Hawk and Fisher

  Fisher was waiting for him. He shook his head, and Fisher shrugged disappointedly. Hawk smiled slightly. He already knew Fisher hadn't found anything; if she had, he'd have heard the sound of battle. Fisher wasn't known for her diplomacy. Hawk started towards the stairs, and Fisher moved quickly in beside him.

  The bare wooden steps creaked and groaned beneath their feet, and Hawk scowled. If there was someone here, watching over the vampire, they had to know there was someone else in the house. You couldn't put your foot down anywhere without some creaking board giving away your position. He hurried up the rest of the stairs and out onto the landing. He felt a little less vulnerable on the landing; there was more room to move, if it came to a fight. The floor was thick with dust and rat droppings, and the bare wooden walls were dull and scarred. Two doors led off from the landing, to their right. It was just as gloomy as the ground-floor hall, and Hawk thought fleetingly of his candle before deciding against it. If the sound hadn't given them away, a light certainly would. He moved over to stand before the first door, and listened carefully. He couldn't hear anything. Hawk smiled slightly. If this house did turn out to be empty, he was going to feel bloody ridiculous. He looked at Fisher, and gestured for her to guard his back. She nodded quickly. Hawk tried the door handle, and it turned easily in his grasp. He pushed the door slightly ajar, took a deep breath, and kicked the door in.

  He darted forward into the room, axe at the ready, and again there was no one there. Without looking around. Hawk knew that Fisher was looking at him knowingly.

  I said this was a wild goose chase, Hawk…

  He didn't look back. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction. He glared about him, taking in the darkened room. A sparse light seeped past the closed shutters to show him a wardrobe to his left and a bed to his right. A large wooden chest stood at the foot of the bare bed. Hawk eyed the chest suspiciously. It looked to be a good four feet long and three feet wide; quite large enough to hold a body. Hawk frowned. Like it or not, he was going to need some light to check the room out properly. He peered about him. and his gaze fell on an old oil lamp lying on the floor by the bed. He bent down, picked the lamp up and shook it gently. He could feel oil sloshing back and forth in the base of the lamp. Hawk worried his lower lip between his teeth. The house might appear deserted, but somebody had to have been here recently… He took out flint and steel and lit the lamp. The sudden golden glow made the room seem smaller and less threatening.

  Hawk moved over to the chest and crouched down before it. There didn't seem to be any lock or bolts. He glanced at Fisher, who took a firm hold on the wooden stake in her left hand and nodded for him to try the lid. He clutched his axe tightly, and then threw the lid open. Hawk let out his breath in a slow sigh of relief, and he and Fisher relaxed a little as they took in the pile of old bed linen that filled the chest. The cloth was flecked with a rather nasty-looking mould, and had obviously been left in the chest for ages, but Hawk rummaged gingerly through it anyway, just in case there might be something hidden under it. There wasn't. Hawk wiped his hands thoroughly on his trousers.

  All this taking it slow and easy was getting on his nerves. He suddenly wanted very badly just to run amok and tear the place apart until he found the missing girl, but he knew he couldn't do that. Firstly, if there was no one here the house's owners would sue his arse in the courts, and secondly, if there was a vampire here he was bound to be well hidden, and nothing less than a careful, methodical search was going to find him.

  One room at a time, one thing at a time, by the book. Follow the procedures. And he and Fisher might just get out of this alive yet.

  He moved over to the bed and got down on his hands and knees to look underneath it. A big hairy spider darted out of the shadows towards him, and he fell backwards with a startled yelp. The spider quickly disappeared back into the shadows. Hawk quickly regained his balance and shot a dirty look at Fisher, who was trying hard not to laugh and only just making it. Hawk growled something under his breath, picked up the lamp from the floor and swept it back and forth before him. There was nothing under the bed but dust.

  Not in the chest, and not under the bed. That only left the wardrobe, though it seemed a bit obvious. Hawk clambered to his feet, put the lamp on the chest, and moved over to stand before the wardrobe. It was a big piece of furniture, almost seven feet tall and four feet wide. Wonder how they got it up the stairs? thought Hawk absently. He took a firm hold on the door handle, gestured for Fisher to stand ready, and then jerked open the door. Inside the wardrobe a teenage girl was hanging naked from a butcher's hook. Her eyes were wide and staring, and she'd been dead for some time. Two jagged puncture wounds showed clearly on her throat, bright red against the white skin. The steel tip of the butcher's hook protruded from her right shoulder, just above the collarbone. No blood had run from the wound, suggesting she was already dead when the hook went into her. Hawk swallowed hard and reached forward to gently touch the dead girl's hand. The flesh was icy cold.

  "Damn," he said quietly. "Oh, damn."

  "It's her, isn't it?" said Fisher. "Councilor Trask's daughter."

  "Yes," said Hawk. "It's her."

  "The vampire must have been thirsty. Or maybe just greedy. I doubt there's a drop of blood left in her body."

  "Look at her," said Hawk harshly. "Sixteen years old, and left to hang in darkness like a side of beef. She was so pretty, so alive… She didn't deserve to die like this. No one deserves to die like this."

  "Easy," said Fisher softly. "Take it easy, love. We'll get the bastard that did this. Now let's get the girl down."

  "What?" Hawk looked at Fisher confusedly.

  "We have to get her down, Hawk," said Fisher. "She died from a vampire's bite. If we leave her, she'll rise again as one of the undead. We can spare her that, at least."

  Hawk nodded slowly. "Yes. Of course."

  Somehow, between them, they got the body off the hook and out of the wardrobe. They laid the dead girl out on the bed, and Hawk tried to close the staring eyes. They wouldn't stay shut, and in the end Fisher put two coins on the eyes to hold the lids down.

  "I don't even know her name," said Hawk. "I only knew her as Trask's daughter."

  The scream caught him off guard, and he'd only just started to turn round when a heavy weight slammed into him from behind. He and his attacker fell sprawling on the floor, and the axe flew out of Hawk's hand. He slammed his elbow back into his attacker's ribs and pulled himself free. He scrambled away and went after his axe. The attacker lurched to his feet, and Fisher stepped forward to run him through with her sword. The man dodged aside at the last moment and grabbed Fisher's extended arm. She groaned aloud as his fingers crushed her arm, grinding the muscles against the bone. Her sword fell from her numbed fingers. She clawed at his hand, and couldn't move it. He was strong, impossibly strong, and she couldn't tear herself free…

  He flung her away from him. She slammed against the far wall and slid dazedly to the floor. Hawk started forward, axe in hand, and then stopped dead as he finally saw who his attacker was.

  "Trask…" Hawk gaped at the nondescript, middle-aged man standing grinning before him. The Councilor was little more than medium height and painfully thin, but his eyes burned in his gaunt face.

  "She was your daughter, you bastard!" said Hawk. "Your own daughter…"

  "She will live forever," said Trask, his voice horribly calm and reasonable. "So will I. My master has promised me this. My daughter was afraid at first; she didn't understand. But she will. We will never grow old and ugly and die and lie forever in the cold earth. We will be strong and powerful and everyone will fear us. All I have to do is protect the master from fools like you."

  He darted forward, and Hawk met him with his axe. He swung it double-handed with all his strength, and the wide metal blade punched clean through Trask's ribs. The Councilor screamed, as much with rage as with pain, and staggered back against the bed. Hawk pulled his axe free and got ready to hit him again if necessary. T
rask looked down at his ribs, and saw the blood that flowed from the gaping wound in his side. He dipped his fingers into the blood, lifted them to his mouth and licked them clean. Hawk lifted his axe and Trask went for his throat. Hawk fought for breath as Trask's bony ringers closed around his throat and tightened. He tried to swing his axe, but he couldn't use it at such close quarters. He dropped it, and grabbed Trask's wrists, but the Councilor was too strong. Hawk's gaze began to dim. He could hear his blood pounding in his ears.

  Fisher stepped in beside them and cut at Trask's right arm with her sword. The gleaming blade sliced through the muscle, and the arm went limp. Hawk gathered the last of his strength and pushed Trask away from him. Trask lashed out at Fisher with his undamaged arm. She ducked under the blow and ran her sword through his heart with a single thrust. Trask stood very still, looking down at the gleaming steel blade protruding from his chest. Fisher jerked it out, and Trask collapsed, as though only the sword had been holding him up. He lay on his back on the floor, blood pooling around his body, and glared silently up at Hawk and Fisher. And then the light went out of his eyes, and his breathing stopped.

  Hawk leaned back against the wall and felt gingerly at his bruised throat. Fisher stirred Trask's body with her boot, and when he didn't react, knelt down beside him and felt cautiously for a pulse. There wasn't one. Fisher nodded, satisfied, and got to her feet again.

  "He's gone. Hawk. The bastard's dead."

  "Good," said Hawk, and frowned at how rough his voice sounded. He wouldn't have minded, but it felt even worse than it sounded. "You all right, lass?"

  "I've felt worse. Could Trask be the vampire, do you think?"

  "No," said Hawk. "He hasn't got the teeth for it. Besides, we saw him at the briefing yesterday morning, remember?"

  "Yeah, right. Trask was just the Judas Goat. But I think we'd better stake him anyway. Just to be sure."

  "Let's see to the girl first."

  "Sure."

  Hawk pounded the stake into her heart. It was hard work. He let Fisher stake Trask, while he cut off the girl's head as cleanly as he could. There was no blood, but that somehow made it worse. Cutting off Trask's head was no problem at all. When it was finished. Hawk and Fisher left the room and shut the door quietly behind them. Hawk had thought the air would smell fresher on the landing, but it didn't. He held up the oil lamp he'd brought from the room, and studied the next door in its flickering light.

  "He has to be in there somewhere," said Fisher quietly.

  Hawk nodded slowly. He looked at her, and then frowned as he saw she was holding a wooden stake in her left hand. "How many of those did you bring?"

  "Three," said Fisher calmly. "I used two on Trask and his daughter. If there's more than one vampire here, we're in big trouble."

  Hawk smiled in spite of himself. "You always did have a gift for understatement."

  He opened the door a crack, stepped back a pace and then kicked the door in. It flew back to slam against the inner wall, and the sound was very loud on the quiet. The echoes took a long time to die away. Hawk stepped cautiously into the room, his axe in one hand and the lamp in the other. The room was empty, save for a heavy metal bed pushed up against the far wall. Fisher moved slowly round the room, tapping the walls and looking for hidden panels. Hawk stood in the middle of the room, and glared about him. He's here somewhere. He has to be here somewhere. He moved over to the bed, and looked underneath it. Nothing but dust and shadows. He straightened up and looked at Fisher. She shook her head and looked uneasily about her. Hawk scowled, and looked back at the bed. And then he smiled slowly as an idea came to him.

  "Isobel, give me a hand with this."

  Between them they got the bed away from the wall, and Hawk studied the wall paneling carefully in the light from his lamp. He smiled grimly as he made out the lines of a hidden panel, fitted his axe blade into one of the cracks, and applied a slow pressure. The wood creaked and groaned loudly, and then a whole section of the wall swung open on a concealed hinge. Behind the panel was a hidden compartment, and in that compartment lay a huge coffin. Hawk felt his mouth go dry, just looking at it. The coffin was seven feet long and three feet wide, built from a dark red wood Hawk didn't recognize. Glyphs and runes had been carved into the sides and lid. He didn't recognize them either. Hawk looked at Fisher, standing close beside him. Her face was very pale.

  "Come on," he said quietly. "Let's get it out of there."

  The coffin was even heavier than it looked. They had to drag it into the room, inch by inch. It smelled bad. It smelled of blood and death and decay, and Hawk had to keep turning his head away in search of fresher air. He and Fisher finally got the coffin out of the hidden compartment and into the room, then stepped back to take a look at it.

  "Big, isn't it?" said Fisher softly.

  "Yeah," said Hawk. "Look, as soon as I get the lid open, you get that stake into him. As soon as the stake's home, I'll cut off the head. I'm not taking any chances with this one."

  "Got it," said Fisher. "We've been on some dirty jobs in the past, Hawk, but this has got to be the dirtiest."

  "Remember the girl," said Hawk. "Now, let's do it."

  They bent over the coffin and the lid flew open, knocking them both backwards. The vampire sat up in its coffin and grinned at them with pointed teeth. Hawk's hand tightened round the haft of his axe till his fingers ached. He'd thought he knew what a vampire would look like, but he'd been wrong. The creature before him might once have been a man, but it wasn't anymore. It looked like what it was; something that had died and been buried, and then dug its way up out of the grave. Its face was sunken and wrinkled, and there was a bluish tinge to the dead white skin. The eyes were a dirty yellow, without pupil or retina, as though the eyeballs had rotted in their sockets. A few wisps of long white hair frayed away from the bony skull. The hands were horribly thin, the fingers little more than claws. But the real horror lay in subtler things. The vampire's black robes were rotting and falling apart. Graveyard lichens and moss grew here and there on the dead skin. Its chest didn't move, because it no longer needed to breathe. And it smelled like rotting meat that had been left to hang too long.

  It rose up from its coffin in a single smooth movement and looked at Hawk and Fisher with its empty yellow eyes. Hawk looked away despite himself, and his gaze fell on the shuttered window. No light showed around the shutters' edges. We left it too late! The sun's gone down… The vampire stepped elegantly out of its coffin. Its bare feet made no sound on the wooden floor.

  Fisher wrinkled her nose at the smell. "Dirty stinking bastard. Lying down or standing up, it makes no difference. Let's do it, Hawk."

  Hawk nodded slowly, and then sprang forward, swinging his axe double-handed at the vampire's neck. The creature put up a spindly arm to block the blow, and the axe bounced off, vibrating as though it had struck an iron bar. Hawk's hands went numb from the impact, and it was all he could do to hang onto the axe. Fisher thrust at the vampire with her stake, using it like a dagger. The vampire avoided the blow easily, and knocked Fisher sprawling with a single backhanded blow. She lay where she had fallen, her head swimming madly. There was an inhuman power in the creature's slender frame. Fisher clutched desperately at the wooden stake, and struggled weakly to get her feet under her. The vampire looked down at her and chuckled suddenly—a low, filthy sound.

  Hawk swung his axe at it again. The vampire raised its head and caught the heavy blade in mid-swing, wrenching the weapon from Hawk's hand. It threw the axe away, and reached for Hawk with its bony hands. He darted back out of range and looked desperately about him for another weapon. The vampire laughed again, and bent over Fisher. It grabbed her by the shoulder, and she moaned aloud as the clawlike fingers sank into her flesh. Blood ran down her arm in a steady stream. She tried to break free, and couldn't. The vampire drew her slowly closer, grinning widely to show her its long pointed teeth. Fisher tried again to stab the vampire with the stake. It grabbed her wrist and squeezed hard. The feelin
g went out of her fingers and she dropped the stake. It rolled away and disappeared into the shadows.

  Hawk watched helplessly. He'd found his axe again, but he didn't dare attack the vampire. Cold steel was no use against it. He needed a wooden stake… He glared wildly about him, and his gaze fell on the coffin. A vampire must always return to its coffin before break of day… Hawk grinned savagely as the answer came to him. He stepped forward, lifted his axe, and brought it swinging down onto the side of the coffin. The heavy wood split and splintered under the blow. Hawk jerked the blade free and struck again. The side sagged inwards, and splinters flew on the air. The vampire threw Fisher aside and darted forward. Hawk dropped his axe, grabbed the heaviest splinter from the coffin and buried it in the vampire's chest as the creature reached for him. For a moment they stood facing each other, the yellow eyes and grinning mouth only inches away from Hawk's face, and then the vampire suddenly collapsed and fell limply to the floor. It made surprised mewling sounds, and clutched at the thick wooden splinter protruding from its chest. Hawk threw himself down beside the vampire, snatched up his axe, and used the flat of the blade to hammer the splinter into the vampire's heart. It screamed and tore at him with its clawed hands, but he didn't care. He hit the wooden splinter again and again and again, driving it deep into the vampire's chest, and with every blow he struck he saw the dead girl's face as she hung from the butcher's hook. After a while he realized that the vampire had stopped struggling, and that Fisher was kneeling beside him.