There were several gasps, a few knowing nods and one or two shocked gulps. Every vampire here knew about that dratted maze.
‘What?’ Alan flapped his arms. ‘That’s not true! I didn’t do that!’
I remained perfectly calm. ‘He certainly did. And there’s more.’
The crowd leaned in: they wanted to hear from me, not from him. I resisted the urge to give Alan a smug look and cleared my throat to add to the build-up of tension. It was suddenly so quiet in the busy marketplace that you could have heard the swish of a displeased cat’s tail.
‘There was a thrall chained to a pole in front of the maze. Alan had put him there as sacrifice for that fucking monster that you all keep so bloody quiet about. There was a second pole waiting for me. Two warm bodies and hearty meals for the price of none.’ My sarcastic snarl was soft but no less heartfelt. ‘Lucky monster.’
Alan’s rebuttal rang out, and now he sounded panicked and desperate. ‘Who do you believe?’ he yelled. ‘An above-grounder who’s been here all of two minutes or me? I’m one of yours!’
It was Thomas who answered. ‘Her,’ he called out. ‘I believe her.’
At least half the crowd nodded in agreement and I expelled a long breath. I was a stranger down here and I was only beginning to understand vampiric society. The vamps could still turn on me but it was starting to look like most of them were on my side.
I doubled down to press my advantage. ‘You’ve beenburying your heads in the sand for too long. That man right there, not to mention Chester Longchamps and goodness knows how many others, have been sacrificing lives to the monster to allow you lot to continue using these tunnels as you see fit.“Trust in the fang and the fang alone.” Well, either that motto of yours is misplaced or you are all complicit. I’m going with the latter.’
William’s cultured voice called out, ‘We do not condone sacrifice, Ms McCafferty. This was happening without our knowledge.’
Yeah, yeah. ‘Bullshit.’
William recoiled but I didn’t care. ‘You knew what was happening.’ I swept a hard glare across the assembled vampires. ‘On some level, youallknew and you didn’t stop it.’
‘That’s not true!’ William protested.
‘Why are thralls no longer permitted in the Understream?’
‘To protect them,’ he said, seizing on my own words as proof of his innocence.
‘And why did they need protection?’ I asked softly.
He faltered and his red eyes dropped to the ground. He’d known. Fuck it. They’d all known.
On the periphery of the crowd, Anthony turned on his heel and stalked away. I twisted my head to watch him and as soon as I did, Alan leapt into the fray.
‘Alright!’ he screeched. ‘Alright! I did it! I led her to the maze and I took the thrall there, too. You lot should be thanking me! The monster has to feed. If it’s not her and it’s not a thrall, it will be one of us! It will beuswho suffer! I did it for the greater good. Forourgreater good! The more of them who die, the better for vampires. We deserve this life and you know it! You know I was doing the right thing!’
Enough of this. It would never end and Alan would neverrecognise that what he was doing was as monstrous as the actions of the creature in the dark maze. I reached into my backpack, pulled out the stake and took three steps towards him.
Before he could say or do anything, I plunged the wood into his black, selfish heart.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
All hell broke loose. Many of the vampires started screaming, creating a panic-stricken stampede as if I were about to start staking the lot of them. For such long-lived, nigh-on immortal creatures, some of them were very flighty indeed.
But not all of them reacted that way. Several vamps rushed to Alan and I wondered if they thought they could save him. I’d felt the tip of that stake pierce his heart, however, and I didn’t need to see his fallen body to know that he was already a corpse. He wouldn’t immediately turn to ash, not without sunlight, but his flesh would decay far more rapidly than a non-vamp’s.
Some vampires came towards me, determined to stop me killing anyone else. I had already dropped the stake and was raising my hands in surrender when I was rugby tackled to the ground. Ouch. That was no way to treat a middle aged lady with aching muscles and sore bones.
‘Drop the stake!’ a female vampire with dark hair and furious scarlet eyes screamed. Her razor-sharp fangs loomedabove my face and I could smell old blood on her breath. ‘Drop the fucking stake!’
‘I’ve already dropped the stake,’ I muttered from my inelegant position sprawled on the ground.
‘I’ve got it, Gloria,’ I heard Thomas say. I twisted my head and saw him handling the weapon like a spitting snake. ‘It’s alright.’
The air around me filled with the buzz of magic. William, who seemed considerably calmer than the others, was casting a spell. Score one for the office worker; perhaps he was one of those vamps who guzzled Jing’s Tonic when no-one was looking.
