Her Vampyrrhic Heart (23 page)

Kit opened the bottle and sniffed. Whisky fumes prickled his nose. Kit pictured himself drinking from the bottle. After that, he'd lie down on the sofa, his head lolling, his eyes glazed – just like his mother.

With a savage shake of his head, he replaced the cap, and shoved the bottle to the back of the shelf
. No … I'm going to fight this. I'm not going to be like those other deadbeats in my family. I'm going to make something of myself. I'm going to university. I'm … Oh, God.

Straight away, he saw it through the kitchen window. His scalp tingled, shivers gushed down his spine, freezing his blood. There, through the glass, a pale oval framed by blond hair. Pure white eyes gazed in at him. The black pupils: cold drops of death.

Freya. She's come back, just like she said she would.
Heart beating faster, he ran to the door and opened it. A tide of snowflakes rushed in.

There she stood. Barefooted. Frightening. Yet glorious, and beautiful, and –
somehow
– the woman he'd wanted all his teenage years. The fact that she wore no shoes in these sub-zero temperatures didn't trouble him. Freya was the miracle he'd dreamt of. Another human being who had the ability to look into his eyes and recognize the darkness that lay behind them. Instinctively, he knew she understood how he felt. Here was a human being who would be his loyal ally. A friend in adversity. Without a shadow of doubt, he knew that in Freya he would find a meeting of hearts as well as minds.

If a warning voice told him that Freya was a monster … a vampire woman … a creature blighted by a curse … well, so what … he ignored that voice. Because the harrowing events of the last twenty-four hours had caused madness to blossom in his own mind. This dead–alive creature standing barefoot in the snow … this woman with black veins showing through her white neck and staring at him with those lovely/nightmare eyes was his soulmate. His growing madness wouldn't permit any contradiction of that belief.
Freya is mine. I love her.

This vision of impossible beauty moved slowly towards him. A snowflake landed between her dark eyebrows but did not melt. Skin that was colder than the snow itself wouldn't melt the flake. How could it?

‘I didn't think you'd come back.' Kit's heart beat faster, sending the blood racing through his neck.

‘I promised I would.' She spoke softly. ‘You're the only one who can help me.'

Kit liked that feeling of exclusivity. ‘Of course I'll help you.'

‘Thank you.'

‘What would you like me to do?'

‘Promise me you'll help me tonight.'

‘I promise.' He smiled. ‘You can trust me.'

‘I know I can.' She smiled back. The eyes gleamed as whitely as massive pearls. ‘When I first saw you I realized I could trust you. You're nice. I like you.'

‘I like you.' Sanity protested. However, madness beat sanity down with deranged ferocity. Nevertheless, Kit Bolter enjoyed a powerful sense of calm. OK … the calm before the storm, he realized at a deeper, suppressed level. The storm of madness and violence would break soon.
Freya is Death in the shape of female beauty.
That's poetic
, he thought.
Byronic. The beautiful and the damned belong together.

These thoughts passed through his head as she approached. Tenderly, even lovingly, she reached out with those cold fingers and took his hands in hers.

She whispered, ‘So, you promise to help me tonight?'

‘Yes, I promise.'

‘Good, I will hold you to that promise, Kit.'

‘What do you want me to do?'

‘I want you to help me to die.'

Even insanity flinched back from this incredible statement. ‘You're joking,' he gasped.

‘No joke, my lovely, kind-hearted boy.' Her smile was so melancholy, yet so trusting, too. ‘This existence is unbearable to me. Every minute of every hour is torture. So, tonight, you will make me happy. You are going to bring this life of mine to an end.'

T
om spent the day helping the search teams. He'd donned his scuba diver's suit, the air tanks and flippers, and swam downriver. While he searched underwater, police and volunteers had walked along the banks of the Lepping. No sign of anyone from the minibus. No sign of anything. When daylight faded the police called off the search. Rescuers knew they weren't looking for survivors now, they were looking for corpses. Tom Westonby believed otherwise. What repeatedly came to mind was the image of Helsvir. The creature had taken the passengers from the bus, he was certain. Of course, he couldn't share this belief with the police. OK, they'd know of local legends about the dragon, but they didn't believe the creature actually existed. In Danby-Mask, parents used the Helsvir myth to make children do as they were told. In many a house, this kind of thing could be heard:
Jenny, if you play by the river again, Helsvir will eat you up.
Or when a parent reached the end of their tether:
Boys! If you don't behave and go straight to bed now I'll leave the back door open and Helsvir will get you!

Perhaps the only person in the world who knew that Helsvir existed was Tom Westonby.

He glanced at his watch as he walked home through the forest. Seven p.m. In the light of the flashlight the snowflakes were dazzling flecks of white. After what happened a few days ago, when the vampire had attacked him, he knew he was pushing his luck being out here after dark, but Tom felt compelled to go home. One day his lost bride would return. The conviction that this would happen, and he'd be reunited with Nicola, was deeply rooted inside of him.

Quickly, he made his way along the path. Already snow had begun to form a thick layer on the frozen earth. A fox darted away under the bushes. Somewhere close by a bird screeched. Tom remained vigilant. Vampires might be nearby. Until Friday night they'd never even approached him before. They'd always been motionless figures out here in the wilderness. They only moved if he tried to get closer to them – and even then, they moved away from him. For the last five years they could be described as almost shy creatures. But three days ago that had changed when one had pounced and almost drowned him in the river. June Valko had been the catalyst.

Shivering, he walked faster. June would be back at the hotel in Leppington. His plan to use the woman as bait to draw Nicola to him hadn't worked. So what next?

What did happen next shocked him so much it took his breath away.

Tom Westonby had just walked through the stone archway at the edge of his garden. Straight away, he saw a bright pool of light by the front door. In that pool of light stood two figures. The pair stared at him, their eyes glinting. Tom froze at the bizarre sight. Because there was June Valko. She gripped a flashlight in one hand, while her other hand supported a frail woman with coffee-coloured skin. A cold wind from the north drew an eerie-sounding moan from the trees in the forest.

Tom locked eyes with June as he glared at her in nothing less than fury.
How could she do this? She must be insane!

June started speaking before he even reached her. ‘Tom. This is my mother. I know you'll be angry. You told me not to bring her, but I couldn't see any other way.'

‘You could have been killed.'

‘I want my mother to see my father.'

‘June,' he hissed, ‘you know what he's become.'

‘I do, but I have to give my mother at least a chance of—'

‘A chance of what? Dying out here?' He glanced back. At any moment, figures could come loping out of the darkness.

‘My mother deserves this chance.'

He noticed that June had dressed her mother as warmly as possible – layer upon layer of fleeces and sweaters and a thick anorak, with its hood pulled up over the sick woman's head. But to bring a frail invalid here? Into this freezing forest at night? What was June thinking? What was more, she'd put herself and her mother in dreadful danger.

Nevertheless, Tom quickly opened the door and ushered his uninvited guests inside.

Handing June the key, he said, ‘Lock and bolt the door.'

Tom lit the log fire before grabbing a thick tartan blanket from the sofa and putting it around Mrs Valko's shoulders. After she'd been warmly parcelled in the blanket, he guided her to the armchair nearest the fire.

‘I'm sorry to have shouted like that, Mrs Valko,' he told her. ‘I wasn't expecting you, and it worried me that you had to walk through the forest in this weather.' He knelt down by the chair so he could look up into her brown eyes. ‘My name's Tom Westonby.' He held out his hand.

June finished bolting the door. ‘My mother won't answer you, Tom. She doesn't talk now. Most of the time she doesn't even know what's going on around her.'

June eased the hood down from her mother's head. Tom saw how much alike mother and daughter were. They had the same coffee-coloured skin, glossy black hair and fragile build. Where June differed from her mother were her eyes. June's shone with that electric blue. Definitely those were her father's eyes. As far as he knew, June was the last of the Bekk bloodline. True, there were more Bekk men and women out there in the forest. These were ones who'd been transformed by the curse. They were vampire-like creatures. Of course, they'd lost the blue colouring from their eyes. And they'd gained something in return – they'd been given a whole new biology. Tom thought of them as vampires. To all intents and purposes that's what they were. Night creatures. By day they vanished into some lair. Where that was, he didn't know. But he did know they haunted the wood by night. Although they hadn't attacked humans in the past (as far as he knew), he suspected that the vampires fed on blood taken from sheep on the high moors that flanked the valley. As a rule, they didn't kill the sheep. However, he'd heard farmers talk about their flocks suffering from inexplicable cuts.

Now he watched June helping her mother out of the anorak, all the while speaking to her in a gentle voice to reassure the sick woman. Tom realized the lady didn't look at all well. Mrs Valko's cheeks had sunk in, revealing the sharp lines of the bones in her face. The loss of weight made her eyes seem very large and round. Even though she relaxed at the sound of her daughter's voice, she didn't give any indication that she understood any of the words. Mrs Valko remained sitting there – a woman in a trance, unaware of her surroundings.

‘I'll make hot drinks,' Tom said.

June followed him into the kitchen.

As he filled the kettle he hissed, ‘That was a crazy thing to do.'

‘You wanted me to act as bait last night. It didn't work. We didn't see any vampires. Tonight might be different.'

‘So, you're using your own mother as bait? Damn it, June, even bringing her here was incredibly dangerous. It's snowing. Those paths are treacherous before you even factor in the vampires. What if she'd fallen?'

‘I held on tight to her.'

‘How long were you waiting for me to come home?'

‘Just a few minutes.'

He flicked the kettle switch. ‘And now you hope your mother's presence will bring your father to the cottage?'

‘We know it worked with me being here.'

‘It worked once.'

June spoke in a determined way. ‘So it only has to work once again.'

‘But what do you hope to achieve?'

‘Achieve? I want to save my mother's life.' June took a deep breath. Her expression clearly said that she'd do everything in her power to reunite her dying mother with her father – a man who'd been transformed into a vampire over twenty years ago.

‘But you haven't thought this through,' he told her. ‘How do you propose to bring them together? She can hardly go out there and meet him, can she?'

BANG! June slammed her fists down on to the table. ‘Tom, stop being so smug, and so downright superior.'

‘June, look—'

‘No, you look!' She gripped the front of his sweater, her blue eyes flashing. ‘You told me that you lost your girlfriend five years ago. Yes! I believe you when you say she's become one of those vampire creatures. And I damn well know that you planned to use me as bait to draw her to the house. You gambled that my presence would be like a magic spell. That for the first time in five years you would see the woman you loved.'

‘How could you know that? I never said—'

‘You didn't have to tell me in words, Tom. I could see it in your eyes. You love Nicola Bekk. Yes, she's a vampire, just like my father. But, like me, you'll do whatever it takes. You want to be reunited with Nicola. Isn't that true?'

‘Yes.'

‘So, you were prepared to use me as bait to draw her out?'

‘Yes.' Tom began to shake. Getting the truth out and clearing the air hurt, but it was a sweet kind of hurt, like drawing a deeply embedded thorn from his flesh.

‘Therefore, we're both on the same side.' June released her grip on his sweater. ‘We're allies. You want to find Nicola. I want my mother to see her husband with her own eyes, even if that means only looking out through a window at him.'

‘But the shock? It might—'

‘Kill her? Tom, she is dying of a broken heart. The doctors say her body is failing. She'll be dead in a few months. Yes, this is wildly dangerous and utterly desperate. I even had to smuggle her out of hospital when a nurse's back was turned. But what choice do I have, Tom? Besides, if you know of a miracle cure for a broken heart, why haven't you taken it yourself?'

The words he wanted to say wouldn't come out.

June spoke so tenderly, yet he sensed her steely resolve. ‘Tom, you are twenty-eight. But your eyes are so unbelievably old. Terrible things happened to you in the past, so you've created this shell that makes you seem as if you're made out of stone. I know you're not like that. Under that hard armour plating there's someone who's raw and wounded.'