When he tried to duck along a narrow path that would take him to the cottage, he saw the way was blocked by two ancient vampires clad in corroded breast plates and chain mail. They wore expressions of savage glee as they saw Tom approach – a victim with hot blood pumping through his veins.
Tom spun round to head back the way he came. But here comes Helsvir … A torpedo creature, slamming through bushes, shredding branches, exploding fallen logs.
Jolts of terror blasted through Tom. He felt nothing less than electric shocks of fear. As he saw it, he would either be claimed by Helsvir, which would result in the bloody dismantling of his body, or he’d find himself in the hungry grasp of the vampires. They’d feed on his blood. Soon after that he’d find himself part of the vampire army.
‘Damn you!’ Tom yelled in fury.
Desperately, he headed downhill towards the river, its waters glinting in the moonlight. Liquid silver. Cold as death. Running downhill gave him extra speed, yet there was a downside, too. He was so exhausted he couldn’t swerve a tree trunk. He slammed into solid timber with a heck of a thump. An agonizing blast of pain shot through his shoulder. When he bounced off the tree he went sprawling. His head struck frozen earth. The world swam dizzily round him. Trees became soft, undulating shadows. The moonlit river danced upwards into the sky – or so it seemed to him: the blow on the head had bludgeoned his thoughts into a chaotic jumble.
Tom scrambled on all fours. When he tried to climb to his feet he found his balance was so screwed he flopped back down on to his face again. He lay there panting. In close-up, he saw the gleaming white skull of a bird lying on the soil. If I stay here … if I let them get me … it won’t hurt that much, will it?
Exhaustion had torn every atom of strength from him. He couldn’t even lift his head. The bird skull lay there just inches from his eyes. Thirty yards beyond that were pale figures. The vampires approached. They were in no hurry. They appeared to be savouring the moment before they sank their teeth into his skin. He could almost hear the crunch of the bite – they’d munch through his throat so easily. They’d take pleasure in the human’s screams and agonized convulsions.
Behind him came the heavy crunch of feet. Helsvir approached. A hand touched the back of his leg.
Where the energy came from he didn’t know, but Helsvir’s vile touch was enough. Tom scrambled away on all fours. The vampires moved towards him. Helsvir lunged forward, too. Tom managed to get to his feet. With a furious burst of speed, he rushed down towards the river. But he knew he was trapped. He couldn’t swim far in these brutally cold temperatures. What’s more, Helsvir was a formidable swimmer. The creature would easily catch Tom as he floundered through the water.
More vampires approached from every direction – there were young women – or what appeared to be young women, though they might be centuries old. There were warriors from long ago in leather tunics, or wearing rusted suits of armour. On the king’s orders they’d marched into this valley to destroy the vampires. Only they’d discovered that the vampires were stronger than the knights of the Middle Ages – now the king’s men were monsters, too: they hungered for blood.
Without any more of a plan than hoping to survive for a few more seconds Tom raced along the river bank. Helsvir ran so fast that it overshot the path and smacked down into the water – the force of the impact threw up an explosion of spray that, in the moonlight, seemed to blaze with an uncanny fire.
The burst of energy didn’t last long. Tom began to slow; his head hung down until his chin bumped against his chest. He was dead on his feet. A figure with a flash of blond hair leapt from the bushes.
With a last surge of strength he punched out. His fist slammed into a soft face. A pair of wide eyes stared at him. They were entirely colourless: the pupils were fierce black dots in that awful whiteness. A pair of hands grasped his elbows. Managing to wrench his arms free, he rained more blows into that once beautiful female face.
‘TOM. IT’S ME.’
Everything else vanished. The vampires, the monster, the forest, the moon, the entire universe – at that instant, all of creation seemed to disappear into nothingness. Because there she was.
Nicola. My Nicola. He froze. The face he’d struck with his fists belonged to the woman he’d fallen in love with. Then one night five years ago she’d transformed from a beautiful woman, who’d been so alive, into a vampire. When he’d married her in that unconventional service at the village church, the ancient Viking curse had been invoked. Nicola had been damned. She’d become one of the blood-eaters. For five years he’d hoped and prayed that she’d return. Now she had.
He gazed into her face. All the fear had gone. This is what I want, he told himself with a great sense of surrender. I want to be with her for ever.
These thoughts went through his head in the briefest of moments. Yet it seemed as if he gazed into that lovely face for hours. Of course, those punches of his had not made so much as a mark – how could mortal blows injure a vampire? Bullets wouldn’t hurt her, bombs wouldn’t mark her, nor would time age her. She was immortal, indestructible, eternal.
‘TOM!’ Nicola shook him. ‘Tom! Keep moving! Don’t let them catch you!’
Her voice snapped him from his trance. Suddenly, he saw the world around him again – Helsvir rushing from the water, shaking off drops of silver. The vampires were approaching – a pack of hunters, eager to taste his blood.
‘This way.’ Nicola did not shout. Her voice was calm. She was determined to save the man she once loved – or did she love him still?
She gripped his hand. Together, they ran up the slope, although they were clearly surrounded by hostile vampires.
‘We can’t escape them,’ he panted. ‘I can’t run any further.’
‘Just a few more steps.’ Her gentle voice urged him on. ‘Almost there. Trust me, Tom. I can save you.’
They reached an outcrop of rock half way up the slope. Here there were streaks of snow amid black shadow. And there, directly in front of him, was an opening in the ground. Perhaps five feet wide, it resembled a gaping, hungry mouth.
Nicola turned to face him, her blond hair fluttering in the breeze. Then she spoke these astonishing words: ‘Put your arms around my body … fall with me.’
She embraced him. Meanwhile, Helsvir pounded up the slope, just seconds away from tearing Tom to pieces. The vampires loped towards him from every direction.
Nicola hugged him even tighter. Without another word, she leaned backwards, toppling them both into the chasm. Swallowed by darkness, they seemed to fall for ever.
SEVENTY-FIVE
They lay together at the bottom of the shaft. Above them, a pale ring of light revealed where the moon shone on the edges of the rock that formed the opening. Neither moved. Tom lay on his back with his head on Nicola’s stomach. Only moments had passed since she’d grabbed hold of him before they both toppled into the cave. Tom thought: she held me like that so when we hit the bottom of the shaft I’d land on her. She broke my fall. If she hadn’t, I’d be dead now.
Tom breathed deeply, catching his breath. Helsvir and the vampires had nearly caught him. If it hadn’t been for Nicola … His heartbeat quickened. But Nicola’s a vampire, too … perhaps hasn’t saved me at all … perhaps she just wants what’s in my veins for herself?
He lay there in the darkness. At any moment, he anticipated the feel of her cold teeth pressing into the sensitive skin of his neck. Yet she did not move. Surely the fall wouldn’t have hurt her? Outwardly, Nicola still resembled a beautiful woman; however, she had the biology of a vampire. A twenty-foot fall wouldn’t injure her in the slightest.
Slowly, he raised himself on to one elbow. Enough moonlight glimmered down the shaft to reveal that they were in a cave. Sticks and dry leaves covered the floor, along with the bones of woodland animals that had tumbled down here in the past. His eyes found what he really did want to see: Nicola’s face. She lay there still as death. The black veins formed their uncanny patterns on
her throat. The woman gazed steadily upwards. Yes, she had the fierce black pupils and eyes that were bereft of colour, but what he noticed more was the wetness on her face. Nicola Bekk, or the creature that had once been Nicola Bekk, wept real tears.
She whispered, ‘I thought if I just stayed lying here I could make this moment last for ever.’
‘You came back to me.’
‘It can’t last … they’ll take me back soon.’
‘Who will take you back?’
‘You must know … the same things that made my family into vampires. The same evil things that created Helsvir.’
‘But you’re talking to me now as if you’re human again.’
‘A blip … a temporary lapse on their part, I guess. Or perhaps they’re using me as bait to trap you? In any event, I’ll be back there with them soon, because …’ she shook her head as she tried to put into words what had befallen her. ‘Because I seem to be part of their dream. I don’t know if you can understand?’
‘Who are THEY?’
‘In ancient times, men and women would have called them gods. My ancestors gave them names like Wodin, Thor, Loki … now those gods are so old their minds have started to rot. Mostly they are content to dream … and they’ve made me part of their dream …’ Her voice sounded so hollow, and somehow so lost.
Tom sat up and grasped her hand. ‘I’ll find a way to bring you home.’
‘Something happened here in the valley to wake the gods. They were dreaming, I was part of their dream … sometimes dying, then being alive again.’ She spoke in a dreamy way herself, as if only half awake.
The realization struck Tom with the suddenness of a slap. ‘June Valko. Nicola, you thought you and your mother were the last of the Bekk bloodline. But there is someone else. Her name is June Valko. Her father was a blood relative of yours. Now he’s out there … one of the vampires.’
At that moment, the light vanished, plunging them into blackness. The opening had been covered. Tom dragged the flashlight from his pocket, hit the on-button and directed the beam upwards.
‘Helsvir!’
Using its huge body, the creature had sealed the opening. The flashlight revealed that its flesh had formed a wet, glistening roof at the top of the shaft. Heads that budded from the thing stared down at Tom and Nicola twenty feet below. Those dozens of eyes fed the images to Helsvir’s brain. The creature’s reaction of fury was voiced by those once human heads. A fierce hissing erupted from their mouths. Even the head that Tom had skewered with the harpoon stared at him, while its grey lips slid back over its teeth. A tongue that was black and wet emerged from the mouth … a black snake of a thing sliding from its own cave of flesh.
Tom shouted, ‘You can’t reach us, Helsvir! We’ve beaten you! You’ll never take us!’
The roars that burst from the mouths were a unified outburst of sound. Naked arms that emerged from the body, like tentacles, reached down towards the pair. Fingers clutched, trying to grab the mortal and the vampire.
‘Not even close,’ Tom thundered. ‘Give up, and get back to whatever hole you crawled out of!’
The monster convulsed with rage. Dozens of hands began ripping at stones and soil at the mouth of the shaft.
Tom grabbed Nicola’s hand. ‘It’s trying to dig its way in!’ He pulled her from the bottom of the shaft as dirt rained down. Stones and boulders soon followed. Helsvir roared with fury as it tried to widen the opening so it could reach them. The entire cave shook. Falling soil turned the air brown. Meanwhile, Tom and Nicola moved deeper into the back of the cave.
Not a moment too soon, because the roar that came next dwarfed even Helsvir’s bellow. The shaft imploded. The sheer violence of the creature’s attempt to smash its way in had been too much for the surrounding rock. The entire section of cave roof around the opening collapsed. Tons of boulders tumbled out of the shaft. Tom hadn’t heard a sound so loud before. This was like standing in the heart of a thunderstorm.
Mercifully, just seconds later, the colossal din ended. In the silence that followed, Tom played the flashlight over the mound of debris.
Tom said, ‘The opening’s completely blocked.’
‘Then Helsvir can’t reach us,’ she said.
‘No, it can’t … but that means we can’t get out of here. We’re trapped.’
SEVENTY-SIX
‘This really is an extraordinary situation.’
Kit Bolter repeated these words every few minutes as they sat in the lounge at Skanderberg. When Owen put more wood on the fire he said them again.
‘This really is an extraordinary situation.’
‘And we need to be extraordinary people to deal with what’s going to happen,’ June Valko said as she entered the room, carrying a tray with coffee and cake. ‘You might not feel like eating anything, but you should. What you’ve been through could lead to shock. So keep your blood sugar levels up.’
Owen realized that shock had started to kick in. His friends spoke in a daze.
‘We’ve experienced extraordinary situations,’ Kit said, slightly varying his stock phrase.
‘I broke my arm.’ Jez Pollock tapped the orange cast with his finger.
‘I’ve been shot.’ Kit pointed at the fresh surgical dressings on his face that June had applied after he’d arrived at the cottage.
Eden shivered. ‘We’ve been chased by a monster.’
‘We even picked up a vampire on the way,’ Owen added matter-of-factly.
‘Don’t call her a vampire,’ Kit protested. ‘She’s my—’
‘Girlfriend?’ Jez chuckled in a slurred, druggy way (he had just taken more painkillers). In a taunting voice he sang, ‘Kit’s gotta vampire girlfriend, Kit’s gotta vampire girlfriend.’
June set the tray down on a table. ‘Here, take a cup of coffee everyone. Try to relax.’
‘Relax?’ Eden looked as if she’d never be able to relax again.
‘My brother should be back soon,’ Owen said. ‘Tom will know what to do.’
Kit picked up a slice of cake. ‘Did I ever tell you that Tom Westonby killed my uncle? Five years ago he threw him from the top of a church tower.’
‘That’s a lie.’ Owen bunched his fists. ‘Take it back.’
June made a soothing gesture. ‘Try and stay calm. You’ve been through hell tonight.’
Eden laughed but it sounded more like weeping. ‘You don’t have to tell us. We’ve been to hell and back, and who knows? We might find ourselves back in hell again before long.’
Owen put his arm round Eden. She gripped him so fiercely that he almost lost his balance. Gently, he embraced her.
June tried to maintain a reassuring air of normality as she handed out coffee and cake. She made small-talk, asking if everyone was warm enough. Did they want milk in their coffee? And sugar? And be sure to drink it while it’s hot.
Owen stood there as Eden clung to him. Even though he didn’t hear her sob (she was too proud and too strong to let anyone see her cry), her tears soaked through his shirt; he felt them against his chest. He realized June had spoken the truth. His friends were in shock. Their eyes possessed an odd, staring quality. They weren’t really seeing the furniture in the lounge, or the fire in the hearth grate, they were fixating on what happened to them tonight.
Owen’s blood ran cold as he recalled firing the shotgun at the thing … the way the ammunition blasted skin and muscle from those naked human legs. The firepower of the gun had been awesome … horrific, too. Then Tom had saved him by drawing the monster away into the forest. Was Tom alright? Had the creature caught him? What if … His heart started to beat faster. Panic tore through him; he realized he was clenching his fists as he hugged Eden. And, as he pictured Tom being ripped apart, his gaze locked on the carving of Helsvir that was set in the living room wall. There it was – the teardrop shape, the legs bristling from the bottom, the line of heads. Right then, he wanted to scream.
What changed the atmosphere was the bizarre sight of a lady gliding
through the doorway from the staircase into the room. For a moment, Owen thought that this was a phantom coming to claim their souls.
June explained. ‘This is my mother.’ She quickly went to the woman and guided her to the sofa where she sat her down. ‘My mother’s not well,’ June added. ‘She doesn’t speak, so she’ll just sit here quietly.’ June gave them a gentle smile. ‘Can I ask you all to speak in quiet voices, and not to do anything to upset her?’
That seemed to do the trick. Everyone nodded, and the tension appeared to ease: an automatic response to being in the presence of an ill person – to be calm and softly spoken for their sake.
For a while, nobody spoke. At last, however, Eden inhaled deeply as she took comfort in having Owen’s arms around her. ‘That girl … the one who joined us as we walked to the cottage …’
Kit murmured, ‘That was Freya.’
‘Is she really a vampire?’
Kit sighed. ‘To be truthful, I guess she is.’
‘And is she still out there?’
Jez looked out of the window. ‘Yup. Standing right outside the front door.’
‘Then I’m not dreaming all this?’ asked Eden, as if hoping she was.
‘No, you’re not.’
This understated exchange hadn’t disturbed the peace of the room. The fire crackled, its golden light glowing against the stone walls.
Eden nodded, digesting the information. ‘Then she won’t come into the house?’
Owen gave her a reassuring hug. ‘No, the door’s locked.’
Kit went to the window. ‘But she will stay out there to guard us.’
‘But who will guard us from her?’ Eden gave a nervous laugh. ‘Sorry, it’s just that … heck, I admit it: I’m scared.’
Kit’s expression was serious. ‘Freya’s scared as well. She’s trying so hard to be human. The trouble is she has to fight her vampire instincts. Freya has this urge to attack us – in fact, she did warn me that she might bite me, but she’s managed to stop herself.’ He began to sound hopeful. ‘So there’s a chance she might become human again, isn’t there?’