Vampire Seeker (11 page)

“So what does that mean, exactly?” I asked Louise around a mouthful of the pink stuff.

“What’s that?” she asked me, taking a sip of coffee.

“You said that I was one of you now,” I reminded her.

“You get to tag along,” she smiled.

“To where?”

“Up into the mountains,” she said right back.

“And what if I don’t want to tag along with you and the preacher?” I said, cutting one of the fried eggs
in half.

“Got a better offer?” she asked.

I chewed the egg and looked at her. She was real pretty and I wondered why she
tagged
along.

“So where did you all go off to last night?” I asked her. “If I’m tagging along, how come you didn’t
take me with you?”

“The preacher had some business he had to settle before we leave for the mountains tonight,” she explained. “That’s
all.”

“What sort of business?” I pushed gently, not wanting to sound as if I were interrogating her in any way.

“Just business,” she smiled and took in another mouthful of coffee.

Knowing that she was politely telling me to mind my own business, I asked, “They’re back now, right?”

She nodded.

“Are they joining us for breakfast?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as I could.

“No, we won’t be seeing them until tonight,” she said.

“How come?” I asked, sensing that I was pushing my luck now, but needing to know.

“They had a long night and they didn’t arrive back until just before dawn, so they are going to rest today,”
she smiled, her eyes twinkling. “If I were you, I’d do the same. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

I didn’t know if I’d get away with asking her any more questions about what the preacher and the others had gotten
up to overnight, so I tried to change the subject.

“Are you and the preacher together?” I asked her outright.

“Together?” she cocked an eyebrow at me.

Now that I had started down this line of conversation, I knew I couldn’t go in reverse.

“It’s just…the other night I heard you and the…” I flushed.

“I’m sorry about that,” and Louise’s cheeks turned as pink as mine. We both laughed and I felt as
if the last few minutes of mutual distrust had melted away. “It’s just that the preacher can be…how can I put
it? A bit wild at times. A real animal.”

Remembering the noises that I’d heard coming from the wagon, I smiled and said, “I didn’t know preachers
were allowed to…you know…”

“Fuck?” she cut in, her eyes twinkling.

“Well, yeah,” I whispered, looking back over my shoulder to see if anyone had overheard her.

“This one does,” she smiled wistfully.

“Is he…” I started.

“He’s the best,” she said, before I’d the chance to finish.

With my cheeks burning and my breakfast forgotten, I said, “What I was going to ask was, is he like, a real preacher?”

“He was,” Louise said. “Once – but that was a long time ago.”

“What happened?” I asked her.

“He lost his faith,” Louise said, and her voice sounded kind of sad about that.

“How come?”

“That’s his story to tell, not mine,” she said, looking at me. And again she looked sad – no, haunted.

Picking up my mug again, I said, “Do you love him?”

Then, fixing me with her pretty eyes, she said, “You don’t fall in love with men like the preacher.”

“Why not?” I asked her.

“Because they will just introduce you to a world of pain,” she said wistfully.

“And what about Harry?” I said.

Then, as if studying me for a moment, she whispered, “Do yourself a favour, Sammy, keep away from Harry Turner.”

“Why?” I asked, my interest now suddenly alive.

“Harry is dangerous,” Louise said, pushing her chair back from the table and standing up as if to leave.

I looked up at her and said, “How dangerous?”

“There is only one person who could really know how to explain how dangerous Turner is – but Marley Cooper isn’t
here anymore.” Then she was gone, heading back across the saloon.

I swivelled around in my seat, and as she reached the bottom of the stairs leading up to the balcony, I called out, “Who
was Marley Cooper?”

Ignoring my question, Louise paused, looked back at me and said, “We leave at dusk. Be ready.” Then she was heading
up the stairs, and I watched her disappear into the preacher’s room and close the door.

I sat at the table and looked down at the half-eaten eggs and pink mush. Apart from being trapped in 1888, things weren’t
right. Everything was wrong. But what did I do? Did I go along with Louise and the others on this trip up into the mountains
where vampires were believed to nest, or did I go…go where? I knew no one in 1888, apart from this ragtag group of misfits
I had accidently fallen in with. But had it been an accident? There had to be a reason, right? Did the preacher and his gang
hold the answers to my questions? Did they hold the key that would get me home?

I tried to sleep – but I really couldn’t. I lay on the bed in my room and shifted from my side, onto my back,
front, then onto my side again. It was like one of those nights when thoughts get stuck in the middle of your mind that you
just can’t shake free. I didn’t just have one thought, I had many going around and around inside my head, and
each just led to another thought, then another question, to the point where I actually started to wonder if I hadn’t
gone mad.

I closed my eyes, squeezed them shut so tight that tears streamed down my cheeks. With my eyes closed, I tried to picture
myself lying back in my bedroom in 2012. I tried to conjure the smells of fresh clean linen, the sounds of cars passing outside,
Sally and her latest fling getting it on in the room next door. I hoped that if I really pictured it, got an essence of home
in my mind’s eye, then I would wake up back in my room and this would have all been a dream.

Slowly I would open my eyes, my long lashes like a spidery haze before me, and take a look around – but each time, I
found myself back in that room above the saloon. The oil lamps attached to the walls, the sounds of horses trotting past outside,
and the honkytonk music seeping up from below.

Maybe the answer to me getting home lay in the man who had me gripped from behind on the train – after all, it was him
who I had last been with before waking up here. So closing my eyes again, I tried to imagine the choking – suffocating
– sensation of his arm tight about my throat. I pretended I could smell his musty coat and feel the coldness of his
breath against my cheek. Then, with my eyes screwed tight, I tried to remember the sound of his voice and what he had said
to me before that bright white light had flooded the train.

Why are you following me?
He had breathed in my ear.

I could hear his voice in my head as if he were lying behind me.

I know what you are
, I whispered inside my head.

And what is that?
He whispered back.

“You’re a vampire,” I said, but this time not inside my head, but out loud. I imagined his arm tightening
about my throat and I squeezed my eyes shut tighter still.

In my mind I struggled against him, trying to twist my neck to the right so I could see his face. Then I felt him –
as if I was back on that train – running one long, bony finger down the length of my cheek.

Oh, Sammy, you don’t remember
, he said softly inside my head.

“How do you know my name?” I asked aloud, taking the holy water from my coat pocket just like I had before.

How quickly you have forgotten
, he teased, and I remembered his breath, stale and old.

I pictured the carriage lights flickering out, and I threw the holy water over my shoulder. I heard him chuckle softly, and
the lights came back on inside my head.

Sammy, you really have forgotten, haven’t you?
he said, and it seemed so real, that he could have been behind me.

Holy water doesn’t work, nor does the garlic I can smell in your pocket, or the crucifix which glistens between your
breasts
, he teased, and I touched the cross which hung around my neck.

“What have I forgotten?” I cried, his grip feeling so real that it was almost suffocating.

“That we’ve got a train to catch,” he said.

But something was wrong, that’s not what he said back on that train. Then I felt him grip my arm and shake me.

“That’s not what you said,” I shouted, my eyes still closed tight shut.

Maybe this was it? I had done it – I was back on the underground train in London 2012. That’s why what he was
saying to me had changed. I was beginning to wake – the whole 1888 trip had been something my mind had created as I’d
slipped into unconsciousness as he strangled me.

“Wake up!” he said.

“Yes! I want to wake up!” I whispered. “I want that more than anything.” Then, opening my eyes, expecting
to find myself looking down the length of the train carriage as we rattled into Liverpool Street Station, I found myself looking
into the eyes of Harry Turner.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked him.

“Don’t flatter yourself, I’ve come to wake you, that’s all,” Harry said staring down at me.

“But we’re on a train,” I muttered, feeling groggy and confused.

“Not yet, girl, but if you don’t get your shit together, then we’re gonna miss one,” he said gruffly,
taking my coat off a nearby chair and throwing it at me.

I rubbed my eyes with the backs of my hands, and looking around I could see I was still in my room back in 1888.

“But I was on a train and this was all a dream…” I started, realising that I must have fallen asleep after all.

With his mouth turned down, and fixing me with his grey eyes as I stared vacantly up at him, he shook his head and said, “If
your brains were dynamite, there wouldn’t be enough to blow your own nose with. Now c’mon.”

Then he was gone, the sound of his boots echoing as he headed away along the balcony outside my room.

With my grogginess beginning to clear, and understanding the insult he had just paid me, I shouted after him, “I’m
not stupid, you know! I just need to figure out what I’m doing in this godforsaken place.”

But just as Harry hadn’t looked back at me down at the riverbank, he didn’t say anything back this time, either.

“Arrogant jerk!” I hissed under my breath, and made my way after him.

The Scorpion Steam

The others were gathered outside by the horses. Even though the sun was fading fast, I couldn’t help but notice that
the preacher looked tired and drawn. At first I wondered if Louise and he hadn’t been training for the Sex Olympics
again, but I could tell it was more than that. His usually bright, piercing eyes seemed faded somehow – like a washed-out
blue. The preacher’s face looked drawn and wan, and the wrinkles around his eyes cut deep grooves down both sides of
his face and over his temples.

I looked at Zoe, and her usually smooth, youthful skin was so pale, she looked as if she might just faint at any moment. Her
blond hair looked almost colourless, like wisps of finely cut tracing paper poking out from beneath her wide-brimmed hat.
She caught me looking at her, and instead of flashing me a bright, cheery smile like I had come to expect from her, she just
nodded her head at me, and pulled the rim of her hat down low over her eyes. Then glancing over at Harry in the fading light,
I could see that he, too, looked paler than usual. But unlike the preacher and Louise, his grey eyes looked just as keen and
sharp as they had in my room minutes before.

“Are you guys okay?” I asked them.

“Fine,” Louise said, mounting her horse, even though I hadn’t asked her. Louise looked sassy as ever in
her long dark coat, denims, and boots. Her guns winked back flashes of the dying sun as she straddled her horse.

I watched the preacher and Zoe mount their horses, and the preacher sat forward in his saddle as if he was going to fall asleep
at any moment. “What about the wagon?” I asked, noticing it was no longer outside the saloon.

“We won’t need that where we’re going,” the preacher said without looking at me. Dust blew along the
main street, and like the others, he pulled the brim of his hat so low over his face, it almost touched the tip of his nose.
“Besides, I traded it for another horse,” he said in a hushed tone.

“Another horse?” I asked.

“You can ride, can’t you?” Harry said, staring at me.

Now, I didn’t know if I could or not. I think the closest I’d ever come to riding a horse was as a kid, when my
mum and dad took me on holiday one summer to Brighton. They paid for me to ride a donkey along the shore. Was that the same
thing? I didn’t think so. But then again, I had never fired a gun or fought with five men before – but here I
had. In this place, I was like something close to Jason Bourne on crack – but why?

Harry led a huge white horse towards me by its reins. The horse raised its head up and down then calmed. I wasn’t afraid
of the horse. Harry looked into my eyes, and I took the reins from him. Not really knowing if I was doing the right thing
or not, I just followed my instincts, like I had when drawing my guns. I gently patted the horse’s muzzle, then gripping
the saddle and placing one foot into the stirrup, I hoisted myself up. I could still feel Harry’s eyes on me, so straightening
my back, and keeping my elbows loose, I gently squeezed the sides of the horse with my calves and it slowly moved forward.
I let my arms and shoulders relax. I pulled gently on the reins and the horse stopped.

“What’s its name?” I asked, looking down at Harry.

“Moon,” Harry said, trying to mask a look of surprise. Part of me suspected he hadn’t believed I could ride.
The other half of me suspected that I couldn’t ride, either. But I could, and I didn’t know how. Just like I didn’t
know how I could draw my guns so quickly, or how I could disarm five men and kill them all without even raising my heartbeat.