Uprising

Chapter Fifty-Nine

The Metropole Hotel, Venice

3.02 a.m. local time

Alex and Joel had made love for hours in the pool of moonlight that flooded across the satin sheets.

‘You’re incredible,’ he’d gasped afterwards, as he held her tight. ‘You’re going to kill me.’ She could have gone on and on, but he was completely spent and worn out, and soon fell back into a deep sleep with his arm draped across her naked body. She lay there beside him in the rumpled bed, caressing his cooling skin, listening to the rise and fall of his breathing, her senses bright and alert.

She was sailing into uncharted waters now and she knew it. If VIA ever had the slightest inkling of what she’d just done, it was all over for her. Not her service record, not even Harry Rumble’s intervention, could save her from the punishment that was carved in stone on the Federation’s sacred list of commandments. They had the power, and they’d use it. She’d be arrested and taken straight to the execution chamber.

Strapped in a chair, hardened steel loops around her wrists and her neck. She’d be forced to watch as the vampire executioner filled a syringe from a vial of Nosferol. Then the needle would come closer, and closer. The jab of pain as it stabbed into her arm.

The agony as the poison ravaged her body, twenty seconds of horrific screaming torment that lasted longer than a century of walking the earth. There was no pain like it. The horrors that humans had inflicted on their own kind, the witches and martyrs and torture victims through the ages, didn’t even come close.

She shuddered. Joel stirred beside her, muttered her name and rolled over, still fast asleep. She carefully disentangled herself from his arms and stepped naked into the moonlight. She picked up the trail of clothes that lay strewn across the rug and dressed quickly and quietly.

The familiar old tingle was coming over her. She needed to feed, and soon.

Glancing back over at Joel’s still form under the sheets, for a few intoxicating moments she could sense nothing but the blood pumping through his veins as he slept. Its rich tang filled her nostrils, and she could almost taste the warmth of it on her tongue, running down her throat. Her heart began to quicken as a force that was stronger than her threatened to impel her towards the bed. Not to love him this time, but to bite him.

Her fangs began to elongate in her mouth.

This was the dangerous time, when nothing that lived and walked and bled was safe.

Get out of here, Alex. Now. You can’t do this to him. Not him.

She tore herself away. Out on the balcony, she glanced down to the narrow street that separated the hotel from the banks of the canal. She looked left, then right.

There was nobody around. But there would be, somewhere out there, walking the street. And they were hers.

She flipped herself over the edge of the stone balustrade, dropped the twenty feet to the ground and landed without a sound.

Now it was time to hunt.

Wallingford

2.06 a.m.

Dec was lying sprawled out on the couch at Matt’s place. On the table next to him were the remnants of a microwave meal he’d managed to stagger into the kitchen to prepare earlier that evening, but hadn’t had the stomach to eat. He had no idea how long he’d been staring unfocused at the television. The images on the screen made no sense to him. Some kind of movie with lots of car chases, but he kept drifting in and out and couldn’t follow it. Feverish extremes of hot and cold kept washing over him, leaving him sweltering one minute and racked with shivering the next.

He had only the vaguest notion of what he was doing here. His memories were all confused and mixed up. It was impossible to get comfortable on the couch; he could hardly move without getting nauseous and every twist of his body brought a sharp pain in his neck. He touched the sore spot with his fingers, then withdrew them with a wince as he felt the raised puncture marks, crusted in dried blood. What had he done to himself?

He became aware of a strange sensation in his groin, like a pulsing tingling feeling — then realised it was his phone vibrating in his pocket. He took it out groggily and pressed it to his ear.

His brother’s voice. ‘Where are you? Me ma’s going mad with worry and me da’s about to have a fookin’ heart attack. Why have you not come home?’

‘Hi, Cormac,’ Dec slurred into the phone.

‘What’s wrong with you, bro?’

‘I’m okay,’ Dec lied.

‘Speak up. I can hardly hear you.’

‘Tell them I’m fine. I just want to be alone for a bit.’

‘Where are you?’ Cormac said again.

‘Promise not to tell,’ Dec muttered.

‘You know I won’t clipe.’

‘I’m at Matt’s place,’ Dec said. Then there was sudden silence on the phone. He squinted at the screen and saw that the battery had gone dead. He swore weakly and let the phone tumble out of his hand. He closed his eyes.

He didn’t know how long he’d been out of it when a sound woke him.

It was the sound of something scraping against the window. With an effort, he propped himself up on his elbows and peered across the room.

The curtains were open. On the other side of the glass, standing on the window ledge, was Kate. She ran her nails down the pane and looked at him imploringly.

‘Let me in, Dec. Please.’

Dec fell off the couch and started crawling across the floor towards her. Halfway to the window, he stopped. He put one hand up to the wounds on his neck.

This isn’t Kate. Kate’s dead.

‘It’s so cold out here, Dec,’ she mewled. ‘Don’t you love me any more?’

He hesitated.

‘Let me in,’ she pleaded. ‘I want to be with you. I’ve always wanted to be with you.’

She looked so sad and pathetic and vulnerable out there. His heart went out to her. He managed to grab the backrest of a chair and haul himself unsteadily to his feet.

Staggered the rest of the way to the window. Reached out and grasped the window catch.