Greg was beginning to tremble as he struggled to remember. Alex’s warning rang round and round in his head, and his stomach flipped as the truth hit him.
Stone was right.
Greg looked up at the red glow in the sky, just as the first shimmering golden edge of sun broke over the treetops. He flinched away from the light, but not before he felt the terrible pain lance through his eyes. Rays of sun speared between the bars of the cage. One passed across his hand, and the flesh instantly sizzled and blistered. He let out a sharp cry and jerked his hand away.
‘Looks like you forgot, all right,’ Stone chuckled. ‘How wonderfully entertaining this promises to be.’
There was nowhere Greg could crawl to escape the steady rise of the sun. Even curled up in a tight ball with his arms over his face, he could feel its glare on him. He smelled the smoke that was beginning to rise from his clothes and hair, the acrid stench of charring flesh. Saw his hands blackening and curling like singed paper. The first flames licked across his skin.
He was a soldier. If he was going to die, he’d at least die facing his enemy. He turned towards the screen.
‘Damn you, Stone,’ he yelled.
‘I was damned millennia before you were born,’ Stone replied. ‘But I was smarter.’
Greg screamed as he burst alight. He could feel his flesh shrivelling, turning to ash.
The last thing he saw as he burned was Stone’s laughing face.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Lavender Close, Wallingford
The next morning, 8.03 a.m.
‘You again,’ Gillian Hawthorne snapped as she recognised the Detective Inspector’s voice on the other end of the phone.
‘I’m sorry to call so early, Mrs Hawthorne.’ Joel’s voice sounded ragged and weary, as though he hadn’t slept all night. ‘I was checking on Kate.’
‘Kate’s fine. She’s asleep.’
‘Nothing wrong?’
Gillian frowned. ‘I told you, she’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with her at all. Now please go away and stop calling us.’ She put the phone down. Bit her lip and chewed on a fingernail.
She wasn’t about to let that Solomon man know just how anxious she really was about her daughter. It hadn’t taken Gillian a second look at Kate that morning to tell she was very sick. Her sleeping face was drawn and strangely pale. The skin was becoming almost translucent, so that the veins in her temples and her neck were disturbingly visible. Gillian had shuddered. Her daughter looked like a corpse.
Moments after talking to Joel Solomon, Gillian picked the phone back up and dialled Dr Andrews’s number.
Bill Andrews had been the Hawthorne family’s private physician since Kate had been a baby. The kindly old doctor was almost like an uncle to her, and he sounded deeply concerned when Gillian called him at home and described the symptoms.
‘Don’t try to bring her to the clinic. Let me come and take a look at her.’
Gillian was watching at the window as his car pulled up in the drive a little while later. She met him at the door.
‘Thanks for coming, Bill.’
‘How is she?’
‘I’m terribly worried.’
At exactly 8.45 a.m., Jeremy Lonsdale’s Gulfstream jet left the tarmac of a private airfield in Surrey and climbed steeply into the overcast sky. Its crew of three had received hurried instructions from their employer to set a course for Russia, carrying with them the strange cargo delivered to the airfield by chopper. It appeared to be nothing more than a heavy crate, seven feet long, edged with steel — but whatever was inside was a secret closely guarded by Mr Lonsdale as well as by the two taciturn and intimidating men in dark suits who had clearly been hired to stay glued to its side at all times. The two men had barely spoken to anyone, and when the crew did overhear them conversing quietly between themselves, it was in some Eastern language they didn’t understand. But Mr Lonsdale had said no questions, and that was good enough for them.
Lavender Close, Wallingford
8.47 a.m.
‘Hello, Kate,’ Dr Andrews said as Gillian showed him into her daughter’s bedroom.
Kate was burrowed under the covers. At the sound of his voice, she peered suspiciously over the edge of her duvet.
‘It’s dark in here,’ the doctor said, glancing at the drawn curtains.
‘She has to have them like that. She can’t seem to stand the light.’
‘Let’s see.’ Dr Andrews walked over to the window and opened the curtains a crack. Kate let out a loud moan and retreated quickly back under the duvet as a shaft of sunlight cut across the room and hit her in the face.
Dr Andrews raised his eyebrows at the reaction. He closed the curtain and went over to sit on the edge of Kate’s bed.
‘May I?’ He turned on the bedside lamp. ‘Your mother tells me you’ve been getting bad headaches. Is that right?’
Kate didn’t reply.
‘That’s all right. You don’t have to answer.’ He gently peeled the duvet off her.
‘I’m not going to hurt you, Kate,’ he said as she protested feebly. ‘I just want to have a quick look at you, so we can make you—’
He stopped mid-sentence when he saw the marks on the girl’s neck.
‘So we can make you better,’ he finished. He gently moved her head so he could study the strange lesions up close. Slipping a thermometer into her mouth, he noticed how pale her lips were and shook his head curiously.
Gillian Hawthorne stood back with her arms crossed as he examined Kate in silence. When he’d finished, Kate huddled back deep under the duvet, making small groaning sounds.
Dr Andrews turned to Gillian. ‘Has she been off her food lately?’
‘Not until she fell ill. She eats like a horse. It’s a wonder she stays thin.’
‘No food fads, diets? She hasn’t become a vegan or anything?’
‘Nothing like that at all. She’s a perfectly normal girl.’ Gillian shot a look at her daughter. ‘Or at least, she was.’
The doctor heard the tone of her voice but chose to ignore it. ‘She’s displaying symptoms of anaemia. Her heartbeat is rapid and a little irregular. Her fingernails show signs of iron deficiency. She’s weak and she’s getting headaches. Has there been any change in her menstrual cycle?’
‘We don’t really talk about that. As far as I know, nothing.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll prescribe iron tablets, and that should get her going. In the meantime you need to get her to eat plenty of red meat, maybe some liver.’
‘I’m not taking fucking iron tablets, you old piece of shit,’ Kate’s voice hissed from under the covers. ‘And the only liver I’ll eat is yours, you bastard.’
There was a stunned silence in the room. Dr Andrews had seen it all in his years as a medical practitioner, but something in the girl’s voice and the way she was peering at him over the bedclothes sent a shiver down the back of his neck. He’d known this child all her life. Knew her as a sweet, charming, happy and warm personality. But now her eyes were hard and cold.
Gillian Hawthorne exploded. She strode over to the bed and started shaking Kate violently. ‘You apologise for that! You hear me?’
Dr Andrews took her arm. ‘Gillian—’
‘I know what’s going on. It’s that Maddon boy. He’s the one who’s done this to you.’
‘Calm down, Gillian. She needs to rest. I think we should leave her.’
The doctor was pensive as he shut Kate’s bedroom door and ushered her mother down the stairs. Gillian was flushed and agitated as she made tea in the kitchen. The doctor pulled up a chair at the pine table, frowning to himself. He took a bottle of pills from his pocket and unscrewed the lid.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, handing him a cup of tea.
‘Not for her, for me.’ He popped two in his mouth and washed them down with his drink.
‘Are you all right, Bill?’
He smiled. ‘I get a little tired sometimes. My heart. I’m fine, though. Let’s talk about
Kate. What are those lesions on her neck?’
‘I don’t know. I took them to be lovebites. God knows what—’
‘I’d say that unless she’s been getting lovebites from a Rottweiler, we’re looking at some other cause. In fact, I’m more than a little concerned about them. Has Kate been seeing anyone?’
Gillian let out a snort. ‘You mean boys? Just that worthless degenerate from next door.’ She told him what she knew about Dec’s arrest, the drugs, the visit from the police the following morning.
‘I wish you’d told me these things earlier,’ the doctor said. ‘Apart from the physical symptoms, Kate’s behaviour strongly suggests that she’s been severely traumatised. The drugs are a significant concern. We might also have to investigate the possibility of an aggravated date rape. That could explain the injury to her neck. Which means I’ll have to do a full examination.’
‘She hasn’t been raped, Bill.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I just know.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Gillian, but that’s not enough. And I’ll also have to notify the police.’
‘Bill, no, please. I can’t have the police involved in this. My family—’
‘You may not have a lot of choice, Gillian.’
‘Look, please, Bill. Can’t we just do whatever tests are necessary first, to find out what’s wrong with her before we start—’
‘Creating a scandal?’
‘I want what’s best for Kate,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t want this out in public until we’re absolutely sure.’
Dr Andrews looked at her long and hard. ‘Fine. Then I’m going to book her into the clinic as quickly as I can. Then we can start to try to figure this out.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alex had been pacing impatiently up and down her living room floor when, a few minutes before nine a.m., the phone had rung. She’d been on it before the first ring was over.
Harry Rumble’s voice had sounded terse. ‘I need you over here. Right away.’
The sense of worry was palpable as she strode through the VIA headquarters.
Rumble was in his office with Garrett and Kelby, one of the admin chiefs. There was a grim silence between them. Rumble was standing bent over his desk with his fists planted on its leather top, looking careworn, his hair ruffled, his tie crooked. In front of him was a plain cardboard box, three feet long, two wide.
‘What?’ Alex said, frozen in the doorway.
Rumble lifted a fist off the desk and pointed at the box. ‘This just arrived by motorcycle courier.’
Alex approached the desk and lifted the lid of the box. A puff of fine grey-white powder wafted out. ‘It’s ash,’ she said, looking up at Rumble with a frown.
‘It’s more than ash,’ Kelby said.
Alex rolled up the sleeve of her black satin blouse and stuck her arm into the box up to the elbow. The ash was still warm. Her fingers felt something inside. Something hard, brittle and rough.
Bits of bone.
And something else. It was warmer than the bone, smoother. She pulled it out and examined it.
‘Fuck,’ she muttered. She tossed the blackened dog tags down on Rumble’s desk with a tinny clatter. The name, rank and serial number stamped into the metal belonged to Lt Greg Shriver USMC.
‘Guess we can call off the search,’ Garrett said dryly.
Alex fired him a look that made him back up a step. Before Rumble could stop her, she ripped open the box, and its grisly contents spilled out over the desktop. Fine ash rose up like a dust cloud. Garrett sneezed.
Alex reached down and picked up what was left of Greg’s charred skull. Flakes of carbon fell away as she took it in her hands. His empty eye sockets stared back at her.
Just last night, he’d been there with her. Now he was this.
I’m sorry, Greg.
‘We’ll get these bastards,’ Rumble said. Then, noticing Alex’s frown: ‘What is it?’
‘There’s something in his mouth.’ She poked her fingers in between the charred teeth, brushing away the bits of soot and ash from inside. Wedged at the back of where his throat had been was a small object, black plastic, two inches long. She rooted it out and held it up to show them.
It was a USB flash drive, and it definitely hadn’t been in Greg’s mouth when he’d burned up.
‘Looks like someone has sent us a message,’ Alex said. She put down the skull.
There was black soot on her fingers. She wiped it away quickly.
‘Kelby, run that,’ said Rumble. ‘Let’s take a look.’
Alex dropped the flash drive in Kelby’s palm. He flipped open a laptop on a side table and was about to insert the drive into a port when the office door burst open.
They all looked round to see the pale, startled face and wide eyes of Jen Minto looking at them.
‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Minto’s voice was shaky. ‘You have to come and see this.’
‘In a minute,’ Rumble said irritably. ‘We’re busy.’
Minto gulped. ‘With respect, sir, you really need to come and see this. Now.’
They followed her out into the operations room. Every desk was deserted.
‘Where did everyone go?’ Rumble asked.
Minto pointed at the far end of the room. The entire VIA office staff were crowding around the banks of enormous screens where broadcasts from all over the world played twenty-four/seven. Right now, news channels across Europe were broadcasting the same images to a babble of mixed languages.
‘Let me see.’ Rumble pushed through to the front. Alex followed, and stood next to him as they stared at the screens.
‘That’s—’
‘Terzi,’ Alex said. ‘Or was.’
On the centre screen a pretty Sky News reporter in a bright orange jacket was talking to the camera. Her hair was blowing in the wind and wisps of sleet were drifting by. In the background, fire crews were hosing down the scorched, smoking rubble of what used to be the pharmaceutical plant in the Italian Alps.
‘…speculation about the cause of the blast. Italian police have yet to comment on initial claims that this may not have been a chemical explosion, but a terrorist attack.
Sources have revealed tonight that extremist anti-vivisection groups may have made threats against the company in the past, despite assurances that no animal testing takes place…’
Rumble had seen enough. He grabbed a remote and muted the sound to the whole bank of screens at once. The room was plunged into shocked silence. Then, after a few moments, everyone began to talk over each other in panic as the full implications of what had happened began to hit home.
Rumble jutted out his jaw and let out a long breath. ‘Where’s Slade?’ he demanded loudly.
‘Here, sir.’ A squat, porky vampire with straggly hair and a patchy beard pushed through from the back of the crowd. His shirt was hanging out of his bulging waistline.
They called him The Slob, but behind the scenes Doug Slade was one of the most important cogs in VIA’s operations, responsible for managing and distributing supplies of Nosferol, Solazal and Vambloc for all its agents. And it was through his team that Solazal was rationed out to the thousands of vampires across the Federation’s global realm via its network of vampire doctors and pharmacists.
‘Doug, what’s the state of our stockpiles?’
‘Of everything?’
‘Of everything.’
Slade shrugged. ‘Whoever did this timed it just right, because we were just about to ship a massive order out of there. Stocks are low to desperate. Especially on the Nosferol front.’
‘How desperate is desperate?’
‘Running on fumes, basically.’
Alex was working hard to remember exactly how much Nosferol she had in her private stock, and how many prepared rounds of ammo were in her armoury. She thrust her hand in her jeans pocket. One tube of Solazal, three-quarters full. Enough for a few days. Two more tubes in her bedside drawer — or was it just
one? Like everyone else, she’d been waiting for a delivery.
Kelby said in a stunned voice, ‘What, this happened in the middle of the night and we’re only getting to hear about it from the human media? How come none of our own people there alerted us?’
‘They’re destroyed,’ Alex told him. ‘They’re all gone.’
‘How long before we can restart production?’ Rumble asked Slade.
Slade puffed out his hairy cheeks. ‘Well, even if the formulae had been wiped off the mainframe, as long as we still had a drop left we could still analyse the stuff and start over. No emergency there, okay? But it’s gonna take weeks before we can get supply flowing again. Maybe months before it’s back to normal.’
Rumble exploded. ‘Months! I’m going to find out just what happened here!’
‘Who would have done such a thing?’ Minto said, fear in her eyes.
‘The Trads,’ Alex said. ‘Just like I told you, Harry.’
Everyone turned. Slade goggled at her. ‘The who?’
‘You can’t know that for sure,’ Rumble warned her.
‘No? Let’s see.’ Alex was already heading back to his office. She snatched up the USB drive and came running back into the operations room. She inserted the drive into the computer network and tapped a few keys to divert the image to the big wall screens. ‘Harry, get the sound back up,’ she called over. ‘Everyone quiet.’
The panicky buzz died away. The assembled vampires turned back to face the screens. Even Garrett was too preoccupied to frown about the fact that Alex hadn’t called Rumble ‘sir’. For a few breathless moments, the screens were black — then they suddenly flashed up into life.
From a deep leather chair in a darkened room, a man gazed down at them. Not a man, a vampire — their instincts told them that instantly. His face was half in shadow, but visible enough to show his sleek, aquiline good looks, the thick black hair swept back from his high brow, and the wry, mischievous twinkle in his eye. He seemed to watch them for a moment; a smile crossed his lips as though he were savouring what he was about to say.
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