“But—”
“No more questions. Time’s short. Dawn’s not far, and between now and then anything could happen. Those bastards were here for a purpose.”
“And they came for me,” he said.
“Yeah.” She turned and walked away, letting go of his arm for the first time since they’d fled. As they were running he’d heard sirens closing in, and the sky behind them had started to glow. Home wasn’t even there anymore.
So he went with his sister, because he had to trust her, his guardian angel.
“Sunlight hurts you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Garlic?”
She turned back, and in the reflected light from a streetlamp he saw the sarcastic smile she’d once worn when talking to her little brother.
“Fuck’s sake, Marty.”
It took another half an hour to work their way through streets and squares, across a park, and into a more expensive district. They moved in silence. He noticed that Rose seemed more and more nervous, and at first he thought it was because there were more people on the streets now. Not many, but more than just the usual London nighttime contingent of down-and-outs, junkies, and cops. In one street they hid from a milk truck, the electric hum of the vehicle’s motor causing a dog to bark its early-morning wake-up call. In a park they stopped running when a group of bag-toting workmen strolled through, throwing them curious glances. Marty hoped they didn’t see the blood coating his clothes and drying on his hands. If they did, they obviously didn’t want to get involved. And as they walked down one well-appointed street, a façade of four-story buildings looming to their right, a van dropped off several women who dispersed quickly, cleaning equipment protruding from their rucksacks like strange weapons.
It was only when they dashed across one street faster than usual that Marty realized why Rose was so perturbed: it was almost dawn.
“Here,” she said. “This is his place.” They stood before a narrow town house three stories high and unremarkable compared to its surroundings, but Marty still reckoned it was probably worth a million. “I won’t be able to stay long.”
“I understand.” He felt a tug of loss and almost hugged his sister. But that felt all wrong.
“You’ll be fine. I’ll come back to see you tonight. Stay hidden; don’t be tempted to call the law or your friends. And don’t tell Lee a word about what happened. Understand? He’ll ask, but don’t tell him. Just act… shocked dumb.”
Marty nodded.
By the time they climbed the six steps to the front door, it was already opening.
And once inside, the strength left Marty’s legs and he slumped to the cold tiled floor. The hands that caught him beneath the arms did not belong to his sister. They were warm.
As darkness took him, he was already dreaming of blood.
Fucking stupid fucking idiot, what the fuck have I done?
Rose ran, to any observers just someone late for work and needing to catch the next tube. As she ducked into the station entrance and descended, she could already feel patches across her arms and the back of her neck that would blister later. They would hurt and then heal. But where she had placed Marty…
That was just stupid. Lee Woodhams had stared wide-eyed as she recounted a brief, vague tale: the boy’s family had been taken by vampires, Francesco and the others were hunting them down, Lee had to look after him for a while as they regrouped. Lee had wanted to go hunting himself, of course, but Rose had shaken her head. He’s important. They targeted him, so you have to keep him out of sight, quiet, hidden. Charged with a task he could feel good about, she hoped that he could do just that.
But he’d also talk to Marty about what had happened. One slip, one wrong word from her traumatized brother, would sign Lee’s death sentence. The Humains had agreed years ago that he was useful to them only while he knew nothing of their nature.
Lee was ex-SIS, and he’d first encountered vampires on a mission ten years before in Europe. They had killed his friend and colleague, and, disillusioned by layers of official denial, he had left the service distressed and vengeful. The pursuit of vampires had quickly become a consuming obsession that cost him his marriage and liberty, and he spent most of his time in the home that he’d bought with money from his early career.
Patrick called him their human pet.
She settled into her seat on the tube train, innocuous among dozens of early commuters, and looked down at her sneakers. She always made sure not to catch anyone’s eyes. There was blood dried on the shoelaces and around the heels, but from a distance it would look like dirt.
Francesco was going to be mad.
As the train rattled from station to station, Rose closed her eyes and tried to rest. But she knew that much of the night’s activities had been but a prelude to what was to come. Francesco had what he wanted—the vampire, still barely alive—and now would come the questioning. There had to be a reason for them being here. And it couldn’t have been a coincidence that they’d targeted Rose’s brother. Which meant that they had some insight into the Humains’ loose society, and some reason to challenge or infiltrate it.
What that was, Rose could not even guess.
Commuters came and went, and eventually she exited the train and waited until the platform was relatively quiet. Then she slipped down into the tunnels, working her way deeper and deeper. She could sense dawn sweeping across the city above her, but it was always night down here.
As she neared the cold place they called home, it was the scream she heard first. Then a shadow grew before her and a hand closed around her throat.
Rose tensed and readied to fight, thinking, They’ve found us! But then she smelled Jane’s particular odor, that curiously stale breath which Rose believed came from the meals she chose to take. The blood of the recently dead, even if they had only passed moments before, seemed to take on a taint.
“Where’ve you been?” Jane asked.
“Making sure I wasn’t followed.”
Jane didn’t respond for a few seconds, and Rose felt her fellow Humain’s attention upon her. Then she grunted, and said, “Francesco’s got him down here. Been waiting for you before he starts interrogating him.”
A chill ran through Rose as she thought of the vampire’s ruined eyes. The glare from the UV lamp was a tingling memory on her skin.
Jane turned and descended to their room, circling down an old metal spiral staircase that had once rung to the sound of human feet. Even before they entered, Rose felt the tension, a stillness emanating from the normally comfortably quiet room. When they walked in, she saw some of the others sitting there—Patrick, Connie, Francesco—and the unknown vampire strapped into a heavy metal chair. Where the chair had come from, she did not know. He seemed to be asleep, as much as any vampire sleeps. His arms were still forced into awkward angles, and she suspected Francesco had been rebreaking them at regular intervals.
“Where’s Jack?” Connie asked.
Rose shrugged. She didn’t want the vampire hearing weakness, and Connie should have known that. Sometimes the girl—her body was that of a thirteen-year-old, although she had turned thirty years before—almost appeared her age, and that annoyed Rose because she knew it was all an act. They all suspected that Connie took humans from time to time. For some reason, Francesco prevented any of them confronting her over it.
“He’s probably still tracking the one that escaped,” Francesco said, directing a warning glare at Connie.
The vampire’s head remained slumped, chin on his chest. But Rose sensed something about him, and saw his shoulders moving so slightly that it could have been an effect of the candlelight.