Darkness Dominates - Chapter 10

Several minutes into the drive to Suffield, Leola began explaining the second purpose she had in making this journey.

“Diane has possession of something I need to retrieve.”

“What kind of something?”

“Documents”         

Pippa was on the verge of asking what is in them. She swapped this question for another.

“Is Jennifer a member of ‘The Guild’?”

“No...At least not yet”

Leola noticed that the vibration of the car felt different to when she was last in the front passenger seat. She also recognised Pippa’s body language wasn’t the same either.

“You’re a bit tenser behind the wheel than you were last time”

“Can you blame me? Three days ago, all I had to worry about when driving was whether I’d be on time to drop off and pick up Rosie. Now, I’ve discovered vampires are real – and that one of my best friends is one – has been for sixteen years.”

“Seventeen years”

“Seventeen years, then! Aspects of my life I thought were normal – aren’t!”

“They still are.”

“At least Doug’s still in the dark about what you are – Rosie too. Thanks for being discreet on the phone like that.”

“It’s in both their interests not to know. However, situations might arise where they might learn about what I really am. I can’t control every situation which leads to that outcome.”

“I can’t say that’s reassuring, Leola.”

“It’s the best I can do, under the circumstances. You knowing what I am will doubtlesssly make ‘The Guild’ more nervous about vampires showing up on people’s radar. I’m sorry”

Councillor Trennell waited about a minute before replying.

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interfered.”

“Don’t be sorry – you just saw me as a runaway from a halfway house.”

“Why did you make me believe you were?”

“I had to”

“I don’t think that’s much of an answer.”

Pippa noticed that the corner of Leola’s left eye kept moving to make eye contact with her.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Your reaction to you finding out I’m a vampire certainly wasn’t the one I was expecting”

“What response did you expect?”

“I thought you were going to ask me the usual questions”

“The usual questions”

“You know – the bog-standard ones! Why aren’t I bursting into flames? Are we scared of crucifixes? Does holy water melt our skin? Do all male vampires look as buff as Tom Cruise or Robert Pattison? Those kinds of queries”

“Which of them aren’t true?”

“None of them are”

“What about the speed?”

“That’s true”

“What about ‘The Guild’? Are you a member?”

“Yeah, but I’m the one with the least amount of influence over the other members.”

“I know how that feels”

Councillor Trennell didn’t feel her inability to get the Hicks family evicted was relevant. She decided to continue with the current conversation.

“Who has the most influence?”

“Julian”

It was nearly an hour before Pippa’s vehicle again entered Sudfield’s driveway. She’d turned off the engine and was about to get out of the driver’s seat, when Leola said “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Into Sudfield”

“No you’re not.”

“I thought you said you wanted me to take you, Leola!”

“As far as the driveway – not actually into the building itself”

Leola looked through the windows on either side of Pippa’s vehicle.

“Diane’s car isn’t here, which means Emily and Lynette’s handiwork will be inside for all to see. It’s best you to stay here, Councillor Trennell”

“Don’t talk me to like I’m twelve years old! I’m going with you and that’s that!”

“Have you got an iron-clad stomach?”

“Just about”

“You may find you’ll need one”

The front passenger and driver’s doors were opened simultaneously. Most of the driveway was illuminated by the floodlights, self-activated by the sky turning darker. Pippa was the first to notice the majority of lights in the building were still on. Leola looked around the gravelled parking area and counted four other vehicles. She tapped Pippa gently on the shoulder. It felt harder than that. The impact, fortunately, wasn’t injurious.

“Ouch!” yelped Pippa.

“Sorry, the darkness is coming in fast. My superhuman strength emerges at that time of the evening”

“Along with the fangs and hunger for blood, no doubt”

“The vampire in me emerges nocturnally”

“That sounds like a line from a Goth rock ballad. What about the execution of that paedophile?”

“It was necessary! It’s ‘Guild’ business, so I can’t discuss it with a human”

“Mortalist!” yelled Pippa, half-jokingly.

Leola ignored Pippa’s humorous outburst.

“Some of the lights are still on” Leola next said.

“And the front door’s wide open”

This made the ground floor corridor chilly. Leola was immune to its coldness. Pippa gasped heavily. Draped on the staircase leading to the first floor was the body of Sally North. Four steps above her were 2 more corpses – a 17 year-old male resident, Gary Parks and Holly Pearce. Both had been drained of blood.Holly, however, had bruises on her wrists and on her wrists. There was no clearer sign that she’d been roughly manhandled, prior to her death. Leola observed them for a moment, then whooshed upstairs, returning in just two seconds. She was holding the files she’d come here to get.

“Where are the other bodies?”

“Probably anywhere in the building: we’re done here.”

“Aren’t you going to look for them?”

“That’s so not our purpose”

“At last, a normal teenage phrase”

“Slip of the tongue”

“It’ll have to become part of your vocabulary when you start at Rosie’s school”

Leola’s face was taken over by a confessional expression.

“About that...I hypnotised you into enrolling me at school and into giving up trying to relocate me to another halfway house.”

“You put those ideas into my head – why?”

“To increase the chance of you and your family never finding out what I really am”

“If you can do that, why didn’t you use that power to ensure I didn’t involve myself in your business?”

“That cafe was a tad too public: I can only do it if my ‘talent’ isn’t witnessed by other people – the same is true for all my kind.”

“So, going to school was just a tactic, was it?”

“One of them”

“Well, not anymore it isn’t – Paula has cleared it for you to start next Monday. School’s still going to happen.”

Leola smiled at Councillor Trennell and then got out her I-Phone. She selected Jennifer’s number.

“Who are you calling?”

“DCI Stoneham”

The dial tone only sounded once. Jennifer answered immediately.

“Jennifer, its Leola – forget babysitting Doug and Rosie. I need you to gather your CID team and head to Sudfield ASAP. Pippa will be waiting for you when you get there.”

She didn’t extend the phone conversation beyond that point. Leola hung up.

“What do you mean I’ll be waiting for Jennifer? Why can’t you?”

“I have to go to Canroth General”

“Why are you heading there? More to the point, how are you going to get there?”

“To put a spanner in the deal Diane made with Emily and Lynette and I’ll need your car” Leola said, answering both questions at once.

“I haven’t said yes to that!”

“But you will”

“What if I refuse?”

“Hypnosis alert”

Unwillingly, Pippa handed her car keys to Leola.

“Don’t get a scratch on it?”

“I won’t”

“What’s the spanner, by the way?”

“I have to turn Darcy myself”

“Wait – can you drive?”

“Passed with flying colours – 1913”

The exterior walls of Parrfael Asylum were a mixture of grey and white. It looked like a building from a Dickens novel. The mental institution was actually built at the start of Queen Victoria’s reign.

One of the nurses on duty was walking in a regimented way through a long corridor. As she passed corner leading to an adjoining one, Leola’s right arm grabbed her, pulling the nurse out of sight. Her screams were muffled by Leola’s left hand. There was a loud crack, a moment later. She’d broken the nurse’s neck. Her body was rapidly dragged into a linen cupboard, where Leola put on the dead nurse’s uniform. It was a bit tight around her hips, but just about wearable. Leola felt no remorse for killing this woman. She saw her as one of those who were adding to the mental misery of her daughters.

Cries of agony from a man receiving electric shocks floated through from the next ward along. Leola ignored them. He wasn’t the reason why she was here. Her purpose was to execute a mother’s rescue.

She followed a procession of doctors, matrons and orderlies to the corridor where the padded rooms were, on either side. Leola saw a doctor look into the ones housing Emily and Lynette. He glanced twice into Emily’s. The doctor in question summoned an orderly and a matron. Within that padded room, he’d seen the youngest of the Eddington sisters write ‘hobby horsey’ on the right-hand wall. She’d used the tasteless, treacle-like broth served here as ink. The matron had a straight jacket ready and the orderly was holding some kind of leather strap. Lynette was dragged out by the doctor and the fierce-looking matron wrestled her into the straight jacket. She then did up the belt-like restraints, so that Lynette couldn’t move her arms. The matron held the top part of Lynette’s body over her bended knee. The muscular orderly wrapped both ends of the leather strap around his hands. He started bringing it down on various points of Lynette’s bare legs and feet, again and again. Each blow made her cry a little harder. Suddenly, Leola took hold of the orderly by his throat. She whizzed down the corridor. At the other end of it was a small square window. Leola broke it completely by thrusting the orderly’s head through it over twenty times in a few seconds.

By the time she was done, his facial features were a heavily bloodied pulp of flesh and shattered bones. She was back at her daughters’ padded rooms, a moment later.

The matron was the next one to bite the dust. Grabbing the leather strap off the floor, Leola wrapped it around the matron’s neck and throttled her so hard that blood started trickling from her mouth. She smiled when she heard the vertebrae snap. Whilst the slaughter was going on, the doctor had injected the sisters with morphine using the same dirty hypodermic needle. For poisoning her daughters’ blood, Leola disembowelled him in front of Emily. She entered both padded cells and gave them immortality. In just two minutes, Leola killed everyone in the asylum – patients as well as staff members. Eight hours after, she walked out of this mental institution, flanked either side by her daughters.

Leola’s memory of this bid to free Emily and Lynette made her aware that history had repeated itself. The only differences were that in the case of Sudfield Hall, Leola’s daughters had done the slaughtering, and that the victims were innocent bystanders.

She was contemplating this as she found a parking space. This did take a fair while. Hospital car parks never seemed reliable when wanting to find a space quickly.

Leola hypnotised Glenda as soon as she walked in through the doors to get Darcy’s location. She succeeded where Doug and Diane hadn’t, this time round – Leola had gotten the proper directions. She was in the ward where Darcy was in a split-second. Removing her from the hospital’s interior took roughly five seconds. The abducted patient was placed in the front passenger seat of Pippa’s car.

“I was dreaming about socks, mum. I thought...” she said groggily. “Where am I?”

Darcy had just realised she was in someone’s vehicle. Not wanting to be here, she tried to unfasten the seatbelt. Leola hypnotised her into remaining in this car for the duration of the journey. She drove Darcy to a disused warehouse in a rundown retail park, a mile from Canroth’s city centre. Darcy was laid down on a tower of wooden crates. Leola was holding the scalpel she’d stolen in her left hand, behind her back. The warehouse’s interior smelled of manure and there were miniature pools of rainwater that had come through holes in the roof. Darcy wasn’t strong enough to move far, but she’d just about managed to sit up slightly.

“Where am I?”

“Quiet!”

“Don’t fucking tell me to keep my trap shut – where am I?”

“Somewhere I can turn you in peace”

“Who the pissing hell are you?”

Pain shot through the front of her head like a bullet. Darcy clutched her forehead.

“Why am I getting these headaches all the time?”

“Because of your condition”

“What condition? Who are you?”

“Skye Linton”

“Why did you bring me to this shitty dump?”

“Because you’re my trump card”

“I’m your what?” yelled Darcy.

She regretted shouting straight away. Raising the volume of her voice made her head hurt a little more. Leola didn’t give her the chance to ask any more questions. She produced the scalpel. Suddenly, Jennifer appeared and grabbed the sharp implement off her, throwing it away.

DCI Stoneham skipped the fatally wounding part and turned Darcy, there and then.

“It’s done” said Jennifer.

“It was supposed to be done by me”

“I decided that I should do it.”

“Why”

“Because you created this situation, Leola, its’ better that I take charge of what needs to be done to put it right.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah it is. The best way you can help is to do two things.”

“Which are?”

“Take Darcy back to the hospital and brush up on school life.”

“What are you going to do about Diane? It won’t matter which one of us turned her daughter – she’ll be looking for payback. She wants control of this situation and is bound to turn nasty if she isn’t in the driving seat.”

“Not if I take her to police HQ”

“Arresting her – is that your grand plan?”

“She’ll be just helping me with my enquiries – to start off with. That’ll buy some time.”

“Time for what”

“Time for the remaining Henford daggers to be found”

“That’s not going to work. She can only help you with your enquires for about an hour. Diane can’t be treated as a suspect, not without the connection to Emily and Lynette being made – and Julian won’t allow that! Anyway, I won’t be able to find the weapons in that amount of time!”

“I’ll worry about that, Leola. Keys, please”

“What”

“I need them to return Pippa’s car to her.”

“Are you giving me orders now?”

“You have the appearance of a seventeen year-old – I look like a Detective Chief Inspector. I think it’s safe to assume I have authority in the reality ordinary people inhabit.”

Unable to argue with Jennifer’s logic, she tossed the keys over. DCI Stoneham caught them with her right hand. Leola picked up Darcy, now in transition, and headed back to Canroth General.