Xavier Garrett, Rumble’s assistant, stood across the other side of Rumble’s desk.
He was tall and vulturine with a high brow and oiled black hair, wearing the same sombre, crumpled suit he always wore. He flicked a look up and down Alex’s body, and one corner of his mouth twisted up into the best rendition of a smile he could do.
‘Cool as a body on ice, hotter than a chilli pepper,’ he said. ‘Looking good this morning, Agent Bishop.’
Alex and Garrett’s relationship was a simple enough one of mutual distaste. He regarded her as insubordinate and a maverick, and hated that she had Rumble’s ear.
She regarded him as something that made slimeballs look good. Neither of them made any secret of their feelings.
‘Hey, Garrett. The undertaker called earlier. He wants his suit back.’
Garrett’s smirk twisted into a sneer.
‘Did you get my report, Harry?’ she asked Rumble. She was the only VIA field agent to call the boss by his first name and not ‘sir’. That drove Garrett crazy with envy, and she enjoyed it.
Rumble nodded. He tapped a key on the laptop in front of him and the screen’s reflection lit up in his lenses.
‘You did a good job out there,’ he said. His brow was creased with worry. And that was an unusual expression for Harry Rumble. He turned to Garrett. ‘Xavier, you didn’t check those shipment dates with Slade yet, did you?’
‘I was—’
‘Now would be a good time.’
Garrett curled his lip, getting the message, and left the office.
When they were alone, Alex said, ‘What, so private even your assistant doesn’t get to hear?’
Rumble peeled off his glasses and sat back in his chair chewing at one of the stems. ‘Franklin hasn’t reported back from Budapest.’
Franklin was Alex’s senior field agent counterpart stationed at VIA’s Munich operation. After rumours of vampire attacks had started appearing on blogs in Hungary, Rumble had sent him in to investigate.
‘He arrived there Saturday. No word from him since Tuesday. I don’t like it.’
‘You think something’s happened to him?’ she asked.
‘It’s not like him to go silent on us,’ Rumble sighed. ‘But that’s not all. Look at my screen.’
Alex moved round the edge of the desk so she could peer at Rumble’s laptop.
‘Whoa.’
‘My feelings exactly.’
The screen showed a map of the world. Capital cities marked in white. VIA stations marked in blue. Little red flags marked the locations of recent illegal vampire activity. Once in a while, a vampire would defy the regulations and go rogue, feeding uncontrolled on humans in their area, failing to use their Fed-issued Vambloc supply with the result that victims frequently remembered details of the attacks, their wounds didn’t heal quickly, and they got sick. In extreme cases, where the vampire returned to the same victim for several feeds over a period of a few days, they died and were turned.
It didn’t take much for localised panic to spread and rumours to circulate like wildfire through the blogosphere. When that happened, VIA field agents were deployed to deal with it.
Which wasn’t a frequent occurrence. The Federation generally had things tightened down pretty well, and Rumble’s operations map normally didn’t feature more than one or two red flags at any given time.
But what Alex was looking at right now was a mass of them, clustered across Europe, spreading east to west.
‘That’s definitely unusual,’ she said.
‘More than unusual. It’s unprecedented.’
‘You told me we were getting a rise in rogue activity. You didn’t tell me it was this bad.’
‘I was hoping it’d level out,’ Rumble said tersely. ‘But that isn’t happening.
Reports are just flying in. Dexter in Copenhagen, an hour ago. Carbone in Barcelona late last night. I don’t even want to think about what’ll happen if the human media get a hold of it.’ He paused, anxiously chewing his lip. ‘The strangest thing is—’
‘What?’
He swivelled his seat away from the desk and looked at her. ‘These attacks are happening at night. All of them. It’s as if they were avoiding the daylight. Why aren’t they using the Solazal the Federation provides them with?’
‘I’ve had a feeling for a long time this might happen,’ Alex said. ‘A Trad uprising.’
‘A what?’
‘It was only a question of time before the Traditionalists started a backlash against us, Harry. Our glorious Federation may have done its best to stamp out the old ways, but I’ve always wondered how many of the die-hards were still out there, waiting for their chance to get back at us.’
Rumble looked pointedly at her. ‘Come on. Even if you’re right, there’s no way a few scattered malcontents could organise themselves into a significant threat. Not on this kind of scale, and so fast. It’s not feasible.’
‘We were there when the Federation took over, remember? Not all vampires were happy about it, if I recall. All they needed was a leader. Maybe they’ve found one.
The Trads and the Feds, fighting it out.’
‘The Trads and the Feds? Give me a break.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe the time’s come, Harry.’
Chapter Seven
The mighty Thames river snaked through much of England, yet in places it was little more than a muddy stream crowded by banks of reeds.
Dawn wasn’t far away, and the riverbank creatures were beginning to wake. A solitary swan glided over the misty surface of the water; then swam for the refuge of the vegetation as a small rowing boat appeared.
Seymour Finch’s gnarled fists were tight on the oars, propelling the boat along through the murk with powerful strokes. The quiet, dark places were where he most loved to be, far from prying eyes. And he had a job to do, now that Mr Stone and his inner circle had retired to their rest.
Finch manoeuvred the rowing boat into the bank, so that it nestled among the rushes. He shipped the oars then reached down for the bundle that lay between his feet. He smiled as he thought about what was inside, wrapped in plastic and sacking cloth.
Mr Stone had let him do what he wanted, once the others had finished. Finch’s intense terror of his employer was matched only by his deep devotion. He was honoured to have been set the tasks he had. He would carry them out to the letter. He would have his reward.
Finch’s strong fingers closed on the folds of the sacking cloth. He hauled the bundle upright against the inside of the boat, then drew out the sheath knife from his belt and cut the rope so that the contents spilled out overboard and splashed into the water.
Finch watched the ripples, then reached for the oars. He was about to start turning the boat around to head for home, when he saw the swan a few yards away.
He stared at it. The first rays of the dawn were beginning to melt through the mist, and shone like gold on the majestic bird’s white plumage as it glided like a galleon across the water.
He wanted to tear its head off and eat its flesh.
