Adrift 2: Sundown (25 page)

“We can’t stay here,” Herb said. “We have to move,
now
.” He switched his gaze to the policewoman. “You’re welcome to come with us, Conny. My father’s apartment is close.”

“How close?”

It was the first time the policewoman—Conny—had spoken since Dan’s world stopped spinning. She had been studying him carefully; warily.

Just like the dog at her feet.

“A few hundred yards.”

“I don’t suppose it happens to be a fortress?”

“Not exactly. But it will be a hell of a lot safer than the streets.”

Herb pointed up into the night sky.

“And it’s got a hell of a view.”

Herb led the others down the stairs with Conny at his side, and Remy walking a yard ahead. The dog could sense the presence of vampires—Conny had been very clear about that—and Herb decided he’d be a fool not to listen. As far as he was aware, nothing in the texts had indicated that dogs—or any other animals—had any extrasensory perception when it came to vampires, but that didn’t surprise him. More and more, the texts were looking like millennia-old propaganda. Of
course
the vampires wouldn’t publicize their weaknesses.

As they made their way past the empty floors of the hospital, Conny kept dropping her eyes to Remy, and Herb watched her carefully. She was, apparently, satisfied that the dog sensed no immediate threat.

Herb wished he could say the same of himself
.
To him, the hospital was
alive
with threat, and death lurked around every corner.

The fourth and fifth floors were barren and stark; they looked almost as though nothing had happened there at all, save for a few beds which had been overturned, presumably as a result of the creature checking that nobody was attempting to hide beneath them. Those floors had been empty, according to Conny, with most of the hospital’s patients either having already been evacuated, or making their way down to the ground floor to await transport.

Herb paused at each level as he descended, staring beyond the thick glass doors which led to consulting rooms and operating theatres, until he was satisfied that they were as quiet as they appeared.

With each pause, he felt his tension increasing. It already felt like they were taking too long.

Down on the third floor, the blood began to appear.

Streaky spatters of it, winding up the stairs to meet them.

Herb gestured at the others to halt.

He peered over the rail, scanning the small section of the ground floor that he could see. Somewhere below, one weak light still flickered. The rest of the ground floor stood in darkness. Yet that one light was enough for Herb to see: it looked like there had been plenty of people down there when the vampire came through.

It was exactly the same as it had been at the mansion: manmade light appeared to slow the creatures a little, but it didn’t stop them entirely—and they were intelligent enough to disable lights as a priority. The hospital’s reception area would surely have been brightly lit, but the vampire had come in regardless. Most likely, Herb thought, it had taken the lights out first, and then hurled itself into the crowd, ripping and clawing—

His nerves jangled, and he pulled Conny close, breathing into her ear.

“It’s a massacre down there. And it’s
dark.
You sure we can trust the dog on this?”

Conny glanced at Remy, who sniffed at the smeared blood on the floor nonchalantly.

“We can trust him.”

Herb nodded, and lifted his voice a little for the others to hear.

“Okay, we’re headed toward London Bridge Station. Once we get past it, we’ll be right at my father’s apartment. These things are burrowers. I’m hoping they won’t want to stray too far above ground level, and with any luck we can hold up there until morning. Just follow me, okay? And stay
quiet
. If we get separated, find somewhere to barricade yourself in. If you survive until sunrise, get the fuck out of London and keep running. Above all: don’t
look
at them. Got it?”

They all nodded, their expressions fearful as they considered Herb’s words.

If you survive.

Herb decided that it was better not to let them dwell on that, and began to creep down the last couple of flights of stairs.

Eyes straining at the stubborn shadows.

Certain that he would see something looking right back at him.

When he reached the ground floor, he got to see the catastrophic results of a vampire bursting into a crowded room up close, and was perturbed by how quickly he was getting used to the sight of human bodies which had been torn to pieces. He did his best not to look at the corpses littering the floor, focusing only on the exit
.
The hospital’s front door was propped open by the gore piled in the entryway, and Herb approached it in a half-crouch, gazing intently at the street.

Beyond the slaughter outside the entrance, he saw no sign of army evacuation trucks, though he did see a few military uniforms dotted around the lake of blood and gristle. Perhaps other soldiers were, at that very moment, on their way back to the hospital to pick up another load of people, but Herb knew he didn’t have the patience to wait and see. Much of the hospital was glass and large, open rooms. No good hiding places.

If his father’s apartment had been far, he might have suggested trying to find a secure room in which to lock themselves—maybe the hospital even had a basement—but they were only a few hundred yards away from a place that offered a real shot at safety. They had to keep moving.

He stepped outside, his neck twisting left and right.

In the distance to the right, somewhere in the direction of Southwark Cathedral, he heard screeching. He set off to the left at a fast trot, desperate to break into a run, but certain that if Dan Bellamy exerted himself too much more, the guy would surely pass out again—or worse.

He aimed for London Bridge Station—one of the city’s busiest, and usually heaving with people; now just a hulking dark shape on the horizon.

And rising above it—rising above everything—his destination loomed.

*

The Shard
, Dan thought wryly, as he tried to keep pace with the others.
Why am I not surprised?

Herb was making straight for London’s tallest building. It figured that a family with the sort of wealth the Rennicks had accrued would opt for just about the most expensive apartment that money could buy, and not even bother to use it.

He was falling behind the others as anxiety turned their trot into a jog, and then a run. He stumbled after them with every muscle in his body howling in agony.

The Shard dominated the skyline; an arrowhead which rose more than a thousand feet above the ground to pierce the clouds that routinely hung low over the city. It wasn’t just the tallest building in London; it was one of the tallest buildings in the world. Dan recalled that he had read some piece of trivia which claimed that the smattering of apartments near the top of the Shard were the highest human living space in western Europe, as far away from the ground as it was possible to get.

He wondered if it would be far enough.

He tasted blood in his mouth again, and spat it out between gasps for air, feeling his vision start to swim.

And suddenly, he wasn’t running after the others. He was
chasing
them. Desperate to taste their blood; to rip apart their pitifully weak bodies. To let them know what the top of the food chain
really
looked like. He sprinted after them, shrieking, lifting a hand, ready to tear at their flesh.

Kill them all.

The urge to tear human flesh was so strong in his mind that for a moment, Dan felt his consciousness flicker. He wasn’t aware that he was falling until he hit the ground hard, rolling into something solid that stopped him painfully and sent stars shooting across his vision. He felt a wrenching sensation in his gut, and knew immediately that he had reopened his wounds.

All
of them.

His head felt like it was on fire, vast areas of his mind reduced to charred embers. His brain pulsed with a fizzing, unstoppable energy which he hadn’t felt since the months immediately following the knife attack. The black river, surging more ferociously than ever, as though it was trying to pull him to pieces. A sensation like endless falling.

“I’ve got him.”

Reality snapped back into place.

Herb’s voice.

Of course
.

He felt strong arms lifting him; someone throwing him over a broad shoulder and setting off at pace.

Carrying him toward something terrible.

*

Dan Bellamy must have weighed roughly the same as the average teenage boy. Herb threw him over his shoulder with surprising ease, and caught up with the others as they reached the base of the Shard.

The front entrance of the enormous building was all glass; lit like a diamond commercial. Herb had been there once or twice with Edgar, but mostly the city apartment was viewed by the Rennicks as a place to retreat if the need arose, and as a place to meet and conduct business with representatives of the Order.

He remembered the way well enough.

“Call the elevator,” he grunted, as he pushed through the revolving glass door, following the others into the lobby. Conny’s son obliged, and by the time Herb arrived, the elevator was almost there.

He turned to scan the street outside. Everything still looked dark and quiet.

We might just get away with this.

The elevator was on the tenth floor, descending smoothly. It hadn’t quite reached the ninth when Herb noticed movement in the corner of his eye. A dark shape approaching the front of the building.

Shit, shit, shit.

The vampire out front threw itself into the glass wall of the Shard, and a spiderweb of cracks formed across it.

The glass wouldn’t take another blow.

Bing!

Herb let out a yell of relief when the elevator doors slid open. The others threw themselves inside.

“Thirty-three!” Herb yelled, and heard a cheerful beep as someone pushed the button.

The monster crashed into the lobby.

Herb stepped into the elevator, unable to turn around; knowing that the vampire was charging toward him, praying that the doors would close before the snapping jaws reached him.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

And then, when Herb expected to feel talons puncture his back, tearing at his innards…soft, soothing music began to pipe into the elevator, and the ceiling—a huge display screen—started to cycle through pleasant, relaxing images of lakes and clouds and beautiful summer days.

Conny let out an explosive gasp, and bent double, clutching her knees. Her son’s face was red with fear, and what Herb thought looked like shame. Doubtless, he’d pissed himself. Herb couldn’t blame him.

“Everybody all right?” Conny said. “Nobody looked at it, right?”

Everyone in the elevator shook their heads.

She glanced at Herb, who still had Dan slung over his shoulder.

“This apartment of yours. It’s on thirty-three?”

Herb shook his head. “Thirty-three is where you have to cross over to one of the upper elevators. Once we get there, call them all. Soon as the first one arrives, someone hit sixty-three. We can lose it when we switch elevators. I hope.”

With a grunt, he heaved Dan from his shoulder, setting him down on unsteady legs. “You okay, Dan?”

Dan nodded shakily, but kept his eyes fixed on the floor and said nothing.

“Nearly there, buddy.” Herb turned back to Conny. “It will want to keep coming, but this is a big building. Gotta be a thousand locked doors in here. Even if it does find us, the apartment is secure. It will hold until sunrise.”

He checked the elevator readout. Just approaching level thirty.

The vampires were fast, and verticality didn’t trouble them. The only question in Herb’s mind was
how fast
? The elevator moved quickly—surely too quickly for any living creature to keep pace—but still, as the readout ticked around to thirty-three, he expected the doors to open and reveal fangs stained crimson and eyes that would melt his soul.

Bing!

Herb’s heart hammered.

The doors slid open.

Empty.

He let out a gasp of relief.

“Go!” he hissed, and hit the button for the twenty-fifth floor, sending the elevator back down. With any luck, he thought, the vampire wouldn’t even realise that there was another set of elevators servicing the top half of the building. Maybe it would assume they got out on twenty-five.
Maybe.

The thirty-third floor was home to a lavish Chinese restaurant and a bar area, but also served as a junction between the upper and lower parts of the building. An artist’s depiction of the River Thames was painted on the floor, and it led around a corner to the next set of elevators. By the time Herb got there, Conny’s son was already inside the nearest of them, holding the chrome doors open and waiting impatiently to hit the button marked
63
. He waved Herb and Dan inside, and stabbed the button with a relieved sigh.

It took around three seconds for the door to close.

Each one felt like a lifetime.

The elevator lifted away serenely from the thirty-third floor, and Herb allowed himself to breathe easily at last. The apartment wasn’t the stronghold that the mansion was—or was supposed to be—but the windows and door had been fitted with the exact same electronically operated steel shutters as the mansion. Except that this time, there wouldn’t be a vampire inside with its hands on the controls.