on her walk back through the bar, setting the empty down at the end of the bar. She headed back out onto the main street, checking first for police, finding only people heading into town to make a early start on the evening’s drinking. The Wetherspoons on the other side of the bar walls showed more than a few had a head start on that aim, with girls in sprayed-on dresses and men in salmon shirts gathering outside with glasses in hand, talking with the air of people for whom violence is never far away. She moved past them and headed down along the city wall toward the station. She would head back to Adam’s.
The sun was already down and the engine of York’s nightlife was already sputtering into life all around her. Thes would mean Adam would be up, she thought, and the thought sparked not a little joy in her heart.
There was a huge police presence outside York Station, doubtless because of some race day nonsense up at the racecourse. Except there weren’t races on at this time of year, so God knew. Maybe football, or some other event designed to spill pissed-up bully boys into the town centre to cause havoc and mayhem.
Ignoring them, she blended into a crowd of people being herded past the police back toward the city centre, finding herself squashed against a group of Chinese tourists, who chattered away in their own language, giggling.
‘Ten bodies, apparently,’ a voice said behind her, one of three young men in Ben Sherman shirts and too much aftershave, a bottle of Corona in each of their hands. ‘Can’t believe they kicked us out, though. It’s not like the bodies were in the pub.’
‘Mad that, though. Train pulls into the station almost empty, ‘cept for a few bodies and that. Proper fuck with your mind that, wouldn’t it?’ This second one had much the stronger accent. West Yorkshire by the sounds of it. Three lads from the valley off on a night out in the big town.
‘Be glad it weren’t the Guiseley train,’ the third one chipped in. ‘What do we do if they don’t open t’lines up again?’
‘Find some lasses to put us up for the night,’ the first one said excitedly, as though it were the remotest possibility for the three of them. Their conversation drifted off into banter territory, so she blocked it out, turning her attention toward the line of police outside York’s grand railway station, trying to see without being seen. There were ambulances in there, too, under the front canopy to the station, well inside the area cordoned off by what had to be most of the police in the area.
This was them, she knew. Either the vampires who’d arrived in town, or the two witches who she couldn’t believe were actually dead. There was only one place to find out, either way. She had to go back to that house.
She pressed on, ignoring the tug at the back of her brain telling her to head back to Adam’s and batting down the guilt at not running into the station and offering her services. But there wasn’t much she could do if the people were already dead. No, whatever was happening was bound to be tied to everything else going on. If she was going to help, she was already on the best course of action.
She hoped.
The way out of town was abuzz with rumour and gossip. News of ten dead on a train had spread through both the real and the digital world, town was filling up with people going to go gawp at a police cordon, with as many deciding an evening in front of Netflix probably wasn’t the worst idea in the world streaming home in the other direction. The roads grew increasingly clogged in every direction by the removal of one of the city’s few arterial roads, with much honking and parping from impatient drivers who somehow thought hitting their horns might magically disperse the surrounding cars. Police cars wound their way through, sirens blazing, and soon everyone realised something serious was going down in the city. People stopped ignoring each other, chatting animatedly to strangers about what was happening, and others stood staring down toward the station as though on some kind of silent sentry.
Lucy kept going, past the crowds, into the suburban streets where it was as though nothing had happened. She stopped a street away from the house that seemed to keep drawing her back. Noise drifted across the street from some kind of party.
A couple walked past her in the opposite direction, both drunk to the point of collapse, giggling and staggering in wide arcs in and out of the street. Both wore oddly outlandish clothing — Elizabethan finery with oddly modern embellishments; such as the day-glo leggings on the woman, or the glow stick weaved into the headband of the man’s trilby hat.
Lucy shrank into a bush, confident they wouldn’t see her even if they were to barrel into her, and listened.
Her. ‘No, listen, we should go back.’
Him. ‘Oh, don’t be silly. We turned up. Showed our face. Besides, if we try to get more of the free bar, they’re liable to do far worse to us. I mean…’
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘You were saying something…’
‘Was I?’
‘Free bar.’
‘It was, wasn’t it? God, I’m pissed. Who knows what was in that punch? Didn’t taste strong, but my golly.’
‘Stephen.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t feel good.’
‘We’ll get you home, sleep it off.’
‘We shouldn’t have left; we don’t want to have to explain…’
She burped. He giggled. They were past her, not by far. She slipped out of the bushes and moved down the street. Turning the corner at the end, she rounded onto the cul-de-sac.
Music carried on the air from somewhere. The house looked as still as it had when she’d fled it a second time, not twenty-four hours earlier. Dead, silent, imposing. But with every step it became clearer this was artifice, and not well concealed. The air shimmered as she got closer, until the witch’s house was lit up like a beacon, lights shining from every window. The sounds intensified, and it was clear whatever horrors the house held the night before, it held different ones now.
Hiding in the shadows, she watched. The sun was down, but it was still early, too early to see a house lit up like a funhouse on a quiet suburban street. The music wafting on the air was classical, and yet not. There was something hysterical about it, something on the edge of barnstorming bluegrass; an orchestra playing a hoedown. A scream pierced the air, followed by laughter. The skin on the back of her neck went up, and Lucy wanted to run, to flee. Instead, she watched the windows, unable to see into them from her angle, but able to see movement in each one. The house was packed. Either the house had moved on to new inhabitants who were throwing a hell of a welcome party, or she’d been conned. They had conned everyone.
She should call Adam, get him here to see what she was seeing. Or she should run to his house, send him out to deal with it while she hid within its confines. But she couldn’t tear herself away. There was a pull to this place, one she couldn’t ignore. It was like a siren’s call, and for the first time she wondered if it was really her decision to come here.
A curdling scream pierced the air, making every hair on the back of Lucy’s neck stand out. She fought both the training and the instinct within her telling her to run toward the sound, especially when followed by a round of raucous cheering and cruel laughter. Whatever was going on in that house, she suspected the couple who’d staggered away from it were lucky to get away when they did.
She had to get inside. Elle and Missy were behind this whole thing. She did not know what their endgame was, but she felt pretty confident it would mean more death, more pain, more misery for the people of this city. If there was anything she could do to stop that, it was her duty to do so. Plus, it pissed her off. She had the feeling of being a pawn in a wider play and found, to her surprise, that she absolutely hated it.
The sun dipped below the horizon, casting the house in the low remnants of the day’s light, and it occurred to Lucy the house before her was almost certainly full of the same vampires that stomped her the night before; that the last thing stopping them from coming to kill her had dipped well out of sight. She was exposed, and the vague shelter offered by shrubbery wouldn’t cut it.
Adam. She should go back to him, get him, possibly stop by an armoury, and head back here. A solid plan. She could detach herself from the pull she felt in the pit of her stomach that was drawing her toward the front door of that house, and do the sensible thing. Sinking back into the dark, she moved away from the house.
With every step she took away the party grew more distant, less clear, whatever dark magics in place to hide the event gaining strength. It was a disconcerting experience, like walking through a wall of invisible jam.
Across the street, a group of four people headed toward the house, oblivious to her. Her hair stood up once more. Marcus and the other three. Resisting the urge to break into a sprint, she angled her face and kept walking.
It seemed like she’d gotten away with it until she allowed herself a backwards glance. All four stood facing her like coiled springs. Silent.
Resisting the urge to run, she turned the corner at a walking pace, but once she was out of sight, she broke into a run. The main road was close; if she could make it that far they wouldn’t take her in open traffic, right?
She glanced behind her and saw shadows moving, not far behind but not gaining, either. Not four, but two. The brothers.
Panting ragged breaths, she made it onto the main street. The road was empty — no pedestrians, no traffic. Nothing to stop them.
Footsteps echoed on the paving stones behind her. Crossing the road, she was glad to see lights cresting the hill beyond, the joy doubling as she realised it was the double-decker Number One bus. Across the street, two shadows waited, watching for her next move.
Down the street was a bus shelter. She could make it.
She ran, right arm waving maniacally to attract the driver’s attention as the bus passed her. The indicator flashed on — he was pulling over. It pulled up ten metres ahead, waiting for her.
Shadows closed in. Even as she moved forward; sweat pouring down her face, down the small of her back; she expected fingers to wrap round her arm, her neck. To be pulled back into that shadow.
As her foot lifted onto the doorway to the bus and the cold neon light washed over her, relief washed over her. She wasn’t sure why; she was every bit in as much danger as a second earlier. It was like stepping back into real life, out of the realm of monsters.
‘You alright, love?’ the bus driver asked. A woman, face like the surface of a rusted car, mouth full of broken teeth, lank hair hanging down over sunken cheeks.
‘Yeah, fine,’ Lucy replied, breathlessly. ‘Single to town, please.’
She fished around for change and handed it over, aware how badly she was sweating, and how with every second the risk to her increased, along with everyone else on the bus.
The driver closed the door with a frown. ‘No need to run, love, I would have waited,’ she grumbled, pulling the bus away from the curb and back out on to the road.
‘Thanks,’ Lucy said, meaning it more thoroughly than the woman could imagine. She moved through onto the bus. The downstairs was half full, including a set of track-suited boys playing some godawful tinny noise through their phone. She headed to the top deck, finding, to her relief, a few couples and a group of middle-aged women who already seemed halfway toward their drunk for the night.
Ignoring the looks she got from each of them, she took her seat midway down the bus; on the right, away from the pavement where she’d last glimpsed the two shadows. She didn’t dare look. She was in the light, around people.
The women resumed their loud discussion of something utterly incomprehensible to her, their Yorkshire accents so thick as to beyond her ken. She closed her eyes and let the sound wash over her. She had to get to Adam.
For the moment, however, she allowed herself to indulge in some of the exhaustion washing over her. This was adrenalin, she knew, washing its way out of the bloodstream. That and the lack of decent sleep last night, obviously. As the indulgence threatened to spill into reminiscence about the night’s activities, reality jerked her back with a woman getting to her feet and shouting, ‘What the fuck is that?’
The bus was stopped, Lucy realised. She looked around at the darkness beyond the Perspex windows and realised they were only a few hundred metres down from where she’d been picked up.
A scream came from outside.
‘It’s got the driver,’ the woman squealed. Everyone else on the bus was over on the other side, staring out the window at the pavement below. Lucy jumped to her feet and ran downstairs. The door to the bus was open, and everyone on the lower deck looked utterly terrified, each of them cowering in their seats, or in the case of the noisy teenagers crying openly and hiding behind their seats — looking the children they were rather than the adults they were trying to be.
Running to the door, there was nothing around them but silence, and a vague smell of blood and smoke. Looking to the ground, she saw the source of both — a cigarette, barely smoked and still smoking, its filter laid in a spray of blood running across the pavement and up the side of the bus.
‘Hello again,’ came a voice from behind her, on the bus.
Lucy whirled round, but Boris was quicker. He kicked out, catching Lucy on the hip and sending her flying out into the street.