Ravenfall

by Narrelle M. Harris

  ‘Naturally, I examined your military record and civilian profile when I learned my brother had moved in with you, but we’ve known about you since your discharge from the army – your medical records were odd, you have to admit. You were clever to be able to alter the results.’

  Gabriel, suddenly realising James’s potential danger, stepped between James and his brother. ‘He’s not a threat,’ he growled. ‘He’s my friend.’

  ‘As you like, Gabriel. I’m satisfied he means the very opposite of harm to you. It’s evident he’s not even using you as a blood source. We checked with the butcher at Spitalfields, and I’m happy that he’s getting enough nourishment. I assume he simply likes you. Vampires are capable of emotional attachments, rare as they are.’

  ‘And how the hell do you suddenly know and care so much about my life?’ Gabriel’s shock was turning rapidly to anger, at almost the same time that James asked, ‘How do you know so much about vampires?’

  Michael addressed his answer to James. ‘We know a good deal more about them than you might imagine.’

  ‘Who’s this we you keep talking about?’ demanded Gabriel.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ said James darkly. ‘He means the government. Or some department within the government.’

  ‘I have alarmed you both. My apologies, I never meant–’

  ‘Of course you meant tae alarm us,’ said James. ‘Or you’d have spoken tae us before now.’

  Michael shrugged elegantly. ‘I should say that I had hoped not to alarm you unduly, and at a later date, but here we all are–’

  ‘Who are you, then,’ Gabriel snapped. ‘You’re clearly not a parliamentary secretary.’

  ‘I am that,’ Michael contradicted him, ‘but I’m not only that.’

  ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

  Michael did not dive straight into an answer.

  ‘You were correct that I remember the ghosts in our house, Gabriel,’ he said, in that reasonable, conversational tone. ‘I’ve learned in the years since then that there are stranger and more dangerous things, besides. It transpires that Her Majesty’s public service isn’t oblivious to the supernatural, either. The public service role I hold is real, but masks most of my main duties, which I carry out in my position as a liaison with the Prime Minister for BUS. Though some wags do insist on calling me Cornelius Fudge behind my back.’

  ‘Bus?’

  ‘The Bureau of Uncanny Sciences. Terrible name, I know. I blame British television of the 1970s, when the Bureau was established. We’re stuck with the name now, alas. You need have no fear of the Bureau, Doctor Sharpe. I have no intention of having you brought in. Investigation has shown you’re no danger to the community or to Gabriel. Ideally, I should thank you for keeping him out of trouble.’

  ‘I don’t need a bloody babysitter.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I’m just getting into trouble with him.’

  They spoke over each other, then each caught the other’s eye and grinned in spite of the situation.

  ‘Well, that’s okay, then,’ said Gabriel. ‘As long as we’re in trouble together.’

  ‘Misery loves company, they say,’ said James.

  ‘Hello, Misery.’

  ‘Good evening, Company.’ James’s smile was pensive.

  ‘Hey, buck up,’ said Gabriel. ‘I’m not going to let my brother do anything to you.’

  Michael sighed. ‘If either of you had been listening, you’d know I don’t want to do anything to him. What I want is for him to continue to be your bodyguard, and for the pair of you to go home. I have the situation in hand.’

  ‘You know why we’re here?’

  ‘Of course I know why you’re here,’ said Michael, irritated. ‘You’re looking for the vampire coterie that has been committing these murders. As am I.’

  ‘Because you care so much about the fate of the homeless.’

  ‘Why yes, I do happen to give a damn about British citizens, regardless of their circumstances, being murdered by a rogue vampire,’ Michael snapped. ‘As I happen to give a damn about you.’

  ‘Given that you’ve just revealed you knew those ghosts were real and then let me in for years of anti-psychosis drugs and shock therapy without saying a bloody word, that’s quite the surprise.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do?’

  ‘Stop him!’

  ‘I didn’t know how, Gabriel. I was at university when he sent you away the first time. I didn’t even know he’d done it until I came back for the break.’

  ‘And after then?’

  ‘I tried, but he wouldn’t listen to me. I did what I could. I found Helene for you.’

  ‘You found Helene?’

  ‘Do you think that skinflint bastard would have paid for an au pair like Helene Dupre? He couldn’t even keep a nanny for longer than six months for the first few years, and that was less to do with ghosts than with him. Then he packed you off to boarding school, as he’d done with me, and I thought you were safe, until I found out how he put it about that you had a chronic health condition. That he sent you off to quacks and institutions between terms.

  ‘I had no power to stop him, Gabriel, legal or otherwise. None at all. Not at the start.’ All the old, impotent anger from that long-past time flashed in Michael’s eyes.

  ‘But at last I was able to persuade him to let you be, at least more often than not. It helped that he’s a miserly piece of work. He told me he’d let you stay home if I found someone to care for you, and paid their wages myself.

  ‘So I did. I found a job and I paid for her from my own pocket. Over time, he sent you away less often. It was the best I could do. Eventually, I threatened to withdraw Helene if he didn’t cease the treatment, and it is our good fortune that he was too lazy and too penny-pinching to let her go. Even he could see that you needed someone at home, and he was never going do it. So your so-called therapy ceased, and he put your care entirely in her hands. I protected you as best I could.’ Michael held his hands palm-out, beseeching.

  Gabriel stared at him, but his shock at the revelation couldn’t compete with the rage still inside. It seemed instead to feed it.

  ‘It didn’t stop him interfering in other ways, did it? Dictating what I was supposed to do for a living. Making sure I didn’t have any options – except I made options for myself anyway, and fuck his money. And then you go off and join a literal spook squad and you don’t tell me? You let me live my life thinking I must be deep- down insane instead of telling me the truth?’

  ‘How was the truth supposed to help you? I’ve seen strange and terrible things, Gabriel. Why would I want you to see them too?’

  ‘Because it would have been real,’ Gabriel snarled. His breath hitched and faltered. When James’s fingers touched the back of his clenched fist, tentative at first but then firmer, pressing into him – real, real, real – he took a deep breath.

  Michael’s urbane exterior fractured. ‘I did what I thought best, within the limitations of my resources and influence. I couldn’t help you then. Later, I tried to shield you from…’

  Gabriel turned his back on his brother, facing James instead. ‘Let’s get out there and find this bastard West.’

  ‘I’d rather you went home,’ said Michael tensely.

  ‘And I’d rather not have to look at your smug fucking face, but them’s the breaks.’

  ‘Gabriel, Cael West is very dangerous.’

  ‘I’d noticed, ta. James and I can take care of ourselves.’

  ‘Don’t be stubborn.’

  ‘Don’t be a dick. And while we’re at it, if you know he’s killing people, why haven’t you picked him up already?’

  ‘It’s not like we knew all along. Britain’s undead community is very small, and most assimilate without needing much handling. This isn’t a gothic melodrama. They can’t just go around killing people, and there isn’t a need. The Bureau monitors them, of course, so when this began we knew it was no-one i
n our records. We had to start from scratch to discover who was behind it. Eventually we uncovered this Cael West, former army major, supposed to have been killed in action in Afghanistan.’

  ‘I know him,’ said James bleakly.

  ‘Then you know how important it is that we remove him from circulation as soon as possible. Our intelligence is that he has allied with someone we’ve not yet identified, and that they’re both coming here this evening.’

  ‘I should hang about then,’ James said. ‘I expect you’ll need all the help you can get. The man’s a psychopath.’

  ‘Please take my brother home.’

  ‘Screw you,’ asserted Gabriel. ‘I mean to make sure you get that bastard off the street. He’s murdered friends of mine, and I’m getting the blame for it.’

  Michael’s gaze raked his brother up and down, taking in his costume. ‘This isn’t a game. West is deadly.’

  ‘I’m aware, Michael. I’ve seen the bodies.’

  ‘And you always did find the dark more exciting than frightening, didn’t you, Gabriel?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Michael’s disapproving gaze landed on James. ‘I’d have thought that you’d know better. Who do you think you’ve come as? Captain Blood?’

  James showed his fangs. ‘Aye, I can work with that.’

  If he thought Michael would react, he was mistaken. ‘Suit yourselves, but if you see West, do not interfere. Report to me, and allow my team to handle him.’ He paused. ‘And if you took this unconventional route to the party in order to avoid our father, you should know he isn’t here. He believed it more to his social advantage to attend a private affair in the city.’

  Gabriel grimaced, and James understood that the lack of formal invitation and the wall-climbing entry had both in fact been ploys to avoid having Dare Senior learn that Gabriel would be here. James was glad the elder Dare wasn’t here. He loathed him sight unseen.

  Michael turned on an Italian leather heel and disappeared down the unlit corridor.

  ‘Should we go home?’ James asked Gabriel after a brief hush. ‘He’s right. West is bloody dangerous. If he’s got people on that bastard, we could leave. Go somewhere safe.’

  ‘Screw safe. I’ve never been safe. I want to make sure Michael and his bloody Bureau get this bastard. If you’re up for it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m up for it all right. Let’s have a look around.’

  They made their way to the central body of the building and into the upper gallery that overlooked the great hall below. A low ashwood balustrade separated the gallery from a vertiginous drop to the oakwood floors of the hall. Sweeping wooden staircases of ash and oak, left and right, led to the ground level. The gallery and stairs were filled with people sipping cocktails, chattering and observing those on the floor below.

  The hall was a moving mosaic of serving staff and people in costume. A few hundred were gathered, dressed as cavaliers and ghosts, tigers and zombies, princesses and evil clowns. Three hundred years of Blakely family portraits gazed imperiously from the walls, expressing disapproval in oil paint and patina at the undignified decorative display. The hall was trimmed in a ghost ship motif, with a huge mast rising from the middle of the room. Great canvas sails hung from the beams of it, anchored by thick ropes that extended to the staircases and the gallery itself. Papier-mâché cannon were stationed around the gallery and hall, and fake skeletons dressed in piratical splendour dangled from yardarms and the occasional gangplank. The centrepiece of the room was a huge water fountain in the shape of a treasure chest cascading with glimmering jewels and doubloons. It was all very exuberantly Pirates of the Caribbean meets The Flying Dutchman.

  Gabriel spotted Michael moving across the hall, stiff stride betraying his ongoing internal tumult. Michael had descended one wing of the staircase and was making his way to the foot of the other wing in order to ascend for a complete circuit.

  ‘There’s Blakely,’ he murmured, and James followed his gaze. Michael had paused near the titled host – a square-jawed, shark- eyed fellow with the build and face of a heavyweight boxer, dressed as a one of his ancestors who’d been in the admiralty. Michael turned as though casually seeking a drinks tray – a waiter appeared with one almost instantly, and Michael helped himself to a glass of champagne – and finished his on-the-spot circle.

  James’s eyes narrowed as he caught a movement in a darkened doorway on the far side of the hall, from which staff bearing trays of drinks and canapés emerged.

  ‘There he is.’

  Gabriel peered but the distance and low light beyond the doorway were impenetrable for his merely human sight.

  ‘He’s gone.’ James leaned over the short gallery railing, perilously far even with James’s low centre of gravity, then stepped impatiently away from the edge. ‘Any idea where that corridor goes?’

  ‘Kitchens,’ said Gabriel instantly, ‘The old servants’ hall. That’s where the drowned boy showed me around when I was small, the morning after the party. The staff will be using that area tonight. It houses some small dining rooms and back parlours, too. It’s a stupidly big house, this. Passages lead to the east and west wings as well as the back of the hall, and there are stairs to the upper floors.’

  ‘Narrow the options, why don’t you?’ grumbled James.

  Michael had also spotted West, but his attention was drawn by someone up on the gallery. James caught a glimpse of a slight, red- haired man with a young-old face, easing back into the shadows. Michael excused himself from Blakely’s presence and began the ascent.

  ‘I’ll go downstairs, see if I can track West,’ said James. ‘You have a good overview here. Stay here and keep an eye out.’

  Gabriel’s gaze didn’t waver from the movement in the hall below. ‘Be careful.’

  James adjusted the cutlass on his hip, grateful for the weight of his gun on the other, and went swiftly down the stairs.

  The passage to the kitchen carried a faint scent of West’s passing. A second scent, herbal and pungent, accompanied it.

  James stepped aside to allow waiters to pass, then followed the trail; past the kitchen, full of busy people who gave him filthy glares for being in the way, to a small parlour where crockery was stored. Two doors led from the room. He prowled around the edges of the parlour twice before he was satisfied. Yes. West had gone one way, the person with the herbal scent another. Damn.

  With a growl that made a passing waiter flinch, James decided to follow West’s trail. It led a merry chase through passages, up and down stairs, in and out of useless rooms.

  He knows I’m following, James realised. A second realisation came hot on its heels. Grimshaw wasn’t the trap. He was bait. This is the trap.

  He ran back to the main hall the way he’d come; so fast he knocked people aside and they hardly saw who’d collided with them. Emerging on the main floor, he looked around, up. There. Gabriel at one end of the gallery, glaring straight across the room at second floor height. James whirled and followed Gabriel’s line of sight.

  There. A second, much smaller gallery leading to the east wing. In its centre, Major Cael West. West’s smile was unpleasantly victorious, but he wasn’t looking at James, or at Gabriel.

  West was looking at Michael, striding across the main western gallery towards the stairs he had first descended, beginning his loop again. His eyes were on West on the eastern gallery. He was furious.

  Behind Michael, out of Gabriel’s line of sight, in the shadows, small and slight and deadly as a snake, the red-haired man stepped into the light. The man’s eyes were black as coals; his smile vulpine. Michael, nearing the top of the stairs, spoke rapidly into thin air.

  He’s wired, James thought, ascending the stairs at speed, his team will be there in a minute.

  Not soon enough.

  ‘Michael!’ James shouted in warning.

  The short man pounced at Michael, but warned by James’s cry of alarm, Michael had seized a mostly empty canapé tray
from where it rested on a nearby table, bringing it up in his hands in an instinctive shield.

  James ran towards them both, but inhumanly fast as he was, he wasn’t fast enough.

  In his peripheral vision, James saw Gabriel running towards his brother. Michael’s assailant, claws out and coal eyes gleaming red, snapped at the tray with his sharp teeth, nails screeching across the metal and catching at Michael’s hand.

  James could smell the blood drawn by the scratch, the attacker’s scent, and something stronger blooming up over that odd herbal smell. Something unnatural.

  And then in slow motion, James saw Michael stumble backwards, his lower back hitting the top of the balustrade, his shoulders thrown further back still, his feet lifting from the floor as he overbalanced.

  Flashes of sight and sound followed. An angry, sharp whine from the throat of the red-haired man; the blur of his departure from the gallery.

  Gabriel, lunging, hand outstretched, for Michael, his brother’s name a desperate strangled cry.

  Michael, tipping, legs flailing as he reached for Gabriel. Fingers missing by fractions of an inch.

  Michael. Falling.

  James, half way up the stairs, didn’t hesitate. He changed his trajectory, leapt onto a banister as he drew the cutlass – the sharp, hardened, absolutely authentically functional curved blade he’d bought from a specialist because he didn’t take chances where West was concerned – and pushed off into space.

  With speed and momentum and unerring aim, James leapt into the air, galleon coat flaring around him. His trajectory flung him at the body tumbling past the elaborate decoration of sails and ropes. His shoulder drove into Michael’s torso, his arm tightened convulsively around Michael’s chest. James twisted in the air, trying to right their course, but they were falling fast – too fast; it wasn’t exactly good for vampires either, hitting the ground at that speed.

  In less time than it took to think it, James’s cutlass flashed out and into the stiff canvas of the sail, the lightning speed of the blow enabling the blade to pierce the cloth, slice through it and create drag.