Surf's Up

by Gareth K Pengelly

  “Stand still and fight like a man!” he roared.

  “But… I’m not a man?” she replied from the shadows.

  “Do I look like someone who gives a shit about semantics? Just stand still so I can chop off your fucking head.”

  “I fail to see the benefit in that for me.”

  “And I fail to see the benefit in… your face!” he gasped, casting about all over the place for any glimpse of her. Was that her, there, over in the shade by the bush? It was! “There you are,” he growled, before Blinking towards her.

  Even as the black cloud of sorcerous translocation smoke dissipated upon the cold, Atlantic breeze, the vampiress was no longer there, his hungry sword once more thrusting through empty space. A sudden flaring pain in his shoulder, long and cruel talons from behind piercing the leather shoulder of his trenchcoat like so much tracing paper, before he was hurled through the air across the small park to land with a hard smack on the concrete, his sword skittering away across the slabs, flames dying with a hiss.

  “I’m impressed that you lasted even as long as you did,” Cassandra drawled, stalking towards him on legs that seemed to go on forever, high-heeled shoes echoing a rap of finality upon the earth. She finally stopped before his dazed form, one arm stretched high above her, talons growing longer, keener, as she drew back for a killing blow. “Two Helsings in as many months?” she chuckled. “If being a vampire was a job, I’d be asking for a raise.”

  Before she could strike, a slender arm about her neck, green and rough-looking, like sandpaper. If Cassandra had been mortal, perhaps her face would have flushed at the choking embrace. As it was, she was quite undead, therefore merely croaked out her annoyance.

  “Jesus, girl; have you never heard of moisturiser?”

  Scylla held on for dear life, but even her inhuman strength was no match for the ancient yet perpetually youthful vampire’s prowess; Cassandra thrust backwards with an elbow into the Nymph’s midsection. Scylla’s grip loosened, only for an instant, but an instant was all Cassandra needed, spinning on the spot and launching an open handed strike right for her chest. The Nymph flew backwards twenty feet, smashing into the park’s sole lamp-post and causing it to start flickering on and off, with a fizz and a pop. Rolling her shoulders and smiling, Cassandra turned back to Brian.

  To find him rising to his feet with a face of thunder.

  “Come now, Helsing,” Cassandra began. “Do you really think…”

  “Shut up,” he interrupted her. His eyes were wide with anger, his hands bunched into fists by his sides. The night had started off so promising. Confusing, yes, but promising too. The girl might have been a Water Nymph, but that hadn’t stopped them having a laugh. It had been a long time since he’d had an honest laugh with a member of the opposite sex, amphibious fairy-tale creature or otherwise, and he’d be damned if this ever-cocky vampire would ruin it. “You’re the reason my life turned upside down,” he told her. “You’re the reason I’m risking my life all the time. The reason I’m getting my ass handed to me on an almost daily basis. You’re the reason my friend – my only friend – nearly died. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be a normal, everyday man.”

  “And wouldn’t that be boring?” Cassandra replied, smiling.

  “Well… yes,” he admitted. “But better boring than dead.”

  “Well, they’re not mutually exclusive, you know,” she told him, even as she launched towards him, talons outstretched and painfully attractive eyes glistening with animal hunger.

  Time seemed to slow. The vampire raced, glacially, towards him, ready to rend, to feed, to squeeze the life from his neck, even as the Water Nymph slowly began to rise in the distance behind her, her own wide, almond eyes wide with sorrow at the thought of Brian’s impending demise, despite knowing that he was the enemy to all her kind. Even as all of this slowly came to pass, Brian slowed his breathing, stilled his heart, relaxed his body and cleared his mind. His hands uncurled from their clenched fists. His knees relaxed, his shoulders dropping. And a strange tingling, one he’d only ever felt once before, made itself known throughout his entire body. The vampire reached out with her seemingly limitless strength, to grasp and tear asunder.

  Only to be caught about the wrists and held felt by hands equally as strong, if not fractionally more so, than her own.

  For tense moments they stood there, the sultry, sexy creature of the night and the gangly yet determined mortal, straining in unseen fury, each against the other. If Cassandra hadn’t already been dead, then perhaps sweat might have glistened on her brow at the effort. As it was, the only sign of her exertion was her eyes growing wider and wider in surprise. And, amazingly, apprehension.

  “How…?” she whispered.

  Brian’s reply was a boot to her stomach, launching her away to land on the floor in a confused heap. A raised hand, and the sword flew to his grasp, lighting with hungry flames. The vampire stared up at him, her look a curious one, not quite sure whether to be afraid or angry, having never found herself in such a predicament before. Even XII, in all his youthful glory, had never stalemated her unholy strength so. A sudden flicker of hesitation on her coldly beautiful features as Brian stepped towards her. Then, as he raised the flaming sword above his head, she snarled.

  And, with a puff of acrid black smoke, she vanished.

  The cold and uncaring Cornish wind sighed and moaned about the park as Scylla rose and stared at Brian. What could he say now? How had the last few moments changed the dynamic between the pair? Where once there’d been a spark of attraction between the two, now there was only awkwardness, tension and uncertainty.

  “Who are you…?” she murmured.

  “I’m Brian,” he replied, softly.

  She shook her head, sadly.

  “You’re Helsing,” she told him.

  And with that, she ran into the night, leaving Brian standing alone in the ruined, moonlit park. A group of party-goers sauntered past along the path, no doubt heading home from Leeroy’s, and stopping, whispering to each other as they regarded him stood all melancholy and still in the flickering orange light of the lamp-post.

  “You alright, mate?” one of the group shouted over.

  “I’m not sure,” Brian replied.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Council House And Violent

  Brian inspected himself in the mirror, the cold light of morning that streamed in through the window showing off the full extent of his injuries from the night before. On his shoulder, a quintet of puncture marks, where Cassandra’s claws had pierced leather and skin alike. On his ribs, dark bruising from his impact on the ground. If he’d been closer to the Sanctum, he’d have paid a trip to Heimlich’s Healing Shower, allowing strange magic to unwind the damage. As it was, he was too far from home for that, so he’d have to struggle on through the pain. Today was the first day of the competition.

  And he couldn’t be late, for lives depended upon him being there.

  Even as he began to pull on his clothes, just a plain t-shirt, hoody and pair of jeans now, rather than his Helsing garb of before, he couldn’t shake the events of last night from his mind. Cassandra had reappeared, seemingly less scared of him than other supernatural creatures of her ilk, and with what looked like an axe to grind. It was her, seeing him as prey, all those weeks ago, who had led him on the path to becoming Helsing and changed his life forever. Now, it seemed, she wanted to finish what she’d first attempted.

  But more than Cassandra, his mind was also filled with thoughts of Scylla. He’d started the evening with the aim of finding Nymphs and killing them, but then the one Nymph he’d managed to find had turned out not only to be vegan, and thus no threat to the surfers, but also incredibly likeable. With a sigh, he pulled the hoody over his head and stared at his own, tired face in the mirror.

  “Why does life have to be so confusing?” he murmured.

  “You think it wasn’t for all of us?”

  His reflection, even as he watched, changed shape,
becoming older, more leathery and a good deal shorter, though that wasn’t hard, for if it had grown any taller it wouldn’t have fit in the mirror full stop.

  “I doubt any of you guys ever fucked up as royally as I did last night,” Brian told the shade. “I went out to kill a Nymph, then ended up defending her against a vampire. Ended up losing track of both of them in the process.”

  He cringed, as XII stared at him, full expecting some ghostly admonishment to be headed his way. Much to his confusion, the apparition merely laughed.

  “Is that it? Thought you’d done something serious for a moment there.”

  “Wh… what?” Brian blinked, an odd sensation not being able to see it reflected in the mirror. “It is serious! If the Masters found out, they’d be furious.”

  “Screw the Masters,” XII laughed. “What nonsense have they been feeding you? That we were all grim, stoic warriors, dedicated to duty above all else? Brian, we were all men like you, thrust into a strange world of magic and monsters, gifted wealth and powers beyond our ability to handle. What do you think we did? We had fun! We got the job done, sure, but Christ, man, the weight of the world rested on our shoulders and if we went off-mission every once in a while, then so be it. You think you’re the first Helsing to find himself pining after one of his targets? I could tell you about the Dryad of Sherwood Forest. The Fjord-Witch of Geiranger. And many others to boot. And believe you me, I wasn’t the exception. And neither are you.”

  “But I was supposed to kill her.”

  “Did you need to? Did she pose a threat to you or others?”

  Brian thought back to his brush with her mind, the sense of revulsion the Nymph had felt at the memory of her sisters feeding on hapless humans, before shaking his head.

  “No. She’s a vegan.”

  XII laughed.

  “A vegan Water Nymph? Tell ya, even when dead you learn something new every day.” He smiled, fixing Brian with mysterious and ancient eyes. “Now stop feeling sorry for yourself lad, and go get your job done. You did what you could last night, you went hunting and found nothing worth hunting. But she’s not the only Nymph in the waters, and her sisters might not prove so harmless.”

  With that, he faded, and as his words echoed in Brian’s ears, he felt somewhat relieved to know that he wasn’t quite as much of a fuck-up as he’d recently believed. The other Helsings, this long line of warriors, all held to some ideal by the Order, had all acted similar to him? What, even Helsing the First? He found it hard to believe, but if true, then it at least took some of the guilty burden from his shoulders, blew away some of the confusing fog from his mind’s eye. He didn’t have to kill Scylla. She might be a Water Nymph and, in the Masters’ opinions a threat, but as XII had so bluntly told him, screw the Masters. He was Helsing. He was the sharp end of the sword.

  And he would decide when and how he would dispense his Huntery justice.

  But the shade had also been right about Scylla’s sisters; the brief touch against the Nymph’s mind had showed him that her kin weren’t as averse to man-meat as she was. The surfing competition this weekend would provide them with a veritable buffet of lean, toned surfers to munch on. And he couldn’t let that come to pass. Lifting his hand, he summoned his bag to his grasp, wincing at the pain in his shoulder as gravity resumed its hold on the bag. Then his other hand he raised, Bertha’s keys flying to his waiting fingers. The surfing competition was at Fistral Beach, surf capital of Cornwall, and he’d be damned if he was going to walk there in a wet suit. He left the room, locking it behind him and striding out into the crisp air. He was just about to unlock Bertha and climb inside, when something made him pause, mid-reach for the handle. Some glaring omission that set his spidey senses all a-tingle.

  Where was the death board?

  A puff of acrid smoke from nearby and Brian turned to see Stu, the B&B owner, leant against the wall enjoying a cigarette. He shrugged apologetically.

  “I was going to tell you when you got back,” the man admitted. “But I was long asleep by the time you came stumbling home. Some young scrotes came sniffing around your car last night. I ran out and scared them off, but not before they half-inched your board.”

  Oh shit. Funnily enough, Brian’s first thoughts should have been for his mission, but they weren’t. They were, in fact, for the safety of whatever spotty oiks had nicked his board. The remote control had been with it, and if they figured how to turn it on, then only their teenage self-control, or lack thereof, would stand between them and high-explosive misadventures. He needed to get that board back, and quick.

  “Where do you think they ran off with it? Think quickly man.”

  “Alright, calm down, it’s only a surfboard,” Stu laughed. “Fat Willy’s is only down the road, you can go grab yourself another one in time for the competition.”

  “Not like this one. Come on, think. Where do you think they went off with it?”

  The man shrugged.

  “Usually when things get nicked round ‘ere, it’s the young chavs from the council estate round the back of town. Sounds like stereotyping, but it’s true. There’s not much to do in Newquay if you’re young and not a surfer, other than to go round and cause trouble.”

  “Right, then off to the council estate I go.”

  “Be careful,” the man told him. “They don’t take kindly to tourists.”

  “And I don’t take kindly to people stealing my stuff. How do I get there?”

  “Head into town, past the aquarium, then right up the hill. You’ll know you’re there when you see the burnt out cars and broken-down washing machines on people’s front lawns.”

  “Cheers.”

  With that, Brian climbed into the Camaro, starting the engine and filling the coastal dawn with rumbling V8 bass as he pulled off the driveway. There was a surprising amount of traffic as he drove along the high street, for a Saturday in the depths of a Cornish winter; garish campervans and rusted out vintage Beetles popped and wheezed along the road the other way, most of them with surfboards strapped their roofs. No doubt all making their way to the competition, a competition he’d be missing if he didn’t find his board and soon. The aquarium flashed by on his left, so Brian kept his eye out for a road on a hill to the right. There it was. He turned, the tyres screeching and the g-forces pushing him into his seat as he planted the accelerator, roaring up the hill. The hotels, B&Bs and posh apartments began to disappear behind him, to be replaced by the typical scenes of a rough estate; boarded up windows, litter-strewn gardens, poverty everywhere, clear as day. Brian didn’t judge; many of his friends at school had grown up on such estates as this, for work was hard to come by in Cornwall and houses were expensive. Not everyone had been born with a silver spoon up their arse. But even such a deprived upbringing didn’t justify stealing a man’s surfboard. Especially one that doubled up as a weapon of mass destruction.

  A man wearing a dressing gown, a rolled-up fag hanging out of his mouth, was walking his Staffy along the pavement, the dog wearing that giant, happy smile typical of the breed, always at odds with their square shoulders and bulky frame. Brian pulled up at the kerb and wound down his window, calling the man over.

  “Eyup mate. Someone nicked my surfboard last night and I heard they came from round here. Seen anything?”

  The man, all gaunt and unkempt, leant down towards the window and exhaled a cloud of smoke into the car, causing Brian to cough.

  “We keep ourselves to ourselves round ‘ere,” he replied.

  Even in the face of the man’s contempt, Brian kept his cool, instead fixing the man’s sunken eyes with a stare. Visions flickered through his mind from the man’s own; a group of young lads, making their way, surfboard carried between them, to a row of garages at the back of the estate. Brian smiled.

  “No problem, mate. Have a good day.”

  With that, he floored it again, leaving his window open to dispel some of the cloying smoke. If the visions in the man’s mind had been right, then the garages shoul
d be down this road to the left, then behind the houses. He turned the corner, found the block of lock-ups he was searching for. Then stopped the car, staring out of the window with a groan of disbelief.

  The chav teens had certainly figured out how to get the board working, after a fashion; even as Brian watched, incredulous, through the windscreen, the board screeched past along the gravel road, one teen perched precariously upon it, the others towed behind on skateboards attached by lengths of rope. The jets at the rear of the surfboard whined as the board bucked and scraped its way along the rough road, the group of lads cheering, whooping and hollering as they were pulled along at a considerable rate of knots.

  “Thank fuck it’s indestructible,” Brian murmured, before stepping out of the car. “Oi!” he shouted.

  The youth in charge of the death board released his grip on the throttle at Brian’s call, the entire procession grinding to a halt in the gravel, five pairs of eyes turning to meet his own. They clocked sight of the Camaro, recognising it as the car they’d stolen the board from. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their pedigree, rather than fleeing, they smiled.

  “Can we help you, blud?” the lead teen asked, all shell-suit and spikily-gelled hair, with the potent whiff of Lynx Africa surrounding him like a haze of teenage anst.

  “Yes,” Brian replied, raising his hand. The remote shot from the teen’s startled grasp, flying to land squarely in Brian’s own, as though tugged by an invisible rope. “You can give me back my board.”

  “How the…? No, you can’t have it back. We found it, so it’s ours. Finders keepers, ‘n’ all that.”

  Brian blinked at the logic.

  “You can’t just grab something of someone else’s and say it’s yours. That’s not how the world works!”

  “It is round ‘ere!” the youth sneered. “Now beat it, you lanky streak of piss.”

  Brian sniffed.