Kardinal (15 page)

DAVID watched his mother on TV, and his eyes filled with tears.

She was standing behind George Fuad while he addressed the nation in a press conference at the burned ruin of Parliament.

David felt love for her fill his heart, but he also felt anger boil in his blood.

He had been lied to and abandoned. He’d never had a childhood. All he could remember was fighting – first between his mum and dad, then between humans and vampires.

War was his life.

Now he felt more bitter than ever. His friend Kwan Mei had gone up north with Ediz Ün to fight vampires. Mei could muster some forces up there. Her rebellion in February had started in Manchester. She now planned another insurgency. But David had sulked. He wanted to kill George Fuad. He wanted to make a big statement. He wanted attention.

He wanted people to say, “That’s David Murray – he assassinated George Fuad.”

People wouldn’t say things like that if you killed vampires, because lots of people killed vampires. It was nothing special. He wanted to do something special.

“You all right, son?” said Old Bill.

They were in a bedsit in Soho – a crummy, dirty flat that had needles and mouldy food on the floor. A shitty, smelly apartment that had rat poo and dead flies on the windowsills.

Bill said it used to be a brothel before the vampires came. A woman would stand outside and ask men if they wanted to meet a girl. If a man said yes, the woman would take him upstairs into this bedsit, where the men could have sex with one of two Russian girls.

The TV was old. One of those ancient ones with tubes. It sat on the sideboard. There was a damp old mattress in the corner. It was stained with something.

Old Bill sat on a creaky wooden chair.

David sat on the cold, hard floor.

“That’s my mum, there,” he said.

“Nice lady,” said Bill. The old man rolled a fag and handed it to David. David used a match to light the ciggie. He’d been smoking since he was twelve. He was hooked. But at least he hadn’t started drinking yet. Lots of kids his age were already alcoholics. There was nothing else to do in vampire Britain. Schools were only running part-time, three days a week at best. Nothing much for kids to do other than hang around on the streets. And it was probably the first time in history that young people actually listened to their parents’ demands to be in before dark.

David looked at his mum on telly and had a yearning for her to tell him what to do.

Her face was pale. Fear glittered in her eyes. He could tell she didn’t want to be there. It fuelled his hatred for Fuad.

Noises came from outside in the street – laughter, growling, screaming.

“Those vampires getting confident again,” said Bill.

The old man was right. The undead sensed their prey was weaker now. And they had probably been unleashed by the Nebuchadnezzars.

Vampires had stalked humans for years. Mostly it had been done on a small scale. They didn’t want to draw attention to themselves. They knew how clever and effective humans could be at fighting back. But now the vampires were confident. They had allies in power. Nothing to fear anymore. No one to challenge them.

The prey was weak. The hunters were strong.

Welcome to Britain, 2011. Vampire Nation.

David’s blood was up. He listened to what George Fuad was saying on the television: “We can all look forward to a better Britain, a Britain where human and vampire live side by side.”

Side by side
, thought David,
with a wire fence between us – the humans penned inside, the vampires snarling and sneering, waiting to drink our blood.

It would be like Nazi Germany. Concentration camps all over the UK. Humans farmed to produce food for vampires. Some people would be slaves, building the Babylon Fuad dreamed of creating.

Sweating and bleeding for the undead.

I’d rather die
, thought David.
And I will, if I have to
.

He smoked his cigarette. Old Bill smoked too. The bedsit filled with the smell of fresh tobacco. The street outside filled with screams. It was 11.30pm. The time of the vampire. The time for death.

On TV, George Fuad laughed while David’s mum wept.

And that triggered David’s tears again. He loved his mum so much. He wanted her to be his mother again. Like she’d never really been. But that wasn’t to be. Fortune wasn’t going to smile on David and his mum. Fate would not give him a family.

Fuad was inviting David’s mum to the microphone. David’s nerves were on fire. He felt sick and dizzy.

“What’s happening?” he said.

“Turn it up, son,” said Old Bill.

David went to the TV set. The volume knob was missing. He had to twist a screw to increase the volume. He managed it just as his mum’s shaky voice was saying, “And I would encourage anyone thinking of hurting our new government, or its leaders, to hand themselves in. There will be an amnesty for forty-eight hours. Prime Minister Fuad has pledged this. He is a man of his word.”

“No way,” cried David.

“She’s being forced to say this,” said Old Bill, “you can tell. Look, lad, she’s crying. Crying while she’s reading from that piece of paper. And her voice is shaking.”

“I would particularly,” said David’s mum, “like to ask my own, dear son, David, to hand himself in. Prime Minister Fuad has told me, myself once an enemy of the state, that David and I can be together, as mother and son, and we can live safely under the care of the new government. This is true of all sons and mothers, fathers and daughters, who have been torn apart by the terrible war instigated by… by men like… ”

David’s mum fainted.

Black-clad thugs rushed forward to grab her.

David stood up and yelled out for his mother.

Fuad’s face for a second showed fury, but then it softened, and he moved forward to the microphone.

“The poor woman’s under a great deal of pressure,” said Fuad as his thugs carried David’s mum out of shot. Fuad looked directly into the camera. “This has been caused by you, David. Your mum loves you. I’m sure you love your mum, son. We all love our mums. She wants to see you again and be a proper mum to you. Come on, son, give yourself up. All the rest of you, too. You want to see your mums and dads and sons and daughters again? You want to be families again? Give yourselves up and live at peace in my new England.”

Fuad stepped away from the microphone. The camera wheeled to a news reporter, who started talking. But David wasn’t listening. He was in a fury. He was gathering his stuff, getting ready to go to war.

“Calm down, son,” said Old Bill.

“I can’t calm down.”

“You can’t go with all that fire in your belly.”

“I’m going to kill him, Bill.”

“Best do that when you’re cold, not when you’re hot.”

David tried to calm down. Old Bill was right. He had to be in control of his emotions. Jake always told him to do that – control yourself, then you can control other people.

Where was Jake now?

He could really do with Lawton’s company.

“I wish Jake was here,” he said.

“He’s with you, son. In your head, in your heart.”

“I hope he’s not dead; I wouldn’t know what to do without him.”

“You’d know. In war, the young have to be old before their time, son. War makes men of boys like you. Fighting makes you hard and cruel. But you’ve got to fight when you’re calm. Jake would tell you that. Give yourself an hour or two. Have a little plan. Even if you don’t stick with it, it’s worth it. Come on, let’s have a drink and another fag.”

David lay on the cold hard floor again.

He thought about killing Fuad.

The fire in him died. In its place came an icy determination.

Hillah, Iraq – 11.35pm (GMT + 3 hours), 19/20 May, 2011

“ENOUGH,” said a man’s voice as Aaliyah dangled over the pit. “Let her go, Laxman.”

The scarred colonel called Laxman tossed her aside. She hit the ground hard.

“She kneed me in the balls,” said Laxman.

“I’m paying you top whack, and you let a bird get the better of you?” said the newcomer. “I might have to cut your salary, Laxman. Bring them down.”

The speaker, who was in his sixties and wore his dark hair in a ponytail, was Alfred Fuad. Aaliyah recognized him. She glared at Fuad, feeling the hate for him and his brother well up in her breast.

Fuad went to the elevator and opened the scissor-door.

Laxman pulled Aaliyah to her feet and shoved her towards the lift. The other two men ushered Goga into the elevator.

A clanking noise indicated the lift had fired up, and soon it started to descend. Aaliyah’s legs were shaking. The elevator dropped quickly. No one said anything. Aaliyah looked at Goga. He seemed groggy. He was still bleeding. She was about to say something, but he caught her eye and shook his head.

After a few minutes, the elevator came to a stop, and they stepped out into a cavern.

Aaliyah craned her neck and stared upwards. They were a long way down.

Equipment filled the cavern. Drills. Spades. Trowels. A monitor perched on a table. It looked to Aaliyah like a radar machine, and it bleeped now and again. Computers lined the far wall, and staring at the screens were young Middle Eastern men. At the far end of the cavern was the entrance to a tunnel. A Jeep was parked there.

How did they get a Jeep down here?
thought Aaliyah, and she looked up again.

She and Goga were shepherded towards the vehicle and told to get in. She sat in the back, between Laxman and Fuad. Goga got in the front, lodged between the two black-clad men, one of whom started the engine.

The tunnel was illuminated by the same neon strip lights attached to the sides of the pit.

Finally, Aaliyah asked, “What is this place?”

“First, introductions, darling,” said Fuad.

“I know who you are,” she said.

“I know you, too. But who’s this fellow?” said Fuad, nudging Goga.

“I am Apostol Goga, ally of Jake Lawton and Aaliyah Sinclair,” said the Romanian.

“The now-in-custody Jake Lawton,” said Fuad.

Laxman laughed. “Your boyfriend’s been taken by Iraqi security, is what we heard. They’ll probably take him out into the desert, put a bullet in the back of his head.”

Aaliyah nearly passed out. Her blood ran cold.
Keep it together
, she told herself
. They want you to faint or cry
.

“We’re approaching the underworld city of
Irkalla,” said Fuad. “The city of Nimrod.”

Had they found the vampire god? Aaliyah wondered. Had Fuad resurrected the monster? Were they too late? If this were true, and if Jake had also been captured, they really didn’t have much hope.

“You are a fool to awaken Nimrod, Fuad,” said Goga.

“You’re a fool to stop me, Goga.”

“I will stop you – or kill the beast.”

Laxman laughed again. Aaliyah glanced at him. She wondered if Jake could deal with him. She’d seen Jake deal with bigger men. She’d seen him deal with monsters. But he wasn’t here. He was holed up in a prison cell in Baghdad, if these men were to be believed. He’d been arrested. Her heart thundered. She sweated, fear coursing through her.

Goga said to Fuad, “You are mad to think you can control Nimrod. You and your crazy brother.”

“Don’t you fucking call my brother mad – George is a genius. Smack him, Laxman.”

“He’s had enough smacks,” said Laxman.

“You fucking smack him,” said Fuad.

The Colonel sighed, reached over, and swatted Goga across the back of his head. It wasn’t hard. It was just a gesture to appease Fuad. But it didn’t mollify him. It made him madder. He glared at Laxman, and Aaliyah thought he was going to berate the man with the scar on his forehead. But he didn’t. Instead, he turned away and said, “My brother’s going to lead Britain into a golden age.”

“He will destroy it,” said Goga. “And the world with it.”

“The age of monsters is here, and to control them, we’ll be monsters too,” said Fuad.

“And there is no more vile a monster than your brother, that is quite clear,” Goga said.

Fuad said nothing.

They drove on.

The route sloped downwards.

Journey to the centre of the earth
, thought Aaliyah, remembering a film she’d seen as a child with one of her mother’s boyfriends. He had loved monster movies.
He’d love this, then
, she thought. Real monsters. She wondered what had happened to him. Her memories spooled. They made her sad, and she felt tears well. She fended them off, not wanting to cry in Fuad’s presence.

The Jeep stopped in a tunnel that was nearly
thirty feet high and fifty across. It was lit with floodlights. Bulldozers and JCBs were parked up along the wall. Men with hardhats were checking plans. Tents had been erected. It was an underground camp.

Goga and Aaliyah were taken into one of the tents.

“Get back on duty up top,” Laxman told the two black-shirts, “and if I hear of a man with a stick getting the better of you again, I’ll fucking do you both.”

“Fucking girl got the better of you, mate,” said one of them and smirked. He was still smirking when Laxman slid a knife from his belt and sliced open the man’s throat.

Blood spurted.

The smirk turned into a look of horror.

The man’s legs buckled.

He hit the ground.

Blood was a fountain coming from his throat.

He twitched.

His back arched.

He gurgled.

He coughed blood.

He died.

Laxman wiped the knife on his sleeve.

He told the other man, who gawped in horror at his pal, “I’ll do you as well, if you have anything to add.”

The man shook his head.

Fuad told the bloke, “Take him to Malik and tell him to get rid of the body in a shaft.”

For a moment, the man hesitated.

Fuad repeated the order in a louder voice.

The black-shirt dragged the body out of the tent.

Aaliyah gathered herself.

She’d seen death before. Lots of it. She’d seen how cruel men and women could be. But there was a brutal coolness, a vicious matter-of-factness, to the way Laxman had butchered the man. She caught his eye. He held her gaze for a second, a blank stare that said nothing, and then he put Goga’s sunglasses on to hide his eyes.

Fuad spoke as if nothing had
happened. “Come to the table; I want to show you something that’ll cheer you up.”

Aaliyah and Goga were made to stand at the desk while Laxman fired up a laptop. He clicked on a Windows Media icon, and a video player popped up.

And then the footage played.

Aaliyah nearly fainted.

The recording was grainy. It came from a security camera. It showed the white, sandstone steps of a building, and beyond it a street. People wearing Arab clothing walked by. A dark Range Rover came to a sharp stop at the bottom of the steps. Three men in suits leapt out of the vehicle. Big men. Moustaches and dark glasses. Guns at their belts.

They dragged someone out of the car.

The man was stripped to the waist.

He was pale. He was lean and strong. His black hair shoulder length. There was something wrong with his left eye. It seemed swollen, and his head was canted to the left.

His hands were tied behind his back, and the three men led him up the stone steps, and then he was gone from view.

Aaliyah couldn’t stop herself from crying.

“What have you done to him?”

“I ain’t done nothing to him, darling, more’s the pity,” said Fuad. “The Iraqis picked him up a few days ago. Somewhere in the north. They brought him to Baghdad for questioning, according to our sources. Any luck, they’ll torture him.”

“You bastard,” said Aaliyah.

“I know, doll,” said Fuad, “but having Lawton tortured is number one on my bucket list, see. Likely they won’t do that, of course. Seems they’re not into that kind of stuff anymore, at least with Westerners. They’re a bit more civilized since Saddam and his Ba’ath thugs were ousted. He wanted to rebuild Babylon, you know. Saddam. The fella had vision. He knew about Nimrod, too. He tried to do what we’
re doing. If he’d got this far, if he’d found Nimrod and Irkalla, he might well have been running the Middle East by now. Destroyed the fucking Jews. Smashed the fucking oil states. Sadly, he got a bit carried away. Bit too arrogant. We’ll just finish the job for him, eh?”

Aaliyah lunged at him, but Laxman slapped her across the face. She saw stars again and fell to the ground. Her cheek smarted.

Fuad kicked her in the leg, and the sharp pain made her wince. Goga leapt to her aid, but Laxman punched him, decking the Romanian.

Fuad said, “It’s all over, Miss Sinclair. For Jake Lawton. For you, and Mr Goga, too. Your fates are sealed. Colonel Laxman here will travel to Baghdad to finish the job on Lawton. His death will symbolize the end of men and the rise of monsters. Tomorrow, you’ll witness the resurrection of a god. You’ll have front-row seats. And you’ll also have the privilege of being its first sacrifice.”