IT WAS almost dawn before we got to bed (Debbie dismissed her police guard earlier in the night). Everyone crammed into the two hotel rooms. Harkat, Vancha and I slept on the floor, Mr. Crepsley in his bed, Steve on the couch, and Debbie in the bed in the other room. Vancha had offered to share Debbie's bed if she wanted someone to keep her warm.
"Thanks," she'd said coyly, "but I'd rather sleep with an orangutan."
"She likes me!" Vancha declared as she left. "They always play hard to get when they like me!"
At dusk, Mr. Crepsley and I checked out of the hotel. Now that Vancha, Steve and Debbie had joined us, we needed to find somewhere quieter. Steve's almost deserted apartment block was ideal. We took over the two apartments next to his and moved straight in. A quick spot of tidying-up and the rooms were ready to inhabit. They weren't comfortable - they were cold and damp - but they'd suffice.
Then it was time to go vampaneze hunting.
We paired off into three teams. I wanted to go with Debbie, but Mr. Crepsley said it would be better if she accompanied one of the full-vampires. Vancha immediately offered to be her partner, but I put a quick stop to that idea. In the end we agreed that Debbie would go with Mr. Crepsley, Steve with Vancha, and Harkat with me.
Along with our weapons, each of us carried a mobile phone. Vancha didn't like phones - a tom-tom drum was the closest he'd got to modern telecommunications - but we convinced him that it made sense - this way, if one of us found the vampaneze, we'd be able to summon the others swiftly.
Disregarding the tunnels we'd already examined, and those that were used regularly by humans, we divided up the city's underground terrain into three sectors, assigned one per team, and descended into darkness.
A long, disappointing night lay ahead of us. Nobody found any trace of the vampaneze, although Vancha and Steve discovered a human corpse that had been stashed away by the blood-suckers many weeks earlier. They made a note of where it was, and Steve said he'd inform the authorities later, when we'd finished searching, so the body could be claimed and buried.
Debbie looked like a ghost when we met at Steve's apartment the following morning. Her hair was wet and scraggly, her clothes torn, her cheeks scratched, her hands cut by sharp stones and old pipes. While I cleaned out her cuts and bandaged her hands, she stared ahead at the wall, dark rims around her eyes.
"How do you do it, night after night?" she asked in a weak voice.
"We're stronger than humans," I replied. "Fitter and faster. I tried telling you that before, but you wouldn't listen."
"But Steve isn't a vampire."
"He works out. And he's had years of practice." I paused and studied her weary brown eyes. "You don't have to come with us," I said. "You could co-ordinate the search from here. You'd be more use up here than-"
"No," she interrupted firmly. "I said I'd do it and I will."
"OK," I sighed. I finished dressing her wounds and helped her hobble to bed. We'd said nothing about our argument on Friday - this wasn't the time for personal problems.
Mr. Crepsley was smiling when I returned. "She will make it," he said.
"You think so?" I asked.
He nodded. "I made no allowances. I held to a steady pace. Yet she kept up and did not complain. It has taken its toll - that is natural - but she will be stronger after a good day's sleep. She will not let us down."
Debbie looked no better when she woke late that evening, but perked up after a hot meal and shower, and was first out the door, nipping down to the shops to buy a strong pair of gloves, water-resistant boots and new clothes. She also tied her hair back and wore a baseball cap, and when we parted that night, I couldn't help admiring how fierce (but beautiful) she looked. I was glad it wasn't me she was coming after with the arrow gun she'd borrowed from Steve!
Wednesday was another wash-out, as was Thursday. We knew the vampaneze were down here, but the system of tunnels was vast, and it seemed as if we were never going to find them. Early Friday morning, as Harkat and I were making our way back to base, I stopped at a newspaper stand to buy some papers and catch up with the news. This was the first time since the weekend that I'd paused to check on the state of the world, and as I thumbed through the uppermost paper, a small article caught my eye and I came to a stop.