Tim Lebbon - 30 Days of Night - Fear of the Dark

He glanced up at her, looked at Francesco, and shrugged. “Haven’t spoken with her in some time. Starting to think they got to her.”

“No harm in me trying, then,” she said, and Lee turned the laptop to face her. As he went to the ammunition lockers and started loading his weapons, Rose felt a chill of anticipation. They’d been down here for twelve hours, she was hungry, and danger was settling around them with the darkness. And it all started here. Lee could turn around now and blow Francesco’s head off—he was standing close enough, watching the mortal, hands fisted by his sides—and then turn his guns on her. If that happened, she’d have time while he was killing Francesco to go at him, but even then the odds were barely even that she’d get to him in time.

This was a test of trust, and a risky one at that. Francesco must feel he knew Lee very well indeed.

As Lee clicked the safety on the first loaded gun, Rose caught him looking sidelong at Francesco. The two men stared for a moment, then both nodded their heads slightly. Grudging allies. She hoped that lasted.

Opening a blank email window, she started typing.

Stella, you don’t know me. My name’s Rose Volk and I live in London. I’m a friend of Lee Woodhams, who you’ve conversed with in the past. I’m also a vampire—part of a group who call ourselves Humains. Circumstances have meant that Lee only just found out. We live alongside humans, don’t feed on living people, and keep to the shadows. We go unnoticed, but that has now changed. There are vampires in London looking for an artifact called the Spanish Bane. I’ll assume you’ve heard of this? We know where it is, and we’re on our way there right now to try and stop them. But these are monsters. True bloodsuckers. They’ve killed many already, and have taken on human slaves. We’re flailing in the dark here, but we know how important it is they don’t get the Bane. We’re doing our best. And this is for real; I’m not insane. Contacting you is a shot in the dark because I know about you—I read your book—and know how much you hate us. But if there’s anything you can do to help, my mobile is…

And she left her number.

She read the email through, then sent it. No harm in trying, and if even half of what the Olemaun woman had written in her book was true, she’d know a thing or two about vampires.

Rose just hoped she didn’t hate them enough to deny any help, whatever the circumstance.

“Ready?” Francesco asked, and when Rose glanced up, she realized she’d been typing longer than she thought. Lee had both shoulder holsters strapped on properly now, a gun in his belt, and full magazines clipped to the bandoliers.

“Um, yeah… ready,” she said.

“I’m not,” Lee said. He was holding a jacket ready to put on to cover the guns, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“Why?” Francesco asked.

“You seemed keen enough to kill vampires earlier,” Rose said.

“I am, but…”

Rose held out her hands. What?

“I need a shit,” he said.

Rose sighed, Francesco walked toward the basement stairs, and Lee followed.

“Fucking vampires,” he muttered as he passed her by.

She closed the laptop, slipped it into its carry case, and slung it over her shoulder. Standing at the bottom of the basement steps, she looked around, thinking of torture and pain and how much their friend Lee Woodhams seemed prepared to do. And she knew then that whatever the outcome that night, if he was still alive come dawn, he would present a very desperate problem for the Humains.

But before she could let that even begin to worry her, they had a war to fight.

Torture was on Rose’s mortal brother’s mind as well. Not only physical torture, though the fear of that was rich and sour in his mouth like the aftermath of a terrible hangover. But torture of the soul. Because there were vampires here, monsters whom he could see were damned beyond measure. And he didn’t want to be like them.

Stoner, the tall woman, who called herself Kat, and the other guy who’d been stalking Marty in his street had rushed him away from the police station massacre in excitement and fear. He could tell that they were all jacked up on something—pupils dilated, sweat glistening their skin, heads jerking like nervous birds. Stoner carried him under one arm as easily as a bale of hay, and Marty knew without trying that struggling would do him no good.

Besides, there were the guns.

There had been bodies everywhere, bullet holes, blood, people crying, some screaming, and Kat had stopped a couple of times to finish off people who were writhing on the floor. Stoner had giggled as she knelt on their torsos, held their heads back, and hacked at their throats with a vicious-looking knife she took from a sheath in her boot. The gushes of blood had seemed to excite them all.

In the police station’s lobby area, several confused-looking people stood looking at shattered glass and the body splayed in the chair behind the reception desk. Excuse me, one had asked as Kat and the other man shoved through the swinging door, and she’d shot him in the face.

Outside, three mounted police were waiting for them. But Kalashnikovs and horse meat do not mix.

“Didn’t we do well?” Kat asked now, subservient and pathetically pleading, and the vampire standing before Marty sighed in frustration. Without being told, Marty knew that this was Duval. He exuded power, as obvious and rich as the stink of death on him, and the three other vampires stood quietly behind him. They deferred to him when he spoke, terrifying in their own right but nowhere near as brutal looking as Duval.

“Get them the fuck out of here,” he growled. Though he spoke English, it was plainly not his own language. Marty could not imagine any coherent language suiting a mouth like that. Stoner, Kat, and the other junkie were ushered from the room, Kat mewling in exasperation.

“You promised!” she whined, and Marty had no wish to know exactly what she’d been promised.

“Yeah, yeah,” Duval growled. He never took his eyes from Marty. The door closed behind the three vampires and their human slaves, and they were alone in the stinking room.

Marty had no idea where they were. He’d been taken underground into tunnels and shafts, carried by Kat and the others through darkness lit only by weak lights, and then deposited alone in this room that smelled of dampness and shit and something older, and more like death. The vampires had come soon after.

“And now we’re alone,” Duval said, and Marty felt his bladder let go a little. This vampire was totally inhuman, nothing like Rose or Francesco. They could at least pass for being normal people, and had been doing so for a long time. But before him now was something from out of nightmares. His eyes were dark, the pupils so dilated that there was no color around them at all, just black, and white. His head was bald but for a narrow Mohawk of black hair, grown long and pulled back across his scalp, secured somehow at the base of his neck. The scalp was pocked with open wounds, though none of them bled. His mouth… that was the main reason this monster could never pretend. His numerous teeth were sharp and pointed, designed for tearing and ripping instead of chewing and grinding. Whoever this man had once been, vampirism had removed all traces of him ever having been omnivorous. Now he was made to consume meat. And blood.

“Fuck you,” Marty managed.

“You’ve pissed yourself,” Duval said. He was standing several feet away from where Marty stood pressed against a damp wall, yet it still felt as if his personal space were being invaded. The monster’s presence was huge.

“Just trying to cover up your stink.”