by Nick Moseley
‘What, then?’ said Carter. They had reached the fourth floor and could see a faint light outlining the door to the fifth floor above them, which had been propped open.
‘I don’t know, let me think,’ Trev hissed. They stopped on the fourth floor landing while Trev desperately tried to come up with a scenario that didn’t end with everyone dead. There was no way that he was going to follow Corbyn’s instruction to face the wall; he might as well just get Carter to shoot him there and then and save the vampire the effort. But if they didn’t follow Corbyn’s instructions, he would probably kill Ingersoll and Rahman.
‘You’d better hurry up and make an appearance,’ Corbyn’s voice said in Trev’s ear. ‘I’m getting edgy.’
‘He’s going to kill them,’ Carter whispered. ‘We have to do something!’
Trev clicked his radio. ‘We’re just coming up now,’ he said, doing a dodgy Brummie accent so that Corbyn wouldn’t recognise his voice.
‘Get a move on then,’ came the reply.
Carter gave Trev a questioning look. Trev shook his head in response and climbed the last flight of stairs until he was standing on the fifth floor landing, just to the side of the door. The room beyond was lit, though not brightly. Peering around the doorframe Trev could see that the floor was uncarpeted and the walls bare. A pair of supporting pillars, built of grey concrete blocks, were visible to the left. On the far side of the room he could see Ingersoll and Rahman slumped against the wall. Neither was moving and it was too dark to tell if they were breathing.
‘We’re on the fifth floor landing,’ Trev reported to Corbyn.
‘Walk directly across the room from the door and put your hands on the opposite wall,’ the vampire replied.
‘No, I don’t think we’re going to do that,’ Trev said. Carter gave him a look of bug-eyed surprise that would have been very funny under different circumstances.
There was a pause. ‘What?’ said Corbyn.
‘We can’t tell if our colleagues are alive or dead,’ Trev said. ‘If you’ve killed them, then you’ll do the same to us as soon as our backs are turned.’
‘They’re unconscious, but alive,’ Corbyn said. ‘You’ll just have to take my word for it.’
Trev set his jaw and pretended he couldn’t see Carter’s frantic gesticulations. ‘Not going to happen. We’ll need proof that they’re alive before we do anything. Otherwise we can all just sit here until our backup arrives, which should be less than ten minutes.’
It was, of course, a bluff. Trev mentally cursed the Custodians and their lack of manpower. If they’d had more people available, he wouldn’t have been there in the first place. Corbyn wasn’t to know that, however. Trev had only encountered the vampire once before but he knew he wasn’t stupid. Ruthless, immoral, and annoyingly smug, yes; but not stupid. He was backed into a corner and he had to know it. Trev hoped he would be willing to compromise as a result.
‘All right, I’ll turn the light on them so you can see that they’re breathing,’ said Corbyn. ‘When I’ve done that, I want you facing that wall.’
‘Light first, then we’ll talk,’ Trev said. He sounded far more confident than he actually felt. Despite the cold he was sweating and his hands were trembling. If he judged things wrongly then he’d have four deaths on his hands. Although one of them would be his, so at least he wasn’t going to get a bollocking for it.
Inside the room the light-source – whatever it was – moved. The level of illumination increased as it drew nearer, and Trev was able to make out Ingersoll and Rahman more clearly. As Corbyn had claimed, both appeared to be breathing. Trev now also knew which side of the room Corbyn was on. His little gamble had paid off.
‘There,’ said Corbyn. ‘Alive, as I told you. Now, over to the wall.’
‘No,’ said Trev. Next to him, Carter was fidgeting so much that he looked like he was having a seizure. ‘Now we discuss you giving yourself up.’
Corbyn barked out a laugh. It was loud enough for Trev to hear him without the need for the radio. ‘Are you serious? Get over there now, or I kill these two.’
‘No you won’t,’ Trev said. ‘If you do that, then we’ll just stay here and block the stairs until our backup arrives, then we’ll bring you down as a group. And you’ll be in some pretty serious shit if you’ve just murdered two Custodians.’
His only reply was silence. The first tendrils of panic wrapped themselves around his chest and began to squeeze. He tried to moisten his lips but his tongue was like a scouring pad.
‘Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit,’ muttered Carter. He was holding his gun in both hands and his eyes were wild.
‘Liar,’ said Corbyn. Trev jumped. ‘There’s no backup coming.’
‘If that’s what you want to believe, fair enough,’ Trev said. ‘But don’t say you weren’t warned when there are a bunch of burly Custodians pinning you down and using your face to smooth the lumps out of the floor.’
‘What happened to your Brummie accent?’ Corbyn asked. ‘And why is your voice familiar?’
Trev closed his eyes and thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead. Well, I managed to go nearly five minutes without buggering things up, he thought. Not great, but still a personal best.
He didn’t reply. Corbyn chuckled at him through his earpiece. ‘Trev, my old mate. Is that you?’
‘Hello Corbyn,’ said Trev. ‘Long time no see.’
‘Interesting that we should bump into each other like this,’ Corbyn said. ‘I’ve been wondering how you managed to avoid the attentions of Emilia Burns.’
‘Never heard of her,’ said Trev.
Emilia Burns was a vampire assassin that Corbyn had hired to kill Trev a few weeks previously. She had ended up dead after taking an accidental plunge out of a second-floor window. Trev had never told the Custodians about the incident for fear of being accused of murdering her, and he wasn’t about to spill the beans with Carter listening in.
‘You do tell a lot of lies, Trev,’ said Corbyn. ‘Bloody estate agents, you can’t help yourselves, can you? I’m having a much harder time believing you’ve got backup on the way now.’
‘I haven’t lied about anything,’ Trev said. ‘There is backup on the way, and if anything happens to our two colleagues in the meantime…’
‘You almost had me back there,’ Corbyn said. ‘Almost. But I’m willing to make a deal. You give yourself up to me, and the other three can go. Sound fair?’
‘What’s in it for me?’ Trev said.
‘Nothing, really. I’m going to kill you. But you won’t have to die knowing your stupidity got three other people killed as well.’
‘You make it sound so appealing,’ Trev said. ‘Ever considered a career in sales?’
‘There isn’t much you could teach me about buying and selling, Trev,’ said Corbyn. ‘I’ve been at it since before you were born.’
‘What do we do?’ Carter whispered.
‘I’m going to have to take him on,’ said Trev. He tried to ignore the little voice in his head that was telling him to run and hide until the backup arrived. Until recently that voice had had quite a lot of control over him, but he was learning to overrule it. Though he still wasn’t the hero that Carter seemed to think he was, neither was he the sort of bloke who would walk away and leave three other people to die. Plus he owed Corbyn some payback for sending an assassin after him. That had been very impolite of him.
‘We’re coming in,’ Trev said to Corbyn. ‘Let’s try and keep this civil.’
‘Civil?’ spat Corbyn. ‘I’m missing two of my fingers thanks to you, you–’
While Corbyn was occupied with his rant, Trev darted into the room. He kept himself low and made it to the further of the two pillars, pressing his back against it to keep it between him and Corbyn. Carter followed, swept along in Trev’s wake. He took up position behind the other pillar.
Caught off balance, Corbyn fired a couple of snap-shots with his stolen gun. Fortunately he was distracted by the
fact that he had two targets and both bullets flew wild. In his frustration he then fired three more shots at the pillar behind which Trev was hiding. Trev cringed, pulling in his arms and hunching his shoulders in an attempt to ensure that no part of him was sticking out as a target.
‘Come out or I’m going to kill your friends!’ Corbyn shouted, dispensing with the radio.
Trev’s ears were ringing from the sound of the shots and a cloud of concrete dust, smashed free by the bullets, swirled around the pillar. It shifted in the light from Corbyn’s lamp and Trev wafted it away with his hand, not wanting to breathe it in. He had no idea what to do next, as he hadn’t expected to get into cover without getting shot and, as a result, hadn’t bothered to extend his planning past that point. To his right, Carter stood against his own pillar with his gun still held in both hands, the muzzle pointing at the ceiling. He gave Trev a questioning look.
I’m getting bored with being in charge, Trev thought. Why can’t he decide what to do next? That way it’s not my fault when everyone gets killed. Which I’m pretty sure we’re going to.
He gritted his teeth. He held up a hand and made a gun shape with it, then pointed at Carter, then jerked his thumb in Corbyn’s direction. He mouthed cover me. Carter nodded. Trev held up The Twins. Ready? he mouthed. Carter nodded again. He still looked terrified, but there was a flicker of determination in his eyes.
Three, Trev mouthed.
‘I’ll give you a count of three,’ Corbyn said.
Two, Trev mouthed.
‘One,’ said Corbyn.
One, Trev mouthed.
He activated The Twins and burst from behind the pillar. The sword in his right hand was called Caladbolg. Its hilt was shaped like a Celtic cross, and its blade was a three-foot bolt of lightning. It exploded into life with a crack of pent-up energy and a flash of light. In his left hand he held Tyrfing, a Norse short-sword whose spectral blade was composed of black flames. As weapons went, these two were at the upper end of the style chart.
Immediately Trev’s fear and uncertainty were wiped away. One of the advantages of vapour weapons was that a person using one could draw on the accumulated fighting skills of all its previous wielders. In less than a second, Trev went from being a man with all the ferocious combat aptitude of an elderly blind sheep to a highly-experienced warrior.
Once again Corbyn was caught in the middle of saying something. The flash from The Twins startled him, and when Carter swung out from behind his pillar and began shooting at him as well Trev expected him to panic.
He didn’t.
Instead he dropped and rolled to the side, moving far more quickly than any normal person could have. Inhuman speed and reflexes were one of the perks of vampirism, along with a greatly-extended lifespan and the ability to stand in the shadows looking tortured and moody.
Corbyn came out of the roll and onto one knee, bringing his gun up in a marksman’s grip as he did so. While Carter was firing almost blindly, Corbyn took a second to aim properly and snapped off two shots. Trev couldn’t afford to turn and see whether they’d found their mark, but there was a thump and a clatter from behind him that told him all he needed to know.
He’d almost closed the gap between him and Corbyn. With Carter out of action, Corbyn shifted his aim to the onrushing Trev, who was travelling at full speed. Trev threw himself forward in an attempt to cover the remaining distance as quickly as possible.
The black mouth of Corbyn’s gun swung around to meet him.
Three
Corbyn fired.
This time he hadn’t had the chance to take aim and the bullet missed. It fizzed past Trev and buried itself in the wall. From inside his bubble of calm detachment, Trev registered that he hadn’t been hit and twisted in the air as he flew forwards, to throw off Corbyn’s next shot. The vampire’s finger was just tightening on the trigger as Caladbolg sliced into his forearm.
Another advantage held by vapour weapons was that the user could control the amount of damage inflicted. Had he wanted to, Trev could have taken Corbyn’s arm off at the elbow. Instead he swept the blade through the limb, leaving it intact but completely numb. Corbyn yelped and the gun fell from his unresponsive fingers.
Trev followed up with a left-handed attack using Tyrfing, aiming to strike Corbyn’s legs and immobilise him. The vampire showcased his lightning reflexes once again, performing three one-handed back-flips that took him across the room to the far wall. Trev checked his own momentum with a forward roll, coming up into a crouch at the end of it. He was now between Corbyn and his gun.
‘Hang on,’ said Corbyn, massaging his dangling right arm. ‘We can sort something out. No need to take me in.’
This one again? said a cheerful voice in Trev’s head. I’ll wager he’s fallen on hard times since last we met, laddie.
The Twins were such old weapons, and had had so much psychic energy passed through them over the years, that they had developed a form of sentience and could communicate with their wielder. Caladbolg’s voice was male and took in the full range of Celtic accents, with hints of Scottish, Irish and Welsh. Tyrfing spoke in clipped, female Scandinavian tones.
Trev had to agree with Caladbolg’s assessment of Corbyn. The last time Trev had seen the vampire he’d been dressed in expensive, retro-chic punk clothing, and had been driving a classic 1960s Corvette. Now he was clad in the kind of clothes that weren’t even good enough to be cut up for rags. He was wearing a pair of torn tracksuit trousers that might once have been grey but were now a patchwork of stains, all competing to be the most unpleasant. An over-sized blue hoodie covered his skinny torso and sported almost as many stains as the trousers. Over the top he wore a dirty brown raincoat. His spiky red hair had been shaved down to the scalp at some point and was now growing back, albeit in clumps and patches.
Trev glanced back at Carter. The blond man was still sprawled on the floor but he was breathing. Trev could see the two impact marks on his body-armour where the bullets had struck, and a bloodstain on the pillar showed where he’d banged his head on the way down. Trev couldn’t risk going over to check on Carter without exposing his back to Corbyn, so all he could do was cross his fingers and hope he was OK.
‘You’re not looking quite as dapper as usual,’ Trev said, turning back to Corbyn. ‘Unless Versace is using you as a model for their autumn-slash-winter “Found Under A Hedge” collection.’
‘Custodians seized all my assets,’ Corbyn growled.
‘Didn’t you have anything put by for a rainy day?’
‘Of course I bloody did. The problem was that my… situation became known and my creditors decided to call in a few debts. I’ve paid off the ones I can and I’m avoiding the ones I can’t.’
‘So even if I was willing to take a bribe to let you go, you haven’t actually got anything to bribe me with.’
‘I’m not going to be stuck like this forever,’ Corbyn said. ‘I built myself up from nothing once and I’ll do it again. When that happens, you’ll find that I’m a very useful bloke to have owing you a favour.’
‘And I just forget that you’ve now tried to kill me three times, not to mention my colleagues here?’ Trev could feel a surge of anger forcing its way through the screen of artificial composure The Twins had given him. It was like a knot in his stomach, pressing upwards to cloud his thoughts. He fought down the sudden desire to punish Corbyn for his arrogance.
It wasn’t ordinary anger. It was much more dangerous, and it was something Trev had brought upon himself.
All Custodians had the Sight, a hereditary sensitivity to the positively-charged psychic energy that humans – and other sentient beings – continually generated and shed. The Sight enabled a person to see and hear ghosts and other spirits, and also allowed them to accrue and manipulate a store of energy within their own body. Energy could be pushed into muscles to give improved performance, or forced out of the body to power a vapour weapon, but it was a finite resource. Once it was used up it had to be allowed to slowly
regenerate over time.
Trev was an exception to this. He’d found that he was able to “recharge” his reserves by reaching out with his senses and drawing energy into himself. There were two problems with this: firstly, if he did it too often the strain on his system would turn his brain into blancmange; and secondly, it had allowed him to draw in a cloud of negatively-charged energy which his body would otherwise have rejected. He’d been in a pinch at the time and doing it had saved his life, but now the “bad mojo” had taken up residence and he couldn’t get rid of it. He could feel it slowly growing, like a tumour, and at times of stress it triggered his baser instincts. He’d christened this part of him “Bad Trev” and it was pushing at him now.
‘Thanks, but I can think of a couple of problems with that arrangement,’ Trev said. ‘One, it would be difficult to explain to the Custodians why I let you go, and two, you’re a lying twat and I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you.’
Aye, well said, Caladbolg chipped in.
‘Fair enough,’ said Corbyn, apparently unmoved by Trev’s words. ‘Plan “B” it is, then.’
With a flourish he pulled an object out of his pocket. Trev tensed, expecting another gun, but it was a small, blue ovoid that appeared to be made of glass or crystal. It glowed softly in the dim light.
Do not allow him to break it open! Tyrfing shouted in Trev’s head.
‘What is it?’ Trev said aloud.
‘Let me demonstrate,’ said Corbyn, assuming the question had been directed at him.
Stop him, lad! cried Caladbolg.
Trev started forwards but Corbyn had already thrown the object at the floor between them. It shattered into a fine, crystalline powder with a flare of blue light. A churning cloud of white energy boiled up from the fragments, taking them with it and quickly resolving itself into a gnarled humanoid shape that floated above the floor, its legs dwindling away into nothing. The bald, eyeless head swivelled to face Trev and the thing opened its mouth. Though as the black, fang-lined maw gaped wider and wider it became more accurate to say that the thing opened its head.
