A Vampire Christmas Carol by Sarah Gray Read Free Book Online Page A

Jacob Marley standing there, gabbling in an unearthly tongue.
    “I am sorry,” she said firmly, willing away her fear (for no matter how many times she encountered these unearthly specters, they still gave her unease). “You’ll have to speak English. I cannot understand your tongue.”
    There was more garbling, then, “You seek me?”
    She shook her head, surprised by the notion. Did anyone seek such ghastly spirits as this? “No, no, I’m sorry. I did not call you.”
    He nodded grimly, but in disagreement.
    “No, no, I’m sure I did not.” Then she looked at him more closely. “Wait . . . when I said to Mr. Ginsby, I wished there was a way I could help Ebenezer, did you hear my words?”
    He nodded, this time in the affirmative.
    “And you’ve come on his behalf?”
    Again, he nodded, the chains making a racket that she thought certain could be heard clearly to the tailor’s shop on the next block. “On your behalf and his.”
    “His? You mean Ebenezer’s?”
    “Do you love him?” the ghost of Jacob Marley demanded, seeming to fight the weight of the chains bound around him. “Still after all these years? After all he has done to turn you, to turn all of mankind away?”
    Tears filled Belle’s eyes. It had been a very long time since she and Ebenezer had been in love, so long that she could barely remember them as they had been, young and full of hope. But the love was still there deep in her heart. “I do love him,” she told the specter, shivering now not just from the cold, but for fear that maybe Ebenezer truly was now lost. “Is there anything you can do?” she begged. “Anything any of us can do? I never married, but have instead devoted my life to fighting the vampires, caring for those who fight them, perhaps because I could not help Ebenezer.”
    “Ask,” Marley howled, lifting his feet off the ground, chains rattling.
    “What?” She drew her cloak closer, truly afraid now.
    “You must ask me to go to him,” Marley cried. “I cannot save myself. I am lost, but that which threatens him is far worse even than my fate.”
    “What do you mean?” she cried. “Whatever could be worse than your fate?” She motioned to his clanging, chain-ridden form.
    “They wish to make him one of them.”
    “No!” she cried. But she knew it was true. Somehow, she had always known it was true. She heard a dog bark in the distance and flinched. “Oh, please, Jacob, do come inside. The streets are dangerous at night. We are not safe.”
    “I do not have time! ” he cried. “The request for a spirit such as myself must be made out of true love. Only true and abiding love can carry me through the veil to Ebenezer Scrooge.”
    Realizing what he was saying, Belle clasped her hands together as if in the front pew of a cathedral. Her hood fell away and her dark hair, streaked only lightly with silver, came down round her shoulders. “Please, Jacob, I beg of you. Go to him. Help him see the error of his ways. Save him from the vampires! Can you do that?” Tears filled her eyes. “I do not know how the vampires have controlled him and turned his heart sour. I only know that they have. If . . . if it is possible, please help him. Save him from their clutches. Save him from his fate.”
    The ghost of Jacob Marley rose up with a cry and a howl so loud, so frightening, that Belle covered her ears with her hands, squeezed her eyes shut, and fell to her knees in the wet, muddy snow. When she opened her eyes a moment later, she was alone in the street.

10
    P erhaps there is always hope, perhaps there is not, for as Belle was begging the ghost of Marley to save Scrooge, Scrooge, having finished a dismal dinner in a dismal tavern, did approach his home, where his tenants were waiting for him (of which of course he was not aware). He lived in the chambers upstairs, which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so