Vampire Seeker (14 page)

“Show some respect,” the preacher whispered. “That crucifix you so happily wave around isn’t some
kind of good luck charm.”

Drake gently rested his hand on the doctor’s forearm and said, “Marcus, please, I know you are only trying to
do your duty by protecting me, but sit down.”

With the crucifix still held tightly in his fist, the doctor righted his chair and sat back at the table. Then looking at
the preacher, Drake said, “You can hardly blame my friend for being jumpy if you won’t drink the water.”

“I don’t need to prove anything to you,” the preacher said holstering his gun as quickly as he had drawn
it. “There is someone far greater than you who judges me.”

“That might be so,” Drake smiled again, “but I don’t have your faith. As you said yourself, Preacher,
I’m like the Disciple, Thomas. I need to see wounds before I believe.”

“I’ll show you a wound,” the preacher hissed, unbuttoning his shirt. “I’ll show you my burden.”
His shirt fell open down the front, and burnt into his chest was the shape of a cross. The scar was white, the skin around
it mauve and raw-looking as if it had never quite healed. Snatching up the glass with the holy water in it, he threw back
his head and drank.

Trying to hide a look of shock, Drake mustered a smile. Looking at the preacher, he said, “Please, take a seat. I meant
no offence…”

Slamming the glass down on the table, the preacher glared at Drake and whispered, “Be careful what you pray for –
there is no such thing as an unanswered prayer.” Then he was gone, striding from the dining car. Lifting up the hems
of her long flowing dress, Louise got up from the table and followed him.

“More drink, anyone?” Drake smiled at us, filling his glass with the red wine.

I hadn’t felt like eating that lump of red meat before, but now the atmosphere in the room was so frosty, my appetite
went altogether. Harry threw his napkin onto his plate and I watched some of the blood from the meat soak into it. He pushed
his chair back from the table and left the dining car without saying a word to anyone.

I glanced at Zoe, who drank the last of her wine in one quick gulp and stood up.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but I think I’ll go to bed now. Thank you for dinner, it was very interesting.”
Then like the others, she was bolting through the dining car door.

“And then there were three,” Drake smiled at me and the doctor.

“I guess,” I said, wondering if I had caused the scene by doing the whole holy water thing.

Setting his glass down, Drake looked across the table at me, and the candlelight flickered in his eyes.

“You’re not like the others,” he said.

“How come?” I asked him.

“They seem to be so…how can I explain,” he mused. Then gathering his thoughts he went on. “They seem to
be so uptight.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” I lied, not wanting to start slagging off my friends.

Friends? Were they?
I wondered. I didn’t really know anything about the preacher and the others. But still, I wouldn’t say anything
bad about them, as they had given me food and shelter- taken me in – since arriving in 1888.

Changing the subject, Drake said, “So, Miss Carter, do you believe in these Vrykolakas – these
vampires
?”

“Yes,” I said looking straight back at him through the candlelight.

“So you’ve seen one then?” the doctor asked, sitting forward at the table with interest.

“I’m not sure,” I said, remembering the man who had strangled me on the train.

“You’re not sure?” Drake asked, lighting a cigarette. He dropped the match onto his plate where it floated
in the bloody-red gravy. “Does this have something to do with faith, the faith that the preacher likes to talk about
so much?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve always believed in the existence of vampires. I don’t need
to see one to believe.”

“So it is a matter of faith then?” the doctor asked me.

Ignoring the doctor, I looked at the cigarette smouldering between Drake’s fingers and said, “Can I have one of
those?”

Without saying anything, Drake slid a silver box and a book of matches across the table with his fingertips. I took one of
the cigarettes from the box and lit it. With smoke curling up from the corner of my mouth, I said, “I’ve just
always known that vampires exist – I don’t know why.”

“Tell me about this vampire who you thought you saw,” Drake said, reaching across the table and refilling my empty
glass with wine.

I lifted my glass and took a sip. The wine was sweet. Drake and his doctor stared at me from across the table and I could
sense their eagerness as they waited for me to start talking.

“I followed this man down onto the Tube,” I said.

“The tube?” the doctor asked, looking confused.

Shit!
Did they know about the Tube? Had the London Underground system even been built in 1888? I’m sure parts of it had been.
I could remember being taken on a school trip to the London Transport Museum and seeing pictures of wooden carriages being
pulled through the tunnels by steam engines. My teacher, Mrs. Plum, had been trying to get us to imagine how suffocating the
tunnels would have been with all that smoke and very little ventilation. I wished I had paid more attention now, instead of
sneaking away to the bathroom to have a sneaky-smoke with my friends.

“The trains that travel underground?” I said tentatively.

“Oh,” the doctor said, sideways glancing at Drake. “You call it the Tube?”

“No, not really,” I said, trying to cover over my mistake. “It was a little joke of my father’s. He
said it was like riding around in a big tube underground.”

“How very inventive,” Drake smiled. “Please, continue.”

“Well, I chased this man down into the underground and he took a train on the Circle Line…” I started.

“Don’t you mean the Inner Circle?” the doctor corrected me again with a frown.

“That’s the one,” I said, and drew on my cigarette.

“Why where you following him?” Drake asked me.

“Because I suspected him of being a killer,” I said flatly.

“That was a very brave thing to do, Miss Carter,” Drake shot back, the flames from the candlelight casting long
shadows, like cuts across his face.

“Or stupid,” I tried to joke, wishing that perhaps I hadn’t started this conversation with him now. How
long would it be before I tripped myself up again and mentioned something which was out of place and out of time? I sat quietly
for a moment, wondering if it was too late to make my apologies and slip away to my room.

“Please continue, Miss Carter, with your most arresting narrative,” Drake said, crushing out his cigarette with
his thumb and forefinger.

“I followed this man onto the train,” I continued as they watched me from the other side of the table. “I
couldn’t see him at first. The train was empty – there were no other passengers. I searched the carriages, and
just when I thought that perhaps he hadn’t boarded the train after all, he was behind me. He wrapped his arm around
my throat and it felt as if he was strangling me.”

“His face? Did you see it?” Drake asked, his eyes almost seeming to glow.

“No,” I said. “I started to lose consciousness and then…” I trailed off.

“Then what, Miss Carter?” the doctor probed.

“I woke up here, just on the outskirts of Black Water Gap,” I said, feeling a little relieved that I had told
my story – in part, anyway.

“And the preacher?” Drake asked.

“What about him?”

“Did you know him before arriving here?”

“No,” I said, blowing cigarette smoke into the air. The train listed right then left, as we rattled over a set
of points. “He was just there when I woke up. It was like he found me.”

“Most interesting,” Drake said, glancing at the doctor, then back at me.

“This man you were chasing,” Drake said, taking another cigarette from the silver box, “you said you suspected
him of being a killer. Who did he murder?”

“Four women,” I said. “Probably five. He killed them in the most barbaric of ways. He cut them open, removed
their intestines, and performed grotesque mutilations upon their bodies.”

“There is only one killer who has such a modus operandi,” Drake whispered. “You were following Jack the
Ripper onto that train.”

I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t. I wanted to tell him the man I was chasing committed his murders one-hundred-and-twenty-four
years after The Ripper’s last murder, but in my heart, I wondered even if I was sure of that. Knowing I would probably
regret what I was about to say next, I took a large mouthful of wine. My head swam and I said, “I think he followed
me here.”

“Who did? What do you mean, child?” the doctor asked, confused.

“Jack – I think like I came here, he is here, too,” I said.

I saw Drake and the doctor look at one another, and then back at me. “What makes you say such a wild thing?” Drake
asked me.

“I found this newspaper just before we left town,” I started to explain, my head now feeling a little woozy. “A
woman was butchered in the last few days in a town called Crows Ranch. She was a prostitute, just like the other victims –
the women who were murdered back in Whitechapel. But there were other similarities, too. The killer cut her throat and removed
her internal organs, just like the Ripper did with his second victim, Annie Chapman.”

“You seem to have taken a personal interest in the killings of The Ripper,” Drake said.

I couldn’t tell him that I studied the murders as part of my criminology degree. I very much doubted that young women
in the Whitechapel area of London would have been so privileged back in 1888.

“I read the newspapers,” I told him.

“So it would appear,” the doctor whispered thoughtfully.

“Are you suggesting that he brought you here?”

“I’m not suggesting anything,” I said, standing up and feeling my legs wobble beneath me. I’d had
way too much wine. “I’m going to bed.”

“If you could spare us just one moment more of your time, Miss Carter,” Drake asked, as I headed for the door.
“I’d like to ask you just one further question.”

“What’s that?” I asked, peering back at him.

“Do you believe that Jack the Ripper is a vampire?” he asked, and again, that smile played across his perfect
lips.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” I said, and then turning, I left the dining car.

My brain felt as if it was going around and around on a carousel, and I felt like getting some air to clear my head. I teetered
down the passageways outside the other berths and made my way to the observation chamber. I planned to stand on that little
balcony and watch the night sky full of its stars pass by overhead. The train made a constant
clackety-clack
sound beneath me as it raced along.

I reached the observation carriage with its glass roof and pushed open the door. Harry was sitting in one of the seats and
looking up at the stars. Hoping he hadn’t seen me, I wheeled right around as the door hit me in the arse. Gathering
up my skirt, I started back through the door.

“You can stay,” I heard him say. “I don’t bite.”

I stopped and let the door swing closed. Taking a deep breath and trying to focus through the groggy feeling in my head, I
made my way over to where he was sitting.

Without saying anything, he gestured to the seat opposite him, and I sat down before I fell down.

“Whiskey?” he said, and I could see that there were two glasses and a bottle of the stuff on the table before
him.

“No, I’m okay…” I started, but before I could finish, he had splashed some of the whiskey into the empty
glass.

“Can I have some water with that?” I asked.

“Just ran out of water,” he said, looking at me. “What keeps you up so late?”

“I’ve been talking to Drake and his doctor friend,” I said.

“That must have been interesting for you,” he groaned, then took a sip of his whiskey.

“Very,” I half-smiled.

“What did you find to talk about for so long?” he asked me nonchalantly, but I knew he was more than interested.

“This and that,” I said, the carriage swaying, and I couldn’t tell if it was due to the train passing over
points, or me being half pissed.

“You’re not like the rest of us,” Harry remarked, sitting back in his chair and watching me.

“That’s what Drake said,” and his stare made me feel uncomfortable.

“What else did Drake have to say?” he asked me, his eyes never leaving mine.

“He wanted to know how I came to be here,” I told him. Then picking up the whiskey and taking a sip, I added,
“And do you know what? I don’t even know myself.”

“That whole memory loss thing?” he asked me, with a disbelieving look.

In the warm glow of the oil lamps fixed to the carriage walls, he looked so fucking hot, with his messy, sandy coloured hair,
stubble covering the lower half of his face like a shadow, and those hard, cold eyes. I hated myself for thinking about him
like that, because the guy was a complete dickhead, so I looked away.

“Is it that you can’t remember, or are you hiding something – keeping a secret?” Harry asked, his
voice was still gruff but it had mellowed somehow.

“Like I’ve already said, the last thing I remember was chasing that man onto a train, and then finding myself
here,” I told him, looking up at the night sky.

“It’s a secret then,” Harry said.

“And so what if it was?” I snapped, casting my eyes down at him. “Aren’t I allowed to have a secret?
It’s not as if you aren’t keeping plenty of your own.”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” he said right back.

“I saw what you did to that bear the other day,” I told him. “I saw how fast you ran along the riverbank…”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said dismissing me with a wave of his hand.

“I know what I saw,” I insisted.

“You’re imagining things,” he spat. “You were underwater. How do you know what you really saw?”