Vlad’s madness, fuelled by the scent of his long-dead love, boiled. For a moment, his focus had shifted away from the soldiers standing just a few feet from him. The girl and her perfume had filled his world.
His lieutenant saw the black madness in his master’s eyes and twitched his finger. It was enough to bring Vlad’s attention sharply back into focus.
The girl was nothing more than an impostor.
A mere memory of his love.
A haunting reflection, stimulated by the scent of lilacs.
But the soldiers… Ah, now they were something else.
They were toys to be played with, before he unleashed his lieutenant and his pack of slathering Taints on them.
But not yet. Not yet…
The grandfather of all vampires studied his opponents, taking in every micro-expression, feeling every hammer-blow of their hearts, and hearing the blood rushing through their bodies. He could almost taste the fear-tinged frustration they felt at being so close yet so far away from protecting an ‘innocent’.
It delighted him.
Watching the impotent rage boil and churn in the bellies of his enemies was exquisite. He relished the thought that for the rest of their probably very short lives the two soldiers would have that gut-punch of shame every time they remembered they had had no choice but to simply stand and watch a monster decide the fate of an innocent girl. In the most normal of surroundings. Where the girl was supposed to be safe.
But this was a tactical confrontation, too. A chance to see how his enemy reacted. How they moved. How they prioritised potential collateral damage. Examine their weaknesses.
Vlad chuckled quietly. Time to take things up a level. He nodded to the lieutenant, who bowed slightly and smoothly stepped back on board the train. Inside, a handful of oblivious passengers sat starting at their smartphones, unaware of what stalked their carriage.
The two soldiers instinctively reacted by stepping forward a couple of paces. Vlad held up a finger and wagged it from side to side. They froze again, closer to the door yet not quite close enough to make a difference.
Colby snarled at Vlad, that taunting laugh sending a pulse of fury through him. He hissed. “Fuck. Yol, we need to get that bastard off of that train. Yol…”
“I know. I know, damn it.” Yolanda ground her teeth in frustration. Oh, you clever bastard, Vlad. You clever, clever bastard! Split your targets. See how we prioritise. You son of a bitch, you’re on as much of a dekko as we are, aren’t you, you fucker?
An ear-splitting beeping warned of the impending departure of the train. The two soldiers knew those passengers were trapped now. Trapped inside a tin can with one of Vlads lieutenants. And there was nothing, nothing they could do.
“Fuck! Fuck! Yol, we have to stop that train!” Colby’s voice cracked with pent-up fury.
“Damn it!” Yolanda watched as the lieutenant sat beside an elderly woman. He glanced back towards Colby and Yolanda and smiled a vicious, spiteful smile, and draped his arm around the back of the seat.
Yolanda glared back at the lieutenant, clicked the Bluetooth and hissed into it. “Micky, get them to stop the train! Stop the damn train!”
Static. Fucking static. Shit! Those few steps they’d taken towards Vlad and his lieutenant must have put them slap-bang into a dead spot. She knew that if she moved a muscle, she could instigate a reaction from Vlad. And that would be bad for the long-term prospects of blondie in her clattery heels and tight pencil skirt. “Micky! Micky!”
Still nothing but the tormenting hiss of dead air. “Fuck!”
Back on the platform, Vlad snarled, and reached out. His long, sinewy fingers brushed the woman’s hair as she passed by, a caress as gentle as a lover’s touch, as delicate as a butterfly — and filled with so much potential for violence. All he had to do was change that caress into a snatch, wind his fingers in the girl’s hair and drag her towards him…
The electric motors of the tube train whined into life and the carriages started to move. Out of the corner of her eye Yolanda saw the lieutenant give her a little wave and then lean in towards the old woman. The last thing Yolanda saw as the carriage started to blur past was a sweet little old lady strike up a conversation with a ‘nice young man’…
The noise grew into a mechanical roar, and the air pressure increased. Garish fluorescent lights flickered, combining with the flashing tube train to create a violent strobe effect. The air blasted along the platform, turning the girl’s blonde hair into dancing strands and tangling them around Vlad’s fingers.
“Yol!” Colby couldn’t hold back any more.
Screw this.
“Engage!”
Screw the whole ‘low-key’ bullshit. They couldn’t just stand there impotent and motionless any more. They were burned. Might as well make it official, then. Their Glocks flipped out and the business end of two adapted G17s pointed straight towards where Vlad—
— Wasn’t.
Colby cursed long, loud and passionately. “Shit! Shit! Shit! Oh, you sneaky, mother-fucking, greasy, undead son of a bitch!”
Still holding the Glocks out in front of them, Colby and Yolanda moved forward at a rapid scuttle, ready to start blasting at anything that didn’t look like a commuter.
The girl stood alone, alive and paralysed with fear as two grim-faced, gun-toting figures moved smoothly towards her. They were using that feline, cross-step gait that always hinted at extreme violence and explosive power bubbling just below the surface. What were they, Special Forces? Police? Security Services? What? Whoever they were they looked like they’d shoot her in a heartbeat. She stood, frozen with fear, hot tears of terror rolling down her cheeks. “Please! Please don’t kill me! Please!”
“Get out. Move. Move!” Yolanda moved past the girl, reached back with her left hand and shoved her hard in the back, not wasting time with nice reassurances or any of that touchy-feely shit. The girl didn’t need telling twice. She staggered under the surprising power from Yolanda’s shove, regained her balance and then clattered her way along the platform towards the exit, where she saw another huge man running down the stairs with a menacing look and equally menacing Glock. Her tears started to dissolve the cheap mascara she wore, and it ran down her face in two gritty black streaks. This was not a normal workday commute.
The back end of the train disappeared into the far tunnel behind them, and Yolanda stopped at the point where the platform ended and black oblivion began. She lowered the Glock and unleashed a shit-ton of real passion into an uncharacteristic outburst of cursing. “Fuck! Fuck!”
Colby jumped down onto the tracks and started to move towards the darkness.
Gary dumped the kit bag on the floor, looked over Yolanda’s shoulder and watched his best friend heading purposefully towards the tunnel entrance. “Colby, you daft bastard, stop! There’s an entire army of Taints in there, and the next train is about a minute away from turning you into a smear! Colby! Colby!” He glowered at his friend’s back and muttered. “God damn it, you stubborn…” Gary, still questioning Colby’s parentage under his breath, turned and took up position behind Yolanda. He kept his back to his team, eyes fixed firmly on the other end of the tunnel, just in case the Taints tried a pincer move on them.