‘The Bureau isn’t that powerful.’
‘No, and that’s a crying shame. What you need is a proper budget. And who controls the budget? Why, the elected government. And there you are again, in the spotlight, waltzing into the halls of power and working with all those grubby politicians. The wonderful thing about being what I am, and making little foxes of my own with just a bite or a scratch, is that I only need one or two kits before the whole thing increases exponentially.’
‘Wouldn’t extending your control like that be exhausting?’
‘Oooh, I appreciate your concern for daddy. It might at that, so you’ll be helping me select candidates for turning. Vampires and werewolves are only the start of it, as you well know. The useless ones will be prey, of course.’
‘You’ll never–’
‘You’ll never succeed in your villainous schemes!’ Frazer declared in a cartoon-hero voice. Then he sneered. ‘Of course I’ll succeed. Do you think the unwashed masses give a toss about Whitehall? And I haven’t mentioned the other part of my classic pincer manoeuvre, have I? Because through your posh daddy, we have an in to the House of Lords – and there we are, the government all sewn up. And with it the civil service. And with both of them, access to all the richest and the most influential people in this country.
‘Didn’t I say you were the fulcrum? Not that it’ll stop there. Once I’ve got us bedded down here, we can expand the empire. That’ll be nice. England misses having an empire. I will be the lovely King to give it all back. We’ll have a land fit for monsters! Lloyd George would be so proud.’
Michael had gone pale. ‘You’re mad.’
‘Oh don’t be like that. My mam used to say that I was an ambitious lad, and finally I’ve found the right medium to be ambitious in. She was a treasure, my mam. Shame I had to eat her.’
Michael wished he thought Frazer was joking, but the razor- toothed smile indicated otherwise.
‘What do you want from me?’ Gabriel asked through gritted teeth.
‘Well, there are two options for you,’ Frazer grinned again. ‘The way I see it is you’re either with me, or you’re dead.’
‘What?’
Frazer adopted a charming coquettish pose. ‘You can paint my portrait, when I’m not using you to keep your big brother in line.’
‘I don’t–’ started Gabriel.
‘You do,’ said Frazer. ‘You will, because if your Michael tries to make things difficult for me, I’ll do awful things to you. That way you’ll both have a stake in your good behaviour. You can paint without thumbs, can’t you? Or I could train you to paint with your feet.’
Michael lurched towards Frazer. ‘Don’t you touch him.’
‘Oh, I’m only playing with you. I have all sorts of plans for our wee Rembrandt here. Sending him off to the homes of the wealthy and influential, a fox among the chickens, is a grand idea, don’t you think? A scratch here, a nip there, you’ll be a very influential painter. And don’t think your precious James is going to be of any help to you. He is definitely not included in any of my plans. Except as grit for my driveway in winter. He’s off trying to save the nanny, is he?’
‘No.’
‘You’re a terrible liar, Rembrandt, and your tame vampire is tediously earnest. I have no idea what Cael West was thinking, trying to bring him over to Team Niall. What possible use is a vampire with a conscience to me? Going around saving people instead of eating them. What an utter waste of fangs and food. A complete wazzock, as my mam used to say.’ He heaved an exaggerated sigh of disappointment. ‘Ah well, he won’t be a problem much longer. If my boys don’t get him, he’ll drop you like a hot potato when he finds out you’ve signed on my dotted line.’
‘And why would I do that?’
‘Because if you don’t, I’m going to have your French hinny’s throat cut. Or turn her into a werewolf, though she might make a vicious little vampire given half a chance. She’s so charming with the visitors at the gallery, but not, you know, obsequious. She’s sassy. Give her fangs and a blood lust and who knows what she might achieve?’
Gabriel finally found the courage to look at his brother. Michael stared back in blank despair.
‘Time is of the essence, Gabriel, lad,’ said Frazer in a harder voice. ‘So come on over here and let me give you a nip.’
Gabriel’s head whirled with panic and confusion. ‘And if I let you,’ – Michael made a horrified, strangled whimper – ‘how will your thugs know to let her go? You haven’t a phone, unless you’re keeping it up your arse. You can’t signal them.’
‘You think your brother is the only leashed fox in my pack? You’re not very bright, are you? Too much inhaling turps, I expect. Pet, what I know, Jack Cray knows, if I choose it.’
Michael struggled to speak. ‘Let him go, Frazer. I won’t r-resist if you leave him alone.’
‘It’s sweet how you imagine I give a fuck what you think,’ said Frazer. ‘You don’t get a say. This is between me and Gabriel. He joins up and plays his part, and Helene lives, or he refuses my reasonable offer and I’ll kill him and Helene and his vamp-on-a- leash to boot, if that’s not already taken care of.’
‘I see. I’m lost either way.’
‘I like to think of you as found,’ Frazer contradicted. ‘Like a little lost dog.’
‘I am so very sorry, Gabriel,’ said Michael, hands steady, and he meant it. But he was painfully aware that there were worse things, more dangerous things, than death.
‘It’s not your fault,’ said Gabriel, misunderstanding.
In that moment, Frazer read the fox inside Michael, and he understood perfectly well, just as Michael raised the snub, small calibre gun he’d worn concealed under his smartly tailored coat, and pressed it under his own jaw.
‘Michael!’ Gabriel lunged, panicking, towards his brother.
Frazer emitted a chittering scream of outrage as he reached out to the fox inside Michael and pushed.
Michael’s hand jerked as he pulled the trigger. Thus, instead of taking out his own throat and brain, he sent the bullet lower, into the side of his neck, above the clavicle. The collarbone shattered and blood sprayed out – over his hands and his face, over Gabriel’s as his brother reached him.
Michael folded, sinking first to his knees, then to his back, legs sprawling. He panted through the pain. I’ve failed. I have failed. I failed. Oh god.
He tried to find a way to ask his brother to finish this for him, but words wouldn’t come. Gabriel’s face and chest were spattered with blood; he looked like the one bleeding to death.
Michael could not even comfort himself with the knowledge that this wasn’t true, because Frazer’s cruel game wasn’t over yet.
‘I’m…’ sorry he tried to say again, but it hurt. He could feel the blood leaving his body. Although he hadn’t died instantly, surely the blood loss would be sufficient. Surely he would die soon.
‘Not quite yet, Michael, pet,’ snarled Frazer. ‘I don’t appreciate you trying to cheat me, after all the work I’ve put in.’
Frazer’s hand extended towards Michael’s chest. ‘Give me a minute and you’ll be… well, fine is putting it a bit grandly. But my spirit in you will keep you alive long enough to work a little animal magic, I think. This is far from over.’
Frazer grinned that manic grin again. ‘You’re a sneaky bastard, Michael Dare. I knew you’d be a fine recruit. Comes naturally to you. We just have to tidy up that one last detail of having an inconvenient baby brother to care about. You won’t be needing that anchor to humanity anymore.’
His head whipped suddenly to one side, the force of his gaze halting Gabriel in his tracks as he reached for the dropped gun. ‘I wouldn’t,’ he said darkly. ‘I really wouldn’t.’
Gabriel curled his hands into fists, and didn’t.
‘See, I’ve got all the cards. I can save your brother. I can save your French nursemaid. All you have to do is let me give you a nibble. Let me int
o your veins. Or die. I can take care of that part for you as well.’
Michael panted with the effort of trying to die when the alien in his body wouldn’t let him go.
Gabriel couldn’t make himself look at his brother.
And then he had to.
Their eyes met, and all they found was despair. Michael shut his eyes. Gabriel turned away.
Frazer’s became sullen. ‘Rembrandt, I have things to do and I don’t need you making your brother all mopey and noble and shite. Make your choice.’
‘If I choose… death. How?’ asked Gabriel, thinking of Datta’s vision. Fear made his voice tremulous. ‘There’s the gun.’
‘And have you think you can shoot me, or finish Michael off like an honourable little twat? Fuck, no. If you say no to me, then I’ll kill you, and I’ll make sure Michael lives and your Ms Dupre goes home.’
‘I need. I need. A minute. To think.’ Gabriel crept away from the fox, his skin crawling with horror, and found himself too near the edge of the hospital roof. He couldn’t stop thinking about Datta’s dream. At least now he had a reason to jump.
He looked nervously to the river. The narrow walkway between the hospital and the Thames had a few pedestrians on it, people cutting between the pier a short distance to the east and London Bridge itself, to the west. River traffic chugged each way along the waterway. On the far side of the river, he could see the Tower of London and, further west, Tower Bridge, where James – gorgeous, sensitive, funny, perfect James – had shown him his city with new eyes.
Gabriel didn’t want to lose himself to this vicious fox and his pack. He didn’t want to die, or to lose Michael or Helene, or James, oh god, James. Gabriel could only stall for so long, before a choice was forced on him.
It surprised him that he knew already what the choice would be.
‘If I jump, will you leave James be?’
‘You know, I’ve changed my mind. You’d be such a waste as a gory splat on the footpath when you could be helping me make little foxy bairns all over the country. You can’t have a choice after all, Rembrandt. I want you on the team.’
‘No.’
‘Did you miss the part where I said you can’t have a choice?’
Gabriel edged away from Frazer, heart racing. When he got near the lip of the building, he craned his neck to look down. Such a long way to fall.
He thought three things as he stood there.
He didn’t want to die, but he would not be a slave to this wicked fox spirit.
Where the hell were Datta and Webb?
And where the fucking hell was James?
Chapter Twenty-One
Tavisa Datta wished more than anything that Anthea was by her side right now. Michael Dare’s bodyguard-cum-assistant was smart, cool-headed and funny. A crack shot, too. Tavisa wasn’t a bad shot herself, considering, but even in her line of work, she wasn’t much called on to discharge a firearm. This was London, not New York.
Actually, what Tavisa Datta wished more than anything was that none of this was happening. Not the vampires and fox spirits, not the precognitive dreams, definitely not the kidnapping. But all the wishing in the world couldn’t make it not true – well, she assumed it couldn’t. Maybe in this bizarre world she’d come to inhabit, it was possible to wish all of this away, and she might live a semi-normal life.
She was a realist, though. A lifetime of precognitive dreaming had taught her she had to be a pragmatist or go mad. Wishing Anthea was here to have her back, and go over the changes in their dreams was a waste of time.
Tavisa knew perfectly well how her and Anthea’s dreams had both changed. Anthea’s precog powers were a fraction of Tavisa’s, but she still saw the raven that Gabriel threw from the rooftop; the bird that fell and broke and turned into the body that dead James Sharpe mourned.
They both dreamed something new. A second raven, the black feathers of it gilded with an auburn sheen; bathing in a pool of blood. Anthea had smiled ruefully as she’d described it. ‘Like the Tower Ravens,’ she said, ‘Once they’re gone, England will fall.’
There was no doubting who those ravens represented, just as there was no doubting the identity of the flamingo.
James had called her with the news that Helene Dupre was taken, and she in turn had alerted Anthea through their new, secret phones, used solely to contact each other. If Michael had discovered this ploy to keep him out of the loop, he hadn’t said anything. It was all about his protection, anyway, and the protection of the Crown if the former failed.
Tavisa was sorry the flamingo with the blue flowers and the blood red roses around her throat turned out to be Dupre. She seemed a nice woman.
Tavisa had another new dream that Anthea did not share.
The new thing was a blazing figure wielding a sword. An angel, in the Christian parlance – otherwise a deva or apsara or malachim or malaikah or whatever terrifying, celestial forces were called in other cultures. It shone too fiercely bright to make out a face or limbs or anything but the towering, righteous rage. Tavisa couldn’t tell if the angel was blazing like a beacon on the ground or in the air or over water. She couldn’t see its face. She didn’t know what kind of omen it was, only that it was an almighty creature of awe and flame, and unstoppable.
Tavisa had met James Sharpe by the gallery within fifteen minutes of Helene’s kidnapping. The doctor had easily picked up the scent of the perfume bottle Helene had used defensively. The bottle had broken, splashing the tyres of the kidnapper’s vehicle with strong scent – strong enough for a vampire to follow. Helene had managed to use her keys, if not the silver knife, drawing supernatural blood too. It all helped.
Anthea’s team sent the first CCTV image to their phones. The kidnappers were on their way towards Shadwell.
James Sharpe set off on foot, following the scents. Tavisa followed the technological leads from her car as the team sent her CCTV updates and she traded observations in quick phone calls with Sharpe. Tavisa was unnerved at how swiftly he was covering ground on foot.
Their joint intel led them past Shadwell. The kidnappers were taking their hostage into Wapping. She followed from a distance, sometimes driving down alleys, taking shortcuts, one right over a newly paved public area between renovated rows of cottage housing.
With confirmation that the van had stopped at a block of old apartments, likewise under renovation, Tavisa pulled over and continued the pursuit on foot.
She emerged on a tiny cross-street. The offender’s truck was backed up to an old shopfront. The faded gold lettering on the cracked and partly boarded window on the ground floor showed that it had once been a florist. Rose In Bloom. Wreaths and Wedding Garlands a Specialty.
Rose garlands. Tavisa couldn’t erase the dream image of a blood red garland of flowers around Helene Dupre’s throat, wet and glistening like paint; like actual blood.
The van driver had flung open the vehicle’s back doors, two other men emerged from the van to assist, and another man surfaced from the florist to help them with their cargo – a lumpy roll of carpet.
Tavisa sent three rapid texts.
The carpet roll wriggled. One of the men shoved at the middle of the roll and it was still.
A snarl at her ear made her jump, though she managed to swallow the tiny shriek.
‘Sorry.’ James Sharpe, not at all contrite.
‘Do you have to be so fucking stealthy?’ she hissed at him.
He grinned at her, vampire teeth glinting ferally in the light. She couldn’t suppress a shudder and suddenly there was the contrition, as he closed his mouth over the fangs.
James led the way to the back of the building, his demeanour as much cold fury as concern. Tavisa edged along the brickwork of the alley behind him and tried to measure the doctor’s state of mind. Anthea had briefed her on working with vampires, but it was way outside her field of experience. One piece of advice came immediately to mind, though.
‘Are you all…’ Tavi
sa gestured vaguely, reluctant to put it into words, ‘Fired up?’
James’s brow creased then cleared. ‘Yes, I’ve eaten,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you mean. Gabriel gave–’
‘Don’t.’ She took a breath. ‘Let’s get Helene out of there. Where can we get in?’
Tavisa wasn’t terribly fond of the next part, where she clung to James Sharpe’s back and he climbed, fly-like, up the outside wall to the sloped rooftop of the second storey. She climbed quietly down to the slate tiles and drew the gun Anthea had given her, loaded with very much non-standard ammunition, infused with silver, wolfsbane and god knew what else. A broad spectrum firearm, Anthea had called it.
James reached into his jacket and withdrew a wooden stake.
‘Oh,’ whispered Tavisa. ‘Vampires.’ She lifted the gun. ‘Is this even any use?’
‘Aim for the heart or the head. That’s very effective on pretty much everything.’
With infinite care, he crept to a skylight and undid the screws with his fingernails. He regularly paused to listen but no-one disturbed them. He removed a pane of dirty, stippled glass and put it aside. He tucked the stake back into his belt and gestured. She holstered her gun and let him take her hands.
He lowered her easily into the attic, then followed her down, hanging by his fingertips first, then landing light as ash beside her.
They drew their weapons again, and he opened the access hatch a fraction. James listened. Sniffed deeply. Noiselessly lowered the hatch.
James held up four fingers and a thumb. Five of them. He hooked two fingers in front of his mouth and held up three fingers. Three vampires. Identified by their scent, she supposed. He held up one finger and made a ridiculous growly monster face. She arched an eyebrow. He shrugged, then mimed howling at the moon. Okay. So. Werewolf. One thereof.
She held up her hand indicating “five” and gave him a questioning look. He mouthed “fox” at her.
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