“What is it, sweetheart?” I asked softly.
Dent must have heard me because she turned and raised her eyebrows.
“Ms. Hennessey?” she asked. “Have you seen these before?”
“The vampires call them indominati. We just called them ‘the beasts’. Some vampires lose their minds completely when they’re turned, becoming wild beasts: mindless, savage killers. Even the vampires hate the indominati. They usually kill them on sight. If this Marcus has kept some alive he’s very dangerous.”
“I thought the indominati were a myth,” said Norse.
“I’m sorry?” I said in the silence. “What is it you do for a living?”
There were a few chuckles.
“Thank you, Pagan,” said Dent. “Anyway, the intel suggests that Demios has at least two hundred of these indominati, maybe more. If he unleashes them, we’ll be up that famous creek without any means of propulsion.”
I leaned close to Marie.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” I asked.
“It was a group of indominati that killed my parents,” she replied.
I put my arm around her shoulders and held her close.
“We’ll be deploying you to the front,” Dent was saying. “Each team will be getting individual briefings but we need to hurry this along if we’re going to get Pagan’s team to their destination by dawn. Are you fit, Pagan?”
“Well of course he’s fit,” came the female voice again. “Meee-ow!”
“Shut up, Knuckles,” I said over the laughter, finally identifying the owner of the voice. “Can’t somebody gag her?”
“You think you’re big enough to make me gag, Pagan?”
When the laughter had subsided I rolled my eyes.
“I think I’ve created a monster,” I said.
“Yes, so do I,” said Dent. “I meant fit as in ‘healthy’, not fit as in ‘sexy’.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m fit as in ‘healthy’ and ready to go.”
“Good,” said Dent. “There’s a chopper waiting outside for you—and that’s chopper as in ‘helicopter’ not chopper as in ‘penis’, Knuckles.”
That got the biggest laugh of the night.
CHAPTER
31
We were racing the dawn, traveling in a Lynx, hurtling northwards. We were headed towards Sheffield, for a safe house called The Falcon. I’d managed to lay my hands on one of those shiny silver-colored fire blankets but I’d prefer to get us on the ground and under cover before the sun rose.
I could see the lights of Sheffield passing beneath us as the sky began to lighten. I was starting to get a little worried. The helicopter dipped as we lost altitude and began to circle. I could see The Falcon below us as the sun broke the horizon. Anna gasped and turned her face away from the window but the helicopter performed a gut-wrenching drop and we descended into shadow again.
“Sorry about that folks,” came the pilot’s voice over our headsets. “We’ll be on the ground in five seconds.”
The helicopter’s skids touched down and John wrenched the door open. He and Anna jumped out and reached for their kit.
“Go!” I yelled. “We’ll bring everything!”
Marie was nodding next to me, making little shooing gestures with her hands. John and Anna took off running for the door. I breathed a sigh of relief when they were safely inside.
I swung out of the helicopter and started manhandling our bergans out with Marie’s help. When we were clear I reached in through the pilot’s window and slapped him on the shoulder. Then I gave him a thumbs up and mouthed “Thanks buddy!”
He grinned, his white teeth in sharp contrast to his dark skin. He mouthed back “Any time, brother!”
I stepped back as the helicopter rose from the ground and climbed into the air. Marie and I grabbed our bags and started towards the inn. One of the few benefits that the vamps had brought was a virtual end to racism in the country. Nobody cared what color your skin was as long as you were human. We were all, finally, brothers and sisters. There were those who would probably think I was betraying humanity by sleeping with a werewolf. They could take a long walk off of a short pier for all I cared.
We were almost to the door when Marie dropped the bags she was carrying and went for her gun. I didn’t even question. My bergan hit the ground along with John’s and the MP7 came out.
Marie was sniffing the air. Her sense of smell was better in wolf form, but at any time she had a sensitive nose.
“Vamps,” she whispered. “Inside.”
I didn’t need to ask her if it was Anna. This was obviously something else. I motioned her to go around the back as I slipped off the safety on my holstered SIG and then pulled out the MP7’s stock and front grip. With the weapon at my shoulder I slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open, smelling the rusty odor of fresh blood. Shit.
“Come inside, vampire hunter,” came a voice from the public bar. It was a ridiculous looking vampire with bright purple hair arranged into greasy spikes. She was wearing a battered leather jacket over a black push-up bra and leather miniskirt. This was one of the newly turned. She had probably been a vampire for no more than a couple of years. She looked like the kind of idiot who used to read vapid vampire romances and thought it would be ‘like, wicked awesome’ if she could meet a real vampire. Black Tuesday must have been like Christmas for her. There were five other vamps in the room, all fashion victims, all trying their best to look cool and in control. Two male vamps were leaning against a wall, negligently holding knives, and three females were doing variations on a self-superior sneer. Chrome and leather were much in evidence, except one mousy, pouty poster-child for teen angst that had obviously decided that a black ball gown and heavy goth makeup was the look for the undead.
I could see, over by the bar, the crumpled figures of the husband and wife that ran the inn. They looked dead.
John and Anna were kneeling on the floor, disarmed and looking surprisingly calm about their predicament. Purple hair had my attention, though, because she had a knife to Anna’s throat. I glanced to Anna’s face and she gave me a tiny wink that made me feel better. The knife wasn’t even silver so the vamps didn’t know who she was. The knife at John’s throat was enough of a threat, though. I had to pick my moment.
“What do you want?” I asked purple hair, looking at her through the sights of my weapon.
“The Master is in need of a new whore to fuck to death,” said purple hair. “He likes vampire hunter pussy, so I think I’ll deliver this slut to him.”
I saw John stiffen at the insults and mentally implored him to stay put. He was the only one in danger in the room and he needed to swallow his instincts for a second. From where I was standing I could see Marie behind the bar. She was hidden behind a section of wall that held a threadbare dartboard and the vamps, I hoped, couldn’t see her.
“The Master will reward us greatly for this service to him,” said purple hair.
Anna had her eyes closed, her brow creased in a tiny furrow of concentration as she tried to dominate someone in the room. The vamps may be young and inexperienced, but they weren’t of her bloodline. Dominating one would be difficult.
“So,” said purple hair. “Put the gun down and maybe we’ll only take the whore.”
This was Darwinian evolution in action. Some things are just too dumb to survive.
The vamp standing behind John—little Miss ball gown—suddenly went still, her eyes glazing over and the knife inching away from his throat.
I lowered my gun and spread my left hand open in a placating gesture.
“It’s okay,” I said in my most reasonable tone of voice. “There’s no need to get violent.”
“Shut up, fag!” the vampire snapped. “We’re taking the bitch and we’re taking the weapons.”
“No,” I said softly, “you’re not.”
I whipped my SIG out of its holster and threw it to John as he dived forward. Marie stepped smoothly around the wall, firing a three-roun
d burst from the shorty that flung one of the male vampires backwards. I dropped one of the females with a burst from the MP7 as John completed his roll and brought the SIG up. With a double-tap he hit Miss ball gown in the heart. Anna was on her feet, wrestling purple hair to the ground, so I spun and pinned one of the females with a long burst. Marie’s shorty roared again and the other two female vamps died. The last male was standing with his mouth open, his acne-littered face clearly registering his shock. Marie and I fired simultaneously, tearing him apart.
Anna spun, throwing purple hair across the room and John emptied the SIG’s magazine into her as she hit the ground.
“Fucking bitch,” yelled Anna as she turned around.
The hilt of purple hair’s knife protruded from her chest and her throat was sluggishly leaking blood.
“Do these idiots have any idea how much blood stains?” she asked in an exasperated voice.
She wrenched the knife from her chest with a wet, sucking noise and threw it away. Her brow furrowed again as she concentrated, turning her attention inwards.
I was covering the bodies with the MP7 in case any were playing possum but my eyes were drawn to Anna. The long slash along her throat closed, the flesh knitting together until even the scar faded and disappeared. Once again I was reminded just how much my old friend had changed. Then she gave me a cheeky smile that reminded me of how much was the same. It also caused a slight pang in my stomach, a distant echo of the pain I’d felt when I’d realized, a month after I’d met her, that I was falling in love with a happily married woman. Would John, I often wondered, be as comfortable with my flirting if he knew how deeply my feelings had run?
No, I didn’t consider Marie to be some sort of second prize. I’d long since gotten over my infatuation for Anna, and it had matured into a close and abiding friendship, but every so often something happened that made me remember how I used to feel.
“You okay, love?” asked John as he got to his feet.
“I’m fine,” she said quietly.
“You sure, love?” he asked, stepping towards her.
“Yeah, we may need to move up my next feeding by a couple of days, but I should be okay.”
“Glad to hear it, Anna,” I said.
John passed the SIG back to me with a nod of thanks, and then gathered up their weapons. I reloaded both of my handguns and returned them to their holsters.
“Okay, so what the hell happened?”
“They were waiting for us,” said Anna. “Well, not for us specifically, but they were waiting for some hunters to turn up. When John and I came in they hit him with a taser and the bitch with the hair put a knife to my throat.”
“Well, in that case, are you okay John?” I asked.
He nodded and stretched.
“Yeah, I’m feeling a little groggy, but better,” he said eventually.
Marie and I dragged the bodies outside and threw them in a pile next to the rubbish bins, then went back into the bar. John had covered the human bodies with a sheet.
“Okay, break out our new toys and get me the Ministry.”
Before leaving we’d been equipped with a new satellite phone and a laptop computer no bigger than a hardback novel. With the two linked together we could access the Ministry’s computer network. It was an innovation the tech boys had been working on for a while. Anna pecked at keys for a second and then nodded.
“I’m in,” she said.
“We’re going to need the local police for the owners,” I said. “If they can be trusted, that is. And file a report with the Ministry. Apparently this new guy’s reach is already further than we thought.”
“We don’t know that,” said John. “They might have just been looking for a way into his good books.”
“No,” said Anna absently as she typed. “They called him ‘The Master’ which means he owns them. They were probably looking for promotion.”
I shrugged. I didn’t care about the vamps anymore. I just didn’t want any other hunters walking into an ambush. If the safe houses were compromised, we needed to know about it.
“How did they get in?” asked Marie when she came back into the bar. “I checked upstairs. The couple—Phil and Edna Perkins, by the way—lived right upstairs. How did the vamps get into someone’s home?”
That had been bothering me, too.
“Maybe they got invited in?” asked John.
“Possibly,” I said cautiously. “I’d certainly feel a lot better when we find out.”
“Wait,” said Marie. “How does Anna get into these places?”
“I work for the Ministry,” she said. “The safe houses are run for the Ministry, so I have an open invitation to all of them, so does any vampire who works for us.”
“Wait,” said John. “You don’t think one of those was with the Ministry?”
“I dunno, let’s find out shall we?”
CHAPTER
32
Back in the early days of the Ministry there was one pompous idiot in charge of a lot of things who managed to push a few of his most ridiculous notions through the committee procedure. Some of them have been quietly shelved since, but some stuck around. About the only useful thing this idiot did was passing a regulation giving each Ministry hunter a badge. Personally I believe he was enamored of those American cop dramas where people wander around flashing their shields at everyone. Still, I had a badge. I’ll admit it was pretty. It had the obligatory little crown on top, was shiny silver, had a motto around the edge—γνώθι σεαυτόν—and was made of silver so it looked great. The center was an enameled image of the Ministry crest, a sword against the St. George’s Flag.
It was an impressive little piece of kit and people tended to pay attention when you showed it off. I had one, Anna and John had one each, and Marie’s was new enough that the leather still had the creak.
Currently I had no idea where mine was. The third or fourth time I’d lost it Anna forcibly took it from me and took responsibility for it. Now, if I wanted my badge I had to get it from Anna. The problem was that Anna was asleep and I didn’t want to wake her. With the local cops coming in I might have to stamp my authority, so I might need the badge.
Marie came up behind me and slipped her arm around my waist.
“Penny for your thoughts?” she said.
I shrugged and smiled.
“Just wondering what Anna did with my badge,” I said.
“Oh, this?” said Marie, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a slim leather wallet.
“Where did you find that?” I asked.
“Anna gave it to me a few weeks ago. Apparently I’m supposed to be your keeper now.”
I tucked the badge away and smiled as I took her in my arms.
“Oh, you’re a keeper, that’s for sure,” I said.
“Wow, how do you take those cheesy lines and make them sound romantic?” she asked with an affectionate smile.
I pulled her close and kissed her.
“I know I shouldn’t feel like this right after a firefight but I feel like locking the doors, taking you upstairs and seeing how loud I can make you scream.”
“Well,” she said, playing with the zipper on my jacket. “We do have some unfinished business.”
I kissed her again, taking my time and enjoying every moment, her tongue darting into my mouth and sending electricity down my spine.
Someone cleared their throat and I suppressed a groan.
“Are you Pagan, sir?” asked a young woman in a WPC’s uniform.
“Yes,” I sighed. “That’s me.”
“No offence sir, but do you have any identification?” said the hulking constable who was standing at the WPC’s back with his beefy arms folded across his barrel chest.
I winked at Marie and pulled out my badge. The constable spent, in my opinion, an insultingly long time studying both it and the accompanying ID card before handing it back.
“I’m PC Jackson, this is WPC Birkenstock,” said the man.
; “Pagan,” I said. “And this is Marie Hennessey from my team.”
“Your report said there were four hunters here, where are the other two?”
“Well one’s here,” said John, stepping out into the bar. “And the other’s upstairs, asleep.”
“Officers, this is John Clarke,” I said. “John, this is WPC Birkenstock and PC Jackson. John’s wife is our fourth and she was wounded, so she’s resting.”
“We’ll need to speak to her, too,” said Jackson.
“Funny,” said John, his arms crossed over his chest. “Doesn’t feel like my body is dead.”
PC Jackson looked like he was about to explode.
“Leave it alone, you two,” I said, holding up my hand. “We’re on the same side. Anna will be up and about later on and we’ll see about a statement then, okay?”
“We need to ask your entire team some questions,” said Jackson stubbornly.
I took a few slow steps forward, placing myself square in front of him.
“We are not suspects here, constable, and this is a crime involving vampires,” I said with quiet menace. “By law this case belongs to us and we only called you in as a courtesy.”
WPC Birkenstock held her hands up.
“Hey, we’re not looking to tread on any toes,” she said firmly. “And we understand that this is your area of expertise. We need to cooperate here.”
I nodded and stepped back.
“We have a SOCO team outside,” she said. “We need them to come in.”
I nodded again. The Scenes Of Crime Officer would need to photograph the bodies of the old couple and make a report.
“Where are the vampires?” asked Jackson.
“We took them out and threw them by the bins with all the rest of the rubbish,” I replied.
“Why?” he said, his voice rising. “You just walk into our city, have a shoot up in a bar and then disturb the crime scene? I’m fed up with you hunters walking around like you own the place!”
“Actually, if you want to get technical, I do own the place,” I said. “This is a Ministry-run inn and safe house and, as the Ministry’s representative on the scene if the owners are killed, it belongs to me. That’s the law. I chose to remove the vampires because we needed to get them out into the sun so they couldn’t heal; on the off chance that one was still alive. SOP.”
Pagan (MPRD Book 1) Page 20
