It was quarter past midnight when I finally found which crypt the vampire was using as his den. He’d tried to mislead me by doubling back several times, leaving a confusing mess of footprints, but with my years of experience in hunting his kind I had managed to unravel them.

They had led me to a moss-stained crypt, shining dully in the light of the half moon. The door, a nail-studded affair flanked by Greek columns, was closed, but I could see where the lock had been broken. Yes, this was most definitely the place.

I paused until the cawing of the rooks ceased sounding from the trees at the far end of the graveyard. Only then did I cautiously push open the door. The smells of damp earth and mouldy cloth hit my nostrils. Something had definitely risen from the ground within.

I had stood to one side as the door swung inwards, but nothing emerged. No clawed arm slashed out to eviscerate an unwary slayer. In a way, that would have made it easier. I could have hauled the fiend into the open where there was more room to fight, and more light too. For although my eyes were well trained to see in the dark, I had my limits.

But there was no avoiding it. I had to go in.

I rushed through the open door, aiming to bowl over any vampire waiting in ambush. But he was ready. A razor-sharp nail sliced into my leather jacket, only just short of drawing blood. And just as well, from the look of him – I’d probably have gotten blood poisoning.

The vampire I was hunting was a filthy-looking individual. His pallid face was streaked with grime and his burial suit was wet and torn. Part of that was due to the barbed wire fence I had chased him over, and the puddles in the sodden alley he had fled through, but it still looked as if he hadn’t been taking good care of himself since he’d risen.

He was no weakling, though. His filthy coat hung over a frame that looked well muscled. I couldn’t afford to be complacent.

A quick kill was called for. I unstoppered a bottle of holy water and hurled it at him, grabbing my stake from the belt of my jeans a split second later.