In The Blood
Chapter 4 - The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get
Sarah had every intention of cramming in as much sightseeing as possible during her stay in London. She didn't want to waste a single second dwelling on her nightmare, even if shaking off the lingering feeling of dread wasn't an easy task. Greenwich had much to offer, and Billie was in her element showing her friend around. The morning and early afternoon, they spent visiting the Cutty Sark and The National Maritime Museum followed by a picnic in the park. After finding a reasonably quiet, picturesque and shaded spot with an amazing view out over the city, they set about enjoying the veritable feast Billie's stepmother had prepared for them. Despite the magnificence of her surroundings, Sarah's thoughts were elsewhere. Her mind had been drawn back to the time measuring instruments they'd seen in the museum. Clocks always made her think of the Goblin King, even regular twelve-hour ones.
"Earth to Sarah," Billie waved her hand in front of her friend's eyes in a bid to regain her attention.
"I'm so sorry," Sarah blushed embarrassed to be caught dwelling on Jareth again, especially after her nightmare and her friend's warning the previous night. She sighed in frustration, "It's just, in some ways I feel like I'm still running and trying to beat the clock. I got my brother back but it didn't feel like the chase was over. And that's because it wasn't, and it isn't."
The breeze seemed to pick up around them, shaking the heavy branches of the trees with their lush summer foliage.
"That's because you keep dancing to the Goblin King's tune," Billie chided and then huffed in anger. "I've been as bad, letting that old creep dictate what I do with my life. I say no more self-imposed curfews. Let's go out tonight, full moon be damned. Didn't you say your mother could get tickets for us to see A Midsummer Night's Dream?" She inquired throwing the dare gauntlet down.
"Yes, mom knows the actress playing the Queen of The Fairies. I'm not sure it would be wise, though." Sarah fidgeted with the crucifix around her neck. She wanted to be rebellious but feared it would be foolish to invite danger.
Billie toyed with the cross at her own throat. "Do you have faith? I've always supposed that if evil exists, it is reasonable to assume its opposite does too," she mused. The death of her mother had made Billie want to believe in an afterlife; a place where they would one day be reunited. At the time, she'd been desperate to cling onto anything that meant her mother wasn't gone forever.
Sarah frowned in contemplation; she supposed she'd always accepted the possibility there might be a god. "Irene used to insist on us going to church on Sundays but we were never what you would call devout. I kinda liked the hymns, but I guess I never thought too deeply about the rest of it." If Goblin Kings from fairy stories turned out to be real then why not an all-powerful deity? Maybe there was hope of salvation.
Both were lost in their own thoughts as they packed the remains of their picnic away.
"We'll be going to university in a few months' time and we must conquer our fears before then," Billie declared bringing the lid of the hamper down with a decisive slam. "There has to be a way to be rid of them for good, like an exorcism or something."
"Let's see what turns up now Jude is on the case," Sarah said, reluctant to dabble in anything that might make their respective situations worse. If only she could call on Hoggle and her other friends from the Labyrinth, she wistfully mused. After the night she bested the Goblin King, they never appeared to her again. She'd tried calling them a few times over the years but had been left gazing at her own lonely reflection in the vanity mirror. If her recent nightmare really had come to pass, they were most likely dead and turning to dust. There was someone who'd come if she called him, but Sarah swore to herself she never would.
When they got back to Billie's house, they found it empty. Her father would still be at the office; he worked as a business lawyer in the city and never got home until late. Sarah's dad was much the same, although he worked in probate law. The blinking light on the answering machine caught their attention, and it turned out Jude Kemp had left them an urgent message.
"There are incidents in life that make one wonder about the nature of coincidences; I experienced such an incident today. Whether by accident or design, I happened to stumble upon an article which may help with your particular problem, Billie. It concerns Doctor John Seward's granddaughter, who mysteriously disappeared when she was a child. No trace of her was ever found and no arrests were made. However, the speculation regarding her possible fate offers some helpful clues for us. Please call me back on my work number as soon as you can."
Billie's excitement at hearing from him again soon got tempered by the information he delivered. The disappearance of Doctor Seward's granddaughter raised disturbing questions and the details of it were sure to bring further distress. But like Jude said, one had to wonder about the synchronicity of events with him stumbling across that particular story without looking for it. Billie managed to catch him in his office while he was finishing up his daily paperwork, and they arranged to meet in a cafe close to the Natural History Museum.
There wasn't any bad news in the world that couldn't be made better by a good cup of tea. Her late mother had always maintained it to be so but Billie wasn't so sure. It didn't soften the blow when her beloved mum died or help ease the subsequent pain of her loss. Still, she picked up the pot and dutifully poured out a steaming brew. "So, what's all this about then?" She questioned as she stirred three sugar lumps into her cup.
Momentarily entranced by her, Jude didn't reply. When her gaze met his, they both blushed and looked away. He proceeded to fumble with a stack of books he'd already placed on the table and almost succeeded in upsetting the milk jug. Sarah bit her lip to suppress a giggle over their awkward attempts to hide their mutual attraction.
Jude cleared his throat and began, "Alice Seward, the daughter of Doctor Seward's youngest son, was a month short of her sixteenth birthday when she went missing in the summer of 1966. The police reports said she set out to walk to her grandmother's house, which was less than a mile from her own home in Chipping Ongar, but she never arrived. In the newspaper article, it speculated about her falling victim to a satanic cult which was said to meet in various places around London, but most notably in nearby Epping Forest."
He placed the article on the table so his companions could read it for themselves.
Stories of satanic rituals taking place in Epping Forest have persisted for years, despite a lack of solid evidence for their existence. One such cult, which was rumoured to gather near the Gypsy Smith memorial stone, was known as the Copii de Ördög; Copii de, meaning 'children of' in Romanian, and Ördög referring to a shape shifting demonic creature from Hungarian mythology. Local people claimed that missing children from the area were taken to the forest to be used as human sacrifices. One woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, said she went to the police with evidence of these ritualistic killings, but no action was taken.
Alice Seward, a fifteen-year-old girl from Chipping Ongar, went missing in June 1966. Her father Albert became aware of the rumours regarding satanic cult activity in Epping Forest. He gathered a search party of local volunteers when the police investigation failed to come up with any leads. Nothing was found, but Albert remained convinced the cult was somehow involved in his daughter's disappearance.
"I haven't had the chance to find any contact details for the Seward family yet, but my friend from the British Library called with the books I requested. I picked one up from the top of the pile and it chanced to fall open on a page with information about the Copii de Ördög." Jude pulled out the book in question. "It looks like the cult is comprised mostly of Romani people. The founder members and their followers were originally scattered across Eastern Europe, and they were associated for generations with the darker factions of the Dracula family." He slid the book across the table. "Coincidental and curious, don't you think, that the newspaper I bought to accompany my morning commute should contain an article mentioning the very same Copii de Ördög?"
Billie leafed through what turned out to be an encyclopaedia of the Dracula family history. There was an illustration of the Count as a young man, striking in appearance with cruel eyes and flowing chestnut hair. He appeared exactly the same way in her dreams when he promised her life eternal, unbound by society, morality and other mortal concerns. The two of them could do what they wanted without restraint or remorse, he vowed. She wasn't even a little bit tempted. When in a benevolent mood, she pitied him because for all the harm he could inflict, he had an air of gloom about him. He possessed a sense of weariness at being pulled back into the world he had not been sorry to leave.
"I know you've told me before that your father doesn't believe the Dracula story and thinks it was all a fabrication, but maybe you should try talking to him again. Your family really need to be on the alert for anything out of the ordinary, like strange people lurking about or unusual activities. I would be happy to speak to them about all of this or back you up. I just want you to be safe." Jude's cheeks coloured slightly as he fumbled with the teapot in an attempt to cover his embarrassment. He had never been gifted when it came to flirting with women and knew this was neither the time nor place to attempt it.
Billie thought him adorable and reached over to cover his hand with her own. "Thank you, I appreciate your concern." She bit back a smirk as he sent the sugar bowl flying in his nervous state. Her father had been brought up to be a practical man; someone who put his faith in numbers, not old stories. Quincey Harker, her great-grandfather, survived the horrors of the trenches during the First World War. After that, no tale of an evil vampire could compete with the atrocities he'd seen man commit against his fellow man. His son, George, Billie's grandfather, had no desire to rake up the past. And David, her father, inherited the family heirlooms but had no particular interest in the Harker's history. The only concession he made to came when he chose a name for his daughter.
Sarah had long since turned her attention to the pile of books on the table, desperate not to feel like the third wheel. She could see no copy of The Labyrinth or anything else relating to her predicament. Internally, she sighed, wishing she had her own personal expert on the Goblin King at her beck and call. Jude seemed to be a nice and genuine guy, but his knowledge and interest were obviously directed elsewhere.
"My friend hasn't had any luck in locating a copy of your play," he said as if reading her mind. "It's the damnedest thing, really, almost as if it's an urban legend. People down the ages have spoken about The Labyrinth, but other than the one you have, there doesn't seem to be another book of its kind in existence. Please, tell me again how it came to be in your possession?"
"I received it as a present for my fifteenth birthday," Sarah recalled. "I assumed my mom sent it because, although there was no card, it was just the kind of thing she would get for me. When I asked her about the book, she couldn't remember buying it. The cover was already worn like it was an old first edition or something." The way it suddenly appeared in her life did seem odd now that she thought about it.
Jude contemplatively tapped at his glasses, "Maybe yours is the only one," he pondered aloud. "You solved the Labyrinth and won your brother back, right?"
Sarah nodded.
"Perhaps the book is a kind of trophy for your victory. When you declared the Goblin King had no power over you, maybe that also meant he had no power to take it back," Jude speculated.
Now that he said it, it seemed an obvious conclusion and one she was ashamed not to have come up with herself. Of course, she'd wondered if she had been somehow specially selected. She'd even hoped for it to be the case because the book had appeared at a time when she'd felt abandoned. Her parents had been too wrapped up in their own lives and scarcely paid her any attention except to scold her or when they felt guilty, at least, that had been her perception. For someone to be interested in her, and a Goblin King no less felt immensely gratifying. Her stepmother had no inkling about her supernatural stalker but often warned her about the dangers of sexual predators. Irene cautioned that they often attempted to ingratiate themselves by making their potential victim feel special. Her lectures on the subject were plentiful, and Sarah had sense enough to recognise Jareth's methods fell into that category. Unfortunately, she kept remembering the sorrowful look in his eyes when she'd rejected him. If she could believe his proclamations were no more than trickery, it would have been so much easier to resist temptation. Her most recent dream suggested he needed something from her and would perish without it. All she had to do was call his name.
Jude offered to go back to Greenwich with them to speak to Billie's family. He lived in Catford, which was on the way, and requested they stop at his bedsit first to pick up a few things. "I had a rummage around last night and found something I'd like to give to you," he said holding the cafe door open for them as they exited. "My great-grandfather was a collector of curios and I happen to have a few of them in my possession. My parents found his weapon collection rather macabre and got rid of most of it. But they failed to appreciate that those instruments weren't amassed for pleasure or for show. All of them had a purpose, allegedly." His innate need to subject everything to scientific rigour meant he could never readily accept the unexplained without resistance, even when the weight of evidence became too heavy to ignore, as in this case.
Thankfully, they managed to avoid the rush hour traffic. Jude animatedly gave Billie directions to his place from the passenger seat. Sarah had volunteered to sit in the back of the compact car, knowing her friend would be grateful for the flirting opportunities. She hunkered down and attempted to hide her smirk. Before long, they arrived outside a Victorian period house which had been converted into bedsits. Jude began profusely apologising for his poor housekeeping skills before they even got a foot inside the door.
A black taxi cab can easily pass through the streets of London without arousing suspicion. No one would think they were purposely being followed. Billie, Sarah and Jude had certainly failed to notice the cab on their tail. It had overtaken them and pulled up on the street a short way ahead of them. When the passenger got out and casually strolled over to the recently parked red Mini Cooper, again, no one paid any attention. It wasn't the nicest of neighbourhoods and sometimes cars got vandalised or stolen.
Jude's bedsit was cramped and obviously the domain of a bachelor. It wasn't offensively dirty, though. Billie keenly scanned over the place for any signs of a girlfriend but could see nothing even remotely feminine lurking there. The shelves on the wall were packed with dusty old books and a few macabre looking animal parts pickled in jars. The girls exchanged a silent look of "yikes", as Jude went to retrieve the item he promised them. He reappeared holding a long, battered wooden knife box.
"Terrible work, that's what my great-grandfather called it," he grimaced recalling the gruesome details in Van Helsing's journal. "The business of dispatching vampires is not for the faint-hearted." He released the rusty clasp and opened the lid. Inside, there were two thin knives with blackened sharp-pointed blades. The handles were carved from bone and stained with age. "These were forged from iron blessed by a Catholic priest who was a good friend of my great-grandfather. Iron is a metal said to be harmful to both vampires and fae. I'm afraid I don't know enough about the Goblin King to be sure it would be effective against him, but it's worth a try. You should both have some means of defending yourselves if the need ever arises."
Jude closed the box and tucked it under his arm as they made their way down the rickety steps from his second-floor bedsit to the door. At first, they were too busy chatting to notice something was amiss. By the time they reached the spot where Billie's car should have been, its absence caused them to stare open-mouthed in bewilderment at the empty space.
"What the... I don't believe this," she cried her beloved brand new Mini Cooper, her eighteenth birthday present, was gone.
Jude apologised profusely as he lamented the crime rate in the area while Sarah hugged her friend to offer what comfort she could.
"Should we call the police?" She inquired unsure of what to do next.
"There's a pay phone inside," Jude offered as he turned to go back into the building.
Billie was too distraught and shocked to think clearly. As they stood on the street pondering their next move, a black taxi cab came around the corner and Sarah recognised the driver from the previous day.
"Fancy seeing you two again," the man smiled. "Do you need a ride somewhere?" He casually inquired.
His accent was hard to place. He had a definite Cockney twang, but he didn't sound born to it. Sarah couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't all he appeared to be. But Billie decided she wanted to go straight home and said she would report the theft of her car from there. Glum-faced and dispirited, the three of them piled into the back of the cab.
The dark-haired driver gave them a sympathetic smile as he released the handbrake, having heard their tale of woe. "Ain't it a sad state of affairs," he lamented. "You can't trust anybody these days."
I meant to say at the start that the titles of each chapter are songs which I feel relate to the content in some way. The ones I've used so far are…
1) Every Breath You Take by The Police
2) Virgin State of Mind by K's Choice
3) Dance With The Devil by Breaking Benjamin
4) The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get by Morrissey
It's not essential to know these songs or anything. But, hopefully, it will add an extra dimension for those who do.
I couldn't find any on-line translation for the Romani Carpathian language, so I decided to just use Romanian. I apologise to any Romani speakers if this seems wrong or out of place, but it was my only option at the time.
I mentioned before that watching Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula inspired me to write this fanfic. However, it is the book I've drawn on for this story. The only thing I'm keeping in mind from the movie as I write this is Gary Oldman as the Count. It's up to you as the reader to picture him how you want. But I like the fact that David Bowie and Gary Oldman were friends in real life. Both of them appeared together in the music video for The Next Day.
Those waiting for Dracula and Jareth to finally appear... Patience is a virtue!
Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed. Please do keep the feedback coming - Mrs P.