made himself breathe deeply and slowly. It didn't matter what was out there; he had his axe and he had Fisher at his side. Nothing else mattered. His eyesight slowly grew used to the gloom, and the narrow hall gradually formed itself out of the shadows. It was completely empty. Hawk relaxed a little.
'You all right?' he whispered to Fisher.
'Yeah, fine,' she said quietly. 'Let's go.'
The hall ended in a bare wooden stairway that led up to the next floor. Two doors led off from the hall, one to each side. Hawk drew his axe, and hefted it in one hand. The heavy weight of it was reassuring. He glanced at Fisher, and smiled as he saw the sword in her hand. He caught her eye, and gestured for her to take the right-hand door while he took the left. She nodded, and padded quietly over to the right.
Hawk listened carefully at his door, but everything was quiet. He turned the handle, eased the door open an inch, and then kicked it in. He leapt into the room and glared quickly about him, his axe poised and ready. The room was empty. There was no furniture, and all the walls were bare. A little light filtered past the closed shutters, taking the edge off the gloom. The woodwork was flecked with mould, and everywhere was thick with dust. There was no sign to show the room had ever been lived in. The floorboards creaked loudly under Hawk's weight as he walked slowly forward. There was a strong smell of dust and rotten wood, but underneath that there was a faint but definite smell of corruption, as though something long dead lay buried close at hand. Hawk sniffed at the air, but couldn't decide if the smell was really there or if he was just imagining it. He moved quickly round the room, tapping the walls and listening to the echo, but there was no trace of any hidden panel or passageway. Hawk stood in the middle of the room, looking around him to check he hadn't missed anything, and then went back into the hall.
Fisher was waiting for him. He shook his head, and Fisher shrugged disappointedly. Hawk smiled slightly. He already knew Fisher hadn't found anything; if she had, he'd have heard the sound of battle. Fisher wasn't known for her diplomacy. Hawk started towards the stairs, and Fisher moved quickly in beside him.
The bare wooden steps creaked and groaned beneath their feet, and Hawk scowled. If there was someone here, watching over the vampire, they had to know there was someone else in the house. You couldn't put your foot down anywhere without some creaking board giving away your position. He hurried up the rest of the stairs and out onto the landing. He felt a little less vulnerable on the landing; there was more room to move, if it came to a fight. The floor was thick with dust and rat droppings, and the bare wooden walls were dull and scarred. Two doors led off from the landing, to their right. It was just as gloomy as the ground-floor hall, and Hawk thought fleetingly of his candle before deciding against it. If the sound hadn't given them away, a light certainly would. He moved over to stand before the first door, and listened carefully. He couldn't hear anything. Hawk smiled slightly. If this house did turn out to be empty, he was going to feel bloody ridiculous. He looked at Fisher, and gestured for her to guard his back. She nodded quickly. Hawk tried the door handle, and it turned easily in his grasp. He pushed the door slightly ajar, took a deep breath, and kicked the door in.
He darted forward into the room, axe at the ready, and again there was no one there. Without looking around. Hawk knew that Fisher was looking at him knowingly.
<em>I said this was a wild goose chase, Hawk</em>;
He didn't look back. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction. He glared about him, taking in the darkened room. A sparse light seeped past the closed shutters to show him a wardrobe to his left and a bed to his right. A large wooden chest stood at the foot of the bare bed. Hawk eyed the chest suspiciously. It looked to be a good four feet long and three feet wide; quite large enough to hold a body. Hawk frowned. Like it or not, he was going to need some light to check the room out properly. He peered about him. and his gaze fell on an old oil lamp lying on the floor by the bed. He bent down, picked the lamp up and shook it gently. He could feel oil sloshing back and forth in the base of the lamp. Hawk worried his lower lip between his teeth. The house might appear deserted, but somebody had to have been here recently; He took out flint and steel and lit the lamp. The sudden golden glow made the room seem smaller and less threatening.
Hawk moved over to the chest and crouched down before it. There didn't seem to be any lock or bolts. He glanced at Fisher, who took a firm hold on the wooden stake in her left hand and nodded for him to try the lid. He clutched his axe tightly, and then threw the lid open. Hawk let out his breath in a slow sigh of relief, and he and Fisher relaxed a little as they took in the pile of old bed linen that filled the chest. The cloth was flecked with a rather nasty-looking mould, and had obviously been left in the chest for ages, but Hawk rummaged gingerly through it anyway, just in case there might be something hidden under it. There wasn't. Hawk wiped his hands thoroughly on his trousers.
All this taking it slow and easy was getting on his nerves. He suddenly wanted very badly just to run amok and tear the place apart until he found the missing girl, but he knew he couldn't do that. Firstly, if there was no one here the house's owners would sue his arse in the courts, and secondly, if there was a vampire here he was bound to be well hidden, and nothing less than a careful, methodical search was going to find him.
One room at a time, one thing at a time, by the book. Follow the procedures. And he and Fisher might just get out of this alive yet.
He moved over to the bed and got down on his hands and knees to look underneath it. A big hairy spider darted out of the shadows towards him, and he fell backwards with a startled yelp. The spider quickly disappeared back into the shadows. Hawk quickly regained his balance and shot a dirty look at Fisher, who was trying hard not to laugh and only just making it. Hawk growled something under his breath, picked up the lamp from the floor and swept it back and forth before him. There was nothing under the bed but dust.
Not in the chest, and not under the bed. That only left the wardrobe, though it seemed a bit obvious. Hawk clambered to his feet, put the lamp on the chest, and moved over to stand before the wardrobe. It was a big piece of furniture, almost seven feet tall and four feet wide. <em>Wonder how they got it up the stairs</em>? thought Hawk absently. He took a firm hold on the door handle, gestured for Fisher to stand ready, and then jerked open the door. Inside the wardrobe a teenage girl was hanging naked from a butcher's hook. Her eyes were wide and staring, and she'd been dead for some time. Two jagged puncture wounds showed clearly on her throat, bright red against the white skin. The steel tip of the butcher's hook protruded from her right shoulder, just above the collarbone. No blood had run from the wound, suggesting she was already dead when the hook went into her. Hawk swallowed hard and reached forward to gently touch the dead girl's hand. The flesh was icy cold.
'Damn,' he said quietly. 'Oh, damn.'
'It's her, isn't it?' said Fisher. 'Councilor Trask's daughter.'
'Yes,' said Hawk. 'It's her.'
'The vampire must have been thirsty. Or maybe just greedy. I doubt there's a drop of blood left in her body.'
'Look at her,' said Hawk harshly. 'Sixteen years old, and left to hang in darkness like a side of beef. She was so pretty, so alive; She didn't deserve to die like this. No one deserves to die like this.'
'Easy,' said Fisher softly. 'Take it easy, love. We'll get the bastard that did this. Now let's get the girl down.'
'What?' Hawk looked at Fisher confusedly.
'We have to get her down, Hawk,' said Fisher. 'She died from a vampire's bite. If we leave her, she'll rise again as one of the undead. We can spare her that, at least.'
Hawk nodded slowly. 'Yes. Of course.'
Somehow, between them, they got the body off the hook and out of the wardrobe. They laid the dead girl out on the bed, and Hawk tried to close the staring eyes. They wouldn't stay shut, and in the end Fisher put two coins on the eyes to hold the lids down.
'I don't even know her name,' said Hawk. 'I only knew her as Trask's daughter.'
The scream caught him off guard, and he'd only just started to turn round when a heavy weight slammed into him from behind. He and his attacker fell sprawling on the floor, and the axe flew out of Hawk's hand. He slammed his elbow back into his attacker's ribs and pulled himself free. He scrambled away and went after his axe. The attacker lurched to his feet, and Fisher stepped forward to run him through with her sword. The man dodged aside at the last moment and grabbed Fisher's extended arm. She groaned aloud as his fingers crushed her arm, grinding the muscles against the bone. Her sword fell from her numbed fingers. She clawed at his hand, and couldn't move it. He was strong, impossibly strong, and she couldn't tear herself free;
He flung her away from him. She slammed against the far wall and slid dazedly to the floor. Hawk started forward, axe in hand, and then stopped dead as he finally saw who his attacker was.
'<em>Trask</em>;' Hawk gaped at the nondescript, middle-aged man standing grinning before
