Uprising

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Alex had been pacing impatiently up and down her living room floor when, a few minutes before nine a.m., the phone had rung. She’d been on it before the first ring was over.

Harry Rumble’s voice had sounded terse. ‘I need you over here. Right away.’

The sense of worry was palpable as she strode through the VIA headquarters.

Rumble was in his office with Garrett and Kelby, one of the admin chiefs. There was a grim silence between them. Rumble was standing bent over his desk with his fists planted on its leather top, looking careworn, his hair ruffled, his tie crooked. In front of him was a plain cardboard box, three feet long, two wide.

‘What?’ Alex said, frozen in the doorway.

Rumble lifted a fist off the desk and pointed at the box. ‘This just arrived by motorcycle courier.’

Alex approached the desk and lifted the lid of the box. A puff of fine grey-white powder wafted out. ‘It’s ash,’ she said, looking up at Rumble with a frown.

‘It’s more than ash,’ Kelby said.

Alex rolled up the sleeve of her black satin blouse and stuck her arm into the box up to the elbow. The ash was still warm. Her fingers felt something inside. Something hard, brittle and rough.

Bits of bone.

And something else. It was warmer than the bone, smoother. She pulled it out and examined it.

‘Fuck,’ she muttered. She tossed the blackened dog tags down on Rumble’s desk with a tinny clatter. The name, rank and serial number stamped into the metal belonged to Lt Greg Shriver USMC.

‘Guess we can call off the search,’ Garrett said dryly.

Alex fired him a look that made him back up a step. Before Rumble could stop her, she ripped open the box, and its grisly contents spilled out over the desktop. Fine ash rose up like a dust cloud. Garrett sneezed.

Alex reached down and picked up what was left of Greg’s charred skull. Flakes of carbon fell away as she took it in her hands. His empty eye sockets stared back at her.

Just last night, he’d been there with her. Now he was this.

I’m sorry, Greg.

‘We’ll get these bastards,’ Rumble said. Then, noticing Alex’s frown: ‘What is it?’

‘There’s something in his mouth.’ She poked her fingers in between the charred teeth, brushing away the bits of soot and ash from inside. Wedged at the back of where his throat had been was a small object, black plastic, two inches long. She rooted it out and held it up to show them.

It was a USB flash drive, and it definitely hadn’t been in Greg’s mouth when he’d burned up.

‘Looks like someone has sent us a message,’ Alex said. She put down the skull.

There was black soot on her fingers. She wiped it away quickly.

‘Kelby, run that,’ said Rumble. ‘Let’s take a look.’

Alex dropped the flash drive in Kelby’s palm. He flipped open a laptop on a side table and was about to insert the drive into a port when the office door burst open.

They all looked round to see the pale, startled face and wide eyes of Jen Minto looking at them.

‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Minto’s voice was shaky. ‘You have to come and see this.’

‘In a minute,’ Rumble said irritably. ‘We’re busy.’

Minto gulped. ‘With respect, sir, you really need to come and see this. Now.’

They followed her out into the operations room. Every desk was deserted.

‘Where did everyone go?’ Rumble asked.

Minto pointed at the far end of the room. The entire VIA office staff were crowding around the banks of enormous screens where broadcasts from all over the world played twenty-four/seven. Right now, news channels across Europe were broadcasting the same images to a babble of mixed languages.

‘Let me see.’ Rumble pushed through to the front. Alex followed, and stood next to him as they stared at the screens.

‘That’s—’

‘Terzi,’ Alex said. ‘Or was.’

On the centre screen a pretty Sky News reporter in a bright orange jacket was talking to the camera. Her hair was blowing in the wind and wisps of sleet were drifting by. In the background, fire crews were hosing down the scorched, smoking rubble of what used to be the pharmaceutical plant in the Italian Alps.

‘…speculation about the cause of the blast. Italian police have yet to comment on initial claims that this may not have been a chemical explosion, but a terrorist attack.

Sources have revealed tonight that extremist anti-vivisection groups may have made threats against the company in the past, despite assurances that no animal testing takes place…’

Rumble had seen enough. He grabbed a remote and muted the sound to the whole bank of screens at once. The room was plunged into shocked silence. Then, after a few moments, everyone began to talk over each other in panic as the full implications of what had happened began to hit home.

Rumble jutted out his jaw and let out a long breath. ‘Where’s Slade?’ he demanded loudly.

‘Here, sir.’ A squat, porky vampire with straggly hair and a patchy beard pushed through from the back of the crowd. His shirt was hanging out of his bulging waistline.

They called him The Slob, but behind the scenes Doug Slade was one of the most important cogs in VIA’s operations, responsible for managing and distributing supplies of Nosferol, Solazal and Vambloc for all its agents. And it was through his team that Solazal was rationed out to the thousands of vampires across the Federation’s global realm via its network of vampire doctors and pharmacists.

‘Doug, what’s the state of our stockpiles?’

‘Of everything?’

‘Of everything.’

Slade shrugged. ‘Whoever did this timed it just right, because we were just about to ship a massive order out of there. Stocks are low to desperate. Especially on the Nosferol front.’

‘How desperate is desperate?’

‘Running on fumes, basically.’

Alex was working hard to remember exactly how much Nosferol she had in her private stock, and how many prepared rounds of ammo were in her armoury. She thrust her hand in her jeans pocket. One tube of Solazal, three-quarters full. Enough for a few days. Two more tubes in her bedside drawer — or was it just one? Like everyone else, she’d been waiting for a delivery.

Kelby said in a stunned voice, ‘What, this happened in the middle of the night and we’re only getting to hear about it from the human media? How come none of our own people there alerted us?’

‘They’re destroyed,’ Alex told him. ‘They’re all gone.’

‘How long before we can restart production?’ Rumble asked Slade.

Slade puffed out his hairy cheeks. ‘Well, even if the formulae had been wiped off the mainframe, as long as we still had a drop left we could still analyse the stuff and start over. No emergency there, okay? But it’s gonna take weeks before we can get supply flowing again. Maybe months before it’s back to normal.’

Rumble exploded. ‘Months! I’m going to find out just what happened here!’

‘Who would have done such a thing?’ Minto said, fear in her eyes.

‘The Trads,’ Alex said. ‘Just like I told you, Harry.’

Everyone turned. Slade goggled at her. ‘The who?’

‘You can’t know that for sure,’ Rumble warned her.

‘No? Let’s see.’ Alex was already heading back to his office. She snatched up the USB drive and came running back into the operations room. She inserted the drive into the computer network and tapped a few keys to divert the image to the big wall screens. ‘Harry, get the sound back up,’ she called over. ‘Everyone quiet.’

The panicky buzz died away. The assembled vampires turned back to face the screens. Even Garrett was too preoccupied to frown about the fact that Alex hadn’t called Rumble ‘sir’. For a few breathless moments, the screens were black — then they suddenly flashed up into life.

From a deep leather chair in a darkened room, a man gazed down at them. Not a man, a vampire — their instincts told them that instantly. His face was half in shadow, but visible enough to show his sleek, aquiline good looks, the thick black hair swept back from his high brow, and the wry, mischievous twinkle in his eye. He seemed to watch them for a moment; a smile crossed his lips as though he were savouring what he was about to say.

‘Good morning, VIA.’ His voice was smooth and soft. ‘None of you know me, but I know you all very well. Chief Harry Rumble. Special Agent Bishop. We have never met. But I’m sure we will — soon. Allow me to introduce myself. I have gone by many names in my time. The one by which I am presently known is Gabriel Stone.’

Rumble snapped his fingers at Kelby, who nodded and ran to a computer terminal.

The face on the screen smiled. ‘Rumble, call off your minion. It is pointless to search for me on your database. Your so-called Federation has no record of my existence.’

‘Shit, can he see us?’ Minto gaped.

‘He can’t see us,’ Alex said. ‘He’s just smart. He knows exactly how we think.’

‘You gotta love this guy,’ Slade muttered, and Minto jabbed him in the ribs.

Around the room, vampires exchanged nervous glances.

‘Is he kidding us?’

‘Does he look like he’s kidding?’

‘Quiet, people,’ Rumble commanded.

‘By now,’ Stone continued after a dramatic pause, ‘I’m sure you will all have become aware of the tragedy that has befallen the establishment in Italy where you manufacture your obscene poisons. And I am sure you have all been wondering whose hand it was that has struck you this blow. Look no further. It was I. I am now in possession of your loathsome stockpiles of drugs, and, I believe, some hundred thousand rounds of the ammunition that your treacherous Federation authorises you to use against your own kind.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘The disgrace that is VIA ends here. Know that I will destroy you. All of you. You are traitors to the vampire race, and your time is over.’