The Reformed Vampire Support Group Read Free Page A

lights flashed inside a corner pub.
    I lifted my sunglasses, to get a better look at the festivities. It was only going to be a quick squint.
    But Sanford nearly bit my head off.
    ‘Nina!’ he squawked. ‘There are headlights everywhere! Do you want your eyes to start bleeding again?’
    Welcome to my world. It’s the kind of place where you can’t do the simplest thing without risking a full-blown haemorrhage.
    God
I’m sick of it.

2
    People often think that vampires live in decrepit old castles, or mausoleums, or sprawling mansions full of stained glass and wood panelling. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
    Perhaps it would be, if all the vampires in this world were millionaires. But since the ones
I
know are just ordinary working stiffs (so to speak), their dwellings tend to be on the modest side. They can’t afford towers or gargoyles or enormous iron gates. Some of them can’t even afford a broadband connection.
    Nevertheless, there are certain features that distinguish a vampire’s domicile. A vampire, for instance, doesn’t like picture windows. In fact a vampire doesn’t like windows at all. So you’re not going to find a vampire living in a modernistic glass box featuring lots of skylights and breezeways.
    For the same reason, a vampire’s windows are always well covered. Shutters and curtains are favoured over vertical or venetian blinds. Rubbery draught excluders are attached to most of the doors, and there’s never an exposed keyhole or an unsealed mail slot.
    What’s more, a vampire likes to sleep somewhere special. Somewhere safe. So a vampire’s abode usually contains the kind of bolthole that you often don’t find in normal homes. Sanford, for instance, lives in a former bank and sleeps in the vault. Gladys andBridget live in an old butcher’s shop and sleep in what was once a refrigerated meat locker. Even Dave has managed to find a skinny little duplex with a disused darkroom in it.
    As for me, I sleep in the basement of my mother’s big Victorian terrace house. It’s quite a nice space, really, even though Mum had to brick up the front window, and block off the outside door. There are quite a few cockroaches, but they only come out at night, when I’m upstairs. And we use a dehumidifier to keep the damp under control.
    But Casimir never had the funds to inhabit anything vampire-friendly. While the rest of us have managed to support ourselves one way or another, Casimir was always far too antisocial; he used to get by on a disability pension, augmented by the occasional gift from those of us with money to spare. As a result, he could only afford to occupy a one-bedroom flat. A
down-market
one-bedroom flat.
    The building itself was a dingy art-deco structure, all blood-coloured brick and pus-coloured paint. It stood three storeys high, on a narrow patch of mangy grass. There was a separate laundry block, as well as a two-car garage.
    When we arrived there, we saw Dave’s blue hatchback sitting out the front.
    ‘Don’t park too close to Dave,’ I suggested, leaning forward to address Father Ramon. ‘It might look too busy. Like an emergency, or something. People might get interested.’
    ‘She’s right,’ Sanford agreed – to my utter astonishment. ‘Park around the corner a bit.’
    So we parked around the corner a bit, some distance from the nearest street lamp. As we swept past the hatchback, I spotted Dave in its driver’s seat, with Horace beside him. They had been smart enough to stay huddled in the car, instead of hanging around the front entrance.
    I should probably explain, at this point, that Dave Gerace is the only vampire in our group who can drive. When he was infected, back in ’73, he’d already had his licence for just over two years (having acquired it at the age of seventeen), and he’s managed to renew it regularly ever since, by means of various cunning and questionable ploys. That’s why he’s spent the last three decades chauffeuring the rest of us