“Connie,” Rose called, standing with the corpse between her and Francesco. After maybe a minute, the girl entered their chamber again, walking casually as if on a leisurely stroll.
Francesco sighed. None of them spoke.
“This could change everything,” he said.
“Fine,” Rose replied. “Then that’s why we need to know.”
He nodded, glanced at Patrick, and then waved them to the far corner.
“I don’t want to discuss it while I can still see and smell that,” he said, indicating the corpse.
“You made it,” Jane said.
“Before it could say anything else,” Connie said. “Almost like you didn’t want us to hear anything.”
“It wasn’t that. God knows the only people—”
“Don’t take His name in vain,” Patrick said. “He watches us. He watches you.”
“And I was about to say, God knows the only people I call friends are you. Rain, too, but she’s dead. And Jack… I fear for Jack also.”
“He’s a loner,” Connie said.
“No. He’d have returned here whether or not he tracked down that last vampire.”
“You think they killed him too?”
“I think if the Bane really is here in London, there’ll be more than three of them.”
Rose and the others waited, and Francesco needed no more prompting.
“The Spanish Bane, to give it the name it’s been known by forever. I first heard whisper of it in Paris in 1886. Nothing more for decades, and then it was mentioned again during the Spanish Civil War. I spent some time fighting there.”
“Which side?” Patrick asked, but Francesco ignored him. Rather not know, Rose thought.
“That was when I heard what it was. And the thing is… I believed it from the start. It’s a weapon, so it’s said, cast from exotic metals by the first vampire four thousand years ago.”
“Another first vampire,” Jane said, shaking her head. “There are many who’d lay claim to that title.”
“True,” Francesco said. “But the fear this thing’s name conjures… I can only believe it’s true. Out in the world, it’s something that’s whispered about from time to time. Patrick?”
The Irishman nodded. “Coventry, 1945. Someone told me they were looking for it.”
“Who?” Connie asked.
“Someone.” Patrick was smoking again, the smoke a haze to hide his eyes. Someone he fed on, Rose thought.
“So what does it do?” Rose asked.
“Gives power,” Francesco said. “To whichever vampire wields it, great power. To expand from legend and into the consciousness of all those around. I don’t know how it works. I heard many rumors, ranging from granting the power to walk in daylight to the ability to kill with a glance.”
“Bullshit,” Jane said.
“Probably. But they’re here for it, and that isn’t bullshit. It must mean it’s been found, or at least located.”
“When did it disappear?” Rose asked.
“Soon after it was made.”
“Four thousand years? This thing’s been missing for that long, and it’s got you shivering as if I’ve just stuffed that UV light up your arse?”
“Remember who you’re talking to Rose,” he said, and she’d never heard him sound so threatening. It showed how scared he really was, and she realized then that he knew more than he was letting on.
“It sounds like a fairy tale to me,” Connie said. “Superstition. Like the one true cross, that sort of thing. Just make-believe.”
“Make-believe is exactly what we strive to be,” Francesco said.
“Yes, but we know we’re real. I just mean…” She trailed off, perhaps not sure what she meant at all.
“Maybe Lee’s heard something,” Rose said, and she looked down at her hands.
“What?” Jane asked.
Rose looked up. Shrugged.
“What about Lee?” Jane persisted. She always had been the most perceptive among them. Rose said nothing and the silence grew heavy.
“Oh, Rose,” Francesco said at last. “At the exact time we need him the most…”
“Marty won’t say anything. I made him promise.” Oh, shit, oh, shit…
“Are you serious? You left that boy with Lee? After everything that happened, everything he saw and knows? Are you fucking insane?” Jane was on her feet, making as if to lash out at Rose. But Patrick touched her arm and pulled her back.
“He won’t say anything,” she said again, realizing how weak she sounded.
“He just saw his mother butchered,” Connie said. “You know how weak humans are more than most.” She giggled. “You’re as good as human—”
“I’m just like you,” Rose said. “No matter that I was only turned five years ago.”
“Stop it,” Francesco said. “All of you. Rose, at dusk you’ll come with me to Lee’s place. You better hope he and the boy are still there. If not, it means he talked, and I promise you we’ll hunt them both until they’re found and dealt with. But you better hope—”
“I’m telling you, Marty won’t say a word. And I apologize, if I’d known how much we’d be needing Lee—”
“You’d have done the same,” Patrick said.
“Maybe,” she said. Definitely, she thought. He’s the only mortal I could have trusted Marty with. There was no way she could have left her brother to his own devices after last night.
“They’ll be sending more, then,” Jane said.
“Yes.”
“And I imagine we’ll be somewhere on their list, before or after the Bane.”
“We will,” Francesco said. “I suspect they made first contact just in case we knew its whereabouts, and that’s a good thing. Means they’re not sure yet. But now it’ll be all about revenge. Once they have the Bane, though…” He held out his hands.
“Or maybe, like Connie says, it’s just a fairy tale,” Patrick said.
“We can’t assume anything. If it’s truly been located, we need to find it before them somehow, hide it away again. Somewhere deeper.”
“Or destroy it,” Jane said, but no one responded to that.
Rose closed her eyes and tried to imagine London as a slaughterhouse, with vampires as its keepers.
The suit she had killed to feed on came to her again, his pain and agony and terror, and she tried to picture six million more like him.
Vampire she was, but the idea of so much blood made her sick.
They talked around the idea of the Bane, pressing Patrick to tell them whatever else he knew, but he’d revealed everything. Francesco also claimed to have revealed all, but Rose could see him holding something back. She could challenge him there and then and maybe he’d admit it. But she thought she’d have a better chance if they were on their own.
I could lure him out into the tunnels, she thought. Talk to him out there. But it could wait until nightfall. The darkness beyond their hidden chamber suddenly felt dangerous.
They waited all day for Jack to return but he never did. Jane had last seen him pursuing the fleeing vampire into the London darkness, and he had sent her back to the house to help capture the one Francesco wanted to question. The fact that a trap had been sprung on them meant that the whole plan had gone awry, and now Rain was dead and Jack had likely met the same fate. Or, if not, he’d fled deep and would likely not resurface for a long time. There’d been times when Jack remained underground for years on end, haunting the shadows like the ghosts that part of London claimed. No one knew what he fed on and he never offered that information, though he claimed to be a Humain like them.