Nicole and Alex begin to put the pieces together, and things take a supernatural turn for the worst as Lisa Marie Ferla of the Society of Specialist Paralegals takes on the next Chapter of "The Key"

“First thing’s first – how do you know my brother?”

Early morning, and Nicole and Alex were seated in the window of a teashop on Canongate. Every few seconds, Alex glanced suspiciously behind him and through the rain-streaked window. Nicole just wanted a decent cup of coffee.

“You look like you’ve been stuck out in that all night!” clucked the waitress, as she loaded their table with a coffee pot, croissants and jam. Nicole grimaced, and reached for her mug.

Alex waited until the waitress was at a safe distance before answering, voice lowered.

“We met in a hostel in Krakow,” he explained. “He was on his own, working on that book of his, of course, and he was quieter than the sort you usually meet in those places. We struck up a conversation in the bar one night. We have… many of the same interests.

Here he broke off, glancing nervously through the window again.

“”Clarinda's,” said Nicole, desperate to break the silence. Her black-clad companion put her on edge. “I never knew this was here.”

“Good coffee,” Alex replied. “And the name… it reminds me of someone.” Before Nicole had a chance to ask further he added quickly, “What do you know about vampires?”

Nicole shrugged, not entirely surprised. “Given that my brother’s writing a book about them? Not much,” she replied. “Garlic, stakes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer… Angel was kinda cute.”

Alex forced back an involuntary half-smile. “I got a call from Bryan a week ago,” he said. “He’d made it to Transylvania – the most legendary seat of Eastern European vampire myth – and there was something he wanted me to see. Something he’d discovered. Something that terrified him. He didn’t think anybody else would believe him.”

“What?” Nicole squeaked as his voice trailed off, hooked despite herself.

“Keep your voice down!” Alex snapped. “What Bryan had discovered… it was about to change everything.”

--

On the 7.30 to Edinburgh, Ben struggled to focus on the Metro crossword. Clarinda. He hoped the tearoom was where he remembered it. The trip to the capital seemed frivolous, but he’d woken up with the word turning over in his head and it wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to be. The truth was he missed Alex – while his strange dress sense and wild conspiracy theories made him a bit of a liability in company, at least the flat was never dull when he was around. His daily workday routine had given him something else to focus on, but without it he was beginning to feel a bit lost.

Ben and Alex had played the Lottery like everybody else, and Alex had always been full of ideas of what to spend the money on. Trips to Eastern Europe, researching the myths and legends his partner was fascinated by, had never captured Ben’s imagination. He’d have liked a holiday, sure – the two of them together, reading paperbacks by some holiday resort swimming pool and enjoying good food and wine, Ben content in the knowledge that Alex would be hardly likely to abandon him in the middle of the Mediterranean. But after that? People needed a little routine. Without his job, Ben was convinced he’d go insane.

Perhaps he’d pop his head in when he was in the area, see how the clean-up was going.

And that was the other thing. Sure, the weather had been horrendous of late, but Queensberry House had undergone extensive renovation while the Scottish Parliament was being built. The only way water could have leaked into the library was through an open window, and Ben could distinctly remember checking everything was closed – as he always did – before heading home for the weekend.

Sighing, he tried to put it from his mind and focus on his puzzle.

Ben loved his puzzles, and the Metro crossword in particular had formed a part of his daily commute for as long as he could remember. This morning though, his mind was elsewhere and each of the little boxes only served to remind him of the strange markings on the piece of paper that Alex had left. Clarinda. He had heard the word – or was it a name – before, and it wasn’t just the name of some tearoom by his workplace. He had to hope that the trip east would jog his memory.

One down. Bloodsucker (7). Third letter “m”, last letter “e”. He laughed. “Alex” would never have fitted.

-

Nicole turned the old key over in her hands. “Where does this fit in,” she wondered aloud and smiled at her unintentional double-meaning.

“It opened a box. We never saw what was in it – just a glowing red light…”

“I think I’ve seen this one, Tom Hanks played a blinder,” she butted in nervously.

Alex sighed. “I did hear you were a bit of a cynic – I suppose a bank teller doesn’t need much imagination.”

“Ex bank teller, and besides –“

“Shut up. You don’t understand. This was the last time I saw your brother.”

That got her attention. “Alex, where’s Bryan?”

“I think they smelled us, we were as still as the grave. Creatures, like the ones back at your flat. Vampires, in their most vulgar and vicious form. They chased us and we just ran. He must have gone back for the key – he must have thought it would be safe with you…”

“What creatures? Where?” Nicole could sense the terror in her thus far stoic companion’s voice, and she could feel her heart begin to beat faster despite herself.

“There were men. They looked official, military or something. I couldn’t tell. They had dark jackets and guns, and when they opened the box there was the light, and something jumped at me, and I ran and… oh god…”

There was a crash as the door to the café was thrown open. “Nicole Fitchie,” the man in black barked, “you’re coming with us.”

She looked to Alex for reassurance, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the gun.