Kardinal (3 page)

Southern Carpathians, Romania – 8.49pm (GMT + 2 hours), 16 May, 2011

JAKE Lawton stood in the shadows. A few feet away, the vampires cowered. The train hurtled along the track. Moonlight speared into the trailer from the gap above the door.

Lawton gripped the Spear of Abraham. Legend said the weapon had been forged thousands of years before by Abraham, from the horns of Nimrod, god of the undead. Lawton didn’t know if the legend was true or not. What he did know was that the artefact was effective in killing vampires.

He’d pulled the two horns that formed the double-pointed spear apart, so now he held a short, bone-bladed sword in each hand. One blade for each vampire in the trailer.

Lawton had been trying to sleep. He’d been trying to sleep for eight years. It had become virtually impossible, so for many years he’d not even bothered trying.

But in the past couple of months he’d started to nod off briefly. And during those moments of slumber, he’d been dreaming. Dreams that made him wake up sweating. Dreams he wanted to dream again.

One of the vampires whispered, “It’s him… ”

The other said, “Is… is it you?”

“Might be,” said Lawton.

“You are not him. You have the red mark,” said one of the vampires. “You’re a Nebuchadnezzar. Help us.”

“I’ll help you – by putting you out of your misery.”

The vampires hissed.

Lawton steeled himself. He had to be careful. The vampires were strong and quick – stronger and quicker than him. But they were afraid of him. Afraid because they thought he was Jake Lawton.

Lord of Hell they called him. He turned vampires into ashes.

But they were also wary of him because he carried the mark. The skin of the vampire trinity.

But Lawton did not wear the red mark around his wrist or clipped to his shirt. It was part of his body. It was in his body.

Three months earlier, he’d lost his left eye while fighting a monster forged from Kakash, Kasdeja and a vampire called Nadia Radu.

He destroyed the creature as the Houses of Parliament burned.

Lawton and his companions had fled across the English Channel.

Murray, David, Kwan Mei, and the yacht’s owner were sent home to Britain after they’d been captured. Lawton escaped.

Trying to keep a low profile, he lived as a beggar on the streets of Rotterdam for a week. Every day he washed his wounded eye to prevent it from becoming infected. It was a terrible injury, one that needed hospital treatment. But he couldn’t turn up at a hospital. Everyone was looking for him. He’d be returned to the UK immediately. And then he’d have to start again in his quest to reach Iraq. On the streets of Rotterdam, he listened, he watched, and although he couldn’t understand Dutch, it soon became clear that Holland and its European neighbours had shut their borders. They were battling to keep out the vampire plague blighting Britain. But viruses crept through the tiniest pores. And inevitably, vampire attacks were being reported on the continent.

The news roused dread in Lawton’s heart. There was no escaping the undead. Soon they would vanquish Europe. And what then? Clutching the red mark tightly to protect himself from vampires, Lawton had visited a glassmaker.

They made him an ocular prosthesis. A glass eye. It contained the skin of the vampires. He paid with the last of his money. He’d fixed the eye in its socket. The eye settled. Lawton blinked. Then he’d suffered a strange sensation – he felt the eye shift, as if it were alive. The glass fixture was not completely sealed. There was a pinprick of a hole at the back of the globe, to ensure the material was oxygenated. Lawton thought if it shrivelled, it would no longer protect him.

But viruses crept through the tiniest pores.

That night, with his prosthesis in place, he surprisingly fell asleep – and he dreamed.

He dreamed in red.

He dreamed of red tentacles spewing from a black heart.

He dreamed of the tentacles coiling around him.

He dreamed of them penetrating him, sliding into his mouth and down his throat.

He dreamed of them pushing up his nose, snaking into his ears.

He dreamed of them looping around his bones.

He dreamed of them slithering over his brain.

He dreamed of them poisoning him and changing him.

And he’d woken up sweating, his head throbbing.

“Don’t kill us,” said one of the vampires now.

Lawton ignored the creature’s plea.

He was quick.

The vampires shrieked.

They tried to claw at the door.

Lawton got the first one through the back, piercing its black heart with the tusk.

The other creature turned. Horror etched its face. It hissed, its fangs reflecting the fire spraying off its disintegrating companion.

Lawton drove his sword deep into the second vampire’s chest. Arteries of fire raced along its body. Smoke puffed from its hair. Its face started to melt. Flesh burned away. Bone went to cinders.

And the vampire became dust.

Lawton stood in the shadows, and he felt something he’d never felt before when he stood over the remains of the undead – he felt grief.

LAWTON had sneaked on the freight train in Rotterdam. He didn’t know its destination, but he knew it passed through Romania. And that was all the information he needed.

Romania.

Tălmaciu.

Where the Sadu and the Cibin rivers meet.

For some reason, he knew he had to go there.

Someone was waiting for him.

Someone who would help him in his quest.

Someone who had spoken to him in his dreams.

He kicked at the remains of the vampires and retreated to his corner again. He curled up under a blanket and tried to go back to sleep, tried to go back to his dreams.

Three months ago, when he’d arrived in Rotterdam, there was only one thing on Lawton’s mind.

Kill Nimrod.

He’d planned to travel to Hillah, in Iraq, near where the ancient ruins of Babylon lay, find out if the god of vampires was real – and then kill him.

It would end the war.

It would wipe out the plague.

When Nimrod died, so would the undead borne of his unholy children, Kea, Kakash, and Kasdeja.

Waiting for sleep, Lawton realized that three years ago, he would never have believed in vampires or gods.

But now he’d believe anything just to bring an end to this hell.

When it was all finished, he and Aaliyah could be together. They would find somewhere quiet. They would live simply. They might make a family. If so, they would bring them up in a world without fear, a world where monsters didn’t lurk in the shadows, where predators didn’t hunt you for your blood.

Aaliyah
, he thought. His heart wrenched. He missed her desperately. She was so much more than a lover – she was his ally, his comrade. She was fearless in the face of the undead. If he thought prayer would work, he would have said a few words and asked God to keep her safe.

Aaliyah had left for Iraq with Apostol Goga. They had gone to find and kill Nimrod. But Lawton had argued they should first make sure Britain was safe. He and Aaliyah had fallen out. She wanted to destroy the vampire god.

“Destroy him, and every vampire will die,” Goga had said.

“Destroy him, and we can be together,” said Aaliyah.

But Lawton couldn’t abandon his country.

He’d chosen to stay and fight monsters.

Now, he couldn’t sleep, so he rolled himself a cigarette.

His body ached. Years of fighting had taken their toll. Five bullets were lodged in his body from his days as a soldier. Scars covered his body. Broken bones had healed badly and ached permanently. And now he had lost his eye.

Every bullet, every scar, had been taken for his country.

But how had his country repaid him?

By branding him a traitor.

So what?
he thought.
I’ve always been blamed
.

When he was in the army, he’d fought for his mates – not for Queen or country. And that’s what he would do now. Fight for his friends. Fight for Aaliyah.

He shut his eyes and wished he could dream of them together in a cottage in the middle of nowhere.

But that dream would not come.

Another came in its place.

A dream of a derelict church. Fire burned in the fields surrounding it. A forest of stakes was silhouetted against the flame-red skyline. Thousands of figures writhed on the poles. Screams filled the night. But through the baying came another voice. A sound like honey. A velvet voice.

“
Voivode… voivode… voivode…
”

The voice came from the ruins of the church. Deep in the bowels of the dilapidated building. It called to Lawton. It wanted him to come. And although his head told him that it was only a dream, and meant nothing, his heart said differently. And it was his heart that won the day.

Lawton got to his feet. He dropped the cigarette and crushed it underfoot. He gathered his things quickly. It was time to get off the train and follow his dream to Tălmaciu.

Hillah, Iraq – 12.01am (GMT + 3 hours), 17 May, 2011

ALFRED Fuad wore a black-and-white chequered shemagh, which covered his head, his mouth, and his nose. He shivered against the chill. Nights got cold here. And the pre-fabricated units they had used to construct their camp on the outskirts of the town didn’t really protect against plummeting temperatures.

Alfred was sitting behind the desk in his unit. He yawned and looked at his watch. Just gone 3.00am. In Britain, it was midnight. Vampire time, he thought.

He fired up his laptop and logged on to Skype.

He pulled the shemagh away from his mouth so he could speak, but it was his brother who spoke first.

“Who do you think you are, Lawrence of Arabia?” said George Fuad, his image slightly distorted on the computer’s screen.

Alfred baulked. He loved his brother but hated him just as much. Sometimes he wished him dead. Sometimes he dreamed of being the only Fuad.

They were twins, born in 1946 to a half-Arab father and an English mother.

“Take that thing off,” said George. “You look like a fucking Arab.”

“I am a fucking Arab.”

“You’re a quarter Arab, Alfred. You’re not Sheikh Abdul Abulbul, you know. Remember that? Carry On Camel? What a laugh.” His smile faded, and he was suddenly serious. “You found Nimrod yet?”

Peeling the shemagh from his head, Alfred said, “Not yet. Still digging. It’s deep, George. How’s it going at home?”

“Election on Thursday. Should romp it. Got a rally in Hyde Park later on. Thousands of idiots bound to turn out to lick my arse. People are so stupid. They hate their own country. They’re so easy to manipulate.”

“I’d love to hear your speeches, George.”

“They’re cracking, I’m telling you. Full of Lawton-bashing. Blaming the bastard for everything. I’m saying, ‘Vampires want to live peacefully, side-by-side with us humans.’ Nice, eh? The message is each to his own, that kind of thing.”

“They fall for it?”

“Hook, line and sinker, son,” said George. “I say to them, ‘The enemy within is your own government and the people who attack vampires without reason.’ And they say, ‘Good for you, George, we’ll vote vampire,’ or words to that effect.”

“You think we’ll win the election?”

“We’ll storm it, mate. Our dream of Babylon is coming true. How far are you from Nimrod?”

“I don’t know, George.”

“You didn’t know last week, neither, Alfred.”

“And I might not know next week.”

“Know quickly. We need him.”

Alfred stared at his brother’s hard, cruel face. Unlike his twin, George was clean shaven and wore his hair much shorter. Alfred now ruffled his own long tresses, which were dusty and greasy.

He said, “How do we know he won’t just kill us all?”

“You got the red mark, ain’t you?” said George.

Alfred studied the scarlet-coloured strip of skin before using it to tie his hair into a ponytail.

Alfred said, “But Nimrod’s supposed to be the creator of all vampires. He made the Trinity. He made Kea, Kakash, and Kasdeja. Maybe this mark means nothing to him.”

“Maybe, maybe, maybe, Alfie. Just get going with your dig. You got the government on board?”

“The Iraqi State Organization for Heritage and Antiquities is now officially sanctioning us.”

“Good fella, Alfred.”

“They think we’re looking for artefacts.”

“You are. How’s it looking at the site?”

“We’re sixty-two miles south of Baghdad. A few miles outside Hillah, in the desert. And we’ve built a town, basically. These ex-Royal Engineers Howard Vince hired are incredible. We’re corralling the dig area. We’ve got security fencing, armed guards. We’ve got our industrial drill going down deeper into the desert every day. If this is the site of Babylon, and if the stories are true, then we will find Nimrod, George, I promise you, mate. But we’re not finding anything at the moment. And it makes me think there is nothing to find.”

“You were always impatient, son,” said George.

That was a lie. George was the impatient one. The one who wanted things yesterday. Alfred could wait. He was the cat. Stealthy and patient. George was the dog. I want it now. But Alfred didn’t say anything. No use arguing with George. He was on a high.

Alfred’s cover in Iraq was that of a British archaeologist. His team were students and researchers, fellow archaeologists – “and a few security personnel, of course.”

But apart from the security team and the labour, everyone was a Nebuchadnezzar.

It was exciting for them to be where Babylon had stood. It was where their ancestor Nebuchadnezzar had built a golden empire. He had forged an alliance with the undead. They were his army. He was their provider. They gave him victories over his enemies. He gave them slaves to feed on.

“We’re getting close,” said George, breaking Alfred’s train of thought. George’s eyes were glazed over. He looked like he was on drugs. He said, “Our grandfather came to Britain in 1900, escaping the Ottomans. He brought our history with him and handed it down to us, Alfie. Our heritage is in that earth under your feet. The bones of our people. The blood of our ancestors. The cardinal of our church. Find him. Find him so he can lead us in worship, Alfie. He can lead us to glory. He can anoint me king and you prince. We can rule the world with this new religion, Alfred. Don’t you want to rule the world?”

Before he could answer, someone knocked on the door of his unit, and, without waiting for an answer, two men entered.

Alfred signed off from his brother, pledging to contact him later in the day.

And then he turned to greet his visitors.