by Tom Holt
God, he thought, that was thirsty work. What I wouldn’t give right now for a nice long cool pint of AB negative . . .
What?
Instinctively, his hand flew to his neck. Sure enough, he located a small, tender patch. A bruise, probably, and two tiny puncture marks.
Oh spiffing. Just what I need at this particular juncture. Another lid fell away, and Skinner sat up, massaging his neck and looking as if he’d just received IBM’s tax demand by mistake instead of his own.
‘You too, huh?’ Regalian said. ‘It’s true what they say about suckers; one born every minute.’
Skinner just swore. Not long after that, Hamlet emerged. His teeth had already started to grow, Regalian noticed gloomily.Those could be a problem, horrible great sharp things, but what could you do? Stick corks on the points?
‘Girls?’ he queried, ‘Come on, we haven’t got all day.’
Sure enough, the last two remaining lids fell away, revealing Jane and Titania. Both of them were rubbing their necks and running through a wide repertoire of non-verbal communications. What’s the betting that, if you translated the thoughts, each one would prove to begin with the words If ever I get my hands on the little . . . Well, quite. They’d have to join the queue, that was all.
He hesitated. He counted. Six coffins. He remembered. He rubbed his hands together, and made noises indicative of evil satisfaction.
‘I know you’re in there,’ he said. ‘Out you come.’
‘Shan’t,’ said a voice from inside the sixth coffin.
‘Sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fine. Skinner, pass me the hammer. Titania, reach me over one of those pointed stakes. Yes, the oak will do fine. Hamlet, look lively and fetch the silver bullets . . .’
There followed the sound, by now familiar, of screws hitting flagstones, followed by the creaking of a coffin lid being raised. A white, ghastly face peeked over the lid.
‘You rotten cheats!’ it said. ‘You haven’t got any stakes after all.’
His heroic reflexes made it possible for Regalian to grab the coffin lid and wrench it out of Dracula’s hands before he was able to do a snail impression. ‘What’s this, then?’ the hero shouted, pointing to his neck with his free hand. ‘And before you make any funny remarks, I may not be able to kill you with my bare hands, but I could have a lot of fun trying my very hardest and eventually failing.’
‘All right,’ whimpered the vampire. ‘Point taken. Look, I can explain.’
‘Oh good,’ Jane growled. ‘He can explain. That’s all right, then.’
‘It’s for your own good,’ the vampire said. ‘Honest. I’d have thought you’d have worked that one out for yourselves.’
‘Our own good?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Being turned into sunlight-shunning, invisible-in-mirrors, make-mine-a-bloody-Mary-hold-the-Mary vampires for our own good, huh?’
‘Yes.’
Regalian stood for a moment, hand on chin, thinking. ‘Do you know something?’ he eventually asked.
‘What?’
‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that the only reason people think you can’t kill a vampire by shoving its head up its own arse is because nobody’s ever actually tried it. What do you think, guys?’
Skinner nodded vigorously. ‘Let’s research,’ he said. ‘I love research. People tell me I should have been a professor or something.’
‘Listen!’ the vampire shrieked.
‘Sorry?’
‘Vampires, right? They’re undead. Can only be killed with stakes or silver bullets.’
‘Reputedly.’
‘And now you’re vampires, right? Think about it.’
‘I’m trying not to, actually.’
‘Please,’ the vampire urged. ‘Talk about helping you guys out. I mean, you lot are on the run from Claudia, with her dreaded henchman Max close on your tails. I’d have thought you’d be grateful.’
Regalian frowned. ‘How did you know that?’ he said quietly.
The vampire grinned feebly. ‘Because,’ he explained, ‘they’re standing right behind you.’
‘Sure,’ Regalian sneered. ‘Pull the other one.’
‘With pleasure,’ said a female voice. Regalian spun round, and found himself peering down the muzzle of the Scholfield, so close that he could see the heads of the bullets in the cylinder. They weren’t dull black, like lead, or orange and shiny, like copper-jacketed; more sort of white and shiny. ‘Or rather, Max will do it. Max, get the block and tackle.’
Titania made a threatening noise. ‘You won’t get away with this,’ she said. ‘We outnumber you three to one.’
Claudia smiled. ‘My dear girl,’ she said, ‘I admit there are half a dozen of you. Have you ever stopped to think where the expression “six-shooter” comes from?’
Titania shrugged. ‘He might get one of us,’ she said. ‘That’d still leave five.’
‘Actually.’ Skinner edged forward, looking extremely embarrassed. ‘Wouldn’t try it if I were you. In Rangers of Texas, I had him shoot three flies off a cowpat at twenty-five yards in one second. He’s good.’
‘What harm had the cowpat done him?’ asked Titania, interested.
Resignedly, Regalian raised his hands a token few inches, and then let them fall to his sides. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘that’ll do. So what happens now? Back to that horrible place again?’
Claudia shook her head. ‘You should be so lucky,’ she replied cheerfully. ‘Time to go to work.’
Jane wrinkled her forehead. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to Claudia. ‘You aren’t seriously going to destroy the world, are you?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Claudia replied, picking at a loose thread on her cuff. ‘I may decide to do it seriously. Or I may go for the more frivolous treatment. Slapstick armageddon,’ she mused. ‘A remake of Dr Strangelove, something like that. I don’t know, you’ve given me something to think about there. I do so like dealing with creative people.’
All this while, Dracula had been staring at Claudia’s neck with a look of combined awe and hunger such as you might expect from a small boy who’s been asked to look after a sweetshop for an afternoon. While Claudia was dealing with Jane’s enquiry, Regalian nudged him in the ribs.
‘Your oppo Realside,’ he said. ‘I promised him a reward for helping us out.’
‘What? Oh, really. Yes.’
‘What I figured was,’ Regalian went on, ‘if I paid you, it’d be the same as paying him. Agreed?’
‘Hm? Oh sure, sure.’
‘There you go, then.’
‘What?’
‘The reward.’
‘What reward? Where?’
Half an inch of the side of Regalian’s mouth twitched into a smile. ‘You’re looking at it,’ he said. ‘Admittedly, it’s more sort of Pick Your Own rather than all packaged up in cellophane with a sell-by date, but you won’t mind that. I mean, it positively guarantees that peak freshness you never seem to get with the store-bought stuff.’
At that moment, Max slewed round and brought the muzzle of the Scholfield in line with the point where Regalian’s eyebrows met. ‘Care to share the joke, partner? ’ he said.
Regalian stared at the gun; and as he did so, he saw something.
Thought he saw something. Surely he’d been mistaken. No, there it was again.
The gun had winked at him.
All right, let’s get technical. It had rotated its cylinder one half-station, thus hiding the mouth of one chamber behind the front upright of the frame, before reversing the procedure and returning the cylinder to rest against the bolt and pawl. Same thing.
Accordingly, Regalian dived to the ground, rolled and reached out for Max’s feet, with the intention of throwing him to the ground and wrestling the gun away from him. As he did so, he heard Max swear, out of the corner of his eye watched the gun tracking him, watched Max pull the trigger—
Click. Followed by click, click.
At th
e very edge of his vision, he could just make out Dracula lunging at Claudia, mouth open. By the time he’d connected with Max’s ankles, he could faintly hear the sound of Dracula being dealt a horribly savage blow with an organiser bag. Never mind; concentrate on the job in hand, let the other five take care of Claudia.
In retrospect, that was a bit like America declaring that it would see to Martinique, while leaving Monaco and Lichtenstein to deal with China, Russia, Japan and the thousand-battlecruiser task force that’d just arrived that morning from Mars. At the time, however, it seemed reasonable enough; and he was too preoccupied with snatching the Scholfield from Max’s hand and clubbing him half to death with the butt to spare too many thoughts for how the rest of the gang was getting on. It was only when he was back on his feet and turning the gun towards where Claudia had last been that he realised that something wasn’t quite in accordance with his game plan.
‘Where’s she gone?’ he snapped.
Jane, who was still on her feet, shrugged. Then she too fell over and went peacefully to sleep. Instinctively, Regalian sniffed.
The effect of the tiny free sample he’d taken in was almost enough to sweep him off his feet; but he managed to stagger back a few steps and sit down on an empty coffin in something approaching good order until his head stopped swimming and his eyes cleared. Stupid! He should have guessed. That old familiar sweet, fat smell.
Essence of Thomas Hardy, guaranteed to send you to sleep in one second flat. Presumably she had the stuff in an aerosol in her jacket pocket. Mace of the d’Urbervilles, or some such brand name.
He stood up again, swaying slightly (he recognised the symptoms; adjective poisoning) and cursing his own stupidity. As a result, she had made a clean getaway, off to wherever she could call up reinforcements; maybe even the editor’s pencil. Nasty thought; back in the Slushpile for good, with no hope of escape.
At his feet, Max groaned and twitched slightly. Dammit, he hadn’t even done that properly. His thumb was on the Scholfield’s hammer, but he couldn’t bring himself to cock and fire . . .
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m a hero, you bloodthirsty object,’ he sighed.
‘I could go off accidentally,’ the Scholfield replied helpfully. ‘Just think how shaky your hand is after sniffing that loathsome stuff. Tragic accident, poetic justice . . .’
Regalian lowered his hand until the gun was pointing at the floor. ‘Nice thought,’ he said, ‘but no thanks. Besides, you’ve bent the rules quite enough for one day, surely. Three misfires in a row?’
The Scholfield wriggled its cylinder by way of a shrug. ‘Sidearm’s discretion,’ it replied. ‘Did you like the wink, by the way? Took me ages to work out how to do that.’
‘Neat,’ Regalian answered. ‘I owe you one. That doesn’t extend, however, to wasting defenceless enemies. Save it for when I catch up with Madam.’
‘You won’t,’ the Scholfield replied wearily. ‘Take it from me. Usually I’ve got nothing against psychopaths, but in her case I’ll make an exception. Compared to her, dear old Wild Bill was Gandhi.’
Regalian winced and sat down again, making sure the gun was pointing in a safe direction. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you don’t reckon I should go after her. What should I do?’
‘Don’t ask me for strategic advice,’ the gun replied, ‘I’m exclusively tactical. I’d suggest trussing that pillock up before he comes round, though. That’s always assuming you still don’t want me to—’
‘Correct assumption.’
‘Pity. All right. Not that there’s much rope in a crypt. You’d better sling him in a coffin and screw down the lid.’
Regalian did so, and then sat on it, just to make sure. He’d had enough of taking chances for one day.
‘The others are probably out for the next couple of hours,’ the gun continued. ‘Look on the bright side, though, it could have been Henry James.’
Regalian nodded. ‘Hell of a way to go,’ he agreed. ‘But if I just hang around here till they wake up—’
‘Madam’ll have come back with the heavy mob long before then,’ the Scholfield anticipated. ‘You have a problem, I can see that. And this time, she’ll be ready. Wooden stakes, big hammers . . .’
‘Quite.’ Regalian cupped his chin in his hands. ‘Not so long ago, I thought fighting it out with trolls and goblins and crazed wizards was bad enough. Didn’t know I was born.’
‘Guaranteed to win, too,’ the gun sympathised. ‘Oh sure, I know you still had to do the actual smiting, but you knew there could only be one result. Bit different now, huh?’
‘You could say that. Almost as bad as being in real life, I guess.’
The gun considered. ‘Oil’s better here,’ it said, after a while. ‘Better choice of ammunition.You rust less quickly. Otherwise not all that much to choose between them. Actually, I’m disappointed. I’d expected it to be great fun on this side.’
‘But now you know better.’
‘Sure.’
In the far, shadowy corner of the crypt, something scuttled, but Regalian ignored it. Whatever nameless thing it might be, it wasn’t doing him any harm, it had its living to make, same as everybody else. Regalian had spent quite a lot of time in and around crypts during Thoughtspears of S’nagharz, and realistically speaking the worst thing that could happen to you in one, provided the doors didn’t seize, was extreme boredom.
‘I suppose,’ he said at last, doing his best to shake off the feeling of lethargy that was doing its best to pick the pockets of his enthusiasm, ‘I’d better go through the motions of making a fight of it. How about if I were to try and get these idiots somewhere safe?’
‘Could do,’ the Scholfield agreed. ‘Of course, that might be easier than you think. Like, this is a crypt, they’re all now qualified vampires.’
‘So?’
‘So,’ the Scholfield continued, ‘the basic life support requirements aren’t so desperately stringent for vampires. Put it another way; you can’t kill an earthworm by burying it alive.’
Regalian looked up. ‘Good point,’ he said. ‘So if I were to find a way of sealing off this crypt—’
‘Go outside and cave in the underground passage that leads down to it,’ suggested the gun. ‘The basic Edgar Alan Poe gambit. Before you ask, a few well-aimed shots from me into the tunnel roof could easily do the trick.’
‘—which would keep them safe from Claudia, and delay whatever her weird doomsday scenario is.’
‘For a while, anyway,’ the gun replied. ‘A few lousy tons of rock isn’t going to hold her up for more than a few hours, mind.’
Regalian nodded. ‘Unless of course she’s preoccupied with trying to chase me. That’d divide her resources a bit, maybe buy a little time.’
Air passed down the Scholfield’s barrel, giving the illusion of a sigh. ‘It might work,’ it said. ‘Not as if you’re snowed under with viable alternatives. Even so, I always reckon time’s only worth buying if you can get a good discount. I mean, it can’t be worth much if they were reduced to giving it away free with history.’
‘What?’
‘Oh forget it,’ the Scholfield replied impatiently. ‘I dunno. Sam Johnson had Boswell, I have to end up with you. Let’s go shoot a roof.’
Dracula - the real-life Dracula, not his fictional clone - stood up, scratched his ear, and sat down again.
God, but this was fun. Not just fun fun, but real fun. Maybe it was something to do with being Real himself for the first time; whatever. The fact remained that sitting in front of a VDU tapping keys on a keyboard beat flying in through windows and biting women’s necks into a cocked hat.
On the other hand, he was thirsty. Oppressively so. What he needed, right now, was a very substantial drink. Hey, he said to himself, now I’m even thinking like a proper writer.
He’d already been through the fridge and the freezer; not a drop of blood anywhere in the whole place. He sighed, and fretted. On the one hand, he already had this marvellous idea for
the opening scene of the sequel. On the other hand, he wasn’t going to be in any shape to write anything without a good long swig of the old red stuff, quick. The Muse would have to wait, just for a little while.
Reluctantly he stood up again, switched off the screen and opened the window. The cool night air called to him. and suddenly he remembered the thrill of the wind under him, the headlong glory of flight. Raising his arms, he grinned, starlight flashing on his teeth, and jumped.
A very short while later, he landed in a flowerbed.
Shit, he muttered to himself, I’ve left it a bit late. Can’t fly without juice. Pity. Have to walk, instead.
He’d been walking the deserted streets for maybe half an hour when bells started ringing in his head. He could smell young, female blood no more than fifty yards away; good, high-octane stuff, enough to keep him on his feet for a good long time. Idly wondering what sort of young lady would be out walking the streets alone at this ungodly hour, he followed his nose round a corner and froze, like a cat stalking a pigeon. Yo!
A bob of shoulder-length blonde hair, a flash of shapely leg, a supple sway of the hips as she walked; all the signals were positive. In fact, she couldn’t be a more obvious mark if she had the words 70 cl - Please dispose of can tidily tattooed between her shoulder blades. Dracula widened his grin into a snarl, raised his hands above his shoulders and pounced—
‘Gotcha!’
—And hit the pavement, chin-first, as at least two extremely heavy bodies crashed down on top of him, informing him as they did so that he was nicked, that he had the right to remain silent . . .
Even depleted and run down as he was, he had enough of his superhuman strength left to be able to toss policemen about like tennis balls. He got rid of the original two by throwing them over his shoulder, then picked up a third and lobbed him through a plate-glass window; and he was just using the fourth as a subject in an experiment to see if policemen’s heads unscrew like bottle-tops when the young lady walked up to him, gave him an unfriendly look and kicked him in a part of his anatomy which, although undead and invulnerable to anything except stakes and silver bullets, was nevertheless not exactly improved by sharp impact from a pointed toe. This so demoralised him that instead of leaping on her and draining every last drop of blood from her veins in one long draught, he made do with dropping the copper he was holding and staggering off as fast as he could run while still doubled up with pain.
