“Where?”
“What?”
“Where do you want me to walk?”
The skin between his shoulder blades tickled as though caressed with hot metal. He tried breathing through his mouth, but that way he tasted the stench as well, a greasy film on his tongue that he could almost chew. His heart thumped, and because he was breathing harder and faster he smelled more. Something ran across the corridor ahead of him, down beside the narrow staircase; too small to be a cat, too large to be a mouse.
The woman said nothing. She’s trying to find the strength to pull the trigger, Marty thought, and he started turning around, wincing against the explosion of the gun and the bright pain that would follow. He’d often wondered about death, and pain, and how fast it would have to be to feel nothing. It was said that a decapitated head remained conscious for several seconds afterward, and there must be pain there, surely? Get shot in the heart and death is almost instantaneous, but the body must realize what has happened. The time delay between sending an impulse and your finger moving was so small as to be unnoticeable, so pain flowing the other way must be the same.
When she shot him, he’d have time to scream before he died.
But the woman was no longer pointing the gun at him. She’d lost it somewhere—dropped it into the pile of unopened mail, perhaps, or slipped it back into her jacket pocket—and she was rubbing at her left hand again. She’d retrieved the stained towel to do so.
“There are faces out in the streets,” she said. “Watching from the shadows. They’ve been watching for a long time.”
Faces? “How long?”
“Years.” She frowned and stopped wiping. “Who are you? What are you doing in my house?” He saw how lost she was then. He’d never met an insane person—at least, no one who wore their madness on the outside—and he felt an instant rush of pity. He’d gone through phases of worry about both his parents: they’d get cancer, they’d be mugged and killed, they’d get Alzheimer’s. Their premature deaths meant that none of these possible fates would come to fruition, but the idea of Alzheimer’s had been worst.
“You told me to come in,” he said. “You pointed a gun at me.”
“Gun,” she said. “I thought… thought you were one of the faces.”
“No, I’m Marty.” Against his better judgment he held out his hand. Ashleigh stopped rubbing again and grinned at him.
“Oh, no. No, I can’t possibly give you the gun.”
“No, I…” Marty half smiled, not sure if she was messing with him. But it seemed not. She squeezed past him, never once taking her eyes off him, and backed past the staircase into the kitchen.
“Well, come on, then!” she said. “I’ll make tea. Tea?”
“Please.” This is fucking insane! He followed her through the house, and it was only then that he noticed some of the things around him. The place was stinking and cluttered, but hidden behind this was a treasure trove of archaeological items, paintings, and old weapons. A display unit narrowed the corridor, and it was loaded with a dozen reconstructed clay objects. Some were pots or jugs, others sculptures of some sort, and a couple he couldn’t quite identify. Beside the display case stood a few spears which, though dusty, seemed so complete and neat-looking that he thought they weren’t old at all. There for protection? he wondered.
It was the most unusual kitchen he’d ever seen. There was a cooker, a table, and a chair, but all the other units were filled with more items from Ashleigh’s past. They were stacked and shelved neatly, many were tagged, but there was a thick layer of dust over everything which must have made them feel at home.
“Milk?” she asked, shaking a carton that stood beside the cooker. It did not sound fluid.
“Black, please.”
“So what did you say your name was?”
“Marty. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“You’re real, then?” she asked without turning around, and with no sense that it was at all an unusual question.
“Completely,” he said. “Flesh and blood.” She paused at his mention of blood, then stirred his tea. Does she know about the vampires? He would have to tread carefully.
“I’m afraid there are no biscuits.” She placed his cup on the small table, spilling a slick of weak-looking tea. She didn’t seem to notice. Her fingernails were black, her arms streaked with dirt, and she smelled like some of the beggars he sometimes saw on the streets. There had been an old guy who used to sit outside their local shop, just away from the pavement along a narrow alley. The kids used to make fun of him because he rarely moved, and a slick of piss had run downhill and stained the pavement. He’d soon been moved on, but Marty had never forgotten that smell. It was the stench of hopelessness, and giving in. Ashleigh did not smell quite that bad—the piss stink came from elsewhere in the house, he thought—but her eyes held the same look of defeat.
“I’m not hungry,” he said. “Mrs. Richards—”
“Ash. I am always Ash. Was always Ash.”
“Ash… I came to ask you about something. Something you dug up once.”
Ash laughed, and it was a delightful sound. For a woman living in such fear, it showed she still had some sort of a life, deep inside.
“I’ve dug up a lot of things. Some of them are around you, here! Some are in other places. A few were worth something, and they’re on display in museums. They were… of interest. Used to be of interest to me, but I’ve had enough of old things. Times gone by. There’s nothing to be learnt from it.” She glanced away and started rubbing at her hand again.
“It’s an amazing house,” Marty said. He took a sip of tea because he thought he should. It was bland and insipid, but at least it didn’t seem like it would kill him.
“Maybe,” she said.
“I wonder if—” Marty began, but then Ash started talking as if he weren’t there. Perhaps she spoke like this when she was alone, and now it was her only way to communicate. He wasn’t sure. But by the time she’d finished, he had an idea of how he could get what he wanted.
“There’s a darkness to the past,” she said. “Shadows cast by time. We enter the shadows, but can’t cast a light there. We don’t know how. Too ignorant. Wrapped up with celebrity gossip and television shows about… maintaining your house. We’ve lost touch with the darkness. Time turns out the lights, and we feel around in history’s night and try and understand it by touch alone. We’ve lost all other abilities to understand. We dig up a sculpture made four thousand years ago—”
Four thousand years!
“—and use supposed expert knowledge to see what it was for. Fertility object, seasonal watch, battery, charm, present to the gods, likeness of one particular god… we don’t really know. How can we? The past is as remote to us as the future, apart from the shards left behind to confuse us even more. At least the future… at least…” She rubbed at her hand more vigorously. “I’m lost in the past. Floating there in the dark. I never thought I would be, never thought all that contact would have such an effect. I’m educated, you see. Learned. I knew what I was doing. But then that thing… that bleeding thing, the bane of my life…”
Can she really mean the Bane? Marty wondered, and the possibility scared him. If she was talking about the Bane, then the chance that it truly held such power was much increased. From what he’d heard, it was little more than some vampire superstition. But now he was talking with someone who might have touched it. And it had driven her mad.
“I’m here to help,” he said. “I’m here to take it away and destroy it.”
She looked at him with dawning realization, as if she’d only just noticed that he was there.