Fratricide, Werewolf Wars, and the Many Lies of Andrea Paddington

  Chapter Three: Expectations

  Private Jermaine Mitchell peered through the jeep’s windscreen. Estika was impressive for a seaside town that had been crammed off to England’s west and effectively forgotten. The buildings were so old and blackened by coal dust that the place would have made a perfect location for a lecture on gothic architecture, but somehow Mitchell doubted Estika had a roaring tourist trade. There were no fish and chipperies, for starters, just tall buildings whose gargoyles stared down the wide, straight streets.

  “Skylar, straight to the police station if you please,” Captain Truman said in his usual American accent, all swagger and fake charm. Mitchell didn’t understand what women saw in him, and Skylar refused to say, but they saw something. Maybe it was the blue eyes and blond hair, but to Mitchell Truman always looked too shallow around the cheeks. And personality.

  “We’re nearly there,” Skylar said. She was the only woman in the Team, not that you’d know by her attitude. Mitchell could tell by her body, but he had to look past all the Kevlar and weapons. There was no way to disguise her face, though: long brown hair that she wore loose, light brown skin, bright almond eyes, full cheeks. A smiling schoolgirl face and almost-cockney accent completed the picture of pretty-girl-cross-hardarse. “Bets?”

  “Mistake,” McGregor said.

  “Legit,” Truman said.

  “Hoax,” Mitchell said.

  Everyone was sticking with their regulars, then: McGregor was taking the safe bet that someone genuinely believed they’d encountered the supernatural (but, of course, hadn’t); Truman was putting his money on legitimate paranormal activity; and Mitchell… Mitchell thought that in a town with buildings like this, someone was taking the piss.

  The police station was a tall old dark building squashed between two other tall old dark buildings. Skylar parked the jeep and the four Team members climbed out. Truman took a while to smell the sea air or gather power from Mother Earth or whatever he did in the moments prior to doing his actual job, before finally nodding them inside.

  The station’s interior was actually quite modern: open workspaces and bright white walls. A largish woman at a computer smiled at them. Mitchell didn’t trust it. Her eyes were too smart for a smile that big to be genuine. “Hello there, I’m Yvette. How can I help you?”

  “Howdy ma’am,” Truman said. If he still wore a cowboy hat, he’d have tipped it by now and completed his mission to be a Southern cliché. “Captain Truman of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, here to see Constable Beck.”

  The woman’s eyebrows danced a merry jig. “Are you now? Hold on; I’ll buzz him.” She clicked a few keys then spoke into her headset. “Joel, some army types here to see you. Okay love. Righty-o. Buh-bye.” She caught Truman’s eye and gave him one of the fakest smiles Mitchell had ever seen, which Truman bought entirely. “He’ll be right with you.”

  As they loitered in the entrance, Mitchell avoided the glares of the Estikan cops by examining the posters of smiling ones that adorned every pristine white wall. The sun shone behind each as they stood with arms folded beneath slogans like “Be your best” and “Lend a helping hand”. That kind of crap was the worst kind of lie. Maybe, yes, one in every ten people strolled through life and fulfilled their purpose. But what about the other nine who worked jobs they didn’t want? Who had faced pain or loss in their lives? Who experienced the whole range of human emotion? Were they welcome on the Estikan Police Service?

  A foppish young man in a constable’s uniform stopped in front of them and twiddled his fingers against his thumbs. He had a long face with an impressive forehead, wide chin, sunken and droopy sad eyes, and brown hair that fell over his right eye. He was thin as a rake, shorter than Mitchell, and had all the confidence and charisma of a thirteen-year-old before a potential date.

  “Hi. Hello. I mean, welcome,” he said. Great start. “I’m Constable Joel Beck.”

  “I’m Captain Truman. This is Skylar, McGregor, and Mitchell.”

  “I’m on lunch, Yvette,” Beck said, despite it still being before noon.

  The sergeant flashed another shark smile. “All right lovey. It was nice to meet you all,” she added to the exiting Team.

  Beck carried himself delicately, eyes constantly moving and hands fidgeting. It was like he was never all in one place; he was always thinking of something else, so part of him was always trying to be somewhere else.

  When they were outside and the door had closed, Beck continued. “Thank you for coming. Sorry about the secrecy, I uh… haven’t told them.”

  “You haven’t told us either,” Mitchell said.

  “Private,” Truman said, and accompanied it with the that’s-enough look. “Constable, you said you had vampire activity in your town?”

  Beck held up a finger. “Suspected. I said I suspected vampire activity. We should get off the street. Do you have transport?”

  Why should they get off the street, exactly? Why were they indulging this man?

  Truman watched Beck with a long, steady gaze for a moment, then led him to their jeep. Truman and Beck took the front, leaving McGregor, Skylar, and Mitchell in the back.

  “Sorry,” McGregor said to Skylar. “Bit squishy, isn’t it?”

  “It’s all right,” Skylar said. She even smiled a touch, which McGregor didn’t notice. God he was thick. Did she have to flash him her tits before he’d get the hint? The doctor would probably just give her a mammogram.

  “Constable Beck,” Truman said. “Now can you tell me about these vampires? Or do we need to be driving through a tunnel as well?”

  “I haven’t had… personal contact, but there are reports: young women taken into hospital having lost blood; bites on their necks. No one talks about it. No investigations.”

  Was Truman taking this seriously? They’d met vampires. That was the only actual case they’d had. It had cost Mitchell leadership of the Team and half of its members, but they knew about vampires. They didn’t drink blood, they just liked their steaks raw; the neck-biting image came from attacking the jugular, a throwback to their origins as cat-people or something. Detective Paddington had tried to explain, but it all sounded like bestiality to Mitchell.

  “Sir,” Mitchell said. “Neck bites?”

  Truman turned in his seat. “Let’s hear him out,” he said, but Mitchell could hear his disappointment. “It could be something we haven’t seen before.”

  “No, the Books were quite specific,” McGregor said before receiving one of Truman’s looks and closing his mouth. One of the relics from their trip was the original manuscript of the Book of Tipote – the holy book of one of the Three-God on Archi. McGregor had studied the differences between it and its public version, as well as the public editions of the Books of Idryo and Enanti – the other two Archian Gods.

  None of the Books mentioned the existence of different breeds of vampire.

  Truman turned to Beck. “Do you have evidence?”

  “Photos.” Beck pulled a tablet computer from a pocket on his bulletproof vest. “I know they’re not supposed to be visible, but they are. Maybe because it’s all digital; no film.” Beck handed the tablet to Truman; the others leaned in from the back seat to look. The first blurry photo was of a thirtyish man in a frilly-shirted old suit in front of a rough stone wall. Everything about him screamed “vampire”. The Andrastes weren’t this obvious.

  “Compare that with this portrait from the art gallery from the early eighteen-hundreds,” Beck said, “which is a dead ringer fo—” Beck swiped across the tablet’s surface.

  The next photo was actually of a pretty young blonde thing in a tight white T-shirt standing behind a bar and smiling right into the camera. “Sorry, that’s Suzi,” Beck said.

  “Suzi?” Truman asked.

  “With an ‘i’,” Beck said, as if this answered the implicit question of “Who is Suzi and why are you taking pictures of her?” Beck flicked the tablet again and a painting filled the screen. The man’s hair was a darker shade of bl
ond tied back off his face, and the nose was thinner, but there was a definite resemblance there. His mouth was closed in a smile, showing no hint of teeth, but then a vampire would know not to open his mouth or he’d expose the pointed canines on both the top and bottom row.

  Truman handed the tablet to McGregor. “Doctor?”

  McGregor examined it for a few seconds, drew a breath as he ordered his thoughts, then let them burst forth like a breaking dam. “Face shape is right, as is the colourisation. Posture too, possibly; it’s hard to be sure from a painting. Pupils look to be circular, but that could be artistic licence. As for the photo, he shows similar characteristics and the dress style is the same, but he’s broader-shouldered than in the painting, stronger. Hairline is slightly different as well.”

  Beck stared. “I take it you have… experience with vampires?”

  “This is our job,” Truman said. He neglected to mention that, if it came to any monster except vampires, werewolves, or zombies, the Team was utterly inexperienced. “Do you know where these vampires live?”

  “Well, yes,” Beck said, as if that were obvious. “The old castle.”

  Was Truman actually going for this? Based on… what? This jittery kid’s smudged photo? That didn’t mean vampire; it meant family relation to whoever the portrait was of. Bite marks didn’t mean vampire either; it meant vampire wannabe or bad date.

  “All right,” Truman said. “Let’s roll.”

  “What about me?” Beck asked.

  Truman considered a moment. “Up to you, Joel. I’ll understand if you want to sit this one out.”

  Oh, for Pete’s sake. Truman sounded like a reassuring father figure, an idea which had never really made sense to Mitchell. Why did putting their trust in others make people feel safer? Surely it was better to assume responsibility for your life than abdicate it.

  “No, no,” Beck said. “I want to come along. I want to see them.”

  Ten minutes later they parked at the gates of the castle. The main portcullis was down, but there was a pedestrian gate to the side so they proceeded on foot two abreast across the stone bridge. The ground to either side of the bridge fell away quickly to a fifty-foot drop before rising back up to form a natural motte on which the castle stood.

  A thousand years ago, it would have been an impressive fortification: the ground on three sides sloped away at a forty-degree angle, leaving soldiers at the mercy of archers on the castle walls. A single slip would mean a long bumpy slide to the bottom of the hill.

  Tactically, attacking from below was almost worse than marching up to the front door and ringing the bell, which seemed to be Truman’s plan.

  As Truman slammed his fist against the latticed metal of the inner portcullis, Mitchell read the small blue plaque on the gatehouse that outlined the castle’s historical significance and stated that tours were conducted weekly in the warmer months.

  An elderly caretaker answered their knocking, his pleasant smile evaporating in shock when he noticed the rifles slung across their chests. “Goodness,” he said, “it’s an invading army.”

  “Yeah, actually,” Truman said. “Her Majesty’s.” Odd thing to say in an American accent. “We’d like to have a look around.”

  “We’re not open again until May. Oh, Constable Beck. Are these gentlemen with you?”

  Beck looked like a horse caught in headlights for a moment: long face, shaggy mane, guilty eyes. “What? Uh, yes. Yes they are,” he said. “We’d like to, uh, look around the castle. Official business.”

  “O’ course.” The old man stood aside and motioned them through the door and into a small courtyard. Ahead was the main hall or keep, to their left was a small chapel, and to their right a long, low building sat against the outer wall; probably the bailey and guards’ quarters.

  “Is there anyone staying here at the moment?” Truman asked.

  “The count.”

  Of course it was. Someone had received their vampire education from the School of Clichés.

  “When did they move in?” Truman asked. “Recently?”

  “A few weeks, I suppose.”

  About when the attacks started. It seemed unlikely that Beck was the only one to notice that connection. So why was he the only one to contact them? And why hadn’t he trusted his smiling follow police officers with this? Why send for the Team?

  “They only just bought the land, then?” Truman asked.

  “Oh no,” the old man said, “they bought the castle thirty years ago. Don’t spend much time here, o’course, just the odd weekend. Probably lots of other places to be.”

  “We’ll need to speak with them.”

  The old man eyed the five-strong group. “They don’t like being disturbed.”

  “Especially during the day?” Mitchell asked.

  The old man frowned. Truman said, “Clean sweep, one big group.” He led the tour. Skylar swung her rifle at every sound; Mitchell let most of them go. Someone was trying very hard to make the locals buy this crap; real vampires preferred anonymity.

  The castle was slick underfoot, the stones still moist from the recent rains. Winter was approaching fast and wet but not snowy. The great hall beat the winter back with a roaring fire, animal-skin rugs on the floor, and a large dining table in the centre. Truman strode right past it to the doors at the other end. The door on the right led outside and faced the guard quarters. The door on the left led down a flight of stairs.

  What was at the bottom Mitchell didn’t know, but he did know it was a bad idea to enter a dark, unknown location that was almost certainly a trap.

  “Let’s go,” Truman said without enthusiasm. As always, he was first down the stairs. The flashlight on his rifle did a better job illuminating the passage than the glow from the candles that lined the damp stone walls. It smelled like old moss and the temperature dropped with each step. By the time they reached the next floor down, McGregor, Skylar, and Truman were taking the situation more seriously. Places like this played on ancient fears of the dark and the unknown, of being trapped and alone.

  Mitchell waited for Truman’s next order. When it didn’t come, he said, “Where to, sir?”

  His voice breaking the silence seemed to unsettle the others more than the quiet had. Mitchell gave a mental sigh and waited for the big brave soldiers to get over their fear of the dark. He’d never had a problem with it. After all, the dark worked both ways: they couldn’t see you coming either.

  Truman spotted their balding guide at the back of the group and asked, “Where’s the count?”

  “He’ll be asleep.”

  “Sorry, friend,” Truman said. “We got to wake him up.”

  After a glance at Beck, who was doing an impressive amount of worrying, the old man led the way. Corridors snaked away left and another right, but there were no lights on any of them so they faded into blackness. They might have gone on forever. The central corridor, however, had torches lit every ten feet.

  “The end door,” the old man said. “But they won’t like—”

  “We get it.” Mitchell led the way into the gloom. For all her macho sexist talk, Skylar had stepped closer to McGregor who, not knowing what to do, had inched away from her and knocked a candle off the wall. Beck’s head was twitching around like a bird trying to hear sounds all around it. Only the old man seemed unaffected, but then if this was a trap he was the one springing it.

  The corridor’s many doors were all thick wood reinforced with horizontal iron bars. Mitchell paused with a hand on the doorhandle to check that the Team was still with him. Truman counted three on his fingers and Mitchell threw the door open.

  It was, indeed, a bedroom. A four-poster bed took pride of place, with scattered ancient furniture around the edges. A bear’s skin lay on the floor right in front, screaming at them. Standing on it wearing a black suit and white shirt, smiling at them, was Adonis Andraste.

  Mitchell raised his gun to fire. Before Truman could tell him not to – which the coward would – someone whipped
the muzzle up to aim at the ceiling: the biggest Andraste son, a mane of blond hair around his face like a lion, teeth exposed and muscles rippling under his frilly shirt. Four of his sisters were within striking distance of the door, swords in their hands.

  “Back!” Truman said. The Team was already doing it.

  Mitchell slammed a foot toward Leander, but the vampire jumped back. That put him off-balance enough for Mitchell to yank the rifle out of his hands, but by then the females were swinging their swords so there wasn’t time to shoot the bastard.

  When would he have another chance, though?

  “Mitchell! Retreat!” Truman shouted.

  Damn. He couldn’t take on the vampires by himself and his companions were all legging it down the corridor. Mitchell followed them.

  “So good to see you again,” said Adonis.

  Was this the Andrastes’ plan? To make them run? Was this the trap? Had someone blocked their way out? Were they to be hunted in the tunnels beneath the castle?

  Apparently not. The door to the keep was open and in a minute the Team was through the courtyard, over the bridge, outside the castle walls, and safe in the sunshine beside the jeep.

  “Was… was I right?” Beck asked between panting.

  “Yeah.” Truman clapped him on the back. “You sure were. Those are bona fide vampires.”

  “Pounds good?” Mitchell asked Truman, handing over a ten-pound note. “Or did you need it in greenbacks?”

  Beck was nodding. “Right. Yes. Good. I’m just going to…” He indicated the ground, where he promptly collapsed in a heap. At least he didn’t throw up.

  “We should go back,” Mitchell said.

  “You want to die, Jerry?” Skylar yelled.

  “If they wanted us dead, we would be,” Mitchell said. “We didn’t catch them by surprise; they were dressed and waiting for us. And they think they scared us away, so we should attack before they can regroup: we block the exit we know about, raze the castle while it’s still light, and shoot anyone who runs for it.”

  Beck stood. “What? No! The castle’s a historic landmark!”

  “It’s infested with vampires, is what it is!”

  “Mitchell!” Truman said. “We’re not attacking blind. We need to talk to Paddington.”

  What good would that do? Apart from one lucky decapitation, what had Paddington ever done? “They broke the treaty, sir,” Mitchell said. “Them on Archee, us off it; that was the deal. We don’t need him here to enforce the penalty.”

  “He’s had dinner with them every month for three years. He’s the closest thing to an expert we have. No offense McGregor.”

  “No, no, quite right,” McGregor said.

  “Skylar and I will stay here and make sure they don’t leave,” Truman said. “You and McGregor go to Archi and bring back James Paddington.”