Angel Falls (Cassandra Bick Chronicles Book 3) (14 page)

After a quick bathroom break for Jonesy and me – they might never show these in the movies, but nobody wants to get caught needing the loo in the middle of a fight and we’d been putting away the alcohol and coffee at a prodigious rate – we headed off towards the cathedral. While we’d taken turns in the bathroom, Laclos had got changed: if there are police on the prowl, a blood stained shirt isn’t the wisest attire to be sporting (there was much muted grumbling at this, sensible as it was: Cain unhappy that the vampire had commandeered yet more of his clothes, Laclos put out at having to wear something that was about 50 times cheaper than his normal attire, and hung on him loosely, as Cain was slightly shorter than he was, but a lot more solidly built. I think Laclos considered anything that wasn’t skin-tight a bit pointless). It’s not a long walk from my flat, so we went on foot, reasoning that if there was any kind of terrorist activity suspected, the roads would be blocked anyway. I was aware I had a lot to catch Medea and Katie up on, but since Katie had decided to come along in dog form – reasoning it would be easier to change at my place than try and find somewhere else to do it unobserved – now wasn’t exactly the time, so we all walked in weighted silence, me with a gun tucked into my belt (hidden under my coat) and the bag Medea had brought with her that contained Katie’s clothes slung over one shoulder.

The chaos was obvious as soon as we cut through Little Britain and the cathedral came into view. Despite the growing presence of bars and restaurants in Paternoster Square and the relatively recent shopping centre New Change, this was still a quietish part of London at night, but now the streets were cordoned off, yellow-jacketed police talking into radios while the inevitable onlookers – some clearly turfed from nearby buildings – took photos with their phones. I saw the police were armed, and I shuddered: though I was no stranger to guns myself, there would always be that part of me that, being English, meant armed police were a terrifying sight, a signal things were serious. We couldn’t get close to the cathedral or Paternoster Square, but while the surrounding areas were heavily policed, the roads were still open, and scrolling down the newsfeed on my phone I saw why. The news was good, at least for my city, if not for us. It’d been a small explosion, localised in the grounds, away from people or anything of particular value, so the assumption was now it was vandals at worst, or more likely an accident – tourists or kids messing about somewhere they shouldn’t be, or maybe some of the city’s increasing numbers of homeless using a gas canister or a portable barbeque to cook. Accordingly, the police presence was already winding down, and some of the neighbouring bars were reopening, the English reaction to suspected terrorism and / or disaster always being to go to the pub – despite the fact this already felt like the longest night of my life, when I looked at my watch I was surprised to realise we still had an hour or so till most places would be starting to close up. While this development made it more likely it had been a vampire attack, it also meant instead of being scrutinised, our approach was now covered by the bustle of the area trying to get back to normal after one of the periodic false alarms that plagued the city.

I relayed this as we skirted the long way round the cathedral towards the river and the Millennium Bridge. We passed a couple of mounted police and the horses skittered, reacting instinctively to both Katie and Laclos. One of the coppers glared at us, and I linked my arm through Cain’s, swaying and laughing a little too loudly, just a tipsy girl excited by all the commotion. However fierce Cain and Jonesy looked, it was clear the policeman thought nobody could be that much trouble if they were hanging out with a giggly girl and her lanky Goth mate, so he dismissed us from his notice, turning his attention back to the street. Jonesy leaned in and read the latest update on my phone as I held it up.

‘Thank God there are no casualties, at least,’ he said. Laclos glanced back at the cathedral, his mouth set in a grim line.

‘No
human
casualties.’

***

Despite the many times I’d been to Laclos’ lair – and given that it was based in a crypt beneath a crypt, and featured a main chamber bigger than most people’s entire houses, I felt it earned the title ‘lair’ – I’d never been beyond that main room, but I was unsurprised to find that the place had more than one exit. London was a city that built on itself and survived many turbulent times, so there were plenty of secret tunnels and cellars, and who builds a secret hideout with only a front door? Still, I was curious when we paused by the doors of an olde-worlde-looking pub on the banks of the Thames, only a few minutes’ walk from both the cathedral and the Millennium Bridge, though looking to date far more from the time of the former than the latter. This looked like the kind of place Falstaff might have got drunk with Hal, or Dickens might have enjoyed a pint; low wooden ceilings, small, stained glass windows, a general air of history and decay. It was cramped and busy, clearly catering for the overflow of displaced drinkers, but people somehow still managed to get out of Cain’s way as he pushed through the front room, Laclos steering him with a guiding hand on his shoulder. I half expected someone to protest at Katie’s presence, but then again, old pubs and big dogs go together like beer and pork scratchings, and it was clear her main problem was avoiding being petted by kindly drunks. Through the main bar then past the snug, we came to the stairs that led to the toilets – as in most London pubs, these were in the basement to minimise their drain on premium floorspace. We followed Laclos down the narrow stairs, past the ladies and what was clearly a cellar, to an ancient looking door bearing a tattered sign that read, in copperplate calligraphy, ‘Staff only’.

‘The landlord and I have an agreement,’ Laclos murmured, by way of explanation, as he pushed the door and it opened smoothly to his touch. ‘I convinced the licensing authorities to be… flexible with his opening hours, which grants us more convenient access.’

‘Aren’t you worried about some pissed up tourist mistaking it for the gents?’ Jonesy asked, which had been my next question.

‘It’s usually guarded. From the inside.’

Ah, OK. So this didn’t bode well.

Laclos was about to head in but Cain pulled him back.

‘Cass, can you Sense anything?’

Jonesy looked puzzled at this question – I really was starting to feel a bit sorry for him, we maybe should have put together a primer of some sort – but I stepped forward, both surprised and a little flattered at Cain’s new willingness to trust my Sense. I closed my eyes and tried to focus, letting it roll out in front of me, trying to screen out the distraction of Cain and Laclos so close to me, one fire and one ice, as opposite to my Sense as in life. The age of the building didn’t help, either, old stone soaked with history. I caught a flash of fear, of fleeing and I jerked backwards, alarmed, before I realised the likelihood that our enemies hadn’t been hiding from anti-Catholic riots or Nazi bombs, so it wasn’t their emotions I was picking up on. But other than the faintest trace of Other that told me a vampire had been here relatively recently, there was nothing.

‘I’m not picking up on anything. I think it’s empty.’

Cain nodded.

‘Katie, take point. If you see anything, shift small and get out of there till we can regroup. Laclos and I will follow. Cass, keep your Sense as open as you can but stay behind me, and be ready to leave us if you need to. Jonesy, watch our backs.’ He turned to Laclos with a wry smile. ‘Cos I’m guessing this isn’t just a straightforward tunnel to your place, is it?’

Laclos gave a rueful shrug.

‘Darling, we’re vampires. We don’t do straightforward.’

***

Our odd little huddle moved forward – or, at least, we did after an awkward moment where Jonesy and I had to remind them we didn’t have supernatural eyesight so if they wanted us not to go arse over tit in the darkness we needed some illumination, and Cain dug a couple of torches out of his bag. Katie, freed from human eyes, had changed into her preferred leopard form, her golden fur dappling in the beams from our flashlights as she moved silently ahead of us, alert to any threat.

The tunnel was dark and damp, as you’d expect this close to the Thames, but it clearly wasn’t unused: the walls were lined with wire-caged bulbs set into the stone at regular intervals so they could be switched on to allow safe human passage. There were also, unnervingly, lots of little alcoves set into the walls, side hatches and occasional narrow bends heading off into God knows where. Plenty of places for enemies to hide, and I couldn’t help thinking this would be the perfect place to stage an ambush: you wouldn’t even have to bother hiding the bodies. But we made our way unmolested, my Sense picking up nothing but – oh goody – some rats, though Katie’s presence at least meant any rodents kept a safe distance. A couple of times she nearly took a wrong turn, and Laclos steered her back with a murmured direction. He looked oddly distracted and not, I thought, merely because he was worried about what we would find at the end of the tunnel. I saw him stare at the stone occasionally, as if trying to read something written there, though when he saw me notice he was careful to rearrange his features into a more neutral expression.

‘This opens up in the rooms behind the main areas,’ he explained, his voice low, as we approached what was clearly our destination. ‘I think it lets out into a utility closet.’ He waved a dismissive hand, almost looking embarrassed to admit vampires needed such a thing, but I suppose all those skin tight t-shirts didn’t wash themselves. ‘There are also sleeping quarters for humans, day quarters for vampires.’

‘On a normal night, how many people would be here?’ Seeing Laclos hesitate – Cain could be picky in his definition of people – he clarified. ‘Vampires, guests and employees.’

Laclos frowned, clearly not happy at having to give away his secrets.

‘At present my nest is one of the largest in London, so it holds around 30 vampires – most acquired when I came to London, so only a few centuries old. A few older ones, but since you thinned out the ranks…’ Jonesy looked confused by that, and not thrilled by my ‘I’ll explain later’ face, since the amount of explanations he was owed was getting longer by the minute. ‘Probably a dozen or so guests, the same number of domestics.’

‘It’s not frigging
Downton Abbey
, Laclos,’ I grumbled, and he pulled an apologetic grimace.

‘Household… attendants,’ he fumbled for the phrase then scowled, almost petulant. ‘We do pay them, you know. Very well. A lot of clans don’t.’

‘Well, aren’t you the enlightened one,’ Jonesy muttered, and Laclos looked aggrieved at being outnumbered. I must admit, our introduction via brutal strangulation aside, I was actually starting to like this guy. He turned to Cain, though Laclos was included in the question.

‘So any idea what we’re going to be up against?’

Laclos gave him an acid smile.

‘I assume either a bunch of heavily armed hunters such as yourself, or a pack of angry vampires hell-bent on revenge. Shall we find out?’ He stepped towards the heavy wooden door, then cast an acerbic look back at the two hunters. ‘Do try not to kill anyone on my side, though.’

Cain flashed a lupine grin – I suspected that provided Leon and Mariko were OK, he wasn’t too bothered about any other collateral damage – and we crouched behind Laclos as he opened the door, ready for whatever awaited us. But we didn’t have to worry about that. There was no one left to kill.

I sort of missed the first few minutes, what with all the being hunched up in the corner vomiting. Until they reach about a century old, vampires don’t disintegrate when they die – they bleed as much as we do, and just as messily, especially when their limbs have been torn off and scattered around the room like Halloween-themed confetti. There was plenty of vamp-dust here too, dyed red by the vampire and human blood that had soaked into it, but it was the wallpapering of gore that did for me. I’d seen death before – horrible, gruesome death – but it was still nauseating, so while the others did a quick recce, I made myself useful by puking my guts up. Katie, in human form, held back my hair and rubbed my back and murmured kind, soothing words that meant nothing in the face of such carnage but that I was grateful for, nonetheless.

Cain and Jonesy, having assessed at a glance there was no one here to fight or help, headed to do a sweep of the back rooms, and when I finally had nothing left to throw up, I straightened up to see Laclos at the entrance to the main hall, frozen, paler than I thought even a vampire could look, staring at the lone figure in the enormous, empty room – the boy sitting on the bed.

***

He really was a boy, too. Tiny and pale, barely pubescent, the scent and terror of his transformation making my Sense gag. He stared at us with wild, hollow eyes, as Katie and I staggered into the room behind Laclos, her pulling on some clothes as she did so. She instinctively went to help the boy, but Laclos put out an arm to hold her back. My Sense jarring, my eyes wet, I knew why: whatever monster had turned this child had not been careful or kind.

Laclos stepped forward, cautiously, trying not to spook him.

‘Why isn’t he saying anything?’ Kate whispered, horror thick in her voice. ‘Surely he should… have a message or something?’

Laclos turned back to us, inhuman in the tight coils of his fury.

‘He is the message.’

***

Laclos was near the bed now, so he kept his voice soft, though his words were directed back at us, not at the shell of a being before him. Trying to make myself some fraction of helpful, I attempted to wrangle my Sense into behaving, pull it back from its terror and see if I could pick up anything useful in the room. I felt the trace of Alastair’s malevolence in the air, and with it, the merest hint of Amalthea, and I found myself praying that the last thing this boy had seen had been another child – even if only in outward form – not that giant, fearsome brute of a man.

‘I flouted the rules. I attacked other vampires. I attracted attention. So they break the rules in turn. They use fresh blood as cannon fodder, and they turn infants.’ Laclos turned back to me with a grim smile, though there was not an ounce of humour in it. ‘I believe it’s what you would call bringing a gun to a knife fight.’

He was mere inches away from the child now, who watched him blankly. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be dragged from one existence to another then forced to witness such carnage, never mind at such a young age, and it was clear to my Sense that, whatever had been done to this young boy, what had been human inside him had not survived the transition.

‘It is alright, child. None of this is your fault.’ Laclos’ voice was honeyed, and the boy’s eyes widened – in fear? In recognition of one of his own? – as Laclos pulled him into a gentle embrace, murmuring sounds of solace. He held him for a moment, the child’s body relaxing instinctively into the protection of an adult. And then in one smooth, swift movement, Laclos ducked down and tore his throat clear out of his neck.

‘Jesus!’ Katie and I jumped together, and she, with faster instincts than I, lunged forward as if she could… what? Save the boy? Attack Laclos? But this time it was me that held her back. I was sickened beyond words by the callousness of Laclos’ actions, but I had seen vampires before, abandoned by uncaring Sires, lost in madness because they had been unable to negotiate those first, crucial hours. My Sense had picked up nothing but shattered pieces of consciousness in the boy: whatever Laclos had done to the young vampire on the bed, the child had been killed hours before, and it was the ones who had done that who deserved our fury.

Laying the boy’s body down gently, Laclos wiped his mouth on the sheets, his dark eyes flint as he looked at us, daring us to protest at his actions.

‘We do not turn children. It is an abomination.’ He glared around the room, as if he could find something here on which to take out his anger. But there was only emptiness and air tainted with the stench of blood and fear.

‘Laclos! We found something!’ Cain yelled, and before Katie or I could move, Laclos had vanished from the room.

***

The back rooms were a warren of closets and cubby holes, storage rooms and shadows. Being in an ancient space under one of the most sacred buildings in England was playing havoc with my Sense, which was already reeling from the encounter with the broken boy and the charnel house we’d had to walk through, so I had no clue what the hunters had found. But, the smell of meat and blood and death making my now-empty stomach churn, I followed the determined stride of Katie, who was managing to keep her own horror in check like the professional she was, though I suspected once she was back alone with Medea she’d be doing plenty of crying of her own. We found the three men standing in front of a large, heavy-looking wooden door that appeared to lead to another cellar.

‘There’s something in there. It looks like it’s locked from the inside, and I can hear… something.’ Cain said. ‘We could blow it, but…’ he trailed off. An explosion might hurt those inside, or dangerously weaken the infrastructure. ‘Any idea where it goes?’

Laclos frowned. The downside of living like a king is the servants are the only ones who know what happens behind the scenes – it was clear such technicalities were beneath him. He leaned against the wood – it must have been seriously thick if it was impervious to vampire hearing – but as he did so, Cain caught sight of me. I must have looked like I felt because he lowered his gun, closed the distance between us in two long strides and pulled me into a tight, one-armed hug – ever practical, he kept his gun arm free. I let out a whimper as he buried his face in my hair, kissing the top of my head gently as I sagged against him, my body seeking comfort as ever in his strength and his solidity. Even when he turned back to Laclos, he still held on to me, and I was grateful for his concern.

‘Anything?’ he asked Laclos.

Laclos straightened from the door and nodded. Calmed slightly by Cain’s reassurance, my Sense was picking up people somewhere beyond the door – vampires and human, I thought, but that was it. I had no idea if they were Laclos’, or if this was a trap, but Laclos seemed certain.

‘It is Laclos, and I bring friends,’ he said, loudly, into the wood. ‘You are safe, now. Open the door.’

There was a pause, then my Sense rather than my hearing picked up a buzz of conversation, panicked and scared. Then I heard a murmur of a male voice, authoritative, and a familiar presence warmed my Sense. There was the scraping of heavy bolts being drawn back and Laclos stepped away from the door as Cain let me go and he and Jonesy stepped forward, weapons drawn. The door creaked open and Leon stepped out into the room.

***

Although vampirism can lend a slightly ashy tinge to darker skin, in general non-white vampires have the same polished marble complexions of their pale comrades, just in darker tones. But Leon looked positively grey, like he’d been dipped in dust and ashes. The glasses he liked to favour were gone, he was in his shirtsleeves, his clothes torn, and he was cradling one arm. Someone had clearly attacked him with something like a silver-laced chain, because there were scorched welts along the flesh where he’d tried to defend himself, and they hadn’t yet healed. He limped forward, but stopped as he examined our faces and didn’t see the one he was looking for.

‘Where’s Riko?’

We looked past him to the huddle of shell-shocked humans and vampires behind him, as if she would be hiding in there.

‘I held them off, got who I could to safety and she went for help,’ he explained, his voice wavering as he tried not to panic. ‘Didn’t she find you?’

‘How did you even know this was here?’ Laclos marvelled. Leon cast him an impatient glance that spoke volumes. However much Laclos thought of himself as Mr Good-Boss-look-how-much-I-pay-my-domestics, it was clear he lived a life of immense privilege where everyone else worried about the details. To avoid him getting a smack, I stepped forward.

‘We took the tunnel here. Maybe we crossed paths with Mariko,’ I suggested, as Jonesy and Katie pushed past me and busied themselves with helping the rest of the survivors, who were shuffling and limping out of the cramped room they had been hiding in. Some asserted themselves by straightening up, trying to look bold, but others were clearly traumatised by the attack, stunned into somnambulism. These were Laclos’ people: they’d lived a life of luxury and peace, utterly unprepared for such atrocities. Some, out of habit, started to drift towards the main chamber, but Cain stepped in their way. I wasn’t sure if he knew what had happened there, but it was clear he realised it wouldn’t help them to see it.

‘Do you have blood and food here?’ he asked Laclos, ever the pragmatist. ‘We need to get them into a condition where we can move them.’

Laclos, looking pretty stunned himself by now, gave a nod, and gestured towards yet another corridor that led to some other part of the complex. Bloody hell: I’d thought this was a lair, but it was more like an underground vampire village. Katie nodded and started to steer people in that direction – Leon was preoccupied uselessly trying to get a signal on his phone – and Laclos went to follow but Cain laid a hand on his arm.

‘How at risk are we of the security forces finding this place? I assume the explosion was to hide the attack.’

It was Leon who answered, clearly glad of practical distraction.

‘It was, but I don’t think the police will come looking. The big ginger Scottish guy – I’m assuming that was Alastair – and his vamps came in through the main door and blew it after them, but from the outside it’s just an unused door. All the cops will find is rubble. The attackers left through one of the tunnels.’

I shuddered at that, at the prospect that we might have run into the people capable of doing this down there in the dark. But Cain, typically, saw an even more depressing side to that.

‘So they knew the layout,’ he said, with a weighted look at Laclos, who clearly understood the implications of that. But Cain wasn’t one to dwell, or allow anyone else to do so.

‘OK. Get everyone to drink fast. We need to move and we’re running out of dark.’

‘We need to find Riko,’ Leon insisted.

‘And we will,’ Cain agreed. ‘But not from down here where there’s no phone signal and where the bad guys know to find us. For all we know, they expected us to come running when we heard the news. We need to leave.’

***

After a quick consultation between Laclos and Leon, we decided we weren’t going to return the way we came: a few people sneaking into a pub was easily hidden, a band of refugees emerging from one less so, but luckily there was another, rarely used route. While Katie helped patch up and feed the survivors – not a fast process, however badly Cain wanted us to be on the move – we followed Leon to yet more back rooms, where, with the help of Cain and Jonesy, he moved aside a bunch of boxes and crates, dustsheet-covered paintings and piled up furniture to clear access to another door, this one warped and grimy with neglect. Given the crap that was piled in front of it (which, given the magpie nature of vampires, was probably a hoard worth a fortune) and the veneer of dust and spider webs that covered it, we could be sure it hadn’t been used recently. In fact, the hinges were so rusty that it wouldn’t open even to Leon’s or Laclos’ strength. Laclos turned to Cain who, with a brief nod, stepped forward and the two men, in a move that was both impressively synchronised and, I admit it,
insanely
hot, kicked out in unison and the door fell to splinters beneath their boots.

‘This lets us out inside the church at Smithfield,’ Laclos explained, and I tried not to quail at the realisation there had been such a route, emerging almost on the doorstep of my office – the thought of my old enemies Taka, the Counsel or Sebastian being able to make such a trip unhindered wasn’t a cheerful one. But there was no point in worrying about that now. Laclos outlined his plans to a female vampire who was unfamiliar to me. Relatively young in vampire years, she was in human terms in her late forties or early fifties, slightly squat with strong rather than attractive features: she looked more like a PE teacher than the fantasy of a lithe and youthful vampire. Further proof, if it was needed, that while they could be shallow, vampires were as diverse in their tastes as humans, and didn’t just turn supermodels. I was starting to realise Laclos looked as much like a rock star among his own people as among mine.

The woman – Nell, he called her – nodded briskly along to his instructions. It was obvious their bases were compromised and unsafe, but while nothing Laclos possessed could protect them, he was not a man without resources. He recited the address of some human contact who owned a luxury building where the humans could be stashed. Since this guy was, by the sound of it, some Russian oligarch who lived overseas, he couldn’t be easily found and forced to give enemy vampires access, and that, in conjunction with the kind of security employed by billionaire businessmen, would hopefully keep them secure. The vampires were to decamp to a hotel where Laclos had contacts, hoping that the encroaching daylight and the fact that they’d be in the heart of the West End – and so surrounded by witnesses – would protect them. Since Laclos’ enemies had been awfully casual about setting off an explosion next to one of the world’s most famous buildings, I wasn’t overly sold on this idea, but they weren’t my people, so it wasn’t my call.