Reality Bites by Nicola Rhodes Page A

turned away.
    Tamar shook her head.  ‘Just remember, he’s not human, he only looks like one.’
    She turned back to the vampire.  ‘Let’s start simple,’ she said grinning slyly at Stiles.  ‘Name!’ She barked.
    ‘My name?’
    Tamar rolled her eyes.
    ‘Pall.’
    ‘Paul?’ said Stiles. ‘That’s a bit ordinary isn’t it?’
    ‘I think he spells it P-A-L-L,’ said Tamar.
    Pall nodded.
    ‘Okay, Pall, who sent you?’
    Pall shook his head. Tamar took his hand, almost gently, and held up the knife.
    Pall shook his head frantically.  ‘I don’t know, really .’
    ‘I don’t believe him,’ she said to Stiles. ‘Do you?’
    ‘No, take it off.’
    ‘Or,’ she said opening the bottle, dipping a finger in it, and smearing the contents on Pall’s forehead.
    He shrieked as the flesh burned away.
    ‘Holy water?’ asked Stiles.
    ‘Holy water,’ agreed Tamar. ‘And it’s nothing compared to the pain he’ll suffer if I leave him tied up here until the sun rises,’ she added threateningly.  ‘That was just a taster.’
    Pall grinned evilly.  ‘There will be no dawn,’ he said in a sinister voice.
    Tamar barely faltered.  ‘Not here perhaps, but somewhere in the world the sun will be coming up. I can do it; you know I can.’
    Pall flinched.
    ‘Who sent you?’ reiterated Stiles.  ‘Just tell us.’
    ‘I don’t …  aaagh!’ Tamar had poured the contents of the bottle over his hand.  It burst briefly into flames and crumbled away.
    ‘He has to die!’ shrieked Pall, pointing at Stiles.  ‘Ran-Kur has decreed it.’
    Stiles and Tamar smiled and nodded to each other.
    ‘And who is Ran-Kur?’ she asked.
    ‘No.’ Said Pall, stubbornly. ‘It is forbidden to speak of him to mortals.’
     ‘Well, I’m not exactly mortal,’ said Tamar, ‘no?’ She raised the knife.
     Stiles stopped her.  ‘Let me.’  He reached into her backpack and drew out an axe. ‘How about the whole arm this time?’ he suggested.
    Pall squirmed but remained stubborn.  ‘Do it,’ he said. ‘I’m not saying anything else.’
    Tamar sneered. ‘Yes you will. You know you will, in the end.’  She smeared some more holy water on his face.
    ‘Okay, okay, I’ll tell you if you promise to let me go.’
    ‘No deal,’ said Tamar.  ‘You know I can’t. But I’ll tell you what, you tell us, and I’ll stake you, nice and quick.  If you don’t tell us, I’ll let you burn slowly in the Bahamas somewhere.’
    Pall hesitated.
    ‘Tick tock,’ she said. ‘What’s it going to be? Staked or parboiled at dawn.’
    ‘Bitch!’ muttered Pall.  ‘All right you mad harpy, Ran-Kur is our god, the creator of our kind; He ordered his death. That’s all I know.’
    ‘Vampires have a god ?’ said Stiles, incredulously.  ‘Now I’ve heard everything.’
    But Tamar had gone white.  She walked away silently. Stiles followed her.
    ‘’Ere, what about me?’ yelled Pall indignantly.
    They both ignored him.
    ‘What’s wrong?’  Stiles asked her. ‘What is it?’
    She did not answer; she sat with her head in her hands, silently rocking back and forth.
    ‘Oh περιττώματα!’ she said eventually. ‘Oh God, oh God, Oh God!’  She forced herself to calm down.  ‘Well,’ she continued, ‘it certainly explains a few things, I’ve seen the way people act around gods; they’re terrified.’  She glanced at him sombrely.  ‘They do whatever they’re told to.  And they’ll just keep coming; they’ll never stop. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Gods can’t be killed. This is a foe that’s beyond me.’
    Stiles patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. Pall was still yelling.
    ‘Er, what about him?’ He indicated the enraged vampire.
    ‘What? Oh yes.’  She handed him a stake and went back to her gloom.
    * * *
    Denny was dreaming.  He had given up his search for now and gone home to get some rest.  He had been to the CID offices and had eventually found Finchley, who had