Red Eye - 02 (26 page)

“Neat trick with that vampire kid,” he said to Redlaw. “You got me, all right. I should have blown her away the moment I set eyes on her. Wish I had now. Then you’d never have all been able to rush me.”

Cindy Newton hugged Jingle Ted to her stomach and swung her hips from side to side, looking coy but pleased with herself. Andy Gregg slipped a protective arm around her and planted a proud paternal kiss on the crown of her head.

“Cindy did well,” said Redlaw. “She was very brave, agreeing to act as a decoy. Child vampires can be... problematic, even for the most hard-hearted of us. Not easy to reconcile what they are with what they appear to be. I know that from experience. Now, questions. Who are you? Who are you with? My guess is, not the regular army. You people are some sort of non-official paramilitary force. Supremacists, perhaps? Right-wing extremists?”

“Shows how ignorant you are, dickwad.”

“But there’s also the vampiric aspect to consider,” Redlaw went on, unfazed. “You’re not human, not as such. A kind of hybrid. Someone’s been tampering. I suppose it was inevitable.”

“I’m not telling you jack-shit,” the soldier said. “You better go ahead and shoot me now. It’ll save you time. I’m not going to beg for my life or spill the beans or any of that shit. You’ve caught yourself the wrong trooper if that’s your game.”

“Really?” Redlaw turned to two of the vampires beside him. “Miguel? Denzel? Let’s take the gentleman outside, shall we? See if we can’t make him reconsider.”

The two vampires grabbed the soldier by the feet and hauled him like a sack of coal out through a doorway into the night.

Only it wasn’t night, not quite, not any more. The snow was still bucketing down but, to the east, the sky was brightening. There was a crack in the darkness, clay-grey light peeking through.

The soldier flinched at the sight of this. Just a tiny bit, but enough to tell Redlaw that his conjecture was correct. The soldier shared the Sunless’s inherent antipathy to the sun.

Miguel and Denzel hurried back indoors to safety, leaving Redlaw alone with the soldier.

“Dawn’s coming,” Redlaw said. “Five minutes, ten at most, the sun’ll be breaking the horizon. Even through the overcast, its rays will reach us. I won’t feel a thing. I wonder if you can say the same.”

The soldier’s mouth tightened. “I’ve been looking a little pasty lately. Could do with getting some colour in my cheeks.”

“I suspect it’s more than colour you’ll be getting. Do you really want it to end like this? I’ve no desire to see you suffer. I just want some answers.”

“This is bullshit,” said the soldier. “You Limeys don’t have the balls for this type of thing. America’s always had to keep coming over and saving you guys’ asses when you get into a jam. You don’t have what it takes to get the job done. You’re a pissant little nation that can’t get over the fact that it doesn’t have an empire any more and lives with its head up its queen’s skirts, sniffing her butthole like a dog.”

“What a charming image,” said Redlaw. “But you’ll have to try harder than that to antagonise me.”

“Who’s antagonising? I’m just telling you stuff. A few home truths. If you choose to be antagonised, that’s your lookout.”

“The bravado is impressive. But this isn’t just any old ‘Limey’ you’re talking to. Where I come from, I have a reputation.”

“Yeah, as some kind of limp-dick faggot, no doubt.”

“As a man who doesn’t mess about or compromise,” said Redlaw. “Look into my eyes. Look deep. Do you see someone who’s bothered about leaving you out here when the sun comes up? I’m perfectly happy to stand back and watch you burn. You kill vampires. You kill them systematically and ruthlessly. That’s a crime, in my book, and I see no reason why it should go unpunished.”

“Yeah? You love the bloodsuckers that much?”

“Whether I love them or not, they’re God’s creatures as much as you or I, and they don’t deserve to be treated as subhuman. No one does.”

“So you’re a radical Christian wingnut. Woo-hoo. Good for you.”

“Just tell me who’s paying you to do all this. Somebody must be.”

“You don’t reckon I’m in it simply for the fun of it?”

“No, I do not,” Redlaw stated firmly. “That equipment of yours can’t come cheap. Not to mention whatever’s been done to you to make you part-vampire—someone poured funds into the research and development on that. This is an extensive, well-bankrolled operation, and you don’t strike me as a man who renders his services for free. You don’t have the look of an ideology-driven fanatic. Just a worker on a wage.”

The brightness in the east was silvery now. The soldier blinked snowflakes out of his eyes. Redlaw could tell he was doing his best not to look towards the dawn. He didn’t want to know how much longer he had.

“Why did you come here alone?” Redlaw continued, trying another tack. “Why not with the others? A little freelancing on the side perhaps? Bet you’re regretting it now. You thought it would be straightforward. You were overconfident. Vampires are so disorganised, aren’t they? Not prone to co-operating with one another. Pick them off one by one. Easy meat. I know the score. But all it takes is somebody to give them a little direction, and that’s when a group of them can become a force to be reckoned with. You weren’t anticipating that, and hence your downfall.”

“Oh, just fuck you, buddy,” the soldier snapped. “Fuck. You.”

“Do you owe your employers, whoever they are, this much loyalty? Are you really prepared to give your life for them? I doubt they would ever return the favour, if the roles were reversed. You’re disposable. One of your teammates died in the sewers, and if your superiors are mourning his loss I’d be astonished. You’re nothing but robots in uniform to them, machines that do their bidding, and should one of you get broken, oh, well, never mind, they can always find anoth—”

“For crying out loud!” the soldier butted in. “I’d rather burn than have to listen to you jabbering on for another minute with that stupid accent of yours. Aren’t you sick of talking yet?”

“I’ll tell you what I’m sick of,” Redlaw said, leaning over the man. “I’m sick of people like you and your employers treating vampires as if they’re of no account. Just murdering them and thinking it’s okay. It’s
not
okay, and I’m here to make sure that point gets across.”

He spun on his heel. Daylight was sneaking across the waste ground that surrounded the factory, creeping fingers of dull light reaching towards the soldier. The man was obstinate. Redlaw knew his sort. He’d met plenty of them during his days as a copper, before he joined SHADE. Crooks who wouldn’t give up the tiniest scrap of information, anything that might incriminate them or their associates. However hard you sweated them, however doggedly persistent you were in the interview room, they clammed up and stayed that way right to the bitter end. All you could do was walk away and hope that, at the last moment, they would crack. They seldom did.

The daylight touched the soldier.

“You bastard!” he yelled out at Redlaw. “You goddamn bastard! Whatever you do to me, my team will do back to you tenfold. That’s a promise. You will not get away with this. You hear me, Redlaw, you fuck? You hear? You’re a dead man.”

Redlaw turned, frowning. “How come you know my name? I never introduced myself.”

“Oh, I know who you are,” the soldier said. “I know who you’ve pissed off, too. It’s the kind of guy who doesn’t let things lie. The kind to hold a grudge. He’s got a real hard-on for you.”

“Name?”

“He’s called Your Mother Is A Syphilitic Whore.”

“Give me his name and I’ll pull you inside, into the building,” Redlaw said.

The soldier’s face had begun to redden. At first Redlaw thought this was from the effort of shouting, but then he realised it was inflammation. Sunburn.

So the soldier wasn’t vampire enough that the sun’s rays would destroy him in a matter of seconds.

They were going to cook him instead. Slowly.

“Do you honestly want this?” he said. “To be roasted alive like a joint of beef? Is that how you want to die?”

“I’m not... giving you... anything,” the soldier gasped. The red deepened, flaring to an angry carmine colour. Blisters popped up on his face, and flakes of skin began to peel away.

“Give me a name,” Redlaw insisted. “I can stop this before it goes too far. Just tell me who has a grudge against me.”

“No,” the soldier rasped. The blisters were multiplying. His hands were starting to singe.

“What you’re going through, it must be excruciating. Let me end it before it gets any worse.”

“No,” the soldier repeated.

“Your funeral,” said Redlaw, and he turned again and carried on walking back towards the factory, and behind him the soldier began to howl and then to scream.

Tina was in the doorway, camcorder in hand. Her face was ashen and her body was shaking—but she was filming.

“Are you sure you want to be doing that?” Redlaw asked as he passed her.

“No,” she replied. “Are you sure you want to leave that man out there?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Feel sorry for him. He wouldn’t hesitate to do as bad or worse to me, or to you.”

“You’re a cold son of a bitch, Redlaw,” Tina said.

“Did you not know that about me already?”

“I do now.”

And still the soldier screamed, as smoke rose off him and patches of black charring spread like clouds over his exposed skin.

And still, for all her qualms and squeamishness, Tina kept filming.

And Redlaw strode on, further into the shadows of the factory.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

A
MONG THE ITEMS
removed from the soldier while he’d lain unconscious was a phone. Redlaw turned it on. Outside, the screams were ebbing, quietening, breaking down into sporadic whimpers and sobs.

That method of interrogation had yielded some small dividend. The phone presented another possible channel of enquiry.

Redlaw scrolled through the contacts list. It wasn’t extensive, just a handful of names, a bank, a telecoms service provider, a pizza delivery company. He checked the call history. The most recent incoming call had been at 2.07AM and had lasted a couple of minutes. The caller was registered only by his or her number.

A conversation of reasonable length, at that hour of the morning, had to be significant.

Redlaw thumbed the button to dial the number back.

Ten rings, and at last a thick, sleepy voice answered.

“Colonel. Is it done? Tell me it’s done.”

“Who am I talking to?” Redlaw said.

The voice sharpened. “Who the hell is this? That’s not Jacobsen. Why are you using Jacobsen’s...?” Then indignation faded to something cooler. “John Redlaw. It’s you, isn’t it? And Jacobsen...”

“Your friend Jacobsen is out catching some sun.”

The man on the other end of the line laughed hollowly. “Oh, very good. You got the drop on him, then.”

“He made it easy, coming on his own. That was very arrogant, sending just one of your men after me. Insulting, too.”

“I was making the best of a bad situation. The colonel wanted you all for himself. I couldn’t dissuade him, so I let him go ahead and hoped it’d bear fruit.”

“Which it didn’t,” said Redlaw.

“Obviously.”

“So I’ll ask again. Who are you? I don’t recognise the voice. The accent is... Boston, yes? But beyond that, I don’t know anything about you, while you, for your part, appear to be waging some sort of personal vendetta against me. Seems a little lopsided, that state of affairs.”

“You really have no idea who you’re talking with?”

“I hope that’s a rhetorical question, because that’s exactly what I just said.”

The man laughed again, genuinely amused this time. “Well then, you’re at a serious disadvantage, aren’t you? Seeing as how I know plenty about
you
.”

“Perhaps I am at a disadvantage,” said Redlaw. “Then again, perhaps not. I’m sure I’m right in thinking you’re the one who’s calling the shots round here. These vampire-assassinating soldiers are on your payroll. I’m also sure, based on the conversation we’ve had thus far, that you don’t work on anyone’s behalf but your own. You’re not affiliated to any arm of the US administration or security services. You’re an independent, private individual. And wealthy. Ultra-wealthy, in fact.”