‘Charlie, get this lovely young lady and her friend a drink,’ Baxter said. Charlie stared a second longer, then went away.
‘It’s okay,’ Baxter said easily. ‘Charlie’s one of us.’
‘I can see that,’ Alex said. She and Greg sat on armchairs facing Baxter, and a few seconds later Charlie returned carrying a tray with three cut-crystal tumblers brimming with red liquid. He laid it down on a coffee table before leaving the room. Alex took a glass and sipped it. Greg sniffed uncertainly at his, pulled a face and set it back down on the coffee table.
Baxter was giving Alex admiring looks. ‘Anyone ever tell you, Agent Bishop, you have beautiful eyes?’
‘Plenty of times. Let’s get down to business. Your first big movie break was Down and Dirty, am I right?’
Baxter smiled. ‘That was a good movie. You a film fan, Agent Bishop?’
‘As a matter of fact, I am.’
‘But you didn’t come here to talk movies, I imagine.’ Baxter looked at his watch, like saying he was a busy man and didn’t have all day.
‘Of course we did,’ Alex said. ‘We take a great interest in your work. But here’s the problem. We couldn’t help but notice, Baxter – Down and Dirty was twelve years ago.’
‘Yeah, so?’
‘Our sources tell us that a week ago, you read for the part of Jake Gyllenhaal’s younger brother in the new Universal production, Firestorm. Is that true?’
Baxter reddened slightly. ‘Sure it’s true. It’s a great role for me. What’s the big deal?’
‘Baxter, you’re so fucking stupid,’ Alex said. ‘Don’t you think people will think it’s a bit peculiar, you never ageing? You think you can go on playing thirty-year-old guys for evermore?’
Baxter’s composure was slipping fast. ‘So I have boyish good looks. So did Mickey Rooney. So does DiCaprio. I work out. What the fuck is it VIA’s fucking business what I do, anyway?’ He stood up, spilling his drink over himself; a red arc across white cotton. ‘This is what you assholes came here for, to hassle me about the roles I take? Get the fuck out of here. Charlie! Show these two dipshits the door!’
Alex leapt to her feet. She was on him in two steps, grabbing him by the throat and throwing him violently back down on the sofa. Her hand snaked inside her coat and came out with the stainless steel .44 Smith & Wesson revolver. She shoved the three-inch barrel of the magnum point blank in his face.
‘What ya gonna do, shoot me?’ Baxter snorted. ‘You can’t hurt me with that thing.’
‘Let me tell you something, Baxter. I am a senior special agent of Vampire Intelligence. That means I’m authorised to use Nosferol-tipped bullets. I have six of them right here. You do know what Nosferol is, don’t you?’
Baxter’s cocky grin left him and his face fell.
‘Of course you do,’ Alex said. ‘Do not fuck with us, because if I want to terminate you right now, I have the authority to do that and nobody will ask questions.’ She lifted his chin with the barrel of the magnum and thumbed back the hammer. Baxter went pale as he felt the hard click-click resonate through his jawbone.
Alex went on. ‘This is a matter of Federation security, Baxter. You’re in the public eye and the Federation wants vampires to keep a low profile. You go on like this, you’re a risk to everyone. That makes you expendable.’
Charlie came into the room, a threatening look on his face. Keeping the gun and her eyes on Baxter, Alex called out to him, ‘Stay right there, Charlie. One more step, I blow his head off and yours next.’
Charlie wavered, his eyes wide, and backed off.
‘Okay, okay. What do you want from me?’ Baxter couldn’t take his eyes off the gun, putting his palms up, hands shaky.
Alex stepped away from Baxter, uncocking and lowering the gun. ‘Do what Irene DeBurgo did, and Jeff Caplan. You’re worth, what, eighty million? Get yourself a Pacific island hideaway. Retire, become a recluse. And if you can’t do that, get yourself a good makeup artist and start acting your age. Either way, I don’t give a shit. You know I’m a movie fan, Baxter. I see you playing Jake Gyllenhaal’s little brother, I’ll come after you and I will fucking destroy you. That’s a promise.’
Chapter Twelve
‘You wouldn’t really have shot Baxter, would you?’ Greg asked as they got back in the Jag.
Alex twisted the ignition and the car roared as she pulled out of the Ritz car park onto the street. Apart from a few gulps of Baxter’s Bloody Mary made with real blood, she hadn’t had a proper feed since before the Romania trip and she was feeling drained.
‘For being a lousy actor, I might have. But I hardly think the guy’s going to bring down the Federation single-handed, whatever Harry might say. I just wanted to put the point across.’
‘I think he got it. His face when you told him about the Nosferol bullets.’
‘Only thing we fear,’ she said. ‘Apart from decapitation.’
‘So it’s true that all the stuff about garlic is a myth?’
‘Sometime we’ll have lunch at Rudi Bertolino’s place. He makes the most amazing ragu sauce. Loaded with garlic. And you’ve probably noticed you can still see yourself in the mirror, too. As if the laws of physics don’t apply to us, just because we’re not human.’
‘And what about crosses?’
Alex popped open a button on her blouse as she drove and fished out the little gold chain she wore around her neck to show him the tiny crucifix dangling from it. ‘Frightened? On a scale of one to ten.’
‘Uh, I’d say that’s a one,’ he said, peering at it.
‘There you go. We can walk into churches, drink the damn holy water if we feel like it.’
‘So, basically, what you’re saying is all these old legends are bullshit.’
She shifted in her seat and didn’t reply.
‘What?’ he said, noticing her expression.
All but one, she was thinking. ‘Nothing. Don’t worry about it.’ She drove on, and the tingle of apprehension soon passed.
‘What’s the key for?’ he asked. She glanced at him, and saw he was looking through the open neck of her blouse at the little black antique key she wore on a thong around her neck beside the crucifix.
‘You ask too many questions. And keep your eyes out of my blouse.’
‘Sorry.’
There was silence between them for a while. Greg broke it by asking sheepishly, ‘So where to now?’
‘I’m dropping you back at HQ. You’ve got paperwork.’
He looked at her. ‘Vampires do paperwork?’
‘Every piece of fieldwork has to be written up for the official record. Harry wants me to show you the ropes; that means from now on you get to take care of the boring stuff. I have better things to do.’
After she’d offloaded Greg at the office, she headed into Soho. It was mid-morning, and the hunger was pressing. She needed someone’s blood. Now.
She knew the backstreets and alleys as well as anyone would who’d been stalking them on and off for a hundred years.
‘You,’ she muttered to herself when she spotted the guy coming out of the café. She could smell the red juice in his veins as he walked up a narrow street. There was nobody else about. Nothing but piles of rubbish bags and a scuffed yellow builder’s skip at the kerbside. She followed, gaining on her target.
She gave a little cough as she got close behind him. He turned, and his eyebrows rose as he took in the sight of the tall, attractive, elegantly dressed woman approaching him with an alluring smile.
‘You dropped this back there,’ she said, holding out a twenty-pound note.
He looked at it with a puzzled expression. ‘Did I?’
‘It fell out of your pocket.’
‘Really? Wow. I didn’t even know I had—’ He shrugged, took the money and thanked her.
The fish had taken the bait. She stood there, smiling, one eyebrow raised suggestively. He hesitated. The hand with the wedding ring slipped unconsciously into his pocket: sure sign he was intere
sted. Alex sidled up to him, letting him feel her breasts crush up against his chest. He seemed to be up for it. She moved up as though to kiss him. In her mouth, the long curved fangs were extending into place, ready. His neck was exposed, a fat blue vein pulsing enticingly. She moved in and he didn’t back off.
It was in the bag. The blood rushed to her eyes and her predatory vampire instinct took over as she went in for the bite.
And then the phone went off in her pocket, distracting her, and the guy came to his senses and walked off, flushed and bemused and still holding her banknote.
She answered the phone.
‘Damn it, Harry,’ she said irritably. ‘You just cost me a feed and twenty quid.’
‘How fast can you get over to Oxford?’
‘Pretty fast. What’s in Oxford?’
‘There was a car accident late last night. Single driver, a teenage kid. The police took him to the John Radcliffe hospital. I’ve got a report from one of our people inside that the kid was ranting and raving. Something about a ritual blood sacrifice taking place.’
‘The V-word get mentioned?’
‘Said he found a whole nest. Apparently he was running away from it when he crashed his car.’
Alex frowned. ‘More rogue activity?’
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘Or it could be just the usual Hallowe’en hysteria. We get this every year, Harry. I’ll bet you anything this kid was on drugs.’
‘He was. But I think you should check it out nonetheless. We can’t afford to take chances here.’
‘Why does it have to be me? Can’t you send Gibson?’
‘Gibson’s in Athens.’
Alex sighed. ‘Fine. I’m on my way.’
Chapter Thirteen
Ever since the conversation he’d overheard in the canteen, Joel hadn’t been able to shut the story of Declan Maddon out of his head. Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe he’d been working too hard and his brain was going into meltdown.
But he’d just had to go and talk to this kid. After a fraught and unproductive morning of pushing paper around, he’d seen a ninety-minute window open up in his schedule and grabbed it. The John Radcliffe hospital was on the edge of the city, off the Oxford ring road. Joel rode fast. Just before midday and the sun was shining brightly now – it was turning into one of those beautiful autumnal days that seemed to be getting rarer with each passing year.
The staff nurse looked as perplexed at Joel’s request as she was by his appearance in bike leathers and boots.
‘Again? The police were here last night talking to him.’
‘I have just a few more questions,’ Joel said.
Dec Maddon was on the second floor, sharing a near empty ward with a frail old guy who looked like he was dying. The kid was propped up in his narrow bed with his left arm in a sling. His face was pale and his eyes were rimmed with red, with dark circles around them. He stared up in sullen indignation as Joel approached his bed and flashed his police ID.
‘Hello, Declan,’ Joel said cordially.
‘I told them I didn’t take the fucking pills,’ the kid said sourly. ‘And my name’s Dec. Not Declan. Nobody calls me Declan.’
Joel scraped a chair across the tiles and sat down next to the bed.
‘How about we start again? Hello, Dec. I see you’ve been in the wars.’ He glanced over at the old man at the other end of the ward, but he didn’t seem to be in a fit state to overhear much. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking you a few more questions?’
‘Haven’t we done this already?’
‘Tell me what you thought you saw last night,’ Joel said, as quietly and patiently as he could.
‘I don’t think,’ Dec said. ‘I know.’ His dark-ringed eyes were fixed on an invisible point somewhere above the foot of his bed. There was a grim set to his jaw. ‘I know what I saw, and there’s only one word to describe it.’ He sank back into the pillow and his voice trailed away to a mumble. ‘You wouldn’t believe me anyway. I tried to tell the others, but nobody wanted to listen.’
‘Try me,’ Joel said.
Dec turned to look at him. ‘I saw vampires,’ he said slowly, solemnly.
Joel met his gaze, searching his face for any signs of irrationality. He could see none.
‘It’s fucking crazy,’ Dec breathed.
‘But you believe it, don’t you?’
‘Yes. I do believe it. I’m telling you the truth. And it’s not the pills. Not what the cops think. Because I swear I didn’t take any. I wish I’d never gone anywhere near those fucking pills.’
‘You told the officers you saw these people murder your girlfriend.’
Dec’s brow creased up into a deep frown. He looked away. Shook his head, and Joel could see the dismay in his eyes.
‘I didn’t see…I ran,’ he muttered. ‘I couldn’t take any more.’ He gritted his teeth, looked back at Joel. ‘But she was there. She was…she was hanging there, and they were all standing round her.’
‘Kate’s safe at home, Dec. It’s all been checked out. She’s fine. Nothing wrong with her.’
The kid let out a long, whistling sigh. ‘Yeah, I know. They told me this morning.’ He bit his lip in agitation. ‘But you don’t understand. These people are vampires. If they bit her or something—’
Joel let out a long breath. ‘They turned her, you mean. She’s going to become one of them. She’s sitting in school right now with the rest of her classmates, and when she gets home tonight she’ll be watching TV with her parents or up in her room chatting to her friends on Facebook, but really she’s one of the Undead. That’s a heck of a story. But you know, this isn’t the movies.’
Dec’s eyes were crazed. ‘You’re just like the others. You think I’m making this up. You think I just imagined those fuckers standing there covered in blood, and the bitch with the sword—’
‘Kate wasn’t hurt. Whose blood are you talking about?’
‘Jesus Christ, I’ve been through this a hundred times,’ Dec moaned impatiently. ‘The other girl. That’s whose blood. The one they fucking killed. Like a sacrifice. That bitch just slashed her head half off and all the blood came pouring down and they were just gulping it back and I saw their fucking teeth. Get it? Big long teeth on the bastards.’ He flopped back into the pillow and shut his eyes with a moan. ‘Ah, fuck it, what’s the use?’
Joel was quiet for a long time, watching him. He could see the teenager was close to despair. He’d been there himself. He suddenly felt a pang of shame.
‘I’m not like the other coppers, Dec.’
Dec opened his eyes. ‘Meaning what? You believe me?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Huh. Of course.’
‘But I want you to tell me everything. Starting at the beginning. I want to know where this happened. Why you and Kate were there in the first place. Every detail.’
‘It was foggy. I was lost. I don’t know—’
‘Okay. Tell me the rest.’
And Dec did. As he told the story, his voice became increasingly strained and his face grew pale and moist. Joel watched and listened carefully, trying to gauge the look in his eyes. He seemed completely lucid – but then, that was the power of hallucination. Joel had seen it before. You could never really tell.
Then why was his flesh crawling this way?
Visions of the past flashed up in his mind. For an instant he could see himself sitting there in Dec’s place on the bed, aged twelve, desperately trying to persuade the authorities of what he’d witnessed. And nobody believing a word. Rationalising, always rationalising.
It’s all in your mind. How many times had he heard that?
He swallowed hard. ‘Can you describe the alleged victim?’
‘Ha. There you go again. Alleged.’
‘All right. Tell me about the girl they killed. How’s that?’
‘She was younger than me and Kate,’ Dec muttered. ‘Fifteen, maybe. Short brown hair. She had a spider on her neck.’
‘You know, a tattoo.’
Spider tattoo, Joel scribbled on his pad. ‘Now, what about the other people in the crypt? Would you recognise them again?’
Dec nodded. ‘There was the big massive black dude, and the little bastard that looked like a rat or something. And there was the woman with the blade. Sure, I’d know them again.’ He shuddered.
‘Tell me more about the other man. The one you think picked Kate up in his car.’
‘He seemed scared,’ Dec muttered. ‘Like he wanted to be there, you know? But shitting himself at the same time.’ He paused, chewing his lip. ‘Thing is, I could have sworn I’d seen that fucker before.’
‘That’s important. Any idea where?’
Dec shook his head. ‘Like I said, I didn’t see his face. It was just a feeling.’
‘The Rolls. You didn’t get the registration number, I take it?’
Dec looked sharply at him. ‘I didn’t exactly know I was following Kate into a fucking vampires’ nest, did I? Is this all you can do, fuck about with car registrations?’
‘I’m only trying to—’
‘You still don’t get it, do you? There are vampires out there. They’re going to kill everyone, like they killed that girl.’ Tears of emotion spilled out of Dec’s eyes. His voice was cracking with the strain. ‘I’ve had enough of answering questions. This isn’t some shit you can deal with the normal way, like you can line these fuckers up in some ID parade and stick them in jail. Don’t you understand? They drank her fucking blood! They’re vampires! That’s what I’m telling you, because that’s what I fucking saw!’ His voice had risen up to a tortured scream that filled the ward.
At that moment, the staff nurse Joel had spoken to earlier came running in.
‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but I can’t have you upsetting the patient like this.’ She glanced worriedly at Dec, who had collapsed back on the bed and was shaking and weeping hysterically. ‘I’ll fetch the doctor,’ she said, and rushed out.
Joel stood and watched the kid. He was sorry he’d caused this. The fact was, he just didn’t know what to think.
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