Blood Dark (36 page)

K
ane headed
through the east side of Blackthorn, navigating the icy fog that had thickened in density and now fully taken hold on the district.

As he skirted the periphery of the hub, the dense fog shrouded all of the usual landmarks, the silhouette he knew so intricately now ethereal in its haziness.

But he knew the abandoned cinema lay ahead, the theatre and the church. And beyond that, to the left, was the derelict school – a building that was now a carcass compared to the hope and prospects that once filled the young minds that played and studied in its walls. Ironically, some of their descendants were now contained by new walls intent on squeezing those very hopes and prospects out of those within.

It was still there though: the hope of something better. And his job was to see to it that that remained.

But as he drew closer and closer to the location, there was a sick feeling in his gut that was hard to ignore; an uneasy feeling that was impossible to suppress.

His need to see her was too overwhelming though.

His need to see Caitlin, to know she was okay, let alone to find out what the hell was happening with Caleb, pushed him onwards against his better judgment.

M
organ ran
his fingers across his brow. He rarely perspired but his forehead was damp despite the chill in the air. Even the padded mats he knelt on were starting to lose their effect.

He checked his watch. The twenty-minute timeframe Caitlin gave him had long passed. Either Kane had been delayed or he wasn’t coming.

He flexed his shoulders and readjusted his rifle-style sedative gun back to its perfect view of the stage.

He checked the tracer on her phone. She was still there – still behind the curtain. And he could hear her breathing through his earpiece.

He didn’t dare risk talking to her again but the minutes were scraping by. He blinked his eyes to try and rid them of their dryness before resting his gaze back on the viewfinder.

Everything was so still.

So silent.

He warily looked over his shoulder, his gut already telling him something was wrong – that maybe Kane hadn’t fallen for it, that maybe he’d sensed a trap.

He blew out a steady breath.

Thirty-five minutes.

He couldn’t hold back any longer.

‘I think we got a no-show,’ he whispered.

But there was nothing.

‘Caitlin?’

He could still hear her breathing.

His heart pounded.

‘Caitlin, are you okay?’

There hadn’t been a hint of a voice, of movement, of a scuffle.

He took his eye off the viewfinder to check his earpiece and adjust it in his ear.

‘Caitlin?’ he asked again.

A trickle of perspiration leaked into his eye.

The call was not part of the plan. Making a call was far from the plan, but the alternative was to sit there and wait.

He lifted his phone to his ear.

Hers rang.

Even up there in lighting box, he could hear it vibrate, exacerbated by the purposefully designed hall acoustics.

‘Shit,’ he hissed.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

Morgan lowered his rifle and switched to his hand-held tranquiliser gun before running swiftly and stealthily across the flyover to the spiral stairs. He gripped onto the balustrade so as not to trip, to break his neck, which could be so easily done at the pace he was going.

‘Caitlin,’ he whispered into his earpiece.

He headed down the corridor, keeping a watchful and wary look into the shadows ahead and behind, before flattening his back against the open doorway that led to the side of the stage.

He spun around the corner, his gun poised up the four steps into the darkness.

He ascended slowly, quietly, listening for any sound of movement – because he could still hear her: he could hear Caitlin’s breathing though it seemed unnaturally loud now.

Reaching the top step, he cast his gaze over the solid balustrade to see the desk.

He backed up to the table as he kept a watchful eye on the shadows. He picked up the phone with the pre-recorded breathing, her combined mouth and earpiece having been left next to it.

And there on the table were two sheets of paper.

J
effry Hansell was escorted
to his seat, the last to arrive.

Sirius aligned his papers once more, then indicated for the lights to be lowered slightly as silence descended on the room.

He loved theatrics to set the mood. There would be plenty of sleepless nights that night, he would see to that. By the time he had finished, he would have a one-hundred per cent majority. He would have them all signing on the dotted line. He would …

The silence was sufficient that even he glanced over his shoulder as the heavy door swept open behind him.

Whoever was scurrying across the shadows of the room, it was enough for him to have to restrain himself from barking at the interruption. But the young man stopped at Cameron, leaning into the far side from Sirius so that even he couldn’t hear the whisper.

‘Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, Dr Throme,’ Cameron remarked, pushing back his chair and standing. ‘I will be back as quickly as possible.’

Sirius turned to try and catch him, to try and find out what the hell was more urgent than the vote. But he knew he had to stay calm. He had to stay composed.

The lights lifted, whispers falling instantly into full-volume conversation.

As if he needed another interruption, Sirius’s phone vibrated in his pocket.

‘She’s gone,’ Morgan said breathily as soon as Sirius answered. ‘Caitlin’s gone.’

Sirius cast a frustrated glance in Hall’s direction before he headed outside. Polished shoes padding on the plush carpet, he found a quieter part of the corridor. ‘What do you mean “gone”?’ he demanded in a whisper. ‘Where the
fuck
is Malloy?’

‘There was a no-show, at least as far as I know.’

The heat in Sirius’s veins pooled into his face. ‘
As far as you know
? Has he taken her? Has he taken her right from under you?’

Morgan hesitated on the end of the phone. ‘I don’t know what’s happened.’

Sirius looked back down the far end of the corridor where Cameron was emerging out of the office to the right, his head lowered slightly as he continued speaking to the same young man who had led him out in the first place.

‘This is
not
what I want to hear,’ Sirius said firmly and quietly.

‘Sirius, she’s left a couple of pages from the file I gave her. She’s circled words in the middle of both. I don’t know what it means. I can’t work it out. I don’t know if it’s some kind of message or …’

‘Then work it out,’ Sirius snapped, slamming his phone shut. He redialed. He had time to leave only a brief message as he saw the young man approaching him.

‘The rabbit is running,’ he said into his phone. ‘Fucking catch it.’

‘Dr Throme,’ the young man said, pulling level. ‘Please come with me.’

‘
T
ake a seat
, Sirius,’ Cameron said.

Sirius looked down at the papers spread over his desk – papers he recognised, except each had a hand-drawn circle marking the middle of the sheet.

Exactly the same as how Morgan had described.

Sirius felt his internal thermostat hitch up a notch.

If she had sussed it, if she had worked it out …

‘Cameron, what is this about?’ Sirius demanded curtly. ‘We have an entire conference room waiting in there.’

‘And they can continue to wait just a little longer,’ Cameron declared. ‘Take a seat.
Please
.’

Sirius took hold of the fabric at the tops of his thighs and tugged his trousers up just a little before sitting. He crossed one leg over the other and leaned back, knowing that, whatever was coming, he wasn’t going to like it.

‘This arrived fifteen minutes ago,’ Cameron remarked, throwing a pile of papers on the edge of the desk in front of Sirius. ‘It has your locale printed all over it. Every document is in relation to Kane Malloy, dating back fifty years. This is the first time I’ve seen it, Sirius.’

Sirius pressed his lips together.

Someone had fucked up. Someone had seriously fucked up.

‘That’s highly classified information for good reason, Cameron.’

‘What reason?’

‘We had to protect the interests of those who made statements.’

‘Sirius, this paints Malloy in a far worse light than you have ever presented to us. This paints him as a ritualistic, murderous psychopath. These reports are sickening. This should have been disclosed years ago. There should have been an entire task force out hunting for this vampire, not some no-kill policy on him. What the hell were you thinking, cure or not? More to the point, what the hell were you thinking putting Caitlin Parish in charge of his case all those years ago knowing this?’

‘Really, Cameron? Your sexism surprises me.’

‘It’s not sexism; it’s common sense. You’re lucky she’s still alive.’

‘I’ve had everything in hand.’

‘
In hand
? You’ve been irresponsible, negligent, dangerous –’

‘I have acted in the best interests of my locale.’

‘By letting Malloy continue to roam the streets of Blackthorn? Why didn’t you reveal this in court when your entire TSCD was being hauled over the coals? If you’d exposed this, we may not be in the publicity mess we are now. At least then people would have known what kind of person your agents were hunting; why they went to such extreme measures to bring him in. You could have saved their reputation, as despicable as it was what they did, people would have understood. You could have had reinforcements, backup.
Why
are you safeguarding him?’

‘
Safeguarding
him? Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Ridiculous? I’m going to postpone the vote tonight.’

‘
What
?’

‘You heard me. Your judgment is clearly flawed, Sirius.’

‘I am your senior, Cameron. I don’t want to pull rank on you here, but what you are doing by delaying this vote is putting my locale at risk and every neighbouring locale in the area.’

‘Why now, Sirius? What is this call for martial law
really
about?’

‘It is about saving this locale. But if you think otherwise, if you want of all this exposed, then expose it. Let the council make their choice,’ he said, marching to the door.

‘You forgot about the watermarks,’ Cameron said, just as Sirius reached for the handle.

Sirius turned around to see Cameron holding up a piece of paper, the circled watermark ignited by the lamplight behind it.

‘If you’re going to fake reports, Sirius, at least use the paper that denotes the appropriate decade, even if not the year.’

B
y keeping Morgan in position
, by tricking him into thinking she was still sat there waiting, Caitlin knew she’d given herself at least a ten-minute head start before he realised and pursued.

Those faked reports were all they had left: their last-ditch attempt to turn her against Kane and get her on side. There was nothing more they could do after that. And that meant the countdown had started.

Either she convinced Morgan there and then that their plan had finally worked or she was to become the involuntary honeytrap, the latter meaning there was no way she was getting out of the building that night. It was the only course of action they had left: they would use her as bait for Kane.

So like an animal cornered by a predator, she knew that the only way to survive was to play dead for just a few hours – and then wriggle free and run just as the predator’s guard was lowered. And to get that guard down, she needed them all to taste victory. Sirius had probably been salivating when she’d managed to trick Morgan into thinking they were finally going to get their hands on Kane.

Caitlin hurried through the props area via the stage hatch. She pushed past the discarded piano, the torn backdrops, the musty children’s costumes, and the array of unearthly looking puppets dominating the shadows as she’d headed towards the defunct boiler room.

As she’d gone through the plans of the school building earlier with Morgan, she’d been as much indicating where Kane would most likely come in as working out how she could escape.

Ducking in and around what was left of the extensive pipework, she finally burst through the boiler-room escape exit, preparing herself for the worst. She’d insisted Morgan come alone but she knew there was no guarantee. She’d checked her clothing for bugs, for any tracking devices as she’d waited on the side of the stage but there was no guarantee they didn’t have some other plan. One way or another, they weren’t going to let her go easily.

But there was no way she was going to allow herself to be used anymore to get to him.

She’d find somewhere to hide, clothes to change into, ensure she was untraceable. And then she’d find Kane.

Using the knocked-over bins and then the bike shed for cover, she ducked through the buckled and torn chain-link fence, down the alley of the row of once residential houses that backed onto the play area and out onto the foggy streets of Blackthorn.

By now the sample of fake reports from the folder should have arrived at the Global Council. She’d sent them from the internal postal system, sneaking down once Morgan’s defenses were lowered. With the official looking stamp from the TSCD, it should have been rapidly passed to the right department.

Either it worked, or it didn’t. It could have been falling on deaf ears, but she had to try. Kane was innocent. He was innocent of so much that they had accused him of and she needed to show the extent Sirius would go to in order to prove to the contrary.

She’d circled the watermarks that would reveal the reports as forgeries: the watermarks that had stood out as they’d been backlit by the computer screen.

For years, she’d studied every single piece of paper ever written about Kane. She’d lain on her bed or on the sofa with the paperwork backlit too many times for her not to know that the stationary changed every few years, and the watermarks with it. Her attention to detail wouldn’t miss even what appeared to have the most superfluous of relevance, such as watermarks.

What Cameron chose to do about it was up to him. If he was in on it, or if he shoved it in a vault somewhere, they were no worse off. But if there was an iota of decency in Cameron, at least he would know that they were lies. More to the point, he would know that Sirius had lied. It would raise questions that she had no doubt Sirius could probably do without at a time when he needed to stay under the radar in order to see his horrific plan through.

Whatever the outcome, Sirius would soon know that she had sussed his mind games. Even now, resentment coiled through her that Meghan had almost been too obvious as the real magic went on behind the scenes with Morgan being the one to come at her from behind.

By now she hoped Morgan found the two pieces of paper: both with circles on the front so he could make the comparison between the genuine report and the forgery. In addition, she hoped he would turn the paper over to see the “fuck” penciled on one sheet and the “you” on the other. If he got them in the right order, he should have got the gist of her official resignation letter.

Because she was done.

She was done with them all.

She was done with them using her to get to Kane. Kane who …

She fell onto her back with a thunk as the figure appeared from the fog in front of her and shoved her backwards.

She was on her feet seconds later only to be slammed face-first against the alley wall, her arm wrenched up behind her back.

She could have mistaken him for a vampire, his strength was so great, until she heard, ‘Hey, baby,’ in her ear.

Like when she’d heard his voice over the telecom almost three weeks ago, she froze.

Her nails clawed concrete. She could barely say it. ‘Rob,’ she whispered.

‘
W
hy
, Sirius?’ Cameron asked. ‘Why fake them?’

Sirius’s jaw involuntarily clenched. The very act of being questioned by his subordinate, having to justify his actions, caused his chest to tighten to the point of inconvenient discomfort.

‘I need to know, Sirius,’ Cameron added.

‘Because we need Malloy,’ Sirius reminded him. ‘For the cure, remember?’

‘And this helps how?’

‘How do you think?’

Cameron frowned. ‘Who were these intended for?’

‘Come now, Cameron – even you can work that out.’

‘Parish.’

His silence, he hoped, confirmed enough.

‘You’re using Parish as
bait
?’ Cameron clarified. ‘That’s why you fought so hard for her to return to the VCU when we wanted her transferred to another locale. All this bullshit about it being better for the media profile … you planned to use her all along.’

‘Agent Parish is exactly that,’ Sirius reminded him. ‘An
agent
. She signed up to fight for the greater good of this locale. It is my job to bring Malloy in and I am bringing him in the safest way I can.’

Cameron grabbed a handful of paper and held them up. ‘By psychologically manipulating one of your employees?’

‘I am using the resources I have.’

‘And what if whoever sent me these has also distributed them to the press?’ Cameron demanded, his condemnatory tone grating on Sirius even further. ‘Did you give thought to the catastrophic nail in the coffin not only for your locale but for the reputation of the TSCD globally?’

‘More reason to act now. You postpone this vote and you will regret it, Cameron.’

Cameron shook his head. ‘There is more to this. I’m going to hold back on a vote until a full enquiry is completed. I’m going to go in there and ask for a temporary vote of no-confidence in you, Sirius. I’m going to take over as head of the Global Council in the interim.’

Sirius stood abruptly. ‘You –’

‘What?’ Cameron demanded, mirroring him as he stood and slammed his hands on the desk.

‘You are making a serious error of judgment.’

‘No,’ Cameron said, his gaze locked steadily on Sirius’s. ‘
You’ve
made a serious error of judgment – and I’m going to find out
exactly
what’s been going on.’