The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories Written By Women

"It all seemed very academic to us. We called them the vulture people, a shamanic tribe who indulged in blood drinking and sacrifice. Sarah picked up some interesting stuff that pointed us in the direction of certain ancient sites in Turkey. The imagery she saw could be verified. These places existed and there was archaeological evidence that a shamanic culture existed there, who had worshipped vultures. They believed that drinking blood gave them superhuman abilities. Whether that was true or not, we thought that other tribes would probably have regarded them as supernatural, as demons, even, because of their bloodthirsty habits. We believed that there was a diaspora and that factions of this tribe might have moved gradually into Europe, eventually giving rise to the vampire legend.

"Every evening, I'd have Sarah go into a kind of trance, guiding her further and further back into the past, seeking the true story. It seemed we were meant to discover all this, to make the link. The vulture people became more real for us: powerful shamans, who used the rites of blood to change their world. As time went on, Sarah started to get jumpy about it. She said she sensed little dark things that scuttled in the folds of these creatures' vulture wing robes, that they had begun to touch her. She wanted to stop, but I persuaded her otherwise. I thought we were getting close to something that would prove my theory incontrovertibly. We had to continue. But then, one night, Sarah brought something back with her."

There was a silence, while Lara took a long, meditative draw on her cigarette. Then she said, "And Sarah couldn't cope?"

Noah pressed the fingers of one hand briefly against his eyes. He could hear her screams even now. "It was too overwhelming, too alien . We always did these sessions by the light of one candle, so we couldn't see much, but it was as if the night just surged into the room. We were surrounded by a presence, not evil exactly, but beyond good and evil. It was amoral, and we were nothing to it. Even I could sense it, and I'm no great psychic. In moments, I realized how we'd been playing with something inconceivably huge and beyond us, something immeasurably powerful. We'd pulled at its skirts too insistently and now it had noticed us."

"What happened?"

"Well, once Sarah started screaming, I just leaped up and put the lights on. If something really had been there, it disappeared." He finished off the warm lager left in his glass and shook his head. "Sarah was writhing on the floor. I didn't know what to do. The noises were hideous. In the end, I slapped her. It's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? And she kind of came out of it. But even if the thing had gone, it left a taint behind."

"Did it kill her?" Lara asked bluntly.

Noah detected a faint note of scorn in her voice. "No, no. Of course not. Sarah was an experienced psychic, but she was damaged by what she'd felt and seen. It changed her and there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing. She became paranoid, jealous and afraid. It destroyed us."

"It wasn't your fault," Lara said, reaching out to touch one of Noah's hands.

He laughed cynically. "They all said that, but it's not true. I was so eager to discover the truth, I didn't think about the dangers. I just kept pushing and pushing. After we split up, Sarah lost her job. She just lost it, big-time. The last I heard she'd admitted herself to hospital. She dropped all her old friends."

"It wasn't your fault," Lara insisted. "Sarah just wasn't strong enough."

"She was," Noah said. " It was stronger than both of us."

"I don't believe that."

"You weren't there. Even as a writer, I don't have the words to describe to you how terrible that night was, how real the entity that came to us. This wasn't Christopher Lee in a silk cape, Lara. This wasn't a nice, safe little meditation like all those we did today. This was the most raw and primeval energy; it could snuff you out like that!" He snapped his fingers before her face, but she did not flinch.

"I want it," she said.

He laughed shakily. "What?"

"It's what I want. I need to know the truth. I'm not afraid."

Noah raised his hands and shook his head emphatically. "No. You don't know what you're asking for. The vampires you're so enamoured of, they're just fashion accessories, a romantic myth. You don't want the truth of it, believe me."