Vampire Seeker
Authors: Tim O'Rourke
Published by Piatkus
ISBN: 9780349402116
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Tim O’Rourke
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Piatkus
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
For Lynda – My Cowgirl!
After more rejection letters than I could afford the stamps for, I decided to self-publish my books in March 2011. At first
things were slow but I persisted. Come September the same year my self-published books started to sell and by October 2011
I had sold over 10,000 copies of my books. This was more than I could have ever imagined in my wildest dreams and I wondered
when the bubble word burst. As yet it hasn’t and my self-published books continued to sell. By September 2013 I would
have sold in excess of a quarter of a million of my self-published books.
I publish my books from my kitchen in Buckinghamshire, England. Pretty much everything is done here. But it has taken more
than just me, an overactive imagination and my laptop to make my books a success. There are plenty of people I need to thank
along the way. Firstly, my beautiful wife, Lynda, who is brutal in her assessment of my work. She worries little about telling
me where I’m going wrong – she is my harshest critique. I’d like to thank my three sons, Joseph, Thomas
and Zachary for tiptoeing through the kitchen while I’m lost in my world of writing and Valarie and David Cooper for
their support and encouragement. A really special thank you to Patrick Taylor who gave me my first ever typewriter all the
way back in 1985 and would sit with me for hours and correct my terrible spelling and grammar. Cris Ramis, Marc Ramis and
Linda Ramis for being my second family and who used to read the stories I wrote when I was an acne ridden 15 year-old! You
guys helped me through a lot. Thank you. I owe a massive debt of thanks to Carles Barrios, for creating me the best of covers
for my books and for being such a great guy to work with (hugs!). Big thank you to Carolyn Johnson Pinard for weeding out
the mistakes! Thanks to Holly Harper for starting the Facebook fan club, you’re a star. I like to thank Ed Fenton who
was the first person outside of my family to read my work and gave me the confidence to believe in my writing – that
meant more to me than you’ll ever know. I would also like to thank my agent Peter Buckman who took a chance on me and
my vampires and werewolves. Thanks also to Harry Bingham for your support and honest feedback. And a special thank you to
Anna Boatman for believing in me.
There are so many people I would like and probably need to thank, but none so much as those loyal fans who have tirelessly
supported me and my books. Without you guys none of this would have ever happened and I can’t thank you enough. I love
chatting to you all on Facebook and various other sites on the internet. So I would just like to say a big thank you to the
following fans and book bloggers for your encouragement and unwavering support.
Lisa Ammari, Carles Barrios, Sharra Courter Turner, Louise Pearson, Louise Chapman, Caroline Barker, Shana Benedict, Jen Rosenkrans
Montgomery, Gayle Morell, Louise Kemp, Sally Cannell, Kerry Goddard, Holly Harper, Robbie Parker, Daisy Kennedy, Nicole Leonard,
Arista McKim, Craig McKim, Jennifer Goehl, Jennifer Martin Green, Nereid Gwilliams, Claire White, Michelle Wilton, Kiera Spencer-Hayles,
Kerry Anne Porter, Jane Barron, Ally Esmonde, Craig Phillips, Ben Munro, Cally Munn, Helen Websdale, Noreen McCartan-Doran,
Lekeisha Thomas, Sonya Avramoska, DiAnn Fields, Paul Goddard, Steve Boston, Lisa Darke, Gerrard Collins, Lois Li, Karen Neill,
Richard Ayres, Bree Pearsall, Aminah Ahmad, Sue McGarvie, Charlene Attard, Bernice Thomas, Stacy Szita, Ronda Lynch, Stephanie
Beckett, Maria Vargas, Jacqui Platts, Claire Graham, Mark Gallard, Michelle Harlow, Becky Fisk, Deanna Schultz, Andrew Patterson,
Amanda Patterson, Janice.A.Scott, Emma Rapley, Warren Bixby, Heather Braunberger Barela, Emma Graves, Paul Collins, Connie
Neville, Shawnette Hocson, Kay Donley, Jill Andrew, Peggy Ryan, Jennifer Bryson, Becky Lees, Teresa Walsh, Beth Husselbee-Orwin,
Hazel Pattison, Monique Bouvier Grasso, Sarah Curry, Rebecca Holloway, Sarah Parker, Jaala Larsen, Amber Mundwiller, Sharon
Ward, Toni Francis, Sheila Urbanski, Amanda Porter, Nichola Dickson, Judi Hargraves, Kayleigh Griffiths, Savannah Gavin Harrop,
Beata Janik, Louise At Readers Confession, Nikki Shreim, Tara Taggart, Micky Blue Skies Stewart, Lisa Rachelle Wolper, Kerrie
Watling, Kim Odaniel, Hannah Landsburgh, Tammie Silva, Patrycja Nowacka, Stacey Hoy, Courtney Jackson, Rosie Dargue, Conny
HK, Mandy Foster Meier, Tanya Bobrucki, Jackie McLeish, Wendy Wiegert, Barbara Grubb, Rose Lennart, Sarah Lane, Julie Garner
Shaw, Dollie Lemon, Eric Townsend, Abbie Robertson, Rachel Roddy, Claire Ashmore, Diane Hurditch, Carolyn Johnson Pinard,
Autumn Nauling, Silvia Roman Villanueva, Cherry Crawford, Erica Paddock, Jemma Wood, Shelly McKelvey, Cassie Sansom, Jenn
Waterman, Patricia Lavery, Alison Phillips, Jamie Harris, Penny McCoy, Lindy Roberts, Fiz Halliwell, Claire O’neil,
Sam Mcmullen, Lianne Lewis-Devillie, Stacey Tucker, Shelly Horner, Dianna Butler, Lisa Kresco-Churchey, Angela Hubbs, Heidi
Madgwick, Shelby Proudfoot, Fiona Nelson, Rebecca Smith, Phoenix 2000, Jessica Johnson.
A big thank you to the following book bloggers/reviewers:
Shana at
bookvacations.wordpress.com
Darkfallen & Greta at
Paranormalwastelands.blogspot.com
Braine & Cimmaron at
Talkingsupe.com
Nikki Archer at
vampsandstuff.com
Bella at paranormal book club
Caroline Barker at
Areadersreviewblog.wordpress.com
Jessica Johnson Bookend2Bookend
Phoenix2000
I mentioned right at the beginning of this note of thanks that I
persisted
- and that’s the whole point. Don’t ever let anyone tell you you
can’t.
You
can
if you really want to!
Take care,
Tim O’Rourke
The Preacher
My name is Samantha Carter, Sammy for short, and the man I’m following stepped like a shadow from the alleyway and out
into the drizzle. He glanced back only once and pulled the collar of his knee-length coat up about his throat. I pressed myself
flat against the wall and gripped the bottle of holy water which I held in my hand. The other held the police scanner, and
I placed it against my ear.
“We have another one,” a voice crackled.
“What is your location?” another voice hissed, as if coming from another time.
“Braham Street, at the back of Sedgwick Court,” the voice wavered. “Oh, Jesus, he’s taken the head
this time. The body doesn’t have a head.”
I stepped out of the shadows and watched the figure hurry up Mansell Street. There was very little traffic. The only sound
was the shrill
whoop-whoop
of sirens approaching from the distance, and the blue and white glare of flashing emergency lights from behind Sedgwick Court,
where the killer’s latest victim lay strewn across a square patch of grass in the dark and falling rain.
I watched the man head in the direction of Aldgate High Street and followed. I’d had a pretty shitty week to be honest,
and something told me things were only going to get worse. Karl, who I had been seeing for the last six months, finally got
so mad at me that he left my flat, slamming the door behind him, and I hadn’t heard from him since. Not even a text.
The sex had been good, not mind-blowing, but he had been kind and had made me laugh with his goofy ways. Was I upset? Not
much. I had other things on my mind – like the man I was now following.
Anyhow, I’m only twenty-two, and who needs to be bogged down with someone else’s demands? Not that Karl was ever
really demanding, but he did get pissed off with me, as I always had a cigarette dangling from the corner of my mouth, my
head in a book, or I was searching the Internet, trying to prove that
they
really do exist. I’m not a cop or anything like that – no such excitement for me. But I do study criminology
at the City University in London. My other
thing
is the study of Vampires. Now, as far as I know there isn’t any university in the world where you can study such things
– shame really, as I know it would be my dream. Karl would say in a jokey kind of way, that I’d only take my head
out of the books if he were as white as a bar of soap, had fangs, and a set of claws.
But Karl just didn’t get it – not really. I didn’t want to shag one of these creatures – I just wanted
to capture one. I wanted to capture the one who had killed four women in the last three months across London. The press said
that ‘Jack was back’ as they believed that the murders were being carried out by a Jack the Ripper copycat. But
that was just crap. Sure, the murders had been brutal. Each of the women had been mutilated; their throats slashed open to
the point of decapitation, and then all had been stabbed several times in the abdomen. A lot of similarities, but that’s
where they ended. The original murders had taken place in 1888, when there was little or no forensic science. Offender profiling
was a science yet to be dreamt up. But today was different – very few serial killers got away with their hideous crimes,
but not this killer. He left no clues. In a city with over sixty-thousand CCTV cameras, the killer hadn’t been captured
on one of them. Not even a glimpse or a shadow. It was like he had just disappeared. There were other differences, too.
Apart from the fact that the murders had taken place on different dates and locations than the original killings, the wounds
inflicted on the victims hadn’t been made by knives, and there was no blood discovered at the scenes of the crimes.
How did I know this? Sally, who I shared my flat with, had been dating an officer from the Metropolitan Police Force. He was
a search officer who had been placed on the inner cordon after the second killing. During a drunken night of shagging, he
had let slip to her that the forensic teams at the scene had been puzzled by the fact that the victim had been completely
drained of blood. It was as if whoever had carried out the frenzied attack had licked up every last drop of blood. He also
confided in Sally that the wounds looked as if they had been made by a set of claws, instead of a knife or other sharply-pointed
instrument. Why he felt the need to tell my friend this while they were shagging, I will never know. But Sally was writing
her first-year paper on forensically aware killers, and she was real pretty – and she probably seduced the information
out of him.
Armed with this knowledge, I knew the murders were the work of a vampire. I know – crazy idea, right? But why? Is it
any dafter than those who spend their lives trying to prove the existence of aliens, Bigfoot, the Lochness Monster, pixies,
fairies – or whatever else turns people like me on? What I mean is, vampires don’t turn me on – but the
thought of proving they exist, does. What lengths would I go to get proof? Standing in a dark alleyway, late at night, with
a pocketful of garlic, a bottle of holy water in my hand, a crucifix around my neck, and a police scanner pressed to my ear
– that’s how far I would go.