Kzine Issue 7

by Graeme Hurry et al.

  ‘Put Jake on.’ Over the phone wasn’t how she wanted to do this, but she had to know.

  ‘Its okay Mama, I spoke to him. He went to school.’ Sisterly triumph dripped like syrup.

  ‘Put him on.’

  With a huff, Tayrina disappeared.

  ‘I wen’ to school.’ Jake spoke through food.

  ‘Where did you get the money?’ He didn’t deserve praise for doing what she told him.

  Jake waited, perhaps to swallow.

  ‘You tell me where you got it, boy.’

  She stood by the window and looked down on the city, doubting now that her children even belonged here. She had surrendered her pride for them, told a stranger what it was no business of a stranger to know.

  ‘I saved it, Ma.’ He didn’t sound angry. She wanted him to, wanted him to give her an excuse to rail against him.

  Cold clutched her shoulders. ‘Don’t you lie to me, boy. Where did you get it?’

  ‘Every birthday an’ every Christmas, since I was six. Tips for carryin’ bags in the offices, for running errands.’ He didn’t shout. Her accusations should have made him furious, and it sickened her that they didn’t. Did Jake just expect her not to believe him? ‘I saved it.’

  His calm voice forced her to believe him when fury would not.

  ‘You thought I stole it, didn’ you.’

  ‘No. Of course I didn’t.’

  ‘Now who’s the one lying?’

  His cheek made her smile. ‘Get back to school.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He said. ‘I knew you wan’ed dad to send tickets. I thought you’d just keep waiting for him. I wouldn’t do that. I’d send them as soon as I could.’

  ‘I know you would.’

  She put the phone in her pocket and sank to the floor. Alfie and Kit could wait a little while longer. They were patient.

  She stared up at the window, at the dazzling city tempting her. They deserved to live here, her good, honest children. Their father and grandfather, and uncles and aunts, had built it. She had even built some of it herself, when she first arrived. She would get them a little roof apartment by the lake, with a garden full of bluebells and Tayrina’s paintings on all the walls, and she would hold her head up high knowing her children did her proud.

  She, who planned to shoot a man to steal his money and accepted that money in exchange for a sob story, would never belong here. Even if she wore suits like this one every day.

  Still, she smiled as she got up and walked to the door, it wouldn’t hurt to let her neighbours know.

  LORD LION’S DESIGN

  by Simon Kewin

  Lord Lion, Home Secretary of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, lifted the chalice of blood that Brabham, his butler, had brought for him. It was only midday, but he needed a drink. Presenting himself to a wary public as the acceptable face of the undead community was proving to be much more wearing than he’d imagined. Bloody plebs were just so damned mistrustful. He had to tread carefully; he was so close to the prize now. One slip and all the years of scheming and denial would be wasted.

  The only light in his shuttered library was the shifting glow from the fire. It limned the polished silver cup as he brought it to his lips. He sniffed the bouquet, swirling the dark, viscous liquid around. The cellars were so poorly stocked these days. A good vintage was rare; so much was tainted, degraded. A pure Anglo-Saxon, perhaps a hint of Celt or Norse for colour, was a precious thing. And this smelt promising.

  He sipped, then spat blood out, spraying his butler’s face.

  ‘This is disgusting, man! What were you thinking?’

  Brabham, holding his tray perfectly still on the splayed fingers of one hand, wiped the blood from his face with a tissue plucked from his breast pocket.

  ‘I am most sorry, Lord Lion. I warmed it to precisely 98.6 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale.’

  ‘It’s not the temperature! It’s mongrel blood. Bring me brandy immediately to take the taste away.’

  ‘My lord.’

  Brabham set down the tray and poured brandy from the nearby cabinet. Lord Lion drank without even letting it breathe, swilling the liquor around in his mouth, his eyes closed.

  ‘Better. A little better.’

  He opened his eyes again. Brabham hadn’t moved.

  ‘What in the seven circles of Hell were you thinking?’

  ‘I’m sorry, my lord. The provenance was checked most carefully.’

  ‘White?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘How far back did you check the lineage? The taste was quite sickly.’

  ‘The line was impeccable, I assure you. Parents and grandparents, all good Anglo-Saxon stock.’

  ‘Then you should have looked further back.’

  ‘But, my lord, if one goes back far enough, then surely all of us have, ah, connections with other parts of the world do we not? Are one’s ancient ancestors not all from Africa?’

  In a single movement, too fast for Brabham to react to, Lion stood and lashed out. The butler was hurled through the air to thump into the wall between the Turner and the Constable. He crumpled to the floor in a broken heap.

  ‘I’d drink from you if you weren’t so tainted!’

  Brabham could only groan in reply. He tried to stand but was unable to. Then the door was pushed ajar and Warner, Lord Lion’s Director of Communications, peered warily inside. He glanced at Brabham crumpled on the floor, then back to Lion.

  ‘What is it, Warner?’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, Lord Lion. Something’s come up. Another incident.’

  ‘Deaths?’

  ‘Deaths.’

  Lion shrugged. ‘You people get killed all the time. It’s a fact of life.’

  ‘It looks like another act of ritual vampirism.’

  Lion swore to himself. First the blood and now this. Why did he bother? ‘How many dead?’

  Warner closed the door behind him. He stepped over Brabham and into the room. ‘Around ten.’

  Lion poured himself more brandy. ‘Then prepare the usual statement. Profound regrets… outrage… bring to justice… so on and so on. You know the form.’

  ‘I think we may need to go a little further with this one,’ said Warner. ‘You’ve seen the papers, what’s trending on Twitter. You know the public mood. I feel we need to be a little more visible just now.’

  ‘Oh, you do?’

  ‘I do.’

  Lion sighed. There was no peace. And Warner knew his job, no doubt about it.

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘Go to the scene of the crime. Talk to the cameras, show the country how appalled you are. Do statesmanlike and reassuring.’

  ‘Is that really necessary?’

  ‘I’ve ordered the car round already. Ms. Hudson will brief you on the way.’

  ‘That bitch.’

  Warner frowned. ‘Lord Lion, I …’

  ‘Never mind, never mind,’ said Lion, holding up a hand to cut Warner short. ‘I’ll do as you ask.’ He glanced over towards Brabham, still in a heap on the floor. ‘This room needs cleansing anyway.’

  ‘The wolves got here first I see.’

  They sat in the back of the ministerial car, invisible behind smoked glass. Lion glanced across at Ms. Hudson. Cally. She raised one of her immaculately arched eyebrows. He flashed her a brief smile of apology.

  ‘Forgive me, my dear. A mere turn of phrase.’

  He returned to examining the throng of reporters and photographers waiting outside the terraced London house. Cally continued flicking through reports on her iPad.

  ‘Are you ready to face them?’ she asked. ‘Do you have all the facts you need?’

  ‘I’ll manage.’ He glanced back at the young woman sitting next to him. Her lipstick was bright, glossy red. Perhaps he should invite her to Huntersley for another weekend. She was so very decorative and, of course, her condition made things instantly more interesting. A shame she’d insisted on maintaining a purely professional relationship
last time. The closest she’d got to letting that hair down was to express an interest in Lion family history, of which there was rather a lot. Perhaps, in hindsight, offering to let her hunt with the hounds had been a mistake. But she was pure, he knew. An English Rose. A dog-rose. He wondered how she’d taste.

  ‘How do I look?’ he asked.

  ‘You look fine. The blue tie is definitely better than the red.’

  ‘Ah, good. Sometimes the lack of a reflection is such a bore.’

  He raised his voice so the policeman in the driving-seat could hear.

  ‘Any news yet?’

  The policeman half-turned his head, keeping his eyes on the reporters.

  ‘None, sir.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Lion pulled a bar of chocolate from his inside packet, peeled off purple foil from one brick and snapped it off.

  ‘Vampires like chocolate?’ asked Cally.

  Lord Lion glanced at the policeman in the front seat. Completely reliable, of course, but still. Public perceptions had to be maintained at all costs. Especially now.

  ‘Finest dark chocolate,’ he replied, making sure he could be heard in the front of the car. ‘100% pure cocoa. I have it imported from Jamaica. It helps with the blood cravings, I find. I think it must be the iron.’

  He closed his eyes for a moment, savouring the rich, bitter taste. In truth it did help. A little.

  ‘Would you care for some?’ he asked.

  ‘Not for me, thank you. You may be indestructible but that’s pure poison to us. Haven’t you heard of theobromine?’

  ‘Can’t say that I have, my dear.’

  ‘Chocolate is death to canines.’

  ‘But… the time of the month. I mean, it’s a crescent moon just now; you’re looking wonderfully, ravishingly human. Surely you’d be safe at the moment?’

  ‘I don’t intend to find out. And that stuff gives me a migraine even when I’m human.’

  ‘Ah, too bad.’

  ‘Are you ready now?’

  ‘Quite ready. Bring on the ravening pack.’

  The eyebrow arched again.

  Lord Lion strode towards the throng of reporters, deliberately revealing the tips of his elongated canines. Here we are, nothing to be afraid of, all perfectly normal.

  ‘Home Secretary,’ one of them shouted. ‘When are you going to bring your own people under control?’

  He smiled at the question.

  ‘I’m afraid it is far too soon to speculate who is responsible for this,’ he replied. ‘All we know is that eleven bodies have been discovered and that the house was a squat, illegally occupied. The causes of death are not yet clear.’

  Another babble of shouted questions. A tall woman with luscious blond hair standing at the front shouted the loudest. Sally Peterson, bloody Daily Mail.

  ‘Are you denying they all had their throats torn out?’

  Keep smiling. Remorseful, calm.

  ‘I can neither confirm nor deny such rumours. I can assure you that if a crime has been committed here, the culprit or culprits will be caught. I have full confidence in the police force.’

  ‘They’ll be charged despite the Lycanthrope and Revenant Relations Act?’

  Jim Edwards from the Express. Rabble.

  ‘I assume you are alluding to the positive discrimination clauses in the recent legislation. As I’m sure you are aware this does not extend to acts of criminality.’

  ‘But, if this was an act of vampirism, doesn’t the law now have to make due allowance?’

  ‘That’s a matter for the courts. Whoever has carried out this crime, even if a member of the lycanthrope or revenant communities, will be brought to justice. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will excuse me?’

  With a nod, he swept away from the semi-circle of reporters, leaving them to bellow further questions after him. He walked towards the house. Once it would have been a rather grand building. Now it sagged and crumbled. The windows were boarded up. Plants straggled out of the gutters and lichen furred the crumbling brickwork. If he had his way they’d bulldoze the whole street and all the others like it.

  An expressionless constable shepherded him through the police cordon that sealed off the house, inviting him inside. Her face-muscles were tense as she stood aside to let him pass.

  The scene was worse than anything described by the harpies of the press. Impossible to tell how many bodies there were. The walls were spattered and smeared. Someone had massacred them all. Had fun massacring them all. The smell of blood was overpowering, exciting him, the tug deep in his stomach and his loins. But repelling him at the same time too. It was all tainted, filthy. Rank with decay and disease. The thought of them all, infesting the place like worms, made him sick.

  He stepped through the room, taking care not to stain his Gucci shoes.

  ‘The press are going to love this,’ Cally said from the door. ‘They’ll have a field-day. It’ll be worse than Free Homes For Zombies.’

  ‘Get Scarman on the ‘phone,’ he said. ‘Tell him I need to see him. Now.’

  ‘At Whitehall?’

  ‘Of course not at bloody Whitehall. Tell him he’s invited to my house. Tonight only, any time after dark.’

  ‘Right away, Lord Lion.’

  That evening, he sat and waited in the library of his Kensington town-house again. North of the river, of course; the same side of the Thames as Westminster. Not being able to cross running water was another bore. He could always take the tube, go under the river, but that would mean travelling alongside all the riff-raff of London, a prospect too terrible to contemplate.

  He’d left the balcony window wide open, letting in the chill of the night. Big Ben chimed midnight in the cold distance. Scarman had clearly been waiting for his cue. The curtains flapped and waved and there he was, outlined against the sparkling lights of the city.

  The silhouette moved into the room. Scarman was by far the biggest vampire Lion had ever met: tall and broad. As a normal human he would have been formidable. As a vampire he was terrifying. Unless you were a vampire yourself.

  Lord Lion stood, strode across the room towards Scarman and, with an outstretched hand, lifted him up off the ground. Without breaking stride, he thrust him to one side to impale him on the ceremonial katana of a stone Samurai set beside the window on a plinth.

  Lion stepped backwards and flicked on the lights. Scarman, suspended a foot above the ground, the tip of the sword protruding through his chest, grinned broadly.

  ‘My Lord Lion.’

  ‘You idiot!’ Lion replied. ‘What do you think you’re doing? What the hell was that today? Another episode like it and I’ll have no chance. Do I need to explain our arrangement to you again?’

  Scarman slipped downwards, the razor-sharp blade slicing through more of his chest. ‘Play by their rules. Work from within. Be good. I think I can understand.’

  ‘I’m one step away from being Prime Minister of this country. Do you have any idea what that would mean? Do you understand what we could do then? The wars we could wage? The blood that would flow? We’d be unstoppable.’

  ‘We already are unstoppable. We don’t need to play these games of yours.’

  Scarman pulled himself forward along the curving Samurai blade with his hands. The tip of the sword disappeared into his chest and then he was free, dropping to the ground.

  ‘We can’t afford any more of these incidents,’ Lord Lion said. ‘You gave me your word you’d keep your people under control.’

  Scarman shook his head while he inspected the damage to his chest. ‘What you don’t appear to understand is that vampires don’t obey rules. We are the masters and we do what we like. I can’t control my people.’

  ‘Then it’s time you started. I will not have my plans ruined by your thugs. I warn you, Scarman, there is to be no more unless I say so. I can invoke the internment clauses of the legislation if required and I’m quite willing to do so. Even you won’t be able to escape the silver cages we have waiti
ng at Yarl’s Wood.’

  ‘And I’m warning you. Your Home Secretary means nothing to us. Your designs mean nothing to us. You and your human friends. The vampire in the alleyway is sick of your promises, sick of your words. Do you think we’ll just stop because you tell us to?’

  The two vampires faced each other across the room.

  ‘This stops now,’ said Lion. ‘We do things my way, not yours. The years of skulking like rats in the shadows are over.’

  Scarman charged at Lord Lion, hurling his body back against a marble pillar. Lion felt ribs crack with the force of the blow.

  ‘There’s your answer,’ said Scarman.

  ‘Get out of my house,’ said Lion. ‘Get out and don’t return. The invitation is rescinded. If you’re lucky I’ll come and see you when you’re interred. Out!’

  Scarman stepped backwards, unable to resist the terms of the Invitation and Denial. Back at the window, before he stepped out into the night air, he grinned once again. ‘Goodnight to you too, my lord. We’ll meet again soon, I’m sure.’

  The following morning, Lion strode down Downing Street. As he always did, he imagined himself Prime Minister already, thought about what he would do when he held the reins of power. Ah, the plans he had. The thought of it made him quicken his pace. The policeman on the door of No. 10 nodded to him discreetly as he approached, to invite him inside.

  An aide showed Lion to an ante-room, where he had to sit and wait for five, ten, fifteen minutes. He closed his eyes, refusing to let himself be riled by such petty games. When the Prime Minister’s door finally opened, the Archbishop of Canterbury emerged, the scowl on his beneficent features very clear as he spotted Lion. Lion smiled at his old adversary in the Lords. More games. He had to admit it was nicely done.

  Inside, Edwards, the Prime Minister, the current Prime Minister, told him to sit, then proceeded to make him wait again, reading dossier after dossier from his red ministerial case. Lion entertained himself with thoughts of what he would do to Edwards when he took over. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the man was barely British.

  ‘Ah, Lion,’ Edwards said at last, as if just noticing him waiting there. ‘You’ve heard about events overnight?’

  ‘No-one has briefed me on anything.’