The Iron in Blood Page 8

CHAPTER 8

  Mark

  I woke up worrying about the kitten. And then about Mum and Joe, and how worried they must be. I should have phoned them last night as soon as Rebecca and I had got Angus in the house. I thought about Angus and Rebecca and how they had looked last night, all covered in blood and shot up, and then I started worrying about them too. After a while I got fed up with all the worrying and decided to go downstairs and find two things; something to eat, and someone to explain exactly what had happened last night. And a phone so I could tell Mum we were all OK. Three things, then.

  I was rooting around in the kitchen cupboards and the fridge, and had located bacon and eggs and bread, and was just about to start frying it all up in a monstrous black skillet type thing I’d found, when someone said, “You must be Mark.” I seriously have no idea how I managed not to drop that thing on my foot.

  I turned and said in a quivering voice, “You gave me a fright.” I hadn’t heard any sounds of someone approaching at all. Creepy.

  “My apologies,” said a tall man with silvery blonde hair and blue eyes. I recognised the resemblance immediately. He had the same features as Angus, but his colouring was different, obviously, and so was his expression. This man looked like curiosity would look if it had a human face.

  “No problem. You must be Angus’ brother.”

  “Yes. My name is Marcus.”

  “Aah, the clever one.” Marcus smiled with his eyes, same as his brother. He seemed pleased that I knew who he was.

  “Better not let Fergus hear you say that,” he warned, his lips twitching.

  I grinned back. “I was just about to make breakfast,” I said, lifting the skillet onto the stove.

  “Go ahead. Fergus and I have already eaten.”

  “D’you think I should make something for…” I pointed upstairs as I spoke. Marcus shook his head. “They are going to need a few more hours sleep. I actually wanted to tell you that Fergus and I spoke to your mother late last night, and we told her that we had happened upon a white van that had been ditched by the side of the road, and had rescued your sister. She had been in too much shock to give us any details until very late last night, so we hadn’t been able to contact her family until then.

  “You, in the meanwhile had gone off with Angus to look for her, and you will be arriving here in about twenty minutes. We phoned you a bit earlier than your mother because Rebecca remembered that you were there when they took her, and wanted you to know that she was OK first.”

  My eyebrows climbed up my forehead.

  “I know. It’s the best we could come up with now. Rebecca doesn’t want the police involved at all, and she’s not saying why. She wasn’t hurt, by the way, she’s just a bit shaken up. You wanted to get here to verify our story and see your sister before you phoned your mother.”

  “OK. D’you think she’ll buy it?”

  “She has to.”

  “Yeah. Is Angus OK?”

  “He is. He should be up and about in a few hours.”

  “Thanks.”

  Marcus nodded, and turned and left as silently as he had arrived. I fried bacon and eggs, and made a fat sandwich while I waited for the twenty minutes to elapse until I could phone my mother. I dialled her number a few minutes early, anyway. I was still licking bacon fat from my fingers. I would have to talk to her about the vegetarian thing. Eventually.

  “Hello?” anxiety laced her voice, but there was hope also.

  “Hi Mum, it’s Mark.”

  “Mark!” the word gushed from her. “Are you with Rebecca?”

  “Yes. She’s fine, just shaken up and exhausted.” All truth so far.

  She said nothing for a second or two, and then,”Oh, thank God!” and she started sobbing uncontrollably. I said nothing, and let her cry for a minute or so.

  “Mark, is it true that she doesn’t want the police involved?”

  “Yes.” Truth. “The guys who took her had the wrong girl, so they let her go, but said if she described them to the police, or told them anything about them, they’d come back for her.” All lies. Oh, well.

  “Oh Mark! Poor baby. She must be terrified. But that’s not right. The police are involved already. They were the ones who informed me what had happened.” I heard the reproach in her voice, and felt guilty.

  “I know Mum, but she starts crying if we even mention the police. I think it would be best to leave it. She can answer some of their questions when she gets back, but I can tell you now that she won’t tell them much

  Mum appeared to accept this. I was pleased. I made that one up myself. Slick.

  “Where are you?” She sounded more composed now.

  “Aberdeenshire. As soon as Rebecca is awake we will get Angus to drive her back.”

  “Angus. How did he get involved?”

  “He was the only person I could think of to help. I couldn’t stand about waiting for the police when so many other people saw what happened and could answer their questions as well as I could. Probably better. I couldn’t even identify the make of the damn van.”

  “Well, he seems like a very nice man.”

  “He is.” For a vampire.

  “OK, baby. I’ll see you later. Get Rebecca to give me a call when she wakes up.”

  “I will, Mum.”

  “Love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  As I hung up, I was profoundly grateful that she had taken it so well. Then I remembered the kitten, and I phoned her back, and asked her to go across to Angus’ place and check that it was OK, and give it some food and fresh water. She laughed, a lot more cheerful now, and promised to go across right away. I tried to remember if Angus had locked his house; I didn’t think so. Why would he. He probably wished someone would try to break in.

  Rebecca

  I woke up with sunlight streaming through the windows. Bleak wintry sunlight, sure, but it was definitely sunlight. The events of the previous day came flooding into my mind. Angus! I needed to see him, to make sure that he was OK. I stood up and stumbled on uncertain legs through the doorway of my bedroom, and into the passage beyond. Everything looked strangely unfamiliar in the daylight. I felt disorientated, and dizzy. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply until the giddiness subsided. I turned to my right and made my way along the passage. There were two more bedrooms and a bathroom, and then another bedroom. And there was Angus.

  He was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his face relaxed and peaceful. My breath caught in my throat as I stood and watched him. He was so beautiful. I suddenly felt an almost visceral need to touch him. I crossed the room and stood next to his bed, leaning over his sleeping form. And then he was awake, smiling up at me, his eyes watching my face hungrily. I smiled back. He groaned and his arm snaked out and wrapped around me and pulled me down on top of him. I giggled, and stretched out next to him, my head on his chest, my eyes closed, inhaling his delicious scent.

  “You’re in deep trouble, you know,” his voice was husky.

  “Why?” I lifted my head to look at his face.

  “Your brother’s on his way up. And you’re half naked in bed with some man.”

  “I’ve got clothes on!”

  “Not enough,” he growled.

  Just then Mark burst through the door.

  “Aargh! Get a room!” He didn’t look disgusted, though. He was laughing. “Come on you two, get up already. We’re waiting for you downstairs. There are a few things we need to discuss urgently, plus Bex has to phone Mum.”

  “Mum! Oh, God, she must be going crazy!” All my happiness dissolved, just like that. I felt immensely guilty for forgetting about my mother in all of the relief of being alive and well and with Angus.

  “It’s OK, Sis, I spoke to her earlier. Marcus and Fergus phoned her before that, and gave her a bit of a cover story. I’ll explain on the way down,” he added pointedly, and indicated the antique wardrobe that stood against one wall of the bedroom. “Put some clothes on, please.”

  “I’ve got c
lothes on!” I said again.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, unconvinced. “Put more on.” He turned and went to stand outside the door while I reluctantly stood up and went to look through the wardrobe. Angus stayed in bed.

  “Can I wear some of these, do you think?” I asked him, surveying the collection of jeans and shirts and wondering how I was ever going to fit into them.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t look, then.”

  “I may have to.” He was smiling at me again.

  “Right, then, I’m changing in the bathroom,” I said, selecting a few items from the crowded rack, and dragged a leather belt from a shelf.

  “It’s probably safer,” he agreed. I grinned at him and skipped out of the room, past Mark and into the bathroom. I dressed as best I could in those clothes, cinching the jeans around my waist with the belt, and rolling the cuffs up. I washed my face and brushed my teeth using a disposable toothbrush I found in the mirrored cabinet above the basin. Mark was waiting for me as I stepped out of the bathroom, and he explained what Mum had been told so far, as we walked together down the stairs and into the kitchen. It all sounded very plausible.

  Marcus and Fergus were already sitting patiently at the large oak table that took up most of one half of the sizeable kitchen. They were drinking coffee, and discussing samples; of what, I wasn’t sure. They looked up as we entered the kitchen, and smiled.

  I was struck by their obvious resemblance to Angus, and then by the even more noticeable differences. They were very good-looking, beautiful, even, but in a different way to Angus. They looked tamer somehow, more refined. More civilised.

  I smiled back, slightly nervous and said, “I need to phone my mother.”

  “Yes,” said one, and they turned instead to Mark who rolled his eyes, and said, “You were right, she was in his bedroom.” I felt my face blushing furiously as I looked in vain for a phone.

  Mark grinned at me. “Through there,” he said smugly, indicating a doorway that led out into a small hallway. I escaped from the room and spent five minutes talking to Mum, and reassuring her that I was unhurt. Just shaken up. And, no, I definitely did not want the police involved any more. Satisfied at last, she told me that she was off to work for a few hours now, and she would see me later that evening when I got home. I hung up, immensely pleased that she was taking this so well. My mother was a strange combination of bewildered nervousness over a titanium core. We’d all underestimated her.

  Angus

  I’d been dreaming about twisting heads off and then I was suddenly awake and Rebecca was leaning over me. I couldn’t resist, and when she stretched her warm body out next to me, it was rapture and agony for me. Then her brother interrupted us again. Next thing she was standing by my old wardrobe in Fergus’ t-shirt and boxer shorts looking for something to wear, heartbreakingly lovely. I would never see boxer shorts in quite the same way again.

  I closed my eyes as my body remembered the feel of her after she left. Hmmm. I wrenched my thoughts away from her, and stood up to get dressed. My leg was completely healed and painless, the skin smooth and unscarred where the bullet had torn through it last night. I dressed quickly, brushed my teeth, and went downstairs to join the others at the kitchen table just as Rebecca was saying goodbye to her mother on the phone.

  “Coffee?” Mark grinned at me.

  “Please.”

  “I’d love some,” Rebecca said as she came back into the kitchen, her expression relieved and happy. “Mum’s OK.”

  “Yeah, she’s a tough old bird. Who knew?” Mark interjected as he handed out five cups of steaming coffee. We all sat and sipped our coffee in silence, until Marcus spoke.

  “Right. We need to examine the evidence now, so that we can try to understand what happened last night, and why it happened. To do this we will need to correlate all our data. I suggest we begin with Rebecca.”

  “He always talks like that,” smirked Fergus. Rebecca nodded, hiding a smile behind a curtain of silvery blonde hair.

  “I guess that means I should tell you what happened to me yesterday.”

  “Yes,” said Marcus expectantly.

  “OK.” She paused for a few seconds, then started again. “Yesterday morning I was abducted by three guys in a white van. They tied me up and put a pillowcase over my head, and then they left me alone for a while.”

  I gritted my teeth. Listening to this was going to be harder than I had thought.

  “Then the freaky one, whose name was Oscar, started speaking to someone called Jack on a mobile phone, saying he had a present for him. I got the impression that the present was me. He said something about a breeding female, and that he knew I was one of them because he’d seen a video of me wanting to lick blood off my hands that some idiot had posted on Youtube.” She grimaced. “He took the pillowcase off my head and took a photo of me with the mobile, and I think he sent it to this Jack person.”

  “They drove for hours, and then they stopped at this place that looked like an institution of some sort. One of the other men picked me up and carried me to a kind of dungeon under an old stone barn. I peed all over him.” She smiled at the memory, completely unrepentant. Mark giggled, and said, “Cool!”

  “The two normal looking guys locked me in a cell, then untied me and stood guard over me. They made all these suggestive comments about what Jack was going to do when he got there. I wanted to kill them.”

  “Then I threw a flask of tea at one of them and Angus was suddenly there. He shot them.” She smiled grimly. “Angus found the key, unlocked the door and let me out. Then the man with the gruff voice shot him through the leg. I could see it was broken by the way it bent when he fell. I was mad at the man who shot him, and I knew I would have to get Angus out of there. So I bit him, and drank his blood, and carried Angus back to the car. I even kicked down a wall.”

  “Awesome!” Mark breathed. “So that’s why you were covered in blood.”

  “Yes,” Rebecca smiled gratefully at him, clearly relieved at his reaction.

  “Interesting,” said Marcus. “Youtube, you say. We wondered how they’d found you.” He turned to Mark. “Your turn, please.”

  Mark looked puzzled. “I didn’t do much of anything really. I saw Rebecca being abducted, called the police, and then thought of Angus. I showed him where they’d taken her and then refused to get out of the car, which is why I’m here now.” He said it as if he was having the time of his life. I was starting to have my suspicions about Mark; he was fourteen and apparently fearless; he probably was having the time of his life.

  Fergus glanced at me before he spoke to Mark. “I think you did a lot more than you will ever realise, young man.” I nodded my agreement.

  Marcus was impatient. “Now you, Angus.”

  “Mark told you how he came to get me. Well, when I smelled that vampire, I suspected that we had an old style coven somewhere. He smelled wrong,” I explained, “like he drank only blood and his body was slowly crumbling because of it. We started driving north, because vampires like the cold, and it’s more isolated up here. I contacted Fergus and gave him a few things to search for, and he eventually found them. He also got me a couple of handguns and an exceptional sniper rifle.” I smiled my thanks at Fergus.

  “I found the place, and managed to kill ten of the eleven vampires living there. One got away.” I left out the gory details. “I found where they were keeping Rebecca, and shot those two men. I should have delivered a head shot to each of them, but I was distracted.” I smiled as I said it. Rebecca blushed.

  “She splinted my leg, and carried me about two and a half miles, running most of the way.”

  “Wow,” said Mark.

  “Wow,” I agreed. “She drove me home. My car still works, too.” Mark gave a shout of laughter at that, and Rebecca scowled at me. God, she was beautiful.

  “Excellent,” said Marcus. “Well, when we got there, the place looked like a bomb had hit it. I assume one had?” he looked at me.

  “I
had a few grenades in a drawer at home. I rigged up the back door to explode when opened.”

  “Yes, and so it did. Fergus and I tidied up as best we could, wiping away prints and tracks and suchlike, and placing the heads near the bodies in assorted rooms of the house. I took some samples,” he smiled, clearly pleased about that. “Then we burned the place down, barn and bungalow too. And we found the van and abandoned it along some country road, as per our story…”

  “We found some papers in the bungalow, innocuous looking receipts and a few handwritten notes. I’m going to have to take them back to Russia to analyse them.” Fergus sounded a bit worried about something.

  “And my samples are degrading as we speak, too. We have to leave in about an hour to go back.” Marcus had a mildly fanatical light in his eyes again. “But first we need to sort out a few matters.” He took a deep breath before he continued, and he looked at Angus through narrowed eyes.

  “Rebecca turns eighteen in eleven days, correct?” She nodded. “You two,” indicating Rebecca and me, “are going to get married then. Fergus will organise the whole thing, of course.” Fergus nodded his agreement. “Something small and tasteful, I think. Then you will live in Angus’ new house until you have finished school.” He looked at Rebecca, who was by now staring open-mouthed at him. “I assume you do wish to finish? You are almost done with your A levels, and you appear to have done quite well so far.”

  “Er, yes, I was planning on finishing,” she said uncertainly, and cast a dazed look at me.

  “They do this to me all the time,” I said wryly.

  “Hush Angus, you know that it needs to be done. This Jack is likely to try and abduct her again. Vampires are likely to be old-fashioned, and he may think twice if she is married. And it will also give you the full authority to protect her.” He smiled grimly. “When she is finished school, I would suggest that you relocate to make it more difficult to find her. We believe that your entire family should be relocated too, to protect them. Where you decide to move is up to you, of course. Money is not an issue.”

  Mark was grinning widely now. The time of his life. I chuckled softly.

  Marcus turned to him now. “When you get home there will be a package waiting for you. It will contain a laptop and an iphone. We will text you our contact details. We want to know if anything happens to these two.” Mark nodded eagerly.

  “One last thing before we go.” Marcus stood up and went out for a few seconds, returning with a stainless steel lockable briefcase. He adjusted the combination locks and it sprang open, revealing and astonishing array of sample bottles and tubes.

  “I will need a sample of blood from all of you now, and some cells from the inside of your mouth.” He smiled avuncularly.

  “Like on CSI?” Mark again. “Me too? Why? I’m not an iron metaboliser.”

  “Indeed. But you could be carrying the recessive gene. I would like to try and isolate it.”

  “OK,” he said and obligingly held his arm out. Marcus took his samples from all of us. Rebecca said nothing throughout, but stared fascinated as her blood flooded the tubes in Marcus’ hand. Eventually Marcus’ briefcase snapped shut, and he and Fergus loaded up the luxury hire car. Mark groaned when Marcus removed his samples from a shelf in the fridge.

  “Oh, man, my bacon was in there with bits of dead vampire!”

  Fergus grinned at him. “Welcome to my world,” he said dryly.

  They were soon ready to go; Marcus was driving because Fergus tended to get distracted. “We will see you again in ten days time,” he said as they waved goodbye, and then they were gone.

  Mark

  What a weird morning. I have to say, I liked Angus’ brothers; Fergus with his nervous energy and quirky sense of humour, and Marcus with his out of date formality and burning curiosity. So when they told Angus and Rebecca that they had to get married in eleven days time, I was worried that Angus was going to attack them or something. But he just sat there and smiled, while Rebecca looked kinda shocked, but she didn’t say anything either. Nothing. Not even while we loaded up Angus’ car, or when we were driving away from the old stone house that Angus and his brothers had grown up in.

  That was a bit of a nerve-racking ride for me. I kept thinking about the guns in the boot, and the bullet proof vest with a squished bullet in it that one of the kidnappers had managed to shoot at Angus. Every time I saw a police car I almost had a heart attack. I kept watching the speedometer, and reminding Angus when he went over seventy. You’d have thought that he would have been irritated, but he just laughed, and he even slowed down. Amazing.

  Rebecca sat up front in the passenger seat and stared out of the window. After a while Angus reached out and put his hand over hers. She turned to him and smiled, but she still said nothing. I got fed up with all this silence after about an hour, and I asked Angus to put the radio on, which he did. I leaned back, closed my eyes and fell asleep.

  Rebecca

  When Marcus told us that we had to get married in eleven days time, and Angus made no objections, I was speechless. I felt an enormous guilt settle on my shoulders, that he should be forced to get married to save me from Jack’s evil intentions. But I was also secretly thrilled at the idea, and then I felt even more guilty for being so pleased about it. I was afraid to speak to him in case he told me that he’d changed his mind about it, and that he’d thought of an alternative plan to foil Jack. How dumb can you be.

  When Angus put his big, warm hand over mine, I wanted to cry, but I smiled at him instead, grateful for the support. I had such a lot to be grateful to this beautiful man for.

  When Mark finally fell asleep, Angus turned the radio down slightly so the snores from the back could be more clearly heard. Then he spoke without taking his eyes off the road.

  “We don’t have to get married if you don’t want to.”

  Oh, God, I thought. This is it. This is where he backs out of it. I was terrified and furious at the same time, mostly at myself for being such a coward. I kept quiet, and felt a tear stealing its way from the corner of one of my eyes.

  He spoke again. “I don’t want you to be forced into doing something you don’t want to do.” He glanced at me. I tried to stare out of the window so he wouldn’t see me crying, but somehow he knew anyway, and he reached out and wiped the tear from my cheek.

  “I didn’t object when Marcus suggested it,” his voice was husky now, “because there is nothing I want more than to be your husband, but if you…” His voice trailed off. It took me a few seconds to comprehend exactly what he was telling me.

  “Really?” I looked at him, and he was smiling at me again, but there was a hint of sadness in his eyes, as if he was expecting me to back out.

  “No,” I said, tears running down my cheeks in earnest now. So this was what it was like to cry with relief and happiness. Bizarre.

  “What do you mean, no?” A puzzled frown creased his handsome brow.

  “No, I don’t want to not marry you! I mean, I do want to marry you!” I was confusing myself now.

  “Really?” he looked surprised and delighted. “So why are you crying?”

  “Because I’m so happy!” Now I was really starting to sound like a halfwit. Angus didn’t seem to mind, though, and he reached out and gently cupped my cheek in one of his hands, and wiped away my tears with his thumb.

  “Watch the road,” I said, smiling like an idiot now. Angus let out a bark of laughter, and the snoring in the back suddenly stopped.

  “What?” said Mark sleepily.

  “Nothing,” I told him. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Well, I would if you would stop making so much noise,” he grumbled. “I can’t hear the radio.”

  I shook my head disapprovingly, and Angus grinned and turned the radio up.

  Angus

  We arrived home just before six in the evening. Rebecca’s mother was already home and eagerly awaiting us. As soon as the car drew up outside her house, she was out of the front door and pulling th
e passenger door open. Rebecca climbed out stiffly and was immediately enveloped in a huge hug. Even Joe looked pleased to see her. He had followed his mother out of the house and stood waiting in the dim light cast by the open doorway. I wondered what he was thinking, but I didn’t reach into his mind. I had decided last night that the minds of this family would remain off limits to me, the same way that my brothers thoughts were. It was like being able to see people naked; just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Unless there was an emergency, of course. I thought about Jack, and wondered if he was out there right now, planning his revenge.

  We were all ushered into the warm sitting room, and plied with coffee and tea. The white kitten appeared out of nowhere and launched itself onto Mark’s lap, purring like a Harley Davidson. I pretended to look disapproving.

  “Little traitor. I think you’d better keep her, Mark. She’s obviously infatuated with you.”

  Mark’s face lit up. “Brilliant! So I can name her what I want to now?”

  “No!” interjected Rebecca. “He wanted to call her Quark, Mum.”

  “What, like the noise a duck makes?” Joe looked puzzled.

  “No!” Mark was impatient. “Subatomic particle, oh daft one.”

  “Oh, physics,” Joe said dismissively. “Still sounds like a duck.”

  “Yeah, I guess it does. What about Soft White?”

  “Like the bread?” Joe was eyeing his younger brother with perplexity. “What’s wrong with you?”

  This was clearly a conversation that was not going to reach any sort of satisfactory conclusion soon. I looked around the room at Rebecca and her mother cuddled together in one corner of the sofa, Mark and Joe sitting at the other end, and I smiled to myself. You’d never say that this family had been brutally ripped apart only yesterday. I knew that they would want to talk about the whole thing later, but for now they seemed satisfied just to be together.

  I thought about all the firearms in the boot of my car, and stood up reluctantly to leave. I had a few things that needed sorting out tonight, starting with a gun safe. I wasn’t going to disarm myself now. Not when Rebecca and her family were so vulnerable. I would need Fergus to acquire some top of the range surveillance equipment, and a few dozen unobtrusive tracking devices. I wasn’t going to risk not being able to find my girl again. I smiled at her as she and her mother stood up to say goodnight. She was tired but radiant. I thought about eleven days time and my heart leapt.

  “Thank you for rescuing my daughter,” Rebecca’s mother said.

  I nodded. “No problem at all, Mrs Harding. Would you mind if I had a word with Rebecca before I left?”

  “Of course.”

  Rebecca blushed as I took her warm hand and led her outside. The feel of her hand in mine was so right, so real, that I was reluctant to let it go.

  “I will fetch you tomorrow and take you to school.” I’d been thinking about this business of her staying to finish her A levels. We might need to rethink that decision at some stage. I would speak to Fergus and Marcus when they arrived for the wedding. I smiled. “I will also be fetching you and taking you until you finish your schooling. I will have a study set up in the spare bedroom of the house, and you can work there in the afternoons until your family are all home in the evenings.”

  “OK.” She nodded.

  “We will need to go shopping tomorrow afternoon.” She looked up at me, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “You need a ring,” I explained. She blushed a fiery red in the gloom.

  “You will probably also have to invite me over for supper tomorrow night so we can tell your family about us getting married,” I continued.

  “OK,” she said again, and then smiled shyly up at me. God, she was lovely. I wanted to stay there the whole night, her hand in mine, but I had to go. She needed to get back inside to her waiting family, and I needed to empty that boot, and go back to my empty house. I had been so used to being alone that I’d never realised what loneliness is. I would miss her for those few hours before the morning.

  “Goodnight, my Rebecca.” I held her chin and kissed her all too briefly on the lips. Then I released that little hand, and turned and walked across the road.

  Jack

  The vampire called Jack surveyed the burnt out ruins of his home. One of his homes, he corrected himself, smiling grimly. His face was angular, with a cruel set to his features, and his smile did nothing to ameliorate the effect. He had arrived the night before, summoned by that idiot Oscar. The fact that Oscar was his son did nothing to change his disapproval of him. Most of the vampires here were his sons, one way or another.

  He had found the bodies last night, lying scattered throughout the house, headless and lifeless. It was as if someone had known that this would be the only reliable way to kill vampires. And when he’d found Oscar’s headless corpse, and smelled the scent of the male vampire who had knelt there and ambushed his coven, he had a pretty good idea of what had happened. He had tracked the sole survivor of the massacre to another of his bases two hundred miles to the west, and had extracted the story from him. The pathetic creature had been remarkably reluctant to reveal what had happened, especially his own cowardly actions, so he’d had to torture him for a while, something which he always enjoyed doing. He smiled again at the thought, this time revealing sharp, yellowed teeth. Who knows, he might even survive. Unfortunately, when he’d finally got back, someone had set fire to the complex, destroying most of the evidence. But he already knew what had happened.

  Oscar had brought this catastrophe upon them when he had kidnapped the girl. She had not been alone and helpless as so many others before her; she had even drank the blood of that idiot Mercer and carried her vampire rescuer to the car, and to safety. Jack was impressed. Furious and enraged, but impressed nonetheless. He would have to proceed cautiously now, but proceed he would. He wanted that girl. She would breed strong minded, powerful vampires, and he would enjoy taming her. And if he managed to destroy the male vampire who had so decimated his personal army, then so much the better.

  Jack glanced again at the photograph that Oscar had sent to his mobile phone. The girl was scowling at the camera, her hair dishevelled, but she was still very attractive. He smiled hungrily.

  He would need to gather some resources before he tried again to take her. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. He was looking forward to it.

  ###

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