Chapter 1
Hunt book of Lily Bax, 24th August 2010
I followed the female along Shaftesbury Avenue and then into the warren of narrow streets that makes Soho such a good hunting ground for the O-One, as they call themselves. She was wearing a soft red biker jacket over black clothes and left a scent-trail in her wake – the usual musky stink, though overlaid this time with expensive perfume. Her heels clicked on the pavement; she had a long, easy stride. I lost her in a knot of tourists then saw her turn down a dingy side street – little more than an alley, really – where she found her victim, a boy, maybe 14 or 15. She leant down to him and I could see a bank note in between her fingers. Her nails were long, and red, of course. I crept closer, keeping downwind, even though her stench was rank, and slipped into a doorway, dark except for a dull blue lamp above the porch.
The lamia leaned in closer to the boy, until her lips brushed the edge of his ear.
“You don’t have to sleep outside tonight,” she said. “Come home with me. I’ll feed you. You’ll have a bed of your own.”
The scrawny mutt lying next to the boy on the layered sheets of cardboard scrambled to its feet as she approached. It stood now, stiff-legged, hackles bristling, ears flat against its skull, growling way back in its throat.
The boy tried to quieten it.
“Hush, Coco. The lady means no harm. I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s got into him. I think he’s trying to protect me,” he said.
“That’s perfectly all right,” the lamia said. She leaned towards the dog and hissed a command. “Lie down.”
The dog complied, whimpering, its bony tail tucked so far between its legs it protruded forward from under its thigh.
“You can leave him with a friend just for one night, can’t you?” she asked him.
“I don’t have any friends. Not round here. I only got here a couple of days ago.”
She smiled, her lips stretching wide. “He’ll be fine,” she said. “Leave him here. Now, up you get.”
She held out a hand, the banknote no longer gripped between her fingers. He reached out and she pulled him easily to his feet.
“You’re tall,” he said. He was average height, but the lamia towered above him.
“Just my heels,” she said. But that wasn’t it. Even without the shoes, she would have been three or four inches taller than him.
I stepped out from the doorway and pulled my knife from its sheath. It is an old, old weapon; the curving patterns in the blade remind me of oil swirling on water. The blade, honed to a razor-edge, was coated in salcie usturoi – the old remedy we cutters have always used against the lamia: a concentrated distillation of salicylic acid from the willow tree and wild garlic oil. The whisper of steel against leather was quiet but the lamia heard it and whirled around, letting the boy’s hand drop. He stumbled back against the wall and sat down, thin pale arms wrapped around the dog’s ribs.
Seeing me, she opened her mouth wide and exposed her fangs: long, needle-like teeth dripping with that disgusting liquid they secrete before feeding. She hissed and sprang, claws reaching for my neck. But she was new to the ways of the cutters – a recent convert, I guessed. I moved quickly, lunging inside her grasping arms, surprising her; their victims are usually either paralysed with fear or running for their lives. A fast upwards stab with my knife under the ribs and into her heart. Then I stepped back out of reach and watched. I like to see the realisation in their faces before they go.
The lamia clutched at her bleeding chest, hand snaking inside the bloody rent in the jacket. Her eyes were blood-filled and her mouth was stretched so wide I could see the puffy red throat tissue. Then the salcie usturoi worked its way fully into the creature’s circulation. She emitted a thin scream as every blood cell, vessel and chamber of her black heart exploded. The boy gasped and flinched as the tide of blood soaked him and his dog. I cleansed the blade carefully on the cloth I keep for the purpose and resheathed it. I walked quickly to him and told him to find somewhere to clean himself up. Then I left. It does not do to remain at the killing ground for too long. This was one of the daughters of Peta Velds, and I knew she would sense the destruction.
Chapter 2
Caroline Murray’s Journal, 25th August 2010
I’d been in about 30 minutes, hadn’t changed – there didn’t seem much point – when the knocker clacked loudly against the front door. Which is odd, because nobody ever uses it. Our friends call from the doorstep and tradesmen ring the bell. If I’d known what the woman standing on the other side of the door was going to drag me into, I would never have invited her in.
I put the chain across and opened the door, peering through the little gap. The woman standing on the doorstep was dressed oddly, even for our Bohemian part of London. Her outfit consisted mostly of leather. Black and a deep, mossy green. She looked like a bike messenger. Or, rather, she would have looked like a bike messenger had it not been for the exquisite cross-lacing and stitching all over the fitted jacket. I was half-expecting her to offer me a flyer for a fetish club when she spoke.
“Caroline? Please let me in. I need to talk to you about David.”
“Sorry? You are?”
“I will tell you inside. Please,” she said. “You must let me in. I have been watching David. He has made a terrible mistake.”
So I let her in. Simple as that. She was shorter than me and slightly built. I felt confident. I was still somehow managing to do one Thai boxing class a week. God knows how, but it was my only escape from work. I mean, apart from David, obviously.
We went through to the sitting room. She watched me drinking and actually licked her lips. They were very red. Suddenly I realised she was waiting for me to offer her a glass.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Where are my manners. Would you like a glass? It’s nothing special, I’m afraid.”
“That would be lovely. Thank you.”
She accepted the glass I poured her and drained it. Then held it out straight-armed in front of her for a refill. The girl could drink, I gave her that. I refilled her glass, and mine, since I had a funny feeling she’d keep asking for refills till the bottle was gone.
“So, your name?” I said, again.
“Ariane. Listen to me: what I have to tell you will sound very strange. I dare say you will be seized with an urge to throw me out, but resist it: David has ventured into very dangerous territory. This will be shocking to you, so why don’t you just listen while I tell you a story. Save your questions for the end. How would that be?”
I nodded, dumbly.
“So. I will tell you my tale and if, at the end, you wish me to leave, then I will leave. But you’d better resign yourself to never seeing David again. Let’s see now, what is the best way to tell you this story, given that I feel sure you will initially doubt its veracity, if not my sanity.
“Caroline, you are familiar, I think, with the theory of evolution? Spontaneous mutations that confer a small survival advantage become embedded in a species’ DNA through the process known as natural selection. A bird with a longer beak can eat difficult-to-reach insects and is able to survive for longer and breed more often. A monkey with a displaced thumb finds it can grip twigs to use as tools. A predator develops a taste for a food source no other predator touches – it has a niche it can exploit to grow strong and numerous.”
“Yes, I know about Darwin,” I said. “But you said you had news of David. What is it?”
“He has been talking to a very dangerous woman. A woman who has the power to destroy him utterly, and you alongside him. You must prevent him working for her.”
“What on Earth are you talking about? He has a perfectly good job already – with a charity. He’s a scientist – he doesn’t have conversations with dangerous women – or men, for that matter. The most dangerous person he ever comes into contact with is the woman who issues replacement ID badges.”
She tutted impatiently, like one of those awful businessmen-turned-magistrates.
“You have heard of the one percent? The super-rich? The global citizens?”
I nodded again.
“There is a group within the one percent. About one in a hundred, in fact. They have evolved. They belong to a different species. They are all members of seven very old families. They run corporations now. In Manhattan, Moscow, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Beijing, Sao Paulo and London. They are the ultimate non-domiciles. For centuries, they have been accumulating wealth and power. But their food sources are becoming harder to access. They used to feed out in the nowhere regions of the world – in India, Africa, Latin America, the Chinese interior, the eastern Russian republics. But now that everybody has a smartphone, it’s getting harder for them to operate below the radar. So they’re looking closer to home. In fact, they’re preying on the people who don’t have a home. Street people, addicts, prostitutes, vagrants, runaways: all those who have fallen through the net. The police don’t care, the public don’t see them, the tourist authorities wish them gone. And the O-One have free reign to hunt at night.”
“I’m sorry. But what are you talking about? What species? And what do you mean prey and hunt? And did you say the O-One?”
“One percent of one percent, Caroline – it’s what they call themselves. Like in maths, you know? Point zero one percent. They prey on humans.”
“But they are humans. You said they were the super-rich. I know not everyone likes or admires them, but they’re actually not a different species. Look, would you please just come out and say whatever it is you came here to say and then I think you’d better leave.”
“Very well. Have you heard of Peta Velds?”
“Of course. Came from nowhere. Youngest female CEO in the history of ever. Runs a massive global company, listed on the London and New York Stock Exchanges.”
“Very good. So, Velds Industries are starting to look at the link between solar radiation and cell mutation. She has asked David to go to work for her. Do you know what he is working on now?”
“Of course I do. David is searching for the precise mechanism by which solar radiation causes melanoma – that’s skin cancer. And he’s brilliant,” I said. Why did I feel so defensive with this woman? “He’s a genius. If anyone can find that link David can.”
“Caroline, I know he is brilliant. And so does Velds. But she does not hire him to cure cancer. She has her eye on another cellular mutation altogether.”
“This is crazy!” I said. It was like talking to a child. Her logic was impeccable even if the world it described was clearly a delusion. I wondered if she’d discharged herself from a mental hospital. There were a couple within a few miles of our house.
“No. Not crazy. True!” she shouted. Then she spotted my crossword. I do them to relax. “You like anagrams?” she said.
“They’re easy. I always do them first.”
“OK, so. An anagram. Peta Velds.”
I grabbed my pencil and a legal pad from my case and arranged the letters of her name in a circle. I found a couple straight away: Past Delve and Saved Pelt. I showed them to her.
“No. Look.”
She took the pencil from me and wrote down a name.
VLAD ȚEPEŞ
“Does that name mean anything to you, Caroline?”
“Vlad Tepes? Honestly? No.”
“Not ‘Teeps’, you say it ‘Shepeth’. It was a soubriquet – a nickname, you would say, though a rather unpleasant one. It means, ‘Impaler’. You have heard of Vlad the Impaler, I trust?”
I had to admit that I had. It’s one of the gruesome stories you pick up in a history lesson and never forget.
“So. You know something at least. Imagine a field studded with 20,000 corpses, men, women and children, impaled on sharpened wooden stakes driven into the ground, some still alive, screaming as they slide slowly down over the tips of the oiled spikes. A man dines alone, in the centre of that carnage, at a table set with fine linen and silver, dabbing his lips and picking his teeth. That man was an ancestor of Peta Velds.”
I’d had enough. I asked her to leave and, reluctantly, she complied. But before she left, she turned to me and looked me intently in the eye.
“This business is not over, Caroline. We will meet again. Soon.”
Chapter 3
Caroline Murray’s Journal, 26th August 2010
It isn’t usual for me to be home before David. I’m a barrister and long days in court or chambers mean it’s frequently nine or later before I dump my case in our hallway and kick my shoes off. Neither of us is much of a cook, and of the two of us, David is better with the microwave, so I ordered some Chinese and sloshed red wine into a glass and went through to the sitting room. I was pondering a difficult clue when David literally burst through the front door. I know, I’m a lawyer, words are my stock in trade. So, he didn’t literally ‘burst’ through the front door, but he came in fast and loud and he had a wild-eyed look that usually makes me think he needs to up his meds. He is somewhat prone to mood swings and takes a little purple capsule before bed that ensures he doesn’t take off, no matter how excited he gets about this new idea or that new formula.
“Caro,” he shouted. “You’ll never guess what happened today.”
I said had he been given the Nobel Prize. My deadpan humour fell on deaf ears.
“No, nitwit. A job.”
“You have a job,” I said.
“No. A new job. A better job. An incredible job!”
I told him to slow down. I needed a decent night’s sleep. I had a big case the next day and I didn’t fancy talking him down off the ceiling at three o’clock.
“OK, calm down and tell me. What job?”
He took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out through flapping lips, making him sound like a horse.
“Have you heard of Velds Industries?” he said. My heart sank. Of course I had. From Ariane Van Helsing if nobody else. “Well, they’re starting to look at the link between solar radiation and cell mutation. Skin cancer!”
Ariane had said he’d been offered a job. And she was right. But I still thought, as she’d predicted, that she was the mad one. I should explain. David is a brilliant man. We met when we were both at Cambridge. He took a double starred first in physics and computational biology while I had to be content with a 2.1 in law. Oh, and he did a PhD in a year and a half while I was doing my training. It won the Harcourt Medal. He works for one of the big medical charities researching treatments for skin cancer. It’s all very technical but it’s something to do with UV radiation and gene therapy. Or something. Anyway, he’s a genius. With all that that entails.
“Let me guess. You saw an ad in New Scientist and they hired you.”
“No. Yes. I mean, it’s better than that. Peta Velds called me. The Peta Velds. She called me, Caro. Personally. She’s spoken to our CEO and told him she’d give him a huge great big grant if he’d let her have me and a couple of people on my team to work directly for her.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Peta Velds, the CEO of Velds industries, gets on the phone and personally offers you a new job?”
“Crazy, right?”
“Someone’s crazy, darling, but I’m not sure its Peta Velds. She’s worth billions. I don’t think she’d go around doing her own recruitment, do you? Her HR director’s secretary probably has a secretary. Are you sure it wasn’t someone winding you up?”
“No! Look, I know it sounds a little, weird. And before you ask, I’m not off my meds. I went to see her. Today. She rang me at around nine and when I looked out of the window there was a big black car on the kerb waiting for me. I went down and the chauffeur guy took me across town to the City. Up in the lift to the 25th floor of their building.”
“Oh, yes, The Point. Stupid bloody name for a building. Why can’t they just called it Velds Tower and have done with it?”
“I don’t know, maybe she likes cones, maybe it’s the pencil point she used to write her first business plan. It’s not important. She said she’d been following my career. Since Cambridge. She was in the audience when I won The Harcourt. She showed me a file with all my articles and research papers. She had them all.”
“OK. So she’s a skin cancer groupie with a thing for borderline bipolar research scientists with brains the size of planets. Then what?”
“Then she laid it out for me. She wants me to work on a related field. It’s still cell mutation, but something to do with light sensitivity. I think she’s onto something, Caro. She’s done a ton of research. Ran me through this PowerPoint presentation, had about a hundred slides in it. There’s a definite link between melanoma, UV and this condition she’s been working on. They’ve got a whole division just focusing on it called Velds Solar Solutions.”
He grabbed me by the arms at this point. His eyes were shining and there were little webs of froth collecting in the corners of his mouth: all the signs he was about to go into orbit.
“Look, darling,” I said. “Just wait one second. Have a slurp of this.”
I put my wine glass to his lips and pushed it up so he had to drink or get it all down his front. He emptied it impatiently.
“OK, I’m sorry. Let’s sit down. I know I’m hyper but this is just incredible. Imagine if the Lord Chief Justice just rang you one day and said, ‘Oh, hi, Caroline, this is Freddie Laing, I want you to sit on the High Court’. Well, it’s like that for me.”
I had to laugh. David’s a brilliant man, but his level of knowledge of the law or how my job really works is touchingly tiny.
“So, you get to stay in your same old lab in London but now you’re working for Velds Industries?”
His eyes fell at this point and the smile, which had been widening to the point I thought his head might split in half, disappeared altogether.
“Here’s the thing, Caro. She’s moving the lab.”
“Moving it? Where to?”
“Norfolk.”
“Norfolk?”
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