by Helen Harper
My stomach sinks. Still, I aim for light-heartedness. ‘Hey, buddy. What gives?’
He laughs sharply. ‘Oh, so now you’re playing nice?’
I clamber to my feet, trying not to hug my aching belly too obviously. I clearly don’t do a very good job, because glee crosses his face.
‘Beautiful, inept Bo,’ he says. ‘Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused me?’
‘You mean because I didn’t allow myself to be framed for O’Shea’s murder?’
He licks his lips; it’s not a pleasant sight. ‘Indeed. Things would have gone so much smoother if you’d let yourself be banged up. I was doing you a favour, you know.’
‘Because if I was in prison I’d have avoided the massacre at Dire Straits.’ I say it flatly, but really I want his confirmation that he was responsible. Besides which, I know now that it was sheer luck that I was assigned to O’Shea.
‘We were trying to wipe out any connection to the daemon.’ Boris shrugs. ‘It didn’t work out so well.’
I snarl, ‘It didn’t work out too damn well for Tam and everyone else either.’
‘The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agly.’
‘I never took you for a literary man.’
‘I was forced to do some reading at school.’
‘Imagine that,’ I murmur. I gaze at him speculatively. It takes every ounce of self-control not to spit in his face. ‘Why, Boris? Why have you done all this? Is it the spell? Does Nicky have you under her thumb?’
‘I don’t need a spell to be loyal to someone who’s going to rid the world of vampires.’ He says the last word with such venom, that I start to get an inkling of his real motives.
‘You don’t like them?’
‘Goddamn freaks and criminals. Fucking tribers think they own the place. They’ve got every human kowtowing to them. They don’t belong here.’
‘So why are you trying to create more? Nicky’s becoming a vampire.’
‘Nicola is doing what’s necessary to beat them at their own game. Anyway, she’s not going to be a vampire. By the end of tomorrow night, she’ll be Sanguine. Not vampire. Sanguine is when…’
‘I know what it means to be sodding Sanguine. How has she avoided the cravings?’
‘How have you?’ he retorts.
I stare at him. Eventually he grins. ‘I suppose we all have a few tricks up our sleeves.’
I guess they have some of my grandfather’s magic powder or something like it. If I get out of this I’ll have to tell Montserrat about it. It’s clearly more widely available than I’d assumed. And I don’t share Boris’s confidence that Nicky wants to be Sanguine. I reckon the thought of supplanting the five Families with her own Family is too tempting.
Boris bares his teeth. ‘Well, time is ticking away and I don’t want to miss the fireworks upstairs. I can’t wait to see those jumped-up bloodguzzlers crawling on their hands and knees and doing our bidding.’
‘It won’t be your bidding,’ I point out. ‘It’ll be Nicky’s.’
He opens his mouth to speak but is prevented by the sudden high-pitched peal of an alarm, signalling the others’ arrival. Without missing a beat, I reach behind into the window alcove and grasp the chunk of metal that sits there. It’s heavier than I expected but I manage to lift it and fling it at Boris. I aim for his head but either it’s too heavy or I’m too weak and it ends up landing against his shins. The element of surprise helps me, though, as he screams and falls backwards, hitting his head on the floor. I grab his hair, pulling up his head then slamming it back down. His body jerks and stills: he’s out cold. I scoop up the card which has fallen from the alcove and read: ‘Original Bell Hammer’.
‘Well, I might be weaker than a kitten,’ I tell his inert form, ‘but it looks like I still beat you hammer and tongs.’
I waste no more time. The others will soon be here to take care of Boris. The alarm will no doubt have spurred Nicky into action, however. I need to get to her. I make for the steps. The spurt of adrenaline that allowed me to dispatch Boris is dissipating fast and the pain in my stomach is returning. I have to cling to the banister to heave myself upwards. I’m terrified that my legs will give way at any moment.
On the next level there’s nothing more than the elaborate clock mechanism that keeps Big Ben working. It’s huge and intricate – but it’s not what I’m looking for. I lurch past it and up the next set of stairs. This time I have to keep pausing to catch my breath and stop myself toppling over. The steps seem endless. I have no idea what I’ll see when I finally come across Nicky and the Family Heads. I can only hope she’s not yet had the chance to unleash that fucking spell and turn them into mindless robots. Blood is pounding in my ears and my senses are dimming. That’s why I don’t hear the voices until I’m almost upon them.
‘You know I could have brought a whole host of bloodguzzling followers to help me.’
I close my eyes for half a second as I register Nicky’s familiar voice.
‘So why didn’t you?’ Dulcet tones encase the steel of Lady Bancroft’s response.
‘Because I don’t need them to destroy you.’
‘I’m female. Your mumbo-jumbo won’t work on me any more than it’ll affect you.’
‘Just like your mind mumbo-jumbo won’t work on me,’ Nicky snarls.
I yank out every last molecule of energy I have inside me. Pure rage is driving me now. With one final spurt, I run up the remaining steps and round the corner. Lady Bancroft and Nicky stand in front of the giant illuminated face of Big Ben. I glance around desperately for signs of the other Family Heads but I can’t see them anywhere.
Nicky turns in my direction and Lady Bancroft takes advantage of her distraction to leap forward and grab her. Her face is a vicious frozen mask of anger. I lunge forward to join her.
‘Bo,’ Nicky croaks, from underneath Bancroft’s tightening fingers. Then she smirks with a confidence that freezes my bones. From nowhere she pulls out a sharply honed stake. Before I can react, she twists away from me and slams it into Lady Bancroft’s heart.
The vampire doesn’t have time to make a noise. Her eyes widen for a split second then she crumples to the ground. As I watch, her skin turns grey then black as her body decomposes with sickening speed. Nicky steps away and dusts off her palms.
‘That was even easier than I thought,’ she comments. Without warning, she snaps forward and grabs my throat. Her face swims up against mine and she strokes my cheek with one finger. ‘So gullible, Bo. So keen to believe that a little girl like me wouldn’t be the one you were looking for.’
I choke and writhe.
‘Oh, yes,’ she laughs. ‘I knew exactly who you were and what you were after. I’ve been one step ahead of you the entire time. You thought I was weak because I was a cripple. All I had to do to get your trust was to simper and giggle. It never occurred to you that I’m the one who’s going to save us from the vampires, did it?’
I watch her, aghast. She’s right. I forgot everything I’ve ever been taught and judged her on her appearance. But the clues were there, if I’d thought to look for them.
Nicky’s laugh is a harsh, grating sound, far removed from her usual giggle. ‘I wouldn’t feel too bad about it. You’re hardly the only one I fooled. Even before I became a recruit, getting close to vampires was ridiculously easy. They took one look at my wheelchair and dismissed me. Well, I showed them!’ She laughs again.
My chest feels tight and it’s getting harder to breathe. Nicky’s fingers are claws around my throat. She brings her face up close to mine.
‘Even though you weren’t smart enough to work out the truth,’ she says, ‘you still managed to get in my way. If you’d not rescued that daemon, all this would have been so much easier. No one would have realised I was turning the Family members into mindless drones until it was too late.’
‘Why?’ I gasp.
‘Why did I do it, you mean? Because they ruined my life. They put me in a wheelchair and messed w
ith my mind, just like she tried to.’ Nicky kicks Bancroft’s desiccated remains. ‘They thought they could make me believe I was the one responsible for all that.’
I try to speak again but nothing comes out other than a choking sound. Nicky loosens her grip enough to give me enough air to speak. ‘You killed your parents?’
She kicks me, hard. ‘You’re not listening. They killed my parents. The vampires. They destroyed my life. They made me think I’d gone mad and done it myself, but I found out the truth and now I’m going to destroy them. They’re bloodguzzling bastards who think they should control the world and take whatever they want, whenever they want it. Well, they can’t fool me any longer. I’ve been planning this for fucking years.’
‘Vampires wouldn’t have attacked your family and killed them, Nicky.’
‘You wanna bet? There’s a lot more to getting recruited to the Families than you realise. Just a couple of weeks ago they killed a toddler. A sweet two-year-old boy.’
I cough weakly, struggling to breathe. ‘Because you made them!’
‘Innocents suffer in every war. Deaths like his were necessary to wake everyone up to what the vampires really are. Besides, they made me believe I was responsible for slaughtering my own parents. I won’t be made a fool of, Bo. I’m going to take my revenge and no one is going to get in my way. I’m smarter than the whole lot of you. I’ll make my own Family and together we’ll help people. We won’t fuck with them, like the Five Families do. You may not live to see it but I’m going to make the world a better place.’ Her face contorts. ‘For once, however, I find myself on the back foot. Where are the others?’
I have no idea what she means. She shakes me and my body spasms in pain. ‘Gully. Stuart. Medici. Montserrat. Where the fuck are they?’
‘Here.’
There are four figures crowding into the space. I recognise them all but it’s the glittering rage visible on Montserrat’s face that makes me weak with relief. He’s alright.
‘You knew I was coming,’ she snarls.
He nods. ‘We did. We didn’t know it was you but we knew the traitor would come.’ His eyes flick to me then back again to Nicky. ‘Let her go.’
She reaches into her pocket. I know she’s about to pull out whatever physical form of O’Shea’s spell she’s created and I moan in warning. I struggle against the vice-like grip of her hand.
‘It wasn’t us who hurt your family,’ Montserrat says quietly.
‘I was there,’ she snarls.
‘You were a little girl. Your memory is twisted and you remember things that didn’t happen. You did it. You killed them. We took you in to help you, Nicky. You need help. You don’t want to do this.’
She laughs again. It’s a cold hard sound.
‘Kill her.’ It’s Medici. His eyes, a light almost transparent aquamarine colour, are emotionless.
I move my left hand into my pocket, finding the little canister of pepper spray. It’s useless against vampires but it’ll work against Nicky.
Her hand feints forward and Medici flinches. Nicky giggles. ‘You can try. But as soon as you do, I’ll unleash my little wonder drug and before you can so much as say fuck, you’ll be mine to do with as I please. You fucked with my life, now I’m going to fuck with yours.’
‘Let Bo go, Nicky, then we can talk.’
‘But I don’t want to talk, Lord Montserrat. I want to destroy you.’
Without warning she lets me go, one hand curving out towards the group of Family Heads and the other pulling out a gleaming blade which flashes in my direction. I have no more time. I pull out the pepper spray and hold it up, pressing down on the nozzle at the same time as I feel the steel sink into my flesh. Both Nicky and I scream. I’m dimly aware of figures leaping forward and someone grabbing me again, although this time it’s with gentle hands rather than a force wanting to kill. I push outwards, trying to stop Nicky getting what she wants and throwing the spell in the Heads’ direction. Instead my hand meets air and I’m sinking. Blackness forms around the edges of my vision, and the light of the clock face disappears into a tiny pinprick. Then there’s nothing.
Epilogue
‘So you’re Sanguine then?’ The voice above me is familiar but I can’t quite place it. ‘You know it’s quite a feat. There are only three Sanguines in the world.’
Someone murmurs a reply. I struggle to open my eyes. When I do, I see Peter and Nell. They grin at me then abruptly disappear through the open door. A minute later, Montserrat appears. For once he’s dressed casually, in a tight black v-necked t-shirt. The edges of his winged tattoo are just visible from beneath his sleeves.
‘You’re awake.’ He looks worried, although I can’t think why. He places a cool hand on my forehead and brushes away a few errant curls. ‘You almost didn’t make it.’
‘What happened?’ I croak.
‘Your timely intervention with that spray gave us enough leeway to get her.’
‘Is she…?’
‘Dead?’ he shakes his head. ‘Actually, no. She’s being held at one of our facilities. She’s a troubled young woman.’
I almost laugh. ‘Troubled’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. ‘She wanted revenge.’
Montserrat nods. ‘When she was ten years old, she killed her parents and then tried to kill herself by leaping out of a window. She convinced herself that vampires were to blame. She created an entire set of false memories to fuel her vendetta. It was easier for her to find someone else to blame rather than to remember the truth.’
‘The recruitment process is supposed to be stringent.’ I want to yell, but I don’t have the energy to manage more than a whisper.
‘We knew what she’d done. She was a child when it happened, Bo, a screwed-up kid who suffered years of abuse at her father’s hands while her mother stood idly by. Something in her simply snapped. Under those circumstances, can you really say it was her fault?’
I stare at him mutely, thinking about the real effects of O’Shea’s spell. It would offer a way to ensure you were never a victim again.
He continues. ‘After the attack, she spent ten years in a mental institution before she was released. She fooled everyone into thinking she was alright.’
‘You recruited a murderer.’
‘We’re vampires, Bo. We already walk on the dark side. We recruited her to help her.’
‘You’re not supposed to be evil.’
‘We’re not. We offer respite to many who end up on the wrong path. We give them a way out. Your friend Beth was a prostitute who had a sideline as a gang member and who was definitely living on borrowed time. Nell was a thief. We’ve got drug addicts and murderers. Not everyone is a criminal but for those who are, we provide an alternative. We help those whose lives are on a trajectory to hell. It’s what we were trying to do for Nicky but we didn’t realise the extent of her false beliefs about that night.’
He gazes at me for a moment, as if willing me to understand. I think about the other recruits in my group – the ex-politician with the shady past, Peter’s mysterious comments about deserving to suffer, Ria and Ursus’s violent attack, my grandfather’s admonition that I couldn’t trust the vampires … it had been staring me in the face in the entire time. Is every single vampire someone who should be behind bars instead of roaming around freely?
‘Arzo’s not a criminal,’ I say weakly.
‘Not everyone is. Not everyone’s darkness involves breaking the law.’
Arzo’s only fault had been falling in love with the wrong person. I wonder what Michael’s darkness involves. I am finding it hard to get my head around it all. The fact that vampires are above human law now feels like an affront to humanity. I admit that the shroud of secrecy around the vampires’ recruitment policies is starting to make a lot more sense. By taking in criminals, they keep the rest of the world safe. But they give those criminals unlimited power when they reap the benefits from drinking blood. They should be punished, not rewarded.
Michael seems to
know what I’m thinking. ‘It’s amazing what a little structure and loyalty can do, Bo. Our Families keep everyone in check. Think of us as a military boarding school but more permanent. We keep everyone’s darker natures at bay because of what they become when they drink. But after they turn, they also toe the line and make amends for their previous lives. We see to it that they do. If there’s the slightest hint of criminal activity, they’re executed. Quite frankly, until Nicky we’ve never had a problem. And why would we suspect her above anyone else? Your friend Peter is another one, you know. Many people find that they can achieve redemption through joining us.’
My mouth twists. ‘Drinking blood absolves you of your sins? It seems to me it just creates more.’
‘The humans who offer themselves to us do so freely,’ he says, gently chiding me.
I scowl. ‘So you say. Forget the humans. Your vampires should be in jail.’
‘What’s the purpose of prison? Is it to rehabilitate or to punish? We make people on the fringes of society into useful contributors to the world.’
‘Nicky was not a useful contributor to anything.’
His expression shutters. ‘With her we made an error.’
‘You bet you fucking did.’
I realise that Montserrat felt the same way about Nicky that I did. Pity for her situation moved him to help her by allowing her recruitment, in the same way that pity for her led me into believing she was an innocent. She pulled the wool over all our eyes. But it doesn’t change the fact that Tam and Charity and everyone else would still be alive if it wasn’t for the way the Families do things.
I struggle into a sitting position. I feel a bit sore but otherwise alright. It’s a miracle considering how it felt when Nicky plunged that cold steel into me.