VAMPYRE: HUNTING THE MOON CHAPTER 17, continued from 17/04/11

Image by Holly Payne.

CHAPTER 17.


“Come in Harvey,” Lloyd said. “Get your jacket off and take a seat.”
John’s face, despite the pain which was engraved on it, was set in grim determination. Without another word, he took of his jacket to reveal the sword slung over his back and the sword-bayonet tucked into his belt, and followed Lloyd into the front room. He sat near the fire, whilst Lloyd sat opposite him. Lloyd sat with his back straight, his hands clasped together, and his face a mask of concentration.
“Tell me what has happened, Harvey, and I shall help you.”
“The Count de Sainte Germaine has killed Victoria. We need to kill him.”
Lloyd’s face showed no emotion as he took in the information. He did not question anything. Instead he stood and led John upstairs to his study.
John had not seen this room before. It was a small, square room with an oak desk, chair and set of draws. There were maps on one wall, a map of the local county, a large map of Britain, a map of France and a map of the world. On another wall there huge a sword identical to John’s, a flintlock pistol, and a medieval broad sword.
Lloyd unlocked the top draw of the set of draws and produced two pistols. Both were revolvers with short, broad barrels and silencers attached. He tucked one in his belt and passed the other to John.
John looked at it as though he did not understand. Lloyd held the revolver closer and looked his friend squarely in the eye.
“I remember when a gentleman did not use missile weapons,” John said.
Lloyd remembered that too, but he also remembered the years in which he and John had use pistols, muskets, rifles and cannons against the French. However, the distant look in John’s eyes told him not to contest the point.
“Cannot consider myself much of a gentleman anymore,” Lloyd said as he tucked the second revolver into his belt against his back, then took a box of bullets and put them in his jacket pocket.
“Don’t think you ought to have both those blades,” Lloyd continued. “Their weight will slow you down and they stand out a mile away. I take it you also have a knife.”
John nodded and reluctantly put the sword bayonet down on the desk. Then he readjusted the sword.
“Better, old chap, we must be professional. Do you know where Germaine lives?”
John’s head throbbed. It was hard to think straight. He had known that Lloyd would offer action rather than comfort, but things were moving even faster that he had anticipated. He forced himself to concentrate. In Lloyd’s study he was in another world. A world of war where they were still soldiers. A world without Victoria.
“Don’t know,” John said, and pushed himself harder. “He must be somewhere close. He has been to my house twice, and he must have spied on me. He is almost certainly in this town.”
“Good. But where? Think, old chap.”
“He would be somewhere very expensive. The best he could find. Rented accommodation; as he has not been here long and he will not intend to stay. And old fashioned. He has never moved on, he would want an eighteenth century building.”
“Exactly… Queen’s Street?”
“Aye. One of the penthouse flats on Queen’s Street is very likely.”
“Off we go then.”
John thought that he saw Lloyd look wistfully at the swords on the wall as they left the study. After that he paused only to put on a trench coat and a bowler hat and to get a pair of leather gloves for both of them, and then they went out into the rain.


Molly finished drinking from Dave’s neck.
She sat back on his sofa, and he put his arm around her protectively. For a few moments they both stared blankly at the wall. Led Zeppelin played on Dave’s CD player.
It had been over a month since she had last visited him. She had been busy with Charlotte, and she knew that Charlotte did not approve of her ‘relationship’ with Dave. She far preferred Charlotte’s company to Dave’s, and sometimes worried that he was becoming too attached, but there was something about seeing the big man turn into a puppy which she found oddly comforting, and, in the end, she needed to drink.
“Do you really enjoy that?” Molly suddenly felt compelled to ask.
“Yes… I know it’s really fucked up, but I really like it.”
“Good.”
She kissed him on the neck, on the two healing punctures, and he smiled.
“Would you like a joint?” he asked.
“Okay, thanks, but don’t you have work in the morning?”
“It doesn’t matter.”


The town hall clock struck three, and Lloyd winched as he and John marched down the main street.
Bells had not bothered him quite so much in the last few days, but he knew the pain would never go away. He was just getting used to it.
They turned left, walked down a deserted road for a few minutes, then walked along the river. The rain was still heavy, and the night silent. They crossed an old, stone bridge then they were at Queen’s street.
There were three penthouse flats upstairs in the massive, majestic Georgian house, but only one had dim light showing through the curtains. They deduced that Germaine was in that penthouse- number five.
They strode to the entrance, up several polished stone steps to a porch made of Greek style pillars holding a stone roof. There was an intercom by the stout door, and Lloyd pressed the button for number five.
John began to worry. What if it was the wrong home? What if they could not find The Count?
“Yes?” a voice answered, and John thought that it might be the man in white.
Lloyd said something in French, and the intercom replied in the same language.
Then a buzzer rang and they were able to open the door. They entered a small hallway where two potted plants flanked a marble floor. Two doors led to the right and left, and a grand staircase ran up ahead of them.
Lloyd took a revolver from his belt and John took off his jacket and drew his sword. Then they climbed up the stairs.
At the first floor they found a long hall way which they followed cautiously until they reached room number five.
John knocked on the door, then he and Lloyd moved to either side of it.
Mathew opened the door and peered out.
Lloyd leaped out in front of him, slammed the revolver forward so that its barrel smashed through his teeth and into his mouth. Then he fired.
Mathew’s head exploded backwards, and he fell.
Lloyd and John quickly pushed the body inside and closed the door. They were in a lounge with three sofas, a piano, and coffee table with a harpsichord resting on it and an empty bookshelf. One door led to the left and another to the right.
Before they could explore either, The Count de Sainte Germaine burst into the room. Pistol in one hand, cane in the other, and a look of pure hatred on his scared face.
Before The Count could fire, John took a step forward and lunged at his hand, stabbing through flesh and bone. The pistol fell from his wounded hand. John stood ‘on guard’, keeping eye contact with Germaine. The Count staggered backwards, clutching his arm and snarling.
“All yours Harvey,” Lloyd said coolly.
John advanced on The Count, who stood his ground and raised his cane like a sword.
“I hate you terribly,” Germaine said.
John easily knocked the cane aside, then struck him across the face with his sword. Blood splattered the wall, and The Count fell to the floor.
John stood over him.
“You killed Victoria,” John said bitterly.
“You kissed my wife.”
“Fail to see the comparison,” John said as he held his sword over The Count’s chest.
“Do your worst,” Germaine snarled defiantly. “I will be back for you.”
“Give him something to remember you by,” Lloyd told John.
It was an unpleasant prospect, but John realised that he was right.
Aware that he could not raise too much attention, John knew that he had to silence his enemy. He took out his knife, put down his sword and leaned over The Count’s body; he forced open The Count’s mouth and quickly cut out Germaine’s tongue. Then he swapped knife for sword and stabbed his sword into Germaine’s belly, then cut into both of his eyes as the Count gargled on his own blood.
Lloyd sat back on a sofa, grinned with grim satisfaction and lit a cigar.
“I do believe that he was always rather keen on his instruments,” Lloyd suggested.
John took the harpsichord and smashed it over Germaine’s face.
“Smoke?” John asked Lloyd.
“Certainly Harvey.”
John joined Lloyd on the sofa, took a cigar, and smoked a few drags from it as he watched Germaine writhe on the floor.
“Just like the old days, eh?” Lloyd said.
Something about that statement jarred in John’s mind. It was too true. He had hoped those days were over, so he took up his sword again and stood over Germaine.
“Death is God’s way of telling us that we have to change,” he said, just before he cut The Count’s throat, then stabbed his heart for good measure.
“Good show,” said Lloyd. “Best we were off.”
Before they could leave a girl in a white dress, with dark hair and even darker eyes ran into the room. She fell to her knees before the body.
“You killed him…” she whispered as tears welled in her eyes.
“He killed Victoria,” John said, somewhat overwhelmed by events.
“You loved her?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then that was fair… but what am I to do now.”
Lloyd stepped in. He believed in destiny.
“Come with me, lady,” he told her,” everything will be fine.”

Dave looked out of his window and watched Molly walk down his road. When she had left his street and was out of view, he closed the curtains.
He hoped that he would see her again, and knew that he would miss her.
In a few hours he would have to go to work. It didn’t matter to him. At that time he was so stoned that almost nothing mattered very much to him.
He went through to his bedroom, laid down, and instantly fell to sleep.


Lloyd and the girl with the dark eyes sat together on a sofa in John’s lounge. She sipped a glass of brandy, whilst he smoked a cigar. John sat opposite them, also sipping a brandy.
The girl had collected a bag of possessions from Germaine’s home, then they had left, locking the door behind them and posting the key back though the letter box. There had been no sign that the other inhabitants of the penthouses had been disturbed by the incident. Lloyd had given her his coat and hat, then they had walked back to John’s house, which had been closer than Lloyd’s. John had cleaned his sword and gloves, and then poured the drinks.
John was dazed by the entire situation. Firstly, he had recently lost a lady whom he was very much in love with. Secondly, he had just brutally killed a man for the first time in a very long time. Thirdly, and strangely almost the most disturbingly, was the situation with the girl. Her reaction to the death of The Count, after her original shock, had been flippant. She had prepared herself to leave the penthouse with a distant calm, and now sat with his killers although they were friends.
“May I ask your name?” Lloyd asked her, as though they had met at a party.
“Anne,” she replied in a gentle voice with a trace of a French accent.
“And may I ask your relation to The Count.”
“I was his mistress.”
“May I enquire as to what you mean by that? The word has lost much of its original meaning and become somewhat ambiguous.”
“I was his lover once,” Anne said with a slight blush. “In the end, I think I was his slave, but he was not overly unkind to me…”
John watched the conversation in a daze. It was so surreal, and he had become so detached, that it was like watching a play.
He had soon noticed the scars on the girl’s arms, and assumed that her relationship with Germaine had been similar to Dave’s with Molly, but now he was beginning to suspect that it was far more complicated. He was unsure if the girl was a vampyre or not, and could think of no civilised way to ask.
He sipped more brandy, and began to feel very weary.
“I do believe that I understand,” Lloyd said sagely. “I take it, then, that you do not partially object to our interference in matters.”
The girl looked thoughtful for a moment, her eyes drifted to the ceiling, and her slender hands toyed with her unruly hair.
“I know what he did to your friend,” she said to Lloyd, and it seemed as though she had forgotten that John was in the room. “You had to do what you did. I cannot hold it against you… I was becoming tired of Germaine. He was so charming once, so exciting… but I think that he was mad…”
“Thoroughly mad,” Lloyd agreed helpfully.
“But I do not know what I am to do now… I know no one else, and I must admit that I had become quite dependant on him.”
“Do not worry,” Lloyd said casually. “You may stay with me until we can arrange matters for you.”
“That would be very kind.”
“We had best be off,” Lloyd stubbed out the last of his cigar. “It is getting rather late.”
John stood and led them to his door like a sleepwalker.
“Thank you, Lloyd,” he managed to say.
“Think nothing of it, Harvey.”
“Take care,” the girl said as she left, as though she had suddenly remembered him.
John sat down heavily in his chair, finished his brandy. He wanted to sleep, but he knew there was one more thing that he had to do.
He phoned Charlotte.
“Hello, Professor Charlotte speaking,” she answered.
“Hello, its John.
“Evening John, how are you?”
“Not so good, Charlotte. Victoria is dead.”
“Shit. What happened?”
“Germaine killed her.”
Charlotte had been a good friend of Victoria’s, but many life times of death and war had hardened her, she had to concentrate on the facts, tears could come later.
“Are you and Molly okay? I could set off to join you now,” she suggested.“We are fine, thank you. Germaine has been dealt with in a finite manner.”
“Understood.”
“Are you okay?”
“No, but I will be.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not yet…. How about you?”
“It is hard,” he said plainly.”
“Okay, I’ll contact her family, and let you know about the funeral. Take care John.”
“You take care too. Goodbye.”
“See you.”
He poured another glass of brandy, but before he could finish it, he fell asleep in his chair.


Lloyd lay down to sleep on his sofa. The girl was asleep in his bed. He was glad to be back in Britain.


“He came in the middle of the night,” the farmer’s daughter said. “He beat up my pa until he was unconscious, then he bit me. I thought he was going to kill me, I think he wanted to kill me at first, but he did not. Pa fought so bravely, but the man had a knife. Then he locked us in the basement. When we escaped in the morning, he was gone, but he had taken our money and a few of pa’s clothes. We did not understand at all…”
The farmer’s daughter began to cry. She was tall, with blonde hair and dark eyes, and one of many people whom James Hunter had seen in similar or worse situations.
He had followed a trail of bodies to Calais, then the trail had ended. He had considered setting off blindly to England, for that was surely where the monster had gone, but he waited. There had been so many ways in which he could have left Calais, and he could not be entirely sure that he had left France. Then, after a few days he had heard about the stolen boat and the missing Frenchman, so he had travelled at once to Dover.
Once there the trail had gone cold. The stolen boat had not docked in Dover, no one had seen anything suspicious, and there were no murders or unusual attacks in the newspapers.
But Hunter was not the type to give up easily.
After a few days he heard of an abandoned boat which had been washed up a few miles north of Dover. A quick investigation showed that it was the one which had been stolen in France.
He set off to the site of the boat and began investigations. After a couple of days he had read in a local newspaper about an unusual attack on a farmhouse in the next town.
That was there he had met the girl. Her father was still in hospital, and her mother would not talk of the incident.
“It is okay,” he tried to reassure her. “He will not come back.”
“I hope that he never comes back, ever…” she tried to wipe the tears from her eyes.
“Did he give his name?”
“No?”
“Do you remember what he looked like?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? I need your help to stop him.”
“It was dark, and I was scared… He was quite tall, as tall as you, and he had long hair… I don’t remember anything else.”
“Thank you, did he have an accent? French?”
“No. Not French. English, posh. That’s all I know…”
“Thank you. Would you like to pray with me?”
“No.”
“Then I must be on my way. Thank you again, God bless you.”