Vampire Seeker (4 page)

I reached for the flaps and knew that as soon as I pulled them back, I would find myself back on that tube train, surrounded
by armed police officers. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and yanked back the flaps of material hanging over the entrance
to the wagon. With my eyes still shut, I listened. I could hear voices. Cops, just like I knew there would be. Opening my
eyes, I looked out and gasped. The night sky was black and star-shot. I had never seen so many stars before. They looked so
clear and bright and there were thousands of them. The sky had never looked this perfect before – not in London, anyhow.

I glanced down from the sky and followed the sound of the voices. There was a fire burning, and sitting around it were four
people. The orange glow of the fire gave them a warm ghostly look. One of them looked up and I recognised him from my dream.
The preacher - or was he a priest? He was taller than I remembered him, standing at least six-foot-four tall. He was slim,
and without the dark-brimmed hat I remembered him to wear, his hair was black and cut short. At the front, he had a streak
of hair that was snow white, a bit like a skunk. In the glow of the fire, his eyes were still a sharp blue and seemed to cut
right through me. That white coloured moustache drooped down over his top lip like a bike handlebar, and matched the blaze
of white hair that streaked back from his brow. Despite his white moustache, behind it, I could see that he wasn’t that
old, no more than forty.

“Come and join us,” he said, gesturing me forward with a strong-looking hand.

I didn’t say anything and I looked at the others who had all turned to stare at me. There were two women and another
man.

“You have nothing to fear,” the preacher called. “Please come and join us. We have Elk soup and chilli beans
in the pot.”

What’s Elk?
I wondered.
Or did he say Elf?
This shit just keeps getting crazier and crazier. I really must have banged my head hard, back in 2012.

“Please,” one of the women said, smiling back at me. From where I was standing, I was struck by her prettiness.
Her long black hair and dark brown eyes reflected the flames from the fire. “Come and warm yourself.”

I climbed down from the back of the wagon, and with each of their eyes on me; I made my way towards the fire. Hunkering down,
I crossed my legs and sat down next to the pretty-looking woman who had spoken to me.

“I’m Louise Pearson,” she said, offering me a smile.

Sitting so close to her, I could see she was in her early thirties, with raven black hair which she had pulled into a ponytail
at the base of her neck. It was fixed in place with a piece of leather string. She wore a beige coloured blouse, which was
open at the throat, and blue trousers similar to jeans, which were flared at the bottom. Like my own feet, hers were covered
in a scuffed pair of boots. Over the blouse, Louise wore a faded sleeveless black jacket, similar to a waistcoat. Strapped
to her thighs were two revolvers. The barrels were so long that they nearly reached her knees.

Before I’d had a chance to say anything, the other woman, who was seated next to Louise, spoke. “My name’s
Zoe Edgar. The preacher has told us all about you.”

“Has he?” I said, glancing across the fire at him. I wondered what he knew about me.

“He said you are English and come from London. Is that true?” she asked, her voice sounding kind of excited.

“I guess,” I whispered, looking at her, still unable to comprehend how I’d come to be sitting around a campfire
dressed as a cowgirl and talking to a group of people who should have long since died.

“You don’t sound too sure,” Zoe came back, her green eyes sparkling in the light of the fire. She was no
older than eighteen, and like Louise, she was real pretty. Her hair was dark blond and shoulder length. She had a really infectious
smile that looked as if she was about to burst into a sudden fit of the giggles at any moment.

“So what’s England like?” Zoe asked, that excitement still brimming in her voice. Unlike Louise, she wore
a long velvet coloured dress. But she had guns, which hung beneath her arms in a set of holsters.

“Erm…” I started, not knowing what to say.

“Leave her be,” the preacher cut in and saved me. “The girl has had a nasty knock to the head. Isn’t
that right?”

I looked at him and nodded.

“I was just curious, Preacher,” she said, looking disappointed at him.

Ignoring her, the preacher turned and gestured towards the other man in the group. “This is Harrison.”

I looked through the flames that licked the bottom of the pot hanging over the fire. Steam came from it, and the smell of
Elk or
Elf
was sweet and intoxicating. My mouth began to water and my stomach rumbled. The man on the other side of the fire said something,
but I had been too distracted by the food cooking before me.

“Sorry?” I said, taking my eyes off the pot. Then, truly seeing him for the first time, I wondered how I had ever
been distracted by the simmering pot of food. He could have only been a few years older than me, making him about twenty-five,
but no older. He had light, sandy-brown hair, which was longer at the front than it was at the back. A flop of hair covered
his brow. He had grey eyes, which had a hardness to them. The lower half of his face was covered with stubble, which made
him look like he was cast in shadow. He had a firm jawline which looked as if it had been chipped from granite stone. Around
his throat he wore a black bandana. His pale blue checked shirt was unbuttoned slightly and I could see the light from the
fire glistening off a fine sheen of perspiration which covered his muscular chest. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled halfway
up his thick forearms, and around the waist of his blue denims, he wore a thick brown belt, from which hung his guns.

“Harry,” he said, staring through the flames at me, his eyes cold and emotionless.

“Sorry?” I said again, and could have slapped myself for appearing like a dumb-arse.

“Harrison Turner, but people just call me Harry,” he explained, his voice flat and deep.

“Oh, okay…sure,” I mumbled.

Get a grip, Sammy
, I scolded myself, but I was still having difficulty believing that I was sitting around a campfire in the middle of the
desert, talking to real live cowgirls and cowboys – especially one as hot as the guy sitting opposite me.

“And you are?” he asked, hanging his forearms over his knees, his eyes never leaving mine. He might be hot but
he was beginning to make me feel uncomfortable. Not in a creepy kind of way, but uncomfortable – like I was being studied
by him.

I took a deep breath to gain some kind of composure and said, “My name is Samantha Carter, but like you, everyone calls
me Sammy.”

“No one calls me Sammy,” he said flatly.

“You know what I mean,” I shot back. He had pissed me off now. Then, realising I wasn’t just hungry but
was craving something else, I looked at the others and asked, “Does anyone here smoke?”

Louise and Zoe looked at the preacher. I watched as he pulled a small wooden box from his coat pocket. He opened it, took
out what looked like a cigarette, and passed it to me. Taking it between my fingers, I could see it had been hand-rolled.
I popped it between my lips as the preacher struck a match and held it to the end of my cigarette. I drew in deeply, and the
smoke hit the back of my throat. It was hot and strong – not like the cigarettes I was used to. I doubted they had filtered
tips and extra lights here. With tears streaming from my eyes, I coughed and spluttered the smoke from the back of my throat.

“Do you actually smoke?” the preacher asked, hitting the area between my shoulder blades with the flat of his
hand.

“Way more than is good for me,” I choked. I glanced across the fire and could see a half-smile tugging at the
corners of Harry’s lips.
Arsehole
, I thought to myself. The good-looking ones always were.

Once I had gotten to grips with the coughing fit, I let the cigarette dangle between my fingers, taking just the smallest
of puffs every now and then. I didn’t want to amuse Harry any further.

“Let’s eat,” Louise said, picking up a stack of tin plates which were on the ground beside her. She handed
them around, while Zoe gave out forks. Louise removed the lid from the pot which hung over the fire. A waft of steam belched
up into the night and disappeared. The smell of the food was wonderful and my stomach knotted. I couldn’t remember when
I had last eaten. I knew it had to have been back in London, and knowing my love of fast food, it had probably been a Big
Mac. No more Big Macs, large fries, and chocolate milkshakes for me – not for another seventy years or so, if I truly
was in the late 1800’s. Louise ladled a heap of the stew and chilli beans onto my plate, and to be honest, it smelt
way better than any burger I had ever eaten.

I forked some of the stew into my mouth and started coughing all over again. The beans were very hot in flavour, and my tongue
burnt as if I had just drank a bottle of Tabasco sauce. With my eyes watering and my nose running, I turned away so Harry
couldn’t take delight in my suffering again.

“Water,” I heard the preacher say.

Holding my throat with my free hand, someone thrust a small flask at me. I looked up to see Harry towering over me. I took
the flask and gulped from it, hoping that the water would soothe my throat. But it wasn’t water and Harry knew it. The
whiskey washed over my tongue, almost scalding the inside of my mouth. The taste mixed with the chilli beans took my breath
away and I gasped and spluttered. With my eyes red-rimmed, and snot streaming from my nose, I stared up at Harry.

“You dick…” I started.

“No,
Harry
,” he half-smiled again.

“I said give the girl water, Harry,” the preacher snapped, rushing towards me. “Not whiskey!”

“Oh, shit,” Harry said, taking the flask from me, his grey eyes now twinkling. “I gave her the wrong…”

But before he could finish, Zoe was kneeling beside me and thrusting a leather-bound canteen into my free hand. “Drink
some of this,” she urged.

I placed it against my lips, tilted my head back, and gulped down the water. It was cold, and it cooled the inside of my mouth,
washing away the taste of the whiskey and chilli. Handing the canteen back to Zoe, I thanked her and watched Harry sit down
by the fire again.

He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Sorry, it was an honest mistake.”

“Whatever,” I scowled. I pushed the beans to the edge of my plate and forked up some of the stew.

“Are you all right?” Louise asked around a mouthful of the beans.

“No, not really,” I said, without looking up, not wanting to make eye contact with Harry. He wasn’t hot
– he was a dickhead.

“What’s wrong?” Zoe asked, and her voice was soft, like she really cared.

Placing my food to one side, I looked at her and said, “I shouldn’t be here. None of you are real – you
can’t be. I’m from another place, another time, and I want to go back.”

Then, moving faster than I could blink, the four of them were standing before me, their guns drawn.

As quickly as they had drawn their guns, I had drawn mine, and I was standing. My arms were locked straight out in front.
They looked at me, never once taking their eyes from the revolvers that I had pointed on them. Again, I was surprised at the
speed in which I had sprung to my feet and drawn my weapons.

“You were right, Preacher,” Harry said, keeping his eyes on me. “She is quick.”

“Perhaps too quick,” Louise said, her guns not wavering an inch.

“Is she a Vrykolakas?” Zoe asked, that smile of hers now a thin line, like a slash across the lower half of her
face.

I’d heard the preacher say that word before, and it meant vampire.

“I’m not a vampire,” I said, looking into the preacher’s eyes.

“You said you were from another time,” he reminded me, matching my stare. “How old are you, exactly?”

“I’m twenty-two,” I told him.

“When were you born?” he came back at me, forefinger hovering over his trigger.

“London, England,” I said straight back.

“He asked,
when
, not
where
,” Harry snapped, and I heard the click of the hammer going back on his gun.

Now mathematics had never been one of my strong points, but my intuition wasn’t as bad, and something told me that if
I told them I had been born in 1990, I was going to be in the crap. So as quickly as I could, I tried to take twenty-two from
eighty-eight.

“I was born in 1866,” I told them.

“What are you doing here?” Louise asked, the guns still trained on me.

“I was hoping that perhaps you could tell me that,” I half-smiled.

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” Harry snapped.

Knowing I had to start explaining - and fast, or otherwise they would probably suspect me of being a vampire and shoot me,
I said, “It’s all kind of confusing, really. But back home, in London, there was this killer. The police thought
he was a man and they called him ‘Jack the Ripper’, but I wasn’t so sure. I thought he was something different
altogether.”

“Like what?” the preacher asked, his eyes narrowing beneath his white eyebrows.

“Well, it’s kind of like this,” I started to explain. “Each of the victims had their throats slashed
and they were all drained of blood. Now, I guess like you,” and I raised an eyebrow at them, “I have an interest
in vampires. So I tracked this one down. I followed him onto a train, but he caught me…”

“Did he bite you?” Zoe cut in, that excitement back in her voice again.

“No,” I said.

“How did you get away?” Louise asked, and I could sense a note of suspicion in her voice.

“Now this is where it all gets a bit hazy,” I said, choosing my words with care. “He gripped me around the
throat and I blacked out. The next thing I knew, I was here in the desert and the rest you know,” I said, looking over
at the preacher.