Sanctified: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (Branded Book 1)

by David Bussell

  ‘Do you think he’s home?’ I asked.

  ‘The lights are on,’ Gen replied.

  But then they weren’t.

  As the house lights switched off, the front door opened, and out stepped a stick-thin man in a tailored suit.

  Pinstripe.

  We ducked behind the property’s surrounding wall and peeked through a gap in the brickwork to spy on him.

  ‘That’s him,’ I whispered.

  Pinstripe’s patent leather shoes crunched over gravel as he made his way across the mansion’s impressive driveway and stepped into the plush leather interior of a silver-grey Mercedes. The engine fired up, and with a stab of another button, the outer gates swung slowly inwards.

  ‘What now?’ I asked. ‘Do we tail him?’

  ‘Tail him in what?’ Gen asked.

  Our cab was gone. We were pedestrians now.

  ‘We can’t let him get away,’ I said. ‘He knows where Neil is.’

  The Mercedes was rolling, heading for the gates.

  Gen saw me getting twitchy and said, ‘Don’t do anything rash. Let’s think about this…’

  But I couldn’t help myself.

  It was like something was doing my thinking for me. The brand hand was burning. It knew what I wanted. Knew I couldn’t just hide and let the only link to Neil get away.

  I jumped out of my hiding place and stepped into the gateway, right into the path of Pinstripe’s oncoming car.

  He saw me and jammed on the brakes, bringing the vehicle to an emergency stop. The parked car sat there, purring softly. For a moment, the two of us just stared at each other, then a grin split Pinstripe’s face as he revved the engine.

  He shifted into gear and stepped down on the accelerator, sending the back wheels spinning and kicking up a spray of shingle.

  I held my ground as the car bore down on me, picking up speed, engine screaming.

  ‘Move!’ yelled Gen, but I wasn’t going anywhere.

  I felt sure of myself, my fists clenched, teeth bared.

  Pinstripe wasn’t getting away.

  Just as the car was about to plough into me, I leapt in the air, toes pointed forward like a human missile.

  I hit the windscreen feet-first and landed in Pinstripe’s lap with a shower of glass. My Doc Martens kicked the air out of the vampire’s lungs and his hands left the wheel, sending the car into a spin.

  ‘Where is he?’ I hollered, my fingers digging into Pinstripe’s throat.

  I was a woman possessed. I clung onto him tight, giving him no room to manoeuvre. He tried to buck me off, but I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Just then, the spinning car clipped the marble fountain and went into a roll. The ground and the sky switched places, over and over, the car throwing us about like a tumble drier. I saw the property’s surrounding wall fill my vision as we headed for it on a collision course—

  Then we were somewhere else.

  The two of us were free-falling through an impossible tunnel of swirling, strobing yellow light. I clutched onto him like a tandem skydiver as we tumbled down and down, screaming against the wind shearing my face.

  When I opened my eyes, the tunnel was gone, and we were back on solid ground. We weren’t in the car though. We weren’t on the grounds of Pinstripe’s palatial mansion. We weren’t even on planet Earth for all I knew.

  We were indoors now, lying in the middle of a packed nightclub dance floor. Men in tight vests and muscle tops rollicked and writhed to the tune of Scissor Sisters song. Where the hell was I?

  ‘Get a room, you two,’ cried a dancing beefcake in a crop top, as he spun around to find Pinstripe and I, embracing like lovers on the floor.

  The vampire took the opportunity to break away from me, pulling himself to his feet using the beefcake as leverage, and dashing off into the crowd. Screaming bloody murder, I took off after him. I couldn’t let him get away, no matter what.

  Before he could make it any further, I launched a rugby tackle at him, grappling him around the ankles and bringing him smashing to the floor—

  And off we went again, hurtling through the strobing tunnel, onwards and downwards, away to the next destination of our magical mystery tour.

  This time we were transported to the site of a pansexual orgy. The tackle I’d thrown in the nightclub carried us into a carpet of sweaty, squirming bodies, packed so tightly that you’d think they were fused together.

  This was Pinstripe’s doing. He was leaping from place to place like I’d seen him do before, only this time he wasn’t chasing me, I was chasing him. Or at least I was so long as I kept my hands on the creep. For some reason, being in physical contact with him meant that I was taken along for the ride each time he tried to shake me.

  Pinstripe crawled across the heaving mass of naked bodies, trying to break free of my grip, but I wasn’t letting go.

  ‘Where is he?’ I demanded. ‘Where’s Neil?’

  ‘Somewhere you’ll never find him,’ he called back.

  And suddenly we were tumbling through the tunnel again, heading for another of Pinstripe’s seedy haunts.

  We landed in a rural car park at the edge of a forest this time. A number of men with their jeans around their ankles stood around the back of a Campervan, admiring a middle-aged woman being serviced by a tattooed skinhead. As we crashed the proceedings, the doggers scattered like cockroaches from the light, running for their cars and peeling out of the car park.

  Pinstripe managed to get an ankle free of my grip and kicked back at me, catching me in the jaw with the heel of his leather shoe. My hand went reflexively to my face, and as it did, he wriggled off and made it to his feet. He hurried out of my reach, panting hard, and slick with sweat. Dusting himself down, he flashed me a shit-eating grin, ready to make off without me—

  But when he engaged his superpower this time, he got less than he bargained for. A lot less. Instead of vanishing, Pinstripe stayed right where he was, rooted to the spot. The only sign that his power was doing anything at all was the slight flicker he gave off, as though I were watching him between the cars of a passing train. He staggered backwards, holding his head, looking like he’d run the five-minute mile.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘Battery dead?’

  I drew the dagger and lunged for him, but he was quick, and succeeded in grabbing hold of my arm.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I think I’ve got one more left in me...’

  —My stomach climbed into my throat as we began to plummet once again, plunging headlong down the strobing shaft. I wondered briefly where we’d end up next, but there was no “we” about it this time. This time, he succeeded in shaking me, elbowing me hard in the temple and throwing me loose.

  I fell away.

  Away from him.

  Away from the tunnel.

  Away and away to who knew where.

  25

  When I landed, I landed alone.

  I awoke to a hot blaze of pain.

  ‘Ow,’ I groaned, rubbing my throbbing skull.

  For a bloke who looked like he’d be carried away by a stiff wind, that pinstriped bastard really knew how to throw a punch.

  So where was I?

  I was utterly in the dark, both literally and figuratively. I lurched to my feet and took a look around, using the dim blue glow of the dagger as a torch. It didn’t give much away. Ahead of me stretched a corridor. Behind me too. I saw no furniture, no decorations, no windows even, just plain white walls, as far as the eye could see.

  Given that I had nothing to navigate by, I decided to head in the direction I was facing. After a few steps, I began to feel a tingling sensation on my palm, and when I unfurled my fingers, I saw the brand glowing like the burner of an oven, only in bright, searing blue.

  I carried on, and with each step I took, the pattern grew a little brighter. Wherever it was I was headed, the mark on my hand had something to say about it. If I only I’d known what it was trying to tell me. Was it a warning? An alarm bell
of some kind? Was Pinstripe about to make a sudden reappearance, leaping out from behind me and slashing me from ear-to-ear, sending blood spurting from my jugular like a high-pressured water sprinkler?

  I thought not. It seemed to me that the last trip he’d taken us on had been a real Hail Mary leap. Judging by the look of him before we parted ways, he was out of juice, at least for a little while. For the present at least, I was here, and he was somewhere else.

  The brand was raging now, throwing off angry, electric sparks. Was it playing a game of Hot and Cold with me? Letting me know that I was getting warmer? That I was closing in on some important goal? Was this where the Clan were keeping Neil? Was he somewhere at the end of that corridor, waiting to be rescued? It sort of followed. All the other places Pinstripe had tried to panic-escape to were obviously places he liked to frequent; what if this was where he’d been getting his kicks tormenting my boyfriend?

  I hurried on, and by the time I reached the end of the corridor, the brand was spitting like a malfunctioning firework. The blade of the dagger freaked out in sympathy, seething with a light of its own, painting my surroundings an eye-scorching azure blue.

  Soon, the corridor opened out and I found myself standing in a vast, marble room, so big that the light I was giving off couldn’t find its corners. Couldn’t find its centre even. There was a quiet in that space so vast that it almost seemed loud. The chamber felt cold and characterless, like I imagined a bank vault might feel, except there was no bullion here. This room was protecting something far more precious than that.

  As I reached the middle of the room I saw it: a large, complicated-looking machine, something like an iron lung, only not quite. Hooked up to the state-of-the-art contraption were hundreds of plastic tubes, which emerged through a port in the ceiling of the room. They were cable-tied together and grouped in twisting bunches, like sinews combining to form muscle. The tubes were transparent, revealing a thick, red liquid that pumped inside of them.

  Blood.

  Hundred of litres of it, draining into the machine in the centre of the room.

  The brand was going absolutely berserk now, but if it was a warning, I wasn’t listening. Not if that strange machine had anything to do with Neil.

  I approached the contraption to get a better look. I must have tripped a sensor, because suddenly the room was lit up by dazzling overhead lights. When my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I saw that the pod part of the machine—which had obviously been built to accommodate a person—was covered by a glass hood.

  ‘Neil? Are you in there?’

  I rushed over to get a better look, only to find the glass hood coated in condensation, obscuring whatever, whoever was inside. I reached out a hand to swipe the condensed vapour away, then leapt back at the sound of a sudden, pneumatic hiss.

  The pod came to life, rotating on its central axis, standing up to greet me. A second hiss followed as the hood swung open, revealing the pod’s contents.

  It wasn’t Neil.

  The man inside was old and withered and dried up like a mummy. His skin was paper-thin, so much so that it was translucent in places, revealing the pale organs beneath. With the pod open now, I could see that the tubes feeding into the machine terminated in large hypodermic needles, which pierced the old man’s body all over, coating him like a porcupine’s quills. I stared at him for any signs of life, but he was perfectly immobile inside of the apparatus, his eyes shut tight.

  Who was this poor man, and what were the Clan keeping him alive for? What could he have possibly done to deserve this kind of treatment?

  Just then his eyes snapped open, amber and bright.

  I pulled back in horror. His body may have been emaciated and weak, but his eyes were strong. Furious. Terrifying.

  The brand flared and something lit up on his forehead.

  It was a letter J.

  The biggest J of them all.

  And just like that, I knew exactly who I was looking at.

  This was Judas.

  26

  ‘Welcome, Abbey,’ he said, in a voice that left me all but paralysed.

  It couldn’t be. Judas Iscariot. From the bible. The father of the Clan.

  ‘But, no, I thought... you’re dead,’ I stammered.

  Vizael had told me so. He said he’d defeated the vampire master in battle and left him lying at the bottom of the Thames.

  ‘Is that what those angels told you?’ Judas replied. He stretched out as if waking from a long slumber, and as he extended his arms, needles popped from his skin and dangled uselessly inside the pod. ‘I was inactive for a while, that much is true, but stories that I met my end have been, as you can see, greatly exaggerated.’

  He stepped from the pod, left foot first, right foot following. A smile that made me shudder stretched across his face. A smile that didn’t reach those ancient eyes.

  I clutched the sacred dagger in both hands, warding him off. ‘Stay away!’

  ‘Ah good, I see your blood’s pumping again. Speaking of which, you’re probably wondering where the blood in those tubes if coming from, aren’t you?’ He gestured to the knotted pipeline dangling from the ceiling. ‘It comes from far and wide, from hidden sites dotted all about the city, each of them connecting to this room via a vast subterranean aqueduct. Impressive, no?’

  I’m not sure if that’s the word I would have gone with exactly, but it was certainly an absorbing story.

  ‘I didn’t come here to listen to your master plan,’ I managed to say. ‘I came here for Neil.’

  The master vampire was walking towards me now, tubes trailing behind him like the stingers of a Portuguese man-o-war. ‘I’m afraid he isn’t here.’

  ‘Then where is he?’

  ‘Why don’t I show you?’

  In a flash, he leapt forward and seized my head between his skeletal hands, clamping down on my skull like a vice.

  Suddenly, I was having an out of body experience, only it wasn’t my body I was looking down on, it was Neil’s.

  He was strapped to an altar of some kind, surrounded by a circle of suited vampires. He struggled to break free of his bonds, but they only dug deeper into his flesh the more he toiled.

  ‘Abbey!’ I heard him scream. ‘Abbey, please help me!’

  I heard Judas in my head, talking over the scene like the narrator of a movie. ‘Your boyfriend is about to make a valuable contribution to the cause,’ he said. ‘Every drop of blood he donates will bring me one step closer to achieving my full strength.’

  As I continued to look on, Pinstripe entered the frame carrying a hose attached to a hypodermic the size of a knitting needle. He tilted his head to look up at me and grinned. I tried to grab him, but I had no hands to grab him with. I had no anything. I was a spectator, nothing more. A helpless, disembodied witness to the events unfolding beneath me.

  Pinstripe held the needle aloft to show me its cold, metal gleam, then plunged it into Neil’s heart.

  ‘No!’ I yelled, but no sound came out.

  The hose went at Neil like an extractor pump, sucking the blood from his body by the pint-load. He screamed and screamed as the needle went to work, his cheeks sinking into the hollows of his skull as his face collapsed in on itself, until finally, death pinched off his cries. There was nothing left of Neil now. My boyfriend was gone, and all that was left of him was a dry husk. An empty, soulless bag of bones.

  Even though I had no body, I felt myself go foetal. Felt my breath turn shallow, caught in my non-existent throat in tiny, hitching gasps. It was all over. Neil was dead and I was done.

  Just then, the hand I didn’t have became warm. My right hand: the one with the big N on it. N for Nightstalker.

  When I looked down, I saw that my hand was there after all, as was the rest of my body, lit by pulsing blue fire.

  The brand blazed bright – so bright that it burned through the fabric of my surroundings and showed them for what they really were.

  An illusion, nothing more.

 
A silly bit of puppet theatre, meant to scare me. Meant to push me over the edge and make me forget my mission.

  I was back in the big marble room again, face-to-face with Judas. ‘Nice try,’ I said, voice trembling, ‘but you’re going to have to do better than that.’

  The stretched smile faltered momentarily. ‘You think you know fear, girl?’ he growled. ‘You do not. But soon… you will.’

  I was gone again.

  When I came to my senses, I found myself in a maze.

  Another illusion, I told myself, but the brand wouldn’t burn this nightmare away. This nightmare was real.

  The walls of the maze were made of an impenetrable dark grey stone, and towered a good thirty feet. The sky was dark above, and the air cold and shocking to my throat. As I stood there, wondering what to do next, I heard a great, savage howl.

  When I looked behind me, I saw pack of vampires—ten of them at least—only they were unlike any vampires I’d encountered so far. They were running on all-fours like attack dogs, eyes fiery and red, their mouths huge, teeth like the jaws of a bear trap.

  My legs took a few small backpedals, then gradually sped up. I turned and ran. Ran as fast as my legs would carry me, deeper into the maze. I didn't look over my shoulder, but I could hear the vampires coming after me, barking, snarling, hungry for blood.

  I sprinted through the labyrinth, taking corners at random, trying to shake my pursuers. I had no idea where I was going. Each stone wall I passed seemed identical to the next, and there was no reason to think that taking a left would be better than taking a right. The only thing I knew for sure was that there was no turning around. No getting past the creatures gnashing at my heels.

  I carried on running, my heart pounding, my panicked breath thundering in my ears. The retreating sound of the vampires’ slathering growls told me I was putting some distance between us, but for how long? I couldn’t run forever. I had to find a way out of that maze. Had to escape those monsters.

  I rounded another corner and found myself in an opening that measured about twenty feet square. I’d arrived in the centre of the maze, and in the dead centre of that centre was a wooden frame shaped like an upside down L.