The Rhesus Chart (40 page)

“Let’s go in,” suggests Pete. He steps forward and pulls out a bunch of keys. Then he pauses and pushes the intercom button. Pushes it again. There’s a brief crackle. “Wilson and Schwartz from Capital Laundry Services,” he says. The lock buzzes and he pushes the door open, pocketing his keys again. He glances over his shoulder just once. “That’s funny,” he says. “I wonder where they are? It’s jolly hard to hide a truck that size—”

Alex follows, pushing the door wide open and steps across the threshold. At once he feels a pricking in his fingertips and a buzzing like angry wasps in the small leather fetish-bag they made him wear on a thong around his neck. His pupils dilate. “Something’s
wrong
—” he begins to say.

Everything seems to take forever.

There is a desk and a chair in the office behind the door, and the chair is occupied by a dead man, head lolling, eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling.

The man in the chair is not alone.

A tall, slim woman stands over him. Blonde hair, black leather jacket, black leggings—this is what Alex notices before he gets as far as the pistol she’s holding in one blue-plastic-gloved hand.

“Kiss-kiss, boys.” She smiles, sweet as rat poison. “Over there, please.” She makes a minute gesture with the gun. “You”—to Pete—“kick the door shut.” Alex knows very little about guns (beyond the basics: that they’re machines for making holes in people, and being shot apparently hurts a
lot
) but it looks very black and there’s a fat cylinder sticking out in front, which can’t be good.

“Are you going to kill us?” asks Alex, unable to keep a quaver out of his voice.

“No.” Her smile turns sour. “Not that I don’t want to, you understand, but . . . orders.”

“Don’t provoke her,” murmurs Pete.

“Oh, I’m unprovokable.” Her hearing is acute, too. “It’s my vocation to cleanse the world of things like you.” Another smile, teeth aggressively bared. “Of bloodsuckers and their enablers.”

“Why?” Alex asks, voice rising. “I haven’t done anything to you!”

“If sheep had guns, would they tolerate the farmer just because he hasn’t done anything to them
yet
?” She motions with the pistol, in the direction of the closed inner door. “Open the door. Go inside. Close the door. Don’t make me impatient.”

“What if I say no?” asks Alex, just as Pete tries to say, “You don’t have to do this, truly—”

“
Open
the door,
go inside
, and
close
the door! Or I will shoot you in the kneecaps and drag you through the doorway myself!” Her sudden vehemence makes Alex jump.

Pete reaches for the door handle. “What’s on the other side?” he asks.

“Fucking
do
it.” She raises the gun, holding it two-handed, her eyes burning.

“I’m going! I’m going!” Pete opens the door and shuffles through. Alex twitches, then cringes after him when he sees her expression. It’s the hunger of a tiger on a choke chain, in sight of its next meal but not permitted to approach. A moment later the door closes with a click.

The woman (who is not called Marianne) relaxes slightly. She crosses the room and hurriedly turns a key in the lock on the inner door. She returns her pistol to an inner pocket. Then she sits down on the edge of the desk to wait for the next victims to show up, shivering with joyful anticipation. Her new patron has promised her his leftovers.

 • • • 

IF THERE IS ONE THING WORSE THAN VAMPIRES, IT WOULD HAVE
to be vampire hunters.

Consider: vampires are obligate predators. If they try not to feed, eventually the V-parasites get hungry and chow down on the host. Prudent vampires do not feed indiscriminately, and try to minimize their chances of being caught by picking one victim at a time, and fasting as long between victims as possible. But they are, of necessity, serial killers.

Vampire
hunters
, on the other hand . . .

A vampire hunter is
a serial killer who hunts serial killers
. Not only that: the serial killers they hunt are supernaturally strong ritual magicians with mind-control chops and an aptitude for occult magic.

So I think it’s reasonable to say that vampire hunters either have an extremely short life expectancy, or constitute one of the most deadly threats you are ever likely to encounter. They are invariably howling-at-the-moon stark raving bonkers, and not in a good way. Nobody who wasn’t several screws short of a full set would ever consider hunting vampires for business or pleasure. (Especially because vampires don’t exist. Right? Right.) We are not talking Buffy here.
Paging Dexter, Dexter to the white courtesy telephone . . .
Both Buffy and Dexter are fictional characters, and kind of cute, because their creators want to entertain you, not scare you to death. The real thing is something else.

Having established that vampire hunters are a whole bundle of no fun at all, it’s also important to bear in mind that vampire hunters can sometimes be
a vampire’s best friend
.

Consider that the first law of the vampire club is that, if I can see you, I
will
kill you. But killing in person is messy, dangerous, and can backfire horribly: the risk of overexposure is very real. So smart, experienced, ancient vampires collect vampire hunters wherever possible—cherish them, feed them, keep them in a cotton-wool lined box, and only take them out when it’s time to point them at a rival and pull the trigger.

Do I need to draw you a diagram to show the relationship between Old George, the fang fucker who is not called Marianne, and our mysterious adversary inside the Laundry (not to mention inside a crypt not far from the tomb of Karl Marx)? Yes? Well, it gets complex, like one of those optical-illusion 3D triangles that tries to turn your eyeballs inside out if you stare at it for too long. Let’s just say that right now they are all using each other for their own ends. George created Marianne as a proxy to kill rivals for him. The Rival has gaslighted him into loaning her to him. Marianne is happy because the Rival is feeding her play dates. The Rival, for his part, is using Marianne and George for his own ends in turn . . . and if any of them
ever
slip up in one another’s presence, they will die.

Which brings us back to the scenario I am describing. Not-Marianne is working for a new employer, who has asked her to guard a warehouse door. She has just herded a newbie vampire (and a vicar, by way of innocent bystanders) through it, into the presence of our internal adversary, who has secured her cooperation by promising them to her when he’s finished. Which is to say, he’s neatly detached her from Old George, who will now have to run his own bloody-handed errands. And he’s maneuvered Old George into a position where the only way to safety lies through the New Annex.

Things are about to get very messy indeed, for blood-on-the-walls values of messy.

“GOOD EVENING, VICAR! AND YOU MUST BE ALEX, WHAT-WHAT?
It’s a little cold in here: I’m afraid I couldn’t get the heaters to work. Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve made a pot.”

Alex looks around the darkened warehouse. It’s not totally pitch-black: a couple of underpowered bulbs glimmer in the twilight, dangling on wires from the cross-beams. There’s enough light to see rows of shelving receding into the distance, rising to just below the ceiling, stacked with boxes and tubes and piles of paper on pallets. There are some work tables at the front of the space, and behind them stacks of enormous billboard-sized posters—

The old man gestures at a teapot, surrounded by a neat cluster of mugs and an open half-pint carton of milk. His loose-skinned hand shakes quite noticeably as he picks up the teapot and begins to pour. “I come out here quite regularly. I find that creature comforts always make it slightly more bearable. Don’t you agree?”

Alex nods, unable to break the sudden conviction that this is all a horrible dream.

“Yes, that’s certainly true,” says Pete. To Alex’s surprise he seems to have relaxed somewhat. “We’ve met, haven’t we? In, um, Archives? You’re Basil, um, I’m sorry, Bob didn’t introduce us properly—”

“No, no, that’s quite all right,” says the ancient archivist. “How do you take your tea? Milk and sugar?”

“Milk, no sugar,” says Pete. He nudges Alex.

“Oh! No milk, one sugar.” Alex looks at the door they entered through, then back at the elderly Basil. Woman with gun, or elderly man with teapot. Nostrils flare. “You’re a vampire!” he exclaims, then bites his tongue.

“Don’t be silly, vampires don’t exist,” Basil retorts, then sniffs. He finishes pouring the tea. “Unless we’re talking about the sanguinary curse that adheres to inanimate objects, of course, the organization has several of
those
in inventory; but that’s another story. I could have said it takes one to know one, but then we would be tacitly admitting that vampires
do
exist, and then we’d have to do what vampires always do when they meet.” His hands shake, Alex notices, but his voice is steady and his speech is clear and unhesitating.

“What do—
would
—vampires do when they meet?” asks Alex.

“You’ve seen
Highlander
—there can be only one.” An expression, hard to read in the twilight, crosses Basil’s face. “No? You haven’t seen
Highlander
? I must confess, the talkies are my one vice—I picked it up in the early 1920s and can’t seem to shake it. Vampires kill, lad. It’s in their nature. They can’t help it; if they don’t kill, they die horribly. It is common lore among their kind that the public, were they aware of vampires, would mandate naked noonday parades and shoot everyone who didn’t turn up. Or something like that. So a vampire who allows himself to be recognized as such is a clear and present danger to all other vampires. More tea, Vicar?”

Alex stares at Basil. The gears in his head are whirring as they mesh at high speed, building a Babbage-engine picture of a proposition in predicate calculus. “Why are you breaking the rules?” he finally asks, taking the mug.

A wry smile creeps across Basil’s face.

“If you don’t need me, I’ll just be leaving,” Pete suggests, sidling sideways towards the door. Evidently he’s decided that he’d rather take his chances with the serial killer outside.

“No, I think you should stay,” Basil says, affably enough, and Pete lurches to a stop, as if his feet are rooted to the stained concrete floor. “We don’t
always
kill each other. If we’re evenly matched, we may even leave one another alone: there’s no victor in a fight where everybody dies. To each, his territory. I’m not the only ancient in London, Alex, or even the strongest. But that’s a long story. If I arranged for you to be made, why do you think I would kill you?”

“But the woman outside—but, but Evan’s dead—”

“Evan was your colleague, wasn’t he? The, ahum, hipster?”

Alex nods.

“He went hunting,” Basil explains. “If he hadn’t gone hunting, he’d still be alive.”

“Hunting, for—”

“Hunting for a blood meal. Because he was
hungry
. Can you feel the hunger, Alex? Can you feel it eating you?” Alex nods, convulsively. “I’ve been reading up on you, you know. Almost everyone’s file ends up in the Archives eventually. I read your Miss Murphy’s folder years ago, and the reports on her progress: saw she’d make an excellent client. If I ever need to dispose of her, I can shut her down with a single anonymous phone call. Mr. Menendez is, shall we say, surplus to requirements, and I have arranged for him to be let go as part of the downsizing. He’s another solitary hunter. We can’t permit that. The others—you, for instance—are promising. If you can follow instructions to the letter, we can work together. I can feed you, you know—safely. It has been a long time since I have had slaves, but I think a Praetorian bodyguard of vampires will suit me nicely during the troubled times to come: CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN and all that. Drink your tea, lad, it’s getting cold.”

“But—but—” Alex looks at Pete. The vicar is clearly frightened, and is making the most peculiar hunching/crouching motions. After a few seconds Alex realizes that Pete really
does
think his feet are glued to the floor: it’s as if he’s stuck in a tar pit. “Why am I here?” he finally asks. “If you didn’t bring me here to kill me.” He blinks. “You were in on the Senior Auditor’s meeting. On the inside of his scheme to unearth the vampire in the Laundry . . .”

Basil nods and puts his mug down. (Alex reads the logo and message on its side: MAGIC CIRCLE OF SAFETY.) “It was inevitable that sooner or later somebody would notice. I could feel the questions beginning, the skepticism slipping. Once everyone moved out of Dansey House it was only a matter of time before the geas I worked into the very stones began to lose its grip on their minds. So I planned for this contingency. There will be a small downsizing in an obscure government department, and the individuals who are most credulous and inclined to believe in the existence of vampires will cease to trouble me. At the same time, a particular thorn in my side—the most dangerously psychotic sorcerer in London, who coincidentally created the lady who greeted you—will be drawn out, removed. I’ve stripped him of his best defenses and maneuvered him into a position where he thinks he has no alternative but to attempt to execute the threat presented by the Laundry. I do not expect him to survive. You’re in the safest place you could possibly be right now, Alex, drinking tea in this warehouse with an ancient and powerful vampire while a vampire hunter stands guard on the door. All you have to do is obey me and you’ll be fine.” Basil peers at Alex. “You are thirsty. Yes?”

Alex nods again. There is something soothing and reassuring about Basil’s presence, about the knowledge that Alex is in the presence of an ancient and benevolent elder who wishes him only good—if only the ward he wears on the thong around his neck would stop buzzing like an angry wasp.

“There is lifeblood here,” says Basil. He turns and shuffles slowly towards the far end of the work table; Alex follows him, on the other side. “The MAGIC CIRCLE OF SAFETY public information posters, such as this one here, show how to create a basic protective ward. They were for distribution to the herd, in event of an incursion. However, they are also easily modified with a conductive pencil. Add a simple circuit and they can be activated. Like this one, nearly six feet in diameter. The warded zone is cut off from space and time outside: but you can also use it to stop time from passing inside. There are some, ahem, drawbacks, but if one wants to store something . . . like a packed lunch, to be consumed later . . .”

And indeed there is a perfect hemisphere of darkness rising from the floor beside the end of the large table, atop a sheet of heavy paper that flops across the concrete: its darkness is so complete that in the twilight, it is almost invisible. Basil gestures at it. “I use this warehouse to store my meals. While they’re in stasis the progressive deterioration caused by the parasite is kept in check. I need to take them out of stasis while I’m drinking, so that they can feed the parasite and the parasite feeds me in turn . . . but it reduces the frequency with which one needs to kill. Reduces the risk of exposure, too. Would you care for a glass? I have a passable O Rhesus Negative on tap, stored in this chart.”

Alex’s stomach rumbles. Then, as if in sympathy, his phone vibrates.

“Give that to me.” Basil holds out his hand. As if in a dream, Alex watches himself hand his phablet over. The old man looks at it in distaste. “I see,” he says. “A primitive ward, without the standard organization backdoor. How annoying! How does one—ah.” Alex’s stomach lurches again as Basil removes the back cover and pulls the battery, then tosses the disemboweled phone along the work table. “No interruptions, if you please. Now attend.”

He bends down, then extends a finger towards a tracery of silver script that circles the base of the stasis field, and smudges out a single character. The dome of darkness disappears. In its place, there is a small wooden chair. A young boy, aged perhaps eight, sits in the chair—or rather, is strapped to it with duct tape at wrists and thighs and ankles. He’s cheaply dressed, in scuffed trainers and sweatpants and a hoodie that don’t fit properly, and his head lolls: he doesn’t seem to be aware of his environment. The green head-end of a cannula pokes from the top of his right hand, held in place by surgical tape; a box of syringes sits beneath the chair.

“He’s sedated, but if he could talk he would tell you that perhaps eighty minutes have passed while he’s been sitting on this chair. His mother sold him to me for two hundred pounds and an ounce of heroin a couple of years ago. She’s dead now, of an overdose. I think I got the better deal.” Basil picks up a 20ml syringe and bends over the boy’s wrist. His extraction is fast and practiced. “Here.
Drink.
The more time he spends out of stasis, the faster he’ll deteriorate.”

Alex takes the syringe with nerveless fingers. Behind him, across the warehouse, he can hear Pete retching, but it doesn’t matter.
Nothing
matters next to the thirst that has been eating away at his guts. The ward around his neck has stopped buzzing and lies quiescent against his skin, burning hot. He raises the syringe to his lips and squeezes the plunger, overcome by a sense of desire that is erotic in its intensity, turning his knees to jelly as the first drops touch his tongue.

Blackness. Orgasm. Total loss of control.

A few seconds pass. Alex realizes he’s lying on the floor. He opens his eyes. He’s fallen over but he feels
great
. For the first time in weeks he isn’t half-starved, on the edge of perpetual mild nausea. Someone is standing over him.

“Alex. This is important. Are you awake? Can you hear me, Alex?”

He tries to nod, then tries to say
yes
, but what comes out is: “Oh wow.”

“Good lad! Stand up.”

Alex rolls over, then pushes himself to his knees.

“You, Vicar: over here, yes, go to the young boy in the chair. Stand behind him. Bend over, I’m going to reactivate the ward . . .”

Something out of sight changes, some texture in the background noise, which tells Alex the dome is back in place. And of a sudden, the hunger pangs are back, albeit muted.

“Alex, ah, good. Stand up straight.” He can feel the force of Basil’s will wrapped around him like a warm blanket, and he feels so grateful he can barely find words to express himself. “Stop trying to think, there’s a good boy. I want you to go and stand by the door. Facing it.”

“Wh-what?”

“The
door
, Alex.” (Dammit, you’re half-starved into idiocy.) “That door. The one you came in through, do you remember?”

Alex nods.

“Good. Go and stand by it. If anyone comes through the door, I want you to kill them. It is very important that you kill them.”

“
Must
I?”

“Yes, Alex, you must. Otherwise
they
will kill
you
.”

“But I’ve never—” He shakes. “Need my phone.”

“Never mind your—wait, your phone? Is there something on it? A weapon?” Alex nods. “All right, you may collect your phone. Then go and stand by the door and kill anybody who comes through it.”

Alex, full of energy for the first time in days, jumps to obey.

 • • • 

BASIL NORTHCOTE-ROBINSON, STRIPPED OF HIS COFFIN-DODGER
cover story, stands revealed as an ancient and powerful vampire, who has been working his insidious will on the organization for half a century without detection.

But Basil is not omniscient. He has forgotten something. In fact, he has forgotten several somethings, the combined effect of which will undermine his fiendish scheme to use the organization to destroy his greatest rival, while using his greatest rival to snuff out everybody in the organization who knows the truth about vampires.

For the past century, Basil has lived in England, in the heart of a country riven by two world wars and a grudging retreat from empire. But the retreat from empire ended nearly three decades ago, with the handover of Hong Kong to China.