The Mansion

"Come to me now. Bring your birthday present."

For Carmilla to ring me during the hours of daylight meant that there was an extreme emergency. She was in danger. Nothing else mattered.

Ten minutes later, I was leaping out of a taxi and running up the drive of the mansion. The "birthday present" was the gun given to me when I became Carmilla's personal assistant. It felt very odd having it in the shoulder holster under my jacket.

The big front door of the mansion was locked. I felt in my pocket for the keys. I'd forgotten them. I rang the bell, which was perhaps a foolish thing to do. Well, it matched everything else I'd been doing recently.

Then I found the keys in one of my jacket pockets. I let myself in. Some bloke I'd never seen before was lying in the large hallway with a thick stick sticking out of his chest. Whatever he'd been before, he was now a dead person.

Doctor Friend, the big bloke who looked like Christopher Lee, was standing at the top of the stairs, glaring at me. I did not like him at all.

"It is one of ours." It was Carmilla's voice, coming from somewhere upstairs. Doctor Friend ran along the upstairs landing and into one of the bedrooms.

Carmilla had said, "Come to me now," so I ran up the stairs. It never occurred to me to remove the gun from its holster. I'd never used one in anger, and only a few times in practice.

A stranger carrying a crossbow came out of one of the bedrooms just as I reached the top of the stairs.

"Show me your teeth," he said. His crossbow was pointed at my chest.

I bared my teeth at him, then in a moment of inappropriate flippancy said, "I can't show you better than that. They're fixed."

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm from next door. I wondered what all the commotion was."

"Get out," he said. "Leave this house and don't come back."

"Okay."

I went down a few steps, then turned. The stranger had ran past the head of the stairs and was looking into the bedroom containing Doctor Friend.

"Show me your teeth," I heard him say.

I ran back up the stairs, pulling the gun from its holster and releasing the safety catch. I stopped and took careful aim at the man's back. He must be wearing body armour. If I shoot him, it will knock him over, that's all. He won't be permanantly hurt.

I fired. I am not a good shot. My eyesight is rubbish. I shot him through the head.

If you are in a serious car crash, if your life is in danger, there's a certain state you can go into. I went into it then. Everything was happening very slowly and I could have been standing outside myself, watching.

The impact of the bullet had carried the man into the bedroom. I stepped forward to where I could see the body. Doctor Friend was down on all fours, drinking from the man's broken head.

I turned and went back onto the landing, face to face with a pretty young woman in combat gear. She was pointing a crossbow at my chest.

"Hello," I said, and gave her a toothy grin.

"You're one of us," she said. "You're one of us and you're working for... them." Her face was twisted with scorn. "How could you?"

I shrugged.

Carmilla slid up behind her, wearing an expression I can only think of as "mad huntress". As the young woman steeled herself to shoot me, Carmilla grabbed her hair, pulled her head to one side, grabbed her collar and ripped her shirt open. Carmilla bit hard into the girl's neck with a sound like something from a butcher's shop.

"Shoot me! Shoot me!" the girl shouted.

I put the safety catch on my gun and put it back in its holster. The girl moaned and buckled at the knees. Only Carmilla's grip kept her upright. Carmilla kept on drinking.

I went downstairs and checked round for any more crossbow-wielding optimists. There were several more bodies lying around, including Ian and Andy, both with crossbow bolts in their chests. I had missed most of the action.

I checked that all the downstairs shutters were still locked shut, then put the telly on and sat down.

After a while, after the sun had set, I heard Doctor Friend say, "Your pet did very well."

Carmilla strolled into the room, looking more beautiful than ever.

"I will take you to your home now, so you can suffer post-traumatic stress disorder in peace."

I nodded. This was an honour.

On the short drive to my house, I said, "Doctor Friend called me your pet."

"It is an acronym. It stands for personal executive, um, trainee."

Carmilla was the bottom scrapings of the deepest bowels of Hell, but she was still a woman, and cared enough about my feelings to lie to me. Which is some consolation.