A Bloody London Tale (Book 2): The Epidemic Read online

  “I have your birth certificate, Lena. Your true one. Please let me in, so we can have a proper conversation, and then I’ll leave you alone. If you never want to see me again I’ll accept that.”

  “How did you know where I was?”

  “I live in the building.”

  “You’re stalking me.”

  “No, I lived here long before you moved in, and I can prove it. I didn’t know you were here until I saw you last night. If it wasn’t for this mess I wouldn’t have knocked on the door, but I want to make sure you’re as safe as I can possibly make you before I go to talk with some people. We need to put a stop to this epidemic as soon as possible.”

  Amalia

  “How bad is it, Papa?” All he had to do was look at me for me to know what the answer was. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Just keep hunting the mad vampire. We’re too late to do anything more than that. I’ve been calling everyone I know in the hope we have enough vampires locally to help the newbies he’s created, otherwise we’re not going to have any other choice.”

  “Putting them down is the best thing we can do.” Of course Miron was going to say something like that. The longer they’d been out hunting the mad vampire the more certain he’d become the best thing they could do was kill all the vampires. “No one wants to be a vampire.”

  “No, they don’t, but that doesn’t mean they can’t learn to accept it. My sister did, even though it was one of the hardest things she’s ever had to do. I shouldn’t have killed the vampire who changed her and I wouldn’t have done if I wasn’t furiously angry with him for taking my sister.” Papa shook his head. “I loved my sister more than I can put into words and I knew what Papa would do. He’d want her dead. He believed the same thing you do, Miron - the only good vampire is a dead vampire. I disagreed, especially as it was my sister, so I called on the one vampire I knew would be willing to help me out. I’d saved his life a couple of times.”

  “Will she be coming here to help us?”

  “Yes, she will. You’ll meet her tomorrow. From what she said she’s bringing her whole family. That means we have six vampires. My old friend is coming as well. He should be bringing at least three more vampires. It should be enough for the vampires who rise tomorrow.”

  “Hunters hunt vampires.” Miron shook his head. “We should hunt all vampires. They all drink blood.”

  “They are all predators. I agree we should go after them, but the vampires who are just trying to live their lives as best they can without hurting anyone should be permitted to live their lives.”

  “I don’t understand you, Papa. You said you were a hunter.”

  “I am a hunter. I just don’t believe in killing people who aren’t doing any harm.”

  “They’re vampires.”

  “Becoming a vampire doesn’t automatically make someone evil.”

  Shaking his head Miron walked back out into the night. I looked between where he’d gone and the pain in Papa’s face, before making the decision I was better off with him. If Miron got attacked it was his own stupid fault, as he put it before, for going out in the dark when he knew there was a vampire out there who might hurt him. I wrapped my arms around Pap’s shoulders. “I’m going to be right by your side tomorrow night, Papa. We’ll meet your sister together.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I know you want to be out there hunting the vampire who caused this mess.”

  “I do, but it’s obvious you need me more.” I kissed the top of his head. “We’re going to be okay.”

  “I hope you right.”

  Gareth

  “Is this the young vampire?”

  “Yes, this is Gareth.” Polly sounded relieved. “Do you want anything?”

  “A glass would be great.”

  “Be back in a minute.”

  I was left alone with the stranger. “Polly tells me you went to Romania hunting for vampires and came across more than you bargained for.” He sounded sympathetic, which was more than I expected. “I’m Jack. I’ve been through this myself, so I know how hard it can be, but you’re not on your own any longer.”

  “Thank you?”

  “We went out to find the human you dropped, but there was no sign of him.”

  “I didn’t know what would happen.” Polly appeared with the glass and gave it to Jack, before disappearing again. “When I went out I was hungry, so I thought I’d get myself something from one of those 24 hour cafes, only to find myself drinking the blood of some guy I’d never met before.”

  “Unfortunately that often happens when a young vampire is left to fend for himself.” Jack poured blood from a bag into the glass and passed it to me. “You need to drink far more regularly than an older vampire and if you aren’t fed you often find yourself going out hunting. That one human you changed is going to be a problem, but it’s not a problem we blame you for. I’ve had a phone call from one of the hunters I know in Romania, who happens to know what happened to you, and they’re out trying to put an end to it at their end. Now I need to work on sorting things at this end, which isn’t going to be an easy job. Your new vampire has already had a couple of hours to roam and will probably have a couple of hours longer. He’s going to feed at least five times and I’m certain at least three of those will be drink and drop.”

  “Which means three more vampires.” I sighed and drank the blood in the glass, knowing it was the best thing I could do. “I didn’t know.”

  “There was no way you could have done.” Jack bit his lip. “I’m not certain how this happened. You obviously weren’t a drink and drop, otherwise you would have changed in Romania. A vampire must have left enough blood for you to be alive, able to board a plane, and come back here, which makes me think whoever it was knew exactly what he was doing. He changed you on purpose. If he changed you on purpose he wanted this to happen and he knew it would be blamed on the mad vampire in Romania.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “It means I need to talk with a few people when I get you back to the safe house and warn them. Some vampires were bastards as humans and becoming a vampire just makes them bastards with a liking for blood.” Jack shrugged. “Come with me, Gareth.”

  “His things are all ready to go.” Polly smiled. “I’m sorry to kick you out, Gareth, but you’ll be better off with Jack. He knows how to look after new vampires and I don’t.”

  “Don’t apologise. You helped me far more than I expected you to when I found out I was a vampire.” I looked down at the ground and then back at Polly. “Can I ask you a favour?” She nodded. “I have family in Maidstone. Can you contact them for me and tell them I won’t be home for a while longer.”

  “Of course I can.” She reached out and touched my hand. “If you weren’t so young I’d be happy to have you in my home, but at the moment you need more than I can give you.”

  “I understand.”

  Lena

  Sitting opposite the vampire I knew killed my parents was a strange experience. I don’t even really know why I let him in, because I knew he was lying to me. Grandmama had told me about Mama’s pregnancy and how hard it was for her. Being the child of someone else didn’t make any sense at all, but I wanted to understand why he’d killed my parents, so talking to him made the most sense. “You said you had my actual birth certificate.”

  He nodded. “I wanted you to know who are you, Lena, and you are my daughter.”

  “You’re a vampire.”

  “Obviously I wasn’t at one time.” He studied me. “I know this is hard for you to come to terms with. For your whole life you’ve believed I killed your parents, when what I actually did was kill two kidnappers. As far as I know your mother was pregnant, but she lost the baby, and I think it made her a little less sane than she had been before. I don’t think she told her parents about the stillbirth, otherwise they would have known you weren’t their grandchild. Maybe they did know and took you in anyway.” He shrugged. “What I do know is they found
you lying all alone in a little crib and they took you. Your mother was distraught. She’d already lost me and losing you… I tried to save her life when she jumped in the river, but I was too late. By the time I managed to get her out she’d drowned and vampires can’t change the dead. My only option was to hurt the people who’d hurt the love of my life. I knew I wouldn’t be able to raise you myself and it took me far longer than I expected to actually find them.”

  “I was six. I remember watching you kill them.” I shuddered at the memory. “Then you walked away.”

  “That was the only logical thing I could do. You would go back to the grandparents who loved you like you were their own and I’d avenged the woman I loved. At the time I was still a relatively young vampire, so I was able to push my emotions to the side in a way I can’t do now. Seeing you all grown up…” He smiled. “I can’t quite believe how beautiful you are. You look like your Mama and that’s something I’m glad of. It’s far better that you took after her. My side of the family doesn’t have the same…” He gestured. “It’s hard to explain, Lena, but you have become a wonderful young woman I’m very glad I had a chance to meet.”

  “None of this is making me believe I am your daughter.” I sighed. “Show me the birth certificate.”

  “Isabella wanted you to have one with my name on it. Even though she knew I’d become a vampire she was still proud of me.” He passed the piece of paper over to me. “I’d been a hunter until the day I came across the vampire who decided I should be just like him. Sometimes it happens, unfortunately, and I knew it was possible. A number of vampires I’ve met over the years have been good people, but there are still those who believe they are better than humans. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those vampires is behind the epidemic here.”

  “Do you know what’s happening in Romania?” I stared at the piece of paper in my hand. My full name was on it. I’m one of those strange people with two middle names and I’m not entirely certain how my parents would have found out both of them in order to tell them, unless they’d seen my birth certificate. Maybe I hadn’t been kidnapped. Maybe my real mother had given me to my parents, because she didn’t want to raise me alone. I brushed a hand though my hair as I tried to work things out. “I was told not to return.”

  “Staying here isn’t any safer now, but I believe they’re dealing with a mad vampire over there.”

  “A mad vampire?”

  “It happens if a young vampire doesn’t feed often enough. The change affects every part of you. It’s hard to describe, Lena, but I’ve been through it myself. If I hadn’t been able to feed as often as I needed to I might well have ended up as mad as the vampire is in Romania. He escaped, changed almost everyone in his village, and then kept going. Nothing will stop him until he comes face to face with a hunter, but there are no guarantees the hunter will be able to kill him. He might well end up killing the hunter instead.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “We all try to keep in contact. There aren’t a lot of vampires and it’s far too easy for one of us to come across a hunter who kills all the vampires he meets. Most hunters seem to accept there is a difference between us. Vampires like me are trying to keep our heads down. Others… well, someone out there is going to be very happy they caused this.”

  I sighed. “I still don’t know if I believe you.”

  “In the end it’s up to you whether you believe me or not. There’s nothing more I can do. I’ve shown you your birth certificate.”

  “How would my ‘kidnappers’ have known my full name?”

  For a long time he was silent. “I don’t know.”

  “Could my mother have given me to them?”

  “No.” He shook his head, but I could see the uncertainty in his eyes. “She wouldn’t have given you up when you were our daughter. She would have raised you and told you stories about me, because she loved us.” He stood. “I’m in flat 18 if you want to talk in the future.”

  With that he was gone and I didn’t quite know what to do or say. After a few minutes of thought I realised the best thing I could do was ring my grandparents to see if they knew anything about what I’d just been told, even though I wasn’t certain I want to know the whole truth. Sighing, I nibbled my bottom lip and stared down at the piece of paper the vampire had left me with. Apparently I was the daughter of the vampire who’d killed my parents, which was something I had trouble accepting, no matter how easy it was for me to understand why he would have made the decision he did.

  Amalia

  Miron had a hand on his neck and I knew what had happened to him. Breathing deeply, because the smell of blood was making me nauseous, I went to get the first aid kit. As I returned with it I could see the fear in his eyes. “Being bitten by a vampire doesn’t mean you’re going to turn into one of them.” I knew I should be more sympathetic, but it was his own fault. “You will do if you die, but that seems unlikely.”

  “It attacked me. You should go after it.”

  “Do I look like an idiot?” I shook my head, taking some of the gauze out of the kit, and hunting for one of the antiseptic wipes I made certain we had lots of. When I found one I ripped the packet open. Miron looked at it in trepidation. “Yes, it’s going to hurt, but it’s better for this to hurt for a little while than it is for you to get some sort of infection because the wound isn’t clean.”

  “Where’s Papa?”

  “He went to bed. He’s already had a long night and he’s going to have another one tomorrow.” I pulled Miron’s hand away from his neck. “This is nothing, Miron. I’ve had worse scrapes from falling over my own feet.” Fortunately it had only happened once, but I did manage to take all the skin off both my shins. It had hurt for a long time. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “Apparently there are vampires out hunting for the mad vampire as well.”

  “Yes, I’ve come across a couple of them when I’ve been out there myself. No human hunters though.” I shrugged as I wiped his neck with the antiseptic wipe, knowing the vampire had been trying to teach him a lesson. “We’ve shared information when we’ve had it.”

  “I don’t understand you. Vampires should all be killed. The majority of the hunters I’ve met agree with me and I don’t understand why you don’t.”

  “Vampires are people.” I sighed. “They’re just like us, Miron. Just because one human is a serial killer doesn’t mean the rest of us are. One vampire serial killer doesn’t mean that’d what they all do. In the little villages there’s still a lot of misinformation, which explains why they locked a young vampire in a cage and tried to ‘tame’ him.”

  “They should have just killed him.”

  For a moment I wanted to say he was wrong, but death would be better than what the mad vampire was dealing with right at that moment. There was a chance he even had lucid moments when he regretted what he was doing and then the insanity would take him over again. “Yes, they should.”

  “You agree?”

  “If it’s a choice between insanity, which has led to this chaos, and death, I would choose death. Some poor vampire going through this… it isn’t fair on them and it really isn’t fair on the people who’ve ended up in hospital because of the stupidity of a group of villagers who didn’t know enough about vampires.”

  “The hunters who are out there will kill any vampire they come across.”

  “Maybe they will, but that doesn’t mean I will. I understand the differences between vampires and I will hunt those who need killing. The rest, as long as they aren’t doing any harm, have every right to live, the same way we do.”

  “A vampire hurt me and you’re not going to go after them.”

  “Not if you were stupid enough to try staking him, no.” I sighed. “This seems hard for you to understand, little brother, but I hunt the vampires who are hurting people. I don’t hunt the vampires who are simply trying to live their lives. If you’re going to try to kill one of them you deserve everything you get.” I knew they woul
dn’t truly hurt him. “Just keep away from them, Miron. It’s the best thing you can do.”

  He shook his head. “You and Papa are going to welcome vampires into our home, because you believe they aren’t going to hurt us, when they’re blood drinking predators.”

  Walking away then was the best choice I’d ever made. I couldn’t deal with him any longer. Miron didn’t understand why I’d made the decision I had and nothing I said would change that. He was never going to understand why Papa and I left vampires alive, because he seemed to truly believe they all deserved to be dead, which made me think he’d been talking to the other hunters. I didn’t have an issue with them, in general, but I knew they all thought I was a soft touch, the same way the elders did, due to my beliefs. I knew I wasn’t. If a vampire was killing humans they deserved to be dead. If a vampire wasn’t I didn’t have a problem with giving them a chance.

  Lena

  “I need to talk to you about something I don’t really want to talk to you about.” I sighed. “Grandpapa, do you know why my parents were killed?”

  There was a long silence. “Yes, I do.” He sounded worried. “Lena, has a vampire visited you?”

  “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if he hadn’t. I need to know everything. I need to know the truth about who I am.”

  “You’re our granddaughter and that’s all you need to know.”

  “Nothing you tell me is going to change that. I’m always going to be your granddaughter. I love you more than words can say, Grandpapa, and knowing the truth isn’t going to stop me from loving you. You took me in when my parents were killed when you didn’t have to. I will always be grateful to you for doing that.”

  “Lennie…”

  I smiled. “Stop putting it off. The sooner I know the truth the better it will be for both of us.”

  “Sorina lost her baby when she was in her third trimester. It was stillborn and she was devastated. Of course that didn’t stop her from going to the village she grew up in to help her best friend deliver a baby. We moved to the bigger town when Sori was in her teens, because we knew it was the best place for her, but she spend her weekends visiting Tereza. They’d been close for years and I wasn’t going to stop that from happening, even though I didn’t think it was the best idea. When Sori returned with you… it took us a long time to get the truth out of her. I think she thought we’d might go after Remus and he’d been one of her close friends too. In the end she told us Remus had been turned into a vampire and Tereza didn’t want to raise you alone. Three weeks later Sori went back to the village, to see Tereza, only to find she’d thrown herself in the river. She couldn’t live without Remus. There was a letter she left for you, to tell you everything you needed to know, and Sori was going to give it to you when you were old enough. Unfortunately she died before she could. I didn’t want to give you the letter, because I didn’t want you to know your papa was the vampire who’d killed the people you believed were your parents.”