Kate’s neck wide open, the leader raised his hand.
‘Stop, Lillith. Anastasia, back away. I want this one for myself.’ His voice echoed in the crypt. The woman called Lillith lowered the weapon and stared at him. The blonde froze, like a dog being given a command.
‘That’s not playing fair, brother,’ Lillith said archly.
‘Release her.’
Lillith snarled.
And Dec almost collapsed.
Not because he’d never seen a human snarl before.
But because of the teeth. They hadn’t been there before — he was certain of that. But now, suddenly, horrifically, her canine teeth looked like an animal’s. They were long and curved and sharp, protruding whitely from her bloody lips.
The leader took a brisk step towards Lillith and slapped her hard across the face.
She was hurled off her feet with a scream of pain and rage. He pointed a warning finger at her. Then turned to Kate and reached out to stroke her skin.
‘She’s mine,’ he said.
Dec had seen enough. He had to get out of this place. Call the police, somebody, anybody. Get help. He turned away, barely breathing, desperately trying to control his racing pulse as he tiptoed back through the crypt as fast as he could.
Making it to the stairs, he began to run like a maniac, swallowing back the bile that kept rising up in his throat.
For a few terrible minutes he was lost inside the enormous house, stumbling through the plush corridors. Ripping open a door, he found himself inside an old-fashioned library. French windows looked out across the dark grounds. He ran over to them. They were locked. He had to get out. Looking around him in panic, he spotted a large quartz paperweight on a desk. Grabbed it and lobbed it against one of the windows, which shattered with a tinkling of breaking glass. He clambered out of the jagged hole and staggered out into the night.
He never looked back at the house. He sprinted to the wall, scrambled over it and dashed to his car. His hands were shaking so badly that he could hardly get the key into the ignition, but then the engine fired up and he took off down the country lane.
As he drove wildly away, he tore his phone out of his pocket and went to dial 999.
The battery was dead. He tossed down the phone and drove faster through the misty night. There had to be somewhere he could stop and make a call, but all he saw around him was countryside. He pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator and kept it there for five straight minutes. Was there nothing here? Where was he?
Miles passed, and then he noticed a light through the trees. A house, maybe a country pub.
Dec stared at the light for half a second too long. By the time he looked back at the road, it was already too late. The tight bend rushed up faster than he could react.
The Golf ploughed into the verge, left the road and smacked straight into a tree, and the expanding airbag punched him in the face as he went flying into the wheel.
He had no idea how much time went by before he woke up in the wrecked car.
He tried to move, and cried out at the excruciating pain in his left wrist. His head whirled with nausea. He felt the blackness rising.
No. No. Got to get help. Got to help Kate. Got to get—
That was his last thought before he woke up again to the glare of flashing blue lights and there were two police officers looking down at him.
Chapter Six
VIA Headquarters, central London
Next morning, 6.28 a.m.
Alex pushed through the steel and glass doors of Schuessler & Schuessler Ltd and crossed the broad foyer to the reception desk. Fresh off the plane from Bucharest, she was wearing a long dark grey Ralph Lauren cashmere coat over a merino wool polo-neck and jeans. The heels of her Giuseppe Zanotti knee-high studded boots clicked on the shiny tiles.
Kindly old Albert, the night watchman, was coming to the end of his shift, and she gave him a sweet smile as she signed in.
‘Early start this morning, Miss Bishop,’ he said.
‘Well, you know me, Albert.’
‘We haven’t seen you for a couple of days.’
‘I had some overseas business to take care of.’
‘Busy busy.’
She grinned. ‘Always.’
She skirted the plush reception area, past the leather armchairs and the tinkling fountain, headed for the lift and rode it all the way to the top.
Schuessler & Schuessler were a large legal firm and occupied the lower three floors of the building. The legal people had no idea what really went on behind the doors of the company that occupied the upper two floors.
The lift opened onto a small, bare landing and Alex stepped over to the only door leading off it. It bore the words ‘KEILLER VYSE INVESTMENTS’ in gold lettering. She took a strip card from her handbag and ran it down the slot, hearing the clunk as the lock opened for her. On the other side of the door was a long windowless corridor, walls and floor tiled in gleaming white. She passed through another door at its far end and entered a second reception.
At a desk sat an austere-looking woman in a dark suit, her hair scraped back into a bun. Alex knew there was a pistol under the desk, loaded with Nosferol-tipped rounds and aimed right at her as she walked over to the fingerprint and retinal scanner and ID’d herself to the voice recognition system. Steel doors whooshed open and Alex stepped through into a square ante-room. Inlaid into the centre of the polished granite floor was a large circular emblem bearing the VIA insignia.
This was the nerve-centre of one of the world’s most secretive organisations, operating under the auspices of a worldwide Federation whose existence was known only to a very select few.
Alex nodded greetings to familiar faces as she cut a path through the airy open-plan office space where VIA operatives talked on phones, typed at computer terminals and watched the latest developments on the giant screens that monitored the agency’s global activities.
At the far end of the upper floor was Rumble’s private office. She walked in without knocking.
Harry Rumble, medium build, slim and greying elegantly round the temples, was dressed in a charcoal pinstripe suit. He could have passed for a City businessman; he was anything but. He was the chief of the Vampire Intelligence Agency, the Vampire Federation’s security wing, set up to police its hundred thousand or more members across the world.
The Federation, embodiment of the modern age of vampirism. VIA’s role within its global empire, working under the watchful eye of the Federation Ruling Council, was to control the registration of new members and enforce the three laws that were engraved on the crystal plaque above Harry’s desk.
1. A vampire must never harm a human
2. A vampire must never turn a human
3. A vampire must never love a human
The enforcement part was Alex’s job — as a lot of renegade vampires had found out the hard way. When they stepped out of line, she moved into action.
Rumble peered up at her over his half-moon glasses as she walked in. She knew he didn’t need them but just wore them because he thought they made him look sophisticated. Vampires could see like a cat.
