TEN
In my dream, I walked past Bertha at her desk just because I could. I had been led around so often in the previous few days that it took me a moment, in my dream, to realise that I should probably try to move. When I knew that I could, I was inspired by my free-movement, and decided to get something that I desperately wanted. Lest my time should run out, or the dream become a nightmare and trap me paralysed in place, I hurried into Bertha's back office and straight up the stairs. I burst through the door to Vincent's bedroom, eager to get a proper look around, but it took my eyes a second to adjust to the gloom. This was the room at the end of the world, completely dark, having been so for years (I don't know how I knew that). The walls here, or what I could see of them as I peered through the darkness, like downstairs, were lined with stacks of tapes. It was actually like a haphazard childish recreation of a video shop. I thought of my own book-lined living space and wondered if these tapes too were rotten. There was a bare mattress on the floor that I nearly tripped over, a comforter strewn across it, and a single pillow. On the white walls, which I went to with my hands outstretched, still unable to see more than a few metres ahead of me in the dark, I made out scribblings and doodles, as if someone had taken a marker and drawn their own posters straight onto the paint. Some type of cave painting, which was apt, because the room felt-very cave-like. I recognised one of the bigger drawings: a huge recreation in black felt-tip of that guy from 'Hellraiser', the one with his face stuck through with needles.
Pushed into the very corner of the room was an old TV set, which crackled to life, casting the room in a morgue-grey light. With the room now illuminated, I could see- although I could have sworn that she wasn't there a moment ago- a young girl with long, unkempt black hair, sitting cross-legged on the mattress. She must have been around thirteen or fourteen. She stared blankly at the TV, watching a small, slender arm on the screen, already criss-crossed with open wounds and scars, be repeatedly opened with a box-cutter. Every so often, the image on the screen would change to something else, but in the dream, I couldn't see these images. They blurred the minute they came up, as if censored, or as if I was looking at them through tears. They meant nothing to me, but I knew, somehow, that the young girl could see them perfectly.
As I stood back, alternating my gaze from the TV screen to the back of her head, she turned to look at me and shrugged. "It can't hurt to pretend," she said, moving her head to motion at the screen. The video on the TV ended, static flaring up. The light from the TV screen caught the eyes of the girl, warping them and turning them a ghostly white. I knew in that instant that she was Vincent. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, to him, but then realised that he wasn't talking to me, but someone right behind me.
I turned, and the man that had been in the room the previous time I had been here in dreams grabbed me, hauled me out and I braced myself to be dragged down the stairs. Instead, in the next instant, we were underwater, and he was shouting something at me, but I couldn't hear it. Auggie's face, pale and bloated, lunged at me, and I screamed, bubbles escaping from my mouth, and swatted him away. Suddenly, something was pulling the both of us out of the water- the dream invading man with the forgettable face. He dropped me on the grass of the golf green, but pulled Auggie to his feet proper. I gasped and spluttered, wanting to thank the man for saving Auggie when I wasn't able to, and I think Auggie had the same idea, because although water spilled from his mouth and he was gagging, he grasped the man by the arms gratefully. I was just getting my own breath back when the man took Auggie's face in his hands and squeezed, and Auggie was gone, vanished into thin air, as if he'd never been there in the first place. There was no other way to describe what I had seen. Auggie was simply gone.
The forgettable man turned to me then, and I panicked, scared he was going to magic me away too. I scrambled to my hands and knees, trying to crawl away, but of course he caught up with me. He flipped me around, kneeling on my stomach, pinning me in place. Caught like a fly, I thrashed against him and tried to shove him off, but he was immovable, a wall of stone. I thought of the last time I was here on the golf green, fighting Vincent. He too had been made of marble, but only for as long as he had a video to shoot. After that, I had been able to shove him over fairly easily. My thoughts came thick and fast, and I wondered if this man too was only invulnerable for the duration of his mission, whatever that may be. He grabbed me in odd places, and it took me a while to realise he was searching my pockets. I thrashed harder as he pulled something out- the piece of paper with the address Bertha had given written on me- and he dropped it. That wasn't what he was searching for, of course. He was searching for-
The image was snatched away from me as I woke jarringly. Garth kneeled on my chest. He was shaking me awake, I think.
I shot up and our noses crunched together.
Garth howled, clutching his face, and swung himself off me, sinking to the floor beside the bed. My eyes were streaming and I held the bridge of my nose in place, but nothing seemed broken. On my lap, above the blanket, was the note paper the man had found in my dream. Panic shot through me, and I reached deep into my jacket pocket, but Vincent's camcorder was still there. The man from my dream hadn't found it. It was still there.
"Were you trying to take it?" I shouted at Garth. Garth just sobbed. I jumped from the bed and towered over him, holding Vincent's camera protectively in my pocket. Garth's nose was pouring with blood. It was early morning, judging from the lighting outside. The floor below us was quiet and the house was eerily still compared to how it had hummed the previous night. All the party-goers had left, I guessed. "Why would you want it?" I asked Garth urgently.
"I can't remember," Garth whimpered. "I was sitting in here with you, and I fell asleep. I was having the worst... it was a bad dream. I wake up and you're headbutting me. Thanks a lot, Prince Charming."
"In my dream, a man was looking for this!" I held up the camera in front of Garth. "He's been looking for it, or something like it, for a while. He was in Vincent's bedroom and he's been there before. He knows things."
"Newmaker," Garth moaned.
"What was your dream?"
Garth was crying suddenly, real tears, and not just from the pain of his broken nose. I felt awkward, and almost wanted to take a step back. I worried that my headbutt had accidentally seriously hurt him, but zealous, and in need of an explanation, I just stood there, willing him to speak up. He withdrew his hands from his face, letting the blood poor freely, and sobbed and sobbed. My hand twitched, and before I knew it, I had reached out to hold onto his shoulder as he shook. "There's more than one way to die," Garth told me through his tears. "He's seen me before. He's offered me... I've done bad things."
"'First Visit'?" I said slowly. "Did you tell Dime to sell that tape to Newmaker?"
"No!" he spat. "God no! I never did. Only, in my dream, I knew Dime had it, and.. I think I led him to it."
I sank down to Garth's level. "How is that possible if it was just a dream?"
Garth laughed sadly. "Do you still think you're dreaming?" he asked.
I tried to get my thoughts straight: Newmaker wanted to destroy parts of Vincent. What better to go with than Vincent's camera. Newmaker, whoever he was (I was forgetting his face even now), could not find or go against Vincent directly for reasons unknown to me, but of this, I was sure. I had dreamed him, Garth had dreamed him, and I was fairly sure Bertha had too. Why all the smoke and mirrors if Newmaker could get exactly what he wanted? My best guess was that he had to enact his goal via proxy, or alternative means. Maybe Newmaker was scared of Vincent, like Dime was. Whatever- Newmaker dealt in dealt in dreams and memories, and stripped things away like a pack of wolves separates the weakest sheep from the heard. He was methodical, I understood that, even though his methods made no sense to me. I got the idea that he wanted the camera now, because he couldn't take it directly from Vincent's grasp. Now that the camera was no longer with Vincent, it was probably the best opportunity he'd had in a long time.
A sudden thunder of footsteps and shouting on the stairs broke my train of thought, and the door was shoved open. The dentists spilled into the room, the one with the pliers out in the front, the knives at the back, their weapons bared. They caught sight of me kneeling next to Garth, bloody, on the floor, and paused.
"Everyone's gone," Garth said with a bark of a laugh. "It's only us."
Plier-dentist cursed loudly, and I settled next to Garth in what I hoped was a protective stance. And then I had an idea, so ludicrous, so stupid, that maybe it was bound to work.
"But I know where there are real vampires," I said. Everyone stared at me. I continued slowly. "We're meant to be meeting them later today, but... we've been scared for a while. This guy- he's a real monster. He gives vamps a bad name. We can't do anything about him, but you could."
Plier-dentist raised himself to full height. His hand shook with what I could only imagine was the fury of the righteous, or maybe the insane. "He's drank before?"
I looked at Garth, who was staring at me without a clue in the world. "Many, many times," I said.
The pliers were thrust into my face. Even I could see the way the sharp of them gleamed. They may not have been after my teeth, but they could still do damage. "You'll take us to him," the dentist threatened. I nodded. "Where will he be?"
I went to stand, slowly. He regarded me warily and kept the pair of pliers level with my face. I felt backwards, not taking my eyes off him, letting my fingers creep over the bed until they found the note paper. The look of understanding on Garth's face was so thunderous and sudden that I thought for sure that the dentists would know that something was wrong, but their eyes were trained on me. I held the note out to the dentist: "We're meeting him here," I said.
Plier-dentist glanced at the note, passed it back to me, and then walked out of the room, giving his colleagues a quick glance, issuing orders without a single word. The knives came forward and hauled me and Garth to our feet. We went without complaint as we were dragged out of the house and up the street to a parked car, a cheap silver thing. "He'll drive," plier-dentist said, pointing to me with one hand, and unlocking the car door with the other.
"I can't drive- I don't know how," I said.
"I can drive," Garth muttered, and with a gesture from plier-dentist, the knife pushed him forward. Garth was slid into the front seat. Pliers sat opposite him. The knife dentists sat either side of me, in the back. I passed the note forward, and Garth started the car.
The drive would have been a silent one, were it not for the fervent mumbling of plier-dentist. It was like no prayer I'd ever heard, and I think it was partly made up. It seemed, however, to impress the knife-dentists, who bowed their heads solemnly in the back. Garth was right, these people were insane, chasing after things bigger than they could understand in the effort to feel less small. I was beginning to have serious doubts, and glanced up at Garth, who met my eye in the rear-view mirror. He looked at me meaningfully, reassuringly, and I sat back in my seat. Garth had one hand on the wheel, and the other pinched at the bridge of his nose, which was still bleeding in plenty. He was already starting to develop great purple rings of bruising around his eyes. It must have been a lucky shot on my part, as my the pain in my nose was minor.
After forty minutes of driving, Garth pulled up outside an old train yard. The fence was padlocked. "It's in here," he said, his voice stuffy. This was the part in books, I thought, when we would be turned on and accused of leading them into a trap. Plier-dentist had read no such books, and nodded.
"How will we get in?" the knife-dentist to my right said nervously. I gave him a look: "Have you never broken into some place?" I asked.
Plier-dentist told Garth to go and unlock the gate, and then he pointed at me. "If you run, we'll gut him before you get more than fifty metres. When you're a hundred metres away, you'll still hear him screaming. Do you understand?"
"Please don't run," I said to Garth bleakly as he got out of the car. Through the windshield, we watched Garth stumble up to the chain-link fence and take the padlock in both hands. With a sound of screaming metal, he wrenched, and the chains snapped. The gate nearly came off at the hinges. It swung open wildly. Garth came back to the car.
"This shirt's ruined," he said to me quietly as blood poured freely from his nose again. "Look at it."
"Enough," Plier-dentist interrupted. The car was brought forward. Garth was careful on the uneven ground for someone that was steering one-handed. He moved us slowly to avoid pieces of debris that looked in on us from either side, and pulled into a clearing, parking parallel to an old, gutted train carriage that looked as if it had been set on fire.
"He'll only be here when it gets dark," Garth explained.
"Then we wait," Plier-dentist said. One of the knives sagged.
And so, for hours, we sat in silence. Garth pressed his head against the car window and fell into a fevered light sleep, ignoring the prayer that started up at random and seemingly ended whenever Plier-dentist lost his train of thought. Garth's nose, which was starting to give me considerable worry now, was bleeding even in his sleep, and if I concentrated hard enough, I could hear the patter of blood droplets hitting leather underneath the prayer of Plier-dentist.
"How did you meet him?" asked the knife to the right of me. "How do you even get mixed up in something like this?"
"Through a friend," I said quietly. "How did you get into all this?"
"Through a friend," he replied.
The knife to my left piped up. "We're not friends, we're brothers. We grew up together from weeds. We have no oath but to each other, against people like you."
"People like me?" I muttered, "I'm just normal."
The knife on the right laughed incredulously: "Normal? Have you looked at yourself? You're fucking scary, man."
I didn't have time to process this- Plier-dentist hushed us loudly, waking up Garth, who moaned as he pawed around in the quickly dimming light and his fingertips found his face. He had gone considerably pale.
"You alright, Garth?" I asked.
"My vision's going in and out," he muttered.
"I said, enough with the talking," Plier-dentist thundered.
"You don't understand," I improvised. "Our friend- if he thinks that you've done that to him, he'll... go crazy! He'll kill you where you stand."
Plier-dentist turned to me. "I'll best the devil with God-willing on my side. I'm not scared of your friend."
"Well- I mean- what if I tell him that this is a trap? He'll know you're coming. I can let him know. He knows things, and... I've seen him kill a hundred men who all thought that God was looking out for them!" I thought for a moment that I might have oversold it, but as it turned out, presenting a mythic villain to doom-heads is what keeps their interest. Plier-dentist bought it, and I could see him savouring the moment, probably imagining telling tales of how he had killed a vampire who had killed one hundred men.
The knife to the right of me looked fearful. "How would you tell him that it's a trap?"
"He'll know. If I want him to know, he'll find out. He can find out anything. He has... dark powers the likes of which you've never seen." Gatth laughed, and disguised it with a cough, which turned into a strangled groan of pain.
"What do you want?" the knife to the left of me asked.
"Let me help him," I said, gesturing to Garth.
"Help him how?"
"He needs to eat."
The knife to my left mimed gagging, and spat. Garth muttered to me, as quietly as he could: "There's no blood on Vincent's camera now. You can't-"
"No, let him feed," Plier-dentist said. "It will remind you, brothers, the type of monster we're going up against. Take in the sickening. Let it strengthen your resolve."
"What are you doing?" Garth muttered, more to himself than to me.
I pulled up a sleeve, and held it out in front of the knife to my right. He looked at my bare arm, and then into my eyes. He was around my age, I realised, even though half his face was covered by that surgical mask. In another life...
He held his knife above my arm, shaking slightly, and with a flash of steel, it had drawn blood. The cut wasn't deep, but I still winced, and cupped my hand around it to stop the blood falling. Shifted forward in my seat, I held the cut out to Garth, who just stared at me. I nudged my arm further forward. Garth took me in for another moment, and slowly sank down. He placed his mouth on my arm, and I grimaced, but he was surprisingly gentle. He suckled the blood as the dentists began with some sort of botched prayer, littered with much spitting from the knives in the back. I heard a click, and saw that Garth's nose had settled back into place. The bruising was beginning to fade from around his eyes. It was the strangest sensation. It didn't hurt, I realised, and then thought that probably, the wrist-slashing wouldn't hurt too much either. I don't know why I thought that, considering the two weren't comparable. Garth pulled away, and wiped his mouth quickly with his shirtsleeve. Half of the dried blood came away from around his nose, too. He really did look much better.
I sat back, and the knives stared at me with disgust. It wasn't too long before they had something new to stare at. As night fell, the sound of distant bells was heard, and we all looked up. The train carriage seemed to be repairing itself before our very eyes. I had to stop myself from leaning forward in interest like the knives did. In the gloom, I could see paint peel up from the underside of the carriage and give its exterior a fresh coat. The rust faded away, and glass panes dripped down from blown-out holes, forming windows. When the carriage became complete, new again, the sound of the bells, which had been getting steadily louder as we watched the carriage undergo its re-invention, suddenly ceased and the night became still. Seeing the carriage suddenly lit up, as spotless as, perhaps, the day it was made, was eerie: I toyed with the idea that the carriage had not changed, but everything around us, and ourselves included, had. The repairs were so seamless, the effect so drastic, that it made more sense to wonder if we had gone back in time. We could see no activity from inside.
Seat-belts clicked as we all went to move from the car. Plier-dentist hurried around to the other side and grabbed Garth, who let himself be thrown back toward me and to the knives. It dawned on me then that Garth, who could bend metal and steel, could probably easily fend these three people off. Last night, when we had gone to talk with the dentists, I guessed that he hadn't wanted the bother of violence if there was another option, or that he hadn't wanted to take a chance that would affect the rest of the vampires at the party. Here, I knew he wasn't fighting back because he was going along with my plan beat for beat. This gave me a confidence boost, so I made my way over to him, dragging the knife-dentist, who had my hand held behind my back, along with me.
"You're not gonna, like, try and kill me now, are you? For the rest of my blood?" I whispered to Garth with humour in my voice.
"Don't be silly," Garth said with a smile.
We were hauled forward toward the carriage, and the dentists began to argue among themselves at the entrance.
"Why'd you offer it?" Garth asked me as the dentists were distracted with their bickering.
"Spare you the pain."
"Vincent would have loved to record that, you know." I knew. It occurred to me now, that half my life was happening off camera, away from Vincent. I felt that he would have been jealous to find that out.
"I will go in with you," Plier-dentist said to me. "Your parasitic friend will stay outside with my brothers."
"Sure," I shrugged.
Before we went in, Plier-dentist removed his surgical mask and took a deep breath. He looked normal, just an average guy. He tucked his pliers into the waistband of his tracksuit pants, and hid the handle beneath his puffer jacket. He gestured wordlessly for me to go first, so I pulled myself up to the cabin door. For a moment, I was worried that it would be locked and that they would know that I had no clue what I was doing- I had none of Vincent's way with locks or Garth's strength- but it opened easily and I went into the warm, holding the door open for Plier-dentist.
We were in a small compartment. I knew that if we were attached to the rest of the train, this area would have led onto the adjoining carriage. The place was spotless save for the strong smell of old paper. I looked back at Plier-dentist, suddenly unsure of what I had gotten myself into, but the look he shot back was enough to make me slide open the door to the carriage proper. No backing out now. What I saw took my breath away: the carriage was lit with old-fashioned candelabras. The seats and compartment dividers had been removed, and replaced with old-fashioned bookcases of beautiful carved wood. On the floor too, there was boxes of books. In some places, there were stacks, and filing cabinets. Dotted amongst the collection on the shelves and on the floor were all manner of loose-leaf papers, small files, and even scrolls. What was most peculiar was that the carriage, which had seemed about twenty-five metres in length when looking at it from the outside, now seemed to stretch on further than what I could see with my eyes. One long narrow road and a faded carpet, with bookshelves at regular intervals, going on and on until, quite possibly, the end of time. Plier-dentist was similarly disposed: slack-jawed and staring in wonderment. As we stood there like a pair of clueless idiots, a woman with white streaks in her hair, wearing a long overcoat, entered the compartment behind us. For a moment, before she closed the door behind her, I could see that beyond the open doorway, the trainyard had vanished. It was instead replaced with a darkened open field, a muddy path leading straight to the door. The woman was wearing mud-caked wellies. Plier-dentist and I still had flecks of snow on our shoes. The woman coughed politely, and I pulled Plier-dentist, who was still staring down the carriage in awe, out of the way so that she could pass.
Plier-dentist snapped to action, and we followed her, walking past bookshelves that it was almost killing me not to browse. "What does your friend look like?" Pliers asked me as we travelled down the path at a steady pace. His voice, which I could tell he was struggling to control, was small and breathless.
"He looks... normal, basic. He's an older man- I think. Maybe he wears glasses?"
"That's awfully vague," Pliers snapped.
"I'll know him when I see him," I reassured. "Listen, we should be natural- otherwise he'll know that something is up, obviously. Let's look around!" To be honest, I was aching to explore the library, and I just hoped Plier-dentist wouldn't mistake my burning curiosity for the intention to wheedle out of his grasp, or set him up.
He looked around quickly, and seeing no one, grasped me by the arm: "Never go more than three shelves away from me. I want you in my sight at all times. If you see him, you're not to approach. Come straight to me. By the light of God, there will be bloodshed tonight- play your cards right and it won't be yours."
"Sure," I muttered, already moving away to the closest shelf. There were books here that I'd never even heard of. Manuscripts too, unbound by cover. A filing cabinet that I came across, under the watchful eye of Plier-dentist, who I could feel glaring at me from two stacks away, contained nothing but love letters. I could have cried; I was so amazed. Plier-dentist coughed loudly as I moved further away from him, tugging the leash. I sighed, and returned my focus to Newmaker. Still, it seemed there were miles of shelves left that he could be hiding behind.
We continued down the carriage methodically, him feigning interest, me actually interested. Every several shelf, I realised, there was a desk, with a bell. I couldn't figure out the way the books were arranged, but there was something to admire at every interval, so this didn't bother me. After fifteen minutes of walking, and pausing, we came to the end of the carriage, and a compartment like the one we had come in through. Plier-dentist stared at me, white-faced and furious. We had seen no one, save for the woman in the overcoat and wellies. I shrugged, and we made our way back down the carriage. Half way through, Plier-dentist gave me the fright of my life by clapping a hand on my shoulder as I looked over a book of prose poetry from an author long dead. Pliers pointed out a man a few stacks away, but this man had long-hair, and was a bit younger, and I was sure it wasn't Newmaker, so I shook my head. We made our way back to our entrance.
After three trips up and down the carriage, I was starting to feel on edge- I knew Pliers was the same. This clearly wasn't working. Newmaker wasn't here, wasn't coming, and I needed rid of Plier-dentist and fast before he realised that I was full of shit. When we came to one section, close to a desk, I noted books about vampires. Not just fictional novels- I spied an old, battered copy of Dracula- but books that seemed to be medical journals. The spine of one thin book read: The Vampire Hunter's Almanac. I pulled it out. The inside of the cover was defaced with schoolboy graffiti. Sparing a glance over at Plier-dentist, who was bug-eyed and staring blankly at a bookcase, I surged forward, and, before he could stop me, pressed the bell on the desk. A light ting reverberated through the carriage. Plier-dentist looked up in shock. I shrugged at him, trying to keep my composure. A middle-aged man hurried up seemingly from nowhere, one we hadn't seen in the carriage thus far. Plier-dentist went to move forward, but I shook my head- not the man we were looking for. The man stood behind the desk. He had frayed, greying hair- half of his face had a fake, plastic-ish look to it. Perhaps it was some sort of prosthetic, belnded in with the flesh of his face with make-up and glue. When he spoke politely, half of his face, the latex half, didn't move: "Help you?" he asked.
I cleared my throat. "Uh, yeah. I wanted to see about this," I said, handing over The Vampire Hunter's Almanac. Half of the librarian's face curled distastefully, and I knew in that instant that he would be on my side. The plan to sick the doom-heads on Newmaker was not feasible. Newmaker wasn't here: why had I assumed that he would be? I didn't even know if he had got a good look at the address not in the dream, I didn't even know if he could appear outside of dreams. Time to shake off the dead-weight of the doom-heads.
"Oh, it's not for me. It's for my friend. There." I deliberately shoved my head back in the direction of Plier-dentist and put emphasis on my words, hoping the librarian would catch my drift. I put every ounce of pleading that I could into my eyes. The librarian picked up the book and looked over my shoulder thoughtfully, to where Plier-dentist cowered behind a shelf, probably filled with religious indignation. The librarian appeared to only have one good eye- the other one was clearly glass- but I hoped he could see the surgical mask that sat loose around Pliers's neck."
"I see," the librarian said slowly. He placed the book down and came from around the desk, heading over to Plier-dentist. "Sir!" he called, "Excuse me, Sir!" Before the librarian could even get close, Plier-dentist had taken off and was running back through the stacks toward the exit. So much for his boasts of bravery. The librarian sighed and took off after him in a light jog. I also followed. Plier-dentist reached the exit compartment, and began to pull at the door hurriedly, looking back at us in panic. The door wouldn't budge. The librarian flicked his hand casually and the door came open with Pliers' next pull. He was so adamant to get out, however, that when he leapt through the doorway, he didn't see, like I did, that it led to a coastal scene. We were somehow on cliffs, overlooking a beach which foamed and sprayed in the night. Plier-dentist hit the rocks and rolled, looking astounded at his surroundings. He turned to us in shock, but the librarian was already shutting the door behind him.
"There's two more," I said quickly. "Friends of his, in the train yard."
The librarian huffed and waved his hand casually in front of the door. When he opened it next, we were at the train yard. I poked my head around the door and spotted the knives, who were holding onto Garth's arms like their lives depended on it. "Your brother!" I yelled. "Come quick, he's hurt bad!" The knives dropped Garth and barrelled through the door. They had only been inside the compartment for a manner of seconds before the librarian had shut them in, gestured, and flung open the door again to reveal the sea-side view. The knives shared a look of astonishment, but then caught sight of Plier-dentist, who was whirling around in the storm outside, trying to figure out where he was. The knives ran outside to join him, and he opened his mouth to yell a command, pointing back at us. The door, however, was already closing.
The librarian turned to me and said without hurry. "I'll block that entrance off. We rarely get patronage from that way anyway." He began to walk away, and I had the overwhelming urge to trail after him, giving my gratitude to this stranger who had helped me. He didn't seem like the sort, though, so I opened the door for Garth, who hauled himself up into the carriage.
"Oh, interesting," Garth said casually while looking around. "Are we still looking for Newmaker?"
"He's not here, I don't think."
"It's a big place, though."
"We've been walking up and down for ages. We could ask the librarian if he's seen anyone, though?"
Garth nodded. "I'll do that." He went to walk away and I grabbed his arm quickly.
"Wait. If, like, he is here, what do we do? We've sent the dentists away."
Garth looked like he didn't want to tell me what he was really thinking. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, don't you worry," he said unconvincingly.
We both walked through the library. Garth paused at the first desk he came to and rang the bell. I walked further along the stacks, stopping to study things idly. I wasn't all too worried because I completely trusted Garth, and what's more, I was seriously starting to doubt my certainty that Newmaker, whoever he was, would even be here in the first place. What would I even do if he was? My initial plan had so many holes that now, it was better to just discard it entirely, and hope that we could get out of here soon. Perhaps Garth could give me a lift home again?
Garth came over, shaking his head. I gave the librarian a thankful look, one that I hoped conveyed to him that I wanted to come back, and soon, to actually browse, hopefully under less confusing circumstancese.Garth and I shuffled back into the train yard, into the cold.
"They left their keys in the ignition," Garth said, heading over to the dentist's car. Before he got more than three paces, however, the headlights came on, bright and sudden. Garth shielded his eyes. I didn't have to, was further back, and couldn't make out who was behind the wheel. The engine growled to life with a sinister prowess, and before either me or Garth could make a move, the car jolted forward. It crashed into Garth with a sickening thud, grinding him under the front wheel, and then the back. It span round, and stopped, the engine still running, and I dove away, ran for the cover of the library. A figure, black as the night and calm with a silent fury stopped me, held me in place. I recognised the figure in an instant as Vincent.
He pulled me in close, his gaze burning holes in the car. I could sense the driver, whoever he was, also appraising the scene. He seemingly decided that he didn't want to go toe to toe with Vincent, and took the car around at an alarming pace, tailing out of the trainyard and disappearing into the night.
Vincent and I, without a word between us, ran over to Garth, mangled on the ground. His skull was oddly squashed in some places. His chest looked caved in, and one of his collarbones had poked through the skin. He fumbled blindly for us, eyelashes caked in blood, holding up a hand that ended in fingers bent backwards. All over scraped. Vincent withdrew from his satchel, with ease, a box cutter, and shed his long, black coat. He looked a lot smaller without it. He rolled up a sleeve to show an arm covered in scar tissue, and before I could protest, had ran the blade across it deeply. He held the arm to Garth's mouth, but Garth couldn't move. I propped his head up. The neck moved far too easily, and I feared it was broken. I had always heard that you're not meant to move people with suspected spinal injuries, and worried (when Garth gave a burbled gasp) that I was killing him, but then Garth's lips found Vincent's arm and he began to drink deeply.
Vincent sat back on his haunches, and I plopped into a sitting position, manoeuvring Garth's head into my lap. I heard sickening snaps and pops as bones realigned and mended themselves, and had to look away. Garth took his mouth from Vincent's arm, trembling all over, and I found Garth's newly-fixed hand and held it tight. He moaned and sobbed as his collarbone withdrew itself from where it had poked out. Something caught in my throat to watch it: what good was immortality if to achieve it, you had to go through this. The healing seemed to slow as Garth grit his teeth and began to cry, his tears cutting lines through the blood on his face. He made no effort to move his neck. His face was still ruined. Soundlessly, I gestured to Vincent, who passed me the box cutter. We traded places; Vincent took Garth's hand, and I rolled up my sleeve. The other cut, where Garth had fed before, had since stopped bleeding. It hadn't been deep. The next one would be. I cut another line, parallel to the first, digging deep, and winced. Vincent eyed me, but, fingers shaking, I extended my arm before Garth and he fixed his jaw to the wound
This time, it was painful. We sat for a further minute, and Garth let me go. His whole body gave a heave, and his neck jolted and clicked back into solidity. He cried out and immediately doubled over, clutching Vincent's hand so tight that his knuckles turned white. Vincent whispered something to him, something comforting, I think, but the words were whipped away by the wind. It had just started snowing again. For Garth, the pain seemed to subside. Slowly, he began to stop whimpering. He took deep, rattling breaths, and lay back, staring at the sky. His eyes began to close. Passed out, I presumed. I would be too if I had gone through that. His grip on Vincent's hand slackened, and Vincent let him go.
"Well, haven't you two been having fun," he said to me quietly.