Authors: Scott G. Mariani
Kindly old Albert, the night watchman, was coming to the end of his shift, and she gave him a sweet smile as she signed in.
‘Early start this morning, Miss Bishop,’ he said.
‘Well, you know me, Albert.’
‘We haven’t seen you for a couple of days.’
‘I had some overseas business to take care of.’
‘Busy busy.’
She grinned. ‘Always.’
She skirted the plush reception area, past the leather armchairs and the tinkling fountain, headed for the lift and rode it all the way to the top.
Schuessler & Schuessler were a large legal firm and occupied the lower three floors of the building. The legal people had no idea what really went on behind the doors of the company that occupied the upper two floors.
The lift opened onto a small, bare landing and Alex stepped over to the only door leading off it. It bore the words ‘KEILLER VYSE INVESTMENTS’ in gold lettering. She took a strip card from her handbag and ran it down the slot, hearing the clunk as the lock opened for her. On the other side of the door was a long windowless corridor, walls and floor tiled in gleaming white. She passed through another door at its far end and entered a second reception.
At a desk sat an austere-looking woman in a dark suit, her hair scraped back into a bun. Alex knew there was a pistol under the desk, loaded with Nosferol-tipped rounds and aimed right at her as she walked over to the fingerprint and retinal scanner and ID’d herself to the voice recognition system. Steel doors whooshed open and Alex stepped through into a square ante-room. Inlaid into the centre of the polished granite floor was a large circular emblem bearing the VIA insignia.
This was the nerve-centre of one of the world’s most secretive organisations, operating under the auspices of a worldwide Federation whose existence was known only to a very select few.
Alex nodded greetings to familiar faces as she cut a path through the airy open-plan office space where VIA operatives talked on phones, typed at computer terminals and watched the latest developments on the giant screens that monitored the agency’s global activities.
At the far end of the upper floor was Rumble’s private office. She walked in without knocking.
Harry Rumble, medium build, slim and greying elegantly round the temples, was dressed in a charcoal pinstripe suit. He could have passed for a City businessman; he was anything but. He was the chief of the Vampire Intelligence Agency, the Vampire Federation’s security wing, set up to police its hundred thousand or more members across the world.
The Federation, embodiment of the modern age of vampirism. VIA’s role within its global empire, working under the watchful eye of the Federation Ruling Council, was to control the registration of new members and enforce the three laws that were engraved on the crystal plaque above Harry’s desk.
1. A vampire must never harm a human
2. A vampire must never turn a human
3. A vampire must never love a human
The enforcement part was Alex’s job – as a lot of renegade vampires had found out the hard way. When they stepped out of line, she moved into action.
Rumble peered up at her over his half-moon glasses as she walked in. She knew he didn’t need them but just wore them because he thought they made him look sophisticated. Vampires could see like a cat.
Xavier Garrett, Rumble’s assistant, stood across the other side of Rumble’s desk. He was tall and vulturine with a high brow and oiled black hair, wearing the same sombre, crumpled suit he always wore. He flicked a look up and down Alex’s body, and one corner of his mouth twisted up into the best rendition of a smile he could do.
‘Cool as a body on ice, hotter than a chilli pepper,’ he said. ‘Looking good this morning, Agent Bishop.’
Alex and Garrett’s relationship was a simple enough one of mutual distaste. He regarded her as insubordinate and a maverick, and hated that she had Rumble’s ear. She regarded him as something that made slimeballs look good. Neither of them made any secret of their feelings.
‘Hey, Garrett. The undertaker called earlier. He wants his suit back.’
Garrett’s smirk twisted into a sneer.
‘Did you get my report, Harry?’ she asked Rumble. She was the only VIA field agent to call the boss by his first name and not ‘sir’. That drove Garrett crazy with envy, and she enjoyed it.
Rumble nodded. He tapped a key on the laptop in front of him and the screen’s reflection lit up in his lenses.
‘You did a good job out there,’ he said. His brow was creased with worry. And that was an unusual expression for Harry Rumble. He turned to Garrett. ‘Xavier, you didn’t check those shipment dates with Slade yet, did you?’
‘I was—’
‘Now
would be a good time.’
Garrett curled his lip, getting the message, and left the office.
When they were alone, Alex said, ‘What, so private even your assistant doesn’t get to hear?’
Rumble peeled off his glasses and sat back in his chair chewing at one of the stems. ‘Franklin hasn’t reported back from Budapest.’
Franklin was Alex’s senior field agent counterpart stationed at VIA’s Munich operation. After rumours of vampire attacks had started appearing on blogs in Hungary, Rumble had sent him in to investigate.
‘He arrived there Saturday. No word from him since Tuesday. I don’t like it.’
‘You think something’s happened to him?’ she asked.
‘It’s not like him to go silent on us,’ Rumble sighed. ‘But that’s not all. Look at my screen.’
Alex moved round the edge of the desk so she could peer at Rumble’s laptop. ‘Whoa.’
‘My feelings exactly.’
The screen showed a map of the world. Capital cities marked in white. VIA stations marked in blue. Little red flags marked the locations of recent illegal vampire activity. Once in a while, a vampire would defy the regulations and go rogue, feeding uncontrolled on humans in their area, failing to use their Fed-issued Vambloc supply with the result that victims frequently remembered details of the attacks, their wounds didn’t heal quickly, and they got sick. In extreme cases, where the vampire returned to the same victim for several feeds over a period of a few days, they died and were turned.
It didn’t take much for localised panic to spread and rumours to circulate like wildfire through the blogosphere. When that happened, VIA field agents were deployed to deal with it.
Which wasn’t a frequent occurrence. The Federation generally had things tightened down pretty well, and Rumble’s operations map normally didn’t feature more than one or two red flags at any given time.
But what Alex was looking at right now was a mass of them, clustered across Europe, spreading east to west.
‘That’s definitely unusual,’ she said.
‘More than unusual. It’s unprecedented.’
‘You told me we were getting a rise in rogue activity. You didn’t tell me it was this bad.’
‘I was hoping it’d level out,’ Rumble said tersely. ‘But that isn’t happening. Reports are just flying in. Dexter in Copenhagen, an hour ago. Carbone in Barcelona late last night. I don’t even want to think about what’ll happen if the human media get a hold of it.’ He paused, anxiously chewing his lip. ‘The strangest thing is—’
‘What?’
He swivelled his seat away from the desk and looked at her. ‘These attacks are happening at night. All of them. It’s as if they were avoiding the daylight. Why aren’t they using the Solazal the Federation provides them with?’
‘I’ve had a feeling for a long time this might happen,’ Alex said. ‘A Trad uprising.’
‘A what?’
‘It was only a question of time before the Traditionalists started a backlash against us, Harry. Our glorious Federation may have done its best to stamp out the old ways, but I’ve always wondered how many of the die-hards were still out there, waiting for their chance to get back at us.’
Rumble looked pointedly at her. ‘Come on. Even if you’re right, there’s no way a few scattered malcontents could organise themselves into a significant threat. Not on this kind of scale, and so fast. It’s not feasible.’
‘We were there when the Federation took over, remember? Not all vampires were happy about it, if I recall. All they needed was a leader. Maybe they’ve found one. The Trads and the Feds, fighting it out.’
‘The Trads and the Feds? Give me a break.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe the time’s come, Harry.’
The mighty Thames river snaked through much of England, yet in places it was little more than a muddy stream crowded by banks of reeds.
Dawn wasn’t far away, and the riverbank creatures were beginning to wake. A solitary swan glided over the misty surface of the water; then swam for the refuge of the vegetation as a small rowing boat appeared.
Seymour Finch’s gnarled fists were tight on the oars, propelling the boat along through the murk with powerful strokes. The quiet, dark places were where he most loved to be, far from prying eyes. And he had a job to do, now that Mr Stone and his inner circle had retired to their rest.
Finch manoeuvred the rowing boat into the bank, so that it nestled among the rushes. He shipped the oars then reached down for the bundle that lay between his feet. He smiled as he thought about what was inside, wrapped in plastic and sacking cloth.
Mr Stone had let him do what he wanted, once the others had finished. Finch’s intense terror of his employer was matched only by his deep devotion. He was honoured to have been set the tasks he had. He would carry them out to the letter. He would have his reward.
Finch’s strong fingers closed on the folds of the sacking cloth. He hauled the bundle upright against the inside of the boat, then drew out the sheath knife from his belt and cut the rope so that the contents spilled out overboard and splashed into the water.
Finch watched the ripples, then reached for the oars. He was about to start turning the boat around to head for home, when he saw the swan a few yards away.
He stared at it. The first rays of the dawn were beginning to melt through the mist, and shone like gold on the majestic bird’s white plumage as it glided like a galleon across the water.
He wanted to tear its head off and eat its flesh.
You could cover a lot of distance very quickly on a bike like the Hayabusa, and Joel had been riding around for most of the night. His route had taken him all around Oxfordshire, and, as the fog had lifted in the hours before dawn, he’d sought out fastest, twistiest sections of country A-road where he knew the speed cameras were few and far between. His advanced police motorcycle course had made him a very quick and very safe rider. He knew exactly how far he could push the machine before he reached the very limit of his concentration and reflexes – and the faster he sliced through the countryside bends, the further from his mind he could drive the haunting remnants of the nightmare’s memory.
The first light was creeping over the horizon when he pulled up in a layby on the edge of a sleepy village. He killed the engine and sat back in the saddle, taking a few moments to soak up the tranquil silence. Feeling much better now, restful, clear headed and ready for another day, he peeled back the sleeve of his leather jacket to check his watch.
It was time to go to work. He fired the Suzuki back up and pointed it towards Oxford and Thames Valley Police Station.
As Joel walked in off St Aldates and into the station foyer, the blonde station duty officer gazed admiringly at the Detective Inspector’s lean six-foot frame. But he was too deep in thought to notice the look she was giving him. He waved distractedly as he walked past the front desk and headed for the staff canteen.
The place was nearly empty, just a few uniformed coppers coming off their late shifts and a handful of early-bird civilian personnel sitting at the plastic tables over tea and pastries. The police were always run ragged by the party mayhem and endless alcohol-related violence of Hallowe’en night. It got worse with each passing year, and today most of the officers looked pale and tired and ready for their beds.
Joel knew the feeling. He ignored the trays of doughnuts and Danish pastries, grabbed a coffee and went over to a corner table. The coffee was the same old thin, insipid brew that only came to life after the fourth sugar. He sat sipping it, gazing out of the window at the rising sun.
At a table a few yards away, three constables, two male and one female, were relaxing over a pot of tea. Joel knew them all well. The balding skinny guy was Nesbitt, the woman was Gascoigne, and the one doing all the talking was Macleod. Big Bob Macleod, two years from retirement, a pork pie of a man, a wheezing, red-faced heart attack waiting to happen. He was coming to the end of some anecdote or other that had the other two grinning broadly. Far away in his thoughts, Joel hadn’t caught a word of it.
‘Give me a break, eh?’ Macleod chuckled in his gravelly voice. ‘I mean, like we didn’t have enough bollocks to deal with in this job.’ He flipped his fat wrist over and winced at his watch. ‘Look at the time. I’m off home for some kip.’ He heaved himself up from the table, grabbed his hat and started off towards the exit.
‘Hey, Bob,’ Nesbitt called after him. ‘Watch the Count doesn’t get you.’
‘Better start eating garlic,’ Gascoigne said.
Macleod’s face twisted in disgust over his shoulder. ‘Bugger that.’ He reached the exit, then turned suddenly and did a comic snarl at them, showing yellowed teeth. ‘Yaarrghhh!’ There was no mistaking the Christopher Lee Dracula impression. The other two constables fell about laughing as Macleod left the canteen.
Joel turned to them. ‘What was that all about?’
Gascoigne stared for a moment, as though surprised that the DI was taking an interest in their jokes.
‘Nothing much, sir. Bob was just talking about the suspected drug driving incident out near Henley last night. Teenager wrapped his car around a tree, sprained his wrist. Seemed to be off his face when we found him. There were pills in the glove compartment. Looked like ecstasy to me, we don’t know yet.’