Children of the Night
Three shadows in the moonlight were up past their bedtime, out somewhere they shouldn't have been.
"Are you sure this is the place, Gawain?" the girl asked.
"Of course I'm sure," the boy called Gawain said "I'm always sure."
"Oh really, Gaiter?" the other boy scoffed "Just like you're sure that little marble you bring everywhere is lucky?"
Gawain peered into a window so filthy all he could see was his own, slightly annoyed, face staring back at him. He felt around in his pocket for the marble. Still there, he thought, good.
"You really are an insufferable git, Fidget." Gawain stated this as an indisputable fact. He didn't like Aaron Fidget very much, but then again, no one seemed to like Aaron Fidget very much. Seemingly born middle-aged, he was the sort of child who carried a briefcase and wore a bowtie every day, the sort of child who called you 'old chap' and had monogrammed handkerchiefs.
The last of the trio - the girl - rolled her eyes at them, taking stock of their surroundings "I don't know, Gawain. It just looks like a cellar with dirty little windows at the top… it doesn't look very vampirey."
"And what, pray tell," the boy known as Fidget asked "Qualifies as 'vampirey', Virginia?"
"Oh, I don't know. For one, some blood would be nice – doesn't have to be fresh –all sticky and congealed would do just fine," she smiled ghoulishly at the boys. Virginia Prood was tall for an eleven-year-old (taller than Gawain, to his eternal chagrin, as he was two months and three days older than her) and as skinny as a rake. She had long, ratty hair (possibly brown, possibly blonde) that she never brushed, and it was the general consensus at school that she was a bit mental, but she could spit further than anyone Gawain knew and would always lend you her spare pencil if you needed it, which meant she was all right in Gawain's book.
"And then some nice dribbly candles mounted on skulls casting light over the – wossit? Oh yeah, the crypt, to create some ambiance as you'd call it. And then there's the piles of bones, and let's not forget the fresh victims…" she grinned mischievously at their whitening faces "Bet you've never seen a body totally drained of blood, Aaron…"
"Oh come on - You haven't either, Virginia."
"I have!" she said indignantly "They showed us one in school!"
"Doesn't count," Gawain said, still peering into the window "It was just a picture in a one of the science books."
"The problem with you two," the girl sighed "You've no sense of drama."
"What's so fascinating about vampires anyway?" Fidget said after a moment's silence, a slight tremor in his voice "That man from the paper's a vampire, the owner of the coffee shop is a vampire, Doreen Winkings – well, she thinks she's a vampire… there's even a vampire on the Watch now- And none of them even suck blood! Who gives a toss about vampires?"
"No one forced you to come, Fidget." Gawain glared at him, thinking that he could easily push Aaron into the cellar and then run off, but then thought better of it, since (unlike the scholarship students, who you could pretty much throw into the iron maiden without consequence) Fidget had parents who would probably complain to the school about it. He continued, "Besides, like I said before, this is a proper vampire."
"Proper vampire?" Fidget raised his eyebrows sceptically.
"What, like biting people? Baths of blood?" Virginia asked, curious "Sleeping in a coffin? Cheeldren of zee Night? Everything?"
"Everything."
"Wicked!" her eyes lit up with excitement.
A sudden sound stirred the night air behind them.
"What was that?" Gawain turned around quickly, panic rising in him like mercury in a thermometer.
"Look," Virginia indicated to the bird that was now eyeing the trio curiously "One for sorrow, yeah?"
"Ah, an example of Pica Pica of the family Corvidae," Fidget said, slightly superiorly.
Gawain rolled his eyes "Why can't you just say 'magpie', like the rest of us? You're not impressing anyone."
"Philistine."
"Twat."
"Could you two daft hens stop clucking for a second and-" Virginia stopped "Where'd it go?"
The magpie was indeed gone, which was strange, as none of them had seen or heard it flap away.
Everyone was suddenly very aware of heavy breathing behind them.
They turned, very slowly – an exchange of glances confirmed that they were all thinking along the same lines - along the lines of "Oh, bugger."
Behind them two crimson eyes stared out of the inky blackness, accompanied by the most tooth-filled, malicious grin that any of them had ever seen. In the dark, it looked like they were being menaced an evil slice of melon and two demon cherries, which would probably have been funny if it wasn't so terrifying.
A thin girl wearing too much eye make-up stepped into the light, something red glistening on her fangs.
"Boo."
The next few minutes were, quite frankly, a blur. Gawain vaguely remembered taking his lucky marble out of his pocket and throwing it as hard as he could before running full-tilt in the opposite direction. There was, he thought, a definite "bonk" sound, and the next thing he knew the three of them were at the corner of Holofernes and Pleader's Row, catching their breath.
"Nice shot Gawain!" Virginia punched the air excitedly "Right between the eyes! Fifty points!"
"Bloody hell, Gaiter," Fidget said, between gasps for breath "Maybe that thing is lucky after all."
Gawain looked back, into the distance.
"You mean was lucky…" he sighed "It's gone now."
When Lacrimosa de Magpyr regained consciousness, she had lost three potential beverages, but had gained a splitting headache and a small marble. A small marble that seemed to be making good its escape…
She sat up, suddenly aware that something was just a little wrong. She was no expert on the behaviour of small orbs of glass (devoting her time, instead, to the study of ripping wings off butterflies and setting ants on fire using a magnifying glass), but was pretty certain they generally didn't roll uphill.
She looked at it; it seemed to stop and (rather inexplicably) meet her gaze, before starting off again in the same direction.
She fought her inner magpie's desire to follow the shiny object, and turned her mind to the more pressing matter of blood.
++++Author's Note++++
Gawain Gaiter, Virginia Prood and Aaron Fidget are all children who appeared in 'Hogfather':
Gawain was, as I'm sure you'll recall, one of the children Susan was governess to – Aaron Fidget was the obnoxious child that talked to the Hogfather/Death, convinced it was all fake (eight on the outside and forty-five on the inside),
And Virginia was a child who asked for "a Gharstley Omnian Inquisision Torchure Chamber with Wind-up Rack and Nearly Real Blud You Can Use Again"
All have been aged accordingly to show that time has passed between then and now, and I have elaborated on their personalities a tad, just to make the chapter somewhat interesting.
I was inspired by the interaction between The Them in Good Omens.