‘Because you were there!’ I said, and he shrugged.
‘It was the same for us all,’ he replied softly. ‘None of us did it without help. And from now on you’ll find the whole thing much easier to handle.’
‘Hey!’ It was Dermid. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw him pointing. ‘See that light?’ he demanded. ‘That’s the kitchen door. You can go straight through there, and the bathroom’s on your left.’
‘Aren’t you coming in?’ Father Ramon queried, with obvious surprise.
‘Nah, I gotta get back to the pit,’ said Dermid. ‘These things don’t run themselves, y’know.’ He waved the rest of us towards the house. ‘Go on. Dad’ll be along in a minute.’
So Dave and I stumbled forward, through the back gate. From there it was perhaps half a dozen metres to the kitchen door, across a cement patio littered with firewood, auto parts, rolls of chicken wire and dead pot plants. As I checked to make sure that Father Ramon was keeping up, I noticed that Dermid had begun to retrace his steps.
But he hadn’t washed his hands of us. On the contrary, he repeatedly glanced back to monitor our progress – and I realised that we wouldn’t be able to depart unseen.
‘He’s watching us,’ I informed Dave, very quietly.
‘Then we’ll have to head straight through,’ said Dave, in equally hushed tones. ‘We’ll go inside and leave by the front entrance. Then we’ll double back to the van.’
‘Can you do that, Nina?’ Father Ramon asked. He was directly behind me. ‘Can you walk that far?’
‘If she can’t, I’ll carry her,’ said Dave. ‘Because we have to get the hell out of here. Now.’
And he pulled open the kitchen door.
I suppose we should have worked out that there’d be someone inside, waiting for us. As soon as Dave crossed the threshold, he was bailed up. I heard a click, turned my head, and spied a short, weathered, nuggetty man aiming a rifle directly at Dave’s left ear.
Dave stopped – so abruptly that the priest bumped into him.
‘Oh no!’ cried Father Ramon ‘Please – wait – I’m a priest—’
‘And I’m an atheist,’ the armed man spat. I recognised his cramped country vowels, having heard them already over the public address system. His appearance matched his voice; it was compressed but strangely formidable. Where he wasn’t bald, his ash-grey hair had been clipped like a shorn sheep’s. His rubbery features looked squashed, and he didn’t have much of a neck. Yet his broad shoulders, big hands and broken nose were intimidating – as were his scars, and his empty blue eyes.
‘We didn’t come here to cause trouble!’ Father Ramon quavered. (By this time he was holding his hands in the air.) ‘Believe me, we didn’t know anything about this event—’
‘But you do now.’ The armed man lowered his weapon slightly, to prod Dave in the ribs. ‘Thing is, I’m busy. I’ve got a show to run. We’ll talk later.’ He jerked his chin. ‘Downstairs. Go.’
‘But—’
‘Move!’
You can’t argue with a rifle, especially when you’re feeling sick. From where I was standing, the barrel of that thing seemed enormous. Like the mouth of a cannon. Of course, I knew that nothing discharged from it could possibly kill Dave. But I also knew that a bullet in the chest wouldn’t improve his quality of life, either.
The thought of seeing him a permanent invalid, wheezing and choking through tattered lungs, almost made me throw up all over again. To be honest, I just … well, I couldn’t bear it.
‘Even if you shoot us, it won’t make any difference,’ I began, almost incoherent with panic and distress. ‘You – you don’t understand who we are—’
‘Nina!’ Dave’s urgent reprimand silenced me at once. He kept his arm clamped around my shoulders as we shuffled towards a rough-cut hole in the kitchen floor. I can’t tell you much about that kitchen, because I was more interested in the gun. Nevertheless, I did get a vague impression of pineapple-print curtains, unwashed dishes, old newspapers, dog bowls, dog leads, pliers, bones and rat traps. (It was pretty obvious that no females were living in the house.)
‘Are you Barry McKinnon?’ The priest seemed determined to keep talking; I was awed by his ability to do so. ‘Because if you are, I assure you, we simply came here to make inquiries about your silver bullets—’
‘Later,’ the man barked. ‘We’ll discuss it later.’
‘So you are Barry?’
‘Not to you, mate. To you I’m Mister McKinnon. Now get down there, and we’ll work things out when I’m done.’
The staircase didn’t inspire confidence. Someone had obviously sawn through the linoleum and thrown together a single flight of stairs using whatever timber happened to be lying around. Upon gingerly making my way to the bottom step, I found myself in a brick-lined basement with several doors leading off it. These doors resembled the hatch in the tiled pit outside; they were all thick and heavy and made of iron or steel, painted yellow, and they were reinforced with enormous bolts. I couldn’t help wondering if Barry had used recycled prison doors, because they looked very old.
One of them was standing open.
‘In there,’ said Barry. He was bringing up the rear, his gun resting between Father Ramon’s shoulder blades. ‘Go on.’
‘In there?’ The priest sounded appalled, and I understood why. The whole set-up was like something out of a horror movie. ‘But what on earth—’
‘Just do it!’ Barry growled.
Even then (believe it or not) the little bottle of spiked Windex didn’t so much as cross my mind. I’d completely forgotten about it. Perhaps I was still groggy from the blooding – or perhaps I’m not one of those people who react quickly and heroically to adverse circumstances.
Not like Zadia Bloodstone.
Anyway, the fact is that I allowed myself to be herded into Barry McKinnon’s underground cell like a brainless farm animal, without uttering a single word of protest. The first thing I spotted was a stainless steel toilet without a seat. The second thing was an unmade bed. The third thing was a barred gate, clamped across an opening on the other side of the room.
Beyond the solid iron framework of this gate stretched a long, dark corridor. And from the somewhere down one end of this corridor echoed the faint sound of distant cheering.
Aghast, I stared at Dave.
‘Right,’ said Barry. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours.’
Then he pushed Father Ramon over the threshold, shut the door, and drew the bolt.
12
For at least fifteen seconds no one spoke. Finally Dave said, ‘This is a tank.’
When I looked around, I saw that he was right. We were standing in what appeared to be a huge concrete drum – the kind normally used to collect rainwater. I’d seen quite a few of them so far on my trip into the outback; they were generally sitting beside some farmhouse, half-buried in the earth.
‘It must be connected to that pit,’ I remarked dully. ‘By an underground passage.’
Father Ramon gave a sudden start, then began to grope around in his pockets. When he produced his mobile phone, however, his shoulders drooped.
‘No signal,’ he lamented. I reached for my own mobile, just to check – and my fingers closed over the forgotten perfume bottle.
‘Oh, hell!’ I pulled it out. ‘Oh, damn! My spray! I’m so sorry!’
‘We can still use it,’ was Dave’s opinion. And the priest said, ‘Use what?’
‘It’s like Mace,’ I explained. ‘For self-defence. I can squirt it in people’s eyes.’
‘As a last resort,’ Dave added, seeing Father Ramon wince. ‘I know it would be dangerous, what with the gun and everything.’
All at once I felt dizzy. When I wobbled over to the bed, however, I discovered that it wasn’t very comfortable. The sheets smelled bad, the blankets were filthy, and the rusty old springs squeaked like distressed guinea pigs. Nevertheless, it was better than the cold, hard, concrete floor.
‘It’s h
alf-past eleven,’ the priest observed. ‘When did he say he’d be back? In a couple of hours? That’ll be one-thirty.’
‘We have to get out,’ said Dave.
‘We have to think.’ Father Ramon put his hands to his temples. ‘Just let me think.’
I couldn’t think. My brain felt numb. I was still trying to process what had just happened – what I’d just seen. The pit. The creatures. The basement.
The blood.
My gaze travelled slowly around the oddly shaped room, from one item to the next. There was an overhead light and a wall-mounted heater. A power cable had been taped across the ceiling; it disappeared through a small, irregular hole in one wall. There was also a pile of old paperback books, and a plastic drink bottle. Various bits of torn clothing were scattered around.
It all looked pretty innocuous at first glance. But then I spied the manacle and chain attached to a bolt in the floor.
‘Someone lives here,’ I said.
Dave grunted.
‘A person. Not an animal. There’s a toilet.’ I started to shake. Even my lips were shaking. ‘You don’t think it’s like the Roman Empire, do you?’
‘What?’ Dave stared at me in confusion.
‘You don’t think they actually feed human beings to those things out there?’
Even as I spoke, the distant clamour of massed voices swelled to an appreciative roar. Our eyes swivelled fearfully towards the barred gate. Then Dave said, ‘Nina, those things out there are human beings.’
‘But—’
‘They have to be. You were blooded. That only happens with human blood.’
‘So you’re quite sure, are you?’ Father Ramon was doing his best to stay calm. ‘You really believe that those creatures are were-wolves?’
‘Why not?’ Dave said. He had removed his sunglasses. ‘Nina and I are vampires.’
I wanted to point out that we weren’t vampires like Zadia Bloodstone; we couldn’t fly, or turn into bats, or walk through a hail of bullets. Whereas the things outside appeared to be genuine shape-shifters.
But I couldn’t summon up the energy to speak.
‘And you think they’ve actually been living in here?’ Father Ramon glanced around at the meagre furnishings. ‘As prisoners?’
‘If you can call it living,’ said Dave.
The priest rubbed his mouth. ‘Of course we might be wrong,’ he allowed, though not with much conviction. ‘There are people who build underground homes in the desert, to keep cool. This room might be for casual workers who come here during the hotter months.’
Dave snorted. Even I was unimpressed.
‘You don’t chain your workers to the wall,’ Dave argued, and Father Ramon couldn’t disagree. In the silence that followed, another bloodthirsty roar from beyond the barred gate made us all flinch.
It occurred to me that we might have been left in the tank for a reason. What if, when the fight was over, Barry McKinnon decided to open that barred gate? What if the victorious werewolf retreated back into its lair – and found us waiting? If that happened, an atomiser full of Windex wouldn’t be enough to defend us.
‘We’ve left our luggage at the hotel,’ Dave pointed out suddenly, in hoarse accents. ‘We’ve booked a room. When someone starts searching for us, the trail will lead straight here.’ He turned to Father Ramon. ‘I mean, you asked about Barry McKinnon, didn’t you? You asked the receptionist.’
‘And she winked,’ said the priest, pulling a long face. ‘She might be a friend of his.’
‘Yes, but even if she lies, we talked to other witnesses. Out there by the pit.’
‘Who probably won’t want the police to know what they’ve been doing,’ was Father Ramon’s glumly expressed view. Dave’s response was to bend over, propping his hands on both knees. Suddenly he looked exhausted – and very sick.
‘Come and sit down,’ I entreated, patting the vacant stretch of mattress beside me. Poor Dave couldn’t move, though; not without help. Father Ramon had to take his arm, and lower him onto the bed.
I recognised all the symptoms of a blinding headache.
‘Okay, listen.’ As the priest addressed us both, he flicked a nervous look at the door. ‘I’m sure these people will have the sense to let us out,’ he said, very softly. ‘But if the worst comes to the worst, we mustn’t forget that there are three of us. We should be able to defend ourselves.’
‘Against those things?’ I couldn’t imagine what he expected us to do. ‘Did you see their claws? And their teeth? They could bite our heads off. Easily.’
‘Perhaps they could, at present,’ he conceded. ‘But there may not be two of them by the time they’re done. And even the winner might not be in great shape.’
He was right. We all peered at the gate, analysing the noises that were drifting through its bars. We heard a raucous chanting. We heard moans of disappointment. And we heard a startled canine yelp, as if a very large dog had just received a nasty shock.
‘Maybe we can hit it over the head when it comes in,’ said Dave. Gloomily, he surveyed his surroundings. ‘Except that there’s nothing in here to hit it with.’
‘The bed?’ I suggested. The bed, however, was bolted to the floor – and the heater was out of our reach. Obviously the McKinnons didn’t want to give their captives anything that even remotely resembled ammunition.
‘We could stick Dave’s knife in its neck,’ I began, confident that I would be able to find the jugular on anything. At which point Father Ramon gasped.
‘Oh! Wait!’ he cried, fumbling in his pockets. After a few seconds, he produced a box of matches. ‘Windex is flammable, isn’t it? I’m sure it is,’ he said.
Dave and I stared. ‘What are those for?’ I demanded. ‘You haven’t started smoking, have you?’
‘I like to carry them on me,’ the priest explained, ‘just in case any votive candles burn out.’
‘Oh.’
‘We’ve sheets here, too. And books …’
After a whispered discussion, we decided that we would drench one of the sheets in Windex. Then, if a werewolf did burst into the room, we would ignite the Windex and fling the flaming sheet over our feral opponent’s head.
Dave wanted to try the same trick on Barry McKinnon. But Father Ramon didn’t approve.
‘Barry hasn’t hurt us, Dave,’ the priest objected. ‘You want to set him alight the second he comes in? What if he’s decided to let us go?’
‘Then he won’t come in, will he?’ Dave rejoined. ‘He’ll just open the door.’
‘He might want to discuss things first.’
‘Oh, please.’ I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘He’s got a gun, Father.’
‘She’s right,’ said Dave. ‘The minute we see his gun, we’ll know what he really wants to do.’
‘We need to get him before he gets us,’ I insisted. ‘And if Dermid’s with him … well, maybe Dave should use his knife on Dermid.’
‘While you grab the gun, Nina.’ Dave was nodding. ‘Father Ramon can throw the sheet, you can go for the gun, and I’ll stab Dermid.’
‘It’s all right, Father.’ I could see that the priest was about to protest. ‘Even if I do get shot, it won’t be fatal. You’re the one who has to watch out, not me.’
This was a typical Zadia Bloodstone remark. It’s the sort of thing that looks pretty good on paper. But the fact is, I couldn’t say it like Zadia Bloodstone. My voice trembled as I thought about copping a bullet in the gut. While an injury like that wouldn’t trouble Zadia, it could easily ruin my life.
The prospect made me feel sick all over again.
Even so, I was able to hold two corners of the soiled, greyish sheet that Father Ramon dragged off the bed. He sprinkled Windex onto the centre of the sheet while Dave held the other two corners; the sheet was then placed midway between the door and the gate, ready for use.
When my atomiser was empty, Dave wrapped it in a blanket and stamped on it. He then distributed the resulting bits of glass between the th
ree of us. According to Dave, they were better than nothing. ‘You never know,’ he said. ‘They may come in handy.’
Though I couldn’t imagine fending off a ravenous werewolf with a tiny sliver of perfume bottle, I tucked one jagged shard into my pocket. From the pit, a savage roar was followed by a high-pitched squeal. Father Ramon immediately pulled off his jumper, exposing the dog-collar that he wore underneath.
‘They might think twice about harming a minister of the church,’ he conjectured.
By this time Dave was back on the bed, with his head in his hands. I wondered if he was feeling well enough to answer a question.
‘Do you think the stories are true?’ I asked. ‘Do you think were-wolves turn back into human beings when the sun rises?’
‘Who knows?’ Dave mumbled.
‘There’s a full moon tonight,’ I went on, ‘so that bit must be true.’ Another troubling thought crossed my mind. ‘Do you think they’re just like us? Do you think they spread the werewolf infection when they bite people?’
‘Maybe,’ said Dave.
‘What happens to a vampire who gets bitten by a werewolf, anyway?’ In Underworld, as far as I could recall, such bites were supposed to be fatal – but Underworld wasn’t real. ‘And what happens if a vampire bites a werewolf? Would it have any effect?’
‘Don’t ask me.’ Dave didn’t seem particularly interested. ‘You’re the one who writes Dracula spin-offs.’
‘It might have some effect,’ I continued, thinking aloud. ‘It might be worth a try.’
‘Nina – we won’t be fanging anyone if we can help it.’ Dave lifted his head. ‘You know what Sanford always tells us. If you give into that urge—’
‘—it’ll harm you as much as it harms your victim,’ I finished, impatiently quoting Sanford. ‘I realise that. But what if it’s a choice between psychological damage and total dismemberment? What if those things try to eat us, Dave?’ (My panic was mounting.) ‘Shouldn’t we at least bite back?’