The Adrift Trilogy: The Black River

by K. R. Griffiths

  Mancini kept walking, his nerves racing, heading for the apartment’s plush kitchen.

  And the knives.

  He selected a large carving knife from a rack, and turned back toward the living room, coming face to face with Jeremy.

  “You don’t need to do that,” the Brit said. “He’s a good kid.”

  Mancini shrugged.

  “Sure. They all are. But I have a job to do, and I’ve already lost most of my team getting this far.”

  “So, take Bellamy!” Jeremy thundered. “He’s what you’re really here for.”

  Mancini strode back into the living room, pointing the knife at Herb.

  “He’s a loose end, Pruitt. Come to think of it, there are an awful lot of loose ends in this room. Like you said, I only need Bellamy.”

  He lifted the knife, and Jeremy faltered, taking a half-step backwards. For a moment, the room bathed in tension, the air crackling with the threat of impending violence.

  “I just wanted to go home.”

  Mancini blinked at Dan Bellamy’s small voice. He glanced at him and laughed bitterly.

  “Yeah, good luck with that, buddy. Where I’m taking you, you’re going to be a long way from home.”

  “I have a condition.”

  Mancini frowned.

  “I’m sick. Getting worse all the time. I just needed to go home and take my medication. Not even sure I’m…me anymore.”

  Dan kept his eyes pointed at the floor, and spoke in a soft monotone. Mancini couldn’t even be sure that the guy was actually talking to him. He didn’t even look like he knew exactly where he was.

  Mancini walked around the couch, trying to attract Bellamy’s attention. The scrawny guy just kept staring at the floor, his face buried beneath a mop of hair.

  “What’s wrong with him?” he asked dubiously, looking at Herb.

  Rennick just stared back mutinously.

  Dan giggled. “That’s the funniest thing,” he said. “I used to wonder the same thing myself. Now, I’m not sure it was ever me. It’s the world. The question is: what’s wrong with everybody else? Why don’t you all hear it? The river?”

  Dan lifted his chin and met Mancini’s gaze.

  Burning eyes.

  A scream caught in Mancini’s throat as invisible thorns punctured his mind, putting down roots. Taking away control.

  His world became a tunnel, and all he could see was Dan Bellamy’s searing pupils, ringed by blood, boring into his soul.

  He hoisted the MP5, pressing the cold barrel into the side of his own head.

  Bellamy rose from the couch, his eyes blazing, and Mancini dropped to his knees in front of him.

  Worshipping him like a god.

  His finger began to curl around the trigger.

  And suddenly, the world was plunged into darkness.

  The presence in his mind was gone, releasing him like an unclenching fist. Mancini fell forward, gasping for air, clutching at his throat.

  “What happened?” a woman’s voice snarled. Not Burnley; the policewoman.

  Mancini heard a low rumble fill the room, and moonlight began to wash into the apartment. The steel shutters were opening.

  “Power cut,” Herbert Rennick said, with a rueful chuckle. “Lockdown didn’t last long.”

  “They cut the power to the whole damn building?”

  “Take a look outside, Conny. They cut the power to the whole damn city.”

  Mancini squeezed his eyes shut.

  Should have run when I had the chance.

  36

  Herb strode over to the choking American and scooped up the machine gun which he had dropped on the floor. He checked the magazine, and nodded to himself. It was full.

  The American woman—Burnley—still had a pistol trained on Herb, but she looked uncertain. Probably, Herb thought, Burnley was thinking about how close she just came to being the last one standing, and what the hell she was supposed to do next.

  Join the fucking club, lady.

  “I think we’ve got bigger issues right now, don’t you?” Herb said amiably, gesturing at the American woman’s gun. She nodded slowly, lowering her weapon.

  “Conny,” Herb said, “would you mind taking her gun? And any others she might be carrying.”

  Conny nodded, and headed for Burnley, who gave her weapon up with a sigh and opened her jacket to show that she wasn’t otherwise armed. Conny turned the gun over in her hands, gazing at it intently as she moved back to the window.

  Herb offered a hand to the man gasping on the floor in front of the couch.

  “You never did tell me who the fuck you are.”

  The American glanced up at him, his eyes wide and angry.

  “Mancini,” he growled, staring at the gun in Herb’s left hand. After a moment, he lifted his gaze to Herb’s eyes and nodded, taking the hand that was offered and hauling himself to his feet. “What did he do to me?”

  Herb grinned.

  “He does what they do, Mr Mancini,” he said, and struck out with a solid right, connecting sharply with Mancini’s jaw and knocking him straight back onto the floor. “That makes us even. I’d prefer it if we could stay that way for a little while. Capiche?”

  Mancini wiped at his lip and grunted.

  Herb left him on the floor and strode over to the window, moving to stand alongside Conny and her son.

  Far below, the city of London was a dark stain, lit only by fire and headlights.

  “I don’t get it,” Conny said. “How could they cut the power to the whole city?”

  Herb frowned.

  “They cut the lights as a matter of priority,” he said absently. “I should’ve guessed. But at least we know where the rest of them were, now. Power stations. London isn’t served by just one. The city draws energy from several, all over the south of England. You don’t just pull a plug and cut the power to a city of this size. While the whole world is looking at London, the vampires have been busy disabling the whole country. A few here to attract attention, the rest spread around Britain, dismantling our infrastructure. Taking out power stations, and who knows what else. They won’t even have to engage with the military. They can pick us off at their leisure, and let our reliance on electricity do the rest. Without power, they own the night.”

  Conny shook her head in despair.

  “I thought if I could get Logan out of London, things would be fine…” she trailed off, gazing out across the dark city.

  Herb glanced at the terrified boy, and his expression hardened.

  “We’re gonna have to get him a little further than that,” he said.

  Conny smiled weakly.

  “We?” she said. “You’re going to help? I’ve got pretty serious doubts about you getting out of this room alive, let alone out of the city.”

  “You and me, both,” Herb said with a wink, and he turned away.

  “Hey, Captain America? What was your extraction plan? Please tell me you had an extraction plan.”

  Mancini glowered at him.

  “We have a Gulfstream waiting at an airfield south of the city.”

  “Sounds good. Any firm ideas on how to get there?”

  “Yeah, just one: wait here until sunrise,” Mancini spat bitterly.

  “Looks like your plans are about as useful as mine,” Herb said. He glanced at the window dubiously. They were a long way from ground level, but if the vampires did venture up the building, they would be able to break in with ease now that the shutters were out of action. Besides which, he thought, there’s the small matter of the one that’s already in the building…

  Staying might get them killed.

  So might running.

  Herb thought about the decisions that had led him to the dark apartment; the wrong choices he seemed to have continually made. At every turn, he had acted on his instincts, and people had died as a result.

  “I guess we stay until they give us a reason not to,” he said uncertainly. “They might not even come up here.”

&
nbsp; Dan coughed and shook his head, drawing all eyes in the room back to him.

  “I tried to tell you, at the hospital,” he said, his voice little more than a rattling croak. “When I was inside the vampire’s head, I…wasn’t alone. There was something there. Something…looking back at me.”

  Herb frowned.

  “A vampire?”

  Dan shook his head. “I don’t think so. Something else. More like something the vampires worship. Like their version of God. It…guides them, I think. Communicates with them. The black river…”

  “Okay,” Herb said, lifting a hand in a stop right there gesture. “I’m not following.”

  Dan shook his head like a dog, trying to clear it out.

  “Whatever it is, it knows where I am, Herb. Or: it knows where I was when I killed myself.” He flushed. “Uh, when I killed the vampire.”

  Herb stared at him, confused. “The hospital?”

  Dan nodded.

  “They’re all headed in this direction,” he said quietly. “Every last one of them; following the black river. I think they’re coming for me.”

  *

  Dan watched their moonlit faces carefully as he delivered the news. Everyone in the room looked at him with a fearful expression that he knew was only half the product of him telling them that the immediate vicinity would likely soon be swarming with vampires.

  The rest of their fear, well, that was reserved for Dan himself. It was plainly written on their faces—even Herb. They were all scared of him.

  And shouldn’t they be?

  Dan focused his gaze on Mancini.

  Was I really going to kill him?

  The big American glanced at him furtively, and looked away. Dan knew why. For a moment there, he had been Leon Mancini, and a moment had been long enough to peer around in the dusty cupboards of the man’s mind. Mancini had killed dozens in the name of country and money, and more than once for little reason at all. A mercenary.

  Mancini didn’t want to be in London; he was there, incredibly, to appease a woman he hated and loved in equal measure, and his fear at the events unfolding around the city hadn’t quite broken his resolve to bring the prize that she demanded back to America.

  Me, Dan thought bleakly. I’m the prize.

  A surge of bitter resentment rose in his gut.

  This will never end. If it’s not Herb or Mancini, it will be someone else. Or the vampires.

  Or the river.

  He stared at the stocky American.

  “Jennifer Craven,” Dan said absently, and Mancini looked at him with wide, fearful eyes.

  Herb glanced at Dan, surprised.

  “Craven? What about her? And how do you even know that name?”

  “From inside his head.” Dan pointed at Mancini. “His name’s Leon.”

  Herb’s jaw dropped, and he stared at Mancini, who in turn focused furiously on the window.

  “Jesus Christ,” Herb said, his voice soft with wonder, “…uh, stay out of my head, Dan, okay?”

  “Jennifer Craven wants me,” Dan said, through a rattling wheeze. “She’s the one that sent Mancini. The head of the Order in America. She’s a murderer.”

  Herb chuckled.

  “Aren’t we all?” he waved an arm around the room. “Well, maybe except Conny and her kid.”

  Conny kept her eyes on the floor.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Dan said, “but Leon over there thinks Craven enjoys it. Don’t you, Leon?”

  Mancini glared at him, his face a mixture of revulsion and barely-contained fury.

  “He’s afraid of her,” Dan said, and began to cough violently.

  Herb’s brow furrowed. “When Craven starts to matter, we’ll figure it out. First, we have to live that long. The hospital is right around the corner. If they start searching this whole area…if they find us? We won’t survive the night in here without the shutters. Not up against all of them.”

  Dan felt the ripple of tension as it ran around the room at Herb’s words. They all knew it, Dan thought, but hearing somebody say it was a whole different matter. We won’t survive the night.

  “How many more times do you reckon you can do your little X-men trick?” Herb said.

  Dan shook his head.

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s me doing it. But each time it happens, I feel like a little less of me comes back. I’m not entirely sure that I’ll…come back at all.”

  “Okay,” Herb said, “We have to figure this out, you’re right, but now isn’t the time—”

  It is, Dan thought, and blistering pulse of white-hot rage coursed through him. It’s exactly the time. In fact, it’s long fucking overdue.

  I’m not anybody’s fucking prize.

  The strength of the emotion which rolled through Dan took him by surprise. Like all who live in fear, he had dreamed all-too often about asserting himself and taking charge of his own destiny, yet even in his dreams, the crippling anxiety had always been there, lurking in the background like a shadow.

  Now, it was absent.

  In its place; seething, boiling outrage.

  Determination.

  “Mancini,” Dan said, his voice gritty. Mancini turned his head, but refused to meet Dan’s gaze directly. “Jennifer Craven doesn’t want to kill me, does she?”

  “I don’t honestly know,” Mancini admitted with a sigh. “But I’d guess whatever she had in mind involved your death somewhere down the line, yeah.”

  “Hmmm,” Dan grunted. “I suppose I’ll just have to see if I can change her mind about that. So do what she pays you for, Mr Mancini. Extract us. Take me to Colorado. Take all of us.”

  “Sure,” Mancini said sourly. “No problem. Other than the skyscraper without power that we’re at the top of, and the city full of vampires, and your friend Rennick over there pointing my own gun at me. I’ll get right on it.”

  Dan stared at Mancini for several long seconds, before finally nodding.

  “Let him have his gun back, Herb,” he said.

  Herb looked dubious.

  “What are you doing, Dan?”

  “It’s like you said. Home doesn’t exist for me anymore. How could it? Where else should I go now? I’ve been running and hiding for the last two years. No more.”

  Herb’s brow furrowed.

  “It’s okay,” Dan said with a weak smile. “Let him have his gun. Leon won’t get any funny ideas, will you, Leon?”

  Herb stared at Dan for a moment, and then at Mancini. Finally, he shrugged and slid the machine gun across the floor to the American.

  “Funny ideas like killing Rennick, you mean?” Mancini said as he picked the weapon up. “Nah. I’ll gladly take him to Colorado. Craven will just love him.”

  Dan barked a sour laugh, and coughed violently.

  More blood.

  “Everyone got their dicks in a row?” Conny said abruptly from the window.

  Nobody had an answer, other than her son’s almost-stifled chuckle.

  “Good,” she continued, turning to face the room, “then maybe we can focus on getting out of here?”

  “Without power? Without elevators?” Mancini said. “Good luck with that. You geniuses brought a vampire in with you, remember? And more on the way. There are probably half a dozen in here already, going floor by floor. Want to tell me how we’re going to find our way out of here without stumbling into that?”

  “Sure,” Conny said, and she pointed at the dog sitting by her side. “We follow him.”

  37

  The fear was like hands pressing on her back, squeezing her ribs until it became difficult to breathe. In darkness, the huge, sleek skyscraper felt like it might conceal threats in every gloomy corner.

  The hallways in the residential levels were wide and straight, the floors lined with plush carpet which made the noise of the group’s movement almost inaudible as they began to descend through the building. Conny was grateful for that, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the carpet would muffle more than just hum
an footsteps.

  The clicking noise the creatures made was certainly hideous—a sound that she was sure she’d hear in her nightmares if she lived to be a hundred—but at least it offered some advance warning that one of the creatures was close by.

  In the corridors of the Shard, there would be no such warning. The apartments which the group passed were locked, and the hallways themselves offered little in the way of hiding places. Too much glass and wide open space. If she turned a corner and ran straight into a vampire, there would be nowhere to hide. Their only hope then would be Herb’s strange friend, Dan—and his presence spiked Conny’s anxiety almost as much as a vampire’s might.

  She walked in a half-crouch at the front of the group, resting her left hand lightly on Remy’s powerful shoulders, waiting nervously to feel his muscles tense. On each floor, she led Remy to a stairwell and waited, gauging by his reaction whether it was safe to proceed further.

  For his part, Remy seemed content enough, sniffing curiously at the doorways they passed, but showing no indication that there was any threat in the immediate vicinity.

  So far, they had descended only three floors; not yet even getting clear of the residential levels. The Shard had been touted as a vertical city upon opening: residences at the top, a luxury hotel and restaurants below them; all of it sitting atop levels upon levels of offices and retail areas. While it didn’t quite manage the scale that vertical city implied, it came pretty close. With only a couple of flashlights between the whole group, and the cloudy night making the moonlight that streamed through the windows weak and intermittent, progress was already painfully slow.

  With the elevators out of action, each floor offered a couple of ways down: the main stairway, and a smaller version designed as a fire escape. When they tried the first of those smaller stairways, they found it to be windowless and pitch black, and worse: there was no way to be certain that if they took the fire escape, they would actually be able to re-enter the main part of the building itself.

  Herb had immediately ruled out using the fire escape, arguing that there was every chance they would end up trapped in there with no way to flee.

  Nobody seemed to want to debate it.