The Radleys (25 page)

“I don’t . . . I suppose . . .” The whole group is looking at her, expecting her to expand on this.

She tries her best to stop thinking of autopsies and crossbows. “I’m sorry, I just don’t think he was .

. .” She forgets the rest of the sentence she had in her mind. “I think I need to go to the toilet.”

She stands up self-consciously, clipping her shin against the coffee table and hiding the pain and everything else as she makes it out the room to the Baxters’ downstairs toilet. She notices the ghost of herself in one of the shower’s glass wal s as she tries to calm her breathing amid her screaming thoughts—
Body! News! Police! Clara! Will!

She takes out her phone and dials Peter’s work number. As she hears the faint bleat in her ear, she looks at the neat row of organic, plant-based hair and body products and can’t help but imagine, for a fleeting second, the naked bodies that use them to conceal their natural scents. She closes her eyes and tries to get these dark,

despair-fueled blood fantasies out of her mind.

After about ten rings Peter answers.

“Peter?”

“Helen, I’m with a patient.”

And then she tel s him in a whisper, with a hand cupped round her mouth, “Peter, they’ve found the body.”

“What?”

“It’s al over. They’ve found the body.”

Nothing. Then: “
Fuck
.” Then: “Fucking fucking
fucking
fuck.” A moment later: “I’m sorry, Mrs.

Thomas. Bad news.”

“What are we going to do? I thought you flew out miles.”

She hears his sigh on the other end of the line. “I did.”

“Wel , obviously not far enough.”

“I thought this would be my fault,” he says. “It’s okay, Mrs. Thomas, I’l be with you in a minute.”

“This
is
your fault.”

“
Jesus
. They’l get her for this. Somehow, they’l get her.”

Helen shakes her head, as if he is in the room to see. “No, they won’t.” And she decides right then she wil do anything—
anything
—to make sure her words remain true.

Preventing OBT: 10 Useful Tips

O
verwhelming blood thirst (OBT) is the single most common danger facing
abstainers. Here are ten proven ways to avoid an OBT attack, should you feel one
coming on.

1. Get away from people. If you are around unbloods or vampires, move quickly
away from their company and find a quiet space of your own.

2. Switch on the lights. OBT attacks are more common at night, or in the dark, so

make sure your surroundings are as bright as possible.

3. Avoid imaginative stimulation. Music, art, films, and books have all been known to
trigger attacks as they are all catalysts for your imagination.

4. Concentrate on your breathing. Inhale and exhale for counts of five to slow your
heart rate and calm your body.

5. Recite the abstainer’s mantra. After a few breaths, say, “I am [YOUR NAME‘ and I
am in control of my instincts,” for as many times as you find helpful.

6. Watch golf. Watching certain outdoor sports on TV, such as golf and cricket, have
been known to reduce the likelihood of an attack.

7. Do something practical. Screw in a lightbulb, do the dishes, prepare some
sandwiches. The more trivial and mundane the task, the more likely you will keep
control of your blood thirst.

8. Eat some meat. Keeping your fridge stocked up with animal meats will mean you
have something to eat to help stave off involuntary cravings.

9. Exercise. Buy a treadmill or a rowing machine so that you can burn off the excess
adrenaline which is often symptomatic of OBT.

10. Never be complacent. Our instinct is an enemy which is always inside us, waiting
for the opportunity to attack. When you step toward temptation, remember it is
easier to step forward than backward. The trick is not to take the step in the first
place.

The Abstainer’s Handbook
(second edition), p.74

An Unusual Thought for a Monday

Peter sits in his chair and watches the old lady wince her way slowly out of the room as he thinks about the phone cal . He can’t believe the police have found the body. It washed to shore.

He had been flying so fast, he had been convinced he was far out when he let go.

But, he concedes to himself, it has been a long time. Maybe he can’t remember how far he used to go. He’s rusty. It’s not like riding a bike. If you stop for seventeen years, your feet are bound to be a bit unsteady on the pedals.

“Okay, bye, Mrs. Thomas,” he offers, on autopilot as she leaves the room.

“Bye, dear.”

A second later and he is pul ing the envelope out of his drawer. He takes out the blood vials and unscrews the caps.

This isn’t plasma and protein and red and white cel s.

This is escape.

He sniffs Lorna’s fascinating, wild blood and sees her and him standing in a wheat field in the moonlight. He is melting into the scent of her. He wants to taste her so badly, and this craving rises until there is nothing between him and it—the man and the pleasure he needs.

I do not drink my patient’s blood.

It is useless now.

He craves it too badly.

He knew he would succumb in the end and he is right. There is absolutely nothing he can do to stop himself slugging back the three vials in succession, like tequila slammers lined up on a bar.

When he’s finished, his head stays back. He slaps his stomach. Notices that the cushion of fat that’s swel ed up over the years may now be in retreat.

“Yes,” he says to himself, as if he is a smoky late-night radio DJ about to introduce Duke El ington. “I
love
live jazz.”

He is stil slapping his stomach when Elaine enters with the list of emergency appointments for later today.

“Are you al right?” she asks him.

“Yes, Elaine, I am wonderful. I am forty-six years old but I am alive. And to be alive is an incredible thing, isn’t it? You know, to taste it, to taste life, and to be aware of tasting it.”

She is unconvinced. “Wel ,” she says, “that’s an unusual thought for a Monday, I must say.”

“That’s because it is a most
unusual
Monday, Elaine.”

“Right. Wil you be wanting a coffee?”

“No, thank you, I’ve just had a drink.”

She looks at the envelope but he doesn’t think she notices the empty vials. Either way, he doesn’t care.

“Right you are,” she says, backing out of the room. “Right you are.”

CSI: Transylvania

DCS Geoff Hodge is laughing so hard he is struggling to keep the half-chewed, final piece of his third cheese-and-onion

pastry inside his mouth.

“I’m sorry, love, run that by me again.”

So she tel s him again. The “she” being Greater Manchester Police’s Deputy Commissioner Alison Glenny, a woman he hasn’t met before. Indeed, he has never had face-to-face contact with any Manchester police officer before, as Manchester is a good fifty miles outside their jurisdiction.

True, you occasional y needed to gain information from other regions, but there are databases for that sort of thing. You didn’t burst in unannounced into another authority’s headquarters with a look like you were sent by God himself. Even if you were a bloody deputy commissioner. She isn’t
his
deputy commissioner.

“You need to leave this case alone,” she says, repeating herself. “We wil take over from here.”

“We? Who the chuff’s
we
? The Greater Manchester Police? I don’t see how a North Yorkshire lad being washed up on the east coast has got owt to do with your mob in Manchester. Unless you’ve got a serial kil er on the loose you’re not tel ing us about.”

The deputy commissioner analyzes him with cold eyes and makes a little hyphen of her mouth. “I work for a national unit, coordinating special branch resources across the UK.”

“Wel , love, I’m sorry, but I haven’t the slightest fig what you’re talking about.”

She hands him a lime green form with a Home Office insignia at the top and lots of smal print.

Forms. Always bloody forms.

“I need your signature in the box in the bottom. Then I’l be able to tel you everything.”

He studies the form. Starts to read the line closest to the signature box.
I hereby declare not to
disclose any information relating to the Unnamed Predator Unit.

“Unnamed Predator Unit? Look, love, I’m lost here. Special Branch stuff goes past me, it real y does. It’s al smoke and mirrors as far as I can see. Have you spoken with Derek?”

“Yes, I have spoken with Derek.”

“Wel , you do understand that I’l have to ring him and check.”

“Go ahead.”

So he picks up his phone and makes an internal cal to Derek Leckie, his commissioner, to ask about this woman.

“Yes, do as she tel s you,” Derek says, with maybe just a trace of fear in his voice. “Everything.”

Geoff signs his name in the box, asking a question as he does so. “Right, so if this is Special Branch, what the hel has it to do with this body? It hardly looks like a counterterrorism job.”

“You’re right. It’s not counterterrorism. It’s countervampirism.”

He watches her, waiting for a smile to crack on her stony face. But none comes.

“Good one, love. Good one. Now, who put you up to this? Bet it was Dobson, wasn’t it? Yeah, bet he’s getting me back for hogging the Beamer.”

Her eyes stay total y neutral.

“I have no idea who Dobson is, but I assure you, Detective Chief Superintendent, this is not a setup.”

Geoff shakes his head and rubs his eyes. For a moment he wonders if this woman is a pastry-induced hal ucination. Maybe he’s just been working too hard. But no amount of blinking does anything to make this woman or her face of granite any less real.

“Good, because I thought you just said
countervampirism
.”

“I did.” She parks her laptop on his desk without even asking. “I take it you haven’t seen pictures of the body or received an autopsy report?” she asks him, with the tone of a mildly frustrated teacher, as the screen blinks into blue life.

Geoff stands back and watches the woman and her computer. The sleek, softly aging hair, the tal ness of her, the subtlety of her makeup, the fine gray cotton of her expensive jacket and trousers, the general sense of steel and elegance. As he watches he is aware of a faint queasiness, a sudden physical weakness. He’s aware of the grease in his mouth, the taste of onion and processed cheese. Perhaps Denise is right. Perhaps he should think about having a salad or a baked potato once in a while. “No, I haven’t.”

“Good. It briefly made the news this morning but East Yorkshire are going to keep the lid on this from now on. And so are you.”

That old bearlike anger surges through Geoff. “Wel , excuse me, love, but we’re under a chuffing big torch with this one. It’s a public interest case and we’re not going to stop talking to the press just because some—”

He loses the thread of what he is saying the moment the JPEG file opens on the screen. He sees the boy’s large, muscular naked body, covered with wounds that are unlike any he’s ever seen. Massive chunks of his neck, chest, and stomach appear to be eaten away, the flesh rendered a drained rose pink from the saltwater. These aren’t injuries done in any conventional way—knife, bul et, or basebal bat.

“They must have set dogs on him.”

“No. It wasn’t dogs. And there was no ‘they.’ Only one person did this.”

It doesn’t seem possible. It
can’t
be possible.

“What kind of person?”

“These are vampire bites, Superintendent. As I said, the UPU is a countervampirism unit. We work nationwide, liaising with members of their community.” She delivers this in the same deadpan tone she has deployed since entering the room.

“Community?” he asks incredulously.

She nods. “Closest tal y we have is seven thousand, nationwide. It’s hard to judge as they are very mobile, and there’s a lot of cross-traffic between various European cities. London, Manchester, and Edinburgh have the three highest per capita rates in the UK.”

His laugh is more forced now, sounding jagged and bitter. “I don’t know what they slip in your tea in Manchester, but this side of the Pennines we don’t go hunting ghouls and goblins.”

“Neither do we, I assure you. We only deal with threats we know to be very real.”

“Like chuffing vampires?”

“As I am sure you wil understand, this is a very sensitive issue and, for obvious reasons, we don’t publicize our work.”

The image she eventual y stops on is a naked woman with possibly a hundred or so bite wounds, like deep red smiles across her blood-spattered legs and torso.