Uprising

Chapter Eighty-Seven

With a cry of despair, Alex leapt down from the opposite battlement and sprinted across the snowy courtyard to scramble up the wall and get to Joel. She shouted his name over and over as he lay there immobile. The snow was stained red all around him, but the sight of his blood meant nothing to her now — only that he was dying.

She turned him over. His eyes were shut. She said his name again, ran her fingers through his hair.

His eyes fluttered open. ‘Alex…’ he whispered.

‘You did it, Joel. Stone’s gone. It’s over.’

He smiled weakly, then closed his eyes again. His breathing was shallow. Alex knew he wouldn’t last long.

She picked him up in her arms and carried him down from the battlements. He had to be taken to a hospital. Her mind worked fast. Even out here, in this remote wilderness, there surely had to be human settlements. If she couldn’t find a town, just a humble village doctor could help save Joel’s life and radio for an air ambulance.

The vehicles. The vehicles she’d spotted down by the gates, in the lower courtyard. That was the answer. Holding his unconscious body tight in her arms, Alex ran like crazy. Just when she thought she was hopelessly lost in the maze of passages, she picked up the blood trail that Joel had left on his way up, now half-obscured with snow. She didn’t glance twice at the bodies of the gypsies. Bursting out of an archway she found herself in the lower courtyard, a few dozen yards from the main gates.

‘Hang on, Joel.’

In moments she’d reached the parked vehicles. Two big off-road trucks, fat knobbly tyres, rows of lamps mounted on heavy bull bars across their grilles. She laid Joel gently down in the snow as she punched out the window of the first vehicle, looking for a key in the ignition. If neither truck had them, it would mean having to search the bodies of the guards in the hope of finding them.

The first vehicle had no keys in it. She swore and held her breath as she ran round to the other, smashing the glass as if it had been eggshell. Her heart jumped. A ring of keys dangled from the ignition.

‘You’re going to make it, Joel. Hold on.’ She scooped him up and laid him down in the back of the truck, hastily covering him with an old blanket before throwing herself into the cab. Two twists of the key, and the engine roared. The courtyard lit up in a blaze of light from the truck’s powerful lamps. She cleared the snow from the screen, gunned the throttle and the tyres bit hard into the snow as she floored the pedal and aimed the truck at the gate. With a screech of ripping wood she went crashing right through.

Now all she had to do was get Joel to a doctor. There was no telling how long he had left. It could be a few hours, or a matter of minutes.

The mountain pass snaked away for miles ahead. The blizzard was driving even harder now, and the wipers were barely able to bat the snow away fast enough for her to see where she was going as the truck bounced and slithered down the narrow track.

Passing a big rock on her left, she saw an abandoned motorcycle and sidecar, almost completely buried under a drift of white.

Alex hadn’t driven far before the grim realisation began to sink in that she wasn’t going to find a village, let alone a town with proper hospital facilities, in time to save Joel. Even with her sharp vampire eyes she couldn’t make out a single light, a solitary speck of civilisation anywhere on the vast horizon.

Despite her superior senses, it was hard to tell the difference between the road and the deep snowdrifts that the wind had piled up across it and either side. She felt the vehicle lurch violently. A grinding crunch and a squeal of metal against rock. The truck came to a juddering halt at a crazy angle, and with a groan it rolled over onto its passenger side. From the back, Joel let out a moan of pain as he was thrown sideways hard against the window. Alex twisted in the driver’s seat and kicked upwards so hard that she tore the door off its hinges. It went tumbling into the snow. She climbed out, grabbed the edge of the overturned truck’s roof, and used every ounce of her strength to heave it back onto its wheels.

Then she saw the black stain of the oil seeping out of the ruptured sump, melting into the snow. The impact against the hidden rocks had ripped it open.

Tough shit. She’d keep driving till the engine seized.

She jumped back inside the cab and tried to restart the stalled motor.

Dead. She tried again. Nothing. She wanted to scream with rage.

Joel was stirring behind. Hearing him murmur her name, she jumped down from the cab and went running round to rip open the rear door. Blood trickled out of the back of the truck and began to pool on the snow. She reached out for him, lifted him gently out of the vehicle and set him down on the ground.

His eyes struggled for focus. His lips opened and closed, and a trickle of blood ran down his chin.

‘Don’t try to speak,’ she whispered, cradling him in her arms.

One century, one decade and three long years since the last time she’d done this.

She was going to lose him. Just as she’d lost her William.

‘Alex…’ he croaked faintly. ‘I’m scared.’ He coughed. More blood bubbled up from his lips.

‘Me too,’ she said.

He was slipping away now.

And she lowered her face to his, looked into his eyes as the light in them began to fade away to nothing. She felt his muscles tense in resistance as death wrapped its arms around him, then start to slacken.

And as he breathed his long, last sighing breath, she opened her mouth and bit deep into his neck.

She drank and drank from him. Tasted his blood as it mingled with her vampire saliva and the tears running down her face. Felt his dying energy draining into her veins

— and her own powers flowing into him.

When she raised her head and looked down at his face again, his eyes were closed. He looked peaceful, as though he was sleeping.

‘What have I done to you?’ she murmured.

Something she knew he could never forgive her for.

Because, the next time he opened his eyes — and there would be a next time — it would no longer be as a man. Joel Solomon would have become a vampire.

Alex looked up at the sky. There were still enough hours of darkness to find shelter before the dawn came.

And the snow kept falling.

What was the inspiration for the Vampire Federation hooks?

The original inspiration probably dates back to my childhood. I was vampire crazy as a kid, and always wanting to see old Dracula movies. Then about seven years ago, it came to me that it would be great to write a modern vampire story drawing on some of the classic gothic elements in Bram Stoker’s seminal novel Dracula: the spooky ship sailing in from Romania, the half-mad ghoul enslaved to his master, the wicked vampire brides, the end battle in the castle guarded by gypsies — it’s all right out of Stoker. But at the same time I wanted to combine that with all the hallmarks of a modern thriller — upbeat pacing, fast-talking dialogue, and plenty of explosive action.

Are you still as vampire crazy now as you were as a child?

I suppose I must be! I can’t seem to survive long without watching a good vampire movie, whether an oldie like Nosferatu, or something more modern and hip like Blade. My DVD collection has everything from 30 Days of Night to Eddie Murphy’s Vampire of Brooklyn]

What is it about vampires that makes them so appealing to people?

Firstly, vampires are scary, and we all love to be scared. But I also think that vampires symbolise qualities many of us secretly yearn to have ourselves. Vampires are incredibly free — at least, when they’re not subject to Federation laws. They’re unbelievably powerful, can have tremendous sex appeal and glamour; and of course there’s the immortality factor. That’s the allure that seduces Jeremy Lonsdale, the politician in Uprising who falls into the clutches of arch-villain Gabriel Stone. Lonsdale had everything a mortal man could desire, and yet he craved the kind of power that only becoming a vampire could offer. Of course, it didn’t quite work out for him that way…

Do your characters ever surprise you?

Sometimes a character will grow in the telling, or even deviate completely from the original plan. In Uprising, Dec Maddon was initially destined to be a minor character, something of a lowlife whose only function in the story was to witness the ritual murder at Crowmoor Hall, and then tell his story to the hero Joel Solomon. He was then going to be turned into a vampire before being viciously destroyed by Gabriel Stone. In short, he was expendable! But as I began writing him, I became sympathetic towards him and his role changed. It was as though there was another layer of him underneath, waiting to be discovered. I realised that Dec should have more of his own journey in the story. And he will have a big role in the next book, which is something I would never have imagined at the outset.

Some of the vampires in Uprising, for instance the villain Gabriel Stone, are much more frightening than many of the recent crop of vampires in books and films…

From the start, my vampires had to have fangs! I consciously wanted my character Gabriel Stone to hark back to the Stoker tradition that portrays the vampire as a lethal predator without a single shred of morality. It’s a great white shark in human form. Even friendlier characters like Alex Bishop, with whom I wanted the reader to empathise strongly, have something of an edge to them when you realise that you and I are really nothing more to them than a food source! So you’re rooting for the heroine, but some part of you is afraid of her, too…

If you were a vampire, would you support the Federation?

Good question! I think the Federation was born from a genuine need for vampires to protect themselves from detection in the modern age, in order to be able to carry on. But what may have started out in a spirit of well-meaning idealism may have been open to abuse and ultimately led to a degree of corruption. I would not entirely blame certain vampires for finding the Federation oppressive and dictatorial; then again, who would want evil predators like Gabriel Stone and his sister Lillith in charge?

A fun setting in the book is the vampire-themed bar/restaurant run by vampires for vampires, right in the middle of London. What made you think of it?

Movie fans may spot lots of film references in my books, especially this one! The idea for the ‘Last Bite bar and grill’ was inspired by Jack Rabbit Slim’s diner in Pulp Fiction, where the walls are lined with stills from classic movies and your waitress for the night is Jayne Mansfield or Marilyn Monroe. I loved the idea of doing the same thing with vampires, so it was always in my mind. Then one night I happened to wander into this very loud, very packed, upmarket bar in St James’s Street in London, and I thought that it was exactly the kind of place where vampires would hang out — as well as wannabe vampires and people who just want to seem a bit dark and dangerous. So I modelled it on that, and cheekily placed it in the same location. I think the Last Bite would be a great success in real life, actually!

What can readers expect from the next Vampire Federation book?

Lots of surprises, some new characters, some new developments with the existing ones. Dec Maddon will continue his evolution and become a fully-fledged vampire hunter. Joel Solomon will have to try to come to terms with what he’s now become. He and Alex will somehow have to confront what’s happened between them.

The secrets of the cross of Ardaich will be explained, plus we’ll be seeing more of those nasty, mysterious creatures living in the Siberian ice caves. And will Gabriel Stone be back? You’ll just have to wait and see!

As ever, many sincere thanks to Keshini Naidoo and Sammia Rafique at Avon for all that they do; to Inspector T.B for helping the author maintain a semblance of realism in all matters police procedural; and to all the other usual suspects involved in this story’s long, slow evolution from a mad spark of an idea into the book that is now in your hands.