Vampire Seeker (22 page)

The guys in the bowler hats with the neatly trimmed moustaches stood in a neat line by the train. “These are some of
my finest officers,” Drake said to the Marshal, gesturing towards his men.

The Marshal eyed them and then grunted, “I’ve received word from Silent Rest that this man – creature –
has taken my wife’s life. Is this true?”

“I’m afraid so, Marshal,” Drake said, a forlorn look on his face.

Hearing this, the priest made the sign of the cross and gently touched the Marshal’s arm.

“Take courage,” the priest said, as if trying to comfort the man.

Shrugging the priest free of him, the Marshal roared, “I’ll take his head! Where is this beast?”

“Asleep on board the train, as are the others,” Drake said.

“Well let’s not waste any more time,” the Marshal barked. “Let’s get them off.”

Drake turned to the doctor and said, “You know what to do.”

Then as if planned, the officers lined up beside the train, drew their guns, and followed the doctor on board.

Drake shot me a look, and I stared back at him. With the priest mumbling to himself as he read from the Bible, which now lay
open in his hands, I watched the doctor climb from the train and come rushing over to Drake.

“They’re not on board!”

What do you mean they’re not on board?” Drake snapped. “They couldn’t have gotten off; the sun is
yet to fully fade.”

“They’re not on the train,” the doctor insisted, a look of concern on his face.

“Check and then check again!” Drake shouted at the officers who were disembarking the train. They abruptly turned
and climbed back on.

“They’re wasting their time,” the doctor hissed at Drake. “They’ve gone, I’m telling you.”

“Impossible,” Drake snapped.

“Maybe they fled as soon as we stopped,” the doctor suggested and I couldn’t help but notice the panic in
his eyes.

“Their horses are still here, so they couldn’t have gone far. The light is fading fast,” he said to the
doctor. “Take the men with you and go find them before it turns dark.”

Without saying another word, the doctor raced back towards the train and now demanded that the officers get off once again.
I watched them clamber down the iron steps and into the dust. They looked confused and lost. Wherever the preacher and the
others had gone – whatever their plan, they were already throwing Drake and his men into utter confusion.

“Do you think this is funny?” Drake suddenly spat at me.

I didn’t realise I’d been smiling as I watched the doctor and the others scurry away in search of my friends.
“No,” I said trying to mask my smirk.

“You told him, didn’t you?” Drake breathed, coming towards me, his walking stick in hand. “You warned
all of them.”

“Did not,” I lied.

“Is she one of ‘em?” the Marshal asked, pointing his gun at me.

“I thought not,” Drake whispered looking into my eyes, “but now I’m not so sure.”

I looked back into his perfect green eyes.

“You told them, didn’t you?” he asked again.

“The preacher didn’t kill any of those women,” I said. “He isn’t Jack the Ripper.”

“And what do you know?” He sneered, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“I’ve been doing some thinking,” I said. “How did the preacher or any of the others travel from London
to here so quickly?”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Where I come from, it would take six days for a ship to travel from Southampton in England to New York,” I said.
“But from there to here, I’m guessing about a month or more.”

“What’s going on?” the Marshal asked striding towards us, his rifle raised.

Without taking my eyes from Drake, I said, “Mary Jane Kelly, the last of the Ripper’s victims to be murdered in
London, died on November the 9
^th
, that was the day I woke in up in the desert. That was the day I first met the preacher.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Drake sneered.

“I remember asking the preacher what the day was as I travelled with him and the others to the town of Black Water Gap
– it was the 12
^th
of November – still only three days after the Ripper’s last killing in London.”

“You’re confused,” Drake said. I could tell that he was pissed off because I was picking his theory about
the preacher to pieces and he knew it. “He lied about the date.”

“He didn’t,” I said calmly. “The date on the newspaper in which I read about the murder that had taken
place in Crows Ranch was dated the 12
^th
of November. Therefore, the preacher couldn’t have possibly committed the murders in London – he couldn’t
have travelled across the Atlantic Ocean so quickly.”

“Are you stupid?” Drake snapped at me. “Didn’t you listen to a word that I told you? The preacher
and the others are vampires. They can change into mist, vapour, and fog. They could have made that journey in a blink of an
eye if they had wanted to. Travelled like the wind if they had needed to.”

“But the preacher and his friends aren’t vampires,” I told him. “Now that is one thing I do know for
sure.” Then, as I watched Drake eye me with contempt, my fingers twitched over my guns as I said, “So how did
you get to be here so quickly after the death of Mary Jane Kelly?”

“What are you talking about, child?” Drake shot back at me.

“That day I first saw you in the saloon,” I reminded him. “You said that just before leaving London, you
read in the newspaper about the Ripper’s last killing.” Then realising what I was suggesting, I gasped and added,
“So how did you and the doctor get here so quickly?”

There was a deathly silence as Drake stared at me, a sudden and beautiful smile forming on his lips.

With his brow furrowed with deep lines, the Marshal cut in and said, “What is going on here?” Then glancing at
Drake, he added, “I thought you said this preacher was responsible for the murder of five women back in England and
here? You’ve just told me he was the creature who killed my wife.”

“He didn’t kill your wife. I did,” a voice suddenly spoke up, and we all turned around.

The doctor stood by the train as the sun cast its last rays of light across the darkening sky and snow-flecked mountaintops.
Slowly, he came towards us. The Marshal stood beside me, his face now a mask of total confusion. The priest kissed his rosary
beads and crossed himself. Without even knowing how they had got there, my guns were in my fists and trained on the doctor.
Drake stared at his companion, looking as shocked as the rest of us.

“What are you saying?” Drake asked him. “Have you been struck by madness?”

“I think it’s time we stopped with the pretence, don’t you, brother?” the doctor smiled at Drake.

“Brother?” I whispered.

“I’m afraid so,” Drake said from beside me.

“I couldn’t give a damn who’s related to who,” the Marshal barked. “Did you kill my wife?”

“Her liver was a bit spongy,” the doctor smiled at the Marshal. “She must have drunk far too much liquor
in her life. But then again, there have been a lot of women who have described me as a fancy
licker
,” and he laughed like a child telling a rude joke.

“Why, you filthy dog!” the Marshal roared, raising his rifle and taking aim. There was an ear-splitting
BANG
which echoed back off the mountains. I looked up, expecting to see the doctor’s brains splashed across the side of
the train. But he had gone, vanished – or so I thought. The Marshal started to scream and I swung around to find the
doctor astride the Marshal’s back. It looked surreal, as if the Marshal was giving him a piggyback ride. The Marshal
had dropped his rifle and was frantically clawing at the air, desperate to remove the doctor, who now had his face buried
in the Marshal’s neck.

Blood jetted from the Marshal’s open mouth in a thick, black stream. His screams turned to a series of rasping cries
as he fought with the doctor. I raised my guns and took aim, but Drake was as quick as his brother and snatched them from
me in a blink of an eye. The priest screamed and staggered backwards as a clot of blood shot from the Marshal’s open
throat and spattered his face.

“Dear, sweet Jesus,” the priest cried, holding up his rosary beads. Then his head was gone from his shoulders
in an explosion of shattered skull fragments, flesh, and brain. I looked at Drake, who stood holding my guns, wispy lines
of smoke trailing up from each of them.

“He’s with the Lord now,” he smiled at me. “I’m sure his rewards will be great.”

“What sort of person are you?” I cried, stumbling backwards.

The Marshal dropped to the ground in a puff of dust. The doctor stood up and wiped a stringy red lump of flesh from his chin
with the sleeve of his dark suit.

“Marcus,” Drake breathed. “Was it really you who killed all of those women?”

“Yes, Spencer,” Marcus said, picking a piece of flesh from between his teeth with a fingernail.

“You bloody fool!” Drake snapped. “You could’ve ruined everything!”

“Ruined what?” I dared to ask.

Wheeling around, Drake looked at me and said, “It wasn’t meant to be like this. Not the murders of all those women.
It could have brought attention to us and our plan.”

“So let me get this straight,” I gasped. “You’re not pissed at your psycho brother because he butchered
all those women…”

“No, not really,” Drake shrugged.

“You’re just mad at him because he might have ruined some plan, whatever that might be,” I continued.

“Yes. Why, have you got a problem with that?” he snapped at me.

“So you’re not like a real copper after all?” I said, trying to play catch-up.

“I am a police officer, and I was hunting a killer,” he said.

“I think your hunt is over. The killer’s standing right over there,” I said, pointing at the doctor. And
to look at him, it made sense. The police had always suspected that the killer had been a medical practitioner of some kind,
as he had removed the victim’s internal organs with such precision. The apron, a surgeon’s gown.

“Why, Marcus?” he said, turning on his brother. “Why have you done this?”

I was confused because Drake actually sounded as startled and as lost as I did.

“Didn’t you suspect me at all?” Marcus asked, licking the last of the Marshal’s blood from his fingers.

“No,” Drake said with a weary shake of his head. “I thought you wanted an end to the killing, like me. I
thought we were hunting the one who will turn the vampires against us. I thought our plan was to help him become civilised.
Show him he can live amongst the humans, as we do.”

“But they were just human women,” Marcus laughed, as if not understanding what all the fuss was about.

Hearing this, Drake suddenly struck his brother up the side of his head with the butt of one of my guns. There was sickening
thud and Marcus threw his hands to his face.

“I’m so sorry, brother,” he wailed, dropping to his knees like a child. He then gripped the hems of Drake’s
trousers and snivelled. “I tried to stop what I was doing, I really did. You have to believe me. But I can’t help
myself. It’s like a sickness. Help me, brother. Don’t punish me.”

“You’re the reason why vampires have to hide away, only come out in the night,” Drake raged down at him.
“You disgust me.”

“Please,” Marcus sobbed, looking up into his brother’s eyes. “I love you. I would be nothing without
you.”

Drake said nothing. He stood silently. Then, when his brother’s pitiful sobs became unbearable, he snatched his brother
up and held him. Marcus cried against his brother’s chest.

“Shhh,” Drake soothed him, his anger now ebbing away. “I will cure you of this sickness. I promise you,
little brother.”

“You said that you were chasing someone else for the murders,” I said, feeling sick at the brothers’ twisted
and misguided love for one another. “So you don’t believe the preacher is the killer?”

“No, I never have,” Drake smiled, turning on me.

“So why trap him, bring him out to this mine, if you never believed him to be a killer, if you were hunting someone
else?” I asked.

“There are vampires who don’t want our help,” Drake said. “They are ruled by the one who calls himself
The Soulless Liege. He enjoys the slaying of humans and the drinking of their blood. We want more than that. I want to lead
a civilised life, a life where I don’t have to hide by day, and hunt at night. I’m tired of waiting for a human
to drive a stake through my heart as I sleep. So I was speaking the truth when I said I wanted the preacher’s protection.
Sadly, he and his team are the best vampire hunters there are. All of them are legends in the supernatural world that both
our species inhabit – but there can only be one.”

“So those vampires who attacked us in Silent Rest…” I started.

“Were sent by The Soulless Liege to stop us,” Drake cut in, as his brother cowered pathetically behind him.

“So once the preacher had gotten you this far, what was the plan?” I snipped at him.

“To hand them over to the Marshal to be hung for the murders of those women,” he said.

“So the real killer, this
Pale Liege
who you suspected, could get away,” I asked, his plan finally falling into place for me.

“He wouldn’t have gotten away,” Drake said. “We had come to help him change his ways. To see that
there was another way for all of us.”

“So you were going to help him, like you promised to help your brother,” I sneered in disgust at the pair of them.
“You would have let the preacher and the others hang for a crime committed by one of your own. Why?”

“Because the preacher and his outlaw friends are nothing but filthy Skinturners,” he smiled. “And they hunt
me and my kind down. They are the last of their breed and they stand in the way of what we want. But they are gone now, scattered
to the wind like the cowards they are.”

Then, coming towards me, one of my guns in his fist, he looked at me and said, “Poor Samantha Carter, deserted by the
preacher – the man who she put all of her faith in. Perhaps you could join us instead,” he smiled showing two
pointed teeth at each corner of his mouth. He threw my guns away, knowing that he wouldn’t need them. “I can give
you eternal life, Sammy. You really are so beautiful – you belong with us – not with wolves.”