London Under Midnight (27 page)

    Just for a second the sound paused. There was a sense of stunned disbelief on the part of the unseen drummers, then the sound rushed back with a vengeance.

    Elmo slid gracefully into the front passenger seat of the car. Trajan bounced down into the driver's seat; Ben climbed into the back. The rear seats had been laid flat to accommodate the corpse-like cargo, so he had to perch alongside them and simply hold the grab handle above the window as Trajan reversed out of the parking space.

    Elmo Kigoma regarded the manhole cover that sealed the entrance to the sewer. 'In life my grandfather was a strong man. In my imagination he's stronger than ever.'

    As the car surged toward the ramp that would take them to street level Ben said, 'I know what you did. You visualized that your grandfather came here. Then you pictured him pushing the manhole cover shut and stopping the vampires leaving the sewer.'

    'See,' Elmo said with satisfaction. 'You are learning. If you continue to learn about the power of imagination then it might yet save our lives.'

    The city streets were darkening now the sun had all but sunk out of sight. Trajan powered the car along the maze of roads. They were busy with traffic and pedestrians alike but now the rush-hour was over they were at least passable.

    'You're right, Mr Kigoma,' Trajan said as he sped through a junction. 'The tricks have started. See the traffic lights?'

    Both the red and green lamps burned, throwing the traffic into chaos. Even from here they could see into the entrance of a tube station where the passenger barriers had spontaneously locked everyone out so crowds began to back out on to the streets to make the congestion even worse. Everywhere people were having trouble with their phones. Ben saw perplexed faces as they looked at the screens while they thumbed the keys.

    Ben grunted. 'Tell me I'm wrong, but I think the ghost just got into the machine.'

    With the sinking of the sun the dusk seemed to creep out of the ground. Most traffic lights appeared to be failing. Meanwhile, the police did what they could to keep vehicles flowing. The saving grace was the time of evening when the roads were at their quietest. As Trajan piloted the car round clumps of buses Ben asked, almost in jest, 'Elmo? Does it help if I imagine the streets are clear of cars?'

    Elmo glanced back. 'Everything positive and life-affirming you can imagine helps.' Then he nodded at the two slumbering forms beneath the blanket that reminded Ben so much of corpses, imagine those two will continue to sleep. It wouldn't do if they woke up now.'

    Ben shifted uncomfortably as the covered shoulder of the comatose vampire pressed against his hip. 'I'll do my best.'

    Trajan steered round a mail van that had bumped against a truck where all the lights blazed green and drivers shouted curses at each other. 'Should I picture a successful outcome, too?'

    'The more of us that do, the better.'

    'But you're telling me Ben here's better at it than I am?' Trajan asked.

    'We all have unique strengths,' Elmo told him. 'But the power of thought is a remarkable thing in all of us. In everything men and women make, we use our minds to generate an image of its appearance. What happens next is purely the labour to turn a dream into an object that we can reach out and touch.'

    They cut down a side street. More people had trouble with the telephones. A man pounded his fist on to the screen of an ATM as the machine refused to return his card or deliver the cash. On another corner two women ripped at one another's hair after their cars had collided at a set of faulty traffic lights.

    Ben said, it's more than the inconvenience of power failure and temperamental electronics; this is creating animosity. Strangers are falling out with one another.'

    'And so the pressure of anger grows,' Elmo said.

    'So this is Edshu's doing?'

    Elmo nodded. 'First he divides the population; they fight one another before he launches the next onslaught. Now his vampires are out there, waiting. When the city is in disarray that will be the best time for them to attack.'

    They drove into Chelsea with its expensive real estate. That wasn't immune either. Lights flickered in offices. An ATM pumped banknotes into the street. Water gushed from a grate to flood the road. Trajan resolutely ploughed through it. 'Not far now,' he told them.

    Ben found it hard to take his eyes away from the two forms beneath the blanket. It may have been the motion of the car, but he thought he saw their limbs begin to twitch.

    'More speed would be appreciated,' Ben said. 'I have a feeling they're starting to wake.' Outside the sky had become a deep blue. On the horizon smears of red marked the position of the sun's descent.

    'Just another couple of minutes until we're there.' Trajan switched on the radio. After a couple of false starts when music surged through the speakers he hit one of the talk radio channels. A bemused male voice was announcing:

    
'… more news coming in. Forget using the Northern and Piccadilly lines as well. There's a power outage that might take hours to restore. We're also hearing problems with signals on the Docklands Light Railway. Elsewhere, escalators have slowed to a snail's pace at underground stations, while disruption to the capital's traffic lights have brought chaos to the streets. Even here in the station we're experiencing voltage surges that are blowing fuses all over the building. Stay with me, your friend in town, Lightning Ray Elmsall, keeping you abreast and up-to-date wherever…'

    Trajan switched off the radio. Ahead, the main road had been blocked by a truck lying on its side. He cut off on to another route that ran beside the river. By now the Thames had turned the colour of lead, while here and there glints of copper shone on its surface.

    Trajan let out a sigh that came from the depths of his soul as much as his lungs. 'There's our boat,' he told them. 'And the guy on the motorbike is here to deliver the keys.'

    Trajan spoke to the motorcyclist who held the keys in his hand. For a moment Ben wondered if the man would ask awkward questions - why do you want the boat? What's that in the back of your car? However, he was simply a hired courier, requiring a signature on a clipboard before handing the keys over. Within seconds of delivering, the courier jumped on to his bike and roared away into the dusk.

    Trajan loped back to the car. 'It's only a dozen yards to the gangplank,' he told them. 'There isn't an easier way, I'm afraid, so it's a case of carrying them on board.'

    Ben was grateful to quit the car as a deep bleakness flooded the street. What's more, the stretch of road between a warehouse and the river was deserted. This time their job of moving the pair should be easier… as long as they didn't wake up.

    

    

    Trajan had wealthy friends. Ben smelt the leather upholstery of the millionaire's launch as he helped carry the stranger on board. The craft was a sleek vision of luxury in ivory. It was more than eighty feet long and boasted a lounge upholstered in leather in that same soft shade of ivory. Some of the furnishings were still wrapped in plastic, while electrical goods stood in boxes on the floor waiting to be installed.

    They carried the man on using the hammock arrangement with the sleeping bag. Trajan grunted. 'It's still being fitted out but I've been promised she's sailable.'

    'And fast, I hope.' Ben helped set the stranger down on the richly carpeted floor of the salon lounge.

    'Twin diesel motors; a top speed of thirty knots; she'll do the job.' Trajan rubbed his strained elbows. 'Ever sailed a motor yacht like this before?

    'I've rowed a dinghy on a park lake, that's all.'

    'You're going to learn fast. I need you to man the pilothouse and steer the boat as I cast off the lines.'

    'You trust me enough not to wreck it?'

    'I trust you with my life, Ben. Come on, once we have April and Mr Kigoma on board we need to move fast.'

    But even as they headed out on to the deck Elmo Kigoma leapt on board, with April over his shoulder.

    'Elmo, we can give you a…'

    'Move!' Elmo shouted. 'They're here!'

    Ben looked at the deserted street.

    'No, not on shore,' Elmo called out. 'In the water! Trajan, you must get the boat moving or they'll swarm all over us.'

    Ben tried to help the man carry the unconscious woman.

    'No! I can manage. You help Trajan.'

    Trajan raced to the pilothouse at rear of the boat. 'Ben, follow me. I'll start the motors and put her into forward at slow speed, then I'll untie the lines. As soon as she starts to move head to the centre of the river and keep the nose pointing downstream.'

    'Trajan. This thing's a hell of a size. I don't know if I can-'

    'You'll be fine. It's like steering a car. Just don't touch the throttle controls. As soon as we're free of the mooring I'll take over. Okay?'

    In near darkness they ran to the stern deck where the pilothouse was located. By now the lights in the high-rise buildings should be blazing but they were in darkness. Was this Edshu's doing? Had the trickster god from Elmo's homeland killed the electricity supply? From across the water it seemed as if a hundred different sirens wailed as ambulances and police cars raced to a multitude of emergencies that the power failure had caused. Before entering the pilothouse Ben glanced over the railing into the river. The moment he did so the surface exploded into gouts of spray as shapes broke the surface. In that swirl of movement and water he saw threshing limbs. Faces broke the surface; they possessed blazing eyes that stared at him with a ravenous intensity.

    Trajan had seen, too. 'Mr Kigoma was right. If we don't get away in the next twenty seconds they'll be on board!'

    He rushed into the pilothouse. Meanwhile, Ben stood there, transfixed by that vortex created by the vampires as they writhed in the water. They appeared to be in a state that combined ecstasy and agony. He sensed their hunger. And he knew why they fixed him with their searing eyes.

    'Ben! I need you now. Take the wheel!'

    Ben snapped out of it. Engines hummed as the propellers chopped at the water. Although they'd be going nowhere until Trajan untied the mooring lines. Ben ran into the wheelhouse to be confronted with banks of monitors and electronic equipment.

    'Ben, when she starts to move steer away from the bank. Keep midstream. I'll be right back.' The engines' purr sent vibrations through the boat's wheel. He felt the vessel tug at the lines as if it craved its release from dry land. Through the windows he could see Trajan in the gloom. The blond head bobbed as he ran to the prow to untie the lines there; seconds later he was back amidships to release a line. One remained at the stern.

    Then they climbed the steps that ran up the harbour wall. Ben watched as a dozen men and women moved like panthers. Water dripped from their matted hair; their soaked clothes were torn; some only had a few strands of material hanging from their grey bodies. Again, he sensed that vampiric hunger. It drove them at ferocious speeds. And at that moment Ben had no doubt at all the creatures knew that two of their own kind were on board. Elmo Kigoma had warned Ben and Trajan that they would be the focus of the trickster god's attention now. From whatever lair these creatures spent the daylight hours they would be converging on the boat. Above the hum of motors he heard the thump of fists striking the hull. Meanwhile, the vampires that had scaled the steps began to lope toward the boat.

    'Trajan!' Ben yelled. 'We've got company!' He glanced round the pilothouse for a weapon of some sort, but even the furniture was bolted to the floor. 'Hurry up!'

    The grey forms flitted along the harbour pathway towards the boat. Five more seconds. Then they'd simply leap on board. And still Trajan worked at the loop of orange rope around the mooring point on deck. The prow of the boat began to move away from the harbour wall; only the motion was so slow it was agonizing to watch.

    Ben shouted, 'Hurry!' At that point it could have been aimed at Trajan or the boat - or both.

    A second later Trajan moved along the deck carrying the unhitched rope. Instead of hanging slack it was taut. Ben realized that one of the vampires in the water had been able to reach up and grip it. Now it wouldn't let go. On the harbour wall the creatures were only a dozen paces from leaping on to the deck. A glance at those powerful arms told Ben that he wouldn't be able to manhandle them over the side. Trajan still appeared to be having trouble with the rope as he struggled to tug it free from the hands of the monster in the water. The boat continued its unhurried departure from the harbour.

    Ben called to Trajan. 'Have you untied it?'

    'Yes, but-'

    The affirmative was all he wanted to hear. Ben gripped the helm wheel in one hand, while he gripped a large chrome lever that extended from the controls with the other. Although he'd only seen this done on TV he knew that this must be the throttle lever. He rammed it forward as far as it would go. The power units down in the engine room were no weaklings. The bellow of the motor battered his skull. For a moment the boat appeared to stand on its tail as it surged away from the dock. At the same moment the vampires leapt from dry land to the deck.

    A howl of pure joy erupted from Ben's mouth as the boat jetted toward the centre of the river. As the water raced by, waves exploded against the prow to send drops of water fifty feet into the air where they gleamed like diamonds in the moonlight.

    'We did it, Trajan!' Ben screamed. 'We bloody did it!'

    When he glanced round Trajan had vanished. The silver wake formed a shining trail back across dark waters to the harbour. Worse, when he looked through the windows toward the front of the boat he saw three pairs of arms clinging to the guardrail. Most of the vampires hadn't made the leap aboard, but three of their kind had jumped far enough to catch the rail. Now they hung down the port side. He saw three grey faces appear over the rail. Their eyes, which burnt with an uncanny fire, locked on to him through the window. He recognized the satisfaction in their expression.
We've got him,
their faces seemed to say.
There's nothing he can do to save himself.
Ben searched the banks of the river. On Cheyne Walk cars still ran freely. Their headlights illuminated part of the banking there. Then he saw a block of darkness at the edge of the river. With the motors pounding at full revs he steered the boat toward that black oblong on the water. The three vampires that clung to the rail were now hoisting themselves up the side of the boat. In seconds they would climb fully on board.