by Thomas Emson
Oh, the fucking stink . . .
The girl opened her mouth and showed her fangs. Jed’s insides went cold. He legged it down the tree-lined street. His chest tightened as he gasped for air. He dared a glance over his shoulder.
He screamed.
The girl flew after him.
Yeah, he thought, that’s right:
She’s fucking flying.
She took mighty leaps, covering loads of ground. She sprang off the sides of buildings back onto the pavement, then lunged forward again, gaining on him. She laughed and called out, saying, “Come on, little boy, let me bite you.”
Onlookers legged it. They screamed and shouted, watching this woman – woman? More like an animal. Bounding like that – hunt him down.
A car skidded and crashed into a lamppost. Horns blared as the traffic behind tried to avoid a pile-up.
“Oh, my God, look at that,” Jed heard people say.
He started to cry, panic like a tight belt around his belly. He’d stay on the main road. He’d be all right with all the people watching.
Then he thought:
Hey, she’s just a fucking girl.
Seeing Marty kidnapped had panicked him. They were goths, like this girl flying after him. Perhaps they were circus people, or something.
Had they robbed a goth lately? They were always robbing someone, and Jed rarely remembered.
He stopped running, out of breath. He turned to face his pursuer and took out his blade.
His legs buckled when he saw her spring off a window ledge two floors up, and land on the pavement ten feet in front of him.
Crouching, she licked her lips. “Big tough man, are you?” she said.
“W-what the fuck d’you want, bitch?”
“You, sweetie. I want you. I want your fucking fluid.”
A thrill fizzed through his belly. She looked dirty. Like she could do some pretty nasty things. She wasn’t that much to look at, now, but she might have been hot once. Goths looked weird, anyway. He’d seen tributes on YouTube yesterday, a bunch of them died at this Soho nightclub from a drugs overdose. And then he remembered seeing those headline boards for the Evening Standard. And rumours on Facebook.
Yeah: Vampires; it was all about vampires.
Jed, shaking and shitting himself, fronted up to the girl and said, “Yeah? What’re you going to do?” and jabbed his knife towards her.
She stood up. “I’m going to suck you.”
Jed felt his nerves tighten. “Oh, yeah? And I’m going to cut you, bitch.”
She hissed and strutted towards him. He wanted to back up, but he didn’t. Stood his ground like a soldier. His palms sweated, the knife greasy in his grasp. He’d slice her open if he had to. Or smack her, deck her with a punch. Smacking a bitch was nothing. His dad always smacked his mum and his sister, telling Jed, You’ve got to do it to keep ’em in line.
She didn’t stop coming. He smelled her. He wanted to throw up, bile filling his throat. Shouts filled the air. Two men were fighting where the car had crashed into the lamppost.
Jed stepped back. The girl glided towards him.
“Hey,” he said, raising blade, “you leave me – ”
And she sprang forward.
Jed yelled.
She ploughed into him, and he got thrown off his feet. Her nails dug into his shoulders. Her feet jammed into his hipbones. He crashed to the pavement, her on top of him. She hissed and showed her fangs and Jed smelled her breath and he almost passed out. He wet himself and screamed, tried to push her away, sliced at her shoulder with his knife, shredding her shirt, her skin – but there was no blood. She nuzzled his throat and growled in his ear. Her teeth punctured his skin. It stung, and he shrieked. He thrashed about, trying to shove her away. But she held him tight.
He heard voices saying, “What are they doing?” and, “Are they screwing on the pavement?” and then another voice saying, “She’s a vampire, one of those vampires.”
Jed kicked out weakly as the blood pulsed out of his body and the girl made sucking noises at his throat. He felt scared, but he still, weirdly, had a hard-on. And it would be the last thing of him to die.
Chapter 67
A GOD FORMING.
NADIA Radu’s god took shape. Tonight and tomorrow night’s batch should do it, she thought.
She stared down into the pit. The stench of decay washed up from the trench. The ashes Dr. Haddad had spilled into the grave days ago were thickening. The blood poured over them last night had mixed into a mud-like substance, coppery in colour. A body shape lay in the mixture, as if it were trying to push itself up from beneath the sludge.
It was long, some six and a half feet in length. The head was thrown back and the mouth seemed open. There were cavities where the eyes would be, but there was no form to the face yet. The torso was a block of blood-coloured soil, but at its centre the shape split, forming what would be the creature’s legs.
Screams filled the cavern. Ion and the vampires bringing more victims. He’d have parked the van in the backstreet, then dragged out the terrified youngsters. They were all young, or female. Children and women were easier to handle, that was all. Nothing to do with that Hollywood nonsense of a vampire needing virgin blood, she thought, smiling to herself.
The street nearby had been blocked off, so very few suspicious eyes would spot what Ion was up to. And those who did see were unlikely to say anything. They weren’t the sorts to contact the authorities around here. Streets away, of course, it was different. Lights turned to darkness quickly in London. Turn a corner and you were in hell without realizing it.
She looked up from the shape in the pit to the stone steps leading down into the cavern. Half a dozen teens were being shoved down the stairs by vampires. The kids cried. One or two, a lad with a baseball cap, tried to fight back, but he was soon weeping with the rest of them.
She thought, The city gives up its young for sacrifice. That’s how it’s always been.
“Only six tonight, Ion?” she said.
“It’s chaos out there. Roadblocks everywhere. It’s difficult to drive around without being stopped. We’re causing panic, Nadia.”
“Good. They should be terrified. But if they think this is hell, they don’t know what’s coming in a few days’ time.”
She stared into the pit.
The shape seemed to move, a breath coursing through it – life pulsing through it. But it didn’t, of course. Only her imagination. She smiled and felt a thrill rinse through her.
Chapter 68
TOUCHING HISTORY.
THE two-tusked spear lay on Lawton’s kitchen table.
“And what do we do now that we’ve got this thing?” said Sassie. She ran her fingers up and down the length. She was touching a relic once brandished by Alexander the Great.
Sassie grasped the grip. It felt too thick to be skin. Human skin, at least. It didn’t bother Sassie that this was supposedly human bone and human flesh – she was an archaeologist; this was an artefact. She tried to pick the spear up, but it was heavy. Lawton appeared at her shoulder.
He put his hand around hers on the grip. She looked up at him and fire swept through her veins.
He said, “We go to war, Sassie.”
“Against whom?”
“Against whatever’s spreading this plague. And if it’s those demons Tom Wilson spoke of, then we go to war against them.”
“Did you believe him?” said Sassie.
“I believed what he said. I don’t know if it was true, though.”
Lithgow sat on the couch, watching TV. He spooned cold beans into his mouth straight from the can. Through a mouthful of Heinz he said, “There’s more killings. And some kids have disappeared tonight, they’re saying.”
Lawton looked at Sassie, and she felt the weight of his eyes. He smelled of man, and she liked that. It had been a long time since she’d smelled a man like this. You didn’t get many of them in academia.
Ed thought he was a real man. Ed who’d
lied about what the cuneiform on the vessel said. Ed who might not know what it meant, but didn’t want to look ignorant in front of her because he was so arrogant.
But Ed wasn’t like this. He’d not seen blood and war and carnage.
Her principles warned her away from a man like Jake Lawton. But her body said he was what she wanted.
Maybe this is history, too? she thought. Women always went for the warrior, the male who could protect her, who could – Sassie’s gaze slid down Lawton’s chest, over his belly, then shot back up to his face – give her sons.
Something trilled inside her, and she gasped. She drew away from him, went to the sink and poured herself a glass of water.
Lawton asked if she was all right and she nodded, saying yes she was fine, and she drank the water.
Shouts carried from the street outside. Sassie froze, her eyes wide.
Lawton said, “Don’t worry. Usually just yobs.”
She’d noticed that when they drove down the street. Boarded up shops lined the pavement. Graffiti marred the walls. Holes gouged the road. She’d parked up and asked Lawton if her car was safe, and he’d said he couldn’t say if it was.
Outside the flat, a window smashed. Sassie imagined some lout hurling a breezeblock through her windscreen.
“I got attacked out here,” said Lithgow, “by vampires.”
Lawton looked at him. “No you didn’t. I don’t think they’re this far south. I think they’re contained around Central London, where they”
– he paused – “died. Or where they lived.”
“Jenna came here,” said Lithgow.
Lawton rubbed the wound on his neck. Sassie said, “Let me have a look at that,” and she came to him. He tilted his head to the side so she could look. “Can you sit,” she said, so he sat at the kitchen table.
She leaned over him and smelled him. She studied his injury. A bruise the size of a fist stained the right side of his throat a few inches below his ear. Two teeth marks had punctured the skin at the centre of the bruise. “She bit into your carotid artery,” said Sassie. “Do you have iodine, anything?”
“In the bathroom, Fraser,” said Lawton, “go get some iodine.”
Lithgow tutted and went through to the bathroom. Sassie heard him rummage around in there. She looked into Lawton’s eyes and he looked up into hers. Her hands slid up his neck and into his hair. It was thick and warm. Her insides ground.
“You’re just not my type,” she said, her face going to his.
She pressed her mouth to his mouth, and her skin burned from thighs to throat. He pulled her down to him, and she sat on his lap and gasped into their kiss when she felt his hardness against her bottom.
She moved against the erection and the heat in her grew more intense until it felt like her insides were liquid fire. Her tongue found his tongue and her fingers laced through his hair and his odour saturated her nostrils.
“Found it,” said Lithgow from the bathroom.
A cold sweat broke on her body. She pulled away and got off Lawton’s lap, striding to the sink. She grabbed the empty glass and pretended to drink. Her heart raced.
Behind her Lithgow said, “Get it yourself next time, trooper,” and she heard the bottle being slammed down on the table. “You look a bit red in the face, Jakey boy,” said Lithgow, “better let your nurse take a look at you.”
Sassie blushed.
A phone rang and Lawton answered it.
* * *
Murray told them her boys were missing and she cried.
It was 10.00 p.m. They’d met her at The Gallery, a pub not far from her Pimlico home. They’d driven here through streets crawling with predators, manned by roadblocks. Usually a five-mile, fifteen-twenty minute drive from New Cross, it took them almost an hour.
Sassie put her arms around Murray’s shoulders and said, “I’m sure they’ll be fine, Christine.”
Murray went into her pocket, took out a mobile phone and put it on the table.
“That’s David’s phone,” she said, and told them how she came to find it. And then she said, “I can’t get a hold of Michael on his phone, either. I don’t know what to do. I feel so useless. The police, they let me inside, you know. Gave me access to the whole investigation. But what good has that done me? I’m a useless mother, and my children, my children are gone.”
She put her head in her hands and cried, her body trembling. Sassie tried to comfort her, but it wasn’t helping.
“It’s okay,” said Lawton, “we’ll find them.”
Sassie frowned at him, as if saying, Don’t give her false hope. But it was the only hope he could offer. He looked at Sassie, now, and remembered her taste and her touch. Gazing at her, everything else slid away to leave only her and him. Nothing existed except the two of them.
And then Murray said, “Where do we start? What can we do?”
Lawton came back to the present and said, “We start by looking for trouble.”
Lithgow said, “What?”
Lawton said, “If we’re in an area where they’re known to attack, we can track them, follow them. They’ve obviously legged it from that Holland Park place. Well, perhaps if we get one of them, they can lead us there.”
“It’s dangerous,” said Murray. “More dangerous than we let on.
They’re attacking people out in the open. They don’t seem to care about anything. I’ve seen CCTV footage. It’s scary.”
“Good,” said Lawton, “scary makes you sharp.”
“Doesn’t make me sharp,” said Lithgow. “Makes me want to shit my pants.”
Lawton looked at him. “You don’t have to come. Stay here.” He glanced at Sassie. “You too. Get back to the flat and get safe.” He wanted to touch her face, but he didn’t.
She stared at him and said, “I’m coming with you.”
“You’re not, Sassie.”
“Stop me,” she said.
Chapter 69
MY BROTHER’S KEEPER.
DAVID Murray clutched his brother’s arm. He wanted to pee, but some of the others had already done that, and it smelled sour in here.
David could feel Michael shaking and whimpering. He didn’t want his older brother to be scared – he wanted his older brother to be brave and to protect him.
But they were only kids.
The thought forced a sob out of him.
Only kids.
What could they do against this terrible thing that was happening?
They’d been herded out of the back of the van. They’d had to travel here with those sharp-fanged, red-eyed monsters hissing at them and forcing them to cower and huddle together. Mr. Gless had been one of them. They said Mr. Gless was dead yesterday, but he didn’t look dead to David – he didn’t look alive either. Mr. Gless was a vampire. All these things were vampires.
The children had cried and screamed all the way here. Sophie wept and shrieked for her mum, and David wished his mum were here, too.
The van had parked in a dark alley. It had reversed down the dead end, so the kids couldn’t make a run for it. One or two tried, but the vampires pounced them on.
The driver, a tall man with a scar on his mean face and a bandage around his hand, hurried them through a door marked fire exit. They herded the children down a dimmed corridor, and down some steel stairs. Their feet clanked on the metal, their cries echoed off the walls.
The place smelled of chemicals and it made David queasy.
“Wait,” the scarred man said, and barged through the shivering children. He slid open the scissor door of a wire-caged elevator. The scarred man and the vampires shoved the youngsters into the elevator, which then groaned and moved downwards. It came to a halt against a rusting, iron door. The scarred man slid the bolt aside and opened the door. A breeze rushed through the door, filling the elevator, and carried with it a smell like dead meat. David recoiled. The others cringed too, and put their hands over their noses.
The vampires and the scarred man forced them through th
e iron door, down the stone steps, and into a cavern – and that’s when they really started to panic.
They were shoved into a cage that barely had room for the ten of them.
The cavern was the size of David’s school hall, big enough for more than a thousand kids. There was a panelled floor, and at its centre a hole in the ground. Above the pit, there was a bar – like the crossbar of a goal, David thought.
The bad smell came from the pit. It was like that dead fox David and Michael found in the park a few months ago. Maggots had crawled all over it. The guts had swelled and burst out of the fox’s belly. Flies buzzed around the carcass. David threw up and Michael had called him gay.
But that’s what this place smelled like. Putrid and horrible. And David really wanted to puke again. Then someone else did. He heard the retching sound. And then more cries and screams.
The scarred man stood in front of the cage and grinned at them.
“Screaming brats,” he said. “Who’ll be first, then? First is best, because second and third and fourth – they all know what’s coming.”
Sophie’s face stretched with fear and she rattled the cage. “Please let us go, please,” she said.
A woman appeared from behind the cage. She was beautiful and dark-haired and she stood next to the scarred man. She gazed at the youngsters in the cage and said, “Five tonight, five tomorrow.”
“Why not all today?” said the scarred man.
“Dr. Haddad says to do this slowly.”
“He’s almost alive, Nadia, let’s finish it tonight.”
She put a hand on the scarred man’s shoulder. “He knows best, Ion. He’s brought us this far.” She moved away from the man called Ion, and said, “Start it, now.”
The man called Ion opened the cage door and everyone in the cage moved back, huddling against each other. David smelled sweat and pee, and his ears rang with cries. He said, “Michael, what’s happening? I want to go home.”