"How foul the night winds doth blow, father" I said as I hung up my threadbare cloak.
The clock in the hallway had just struck three in the morning, and I was returning home after another night of hunting. Father was seated in his armchair by the fireplace. The fire was long dead and only a few still-glowing embers lit the room. He was awake. He was always awake these days it seemed to me. He grunted in reply to my comment, looking up at me expectantly, then turning his face away. But not fast enough. Never fast enough for me to miss the disappointment in his eyes. I was failing him. Nay. I had already failed him. Since I had taken over the vicarage there had been no vampires caught, no burnings, no decapitations. I knew he was frustrated, but I was loath to kill innocent men. I had to be absolutely sure that I had found a real vampire before I led a bloodthirsty mob in its murder.
"We will get them father. I promise we will."
"You are too soft Carlisle. Had I been out there we would have got all of them already!"
He went quiet after that, and seemed to shrink in his chair. As though the very effort of speaking had drawn every ounce of life from his body, leaving the faintest whisper of a human being in there. He needed to take better care of himself. I needed to take better care of him. He sat day and night in his armchair by the fireplace, barely eating enough to sustain him. He'd lost his appetite for everything. It had been months since he'd had any human company other than mine and his nurse's, and I barely counted for we hardly ever spoke, he and I. I never knew what to say to him.
"Tea, father?" I asked, relighting the fire and placing a kettle over it.
He made a non-commital grunt, and I got out a mug for him from the cupboard.
"I had the most interesting interview with Betty Parsings, Harold Parsings' wife, remember him father?"
Silence.
"He gave us a loan to retile the roof three years ago. He was - "
"I remember him." His voice was hoarse from disuse.
"Well, Betty Parsings lost her left arm in a rather interesting fashion I dare say. They had a little girl, Juliana, who was taken like..." I paused.
"Like our Chesleigh," he was sitting up now, a little bit more life flowing into his eyes from somewhere deep inside him.
"Yes. Like our Chesleigh. Her mother was with her. Old Harold was gone into Surrey on business, and the little girl had asked to sleep with her mother. They had a fire burning in a stove in the chamber, no chimneys though, so the window had to be left cracked open for the carbon monoxide, you know? Anyway, in the middle of the night, Mrs. Parsings estimates it was two thirty, she awoke to something ice cold brushing her arm. She saw it father, pale white with eyes as red as coals, she said, and it took the girl and went out the window, but not before biting her, for she screamed. She says it burned like hell's fires. Her arm where it bit her, that is. She screamed as though Lucifer himself had come to get her and the entire household was disturbed and came bursting into her rooms. The lady remembers not much else, she was in agony, see? But the help told me the rest. The groundsman had run into the room with his axe, thinking there to be an intruder, and when he saw the bite and heard her scream that her arm was on fire, he chopped off the appendage right at the shoulder (and everyone was too shocked to even stop him), then asked the maid to run down the street for the doctor. So what do you think, father? Very fascinating, is it not?"
My father's eyes were positively brilliant, and the colour seemed to be flowing back into his cheeks. He did not answer me though, but gave me that expectant look and I knew he wished to hear more.
"I didn't get a chance to speak to the groundsman. I was told that he said something about evil being about and resigned his post. They don't know where he went. Mrs. Parsings is well though, or as well as anyone could expect. The doctor was able to save her life even after that rudimentary amputation. They showed me the arm. It is sitting in the doctor's cabinet on Newham Street. It's rather bizarre how cold it is, ice cold, and hard as a rock. And no signs of rot whatsoever."
"And the child?" My father asked.
"Ah Juliana, yes. That was my primary reason for visiting the Parsings. This morning, well yesterday morning really, I received word from Harold Parsings that his daughter was recently dead and that the family would like me to perform the rites on her before they buried her. They feared for her soul since she had been touched by an unspeakable evil. I saw the corpse. It was stiff and white as chalk and drained of blood. It had bite marks everywhere, as though whatever had killed the child had sought to make sure that every single drop of blood was drained from her. They have, for the sake of their remaining children, kept the matter quite hushed up. We will bury her tomorrow."
"So what do you plan to do Carlisle? You cannot keep taking your time in this matter. These creatures must be destroyed."
"Well father," I said, refilling his mug of tea, "Juliana Parsings is but one of many who have been taken from the area surrounding Newham Street. I have suspected for a while, that the vampires must originate somewhere in that area. Perhaps in the sewers? It seems to me that such evil creatures would not mind living in the filth of London's sewers with the rats and other such pests. This evening, right before sunset we will wait for them to emerge from the underground and when they do, we will destroy them."
He nodded. My father nodded thoughtfully over his hot mug of tea, the steam rising up over his face and clouding up his round spectacles, and I knew he was pleased with what I had told him. I left him there at the fireplace and went up to bed. It would be the last real conversation I would have with him. The next day when I went down, he wasn't in his chair. He had a nurse who came in daily and she told me he was in his bed, finally asleep. I remember smiling at her, the nurse. She had blue eyes like Chesleigh's, like my mother's. I remember nothing else about her. I think she was beautiful. I have no recollection of what her name was, and yet I think I had loved her once. In all likelihood, I would have married her before the year was out. I remember walking out of the door and on to Newham Street to visit my parishioners, the Parsings, and prepare for Juliana's funeral. I never returned home.