The Dark Side of the Road

  ‘Hold it together!’ Leilah said harshly. ‘There’s just one of it! We can still stop it!’

  ‘How?’ said Jeeves.

  ‘You hold it down; I’ll hammer the stake through its heart!’ said Leilah.

  Jeeves almost smiled. ‘Sounds like a plan. Where’s your stake?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ said Leilah.

  Sylvia ignored them, her bright hellish gaze fixed on me. Her hands opened and closed slowly at her sides, pale as death, caked in dried blood, ending in long filthy claws.

  ‘I didn’t know the Colonel had sent for another monster. I can tell you’re not really human, Ishmael. I can see things most people never even dream of … and I’ve never seen anything like you, Ishmael. What are you really?’

  ‘Not from around here,’ I said.

  ‘Why do you side with them?’ said Sylvia. She sounded honestly curious. ‘You’re no more like them than I am. They’d kill you in a moment, if they only knew …’

  ‘You prey on them,’ I said. ‘I protect them. It’s what I do. I still have my … humanity.’

  ‘Ishmael?’ said Jeeves. ‘What is she talking about?’

  Sylvia and I ignored him.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you are,’ said Sylvia. ‘You’ll die just as easily as the others.’

  I could feel her reaching out to me with her mind, trying to trap my thoughts inside my head. Hold me in place, as she had with her other victims. But they were human, while I was just a little bit more than that. I could feel her influence, drifting across my mind like cobwebs; I blew them away with no effort at all.

  Sylvia snarled, and threw herself at me, moving impossibly quickly. Just a blur on the air, all bared teeth and reaching hands. I went to meet her, moving just as fast. We slammed together in the middle of the room, with an impact that would have killed anything human. We grabbed on to each other, and lurched back and forth, smashing any furniture that got in our way. Everyone else scattered, crying out. I dodged the claws that would have opened me up like scalpels and the fanged mouth that snapped shut near my neck like a steel mantrap.

  She was stronger, but I was faster.

  Sylvia suddenly broke away from me and sprang up on to the wall, clinging there like some impossibly large insect. She scuttled up the wall and on to the ceiling, hanging upside down. And then she dropped back on to the floor, in front of Jeeves and Leilah. They’d had time to reload their guns, and both of them opened up again. The sound was deafening in the enclosed space. Sylvia surged forward, into the blaze of bullets, and took no harm at all. It was like shooting into water. Her clawed hands reached out for them.

  I grabbed her from behind and hauled her away. She spun round in my arms, grabbed my head with both hands, and jerked it round hard, to break my neck. But my head turned all the way round, and my neck didn’t break. I’m built better than that. I’m flexible. I grabbed her wrists with both hands and almost cried out with revulsion. It felt like plunging my hands into a mess of maggots. Her undead flesh seemed to squirm inside my clasp. She broke my grip easily and backed away, hissing angrily.

  Khan advanced on Sylvia, holding out two silver candlesticks, crossed to form a crucifix. Sylvia laughed at them, entirely unaffected. I hit her in the side of the head with my fist, putting all my strength into it. I felt her rotten flesh spatter under the impact, heard the bone in her skull crack and break, but her head didn’t move an inch, soaking up the impact. If I’d hit her any harder I’d have broken my hand.

  While Sylvia was distracted by all this, Leilah grabbed up Walter’s discarded walking stick, from where he’d left it leaning against the wall. She broke it in two with a single savage blow, to give herself an improvised sharp stake, and then she lunged forward, aiming her stake at Sylvia’s chest. And Sylvia grabbed Melanie by the arm and hauled the poor shrieking woman in front of her. Leilah’s stake slammed into Melanie’s chest and punched right through, protruding from Melanie’s back.

  She died without making a sound. Sylvia let her go, and Melanie dropped bonelessly to the floor. Leilah cried out in shock and horror.

  And while everyone was distracted by that, Sylvia ran across the room impossibly quickly, hauled the locked door open, and ran out into the corridor, laughing happily. By the time I got to the door and looked out after her, Sylvia had already reached the far end. She pulled open the front door and ran out into the cold and the night. Still laughing.

  Back in the drawing room, Jeeves was comforting Leilah, who looked like she wanted to cry but didn’t know how. Penny was kneeling beside her dead mother looking much the same.

  Khan stared at me, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief. ‘It’s you!’ he said loudly. ‘You’re him! Not your father. You’re the man I worked beside, all those years ago … except, you haven’t aged a day. I still remember watching you fight that Baba Yaga clone in Moscow, back in ’eighty-eight. I never saw anyone who could fight like you …’

  ‘Save the reunion for later,’ I said.

  ‘But aren’t you going to explain?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not now. Sylvia’s gone outside. We have to find and destroy her.’

  ‘She won’t leave the grounds,’ said Penny. She rose unsteadily to her feet. I went to offer her my hand, and then pulled it back as she looked at me. She was trying hard to hang on to her self-control. To concentrate on what mattered. She took a deep breath. ‘If Sylvia could have left, in this storm, she would have right after she killed James. So she can’t. The storm traps her here. She’ll try to hide in one of the outbuildings. The tithe barn, or the cottages.’

  ‘If we go outside, she’ll kill us,’ said Khan. ‘She’ll have all the advantages out there.’

  ‘We have to go after her,’ I said. ‘Or she’ll just sneak back in and pick us off one at a time. Or hide out in one of the buildings, till the storm drops off enough for her to escape.’

  ‘She kept saying she wanted to leave,’ said Jeeves, just a bit shakily, ‘if only someone would go with her …’

  ‘Someone had a lucky escape there,’ I said. ‘If anyone had volunteered, she would have fed on them to keep her going. Used their strength to get her to the nearest village. We can’t let her get away. We have to find her.’

  Leilah went over to stand before Penny. ‘I’m so sorry. I killed your mother.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Penny. ‘We weren’t close.’

  Ten

  Fire and Ice

  And then there were five.

  Penny and Leilah stood over the dead body of Melanie Belcourt. The wooden stick still protruded from her chest, because no one felt like touching it yet. Melanie’s face wore an expression of sullen regret, as though this was what she’d been expecting all along. Leilah looked shocked. Penny looked like she didn’t know what she should be feeling. Alexander Khan stood well back from everyone, staring at me with awful fascination. Jeeves was still doing his best to seem professional. I walked over to him, and he looked at me sharply, the gun jerking briefly in his hand. As though he felt he should be pointing it at someone.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘That could have gone better.’

  ‘You think?’ said Jeeves.

  ‘She’s out there,’ I said. ‘Sylvia. Waiting for us to go and search for her.’

  ‘And you think that’s a good idea?’ said Jeeves.

  ‘Better than waiting for her to come back and pick us off one at a time,’ I said. ‘She wants us to barricade ourselves in here and feel safe. She can survive the cold long enough for that. And then she’ll break in, supernaturally quietly, and move unheard through the house … Unless we take the fight to her.’

  Jeeves nodded slowly. ‘We have to take back the advantage. Get the element of surprise on our side. But can we really kill a thing like that?’

  ‘Guns won’t do it,’ I said. ‘But there are other things we can try.’

  ‘We can’t all go,’ said Jeeves. ‘Too many people stumbling around out there would just make it easy for
her. She could pick us off one by one, ambushing us from out of the fog and the snow. And besides, not all of us are up to it.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘I think you and I should go take a look outside, while Leilah stands guard over the others.’

  ‘I heard that!’ Leilah said immediately. ‘You don’t give me orders!’

  ‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Jeeves. ‘I do. Ishmael’s going outside because he knows the most about that … creature. And I’m going, because that’s my job.’

  ‘It’s my job too!’ said Leilah. ‘How come you get to go out and play the hero, while I have to stay behind and look after the children? I have a right to go after Sylvia! She tricked me into killing Melanie!’

  ‘I know,’ said Jeeves, not unkindly. ‘And that’s why you can’t go, Leilah. Look at you, girl. Still shaking, still upset. Sylvia would take advantage of that. Tracking her down is going to take a cool head and cold professionalism. Revenge would only get in the way. Ishmael and I will kill this vampire in extremely cold blood.’

  Leilah came forward, to stand before her husband. ‘You’ve never had to do that before.’

  ‘Neither have you,’ said Jeeves. ‘I will spare you that, if I can. So; guard the guests while we’re gone. Don’t take any nonsense from them. And avenge me if I don’t come back.’

  ‘Come back,’ said Leilah.

  While they were talking, Penny gave me a hard look, so I went over to stand with her. She’d turned away from her mother’s body, so she wouldn’t have to look at it. She met my gaze steadily. ‘Why can’t I go with you? I thought we made a pretty good team.’

  ‘We do,’ I said. ‘As detectives. But this is killing business, now. You have no experience in that area, and trust me, you’re better off without it.’

  ‘So what am I supposed to do? Just … stand around, wringing my hands, till you come back? Or until it’s clear you won’t be coming back? I need to do something, Ishmael!’

  ‘Leilah can’t guard this room on her own,’ I said quietly. ‘If Jeeves and I can’t find Sylvia, if she slips past us, she will come back here. She wants everyone dead. For revenge; for defying her … and to ensure there are no witnesses. So; you work with Leilah and Khan to make this room safe, so Jeeves and I don’t have to worry about you while we’re gone. Can you do that?’

  ‘Of course I can,’ said Penny. ‘If you don’t come back … I will avenge you, Ishmael. I will hammer a stake through that bitch’s rotten heart and spit in her eyes as she dies.’

  ‘Of course you will,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t expect anything less.’

  ‘And afterwards?’ said Penny. ‘If there is an afterwards? What about you and me? Could you use a new partner?’

  ‘I usually work alone,’ I said. ‘It’s safer that way. For me and for everyone else. I walk the dark side of the road, Penny. I live alone because I hurt fewer people that way.’

  ‘That’s no way to live,’ said Penny.

  She took me in her arms, and we held each other for a long moment.

  In the end I let go of her and pushed her gently away. ‘There will be time to talk of many things afterwards,’ I said. ‘But right now I have a job to do.’

  ‘Kill the bitch,’ said Penny. ‘And afterwards, I’ll show you what living is all about.’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘It’s always good to have something to look forward to.’

  I turned away, to talk with Jeeves, but Khan intercepted me. He stood in my way and looked me over carefully, as though searching for signs he should have spotted before. And then he smiled briefly, uncertainly.

  ‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘When we first met we were both the same age. Now I’ve grown older, and you haven’t aged a day. All those years working together, for Black Heir, and I never even suspected that you’re … What are you, Ishmael? Really? Your name was Daniel when I knew you, thirty years ago, but I don’t feel right calling you that now. Daniel wasn’t real; but then, I suppose Ishmael isn’t either. What are you?’

  ‘In a hurry, Alex,’ I said. ‘I have work to do.’

  ‘I could come with you,’ said Khan. ‘I had the same training you did, at Black Heir.’

  ‘You were a paper-shuffler,’ I said, as kindly as I could. ‘The one time you worked with me in the field, in Moscow, you hated it. Couldn’t wait to get home. I need you here, helping barricade this room and make it safe. Sylvia may be a supernatural creature, but she still has physical limitations. You can keep her out, if you work at it.’

  ‘And afterwards?’ said Khan. ‘What’s to stop me telling everyone about you?’

  ‘Who would you tell?’ I said. ‘Daniel disappeared from Black Heir, and Ishmael will disappear from Belcourt Manor. And if you start talking wildly about vampires and aliens … They’ll put you away.’

  Khan nodded reluctantly. ‘Who do you work for now, Ishmael? Who did James work for?’

  ‘The Organization,’ I said. ‘And now you know as much as I do.’

  I went back to join Jeeves, who was standing in the open doorway, looking out into the hall. It all seemed quiet enough. Behind me I could hear Penny and Leilah and Khan quietly planning their defence of the drawing room. I looked at Jeeves. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Not really. You?’

  ‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

  ‘Then let’s get started,’ said Jeeves. ‘Before we both have a rush of common sense to the head and think better of it. Leilah!’

  She looked round immediately. ‘Yes? What do you want?’

  ‘Give us an hour, tops,’ he said, calmly enough. ‘If we’re not back by then, we won’t be coming back. Then it will be up to you to decide what to do next. But remember, Leilah: our job is to protect people. Not take revenge.’

  ‘The client is dead,’ said Leilah.

  ‘His daughter isn’t,’ said Jeeves.

  ‘Understood,’ said Leilah. She looked round at the rest of us. ‘He’s my man. Isn’t he wonderful?’

  She hugged Jeeves goodbye, kissed him hard, and then pushed him away and went back to the others.

  Jeeves looked at me. ‘She’s very warm-hearted.’

  ‘I could tell,’ I said.

  And then, together, we went out the door and into the still, quiet hallway.

  There was already a distinct chill in the hall as the storm blew snow and wisps of fog through the open front door. I could hear the wind rise and fall, and beyond the open door I could see night had fallen. Blue-white moonlight reflected in from the fallen snow. I looked carefully up and down the hall. All the doors were shut, and nothing moved in the shadows. It was cold inside the house now. Cold as death, cold as the tomb. Cold as a vampire’s heart. I couldn’t hear anything moving, and I couldn’t smell blood or decay anywhere.

  ‘She could have just hauled the front door open, to make us think she’d gone outside,’ Jeeves said slowly. ‘And then … sneaked back down the hall, to hide in the house again. In the hope some of us would go outside and split up the group. She’d probably think it a fine joke, to have the two of us stumbling around in the cold and the snow, while she attacked the others.’

  ‘She’s not in the house,’ I said. ‘I can see her footprints in the snow outside. She couldn’t have come back in without tracking some of that snow with her. She may be a supernatural thing, but she still leaves traces of her passing in this world, just like us.’

  Jeeves looked at me. ‘I thought for a moment you were about to say you couldn’t smell her anywhere in the house.’

  ‘I’m not that good,’ I said.

  ‘But you can see footprints in the snow, outside the door at the far end of the hall,’ said Jeeves. ‘I couldn’t make that out if I had a telescope.’ He studied me thoughtfully. ‘Sylvia … the vampire … said you were no more human than she was.’

  ‘She’s wrong,’ I said. ‘I’m a lot more human than she is. Just in case you need me to say it: I am not a vampire.’

  ‘Never thought you were,’ said Jeeves, just a bit too quickly. ‘Bu
t you are quite definitely weird. Did you really work with Alexander Khan back in the eighties?’

  ‘When this is all over,’ I said, ‘I’ll explain.’

  ‘I’m so glad you said when and not if,’ said Jeeves. ‘I’ll take all the encouragement I can get.’

  We both moved cautiously down the long empty hallway and stopped before the open front door. Back in the drawing room, I could hear the others moving heavy furniture about, building a barricade. Jeeves and I looked out into the world beyond. Snow was falling hard, but the wind had dropped away to just the odd gust, here and there. A pearly fog curled slowly on the air, swallowing up the distant view. It was all deathly still and deadly quiet. Just standing there in the open door, exposed to the night and the storm, made Jeeves shiver violently.

  I didn’t.

  ‘Given that Sylvia is undead,’ I said, ‘I think we have to assume the cold won’t affect her as much as it does us. So she can survive out here without the need for protective clothing.’

  ‘Seems likely,’ said Jeeves. ‘The way she looked … I swear to God I never saw anything like that in my life … Her flesh had rotted right down to the bone, in places! And those eyes, and the teeth … Things like that just shouldn’t be possible, in any sane and rational world!’

  ‘Mostly, they aren’t,’ I said. ‘But it’s a bigger world than most people ever have to realize. There’s room in it for lots of extreme things, good and bad.’

  ‘She could be hiding anywhere,’ Jeeves said unhappily. ‘In the fog, in the snow. Lying in wait, to attack us as we pass.’

  ‘Seems likely,’ I said.

  We stared out into the night. Stark vivid moonlight blazed back at us from the snow-covered grounds. Smooth white dunes everywhere, rising and falling, unmarked and undisturbed. Large snowy objects before us that used to be our parked cars. I couldn’t even tell which was mine any more. They sort of reminded me of igloos, which made me wonder whether Sylvia might be hiding inside one of the cars. Safe and unsuspected, and insulated from the cold. But no; there was no way she could have smoothed the snow back again, once she was inside. She was a vampire, not a magician.