Northern Fiction - Going Underground
Masquerade
Suddenly the crowd parted as two heavily built figures forced their way through. The bouncers approached the knife_wielding youths uncertainly.
'Alright, alright, put the weapons down,' said the first bouncer, a bulky man with a surprisingly sensitive face. Hamish broke away from Vlad and seemed ready to attack these interlopers. He stopped, as a soft touch on his arm told him Eloise had regained her feet.
'Don't be stupid, Hamish!' she shouted. The first bouncer had disarmed Vlad and was leading him and his cohorts _ including Eloise's sister _ towards the exit. The other man headed for the skinhead.
Hamish pushed Eloise away, and turned towards the approaching bouncer.
'No fucking ape throws me out of anywhere,' he snarled, as the man grabbed at him. He weaved, ducked, lunged _ and the bouncer fell back, blood spreading rapidly across his white T_shirt. Someone in the crowd screamed, loud enough and piercing enough to be heard over the music. The effete strains of The Cure ended abruptly, and a frightened voice over the PA informed them that the police had been called and would be at the club any minute.
'Oh no,' Eloise muttered, turning towards Hamish, who was cleaning his blade on a piece of rag. 'You idiot,' she hissed.
'What are we going to do?' demanded Nick, eyes wide with fear. He glanced around at the watchful crowd. No way out, that way. Around them stood silent Goths, shocked out of their usual languor by this bloodshed in their midst. Behind the trio were the girls who had been sitting near them. Nick had had his eye on one of them earlier, not expecting a second glance from her. But now they all stared silently at him and his friends. He glanced at Hamish and Eloise.
'Looks like this is the end of a lovely night out,' muttered Eloise grimly, as the wail of police sirens became gradually audible from outside. Then she heard a hiss behind her. She turned. It was one of the girls from the table near them.
'Quick, this way,' she urged them, indicating the fire_exit in the nearest wall. One of the other girls had opened it. The first girl gazed at Eloise, with bright eyes feverish in a dead face. She looked singularly unwholesome, but Eloise felt in no position to turn down her offer. She turned to Hamish and Nick.
'Come on,' she said. They glanced at her, shrugged, and sped after the Goths, out into the dark night.
'We can stop here, I think,' called the dead_faced girl as they ducked down an alleyway about half a mile from the club. They had run the gauntlet of the dingy Brighton backstreets, losing their police pursuers somewhere near the Kemp Town road.
The three fugitives stood before their rescuers. Hamish folded his arms.
'What the fuck's going on?' he demanded.
Eloise sighed. 'Shut up, Hamish, you've done enough harm tonight.' She turned to the girls. 'Ignore him, he's just a rude Scottish oik. All the same, I'm a bit curious myself. Why did you help us get away?'
The first girl shrugged dully.
'We couldn't leave a fellow sister to the Pigs,' she muttered, fixing Eloise with her fevered gaze. 'Besides, we saw the trouble you were in was Vlad's doing.'
'You know Vlad?' asked Nick.
'We try not to,' said one of the other girls, baring her fangs in a grin. 'We hate sad Goths who think they're vampires _ the ones who say they're undead and seem to think that it means they don't need to get a life.'
'But you wear the teeth and everything,' Nick said curiously. 'Don't you think you're a vampire?'
The girls all looked self_conscious for a second. Then the first one did a creditable vampire hiss.
'Ve don't think ve're vampires,' she said in a Transylvanian accent, 'Ve know ve are.' She grinned. 'I vant to bite your finger,' she added for good measure.
Eloise laughed. 'You know, it's so nice to see some Goths still have a sense of humour these days,' she said. 'Shame my sister hasn't. She's on the crest of the Dark Wave.'
'Is she that silent girl who's been trailing Vlad around all the time?' asked the first girl. 'Looks like Neil Gaiman's Death warmed up.'
'That's Beckie. Last time I saw her, I told her Vlad was bad news. Now he's got her under his spell.'
The girl nodded. 'Do you want to get her back?' she asked. The others nodded in unison. 'We know where she'll be,' one of them added.
'You do?' said Eloise in surprise.
'Where are they?' Hamish broke in. 'I've got a score to settle with that prick in the dinner suit.' He scowled. 'I wouldn't have knifed that bouncer if that Goth bastard hadn't slapped you, Eloise.'
'Never mind that, Hamish,' Eloise replied, ignoring his attention_seeking plea. 'We've got to get my sister away from these vampire wannabes.' She turned to the girl. 'Where will we find them?'
'There's an old house in Hangleton, near the main road. It's been abandoned for years, and most of it's in ruins. But that's where Vlad's got his squat. Could you do us a favour, by the way? It's where we used to squat, but they took over, and we haven't been able to get it back. If you could turf them out when you get your sister out?'
Eloise frowned.
'You mean all those Goths with Vlad?' she asked.
'No, no.' The girl frowned. 'Most of them are just hangers_on. There's a hard core who squat there _ Vlad and three girls, Miriam, Maria and Diana. Your sister sleeps there more often than not.'
'No wonder my parents were so keen to get me to come home,' Eloise reflected. 'All their beloved children are leaving them.'
'But you'll do it?' the girl asked urgently.
Eloise glanced at Nick and Hamish. They nodded. She turned back to the girl.
'We've done more difficult things in our time.' She shrugged. 'And we're in your debt.' She nodded. 'We'll do it.'
The house loomed out of its grounds like a tooth gone rotten in a festering gum. It was the shell of a respectable thirties family house, surrounded on either side by similar buildings, mainly in better repair; but much of the street seemed rundown, more so than Eloise was accustomed to in this part of Brighton. Coming as she did from Wych Cross, in the midst of Ashdown Forest, she was unfamiliar with the suburbs, but even bearing the recession in mind, this decrepitude still seemed odd, out of place, even sinister.
'Not a bad place for a squat,' said Nick with a connoisseur's expertise. Eloise glanced at him.
'Think we'll be able to get in?'
'Of course we can get in,' Nick said, his voice full of the self_importance he assumed in these situations. 'You can get in anywhere. It's getting away with it that counts.'
Eloise shuffled impatiently. 'Do you think we can get in there without another brush with the police?' she demanded.
Nick grinned at her.
'Easy,' he said, and took them quickly across the street and up an alley that led along the right hand side of the house. Halfway along it, Nick found the break in the fence that he was looking for.
'In here,' he muttered, and they followed him into the overgrown garden at the back of the derelict house.
In the cellar beneath the house, the ceremony was almost complete. Vlad stood at the centre of the candlelit space as his three devoted followers, Miriam, Diana and Maria, prepared the sacrifice for the ritual. He gazed around the cellar with satisfaction, and ignored the nagging doubts that always troubled him at this point.
He stared abstractedly at the mural of Cain, Father of All Vampires, that he had daubed onto the far wall, above the four coffins that lay on shelves closer to the floor.
Technically, he wasn't a vampire _ he wasn't dead, for one thing. But people who thought only the undead drank blood were deluded. There were times when he doubted that there had ever been vampires; even if there had, in these latter days it was left to mortals to continue the old ways. The true vampires were sleeping, and the Golden Age of blood sucking was long gone.
He watched as Miriam, Maria and Diana dressed Rebecca in a long white gown that stood out among the blacks and purples of the cellar like a virgin in a brothel. His three devotees were all from abusive backgrounds, and had presumably joined Vlad _ or Robert Jones, as the electoral roll knew him _ because he never veiled his abuse in hypocrisy: he never told them what he did was for their own good, and they knew it was just to satisfy his jaded need for a new kick.
Most of his teenage life had been spent looking for kicks, but nothing had ever satisfied him. Drink, drugs, sex, violence, the occult... Becoming a Goth was inevitable, but had only led to his estrangement from a domineering mother, homelessness, and finally his drifting down to Brighton. Here he'd heard of this house _ haunted, supposedly, by four girls who'd hanged themselves in an upstairs room, all four, sometime during the Depression. He'd felt some sympathy for the girls, had hoped they'd come to him, tell him if the ultimate kick wasn't on the other side... But it was all lies. There were no ghosts.
He turned to the others.
'Take her to the altar,' he commanded.
Upstairs, in what had once been the kitchen of the house, a loud crack came from the exterior door. It swung open to let in a shaft of moonlight, followed by a mop of dreadlocks and a thin face.
Nick glanced briefly round the kitchen, then turned and beckoned to his companions. He tiptoed into the grimy room, followed by Hamish and Eloise. As the Scot crossed the threshold, he stumbled over a piece of debris, and cursed. His voice was loud in the silence.
'Sssh!' hissed Nick.
'Don't tell me to "ssh", you twat,' Hamish grumbled.
'Keep quiet,' Eloise muttered from behind him. He turned.
'I'm not doing what he says...' he began.
'The pair of you, shut up!' Nick snapped. They went quiet. 'Good. Now follow me.' He turned, and headed for the interior door. Scowling at the crustie's back, Hamish followed. Eloise flitted after them.
They came out into the hall. Paint was peeling from the walls, and an unpleasant smell hung in the air. A staircase led up the left wall, and beneath it stood the door to the cellar. The house was silent. Nick turned to the others.
'Well, I've got you in...' he started.
'Yes, good work,' said Eloise.
Nick preened himself. 'Well, if you want any thieving done, or breaking and entering, just ask someone from Liverpool,' he replied.
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