London Under Midnight (21 page)

    'There's a ditch down there that runs into a tunnel.'

    'I'm not sleeping in a ditch, Carter.'

    'Where, then?'

    'I've got somewhere far better. You come with me.' Barefoot she raced along the path, her giddy laughter rang out on the night air.

    

    

    Raj lifted the phone from its bracket. The cat nibbled delicately at its prey on the kitchen floor so Raj averted his eyes as he dialed. He had a dilemma. Should he call the police or not?

    I mean, what is it that I'm reporting? he wondered. If I announce that April Connor, a missing person, turned up at my house they're going to say 'thanks for letting us know', then cross her off the list. If I add that she and her companion tried to bite me, then they'll arrest her for assault. And April isn't a stranger. I've known her years. Okay, she looked strange tonight but you don't report friends to the police, do you? So when Raj dialed, it was Ben Ashton's number he called.

    

    

    Only when the red glare of the sun burst above the city's skyline did the three men climb down from the boat on its pole. As Elmo Kigoma's boat wasn't even built to float on water it had just weathered a hell of a storm. Albeit a storm of an entirely different kind. Ben noticed rust-coloured smears on the grass that marked where the gang of thugs had bled.

    'You first, Ben.' Elmo indicated the rope ladder.

    Ben complied. Even so, he shot glances at the riverbank. That's where the creatures had dumped the bodies of the men into the water before joining them in the depths of the Thames. Vampire Sharkz… Those were the things the graffiti artist had seen, and had devoted his life to warning the city about. Vampire Sharkz. A bizarre term - yet uncannily apt. As Ben descended the rungs the Vampire Sharkz phrase echoed in his head. When he reached the ground he examined the blood stains on the grass, what there were of them. Either those creatures were fastidious in their tidying up or it had simply been a brutal hunger that compelled them to lick spilt gore from each blade of grass. The end result was that there was little evidence of a battle taking place. If anything, the debris consisted of watches torn from wrists, along with coins, keys and phones that had fallen from the victims' pockets together with a couple of knives. Ben noted that the blades were bent, so they'd been used during the fight. Clearly to little effect. From what he'd witnessed of the battle, the creatures - these Vampire Sharkz - hadn't suffered any visible injury. The orgiastic feeding on the men's blood had been nothing less than a bloody carnival for them.

    Ben glanced up as Elmo descended the ladder. The old African moved with athletic ease; the guy's wiry body could have been that of a youth rather than an octogenarian. Above him, Trajan's blond head appeared over the boat's side as he waited for his turn to descend. 'Well, we know what happened to April. One of those things attacked her.'

    'You were fortunate that they didn't do to you what they did to those men last night,' Elmo responded.

    Ben asked, 'So you weren't bitten?'

    'No, just thrown aside like a piece of trash.'

    'Then you were lucky.'

    'Lucky? I lost my fiancee. How lucky is that?'

    As Elmo reached the ground Ben heard his phone. He checked his pockets but it wasn't there. Then he remembered. 'Trajan, I gave you my phone.'

    Trajan picked it up from the bottom of the boat and checked the screen. 'Someone called Raj calling.'

    Ben held out his hand as Trajan dropped it down to him. He thumbed the button. 'Hello, Raj, what's wrong?' Raj's voice was breathless in his ear. 'April Connor?' Ben echoed.

    Trajan clambered down the ladder. 'April? There's some news?' He jumped to the ground. 'Ben, what is it? Have the police found her?'

    Ben concentrated on listening to Raj. The man sounded traumatized. 'Okay,' Ben told him. 'Take it easy. I'll call you later.'

    
'Well?'

    It was Elmo who spoke first. 'You should brace yourself for bad news.'

    Trajan ran his fingers through his hair. 'Ben, tell me. Now!'

    'Okay. But as Elmo says: it's not exactly what you've been wanting to hear.'

    'What do you mean?'

    'That was a friend of mine. He's had a visit from April.'

    'Tonight?'

    'About an hour ago.'

    'Is she still there?'

    'Trajan, listen.'

    'Don't prevaricate, Ben. Is she hurt?'

    'No, definitely not hurt. At least…' He took a breath as Trajan groaned in anguish. 'Raj was in a state of shock. He wasn't expressing himself well, but this is what he told me. April turned up at his door at two in the morning with a man.'

    'What man?'

    'April wanted my address, then she and the guy started acting weird. Raj said the way they looked at him became extremely odd. Then they tried to attack him.'

    'Attack?' Elmo Kigoma asked. 'How attack?'

    'This is the bad news.' Ben looked Trajan in the eye. 'The pair of them tried to bite Raj.'

    'Oh, God… Where are they now?'

    'Raj was lucky enough to have kept the security chain on the door so they didn't reach him. After he managed to lock the door they simply vanished.'

    One of the phones on the ground began to chirp. In a sudden burst of anger Trajan stamped it into silence. 'We need to go to where this Raj guy lives and start searching for April.'

    Elmo shook his head. 'Don't you see the sun? Those two will be long gone. If they're a product of Edshu, then they're a product of darkness, and belong to darkness.'

    Trajan frowned. 'What do you mean?'

    'They'll hide away in daylight hours.'

    'But we should still search for them.'

    Ben shook his head. 'In a city this size? Where do we begin?'

    'But we can't stand here doing nothing,' Trajan told them.

    In the pause that followed the birds began to sing as the sun rose. As it became brighter there was a second, more chilling dawn chorus. The phones that littered the ground began to ring. Ben realized that even idiots like the ones that attacked him last night had families, too. As wives and parents discovered the men hadn't come home they'd begun to call. Half a dozen phones sounded their individual ring tones: snatches of popular song and comedy catchphrases pumped from the little speakers.
'Answer me, you lazy goon'
and a robotic,
'Oh, master, put your mouth to my sexy, plastic body.'
And an aggressive:
'You what, you what, you what!'
As the ring tones filled the dawn air the phones flashed there in the grass.

    'We shouldn't stay here any longer,' Elmo told them. 'I'm done with my boat. The Mayor can have it. There are more pressing matters now.'

    Ben blinked as the sun's rays fell on him. 'But where now?'

    'You should both get some sleep,' Elmo told them. 'I've my own rituals to observe. Edshu is a tough chap to please. Though I still remember what my family did when I was a boy to encourage the old rascal to move on and do no more harm.'

    'Edshu?' Trajan was perplexed.

    'I'll explain later,' Ben told him.

    'Get some rest first,' Elmo said. 'Now it's daylight it's time to sleep. You must be refreshed before you look for your friend. You'll need all your strength, believe me.'

    The unanswered phones still cried out in a way that was strangely forlorn.

    'I'll go back to my apartment. The police might call if they find her.' Trajan paused. 'Ben, you're welcome to come back if you can sleep on a couch.'

    Ben nodded. 'That's fine for me.' He yawned. 'I'll give Raj a call later. We can talk to him then.'

    'I go this way.' Elmo indicated a path that led through the trees. 'There is work for me at home. I'll ask the gods and ancestors of my old village to intercede on our behalf.' He gave a grim smile. 'Sometimes Edshu listens to them. Sometimes he tells them to go to hell.' He reached into his shirt pocket. 'Here. This is my card with my telephone number.' His jaw tightened. 'Call me if lives depend on it.'

    Ben and Trajan said their farewells to Elmo and walked through the park in the direction of Tower Bridge. Before they'd gone more than ten paces the old African called to them. 'By the way, you should know this fact, gentlemen. If my rituals are successful and Edshu moves on, then his creatures will be of no use to him. So…' He clicked his fingers to indicate something vanishing. '… if you plan to rescue your friend, you must do it soon.'

    

    

    The moment Trajan stepped through the door into his apartment he noticed it. 'Ben, can you smell that?'

    'Something's turned.' Ben flinched. 'Have you left the fridge door open?'

    When Trajan turned to Ben his face blazed with triumph. 'She's back home.' He picked up a key with orange string tied around the fob. 'Emergency key. We keep it in the plant pot out on the landing, just in case one of us is locked out.'

    That sickly sweet smell triggered alarm bells in Ben's head. 'Remember what Raj told us: April isn't herself.'

    'But she's back.' Excitement animated him. 'If she's home I can take care of her.' He rushed along the hallway. 'April?'

    'Wait, Trajan. Easy does it.'

    'April?'

    'We don't know what we're getting into. Take it slowly; she might…'

    Trajan didn't listen. He burst through the living-room door. 'April, are you, uh…'

    Ben followed to find the blinds down to cheat the room of the morning sun.

    'She's got to be here,' Trajan insisted. 'Only April knew about the key.'

    'April might have been here,' Ben allowed. 'There was nothing to stop her leaving again.'

    'She wouldn't.'

    'Trajan, something happened to her. From what Raj says-'

    'She's in shock. That's all.'

    Ben saw that the man willed himself to believe his fiancee was alright as he darted across the landing. 'If she's tired she'll have gone to bed.'

    This time Ben did grab him to stop his headlong dash into the bedroom. 'Wait. Raj said she was with this guy.' Ben shot a meaningful glance at the closed door.

    'Ben? What are you suggesting?'

    'Come on, Trajan. Don't be so naive.'

    'Let go.'

    'If she was with him at two in the morning when she visited Raj's house, then she might not be alone now.'

    'I'm going in there, so get your hands off me.'

    'Okay,' Ben said. 'But be warned; you might be in for a shock.'

    'Understood.' He jerked his arm away, then shoved open the door.

    For a moment Ben imagined he saw shadows on the bed coupling in ecstasy. As he passed through the doorway into the room, however, he saw that imagination had played a trick. The bed was empty.

    'She was here.' Trajan grimaced at the sickly-sweet odor that hung in the air.

    'Or still is,' Ben whispered. 'Try under the bed.'

    Trajan hesitated for a second as no doubt nightmarish scenarios buzzed through his mind. Then with a renewed determination he dropped to his knees to check the space between the bed frame and the floor. Ben squatted too. The heavy-duty blackout blind kept out the sun, so precious little daylight was available to them. Nevertheless, Ben stared at that shadowed void until his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. And there, in near darkness, curled up on her side like a sleeping child, was April Connor. He could just make out the blue mottle around her lips, and the dark rings beneath her eyes. Even her eyelids had darkness in them, as if the skin had absorbed something of the midnight shadows. Her short hair was spiked with a sticky material. The black dress was filthy, while a large rip revealed her grey skin at the waist. Ben guessed that's where they'd find the bite mark.

    'She's breathing,' Trajan confirmed. 'I can hear it.'

    'Is she alone?'

    Trajan awarded Ben a pain-filled glance, then checked. A moment later he sighed with relief. 'Yes, she is.'

    'Good. But there's a chance her friend might be around, too.'

    'If he is I'll throw him out into the street.'

    'Don't do anything rash. Remember what happened to the gang last night.'

    Trajan grunted. 'You mean, you don't want me to end up as breakfast?'

    'Something like that.'

    They searched the rest of the apartment. Five minutes later Trajan called from the hallway. 'Ben? In here.'

    Ben found Trajan staring into the cloakroom beside the front door. It was little bigger than an upright coffin, but sitting there with knees raised and his back to the wall was an olive-skinned guy aged around thirty. He'd unhooked the coats from the pegs then piled them over himself. Only his face was uncovered in that windowless cell. His eyes had sunk into his head and his cheeks were hollow. He wore that same kind of shrunken grimace that Egyptian mummies wore when their lips shriveled back. Here, the guy's lips had shrunk enough to reveal large white teeth that were tipped with gold crowns.

    'So,' Ben breathed, 'they came here to escape the daylight.' He glanced at Trajan. 'I'm assuming he's alive, too?'

    Trajan reached out as if to check the pulse in the man's neck. Only he stopped short, reluctant to make contact with the dead-looking flesh. Ben held the back of his hand under the stranger's nostrils.

    'I can feel him exhale.' Ben shrugged. 'So he appears to be alive.'

    'Appears to be,' Trajan murmured. 'It's time to call the police.'

    'The police? You're kidding.'