The Vampire's Grave and Other Stories Page 5

  "What's wrong?" Marlowe mouthed.

  "I'll be right there," Amanda said, before ending the call. She stood in stunned silence for a moment, before turning to him as another siren blared in the distance. "There's a fire at the museum. The whole place is going up in flames."

  Seven

  By the time they reached the museum, it was too late to do anything but stand and watch as flames engulfed the building.

  Fire crews were already on the scene, but they were being beaten back by the heat as flames billowed from the doors and windows of the grand old building. High above in the night sky, a helicopter approached the scene and, moments later, dropped its payload of fire-retardant chemicals onto the top of the conflagration; nothing seemed to work, however, and the museum continued to burn with startling intensity. Even though the building housed its fair share of chemicals and flammable materials, this seemed like something different, something more intense: a blaze of white heat that showed no signs of abating any time soon. It was as if the mouth of hell had opened up deep inside.

  "Was anyone inside?" Amanda asked a passing fireman, who simply shrugged. "Was anyone in there?" she asked another, who ignored her completely.

  Marlowe, meanwhile, was trying Wade's cellphone, which went straight to voice-mail every time. His eyes fixed on the flames, he couldn't help but think of those fifteen invaluable corpses being destroyed, and he wanted to know whether Wade had managed to rescue any of the specimens before the flames took hold. After all, those bodies could never be replaced.

  "Come on, Wade," he muttered, before realizing that the Bulgarian bodies weren't the only things that might have been lost in the flames. After all, there was no sign of Wade either.

  "This is insane," Amanda said, standing next to him. "I can't even begin to calculate the losses. Didn't we have fire safety measures? There were sprinklers and alarms all through the building. How the hell did this get so big? It's like someone just doused the whole place in petrol and lit a match."

  Marlowe had no answer. Turning to look across the crowd that was gathering to gawp at the scene, he spotted an ambulance, and after a moment he saw a familiar figure being given treatment.

  "Jerry!" he shouted, running over and finding the security guard wrapped in a blanket, taking regular breaths from an oxygen machine. "What happened in there?"

  Jerry shook his head. He looked old and tired, and it was clear he'd been badly shaken by the whole experience. His uniform was scuffed, and one of his hands had been wrapped in a gel pack, the contents of which were supposed to be cooling a series of burns.

  "Come on!" Marlowe continued, shaking Jerry's shoulder. "Talk to me! What happened?"

  "He's in shock," said a paramedic, gently easing Marlowe back.

  "I don't give a damn!" Marlowe shouted, "I need to know what happened in there!"

  "I'm not letting you talk to him," the paramedic said firmly.

  "It's okay," Jerry said, his voice barely audible above the chaos. "Let him."

  "Let me talk to him," Amanda said, pushing past and crouching next to Jerry. "Was anyone in there?" she asked, her tone sounding a lot calmer and more caring than Marlowe's. "Do you know if everyone got out? Did you see anyone left in the building as you were leaving?"

  "There wasn't supposed to be anyone in there at all," he replied, his voice filled with shock. "It was supposed to be empty."

  "It wasn't empty," Marlowe snapped at him. "There were priceless artifacts in there!"

  "There were people, too," Jerry continued. "I let Dr. Marlowe's assistant stay late. I know I shouldn't have done it. It was stupid, but I never thought... It's my fault he was in there."

  "Did he get out?" Amanda asked.

  "No-one's seen him," Jerry replied. "No-one's seen anyone, except -"

  Before Amanda could ask another question, there was a loud crashing sound as a section of the building collapsed, sending a plume of dust and smoke into the air. The force of the tumbling masonry was strong enough to make the ground tremble.

  "What caused this?" Marlowe asked.

  "Something in your lab," Jerry said, looking over at him.

  "My lab?" Marlowe paused for a moment. "There was nothing in my lab that could possibly have started this. We had safety precautions and set procedures, we had a full series of fire safety protocols. We didn't even have anything particularly flammable, we..." His voice trailed off as he thought once again of those precious bodies being consumed by the flames, taking their secrets with them. There was still a chance that the bones might survive, but the flesh would be lost forever.

  "I heard a noise from up there," Jerry continued. "I was down in the main hall and I heard... I don't know, it sounded like a struggle, and there were things being smashed. It sounded like bedlam. I grabbed my radio and started going to take a look, but before I'd got to the stairs I heard a kind of whooshing sound, like something igniting. I swear to God, as soon as I saw the flames, I called for help, but the whole place just went up in a couple of minutes. The sprinklers had no chance."

  Marlowe turned to Amanda. "Someone did this deliberately."

  "Why would anyone want to burn down a museum?" she replied skeptically.

  "God knows, but it's the only thing that makes sense. Maybe they wanted to cover something up. Maybe they stole something and they didn't want anyone to know. There are collectors out there who'd pay enough to make a stunt like this happen. I don't know who's behind it all, but this has to have been deliberate."

  "It's my fault," Jerry continued. "I knew I wasn't supposed to let people work late, but I just wanted to be helpful. I figured it didn't matter. I never thought there'd be a problem. He seemed like such a nice guy. I mean, I let you work late so many times, Dr. Marlowe, and there were never any problems."

  "When you said you heard a noise," Marlowe said, "what exactly do you mean? Did it sound as if someone was fighting?"

  Jerry nodded.

  "There was a man earlier," Marlowe continued, turning to Amanda. "He was angry about the work we were doing. I mean, it never occurred to me that he might be dangerous, but what if he came back late at night and tried to stop our work by burning the place down?"

  "That's a pretty big leap," Amanda pointed out.

  "It explains everything," Marlowe said, looking over at the burning building. "He probably brought petrol, which explains why the fire took hold so quickly. He was probably waiting outside, and then I guess he saw us leave and thought there'd be no-one in the lab."

  "We have motion sensors on the doors and windows at night," Jerry replied. "I'd have known if someone got inside."

  "Clearly you weren't paying attention," Marlowe snapped back at him.

  “Of course I was paying attention!”

  As if to undermine his point, another section of the museum's roof collapsed.

  "There's something else," Jerry continued, before taking another deep breath from his oxygen mask. "You're gonna think I've lost my mind, but..." He glanced over his shoulder, as if he was checking to make sure that no-one could hear them. "Maybe I have lost my mind, but I swear, just after I called for help, I came out here to wait and..." He paused again. "The flames were really strong, you know? Like, nothing could even get close to the place. I went around to the side, to see if there was anything I could do. And that's when I saw the figure."

  "A figure?" Marlowe replied. "A man? Running away? Burning?"

  "Not running," Jerry continued. "Walking. Not burning, either. All I saw was his silhouette, and he was limping a little. He didn't look quite right, like his body was kinda twisted and stuff, and he was moving awkwardly. He was right in the middle of the flames, and he was just making his way slowly through them, like he didn't give a damn. He stopped for a moment, and he looked at me and...”

  Marlowe waited for him to finish. “And what?”

  “And I could see through his head,” Jerry replied, with fear in his eyes. “I could a hole in his mouth, like... It was like he wasn't much more than a se
t of bones.” He turned to Amanda. “I swear, I'm not making this up. He was real.”

  "Who was real?" Marlowe asked, trying to untie the knot of Jerry's ramblings. Glancing over at Amanda, he saw that she was busy talking to a police officer. "You can't have seen anyone come out of there," Marlowe continued, turning back to Jerry. "Look at the place. It's an inferno. What you're describing is literally impossible. You don't seriously expect any of us to believe such a ridiculous claim, do you?"

  "I saw him," Jerry continued, "as clear as I see you standing here right now. I don't know where he went, though. The flames were so bright. He was right in the middle of them, and then he just seemed to walk off into the darkness."

  Sighing, Marlowe turned and looked once again at the burning museum. It was quite clear that the entire building was going to be destroyed. Parts of the structure had already collapsed, and anything left standing would undoubtedly have to be demolished. He couldn't even begin to understand what the repercussions of this disaster might be, but he knew without doubt that his work on the bodies was over. For a moment, he couldn't help but think of Wade's corpse burning in the heart of the inferno. If this accident had happened on any other night, it would have been Marlowe himself who'd have been in there, except that he had a lingering feeling that he wouldn't have allowed such a fire to take root in the first place.

  "They say it won't be put out until morning," Amanda said tiredly, turning away from the police officer. "The fire crews are going to focus on containment for now, and they figure whatever's fueling the flames, it'll start burning itself out within a few hours. None of their usual methods are working. Something's driving the fire, and they won't know the cause until they can get in and look through the rubble, which might take days."

  "So they're not going to try to save anything that's in there?" Marlowe asked incredulously. "They're going to let the whole place and its contents burn?"

  "Come on," she said, as Jerry was loaded into the back of the ambulance. "There's no point standing around here. We should both get some rest so we're ready when we're really needed, in the morning."

  Realizing that she was right, Marlowe turned and walked away with her. It pained him to leave the building behind, and it pained him even more to think of how the site would look in the morning. He'd spent the past five years working at the museum, and now the entire place was being incinerated. He knew it was wrong to feel more strongly about the demise of a building than about the death of his assistant, but he couldn't help how he'd reacted. The museum had been his professional home for so long, and the Bulgarian vampire bones had promised to push his research to the next level. Now it was all gone, and he'd have to start again.

  A couple of weeks later, once he and the rest of the museum's staff were back at the still-smoldering site, Marlowe began the laborious task of recovering what remained of the bones. Charred and scorched, they'd nevertheless survived without turning to ash, and Marlowe went through the motions of trying to sort them back into their original batches. He worked on the project alone for the next two weeks, trying endless permutations and consulting hundreds of photos that he and Wade had taken. At first, people offered their help, but he always turned them down. He even rejected Amanda's attempts to get involved, since he was determined to work alone. After a while, no-one checked on Marlowe at all, and he began to be seen as a complete loner. Some people even questioned his sanity.

  Still he kept working. Day after day, night after night, often forgetting to sleep and eat. He was rarely seen outside his makeshift office in one of the museum's other buildings, and eventually he forget about the outside world completely. Frantically thin, with the same clothes he'd been wearing for weeks and weeks, he worked without rest. He knew there was an answer somewhere in this pile of bones, but the truth just seemed to be constantly out of reach.

  No matter what he tried, no matter how many times he checked the images and tried to rearrange the bones, he could never come up with fifteen separate sets. Fourteen, yes, but never fifteen. There always seemed to be one set of bones missing.

  Death of a Vampire

  Prologue

  Slipping on the bloodied tiles, I fall back from the edge of the bath. Sonja's limp, naked body lands on top of me. Red-stained water trickles from her bare flesh.

  “Sonja!” I shout, slipping out from under her and setting her body down on the tiles. I tap the side of her pale face, but her eyes remain closed and she doesn't respond at all.

  I check her pulse, first on the side of her neck and then at her torn wrists, but there's nothing.

  “Sonja!” I stammer again, shaking her by the shoulder before pulling my phone from my pocket and quickly bringing up the number to get an ambulance. Filled with panic, it takes me a moment to remember the right number for the Swedish emergency services.

  As I wait for the call to connect, I look back over at the bath and see that the cloudy, blood-red water is already calm again after I lifted Sonja out. Next to the faucet, three razor blades have been discarded with blood drying on their edges.

  One

  Today

  “This is not a ticket,” the driver says again, in broken English. “You need a ticket, or you pay for a ticket, or you get off the coach.”

  This has been going on for a while now.

  Still staring out the window, still watching the dark Hamburg street, I can hear the girl sorting through her bag, trying to find the right piece of paper. I'm starting to feel sorry for her, and the coach driver is being more than a little unsympathetic. At the same time, so far the girl has sounded kind of zoned out, as if she doesn't entirely understand the problem. Her voice seems vague, too, maybe a little dreamy and distant. Finally, as the sound of her rooting through her bag continues, I turn and glance at her.

  She has shoulder-length dark hair, and she's maybe in her mid-twenties, and she has notable shadows under her eyes.

  I immediately catch the driver's glare, and he raises a skeptical, un-amused eyebrow.

  “Did you buy a ticket?” he asks the girl with a sigh. “Yes or no? This is not a trick question.”

  “I think so,” she stammers. “I...”

  She mumbles something else, but once again her voice trails off. She seems barely capable of finishing a sentence, and when I glance at her again I can't help noticing that she's frowning as she sorts through her bag, as if she's genuinely confused. After a moment, she pulls a couple of crumpled sheets from her bag and starts looking at them, but I can already tell that none of them can possibly be a ticket. Finally she starts looking through a leaflet from the coach company, as if she expects a ticket to magically fall out and land in her lap.

  Turning to look back out the window, I check my watch and see that it's almost 11pm. Fortunately I don't mind a small delay on this journey to Paris, but I can hear several other passengers sighing with impatience. Most people fly or take the train these days, so the coach is filled with a curious collection of people who – for whatever reason – have decided to take the long trip through Europe in one of the slowest ways possible. Maybe, like me, they prefer to stay at the margins right now.

  “Where did you buy your ticket?” the driver asks abruptly.

  “Um...” She seems a little hesitant. “From a man.”

  “What man?”

  “A man at the station.”

  “It's too late,” he explains. “The ticket office closed hours ago.”

  “He was outside the ticket office.”

  “A man outside the ticket office? You gave him money for a leaflet and he said you could use it to board the coach? Did you seriously believe something so stupid?”

  “He said he was selling tickets,” she continues, with a hint of desperation in her voice now. “He said it'd be okay if I just showed you this...” She holds up the leaflet again. “I gave him... I didn't have much money, but he said there was an offer so I had just enough.”

  My heart sinks. She's obviously been scammed by someone, and to be honest
she doesn't sound too smart. Either that, or she's on drugs.

  As she explains that she spoke to the man shortly before the coach was due to depart, I watch a late-night kebab store on the other side of the street. Two guys are squaring up outside, and they look like they're ready for a fight. In fact, this whole neighborhood seems kind of sketchy. We're a few minutes out from the coach station and for some reason the driver chose this spot to pull over and make his way along the aisle, checking tickets. He didn't get far before he reached this row, and while I showed him my ticket several minutes ago, the girl in the seat next to me is still struggling.

  “You're delaying the coach,” the driver says finally. “You don't have a ticket.”

  “I do,” she replies, although sounds a little uncertain. “I just...”

  Glancing at her again, I see that she's still holding the crumpled leaflet, even though it's already been established that it's not in any way, shape or form even remotely related to an actual ticket. Her hands are trembling, and I'm starting to feel a little worried about her. I think she might be close to tears.

  “You don't have a ticket,” the driver says again. “You can pay now, or you can get off.”

  She freezes for a moment, as if she's genuinely shocked, and then she fishes a small purse from the bag. “How much is it?” she asks.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Where...” She pauses. “Where does...”

  “This coach is to Paris,” he continues. “France. The price is eighty-seven euros from here.”

  She opens her purse, but it's quite clear that she has little more than a few coins. “I gave all my money to the man,” she stammers, as if she's in shock. “I thought I was buying a ticket from him. He said -”