[Vampire Babylon 01] - Skarlet (2009)

by Thomas Emson

  Lawton put an arm out to stop him, saying, “Hold your horses, golden boy. You are banned. For life. You know that, so don’t be an idiot.”

  “He’s not banned. Not tonight,” said a voice.

  Lawton turned. Nathan Holt, Religion’s manager, stood in the reception area. Music pounded inside the club. Goths paid their fare at the ticket booth and piled into the bar.

  Lawton said, “Nathan, this guy’s a dealer. We banned him last month.”

  Holt closed his eyes and shook his head. “Misunderstanding, Jake. He’s in.”

  Lawton looked at Lithgow, and Lithgow grinned. “Okay,” said Lawton, “but you’re being searched – ”

  “No he’s not,” said Holt. “Mr. Lithgow’s here as a guest of the management. Let him by, Jake.”

  Lawton stared at Holt and kept his arm across Lithgow’s chest. He glanced at Milo, and Milo shrugged. Lawton said, “Nathan, this guy’s carrying drugs, I just – ”

  “Let him by, Jake.”

  Lawton blew air out of his cheeks and dropped his arm. Lithgow, still wearing that grin, brushed his jacket where Lawton’s arm had pressed against the material. He popped another sweet into his mouth.

  His face screwed up, and then he smacked his lips. Swaggering past Lawton, he said, “Jenna in tonight, Jake?” and then he winked, adding, “I’ll see her myself, find a dark corner for the both of us.”

  Lithgow faded into Religion’s darkness and a hoard of vampires swallowed him.

  Chapter 3

  DEALS.

  Soho, London – 10.43 p.m.

  LAWTON said, “I don’t like this, Nathan. We caught Fraser Lithgow with pills, and we banned him for life. He’s going to be a convicted drug dealer when the courts are done with him.”

  Holt shook his head. “No he’s not.”

  “What do you mean, ‘No he’s not’?”

  “Daddy Lithgow pulled a few strings.”

  “Who’s Daddy Lithgow?”

  “Barrister. Fronted up to the cops. Said his little boy hadn’t been cautioned correctly – some technicality or other – I don’t know. All I know is that the Fuads told me Lithgow was clear, and that if he turned up tonight, we let him in.”

  “He’s a fucking drug dealer, Nathan.”

  Holt shrugged. “The Fuads said he’s in, he’s in.”

  Lawton sighed. He looked at the bank of monitors in the CCTV viewing room, trying to spot Lithgow in the crowd packed into Religion. He’d followed Holt up here to the eagle’s nest to complain about Lithgow’s redemption.

  Lawton turned away from the monitors and gazed through the tinted window that gave him a view of the dancefloor three-storeys below.

  The CCTV suite was soundproofed, so he couldn’t hear the music.

  It was weird watching the bodies writhe and jerk in silence. Lights flashed and beamed across the crowd, highlighting faces for split seconds – but not long enough for Lawton to spot Lithgow.

  He glanced across to the tinted windows on the opposite side of the dancefloor. Behind the darkened glass lay the lighting studio, where Mick and Ray directed the illuminations.

  Lawton thought of going over there and asking the guys to switch on the lights for a few seconds, let him scan the crowd for Lithgow’s spiked blonde hair.

  His gaze skimmed across the clubbers again, trying to spot Lithgow in the splashes of ultraviolet light pulsing from the arc lamps. The white flares were powerful, and instead of enabling Lawton to see better, they momentarily blinded him. He blinked, stars dancing before his eyes.

  Holt broke his thoughts, saying, “Get back downstairs, Jake. You can’t hang around here. You’ve got a job to do – and leave Lithgow alone.”

  Lawton went, thinking he should find the Fuads, ask them why they’d let Lithgow into the club. But the brothers wouldn’t be here.

  They never were, living it up in Monte Carlo to avoid paying their way in Britain.

  “Moaning get you anywhere, then?” said Milo as Lawton entered the reception area. The music thumped from the behind the doors that led through to the club, and Lawton could feel the floor drum beneath his feet. The noise didn’t bother him. He’d heard worse.

  Vampires and goths milled around, drinking and laughing. Lawton eyed them, looking for signs of drugs. He knew that a few of them would’ve been stoned before coming out. You couldn’t kick someone out just because you think they’ve taken something.

  “Hey, man,” said Milo, “don’t worry about the drugs. It ain’t worth it. We can’t do nothing about it.”

  “If we’ve got an anti-drugs policy, we’ve got to operate it properly.”

  Milo shrugged, just like Holt had shrugged minutes before. It was a “what can you do” shrug.

  “I’m going to stroll around,” said Lawton.

  Milo flapped a hand as if to say, “Do what you want.”

  Lawton slipped into the club, and the music hit him. It was deafening, a drone of flanged guitars, screeching violins, cavernous bass-lines.

  Lights flared in the rafters and sliced in beams across the clubbers.

  The smell of booze, sweat, and incense saturated the air. The crowd moshed to the music.

  Lawton narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He sought Lithgow in this chaos, but didn’t hold much hope.

  Daddy Lithgow might have got sonny off a drugs charge, but it didn’t mean Lithgow was innocent – he was probably as guilty as hell.

  And the let-off had given him the confidence that he could get away with anything.

  Not if I can help it, thought Lawton, skirting around edge of the dancefloor, easing goths out of his way.

  * * *

  Jenna said she wasn’t interested and started to walk off, intending to leave the chill-out room and head back down to the dancefloor.

  “Hey, babe, hey,” he said, trotting up behind her, hand on her shoulder.

  She turned to look at him, saying, “Fraser, who gave you permission to touch?”

  He held his hands out in surrender, gave her a smile. Something melted in her breast, and she cocked her head. “I don’t want any tonight, Fraser, that’s all.”

  “But, babes,” he said, coming up to her, “this is really cool stuff.

  New pills in town. Let me show you.” And fishing in his pocket he took out a jewelled box, the size of a Cook’s Matches box.

  Jenna furrowed her brow. Fraser was close; she could smell his aftershave. A tune she didn’t recognize by The Beautiful Deadly Children played downstairs. She said, “That’s a nice box.”

  “Yeah,” he said, opening it, “came with the tabs.”

  “Oh,” said Jenna, looking at the pills.

  Fraser took one out. It was red, with a “K” emblazoned on it. Fraser said, “They’re called ‘Skarlet’, with a ‘K’.”

  “Any good?” said Jenna.

  “Lethal.”

  “How do you know?”

  “On good authority, babes, on good authority. I trust my source. Have I ever let you down in the past?”

  She looked up at him and grinned. “Always, sweetheart, always.”

  She’d known Fraser five years, dated him for a couple of months after Jake went to fight Bush’s war for oil in Iraq. But she didn’t trust him. He was a sneak, a layabout, and she’d really only slept with him after he sorted out her overdraft and kept her and her mates in pills.

  “How much are they, Fraser?”

  “Tenner.”

  She blew air out her cheeks.

  Fraser said, “Fiver to you, lovebud.”

  “Gratis – then I recommend them to my mates.”

  He made a face, a thinking face: pouty lips and narrowed eyes.

  Jenna looked around the chill-out room. Goths lazed on the red furniture, drinking, laughing, snogging. Half a dozen leaned against the barrier, moshing there as they watched the dancefloor below.

  “Gratis,” said Fraser, pecking a pill up between forefinger and thumb.

  “Open wide.”

&nb
sp; And she did, and he popped the pill on her tongue. She drew it into her mouth. It tasted sour, not the neutral taste she usually got from a tab.

  “Weird taste,” she said.

  “Swallow it – then you’ll see weird.”

  Jenna swallowed, gulping to make spit to carry the pill down into her stomach. She felt it slide down her throat, sensed it skimming through her gullet.

  “Okay,” she said, “done.”

  “Take these” – Fraser gave her a handful of pills – “for your mates.”

  He winked, gave her a leer.

  Jenna felt light-headed. Fraser’s image swam in front of her. That was odd. If it were ecstasy, it’d take more time to hit her. Maybe it wasn’t –

  She shook her head, clearing the cobwebs. “Thanks, hon,” she said.

  And she turned, moving towards the chill-out room’s exit, the music and voices welding into a single sound that undulated in her head.

  Weird, she thought, finding her feet on the stairs that led down to the dancefloor, really weird.

  Chapter 4

  THEY WILL DIE ...

  Holland Park, London – 11.24 p.m.

  “THEY think they’re vampires, these people,” said Nadia Radu, glowing in a crimson gown and a scarlet choker around her throat, “but they have no idea.”

  Her guests, seated on leather couches, drinking brandy, laughed.

  Mrs. Radu’s audience comprised a dozen individuals, the men in evening suits, the women wearing cocktail dresses. One, a man in his sixties, snow-white hair and 1970s sideburns, said, “They’ll know soon enough, Mrs. Radu.”

  “They will, Your Honour,” she said, “soon enough.” She glanced at the grandfather Clock in the corner and said again, “Soon enough.”

  “These kids,” said a tall man in his forties, trendy glasses perched on his nose, “think they’re vampires just because they’ve got a cloak like Bela Lugosi, because they bought a set of fangs.”

  “They’ll soon feel real fangs piercing their gums, Professor,” said Mrs. Radu, “real fangs, and real cravings. Did you know that these socalled vampires drink blood?”

  The guests chuckled, shook their heads.

  Mrs. Radu said, “They refer to themselves as ‘sanguine’, do you know? And they drink each other’s blood. They don’t need it of course – ”

  “Yet,” said the Professor.

  “Yet. But they think they do. It’s a lifestyle for them. A lifestyle, but not a life.”

  The guests hummed in agreement.

  “They think that if they’ve read Dracula,” said a red-haired woman wedged into a blue gown, “that they’re committed to the faith. Put on a frilly shirt, a cape, some make-up, and” – she struck a pose, and the others laughed – “they think that’s it: we’re in the gang – we’re vampires.”

  “Little do they know, Minister,” said Mrs. Radu to the red-haired woman, “of the suffering and the servitude that awaits them.”

  The door opened and a man strode in. Tall and imposing, he wore black and had matching hair tied into a ponytail with a red knot. A scar striped his face from the corner of his eye to his jaw.

  He came to Mrs. Radu, leaned into her, and whispered in her ear that “they were in”. His breath brushed her bare neck, and she closed her eyes as desire swept through her.

  “Thank you, Ion,” she said as the man moved away, leaving the room. After he’d shut the door behind him, she said, “Everything is in place, then. They will die, they will rise, they will feed.”

  The guests clapped and hurrahed.

  “And soon,” said Mrs. Radu, raising a hand to silence the room, “the first of the three will be reborn.”

  They listened to her, their eyes wide and their mouths open like children hearing a story.

  Mrs. Radu went on:

  “And from the first, we shall raise up the second. And from the second will come the third. And the trinity will reign over London.”

  “London,” said the snow-haired man.

  “And England,” said Mrs. Radu, “and all these islands.”

  “And from there?” said the red-haired woman.

  Mrs. Radu smiled at the woman and said, “The world will be ours, Minister.”

  Drained of energy, Mrs. Radu slumped into a leather armchair. She watched her guests making fists, slapping backs, saying, “Yes, yes, yes,” celebrating the rebirth – after three thousand years – of a vampire nation.

  * * *

  Lawton thought he heard shrieks filtering through the cacophony, but he put it down to the partygoers going over the top, as the goths tended to do.

  But fear fired up in his belly.

  Something in those shrieks wasn’t right.

  He pushed through the crowd, using his elbows to forge a path, saying, “Let me through, let me through,” as goths gave way.

  Lights flashed and cast jerking shadows as the goths moshed around him.

  A circle had formed on the dancefloor, and Lawton’s first instinct was, There’s a fight. But that was unusual – goths weren’t violent.

  But the closer he got, he saw the clubbers get down on their knees, heard screams, someone shouting, “Can’t someone help him?”

  He looked up at the stage. The DJ, Captain Red, squinted down at the audience. He wasn’t lost in the music as he usually would be. He was focused, his forehead creased. Lawton tried to get Captain Red’s attention, but there were too many people.

  The music pumped through the club, and Lawton could feel it throb through him as he made his way through the crowd.

  “They’re – they’re dying,” said a voice, and Lawton looked around.

  Two men convulsed on the dancefloor, as if they were performing some freakish breakdance. But Lawton knew breakdancers didn’t froth at the mouth.

  “Jesus,” he said, changing direction, heading for the jerking pair, blood and saliva lathered at their lips.

  A shriek pierced the havoc. Lawton flinched. He wheeled around.

  He shut his eyes, felt someone fall against him, opened his eyes and saw a girl in a spider web T-shirt.

  She stumbled and slumped into his arms. He dropped to his knees, cradling her. He stared into her face. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open. Her throat jerked, as if she were struggling to breath. She was pale, her skin bleached by the make-up she wore. Her eyes were painted black. She had dark red hair.

  Lawton bent forward to look into her mouth for any blockage. And the blood shot up from the girl’s throat, Lawton saying, “Jesus Christ,” before it gushed out, spilling over her chin, her throat, down over her T-shirt.

  Clubbers screamed, but Lawton held on to her. He looked up.

  “Phone 999. Alert security,” he said.

  A couple of goths raced off – to be of some use, Lawton hoped, and not to avoid watching this girl twitch and vomit blood.

  The girl jerked, Lawton trying to comfort her. Blood and spit bubbled from her lips. He laid her on the floor, turned her on her side.

  Blood gushed from her mouth.

  Someone grabbed his shoulder, and he wheeled around. It was Milo, saying, “What the fuck’s happening?” and then, “Fuck,” when he saw the girl.

  “Get Red to cut the music. Find Holt. Phone emergency services. They’re dying, Milo, they’re fucking dying.”

  “Oh shit, oh shit,” said Milo. He dashed off, barging panicked clubbers out of his way.

  Lawton looked around. Bodies jerked and twitched. People screeched and dashed about.

  “Jenna,” he said, “please don’t take anything, please don’t take anything.”

  And the music died and the lights came on and the screams filled Religion.

  Chapter 5

  SLEEPLESS NIGHTS.

  New Cross, London – February 7

  THE 5.00 a.m. headlines said, “Police have closed off roads leading to a nightclub in Soho after dozens of clubbers are thought to have died... ”

  Lawton made coffee and sat at the kitchen table, listening
to the LBC report. He drank the coffee and smoked a roll-up. Fatigue swept over him, but like always, sleep never came.

  He’d cleared the dancefloor with the rest of the security team, then attended to the dead and dying.

  Lawton shook his head, didn’t want to think about the girl in his arms, blood lathering in her mouth, her eyes wide with terror, knowing that her life was ending.

  He’d looked for Jenna, but couldn’t find her. He’d wanted to trawl the club, check out all the bodies. But he had to help in the main hall.

  He tried to ring her, but she didn’t answer her phone.

  The police arrived and corralled the clubbers who hadn’t fled Religion. They barriered off the road leading down to the club and posted a few uniforms there to keep the rest of the night’s partygoers at bay. It was 3.00 a.m. by the time they got round to Lawton, a PC with tired eyes taking a witness statement.

  “We’ll need to speak to you again. C.I.D. will be in touch,” said the PC.

  “My – my ex, she was here. Jenna McCall. Have you –?”

  The copper shook his head and said, “We don’t have names yet. If you didn’t see her among the victims, she might have left. Chances are she’s okay, Mr. Langdon – ”

  “Lawton. It’s Lawton.”

  “Yes. Sorry. We’ll be in touch.”

  Lawton tried to get back inside, but scene-of-crime officers had sealed off the areas where bodies had been found: the dancefloor, the chill-out room upstairs, the toilets, the reception area.

  Lawton peered into the club. White-overalled figures strolled around. They crouched over bodies. They stooped and shuffled about, looking for any piece evidence.

  Lawton turned away, eyes scanning the street. He saw Holt leaning against a car having a fag. Lawton strode over.

  Holt jerked when he saw him, his chubby face turning white.

  Lawton said, “If this was Fraser Lithgow’s doing, your head’s on the block.”

  “Why – why d’you think it was Lithgow?”

  “He’s a dealer. You let him in. That smirk on his face told me he had pills on him, Nathan.”