Part Two
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What was that?
Beth's head jerked up and water spattered over the rounded sides of the kettle and drenched her hands and the front of her woollen pullover. She was sure she'd heard something out there.
She peered out the window, her nose almost pressing against the glass. The scene outside was postcard beautiful: a full moon illuminated the silvery blanket of snow covering the forest and giving the panorama the sweetness of a fairytale.
Hmmph, Beth thought, what happened to that camper out there was no fairy tale.
She scanned the vista again, satisfied that the only thing moving out there was the wind in the branches. As she lowered her eyes to the tap once more, she failed to notice the one shadow moving opposite to the breeze, the one advancing in small, stealthy increments along the side of the chalet and inching steadily toward the locked and bolted front door.
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Mick rounded the last turn and shielded his eyes from the bright lights shining from the poles surrounding the chair lift. God in heaven! The slope was deserted, empty lift chairs already beginning to ice over as they swayed on the cable heading up the mountain above.
The chair lift had been locked down for the night. Mick plunged into despair. There was no possible way he could get to Beth in time now!
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One of the timber steps outside creaked.
Beth's heart stopped. She held her breath, hoping the sound wouldn't be repeated. After all, lumber swelled and shrank according to the weather conditions, didn't it? No need to panic. It really could be just as simple as that. Another of the steps groaned, and then another.
Beth's blood ran cold. All of a sudden the sturdy and luxurious log cabin felt like the house of sticks in The Three Little Pigs and someone or something was out there climbing each of the steps that lead right up to the cabin's front door.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Oh, God! And that something had just begun to pound violently against the cabin's thick, wooden door.
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Mick's head jerked around as a dull metallic thunk sounded from behind him. Fifty metres away an old man stepped down from the Toyota Land Cruiser parked adjacent to the tiny staff cabin that provided amenities for the lift operator. He began to tie down the tarpaulin on the trailer attached behind.
"Hey," Mick yelled, "Hey."
The old man tightened the last of the loose cords, waved and climbed back up into the cruiser's cabin. The engine started and as he pulled away the trailer swung into line behind the truck. At that moment, a shadow detached itself from the darkened forest, swiped a razored claw against the side of the trailer and slid with unusual grace into the woodpile beneath the now loose tarpaulin.
The truck pulled up beside him.
"You alright, there buddy? Lift's closed for the night. Wherever you're from, you'd better come with me."
Mick sighed with relief and pushed on the release at the back of his skis. Even the few seconds it took to remove his skis and lay them on the back seat of the Land Cruiser filled him with dread.
By his reckoning, the beast must already be at Beth's door.
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Beth started to shake, fear paralysing her so completely that she couldn't even open her mouth to scream. What was she to do? Mick had said she was totally safe but then again, he'd also forbidden her to open the door to anyone but him.
Where was he?
If that was the werewolf out there, then, what had happened to Mick? And if Mick was incapacitated then…. Then that meant she was on her own. It was the thought she needed to galvanise herself into action.
She ran to the camper's backpack, grabbed a handful of metal darts and loaded the contraption with shaking hands.
The pounding stopped and there was a brief, terrifying moment of silence. Then a woman's voice called, "Let me in!"
Beth had a horrible moment of panic, all those horror movies she'd loved as a teenager coming back to whisper in her ear that the thing out there was an imposter and this just a deadly trick meant to make her let it in.
The voice called out again, "Come on, it's me, Simone. Let me in, it's freezing out here."
No! Beth shook her head. That was no werewolf. It definitely sounded like Simone, and her own lilly-livered dithering in here was wasting precious time. Simone would have no idea of the danger she was in. She was out there all alone and the front stoop had been lit up like a landing strip since Mick had left.
Beth's fingers flexed and adrenaline began to pour through her system. She lay the mini cross-bow down, sprinted to the door and pulled back the bolts with trembling hands.
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The werewolf watched from the shadows as a car pulled up beside the cabin and a female creature stepped out, pulling her jacket close around her. A sharp pang of hunger rumbled deep within its belly despite it already having fed a little earlier. The woman would have to pass close by its position in the shadows beside the porch and it crouched down, readying itself to leap. Her scent wafted to it on the breeze and it shook its head, as if a cloud of gnats were worrying at it. Something in its head hurt.
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They'd been making such good time up the winding mountain road that Mick rested his head against the seat for a moment. A vision of the day before he and Beth had left L.A. swam to mind.
"Merry Christmas, Mick," Josef said.
Mick glanced at the set of keys in his palm. "Are you sure? I mean, the place… the time… This has always been kind of special, hasn't it? What do you call it? Your' annual retreat of solitude and spiritual renewal'?"
The height of Mick's eyebrows let Josef know exactly what he thought of that.
"Could something that pompous really have come from me?," Josef said with a grin. "Just enjoy it. Besides, this is the worst time of year to be on the mountain. All those families, the children -," he made a sound of repugnance. "Those snack packs on snowboards get more dangerous every year."
"So, who is she?," Mick asked, his eyebrow raised sceptically.
"I'm hurt that you'd question my generosity this way, Mick."
Mick raised both eyebrows.
Josef's sigh sounded a little piqued. "A very old and very dear friend, if you must know."
"One with 'benefits', no doubt."
Josef shrugged. "There is that."
"Okay, Josef. Just don't let Beth find out. She kind of likes Simone."
"Simone. Yes. It would be best if she didn't know about this little extra-curricular interlude. Should we pinky swear?"
Mick snorted. He closed his fingers around the keys to Josef's mountain cabin and whistled as he walked out of the older vampire's office, imagining the surprise and excitement on Beth's face as he whisked her away for their first Christmas holiday together - a holiday they'd never forget.
It was a holiday they'd never forget all right. Mick jolted back to the present with a bump.
"Whoa - ." The old man stepped on the brake and the cruiser slid sideways for a second before coming to a halt. "What's going on here?"
Ahead of them, the road was bathed in an eerie, undulating red glow, as if the entire area was soaked in blood. An ambulance had slewed across the road at an awkward angle, its light still flashing. All of its doors were wide open.
The ambulance was empty.
Mick stared at the vehicle with a worried frown. The only ambulance on the mountain that night had been the one he and Beth had alerted, the one that had removed the werewolf's victim from the woods behind their cabin.
"Stay here," Mick said to the old man.
He slid out of the car and headed toward the ambulance, his ski boots crunching loudly against the ice in the still night air. The smell of blood assaulted his nostrils as soon as he was within reach of the vehicle, but no blood was anywhere to be seen on the road or on the leather upholstery. He craned his neck searching for the mutilated body he knew must be strapped somewhere in the back.
The body was gone, but in its place were the sharp, febrile tang of a vampire in distress and the heavy, musky stench of a newly turned werewolf.
The savaged camper had been a vampire! That explained the lack of camping equipment.
The heavy, werewolf stench at the site of the attack had obviously masked the scent and the victim's lack of heartbeat had only served to confirm his 'death'. But - ? Mick had never heard of a vampire being attacked by a werewolf before. The two peak predators tended to avoid one another whenever possible. Could a vampire also be a werewolf? Mick glanced around at the empty ambulance once more, noting the significance of the lack of both ambulance officers and the lack of blood. On balance, he'd guess that it was possible. He supposed that if mauled, a vampire's rapid metabolism could not only heal the wounds, but would also mean that no incubation period was necessary for the werewolf infection to take hold. A bitten vampire would turn almost immediately. It would mean that the dead camper and the second werewolf on the mountain were one and the same, and that meant…
That meant that the beast coming for Beth was a savage and unpredictable hybrid!
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Beth took a deep breath and flung the door wide. A slender woman in sleek winter jacket turned and looked her up and down.
"Simone!"
"Beth?"
Beth pulled the other girl inside and bolted the door.
Simone did not look pleased. "What are you doing here?," she asked rudely. "Where's Josef?"
"How close is your car?," Beth panted, going from window to window, peering out into the darkness. She didn't care what Mick said; she was well and truly spooked. Every instinct was screaming at her to get off this mountain, but she couldn't. Mick was still out there. At least she might be able to get Simone to safety.
"What do you mean? Where the hell is Josef?" Simone's eyes darted angrily around the living room.
"Your car," Beth insisted, "where is it?"
"Right outside," Simone said, sounding as cross as she looked. A confused frown crossed her face when she saw the cross-bow and she put her hand on the victim's backpack. "Josef doesn't hunt. And since when does Josef camp? Who else is here?"
If the situation had not been so serious, Beth would have laughed. Simone looked so suspicious it was clear that she thought Beth must be having an illicit affair, either with Josef or some other mystery man.
"I'll explain in a second," Beth said, nodding in the direction of the poor mans luggage, "As for Josef, apparently he's in Switzerland on business. He said Mick and I could use the cabin seeing as he was going to be gone for a while."
Simone's mouth set into a thin, ugly line. "He told me he was coming up here to be alone. He comes here to be alone every Christmas. Not you, not anyone, Simone, he said. Total solitude, he said. The only time his soul had to breathe, yada, yada, yada."
"That's our Mr Lucky," Beth said with grim humour. Simone looked confused. It was time Beth told her. "The one year he didn't come is the one year he missed the Christmas surprise. There's a werewolf on the loose out there."
A brief look of fury crossed Simone's features. "Bastard," she said, then added,"that is so typical." And then her face crumpled.
As if on cue, a deep, throaty howl sounded from right outside the window.
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