“He’s laughing,” she said. Then she stepped behind him and twisted his arms. They moved unnaturally, and she felt and heard the grinding of fractured bones. The vampire flung its head back and hissed up at her, teeth bared and slick. She stared down and held on tight. No weakness, she thought. If it senses a moment of doubt in us, it’ll clam up and not say a word. It has to believe that we’ll torture and kill it.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to convince it.
“You go first,” Francesco said. Rose blinked slowly, seeing so much more in his eyes. He wanted to ask her about Marty, where she had been, why she had taken so long, who she had seen, what she had done… but she knew as well as he did what was at stake here. They had to find out what was happening and prevent any more deaths. London was a peaceful home for them, a safe retreat, and none of them wanted that jeopardized.
And there’s Mum and Dad, she thought, a mental experiment that threw up little compassion. Even the look of Marty’s haunted eyes… even that could not make her feel very much.
“The choices we make,” she said, talking to herself and to their victim as well, “ring through the ages with us. We choose to follow one route and shun another, and slipping in between is never an easy option. Last night you called me a weakling, and now you’re tied in a chair and waiting to die.”
“You’ll not kill me,” he said, voice thick and heavily accented, though his English was perfect. “You’re superior. Think you’re special. Soft, weak, pathetic human-fuckers, every one of you. You’re not killers.” He smiled at Connie, and Rose chuckled. If he thought he’d marked an easy target there, he was in for a surprise. Rain, perhaps, if she were still alive. And me, Rose thought. But I’ll not show it.
“True,” Rose said. “We’ll not kill. But you’re undead already. That’s a precarious balance. Far as I’m concerned it’d just be… a nudge over a cliff.”
“You think that scares me?”
“Yes,” Rose said, and she sensed his flicker of contemplation. He snorted.
“I could be out of this chair in moments, at your throat, eating your meat. I’d destroy you. Same way my friends destroyed your precious companion. You’re lower than cattle to me. At least they have a purpose.”
“Then why come after me?”
The vampire lifted one corner of his mouth in a wry smile. He turned his head as if he could see them all despite his ruined eyes. Perhaps in some strange way he could: Francesco had told Rose some outlandish stories about these true vampires.
“Orders,” he said.
“Orders from whom?” Francesco asked.
“Fuck you.”
Rose twisted his arms some more, straining them against the bonds holding them tightly to the chair. The bones grumbled together, skin tore, flesh split, and he hissed in anger more than pain, his swollen tongue flickering at the air as if tasting it. For a second she considered snatching at that tongue and ripping it from his head.
“We need to hear this,” Patrick said. “Orders. Organization. They’re here for a reason, not just to hunt and feed.”
“Lily-white fucking freaks,” the vampire growled. “Pussies. What’s that I smell? Oh, yes. Rat.” The language was exact, the accent heavy. And Rose could see an expression on Francesco’s face that she had never seen before. Not fear, exactly. No vampire she’d ever met displayed fear at anything, a product of their existence rather than anything so human as arrogance. But he was unsettled. This thing’s stream of obscenities and abuse wouldn’t do that… so perhaps it was the accent.
“You came for my brother,” Rose said, bending closer and lowering her voice.
“He’s cattle.”
She twisted his left arm as hard as she could. The strong bonds gouged into his flesh and then it snapped, the arm flipping up, and with a final harsh wrench she pulled it from his shoulder. It seemed much heavier unattached than it had when it was a part of his body.
The vampire screamed and then descended into laughter. Rose threw the arm into the darkness. They’d have to burn that. Didn’t want rats feeding on it.
“You had orders to come after me,” she said, “and now you have us. Not where you wanted us, perhaps. But you have our undivided attention.”
“Pussies.”
Rose sighed. Glanced around the room. Patrick looked interested, Jane feigned boredom, Connie projected the image of an innocent young girl. She could do that very well, though not even the weakest artificial light could hide the pallor of her skin or her distended mouth. Only darkness could do that.
She did not even look at Francesco. From the corner of her eye, she could see the way his face had changed.
Grabbing the vampire’s other arm, jarring it so that the already-healing bones snapped again, she started to pull.
“Wait!” he shouted. Was that an air of panic in his voice? He seemed to settle in the chair again when she lessened the tension, then he spat.
“Five seconds,” she said.
“Give him three,” Connie said.
“Fine. One… two…”
“Duval told me to make contact with you. You Humains. But you’re worse than the shit on my shoe.”
“We still managed to kill your friend,” Rose said. “Patrick there bent her over backwards until her heart was crushed, then he ripped off her head. Did she whimper, Patrick?”
“No. Just spat.” He’d never had much of a sense of humor, or even an imagination.
“Why make contact with us?” Francesco asked. Connie glanced around. Had she heard the subtle change to his voice as well?
“In case you know where the Bane is… the bleeding Bane.” The vampire uttered an unsettling chuckle and shook its head.
“What’s a Bane?” Rose asked.
“Holy Christ,” Patrick said. He only ever blasphemed when his reaction was unconscious. He believed them all to be children of God, and he and Rose had had many intense discussions about all that should and shouldn’t mean.
Francesco was across the room in a second. Rose blinked at the dust his movement raised, then took a step back as he grasped the vampire’s head between his large hands.
“Who’s Duval?” the old vampire snapped. “Where is he now? What does he know of the Bane?”
“Fuck you and the horse—”
There was a crunch, like a bag of apples crushed under immense pressure. The vampire thrashed for a while as Francesco grimaced, pressing his hands harder together, twisting them in the mess the thing’s head had become and grabbing the remnants of its brain. Tied to the chair, he could not move very far, but for a few seconds the thrashing seemed almost more violent than the act that caused it.
“Gross,” Patrick said. He put a cigarette between his lips and lit it, an affectation that Rose had always found amusing. Now she was jealous that he had something for his hands to do. Her own twisted into each other, and when she met Francesco’s gaze she had to fight with herself not to look away. Eventually he gave her a slight smile and then looked down at the stuff his hands held.
As he started wiping them, they all waited for him to tell them why.
“The Bane,” he said.
“Yeah,” Patrick said. “The fuckin’ Bane.”
Rose knew then that this was only just the beginning.
5
SOMEONE WAS WATCHING HIM. He’d always been able to tell—his sixth sense, his dad had called it—but Marty knew it was a sense made up of the subtler facets of the other five. The person’s bulk caused a blank and swallowed noise, giving no echo. Their heart beat, blood flowed, breath stirred the air. There was probably a scent too. All of these undetectable traces combined to form a certainty in his mind: someone was watching him.