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9.2: THE GOOD TOWN OF BARTHANE (part 2)

Back at the gate, Ferring could also hear crashes. All coaches rattled (and bumped) along the road to Barthane Town for reasons previously explained, but it was unusual to hear such loud and obviously damaging noises. Curious, Ferring squinted along the moonlit road.

At first he could see nothing besides a cloud of dust rising over the brow of the hill ahead. But when the coach finally crested the horizon, the reason for the crashes became evident. The coach was, in a very literal sense, falling apart. Only one of the four wheels that shuddered beneath it was intact; the remaining three had several broken spokes jutting out at all angles. They wobbled on their axles, their eccentric rotations making the coach veer from one side of the road to the other. On top of that, the left-hand door was dangling off the side of the coach like a broken wing, one corner dragging along the ground.

Luckily, the coach's momentum ran out just as it arrived at the gate, due to its remaining three wheels collapsing simultaneously. Ferring watched in a kind of horrified fascination as the coach tripped up and landed in a heap at his feet.

Ferring spluttered as he was engulfed in a swirl of dust. Waving it away, he ventured forward. "Er, hello? Anyone in there?"

A pair of huge black horses were miraculously still upright, panting and snorting dirt out of their nostrils. Ferring decided (sensibly) to keep clear of them. He edged round the side of the erstwhile vehicle. Disconcertingly, he found a disembodied head lying beside a buckled axle. It coughed. A zombie? Ferring was intrigued. You didn't often see zombies outside of Night.

"Hello?"

"Weeeeeeee!"

Ferring frowned. This was not a normal reaction for the survivor of a coach crash. But nothing was turning out normal tonight. Come to that, he wasn't exactly normal himself.

"And a Weeeeee! to you too, sir. I take it that means you're all right?"

Another, sharper voice answered him. "Of course we're all right. Don't just stand there—get us out! The door's jammed, and the other's blocked by— What is that blocking that door, Aunt Lizzie?"

"I believe it's a piece of wheel, darling."

"Wheeeeeeeel!"

Ferring was starting to become quite expert at judging the owners of disembodied voices. In this instance, he judged (correctly) that there were three occupants of the coach, two of whom were female, of which one was, frankly, a bit of a brat. He went on to judge (also correctly) that the owner of the sole male voice was completely, but harmlessly, insane.

"Get us out!" the sharp voice screeched again.

Ferring reached for the handle of the coach door. He gave a tug. The door fell off. The lower edge embedded itself in the road with a thud.

"I suppose that will have to do." The owner of the voice appeared in the gap left by the fallen door.

Ah, thought Ferring. Pointed teeth, pallid skin, an overabundance of eye make-up... Can only be a vampire. And that was without even taking into account the full-length, low-cut evening dress the girl was wearing, or the clusters of black lace with which it was trimmed, or even the cobweb patterns embroidered upon it.

"Out of my way," the vampire snapped, sweeping majestically from the ruined coach. The effect was somewhat marred by the hem of her dress snagging on a broken spoke. "Aunt Lizzie!" she wailed.