“No,” Francesco said, as if talking to a small child, “I don’t. But keep them to hand.”
“They have two humans,” Connie said. “Armed. Probably the ones who did the police station.”
“There,” Francesco said. “You might have the chance to use your cannons after all.”
Lee wanted to object, but he saw the logic. Perhaps if he told them all what he knew of the Bane’s location… ? But that was a card he was keeping close to his chest. Lee wanted the Bane for himself. To destroy the vampires. The decoys were a way for him to get there, the guns were insurance. Really, facing a vampire before he possessed the Bane was the last thing he wanted to do.
He nodded, and before they parted, Rose came over to him. “Be careful,” she said. And if he didn’t know these bloodsucking fucking freaks better, he’d have thought there was a hint of affection in her voice.
Inside the loading bay, Marty discovered that it was not completely dark. Light filtered in beneath the rolling shutters where they did not sit flush with the floor, and somewhere at the back of the large bay, night-lights burned, maybe for security or just so that the guards could check the place without having to turn on the main lights. They gave only a gentle glow, but it was enough by which to make out the bulks of boxes stacked and piled around, and the vastness of the bay.
Marty cleared his throat softly, trying to judge the echo. Bindy grabbed his arm again, squeezing tight. Don’t! He hadn’t even realized she was beside him.
The pause gave him time to wonder what the hell he was going to do. He desperately held on to the one small deception he had managed in the face of pain and terror: reversing the room number Ashleigh Richards had told him. While Duval had pricked him with long fingernails, his mouth open so wide that Marty smelled the stinking depths of him, reducing the boy to a shell of the human being he was, Marty had spewed what the archaeologist had told him.
British Museum.
That’s a pretty big place. Where in the museum?
Basements.
Where in the basements?
Storage rooms… sorted and stored artifacts, research only…
Why?
Hardly anyone goes there, she said!
Where? What room? What number?
And then the vampire had grabbed Marty’s genitals, his creased and ancient hand curling its long fingernails inward and twisting hard, and Marty’s terror was usurped for a moment by disgust. Duval gave back control to the human boy without even knowing.
Room twenty-seven.
And when we get there, he thought now, and we don’t find the Bane? But though that was close in the future, it was far enough away for Marty not to agonize over yet. He planned on being away from the bloodsuckers by then.
In the distance, a scream.
Moments later, a vampire appeared, blood smeared across his face, eyes wide and tongue lolling swollen over red teeth. “Guards are dead.”
“Come on,” Duval said. “We’re close. We’re close!” Around Marty, the vampires hissed in delight.
“Be careful,” Francesco said to Rose and Jane. Jane had appeared after the others left, carrying small UV lights with her. One each for the three of them. “You’ve been lucky before, fighting these things, but they’re close to their goal now. They’ll be more ferocious than ever, and with the guards inside, it’s likely that they’ll feed. So… just be careful.”
“It’s almost like you care about us,” Jane drawled.
“I just respect history,” he said. “Don’t want anything in there damaged.” And he smiled.
At night, the museum was better illuminated than during daytime, the floodlights chasing away any shadows cast by the bulk of the building itself. There were still people in the area, lovers strolling and late-returning office workers walking quickly toward home.
“My brother,” Rose said as the other two went to leave. “He’s important to me.” Jane sighed impatiently, but Francesco nodded.
“We’ll do our best,” he said.
“He knows about us,” Jane said. “Whatever happens here, that makes him dangerous.”
“And Stella Olemaun?” Rose asked. “She wrote and published a book about vampires, and most people still thought she was a nutcase. You think Marty’s going to cause problems?”
“Look what happened to her,” Francesco muttered.
“What did?” Jane asked.
“She’s a vampire.” Rose remembered her own ironic smile when she’d heard that from the woman’s lips, but Jane folded into outright laughter.
“That’s perfect!” she said, quickly recovering. Vampires never laughed for long. “That’s just perfect.”
“My brother,” Rose said. “That’s all I ask. Look out for Marty.”
Jane nodded, an odd sideways movement of her head that displayed her bemusement. The next time they all met, everything would be different.
Rose headed along the front of the building to the far corner. They needed to enter as far apart as they could, and she sought shadows. She found somewhere that looked likely—an inset in the outer wall where vent grilles marked the location of a plant room, and a steel door almost faded into the gray wall—and waited for the chance to break in without being noticed.
There’ll be alarms, she thought, maybe loud, maybe silent, and connected to the police. They’d all been aware of that, but it had barely merited a mention. The arrival of the police was something they’d have to face and deal with if and when it happened.
A family walked by, two parents each holding a little kid by the hand, tired after a full day’s sightseeing. Each child carried a memento of their day—a cuddly toy, a book about dinosaurs—while the parents bore only weary, satisfied smiles. When they reached their hotel, they’d eat in the restaurant, then pack the kids off to bed in their family room. After that, maybe the adults would share a bottle of wine and watch the news on TV, then sneak into the large bathroom to make love out of their kids’ sight, the door slightly open in case one of the little ones woke up. They’d bite back their sighs and giggle when it was over, all things that Rose would never do.
Her vampirism rarely allowed for her to mourn what she had lost, because it rarely seemed significant. Maybe Marty being in danger had tweaked something that should have been long buried. They’d visited the museum once with their parents, several years before she’d been turned. She remembered Marty being bored and belligerent, and their father getting stressed about the whole visit. She couldn’t recall anything about her mother from that day. Mostly, she had forgotten her face entirely.
As the family moved away, she flowed through the darkness scant feet behind them, reaching the door without a sound and prising her fingers beneath the frame’s edge. Then she pulled, exerting all her power, bolts snapping one by one as the frame slowly moved out from the wall. The noises were subdued thunk s lost amid London’s constant background noise. It was less than a minute until the heavy metal door and frame were levered out enough for her to slip inside. The darkness welcomed her, and she welcomed it back.
The plant room was large and noisy, with boilers humming and air-conditioning exchange units thrumming as they pumped air into and out of the building. She made her way through it, avoiding a mess of spilled tools and two metal chairs that sat with a small camping table between them. There was nothing on the table, but she smelled alcohol and cigarette smoke. The maintenance engineers’ unofficial break.