Cold Open.

“Two zero zero eight to control, we are on scene,” the young female paramedic said through the radio handset in the ambulance’s cabin, before placing it back into the dock. “God I hope this isn’t another waste of time.”

“We’re in the Victoria Moors part of town… of course it is going to be a waste of time. Still, it’s good training for you,” her mentor said, an older, bald male. “It’s the suckers you’ve got to worry about though on a night shift.”

“So are we waiting for the Nasscies to turn up?”

“We should, but we’d be here all night and our patient could die.”

“Fine, let’s get to it then,” Trainee Paramedic said.

The two opened their doors and jumped out of the ambulance, looking up at the block of flats they had to climb the stairs of.

“Tenth floor, wasn’t it?”

“Yep, and you’re going to take the board.”

“Oh Ricky? C’mon, are you serious?”

“Yes Claire. We take it up with us in case we need it. Otherwise we’ll have to split up as one of us goes down to fetch it. And as the trainee, you will take it.” He flashed a devilish grin.

“You’re a hard taskmaster, you know that?”

“Just get on with it. Catch up with me and don’t forget to lock the van.”

Ricky walked up the path to the main access with the rucksack on his back and defibrillator and o2 tank in hand. When Claire came out through the back doors, the door behind Ricky closed. He could have left it ajar at least, she thought.

She hurriedly walked up the path, pressed the trade entrance button and found the stairs going up.

She climbed the first flight, then the second and then the third but the six foot long board she was carrying was slowing her down. She could hear her crewmate’s footsteps at least four flights ahead of her getting quieter and quieter as he got further ahead.

The door to the tenth floor opened, and Ricky shouted down to her, “hurry up!”

Claire chose to not say anything back. She was a trainee after all and needed to be on his good side in order to pass. She eventually got to the doors to the tenth floor but seeing her partner lying on the floor bleeding out made her drop everything she was carrying.

“Oh sweet Jesus!” she shouted. She ran to him to check him over. He was slumped against a wall, with one hand held tightly to his neck and the other to the side of his belly. “What the hell happened to you?”

He stared with wide, panic stricken eyes, mustering the strength to say something. “Beh…behi… yo..” he stuttered, not wanting to move his jaw too much.

Claire swung round, standing as she turned. A young teen with his hood up was stood a few feet away.

“Chill, miss!” he said defensively. “Some junkie wanted the drugs in his bag and stabbed him. I only bit him because he was dying and his blood was so fresh!”

“Oh my God, where is the junkie now then?” she said returning to her partners side, looking to apply pressure to his neck.

“In his flat. I drained him because of what he did to your boy. But you know it tastes rank if someone’s recently taken drugs. It makes the blood taste fuzzy.”

“I don’t give a shit! Just get help!”

“I don’t like your tone, bitch!” the young vampura snarled.

“Read the situation! He’s dying, and I’m all by myself. I need you to get help!”

The vampura leapt towards Claire, grabbing her shirt by the collars. “You won’t need help! I’m biting you too! I need some more clean, non-fuzzy blood to wash away the bad taste!”

Claire screamed as she was thrown against the balcony railings and the vampura frantically bit at her neck, savaging her jugular and getting himself covered in her spurting blood. He came up for air, sighing with relief and enjoyment at his second meal. He gently and playfully licked the blood around the puncture wounds and pushed Claire’s body over the balcony like a piece of rubbish he was finished with.

In Ricky’s dying moments, all he could do was watch as his trainee was killed, wishing he would bleed out and die sharpish before the vampura turned his attention back on to him.

Ricky didn’t get his wish.

Chapter Four.

“Hey Lana, how are you?” Mark asked as him and his brother caught up to her walking into the pavilion for that night’s briefing.

“Hey guys, I’m alright thanks,” she said.

“How was your day? Were you at work?” asked Mark trying to get more chat from her.

“Can’t you tell by my hair?” she asked, running her fingers through her short brown pixie-ish hair. “Today was a day off spent extremely horizontal on the sofa.”

“Your hair looks lovely,” he said slightly dreamily and it was a snort of laughter from his brother that snapped him back to reality. “I mean, greasy... Fuck I mean just fine. Ahh shit…” he muttered.

“What were you watching?” Henry asked, trying to rescue the conversation.

“Oh a bit of this, bit of that. I’ve just started watching that Heroes of The Collective series on Danum Plus.”

“Oh really, Mark said he didn’t like the look of that.”

“No, I didn’t! I was just thinking the other day that I might just give it a go,” he argued, blushing.

“I’m pretty certain you said that the only people who watch that are-”

“No no no no, la la la la la he’s lying Lana. Shut up Henry. Look, David’s car is there, why don’t you go and ask him out?”

“So you can try and ‘flirt’ with Lana?”

“Errr… boys? Grow up!” Lana said looking perturbed. She tutted, rolled her eyes and walked off ahead of them.

“You fuckwit!” Mark said through gritted teeth and punching his brother on the upper arm. “What’d you do that for?”

“Well you started it,” Henry said with a big grin on his face, despite the pain in his arm.

“What?!” he cried. “You were literally the one who started it!”

***

“Teddy Shepherd is making his way round the divisions this week after what happened with the vampura attack on the kids. He’s starting with the Kirkstall Lodge lot and will work his way round,” Stanley said as he gave the briefing this evening in Alistair’s absence. “He’s going to want to chat with you all, do a bit of welfare and check up on how we do things.”

“So best behaviour then?” Nadheera called out.

“Of course, he’s in charge of the whole Tarmsworth St Jude Nasscies. We behave ourselves and show how good we are, it might help us with our budget,” Stanley explained.

“Finally! Decent bikes then!” David piped up.

“Well, we’re thinking bigger than that…” Stanley teased, giving a wink.

“Motorbikes?” Mark asked.

“Nope. Crossbows..!” Stanley revealed. “H.Q. have signed off on a design of a crossbow, and it looks like each division will get one, but I’m hoping we can persuade him to get us two.”

“That sounds great!” Bridget said enthusiastically pumping her fists.

“Yes! Exactly Bridget, that’s the spirit!” Stanley said. “So either tomorrow or the day after, Teddy, or Mr Shepherd to you all, will be coming by.”

“It’ll be exciting to see him,” Bridget enthused.

“Yeah, alright Bridget,” Stanley said. “That’s enough now, tone it done.”

Bridget blushed and sunk back in her seat, avoiding eye contact with everyone who were now staring at her.

“Right, pairings for tonight then.” Stanley paused to look over the group and then made some annotations with his pencil. “Lana and Mark, Bridget and David and Henry in a trio and Nadheera you’re with me. I’ll need fifteen minutes though Nad, as my wife’s prawn ring is playing havoc with my pipework.”

The group looked disgusted as they got up to go as quick as they could.

“Why don’t you just go home then?” David called out. “You’re going to be no good against a vampura if you find yourself pissing shit in some bushes.”

“I’ll be fine, you worry about yourself. I just need to flush out-”

“Enough, please! For the love of God,” Bridget cried out from the exit. “Nadheera, you’re coming with me. Stanley, just stay here and do paperwork within safe proximity to a lavatory, for everyone’s sake. David, are you ok going out with Henry?”

“Yeah, more than ok,” he replied.

“Good, let’s go. Stanley, just keep yourself hydrated.”

“Oooh, ‘more than ok’,” Mark teasingly whispered to Henry as they all left Stanley to it.

***

“Look, I’m really sorry about earlier,” Mark said after ten minutes of complete silence since they left the pavilion. “It was just brothers being brothers but you shouldn’t have been involved like that. I don’t fancy you… I mean I like you but no way in that way…” Mark could see by the way that Lana’s face was reacting to what he was saying that he wasn’t making things better. “Wh-what I’m saying is I respect you and respect the dynamic we have and like that we can be friends who fight vampuras, right? You do too, yes?”

“Mark?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

“Ok…” They continued to walk for a bit more in silence. “But we’re friends still?”

“Yes Mark.”

“Phew.” Lana burst out laughing. “What’s so funny?” Mark asked.

“Well I loved watching you squirm like that.”

“Oh… very funny. That made me feel really uncomfortable.” He comically stuck out his bottom lip.

“Diddums. You’ll live.”

“I’m not sure I will.”

The pair continued to walk in silence again, but this time it was less awkward.

***

“Isn’t it a Tuesday?” Mark asked as they rounded a corner into a cul-de-sac. There was a house party going on in one of the houses in the corner with about twenty teenagers spilled out into the street as the thumping music and flashing lights filled the still night. “Bit of a weird time for a party.”

“Oh please, Nanna. Live a little.”

“Well I just think it’s a bit inconsiderate. I’m sure their neighbours would just want to get a good nights sleep before work tomorrow.”

“Who says they’re not there themselves?”

Mark shook his head dismissively. “Whatevs, let’s keep going.”

“What? No, we need to go in,” Lana said.

“Oh you have got to be kidding? They’ll eat us alive in there!”

“They’re just teenagers Mark. It wasn’t that long ago when you were one. But… we need to go in and make sure no vampuras have found their way in. We'll just speak to the party host, then we can go.” Lana started walking towards the party.

Mark rolled his eyes and begrudgingly trapsed after Lana.

“Wahaaaaaaaayy!” jeered a drunken lad as he clocked the leather jacket wearing duo approach. “It’s the vamp busters.” A teenage girl threw up just a few metres away from him into a rose bush. “Eurgh, get away from me,” he slurred at her.

“Who’s party is it?” Lana asked.

“Mine,” he said. “Wanna dance wiv me?”

“Not really. Who’s party is it?” she asked again.

“Mine. I told you that ‘ready.”

“That’s fine then, I’m just making sure,” she said, smiling falsely at the drunkard. “Have you had anyone turn up that you weren’t expecting? Is there any one you don’t know or recognise inside?”

“Yeah I'd hope so! I put it out on my socials. The house is packed!” he said, looking proud.

Lana rolled her eyes and put her hands in her pockets. “Can we have a look round? Check out you haven’t got any vamps in there?”

“’elp yourself love. The only biting I’ve seen going on is this,” he said revealing a hickey on his neck.

“That’s not cool,” Mark muttered as he found himself following Lana into the party.

“Stick close, keep your eyes peeled for grey skins and keep a hand on your stake. I’m sure there’ll be a few in here who’d want a hand on your pointy stick.”

Luckily for Mark, the poor lighting in the house made it nigh on impossible to see that he had gone a deep shade of crimson.

The pair squeezed past hordes of people in the hallway whilst The Automatic’s ‘Monster’ played out from the living room on the other side of the hall. Lana nodded towards the first room and Mark followed her through. The living room was open plan and led into the kitchen and dining area so they were able to walk around.

Mark and Lana got some strange looks but no one really gave them any direct attention, much to Mark’s relief.

She stopped suddenly before Mark could react and he bumped into her. “S-sorry about that!” he said.

“What?” she shouted back.

“I said ‘sorry’!” he shouted back, moving closer to her ear to be heard. “What’s wrong?”

“Over there, the boy in the bucket hat!”

“He’s a vampura?”

“No, but the girl he’s talking to is.”

Mark looked over and examined her. She looked normal, but it was hard to tell her complexion against the flashing party lights. She was flirting with the guy who he had to assume was completely unaware of the danger she posed.

“What do we do?”

“Be on the lookout for any others. She won’t be the only one.”

A glass smashed in the kitchen behind them and all the youths turned to revel and jeer in the drama of the accident, in the same way people cheer at a restaurant when someone drops a plate. Everyone including the vampura herself turned and she immediately spotted the two Nasscies.

The track being played changed to Maximo Park’s ‘Apply Some Pressure’ as the vampura decided to make a break for it.

“Cut her off that way!” Lana shouted to Mark, pointing the way they came. He started to push past unsuspecting party goers whilst Lana did the same in pursuit of the vamp.

Mark bumped into the back of a guy who when Mark made eye contact with him, realised he was also a vampura. The vamp looked him up and down in his leather jacket with the trademark corset underneath before ‘it clicked’. “Oh. Crap,” Mark said.

“Oh crap,” the vampura responded in the same tone. Mark instinctively pulled out his stake and thrust it into the vamp’s chest, making him go stiff.

A push from behind Mark nearly knocked him over. “Oi, wotchit!” Mark called out, plucking the stake out of the vampura’s chest to defend himself again if he needed. People stared at him and he pushed past, leaving the statue there so that he could get to Lana in time.

He found Lana with her hands up submissively and with her back to him. “Lana?” he asked.

“Where were you mate?” she said, without turning back round to him. Mark walked cautiously towards her and as he did, could see why she had her hands up. Two men had her at knife point and they were stood over the girl vampura’s stiff statue corpse.

“Sorry, I bumped into a vamp in the living room.”

“Did you finish it?”

“No, I came out to get you,” he explained.

“There’s another inside?” Knife Man One asked excitedly.

“Yeah, why?” Mark innocently replied, but Lana’s tut was enough to tell Mark that that was the wrong thing to say. “Um, actually no. No, sorry. That’s my mistake, I thought we… we were talking about this one,” he backtracked, gesturing to the one on the front garden lawn.

“Nice try,” Knife Man Two said, walking past Lana and Mark into the house.

“What’s happening?” Mark asked, growing frustrated at the situation. “Put your hands down Lana,” he bravely said. “They’ll be stupid to try anything.”

“They work for The Collector,” Lana said.

“Who’s The Collector?” Mark repeated back.

“They want the stiff vampura statues.”

“They… they want the stiffs?” Mark clarified, eyeing the lone Knife Man One in front of him up and down. He looked back at the house where Knife Man Two was still inside and he took his moment.

Drawing his silver mallet that he had, he threw it straight from it’s holster in a quick movement, sending it flying into the guy’s face. It hit him square in the nose, right on target, quicker than he had to anything to stop or dodge it. The knife clattered on the floor, as did the mallet, and Lana jumped at the guy, throwing them both back onto the road. She got a few punches in whilst Mark grabbed his radio.

“Back up needed on Coventry Way!” he shouted.

Knife Man Two came back out through the front door dragging the statue of the vampura Mark had staked earlier under his arm. Mark snatched a beer bottle from a drunk teen near him and lobbed it at KM2. Just enough to create a distraction.

Knife Man Two dropped the statue to charge at Mark, who was heading for him anyway. KM2 went in for the first punch, which Mark dodged to one side to avoid. Mark used the man’s momentum against him and grabbed hold of him and ran him into the rose bush that someone had earlier vomited in.

“Fuck me that reeks!” KM2 shouted angrily. By this point, more drunk teens were spilling out from the house to see the hubbub.

KM2 swung for Mark, punching him in the face and sending him falling down. The drunk partiers started laughing, which Mark tried to block out.

Lana was rolling on the floor with Knife Man One as Bridget and Nadheera cycled into the cul-de-sac on their bikes.

“Oi! Fuck off!” Nadheera shouted as she climbed off the bike before it had even come to a stop. The bike clattered on the ground and she jumped on KM1 who was now on top of Lana with his hands around her neck. When he was off her, Lana jumped on her feet.

Bridget meanwhile had gone to help Mark who was taking a bit of a bashing. She slapped KM2 round the face. “Get out of here you hoodlum!” Bridget took out her mallet and hit the corpse statue and it disappeared.

“Bloody hell, what did you do that for?!” KM2 shouted. “Dennis, let’s get out of here!” he shouted to his companion. The pair ran out of the cul-de-sac as Henry and David came running in.

“Are you alright? What happened?” Why’s that still out here?” David asked, pointing at the vampura statue on the ground still.

“I don’t know David,” Lana panted breathlessly and somewhat sarcastically. “We’ve been a little busy fighting with humans to worry about all that right now. But here, let me do it now for you.” She stooped down to knock the corpse with Mark’s hammer which was on the road still and it disappeared from sight.

“Right, there’s lots to talk about but here’s not the place. Let’s leave and I’ll call the police on our way back to the pavilion,” Bridget said. The rest of the group mumbled in agreement and headed off.

***

“I’m really sorry I wasn’t there guys,” Stan said really apologetically. “I’ve literally no idea how I still have something inside me to give each time, yet every half an hour or so, the whole world keeps falling out of me. Anyway, what happened at the party?”

Mark filled everyone in about what happened to the point where he met Lana outside again.

“So yeah, basically those guys said they worked for ‘The Collector’ and wanted the vampura statue before I silvered it,” she said.

“Why? They can’t be brought back once staked,” Nadheera said.

“I’m imagining The Collector is in the business of collecting, for collecting sake,” Lana said.

“Hmm,” Stanley mumbled.

“What is it?” Bridget asked.

“It makes sense now. Do you remember that police officer in Nottingham on duty who was in full uniform when he was sired? The Nasscies tracked him down and managed to stake him, like literally in the middle of a road, but then they were all ran over with a car? Well the staked statue of the officer went missing when the Nasscies came round.”

“Could it not have just been silvered properly?” Mark asked.

“Could have been, but sounds like it was taken.”

“By The Collector?” Henry asked.

Stan nodded. “Exactly.”

“Seems like The Collector will go to any lengths to get what he wants,” David muttered.

“Or she,” offered Lana. “Don’t put it past a woman being that nutty.”

“What do we do then?” Mark asked.

“I’ll speak to the police, I’ll speak with Teddy and get the word out that we need to be on the lookout for The Collector’s collectors while we’re out and about, and I guess… just make sure we’re quicker and more thorough when we stake and silver… That’s all we can do.” Stanley’s face twisted a little.

“Not again?” Bridget cried. “Have you been drinking water tonight Stanley?”

“Evidently not enough,” he grimaced. “Sorry, I’ve got to go again!” He ran off towards the toilets. “Don’t worry if you’ve gone by the time I come back!” he shouted as he ran.

“Fuck me, he better clean up in there afterwards,” Nadheera grumbled.