‘What if somebody notices the damage to the lock?’ he fretted. ‘What if they investigate?’
‘Can’t be helped,’ I said. And seeing him frown, I began to panic. ‘We can’t stay here, Father! Suppose the killer comes back? He might be watching this flat right now!’
I don’t know whether it was my argument that persuaded him or my very obvious state of extreme distress, but Father Ramon needed no more urging. He followed Horace out of the room, which was instantly engulfed in darkness. Even so, I could just make out Sanford’s huddled shape. He was crouched beside the coffin, spreading Casimir’s ashes around. Something had snagged his attention.
‘Come on!’ I implored. ‘We have to go, Sanford!’
‘Wait. Give me one minute.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Look.’ He thrust his open palm under my nose. But the light was too dim for me to see much, except a faint glint of metal. ‘I think it’s a bullet,’ he said. ‘It might even be a silver bullet. We shouldn’t leave this.’
‘Then bring it!’ I was already halfway out the door. ‘Bring whatever you want, only do it now! Quick! Because we have to get out of here!’
Don’t ever believe that vampires are fearless. On the contrary. What happened to Casimir could happen to any vampire, at any time.
When the whole world hates you, fear becomes your friend.
4
We weren’t killed on our way to St Agatha’s. There were no sinister figures lurking near Casimir’s apartment block; nor were we followed by any mysterious, dark-coloured cars. During the entire trip, we didn’t encounter so much as a red traffic light. And when we reached the vestry, we were able to examine Sanford’s chilling discovery without fear of interruption.
It was a silver bullet, all right. A nine-millimetre solid silver bullet.
‘See? What did I tell you?’ said Horace. ‘This slayer’s misinformed. He thinks a silver bullet is going to do more damage than a lead one. Which means that he won’t be looking for us in here. Not in a church.’
‘But I don’t want to stay here!’ Gladys snivelled. And Father Ramon said, ‘You can’t stay here. Not any of you. This is a place of worship. People will be in and out all day tomorrow. We can’t have you cluttering up the vestry – you’ll be seen.’
‘There isn’t a crypt we could use?’ Sanford queried, without much hope.
The priest shook his head. He was occupying his usual seat, near a pile of plastic tubs full of old Christmas decorations. In fact we were all sitting where we normally did, and at first glance might have been holding our regular Tuesday night get-together, surrounded by a familiar assortment of locked cupboards, dusty leadlight windows and piles of folding chairs.
On this occasion, however, there were no glazed eyes, slumped postures or smothered yawns. Nor was there any talk about ‘owning your identity’ or ‘setting positive goals’. We hadn’t gathered to discuss Dave’s issues with his father, or Casimir’s issues with the rest of the world, or my issues with having to attend group meetings in the first place. So the customary atmosphere of boredom, fatigue and resignation had evaporated; the air buzzed with tension, and I remember clearly how confused we were. I remember how, as the shock wore off, most of us couldn’t keep still. Bridget wrung her hands. Dave clawed at his hair, and Sanford paced the floor. I was chewing my fingernails, the way I always do when I’m on edge.
Never in my wildest dreams had I ever expected to run foul of a genuine vampire slayer. Blade and Van Helsing are fictional creations, after all; they’re not supposed to be walking around in real life. They belong to the kind of fantasy world where vampires are dangerous, or at least very powerful. They belong to a world inhabited by hyper-evolved beings like Zadia Bloodstone – who has her own special way of dealing with vampire slayers.
She always lures them to their doom with her catlike grace and husky purr.
‘Okay,’ said Father Ramon, assuming his customary role as facilitator. ‘I guess we’re all here now, so we should probably recite our Common Goal, just to kick things off. George – I think it’s your turn, isn’t it?’
Obediently, George took a deep breath. ‘I swear,’ he began, ‘on all I hold sacred, that I will preserve my humanity in the face of temptation, and harm no living soul in the pursuit of—’
‘Screw that,’ Horace interrupted. He glared around at the rest of us. ‘Forget the Common Goal. This isn’t a group meeting, this is a Council of War.’
‘Hear, hear,’ I said. ‘Something’s happened. Casimir’s dead.’
‘But I don’t understand.’ Bridget’s whimper was barely audible. ‘What kind of person would do such a terrible thing to poor Casimir?’
‘Someone who believes all the lies,’ Father Ramon sadly rejoined. ‘Someone who’s scared.’
‘Someone who’s read Nina’s books,’ Sanford snapped, and I turned on him.
‘You think this is my fault?’ I was ready to explode. ‘Is that what you’re saying, you stinker?’
‘No.’ The priest laid a hand on my arm. ‘No one’s blaming you. No one’s blaming anyone.’ He cut a reproachful look at Sanford. ‘That wouldn’t be useful.’
‘You’re lucky I’m here at all,’ I spluttered, having suddenly experienced a flash of inspiration. ‘Without me, you’d be stuffed. You’d have nowhere to go.’
‘Huh?’ said George. And Sanford stopped pacing for a moment to look at me.
‘Well, think about it.’ I gazed around the room. ‘This killer – he waits until daytime. He was too scared to attack Casimir at night, so he must believe that we have superhuman powers.’ I went on to outline my theory: that the slayer, if he knew our whereabouts, would probably try the same technique with all of us. He would launch his attack during the day, when we were helpless. (Or at least, more helpless than usual.) ‘But he won’t be able to do it if my mum’s around,’ I finished. ‘Because she won’t let him in.’
Sanford frowned.
‘Are you saying we should sleep at your place tomorrow?’ he asked, and I have to admit that my hackles went up. Though Sanford’s tone wasn’t the least bit dismissive, he’d rejected so many of my proposals in the past that I was expecting a scornful reaction. So I braced myself for negative feedback as I growled, ‘Unless you’ve got a better idea?’
Then the priest spoke. He sounded worried. ‘It’s a bit of a risk, Nina,’ he said. ‘This individual we’re talking about – he’s obviously deranged. What if he attacks your mother in an attempt to get at you?’
‘He won’t.’ I was convinced of it. ‘She won’t let him in. No way.’
‘But suppose he gets in regardless? He broke into Casimir’s flat, remember.’
‘That might have been pure luck.’ In an unprecedented show of support, Sanford had decided to take my suggestion seriously. ‘The security door at Casimir’s had a pane of glass missing. And the whole building is probably empty during the day, while people are at work.’ He stroked his moustache as he considered our predicament. ‘Nina’s house isn’t like that,’ he admitted. ‘There are bars on the downstairs windows, and Estelle would be watching the doors. She’d have enough time to ring the police if an intruder tried to get in.’
Everyone stared at him, astonished. Over the years, Sanford has always been very emphatic about our need to avoid contact with the police. His thinking is that, while the authorities are duty-bound to protect us, they can’t do it for every minute of every day – not against the host of weirdos who are bound to make us their number one target as soon as we’re publicly identified.
‘The police won’t listen to an armed intruder,’ he explained. ‘Especially if he starts talking about vampires.’
‘But he has a gun, Sanford.’ The priest wouldn’t be quelled. ‘What if he uses it? He could do that without getting in.’
Father Ramon had a point. The gun had slipped my mind. With a gun, you don’t have to be close to your victim. All you need is an unimpeded view.
The
madman who had invaded Casimir’s top-floor apartment could easily shoot my mother through the bars of her kitchen window.
‘You know what? You’re forgetting something.’ It was Horace who finally broke the long, dejected silence. He wasn’t addressing anyone in particular; his eyes skittered about as he glanced from face to face. ‘This idiot uses silver bullets,’ he said. ‘Not only that, he uses a stake and a silver bullet. It’s overkill. Nina’s right. He’s scared because he’s misguided. Which means he won’t believe that a vampire can live with ordinary people. Not without fanging them.’
Sanford chewed on his bottom lip.
‘You mean—’
‘I mean that he’s been reading the wrong books. Like Nina’s, for instance.’ Before I could tell him where to stuff his brilliant ideas, Horace added, ‘To this slayer, all vampires are unreformed, or why kill them? So we’ll be safe with Nina’s mum, even if he does have the address. He’ll take one look at Estelle while she’s putting out the rubbish, or hanging out the laundry, and he’ll decide that there can’t be any vampires in her house.’ Upon receiving no encouragement from the rest of us, Horace finished by saying, ‘You watch. I guarantee, he won’t even try to get past her. He won’t think he has to.’
It was hard to disagree. I understood Horace’s reasoning, though I wondered if we should view Casimir’s killer as altogether rational. Suppose he refused to take chances? Suppose he had a ‘better-safe-than-sorry’ kind of approach to exterminating vampires? The fact that he’d used a bullet as well as a stake seemed to suggest that he might.
All the same, I saw no possible alternative to my mother’s house. And neither, it seemed, did anyone else. Even Father Ramon had subsided; he sat gloomily rubbing the back of his neck as Bridget peered at him, seeking reassurance. Horace had folded his arms defiantly. Sanford was ruminating. Gladys was massaging her temples, eyes closed.
Dave was still inspecting the silver bullet.
‘There’s a stamp on this,’ he suddenly observed. ‘Some kind of trademark.’ He raised his head. ‘We might be able to trace the manufacturers.’
‘And then what?’ I spat. ‘Tell them their product’s a health hazard?’ I shouldn’t have been so snippy, but I was on the verge of hysteria. Dave must have realised this, because he didn’t seem offended. Or if he was, he didn’t show it.
He rarely does, even though I snap at him a lot. Even though I snap at everybody a lot. I don’t mean to, and I’m not as bad as I once was, but it’s hard to keep your temper when the vampires around you are finding every possible excuse not to get off their butts and do something.
Not that Dave’s a shirker. In fact he was being extremely proactive just then.
‘If it’s a mail-order business, it might have a customer list,’ he remarked. ‘Sometimes you can buy customer lists off a dodgy company. I’ve done it myself.’
‘Yeah?’ I figured that, since Dave ran his own mail-order business, he probably knew what he was talking about. ‘You mean we can find out who bought this bullet?’
‘Maybe.’
‘We have to find out who bought it,’ Sanford declared. ‘If we don’t, we’ll be living like fugitives. We’ll never know if this wretched maniac has tracked us down or not.’
‘Or we could move, and change our names,’ I said. Though I myself had never been forced to switch identities, most of the others had. And though I understood that the procedures for doing so were both complex and dangerous, I wasn’t prepared for the groans of dismay that greeted my proposition.
‘Oh, Christ no,’ said Horace, and Sanford grimaced. Gladys wailed, ‘I don’t want to go through that again! Do we have to go through that again?’
‘Not if we find this guy,’ said Dave. ‘If we find this guy, we can stop him.’
‘How can we stop him if he’s got a gun?’ asked George, with unexpected perspicacity. (In general, George doesn’t say much; he can barely follow conversations, let alone contribute to them.)
It was Horace who answered.
‘Personally,’ he snarled, ‘I’d stop him by sticking his head in a toilet until he drowned.’
‘Oh no!’ Father Ramon was appalled. ‘There’ll be no killing, Horace. Nothing like that. Two wrongs don’t make a right.’
Sanford quickly reminded us that we had faced such hostility before. Why, he himself had persuaded Horace’s parents not to chop off their son’s head. ‘Communication is the key,’ he insisted. ‘We have to show this person that we’re not a threat – that the media hasn’t been fair to us.’
‘You think someone like that will even listen?’ I scoffed. ‘What if he shoots first and asks questions later?’
‘Nina, there won’t be any meaningful dialogue if either participant is armed.’ Sandford spoke with a kind of weary patience, like someone addressing a very small and stupid child. ‘That’s why we have to discover this person’s whereabouts, and make sure he’s not in a defensive mind-set when we approach him. In fact it might be best if Father Ramon talks to him first.’
All eyes swivelled towards the priest, who shrugged and sighed.
‘I suppose so,’ he mumbled. At which point I cut in again.
‘This is all very well, but you haven’t even considered the most important question,’ I said, scanning the room for input. ‘Did Casimir blow his cover, or did someone hunt him down? Has he mentioned any names? Or what he’s been doing?’
‘Not to me,’ said the priest. George shook his head. By screwing up her face, Gladys conveyed quite clearly that she had never been tempted to seek out Casimir for any purpose whatsoever – let alone a friendly chat about his daily activities.
Sanford appeared to be racking his brain.
‘Casimir hasn’t had his computer for long,’ was Dave’s comment, after an extended pause. ‘Maybe we should be looking online.’
I have to admit, I was impressed. And I couldn’t believe that the same thought hadn’t occurred to me. It was so obvious.
‘God, yes.’ I rounded on Horace. ‘What’s Casimir been up to? You must have some idea – you gave him your computer!’
Horace squirmed in his seat, looking unbelievably shifty. At the sight of his discomfort, Dave and Sanford both stiffened, their eyes widening with alarm.
‘Oh, man,’ said Dave. Then he appealed to the rest of us. ‘You don’t reckon Casimir’s been logging onto that bloody website, do you?’
It was an appalling prospect, which made us all gasp. Two weeks previously, Horace had mentioned stumbling upon a vampire website. The Net is full of vampire blogs and websites, which cater to fans of horror movies and fantasy novels. Sometimes these blogs are frequented by slightly disturbed people who dress like Horace and have an unhealthy obsession with gore. Never once have I sensed the presence of a genuine vampire amongst all the deluded online chat about tissue regeneration and the covens of Underworld. On the contrary, it’s all the most outrageous nonsense – and though it can be useful for someone who writes vampire fiction (like me), it’s also dreadfully misleading. I have to admit, I was always interested in Dracula movies. In fact I used to think vampires were pretty glamorous, until I met my first one. But since then I’ve become more and more disillusioned, as I’ve discovered that glamorous vampires just don’t exist – except in books like the Bloodstone Chronicles.
That’s why I hadn’t been very interested in Horace’s discovery. Not at first. (Why look for fantasy online when you can produce it out of your own head?) But after hearing about the anonymous user who wanted to become a vampire, I’d changed my mind. Apparently, at least one crazy person somewhere in the world was looking for a vampire to bite him (or her). Nicknamed ‘Fangseeker’, this mentally unbalanced individual had provided an email address, and an assurance of complete confidentiality.
Horace had wanted to know if infecting Fangseeker could possibly be regarded as wrong, given the circumstances. He had seemed very disappointed when informed by Father Ramon that on no account should such a perverse desire be
indulged. According to the priest, Fangseeker was clearly unhinged, and to take advantage of someone with a psychiatric illness would be inexcusable. There could be no question of reduced culpability, just because Fangseeker claimed to be a willing victim.
I could remember being quite interested in the discussion that followed. I could also remember being disgusted by Horace Whittaker’s ill-concealed regret. But I couldn’t remember a thing about Casimir’s reaction – perhaps because I had always tried to avoid even looking at Casimir, if I could possibly help it.
‘You didn’t give him that web address, did you, Horace?’ Father Ramon inquired anxiously. And when Horace gave a sulky nod, the priest covered his face with one hand.
‘Oh, boy,’ Dave moaned. Even Gladys was scandalised.
‘Horace! How could you be so stupid?’ she screeched, with such venom that Horace bared his canines at her.
‘Are you calling me stupid?’ he hissed. ‘That’s a laugh!’
‘It was probably a set-up,’ I interposed, having refused to be distracted by this pointless bickering. ‘Someone’s trying to lure vampires into exposing themselves. Don’t you think?’ I turned to Dave for support. ‘We have to check Casimir’s computer. We have to check his email.’
‘How can we do that if we don’t have his password?’ Horace sneered, then addressed the room at large. ‘Does anyone know Casimir’s password?’
No one did. No one even knew his date of birth, or his nationality. (He’d always been very vague about both.)
‘I suppose I could go and have a look around his flat,’ Father Ramon finally offered. ‘I’d probably be safe if I went back there during the day. But I’m not sure …’ He hesitated, before turning to Sanford. ‘What should we do about Casimir?’ the priest wanted to know. ‘Should we report him missing? Should we pretend that he’s moved? Do you want the police involved, or not?’
‘We can’t let the cops get hold of Casimir’s computer.’ Horace was firm. ‘God knows what’s on his hard drive. Even if we can’t sneak it out, we should destroy it. Plug it in, turn it on, and throw it into a bath full of soapy water. That should do the trick.’