And, chapter 3...
A genuine pre-exposure vampire lair
-----------------------------------
It was Friday and I had agreed with Eleanor to meet her sire. He happened to have a house in London and he was already there in preparation for the Solstice meeting. We were strolling through the streets of Notting Hill, taking in the tall Georgian buildings and the orange leaves from gardens hidden behind hedges too tall to peer over.
"I don't have much to do with vampire society," admitted Eleanor.
"How comes?"
"Oh? My work at the University keeps me busy," she said, then she shrugged.
"Flavius doesn't mind me doing my own thing though."
I nodded. We arrived at a large, white-painted town-house. Eleanor walked up the stone steps to the door and knocked. One of Bellisarius' strigs opened the door and led us into a beautiful study. It had floor to ceiling bookcases crammed with interesting books in a multitude of languages. Most were military or tactical manuals, but there were still plenty on other subjects, such as history, philosophy and religion. The room was lit by street lights, reflected off the low clouds, and a coal fire which was crackling away, despite the fact that the use of coal was illegal in London. I took a seat in one of the comfortable leather chairs by the fire, looked out at a private garden and smiled. I liked his study, it reminded me of home.
Bellisarius entered via one of the oak panelled doors and paused to regard me, so I returned the favour. He was, like most vampires, rather young-looking, appearing to be in his twenties. He had a clipped goatee, close-cropped hair and was dressed in a mid-blue suit.
"Take a seat, why don't you!" he bellowed.
Eeek! I've pissed him off already!
I stood up and fixed him with my most charming smile as I walked over holding my hand out. Bellisarius eyed my curves appreciatively as I walked, and I pretended I hadn't noticed.
"Sorry if I was rude. I'm Clarke," I said breathily.
He nodded, now considering my face.
"General Flavius Bellisarius, at your service," he said, shaking my hand. Then he smiled and gestured to the chair I had been sitting in. I smiled and sat back down.
"Do you drink? Would you like some wine?"
I nodded and he sent Eleanor off to get some wine for the three of us.
"Your name's Bellisarius?" I asked.
He nodded.
"That is a famous name." I grinned.
"A good one too, if you're in the military. Are you related to the great Roman general?"
Bellisarius beamed.
"No, I am he!"
I did my best look of shocked wonder.
"No, surely not! You're THE Bellisarius? the best general the world has ever known? One of the last of the Romans?"
"I can see that you've been well educated."
I leant back in my chair and grinned. I felt the urge to say, 'Well, I'll be!' but I thought that might be overacting my part.
"Wow, I knew that there were some old vampires, but I never dreamt I would meet a genuine Roman! Let alone such a distinguished one."
Eleanor came back into the room and I caught her rolling her eyes. She gave us both a glass of wine, took a seat and started sipping hers.
"Still, you don't look that old." I shot him a flirtatious grin.
Bellisarius smiled; he seemed somewhat unaware that I was laying it on with a shovel. After all, I could do with all the founders I could get on my side.
"So tell me, what do you do now?" I asked.
He shrugged.
"A bit of consultancy work." Then he named a couple of mercenary companies.
"Training, mostly. I'm semi-retired," he said with a sigh.
"No real battles to fight, not like the good old days. Now it's all about who has the most money, the better technology. It used to be about who had the most loyal soldiers and the better strategy."
I raised an eyebrow in amusement.
"There's no strategy in blowing someone up from ten leagues away with a missile!"
"But even in the old days didn't money came into it? After all, it's very well having a heroic band of loyal soldiers who'll fight to the end, but won't they be much happier with decent sandals and a good meal?"
He smiled.
"Well, of course. For example --"
Then he went into a long story about an ancient battle he'd fought. I drank my wine, asked pertinent questions and started my education.
* * *
Mist hugged the grass as the first light of dawn was pinking the leaves in Bellisarius' neat garden. We had worked our way through about four bottles of wine. I had, despite the wine, tried to commit as much as possible to memory. After all, how often do you get to hear about the adventures of a soldier and a leader who'd had a part in almost every European war for over a millenia? Plus, I could do with knowing as much as possible about fighting; the hunters were using troop tactics against me.
I led Eleanor out of Bellisarius' house, she was yawning, and, I had noticed, she'd fallen asleep sometime around the second bottle of wine. I wasn't tired, my mind was still digesting Bellisarius' stories. We stopped for coffee.
"Why were you buttering him up like that?" she asked.
"What do you hope to get out of him? Would you rather he sponsor you than Kenji?"
"I wasn't buttering him up at all, I've got no reason to," I lied.
She nodded.
"Oh, I thought..."
"What?" I asked with guileless curiosity.
"Er, nothing," she said, looking at her coffee. Then she grinned.
"Well, be warned, he'll think you're a sympathetic ear now, he'll want to tell you all his old stories." She yawned again, involuntarily, but effectively, communicating what she thought of them.
"Why's that a bad thing? They were interesting stories. I got to hear an eyewitness account of all those battles." I chewed on my knuckle.
"The books had some things wrong it seems. It's a shame he can't talk to military historians about it."
Eleanor sighed.
"Trust me, the stories are not interesting at all when you've heard each one twenty times."
Less than happy with me, but believing my comment, she headed off into the warren of London's streets.
At around lunchtime, I went to meet up with my friends to go Christmas shopping. I'd already gotten what I needed to get for my family, so I just followed Anna along Oxford street.
"So, Brannigan," I was explaining,
"I don't think the bodyguard cover is working."
He frowned.
"But that is what I'm doing."
"I know, I know. How about this, say you're a civil servant."
"What? Paper pushing? I know nothing about that sort of work."
I nodded.
"Yeah, it's OK. People will know you're lying."
"They will? Is that a good idea? I thought the point of a cover was that people thought it was the truth."
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
It looks like some of my education has gone in.
"Yes, but if you say you're a civil servant, they'll think they know the truth," I explained.
"What? They'll guess I'm a time-traveller? From that?"
"No." I sighed.
"They'll think you're a spy! But then they won't ask any more questions. And remember you must be subtle, sneaky and secretive."
Brannigan nodded.
"So, say you work in Cheltenham, and if pressed further just say something like 'I am not at liberty to divulge that'."
Brannigan nodded and even went so far to repeat 'I am not at liberty to divulge that' as if he were learning the responses at mass.
"But don't discuss it with Rachel much, she already thinks you're a spy."
"Oh," said Brannigan.
"Where's Cheltenham?"
I shrugged.
"Outside London somewhere."
He nodded
Suzili stopped to pet a homeless guy's dog.
"You got any change, love?" the guy asked her.
She looked at me expectantly. I sighed and dug my hand into my pocket and dropped a couple of pound coins into his hands, and, because I was feeling generous, I flashed him a smile as well.
"Thanks love," he said. Then he looked around himself.
"You seem a pretty one."
I raised an eyebrow.
'Bad news behind,' he sub-vocalised, although the guy wasn't a vampire.
He knows what I am?
Seeing my shock, he displayed a nicotine-stained grin and held out his hand again, the coins had miraculously vanished.
"'Ow about a note, to get me into the shelter tonight?"
I frowned, but passed him a grubby tenner, feeling like I wanted to be generous to the homeless. After all, it was almost Christmas.
'Bad news, love. You're being tailed. Two pencils.'
Two pencils? Two pencils? What the hell?
But I nodded.
"Merry christmas to you," he said.
I grinned.
"Yeah and a happy bloody new year." We walked on.
"Why did you give him money then swear at him?" asked Anna.
Eh?
"'Bloody' isn't a swear word -- "
-- to vampires anyway.
I wanted to turn around, and eyeball the hunters, and they had to be hunters, who else would be tailing me?
Oh I get it, hunters, armed with lead and wood: pencils. Bloody hell, since when have warnings been so sun-drenched and cryptic?
"Brannigan, keep an eye out, we're crossing," I said, leading us straight across the road into traffic. Horns beeped, cars slowed, drivers yelled and Suzili flinched, but I grasped her hand to keep her walking with me.
"What are you doing, Calaka? The cars!" She pointed at them, but I dragged her on.
"What's going on, Clarke?" asked Anna. I flicked my eyes to the side to try and look behind me. Whilst avoiding a cyclist, I glanced behind and spotted one of the hunters staring at me. He was dressed in blue jeans, white trainers, and a long wool coat with suspicious weapon-shaped lumps.
Shit.
We'd survived the crossing. A taxi driver was telling me what he thought my parentage was, Anna was giving me a lecture on road safety, Suzili was making nervous little movements, Rob yawned, as if life or death games of chicken with double-decker buses were a usual occurance, but Brannigan had gotten a clue and was scanning the surroundings. He spotted the hunter.
"This way," I said, leading them up a side-street full of shops and restaurants.
It will be OK, one of my hidey-holes is nearby. The main thing is to avoid getting my friends or any passers-by shot.
The road we were on curved to the left, making it hard for the hunters to tail us. I was walking as fast as I could and still have Anna keep up with me. At long last, my friends cottoned on to my urgency.
"Flo', what's the matter?" Rob asked.
Would it be safe to separate from them? Can I be sure that all the hunters will keep tailing me?
"Hunters," I said, not looking behind.
"After us."
Rob swore and looked over his shoulder.
"Don't do that, they'll know they're made!"
Anna couldn't help but look back.
Bloody hell, Anna!
"There's a guy running!" she gasped.
"Shit, come on!" I broke into a run. Rob and Brannigan had no difficulty keeping up with me, but Anna and Suzili struggled. When I looked back, I saw two guys running after us.
The closer one shouted:
"Stop. Police!"
People were pausing to watch us now.
Shit! Is he a genuine copper? Are there hunters in the police? Or are they hunters disguised as police?
Ahead of us, a burly guy eyed up the scene and tried to grab me. I dodged and he went for Suzili, so I kicked him in the balls, gently, as I didn't want to unman the innocent, and kept running.
"This way! Round that corner!" I yelled. We ran down a road with far fewer people. My friends ran around the corner in front of me, as I paused to eyeball the hunters. The one at the back stopped, his feet planted apart from each other, a small crossbow held steady in both hands.
"Armed police!" he shouted, then pulled the trigger. I ran round the corner and heard something smash into the wall behind me.
"Keep going!" I yelled. The coppers/hunters ran round the next corner after us. This time they didn't bother with all that 'Armed police' nonsense as there was no-one else in that alleyway and instead let loose a forest of stakes aimed at me. I ducked low and kept running. We went round another corner and Rob looked like he was heading towards an alley way off to the right.
"Not that way!" I yelled.
"This way!"
I pointed to the next turning on the left. It would mean we had to run further. As we ran, Brannigan stopped and fired crossbow bolts at the hunters behind us. They ducked back round the corner and he kept firing to keep them pinned down there. We got to the mouth of the alley on the left and Brannigan turned to run towards us. I pulled my pistol out and fired towards the mouth of the alleyway to cover him. The hunters stayed out of sight.
"It's a dead end!" Brannigan exclaimed once he had joined us.
"Follow me," I said.
We ran to a nondescript door that looked like it lead to a flat or a designer's office. I put my hand in my pocket to locate the key, but because we were within smell range the door opened. The manager stuck his head out and looked at me.
"In there! Quick!" I said to my friends, pointing. We piled in, I went last. The hunters hadn't gotten within sight range of us yet. Perhaps they knew it was a dead end and were taking their time. I shot a couple of rounds up the alleyway to discourage their curiosity and then ducked inside and pulled the door shut behind me.
"This way," said Mack, the strig who managed the bar and looked after the day to day running of my club. He led us through another door, which he then locked behind us, and went down the darkened stairs. My friends followed him, quiet other than their panting as they recovered from the sudden run. Anna was whimpering slightly.
"I'll put the lights on when we're at the bottom, don't worry, love," said Mack to her.
There was a glow of pale white light as Rob got out an LED flash-light and handed it to Anna. She tried to light up the steps, but as she was shaking the light moved all over the place making our shadows jump.
We got to the bottom of the stairs and entered the club proper. Even to a vampire it was dark, so Mack turned on the lights and lit a couple of the candles that were scattered around. This was one of my hidey holes that I'd purchased, but one that made a good bit of money -- more than enough to pay for itself.
My club was a goth, metal and rock club. It was decorated in black and red. I hadn't changed the decor since taking it over. I'd given the booths a new lick of paint and turned the toilets from a health hazard to something sanitary. The walls were covered in plastic that was moulded to look like stone and metal in the shape of gargoyles and torch holders. The DJ's booth was a black painted pulpit, and there were cages mounted at about head height which people could, and did, climb into to dance around. I'd added metal chains and manacles to one of the walls, and swords to another, as they'd looked like the sort of thing that would go.
Brannigan looked around in horror.
"What is this ungodly place?"
I chuckled.
"It's just a club, Brannigan."
"Problem with hunters, boss?" asked Mack, looking significantlt at Brannigan.
"Mack, this is Brannigan, my friend and an ex-hunter."
Mack raised an eyebrow -- which was a rather extreme expression of shock for him. The rest of my friends introduced themselves and I asked Mack to get them some tea. By the time he returned they'd calmed down. A cat followed Mack in, weaving its way around his legs. Suzili crouched down to pet it.
"Where'd the cat come from?" I asked him.
He shrugged.
"So, there hunters out there? Should I warn the guests?"
"Perhaps tell them to lay low for the moment."
He nodded.
"Well, if you don't want anything else, boss, I'll get back to me job. Last night's accounts are in the office."
I guess I'd better check them, then.
"What is this place?" asked Brannigan again.
"Why did he call you boss?" asked Rob.
I shrugged and avoided his attempts to catch my eye by looking at Anna.
"Well Anna, this is a vampire club. During the day. As you can see, the joint ain't jumping."
"Oh." She scanned the room.
"Hideous decor," she remarked as she took a sip of tea. I grinned.
"And who are the guests?" asked Brannigan.
"Technically, the club is closed, but some vampires er... spend the day here."
"What? We're in genuine pre-exposure vampire lair?"
I stared at him.
"Oh!" He eagerly took in the room again.
"Can I explore? We were taught all about this." Anna looked curious, so he addressed his explanation to her.
"How vampires would disappear, going to ground away from the hunters and spending the day in covens down in the dark depths!"
I frowned at Brannigan.
"What happened after the exposure?"
Brannigan shrugged.
"Most vampires left, so there weren't any lairs on Earth."
I nodded.
"They were very hard to locate, of course, but we were told 'to find the head vampire, you've got to find the nest.'"
"Brannigan, whilst it might well be fun for you to reminisce about your training, please avoid such language."
He pulled a guilty grin.
"Sorry Clarke."
I smiled as he'd managed to not call me 'Lord Clarke'.
"Still, I am curious to see. Can I have a look around?"
"But you've seen a vampire club before?"
"Not during the day. I've seen them at night when they're open to unsuspecting prey."
I frowned at him.
"Uh... sorry my Lord Clarke. Force of habit."
I sighed.
"Just call me Clarke and don't use words like 'lair', 'prey' or 'nest'."
Brannigan nodded.
I unfolded myself from the seat.
"OK, lets look around."
"How did you know where the back entrance was?" asked Rob.
I shrugged.
"I might have been here before. It is a safe house."
He wasn't convinced.
The next room that was done out like Dr. Frankenstein's lab.
I grinned at Rob.
"You'd like this in the evening when it's all switched on, it looks like your lab." He grinned back.
This room had a larger dance floor and two strigs were practising sword fighting on it. They weren't particularly good, and one of them kept singing the theme from Star Wars and making light-saber sounds as he fought.
"Ah, so they practice during the day," remarked Brannigan.
The strigs stopped fighting and looked over at us.
"Hey, you're the new founder everyone's talking about in'cha!" said one of them to me.
"They said, tall, black hair, blue eyes, you're the new one, right?"
The other strig elbowed him.
"Show some respect!" he muttered.
"Sorry, uh, founder."
I grinned at them.
"It's fine, carry on practising -- "
-- God knows you need it.
We strolled onto the next room, which was L-shaped and edged with purple sofas. It couldn't have been more clearly labelled a chill-out room. There were ashtrays out on the tables to invite contravention of the smoking ban. Anna noticed those.
"The owner'll be in trouble if the police visit," she helpfully informed me. I grimaced, as that got me thinking about cops.
I could smell that there were lots of vampires round the corner, but in this part of the room there was a single human, a girl of about seventeen who was tall and thin like teenagers are and wearing tight black jeans and ripped tee-shirt. She was loafing on one of the sofas, her booted feet on a table, reading a fantasy book and smoking a cigarette.
This must be Mack's girlfriend, Lorrie.
Under the table, was Mack's dog, a huge St Bernard. I smiled at it and held my hand out.
"There's a good boy, hello there!" He came over to sniff at my hand and, recognising me, wagged his tail.
"So, where do you keep the coffins?" asked Brannigan.
I stopped playing with the dog.
"What?"
Lorrie lowered her novel to eye Brannigan, but she didn't say anything. Suzili made friends with the dog.
"Brannigan, how many vampires have you seen with a coffin?" I asked.
He shrugged.
"Um... none."
"See?"
"So they must hide them really well."
Typical Brannigan logic.
Lorrie was staring at him now.
"Lorraine, isn't it?" I asked, getting her attention.
She nodded, drawing on her cigarette then flicking the ash on the seat, as if that action were a comment on the world.
"Tsk tsk," said Anna,
"There is an ashtray right there."
Lorraine glared at Anna like she'd just told her to do some homework.
I chuckled.
"We'll leave you in peace, Lorrie."
She nodded, raised her book up to her nose and watched us over the top of it in what she must have thought was a surrepticious manner.
We headed round the corner to the other section of the room to see what the strigs were up to. Someone had plugged in a computer console and linked it up to the projector. There were four strigs gathered around, playing some sort of a racing game. Two more were sitting on the backs of the chairs, their feet on the seats, giving advice and heckling in turn. The seventh strig was stretched on the sofa asleep, and for strigs, that meant that he was in the sleep of the dead: unconscious; oblivious to the world; room temperature; still and lacking a heart-beat. To all intents and purposes, he was dead. One of the jokers in the room had balanced a pint glass of ice water on his chest, so as soon as he woke he'd knock it all over himself.
The strigs who were awake noticed us.
"Shit! A hunter!" cried one, jumping to his feet.
"Ah, a founder!" cried another one, also jumping up. The rest looked from me to Brannigan in alarm. Brannigan held his hands up show them he wasn't holding a weapon, but that gesture caused his coat to fold back and reveal the crossbow at his waist.
One of the strigs pulled out a flick knife.
"I know how to use this!" he said, waving it at Brannigan from about two metres away.
Anna, liking drama, took the opportunity to scream.
"Guys, guys, guys," I said.
"Chill out. Brannigan's my bodyguard."
They nodded.
"Sorry Clarke," said Ben, the one who knew me.
The one with the flick knife eyed his friend, then eyed me, then shrugged and put the knife away.
"Any friend of a founder is a friend of mine."
"Is she Clarke then? The new founder?" asked the guy who'd found me scarier than Brannigan. The others nodded.
I pointed at the sleeping strig with the water trap on his chest.
"What is that? Come on, guys, are you fifteen?"
They sniggered.
"He is taking up the whole sofa," said one of the jokers, I think he was called Chris.
"He was too lazy to go and sleep in the proper place --"
Brannigan's eyes widened.
"-- so he deserves it," said Ben.
"Nah," said Rob. They all looked at him.
"What you want to do is hang him up by his feet somewhere."
"Eh?" said Chris.
"Well, everyone knows that vampires sleep upside down!" Rob laughed.
"Good idea," said one of them.
"Rob, don't encourage them," I said.
"Wouldn't that be dangerous? All the blood would rush to his head," said Anna. Everyone stared at her.
"So..." started Brannigan. "whilst hiding away from the sun in the deep underground lair, vampires sit around playing computer games and practical jokes? I was expecting something a little more..." he rolled his hand around as he searched for the right word.
"Gothic?" I suggested.
Ben rolled his eyes.
"We got ourselves a fucking tourist here, guys."
I chuckled.
"Mack said you were chased in here by hunters," said Chris.
I nodded.
He looked serious.
"And this guy isn't one of them?" he stated, jerking his thumb at Brannigan.
I nodded.
"No, he's with me."
One of the strigs whistled.
"Fuck me, but you're hardcore. I know that a few founders liked to wander around with heavies but none of them, are brave enough to have a sun-drenched hunter as a bodyguard."
I grinned.
"Yeah, well..."
They all stared at me.
To change the subject as much as to get intel, I asked them a few questions.
"You guys know of any hunters that are in the police force?"
"We don't know any hunters," said Ben.
"Most vampires do their best to avoid knowing hunters."
"Yeah, it's not like we're gonna go out for pizza and beer with them, is it?" added Chris pointedly.
"We were chased by police!" said Anna.
"They shot at us!"
The strigs looked at her.
"Calaka make us run," said Suzili in a disgusted tone of voice. I wondered if she'd realised exactly what had been going on.
"What if they arrested us?" asked Anna.
"I don't want to go to jail!"
I stared at her in amazement. Then I held up my fingers to count off my points.
"Anna, one, they were after me. Two, they were shooting stakes aiming to kill me, not to arrest me."
She started chewing on her lower lip.
"And three, I'm pretty sure they were just pretending to be undercover cops when there were lots of people around."
"How do you kn-- "
"They didn't have radios and there were two of them."
She frowned at me.
"So...?"
"So, when was the last time you heard of the armed police in this country wandering around on patrol or wielding medieval weapons? If the decision had been made to shoot me, there would have been snipers on the roofs to take the shot. Less chance of civilian casualties that way."
"Oh," she said.
"Plus, vampirism isn't a crime, so the police can't kill me for it."
"Unless they decided that you looked liked a terrorist," muttered one of the strigs.
"Then they can do whatever the hell they like."
I shrugged.
"Final question guys, then I'll let you get back to your game: how comes the homeless people know abut vampires?"
"They do?" asked Rob.
I nodded.
"The guy with the dog realised what I was and told me about the hunters."
"Oh," said Anna.
"They're on the street, right?" said Chris.
"All night long, so maybe they see some things, right? Then they talk about the things they've seen." The other strigs nodded.
"It's fine though," said Ben.
"No-one ever believes what they say and it's easy to buy their silence. They know we are easy to hit up for cash." He shrugged and then frowned.
"Though don't give them too much 'cos most of them just go and spend it on drugs which are no bloody use to anyone."
I nodded in agreement.
"Let's get on with the tour," I said. We wandered out of the chillout room via the door at the long end of the L.
"This is the cloakroom," I said pointing.
"The main entrance and that's about it."
"What about the hidden rooms?" asked Brannigan.
"What hidden rooms?"
"Where the vampires are supposed to sleep."
"Don't get creative, Brannigan. Anyway, follow me."
We went through a side door and up a set of stairs. The club was two storeys below street level and, as I was traditional, the owners office was upstairs. We stopped in at the security office first, where I found Mack watching the club interior on the CCTV screens.
"Idiots," he muttered to himself as I headed in. noticing us, he spun around in the leather seat.
"Hiya," I said.
"Tell me, what did the hunters do?"
Mack grinned.
"They tried to storm one of the shops opposite by telling the goods handler they were cops. This worked until the owner turned up and demanded their badge numbers. When he threatened to call the real police, the hunters skulked off with their crossbows stuffed down their trousers."
"So, they're not coppers then."
"They didn't smell like the pigs."
"You can smell someone's job?" asked Brannigan amazed.
Mack laughed.
"I could smell the fuzz long before I died!" he said. Anna frowned and shook her head in disapproval.
"OK, tell people to use the the side rather than the back entrance if they want to enter when the club's shut," I said.
"Will do."
I grinned at him.
"Cool, we'll get on with the tour then," I said.
He went back to his task, which seemed to be shaking his head at the screens. We left the security office and walked up past the dormitory.
"What's in there?" asked Brannigan.
Boxes of alcohol in the main room and several small rooms coming off it, full of bunk-beds containing 'sleeping' strigs. The rooms were bricked up other than a small grill, so the only way to enter them was by misting.
"Storerooms," I said.
"Storage of coffins, by chance?"
I frowned and let him look through the window to the room.
"Booze, see?"
"Oh, Those boxes are far too small to be coffins."
I nodded. I let Brannigan look through into the next room.
"Showers," he said.
"Why would a club need showers?" asked Anna.
For the guests.
I shrugged.
"For the performers?"
"Performers?" asked Anna.
"What sort of seedy club is this? What sort of performers do they have here?" She frowned deep in thought.
"And what sort of performers need a shower?"
"Dancers on a Friday and Saturday," I said.
"They have to wiggle in the cages. It gets rather hot in there when it's full, you know."
"This place is terrible, Clarke! I bet it's run by criminals!" She looked like she hadn't figured out whose club it was.
Rob chuckled, as I think he had. He shot me a significant look. He had.
"It's not funny, Clarke! The security guard is obviously a criminal -- "
"He's the manager, actually."
"-- and who knows what that girl was up to, perhaps she's a pros-- "
"She's a bartender. She is, I grant you, a little surly, but watch yourself there, Anna."
"Huh! And whoever the owner is they have no respect for the law!"
I hold my hands up to that one.
We arrived at my office.
"Guys, stand back, give me some space here."
They looked at each other and I grinned at them. I opened the door to the owner's office and stepped onto the pressure senstive plate in front of the door. Ducking, I put my right hand up to catch the stake that fired out of a murder hole in the wall, then stepped to the right and caught the stake that fired out of a murder hole in the ceiling. Then I walked forwards, waving at my friends to stay where they were, not that any of them looked like they were planning to step into the room. I sat in the big deep leather chair and pressed the button under the desk which disabled the traps.
"Come in, it's safe now," I said, noticing that for some strange reason Brannigan had gotten his crossbow out.
"Uh..." said Brannigan, "you sure?"
"Yeah." But I had to get up out of my seat to stamp on the pressure plate before they would enter the room.
"Clarke, are you sure we should be in here?" whispered Anna.
"It looks like the manager's office."
"Sure, take a seat." They looked around at the decor for a moment, taking in the plush club style seats, the swords on the wall, the filing cabinets and the photo that looked like it concealed a safe. The safe was in the floor below the desk, not behind the conspicuously placed picture of a misty forest.
I glanced at the accounts, and I was about to apologise to my friends and check through them, when the phone rang. It was one of my performers with some half-arsed excuse about being booked up somewhere else.
"This is it, my chance at stardom!" she said.
I scowled at the phone, forgetting my friends for the moment in my irritation.
"This is bloody unprofessional, Sandrine, you were already booked in here Friday night."
"Yeah ... well, I can't make it this time! This is the big time for me, the big time! I'm doing you a favour by letting you know rather than calling in sick on the night!"
"Yes, so you're just unprofessional and not a complete cow, I appreciate that small amount of thoughtfulness. Well, I hope you do hit the big time cos you're not working here again." I hung up the phone and shook my head.
Bloody flaky acting types!
I blew the air out of my mouth, calming down. Then I punched in the number for one of my fixers, I think his job title was 'agent'.
"James, hi, yeah. It's me Clarke, you hear about Sandrine?"
"Yes, she has a new agent now, c'est terrible."
"She blew me out for Friday. Who do you have for a vaudeville act?"
"Terese? She's a snake-dancer."
I sighed.
"I've already got a snake-dancer. Marie does that, she's pretty good too."
"A vaudeville night, is it? How about some burlesque strippers?"
"I've got them in the other room, I booked in the Casey twins."
"A oui, oui, uh... I have a sword-swallower, would he do?"
I span around in my chair, put my feet on the desk and leaned back, whilst twirling the phone cord in my fingers.
"A sword-swallower, eh?"
"We could put some of his props up on the wall, they'd fit in with the decor, non?"
I nodded.
"Yeah, that'd be great. Just make sure he picks the right swords, those wallhangers are not wallhangers, you know? And I don't want an ambulence coming here. It destroys the ambience."
"Worry not, ma cherie. He knows what he's doing. Same price as for Sandrine?"
"Yeah, sure. Thanks for the help."
"Any time. Au revior ma cherie."
I hung up and jotted all that down in the diary on the desk, then looked up. My friends were staring at me. Rob was grinning.
"Now, finally, I have an answer to my question of why Mack called you 'boss'."
Anna stared at Rob, she'd missed that, then looked back at me.
"Clarke, you own this club? How can you own a club?"
"It's like her basement," explained Suzili,
"Calaka likes basements, this one is full of music and people."
Anna stared at her.
"I bought it," I said.
"I told you I had hidey-holes all over London, well this one just saved our lives. And it's quite profitable too."
"But... how did you buy a club?"
"Via abut three intermediaries."
She looked confused.
"My Lord, don't you think I should know about all your hidey holes?" asked Brannigan.
He had a point. I sighed.
"I would have taken you here."
"I can't believe that you run a club!" said Anna.
"I can," said Rob.
Anna stared at him in surprise.
"It's not such a huge stretch to see you making a good nightclub boss. Besides, you've spent more than enough time in them."
I chuckled.
"And such a seedy club! With cages and snake dancers!" continued Anna, who was now ignoring Rob.
"And manacles." Rob waggled his eyebrows at me and I giggled.
Brannigan shook his head.
"Shouldn't I have accompanied you here to protect you?"
"Like I said, I was planning to bring you here once you were known as my knight. Then you wouldn't have gotten strigs waving knives at you." I tilted my head to the side.
"Maybe." I grinned at them all.
"By the way, guys, I'm sorry, I know we're supposed to be shopping, but as we're here, do you mind if I take five minutes to check this week's accounts?"
They shook their heads.
I punched a buzzer.
"Hey Mack, can you get one of those lazy gaming strigs to run us up a pot of tea? If they're staying here they can make themselves useful."
"A vampire owning a nightclub, I can see why that might work," said Rob.
I grinned.
"It's dark, no one expects you to be up during the daytime and there's plenty of people to seduce."
"But don't you think you've been reading too many vampire stories? If I were a hunter this is the first place I would look for vampires. It's a dingy goth club in Soho. To borrow one of your phrases, 'it's hardly subtle is it'?"
"My club's not dingy!"
"I wouldn't look here," said Brannigan.
I grinned and pointed at him.
"See?"
"Too many people. How would a vampire hide here?"
"Uh, in with the people?" I suggested.
There was a knock at the door and one of the strigs from downstairs holding a tray with a pot of tea and a set of mismatched cups on it.
"For you, Founder Clarke."
"Thanks," I said and he smiled and left. I gave everyone tea, and drew on an e-cigarette for my own chemical stimulation.
"Do humans come in here?" asked Anna.
"Only to get paid," I said, flicking through the accounts and drawing on the e-ciggie.
"Eh?" she said.
"I'd not want loads of people hanging around my office, now would I?"
"I think she meant in the club, not the office," said Rob.
"Oh. Most nights humans are allowed in, yes."
"But... isn't that a bad idea? What if they find out?" she protested.
I raised an eyebrow at her.
"They're goths, they expect vampires. They pretend to be them. They just assume that the real vampires are normal humans doing a better job of it. Or worse, sometimes"
After about ten minutes I locked the accounts in a drawer and looked up to see that I was sharing the room with Anna, Rob and four empty teacups.
"Sorry guys, I didn't expect it to take so long. Shall we go and find the others? It'll be safe to resume shopping now."
"They wandered off to go and explore," said Rob.
"Why didn't you go?" I asked.
Anna shook her head.
"Out there?" she mumbled.
Rob grinned at me.
"I love watching you work."
I was a little baffled and embarrassed.
"It's the way you shout at people. 'I hope you hit the big time, Sandrine, because you're not working here ever again!'" he said in an overacted rendition of my voice.
I grimaced.
"You think I was too hard on her?"
Rob laughed.
"No." Then he gave me a smutty grin.
"You can boss me around anytime."
I rubbed the back of my neck and blushed. Anna did her usual, and just pretended that things that she didn't wish to understand hadn't occurred.
"Well... anyway... lets go rescue Brannigan," I said after I'd stopped grinning at Rob.
"What? Is he in danger?" asked Anna, her eyes wide
"Just... go stand out in the corridor guys."
They did. I pressed the button under the trap to arm it. There was a delay on it, the trap wouldn't slip into position until five minutes after the button was pressed. But, as I didn't want people to know that and I was paranoid, I turned into a flock of bats, flew out the room and re-formed in the corridor.
"Come on," I said. As I had expected, Brannigan was in the large storeroom opening the boxes of booze.
"Brannigan!" I said. He started and I beckoned him over by crooking my index finger at him.
"Stay out of my store-room."
He nodded.
"What were you expecting anyway?"
"Well... home earth."
I laughed.
Good job I got him out of there before one of the sleeping strigs woke up and found a hunter poking around where they sleep. What would they do in such a situation?
I frowned, knowing well the answer.
"Brannigan, never enter that room without me and that is an order."
Brannigan gulped.
"Yes, my Lord," he said, no doubt aware that it was the first time I had given him such a direct order as my knight.
We wandered back into the large room we'd seen first of all, as there was no one, except the sulky Lorraine, in any of the other rooms. The sleeping strig now had his feet clapped in manacles and was suspended upside down from the lighting rig. Suzili was standing below him, pushing him backwards and forwards and watching him swing in fascination.
Anna gasped.
"You can't do that!" she told Suzili.
"Why not?" said Ben shrugging.
"It's not like he notices it."
At that point the sleeping strig woke up. He stretched, moved his arms up to rub his face and then opened his eyes. Seeing that he was upside down and trapped in manacles, he waved his arms around in a panicked and ineffectual way. His mates laughed uproariously.
Once he'd calmed down enough to think of it, the unfortunate strig misted, dropped to the floor and re-formed; he ended up face to face with Brannigan. He turned and looked back at the manicles, confused as to what had happened to him whilst he had been asleep. Then he looked back at Brannigan. He very slowly looked Brannigan over, took in the waxed coat, the crossbow, the tan and the prominant silver cruxifix. The strig made a small quiet noise that sounded something like 'meep!' then his eyes rolled back in his head, he fainted and fell over backwards.
"Oh!" said Suzili.
The unfortunate strig's mates laughed so much that they even attracted Lorrie to come and see what was going on.
"There's one guy that will always sleep somewhere safe from now on," I said.
* * *