The Dark Side of the Road

Ten

And then there were five.

Penny and Leilah stood over the dead body of Melanie Belcourt. The wooden stick still protruded from her chest, because no one felt like touching it yet. Melanie’s face wore an expression of sullen regret, as though this was what she’d been expecting all along. Leilah looked shocked. Penny looked like she didn’t know what she should be feeling. Alexander Khan stood well back from everyone, staring at me with awful fascination. Jeeves was still doing his best to seem professional. I walked over to him, and he looked at me sharply, the gun jerking briefly in his hand. As though he felt he should be pointing it at someone.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘That could have gone better.’

‘You think?’ said Jeeves.

‘She’s out there,’ I said. ‘Sylvia. Waiting for us to go and search for her.’

‘And you think that’s a good idea?’ said Jeeves.

‘Better than waiting for her to come back and pick us off one at a time,’ I said. ‘She wants us to barricade ourselves in here and feel safe. She can survive the cold long enough for that. And then she’ll break in, supernaturally quietly, and move unheard through the house … Unless we take the fight to her.’

Jeeves nodded slowly. ‘We have to take back the advantage. Get the element of surprise on our side. But can we really kill a thing like that?’

‘Guns won’t do it,’ I said. ‘But there are other things we can try.’

‘We can’t all go,’ said Jeeves. ‘Too many people stumbling around out there would just make it easy for her. She could pick us off one by one, ambushing us from out of the fog and the snow. And besides, not all of us are up to it.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘I think you and I should go take a look outside, while Leilah stands guard over the others.’

‘I heard that!’ Leilah said immediately. ‘You don’t give me orders!’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Jeeves. ‘I do. Ishmael’s going outside because he knows the most about that … creature. And I’m going, because that’s my job.’

‘It’s my job too!’ said Leilah. ‘How come you get to go out and play the hero, while I have to stay behind and look after the children? I have a right to go after Sylvia! She tricked me into killing Melanie!’

‘I know,’ said Jeeves, not unkindly. ‘And that’s why you can’t go, Leilah. Look at you, girl. Still shaking, still upset. Sylvia would take advantage of that. Tracking her down is going to take a cool head and cold professionalism. Revenge would only get in the way. Ishmael and I will kill this vampire in extremely cold blood.’

Leilah came forward, to stand before her husband. ‘You’ve never had to do that before.’

‘Neither have you,’ said Jeeves. ‘I will spare you that, if I can. So; guard the guests while we’re gone. Don’t take any nonsense from them. And avenge me if I don’t come back.’

‘Come back,’ said Leilah.

While they were talking, Penny gave me a hard look, so I went over to stand with her. She’d turned away from her mother’s body, so she wouldn’t have to look at it. She met my gaze steadily. ‘Why can’t I go with you? I thought we made a pretty good team.’

‘We do,’ I said. ‘As detectives. But this is killing business, now. You have no experience in that area, and trust me, you’re better off without it.’

‘So what am I supposed to do? Just … stand around, wringing my hands, till you come back? Or until it’s clear you won’t be coming back? I need to do something, Ishmael!’

‘Leilah can’t guard this room on her own,’ I said quietly. ‘If Jeeves and I can’t find Sylvia, if she slips past us, she will come back here. She wants everyone dead. For revenge; for defying her … and to ensure there are no witnesses. So; you work with Leilah and Khan to make this room safe, so Jeeves and I don’t have to worry about you while we’re gone. Can you do that?’

‘Of course I can,’ said Penny. ‘If you don’t come back … I will avenge you, Ishmael. I will hammer a stake through that bitch’s rotten heart and spit in her eyes as she dies.’

‘Of course you will,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t expect anything less.’

‘And afterwards?’ said Penny. ‘If there is an afterwards? What about you and me? Could you use a new partner?’

‘I usually work alone,’ I said. ‘It’s safer that way. For me and for everyone else. I walk the dark side of the road, Penny. I live alone because I hurt fewer people that way.’

‘That’s no way to live,’ said Penny.

She took me in her arms, and we held each other for a long moment.

In the end I let go of her and pushed her gently away. ‘There will be time to talk of many things afterwards,’ I said. ‘But right now I have a job to do.’

‘Kill the bitch,’ said Penny. ‘And afterwards, I’ll show you what living is all about.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘It’s always good to have something to look forward to.’

I turned away, to talk with Jeeves, but Khan intercepted me. He stood in my way and looked me over carefully, as though searching for signs he should have spotted before. And then he smiled briefly, uncertainly.

‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘When we first met we were both the same age. Now I’ve grown older, and you haven’t aged a day. All those years working together, for Black Heir, and I never even suspected that you’re … What are you, Ishmael? Really? Your name was Daniel when I knew you, thirty years ago, but I don’t feel right calling you that now. Daniel wasn’t real; but then, I suppose Ishmael isn’t either. What are you?’

‘In a hurry, Alex,’ I said. ‘I have work to do.’

‘I could come with you,’ said Khan. ‘I had the same training you did, at Black Heir.’

‘You were a paper-shuffler,’ I said, as kindly as I could. ‘The one time you worked with me in the field, in Moscow, you hated it. Couldn’t wait to get home. I need you here, helping barricade this room and make it safe. Sylvia may be a supernatural creature, but she still has physical limitations. You can keep her out, if you work at it.’

‘And afterwards?’ said Khan. ‘What’s to stop me telling everyone about you?’

‘Who would you tell?’ I said. ‘Daniel disappeared from Black Heir, and Ishmael will disappear from Belcourt Manor. And if you start talking wildly about vampires and aliens … They’ll put you away.’

Khan nodded reluctantly. ‘Who do you work for now, Ishmael? Who did James work for?’

‘The Organization,’ I said. ‘And now you know as much as I do.’

I went back to join Jeeves, who was standing in the open doorway, looking out into the hall. It all seemed quiet enough. Behind me I could hear Penny and Leilah and Khan quietly planning their defence of the drawing room. I looked at Jeeves. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Not really. You?’

‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

‘Then let’s get started,’ said Jeeves. ‘Before we both have a rush of common sense to the head and think better of it. Leilah!’

She looked round immediately. ‘Yes? What do you want?’

‘Give us an hour, tops,’ he said, calmly enough. ‘If we’re not back by then, we won’t be coming back. Then it will be up to you to decide what to do next. But remember, Leilah: our job is to protect people. Not take revenge.’

‘The client is dead,’ said Leilah.

‘His daughter isn’t,’ said Jeeves.

‘Understood,’ said Leilah. She looked round at the rest of us. ‘He’s my man. Isn’t he wonderful?’

She hugged Jeeves goodbye, kissed him hard, and then pushed him away and went back to the others.

Jeeves looked at me. ‘She’s very warm-hearted.’

‘I could tell,’ I said.

And then, together, we went out the door and into the still, quiet hallway.

There was already a distinct chill in the hall as the storm blew snow and wisps of fog through the open front door. I could hear the wind rise and fall, and beyond the open door I could see night had fallen. Blue-white moonlight reflected in from the fallen snow. I looked carefully up and down the hall. All the doors were shut, and nothing moved in the shadows. It was cold inside the house now. Cold as death, cold as the tomb. Cold as a vampire’s heart. I couldn’t hear anything moving, and I couldn’t smell blood or decay anywhere.

‘She could have just hauled the front door open, to make us think she’d gone outside,’ Jeeves said slowly. ‘And then … sneaked back down the hall, to hide in the house again. In the hope some of us would go outside and split up the group. She’d probably think it a fine joke, to have the two of us stumbling around in the cold and the snow, while she attacked the others.’

‘She’s not in the house,’ I said. ‘I can see her footprints in the snow outside. She couldn’t have come back in without tracking some of that snow with her. She may be a supernatural thing, but she still leaves traces of her passing in this world, just like us.’

Jeeves looked at me. ‘I thought for a moment you were about to say you couldn’t smell her anywhere in the house.’

‘I’m not that good,’ I said.

‘But you can see footprints in the snow, outside the door at the far end of the hall,’ said Jeeves. ‘I couldn’t make that out if I had a telescope.’ He studied me thoughtfully. ‘Sylvia … the vampire … said you were no more human than she was.’

‘She’s wrong,’ I said. ‘I’m a lot more human than she is. Just in case you need me to say it: I am not a vampire.’

‘Never thought you were,’ said Jeeves, just a bit too quickly. ‘But you are quite definitely weird. Did you really work with Alexander Khan back in the eighties?’

‘When this is all over,’ I said, ‘I’ll explain.’

‘I’m so glad you said when and not if,’ said Jeeves. ‘I’ll take all the encouragement I can get.’

We both moved cautiously down the long empty hallway and stopped before the open front door. Back in the drawing room, I could hear the others moving heavy furniture about, building a barricade. Jeeves and I looked out into the world beyond. Snow was falling hard, but the wind had dropped away to just the odd gust, here and there. A pearly fog curled slowly on the air, swallowing up the distant view. It was all deathly still and deadly quiet. Just standing there in the open door, exposed to the night and the storm, made Jeeves shiver violently.

I didn’t.

‘Given that Sylvia is undead,’ I said, ‘I think we have to assume the cold won’t affect her as much as it does us. So she can survive out here without the need for protective clothing.’

‘Seems likely,’ said Jeeves. ‘The way she looked … I swear to God I never saw anything like that in my life … Her flesh had rotted right down to the bone, in places! And those eyes, and the teeth … Things like that just shouldn’t be possible, in any sane and rational world!’

‘Mostly, they aren’t,’ I said. ‘But it’s a bigger world than most people ever have to realize. There’s room in it for lots of extreme things, good and bad.’

‘She could be hiding anywhere,’ Jeeves said unhappily. ‘In the fog, in the snow. Lying in wait, to attack us as we pass.’

‘Seems likely,’ I said.

We stared out into the night. Stark vivid moonlight blazed back at us from the snow-covered grounds. Smooth white dunes everywhere, rising and falling, unmarked and undisturbed. Large snowy objects before us that used to be our parked cars. I couldn’t even tell which was mine any more. They sort of reminded me of igloos, which made me wonder whether Sylvia might be hiding inside one of the cars. Safe and unsuspected, and insulated from the cold. But no; there was no way she could have smoothed the snow back again, once she was inside. She was a vampire, not a magician.

I did meet a magician, once. He sawed his wife in half. The police never did find him.

I looked around, taking my time. The tithe barn loomed out of the mists on one side of the manor house, and the terraced row of cottages showed dimly through the fog on the other side. Beyond them, I could just make out the snow-covered gardens, with their trees and hedges and topiary structures. So many dim dark shapes, in the glowing grey mists.

‘She could be anywhere, out here!’ said Jeeves. ‘Where do we even start?’

‘She’s a predator,’ I said. ‘They do like to lie in wait. But the longer we put this off, the more chances she has to set her plans against us.’

There was a long pause.

‘Are you as reluctant to go out there as I am?’ said Jeeves. ‘I mean, once we leave the house, we’re committed. No turning back. We hunt the vampire till we find it, and then either we kill it, or it kills us.’

‘I am extremely reluctant,’ I said. ‘But experience has taught me it’s nearly always best to hold your nose and jump right in. Because the water isn’t going to get any warmer.’

‘You know what really scares me?’ said Jeeves, meeting my gaze with almost brutal honesty. ‘If she decided not to kill me. If she decided to bite me and make me into a creature like her. A thing of … endless appetites and no emotions. Not caring about anyone or anything, ever again. I wouldn’t want to go on living if I couldn’t care any more. If I didn’t care about my Leilah.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll make sure you’re properly dead.’

‘I was going to say: don’t let Sylvia get anywhere near me!’ said Jeeves. ‘Dear God, you have a morbid state of mind, Ishmael!’

‘Comes with the job,’ I said. ‘And the territory.’

We shared a brief smile.

‘I’ll do the same for you, if I have to,’ said Jeeves.

‘Good to know,’ I said. ‘Remember, the way to a vampire’s heart is straight under the sternum, and then lean in hard.’ I looked out at the snow and the fog. ‘We’re going to have to check all the outbuildings, and then make sure she can’t conceal herself in any of them.’

‘How are we going to do that?’

‘Set fire to them,’ I said. ‘Burn them all, right down to the ground. Preferably with Sylvia inside. But at the very least, we have to drive her out into the open, where we can get at her.’

I realized Jeeves was looking at me, apparently genuinely shocked. It took him a moment to get the words out.

‘Are you crazy? These are all listed buildings! Historical treasures; part of our country’s architectural heritage! Each and every one of them is worth a small fortune in their own right!’

‘Antiques Roadshow can bill me,’ I said.

‘You really aren’t human,’ said Jeeves.

‘We both need to bundle up warm before we go out,’ I said. ‘There’s suitable clothing in the cupboard to your left. I plan to wrap a thick scarf around my neck several times.’

‘You really think that’ll stop a bite?’ said Jeeves.

‘No. But it should keep the cold out.’

‘Do we have a plan?’

‘Of course. You start the fires, and I’ll keep watch.’

‘So I can take the blame for all the arson,’ said Jeeves. ‘Because you’re not planning on being here when my people finally turn up, are you?’

‘Like the Organization I work for,’ I said, ‘I don’t officially exist.’

Jeeves sighed, loudly. ‘This job started out so well. Really good money, just to play bodyguard at a country house weekend. A chance for Leilah to show off her culinary skills. Easy money … We should have known better.’

I closed the front door to keep out the cold. And so I could be sure the vampire wouldn’t sneak back in and ambush us while we were getting changed. I showed Jeeves the walk-in cupboard, and we piled on as many layers of heavy clothing as we could manage, while still being able to move freely. I remembered doing this before with Penny. Remembered walking with her through the snow-covered grounds, with no idea of what kind of day lay ahead of us. I remembered finding the Colonel’s body inside a snowman and knowing my world would never be the same again.

When Jeeves and I finished dressing, we both stood back to look each other over. With a scarf pulled up over his mouth and nose, and a woolly hat pulled down hard over his shaven head to just above his eyebrows, all I could see of Jeeves was his eyes. But I was pretty sure he wasn’t smiling.

We went back to the front door, and I hauled it open. Both of us were braced and ready, just in case Sylvia was lying in wait on the other side. It’s what I would have done. Instead there was just the fog and the snow, and the shimmering moonlight. The air was barely moving, hardly disturbing the heavy mists.

‘Easy to hide in,’ said Jeeves.

‘For us, as well as her,’ I said.

‘Unless her undead senses work better than ours.’

‘I doubt they’re better than mine,’ I said. ‘I should be able to tell if she’s anywhere near us … Any sound will travel well on this quiet, and with her glamour gone, she stinks of the grave.’

‘You sure you’ll be able to sense her?’

‘I’m going out there, aren’t I?’

Jeeves sighed, heavily. ‘You know the real problem, here? I never once suspected Sylvia might be the killer. I liked Sylvia.’

‘Everyone did,’ I said. ‘I think that’s the point of having a glamour.’

Jeeves nodded and called back down the hall to Leilah.

She immediately stuck her head out of the doorway. ‘Yes?’ she said loudly. ‘What do you want? I’m busy! Heavy defensive barricades don’t build themselves, you know!’

‘I’m going to lock the front door behind us, Leilah,’ said Jeeves. ‘So when we come back, we’ll need you to let us in. I’ll knock like this, so you can be sure it’s me.’ He knocked three times quickly on the door, followed by two slow and hard. ‘Don’t leave me out in the cold, girl.’

‘I’ll be listening,’ said Leilah. ‘Dear God, look at the state of you. Are you sure you’ve got enough clothes on? Don’t forget your knock, or I swear I’ll leave you out there.’

‘She would, too,’ Jeeves said proudly.

‘And you say I’m weird,’ I said.

‘You are!’ Leilah said loudly.

Once outside, with the front door locked firmly behind us, Jeeves and I stood close together, peering about us. The moonlight reflected back from the snow almost as bright as day, but it was hard to see far in any direction. The fog was getting thicker. I could just make out the tithe barn beside the main house; a great dark looming presence. Any footsteps Sylvia might have left in the snow had already disappeared, covered over by new snow.

Jeeves was already shivering and shuddering from the extreme cold, for all his heavy coats. He glared at me when he realized I wasn’t shivering at all.

‘It’s so desolate out here,’ he said. ‘Like being on the surface of the moon. A dead world, harbouring an undead creature. I can’t believe I’m really doing this …’

‘Believe it,’ I said. ‘Doubts will get you killed.’

‘In the old stories, faith was a genuine defence against vampires,’ Jeeves said slowly. ‘I never got around to making my mind up about that sort of thing.’

‘You saw Khan try and stop Sylvia with silver candlesticks for a crucifix,’ I said. ‘She just laughed. Have faith in your experience and your abilities, Jeeves. They’re far more likely to keep you alive.’

‘But doesn’t all this make you think?’ said Jeeves. ‘She’s a vampire; this is Christmas Eve … It has to mean something! Doesn’t it?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I told you, I’m not from around here. I don’t know what to believe.’

‘But if a vampire really does exist,’ said Jeeves, ‘you have to ask yourself: what else could be real?’

‘I wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘You’ll sleep better at night. Can we please discuss the philosophical implications later, when this is all over and we’re back in the warm? I do feel the cold, you know.’

‘Can you smell anything?’ said Jeeves.

‘Nothing useful,’ I said. ‘Let’s start with the nearest building.’

‘That would be the tithe barn.’

‘So it would.’

We trudged forward through the heavy snow. The great grey shape of the barn loomed out of the mists before us, seeming somehow more solid and more real, the closer we got. The whole world was still and quiet, as though holding its breath to see what would happen next. The only sound was the crunch of our boots as they sank deep into the piled-up snow. The air was cold enough to sear my lungs as I breathed it in. It must have been even worse for Jeeves, because he was making quiet sounds of distress with every breath he took, without even realizing it.

‘I don’t see any footsteps,’ he said as we approached the great opening in the barn’s front wall.

‘Wouldn’t expect to,’ I said. ‘The snow’s had more than enough time to cover them over. If you want something else to worry about … Maybe Sylvia can fly, for short distances. You remember how she clung to the drawing room ceiling …’

‘You’re right,’ said Jeeves. ‘That is something new to worry about, and I would just like to point out that I was a lot happier before you brought it up.’

‘It does seem unlikely,’ I said. ‘But it’s best to consider all the possibilities.’

‘You are not helping my confidence at all,’ said Jeeves.

‘I’m not doing much for my own,’ I admitted.

We stopped before the tithe barn, to look it over. Heavy stone walls with slit windows, under a slanting slate roof. Little had changed since I was last here with Penny. A lifetime ago. More snow had been blown in through the open doorway, forming a high ledge. No footprints, no gaps, nothing to show Sylvia had entered the barn. Unless she went skittering up the wall … I kicked my way through the snow drift and strode inside, trying to look everywhere at once while still appearing calm and purposeful. Jeeves was quickly there at my side, his gun steady in his gloved hand.

‘You do know,’ I said quietly, ‘that bullets won’t stop her.’

‘Might slow her down some,’ said Jeeves. ‘If I take out her kneecaps. Or her eyes. And it makes me feel better.’

‘That, right there,’ I said, ‘is why I prefer not to use guns. They give you an entirely false sense of security.’

‘Really not helping …’ said Jeeves.

‘Would you rather I lied to you?’

‘Yes!’

‘And people say I’m weird.’

I spotted an old storm lantern, sitting on the ridged stone floor next to the wall. I picked it up and shook it carefully. Oil splashed heavily in the bottom. I was fumbling in my pocket for something to light it with, when Jeeves hit the wall switch, and bright electric light flooded the barn from end to end.

He looked at me pityingly. ‘We are in the twenty-first century, you know.’

The barn was empty, apart from the hulking shapes of old farm machinery under their heavy tarpaulins. I looked carefully around and behind each of them, even lifting up each tarpaulin in turn for a peek underneath. There was no sign of Sylvia anywhere. Jeeves walked from one end of the barn to the other and back again, just in case. We both took our time, making sure we missed nothing. I could see beads of sweat forming on Jeeves’ dark face, despite the cold. The gun in his hand was still entirely steady.

When we’d convinced ourselves the barn was empty, we went back to the open doorway. I looked at Jeeves steadily, and he nodded, reluctantly. I smashed the oil lamp against the wall, spilled oil in a wide circle across the floor, and finally dumped what was left over the nearest tarpaulin. Jeeves produced a Zippo lighter, knelt down, and set light to the floor. Both of us hurried out the doorway as bright yellow flames shot up.

Jeeves and I moved hastily out into the thick falling snow. A great blast of superheated air shot out of the opening, only just falling short of us. Black smoke was already forcing its way out through the slit windows. The electric light inside the barn snapped off, and all that was left was dancing yellow flames.

‘Stone walls,’ said Jeeves. ‘But wooden rafters in the roof, and old wooden farm machinery … The barn will go up fast enough and burn for some time. No place for Sylvia there.’ He looked at me. ‘Is it right: fire destroys vampires?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ I said. ‘She’s just a walking corpse, and crematoriums deal with dead bodies perfectly well every day. Except …’

‘I hate it when you pause like that,’ said Jeeves. ‘Except what?’

‘Sylvia set Roger’s body on fire,’ I said. ‘Which would suggest she isn’t frightened by fire. It is possible that not being scared of something might actually be a weakness. Sylvia’s too used to seeing herself as untouchable and unkillable. She might not have the same survival instincts as us.’

‘It’s amazing,’ said Jeeves. ‘You keep talking and you keep coming up with things, and yet not one of them is ever remotely comforting.’

‘It’s a gift,’ I said.

I led the way, past the manor house, past the cottages, and on into the gardens. I didn’t think Sylvia would actually be there, but I wanted to look them over anyway, just in case. Sylvia struck me as the type who would do exactly what you wouldn’t think she would do, just to catch you off guard. Jeeves didn’t make any objections. He thought I knew everything about vampires, which just went to show how little he knew. Our feet sank deep into the snow with every step, making loud crunching noises, as though to warn Sylvia we were coming.

Across the snow-covered gardens we went, through rows of trees and past the topiary figures, which I found even more disturbing than before, with even more snow to obscure their original shapes. There were no details left to show what they had been. I checked each one carefully, even batting at the branches with the back of my hand to make some snow fall away and reveal the interior.

‘Do you honestly think Sylvia would hide inside one of those things?’ said Jeeves.

‘She hid the Colonel inside a snowman,’ I said.

I checked between and behind every topiary shape, taking my time, refusing to be hurried. I really didn’t want Sylvia jumping out at me. I could sense a growing tension in Jeeves’ increasingly abrupt movements. I wondered if he thought I was putting off checking the cottages for Sylvia, and I wondered that too. I finally stopped, at one particular place, and looked at the ground.

Jeeves moved in beside me. ‘Is that where you found the snowman?’ he said quietly.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s where I found the Colonel. When I first smelled blood and didn’t know what it meant.’

‘I suppose the world still made sense to you, back then,’ said Jeeves.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t say this world has ever made sense to me.’

‘Do you ever wonder … If you hadn’t found James’ body, would Sylvia have just bided her time here till the storm was over and then left?’ said Jeeves. ‘And then maybe no one else would have died?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I never think things like that. Hindsight never helped anyone. You can only ever deal with what’s in front of you. Sylvia killed before she came here, and she would have killed again, afterwards. She’s a predator. That’s what she does. Stopping her is all that matters.’ I looked around me. The pale world looked back, pristine and gleaming, cold as death.

Jeeves was shivering hard now. ‘I think we’ve seen all there is to see here,’ he said. ‘Let’s go check the cottages.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Let’s do that. Maybe we can set a fire to warm ourselves up.’

We made our way back to the row of Victorian cottages, driving ourselves on through the hard-packed snow. I think we both felt more vulnerable, more at risk, out in the open. Where Sylvia could be anywhere. And we both wanted to find the vampire and get this over and done with. Find and stake the rotten thing, and put it behind us, so we could have our lives back again. We stopped before the old head gardener’s house, GravelStone Cottage, and looked it over carefully. No lights showed at any of the windows, and the front door was firmly closed. A pleasant scene, in a winter view.

But would an undead creature need light, or heat? Or anything other than a dark place to hide?

Jeeves strode up to the front door and tried the handle. The door didn’t budge. ‘Locked,’ said Jeeves. ‘Knew I should have brought my skeleton keys.’

I gestured for him to stand aside, and then charged the heavy wooden door. I hit it square with my shoulder and blasted the door right off its hinges without even slowing. The door slammed down on to the floor, and I strode right over it, slowing to a halt in the dark and gloomy hall. Jeeves hurried in after me, waving his gun around in a more or less professional way.

‘All right,’ he said, once he was sure we were alone. ‘That was … really something. I am officially impressed. Doesn’t doing that hurt your shoulder?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

We pressed slowly forward, into the gloom of the hallway. Jeeves found the light switch eventually, and the sudden glare was almost blinding. The narrow hall was disconcertingly cheerful and cosy, with pleasant old-fashioned wallpaper, charming furnishings, and a bare wooden floor. A perfect getaway home from home, to soothe the spirits of the troubled guest. Not the kind of place you’d expect to find a monster. But then, that was the point.

We searched all the downstairs rooms and found nothing. No sign anyone had been inside GravelStone Cottage in months. We went upstairs. Jeeves wanted to go first, because he had the gun, but I took the lead anyway, because I knew for a fact I was a lot harder to kill. I kept sniffing the air, but I couldn’t smell blood or decay. Just dust and damp.

We searched all the upper rooms, kicking in doors and checking every nook and cranny with malice aforethought. I even opened all the cupboards and overturned the beds, just in case there might be a monster hiding under them. By the time we’d checked all the rooms and gone back out on to the landing again, we were both so tense from unrelieved anticipation that we were exhausted. All my muscles ached, from not being allowed to relax.

‘There’s no one home,’ Jeeves said heavily. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘After you,’ I said.

I let him lead the way back down the noisy wooden stairs, mostly so he wouldn’t see me scowling as I struggled to think things through. I couldn’t help feeling I was missing something. Learn to think like the prey, the Colonel always said, So you can out-think them. But the prey I went after was usually alive, in some form or another. My cases usually tended more to the super-scientific than the supernatural. I knew such stuff existed; you couldn’t operate in my world and not know. But the Colonel had other agents for that. So why had he called for me, specifically, to come and help him? If he suspected Sylvia was a vampire, why not call on a more suitable agent? Could it be that he didn’t trust them like he trusted me? I would have liked to think so.

I felt a little easier once we were back in the entrance hall with the open door in front of us. All the way down the stairs, I’d had the horrible suspicion that when we got to the bottom we’d find Sylvia there, waiting for us. Smiling her awful smile. But she wasn’t. Jeeves and I hauled furniture out of the living rooms and into the hall, and piled it up. Then we took turns dousing it with bottles of wine we’d found, until the whole hall stank of alcohol. Jeeves and I slipped out the front door, while I left a careful trail of booze behind us, and then Jeeves got to do the business with his Zippo again. The furniture went up in a moment, and a great blast of heat shot out the open doorway. If we hadn’t been so thoroughly wrapped up, the intense heat might well have taken our eyebrows off. The entire frontage of GravelStone Cottage was soon wildly ablaze. Jeeves took his gloves off and happily warmed his bare hands against the fierce heat. He pulled down his scarf, so he could grin at me.

‘First time I’ve felt warm since we left the Manor! Look at the place go … And you’re not even sweating!’

‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘Mostly.’

We turned our attention to the long row of terraced cottages. Stretching away for as far as we could see, with the furthest end disappearing into the fog. Everywhere we looked, the doors all stood properly shut, with not a light showing anywhere. Sylvia could have been hiding behind any of the darkened windows, watching and waiting, and we would never have known.

‘It’s going to take far too long to search each cottage individually,’ I said. ‘And it’ll give Sylvia far too many chances to launch an ambush. I say … we don’t go inside at all. Just light them up. You set fire at the far end, I’ll take this one; we’ll let the fires spread from cottage to cottage till they meet in the middle.’

‘And then?’ said Jeeves.

‘And then we wait for the fires to drive Sylvia out, knock her down, stake her … and then cut her head off, just to be sure.’

‘You really think it’s going to be that easy?’ said Jeeves.

‘Well, no,’ I said. ‘I was just trying to sound positive.’

‘You haven’t even got a wooden stake!’

‘I will acquire one, before the need arises,’ I said.

‘You really don’t inspire confidence, you know that?’ said Jeeves. He looked down the long row of cottages. ‘You think it’s a good idea for us to split up and go off on our own?’

‘I don’t see that we have a choice,’ I said. ‘If we both start at the same end, she could just make a run for it. So … stay in sight as much as you can, and don’t let yourself get distracted. Set the fire, and get the hell back here. Call me if you even think you see anything.’

‘Same to you,’ said Jeeves.

We nodded briefly to each other. There wasn’t anything else to say. Jeeves went stomping off into the snow, while I looked over my end of the cottages. I did look after him once, but Jeeves had already disappeared into the grey walls of fog and falling snow.

It didn’t take me long to set fire to my end of the terrace. Kick in the first door, pile up the furniture, soak them with anything incendiary that came to hand, and then light it up. I stopped to sniff the air, now and again, but there was never any trace of blood or decay. Never a sound of anything moving, or even a feeling I wasn’t alone. That bothered me. Sylvia had to be here, somewhere. There was nowhere else she could be hiding. I used my own lighter to set the fires. I don’t smoke, never have, but a lighter is still a useful thing to have about you. Never know when a sudden inferno will come in useful.

My end cottage went up quickly, and the flames jumped swiftly on to the next. The whole terrace was really just one big fire trap. The first two cottages burned quickly, filling the cold night air with blasting heat and thick black smoke. But when I looked down to the far end of the cottages, there was no sign of Jeeves and no trace of any fire. Something had gone wrong.

I ran past the middle cottages, slamming through the snow, and the far houses slowly appeared out of the mists. No fire, no broken-in doors, not even a shattered window. And no sign of Jeeves, anywhere. I considered calling out to him, and then thought better of it. I sniffed hard at the air, but all I could smell was smoke.

I heard a sound and looked up. And there they were, Jeeves chasing Sylvia across the slanting snow-covered roofs. She still looked like a rotting corpse, dressed in filthy old clothes as she danced lightly along the cottages, laughing easily. Jeeves had to struggle to keep up with her. He had his gun in his hand, but he hadn’t fired it yet. I could hear his footsteps, slamming and sliding across treacherous snowy slates, but I couldn’t hear Sylvia’s. No wonder I couldn’t smell her, all the way up there. I could hear her laughing, hear Jeeves cursing breathlessly. He stopped where he was, took careful aim, and opened fire, but if his bullets did hit Sylvia, they didn’t even slow her down.

I don’t know how they got up there. Whether Sylvia lured Jeeves from one floor to another, then up through an attic opening up on to the roof … Something like that, no doubt. And then one last chase, with her beckoning him on, just for the fun of it.

Jeeves went after her again. I called up to him, yelling for him to stop and come down so we could take her the way we’d planned. But either he couldn’t hear me, or he didn’t want to, caught up in the heat of the chase. He slipped and slid on the treacherous snowy roofs, but somehow still drove himself on, with sheer strength and stubbornness. He almost fell several times, but somehow saved himself at the last moment. Sylvia seemed to float along, supernaturally sure-footed, never losing her balance for a moment. And then she stopped abruptly and spun around, to face Jeeves. He couldn’t stop so quickly, stumbling forward, and while he was distracted she launched herself at him. She flashed forward across the snowy roof, so fast she was just a blur, crossing the intervening distance in just a few seconds.

And there was nothing I could do to help him.

She slammed into Jeeves, driving him back several steps. She grabbed his shoulders with both hands, and Jeeves cried out at the horrid strength in her undead grasp. I heard his shoulder-bones break, one after the other. Jeeves struggled anyway, fighting back with everything he had, but he couldn’t break free. He tried to bring up his gun, but there was no strength left in his arms.

Sylvia looked down at me, and I knew this had all been arranged for my benefit. A show, staged up on the roofs so I couldn’t interfere. Jeeves had been right, after all; she’d just been waiting for us to separate, so she could catch one of us on our own. And have fun with them.

Her head snapped forward, and Jeeves cried out. A horrid despairing sound as her teeth sank deep into his neck. Blood spouted, steaming thickly on the cold air. More blood ran down his chest, soaking into his coat. Sylvia worried at his throat, like a dog with a fresh piece of meat, her sharp teeth tearing at the flesh. The noises she made as she fed weren’t even animal; they were somehow more basic, more primordial, than that.

There was nothing I could do. No way I could get up there, before it would all be over.

Sylvia supported Jeeves’ entire weight with her undead strength. His legs had gone limp, just dangling. She buried her face in the great wound she’d made in his throat, gulping down his blood. I could hear the awful sounds quite clearly. Jeeves slowly turned his face away, to look down at me. And then he opened his hand and let go of his gun. It clattered down the side of the roof, hit the guttering, and spun out into space, falling down and down through the air. I moved quickly forward and caught it.

Sylvia pulled her face away from Jeeves’ neck. She glared down at me, her eyes unnaturally bright in her rotting face. Her mouth and teeth dripped gore. When she spoke, I could hear her as clearly as though she were standing right in front of me.

‘See what I’m doing, Ishmael? I’m going to do this to all of them! One by one, until you’re the only one left. You get to watch them suffer, and you get to suffer too, for the sin of inconveniencing me. So really this is all your fault, isn’t it? And when I finally come for you … oh, the things I’ll do to you! But for now, just watch …’

Jeeves’ body was entirely limp, no strength left in it. He was only held up by the vampire’s strength. But he was still looking down at me, and I knew why he’d dropped his gun: for me to catch. I raised the gun and took careful aim. Sylvia saw and laughed at me. And I shot Jeeves in the head, twice. I might not like weapons, but I knew how to use them.

It was all I could do for him. To stop his suffering, and to make sure Sylvia couldn’t bring him back as one of her kind.

Sylvia screamed with rage as half of Jeeves’ head was blown apart, right in front of her. She threw his body away from her, as though it was suddenly contaminated. Jeeves fell through the air, turning and tumbling, until he finally slammed into the snow-covered ground before me, with such force I heard his bones break. I knew he had to be dead, but I knelt down beside him and checked anyway. Because I had to be sure. He would have done the same for me.

When I looked up again, Sylvia was gone from the roofs. Nothing up there but the swirling snow. I’d cheated her out of one small revenge, at least.

The cottages were burning nicely. The fires would reach the far end soon enough. There was nowhere left for Sylvia to hide, now. Only one place left she could go. Back to Belcourt Manor.

Back to the bait I’d left there, waiting for her.