The centre cannot hold

"But, Benny, I'm so scared!" sniffed the smaller boy, hugging close into Benny's chest. He gave a little choked sob. "I mean, what could I do if he were to attack me? I – I –" He looked up at Benny with big, trusting eyes. "You'd protect me, wouldn't you?"

Benny sighed. "Yes, Rory, of course I'd protect you. That is, if the fact that you're a vampire isn't protection enough. In fact, you're probably more dangerous than this murderer anyway."

Rory brightened at that. "I guess I am."

"Good." Benny pulled a face. "Now, could you get off me now? This is getting kind-of weird, and I don't want the policemen jumping to any strange conclusions when they arrive."

Rory leapt from Benny's side as if he'd been stung. "You don't mean – you – me – that would be – eusrgh!" He paused. "No offense. But –" He shivered. "Yuck."

"None, uh, taken, Rory," said Benny, shooting a concerned look towards Ethan, who was sitting with his back against a nearby tree, having recently come round. Ethan winced. That was not a very hopeful reaction – more reason to keep it secret, he thought.

Benny nodded, and then frowned. Had he heard – no, he couldn't possibly have done. He narrowed his eyes at Ethan, who just looked bewildered. He was about to ask him about it, when the air was split with the sound of sirens.

A moment later, a pair of policemen burst into the clearing.

"Was it you kids that found the body?"

Sarah nodded, and stood up. "Yes. It's over there." She pointed to the other side of the clearing, where the half-exposed body still lay. The younger policeman blanched as they approached it, but the older one, unperturbed, viewed the corpse sadly, before turning back to the four of them.

"Is this exactly how you found it?"

Ethan shook his head, and, getting unsteadily to his feet, took a few steps towards him.

"Are you all right, son?" asked the younger policeman, kindly.

Ethan just nodded, and then told them what happened. "I fell over in the snow, and I landing on something hard. I dug down to see what it was, and then the others helped me try to get him out of the snow. When we realised that he was dead, though, we left him as he was and called you."

"And nothing else happened after that? You didn't go near the body again?"

They shook their heads. The older man nodded, tight lipped. "You did the right thing. Now," he said, gruffly, "if you give Adam your names and addresses, you can go home, and we'll contact you if we need to."

The four of them obliged, and then departed, leaving the two policemen staring after them.

"Good kids," said Adam. "Do you think, though, that there's something going on between the blonde one and the –"

"I couldn't say," said the sergeant. "That would be disgusting," he growled, turning back towards the body.

"Oh." The younger man looked a little uncomfortable. "I thought that it was rather – never mind…" he muttered.


Shivering, Ethan strode down the street. "Is there something going on here?" he said, forcefully. "Four murders in one night? That seems suspicious to me."

Sarah frowned. "Well, yeah, it does to me, too. Suspiciously like serial killer." She looked around, nervously. "I mean, I know that I'm undead and everything, but that's still pretty scary…" She pulled the collar up on her jacket.

"Yeah, but, I mean, shouldn't we investigate?" pressed Ethan, his eyes bright with worry.

"Have we reached the body count limit yet?" asked Rory, dubiously.

The other three stared at him. "What limit?" asked Benny.

Rory shrugged. "I thought that after a certain number of deaths, we had to investigate."

"No!" cried Ethan. "There don't even have to be any deaths! We investigate if there's something weird going on. This is weird."

"Yeah, but we hunt the supernatural, not criminals. This isn't Scooby Doo," argued Benny.

"Yeah," said Rory, airily. "We haven't got a van."

Ethan looked at him sideways. "No…"

"And none of us can drive," continued Rory, brightly, warming to his theme. "I don't because I can fly, Ethan's parents won't let him because they don't think he's mature enough, Benny – well after that incident with your Grandma's car –"

"There's no need to go into that!" insisted Benny, going quite pink.

"- and, then there's Sara, who –"

"Uh, I can drive," said Sarah.

"Oh, yeah…" said Rory. "So it can be like Scooby Doo. All we need is a dog!" He looked at Benny pleadingly. "Can you resurrect another one? Please?"

"We're getting rather off topic here!" put in Ethan, hotly. "I think that these murders are linked to the supernatural."

Seeing their doubtful expressions, he rounded on Rory. "What did they say about the others? Was there anything unusual about them?"

Rory looked down. "Well, uh, I wasn't really paying much attention…"

"Anything – anything at all?" asked Ethan, stopping in front of Rory in a sudden crunch of snow.

"All I remember was that it was thought that they all had their necks broken. In the pictures, they all seemed very pale, but, then, it was very cold last night."

Ethan, who had seemed interested at the paleness, nodded in reluctant agreement. "Maybe." He scowled. "I wish I'd taken a closer look at that body we found." He growled in frustration. "It was right there, and I didn't do anything!"

"You did touch the body, though," pointed out Sarah. "Surely if something spooky was up, you'd have had a vision?"

Ethan looked thoughtful. "I'd have thought so… But, again, he was pretty frozen." With a sudden determination, he started to walk back the way they had come.

"Ethan?" called out Benny. "Where are you going?"

"To look at the body again – I'm sure that we can –"

There was a pressure on his arm, and he was yanked around. "Ethan!" said Sarah, sternly. "This is way out of our depth. We don't want to get mixed up in this – and besides, they're never going to let you near the body. What were you going to say to them: 'Excuse me, officer, while I use my psychic powers'? They'd lock you up."

Ethan hesitated. "But – but –"

"Look, Ethan, I know that you're scared, and so you're funnelling that into trying to find an explanation that you can deal with." Sarah patted his shoulder reassuringly. "But you'd be much better leaving his to the police."

Ethan resisted for a moment, and then gave in. He smiled, abashed. "You're right. I – It's pretty strange when what you can deal with is creating some kind of monster. We should leave it to the police."

Sarah nodded. "Yes. Good. Now, come on, Ethan – let's go home."

She pulled him gently, unresisting, down the lane to where Benny and Rory were anxiously waiting.

Re-joining his friends, Ethan nodded slowly. "I'm sure that the police are handling it just fine."


The two policemen stood over the body. "You know," said the younger man, turning to his grey haired sergeant, "it's a bit hard on you getting a murder on your very first day. And we so rarely have murders. Weird things happen, but they're rarely fatal."

The older man grunted in a non-committal fashion. "I guess I'm just lucky, then."

Covering his distaste, the young policeman bent over the corpse. "Poor guy…" he murmured. Then, something caught his eye.

"Sarge?" he called back. "Take a look at this weird mark on his neck –"

He was suddenly flung around by a grip on his shoulder, and found himself staring into the flashing eyes of his superior.

"Sarge…?" he breathed, terrified. The older man smiled. "No! – no! – n –" The man's last words merged into a scream, which was quickly snuffed out.

Taking a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiping his mouth, the older policeman wandered calmly off into the woods, the bloodless body of his former colleague cooling rapidly in the snow.