VAMPIRE: HUNTING THE MOON Chapter 5 (continued from 24/01/11)

CHAPTER 5.

The girl slept in late the next evening. When she woke she felt refreshed and invigorated. Paris, indeed the world, lay at her feet. She was in a world with no rules, morals, or consequences. She could satisfy her ever whim.

And what she really wanted right now was coffee and that French chocolate bread.

She walked along the corridor and down the stairs to Lloyd’s room and knocked on his door. When there was no reply, she went down the next flight of stairs and into the lounge.

There she found him talking with Baron. They fell silent as soon as she walked in, and Baron stood awkwardly.

“Good evening lady,” Lloyd greeted her.

“Evening,” she replied.

“Evening mademoiselle,” Baron said as he left the room.

“I take it you slept well,” Lloyd said.

“Wonderfully.”

“Excellent. And what would the lady like to do first this fine evening, Notre Dame or murder?”

“Murder please… after breakfast.”

    

The lights of Paris faded behind them like some drug fuelled sunset as Baron drove Lloyd and the girl into the night. Sat together on the faded leather of the back seat of Baron’s car, the girl anxiously played with her hair whilst Lloyd gazed out of the window. Baron was chain smoking as he drove, filling the car with the sickly smell of cheap French cigarettes. There was a black briefcase beside him on the passenger seat.

“So who exactly are we going to kill?” the girl asked.

“Baron has found some thorough bastards for us,” Lloyd replied. “The gentleman runs one of the largest banks in Paris, his dear lady wife manages an orphanage… where, for large sums of money, she allows certain people to use the children for films with a rather limited audience. Tonight they are on holiday in a lodge a few miles from here. They are not expected back for several days, and have specifically asked not to be interrupted.”

“How do you know this?” she asked.

“Don’t ask,” Baron said. “and don’t forget that these are important people, you must be careful. Use the gloves and balaclavas which I have provided and don’t make too much noise… don’t make them make too much noise. And remember that the silencer on my gun isn’t actually silent- don’t get carried away!”            

John Harvey got home from work at 2.40 in the morning. It had been an uneventful night, as was often the case when Lloyd was out of the country.

He micro waved a steak and kidney pie and washed it down with a glass of red wine. Then he turned on his computer and looked at his emails. Nothing new: just the email which Alice had sent him a few days ago, and which he had not bothered to reply to yet. He read it again; the third time.

Foolish human, he thought, as was only half joking.

He could see that she had written it late at night, and decided that she was probably drunk. She was wasting his time, he knew, and being insulting, but he could not stop thinking about it. He knew that he ought to forget the entire thing, but he could not. It had become a game to him; a strange, long distant game of cat and mouse. Like so many things in his life, it had become an obsession. And there was something about the girl…

He replied.

“Dear Alice,

How are you? Hope that your mood has improved since when last you wrote.

Yes, I am indeed a vampyre; in so far as that title can be applied to any real thing. And yes I have drunk blood, not for quite a while now, but, let me assure you that over the years I have drunk enough blood to drown a man in.

Have not, in this life, killed for blood. Many vampyres do, and some do not drink blood at all. ‘Then how are they vampyres?’ you ask. Because they still have the thirst, but limit them selves only to the taste of neck. We are all monsters, but we are not all beasts.  

No, I was not Napoleon, but I did once see Napoleon (from a distance) whilst serving under The Duke. Do not recall ever being anyone famous, if I had been ‘a great man’ it is unlikely that I would be in my current situation.

What else would you like to know?

Yours sincerely,

John Harvey.”

When he had finished writing he reread it, thought about it for a while, then added an ‘x’ after his name. then he poured himself some more wine.

  Tomorrow would be a better day. He and Molly had the evening off work, and would be meeting the lovely Charlotte.

 Baron parked his car in a lay-by on a winding lane and cut the lights. Slender trees grew along side the road, it was too far from urban civilisation to have street lights or pavements. Baron passed back the briefcase, and from it Lloyd took a pair of black leather gloves, a black balaclava and the pistol and passed the girl a pair of gloves and a balaclava. She put them on as he carefully loaded the gun and screwed on the silencer.

“This shall spoil my hair terribly,” Lloyd complained as he pulled on his balaclava.

“You can borrow my hairbrush afterwards,” the girl said, her voice strained with impatience.

The two of them left the car and walked along the lane, dry leaves crunching under their feet in the darkness. After walking three hundred yards they came to a massive log cabin with wide bay windows and an imposing porch supported by two huge upright logs. There were no other buildings insight, just the lane and the woods around a large lawn.

They entered the porch and knocked loudly on the oak door. After a few moments of silence they knocked again. A moment latter they heard footsteps inside the cabin. Then they heard a lock being turned and the door was opened by a middle aged man with a moustache, in a dressing gown, with a fire piker in his hand. The man’s sleepy expression turned instantly to alarm as he saw them.

The girl jammed her foot in the door, her boot stopping him from slamming it closed. Lloyd burst inside. With his left hand he grabbed the hand which held the poker and twisting that arm behind the man’s back. The man dropped his weapon as Lloyd slammed him face first in the wall. With his right hand, Lloyd jammed the gun under the man’s chin.

“Be silent,” he hissed as the man grunted in pain.

The girl stepped into the cabin and shut the door behind them, then ran through the house. The second open door she found led to the bedroom where a platinum blonde woman in a pink silk nightgown sat up in bed. The woman screamed when the girl stormed in, but the girl silenced her with a slap across the face that sent her sprawling, followed by a hand over the mouth. The girl then grabbed the woman’s hair and, still holding her left hand over her mouth, dragged her out of bed. The woman crawled along the floor as the girl dragged her to the front room.

When they came in, Lloyd turned the man round so he could see them, keeping one arm twisted behind his back and the pistol at his throat. Then the man saw his wife his eyes flared and he began to struggle- until Lloyd twisted his arm tighter and jammed the gun harder into his chin.

The girl forced the women to kneel then she stood behind her and drew her dagger from her boot. She kept a hand over the woman’s mouth, and held the dagger to her throat.

The married couple stared wildly at each other, mad with fear.

“You have both been very bad people, now you shall die,” Lloyd said.

“Can I use the gun?” the girl asked.

“No, lady, use your teeth.”

The girl pulled the woman up by her hair until she stood, then yanked her head back. Then she bit into her throat. She felt the blood pumping rapidly through the woman’s body and smelt terror in her sweat. She bit harder. Then, with a strength she did not know she had, bit harder still until she tasted blood in her mouth. Ecstasy overwhelmed her. She sank her teeth into that soft flesh, then twisted her head and ripped out a chunk of throat. She began to drink as the woman thrashed wildly in her grip. She stabbed her dagger into the woman’s chest and left it there, using both hands to steady the woman as she died.

Her husband watched. No longer struggling but limp with horror and fear.

Lloyd jerked back the man’s head so fast that his neck was broken then bit out his throat in one smooth motion.

When he had finished drinking he looked up to see the girl standing over the woman’s corpse. The dagger was back in her boot and her gloves and balaclava were soaked in blood.

“Shall we rob them?” Lloyd asked.

“No, I don’t want anything which belonged to them,” she replied.

“As you wish,” Lloyd said as he pulled a gold ring from the man’s finger, then took a diamond ring from the woman and a gold chain from her neck. “Best get going, Baron will be getting worried.”

On the silent walk back to the car, Lloyd reflected that the girl had not stopped smiling from the moment they entered the house to the moment they left it.

Back in the car they took off their gloves and balaclavas and put them, with the gun, back into the briefcase.

“How was it?” Baron asked as he started the engine.

“Wonderful,” the girl beamed.

“It went well, no complications,” Lloyd said.

“Can we go to Notre Dame now,” the girl asked.

“So impatient,” said Lloyd. “No, we had best make ourselves presentable first… Hairbrush.”

She passed him her hairbrush, then looked at the spots of blood on her arms and t-shirt and nodded. He handed her the hairbrush when he was finished and lit a cigar.

Before long they were back in Baron’s hotel, where they showered and changed whilst Baron burnt the gloves and balaclavas in the incinerator in his basement and returned his gun to his office. The girl and Lloyd met again in the lounge.

“Notre Dame?” she asked instantly.

“Of course, our taxi is on its way.”

“Can I kill the driver?”

“That would be unwise- too public.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

They were driven through the streets of Paris to a large bridge across the River Seine. As soon as the taxi stopped, the girl leapt out and gazed at the glorious gothic cathedral. Lloyd paid the driver then stood at her side.

“It’s fantastic,” she said.

“Rather.”

“Let’s have a closer look!” she exclaimed, running across the bridge.

Lloyd stood and watched her.

As soon as she crossed the bridge to the island where Notre Dame stood she was struck down by a blinding light.

She fell to her knees as it struck her, paralysing her with agony. With her eyes screwed tight shut a white light burnt into her retinas. The ground beneath her scorched her, but she could not move from it. The air was like quick lime in her lungs.

A moment later she was pulled back roughly. The light and heat faded. She gasped for breath as bright coloured lights swam before her eyes.

Lloyd had pulled her back onto the bridge.

“What?” she gasped.

“Holy ground.”

“What?”

“Holy ground. We cannot set foot on consecrated ground.”

“What? … Why?”

“Because God hates us.”

“God? The bastard!”

“Quite.”

The pain left her. She managed to rub her eyes and could see Notre Dame before her. So beautiful...

“You knew this would happen!” she accused him.

“I suspected.”

“You suspected! You bastard!” she tried to stand- to run from him- but her legs would not respond. “You bastard!”

“I could have left you there,” he snapped.

“You let that happen to me!” she cried, tears overcoming her anger. “You bastard!”

“Quite.”

She did not react as he lifted her up and carried her- limp and sobbing in his arms- across the bridge. He held her cold body in his arms, smelling her sweat as his shirt became damp with her tears. In that moment, more than ever, he wanted her. He wanted her right there, when she was mad and broken, but he knew he would have to wait.

He put her down on the nearest bench and hailed the nearest taxi.

“Leave me here,” she hissed.

“No, it will be sunrise soon. Do not be foolish lady, come with me,” he said, leading her into the taxi.

“I’m a monster,” she said, taking another sip from the large glass of port which Lloyd had poured her.

They sat in Baron’s lounge, faded velvet curtains shut tight against the coming dawn. Classic music crackled out of an old radio and the air was stale with cigar smoke.

“You will become accustomed to it,” Lloyd replied.

“I don’t want to become fucking accustomed to it!”

“This is what we are. You have killed men, and you have drank their blood, and you have loved it… We shall always we apart from men, we shall be above them. We shall stalk their world at night, and we shall be their nightmares. You are more than they can ever be, and they are but prey to you, like the lamb unto the wolf- but there is a price…”

“Please stop talking.”

For half an hour they sat in silence, and when she went up to bed alone without a word Lloyd knew that he was going to have to kill her.

An alarm clock woke Lloyd at the very crack of dusk. He dressed quickly, avoiding his usual fastidious care for his appearance

He left his room and strode silently up the stairs, holding in his hand the spare key to the girl’s room which Baron had given him. They had planned it together, in case things did not go as well with the girl as Lloyd had hoped. He had planned to spend more time with her, to show her all the sights of Paris and to kill and drink together many times. He had hoped that she would come willingly into his arms, that she might love him, and would have made it even sweeter to kill her in the end. But now it was clear that she could not love him, and that she would become unpredictable and so uncontrollable.

That would not do, and Lloyd had run out of patience.

As he reached the top of the stairs and turned down the corridor to her room, a second figure moved silently from the other end of the corridor and down the stairs.

He walked along the dark corridor, his foot steps as silent as a ghost. He paused outside her room, revelling in expectation.

He would kill the girl and drink her blood.

Already he tasted her on his lips as he turned the key in the door.

The door swung open and he strode into the room, ready to leap onto her bed and end her life.

To his horror he found her bed empty. Her dagger pinned a note to the wall above her pillow. It read;

“In the time in which you have been reading this, I have been in your room, stealing all that you own. You shall never see me again. X. “  

CALEDONIA. A Vampyre Story.

Started writing this on Burnes' Night (may the Gods bless and keep that great bard), it may be a short story or it may be the begining of a novella, time shall tell.

CALEDONIA.

            ‘What are you drinking?’ the young man at the bar asked her.

            She looked him up and down. Dyed black hair, red contact lenses, too much make up, painted nails, long, black PVC coat. Underneath all that he might have been handsome.   

‘Whiskey on the rocks,’ she replied, it would save her from queuing.

            She returned to the table in the corner, not far from the bar and on the other side of the room from the dance floor, where her friends sat. It was dark in the club, except for a few spot lights over the bar and a U.V. light on the dance floor. E.B.M. played loudly. It spelt of sweat and beer. She loved it there.

            A minute later, he came over to her, presented her drink like a trophy, and pulled up a chair next to her.

            “Thanks,’ she said.

            He smiled at her, then looked at her friends- Molly and Charlotte. Staring for a little too long at Molly’s corset. He smiled again, too much smiling for a Goth. Its was clearly his lucky night.

            “What’s your name?’ he asked her.

            ‘Caledonia,’ she replied.

            ‘Pardon?’ he leaned closer.

            ‘Caledonia!’ she shouted above the music.

            ‘What?’

            ‘Its too loud in here, I’m going out for a fag,’ she stood up. ‘Do you want to join me?’

            He didn’t quite catch what she was saying, but he followed her outside anyway.

            There was a big balcony for smoking. It was quieter and lighter out there.

            She took a cigarillo from a packet in her handbag and lit it with a silver lighter. As she took the first drag of the dark, rich smoke she seemed to forget all about him.

            He took the opportunity to look her up and down properly. Long red hair and a petit build, pale skin and bright green eyes, high cheek bones and long neck, black leather corset, black leather trousers, black boots.

            ‘Caledonia,’ she said, ‘my name is Caledonia.’

            He looked confused, as far as he was concerned she could be called anything she liked.

            ‘Do you want a smoke?’ she asked him.

            ‘No thanks, don’t smoke.’

            ‘Do you want to live forever?’ she asked, more scornfully than she had intended.

            ‘Yes.’

            He was struggling to keep his eyes on her face and it was beginning to annoy her.

            ‘Then what are you doing out here?’

            ‘Talking to you.’

            ‘So you are. What’s your name?’

            ‘Damien,’ he said proudly.

            ‘Is that your real name?’

            ‘Yes, my mum was a Rocker. What’s about your name? It’s pretty, but I’ve never heard it before.’

            ‘My parents were kind of Scottish.’

            Were kind of Scottish, he thought about it, but not for long, because he was quite drunk. She looked even better with a smoking cigarillo stub between her blood red lips.

            ‘Do you want to dance?’ he asked.

            ‘Aye, why not.’

            She took his hand and led him to the dance floor. Fake smoke drifted through the darkness and the pounding music pumped out of the P.A. system.

            As they danced, she let him put his hands on her waspish waist, and was glad that he did not put them any lower. She put her hands on his broad shoulders and they danced the mad, tortured dance of The Goths.

            After the song he went to the bar and she went to smoke with Molly.

            ‘What do you think of him?’ she asked Molly as she lit her cigarette.

             ‘He wants to be a vampire,’ Molly replied.

            ‘Aye, that he does.’

            ‘He’s a complete muppet.’

            ‘Aye,’ Caledonia blew a smoke ring. ‘But he is cute, and he will please me for the night.’

            ‘Caledonia… You can do better.’

            She thought about this, the serene expression on her face turning sleek and predatory for a moment, then she smiled and crushed the stub of her cigarillo under her heel.

            ‘True,’ Caledonia said as she stalked inside.

            They danced and drank until three in the morning, and then the lights were turned on, the music stopped, and they had to leave.

            ‘Would you like me to walk you home?’ Damien asked.

            ‘How about I walk you home?’ said Caledonia.

            ‘If you like,’ he replied with a smile.

            He linked arms with her and they walked out into the night. The air was chill and misty. Street lights cast double and triple shadows behind them as they strolled along the streets where people staggered drunkenly and vomited kebabs into gutters.

            Damien led her to a flat near the broad, slow, filthy river. He invited her inside and she followed, along a hall way and up stairs which had not been hovered in years, until they reached his room. Predictably, his walls were painted black and hung with heavy metal posters. There was a small wardrobe, a shabby table with draws under it and papers cluttered on top of it, and an unmade bed.

            As soon as his door was closed, he put his arms around her and kissed her. She kissed back, more passionately than he had expected.

            When she finally stopped, she kissed her neck, then he bit it. Just hard enough to hurt, but not enough to leave a mark the next day.

            She pulled back violently.

            ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.

            ‘Biting you,’ he said, awkwardly, half ashamed and half mad with lust. ‘Some girls really like it.’

            ‘Don’t do it like that,’ she said sharply. ‘Do it like this…’

            She put on hand on his shoulder, and the other on the side of his face, then she snapped his head to one side to expose his neck. Then she bit him, cutting through flesh with unusually sharp canine teeth.

            He struggled, but he was too weak. She tore through skin, through his jugular.

            Blood flowed, and she drank.

            He died.

            She wiped her hands and face clean on his shirt, opened his bedroom window, and climbed out.               

VAMPYRE: HUNTING THE MOON (Chapter 4, continued from 17/01/11)

CHAPTER 4.

THE BORDER BETWEEN PORTUGAL AND SPAIN. 1813.

            The fly buzzed past a barmaid, avoided the whipping strands of her long dark hair as she turned her head, then flew a circuit around the crowded, smoky room before seeking its next target. It circled the table where the Officer slouched and headed for his half finished beer. Then it spotted a spilt patch of the sweet liquid of the table and decided that it was a safer option. It had seen its kin drown in beer glasses before. It settled on the table and began to feast on the sticky, sweet beer. A shadow fell over the fly, and then death.  

Lieutenant Harvey of Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment of Foot wiped the fly from his hand, brushing it to the dusty floor with disgust. He took another tiny sip from the pint which had been nursing for an hour.

All around him men celebrated, because the next day they would march again to Spain and assault the hated French.

But The Lieutenant’s mood was dark, for the next morning he had to oversee the executions of three men from his Company.

The Duke of Wellington kept the strictest discipline amongst his men, and strove to keep good relations with his Spanish and Portuguese allies, so any man caught pillaging or ravishing the local civilians faced the noose. Whilst Lieutenant Harvey agreed whole heartedly with this policy, he hated to watch a man die in cold blood. In addition, it was a disgrace to him that men in the same Company as himself had earned the hangman’s rope. At least none of the men were from the Platoon which he led, if that had been the case he would have killed them himself, before news could reach The Duke.

His mood was not improved when his acquaintance Captain Lloyd of The Royal Engineers staggered over to his table. Lloyd’s sun bleached hair hung across his sunburn face with its alcoholic’s red nose and he held a half finished bottle of sangria in his hand.

“What ho! A jolly good evening to you Lieutenant Harvey!” Lloyd declared as he took another swig from his bottle and planted himself on the empty chair beside him.

“Evening Captain,” Harvey replied dryly.

“Cheer up and drink up, sir!”

“There is little cause for cheer tonight, sir.”

“Of course there is, of course there is. Tomorrow we ride to Spain, to slaughter the blasted Frogs and liberate the lovely ladies of Spain!”

“Aye, and first I must see my boys swing, sir. And then what? Spain again. Just like in ’08, and ’09 and ’12. Off to Spain and back again.”

“Bast it Harvey. I won’t hear talk like that! If a fellow gets himself caught, he must swing. And we’ll have Napoleon and his Frog Eaters this time, I know it!”

“Aye, we’ll beat the Frogs, sir, but not tomorrow.”

“That’s the spirit. And if killing Frenchies doesn’t cheer you up, I know what will… That wench at the bar has been staring at you all evening!”

“Nonsense, sir.”

“Look, you fool.”

A swift glace at the bar told him that the serving girl with the long hair and the big, dark eyes was indeed looking at him. She smiled, then turned away modestly.

“Perhaps she is, but it interests me not, sir. The Lady Molly waits for me back home.”

“Lady Molly, indeed! I would not stake my pension on it.”

“I tell you, sir, one day she shall be my wife.”

“Humbug! But forget it. I’ll have the wench in my bed tonight if you don’t want her… I have more important matters to speak of with you. I need you and two of your best men to join me tomorrow evening. The Duke wants me to scout ahead, check all the bridges for the next weeks march are in order. I’ve already squared it with your Captain.”

“Then I will follow. Smith and Isaacs will join me.”

“Smith and Isaacs? Our kind, what?”

“Quite, sir.”

“Good show! At least I shall have one man in my party without a hangover.” 

By the time the scorching midday sun had driven all shadows from the ground, the three men had danced their last dance upon the gallows tree, and every camp had been struck and every billet emptied.

Lieutenant Harvey rode at the head of his men, beside Mister Marks, the young Ensign who had appointed to him, the other two Lieutenants in his Company and their leader Captain Hogan.

They rode all afternoon on that hot, dusty day, stopping only at six o’clock to make camp for the evening. By that time the horses and marching men of the ranks were exhausted and thirsty.

The Company made camp by a small steam where a few orange trees provided shelter. Harvey ate a quick meal with Ensign Marks, then prepared to leave.

“The Platoon are your responsibility now Mister Marks,” Harvey told the fifteen year old boy officer. “Just you take care of them for me, I’ll be back in a few days.”

“Shall do my best sir,” Marks replied solemnly

As he readied his horse, Corporal Smith and Private Isaacs reported for duty. Smith was a stout man in his forties who had almost twenty years experience of fighting the French. Isaacs was a tall, thin young man who had been forced to join the army after disgracing himself during his apprenticeship as an accountant. He could speak French and Spanish, and Harvey reckoned he was the smartest men his Platoon, and one of the best shots.

“Off we go, lads,” Harvey greeted them.

They saluted, and then followed him to Captain Lloyd’s tent.

Lloyd sat on the ground with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarillo in the other. In stark contrast, his assistant, Private Mc Duff (a giant, ginger bear of a Highlander) stood to attention next to four tethered horses. Lloyd’s shirt was stained and his medals rusted on his jacket, but the Highland’s kilt was immaculate and a huge claymore sword shone at his belt.

“Reporting for duty, Captain,” Harvey addressed Lloyd.

“My compliments to you, my boys. We’re going to trot up north ‘till dawn, then nap for a while, then travel with all haste to the north west, we ought to find a bridge there. After inspecting it, we are to pop off north again and take a gander at another bridge. Then home again. If we happen to spot any Frog scouts, we are to have a crack at them. Got that? Jolly good,” Lloyd downed his wine, put his cigarillo between his lips and mounted his horse.

He petted it behind the ears, then had it galloping away with a few whispered words and a subtle application of the knees.

The other four men mounted up and followed him, racing to keep up.

The Highlander was used to keeping pace with eccentric master, but the two infantry men were unused to horses and soon fell behind.

“Slow down, sir, with respect, my men cannot keep this pace!” Harvey shouted ahead.

Lloyd’s horse reared up, then turned round and trotted back to them.

“Sir, if you ride with me, you ride hard and fast, and if you cannot, then you learn fast. In addition, we shall soon be in enemy territory, so it is imperative that there is no more shouting, sir,” with that, Lloyd galloped off again.

With no other option available to them, the men were forced to kick their horses hard and hold on for their lives as they followed the Captain.

They rode through out the night and rested in a patch of woodland at dawn.

“Isaacs and I shall take the first watch,” Captain Lloyd said,” you chaps get some shut eye.”

Harvey and Mc Duff lay down in their sleeping bags and Lloyd and Isaacs sat back to back.

“You there chappy, do you drink?” Lloyd asked the young Private after half an hour.

Isaacs was unsure if he referred to alcohol or blood, so he remained awkwardly silent for a moment.

“Alcohol, man! Wine, brandy, whiskey… You can drink as much dashed blood as you like when you ride with me, but would you care for a drop of brandy?”

“No thank you sir.”

Lloyd took a swig from his hipflask, and then they sat in silence for another hour and a half, before handing the watch over to Harvey, Smith  and Mc Duff.

“Have you been with The Captain for long?” Smith asked Mc Duff when Lloyd was snoring.

“Ten years,” The Highlander replied.

“How do you bear it?” Harvey asked.

“Just ye watch him, sir,” the big man replied. “He’s a pretty and a cunning fellow, for all the mess.”

“Pretty?” Smith asked.

“Good at fighting,” Harvey translated.

After their three hour watch, they woke Lloyd and Isaacs, broke camp and rode under the blazing sun until late afternoon.

Then they reached a road bridge made of dressed stone which spanned a wide river of white water.

They dismounted, took their horses to drink from the river, and refilled their water bottles. Lloyd began inspecting the bridge, whilst Mc Duff kept watch and the others ate and rested.

“Gentlemen, something is amiss,” Lloyd said when he returned to them half an hour later. “The bridge is sound, yet I found scraps of bread, horse prints, and a cigar stub which was unmistakably of a French brand, near by. The Frog were here, but they left the bridge intact… The blighters want us to cross it.”

“What now, sir?” Harvey asked.

“We proceed to the next bridge with the utmost care, sir. On the way, we scout out the land.”

They rode on until midnight, then, exhausted and thirsty, they had to stop. They found a ravine with a stream flowing through it where they could hide and water their horses.

“The first watch is mine,” Lloyd commanded. “I shall wake Mc Duff and Lieutenant Harvey in two hours, you can have two hours duty and then wake Smith and Isaacs. We set off again at dawn. We shall reach the next bridge by midday. Good night to you gentlemen.”

Lloyd climbed up to the top of the ravine and sat as look out, seeing all under the star lit sky. After half an hour he took a swig from his hipflask and lit a cigarillo. It was soon after that he spotted a shooting star.

He watched that tiny ball of light fall from the sky, with the luminous arch of its tail behind it-

-Then the throwing knife struck him in the back.

It lodged into his ribs, knocking the wind out off him. He bent over double in pain, but his warrior’s pride stopped him from crying out. Before he could raise the alarm, rough hands seized him, blocking his mouth, then restraining his arms.

With no one to wake them, the exhausted men slept until dawn. As soon as they saw the time and Lloyd’s absence, they began searching for him. With the dexterity of a mountain goat, Mc Duff sprang up the ravine and found Lloyd’s hipflask on the ground.

“Follow me, sirs, there are footprints!” the Highlander yelled.

The rest followed him and a track which only he could see until they reach a patch of trees three hundred yards from where they had slept.

“He was dragged onto a horse here, and then they rode that way, sir,” the Highland pointed north west.

“How can you know that man? Harvey asked, exasperated.

“Tracks. Have hunted men up fell and down glen since I was a wee boy. We must ride that way- now, sir.”

Lloyd woke, and found himself tied to a chair in a huge tent. Two French officers, a Major and a Captain argued close by, and behind them a French flag on an Eagle standard leaned on a desk. Two guards stood at the entrance.

His back ached, but he could feel bandages, wet with his sweat and blood, over the wound. The pain in his head told him that he had been knocked out the night before, and the pain in his wrists and ankles told him that he was bound securely. There was a foul tasting gag in his mouth.

He needed a drink.

As far as he could tell the two Frenchman were arguing over how best to torture him. The Captain reckoned him to be such an alcoholic that a day without a drink would be enough, but the Major insisted on haste.

Soon the Major came over and pulled the rag from his mouth.

“Talk, Englishman!” he demanded in passable English. “How many men? How far away? Is Wellington with them?”

“You’ll get nothing out of me, Frog,” Lloyd responded dryly.

The Major slapped him across the face.

“Talk!”

“Never!”

The Major punched him, and the Captain seemed to object that it was no way to treat a fellow officer, and this led to another argument.

“There’s a whole damned regiment of them over the hill, sir,” Mc Duff reported.

“Dash,” Harvey replied.

“What are we to do, sir?” Isaacs asked

“We can’t leave him here, I owe him,” Harvey said.

“I’ll nay leave him,” Mc Duff stated. “He saved me from the gallows tree long ago. It may have taken me from one Devil to another, but I’ll nay leave him.”

“We must stick together, sir,” Smith said.

Isaacs nodded.

“It will be dark in an hour,” Lieutenant Harvey told them. “Night is our strongest ally. I need you three to go to the west of the camp. McDuff, I want you to go down there and start a fire, you two cover him. Then the three of you are to snipe at them. Keep moving, keep to the shadows and keep them busy. I’ll move in from the east and get the Captain out.”

The Frenchmen at the edge of the camp did not see it coming.

One moment they were boiling a kettle over their fire, the next a great red bear was hacking them down with a giant sword.

Mc Duff grabbed a burning log from the fire and threw it at the nearest tent.

A Frenchman ran at him, bayonet levelled, but was shot down by a musket ball.

The Highland took another burning log and stalked the panicked camp with fire in one hand and sword in the other. Musket balls flew over his head and bit the earth at his feet. Other musket balls hit the French around him, who were lost in darkness, fire and fear.

He found a wagon of munitions and threw the torch at it. The next moment a French musket ball hit him in the leg.

The wagon exploded, killing a Frenchman, setting another two tents on fire and starling a group of horses who broke free and rampaged across the camp.

A French officer charged Mc Duff, but he swiped him down like a fly.

Another Frenchman bayoneted him in the back.

As he turned to take vengeance, a musket ball struck his head.

Smith and Isaacs continued to fire down on the French.

The Major set to work on Lloyd’s third toe. He had broken the first two with a hammer, and Lloyd had not spoken other than to give him his opinion of the French people.

The Officers refused to be distracted by the commotion outside, but the guards looked nervous.

The hammer came down on Lloyd’s toenail.

The tent’s door was torn open.

Harvey fired his flintlock pistol at the first guard, and slit the second one’s throat with his sword.

The Captain rushed him, but Harvey parried the blow, then planted his sword so deep in the Frenchman that he did not have time to pull it loose.

He grabbed the nearest weapon- the French banner with its solid brass eagle statue on the top.

The Major prepared to defend himself, but he could not stop the eagle from knocking him to the floor. Harvey kicked him for good measure, then took a knife from his pocket and cut Lloyd’s bonds.

Lloyd burst out of his chair and lurched over the Major’s body. He ripped out the throat of his tormentor.

“Good show Harvey,” Lloyd said threw blood stained lips. “I’ll see you made Captain for this. One small problem though, I can’t walk- bastards broke my toes.”

“Lean on this,” Harvey said, handing him the standard. “There are horses near by.”

They grabbed a sword and a pistol each from the enemy dead, and staggered out into the chaotic night.      

  

VAMPYRE: HUNTING THE MOON CHAPTER 3 (continued from 10/01/11)

CHAPTER 3

The next evening, Lloyd was woken by the ringing of his mobile phone.

It did not play a tune. It went, ‘ring-ring’- like a phone ought to.

Lloyd did not like his phone. He could not understand text messages at all. He very rarely gave out his number. But he did not have a land line, in case people found out where he lived, so he was stuck with the mobile.

He dragged himself out of bed and answered it.

“Hi, it’s me,” the girl’s voice said. “There’s a nice café near my B and B, meet me there in half an hour.”

“As you wish lady. And what is this café called?”

“I don’t know, I can’t read French. It’s got a blue sign, really near the sea.”

“I shall find it, see you there.”

Lloyd washed, spent a long time brushing his teeth, tied back his hair in a red ribbon, brushed down his suit and shoes and went out into the street.

The sun had not quite set, so he put on a pair of sunglasses.

The problem with France, he reflect, apart from being filled with the French, was that it had an awful lot of cafes.

He struggled to see in the light, so he relied on his other senses. He could hear the distant crash of the waves on the shore and smell the salty water, and headed west. On the way he passed a florist’s and casually picked up a bouquet of lilies. A few streets later he found a café with a blue sign. The girl sat on a table on the street out side, sipping a half litre of beer. He presented the flowers to her.

“Thank you, how nice,” she said.

“I stole them for you myself,” he replied, taking her hand and kissing it. “How do you do?”

“Not bad, how are you?”

“Quite good, considering how early it is. May I ask how long you are in France for?”

“Until I get bored.”

“I too operate on a similar time frame. Have you ever been to Paris?”

“No, I’m going there tomorrow, do you want to join me?”

“Yes, I would like that a very much. I think you and I could have a wonderful time together.”

She smiled. Not a smile of happiness, but one of satisfaction and cruel intent.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“Indeed, but not here. Too many people. Come back to my hotel room.”   

Inside Lloyd’s lavish hotel room they sat opposite each other on plush leather armchairs. The girl made herself comfortable, sitting with her knees together and her feet wide apart, then she drew a large hunting knife from her boot and started cleaning her nails with it.

It was an image which Lloyd knew he would not soon forget. The girl look that some giant doll brought to life. The dagger in her hand contrasting sharply with the innocent look on her fresh face.

Lloyd lit a cigar, took a long drag from it and savoured the moment.

“Allow me to make sure that we have an understanding,” he said. “We are to go to Paris together, and kill people, and you are quite fine with that?”

The girl held her dagger in both hands, stroking the blade. She tilted her head as she always did when thinking deeply.

For a moment Lloyd hoped that she would say no, so that he would have the pleasure of killing her right there and then.

“Yes, that’s cool,” she said. “On two conditions. Number One; that we do not kill any children. I don’t want to kill any children.”

“That is fine. Killing children: it becomes so dull so fast, what?”

“Good. Number Two; everything that we take from the people we kill is shared equally.”

“Agreed,” Lloyd held out his hand for her to shake.

She took his hand, gripped it tightly, pulled it to her lips and kissed it.

“Splendid,” said Lloyd when she had finished with his hand. “I shall arrange transport for us at sunset tomorrow. There is, however, one more matter which I must attend to… Would you spend the night here with me?”

She stood and leaned over him, so her breath was hot against his neck. Then she bit him, not quite hard enough to break the flesh.

Then she released him and whispered in his ear, “not tonight Josephine.”

He sat and watched, half paralysed with pleasure and half mad with lust, as she sauntered out of the room.

A few minutes later, after another cigar and a glass of cranberry juice, Lloyd pulled himself together. He ordered a taxi to the train station, and two tickets to Paris. Then he went out into the street.

Everything is fine, he told himself, this is a port, there will be whores.

Lloyd dabbed the blood off his face and hands using his black silk handkerchief.

He had enjoyed the last few hours, and almost completely forgotten about the girl.

He collected the last of his things, then shut the door to her flat carefully. It would be days before anyone found her, and he would be long gone by then.

It was nearly sunrise and he was tired. He lit a cigar, then walked home to his hotel to sleep.

The next evening he found the girl sat outside his hotel room. Sitting on the thick carpet, idly playing with her hair. A large hand bag with a picture of a cat sat beside her. 

“Keen,” he greeted her casually.

“Very,” she replied.

“Jolly good, our taxi awaits.”

Their taxi took them to the station where, after a few minutes wait, they were on a crowded train to Paris.

“What is Paris like?” she asked him half way through the journey.

“Most cities look very much the same in the dark. Notre Dame, however, is quite pretty.”

“I would like to see it.”

“All in good time, lady.”

They reached the station and he led her out into the streets of Paris. It was almost midnight Tall and elegant buildings loomed down on them from all sides. The air was still warm and the streets still busy.

“Can we kill him?” she asked of the first homeless man they came across.

“Certainly not. He would taste terrible. Aim higher.”

“How about him?” she pointed to a smartly dressed man with gelled back hair.

“That more like it. Stay quite and follow me.”

They followed the man down the street, keeping a couple of dozen yards behind, but always keeping him in sight. They trailed him to the end of the street, then down another road. Then he turned into an ally way and Lloyd burst into a run. The girl followed him.

The man stopped when he heard their rapid footprints and stared behind him in alarm. He saw them and broke into a run- but it was too late.

Lloyd tripped him up. He fell heavily. Lloyd dropped his suit case and grabbed him by his neck with both hands and pulled him to his feet, then smashed his face into the grimy brick wall of the ally. Then he turned him round, holding him still by the neck, and banged the back of his head into the wall. The man’s eyes were mad with fear and his face bled. His body was limp and useless. Lloyd took his left hand from the man’s neck and put it firmly over his mouth.

The girl was at their side, staring.

“Would you like the honours?” Lloyd asked her.

She smiled and nodded, then took her dagger from her boot.

“I want to talk to him,” she said.

“Make it quick,” Lloyd took his hand from the man’s mouth but held him tightly under his chin so that he could not open his mouth wide.

“What are you called?” she asked him.

He stared wildly at her, too shocked to act.

“What is your name?” she demanded, putting her dagger to his face.

“Simone,” he gasped.

“Well now, Simone, you are going to die now.”

She suddenly stabbed at his face, sinking the dagger deep into his eye socket. Lloyd let go of his neck, and she slashed his throat. The man feel forward, but she held him up against the wall by the hair, stabbing again and again at his chest and neck and face.

When he stopped moving, she let him fall to the ground. Then she fell on his body and feasted at his bleeding neck like a starved animal.

Lloyd watched as she drank the rapidly flowing blood. He felt oddly proud for a moment, then his own instinct to drink overcame him.

“You said we share,” he hissed at her.

She looked up from the body, blood dripping from her mouth and down her slender neck. For a moment her eyes flashed with rage, then it faded and she smiled sweetly.

She moved away from his neck to let Lloyd drink, and then cut one of his wrists and drank from that.

In less than a minute they had finished and stared at each other over the copse in that dark ally. Lloyd looked at her, saw her pale skin splashed with crimson, her golden hair matted with it, her eyes dark as sin yet warm with pleasure, and he was mesmerised.

He smiled dryly and she smiled back with all the innocence of a child at play.

“Was it your first time?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Rather good, isn’t it?”

“Wonderful…”

“Splendid… Now let us tidy ourselves up and get out of here.”

Lloyd wiped his face and hands with his handkerchief then offered it to her. As she cleaned herself off, he patted the corpse down until he found a wallet; he took half of the money and passed the rest to the girl.

“Thank you,” she said. “What next?”

 “We get far away from here. I know a place where we can stay where we will not be asked any awkward questions.”

They collected their luggage then left the ally from the opposite end to which they had walked in. This led to a quiet road, then to a busy street. After a few minutes of walking down the street, Lloyd was able to hail a taxi. He gave orders to the taxi driver in bad French and they were away.

After half an hours drive they arrived at a large but slightly shabby house on the edge of a small park.

After paying the driver, they went to the door of the house where Lloyd rang the intercom.

“Yes?” a deep voice demanded after a few moments.

“Require a room for the night, old chap.” Lloyd said.

“An Englishman, thank God!” the intercom replied.

A minute later the door was opened by a fat man in a dirty white shirt, brown trousers and braces.

“Baron-old-man!” Lloyd greeted him.

“Lloyd!” Baron, the fat man, shuck Lloyd’s hand and then looked over his shoulder at the girl and winked at her. “And a lady, wonderful. Do come it, it is a pleasure to see you.”

“I am glad to see that you are still here,” Lloyd said.

“Still here,” Baron said grimly.

 “I do not know how you manage to live amongst the French.”

“I must stay,” the big man said darkly. “I may never return to England, not after the things that I have done…”

Baron led them along the hallway into a lounge where they sat on battered leather chairs.

“Now, my friends, what can I do for you?”

“We would like a room for the night,” Lloyd replied.

 “Two single rooms,” the girl said.

“Yes, two single rooms please.”

“As the lady wishes,” Baron said with another unsubtle wink.

“Thank you,” she replied.

“Rooms six and ten are free,” Baron passed them each a key from a huge chain in his pocket. “Would you like a drink?”

 “Not yet, I would like a shower,” the girl said. “I can smell him on me.”

“Of course, all my rooms are on-suit. Make yourself at home.”

Baron watched her closely as she walked away, then turned to Lloyd.

“Still up to your old tricks, my friend?”

“You cannot teach an old dog new tricks, what?” Lloyd replied, lighting a cigar.

“So they say. Drink?”

”Thank you.”

Baron poured a glass of tomato juice and a glass of port from an oak cabinet in the far corner of the room.

Half an hour later the girl returned.

“I shall leave you two to it,” Baron said with yet another ridiculous wink. “Help yourselves to the drinks cabinet, don’t worry about the bill until you leave!”

When he had gone, the girl took a bottle of beer from the cabinet then sat beside Lloyd.

“Feeling better, my dear,” he asked her.

“Much better. But I think that next time I would like to kill someone who deserves to die.”

“What ever do you mean?”

“Someone who should be killed. A politician, a bank manager, a rapist. A real bastard.”

“This is France, lady, there is no shortage of bastards.”

“Good. And I would like to see Notre Dame.” 

“That can easily be arranged. Follow me.”

He led her out of the room, down a long corridor and out of a fire escape at the end. Once outside they ascended a set of rusty iron external stairs which connected the fire escapes on the first, second and third floors. They climbed past those to the roof of the building. They stood on a small balcony on the edge of the sloping roof.

Paris was all around them. A vast sheet of lights amongst the darkness which spread from horizon to horizon, dissected with roads where trails of light raced and rivers like molten mirrors.

“Gaze over there,” Lloyd pointed to their left.

Far in the distance stood a vast cathedral on an island in a broad river, artfully illuminated and towering above its surroundings. On one side massive flying buttresses reached from the roof to the earth, on the other stood a huge square tower, in the centre a spire stabbed into the sky like the needle of a God.

“Notre Dame? It is beautiful,” she gasped, then pointed to another distant spire. “And is that…”

“Yes, my dear, that is The Eiffel Tower.”

“How wonderful. I would like to see them more closely.”

“If you wish.”

“Yes, I do. Paris is more beautiful than I imagined.”

“There are worse places.”

“You don’t like France, do you?”

Lloyd turned to her, his pale face suddenly serious and grim.

“I detest France,” he said.

“Then why do you come here?”

“Unfinished business… to take revenge on my enemies… to feed in a place far from home where I am not known… many reasons. But I hate the French, I hate them utterly.”

“Why?”

“France and I have a long and terrible history.”

“Tell me.”

“Not tonight.”