The Eye of the Moon Read online

  The members of the Black Plague almost always travelled in large numbers on the rare occasions when they ventured into Santa Mondega, and the city clans did likewise whenever they chose to roam in the hills and valleys. Since Kione had no friends of his own kind – or any other, for that matter – he kept himself hidden away at the harbour, sometimes snatching mere fish and crustaceans for food. On other nights, however – like tonight – he would strike gold. Young innocents were his favourites, and tonight’s innocent was a mouth-watering proposition.

  He had watched the girl’s scarecrow companion depart, and had then eyed her up feverishly as she made her way along the promenade to the pier. He had prayed to the Goddess Yemaya to send the young girl his way on this special night. And Yemaya was listening. She had willingly guided the young girl along the promenade and on to the wooden pier to meet Kione. He was not about to turn down such a fine offering.

  Clinging by his long fingernails to the final wooden slat at the end of the boardwalk, he waited patiently for the perfect moment to strike. The girl looked so happy and carefree, which was just how Kione liked them best. For a while he allowed her to stand and gaze out at the ocean, as he in turn stared and marvelled at her shiny red shoes. Soon the blue-and-white dress that covered almost all of the flesh on her torso would turn a similar colour, stained with her blood. He couldn’t help licking his lips at the thought of it. Eventually, after teasing himself almost to the point of orgasm, he made his move.

  With eye-deceiving speed he sprang from his position hanging under the pier beneath her feet and allowed himself the pleasure of floating at eye level no more than a foot in front of her, his clawed feet hovering six feet above the waves. It was a moment of the most exquisite pleasure. He relished watching the expression change on the face of his prey as she realized she was about to be eaten alive by a filthy nightstalker wearing ragged brown clothes and stinking of fish. Despite the terror evident in her pupils, dilating with every passing moment, he took even greater pleasure in the knowledge that she had no idea just how much passion and lust he was about to unleash at the same time as the unbearable pain he would inflict upon her.

  As he watched her jaw drop, preparing to scream, he began undressing her with his eyes. Oh, to rip that dress off and feast his eyes, tongue and hands on her silky white flesh.

  ‘Hello, my lovely,’ he sneered, in what he fondly considered to be a seductive voice.

  To Beth it was nothing of the sort. It was a seedy voice, and one accompanied by a stench of foul breath that might have come from the depths of Satan’s rectum. As the initial shock passed she instinctively took a step backwards and considered her predicament. Should she make a run for it? Or stay and try to talk her way out of the situation? Survival instinct kicked in and she turned to run, but no sooner had she whirled round than Kione was in front of her once more. With sinuous agility he had flipped over her in the air and landed on the pier between her and the sanctuary of the promenade.

  ‘Oh please,’ she begged. ‘Don’t hurt me. I have to get home.’

  Kione grinned broadly, showing off the yellowed fangs in his mouth, fangs that matched the colour of the whites of his narrow, evil eyes. There were small chunks of day-old flesh still rotting away in the gaps between his crooked teeth. This vampire was a dirty bastard, in every sense of the word. Unclean, unpleasant, untrustworthy, and without doubt a colossal sexual deviant of the highest order.

  ‘Take off your dress,’ he said, leering.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your dress. Lose it.’

  ‘But, but … what?’

  ‘You heard me. Strip for me. Get going quick, girl, because I can assure you if you don’t do it then I will, and people say I don’t have the most gentle touch in the world.’

  Beth looked at his hands. He held them in front of his stomach, the long, bony fingers making groping motions, as if playing with an imaginary pair of breasts. Unsure what to do, but desperate to buy herself some time while she came up with a plan of how to get away from him, she began to slide the blue straps of her dress over her shoulders. Kione couldn’t resist licking his lips in readiness for what was to come next.

  What actually followed very shortly after the first shoulder strap was loosened was the sound of a pair of hard-heeled boots pounding on the wooden slats of the pier behind him. At first it resonated only in his subconscious, for his lust was taking over his thoughts. The sound of the thudding footsteps grew louder and louder, faster and faster, as their owner drew ever closer at high speed. Kione’s lust had control for just a second too long before his instincts took over again. His reaction, when it came, was too late. He turned around just in time to see a scarecrow’s fist, which hit him flush on the nose. He fell backwards on to Beth, who shrieked and reeled away, sending the vampire crashing to the planks. As she readjusted her dress she saw the wide-eyed figure of JD staring at his own fist, looking somewhat startled at what he had just seen himself do.

  Of the three of them, Kione was the quickest to react. He leapt back on to his feet within a second of hitting the deck. Beth took this as her cue to start running back down the pier towards the promenade. She raced past the vampire and JD, who were too busy squaring up to each other to pay her any heed. Her stupid red shoes weren’t best designed for running along wooden boards with gaps in between them, and she knew that she was only ever one stride away from tripping over.

  She had only made it halfway down the pier before she stopped. What about JD? Was he following? Or was he staying to continue his fight with the vampire?

  ‘OW!’ Her answer came when she heard Kione yell out in pain and an equal amount of anger and frustration. She turned back to see the vampire on his knees having received another fierce blow to some sensitive part of his anatomy. He climbed back up again, this time slower than before, and Beth watched JD swing his clenched right fist down on to the vampire’s head. Then he began to rain blows upon the now cowering deviant.

  Within a minute Kione was on his back, holding up one hand and whining for mercy.

  ‘Please, I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to hurt her! We were just playing. Honestly!’

  JD stepped back warily and allowed the sheepish vampire to stagger back on to his feet.

  ‘Get the fuck out of here, you rotten piece of shit,’ he ordered.

  Kione lowered his head, as if he were a naughty schoolboy being lectured about misbehaving in class. JD gave him a look of contempt and turned to check on Beth.

  ‘You okay?’ he called.

  ‘LOOK OUT!’ Beth screamed in response. Kione had been bluffing, hoping that JD would lower his guard for a moment. The boy had done exactly that. The vampire seized his opportunity, lunging, fangs bared, at his enemy’s throat. The young man in the scarecrow outfit was blessed with spectacular reactions, and Beth had barely finished screaming before he whirled round and smashed his onrushing attacker’s face to one side. For a few moments the two of them wrestled, holding each other in a tight embrace, each struggling to gain the upper hand. Beth looked on in horror as they tussled. One moment JD would seem to be overpowering Kione, only for the vampire somehow to squirm into a position of ascendancy. Eventually, when Kione had used up all his cunning moves without managing a single bite of JD’s flesh, the young man threw him up against the rickety wooden railing that ran along one side of the pier and took a firm grip around the weakening vampire’s throat, choking the air from his lungs.

  Kione gasped for air, looking with pleading eyes into his assailant’s snarling face.

  ‘Please,’ he squeaked. ‘Don’t …’

  His voice was faint and his face was slowly turning darker. JD looked into his desperate eyes and loosened his grip just enough to allow Kione to suck in a breath of air.

  ‘Please – don’t – kill – me,’ the vampire gasped. ‘I already died – once – years ago. Don’t put me – through it again. Please. Let me be. I’ll be gone. I promise.’

  Grim-faced, JD squeezed hard again, watc
hing his pathetic enemy’s undead life draining from him. But taking a life isn’t easy, even one that technically doesn’t exist. For a start, he’d have to go to confession. So, in a moment of compassion that Kione didn’t deserve, JD released his fearsome grip on the creature’s neck.

  ‘Get outta here. And don’t ever come back,’ he snapped, unable to contain the disgust in his voice.

  The vampire needed no further invitation. In a moment he had leapt into the air and vanished into the darkness.

  Beth rushed over to JD, who was a panting little after his struggle with the creature of the night.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked, stopping two yards short of where he was to give him room to stretch and breathe in some air.

  ‘Yeah, I’m all right,’ he said, one hand gingerly feeling his neck for any signs of teeth marks. ‘Aside from the fact that I’ve just been in a fight with a vampire, which by all accounts is a fictional being, everything’s just fine. How ‘bout you? Did he do anything to you before I got here?’

  ‘No, but I think I’d be dead about now if it wasn’t for you. How did you know to come back?’

  ‘I didn’t. I came back ’cos I forgot something.’

  JD stepped closer to Beth and reached out an arm towards her. She felt no wish to recoil, as she might have done just an hour earlier if a boy had reached out to touch her. Instead, she allowed him to brush her hair away from her shoulders and check her neck for any signs of blood or bite marks.

  ‘What did you forget?’ she asked.

  JD stroked her neck as he felt for grazes, but he looked her right in the eye.

  ‘This,’ he said. Then he leaned in and kissed her on the mouth. Beth had never been kissed before, and although she was surprised and caught a little off guard, it was a warm feeling that set every nerve in her body tingling. She kissed him right back, quelling her inexperience by letting her natural instincts take over. As first kisses went, it was everything she had dreamt it would be.

  After a good ten-second embrace that made Beth forget the terrifying ordeal she had undergone only moments earlier, JD stepped back. He smiled at her with that cheeky, confident, crooked smile she was rapidly growing to love.

  ‘Come on, let’s get you outta here,’ he said.

  He took her by the hand and they walked back towards the landward end of the pier. The air was growing colder and the night sky darker as the storm clouds from the other side of the city began looming towards them across the promenade. Out in the harbour, the waves were now slowly rising as the inevitable storm steadily began to brew.

  Beth and JD were so wrapped up in each other that neither particularly noticed the worsening weather. The first thing that grabbed their attention was a solitary figure which appeared to be waiting for them at the end of the pier. The figure was that of a middle-aged woman, dressed all in black. She had white hair, and from a distance she looked very ugly. As they neared her the ugliness only got worse.

  ‘Was it that goddam vampire again?’ she called out in a croaky voice as ugly as her face.

  ‘Yeah, think so,’ said JD.

  ‘Rotten fucker,’ the woman snarled. ‘He’s been loitering down there for months now, eatin’ shit and all sorts. You’re a good boy, chasin’ him off like that.’ She turned her attention to Beth. ‘You all right, missy?’ Despite her strangeness and hideous face, there was something curiously reassuring about her. Odd, Beth thought. Probably mad, a bit. But not bad.

  The young couple stopped a yard in front of her, still just on the pier.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine now, thanks,’ Beth beamed, looking up at JD and squeezing his hand, barely able to conceal the inner joy and warmth she felt at being by his side.

  ‘You two should come inside,’ the woman said, pointing to a rickety old trailer parked just off the promenade. ‘I’ll make you a warm drink. The heavens are about to open, an’ there’s an evil storm comin’. You won’t want to be out in it.’

  Lightning suddenly lit the sky and the last few words were almost lost in the early rumbling that was followed by a huge clap of thunder and a swirling wind that came out of nowhere. It startled them all, and as the three of them looked up they were greeted by another flash of lightning, then another thunderclap. A second later, with equal suddenness, a chaotic, seemingly endless downpour of rain came streaming out of the dark clouds above.

  ‘Shit, I gotta go,’ said JD looking at Beth. ‘Seriously, I’m gonna be in big shit if I don’t pick up my brother. I’ll come back when I’ve dropped him off. You okay staying here with …’ He looked at the strange woman. ‘What’s your name, ma’am?’

  ‘Annabel de Frugyn.’

  Amid the roar of the rain and the rumbling thunder it was difficult to hear her clearly, so he just nodded at her. The woman turned and began fighting against the wind and rain to get back to her trailer, a good twenty yards away. She had a terrible limp, suggesting that she had a broken hip or at the very least one leg longer than the other.

  JD watched her curiously for a moment, transfixed by her ridiculous walk. When he snapped out of the momentary trance he leaned over and kissed Beth on the lips again, then wiped the wet hair out of her eyes as the wind began to blow it around.

  ‘Look, you go off with this pissed-up lady and I’ll be back by one o’clock just like I promised earlier. Okay?’

  Beth smiled and kissed him back. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay. See you soon, I promise.’

  JD ran off into the night once more, the sheet of rain hiding him in seconds. He was heading for the church, unaware that his evening was about to take a morbid turn for the worse.

  Beth followed after Annabel and caught up with her just before she reached the trailer. The strange woman smiled a hideous gappy smile at her. ‘What did your boyfriend just call me?’ she asked Beth.

  The first thing that struck Beth was the joy of hearing Annabel refer to JD as her boyfriend. The second was the realization that he had called her a ‘pissed-up lady’. Clearly, diplomacy was required.

  ‘I think he called you the Mystic Lady,’ said Beth, shielding herself from the rain as Annabel unlocked the pink door on the trailer.

  ‘The Mystic Lady, huh?’ the woman repeated. ‘I kinda like the sound of that.’

  As Beth was following Annabel into the trailer, Kione the vampire was half a mile away, flying through the torrential rain and gale-force winds that the storm had blown up. If he had had any pride, it would have been severely dented by the humiliating beating he had taken at the hands of the teenager on the pier. But Kione had no pride. What he did have, however, was the wallet he had siphoned from JD’s pocket during their fight. A wallet containing its owner’s home address. As he flew through the seedy back alleys of Santa Mondega, Kione the vampire was plotting revenge.

  Six

  Earlier That Night

  Olivia Jane Lansbury, widow of this parish, was a proud woman. She was also one of Santa Mondega’s wealthiest residents. The home she had inherited from her late husband twenty years earlier was one of the city’s most prominent features. It sat atop a steep hill on the edge of a smart suburb, and overlooked all else. Boasting no fewer than twenty bedrooms it would have qualified as a guesthouse, except that Olivia Jane didn’t need the business. She was wealthy enough without having to rent out the many rooms at her disposal. Usually only two of the bedrooms in her home were ever occupied: hers, and that of the stepdaughter she had adopted, Beth.

  Her husband, Dexter, had been shot dead in the bath on their wedding night. Initial investigation by a local detective, Archibald Somers, had indicated that the only possible killer was Olivia Jane herself. Shortly after she had offered a reward of $50,000 for any information leading to the identity of the killer, however, Somers had received word from one of his contacts that the killer was in fact a local fisherman. The clever detective had taken the case on personally and tracked the fisherman down. After beating a confession out of the suspect he had been forced to gun him down for resisting arrest
, attempting to evade capture and obstructing a police officer in the commission of his duty. Case closed. Nice work.

  No one in the city really understood why Olivia Jane had adopted Beth. She seemed to have absolutely no time for the girl. Nannies had come and gone in the early years, but from the time Beth had been old enough to attend school, her stepmother had brought her up alone and tutored her from home. She had rarely let the girl out of the house, and had taken great care to ensure that she never mixed with other children of her own age. Until recently.

  Just two months earlier she had apparently undergone a change of heart and enrolled her stepdaughter in one of the local schools, even encouraging her to attend the Halloween Ball. This had seemed so out of character that Beth had been both extremely surprised and more than a little suspicious. Even so, she had seized the opportunity to be among people her own age with alacrity.

  Beth was right to have been suspicious. Olivia Jane’s reason for sending her stepdaughter out into the world concerned a plan she had put into action fifteen years earlier. That plan was now to be finally realized. It was party time.

  Her dinner guests all arrived together under the cover of night, and when Olivia Jane heard the doorbell chime she felt a huge surge of excitement race through her. Checking her appearance in the full-length mirror by the front door one last time, she readied herself for the evening ahead. She had spent over an hour curling her thick blonde hair into a style that she felt made her look like Marilyn Monroe. The look was completed with a figure-hugging strapless pink dress. Not bad for forty something, she thought to herself.

  She opened the door, to be greeted by the sight of a tall man in a long white robe, wearing a gold ram’s-head mask, its horns curling around just above his ears. Twelve others stood behind. Six men all dressed identically to him, and six women in scarlet robes and plain white masks.