[Vampire Babylon 01] - Skarlet (2009)

by Thomas Emson

  Chapter 21

  DAZED AND CONFUSED.

  Holland Park, London – 10.10 p.m., February 7

  HAMMOND wasn’t sure when, or how, he’d agreed to this. But he was here, now. He still felt woozy after smoking three joints at Lithgow’s. But typically, the dope had filled him with confidence.

  Which is probably why Lithgow was able to persuade him to get on the tube at Fulham Broadway.

  An hour or so later, they got off a bus at the Three Hammers pub, where they got a drink. The booze mingled with the dope and made Hammond’s head even mushier.

  Then they walked over to Holland Park. And the fresh air-alcoholcannabis compost grabbed Hammond’s brain and shook it like a baby shaking a rattle.

  They stood in the shadow of an oak tree.

  Hammond said, “Nice night, nice spot,” and gazed down the street.

  Four-storey Georgian houses lined the flagstoned street. Shrubbery festooned the frontages. Flash cars parked along the pavement. Music wafted from an open window, classical stuff that Hammond didn’t mind at all, the mood he was in.

  But then he said, “Fraize, what are we doing here? And where is here? I’ve never, ever in my life been to Holland Park. Thought it was a myth, you know. Like Atlantis.”

  “We’re here, man, to nick drugs to plant in Lawton’s house.”

  “Nick drugs where?”

  “Oh, man, Stevie, you’re so fucked up. The guy who gave me the Skarlet, man. I followed him – ”

  “You fucking followed him?”

  “Sure I did. I didn’t know him, did I. You can’t just trust people.”

  “I told him to come see you. He came from me, man.”

  Lithgow said, “Did you know him? Did you fucking trust him?”

  “Dunno. He came up to me in the pub. You know.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s why I’m fucking brighter than you, you fucking lamp,” said Lithgow. “Know who you’re dealing with, man, know who you’re dealing with. I always know who I’m dealing with. Check ’em out. Upper hand, Stevie, upper hand.”

  “So you followed him here?”

  “Fucking followed him here, the big, pony-tailed twat.”

  “You always do that?” said Hammond.

  “I always, absolutely no fucking question about it, do that,” said Lithgow. “If I go down, they go down, too, man. I’m a squealer.”

  Hammond furrowed his brow. He looked around again and said, “Ah, fuck it, Fraser, man, fuck it. We’re not meant to be in a place like this.”

  “What’re you moaning about?”

  “My brain’s fucked, man. I’m stoned. We should be indoors. I’m freaking out, that’s what I’m saying.”

  “Steve, Steve – it’ll be okay, man, be okay – it’s easy, easy. Down the road here, okay, then there’s a basement floor, you know, down some steps. Window was open last time, might be open this time.”

  Hammond shook his head. He didn’t like this because he didn’t understand it. He’d never broken into anywhere in his life. He started to say something, but Lithgow was off down the road, lurking under the overhanging branches that draped from the oak trees.

  Hammond tottered after him, feeling sick and confused, wanting to be at home, listening to something dark and obscure and difficult on a high volume that would mush up his brain even more.

  Chapter 22

  NADIA’S GIFT.

  DR. HADDAD panted, his old brow wet with sweat and his old cheeks red with heat.

  Nadia Radu got up off her knees and wiped her mouth. She went over to the mirror and checked her make-up and hair. She buttoned up her blouse and turned to face the old man. He sat on the bed, zipping himself up. He fumbled at his flies.

  He said, “I never asked you for this, Nadia.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “But you do these things – ”

  She said, “Do you want me to stop?”

  He looked at her, his eyes wide, and said, “No, heavens, no. I may be very old, but I’m not senile, yet. It’s only – I never understood – ”

  “You saved us, Dr. Haddad. Saved us from hell. And it’s all I knew how to do. I pleased men, and I saw that I could get things.”

  “You only had to ask me. I would’ve given you anything – without this.”

  “I understand that,” she said. “Still – we are – you know that we are eternally grateful – for all these things.”

  “Does it make you sick –? I mean – with an old man?”

  She smiled and said, “No, only with a cruel man.” She went to him and said, “Time we went downstairs. We’ll wait in the living room, see if they report anything on the news.” She helped him up and into his wheelchair. “You say,” she said, kicking the brakes of the chair, “that it’ll be tonight.”

  “I’m sure of it,” he said. “Twenty-four hours. No more than fortyeight.”

  She wheeled him out of the bedroom.

  At the top of the stairs, she eased him into the stair lift. His hand touched her breast and his fingers closed around it. She smiled to herself and let him feel her.

  “Ready?” she said when he was sitting in the stair lift.

  “Ready,” he said.

  She reached for the switch.

  Glass shattered somewhere downstairs.

  Nadia froze.

  “What was that?” said Dr. Haddad.

  “I don’t know,” she said, her voice grated by fear.

  “Is Ion back yet?”

  She bit her lip and listened, and then said, “No. He’s not back.”

  “Nadia, you should go and see. If someone’s broken into the cellar – ”

  Chapter 23

  THEY WILL RISE...

  JERRY Landers sipped his Coke and looked at his watch. Half-ten, that was all. He’d only been on shift for thirty minutes and it felt like a week.

  But the policewoman would be back soon with teas and biscuits from the machine, and he could talk to her again. Jerry liked to talk to her. She had a pretty face and a nice figure, and he never got that close to nice ladies.

  Too shy.

  Get out more, mum said.

  He thought about the policewoman, Ruby Richards, and how perhaps he could ask her to come for breakfast. They could find a cafe at 5.00 a.m. when they both finished their shifts and ponder the night’s boredom over a fry-up.

  He turned towards the door with the porthole window. Strip-lights glowed in the room behind the door. The bodies lay in the room.

  Twenty-eight of them, cut open earlier today by pathologists at three London hospitals. And after they stitched all the skin back together, they brought the bodies here.

  The unit lurked down a side street in Battersea. They housed bodies here if there was something odd about the way they died. The pathologists must’ve decided that this bunch were really odd because they were all ferried here that afternoon.

  And Jerry got called at 6.00 p.m., Charlie the boss saying, “We need you at B13 by ten tonight, son. Don’t mention it – usual drill.”

  He’d never been to B13, but he’d heard about the unit. Everyone at the security firm he worked for had to sign the Official Secrets Act if they worked at B13.

  “Cloak and dagger stuff,” said Charlie the boss. “Nudge nudge, say nothing, keep stum.”

  Jerry stared at the door and the light shimmered behind it. He tried not to think about the bodies, but they were stuck in his head.

  He shivered and wished he didn’t have to do this, but what else could Mrs. Landers’s only son do? He turned away from the door and picked up the copy of 2000AD, and started reading.

  “You’re good for nothing, Landers,” Mr. Curtis, the headmaster, had said at school.

  And being told he was good for nothing made him believe he was good for nothing.

  “You may as well sign on and forget about the rest of your life,” Mr.

  Curtis told Jerry.

  Ten years later and Mr. Curtis might well say, I told you so. A security guard o
n five quid an hour hardly suggested a transformation in Jerry’s life.

  A muffled thud came from the morgue.

  Jerry tensed and sat up straight in the chair. He put the comic book down and narrowed his eyes. Craning his neck, he stared towards the door. The light flickered in the porthole window. He listened and heard the light inside the morgue hum. It sounded like a swarm of flies – Jerry shuddered at the thought – hovering over the dead bodies.

  Something clattered inside the morgue.

  Jerry gasped. A chill slid down his spine.

  He looked towards the door that led out of the anteroom and into the corridor, down which PC Richards had gone to get tea and biscuits.

  Where was she? She should be back by now.

  He got up, the chair scraping over the linoleum floor. He breathed hard, and the smell of disinfectant got up his nostrils. The odour made him dizzy for a moment, and he steadied himself on the edge of the desk.

  Another clatter from inside the morgue.

  Like someone – something – tripping.

  He clawed at his chest, finding it hard to breath. His heart thumped.

  He moved towards the door. The hum of the strip-light grew louder.

  Shadows danced in the dimly lit circle of glass.

  He heard a moan – was it a moan?

  Jerry’s throat felt dry. He tried to swallow, but he didn’t have any spit. He looked over his shoulder, hoping PC Richards would come with tea and biscuits, hoping she’d go in first.

  No, he thought; I’m the bloke – I should lead the way. I’ll go see what’s going on, then report back to her. She’ll like me for that, for taking the initiative.

  You don’t have any initiative, Landers.

  Mr. Curtis’s voice booming in his head again.

  He crept towards the door. There was someone in there – he was convinced.

  Too much noise for the place to be – just filled with dead people.

  How could anyone have got in? Was he in the toilet at the time?

  Where would PC Richards have been?

  Kids, maybe. Or these scary goths. These people who said they were vampires. He’d read about them in The Sun. The papers had gone crazy over this story. Writing all kinds of things – and they were true, no doubt. His colleagues said, Don’t believe what you read in the papers, Jerry, but then Jerry thought, Why would they write them if they weren’t true?

  And Jerry knew there were a lot of strange things in the world. You only had to spend a couple of hours on the internet to realize that.

  He was at the door. He sniffed, and a stale odour wafted from inside the morgue. He moved his face closer to the portal window. The striplights shimmered and hummed.

  His nose was pressed against the glass. He peered into the semidarkness.

  He could just make out the bodies, lying in rows on the trolleys. He could –

  A dark shape whipped across the window inside the morgue.

  Jerry gasped, and he felt as if someone were jabbing at his heart with a knife. He stumbled backwards, clutching his chest.

  A hand fell on his shoulder, and he screamed.

  Chapter 24

  DRUGS FACTORY.

  LITHGOW said, “Be careful, you tit.”

  Hammond stumbled into the cellar. He kicked the broken glass off his Dr. Marten’s.

  “You’ll wake the fucking street up,” said Lithgow.

  “Yeah – sorry, mate – accident – ”

  Hammond stared down at his feet. Glass glittered the flagstone floor.

  Stepping through the open window, he’d put his boot through the pane. He felt dizzy, that’s all. Couldn’t get his bearings even when clambering through an open window.

  Lithgow had led him down the stone steps to the basement window.

  As he climbed down the steps, Hammond had glanced up at the street above him and felt like he was sinking. It was weird.

  The sash window was open a few inches, and Lithgow yanked the top half down, and then he climbed through into the basement.

  Hammond followed but he stabbed his boot through the pane, and the window shattered.

  Lithgow had flinched and called him a tit.

  Inside the basement, Hammond gazed around and tried to make his eyes see in the dark. He couldn’t make anything out, but he could smell disinfectant and aftershave.

  Lithgow scurried off, and Hammond heard him mutter to himself about a light switch, Where’s the fucking light switch?

  He must’ve found it.

  The glare blinded Hammond.

  He shut his eyes and staggered backwards. He opened his eyes.

  Bruises blotched his vision, and he flapped a hand in front of his face.

  He could hear clattering, Lithgow cursing. He shook his head, his eyes getting accustomed to the light.

  “Fucking hell,” said Hammond.

  “Yeah,” said Lithgow, “fucking hell indeed.”

  Chemical drums lined the far wall, their labels painted over with black paint. A cardboard box filled with emptied blister packs of Sudafed tablets was tucked into the corner.

  There were flasks, beakers, and rubber tubing on the wooden table at the centre of the room. Lined on a shelf were milk bottles filled with colourful fluids. Three very old looking jars stood on another shelf.

  Lithgow opened a cupboard and drew out a roll of tin foil, placing it on the table, and a box of bicarbonate.

  “They got a proper little drugs factory going on here,” said Lithgow.

  He looked around the room and went over to the shelf where the three old jars were kept. He brought them down, one by one, and stood them on the table next to each other.

  “What’re those?” said Hammond.

  “Well, how the fuck should I know? I’m not the fucking Antiques Roadshow, am I. They just look odd, that’s all. Incongruous, you know?”

  Hammond studied the jars. They were clay pots. A picture had been painted on each on. The image showed a golden-haired man. The same guy was featured on each jar. The guy brandished a weapon that looked like two elephant tusks linked by a piece of wood over his head. There were objects, black and oozing, pinned to both tusks. The looked like hearts to Hammond, but he wasn’t sure. Piles of bodies with holes in their chests lay around the golden-haired man. Black stuff drizzled from the wounds. They might be hearts, thought Hammond.

  Lithgow unplugged the stopper from the first jar, peered inside and said, “Dust, full of fucking dust.” He opened the second jar, took a look and said, “Dust in that fucker, too.” He looked at Hammond and said, “Things don’t look good, mate.”

  “You never know,” said Hammond.

  Lithgow pulled the stopper from the third jar and looked inside, and his mouth opened. “You fucking well don’t know – you’re right,” he said, and tilted the jar over towards Hammond so he could see.

  And Hammond said, “Pills,” and his eyes were wide.

  The door crashed open. Hammond stared at the woman standing in the doorway. She had dark hair and purple eyes that blazed. She was gorgeous, and her beauty froze him for a moment.

  And then Lithgow’s voice snapped him out of it, Lithgow saying, “Run,” and grabbing one of the pots.

  Lithgow legged it past Hammond, and Hammond looked back at the woman.

  Her face went pale and she screamed, “No, no,” and darted into the room, bringing a gun up from her side.

  Hammond opened his mouth.

  The woman fired the gun.

  A massive force whacked Hammond in the shoulder, throwing him backwards. He fell against the wall. He looked down at his shoulder.

  Blood pulsed from a hole in his coat.

  Chapter 25

  FOREIGN BODIES.

  Pimlico, Central London – 10.34 p.m., February 7

  MURRAY, sitting in the dark in the kitchen, said, “Are you telling me that their insides were shrivelled up, and there was no blood in their bodies?”

  Her contact in the pathology department said, “N
ot a drop. I’ve – we’ve never seen anything like it. The organs looked – old, decayed. Apart from the heart. The heart in each body had swollen, turned black, and it glistened like some – some huge, monstrous slug.”

  Murray raised her shoulders and shivered. She glanced over her shoulder and out of the window into the darkness. She pulled her dressing gown around her and said, trying to keep her voice low, “Do you have a name for this condition?”

  Her contact said, “I don’t, Christine. We’ve no idea. The only label I can give you, now, is blood loss.”

  “But you said there’s no trauma wound,” said Murray.

  “No, no wounds to the body. Externally, at least.”

  “So their blood just dried up, is that what you’re saying?” said Murray.

  Her contact, whispering, said, “I’ve never seen a hundred per cent blood loss before. Forty per cent will kill a victim, but a hundred – not in bodies this recently dead.”

  Murray put a hand to her brow. After a few seconds she said, “You say there were marks on some of the bodies. Could that be the cause of blood loss?”

  “There were incisions on a few of the bodies, yes,” said her contact, “but certainly not significant enough to cause any blood loss.”

  Silence filled the line.

  And then her contact said, “I’m led to believe that some of the victims might have practiced, um, vampirism. They drank blood. This might explain the scarring and cuts on some of the bodies. We’re only talking half-a-dozen, here. You can dismiss this, Christine. It has no bearing on the deaths.”

  Murray said, “How do you explain the shrivelled organs, the swollen hearts?”

  Her contact breathed and then said, “We don’t. We can’t.” And then after a few moments of silence, her contact said, “But there’s some unusual activity in the bodies.”

  Murray sat up. Her chair scraped the tiled floor. She grimaced and looked up at the ceiling. She didn’t want to wake the boys and Richard.

  She’d already had another row with Richard when she got home. And David cried when she went up to his room, the boy saying, “Are you and daddy splitting up?”