Prelude- An Old Man's Winter Night
John Fitzpatrick coughed and spluttered as the cloud of tobacco smoke billowed from his mouth into the night. It was a typical Belfast night, cold and starry. John was stood outside his favourite drinking spot, Kelly's, a pub synonymous with the IRA prior to the decommissioning. From inside faint sounds of badly sung-along folk songs could be heard along with the clink of pint glasses. It used to be that smoking was allowed in pubs, but not for over a year.
"Fuckin' Brits," John mumbled to himself as he took another draw on his fag to warm his freezing lungs. He was one of the few regulars who still smoked at Kelly's, and the only one devoted enough to it to risk the flu by bracing the December cold outside. It was the night before Christmas Eve, not that the occasion held any anything special for John anymore, not since his wife and son were killed in a car bomb in 1979. Once he got a few more pints of Guinness in him, and the punters stopped singing out of tune, he might tell them the story. Or at least part of the story.
John never blamed the right people when he told the story. He never blamed the IRA who planted the bomb. He never blamed himself for letting Margaret go into town that day with little Liam. It was always Margaret, his wife, he would blame. His stupid Protestant wife. "Never trust a woman" he would tell anyone who would listen, "Never trust a woman, and never trust a Hun."
Holding back a tear, John took one last huge draw, right down to the filter and dropped the cigarette butt down onto the ground. He looked across the empty courtyard where the entrance to the pub was located. When he lit up a few minutes before, a group of drunken teenagers had staggered across the cobbled stones but all was quiet now. God he missed his wife, but he wasn't going to let it show, not in front of the lads. That's how it is with people from Northern Ireland. Emotions were buried away at the bottom of an empty pint glass. John prepared to exhale the final cloud of smoke but as he did, as if from nowhere, a pale, lithe, graceful hand clamped firmly over his mouth and with strength belied by its subtle form, he was pulled swiftly into the shadowy corner between the pub and the adjoining building.
His attacker buried his fangs deep into the old man's neck and John felt his hot blood cooling in the misty, winter air. His blood flowed as freely as the Guinness did next door in the pub. John tried to call out by the hand across his face prevented him. He was going to die and he knew it. He could already feel his consciousness slipping away. "Here I come Margaret…." were the last thoughts in John Fitzpatrick's mind before he fell unconscious. The fangs had been removed but still his blood flowed onto the ice-slicked ground and as the attacker let the limp old man go, his head fell to the ground and split open….