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“For all the good it has done you,” Mr Crepsley snorted.
“What do you mean?” Steve snapped.
“You have wasted your life on hatred and revenge,” Mr Crepsley said. “What good is life if there is no joy or creative purpose? You would have been better off living five years as a human than five hundred as a monster.”
“I’m no monster!” Steve snarled. “I’m…” He stopped and growled something to himself. “Enough of this crap,” he declared aloud. “You’re boring me. If you haven’t anything more intelligent to say, keep your mouths shut.”
“Impudent cur!” Mr Crepsley roared, and swung the back of his hand across Steve’s cheek, drawing blood. Steve sneered at the vampire, wiped the blood off with his fingers, then put them to his lips.
“One night soon, it’ll be your blood I dine on,” he whispered, then lapsed into silence.
Exasperated and weary, Mr Crepsley, Harkat and I also fell silent. We finished cleaning our wounds, then lay back and relaxed. If we’d been alone, we’d have dozed off — but none of us dared shut our eyes with a destructive beast like Steve Leopard in the room.
More than an hour after Vancha had taken his captive vampet aside, he returned. His face was dark and although he’d washed his hands before coming in, he hadn’t been able to remove all the traces of blood. Some of it was his own, from wounds received in the tunnels, but most had come from the vampet.
Vancha found a bottle of warm beer in the out-of-order fridge, yanked the top off and downed it hungrily. He normally never drank anything other than fresh water, milk and blood — but these were hardly normal times.
He wiped around his mouth with the back of a hand when he was done, then stared at the faint red stains on his flesh. “He was a brave man,” Vancha said quietly. “He resisted longer than I thought possible. I had to do bad things to make him talk. I…” He shivered and opened another bottle. There were bitter tears in his eyes as he drank.
“Is he dead?” I asked, my voice trembling.
Vancha sighed and looked away. “We’re at war. We cannot afford to spare our enemies’ lives. Besides, by the time I’d finished, it seemed cruel to let him live. Killing him was a mercy in the end.”
“Praise the gods of the vampires for small mercies,” Steve laughed, then flinched as Vancha spun, drew a shuriken and sent it flying at him. The sharp throwing star buried itself in the material of the couch, less than a centimetre beneath Steve’s right ear.
“I won’t miss with the next,” Vancha swore, and at last the smile slipped from Steve’s face, as he realized how serious the Prince was.
Mr Crepsley got up and laid a calming hand on Vancha’s shoulder, directing him to a chair. “Was the interrogation worthwhile?” he asked. “Had the vampet anything new to reveal?”
Vancha didn’t answer immediately. He was still glaring at Steve. Then the question sunk in and he wiped around his large eyes with the ends of one of his animal hides. “He’d plenty to say,” Vancha grunted, then lapsed into silence and stared down at the bottle of beer in his hands, as though he didn’t know how it got there.
“The vampet!” he said loudly after a minute of quiet, head snapping up, eyes clicking into focus. “Yes. I found out, for starters, why Gannen didn’t kill us, and why the others fought so cagily.” Leaning forward, he lobbed the empty beer bottle at Steve, who swatted it aside, then stared arrogantly back at the Prince. “Only the Vampaneze Lord can kill us,” Vancha said softly.
“What do you mean?” I frowned.
“He’s bound by Mr Tiny’s rules, the same as us,” Vancha explained. “Just as we can’t call upon others for help in tracking and fighting him, he can’t ask his underlings to kill us. Mr Tiny said he had to kill us himself to ensure victory. He can call upon all the vampaneze he likes to fight us, but if one should strike too deeply and inflict a fatal wound, they’re destined to lose the war.”
That was exciting news and we discussed it eagerly. Until now, we thought we stood no chance against the Vampaneze Lord’s minions — there were simply too many of them for us to cut a path through. But if they weren’t allowed to kill us…
“Let’s not get carried away,” Harkat cautioned. “Even if they can’t kill us, they can … stall and subdue us. If they capture us and give us to … their Lord, it will be a simple matter for him to … drive a stake through our hearts.”
“How come they didn’t kill you?” I asked Harkat. “You’re not one of the three hunters.”
“Maybe they don’t know that,” Harkat said.
Steve muttered something beneath his breath.
“What was that?” Vancha shouted, prodding him sharply with his left foot.
“I said we didn’t know before, but we do now!” Steve jeered. “At least,” he added sulkily, “I know.”
“You did not know who the hunters were?” Mr Crepsley asked.
Steve shook his head. “We knew there were three of you, and Mr Tiny told us that one would be a child, so we had Darren pegged straight off. But when five of you turned up – you three, Harkat and Debbie – we weren’t sure about the others. We guessed the hunters would be vampires, but we didn’t want to take unnecessary chances.”
“Is that why you pretended to be our ally?” I asked. “You wanted to get close to us, to figure out who the hunters were?”
“That was part of it,” Steve nodded, “although mostly I just wanted to toy with you. It was fun, getting so close that I could kill you whenever I wished, delaying the fatal blow until the time was right.”
“He’s a fool,” Vancha snorted. “Anyone who wouldn’t strike his foe dead at the first opportunity is asking for trouble.”
“Steve Leonard is many things,” Mr Crepsley said, “but not foolish.” He rubbed the long scar on the left side of his face, thinking deeply. “You thought this plan through most thoroughly, did you not?” he asked Steve.
“I sure did,” Steve smirked.
“You accounted for every possible twist and turn?”
“As many as I could imagine.”
Mr Crepsley stopped stroking his scar and his eyes narrowed. “Then you must have considered what would happen if we escaped.”
Steve’s smile widened but he said nothing.
“What was the back-up plan?” Mr Crepsley asked, his voice strained.
“‘Back-up plan’?” Steve echoed innocently.
“Do not play games with me!” Mr Crepsley hissed. “You must have discussed alternate plans with R.V. and Gannen Harst. Once you had revealed your location to us, you could not afford to sit back and wait. Time is precious now that we know where your Lord is hiding, and how those with him cannot take our lives.”
Mr Crepsley stopped speaking and snapped to his feet. Vancha was only a second behind him. Their eyes locked and, as one, they exclaimed. “A trap!”
“I knew he came too quietly up the tunnels,” Vancha growled, hurrying to the apartment door, opening it and checking the corridor outside. “Deserted.”
“I will try the window,” Mr Crepsley said, starting towards it.
“No point,” Vancha said. “Vampaneze wouldn’t attack in the open by day.”
“No,” Mr Crepsley agreed, “but vampets would.” He reached the window and drew back the heavy blind which was blocking the harmful rays of the sun. His breath caught in his throat. “Charna’s guts!” he gasped.
Vancha, Harkat and I rushed over to see what had upset him (Vancha grabbed hold of Steve on the way). What we saw caused us all to curse, except Steve, who laughed deliriously.
The street outside was teeming with police cars, army vans, policemen and soldiers. They were lined up in front of the building, and stretched around the sides. Many carried rifles. In the building opposite, we glimpsed figures in the windows, also armed. As we watched, a helicopter buzzed down from overhead and hung in the air a couple of floors above us. There was a soldier in the helicopter with a rifle so big it could have been used to shoot elephants.
But the marksman wasn’t interested in elephants. He was aiming at the same target as those in the building and on the ground — us!
CHAPTER THREE
AS A strong spotlight was trained on the window to dazzle us, we all turned to one side and let the blind fall back into place. Retreating, Vancha cursed at his loudest and vilest, while the rest of us glanced uneasily at one another, waiting for someone to propose a plan.
“How did they sneak up without … us hearing?” Harkat asked.
“We weren’t paying attention to what was happening outside,” I said.
“Even so,” Harkat insisted, “we should have … picked up on the sirens.”
“They didn’t use sirens,” Steve laughed. “They were warned to tread quietly. And, before you waste time checking, they’ve got the rear of the building and roof covered as well as the front.” As we stared at him questioningly, he said, “I wasn’t distracted. I heard them coming.”
Vancha bellowed madly at Steve, then made a dive for him. Mr Crepsley stepped into his path to reason with him, but Vancha shoved him aside without regard and charged towards Steve, murder in his eyes.
A voice from outside, amplified by a megaphone, stopped him.
“You in there!” it bellowed. “Killers!”
Vancha hesitated, fingers balled into fists, then pointed at Steve and snarled, “Later!” Spinning, he hurried to the window and nudged the blind aside a fraction. Light from the sun and spotlight flooded the room.
Letting the blind fall back into place, Vancha roared, “Turn off the light!”
“No chance!” the person with the megaphone laughed in reply.
Vancha stood there a moment, thinking, then nodded at Mr Crepsley and Harkat. “Check the corridors above and below. Find out if they’re inside the building. Don’t clash with them — if that lot outside start firing, they’ll cut us to ribbons.”
Mr Crepsley and Harkat obeyed without question.
“Bring that sorry excuse for a dog over here,” Vancha said to me, and I dragged Steve to the window. Vancha wrapped a hand around Steve’s throat and growled in his ear, “Why are they here?”
“They think you’re the killers,” Steve chuckled. “The ones who killed all those humans.”
“You son of a mongrel!” Vancha snarled.
“Please,” Steve replied smugly. “Let’s not get personal.”
Mr Crepsley and Harkat returned.
“They’re packed tight two floors … above,” Harkat reported.
“The same two floors below,” Mr Crepsley said grimly.
Vancha cursed again, then thought quickly. “We’ll break through the floorboards,” he decided. “The humans will be in the halls. They won’t expect us to go straight down through the apartments.”
“Yes they will,” Steve disagreed. “They’ve been warned to fill every room below, above and adjoining.”
Vancha stared at Steve, looking for the slightest hint of a bluff. When he found none, his features softened and the ghostly traces of defeat welled in his eyes. Then he shook his head and put self-pity behind him.
“We have to talk to them,” he said. “Find out where we stand and maybe buy some time to think this through. Anyone want to volunteer?” When nobody replied, he grunted. “Guess that means I’m the negotiator. Just don’t blame me if it all goes wrong.” Leaving the blind over the window, he smashed a pane of glass, then leant close and shouted at the humans below. “Who’s down there and what the hell do you want?”
There was a pause, then the same voice as before spoke to us via a megaphone. “Who am I talking to?” the person asked. Now that I concentrated on the voice, I realized it was a woman’s.
“None of your business!” Vancha roared.
Another pause. Then, “We know your names. Larten Crepsley, Vancha March, Darren Shan and Harkat Mulds. I just want to know which one of you I’m in contact with.”
Vancha’s jaw dropped.
Steve doubled over with laughter.
“Tell them who you are,” Harkat whispered. “They know too much. Best to act like we’re … co-operating.”
Vancha nodded, then shouted through the covered hole in the window, “Vancha March.”
As he did that, I peeked through a gap at the side of the blind, looking for weak points in the defences below. I didn’t find any, but I did get a fix on the woman who was speaking to us — tall and broad, with short white hair.
“Listen, March,” the woman called as I stepped away from the window. “I’m Chief Inspector Alice Burgess. I’m running this freak show.” An ironic choice of words, though none of us commented on it. “If you want to negotiate a deal, you’ll be negotiating with me. One warning — I’m not here to play games. I’ve more than two hundred men and women out here and inside your building, just dying to put a round of bullets through your black excuse for a heart. At the first sign that you’re messing with us, I’ll give the order and they’ll open fire. Understand?”
Vancha bared his teeth and snarled, “I understand.” Then he repeated it, louder, so she could hear. “I understand!”
“Good,” Chief Inspector Burgess responded. “First of all — are your hostages alive and unharmed?”
“‘Hostages’?” Vancha replied.
“Steve Leonard and Mark Ryter. We know you have them, so don’t act the innocent.”
“Mark Ryter must have been the vampet,” I remarked.
“You’re soooooo observant,” Steve laughed, then pushed Vancha aside and put his face up close to the window. “This is Steve Leonard!” he yelled, mimicking terror. “They haven’t killed me yet, but they killed Mark. They tortured him first. It was horrible. They–”
He stopped, as though we’d cut him off mid-sentence, and stepped back, taking a self-indulgent bow.
“Sons of…” the officer cursed over the megaphone, then collected her wits and addressed us calmly and dryly. “OK — this is how it works. Release your remaining hostage. When he’s safely in our custody, come down after him, one at a time. Any sign of a weapon, or any unexpected moves, and you’re history.”
“Let’s talk about this,” Vancha shouted.
“No talking.” Burgess snapped.
“We’re not going to release him,” Vancha roared. “You don’t know what he is, what he’s done. Let me–”
A rifle fired and a volley of bullets tore up the outside of the building. We fell to the floor, cursing and yelping, although there was no cause for concern — the marksmen were aiming deliberately high.
When the scream of bullets died away, the Chief Inspector addressed us again. “That was a warning — your last. Next time we shoot to kill. No bargaining. No trade-offs. No talking. You’ve terrorized this city for most of a year, but it stops here. You’re through.
“Two minutes,” she said. “Then we come in after you.”
A troubled silence descended.
“That’s that.” Harkat muttered after a handful of slow-ticking seconds. “We’re finished.”
“Maybe,” Vancha sighed. Then his gaze fell on Steve and he grinned. “But we won’t die alone.”
Vancha brought the fingers of his right hand together and held them out straight so they formed a blade of flesh and bone. He raised the hand above his head like a knife and advanced.
Steve closed his eyes and waited for death with a smile on his face.
“Wait,” Mr Crepsley said softly, halting him. “There is a way out.”
Vancha paused. “How?” he asked suspiciously.
“The window,” Mr Crepsley said. “We jump. They will not expect that.”
Vancha considered the plan. “The drop’s no problem,” he mused. “Not for us, anyway. How about you, Harkat?”
“Five storeys?” Harkat smiled. “I could do that … in my sleep.”
“But what do we do once down there?” Vancha asked. “The place is crawling with police and soldiers.”
“We flit,” Mr Crepsley said. “I will carry Darren. You carry Harkat. It will not be easy – they might shoot us before we can work up to flitting speed – but it can be done. With luck.”
“It’s crazy,” Vancha growled, then winked at us. “I like it!” He pointed at Steve. “But we kill him before we leave.”
“One minute!” Alice Burgess shouted through her megaphone.
Steve hadn’t moved. His eyes were still closed. He was still smiling.
I didn’t want Vancha to kill Steve. Although he’d betrayed us, he’d been my friend once, and the thought of him being killed in cold blood disturbed me. Also, there was Debbie to think about — if we killed Steve, R.V. would certainly kill Debbie in retaliation. It was crazy to worry about her, considering the trouble we were in, but I couldn’t help it.
I was about to ask Vancha to spare Steve’s life – although I didn’t think he’d listen to me – when Mr Crepsley beat me to the punch.
“We cannot kill him,” he said, sounding disgusted.
“Come again?” Vancha blinked.
“It is not the end of the world if we are captured,” Mr Crepsley said.
“Thirty seconds!” Burgess screamed tensely.
Mr Crepsley ignored the interruption. “If we are captured and taken alive, there may be chances to escape later. But if we kill Steve Leonard, I do not think they will spare us. These humans are ready to butcher us at the drop of a pin.”
Vancha shook his head uncertainly. “I don’t like it. I’d rather kill him and take our chances.”
“I would too,” Mr Crepsley agreed. “But there is the Vampaneze Lord to consider. We must put the hunt before our personal wishes. Sparing Steve Leonard is–”
“Ten seconds!” Burgess bellowed.
Vancha glowered over Steve a few seconds more, undecided, then cursed, twisted his hand, and whacked him over the back of the head with the flat of his palm. Steve toppled to the floor. I thought Vancha had killed him, but the Prince had only knocked him out.
“That should shut him up for a while,” Vancha grunted, checking his shuriken belts and wrapping his animal hides tight around him. “If we get the chance later, we’ll track him down and finish him off.”
“Time’s up!” Alice Burgess warned us. “Come out immediately or we open fire!”
“Ready?” Vancha asked.
“Ready,” Mr Crepsley said, drawing his knives.
“Ready,” Harkat said, testing the head of his axe with a large, grey finger.
“Ready,” I said, taking out my sword and holding it across my chest.
“Harkat jumps with me,” Vancha said. “Larten and Darren — you come next. Give us a second or two to roll out of your way.”
“Luck, Vancha,” Mr Crepsley said.
“Luck,” Vancha replied, then grinned savagely, slapped Harkat on the back, and leapt through the window, shattering the blind and glass, Harkat not far behind.
Mr Crepsley and I waited the agreed seconds, then jumped through the jagged remains of the window after our friends, and dropped swiftly to the ground like a couple of wingless bats, into the hellish cauldron which awaited us below.
CHAPTER FOUR
AS THE ground rushed up to meet me, I brought my legs together, hunched my upper body, spread my hands and landed in a crouch. My extra-strong bones absorbed the shock without breaking, although the force of the contact sent me rolling forward and I almost impaled myself on my sword (which would have been an embarrassing way to die).
There was a sharp yell of pain to my left, and as I bounced on to my feet I saw Mr Crepsley lying on the ground, nursing his right ankle, unable to stand. Ignoring my injured friend, I brought up my sword defensively and looked for Vancha and Harkat.
Our leap through the window had taken the police and soldiers by surprise. They were falling over one another and getting in each other’s way, making it impossible for anyone to take a clean shot.
Harkat had grabbed a young soldier in the midst of the confusion and was holding him close to his chest, spinning quickly in circles so nobody had time to shoot him in the back. Vancha, meanwhile, had set his sights on the big cheese. As I watched, he charged through several officers and soldiers, leapt over a car, and brought Chief Inspector Alice Burgess crashing to the ground with a perfectly timed tackle.
While all human eyes fixed on Vancha and the Chief Inspector, I hurried to Mr Crepsley’s side and helped him up. His teeth were gritted in pain and I could tell instantly that his ankle wouldn’t support him.
“Is it broken?” I shouted, dragging him behind a car for cover before someone snapped to his senses and took a shot at us.
“I do not think so,” he gasped, “but the pain is intense.” He collapsed behind the car and rubbed the flesh around his ankle, trying to massage out the pain.
Across the way, Vancha was on his feet, Alice Burgess’ throat clutched in one hand, her megaphone in the other. “Hear this!” he roared through the megaphone at the police and soldiers. “If you shoot, your Chief dies!”
Above us, the blades of the helicopter hummed like the wings of a thousand angry bees. Otherwise — total silence.
Burgess broke it. “Forget about me!” she roared. “Take these creeps out now!”
Several marksmen raised their weapons obediently.
Vancha tightened his fingers around the police chief’s throat. Her eyes bulged worryingly. The marksmen hesitated, then lowered their weapons slightly. Vancha loosened his grip, but didn’t let go completely. Holding the white-haired woman in front of him, he shuffled over to where Harkat was standing with his human shield. The two got back to back, then slowly crossed to where Mr Crepsley and I were sheltering. They resembled a large and clumsy crab as they moved, but it worked. Nobody fired.
“How bad is it?” Vancha asked, crouching beside us, dragging Burgess down with him. Harkat did likewise with his soldier.
“Bad,” Mr Crepsley said soberly, locking gazes with Vancha.
“You can’t flit?” Vancha asked softly.
“Not like this.”
They stared at each other silently.
“Then we’ll have to leave you behind,” Vancha said.
“Aye.” Mr Crepsley smiled thinly.
“I’m staying with him,” I said instantly.
“This is no time for false heroics,” Vancha growled. “You’re coming — end of story.”
I shook my head. “The hell with false heroics — I’m being practical. You can’t flit with both me and Harkat on your back. It would take too long to work up the speed. We’d be shot dead before we got to the end of the street.”
Vancha opened his mouth to object, realized my argument was valid, and closed it.
“I’m staying too,” Harkat said.
Vancha groaned. “We don’t have time for this rubbish!”
“It’s not rubbish,” Harkat said calmly. “I travel with Darren. Where he goes, I go. Where he stays, I stay. Besides, you’ll stand a better chance … without me.”
“How do you figure that?” Vancha asked.
Harkat pointed at Alice Burgess, still gasping from the tightness of Vancha’s grip. “Alone, you can carry her and use her as a … shield until you flit.”
Vancha sighed downheartedly. “You’re all too clever for me. I’m not going to sit here and try to talk you round.” He stuck his head up over the bonnet of the car to check on the surrounding troops, squinting hard against the daylight. “Stay back,” he warned, “or these two die!”
“You’ll … never get … away,” Burgess croaked, her pale blue eyes filled with hate, her ghostly white skin flushed a deep, angry red. “The first … clear shot they have … they’ll take you out!”
“Then we’ll have to make sure we don’t give them one,” Vancha laughed, covering her mouth with a hand before she could reply. His smile faded. “I can’t come back for you,” he said to us. “If you stay, you’re on your own.”