Alan M. Brooker by The Battle for Barnstable

Author:The Battle for Barnstable
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-01-29T20:47:12+00:00

Anderson wrinkled his nose in disgust. He stunk of garlic. He hated garlic, never touching food that included it in its preparation. Now he was crouching behind a pile of fallen masonry blocks in the old church with a garland of garlic festooned around his neck. The smell was overpowering. It was a funny way to conceal your presence when anybody with even the weakest sense of smell would know you were there, and from many meters away!

He wasn’t alone.

Hazzler and Burrows were crouched beside him. They were also wearing garlic garlands, the smell wafting over the lonely graveyard with a greater intensity than an Italian restaurant.

Garlic wasn’t the only protection Hazzler had insisted they carry, just in case the vampire acted differently to the way he secretly hoped he would. Each of the three men carried a large silver cross and a small phial of clear water. The professor still hadn’t told his companions why he wanted to meet with the vampire, rather than kill him in the traditional way. He hadn’t even brought a pointed stake with him, but that was the weapon the vampire hunter’s of old always used to dispose of their blood-sucking enemies. This was all very strange and confusing.

Hazzler had walked around the cemetery when they arrived, checking the names on all the graves. He’d smiled grimly, but said nothing. He’d refused to answer any questions. All he would say was that now he was ninety-nine percent certain he’d been right all along. That was most frustrating for Anderson; Burrows seemed to accept it as normal behavior.

The professor had selected a position from which he could watch the graves within the fence surrounding the plot reserved for the ancestors of the Barnstables. While the encroaching weeds strangled the other parts of the cemetery, this area was still neat and tidy considering that the last burial had taken place many years before. Maybe the Barnstables still had admirers in the village, admirers who were prepared to come and keep the family plot tidy. Perhaps some were even distant relations. Was it coincidental that one of the missing girls was a Sara Barnstable? Could she have tenuous family links to the founders of the manor?

The tombs in the Barnstable plot reached to within three meters of the fallen walls of the old church, and were much more imposing structures than those in the other parts of the cemetery, an indication of the family’s wealth and status in the community those many years ago. There had been an entry door through the old walls that opened directly into the chancel. The blocks had fallen clear years before, leaving a path that opened directly beside the altar. The path was clear of dust and cobwebs, yet the rocks on either side were gray with a dense wall of webs. Hazzler looked down at his watch, the luminous dial showing it was almost ten o’clock. The last rays of the sun had long since departed, to be replaced by the pale light of a moon not yet out of the first quarter.

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