*
When she awoke again, it was past eight o’clock and she was surprised Ben hadn’t rushed in to wake her yet. He’d been so excited the night before. He’d tried to be all grown-up and cynical, saying that Christmas was manufactured and commercial, but he’d been in such a good mood, like a springy puppy dog, laughing and teasing, he’d barely been able to sit still.
It filled Maddy with love and contentment to see him so happy. She felt excited herself. It was Christmas morning and here she was waking up in this beautiful room, in their picture-book house with no one to tell them what to do. She’d go and see if he was awake.
She pulled a jumper over the top of her pyjamas, slipped her feet into some cosy Uggs, drew back the curtains and looked outside. No snow, but a white frost glittered over the ornamental garden in the weak morning light. It looked beautiful but freezing out there. Maddy stared for a minute or two, watching a bird perched on the side of the lake, pecking in vain at the frozen water.
She remembered Ben and almost skipped to his room, ready to wake him up with a Merry Christmas, but his covers were pulled back and there was no sign of him. She hoped he hadn’t had his breakfast yet. She wanted them to eat together in the lounge and open their presents, like she remembered doing with their mum.
She had bought Ben a small trail bike which she knew he would go crazy over. He had no idea and she couldn’t wait to see his face when he saw it. She’d wheeled it into the dining room last night after he’d gone to bed. Morris wouldn’t be too happy to have a motorbike tearing up the grounds, but hey.
Maddy looked in the lounge … not there. She walked into the kitchen and stared in dread. An icy hand curled around her heart, squeezing it tight.
‘No!’ She could barely get the word out. ‘Ben!’ she screamed and ran to the cellar door, which was unlocked and wide open, throwing out a cold blast into the usually-warm kitchen. She almost fell down the steps, into the dungeon-like depths. It was dark, except for few ribbons of pale morning light filtering in through frosty windows.
Maddy felt even sicker as she saw the entrance to the hidden room was exposed, the crates pushed aside. Ben lay there on his side, on the cold stone floor in his pyjamas. The torch emitted a dying beam on the ground next to him. She ran across to her baby brother and gathered his icy body to her. She ripped off her boots and put them on his bare feet. Then she took off her jumper and, with shaking fingers, pulled it over his head and arms. His wrist was a mess of blood and she screamed again.
‘No! No, no, no!’ Her frantic thoughts were all self-recrimination - Why did I leave those things here? I should’ve destroyed them! Ben! My Ben, my brother! ‘Please!’ she sobbed and held him, kissing his cold face. Staring at him, willing something ... anything. A faint gurgling sound came from his throat. ‘Ben!’ Maddy stopped crying and her tone became urgent. ‘Ben, wake up. Wake up! Can you hear me, Ben?’
He moaned.
‘That’s it. Come on, we have to get you out of here. You have to come upstairs, into the warm, where it’s safe. Come on, Benny boy, wake up!’
Ben was small for his age, but so was Maddy. She heaved him up, over her shoulder and swayed to steady herself. She briefly glanced at the open crate and saw that thing lying there as if butter wouldn’t melt in its blood-sucking mouth. Its hours were numbered. She was going to come back down here later and impale it. But right now, she had to fix her brother.
She made it to the bottom of the cellar steps before she had to stop. The stone floor was so cold, like blades going into the bare soles of her feet. She sat on the bottom step for a few seconds, gathering her strength, with Ben still draped over her shoulder. Then she heaved herself up again, her legs buckling with the weight and the fear.
Maddy climbed out of the cellar, one slow step at a time, talking to Ben constantly. Telling him to listen to her voice, telling him about the motorbike she had got him for Christmas, that he was going to be fine and that she loved him more than anything in the world.
*
Everything happened to him in pretty much the same way it had happened to her. The sweats, the hallucinations and delirium. Madison called Dr Wilson herself, telling him she thought Ben had got what she had had and could he come and give him whatever he had given her to make her better.
Dr Wilson took one look at Ben’s lacerated wrist and glanced up sharply at Madison. She said they’d been doing some renovation work and he’d cut himself, like her, that they both came from the same clumsy gene pool. She knew the doctor didn’t believe any of it. But he didn’t comment.
Morris and Esther came round about half-an-hour after Dr Wilson had left. Maddy was annoyed. He must have told them about Ben. What happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?
‘Looks like he’s got the same flu I had,’ Maddy told Morris and Esther. She saw the look that passed between them. Well, let them think what they like, she thought. It’s none of their business anyway and I haven’t got the energy to worry about them now.
‘You don’t need to stay,’ she continued. ‘You should go home and enjoy the rest of your Christmas. Me and Ben are fine here.’
Morris nodded his head in acceptance, but Esther spoke up.
‘We’ll pack a bag and stay in the room upstairs for a few days, until his fever breaks.’
‘No honestly. We’ll be okay,’ Maddy said.
‘I’ll go downstairs and have a quick tidy round. Morris, you bring us a few clothes and the wash bag, while I tend to things here.’
‘Right, then. See you shortly,’ he replied.
Esther swept out of the room before Maddy had a chance to protest further. To be honest, she found she didn’t actually care what they did. She felt too worried about Ben, who was still white hot and sweating buckets. So, this was to be their first Christmas at Marchwood. Not quite the day she had planned.
Why had her brother gone down there? What could have made him go into the cellar? And she would have to do something about those creatures. They’d had a hold over her for too long. She had to get rid of them and start to live her life properly.
She’d wasted hours mooning around over that thing. Was it just because it was so beautiful? Was she really that shallow? She had to kill it, before it did any more harm. She just prayed her little brother would come out of the fever soon. Dr Wilson hadn’t seemed overly worried. He’d been more concerned with the cause of the fever.
Madison spent the whole of Christmas Day and Boxing Day at Ben’s bedside. He hadn’t shown any signs of improvement and Maddy swung from being hysterical with worry, to calmly telling herself this is what she had been like and she hadn’t woken up for three days.
On the morning after Boxing Day, Dr Wilson said if Ben’s condition hadn’t improved by the evening, he would recommend he be moved to hospital for intravenous antibiotics. Maddy started praying and playing the game where she bargained with God: If you make my brother better, you can send me back to foster care, you can take all this wealth away and I’ll work in Angie’s supermarket for the rest of my life, I’ll be really nice to Esther, even if she’s being a total bitch.
Something must have worked, whether it was Maddy’s prayers or Dr Wilson’s treatment, or just that things had run their natural course, but by that afternoon Ben’s fever broke and he now slept peacefully. Madison changed his sheets again and looked at his small pyjama-clad body. He looked so vulnerable lying there and, not for the first time, she felt like it was all her fault. She had to face the truth that she knew what those things in the cellar were. She’d been kidding herself now for too long. She should just admit it … they were vampires.
There were five vampires sleeping in the cellar. One of them had sucked her blood, one of them had sucked her brother’s blood and she had to do something about it.
*
The minute Morris and Esther left the house, Maddy gritted her teeth and marched down into the cellar with a new halogen light. Ben was still asleep upstairs. He hadn’t opened his e
yes yet and Maddy’s rage was returning. It was rage against herself as much as it was against the vampire who had done this to her brother. Fury engulfed her and she wanted to shatter its stone body into a million bits.
She shoved the empty crates away from the entrance and picked up the pick axe, trying to clear her mind of everything but the pulsing anger, trying not to see his beautiful face in her mind. She pushed off the lid to the crate and caught a blurred glimpse of dark eyebrow and white cheek, but she steeled herself against him, swinging the axe above her head with two hands.
She aimed for his chest and brought the metal tip of the pick axe crashing down. The shock of the impact travelled up her arms, to her shoulders and into her teeth, which shook painfully in her mouth. She let go of the axe and looked through half-closed eyes at the carnage she expected to see.
She opened her eyes wide and then frowned in disbelief. His jacket and shirt were torn. She knelt down, ripping the material apart to reveal a perfect, gleaming chest - there was not a single mark on him. Not a scratch or a nick - nothing. She yelled in frustration and wielded the pick axe again. She ignored the burning in her arms as she attacked him with fury.
After a minute she ran and got the sledgehammer, trying to smash any part of him she could. When her energy was truly spent and her muscles screamed in pain, she looked and saw that apart from his torn suit, he … it was still completely unharmed.
Madison sank to the ground in exhaustion. It hadn’t even tried to fight back. It had just lain there and absorbed the blows. What was she going to do? She pushed herself up onto her feet and walked out of the room, thinking hard.
That afternoon, she came better prepared. She felt faintly ridiculous, but she wasn’t dealing in the realms of normality and she was ready to try anything. Thinking about all the vampire movies she had seen, she made a list of all the things that were supposed to kill them – garlic, crosses, a stake through the heart, daylight. She was almost embarrassed to be considering these things, but what other options did she have? She was dealing with something supernatural that couldn’t be harmed with a pick axe or a sledgehammer, so she had to improvise.
She went up to the crate and put bulbs of garlic inside, around the creature’s body and face, watching intently for any signs of revulsion or discomfort. She put a small gold cross on its forehead, half expecting the metal to burn into its skin, like in the movies. Nothing so far.
Standing in front of the crate she held out a sharpened piece of hardwood and positioned it on its chest exactly where she thought its heart should be (if the evil bloodsucker actually had a heart). She held it in place and raised the hammer, banging it down hard onto the wooden stake with all the force she could muster. The stake snapped without even making a mark on his skin. So that was the ‘stake through the heart’ theory out of the window. What had she expected? That the creature would disappear in a puff of smoke or disintegrate into dust? What now?
‘Yes!’ she said out loud. ‘I know. I know just what I’m going to do with you.’
She raced upstairs and outside into the chilly afternoon air. Although the sun was shining, traces of frost still clung to the more shaded areas of lawn. But Madison barely noticed the cold. She was on a mission to destroy and she was absolutely sure she would succeed this time. Her 4x4 sat in the garage and she hopped in; this time having absolutely no trouble with clutch control and steering. Over the past couple of months she had been taught very patiently by Travis and she now felt entirely confident with her new driving skills.
Madison roared out of the garage and took the Defender onto the driveway, as close as possible to the huge front door. She jumped out, released the winch and pulled the cable through the house and down into the cellar. She hooked the cable on to the front of the crate, then ran back up the stairs and outside to the purring Land Rover. She locked the winch, hopped back in and reversed slowly.
She was going to try and tow the crate outside. She had to get that vampire out of the house and out here, under the sun’s rays. Surely that would destroy it. Why else would it have been bricked up in a dark cellar, safe and sound? She drove backwards for a few yards, feeling the resistance, and then the vehicle stopped dead. She didn’t want to put too much pressure on the accelerator, in case the handle ripped off the crate.
Maddy ran back down to the cellar and saw the problem - the crate was stuck at the bottom of the steps. She looked down at the beautiful vampire. It still slept. She heaved the end of the crate up onto the first and second steps. There! That should do it.
The house sat in an elevated position, commanding a south westerly view over the valley and the sun was already bleeding down into the trees. She would have to hurry, before it sank out of sight and the daylight disappeared. The sun would put an end to him. It would put an end to all five of them. She locked the winch and reversed the vehicle again.
Down in the cellar, the crate was slowly and awkwardly dragged, jolted and bumped up the winding steps. It burst through the utility room door, into the kitchen and smashed against the kitchen table, knocking chairs flying. It slid quickly and smoothly along the flagstones in the entrance hall, rushing inexorably towards the front door. It flew over the three curved entrance steps, finally landing with a thump and a crunch onto the sweeping driveway. It now lay still, beneath the setting sun.
Madison leapt out of the Land Rover with the pick axe in her hand.
‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,’ she whispered over and over to herself. But she didn’t let herself think of the terror, she just charged at the crate. If that thing was awake, she had to be fully prepared to attack it, in case the sun had no effect.
Inside the crate, the vampire was indeed awake. Eyes wide open, jerking uncontrollably as if electrocuted. Its back arched, arms and legs flailing wildly. The sunlight was altering the creature’s appearance. Its sculpted white skin became darker, more human. As Maddy approached, the vampire threw itself out of its crate and crawled across the gravel driveway. It dragged itself up the front steps and into the house.
Shocked that her plan had actually worked, the sight of this live creature terrified her, made her eyes widen, her heart hammer and the blood almost freeze in her veins. But she kept the image of Ben in her mind; of him lying on the cellar floor after the vampire had attacked him and she knew she had to destroy it. Anger warmed her blood and made it flow again.
‘Oh no you don’t!’ Maddy yelled, as it clawed its way into the house. ‘Get back out here!’
She pursued it into the entrance hall and raised the pick axe above her head, ready to strike.
The vampire half-crouched, half-leant against the wall in the entrance hall, still shaking and convulsing, its features contorted in shock. As Madison approached with the axe, it moved down the hallway, using the heels of its feet and the palms of its hands to propel itself backwards, away from her. It went until it could go no further and was backed into a dark corner, next to the closed door of the dining room.
He was a large figure and Madison was just five foot two, but she felt powerful and vengeful as she stood above him.
‘Non!’ he cried. ‘No! Please ...’ He appeared terrified and cringed backwards against the wall. ‘Je vous en supplie! I beg of you!’ His voice was hoarse and he spoke with an accent. He stared beseechingly at Maddy.
She ignored his cries for mercy, closed her eyes and swung the axe downwards.
Chapter Twenty
1881
*
Alexandre opened his eyes. He lay in a blissfully darkened chamber - a cellar. And he could sense a human male sleeping in the house somewhere above him. He felt Leonora awakening nearby. The others still slept.
Standing up, he felt weightless. He flexed his limbs. They were powerful, supple and responsive, like he could climb a mountain in a single leap. His whole body tingled. He flicked open the lid to Leonora’s box to see her staring up at him. She hissed. She actually hissed! Alexandre opened his mouth to say something, but was
shocked to hear a hissing sound come from his own lips. He put a hand to his mouth and tried again.
‘What is this?’ his voice sounded foreign to his ears, low and vicious, a harsh whisper. ‘You are different. We are different.’
‘I feel strong,’ she said. ‘But I am also frightened.’ Leonora stood in a single fluid motion. Her dark hair tumbled in waves down her back and her pale skin glowed with radiance and vitality.
‘You look wonderful,’ Alexandre said.
‘And you.’ Leonora stared at him.
‘Do you remember?’ he asked, knowing she did.
She replied with a tilt of her head.
‘Perhaps we are in hell. I thought I had died. Are we demons? Like the others?’
‘If we are demons, then we must be in hell,’ she replied. ‘But I do not feel evil. I feel the same, only stronger and ... better somehow. And if we are in hell, it looks remarkably similar to Marchwood House, where I grew up.’
‘Do you feel the thirst?’ he asked, knowing she did.
She nodded and looked up, beyond the ceiling. ‘First there is someone I must see. My father is upstairs.’
‘Aah,’ Alexandre nodded, realising this must be the human male he sensed earlier. ‘So we are in your house?’
‘In England, yes,’ she confirmed.
‘You go,’ he said. ‘I will wait for the others to wake.’
*
In his bed, Harold felt no fear, only anticipation that he might finally see what he had been hoping for, for so long. When he opened his eyes he was not disappointed.
She was almost ethereal. Her dark hair cascaded down her shoulders, her pale face luminescent in the darkness. He realised her hand was stroking his brow. It felt cool.
‘Father,’ she whispered. A soft sighing sound, like the wind rustling the leaves in the trees.