The Vampire Gene (5 page)

Rebecca

"You can come closer - I won't bite," a very male voice echoed slightly from the far end of the room.

Yes, but I might, I thought, irritated. It didn't occur to me to be afraid. Ever since I'd
been abducted by Jack's mercenaries and had to drink one of the kidnappers' blood to escape I'd been less nervous in general around normal people. I guess biting someone's neck and sucking out their blood till they died would do that to you. I wondered if I would have to bite this man's neck too. The idea made me salivate slightly, even though I'd had my iron tablets this morning. I felt slightly shocked at my reaction, but then I remembered the heady power that had coursed through my body the last time I'd drank blood. Hmmm.

"Thanks but I'll stay here."

"I am sure Eric will help change your mind." The door behind him opened and an enormous hairless creature dressed in a shiny tracksuit shuffled through it, and shut it carefully behind him.

Seriously, an evil henchman?

I turned towards the door that Lucy had shut behind her and tried to open it. It didn't budge. Yup, definitely locked. Eric took a few steps into the room and pulled a chair out from the table and bowed to me as if he was inviting me to sit down, which I suppose he thought he was.

"You had better sit down before you hurt his feeling
s," the voice said with a sinister chuckle.

I considered my options. I could ignore the offer and continue to stand here, but then fat Eric might lumber over here and from the looks of him bathing was not a priority, so having actual physical contact of any sort with him was going to be seriously gross. Biting necks was one thing, but I had standards. Plus, it looked like I'd have to chew long and hard before could penetrate all the lard covering his carotid. Uck. Option two involved walking across and sitting down. A minor capitulation from me with a major benefit - no Eric contact.

"Fine. Back away from the chair, Eric." He glanced at his boss, and shuffled a couple of metres back from the chair. I walked across the room and plonked myself down in it.

"Thank you. My name is James, and you have already been introduced to Eric."

"Lucky me," I muttered. "What do you want?"

He leaned back in the chair, legs stretched out before him. He had black hair and thick black eyebrows and a sardonic expression played through his glittering dark eyes. He looked good for an older guy - maybe in his forties o
r fifties, so he was obviously not a vampire. The fingers of his left hand curled lazily around the stem of a wine glass, which was half filled with a rich blood coloured liquid which smelled like port. It was eleven in the morning, and he looked halfway drunk. I wondered idly whether I would get drunk too if I drank his blood. I might be willing to take the chance. I stared at him through narrowed eyes.

"I want you to meet my brother."

"Really? Couldn't you phone or email or something like a normal person? And who are you anyway? And how did you get Lucy to cooperate with your scheme?"

"Lucy is my niece. Her father is my brother."

"Well then you can let me go, I've met him already."

"Ah," he smirked. "It's not him I wanted you to meet, but my other brother. Well, I say brother, but he's more of a brother-in-law. He's Julia Colborne's brother, see. I think you may have heard of him. His name is Jack."

As the meaning his words sank in I felt my panic start to soar. Maybe he was talking about a different Jack, I hoped fleetingly. It's a very common name. But by the expression of faint pity on his face and the way I had been trapped here, I knew my foul nemesis had struck again.

But I was damned if I was
going to sit here and wait for him to arrive. I started to push my chair back as the man sitting opposite me stood up and nodded to Eric. For a big guy, Eric moved very quickly and I felt a stinging sensation in my thigh. I glanced down to see his pudgy hand depressing the plunger of a syringe filled with clear fluid, and my elbow came up and instinctively smashed into his nose, squashing it against his face. I smelled blood and grinned, turning towards him. He was clutching his nose, and when he saw my hungry expression he squealed and backed away pretty quickly. I stepped towards him and stumbled slightly. My limbs felt rubbery, and I swayed. I had to sit down, but my chair seemed to be miles away. I sat down heavily on the floor and put my hands out behind me to steady the world, which was spinning around in a sickening way.

"Ketamine is
obviously not your friend," a derisive voice rasped above me.

"An..." I tried to speak, but my tongue wouldn't work. I lay back and turned my face so my cheek was pressed against the cool stone floor, and watched as the demons came for me.

Angus

I listened as long as I was able to Marcus and his new friend discussing Mendelian principles. Fortunately Fergus came to my rescue. He had discovered that the younger
of the two brothers, Simon, had drawn up a family tree, and had an electronic copy sitting in the hard drive of his desktop computer. Marcus suddenly stopped talking, and raised his eyebrows. Julia Colborne smiled and nodded.

"Why don't you gentlemen go and have a look. It goes back a few generations, so it might be helpful for your research, Marcus."

"Thank you, Julia, we would love to see it." Ha! Marcus was on a first name basis with Julia Colborne. I wondered how old she really was.

"Lovely. Now, if you'll excuse me, I will just go and check on the progress of our lunch."

Fergus and I watched Marcus as he watched her walk out of the room. We grinned at each other. Simon led us all down a passage and to his room, which was more of a suite, with its own sitting area, and an en suite bathroom. He went straight to a massive oak desk and started tapping on a wireless keyboard.

Within seconds a
large convoluted diagram appeared on the adjacent monitor, each entry containing a small amount personal information about the individual - date of birth and death, occupation and manner of death. Each person was represented by either a male or female symbol, and was either red if they were iron metabolisers, blue if they were not and yellow if there was no evidence either way. Marcus was instantly fascinated, and oohed and aahed like a grandmother over an infant. I noted that Simon and Lucy were yellow, and Oliver red. Their mother was red, and the father blue.

"Are you in contact with your cousins?" Fergus asked, pointing to a couple of extra branches that jutted out next to Julia Colborne's entry.

"Not really. We occasionally see Uncle James, my dad's brother, but he never had kids, and Uncle Jack hasn't been seen by anyone in the family for a hundred and sixty years, I believe. Dad thinks he's popped his clogs. Probably a good thing - he sounds like a real toe-rag. Mum says he's evil, and she's his sister!"

"Uncle Jack, you say," Fergus looked at me pointedly. "Where's Rebecca?"

"She's gone for a tour of the house with Lucy," I informed him. "I think we'd better find out where she is." The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

Simon looked at each of us in turn. "I'm sure she's fine," he said, picking up on our alarm, and looking puzzled by it.

"Will you help us find her now please? Lucy was going to show her the older part of the house." I struggled to keep the tension out of my voice.

Simon shrugged. "Sure."

He led us down a few corridors and I soon picked up Rebecca's scent. We arrived eventually at a thick wooden door which was closed and appeared to be locked.

"Odd," said Simon. "There is usually a key in this door, and it's never been locked as far as I remember."

I stepped up to the door, and sniffed at the keyhole. "I smell blood. Fresh, but not Rebecca's. Is there another way in?" The door was clearly ancient, and I didn't want to smash it down unless I had to. I could smell that Rebecca was no longer there, so destroying the door would be pointless.

"There's a back door that leads to the service driveway. We have a separate smaller entrance to the estate for deliveries and servants," he explained.

"Let's go," I said, pushing him in front of me so he could lead the way. I felt the dread building, and I was almost shaking with the effort of suppressing it. Simon must have picked up on my tension, because he trotted back the way we had come, and then down a few other corridors and through a massive kitchen. Outside the wind wrapped it icy fingers around us all - the sun had retreated, and the day was grey and bleak. Our feet crunched on the ubiquitous gravel as we rounded one of the corners of the house, and entered through yet another ancient wooden door, this one pocked and weathered. The room beyond it was large with high ceilings criss-crossed by elderly beams. There was a massive table surrounded by dozens of chairs. But there was nobody inside the room.

"Wait!" I barked, and held the others back with one arm. They froze. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, letting the molecules from the air drift over my sensory receptor cells.

"Two men, not vampires, and Rebecca were in this room. Lucy also, but briefly. Seems she left early on in the proceedings."

Fergus looked at Simon in an accusatory manner, as if his sister's actions were somehow his fault. Simon just looked bewildered.

"Also a drug I am not familiar with. Someone was punched in the nose too, one of the males. Probably by Rebecca." I was becoming very worried. If Rebecca had punched someone, she must have felt threatened. Seriously threatened. It had to be him.

Jack was back.

Rebecca

I woke up in a different room. This one looked like it had been built a week ago by a drunk on a bender. No wait, that was just me. The room was revolving nauseatingly around my head like some nightmarish solar system, and at first I thought I was still hallucinating. The handcuff gripping my right wrist clanked against the metal frame of the bed I lay on as I moved. I yanked on it, scraping the skin around my wrist. Definitely not a hallucination. Probably something a lot worse.

I closed my eyes but that made the spinning worse, so I opened them and tried to focus on the contents of the room. Lets see. Ceiling - sort of white - check. Walls. Yup, four of them, with a cheap wooden door at the far end - closed, of course. Some furniture between me and the door - table, chair, big blobby thing. Ah, yes, Eric the Evil Henchman. I rattled the handcuffs again and Eric stood up slowly and lumbered over to where I lay. I pretended to be frightened - it wasn't that hard, if I'm honest. He leered at me.

"Not so feisty now, are we?" he smirked, the effect somewhat spoiled by his broken nose that squatted in the middle of his face like a blood encrusted boil - red and angry looking.

"Nice nose," I taunted him. Why would you do that? I asked myself as Eric's face turned purple with anger.

"Just you wait until Jack gets hold of you, little girl. He's gonna break you."

I had no comeback for that. Seriously, the idea of being handed over to Jack scared the bejeezus out of me. Eric leaned over me.

"Get away from me!" I yelled at him.

He grinned, revealing surprisingly even white teeth.

"Too late, sweetie. Uncle Eric has already had a good feel. If you're a good little girl, I'll let you touch me too."

I looked down and saw h
ow my jumper had been pulled up, exposing my skin to cold air and Eric's lecherous gaze. It dawned on me slowly what must have happened while I was unconscious.

Then it came. I felt the fury flood through me like a tsunami, washing away everything that was me - my conscience, my sense of right and wrong, everything that made me a good person, until there was only a feeling of emptiness, and a shimmering red hot rage.

Mr Blobby reached out a pudgy paw to pat my cheek and instead of flinching like he expected, I jerked my head up and bit his wrist as hard as I could. I felt blood squirt into my mouth.

Result.

I bit harder, my teeth tearing into layers of fat and muscle, and transecting blood vessels and probably some nerves too. I sucked at the wound while I gripped and ground at his wrist with my teeth until they grated on bone. Eric screamed - a high pitched undulating wail, and slapped at me with his other hand. I held on, his hot blood running down the back of my throat. Eventually his frantic slapping and tugging paid off - he pulled free and hurtled backwards, falling heavily on his backside. I had a chunk of his wrist still in my mouth, so I spat it out at him. It missed, but when he saw his mangled flesh lying in front of him he turned to one side and vomited all over the floor.

I waited until he looked up at me again, and licked my lips and grinned, blood running down my chin. He scrambled to his feet and ran, still screaming, out of the door.

Teach you to mess with a vampire, I thought with satisfaction.

Angus

"What have you done, you bitch!" I hissed at Lucy. She was backed against a wall, my hand around her throat, her eyes wide and terrified. Simon and his mother looked on, clearl
y shocked by the turn of events, but they made no move to intervene. We stood in the sun room again, all thoughts of lunch forgotten. Bill Colborne had not reappeared, but the rest of the family had gathered here. Oliver had immediately sensed that something was badly wrong and had gone in search of Lucy, who he found lying on her bed listening to hip hop on her iPod. He had dragged her back to the sun room by her arm, while she loudly protested her innocence.