She reached a door in the far wall and opened it slowly, looking both ways along the corridor beyond. There was no movement, no sounds, and she sensed nothing out there. Moving quietly for now—the time to make a noise would come soon—she worked her way across the first of the huge display halls. Greek sculptures, urns, and artwork surrounded her, and she was tempted to start making her commotion. A pang of guilt hit her: these were such old treasures. But it was only a pang.
With her hands inches away from one of the largest urns on display, ready to rock it from its pedestal, she paused. Moving on and starting something in the depths of the museum would be better; that way she could run in any direction, and lead the vampires anywhere. So she moved on through a room of Assyrian treasures, emerging into the massive Egyptian room. The sculptures, busts, and statues here held a regal dominance over the room. And some of them were also very large.
The history in this room was far older than even the Bane they sought. As Rose knocked over the first beautiful stone bust, for a moment that concept made their struggle seem pointless.
She put her shoulder to a much larger piece and growled as she pushed.
14
AT FIRST LEE THOUGHT Patrick was late, but then the Irishman emerged from the shadows as if he were one of them. Connie greeted him with a nod, and Lee noticed the small rucksack he was carrying.
“What’s that?” he asked as Patrick opened the bag, handed Connie a torch, took one for himself, and then hid the bag behind a large wheeled garbage bin.
“UV,” Connie said.
“You can use UV lights?” he asked, amazed.
“We close our eyes,” Patrick said. He was smiling at Lee, looking him up and down, and Lee realized this was the first time he’d seen Patrick since the Humains’ existence had been revealed. He seemed to be taking great pleasure in that.
“Got one for me?”
“Looks to me like you’re already tooled up.”
Lee drew one of the guns, weighing it against the lights the two Humains carried.
“These will hurt them,” Connie said. “But we can’t use them for more than a flash, so it’s just a brief hurt. What you’ve got will kill them. Head shot.” She smiled like a sweet teenaged girl, but her teeth detracted from the complete image. “We blind, you kill. We’ll make a good killing team.”
“Killing team,” Lee thought. And as they made for the large rolling shutter doors, it dawned on him that this was what he’d been working toward for ten years. Since watching Phil be killed by a monster he could barely understand or believe in, his life had been a pursuit of vengeance, both for his dead friend and for what the experience had done to him. His wife, his job… he’d lost everything, though the obsession sometimes seemed to make up for all of it. That was the true mark of his state of mind—that this could make amends for everything he once had. And now he was hunting them, and would perhaps kill them. There was that vampire out by Heathrow three years before, but that had felt like a minor victory. In a way, finding one hiding away like that had only been proof that there were many more.
“‘Killing team,’” Lee said. “I like the sound of that.”
Patrick and Connie wedged their fingers beneath a roller shutter and lifted. From the grinding of metal against metal, and the protesting grating noises from the door’s mechanism, Lee understood the strength required for what they were doing. Inside, they moved across the large loading space and Lee quickly lost sight of them. He took a penlight from his pocket and flicked it on, and Patrick glanced back at him.
“I can’t see in the dark,” Lee whispered.
He followed the two of them through into a long corridor, the weight of the big gun in his hand a solid comfort. He’d test fired his homemade ammunition in his soundproofed basement, seen what it could do, and he was keen to try it on a living, breathing… He chuckled softly at his train of thought. No living and breathing things in here. The vampires he hunted were as dead to him as the exhibits they slunk around.
And what of the Humains? he thought. But that was a distraction. They were a problem for afterward, and he was wise enough to know that they thought of him the same way.
“So?” Connie asked.
“Follow me,” Lee said. He hurried along the corridor at a crouch, aware that the subtle light could give them away but unable to move without it. He trusted his companions would let him know when danger was near.
They moved out into a hall, passing the remains of a massive stone horse and other tall larger-than-life statues. Lee ignored the history that sat quietly around him and approached an information point. He plucked a leaflet from the stand and ducked behind the desk, flattening it on the ground and holding the penlight between his teeth.
“What?” Connie asked angrily.
“You think I know the layout of this place?” he asked. He examined the floor plan, but it showed only the display areas, not those vast basements where millions of objects were stored. “Fuck it,” he muttered. He located a staircase on the layout, fixed it in his mind, and folded the map.
“Which way, human?” Patrick asked. Lee cringed, but he supposed that was humor.
“Down,” Lee said. “Into the basements. There’ll be rats, if you’re hungry.”
Something crashed to the floor. It rumbled and rolled, a noise that came in from some distance and grumbled on for several seconds. The whole building seemed to shake.
“That’s our cue,” Connie said. “Which way?” She nudged Lee hard in the back, and as he rushed toward the staircase he wished only that he could wash where she had touched him. He felt sullied.
Duval and the others froze seconds before Marty heard the impact sounds echoing through the huge halls. It was as if they had sensed the noise before it happened. Tube? he thought. Truck outside?
“They’re here,” Duval said, and Marty knew who he meant. Rose and the others were here as well, and now this would be a chase to the prize. If they know exactly where it is and I can keep the true room number to myself… But he knew that was unlikely. The tortures he had suffered at Duval’s hands before were nothing compared to what they’d do to him soon. His body ached in a hundred places, and his finger throbbed where the nail had been torn off, a white heat that seemed to set his hand on fire. He imagined that same heat applied everywhere across his body, inside and out. Perhaps he would die before telling them, but probably not. They seemed familiar with torture.
“You two, go and kill them.” Duval waved at Stoner and Kat, and the two humans grinned as they stalked away along darkened corridors.
“Duval—” Bindy said, but the tall vampire held up his hand. When the humans were beyond earshot he said, “It’ll provide a distraction. We don’t need much time. You come with me.” Then he nodded at the other two vampires. “You hide down here. Listen to what’s happening, and be ready when they come down. They’ve lost any opportunity to join us, so kill them all.”
“They use UV lights,” Bindy said, and that was the instant Marty realized she was the vampire escapee from his parents’ house. She killed Mum, he thought. The fury rose so quickly that the blood-rush made him dizzy, tingling all along his nerve endings, and he launched into her. Surprise gave him a couple of seconds before she reacted… He punched and kicked, flailing his arms, fists connecting with her eye and cheek and mouth, and it was like punching a tiger—all teeth. She recovered quickly and knocked him from her onto his back. Then she was on him, mouth wide and monstrous, hissing as her hands pressed down on his chest and twisted his head up and back to expose his throat.