by Thomas Emson
Murray slapped him. He stopped fooling and his mouth dropped open. The colour leached from his cheeks. He cupped his jaw in his hand. She stared at him, and her breast grew cold and tight.
“You bitch,” he said. “You hit me.”
She thought about apologizing, but swept her regret aside. She said, “Where are the boys?”
“You bitch,” he said, staring at the floor.
“Tell me, Richard, tell me where they are or – or I’ll have you arrested for abandoning them.”
He stabbed a look at her. “Me abandon them?”
Her blood quickened. “Where the fuck are they!” she said.
He froze. Probably because he’d never heard her swear like that before. She thought she’d faint, and urged him again to tell her where Michael and David could be.
“The park,” he said, “they always congregate at the park – kids, teenagers.”
She said nothing. She turned and stormed out of the house.
Chapter 60
ANCIENT WEAPON.
TOM Wilson held out his glass and Lawton poured whiskey into it.
Lawton smelled the liquor’s sharpness. He could imagine its taste.
The old man, nodding to indicate his glass was full enough, said, “Time for drinking’s arrived, lad. Nothing else we can do, now. Drink and pray, if the black magic Alexander warned about has been rediscovered.”
“So these demons,” said Lawton.
“Yes: Kea, Kakash, and Kasdeja – incubus, vampires. Not quite dead but not alive, either. Feed on blood. Hunt at night.”
“Kea,” said Lithgow, “Kea and Kakash and – and the other one. ‘K’ on the pills, man, that’s what the ‘K’ stands for on the base of the pot.”
Sassie and Lawton glanced at each other. Lawton felt a pressure in his belly. He didn’t want to believe this kind of stuff, but what he’d seen made it real.
Wilson said, “They’re rebuilding Babylon. Right here in England, in London.”
He took another gulp of the whiskey. He put the glass down, pointed a bony finger at it and Lawton poured a drop of booze into the tumbler.
“More than that, son, if you want me to tell you the story. Helps the memory you see,” he said, tapping his temple. Lawton filled the glass to half and Wilson nodded, then continued:
“When Nebuchadnezzar became king, he was protected by these monsters. Nothing could defeat an undead army. Immortal creatures. Nebuchadnezzar provided victims, the trinity provided protection. Babylon grew, became a magnificent city. Powerful, magical, legendary – but maintained by corruption, by rot and decay.”
“You brought them to Britain,” said Sassie. “In those pots.”
Wilson groaned and shook his head. “I know. I know I did, and I curse myself every day and wish I were dead, I really do. But I could’t die before someone knew. But who’d believe me? Who’d believe an old soak like me?”
“They might do, now,” said Lawton.
“They might,” said Wilson. “But who can I trust?”
“Us,” said Lawton. “You can trust us.”
Wilson sighed. “The weapon we stole, the two-horned spear that can kill these monsters. That’s what Alexander used. Every king since Nebuchadnezzar made the same contract with the trinity, you see. Even Darius, who Alexander defeated. These human serfs, they’d hidden this weapon. Darius kept it safe, and all the Babylonian kings before him, right back to Nebuchadnezzar. They kept it away from trinity and they helped those kings rule Babylon. There’s a legend says that Abraham made it from the horns of Nimrod the hunter, first king of Babylon and father of vampires. Killed the three demons with it, like I said.”
Wilson coughed, took another sip of whiskey.
“But Alexander didn’t wipe them out,” said Lawton.
“No. And they got their revenge. He died after being bitten by a vampire. Didn’t turn him, just poisoned him.”
Lithgow gasped. Sassie’s grip on Lawton’s hand tightened.
Lawton felt a wire slice at his insides. He rubbed his neck. He’d started to feel better in the last few hours, but what if there was poison in his blood? What if some plague lay dormant in him? His mind drifted. He would kill himself before he’d become what Jenna was.
Wilson said, “After Alexander’s death, Nebuchadnezzar’s descendents – led by Ptolemy, who became Pharaoh of Egypt – fled with this weapon and they also stole the ashes of the vampire trinity, which Alexander had stored in the pots.”
Lawton stared at the clay vessel that stood on the coffee table.
“So,’ said Sassie, “you’re saying – let me get this straight – you’re saying that the descendents of Nebuchadnezzar, servant of these demons, are still around in the Twenty-first Century and they stole these – these old pots from your flat.”
“That’s it, love,” said Wilson. “Story goes that a few vampires escaped Alexander’s slaughter. A few of Nebuchadnezzar’s descendents did. Many went to Egypt with Ptolemy, helped him become Pharaoh.
Some, they say, came to Europe – Eastern Europe, Romania, the Balkans – places where vampire legends are rife.” The old man shrugged, drank some whiskey. He said, “But I’ve no idea how the spear and the pots got back to Hillah. My guess is that the descendents thought they could raise the demons, get their help to kick us Brits out.” He shook his head and sighed. “Jordan wanted the ashes destroyed, and he was right. He knew that they could never be allowed to survive. He knew they could be used as a lethal weapon if anyone, ever, got down to resurrecting them: imagine a vampire army.”
“I’d rather not,” said Sassie.
Wilson finished his drink. “But,” he said, “the burglars didn’t take everything, you see,” and he struggled out of his chair. Lawton helped him. “You wait there.” He trudged into the kitchen. They heard him chattering to his granddaughter.
Lithgow, pale and wide-eyed, said, “Do you believe all this?”
Lawton said, “I don’t know what to believe. What do you think those things we killed in the house were?” He rubbed his neck.
Sassie said, “Are you worried about Alexander dying after being bitten?”
“Do you think I need to be?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Lithgow said, “It’s mad, that’s what it is, mad.” He came over and checked the whiskey bottle, but Lawton told him to leave it alone.
He stomped back to the sofa. Then Lithgow stared towards the kitchen, his jaw dropping. Lawton followed his gaze, turning to see Wilson totter into the living room holding a double-ended spear with points that looked like bulls’ horns.
* * *
“The boy who stabbed me,” said Wilson as Lawton held the weapon and studied it, “is still alive, I’m sure of that. He could only be in his nineties,” he said as if it were young.
The weapon rested on Lawton’s palms. Two horns or tusks, each two feet long, joined by a shaft that was wrapped in… flesh. Lawton’s fingers closed around the grip at the centre.
Was this really bone and skin? he thought. What was it Wilson had said?: the bone and skin of Nimrod.
Wilson said, “Nimrod was supposed to have built Babylon. He dug up the dirt of the pit and built the city. I guess those monsters came from the pit, I don’t know – ha! – that’s just me adding to the myth.”
Lawton felt awe. He’d never thought about history like this before.
But something so ancient, something that had been in the hands of men thousands of years ago, moved him. He could sense their strength in the weapon, hear their battle cries, see Alexander wield it as he faced Kea, Kakash, and Kasdeja in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace almost two thousand five hundred years ago.
Could he wield it now?
“The trinity can only be killed if you stab them in the heart with this,” said Wilson. “The heart, that’s the only living thing in their bodies.
Black and bloated by evil. Sunlight will weaken them; their skins are thin, you see. The others, your common-to-garden vampire,
sunlight, ultraviolet light, will do for them. Their flesh is like paper; burn them up, it will. As does any penetration of their black, bloated hearts. But not the trinity. Only this spear will destroy those bastards.”
“We’ve killed a couple,” said Sassie.
The old man perked up. “Have you?”
She told him about it and he bounced in his chair. “I wish I’d seen one. All I did was fight off bairns.” He shook his head and lowered his gaze. “And now I know I should have destroyed those old clay pots.
Thrown out the dust, cast it into water or something – the canal when I got home from the wars. Look what I’ve done.”
He shuddered. Sassie put a hand on his arm. She said, “You’re not to blame, Mr. Wilson. You stopped them. They could’ve released plague back then.”
“Well,” said Wilson, “I don’t think they had the science back then.
Today, they know more things, don’t they. And these pills you mention.
Someone clever made those. I don’t think those Haddad boys – ”
“Haddad?” said Lithgow.
“That’s right,” said Wilson, “the boys were three brothers, called Haddad – ”
“Haddad,” said Lawton.
Wilson said, “Name’s obviously familiar to you.”
They told Wilson about the house in Holland Park and its owner.
And the old man said, “Afdal Haddad. That’s got to be him, then, got to be. Bloody hell. Bloody hell, that’s bloody terrible. He’s still alive. He’s the magician Alexander was worried about. He’s making them come alive. He’s resurrecting the trinity.”
Lawton stared at the weapon. He said, “Then we’ll just have to kill them again, won’t we. And this time we won’t fuck up.”
Chapter 61
A MOTHER’S TERROR.
THE park lay empty and dusk fell.
She called out the boys’ names, but no one called back; there wasn’t a sound.
Where are my children? she thought; where are my boys?
She tried again. “Michael, David. You’ve got to come home. School tomorrow.”
Nothing. Murray shivered, tears in her eyes.
She phoned Richard and said, “They’re not here. Anywhere else they could be?”
He sounded concerned for the first time, and her hate for him cooled.
He said he didn’t know, perhaps the school, perhaps around the shops.
“They always say they go to the park,” he said.
Murray almost said that it wasn’t just her, then, who had no idea about their children. But she didn’t. She felt an appeasement was coming between her and Richard, and didn’t want to threaten that possibility.
“All right, I’ll have a look,” she said, and hung up.
She rang the newsdesk at the Mail and asked if there were any news.
Lindsey, the forward planner, said things were quite. “But things don’t seem to kick off until after sundown,” she added. “Maybe it really is vampires after all.” And she chuckled.
Murray told Lindsey to let her know if anything happened, that she was looking for her sons.
Darkness had crawled further over the city while Murray had made her calls. She looked at her watch: almost 6.00 p.m. – it would be pitch black soon. She shivered, and dread tightened her chest. She looked around. Suburbia stood silent. She thought at least there’d be teenagers hanging around. But there was no one.
A bus rumbled past. A few cars whipped by. She waited outside the park for a while, looking back over the expanse. The woods lay dark at the far end of the park. Murray felt a finger of fear crawl up her spine.
She sensed something in those trees watching her, but she knew it was paranoia chewing at her reason.
Come on, she thought; get a move on.
She headed towards the shops.
Chapter 62
KIDS WILL BE KIDS.
DAVID Murray watched his brother drink from another can of beer. They were blue-and-white stripe Tesco ones. David looked at his mobile phone, thought about phoning dad. David didn’t like this; didn’t like being out after dark and didn’t like seeing his brother drink.
But then dad was drunk, too, when they left the house. He felt tears well in his eyes and wondered if Mum would mind if he called her.
She was always busy, always writing her stories for the paper. She’d written about Mr. Gless dying; she’d written about all the terrible, scary things that were happening. David pressed the phonebook key, deciding to ring him Mum. He filed through the names, came to mum in the phonebook.
But then the girl, Sophie, she said, “Does David want one?” her head cocked to one side. He looked back at her, his finger hovering over the call key.
Michael said, “No way, he’s only ten.”
David moved his finger away from the key. Only ten. Yeah, and if he phoned his Mum, that would prove that he was only ten; only a kid.
And he didn’t want to be only a kid. He wanted to be like Michael.
“You was drinking when you was ten,” said C.J., popping open another can.
“Yeah,” said Michael, staring at his younger brother, “but I was more mature.”
“Man, leave your little brother be,” said C.J., taking a swig of the beer and making a face.
C.J. was thirteen, the eldest there. He mixed with older boys, and his brother was a rapper. Not a famous rapper – “he will be soon, yeah,”
C.J. would say – but a guy who hung round a local studio, smoking weed and making tunes.
Michael, Sophie, and C.J. sat in the porch, David leaned on the gate.
He tried to look cool but he didn’t know how. He’d look cool if they gave him a can of beer and if Sophie gave him one of her cigarettes.
“Yeah,” said Sophie, “he’s all right, ain’t you, David?”
His cheeks were hot and a sweat broke out on his back. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he said. “Can I have a can, then?”
“No, you can’t,” said Michael, drinking from his can and puckering his mouth.
Why’s he making that face? wondered David. Does the beer taste bad?
If it tasted bad, why did they drink it? Because they were all making the same face.
So he asked and they laughed at him, Michael calling him a stupid kid.
C.J. got up, reached into his hoodie pocket and brought out a can of spray paint.
“What’re you doing?” said Michael.
“Leaving my sign, innit.”
“What? On the school door?”
“Yeah, why the fuck not?”
David glanced up at the CCTV camera pointing down at the porch.
Another camera spied on them from inside the reception area behind the sliding glass doors. The school was really old. Made of stone and looking like a Victorian prison David had seen in a book. Bits of it were modern, though: the glass doors, the double-glazed windows, the CCTV and security systems, and all the inside was new, too. It wasn’t a bad school, but he was looking forward to leaving in September and going to the comprehensive with Michael. Maybe they’d let him have beer and cigarettes then.
C.J. shook the can of spray paint and it rattled. Then he painted the word “Sidewalk” – his street name – on the glass doors in blue. Sophie giggled.
Michael stepped back to admire C.J.’s handiwork, spilling beer from the can. Booze and the fumes from the paint got up David’s nose.
Then C.J. stepped back to have a better look at what he’d done.
“Cool, yeah?” he said.
“Cool,” said Sophie.
“Yeah,” said Michael.
David said, “We should go home, Mike, it’s half-six almost. Mum’ll be home and – ”
Eyes still on C.J.’s artwork, Michael said, “Who gives a shit? She doesn’t, does she?”
“She’s a reporter, man,” said C.J., “you better watch it. Some of the guys, they don’t like me hanging with you, man.”
“Why?” said Michael.
“’Cause your
mum’s a reporter, man. They make things up, scare people. They’re making all kinds of stuff up, now, man. About, you know, vampires and stuff. Just shit, man, innit.”
David’s anger rose again.
Sophie said, “Yeah, my step-dad, he says it’s the end of the world. Devils and angels preparing to fight for our souls.”
“My mum’s trying to help,” said David, and they all turned to look at him. He couldn’t see their faces clearly in the gloom, but he could tell C.J. was smiling.
“See? That’s why you ain’t cool, little boy,” said C.J. “That’s ’cause you’re a mummy’s boy.”
And Sophie laughed, and Michael laughed, too.
David’s insides tightened and his head started spinning. He balled his fists and gritted his teeth. His fury erupted, and he hurtled towards C.J., fists flying.
C.J.’s mouth dropped open, and he froze in the headlights of David’s rage.
David caught C.J. with a punch to the side of the head, and C.J. dropped his spray paint and his beer, the beer leaking on the schoolyard.
C.J. threw his arms over his head, stumbled backwards, David raining fists, cursing him for insulting his mum, saying, “Don’t laugh at my mum, you bastard!”
C.J., recovering from the initial assault, rallied. He was bigger and stronger than David. He straightened, grabbed the smaller boy’s arms and kneed him in the belly. The air rushed out of David. Pain burned a hole through his stomach. He doubled up and crumpled to the floor.
“Little shit,” said C.J., and kicked David in the backside. The pain made him scream. He curled up into a ball. Tears filled his eyes. C.J. said, “I’m gonna cut you, you little queer,” and David saw a flash of steel.
“No,” said Sophie, and tried to bat C.J.’s knife hand away.
“Yeah,” said Michael, “yeah, C.J., it’s cool. P-please don’t hurt him, yeah? He’s only a kid – stupid kid, that’s all.”
David could hear the terror in his brother’s voice, but he didn’t want Michael begging on his behalf. He didn’t want Michael joining in with C.J. in insulting his mum.
