Vampire Seeker (23 page)

“No,” I spat. “Vampires don’t offer eternal life. The preacher told me that.”

“But where is the preacher now?” he smiled, closing the gap between us.

“I’m right here, Drake,” I heard the preacher suddenly say.

Drake and I both turned around, and with my heart thumping in my chest, I could have screamed with joy, as the lids to the
large wooden trunks, which had been taken from the train, flew open. The preacher and my friends leapt from them, guns in
hand.

Drake tried to hide his surprise by clapping his hands together and smiling.

“Bravo! Bravo!” Drake said. “You have done well.” He stooped down and picked up his cane, which he
had dropped when seizing my guns.

“Those who seek shall find,” the preacher said, his guns aimed straight at Drake’s head. I glanced at the
others. Harry had that mean look on his face as he trained his guns on the doctor. Louise looked at me and gave me a sly wink
and Zoe had that same angry frown I had seen on her face in Silent Rest.

Oh, my God – I knew what was coming and it was going to be bad. My eyes scanned the ground and I saw my pistols lying
in the dust about ten feet away. It was dark now and the sky was full of slow moving clouds. But even so, I could see my friends’
clothes all appeared to be covered in a fine grey dust.

“You may as well lay down you guns, Preacher Man,” Drake smiled with a newfound confidence, as if he knew something
the rest of us didn’t.

“How do you figure that?” the preacher asked, and although I couldn’t see his mouth under the big droopy
moustache, I knew that he wasn’t smiling. I inched sideways towards my guns. Marcus was watching his brother.

“We are standing at the mouth of The Hanging Mines,” Drake said, “Just one of thousands of Vrykolakas nests.”
Looking up at the night sky, he added, “In just a few moments they will rise, and you will be vastly outnumbered. Let
my brother and me end it for you now. We promise to make it quick – as painless as possible.”

“From what I heard you say from the trunk, and how they came after us at Silent Rest,” the preacher said, his
eyes an icy blue, “The Vrykolakas aren’t going to welcome you, either.”

“Oh, but they will,” Drake smiled. “I come with an offer of a new existence for them – a new life.
A life where they don’t have to live in caves during the day like vermin, creeping out at night just to feed. I can
give them so much more than that.”

“It doesn’t sound like your King is interested,” the preacher said, his guns not wavering an inch.

“Have you not wondered how I’ve been able to reflect in mirrors?” Then glancing at me he added, “How
I passed your little test with the holy water? How I have managed to create a life for me and my brother, living amongst the
humans in London?”

I shook my head and slowly inched towards my guns.

“Science,” Drake smiled back at the others, who still stood before the empty trunks. They hadn’t moved an
inch since making their sudden appearance – they looked like statues. “You think my brother is a savage –
a killer. And yes, I do admit that he can get carried away a little at times. But he has one of the greatest scientific minds
of our age. Thanks to my brother’s tireless energies and research…”

“And ripping the guts out of innocent women, is that what you would call medical research?” Harry cut in.

Drake ignored him and continued, “…through tireless research, my brother has created a salve which, when rubbed into
the flesh, will give us the ability to reflect, be immune to blessed water and other trinkets that humans might use to repel
us.”

“What is he talking about?” Zoe asked Louise from the corner of her mouth.

Without taking her eyes off her target, Marcus, Louise shrugged.

“What I think Drake is trying to tell us,” I said, “is that he and his little brother have created some
kind of vampire sunblock. Where I come from, L’Oreal would snap him and his brother up in a blink of an eye.”

“Sunblock?” Zoe asked Louise again from the corner of her mouth.

Again Louise shrugged.

“What a great name!” Drake smiled at me, and clapped his hands. “Sunblock! You really should be one of us,
Sammy.”

“No thanks,” I smiled back, and inched further towards my guns in the dirt.

Drake’s face took on a sad kind of look as he said, “l like the name, but salve’s ability to block out the
sun has limited effects. As you have seen, I have been unable to masquerade in the light. When I met you at the saloon, I
had to keep to the shadows, and also when I disembarked from the train at dusk today. The effects wear off rather too quickly
and we blister and peel, our skin weeps, and…”

“Look, we know how all of that feels,” the preacher said impatiently. “You’re preaching to the converted.”

“So what’s the missing ingredient?” I quizzed him.

Looking at me, Drake smiled and said, “Gold. And these mines are rich with it.”

Stepping out from his brother’s shadow, Marcus said, “England is rich in many of the minerals I’ve needed,
but there really is no gold. I’ve experimented by melting down rings, necklaces, and bracelets. But like my brother
has explained – it is not enough. We need so much more, and the mines in these mountains will provide us with that.”

“So you see,” Drake smiled, “when the Vrykolakas rise in just mere moments and I show them the salve and
how it will let them live as human equals and not vermin, they will welcome us, whatever The Soulless Liege says. I will be
their new king. I will be more than that, I will be their saviour.”

“I can only think of one true saviour,” the preacher said, “and look what the people he came to save did
to him.”

“Enough of the Sunday School teachings,” Drake sneered. “You’re no holy man. You’re just like
us. Creatures of the night, of the shadows, cast out and hunted down like animals by humans. But tonight that stops and a
new era is born. Unlike your saviour, I do not turn the other cheek, I don’t pity the weak, I show no mercy, and I never
ever show forgiveness.” Then in a blinding flash, he pulled a long, razor-thin, silver sword hidden within his walking
stick and sliced his brother’s head from his shoulders.

With my hands clasped to my mouth in shock, I watched Marcus’s head fly through the air, his eyes wide open, and mouth
opening and closing as if trying to say something. The head bounced into the dirt, rolling over and over, its long black hair
gathering dust, making it look white. Marcus’s head came to rest on one cheek, and his dead eyes stared at me, a permanent
look of shock forever on his face.

The preacher and the others looked unmoved by what they had just seen, all of their guns now trained on Drake.

“You just killed your own brother,” I gasped, not out of pity for Marcus, but because I knew –
I hoped
– that if I had come back to 1888 to prevent the killings taking place in 2012, Drake had just unwittingly stopped
them for me. But if that was so – if my mission was accomplished – shouldn’t I be waking up at any moment,
back on that tube train?

Why am I still here?
I wondered. “Why?” I shouted out aloud.

“Why?” Drake said. “Marcus was drawing unwanted attention to me. He has the entire Metropolitan Police Force
hunting a killer – him – and it would have only been a matter of time before they snared him, and that would have
led them to me. I’m not going to be caught because my little brother couldn’t resist the urge to murder filthy
whores.”

“They were women,” I breathed, hoping that I was going to wake up in 2012 at any moment.

“Like I’ve already said, I don’t do forgiveness,” he smiled with a shrug. “That was my father’s
mistake. He should have murdered my brother at birth.”

“Why?” I asked him.

“He killed my mother, clawing his way out of her womb,” Drake sighed. “All very nasty.”

“But if it hadn’t of been for your brother, you wouldn’t have this…” Zoe started, then looking at
me, she added, “what did you say it was called?”

“Sunblock,” I said back, still hoping that I was going to be snatched back to 2012 at any moment.

“Yeah, that,” Zoe said.

“I agree, Marcus had his uses,” Drake mused, walking towards his brother’s head and prodding at it with
the toe of his boot. “He would have done anything for me. But I know the formula now and what I need to add.”

“So where is this stuff?” Harry grunted.

“You’ve just been lying in it,” Drake grinned back at him. “I wonder if it has the same effect on
blocking out moonlight.” Drake clapped his hands together again and laughed.

“You mean that grey flaky powder which was in these four trunks is the
magic
powder you were bringing up here to the mountains?” Harry asked.

“That’s right,” Drake nodded.

“Oh, shit,” Harry said, trying to hide a smile. “I’m really sorry because if I’d have known
how important the stuff was to you, I would’ve never emptied it all out of the train door about forty miles back.”

“What are you talking about?” Drake said, the smile fading from his lips.

“Don’t panic just yet, Drake,” Harry said looking over at the preacher. “Did you empty your trunk
, too?”

“Sure did,” the preacher said, not taking his eyes from Drake. “The stuff stank.”

Then turning to look at Louise and Zoe, Harry said, “What about you two? You didn’t throw it all away, did you?”

“Yep,” they said as one.

“Oh, boy, I’m really sorry about this. It’s really kind of embarrassing because it looks like we chucked
all that stuff out,” Harry said with a mocking look of concern on his face. “Was it, like, really expensive to
make, because you know, I’m sure we could all have a collection or summin’ so you could go and buy some more,
I think I’ve got a few dollars tucked away somewhere.”

“Looks like you killed your brother too soon,” the preacher said, his guns never moving from Drake.

“You knew what that stuff was,” Drake seethed, his eyes narrowing into angry slits.

“Maybe we did, and maybe we didn’t,” the preacher shrugged. “It’s all gone now. So what’cha
gonna do, Drake?”

Before Drake had a chance to reply, the officers, who had earlier gone in search of my friends, came running back along the
track towards us, guns at the ready.

“
Fire!
” Drake roared at them.

The whole mountainside began to shake and rumble. But it wasn’t the sound of gunfire I could hear. It was something
moving at speed, deep within the mine behind us.

Everything seemed to happen at once. Drake turned to look back at the mouth of the mine. As the sound of gunfire boomed all
around me, I seized my chance by leaping the last few feet to my guns and snatching them up off the ground. Spinning around,
I began to fire at the approaching officers as they headed up the tracks. Harry was racing towards them, his arms out front,
revolvers smoking in his fists. Bullets whizzed and zinged all around me, columns of dust flying up in the air as wayward
bullets thudded into the ground at my feet.

Louise dived behind one of the trunks, and with her head low, she raised her arms above the lid and emptied her guns on the
approaching lawmen. Two of them flew back into the air, their feet lifting clean off the ground as Louise’s bullets
thudded into them. I looked back to see Zoe race at an amazing speed towards her horse, which was still tethered to the tree.
Running at it from behind, I watched Zoe leap into the air and mount the horse. With one clean swipe of what looked like a
claw, she cut the tether in two, turned her horse, and galloped towards the officers who were now at the rear of the train.
Bent forward in her saddle, her head resting against the horse’s neck, Zoe fired her guns at the officers who shot back
at her from behind the train. Harry raced towards them, faster and faster. Nearing the last carriage where the officers crouched,
he leapt into the air and scrambled onto the roof. As I watched him, I could see that his hands now looked more like claws.
As he bounded across the roof of the observation carriage, he fired into the glass, dropping out of sight. Within moments
I heard the sound of screaming and saw sheets of blood, limbs, and entrails flying into the sky from behind the carriage.
The officers’ screams were then drowned out by the sound of howling.

Some of the officers cut free and ran blindly out from behind the train. From her horse, Zoe picked them off as her guns thundered
in her fists. Two others ran in frantic circles, firing their guns at everything and nothing. Popping up from behind the trunk,
Louise fired, and the last remaining men flew backwards, their faces spraying the side of the train in a mosaic of red.

Where was the preacher
? I wondered. I hadn’t seen him since the gunfight had started. I turned to see him stacking the sticks of dynamite,
which I had earlier noticed, against the wall outside the mouth of the mine.

Looking back at me, the preacher roared, “Do you have the match I left for you?”

“Right here!” I yelled, taking it from my shirt pocket.

I knelt down by the preacher and helped him stack the sticks in bundles at the opening of the mine. “I have one cigarette
left if you want to share it,” I half-smiled at the preacher.

“Later,” he smiled back from beneath his moustache.

We were then joined by the others as each of them started to frantically stack the sticks of dynamite. I glanced at Harry’s
hands as he worked, and I could see that they looked like hands again, but he had blood on them.

From deep within the mine, I heard the sound of screeching. It sounded terrifying, like a thousand demons were clawing their
way out of the earth. “Where did Drake disappear to?” I asked as I worked.

“He went into the mine,” the preacher said. “So if we go and blow the goddamn thing up, we take him and
the vampires together and…”

But before he had finished, a deep growling sound came from the back of his throat. At first I wondered if it was the echo
of the vampires deep within the mine that I could hear. The sound came again, and this time it was from behind me. I wheeled
around to see Harry and Zoe collapse to the ground. Just like they had the night before on the roof of the train, they looked
as if they were throwing a fit.