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Business as usual by Lilachigh
 
Chp 40 Growing Pains
 
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Business As Usual


Chapter 40 Growing Pains




The Unturned sprawled on the ground in the children’s’ playground was dead – well, Agnes Pringle fervently hoped he was dead or at least unconscious, because there was a group of young vamps – all in their late teens – feeding from him in turn.

Fangs dripping blood, eyes glowing, five faces turned towards her. The growls died away and one of them relinquished his place by the body and stood up. “Oh, good evening Miss Pringle,” he said politely.

“Good evening, Karl. I’m sorry to bother you while you’re eating, but have you seen Eric?”

“Eric?”

“Tell the old biddy to go away and leave us alone.” One of the teenagers snarled up from the ground. Agnes didn’t recognise him; he certainly wasn’t one of her customers in the Tea Shoppe because she never allowed such bad language to be spoken in front of her, certainly not by vamps that were barely old enough to be called men.

Karl’s fist moved with speed, sending the other boy flying through the air to crash against a metal post and lie, motionless on the grass. “Sorry about that,” he mumbled. “Todd’s new. Only rose tonight. He doesn’t understand.”

Agnes nodded. “But what about Eric?”

“You mean that kid who hangs around all the time? About ten or eleven? Got a sister, but we don’t see her that much.”

“That’s the one. He’s not at home and his mother is getting upset. She doesn’t like him being out so close to dawn.”

Karl wiped his fangs and shimmered back into human face. “He was here when we spotted our supper – grabbed a couple of mouthfuls, but I wasn’t sure if he was allowed to drink fresh, so I told him to get lost.”

“You didn’t bully him?”

Karl shook his head and glanced longingly back at the body. “No, honest, Miss Pringle. Just told him to take a hike. He’s probably somewhere in the cemetery, watching to see if anyone new arrives tonight. He likes it when they come out and don’t know where or what they are. Well, it makes us all laugh, doesn’t it?”

Agnes sighed: she was certain that the expression on her face when she rose all those years ago would have made a lot of people laugh, but she could never quite see the humour of the situation herself. But then young boys always did have an odd sense of fun.

She nodded towards the body, “I do hope you’re not going to leave the rubbish just lying around, Karl.”

Karl, who’d been planning to do just that because he wanted to get to Willie’s Bar for a drink, shook his head. He was never quite sure why Miss Pringle always made him feel as if he was six years old, but she did. Poor old duck; she made great cakes but looking at her, he wondered if she ate enough proper food; she looked thinner than he remembered. Perhaps hunting Unturneds was harder when you were turned older. Jeez, she might not have eaten for days!

“Would you like a drop?” he offered politely, remembering a distant lesson his mom had once taught him about sharing your candy with everyone. “There’s plenty. He was a big guy.”

Agnes thanked him but said she’d just eaten, although to be fair the Unturned was large and healthy looking, not one of the shambling dregs of society that these teenagers usually found for snacks.

The cemetery seemed very dark that evening. Agnes trotted purposefully along the paths, her eyes scanning every moving bush and twig in case the Slayer was out on patrol. She thought it was probably a little late for Buffy Summers – her usual killing time was around midnight to one a.m. and now it was closer to four. But you could never be too careful. Many vamps had come to grief over the years because they had become careless where the Slayer was concerned.

Suddenly a faint rustling in a clump of bushes brought her to a halt. She sniffed the air – “Eric? Eric – I know it’s you behind that bush. Come out, there’s a good boy. You need to go home. Your mother is very worried about you.”

The bushes parted and a bedraggled child appeared, sullenly scuffing his trainers into the mud. Agnes winced – he looked dirty, as if he hadn’t washed for days – and the fresh blood had dried around his mouth in a nasty crust.

“She won’t care where I am.”

“She’s the cat’s mother,” Agnes responded automatically and sat down on the edge of a stone angel’s wing. “And why would you say something so silly?”

“S’not silly. It’s the truth. Mom would be glad if Nancy and me were staked and out of the way! We’re just a nuisance to her.”

“Nonsense! I’m certain your mother loves you both very much,” Agnes said severely. She stared at the small boy in front of her, noticing how his fists clenched and unclenched, the tension in his shoulders under the dirty and torn red soccer shirt. “You’re all she has now your Father is gone.”

There was no reply. Agnes took a bag of homemade chocolate out of her pocket and the sweet smell drifted into the night air. Eric’s head came up and he watched her nibble on a piece of candy. Slowly he sat down next to her on the tombstone, silently accepting the square she pressed into his hand. Somehow during the next five minutes, the bag was emptied.

Agnes shifted on her stone perch, wondering how it could possibly feel cold to someone who no longer felt the cold. She was tired; it had been a long night in the Willow-Tree Tea Shoppe and she needed to get home, to feed the cat and cuddle down under her patchwork quilt to sleep until midday. But first there was this little problem to sort. She wished desperately that Spike was around to call on for advice, but recently every time she’d seen him, whatever they started talking about, the conversation soon came round to his favourite topic, Buffy Summers. Agnes frequently wished she’d never heard the name.

No, this was a problem she had to solve on her own, the difficulty being, she had no experience of children. Admittedly quite a few came into the shop to buy candy and cake, but they were humans. She was certain that if she began asking Eric direct questions, he would clam up and all she would get would be grunts and shrugs. She needed a plan of campaign, but oh, Spike would do this so much better! She’d seen him with Dawn during all those months when Buffy was lying around sleeping in heaven. She knew young people saw through the Big Bad exterior to a person underneath that adults never knew.

Still, Spike wasn’t here. This was up to her. She took a deep breath. “I saw Karl earlier. Nice boy. Kind. Said you’d been there when they caught their supper. That must have been exciting?”

Eric nodded. “It was cool. I got really hot blood instead of that baby warmed up stuff Mom gives us! And real human, too. Not pig or cow. Pig sucks.”

“Eric! Well, I must admit I quite enjoy a nice glass of pig, myself. Human is a little rich for my stomach.”

“But you’re old.”

Agnes, who had never really considered herself old, just in her prime, nodded sadly. “I suppose I am a bit too old for regular human, but you’re a bit too young, Eric.”

The boy jumped down from the angel and kicked viciously at a clump of grass. “Never going to get any older, am I?”

Agnes winced at the pain in his voice. So this was what was at the heart of the matter. She tried to stay calm. “Well, I am not entirely sure, but I believe us vampires do age, but very, very slowly.”

“How slowly? When will I be able to hunt for myself, get my own blood? I hate being treated like a baby, eating what I’m given, when I’m given it. I can’t even go out and buy rotten pig from a shop!”

Agnes held her tongue; she had already heard from Eric’s mom that money had been vanishing regularly from her purse and she was sure her young son had been the culprit. As she’d told Agnes, he was moody, surly and belligerent and she had no idea how to control him. He refused to clean his part of their cave or take out the trash. But in a way, who could blame him. Eric had enough sense to know that nothing would ever be the same for him again.

“Well, it will be a long time, I won’t lie to you about that. But you will grow up eventually.” She didn’t add, “if you survive” knowing he was street-wise enough to be well aware of that fact.

“Things used to be fun – before -” Eric’s face screwed up in doubt – “Jeez, I think they did. It’s weird, I can’t quite remember. But – but there was soccer!” he finished triumphantly. “I can’t even play that any more. The bigger boys aren’t interested and Nancy’s the only other vamp kid round here.”

Agnes was quite certain she’d seen Unturned girl children playing soccer, but decided that it wasn’t the time or place to bring up feminine equality in sports. She stared harder at the child’s dirty red shirt. On the back was a name, Beckham, and the number 7. She didn’t need the badge on the front to tell her that it was a Manchester United shirt.

Her eyes brightened with unshed tears as she remembered. Dear Richard Wilkins III had had many faults, some of which were, of course, inexcusable. Watching English football matches – which he insisted on calling soccer – on television whilst eating a meal she had cooked especially for him, had been one of them.

Agnes knew about David Beckham. She also knew, because Spike made no secret of his allegiances, that his favourite player - even though he was Irish - was a gentleman called Roy Keane who played for the same team.

She stood up, pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and held it in front of Eric’s face. “Spit!” she said briskly and then holding the back of his head, rubbed the dry blood from around his mouth, ignoring his wriggling whines. “There! Now we must get home. Look, the sun’s almost up. And Eric, I need some help in the tearooms. Would you be interested? It would give you some cash in your pocket.”

The boy looked at her suspiciously. “I won’t cook cakes. That’s for girls.”

“Certainly not. I quite understand. But there are lots of things that I need help with – like - like lifting very heavy bags of flour - but perhaps you’re not strong enough….”

Eric thrust out his chest and strutted off in front of her, boasting that he could lift anything! Agnes sighed and followed him, weary to the bone. Somehow she had to persuade Spike to take an interest in this boy. Kick a football around with him; talk about Manchester United, explain how to cope with life as a male. Goodness! She stopped in her tracks, feeling all quivery. Did Eric even know about sex? That was one conversation she refused to have with him.

Gritting her teeth, she hastened after the youngster. She had a mission to fulfil and she only hoped she could steer Spike away from his obsession with the Slayer long enough to help her.

tbc

























 
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