Red Eye - 02 (41 page)
The safe room door stood wide open.
There was someone already inside.
Clara.
Farthingale felt a pang of shame. He hadn’t even thought about his sister until now. In the heat of the moment, his only concern had been for himself.
Still, she was there, in the safe room. She had already taken refuge. Good. So he didn’t have to worry about her. They were both of them going to survive this.
Clara was sitting cross-legged on the floor in a corner. She looked dazed, unsure of herself.
Little wonder,
Farthingale thought.
She must have heard the gunshot and it terrified her. She probably has no idea what’s going on
.
“Well done,” he said to her. He didn’t bother to enquire about Rozetta. She was just a nurse. Let her take care of herself. “Good girl. You did the right thing, coming here and waiting for me.” He tapped the code into the keypad and the door began to swing ponderously shut. “We’re going to be fine. It’s going to be just you and me, just Clara and Howie. We’ll hole up here, nice and snug, and I’ll call in reinforcements and everything’ll be okay. Okay?”
Clara didn’t answer, just kept staring into the middle distance.
There was something strange about her eyes—something awry.
Farthingale leaned in for a better look.
Clara raised her head.
Her eyes were no longer blue-green, like their father’s.
They were vivid scarlet.
“Red juice,” she said, standing.
“Clara... Oh, no... Christ...” Farthingale went numb, seeming to shrivel inside. He took an involuntary step back.
“Red juice, Howie.”
Her mouth opened wide. Her teeth were not ordinary teeth any more.
The door had shut fast. Farthingale spun round and lurched for the keypad to re-input the code in order to open it. His finger fumbled. He pounded out the digits. The door gave a loud
thunk
as the bolts unlatched.
But too late. Far too late.
“Who’s a monster now, huh, Howie?”
And then, with a cackle and one last ecstatic cry of “Red juiiice!” Clara leapt on him.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
D
AWN WAS COMING
. There was a faint whisper of warmth in the air. Over the past couple of days, the Big Freeze had slackened its grip on the East Coast. The ice in the reach had begun to melt and break up.
Redlaw was standing on the terrace at Far Tintagel, the very spot where Farthingale had stood three nights earlier overseeing what he’d thought would be Redlaw’s death. He gazed out over the island, the berg-studded sea, the mainland. It was the first time since his beating that he had felt even vaguely normal. Until now, in spite of the painkillers he had found in Farthingale’s bathroom cabinet, he had been a mass of aches and soreness.
The mirror was still showing him a face that was all the colours of sunset and barely recognisable from all the abrasions and contusions. His body moved as stiffly as though he was wearing a suit of armour.
But he was alive.
A winner.
For now.
Tina came out from indoors. Like him, like the vampires, she was keeping topsy-turvy hours, a night-shift existence. Redlaw was used to this, Tina had had to get used to it. Otherwise she would have been all alone during the daytime with no one to talk to and nothing to do.
“Thinking about turning in?” she said with a yawn. “I am.”
“Thinking about it,” said Redlaw. “But it’s always been my rule never to miss a dawn if I can. This time of day is the Creator at His most aesthetically-inspired.”
Silvery blue was chasing the dark away westwards.
“You had it all,” Redlaw said to Tina. “Your future all wrapped up and sealed with a bow. Do you regret rejecting that?”
“Who says my future still isn’t all wrapped up?” said Tina. “Tick Talk’s hits are through the roof, well into eight figures. I’ve got nibbles from three news networks, two state, one national. I’ve got someone asking to agent me. I’ve even got a tentative book deal, though that’s
sooo
old media I’m not sure I can be bothered. No, I’m not worried about what’s ahead. I know where I’m going, and I’ll be getting there entirely under my own steam. What about you?”
Redlaw ducked the question. “You shouldn’t have jumped the gun, posting that footage on your site when you did. That nearly sank us.”
Tina sighed. “Are you going to hold a grudge about it forever? It worked out in our favour, didn’t it? Just remember where you are now, not how you got there. Be Christian. Forgive.”
“I suppose you did redeem yourself.”
“You bet your bony British ass I did.”
The first streaks of sunlight tinged the sky.
“You’re leaving, then?” Redlaw said.
“Soon as I can. This is your kingdom, not mine. Yours and your fangy pals’. No reason for me to stay. Once the ice clears completely, I guess I can arrange for some sort of boat from the mainland to come fetch me.”
“My kingdom,” said Redlaw, amused by the notion, and wondering.
It
was
, he supposed.
Farthingale was dead, killed by his sister. Redlaw had come across the body, utterly exsanguinated, in the doorway to the house’s safe room. He had applied the finishing touch with the combat knife, decapitating it, just to be sure.
The sister, Clara, was now part of his vampire tribe. She and Cindy were becoming fast friends, somewhat to the chagrin of Cindy’s “sire”, Andy.
Far Tintagel, if it belonged to anyone now, belonged to the vampires and their shtriga.
A kingdom.
Yes.
Maybe.
Or a fortress. A stronghold. A redoubt. Isolated. Defensible. Separated from the human world by a moat of sea.
Somewhere where other vampires could come. Find sanctuary. Be safe.
A vision began forming in Redlaw’s mind. A way forward. A possibility.
“You asked me if I know where I’m going,” he said.
His smile was tight but brave, grim but hopeful.
A blaze of orange light turned the snowy pine trees into Roman candles.
“As a matter of fact, I’m not going anywhere.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A debt of undying gratitude is owed to the following: Adam Brockbank, who gifted the character of John Redlaw with a surname all those years ago; Mr Satyajit Sahu, consultant haematologist at the Eastbourne District and General Hospital, for inducting me into the mysteries of ITP; Chris Field, official fisticuffs advisor; and the real Chris Abbotts of Birmingham, a true inspiration.
J.M.H.L.
POLICING THE DAMNED
They live among us, abhorred, marginalised, despised. They are vampires, known politely as the Sunless. The job of policing their community falls to the men and women of SHADE: the Sunless Housing and Disclosure Executive. Captain John Redlaw is London’s most feared and respected SHADE officer, a living legend.
But when the vampires start rioting in their ghettos, and angry humans respond with violence of their own, even Redlaw may not be able to keep the peace. Especially when political forces are aligning to introduce a radical answer to the Sunless problem, one that will resolve the situation once and for all...
New York Times
bestselling author James Lovegrove tells a very different sort of vampire story.
‘Difficult to put down... a thoroughly entertaining novel that I would recommend to those looking for a summer blockbuster’
Sacramento Book Review
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