Vampire Seeker (19 page)

“Jack the Ripper,” he said, sitting forward in his chair and rubbing his hands together.

“So if you really are hunting the Ripper,” I asked him, “what’s the deal with the train and the whole,
‘I’m a rich gent who wants to do a bit of gold mining’ thing?”

“We needed a cover story,” Drake started to explain. “We needed to get into the mountains - and fast, before
the trail went cold.” Then, with a solemn look on his face, he added, “Like you, Miss Carter, my companion and
I believe the Ripper to be a vampire.”

“I never said I believed Jack the Ripper to be a vampire,” I shot back.

“You say you don’t,” he said snuggly, “but in your heart, you do believe him to be so. You said as
much last night at dinner.”

“I did not,” I said.

“I asked you directly last night, before leaving the dining car, if you believed Jack the Ripper was a vampire and you
said…” and taking a notebook from his pocket, he flipped it open and read from it. “And you said, Miss Carter,
‘I don’t know what to believe anymore.’”

“Jesus, this really is like a police interview,” I whispered.

“That’s because we are the police,” he smiled, placing the notebook back into his pocket. “Admit it,
you know the Ripper is a vampire. You said yourself you were hunting him. You chased him down onto that train as he fled the
murder of his last victim, Mary Jane Kelly. He strangled you, rendered you defenceless, and somehow brought you here.”

“But…” I started, wanting to tell him that I wasn’t chasing Jack the Ripper who preyed on the women of
Whitechapel in 1888, but I was trying to prove the existence of a vampire in 2012.

“But what?” Drake cut over me. “You woke up just outside the town of Black Water Gap and who was waiting
for you? The preacher. Who is this man that claims to be holy? I’ve never known such a man. He claims to hunt vampires
– he
is
a vampire!”

“I just saw him kill about twenty tonight,” I said, trying to defend the preacher.

“A mere smokescreen,” Drake snapped. “To throw us off his scent. Look at the facts, Miss Carter. You said
yourself that there had just recently been a Ripper-style murder in the town of Crows Ranch, which I hasten to add that you
have to pass through to get to Black Water Gap…”

“Stop,” I said almost falling from my seat. “There was a murder in Black Water Gap, too.”

“How do you know this?” the doctor asked, coming around from behind Drake’s chair and standing beside it.

“A man from the town of Silent Rest told us,” I whispered, a terrible sinking feeling in my heart. Then looking
at both of them, I added, “There was another murder there, too.”

“When?” Drake said, leaping from his seat and rubbing his hands together.

“Just after the train arrived in town today,” I answered, a part of me hating every word that I said as it pointed
the finger of blame at the preacher.

“And the victim?” the doctor asked me.

“Female,” I breathed. “She had her throat slit and intestines removed, just like the others.”

“Just like the victims back home in London,” Drake said, looking at me and the doctor. Then rushing across the
carriage towards me, an excitable glint in his eyes, he said, “You said that the preacher disappeared that night back
in Black Water Gap?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Would that have been the very same night the woman would have been murdered?”

“Yes,” I nodded again, trying to comprehend what I was learning. “But what about the others, Harry, Zoe,
and Louise?”

“Accomplices!” Drake said, as if he had finally put the last pieces of the jigsaw together.

Then, feeling the blood draining from my face, I remembered watching Louise as she washed blood from her hands in the drinking
trough outside the saloon.

“What’s wrong, child?” the doctor asked, taking up my wrist and searching for a pulse with his fingers.
“You look as if you’re going to faint.”

“Pour her some whiskey,” Drake barked.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No more whiskey.”

“What is wrong then?” the doctor asked me again. “You look as if you have just seen a ghost.”

“I saw blood on her hands,” I breathed, looking at Drake and the doctor.

“Whose hands?” Drake asked, leaning over me.

“Louise’s hands,” I told him. “The night they disappeared, I saw her on her return, wash blood from
her hands.”

“Accomplices,” Drake said again, as if hammering home the point and trying to prove he had been right all along.
“She cleans up after him, washes away the evidence.”

“And the others?” I asked, hoping that perhaps there was a hole in his theory. Because if there wasn’t,
I had been wronged; tricked and deceived by the people I had become to think of as my friends.

“Don’t you see what is plainly looking you straight in the face, Miss Carter?” Drake asked. “All of
them are vampires.”

I thought of how I’d seen Harry race along the riverbank at an incredible speed, how he had slaughtered that bear with
his hands – or had they been claws? I shuddered inwardly as I remembered how his hands and voice had seemed different
while making love – sorry –
having
sex
with me.

“But the holy water, the mirrors?” I said, my mind scrambling to find gaps in his belief that all of them were
vampires.

“Myths and legends,” Drake snapped. “Stories which have been created over the centuries. Where is the proof
that vampires are doomed by mere trinkets and water?”

As I tried to think of another reason why my friends couldn’t possibly be vampires, my heart sank again as I remembered
what the vampire had said to me on the Tube train as I’d splashed him with holy water.

Holy water doesn’t work, nor does the garlic I can smell in your pocket, or the crucifix which glistens between your
breasts
, he had whispered in my ear.

Feeling sick, I looked at Drake and said, “So if what you say is true about the preacher and the others, what are you
going to do?”

“I’ll tell you what
we
are going to do,” Drake said. “
We’re
going to pretend that we know nothing of what or who they really are.”

“But they must be stopped,” I said, getting up from my seat.

“And they will be!” Drake exclaimed. “I already have wheels in motion to stop this vicious gang in their
very tracks. But if we reveal our hand too soon – they will slaughter us in our beds. Make no mistake about that, Miss
Carter.”

“What do you have planned?” I asked him.

“We’re heading for The Hanging Mine,” Drake explained, lighting himself another smoke. “We should
arrive there tomorrow at nightfall. We will be met there by the full force of the law.”

“How will they know to meet us there?” I asked.

“They were dispatched the very moment we left Black Water Gap,” he smiled knowingly.

“Those men in the bowler hats were police officers,” I said.

“Exactly,” and his eyes twinkled again.

“And should we need a real holy man to bless some water, the preacher from the town of Silent Rest is already en route.
He travels with the town’s marshal for protection.”

Remembering what I had learnt from the town of Silent Rest, I said, “It was the marshal’s wife who was slain by
the…” I couldn’t finish.

“The preacher?” Drake asked cocking an eyebrow at me.

I nodded.

“Oh dear,” he said. “This just gets worse and worse.”

“I think the marshal will welcome the opportunity of coming face to face with the preacher – the man who we will
discover has killed his wife,” the doctor said.

I stood silently for a moment, my mind racing as I tried to comprehend everything I had learnt.

“Do you think you will be unable to continue with your pretence until we reach the mine tomorrow night, Miss Carter?”
Drake asked, watching me.

“What pretence?”

“That you are friends with these…vampires,” he said.

“Do I have a choice?” I asked, eyeing him.

“Of course you do,” Drake smiled grimly. “One will lead to snaring a vicious killer, and the other, your
own death.”

Without saying another word, I crossed the carriage, heading for the door. I just wanted to lock myself away in my room until
this trip was over. A part of me now prayed that my friends didn’t come back. One, because they were walking into a
trap that I was helping to lay, and the other…they were killers. I pulled open the carriage door and Drake spoke from behind
me.

“Remember, Miss Carter, not a word. All of our lives depend upon it,” he said.

I turned my back on him and left the carriage.

I don’t know how long I’d been talking to Drake and the doctor for, but as I passed down the narrow connecting
passageways, the first rays of the morning winter sun shone in through the windows. As I made my way back to my carriage with
my head spinning, I tried desperately to understand everything that Drake had told me. He seemed to have everything figured
out. He had an answer for everything. But I had one question, which I knew he wouldn’t be able to answer.

What was I doing back in 1888, chasing down Jack the Ripper?
I wondered.

I reached my carriage feeling physically and emotionally exhausted. I was tired, but I doubted I would sleep. I had too much
going around and around in my mind. My room was dark, the curtains pulled across the windows. Then, the door slammed shut
behind me, and someone wrapped their arm about my throat.

I gasped, and a hand fell across my mouth.

“Shhh,” the person whispered in my ear.

Someone lit a match, and the light from it glowed weakly. The match was held to one of the oil lamps, and the flame was turned
down, just casting enough light so I could barely make out the silhouette of two people seated in the armchairs. Their outlines
were big enough to tell me that both were men. Whoever it was who had lit the lamp passed across the room like a shadow and
sat on the sofa. This shadowy figure was smaller in size.

The hand loosened from my mouth, as did the arm around my throat. I gripped the arm of whoever held me and I spun around to
face them. I found myself looking into Louise’s dark eyes. Holding her arm, I looked down at the bandage which still
covered her wrist and yanked it free. Even in the pale light thrown by the lamp I could see that there wasn’t any cut
or injury like she had said there to be.

“Drake was right,” I gasped.

“He was right about what?” the preacher’s voice whispered from out of the darkness.

I spun around, and as my eyes gradually grew accustomed to the gloom, I could just make out that it was the preacher who sat
in one of the armchairs. Fearing that I had said way too much already, I stood silently before him. I looked at the other
black outlines and knew that they belonged to Harry and Zoe.

I heard the key twist in the lock behind me as Louise pushed me away from the door. I looked back and could see her standing
with her back against it, barring my escape. Knowing that I had to keep Drake’s secret, I ignored the preacher’s
question and asked one of my own.

“So where did you guys rush off to?”

“What did Drake say?” and this time it was Harry who asked the question, his voice floating out of the darkness
as quiet as a whisper.

Instinctively I reached for my guns, but Louise was quicker than me, and had snatched them from their holsters.

“Sammy, you won’t need your guns,” the preacher said, and I wished that I could see him. “We’re
not going to hurt you.”

“Turn the lamp up so I can see you,” I breathed.

“You don’t need to see us,” the preacher sighed.

“Yes, I do,” I said right back.

“Why?” he asked, his voice curious.

Then swallowing hard and guessing the preacher knew I had them all figured out, I said, “Drake says that you are a vampire.
He says you all are.”

“Does he now?” the preacher chuckled, and it sounded deep and rasping. “And what do you think, Sammy? What
is it that you
believe
?”

“I don’t know what to believe,” I whispered.

“Where is your faith?” the preacher asked me softly.

“I don’t think I have any,” I replied honestly.

“Are you like the disciple Thomas?” he asked, as the others sat silently in the dark. “Do you need to see
that we are not vampires before you really believe us?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Very well.”

Zoe’s shadowy form reached out and picked up the lamp and passed it to the preacher. Slowly, he raised it before him
and I threw my hands to my face in shock. His eyes were yellow and piercing with blood-red pupils. Although he still looked
like his former self, thick white eyebrows curled up in points at his temples. His white moustache spread over his cheeks,
giving him the appearance of having a straggly-looking beard. Hair hung from his chin in silver wispy lengths. The preacher’s
ears seemed longer somehow – pointed. But it was his skin; it looked dry and flaky, like scales which were reforming,
growing together again. He had angry-looking boils on his forehead and cheeks. Wisps of hair jutted out of some of these,
but others just wept black goo. His lips were swollen and covered in white blisters. He smiled at me, and his lips cracked
open, showing raw flesh underneath. I could see the preacher had two long pointed teeth at each corner of his mouth. If he
was a vampire, he looked nothing like the creatures that had attacked us the night before.

“What kind of creature are you?” I breathed, in shock.

“We have been called many things,” the preacher said handing the light back to Zoe and disappearing into the dark
again so I could no longer look upon his face. “Vargulfs, Wargs, Therianthrope, but my favourite is Turnskins,”
he said.

“What do those words mean?” I asked.

“They have lots of meanings, Sammy,” he explained gently. “Vargulf means rogue, outlaw, or wolf. Wargs,
the wearer of wolf skin. Therianthrope, means beast man…”

“And Turnskins?” I gasped, my heart now thumping as I realised what it was he was trying to tell me. “What
is a Turnskin?”