“Archaeologist,” Rose said. “Does seem convenient, doesn’t it?”
“Hang on,” Lee said. “Let’s see where Richards was working when…”
Computer keys were tapped. Marty edged closer to the half-open door, took a deep breath, and risked a look inside. He leaned in slowly, checking the extremes of the room before concentrating on the two people sitting at the computer desk. Rose and Lee had their backs to him, and there was no one else in the room. Francesco is somewhere, Marty thought, but he was too interested now, and however much he cautioned himself, he couldn’t pull away. With Rose here, he felt protected. Besides, they were Humains: they apparently liked humans too much to hurt him. He hoped.
“Last dig she worked on was on the site of a new school down in Wiltshire. Close to Stonehenge.” Lee pointed at the screen. “Look: there. They were excavating a burial chamber. The King of Stonehenge, they called him, and they took out all the stuff buried with him too.”
“And we can assume the Bane was down there with him?”
“Can’t assume anything,” Lee said. “That’s what research is for. Watch this.” He started tapping away again, and Rose leaned back in her chair. She looked at Lee as he worked—she was sitting almost at a right angle to him, causing Marty to ease back from the doorway a little—and then she smiled.
“Almost back to normal,” she said softly. Lee stopped typing as if he’d been frozen at his desk, one hand raised, ready to tap another key.
“It never was normal,” he said. “You’re a fucking vampire. Don’t for a second try and be nice with me, Rose. If that’s even your name.”
“It is.”
“Because you can’t be nice to me.” He started tapping again and Rose looked back at the screen. Taking some shit there, Sis, Marty thought, but perhaps her strength was in not responding.
“Here,” Lee said at last. The screen changed and he started reading. “The chamber is dated at around 2300 B.C. Early days of metalworking in Britain. They think a lot of the stuff buried with him was made in Europe.”
Marty could see Rose examining her hands, checking each fingernail one at a time, and he wondered what for. Blood?
“They called him the King because he was very tall for the time. They think… blah blah blah… loads of site reports. Hang on.” He scanned down the page. “Here. They think in all probability he was an archer from France or…”
“Or Spain,” Rose said. She sat up straight in her chair. “Spanish Bane.”
“Yeah.”
“So where does this madwoman live?”
“Two seconds.” Lee tapped away.
Marty pulled back from the door and leaned against the landing wall. He scanned the shadows for watchers but felt alone. So they really had dug up something that had those vampire freaks interested.
“Here it is,” Lee said. “Fifty-six Otter Street, down in Colliers Wood.”
“Right…” Rose trailed off for a moment. “Damn.”
“I can go,” Lee said.
“No way.”
And then Marty saw the reason for her hesitation. There was a wide window at the head of the landing, and the curtains there had lightened just a little. The streetlamps were still on, but this light was different. The new day dawned.
“Rose, can you waste another day?”
“They won’t be able to go, either, even if they have a clue where she lives.”
“But vampires have their servants. They always have. Human pricks who do their bidding, hoping they’ll be rewarded and turned when their job’s done.”
“You want to be our bitch, Lee?”
“Seems I am already.”
“No. Not a good idea. Come on, we need to tell Francesco.”
Fuck! Marty moved quickly, slipping along the landing and briefly considering crossing to his room. But as soon as Rose reached her door she’d see him, and if she knew he’d heard every word in there… he wasn’t sure what she’d do.
Maybe he could go instead of Lee.
But that was something he should speak to her about alone, not force on her.
Through a partly open door to his left he saw a bathroom, so he ducked inside and clicked the door closed. Moments later Rose’s voice increased in volume as she exited Lee’s office and walked onto the landing.
“Quietly. I don’t want Marty woken up yet.”
“You need to tell him—”
“He needs rest. You gassed him, remember?”
Marty heard two sets of footsteps passing the door and descending the staircase. He kept repeating the madwoman’s address to himself until it was imprinted on his mind, then opened the door.
Time to see just how much Rose still trusted him.
9
LEE FOLLOWED ROSE DOWNSTAIRS, glancing at Marty’s closed door, itching to get back to his office. There were more weapons in there. And even though some of what he thought about vampires had proved to be hopelessly wrong, a dumdum bullet to the face would stop anything for a while.
Wouldn’t it?
But he followed Rose instead, because he knew that they were right. For now, he and they were on the same side. Grotesque though it was, these vampires—these Humains—had aims similar to his. To a degree, at least. Once that degree was reached or passed, their aims would polarize rapidly. They’d want to survive, unknown and covertly, and he’d want every one of the fuckers dead.
It was saddening, and he even had to try not to get too cut up about it: he’d thought of Rose as a friend. But now that he knew the truth, so much fell into place. They’d only ever come at night, for a start. They’d rarely come close to him, and even more rarely touched him, other than that time a few years back when he’d made his one and only move on Rose. She’d turned away and knocked him aside with more force than he’d expected, and the one brief contact had been cold. Bloody freezing outside, she’d muttered as she walked away, and, thinking about it now, Lee couldn’t recall whether that had been in the summer or winter.
But five years… and before that, he’d dealt with Francesco, more distant and aloof but still seemingly with an identical agenda.
“Weren’t we friends?” he asked softly. He felt like a prick even bringing it up, and as the words left his mouth he cursed himself. It was weakness, it was foolish, and she’d turn around and grin and show him all those teeth she’d never shown him before.
But instead she answered without turning around, and unless this vampire was a very good actress, he felt a weight of regret in her words.
“Yeah, we were,” she said. “Pity that can’t go on.”
At the foot of the stairs, Rose turned left, then left again, opening the door that led down into Lee’s basement. He hadn’t even been aware that Rose knew about it, and that got him wondering how many times one of the Humains had been in his house without him being aware. He decided not to ask. Rather not know.
Francesco was down there. The lights were on and he was walking slowly around the room, fingering the heavy chains that hung from sockets in the wall, chuckling as he tried to prick his finger on the ends of sharpened stakes held in a wire basket. There was a steel table in one corner with a rack of cutting implements on a magnetic rail above. Cloves of garlic hung from the ceiling and walls, giving the air a hint of their scent, even though none had been peeled. Lee had even fashioned crosses for each wall, taking time over them, enjoying the workmanship that went into joining the hardwood and polishing, certain that one day they’d serve their purpose well. Now he felt Francesco’s silent scorn. The fucker didn’t look at him and still he was mocking.