Chapter 3

the difficult 3rd chapter narrative and conversation in narrative...is this confusing??

Chapter 3

Following Sally out of the basement, I caught myself looking at a small wooden door to the left of the stairs, feeling the cool draft from the caves below on my fingers.

“Can we just pop in?” I said smiling “I can’t remember how big they are”

Sally looked at me and rolled her eyes “I knew you couldn’t resist” she said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a large key “I picked this up before I let you into the house, you’re very predictable you know” She grinned and leaned down to open the door. It’s a narrow door, about half the normal size and almost completely obscured by the stairs back into the house.

Sally unlocked the door and stood aside. “Tigers first” she said with a smile.

I pulled the door towards me, it was heavy, it looked wooden but as I heaved it towards me, I remembered we’d reinforced it with four inch steel. The air was cool as we descended down an exquisitely hand carved spiral stair case in to a small and strangely homely cave system. The cave under the house is made up of two chambers, the one on the right of the stairs was cut into storage, mainly for wine and I imagine other items that needed to be chilled in the time before refrigeration and to the left hand side of the stairs is a round chamber with benches and ornate alcoves carved into the soft sand stone with a raised table in the centre. We’re told that the gentleman of the house would have entertained his guests down here after dinner parties, to show off his wealth in this private grotto.

Some of the alcoves had wooden shutters over them and one of these was padlocked shut. I walked over to the alcove and had a sniff. I could smell the distant odour of vampires carried crisply on the cool air; it felt strange to be this close to them and not hunting.

“Do they ever try to get in here?” I asked

“Once, a while back now, so I started using another entrance, but for the most part they tend to leave me alone. Besides, this door marks my property and they are not welcome past the threshold.”

Behind that particular locked alcove door there was a small tunnel connecting our basement to the labyrinth of vampire hideouts below.

“Ok then” Sally said with a smile “let’s go upstairs and have a cuppa”

 

As we walked back through the utility room and back into the kitchen, I was about to stop but Sally kept walking “there’s no tea down here kiddo” she said without looking back. I followed her up on to the ground floor and then up again to the first floor of the house.

She led me to what I assumed was the door to a bedroom, but as she opened it I remembered where it led; this was the old servants quarters stairway, hidden out of sight. “I still can’t believe you live up here when there’s all that space down there.” I said. Sally just smiled. She had free reign of this space and had decorated it very much to her taste; it was bight and colourful and a little bohemian, but very Sally and quite beautiful “ok” I said looking around taking it all in ”I get it now”

This flat consisted of two bedrooms, one bathroom an open plan kitchen living space and occupied the entire top floor of the property. Sally put the kettle on and went to her room to get a book and a pen. As I drank my tea I forced myself to relive every detail of the previous night. It felt so distant somehow. I was still incredibly uncomfortable with what I had done, but as I divulge the details to Sally I realised that I’d been given little choice.

“I got home from work at around six; I ran a bath and opened a bottle of red wine and started planning the nights hunt.” I stopped and then said “Did I tell you I was attacked yesterday morning in the pool too? That’s why I was so keen to get hunting, you know I start each morning with a swim but yesterday things were a little different.”  There was a pool in the basement of my apartment building and I would swim a mile each morning before getting ready for work, that morning I’d walked down the utilitarian white and grey corridor from my penthouse and took the lift six floors down to the basement. I waded into the cold water and began to swim my short laps. After ten minutes of swimming I’d had enough, the scent that had hit me as I walked in wasn’t leaving, these idiots hadn’t noticed that they should have walked away from me. I waded back to the side of the pool and pulled myself out. There were no other people in the pool or the gym and it was really very quiet. I sat in silence with my legs in the cold water, pulled my wet dark hair high into a pony tail and counted to three.

A strong frigid hand grabbed me from behind by the throat, pulling me into the air while turning me to face a tall, pale and sullen vampire, his face smug at the ease of his catch. I calmly wrapped my hands tightly around his large forearm to make speaking a little easier and was frankly a little bored by the unnecessary theatrics.

“A pretty thing like you should know better than to be alone down here” he whispered, his voice crunched like gravel. He was drawn even for a vampire and he looked tired, like he was in dire need of food, but he was still strong enough to lift me clean off the floor with one hand.

I threw him a casual smile and winked causing a puzzled look to cross his pale features.

“Actually it was you that should have known better” I whispered “if you’d taken the time to really identify me you may have thought twice. But you just saw flesh and let the craving control your actions” I was able to speak with an unnatural ease considering I was dangling clean off the ground supported mainly by my neck and throat “the others who came along for the ride seem to have abandoned you” I said and smiled. Now I hadn’t actually seen them but you have to remember that deep down I am a tiger and my nose works like a tigers, I smell everything before I see it (think about that the next time you are in a public toilet), this time I’d smelled and heard the other vampires leave in a bit of a panic.

“Well more for me then” was his response; this fella really wasn’t the sharpest. He snarled showing his fully extended canines dropped me as he went to make his move.

There was an explosion of teeth and fur and where he had once been looking at a semi naked young woman he was now facing something truly terrifying. Not that he had time to fully comprehend what was happening in the time it took me to sever his ugly head. His body stood there rigid for a few seconds before swaying gently and quietly crumbling into dust.

I was instantly back in my human form and quickly realised that I was now naked, having torn my bikini changing so fast. Usually I would take my clothes off first but this vampire hadn’t given me the chance (to be honest if there is one drawback to hunting then the whole naked thing is definitely it).

When I walked on to the pool side that morning I’d known that there were at least three vampires waiting behind the plant room doors. They should have been able to notice that I wasn’t human; most vampires seem to know when they look at me and I know they can smell me the way I can smell them. So I swam as normal before I got bored of waiting for them to leave; I couldn’t risk them attacking a human.

“There were still two vampires near the building but as I could no longer hear them and the smell of dank cave water, wet sandstone and fusty vampire had faded I knew that I was alone.” I told Sally.

“Busy day for you then” she said with a concerned smile, patting my knee a little absentmindedly.

“Yeah” I sighed “it really was. I got dressed and collected my changing bag” This is an over the shoulder black canvas satchel that contains a change of clothes, flat shoes, baby wipes and a small torch. As I spoke Sally was busy documenting everything I said.

“I went to Image in Hockley. You know it’s not a bar that I enjoy visiting but the caves under there are quite substantial, they’re not connected to any other cave systems. But it’s always worth a shot.

I stood at the bar and waited for the bar man to be too preoccupied to notice me slip behind the bar, down the stairs and into the caves. It only took a couple of minutes and the bar tender was distracted by a loud girl in a small top and I was down the stairs” The air in the caves is always cool and damp, and in some places takes on a life of its own like it did there, it smelled and tasted slightly of stale beer and wet sandstone.

“I moved from the storage cellar and through the five caves. There was no sent or sound, just cold sandstone and the beer smell that followed me down the stairs. Just to be on the safe side and out of curiosity, I peered down into the darkness of an old water well and do you know what I saw Sal? Nothing” She smiled and carried on writing.

It was complete darkness in the cave as I moved back towards the surface with an ease that would have eluded most people in broad daylight. I knew there was a torch in my bag but I only used it if there were humans in the caves, trying to explain to someone why you don’t have a torch in that absolute blackness is something I don’t want to have to do again. I waited for Sally to catch up before I carried on talking.

“Once I was back at street level I left the bar. I checked the time; it was ten thirty, still early. The George Hotel was next on my list but as I crossed the road I caught a sent that poked me hard, vampires; and not in the direction of the hotel but from Tantra.

It was dark now and I knew those leeches wouldn’t stay down there all night. So headed across Victoria Street and as I did I had the strongest feeling I was being watched. I stopped in the middle of the road and sniffed at the air, but I was getting nothing but the smell of pizza from Cape and the sweaty apprehension of people on dates. I could hear so much around me but nothing unusual. As I was about to carry on I thought I caught a scent but I couldn’t place it, it was so feint that I thought maybe I’d imagined it. The bell of an annoyed tram driver snapped me back to reality and I got out of the road and went down into the bar.

Tom smiled when he saw me come in; he’s a bar tender I sort of know there, I go quite a lot.” I said and Sally smiled knowingly at me “I leaned on the bar with my elbows resting on the counter behind me and had a quick look for the vampires. The outlined figures behind a beaded curtain in one of the bed style booths showed me how many I was dealing with. Five silhouettes; and I could hear one heart beating, which is never a good thing. I drank my drink and waited for them to move on to another bar, I couldn’t do anything there unless they started first and then it would be hard to explain to Tom how I suddenly became a very angry tiger” Sally laughed and went to make another cup of tea and I carried on talking about my eventful night “I sipped my drink and realised that the vamps had all started to watch me so I turned my back on them ‘It’s quiet tonight Tom’ I said keeping an ear on the booth. I sat there waiting for the vampires to leave so I could follow them, thinking about the girl they had with them, wondering if she had any idea what her fate would be and hoping that she didn’t. The bar was beginning to get busy now. I was still watching the girl, she was calm, too calm, and then it struck me as the beaded curtains moved and I saw her face more clearly. It was a look that I had seen only once before. She was a desideratum” someone who wants (or desires �" hence the name) to be like the vampires, to live an eternal powerful life. It was an idea happily romanticised by the vampires who took advantage of these gullible few for an easy meal; they wouldn’t turn them unless their group were few in number as sometimes hunting in packs, like hyena, worked better than going it alone.

“Oh, not seen any of those around since the whole twilight incident” Sally said with a smirk

“I know right.” I said remembering those nights spent shutting down websites set up as traps for a new wave of want to be vampires “Another strange thing struck me though, I didn’t get a feeling of danger from the vampires, no scent of panic, just that swaggering vampy arrogance, which usually means one of two things; either they have no idea what I am or they think that they know and don’t see me as a threat. Guess which it was” I said with a wry smile and a raised eyebrow “I sat there for a few more minutes and a tall dark haired vamp walked over to me grinning very confidently, it seemed that he though he knew what I was, so I smiled back”

“What an idiot” Sally said shaking her head a little

“He said; ‘We noticed you as soon as you came in’ He sounded old, you know, and there was an age to his eyes but he looked about thirty. I suppose it’s no wonder he was confident, he’d lived a long time without encountering anything like me before, he said ‘We’ve heard talk about Nottingham; numbers of my kin have fallen. I’ve not seen you before, but you stink like a cat, so I am assuming that you are the reason for this.’ Now I suppose you can say that his turn of phrase annoyed me a little. I always smell very nice” I said to Sally who grinned “His tone was calm and seemed almost friendly. An act perfected over the years to make feeding easier I suppose. But there was nothing pleasant about him if you really looked. His clothes were clean but old. He had dark eyes but I got the impression that once they were blue and there was no feeling left in them at all. ‘Well between me hunting and the cave surveyors exploring there are fewer places to left for you to cower. Who’s the girl? How long does she have?’ I held his gaze. And I’ll give him credit, he didn’t flinch. ‘She’s idiotic, just a little snack, she wants the life she sees in the movies’ He grinned as he said this, no doubt to show me his little pointy teeth” I said and Sally laughed again, it was a sort of private joke, my teeth were really much bigger. “‘You are interesting though’ he told me ‘You’re a cat. I wonder what kind, not your average domestic no, maybe something cute like a Lynx’ he said with a little sarcastic wink, had he known what I really was I doubt he would even have been talking to me. So I leaned in and whispered in his ear ‘Why don’t you take me somewhere private and find out’” Sally smirked

“How very cliché” She said

“Well he was being all ‘I’m a scary vampire’ so I thought I’d try the ‘I’m a big tough cat’ thing, I think it would have worked too, but what came next shocked us both a little too much”  I had to really hold myself together to get the next half of this story out.

“I was about to suggest that we headed towards the castle so he can find out what kind of cat he was dealing with, when a scent hit me so hard it felt like I’d fallen off my stool. I sat, rigid, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The vampire took a step back; if it could have I think the colour would have drained from his face, there was no doubt what he was looking at this time. He walked backwards to his booth never taking his eyes off of the stairs and spilling some girls drink as he blindly stumbled as far away from the door as he possibly could.

Slowly I found my feet and stood up. My heart pounding so loudly I’d have sworn that everyone in the bar could hear it, I knew that one person could so I tried to calm it down. I’d lost track of the vampires now, though I was aware that they hadn’t left. I turned, and there he was, standing on the stairs staring right at me; another tiger. ‘S**t’ I thought. I was trapped down there with four vampires and the most striking tiger you have ever seen. Honestly Sally he was gorgeous. He looked a similar age to me but I think perhaps he was older. He was definitely taller though well over six feet his hair blond to the point of being almost white. His scent filled me so much it was almost blinding; I’ve never experienced anything like it before. I mean I know you have told me about it but when it happens it’s really a little terrifying.

All of a sudden there was panic and I actually looked at myself to check that I hadn’t inadvertently transformed in to a tiger.” Sally laughed at me, but honestly in hindsight I am amazed that I managed to keep it together so well.  “But it was just the fire alarms going off. Smoke was drifting from the vampire’s booth. They were trying to get out, on the plus side though I noticed they’d left the totally bewildered girl there. I tried to find their sent, but in the mix of smoke, panicked people and what I could only assume was a white tiger I lost them. I turned to try to leave and jumped, he was right next to me ‘I think they went down into the basement’ his accent was clear but not entirely English ‘should we follow, they could be trapped?’ I had to gather my thoughts and shook my head ‘No, they’ll be off into some cave system now. And we have to be seen to leave through the main door’ Tom the barman told us to move and the three of us made our way up into the night.” Sally handed me another cup of tea and a biscuit. And I tried to stop myself from crying as I continued to relive that strange night.

“We reached the top of the stairs and stepped out into the dark, I began to relax a little as the new tigers sent was weakened a little by the cool night air, and I realised I was angry. Not like me to lose my temper hey Sally” I said trying to make light of the situation “I pushed the new comer up the hill away from the crowd that had gathered outside the bars entrance.  ‘Who the hell are you, what are you doing here this is my patch!’ I punctuated each word with a push further away from the bar, pushing him up the street so that I could hear his answer in a slightly more private location ‘I lost four vampires tonight!’ I shouted at him and do you know what? He smiled and almost laughed. His eyes had a kindness that set me on edge; I was expecting a fight I mean I thought I knew where I stood with tigers. He didn't seem to care that he was in my town and what worried me more was that part of me didn't mind either.” Sally smiled when she heard that “He gently but quite firmly held my arms against my sides and walked me across the road and into the shadow of another building. ‘Come on, they’ll come back around and maybe the sight of another tiger will keep them underground for a couple of days too. If word spreads then you may find that you don't have any vampire related deaths for thee maybe four days.’ I was speechless Sally. He was so sure of himself. ‘I'm Jack’ he continued ‘And I know that this is your area, I'm not here to take it.’ Like he could anyway ‘There's just such a buzz about this place that I had to come and see for myself.’ he let go of my arms and kept talking ‘the last time I heard about another tigers work was back in the eighteen sixties when George Grayson went biblical in Paris.’ he stopped and smiled again. I reluctantly introduced myself and decided that I needed a drink!"

I let him take me to Opium, seemed an obvious choice given where we were now standing. I figured we could talk and I could find out why he was really here. ‘I’ll buy you a drink it’s the least I can do.’ Jack said as we walked in to the bar.

‘You took quite a risk you know, just to have a look. You descended into an underground bar and cornered me. You're lucky that I am able to control myself. What if I'd changed there and then? What would have happened to all those people? Did you even think about what you were doing?’ honestly Sally I was so angry, you know some less mature tigers can have trouble controlling their urges when placed unexpectedly in stressful situations. I could have killed everyone if you hadn’t trained me. I was obviously angry about what had just happened but something else was starting to bother me; something about the bar, but I was so focused on Jack and his unbearable scent that he was all I could see.

I could feel the tiger pacing, impatient to move this intruder on, I wanted my solitude back. Maybe he was right and the vampires wouldn’t be out for a few days and maybe that was ok, but this intrusion of my personal space was not. You know I’ve never liked to share and I haven’t had to share my space with another tiger since I left home.

‘Look’ Jack said ‘I think I’ve caused you more grief than I thought I would. It’s just that I’ve spent time with other tigers before and most don’t mind the extra company’ as he spoke I noticed that his scent was getting less intense. The hairs on the back of my neck started to stand on end and for a moment I thought I was going to change there and then. I managed to gather myself and began to wonder why I was so on edge, something was really bothering me. There was just something about this whole situation that didn’t feel right.

A tingle ran down my spine. All I could smell was Jack, his sent, although less powerful still seemed to fill the room. It gave me a head ache. His smile fixed as he stared at me.

‘What are you so happy about?’ I growled my voice was deeper with a definite snarl to it.

‘Nothing much, I just didn’t think that this would be so easy’ well that strange answer made me furious and I started to feel the tiger growing more agitated and more alert. For the first time since we entered the bar I looked away from Jack. It was then that I saw the other people in the bar and all at once my world snapped into sharp focus. Vampires Sally, they were everywhere, sitting at each table serving the drinks behind the bar ‘s**t!’ I thought for the second time that night.”

I was feeling a little better about what I did to Jack as I recounted his trap for me. I was still angry and although upset, talking this through with Sally was definitely cathartic.

“Now my rage truly rose inside me, I’d been played. I was such fool, allowing myself to be tricked in such a crude way. Now I realised why Jacks scent had been so strong, I knew some tigers could control the strength of their pheromones, you’ve told me that and he’d used his to blind me and keep my attention while he closed in. I was stupid and naive and now I was trapped. And I didn’t see it, I didn’t see it Sally!

Jack had stopped smiling ‘These’ he said holding his arms out in a wide gesture ‘are my clients’ the vampires were smiling at him. All teeth and glee at what they’d seen him achieve so easily. ‘I told you that you’d been causing a stir. They have asked me to have a little chat with you’ he smiled again that same fixed smile but the warmth in his eyes had gone.” Sally looked surprised; even though I’d told her why I did what I did hearing it again was strange. Working with them goes against all we feel and everything we are taught.

“I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing, desperately soothing the tiger as much as I could. It’s much harder than when I practice, but your meditation techniques really helped. I wanted to rip into that blond traitor for his deception, but I couldn’t rick a full fight and it’s not like I could run, he’d only have followed. Only one of was going to leave that bar.

I opened my eyes and looked right at Jack. For the first time my expression caused a look of doubt to cross his face, it was brief but I definitely saw it. By now I had realised that my only chance of escape would be to kill him without him realising what I was about to. This coven of young vampires was unlikely to stick around after their protector was dead even though they outnumbered me thirty to one. I played for time while I tried to get close to him ‘So fighting for the enemy’ I said and I started to walk from table to table, picking up and replacing knives and forks absentmindedly. I felt like a tiger in a zoo pacing the enclosure looking for a weak link in the fence. Vampires scattered as I moved towards them like cockroaches hiding from the light. ‘They pay rather well as it turns out’ Jack said casually as I walked back towards him ‘What if I kill you now? Do you think they’d be able to replace you very quickly?’ I was in front of him now, close enough to feel his breath ‘Well I don’t think that you have any idea how to get out of here, which is why there is a knife pressed against my chest, you do know that that will have little effect’ he smiled at me again and moved even closer causing the point of my unmoving knife to rip through his shirt and push into his flesh a little. A drop of blood caused the closest vampires to shift uneasily where they stood. He leant over me ‘I’d love to see you try it’ he whispered ‘That’s not entirely what I had in mind’ I whispered back. Before he knew what had happened I tore into his throat. Ripping his carotid and spraying the startled vampires in Jacks warm blood. His body stood motionless for a second before collapsing into a bloody heap at my feet, a look of surprise etched permanently on to his lifeless face. ‘He’s all yours’ I said to the young vampires all around me as they stared motionless, their faces altered. They were in full feeding mode now and there was soon a fight to get at Jacks pitiful body.” I was shaking again and started to cry. Anger aside and even though I had no choice I still struggled with the guilt of taking another life.  

“He nearly had me Sally; he would have succeeded too if he hadn’t completely underestimated me, if you hadn’t saved me Sally. You taught me how to do this, I owe you my life.” I cried harder as I realised that without Sally’s training over the last few years I could not have beat him. Jack would have won and I would have died. He couldn’t know that I had been trained to control the tiger to such a point that I can use just the weapons I required, in this case my teeth and jaw. These skills usually take years to master and are not something you would expect in one as young and unexperienced as me.

“What happened next? There are still a lot of vamps there?” Sally asked

“I decided to change so the vampires would leave me alone and I lay motionless in a corner watching them have their way with his wretched body. He could have survived my attack but after the vampires had finished he was dead, he’d lost his blood too fast and that was that. So I moved to the door way and changed back to my human self. Stepping outside into the cold night air I realised I was naked and that my bag was still in the bar and I knew I would have to go back in, I couldn’t just wander home nude. Also thought about the message I was sending, Jack as you agree had worked for someone important. Killing him sent one message; killing them all would just drive home the point.”

At this point sally came over and hugged me.

“ok so you did do the right thing. What choice did you have?”

“doesn’t make it easier honey” I said “I was still mad at myself for being taken in by such a simple trick. The shock of seeing another tiger right there and such a handsome one at that had really blown me away. But no more mistakes, I’d seen the vampires hand now and it wouldn’t be long until they found out what had happened. I went into the ladies and changed into the jeans and t-shirt in my bag, they were remarkably blood free but the bag its self was ruined. I emptied out its contents and turned it inside out. There was no way it could be left behind as my fingerprints were probably dried into the blood. I avoided the blood on the floor, although after the vampires had had their way there wasn’t too much left, is was messy though. At least when you killed a vampire they turned to dust and vanished, Jacks body would be found by someone, although I really wasn’t sure who, this was a vampire bar so it was unlikely that the police would become involved, still just to be on the safe side I checked the offices and bar for any CCTV equipment but as I had imagined there was none, it’s not generally needed in a bar where no one can be seen on film. After a look in the mirror to make sure that I was not covered in blood I headed home.

I was more cautious than normal; I’ll admit I was even a little nervous. As I walked into my buildings entrance hall to the lift I consciously sniffed the air, something I’d never noticed myself done before, I’d really let Jack get to me.”

Once I was back home alone I closed the door to my flat I stripped off threw all of my clothes plus the bloody satchel into the washing machine and turned it up to a high heat. I cocooned myself in a fleece dressing gown, sat on the edge of my bed reached into the top draw of the bed side table and took out a book. It was (and still is) a red Moleskin notebook.  In here I keep notes of the locations and numbers of vampires I kill or come into contact with. I also took out an ordinance survey map of Nottingham. I took them across the hall into what was the spare room; but due to a lack of friends staying over it was used mainly as an office.

I sat in the cold white chair and pulled myself under a trestle style white desk and switched on the desk lamp, this was now the only light on in my apartment, I wanted to feel alone. The desk looked out over the city and the sky was black and starless. It was close to one in the morning when started to record that nights work.

I wrote:

S @ SK 57485 39873. 4 VM + 1 HF

This stood for: Sighting at Tantra, (I use the National Grid references for the locations I visited, hence the ordinance survey map), four vampires, male plus one human female. A sighting can be anything from just seeing them as they run away to a conversation, like I had that night.

I paused before I started to note my activities at Opium. I wasn’t sure what to write really so in the end it came out like this:

K @ SK 57592 39893. ≥20 VV + 1 T.M (convert)

Meaning: Kill at Opium, around twenty vampires of various sexes plus one male tiger, converted and fighting for the vampires.

When I started this book I had considered learning short hand so I could write in more detail, but it struck me that it could be translated, whereas the key to this code is in my head and therefore could not be easily understood by a casual observer even though it is a very simple code (I suppose I’ll have to change it now I’ve told you about it). As it happens I don’t really keep these records for me, they’re for a friend who likes to document our activities, but the map that is for me. I find visual aids very useful. I stuck a red dot over Opium and an orange dot over Tantra on the map. These bars were both close to three or four blue dots that represented cave entrances that I patrolled. This is never a coincidence; there were similar stickers all over the map all near to blue cave stickers.

“That’s all I can tell you really, once I woke up this morning I called work, quit and came here” Sally looked a little surprised as I said this “I don’t want any distractions, I want to find out who did this” I explained

We sat there in silence for a while, just thinking about what had happened. What neither Sally nor I could work out was why I had been targeted in such a way. What I do is not uncommon and there are other tigers and other werecats in full hunting mode in all major cities and towns. Places like London, Manchester and Birmingham will certainly have more than one walking the streets. so why was I picked out?

Author's Note

narrative and conversation in narrative...is this confusing?