by Andy Maslen
“They’re arriving. Come. We have to go.”
Access to the ballroom was through double doors at one end, and also from a gracious, sweeping staircase of wrought iron that curved down from a galleried hallway on the floor above. We sprinted for the stairs and took them two at a time, knives bouncing against the front of our thighs, arriving on the balcony as the noise levels from the lobby just beyond the ballroom doors intensified. Ariane turned away from me and tried the handle of a door behind us, marked “Staff Only”. It was locked. She brought out a pair of lock picks from her trouser pocket and within a few seconds had jiggled them into the keyhole and sprung the lock. Beyond was a simple storage room containing supplies of soaps, shampoos, and all the other little fripperies hotels like to use to convince us we’re getting value for money when all we need is a comfortable bed and a quiet night. Ha! A quiet night would elude anyone staying at the hotel on this particular date had the management not accepted whatever obscene fee Hearst offered them to keep every single room free for the lamia.
“The drinks service finishes at nine,” Ariane said. “That’s what Con told me. Then they will seat themselves. We’ll wait in here until ten or after, when they have filled themselves with blood, and then Con will detonate the bomb. We’ll be safe in here. The angle of the blast will send any nails that don’t find a home in a lamia into the hallway ceiling. And that door looks nice and solid.”
Not wishing to confine ourselves to our bolt hole too early, we left the storage room, now unlocked, and made our way round the galleried hallway to the door marked with the universal green-and-white sign for the emergency stairs. We descended to the basement, having decided to try to block of any means of escape for the lamia. We had full confidence in Con’s bomb itself, but when you’re fighting lamia it pays to be doubly certain. They are cunning, fast and possessed of a fierce survival instinct. We couldn’t risk even one of the creatures eluding the cleanup operation.
The corridor was concrete-floored, painted plain white and although clean, musty-smelling. No smart, contemporary painting on the walls here. Our footsteps rang out, echoing away down the long, straight passage. We turned a corner and found ourselves facing a fire-door closed with a push bar and flanked by large, red-and-white signs declaring, “DO NOT LOCK”. Ariane locked the door with her picks, then broke them off in the keyhole. She smiled at me, a look of determination mixed with that brand of grim humour I had grown to like over the time I had known her.
We walked back to the dogleg in the corridor and were about to head back when a sound brought me up short. I shushed Ariane, who was telling me how we should approach the scene after the bomb detonated.
“If they’re still moving, use your – what?” she said, a look of irritation flashing across her features.
I pointed to a door just ahead of us, on the right.
“Did you hear it?” I asked her.
“Hear what?” she answered, still frowning.
“It was like a whimper. A human voice, at any rate. I think it came from beyond that door.”
I put my ear to the door and strained to hear something, anything, that would convince me I hadn’t imagined it. But the room beyond was silent. I leaned back.
“Must have been nerves,” I said.
“Maybe,” Ariane said. “Maybe not. Knock.”
“What?”
“Knock. If somebody’s in there they’ll answer.”
She drew the butcher knife from her apron and I did the same with my own knife. And I knocked.
There was a sound on the other side of the door that might have been feet shuffling. And something else. Muffled whispers. More than one voice.
“Hello,” I said, trying to pitch my voice loud enough to penetate the door but not so loud it would travel down the corridor. “Is anyone in there?”
The voice that answered me sounded very frightened. A young woman’s voice. An American accent.
“Help us. Please! You have to help us. Oh my God! Quick!”
I pushed down on the handle. It was locked. I turned to Ariane, about to ask her to work her magic when I remembered she’d just snapped off her lock picks in the fire door.
I put my lips to the door.
“Can you hear me,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Stand back. I’m going to break the door down.”
I could have used my knife but I didn’t want to risk damaging the blade.
I took a step back while Ariane kept watch, looking back the way we’d come from the stairs. Then, trying my best to copy the move I’d seen in a hundred films, I lifted my right foot and kicked out as hard as I could against the door, just below the handle. The wooden door emitted a creak of protest but held firm. I tried a second time, visualising Peta Velds’s face at the point of impact.
The sole of my shoe struck the same spot as before and this time, the noise was more of a splintering than a crack.
“It’s breaking,” the woman cried out from her side.
I decided to use my shoulder, just as I had when I broke into Lucy’s room at the pub in Norfolk when she was attacked by the lamia. I hurled myself at the door, barging it with all the force I could project through my torso.
It gave. The aluminium handle was buckled and half-torn out of the wood surrounding it. One final kick and the door burst open. I stepped through, rubbing my bruised shoulder. And gasped.
Facing us, huddled in groups, were twenty or so men and women, all naked. Their faces betrayed the fear they must have been feeling. Ariane took charge.
“Listen to me. We’re going to get you out of here, but right now, this room is probably the safest place you can be.”
A man stepped forwards, his hands clasped over his genitals. He was young, maybe twenty five, with a straggly brown beard. I noticed he had scabs on the inside of his elbows. A junkie, I assumed.
“You can’t leave us here. Those men who brought us here are going to come back. They said they’d kill us if we even tried to fight. What are they gonna do when they find the door’s been kicked in?”
“What men?” Ariane asked. “What did they look like?”
I knew what she was getting at.
The man stared at her like she was mad.
“I don’t know. Like, doormen, you know? Security types. Big. Tall. Shaved heads.”
What he hadn’t said was as revealing as what he had. These weren’t lamia. They were humans. Servants like Renfield back at David’s laboratory. The lamia are rich enough to find willing helpers who can disregard their evil in return for a payday. Perhaps this was why we hadn’t encountered any security at he door – they were too busy bringing these poor souls into the basement.
“Listen to me,” Ariane said. “If they come back, tell them the truth. Say two crazy women broke the door down. If they leave you to come and find us, it will be their ending.”
A young, ginger-haired woman rushed up to us, one hand covering her breasts, the other her pubis. No needle marks but she was a skinny thing. A runaway, I wondered.
“Take me with you?” she pleaded. “I’m frightened.”
Ariane placed her hands on her shoulders and fixed her with a stare. It was warm but I’ve seen that look before. It brooks no dissent.
“No. It’s too dangerous out there.”
She stepped back and addressed them all at once.
“You have to trust us. The people who had you brought here are evil. We’re here to stop them hurting anyone else. Wait here for us. We’ll be back.”
A black man shouldered his way to the front of the small crowd. He was tall and strongly built, but his eyes had the same look of fear we’d seen in all the others.
“Listen. You busted the door down, which is great, you know. So, thanks for that. But we’re not waiting here to be fucking tortured or whatever.” He turned round and addressed the rest of the prisoners. “I say we go now. There’s a fire door right outside that door. We can get out and call the cops.”
Then
Ariane did something that surprised me. She pulled him round by his shoulder and slapped him, hard, across the cheek. His eyes widened and his lips pulled back from his teeth. Before he could do or say anything, she spoke.
“Listen to me!” she shouted. To him, but I knew she was intending her words to be heard, and understood, by the rest of them. Having silenced the mutters of dissent, she lowered her voice, though it still carried to the back of the room. “Last century, people like you were enslaved in this country. Brutally treated. Denied even your basic rights. My friend, compared to what’s waiting for you upstairs, slavery would seem like a blessing.”
His face contorted with anger.
“What the fuck racist shit are you talking about, you—”
“The people up there?” she interrupted, pointing at the ceiling with her knife. “They are going to bleed you dry, do you understand me? They will drink your blood and throw your drained corpses aside like so many oyster shells.”
This stopped him. He blinked.
“You’re crazy. They can’t. Why? I mean—”
He gave up and stood silently, waiting for Ariane to explain.
I saw the others shuffling closer to hear Ariane’s words.
“Look around you. What did you think was going to happen to twenty naked drifters, runaways and junkies kept prisoner in a hotel basement? Are you expecting your party outfits to arrive in carrier bags from Saks Fifth Avenue? No! You listen to me. Your lives were in danger. But now you are safe. My friends and I will deal with the people who captured you and brought you here. Whatever you hear, whatever you smell, whatever you may think is your best course of action, ignore it. Stay here. We will come and get you as soon as we can.”
Over their protests, she turned and left. I walked out after her, pulling the door to behind me. I was gratified to see that none of them tried to follow us. Perhaps her tone convinced them that their salvation did indeed lie in trusting us.
We made our way back to the balcony and were just in time to shut ourselves into the storage room when we heard the double-doors below us open and the excited chatter of the lamia fill the ballroom. The scraping of chairs, laughter and shuffling of shoes on the floor sounded for all the world like any other formal party. A group of happy people ready to enjoy each other’s company along with plenty of free booze and gourmet food. Only in this case, they were parasites readying themselves to fill their bellies with human blood.
The noise died down and then we heard Hearst calling for quiet. He welcomed them to what he called “this welcome feast for Peta Velds” and then introduced his guest of honour. The opening words of her speech had me and Ariane looking at each other and gaping.
“Dear Morgan, Mister Mayor, honoured guests, family members both old and new, thank you. As you may know, my work in England to find a cure for our aversion to sunlight received a devastating setback recently.”
“Mister Mayor?” I mouthed at Ariane.
She shrugged. I suppose that during her career as a cutter, she has witnessed so much that the Mayor of New York’s turning out to be a lamia is worthy neither of comment nor amazement.
As Peta continued speaking, Ariane nodded towards the door and whispered to me.
“Let’s see what we can see.”
She pulled the handle down and slowly pushed the door open. On her belly, and with her phone ready in her hand, she slithered through the gap and pulled herself across the carpet to the ornate iron railing. She looked back at me over her shoulder and beckoned me with a jerk of her head. Heart racing, I squeezed through the gap and joined her.
Beneath us, the ballroom was now filled with lamia. Twenty tables, ten to a table, looking for all the world like patrons of a charity, gathered to express their support and make their pledges. The males were in black tie, what the Americans call tuxedos, the females in elaborate dresses in black, dark-purple, bottle-green, scarlet and midnight-blue. At the furthest table, Peta Velds was standing as she addressed them. She was wearing a sheath-like dress in an iridescent silvery fabric that clung to her frame, revealing the taut musculature beneath.
In the far corner, raised up on a small, black-draped platform, stood a very expensive-looking video camera on a tripod. I could see a red light above the lens.
Peta closed her speech and raised her glass in a toast. It was filled with a red liquid and although I have seen with my own eyes just how fond the lamia are of alcohol, I knew this was blood.
“To the O-One. To our eventual victory. And to blood!” she cried and downed the contents of her glass in one.
The room echoed her toast and as one, the lamia stood, raised their own glasses and swigged the contents, many wiping their lips afterwards with the backs of their hands, which came away smeared with red.
Waiters appeared with plates of what I took to be food and began serving the lamia. Soon they had begun chatting as they speared whatever disgusting dish their chefs had prepared and conveyed the morsels to their mouths. They were not using their feeding funnels. I can only assume they can manage without them if they aren’t attacking living prey.
While they were eating, the double doors below us swung open and in marched two heavyset men dressed as the young man in the basement room had described. They looked just like nightclub bouncers. They were carrying tall wooden poles set in black metal X's about half a metre across. They took them over to Peta’s table and the one next to it and stood them up on the floor. I had to stifle a gasp. The poles were stakes, sharpened to a wicked point. I watched as Hearst leaned over to Peta and spoke into her ear. She smiled and nodded and raised her glass, which one of the waiters had refilled.
The burly men left, only to return a minute later with two more stakes. We watched as two by two, they brought in another sixteen. Eventually there was one stake standing beside each table. The lamia were laughing and smiling, taking photos of the stakes and posing beside them for selfies.
Hearst clapped his hands for silence. At once, the room stilled. In a deep, commanding tone that reached us as clearly as if he had been standing beside us, he addressed the 200 vampires before him.
“Brothers and sisters. You know about Peta’s illustrious forbears. There is one of that magnificent line whose name is a byword for the power of the lamia. We know him as Vlad Drăculea. The humans as Vlad Țepeş.”
At the mention of the Impaler’s name, the assembled lamia murmured their assent. Hearst continued.
“Tonight, in honour of the Drăculea family, and its most recent head,” he turned and nodded at Peta, “I have asked my chefs to prepare a course that I hope will entertain as much as it nourishes.”
He leaned down and picked up a small, black device that I realised was some sort of remote control. He pointed it a white projector bolted to the ceiling. At once, the walls were covered with a huge, projected blowup of that grotesque woodcut I remembered discussing with Ariane the very time I met her.
In the foreground, Vlad Țepeş, dressed in some sort of winter robe and soft hat, sits at a dining table draped with a cloth. A large goblet and two plates, all, one assumes of silver, stand before him. In the centre of the table, on an oval platter lies, well, I dearly wish to believe it is a roast chicken. However, there is something about the way the creature is positioned, and its anatomy, that reminds one of a baby. Two loaves of bread complete the meal.
To his right, a forest of sharp-pointed stakes bears aloft his presumably recently vanquished enemies. The people appear to be alive: their eyes are open. They are impaled through the anus, the chest, upside down, the right way up. And before him, a man with an axe is chopping up still more people. Body parts are strewn around and a disembodied head stares blindly up from a pan cooking on an open fire.
The lamia cheered and applauded as they took in the details of the woodcut, made all the more vivid for being projected on fifteen-foot high walls.
As the horror of what was to become of the naked people in the basement dawned on me, I leaned closer to Ariane and whi
spered into her ear.
“They’re recreating that ghastly woodcut.”
“I know.”
She looked calm, but I had to hope that internally she was as revolted as I was.
“We have to do something,” I whispered. “We can’t let them murder those people. Not like that. It’s inhuman.”
“Of course it’s inhuman! They are inhuman. Or had you forgotten?”
I was shocked, Was she really going to let the lamia impale twenty human beings while we looked down on the scene and did nothing? As we conducted our argument in whispers, the doors opened one more time. The men appeared beneath us, their shoulders and torsos foreshortened into black blocks beneath us. Each man carried a silver jug. They walked up to the two nearest stakes and reached up to tilt the jugs over the points. I almost wretched. They were pouring oil onto them.
“Please!” I whispered. “Text Con. Tell him to detonate it now. Or do it yourself.”
By way of answer she pointed down. I realised not all the lamia were seated. Some had left their chairs to inspect the stakes. Others were table-hopping, bending at their neighbours’ places to talk. Still others were approaching Peta and either kissing her or shaking her hand. Then, disaster! She gestured at the centrepiece then pointed off to one side of the room. She seemed to be saying that the huge display of flowers was obscuring her view of the furthermost stakes. Half a dozen lamia moved immediately to the red ceramic sphere and bent to encircle it with their arms. As one, they straightened their knees and lifted the whole thing clear of the floor.
