Teeth: Vampire Tales

Vampire Weather by GARTH NIX

“You be home by five, Amos,” said his mother. “I saw Theodore on my way back, and he says it’s going to be vampire weather.”

Amos nodded and fingered the chain of crosses he wore around his neck. Eleven small silver-washed iron crosses, spread two finger widths apart on a leather thong, so they went all the way around. His great-uncle told him once that they’d used to only wear crosses at the front, till a vampire took to biting the backs of people’s necks, like a dog worrying at a rat.

He took his hat from the stand near the door. It was made of heavy black felt, and the rim was wound with silver thread. He looked at his coat and thought about not wearing it, because the day was still warm, even if Theodore said there was going to be a fog later, and Theodore always knew.

“And wear your bracers and coat!” shouted his mother from the kitchen, even though she couldn’t see him.

Amos sighed and slipped on the heavy leather wrist bracers, pulling the straps tight with his teeth. Then he put on his coat. It was even heavier than it looked, because there were silver dollars sewn into the cuffs and shoulders. It was all right in winter, but any other time all that weight of wool and silver was just too hot.

Amos had never even seen a vampire. But he knew they were out there. His own father had narrowly escaped one, before Amos was born. His great-uncle Old Franz had a terrible tangle of white scars across his hand, the mark of the burning pitch that he had desperately flung at a vampire in a vain attempt to save his first wife and oldest daughter.

The minister often spoke of the dangers of vampires, as well as the more insidious spiritual threat of things like the internet, television, and any books that weren’t on the approved list. Apart from the vampires, Amos was quite interested in seeing the dangers the minister talked about, but he didn’t suppose he ever would. Even when he finished school next year, his life wouldn’t change much. He’d just spend more time helping out at the sawmill, though there would also be the prospect of building his own house and taking a wife. He hoped his wife would come from some other community of the faith. He didn’t like the idea of marrying one of the half dozen girls he’d grown up with. But, as with everything, his parents would choose for him, in consultation with the minister and the elders of the chapel.

Amos felt the heat as he stepped off the porch and into the sun. But as he looked up the mountainside, a great white, wet cloud was already beginning to descend. Theodore was right, as usual. Within an hour the village would be blanketed in fog.

But an hour left Amos plenty of time to complete his task. He set off down the road, tipping his hat to Young Franz, who was fixing the shingles on his father’s roof.

“Off to the mailbox?” called out Young Franz, pausing in his hammer strokes, speaking with the ease of long practice past the three nails he held in the corner of his mouth.

“Yes, brother,” answered Amos. Of course he was — it was one of his duties, and he did it every day at almost the same time.

“Get back before the fog closes in,” warned Young Franz. “Theodore says it’s — ”

“Vampire weather,” interrupted Amos. He regretted doing so immediately, even before Young Franz paused and deliberately took the nails out of his mouth and set down his hammer.

“I’m sorry, brother,” blurted out Amos. “Please forgive my incivility.”

Young Franz, who was not only twice as old as Amos but close to twice as heavy, and all of it muscle, looked down at the young man and nodded slowly.

“You be careful, Amos. You sass me again and I’ll birch your backside from here to the hall, with everyone looking on.”

“Yes, brother, I apologize,” said Amos. He kept his head down and eyes downcast. What had he been thinking, to interrupt the toughest and most short-tempered brother in the village?

“Get on with you then,” instructed Young Franz. He kept his eye on Amos but picked up the nails and put them back in his mouth. Every second nail had a silver washer, to stop a vampire breaking in through the roof, just as every chimney was meshed with silver-washed steel.

Amos nodded with relief and started back down the road, faster now. The fog was closer, one arm of it already extending down the ridge, stretching out to curl back around toward the village like it usually did, to eventually join up with the slower body of mist that was coming straight down the slope.

He liked going to the mailbox. It was the closest thing the community had to an interface with the wider world, even if it was only an old diesel drum on a post set back twenty feet from a minor mountain road. Sometimes Amos saw a car go past, impossibly swift compared to the horse buggy he rode in once a month, when they visited with the cousins over in New Hareseth. Once a bus had stopped, and a whole bunch of people had gotten out and tried to take his photograph, and he had almost dropped the mail as he tried to run back and keep his face covered at the same time.

The flag was up on the box, Amos saw as he got closer. That was good, since otherwise he would have to wait for the mail truck to get back out on the main road. Sometimes the postal workers were women, and he wasn’t allowed to see or talk to strange women.

He hurried to the box and carefully unlocked the padlock with the key that he proudly wore on his watch chain, as a visible symbol that while not quite yet a man, he was no longer considered just a boy.

There were only three items inside: a crop catalog from an old firm that guaranteed no devil work with their seeds; and two thick, buff-colored envelopes that Amos knew would be from one of the other communities, somewhere around the world. They all used and reused the same envelopes. The two here might have been a dozen places and come home again.

Amos put the mail in his voluminous outer pocket, shut the lid, and clicked the padlock shut. But with the click, he heard another sound. Right behind him, the crunch of gravel underfoot.

He spun around, looking not ahead but up at the sky. When he saw that the sun was still shining, unobscured by the lowering cloud, he lowered his gaze and saw. a girl.

“Hi,” said the girl. She was about his age, and really pretty, but Amos backed up to the mailbox.

She wore no crosses, and her light sundress showed a bare neck and arms, and even a glimpse of her breasts. Amos gulped as she moved and caught the sun, making the dress transparent, so he could see right through it.

“Hi,” the girl said again, and stepped closer.

Amos raised his bracer-bound wrists to make a cross.

“Get back!” he cried. “I don’t know how you walk in the sun, vampire, but you can’t take me! My faith is strong!”

The girl wrinkled her nose, but she stopped.

“I’m not a vampire,” she said. “I’ve been vaccinated like everyone else. Look.”

She rotated her arm to show the inside of her elbow. There was a tattoo there, some kind of bird thing inside a rectangle, with numbers and letters spelling out a code.

“Vacks. vexination.,” stumbled Amos. “That’s devil’s work. If you’re human, you wear crosses, else the vampires get you.”

“Not since maybe the last twenty years,” said the girl. “But like you said, if I am a vampire, how come I’m out in the sun?”

Amos shook his head. He didn’t know what to do. The girl stood in his path. She was right about the sun, but even though she wasn’t a vampire, she was a girl, an outsider. He shouldn’t be looking at her, or talking to her. But he couldn’t stop looking.

“I don’t have a problem with crosses, either,” said the girl. She took the three steps to Amos and reached over to touch the crosses around his neck, picking them up one by one, almost fondling them with her long, elegant fingers. Amos stopped breathing and tried to think of prayers he couldn’t remember, prayers to quench lust and. sinful stirrings and.

He broke away and ran a few yards toward the village. He would have kept going, but the girl laughed. He stopped and looked back.

“Why’re you laughing?”

She stopped and smiled again.

“Just. men don’t usually run away from me.”

Amos stood a little straighter. She thought he was a man, which was more than the village girls did.

“What’s your name?” asked the girl. “I’m Tangerine.”

“Amos,” said Amos slowly. “My name is Amos.”

Behind the girl, the fog kept coming down, thick and white and damp.

“It’s good to meet you, Amos. Are you from the village up the mountain?”

Amos nodded his head.

“We just moved in along the road,” said Tangerine. “My dad is working at the observatory.”

Amos nodded again. He knew about the observatory. You could see one of its domes from the northern end of the village, though it was actually on the crest of the other mountain, across the valley.

“You’d better get home before the fog blanks the sun,” he said. “It’s vampire weather.”

Tangerine smiled again. She smiled more than anyone Amos had ever known.

“I told you, I’m vaccinated,” she said. “No vampire will bite me. Hey, could I come visit with you?”

Amos shook his head urgently. He couldn’t imagine the punishment he would earn if he came back with an almost naked outsider woman, one who didn’t even wear a cross.

“It’s lonely back home,” said Tangerine. “I mean, no one lives here, and Dad works. There’s just me and my grandmother most of the time.”

The fog was shrouding the tops of the tallest trees across the road. Amos watched it, and even as he spoke, he wondered why he wasn’t already running back up the road to home.

“What about your mother?”

“She’s dead,” said Tangerine. “She died a long while back.”

Amos could smell the fog now, could almost taste the wetness on his tongue. There could be vampires right there, hidden in that vanguard of cloud, close enough to spring out and be on him in seconds. But he still found it difficult to tear himself away.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said, and bolted, calling over his shoulder. “Same time.”

“See you then!” said Tangerine. She waved, and that image stayed in Amos’s head, her standing like that, her raised arm lifting her breasts, that smile on her face, and her bright hair shining, with the cold white fog behind, like a painted background, to make sure she stood out even more.

Amos wasn’t home by five, or even half past, and he just barely beat the main body of the fog that came straight down the mountainside. The home door was shut and barred by the time he got there, so he had to knock on the lesser door, and he got a cracking slap from his mother when she let him in, and when his father finished his bath, he ordered an hour-long penance that left Amos with his knees sore from kneeling and made the words he’d been repeating over and over so meaningless that he felt like they were some other language that he’d once known but had somehow forgotten.

Through it all, he kept thinking of Tangerine, seeing Tangerine, imagining what might happen when he next saw her. and then he’d try to pray harder, to concentrate on those meaningless words, but whatever he did, he couldn’t direct his mind away from those bare arms and legs, the way her unbound hair fell.

Amos slept very badly and earned more punishments before breakfast than he’d had in the past month. Even his father, who favored prayer and penance over any other form of correction, was moved to take off his leather belt, though he only held it as an unspoken threat, while he delivered a homily on attention and obedience.

Finally it was time to get the mail. Amos took no chances that this plum job might be taken from him. If anyone else saw Tangerine, he’d never be allowed to go to the mailbox again. So he put on his bracers, coat, and hat without being asked and went to tell his mother he was going.

She looked at him over her loom but didn’t stop her work, the shuttle clacking backward and forward as she trod the board.

“You be back by five,” she warned. “Theodore says the fog today will be even thicker. It is a shocking month for vampire weather.”

“Yes, Mother,” said Amos. He planned to run to the mailbox as soon as he was out of sight of the village. That would give him a little extra time with Tangerine. If she came. He was already starting to wonder if he might have imagined her.

He also made sure to wave and nod to Young Franz, who was working on the roof of his father’s house again. But as soon as he was around the bend, Amos broke into a run, pounding along the road as if there was a vampire after him. He didn’t notice Young Franz standing on the chimney, watching him run.

Tangerine was at the mailbox, but so was the post truck and a postal worker, a man. He was chatting to Tangerine while he put the letters in the slot, and they were both smiling. Amos scowled and slowed down, but he kept going. Since he’d already talked to a girl, talking to a postman wasn’t going to be any bigger transgression.

They both turned around as he approached. Amos had seen this same postman before, in the distance, but up close he saw details he’d never noticed before. Like the fact that the postman didn’t wear crosses either, and there were no wrist bracers under his uniform coat. It also looked too light to be sewn with silver wire or set with coins.

“Hi,” said Tangerine. She had a different dress on, but it was just as revealing as the one the day before. Amos couldn’t take his eyes off her, and he didn’t notice the postman winking at him.

“Howdy, son,” called the postman. “Good to see you.”

“Brother,” replied Amos stiffly. “We don’t call each other ‘son.’”

“Fair enough, brother,” said the postman. “I guess I’m old enough to be your dad, is why I said son. But I’d better be on my way. Plenty of mail to deliver.”

“And the fog is coming down,” said Amos. He was trying to be friendly, because he didn’t want to look bad in front of Tangerine. But it was difficult.

“Oh, the fog’s no problem,” said the postman. “I’ll drive down out of it soon enough, and the road is good.”

“I meant it is vampire weather,” said Amos.

“Vampire weather?” asked the postman. “I haven’t heard that said since. well, since I was no older than you are now. I doubt there’s a wild vampire left in these parts. With nothing to drink, they just wither away.”

“My great-uncle’s wife and daughter were killed by vampires, not eight years ago,” said Amos hotly.

“But that’s. ” The postman’s voice trailed off, and he looked at Amos more intently, tilting his head as he took in the necklace of crosses and the bracers. “I knew you folk were old-fashioned, but you can’t tell me you’re not vaccinated? That’s against the law!”

“There is no law but the word of the Lord,” said Amos automatically.

“I gotta get going,” said the postman. He wasn’t smiling now. “Miss. uh. Tangerine, you want a lift down to your dad’s?”

“No, thanks, Fred,” said Tangerine. “My grandma’s coming past a bit later, I’ll go back with her.”

“Well, say hello to your dad from me,” said the postman. “Good-bye. brother.”

Amos nodded, just a slight incline that if he’d done it to an older man back home would have gotten him into serious trouble.

“I’ve been waiting for a while,” said Tangerine. She leaned back against the mailbox and tilted her head, so that her hair fell across one of her eyes. “I thought maybe you’d come early.”

“Everything’s got its time,” said Amos gruffly. He took out his key and held it nervously, his mouth weirdly dry. “Uh, I have to. to get the mail. ”

“Oh, sure,” laughed Tangerine. She moved aside, just enough that Amos could lean forward and open the lid. She was so close he almost touched her arm with the back of his hand. He reached past and quickly took out the mail. Just two buff-colored envelopes today.

Tangerine moved behind him as he locked the mailbox, so that just like the day before, she was blocking his way.

“I have to get back,” said Amos. He jerked his thumb at the fog that was once again eddying down the hillside.

“Can’t we just. talk awhile?” asked Tangerine. “I mean, I’m curious about you. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

“What do you mean, like me?” asked Amos.

“Nothing bad!” exclaimed Tangerine. She came closer to him and gave a little tug at the lapel of his coat. Amos took half a step back and almost didn’t hear what she said next, the blood was rushing so in his ears. “I mean, you’re a really good-looking guy, but it was kind of hard to tell at first, with the big hat and the coat and everything. And I never saw so many crosses — ”

“I told you, it’s for. to protect us. against the vampires,” said Amos.

“But you don’t need them,” said Tangerine. “Like Fred said, there’s no wild vampires left. When most everyone got vaccinated, they just died out.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Amos. “People see them, in the fog, through the windows.”

“Have you seen them?” asked Tangerine.

Amos shook his head. He’d looked, but all he ever saw were drifts of fog, occasionally spurred into some strange eddy.

“There you go then,” she said. “Besides, if you did think they were still around, you could get vaccinated, too.”

Amos shook his head.

“But it’s just like getting a shot for polio, or measles,” said Tangerine.

Amos shook his head again. His little sister had died of measles, but everyone said that it was the Lord’s will. Amos had taken the measles, too, at the same time, and he hadn’t died.

“If the Lord wants to take you, then that’s it,” he said. “No amount of vaccinating can stand against that.”

Tangerine sighed.

“I guess you hold to some pretty strong beliefs,” she said. “Do you even get to watch television?”

“Nope,” said Amos. “That’s just a door for the devil, straight into your head.”

“My dad would kind of agree with you on that,” said Tangerine. “Not enough to stop me watching, thank heavens.”

“You watch television?” asked Amos.

“Sure. You could come down and watch it too, sometime. My place is only half a mile along the road.”

She pointed, and Amos suddenly realized that the fog was upon them. Tendrils of cold, wet whiteness were undulating past, weaving together to make a thicker, darker mass.

He looked up the mountain and could no longer see the sun. The two arms of the fog had already joined, and he would be in darkness all the way back to the village.

He must have made a noise, a frightened noise, because Tangerine took his hand.

“It’s only fog,” she said.

“Vampire weather,” whispered Amos. He tried to look everywhere at once, peering past Tangerine, turning his head, then spinning around so that somehow he ended up with Tangerine’s arms around him.

“I can’t get back,” Amos said, but even in the midst of his panic, he was thinking how wonderful it was to have Tangerine’s arms around him, and then out of nowhere her mouth arrived on his and he supposed it was a kiss but it felt more like he’d had the air sucked out of his lungs, but in a good way, it wasn’t something horrible, and he wanted it to happen again but Tangerine tilted her head and then settled her face into his neck, all warm and comfortable.

He patted her back for a little while, something he’d seen his father do once to his mother, before they’d seen that the children had noticed their embrace. Tangerine said something muffled he couldn’t hear. Then she stepped away and disentangled herself, but she was still holding his hands.

“Don’t go back, Amos. Come down to my house. You can stay with me.”

“Stay with you?” mumbled Amos. A great part of him wanted more than anything to always be with this wonderful, amazing girl, but a possibly greater part was simply terrified and wanted him to sprint back up the road and get home as quickly as possible. “I. I can’t. I have to get somewhere safe. ”

A noise interrupted him. Amos flinched, looking wildly around, arms already coming up to make a cross. But Tangerine dragged his arms down and hugged him again.

“It’s just Grandma’s car, silly,” she said.

Amos nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He could see the car now, turning in off the main road. A small white car that sent the fog scurrying away as it pulled up next to the mailbox.

The car’s headlights turned off, and the light inside came on. Amos saw a white-haired old woman in the driver’s seat. She waved and smiled, a tight smile that bore no relation to Tangerine’s open happiness.

Tangerine held Amos’s hands as they watched the little old lady get out of the car. There was something strange about the way the woman moved that Amos couldn’t quite process, how she kind of unbent herself as she rested her hands on the roof, and got taller and taller, maybe seven foot tall, with her arms and legs out of normal human proportion, and then she didn’t look like a little old lady at all.

“Oh, God, Grandma, I can’t do this,” said Tangerine, and all of a sudden Amos’s hands were free and the girl was pushing at his chest, pushing him away. “Run!”

Amos glanced back over his shoulder, only half running, till he saw that the old woman’s mouth was open, and Amos wished it wasn’t, wished he’d never seen that mouth, never met Tangerine, never gotten caught in vampire weather, and he was running like he’d never run before, and screaming at the same time.

The vampire stalked past her granddaughter, who held a necklace of crosses in her hand and wept, a girl crying for her grandmother the vampire, and for a boy she hardly knew.

Amos felt the cold, wet air against his bare neck, missed the jangle of the crosses, and knew that Tangerine had taken his protection when she’d kissed him. He wept, too, tears full as much of the hurt of betrayal as fear, and then something fastened on his coat, and he was borne down to the ground, sliding and screaming, trying to turn onto his back so he could cross his arms, but the vampire was so much stronger, her hands like clamps, gripping him to the bone, keeping him still, and he wet himself as he felt the first touch of those teeth he’d seen on his neck and then —

Then there was a heavy, horrible thumping, cracking sound, like a big tree come down on a house, smashing it to bits. Amos felt suddenly lighter, and with a last surge of desperate energy he rolled over and brought up his bracers to form a cross — and there above him was Young Franz, in full silver-embroidered coat and hat, a bloodstained six-foot silver-tipped stake in his hand. Behind him was Old Franz, and Amos’s father, and all the older brothers, and his mother and the aunts in their silver-thread shawls, argent knives in hand.

Amos sat up, and a bucketful of tainted dust fell down his chest and across his legs. It smelled like sulfur and rotten meat, and the reek of it made Amos turn his head and vomit.

As he did so, his mother came close and raised a lantern near his head. When Amos turned to her, she pushed his head back, so that the light fell clear upon his neck.

“He’s bit,” she said heavily. She looked at Amos’s father, who stared blankly, then held out his hand. Young Franz gave him the bloodied stake.

“Father.,” whispered Amos. He reached up to touch his neck. He could, quite horribly, feel the raised lips of two puncture wounds, but when he looked at his fingers, he could see only a tiny speck of blood.

“It is the will of the Lord,” said his father, words echoed by the somber crowd.

He raised the stake above his head.

Amos let himself fall back to the ground and shut his eyes.

But the stake did not enter his heart. He heard someone screaming, “Stop! Grandma! Stop!” and he opened his eyes again and tilted his head forward.

It was Tangerine shouting. She came running through the crowd of villagers, who parted quickly ahead of her but closed up behind as she faltered and stopped by the mound of ash and smoking flesh that had been her grandmother. She had his necklace of crosses in her left hand and a small golden object in her right.

“Another one,” said Amos’s mother. She raised her knife. “A young one. Ready your stake, Jan.”

“No!” shouted Amos. He twisted himself up and grabbed his father’s leg. “She’s human. Look, she’s holding crosses! She’s a person!”

Tangerine looked up from the remains of her grandmother. Her face was wet with more than fog, and her mouth quivered before she was able to get out a word.

“I–I’ve already called the police! And my dad! You can’t kill Amos!”

Amos’s father looked her up and down, the stake held ready in his hand. Then, without taking his eyes off her, he spoke to his wife.

“She’s holding crosses, sure enough.”

The older woman sniffed.

“This isn’t any of your business, outsider. A vampire’s bit my son, and we must do what must be done.”

“But he can be vaccinated!” sobbed Tangerine. “Within twenty-four hours of a bite, it still works.”

“We don’t hold with vaccination,” answered Amos’s mother. She looked at her husband. “Do it.”

“No!” shrieked Tangerine. She threw herself over Amos as Jan raised the stake. Amos put an arm around her and shut his eyes again.

“I said do it, Jan!”

Amos opened his eyes. His father was looking down at him with an expression that he had only ever seen once before, when Jan had broken his favorite chisel, broken it beyond repair.

“My phone is still connected to the 911 operator,” said Tangerine desperately. “Listen!”

She held up the tiny gold object. There was a distant voice speaking from it.

Jan looked at it for a long, long second. For a moment Amos thought he would throw it away, or crush it beneath his heel, but instead he reached out and took it gingerly between two of his thick fingers, as if it was a bug to crush. But he didn’t. Instead he lifted it to within six inches of his face and spoke slowly and heavily.

“This is Jan Korgrim, from New Rufbah. We need an ambulance for a vampire-bit boy. He’ll be by the mailbox. ”

The voice spoke from the phone, urgently.

“No, the vampire’s dealt with,” said Jan. He looked at Tangerine, and a dark, angry tone crept into his voice. “I reckon it was an old family one, let loose.”

The 911 operator spoke again, but Jan dropped the phone on the ground and left it there, squawking. His wife looked at him with eyes sharper than her silver knife and turned away. The other villagers followed watchfully, lanterns held high to illuminate the fog, stakes and knives still kept ready.

Only Jan remained, looking down at Amos and Tangerine, all tangled together in the dirt.

“Father, I — ”

Jan raised his hand.

“There’s nothing to be said between us, Amos. You’re an outsider now.”

“But Father, I don’t want — ”

Jan turned away and strode quickly up the hill, toward the fuzzy, fog-shrouded lantern light that marked the way home.

Tangerine rolled off Amos and got to her feet. He looked dully up at her and saw that she was weeping uncontrollably, tears streaking her face.

“My name’s not. not really Tangerine,” she sobbed. “It’s Jane.”

Amos shrugged. He didn’t want to know this — he didn’t want to know anything.

“And I’ve got a steady boyfriend.”

Amos just wanted to lie on the ground and die.

“Grandmother wanted me to find someone she could drink. Someone unvaccinated. She was tired of reheated treated plasma. She promised she wouldn’t kill you, but then when I saw her. I saw her go full vampire. I’m sorry, Amos. I’m sorry!”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Amos. “You’d better go, though.”

“Go? I’ll help you down to the road, to meet the ambulance.”

“No,” said Amos. He got up on his knees and then slowly stood, pushing Tangerine. Jane. aside when she tried to help. “I’m not going down to the road.”

“What?”

“There’s a cold lake in a kind of hollow near the peak,” said Amos. He staggered forward a few steps and almost collided with a tree. “The fog sits there, day and night. I’m going to take a rest there. Just for a few days, and then — ”

“But you’ll turn,” exclaimed Jane. She tugged at his arm, trying to drag him downhill. “You’ll be a vampire!”

“I’ll be a vampire,” agreed Amos. He smiled at the thought. “And then I reckon I’ll go home and. despite crosses and silver and everything, I’ll — ”

“No,” said Jane. “No! You don’t want to be a vampire. Grandma. Grandma hated it, she could never see the sun, she could only see daylight through fog. and she was always cold, so cold — ”

“Cold,” agreed Amos. He was cold, too, chilled to his heart. Who needed the sun anyway?

“I’ll help you,” said Jane. “You’ll get better. You can watch television!”

Amos looked at her with dead, unfeeling eyes. He couldn’t even cry for everything he’d lost.

“Help me to the lake,” he muttered as he stumbled into another tree. He couldn’t see properly or work his legs. “That’s not too much to ask, is it, after what you’ve done?”

“No,” whispered Jane. “No. Here, take my arm.”

Amos held on to her arm, though it was hot, so hot he thought it might sizzle his skin. But she held him up as he staggered on, mumbling about drinking the blood of girls with names Jane had never heard of, like Hepzibah and Penninah, and killing someone called Young Franz.

He was so intent on this litany that he barely noticed when they reached the mailbox and Jane sat him down against it.

“What?” he groaned as she lowered him to the ground. “What?”

“Rest a little,” said Jane. “Just for a while.”

She tried to stroke his head, but he flinched away, and she bit back a sob as she saw that her fingers had branded red streaks on the pallid flesh of his forehead.

The ambulance came a few minutes later, accompanied by two police cars. The police spoke to her briefly before driving on up the road to the village. The paramedics gave Amos a sedative and the antivampire shot, then began the transfusion of blood plasma. After a brief conversation with Jane, they gave her a sedative as well and put her on a stretcher next to Amos. She lay there, looking at the unconscious boy, wreathed in the fog that had extended its twining fingers into the back of the ambulance.

One of the paramedics, the older one, looked out the back and took a deep breath before he pulled the door shut.

“Ah, I like a lungful of mountain fog,” he said. “Sometimes you just can’t beat a touch of vampire weather.”