Then the strangest thing happened: one of the human jailors in charge of the line of prisoners handed over their chains to one of the burnt men. The demon led the frightened people away. Windsor headed back towards his Mercedes, smiling. Vamps had been around dealers most his life, and he had just seen a deal go down for sure. Sure as shit.
But what the hell was the deal?
And what the fuck was the Prime Minister doing out here trading the lives of innocent men and women to these demons?
The anger the question summoned made Vamps grip his gun tightly, his finger tickling the trigger.
But it would be suicide to fire a shot. The demons had only just left.
It was time to leave.
Vamps crept to the edge of the van, about to climb down when he heard a shout. “Hey, you over there!”
Vamps had been spotted.
Oh hell no.
With no time to waste, Vamps threw himself from the top of the van to the ground below. As he hit the pavement, his ankle folded sideways. Electricity ran up his right knee.
God dammit.
Vamps hoisted himself up and hobbled away, glancing back over his shoulder. The PM dove back inside his Mercedes like an attempt had been made on his life, but his cronies gave chase. They were much faster than Vamps, and the fact he had a gun would not help him, because they carried some of their own. Bigger ones.
The only question now was who would get to Vamps first—his boys or the bad guys. No way did he want to end up in chains like those people. Shit just got worse.
He ducked into a side street, heading towards the Lyceum. He thought about leading his pursuers away from Ginge, Mass, and Ravy, but he was too afraid to play hero right now. He needed his friends. His family.
He needed help.
But the Lyceum lay a couple blocks away. He wasn’t going to make it.
Blindly, Vamps threw back his arm and fired off a shot. The report was loud and made his temples thud, but he didn’t miss a step and kept running. He got up to running speed, but a sprint was beyond him.
He fired another shot behind him.
Then another.
Then they were firing back at him.
Vamps dodged behind a vegetable cart on the pavement and threaded himself between two parked cars. His chest heaved in and out.
Another shot rang out. A car window shattered.
Fuck me, I’m gonna die out here in the street. Just like my ma always worried I would.
Another shot hit the ground in front of him, kicking up chips of whatever shit roads were made of. Vamps realised he was moaning out loud as the fear escaped from his throat.
Then his boys appeared, looking dazed and confused, but there to help him. They had his back.
Mass led them down the road. Vamps waved an arm for them to take cover. “They’ve got guns. They’ve—”
Another shot rang out and sailed so close to Vamp’s head he felt the wind on his ear. Panic seized him, and his legs turned to jelly. He wobbled and fell. The road rose to meet his chin and suddenly he was laying on the ground as stiff as a board. The sound his body made sliding along the ground was like a watermelon hitting concrete. The Browning tumbled from his hand and clinked against the curb.
“All of you, down now!” One of the PM’s men shouted.
Vamps drew his head back and watched Mass freeze. His hands went up, and he got down on his knees. His expression could have melted ice, but his rage wasn’t enough to stop a bullet, so he did as he was told. Ravy and Ginge too.
The PM’s men split off to opposite sides of the road, keeping Vamps and the others in the middle. The cronie on Vamps’s left was dark-haired where his partner was blond. It was the blond who grabbed Vamps and shoved him roughly to his feet. Vamps eyed up the Browning in the gutter.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” said the blond. “I’ll leave you to die right here in the gutter, you piece of shit.”
Vamps gave up on the gun. Instead, he turned towards his captor. “The fuck you doing working with the demons?”
“This is London. It’s all about the politics. If you aren’t with the reigning party, you get stepped on.”
Vamps glowered. “They’ll string you up for this.”
“When? Haven’t you had your eyes open? This isn’t a war, it’s a coup. Humanity isn’t top of the tree anymore, and never will be again.”
Vamps felt dizzy, his chin throbbing, and he was too nauseous to fight. Mass, however, cursed and swung a punch. He knocked the other guy right on his arse and snatched the gun from his hand. He spun on the blond man holding Vamps and looked like he was about to pull the trigger. Then his arm fell slowly to his side. His jaw fell open, even as the PM’s cronie leapt back his feet and struck him upside the head and knocked him out cold.
Vamps turned around to see what had stopped his friend in mid-fight. It wasn’t hard to figure things out.
The seven-foot demon with long black dreadlocks grinned like a deranged monster—exactly what it was. Demons filled the entire road like a football mob.
“Ah, what do we have here?” said the dread-locked monster in a thick Jamaican accent. “More fuel for de fire. Take dem to de warehouse.”
The demons in the road parted as Vamps and his boys were led away.
Vamps’s arms were numb by the time he was led inside the warehouse at the back of the theatre district. His blond captor had shoved his hands so far up behind his back that he could scratch his own head.
They were now inside some kind of prop factory. Mannequins stood before massive wooden backdrops. Pretend cars parked beside plywood furniture and cabinets. One wall was almost entirely lined with masks, including one that looked an awful lot like Shrek.
“You better hope I don’t get another shot at you,” Mass told the brunette cronie, who now sported a rather severe black eye.
Ginge and Ravy were silent, afraid. Instinctively, they moved together.
The blond prodded Vamps in the back with his gun. “In here!”
Vamps staggered into a cage full of people, perhaps two dozen. It was meant to be a storage cage for the warehouse stock, but it had been turned into a prison. Those inside all wore blank expressions. A young woman in the corner had pissed herself, sitting with her bare feet in the puddle.
Mass went in behind Vamps. The door swung shut and locked them in. Their two jailors left.
“I’m going to kick the shit out of those fuckers,” said Mass, smashing his fist against the cage and making the whole thing rattle.
“Chill out,” said Ravy. “You’re going to bring them back.”
“Good! You think I want to rot in here? They best come back so I can snap their necks.”
Ravy folded his arms. “Look, man. We alive. Let’s just be grateful right now. I’m tired of this shit. I want to see my family again one day.”
Vamps said nothing. His ankle was swollen and causing him pain, but it kept him lucid. He looked around at his new companions and saw they had been frightened beyond the point of usefulness. These weren’t gangsters from Brixton or hooligans from West Ham. They were city workers and shoppers—ordinary people used to worrying about car tax and mortgage payments, not demon invasions or being locked up. Come to think of it, who on earth really was ready for this shit?
Ginge pressed his forehead up against the cage and started panting. His cheeks grew bright red, but his clammy forehead looked like it had been rubbed with chalk.
Vamps patted his friend on the back. “We’ll be okay, man. I promise.”
Ginge sighed, keeping his head pressed up against the cage. “We should have made a run for it like everybody else. What the hell were we doing?”
“We were doing what was right. Hold your head high because we didn’t run.”
Ravy joined in. “Yeah, Ginge. You a gangster. For real. The only reason I stuck around was because you did. I was like, if Ginge has got the balls to face this, then so do I.”
Vamps patted him on the back again. “Be p
roud, man.”
Ginge sighed. “How can I be proud when I wanted to run the whole time? It’s only because you and Mass were so down with sticking around that I didn’t have a choice.”
“You had a choice, Ginge,” said Vamps. “You stuck by me because you’re brave. You didn’t tuck tail and run like the rest of this city because that’s not how you roll.”
Ravy put a hand on Ginge’s back and rubbed gently. “We family, man. We stick together no matter what. We stick together.”
Vamps looked at Ravy and nodded. “We stick together.”
Ginge lifted his head away from the cage, a criss-cross indentation pressed into his forehead. “And now we’re going to die together.”
“Got that right!”
Vamps looked up just in time to see a punch flying at his face. It clocked him on the point of his chin and sent him reeling backwards. He stumbled over his bad ankle and ended up on his arse.
Pusher glared down at him, a snarl on his face. “You crossed the wrong motherfucker. You think you can crash my pad and wave a gun in my face? Karma’s a bitch.” He kicked out at Vamp’s head, but was knocked off balance by Mass who shoved him up against the cage. Mass, in turn, was set upon by two of Pusher’s guys who emerged from the crowd and smacked him in the back of the head. A fight broke out. Those not involved scurried to the edges of the cage.
Vamps leapt up quickly. He grabbed Pusher’s shoulders and planted a head-butt on the bridge of the bastard’s nose. Enraged, he growled and retaliated with a kick to Vamp’s stomach. Both of them staggered backwards, nursing their pain.
Vamps clenched his fists by his sides.
Pusher did the same.
Ginge fell on the floor and screamed as one of Pusher’s boys punched him in the ribs. Mass came up behind the guy and lifted him off the ground, slamming him down on the concrete hard enough that he didn’t get back up. “Welcome to cage-fighting, bitch! I’ll be your guide.”
Vamps dodged towards Pusher. “I will knock your fucking teeth out.”
Pusher leered. “You can try.”
The two of them crashed together, whirling dervishes as their limbs lashed out at one another as they spun in a brutal dance. Pusher clubbed Vamps in the ear. Vamps planted a kick to Pusher’s left knee. Both of them snarled, their pain masked by adrenaline.
A gunshot stopped the fight as quickly as it had started. Everyone inside the cage froze. Vamps and Pusher faced each other, both of them panting, both of them bleeding, but they didn’t make a further move.
The two cronies appeared, each of them brandishing guns. The blond’s gun smoked from the recent gunshot. It was Vamps’s grandfather’s Browning. “What the hell is going on here?” he asked.
Vamps kept his eyes on Pusher. “What’s it look like?”
“It looks like you’re causing trouble. I don’t like troublemakers.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t go around kidnapping them.”
The blond man scowled. “Who started this?”
Vamps looked at Pusher accusingly, but he said nothing. He wasn’t about to snitch on anybody—not even a piece of shit like Pusher.
“We’re sorry,” said Ravy, his voice cracking. “We’ll be quiet.”
The blond man approached the cage and stared at Ravy. “Do you promise?”
Ravy nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay. Good. Just tell me who started it. You can tell me. I’m not a bad guy. Name’s Barry.”
Ravy stepped back from the cage. “I… Nobody started it. It just happened.”
Barry kept his eyes on Ravy. He spoke slowly. “Who started it?”
“No one, like I—”
Bang.
In a fraction of a second, Barry brought up the Browning and yanked the trigger. The people inside the cage went wild, erupting like monkeys at the zoo. Vamps was knocked sideways and re-twisted his ankle.
Barry held up the smoking Browning and smiled. “Got quite the kick on her. Guess they don’t make them like they used to.”
Vamps tried to speak, but he was too much in shock. He crawled along on his stomach, fighting his way through the panicked crowd. “Get out of my fucking way. Move!”
He climbed up onto his knees and shoved his way past a fat guy in a suit. Then he found himself face to face with Pusher. This time, though, Pusher didn’t raise his fists. He looked at Vamps anxiously, then moved his eyes to the side.
“Look!”
Vamps spotted Ravy lying on the floor and clambered over to his friend. The bullet had struck his chest, and his breaths came out in whistles. “Ravy, fuck man. You’re gonna be okay.”
“He’s fucked,” said one of Pusher’s guys, but Mass shut him up by punching him in the side of the head.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch.”
Pusher didn’t react to his boy getting beat down. He stood behind Vamps in silence, looking down at Ravy as he lay on the floor panting.
Ravy tried to speak, but all that came out was, “S-sorry.”
Then he was gone. Vamps lifted him across his lap and held him in his arms. It was a long time before he could let go.
Vamps and Mass placed Ravy up beside the back wall and covered him with a blanket they snatched from a frightened young couple in the corner. The man and woman would have to deal with being chilly, because Vamps wasn’t about to leave Ravy where everyone could gawp at him. He deserved better than that.
During this time, Pusher and his two boys kept their distance and nursed their wounds. Vamps, Mass, and Ginge had wounds of their own, but the worst pain was in their hearts.
Ravy was dead, and no matter how Vamps looked at it, he knew it was his fault. He’d been insistent that they stick around in the city. It had always been a crazy thing to do, but now it seemed downright absurd. What had he been thinking? Why was he so stupid?
“This is messed up,” said Mass, his thick arms folded in a nervous gesture that was entirely unlike him. “I… I can’t deal with this anymore. Ravy is gone. He’s really gone, isn’t he?”
Vamps had no words, so he embraced his friend briefly and let go. Mass would be okay, to a point. It was Ginge who needed looking after. Since watching his best friend get shot, the big guy had sat up against the wall, rocking back and forth gently and staring at the blood on the floor.
Vamps shuffled down beside him. “You okay?”
Ginge didn’t even acknowledge he’d been asked a question.
“Ginge, man. Let me hear you. Are you still with us?”
Ginge blinked. His eyes brimmed with tears.
“It’s the shock.” Pusher crouched in front of them both and examined Ginge with a quick glance. “I had a buddy who went the same way when he saw his sister jump off the roof of his tower block.”
Vamps frowned at his enemy. “Back up. I don’t need to be seeing you right now.”
“Fair enough. Just letting you know I call a truce. No good to be fighting each other right now when we have a bigger enemy.”
“I said back up.”
Pusher sighed, but kept his palms up, and he moved away. “Sorry for your loss, G.”
Vamps went back to his friend. “Ginge, man, we need to find a way out of this.”
Ginge stared into space.
Vamps sighed and got back to his feet. If Ginge needed time, okay, but they still needed to find a way out of this cage. Vamps couldn’t afford to sit around and do nothing. All the same, he was surprised when he saw the Prime Minister standing on the other side of the steel mesh.
The prisoners all gawped as the leader of the country stood before them proudly, his chin lifted towards the ceiling. His black moustache twitched as he spoke. “I’m extremely sorry for your ordeal. It is never my intention to watch any citizen of this great nation suffer. Unfortunately, certain sacrifices need to be made in times of exceptional circumstance.”
“Why are you doing this?” one of the prisoners asked.
The PM seemed pained by the question. He reached up and ran his long finger
s over his bony chin. “I am faced with difficult decisions, ma’am, but my number one priority is keeping people safe. All of you here are safe, I assure you. You need not worry. I implore you to cooperate and understand that everything that is happening is happening in the interests of this nation.”
“Are you fucking deluded?” asked Pusher. “You’re caging people like animals. I have a goddamn son I need to get back to.”
Windsor scanned the crowd and located Pusher. “Would you rather be dead like everyone else? I have saved you by bringing you here. Don’t you see that? I am working with our guests to ensure a peaceful handover of the city.”
Vamps couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d seen a handover all right—a handover of innocent people to demons. No wonder the Army didn’t get the city under control. Their leader was in cahoots with the enemy. Had the demons likewise co-opted other world leaders? Was this less a war and more a hostile takeover?
But what if Windsor was being sincere? It was true they were alive rather than dead. What was the Prime Minister’s angle? Why were they locked up in this cage?
Vamps stepped up to the cage and studied the PM. “Are you really trying to help us?”
Windsor gave a politician’s grin which gave away nothing. “Of course. I was elected to serve the people of Great Britain. I assure you I am doing all I can.”
“I know where there are more people in need of rescuing,” said Vamps, deciding to test the PM’s reasoning. “Let me out of here, and I’ll take you to them.”
Windsor tilted his head with interest and took another step towards the cage. “Tell me where they are, and I’ll go get them. They’ll be brought right here into safety.”
Vamps shook his head. “No deal. You let me and my friends out, and I’ll show you.”
Windsor went silent. He studied Vamps with his dark eyes until a small laugh escaped his lips. “A good attempt, my friend, but I’m afraid you’ll have to lie a lot better to fool me. Good try. I can see I must keep an eye on you.” He pointed a finger and wagged it like a schoolteacher telling off a pupil. “Bravo.”
Hell on Earth- the Complete Series Box Set Page 47
