30 Days of Night: Fear of the Dark

13

THEY EMERGED INTO A basement piled with barrels, shoving the wooden door aside and entering silently, quickly. The place smelled of stale spilled beer, and Marty’s stomach rolled. If I puke now, they’ll probably kill me, he thought. He had no idea why they’d brought him along and didn’t care. Five minutes alone in that darkened room with Duval and he’d been screaming, telling everything the vampire wanted to know and more, pissing himself again, wishing only for light or the true darkness of oblivion to take him away.

“I hear nothing,” Kat said. She and the other humans had carried lights, and for that he was glad. At least with them close by there were splashes of light. The brief journey through tunnels and sewers had been nightmarish, with him catching only brief glimpses of Duval and three more vampires. But anything was better than total darkness.

Stoner and the other human stood beside Kat, pressed against the closed door exiting the basement. The other vampires stood back amongst the barrels.

“Lights out,” Duval said, and they were plunged into darkness once again.

The sharp things touching his face, coldness on his throat, clothes plucked, skin pricked, each sensation a promise of more pain, and the promises were worse than the pain itself…

Marty whined, and the short woman vampire holding him squeezed his arm until he stopped.

Kat opened the door and artificial light crept in. She and the other humans left the basement, and Duval followed, moving with an unlikely grace for a creature of his size.

“Come on,” the woman vampire said. Marty thought her name was Bindy, but he no longer knew why that would matter. He was finished. He felt destroyed, hollowed out by Duval and left as a useless, wanting husk. It wasn’t that he had revealed what he knew about the British Museum and the Humains’ knowledge of the Bane: that had been inevitable, and there was no way he could be blamed. It was that the future felt so barren. Duval had brought home to Marty just how little his life meant now, and death was no longer as terrifying to him as it had once been. There were worse things than death.

They walked out from the basement and climbed a spiral of old stone steps, emerging into a small, old-fashioned bar. This was one of London’s genuine old boozers, untouched by the allure of chrome and glass furniture, cocktail hour, walls wood-paneled and hung with mirrors bearing the names of long-dead brewers and breweries. The furniture consisted of bare chairs and uneven tables, and the bar was lined with six beer pumps and decorated with a score of locals’ mugs hanging from hooks above.

An old woman stood behind the bar, a rag in one hand, mouth open in shock.

“We’re not open til…” she said, as if not realizing that these potential customers had risen from her basement.

Stoner and Kat approached the bar, drawing their guns and looking back at Duval like hungry puppies awaiting their master’s voice.

“No,” Duval said. “Not yours.” He approached the bar and reached across, clasping the woman in one hand and pulling her over as if she weighed nothing. She let out one squeal before his hand clasped across her face, nails scoring vicious lines down her left cheek. He looked up then, glancing around at the other vampires, and the grip on Marty’s arm relaxed.

Bindy and the others went to feed.

Oh, no, Marty thought. He backed as far away as he could, pressing himself into a corner and watching the woman’s terrified eyes. When she looked at him, he glanced away, and saw Stoner, Kat, and the other human watching with a sick, gleeful desire.

Duval tilted the woman’s head to one side and bit out her throat. Her scream came as a hiss of escaping air, her feet drummed on the wooden floor, and he buried his face in the geyser of blood. Pulling back—face bloodied, eyes black, teeth smeared, tongue swollen and red—he offered the woman to each of the other vampires. They took turns, Bindy first, then the other two, chomping deeper when the spray of blood began to lessen.

Marty wanted to close his eyes but he couldn’t. All he could think of was his family: his mother and father having the same done to them; and Rose, his vampire sister… had she ever drunk true blood? He tried to see her in Duval’s place but could not. But then Bindy looked more human, her body and features not so misshapen as her master’s.

“No,” he whispered. “Not Rose. Not ever.”

“Me,” Kat said, creeping forward. “Me. I want some.” Stoner stood behind her, shifting from foot to foot, but the other man had backed away. He was pressed against the locked frosted-glass front doors. Marty thought he looked terrified, or maybe he was just coming down from his high.

Duval dropped the woman—one of the other male vampires caught her, chomping into the motionless corpse—and stood up straight. He hissed as he approached Kat, apparently unable to talk as the blood rush invigorated his limbs and fangs. And Marty realized how similar Duval and Kat were: both junkies, depending on something external for their survival.

Kat looked excited and terrified in equal measures, shaking where she stood and yet not backing away. Duval swept her aside. She fell onto a table and it smashed, chairs spilling over backwards.

“No!” she shouted, but Duval was already on the human cowering by the doors, tearing into him with clawed hands, ripping at him with those swollen teeth.

It was then that Marty closed his eyes, and he kept them closed until the chaos had subsided. He still heard, though. For those two long minutes, what his eyes didn’t see was more than compensated for by the things he heard, and smelled.

He kept his eyes closed when one of them grabbed him again, clasping his wrist so hard that he thought the bones would crumble. He walked behind them through the mess of the pub, kicking something soft and wet as they exited into the cool night. And only then did he open his eyes.

The streets were busier than he’d expected, and for a moment he thought, Someone will see! The four vampires were glistening with blood, their faces smeared with it even though they’d halfheartedly wiped at themselves with bar towels. Even Kat and Stoner were splashed with their friend’s blood. But it was past dusk, and bustling, and no one saw. The small group walked along the pavement, and even if someone did notice something amiss, this was London. Problems generally belonged to someone else.

They soon reached the British Museum. After Marty had told them everything he knew, they must have traveled belowground until they were close by, guided perhaps by their human servants’ knowledge of this area and their experience of London’s underside. There they’d waited for dusk. We’ll be there long before Rose and the others, he thought, and he wondered what the cost of his betrayal would be. Shouting what he knew down in that pitch-black room, he’d not been able to perceive any other way. But now he knew that was wrong. There had been another way but, thrust into a pain-filled panic that forbore logical thought, he’d been unable to even consider accepting death. Instinct had driven him. Like that woman in the pub, he thought, or that man. If he’d refused to speak and died like that, perhaps he could have changed things.

But there was that one small lie he’d managed, yet to be revealed. And it was too late for self-recriminations. He’d had time to think, and as they approached the British Museum and whatever the Bane might be, he knew that given even the slightest chance he would upset the vampires’ plans. Duval had made him a nothing, after all. And what did a nothing have to lose?

Stoner and Kat appeared more subdued. Marty wanted to laugh at them, tell them that they were only being brought along as cattle, but he wasn’t so sure. The vampires had fed now. Murderers, drug addicts, craving something that the vampires might have promised or perhaps only hinted at; maybe Duval and the others had a use for the two humans yet.

Marty could only hope that was true. Because if it wasn’t, then perhaps the same applied to him, and he was being brought along for one thing only.

Fresh meat.

Close to the museum, he saw a girl. She was a teenager, but dressed in clothes that were strangely bland and pedestrian. The trousers were too long and ill fitting, the T-shirt gray, the jacket grubby and old. He knew few teenagers who didn’t take at least a little pride in their appearance, but this girl was a mess. And she stared.

Marty looked away, then back again. The girl was standing beside a concrete pedestal bearing a statue, her hands crossed in front of her, her long hair tied with elastic bands and slung carelessly over one shoulder. She was only twenty steps away, but her features seemed vague, as if obscured by a haze of smoke. She was in the shadow of the statue, away from the glare of artificial lights.

She smiled at Marty, but it was a grim smile.

“Rave,” Duval said, and one of the vampires ran.

Rave! Do they think up their own fucking names? Marty thought, then he saw the girl slip around the side of the pedestal and disappear. Humain! Rave the vampire went after her, and fingers bit into his arm as Bindy dragged him on.

Duval glanced back at Marty and raised a corner of his mouth in a smile. Blood was drying on his upper lip. Someone, please see us! Marty thought, but then the consequences of that hit home. If someone stopped and questioned them, the vampires would kill them. If a group of people—security guards, police—tried to stop them, maybe Stoner and Kat would open up with the weapons and cut them all down. Attracting attention would not concern them too much. It was what they had come to London for, after all.

Once they had the Bane, they would attract all the attention they could.

“What’s the matter? You scumbags still hungry?” Marty asked.

“You know that was no teenager,” Bindy said, and Marty realized it was the first time he’d heard her speak. Her voice was deeply accented, maybe eastern European, like some of the bar staff in the pubs he visited.

“Never seen her before,” he said, and it was true. But he’d heard her name, and he wondered what Connie was doing exposing herself like that.

The museum staff were going about closing up for the night when they entered. A tall man in a blue uniform approached, then stopped at a distance, unsettled, even though his expression showed he wasn’t sure why.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” he said. “Open again in the morning at ten. Hope we’ll see you back then.” He held one arm up, pointing back to the doors and advancing on them with small, hesitant steps.

“Of course,” Duval said, turning his back on the man and descending the steps again, out into the night. The others followed, and Marty looked around confused. Then he noticed that the other vampire was missing. He’d walked in with them, he was sure, but now the man was gone.

I could call out to the guard and tell him, he thought. But he didn’t want to sign the man’s death warrant. Marty was gripped with uselessness more tightly than Bindy holding his arm, and even if he were freed to walk away on his own, he had no idea what he could do.

They walked around the huge building as if admiring its architecture, and ten minutes later Stoner and Kat cut through a heavy fence, letting them into a large yard area. There were two wide doors and a raised loading bay, and Marty guessed this was where most of the museum’s contents came and went. All manner of incredible ancient artifacts would have passed this way, and he sniffed the air and looked around to see what trace had been left. But there was none. It was just a grubby backyard bathed in darkness, the security lights no longer working. He wondered if the vampire in the building was responsible for that, or whether they were simply broken down.

Footsteps approached, and the vampires tensed. They seemed to meld with the night, and for a moment Marty had to blink as if his eyes were blurred. But then he saw how perfectly still they had become, motionless as the shadows of statues. Stoner and Kat had knelt down, but they seemed to be jumping around in comparison.

The vampire Rave rounded a corner, slowing as he approached. “She got away,” he said.

“How?” Duval asked, his movement shifting him from the shadows.

“She knows the area better than me. She had somewhere ready to go.”

Duval seemed angry, but he said nothing to the vampire. For an instant he fumed, but then, as he turned to Marty, he bared his teeth in a grotesque smile. “That’s fine, really,” he said. “It’s good that they know we’re here. It’ll scare them. Make them easier to smell.”

“I thought vampires didn’t feed on each other,” Marty asked.

“Who said anything about feeding?” Duval replied. “We’ll destroy them. Weak shadows of what they could be. Echoes of what we will be.” Moments later, a motor started somewhere, and one of the large rolling shutter doors rolled up to reveal darkness within. The vampire slipped out like a slick of oil.

Duval nodded at the two humans. “You go first. Draw your guns. But don’t use them yet.”

“What—” Kat began, but Duval cut in.

“Don’t… use them… yet.”

Kat and Stoner nodded like berated children, then climbed onto the loading bay and rolled beneath the half-open doors.

The vampires followed. Inside, Bindy let go of Marty’s arm at last, and he rubbed at the flesh. It felt like her fingers were still there.

“You follow me now,” Duval said to Marty. “One move to escape and…” He bared his teeth. Held up one clawed hand. And as the rolling shutter closed again, the blood on his face was black in the fading light.

With the gun held between his thighs, and the homemade bullets it held, Lee should have been safe. But he had never felt in such danger his whole life, not even ten years before, when he and Phil had faced the vampire in Yugoslavia. Back then he’d been certain that his time had come, but he had fought because he had no real concept of what he was fighting. Phil’s sacrifice had given him time to flee and hide, and had also given him ten years in which to reflect upon what might have been cowardice. At least he couldn’t think that now.

He parked close to the museum and holstered the gun. They left the car together, Francesco and Rose walking on either side of him. He did not feel escorted, and that was good. They could never trust one another—they all knew that—but their aims here really were the same.

And he’d revealed his secret, told them he knew exactly where the Bane was hidden away. They had to protect him now, because if one of the vampires killed him—or, worse, turned him to their cause—the Humains would be lost.

“It’s huge,” Rose said. The museum stood before them, an architectural wonder in itself. Stone columns and a pitched roof gave it something of an ancient Greek look, the steps wide and slightly worn by time, and banners hung down to advertise current special displays. Alive, Rose had not been a particular fan of architecture, but, undead, she could at least appreciate its calm permanence. Its exterior was lit by floodlights, and people still bustled around its base. The front doors were closed, however, and the only people she could make out behind the huge closed main doors wore uniforms.

“How many security guards?” Francesco asked.

“No idea,” Lee said. “A few, at least.”

Rose sighed, and he knew what that meant. Any fighting between the vampires and Humains would attract the guards, and they would become innocent victims. I’m responsible, he thought, and the weight was heavy.

So were the guns. He liked the weight of them, resting in the holsters beneath his arms and the one in the small of his back. They felt significant.

“Tell us where it is,” Francesco asked again.

“No,” Lee said. “I’ll find it first.”

“Lee—” Rose began.

“You going to torture it from me?” Lee asked, too loud. Heads turned their way, people wandering across the square before the museum on their way home from work. They quickly turned away again, but he knew that too much shouting would bring the wrong attention.

“Lee, I know,” Rose said softly.

She knows what? Lee felt panicked, even though he wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

“What?” Francesco asked.

“Olemaun’s heard of the Bane,” she said. “But conflicting stories. It’s not only a source of power for a vampire wielding it, it could be a weapon as well.”

“Which is why the vampires want it,” Francesco said.

“No,” Lee said. He sighed and half smiled at Rose. She did not return the expression, and he hated that she made him feel like a traitor. She was a fucking vampire, and she was making him out to be…

“A weapon for humans against vampires,” Rose said. “An ultimate weapon.”

“That sounds…” Francesco said, trailing off.

“Fanciful?” Rose asked.

“It’s what I know,” Lee said. “What I’ve read and heard. You need to understand something, Francesco. And I can tell you this here, because we’re surrounded by people and I know you’ll not harm me. Not just yet. You terrify me.” He stepped closer to the tall man, edging into his own fear, pressing against it, challenging. “You all terrify me, and always have. You might laugh at my garlic and crosses, but when it comes down to it, I know more about vampires than you. You’ve been one for a long time, but you’ve been a Humain for a long time too. Shut off from the world, and all the things going on. You visit me, pretending to be human, and we talk about the vampires and what they’ve been doing beyond your bubble in London. But I never told you everything. Because… I never trusted you. Not completely.”

“But you never believed I was a vampire,” Francesco said, and it was almost a question.

“No,” Lee said. “You fooled me on that one.”

“Stella Olemaun hinted at a lot of activity lately,” Rose said. “I tried to draw her on it, but she seemed more concerned with what’s going on here.”

“So, what do you propose?” Francesco asked. He’s almost treating me as an equal, Lee thought. The idea made him feel nauseous. He was way above the rat-feasting world of these Humains. But he had to swallow his revulsion. Even Rose, who he had used to harbor desires for and sometimes fantasized about… even she was nothing but a monster.

“I propose we work together to make sure these bastards don’t get the Bane,” he said. “And whatever comes next… that’ll be open for discussion.”

Francesco seemed about to say something, but Lee turned away and walked toward the museum. It took every ounce of courage he could muster not to turn back, and by the time he reached the bottom step, he was feeling pleased with himself.

“Wait,” Rose said softly. Lee paused, looking up at the façade and wondering how the hell they were going to get in. The two Humains joined him, silent, and they all turned at the sound of running.

Connie scampered across the steps, skipping like a little girl. She glanced briefly at Lee as she arrived, and he shrank beneath her derision.

“They’re here,” the girl said. “They’ve gone inside, back through a loading bay.” She looked at Rose. “Your brother’s with them.”

Lee saw Rose shift slightly, but she said nothing. She’s relieved, he thought. That’s almost human.

“So we need to find a way in,” Lee said. “They could search for weeks and never find it, but…”

“But they might know as well,” Francesco said.

“If the woman told Marty, yes,” Rose said.

“Patrick and Jane?”

“I haven’t seen them yet,” the girl said. Rose produced her phone and started dialing, and for a moment Lee thought she was calling Stella for help. I’m not sure you’d be her friend anymore, Rose had said of the American, and Lee had known from the beginning what this meant. Right then he didn’t really mind. Only later would he allow himself to question his own perception, and ask how the fuck he had been fooled by not only these vampires but one far distant as well. In a way, it was no surprise that someone so obviously immersed in the vampire world had been found and turned by them.

I survived, he thought. For now. He crossed his arms and held the pistol handles. They were Raging Bull 454s, imported via a contact in the States. Big guns, whose .454 cartridges were used to hunt big game. Lee’s modifications had made the ammunition even more effective at stopping something dead, or undead. And against all logic, in a world where there were vampires, they made him feel safe.

“Lee, you go with Connie,” Francesco said. “Rose, tell Patrick to meet them by the loading bay.” Rose nodded, muttering into her phone.

Francesco caught Lee’s eye and smiled, and for the first time Lee saw how the night suited this man. Shadows seemed drawn to him. Standing there motionless, he was almost invisible.

“What about you?” Lee asked.

“Distractions,” Francesco said. “Rose, Jane, and myself will enter the building wherever we can. We’ll make a noise, try and draw the vampires. Take them on. It’s up to you to lead Patrick and Connie to the Bane and bring it out together.”

Lee patted one of his guns. “Don’t you think with these I’d be better fighting them?”

“No,” Francesco said, as if talking to a small child, “I don’t. But keep them to hand.”

“They have two humans,” Connie said. “Armed. Probably the ones who did the police station.”

“There,” Francesco said. “You might have the chance to use your cannons after all.”

Lee wanted to object, but he saw the logic. Perhaps if he told them all what he knew of the Bane’s location… ? But that was a card he was keeping close to his chest. Lee wanted the Bane for himself. To destroy the vampires. The decoys were a way for him to get there, the guns were insurance. Really, facing a vampire before he possessed the Bane was the last thing he wanted to do.

He nodded, and before they parted, Rose came over to him. “Be careful,” she said. And if he didn’t know these bloodsucking fucking freaks better, he’d have thought there was a hint of affection in her voice.

Inside the loading bay, Marty discovered that it was not completely dark. Light filtered in beneath the rolling shutters where they did not sit flush with the floor, and somewhere at the back of the large bay, night-lights burned, maybe for security or just so that the guards could check the place without having to turn on the main lights. They gave only a gentle glow, but it was enough by which to make out the bulks of boxes stacked and piled around, and the vastness of the bay.

Marty cleared his throat softly, trying to judge the echo. Bindy grabbed his arm again, squeezing tight. Don’t! He hadn’t even realized she was beside him.

The pause gave him time to wonder what the hell he was going to do. He desperately held on to the one small deception he had managed in the face of pain and terror: reversing the room number Ashleigh Richards had told him. While Duval had pricked him with long fingernails, his mouth open so wide that Marty smelled the stinking depths of him, reducing the boy to a shell of the human being he was, Marty had spewed what the archaeologist had told him.

British Museum.

That’s a pretty big place. Where in the museum?

Basements.

Where in the basements?

Storage rooms… sorted and stored artifacts, research only…

Why?

Hardly anyone goes there, she said!

Where? What room? What number?

And then the vampire had grabbed Marty’s genitals, his creased and ancient hand curling its long fingernails inward and twisting hard, and Marty’s terror was usurped for a moment by disgust. Duval gave back control to the human boy without even knowing.

Room twenty-seven.

And when we get there, he thought now, and we don’t find the Bane? But though that was close in the future, it was far enough away for Marty not to agonize over yet. He planned on being away from the bloodsuckers by then.

In the distance, a scream.

Moments later, a vampire appeared, blood smeared across his face, eyes wide and tongue lolling swollen over red teeth. “Guards are dead.”

“Come on,” Duval said. “We’re close. We’re close!” Around Marty, the vampires hissed in delight.

“Be careful,” Francesco said to Rose and Jane. Jane had appeared after the others left, carrying small UV lights with her. One each for the three of them. “You’ve been lucky before, fighting these things, but they’re close to their goal now. They’ll be more ferocious than ever, and with the guards inside, it’s likely that they’ll feed. So… just be careful.”

“It’s almost like you care about us,” Jane drawled.

“I just respect history,” he said. “Don’t want anything in there damaged.” And he smiled.

At night, the museum was better illuminated than during daytime, the floodlights chasing away any shadows cast by the bulk of the building itself. There were still people in the area, lovers strolling and late-returning office workers walking quickly toward home.

“My brother,” Rose said as the other two went to leave. “He’s important to me.” Jane sighed impatiently, but Francesco nodded.

“We’ll do our best,” he said.

“He knows about us,” Jane said. “Whatever happens here, that makes him dangerous.”

“And Stella Olemaun?” Rose asked. “She wrote and published a book about vampires, and most people still thought she was a nutcase. You think Marty’s going to cause problems?”

“Look what happened to her,” Francesco muttered.

“What did?” Jane asked.

“She’s a vampire.” Rose remembered her own ironic smile when she’d heard that from the woman’s lips, but Jane folded into outright laughter.

“That’s perfect!” she said, quickly recovering. Vampires never laughed for long. “That’s just perfect.”

“My brother,” Rose said. “That’s all I ask. Look out for Marty.”

Jane nodded, an odd sideways movement of her head that displayed her bemusement. The next time they all met, everything would be different.

Rose headed along the front of the building to the far corner. They needed to enter as far apart as they could, and she sought shadows. She found somewhere that looked likely—an inset in the outer wall where vent grilles marked the location of a plant room, and a steel door almost faded into the gray wall—and waited for the chance to break in without being noticed.

There’ll be alarms, she thought, maybe loud, maybe silent, and connected to the police. They’d all been aware of that, but it had barely merited a mention. The arrival of the police was something they’d have to face and deal with if and when it happened.

A family walked by, two parents each holding a little kid by the hand, tired after a full day’s sightseeing. Each child carried a memento of their day—a cuddly toy, a book about dinosaurs—while the parents bore only weary, satisfied smiles. When they reached their hotel, they’d eat in the restaurant, then pack the kids off to bed in their family room. After that, maybe the adults would share a bottle of wine and watch the news on TV, then sneak into the large bathroom to make love out of their kids’ sight, the door slightly open in case one of the little ones woke up. They’d bite back their sighs and giggle when it was over, all things that Rose would never do.

Her vampirism rarely allowed for her to mourn what she had lost, because it rarely seemed significant. Maybe Marty being in danger had tweaked something that should have been long buried. They’d visited the museum once with their parents, several years before she’d been turned. She remembered Marty being bored and belligerent, and their father getting stressed about the whole visit. She couldn’t recall anything about her mother from that day. Mostly, she had forgotten her face entirely.

As the family moved away, she flowed through the darkness scant feet behind them, reaching the door without a sound and prising her fingers beneath the frame’s edge. Then she pulled, exerting all her power, bolts snapping one by one as the frame slowly moved out from the wall. The noises were subdued thunk s lost amid London’s constant background noise. It was less than a minute until the heavy metal door and frame were levered out enough for her to slip inside. The darkness welcomed her, and she welcomed it back.

The plant room was large and noisy, with boilers humming and air-conditioning exchange units thrumming as they pumped air into and out of the building. She made her way through it, avoiding a mess of spilled tools and two metal chairs that sat with a small camping table between them. There was nothing on the table, but she smelled alcohol and cigarette smoke. The maintenance engineers’ unofficial break.

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.