Turned: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (Branded Book 2) Read online

  I laughed, but it was bittersweet. This man of rags and bones, this human dog-end, sat amongst his rubbish and his old records, waiting on a fix. And who was I but his scheming dealer, exploiting his addiction for my personal gain?

  ‘Where’s Gendith?’ he asked, sparking up a cigarette.

  ‘Busy.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He ran a hand through the ratty tangles of his hair. ‘Not sure I’m happy dealing with the Nightstalker one-on-one. Doesn’t feel safe exactly. No offence.’

  ‘Safe from me? Come on, there’s nothing to worry about. Not if you tell me what I need to know.’

  ‘See, that right there sounds a lot like a threat.’

  ‘It isn’t, I promise. So long as you talk.’

  Carlo sighed and sunk deeper into his bean bag, too high to give a shit. ‘Go on then, what are you after?’

  ‘Information. Where do the Clan keep it?’

  ‘Depends. What kind of info d’you need?’

  ‘The Top Secret kind. The kind you keep on a secure server, somewhere very, very safe.’

  ‘Ah, gotcha. That would be The Crypt.’

  I wasn’t expecting him to be quite so forthcoming, but I wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth either. ‘I see. What’s that then?’

  ‘An underground facility where the Clan keep their most classified data. If what you’re looking for is anywhere, that’ll be the place.’

  I considered what he was telling me. ‘So you’re saying there’s a giant database on the Judas Clan just lying around in some old bunker? Does Gen know about this?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because she never asked this nicely.’

  He craned his head to the flat’s artex ceiling and stared up at a water stain with the look of a man witnessing the birth of the universe. The Nightstalker blood was kicking in hard. It wouldn’t be long before euphoria gave way to oblivion. I had to act fast.

  I snapped my fingers, realised I didn’t know how to snap my fingers, and nudged him with my foot. ‘Hey! Stay with me.’

  ‘What?’ he mumbled, reluctantly dragged back to reality.

  ‘Tell me more about this Crypt. What are we talking; some musty old cavern full of cobwebs and reel-to-reel computers?’

  ‘Nah,’ he slurred. ‘Hi-tech compound. Hack-proof and proper fancy. All the bells and whistles. Blah blah blah...’

  Before he could crash out, I pushed my phone into his hands. ‘Tell me where.’

  He begrudgingly pecked out the details I needed, cursing periodically when autocorrect got too heavy-handed with his typing, then nodding off each time the spike of anger wore off, prompting me to jab him awake again.

  ‘What are you looking for down there anyway?’ he asked, lazily sliding my phone across the floor to me.

  ‘Same as before. A way to reverse vampirism.’

  ‘Right, right, yeah. Your boyfriend. I remember…’ he grinned idiotically, his eyes staring off in separate directions. Time for me to take off, I reckoned, but before I went, I had one last question.

  ‘Are the Judas Clan really evil, Carlo? All of them, I mean.’

  ‘Yup. ‘cept for me.’

  ‘What makes you so different?’

  ‘Dunno. Freak of nature? Runt of the litter? Why d’you ask?’

  ‘No reason.’

  Of course there was. Regardless of how he got to be who he was, Carlo was proof that the fight between good and evil—the war between the angels and the Clan—wasn’t as black and white as it may have seemed. If Carlo wasn’t a bad guy, that meant there could be other shades of grey between. Other vampires who weren’t trying to break the world in half. Other vampires like Lauden.

  A trickle of drool seeped from between Carlo’s lips, which I took as my cue to leave. I headed for the door, leaving him to vegetate, but I’d only half-turned the knob before he murmured some parting words.

  ‘If there really is a cure, Abs... please… please let me know.’ His voice was plaintive, pleading, an addict experiencing a brief sliver of clarity before returning to a fog of narcotic bliss.

  I nodded to him and he smiled back before his eyelids dropped like a pair of iron portcullises.

  20

  No!’ said Gendith, banging a fist on the table top. Her voice echoed off the gas tower’s curved wall like a bullet. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘What is your problem now?’ I asked, fed up with her constant shitty attitude.

  ‘I’ll tell you what my problem is. We know absolutely nothing about what’s inside this so-called Crypt of yours. We have no blueprints, no run-down of the facility’s security measures, no idea of how many people crew the place. With that many unknowns, a break-in simply is too risky.’

  ‘Calm down, Gendith,’ said Vizael, giving her a look over his glasses from across the table.

  ‘Calm down? Calm down? You seriously expect me to risk my life infiltrating a high-security bunker because she won’t relinquish a simple attachment?’

  Now it was my turn to thump the table. ‘Is that what you think a boyfriend is, Gen? An attachment? Christ Almighty, no wonder you don’t have one.’

  She spat back like a cobra. ‘In case you forgot, you were Sanctified by God. That means the mission comes first, and the mission is to destroy vampires.’

  ‘We’re going to destroy vampires! Lots of vampires. But before we do that, we’re going to stop my boyfriend becoming one.’ It felt strange talking about Neil that way while he was only upstairs, but it needed to be said. ‘It’s our fault he’s in this pile of shit, so if there’s a way to get him out of it, it’s on us to throw down a rope.’

  Gen settled her features into an expression that I think was meant to look sympathetic but only served to make her look all the more haughty. ‘Just because he looks like your boyfriend, doesn’t mean there’s anything left of the person you knew. Make peace with his fate and move on, Abbey. Don’t jump in the casket with him.’

  ‘Breaking into The Crypt is about more than just fixing Neil. Don’t you get it? If this cure works, we can use it on all the vampires. That’s how we destroy them, not by sticking a dagger in them one-by-one, but by turning them back into us.’

  Gen’s voice was like a knife. ‘And how is that going to work exactly? Do you have an infinite supply of Pope blood we don’t know about? Why don’t you just admit the truth: the only reason you want into this bunker is to save your doomed boyfriend.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, girl, I can read your aura.’

  ‘Fuck your aura.’

  Viz rapped the floor with his walking cane, exhausted by our behaviour. ‘Listen to yourselves, the two of you, going in circles like dogs chasing their tails, round and around in maddening circles and getting nowhere. Enough. Stop this madness.’ Gen and I took a moment to compose ourselves then, when it seemed as though we’d passed the point of tearing strips off of one another, Viz continued. ‘This is what we know about the bunker: it was built as an air-raid shelter during the war, then turned into a deep-level telephone exchange in the Fifties before being purchased privately around ten years ago. What it is now, no one knows.’

  ‘But we do know,’ I cut in. ‘The Clan bought the place and called it The Crypt.’

  ‘...Says a junkie who’d tell us just about anything for a fix of your blood,’ Gen interjected.

  ‘Oh, so he’s a junkie when the dirt he gives us doesn’t suit you?’

  Gen snorted. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. What is this “Crypt” of yours even supposed to be?’

  ‘What it is,’ I shot back, ‘is a giant, underground server farm containing masses of valuable data on the Clan.’

  Gen did a double take. ‘Server farm?’ she said, her interest piqued. The cogs started whirring. ‘If we had access to a resource like that we could get the names of any number of high-ranking Clan members. With that kind of knowledge we could put a major dent in their operation.’

  S
he and Viz shared a look.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Gen.

  Viz leaned back in his chair, arms folded as he chewed on his lip and weighed the merits of the mission. Finally, he spoke. ‘If raiding this Crypt is what the Nightstalker decrees, then that is what shall be done. Abbey, you have done so much for us already. It’s time we did something in return and cured Neil of this terrible disease.’

  I liked the sentiment of that very much, but the bit that really caught my ear was hearing one of the angels refer to Neil by his name. It felt good to get some recognition that he was an actual human being, not just some liability, a damsel in distress.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Very well then,’ Viz replied, smiling. ‘Let us discuss how we are to burgle this fortification.’

  ‘There’s only one way to pull this off,’ Gen replied, all business, ‘and that’s using stealth. We’ll need to break in undetected, secure the payload, and be out in the smallest window of time possible.’

  I raised a hand. ‘Not to be a pain in the arse, but do we really need to plan this thing out like it’s a heist? I’m the Nightstalker, you know, not Danny Ocean. Can’t we just march in there and twat the tits off anyone who gets in our way?’

  I didn’t really fancy myself as a cat burglar. I’d never stolen anything outside of a bit of makeup from Boots, and I couldn’t even pull that off without getting busted.

  Gen shook her head. ‘This is the only way. Barging in there guns blazing will only get us killed. The Crypt is the Clan’s home ground. If we trip an alarm, we'll be stuck in a rat hole with who knows how many bloodsuckers. It’s stealth or nothing.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Viz agreed. ‘You’ll need to be invisible. A pane of polished glass. A stealth bomber—’

  ‘The office temp at a staff Christmas party. I get it, I get it.’

  Fine then. We’d go in sneaky. I kept saying I wanted to be more than just a weapon, now it was time to act like it. ‘Stealth it is,’ I said.

  We talked for a little while longer, then decided we best part ways and get some much-needed rest. Gendith was the first to leave the table, heading up the spiral staircase to bed, a curt nod her goodnight. I was about to do the same (only a bit more politely) when Viz stopped me.

  ‘Before you go, one last thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Vampires have night-vision, so there’s every chance it will be pitch black in the depths of that bunker. Tell me Abbey, can you see in the dark?’

  ‘Um, not since I last checked.’

  ‘Of course not.’ He slapped his forehead forgetfully. ‘Give me a moment…’ he hobbled over to an old steamer chest, opened it up, and rummaged around inside. ‘Here, take this.’

  He handed me a green plastic case about the size of a lunchbox.

  ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

  ‘Night-vision goggles. Army surplus that we recently… recovered.’

  I decided not to bother asking him where exactly he’d acquired it from, and opened up the box to get a look at my gift. Inside, sat on a bed of foam padding, was a tuna sandwich.

  ‘What the hell is this?’

  Viz’s eyebrows shot off his forehead. ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry, that's my lunch. I was wondering where that had got to.’ He took the sandwich and had himself a bite. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find those goggles in the morning.’

  ‘What if I hadn't checked and went into battle with the forces of darkness carrying a bloody fish sarnie?’

  The old man shrugged. ‘I’m sure you’d have acquitted yourself somehow. Goodnight, Abbey.’

  And off he tottered to bed.

  I did not sleep easy that night.

  21

  I’d like to state for the record that I still think this is a terrible idea,’ said Gen.

  ‘Yeah, I sort of worked that out the fiftieth time you said it.’

  The two of us were making our way across a plot of vacant scrubland not far from the North Circular. We were dressed in head-to-toe black, which wasn’t much of a stretch for me, considering the somewhat limited palette of my wardrobe. Not that I usually wore a balaclava. That was new.

  While I felt sure that the dark apparel would serve us well once we made it inside The Crypt, up above it, the camouflage wasn’t doing us any favours. The sun was at its highest point in the sky, making us stand out like a couple of poos in a punch bowl. If it seems weird that we’d plan a heist for the middle of the day, remember that solar noon is when the Clan are at their absolute weakest. Yup. Not just a hat-rack, my friend.

  ‘This must be our entry point,’ said Gen, crouching down by a rusted grille overgrown with weeds and brambles.

  ‘What is that, an air duct?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  Another reminder that vampires of the Judas Clan needed to breathe. If they didn’t need oxygen, they’d doubtless have sealed the shaft up a long time ago, but no, they weren’t walking corpses, and they needed air just as much as we did. Could it be that Lauden was dealing me straight, and his kind were more like us than I cared to admit?

  Get your head in the game, Abbey. Now is not the time.

  I crouched down beside Gen and used my dagger to hack away at the vegetation covering the opening until I found us a cranny we could get a lever into. Working together, Gen and I made short work of the corroded metal, prying the grille open and rolling it off to one side.

  A vertical shaft fell away beneath us, so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom.

  ‘Give me some recon,’ Gen ordered.

  ‘Huh?’

  She sighed. ‘Take a look and tell me what’s down there.’

  I gave it a gander but the shaft was dark as squid ink. ‘Buggered if I know,’ I said.

  ‘Use your eyes, girl.’

  This time I gathered what she meant: my Go Go Gadget Nightstalker vision. I hadn’t had cause to use it since we were at the lab on Harley Street, and that already felt life a lifetime ago. I only hoped I could remember what Gen had taught me, and that I’d be able to turn the ground beneath us into glass. I pressed my fingertips to my temples and concentrated hard, pouring my focus into the pit, forcing my senses to explore spaces beyond their limited range. I stood there for ages, sweat pouring off me, but try as I might, I just couldn’t do it. No matter how many layers I peeled back, no matter how hard I pushed, the shaft was too deep, too dark.

  ‘It’s no good,’ I said, giving up and letting my eyesight return to normal.

  ‘I see,’ said Gen, giving me a thin little fuck-you smile. ‘In that case, I’d like to state my record fifty-one times.’

  I huffed and peered back into the shaft. ‘How do we even get down that thing?’ I asked.

  ‘With this.’ She unhooked a backpack from her shoulder and emptied its contents at my feet. On the ground, I saw an electric winch, a couple of climbing harnesses, and I don’t know how many metres of nylon rope. In her hand, Gen held a remote of some kind.

  ‘Battery-powered,’ she said, squeezing the remote’s trigger and causing the winch to unspool.

  ‘First the night-vision goggles, now a fancy grapple rope? Very snazzy. You guys have really upped your game.’

  ‘We’re vampire hunters, of course we're equipped with the proper inventory. What did you expect, a wooden chest full of stakes and mallets?’

  ‘Well, sort of, yeah. Anyway, this is some serious covert ops, behind enemy lines, Tom Clancy shit.’

  ‘Tom who?’

  ‘I don't know, but Neil's got a tonne of his Xbox games.’ Gen ignored me and went about securing the winch in place. ‘I’m just saying, this is some pretty high-tech stuff for a couple of golden oldies living in a grubby metal shack.’

  Gen shot me a look. ‘That “shack”, as you call it, is that way for a reason. The tower is off the grid and out of sight, which means the Clan have yet to discover our base of operations, and should they ever succeed in tracing its location, they’re in for
a nasty surprise.’

  I let the moment hang, assuming that Gen had put the pause there to build suspense, but apparently she’d finished talking. ‘Well, go on then, you big tease’ I said, ‘what’s the surprise?’

  Gen smiled. ‘Before it was bombed during the Blitz there used to be a cathedral where that industrial park now stands. The whole site is built on hallowed ground.’

  ‘And that works against vamps?’

  ‘Of course it does.’

  ‘Then why isn’t Neil affected?’

  ‘Because he’s yet to fully turn.’

  ‘Ugh. Someone really needs to write all these rules down.’

  But wait… the Clan did know where our base of operations was, or at least, Lauden did. When I ran into him the first time, he pointed to the gas tower and told me that if he’d wanted to kill me, he’d have done me in while I slept. Admittedly, not the greatest way to make a first impression, but another point in his favour considering that the park wasn’t currently surrounded by an angry mob of bloodsuckers.

  ‘Time to go,’ said Gen, slipping on a climbing harness and clipping herself to the grapple rope. Before I could raise any further questions, she stepped backwards over the lip of the shaft and glided away like a spider descending on a length of silk. Ten seconds later she touched down at the bottom with such grace that I barely heard her feet hit the ground.

  I keyed my head mic (of course we had head mics). ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  ‘Affirmative,’ came her voice in my earpiece. ‘Now you go.’

  I really wished Gen had stuck around to explain how rappelling worked before she back-flipped into the void, but that’s how she was; strong, capable, and determined that everyone keep up with her breakneck pace. In a way, it was flattering that she had enough confidence in my abilities to let me ride without training wheels. In another way, it was extremely annoying.

  I stepped into my harness and buckled it up as best as I knew how. Meanwhile, Gen returned the rope, along with the trigger that activated it, which was tied to the rope’s end and sent up on automatic.

  Secure in my harness—or as secure as I was going to get—I hooked the rope to one of its many clasps and prayed that I’d chosen the right one. I took the remote in my hand and wrapped my finger around its trigger. Was I really going to do this? Sure I was. I’d never been great with heights, but the brand didn’t care. I felt its power coursing through me, tuning out my surroundings, drowning my fears with a nice big dose of adrenaline.