The Reformed Vampire Support Group (32 page)

Dermid, especially, would need round-the-clock care.

‘Transformations are never pleasant,’ Sanford explained, ‘but there are certain measures I can take to make things easier for everyone involved.’ These measures would include the application of poultices, the elevation of the feet, and absolutely no painkillers of any kind. Some form of counselling would also be advisable. ‘Which means, in essence, that I’ll be extremely busy,’ Sanford observed, ‘and won’t have any time for Horace in the immediate future. So you, Dave, will be responsible for making sure that he remains isolated – and restrained, if necessary – until tomorrow night. Can you do that?’

Dave blinked. ‘I guess …’

‘It’s vitally important that he doesn’t have access to any nonvampires. Even Father Ramon will be at risk. Horace is sick in the
head, right now – you understand that, don’t you?’

Dave nodded. He seemed resigned. But Mum wasn’t about to knuckle under so easily.

‘Can’t they
all
go to your place?’ she asked Sanford. ‘Why am
I
the one who ends up with a houseful of hostages?’

‘Because somebody has to be here during the day, to nurse Dermid McKinnon,’ Sanford repeated, in long-suffering accents. ‘As for Nefley, he can’t be in the same house as Horace.’ Breaking off, Sanford suddenly glowered at me – and inquired, in waspish tones, what I was intending to do with Barry McKinnon. ‘He’ll be waking up soon, and I’d like to know what your plans are.’

It was a nasty moment. Needless to say, I had no idea what to do with Barry. I hadn’t given the matter any thought. And as I glanced around, cringing beneath a barrage of accusing and expectant looks, I realised that no one else knew what to do with him either.

Even Mum was giving me the hairy eyeball.

‘I – I guess we’d better tie him to the spare bed,’ was the only recommendation that I could come up with.

‘And then what?’ asked Mum. ‘He can’t stay in the guestroom forever.’

‘No. I realise that.’

‘Who’s going to tell him that his son’s a vampire?’ Father Ramon gently inquired, whereupon a kind of pall settled over everyone – except Reuben.

‘
I
will,’ he piped up, with a fair degree of relish. But his offer was roundly ignored. When Sanford finally spoke, it was as if Reuben didn’t exist.

‘Once Barry finds out that his son is a vampire, he might become more amenable to persuasion,’ was Sanford’s theory. ‘He might reassess his priorities, and abandon some of his prejudices.’

‘Do you think so?’ Dave seemed doubtful. ‘You don’t think he’ll
just want to shoot Dermid, as well?’

‘Not necessarily. Not if we talk to them both.’ As Reuben opened his mouth, Sanford pressed on. ‘In fact that should be our tactical approach. We have to
communicate
with these people, and find a common point of reference. We have to persuade our enemies to become our friends. Don’t you agree, Father?’

The priest hesitated. It was Dave who said, ‘Barry McKinnon doesn’t strike me as an open-minded kind of guy.’

‘He’s a total bastard!’ I burst out, just as Reuben cleared his throat.

‘No offence,’ he muttered, from one dim corner of the vestibule, ‘but you’re fooling yourselves if you think you can
ask
that piece of shit to do the right thing. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work.’

Again, there was no immediate response – and I found myself feeling sorry for Reuben. He was being treated as an outsider, perhaps because his status was so unclear; though he hadn’t been accepted as one of us, he also couldn’t be classified as a bad guy.

Only Father Ramon seemed prepared to acknowledge his contribution.

‘Mmmm. Yes. I take your point,’ the priest said at last. ‘But I do believe Barry might listen to us if we approach him from a position of advantage. You have to remember that we don’t know how he feels about his son. There might be quite a deep connection.’

‘In which case he’ll want to shoot us for making his son a vampire,’ Dave glumly observed. And Reuben endorsed this view.

‘The only thing a McKinnon understands is a loaded gun,’ he said. Then he jerked his thumb at the door. ‘Like the one you left outside,’ he warned me. ‘You should probably bring that in, y’know.’

‘Oh. Yeah. Right. Sorry.’ I’d forgotten about the pistol, which was still lying on the back seat of Dave’s car. Sanford’s eyes widened.

‘You brought a
firearm
with you?’ he exclaimed. And Dave said,
‘We didn’t have much choice.’

‘If we hadn’t taken it off Barry, he would have used it on us,’ I confirmed. ‘It belongs to him.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’ Reuben spoke with complete authority. ‘It belongs to whoever owns that scummy little flat we were holed up in.’

There was a general gasp. Even Mum winced. I’m pretty sure most of us realised that if the gun in question did indeed belong to Nefley, it had probably been fired at Casimir’s head.

‘You mean it’s Nefley’s gun?’ asked Dave. ‘Oh, man.’

‘We should get rid of it,’ Sanford decided.

‘Get rid of it!’ Reuben was clearly appalled. ‘Are you joking? You’re gunna
need
that gun! Without that gun, you’re defenceless! The McKinnons will eat you alive!’

It was an unfortunate choice of phrase, which reminded those of us who were still conscious (and not sprawled on the floor, or draped across the stairs) that we had a werewolf in our midst. Reuben must have realised this, because he flushed.

Sanford frowned.

‘Violence begets violence,’ he said stiffly, in his most pompous manner. ‘It’s the last resort of any rational human being. You should understand, Reuben, that as vampires we’ve spent most of our lives battling against the violent compulsions borne of our diseased instincts. So we don’t believe in using brute force where persuasion can be just as effective.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘We have a murderer in our custody upstairs,’ Sanford pointed out, ‘and he’s already demonstrated a noticeable shift in his outlook since he arrived here several hours ago. Thanks to the power of reasoned argument.’

‘Really?’ This was news to me. ‘Are you talking about Nefley Irving?’

‘I am.’

‘You mean he doesn’t hate vampires any more?’ asked Dave, his face a study in disbelief.

‘He doesn’t
fear
vampires any more,’ Sanford corrected. ‘He’s received medical treatment from a vampire, he’s been nursed by a vampire, and he’s enjoying the gracious hospitality of a vampire’s relative. He’s beginning to realise that we’re no threat either to him or to the human race.’

‘Are you sure?’ Knowing that Sanford can be something of an idealist – and that Bridget never has a bad thing to say about anyone – I looked at my mother. Mum has a pretty jaundiced view of humanity in general; you can trust her not to mince her words. ‘Is he really changing his mind, or is he just pretending?’

‘Maybe you should ask him yourself,’ Dave muttered, to which Sanford’s response was, ‘That’s not possible. He’s asleep. It’s four o’clock in the morning, don’t forget.’

‘I’m not likely to forget
that
,’ Mum grumbled, before finally answering the question I’d put to her. ‘If it’s an act, it’s a bloody good one,’ she had to concede. ‘And I wouldn’t have thought a pathetic little bloke like Nefley would be smart enough to put on convincing show. Especially when you consider how dopey painkillers can make you.’

‘But what did he say about Casimir?’ Father Ramon interjected, before Reuben suddenly hijacked the conversation.

‘Okay – you know what? I’m glad you talked some sense into this guy … whoever he is. That’s great,’ Reuben said, all clenched fists and restless feet. ‘But I’m telling you right now, if you convince Barry McKinnon that you’re harmless, you’ll be
annihilated
.’

‘Reuben—’

‘Wait. Just listen.’ He cut me off. ‘If you’re not gunna shoot him, you’ve only got one choice. You’ll have to pay him to go away.
Because he
will
listen to money.’ Peering around at the array of bad haircuts and op-shop clothes that surrounded him, Reuben seemed to lose heart. ‘But I don’t reckon you’ve got a hundred grand to spare, eh?’ he inquired, without much hope.

‘
A hundred thousand dollars?
’ yelped Sanford. Mum nearly choked on her own indrawn breath, and Bridget said, ‘Oh, dear.’

‘That’s what I’m worth to him,’ Reuben insisted. ‘A hundred grand. That’s what he was gunna sell me for – the dirty rotten yellow scumbag
arsehole
.’ When his fierce gaze alighted on Barry McKinnon’s defenceless beer gut, I wasn’t the only one who started forward. Even I could see that Barry’s paunch constituted a very tempting target.

Fortunately, Reuben was able to restrain himself; Dave didn’t have to do more than grab his arm and murmur a warning. It was just as well, because a scuffle in that tiny space would have left more than one person injured.

‘Do you really think that if we paid him enough, Barry McKinnon would simply walk off?’ Sanford had clearly been pondering the price on Reuben’s head. ‘Despite what happened to his son?’

Reuben shrugged. ‘If you could beat Forrest Darwell’s offer? Yeah, I reckon,’ he said, instigating a brief discussion about Forrest Darwell. Mum wanted to know who Forrest Darwell was. Father Ramon reminded her that someone called Darwell was flying into Sydney that very morning. (‘He talked to Barry on the phone, remember? I heard them,’ the priest elaborated.) Reuben began to explain that Forrest Darwell was a millionaire fight promoter when Sanford brusquely interrupted him.

‘That’s all very well, but we can’t stand around here forever. Those drugs will be wearing off soon,’ Sanford barked. His gaze swept the overcrowded vestibule. ‘Dave, you can go and get George out of the basement – he’ll shift Horace with you. Tell Gladys she’ll
be going home with Father Ramon. Nina, I want you to fetch that gun from Dave’s car; when you’re done, you can help me to move Dermid. Father, you and Estelle can take Barry up to his room—’

‘Which room?’ Mum interrupted. By this time she was very, very annoyed; I could see it in her baleful eye, and hear it in her grating voice. ‘The guestroom, you mean?’

‘I think so.’ Sanford gave a brisk nod. ‘And Dermid can stay in Nina’s room.’

‘
Nefley’s
in Nina’s room,’ Mum pointed out, with dangerous calm.

‘Oh. Yes.’ For the first time, Sanford sounded rattled. ‘Um …what about your room, then?’

‘
My
room?’

‘It wouldn’t be for long,’ Sanford promised. ‘If you need a rest, you can use the daybed in the living room.’

‘For Chrissake!’ Mum was about to explode. The veins throbbed on her forehead as her face assumed a congested, purplish colour.

I hastily tried to intervene.

‘Surely it wouldn’t be safe for Mum to have Dermid around?’ I objected, and was immediately given a short lecture as to why Dermid’s predatory instincts would only become really dangerous during the second night of his transformation. ‘You might recall what happened to Dave,’ Sanford concluded, ‘and how he resisted the urge to infect, that first morning. Am I right, Dave?’

Dave nodded. But I wasn’t satisfied; I still felt that my mother needed a break.

‘Dermid can have a sleeping-bag in the basement,’ was my next suggestion. ‘After all, he’s a vampire now.’

‘Not yet, he isn’t.’ Sanford refused to yield. ‘And before he becomes a vampire, he’s going to be quite ill. Which is why he needs a proper bed, close to the bathroom. Where you can keep an eye on him, Estelle.’

‘Oh.’ Mum was talking through clenched dentures. ‘That’s
my
job, is it?’

‘I’m afraid so. Just for the day.’

‘And what about the other two?’ she demanded. ‘Am I supposed to be looking after them all day, as well? While everyone else is fast asleep?’

‘
I
won’t be fast asleep,’ Reuben volunteered. When we all looked at him, he squared his shoulders and lifted his chin, defiantly. ‘I’m not a vampire,’ he continued, ‘so I can help, if you want. It’s the least I can do.’

‘
You’re
planning to stay, as well?’ said Mum. Her voice was faint, and had a visible effect on Reuben – who began to deflate like a balloon.

‘Or I can leave,’ he mumbled. ‘Whatever.’

‘No!’ I couldn’t understand why Mum was being so dense. (It didn’t occur to me that she was completely exhausted.) ‘Reuben will be
really useful!
Can’t you see that, Mum? He’ll take some of the load off! He can make sure that Barry doesn’t escape!’

‘But not by breaking Barry’s legs,’ Sanford warned quickly. ‘If anything happens to either of these men, Reuben, you’ll have to answer for it. Physical violence will
not
be tolerated.’

‘I know that,’ said Reuben, sulking.

‘Are you sure you can cope?’ Sanford pressed. ‘Are you sure you can resist the urge to attack?’

‘Better than you can, probably,’ Reuben retorted, ‘since there won’t be a full moon. Like I told you, I’m not a vampire.’

It was a snappy little comeback, and I couldn’t help admiring it. Even Mum seemed impressed; it’s not often that anyone leaves Sanford tongue-tied, and she surveyed Reuben with a glimmer of approval. Bridget looked embarrassed, while Dave threw me a sidelong glance, as if trying to gauge my reaction.

At last Horace broke the spell. Blinking up at us from the bottom of the staircase, he groggily asked, ‘What’s going on?’ At which point everyone remembered that we didn’t have all the time in the world.

There was a sudden flurry of movement. Sanford seized hold of Dermid; Mum shuffled over to Barry; Dave tossed me his car keys, then headed straight for the basement. I was about to go outside when a plea from Father Ramon made me pause on the threshold.

‘If you do end up talking to Barry McKinnon,’ he said plaintively, to the entire gathering, ‘could someone please ask him where he’s put that orange van? Because if we don’t get it back, there’ll be hell to pay. As it is, I don’t know
what
I’m going to tell Saxby’s Hire and Haul.’

‘It’s all right, Father.’ Oddly enough, Reuben was the one who replied. He had clearly gained confidence from his exchange with Sanford, and was now cheerfully helping to rearrange Dermid’s legs. ‘Whatever you tell ’em, they’ll believe you. Because you’re a priest.’