“Well, we have his registration number,” said Jill. “All we have to do now is get the Ministry of Transport to look it up for us. NLT 683.”
“I’ll call Terence. Then I want to take a look in that house.”
I went into the laundry and asked the woman if she had a phone I could use. “Of course,” she said. “Is everything all right?”
“Oh, sure. My girlfriend and I are just playing a trick on somebody. It’s his birthday.”
“Oh,” said the woman, blinking at me. Then, “You’re American, aren’t you?” as if that explained why I was behaving so strangely.
When the MI6 operator put me through to Terence, he sounded distracted. I gave him the license number of Duca’s car, and told him that I’d call him back later.
“But, Terence — on no account take any action, even when you’ve found out who the car belongs to.”
“Don’t worry, old man. I wouldn’t have the first idea.”
We walked up Bynes Road toward the house. It had a peeling, brown-painted front door, and a knocker in the shape of Mr. Punch. The tiny front garden was covered over with concrete but dandelions were growing up between the cracks. I tried to see into the front window but a pair of sagging net curtains were drawn across it, and all I could make out was the sunlight shining in the backyard. In Louisville they would have called this a “shotgun” house, in the sense that you could fire a shotgun in through the front door and the pellets would go clear through the house without touching anything.
The front door of the adjoining house opened, and an elderly woman appeared, wearing a flowery summer dress that appeared to have been modeled on a bell-tent, and wrinkled red socks. From the open door I could hear “Diana” playing on the radio. “I’m so young and you’re so old.”
The elderly woman made a phlegmy noise in her throat and said, “If you’re looking for the Browns, mate, they’ve been poorly.”
“Really? When was the last time you saw them?”
“Three days ago. The doctor’s been round twice a day. He even came round in the middle of the night. I asked him what was wrong with them and he said meningitis.”
“Was that their doctor? The guy in the black sedan?”
“That’s right. He’s not their usual doctor, though. Their usual doctor’s Dr. Bedford. I suppose he’s on his holidays, Dr. Bedford.”
“Yes, I imagine he is. Well — thank you for telling us.”
The elderly woman didn’t appear to be in any hurry to go back into her house. She said, “I go to Dr. Cotterill myself. She’s a woman doctor. You don’t want to go to a man doctor at my age. I get this rash on my legs, see.”
“I see.”
I thought we were going to be delayed there for hours, talking about the woman’s skin problems, but after two or three minutes a younger woman appeared at her front door and told her that her tea was getting cold, so she went inside.
I said, “Thank God the British can’t survive for more than ten minutes without a cup of tea.”
“I think there’s somebody in the living room,” said Jill. “I saw a shadow moving across toward the door.”
I shielded my eyes with my hand, and she was right. There was definitely somebody in the house, moving around, although it was impossible to tell what they were doing. I decided to go in cold. Normally, I would have made sure that we had covered the back of the house, but the railroad embankment was very steep and trains were rattling past every three or four minutes, some of them at fifty or sixty miles an hour, and even a Screecher would have thought twice about trying to escape that way.
I opened the garden gate and went up to the front door. It may have been bolted on the other side, but the main lock was only a cheap Yale. I turned my back on it, and at the same time I reached behind me and took out my gun. Jill said nothing, but held on to Bullet’s collar and waited. “Don’t let Bullet go,” I warned her. “These bastards are capable of breaking his neck without blinking. And once I’m inside, bring my Kit in, will you, as quick as you can?”
“All right,” said Jill, apprehensively.
I had started to count to three, “One — two — ” when I heard the young man’s voice inside the house.
“Who’s there? Is there somebody outside? Beryl — there’s somebody outside, I can smell them!”
Without any more hesitation I kicked backward and the door burst open. I barged into the hall and hurled myself sideways so that I virtually bounced off the wall. There were three or four coats hanging up and for one desperate moment I was entangled in empty sleeves, as if the coats were trying to catch hold of me, but then I fought my way out of them and pushed my way into the living room.
The young man we had seen in the park was standing in the far corner, behind a frayed brown couch. Lying on the couch was the gingery-headed girl, with its knee heavily bandaged. The living room was stuffy and hot, and there was a sickening smell of putrescent flesh and dried herbs, the unmistakable stench of Screechers.
“Jill!” I yelled, pointing my gun at them with both hands. “Get in here, now!”
“What do you think you’re going to do with that?” the young man sneered at me. “Kill us?”
“We’ll suck you empty,” said the gingery-haired girl. “You and your girlfriend. And your bleeding dog.” There was no doubt where the piece of skin in the park had come from: the girl’s face had a pale greenish tinge to it and its eyes were already starting to milk over. It was very close to becoming a strigoi mort.
Jill came in with my Kit. Bullet was close behind her, eager to get at the two Screechers, but Jill said, “Stay, Bullet!” and he reluctantly waited in the hallway, panting, his tail thumping against the umbrella stand.
Keeping my gun pointed at the young man, I went down on one knee and opened up my Kit. The young man started to come around the side of the couch, and as it did so it took his kitchen knife out of its belt.
“I’m going to split you wide open, mate, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”
I was reluctant to shoot it. For one thing, I didn’t want the neighbors to call the police. For another thing, I had only six Last Supper bullets left, and I wanted to conserve them. The young man came up to me, crouching slightly, holding out its knife, and grinning. Like most Screechers, it thought that it was immortal, and that even if I shot it, it would survive.
“I think that’s near enough, son,” I warned it. Out of my case, I lifted the Bible with the ash-wood cover and the silver crucifix, and held it up in front of it. Immediately, it turned its face away, as if I had shone a blinding light in its eyes. The gingery-haired girl clamped both her hands over its face and cried out, “What’s that? Micky, what’s that?”
“I’ll tell you what this is. This is the first Bible that was translated into Romanian for Serban Cantacuzino, of Wallachia, when he swore to rid his country of unholy vermin like you.”
“Take it away!” the girl screamed at me. “Take it away, it’s hurting my eyes!”
The young man raised one hand to protect its face, and started to edge its way toward me again. But then I handed the Bible to Jill, and said, “Open it where it’s bookmarked, and hold it up high.”
She took the Bible and found the faded red ribbon. Then she opened it wide and held it up. It was marked at Revelation, Chapter 20: “A prins balaurul — arpele eel veche, care este Diavolul i Satan, l — a legat pentru o mie de ani.”
Both Screechers found it almost impossible to see. When I had first used this Bible on a Screecher, during World War Two, I hadn’t been able to believe that the word of God could have such a blinding effect on them. But they were totally unholy, and it did. It was like throwing salt on slugs.