35

WAITING

OXFORD, 1869

"What do you mean, 'missing'?" Samuel Griffin snarled.

It was an absurd vista, the frail, middle-aged man standing by the window gazing over Oxford just as another dusting of snow fell. He was cradling his two year old son against his chest. The little boy, Nigel, seemed quite content to lift his chubby hand up and rest it on his father's cravat. He was a very quiet child, happy to remain in invisible to the world. Griffin kissed the top of his head.

"The Colonel has been officially missing for over six months," Butler replied, lingering at the edge of Griffin's office. "He is dead, sir. They are to announce it tomorrow afternoon at the conclusion of the conference."

Griffin was silent, watching a skeletal tree arch toward the concrete wall, kissing it with dried up limbs.

"Perhaps we can all get back to work – call this business finished as it should be," Butler continued, resting his hand against the doorway. He was surprised it didn't give him splinters this whole place was so hostile to his very presence.

"No," Griffin replied firmly, "we still have Gregory. This isn't over, Butler."

Behind the sandstone spires of churches and houses was a pillar of black smoke billowing out of a new cotton mill. There was an empire clawing its way up from the city and Griffin had curled up in its heart like a parasitic worm, feeding.

"Might I remind you that the university has expelled Gregory. He's dallying in an unlicensed medical practice, scraping a living off god knows what. Rumour has it he's smuggling rare creatures out of the country, breeding them and selling them off to foreign zoos." Though even Butler doubted the truth in that.

"Have one of your hospitals hire him on an advisory position -"

"He's a terrible doctor-" Butler interjected.

"Then don't use him on anything living. We need to keep him in town. A respectable job will put him back in standing with the university. Confine him to research, keep him close. We'll go after our vampire again. That's the good thing about Immortal creatures – they're not going anywhere."

Nigel wiggled in Griffin's arms, reaching for the window.

"Do it now, Butler."

PRESENT DAY, KASHMIR, PENSI LA MOUNTAIN PASS

"Kill it..." Apries inched half a step toward the monster.

"For once I agree with you," Amasis nodded. "As soon as it realises we're here, it is going to tear us apart. I had no idea that all those stories were true. It's been here all this time, hiding in the mountains. I wonder how old it is?"

"Old enough to think it has a claim to our empire," Apries murmured to his brother.

"Think it through," Nikola stopped the others, stepping in front of the other vampires who were leering in a most violent manner towards the creature. "Why go to so much trouble to get us in here if we're just food? A hatch in the ceiling would have suffice. It wants us for something and I doubt very much that it's dinner."

"Actually," the Immortal purred. "You're the only one that should be in here, Tesla. You opened the door, not us. If there is a higher purpose behind this it centres on you."

"What – alone?" Nikola twitched, black eyes scanning the others. He was surprised to see fear.

"Alone."

Nikola reached for Helen's hand, clutching it gently. It was a silent plea not to leave, one that she answered with a gentle squeeze. "Then go," he finally replied.

The two vampires and Immortal sank back into the corridor, leaving Helen and Nikola to face the creature on their own.

"Cowards," Helen hissed.

"You expected something else? For all their fangs and hissing they've been alive too long to risk death. I'm starting to think immortality is a curse – the longer you live, the more you fear living. They're probably outside bickering about who's had the most birthday parties and therefore entitled to a bigger piece of sand dune."

"I thought you liked vampires? You were always the one chasing them around like a child that lost a parent."

"Well, every vampire I've met has tried to kill me or worse, treated me like an infant so yeah, perhaps I've lost my taste for the ancient ones. They can go blunt their fangs on the human population for a while."

Helen looked at him oddly. "Nikola -"

"It's awake," Nikola tensed, realising that the creature was watching them. "I think it's been watching us."

Helen risked lifting her torch slightly higher. The creature was breathing more visibly, its insectile form moving against the chair. "I don't understand – why hasn't it tried to communicate with us?"

"Probably because we're speaking English," Nikola replied, risking a step closer. The creature gave no indication that it was in any state to leap out at him. Hell, after all this time Nikola wasn't sure if it could even move. Imagine it, thousands of years sitting in the dark. Was that enough to send it mad or was it seeded with revenge like Apries, ready to tear apart the world? "Who are you?" Nikola asked it in the oldest dialect of Egyptian that he could summon. He wasn't sure about his pronunciation. He actually wished he'd made the vampires stick around to translate.

The creature blinked, strange coverings of skin slipping over its dome-shaped eyes. It was the quintessential abnormal – the root of his and Helen's gifts.

"When is this?" it replied in a low hiss, barely forming the human words in its orifices. It was more like releasing steam from a Victorian train.

Nikola hunted for a unit of measurement that would make sense to an ancient creature.

Helen nudged Nikola gently. "Tell it how long it's been since this cave system was formed."

"Fifteen-thousand years since this place was formed," Nikola replied, in what he hoped was moderately fluent dialogue. The last thing he needed was to mistranslate something and set the creature off on a murderous rampage – something it seemed designed to do from birth. Every feature on its body looked as though it had been dragged from the depths of hell and assembled by Gollum.

"You are the engineer?" it replied, tapping some of its long claws against the silver floor.

"Nikola, what did it say?" Helen prompted him when he didn't translate.

"I uh -" Nikola seemed very confused, staring at the creature. "It thinks I'm an engineer."

Helen rolled her eyes out of habit. "You are an engineer – or so you keep reminding me."

"No, the engineer. It put extra emphasis on the singular. Oh shit, shit shit shit shit fuck..." Nikola turned to Helen, his blue eyes clear with sheer horror. "I know what this is."

"Talk to me," she placed a hand on his shoulder but Nikola couldn't stop staring at the demon sitting on the chair at the other end of the room. "Nikola Tesla open your mouth and speak."

He waved his hands at the silver room. "It's a ship of some kind and I'd wager my life – which I probably am – that it's busted. Some wise-arse ancient alien has crashed his sodding ship on a backwater planet and not bothered to bring a spare tire. What would you do if you were immortal and one engineer short of having one?"

"I'd -" Helen looked puzzled, frowning at Nikola. "I guess I'd hunt for a manual and try to fix my ship."

"That's the human answer, Helen. That's an answer from a creature that has a concept of urgency."

The creature in the corner was listening but either didn't understand the hurried words of the humans or was content to let them talk. Patience was one of its talents. It might appear like something resurrected from a tomb but it was vastly intelligent and very, very old.

"It's created an engineer. I'm like the freaking pizza delivery boy." And suddenly all his grand imaginings of a golden vampire era were smashed into an insignificant mound of rubble piled up in the corner. "Bloody hell. Urgh..." he wanted to reach into his body and tear the DNA right out of his cells. Puppet on a string was a kind description of him and his lineage of fanged friends.

Helen wasn't fairing much better. Despite her bravado, she'd always clung to the refined air of immorality that set her apart from her Sanctuary counterparts. Now she was the experiment that didn't make it, the half that wasn't smart enough.

"Son of a bitch..." she muttered. Nikola laughed softly at her, about to make a quip when she pointed her gun at him. "Go on – I dare you..."

He bit his lip, not in the mood to be shot.

Ashley and Henry knelt down to the snow as another rumble shook the earth. From the peak of the mountain you could see the whole black range – a forest of horrifying rock and carpets of ice.

"Are you worried?" Henry asked, peering over the edge as far as he dared. The white abyss made his skin crawl. It was beckoning him to fall – willing him closer to the edge.

"Nah – we've seen worse. Yeah?"

"Really?" Henry looked up at the woman who was practically his sister. "She didn't invite us, Ash. Since when has she ever left us behind? Not since we were little and you wanted to go catch mermaids."

"There were actual mermaids, you know."

"I know."

"It's a vampire thing," Ashley gave up and sat on the snow. "She's dragged us all over the world hunting the most dangerous things a child could dream up to it but when it comes to vampires it's like we don't even exist. We're better at hunting than she is. This is all to do with Oxford – grandfather was hiding something."

Henry lifted his gaze to her.

Ashley's breath caught in her throat. "Only that – mum said -"

"Ash, what's going on? What's really going on?"

She couldn't lie to him and so Ashley told him everything – from her father kidnapping her to the promise she'd made her grandfather, right before she killed him.

Henry was holding her hands, their snow mittens clutched together tightly. "Does mum know?" he asked, more worried than ever. She shook her her head slowly.

"Then let John wear it. It's his fault you were there in the first place. He's a murderer, Ash."

Ashley looked out at the know, her tears freezing against her cheeks into tiny jewels of ice. "So am I."

The creature could move. What Nikola had assumed to be an awkward assembly of limbs proved as nimble as a spider. It unfurled them, moving over the floor faster than Helen could follow with her torch.

"Damn it!" Nikola muttered, trying to navigate Helen behind him as they turned, keeping the creature in front of them at all times.

"What's it doing?" Helen breathed over his shoulder.

They were both startled by a wall of light erupting in front of them. It was the mother of all holographic interfaces – half a foot deep in multiple levels of information spiralling madly, barely any of which Nikola could read. "Holy shit... I don't understand what it's trying to do."

"It's teaching us," Helen pointed cautiously at the screen. "Teaching you."

OXFORD, 1875

Gregory gazed up at the sandstone walls with an air of suspicion.

A long time ago this University had been his home, now he was certain that it had mutated into an elaborate, beautiful cell complete with ornate bars and gilded ceilings.

A place where he could be watched.

His life had been manipulated to its font gates like a rat wandering about a maze with the walls closing in.

He tilted his head.

Someone was standing at the library widow, peering through the glass. Gregory waved sardonically until they vanished behind a curtain.