Simon Green - The Dark Side of the Road

‘Same to you,’ said Jeeves.

We nodded briefly to each other. There wasn’t anything else to say. Jeeves went stomping off into the snow, while I looked over my end of the cottages. I did look after him once, but Jeeves had already disappeared into the grey walls of fog and falling snow.

It didn’t take me long to set fire to my end of the terrace. Kick in the first door, pile up the furniture, soak them with anything incendiary that came to hand, and then light it up. I stopped to sniff the air, now and again, but there was never any trace of blood or decay. Never a sound of anything moving, or even a feeling I wasn’t alone. That bothered me. Sylvia had to be here, somewhere. There was nowhere else she could be hiding. I used my own lighter to set the fires. I don’t smoke, never have, but a lighter is still a useful thing to have about you. Never know when a sudden inferno will come in useful.

My end cottage went up quickly, and the flames jumped swiftly on to the next. The whole terrace was really just one big fire trap. The first two cottages burned quickly, filling the cold night air with blasting heat and thick black smoke. But when I looked down to the far end of the cottages, there was no sign of Jeeves and no trace of any fire. Something had gone wrong.

I ran past the middle cottages, slamming through the snow, and the far houses slowly appeared out of the mists. No fire, no broken-in doors, not even a shattered window. And no sign of Jeeves, anywhere. I considered calling out to him, and then thought better of it. I sniffed hard at the air, but all I could smell was smoke.

I heard a sound and looked up. And there they were, Jeeves chasing Sylvia across the slanting snow-covered roofs. She still looked like a rotting corpse, dressed in filthy old clothes as she danced lightly along the cottages, laughing easily. Jeeves had to struggle to keep up with her. He had his gun in his hand, but he hadn’t fired it yet. I could hear his footsteps, slamming and sliding across treacherous snowy slates, but I couldn’t hear Sylvia’s. No wonder I couldn’t smell her, all the way up there. I could hear her laughing, hear Jeeves cursing breathlessly. He stopped where he was, took careful aim, and opened fire, but if his bullets did hit Sylvia, they didn’t even slow her down.

I don’t know how they got up there. Whether Sylvia lured Jeeves from one floor to another, then up through an attic opening up on to the roof … Something like that, no doubt. And then one last chase, with her beckoning him on, just for the fun of it.

Jeeves went after her again. I called up to him, yelling for him to stop and come down so we could take her the way we’d planned. But either he couldn’t hear me, or he didn’t want to, caught up in the heat of the chase. He slipped and slid on the treacherous snowy roofs, but somehow still drove himself on, with sheer strength and stubbornness. He almost fell several times, but somehow saved himself at the last moment. Sylvia seemed to float along, supernaturally sure-footed, never losing her balance for a moment. And then she stopped abruptly and spun around, to face Jeeves. He couldn’t stop so quickly, stumbling forward, and while he was distracted she launched herself at him. She flashed forward across the snowy roof, so fast she was just a blur, crossing the intervening distance in just a few seconds.

And there was nothing I could do to help him.

She slammed into Jeeves, driving him back several steps. She grabbed his shoulders with both hands, and Jeeves cried out at the horrid strength in her undead grasp. I heard his shoulder-bones break, one after the other. Jeeves struggled anyway, fighting back with everything he had, but he couldn’t break free. He tried to bring up his gun, but there was no strength left in his arms.

Sylvia looked down at me, and I knew this had all been arranged for my benefit. A show, staged up on the roofs so I couldn’t interfere. Jeeves had been right, after all; she’d just been waiting for us to separate, so she could catch one of us on our own. And have fun with them.

Her head snapped forward, and Jeeves cried out. A horrid despairing sound as her teeth sank deep into his neck. Blood spouted, steaming thickly on the cold air. More blood ran down his chest, soaking into his coat. Sylvia worried at his throat, like a dog with a fresh piece of meat, her sharp teeth tearing at the flesh. The noises she made as she fed weren’t even animal; they were somehow more basic, more primordial, than that.

There was nothing I could do. No way I could get up there, before it would all be over.

Sylvia supported Jeeves’ entire weight with her undead strength. His legs had gone limp, just dangling. She buried her face in the great wound she’d made in his throat, gulping down his blood. I could hear the awful sounds quite clearly. Jeeves slowly turned his face away, to look down at me. And then he opened his hand and let go of his gun. It clattered down the side of the roof, hit the guttering, and spun out into space, falling down and down through the air. I moved quickly forward and caught it.

Sylvia pulled her face away from Jeeves’ neck. She glared down at me, her eyes unnaturally bright in her rotting face. Her mouth and teeth dripped gore. When she spoke, I could hear her as clearly as though she were standing right in front of me.

‘See what I’m doing, Ishmael? I’m going to do this to all of them! One by one, until you’re the only one left. You get to watch them suffer, and you get to suffer too, for the sin of inconveniencing me. So really this is all your fault, isn’t it? And when I finally come for you … oh, the things I’ll do to you! But for now, just watch …’

Jeeves’ body was entirely limp, no strength left in it. He was only held up by the vampire’s strength. But he was still looking down at me, and I knew why he’d dropped his gun: for me to catch. I raised the gun and took careful aim. Sylvia saw and laughed at me. And I shot Jeeves in the head, twice. I might not like weapons, but I knew how to use them.

It was all I could do for him. To stop his suffering, and to make sure Sylvia couldn’t bring him back as one of her kind.

Sylvia screamed with rage as half of Jeeves’ head was blown apart, right in front of her. She threw his body away from her, as though it was suddenly contaminated. Jeeves fell through the air, turning and tumbling, until he finally slammed into the snow-covered ground before me, with such force I heard his bones break. I knew he had to be dead, but I knelt down beside him and checked anyway. Because I had to be sure. He would have done the same for me.

When I looked up again, Sylvia was gone from the roofs. Nothing up there but the swirling snow. I’d cheated her out of one small revenge, at least.

The cottages were burning nicely. The fires would reach the far end soon enough. There was nowhere left for Sylvia to hide, now. Only one place left she could go. Back to Belcourt Manor.

Back to the bait I’d left there, waiting for her.

The wind was gathering its strength, blowing out of the coldest hell there was. The snow battered against my face as I headed back towards Belcourt Manor, stinging my narrowed eyes. I had to destroy the vampire while it was still trapped here. If I didn’t, Sylvia would just kill everyone in the house, wait out the storm, and then walk away. To do it all again, somewhere else. I fought my way through the storm, refusing to let the cold slow me down or hold me back. A normal human probably couldn’t have done it.

When I’d left the manor house with Jeeves, I’d known there was a good chance Sylvia might get away. That we wouldn’t be able to stop her. That was why I insisted we set fire to the outbuildings. To drive Sylvia back to the one place of shelter left. Belcourt Manor. I could have taken the others with us, to hunt the vampire. Kept the group together. Safety in numbers, and all that. But I needed to be sure where Sylvia would go if she got away. I needed bait, for my trap.