The Life, Death, Life, Life and Death of Martin Keller (Dark Season V) Read online

  I open my mouth to say something, but what can I say? I back away, then I turn and hurry away, out of the house and towards the tunnel that leads back up to the ‘real’ world. This is all too weird. I have to find Vincent and Patrick. I have to find out who this Martin Keller guy is, and what he wants with me.

  4

  It’s always fun to kill a human. But killing a vampire is an entirely different experience...

  The death of a vampire is always a great occasion. They live such long, fascinating lives that they forget they can be killed; consequently, they tend to scream and beg for their lives with great enthusiasm. While humans live in the constant shadow of their imminent death, vampires’ lives are one long party, safe in the knowledge that it is so hard to finish them off. So when you get hold of a vampire and prepare to end its miserable existence, you can look into their eyes and see a kind of true terror that cannot be found anywhere else.

  Before the war, I killed many vampires. There were thousands of them, and I would hunt them down methodically. But when the war came, and the vampires began to kill one another, I found they could not be caught so easily. I was forced to sit on the sidelines as vampires fought one another and died in great numbers. Humans had no idea that this war was happening all around them. But for me, it was a great tragedy, and a great missed opportunity.

  When the war was over, I was initially fooled into believing that all the vampires were dead. I travelled to Gothos to see the carnage for myself, and it was quickly obvious that the great house had fallen forever. The walls were mostly destroyed, just one or two piles of bricks left standing in the ruins, with smoke rising and fires still burning through the night. I climbed over the rubble, hoping to find some surviving vampire to taunt and kill. But all I found were corpses. I felt lost, as if my life’s purpose had been taken away from me. Having lived to kill vampires, I now found there were no vampires left to kill.

  For most of the 1940s and 1950s, I was a drunken wretch living on the streets of Paris. I wallowed in memories, drinking away my sorrows. Sometimes I became so drunk, I spewed out my story to fellow drunks. They laughed and dismissed me as a fool. I don’t blame them. I came close to death many times.

  Then, one day, I discovered the truth. A single vampire had survived the war, and was living in America. He was protected by two men: first, a creature known as The Lock, about which I still know virtually nothing; later, a human named Vincent took over, banishing The Lock and announcing himself as the vampire’s father. I subsequently discovered the truth about this Vincent, and his real relationship to the last vampire, but that was largely immaterial. What mattered was the fact that a vampire still existed. Just one. I now had the chance to kill the last vampire, to end the original lineage of that great species, and to begin my own line of creations.

  The hunt was back on.

  It took me many years to find this last vampire, but I finally tracked him down. He and his father were living in Dedston, biding their time as they waited for signs of a prophecy to come true. They were hiding, like pathetic animals, reduced to the level of scurrying around and avoiding humans. Vampires are supposed to be a proud, powerful race. What went wrong? How did they end up like this?

  Foolishly, I assumed that this last vampire would be weakened and easily killed. This was not the case. In the ensuing struggle, I came closer to death than any man should be able to survive. After what seemed like an eternal battle, the vampire left me for dead. But just as I had once under-estimated him, now he under-estimated me: I survived, and I grew stronger. I contacted the only person who could help me achieve what I needed. At first, he did not believe what I wanted. Then, he said he couldn’t do it. Then, he said that he could do it, but that he would not. Finally, he agreed, and I underwent the most amazing surgical transformation. Never before has a human emerged so strong, so powerful, and so dangerous.

  And I understood, finally, how to kill the last vampire. I would have to think like him. To move like him. To kill like him. To be like him.

  5

  I have no idea where to go. If someone was following me earlier, it seems pretty clear that it won’t be safe for me to go home straight away. Instead, I head for the library and use a computer to try to look up this Martin Keller guy online, but all I can find is a reference to some guy with the same name who disappeared around here in the 40s. Giving up, I head over to a cafe to get a Coke. I only have about $2 in my pocket, but I can make a cheap Coke last all afternoon while I try to work out what to do. Still, as I head along the street, I realise the car that was following me earlier is back.

  I head straight down an alley, figuring that there’s no way the car can follow me. Hurrying along, I come out on another street and glance around, just as the car comes round the corner. I turn and walk away quickly, wondering what to do. Ever since I found Martin Keller in Vincent and Patrick’s home, I’ve been feeling increasingly that there’s something very wrong. And why did I get that note, asking me to help, when the only thing I was going to find down in the house was Keller?

  I turn down another alley, figuring I can try to lose the car again, perhaps by taking a backdoor into one of the buildings. But as I try to work out a route, I feel a hand on my shoulder and I turn.

  “Relax,” says Vincent, who has snuck up behind me.

  “What’s happening?” I blurt out, relieved to see him but worried by the serious expression on his face. He’s such an old man, clearly in his 70s or 80s, but he usually has young-looking eyes. Right now, however, he looks haunted and tired.

  “We need to talk,” says Vincent. “Somewhere safe. Come with me”.

  He starts walking past me, but I grab his arm. “I’m being followed,” I say.

  “I know. Come on”. He starts heading down the alley and I follow, We soon reach a large iron door in the back of a building. Vincent reaches into his pocket and pulls out a long, thin key which he inserts into the lock. After a moment, there’s a click and he pushes the door open. We go inside.

  “They won’t find us here,” he says. We’re in what appears to be a small storeroom of the Marrimont Hotel, one of the biggest and most upscale hotels in town. All around us, there are shelves full of toilet rolls, towels and other items.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. “Where’s Patrick?”

  “One thing at a time,” says Vincent, looking about as if he’s still worried that we’re being followed. “Have you been to the house today?”

  I nod. “There was this guy -”

  “Martin Keller,” says Vincent.

  “Yeah. Who is he?”

  Vincent seems preoccupied, and completely unsure of what to do. “He’s a very dangerous man. You’re lucky to be alive. There must be a reason”.

  “A reason I’m still alive?”

  Vincent nods. “Martin Keller isn’t the kind of man to just let you walk away. Did he touch you?”

  “No, I don’t think so”.

  “So he probably hasn’t bugged you. Still, there’s something he wants and it’s something that requires you to still be alive. At least for now”.

  There’s a clicking sound at the door. Vincent turns. “It’s okay,” he says after a moment, turning back to me. “It’s just an old building creaking”. He looks so concerned and confused, as if he’s desperately trying to think of a way to solve the problem.

  “Where’s Patrick?” I ask.

  Vincent turns and looks at the door again.

  “Vincent?” I say, starting to get worried. “Where’s Patrick?”

  He turns to me, seemingly not sure what to say. “He...” There’s a pause. “I buried him this morning”. He has tears in his eyes, but he’s holding them back. “I’ll take you there later, so you can see”.

  I try to understand what he’s saying. Patrick’s a vampire, he can’t die. There was a time, once, when Vincent said he was close to death, but he was saved. Vampires can be saved. There’s no need for them to die. “What do you mean, you buried him?” I ask.
“There’s no way he can be dead”.

  “I’m sorry,” says Vincent. “But some things are too traumatic, even for a vampire’s body. There wasn’t time to save him. Listen, we have to -”

  “How did he die?” I ask. It still seems impossible to believe, yet looking at Vincent I can see that there’s no way he’d lie about something like this.

  “Don’t ask,” Vincent says.

  “Was it painful?” I ask. I have to know every detail. I have to work out what’s happening. Maybe there’s a way to put it right. But Vincent isn’t answering, he’s just looking around, trying to figure out what has happened. I can understand why. Patrick was his son, and no-one should have to bury their son. And then, suddenly, a thought hits me. “He was the last one,” I say. “He was the last vampire. That means...”

  Vincent nods. “They’re all dead now. There are no more... There can be no more vampires. The line has stopped”.

  I don’t know what to do, so I put my arms around Vincent and hug him. “What happened?” I ask again.

  “Martin Keller,” says Vincent. “And we have to find a way to stop him, or no-one will be safe”. He breaks free from the hug and goes to look down a corridor leading from the room. He’s clearly extremely cautious, and extremely concerned that we’re being watched.

  “What does he want?” I ask. “Why did he -” It’s hard to believe it could be true. “Why did he kill Patrick?” As I say those words, I feel this surge of emotion, as if I’ve lost someone who... But the emotion seems to hit a wall inside me, as if something is keeping it down. “Why?” I ask.

  Vincent turns to me. “He’s a vampire hunter,” he says. “Or he was. The last hunter. I never thought... I thought he was gone. I thought he’d been defeated the last time, but he was just waiting, biding his time. He was much cleverer and much stronger than I ever believed”. He looks back down the corridor. “It was my fault. I under-estimated him, and that’s why Patrick is dead. Now come with me”.

  He starts walking, and I follow. We’re soon in the hotel’s reception area, where people are milling about. It’s a decent-sized crowd, and we can probably hide in here for a while.

  “Upstairs,” says Vincent, leading me to a small door that takes us to a flight of stairs, which we start climbing. “We have to get to the roof”.

  It takes us a few minutes to get up to the top of the eight-storey building and out onto the wide, flat roof overlooking the street below. It’s windy up here, but Vincent seems convinced that this is the best place for us to be.

  “Wait,” I say, causing him to stop and turn. “What about my family? Are they safe?”

  He nods. “If harming your family was part of Keller’s plan, he’d have harmed them long ago”. He steps over to me. “You have to understand something, Sophie. This man has spent years, decades setting all of this up. He’s thought of every possible move we could make. We can’t stop him by trying to break free from his plans. We can only stop him by giving him what he wants and hoping there’s some solution along the way. Remember... There’s always a way out”.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s always a way out. No matter how bad things seem, no matter how much you might think that you’re doomed, there’s always a way out. Even at the last minute, there’s always a way. You just have to be smart enough to spot it”.

  I think about this for a moment. “There wasn’t a way out for Patrick, was there?”

  Vincent shakes his head. “That was my fault,” he says. “Don’t ask how, but it was my fault. I’ll tell you everything later, but right now you have to come with me and you have to trust me”.

  “Okay,” I say, “but there’s one thing you have to promise”. He take a deep breath. I can’t believe I’m even saying these words. “Later, you have to tell me everything about how Patrick died. I need to know”.

  Vincent nods. “I promise. But now we have to make sure he didn’t die in vain”.

  There’s a sound in the distance. A kind of humming at first, but it’s clearly getting closer and closer. Vincent looks around, trying to work out where it’s coming from.

  “Quick,” he says, leading me across the roof. We step up onto a new section, the roof of a different building, and we head over to a small door. The humming is getting louder, and it’s all around us.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  Before Vincent can answer, I feel the whole roof start to rumble. I turn and see a helicopter coming down towards us.

  “You’re joking,” I say, but Vincent grabs my arm and pulls me through the door, slamming it shut and leaving us in complete darkness with the sounds of the helicopter thumping outside.

  6

  Revenge, finally. After all these years, the last vampire falls to his knees. He is defeated. His life is over, and he knows that all he can do now is pray that I will be merciful.

  I will not be merciful.

  I reach down and pull him to his feet. The life is fading from his eyes and he can barely focus on me. I savour the moment. For so many years, suffering agony upon agony in bed, this was the moment that kept me alive. Forgive me if I want to stretch out his death for as long as possible.

  He whispers something.

  “What?” I ask, leaning in. “Got some famous last words? Let’s hear them”.

  He whispers again, but I can’t quite make it out.

  “Speak up,” I say. “I want to hear”.

  He gathers the last of his strength and finally says just one word: “Sophie”.

  Who the hell is Sophie? For a moment, I wonder if this should concern me. Then, I realise Sophie must just be the human girl I’ve seen him with. I have no idea why a creature as proud as a vampire would waste so much time hanging around with a human.

  “Sophie,” he says again.

  I laugh. “I’ll tell her you spoke her name as you died,” I say, and finally I snap his neck, dropping his body to the ground. Kicking his body over so that he’s on his back, I pull a metal spike from my pocket and I hold it directly above his heart. “Remember me now?” I ask. “Remember what happened last time we met”? I start to slowly push the spike into his chest. “You made a terrible mistake when you let me live,” I say. “You should have taken me more seriously”.

  He reaches up in a vain attempt to force me away. Even at the moment of death, he refuses to give up without a struggle. It’s almost admirable.

  “I promise to put your body to good use,” I say, looking directly into his face as I finally push the spike straight into his heart. He lets out a gasp just before his body falls limp. I let him fall to the floor, and I turn to look at the door just in time to see his ‘father’, Vincent, rush to the rescue.

  “And they said it couldn’t be done,” I say, laughing at the horrified look on Vincent’s face. “Good to see you again, Vincent”.

  As expected, Vincent races over and pushes me from his son’s body. I just laugh at his efforts, knowing that it’s too late. Even if he had arrived in time to witness Patrick’s death, there is nothing he could have done. He kneels beside the corpse, desperately checking for some sign of life, but there will be nothing: I felt the life-force leeching out of the vampire’s body. I walk over to the desk where Vincent usually does his work, and where he has a particularly nice bottle of port. I pick it up and examine the label. I will drink this tonight.

  “If you think this is going to save you, you’re wrong,” says Vincent, walking around the other side of the desk. He has a look of utter desolation and heartbreak in his eyes. It is marvellous to see.

  “All I care about is the vampire’s corpse,” I say. “Other than that, I don’t care”.

  “You think you can cut him up and learn his secrets?” Vincent asks. For such an old man, he can be surprisingly sprightly.

  I smile. “I can learn enough to recreate him in my image. Enough to find a better way to become like him”. I roll up one sleeve of my shirt, revealing my half-flesh, half-metal arm. “I am like him now. But
the next generation will be created in the lab. There will be no need of agonising operations just to attain the strength of a vampire”.

  “You’re insane,” says Vincent.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say, turning to look at the corpse of the -

  He’s gone...

  I rush over to where the pool of blood has collected on the floor of the room. I look up. The vampire cannot have survived. I rush to the door. There is no trail of blood, nothing to indicate the direction that he took. But he can’t have got far. I turn to Vincent.

  “I’ll be back for you,” I say, before rushing out of the house and out into the cavern. He has to be here. The last vampire is dead. I just have to find his body.

  7

  Vincent takes me down a set of steps into the hotel, and down to the basement, which he says is safe. He says he has ‘friends’ who can be trusted, and we’re soon in a windowless, bare little room. Large metal pipes pass along the ceiling, clunking and clattering with the sound of the internal workings of the hotel’s ventilation system. An old man named Joseph, who seems to know Vincent well, comes down with us.

  “You’ll be okay down here,” says Joseph. “It’s not even on the plans for the building. Just be careful coming in and out, and you’ll be fine”.

  “Thank you,” says Vincent.

  Joseph nods and leaves us alone.

  “It’s very different to what I’m used to,” says Vincent, looking around. “But it’ll do. I just wish I had my books”.

  Now that we’re alone seemingly safe for a while, I can’t stop thinking about what Vincent told me. The thought of Patrick being dead is impossible to believe, and I can’t help thinking that it’s all a trick. Yet there’s something about Vincent’s demeanour that tells me it’s true. And now I realise that I had come to assume that Patrick would always be around, that he and I would get closer.