Cookers hissed gently. Refrigerator units cycled on and off. Bubbles burst in a soft drink on one of the tables as it slowly went flat. A mix of metallic clinks and leathery creaks puzzled him though and he turned to face its source – Julian.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
“It’s a weapon.”
He had taken a glove from his bag and was strapping it onto his left hand and wrist. The fingerless glove was brown leather, but it was wrapped in what looked like white metal shot through with lines of silver. There was a pale, colourless gem on the back of his hand and it caught the light in a weird way, as if reflecting more light than it received. When Julian turned his hand it split the light into more colours than Rob thought existed. The lines looked like circuitry lines, Rob realised, and they linked to a silver circle on his palm.
Julian closed his hand into a fist and opened it. The crystal emitted a high-pitched ringing sound that made Rob clap his hands to his ears and then went silent.
“Sorry,” Julian said.
“Very disco.”
Julian held his hand out palm up. Little arcs of lightning curled up from the silver ring.
“You can be my lightshow while I kick some arse,” Rob said. “Now I just need a sound guy. Think anybody at work fits the bill?”
“Rob.” Julian let his hand fall to his side. “Are you good with this?”
“Yeah sure,” Rob said. “Not the first trouble we’ve been in, right?”
“That was different. Trouble found us and it was over pretty fast. This is … we’re going looking for that trouble. We are without doubt walking into an ambush. And there’s something wrong here, something really wrong. The further we’ve moved from the van and the cargo, the stronger that sensation has grown. When we do find the trouble we’re looking for, it could be truly horrible.”
He actually looked concerned. Rob said, “Truly horrible is waking up the morning after a full moon night to find out I’ve hunted, killed and eaten a human being. So thanks, but whatever we’re in for here I can deal with it. We’ll deal with it, right?”
Julian replied with a grave nod. “What are you getting from this place?”
Rob felt a moment of surprised pleasure in that Julian took him at his word. He wasn’t used to trusting himself, let alone being trusted by others. “Lots of people have been here and not that long ago.” He waved at the stuck clock. “I’d say half an hour ago is right. I think I’ve caught a whiff of fear, but there wasn’t a big panic.”
“So whatever happened was subtle,” Julian said.
“And wrong, like you say.”
“You’re getting something of that too?”
“Smells…” Rob shrugged. “Slimy. Like old fish. I don’t know, it doesn’t really smell like anything. I just don’t like it.”
Julian surveyed the restaurant. “We’ll search the whole place, area by area, and we’ll stick together. If we get separated, our rally point is the door where we came in.”
They began with the seating area. Julian led the way back and forth across it in what Rob started to see was a search pattern. He chose their course as though he expected to stumble across bodies hidden beneath the tables. When they found nothing, they moved into the coffee shop.
Julian gestured with hand signals and they went behind the counter. They found a kitchen and storage area behind it, but no people and no signs of struggle. The back door was as immobile as the service station’s main doors.
In the newsagent, the blank faces of models stared at them from racks of glossy magazines. A shelf of books filled Rob’s nose with the scent of cheap paper. A refrigerator unit filled with water, soft drinks and sandwiches hummed at the back of the shop. The soft sound would normally be lost behind the noise of people, but was easy to hear in the hush that had fallen over the service station.
He picked up a chocolate bar from a rack by the counters and sniffed it. He frowned and held it closer to his nose. It smelled like a chocolate bar wrapped in foil, but it also smelled weird.
“Don’t,” Julian said.
Rob looked over his shoulder and smirked. “Not tempted, Mr Straight-and-Narrow?”
“It could be tainted.”
The grin fell off Rob’s face. He dropped the chocolate bar on the counter.
The fluorescent lights near the toilets stuttered for a moment when they drew near. Rob said, “Creepy.”
“Actually, that’s probably me.” Julian held up his gauntlet. “The gem here absorbs ambient energy.”
“How sure are you about that probably?” Rob asked.
“Good point.”
Rob went first. He felt he was getting the hang of this. It was just a hunt, after all. Every part of him knew what a hunt was. Sure, that weirdness still tickled at his senses, like musical instruments all out of tune with each other, but he told himself that was just background.
He looked over his shoulder and saw Julian sidling along, keeping an eye out behind them.
Then the scent of human fear hit him and almost obliterated all thought. He grunted and sucked in a deep breath of it. He shivered right down to his bones with the need to change, to run, to pursue.
He took several deep breaths. “Here.” His voice was a thick growl.
“What do you have?” Julian asked.
They were standing outside the ladies toilet. “There’s a woman in there.” He had a little more control of himself. “She’s terrified. Stinks of it.”
Julian nodded. Each stood waiting for the other to move.
“Do you want me to go first?” Julian asked.
“But it’s the ladies toilet.”
“Oh, come on.”
“It’s the ladies,” Rob said. “What if she’s – I don’t know.”
“Yes, what if she’s replacing her tampon?”
“Aw fuck man,” Rob said. “That was harsh.”
Julian shook his head and started through the doorway.
Rob heaved a sigh. “Get out of the way. I’ll go first. You don’t shake off bullets, remember?”
He had to force himself not to tiptoe as he passed the line of sinks and crept towards the cubicles. From the woman’s scent he knew he was only making her more frightened, but he couldn’t help that. He stopped in front of the only closed cubicle, looked at Julian and signalled.
Julian moved his gloved hand a little further away from his body. He pointed at Rob with two fingers and then at the cubicle door.
Rob raised his hand and mouthed, Are you kidding me?
Julian rolled his eyes and repeated his gestures.
Rob gritted his teeth and pressed his hand against the door. It didn’t move.
He was about to gesture frantically at the door that led back out to the gender-neutral safety of the restaurant area, but Julian pointed at the lock and twisted his fingers. The red band clacked over to green.
The woman’s terror spiked. Rob’s nostrils went wide and his hands shook. He closed his fingers around his iron wrist-chain in his pocket. He tried to pretend he was opening a refrigerator because that’s the first thing he thought of, unfortunate food associations and all. He pushed the door open.
A woman crouched on top of the toilet seat in the tiny cubicle. She hunched there like a mole cowering in its burrow. She was in her late forties, dressed in a business suit and clutching a pair of heels tight against her chest.
Rob held out his hand, stepped forward and opened his mouth to say something reassuring.
The woman screamed. Her right hand snapped up with a can of mace and she sprayed it directly into his face.
Rob roared and fell backwards. His mouth, nose and eyes were full of chemical fire. He crashed into the wall, his chest heaving against the sudden restriction of his airways. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t smell.
It was finally too much.
Roaring now in anger, he changed. His body swelled. His coat and shirt tore down the back, his belt buckle caromed off into a corner and his sho
es split along the seams. He filled the space between the cubicles and the wall, a dark giant of long, grasping limbs, tearing claws and rending teeth. He forced his swollen eyes open, fixed on the tear-blurred shape of the woman now below and in front of him and threw himself at her.
He was yanked sideways. He flew through the air, hit the electric hand dryer and smashed it to pieces with his weight. The lights went out for half a second and he heard cheap metal snap, followed by the groan of straining water pipes. The lights came back on just in time for him to be hit in the face with a jet of water.
Shouting and swearing, he staggered to the side. The stream of water followed him. He grabbed the thin, twisted remains of the hand dryer and tried to use it as a shield.
The jet of water stopped. He wiped his swollen eyes to find a snake of water looping through the air in front of him.
“Are you in control?” Julian asked. His eyes brimmed with tears of laughter. His hand, the one without the gauntlet, was stretched out towards the water snake.
“You bastard,” Rob said.
Julian held out his gloved hand. “Don’t worry, I have her mace.”
Rob rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. “That wasn’t fucking funny.”
Julian’s shoulders shook as he held in more laughter. “I have to disagree with you on that one.”
Rob growled and looked up at the water snake. He slapped at it and it shattered into a thousand drops. Julian made a gesture at the row of sinks. The pipes groaned again and water stopped pouring out of the missing tap. The last of it overflowed the sink and spread out on the floor.
Rob lumbered over to the sinks, glowered at the full one and splashed water on his face. It didn’t do anything for the burning in his lungs and airways.
“It’s all right,” Julian said. He stood in front of the cubicle with the woman in it. “My name’s Julian. We’re not going to hurt you.”
She stuttered and stammered. It sounded like she was trying to say ‘monster.’
“I’ll show her a monster,” Rob muttered.
“Your name is Laurie, isn’t it?” Julian asked.
A shocked silence. “How do you know that?”
“I just do. It’s safe to come out, Laurie. My friend Rob won’t hurt you.”
He heard her climb down from the toilet seat. On stockinged feet and clutching Julian’s arm like it was a branch in a flood, she allowed Julian to draw her out to where the sinks were.
She stared up at Rob in horror.
“He’s not going to hurt you,” Julian said. “Are you Rob?”
Rob rumbled deep in his chest. The excellent acoustics of the bathroom magnified the sound in a very satisfying way. Laurie wilted.
“Rob.”
“Fine,” he said. “No, I’m not going to hurt you.”
Julian held out the can of mace to Laurie. “Here, this is yours. But please don’t pepper-spray the werewolf again.” Laurie gripped the can tight and held it to her chest, along with her shoes. “Laurie, what happened here?”
“I don’t know. There were people falling over everywhere and there was this man …” She started really shaking and tears spilled down her cheeks. “He was just – He was –”
Laurie pulled away from Julian. When she yanked her arm out of his grip her jacket opened and Rob saw a bloodstain on her shirt.
“She’s hurt,” Rob said.
Julian looked at her as though looking through her. He closed the hand that had touched her, rubbing his fingers against his palm.
“She’s bleeding, Julian.”
“Yes,” he said, his voice cold. “Laurie, let me see.”
“No. Stay away from me.” Julian took a step towards her and she shrank back. “Stay away!”
“Want me to hold her?” Rob asked.
“No, guard the door. I can handle her. Laurie, stand still.”
Rob, intending to move so his bulk blocked the doorway, found his feet were rooted to the tiled floor. Laurie shuddered and swayed, but she kept trying to get around Julian.
“Don’t touch me,” she spat. “Don’t touch me you freak.”
“Oh Laurie.” Julian sounded sad rather than angry. Without moving he sent her slamming against the wall of the end cubicle.
Rob felt a little better seeing that.
Laurie screamed and thrashed, but she couldn’t stop Julian from unfastening the bottom two buttons of her shirt and pulling it aside. “Have a look, Rob.”
When Rob didn’t respond he looked around. “Oh, sorry. My aim is terrible with that.” He nodded his head to Rob and just like that Rob could move.
“Was that hypnotism or something?” Rob said.
“Look at this,” Julian said.
“What are you doing to her? This is kind of messed up.”
“Look,” Julian said.
He had lifted her shirt to reveal a wound on her stomach, a small circular hole a few centimetres to one side of her navel. It didn’t appear to be clotting but at the same time it wasn’t bleeding much. The skin around the wound glistened and was threaded with grey spirals.
“What is it?” Rob asked.
“She’s been impregnated,” Julian said. “We need to kill her.”
Chapter 16 – Fiona, Thursday Night
Fiona took the train across the river to Clapham. She made an effort not to think about vampires on the journey, but it was too easy to imagine looking down the carriage to see Alice staring back at her from amongst the evening commuters.
But Alice was, at least, a half-understood danger. She spent most of her trip worrying about Yadrim, a nondescript man with a pocket-watch who had, for a tiny moment, looked very much other than human.
What is your name this time, girl?
Her fellow commuters did their best to distract her from her troubles. On the District Line leg of her journey a girl kept up a constant stream of angry words into her phone about some boy. Fiona wondered who was on the other end of the line and if they despised the girl as much as she did by the time she got off the train. On the overland train to Clapham Junction, a man kept flicking his copy of one of the free evening newspapers open in such a way that it snapped against her arm. It shouldn’t have been anywhere near as annoying as it was.
She got off the train glad to breathe air that hadn’t already been breathed ten times before by an assortment of people with hygiene, dietary and alcohol problems. She wondered how people with regular jobs put up with that every day.
Fiona stopped dead on the train platform.
Where do I get my money?
She didn’t have much in her bank account, but then she didn’t spend much. Somehow the question had just never occurred to her. Her mother – or rather, the woman she thought of as her mother – certainly couldn’t afford to support the family and provide her with pocket money on her job. She wasn’t on benefits, so it wasn’t coming from the government. By means she had never considered, her bank balance ticked up now and then just enough to keep her in the black.
Outrage heated her cheeks. The closer she looked at her life, the less it made sense. Fiona Kendall was a fabrication. She could take nothing for granted about herself, past or present.
In case it helped, she took her phone from her pocket and sent Jessica a text message suggesting she try to find out where the money in her account came from. A girl with a talking tortoise capable of building a weapon for zapping vampires could, she hoped, find out such things. Her hands only shook a little as she typed.
The streets of Clapham were filled with a mix of city workers in business attire returning home and people with less definable lifestyles hanging around pubs and cafés. Fiona adjusted her regular city armour. Rather than resolutely ignore everyone else around her, she looked from face to face.
She saw sober people, drunken people, high people, tired people, people who seemed startled to find her looking at them and people who were angry that she looked at them. She did not see any vampires and she was sure now that she would if
any happened along. She did not see a man with two faces, the hidden one less human than the one presented for all to see.
The buildings on her left fell away for a space as she followed the map on her phone uphill. The view caught her eye and stopped, shocked by what she saw. She could see rooftops and trees down to the Thames and though she couldn’t see the river itself, she could see Fulham beyond it, twinkling in the night. But it was the sky that drew Fiona’s attention.
It was covered in lines of light.
She couldn’t see their point of origin but they seemed to rise from the centre of the city. They peaked below the clouds and fanned out across the part of London visible to her. She saw lines drop in Battersea to her east and what must be Vauxhall and Lambeth beyond. More fell around her in Clapham, while others reached further out to west to Richmond. Many more curved down north of the Thames, at least as far out as where she guessed Heathrow lay.
She had no idea what they could be. No idea at all.
The address Marwan had given her was in a row of council flats a few blocks back from the high street. She double-checked it when she saw what a dump the place was. Council flats in London usually looked like they’d had all life and joy sucked out of them, but this one tottered on the edge of dereliction. After the opulence of the Tonnos’ she had expected something a little grander.
At one of the building entrances she squinted at the buttons beside the speaker, trying to work out which one of them might be the number she was looking for. In the end she shrugged and went with her best guess.
“Yes?” The voice was female and aged, its harshness accentuated by the poor quality wiring in the intercom system.
“I’m here to see Margaret Bray. Marwan Tonno referred me.”
The crackling continued, but without a voice. Fiona began to wonder if the woman had fallen asleep and poised her finger over the intercom button again.
Ghost Electricity Page 15
