Red Eye - 02 (23 page)

“Another time. I’ve rested, so I think I should go out on patrol. Check the perimeter.”

“You reckon those soldiers could follow us here?”

“I don’t know. The snowstorm should be covering our tracks. But it’s best not to take any chances.” Redlaw turned to the vampires. “I’d like one of you to come with me. A vampire’s senses are far sharper than mine. You.” He clicked his fingers at Denzel Lomax. “You seem an alert sort of bloke. Up you get.”

Denzel Lomax followed Redlaw out of the room, and Tina stowed the camcorder away in her rucksack, no longer thinking of it as a mere item of electronic equipment. It was far more than that now. What she had in the can was something the world had never seen before. Vampires speaking about themselves, voicing their regrets and anxieties. Beneath the monstrous looks and appetites, they were still human. More than just vestiges of their old selves remained. They were dead but had lives.

Earlier, when she’d told Miguel that vampires were people, she hadn’t exactly meant it. It had been a white lie, blowing smoke up his ass to get him to open up to her.

It seemed, though, that it might actually be the truth.

And it was a truth the public ought to hear, and Tina could hardly wait to get it out there.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

R
EDLAW AND THE
vampire walked the perimeter of the factory site.

“Anything?” Redlaw asked. “Soldiers? Danger?”

The vampire shook his head. “Nothing, so far as I can tell. We’re the only ones for a ways around.”

“Good. It’s Denzel, isn’t it? I caught your name when I overheard you talking to Tina—to her camera.”

“Dennis, actually,” said Denzel. “Dennis is the name I was christened with. But Denzel’s way cooler, and besides, there’s already an actor out there called Dennis Lomax. I checked with Actors’ Equity. TV guy. Done character roles, bit-parts in a few shows, nothing you’d have heard of. We don’t look a thing like each other, on account of he’s old, fat and white and I’m not. He’d never be mistaken for me or me for him. But union rules are union rules.”

“Tell me, Denzel. Are you scared of me?”

“Well, that’s a question, isn’t it? I don’t know. I mean, you’re our shtriga now...”

“Am I?”

“I guess. You keep saying so, and you’re helping us, and you boss us about. Aren’t you our shtriga?”

“Maybe. I’m still adjusting to the idea. Trying it on for size. Would it bother you if I told you I used to police Sunless and hunt and dust rogue ones? Would it make a difference?”

Denzel gave it some thought. “I’ve always believed you should judge someone by their present actions, not their past sins. Otherwise, nobody’d get along with anybody ever.”

“What about this?” Redlaw tugged out the crucifix around his neck. He held it up. “Does this bother you?”

The vampire drew back, squinting, as if a bright light had been shone in his face. Then his frown cleared.

“Not so much,” he said. “We lived in that church a while. Desensitised.”

Redlaw tucked the crucifix away. “Yes, must be that.”

Or my crucifix has no power because there’s no faith behind it. Not any more.

What did that make him then, he wondered? An apostate? Lapsed?

How could he be? He still felt instinctively, with every fibre of his being, that there was a God and that He had a plan for John Redlaw, as He did for everybody. Redlaw might not be able to fathom the nature of that plan, but faith meant he wasn’t supposed to. He was just supposed to accept that a plan existed and that it was for the greater good. As Job had done. And Abraham. And Paul. And even Jesus. The Bible was a litany of examples of people who did as the Lord bade and were loath to query His will, whatever sacrifices or suffering it entailed.

Why should John Redlaw be any different?

He recalled a conversation he had had with Father Graham Dixon, one of their get-togethers in the vicarage at Ladbroke Grove. Redlaw had been drinking tea, Father Dixon pale ale, alcohol being his one priestly vice. This was after Father Dixon’s term as visiting SHADE pastor had ended, when the two men realised they had gone beyond being priest and penitent and were friends. Their get-togethers had become an occasional, informal substitute for confession and also a chance to enjoy each other’s company and chat.

“The absolute all-time bummer,” said Father Dixon, “is you’re never going to get a firm yes or no. About anything. Not ’til after you die. Life is a bizarre one-sided game show, all questions, no answers. The Almighty Quizmaster fires off riddles and conundrums at us and expects us to work them out for ourselves. Occasionally He’ll give us a hint, a nudge, a clue, a sign, but mostly we’re on our own. You, John, want to know if Sergeant Leary’s death has meaning. That’s what’s preying on your mind.”

Róisín Leary had been killed by vampires less than a month earlier, and the wound of her death was still raw and festering, with Redlaw still nowhere nearer fathoming a divine rationale for it.

“And I can’t say if it does,” Father Dixon went on. “That’s got to be for you to figure out. You’re angry that Róisín’s dead because it seems so senseless and because you weren’t there to protect her. Fair enough. We’re allowed our regrets and self-recrimination, especially when we’re grieving. ‘But how can I carry on?’ That’s what you’re asking yourself. She was dear to you, we all know that.”

“She was an over-talkative pain in the you-know-what,” said Redlaw.

“She never shut up, did she? I’m glad I’m C of E and never had to take
her
confession. That would have been a long haul.”

“And for a woman educated by nuns, she certainly didn’t stint on the expletives.”

“Exactly. Róisín was crude and earthy and vivacious and everything you’re not, and you’d never have put up with her as your partner if she hadn’t been special to you, and she likewise wouldn’t have endured being with a grumpy old fart like you if she hadn’t been able to see the decency that’s intrinsic in you, even if you keep it buried deep down. And now she’s dead and you’re thinking, ‘Where’s the justice in that? Good people, people who are important to us, shouldn’t die. Only scumbags should.’ But if God only picked off the scumbags... Well, the world would be a better place, wouldn’t it? But He doesn’t. He’s indiscriminate. He’s tough and arbitrary. He makes us work hard for what we’ve got and He kicks the legs out from under us time and time again. It’s what He does, it’s all He does, and He absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

“That’s some sort of quotation, isn’t it?”

“You need to go to the movies more, John. Would it kill you to rent a DVD every once in a while? Be like the rest of us, us ordinary mortals?”

“So the good are allowed to die while the, as you put it, scumbags flourish,” said Redlaw. “Is that it? You’re fine with that? That’s perfectly acceptable in your world?”

“I never said they flourish.”

“They seem to. There’s evil all around, sin on every street corner, and nobody seems too bothered by it. God certainly not.”

“Ah, and that’s the paradox, Captain Redlaw. The great unresolvable.” Father Dixon took a long, deep pull on his beer. A thin strip of froth adhered to his top lip. “Why does God allow evil to exist in the world, when it’s surely in His power to stamp it out? The thing is, evil isn’t fixed or quantifiable. Evil people aren’t aware that they’re evil. To them, committing foul or harmful deeds is of no consequence. They’ve somehow squared it morally with themselves. They feel no more guilty about it than I do about having this beer. Which is to say, slightly guilty but not to the extent that I’m going to stop. Same with you and your peccadilloes. If you have any. Come to think of it, you probably don’t.”

“I have my moments.”

“I doubt it. God, at any rate, has given each of us free will to decide whether to do good or bad. It’s His greatest and also most perplexing gift, in that it pre-empts Him—the New Testament version of Him at any rate—from ever taking action against malefactors. It’s our responsibility to be good, He’s telling us, not His. It’s all down to us.”

“Regardless of that, evil is wrong and should be punished.”

“Oh, no argument here. Transgressing man’s laws, never mind God’s, is a bad thing. Luckily we have fine law enforcement professionals such as yourself to apprehend and bring to justice anyone who does.”

“So where does that leave vampires?” Redlaw asked.

Father Dixon looked calculatingly across the room at him. “Unequivocally evil. I’d have thought that was obvious. Monsters. Abominations. Things of the pit. That’s why men and women of faith are required to police them. Stands to reason. Men and women of faith armed with Holy Water bombs and whacking great handguns. Are you not so sure about that, John? Even after what’s just happened to Róisín?”

Just then, before Redlaw could frame a reply, the vicarage phone rang. A parishioner in need. A mother whose infant son had a life-threatening brain tumour and who was in the depths of despair and seeking pastoral counselling.

“No rest for the non-wicked,” said Father Dixon as he grabbed his coat and bicycle lock. “We’ll resume this discussion another time, I trust.”

But the subject hadn’t come up again. Redlaw had been reluctant to revisit it, and Father Dixon had sensed his reticence and, the soul of tact, let the matter lie.

F
ATHER
D
IXON’S CHUCKLE.
The beer froth on his lip. The moment faded in Redlaw’s memory. Father Dixon was dead too. Shot by Lieutenant Khalid, having taken a bullet meant for Redlaw. Another good person gone to their reward. Another profound loss. Another body-blow to Redlaw’s faith.

Redlaw and Denzel Lomax circuited the factory perimeter one more time, trudging through their own footprints in the snow. One of them left white vapour puffs behind him as he breathed, the other did not.

“If I am to be the shtriga of your group,” Redlaw said eventually, “I may not always go easy on you. But it will always be for your own good.”

Denzel considered this, then grinned. “Long as you’re looking out for us, that works for me.”

Vampires—unequivocally evil?

Father Dixon had been right on many counts, but in this one instance, where he had been at his most dogmatic, he had also been at his most mistaken.

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

J
ACOBSEN WAS ALL
in favour of heading right back out into the field and hunting down Redlaw and the remaining vampires. Time was wasting. The longer the delay, the greater chance of losing them. America was a big place. Hell,
New York
was a big place. There were a million and one little nooks and crevices the vamps could hide in, and even Farthingale, with his uncannily accurate source of intel, might not be able to pinpoint their whereabouts.

On arriving back at Red Eye headquarters, however, he had to acknowledge that his team was in no fit state to turn and burn. They were all exhausted and, in the cases of Berger, Lim and Abbotts, in pain as well. They could hardly be expected to go haring off on another mission straight away. The first order of the day—or rather, of the night—was rest and recuperation.