Darkness Dominates - Chapter 8

Leola had gotten to Tanaho’s a good quarter of an hour before Lucy. She saw her friend’s choice of snack. It was a Danish pastry, topped with glace cherries and a sprinkling of desiccated coconut.

“Why that?” Lucy asked her as she took her seat.

On a napkin imprinted with Tanaho’s personal logo, Leola wrote “I haven’t had one for 26 years.” ‘The Guild’ had vetoed sentences like that being uttered in public.

Lucy nodded.

“Can I have a bite?”

She detached a morsel for her. Lucy opened her mouth and Leola threw it into her mouth. Whilst she chewed it, Leola asked “I got your text. What is it you want to see me about?” There was no impatience that drove her question, just natural curiosity.

“Holly Pearce”

“I don’t know her, Tina.”

“She knows this Diane Farnham woman - and she suspects that Emma and Sophie weren’t taken to an alternative halfway house.”

“She must’ve seen that through the circular window. There’s a clear view of it from the driveway – shit!”

“I had a word with Geena, and suggested she tell him.”

“What did she say?”

“Not to tell him – but I think I should”

“Geena’s right. This new development comes from the situation I created – it’s up to me to deal with it!”

“I can’t help wondering if your present strategy is the right one”

“It has to be, Tina. I’ve got no choice. Diane was an ideal candidate in helping me with this matter. Her gratitude at being saved from a serious sexual assault is something I can use to our advantage.”

For the next few minutes, Leola and Lucy communicated with messages and questions written on the cafe’s own napkins. They had to be disposed of, once read.

“What about ‘The Henford Dagger’, Leola – have you found it?”

“I intend to search for it this weekend”

“Do you have a precise fix on where it’s located?”

“Not yet”

The unspoken conversation was broken in mid-flow. Lisa had seen them at it. She strode over to the table. Her gaze was stern, her arms folded authoritatively.

“These are for wiping your hands, lips and fingers – they’re not for using as post-it notes! If you want to pass messages to each other, do it in the city library!”

“Perhaps Lisa’s right,” said Lucy, “we ought to continue discussing this somewhere more...”

The final word of her suggestion stayed unspoken. Lucy had seen Rosie and Katy enter.

“Evening, Skye” said Rosie. “Who’s your mate?”

“Someone who was at Sudfield before I turned up...Rosie, this is Tina.”

Lucy didn’t speak, just waved at both the teenage girls.

“I didn’t realise you two like hanging here” said Leola.

“We don’t! Rosie was looking for you” Katy informed her.

“Why were you looking for me?”

“Katy’s mum texted her, saying she wants her home before 7pm. I’m probably gonna be made to get home by that time myself – you too. All four of us are like grounded...but in a good way.”

“Its’ because of that psycho sex pest out there” concluded Katy. “My mum’s freaked about it! I’d better make tracks. See you at school, Rosie.”

“See you there too, Katy.”

“I’d better head off as well” said Lucy, getting to her feet. She moved away from the table she was sharing with Leola.

“I’ve got a job to go to” she continued as she reached the cafe’s entrance. Halfway through the door, she added “I’ll be in touch, Skye”. Lucy kept the door open for Katy, but once outside, the pair of then walked off in different directions.

“Fancy a bit of my pastry?” Leola asked Rosie.

“I don’t want to spoil my dinner, but cheers anyway, Skye.”

Leola heard Rosie’s phone make a noise.

“I think you’ve got a text”

Rosie accessed the list and selected the one she’d received less than several seconds ago. Her face was filled with pure alarm as she read it. A moment passed before Rosie set about phoning Pippa.

Witnessing her actions, Leola asked “What’s going on?”

“Diane’s daughter is in hospital! My dad’s texted me the message!”

“Who are you calling?”

“My mum – she so needs to know”

A half-minute wait culminated with the voicemail system kicking in.

“Crap – mum must’ve turned it off!”

Rosie’s guess wasn’t wrong. Councillor Trennell had switched it off, avoiding any interruptions to her internet search. It yielded over half a million results. She’d only got through 12 of them so far, skipping the sites labelled unsafe. None of them revealed anything out of the ordinary.

“This is a waste of time – Holly Pearce was mistaken. Skye Linton’s who she says she is!”

She was about to come out of the internet when something caught her eye. Pippa scrolled down the page. She clicked on the third entry up from the bottom. The use of the term ‘resurrection’ intrigued her. She read aloud what was on this section of the website.

“Edie Waller, whose bloodied clothes were discovered in a field near Pryecott on the 11^th April, 1981, has turned up alive, complete with a new identity, Skye Linton. Resurrection or faked death – click on the link to see the photo and make up your mind.”

Basically, what Pippa was looking at was one of these conspiracy sites. She’d seen others like it before – a few of them had come up with some highly imaginative suggestions about what was being covered up.

Nevertheless, Councillor Trennell followed the advice typed in blue font above the URL. Instantly, the image came up in its own window. She couldn’t ignore the physical similarities between the photo and the face of the 17 year-old temporarily staying under her roof. Pippa viewed the photograph of Skye she’d taken on her house’s driveway. She aligned the snapshot with the one on the website. They were 99% identical. A conclusion leaped into Pippa’s mind, but it was miles away from anything supernatural.

“Edie faked her death, became this person and had a daughter, who she named after her. Why didn’t she tell me this?”

What she’d learned this second highlighted a better course of action to take. It eliminated any need for halfway houses or council accommodation. All that was now required was to locate Skye’s mum. Pippa switched on her I-Phone again. She saw that there were two missed calls – both of which were made by her youngest daughter.

Rosie was unlocking the front door with her own key when her mum finally rang her. Less than a foot behind her was Leola.

“Mum? How come I couldn’t get hold of you? Listen, dad texted. He had to take Diane Farnham to Canroth General. Her daughter was rushed there. She collapsed or something – I don’t know any more than that. I’ve no idea what time he’ll be returning, no.”

Pippa had heard enough. The gist of the phone call couldn’t be clearer.

“I’m coming home ASAP. Is Skye with you? She is, good. I need to have another word with her.”

“What about?” asked Rosie, slipping her shoes off.

There was no reply. Pippa had hung up.

Still in her office, she shut down her laptop. It was slid into a middle compartment of a black, suitcase-shaped bag. She said goodnight to the receptionists, not realising one of them was absent.

Leola was near the door when she received a fresh text from Lucy.

“I have to go out again, Rosie” she said, straight after reading what it said.

“I wouldn’t, Skye – that rapist is out there, plus he’s done it a second time. Mum will go nuclear if I let you go out alone” said Rosie, without turning round.

When she faced the front door again, it was wide open and Leola was gone. She ran outside and had a look to work out where she went. Seeing no sign, Rosie hurried back inside, and called her mum again.

Pippa was eight cars away from her own when her phone sounded. A picture of Rosie with her tongue stuck out appeared. Below it on the left was her Twitter username – Rozzy123. She touched the ‘Accept’ button across from the red one with the ‘Ignore’ option.

“A couple more minutes, and I wouldn’t have been able to take the call.”

“Mum, Skye’s gone out to see a mate of hers – I said it wasn’t safe, but...”

“Calm down, Rosie, I’ll drive around – see if I can find out where she’s got to.”

Councillor Trennell wasn’t driving long when she saw Leola making her way to Lockley’s Weind from over a few feet away. The headlights of her car were illuminating Leola from behind. The shininess of the leather jacket she was wearing reflected its glare, and it nearly dazzled Pippa. She couldn’t look away whilst driving, not on this stretch of road. She had to shield her eyes with her right hand and half-close them. Her left hand had hold of the steering wheel. Councillor Trennell pulled up to the nearest part of the kerb and turned off the engine. She blinked four times before getting out the car.

Halfway down the cobbled verge, Pippa saw Leola on her way back to the ‘Red Moon’. Continuing to watch from where she was standing, she observed her slipping her gold ring onto the correct finger and showing it to the bouncer. It shocked Pippa to see him grant her entry. In a flash, she had become like her mum had been, when seeing her daughter illicitly enter a nightclub, underage. When she got further down the sloped side street, she received an even bigger shock. Striding up to the bouncer was DCI Stoneham. Pippa was suddenly open-mouthed. Jennifer was followed by Councillor Robert Medford, Catherine (whom Alvenshire’s population knew as Lady Brie Cullmore), Dr. Stanley March and Judge Matthew Harvey. They all flashed a ring in front of the same doorman and he stood aside as they headed into the ‘Red Moon’, the same way Leola had gone in.

When she saw there was no longer a queue, Pippa ran down the rest of the way to the nightclub. The bouncer was about to go in, when he saw her walk towards the entrance.

“Have you got your ring on?”

“I don’t have one”

“Then you’re not coming in!”

“But seventeen year-olds are – is that it?”

“Come again?”

“I saw you permit a teenage girl called Skye Linton to enter.”

“So?”

Dismayed by the attitude he’d just shown, Pippa took out her identification and thrust it in the bouncer’s face.

“My name’s Councillor Trennell, and I represent the local authority that gave the club its building lease. It can easily be reviewed, unless you let me in to see if Skye Linton’s in here.”

“You could’ve rigged that ID up yourself, love!

“Do you really want to find out?” Pippa challenged him fiercely.

“Whatever – go in then!” he said, tired of this conversation.

“And I’m not your love” she added as she pushed open the club’s right-hand door.

The scarlet coloured corridor fascinated Pippa. She didn’t know any other nightclub that had this type of interior decor for its hallway.

Opening the doors ahead of her, Pippa saw a capacity crowd. ‘Milkshake’ was booming from the club’s speakers. Every occasion where the chime in the song sounded, crotches and groins made a thrusting motion. A young woman seemingly solo started to dance towards Pippa. She tried to move away, but the councillor’s eyes met hers. They turned a gloomy shade of red and Pippa was in a trance. The female slowly lowered her left arm, intending to rest it on one of Councillor Trennell’s shoulders. The top of her dress was cut in such a way that the right and left halves of her breasts were visible. The nipples were protruding through the dark purple fabric that covered the rest of them. From the bar, Lucy spotted the unfolding seduction. Her hyper speed allowed her to take no more than a moment to intervene. Once between her and Pippa, eye contact was broken, bringing the hypnotic trance to an end. The woman with lesbian desires took the hint, immediately setting her sights on whichever female took her fancy. Lucy’s was the first face Pippa saw when she finally snapped out of it.

“I didn’t know you tended the bar here, Tina” she said to her, unaware of the peril she’d put herself in.

Lucy stared anxiously at Councillor Trennell.

“How did you...what are you doing here?”

“The bouncer let in someone underage – Skye Linton! She’s seventeen!”

“You really shouldn’t be here”

Mistaking Lucy’s warning for Pippa being told to butt out, she selected Jennifer’s number.

“I’m calling DCI Stoneham. I saw here come in here too. She’ll help me find Skye, since you’ve clearly no intention of doing so.”

After eight successive rings, it went to voicemail. Ending the call, she put her phone somewhere safe. It was as she was doing that, she heard a gaggle of voices. Recognising two of them as Jennifer and Skye, she went to where they were coming from – a dark crimson door. Above it was a sign that said ‘The Courtroom’. Councillor Trennell took it as a fancy title for a private room. A renewed sense of alarm started to grow. Rooms like this one came with a reputation for debauchery, hidden from prying eyes. Illegal drug taking and sexual exploitation were the things to spring into Pippa’s thoughts. This made her more determined to expose whatever activity was occurring within. Skye was in here – a young woman beneath the standard nightclub entry age. Her disbelief was quickly extended to Jennifer being in there too. It increased as she came within two feet of ‘The Courtroom’ door. Councillor Trennell recognised a third voice – Geena Bryant. Lucy saw where Pippa had gone to, but she was too late to stop her going in.

On the other side of the door, Pippa witnessed Lewis Moore, a middle-aged paedophile who’d raped and murdered two teenage girls, being moved from one end of the room to the centre of it. The endeavour was carried out in one second. Councillor Trennell saw Jennifer come into view, but she didn’t see her friend. She turned towards Julian, and nodded. Like lightning, the twelve occupants of this room surrounded the child killer. Pippa moved to a spot she could observe some of the faces, without being seen herself. The next one she saw was Leola’s.

“Ladies first” said Julian, his tone rich with over-civilised sarcasm.

From where she was nestled, Pippa watched all the women in the room block off the directions he could run away in. Leola, Jennifer, Evelyn, and Catherine were all stood in a line that was curved slightly at both ends. A solid wall was the only thing behind Lewis. He’d no chance of escape. The four females bared their teeth. Suddenly, Pippa honed her focus on Jennifer’s face. The complexion was radically different. Jennifer didn’t look middle-aged anymore. She was looking as youthful as her daughter. Simultaneously, their fangs formed. Thinking she was in some gothic horror-influenced fantasy bubble, Pippa blinked. The instant her eyes were open again, she saw the four women pinning Lewis to the floor. His expression was one of terror and agony. Shock didn’t even cover what she felt as she watched his execution. Jennifer, Evelyn, Catherine and Leola were positioned at various points of Moore’s body. They were like kittens or puppies vying for milk from their mother’s teats. Pippa’s emotions rapidly bubbled up to the surface. She let out a single scream. A sensation beyond fear rooted her to the spot as Leola and Jennifer looked up, their mouths and lips smeared in Lewis’s blood. They exchanged stares with Councillor Trennell. Finding the will to move, she darted down the hallway and out onto the dance floor. Weaving through the clubbers, Pippa surged through the club’s entrance and raced back up Lockley’s Weind. She was less than a foot from her car when Alicia’s mum and Leola zipped right in front of her. Checking her right hand, Pippa saw that the key had been taken off her. Jennifer had taken possession of it, but didn’t dangle it as if to convey to her friend there was no escape.

Still a long way from believing this was real, Pippa employed amateur dramatics. Some of the left-hand side of her neck was exposed. She’d been in a school production of ‘Dracula’. Pippa was reliving the moment of her playing Mina Harker. She’d portrayed her as a plucky young woman. Though it was around two decades ago, she hadn’t forgotten her performance.

“Get it over with!”

There was a part of her that was waiting for them to tell her what she’d seen had been a hoax. The serious looks and ominous silence was slowly telling her otherwise.

“No, no, no...This can’t be for real! There’s no fucking way this can be true!”

Her denial expressed Pippa’s struggle to accept the existence of vampires. She felt as if she was mentally hyperventilating. Her thoughts were going in a million different directions at once.

One of Leola’s pre-vampire, human talents was to work out what people were thinking by their facial movements. Through that gift, she was able to pinpoint the emotions fuelling those thoughts. Her ascension to vampire evolved that ability. She was now capable of calming someone’s mental turmoil with one touch of her hand. It’d been over four centuries since she last had a reason to use it. This didn’t mean she’d lost that ability.

Leola zipped in front of Pippa, placing her left hand on her forehead. Over ten seconds later, Councillor Trennell’s thought processes were stable again.

“She’ll be ready to ask questions now” said Leola, half-glancing at DCI Stoneham.

“Pips will have an endless supply – I know I did” said Jennifer.

From inside an off-licence on Cottle Avenue, a young man darted out. As he ran off, he stuffed bank notes into his jacket pockets. Seconds later, WPC Stoneham dashed out. Still on duty, she’d been there to buy her mum a bottle of wine. She was about to pay for it, when the theft happened. She chased him through three blocks, reporting the progress of the pursuit as it unfolded. They reached Noryc Bridge, just as a train heading to Orryngton rocketed underneath it. He ran over the road in the middle of the bridge, narrowly avoiding an oncoming car. Five more drove by before she could follow him.

He suddenly lurched to the left and began descending three flights of concrete steps. She instantly took the same detour as him.

Jennifer was rushing down the third flight up, whilst her suspect was hurtling down the second. At the foot of these stairs was a skinny path, adjacent to a hedge on the left and the fenced-off railway track on the right. They both reached this route within seconds of each other. The path seemed to go on and on. Jennifer increased her running speed to try and catch up. The distance between them was starting to shrink. However, he was soon sprinting a little faster again. The young man went through a two-foot gap in the hedge. WPC Stoneham, keen to make an arrest, charged through there too. They were now in the grounds of a multiplex.

He temporarily changed the pursuit into a game of Hide & Seek; this didn’t sit well with Jennifer. She felt he was taking the piss.

“Childish – act your age!” she yelled irritably.

“You’re not as fast as me, you stupid fucking bitch!”

“What did you just call me?”

Her eyes always widened whenever someone got on her bad side. He ran behind several parked vehicles, before leaping out and running away diagonally. This took him to an adjoining car park. The multiplex had a couple, in case a film drew in large numbers of moviegoers. He was quick enough to hide at the rear of a row of stationary cars. The robber was out of sight when WPC Stoneham entered the second car park. She looked around her, but was unable to see any sign of him.

Jennifer was about to report to control that she’d lost him, when she saw his left arm reflected in a side view mirror. She pretended to admit defeat, started to walk around one of the cars and dropped down beside the vehicle’s right-hand side. He took the bait and started to make another run for it. She stood up and ran at him. WPC Stoneham finally had hold of the thief, but not for long. Whilst reading him his rights, he produced a switchblade from one of the pockets of his jeans. The robber thrust it into her lower chest three times. Jennifer let go of him and clutched the front of her body.

Not yet done with her, he kicked her kneecaps with considerable force. She tumbled to the concrete floor. The state she was in didn’t lead to him stopping his attack. He propelled his right foot into her back six times, as she started to bleed out. Her uniform started showing damp dark red patches around the area of her chest, where she’d been stabbed.

Jennifer’s head was the last part of her body he used as football practice. After just two kicks, he found himself being tossed over the fence that kept kids from playing on the railway line. He’d been transported there within four seconds. The robber was about to get off the tracks, when a train ploughed into him at 90mph.

The woman who’d been the recipient of his violence was sprawled on the floor, bleeding heavily and barely conscious. Her attacker’s killer zipped into view. Stood over her was Evelyn Brooke. She picked up the dying WPC.

“Alicia...Alicia needs her mum” said Jennifer, her breathing getting shallower.

In only a few minutes, Evelyn and WPC Stoneham were standing outside ‘Red Moon’. She showed the ring to the doorman, and Evelyn carried Jennifer inside.