by Steve Feasey
‘Anna?’ he said.
The darkness was of no consequence to the vampire. His eyes scanned the man’s face, and it was clear that the latter sensed something was wrong with his erstwhile lover. The vampire leaned forward in anticipation.
When the man spoke again, it was in an urgent whisper, the panic in his voice clear to hear. ‘We need to get out of here. We need to go, now. We’ve got to get away from that creature that brought us here.’ He sniffed the air, looking about him. ‘What’s that terrible smell?’
There was a low groan from the zombie, and the man froze at the strange sound.
‘Anna?’ the man said again, taking another step forward to try and get a better look at the thing before him.
The zombie, which had stood unmoving throughout, suddenly exploded into action. A terrible high-pitched shriek came from its mouth as it leaped forward, snaking out an arm to grab the man round the back of his neck and yanking him forward, so that he stumbled and lost his footing. He went down on one knee, and looked up just in time to see the thing as it attacked him, the long black hair on the zombie’s head whipping back and forth as it set about its helpless victim. It curled its fingers into vicious hooks that it used to grab both sides of the man’s head, lowering its face to meet his. But there was no lover’s kiss at the end of this deadly embrace. The man screamed his former lover’s name as the zombie dipped its head and sank its teeth into his cheek, pulling away and chewing on a gory clod of flesh.
The man’s agonized shrieks echoed around the stone walls of the room, and he fell backwards, hands clutching the side of his face in an effort to staunch the river of crimson that poured from the wound. The zombie set about him again, this time going for the throat, ignoring the defensive kicks and blows that the man aimed back at it. A moment or so later, the human’s screams were cut off forever.
Caliban watched as the zombie straightened up. It was covered in gore now, and it chewed on whatever it had in its mouth before swallowing. It looked down at the dead body beneath it, its face expressionless – the fury that had consumed it seconds before had disappeared as quickly as it had ignited. It appeared completely uninterested in the body now that the man was dead.
The smell of hot blood was almost too much for the vampire. He turned to look at the sorceress at his side who was still wavering on the spot like a drunkard.
‘They move much faster than I would have imagined.’
‘The fresh ones do. Those that have been in the ground for any length of time are not so quick.’
Caliban glanced back at the zombie, which was now sitting beside its victim, staring straight ahead unseeingly.
‘Why does it not continue to feed?’ he asked.
‘The dead body no longer has any appeal. The zombie seeks only to kill the living, as if it seeks to steal back the thing it once had. It doesn’t need to eat to survive, and once it has dispatched its victim, it quickly loses interest. If there were other living humans here now it would move on to them, continuing to kill until they were all dead or it was stopped in some way.’
‘And what of the victim?’
Helde glanced at the dead body on the ground beside the zombie. ‘He is infected now. In a short time he will awaken as a zombie himself.’
‘Infected?’
She nodded. ‘Even if he had not been killed, the bite to his face would have been enough to ensure that he would become undead. He’d have become very ill first: fever, hallucinations, fits and eventual “death”. But he would reanimate a short while after.’
‘And that’s how they spread. Infecting others around them like a virus,’ Caliban said, nodding to himself as he thought about releasing creatures like these into the human realm.
‘As long as I am alive, yes.’
‘What?’
‘The infection has been created through sorcery. Through dark magic. I created it, and it exists because of me. If you were to kill me now, the female zombie would survive as a zombie – she has already turned-but the infected one would stay dead and not zombify. If she had not finished him off by savaging his neck in that way, and he’d simply become sick as a result of that first bite, he could fully recover if I, and the zombification sorcery, were to die.’
He looked at her as he took this in. ‘That is interesting,’ he said.
‘I need to rest,’ the sorceress said.
‘Of course.’
‘It will be many hours before I am able to function properly again.’
‘Hours?’ The vampire looked at her in horror.
‘I told you that the process of reanimation was exhausting for me.’
Another thought occurred to Caliban. ‘How many zombies do you think you could create in a day? The maximum number?’
‘Two or three.’
He stared at her for a long time, his face becoming a mask of anger and disbelief. ‘And how are we to create a zombie army if the best you can do is two or three at a go!’
‘And I would need at least that many days to recover in between.’
‘You have deceived me, sorceress!’ he said, taking a step towards her.
‘No,’ she said, her hands coming up before her as she backed off. ‘It was never my intention to use my sorcery skills to create zombie after zombie for you, Caliban. Why would I?’ She gestured towards the revenant and the dead body beside it. ‘You yourself compared them to a virus which spreads. We already have one zombie, and another on the way. All we need to do is capture as many humans as we can, and unleash these two among them. Before you know it, we will have the beginnings of our army. Once we release enough of them in the human realm, the numbers will grow exponentially.’
Caliban considered this. Eventually he nodded.
‘ Good. Then I suggest you get that rest you need, because tomorrow we will begin to create our undead army.’
3
Alexa stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor and the apartment. The various bags that she’d accumulated during her afternoon shopping trip nudged and jostled at her knees, and she glanced down at them, giving a small sigh. It seemed that even shopping wasn’t enough to lift her spirits any more. She smiled briefly as she caught sight of the Selfridges bag among her other things: in it were a pair of three-quarter-length khaki shorts she’d bought for Trey, hoping that they’d cheer him up a bit. He’d been so withdrawn lately, staying in his room and avoiding everyone. And when she asked Tom if he thought she should say something, he’d advised her not to, reasoning that Trey was simply convalescing from his injuries, and would be back to his old self in no time. She’d gone along with him, but hadn’t revealed that she thought there might be more to it than that, and that she was the person Trey was trying to avoid, embarrassed by the things they’d said to each other about their feelings when they were captives of the demon lord, Molok.
The elevator slowed to a halt and the doors slid apart.
The first thing that greeted Alexa was the sound of laughter: Trey’s laughter. The sound lightened her mood considerably, and she wondered briefly if Tom might not have been correct after all. He was playing music too. She stepped out of the lift on to the deep carpet, faltering when she saw the blonde-haired stranger sitting next to Trey on the leather couch. They had their backs to her, and the music was loud enough to cover the sound of her entry.
Blondie leaned in towards Trey, who was pointing something out to her in a magazine he was holding. She nudged him playfully with her head, said something and burst out laughing. Alexa couldn’t believe how strongly the girl was coming on to Trey, who seemed oblivious to her advances, too dense to pick up on the signals. Alexa watched Blondie push a stray lock of hair away from her face, smiling at Trey as she did so.
‘Hello,’ Alexa said in a loud voice.
Trey jumped up off the couch and turned to face her. He blushed, looking like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar just before dinnertime.
‘Lex … er … hi.’ He waved at her, a cl
umsy and awkward greeting. ‘This … this is Ella. She’s a friend of mine.’ He gestured in Blondie’s direction, and the girl stood up next to him, giving Alexa a little nod.
‘Nice to meet you, Ella,’ Alexa said, returning the nod and moving off in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Don’t let me stop you two having fun,’ she said as she passed.
Trey noted the strained tone with which Alexa had spoken, and he watched her as she stiffly walked the length of the room to enter the kitchen without so much as another glance in his direction.
He looked from the kitchen doorway to the girl standing at his side and then back again, as if trying to make up his mind what to do next. ‘I won’t be a minute,’ he said to Ella, pointing in the direction of the kitchen before moving off towards it.
He entered the room and closed the door behind him.
‘What’s up?’he asked.
‘Up?’
‘Yeah. And don’t tell me nothing’s up because it is.’
‘What could possibly be up?’ Alexa said, turning away from him and putting her shopping bags on the side.
Trey stayed quiet and waited.
She went over to the fridge and took out a bottle of water, opened it and took a swig. When she turned back, she raised her eyebrows, feigning surprise to find him still standing there. She pulled the bottle from her lips. ‘Shouldn’t you be out there entertaining your guest?’
Trey looked at her for a minute, a frown beetling his brow, and suddenly his expression changed to one of annoyance. ‘Is that what this is about? The fact that I’ve invited a friend over?’
‘Why should I have a problem with that?’
‘You tell me.’
There was another brief silence, and when Alexa spoke again, her voice was low and quiet.
‘Who is she?’ she asked.
‘We met in Canada. She’s a lycanthrope. A Bitten. She saved my life.’
Alexa looked as if all of the stuffing had suddenly been pulled from her. She gave Trey an incredulous look, her mouth open in a little oh.
‘She saved your life?’
‘Yes.’
Alexa let out a short derisive snort and shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you sometimes.’
‘What?’
‘How come you’ve never told me about her, hmm? How come I know nothing about this girl who saved your life until I walk into this apartment to find you sitting with her on the couch giggling away together like a couple of … idontknowwhats?’
‘In case you hadn’t noticed, you and I haven’t exactly had a great deal of time for each other since we got back. This place—’
‘And whose fault is that, hmm? Whose fault is it that we’ve hardly said more than a few words to each other since coming back?’ She paused briefly. ‘You’ve been avoiding me, Trey!’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Is it? Then how do you explain that every time I walk into a room, you find some excuse to walk out again. How is it that if I’m in the living room, you stay in your room and only come out once I’ve gone. Don’t deny it, Trey, because if there’s one thing you are not, it’s a good liar.’
She stared at him, her jaw pushed forward, lips pressed together, eyes wide as if daring him to contradict her.
‘Look—’
‘No, you look,’ she interrupted angrily. She stopped and took a deep breath, pulling herself together. When she spoke next, her voice was softer. ‘I don’t want you to feel that you owe me anything. When we were in the Netherworld you and I said things about the way we felt towards each other. You came to rescue me, Trey, and I’ll never forget that. But in times of immense pressure people do, and say, strange things.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I suppose what I’m trying to tell you is that I don’t want the things we said … to come between us. Let’s put it down to the stress we were both under, eh? If we can do that, hopefully we can go back to the way things were before and not feel uncomfortable around each other.’
Trey stood looking back at her, unable or unwilling to say anything for a moment or two. Eventually he shook his head and blew out his cheeks. ‘You’re saying you didn’t mean any of those things, is that right?’
‘I’m saying that perhaps we were both a bit … rash.’
She looked up to see the muscles at the side of Trey’s jaw bunching and unbunching as if he were desperately trying to contain himself.
‘Fine, if that’s the way you want it,’ he said.
‘Don’t you?’
He bit his bottom lip, and was about to say something else when he obviously thought better of it. Nodding his head stiffly at her, he turned and left the room.
Alexa looked across at the worktop where she’d thrown her shopping and spotted the bag containing the shorts she’d bought for Trey. She wasn’t quite expecting the tears that quickly came to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
Ten minutes later, when she’d calmed down and washed her face, she went out into the living room again. Trey and Ella had left.
4
Tom opened the door and stepped out on to the roof of the building, glancing across at the chrome-and-glass construction that housed the swimming pool as he did so. The pool was rarely used, and he could usually guarantee that he would be alone up here when he needed to think. He was tense. He’d been working all morning to try and locate where Caliban and Helde might have gone when they disappeared from the Netherworld, but had had no luck. When he detected movement out of the corner of his eye he spun round, crouching slightly, his hand already reaching inside his jacket for the semi-automatic pistol in its shoulder holster.
Trey had looked back over his shoulder at the sound of the door opening. He noted how frazzled his friend looked, and it struck him as strange – except for Lucien, Tom was the most level-headed and unflappable person he knew. He nodded his head at the Irishman, and turned back to look out over the London skyline.
Tom hesitated for a moment before walking over to stand beside the boy. The two of them studied the vista in silence for a while.
‘Nice up here, isn’t it?’ the Irishman said eventually.
‘Yeah. It’s peaceful.’
The two shared another long silence. ‘You OK?’ Tom finally said.
Trey shrugged noncommittally. ‘I suppose so.’
‘A penny for your thoughts, young man.’
‘I was just wondering when it’ll all end,’ Trey said. He turned his attention to the Canary Wharf tower and the other tall buildings which surrounded it. ‘When all of this madness that’s become my life will finally stop. Is it too much to ask? To wish for a life that doesn’t involve looking over my shoulder all of the time in case a murderous vampire or one of his cohorts is creeping up on me? A life that’s just a bit more … normal?’
The Irishman shook his head and sighed. ‘You’re not wrong to want that, lad. And no, it’s not too much to ask.’ He thought about everything that had happened to Trey in the short time that he’d known him, since Lucien – an old friend of Trey’s father – had invited him into their lives and world. In particular, he thought about the boy’s recent exploits in Canada, where he’d gone with such high hopes of finding a family member who would help him cope with his lycanthropy Instead, he’d found his Uncle Frank: a bitter and twisted drunk who’d wanted nothing to do with the boy.
And then there had been the Netherworld and Trey’s forced participation in the vicious and twisted Demon Games to win freedom for himself and Alexa.
Nobody should have to go through such things – particularly one so young. Tom drummed his fingertips against the top of the metal rail. He thought the world of the boy, and he wished he could tell him that everything was going to be all right, but in truth, he wasn’t sure it was.
‘I think things are coming to a head,’ Tom said instead. He let the statement hang in the air for a moment before continuing. ‘Caliban has almost complete control of the Netherworld, and we know he’s planning something big here in the human realm. One way or another, this
thing will end soon.’
Trey nodded. ‘Don’t you ever feel like just walking out on it all? You could, you know. No one would blame you if you just upped and left all this …’ he gestured with his hands in the air before him,’… this madness to the nether-creatures. It’s not really your fight, Tom.’ He stopped and shook his head, still staring out ahead of him, before adding, ‘I’m not even certain that it’s mine.’
They stood there, comfortable enough in each other’s company not to feel the need to fill the ensuing silence with pointless small talk.
Tom eventually broke the silence, speaking in a low, quiet voice that made Trey turn to look at him.
‘The answer to your question is no. I wouldn’t walk away from it all. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have a hard time dealing with a lot of the things I come across, and I often crave a bit of normality over all the “paranormality”, but whenever it gets too much for me I remember how close I was to death when Lucien saved me from those bloodsucking freaks. Not only that, Lucien is a friend of mine, just as you and Alexa are, and I’d never walk out on my friends.’
‘Alexa and I had a row.’ Trey said after a moment.
In spite of himself, Tom couldn’t help but smile at this last revelation.
‘Does this normal life that you want so much mean that you can’t have a girlfriend who’s a dhampir sorceress?’ Tom said.
‘It would seem it does.’
‘That sucks.’
‘Yeah.’
A cloud passed across the sun, and the two of them watched as its shadow rolled over the buildings and streets of the capital.
‘But you know, there’s no such thing as a normal life, Trey. Things have a habit of getting in the way of us leading the lives that we think we’d like. And anyhow, normality’s overrated.’
The sun came out again, and Trey looked across at his friend. ‘What did I do before I had you to talk sense to me, Tom?’ he said, half playfully.
‘Oh, I suspect you worked things out for yourself. It probably just took a little bit longer.’ He winked in the boy’s direction.
