by Helen Harper
‘Tell me,’ I repeated.
‘Westminster Bridge,’ he blurted out. Relief at yielding to my command flooded his eyes, followed by guilt. ‘Shit,’ he muttered.
I paid him no attention. I was already running to Tallulah.
‘What?’ Fred asked. ‘What is it?’
We jumped into the car. I’d already started the engine and was driving off before I’d clipped on my seatbelt. ‘Why does anyone rob a bank?’ I asked, performing an illegal U-turn in the middle of the road.
‘For money,’ Fred said. ‘Obviously.’
‘Except,’ I changed gears and accelerated, ‘these bank robbers didn’t take money. They didn’t waste time trying to access the Talismanic Bank’s vaults, or bother with the small amounts of cash available from the tellers. They went for the big guns. They’ve got a whole bunch of items that are priceless to the werewolves and the vampires, but which will be difficult to offload to others. What’s the best way to make money out of what they’ve got?’
Fred hissed through his teeth. ‘Selling them back to the people they stole them from.’
‘Exactly. I’d bet my eye teeth that’s exactly what’s going down now on Westminster Bridge.’ I tossed my phone into Fred’s lap. ‘Call Lord Horvath. Get him to wait until we get there.’
He did as I asked. ‘He’s not picking up. I think his phone is turned off.’
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. Fuck.
‘Lord Horvath doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to happily hand over a wad of cash in return for his belongings and then skip away,’ Fred mused.
‘No,’ I said grimly, ‘he does not. The robbers must be prepared for that. They must have some sort of setup that will keep them safe while they get the money they want.’ I gave Fred a dark look. ‘But we have to be prepared for a bloodbath that might be about to occur smack-bang in the centre of London.’
Fred adjusted his seatbelt. ‘Drive faster, boss.’
***
London, like New York, Tokyo, Berlin and a whole host of other metropolises across the world, was supposed to be a city that didn’t sleep. At this hour, however, there was scant traffic on the streets and Westminster Bridge was all but empty. Empty, apart from the two cars in the middle of the bridge, both of which were at a standstill. They were facing in opposite directions and on opposite sides of the road. I recognised the first one as belonging to Lukas. The second was a beaten-up Volvo. Shivers of deep foreboding ran down my spine.
I urged Tallulah forward, deciding to drive directly to where the action was. Before I could, two vamps appeared out of nowhere, flew through the air and landed directly in my path. I slammed on the brakes and unrolled the window. ‘Get out of the way!’
‘The bridge is closed,’ the nearest vampire said. ‘Find an alternative route.’
‘You know who I am,’ I said flatly. ‘And I am ordering you to step aside.’
‘We can’t do that, ma’am.’
‘Uh oh,’ Fred murmured under his breath. ‘He ma’amed you. We’re in serious trouble now.’
I gave him an exasperated glare and stepped out of the car. I looked from one vampire to the other. Neither of them moved an inch. With slow, deliberate movements, I reached into Tallulah and drew out my crossbow. Both vampires remained where they were but I definitely saw the younger one flinch.
‘Step aside.’ Once again I allowed my voice to fill with the power of command.
The first vampire’s face spasmed with rage but his feet were already moving. I was on a roll; stress must have been enhancing my ability to compel. I glanced at the crossbow then back at the cars. The driver’s door on Lukas’s vehicle was opening and, as I watched, Lukas got out. Then the front passenger door to the Volvo opened and a masked figure emerged. I gritted my teeth. Damn it.
I leapt inside Tallulah. ‘Get out and stay here, Fred,’ I instructed. ‘Don’t let anyone else through.’
He nodded and quickly left the car. I changed gears and drove forward slowly, one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on the crossbow. Assuming the robbers were human, I wasn’t allowed to use it against them – the law forbade it. But that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t fire off a bolt if I had to. I had to be ready for anything.
As I approached, another figure stepped out of the Volvo. This one was holding a gun. With casual insouciance, he – or perhaps she, it was difficult to tell – raised the muzzle in my direction.
I kept driving, stopping only when Tallulah’s bonnet was metres away from the boot of Lukas’s sleek black vehicle. He watched me with a hooded gaze as I turned off the engine and climbed out to join the party. Neither the masked figure opposite him nor the one with the gun reacted. I glanced inside the cars. There appeared to be a third person sitting in the driver’s seat of the Volvo. All three members of the gang were here.
‘Hi, guys!’ I trilled. ‘How’s it going?’
‘D’Artagnan,’ Lukas bit out, no doubt using my nickname to hide my police identity from the bank robbers. ‘This is not a good time.’
A garbled, accentless, male voice came from behind the mask of the person holding the gun. ‘Listen to the bloodsucker. Get into that car and leave.’
‘I don’t think I’m going to do that.’ I lifted my chin and stared at the masks. They were made of moulded plastic and covered the whole of both robbers’ faces. Even their eyes were shielded from view; neither of them was displaying so much as a millimetre of skin. Black, white, Asian, young, old – I couldn’t begin to tell. These bastards were taking no chances with their real identities. ‘You are under arrest.’
Lukas glared at me.
The other masked figure, whose body shape indicated she was female, laughed. ‘You’re a police officer? Give me a break.’ She had a strong Cockney accent; this had to be the woman identified during the robbery. She shook her head, laughed and waved at her colleague. ‘If she comes any closer, shoot her.’
‘This is between me and them, D’Artagnan,’ Lukas said quietly. ‘It’s best if you don’t get involved.’
‘They’re human and they’re criminals,’ I said, without taking my eyes off the disguised pair. ‘That means they’re mine to deal with. Not to mention that I’m already involved.’
‘If she interrupts again,’ the woman said to Lukas, ‘we’re gone. You’ll never see or hear from us again – and you’ll never get your belongings back. Give us the money and we’ll give you the location of the boxes. It’s as simple as that.’
There was a small beep. I stiffened before realising it was a watch or some kind of timer. The bastards were organised and weren’t going to hang around for long.
Her next words confirmed it. ‘Sixty seconds,’ she said. ‘Then we walk.’ Her head turned to me. ‘And if we don’t get away, he never gets his stuff. Neither do the werewolves. We have safeguards in place.’
I quickly weighed up my options. Although Fred was at the end of the bridge, to all intents and purposes I was on my own. I could bring down one of these bastards, but I wouldn’t manage all three of them. Especially as it seemed that Lukas was going ahead with the exchange.
My police training didn’t extend to this sort of scenario. It wasn’t that I was afraid of getting shot – even if they killed me, I’d wake up again in twelve hours. But I would lose a lot of ground in the intervening time. The best thing I could do was to hold back and do what I could to identify these fuckers after they’d gone. I could track the Volvo, or wait until they tried the same trick with the werewolves and I was better prepared. Right now, the robbers held all the cards. But just because I was about to lose the battle didn’t mean the war was over. Far from it.
Lukas reached into his car and slid out a briefcase. ‘Very well,’ he murmured, with a black-eyed look of warning in my direction.
I gritted my teeth but stayed where I was. Despite my decision not to act, it was beyond frustrating not to do anything when a crime was taking place. I was supposed to stop events like this from happening
, not stand by idly and watch them like a damned lemming.
The briefcase looked innocuous enough. It was aluminium with simple catches on the top. Lukas handed it over to the woman who frowned, tested its weight, then placed it on top of the bonnet of his car and opened it. Unable to help myself, I leaned forward.
There was nothing there. The briefcase was empty.
‘What the fuck is going on here?’ the woman snarled. I stared at her. All of a sudden, her broad Cockney accent had slipped. Russian: there was no doubt in my mind.
Lukas smiled, baring his fangs. ‘Did you really think that I’d allow you to blackmail me in this fashion?’ he asked softly. ‘Did you really think I’d hand over five million pounds in cash and walk away? I’m Lord Horvath, the most powerful vampire in this country.’ His black eyes glittered. ‘And I don’t negotiate with the likes of you.’
For one long second neither of the masked figures reacted, then the woman raised her head. ‘You’ll never see those safety deposit boxes again.’
Lukas shrugged. ‘So be it.’ He clicked his fingers – and all hell broke loose.
From either side of the bridge, where they must have been hanging out of sight, several vampires swarmed over. The male robber swung his gun towards Lukas and prepared to fire. I lifted my crossbow. I’d shoot him in the damned leg if I had to. I didn’t have to bother, however; with lightning speed, Lukas sprang forward, spinning his body until he was behind the man. He yanked up the mask just enough to reveal an expanse of white throat then he sank his teeth in it.
The woman didn’t utter a sound, she simply ran for her car. I tossed the crossbow to the side and ran after her. I was fast – but the vampires were faster. They brought her down in seconds.
Lukas pulled his bloodstained mouth away from the man’s neck. ‘Don’t hurt her,’ he ordered. ‘We want to have a chat first.’
The vamps nodded and hauled the woman to her feet. Scarlett stalked forward and peeled away the woman’s mask and I stared at her furious face. Blonde, younger than I’d thought, perhaps in her mid-twenties. She had a long scar across her cheek and angular features. She didn’t look like someone I’d want to encounter on a dark night.
Lukas wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced at me. ‘I’m sorry, Emma. I didn’t want you to have to see that.’
‘I know you drink blood, Lukas,’ I said, although I averted my eyes. ‘That’s hardly news.’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘But the reality of it can be … unpleasant.’ He was still holding onto the man, who was groaning.
Lukas pulled off the man’s mask and gazed into his face. The robber was swarthy, with a curling moustache that seemed too pantomime villain-esque to be real. His eyes were unfocused, but he managed to hawk up a ball of phlegm that he intended to spit in Lukas’s direction. He didn’t get very far; Lukas thumped him hard on the back of his head and he went down like a sack of bricks. Lukas sniffed with grim satisfaction.
‘Was this wise?’ I asked
‘Anything is better than being held to ransom by these fuckers.’
‘You will regret it!’ the woman hissed. ‘You shouldn’t have done this. In fact, you will discover that…’
We never got to hear the end of her sentence. Without any warning, there was a loud crack and her head exploded. Blood and bone and brain matter sprayed out in all directions. Then there was another crack and the body of the fallen moustachioed man jerked violently.
The vampires scattered, desperate to seek cover. I threw myself flat onto the ground. Shit. Shit. A third crack and the sound of breaking glass. A masked body slumped out of the robbers’ car on the opposite side of the road. A fourth pop. Where were the shots coming from? Who had done this?
My heart thumped as adrenaline coursed through my veins. Fear tingled across my skin. I raised my head to look around – and that was when I saw Lukas. He was flat on his back, his head at an unnatural angle.
I crawled over to him, ignoring the shattered glass. ‘Lukas!’ I grabbed his arm and shook it. ‘Lukas!’
His head flopped towards me. There was no light in his eyes – and there was a gaping bloody hole in the centre of his forehead. My breath shuddered in my lungs and the air around me seemed to still. I fumbled for his neck, desperate to feel his pulse even though I already knew the truth and my efforts were wasted.
Lukas Horvath was dead.
Chapter Eleven
Nobody moved for a long time. I could hear sirens approaching us from a distance, but even when the armed police arrived they would proceed with great caution. An active yet invisible sniper was not someone to underestimate.
My whole body felt numb. I kept expecting Lukas to sit up and grin at me. He didn’t. I reached for his hand and held it, though I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps for comfort. Perhaps because I knew it wouldn’t be long before his skin turned cold and I wanted to feel the searing heat of his touch one last time. Strangely, there were no tears pricking at my eyes. I couldn’t feel much of anything at all.
After several long moments, I carefully unwrapped my fingers from Lukas’s hand and stood up. I waited for a shot, for the onrush of sudden pain and the familiar blackness of death. There was nothing.
I swivelled round and scanned the area. ‘Where did the shots come from?’ I asked. It sounded as if my voice was coming from a long way away.
Scarlett got to her feet, her expression as dazed as mine must have been. ‘I … I don’t know,’ she said. She shook her head. Her blonde hair was mussed and her red lipstick smeared like a bloody wound across her cheek.
I heard a shout and saw Fred running towards us at full pelt from the other side of the bridge. His recklessness shook me out of my stupor and I waved at him, angrily, gesturing that he should stay back. He was making a perfect target of himself. But there were no further shots; the sniper had done his work and had probably already gone.
As Scarlett let out a cry and sank to her knees beside Lukas’s corpse, my eyes narrowed. We were a stone’s throw from Parliament. Even at this hour, you’d have to have a death wish to shoot a gun anywhere near here.
‘Who chose this location?’ I demanded, urgency colouring my every word. Scarlett only moaned in response.
The other vamps were getting to their feet, anguish etched on every face as they stared at their dead Lord. One of them tilted back his head and started to howl. A split second later the others joined in. The keening sound rent the air with far more force and emotion than I’d ever heard from the werewolves, even during the full moon.
I shivered then repeated my question. ‘Who chose this location? You or the robbers?’
This time Scarlett heard me. ‘They did,’ she whispered. She stroked Lukas’s face. ‘They chose it. They told us when and told us where.’
I nodded stiffly. So they’d been in control. The sniper must have already been in position before Lukas got here. I wondered if the shooter was with the gang or was someone entirely different, before deciding it didn’t matter.
The robbers had been prepared for everything to go to hell from the very beginning. The Russian woman and her fake Cockney accent, and the swarthy man with her, had been collateral damage. Was killing Lukas the objective from the start? I frowned and discarded the idea. A sniper could have shot him at any time on any day. The craziness that had led up to here, from the London Eye idiocy to Tower Bridge to the robbery itself, was unnecessary. The sniper was merely a contingency plan in case Lukas decided not to play by the robbers’ rules.
Those bastards. Those fucking, murdering bastards. Sudden pure rage rippled through me but I tried to shake it off. It wouldn’t help me now.
Fred was panting when he finally reached us. ‘Behind us,’ he gasped. ‘The shots were fired from behind us.’ He waved a hand in the general direction.
I frowned. There were few places where a sniper could conceal themselves – but there was a hotel. I squinted. There, high up on one of the top floors, was an open window. A curtain flapped in the l
ight breeze.
I stared at it. And then I started running.
By the time I reached the end of the bridge and swung right towards the hotel’s entrance, half a dozen police cars had arrived. Collier stepped out from one of them. ‘The hotel,’ I spat. ‘There was a sniper in the hotel.’
Collier gazed at me for a long moment, his expression inscrutable. I rolled my eyes; there wasn’t time for his obtuse attitude. I spun round and continued moving forward. We couldn’t allow that sniper to escape. Fortunately Collier seemed to have come to the same conclusion. I heard him bark orders and send several officers after me.
I slammed through the glass front doors. The night receptionist, who was reading a book, jerked in surprise and looked up. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Police! Nobody comes in or out!’
Her mouth dropped open. I ignored her astonishment and ran for the lift, burst inside and jabbed the button for the top floor.
‘Wait!’ the receptionist shouted.
The doors slid closed, swallowing her voice.
I leaned against the mirrored wall and closed my eyes. Lukas … Oh God. Lukas. Then the lift jolted slightly and the doors opened again.
I opened my eyes and stepped out.
This wasn’t a huge hotel. There were only twenty-odd rooms on the entire floor and I could discount half of them immediately as they faced in the wrong direction. The room with the open window had been about halfway along the building.
I reached where I thought the sniper’s room would be. 824. I traced the numbers with the tip of my index finger, then I stepped back and used all my strength to kick open the door. The more I did this, the easier it became; one or two more deaths and the strength imbued to me as a result would mean no door could hold me back. Because when I died, I came back. When I died, I grew more powerful.
Vampire or not, when Lukas died he just died.
I swallowed my thoughts and entered the room. I’d stupidly left my crossbow on the bridge but it didn’t matter. I’d use my bare hands to kill anyone who was in here.