Blood RED Page 18

  No. He couldn’t be sure ... Began lowering his gun.

  Then he realised exactly why the girl was cowering, curling herself up into a ball. It wasn’t because of him at all. It was because of what was behind him. What he’d sensed too late because he’d been distracted again.

  Craddock spun, just as the creature launched itself at him. There was a burst of gunfire. A flash of cream and white.

  Then an awful lot of red.

  * * *

  Zoë raised her head, vision blurry.

  Then she realised why that was; her glasses had come off in the scuffle. She flailed a hand out, searching for them, finally finding the specs and putting them on. One lens was cracked, but she could see well enough. Could see the devastation in the club. The aftermath of the battle. She couldn’t think of any other way to describe it, Craddock’s fight against that thing—what she’d seen of it anyway, before being knocked over.

  She sat up on one elbow, winced. Then felt a hand on her arm—remembered the guy from before and jerked, thrashed about. But it was another man, the bouncer from the front door with the shoulders. “Are ... are you okay, Miss?”

  “I ...” Zoë nodded, but realised that hurt too much. “What ... That man with the gun.”

  “He’s gone, legged it out through the back there,” the guy told her. She let him help her to her feet, then looked about her. Looked around her. There! Zoë stooped to pick up her detector, inspecting the damaged equipment. She noticed the man staring at it, then her. Expecting some kind of explanation he wouldn’t get.

  “Thanks,” was all she was willing to let him have, then made for the door, the man calling after her, warning her how stupid that course of action was.

  Zoë shook the machine, banged it. Definitely busted. She drew the Glock that was still in the back of her jeans as she toed open the back door.

  The scene that met her eyes was almost as bad at the one back there. A shredded body, meat exposed and steaming in the night air. She coughed at the smell. “Oh no ... Craddock!” she whispered, before noticing there was a second body some distance away up the back alley.

  Zoë approached it cautiously, gun raised. Maybe he’d at least wounded the beast and it had crawled away down there? But, as she drew closer, she saw the truth of the situation.

  And she knew exactly what she had to do.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  What a shitting mess. What an absolute shitting mess.

  Those had been Constable Peel’s first thoughts on seeing the inside of Techno Dark. It was an image he didn’t think he’d shake in a long, long time. Even worse than what had happened on Greenham Estate the previous weekend, because, well, that was the Greenham Estate. You expected things like that to happen there—Jesus, you expected worse. But not here, not in this part of the city. Nothing like this ...

  There were bodies scattered about, limbs that had been torn from those bodies. Severed heads. If he hadn’t had such a strong stomach ...

  He and his sergeant, Moss, had been the first on the scene—having drawn the short straw of being on patrol in the clubbing district that evening. Peel was all too familiar with this place in particular, had frequented it on many a weekend when he was off duty and on the pull. Hey, police officers were human too—he often said to himself—in spite of what a lot of people thought.

  “A disturbance,” was what they’d said when it had been called in. And it was definitely that, definitely disturbing. A couple of the staff, bouncers they’d ascertained, had garbled something about what had happened and Peel had jotted it down in his notebook. Some nutter with a gun and ... and what looked like a big dog; an attack dog, quite clearly trained for such purposes. Straight away it was starting to ring bells from the previous weekend. Wouldn’t take the detectives who would be all over this place soon enough to work out there was a link between the two events.

  Some kind of revenge thing? Perhaps the gang war from that estate had spilled out into the rest of this city. Did some kind of mob boss own this club and was he the target of the guy and his ‘pet’? Some kind of drugs or territory war? Maybe he was an enforcer or something? And the people who just happened to be here having a night out had got caught in the crossfire. Wrong place at the wrong time.

  But Christ Almighty ...

  And that was even before you got to the thing outside in the alley—the thing that was no longer recognisable as a human being. As he predicted, more vehicles and officers arrived, along with DCs, DSs and DIs. This was big. Even bigger than last weekend—and two such incidents in the space of a week? Unheard of. Moss was put in charge of crowd control outside, as more and more people started to gather—including reporters, who always wanted their pound of flesh (they should go and have a look in there, thought Peel, there’s fucking loads of it)—and statements were taken from those who’d been inside the club at the time of the attack.

  As he stood with more uniforms behind the police tape, keeping the peace—albeit a bit too late, it would seem—he happened to spot a face in the crowd that he knew. A face he recognised, though at first he wasn’t quite sure why. Then it struck him ... The guy from Greenham Estate, asking questions about dogs. The Animal Control bloke. Peel frowned. What was he doing out there? Surely his place was inside with the rest of the investigators? Peel asked one of his colleagues to take his place and he ducked under the tape, headed over towards him.

  When the man caught his eye, though, he turned and ... vanished. Just disappeared. Was nowhere to be seen. Peel’s frown deepened. “Animal Control my arse,” he said to himself. There was something funny going on here and no mistake. That guy had something to do with all this, Peel just didn’t know what. Maybe he was the crime kingpin overseeing all this? Visiting the sites of his victories after the fact? Maybe the dogs belonged to him?

  Peel shook his head; he was always getting told off by Moss for his flights of fancy. Making connections where there weren’t any. Would never make sergeant himself if he didn’t keep his feet on the ground and his crazy notions to himself. He’d probably never know the truth of it all anyway, just like they’d never really got to the bottom of his cousin’s death all those years ago in Norchester—not really. Died in the line of duty, they’d said.

  Wrong place, wrong time.

  He’d been Peel’s hero, he’d always looked up to him. Was one of the reasons he’d joined the force in the first place.

  Same name, same job.

  Peel started to make his way back to the tape again, walking backwards every now and again on the way. In case the man had returned. He hadn’t. Was probably long gone by now.

  Long gone, if he knew what was good for him.

  * * *

  Hunter wished he could just leave.

  Be gone, get away from this place. But he couldn’t, especially not now. Not after this. That stupid idiot, Craddock! He couldn’t believe what the man had done. The trouble he’d caused. Made things a million times worse. As if their mark sticking its head up above the parapet for a little snack wasn’t bad enough ...

  It wasn’t even as if Hunter could have it out with him, not in his condition; not with him in the state Zoë had found him, savaged by the thing they were after. She’d managed to get him to the jeep, got him back to the warehouse, but he wasn’t in a good way. Zoë had done her best for him there with the medical supplies they always had with them, but she was no doctor—and it wasn’t as if they could just go swanning into the hospital for treatment. For one thing Craddock and Zoë were probably all over the CCTV footage in that place back there; wouldn’t be long before they were plastered all over the news as well. They’d have to keep a low profile from here on in, which wouldn’t be a problem at all for Craddock at the moment.

  That left it down to him and Duncan, with Hunter doing all the ‘heavy lifting’ essentially. Why couldn’t Craddock have just waited? Why c
ouldn’t he have let Zoë call them, then they could have set a trap for the beast when it came out of the club. The deaths that had happened tonight were not acceptable losses, hadn’t even been worth shit because the sodding ’shifter got away again. This was why they hadn’t made a move last Friday, this was why ...

  But if they had maybe they wouldn’t even still be here. They shouldn’t still be here, Hunter thought. The creature shouldn’t be either, but it was—and still disguised as that Will guy. It just didn’t make sense, didn’t fit the pattern of all they knew about these things ... which admittedly wasn’t a vast amount.

  Hunter walked faster now, just in case that young copper decided to come after him. Decided to start asking too many questions, draw the attention of his colleagues. No amount of fake IDs would stand up to scrutiny from people who actually knew what they were doing.

  He walked faster towards his bike, got on it. He wanted to just ride away, leave, be gone. But he couldn’t. He had a monster to hunt. To kill. And then there was Rachael ...

  And then there was Rachael.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rachael woke that morning as stiff as a board.

  She rolled her shoulders, wincing when she heard the cracking they made. That kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen until you got into your 30s or 40s, was it? She’d slept like the dead last night, mainly due to one of her mother’s pills—something the woman said she was going to take herself to get “a decent night” as she called it.

  So, when Rachael did manage to get herself up—legs cracking as well—and made her way out into the flat proper, pausing only to close her bedroom window (no wonder she was so cold!) and pull a cardigan over her pyjama top, she saw no sign of the woman.

  “Mum?” she called, but heard nothing in reply. Probably still out like a light. But then she noticed the clock on the wall, saw that she’d overlaid herself. Her mother never overlaid, was always up with the larks so ...

  Rachael shrugged, wandered into the kitchen, then realised that she wasn’t really hungry. She drank a glass of water, before going back into the living room. It had been a funny sort of day yesterday, and memories floated back to her like a dream—which was more than she could remember from her actual dreams last night. Mainly she remembered Tom, and what a nice time she’d had with him, in spite of the circumstances surrounding it. In spite of what he’d been there to ask her abou—

  She shook away those memories like seawater after a dip in the ocean.

  Thought instead about the walk they’d taken, the coffee shop. The meal (would you call it a date? probably safer not to) and—

  Suddenly it all came flooding back. How sick she’d felt after eating, throwing up in the toilets, Tom having to get her back home. Rachael’s hand went to her mouth. Oh God, what he must think of her?

  Then crashing out like that, without even ... She couldn’t even remember saying goodbye to him. So, that would be the end of that then! Story of her life where men were concerned. The bad ones hung around like a rotten smell and the good ones ...

  Actually, could she remember any good ones? Rachael was struggling if she was honest with herself. Steph would say that—

  The sudden thought of her friend made her sad and she didn’t know why. Because she’d not been round to see how she was getting on? Because she’d not even rung? Wasn’t even answering her phone?

  Maybe her mum had been right, that she was a bad influence? Maybe Rachael shouldn’t have moved here to the city after all? Perhaps then she’d still be—

  The word had almost tripped off her tongue then.

  Alive.

  What the hell was that supposed to mean? Rachael had no idea, it didn’t make any sense. But then, what did make sense of late? This thing with Tom ... who he was, why he was so familiar to her. Why she thought she owed him some kind of debt.

  Why she would probably never see him again.

  Even as she was thinking it, she heard the buzzer go. Tom! Had to be ... She hoped it would be. But she was surprised to find that it was her mother. Kathleen Daniels had been true to form, had risen early and gone for a walk to the local shop to pick up a few more ‘essentials’, but had forgotten her key to get back in.

  “Ooh, thanks love,” said her mum, puffing as she came through the door. Rachael took the plastic bags from her (more tea bags as they were going through them at a rate of knots, but no coffee) helping her over the threshold. “Wasn’t sure whether you’d surfaced or not yet. You were spark out when I left you.”

  Rachael couldn’t help hearing the cracks of her mother’s old bones as she walked, thought back to when she’d got up that morning. The first signs of arthritis perhaps? Might be time for a few lifestyle changes.

  “Probably just as well,” the woman continued. “Better to be asleep and not know anything about all that horrible business last night.”

  “What business?” asked Rachael.

  “I kept saying it to you when you first talked about moving, didn’t I? Telling you what a dangerous place the city was, but would you listen?”

  “Mum, what horrible business?”

  Kathleen Daniels took a local newspaper out of one of the bags and passed it to her daughter. The front page said in big letters ‘NIGHTCLUB BLOODBATH’ with a photo of a place Rachael knew, mainly because Mike had done a few gigs there as a DJ. What had it been called? Black something ... No, Dark something ... But then her eyes found the name in the text alongside: Techno Dark, that was it.

  Rachael’s eyes skimmed over the words, which didn’t tell her a great deal apart from the fact there had been multiple deaths. “I don’t ... I can’t believe ...”

  “Oh, believe it all right! They were full of it down in that corner shop, wouldn’t talk about anything else.” Rachael’s mother walked past her, towards the living room where she switched on the TV and found a local news channel. That was reporting the ‘massacre’, as it called it, as well. “You see?” said Kathleen, using the remote like a pointer in a lecture. “What did I tell you? Dangerous!”

  Rachael followed her, mouth open at what she was seeing. “I can’t ...” She blinked, flashes of images invading her mind now. Of people getting ripped to shreds, beheaded. One cleaved in two. The smell of all that blood in her nose ...

  An alleyway.

  The telephone rang beside her, causing her to jump. Rachael’s mother looked like she was going to make a dash to answer it, but there was no way she’d get there in time.

  “That’ll be him again. I told him before to stop calling,” she muttered. “To stop bothering you.”

  Rachael was going to ask who, but it wasn’t necessary. She knew who was on the other end of the line even before she picked up the phone and said hello.

  Tom.

  “Rachael,” he told her. “We need to talk. You’re ... well, you and your mother, really. I tried to tell her, but ...”

  Dangerous ... What did I tell you?

  “Look, you’re in really serious trouble. Rachael, do you hear me? Are you listening to me?”

  Dangerous ... Would you listen?

  Danger—

  “Rachael?” Tom said down the line, his voice cracking. “You’re in danger, Rachael!

  “You’re both in terrible danger!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  It had been asleep—for a little while at least.

  And that had been good, it had been a good thing. Now the creature was awake again, at the mouth of the cave, prowling this way and that; back and forth. Preventing him from leaving. The time was coming, and he knew this as well, when a confrontation between them was inevitable.

  A final confrontation which would decide everything.

  It was either that or remain here forever, be trapped here looking to take advantage of any opportunity when the creature was dormant. When it wasn’t g
uarding the doorway, keeping him locked away inside. Finch missed his freedom, even though it had been his choice to enter here. The irony that he’d entered freely, that he’d brought this on himself, wasn’t lost on him.

  But when he chose to finish this, that would also be of his choosing—when he was ready, when he was prepared. This time. Finch certainly hadn’t been the first time ...

  He didn’t know what he meant by that. Wasn’t sure how this could have happened before; this wasn’t a memory, was it? A dream then? Something else entirely?

  Yet there was an absolute certainty deep within him that these events had already played out before. What had happened on the original occasion, though? That was the question. Would it be anything like what would happen now? Clearly not, if he was being given time to gird himself. Except that the knowledge it was out there, that it ... she could come at him any moment ... Didn’t that make it even worse?

  The waiting, always the waiting. But there was also a sense that he would not have to wait that much longer. This would be over and done with soon, Finch knew that too.

  Over, in more ways than one.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  She’d agreed to meet him at that coffee shop, away from her home, away from her mother. It was either say yes or he was talking about coming around, and she didn’t want that.

  Rachael didn’t need any more grief about Tom from her mum, she’d already had an earful when she told her he wanted to talk.

  “About what?” Kathleen Daniels had asked. “Didn’t he talk to you enough yesterday? Didn’t he do enough damage, keeping you out like that? Exhausting you?”

  It hadn’t been Tom who’d made her sick, she’d tried to get her mother to see that. “He kept you out though, when you should have been at home with me, recuperating. And now he wants to do the same again? Tire you out again. I don’t even want you out there at all after last night!” The fact her mum had been out herself that morning didn’t seem to enter into it.