Blood Bath (Seven Jack Nightingale Short Stories)

by Stephen Leather

  Nightingale’s head jerked up. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘The Order Of Nine Angels,’ said Timmy, still reading what was on the screen. ‘Bunch of nutters but they have some good stuff tucked away.’

  Nightingale went to stand behind the teenager. ‘And you hacked their site and just what, downloaded the stuff on it?’

  ‘Downloaded it and then gave it to a freelance to polish it, turn it more tabloid.’

  ‘Timmy, you need to watch yourself,’ said Nightingale. ‘What you’re doing, it’s dangerous.’

  ‘They won’t know it’s me, I do it all through overseas proxies.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re down as the owner of the Hauntings website. It won’t take much to put two and two together.’

  ‘What if they do? What are they going to do? I’m just a kid.’

  ‘They won’t sue you, Timmy,’ said Nightingale. He took out his pack of cigarettes but put them away when Jenny flashed him a withering look. ‘Look, it’s not Nine Angels. It’s Nine Angles. And they’re not just a bunch of nutters. A bunch of very dangerous nutters. You need to watch yourself with them.’

  Timmy sat back and ran his hands through his greasy hair. ‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ he said. ‘They’re devil-worshippers, right? So Nine Angels. Fallen Angels, I guess.’

  Nightingale shook his head. ‘Nine Angles. They have a symbol that has nine points on it. Nine angles. It’s a common mistake. But the name is neither here nor there. They’re a dangerous group, Timmy. You need to be careful.’

  ‘All I did was lift some stuff from their website. It’s not as if I said where it came from.’

  ‘Can you show me?’

  ‘Sure. Last time I checked they hadn’t even changed their password.’ He tapped away on his keyboard, his face moving closer to the centre screen. It went black and then a small white nine-pointed star appeared, slowly rotating within a circle.

  ‘That’s the nine angle thing,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Looks weird, like a pentagram but squished,’ said Timmy. ‘What’s it mean?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nightingale. ‘Most of what they do is a closely guarded secret. That’s why I’m surprised that they have a website.’

  ‘This isn’t for public consumption,’ said Timmy, his fingers moving again. ‘This is just a portal. No one gets beyond this page without a password. And if you get the password wrong three times the portal moves to a different URL. But if you get the password right you have access to all sorts of information, most of it really spooky stuff.’

  ‘How did you hack it?’ asked Jenny.

  Timmy grinned and tapped the side of his nose. ‘That’s top secret,’ he said. ‘I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.’

  ‘You see, Timmy, that’s not funny. Satanists generally are bad news but the Order Of Nine Angles are seriously dangerous. They do human sacrifice and all sorts of nasty stuff.’

  ‘Take a chill pill,’ said Timmy. ‘They can’t trace me. So far as they know I’m coming at them from an industrial estate in Kiev.’ He sat back and tapped the ‘ENTER’ key. ‘Here we go.’

  The logo stopped rotating, then slowly grew in size until it filled the screen. Then it began to flash quickly. Timmy frowned. ‘That’s funny, it didn’t do this last time.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Jenny, walking over to stand behind him.

  As she put a hand on the back of his chair, all three of the screens went suddenly blank.

  ‘Shit,’ said Timmy.

  Nightingale hurried over. ‘What?’ he said.

  The screens all went white, and then they were filled with rows and rows of numbers that flashed across the screen so quickly that they became a blur.

  Timmy’s fingers began to pound on the keyboard as he muttered ‘bastards, bastards, bastards,’ under his breath.

  ‘‘Timmy?’ said Jenny, touching him on the shoulder.

  Timmy ignored him and continued to bash at the keys. The left hand screen started flashing, white, black, white, black, as rows of numbers continued to scroll across the two other screens.

  ‘Shit!’ shouted Timmy. He leapt out of his chair, ran around behind the screens and began pulling plugs out a trailing socket. One by one the screens went blank. Timmy sat on the floor with his back against the wall, his head in his hands.

  ‘What just happened?’ asked Nightingale.

  Timmy looked up at him. ‘Some bastard just got to my server and I think they managed to get into my hard disc.’

  ‘I thought you used proxies.’

  ‘I did. Several. What they did shouldn’t be possible but they did.’ He banged his head against the wall. ‘I’m going to have to delete all my drives, the works. Everything.’

  ‘To be fair, I did warn you,’ said Nightingale. ‘Do you think they’ll know where you are?’

  Timmy shook his head. ‘That’s impossible,’ he said. ‘They might get my IP address but that won’t do them any good. I change that every hour.’

  ‘You be careful, Timmy,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I’ll be okay,’ said the teenager.

  ‘The last time you went to the Nine Angles site, did you make copies of what was there?’

  ‘Some, sure.’

  ‘Can you do me a favour and let me have a look at what you saw?’

  Timmy shook his head fiercely. ‘Didn’t you hear what I just said? They got into my server.’

  ‘Sure, but you can access your hard drive without going online,’ said Jenny. ‘Just dump what you have on a thumb drive and we’ll get out of your hair.’

  Timmy opened his mouth as if was about to refuse, but Jenny pre-empted him with a smile. ‘Pretty please,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Timmy. He switched on one of his computers, inserted a grey thumb drive and tapped away on his keyboard. He rocked back and forth impatiently as the files downloaded, then switched off the computer, pulled out the thumb drive and handed it to Jenny.

  ‘You’re a star, Timmy,’ she said. ‘Now I hate to ask, but can you do me one other favour?’

  ‘My equipment has just been totally screwed and you want a favour?’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry about that,’ said Jenny. ‘But look, we’d be really grateful. And I could give you some interesting stories for your websites. I look after Jack’s site and I’d be happy to send case details on to you.’

  Timmy sighed. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘That information about the deaths at The Weeping Willow, can you take them off the site?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘Ah come on, it’s good stuff,’ said Timmy.

  ‘Can you maybe just take the name off the hotel down? Leave the details there but just don’t mention the name. It’s really hurting our clients. They can’t get anyone to stay there because as soon as they Google the hotel your site comes up.’

  Timmy grinned. ‘That’s because of all the SEO work I put in.’

  ‘And you do a great job,’ said Jenny. ‘But please, Timmy, can you just drop the name?’

  ‘I tell you what,’ said Timmy. ‘I will, if you give me a kiss.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A kiss,’ said Timmy. He tapped his cheek. ‘Just here.’

  Nightingale grinned but stopped when Jenny flashed him an angry look.

  ‘Are you serious?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘It’s up to you,’ said Timmy, leaning back in his chair.

  Jenny looked at Nightingale and Nightingale grinned again. ‘It’d be for the greater good,’ he said.

  Jenny wagged a finger at Timmy. ‘Only on the cheek, right?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Timmy. He turned his head and presented his left cheek to her. Jenny sighed and leaned forward to plant a kiss, but just as she got close Timmy turned and kissed her on the lips.

  Jenny jumped back with a yelp as Timmy laughed. ‘Got you!’ he said.

  Jenny looked over at Nightingale for support but he just grinned. ‘I sort of saw that coming,’ he said.

  Je
nny wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘You’d better keep your promise,’ she said to Timmy.

  ‘My word is my bond,’ said Timmy, and his fingers tapped away at the keyboard.

  Nightingale and Jenny let themselves out of the house. Nightingale checked his phone as they walked back to the Audi. The text message was from Gracie. ‘That’s interesting,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘All the suicides were in the same room,’ he said. ‘Room Six.’

  ‘That’s not good, is it?’

  ‘No,’ agreed Nightingale. ‘It’s not. How do you feel about a run down to Brighton?’

  Jenny shrugged. ‘If you pay my petrol and buy me dinner, I could be persuaded.’

  ‘KFC?’

  Jenny shook her head. ‘I’ll be insisting on a knife and fork, at the very least.’

  *

  Mrs Stokes was at the reception desk when Nightingale and Jenny walked into The Weeping Willow Hotel. ‘Good news,’ said Nightingale. ‘The man behind the website has agreed to take down the story.’

  Mrs Stokes beamed. ‘Really?’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘We explained the situation to him and he said he would.’

  ‘The pages might stay up on various caches for a while,’ warned Jenny. ‘But it’ll all disappear eventually.’

  ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ said Mrs Stokes. ‘Seriously, that’s the best news I’ve had all year. My husband will be delighted, and of course you must send us your bill. I have to say, it’ll be one bill that’d I’ll take pleasure in paying.’

  ‘Is Mr Stokes around?’

  Mrs Stokes shook her head. ‘He’s down at the cash and carry. He’ll be an hour or so. Why, is there something wrong?’

  ‘Nothing wrong,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s just that he mentioned there were some records in the attic.’

  ‘From the previous owner,’ she said. ‘They’re in filing cabinets. We’re keeping them in case there’s a problem with the taxman.’

  ‘Could we go up and have a look?’ asked Nightingale.

  Mrs Stokes frowned. ‘Is there a problem?’

  Nightingale flashed her a reassuring smile. ‘No, not at all. We’re just interested in checking the receipts for the refurbishment.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There might be something significant in the bath that was installed in Room 6,’ said Nightingale, but he could see from the look on the woman’s face that his explanations were making her even more nervous. ‘Really, it’s nothing, I just want to find out where it came from.’

  ‘To be honest, Mrs Stokes, I wouldn’t mind ordering one myself,’ said Jenny. ‘It’s lovely, and I’ve never seen one like it before.’

  The lie seemed to make Mrs Stokes happier so Nightingale went along with it and nodded enthusiastically. ‘It shouldn’t take too long,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a mess up there,’ she warned.

  ‘Not a problem,’ Nightingale reassured her.

  ‘Just go to the top floor and there’s a pole against the wall you use to pull the ladder down,’ said Mrs Stokes.

  Nightingale and Jenny walked up to the top floor. The pole was where Mrs Stokes had said and Nightingale used it to grab a small ring in a wooden door set into the ceiling. He twisted and pulled and the trapdoor opened and a set of aluminium steps folded out. Nightingale went up first. There was a light switch in the wall to his left and he clicked it on before stepping off the ladder onto the bare wooden boards of the attic.

  ‘What’s it look like?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘A couple of vampires and a zombie or two,’ said Nightingale. ‘But I think I can take them.’

  Jenny climbed the steps and joined him. The attic was filled with cardboard boxes, old mattresses and battered furniture. At the far end was a line of rusting green filing cabinets. The wooden boards squeaked and groaned as they walked around the stacks of boxes and unwanted furniture. ‘At least they’re dated,’ said Jenny, pointing at small cardboard signs affixed to each drawer. ‘We can assume the refurbishment was done in the first year, right?’

  ‘Good call,’ said Nightingale. The earliest year he could see was 1994 and he pulled it open. Inside were twelve pale blue files, each labelled with the month of the year. He took out January for himself and handed February to Jenny. ‘Race you,’ he said.

  It was Jenny who found the receipts for the Japanese room, twenty minutes after they started their search. There were half a dozen receipts from companies in Japan including one, in Japanese, from an antiques shop in Tokyo. ‘This is it,’ she said, taking the receipt over to the single light bulb hanging from the roof.

  Nightingale peered over her shoulder. ‘You can read Japanese?’ he asked.

  ‘Some,’ she said. ‘This is for an antique roll-top bath. Believed to be from the eighteenth-century.’ She frowned. ‘That’s strange.’

  ‘What’s strange?’

  ‘The price. Two hundred thousand yen.’

  ‘That’s a lot?’

  ‘No, that’s not a lot. Just over a hundred pounds. That’s cheap for an antique, don’t you think?’

  Nightingale took the receipt from her. ‘Not if somebody was trying to get rid of it,’ he said. ‘And what better way of getting rid of it than selling it to someone on the other side of the world?’

  *

  Nightingale carried a cup of coffee over to Jenny’s desk and put it down in front of her. She was frowning and squinting at her computer screen. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  She sat back and folded her arms. ‘That thumb-drive that Timmy gave us. It’s blank.’

  ‘Do you think he’s messing us around?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. He kept his word and took down any mention of the hotel. And we saw him put the files on the thumb-drive.’ She frowned. ‘It’s as if something got onto the thumb-drive and deleted the files.’

  ‘The Order of Nine Angles?’

  ‘I can’t think of anyone else, can you?’ She picked up her mug of coffee and took a sip.

  ‘So how are we going to get information on Japanese vampires?’ Nightingale asked.

  ‘Why do we need information? Just tell them to redecorate.’

  ‘What, you think the vampire’s connected to the bath?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? The bath’s from Japan and so’s the vampire.’

  ‘But getting rid of the bath doesn’t necessarily mean the haunting’s going to end, does it?’ said Nightingale. ‘I’d just like a better understanding of what we’re dealing with. I was hoping the thumb-drive would help, but clearly not.’

  ‘There isn’t much on the internet, either,’ said Jenny. ‘Why don’t we go down to Aoki Sushi and talk to Mr Aoki?’

  Aoki Sushi, close to Queensway Tube station, was one of Nightingale’s favourite restaurants. The owner, Mr Aoki, was in his sixties, a small, bald man with a slight stoop from years leaning over his sushi counter. Mr Aoki took great pleasure in introducing Jenny and Nightingale to new tastes and sensations, from raw sea urchin to the infamous fugu puffer fish, which can be deadly if not prepared absolutely correctly. Jenny had introduced Nightingale to the restaurant and at first he’d been reluctant to eat raw fish, but Mr Aoki had won him over and now he visited at least once a month, usually with Jenny, ‘Because he’s Japanese?’

  ‘Of course because he’s Japanese. He knows a lot about Japanese folklore and history.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘We were probably speaking in Japanese,’ said Jenny.

  ‘How many languages do you speak?’

  ‘My Japanese is pretty basic,’ said Jenny. She looked at her watch. ‘Why don’t we close up early and get there before his evening rush?’

  When they arrived at the restaurant, there was a group of Japanese businessmen in a booth toasting each other loudly with beakers of saki. They were all in their thirties with their jackets off, shirt sleeves rolled up and ties askew and looked as if they were there for the night.


  There was a line of eight empty stools in front of the sushi bar where Mr Aoki spent most of his time. Nightingale and Jenny sat down at one end. Mr Aoki was slicing tuna and he grinned when he looked up and spotted Jenny. He was in his fifties, squat and totally bald with a head that was pretty much spherical. They immediately began chatting away in Japanese, and it was clear that her proficiency in the language was way above basic. The restaurant stocked Corona and Nightingale ordered a bottle for himself and saki for Jenny. Jenny and Mr Aoki continued to chat in Japanese as he busied himself slicing raw salmon and tuna. He placed a dish of the succulent sashimi in front of them and waved for them to try. ‘Flown in from Japan this morning,’ he said proudly.

  ‘Flying fish, how great is that?’ said Nightingale, picking up a pair of chopsticks.

  Mr Aoki frowned, not understanding the joke. ‘It’s not flying fish,’ he said. ‘Salmon and tuna. Top grade. Best in the world.’

  Nightingale picked up a piece of tuna and popped it into his mouth. Mr Aoki was right, it was superb and virtually melted in his mouth. ‘Delicious,’ he said, and Mr Aoki beamed. He picked up a slab of grey fish and began expertly cutting it into oblongs as Jenny spoke to him in Japanese. The waitress returned with their drinks and they both toasted the sushi chef.

  Mr Aiko put sushi hand rolls down in front of them. ‘Jenny-chan tells me you are interested in the Gaki,’ he said.

  ‘I’m fine with any fish you put in front of me,’ said Nightingale. ‘I love your sashimi and sushi, you know that.’

  Mr Aoki said something to Jenny in Japanese and they both laughed.

  ‘The Gaki is the Japanese vampire,’ explained Jenny.

  ‘Not so much a vampire, more a corporeal ghost,’ said Mr Aoki. ‘A Gaki is a spirit that lived badly and failed to repent before death. It wanders around for eternity, cursed with a blood lust that is never satisfied.’

  ‘And they attack people?” asked Nightingale.

  Mr Aoki nodded. ‘Some feed on blood, others on flesh. They are shape-shifters and can take many forms. Some eat samurai topknots, for instance. Other feed on sweat. Or incense. But blood is usually what they are after.’