Kardinal (2 page)

PART TWO. DREAMS.

Southern Carpathians, Romania
– 8.35pm (GMT + 2 hours), 16 May, 2011

SORIN and Ionuţ were hungry. They had not eaten in two nights. One more night without blood and they would die. This would be their last chance to find prey.

They had been huddling on the old railway station for a day and a night. The rain had poured. A fierce wind lashed the platform. Not even a lone guard supervised the station.

“I’m dying,” Ionuţ said.

Sorin ignored him. His younger brother had been a pain in life, and now he was a pain in death.

“I’ve got to feed,” said Ionuţ. “We’ve both got to feed, Sorin, or we’ll die – we’ll die at dawn.”

Sorin was cold and shaky. His stomach ached.

Blood death was near.

They had to kill and drink blood in the next few hours, or they’d be dead at sunrise.

Sorin sniffed the air. Not a human scent anywhere. He thought of London and the food stocks there. It made him salivate.

The brothers had moved to England in 2005. They had always dreamed of coming to London. They supported Arsenal. They liked to speak English and particularly liked to swear. They wanted to go on
X-Factor
and become pop stars.

When they got there, they’d lived in Edmonton. It was rough and poor, and crime plagued the estates.

But the brothers did OK, starting a mobile disco service and making their way in the world. Not a long way. But enough to get by. Enough to rent a flat. Enough to buy food and beer.

But then the vampires came. And in February of that year, war broke out between humans and nosferatu. The brothers were killed by the undead and became alive again.

Soon after becoming vampires, they did what all vampires did – they started to home. They left England and followed their instincts, heading west across Europe, heading home to the Southern Carpathians.

“My chest is hurting,” said Ionuţ
as he cowered on the platform. “I’m going to die any minute, Sorin.”

“No you’re not. We’ve got plenty of time. We’ve got until dawn.”

“I don’t think I can make it.”

“You will make it.”

“Why isn’t there any food?”

Sorin stayed quiet. His red eyes scanned the darkness. He could see in the night. The landscape was clear to him. The grey fields. The empty buildings. Geographically, he wasn’t sure where they were. Instinctively, he knew – they were going home.

He heard a noise.

Ionuţ started to speak.

“Be quiet,” Sorin told him. “Listen.”

The rumble grew louder. Sorin felt the platform trembling.

He leapt to his feet and looked down the track.

“A train,” he said.

“Will it stop?”

“How do I know?”

“It has to stop.”

The train blared out a warning of its approach. Suddenly from the darkness, a powerful light appeared, momentarily blinding Sorin.

The train roared. It wasn’t stopping. The station must have been abandoned years ago, Sorin realized. But that didn’t matter. Only one thing mattered.

“Jump,” he shouted at his brother.

They sailed off the platform and clamped themselves to the side of the speeding train.

Ionuţ whooped with glee.

Sorin felt the same exhilaration. There would be blood here. There would be food.

Holding on to the side of the carriage, he noticed that it was a freight train. No passengers, but still a driver and crew.

Still food.

Sorin crawled along the side of the train.

Being a vampire had changed him from a clumsy idiot into a lethal killing machine. It had given him the ability to leap and bound. The ability to hold on to the sides of buildings – and trains.

He’d never had so much fun in his life.

His human existence had been dull and boring. He was a geek. He never got girls. He was never one of the lads. But now, he was a powerful creature. He had planned to return to his home town and terrorize the bullies who had made his childhood miserable.

The thought of blood made his jaw ache. He clattered his teeth together, his instincts rehearsing the killing bite that would drive his fangs into a victim’s jugular.

Ionuţ crawled after him along the side of the train as it hurtled through the night. Sorin slid open the trailer’s door. He leapt inside, followed by his brother, who shut the door.

They were cast into darkness.

“Can you smell it?” said Ionuţ

Sorin said he could.

Ionuţ said, “Blood,” and then louder, “There’s a little human in here. A stowaway. Hey, you know what happens to stowaways?”

Ionuţ moved forward.

Sorin grabbed his arm.

“What, Sorin? There’s blood here.”

“Something’s not right.”

He scanned the darkness. The carriage was crammed with crates. It was electrical equipment. DVDs, TVs, Hi-Fis. Stuff that would have interested Sorin a few months ago. Stuff he didn’t care about any more.

His belly stirred with fear. Something in the trailer made him cautious, uncomfortable – and there was nothing a vampire should really be scared of apart from the sun and…

It couldn’t be
, he thought.

Ionuţ was growing impatient, but Sorin said, “Can’t you feel it?”

“Feel the hunger, that’s what I feel.”

“Just sense the atmosphere, Ionuţ.”

The crates cast shadows. The train jerked and rattled.

Sorin smelled the air and surveyed the gloom.

There was a human here. He smelled it. Smelled the blood gushing through its veins. But there was something else. Something you couldn’t smell or see or hear. Just something you could sense. Something a vampire could sense.

A warning. A threat. A red flag.

A red –

Sorin stiffened. Fear gripped him.

“He’s one of them,” he said.

“Them?” said his brother.

“He wears the mark. The red of the Nebuchadnezzars.”

“No,” said Ionuţ.

“He wears the flesh of our fathers.”

“No, no… ”

“Can’t you sense it?”

“Yes, yes, but… ”

Of course Ionuţ could sense it. Every vampire sensed it. It was part of their DNA. It was the source code. A fragment of flesh worn as a mark by their human allies. A fragment that came from Kea, Kakash, and Kasdeja, the vampire trinity that had given birth to all the undead that now prowled the earth.

Nebuchadnezzars, he thought. If I could, I would kill them too.

But that red mark protected them. That red mark told a vampire, You die before laying a hand on this human, because this human is chosen.

And he knew he couldn’t attack a Nebuchadnezzar even if he wanted to – everything in his nature stopped him.

“Come out,” Sorin called into the gloom. He could see everything in the darkness, his predator’s eyes making it easy for him.

A figure reared up in the darkness. It was like a shadow creeping up the wall. The man stood in silhouette. He stood still. He was waiting.

Ionuţ hissed and cowered, probably sensing the mark on the human at last.

“We’re hungry,” said Sorin. “Will you give us a little of your blood, to tide us over?”

Some Nebuchadnezzars were willing to do that – give a few drops from their veins if a vampire was suffering. If blood death was near. The vampire would only take what it needed, leaving the Nebuchadnezzar still human.

The man said nothing.

Sorin grew angry. “Help us, you’re a Neb.”

The man stepped closer.

Sorin’s belly cramped.

He saw the man more clearly now. Saw that he was armed. Armed with a weapon in each hand. Short swords made of ivory. Short swords made from the horns of –

Sorin lurched backwards, terrified.

The man glared at them. And in the darkness, one of his eyes glowed red.

Westminster, London – 8.45pm (GMT), 16 May, 2011

ELIZABETH Wilson said, “It’s Lawton who’s responsible for this.”

Christine Murray bristled but kept quiet

Wilson continued. “We can only assume he escaped because he’s guilty.”

“He didn’t escape, Prime Minster – ”

“Only interim Prime Minister. I haven’t earned that title yet. Call me Liz, for God’s sake.”

Murray stared out of the window of the Millbank office building where Britain’s interim government had its headquarters. The streets below were quiet. Only a few locals scurried through the darkness, eager to get indoors. Traffic was at a minimum. It was desolate.

Murray fought back the tears, biting her lip.

Across the street stood Victoria Tower Gardens. Dozens of refugees cowered under the trees. Refugees from the war between vampires and humans three months ago. A war that destroyed much of Westminster, including the Houses of Parliament.

Liz Wilson put her head in her hands. She had been Chancellor in the previous government, which had collapsed when the Prime Minister, Graeme Strand, was murdered.

His assassin was Jacqueline Burrows. Her method was vampires. She was a Nebuchadnezzar, a descendant of the Babylonian king of the same name who ruled alongside the undead.

Burrows was a minister in Strand’s government, and after his death she’d taken over the party and the country. She’d imprisoned Strand’s supporters, including Wilson. She’d installed her allies in positions of power and unleashed vampires on the streets of Britain.

But fortunately the humans had fought back. They drove the vampires into the shadows. Burrows and many of her cohorts had been killed. The other Nebs had disappeared.

Until now.

George Fuad was back. He was challenging Wilson in Thursday’s General Election.

Her head still in her hands, Wilson said, “I don’t know who to trust, Christine.”

Wilson was forty-eight. She had once been regarded as a political high-flier. Any hopes she’d had of power were gone. Now she was a shell of a woman, trying to hold together a shell of a country. Her hair was prematurely grey, and on her face lines mapped the journey she had taken from bright, new MP in 1987, to stressed leader in 2011.

Wilson said, “I’d have him arrested if I knew where he was hiding.”

Murray couldn’t stay quiet any more.

“He’s the only one who’s been fighting this from the start. He was there three years ago when that pill made the first vampires. He has sacrificed so much. He doesn’t have to do this. He has no family. He owes Britain nothing. The country drummed him out of the army and turned him into a villain – ”

“With your considerable help, Christine.”

Murray felt ashamed. It was true. In 2004, she had been an ambitious freelance journalist who’d neglected her husband and two sons. She had heard about a soldier being kicked out the British Army after allegedly killing an innocent civilian in Iraq. It was when the Iraq War had been hugely unpopular. Papers and politicians were looking for scapegoats. Every day the press was publishing photos and stories of prisoner abuse. One stupid editor in the UK had even printed fake images of a soldier pissing on an Iraqi prisoner. He’d been so desperate to jump on the bandwagon. Everyone was desperate.

Even Murray.

She’d pursued Jake Lawton relentlessly, demanding he be charged with murder.

Then two things had happened. First, she realized Lawton was innocent. His victim had been a suicide bomber targeting a busy mosque packed with worshippers. Second, with the unleashing of the vampire plague in 2008, Lawton was the only one who supported Murray and helped her fight the undead and their human allies.

During the past three years, Murray had lost her husband and eldest son, and her youngest boy, David, was missing. He was angry and resentful towards his mother and apparently unleashing his rage on vampires.

“I know,” she told Wilson. “I know, but I was wrong, and you are wrong too.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere in Europe.”

After the battle in Westminster in February, Murray, David, Lawton, and Kwan Mei, the Chinese girl who’d led an army of migrants against the vampires, fled Britain by boat. They were going to Iraq. To Ancient Babylon. They were going to kill a myth. They were going to kill Nimrod, the Great Hunter, creator of all vampires.

Kill him, and all vampires die.

That was their incentive.

But Lawton had been badly injured in the battle. He’d lost an eye. He was a determined man, however. He already had five bullets in his body. Losing an eye wouldn’t stop him.

When they arrived at Rotterdam, they had been stopped by Dutch police. The rest of Europe was nervous about the plague blighting Britain. After the government fell and Burrows took over, the UK’s European Union allies had closed their borders. Many British citizens had tried to escape, mostly by boat. But when they reached mainland Europe, they were turned back. The Dutch sent David, Kwan Mei and Murray back to Britain. But Lawton escaped. Murray could only hope that he’d got away, that he was still alive.

“Heading to Iraq to kill Nimrod,” she said. “That’s where I hope he is.”

Wilson sneered. “Nimrod, indeed. Just a fairy story.”

“Like vampires were three years ago, Liz.”

Wilson glared at her. “Maybe we should listen to Fuad.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Maybe we can live side by side with the vampires, like he says.”

“We can’t do that, Liz. They hunt us. They kill us. It’s what they do.”

“Fuad says not.”

“Fuad lies. Tell him to walk into a room of vampires without that red rag he carries.”

“You have one, too,” said Wilson, indicating the scrap of red material clipped to Murray’s lapel. It protected her from vampire attacks. Lawton had given it to her three years ago, after stealing it from a Nebuchadnezzar he’d killed.

“We should speak to Fuad.”

“Are they your kids?” said Murray, gesturing to the photos on the wall behind Wilson’s desk. The other woman nodded. Murray went on. “Fuad wants power. He wants vampires on the streets of London. He wants to be king. He’s not going to share anything with anyone, and he won’t want vampires to live side by side with the rest of us. How can you live side by side with something that wants to kill you, that wants to destroy your way of life?”

“We don’t know that they want to.”

“Have you not been in Britain for the past three years?”

“I have, and it’s your fault – ”

“My – ”

“Lawton. His fault.” She was lashing out. Trying to find someone to blame. “If he hadn’t been so aggressive, Christine, if he hadn’t attacked the vampires, they might not have felt the need to defend themselves. It’s humans who have instigated this war.”

“This is Fuad talking.”

“Yes it is. I’m desperate. I don’t know what to do. There are organizations now advocating the protection of vampires. Do you know that? Would you believe it? All the time. It’s the same lot. The same bunch supporting every lunatic cause. Any chance to attack authority and… and Western liberal democracy, if such a thing exists any more. Conspiracy theorists and extremists.”

Murray was dumbstruck. Protecting vampires? she thought.

“Britain lies in ruins,” said Wilson. “The evil is spreading. I want to curb it. If that means aligning with Fuad, I’ll do it. I’ll do it to save Britain.”

“The only thing,” said Murray, “that can save Britain is Jake Lawton. He’s out there somewhere fighting for us, for no reason at all other than his humanity. We’ve given him nothing. We’ve abandoned him and treated him like a criminal. But still he stands on the frontline. Still he takes blows for us. He bleeds for us. If you can’t stand behind him, Prime Minster, why don’t you stand in front of him?”