April raced through the door with the words, 'They're inside!'
'Keep moving higher,' Carter told them.
'What's the point?' Ben roared. 'They're going to get us in the end!'
Elmo's calm eyes regarded him. 'The point is to give you enough time to reach your decision.'
'But what decision?'
'You're close. I can tell. Remember what I told you about the Sea of Thought?'
'To hell with the Sea of Thought!' But beyond that Ben didn't have time to reply. Carter and April urged them through into the little passageway that led from the stairs to the bedrooms. Carter jumped up to punch open the loft hatch. That done, he lifted himself up into it. Then he reached down to haul up April.
From the direction of the hallway came the clumping of feet. Trajan ran toward the top of the stairs to meet the foe.
Ben was faster. 'I'll hold them back. You stay with April!'
'No, I'm going to-'
'Trajan! Do you love April?'
Ben looked Trajan in the eye as the man nodded. 'I know you do,' Ben told him. 'I wish you didn't honestly love her, but I can see you do.'
'What do you mean?'
'Just get yourself into the attic!'
Trajan relented. He followed Elmo up into the void beneath the roof.
From the top of the stairs Ben could see the vampires tearing up toward them. The creatures swept the Misfires aside as if they were nothing but cardboard cut outs. A bulky figure stood beside Ben; this Misfire wore a bus driver's uniform. Even as the vampires climbed toward him the Misfires didn't flinch. Ben put his hand between the bus driver's shoulder blades and pushed. The thickset figure tumbled downstairs like a falling log. He struck more of the Misfires on the way down until something like a flesh and bone avalanche crashed down the steps sweeping the vampires back down to the ground floor. They howled with frustration. Ben saw how the maniacs raved and bit one another in the melee. Only it would be short lived. Once they'd untangled themselves they'd race up towards their intended victims once more.
Ben knew he had no weapons left to continue the fight there so he ran back along the corridor to the hatchway. From the opening in the ceiling a mass of arms hung down waiting to grab his hands and haul him up to what would be a precarious safe-haven. Probably, only a fleeting one, too. The vampires would soon batter their way in. What was up there to fight them with? Cobwebs and dust?
Ben held up his arms. Trajan took one hand; Carter the other. Together they easily hauled him up into the tiny attic. The boards between the rafters were crumbling, which afforded views into the bedrooms below. Even though it was gloomier here Ben saw the way April pressed her hands to her stomach. The hunger pains were building. She wouldn't be able to hold on much longer. As for Carter, he relied on sheer will power to talk rationally. Yet that edginess had crept back into him; his eyes wore a hungry, searching look. Meanwhile, Trajan had shut the trap door; there he crouched on it, no doubt hoping his own body weight would prevent the vampires pushing it open from below. Some hope. Some poor, bloody hope.
Ben moved on his hands and knees with the sloping roof just above his head. Cobwebs dragged against his face, splinters from the rafters dug into his palms.
Beneath him, the vampires invaded the bedrooms. Through tiny holes in the plaster board he watched them attack the Misfires. But as soon as the vampires bit into them they knew there was nothing to satisfy their appetites in those dry veins. In contempt they shoved the immobile figures aside.
Then, as one, the vampires looked up. It didn't matter whether or not they could see the humans in the attic - they knew they were there. Ben saw the blaze of insane delight on the monsters' faces. And as one they thrust their hands upward. Instantly their outstretched fingers smashed through the ceiling boards in puffs of white powder. Trajan beckoned April from where he still held the trapdoor closed. She went to him. Although Ben noticed a different expression on her face. She'd reached that unstable borderland between sanity and madness. Soon the hunger would tip her mind over into unreason. But, equally, Ben saw that Trajan understood that. Trajan's love for the woman wouldn't stop him holding her until the end came.
Elmo appeared beside Ben as if he'd simply materialized there. And when he started speaking the vampires' attack became somehow distant, as if Ben and this ancient African visionary had stepped outside of the rules of time and space. At that moment it seemed as if Elmo Kigoma and Ben were sealed in a bubble of peace.
'Ben Ashton,' Elmo said gently. 'A few hours ago I told you that my way of helping you and the people of London was to imagine a debate between my ancestors and my gods. I imagined my grandfather and his forefathers asked my gods to put right the damage Edshu had caused, then to eject Edshu from this world…' His soulful brown eyes were hypnotic. 'I explained that I saw my ancestors argue with the gods that the people of London, and of this earth, were sorely tested enough by life itself. It wasn't necessary for Edshu to test them.'
'Yes, I remember. You told me that the gods reacted favorably to what your ancestors said. But…'
'But what?' Elmo Kigoma smiled in his wise, caring way.
'But there was a man-made obstruction to the gods agreeing to what was asked.' All of a sudden Ben shivered. 'And I know what that obstruction was.'
'Really?'
'My selfishness. I loved April Connor.'
Movement. Yet slow movement. Some force retarded time's flow. Black mist seeped into the attic. April had opened her mouth. It would happen gradually but soon her teeth would crunch through Trajan's throat.
Ben continued. 'My ego was so strong I refused to accept that she could genuinely love Trajan. But how can my loving April and wanting her to leave Trajan for me cause all this?'
'Remember what I said about you assuming the role of warrior. Isn't a warrior someone who is tested to destruction?'
'You mean I've become the test specimen? Your gods are going to watch how I deal with this attack on us? And on London itself?'
'Why not?'
'But why should your gods from your village thousands of miles away be concerned about what happens here?'
A hand moved through the holes in the ceiling boards to seize Elmo's ankle. April's jaws had almost reached Trajan's throat. A dozen Berserker hands broke through between the rafters. But once more the motion slowed to a stop. This was the universe holding its breath; something, somewhere, had granted a pause in the headlong flow of life and death. A pause that would last only a moment.
Elmo's grave eyes fixed on Ben's. 'Why should my gods be interested in your well-being and that of London? Come, come, Ben. Deep down you already know. What's crucial here is that all gods and all ancestors, yours included, still live on in this place my people call the Sea of Thought. These beliefs I hold to be true. What happens now is up to you.'
Ben nodded; icy shivers trickled down his back as he began to understand. 'You told me about visualizing solutions to problems?'
'Yes.'
Ben closed his eyes for a moment. 'If I have been given the role of defending warrior I'm picturing the only thing that's in my power to stop this and to defeat Edshu.'
'What pictures do your imagination paint, Ben?'
'First look down at the vampires. What's happening to them?'
'They are dying.'
Ben gazed down through the holes that had been smashed in the ceiling boards. What had once been ferocious creatures had begun to shrivel. As their flesh fell from their faces they stumbled away. A tall vampire that gripped Trajan by the ankle simply shed its entire muscle structure to reveal a skeleton before it stumbled back to fall to the floor where it shattered.
Ben looked at April. As Trajan hugged her she smiled at him. That expression of hunger had gone. Carter studied his fingers as if seeing some transformation there.
Carter suddenly laughed. 'My God. I feel like me again.'
April touched her hair. 'That stickiness has gone.' She laughed, too. 'We're alright.'
In the
rooms below all that remained of the vampires was a chaotic jumble of ribcages, skulls, thigh bones and scraps of clothing.
***
Ben told them, 'The tide's rising. If we don't get back to the boat it'll be carried away and we'll be stranded here.'
They left the house to return through the trees to the shore. The moon still shone down on the willows and the river. Carter loped off ahead of them back to their only means of escape from the island. Ben walked with Elmo some way behind Trajan and April who held hands.
'Elmo, I've some questions,' Ben said.
'Ask away.'
'Have the vampires really gone?'
'Yes.'
'Will Edshu return?'
'Of course.' He smiled. 'But not for a long time yet.'
'April and Carter are well?'
'They are in perfect health.'
'What will happen to me?'
'What will happen to you?' As Elmo echoed the words his smile died. 'What did you see when you visualized the defeat of those creatures?'
'I imagined the destruction of the vampires. And I imagined a happy ending, just like this, where we return to the boat and leave.'
'And what else did you see?'
'I knew it wouldn't be as simple as that. I had to offer more to the gods than simply admitting that I'd never win April away from Trajan.'
Elmo's face became grave. 'You offered yourself in return for our lives?'
Ben felt a stir of anger. 'Isn't that what a warrior is supposed to do?'
'My friend, there might have been another way!'
'I ran the images through my head, and I realized the payment for this miracle was to sacrifice myself.'
'I'm sorry, Ben.'
'Don't be. I offered myself of my own free will. Isn't self-sacrifice the most powerful sacrifice of all?'
They reached the fringe of trees at the edge of the shore. Carter had already climbed on to the boat that was being floated free by the tide.
'Hurry,' Trajan called back to them. 'You've got to be on board before the current catches hold.' In seconds he and April had scrambled on to the deck. In the moonlight they appeared impossibly distant figures.
'You too, Elmo,' Ben told him. 'I guess the propellers were torn off when it came aground but the River Thames has a strong tidal surge. It'll carry you back into the middle of London. You'll be back in time for breakfast.'
'Ben, I'll stay.'
'No. That wasn't part of the deal I made with the guys on the other side. Besides, I must be getting more popular the older I get. I'm the only one they want.' He held out his hand and Elmo shook it. 'Elmo, just one more thing. What will happen to me now?' Before he could answer Ben shook his head. 'Don't tell me. That's for me to find out, right?' He nodded at the boat. 'Time to go, Elmo.'
The ivory vessel had begun to swing out into the flow of the river. Elmo sprinted down the beach as if he was still in the first flush of youth. In moments he'd waded deep enough to swim the few strokes to the boat where the three on board helped him on to the deck. Then Trajan, April and Carter waved to Ben, and shouted for him to join them before the boat drifted away on the flood tide. As Ben watched it glide away he stood in the moonlight with a hand resting against a willow trunk.
The three figures on the boat still waved frantically, while Elmo remained motionless. I'll wave back, Ben told himself as a calmness he'd never known before stole over him. He tried to raise his other hand to wave a farewell. Only it was frozen by his side.
He stayed there without moving until the boat had floated out of sight on the river that reached into London's heart. On the horizon he saw a glow as the city's lights returned.
This is it, he told himself, it's over. Even if they try to come back to me tomorrow I know they'll never find the island again. All along it existed in another time and another place. At that moment, standing beside him, he saw Elmo Kigoma, or some version of him, only one that was more ancient, ethereal, phantom-like, with eyes that were luminous orbs in the light of the moon. And whether the following words came from him, Ben Ashton, or from the African visionary, or even from some universal spirit that dwelt within them both, he could not say.
'Even though the island will remain for you, along with its trees, the skies, the sun and the moon, it sinks even now back into the Sea of Thought. There it will remain until the next time humanity faces destruction. For now, you are the world's champion, so remain here in peace.'
There was a spell of silence and darkness, and a sublime tranquility, then he found himself standing as still as a statue in what had been the living room of the old house. Moonlight fell in needle-thin rays through slats in the boarded windows.
The remains of the vampires had vanished. In the room with him, however, were more of his kind - those silent, immobile men and women - standing as if they posed for a portrait by some unseen and unknowable artist. Or maybe waiting for their own new life to begin one fine day in the world of some distant future.
In any event, he told himself, this is where I must stay. And for the first time in years I'm no longer alone.
EPILOGUE
Thirteen-year-old Roma Langelli had changed since she witnessed the attack. When she'd sat at her computer, watching images from the webcam located in a sewer beneath London's streets, Roma had watched in horror as the youth had blundered through the tunnel, his feet splashing the water, as uncanny figures had pursued him to his death.
Roma's thing about webcams never left her. In fact, her interest became an obsession. Now she spends every free moment in her room. The vastness of Wyoming's plains beyond her bedroom window might have been nothing but a landscape painted on the glass panes. It was what she saw through the window of her computer screen that was important now. Night and day it revealed views of the entire world via the millions of webcams fixed to walls in offices, bars, shopping malls, zoos, city streets, airports, mountainsides - you name it. Tonight her brothers played their guitars in the next room but she gazed at the screen with such avidity that those howling Fenders might have been nothing more than a breeze whispering through a meadow. The webcam she'd accessed showed a view along Broadway in New York. The street blazed with light, yellow cabs buzzed too and fro; the pavements were awash with men and women. The camera must have been set around ten feet from the ground so the store fronts were clearly visible. New York is a clean city these days; vandals and graffiti artists have been forced out into the suburbs by intensive policing. So Roma was surprised to see the writing on the wall:
VAMPIRE SHARKZ
☺ They're coming to get you ☺
Simon Clark, London Under Midnight
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