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‘God I hate this fucking airport, you can never see the planes landing; the windows are all on the wrong side. You’d think an airport would have thought of that. Still at least it blocks out some of the light.’

She pulled the strings on her hoody tight, so just her nose and eyes glared out. The bus ride had been long, 5 hours of rain and traffic, but the bag had made it all bearable. Just thinking about what was inside made her shiver in anticipation.

‘I can’t wait to get home’ she thought shifting the weight on her arm and grimacing at the pain. The burn had gone right up to her elbow. She remembered his smiling face as he’d drawn her sleeve up, slowly. Nothing at first and then the searing shooting pain. She hadn’t screamed, she refused to give the arrogant prick the satisfaction. Besides she’d had worse and it would be worth it when she got back. He’d called it a ritual, whining that ‘everything has a price’ or some bollocks, but she wasn’t interested in that shit. It was just another transaction. He got some sort of sick satisfaction and she got...well she got what she needed.

She shook herself from her daydream and wandered over to the only shop open at 5.30am to get a mug of coffee and a bacon sandwich. The bacon as usual just tasted of burnt meat. Shed tried ordering it rare at a coffee shop once, but the girl had just looked at her, rolled her eyes and ignored her.

And now she was getting twitchy. It had been 48 hours already and her body cried out for something fresher. She could smell the contents of the bag, sealed in three layers of airtight bags and a locked case. Her fingers subconsciously clawed at the packaging.

The sun was creeping up slowly. 25 minutes til boarding and then home. But then something caught her eye. ‘And I was being so careful’ she thought. ‘too late to run now anyway, and they won’t try anything here it’s a major airport for Christ sake.’

She looked around. The airport was empty. She could have sworn there were other people waiting but now just empty seats. Every inch of her body was alert, poised, coiled tight. 30 seconds passed. A minute. Maybe more. Then she smelt him. Her throat let out a low growl. She looked for something to hide the bag in and spotted a wheelie bin stuffing the bag inside.

Then He was there at the entrance to the gate area. She looked around but still abnormally empty. The sun was shining across the hallway, but with no windows here she knew it wouldn’t be any help. She could run for it but there was nowhere to run to. He walked towards her. ‘I believe you have something of mine’ he spat. She sighed, lowered her hood and dropped into a crouch. ‘Let’s get this over with she said. ‘God I hate this fucking airport.’

Laura heard it before she saw it, the rusty Ford pick up veering across the carriageway and screeching to a halt in front of her. The front bumper was barely millimeters from her leg, the driver’s wing mirror clipping the wheelie bin she’d balanced her rucksack on. With a grunt she lifted the rucksack and tossed it into the open back of the truck. The passenger door flung open ‘Hurry up’ shouted Amy from the driver's seat, ‘everyone’s waiting for us.’

Laura climbed into the cab. ‘Cheers, sis’ she said, ‘Merry Christmas.’

‘Merry Christmas indeed’ Amy looked over and frowned at her sister ‘Because nothing says Happy Holidays more than a 6am airport run.’ A trail of horns blasted as Amy threw the truck across three lanes of traffic to the exit ramp. ‘You look pale’ Amy said, passing a travel mug to her sister. Laura gulped down the hot bitter coffee. ‘So who is ‘everyone’ that’s waiting for us?’

‘The usual crowd, mum, dad, Aunty June, weird cousin Luke, his deadbeat girlfriend, Jimmy and Claire, Uncle Max -’

‘- Fuck, not Uncle Max? Thought he’d popped his clogs years ago.’

Amy shook her head, ‘Nope. Fit as a fiddle. Looks better than ever in fact.’

‘Jesus, he creeped me right out when I was little. You know I thought he was a vampire?’

Amy laughed ‘I know. You were terrified of him. Sobbed every time he came in the room.’

‘To be fair, he was strange.’ Laura suppressed a shudder. ‘I mean how many people do you know who wear a long black cape? And have a coffin in their spare room?’

‘You've always been a drama queen.’ Laura took the coffee from her sister and swigged a mouthful. ‘He was a magician. The cape was his costume. And it wasn't a coffin, it was one of those boxes for chopping women in half.’

‘Well you say that, but did you ever see him do magic? I never saw so much as a bunch of flowers pulled from a hat.’ Amy crossed her arms across her chest, fighting back the sense of dread she hadn’t felt since she’d last seen Uncle Max.

‘Maybe he’ll entertain us this trip?’ Amy raised an eyebrow, ‘Saw Aunty June in half maybe, or make grandma levitate? Or ... ‘ she stared at Laura before baring her teeth ‘perhaps he’ll feast on our blood?’ Amy let out a blood curdling scream, increased further by Laura thumping her sisters thigh.

It was a normal crazy family Christmas, and Laura managed to avoid Uncle Max for the first couple of days, busying herself helping mum with the cooking, and playing endless lego battles with her brothers twin boys. By the end of Boxing Day, people had started drifting back to their normal lives, and eventually Laura ended up face to face with Uncle Max, alone in the dining room.

He nodded gravely at her. ‘Laura, how nice to see you. I hear university is going very well.’

Laura nodded, unable to speak.

‘Medicine, I understand’ Uncle Max continued. ‘That must be very … useful … for someone such as yourself.’ He licked his lips, his tongue a livid red that made Laura shudder.

‘What choice did I have?’ she whispered.

Max reached out, and Laura recoiled as he brushed a finger against the small scar at the base of her neck. ‘You healed nicely’ he said, ‘No one would ever know.’

Iseult met Duncan at a Heathrow gift shop as he was buying a present for his girlfriend. It was a tall travel mug shaped as a wheelie bin and he had it up close to his face, flipping the lid roughly in time to his best faux Cockerney, saying to his mate, ‘Sharon, dahl, for you. By the way – you’re binned.’ The two of them in hysterics about it while she slipped out of her bra and popped her two top buttons before stepping from behind the paperbacks.

Duncan was tall and he was blonde. He was rugby buff and rugby lazy, his beautiful face kept pristine by too much time dodging out of tackles. None too bright, and he was quick with chinks, pakis, and poofs, right there in the New Moon, in the actual Chinese restaurant telling her nice place, shame these people get everywhere.

He was perfect.

She I loved him after six weeks, pace accelerated but her patience was wearing thin. He got that look in his eyes, flicker of fear melting into knowing disdain. Course you do, dahl. Only human, ain’t you?

But he did I love her back, that very same night, only it took a trip to the roof, it took her letting him bone her in his clumsy way under the stars she said burned as bright as their love. Her best tennis play grunt of the whole relationship was flat on her back when she finally got forty-seven down in a Times crossword bugging her for weeks – Canis Major.

Two weeks later he I loved with vigour, with almost conviction. Was it her Porche with its top down? Or was it the house in the distance as she rode him; her family’s place, with its forty-seven rooms and that didn’t include the bathrooms or the servant’s quarters.

Not that it mattered.

What mattered was getting him down into the basement where the whole family had gathered.

She said to them in her most winsome Daddy’s Little Princes simper, ‘Oh, I do so love him, so very, very much!’

When her father put the same question to Duncan, he straightened with a smirk and said, ‘Sure.’

Aside whipped the curtain and then Tristen and Belsen muscled him so fast against the wall behind he was still smirking as they put leather straps around his arms. Leather around his ankles too, and leather around his neck, his face slack jawed with horror as Tristan stepped forward with the needle and transfer line.

Iseult stepped in front of Duncan.

She said, ‘There’s his pact. The blood of a true love man will feed this family for a decade, or more.’

Relief washed Duncan’s face, and as he said, ‘But, I don’t-‘ she mashed her lips to his and put hands to his face as she kissed the life from his body. While the crowd aw-ed at true love’s last kiss as she willed these words in her head to somehow cross to his: this is from all those chinks, and pakis and poofs.

Biting back

Balthazar blinked in the bright sunshine as he hauled his heavy suitcase out of Sigisoara’s tiny airport. This was not how it was supposed to be at all - where were the storm clouds? The ominous prickle of static? The eerie stillness? And the howling? Surely there’d be howling...

A car blasting europop zoomed past, full of laughing teenagers, and knocked over a wheelie bin. He frowned.

“Adrian? Ay-dree-uun?!”

It was Sharon, sweating her makeup off in her corset, eyeing the other passengers’ wheeled cases balefully.

“What is it Inclementia?”

“Sorry, uh - Balthazar. This. is. heavy...”

He stared off into the distance.

“It is but six miles to our lodging, Inclementia…” he trailed off seeing her red face and damp armpits. Walking was clearly not an option. “But perchance I can arrange a driver. Wait here.”

Ten minutes later they tumbled out of a battered Uber at the Travelodge. The receptionist signed them in, rolling her eyes at their outfits.

“Vampire festival is July” she told them, taking a bored sip from her ‘I’m BATS about Transylvania’ mug. Balthazar’s mystical expression clouded

“We’re not here for the festival.” he said “we are called hither to this ancient land…” he trailed off expectantly.

“Room 487. No tampons down toilet. No smoking. Lift is broken.”

---

“Balthazar no vampires are going to show up. Can we get some goulash or whatever?”

Inclementia lay on the grave in the twilight, breasts artfully arranged so that, while neither nipple showed, there was every suggestion that both soon would.

“We need to entice them. Maybe if there was blood…?”

“You’re anaemic Adrian and I’m buggered if I’m cutting myself for some undead arsehole.”

They weren’t speaking when they got back to the room. She slammed the door behind them, yelling:

“We’re ridiculous Adrian, we look like twats.”

“People fear what…”

“No-one fears us Adrian, everyone’s laughing because we’re dressed like fucking storybook characters. Vampires aren’t real!”

The look of shock and hurt that spread across his face made her sorry immediately. It was like telling a 6-year-old that Father Christmas had died, but before she could apologise he’d locked himself in the bathroom.

Sitting on the toilet Adrian ignored her apologetic tappings. Maybe she was right; it was time to start living in ‘the real world’. A huge rip had opened up his make-believe reality and the real world seemed to be seeping through no matter what he did.

It was time, he decided standing up, to admit that he would never be a vampire. New start, new Adrian.

Then a shadow moved, lightning fast, in the mirror.

Later, when the police arrived to lead her away from the bloody corpse, no-one believed she hadn’t attacked him herself. They had all heard them fighting, and hadn’t she been dressed like a crazy vampire obsessive? Who else would kill someone like that?

And nobody noticed the faint smile and strangely elongated teeth on Balthazar’s face as he lay motionless in his pool of blood on the bathroom floor.