A Night of Blacker Darkness by Dan Wells

Author:Dan Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: vampire, horror, comedy, humor, historical, jane austen, farce, screwball comedy, historical 1800s, mary shelley, mortuary, john keats
Publisher: Dan Wells

Bath

Just before midnight

“Mary!” I cried, turning so see her on the far side of the wrought-iron fence. “You’re safe!”

“I suppose you’re here to rescue them?” asked Gwen, striding purposefully to Mary and glaring at her in the dark. “I can’t let you do that—they’re to be staked at dawn!”

I sighed. “If you’re going to take something, Mary, please take the tongue first.”

“Thanks,” said Mary, “but she’s a bit too alive for my tastes.”

“Too alive?” said Gwen. “Who are you?”

“The Bath ghoul,” said John, with an equal mix of rapture and sorrow. “A veritable goddess of severed appendages.”

“At your service,” said Mary, curtseying lightly. “Now, can we go? There's a hole in the fencing just over here.”

“Only a ghoul?” said Gwen haughtily. “Freddy is a vampire—that's far more prestigious than being a ghoul.”

“You’re a vampire?” asked Mary.

“No,” I said, “and Gwen really needs to meet a real one sometime; it will adjust her ranking system significantly.”

“I can’t let you leave,” said Gwen. “I need you dead if I’m to get my money, and I doubt you’ll agree to stake yourselves at dawn.”

“We don’t even know which kind of stake,” John agreed.

“If you so much as touch that fence,” said Gwen, “I’ll scream and bring the whole mob running.”

“If it was that easy to get them here you’d have done it already,” I said.

“Come closer,” Mary whispered, beckoning to Gwen. “I’ve got something that might help you.”

“Really?” asked Gwen, but as soon as she drew near the fence Mary swung a stout wooden club out the shadows and between the bars, cracking soundly on Gwen’s head. Gwen dropped like a rock.

I stared in shock.

“There,” said Mary, “that’s one problem solved.”

“You’ve killed her!”

“Wishful thinking,” said Mary, “though she does have wonderful ears.”

John knelt down and probed Gwen’s head, then felt her neck. “She’s quite alive, though she’s going to have a rather large bump on her head.” He turned to Mary with an adoring smile. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“We need to go,” I said, peering through the trees and gravestones. “There’s someone coming this way.”

“Should we bring her?” asked John, still cradling Gwen’s head. “If they think you bit her to escape, they might kill her, too.”

“She has no bite marks and a bump the size of a walnut,” I said. “What kind of teeth do they think I have?”

“They’re getting closer,” said Mary, pointing through the bars in the fence. I followed her gaze to a pair of dark black figures, cloaked in shadow, slowly picking their way toward us through the gravestones.

I dropped to a crouch. “Those aren’t farmers,” I whispered, “they’re vampires!”

“How did they find us?” asked John.

“I suppose it can’t have been hard,” I said, “just follow the giant torch-waving mob.”

“That’s the third time you’ve mentioned vampires,” said Mary. “What’s going on?”

“Well you see—” said John.

“We’ll tell you later,” I said, cutting him off. “We have to leave before they find us— vampires are the last thing I need right now.”

“Grab the coffin, then,” said John, picking up one end of it.

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