Midnight Smoke (The Firebrand Series Book 3) Read online

  Lukas turned to me, his black eyes searching my face. What he was looking for, I had no idea. ‘Hello, Emma,’ he said. He moved a fraction closer. ‘How are you?’ His tongue darted out and wetted his lips. ‘You’ve been avoiding my calls.’

  I pointed at the wheel, ignoring his attempts at pleasantries. My uncle would have been proud. ‘Who is that?’

  If Lukas was irritated, he didn’t show it. ‘We haven’t been able to get a decent look at his face so I can’t tell.’

  ‘But he’s definitely a vampire?’

  ‘Yes.’ Hannigan gestured towards a young woman wearing a London Eye T-shirt who was staring at Lukas with wide eyes. Considering the clothes he was wearing, I didn’t blame her. ‘Paige,’ he snapped. ‘Tell her what you saw.’ When she continued gazing at Lukas, Hannigan nudged her. ‘Paige!’

  The woman shook herself and focused on me. I estimated she was about twenty. She was probably a student working at the Eye during her holidays. No doubt it was a good gig – most of the time. She scratched her head and blinked rapidly. ‘Er, I was getting ready to open up when he came past me. Half the security team were on his tail but they couldn’t get close. I tried to stop him too but he was too fast. He’s definitely a vampire. I got a good look at him and…’ She opened her mouth and tapped her canines.

  ‘Fangs?’ I asked.

  She nodded. ‘Big ones.’

  ‘How do we know he’s suicidal?’ I asked no one in particular. ‘How do we know that this isn’t some kind of stunt?’

  ‘Stunt?’ Lukas growled sharply.

  I gave him a long look; just because he believed his vampires were above reproach didn’t mean it was true. As their leader, he was powerful and he garnered considerable respect but at the last count there were almost two thousand vamps under his control. He couldn’t possibly keep track of all of them.

  ‘If someone wanted to commit suicide,’ I said calmly, ‘why would they choose such a public place? Any bridge would do. Picking a tourist attraction seems like vanity.’

  Lukas’s face darkened but he didn’t answer, probably because he knew I was right.

  ‘I don’t care why he’s up there,’ Hannigan said. ‘Just get the blighter down!’

  Easier said than done. ‘Tell me about the wheel. What do I need to know?’

  ‘We’ve shut down the power,’ Paige told me. ‘Obviously.’ She pointed at the immobile glass pods. Some of them still contained people; anxious faces were peering down at us then up at the precariously perched vamp. ‘It’s 135 metres high. It’s not the tallest observation wheel in the world—’

  Hannigan’s expression soured further.

  ‘—although it used to be and,’ Paige continued, ‘one revolution takes around thirty minutes.’

  I scratched my chin. ‘I suppose you’ve already considered turning it back on and waiting for our would-be jumper to rotate to the ground.’

  ‘We don’t want to do anything that might provoke him to step off.’

  ‘Or,’ Lukas added, his expression shuttered, ‘fall off by accident.’

  ‘He was halfway up before we managed to shut everything down,’ Paige said. ‘I don’t think he’ll fall by accident. He seems pretty nimble.’ She cast another wide-eyed look at Lukas. ‘Is that a vampire trait?’

  He glanced at her then smiled slowly without taking his eyes away from hers. ‘It is. Typically, we’re more athletic and stronger than humans.’ The intensity of his gaze increased. Paige was all but melting.

  I frowned. What exactly did he think he was doing?

  Hannigan’s cheeks were turning a vicious shade of red. He was obviously immune to Lukas’s obvious charms. ‘Get that freak down from there!’

  Lukas placed a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry,’ he murmured, power vibrating through his words. ‘Everything will be fine.’

  The London Eye manager opened his mouth then closed it again, as his body subsided. ‘Everything will be fine,’ he repeated robotically.

  ‘Lukas,’ I warned.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘What? You can’t tell me that he didn’t need calming down.’

  I tutted.

  ‘That’s so cool,’ Paige breathed.

  Yeah, yeah. I sighed and looked up again. What comes up must come down, I decided. One way or another.

  ‘Do you have any safety harnesses for climbing up the structure?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re being collected,’ Paige answered. ‘They should be here soon.’

  Soon might be too late. I nodded before moving away and examining the web of steel. It didn’t look too difficult, and fortunately I had a head for heights. I raised one foot and tested my weight.

  ‘Emma,’ Lukas said, ‘what do you think you’re doing?’

  I grinned. ‘I’ve told you before, I prefer it when you call me D’Artagnan.’ Then, without further ado, I started to climb. The watching crowd gasped loudly, a perfectly synchronised sound of excitement and horror.

  I’d barely gone two metres when Lukas was by my side, climbing with me. ‘I will ask the question again. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I’m going to talk to your vampire and see if I can encourage him to come down of his own accord.’ I reached for the next steel section and hauled myself up.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot. You might fall.’ He was keeping pace with me. Higher and higher and higher.

  ‘So might you,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I’m a vampire. I have preternatural abilities.’

  ‘True,’ I answered, without stopping. ‘But if you fall, you’ll still go splat.’

  ‘So will you.’

  ‘I’ll wake up again twelve hours later. You won’t.’ I paused. ‘And, as it turns out, the more times I die the stronger I become. So not only is this easier for me than you might think but, if I slip and fall, I’ll be more powerful tomorrow. If you slip and fall, you’ll be dead.’

  ‘He’s a vampire. He’s my responsibility.’

  ‘I represent Supe Squad,’ I replied easily. ‘The responsibility is mine. You head down to your new friend. I’ll take care of this.’

  There was a beat of silence. Lukas continued to match me step for step. I risked a glance down and estimated we were already about forty metres up. There was still no sign of the harnesses. This had definitely been the best call.

  ‘Paige does seem like a lovely girl,’ Lukas said finally.

  ‘Mmm.’ A gust of wind rippled past, ruffling my hair and tugging at the frills on Lukas’s shirt.

  ‘I wonder if she’s single.’

  I didn’t respond.

  ‘You look annoyed, D’Artagnan. Are you jealous?’

  ‘Nope,’ I said. Forty-five metres up now. ‘But you’re trying to make me jealous.’

  Another beat passed. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am. You were supposed to come round to my house for dinner. I was … disappointed when you didn’t. I ended up being called to a meeting at Fairfax’s place instead. It was very dull. If you’d kept our … date, I could have avoided his pointless attempts at friendship.’

  ‘I called you about that. I had to cancel because I had an assault in Lisson Grove to deal with. A daft human bloke was trying it on with some of the Carr wolves and he ended up getting bitten. I had to make sure the paperwork was in order and double-check that all procedures were followed.’

  One werewolf bite wouldn’t turn a human into a furry beast but two might, and three separate bites would almost definitely do the trick. The werewolf clans were only permitted to turn a small number of people each year because their numbers were strictly capped by the 1901 Limiting Act. Accidental bites had to be carefully logged and communicated to all werewolves to avoid inadvertent repeats and accidental transformations. It was a process the clans took care of for themselves but this had been the first opportunity I’d had to witness it first hand. I couldn’t pass that up. And, if I were honest, having an excuse to avoid dinner with Lukas had been a godsend. I was conflicted about him, both about
my feelings for him and his activities as vampire Lord, so avoidance seemed like the better option. If that made me a coward, well then, so be it.

  ‘You’re scared of me.’

  ‘No,’ I answered. Sixty metres. Almost halfway. ‘It’s not you I’m afraid of, it’s your job. Especially when it’s compared to my job.’

  ‘Being Lord is more than a job.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said sadly. ‘That’s what worries me.’

  ‘Emma,’ Lukas began.

  Something fell from above, clattering past us as it bounced off the steel structure of the Eye. I stopped moving and stared down, tracking its fall. ‘What was that?’

  Lukas frowned. ‘I don’t know.’ He angled his head up. ‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘He’s on the move.’

  I squinted against the sun and spotted the vamp above us. He seemed to be moving across the top of the wheel towards the other side, away from us.

  ‘Can you see his face?’ I asked. Lukas had far better eyesight than I could ever hope for. ‘Can you tell who he is yet?’

  His voice was grim. ‘No. He knows we’re here – he wouldn’t be moving away otherwise. But he’s not once looked back in this direction. It’s like he doesn’t want to be identified.’

  Suspicion nibbled at me. There was more to this than met the eye, I was sure of it. ‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ I muttered.

  ‘Yeah.’ Lukas’s jaw was set. ‘Me too. You should head down to solid ground.’

  ‘So should you,’ I retorted. I looked at the nearest pod. There was a large group of people inside, staring at us. I considered raising a hand to wave at them but I didn’t want to tempt fate. We were rather high up now and, despite my newly enhanced strength and stamina, I was starting to tire. This climbing business was harder than it looked.

  At the front of the pod was a young boy, perhaps seven or eight years old. His mouth was smeared with chocolate from the ice-cream cone in his hand. With all the excitement, he seemed to have forgotten that he was holding it. Rather than gazing at Lukas and me, however, his saucer-wide eyes were trained on the figure above us. All of a sudden he seemed to gasp. My head swung round, just in time to see the supposedly suicidal vampire leap down from the steel beam he was balancing on to the top of one of the other observation pods.

  ‘Don’t move!’ I shouted, throwing as much force into my voice as I could. The wind whipped away my words and, even with the keen hearing granted to his kind, I doubted the vampire had heard me. By my side, Lukas cursed.

  Then the vampire leapt down again, his hands catching another of the steel rods, and swung in mid-air for a moment. I was all but certain he was going to fall and plummet the hundred metres or so to his death. Instead he dropped and lowered himself further down with astonishing speed,

  The wind gusted even harder. The vamp, who was still on the opposite side of the wheel, barely seemed to notice. He drew level with us but didn’t once glance over in our direction. He seemed intent on getting to the ground. In theory that was a good thing because nobody wanted him to jump, but I wanted to talk to him and find out what was behind this stunt. If he ran away before we reached him, there’d be a lot of unanswered questions to deal with.

  I had to follow suit – if he was clambering down then so was I. I started to lower myself but, in my haste, my foot slipped. I let out a sharp cry. Within a heartbeat, Lukas was reaching for me and pulling me back up again.

  His hand curved round my waist, gripping me tightly, and he looked into my eyes. ‘I tried to warn you, D’Artagnan,’ he murmured. ‘It’s dangerous up here and I don’t want you to fall.’

  I stared at him, my heart hammering in my chest. Then there was a clang and I looked away, towards the descending vampire. ‘He’s still heading down,’ I said. ‘We have to get to him.’

  Lukas nodded. ‘Be careful,’ he warned.

  This time I didn’t offer any clever quips. ‘I will.’ I started to climb down.

  Lukas and I moved quickly, mirroring the actions of the mysterious vamp, descending step for step, albeit on opposite sides of the wheel. The structure of the Eye heaved and groaned. I knew it would more than hold our weight, but my near fall had knocked the wind out of my sails and I felt less confident now.

  It was harder going down than it was climbing up, and it wasn’t long before the vampire started to pull away. Below us, various police officers and London Eye officials were positioning themselves. Someone would catch him when he reached the ground then we’d find out what the hell all this was about.

  Lukas and I were about twenty-five metres from the ground and the vampire was about fifteen metres away. I tried to move faster to catch him up, but he suddenly stopped. He looked down, swinging his head first one way then the other. What on earth was he up to? Was he stuck? Attacked by a bout of vertigo?

  I was totally wrong.

  Lukas yelled down at the small crowd of police and Eye security officials. ‘Left!’ he roared. ‘Go left!’

  It was already too late. As we watched and clung helplessly to the Eye, the vampire on the other side jumped and sailed outwards from the steelwork. Instead of slamming into the ground and collapsing into a heap, he hit the tarmac and rolled. Then he sprang to his feet in one fluid movement and started to sprint. Security and police officers streamed towards him. but he paid them no attention as he pelted directly for the barrier to the far side. It was designed to keep out trespassers but the vamp scrambled up it easily, threw himself off the other side and disappeared. Well, fuckity fuck fuck.

  We climbed down the rest of the way, first Lukas and then me.

  ‘He’s gone,’ stated a panting policeman who rushed up to us. ‘We tried to catch him but he was like a damned ninja. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ He shot Lukas an accusing look as if it were entirely his fault that vampires had such acrobatic skills. If Lukas noticed, he didn’t react; his expression was set like granite but his black eyes were flaring with rage.

  ‘You’ve never had to deal with a suicidal vampire before, have you?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘No,’ Lukas bit out. ‘And I don’t think we’re dealing with one now, either.’

  Chapter Three

  I’d only been back on solid ground for a few moments when my phone rang. I checked the caller display and my heart sank.

  Lukas leaned across and glanced down. ‘Ignore it,’ he said.

  I shook my head. I couldn’t do that. I pressed the button to answer. ‘This is DC Bellamy,’ I said.

  ‘Emma,’ Detective Superintendent Lucinda Barnes barked. ‘What in bejesus’ name is going on? Why am I watching the lunchtime news and seeing reports of a damned vampire climbing the London Eye?’

  I winced. ‘He’s not climbing it any more,’ I offered helpfully.

  ‘Did he fall?’

  ‘Er, he climbed down and ran away.’

  Her voice rose to a screech. ‘Ran away? What is going on? Where is Lord Horvath?’

  I held the phone towards Lukas, suggesting that he take it and speak to my boss himself, but he backed away looking grimly amused. He didn’t have to answer to DSI Barnes. Unfortunately I didn’t have the same luxury. ‘He’s busy,’ I said. ‘But he’s here and he was trying to help bring the man down.’

  ‘Well, he didn’t do a very good job, did he?’ She hissed under her breath. ‘He probably planned this. He probably wanted to remind the world of just how powerful the vampires are. I’m surprised he didn’t arrange for a group to abseil down Big Ben at the same time.’

  ‘Actually,’ I began, ‘I don’t think that—’

  There was the sound of muffled voices from DSI Barnes’ end. ‘What?’ she said to someone. ‘What?’

  I frowned, prickles of tension on the nape of my neck.

  My boss came back on the line. ‘Get to Tower Bridge,’ she ordered. ‘As fast as you can.’

  My blood chilled. ‘Why?’

  Lukas was watching me, his eyes narrowed.

  ‘Three werewolves have hijacked a
n open-top bus.’

  My mouth dropped open. ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘You have no idea how much I wish I were. Go. Now.’

  I didn’t waste any further time. I was already running for Tallulah.

  ‘Emma!’ Lukas called after me.

  I waved a hand. ‘Find that fucking vampire!’ I yelled over my shoulder. And then I ran faster.

  ***

  I’d started keeping a loaded crossbow in Tallulah at all times. When I reached the edge of Tower Bridge and saw the commotion ahead, I grabbed it from the back seat before hauling arse. This time I didn’t need to show my identification to gain access to the scene; Tallulah and the crossbow heralded my arrival. The relief on the faces of the police at my end of the bridge was unmistakable.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked, wasting neither time nor breath on any unnecessary preamble.

  ‘Tour bus up ahead,’ stated a lanky male police officer. His voice was calm and his expression was studiously bland, but I didn’t miss the faint tremble in his hands. It was understandable; very few police officers ever had to deal with supernaturals in person. Apart from yours truly, of course. ‘It’s one of those buses that you can catch on any street corner around here. It takes in the sights. Has its own tour guide. You know the sort of thing.’

  The bus had come to a halt in the middle of the road and was sitting at an angle across two lanes. Both in front and behind it were scattered cars that had been abandoned by their drivers. There were also, by my count, at least eight armed officers with guns trained on it. The open top deck appeared to be empty. Whatever was going on was happening inside on the lower floor.

  ‘We have reports that three men with large backpacks got on board outside the Tower of London. A few minutes later, they transformed into werewolves, grabbed the tour guide and several other tourists and threatened the rest. They seemed to want the bus driver to drive out of the city, but he crashed the bus instead and got away. Some of the other tourists managed to jump off the top of the bus when it stopped. We think there are seven people still inside, not including the werewolves.’