Beth found a similar trait in Gustav as she’d glimpsed in Tommy. It seemed to her that the ghost of a tender, intelligent man now haunted that ghastly carcass. He waged a war with the monstrous side of his nature. A war he was slowly and oh so surely losing. Yet in this desperate moment he reached out to an old friend.
‘Eleanor.’ His whisper joined with the murmurs of the sea. ‘They will try and reach you tonight. And your friends, too. Please take my hand. I’ll try and help you. But I need to feel your touch, because if I have something human to hold on to it might stop this thing inside of me. It’s taking control . . . I can feel it . . . I want to taste blood. I am trying to resist, but the animal inside of me is getting stronger. I know I am a vampire . . . but if I try, with all my heart, I might not succumb absolutely to bloodlust. But I must confess: I’ve taken human blood. You saw as such in the cave. I couldn’t stop myself. But your hand in mine will help so much.’
Eleanor stood absolutely still, as if hewn from cold granite.
‘Eleanor, please . . . don’t let this devil inside of me win.’
Beth’s heart surged. ‘Do as he asks.’
Eleanor shook her head.
‘If we can help him, then maybe he really can stop those things.’
Still Eleanor refused to even look at the man beneath the grate. All she would do was mouth the word no. This rejection struck Gustav hard. He sagged; the strength bled from his limbs. The white face, with the colourless eyes, suddenly became more alien, more terrible – the emotion that flickered across the features was one of utter desolation. Here was a man that had almost lost his final battle.
Beth urged, ‘Go to him. I know he won’t try to hurt you.’
The woman closed her eyes. She did her utmost to pretend he wasn’t there.
‘I’ll do it!’ Beth threw herself to her knees beside the grate. Beneath the iron bars the vampire stood there, the ocean tide had turned, water swirled around his ankles. It poured along the same tunnel that Gustav would have used to enter that pit beneath the basement floor. Expressions flitted over the man’s face. Hunger. Desperation. And, more than anything, such a sense of loss that it hurt Beth to witness it. ‘My name is Beth Layne. I’m Eleanor’s friend.’ She clasped the man’s hand in hers. Such coldness possessed it. It felt like plunging one’s hand into a mountain stream. The moment she did take his hand, his fingers closed over hers, a grip so tight she gasped. By this time, Eleanor had turned to watch the pair. On her face, an expression of pure shock.
The man’s eyes glared up through the bars. The tiny black pupils were fierceness themselves. In those points of darkness, the raging passions that burnt within him. She saw his Vampiric lust for chaos, destruction, and above all blood. He wanted hers now. He longed to feel that torrent from her vein – for it to flood through his lips, to play on his tongue, before slipping so delightfully down his throat.
Eleanor gasped, ‘You shouldn’t have touched him. He’ll bite.’
‘No, he won’t.’ Beth didn’t try and pull free, instead she gripped his hand firmly. ‘That’s right, Gustav, isn’t it? You won’t attack me. I trust you, Gustav. I believe you are fighting the vampire inside of you. And you’ve fought that life and death struggle every night. A terrible battle inside your heart. You’ve done everything in your power not to hurt a human being. Don’t I speak the truth, Gustav?’
The grip tightened. She wanted to scream at the intensity of it. Yet she didn’t allow the slightest trace of that pain to alter her expression.
‘Gustav, if need be, you’d give your life to save Eleanor, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes!’
The gust of air from his vampire lungs blasted into Beth’s face. It smelt of nothing, yet its coldness evoked eternal despair.
When Gustav spoke again the tone and the phrasing had become that of a normal young man. ‘I don’t want Eleanor to be like me.’
‘But she never will.’ Beth shook her head. ‘Twenty years ago, those creatures in the cave bit Eleanor on the wrist. The wound never healed, but she was never infected. Isn’t that true, Eleanor?’
Eleanor clenched her fists. ‘Yes, but what does that make me?’ The woman groaned. ‘Oh, look at his eyes.’
Colour returned to the man’s irises. A pale blue. The pupils lost that fierce aspect.
Eleanor laughed, but it was a defeated sound. ‘Beth. I hate you. For twenty years I’ve turned my back on Gustav. Now you come here and you’ve made him at least half human again.’
‘Then if we help him fight this thing?’
Gustav pushed his other hand through the bars. ‘Eleanor. Take hold. There’s a chance I might get well again.’
Eleanor, shaking her head, tears streaming down her face, raced up the steps, back into the body of the hotel. Beth remained crouched there, her hand grasping his.
The colour leeched from Gustav’s eyes. The black pupils became prominent once more. Yet a human lilt remained in his voice. ‘Look after her, Beth.’ On the vampire’s face a ghost of a mortal smile played. ‘I’ve a confession. Though I was afraid of Eleanor Charnwood, when I was young, I had a crush on her. She was the loveliest girl in Whitby. Her intelligence shone as bright as the sun. I could warm myself beneath it. Since I stopped being the flesh and blood Gustav Kirk, I’d still pretend to myself that one day I’d become well again. And I’d no longer be forced to live like a snake in that hole in the cliff. That, eventually, I’d climb out into the bright sunlight. I’d stand up straight. Then I’d walk through the graveyard to the long flight of steps down into town. Feeling human, a big smile on my face, pleased and happy, I’d come here to the hotel. Instead of creeping through the tunnel into this basement, I’d march into the lobby. There I’d find Eleanor standing at the reception desk. She’d be so pretty in the brightness of a spring day. And I’d say to her, “Eleanor. I’ve never dared confess this before. But I’ve loved you since I was ten years’ old. And I’m here to ask if you’d be my wife.” That dream stopped me from doing awful things, Beth. But if it had come true, and I became mortal again, do you think she would have married me . . . or does she find me repulsive? After all . . . did she find me repulsive when I had human blood in my veins?’ The dreamy smile became lost to the shadow. Sighing, he released his grip on her hand. The pallid shape retreated into darkness.
Earlier, it had seemed as if Eleanor had successfully formulated a plan that would get them through the night. Now it’s all unravelling, Beth told herself. Eleanor isn’t as strong as she thought. And I don’t know what the next few hours will bring.
Five
Eleanor stumbled into her rooms on the upper floor. There, she raged at the reflection in the mirror: ‘You ineffectual, idiot. You coward. It took a stranger to do what you daren’t.’ Tears came. ‘Beth Layne! She’s an actress. One of those glittering angels that’s all make-up and make-believe. You even saw her serving a cocktail to Cary Grant . . . up there . . . on the silver screen. Ha!’ She laughed at her tear-stained reflection – a harsh, mocking laugh. ‘Now she steps into your hotel here in Whitby and she takes hold of Gustav’s hand, and she makes him human again. Or . . . or at least something akin to flesh and blood.’ Eleanor threw her arms in extravagant movements. A personal melodrama that she wanted – really wanted to hurt her. ‘Because I deserve this.’ She loathed those watery eyes in the mirror. ‘Scaredy cat. You never even spoke to Gustav all those times he crept through the tunnel into the basement. All he wanted was human contact, but you were afraid to even engage him in conversation. It’s not as if you wanted him in your bed, is it?’ She ripped back the sleeve to expose the never-to-be-healed wounds on her wrist. Yes, oh yes, it seemed insane – yet she had to sink her own teeth into her flesh – into the puncture marks with their pink edges that resembled tiny roses. Though she bit hard, the pain in her wrist couldn’t match the sensation of her heart being torn in two. If only the pain of a broken heart could be negated by mere physical agony.
‘Ah, yes, that’s the old
Eleanor.’ She whirled away from the mirror, drunk on her own misery. ‘You make clinical observations on your own sorrow, on your own mucked up life, like your some psychologist observing the nervous breakdown of some godforsaken patient. Nice work, Eleanor.’
Laughter vied with sobs. Instead of returning to the mirror, she threw a punch at her shadow, which the bedside light cast on the curtains.
‘When are you going to take control of your life? Are you going to hide in this hotel forever, Miss Haversham. Because that’s what you became. A lonely Miss Haversham. Forever hiding away from the world. And you were bitten by the vampires. But you never became one of them. Why? Does that mean you were never ever human, too?’ She lashed at her shadow on the curtain. This time the fabric didn’t yield softly beneath her fist. The impact, however, didn’t suggest contact with the wall or window pane.
As Eleanor recoiled, the curtains were swept aside. A stark, white face erupted from the darkness behind the fabric. Gleaming eyes locked on hers. The pupils were like spikes being driven into Eleanor’s brain. The attacker shoved her with such power that she left the ground before bouncing down on to the bed.
That’s when Eleanor recognized her attacker as Mary Tinskell. Or what had been Mary Tinskell until just days ago. The vampire leapt on her in an absolute fury of violence to wrestle her down on to the mattress. Black veins wormed beneath a blue-white skin. The creature’s mouth yawned wide to reveal white teeth in thick red gums.
‘Go ahead,’ Eleanor stormed. ‘Bite me. Here, I’ll make it easy for you!’ She tore open her blouse at the neck to reveal her throat.
But that whirlwind of a creature held Eleanor down on to the bed. Clearly she had other plans for the woman. Then maybe Mary knew that Eleanor didn’t have the kind of blood that vampires lusted after. Perhaps Eleanor would provide something else that Mary required so desperately.
Eleanor tried to struggle free of the cold body that sat astride her, icy thighs nipping tight against her hips. Swiftly, the vampire grabbed the bedspread at each corner, then drew them together. Soon Eleanor found herself in a cocoon of thick Yorkshire wool. Panting, striving to draw oxygen from the stuffy atmosphere inside this impromptu sack, Eleanor tried to call out, but this choking confinement pushed her chin down into her chest; she could barely grunt never mind shout for help. She knew that the vampires had plans for her. Whatever those were, they’d be far from pleasant.
Unable to see, unable to move, barely able to breathe, Eleanor sensed motion. The creature carried her as easily as in life it would carry fresh meat home for dinner in a shopping bag. Briefly, Eleanor felt a hard flatness beneath her and to one side.
My God, she thought in horror, I’m being pushed through the window. It’s a thirty foot drop to the street.
Then came the dizzy whirl of rapid motion. The direction was downward. And lethally fast.
Six
The instant Gustav retreated through the subterranean passageway to the harbour Beth hurried upstairs. Tommy sat on the floor with the toy truck. Sam watched on, with bright, interested eyes. Beth found Sally and Alec in the kitchen. Quickly, she told them what had happened in the basement. When Sally heard about the return of Gustav she rocked back on her heels as if she’d faint.
Beth said, ‘I’ve never seen Eleanor so upset.’
Alec’s single eye gave her a shrewd look. ‘Because you have a greater power than Eleanor Charnwood over her old boyfriend?’
‘I don’t know if Gustav ever was her boyfriend.’
‘But you made her jealous. You succeeded in making him at least half human again, whereas she consistently failed to even face him.’
‘Alec. Please.’ A nervous tremor ran through Sally’s voice. ‘This isn’t the time to accuse Beth of getting the better of Eleanor.’
Already, Beth hurried to the stairs. ‘Eleanor must have gone to her rooms.’
Alec called out, ‘Leave her be for a while. You’ve clearly given the woman something to think about.’
Racing up the steps, Beth heard the pair following. Dear God, tonight isn’t the night for tantrums and sulking alone. If what Gustav predicts comes true . . . if the vampires attack? By the time she reached the upper floor, where Eleanor’s apartment was located, she realized something was amiss. A cool breeze blew along the hallway. The door to Eleanor’s quarters swung in the breeze.
‘Hurry!’ she shouted back at the pair. But I know we’re too late was her unspoken thought. Without considering that vampires might be lurking in the room, Beth charged through the door. ‘Damn it, no.’ Her eyes raked the turmoil. Chairs were upended; the bedside lamp lay smashed on the floor. Bedding had been ripped from the mattress. She raced to where curtains flapped in the breeze. Sweeping them aside, she leaned out through the open window. Church Street lay thirty feet below her. In the gloom, the long, thin stripe of its cobbled surface resembled the back of a serpent, the stone blocks the cold scales.
In this dreary blackout there wasn’t much to see. Just the line of the road, flanked by tall, narrow cottages that looked so much like upright gravestones in a cemetery. But then . . . Yes . . . She leaned out further. Her eyes adjusted to the night, allowing her a glimpse of a terrible sight. A figure in a nightdress scaled the steps to St Mary’s graveyard on the cliff top. The Vampiric figure carried a bundle on its back. Though her eyes watered in the cold air, Beth knew that in the bundle lay a figure. The blanket deformed as someone struggled within it.
‘What’s happened to Eleanor?’ Alec panted.
Beth turned to stare at the bed. She saw that the bedspread was missing.
‘Those things have taken her.’
Alec rushed to the window. ‘I can see someone, they’re carrying a sack, or something like . . . but how can you tell they’ve got Eleanor?’
‘Oh, believe me, they have. They’ve bundled her into a blanket like she’s a ragbag of stolen clothes.’
Sally sagged against the wall. ‘The poor woman . . . the poor woman. Oh God, I don’t even want to imagine what they’ll do to her.’
Alec ran his hands through his hair. ‘But she can’t be infected. Yes, she’s got that bite wound that doesn’t heal. However—’
‘However nothing,’ Beth snapped. ‘If they want to hurt her, they will. And if they chose to kill her . . .’
Sally groaned. ‘They’ve got the upper hand, haven’t they? We can’t stop them, any more than we can stop this awful war.’ Hysteria crackled on the air. ‘They’ve beaten us. The vampires are going to come and take us whenever they like.’
Beth seized her friend’s hands. ‘Listen, Sally. I told you I’d look after you.’
‘But that was against lecherous men.’ Sally’s laugh sounded dangerously unbalanced. ‘You’d chase suitors away with a sweeping brush!’
‘We will win. Eleanor has made those bombs of hers. We can use them.’
Alec agreed. ‘Then we best keep them nearby at all times.’
Sally appeared calmer, yet her teeth clicked together as she trembled. ‘But . . . we . . . we aren’t s–safe here. The windows . . . They could just force the latch. And this place is all windows. There are dozens and—’
Beth tightened her grip on the quaking hands. ‘I’ve thought of a solution. We’ll go to Theo’s cottage. Those windows are covered with iron bars.’
‘But it’s across the yard. We’d have to go outside.’
‘Worry not Sally, dear.’ Beth forced herself to smile. I just hope it’s a reassuring one – not a mad grin. ‘When we cross the yard we’ll have bottles full of that volatile, fiery, and oh-so-destructive X-Stock. So – vampires beware!’
‘Yes . . . I . . . ah, guess . . .’
Beth realized she’d nearly managed to help Sally recover her nerve.
Alec closed the window against the dangerous night. ‘We might be safe in the cottage. However, that doesn’t help us save Eleanor.’
‘That’s why we need the help of her brother.’ Beth nodded with certainty. ‘Theo’s goi
ng to be our ally.’
Seven
For Sally Wainwright, the hotel could have become a nightmare castle. In her overwrought mental state, her senses became distorted. Walls appeared to slope inwards, perilously close to her head. Corridors transformed into impossibly long tunnels that vanished into shadows. And in those places engulfed by darkness vampires would lurk. She was sure of it. Doorways resembled gaping mouths that longed to swallow her. Ornamental plasterwork around light switches appeared to be diseased things that bulged out through the wallpaper. Down the stairs they went to the lobby. Tommy sat on the carpet beside his faithful dog. He played with a toy truck. A monster with the voice of a little boy.
The creature sang out happily, ‘Thanks for the wagon, Beth. It’s really good.’
They descended into the basement. Chill currents of air sighed up through the grate. Alec and Beth walked alongside Sally – yet, to her, they seemed far away. She wondered: if I talk to them will they hear me? Have we entered a dream world, where normal things aren’t normal any more? Where boys are vampires. And they run with black dogs. Will we turn into what Tommy has become? Will we sleep during the day, then roam at night? Forever lost. Beth had begun to speak, although Sally found it hard to understand the words. Maybe I’m having a nervous breakdown? Yet I must still look normal to them. I think I must be answering their questions when they speak. I’m just not sure of anything any more . . . Beth’s voice echoed from the basement walls. Beneath the iron grate, water swirled around the bottom of the pit. White bubbles, brown weed. Do all of Whitby’s houses have tunnels that connect them to the sea?
Alec’s voice shimmered in this tomb of a place. ‘. . . then we must be careful with the bottles. The X-Stock has more pep than TNT.’
Beth: ‘The bottles are only half full of the chemical, to make sure they’re light enough to throw easily.’
‘These are nasty bombs, Beth, very nasty indeed. They might be more dangerous to us than the vampires.’