‘He’s not joking,’ assured Nathan. ‘Sorry, I should have told you. They’ve been around forever. Some of them for hundreds of years. That’s why they don’t talk or react. They can’t, due to being …well…dead, I suppose.’
‘No way,’ insisted Emily. ‘Zombies don’t exist.’
‘Sure,’ interjected Bastian. ‘Or vampires or werewolves or Shadowhunters.’
Emily lay back in her seat, her face pale with shock. ‘But, aren’t zombies all, like, rotting and gross and keen to eat your brains and stuff. I mean, what if they bite us?’
‘You mean “Night of the Living Dead” type zombies? Like the movies?’ Clarified Bastian.
‘Exactly,’ agreed Emily.
‘No way. That’s not how it works. That Romero dude has a lot to answer for. Real zombies are made by the Obeah Man.’
‘Okay,’ acknowledged Emily. ‘And who is the Obeah Man when he’s at home?’
‘I suppose that you’d call him a witch doctor,’ answered Bastian. ‘Voodoo man. He reanimates dead folk, turns them into servants. The staff at the manor were turned many years ago by an Obeah Man that worked for the Vamps. Ambros rescued them and then just sort of took them on.’
‘Wow,’ exclaimed Emily. ‘That’s super creepy.’
‘It’s worse than creepy,’ said Bastian with feeling. ‘It’s slavery. They got no choice in the matter.’ The Jamaican shook his head. ‘Man, that slavery shit stopped almost two hundred years ago.’
Emily put her hand on Bastian’s arm. ‘They’re dead, Bastian,’ she said. ‘Or undead, not sure. But they don’t know that they’re slaves.’
‘I know,’ admitted the Jamaican. ‘Still doesn’t make it right.’
Emily sensed that neither Nathan nor Bastian felt like speaking for a while so she lay back in her seat and went over the meeting that they had just had with Ambros before they left.
The Olympus Foundation did not work in a vacuum. They had many people on their payroll, notably many high ranking policemen. Most of them had no real idea what the Foundation actually did but they all knew that if something unusual came to light it would behoove them to contact Ambros and put him in the picture. And so it was that the old man had been forwarded a copy of some CCTV footage of a break in at an antique shop in London called the Kensington Antique Emporium.
The fact of the break in was not unusual in itself. What made the case stand out was, firstly, nothing was stolen. Even though the intruders had obviously searched for something, as was evident by the wholesale mess that they left behind. And, secondly, it appeared that they had somehow managed to sabotage a state-of-the-art surveillance system, rendering it useless as far as identifying anyone concerned. It was this sabotage that had mainly attracted the police chief superintendent’s attention. While the footage seemed at first glance to be fine, whenever the actual perpetrators came into shot it appeared that they were moving at ultra-high speed. Like a film that had been speeded up by a factor of ten.
Ambros had explained that he wanted them to take a closer look at the incident. Interview the owner of the Emporium, case out the area and see if anything of interest came to light.
By the time Emily had gone over all of the new info that had been dumped on her, the Rolls had arrived at their destination.
A large block of Victorian Gothic apartments situated above St Pancras Station, London. The driver drove them into the underground parking garage and they took a private elevator up to the penthouse apartment.
They unpacked and while Bastian prepared a lunch, Nathan gave Emily a quick tour of the surrounds. The penthouse occupied the top two floors of the building. It featured five bedrooms, each with their own on-suite and small sitting area. There was also a main dining room, a large lounge, a gourmet kitchen and several spacious balconies that boasted sweeping views of the capital city.
Nathan also explained that the apartment was fully serviced by the adjoining five star Marriot Hotel and the Foundation had an open account, so food could be ordered from any of the multitude of restaurants if they wanted.
‘So,’ said Emily. ‘No zombie servants then.’
Nathan chuckled. ‘Why do you think that Bastian loves it here so much?’
The three of them ate in the kitchen. Cheese, bread, pates, cold cuts and fruit.
‘Right,’ said Bastian after they had all had their fill. ‘Let’s get to Kensington and give this antiques place the once over. We can take the tube from here, easier than using the car.’
‘I can’t make it,’ said Nathan. ‘Got some personal stuff to attend to. But I’ll be free tomorrow.’
Bastian shook his head. ‘We’re not here to do personal stuff, man. Business first then you can sort your crap out afterwards.’
‘Calm down,’ snapped Nathan. ‘I’ve got stuff to do. Chill, it’s not the end of the world. Anyway, you’ve got Emily and it’s just a simple walk and talk. Not like you’re going to need back up.’
Bastian shrugged. ‘Fine. Go do your stuff. We’ll see you later.’
Chapter 10
Bastian guided Emily through the intricacies of the London underground, buying her an Oyster card, ensuring that she had enough money on it and making sure that she knew where to stand on the escalators.
Just before they had left the apartment, Bastian had handed Emily a leather wallet. Inside was a warrant card with her rank, name and number. According to the card she was a DS, detective sergeant, in the Special Branch.
According to Bastian it was a genuine card, although if push came to shove and someone looked more deeply into it they would discover that she wasn’t actually a member.
But the Jamaican assured her that it wouldn’t get to that, so she need not worry. They merely carried the cards as it gave them a reason to question people without raising suspicion.
Under an hour later they were sitting in the Emporium’s reception area, waiting for the owner.
And when he walked into the room he was nothing like Emily had expected. This was no insipid, eccentric, bespectacled purveyor of antiquities. Instead, the man who walked in towered over both her and Bastian. Around twenty three years old, his brown hair short and clean but a little bit shaggy, like he had simply ran his hands through it instead of using a comb. He wore a dark single breasted suit that had obviously been handmade, as had his Oxfords. A pale blue shirt offset his blue eyes, so pale as to resemble flecks of shattered ice. But even the well-cut lines of the suit could not disguise the cords of muscle that stood out in ridges on his arms and shoulders.
He walked towards them, confident and assured. His movements controlled. Economical. Graceful yet somehow unrefined. As if he was purposefully keeping himself in check.
‘William Townsend,’ he greeted, shaking Bastian by the hand.
‘Thank you for meeting with us, Sir William. I am DI, detective inspector, Bastian Miller and this is my associate, DS, detective sergeant, Emily Hawk.’
William grasped Emily’s hand and she had to stop herself gasping. It was as though someone had run an electric current through her. And sudden images of his shirtless torso filled her mind. She blushed a high red and pulled her hand back like a scorched cat.
Sir William raised an inquisitive eyebrow. ‘I’m sorry, miss Hawk,’ he said, his voice a low, husky growl. ‘Are you alright?’
‘Of course,’ snapped Emily. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
William looked away, obviously slightly taken aback by her waspish reaction.
Emily felt an immediate urge to apologize. Grab him by the arm. Pull him towards her. But she quashed the feelings and tried desperately to assume a calm and professional demeanor.
God, Emily, she scolded herself. Show some control. What the hell is wrong with you?
‘Sir William,’ interjected Bastian. ‘I wonder, could we talk about the break in?’
‘Of course. Not much to tell. I’ve given your lot at the station a copy of the CCTV. Seems to have been on the blink. Kept skipping forward or someth
ing. Pity. Although they didn’t take anything. Most likely just a bunch of youngsters looking to trash a place. A few breakages, mirrors, vases and such. All covered by insurance. Sorry, not much more that I can say. Obviously no one was here. Took place around midnight.’
‘So you’re absolutely sure that nothing was taken?’ Insisted Bastian.
William nodded.
‘Well then, that’s about it,’ said the Jamaican. ‘Oh, one last thing. Have you heard of any other similar robbery attempts in the area?’
‘No. Sorry, nothing that I know of, although I certainly wouldn’t take that as gospel. I don’t actually spend a lot of time at the shop.’
‘Thanks,’ said Bastian as he turned to leave, beckoning to Emily as he did so.
Emily nodded her goodbye to William and followed Bastian from the Emporium.
As she got to the door, however, the tall man hurried after them.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But if I don’t do this then I shall regret it for a very long time, of that I’m sure.’
Bastian looked at him quizzically, wondering what information he was going to give up now. ‘Go ahead, Sir William. What would you like to tell us?’
‘Well, nothing. I mean, nothing to tell.’ He looked a little abashed. ‘What I mean is…’ he hesitated and bit his bottom lip. ‘Miss Hawk,’ he continued. ‘I was just wondering if…perhaps you might…on the off chance…possibly be free tomorrow night. You know. To go out. Dinner. With me. And you of course. I mean…the both of us.’
Emily blushed again and then cursed herself internally for doing so.
‘Of course, Sir William,’ she said. ‘That would be great.’
The tall man looked disappointed. ‘Oh, well. Yes. Of course. Sorry, I just thought that it was worth an ask. You know. Nothing ventured and all that. Silly of me really.’
Emily laughed. ‘I said yes.’
William’s grin was a pleasure to behold as it spread over his face, lighting up his eyes and revealing his strong, white teeth. ‘Of course you did. Splendid. Right, I’ll pick you up tomorrow at eight.’
‘Fine,’ agreed Emily.
‘Where?’ Asked William.
Emily gave him the address to the apartment in St Pancras and then she and Bastian took their leave.
As they walked away from the Emporium, towards the tube station Bastian chuckled under his breath. ‘You know, Emily,’ he said. ‘You can control that.’
‘What?’ Asked Emily, suddenly paranoid that Bastian had somehow perceived her visions of William’s naked torso or noticed her electric reaction to the tall man’s touch.
‘Blushing,’ he continued. ‘It’s simply a visible manifestation of the physiological rebound of the basic instinctual fight/flight mechanism, when physical action is not possible.’
‘I wasn’t blushing,’ she denied.
‘Course you were,’ affirmed Bastian.
‘Well what if I was,’ continued Emily. ‘You’re saying that it’s a flight or fight response. Not true, I didn’t want to fight William and I certainly didn’t feel an urge to run away.’
‘That was just a simplification,’ said Bastian. ‘What I meant was that it was triggered by an emotional stimulus. Fear, embarrassment, anxiety. Whatever, you figure out what emotion is causing it, once you know that then you can control it. Easily. After all, we are Shadowhunters. We’re meant to be able to control our emotions and stuff. So work on it.’
‘Up yours,’ grinned Emily. ‘I’ve got better things to worry about.’
‘True,’ laughed Bastian. ‘Tell you what, let’s split up. We need to visit as many antique places as we can. See if there have been any similar occurrences compared to the break in at the Emporium. I really want to know what that bunch of blood suckers were searching for. Obviously they didn’t find it at Sir William’s place, so odds are that they’ll keep looking. Unless our posh friend was lying, but I don’t think that he was. Anyway, you can take the opportunity on your date to grill him a bit more. See what you can get out of him.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Emily. ‘Okay, I’ll head this way and you go that way.
I reckon that we pop into any place that looks as if it sells old or interesting stuff. Check if they’ve had any break ins and question them as to what they’ve heard or what they might know about Sir William’s break in.’
‘Suits me,’ agreed the Jamaican. ‘Look, if you keep heading in that direction, eventually you’ll come to central London. Soho, Leicester Square, so on. It’s also going to get dark soon, around four o’clock. When you’re done, get a cab back to the apartment and we can consolidate our info there. Right?’
Emily gave a thumb up. ‘Right.’
Chapter 11
After a couple of hours it became obvious to Emily that she wasn’t going to luck out with any relevant information. All she could glean from the people that she interviewed was that Sir William was known to all but not actually known by anyone. He was highly respected and considered to be the best at what he did.
She kept walking towards central London but, soon after speaking to the tenth shop owner, she gave up on her information gathering and assumed the role of a young tourist in London for her first time. She marveled at the ancient buildings, the narrow alleyways, the black cabs and the red double-decker buses.
Pubs with names like “The Slug and Lettuce” or “the Walrus and the Carpenter” or Emily’s favorite – “The Dirty Dick”.
Bobbies on the beat with their tall custodian helmets. World renowned department stores like Harrods and Liberty and Hamley’s. She also stopped outside almost every designer clothing store and lusted after the dresses and accessories inside. Clothes designed purely for beauty, with not an iota of care paid to their practicality. Proper girl clothes.
And before she knew it, the sun had set and she was lost. A light drizzle filled the air with moisture, refracting the neon lights into a million tiny rainbows and beading on her hair and clothes in little crystal spheres. The streets around her were a lot less salubrious than the ones that she had been walking along earlier and there were a lot less people around.
She walked to the end of the alley to discover that it was a dead end so she took out her phone and brought up her Satnav. It showed that she was in the center of an area called SOHO. The London Town guide called it “The Sleazy Heart of London’s Theater land”. But she wasn’t exactly nervous. After all, she justified to herself, this wasn’t downtown Laos or Sarajevo. It was the center of one of the capital cities of the first world.
But every city has an underbelly. And therein live the bottom feeders. Petty thieves, bums, hookers and con artists. Or simply forgotten men looking for trouble, keen to stamp their faded authority on whoever they could, in an effort to bolster their own low self esteem.
In essence – assholes.
And now there were five of them blocking the exit to the narrow alley.
‘Lost are we, girly?’ Asked one of the men, his round face shiny with rain and his shaved head aglow from the neon lights.
‘No thanks,’ answered Emily. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Oh, American are we?’ Asked the man. ‘Good. I like American girls.’
There was a chorus of appreciative laughter amongst the other men. A pack of hyenas. Followers.
They walked closer, spreading out as they came in order to block all possibility of escape.
Emily’s enhanced senses could pick up their smell. A rank combination of stale beer and unwashed body odor. Her heart rate sped up, thumping frantically in her chest. Then she remembered that she was no ordinary girl. Not anymore. And if anyone in the alley should be nervous it certainly wasn’t her.
She felt her anger well inside her and she started to walk towards the approaching thugs.
‘Steady, girly,’ quipped the leader. ‘Bit keen aren’t we?’
More moronic laughter echoed around the alley.
Emily took a few more steps until she was a mere two feet from the chie
f scumbag. ‘So you wanna play?’ She asked. The man looked a bit puzzled. And for the first time his arrogance slipped a little as Emily’s supreme level of confidence washed over him.
Emily winked at him. ‘Might as well,’ she said. ‘I mean, I’m in London to do the sights and kick some ass. And I’ve already done the sights for today.’
Her right hand whipped out in an open hand palm strike to the man’s temple. His eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the ground. A puppet with its strings cut.
The laughter amongst his men died down as their limited cerebral capacity attempted to catch up with the rapidly changing flow of events.
Emily stood still and let her eyes run over the motley crew. ‘Well then, boys,’ she said. ‘Who’s next?’
Two men attacked at once. But to Emily it was as though they were moving in slow motion. Their movements sluggish and clumsy. Toddlers playing at being adults.
She didn’t even bother to get technical with them and simply slapped them both on the side of their heads with her open hands.
Left. Right. Both of them flew backwards, hit the ground and lay still.
Whether they were unconscious or not did not enter into the equation. They had obviously both decided that, for them, the fight was most definitely over.
Then the next man made a mistake. His hand dipped into his jacket pocket and came out holding a stiletto. The six inch blade flashed silver in the overhead lights as he waved it from side to side in an effort to intimidate.
Emily shook her head. ‘Put it away. Trust me,’ she urged. ‘You don’t want to go there. Put it down and walk away. Fun’s over.’
He jumped forward, leading with the blade, striving to cut. To wound.
Emily moved to the side, letting his knife arm slip past and then she swiveled, flicked her leg up and brought it crashing down on the man’s right shoulder. She heard the collar bone splinter as her kick landed and she readied herself for another strike. But it wasn’t necessary as he collapsed in a heap, the knife slipping from his nerveless fingers and skittering away into the gutter.
Emily Shadowhunter - Book 1: VAMPIRE HUNTER Page 5