“Matilda, sometimes I forget that you can be even more radical than myself. But, no. Perhaps I agree with, as you say, the powers that be. Though you are right that times change, I do not think that the living are in any way ready for the likes of us: not yet and nor will they be for quite some time to come. From what I see from their news, they still find plenty of reasons to find differences between one another and then use these to justify the maiming and murder of one another. And what of their popular culture that deals with those who rise from the dead? Let alone their other beliefs.”
“Adam, you are distracting me from the point I came here to make. Please, just give the boy what he needs to make his own choice. Goodness, yes I know it is difficult to give an unbiased opinion, but please do not condemn him to live down there without also knowing what it would mean to leave this world behind. Unlike many of those who make this argument, I am not just arguing from a position of ignorance: I know what it is to exist down there. I made a decision long ago to descend into those tunnels and it was an easy enough decision to make at the time: I had nothing left up here. But, I do not know how to describe the conditions down there. Yes, one is away from the need to hide from the living, but you are also exposed to the naked hunger – eternally unsatisfied so many who are trapped down there - of the vampires and others. And then, for those that lose all connection to the world above or to any source for what they need, after the hunger comes something even worse. I am not so afflicted myself to need anything to carry on, but even the sight of such need, the half-life it brings and what it leaves after it has gone was more than I could bear. Do you tell your students that there is no blood or other living matter to sate the terrible thirst down there?”
Adam’s eyes were no longer on Ms Halford, but the doorway to his classroom. Ms Halford was about to continue, but the hard expression on Adam’s pale, scarred face made her refrain from doing so.
“Ah, good. Mr deputy, how long have you been listening to our conversation?” said Adam.
“Not so long at all, Adam,” replied the deputy, who stood, smiling at the two teachers. “Why, is there something that you think I need to hear? Or rather, were you discussing something that you would rather that I, and particularly our students, would not hear?”
***
56 Balfour Lane was the last house on a street in a village on the outskirts of Radcliff and ended by turning into a muddy footpath that separated two patchy, grass-covered fields. The house itself was set a little further back from the street than its neighbour and was reached by an overgrown gravel path that led to a battered and rusted Austin 1100 that was clearly no longer in use due to its lack of tyres.
It was drizzling slightly when Amanda parked her Renault at the end of the house’s drive and the rolling, grey overcast sky providing the rain was of the sort that often frequented the town on similar, early winter afternoons. Amanda checked the file again to make sure the lonely looking building before her was indeed the address given for Mary O’Hare, before retrieving her waterproof from the back seat and stepping out into the rain just as it was starting to fall that little bit heavier. A likely house as any for a vampire, thought Amanda, though she knew she would never be able to live in such a place.
After neatly avoiding almost all the large grey, brown puddles that littered the gravel driveway, Amanda rang the bell. As no sound emanated from inside, she was not sure if the thing still worked. No one stirred inside and Amanda wondered if she had foolishly wasted her time by turning up at an empty house. Perhaps it would be better for her if there was no one in, she thought, as it would mean she would not have to confront whoever Mary might be with the silly set of questions Amanda believed her inexperience had allowed her to put together. On her drive over to the house, the novice detective had tried to ignore the fact that this was to be her first interview and that she felt more than a little unprepared for it, but as time passed by these thoughts became ever more present in her mind.
“God,” she spat under her breath. “I need to get this crap over with.” She hammered on the door.
A light in the hall burst into life and the misshapen shadow of a head appeared in one of the leaf-patterned glass panels of the door. However, whoever was inside the house did not seem to want to let Amanda in as they did nothing more but continue to stand on the other side of the glass.
“Oh, come on,” muttered Amanda. “Hello! Mary, is that you?”
The shadow shifted slightly from side to side and then started to shrink in size.
“Wait!” cried out Amanda. “I’ve come from the Tithonus School. I just want to ask a few questions.”
Suddenly, the door burst open revealing a short brown haired woman in a sky-blue silk
