Part 24 (1/2)

The vampire mind was beginning to exert irresistible pressure upon her weak rat personality. Tess Switched quickly, before she lost the initiative, and found herself human again. There seemed to be no other choice, and at least this way she could think straight.

Or so she hoped. Without the extra nocturnal senses of the rat, Tess was helpless there beneath the ground. The darkness was total; silent for a moment as the rats adjusted to her altered presence, then full of their unseen scuffling and scratching. And, worse than that, there was someone in the enclosed s.p.a.ce who was watching her without being seen.

'Where are you?' she said to the darkness. There was no answer, and if someone was breathing, the sound was lost behind the restless activity of the rats. Tess had never known claustrophobia before. She experienced it now: a brief, breathless panic at being enclosed on all sides. But the feeling didn't last long. A moment later it was replaced by sheer terror as she thought about the being that was closed in there with her. In that minute, her body seemed to become dysfunctional, as rigid and useless as a Cindy doll propped up against the cold stone wall.

She had been wrong about thinking straight. The truth was that she couldn't think at all. A low sn.i.g.g.e.r slid out of the darkness, but she couldn't tell where it came from. Tess's fear suddenly converted into fury and, completely without thinking, she let fly with a series of the foulest swear-words she had ever heard.

The reply was another mocking laugh. All around them the rats continued working in the darkness.

'What are you afraid of?' said the vampire, his voice like poisoned syrup.

'What do you think I'm afraid of?' Tess was still shouting, her voice ringing back at her from the cold stone and damp earth. For an instant she wondered if she could be heard above the ground. There might be people around the park, sleeping overnight perhaps, to be early in tomorrow's queue to see the phoenix.

'But you have nothing to be afraid of, Tess.' The rich voice was amplified somehow by the enclosed s.p.a.ce so that it seemed to be coming from all directions at once.

'Not much, I don't.' Tess jumped as a pebble flicked out by the eager digging of one of the rats bounced off her temple. She took a deep breath, aware of a trembling throughout her whole body. 'You're doing what you did before, aren't you?'

'What did I do before?'

'In the street the other day. You've got me trapped into a corner so that I'll have to Switch and become like you.'

The air seemed to be getting thinner. It smelled of rats and of ancient corruption. For the first time Tess thought of the original function of these tombs. She shuddered, and a new determination entered her heart. 'I won't, though,' she said. 'I have more tricks up my sleeve than you could imagine.'

It was a lie. Tess hadn't the faintest idea how to get out of this one, but her words seemed to have some effect, because the vampire fell silent for a while.

A rat scuttled over her foot. In the reprieve, she reached out with her rat mind to talk to it, and to her surprise a familiar signature of baby images came back. It was Algernon, camouflaged by the darkness; just another of the guys. Her mind flowed out to him, filled with relief at meeting someone familiar in this ordeal. Algernon's baby-talk returned; he was exhausted but proud of himself to be here working for the master. Reaching down to her feet, she found his little form beside her shoe. She closed her hands around him, antic.i.p.ating his warmth against her face and neck, the pleasure of pets, the giving and receiving of comfort. But this new Algernon was no one's pet. He jerked wildly and jack-knifed in her hands, swivelling his head round and sinking his teeth deep into the flesh of her hand. Tess cried out and whipped her hand away, flinging Algernon out into the darkness in an automatic reaction. Straightening up, she felt the damp wall behind her again. Algernon's allegiance had changed. There was no comfort to be found in this place.

The shock of the betrayal seemed to deprive Tess of the last of her energy. Her breathing had become rapid and shallow as though there wasn't enough oxygen in the fetid atmosphere. She wondered briefly whether or not the vampire needed air and decided that he probably didn't. Nothing down here in the darkness seemed to be in her favour.

There was a flurry of squeaks as a fall of fresh earth and stones sent a party of miners scattering in all directions. In the relative silence that followed before they started work again, Tess came close to panic, gripped by a vision of the whole place caving in and burying her alive.

Martin's cold voice s.h.i.+fted her attention. 'Do you know what we're doing here, Tess?'

'Overseeing your archaeological dig, I suppose.' At the back of her mind, Tess knew much more, but the idea wouldn't come forward. It refused to be put into words.

'Yes. But do you know why?'

The understanding niggled its way out and, in a ghastly moment of realisation, Tess did know. He must have seen the expression on her face, even though she couldn't see him, because he said, 'Don't be so shocked. Everyone needs a place to sleep, after all.'

It was always the way, according to the legends. Vampires slept beneath old churches in coffins or in mausoleums exactly like these. She heard Martin's hand slap against the cold stone.

'This here is my bed,' he said. Tess didn't hear him move, but a moment later his voice came from another part of the chamber, near where the rats were working.

'And this, if you agree, will be yours.'

Tess shuddered at the thought. 'No way.'

'No? Perhaps you'd better hear me out, first?'

'If you like. But nothing you can say is going to convince me.'

'Convince you of what?'

'Convince me to become a vampire.'

The voice was smooth as ever, and tinged with a touch of triumph. 'But I don't need to persuade you to become a vampire, Tess. You are one already.'

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

'DON'T BE RIDICULOUS,' SAID Tess, aware that she was speaking into a darkness that was impenetrable to her eyes. 'I'm not.'

'Don't believe me, eh? You really haven't done your homework, have you?'

'Perhaps I have, perhaps I haven't. But I know one thing for certain, and that is I'm not going to discuss anything down here in this dungeon. There's no air. I can't breathe properly.'

Martin considered for a moment, then said, 'Fair enough, I suppose. I need to take a look at the surface anyway.'

There were various exit tunnels, but Martin, in rat form, led Tess up the least arduous of them. On the surface they found themselves among trees and, after a careful check around, they Switched back to the way they had been beneath ground.

The place they were in seemed familiar. Tess knew the park well, but it was a good while before she got her bearings and realised that they were very close to the place where she and her parents had been playing frisbee earlier that day. The dip in the ground where they stood made sense now that she knew there was a cavern beneath and that the roof had begun to subside, but there was no sign at all of any church. If there had been one, it must have been destroyed or abandoned and the stones cleared away to be used in other buildings.

She glanced across at Martin, hoping he had chosen to be human for this encounter, but there was no such luck. The pallor of his cheeks and the shape of his mouth made it clear what he was, even in the darkness. Even so, she was glad to be out in the open where she would have more chance of escape.

'All right, then,' she said, 'let's hear what you have to say.'

The vampire began to approach, but Tess held out a hand like a traffic policeman. 'Stay where you are. I can hear you perfectly well from there.'

He laughed. 'If it makes you feel better. But you don't need to worry. I've already fed tonight.'

The trees rustled in the wind. The clear weather of the previous days had given way to heavy cloud rolling in from the west. Tess had no coat and she had left her hair-band on top of the piano at home, so her hair was blowing around all over the place. They were small worries, though, compared with what she was confronting.

'Well?' she said. 'Explain to me just how it is that you think I'm a vampire.'

'I don't think. I know. Have you forgotten what happened that night in Dorset Street?'

'Nothing happened. I Switched, that's all.'

'You Switched all right. But you were too slow. Don't you remember my teeth on your throat?'

Tess remembered all too well: the icy pinp.r.i.c.ks, the feeling of being sucked under.

'It took you too long to make up your mind,' Martin was saying. 'I tasted your blood. I made you mine.'