Scott Mariani - Uprising

Baxter’s cocky grin left him and his face fell.

‘Of course you do,’ Alex said. ‘Do not fuck with us, because if I want to terminate you right now, I have the authority to do that and nobody will ask questions.’ She lifted his chin with the barrel of the magnum and thumbed back the hammer. Baxter went pale as he felt the hard click-click resonate through his jawbone.

Alex went on. ‘This is a matter of Federation security, Baxter. You’re in the public eye and the Federation wants vampires to keep a low profile. You go on like this, you’re a risk to everyone. That makes you expendable.’

Charlie came into the room, a threatening look on his face. Keeping the gun and her eyes on Baxter, Alex called out to him, ‘Stay right there, Charlie. One more step, I blow his head off and yours next.’

Charlie wavered, his eyes wide, and backed off.

‘Okay, okay. What do you want from me?’ Baxter couldn’t take his eyes off the gun, putting his palms up, hands shaky.

Alex stepped away from Baxter, uncocking and lowering the gun. ‘Do what Irene DeBurgo did, and Jeff Caplan. You’re worth, what, eighty million? Get yourself a Pacific island hideaway. Retire, become a recluse. And if you can’t do that, get yourself a good makeup artist and start acting your age. Either way, I don’t give a shit. You know I’m a movie fan, Baxter. I see you playing Jake Gyllenhaal’s little brother, I’ll come after you and I will fucking destroy you. That’s a promise.’

‘You wouldn’t really have shot Baxter, would you?’ Greg asked as they got back in the Jag.

Alex twisted the ignition and the car roared as she pulled out of the Ritz car park onto the street. Apart from a few gulps of Baxter’s Bloody Mary made with real blood, she hadn’t had a proper feed since before the Romania trip and she was feeling drained.

‘For being a lousy actor, I might have. But I hardly think the guy’s going to bring down the Federation single-handed, whatever Harry might say. I just wanted to put the point across.’

‘I think he got it. His face when you told him about the Nosferol bullets.’

‘Only thing we fear,’ she said. ‘Apart from decapitation.’

‘So it’s true that all the stuff about garlic is a myth?’

‘Sometime we’ll have lunch at Rudi Bertolino’s place. He makes the most amazing ragu sauce. Loaded with garlic. And you’ve probably noticed you can still see yourself in the mirror, too. As if the laws of physics don’t apply to us, just because we’re not human.’

‘And what about crosses?’

Alex popped open a button on her blouse as she drove and fished out the little gold chain she wore around her neck to show him the tiny crucifix dangling from it.

‘Frightened? On a scale of one to ten.’

‘Uh, I’d say that’s a one,’ he said, peering at it.

‘There you go. We can walk into churches, drink the damn holy water if we feel like it.’

‘So, basically, what you’re saying is all these old legends are bullshit.’

She shifted in her seat and didn’t reply.

‘What?’ he said, noticing her expression.

All but one, she was thinking. ‘Nothing. Don’t worry about it.’ She drove on, and the tingle of apprehension soon passed.

‘What’s the key for?’ he asked. She glanced at him, and saw he was looking through the open neck of her blouse at the little black antique key she wore on a thong around her neck beside the crucifix.

‘You ask too many questions. And keep your eyes out of my blouse.’

‘Sorry.’

There was silence between them for a while. Greg broke it by asking sheepishly,

‘So where to now?’

‘I’m dropping you back at HQ. You’ve got paperwork.’

He looked at her. ‘Vampires do paperwork?’

‘Every piece of fieldwork has to be written up for the official record. Harry wants me to show you the ropes; that means from now on you get to take care of the boring stuff. I have better things to do.’

After she’d offloaded Greg at the office, she headed into Soho. It was mid-morning, and the hunger was pressing. She needed someone’s blood. Now.

She knew the backstreets and alleys as well as anyone would who’d been stalking them on and off for a hundred years.

‘You,’ she muttered to herself when she spotted the guy coming out of the café.

She could smell the red juice in his veins as he walked up a narrow street. There was nobody else about. Nothing but piles of rubbish bags and a scuffed yellow builder’s skip at the kerbside. She followed, gaining on her target.

She gave a little cough as she got close behind him. He turned, and his eyebrows rose as he took in the sight of the tall, attractive, elegantly dressed woman approaching him with an alluring smile.

‘You dropped this back there,’ she said, holding out a twenty-pound note.

He looked at it with a puzzled expression. ‘Did I?’

‘It fell out of your pocket.’

‘Really? Wow. I didn’t even know I had—’ He shrugged, took the money and thanked her.

The fish had taken the bait. She stood there, smiling, one eyebrow raised suggestively. He hesitated. The hand with the wedding ring slipped unconsciously into his pocket: sure sign he was interested. Alex sidled up to him, letting him feel her breasts crush up against his chest. He seemed to be up for it. She moved up as though to kiss him. In her mouth, the long curved fangs were extending into place, ready. His neck was exposed, a fat blue vein pulsing enticingly. She moved in and he didn’t back off.

It was in the bag. The blood rushed to her eyes and her predatory vampire instinct took over as she went in for the bite.

And then the phone went off in her pocket, distracting her, and the guy came to his senses and walked off, flushed and bemused and still holding her banknote.

She answered the phone.

‘Damn it, Harry,’ she said irritably. ‘You just cost me a feed and twenty quid.’

‘How fast can you get over to Oxford?’

‘Pretty fast. What’s in Oxford?’

‘There was a car accident late last night. Single driver, a teenage kid. The police took him to the John Radcliffe hospital. I’ve got a report from one of our people inside that the kid was ranting and raving. Something about a ritual blood sacrifice taking place.’

‘The V-word get mentioned?’

‘Said he found a whole nest. Apparently he was running away from it when he crashed his car.’

Alex frowned. ‘More rogue activity?’

‘It’s a possibility.’

‘Or it could be just the usual Hallowe’en hysteria. We get this every year, Harry.

I’ll bet you anything this kid was on drugs.’

‘He was. But I think you should check it out nonetheless. We can’t afford to take chances here.’

‘Why does it have to be me? Can’t you send Gibson?’

‘Gibson’s in Athens.’

Alex sighed. ‘Fine. I’m on my way.’

Ever since the conversation he’d overheard in the canteen, Joel hadn’t been able to shut the story of Declan Maddon out of his head. Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe he’d been working too hard and his brain was going into meltdown.

But he’d just had to go and talk to this kid. After a fraught and unproductive morning of pushing paper around, he’d seen a ninety-minute window open up in his schedule and grabbed it. The John Radcliffe hospital was on the edge of the city, off the Oxford ring road. Joel rode fast. Just before midday and the sun was shining brightly now — it was turning into one of those beautiful autumnal days that seemed to be getting rarer with each passing year.

The staff nurse looked as perplexed at Joel’s request as she was by his appearance in bike leathers and boots.