Vampire Seeker (24 page)

“We’ve got to chain them up,” Louise snapped, her eyes wide, brimming with fear.

As I looked up at her, I could see the clouds parting and the full moon shining out from behind. Harry rolled onto his side,
clutching his stomach, and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. I looked down at him, and part of me wanted to go to him.

As if reading my thoughts, Louise shouted at me. “You can’t help him! You can’t help any of them!”

With my heart racing in my chest, I watched, open mouthed, as Harry rolled onto his back. He thrust his hands out as if reaching
for me, a thick howling noise coming from the back of his throat. It echoed back off the mountains, and was so loud that my
bones almost seemed to rattle beneath my flesh. Harry’s hands began to twist out of shape, and I could hear the sounds
of his knuckles breaking, as his fingers turned into long, hooked claws. Thick lengths of coarse brown hair oozed from the
backs of his hands and face. His nose turned upwards and his jaw stretched as the lower half of his face took on the form
of a giant wolf. His eyeballs rolled down, and they glowed yellow.

“Don’t just stand there!” Louise roared, tearing me from my trance.

I looked at her, dropping the stick of dynamite that I had in my hand. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw a blazing flash
of fur cross my field of vision. I looked at Louise, as Zoe knocked her to the ground. Zoe’s long blond hair was now
darker and thicker somehow, and billowed about in the wind. Her face stretched and contorted as she sunk her teeth into Louise’s
shoulder. Louise reached for her guns, but Zoe had clattered into her with such force, her guns spun from her hands.

With a blur of movement, I had drawn my own guns and was aiming both of them at Zoe, who was now burying her muzzle into Louise’s
shoulder. Blood spattered her face, and seeing my guns aimed at Zoe, Louise screamed, “No! Don’t kill her!”

With the sound of the screeching vampires echoing from within the mine, and the ear-splitting howling coming from Harry, I
spun around to see the preacher roll onto all fours like a giant dog. He arched his shoulders as if having a violent spasm
and threw his head back. His whole face shot forward as it took on the shape of a wolf. He opened his mouth and howled as
a set of pointed teeth tore out of his gums.

I stumbled backwards towards the mine, and was grabbed from behind. Screaming, I kicked wildly backwards, as my guns were
yanked from my hands and thrown out of reach.

“I can save you,” Drake breathed into my ear, pulling back into the darkness of the mine.

“I don’t want to be saved by you or your kind!” I shrieked as I fought with him. But he was so strong and
easily overpowered me. He threw me against the wall of the mine, striking my head.

He looked back into the tunnel as the sound of the approaching vampires grew ever louder. “Become one of us,”
Drake smiled, his face so close to mine that our lips were almost touching.

“Never!” I screamed, my heart beating like a trip hammer in my chest.

“If you don’t become like me, you become one of them,” he said, looking out at where my friends were howling
and snarling.

I glanced sideways and could see that they had almost completed their change. The preacher was standing at least seven foot
tall on a set of white hair-covered hind legs. Two long arms swung at his sides, and his face was like that of giant wolf.
Long white whiskers hung from his glistening snout. Throwing back his head, he beat his chest with his claws and howled so
loud that I thought my eardrums might just burst.

“Is that what you want to become?” Drake hissed into my face.

“If it means not turning out like you, then yes,” I sneered back into Drake’s face.

Throwing me to the ground, he sat astride me as the first wave of vampires leapt over us and out into the night. I heard the
preacher howl again, but it was too difficult to truly know what was happening as I saw shiny claws slashing back and forth
in the moonlight outside. I looked right down into the mine as the vampires raced forward, and just like the vampires I had
seen in Silent Rest, their mouths were huge gaping wounds in their faces, their eyes red and burning.

I looked up into Drake’s face and screamed. Just like the others, his face had now changed to look just like theirs.
His festering mouth ran from ear to ear, his black swollen gums crammed with razor-sharp teeth.

How had I ever thought his mouth had looked so kissable
, I wondered as he lent over me. His skin had turned a chalky white, and I could see a maze of blue and green veins pulsating
beneath his skin.

“If you won’t give yourself to me, then I will take you,” Drake said, his voice now rasping and screechy.

Pinning me to the ground with his knees, he pulled open the front of his suit and I gasped at the sight of the blood-covered
apron, which hid there. I looked at his now long, pointed fingers, and his claws looked like knives.

“You’re the Ripper,” I gasped. “It wasn’t your brother.”

“I know,” he grinned, that huge mouth of his twisting into a deformed smile.

“But why did Marcus confess when it was you?” I shuddered as he traced one of his long fingernails across my throat
as if teasing me.

“Marcus would have said anything to protect me. He loved me, you see,” he said, with something close to bile dripping
from his fangs and onto my shirt. “My little brother thought he owed me for killing our mother. I was just six years
old when I witnessed Marcus claw his way out of my mother’s stomach. Seeing something like that just doesn’t go
away. It affects the mind – even the mind of a young vampire. It’s haunted me my whole life, plagued my nightmares.
I became obsessed by what I’d seen, I wanted to try and understand it in some way. So I took women off the streets and
opened them, removed their uteruses, their intestines, just like my brother had done to our mother. When Marcus came back
tonight and heard you closing the trap around me, he couldn’t let me take the blame. Marcus felt guilty, you see, he
felt responsible for creating the monster which he believed I had become. That’s why Marcus was crying at my feet, begging
for forgiveness. He wanted me to forgive him for what he had done, for turning me into a monster. But like I said, I don’t
do forgiveness. So I took off his head.”

I knew that Drake was going to do to me what he had done to all those other women, but he was too strong to fight off. I glanced
left, as he lowered his dripping mouth over my neck. I could see a flash of brown fur go rushing past the entrance to the
mine, followed by the head of a vampire. It was then that I saw it, Drake’s silver sword, lying just inches away. I
splayed open my fingers as far as I could and felt for the sword. My fingertips brushed it. With Drake’s teeth nipping
my neck, I closed my eyes and made a desperate lunge for the sword. My fingers wrapped around it and I cried out as the edge
of it sliced into my fingers. I could feel rivers of hot, sticky blood spilling onto my hands. Drake must have smelt it, as
he brought his head up. In that moment, I gritted my teeth against the pain beating in my fingers like a heartbeat, and lifted
up the sword. In one quick movement, I sliced it across Drake’s back. With his eyes burning like cauldrons of fire in
his face, he arched his back and screeched in pain.

I made a fist with my free hand and slammed it into his face. Drake’s head snapped backwards and I seized my chance
of rolling out from beneath him. I pulled myself to my feet and staggered towards the mouth of the mine. My legs wobbled beneath
me as my heart raced in my ears. Drake screamed from behind me as he clawed his way along the rocky mine walls. I glanced
back over my shoulder and could see his seething red eyes and white face racing towards me.

I looked front again, and screamed. Standing at the entrance to the mine were three – no four werewolves.

“Oh, my God, Louise,” I gasped, knowing that she was the fourth werewolf I could now see. With Drake fast approaching
from behind, the werewolves made their way into the mine towards me. With my mind racing and heart slamming, I remembered
Harry telling me that they could be killed by being pierced through the heart with a silver sword. I knew that Drake carried
it, hidden within his walking stick for that reason. So, brandishing it before me, I approached the werewolves.

“Don’t make me kill you,” I said to the preacher, who led his pack towards me, his white fur gleaming in
the moonlight, which poured into the mine from behind them.

Seeing the sword, the preacher hesitated and took a step backwards. Sensing his fear of it, I moved forward, Drake’s
footsteps ringing in my ears. “I don’t want to kill you, Preacher,” I breathed. Then looking into the eyes
of the wolf looming behind him, I knew it was Harry.

“Please, Harry, just let me out of here,” I whispered, hoping that somewhere deep within him, he would understand
and not hurt me. He howled angrily, and I waved the sword at them again. I looked at Zoe, blood was swinging from her snout.
Louise stood behind her, long thick black hair covering her body. Her eyes gleamed like two yellow moons on either side of
her snout. “Louise,” I whispered, “what did Zoe do to you?”

Louise made a growling noise in the back of her throat and snapped her giant jaws together. Drake was almost upon me now,
so I lunged forward with the sword and the werewolves backed out and away from the front of the mine. Knowing that I had no
way out or nowhere to go, I took the cigarette from behind my ear and lit it with my last remaining match. I could either
go towards the Skinturners and become one of them, or head towards Drake and let him take me. Neither was an option I wanted.

“Thank you, Preacher,” I shouted to the wolf and blew out the match.

The werewolves dropped to all fours and paced to and fro outside the entrance of the mine, like bored tigers caged in a zoo.
They were waiting for me. The ground was covered with the bodies of the vampires that the werewolves had slain. I looked back
over my shoulder as Drake approached, his mouth open wide. I pointed the sword at him.

“You can’t kill me with that,” he sneered.

“You’re right,” I said, bending down and snatching up one of the bundles of dynamite that I had placed by
the mine entrance. “But I can kill you with this” I smiled, holding the fuse just beneath the cigarette that burned
in the corner of my mouth.

“You wouldn’t,” Drake laughed.

Then looking back over my shoulder, I stared back at the werewolves. “Hey, Preacher,” I shouted. “You said
that maybe I had come back to stop whoever was killing those women back home. Well I think you were right. I can’t think
of any other reason why I would be here. I’ve either gone mad, or I really have gone back in time. But whatever the
reason, I just want to go home.”

The preacher leapt onto his back legs, and throwing back his head, he howled up at the moon. I didn’t know if he was
trying to tell me that he understood. I guess I would never know. Then looking at Harry, I stared into his eyes, and said,
“Thanks, Harry, I had fun!”

Turning to face Drake, I smiled, and with the burning end of the cigarette, I touched it to the fuse of the dynamite. There
was a short flash of bright white light, searing heat, a deep booming sound like the loudest thunderclap and…

…and I sat up. The tube train rattled to a stop in Liverpool Street Underground Station. I looked about me as I used one
of the handrails to pull myself up. The carriage was deserted. I spun around, and there was no one behind me. My heart was
beating in my chest. I looked down at myself and I seemed to be intact, dressed in the same clothes that I had been wearing
the night I had…I had what? Gone back to 1888? I was no longer wearing the rough woven denims, boots, long dark coat, hat,
or gun belt. I was wearing my trainers, jeans, and jacket.

Feeling as if I had just gotten off a fairground ride, dizzy and faint, I staggered off the train and onto the deserted platform.
“Hello?” I called out.

The only response I got was the beeping sound as the train doors closed shut behind me. I watched the train pull out of the
station and disappear into the tunnel. I looked at my watch and it read 23:56 hours, on the 9
^th
of November 2012. I was back; but had I really gone?

I left the station and crossed the upper concourse and made my way out into the night. It was cold and raining, so I pulled
up the collar of my coat and ran home.

I pushed open the door of my flat and was greeted by the orgasmic shrieks of delight coming from Sally’s room. I passed
down the landing to my room and closed the door. Everything seemed to look exactly as I had left it. My laptop was switched
on as it always was, and next to it sat an overflowing ashtray and a pack of cigarettes. I took one and lit it. The smoke
wasn’t as thick as the cigarettes which the preacher had given me. But had there really been a preacher?

Beside the laptop was a half-full can of Coke. Coke! It was like finding gold. I snatched it up and took a mouthful. It was
still fizzy as if I’d only opened it an hour or so ago. Hanging my sodden jacket on the back of my door, I sat before
my laptop and checked the BBC News website. I searched it for stories of the recent murders in London. I couldn’t find
any articles that related to it. I typed in the words “Jack the Ripper copycat murders” into the news search engine
and it came back with nothing. I then went to all the websites of all the national papers and searched them for any stories
relating to Jack the Ripper-style killings that had happened in London over the last four months. Again, there was nothing.

I crushed out my cigarette in the ashtray, and with the sound of Sally moaning and groaning from the room next door, I typed
in the names Spencer Drake and Marcus Dable into the search engine. Jumping back so violently from my seat that I knocked
over the can of Coke, I stared at their names on the screen. With my hand shaking, I dragged the cursor over their names and
clicked. There was a very small article about a Detective Sergeant Spencer Drake, and Police Surgeon Marcus Dable. The article
stated that both had worked for Scotland Yard and had been part of the investigation team into the Jack the Ripper killings.
At the request of Detective Inspector Frederick Abberline, both Spencer Drake and Marcus Dable had been sent to the United
States of America in in the later part of 1888 to follow up an enquiry into the Jack the Ripper killings. The report then
went on to state that neither man were seen or heard of again, both believed to have died in a fatal mining accident, which
had occurred as a result of an explosion while undertaking their enquiry’s. I scrolled down to the end of the article,
and then clapped my hands over my mouth. Staring back at me from the screen were two faint and yellowed photographs of Drake
and his younger brother.