to work out how to survive the next thirty seconds, another blur of movement shot past. Adam, his already imposing body spread out to its full, ferocious capacity. He wound back his fist as he went, bringing it forward to meet Autumn’s chest.
The crack of bones rang out like a rifle shot. Autumn flew backward, blood misting in a trail from her mouth behind her as she went. She crashed onto the floor with considerably less grace this time, her head smacking against cold industrial carpet. If she was going to get back up, it wouldn’t be soon.
Adam turned back, face feral with rage. His teeth were extended, his eyes burned with rage. He snarled with ferocious intent. Spreading his arms wide, for a second Lucy thought he might turn his attention to her, driven so mad with rage she looked like a meal once more.
‘Get behind me,’ he growled, the words barely human, like gravel scraped along a driveway.
Lucy turned. She’d forgotten about the ritual behind her. As had the vampires conducting it. They turned from Cain’s corpse, their attention on her, advancing slowly across the call centre floor toward her and Adam. Their teeth were out, their eyes alight, snarling cautiously as they approached.
Stumbling back, Lucy moved behind Adam, relieved to have him between her and the advancing vamps.
‘Finish her,’ Adam snarled, and for a moment Lucy didn’t know what he meant.
She looked down at the broken body of Autumn. She was still. Lucy looked around for something to finish the job. A shard of broken desk lay a few feet away. She scooped it up and advanced on the female vamp. She wasn’t sure if this would be real wood, but Adam had said it didn’t matter, anyway. Her kitchen knife had been good enough for the blonde, after all.
Lucy straddled Autumn, pinning the vampire’s legs under her own, the ribcage left exposed. Autumn’s hand came round like lightning, grabbing at Lucy’s throat, squeezing with such intensity Lucy dropped the shard, both her hands going to the woman’s wrist, pulling to free her windpipe.
Air rapidly depleting, Lucy could feel her head swelling, her eyes bulging. She desperately clawed at the wrist, but she might as well be scratching at solid rock.
Rolling her over, a rictus grin spread over Autumn’s face as she brought her other arm round and effortlessly pulled away one of Lucy’s flailing limbs, shoving it against the hard floor hard enough to make the bones crunch. Lucy let go a moan of pain.
Abandoning the attempt to tear the arms from her throat, Lucy groped wildly at the floor with her one free arm, desperate to locate the shard she’d dropped.
‘I know you’re supposed to be Cain’s first meal,’ Autumn said, ‘but I think I might need to take a taste. I’m sure he won’t mind, before he mauls you to a death of unimaginable misery and pain.’
Moving her head down, she used the hand around Lucy’s throat to turn her head away, exposing her neck.
Lucy’s fingers closed around what she hoped was the shard of wood. She couldn’t see where it was going, certainly couldn’t aim it at the vampire’s ribcage, so she had to hit out and hope.
The wood swung up, finding fleshy resistance at the top of its arc as it plunged into Autumn’s neck. The vampire let go of Lucy, her hands going to the gaping wound pouring blood over Lucy. It splashed her face, covered her eyes, ran into her mouth, filling it with the taste of coppery death.
Lucy pulled the shard back out, liberating yet more dark blood. She plunged it back in again, harder this time, the anger and rage at her own impotence against this woman welling up inside her.
Autumn fell back, sliding off Lucy as she fell to the ground, hands going to her wrecked throat to try desperately to undo what had been done, her eyes full of panic.
Getting to her feet, Lucy leaned over Autumn as she scrabbled at her throat, and plunged the shard into her, working it under the ribcage. Autumn thrashed, but Lucy knew what she was doing this time, working the makeshift wooden blade until it pierced the vampire’s heart.
Autumn’s wild movements stopped abruptly. Lucy pulled her hand back out, covered in gore. She looked up from the corpse to tell Adam about her victory, to find him with a few problems of his own.
Besieged by half a dozen vampires, Adam cartwheeled around the room, shaking them off him like a man trying to shoo the wasps spoiling his picnic. Much larger than his assailants, when he landed a punch the punchee stayed down, but there were too many for him to get a foothold in the fight.
Even as he landed another punch, one so hard the vampire receiving it dropped as though his strings had been cut from the ceiling, something stirred on the table at the far end of the room.
Cain.
The shroud moved, sliding off the body. There was already evidence of the transformation, even as he groggily returned to life. The skin had lost its grey hue, taking on the same porcelain hue of the other vamps. His muscle definition was different, too, like thick cables taking on too much tension.
He wasn’t, as Lucy thought, sitting up. No, he was cramping in pain. As his face came up, she could see the pain etched across it. His arms and legs curled in on themselves as though recoiling from fire. It was almost enough to have Lucy run to the man across the long room, were it not from the newly minted fangs protruding from his mouth, and the violent red of his eyes.
The other vampires seemed to sense the rising behind them — they broke off their attack long enough for Adam to get back to his feet. He stumbled toward Lucy, covered in cuts and bruises, his face looking more like pounded meat than recognisable human features. He fell to the ground a few feet away from her, and she rushed to help him up.
Cain let out a scream. A terrible sound, like the dying call of a hundred animals.
She looked around. The best exit was behind her — she knew it well as the way she’d come in and out each afternoon when she’d worked here. If there was anything this place had taught her, it was how to leave in a hurry — most days it was to run to a shower to wash the grubby feeling from her soul.
She headed for the door, but in her haste she forgot her knackered knee, spilling over onto the floor. As she scrambled back to her feet, she chanced a look back across the room, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Cain was on his feet, the full effects of his blood lust clear as he bore down on the first thing he saw; a vampire who a moment ago had been pounding his fist into Adam’s face. The older vampire, wrong-footed by being attacked by own of his own, held his hand out to ward off the new vampire. Cain grabbed the outstretched hand and clamped his jaws around it, ripping away as he did, tearing the flesh. Before his victim could react, Cain moved with ruthless efficiency to the man’s throat, tearing it open and letting the blood spill down his face.
Stopping, dropping the dead or dying vamp to a heap on the floor, Cain paused. He convulsed, spraying the blood he’d taken across the floor in a torrent.
Vampire blood. Of course. Cain needed human blood, but he was too feral, too wild to realise it. How long until he realised, and how long until he realised there was one excellent source of it in the same room as him?
Getting back to her feet, ignoring the scream of pain in her knee, Lucy ran for the doors. Adam was a fraction behind her — he could easily overtake her at full strength, so either he was protecting her, or too weak to move at speed. Given Cain’s blood lust, she hoped it was the former.
They made it through the door, a fresh burst of screams following through. Cain’s attention had turned to the other vampires. She tried to block out the sounds of crunching bones and splashing blood and headed for the stairwell. There was no use going for the lift, it was one floor down.
Limping together they went down, the only sound the squeak of her trainers, wet with blood and gore. It covered her, but that wasn’t something to think about, no matter how disgusting it smelled, as her wet hair slapped against her cheeks. As they reached the bottom, the door above them slapped open noisily. Cain was in pursuit.
‘Go,’ Adam hissed, though Lucy hardly needed the encouragement. Together they limped through into the central atrium, which looked half as trashed as the floor upstairs, but was still a long way from the sleek entrance she’d walked through each day. The barriers were still in place, swipe card access sentinels she’d sleepwalked through every day, their glass barriers preventing them an easy exit. They would have to vault them, which was easier imagined than achieved in their current states. She looked over Adam, who held his arm at a funny position.
‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘let me look.’ It was broken. She didn’t know if vampires felt pain, but if they did, it would be excruciating.
‘It’s fine,’ he replied, staring at the barriers. ‘I heal quick.’
The doors behind them opened, and Cain ran into the lobby. As soon as he saw the pair before him, he stopped, baring his fangs and spreading his arms wide.
‘Cain,’ Adam said, holding his hand in front of him as he moved himself between her and his old friend.
But there was nothing left of the man they once knew. He looked terrible — his clothes soaked in blood, tattered, dirty. Deep cuts on his arms and face dripped fresh red onto old. His new muscles still bulged out like someone had attached electrodes to them, and there was nothing human in his face. Still, as Adam spoke, he did not advance.
‘Listen to me,’ Adam continued. ‘I know how you feel. We can help you, okay? We need to get you some blood. If you come with us, we can get you some, and nobody needs to get hurt.’
If these words impacted on Cain, he didn’t show it. He stood, staring, some measure of recognition in there, something holding him back from attacking. Lucy and Adam stood across from him, the three of them caught in some kind of holding pattern.
‘Cain,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s me, Lucy. From work. Remember?’
Cain let out a howl of anguished pain, clutching at his torso. Hunger. He stood up straight, snarling like a wild animal, and launched himself forward.
He aimed for Lucy, but didn’t make it that far. With surprising grace, Adam pulled him from the air as one receiving a ball, pulling him down and slamming him against the barrier. Cain let out a scream, a more human sound than anything he’d produced to date. The glass barrier cracked and shattered, spilling Cain to the floor with another moan.
Adam positioned himself between Cain and Lucy once more, as the new vampire got to his feet. He looked at Adam again, a puzzled look on his face.
‘Cain,’ Adam said. ‘It’s me. It’s Adam. We can get through this.’
Cain looked between them once more. With a snarl he turned, running straight through a plate glass door and into the dark night.