Uprising

‘Bring it to Mummy,’ she called to him brightly. ‘Come on, Bertie. Good boy.’

Bertie trotted back to her, the stick in his mouth, and dropped it proudly at her feet, looking up at her with keen anticipation, tail wagging. She patted his head, picked up the stick and threw it again. This time her throw wasn’t quite as straight, and it landed in the reeds at the side of the water. Bertie went charging after it.

‘No, Bertie! Not in the water!’ Last time he’d gone for an impromptu swim, he’d been impossible to recall, had got absolutely filthy and completely saturated the back seat of the Volvo.

Christopher had not been at all pleased. But then again, not much pleased Christopher.

‘Bertie, you bloody dog! Get back here now!’

It was too late. Bertie completely ignored his mistress’s shouts as he went ploughing straight through the reeds, sending up a spray of mud and water. She huffed in exasperation as he hunted around in the shallows, rustling the long reeds as he sniffed excitedly here and there. Then he seemed to freeze, as if he’d found the stick. Oh, good.

‘Good boy, Bertie! Fetch now; bring it to Mummy!’

And, thank God, he was responding. She could see the yellow of his fur through the reeds as he scrabbled back onto the bank. Now she was going to get the damn animal on the lead, so he couldn’t run off again. She was sure she’d stuffed the lead into her pocket, but it wasn’t there. She tried the other pocket. There it was.

She looked back at the riverbank. Bertie was up on dry land now, still half hidden in the grass. She called him again, but he didn’t respond. She sighed in irritation, went striding over the grass to grab his collar and snap the lead on.

Bertie looked up at her as she approached. He was standing over something, his soggy tail flicking back and forth as if to say, ‘Look what I found!’

Whatever it was he’d fished out of the river, it wasn’t the stick.

Sandra took a step closer, and peered down at the thing. It was grey and bloated and horrible.

It was a couple of seconds before she realised what she was looking at. She recoiled, tasting the vomit that instantly shot up her throat.

The young girl’s face stared up at her from the grass. She had no body. All that remained attached to the head was part of the left shoulder and a section of upper trunk. The throat was slashed wide open, black with congealed blood.

Sandra began to scream.

Chapter Sixteen

St Aldates Police Station

12.39 p.m.

The ham and cheese baguette sat untouched on Joel’s desk. He’d peeled half the cellophane wrapping off it ten minutes ago, before realising that the hollow, gnawing feeling at the pit of his stomach wasn’t hunger. He couldn’t eat a bite.

He’d been sitting staring blankly at his lunch ever since; but what he was seeing in front of him wasn’t an uneaten sandwich. It was the pale face and dark-ringed eyes of a badly frightened young guy in a hospital ward, locked in a mental battle against himself. His brain tearing itself in two, striving yet dreading to believe the impossible. The only thing more terrifying than the fear that you were going crazy was the fear that the nightmare was for real.

Joel knew that. He’d been through it before, and he was fighting desperately not to start feeling that way again now. It was as if he were suddenly viewing the world through a distorting lens. Reality had shifted gears, sidestepped into a parallel dimension where the normal parameters of logic and rationality had been blown away. He was standing on the brink of the abyss, looking down.

He shoved the sandwich out of the way and snatched up his phone. Dan Cleland was Joel’s closest contact at the forensic lab. Joel asked him if there was any way they could speed up the tests on the Maddon samples.

‘That depends on what you mean by speed up.’

‘Today?’

‘Hmmm. Pushing it.’

‘It’s pretty important, Dan.’

Cleland sighed. ‘Okay, because it’s you. Leave it with me, and I’ll get back to you by the end of the afternoon.’

Joel felt better after the call. If Dec Maddon’s pills turned out to be ecstasy and the blood sample tested positive for the drug, then maybe he could breathe again. Maybe the world would return to normal. Maybe the vampires inside his head would go slinking back into the world of the imagination where they belonged, and bad dreams would remain just dreams.

Maybe.

Joel lobbed the ham and cheese baguette into his waste bin and reached for his coffee. It was cold.

The Jag was blasting down the outside lane of the motorway at just a shade under ninety, heading in towards London, as Alex talked to Harry Rumble on her phone. He listened quietly as she ran through the account of her morning. There was just one thing she left out.

‘What I don’t get,’ Rumble said after she’d finished, ‘is why a detective inspector, someone high up, a guy up to his eyeballs day to day in serious crime, even in a hick town like Oxford, would go out of his way like that to talk to some kid on a petty drugs charge who’s raving on about stuff no humans would take seriously.’

‘That’s because he believes the story, Harry.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘I could smell his fear. I saw the look in his eyes. I don’t think he wants to admit it to himself yet. He’s holding back. But trust me. He believes.’

Rumble thought for a moment. ‘He believes, even though he has nothing to go on but the testimony of a kid who might very well have dreamed the whole thing up on drugs? Then he’s either highly impressionable—’

‘Which he isn’t,’ Alex cut in. ‘He’s young, around thirty. If he’s made DI by then, it means he’s ambitious and determined and he’s no idiot. Guys like him don’t do impressionable. There’s another reason.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ she said.

When the call was over, she gripped the steering wheel and pressed a little harder on the gas, felt the surge of the Jaguar’s engine as the needle flirted with the hundred mark. Her acute senses could make out every minute detail of the rushing tarmac, computing speed and distance to a degree of accuracy that a fighter pilot could only dream of. She was completely in control, completely zoned in. Of course she was: she was a vampire.

So why was her heart fluttering like this?

That was the part she hadn’t told Harry.

As she drove, all she could think about was Joel Solomon. And she knew the reason why.

Chapter Seventeen

Joel was on his way over to the machine to get himself a fresh cup of warm coffee when he spotted Carter steaming the other way down the corridor with a phalanx of uniformed officers in his wake. He was built like a bear and when he was moving fast, like he was now, the world simply parted to make way for him or it got knocked flat on its back.

Superintendent Sam Carter was thirteen years older than Joel, and they’d been friends for ten of those years, ever since Joel had joined up with Thames Valley. Joel knew him pretty well – well enough to know that behind the gruff exterior was a guy who burst into tears at the mere sound of Dolly Parton’s voice, especially when he was drunk, which wasn’t unusual for him. And well enough to know that when he had the grim look on his face that he was wearing now, something extremely serious was up.

‘What’s happening?’ Joel asked as Carter swept past. It was like trying to catch a ride on a moving train.

‘You want to know? Come with me.’

Carter filled Joel in as the squad car sped out of Oxford and headed south towards Sonning Eye.

‘Member of the public found her half an hour ago. Or a piece of her, at any rate. Hell of a mess. The divers are still fishing bits out of the river.’

‘Do we know who she is?’

‘Not a clue.’ Carter looked at him. ‘You look like shit, Solomon.’

‘I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.’ And Joel was beginning to feel it.

The scene was already milling with personnel and vehicles by the time they got there. A quarter-mile stretch of river had been cordoned off with police barrier tape. Extra officers were being drafted in from across the county to keep back the crowd of locals that was quickly growing as word spread of the grisly find. Inflatable launches burbled up and down the river carrying frogmen and recovery equipment. As Joel followed Carter across the grassy bank towards the riverside, he could see a lot of very sick expressions on the officers’ faces. Away in the trees, where he thought nobody could see him, a young rookie constable was heaving his guts out.

The police pathologist at the scene was Jack Brier. Mutilated corpses were his stock in trade, but even he looked a little greyer than Joel had ever seen him before. He was crouched over a bodybag in the grass, pulling off a pair of surgical gloves as Joel crossed the inner cordon and walked over to him. A couple of police photographers had just finished up and were packing away their equipment.

‘Hell of a thing,’ Brier muttered to Joel and Carter. ‘Have you had lunch? Then don’t look.’

Joel stared down at the thing in the bodybag.

Brier chuckled at the expression on his face. ‘Told you. She’s seen better days, that’s for sure. We’ve recovered the head, most of the trunk, the left arm and what’s left of the right leg. The rest could have floated down into Berkshire by now.’

‘What did this?’ Carter asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Brier shrugged. ‘Hard to tell, until we get her on the slab and have a poke around inside. If this was Alaska, I’d say a grizzly had taken a bite out of her.’ He gave a dark grin. ‘But this isn’t Alaska.’

‘Jesus,’ Carter mumbled. He’d seen enough. He looked away, watching the divers and visibly trying to control his emotions.

‘The strangest thing is,’ Brier went on. ‘I mean, I can’t be sure just yet, but look how little lividity there is. And she’s still fresh, too. Not been in the water more than six, seven hours tops. Cut a long story short, it looks to me like this young lady has been completely exsanguinated, even before she was dissected.’

‘In English,’ Carter said.

Joel answered for Brier. ‘He’s saying something drained her blood.’

‘Drained her blood,’ Carter repeated flatly.

Brier nodded. ‘Every last drop of it.’

Joel was still staring at the pieces of the girl’s body as Brier got to his feet and went off with Carter to confer with some of the others. Just then, his phone started to vibrate in his pocket. He fished it out and saw that the call was from Dan Cleland.

‘And for my next miracle,’ Cleland said.

‘You got the results already?’

‘Just in. Specially for my favourite CID officer.’

Joel tensed. Dan was one of those guys who liked to string things out for effect. ‘Well?’

‘The arresting officer was right about the pills. Not top stuff, but definitely ecstasy.’

‘And the blood test, Dan?’

‘Goodness, we are in a tizzy today.’

‘If you were standing here looking at a dead girl’s head in a bag, so would you be.’

‘All right, all right. Well, if your man’s dealing, he doesn’t use from his own stash. Blood test was clean.’

‘What about alcohol?’

‘Zilch. Soberer than a Sons of Temperance convention.’

‘You’re sure about that? Quite certain?’

‘When have I ever been wrong?’

‘Never. Thanks, Dan.’

‘You owe me now, Solomon.’

‘Right.’ Joel ended the call and was about to flip the phone shut. Then he stopped. Glanced around him. Brier was deep in conversation with his colleagues and Carter was getting belligerent with someone on the police radio. Nobody was watching him.

He quickly turned on the camera function on his phone, crouched down in the grass and took two snaps of the victim. One of her face, the glassy eyes staring right into the lens.

And the other of the spider tattoo on what was left of her neck.

Chapter Eighteen

Villa Oriana, forty miles from Florence

1.50 p.m. local time

The butler in the crisp white jacket emerged into the sun carrying the tray with the chilled lemon vodka, prepared exactly the way his employer liked it. He climbed the steps to the balustraded terrace and set the drink down on the marble-topped table at the man’s side.

Jeremy Lonsdale ignored him, didn’t even glance at the drink until the butler had disappeared back inside the villa. Only then, he reached for the glass and winced as the iced vodka burned away the aftertaste of the lobster he’d eaten for lunch.

He closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair and felt the sun on his face. Soaking into him, its glow burning orange through his closed eyelids. Even in early November, it was still easily warm enough to have breakfast and lunch outside. That was one of the things Lonsdale loved most about his Tuscan bachelor hideaway. The gloom and drizzle of that piteous little island called Britain depressed him. He had no affection for the place and certainly no allegiance. He was just one of the ones lucky enough to ride the wave and enrich themselves before the remains of the dying empire imploded into the Third World country it was waiting to become. Whenever he could, he’d jump on his private jet and come out here to soak up the sun. There’d come a day when he wouldn’t return. That had always been his plan.

Lonsdale had been a multi-millionaire for twenty-seven years, which at forty-nine was well over half his life. He could have retired a long time ago, if it hadn’t been for his love of his political career. He was passionate about that whole world of lies and deceit. He loved the way he looked in the public eye when he took up some worthless cause to champion the innocent victims of…whatever. He loved the flash of the cameras and the simper of the media as he kissed babies in Manchester or Liverpool, while the arms companies that earned him millions a year in investments were churning out products to kill other people’s babies in some faraway country nobody gave a shit about, as long as they were kept sated with their television and sport and beer and infantile gadgets. It was all a big game. To win, you just needed the right attitude.

And he’d always thought he was the master of the game, until that day in February. That day had changed everything.

Lonsdale had snatched a week out of his schedule to take a skiing holiday in Lichtenstein. On the third night, as he lounged in the bar of his luxury hotel with a martini cocktail and some nameless floozy at his elbow, he’d spotted the tall figure across the crowded room. Men of wealth and taste were ten a penny in Lonsdale’s world, but this one was different. A man so effortlessly self-possessed, radiating an air of such supreme indifference that he made Lonsdale feel like a schoolboy. He seemed to draw the most beautiful women to him with mesmeric, almost uncanny ease and then dismissed them as though they were nothing. Here was a man who understood power, lived and breathed it. Was he a prince? Unable to recall his face from the society pages, Lonsdale had been desperate to talk to him, but the chance had escaped him when some paunchy dullard of an oil billionaire had appeared to pin him down in gratingly boring conversation. By the time he’d been able to wriggle away from the guy, the fascinating man had disappeared along with his female entourage.

All the next day on the ski slopes, Lonsdale had looked out for him – but no sign, nor the next night.

Finally, on the last evening of the holiday, Lonsdale caught sight of the man again. And this time, nothing was going to stop him from going up and introducing himself.

The man’s name was Gabriel Stone. They’d talked until late in the night and, when Stone had invited Lonsdale to be his guest at his mountain home in Romania, Lonsdale had been straight on the phone the next morning to advise his staff in London that he’d been struck down by a virus and wouldn’t be back in the country for another week.

Two days later, Stone’s helicopter had flown in to land at his home, with Jeremy Lonsdale on board, flanked by the two burly bodyguards his host had provided for his security. Snowy mountains stretched as far as the eye could see. The chopper banked over the towers and ramparts of the old castle, and Lonsdale had been blown away by the power and majesty of the place.

For the rest of the day, he’d been attended to by a tall, bald and cadaverously gaunt man who introduced himself as Seymour Finch, personal assistant to Mr Stone. Lonsdale found Finch’s presence uncomfortable. There was something strange and unsettling about him.

It was only after dark that Lonsdale’s host appeared, apologising that his business affairs tended to occupy his entire day. The two men had dined together in the great hall, drunk fine cognac and smoked cigars. Stone had been not only a charming and affable host, but a man of culture and intellect. Lonsdale had never met anyone able to quote so extensively from classical literature, the Bible, the Greek philosophers. He knew history as though he’d virtually lived it.

That night, Lonsdale had been woken in his luxurious bedroom by the sound of strange music. He climbed out of bed, opened his door. The music seemed to be drifting up from somewhere below. He pulled on a satin robe and followed the sound, treading quietly through the castle’s cold, dark halls and passageways. The music was like none he’d ever heard before and it seemed to lure him, as though it had some hypnotic quality that whispered in his mind.

He came to the door of what looked like a wine cellar. It creaked open to reveal steps leading down. At the bottom of the steps, another door lay half open. The music was coming from inside.

Lonsdale couldn’t help himself. He had to see what was in there. Peeking through the gap, instead of a cellar he saw a decadently opulent room richly decorated with tapestries and exotic rugs and gold-threaded cushions scattered across the floor. On a huge bed was the naked figure of Gabriel Stone, his physique lithe and muscular and perfect, surrounded by three beautiful women who were making love to him.

As Lonsdale watched from the shadows, a hand had touched his shoulder and he’d nearly screamed in terror. He’d turned to see a woman even more beautiful than the ones on Stone’s bed. She smiled and put her finger to her lips. Beckoned him away from the door. ‘Come,’ she whispered. The look in her dark eyes meant just one thing.

Lonsdale had followed her back through the passageways. She was bewitching. Her raven hair was tangled and wild like a gypsy’s, and when she glanced back at him with that smile, her lips were red and glistening. The way she moved drove him wild. Every nerve in his body tingled with lust for her as she led him back to his room. Inside, she shut the door with a smile. He was almost panting by now.

‘W-who are you?’ he stammered.

‘I’m Lillith. Gabriel’s sister.’ She walked him to the bed and shrugged the gown from her shoulders. She was naked under it.

Lonsdale tore at his robe. ‘You’re beaut—’

‘Shh. Quiet.’ Then she kissed him, and pulled him down onto the bed.

It had been a memorable night.

When Lonsdale had awoken next morning, Lillith was gone. He’d searched the castle obsessively for her. Returning to the room below, he’d found the door heavily padlocked. He’d spent the whole day thinking about her. She was like a drug, and he wanted more.

Lillith had come back to him for the next two nights. Two more nights of wild, dizzy passion. She was incredible. She did things to him that he’d never imagined possible.

Then, on the third night, just when he thought he was completely spent, Lillith opened up a whole new world for him. The candlelight gleamed on her skin as she knelt there on the bed – and flickered across the blade of the dagger she’d drawn from under the pillow. He’d watched, speechless with excitement, as she held its sharp tip to her chest and slashed herself. A rivulet of blood tricked down her breast. Her lips had opened a little wider, and Lonsdale had seen the white fangs, long and curved. She’d cupped her hands behind his head and pulled him in closer. ‘Drink me!’ She threw back her head and gasped in anticipation as he lowered his face to her breast and put out his tongue to lick up the flowing blood. Every nerve in his body had been aflame.

In that moment of enthralling wonder, Gabriel Stone had walked into the room, interrupting them. He’d shouted harshly at Lillith, and she’d retreated in fear, covering herself up with a sheet.

Then Stone had turned to Lonsdale. ‘You’re not so afraid of us, are you, Jeremy? That’s interesting.’

‘Who are you?’ Lonsdale breathed. ‘What are you?’

Stone smiled. ‘Do you not know? We are the ones with the power. The power to change your life forever. And I do mean forever. You can become one of us. Become everything that a human isn’t. You like that idea, don’t you, Jeremy?’

‘What do I have to do?’

Stone gave another smile. ‘You will be contacted.’

Then he was gone, and when Lonsdale looked around, he saw that Lillith had disappeared with him.

He hadn’t seen them again for a long time.

The following day, Lonsdale had reluctantly returned to London. Life had gone on – but it held little appeal. He’d tasted something infinitely more rewarding, and it preyed on his mind until he thought he was going to go insane with frustration.

For three long months, he’d heard nothing. Then one day in early June, the strange man called Seymour Finch had paid an unexpected visit to his London office. Inside the slim briefcase he carried with him was the agreement drawn up by his employer Mr Stone.

As contracts went, it was extremely simple. The price would be twenty million euros, to be wired to a Zurich bank account. Within hours, Lonsdale had arranged the transfer and was choking with anticipation to hear from Stone’s people again.

Nothing. As the summer turned to autumn, Lonsdale was beginning to think he’d been the victim of an elaborate con trick. He’d become so agitated that he’d been virtually unable to conduct his daily affairs.

Nothing, until late September, when the man called Finch had returned. Mr Stone’s end of the deal would soon be honoured, he said. There was to be a ceremony.

‘What kind of ceremony?’ Lonsdale asked nervously.

‘An initiation,’ Finch had replied. ‘The first stage in your induction. But first, Mr Stone requires a service from you. A ship will be arriving in London within the next few weeks. You are to use your influence to ensure that its cargo arrives safely, unexamined, unquestioned.’

And Lonsdale, helpless, hooked and counting the days to the ceremony, had seen to it.

But now, as he sat here in the warm Italian sunlight, sipping the last of his iced lemon vodka, he was beginning to have second thoughts.

The initiation had been horrible. It hadn’t only been because of what they’d done to the poor young girl they’d slaughtered. It had been the look on Lillith’s face, like a wild animal that hadn’t fed for days. He kept seeing it in his mind, and it brought a taste of revulsion into the back of his throat.

Was that really the kind of creature he wanted to become?

Sitting here gazing out at the Tuscan hills, he couldn’t stop thinking about how all this was going to change when Stone finally took him over the edge. Turned him. The turning point from which there was no return. He’d never again be able to sit outside and enjoy the golden autumnal colours of the trees. The glow of the sunshine on his face would become a distant memory. Not just for a lifetime, but for a whole eternity of darkness. Was that what he really, truly wanted? He’d have to renounce his whole career. Spend the rest of time lurking, hiding, in the shadows. Like a criminal.