Wamphyri

Clarke picked up his crossbow now and looked at it. It was loaded, with the safety on. How dearly he would love to sight it on Yulian Bodescu's black heart. He scowled again and put the weapon down, lit up and drew deeply on one of his rare cigarettes. He was feeling tired and miserable, and not a little nervous. That was probably to be expected, but he put it down to the fact that he'd been taking his coffee blacker and blacker, until he felt sure his blood must now be at least seventy-five per cent pure caffeine! He'd been here since the early hours of the morning, and so far — nothing. At least he had that much to be thankful for.

Down in the entrance hall, Constable Dave Collins quietly opened the door of the flat, looked into the living-room. ‘Stand in for me, Joe,' he said to his colleague. ‘Five minutes for a breath of fresh air. I'm going to stretch my legs down the road a bit.'

The other glanced once more at the Special Branch men at their game, stood up and began buttoning his jacket. He picked up his helmet and followed his friend out into the hall, then unlocked the door and let him out into the street. ‘Fresh air?' he called after him. ‘You're joking. Looks like there's a fog coming up to me!'

Joe Baker watched his colleague stride off down the road, went back inside and closed the door. He should by rights lock it but was satisfied to throw home the single, small stainless steel bolt. He took his seat beside an occasional table bearing a heap of junk mail and some old newspapers — and a tin of cigarette tobacco and papers! Joe gri

He got up, unbolted the door, opened it and looked out. His colleague stood with his back to the door, rubbing his hands and glancing up and down the road. A fine film of moisture gleamed black on his raincoat and helmet. Joe flipped the stub of his cigarette out into the night and said, ‘That was a long five —‘

But that was all he said. For in the next moment the figure on the threshold had turned and grabbed him in hands huge and powerful as iron bands — and he'd taken one look at the face under the helmet and knew that it wasn't Dave Collins! It wasn't anybody human at all!

These were his last thoughts as Yulian Bodescu effortlessly bent Joe's head back and sank his incredible teeth into his throat. They closed like a mantrap on his pounding jugular and severed it. He was dead in a moment, throat torn out and neck broken.

Yulian lowered him to the floor, turned and closed the door to the street. He pushed home the light bolt; that would suffice. It had been the work of mere seconds, a most efficient murder. Blood stained Bodescu's mouth as he snarled silently at the door of the ground floor flat, He reached out his vampire senses and sent them beyond the closed door. Two men in there, close together, busy with whatever they were doing and totally unaware of their danger. But not for long.

Yulian opened the door and without pause strode into the room. He saw the Special Branch officers seated at their card table. They looked up smiling, saw him, his helmet and raincoat, and casually returned to their game

— then looked again! But too late. Yulian was in the room, pacing forward, reaching a taloned hand to pick up a service automatic with its silencer already screwed in position. He would have preferred to kill in his own way, but he supposed that this was as good as any. The officers had barely drawn breath, were scarcely risen to their feet, before he'd fired at them point-blank, half-emptying the weapon's magazine into their cringing, shuddering bodies.

Darcy Clarke had been on the point of falling asleep; perhaps for a little while he had been asleep, but then something had woken him up. He lifted his head, all of his senses at once alert. Something downstairs in the hall? A door closing? Furtive footsteps on the stairs? It could have been any of these things. But how long ago — seconds or minutes?

The telephone rang and shocked him upright, rigid as a pillar in his chair. Heart pounding, he reached for the phone, but Guy Roberts's hand closed on it first. ‘I woke up a minute before you,' Roberts whispered, his voice hoarse in the darkness. ‘Darcy, I think something's up!'

He put the handset to his ear, said: ‘Roberts?'

Clarke heard a ti

‘Jesus!' Roberts exploded into life. He slammed the phone down, came rearing unsteadily to his feet. ‘That was Layard,' he panted. ‘He's found the bastard again —and guess where he is!'

Clarke didn't have to guess, for his talent had taken over. It was telling him to get the hell out of this house; it was even propelling him towards the door. But only for a moment, for his talent ‘knew' that there was danger out there on the landing, and now it was heading Darcy towards the window!

Clarke knew what was happening. He fought it, grabbed up his crossbow, forced himself to follow Roberts's bulk to the door of the flat.

Out on the first floor landing, Yulian had already sensed the hated espers in the room. He knew who they were, and how dangerous they were. An old upright piano stood on broken castors with its back to the handrail at the top of the stairs. It must weigh almost a fifth of a ton, but that was hardly an obstacle to the vampire. He grasped it, gave a grunt, and dragged it bodily into place in front of the door. Its castors snapped off and went skittering, their broken housings ripping up the carpet as Yulian finally got the piano positioned to his satisfaction.

No sooner was he finished than Roberts was on the other side of the door, trying to push it open. ‘Shit!' Roberts snarled. ‘It can only be him, and he's trapped us in here! Darcy, the door opens outwards — give me a hand...'

They thrust their shoulders at the door together, and at last heard the piano's broken claws squealing on the scored floorboards. A gap appeared, and Roberts thrust out an arm into darkness, got a grip on the top of the piano and started to haul himself up and over it. He dragged his crossbow after him, with Clarke pushing from behind.

‘Where the hell are those idiots from downstairs?' Roberts panted.

‘Hurry, for Christ's sake!' Clarke urged him on. ‘He'll be up the stairs by now...‘ But he wasn't. The landing light came on.

Sprawled on top of the piano, Roberts's eyes stood out like shiny pebbles in his face as he gazed directly into the awful visage of Yulian Bodescu. The vampire wrenched Roberts's crossbow from fingers made immobile through shock. He turned the weapon and fired its bolt directly into the gap of the door behind the piano. Then he gurgled something from a throat clotted with blood, and began to methodically batter at Roberts's head. The wire string of the crossbow hummed with the speed and force of his blows.

Roberts had screamed once — one high, shrill scream —before he fell silent under Yulian's onslaught. Blow after blow the vampire rained on him, until his head was a raw red pulp that dripped brains onto the piano's keyboard. And only then did he stop.

Inside the room, Clarke had heard the thrumm of the bolt where it missed him by a hairsbreadth. And looking out through the gap in the door, half-blinded by the light, he had seen what this nightmare Thing had done to Roberts. Numb with horror, nevertheless he tried to line up his own weapon for a shot, but in the next moment Yulian had thrust Roberts's corpse back inside the room on top of Clarke, and rammed the piano back up against the door. And that was when Clarke broke: he couldn't fight that Thing out there and his talent! The latter wouldn't let him. Instead he dropped the crossbow, stumbled back inside the flat and sought a window looking down on the street outside.