In the end I let go of her and pushed her gently away. ‘There will be time to talk of many things afterwards,’ I said. ‘But right now I have a job to do.’
‘Kill the bitch,’ said Penny. ‘And afterwards, I’ll show you what living is all about.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘It’s always good to have something to look forward to.’
I turned away, to talk with Jeeves, but Khan intercepted me. He stood in my way and looked me over carefully, as though searching for signs he should have spotted before. And then he smiled briefly, uncertainly.
‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘When we first met we were both the same age. Now I’ve grown older, and you haven’t aged a day. All those years working together, for Black Heir, and I never even suspected that you’re … What are you, Ishmael? Really? Your name was Daniel when I knew you, thirty years ago, but I don’t feel right calling you that now. Daniel wasn’t real; but then, I suppose Ishmael isn’t either. What are you?’
‘In a hurry, Alex,’ I said. ‘I have work to do.’
‘I could come with you,’ said Khan. ‘I had the same training you did, at Black Heir.’
‘You were a paper-shuffler,’ I said, as kindly as I could. ‘The one time you worked with me in the field, in Moscow, you hated it. Couldn’t wait to get home. I need you here, helping barricade this room and make it safe. Sylvia may be a supernatural creature, but she still has physical limitations. You can keep her out, if you work at it.’
‘And afterwards?’ said Khan. ‘What’s to stop me telling everyone about you?’
‘Who would you tell?’ I said. ‘Daniel disappeared from Black Heir, and Ishmael will disappear from Belcourt Manor. And if you start talking wildly about vampires and aliens … They’ll put you away.’
Khan nodded reluctantly. ‘Who do you work for now, Ishmael? Who did James work for?’
‘The Organization,’ I said. ‘And now you know as much as I do.’
I went back to join Jeeves, who was standing in the open doorway, looking out into the hall. It all seemed quiet enough. Behind me I could hear Penny and Leilah and Khan quietly planning their defence of the drawing room. I looked at Jeeves. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Not really. You?’
‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’
‘Then let’s get started,’ said Jeeves. ‘Before we both have a rush of common sense to the head and think better of it. Leilah!’
She looked round immediately. ‘Yes? What do you want?’
‘Give us an hour, tops,’ he said, calmly enough. ‘If we’re not back by then, we won’t be coming back. Then it will be up to you to decide what to do next. But remember, Leilah: our job is to protect people. Not take revenge.’
‘The client is dead,’ said Leilah.
‘His daughter isn’t,’ said Jeeves.
‘Understood,’ said Leilah. She looked round at the rest of us. ‘He’s my man. Isn’t he wonderful?’
She hugged Jeeves goodbye, kissed him hard, and then pushed him away and went back to the others.
Jeeves looked at me. ‘She’s very warm-hearted.’
‘I could tell,’ I said.
And then, together, we went out the door and into the still, quiet hallway.
There was already a distinct chill in the hall as the storm blew snow and wisps of fog through the open front door. I could hear the wind rise and fall, and beyond the open door I could see night had fallen. Blue-white moonlight reflected in from the fallen snow. I looked carefully up and down the hall. All the doors were shut, and nothing moved in the shadows. It was cold inside the house now. Cold as death, cold as the tomb. Cold as a vampire’s heart. I couldn’t hear anything moving, and I couldn’t smell blood or decay anywhere.
‘She could have just hauled the front door open, to make us think she’d gone outside,’ Jeeves said slowly. ‘And then … sneaked back down the hall, to hide in the house again. In the hope some of us would go outside and split up the group. She’d probably think it a fine joke, to have the two of us stumbling around in the cold and the snow, while she attacked the others.’
‘She’s not in the house,’ I said. ‘I can see her footprints in the snow outside. She couldn’t have come back in without tracking some of that snow with her. She may be a supernatural thing, but she still leaves traces of her passing in this world, just like us.’
Jeeves looked at me. ‘I thought for a moment you were about to say you couldn’t smell her anywhere in the house.’
‘I’m not that good,’ I said.
‘But you can see footprints in the snow, outside the door at the far end of the hall,’ said Jeeves. ‘I couldn’t make that out if I had a telescope.’ He studied me thoughtfully. ‘Sylvia … the vampire … said you were no more human than she was.’
‘She’s wrong,’ I said. ‘I’m a lot more human than she is. Just in case you need me to say it: I am not a vampire.’
‘Never thought you were,’ said Jeeves, just a bit too quickly. ‘But you are quite definitely weird. Did you really work with Alexander Khan back in the eighties?’
‘When this is all over,’ I said, ‘I’ll explain.’
‘I’m so glad you said when and not if,’ said Jeeves. ‘I’ll take all the encouragement I can get.’
We both moved cautiously down the long empty hallway and stopped before the open front door. Back in the drawing room, I could hear the others moving heavy furniture about, building a barricade. Jeeves and I looked out into the world beyond. Snow was falling hard, but the wind had dropped away to just the odd gust, here and there. A pearly fog curled slowly on the air, swallowing up the distant view. It was all deathly still and deadly quiet. Just standing there in the open door, exposed to the night and the storm, made Jeeves shiver violently.
I didn’t.
‘Given that Sylvia is undead,’ I said, ‘I think we have to assume the cold won’t affect her as much as it does us. So she can survive out here without the need for protective clothing.’
‘Seems likely,’ said Jeeves. ‘The way she looked … I swear to God I never saw anything like that in my life … Her flesh had rotted right down to the bone, in places! And those eyes, and the teeth … Things like that just shouldn’t be possible, in any sane and rational world!’
‘Mostly, they aren’t,’ I said. ‘But it’s a bigger world than most people ever have to realize. There’s room in it for lots of extreme things, good and bad.’
‘She could be hiding anywhere,’ Jeeves said unhappily. ‘In the fog, in the snow. Lying in wait, to attack us as we pass.’
‘Seems likely,’ I said.
We stared out into the night. Stark vivid moonlight blazed back at us from the snow-covered grounds. Smooth white dunes everywhere, rising and falling, unmarked and undisturbed. Large snowy objects before us that used to be our parked cars. I couldn’t even tell which was mine any more. They sort of reminded me of igloos, which made me wonder whether Sylvia might be hiding inside one of the cars. Safe and unsuspected, and insulated from the cold. But no; there was no way she could have smoothed the snow back again, once she was inside. She was a vampire, not a magician.
I did meet a magician, once. He sawed his wife in half. The police never did find him.
I looked around, taking my time. The tithe barn loomed out of the mists on one side of the manor house, and the terraced row of cottages showed dimly through the fog on the other side. Beyond them, I could just make out the snow-covered gardens, with their trees and hedges and topiary structures. So many dim dark shapes, in the glowing grey mists.
‘She could be anywhere, out here!’ said Jeeves. ‘Where do we even start?’
‘She’s a predator,’ I said. ‘They do like to lie in wait. But the longer we put this off, the more chances she has to set her plans against us.’
There was a long pause.
‘Are you as reluctant to go out there as I am?’ said Jeeves. ‘I mean, once we leave the house, we’re committed. No turning back. We hunt the vampire till we find it, and then either we kill it, or it kills us.’
‘I am extremely reluctant,’ I said. ‘But experience has taught me it’s nearly always best to hold your nose and jump right in. Because the water isn’t going to get any warmer.’