The Reformed Vampire Support Group Read Free

whisked away – before I’m back in a crowded car with a bunch of vampires.
    ‘Oh. Hello, Dave.’ Sanford had found his phone, at long last. ‘Yes. Yes. Dear me. That is troubling. Yes, I’ll tell him.’ Addressing the priest, Sanford delivered Dave’s news with solemn emphasis. ‘Dave says that Casimir won’t answer his intercom,’ Sanford announced. ‘They’ve been trying for about ten minutes. Dave wants to know if you still have a spare key.’
    ‘Yes, I do,’ said Father Ramon. He sounded worried. ‘Tell him I’ll swing round.’
    ‘Did you hear that?’ Sanford addressed his mobile again. ‘He said we’ll swing round. Yes. Well, I hope so. All right. Yes, see you soon.’
    He hung up.
    I don’t think anyone quite knew what to say, initially. Sanford appeared to be thinking. Father Ramon was obviously reassessing his planned route; he suddenly pulled into someone’s driveway, and executed a rather clumsy three-point turn. Bridget was looking puzzled.
    I couldn’t even pretend to be anxious. In fact I was downright disgusted. ‘Ten to one Casimir’s out on the prowl,’ I said at last, airing a very natural suspicion. ‘I bet he’s got his fangs into somebody
as we speak
.’
    Boom! Instant uproar. If I had set fire to Gladys, I might have triggered a less impassioned response.
    ‘Nina!’ Father Ramon seemed genuinely horrified. ‘That’s a dreadful thing to say!’
    ‘You shouldn’t talk about people like that,’ Bridget protested. I couldn’t see her eyes behind the dark glasses that she wore, but her face was even whiter than usual. It was almost as white as her hair.
    Sanford twisted around to admonish me.
    ‘Casimir Kucynski hasn’t set a foot wrong since being released,’ he pointed out, in frigid accents. ‘That was five years ago. Casimir’s reformed now.’
    ‘Reformed?’ I folded my arms. ‘He sleeps in a
coffin
, Sanford!’
    ‘He’s doing his best, Nina. Casimir is a victim too – just like the rest of us.’ Sanford’s tone became pompous. ‘You know you’re not the only one who was infected by Casimir. If the others have forgiven him, why can’t you?’
    ‘Because he’s a creep,’ I replied, without fear of contradiction. Casimir Kucynski
was
a creep. Even Sanford couldn’t deny it. Though Casimir might have called himself a reformed vampire, he was anything but. He would go on and on about ‘the good old days’, when you could buy your very own black people. (‘Black people blood is meaty,’ he’d reminisce, smacking his lips and grinning like a skull.) He would do the most awful things with his tongue, which was long and blue, like one of those poisonous jellyfish. He had eyes like oysters, and teeth like tombstones.
    In fact, if you want my honest opinion, Casimir had been a vampire for so long that he wasn’t really human any more. It’s vampires like Casimir who give other vampires a bad name. But try telling that to Sanford. Even now he maintains that it’s important not to draw any kind of distinction between what’s human and what’s vampiric. He insists that vampirism is just another form of humanity – that there’s nothing inherently wrong with being a vampire. And whenever I try to contradict him, he gives me a lecture about my attitude.
    ‘Casimir is probably sick,’ said Father Ramon, playing the peace-maker as usual. ‘He probably can’t get out of bed.’
    ‘That’s right,’ Sanford agreed. ‘He might be having an adverse reaction to his supplements. It’s happened before.’
    I could have reminded him, at this juncture, that Casimir had also suffered adverse reactions from fanging dead rats. But I didn’t speak. Instead I stared out at the passing streetscape, which was undergoing a slow transformation: the turrets, avenues, door-knockers, mailboxes and iron railings were giving way to signage, awnings, plate glass, traffic lights and concrete barriers. Pedestrians strolled along, swaddled in winter coats. Coloured