The cell was small and contained a low-level concrete plinth with a thin, worn mattress and a blanket. Beside the plinth at the back was a toilet pan with an old-fashioned overhead flush. Other than that, there was nothing, not even a window or a light switch. He’d lain down for a while but had been unable to sleep. Then he’d tried pacing, but he had to turn around after four steps and the constant turning made him dizzy. So he simply sat on the hard bed, knees pulled up to his chest, and hoped that he’d done enough.
He had one visit, from a woman police constable who brought him a plastic cup of water and took his shoes. He asked her when he’d be seen and what was happening, but she acted as if he weren’t even there. She pointed a camera at him and took a snap, not even bothering to check whether it had come out well before closing and locking the door again.
Marty almost shouted after her, but he knew it would do no good.
After almost two hours, he had to give in to nature’s demand and relieve himself. And it was as he was standing pissing that he heard the first signs of commotion from outside.
The walls must have been thick, and probably strengthened with steel and plaster reinforcement, but he heard the first gunshots. There was more than one… it was a rattle, short and sharp and brutal. Then another, and another, and by the time he’d zipped up, the shouting had begun.
There was no way of telling which direction any of the noise came from. It seemed to enter his cell through a high-level air vent, so he stood on the solid bed to try and hear better. They were definitely gunshots, and it sounded like multiple weapons. Machine guns. He’d never heard one fired in real life, but there was no other explanation.
Some of the shouting turned to screams.
There was a brief silence, during which Marty realized how heavy and fast he was breathing. Then the shooting started again, and that was when he realized this might be all for him.
The idea came as a shock and it knocked him from his feet. He curled into a ball on his bed, listening to shouting, guns firing, people dying, and thinking of that tall woman’s face and Stoner’s daunting size. If this was them, what could the vampires have possibly offered to make them do this?
Something Rose wouldn’t offer me, he thought, and with that came the understanding that there were many people who’d be susceptible to such persuasions. The vampires had only to trawl London’s underside to find people willing to kill for them.
Someone ran along the corridor outside the cells. Heavy boots struck concrete, a door opened and slammed in the distance, and then it was quiet outside once more until the shouting began. The man must have been in the cell next door to Marty. He cursed and swore, screaming and roaring, most of his words unintelligible. A persistent banging commenced, closer to Marty than the gunshots and detectable through the floor. The man next door was kicking and punching his cell door.
The shooting continued but it was more fragmented now, and Marty assumed it was because the number of targets was fewer.
Rose, come and get me, he thought. You’re my guardian angel, my protector, you’ve kept me alive when Mum and Dad have been killed so come and get me now, bring your friends and come and get me. But outside it must still be daylight. There was no Rose, and no guardian angel.
A door thumped open, a pause, and then there was a brief rattle of gunfire from close by. The shouting man next door quietened for a moment, then started banging again, and Marty was sure he was yelling, Let me out, let me out, over and over.
Then he heard a sound that was already familiar—a cell door smashing open. Soon after that, another burst of gunfire.
After a few seconds, another cell door opened. The shouting man was silenced at last by a gunshot.
Marty heard keys scrape at his door and then it swung outward, crashing against the wall, and framed in the doorway was the woman police constable who had brought him a drink only an hour before. She still didn’t speak, but looked utterly terrified, blood streaking the left side of her face. Behind her, the massive bulk of Stoner suddenly filled the doorway.
He pushed the WPC into the room, bent to look inside, saw Marty, grinned, then shot the WPC in the back of the head.
Marty squeezed his eyes closed, but not quite quickly enough. He saw what the bullet did to her face, and felt the spray of blood and other stuff patter across his own face and throat.
“Got him!” Stoner shouted, his voice surprisingly high. Then, more quietly, “After this, you better know where the Bane is. Come here, you little fuck.”
“Eat shit,” Marty said, eyes still squeezed shut. He was shaking, and what he’d said even surprised himself. A huge hand closed around his ankle and pulled him from the raised cot. He flipped back and banged his head, groaning as his senses started to swim, then drown.
Moments later, he was being dragged across the floor behind Stoner. To his left and right, Marty saw several bodies, some of them still moving. Then he was lifted up again and propped against a notice board, Stoner holding him there with one big hand.
“Duval wants a chat,” the tall woman from his street said, so matter-of-fact that Marty half smiled. She was high as a kite.
The woman grinned at his smile and whispered, “It’s almost dusk.”
12
FIVE MINUTES EARLIER, as Rose and Francesco had sensed the sun dipping down below the horizon, Lee had heard the news. Gunfire at Lewisham Police Station. Panic. People dying.
The vampires’ servants were going for Marty, just as she had feared. Time was running out for him… and for them.
“You have lots of boxes of very big ammunition,” Francesco said. “Do you have the guns to match?” He was standing by an open cupboard in the corner of the basement. Rose knew that tonight would bring more chaos than she had encountered or even dreamt of as a vampire. Francesco was preparing.
“They’re in a gun locker hidden behind a false panel in my library,” Lee said.
“Get them,” Francesco said.
“How many?”
“However many you feel comfortable with. We won’t be carrying them.”
Lee folded his laptop, and halfway up the wooden staircase he paused and turned back to the Humains.
“So… what can I use?”
“Forget everything you think you know,” Francesco said. “Leave your crosses and garlic spray, leave your holy-water pistols. Bring the biggest guns and load them with the biggest bullets. You have dumdums?”
“Homemade.”
“Good.”
“Bullets will stop a vampire?” Lee asked doubtfully.
“Big ones, yes, if fired at the right place. Long enough for the head to be destroyed.”
Lee darted upstairs, and Rose heard the door open.
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
“Plan?” Francesco looked at her and smiled, almost lovingly. “Rose, sometimes you put too much faith in me. I’m old, but this has never been my way. I kept to myself in the early years, feeding when I needed, traveling, feeding some more. Sometimes I met other vampires, and on occasion I became aware of… greater stories taking place. Alliances and betrayals. Battles, and ambitions that to me always seemed apart from what a vampire was meant to be. But this…” He waved his hand at Lee’s subterranean torture chamber, as if that encompassed everything else he had avoided. “I can feign wisdom for the Humains, and I know I’m seen as the leader of our loose-knit little gang. But as for any kind of a plan, I’m at a loss.”
“We have to do everything to stop them getting the Bane.”
“Yes.”
“We have to get to the British Museum before the vampires do.”