Darkness Dominates - Chapter 13

In a side street to the left of the Fast Lane Bowling Alley, six rats scuttled around the wheelie bins. They made frightened noises and scattered when Darcy appeared there instantaneously. She was a little disorientated by how fast she’d gotten here. Jennifer had phoned her at the apartment Catherine had loaned out to the motherless young woman. She told her to run to the location she’d ended up at. The instruction was deliberately given. It was the first step in convincing Diane’s daughter she was a vampire. Two hours after she lost her mother in a car accident, DCI Stoneham tried briefing her about her transformation. Darcy’s mind was still putting her back in Canroth General’s car park. She couldn’t bring herself to accept Jennifer’s words as being true: witnessing the death of her mum was a reality – immortal blood-drinking creatures with human faces weren’t.

Presenting Darcy with the physical proof of what she’d changed into was the only course of action left. Nocturnal ability number two manifested itself as Darcy looked around to see where Jennifer was. A conversation from over a mile away popped up in her ears. It was garbled at first, but after four seconds, she could hear every single word.

“Weird isn’t it – it’s as if someone’s talking from half a mile away”

DCI Stoneham’s voice was coming from above her head. Darcy looked up and saw Jennifer sitting on top of a high wall on Miss Farnham’s left. The head of Alvenshire CID jumped down from it. Darcy could see the ground was at least six feet below the top of the wall. She was worried Jennifer might permanently paralyse her legs. Darcy was astounded when that didn’t happen to the DCI. The leap and the landing were equally balletic.

“You’ve obviously done this loads” said Darcy.

“Do you know what they call this area?”

“I don’t, no.”

“Rapists’ alley...the local press coined the phrase. It’s a bit cheesy – but kind of accurate.”

“Is this where the second woman was raped?”

“No, it wasn’t...nor was it where the first victim was sexually assaulted.”

“So why is it called ‘Rapists’ alley’ then?”

“Because this is the place men with previous for that offence like to gather”

“I can hear someone’s footsteps”

“So can I. They’re half a mile off, Darcy, but they’re heading in this direction. I reckon he should be coming this way in about ten minutes.”

Jennifer listened again.

“He’s on the phone now” she said, updating herself.

“I can hear him” said Darcy. “I can even hear the voice on the other end of the line – it’s a woman! She’s calling him Philip.”

“Philip Colvin!” DCI Stoneham announced, clicking her fingers in the process.

“Who’s Philip Colvin?”

“One of the lowest of the low round here; he got out of prison a few weeks back”

“What was he inside for?”

“Human trafficking – the fucker only got nine years! He should’ve been banged for three times that! He’ll definitely do!”

“He’ll definitely do for what?”

“Your initiation into the vampire way of life”

“Initiation”

“Your first taste of human blood”

Darcy couldn’t help wincing – hearing something like that made the prospect sound gross. Jennifer’s head moved from left to right.

“He’ll be here in roughly a minute. Quick – over there”

She took Darcy’s hand and the two of them squatted down between two wheelie bins. The smell coming from the left-hand one was vile. Darcy’s intuition was telling her not to moan about it.

Colvin turned into ‘Rapists’ alley’ from the right and began strolling along this side street. He was still on the phone.

“Listen, Rachel – I want Guy to care of you-know-who. He’s on a fast track to...”

Jennifer had got his right arm behind his back before Darcy could even move from between the bins. The DCI’s gentle push towards the six foot high wall was magnified by her vampire strength. The impact was hardly injurious, but he did wheeze a couple of times.

“This is fucking harassment!” he yelled when he saw DCI Stoneham’s face. “I haven’t done anything!”

“This isn’t me harassing you” Jennifer responded. “This is me bleeding you dry!”

“What the fuck are you talking about, bitch?”

She pulled up his T-shirt and exposed the upper half of his chest. Jennifer dug her fingernails into his flesh and pulled them downwards. Blood bubbled up to the skin’s surface. Darcy then felt the third and fourth of her top teeth start to alter. She took out her pocket mirror and put it in front of her face, keeping her mouth wide open. Darcy witnessed the physical transformation of those molars into fangs.

“It’s the blood, Darcy – always the blood!” said Jennifer.

DCI Stoneham’s fangs were present also. She bit into the deep, bloodied scratches her fingernails had made and started to feed. Jennifer only took a quarter of a pint from the wounds.

“Your go, Darcy” she said, pushing him towards the young woman she’d recently turned.

Darcy made the error of looking into Colvin’s eyes. She jerked backwards as if she’d been electrocuted.

“I can’t!”

“That was pretty much my reaction, but Evelyn made me realise the hard way I had no choice, and neither do you!”

“He’s a person”

“Do you have any idea what this ‘person’ has done?”

“He’s a human trafficker, you told me!”

“Let me tell what he’s capable of! He put cigarette burns on the arms and legs of a 16 year-old Romanian girl who wouldn’t have sex with him! Then he tried it on with the daughter of a Syrian family he was smuggling in! When she said no, he raped her mum in front of her and her dad! The bastard showed no emotion in court! He...”

Darcy had heard more than enough. She pounced on him like a female tiger, bearing her newly-formed fangs down on Colvin’s chest. His expression was the same as Lewis Moore’s: tightly-shut eyes and fear-driven agony. After a minute, Jennifer pulled Darcy off him and pushed her to one side. The wheelie bin she collided with toppled over to the left. DCI Stoneham checked Philip’s physical state.

“He still has seven pints in his veins – enough for justice to be carried out fully.”

“I wanted to take every last drop of it!” snapped Darcy.

As the ferocity of her outburst sank in, Miss Farnham’s teeth normalised. Jennifer’s followed suit.

“Lesson number one – there are two things a vampire can’t ever afford to be!”

“What are they?”

“Reckless or greedy”

DCI Stoneham cut into one of her own fingertips with a steel nail file. She smeared the flowing blood onto Colvin’s incisory wounds and Darcy’s twin bite marks. Any outward sign of them melted away. His skin was intact again. He was hoisted to his feet by Jennifer. She took over his mind by use of her scarlet gaze, instructing Philip to wait in the back of her car. The keys were handed to him and she pointed to the far end of the side street, where it was parked. He set off, still under hypnosis, in that direction.

“I didn’t think vampires cared whether they were either of those things” said Darcy, responding to Jennifer’s earlier remark.

“They had to after the Battle of Trenchwell”

“What’s the Battle of Trenchwell?”

“There was a war between immortals and humans on Trenchwell Moors over 250 years ago. Three quarters of the UK’s vampire population were supposedly wiped out.”

“If you weren’t around then, how do you know about it?”

“Julian told me.”

“Who’s Julian?”

“The chairman of ‘The Guild’, Darcy”

“What’s ‘The Guild’?”

Evening was about to set in as Leola walked along the country road leading to Alven. She was twelve miles away from there. Leola’s clothes were weather-beaten and ragged. The shoes she’d been wearing had fallen to pieces three years ago. She was now wandering barefoot. Her face was somewhat emaciated and skin tone was deathly grey. This complexion was symptomatic of her feasting on the blood of small animals. She hadn’t touched the human variety since the Battle of Trenchwell ended. It was now 1835. Leola was feeling the effects of not having had human blood since the eighteenth century.

After seeing a rabbit dart across the rough road, Leola heard horses from half a mile away. She couldn’t pick up noises from any distance further than that. The superiority of her hearing had diminished to that of a mortal.

She saw a coach not too far in the distance. Leola tried to flag it down. It hurtled past her and she thought it wasn’t going to reduce its pace. However, the sound of knocking from inside made it gradually come to a halt. When it was stationary, Leola ran up to it and opened the left hand door. The passenger’s right arm was stretched out. Leola grabbed the hand and was hoisted inside. She recognised the woman seated at the rear of the coach, and almost spoke her name. Catherine placed the first finger of her right hand vertically against her lips.

“Allow me to introduce myself, I am Lady Emilia Cullmore, the Duchess of Alvenshire” said Catherine, pointing up to where the coach master was perched. “And you are?”

“Louise Kettleworth, milady; my mother was a maid employed by the Henford family. She and I were cast out.

“May I ask why?”

“I developed feelings for the second son of this family, milady”

“In other words, you didn’t know your place”

“To my shame, milady”

“Where is your mother now?”

“In a pauper’s grave, milady”

It was nearing eight in the evening when the coach entered the grounds of Cullmore Park. Hearing the coach master climb down from the top, Catherine told Leola to faint. Her passing out act was convincing because of the physical state she was in, physically. Catherine emerged, carrying Leola, the coach master holding the door open. The footmen outside the doors to her palatial residence did likewise.

There was no-one about near to where the dual staircases were, so Catherine was safe to ascend the one on the right at high-velocity speed. Leola was immediately deposited in one of the 52 rooms and laid on a four poster bed. Catherine’s personal maid came rushing up the left staircase.

“The housekeeper told me you were back, milady”

“You are just in time, Essie – you have something I need”

Catherine took her into where Leola was resting. Putting her under mind control, she said to Essie “You are to expose your right wrist, let her sink her teeth into your flesh and let her open your veins.”

“I am to open my right wrist, let her sink her teeth into my flesh and let her empty my veins.”

“I have no further need for your services. Louisa will be my new ladies’ maid”

“You have no further need for my services. Louisa will be your ladies’ maid” said Essie, incapable of realising death awaited her.

It took Essie less than two minutes to die. Now largely recovered, Leola closed the maid’s eyes post-mortem. She looked at herself in a dressing mirror. Her emaciated, grey complexion was gone. Leola’s skin tone was certainly pinker again. There was a healthier glow, but it wasn’t visible on first glance. She frowned at how hideous her dress now looked.

“I look like a beggar woman.”

“That I can change” said Catherine.

Within ten minutes, Leola was wearing a ladies’ maid’s uniform.

“I feel certain the housekeeper and the other servants will have questions about my appointment to this position”

“And I have the fangs to show, if they object” replied Catherine.

“What about the young woman I’m replacing?”

“There are eleven more siblings where she came from. Her parents breed like rabbits, and no mistake.”

Catherine’s remark was spoken in a gleeful tone, but there was a callous edge to it as well. Her aristocratic frame of mind viewed people from that class as easily replaceable.

“How many of our kind, besides yourself, made it out of the Battle of Trenchwell alive, Catherine?”

“I am Lady Emilia Cullmore – you’re Louisa Kettleworth: maids like to listen” she firmly reminded Leola.

“How many of us are there left, milady?”

“I don’t know the exact number. However, news has reached me of at least six who reached Alven.”

“Who gathered them together, milady?”

“Julian Gerrell”

Leola wanted to punch a hole through the nearest wall on hearing his name. She was quick to voice her objection to him.

“His lineage is Norman – mine is Saxon. Furthermore, milady, he is far too arrogant for my liking.”

“That maybe so, but he has the idea of forming a body to represent the vampires that survived”

“Maids at doors, milady – remember?” said Leola.

“At the moment, none are listening. We are safe to mention our species by name.”

“Where does Julian intend to house this new order, milady”

“At a gentleman’s club in Alven, called ‘The Red Moon’”

“I’ve heard of it. The place consists of pump rooms. London’s social elite are known to frequent that establishment, milady.”

“For the moment, but he intends to make membership more exclusive one day.”

“It will be an uphill struggle, milady. The descendants of Henford’s sons and daughters will finish the extermination of our kind, given half the chance.”

“I feel confident he will...and you do not need to keep addressing me as milady.”

“I don’t have that level of confidence in him you seem to possess”

“If he did pull it off, what reaction would you have then?”

“It would take the form of a condition”

“What condition did you have in mind?”

“I want a seat on that council, should he succeed in forming one.”

180 years after making that request, Leola was within a few miles away from where Catherine’s mansion had stood. The building was demolished nine years before the outbreak of World War I. It had fallen into such a state of disrepair that it couldn’t be saved.

Leola’s precise location was the McAllister memorial. She was studying it solo this time. Awareness of Catherine’s presence was signified by her remarking “Why couldn’t they have just built a statue of him holding a football under his left arm?”

It wasn’t the most tactful question, but Leola conceded that Catherine had a point.

“Did Jennifer tell you I’d be here?”

“No, Le-“

“I’m Skye Linton – you’re Brie Cullmore...Duchess of this county and society queen” she said, giving her a “show some discretion” glance.

“Basically, I’m my own descendant, Skye”

“Did Jennifer tell you I’d be here?”

“Nope, Skye – I figured it out for myself, as well as guessing why you’re here. I did think you’d be searching for the two last Henford daggers.”

“I will be – the reason I stopped here is to remind myself why I need to hurry my search for them”

“Is this because of the murder of Sterling’s main branch manager?”

“Do you really need to ask?”

“I’ll take that as a yes, then. When is Mr Trennell’s funeral?”

“In three days’ time: Jennifer’s released the body for burial.”

“I thought the process would’ve taken longer.”

“As DCI, she was able to pull some strings”

Leola suddenly crossed her arms behind her head.

“Fuck!” she shouted, not caring who heard her swear. “I should’ve just fucking well hypnotised Councillor Trennell into ignoring me!”

“It would’ve been too public”

“That’s what I told myself, but I could’ve hypnotised the waitresses as well!”

“Mr Trennell’s death isn’t on you, Skye.”

“It totally is, Brie! The Trennell family have ended up in the crossfire of my mistakes. Pippa’s lost the love of her life – Rosie and Charlotte have lost their dad!”

“What did you mean “ended up in the crossfire of your mistakes”?”

“You know the rules of ‘The Guild’, Brie - any human who knows that vampires are real face either being turned or terminated!”

“I’m sorry, Skye, but those two options are necessary.”

Again, she couldn’t argue with Catherine. That guideline was made with the sole purpose of keeping the vampire race off the mortals’ radar.

“Doug Trennell’s murder can’t be your burden. It’s down to the Walsh sisters.”

“His demise isn’t my only burden, Brie!”

“What do you mean?”

“My other burden is a secret about Rosie Trennell”

“What secret?”

“There is a strong probability that Doug isn’t Rosie’s biological father.”

“How strong a probability are we talking?”

“Rosie’s immune to hypnotism!”

This was Catherine’s first real OMG moment of this century.

“You mean that her real dad could be....”

Leola interrupted her with a nod, to stop her saying the v word aloud. Catherine mouthed it instead.

“It looks that way, Brie!”