London Under Midnight (3 page)

    Ben smiled.
Is it as wistful as it feels?
he wonders.

    'Ah, there's fairy-tale romance for you,' Ben said. 'Like a bolt from the blue.'

    'I'll say,' she said with feeling.

    Trajan awarded his wristwatch another of his wide-eyed stares. 'April?'

    'Sorry. Gotta go. Lovely to see you again, Ben. Keep in touch!' She kissed him and for a second he was swimming in a warm ocean of her body heat and perfume. Then she'd gone as abruptly as she arrived.

    He murmured to himself, 'Keep in touch? How? I don't have your number anymore.' More important than the
how?
was the
why
? For as long as he could bear it he watched April walk away, her arm linked with Trajan's.

    'Damn,' he hissed, then trudged in the direction of home.

    

    

    April Connor had to walk briskly to keep up with Trajan. They hadn't intended to stay in the restaurant for so long, but the hunt for a new apartment had been brutal, so when they signed the contracts today it hadn't been easy to stop celebrating. A light breeze rustled the trees along the embankment. The smooth surface of the river became rippled. She heard the slap of a wave against the embankment wall that channelled the river. At this time of night the road traffic had become lighter. There were no pedestrians in sight. No one, that is, other than the dwindling speck that was Ben Ashton.

    'Damn, I forgot to ask Ben for his telephone number.'

    'April!'

    Trajan's fierce grip on her forearm made her cry out. 'Trajan… oh, Trajan… stop it…'

    'April…
look
.'

    Sex games. A late-night fuck in a public place. Those thoughts skated through her head. A woman lay back on the wall that separated the river from the road. A large, male shape leaned over her. The masculine image oozed a predatory power.

    April stared. Sights of what appeared to be an erotic encounter whirled out of the darkness at her. The woman was aged about thirty. Her curled red hair gleamed with copper glints in the street light. She was moaning, her head rolled from side to side on the wall. Her hands were raised as if she squeezed at something invisible in the air above her.

    Now April saw what Trajan had seen. And what had caused him to react by inadvertently hurting her arm. The man held the woman down on the wall. He'd yanked up her T-shirt then he'd pushed his face against her belly flesh. He wasn't kissing or licking. He was gnawing at her skin. With his teeth he'd torn open a gash. Blood streamed from the wound across her white flesh to dribble to the ground. And all the time the man sucked and groaned. It was like watching a starving wretch faced with food for the first time in weeks. And he was gorging. He drank so deeply he grunted as if it hurt him to force so vast a draught of blood down through his throat in one go.

    There wasn't much life in the redhead now. She moaned. Her movements were weak. She stared bleakly upward into the night sky.

    Then the woman's attacker did something that pushed April's sense of disgust beyond the limits of what she thought she could take. The man ripping at his victim's stomach with his bare teeth was bad enough. What he did next was worse.

    'Oh, God, no.' April stopped dead. Even Trajan wavered now, not believing what he saw unfolding just feet away from them.

    The brutal figure in front of them had raised his head. He was panting. The blood he drank gurgled wetly in his throat. His pale face had been violently smeared with crimson. He lifted his own face to the sky. He panted faster. His shoulders began to shake. Convulsions ran through his torso, stretching the fabric of his shirt across his back so much April thought it would rip at any second.

    Then he snapped his head down at the woman's torn belly. His face struck it with an audible slap. His mouth clamped tight to the wounds, lips forming a seal, then the body convulsed again.

    Dear God in heaven, April thought as she rocked back in horror. He's vomiting it back into her!

    The pressure of the regurgitation was so violent that crimson fluid spurted from where his mouth met the woman's flesh. April heard the sound of liquid rushing through the man's mouth to surge back through the ripped skin of his victim's belly.

    For a while she'd been comatose. A second later she jerked her torso up from the wall, her hands clasped her attacker's head, as her mouth opened into a huge O. The sound that tore from it was half scream, half bellow. A howl of pure agony.

    Both April and Trajan had stared at the scene in shock. This shriek broke the spell.

    'Leave her alone!' Trajan leapt on the man's back. With hardly any exertion on his part the figure shrugged him away. What happened next was incredibly fast. The blood-soaked attacker stood up straight, pushed his victim over the wail into the river; the splash seemed a tiny sound in comparison to the woman's tortured cry. Trajan ran at the monster. He did not have a chance to land a blow before he was thrown to the ground. His head struck the pavement with such a loud crack that April froze. Meanwhile, cars passed by on the road just a dozen paces away. But nobody stopped. Maybe they thought it was just drunks fooling around. Or maybe they were afraid to become involved. Sometimes it's better to lock the vehicle doors and drive quickly out of harm's way.

    Trajan lay flat. His eyes were closed. The brutal figure of a man approached her. There was something about him… The way he walked. Something wasn't right. But at that moment she couldn't identify what it was. Desperately, she looked behind her. In the distance she could still see Ben. She saw the whiteness of his shirt as he walked away.

    'Ben!' she cried.

    Then the stranger's hands were on her. She felt herself picked up, then slammed down on the wall. The force of striking the stonework knocked the air from her lungs. April felt his powerful fingers tear a hole in her dress at her waist.

    As she waited for his teeth to crunch through the skin in her side she knew the same would happen to her as the redhead. And there was not one thing she could do to prevent it. April Connor didn't even have the luxury of one final, heart-rending scream.

    

    

    'Raj, don't! You'll regret it.' He grimaced as the understanding sank in. 'Never give me paranormal assignments. You might as well commission me to track down Elvis for a come-back special with Glenn Miller, Jimi Hendrix and the crew of the bloody
Titanic.
Besides, you promised me the film festival.' Ben Ashton glared at Raj's boyish Asian face that always assumed an air of mature gravity when handing out editorial assignments.

    'Jack Constantine can cover that. He's mad on Chaney anyway.'

    'If Jack ever comes back. Last I heard he's locked away in some love shack with that singer from Cuspidor.'

    Raj gestured away the objection as if he lazily waved away a fly in that sweltering office. From the street came the steady roar of traffic. Ben wished he'd stayed in the riverside pub to read up on Lon Chaney's films. Then he could have claimed he was already too deep into research to be shunted into some spook hunt.

    All Ben could do was swing into a new strategy. 'Jo Suster loves the occult stuff. Send her.'

    'No, Ben. You're the man for the job. You always get a fresh angle.'

    'With ghosts?'

    'Sure.'

    'No way.'

    'You can do it.'

    'No.'

    'You'll wish you had. This story will be big when the global news networks get it.'

    'Then why are we bothering, Raj?'

    'Because
Click This
is a brilliant magazine and you are a brilliant writer, Ben.'

    Ben Ashton pushed a pile of photographs into the centre of the desk and sat on the corner.

    'Make yourself at home, Ben. Be my guest.' Raj eased the photographs safely aside. 'But don't go crushing my cover girl.'

    'So… film festival. Where are my tickets?'

    'No, you're not going to the festival. Snowdance will have to muddle through without you this year.'

    'Then I'll take myself round to
Screen.
They've offered a monthly column.'

    'Ben, don't make me get down and beg. It's not a pretty sight. I get all jowly.'

    'I don't write-up ghosts.'

    'There aren't any ghosts.'

    'Damn it, Raj. What have you dragged me in here for, then? I've still to finish your article for "Where The Hell Are They Now?" '

    Raj picked up his phone from the desk. 'It's more visceral than phantoms, Ben. I want to show you something.'

    'Tickets to Montreal would be nice.'

    'Ben, I'm offering you the lead article for the next issue. Plus our premium fee,
plus
a name check on the front cover.'

    'Seriously?'

    'And expenses.'

    'Hell, you must be serious. You've never given me expenses before.'

    'I'm very serious. This is going to be a big story.' Raj's youthful face broke into a grin but Ben realized the boy-wonder editor meant business. And, despite his belly-aching about Snowdance, Ben respected Raj. The guy had a knack of sensing what would grab the public's imagination. He'd turned
Click This
from a cheesy pop culture magazine into a market leader that had the agencies clamouring to buy ad space.

    Raj pressed a key on a mobile phone then turned it so Ben could view the screen.

    'If you haven't seen this before,' Raj said, 'you should stop doing whatever's damaging your eye sight.'

    Ben looked at the screen. Illuminated there was one of the stone lions that guarded the base of Nelson's Column. Someone had painted the words on the plinth:

    

    
VAMPIRE SHARKZ

    ☺
They're coming to get you
☺

    

    Ben shrugged. 'Of course I've seen it. That graffiti's on hundreds of walls, trains, buses; it's everywhere.'

    'When did you see Vampire Sharkz first?'

    Ben's shrug grew more expressive. 'About three weeks since?'

    'I'd say that. A month at the most.'

    'So - it's just the latest fad among graffiti artists.'

    Raj pressed another key on the phone. The next picture revealed the same graffiti violating the side of a Harrods' delivery van.

    'So, who's doing this, Ben?'

    'Kids.'

    'Why?

    'It's what kids do.'

    Raj rubbed his jaw. 'Then you figure there's nothing behind it?'

    'Raj, it's some graffiti artist who's just trying to work up five minutes of fame for themselves.'

    'What if you dig deeper?'

    'You're asking me to investigate this?'

    Raj nodded.

    Ben laughed. 'Then you can't handle the heat, old son. You've flipped. This is just some joker with a crate full of spray paint and a big ego.'

    'I disagree. So, this is me, your editor, giving you, Ben Ashton, a valuable commission. Five thousand words by the end of next week. Premium word rate. Expenses. Front cover credit.'

    Ben breathed in deeply. This was a good offer. No bones about it, the best assignment all year. His old sofa at home had become a pain in the backside - literally. The fee for writing the article would buy something smart in black. He shot Raj a glance.

    'Vampire Sharkz,' Ben said as he rubbed his jaw. 'You've got word on this, haven't you?'

    'I was hoping you'd uncover that for me when you take the assignment.'

    'This… Vampire Sharkz? What is it? A film? A rock band? A new type of cocaine? And: "They're going to get you." Why are they going to get us?'

    Raj shrugged.

    Ben let out a low whistle as a more disturbing thought struck home. 'Or is it a new street gang? Or a drug franchise marking out their territory?'

    'Find out for me, Ben. You've got eleven days.'

    'Photography?'

    'Jenny's got the graffiti covered with beautiful art shots. Anything else, you've got your camera, haven't you? Okay, what's so funny, Ben?'

    'I met a girl in Soho House on Friday night.'

    'Congratulations.'

    'No, I had to… you know, make my excuses. Well, I told her I was a writer, and she asked what I wrote about. Because I needed to leave in a hurry I told her the first thing that came into my head.'

    Raj invited Ben to continue with a lift of an eyebrow.

    Ben laughed louder. 'I told her that I wrote about vampires.'

    'Vampires? Then the gods must have heard you. Now they've made it your destiny. It's become your sacred quest.' He handed Ben a sheet of green paper. 'Expenses form. Receipts please. Now do it. Go vampire hunting.'

    

    

    That moment of waking… which sense comes alive first?

    This time smell. Wet soil.

    Second: Sound. A rustle. Paper? Leaves? A dry whisper.

    Third: Touch. A pressure on the side of her jaw.

    Another sound; this one liquid in motion. A bath?

    Where is this? Am I in bed? Have I forgotten to empty the bath?

    Look for yourself.

    For a moment she willed her eyelids to slide back. She tried again. For some reason she couldn't open her eyes. Come to that, she couldn't move her arms. She sensed she was lying on her stomach with her head to one side.

    
Why can I hear water, and smell wet soil, if I'm in bed?

    Then without planning to say it she asked out loud: 'What's your name?'

    The question blazed through her like lightning. This time her eyelids flew back. A light of such brilliance shone into her face she gasped. Even though she couldn't move her head her eyes darted in panic trying to see her surroundings, but all they did tell her was that a retina-searing light filled her world. Only now she couldn't close her eyes again. All she could do was stare into what seemed the heart of the sun.