Herb drained the juice box and grabbed another, offering it to Conny. She started to wave the offer away, but apparently thought better of it. She took the drink with a nod of thanks.
At her feet, Remy huffed softly, and Conny pointed at the vending machine.
“Grab some of that jerky, too. For Remy.”
Herb grunted, raiding the machine once more and dropping his eyes to the dog.
“Hey, Remy. This jerky makes you an accessory to the crime, right? Or guilty of receiving stolen goods. Either way, we’re on the same team now, buddy. No teeth, understand?”
Remy tilted his head, his eyes wide and alert as Herb tore open a pack of jerky and held it out. The German Shepherd looked up at Conny pleadingly, and she nodded.
Within seconds, the jerky was gone.
Herb began to open another pack, and returned his gaze to Conny.
“I can tell you the truth—or as much as I know of it at any rate. But in my experience, people have a hard time believing it. In fact, those people I do tell generally seem to end up punching me. Hmmm.”
Conny glared at him.
“Just tell me.”
“The city is being overrun by vampires,” Herb said breezily, heading back toward Dan’s room, dangling a piece of jerky from his hand for Remy to follow. “This is the part where you say ‘vampires? Are you crazy?’”
“Do you always talk so much without actually saying anything?”
Herb paused for a moment at the entrance to Dan’s room, and his face split in a wide grin.
“Yeah, I think there are people who’d agree that was accurate.”
He walked inside and sat heavily on the edge of Dan’s bed, trying not to think about how much he, too, wanted to lie down.
“They’re not vampires like you see on TV,” he said. “The vampire myth is a fabrication; disinformation that the passage of time has given a veneer of truth, understand? Different civilizations have different interpretations, but they all have some version of the vampire myth, and it is all built on the same memories: creatures that live in darkness, and feed on humans. That’s where the truth ends and the myth begins. The vampires hibernate underground for centuries, for so long that their very existence becomes a fairytale. When the time comes for a nest to rise, the humans who serve them offer up a sacrifice, and then erase the whole event from history.”
“And how do you know all this?”
Herb took another bite of chocolate and chewed slowly, staring thoughtfully at Conny.
“Is that your kid in the other room?”
She looked surprised at the sudden change of subject.
“Logan, my son, yes,” she nodded.
“He looks like he’s pissed off with the world.”
Conny’s gaze hardened.
“He’s…angry. Confused.” She lowered her voice a little. “He found out today that he is dying.” Her jaw dropped a little, as if she couldn’t quite believe she had offered that information so freely to a complete stranger.
Herb snorted.
“So did a lot of people,” he said around a mouthful of chocolate.
She stared at him evenly.
“You didn’t answer my question. How is it that you know so much about these vampires?”
“I don’t know enough.” He returned her gaze without blinking. “I’m one of the people that served them the Oceanus.”
He popped the last of the chocolate into his mouth.
Conny frowned, as if the word was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it for a moment. Her eyes widened. “The cruise ship?”
Herb nodded.
“The deal with these things is that they are meant to be immortal. Our choice was to do what they say or risk an entire nest rising—maybe even all the nests—and wiping us out.”
“‘Was?’”
Herb arched an eyebrow. The police officer seemed no more perturbed about the existence of vampires than if he had just informed her that it was raining outside. She picked up on the vital part of the information he was attempting to convey almost instantly.
He pointed at Dan Bellamy.
“He killed at least two of them. They die, all right.”
Conny’s gaze settled on Dan for a moment.
“How many are there?” she met his eye. “How many vampires?”
Herb’s eyes narrowed.
“Gotta say, you’re taking the news that vampires exist pretty well.”
Conny shrugged.
“I saw them. In the Underground. Vampire isn’t the word I would choose, but it serves just as well as monster, I suppose.”
“You saw them? And survived? How?”
“I ran.”
“You were lucky.”
“Luckier than the rest of the police. You’re avoiding the question. Again. How many vampires are there?”
Herb frowned.
“In total? Nobody knows for sure. According to records we have, which have proved to be…unreliable, each nest is structured so that there are several females for every male. Best estimate for that ratio is around nine to one. But even if that is true, we don’t know how many males there are in any given nest, and we don’t know how many nests there are out there; not for certain.”
“Like lions,” Conny said thoughtfully.
“Huh?”
“A pride of lions is matriarchal,” Conny said. “Usually, around three or four females for every male. Males are for hunting and breeding. They don’t tend to last as long as the females.”
Herb stared at her, his eyes widening slowly as realisation dawned.
The Three.
The question of why only three vampires had been sent to feed had nagged at him for hours. The vampires which had been unleashed upon the Oceanus were males. They had to be. They had even looked a little different from the vampire he had seen at the mansion; slightly bigger, their bodies more heavily packed with sinewy muscle. Males. Why else would a bunch of creatures that had slept for centuries only send up three of its kind to feed?
Because the Oceanus wasn’t about satisfying hunger. Well; not entirely. It was about something else.
The revelation banished all thoughts of fatigue, and Herb felt adrenaline beginning to course through him once more. Could the Three have been sent to the surface to feed because they were about to enter a breeding cycle? What other explanation could there be? It was so simple and so glaringly obvious that the truth hit him like a slap.
The vampires lived for thousands of years. If their breeding cycle was anything at all like that of people, the creatures would be everywhere; it would be they who ruled the surface of the planet, not humans. But the vampires weren’t everywhere. In fact, it seemed that there were comparatively few of them for a species which claimed immortality. As far as the Order had been able to estimate, there were likely no more than a few thousand across the globe.
And suddenly, Herb knew why.
Their ability to procreate had to be severely limited. Maybe they could only breed every few hundred—or thousand—years. When the time came, the nest sent its males to feed, to gather the strength they needed to service the needs of the females and create the next generation.
If it was true, it meant that the Order had spent centuries helping the vampire species grow stronger. Feeding and nurturing an enemy whose number would eventually grow to the point where wholesale slaughter of humans was inevitable.
“Twenty-seven,” Herb said softly.
Conny frowned.
“If the information my family has is correct—and that’s a big if—that’s how many there are out there. Twenty-seven. At least.”
He strode to the nearest window and stared out across the river, lost in thought.
“That doesn’t sound like many,” Conny replied. “And if your friend managed to kill two, I’m sure the army will be able to deal with the rest.”
Herb shook his head grimly.
“These creatures are smart,” he said, “of at least equal intelligence to us. Th
ey won’t just offer themselves up to be shot at. They move underground, they stay out of sight. They know how to remain undetected. That’s the one thing I am sure of.”
Conny frowned.
“I spoke to a soldier who told me there had been multiple sightings in the centre of the city. They obviously don’t care that much about being seen.”
Herb lifted his gaze to the London skyline, lit by raging flames.
The vampires didn’t burn, he knew that much for certain, but the fire spreading across central London meant light. A lot of light.
“They came from the Underground system,” Conny continued. “In fact, this all started because they were letting people go. It’s more like they wanted attention. They drew the entire Metropolitan Police Force down into the tunnels.”
Conny’s voice cracked a little on those final few words. Herb didn’t ask for details on what had happened to the police. There was no need. The answer was written in Cornelia Stokes’ clouded eyes, as plain as day. She ran. The rest of the police didn’t get the chance.
It’s more like they wanted attention.
Some slippery awareness nagged at Herb’s subconscious, clamouring for his consideration.
Multiple sightings.
“How many do you think there were?” he asked distantly. “In the Underground, I mean?”
Conny shrugged.
“Around a dozen, I think.”
“Attacking the most visible part of the country that they possibly could,” Herb muttered, almost to himself. “The middle of the city; all that light. They knew they would be seen. That’s what they wanted.”
“But why?”
Herb shook his head.
“I don’t know. But if there are only a dozen in London, it’s because they want our focus here. As for where the rest are? I have no idea, but wherever they are and whatever they are doing, it won’t be good for us.”
Before Conny could respond, right on cue, the night erupted to the sound of gunfire.
30
Conny sprinted back to Logan’s room, reaching it before the first rattle of gunfire had faded.
Logan kept his eyes deliberately averted from hers; a typical teenage sulk with a heart-wrenching undertone of finality. Her son’s rejection felt like broken glass lodged deep in her chest, tearing into her flesh with every breath she took, but she refused to acknowledge it. Logan could hate her when they were both safe. For now, Conny needed to know where the danger was located.
“Did you see who fired?”
No response.
“Logan! Who fired, dammit? Was it the soldiers on the bridge?”
Logan looked shocked at the sudden vitriol in his mother’s tone. He gave an affirmative grunt, and Conny focused her gaze on the bridge as Herb jogged into the room behind her.
“It didn’t come from the south, as far as I can tell,” he said.
Conny turned around, nodding, and pointed at the window.
“Logan saw it. It came from the bridge. Think they were shooting at vampires?”
At the mention of vampires, Logan looked like he really wanted to speak, but the rage and grief and confusion that twisted inside Conny’s boy kept his lips clamped shut. Her heart ached, and she switched her gaze back to Herb.
“I doubt it,” he said, and moved closer to the window.
“Then what were they firing at?”
“I don’t know, but they’re not firing now. I heard one gun, that’s all. If they were shooting at a vampire, I have a feeling there would be more than one person shooting.”
Conny nodded slowly, remembering the response of Chief Superintendent Porter and the others to the appearance of the creature in the tunnels. They had opened fire in a blind panic, shooting indiscriminately; wildly.
Just as I did.
That same fraught, instinctive response to the presence of vampires had cost Robert Nelson his life back in the tunnels. The memory was like a thorn in her soul. She tried to shake it away, and almost succeeded. There wasn’t time to wallow in her remorse; not yet, but the grief was there, lurking somewhere in her rear view mirror, gradually closing in on her.
She focused on the dark bridge.
The soldiers might be more prepared for combat than the police had been, but Herb’s words had a ring of truth: she couldn’t imagine a group of armed men idly standing by while one of their number opened fire on a monster. After all, the creatures were beyond terrifying in appearance. Anybody holding a gun when one appeared, she thought, would either start shooting or start running.
The soldiers were little more than stick figures at this distance, but Conny could clearly see that they were having a heated discussion about something, one of them waving his arms and jabbing a finger at the other side of the bridge.
She tried to make out what he was pointing at.
On the far side of the bridge, she saw a single person walking steadily toward the soldiers. Whoever it was, they seemed to be in no rush to reach the apparent safety of the south bank of the Thames. Judging from the way they strolled forward casually, they weren’t afraid at all.
She pointed, drawing Herb’s attention.
“See that guy?”
As Herb squinted, Conny noticed the soldiers on the bridge raising their weapons, pointing them at the approaching man.
“Shit,” Herb growled. “I think he has a knife.” He turned to face Conny, his eyes wide. “We have to get out of here, right now.”
“What? Why?”
“The vampires. They take minds; control people like puppets.”
He returned his horrified gaze to the window.
“They’re using people as weapons.”
The man on the bridge suddenly broke into a sprint, heading straight for the soldiers. Conny watched them take a couple of uncertain steps backwards, aiming their weapons, and then finally, one opened fire and put the sprinting man down with a short burst of automatic fire. Before she could even begin to frame a question that might make sense of what Herb had just told her, she saw it.
And her nerves howled.
It had been crawling along the underside of the bridge: a dark, wiry shape that crept up behind the soldiers, who were focused only on the body of the man in front of them.
“A decoy,” Herb said in an awestruck whisper.
As Conny watched, unable to blink, the creature reached the first of the soldiers, grabbing him and spinning him around to face it. Moments later, the man hoisted his weapon and began to execute his brothers in arms.
And the vampire was already gone, back over the side of the bridge, melting back into the shadows.
The ‘execution’ deteriorated quickly, becoming a messy, panicked firefight. When it was over, there were just three soldiers left standing. One dropped to his knees with his head in his hands, bellowing out a roar of despair that carried through the night almost as clearly as the chatter of the guns.
He doesn’t even know what happened, Conny thought, and she shuddered.
But she couldn’t turn away.
This time, when the vampire leapt from the underside of the bridge, it closed in fast, swinging its arms, and the remaining three soldiers exploded in a storm of blood. They didn’t even get off a shot.
Didn’t even see it coming.
When the last of them fell, his body ripped almost in two at his midriff, the monster on the bridge turned toward the south bank of the Thames.
And headed straight toward London Bridge Hospital.
Shit!
She grabbed Logan’s arm firmly, ignoring his cry of irritation and surprise.
“Get your things,” she snarled. “Now!”
Logan stared at her for a fleeting moment, apparently considering whether to make a big deal of her request or not, but when he finally looked her in the eye, she saw him register the fear his mother felt. He nodded, and began to slip on a pair of jeans, and Conny turned away.
Herb was already gone.
When Conny peeked out of the door, giving Loga
n a moment of privacy, she saw that the strange guy was back in the room with the unconscious man, holding an empty bottle of water from the vending machine over his sleeping friend’s head. Tipping out the last few drops. It didn’t appear that throwing water on him had worked, and it looked almost like Herb was debating whether or not slapping his friend might wake him.
“Scott, Lawrence,” Herb barked. “Time to move.”
Herb’s other two companions, both of whom had sat in the corridor with a shell-shocked look on their faces ever since they had arrived, leapt to their feet on Herb’s command, and ran to the big man’s side. Together, the three of them hoisted the unconscious man from his bed.
And froze.
More frantic gunfire, right outside the hospital, followed by a rising chorus of horrific screams.
Inside.
*
The screaming came from the ground floor and was muted by the hospital’s five storeys, but it was no less terrifying for its lack of volume. All of a sudden, the fatigue which had threatened to overwhelm Herb evaporated, boiled away by the heat of an all-too familiar dread.
It’s in the building.
Was there a fire escape leading down the exterior of the building from the roof?
He tried to remember the hospital roof as he had seen it from the cockpit of the helicopter, but the building was just a dark smear. He hadn’t been landing. He’d been crashing. There hadn’t been time to take in his surroundings.
If there’s no way down from the roof, he thought, we’re all dead.
Lawrence and Scott looped Dan’s arms around their necks once more, carrying him like a drunk. Herb winced when he thought about the damage they might be doing to the guy. The stitches in his belly were a temporary fix, and the last thing Herb needed was for Dan to start bleeding again. The helicopter’s interior had been drenched in the guy’s blood; Herb doubted that Dan had all that much left to lose.
There had to be a fire escape. Had to be. Even if there was just a ladder leading down from the roof, they would be able to come up with something. If necessary, Herb would find some way to haul Dan down himself.
If it comes to that.
The Adrift Trilogy: The Black River Page 46