The trouble was she was just his type. Sitting at the back of the stuffy pub function room, her eyes fixed upon him, she commanded his attention, apparently without effort. He could tell she was tall, because her head was the highest on the row. Her hands were clasped in her lap and she was dressed in black.
She had come to watch the famous historical investigator and author, Noah Johnson, deliver a lecture. He found he was playing to her alone throughout the evening. He knew the talk, "Vampires in Myth and History", off by heart, having delivered it countless times before. He updated it constantly, but essentially it was the same old stuff: colourful but careful. He was selective about what he gave the punters. He knew how to please a mixed crowd.
The regular meetings, "Enigmas of History," were going well. He ran it once a fortnight in the upstairs room of his local pub, the Gun and Duck, and now had a regular attendance of around fifty people. Sometimes, he had to turn some away. More than fifty and the front row started fainting. He'd started it to augment his writing income, for the periods when funds were slack — a downside of any writer's life. But it was going so well, he had planned more events; outdoors, now that summer was coming. Sarah would have loved all this. But he mustn't think about her now. She was no longer part of his life.
Noah's friend and assistant, Gary, dimmed the lights in preparation for the slide show. Some of the audience were fanning themselves with the handouts Gary's girlfriend, Abby, had placed on every seat prior to the meeting. The windows were open, but did little to improve the air quality in the room.
One by one, the slides slipped across the screen: illustrations copied from ancient texts, photographs Noah had taken himself while investigating in far corners of obscure eastern European countries. Some of them had been reproduced in Noah's bestselling book, The Search for Nosferatu. The subject no longer captivated him: he'd done it and it was over, but the public were always hungry for it. Noah had moved on to other things and was currently researching his next book, which was concerned with the mythical landscape of the remote Scottish islands, and how the strange ancient structures there might have come to be built.
When the lights came back on, Noah's eyes were drawn immediately to the girl on the back row. He half expected to see that she'd left. That would be just his luck, but no, there she was, sitting straight and demure, gazing at him from beneath downcast lashes, a slight smile on her lips.
He began to answer questions from the audience, but was anxious to keep it short tonight. If people wanted to air their opinions, which most of them did, especially the regulars, they could continue in the bar downstairs. He interrupted a woman as she was speaking. "Hey, it's too hot up here. Shall we move down?"
Most of them would go home, but the ones who saw themselves as the core of his group would remain until closing time. It was only nine o'clock.
People started getting out of their seats, apparently as eager as he was to escape the hot function room. The woman who'd been interrupted looked crestfallen, somewhat confused.
Gary and Abby began clearing up, gathering the dropped leaflets, packing away the slide equipment. "Good turnout," Gary said.
"You could hire a bigger place," Abby suggested. "You'd still pack it."
Noah was looking at the crowd shuffling out. He saw that the girl in black had remained in her seat. He smiled at her and she stood up. He went towards her.
"Excuse me, Mr Johnson, would you mind if I asked you something?"
"Of course not," he said. "Come down to the bar. We usually stay on for a few drinks."
"Thank you."
He put his arm behind her proprietorially to guide her to the door.
"Thanks, Noah!" Abby called behind him. "We'll just finish off, shall we?"
He grinned back at her and she shook her head in mock disapproval. Abby was used to him and he knew how much he could get away with.
Downstairs, punters insisted on buying Noah drinks, but he bought one for the girl himself. "I haven't seen you here before," he said, leaning on the bar.
She pulled a face. Her features were delicate, mobile. "No, I've only just moved here. It was great to discover this group, especially that it's run by you. I've got all your books."
He laughed. "Thanks." In his mind, he could hear Abby's warning cry of: "Noah! She's a fan, okay? For God's sake, be careful."
The girl brushed strands of dark hair from her eyes. Her well-shaped lips were painted perfectly in a dark purple. Her dress was of black lace and velvet, down to the floor. She was virtually the same height he was. "I'm Lara, by the way. Lara Hoskins."
Noah handed her a vodka and tonic. When she took it from him, he saw that her lace cuffs came right down to her fingers. The nails were painted black. "So, what did you want to ask me?" He was conscious of the eyes of his core group upon him, their resentment at a newcomer monopolizing him. Normally, this was the time for Noah to hold court.
"Well, I have to admit it was the subject of the talk tonight that most attracted me," Lara said. She laughed nervously. "Not that I wouldn't have come anyway, of course…"
"And?"
"Why don't you talk about the origins of the vampire myth?"
"I do. You heard it."
She was silent for a moment. "I think we both know there's more to it than that."
"Essentially, it's European, although there are parallels in Mesopotamian and Judaic mythology."
"But where do those myths come from?"
"There are recurrent themes in every mythology. People the world over have the same fears, the same desires. There's no reason to think the vampire myth comes from a single root source."
"But in Nosferatu, you implied differently."
"What are you getting at?" Noah said, grinning. "Don't tell me you're a vampire searching for your roots!"
A vampire would certainly not colour up the way she did then. "I have a serious interest in the subject," she said. "I'd hoped you'd take me seriously too."
"Look," he said. "If you want the truth, I think people can become obsessed with certain myths, especially the vampire ones. It's dangerous."
"How?" She looked hungry.
"Any obsession is dangerous. I don't like to encourage it." He was thinking of Sarah. Her face was before his eyes, sad and despairing.
"What happened?" Lara asked in a low voice. It was as if she knew already.
He could tell her easily. She could be his confessor. "I knew someone," he began. Then a hand slapped his back.
"Hey!" It was Abby. "Don't tell me you haven't got drinks in for us!" She smiled at Lara. "He treats us like lackeys!"
"Sorry," Noah said. He turned to attract the attention of the barman.
For the rest of the evening Abby refused to leave Noah's side. He knew why. Abby knew him too well. She was good company and gave no indication to Lara that she was suspicious of her, but Noah was well aware of his friend's feelings.
After last orders, when the group was breaking up, Noah said to Lara, "There's an event next Sunday. We're going on a tour of local ancient sites, churches, springs and so on. Should be quite a convoy. Would you like to come?"
"Well…" Lara put her empty glass down on the bar. "Might be difficult. I don't have transport."
"I could pick you up," said Noah.
"Great!" Lara opened her bag and rummaged in it. "I'll give you my address. What time?"
"Oh, about midday."
"It'll cost a tenner," said Abby, somewhat darkly.
"Good value," Lara said, taking the lid off a fountain pen.
Outside, in the car park, Abby started on Noah. "What are you up to?" she demanded. "I thought you'd decided to leave punters well alone."
"What do you mean?" Noah countered, fiddling with his keys.
"I mean that you fancy her. It's obvious. But you've been down this road many times before. You know where it leads."
"She's just coming to the event," Noah said. "What's wrong with that? Lots of other people are going and they're all punters as well."
Abby folded her arms belligerently across her chest. "I'm not stupid!"
"Give him a break, will you," Gary snapped.
Abby was not to be deterred. "She's a fan, Gary, and she's got her sights set. There's something a bit odd about her. I can just feel it."
"He's a grown man," Gary said in a tired voice. "For Christ's sake, Ab, you sound like his bloody mother."
"I'm the nearest he has to that," Abby said, getting into the front passenger seat of Noah's car.
For the next few days, Noah couldn't stop thinking about Lara Hoskins. Abby was wrong to be so suspicious. Of course, he had met Sarah at a lecture, long before he'd begun the regular meetings, and perhaps this was why Abby was so scared for him. He'd dated lots of girls since, some of them plucked from the "Enigmas of History" group, and he was the first to admit that none of them had worked out particularly well, but he was sure this was different. Lara was bright and had an enquiring mind. There were no warning signs. Her hands had been steady on her glass all evening. She'd been open and sociable.
By Sunday morning he was buzzing with anticipation, and spent more time than usual on his appearance. Lara was probably about ten years younger than him, in her mid-twenties by the look of her, but that didn't matter. He looked young for his age. All his life, women had flocked to him.
When he drew up outside her house, she came through the front door before he'd even turned off the engine. She was dressed in black jeans and T-shirt, with a black hooded fleece tied around her waist, presumably in case it got cold later. Her long black hair was caught up in a severe ponytail but swished provocatively around her head and shoulders as she ran down the short drive to the road. She was as slim as a boy and looked athletic. Noah's heart turned over. She was gorgeous.
"Hi!" she said breathlessly as she virtually threw herself into the car. She smelled strongly of an oriental yet floral scent.
"Hi," Noah echoed. "I like a woman who's ready on time."
Lara laughed. It was a bright, free sound, devoid of artifice. Of course, she'd been ready for hours.
When they arrived at the meeting point, Noah was pleased to see there was a good turnout — about seven packed cars. Abby was going round collecting money and distributing maps.
At each site they visited, Noah had the group sit down and meditate to see if they could pick up any information from the past, such as what the site might have been used for in ancient times. He never did this at the indoor meetings. This was his select group, with whom he was prepared to try more "weird stuff, as some referred to it. During the meditation, Lara saw a great deal of detailed and pertinent imagery. "I think you're psychic," Noah told her privately.
"Oh, I know that," she said.
"You couldn't be more perfect," Noah said.
Lara smiled. "When can we continue our conversation?"
"Later. How about dinner?"
"Sounds great."
Noah had to lose Abby and Gary for the evening, which was not easy. He didn't want Abby to know he was taking Lara out, sure that she would insist that she and Gary went with him. Fortunately, they'd brought their own car that day, so at the last site Noah whisked Lara off quickly, virtually without saying goodbye to anybody. He knew he'd have to pay for it later and could anticipate Abby's terse message that would be waiting on his answerphone when he got home. But for the time being, he didn't give a damn. Both he and Lara were giggling as his car skidded away in a cloud of dust and gravel.
"Why do I get the feeling we're playing truant?" Lara asked.
"Sometimes, I want a bit of privacy, that's all," Noah answered. "The trouble with these events is that people want it to carry on till all hours. Sometimes, that's fine, but tonight…" He glanced at her and she smiled.
He took her to a Thai restaurant he'd never visited before, secure in the knowledge that none of the group would track him there. The food was rather lacklustre, but it didn't matter, because Lara was sitting opposite him and her smile seemed to enfold him in a hazy golden mist. They were both high on the sense of being secret conspirators. They were high on the potential of what might happen later.
Lara seemed content to listen to Noah talk about his new book, and it wasn't until the coffee arrived that she broached the subject she'd brought up after the meeting last Tuesday. "Why did you react so badly to my question?"
"I don't think I did. Some things I just steer clear of."
"So what's the story behind it?" She took a sip of coffee, smiled disarmingly. "Or is it a secret?"
Noah leaned back in his chair. "It's no secret. If you become part of the core group — and I'm sure you will — anyone would tell you about it. Basically, while I was writing Nosferatu I was involved in more than the obvious method of research. The problem came from that."
Lara put her head to one side. "What do you mean?"
"You saw what we did today. People are keen on the psychic stuff. On one level, it's harmless, and most people never go beyond that. But on another, it isn't. Sitting outside an old church and trying to visualise images of the past can't hurt anyone, because it's dead and gone. It's nothing more than a psychic photograph. But other things, well, they're more alive, still around, so to speak."
Lara laughed, lit a cigarette. "Are you trying to tell me that you contacted a vampire psychically?"
Noah hesitated for a moment. Part of him didn't want to say more, but Lara's wide eyes were fixed upon him with a bright, intelligent gaze. He felt safe with her. "I worked with a girl called Sarah. People don't realize it, but a lot of the information in my books comes from what I call 'inspired' sources, from psychics. Most of what I find out can't be used in a serious book, because it can't be checked out and verified as fact, but it gives me a feel for and understanding of the subject. Sarah was my assistant and also my partner. She was very psychic."
"Was," Lara said, her chin resting on her hands. Smoke curled around her in slow tendrils. "That sounds ominous."
"Let's just say that I was interested in the origin of the vampire myth, like you are. I'd investigated all the legends of blood-drinking demons, from medieval Europe right back to Sumerian times. Somewhere along the way, the flavour of the subject changed." He gestured with both hands. "It's difficult to describe, but the idea of the vampire as unfortunate undead — perhaps a victim of their circumstances — mutated into the idea that the original vampires were very much alive and that their vampirism was by choice, a necessary facet of their belief system."
Lara nodded enthusiastically. "That's my thought also."
"It all seemed very academic to us. We called them the vulture people, a shamanic tribe who indulged in blood drinking and sacrifice. Sarah picked up some interesting stuff that pointed us in the direction of certain ancient sites in Turkey. The imagery she saw could be verified. These places existed and there was archaeological evidence that a shamanic culture existed there, who had worshipped vultures. They believed that drinking blood gave them superhuman abilities. Whether that was true or not, we thought that other tribes would probably have regarded them as supernatural, as demons, even, because of their bloodthirsty habits. We believed that there was a diaspora and that factions of this tribe might have moved gradually into Europe, eventually giving rise to the vampire legend.
"Every evening, I'd have Sarah go into a kind of trance, guiding her further and further back into the past, seeking the true story. It seemed we were meant to discover all this, to make the link. The vulture people became more real for us: powerful shamans, who used the rites of blood to change their world. As time went on, Sarah started to get jumpy about it. She said she sensed little dark things that scuttled in the folds of these creatures' vulture wing robes, that they had begun to touch her. She wanted to stop, but I persuaded her otherwise. I thought we were getting close to something that would prove my theory incontrovertibly. We had to continue. But then, one night, Sarah brought something back with her."
There was a silence, while Lara took a long, meditative draw on her cigarette. Then she said, "And Sarah couldn't cope?"
Noah pressed the fingers of one hand briefly against his eyes. He could hear her screams even now. "It was too overwhelming, too alien. We always did these sessions by the light of one candle, so we couldn't see much, but it was as if the night just surged into the room. We were surrounded by a presence, not evil exactly, but beyond good and evil. It was amoral, and we were nothing to it. Even I could sense it, and I'm no great psychic. In moments, I realized how we'd been playing with something inconceivably huge and beyond us, something immeasurably powerful. We'd pulled at its skirts too insistently and now it had noticed us."
"What happened?"
"Well, once Sarah started screaming, I just leaped up and put the lights on. If something really had been there, it disappeared." He finished off the warm lager left in his glass and shook his head. "Sarah was writhing on the floor. I didn't know what to do. The noises were hideous. In the end, I slapped her. It's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? And she kind of came out of it. But even if the thing had gone, it left a taint behind."
"Did it kill her?" Lara asked bluntly.
Noah detected a faint note of scorn in her voice. "No, no. Of course not. Sarah was an experienced psychic, but she was damaged by what she'd felt and seen. It changed her and there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing. She became paranoid, jealous and afraid. It destroyed us."
"It wasn't your fault," Lara said, reaching out to touch one of Noah's hands.
He laughed cynically. "They all said that, but it's not true. I was so eager to discover the truth, I didn't think about the dangers. I just kept pushing and pushing. After we split up, Sarah lost her job. She just lost it, big-time. The last I heard she'd admitted herself to hospital. She dropped all her old friends."
"It wasn't your fault," Lara insisted. "Sarah just wasn't strong enough."
"She was," Noah said. "It was stronger than both of us."
"I don't believe that."
"You weren't there. Even as a writer, I don't have the words to describe to you how terrible that night was, how real the entity that came to us. This wasn't Christopher Lee in a silk cape, Lara. This wasn't a nice, safe little meditation like all those we did today. This was the most raw and primeval energy; it could snuff you out like that!" He snapped his fingers before her face, but she did not flinch.
"I want it," she said.
He laughed shakily. "What?"
"It's what I want. I need to know the truth. I'm not afraid."
Noah raised his hands and shook his head emphatically. "No. You don't know what you're asking for. The vampires you're so enamoured of, they're just fashion accessories, a romantic myth. You don't want the truth of it, believe me."
"How dare you!" Lara snapped. "You make me sound like some stupid little girl who's just into looking weird. I'm not enamoured by anything." She thumped her chest with a closed fist. "I've lived with this stuff all my life, felt it tugging at the corners of my mind, trying to make itself known to me. Their carrion smell has always been strong to my senses. When I read Nosferatu, I thought I'd found someone who would understand, who wouldn't think I was mad." She put her hands against her head, scraped them through her sleek, confined hair, pulling strands of it free. "If you really are so against it, why did you put all those coy clues in the book?"
Noah thought she now looked demented, with her hair beginning to fall over her face, a hectic flush along her cheekbones and those wild, wide eyes. But she was breathtakingly beautiful and, in those moments, he could believe she was as strong as she claimed to be. "You'd better tell me what you mean by saying you've lived with it," he said.
Lara ducked her head in assent and then summoned a waiter to order more drinks.
"No," Noah said. "I'm driving. Let's get the bill. We can talk at my place."
They were silent in the car on the drive home. Lara sat with her hands folded in her lap, staring through the windscreen. Noah wondered what he was doing. He guessed what would come. In was as inexorable as a tidal wave, and he could already see it massing on the horizon. He could stop it now, take her home.
They passed the turn-off that would lead to her road. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. In ten minutes, he was parking the car outside his house.
Inside, Lara wandered around the living-room, touching lightly the ancient artefacts that clustered on every available surface. Sarah had collected most of them, but hadn't wanted to take them with her when she left. She hadn't taken anything, or exercised her rights to have half of the house. She'd just wanted out, to cast off any vestige of her life with Noah, desperate to live in the here and now, in safe mundanity. But it was denied her. No one else should go to the place where Sarah was. No one.
Noah made coffee in the vast silent kitchen, where modern appliances gleamed on the spotless work surfaces. Sarah had had the kitchen installed, paid for it herself. The cutlery and crockery Noah had used for his lunch still lay in the sink, but generally he kept the house tidy out of respect for her, as if she were still around in an etheric kind of way, and might disapprove of clutter and mess. On the way back to the living-room, he took a bottle of brandy and two huge globe glasses out of his liquor cupboard and placed them on to the tray next to the cafetière and mugs.
Lara was curled up in the big leather armchair by the hearth and had lit the log-effect gas fire. She had also managed to find the tiny ashtray that Noah kept reluctantly for guests. "You're so lucky," she said, as Noah came into the room. "This place is great. Tons of books and things. How many bedrooms has it got?"
"Five," Noah answered.
"I'm in the wrong job!" Lara said, laughing. She seemed just like an ordinary girl now, gamine and flirtatious.
Noah set down the tray on the coffee table and set about pouring drinks. "We got this place for a song," he said, rather apologetically. "It was a dump. Sarah did it up." He looked around the room. "It's worth a bit now, of course, but all I'd need is a couple of bad years and I'd have to sell it. Writing is not the millionaire's game it's made out to be, you know."
"I'm surprised to hear you say that," Lara said.
"Most people are. They think we all live like Jackie Collins."
"No, I meant that you know how to change fate, how to make things happen. Why don't you use it for yourself, so that you don't get any of those 'bad years'?"
"You've lost me," Noah said, pushing a glass of brandy and a coffee across the table towards her. "I'm a writer, a researcher, not a bloody magician!"
Lara smiled, turning in her fingers a lock of hair that hung beside her face. "Oh, come on! What about the 'weird stuff'?"
"If I knew how to meditate money into existence, I'd be rich. But I don't. I just use the 'weird stuff' to delve into the past."
"But the vulture people knew how to change their world. You said so."
"Strangely enough, I have no compelling desire to drink blood and murder people." He was enjoying their exchange, sure that the undercurrent was sexual.
Lara picked up the brandy globe. "You've contacted them," she said. "How many people have done that? If you weren't scared shitless, you could use that energy for yourself." Slowly, sensuously, she drained her glass.
Noah knelt back on his heels, his hands braced against his thighs. "I think you are a dangerous young woman," he said.
"You wouldn't have to kill anybody," she said, holding out her glass for more brandy. "I'm sure the smallest of blood sacrifices would do."
Noah poured out a generous measure of the golden liquor. "I'm not going back there, Lara. I got burned and sensibly pay attention to what hurts. You don't put your hand in the fire twice."
"When people have no fear, they can walk across red-hot coals," Lara said. "I'm scared of madmen with knives, and perverts hiding in alleys. I'm scared of people, because they're shit. But etheric entities don't frighten me. They don't have hands of flesh and blood. They can't fire a gun. The only way they can hurt you is through fear, your own mind. You must know that."
Noah hesitated. He could feel the conviction pulsing from Lara's body. "You are a witch," he said and took a long drink of his brandy. It burned his throat, felt good.
Her eyes were hooded now. "Take me there, Noah. I'm not afraid to go alone and I won't freak you out by having the screaming heebie-jeebies. Just take me there."
"Why?" he said.
"Because they want you to," she said. "I've heard their voices whispering in my dreams since I was a child. I've seen their shadows in the curtains of my bedroom every night. I've felt their carrion breath on my face in the dark. I'm one of them, Noah. Not in this life perhaps, but know them. I want to go home."
The silence in the room was absolute and the atmosphere had become still and watchful, like vulture shamans. It was as if Lara had already conjured something into being through the passion of her words. There was no way he could disbelieve her. She looked remarkably sane, but driven. He could not speak.
"I'm not some sick cow who wants to drink blood," Lara said in a conversational tone. "I don't have a black bedroom or collect horror films. I don't want to be a vampire in the traditional sense. I just need to know what it is that has been trying to get through to me, that's all." She smiled. "God, I must sound mad. What else do I have to say to convince you I'm not?"
He stared at her, wrestling with himself, thinking of Sarah.
"I'm a bloody good psychic," she said mischievously, cocking her head to the side. "You can always use one of those, can't you?"
"Then why do you need me? If you're that good, do it yourself."
"You have the map," she said. "You are the guide. It's that simple." She adopted a mock-serious tone. "I'll look after you, Noah, don't worry. You'll be perfectly safe."
His meditation room was at the back of the house on the second floor, overlooking fields and a small wood. As he'd always done with Sarah, he kept the curtains open and lit a single candle. His heart was beating fast, but not through fear. He was not sure exactly what he felt. As he prepared to light some loose incense, to help conjure the right atmosphere, Lara said, "Have you got a pin?"
"What?"
"To prick our fingers. We should put our blood into the incense."
"Lara…"
"Noah . . . !" She was laughing at him.
It took some minutes to find a pin, by which time Lara had consumed another globe of brandy. Noah himself was beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol. Perhaps it was numbing his sense of apprehension. He let Lara prick his thumb and squeeze a bright droplet of blood from the wound, which she shook into the incense. Then she put his thumb into her warm mouth and sucked it. "Scared?" she said.
"Horrified."
She pricked her own thumb, but didn't offer to let him taste her blood. It was a slight disappointment.
Lara lay down on the rug before the cold hearth, while Noah sat cross-legged beside her, and took her gently into a light trance. The words were soporific. His own eyelids began to droop. He led her back through time, made her watch the centuries fall away, until he told her to visualize herself standing at the mouth of a cave amid high, wind-sculpted crags. Beyond the threshold, all was dark.
"This is the Shanidar Cave," he murmured. "Home of the vulture people. Walk into it."
He paused, listening to her light breathing. "Tell me what you see," he said.
"Darkness," she replied. Her brow had creased into a frown. "But I can smell…"
She would say blood, he thought.
"Flowers," she said faintly. "Everywhere, flowers. They've placed them over the bones. I see them. So many bones. There are wings…"
"Is anyone there with you?"
"Yes." Her voice was like that of a child, young and tremulous.
"Do you want to leave?" Noah said. "You can leave at any time."
"No. He knows me. He wants to give me something."
"What?"
"The talking bone…"
"What does he look like?"
Suddenly Lara gasped, her eyes flew open and she sat bolt upright. Noah reached out to steady her. "It's okay," he said.
She turned her head slowly and when she spoke, her voice was deep and rasping. "Keep me not from her, son of Lamech. Her laughter filled the mountains and bowed the heads of the wild beasts. Shame took her from me. Shame!"
Noah could smell carrion, the reek of her breath.
Abruptly, Lara sighed and fell back gracefully on to the floor.
"Lara," Noah breathed, leaning over her. "Lara. Are you all right?"
She laughed and wriggled her body on the rug. "Oh, yes." Without opening her eyes, she reached up for him, dragged him down. When he kissed her, he tasted brandy, the flame of it.
"Thank you," she murmured, between kisses. "Thank you."
Her skin was hot beneath his hand, exuding the last warmth of her perfume. He made love to her where she lay, wondering if she was fully in this world or not. It didn't matter. She was a dream come to life, a woman who could walk alone into the dark and come back laughing and smelling of flowers.
Afterwards, she lay naked beside him, smoking a cigarette. "What the hell was there to be scared of?" she said. "Have I brought anything back with me? No. And believe me, I willed it."
Noah lay on his side, stroking her taut belly. "What did it — he — look like?"
She grimaced. "Pretty much how you'd think. At first, he was crouched down, wrapped in this immense cloak of black feathers. It looked like it had been made from the whole wings of a single vulture. I could just see the slits of his eyes peering over the top. He looked like a vulture himself… like a vampire! Although he was crouched down, I could tell he was a giant; magnificent, wise and savage."
"That's pretty powerful imagery," Noah said.
"Then he stood up and opened his cloak of wings. Beneath it, he was dressed in animal skins. His body was covered in some kind of paint, but it wasn't blood. There were patterns in it like primitive cave paintings. He did have bones in his hair and wore a necklace of bones. Bird bones, I think. You'll be pleased to know he had pointy teeth. All of them."
"Filed down?"
"Probably." She took a fierce draw of her cigarette. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe I saw what I wanted to see, or was influenced by what you said earlier."
"What about what he said through you?"
"I don't know. It was as if he'd known me before, obviously. He seemed to know you too, in a way. Lamech was the father of Noah in biblical myth, wasn't he?"
Noah nodded, uncomfortable with the idea that the entity might be aware of him.
"If the whole thing wasn't subjective," Lara said, "maybe I lived in his time once. Maybe we were lovers. I certainly felt really horny when I came out of it."
"He doesn't sound very attractive!"
Lara stubbed out her cigarette and reached for Noah's crotch. "Oh, but he was! Beautiful, in fact. His eyes were amazing, this deep piercing blue. Christ, I wanted him to possess me. Utterly. It was the archetypal thing." She laughed huskily. "I'd have been quite happy for him to sink his teeth into me."
Noah leaned over and nipped the skin of her throat. "Come on, let's go to bed. It's getting cold in here."
They made love several more times. Noah felt euphoric, hardly daring to believe a woman such as this could come into his life. She was full of humour and warmth, serious about her ability yet amusingly irreverent. She was uninhibited, open, mysterious and fey. A witch woman. A priestess.
"Where have you been all my life?" Noah said.
"I bet you say that to all the girls," she replied, and they giggled like children at the stupid clichés for several minutes.
About four o'clock, Lara said she was tired and turned on to her side in the bed. Noah studied her for some time, drinking in each detail of her smooth contours, the spill of dark hair upon the pillow. He passed his hand in the air above her body, and she squirmed and made a sound of pleasure as if she felt him stroking her aura.
"Beauty," he whispered. "Love." He lay down to sleep, closing his eyes with the after-image of her white flesh burning in his mind.
Waking came with a shock in the grey of pre-dawn twilight.
He was aware at once of cold, and saw that the bed beside him was empty. A terrified pang of loss coursed through him, then he saw her clothes still draped on the pale wicker chair by the window and told himself she had gone to the bathroom, or else to get herself a drink.
He lay on his back and pulled the duvet over his chilled torso. A hiss in the corner of the room made him start.
"Lara?"
He sat up. Most of the room was still in shadow, but he thought he could make out a dark shape hunched in the corner near his clothes rail. "Lara…"
He reached to turn on the bedside lamp, but the switch did not respond. The bulb must have gone.
Again, a hiss, low and sibilant.
Something moved in the shadows, sidled forward. He saw the eyes clearly first: a deep piercing blue. She was naked and had covered herself in what looked like dark paint, which was possible because there were a few tins left in the garage. Her hair was wild and straw-like, filled with a sticky substance. Her tongue protruded unnaturally from her mouth, like that of the destroyer goddess, Kali. Her teeth could not possibly be pointed. There were no tools in his house she could have used to do that. She hissed and stamped with one foot.
"Lara."
He got out of bed slowly. This was so different to the time before with Sarah. Lara wasn't screaming. She wasn't raving or weeping.
Her eyes followed him as he skirted the room.
He held out his hands in the universal gesture of peace. "Lara, wake up. You're dreaming. It's not real. Lara."
She made a threatening lunge towards him, growled and stamped both feet. He jumped back. It was unreal. He couldn't feel anything, because it was so unreal.
The night had come into the room. Not darkness, but the essence of night, the absence of light. The cold of the earth before the first dawn rose.
"Lara…"
She came for him then, scuttling with crablike speed across the room. She grabbed him by the shoulders and he felt the sharp prick of her fingernails. She stank of rotten meat and there was a crust around her lips. She was bleeding from the mouth. Her teeth were filed away to ragged points.
What pain she must be in. What pain…
He fought back. This wasn't Lara. This was the darkness he had hidden from for so long. Perhaps it had always been here, lurking in the shadows of his house, in his memories.
She was so strong, like a tigress. She pushed him back on to the bed and straddled him. Her breasts looked heavier than they had been earlier, scored with the marks of her own fingernails. She uttered a shriek and lunged for his neck.
He should be afraid, shouldn't he? This thing, this monstrous abomination dredged from the primal soup, was feasting on him, tearing at his flesh, kneading his skin with its claws, sucking the life from him. It stank of hell. Yet he was aroused by it. He wanted her and she let him do it, her body bucking in frenzy.
And he saw it then, the tunnel into history. The rivers of blood that carried the memories of humanity. It is within all of us, he thought. We have tamed it and dressed it up in a silk suit. We have made it dead. We have contained it in books and films and lascivious dreams. We have contained it in nightmares. But ultimately, it is within us all the time. And it is alive, pulsing, warm and wet, stinking of musk and spoiled meat.
Lara wasn't stronger than Sarah. The opposite was true. Because Sarah had rejected this. It was what she had seen and felt and had never spoken of. The search for Nosferatu didn't begin in the grave, but in the reptile brain, the primordial remnant of beast within every human mind. It was demonic. It was divine.
In the late morning, with bright sunshine coming into the kitchen, they were politely formal with each other. She said she had badly chipped a tooth falling over in the dark. They didn't talk about how she'd decorated her body. The mess in the kitchen had been cleaned up by the time he had come downstairs and she was freshly showered, smelling of his patchouli body wash. She joked about her loathing of dentists as she carefully drank hot coffee. He made toast, then apologized and offered something softer: scrambled eggs perhaps? She wasn't hungry, she said.
He rubbed his neck. "Ah well…"
She had to go to work at two. Worked part-time in a local shop. Perhaps she could get an emergency dental appointment before she went in.
He had work to do too. The book would be late to his publishers otherwise. Nice day, though.
Yes, nice day.
At the door, she pecked his cheek in a brief kiss. "We must do this again," she said.
"Must we?" Many words hung unspoken between them.
She smiled. She looked very tired and there were purple rings beneath her eyes. "I think I got what I wanted. Didn't you?"
"Lara…"
"You can call me. Or not," she said. "I don't need you now, Noah, but I kind of like you."
He watched her run down the path to the road. She had rejected a lift. He leaned his forehead on the door frame. Once your eyes are open, you can never close them. Sarah knew this.
He shouldn't see Lara again. He should attempt to forget all that had occurred. They'd been drunk. She'd broken one tooth, that's all. It had been less than he'd imagined. As if to remind him otherwise, his neck twinged painfully. He felt light-headed, sick, suddenly able to imagine the future, the long, slow, agonising stretch of it, the descent into realms he dared not think about.
He shouldn't see her again. But she was just his type, wasn't she? Just his type.