Lifeblood

by Tom Becker

  “That’s not a good sign.”

  From inside the building there was a prolonged bloodcurdling scream, and the definitive report of a pistol.

  17

  They made their way slowly and carefully along the corridor. For all their previous haste, no one seemed inclined to run now. Carnegie led the way through the dark, quietly sharpening his claws on the sides of the passage. Jonathan shivered, and drew his jacket more tightly around him. The corridor was icily cold, and the freezing air assailed the softest and most exposed parts of his skin: his cheeks, his earlobes, the tips of his fingers.

  There had been no more screams or gunshots. Jonathan’s footsteps echoed guiltily on the flagstones. He wondered what the mysterious intruder’s intentions were, and whether de Quincy was now just a lifeless corpse somewhere inside the Panopticon. Bodies seemed to be piling up at every turn. The link between the Ripper James’s death and his mum’s disappearance at times seemed such a fragile one that Jonathan feared at any moment they would hit a dead-end in their investigation. Was this the closest he was going to get to uncovering the truth?

  A light was flickering up ahead, and he could see that the corridor led out into a large room. Carnegie flattened himself against the side of the wall and shuffled forward, gesturing at his companions to follow his example. Jonathan edged forward towards the light, pressing his skin to the freezing stonework. Alongside him, Arthur tried to flatten his bulky frame against the wall. At the end of the corridor, the wereman peered around the corner for a few seconds, and then stalked out of the shadows. Jonathan gave Arthur a worried look, but the journalist merely shrugged in reply. There wasn’t any option: the two followed Carnegie into the open.

  Jonathan’s first impression was one of a vast space. He was standing at the edge of a dome formed by an enormous honeycomb of cells and gangways that ran around the walls of the building. There must have been hundreds of cells arranged in neat rows one on top of the other, each one caged off behind a latticework of iron bars. Jonathan strained to see if there was anyone still trapped in the cells, but they all appeared to be empty. On the ground floor, flaming torches writhed in the arctic draughts, only able to cast their illumination up a handful of levels. Somewhere near the roof, the occasional chirrup and sound of fluttering hinted at the presence of bats nestling in the eaves.

  In the centre of the space there was a tall column that stretched up nearly all the way to the ceiling of the dome, topped off with an observation room dominated by large, shuttered windows. The room must have been where the guards had worked, when the Panopticon had still been packed with prisoners. From that lofty vantage point, Jonathan reckoned he could have seen into any of the cells. The brooding structure only served to heighten the air of desolation within the building.

  It was at that moment, looking up, that Jonathan saw a figure falling from the top of the watchtower.

  Nicholas nearly hadn’t noticed the intruder at all. He had been busy in the watchtower, composing an elegant blackmail letter to a rich Darkside lady who had been cheating on her husband. Over the years Nicholas had discovered that he could run the family business just as easily from the confines of the Panopticon as from the centre of the borough. The observation room had been converted into a plush study, where the shelves were packed were old correspondences, letters containing angry threats and strenuous denials, letters pleading penury, letters begging for silence. Nicholas’s study was an epicentre of evil that sent waves of fear and guilt rolling out over Darkside.

  He was signing off with a flourish when he heard a small metallic noise on the roof above him. Nicholas put down his quill and headed over to the window, where he peered through the shutters. The Panopticon was as still and as dismal as ever. He was about to return to his desk when a movement up in the eaves caught his eye. Straining his eyes, Nicholas was shocked to make out a figure clambering down a wire towards the observation room. The noise must have been the sound of some sort of grapple attaching itself to the watchtower. Whoever this brash intruder was, they clearly meant business.

  Nicholas moved back from the window and reached into the drawer of his writing desk, pulling out a pistol. As always, it was cleaned and ready to fire. Crucially, the intruder had lost the element of surprise. Breaking into the Panopticon was one thing; hunting down Nicholas de Quincy was another. Years ago he had taken the precaution of building a secret passageway in the floor of the watchtower that ran half a mile underground to a nearby stables, where a carriage and team of fast horses was on permanent standby. Nicholas would be back on the Grand before the intruder had managed to break into his study. In the meantime, a group of thugs would be heading in the opposite direction to deal with the rude interruption.

  Nicholas gave a thin smile of triumph as he gathered up a sheaf of his most lucrative correspondences and headed for the door. Daydreaming of the intruder’s violent demise, it was a complete surprise when a winged beast came crashing through the windows directly behind him. De Quincy spun round, only to see the creature land easily on the floor, an infernal combination of razor-sharp teeth and talons. The lights in the study went out. He screamed, and fired a shot.

  Jonathan couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t tear his eyes away. The figure falling from the watchtower was the man they had seen swinging through the air towards the Panopticon, now a jumble of arms and legs and torn black clothing hurtling towards a bone-shattering impact on the flagstones. As Jonathan gazed on in horror, the man dragged something from his pocket and hurled it at the watchtower. The device bit into the brickwork, and in the blink of an eye his freefall had been brought to a jarring halt, and he was swinging in a wide arc from a wire.

  Carnegie let out a low whistle.

  “Lucky devil.”

  A loud, inhuman screech rang out from the observation room.

  “What on Darkside was that?” gasped Arthur.

  “Whatever it was, it wasn’t Nicholas de Quincy,” replied Jonathan. “Carnegie?”

  The wereman was gazing up at the watchtower, an apprehensive look on his face. Then he said, in a quiet voice: “Split up. I’ll try and draw it out of here.”

  “Draw what?”

  There was another screech from the observation room, and a bank of black cloud came billowing out of a broken window.

  “MOVE!” bellowed Carnegie, shoving Jonathan in the shoulder.

  Jonathan stayed where he was, transfixed by the approaching dark cloud. It was a shadow that cradled a horrible threat, the kind of darkness that had lain underneath Jonathan’s bed and in the cracks between wardrobe doors when he was a child. As the cloud neared, he heard the sound of beating wings from within it, and suddenly the torches around them spluttered and winked out, submerging the Panopticon in night.

  From somewhere in the darkness, Carnegie bellowed a primeval challenge, which was answered by another piercing shriek. Then there was the sound of a brutal collision, and the wereman howled in pain. Jonathan was desperate to run, but his legs had turned to jelly. Then he realized that the sounds of fighting had broken off.

  “Down, boy!” Carnegie shouted. “It’s coming for you!”

  Instinctively, Jonathan hurled himself to the ground, and there was a whoosh as something sliced through the air where he had been standing. He hadn’t even heard the creature flying towards him.

  Spread-eagled on the floor, Jonathan crawled over the flagstones towards the nearest wall. He couldn’t see or hear anything. There was another whoosh, and he felt a gust on his face as the thing flew low over the ground past him. Scrabbling blindly for some sort of weapon, Jonathan felt his fingers close in on the cold steel of a cell door. One of the bars had been dislodged, giving him just enough room to slip through. There was another screech, this time impossibly close. Jonathan didn’t hesitate, wriggling through the gap and throwing himself to the back of the cell.

  A second later the bars rang out as the
creature battered itself against them. An overpowering smell of rotting meat flooded into the cell. Even so close, Jonathan couldn’t see the creature through the darkness, but he could hear the high-pitched ringing of its talons against iron, and the brutal war cries it made as it fought to break through. The walls of the cell seemed to shudder beneath the force of the assault.

  Jonathan pressed himself against the back wall of the cell, and began tugging at the bars that ran across the window. The rattling and shrieking behind him got louder and louder, until he thought either his eardrums would burst or he would go mad. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the smell of sour flesh vanished, and the sound died away. Jonathan could hear the beating of leathery wings as they rose towards the higher levels of the Panopticon.

  Jonathan slumped down into a heap. He wanted to cry, but he just felt empty. He put his head in his hands, and didn’t lift it again until a voice said:

  “There you are.”

  Carnegie was standing by the cage door, a lit torch in his hand. His face was scratched and bleeding, but apart from that he appeared unharmed. “It’s all right, boy. It’s gone.”

  Jonathan looked up at the wereman. “That was unbelievable,” he said, in a daze, “I was so scared.”

  “I think we all were.” Arthur popped up from behind Carnegie’s shoulder. “It’s safe now, though.”

  Jonathan eased himself through the bars and back out into the Panopticon. Carnegie walked over to the watchtower and held up his torch, exposing the wire hanging lifelessly down from the side of the structure. The intruder was nowhere to be seen.

  “It seems our mysterious friend has made another escape.”

  “I wouldn’t quite say that,” Arthur replied thoughtfully. “Before that creature appeared, I caught a glimpse of his face.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  “You could say so. After all, I do work with him. It was Harry Pierce.”

  18

  Raquella was asleep in her quarters when he came for her. Her dreams were restless visions, and when the door creaked opened she was immediately awake. She sat up quickly, drawing the covers around her. Against the backdrop of the lit corridor was the silhouette of Vendetta, leaning heavily on a cane for support. Though she was unsettled by this unprecedented visit, she adopted an assertive, almost resentful tone.

  “It is late, sir. What can I do for you?”

  Vendetta wheezed softly.

  “I am walking again,” he announced thickly. “For the first time in weeks, I can use my legs. I thought you might want to know.”

  “Naturally, I am delighted, sir. Forgive me, but it is late and I was sleeping. Perhaps in the morning I would be more responsive.”

  A hint of a smile appeared on Vendetta’s face. “Are you developing subtlety, Raquella?”

  It was the first time he had used her name in a long while. She didn’t like the way it sounded in his mouth.

  “I suppose it should be encouraged . . . up to a point. I haven’t woken you merely to display my improvement, though that should be reason enough. No, there’s a secret I want to share with you. I don’t know how you’re going to react, but I thought it would be rather fun to find out.”

  Raquella’s fingers tightened around the covers. Vendetta’s moods were becoming increasingly erratic. She wondered if the poison had spread to his brain, and driven him slightly mad. Or had he always been this way, and she had been too cowed to notice?

  “I would be honoured to learn this secret, sir, but could it not wait until morning?”

  The vampire lifted up his cane and swept it across Raquella’s dressing table, sending hair-pins, family photographs and toiletries crashing on to the wooden floorboards. The maid winced at the sound of breaking glass.

  “You’ll get up now or I’ll beat you where you lie,” spat Vendetta. Then he paused, and a softer mood seemed to wash over him. “I’ll wait outside while you dress. Do not take long.”

  And with that, he shut the bedroom door.

  Shivering, Raquella pulled on some clothes and joined her master outside her room. It was half-past four in the morning, and the draughty corridors of Vendetta Heights were still and cold. Outside, she could hear the wind angrily buffeting the side of the house. The only other sound was the tapping of Vendetta’s cane on the floor. His ancestors glared down from their portraits on the walls. Raquella could almost hear them thinking: What is he doing, spending time with a mere servant girl? She’s not fit to clean his silverware. But then, Raquella was well aware that Vendetta played by his own rules, not anyone else’s.

  They walked on towards the west wing of Vendetta Heights. It was the part of the building reserved for guests, and had lain empty ever since Raquella had started work. To her surprise, she noted that someone had lit the gas lamps in the corridor. Vendetta ignored the entrance to the main hall that dominated the wing and moved on to an unassuming door further down the corridor. Expertly selecting the right key from a huge bunch in his pocket, he slipped inside, and beckoned for her to follow.

  Beyond the door was a cubbyhole rather than a room, with barely enough space for two people to stand. The air was filled with the sound of Vendetta’s ragged breaths and the rustling of Raquella’s clothing. She was suddenly uncomfortably aware of the vampire’s proximity, his breath as cold as a tombstone on her neck. Two eyeholes had been cut into the wall, which, the maid realized, looked out on to the main hall.

  “My ancestors were a suspicious lot,” said Vendetta quietly. “I don’t think there’s a room in the building you can’t spy on in one fashion or another. Not that I usually bother with such nonsense, but, as you’ll see, tonight things are rather different.”

  Raquella realized that he was waiting for her to look through the eyeholes. Her heart racing, she pressed her face to the wall. The lights beyond were dimmed, shrouding the depths of the room in secrecy. The only illumination came from the great fire, which raged away against the darkness. Standing in front of the hearth, hands clasped behind his back as he stared dolefully into the flames, was William Joubert.

  Raquella gasped.

  “Father? But how?”

  “William came to me last night, saying he was in trouble and in need of shelter. I chose to open my door to him.”

  “He came here for help?”

  “William and I share a certain . . . history. He was supposed to work for me many years ago, until circumstances intervened. Did it never occur to you that we might know each other? Of all the girls in Darkside, why do you think I hired you? Why do you think you are still alive?”

  Raquella’s head spun. Her meek and gentle father and her vicious master knew each other? What set of circumstances could ever have brought them together? In one sense, it was irrelevant. William was safe and hidden away in the last place in Darkside that anyone would ever think to look for him. Maybe there was a way her family could stay together, after all.

  “You have no idea what this will mean to my mother. Sir, this is an act of great kindness.”

  Vendetta smiled cruelly. “Well, not quite,” he said. “You see, whoever is hunting your father will be watching your mother like a hawk. If she began making regular trips up to the Heights, it wouldn’t take them long to put two and two together. I can’t allow that. My hospitality stretches only so far.”

  “Are you saying I can’t tell mother that father is here?”

  “Oh, you can tell her. But I’ll never let her in the house, and if she even tries to gain entry things will rapidly turn ugly.”

  Raquella looked at her father, torn. “Why?” she said bitterly.

  Vendetta took hold of her chin and turned it firmly upwards until her face met his. She felt herself chill under the icy gaze of his blue eyes.

  “Understand this. I could have let your father stay out in the cold until he was hunted down like a dog and murdered. The only reason
he is alive is because I let him in, and such a deed does not come without its risks to myself. And given my current condition. . .” He looked away. “I am what I am, Raquella. This is as close to thanks as you will ever get.”

  It was such a struggle to take it all in. Raquella didn’t know whether to feel happy or sad, grateful or angry. Which, she guessed, was what Vendetta had intended all along. Again, she reached inside herself and found the calm assurance that had kept her alive through years of dangerous service.

  “May I speak to him?” she asked briskly.

  “Be my guest,” Vendetta replied. “Your father is.”

  19

  “Ok, boy, you can come in now.”

  Jonathan turned the door handle and entered the observation room. He found himself in a study that had recently witnessed a violent struggle. Furniture had been upturned, and one of the bookshelves had been toppled on to the floor. Icy winds swooped in through smashed windows. Worse, Jonathan couldn’t help noticing several long streaks of blood running across the floor.

  Amid the disorder, Arthur Blake was sitting down behind a desk, a grey expression on his face. Carnegie stood with his back to the room and his hands folded behind his back, staring out of one of the windows. Near the door, a long cloak had been placed over a shapeless mass. Jonathan nodded at the mound.

  “De Quincy?”

  “Let’s just say he won’t be writing any more nasty letters,” replied Arthur humourlessly.

  “Was it . . . I mean, did it look the same as the others?”

  The reporter nodded.

  “Well, it can’t have been Harry. I don’t know what he was up to, but he couldn’t rip a man apart. What was that thing, Carnegie?” Jonathan asked.

  The wereman didn’t bother to turn around. “Doesn’t matter what it was,” he replied curtly. “It was very big, very fast, and very dangerous. What else do you need to know?”