... coffee?"

  Uri smiled knowingly, he must have seen that film too. Waving a long, pale finger he replied, "You're making fun of me, Moon. No, I don't drink coffee, but I do drink tea. I drink it strong and black with lots of sugar or jam, like they do in the old country. I think I will take you up on your offer. I can give you a lift, why walk when you can fly, eh?"

  Before Moon had a chance to refuse Uri gathered him up in the steely grip of his arms and leapt into the sky. This was no Hollywood special effects fuelled dream of flying - Moon was almost as terrified as he had been shortly before, when he had been caught in the chilly grip of the graveyard 'boggart'. Uri may have been immune to gravity but Moon certainly wasn’t. He felt the Earth’s dreadful pull for the entire five-minute eternity it took from their take-off in the cemetery to when they alighted a few paces from his front door.

  "Are you all right, Moon?" Uri's face was a picture of concern. "You look a bit pale."

  Moon took a second to regain his ability to speak. "V- vertigo," he eventually stammered. "I get dizzy stepping off tall kerbs."

  "Oh dear! Sorry, Moon, the girls are always chiding me for being over enthusiastic. It'll be the death of me yet."

  "If that's a sample of the way you carry on," observed Moon with chagrin, "I'm surprised that it hasn't been the death of someone already! Oh well, come on up. My flat's on the second floor and no, I don't want a lift."

  They climbed up the stairs to Moon's landing, Uri floating silently up the stairs beside him with a cat-like grace that made Moon feel leaden and clumsy in comparison.

  Just short of the first floor landing, Uri halted, suddenly still like a cat that's seen a mouse. "Who is the little girl?" he asked, staring into the shadows around Mrs Foley's doorway.

  Moon was startled that the vampire was able to see spirits. "Her name is Anna. She used to live upstairs early last century. Say hello to Uri, Anna."

  "Hello, Mister Vampire," replied Anna. "You're not going to eat Jerry are you? He's my only friend."

  Uri laughed gently. "No, Anna, I won't eat Moon if it's going to upset you."

  "Good! Because I can be really scary if I want to. And I'd be my very scariest for you if you hurt Jerry!" and for a second Moon saw a glimpse of just how truly terrifying Anna could be if she set her mind to it - menacing Victorian china doll type scary. He hoped that she would never, ever get mad enough with him to turn that scary.

  Uri sat in one of the down-at-heel armchairs in Moon's flat while Moon prepared beverages in the kitchenette. "Nice, um... place, you have here Moon."

  "No, it's not!" replied Moon. "It's a grotty overpriced hole but it's all I can afford on a nurse's salary now the house prices have gone ballistic and our so-called 'Labour' government haven't got the balls to step in and do something about it."

  "Well, I didn't want to embarrass you," replied the vampire with a smile, shamelessly flashing a set of fangs that he most definitely hadn't got off the Internet.

  "There you are." Moon set a mug of dark fluid in front of Uri. "I don't have any jam but I piled in the sugar like you said." He sat down in the other mismatched armchair, balancing a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits on one of the arms.

  "I don't suppose you have any lemon to put in this?" Moon shook his head. "Well, then, could I trouble you for a couple of those wonderful biscuits instead?"

  "I didn't think you'd want any." Moon proffered the plate towards Uri. "According to most of the stories I've heard vampires aren't meant to be able to stomach solid food."

  "I can't see why not," replied Uri rather indistinctly through biscuit-coated fangs. "I still have a stomach after all and blood is a very boring diet, believe me."

  "So, how long have you been...?" Moon sought in vain for a euphemism.

  "...A 'blood sucking fiend'?" Uri completed the sentence for him brightly. "About a thousand years or so - it's amazing how the years roll by when you're undead. However, I always thought that was a very inaccurate description for people like myself. Okay, for your zombies, perhaps. For rotting lumbering corpses with worms for br
ains the term 'undead' might just fit. Although 'annoyingly not dead' might be more accurate. But for someone so very much full of life as a vampire, no I don't think so."

  Moon regarded Uri with horror. "You mean there actually are such things as zombies? You've met them?"

  "Not socially, no. They lack the, what is the term? ...Oh yes! They lack the communication skills and of course they smell very, very bad indeed. I have helped despatch one or two though. They tend to be a great nuisance in countries where they are common - because they eat people, of course, and once you have one you usually end up with a whole graveyard full of them if you're not very vigilant. But they certainly do exist. In my experience anything human beings believe in strongly enough for long enough will manifest itself eventually."

  Moon paused to digest this titbit. It hinted at the existence of a more interesting but much more frightening world than he had previously thought possible. "And is that what you did? Did you 'manifest yourself'?"

  "No, I was human once. And no, I wasn't bitten. It is a long story, which I don't care to tell at present. Enough to say that I fell victim to a sorcerer. It was my own fault of course - when I was younger I did many things that I am now ashamed of. I was a man of my time you see and a callous, violent time it was. The old man had his rightful vengeance for the way my companions and I treated his people, but I think now, if I met him again, I might thank him for giving me the last thousand years."

  "But doesn't becoming a vampire mean that you're somehow infected with evil?" Moon shrugged. "At least that's what all the books and movies say."

  "Ah, yes. Black and white, white and black, that's the way I used to think it was as well. I was a vampire so I must be evil and therefore evil and terrible was how I behaved, which wasn't that much different from how I'd behaved as a human being, now I come to think of it. I was born to a noble family in eleventh century Russia and we were all what you would call 'bad sorts'.