Talulla Rising (25 page)

‘Is that me?’ I asked.

He couldn’t answer. I realised he had his arms around himself to contain what looked like muscular spasms. Each time one came his capillary system darkened, then faded again when it passed. I thought: Twenty-one days. Jake said vampires needed to feed every three or four. They were starving him.

‘You... a werewolf?’

‘Fraid so.’

‘They told me you lot stank. I mean—’ Pain hit him again. He brought his knees tighter to his chest, clamped his jaws. Breathed through it. ‘That didn’t come out right.’

‘Yeah, well, if it’s any consolation, you stink too.’

He didn’t smile, but his eyes said he would have if he’d had the strength. ‘You don’t have to... talk to me... like I’m ten,’ he said, shivering.

‘I didn’t realise I was.’

‘It’s the tone. I’m seventeen.’

Now that he said it I realised I’d been pitching as if to a child. Old habits. For all I’d known he could’ve pre-dated Moses.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Stupid of me.’ It was an effort not to react to how bad he looked. An effort not to be so obviously thinking: you’re dying, kiddo.

‘How old are you?’ he asked.

‘Thirty-four,’ I told him. ‘I’m new. Listen – oh, fuck.’
I
had to vomit again. This time I made it to the bucket. The disinfectant’s ammonia was a brutal palliative against his stench. I kept my head over it. ‘I guess they think this is hilarious,’ I said, once I’d recovered and crawled back to the bars. I’d brought the bucket with me, held under my nose.

He nodded, but I could see the effort talking was costing him.

‘Do you know how long I’ve been here?’ I asked. ‘Was there anyone with me when they brought me in?’

‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘I was asleep. Woke up... a couple of hours ago. You were here.’

Assume Walker’s dead.

More was required now. Just admitting the thought wasn’t enough. So here was the feeling, as if something vital had been surgically removed from me while I was unconscious. Assume he’s dead. The different quality of reality without him in it. Fresh loneliness, fresh failure, the world like a big brashly-lit room, a huge empty space for me to feel sorry for myself in.
Serves you right
. Assume he’s dead. Assume Konstantinov’s dead. Assume you’re alone in here and you’ll never get out and your daughter will never know you and your son will die. Make all the worst assumptions.

‘How’d they... catch you?’ he asked.

‘We got set-up,’ I said. ‘It’s a long story. Look, I’ll tell you the whole thing but can you just tell me what you know about this place first? What’s your name, by the way?’

‘Caleb.’

‘I’m Talulla.’

He made a slight movement with his head. Official hello. The pink sweat had darkened.

‘Are you up to talking?’ I asked.

He swallowed. As if forcing down powdered glass. ‘Tired,’ he said.

‘I understand. I’m sorry.’ I was sorry. Species revulsion was no joke –
wulf
wanted as much distance between us as possible – but the shared predicament did a lot of the sympathetic work. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Just rest a while. We’ll talk when you feel better.’

‘I won’t feel... better. I’ll feel worse. They’ll... be coming soon. I’m going... to die in this fucking place.’

Another spasm took him. The veins blackened. It was an ugly thing to watch but solidarity demanded it.

‘They’ll regret it,’ he said, when he’d got his breath. ‘When Remshi... comes... they’ll wish they’d never... been born.’

36

Before I could pounce on that the vault door at the right-hand end of the corridor emitted a string of electronic blips, followed by a hydraulic sigh and the sound of a heavy lock opening. I looked at Caleb. His eyes were closed. Whatever it was he was familiar with it. Whatever it was it was bad.

The door swung open and Murdoch entered, followed by a younger, smaller, musclebound Hunter with too much energy dressed in black combat pants and vest, carrying a set of restraints and what looked like a cattle prod. He had a skinhead and sticking-out ears, round blue eyes and mouth like a chimp’s. The overall effect was of a bouncy, steroidal little ape. A crowd’s murmur followed them in. Murdoch came directly to my cell while the chimp-thug fitted what looked like a radiator key (hung on a chain around his neck) into one of six sockets on a control panel next to the door. One turn anti-clockwise and a red indicator light turned green. Two seconds later the middle six bars of my cell slid upwards, precision engineered, friction-free, and disappeared into the roof.

‘How are you feeling?’ Murdoch asked.

‘Where am I?’

‘You’re at a detention facility in the Royal County of Berkshire, England. It’s Tuesday the sixth of November and the time is...’ He looked at his watch... ‘Seven-thirty-six in the evening. You were brought here by air under sedation, along with Walker and his team, who are alive, you’ll be glad to hear, housed variously and elsewhere in the building. Now it might seem unwarranted but I’m... ’ The chimp-thug entered my cell with the set of wrists-to-ankles restraints... ‘going to have to ask that you wear these for now, so we can give our full attention to the business in hand.’

I hesitated.

‘Please,’ he said, reading me. ‘No antics. You won’t be able to get my gun, and even if you did there are twenty men in the room next door. Not to mention Mr Tunner here. Absolutely no harm will come to you if you cooperate. It’s just a bit of peace of mind for your uncle John.’

‘You don’t need to cuff me,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to—’

He punched me, hard, in the stomach, faster than I would have thought possible. The universe sucked all the air out of my lungs and I dropped, first to my knees then onto all-fours. The pain absorbed me, immediately and completely. There was nowhere to go to get away from it because it was everything. I could see how far away being able to take a breath was, like a light on a distant shore. I’d be dead long before I reached it.

‘The way it works with me,’ Murdoch said, ‘is that I ask you to come into line with my will voluntarily. If you don’t come voluntarily you’re brought by force. I should have told you I only ask once. That was an oversight. I apologise.’

‘Getting sloppy, Nuncle,’ Tunner said, as he began fitting the now-redundant restraints.

‘She’s going to vomit,’ Murdoch said.

Tunner grabbed the bucket and got it under me just in time. I threw up in three abrasive installments then collapsed onto my side. As far as I could tell I still hadn’t breathed in. There was an anvil of blood where my lungs used to be.

‘Bring her in when she’s herself again. Here, give me that.’

Murdoch, now armed with the cattle prod, returned to the control panel, inserted his own key, turned, got the green light, then moved to Caleb’s cell, where the bars were already rising.

I couldn’t see Caleb, but I would have heard if anything passed between him and Murdoch. It didn’t. Murdoch just stood there for a few moments with the cattle prod in his hand. Caleb, evidently, was too weak to move.

Murdoch went back to the vault door. ‘Sobel,’ he called. ‘Give me a bag.’

Someone handed Murdoch a clear plastic pouch about the size of a man’s wallet.

It was full of blood.

37

The room next door was big and windowless, with the echoey feel of a school gymnasium. It contained nothing but a very large cage (maybe twenty by twenty feet with walls twice an average person’s height) that had clearly been constructed from other cages, doctored and bolted together. Razor wire had been bound along two of its opposite sides. Two dozen or so Hunters stood around it, most relaxed (one or two smoking, another drinking a Coke) but a few doing warm-up stretches. Two doors, one closed, the other showing a brightly-lit corridor. A whiteboard on the wall displayed a list of names and numbers in different colours.

Caleb was in the cage. The blood had given him enough strength to drag himself there, goaded by Murdoch with the prod. Now he’d collapsed again. Tunner, having fastened my restraints to a bar on the vault door, had removed his black vest and was limbering up by the cage, deltoids twitching, abdominals like a pack of
boules
.

Murdoch raised his hand. The men’s murmur died. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Mr Tunner. Time selection, please.’

Tunner rolled his head a couple of times as if to ease neck-tension, pursed his lips, took one deep breath, then said: ‘Two minutes forty-five seconds, Nuncle, if it please.’

Murdoch took out a stopwatch from his pocket. ‘Two minutes forty-five on the clock for Mr Tunner. Number of bags, Mr Tunner?’

‘Two more bags, Nuncle.’

‘Two more bags, Mr Sobel. Time starts on completion of second bag. Ink-up and get yourself in there.’

One of the Hunters handed Tunner a police nightstick and a fat red felt marker pen. Sobel, meanwhile, reached into a bag and produced two more plastic pouches of blood. Tunner entered the cage and the door was locked behind him. Sobel tossed the blood-bags to where Caleb lay. Caleb stared at them. I wondered how many times he’d been through this battle with his thirst. However many, he’d lost every time. Would lose every time. It was in his face. The only way out was not to drink. But the vampire always drank. Always.

I watched everything that followed. Partly because again the forced solidarity of imprisonment demanded it, but mostly because I was no longer (in fact, never had been) the sort for whom not watching was an option. Whatever horror it was, if it was put in front of me, I’d look. (My mother was the same. I’d caught the tail-end of an argument she’d had with my dad. You haven’t got a heart, he’d barked. You’ve got a fucking
eyeball
. With no eyelids, just permanently open, obliged to
see
everything. Yes, my mother had replied, with terrible calm sweetness, like God.) What followed was that Caleb bit into the bags and drank the blood. The livid circulatory map faded a little. He got first to his knees then to his feet, though it was obvious he was still weak, and, now that he’d had a taste, desperate for more blood.

Tunner approached, brazenly relaxed.

‘He’s not up for it,’ one of the spectators called.

‘He bloody is,’ another replied. ‘Come on, son, bar’s open.’

‘Let’s go, Casper.’

‘Teach him a lesson, son.’

But Caleb stood still. I could see in his jaw what it cost him, his rider simultaneously digging in the spurs and hauling on the reins.

‘Look at the will on my boy. Look at the
will
.’

‘He’s going... He’s going... ’

‘He’s not. He’s a fucking Zen master. You keep it down, my son. Good lad.’

‘Come on, Tunner, for fuck’s sake.’

Tunner was almost within reach. Caleb stared at the floor. His bare white feet were beautiful, fine-boned things.

‘
Goo-
orn, son, you show him.’

‘He doesn’t want to look soft in front of his new girlfriend.’

Which remark had two effects. One was that Caleb’s head snapped around to see who’d said it. The other was that it inspired Tunner. He leaped forward and yanked down the elastic waistband of Caleb’s sweats. Suddenly the boy’s small genitals were exposed – to a cheer from the crowd. It was only a second before he’d snatched his pants back up – but that was the end of his resistance. He flew at Tunner, mouth open, fangs exposed – with a speed Tunner manifestly hadn’t expected, since his evasive leap took him straight into the razor wire. Caleb spun back on him and suddenly the room’s atmosphere was tight. Tunner, now bleeding in several places, got away from the boy again, but only just. The crowd focused. The human heat and smell thickened.

‘Forty seconds gone!’ Murdoch shouted.

Caleb took two steps forward and went down on one knee – but got up again immediately. The blood-ration was still taking effect. Tunner came close, hesitated, came closer. They circled each other. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting so embarrassed about,’ Tunner said to him. ‘It’s not as if it’s any use to you, is it? I mean it’s just as well it’s
not
a whopper, really, because what a waste that’d be.’

The boy staggered forward. Tunner dummied him left – then came in from the right and cracked the nightstick hard and fast on his kneecap. I heard the bone shatter. When Caleb went down Tunner marked him on the back and shoulder – once, twice, three times with the felt pen – to another cheer and a smattering of applause.

‘Sobel!’ Tunner called. ‘Give him another bag. He’s slower than my fucking
nan
.’

Sobel looked at Murdoch. Murdoch held up two fingers.
Two
more. Sobel grinned. Tossed the pouches in.

This time Caleb caught them, both, with astonishing hand-speed, tore into one and sucked.

‘Nuncle, that’s not fair!’ Tunner said.

Murdoch ignored him.

Tunner kicked at Caleb’s hand – and the unopened pouch flew to a corner of the cage. Caleb turned to go after it and Tunner pounced on him, actually landed on the boy’s back and began whacking his head with the nightstick. Caleb took three or four steps – an eleven-year-old giving a one-hundred-and-seventy-pound man a piggy-back – then went down on both knees. Tunner had marked him ten or twelve times with the felt-tip pen.

‘One-minute-thirty gone,’ Murdoch called.

Tunner dropped the pen behind him and with the now-free hand grabbed Caleb by the hair and yanked his head back. Caleb was six inches from the blood pouch, straining to reach it. The circulatory webbing was fainter now. Tunner smashed the nightstick across the boy’s trachea. Caleb, gagging, shoved himself to his feet – then launched himself backwards, jamming Tunner against the razor wire. Tunner screamed and twisted, ripping the flesh on his back and speckling the nearest Hunters with blood. Several of them were looking at Murdoch. Murdoch, lips pursed, kept his attention on the watch.

Caleb was weakening again. It took both his hands to tie up Tunner’s nightstick arm, which left the Hunter’s other arm free. With a strange precision he reached around, got a grip on the side of Caleb’s head, then dug his thumb into the boy’s eye.