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

She smiled at Marty, but it was a grim smile.

“Rave,” Duval said, and one of the vampires ran.

Rave! Do they think up their own fucking names? Marty thought, then he saw the girl slip around the side of the pedestal and disappear. Humain! Rave the vampire went after her, and fingers bit into his arm as Bindy dragged him on.

Duval glanced back at Marty and raised a corner of his mouth in a smile. Blood was drying on his upper lip. Someone, please see us! Marty thought, but then the consequences of that hit home. If someone stopped and questioned them, the vampires would kill them. If a group of people—security guards, police—tried to stop them, maybe Stoner and Kat would open up with the weapons and cut them all down. Attracting attention would not concern them too much. It was what they had come to London for, after all.

Once they had the Bane, they would attract all the attention they could.

“What’s the matter? You scumbags still hungry?” Marty asked.

“You know that was no teenager,” Bindy said, and Marty realized it was the first time he’d heard her speak. Her voice was deeply accented, maybe eastern European, like some of the bar staff in the pubs he visited.

“Never seen her before,” he said, and it was true. But he’d heard her name, and he wondered what Connie was doing exposing herself like that.

The museum staff were going about closing up for the night when they entered. A tall man in a blue uniform approached, then stopped at a distance, unsettled, even though his expression showed he wasn’t sure why.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” he said. “Open again in the morning at ten. Hope we’ll see you back then.” He held one arm up, pointing back to the doors and advancing on them with small, hesitant steps.

“Of course,” Duval said, turning his back on the man and descending the steps again, out into the night. The others followed, and Marty looked around confused. Then he noticed that the other vampire was missing. He’d walked in with them, he was sure, but now the man was gone.

I could call out to the guard and tell him, he thought. But he didn’t want to sign the man’s death warrant. Marty was gripped with uselessness more tightly than Bindy holding his arm, and even if he were freed to walk away on his own, he had no idea what he could do.

They walked around the huge building as if admiring its architecture, and ten minutes later Stoner and Kat cut through a heavy fence, letting them into a large yard area. There were two wide doors and a raised loading bay, and Marty guessed this was where most of the museum’s contents came and went. All manner of incredible ancient artifacts would have passed this way, and he sniffed the air and looked around to see what trace had been left. But there was none. It was just a grubby backyard bathed in darkness, the security lights no longer working. He wondered if the vampire in the building was responsible for that, or whether they were simply broken down.

Footsteps approached, and the vampires tensed. They seemed to meld with the night, and for a moment Marty had to blink as if his eyes were blurred. But then he saw how perfectly still they had become, motionless as the shadows of statues. Stoner and Kat had knelt down, but they seemed to be jumping around in comparison.

The vampire Rave rounded a corner, slowing as he approached. “She got away,” he said.

“How?” Duval asked, his movement shifting him from the shadows.

“She knows the area better than me. She had somewhere ready to go.”

Duval seemed angry, but he said nothing to the vampire. For an instant he fumed, but then, as he turned to Marty, he bared his teeth in a grotesque smile. “That’s fine, really,” he said. “It’s good that they know we’re here. It’ll scare them. Make them easier to smell.”

“I thought vampires didn’t feed on each other,” Marty asked.

“Who said anything about feeding?” Duval replied. “We’ll destroy them. Weak shadows of what they could be. Echoes of what we will be.” Moments later, a motor started somewhere, and one of the large rolling shutter doors rolled up to reveal darkness within. The vampire slipped out like a slick of oil.

Duval nodded at the two humans. “You go first. Draw your guns. But don’t use them yet.”

“What—” Kat began, but Duval cut in.

“Don’t… use them… yet.”

Kat and Stoner nodded like berated children, then climbed onto the loading bay and rolled beneath the half-open doors.

The vampires followed. Inside, Bindy let go of Marty’s arm at last, and he rubbed at the flesh. It felt like her fingers were still there.

“You follow me now,” Duval said to Marty. “One move to escape and…” He bared his teeth. Held up one clawed hand. And as the rolling shutter closed again, the blood on his face was black in the fading light.

With the gun held between his thighs, and the homemade bullets it held, Lee should have been safe. But he had never felt in such danger his whole life, not even ten years before, when he and Phil had faced the vampire in Yugoslavia. Back then he’d been certain that his time had come, but he had fought because he had no real concept of what he was fighting. Phil’s sacrifice had given him time to flee and hide, and had also given him ten years in which to reflect upon what might have been cowardice. At least he couldn’t think that now.

He parked close to the museum and holstered the gun. They left the car together, Francesco and Rose walking on either side of him. He did not feel escorted, and that was good. They could never trust one another—they all knew that—but their aims here really were the same.

And he’d revealed his secret, told them he knew exactly where the Bane was hidden away. They had to protect him now, because if one of the vampires killed him—or, worse, turned him to their cause—the Humains would be lost.

“It’s huge,” Rose said. The museum stood before them, an architectural wonder in itself. Stone columns and a pitched roof gave it something of an ancient Greek look, the steps wide and slightly worn by time, and banners hung down to advertise current special displays. Alive, Rose had not been a particular fan of architecture, but, undead, she could at least appreciate its calm permanence. Its exterior was lit by floodlights, and people still bustled around its base. The front doors were closed, however, and the only people she could make out behind the huge closed main doors wore uniforms.

“How many security guards?” Francesco asked.

“No idea,” Lee said. “A few, at least.”

Rose sighed, and he knew what that meant. Any fighting between the vampires and Humains would attract the guards, and they would become innocent victims. I’m responsible, he thought, and the weight was heavy.

So were the guns. He liked the weight of them, resting in the holsters beneath his arms and the one in the small of his back. They felt significant.

“Tell us where it is,” Francesco asked again.

“No,” Lee said. “I’ll find it first.”

“Lee—” Rose began.

“You going to torture it from me?” Lee asked, too loud. Heads turned their way, people wandering across the square before the museum on their way home from work. They quickly turned away again, but he knew that too much shouting would bring the wrong attention.

“Lee, I know,” Rose said softly.

She knows what? Lee felt panicked, even though he wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

“What?” Francesco asked.

“Olemaun’s heard of the Bane,” she said. “But conflicting stories. It’s not only a source of power for a vampire wielding it, it could be a weapon as well.”