The Allure of the Devil

"The male flaps and fusses, seeking attention, the female refuses, eventually the male flaps hard enough and the female succumbs."

Lucy hadn't expected to wake.

She had expected to die, expected he would drain her body of blood and take away her pain, finally and forever.

She'd opened her eyes to the night and was almost disappointed. Her life wasn't hers to end; that would be a sin and the choice was in the hands of a greater power. Nonetheless she felt a cold weight in her soul at the thought of carrying on.

The old pain was still there, an ache embedded in her bones, but now overlaid with a sharper new hurt. She didn't want to acknowledge the new pain, the source still lying beside her, his arm heavy across her back.

She managed to slide away without waking him, tying her dressing gown and watching as he turned to lie on his back, murmuring something she didn't understand. A name perhaps? She shrugged, it didn't matter. Whoever walked through his dreams it wasn't her. Nor would she want to, the idea of living in the mind of a devil made her shiver and she pulled her robe tighter.

In the kitchen she poured water, holding the cold glass against her forehead, hoping to clear her thoughts. The smell of spoiled food reminded her they hadn't eaten. The meal had been abandoned in their passion and she closed her eyes and saw again in her memory Mitchell's face, pleading for her help and her comfort. She had given in, ignored the fact he'd killed, ignored the sticky blood that transferred to her clothes – even to her skin. She must forget what they'd done. Forget how she weakened and let him use her. Her own pleasure she refused to admit. She remembered crying out, begging him to continue and she felt ashamed. He was a monster, an abomination - how could he have made her feel so complete?

She put the glass down but her hand shook and the water spilled. She grabbed a cloth to wipe the table and recoiled at the smears of red. It was the same cloth she'd used to clean Mitchell's face and she threw it away from her. She thought she might vomit but she took a deep breath, fighting her body's instinctive reaction and as soon as the nausea passed she turned the hot tap on. She scrubbed her hands, over and over, using the nailbrush until they were red and scalded.

"It was cut from a church pew in the late 13th century. It saved the lives of Father Ashby and a dozen priests who worked with him."

She found a towel and dried her hands, ignoring how much they stung. Kemp's stake, his gift to her, had been hidden under the cloth and she stared at it. Should she use it? Could she?

She opened a drawer and pulled out the picture frame she'd hidden under the clean linen. Like the creature in her bed James would never grown old now. She looked at the happy couple – the bright blue eyes in the familiar face, the slightly crooked tooth she found so endearing. The woman held in his arms laughed, her hair long and windblown and her face serene. That woman was confident she was loved and safe. She no longer recognised herself, seen through the eyes of the stranger who took the photograph on the day they got engaged. James had taken her to her favourite place – the tall cliffs of the Cornish coast and he'd gone down on one knee in the mud to ask her. She couldn't have imagined saying no and he'd rummaged through his pockets to find the ring. It was perfect.

She hadn't been at James funeral. She had never been to his grave.

He'd been buried while she still lay in a coma after the crash. She'd been driving them back from Cornwall. Happy and tired, her ring sparkling in the headlights. She knew from the police reports the road was wet and the car had hit a tree but there was a space in her memory where the accident and the following hours should have been.

Sometimes it was easier to think he'd left her. Walked away, living happily somewhere without her and the fantasy eased the pain and the guilt. Her God was a forgiving one but for this transgression she had asked for no mercy. The inquest laid no blame on her – an accident, nothing more nothing less - but they were wrong. She was to blame. She had taken a life.

In the months of her convalescence she tried to make sense of the remains of her life. She'd had vivid dreams – visions – while unconscious and they nagged at her mind. She refused all offers of company, and her family and her few friends stopped trying to persuade her to stay with them. She had always been solitary, needing no one but James and they were sure she would return when she ready. She went back to Cornwall and walked day after day until she was exhausted. But she still dreamed. The visions kept coming. If only she understood what they meant, what they wanted her to do.

One day she sheltered from the cold rain in a small church. The vicar was happy to chat until the rain stopped and he invited her back to the vicarage for hot tea and to warm herself by the fire. At first he just talked – about his flock and his attempts to help those who were struggling. He was careful not to preach at her but she saw his goodness. His soul seemed to shine and she asked about his calling, how he'd come to be ordained.

He told her how God had spoken to him, demanded his help, gave him no respite until he gave up his city job and came home to the church. She shivered – he was describing what she felt, what she saw when her eyes were closed.

Eventually she interrupted; asked him what she should do but he shrugged.

"You can only do what you know is right" was all he advised. He suggested some books to read, some other people to talk to and when she left he blessed her, praying she would find some kind of peace.

Now her dreams took a form and a shape. She had a calling. God had saved her to fight for him. But how should she fight? She knew herself too well; she had no illusions about her capabilities. She was unsuited to the contemplative life and was no natural preacher. She was a brilliant doctor, a scientist. How best to use the skills God had given her to serve?

She read voraciously – about good and evil, about the challenges of the poorest countries and the increasing godlessness of the developed world. Her visions changed again and she went back to the books. Good and evil. Everything came back to that. If she couldn't make people good then she would stop them being evil.

She became convinced evil had a real form, tangible, probably genetic and she determined to find it. She took research jobs that helped her search and she wrote and wrote. Little was published and she realised she had become a laughing-stock - a mad scientist - but she didn't care. This wasn't about her, she was just a vessel.

Her work had stalled when Kemp found her. There was no more funding and no one would ever take her proposals seriously so she'd resorted to lab work to raise funds. At first she was wary of him but he persisted and in time Kemp opened her eyes to the true evil, the evil that came from men and women who were not human. He seemed to give her all the answers she had been searching for.

She resigned and took one last trip before she gave her life and work to his crusade. Back in Cornwall she found the place where James had proposed. She threw her engagement ring into the sea and wept for the last time.

Now she could move on. She knew what God wanted.

"The brief is to combat evil in whatever shape we find it."

She had no idea how long she'd been sat in the kitchen, one hand resting on the stake and staring at the photograph. She lifted the stake, examining the grain in the ancient wood, touching the sharpened point and wondering how many vampires' blood had soaked into it. Kemp had told her long ago it wasn't a violent act but a holy one and once the point pierced the skin then the ending was easy. He'd assured her the act needed no real strength and that proved it was right and true. Murder, killing a human, is hard and messy and chaotic but vampires fall into dust with little real effort. She'd asked how many he'd ended but he'd avoided answering. He did that a lot she had come to realise.

She picked up the stake. It weighed heavy in her hand, too heavy and she doubted her ability to use it. But she had to. Her duty was to eradicate this evil from the world.

She stood and realised how much she hurt. She'd been celibate since James and Mitchell had not been gentle with her. Her thighs ached and she was sore; she knew bruises were forming on her shoulders and arms. She suppressed a smile – she'd goaded him to push her to heights of passion she'd never known before and she'd scratched and bitten him in her turn. Then she remembered and the tiny smile faded. He was already healed. Yet one more reminder of what he was.

She took a deep breath. She had to do this – an evil such as Mitchell could not be allowed to continue, to carry on living among humans risking them all. He'd arrived bloodstained, another death on her conscience if not on his. She should have stopped him before. Where might it end? Scores more might die, a bloodbath of innocent humanity just going about their daily routines ignorant of the malevolence that existed alongside them.

She took a tighter hold on the stake and walked across the hall to stand in the doorway to the bedroom. Mitchell still slept and Lucy paused, she still felt his cool hands on her, the copper salt taste of his skin still vivid. Could he really change? He thought so and he seemed desperate to find a new life. Was she was meant to try and redeem him? Help him? No. He'd asked her to save him and she would. He would never stop killing and this was the only way. Maybe God would pity him. Be merciful.

Their clothes were scattered on the floor, the dull red stains on his were dry but she thought she still smelled the blood. Her clothes were tangled with his – the new dress, vertiginous heels and black stockings she'd bought specially without questioning why. They had always been going to end like this despite all her protestations to Kemp. He would be so disappointed in her. But not surprised. He saw her as weak and she needed to redeem herself in his eyes. Show her commitment to their work, that she was still resolute.

She pushed up her sleeves and walked towards the bed. How should she do this? Kemp assured her the stake would slide home with little effort as God would be guiding her hand but she remained to be convinced. What if he woke? He was strong, much stronger than her and she would be trapped at his mercy. He would kill her. At least she would die in the pursuit of her gaol, carrying out God's work. If that was her destiny she would not argue.

She climbed on to the bed, careful not to disturb him and kneeled over him. How ironic – she had looked down at him like this when she gave him pleasure and now she was in the same place about to bring his death. No, not death, she corrected herself. Humans die. Monsters are finished.

She lifted the stake as high as her arms reached, holding it in both hand and gripping it so tightly her knuckles were white. She should do it quickly, with as much force as she could muster and it would be over. Suddenly she felt ridiculous, like something from a bad horror film. Perhaps Kemp had been right and no real force was needed so she lowered the sharp point until it barely touched his chest. Just one more inch.

She couldn't move.

He would wake, she knew he would and she'd realised something worse could happen than he killed her. He'd recruit her, make her like him. Evil. Immortal. Godless.

She threw the stake down and moved to lie beside him. This wasn't failure; just a temporary reprieve. He couldn't live but she had to survive. She had work to do, God's work, and she could not take any risks. She alone would solve the puzzle of genetic evil, exactly what made monsters like Mitchell and the others. She must be alive to succeed.

"Please. Be careful."

His skin was cold and as she laid her head on his chest she felt the gentle rise and fall of the breath he didn't need to take. A body remembering. An echo of humanity that should have given her hope but just reminded her of how far from grace he had fallen.

Tomorrow she would confess her sin and be absolved. She would make sure the evil was ended, that Mitchell could hurt no one else.

Tomorrow she would be clinical and clear, she would continue her work; how to cut out the cancer that would decimate humanity if it were allowed to thrive and spread.

But now, just for one short night she would imagine her work had succeeded. Imagine a future with the man he had the potential to become instead of the monster he was doomed to remain. The monster she was committed to destroy.

Her head rested against his heart but there was no sound and the lack of the steady beat disconcerted her. In a strange way it was a comfort, more so than she would ever be able to admit. James' heart had beaten strongly under her ear but his brave heart had stopped. That James had been taken from her was God's will but who was she to say this creature wasn't also part of God's world? He couldn't be of course, he was damned, but for now she'd dream of a man who couldn't die. Wouldn't leave her.

"I think you underestimate the allure of the devil."

The silence of his heart stopped her from sleeping and she counted the minutes until dawn. She watched him breathe, watched the stubble darken on his face and tried to remember exactly how his cold, dead body felt against her.

Soon it was time to return to her real life.

God and science.

The destruction of evil.