Bakare blew out his pent-up breath. ‘Yes she was. Stuffed into a drainage outlet. Throat lacerations. No blood.’
Gabriel trembled. James could practically feel him vibrating from where he stood. He took Gabriel by the elbow and steered him away from the horror.
When James noticed that the scent of vampire blood was following them, he realised that they were in fact following it. He peered around and saw the smudges of blood along the footpath, dripped against the kerb as well. He tried to lead Gabriel away from the path he was unwittingly following, but Gabriel wouldn’t change course.
‘He bit his attacker, did you see?’ asked Gabriel.
‘What?’
‘Ben’s mouth had blood on it. All in his teeth. Well, I think it was blood. Odd coloured, dark, but blood I think.’
‘How did you see that?’
‘I’m an artist, James. I notice things, especially colours where they shouldn’t be. Ben’s mouth was all smeared with the wrong kind of red. You did see, didn’t you?’
Well, bugger. This is turning into a right guddle, isn’t it, Granda?
‘Aye.’
‘Good, because there’s more of it all along this street.’ Gabriel nodded at the smudges of blood on the concrete.
James realised with alarm that their path was not coincidental after all. ‘We should leave this to the police.’
‘Right. Yeah. Because they’re so keen to find out who’s actually doing this and stop the killing. Obviously it should all be left in their safe hands.’
‘Gabriel–’
‘Datta has had it in for me from the day we met, and it’s so bad now that Bakare stopped to eliminate me first before doing a proper investigation. Do you know how many people have gone missing from the streets in the last month? Six. Six people, James. I didn’t know all of them, by the way, if you’re asking.’
‘I’m not asking.’
‘But Ben knew some of them. So did Hannah. Now Daryl Mulloway, Ben and Alicia are all dead and Hannah’s missing. Whatever is going on isn’t stopping, and Bakare and his team don’t give a shit. Nobody will give a shit until it’s someone they think matters.’
‘You think that someone has to be you?’
Gabriel snorted his opinion of that comment. ‘I’m nothing to them, James. You can see that. But I’m fucked if I’m going to just sit around and wait for the next murder. We’ve got an opportunity here. A literal trail. I’m going to bloody well follow it and see if I can give Bakare something concrete to chase, at least. You don’t have to come if you’ve got something better to do.’
Gabriel strode off, keeping his eye on the drops of blood as they led him into a side street.
James followed, hoping that Gabriel would lose the trail, but he didn’t. That worried James more than everything else combined, because he was pretty damned sure that nobody could follow a vampire’s trail unless the vampire wanted to be followed. Hell, a human bite would hardly still be bleeding this far away from the scene in normal circumstances.
Normal. Christ. What does that even mean anymore?
James kept at Gabriel’s heels, wondering what the hell to do with that thought. They were being led into a trap. But why was someone baiting Gabriel like this?
And it had to be Gabriel they were after. They were targeting Gabriel’s friends. Even with the whiff of Cael West about the whole hideous thing, West had no connection with Gabriel. Anyway, West was in Afghanistan, if he was around at all. And if he wasn’t, he’d be after James, not James’s new tenant. It didn’t make any bloody sense.
‘James, are you coming or not?’
James didn’t pick up his pace. ‘They’ll be long gone, Gabriel.’ But he wasn’t optimistic.
‘No, no, the blood’s fresh. Oh, through here.’ Gabriel darted into an alley. James followed.
The fact that the sun was setting was neither here nor there, James knew. Vampires were perfectly capable of operating in the daylight, supernatural strength and senses undiminished. Being a vampire didn’t stop you having psychosomatic health problems, either. Being a vampire didn’t make you as all-powerful as it looked in all those stupid films. It didn’t make you smart.
But being a vampire did make you fast, and deadly.
Gabriel vanished in front of James’s eyes, plucked straight up into the air, feet kicking against the sudden pull, hands scrabbling at his scarf tightening around his throat.
James took three running steps and leapt straight up, wrapping one arm around Gabriel’s waist, the other hooked into the scarf to keep it from choking its owner. James twisted his body as he seized Gabriel, an action that wrenched him from the grip of the man on the roof of the lock-up and they fell together, spiralling six feet to the street.
James landed first and bent his knees into the landing, absorbing the shock and bringing Gabriel down with him. He heard the other vampire land behind them and released Gabriel instantly, whirling to face the threat. There was nothing for it. Gabriel would see whatever he would see, because it was too late and too dangerous to hide anything now.
The vampire leapt at him, and James, instead of ducking, threw himself shoulder-first to meet the attack. The vampire grabbed his arms and used the leverage to flip himself right over James’s head, landing elegantly in front of Gabriel Dare and sending James sprawling.
‘Hello, Mr Dare,’ said the vampire in a silken voice. ‘You finally found the trail. It took five killings for you to notice one I’d laid.’
‘A trail,’ Gabriel repeated, puzzled, before his voice flattened to a darker tone. ‘A trap. For me?’ He scowled. ‘You’ve been killing them to get to me? You utter fuck.’
James scrambled up. You’ll have noticed his teeth by now. You should be terrified. But of course you’re not. You have no idea what you’re looking at. He cast about for a weapon, preferably something pointy, but anything would do.
‘Well, you’re a stop on the way to where we want to get,’ the vampire was saying, ‘and the opportunity for proper kills for the first time in a hundred years was too good to pass up. I love the struggle from the feistier humans. I have so missed the taste of that, and feeling really, properly, full.’
‘Human?’ Gabriel was unable yet to make sense of it.
Any answer was lost when the vampire took an impossible vertical leap as James’s fist, wrapped around a discarded crowbar, whistled through the space he’d occupied a moment ago.
‘James, what–’
‘Down!’
Afterwards, Gabriel was able to reconstruct events from strobe-like memory.
How the stranger landed beside him, grabbed his shoulders and bared long, sharp teeth as he lunged for Gabriel’s throat.
How James thrust his arm between those fangs and Gabriel’s neck, taking the bite in the forearm, and swinging a crowbar with his free hand onto the assailant’s skull.
How the assailant, snarling, tore his teeth free from James’s arm and how James pulled them both backwards, away from Gabriel.
How the assailant drew a short wooden spike from an inside pocket and plunged it into James Sharpe’s chest, right through his crisp, white cotton shirt.
How James grunted, hissed, ‘Missed, ye walloper’, wrenched the spike out of his diaphragm and in turn smashed the primitive weapon, point-first, into the left-hand side of the assailant’s chest.
And how the assailant exploded into a storm of dust that sprinkled gently onto the street.
‘James?’
‘You right, Gabriel?’ James was clutching at the wound in his torso, the hole surrounded by dark blood. ‘He… he didnae bite you… while I was down? Wouldnae… change you, obviously… but it’s… nasty. Filthy wounds, bites.’
‘James, what just happened?’
‘Oh.’ James’s knees wobbled, ‘Stuff. It’s… hard tae… Damn.’
His knees buckled and he folded to the ground. Gabriel was instantly at his side, pushing aside James’s suit j
acket and pulling up his shirt to inspect the ghastly wound.
Gabriel made a peculiar noise in the back of his throat and began to tear off his scarf to have something to press against the oozing hole in James’s pale chest.
‘No, no Gabriel, it’s f-f-fine.’ James tried to reassure him, but although the bastard had missed his heart, being staked hurt like a bitch.
‘God, James, you’re not fine, you’re… you’re…’ The panic faded from Gabriel’s voice, replaced with bemusement, ‘You’re hardly bleeding.’
‘Aye. S’all right. Side effect. One of the better ones. Feck.’ A piercing twinge of pain made him gasp at air that, strictly speaking, he didn’t need any more, except to talk. Right now, he couldn’t think of anything to say.
Gabriel rucked up James’s sweater again to stare at the wound.
‘Gabriel.’
‘James, what…?’
‘Gabriel, it hurts. I need tae get up. I need home. I need blood.’
‘And you have… you have blood at home?’
‘Nae, but I can rest. I can… please. I’ll explain. Later. I just…’
‘You’re a-a-a vampire, then.’ Gabriel said it like he was trying out the idea for size, and finding it an uncomfortable fit.
James closed his eyes and wished the world would go away. ‘Aye.’
A right guddle, aye. What a mess.
‘And the man who attacked us? Also a vampire?’
‘Aye.’
‘Like the man under the bridge.’
‘Aye.’
The silence continued and James, eyes still closed against the unbearable world, began to shudder with the pain.
‘Please. Gabriel. I’ll nae hurt you. I swear I willnae hurt you. Just get me home, please. Then you can pack and leave. I won’t stop you. I understand. But please, believe me. I wouldnae hurt you, ever.’ He was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering.
Against all expectation, James felt fingers brush across his cheek. ‘Of course you wouldn’t hurt me,’ said Gabriel softly. ‘You’ve been promising not to all this time. And you haven’t. You’ve looked out for me.’
James’s eyes were scrunched shut now, and if he were capable of producing tears anymore he might have been crying. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all he managed to say, before another bout of pain reduced him to speechless shaking.
‘No. It’s all right.’ Gabriel cradled James’s body. James couldn’t understand how Gabriel could be so calm, and speak so gently, to the monster he held. ‘Well,’ Gabriel amended, ‘it’s clearly not all right. But you’ve just saved my life, possibly for the second time. I wish I knew the first thing about… about your biology. You need blood to heal, though, is that right?’
This time when James shuddered, a whimper escaped his clamped teeth.
‘Fuck, I’m sorry, banging on instead of helping. Here, bite that.’
James opened his eyes enough to see that Gabriel held his arm out to him in an unmistakable offer.
James flinched. ‘No.’
‘Don’t be an idiot, James. You’re seriously hurt and you’re in pain. I expect the woman who’s watching us from her bathroom window has called the police, and I haven’t a clue what we’re supposed to say to them. And… and ashes-to-ashes there was talking in the plural, “we”. If his mates show up, I won’t stand a chance without you. Your being noble could get us both killed.’
James tried to form another protest, but a wave of pain shuddered through him. ‘Gabriel. I promised… I’ll nae… I won’t hurt…’
‘Just do it,’ said Gabriel tensely.
James let the pain take him, triggering the small but necessary change. He bared his new-descended fangs and, as gently as possible, bit the offered forearm.
Gabriel stifled a gasp, but held still as James’s teeth pierced the skin.
James bit to open the small wounds further, then sucked at the flow. A few mouthfuls. Nothing more. He didn’t need more. He refused to take more.
Then he swirled his tongue over the two holes and felt them close up. Done, he pushed Gabriel’s arm away roughly, as though placing it firmly away from temptation.
‘All right?’ Gabriel’s tone was steadier.
‘In a minute.’ James wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, then licked the smear of blood from his hand. No point wasting any.
‘Do you normally drink human blood?’ Gabriel asked, suddenly uncertain.
‘Not often, and not directly, like that. I drink animal blood from time to time.’ James didn’t think that was as reassuring as he tried to make it. He made his teeth retract safely away. He didn’t like to think about Gabriel watching his teeth while he talked. He didn’t want Gabriel worrying about what they meant. ‘Mostly, I drink tea.’ He tried to laugh, to make it seem normal.
‘Is that what all the tea is about? Crushing the craving?’ The questions came rushing out, anxiety spilling into curiosity. ‘What about tea does that? How effective is animal blood for the… I suppose you get cravings. Do you? Is that what it’s like? Do you spend a lot of time looking at my neck?’
Of course Gabriel would go thinking exactly along the lines where James didn’t want him to go. ‘Actually,’ said James, peeved, ‘I spend a lot of time looking at your hands.’
‘My hands?’
‘You have beautiful hands.’ James could feel his strength returning with the gift of Gabriel’s blood, along with the slight itch of the wound in his chest mending.
‘Oh. Well. That’s a relief.’ Gabriel’s grin at him was something in the order of a miracle.
‘Not weird, then?’ James asked, with a trace of their old humour.
‘Quite weird,’ Gabriel’s mouth twitched in a tentative smile. ‘But more reassuring than you obsessing over my throat.’
‘I do not spend time pining over your carotid artery, you plonker. When I need human blood, I sneak blood samples at the clinic. Things go missing at the NHS all the time. What do you take me for?’
Surprisingly, Gabriel seemed heartened by the irritated outburst. ‘You’re feeling better.’
James lifted the jumper to inspect the damage. The healing had accelerated and his diaphragm showed only a minor and vanishing scar.
‘Time to go.’ Gabriel held out his hand and helped James to his feet. James didn’t need the help, but took it gratefully. That way, he could pretend for a little longer that everything would be okay with him and Gabriel.
James buttoned the suit jacket over the tear in his shirt and straightened his tie. They jogged away, sticking to shadows, darting from street to street, but they weren’t followed and they weren’t found. At the main road, they flagged a cab. It was an extravagance, given the state of their mutual finances, but neither of them could face either public transport or a walk.
James was pensive on the way home, waiting for further questions that didn’t come. All Gabriel said was, ‘Your accent comes out when you’re stressed or hurt. Did you know?’
‘I know.’
‘It’s gone again.’
‘I’m fine now.’
After that, Gabriel lapsed back into contemplative silence and James waited.
Then, two steps through the downstairs door to Ivy Gardens, the questions and comments started again, so rapidly fired that there was no time to answer a single one.
‘How long have you been a vampire? Is that the right term? How did it happen? Who did it to you? What are the rules? Those movies are stupid and never make sense. Can you turn into a wolf? Of course not, stupid question, sorry. Where do your teeth go? You still breathe – do you need to? Do you have a heartbeat? What’s the deal with your saliva? I felt how it worked on the cuts when you bit me and there’s not even a scar now. I could take samples, and the saliva, skin and hair as well, and do some tests–’
Gabriel stopped, hand on the open door, when he realised James was still standing, grim-faced, at the top of the stairs. ‘What is it?’
&
nbsp; James’s jaw worked until he found his voice. ‘Gabriel, this isn’t a Boy’s Own Adventure. I’m not a school project. I’m a vampire. I’m a monster.’
That snapped Gabriel out of his excitable blathering. ‘Of course you’re not a monster.’ He entered the flat and waited for James to follow.
Sensing that the top landing was not the place for this conversation, James stepped across the threshold and shoved the door shut. ‘Gabriel, are you paying attention? I’m a vampire.’
Gabriel exhaled a slow breath. ‘You know, James,’ he said carefully, ‘I lived on the streets on and off for the better part of a decade, and I’ve become a good judge of character. I had to. And here’s something else. I’m now certain I’ve met vampires before. In fact, I think some things I thought I’d imagined over the years, maybe I really did see.’
He’d gone from giddily fascinated to oddly sober. ‘For years, I’ve thought I was crazy. Not in one of those “oh I’m zany, good for a laugh, me” ways. I mean “psychotic, seeing things, shadows in my head” crazy. I tried to tell myself instead that I was imagining things. But I knew that I saw them, the way I used to see things when I was small. But I was damned if I was going to let anybody start dosing me up on neuroleptics again, so I shut up and explained the weird shit I saw as hunger, or the cold, or tricks of the light. But here you are. A vampire. Real.’
‘That doesn’t make me safe.’
‘No. But I’ve just told you, I’m an excellent judge of character. Frankly, there are human beings who’ve been a long way from safe for me. I don’t doubt you, James. I might have only met you a month ago but I know you. You don’t scare me.’
James regarded Gabriel with a mixture of wonder and curiosity. Then he frowned. ‘Who the hell put you on neuroleptics? That’s an anti-psychosis medicine – and you were a kid when that happened?’
Now it was Gabriel who looked like he wished James didn’t make beelines for the one topic he’d hoped to avoid. ‘My dad thought I was bonkers when I was a kid,’ he said. ‘Actually, he still does.’
James’s expression changed to one of concern. ‘What did you see? When you were little.’
Ravenfall Page 7
