London Under Midnight

  'You really think the key to this is to find the island?' Trajan asked.

  'So far, that's your only option if you wish to make April well again.'

  Ben nodded at the computer. 'Okay, Trajan. Keep searching.'

  Trajan pushed the keyboard away from him. 'No good. How can we identify a particular island from what the guy told you? I mean, how big is it? Are there any distinguishing features?'

  'Elmo' - Ben turned to the old man - 'is there any way of waking the guy in the other room?'

  'You would need to wait until the sun is much lower.'

  Trajan slammed his hand down on the table. 'But we can't wait that long.'

  'But he was conscious enough to walk and to speak to me.'

  'He cares for the woman,' Elmo told them. 'It was a supreme effort of will on his part.'

  'Look, if he woke up once, he can wake up again!' Ben raced through into the bedroom. April lay on the bed as still as death. The stranger sat on the floor with his back to the wall. His eyes were closed and his head hung forward until the chin rested on his chest.

  Everything became a blur; Ben knew that all that mattered now was to wake the man. Earlier this inert piece of crap had talked about the magic of the island, wherever it was.

  'Hey!' Ben crouched down. 'Wake up! Come on, you've got to talk to me.' Ben roughly shook the man. There wasn't so much as a glimmer of consciousness. 'Wake up.' Ben didn't relish touching the man's bare flesh; nevertheless, he roughly shoved his head back against the wall, then he slapped his face. He slapped hard and repeatedly while he shouted, 'Wake up! Talk to me! Come on! Wake up!' Ben's palm stung but he didn't raise so much as a grunt from the vampire. 'Snap out of it.' This time he bunched his fist to deliver a blow against the man's cheekbone.

  'Okay, that's enough.' Trajan gripped his wrist, preventing the punch.

  'I've got to rouse him, then we'll get some answers.'

  'It's not working, Ben. He's unconscious.'

  'Bring a candle. We'll use the flame.'

  Elmo ghosted into the room. 'You might derive satisfaction from burning his flesh but I doubt if you'll wake him. He'll open his eyes when the sun goes down.'

  'Then it might be too late.' Ben's anger intensified. 'You told us that they might kill us. And if that ritual of yours works then Edshu might simply yank the plug and walk away. What happens to these, then?'

  'By rights they should have died either through blood loss during the original attack, or drowned when they were thrown into the river.' Elmo gave a painful shrug. 'If they should be dead, then when Edshu releases them, what then?'

  Trajan asked, 'So, what can we do?'

  'The man spoke about an island,' Elmo replied. 'That could be where you find the means to rescue April.' He held up a finger. 'And yet… remember Edshu is the trickster. He may be the architect of a deceit. He might wish to lure you to the island for his own malicious purpose. You understand?

  Trajan took a deep breath. 'The island it is then. Well just have to weather everything Edshu throws at us. You with me, Ben?'

  'You don't have to ask. But how do we find it?'

  'You heard Mr Kigoma. In a couple of hours April and this fellow are going to wake up.' He gave a grim smile. 'Once they're awake they can show us the way, can't they?'

  'How?' Ben asked as he followed Trajan into the lounge.

  'I'm going to get hold of a boat and we'll take the pair of them downstream. With luck, they'll recognize the island.'

  'Trajan, instead of acting as navigators they're going to rip us apart.'

  'No, they won't.'

  'You saw what happened to those men in the park. So how are you going to persuade April and the guy to behave like they're out for nothing more than an evening river cruise?'

  'That,' Trajan told him, 'is something we haven't figured yet. But we will.'

  'And how are you going to find a boat at such short notice?'

  Trajan picked up the phone and began to press the keys. 'My family's company ships medical aid to the people who need it. A lot of what we do is funded by trust and favors rather than money. Say a little prayer for me, Ben, because I'm going to test that good-will to breaking point.' He took a deep breath and picked up the phone. 'Hello, Jeff. Do you still have that boat in Chelsea harbour?'

  As Trajan spoke on the phone Elmo murmured to Ben, 'Edshu will test Trajan and yourself in the coming hours. This will be your time of crisis. This is when both of you and April will be in extreme peril. Listen to these words, Ben.' The man's dark eyes were hypnotic. 'You will face danger; you will be attacked from quarters you can't begin to imagine. But this is the crucial fact, the threat won't always come from outside. Sometimes the danger will come from here.' Elmo Kigoma pointed a finger at Ben's heart.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  An unconscious human is a difficult object to move. Immensely difficult. It has to be moved in one piece. When you want it to be rigid it's flexible. When you need to move it round a tight corner it doesn't bend like you want it to. And all the time you have to be careful you don't drop the inert person. So you end up struggling to move something that seems as heavy as a slab of concrete, yet more fragile than an antique vase.

  These thoughts repeated themselves in a seemingly endless cycle as Ben worked with Trajan and Elmo to shift the guy with the gaunt face and gold-tipped teeth down into the basement garage of the apartment block. The stranger had a slender build; his body appeared emaciated; you could encircle his upperarm with your fingers, yet he was an object that was near immovable. Not for the first time Ben said, frustrated, 'Damn it, he must have bones of solid granite.' Then he added mentally, or is Edshu testing us again?

  The most logical way of moving the man was for Trajan and Ben to take an arm each; hold it over their own shoulders and carry him horizontally, like they were helping a friend home after a whisky too many. Only to carry him like this meant that the vampire's head rolled from side-to-side. When the creature's face slapped against Ben's jaw he recoiled so much that he dropped him.

  Trajan didn't complain at Ben's squeamishness. 'When I touch him,' he said, 'I see those images again… the same as when we held April's hand… feeding on blood…' He shook his head. 'We've got to figure out another way to do this.'

  Trajan found a sleeping bag that he unzipped and laid out flat on the hallway floor. What came next wasn't easy. However, they managed to roll the guy on to the opened sleeping bag. Then Elmo and Ben took a corner each at either side of the man's head. Trajan took the two corners by the feet. Lifting it was torture. Ben's shoulder ached; shooting pains blasted through his elbows. But sweating and panting they made it to the landing. Constantly, there was the threat of a neighbour stepping out of their own front door to discover what appeared to be the aftermath of murder.

  'There's a lift to the garage,' Trajan panted, 'at the end of the landing.'

  The only one of the three who appeared to be handling the burden without complaint, or even undue exertion, was the eighty-six-year-old African. He gripped the fabric of the sleeping bag in both hands and sunk all he had into carrying the dead-to-the-world figure.

  Sleeping like a baby. The thought nearly produced a bark of lunatic laughter in Ben. The guy hadn't even murmured during all the manhandling to get him on the sleeping bag, then some pretty savage buffeting against the door frame to haul him out of the apartment. As they hoisted their cargo by closed front doors Ben smelt cooking as people prepared their evening meals; he heard snatches of conversation from those homes, together with a burst of music or applause from televisions. Sweet heaven, he thought with a sudden passion, here we are doing this! They're inside getting ready for a pleasant evening. Ignorance really is bliss.

  And that's how we survive, isn't it? he thought. It's not what we know that keeps us functioning: it's what we don't. How would the steak on your plate taste if you knew the journey from calf to supermarket? Would you sleep at all if you walked through a cemetery where the soil suddenly became as transparent as glas
s - that and coffin wood, too - so you found yourself looking down through a material that was clear as air to hundreds of corpses in various stages of rot beneath your feet?

  How do you close your eyes at night when you've gazed into a face that's shaped from pure horror rather than flesh, and those gaping eye-sockets filled with a glistening slime stare up into yours? And the buried man is not just peeping from his grave at you out of curiosity. No! You know only too well that dead brain harbours malicious thoughts. 'That's alright, Oh Living One, take a really good look at me. Do you see my rib cage through the holes in my shirt? Do you see the maggot squirming in my heart? Have your eyes devoured the appearance of my face? A face that slides away from my head as corruption loosens its grip upon the bone? Can you imagine what it would be like to smell the inside of this casket? How cold would it feel against your fingers to shake me by the hand? Would you remain sane if you embraced me? Keep watching me, Oh Living One. Feast your eyes. BECAUSE WHAT I AM NOW YOU WILL BECOME!'

  There's mocking laughter coming from the dead in their graves. The laughter is cruel but so knowing. All the men and women in the graveyard lived their lives believing that somehow death wouldn't find them. But it does, you know, doesn't it?

  And those people in the apartments grilling steaks, easing corks from wine bottles, have persuaded themselves death will never ever happen to them. Wrong. Wrong! Wrong! Why not hammer on the doors and show them what we're carrying! 'See the man that looks like a corpse. This is a vampire! Don't believe me, huh? Just you sit beside it here and wait for the sun to go down…'

  'Ben' - the sound of Kigoma's voice struck him like a blow - 'remember what I told you. Edshu has the power to attack in many different ways. Keep your guard up.'

  Ben's heart hammered. For a moment there he'd almost lost his mind. It had been like falling asleep. His grip on reality had nearly slipped away with such an oily ease; it was like his thoughts had become lubricated. The image of that transparent cemetery with corpses floating there underground had been so brutally vivid. Ben took a deep breath. Dear God, this is going to be harder than I thought.

  As they waited for the lift that would take them to the subterranean garage a door opened and a middle-aged woman looked out. 'Hello, Trajan. Keeping busy?'

  Smoothly, as if dematerializing, Elmo Kigoma slipped away along the hallway until he was out of sight of the woman. The woman stared at them in surprise; her drop earrings even flicked against her neck as she turned her head so quickly to look at the sleeping bag they'd dragged to the lift doors.

  Ben glanced down expecting to see the man lying on the fabric; however, Trajan had the presence of mind to flick the material over the body. What was on view was a lumpy sausage shape covered by the sleeping bag.

  Trajan smiled. 'Hello, Rita. We're just getting rid of the heating boiler. These things weigh a ton.'

  Rita was confused but still smiled back. 'They do, don't they?'

  Even though she was clearly suspicious she appeared reluctant to accuse Trajan outright of moving what resembled a corpse wrapped in the sleeping bag.

  Trajan smiled again. 'We'd better get going. Have a nice evening, Rita.'

  'Oh, thank you.' She bobbed her head and the drop earrings jiggled. 'Cheerio.' With that she stepped back inside and closed the door.

  Ben murmured, 'I'd bet good money she didn't believe your boiler story.'

  Trajan began to perspire. 'I agree… Come on, lift, where the hell are you?' An illuminated arrow flashed to show it was climbing slowly - far too slowly - towards them.

  Ben's heart pounded. The thing covered by the sleeping bag flap might as well have screamed: Dead Man Inside! The elongated shape, with those suggestive bulges of torso and head, was so damned obvious. With agonizing sluggishness the lift ascended. Behind the closed steel doors its mechanism clicked. The wretched thing was going to take its time; it must feed on a diet of sadistic pleasure as well as electricity. Ben experienced that surge of paranoia that always surfaces the moment your car doesn't start, when the key doesn't fit the clock, or the ATM flashes up 'Insufficient funds' when you know you've just been paid.

  Behind him, the door handle turned. Ben called, 'She's coming back. She wants a second look.' He glanced back at the lift doors, willing them to open, but knowing full well the lift wasn't going to arrive in time.

  The apartment door apartment opened. As it did so Elmo glided forward. A revelation came to Ben. Dear God, he's going to slug her.

  Instead, Elmo spoke politely. 'I'm sorry to disturb, madam. I preach at the Church of the Transient Apostle in Westminster; I wonder if I could interest you in attending one of our services?'

  'Uh? No, thank you. I'm Methodist actually.' At that moment she didn't know whether to look at this striking man who'd manifested himself at her door, or the pair with their suspicious bundle. She recovered her composure to add, 'I'm not interested, thank you.' She wasn't ready to yield her ground yet, and began to edge by the man.

  'I understand, madam. Before I go, may I ask you for a small donation for the upkeep of the church? Last week vandals damaged our stained-glass windows.'

  'I'll say goodnight to you.' She attempted to step past him.

  'Only when I called earlier your husband asked me to come back tonight. Didn't he mention it to you, madam?'

  This distracted her. 'My husband?' Frowning, she called back into the apartment. 'Richard? Richard, there's a gentleman here who says…'

  Fortunately, Ben didn't have to watch how Elmo's deception played out. The steel doors slid open; a moment later they'd dragged their morbid burden into the lift. Trajan punched the button marked 'Basement'.

  As the doors closed Trajan sighed, 'One down, one to go.'

  With it being early evening the cars that ferried people home from work had already been parked up. When the lift doors opened to that concrete catacomb there was only one vehicle in motion as a girl headed out in her pink Mini. She never even noticed the pair dragging the heavy object in a sleeping bag. Once the car had vanished up the ramp to street-level they resumed their labors.

  Trajan nodded toward the corner of the basement. 'Red Renault. The back seat reclines… there's a blanket in there. Once this is under it we'll go back for April.'

  Muscles straining, they bore the dead weight to the car.

  'Okay,' Trajan grunted. 'They say space wagons are as dull as buses, but at least they've got room… for whatever it is you're carrying.' He opened the hatchback, pushed the rear seat flat, then together they hefted the man into the luggage area. After that they dragged the sleeping bag free, then covered him with a blanket. By now their skin was slick with sweat. A pain speared Ben's side where a muscle had been overstretched.

  When Trajan locked the car he simply panted, 'Next passenger.'

  'And we get to do this all over again when we take them down to the boat?'

  'Yep. But we can drive up right alongside. It's only at Chelsea harbor.' He caught his breath. 'Shouldn't take long to get there.'

  'Pray that it doesn't. It's going to be dark in a couple of hours.'

  'Probably less than that. After you.'

  Elmo Kigoma was waiting for them upstairs. His pose as some kind of urban missionary had been enough to drive Trajan's neighbor indoors.

  'You must hurry, gentlemen,' he urged them. 'The sun will be setting soon.'

  'We hear you.' Ben was still breathless. 'But we're doing okay.'

  'Okay? Gentlemen, okay isn't good enough. To survive this you must work miracles.'

  ***

  April Connor knew she lay on her bed at home. Every so often street sounds reached her; car horns, or motorbikes. They swam into her senses and back out again. Even though she was in dreamy state she told herself, I'll wake soon. I know this time Carter and I will tell everyone about what happened to us. I know we can make the world a better place. For a moment she tried to open her eyes but there was still no strength inside of her. It was as if her energy had been extracted. It wasn't lost. S
ome force beyond her comprehension guarded that physical energy for her. What's more, they cultivated it. That New-Life energy was being improved. Soon it would be returned to her body and she'd awake refreshed and strong and determined to continue her quest to deliver the good news to everybody. She'd tell them this: You, too, can live forever! You can feel elated and stronger than you've ever felt before. All you need do is submit to a moment of pain.

  April's lungs expanded in her chest. She was aware of her respiration. It grew stronger. It wouldn't be long before she woke.

  ***

  The setting sun filled the buildings with blood. At least that was Ben's impression when he took a moment to peep through the kitchen blind. London's tall buildings reflected the light of a low sun that turned ruddy and bloated as it dipped between the office blocks. Ben's gaze was drawn to the millions of window panes that caught the scarlet rays of the sun. Elmo Kigoma told them that those vampires had the power to infect mortal people and transform them into vampires, too. But Ben realized it went beyond that. The vampiric force possessed remorseless power. Not only did the vampires infect humanity, they had the potential to infect the very fabric of the city. At that moment London gorged itself on the blood-red light of the sun. Meanwhile, the mighty River Thames was the artery that ran through its heart. What manner of life lurked in that arterial flow?

  Ben knew that once darkness fell those vampiric creatures that hid themselves away during the hours of daylight would invade this community of seven million souls.

  Elmo appeared at his side. 'It won't be long now, Ben.'

  Ben turned to the African. The statement bristled with several meanings. More than one of those was darkly ominous. 'How-?'

  Trajan appeared at the doorway. 'Quick. April's waking up.'

  Ben followed Trajan into the room. 'She's not moved?'

  'I don't think so.'

  'What then?

  For a split-second Trajan appeared awkward. 'I touched her.' Then he added in a way that challenged them to criticize he announced, 'I kissed her. She's my fiancee.'