working their way methodically from room to room, floor to floor. First clear the rest of the building, then move on to the east wing. Those were their instructions, and so far the operation was going perfectly according to plan.
Marta Tucci was sitting at her desk in her ground-floor office, the glare of the laptop shining off her glasses and the front of her labcoat. The screen was covered in technical data, but this late at night she couldn’t deal with it. Two years out of university and she already felt jaded with her biochemistry career. She hated working shifts. She should be at home, close to Franco and baby Renata. Sometimes she just wanted to—
That was when the door of her office crashed in and the two men in black burst inside, waving guns at her. She screamed. One of them strode up to her and grabbed her by her long blond hair. He yanked her brutally out of her seat and sent her tumbling to the floor. He fell on her like an animal. Her screaming became a tortured wail as his teeth crunched into her throat. Blood welled up in thick spurts, soaking the carpet as he sucked and gorged on her torn flesh. With an effort he stepped away from her, wiping his bloody mouth with his sleeve and letting his colleague drink from the dying woman.
Between them, the two intruder vampires drank Marta Tucci dry until her body was a pallid husk. They moved on to rejoin the team.
Eight more chemists and two more security men died the same way, bloodily and in terror, as the team swept the Terzi building. Each member had his fill. It was part of their reward for the night’s work.
In under five minutes, the figures in black had regrouped outside the security doorway leading into the east wing. The leader stepped up to a wall console and punched in a twelve-digit number. The code was changed daily, but their information was good. The steel doors whooshed open. The team slipped through into the corridor that lay beyond.
The east wing was staffed that night by a group of five white-coated chemists, three males and two females. The team of armed intruders came bursting into the complex of glass-walled rooms that comprised the secret Federation laboratory and brought mayhem. As one of the females ran for cover, a swathe of gunfire punched into the back of her white coat. She fell sprawling on her face, screaming, clawing, dying in agony and bursting apart.
The others stared in horror.
Not just because their colleague had just been gunned down. But because normally, vampires didn’t just fall down dead when you shot them. And the chemists working in the upper east wing were all vampires — vampires who knew all about the effects of Nosferol-tipped ammunition, because the production of the poison was one of their key jobs. Suddenly nobody was trying to escape or resist.
Only one of them, a portly male with a blond ponytail, seemed less scared than his colleagues. Nobody noticed, though — they had other things to worry about.
The tactical team worked fast. With the chemists held at gunpoint, the rest of them swept through the lab and found what they’d been sent to find. At the far end of the wing was a vast storage room with steel shelves from floor to ceiling, stacked with hundreds of crates containing litre-sized Perspex jars. Separated into sections, the crates were labelled ‘Solazal’, ‘Vambloc’ and ‘Nosferol’. It was the latter that the team leader was interested in. He pointed a gloved finger.
‘Load those up,’ he commanded. ‘The rest stays.’
While half the team started grabbing the Nosferol crates and carrying them to the lift in the corridor, others began attaching blocks of C-4 plastic explosive from their tactical vests to the shelving. In minutes, the whole storage room was rigged for destruction.
‘You bastards,’ one of the male vampire chemists spat at them.
The team leader grinned behind his mask. ‘Wait till you see what we’ve got in the van.’ And soon afterwards, when the lift returned from taking down the first batch of crates, two of his team brought in a massive holdall that even vampires struggled to carry. Inside was enough explosive to take out the whole building.
When the lab had been emptied of every drop of Nosferol, the leader signalled to his men to start evacuating the place. It was at that point that the chemist with the ponytail stepped forward, as if he thought he was going with them. The leader hit him hard across the face with the butt of his gun. The blond vampire went sprawling to the floor.
‘I gave you what you wanted,’ he whined in protest. ‘You told me you’d spare me.’
‘You piece of shit, Vernon,’ his surviving female colleague yelled at him, horrified.
‘What the fuck have you done? You gave them Nosferol?’
‘Shut up,’ the team leader said, and shot her.
‘Now it’s your turn, Vernon,’ he said over her dying shrieks. He raised his gun again.
‘But you promised…’
‘I lied.’ The leader shrugged, pointed his weapon in Vernon’s face and pulled the trigger. His team followed suit, opening fire on the two remaining Federation chemists.
They were still in their death agonies as the team swept back out of the lab as fast as they’d arrived.
Less than two minutes later the vans stormed out of the gates, their headlights sweeping the empty road. In the front passenger seat of the lead vehicle, the team leader took out a small remote. Without pausing a beat, he hit the detonation button.
The gigantic explosion filled the night sky behind them as they sped away with their cargo.
Chapter Thirty-Four Crowmoor Hall
3.16 a.m.
The vibrations of the silent ringer reverberated against the dull sheen of the long mahogany table. Stone picked up the phone. He’d been expecting the call, knew who it was from — and it was right on time. He said nothing, waited for the vampire on the other end to speak.
‘It’s done,’ the voice said.
Which was all that needed to be said. Stone hung up and smiled down the length of the table at the seated assembly of his inner circle. Lillith was at his right-hand side.
She’d dispensed with red leather in exchange for glistening black. The light of the night’s battles and victories still danced in her eyes. She drummed her long, black fingernails impatiently on the polished wood, waiting for him to reveal what the call had been about.
To Gabriel’s left was the blonde, Anastasia. Down the table was the hulking shape of Zachary. Anton’s beady gaze was fixed on their leader.
‘Well, brother?’ Lillith finally asked him.
‘Our plans progress,’ he replied. ‘The demise of the Federation is now an inevitability. We control their weapons. The tiger’s teeth have been pulled.’
‘Then we move on to the next phase,’ Anastasia said with a delicious laugh. ‘And the real fun begins.’
‘All in good time,’ Stone replied calmly.
‘First I want to massacre the rest of the bastards who did for Petra and Kenji tonight,’ Lillith said through bared teeth, fists clenched on the tabletop. ‘I’m going to find Alex Bishop. I’ll find her. And I will make her suffer.’
Stone pursed his lips. ‘There are more pressing issues to deal with than mere revenge,’ he said. ‘Leave such crude impulses to the humans.’
‘What issues do you mean, Gabriel?’ Anton said, intently watching every flicker of Stone’s face. ‘The Federation—’
‘The Federation are less of a concern,’ Stone interrupted him. ‘They will be dealt with according to plan. No, I refer to another matter. While you were in London, I was…elsewhere.’
Lillith crossed her arms and looked at her brother. Her expression was clear: she knew perfectly well where he’d been that night, and she disapproved of his dalliance with his new plaything. She’d wanted Kate Hawthorne dead that first night. But she said nothing.
‘I encountered a human there,’ Stone went on. ‘An officer of their police. He told me something that disturbs
