Red Eye - 02 (39 page)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-NINE

D
OWN AT THE
shore, Giacoia and Lim scanned in every direction. Nothing but ice from here to the mainland.

Behind them, up at the house, they could hear the repeated hearty
smack
of gunmetal striking flesh. Each blow was accompanied by a hollow, involuntary cry from Redlaw.

“She’s giving the guy a pounding,” Lim remarked.

“No wonder,” said Giacoia. “He killed her man.”

“So Berger and Jacobsen, they were an item, huh? I never knew.”

“Me, I suspected. Woman like that, all cute and fierce, she has to be boinking
somebody
. The colonel seemed as good a candidate as any. Also, sometimes I caught them giving each other these looks, you know? Like they were passing notes in class. Now, focus. I reckon we should split up. You go that way, clockwise round the edge of the island. I’ll go counterclockwise, and we’ll rendezvous on the other side. If you see something moving and it’s not me, shoot.”

“Roger that—Wait.” Lim took a few steps along the jetty. “You hear that, loot?”

“No.”

“Movement. Not sure where it’s coming from. Somewhere out there.”

Giacoia listened. “It’s just the ice cracking. Sounds like a goddamn bowl of Rice Krispies.”

“No, I’m sure there’s something else.” Lim climbed down the jetty ladder, onto the ice. He unshouldered his rifle.

“Be careful.”

Lim moved out further on the ice, head cocked. Presently, Giacoia joined him. He thought that he had perhaps heard something too, buried in amongst all the glacial sounds. A kind of scratching. Claws scraping.

The two soldiers trod warily, alert, making regular visual confirmation of each other’s position.

“Anything?” said Giacoia.

“No. Seems to have stopped. Maybe I—Whoa, there it is again. Still can’t pinpoint it, dammit. It’s like it’s close enough that I should be seeing what’s making it, but...” Lim’s voice trailed off.

“But what?” Giacoia briefly glanced away, checking his six o’clock.

“Oh God. It’s coming from—”

There was a
crack
, a shattering sound. Giacoia whirled. Lim. Where had Lim gone?

“Lim? Corporal Lim? Where the fuck are you?”

Nothing. No reply.

“Justin?” Giacoia said. “If you can hear me, answer.”

It was eerie. Lim had just... vanished. There one moment out on this open ice field; the next moment, not there.

And now Giacoia discerned the scraping again. It was loud and clear this time, emanating from very nearby. The noise a vampire’s talons might make when their owner was dragging them across ice.

But if there was a vamp here, where in hell was it? He’d surely be able to see the creature.

Then it dawned on Giacoia.

He looked down at his feet.

That same instant, the ice beneath him erupted. Arms shot upwards through it. Taloned hands clamped onto his legs. Giacoia was hauled down into freezing back water.

It happened so fast, he wasn’t even able to squeeze off a round.

The hands pulled him down deep. He resisted. He fought. But he hadn’t had a chance to draw in a breath before he was submerged. There was no air in his lungs, and already panic was taking hold, dread of drowning.

The cold was shocking, too. Numbing.

Above, a dim gibbous disc of light marked the hole in the ice he had been dragged down through. It was growing smaller and fainter.

Vampires didn’t need to breathe. Giacoia did.

His lungs were crying out for oxygen.

His muscles felt weak. His struggles were getting feebler by the second.

Now the hole was so tiny, it looked like a distant star.

Giacoia opened his mouth. Inhaled reflexively.

Icy darkness roared in.

CHAPTER

FORTY

“W
HAT’S GOING ON
?” Clara asked for the umpteenth time.

She was growing restless and curious, and Rozetta knew this was just what Mr Farthingale didn’t want.

“Let’s put on a DVD,” Rozetta said. “How about this one? You haven’t watched this one in a long time. It’s a Pixar. You love Pixar.”

“No. Bored of TV.” Clara had been having a kids’ show marathon since four that afternoon, channel-hopping at whim between Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. Farthingale had given Rozetta strict instructions. Clara could do what she wanted, eat whatever she asked for, stay up however late she felt like, as long as she didn’t move from the den. She was to remain in the den until further notice. By no means was she to roam through the house, and she was definitely not allowed anywhere near its landward sections, which included her bedroom.

Rozetta hadn’t asked why. She didn’t want to know why. None of her business, just as it was none of her business that the rest of the domestic staff had been sent away and then those soldiers had arrived. Whatever her employer was up to, it wasn’t anything good, she could tell. The less involved in it she was, the less she saw and could be held accountable for, the better.

But Clara was beginning to get suspicious. Rozetta was being so nice to her, letting her eat all the ice cream and candy she could manage, and it was way past bedtime and nobody had even mentioned pyjamas and teeth-brushing yet, and Clara obviously didn’t mind that at all, but it was also odd. It was a break with routine, and breaks with routine unsettled her.

Something
was up. She could sense it.

“I think I’d like to stretch my legs,” she said, standing up. “I’ve been sitting on my butt for ages.”

“No,” Rozetta said crisply, and then, more softly, again, “No.”

“Why not?”

“How about some MTV, Clara? I think there’s a special on tonight about that boy band you like.”

“Howie hates me seeing MTV.”

“Howie will never have to find out. It’ll be our secret.”

“But he says it makes me too noisy, because I sing all the songs afterwards. For, like, days. Drives him crazy.”

“Then sing to yourself, in your head, not out loud,” Rozetta suggested.

“Oh, okay. That’s a good idea.”

Clara tuned the channel selector to MTV, and pounding music filled the den.

Which was handy, because Rozetta was convinced she had just heard a cry of pain coming from outdoors.

“Sandwich, Clara?”

“Nah.”

“‘No, thank you.’”

“No, thank you. I’m fine. Full.”

“I’m going to fix myself one, okay?”

“’Kay.”

“Stay put. Don’t move from this room.”

“What if I need to make pee-pee?”

“Hold it ’til I get back, then I’ll take you.”

R
OZETTA HEADED OUT
to the kitchen, which lay just a short corridor away. It was at the eastern end of the house, part of a block that nestled against the slope of the hillside. On the way, she listened out. No further screams. Perhaps she had just imagined it. She hoped so. God forbid that her employer had gone completely insane.

The moment she entered the kitchen, she realised something was amiss.

A chilly draught.

Her eye went straight to the windows.

A broken pane.

She sensed she wasn’t alone.

A presence behind her.

She turned.

It was a man. He was dressed in black. Old-fashioned clothing. Like he was going to a funeral a hundred years ago. He was chubby, bordering on overweight. His eyes were deep scarlet.

Rozetta’s hand darted to the tiny gold crucifix that hung round her neck. She was a good Catholic. She had complete, unswerving faith.

She held the crucifix forward, a shield and a weapon.

“I know you,” she said to the intruder. Terror was coursing through her, so much so that she felt lightheaded and close to fainting. Yet the Lord would protect her. The Lord would. “
Aswang
. Demon. Bloodsucker. Get away from me. I command you, in the name of Blessed Virgin, Jesus and all the saints, leave me alone.”

The vampire, Andy Gregg, just smiled.

“That shit don’t work on me,” he said. “I’ve lived in a church. I’m hardened.”

Rozetta screeched and made a desperate dash for the knife block on the sideboard.

Andy, for all his bulk, was faster. He beat her to it, standing in her way.

“Our shtriga told us we should remember what we are,” he said. “Apex predators. He said there are times when we just have to be what we’re meant to be and take what’s ours.”

Rozetta whimpered. “Please. No.”

In the Philippines, she had been raised on stories of the
aswang
, a monster who stole babies from their cribs and drained men of their lifeblood, an evil thing with a special liking for foetuses and cadavers. She could recall the many bad dreams she had had as a little girl—nightmares about terrible, red-eyed undead beings sneaking in through her bedroom window and biting open her veins and drinking deep.

The
aswang
was real. It was fact, not folklore. The whole world knew that now. What had once been dismissed as superstition was, after all, truth.

Her entire adult life, Rozetta had prayed she would never actually meet an
aswang
—her childhood nightmare made flesh.

Those prayers had held her in good stead—until today.

Fangs bristled.

So many. So wickedly sharp.

T
HE DEN DOOR
opened. Clara didn’t even glance round.

Someone came in and sat down beside her.

Only after the pop video she’d been watching ended did Clara take a look to her left.

It wasn’t Rozetta, as she had expected. It was a girl. Clara didn’t know her. She had never seen her before. But she was pretty, in a pale sort of way, and she had a cute, rather raggedy teddy bear with her.

“Hi,” said Clara.

“Hi,” said the girl.

“Where’s Rozetta?”

“I don’t know. Who’s Rozetta?”

“My friend. She looks after me. Who are you?”

“I’m Cindy.”

“Hi, Cindy. I’m Clara. Who’s your bear?”

“Jingle Ted.”

“Cool name.”

“Thanks. He doesn’t jingle any more, though. He used to, but he broke.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“It’s okay. What are we watching?”

“MTV.”

“Is there anything else on?”

“What do you like?”

“All kinds of stuff.”

“You like
Transylvanian Families
?”

“I don’t mind it.”

“I love it. It’s my best show.”

“Let’s watch that, then.”

“Sure. Why not? I’ve got a whole bunch of episodes TiVo’ed.”

Clara pulled up the TiVo menu onscreen and started clicking through.

Cindy nestled up a little closer to her. “That’s a great TV. You have such a cool house.”

“I know. My big brother’s a billionaire. Oh, this is a good one.
Felix Fanger’s Night Off
. It’s the one where Felix bunks off school for the whole night, and the Deadmaster keeps on trying to catch him.”

Cindy linked her arm through Clara’s, and together, companionably, the two of them settled down to watch the show.