Vampire Seeker (3 page)

“I can’t do that,” the preacher said. “Like the story in the Bible, I can’t just pass on by.”

Training his gun on the priest, the man said, “And I know my Bible, Father, and the priest in that story passed right
on by – so why don’t you do the same.”

“Because I ain’t no priest,” the man in black said, and before I knew what had happened, he had drawn a
gun into each hand and was pointing them down at the man. It happened so quickly, the two gleaming pistols appeared in his
hands as if by magic.

A look of confusion passed over the man’s face. As if my mind was taken hostage again by another, I watched as if in
slow motion as his finger pressed down on the trigger. Then I was up, off my back and pouncing through the air. The man saw
me from the corner of his eye and turned, but I was too quick and before either of us truly knew what was happening, my left
elbow had connected with his jaw. His head snapped to the left, the gun flying from his fist. As if functioning on some kind
of autopilot, I had snatched the gun out of the air, cocked it, and shot the man in the face. He flew backwards through the
air as if hit by a cannonball instead of a bullet. His brains exploded out the back of his head like a lump of raw hamburger.
Before he had hit the ground, I had bent down, snatched my other gun from his holster, and was pointing both of them at the
preacher who stood on the lip of red coloured rock above me.

With my arms locked rigidly before me and with my heart racing, I looked at the preacher and stared into the piercing blue
eyes that twinkled beneath the rim of his hat.

“Did you see what I just did?” I asked him.

“Very impressive,” he said, re-holstering his own guns beneath the folds of his long coat.

“I wasn’t looking for praise,” I breathed. “What I meant was – did you see what I just did?
I can’t do stuff like that.”

“You just did,” he said, his thick white moustache twitching as he spoke.

“I killed all of these men,” I gasped, lowering my guns and looking down at the dead spread out at my feet. “Why
did I do that?”

“Because they were going to hurt you, I reckon,” the priest said dryly. Then, disappearing behind the rock, he
reappeared moments later, leading the sleekest looking horse I had ever seen. Its coat and mane jet-black and seemed to shimmer
like silver beneath the overpowering glare of the sun.

“Where’s your horse?” the priest asked, staring at me.

“Horse?” I breathed. “I was on a train.”

“A train you say?” the priest said, sounding bemused and pulling the brim of his hat down over his eyes. “The
nearest railroad is ten miles away, back in the town of Black Water Gap.”

“How far am I from Aldgate?” I asked him.

“Never heard of it, little lady,” he said, turning his horse, its long black tail swishing away a swarm of flies.

“I can take you to Crows Ranch,” he offered, looking back over his shoulder at me.

“Where am I? This isn’t London, is it?” I asked him, my head pounding and feeling lost and disorientated.
“What year is this?”

“No, this isn’t London, and the year?” he half-smiled beneath his moustache, “It’s 1888 and
I’ve got me some Vrykolakas to catch.”

“Vrykolakas?” I asked, feeling dizzy.

“Vampires, my dear child,
vampires
,” the priest smiled.

Unable to support me any longer, my knees gave way, and I collapsed, the new world I found myself in turning black before
me.

The black changed to grey then back to black again. I felt so tired and my head still hurt. I just wanted to sleep. So I did.
But in the darkness I could hear voices and the sound of wheels rattling over a rough and uneven terrain.

“Who is she?” one of the voices asked in a hushed whisper.

“Dunno,” another said, and it sounded familiar. “But she sure knows how to handle a gun.”

The world seemed to lurch, jolt, then right itself again. I wanted to open my eyes to see who it was that was speaking. My
eyelids felt so heavy, as if being held down by two invisible thumbs. So I slipped back down into the darkness and let it
wrap itself around me like a thick coat. But the voices continued, each one of them just above a whisper.

“Where did she come from?”

“I don’t know that either, but she moved with the agility and speed of a cat,” the voice said again, and
in the dark I saw a priest, his white collar shining out of the black.

Wheels spinning beneath me and the smell of dust and old leather stirred me from my sleep –
nightmare
.

“How fast was she?” someone asked the priest.

“Fast!” came his hushed reply. “She killed five men. The last of them didn’t know his brains were
flying out the back of his head ‘til he was lying on his ass, twitching and jerking.”

In my dream-like state, I remembered arriving in the desert…

…The wind was warm like the heat from the hairdryer in my flat. There was something on my head – it was a wide-brimmed
hat – dark brown and made of leather. I wore a dark grey top, rough woven jeans, boots, and a long brown coat. As I
watched the coat tails flap about my legs in the breeze, I wondered where I was and why I was a dressed like a cowboy –
cowgirl?

Hadn’t I just been on a tube train? I wondered, my mind racing. There had been someone else, a man. His arm had been
tight about my throat. A vampire! But where was I now? This wasn’t London. This wasn’t Liverpool Street Tube Station,
right?

I looked around me, and for as far as I could see, the ground stretched away on a flat and even plain. It was cracked, as
if it hadn’t felt rain upon it for years. Puffs of dust blew up into the air, and in the distance I could hear the sound
of a buzzard screeching. There were thick, dried-out looking shrubs sticking up from the ground. Then, in the distance, I
could see a row of shapes moving towards me. They appeared to shimmer in the heat – but as they drew closer, I could
see they were people and they were coming towards me on horses.

Maybe they could help me? I wondered. Perhaps they could tell me where I was?

With the wind and the dust blowing around me, I held my hand over my eyes to block out the glare of the sun and watched the
riders come towards me. The horses’ hooves kicked out clouds of grit and dirt and the sound of them was like thunder
rolling across the desert. As the riders drew nearer, I could see that there were five men. Each of them wore clothes similar
in style to mine. Watching them, I got a feeling in my stomach that something was wrong – everything was wrong with
this picture.

They reached me, and each of their faces was filthy-looking, worn, dark brown, and wrinkled by the desert sun. Sweat ran down
the front and back of their shirts in ‘V’ shapes. All of them had guns strapped to their thighs.

“What have we here?” the first of them said as he circled me on his horse. Beads of sweat glistened on his brow
and he armed it away with the sleeve of his blue shirt. His voice was rough. But it was his eyes; they never met mine but,
just looked me up and down like I was standing before him naked.

“Whoo-hoo!” another seemed to cheer with excitement, and slapped the neck of his horse with the flat of his hand.
The horse trotted forward a few steps and flicked its long brown tail.

“Can you help me?” I asked them.

“Sure we can help you,” the man with the sweat running from his brow said, dismounting from his horse. The others
followed.

“It’s just that I’m not sure where I am or how I got here,” I said, taking a step backwards and away
from them.

“Poor little thing is lost,” another of the men laughed. This one seemed to be chewing on something that he had
placed inside the cheek of his mouth. He grinned at me, but it wasn’t friendly. He then spat a jet of brown liquid from
the corner of his mouth and the ground greedily soaked it up.

The first of them came behind me and I felt myself go tense. His breath was hot against my cheek and it stank of sour whiskey.
Taking a strand of my hair in his hands, he sniffed at it.

“Sweet,” I heard him breathe.

Another of them came towards me, and my heart began to pound in my chest. This guy had two broken front teeth, probably knocked
out in a fight. There were just two broken stumps, which were more yellow than white, and they protruded from gums which looked
raw and infected.

There was a part of me that just wanted to run from them, but there was another part – a newer part – that was
already figuring out how I could kill these men, should I need to. My eyes flickered between them, working out the distance
each of them was from me, their height, and where their guns were.

“Look, I just want to go home,” I said to the one with the broken teeth.

“There ain’t no rush,” he grinned. “Let’s have ourselves a little party.”

“I’m not in the mood for a party,” I said flatly, and even though it was my voice, it was like it had come
from that other part of me.

The cowboy’s eyes widened just a fraction as if surprised by my lack of fear. Then without warning, he reached out with
his hand and roughly gripped my left breast. A spike of pain shot into my shoulder blade. As quickly as he had grabbed me,
I had seized his wrist and yanked his hand away.

“Don’t touch me,” I told him, staring straight into his eyes.

Trying to mask his own surprise at how quickly I had removed his hand, he turned to his friends and laughing, he said, “Boys,
it looks as if we have a wild one here.”

“The wilder, the better!” the one who had slapped his horse whooped with excitement.

The man behind me suddenly grabbed my throat, snaked his arm around my waist and shoved his hard-on into the small of my back.
Then, all hell broke loose. Jerking my right hand backwards, I gripped the man’s genitals and twisted my wrist and pulled.
He made a deafening scream in my ear, and I felt him drop. The male with the rotten gums lurched for me, and I snapped my
head forward, my brow connecting with the bridge of his nose. I heard a cracking sound as he flew backwards, his hands to
his face. The other three by the horses reached for their guns. There were several deep booming sounds and all three of them
were flying backwards through the air, their heads erupting in a shower of red mess. Wondering where the gunfire had come
from, I looked down to see I was holding two gleaming handguns. Smoke trailed from the barrels in wispy streams.

How had they gotten there? I wondered. But before I’d had the chance to consider my own question, I heard a voice from
behind me.

“You fucking whore!” the voice screeched.

I spun around to see the guy holding his crotch with one hand and reaching for his gun with the other. Before I truly knew
what had happened, a deep, black hole the size of a large coin had opened up in his forehead and the gun was thundering in
my fist again. A crimson jet of blood squirted from his mouth and he flopped onto his side, the hand that was still holding
his groin twitching, as if he had died messing with himself. Fretful, the horses whinnied, reared up on their hind legs, and
galloped away. Then, I felt a pain in the back of my head, and I crumpled to the hard-packed ground, my guns spilling from
my hands. I peered up into the sun and could see the man with the broken teeth swaying before me and everything went black
again…

…In the darkness I could hear those voices again, as if they were coming from far away, hushed and ghost-like.

“She’s English,” the preacher said.

“How do you know?” asked another.

“Her accent - and she asked if she was in London,” he said.

“London?” a voice cut in, this one female. “A long way from home then?”

“We could use her – replace Marley,” another voice spoke. “If she is as quick on the draw like you
say she is, then…”

“No one could replace Marley,” another voice broke into the darkness. “She could never be replaced.”

“You should have thought of that before…” the preacher started and the blackness took me again, his voice fading
away.

I woke to find myself in some kind of covered wagon. I was stretched out on a narrow, leather covered bench and my feet hung
over the end. It was dark and the only light came from an oil lamp which hung from the roof of the wagon. It wasn’t
as hot as I had remembered it to be, but it wasn’t cold, either. I looked down the length of my body and could see that
I was dressed in the same clothes that I had been wearing in my dream.

But had it been a dream?
I wondered. I was beginning to fear not. In my head I could hear that man – the preacher – telling me that it
was the year 1888. That was the last thing I had heard before collapsing into unconsciousness. Swinging my legs over the side
of the bench, I wondered how and why I was back in the year 1888 – that is, if I really was. I had been in London, chasing
down that man – the one they called the Jack the Ripper copycat. But he hadn’t been any Ripper copycat, he had
been a vampire and I had been close to proving it.

I touched my neck where he had gripped me with his arm, and just for a second, I felt his ice-cold breath on my cheek. Who
had he been and where was he now? If I was truly back in 1888, was he here, too? The flaps of material which covered the opening
to the wagon fluttered like two sails. I wondered if I opened them, would I be back in London, just like Lucy opening the
wardrobe door and stepping out of Narnia and back into her own world – her own reality? I stood up and felt something
slap against my thighs. Looking down I could see those two giant pistols in leather holsters. Just a figment of my imagination,
like the Turkish Delight the White Witch had given Edmund back in Narnia. But they felt real, the smell of gunpowder smelt
real enough – but it had to be my imagination. I was probably unconscious on the London Underground, going around and
around on the Circle Line, where that man had left me.