Berserk

Chapter Eight

Cole listened out for Natasha. He had been driving for half an hour, and although he had not heard her again, still he was sure that he was going in the right direction. It felt right. And for now he had nothing else to hang onto but that.

He tore through the country lanes, barely shifting down a gear to negotiate blind bends or humpback bridges. He had already had one collision today; he hoped that was his share of accidents for a while. And besides, the faster he went, the more chance he had of catching the old man and the girl. She lured me on, he kept thinking, she wants me to follow.

People were traveling to work now, and here and there he passed other cars going in the opposite direction. Their drivers greeted him with a uniform expression; shock and disgust. Slow down! they all said with their glares, and he grinned back and pushed down on the gas as he passed them by. He was doing all this for them, these sheep, these innocents who thought that nine to five, Coronation Street and a meal out on Saturday was all there was to life. None of them had a clue about what was really happening in their world. None of them knew the risks he took, the life he had given up to pursue the berserkers and try to keep the innocents safe from harm. And if he took time to stop and tell them they would call him mad.

Let them. It had been years since he had let his own peculiar madness be an upset.

And then there they were, the old guy standing beside the parked car, staring straight at Cole with eyes as wide as a rabbit's in a headlamp's glare.

"Holy shit!" Cole stepped on the brakes and swerved the car across the road, sliding it sideways to prevent careening into the hedge. I can't be this lucky! he thought, but there was Roberts, moving back and forth with indecision, the fear of an innocent who had seen terrible things etched on his face.

Cole was out of the BMW and running at Roberts almost before the wheels had stopped spinning. He paused a few steps away and aimed the .45 at his face.

"She's not here!" Roberts said.

"What?"

"I hid her. I know you want her, she told me, so I hid her where you'd never find her."

Cole paused, trying to work out whether or not Roberts was telling the truth, or if it even mattered. Roberts had seen Natasha and knew what she could do, so he needed to be removed from the picture. "Where?" he asked.

"If I tell you, you'll kill me."

"I'm going to kill you anyway."

Roberts moved back one pace and leaned against his wrecked car, glancing down into the backseat. Cole followed his gaze and saw the dead woman's legs through the open door. "You think I care?" the old guy said. "You killed my wife, you bastard." There was little emotion in his voice, no real trace of anger or rage or anything else that could be dangerous. Numb.

"I'm sorry," Cole said, keeping his voice equally neutral.

"So kill me," Roberts said.

"Where's the girl?"

"I told you, I hid her."

Where? Cole thought, just where? He could have stopped anywhere between the cottage and here, hid her in a barn or shed, beneath a hedge, out in a field, anywhere … but wherever she was, she would be found again. He could kill Roberts now, but his job would be far from over.

"Tell me where."

"No. You've hurt her once before, I won't let you—"

"Hurt her! Do you even know what she is, you stupid fuck?"

"A little girl you buried alive."

Cole shook his head, snorted. "Look, I don't have time for this. Tell me where she is and you'll join your wife quickly, no pain, you won't even hear it coming. Don't tell me, and I'll shoot you again and again until you do. Believe me, I could use a whole magazine and you'd still be conscious."

"You won't do that," Roberts said.

Cole braced himself, lowered his aim until the sight rested on Roberts's left collarbone, then swore because he was right. Cole could kill him with few qualms, but torture was not his thing.

"Okay, I won't do that, but let me appeal to you. Please. You have no idea what she is, or what she can do, and you have to tell me where she is."

"So that you can kill her?"

"Yes, exactly! I should have killed her ten years ago instead of doing what I did. That was stupid of me. I should have known she would have risen again at some point."

"I don't know what the hell you're on about, but I won't let you hurt her again. She's an innocent."

"Innocent! What has she been telling you?" Cole said, genuinely amazed. "Has she told you what a wonderful little girl she was, how sweet her family were? Has she really?"

"She told me that she and her family were turned into killers." Roberts seemed to be gaining confidence, and that pissed off Cole because he was the one with the fucking gun!

"They've always been killers," he said. "They're berserkers. They're not human, not like you and me. They're a different breed, a whole race apart. Yes, we—the army—used them, but they went willingly enough, let me tell you. They used to spend their long lives hiding from us because of the persecution their kind suffered centuries ago. They'd slink through shadows and take someone here, there, now and then. They eat us! They eat people! But we caught them and gave them the chance to do it for real, to revel in what they are. Because they're very, very hard to kill, and they never make a mistake."

Roberts looked at him for a while, a cool appraisal that left Cole unnerved and wondering whether he had underestimated this man. "And after that, you think I'll change my mind?" he said.

"I can't believe your mind's made up the other way anyway," Cole said. "Look at all that's happened since you found Natasha." He glanced down at the feet protruding from the rear door of the car, but Roberts' gaze did not waver.

"You killed her," he said. "Not Natasha. You. With that." He nodded at the gun.

Even as Cole glanced at the gun in his hand, he knew his mistake. Sly bastard! he had enough time to think, and then Roberts was upon him, punching and swearing and kicking, and there was no way he could have moved that quickly. One second he was safely under the sight of Cole's .45, the next Cole was stumbling backward under a frenzied assault, tripping over his own heel and landing heavily in the road, and Roberts fell on him and plucked the gun from his hand, turning it around, pressing it into Cole's right eye so hard that he thought his eyeball would pop. Oh no this is it this is it.

"Feel nice?" Roberts said. "Feel good?" But even then Cole could see the confusion in the man's eyes. "Please … ," Cole said.

Roberts nodded. "I'm sure that's what she said, too." He pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing. He was holding the gun as though it were dirty, resting it in his hand rather than grasping it tight.

Click.

Again, nothing.

Holy shit, what am I doing.

The man on the ground looked up at Tom, his left eye wide, breath held, his expression one of terror and outrage. Tom stared down at him—what in the name of fuck am I doing?—and almost smiled, the situation was so unreal.

Mister Wolf started to twist and writhe, and Cole knew it would only be seconds before he was toppled off, and then Mister Wolf would wrestle the gun back and reverse the situation, and he knew how to use the gun, the safeties, whatever had gone wrong with Tom's attempt to shoot someone in the face.

I almost shot him in the eye!

Tom leaned back, twisted around and swung, bringing the gun in low and hard against the side of the man's head. In the movies Mister Wolf would have been out cold with barely a mark on him, but in reality the skin of his temple split and he cried out, swearing and wriggling harder beneath Tom's weight, swinging his fists, then changing his tactic and grasping at Tom's clothing in an attempt to pull him off. Tom hit him again, this time putting all his strength into the swing. It made a sickening thunk as it hit the man's skull, and this time he did not shout as loud. His hands fell from Tom's sides, his head rolled back and forth, and beneath his flickering eyelids Tom could see his eyes turning back in his head.

Oh God, I may have killed him anyway! The gun's barrel was matted with a bloody clot of hair. Mister Wolf's temple was a mess. He twitched, and his right heel scraped at the road once, twice.

Tom stood and backed away. He held the gun in both hands, aimed at the prone man even though he was still unsure why it had not fired before. He took a good hold of the stock this time, and as he squeezed he felt the grip slide in tight. Safety.

Now, if he so wished, he could kill.

Tom sobbed out loud. Tears came, and as much as he tried he could not hold them back. He had no idea what had happened just then. He fell to his knees in the road, gun barrel resting on the tarmac.

I moved so fast. One second here, staring into the barrel of a gun. Next second there, pressing it into his eye and pulling the trigger twice, ready to see his head explode and his brains spew out all over the road. And in my mind at the time, feeding the rage … Jo? No, not Jo. Not my dead wife. Someone else …

Natasha.

Something had taken him when Mister Wolf pointed the gun at him, some unknown madness that had given him speed and strength. That had not been Tom, not at all. The anger had been his, but not the willingness—the eagerness—to kill. Tom thought he could never do that, no matter what. Not even to the man that had killed his wife.

He had moved so quickly. And with that came a recollection of the dream-memory Natasha had shared with him; the speed with which she and her family had moved through that huge basement, and the power of their bodies as they dodged bullets and shrugged off knife wounds in their state of crazed hunger.

Tom stood slowly, looked around, shook his head to bring himself back. Right now he had the upper hand, and he could not afford to lose his position of advantage by cracking up. Later, perhaps. But not now. "Natasha?"

There was no answer from the mummified girl. Still asleep after her feed. And Tom rubbed the wound on his chest again, still putting it down to flying glass when he had really always known the truth from the second her teeth touched his skin.

The BMW was still running, parked across the road so that no other vehicle could pass by. It would only be a matter of time before someone else came along. If Tom could make the most of the next few minutes—think logically, not crack up, not let what was happening get to him and drive him over the edge—then he and Natasha would be away from Mister Wolf for good. There was a car just waiting for him, though it was likely stolen. He would not be able to keep it for long, but perhaps after the next hour or two, if he drove carefully and quickly, he would be far enough away to find safety.

At least, for now. Tom was under no illusion that there would be a reckoning, a time when he would have to go to the police and tell them everything that had happened. Between now and then, however, he had to do whatever he could to move on.

He jumped the gate and went behind the hedge to where he had left Natasha. A snail had crawled onto her face in the few minutes she had been in the grass, and Tom flicked it off and stepped on it in disgust. The subtle crunch of its shell beneath his shoe felt good. He picked her up, chains and all, and was she slightly heavier than before? He could not really tell; the fight and its emotional recoil had drained him.

"Natasha?" he said again, but if she heard him she chose to remain silent. He stood there for a few moments, looking down into what was left of her face, trying to discern any form of expression there. But her living death was expressionless; everything she felt or thought was shown only on the inside.

He placed the girl on the backseat of the BMW and covered her with Mister Wolf's jacket. Back at his ruined car he carefully bent Jo's knees, hating the cool feel of her skin and the way her legs already seemed to be growing stiff.

"Jo," he said, feeling everything, able to say nothing. "Jo." He closed the door.

He ran back to the BMW and opened the boot. It was filthy inside, strewn with old sacks and dried grass and leaves, but he found what he was hoping for in one corner: a toolbox. He undid the straps holding it in and emptied it in the boot. Then he shook his head, cursed himself and hurried over to the prone man.

Got to get everything right! he thought. Got to get the order of things right. There's always order in things—the right order, and the wrong—and if I get this wrong now then I'll be caught, and there's no way my story will be believed. I've got a bloodied gun, my dead wife, a child's corpse and this pistol-whipped killer lying in a country lane. What story could the police concoct from this? And what about the army, or whoever it was this bastard worked for? Got to get this right. Jo, in the car. Mister Wolf beside the car. Then Natasha's chains. Then Misterwolf again.

Then the gun.

Dragging the man across the road was harder than he had expected. Whatever strength had come to him had drizzled away again, and he grunted and huffed as he pulled Mister Wolf by the legs. The man mumbled something as they approached the ruined car, and Tom stood over him again with the gun pointing at his face. But the mumbling stopped, the breathing became harsh and uneven, and Tom lifted him into a sitting position against the car.

That done, he returned to the BMW and started rooting through the spilled tools. All the time he kept an ear open for any approaching vehicles, wondering just what he could do if someone came along now. There was surely some believable story he could come up with given time, but right now he was not in the mood for creating stories. Right now, he simply wanted to leave.

He found a pair of bolt croppers. They were old and rusty, but still the blades had been kept sharp and oiled, and the action was smooth. He leaned into the car, uncovered Natasha and got to work on the chains. He wanted to cut them as little as possible, because he had need of them. It took four broken links before he was able to unwrap the chains totally from Natasha, taking care not to pull off parts of her body as he extracted a few sections that were buried deep with her rotten clothing. Finally the last length came away. "You're free," he said, and from somewhere far away he heard a sigh.

Mister Wolf was still leaning against the ruined car, unconscious. His chin rested on his chest, dribble darkened his shirt, and blood dripped from the wound at his temple. Tom thought he saw him breathing, but he did not want to move close enough to see for sure.

It was time to find out whether his plan would really work.

The chain was long enough to wrap twice around the man's head and the steering column of Tom's wrecked car. Tom joined the chain at the base of Mister Wolf's neck with two of the broken links, using the bolt croppers to squeeze the snipped ends together. He supposed that the man would be able to work the chain around and perhaps prise the snapped links apart, but he would not be able to see what he was doing, and it would take a long time.

Someone would have found him by then.

Lastly, the gun. Tom cleaned it as well as he could with his shirt, found the button that ejected the magazine, then placed the unloaded weapon on the ground beside Mister Wolf. He pocketed the magazine, then stood back to survey his work, frowning. He knelt again, grabbed the gun, lifted the man's hand and curled his finger into the trigger guard, pressing it onto the trigger.

Shit, he had no idea what he was doing! In the movies this would work, but this was not a bloody movie. He was not quite sure whether it was real life, either, but whatever it was he had to get going. Whatever he had done here would be found soon enough, and while Mister Wolf answered questions with the police, he and Natasha would be gone.

"Gone for Steven," Tom said, standing, glancing into the car at his dead wife, remembering the birth of their son. Jo had been screaming, and Tom had been crying so much that he could barely see. "Gone for Steven, Jo." Damn. She had died without even knowing there might still be a chance.

Something touched his crotch.

"Move and you lose them."

Tom looked down. Mister Wolf had raised his head, lifted the gun, and now he was pressing it into Tom's scrotum.

"No bullets," Tom said, revealing the tip of the magazine in his pocket. But something prevented him from moving; he had never touched a gun before, and he had no idea how they really worked.

"Always keep one in the hole," Mister Wolf said.

Tom bit his lip. Learning all the time.

"I'm going to shoot you now."

"What's your name?" Tom asked.

"Huh?"

"Your name? What's your name?" Tom looked down. The man was frowning, right eye swollen half-shut and thick with blood, face pale, and his head was swaying from side to side as if it hurt to hold it up.

"Cole."

"I'm Tom."

"You're dead."

"I'm Tom." He had no idea what he was doing. Stalling for time? Trying to start a conversation with this killer pressing a gun into his balls?

"Huh?" Cole looked woozy, and his head dipped down to his chest, then up again. The gun never moved a millimetre. "Shut the fuck up, Tom," he said. His voice sounded stronger. His left eye focused on Tom's face and stayed focused. "Where is she?"

"I told you, I hid her back—"

"I'm tied up with her chains, shithead."

Damn! Tom pursed his lips and looked along the road. Please come now, please come now, someone, anyone, please please I don't want to die like this, with my balls blown off for the birds to come and take away. …

And then Natasha woke up.

Tom squeezed his eyes shut as he felt her worm inside his mind, her presence fresh and seemingly renewed. She rooted around, finding things. She felt vibrant and … alive!

Only one bullet to dodge, Daddy? she said. Well then, he's in pain, dizzy, and I'll be able to give you one chance.

"What… ?" Tom said, but Cole suddenly cried out in pain and pushed the gun harder into Tom's balls. Here it comes, he thought.

Cole squeezed the trigger. For the first time in his life he was actually looking forward to killing someone. His head hurt like hell, his temple felt weak and mushy, and the headache meant he could barely even open his one good eye. The piece of shit deserved to die.

He squeezed harder.

"What?" Tom said.

Natasha came. She erupted from Cole's subconscious, throwing open the doorways of his deeper mind, gushing up into the foggy streets of his awareness, shouting and screaming and raging like the insane berserker she was. There was no sense or meaning to her outburst, though he read the hatred it contained. He could not make out any single words, but her mockery and derision was obvious in the scream, driving into and filling his waking mind with such loathing that he could only shrink back under its assault. She gave him the violence she had always possessed. He tried to curl into a ball. He dropped the gun and grabbed his head in both hands, ignoring the pain from his temple, feeling the sticky blood there and wishing the wound would vent Natasha from his mind.

"Get out," he whispered, because he had little strength for anything more.

Get out get out get out! she screeched, whining like a little girl who knew far too much.

"Leave me," he said.

Leave me leave me … Mister Wolf, fuck you, you can suck my ass, fuck you Mister Wolf, you'll lose, you've already lost!

"No," Cole said. And with a monumental effort, fighting through the agonies of his body and the torture in his mind, he opened his eyes, saw the gun lying next to him and reached for it.

A wavering, fuzzy shape grew smaller in his vision as Roberts fled.

Cole screamed, aimed the gun and fired.

Cole fell away from Tom, dropped the gun and curled into a ball.

Daddy, it's time to run, Natasha said, her voice calm and considered. One chance, Daddy. He's got one round, and you've got one chance.

Tom panicked, dropped the bolt croppers, stepped over the groaning man and headed for the BMW. His balls ached, he felt sick, the painful glow radiating up from his stomach almost bending him double.

Quickly! Natasha said.

"I'm moving."

"Leave me," Cole said from behind him, and Tom glanced over his shoulder, wondering what she was doing to this killer's mind. Something horrible, if his expression was anything to go by. Something that gave him pain. Tom was glad.

"No," Cole said. He raised himself on one elbow and grabbed the gun.

Run, Daddy, dodge, fall, he's going to—

The shot blasted out, startling Natasha deeper into Tom's mind, and he sensed her own profound shock as something punched him in the back and sent him sprawling across the tarmac.

Shot, he thought, I've been shot. There was no pain, no real sensation other than being winded, and he hoped that this was as it had been for Jo, this shocked numbness before death.

Death…

"I'm dying," he said.

Daddy! Natasha gasped, and he could hear her tears. Wait … it's not that bad. Stand up. Stand up now! Her voice changed on those last three words, losing their childish lilt and taking on something of age, experience, something that spoke of power and adaptability. And fury. She was enraged.

Tom groaned, pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, stood. From the BMW he heard the squeak of leather as something moved inside.

Natasha screamed in his mind, a long, loud, incoherent exhalation of pure rage. Cole had heard this before, years ago when the berserkers were at their fiercest, mad and hungry and craving the feel of living flesh between their teeth. Then they had been contained at Porton Down, and their psychic abilities had never been so strong. Now, Natasha had changed.

He tried to crawl away but the chains held him tight. Neither could he escape his own mind.

Cole screamed, but he could not hear himself.

He scrambled around on the ground and found the bolt croppers Tom had dropped. Instinct grabbed him and he snipped and cut, hardly aware of what he was doing, pulling hard at the chains until they parted and he fell to the ground. He crawled then, across the road and into a ditch. The terrible effects of Natasha's scream lingered.

It seemed like hours before the roar started to fade. But by then Cole was lost to the world, unconscious, prowling the dark places of his mind for somewhere to hide from this monster that pretended to be a little girl.

When darkness found him and took him away, he was glad.

Tom pulled himself upright against the car, still waiting for the pain to kick in. At least he could stand.

Come here, Natasha said.

He looked into the rear seat and saw the bundle that was Natasha. It seemed to have moved. Her arms had separated slightly from her body, and the face had turned toward him. There was still no expression there—no sign of anything other than the death mask he had seen before—but her attitude had changed. Whereas before she was a mummified corpse, now she was something that seemed to crave its erstwhile animation. He stared at her face, tried to remember just how he had placed the body on the seat, and then the signs of movement were obvious.

Here, she said again, a young girl's voice, yet the command impossible to ignore.

Tom leaned into the car, and that was when the pain came. He groaned, froze, hoping that lack of movement would quell the fire that was growing in his lower back. But it did not. Stoked by his spasming muscles the agony roared louder, and Tom thought, I won't remember this pain, it's nothing, it's a signal, the damage is done and there's nothing worse going on now, it's a signal that's all, a signal, and oh fuck it hurts!

Quickly! Natasha said, and though his eyes were closed Tom sensed slight movement again. Lie down beside me.

Tom slumped across the car's backseat. He felt Natasha's corpse against his chest and tried to pull back, but he had no strength, and he lay there with Natasha pressed between himself and the seat.

Closer, Natasha whispered. Closer, Daddy. Even through the pain he heard a quiver to her voice.

His eyes squeezed shut—not so much because of the pain now, but because he no longer wanted to see what was happening, what was moving, why he could hear the squeak of leather—and he felt a stab of pain in his chest. And then there was slight movement there, as if he were being tickled by a feather, and darkness came to calm his pain.

"Someone will come," he whispered.

Don't care, the girl's voice said in his mind, following him as he sank, turning into an echo and then fading away altogether.

From the darkness came the sound of the sea, and then its salty smell mixed with the odour of blood, and then he saw the boat. The darkness never went altogether—it was there at the edges, threatening to bleed back in at any instant—but Tom viewed this memory out of Natasha's mind, and try though he might he could not pull away.

The four of them—Natasha, her brother and their parents—were in the same boat that had brought them to the house. It was powering across the waves, thumping and jarring as it leapt from crest to crest. They sat in the sunken well at its centre, unable to see anything but sky and the occasional splash of spray against the deep blue afternoon. The sun shone bright and aloof overhead.

The deck around their feet was awash with blood. Some of it was their own. They all bore injuries that should have killed them, and yet they seemed more alive than ever. The strange adaptations that had been evident in the house—the elongated limbs, distended jaws, lengthened nails—seemed to have receded, but the bullet holes and stab wounds were still visible. Some of these wept blood, but others already seemed to have stopped bleeding and scabbed over, especially her brother's. There was a dark spot on his face and two on his neck where bullets had struck home, and now they were little more than heavy bruises. No signs of holes in the skin. No fresh blood. He smiled at Natasha. His pain was palpable, yet in the smile there was an adult knowledge as well, the calm certainty that everything would be alright. Even at this tender age, Peter knew that these wounds would not be the death of him.

Some of the blood was theirs. But most of it came from what they had brought with them.

Huddled between where the berserker family members sat, cowering on the floor, three naked people wallowed in the mess. There were two men and a woman. One of the men pressed both hands to his throat, trying to stem the tide of blood pumping from a ruptured artery, while the other man and the woman watched wide-eyed, afraid and yet unwilling to help.

Natasha's little brother—he must have been maybe seven years old—left his seat. He splashed through the blood on hands and knees, and the three captives cowered back, the man without the ruptured throat keening like a pig in pain. Peter paused, growled at the whining man and laughed when he started to cry. Natasha's mother and father watched with parental fondness, smiling past the pain of their own healing wounds. Peter suddenly darted to the bleeding man, pulled his hands away and took a long, deep draught of the dark red blood. Still on hands and knees he returned to his seat, glancing at the naked woman as he passed by. She remained silent, eyes downcast. Perhaps if she did not see them, they would not see her. The writhing man grabbed at his wound again, pressing hard, starting to moan now as he felt death's approach.

"You're so greedy," Natasha's mother said. Her throat was raw from the scream of the hunt and the ravaging of flesh, her voice a knife on bone.

"Yummy," the boy said, licking his lips and rubbing his stomach. Natasha laughed. Her father smiled at her and his son, then looked down at where the naked woman cowered. She was doing her best to avoid their gaze, legs and arms drawn in to make herself as small as possible. There were terrible bite marks down one side of her body, the skin ragged and Tom.

"What's wrong?" he growled. She ignored him. He kicked out, his heel catching her head and flicking it back. "What's wrong?"

She looked up at last, defiant. "Fuck you," she said, and they all laughed, and their laughs were deep and harsh.

Natasha looked down at her own bloodied body and drew her hands over the wounds. Each touch brought pain, but each pain brought comfort, because she would mend. None of them had been using silver bullets or blades. It had been quite a battle, and a good feed, but now she was tired and looking forward to getting back home. At least, she thought of it as home. Her mother and father frequently spoke to her in her mind, telling her of another place entirely, and sometimes she dreamed of the darkness and the silence and the places where her kind may one day live in peace, as they had before. They had told her of home, but there was a huge implied history to their discussions, a deep and rich past, through she had never probed further. She sensed that they were keeping her ignorant of many truths of berserker history for her own good. The Man seeks to know everything, they often warned, telling her to guard her thoughts. He would know, and he would kill us all, because he's not like the others. He's different. He sees the bad without the good, and he sees the differences between us whilst ignoring all the similarities. The Man hates us because we're not like him. Sometimes, honey, that's all a man needs to hate.

"We don't really need to take anything back, do we?" her father croaked.

"There's plenty for us when we want it at home," Natasha said. "But still, there's something exciting in taking it from the hunt."

"Surely you're not still hungry?" her mother asked. She was a thin woman, slight, and her skin displayed evidence of at least four healing bullet wounds.

"I'm always hungry," her father said, glancing above Natasha's head at something out of sight. He smiled, and even though his teeth were back to normal by now, it still looked like a growl. "I'm a berserker. Eating people is what we do."

Natasha turned to see what he had been looking at, who he had been talking to. Standing above her on the boat's main deck, eyes bearing their own peculiar human hunger, a soldier watched the continuing bloodshed. The soldier whom her parents referred to as The Man. To Natasha, he was like a scary monster from a children's book, and she called him Mister Wolf.

Tom snapped awake, panicking. He had no idea where he was. He looked around the car, expecting sea water to flood in at any moment, wondering why he could no longer feel the boat leaping from wave to wave. He could smell blood but there was no one else in sight, no one but the shriveled thing suckered to his chest.

"No!" He pushed away, wincing as the pain roared in his lower back. Cole. I saw Cole through Natasha's eyes. Watching them, and enjoying it. "Leave me alone!" he said.

Natasha rolled back against the leather seat. Wet blood glittered around her mouth. She did not move, but Tom sat up anyway, pressing his hand to his chest and feeling the warm trickle of blood running onto his palm and down his wrist.

No Daddy, she said, it's not like that, not always. And never for you. I'm trying to help you. Can't you feel, can't you sense the pain drifting away?

Tom pushed back against the front seats, staring at Natasha's mouth as he heard her voice in his head. No, those lips were not moving. No, her limbs had not shifted position. She was propped against the backseat and there she remained. And yet his blood surrounded her shrivelled mouth, and the pain in his back from the bullet wound was a fist of fire twisting in his insides, its fingers flexing and reaching and tearing … but it was bearable. Awful, making him want to scream, but bearable.

Can you feel it? Fading away? Listen to me and it will get even better.

"How?" he asked. "Why? Am I in shock?"

Not shock, Natasha said.

Tom almost laughed. Almost. "I've never been shot before. I am shocked, let me tell you."

Not shock, she said again. I'm feeling better, so you are too.

Tom glanced down at his chest, the lip of Tom skin there that still dribbled blood into his opened shirt. "Have you been drinking my blood?"

Only a little. Her voice was quiet and tentative, the voice of a child found doing wrong.

"You told me you weren't a vampire."

Were not! she said, more determined now. They thought that at first. Especially him, Mister Wolf. Teased us with garlic and crosses and … She laughed, a dry rustle that matched her physical appearance. My mummy and daddy went along with it because it amused them. They did their best to sleep in the day and wake at night, even though it upset my brother and me, and Mister Wolf and the others thought they knew what they were doing. Funny. It was funny. Even the day they found out we were fooling them, it was funny. She trailed off, as if that day were the last time she had found cause to truly laugh.

"I've been shot," Tom said. "I've been shot!" He leaned forward over Natasha's body and rested his forehead on the backseat, turning slightly so that he could look along the road at Mister Wolf. He was still lying half-in a ditch beside the road, an arm and leg splayed out onto the tarmac, the rest of him almost hidden from view. He was not moving. Tom wondered what Natasha had done to him, and how, but he thought he had a good idea; he had felt her dark psychic fingers exploring his own mind, and he had no doubt they possessed strengths other than those he had already experienced.

We really do have to go now, Natasha said. He'll be awake soon, and he'll have more bullets.

"But I've been shot, I'm bleeding. I can't drive like this."

Listen to me, Daddy. If you listen to me you can do it.

"I think the bullet's still inside." He checked his stomach and abdomen, feeling gingerly for an exit wound, but he found none. Only the pounding pain in his lower back, and the feeling of something being very wrong inside. Is that just the bullet grinding around, he thought, or has it moved stuff in there?

We have a connection, Natasha said, and Tom suddenly thought of her dried mouth clasped to his chest, his blood leaking into her desiccated body. The image was thrust into his mind, not conjured, held there for his inspection and turned by memories other than his. He sensed the blood flowing from beneath his skin, and felt it enter Natasha's mouth. He could sense the draining from his veins, and taste his own blood upon another's tongue. And wherever he looked, whichever way he turned, he felt calmed and soothed by the exchange. It was as if bad blood were being bled from him, taking pain along with it, and yet it was good blood when imbibed. Strength came to him, and something unknown seemed to stir in Natasha's mind.

There, Natasha said. See?

"But I don't understand," he said, reaching back and feeling the ragged mess of his back. Blood still coursed between his fingers, and when he shifted a fresh flow warmed his skin.

You don't need to, she said. It's enough for now to accept it and let it help. We have to go.

"I don't think—"

You can drive.

"I'm not sure—"

Daddy …

Tom looked down at Natasha's body, her face, eye sockets holding the shriveled eyes like old raisins. And even though he saw no movement, he felt her smile.

Thank you, she said.

From outside the BMW, above the rumble of the engine, Tom heard a groan. He looked across the road at Cole's arm and leg, saw the fingers twitching and the foot dragged across the ground. "He's waking."

Natasha was silent but her smile remained in his head, the gratitude apparent. I cant let it end like this, he thought. Not here, and not now. He moved slightly, waiting for pain to tear up his insides, but it was little worse than a bad toothache. A toothache the size of his entire lower body, true, but it was a rich, vibrant pain, not debilitating. He shifted some more, stepping carefully from the rear seat, standing, turning, closing the door and resting in the driver's seat. I've just been shot in the back and now I'm going to drive, he thought, and the idea was so alien that it made no sense whatsoever, gave him nothing to grab onto. Here was Tom, entire life spent behind a desk, most daring exploits usually involving having four pints instead of two on Friday evening pub visits, who now sat covered in his own blood, a ten-year-old body talking to him from the backseat, an ex-army killer lying twenty feet away, and his dead wife in a car farther along the road.

There's still Steven, Natasha said then, and she knew exactly what to say to turn his mind back to the present.

Tom nodded, thought fleetingly of his young son playing soldiers in their back garden, and slammed the driver's door.

Cole sat up in the ditch. He shook his head, putting his hands to his temples as if to contain his dizziness. Then he looked straight at Tom, and his expression was unreadable.

"You killed Jo," Tom muttered. He reversed the BMW, went forward, back and forward again until it was facing along the road at his own battered car. His wife was in there, dead and cooling, Cole's bullets still wrapped up in her organs and flesh.

Steven, Natasha said again.

Tom nodded, gunned the engine and slipped it into first gear.

Cole stood on shaky legs. He still held the pistol in one hand, and the other delved into his jeans pocket and came out with a slim silver shape. A fresh magazine.

Tom thought of Steven laughing as he blew out the candles on his tenth birthday cake, and Jo ruffling his hair and smiling at Tom, her eyes as alight as those candies with the knowledge of the blessed life the three of them had together.

Steven, the girl said yet again, and behind the voice in his mind was a sudden sense of promise and hope.

As Tom changed into second gear and pressed down on the accelerator, he swerved the car across the road. The offside edge caught Cole across the thighs and sent him spinning over the ditch and into the hedge. Tom looked in the rearview mirror and saw the killer disappear in a shower of leaves and limbs.

The pain nestled at the base of Tom's back and Natasha stroked his mind, calming, soothing, telling him all the things he wanted to hear.