Uprising

Chapter Thirty Oxford

12.50 a.m.

The rain was turning heavy as Mickey Thompson walked through the empty city centre, but he didn’t care about getting wet. The atmosphere of the party he’d just left was still with him, making him smile. But the thing that was really putting the spring in his step as he walked past Carfax Tower and headed down the slick High Street pavement towards his digs was the memory of Sally Baker.

He’d worshipped her from afar ever since he’d first bumped into her in the mathematics section at the college library. Three whole terms had gone by, and he’d never been able to pluck up the courage to ask her out. But tonight he’d done it. And she’d said yes.

Mickey made a fist as he walked. Yes! So it was dinner, tomorrow night. Then he remembered how late it was. Not tomorrow, today. Even better. He began to worry about where to take her. He couldn’t afford much on his postgrad allowance, but he really needed to make an impression here. How about that nice little French brasserie on Little Clarendon Street? Or maybe Chinese? Or was that too obvious? Mexican? Too spicy, maybe.

Those were the happy concerns that filled his mind as he wandered all the way down the High Street, humming a little tune to himself, until he reached the cobbled lane that wound past the Radcliffe Camera.

Mickey Thompson suddenly froze. Stopped, and very slowly turned.

No, he must have imagined it. But he could have sworn someone was there behind him.

He shrugged and kept walking through the rain.

Must have been the wine.

He walked on under the looming shadow of the circular Radcliffe Camera building.

Hold on. There was someone there.

He could hear padding footsteps a few yards behind him. He turned again, and this time he saw the figure.

It stood on the edge of a sodium streetlamp’s diffuse amber haze. A tall man, dressed all in black, his body seeming to melt into the shadows. But Mickey could see the long, lean face, and he could see that the man was looking at him. There was a strange glint in his eye. Was that a smile on his thin lips?

Mickey walked faster now, his steps becoming jerky with tension. He glanced over his shoulder through the wet mist. The man was still there, keeping pace with him.

Should he turn and confront him? If this was a mugging, could he avoid trouble by offering the guy some money to go away? But something about the man told Mickey he was no mugger. He wanted something else. But what?

Mickey couldn’t stand it any longer — he broke into a run. His heart was in his mouth and the sound of his footsteps echoed off the college buildings as he rounded the corner and headed down New College Lane. Up ahead of him, the gothic archway of the Bridge of Sighs hung darkly over the narrow street, the streetlights glinting off its rain-streaked leaded windows. Just a hundred yards further and Mickey would be at the door of the flat he shared with two other postgrad mathematicians. He fumbled for his keys as he ran — and dropped them.

As he groped cursing in the shadowy gutter to retrieve the keys, he realised the man was gone. He let out a wheezing gasp of relief.

‘You stupid bugger,’ he muttered to himself. ‘What’s got into you?’

That was when the chill feeling of dread came over him. It started at his toes and spread quickly through his body, and it wasn’t because his clothes were damp. It was that horrible feeling that he was being watched. As if by a predator.

He looked up, afraid of what he was going to see.

It was the man in black. He stood framed in the ornate centre window of the bridge, ten feet above his head.

Mickey backed away. His jaw dropped open.

With a crashing of breaking glass, the man leapt from the window and landed on his feet like a cat on the pavement in front of Mickey.

And before Mickey Thompson could turn and run, let out a scream or wet his pants in terror, the man was on him and he felt the teeth savaging his throat.

London

Alex flipped open her phone and speed-dialled Rumble as she pressed the Jag through the night traffic. It was just after one a.m.

‘Jesus, Harry, I’ve been trying to call you.’

‘I was feeding. What’s happened?’

‘It was a trap. We walked right into it. Becker and Mundhra are down. Greg and I got separated and I can’t find him. I’ve tried his phone about a hundred times. I think they might have taken him.’

Rumble was quiet for a long moment as the news sank in. ‘But who—’

‘They’re vampires. They’re better funded than us, they’re better organised than us, and they’re not fucking about. They have Nosferol, Harry.’

A sharp hiss as Rumble drew a breath on the end of the line. ‘Where are they getting it from?’

‘There’s only one way. Someone on the inside.’

‘Who?’

‘You tell me. All I know is, we’re under attack.’

Rumble fell silent once more for a few seconds. When he spoke again, she could feel the urgency in his voice. ‘I need to make some calls. Are you coming in?’

‘No, I have a visit to make.’