Nerves of Steel

by Lee Hayton

  “I’d better go to the ladies to get myself cleaned up,” I said, and he nodded. That I’d come off scot-free went straight over his head. I grabbed Miss Tiddles by the arm and walked across the bar, slipping along the corridor to the bathroom, then further to the fire escape.

  Outside, I grabbed the mobile out and the business card out of my pocket and quickly dialed.

  “It’s Asha,” I said when a voice answered. “I’ll do it, but my requirements for payment have changed.”

  The man on the other end didn’t speak, there was just the sound of him exhaling. I closed my eyes and thought of Norman trapped in a cage, shackles burning into his flesh.

  “Instead of lifting my bounty, I need you to rescue my friend. I want him to be free.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Once the payment was agreed upon, a name was given to me. I committed it to memory, then hung up the phone.

  “What now?” Miss Tiddles sidled up near to my arm, stretching her neck out to rub along my sleeve.

  “Now, I go and do to the vampires what the empire did to me,” I said. “But first of all, I need to return this phone.”

  To use it was one thing, to have a burly man with too much money on my tail was another. If I was to get where I needed to go and do what I needed to do, a man with money as a friend might also come in handy.

  Mom had a word for girls like me when I was young. It wasn’t very complimentary.

  “Sorry,” I said, walking straight up to the guy at the bar. He was glumly considering the empty glass in front of him, probably wondering if he’d tried up every last chance on offer tonight. The way his expression lifted when he saw me coming back made my stomach twist and my self-respect subside.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I must have picked your phone up by mistake from the bar. I thought it was mine.”

  He stared at the phone in my hand for long enough that I thought he’d challenge me. After a moment, though, he took it out of my hand and smiled while he put it back in his pocket.

  “Silly of me,” he said. “I usually know better than to take it out in places like this. I must’ve been distracted.”

  The sad glance he offered showed me in an instant the life this man would return to tonight. Alone, sitting in front of the television, not even concentrating on the screen. Just using the glimpses of strangers to make the room feel less empty. He’d look forward to the following night when he could come into the bar again and buy a drink for a pretty lady for the pleasure of her tentative smile.

  “I don’t suppose you know how to get out to Treetop Mine from here, do you?”

  The man’s expression lit up, and he nodded eagerly. “I know it. We could easily get there in my car.”

  “Haven’t you been drinking too many of those tonight?” Miss Tiddles asked, nodding at his half-empty glass.

  “It’s just cola,” he said, proffering it toward her for a quick sniff. “My doctor has sworn me off alcohol, except for special occasions.”

  “Then it looks like you’re our man.” I smiled and held my hand out. “What’s your name?”

  Classy of me. Since I was ruthlessly using him with everything I had, it seemed polite.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he shook my hand. Perhaps that split second pause was due to something he saw in my eyes. Too late now.

  “My name’s Pete,” he said. “Pete Sinbad.”

  “Nice to meet you, Pete.” I stopped shaking his hand long enough to clap him on the shoulder. “We’re better get a move on now. Otherwise, my best friend is going to die.”

  He shot a look at my face, caught on the barbed wire between worry and laughter. I just kept propelling him forward, my statement unwelcomingly close to being true.

  The community hall sat on a ridge over an old mining town, the streets and houses decayed into a state of sad disrepair.

  “I don’t know what you think is here,” Pete said as he drove the car in a loop around the large gravel area out front. “This place shut down when the mines did. Even using slaves, they couldn’t make a go of it.”

  Whatever rich mineral seam they’d been tapping in those hills had run out long ago, but the town would have changed before that. Set up to service workers, there wouldn’t have been money in servicing slaves.

  “Do you think it’s safe to go in there?” Miss Tiddles asked, creeping forward on feet so stealthy they didn’t make a sound, even on the loose gravel. “I don’t understand what’s meant to happen now.”

  I stood back and looked around, not seeing any signs of life. “I don’t know, either. This is just where the man wants me to be.”

  I could stand outside all day wondering, or I could just walk in through the front entrance and find out. I chose the entrance doors, grappling with the chain that held them together before I could step inside.

  It was so dark I couldn’t see much, and when I flicked the light switch up and down, nothing changed. The town below was black too. Electricity must have gone the same way as the residents.

  “Great place for a meetup,” Miss Tiddles said from behind me, giving me a fright. She moved past me, making a beeline for the stage.

  “What is it?”

  She turned and held a finger to her lips, swinging further to make the gesture at Pete, as well. He stood in the doorway, reluctance etched in every line of his body.

  I shuffled across the room, trying to be as silent as the cat. Judging from her frown of displeasure, I didn’t manage it.

  At the edge of the stage, I caught the soft sound of conversation. Not voices murmuring—the sounds had the timbre of someone close to shouting, but so far away that distance muffled them.

  The stage was raised two yards above the main floor of the hall. I walked along the edge, looking for an opening that would lead underneath.

  “I’ll just wait in the car,” Pete said, turning to leave before either I or the cat could offer our opinion. If he chose to go now, we’d be stranded, but I wasn’t quite up to the action of taking his car keys and forcing him to stay.

  Next to the stairs on the righthand side, I found a hinge to a swing door. I pulled at the handle near the floor, and slowly lifted it.

  The voices grew louder, but were still indistinct. Whatever hidey hole they were holding a meeting in remained a long distance away.

  “A little bit more instruction would have been nice,” I muttered. Miss Tiddles turned to me, frowning in annoyance, the scant light from the high windows catching and reflecting off her wide eyes. I ignored her and walked under the stage, feeling my way with a hand on the wall.

  Where the hall was dim with only the light of the moon and stars for guidance, the area under the stage was pitch-black. I could feel my pupils expanding but still couldn’t make out a thing. After creeping forward for a minute, the voices were louder. Another moment of moving slowly and I felt the rough edge of a cave.

  No. Nuh-huh. Not happy about this.

  Despite my brain’s attempt at reason, I traced out the edges of the rough walls with my hand and then gingerly stepped inside.

  Once I’d walked a yard or two down the hole, the timbre of the voices changed. Another couple of yards and I saw a faint glow of light.

  A hand on my shoulder almost had me screaming. I felt the hot breath of Miss Tiddles near my ear, then she whispered, “This could be a trap.”

  No shit. As if my substandard powers of reasoning hadn’t already proclaimed that loudly in my head. Still, better a trap I could freely walk into than having a chip removed and being confined in my own body.

  I shrugged and continued forward. If Norman had any chance of being freed, it was only at the end of this path carved through rock, leading me into the center of the mountain.

  I hoped those miners had shored up the walls because I was sure we were now in the hidden maze of the old mine.

  The voices continued to grow in volume. With the light becoming stronger, my fear started to drop away. Sure, we were still heading into an un
derground lair, but at least there was noise and lighting.

  A few turns of the tunnel later and I could see Miss Tiddles clearly. I edged forward more slowly, not wanting to round a gentle curve too fast only to find both of us exposed.

  “We need to move more quickly,” I heard a man call out. “If this plan is going to work, then we need the numbers faster. Otherwise, when the night comes, we won’t be able to execute the turnover.”

  There was a giggle, seemingly at the choice of the word execute. My stomach curled into a tight fist.

  “We’re doing enough,” another man said. “If we go to town on this too early, people will spot that something’s up. We’ve already had trouble with the new recruits. They’ve never been slaves, they don’t understand the threat.”

  “What good is all this, then?”

  I shuffled forward, using the edge of some stacked crates as a shield to hide behind while finally being close enough to see. Men lined the walls of a large cavern, which was lit by a string of lamps.

  No, not men. Vampires. The pale glow of their skin was evident even in the poor lighting. Alongside the talk of turning new vampires—if that’s what they meant by new recruits—their combined power resulted in a genuine threat.

  Vampires hadn’t turned men since their enslavement. Nobody wanted to birth a fellow creature into a trap.

  “If we can’t even trust the ones we turn voluntarily, then what the hell happens when we start the main conversion? This plan only works if we’re focused on a single purpose.”

  “We will be. They will be. These newbies, they’re out and about stretching their newfound wings. It won’t be like that on the night. Men aren’t the only ones who can keep vampires enslaved.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The new speaker had a high reed of fear in his voice. I would, too, if I’d spent years fighting to escape, only to be told the new boss was the same as the old boss.

  “Don’t worry. It’s nothing that goes against our will. Alpha can explain.”

  I jumped at the name, retreating a step as though my recognition suddenly made me visible. I banged into Miss Tiddles, who held her silence, though she glared at me for the knock.

  Alpha was the name that the man had given me over the phone. He was the primary target I should influence into calming the fuck down. I crept forward again, more vigilant now I had my mark. With a slow series of shuffles, I moved until I had the vampire in my sight.

  Until now, my mind had automatically associated him with the vampire that I’d seen strolling into Joe’s Bar, free as you please. Alpha wasn’t that vampire, though. He looked nothing like him. This monster was old.

  The glow of his face had taken on a waxy appearance. The veins underneath his face and neck stood out, the pigment in his skin had faded away so much they appeared etched in ebony black. I raised my eyebrows as I looked around the assembly, staring at their leader in rapt attention.

  What the hell was the empire playing at? There should have been a nationwide hunt as soon as an elder escaped.

  Unless there was nobody left in government who remembered they were dangerous.

  Three generations had passed since the last time an elder had formulated an escape plan. Human lives were so short. It was conceivable that they’d forgotten.

  I reached out with the part of my mind that practiced the telekinesis. With a picture of my target firmly in my head, it made his brain easier to find.

  Easy does it.

  Once I’d fixed on him, I began to feel along the pathways, exploring the neural links that made up his physical mind. A touch lighter than a butterfly, more cautious than a scout.

  He reached one hand up to his forehead, rubbing his eyebrow and frowning. The move alarmed me. Most of the time, people couldn’t feel me prodding until it’s too late.

  Of course, I’d never tried controlling a vampire before—Norman was off-limits, and another opportunity had never presented itself. I eased back for a moment, waiting until his hand dropped away.

  “We’ve developed a technique, it binds a newly turned vampire to our purpose. Once we go in, all of us will be acting as one—new or old. We’ll tell you about it closer to the time.”

  Another vampire stepped forward from the sidelines, her face contorted with fear masquerading as frustrated anger. “Leaving it a bit late, aren’t you?”

  “You’ll know when you need to,” Alpha snapped, and she withdrew back into the shadows. “We don’t need a renegade hijacking the whole operation beforehand because he or she thinks they’ve got a better plan.”

  Alpha looked around the gathering, making eye-contact with each and every member of his small gang. “We’ll pass out the instructions at the last moment. Just in time. I don’t need any loose lips sending us all back into chains.”

  The lack of trust from him was admirable. Every vampire in the crowd nodded with understanding. If humans were as doubting, it would surely make everything run more smoothly.

  I pressed forward in Alpha’s mind again. It would almost be a pity to neutralize him into chemical induced madness. The part of me that had strived for years to be free didn’t enjoy taking away another’s bid to lose his chains.

  Norman won’t thank you for this.

  The thought occurred with such strength that I took a step back, scared that someone would hear. I shook my head, this was ridiculous. I needed to finish my assignment, and then Norman would be free.

  No, he won’t, and neither will you.

  What these vampires were planning, was a genuine bid for freedom. Not for an individual but for their entire race. They wanted to overthrow their captors and claim their right to live out in the world.

  There’d be bloodshed and sacrifice, but once the fight was over, Norman and his kind might lose their chains forever.

  He’ll be free as soon as you do your damn job!

  Except, he wouldn’t. Things would go back to how they were. Norman a captive during the day. Me, able to move out in the world, but always a prisoner to the idea that the next person, the next contact, the next client might report me to the state.

  If Norman’s free, then you’ll lose him.

  I wanted to rail at the voices inside my mind and shout at them to shut up. Instead, I sat silently in the tunnel and stared at the man who might offer a path to a better life. If Nika’s contact came through on his promises, then I’d get Norman back safely tonight, and by tomorrow, he might even have cleared the bounty on my head.

  All I needed to do was scramble this one vampire’s brain. Once that was done, I could claim my reward and move on to the next town, and the next safe apartment and everything could go back to normal.

  I backed up a step, not knowing which of the voices screaming in my head to listen to. My soul wanted to rejoice at a species making a serious bid for freedom. My heart wanted to go back home tonight and find Norman waiting for me there.

  He was the only friend in the world that I had. He was the only one who fully understood me. Even if we didn’t like each other, we were mirror images. Twins. I couldn’t let him go.

  I felt for Alpha’s mind again, not bothering with a smooth transition this time. Blunt force would do the same job and get it done more quickly.

  He frowned again, reaching up a hand to cradle the side of his skull, his eyes turning to slits and watering.

  My gentle intrusion had turned into a battering ram.

  I felt for the chemical pathways to trigger a maelstrom of confusion in his head. Once I’d found them, I jammed into them like I was slamming down the plunger on a needle. Full-blown. Everything. All at once. Enough to blow his mind to smithereens.

  Except as I looked at him, he just shook his head and continued with his explanation.

  As I withdrew from his brain, there was no rush of movement, no flood of dopamine, norepinephrine or serotonin to ride out like a wave.

  I slunk back into the shadows, numb with the realization that vampires didn’t have chemicals f
lowing through their brains.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Despite my strength, there was no way I could take on all the vampires in a physical attack and be sure of emerging victorious. With my only method of control nullified, I shrank back against the wall and hoped that none of them would see me before their meeting was done.

  Judging from their arrangement in the cave and the barred door that had greeted us in the community hall, there was a good chance that they didn’t use our same method to get here. If they’d crept in through the disused mine shafts, then it gave Miss Tiddles and me a shot at sneaking back out undetected.

  I didn’t move toward the exit. Even though my weapon was useless, I still wanted to hear what these misfits had to say.

  “In four hours,” Alpha continued, “we’re going to release every vampire in the empire commonhold.”

  I felt a thrill of shock travel through my system, lighting up every cell. If the vampire’s plan was to release all of the slaves, then Norman should be free by day’s end. Either way.

  “We have men and women in place all ready to execute that plan. Your job is to get to the Westside City Conference Center. For most of you, that’ll mean traveling during the day, so I hope you’ve all worked out your plans in advance.”

  The group nodded and muttered affirmations, all eyes remaining fixed on their leader. I wondered how long these plans had been in place if they were going to spring out every enslaved vampire in the city. Despite myself, I felt the electric pulse of change sweeping through the air.

  “Four of the city’s high schools are holding their end of year dances in the conference rooms. If the ticket sales are to be believed, we’ll have over seven hundred students trapped in there, ready to be turned.”

  My ears buzzed. The skin on my cheeks became inflamed, burning and swelling in a monstrous stain of color. My eyes widened to their largest setting and swiveled in and out of focus.