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

  My attempt at camaraderie must have dislodged something in him, because his face creased into something that might just have been a smile. ‘Tell you what, so long as you don’t go waking me up again gone midnight, I suppose I can let last night go.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘That’s very understanding of you, I promise it won’t happen again.’ Now fuck off out of here before my vampire boyfriend gets free of this suitcase and opens up your carotid artery, I added, though only in my head.

  At that moment the suitcase jolted in my hand and knocked against Munford’s thigh.

  ‘Stone the crows,’ he said. ‘What have you got in there?’

  Searching for an answer, my eyes landed on the blue plastic bag he was carrying. Inside was a carton of milk, a loaf of bread, and a couple of cans of something or other. Shopping. Maybe I could tell him I was going shopping too. Yeah, that could work.

  What are you thinking, Abbey? Shopping with a giant suitcase? You’ll have to do better than that, girl.

  The case shuddered and Neil let out a wolfish growl.

  ‘It’s a dog,’ I stammered.

  ‘A dog?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m, um... taking him to the vets.’ Neil growled again. ‘He hates the vets.’

  Munford cocked an eyebrow. ‘You know we don’t allow dogs in the building, Miss Beckett.’

  ‘Oh, he’s not my dog,’ I explained, punching the side of the case, playfully I hoped. ‘I’m just looking after him for a friend.’

  The old man wasn’t having it. ‘The rules are clear: no animals on the premises for any reason. I’m afraid I’m going to have to report you for this.’

  I didn’t have time to debate the finer points of my tenancy agreement—not while Neil was ready to bust out of my suitcase like the world’s least child-friendly Jack-in-the-box—so I sucked it up and let Munford have this one. ‘Okay then,’ I said. ‘You know best, after all.’

  ‘I don’t like that you’ve put me in this position,’ he replied, tutting. ‘I really don’t.’

  As Munford grabbed the bannister and continued up the stairs, it was all I could do not to whip out my dagger and sink it into his back.

  I’m the Nightstalker, you old coffin-dodger. You’re giving me shit because I knocked on your door in the middle of the night? What if next time it’s a clan of vampires kicking the thing off its hinges? A clan of vampires looking to strap you to an altar and feed your blood to their dark overlord? Maybe then you’ll be thankful that you live opposite the goalkeeper standing between human civilisation and an undead apocalypse, so how about you ease up on the finger-wagging and stay the hell out of my way?

  I don’t know, just a thought.

  With Munford gone, I raced down the last few flights of stairs, hustled through the lobby, and made my way outside. It was another dull winter’s day in Thamesmead; grey buildings squatting beneath an ugly, bruised sky. The chill air lapped at my face as I picked my way across a minefield of broken chicken bones and stepped-on nitrous canisters. Standing on the edge of the pavement, I fired up Uber and ordered myself a ride to Bethnal Green.

  The thrashing inside the suitcase had stopped, but I could still hear laboured breathing beneath. Good. Neil was alive, he’d just tuckered himself out with all that howling and trying to kill me stuff.

  He stayed quiet the whole time I waited for the Uber to show up. Meanwhile, I hopped from foot to foot in the cold as I watched the little car on my phone screen draw nearer. If I could just get Neil in the back of a cab, I’d have a straight shot across the River to the angels, and then I could get him fixed. At least I hoped so. God, I hoped so. I’d just have to believe that was possible for now, because the alternative would have sent me to the ground.

  The cab pulled up and the driver popped the boot then stepped out to help me load the suitcase.

  ‘Let me get that,’ he said.

  He was a big bloke—the kind who had to take a door sideways—and his arms had a puffy, protein shake swell to them.

  ‘That’s okay,’ I told him, ‘I can get it...’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ he said, and grabbed the suitcase by the handle.

  I don’t know who taught him to lift, but he absolutely spazzed it. No sooner had he hoisted it from the ground than his hands were reaching for his tweaked lumbar region.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he cried. ‘What have you got in that thing, bricks?’

  ‘I told you I could get it,’ I said, effortlessly scooping the suitcase up and transferring it to the boot.

  The driver stared at me incredulously, nostrils flared.

  ‘I’ve been working on my guns,’ I joshed, flexing one of my spaghetti arms.

  He was about to say something when Neil squirmed inside the suitcase and let out a muffled yelp.

  ‘What was that?’ asked the driver.

  I considered running the dog lie again, but decided I couldn’t be bothered and slammed the boot shut. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ I told him.

  His eyes searched my face, then he looked me up and down, taking in my all-black outfit and trying to assess whether he had a Myra Hindley situation on his hands.

  ‘No worries,’ he said. ‘Let’s get going.’

  I don’t know if it was the prang to his masculinity, or whether he just didn’t want to mess up his Uber rating, but he was done asking questions.

  I got into the back seat and checked the estimated fare to my destination. Thirty bloody quid. One of these days I was going to have to lay my hands on a driver’s license. It was ridiculous; I’d been conscripted by the forces of righteousness and tasked with vanquishing the vampire menace, yet I couldn’t even execute a poxy three-point turn.

  3

  After a speedy drive to the outskirts of Bethnal Green, the cab driver pulled up to the edge of a derelict industrial park. I climbed out quickly and plucked the suitcase from the boot without bothering to say goodbye. I had the distinct feeling that we weren’t going to end up friends, so why waste time with pleasantries?

  Having waited for the cab to peel off, I turned sideways to manoeuvre through a gap in the rusted chain link fence that surrounded the park, and made my way inside. The suitcase’s wheels rattled noisily over patchy tarmac as I dragged it past the remains of a haunted circuit boards factory. The jostling woke Neil up, causing him to throw another tantrum inside his pint-sized prison.

  ‘Kill you! Drink your blood!’ came his tiny cries.

  I ignored him and marched onwards, hanging a right at the burned-out husk of a forklift that sat on the puddled remains of its tyres. Almost there. Up ahead, I saw what I’d come for, a decommissioned gas tower; a squat, corroded cylinder that served as the angels’ base of operations.

  ‘I need some help here,’ I shouted as I pulled aside the metal sheet concealing the tower’s entrance.

  I heard the scrape of metal on concrete and saw Vizael hobbling towards me on his ivory-handed walking stick. ‘Abbey, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at home resting.’ The old man was clean-shaven and dressed in a presentable, if crumpled, white linen suit. His lively eyes darted to the suitcase. ‘What’s this?’

  As if in answer to his question, one of Neil’s hands sprang through a hole in the zipper and began to claw frantically at the air. It reminded me of one of those novelty money boxes you used to see, with the skeletal hand that reaches out to grab a penny and drag it inside its tomb.

  ‘It’s Neil,’ I explained over the sound of my boyfriend’s frenzied shrieking. I felt the first salty sting of tears in my eyes. ‘He’s one of them, Viz. You’ve got to help me, I don’t know what to do.’

  Vizael placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s all right,’ he said in his soothing radio voice. ‘Everything will be all right.’

  Just then, Gendith appeared on the scene, descending the tower’s circular staircase, hips sashaying. ‘Is that a vampire?’ she asked as she strode over on her celebrity legs, casting a perfect catwalk silhouette. ‘Y
ou brought a vampire into our home?’

  ‘I brought Neil into your home,’ I told her, squaring up to her frustratingly symmetrical features and flawless black skin.

  Viz interjected. ‘Help Abbey get him out of there before he hurts himself.’

  Gen rolled her husky blue eyes, but did as ordered. ‘We’ll need to tie him down,’ she said. ‘I’ll fetch some chains.’

  I didn’t much like the sound of that. I’d only just rescued Neil from the Clan’s antiseptic dungeon, now there I was, being asked to strap him down again. Still, what could I do? Left to his own devices, he’d have taken a nice hot shower in my arterial blood.

  Working together, Gen and I hauled Neil out of the suitcase, transferred him to a chair, and secured his extremities. I make that sound easy, but it was like wrestling an alligator. An alligator hopped up on PCP. Neil gnashed his fangs and threw his head back and forth like he was in the front row of a Mastodon concert. ‘Drink your blood!’ he cried. ‘Drink your blood!’

  Gen caught her breath and took a couple of steps back. ‘This must have been their contingency plan,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Viz.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she replied. ‘If the Nightstalker foiled the Clan’s scheme and saved this one, they’d make sure she died another way.’

  I turned the idea over in my head. ‘Are you telling me they turned my boyfriend into a Munchausen Candidate?’

  ‘I think you’ll find it’s Manchurian Candidate.’

  ‘I don’t care what kind of fucking candidate they made him into, how do I change him back?’

  Just then, Neil’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he went still.

  ‘What happened?’ I cried.

  Viz approached the chair.

  ‘Careful,’ said Gen, ‘he could be faking.’

  Viz took her guidance under advisement, keeping Neil at arm’s length. The old man placed a hand on his jugular. ‘He’s alive,’ he reported, ‘but it looks as though he’s going to be out for a little while. The sun has taken a toll on him.’

  ‘Of course it has,’ Gen replied, ‘he’s a vampire.’

  ‘Can you stop calling him that?’

  ‘He’s a vampire, Abbey. That’s what he is now.’

  ‘I don’t care! Just… just…’ My body felt heavy suddenly, like I’d been draped in a jacket with concrete in its pockets. I was so tired, so sick of this. I’d been on top of the world only a few hours ago, and now it seemed like the Clan had won after all. A sick joke at my expense. ‘Can we get some time alone, please? Just me and Neil.’

  ‘So he can wake up and sweet-talk you into fang-range?’ said Gen.

  ‘No, so we can talk. I know I can get through to him, we’ve been together too long for him to forget who I am. He just needs reminding, that’s all.’

  Gen shook her head. ‘That’s not how this works. Your boyfriend has been turned. He’s your enemy now. You can’t tame them, you can only kill them.’

  ‘Gendith!’ Viz scolded.

  Gen backed down. She looked at me coolly, her blue eyes a pair of frozen ponds. ‘The boy you know is gone, Abbey. If you want to say anything to him right now, say your goodbyes.’

  And she left, both of them did, but not before making double sure that Neil’s bonds were good and tight.

  It wasn’t long before Neil came around – fifteen minutes at most.

  When he woke up this time he wasn’t screaming, nor was he threatening to drink my blood. He was just regular old Neil.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he croaked, his voice rusty from sleep. ‘How did I get here?’

  He sounded completely normal, or about as normal as it’s possible to be when you’ve opened your eyes to find yourself chained semi-naked to a chair, then opened them wider and found your girlfriend pointing the sharp end of a dagger at you.

  ‘You know who I am?’ I asked him.

  ‘What? Are you joking?’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘All right. You’re Abbey. Can I please get out of this chair now?’

  Okay, so he knew who I was, but he’d said my name once already, right before he’d tried to sink his teeth in me.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ I said, wanting nothing more than to unchain him and give him a hug. ‘The vampires… they did something to you.’

  Those evil fuckers. It wasn’t enough that they’d kidnapped my boyfriend and used him as bait, they had to infect him with their disease too? I felt anger boiling in the pit of my stomach, but despite the righteous indignation I felt, I knew I’d played a part in this mess too. I’d allowed this to happen. The life I’d chosen—the life Neil had never agreed to, never even been consulted on—had blown back on me and put him in peril.

  ‘What did they do to me?’ he asked, and as he said it, his tongue landed on his new teeth. He swept the tip over the points of his elongated incisors and winced. ‘Well, I suppose that answers that question.’

  I felt the brand grow hot and reflexively found my hand white-knuckling the grip of my vampire-killing dagger.

  Kill the bloodsucker. Chop off his head. Burn his body to ash.

  The brand, mainlining thoughts to my brain. I pushed them out.

  ‘I’m going to fix this,’ I said, as much for my sake as his.

  Neil nodded unconvincingly, then tightened up as if he’d been punched in the stomach, his face lined with pain. ‘I’m so hungry, Abbey. God, I’m hungry.’ His belly let out a long, sour rumble.

  ‘I’ll get you something to eat,’ I said, bouncing to my feet.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not hungry for food. I need…’ He paused and looked up at me, eyes wet and wide, ‘God, this is gross but... I need blood.’

  ‘Jesus, Neil, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.’ I broke down and told him how guilt-ridden I felt about getting him sucked into the disaster zone of my life.

  ‘Why didn’t you just tell me?’ he asked, and why hadn’t I?

  Because the angels had warned me not to, that’s why. They’d drummed it into me that the war against the vampires was a secret one, and that no one besides us was to know about it. But I shouldn’t have listened to them. Neil deserved to know what was lurking out there. Now, instead of being told about the threat I was facing, he’d become the threat.

  He stared down at his hands; at the claws on his fingers. ‘It’s funny really, all that time I spent writing books about monsters and that… I thought I was writing science fiction, not science fact.’

  I wanted to say sorry again, but the word had lost all meaning. Instead, I just cried.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Neil, face pained but doing his best to sketch out a smile. ‘You’ve done me a favour, really. From now on I won’t have to make up stories, I’ll just crib them from you.’

  Even after all this, he still knew how to make me laugh.

  Another belly rumble and Neil doubled over. ‘Christ, that really hurt,’ he gasped.

  ‘Neil, I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Can you untie me at least? My wrists really hurt.’

  I instinctively went to help him, then stopped. Was Gendith right? Was he trying to sweet-talk me so he could lure me into killing range? ‘I don’t know…’ I said. ‘Maybe that’s not such a good idea. Not yet.’

  ‘I’m so sick of being strapped down, Abbey. Please let me go.’

  I felt sorry for him—of course I did—but I couldn’t risk untying him. I’d seen too many vampires in action already, and I knew two things about them for sure: they were sneaky and they were strong. The moment I loosened one of those chains, there was every chance Neil would go snapping at my neck again.

  ‘I have to keep you tied up,’ I told him.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you think? It was only a few minutes ago you were trying to kill me.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ He seemed sincere.

  ‘Back at the flat? All the way here? Are you telling me you don’t remember trying to o
pen up my throat?’

  ‘What? Shit, no! One minute I was in bed with you, the next I was waking up here tied to a chair.’

  Could he be telling the truth? Was he just temporarily possessed back there? Maybe he was okay now. Maybe it had just been a funny spell. Except, he still had those fangs and that milk-white complexion. He sounded like Neil though. He sounded so much like Neil.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he asked. ‘It's me, Abbey. Come on, we've been together since college, I know everything about you.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I know… I know you once ate twenty-seven slices of economy cheese in one go. I know your favourite film according to Facebook is The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, and I know that your actual favourite film is that Steve Martin one, The Man With Two Brains. Oh, and I know that you like it when I use my tongue to trace the letters of the alphabet on your—’

  ‘Okay, Romeo, that’s enough of that. What else do you know?’

  His voice dropped. ‘I know that I love you.’

  ‘I love you too, Neil.’

  But was he Neil, or was he just some creature dipping his fingers into Neil’s memories?

  His belly snarled again and he folded so hard this time I thought he might snap in half. ‘My stomach… it’s turning itself inside out. I have to feed, Abbey. If I don’t get some blood in me I’m going to die...’

  Sick again. Always sick. Always suffering.

  I’d already seen Neil go through so much, I couldn’t stand to see him undergo anymore. And yet I couldn’t help him either. Couldn’t give him what he wanted, not without getting into trouble with the angels. Christ, Gen would kick my teeth into the back of my skull if she caught me aiding and abetting the enemy, or at least have a bloody good go at it. That’s how focused she was on the mission. The mission to end the Judas Clan, once and for all, and at any cost.

  Gen had every right to hate them too. I know I did. Ever since they’d started rising en masse a decade or so back, the Clan had been using their vampiric powers to infiltrate the upper echelons of high society. You see, the Clan weren’t characters from a penny dreadful, they were a completely different breed of monster: bankers and stock traders and hedge fund managers, profiting wildly from mankind’s misery, siphoning money from the poor and needy before they drained their bodies dry.