Page 65 of Skulk of Foxes
I didn’t wait for her to finish speaking. I wheeled round and started running in the opposite direction. Gasbudlikins. Was all this crap ever going to stop?
***
All this apocalypse-avoidance stuff was doing one good thing: it had made me considerably fitter than I was even a week or so ago. I sprinted most of the way back to Julie’s house even though it was at least ten miles. Okay, five miles. Three or four, certainly. If you rounded it up.
Morgan and Monroe and his wolves fell in behind me, shouting after me. I didn’t have the breath to run and explain what was happening the same time. If Lunaria was telling the truth, they’d work out the problem sooner or later.
I smelled the problem long before I saw it. Julie’s vampire nature meant that no one could cross her threshold without her permission. If they smoked her out, however, she’d have no choice but to leave and face whoever was out there. Given the thick banks of smoke blowing down her street and the strong smell of burning, someone was already laying waste to her home.
I covered my mouth and nose with my arm and ran forward. There was no sign of any people; I assumed they’d already been evacuated by the army and were out of Manchester altogether. That was something – but it didn’t help Julie or Finn or any of the others who were holed up with her.
Part of me expected a Fey army to be in front of her house, complete with burning torches and pitchforks and perhaps a crucifix or two. When I saw it was only one man – and realised who it was – my mouth dropped open.
‘Come out, vampire!’ Dave the human yelled. ‘Come and meet your maker! I am a vampire hunter and I am going to stake you through the heart and make sure you never sink your deadly fangs into anyone ever again!’
Despite the broken windows on the ground floor and the fire inside, I slowed to a walk and continued to stare. I hadn’t seen Dave since Morgan and I came across him in an old warehouse that Rubus had reportedly once used as a hideout. Dave and Rubus had some sort of depraved quid pro quo agreement: Dave sold pixie dust to hapless Fey not already on Rubus’s side, not to mention attempting to spike Morgan with the stuff at the same time; Rubus, in return, gave Dave a selection of human drugs to enjoy personally and to sell on the streets.
I’d rather liked Dave the first time I met him. Now I knew what a pathetic excuse for a human being he really was.
I dragged my eyes away from him and glanced upwards. I spotted Finn hovering on the second floor, a window open to allow him to breathe. His expression was worried but, when he caught sight of me, he gave me a brief thumbs up. When the wolves and Morgan pitched up behind me, Finn began to wave enthusiastically. He was still alive and, judging by his reaction, so were the others.
‘Hey Dave,’ I called, ‘whatcha doing?’
At first he didn’t hear me. He was so intent on burning Julie out of her home that I could probably have screeched in his ear with a loudspeaker and he wouldn’t have noticed. ‘I’m hunting you down! You’re not getting away this time, bloodsucker! Vampires don’t scare me! You’re an abomination in the eyes of God!’ He sang out each sentence with abandoned glee. It was quite disturbing how much he was enjoying himself.
‘Davey boy!’ I yelled.
He jerked, the fact that he was no longer alone finally registering in his dim brain. He turned slowly towards me, blinking through the smoke. ‘You,’ he said. He frowned. ‘What are you doing here? Did Rubus send you?’
I’d almost forgotten that I’d lied to Dave and pretended that I worked for Rubus just like he did. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah. He told me to tell you that you’ve done enough and he wants to meet you back at headquarters.’
‘No way! I’ve still got three Molotov cocktails. Vampires are evil! That woman deserves to be put down.’ He shrugged. ‘Besides, I never liked that stupid soap opera.’
‘Vampires aren’t evil, Dave,’ I told him, slowly moving closer. I hoped he would focus on me and not on the werewolves who were getting closer to the house to get everyone out. ‘I’m sure Rubus told you they were but they’re really not.’
‘Dracula,’ Dave said smugly. ‘He was evil.’
‘He wasn’t real.’
‘Kiefer Sutherland inTheLost Boys.’
‘Again,’ I said, ‘not real.’
‘Kiefer Sutherland isn’t real?’
Heaven help me. ‘No,’ I said, trying to stay patient. ‘He’s real. But he was acting a part. Besides, Count Duckula was a good guy.’
‘Stop trying to fool me. He’s not a guy,’ Dave said. ‘He’s a duck.’
I tried to smile. ‘Yeah, you got me there.’
Dave had been a lot smarter the first time I’d met him. Clearly all those drugs were addling this poor boy’s brain. I straightened my shoulders and eyed him sternly. ‘You need to cease and desist, soldier. No more of this.’
‘Madrona’s right,’ Morgan said, coming up behind me. ‘You shouldn’t be doing this, Dave. You should get out of the city. Bad things are afoot.’
‘Bad things like vampires!’ Dave yelled. He reached down for another petrol-filled bottle. Gasbudlikins.
I sneaked a quick glance at Morgan. ‘Let me handle this,’ I murmured.
