by Mia James
‘He wasn’t my brother, of course.’
‘What? Ben?’
Davina shook her head sadly.
‘I’m surprised you hadn’t worked that out. No, we are – were – made vampires. But Sheldon was born and you could tell. Arrogant and impatient, you tend to get that with born vamps. But Ben and I, we chose this. We asked to be turned.’
‘How long have you been ... when were you turned?’
‘Does it matter? Far too long ago. I’m a classic case; I wanted the glamour, the eternal youth. I wanted to be at my prime forever.’ She gave a bitter laugh and poured out the rest of the bottle into her glass. ‘Everyone does. You see the soft skin, the silky hair and the late nights and assume this life is one long party.’
She sat forward and grabbed April’s hand.
‘It. Is. Hell.’ She said, enunciating each word. ‘We live in the shadows, constantly on the run, cowering like animals, risking our lives every time we feed, having to live from hand to mouth, stealing, lying ... worse. Much worse.’
‘I thought you all lived a glamorous life.’
‘How?’ spat Davina, the anger sparkling in her eyes. ‘I mean, think about it: where can you live? A sixteen year old schoolgirl on her own? How do you pay your way? You can’t hold down a full time job – you’re too young, too many questions. And who can you trust? Not other vampires – they have their own problems. Not Feeders – that’s what we call the humans we tap for a little blood every now and then, the ones who shelter us, pretend to be boyfriends, husbands, families – the ones who hide us.’
‘Why can’t you trust Feeders? Don’t they help you?’
Davina’s lip curled. ‘They always want something from you – sometimes the most vile things. That’s why we haunt the clubs and the streets; we don’t have anywhere else to go.’ She looked up, her eyes full of pain now. ‘It’s the loneliest life imaginable.’ She sighed. ‘So, along comes Robert Sheldon and offers you a Get Out Of Jail Free card. Two years without having to worry about where you’re going to live, what your cover story is, who you can talk to. Ravenwood was bliss. Utter, utter bliss. Hawk set us up in a lovely home, gave us freedom, security, status and all he asked in return was a few souls; just convince the unsuspecting Ravenwood egg-heads that playing with the vamps was the coolest thing ever. Not exactly hard, darling.’
‘So if your mum and dad aren’t ... who are they?’
‘Recruits. It’s not just students at Ravenwood who are dazzled by “The Life”. There are always plenty of adults who want to be a part of it. What’s not to like? Daddy – Nicholas, I suppose I should call him – got a high-powered position in a vamp-owned company. Agropharm is a real-life billion-dollar powerhouse, but it just happens to be owned by us. Not hard to see how it became so big – aggression and ruthlessness is what makes Wall Street and the City tick and no one intimidates a vampire, do they? On top of this almost unlimited wealth and the beautiful house in Highgate, mummy and daddy got connections and the mother of all guard dogs. All you have to do is turn a blind eye to where your “children” go at night.’
She gave a short laugh. ‘You can imagine the dynamics of that family unit when the doors were closed. Dysfunctional doesn’t even begin to cover it.’
‘But Ravenwood made up for it all. Suddenly I had a purpose – we all did. It was fun, building up Sheldon’s little robot army, picking out which of the brains and the geeks to promote, who to turn. But it couldn’t last, could it?’
‘So what happened?’
She twisted her mouth into a smile. ‘You happened, darling.’
‘What?’ said April, her heart hammering.
Davina waved a hand at the ceiling. ‘All this because of your family. Before you arrived, it was all going swimmingly, but I fear the great William Dunne’s investigation into Ravenwood put the cat among the pigeons. ’
‘Really? It was my dad?’
‘Overnight, Robert Sheldon’s whole attitude seemed to change. It’s only a guess – Hawk didn’t exactly include me in his planning meetings – but I think the governors were worried about getting exposed too soon. Vampires like to stay hidden at the best of times, but it was especially important as your dad was poking about. They were planning a big move, you see.’
‘What big move?’
‘To take control, of course,’ said Davina casually. ‘Isn’t that obvious? They had already spun a spider’s web over business, finance, banking and so on, now they were going to move into government. Slowly and subtly, of course, no big revolution, just greasing the right palms, whispering in the right ears, one little corruption after the next until they had control of all the people they needed in Downing Street, the Mayor’s office, the Met, wherever anyone had real power.’
April knew this, or had at least suspected it, but it still felt strange to hear a vampire say it out loud. Play dumb, April, don’t let on how much you know, she reminded herself.
‘I thought it was just Ravenwood.’
‘Ravenwoods, plural,’ said Davina. ‘They were going to open them all around the country. But it obviously wasn’t happening fast enough for some people.’
‘Who? The money men?’
Davina shook her head. ‘For Benjamin. He worshipped Sheldon – for the same reason I did, I guess. Sheldon had found Ben feeding on foxes in the cemetery. |Do you know how low you’d have to be to eat fox?’
‘What do you mean?’
Davina curled her lip in disgust. ‘Don’t you find those over-grown rats revolting? I don’t know what it is, but the vamps have always loathed foxes – it’s a bit like Bleeders and spiders. Can’t abide them, they make my flesh crawl.’ She shivered at the thought. ‘Anyway, after that, Ben would have done anything for Hawk. Anything. But Ben was impetuous – he didn’t want to wait for someone to hand him power, he wanted it right now. We used to argue about it, but there was no talking to him. “Robert Sheldon should be leading us”, he would say, with this crazy light in his eyes. I think Ben’s adoration made Sheldon even more ambitious, actually. Clearly they both got a little too ambitious in the end.’
Davina looked down at her empty glass, her face sad and tired. ‘I do miss him. I know it sounds crazy, but we were like a family. I mean, I know it was completely artificial, everyone thrown together for what were basically selfish reasons, but you can’t live together like mother and father, brother and sister without having some of that bond rub off. Ben was obviously the craziest of all of us, but ... he was the closest thing I ever had to family. Does that sound stupid?’
April shook her head. In many ways, it was one of the easiest parts of this whole situation to understand. Why shouldn’t the Osbournes have come to care for each other? There were a lot of “real” families with less in common.
‘So what now?’ asked April.
Davina threw up her hands. ‘You tell me. No job, no family, back to square one. But there’s something I need to do first. A few things, actually.’
‘What?’
‘Revenge, sweetie. Revenge. No one screws with me and gets away with it. They have no idea how pissed off I am.’
‘But who are “they”? Whoever’s giving Dr Tame his orders?’
Davina grinned and wagged a finger at April. ‘Are you fishing for information, April Dunne? You are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?’
‘Well, why not?’ said April. ‘If the men behind Ravenwood were worried about my dad’s investigation, then I have to assume they killed him.’
‘Fair enough,’ shrugged Davina. ‘That’s why I said we’re on the same side now. You want to find out who killed your father, I want to find out who destroyed my family.’
‘The King?’
‘You have been doing your homework, haven’t you?’ said Davina with a crooked smile.
‘Do you know who he is?’
‘If I did, believe me, I would already have killed him.’
The look on her face as she spoke made April shiver.
‘No,
no one’s ever met him,’ Davina continued. ‘Not at my level, anyway. There are all sorts of rumours: he’s in the Cabinet, he owns an airline, he’s a member of the royal family, but one thing’s for sure – he has managed to stay hidden, while simultaneously organising a large-scale vampire takeover. That’s pretty impressive, no?’
‘You admire him.’
Davina sat forward, her eyes narrowed, nostrils flared. ‘No, April Dunne, I do not,’ she hissed, ‘I hate him for what he did to Ben and Nicholas, and I will make him pay. But never underestimate him. He’s clever, resourceful and he’s pure vampire through and through.’
Davina picked up April’s knife and ran her thumb over the blade.
‘But born or turned, they all die when you cut off their heads.’ With a movement so swift it was a blur, Davina flipped the knife over and stabbed it into the table. It stood there, slowly rocking.
‘Oh God,’ said April. ‘Silvia’s going to go berserk.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
She watched as the chink of sunlight slowly crept across the ceiling, willing it to stop. But still it moved, inch by inch. They were never going away, were they? They were just going to keep coming. Until someone stopped them. If anyone could stop them.
After Davina had gone back to bed, April had crept back in with her mother, but her mind was so full of new information and the endless, endless questions, she hadn’t been able to close her eyes, let alone sleep. So instead she lay staring up at the roof, trying to make sense of everything she had heard.
Could she trust Davina? No, of course not. But it was tempting. Davina had inside information and more importantly, she was motivated and snarlingly angry. She wanted to find the King just as much as April, and that could be a powerful incentive. The trouble was, Davina was a vampire. Who would be stupid enough to trust a vampire?
She felt her mother stir and groan.
‘What time is it?’ she mumbled. ‘Is that sunshine? Any chance of a cup of tea, darling?’
April smiled to herself. It hadn’t taken Silvia long to get used to having April back at home, had it? April hadn’t even told her mother she was coming back – officially she was only staying in Pond Square as long as Davina needed a place to stay and a shoulder to cry on – but privately April had liked being here, close to Silvia and to whatever passed for normality in the Dunne family. April clambered out of bed and padded downstairs to find Davina already there, fully dressed, her hair immaculate.
‘You haven’t been there all night have you?’ said April, self-consciously trying to smooth her own hair down.
‘No, that last bottle of Silvia’s did the trick,’ said Davina, holding up a cup of coffee. ‘Out like a light as soon as I got back to your bed.’
‘I’m glad you’re so perky, I feel like I need another five hours,’ said April.
There was a double thunk from the passage behind her – the morning paper.
‘I’ll get it,’ said April. ‘Could you pour me some of that coffee? Make it strong.’
She stooped to pick up the paper – and froze.
‘HIGH SPEED SMASH HORROR’ read the headline over a picture of a mangled overturned car.
Nicholas Osbourne, prominent businessman and Chairman of Agropharm, the international chemicals producer, was killed yesterday when the car he was driving ploughed into a North London landmark. Mr Osbourne was driving his Maserati sports car at speed through Highgate yesterday evening when he overturned the vehicle on the Archway roundabout. Medical staff from the nearby Whittington hospital battled to save him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. Mr Osbourne was reported to be intoxicated and weaving wildly across the road before the crash.
There had been rumours that he had been removed from his £1.5 million a year position as head of development at Agropharm. The controversial British-based chemicals giant published record profits last year, despite repeated claims that it was ‘poisoning a generation’ with its aggressive marketing of over-the-counter drugs.
Davina was waiting as she walked back into the kitchen.
‘Let me see,’ she said, her hand outstretched.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, ’Vina,’ said April, pulling the paper away. ‘You’re already upset enough.’
‘Oh, I’m nowhere near as upset as I’m going to be, believe me.’
Reluctantly, April handed the paper over. She watched as Davina read it, scouring the report silently, her face impassive.
‘Remember what I said last night?’ she asked, without looking up.
‘Davina, you were drunk last night.’
‘Drunk, sober, I’m going to get even with them, whatever it takes,’ she said. ‘Now are you going to help me?’
April didn’t immediately respond.
‘Oh, maybe you don’t care as much about your dad now he’s gone.’
‘That’s not fair,’ said April, her face turning red.
‘Isn’t it? Either you want to nail the bastards who tore his throat out or you don’t. Which is it?’
‘Davina ...’
‘Which is it?’ her eyes were blazing.
April felt trapped. No, she didn’t want to trust this girl, but had she any choice? As Fiona had so painfully pointed out, there were so few of them. They were fighting and they were losing. She looked at Davina for a long moment, then she made a decision. ‘All right, where do we start?’
Davina stabbed at the paper. ‘Here.’
The Crichton Club stood at the foot of Haymarket on the edge of Mayfair, only a stone’s throw from Whitehall, Parliament and the Mall. A tall white Georgian townhouse, it had a grand entrance hall with a huge Union flag hanging over the street. If it had been a haunted bat cave, April couldn’t have been more intimidated. ‘But what am I supposed to say?’
Davina put a reassuring hand on April’s knee as their car pulled up at the kerb. ‘Just be yourself. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes, just keep your eyes open. Try to remember who’s there.’
Davina had spotted a news item in the morning paper about a fund-raising lunch being held at the Crichton Club, a well-known haunt of right-leaning politicians and high-powered business types. According to the piece, the lunch was being held for various government bodies to honour “Outstanding Contributions To Education”, but Davina had immediately known it for what it really was: a gathering of vampire sympathisers. ‘Sheldon used to take me along to these things,’ she had said, ‘All those crusty old men loved to see the pretty girl from Ravenwood.’
As Davina had said it, April had felt sick, knowing that Davina was going to suggest gate-crashing the event. And now, sitting in the Osbourne’s Mercedes outside the building, she felt even worse, especially as she was going in alone.
‘Are you sure you can’t come in, just for a bit?’
Davina shook her head. ‘I’m in mourning, remember? Every man in there will have known Nicholas Osbourne one way or another, and my presence will draw far too much attention.’
‘And I’ll fit right in, I suppose?’
‘Relax, April, you’re Head Girl of one of the top schools in the country. Why wouldn’t they invite you? Besides, you’re not gate-crashing, you have an official invitation.’
Ignoring April’s objections, Davina had picked up Silvia’s kitchen phone and called the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Education – or someone like that – April was still a little fuzzy from sleep – and, putting on a plummy accent, pretended to be the PA to the Head of Investment for “Ravenwood Corp”. She had explained that their student representative, Davina Osbourne, was no longer able to attend the Crichton Club lunch – ‘Her father was killed last night. I don’t know if you read about it in the Times? All very tragic ...’ – so could they add April Dunne to the guest list in her stead? The combination of Ravenwood, dead fathers and Davina’s take-no-prisoners approach had worked, the Under-Secretary assuring her that Miss Dunne had only to announce herself at the reception desk where a name-tag would be waiting.
/> ‘Chop-chop,’ said Davina, opening the car’s door and giving April an encouraging shove. ‘You’ll miss the canapés.’
A woman with a clipboard and a fixed grin took April down a long corridor and stopped outside some double doors. ‘Professor Young has almost finished his address, I’m afraid’ she said, consulting her watch.
April frowned and nodded, as if she knew exactly who Professor Young was and was very sad to have missed most of his talk.
‘A buffet lunch will be served at one.’ With that, the woman turned on her heel and disappeared.
April gingerly opened the door and slipped inside. It was a large room with dark wood panelling and ornate paintings of gods and cherubs in gold frames – it had once been a ballroom, she guessed. Mercifully, the fifty or so people in the room were all facing the other way, towards a man speaking on a raised platform at the far end. April found a space at the back and tried to blend in.
‘Of course, this is a radical approach,’ the speaker was saying, ‘And historically, we have all resisted the radical. But if we are to build a stronger, more focused generation, we need to be bold. We need to believe in what we’re doing, and do it quickly and decisively. No half-measures, no apologies, it’s finally time for us all to act.’
Is he talking about running a school or planning a war? April glanced up at the faces of the assembled crowd – they were nearly all men, apart from a smattering of frumpy-looking women in over-long skirts – and saw they all had the same expressions: excitement and expectation, the sort of look you see on a six-year-old girl sitting under the Christmas tree clutching a Barbie-shaped parcel. Davina had been right – it was a rally for the converted. Professor Young wasn’t talking about education at all, he was talking about “us”, the Vampire Nation, the Chosen Ones and all their new BFFs, and how they were getting ready to send the troops over the top.