Kronos, only a few feet away at the time, was sent hurtling through the air, his face and hair singed and several blackened pieces of Piper peppering the front of his uniform. Worse still, a flying shard of Piper’s sword cut a line right across his belly, opening a deep wound. In fact, the only good news for poor Kronos was that his body shielded the keg of gunpowder on his back from the blast and thus saved him from going up himself.

  The explosion did ignite the trail of gunpowder, however, so we had to run for cover, dragging Kronos along the ground behind us, his hands pressed hard against his belly in order to keep his guts in.

  We were not so clandestine any more, either, though we were lucky that the explosion of the gunpowder store and the subsequent chaos more than covered our escape. The building took to the sky like a soaring phoenix, the noise enough to deafen us for some time after.

  ‘Nearly dead because of a bloody squirrel,’ says Kronos, running his finger along the scar on his belly.

  I lean forward and admire my handiwork. ‘Lucky you had me there, really,’ I say.

  ‘Look,’ I add. ‘Sorry if I get impatient but you must remember that these villagers are my people. I know them well and each death hits all the harder. But you know what you’re doing, and as long as you’re not avoiding the confrontation …’ I point at his scar. ‘I could never doubt your bravery. I know you have guts – after all, I’ve seen them!’

  ‘Indeed you have.’ Kronos pats me on the shoulder. ‘We will find this creature soon, my friend. Don’t worry, it will stick its neck out too far and before you know it …’ He claps his hands. ‘We will be there to cut it off.’

  Twenty-Three

  Carla Loves to Dance

  ISN’T WINE WONDERFUL? I mean, really, it’s like the most brilliant thing ever and ever and ever and … isn’t it? Not only does it stop you being thirsty but it also helps you to be really good at things. It makes you much funnier than you are normally. It makes you sing better and as for your dancing … well, you’re pretty much unstoppable.

  I think it was because of the toads. And the dead priest. And the vampires. And everything. But I really, really wanted some wine this evening, just to take my mind off it, you know? To put a smile back on my, back on my … on my …

  Marcus has lots of lovely wine. He must like it nearly as much as I do. He showed me where he kept it (which was a bit of a mistake, to be honest, but I’m glad he did) and I sat down and had a look through the bottles, just to see which one I liked the look of best.

  Not that I haven’t drunk wine before, of course. Oh yes. Lots of it. But most of it was poured out of a jug by George Barrow, the landlord of the … erm … the … whatever it was called … Toad and Hunchback, the Kronos Codpiece … erm … something.

  Anyway, the point is that I didn’t know which sort of wine I liked and having been given a choice I decided the best thing was probably just to try a bit of each. Just a little bit. Well, enough to get the taste, you know. A few cupfuls.

  So, I’m singing about the Bad Old Bishop of Bath and Wells and trying to make a nice hat out of a table I’d found when they all start talking about the bloody dead priest again, like we haven’t heard enough about that already.

  So I got a bit cross. Which isn’t like me. No, really. I’m a very … a very … not – cross sort of girl. Anyway, I did, and there may have been shouting, I can’t honestly remember, I was a little bit, what-do-you-call-it … when you’ve had too much wine … that, I was. Very much.

  I decided to go to the stables and leave them to it. At least in there I could just get on with enjoying my evening, maybe sing a few more songs, maybe dance for a while. You know. Whatever I wanted.

  The having-too-much-wine thing was starting to wear off by the time Kronos appeared, which is just as well because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to be quiet about his stupid frowny face. He never bloody smiles, that one, it’s always grumpy-got-to-fight-vampires with him. Which would be fine if he ever actually left the house and found one. Since he doesn’t I don’t quite see the point in his taking it all so seriously. He should enjoy himself a bit more, don’t you think?

  I tell him this, maybe a few times, can’t remember. And, give him his due, he does smile in the end. Though that might be because I’d taken my clothes off, which sometimes happens with wine, I find. He must have had a few drinks too because his clothes ended up coming off as well. For quite a while. Which cheered me up, I must say: he’s one of those men who look much nicer without clothes on than they do with them. Though I imagine it’s hard to hunt vampires when you’re naked. Well, not hard. I mean … Oh … Oh God … I do feel a bit unwell. Maybe there was something wrong with the … you know, red stuff, nice to drink …

  God.

  This is going to be so embarrassing in the morning …

  Twenty-Four

  Freddie Gluckhaven’s Heart Breaks

  ‘OF COURSE, MOTHER,’ I insist, ‘the cows couldn’t be happier – I’d hardly leave them be otherwise.’

  I swear the old bird thinks the beasts will expire if they’re not under constant supervision. She sits on the porch, rocking back and forth on that damn creaky chair of hers and never lets her eye off the field. Wouldn’t be so bad but every passing whim falls to me to fulfil. Is it any wonder that father can barely move a few steps these days? She wore him to a standstill! Now she’s moved on to me, whittling me down like a wooden peg. If it weren’t for Sally I’d probably go quite mad.

  My Sally. The most wonderful, bright, beautiful girl in the world.

  If it weren’t for her blasted father she’d be perfect!

  No. I won’t impose her father’s failings on her, any more than she holds mother against me. You can’t choose your parents and that’s a fact.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ I promise – though, God help me, I’ll be as long as I think I can get away with: it’s only these occasional hours with Sally that make life worth living.

  I cut into the forest, only too aware that mother will be watching me all the way, keeping those narrowed little eyes focused on my back until the trees get in the way and finally I can relax. It’s as if the entire burden of the farm has been lifted from me. I’m almost lightheaded with relief as I run through the trees. One day, I know, I’m going to keep running and never go back. I just won’t be able to help myself.

  Of course, I won’t be running alone.

  Sally jumps out from behind a tree, grabbing my back and then wrapping her arms around my neck.

  ‘There’s monsters in the forest, young Freddie,’ she growls. ‘Haven’t you heard?’

  Laughing, I drop to my knees and fling her down in front of me.

  ‘You just found one, my love!’ I tell her, nuzzling her neck and roaring softly.

  She squeals as I gently bite her smooth flesh and wrestle with her. Then she slips away and runs off into the trees.

  ‘All right,’ I say. ‘That’s how you want to play, is it?’

  I give chase. It’s not difficult – she’s laughing so much that even if I lose sight of her among the dark tree trunks all I’ll have to do is follow the evidence of my ears.

  The light flickers through the trees as I run and I have the strange sensation that I’m dreaming my journey beneath the canopy of leaves and branches. Time seems to slow with every pulse of sunshine, as if the world is becoming nothing but a series of still moments that I’m passing through.

  Sally laughs again and that just adds to my feeling of being separate from the real world. I could be home in bed, dreaming of escape. Or daydreaming as I squeeze milk from the teats of those damned cows. Or sitting on the porch, listening to mother rage against a world that just won’t do what she wants it to.

  I stop running for a moment and press my hands to my temples. I feel as though a mask has settled over my head, something that is in between me and the real world. I want to scratch it away but there’s nothing there.

  I catch my breath for a moment, rub my face and brush away the mood that has settled over me. I’m just tired, I think, and sick of the day-to-day chores and the prison that is my life. None of which are good enough reasons to spoil the few moments I have now. That little bit of time with the woman I love most in the whole world.

  That time will be short.

  Sally’s got a head start now and I have to run fast and hard. The forest is filled with run-off trenches where the water from the hills drains away in the winter. They’re all dry now, and I leap them rather than climb down and then back up.

  My mood turns like a tossed coin and I’m laughing myself as I sail through the air, struggling to keep my footing in the slippery undergrowth. Even here, in the shade, the day is hot and I’ve got a sweat on by the time Sally’s in sight.

  She’s looking worried – she thinks something’s happened to me. She looks around and around, unnerved to suddenly find herself alone. Maybe she’s thinking about what happened to Petra and Ann, or about poor old Volk strung up in his own church. Maybe she’s wishing she had never come running in here after all.

  I sneak up as quietly as I can, half of me loving the game, the other half thinking it’s time I grew up. To hell with it, I tell that older, more sensible part of me, there’ll be plenty more hours of grown-up misery today. Enjoy the childishness while you can.

  I leap on Sally, laughing as she screams, my hands diving under her skirts in devilish hunger for something sweet to explore.

  ‘Freddie!’ she shouts, punching me on the arm. ‘I thought you’d gone …’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I tell her and stop the rest of her complaints with my mouth. She doesn’t seem to mind.

  Later, we lie hot and tired at the foot of an oak so tall that it cannot help but make you feel small and fragile.

  ‘I’ve got to get back,’ Sally says, ‘before father starts wondering where I am.’

  I sigh and pick at the bark of the tree. ‘One day,’ I say, ‘we’re going to stop doing what they tell us. We’re going to say to hell with the lot of them and be happy.’

  Sally looks up at me and her eyes show that she doesn’t believe herself when she says: ‘One day.’

  She’s so damn scared of her old man and I can’t say I blame her – he scares me a fair bit! Still, I refuse to live my whole life around what parents say. There comes a time when you have to stand on your own two feet and if she finds that hard then I’ll just have to help her.

  She smiles but there’s no hope in her expression whatsoever. It makes me sad.

  ‘I’ll walk back with you,’ I say.

  A flash of fear passes over her face. ‘Don’t be mad,’ she says. ‘You can’t come up to the house.’

  ‘Just to the edge of the forest,’ I say. ‘Then I’ll know you’ll be safe.’

  Sally smiles again. ‘Don’t be silly, there’s nothing here to be scared of.’

  ‘Tell that to the Sorrells.’

  She doesn’t argue any more.

  We get to our feet and, hand in hand, begin to walk towards Sally’s home. The air around us is filled with the scents of the woodland, and with the oppressive air of things unsaid. How the love between us was never choked dead by the weight of others’ opinions I’ll never know.

  ‘I can manage from here,’ she says, letting go of my hand and reaching up to kiss my cheek. ‘You don’t have to go all the way.’

  ‘I’ll watch,’ I say, ‘so I know you’re all right.’

  Sally shakes her head but she’s smiling. ‘Such an old woman,’ she says. ‘I’m capable of looking after myself, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, ‘but I also enjoy watching you walk.’ I squeeze her hand and let her go.

  She hesitates for a moment and later I’ll wonder about that: what if she had waited a little longer? What if she had taken just one more kiss?

  Sally walks ahead and approaches one of the run-off trenches. Carefully, dropping a hand to the ground to steady herself, she descends out of sight. A few seconds later she reappears, stumbling slightly as she climbs out of the trench. She giggles with embarrassment and checks over her shoulder to see if I noticed. I smile and blow her a kiss.

  Somewhat ruefully, she returns it and continues on her way.

  I lean back against the trunk of one of the trees and watch again as she goes down into another trench.

  That was the point, I will think later. That was the point at which I last saw her and she still had a chance of survival. Not that anything could have been done: however much I may always be haunted by that moment I will never be so blind as to believe that. She was struck so quickly –a moment of terror as her scream echoes through the trees …

  ‘Sally!’ I shout, already on the move.

  Ahead of me I see her reappear, hands waving in the air, fighting to hold onto something that will steady her as she rises back up from below.

  ‘Sally?’

  She turns and, in that brief moment as the sunlight lands on the face of an old woman, I am reminded of that feeling of dislocation from earlier. That unsettling belief that I was not in the real world at all but rather some terrible, loose, dreamy version of it.

  She falls, her aged legs not strong enough to hold her up.

  I reach her in time to feel her last breath on my face. There is nothing else, no final words, no explanation, just that fragile puff of warm, damp air.

  And with that the best thing in my life – the only good thing, in fact – is gone.

  Twenty-Five

  Brothers in Blood – The Memoirs of Professor Herbert Grost: Volume One (Unpublished)

  I HEARD THE man scream. A terrible noise, raw and filled with the most chilling sense of pain.

  I had been sitting in the sunshine, considering the many varied ways in which the vampire reflects the darkness in all of us. (Is there any more global thirst than the thirst for youth?) My breakfast was sitting heavily in my belly but it had gone some small way towards dealing with the effects of the wine we’d drunk the night before.

  I’m not very good at drinking. It tends to make me talk a lot. Which, given that I have a habit of going on anyway, can be positively lethal in polite company. Especially when you consider that my main subject of conversation revolves around monstrous bloodsucking creatures. Honestly, I really can kill a dinner party stone dead.

  Add to that the fact that it tends to give me a terrible headache the next day and you will understand why I approach wine with caution. Last night it had crept up on me rather, sneaked in from the side when I wasn’t looking. My head was displeased with my lack of internal security.

  On hearing the scream, Kronos burst from the stables, sword in his hand.

  ‘Grost?’ he shouted.

  ‘Here,’ I replied. ‘I heard it.’

  Carla appeared in the doorway behind him, tugging her skirt straight and looking ever so slightly green.

  ‘Someone needs help,’ Kronos said and moved to push past me.

  I grabbed his arm. ‘That was not the sound of a man who needs help,’ I replied. ‘It was the sound of a man for whom help would be too late. Now go and get dressed. You can’t run about the forest naked – you’ll disturb the squirrels.’

  Kronos glanced down, realising for the first time that he was utterly without clothes. He looked confused for a moment. Then he nodded.

  ‘Thank you, my friend,’ he said and ran back into the stable to get dressed.

  ‘Spoilsport,’ said Carla. She brushed past me on her way the sit under the water pump for a while.

  Dr Marcus came running out of the house.

  ‘What was that?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing good,’ I replied honestly. ‘Come with us and find out.’

  Once Kronos was dressed, we took the horses into the forest. Carla stayed behind: she was clearly under the weather and I could hardly see the advantage in forcing her to join us.

  We had little difficulty finding the unfortunate Freddie Gluckhaven. The sound of his sobbing drew us to where he sat, the dead body of an old – or, at least, old now – woman in his arms.

  ‘Dead,’ he said. ‘She’s dead.’

  Gluckhaven simply wouldn’t hear of us examining the woman. He shook his head and held the body tighter and tighter. At one point there was the terrible sound of bones snapping beneath the strength of his grip. Thankfully he seemed deaf to it. It was the appearance of another person that finally made him let go.

  ‘Sally?’ said the older man as he walked towards us. ‘That’s not my Sally, is it?’ He was a big man, arms thick with muscle and face red and veined from ale. He was not a man I would wish to pick a fight with, and I’ve fought with the best in my time.

  ‘Sally Somerton,’ said Marcus, only now realising whose body we were fretting over. ‘Careful – that’s her father. He has a temper.’

  ‘Sally,’ the man said again, his ruddy face quivering as he began to suspect the worst.

  ‘Wait a minute, Ted,’ said Marcus. ‘We don’t know who it is yet.’

  ‘You think I don’t know my own daughter?’ he roared. ‘And the little rat that’s holding her?’

  ‘Not now,’ said Gluckhaven, letting go of her so that her father could see. ‘She wouldn’t want that.’

  ‘Fuck yourself,’ Somerton said. He pushed the boy out of the way so hard that Freddie lost his footing and hit the ground in a shower of earth and leaves. I noticed the look of sheer rage that appeared on the young man’s face but also the fact that he immediately suppressed his anger. And not through fear of the lumbering giant in front of us, I thought, rather out of respect for the woman he had clearly loved. It was at that moment that I decided I had the utmost respect for young Freddie Gluckhaven. I could not honestly say the same for the poor girl’s father.

  ‘What did he do?’ the man was asking. ‘What did that little rat do, eh?’

  ‘The blame doesn’t lie with Freddie,’ said Marcus, stepping between the two of them, as aware as I that real trouble could erupt if we didn’t play this carefully. ‘Would you let me look at her, please?’