Simon Green: The Dark Side of the Road

Penny, and Leilah, and Alexander.

I needed to destroy the vampire. For what she did to the Colonel. For all those she’d killed, and for all those she would go on to kill if she wasn’t stopped. But I also needed to save the lives of those I’d left in the house. Because that was what a human being would do.

The Manor slowly appeared out of the swirling mists. As I drew nearer, I could see the front door was still firmly closed. That was something. I paused, a cautious distance away, to look the place over. There were no signs to show Sylvia had got there ahead of me. And then the lights went out.

The glimmers of light shining past the heavy wooden shutters over the drawing room windows just snapped off. And since no one in that room had any reason to do such a thing, it meant Sylvia must have already broken into the house and ripped out the fuses. Good tactic. It was what I would have done. She’d had more than enough time over the weekend to find out where everything was and plan ahead. Predators often prefer to hunt in the dark …

I hurried forward, slamming through the piled-up snow, sending it flying to either side of me as I headed for the front door. I grabbed the door handle and rattled it hard, and found the door was still securely locked. How had Sylvia got inside? I stepped back and looked up, craning my head right back, and there it was … a single top floor window open, its shutters pulled away and hanging loose. The same window where I’d thought I’d seen someone watching me when I arrived. Sylvia must have skittered up the outside wall …

And now she was inside the house with the others.

I hammered on the front door with my fist, making the heavy wood shake and shudder in its frame, and only then remembered Jeeves’ special knock. I hit the door three times quickly, two hard and short, and then I stood there breathing hard, planning what I would do when I got inside. After a worryingly long pause, I heard the door being unlocked from the inside. It swung inwards, and there was Penny. She smiled quickly, her face full of relief on seeing me again, and then her smile fell away as she realized Jeeves wasn’t with me.

I hurried forward, into the gloom of the unlit hall, and she fell back. Freezing air and quick bursts of snow followed me in. Penny slammed the door shut in the face of the storm and locked it again. I glared about me into the dark hall. ‘Have you seen Sylvia?’ I said.

‘No,’ said Penny. ‘I thought she was still outside! Oh bloody hell, the lights! That was her, wasn’t it? We all thought it was just the storm.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘She’s inside, somewhere.’

Penny helped me struggle out of my many layers of coats. I dropped them to the floor and kicked them aside. The outer layers were covered with snow, the inner layers soaked with sweat. I was glad to be rid of them. I scraped layers of frost from my face with my numb fingers, and then headed quickly for the drawing room door. It stood slightly open, spilling warm yellow light into the hall.

‘Leilah is lighting candles,’ said Penny, hurrying along beside me. ‘There’s always lots of candles around. Daddy saw to that. Said it was an important part of the Christmas atmosphere. We used to rely on them a lot, back when I was a little girl and we hadn’t quite got the hang of the generator yet … Sorry. I’m babbling. Ishmael … Where’s Jeeves? What happened to Jeeves?’

‘He didn’t make it,’ I said.

‘Sylvia killed him?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Oh God … But he was a professional!’

‘So am I,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Penny, trying for a smile. ‘But a professional what?’

‘That sounds about right,’ I said.

More light fell out of the drawing room. I took one last look around the empty hallway, pushed the door open, and went in, with Penny all but treading on my heels.

Just inside the door, half the room’s furniture had been piled up to form a barricade. It was pushed to one side now, to let Penny out. I pushed it further back, with one hand, as I entered. It felt solid and heavy enough, but I had no doubt Sylvia could smash right through it without even slowing. I’d always known that. I only encouraged the others to build a barricade because it would give them something to do and help them feel safer.

I closed the door. Firelight and candlelight gave the drawing room an almost cosy atmosphere. Someone had built up the fire, piling the coal and wood high. It blazed fiercely in the massive stone fireplace. I went straight over to the fire and stood before it, letting the heat sink into my body. I hadn’t realized just how cold I was, how much my time in the storm had slowed me down. Cold is insidious; it sneaks up on you. I turned around, letting the fire toast my backside, and looked round the room. Candlesticks and candelabras, big and small, stood on every surface. Warm, organic light to push back the shadows.

Leilah looked at me, and one look told her everything. She didn’t need me to tell her why Jeeves wasn’t with me. She seemed to fall in upon herself, looking suddenly old and tired … and then she slowly straightened up again, wearing her strength as armour, taking on her old authority again. Because that was the job; and that was all she had left, now. She met my gaze squarely. ‘Just … tell me he died well,’ she said.

‘He died fighting,’ I said. ‘Defiant, to the end.’

What else could I say to her? I couldn’t tell her the truth. That would have been cruel.

I deliberately looked away. Someone had picked Melanie up off the floor and put her back in her chair. She sat slumped, her head tilted back so that she stared up at the ceiling. Presumably someone had tried to close her eyes, but it’s often harder than you think to get them to stay shut. The wooden stick still protruded from her blood-soaked chest.

Khan stood off to one side, looking lost. As though he had no idea what to do. Probably a new experience for a man like Khan, who was used to being in charge and in control. He caught me watching him and saw something in my face. ‘It wasn’t the storm put the lights out, was it?’ he said. His eyes were wide and staring, like a deer caught in the headlights. ‘Is Sylvia back in the house with us?’

‘Looks that way,’ I said.

‘Why didn’t you kill the bitch?’ said Khan, his voice rising even more.

‘We did try,’ I said. ‘Jeeves died trying.’

‘It’s different for you,’ said Khan, defiantly. ‘You’re trained for weird shit like this. All I did at Black Heir was push papers around, remember?’

I turned away from him. ‘Penny; where’s the fuse box?’

‘I don’t know!’ said Penny. ‘How would I know something like that?’

‘It’s your house!’ said Khan. ‘How can you not know where your fuses are?’

‘Because I’m just visiting!’ Penny shot back at him. ‘This hasn’t been my home for ages! Anyway, do you know where your fuses are?’

‘Of course!’ said Khan.

‘Poor little rich girl,’ said Leilah, not looking round from lighting the last few candles, with a Zippo that was a match for her late husband’s. ‘Knows everything except for the things that really matter. Your fuse box is down in the kitchen. Though I don’t feel like going back down there at present …’

‘Hush!’ I said. ‘Listen …’

We all stood very still, not one of us moving a muscle. Hardly breathing as we listened, concentrating. Outside the drawing room, at the very end of the long hall, we could all hear someone slowly descending the long curving staircase. One step at a time, deliberately drawing it out. Every footstep seemed to last forever, the gap between each new sound tearing at our nerves. And then the footsteps stopped, at the bottom of the stairs. For a long time there was just a slow and steady silence. We all stood tense as statues, straining our ears against the quiet. The footsteps went back up the stairs again, one slow step at a time, all the way to the top. And stopped again.