Uprising

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Two minutes to midnight, and claws of mist were groping in from the river as Alex and Greg walked along the deserted quays of the London docks. To their left stood rows of storage units in varying states of repair, and the dark water gurgled against the quayside on their right. The hulls of vast ships bobbed slowly on the swell and cast heavy shadows on the concrete. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. Across the water, the lights of new docklands residential developments were haloed in the mist.

‘You’re pissed off with me, aren’t you?’

Alex said nothing.

‘I can tell. Because of what happened earlier.’

‘I’m not pissed off with you. I’m worried about you. You can’t keep holding out like this, living on vampire baby food. Rudi’s right. You’re going to have to cross the bridge. Otherwise—’

‘I’ll die?’

‘No, you won’t die. You can’t die. What’ll happen to you is a lot worse than death. You’ll wither. You’ll become trapped in a twilight world that you’ll never be able to escape from. A wraith is what you’ll be.’

He looked down at his feet as they walked. ‘Is it normal? I mean, do other people, I mean, vampires, do they—’

‘Have trouble adapting to it?’ She nodded. ‘Some. It happens.’

‘What was it like for you? The first time?’

‘It was easy,’ she said.

‘I shouldn’t have asked. Sorry.’

‘It’s okay. I don’t mind talking about it. It was easy for me because I wanted revenge.’

‘Revenge?’

She paused, took a breath. ‘When I was twenty-nine, I was engaged to someone. His name was William. The only man I ever loved. He was an artist.’ She sighed. ‘One night he was walking across Hampstead Heath when three men robbed him and knifed him. He managed to stagger home, but by the time I was called it was too late. He died in my arms. Nothing I could do except hold him until he was gone.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I used to walk out across the Heath at night afterwards. I’d go to the spot where it happened, sit there for hours. I didn’t even care if I got murdered. As it turned out, someone did get me. But it wasn’t a murderer. And I wanted it to happen. Because that was the only way I could get back at the men who’d killed William. It didn’t take me long to find them. And they paid. That was my first time. 1897.’

‘You still miss William?’ Greg asked after a beat.

‘Yeah, I do miss him.’

‘A hundred and thirteen years is a long time to grieve.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, it’s a very long time,’ she said quietly. ‘A lot has changed. I was Alexandra then.’

‘That’s a nice name.’

‘She was a nice person. I miss her too, sometimes.’ Alex was going to say more, then stopped.

They walked on a few yards in silence.

‘So…you aren’t seeing anyone right now?’ Greg asked.

Alex looked at him curiously.

‘I mean, do you live alone, or what?’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Are you by any chance hitting on me, Agent Shriver?’

‘You have a really great smile.’

‘I’m not smiling.’

‘Yes, you are. You were just then. See, there you go again.’

‘Definitely not smiling.’

They’d walked a long way from the car. The angular shape of a cargo ship loomed up over them, hardly moving on the swell, just a slight sway of its towering superstructure as the water lapped and splashed against its long, rusted hull. The white stencilled lettering on the vessel’s bows spelt out Anica.

‘That’s our ship,’ Alex said. Her watch read after midnight. ‘But no sailors.’

A sound from the shadows of the storage units made her turn suddenly. Her face tightened, then she recognised the VIA agents as they approached. ‘Becker. Mundhra.’

‘It’s been a while,’ Mundhra said.

Alex nodded. ‘This is Agent Shriver,’ she said, motioning at Greg. ‘Looks like we’ve been stood up. They were supposed to meet us here four minutes ago.’

‘Rumble’s gonna be pissed off,’ Becker said.

‘Maybe they went on board,’ Mundhra suggested.

‘They were too scared to,’ Greg replied. ‘That’s what we were told, anyway.’

Becker grinned. ‘Scared of what? Anyone tell them they were RVing with four vampires out here?’

‘Fuck it, I’m not standing here waiting all night,’ Alex said. ‘Let’s check out the vessel. Whatever these guys wanted to show us, we can find ourselves.’

They boarded the Anica via a creaky gangway. Most of the ship’s length was empty deck, as long and broad as a football field, littered with stacks of oil drums and debris and coils of thick rope, battered steel shipping containers scattered here and there. The superstructure rose up like a dark tower block. Not a single window was lit up. The vessel was like a ghost ship. Alex led the team up clattering steps to a wire mesh walkway high above the water. Through an open hatch, and they found themselves wandering through dark, narrow passages that twisted left and right through the bowels of the ship.

‘You would think there’d be someone on board,’ Greg said. ‘Everything’s been left open.’ Alex didn’t reply, but she’d been thinking the same thing. After a few more turns and a few more open hatchways, they came to a deserted canteen with plastic chairs and tables.

‘Someone was here,’ Mundhra said, pointing at the half-eaten food on plates on one of the tables. A chair was overturned. ‘And left in a hurry,’ he added.

‘We’ll keep looking,’ Alex said.

On the next level down, they could hear the echoey creaking of the ship’s hull. It seemed almost alive, breathing, like being inside the belly of a giant whale. Pipes and ducts snaked along the grimy metal walls and low ceilings.

‘I can smell something,’ Alex murmured. She followed her nose a little way further. Put her left hand out and gently pushed open a hatch marked ‘STORAGE’ as she silently drew her pistol with her right.

Then Greg could smell it too, and experience told him what it was. If he’d still been a human, he’d have been puking out his guts.

They’d found the ship’s crew. And until someone found another for hire, the Anica wasn’t leaving the Port of London in a hurry.

Dim light streamed into the room through a single porthole. The ship’s crew had been using the place as a dump for scrap — a burnt-out winch motor, bits of old chain and cable, piles of rusty bolts, lengths of scaffold pipe.

But it wasn’t the heaped junk that Alex was looking at. The storage room looked as if it had been hosed down in blood. Gallons of blood. The walls were caked with dried purple-brown swirls of it. Pools had collected in the hollows of the floor, some of the larger ones still wet and congealing. The floor was scattered with body parts so torn and mutilated that it was hard to tell what some of them were. Those that were still recognisable as human arms and legs, heads and pieces of torso, were pale and shrivelled, almost mummified.

‘They were drained,’ Alex said. ‘Probably while they were still alive. Then whoever did this tore them apart.’ She stepped over a half-eaten ribcage. ‘There are five, maybe six men here. I’m guessing these are the guys we thought we were here to meet.’

Greg was about to say something when the claustrophobic space around them was filled with blasting noise.

Becker had been standing at his shoulder, surveying the scene inside the room.

Suddenly he was flying forward, pitching over on his face, screaming in agony, his legs kicking out.

For an eighth of a second, Alex stared down at him. Watched the grotesque swelling of his flesh, his face distorting, the veins standing out from the skin. Reaching burst-point and then erupting in a spray of gore. Even before Becker had spattered like a ripe tomato in a vice, she knew what she was seeing.

The effects of a Nosferol bullet.