Chapter 15 – Garlic flavoured showdown
In the kitchen, she prepared her weapons. She filled her pockets with salt, tossing a single pinch over her left shoulder for luck. The garlic, she rubbed all over her hands and both doorways, the one leading into the kitchen from the living room and the one leading outside. Plucking some of the purple blossoms, she rubbed them over her hands, her wrists, stuffing them into her other pocket. Worse comes to worse, she could keep them from following her as she made a run for it. The roses, in a moment of ingenuity, were placed into a hastily tied ponytail she had arranged at the top of her head, secured with an elastic band she pulled from a drawer.
These would be in case if they weren’t awake yet.
This didn’t feel quite as much like a ‘lock-n-load’ sequence as she had been hoping but, lacking in much else and with every second ticking down, she took a deep breath and ventured forwards. On her tiptoes, sending up desperate prayers that the floorboards would not creak, she crept towards the bedroom she had found the coffins in. There was a sense of Déjà vu lingering in the back of Danni’s mind. All of this she remembered so painfully well. But there would be nor using outside. She was positive firm that she would not be the one to run this time. One way or another, someone would be leaving this house.
The darkness had infiltrated into the house, spreading across every corner of every room. Even whilst she had been preparing her weapons, she had kept the lights off. No need to alert the intruders to her presence whilst she still had the element of surprise. She had given it up the night before, foolishly she realised now. She had announced her presence with all the subtly of a drunken elephant, lost her only weapon, let them keep talking, let them into her head. But now, vampires or no, she was prepared. The darkness was thick as tar around her, but her phone gave her everything she needed. The roses under her clothes were a talisman, the garlic like a protective haze. There was something about this house. Something that put her at ease,
She dared not breathe the closer she got, clamping a hand over her mouth as she pulled in silent inhales through her fingers. Her small arsenal gradually lost all humour and started to feel more like armour the closer she got. Just as she was reaching for the door, her ears picked up the sound of voices from inside.
“I don’t see why we should have to explain anything! She threw a hairbrush at me!”
“You deserved with how you were behaving. You woke her up with all of your complaining! Of course, she was going to be annoyed!”
“Both of you, kindly spare my ears anymore of your senseless bickering. I am trying to think of how we can explain this. Our stay here is conditional, we all know that, and we must abide by our host’s rules. Otherwise, we may find ourselves outside in the sun! Do you want that?”
There was no reply, but Danni didn’t need to hear one.
She pushed her way through the door, her hand slipping into her pocket and seizing a handful of salt, tossing it on the ground before her. She had expected screams, howls of agony, a desperate scramble of hands and knees hitting the floor and scurrying, but all she received was more silence.
But… nothing…
No sounds. No yells. No scramble…
For a long moment, a second of time stretching onto infinity, Danni and the three figures inside could only stare at each other. Danni had salt clinging to her fingers, the three men were standing there with wide, deer-in-headlights eyes. In between them, the salt had spread over the floor. From the outside, the situation must have looked positively bizarre. In Danni’s mind, she knew that she must have looked the insane one.
“Evening Miss. I trust you slept well.” Said the tallest of the three, recovering his composure first in practised, precise movements. His voice was rough from sleep.
Danni said nothing. Instead, she dug her hand into her pocket and hurled another fistful of salt before her.
“Again! You’re still throwing things!” Cried the second, a long nail jabbing at the salt on the floor with a look of disgust.
Still nothing.
The third didn’t speak, too busy muffling body-shaking giggles into his sleeve.
It was last night happening all over again.
Danni could only look over each of them, her eyes roving from one face to the next and so on before repeating.
“Don’t move!” She ordered, jabbing her own finger at them. Seemingly too stunned to respond, they obeyed.
“I don’t know how the hell this is happening, but you need to get out! I did not invite you in, I would never! I want you out! Now!”
As before, the three didn’t move for a long second. Then the tallest of them stepped forward, hands raised in the universal symbol of harmlessness.
“I’m certain you must have a lot of questions… perhaps more than we can answer but- ugh!” He had only taken a single step forward to cross the space between them before jerking back.
“What’s wrong? Not a fan of my new perfume?” She snarled, unaware of where this nerve had come from, but she would keep seizing on it. Flattening her hand, she pressed it towards him, forcing him back further. “It’s garlic, you asshole! Must not smell too good to a thing like you!”
Now all three of them were huddling back, shirt collars pulled over their noses as she advanced on them. Standing in the middle of the salt, Danni removed several flowers from her pocket, brandishing them like one would a knife.
The smallest of the three, blonde hair shining even in this dull light, was cowering, hands thrown up in front of his face as if she were threatening him with a flashlight. The second, dressed in a jacket, was glaring back at her, covering the blonde with his arm, the other holding his shirt tight about his nose and mouth. The tallest, presumably the oldest too, was standing before them both like he could shield them from the smell with his body.
“You! Talk!” Danni ordered, looking towards the biggest of the three. “You said you could explain, so explain! Why are you here? How dare you think that you could invade my home! You’re supposed to need an invitation before you can enter, and I gave you no such thing! You saw an open window and insinuated. You assumed and now you think you can explain away everything! Well now I am telling you to explain!” She spat.
She thrust her hands towards the three, watching them cringe away. The smaller two huddled in close together, the one in the leather jacket, the one whose face she could see, was glaring at her but refusing to move. As if he were staring down a threat, assessing, measuring, judging what might set her off. The hidden figure of the blonde was shaking softly, crying perhaps. But she could not hear anything, not when all her focus was on the creature in front of her.
“Please, we will! But only if you put your hands away! Please! The smell is overpowering!” He pleaded, his refined voice gone.
Danni’s lips curled into an unfamiliar sneer, a stranger to her face that felt as unnatural to her as it looked. Instead of relent, Danni squeezed the blossoms tighter, letting the smallest amount of purple show through her fingers as if she were holding onto a grenade, rather than a flower.
The tallest shrank back another step, seemingly unable to even look at her now. “Please! Let us open a window! The smell, it’s too much! We can’t talk if we can’t breathe!”
Movement caught Danni’s eye, the middle vampire reaching for the key to the window and she launched more salt towards him, making sure to use the hand that had been crushing the flowers.
“I don’t think so! I’m not letting any of you escape!” She warned, preparing to throw the flowers this time.
Hissing like he had been sprayed with acid, he retreated, taking the blonde with him. This time there was no mistaking it. The creature was making soft heaving crying sounds. It was crying. How was a creature so inhuman… able to make such a vulnerable sound?
“No! You’re just going to suffocate us! We may as well take this outside if you’re so intent on kicking us out!” Shouted the the one wrapped in leather, returning to comforting the figure in his arms.
Danni was about to say something in return but was cut off by his taller companion. “Yes! Yes! Please! Let us go outside! I swear, on my honour, we will not run except to leave for good! I swear I will explain everything to you and, as a show of honesty, I will stand in the doorway whilst I answer each and every one of your questions.” He swore. “If there is a moment in which you think I’m lying, you will have every opportunity to kick me out, lock the door and leave us outside. We will not make any attempt to re-enter and consider your invitation,” Danni’s jaw set at the reminder. “Rescinded.”
“For once, you’ve said something that I agree with.” Danni remarked, shifting around the room, and the vampires moved with her, getting closer to the door.
“Now! March!” Hands still outstretched, Danni trooped the three through each room, first the dining room, then towards the kitchen. When they passed through the doorway, the younger two made audible sounds of disgust and even the taller shuddered as though walking against a cold breeze.
The eldest opened the door and the other two fled outside, gulping down deep breathes as if they had been trapped inside a room filled with a noxious gas, rather than just a pungent flower and a woman determined to remove them. The eldest had stepped outside after them, though he kept one foot close to the doorway, perhaps in case Danni tried to slam it on them. She couldn’t blame them for being precautious, but that wasn’t to say that the urge hadn’t occurred to her. Watching them, a spike of something ice cold settled behind Danni’s ribs. This was just like what her mother had done.
She recalled it all so clearly now.
‘“What do you think you’re doing?!” Her mother’s voice had rung out of nowhere on what had been a sunny afternoon. Danni had almost jumped out of her skin at the abrupt interruption. On the floor before her, she had spread out a homework book, an exercise book, her pens and the tv remote. She had thought that it would be alright. That she could venture out of her room for the few hours it would take for her to do her homework.
She had set herself up on her stomach, letting the tv play on a low volume, so as not to interrupt her parents at their work. Except, it was still too loud, it seemed. Her mother towered over, her eyes wide with horror as if she had discovered her daughter crouched over a dead body rather than her homework, only to narrow a moment later. To Danni, at the tender age of 10, had been terrified! Carefully, she rolled over to face her mother, putting on her most innocuous face.
“I was just… doing…my homework.” She tried meekly, reaching with a shaking hand towards her hand and showed it to her mother. Not that it would have done much to help. Snatching up the remote from where it lay on the floor, her mother turned the tv off with a hard jab and hurled it back, almost Danni in the process. Seizing her daughter by the ear, Danni was pulled from the floor, barely having time to gather her things before being dragged from the room. Her mother’s long nails pinched the skin hard, and she was deaf to all of her protests, even when she was dropped before her door.
“Get inside! I don’t want to see or hear you again until dinner!” Her mother ordered.
“I just wanted to—!” Still nursing her aching ear, Danni sniffed as tears pricked at her eyes.
“I don’t want to hear it! If you’re taking your studies seriously, you can do them in your room!” Her mother had snapped, pushing the door open. Danni’s shoulders slumped and went inside. The last thing she remembered of that day was the sight of her mother slamming it shut behind her.
Was this what her mother had felt, in that moment? Like coming out of a trance, Danni came back to herself as if someone had snapped fingers right by her ear. With that, a cold, dreadful feeling settled upon her. Guilt… She was threatening three figures who had done nothing to her apart from… breaking in. Even then, they had been seeking shelter from what seemed to be a real threat to their lives.
Was she right, doing all of this? Did she have the right? They hadn’t done anything to her… All of this was making her heart ache in a way that she had never experienced before. She liked to think that she was a good person… maybe that wasn’t as true as she had previously believed. Maybe there was something of her mother’s cold indifference in her. She was incredibly harsh… but they had broken in. She could make her mind up when she knew more. She wanted to know what had brought them here. There had to be something that pulled these disparate pieces together.
“Alright, you got what you wanted! Now! TALK.” She ordered, trying to hide how badly the cold had hit her. She would start shivering if she stayed out too long and that would make her look vulnerable. Just like Charles II before his execution. Now she wished that she could have thought to put on more layers, or, at least, put on some underwear. The wind was giving her a stark reminder that she had neglected to put on a bra and underwear, her entire body erupting in fresh goosebumps that spread like wildfire from her arms to her chest, down her legs and back.
“Tell her Cesare… I’ve got this.” The leather-clad one insisted, using his sleeve to clean away the rapidly falling tears from his comrade’s face.
Cesare, as the eldest could now be identified, turned to face Danni and he seemed to read her face, recognising that something behind her expression had changed.
“Please… hear us out.”