Sleeping Angel (Ravenwood Series) (35 page)

‘Where did you find those ...?’ she began, but April cut her off.

‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? How could you have kept it from me for so long? You and dad ... how could you?’ April expected tears, but she just felt numb.

For a long moment Silvia said nothing. ‘We wanted to protect you,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s all we ever wanted.’

‘How?’ shouted April, ‘How were you protecting me? By making me think I was human? By pretending that the real world –’ she gestured towards the certificates ‘– this world didn’t exist?’

‘And what then?’ said Silvia. ‘What if we had told you? Do you think you could have kept it a secret? Could any child?’

‘I’m not a child anymore!’ shouted April, suddenly burning with anger. ‘How many times since we came to this village could you have told me what was going on? Don’t you think I could have protected myself better if I had known I was the daughter of a vampire?’

Daughter of a vampire.

It was as if the words were echoing around the room, repeating themselves over and over again. And, as she said the words, it was like a thousand pieces of jigsaw all clicking into place at once. The lack of photographs, the reluctance to rise before noon, the short, ferocious temper.
She’s a vampire
; April’s own mother was a
vampire
. It had been there all the time, right under her nose. Then a sudden thought sickened her.

‘Does that mean I’m a vampire too?’

‘No, darling. We can only be born or turned. But you must know that by now.’

‘Don’t you dare!’ April screamed. ‘Don’t you dare be so calm about it! You’ve lied to me all my life!’

‘Only to protect you, April. To keep you safe.’

April pulled up her sleeve to show the scar across her arm. ‘You call this safe? I’ve been beaten up, strangled and half torn apart. Is that your idea of protecting me?’

‘I couldn’t always be there,’ said Silvia defensively.

‘Oh, I forgot. You were out on your dates.’

Anger flashed across Silvia’s face. It was the same age-old irritation and belligerence April had seen every day of her life. Her mother was like that – fierce and uncompromising, always on a short fuse. But it wasn’t just some off-beat personality trait. Silvia was spiky and constantly on a hair-trigger because she was a vampire. April had spent her entire life sharing a house with a purebred killer.

‘Did dad know?’ she asked, but then shook her head at the stupidity of the question. Of
course
he knew, how could he not? And then April felt the full force of what that meant and she dropped down on the bed. It was as if her brain was one of those spinning wheels you got on your computer when the CPU got overloaded, as her mind struggled to rewrite everything she knew about everything.

‘Jesus ...’ she whispered. All of the screaming rows, all of the upheavals, all of Silvia’s “headaches”, now April saw them in a completely new light.

‘Did you feed from him?’

‘Of course,’ said Silvia softly. ‘He was a good man.’

April turned away, filled with revulsion at the idea. It was worse than walking in on your parents having sex.

‘A good man?’ she snapped. ‘Then how could you do that to him? You made his life hell!’

Silvia nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose I did. But for all that, he seemed ... I know you won’t understand it.’ She trailed off.

But April did understand; in a sudden terrible rush, it all made perfect, perfect sense. Silvia was aggressive, demanding, constantly arguing, never satisfied – William Dunne might as well have been living in a cage with an alligator. And yet he had stayed, a constant solid presence in April’s life, supporting them both, always the peacemaker, always the fixer. He was always there. Always. Despite knowing who --
what
she was, he stayed.

‘He loved you,’ whispered April. ‘He really must have loved you.’

Silvia nodded. ‘Yes, he did. It was the one thing I was always sure of. The only thing, actually.’

She looked up at April and her eyes were shining with tears. ‘And I loved him back. I really did.’

‘So why did you ...’ began April, then stopped.

‘Oh Jesus,’ she whispered. Because it had all suddenly fallen into place. She knew. She knew who the King Vampire was – and she knew exactly where he was too. She looked at her mother. There were a million questions she wanted to ask, but they would all have to wait. Because there was someone she loved who needed her help right now. April jumped to her feet. She had been wasting too much time.

‘Where are you going?’ said Silvia.

‘It’s great you’ve told me all this, but I’ve got to go.’

‘Now
?’

‘Now.’

She turned and ran down the stairs, taking them three at a time.

‘April! Come back,’ shouted Silvia. But April was already running, sprinting towards the school. Running towards Gabriel.

Ravenwood was dark. April stood in the shadows across the road, panting, with her hands on her knees. She had run all the way from Pond Square, suddenly filled with a desperate need to find Gabriel – and at the same time, somehow absolutely sure he was here. If Chessy had been telling the truth-- that tonight was some sort of audience with the King for the chosen few – then everything April had ever wanted to know about the vampires would be inside that building. But why was it so dark, so lifeless? It just looked like an ordinary school shut up for the night. Maybe the Suckers had just been boasting. But April could almost
feel
their presence – she knew they were there, just knew it.

For a moment, her mind flashed back to her mother’s bedroom, the certificates, the photographs. Why had she hidden so much of her own childhood from herself? She could understand why Silvia might need to do it, but why had she, April, suppressed the one thing that she must,
must
have known all along? It was as if she had somehow understood what her mother and father were doing, and colluded.

‘Crazy,’ she whispered. But it was just one of the questions she would have to find answers for later. Right now, she needed to find Gabriel. Right now, that was all that mattered.

April drew back further into the shadow of a tree as headlights swept around the corner and a car pulled in through the school gates. She watched as the doors of the black Mercedes opened and two men in suits climbed out – she could hear their voices and laughter; they certainly sounded like they were going to a party. Just then Ravenwood’s wide front door opened, briefly spilling yellow light across the steps before it closed behind them.

At least I know that something’s going on
, she thought, taking a deep breath.
Here goes nothing
.

April slipped through the gates and around the side of the school. Keeping the dark building to her left, she ran along the wall, hoping no one was looking out. But then, why would they be? If there was some vampire mass rally going on inside, all eyes would be turned towards the stage or throne or wherever the King Vampire was holding court.

The King Vampire
. April stopped, her hand over her mouth. How could she have missed it?
How?
But then she had managed to avoid seeing that her own mother was a bloody vampire, hadn’t she? If her reeling mind had refused to accept that, then it was only logical that she could miss the fact that the King, the very person she’d been hunting for so long had been right under her nose. April shook her head. She couldn’t let all that stop her now; if she thought too hard, she’d freeze. And then Gabriel would be lost.

She paused at the corner of the gym and peeked around the wall. At the back, the main hall looked out over the playing fields – light from the windows was flooding across the hockey pitch.
That’s where the party is then
, she thought. There was no way to sneak past those windows and besides, she needed to get inside. Retracing her steps, she padded down a set of stairs towards one of the side exits: the double doors she and Caro would go through on their way to their favourite picnic bench. Back when all this had been only an idea, when they had just been playing at detectives. But now it was deadly serious, wasn’t it?

‘Got a light?’

April darted back behind a bush as two men stepped into view.
Please, don’t let them have seen me,
thought April, not daring to breathe. The two stood at the foot of the stairs, smoking. April could smell the rich tobacco in the air: cigars.
Typical,
she thought as a cloud wafted over her. She hated cigars; they made her feel sick. She pulled her coat over her mouth. Now was not a great time to have a coughing fit.

‘What are we going to do about the
other
Royal family?’ said the first man. He had a high-pitched voice and April could see his silhouette: skinny and tall.

The other laughed. ‘I’ve been wondering about that too,’ he replied with a deep Scots accent, ‘Maybe they’ll join up – they wouldn’t like the alternative.’

‘On that note, we’d better get back. We don’t want to be missed.’

They threw their cigars towards April’s bush and went back into the building. April let out a silent breath, her pulse racing wildly. She stayed where she was for a count of thirty, then quietly stepped back onto the stairs.
Yes!
The men had left the door slightly ajar; she slipped inside. April felt the familiar thrill of being somewhere she shouldn’t, only this time she wasn’t just rifling a library for books. This time, if she were caught, the vamps would almost certainly kill her.

Better not let that happen, then
, she thought, turning away from the hall and taking the stairs down towards the basement. Logic told her that if Gabriel was here, he had to be captive somewhere and April had seen enough bad horror movies to know that prisoners were usually kept in the basement, rattling at the bars and yelling for their lawyers.

But this isn’t a movie, is it?
mocked the voice in her head.
It’s real
.

‘Oh, shut up,’ she whispered.

She turned into a dark corridor: the laboratories. Each of the labs had a window cut into their doors and April peered gingerly through the first, labelled ‘Chem 104’. Nothing. Just a dark room and a few Bunsen burners. She tried the next and the next; still nothing, just empty rooms and strange equipment. At the end of the corridor, April finally found an unlocked door.
Damn, only a store cupboard.
She was just about to turn back when her phone buzzed in her pocket. April had switched it to vibrate, but it still made her give a little squeak of surprise. Looking around anxiously, she closed the cupboard door behind her and clicked “Accept”.

‘April,’ said Caro breathlessly. ‘I’m at the hospital and ...’

‘Caro, not now,’ she hissed. ‘I’m ... I’m busy.’

‘Where are you?’ her friend asked suspiciously.

‘In the basement of Ravenwood, surrounded by a million vampires, so I can’t really chat.’

‘The school? What the hell are you doing there?’

‘Chessy told me the vamps are making their big move – tonight – and they’re having some sort of council of war right now. Here, at Ravenwood.’

‘Is Gabriel with you?’

‘I was actually hoping to find him down here.’

Caro was silent for a moment. ‘A?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t get caught.’

April pulled a face and hung up, then, easing the door open, she tip-toed across the corridor – another lab, this one labelled ‘Audio Vis 108’. It was too dark inside to make much out, but it all looked pretty high-tech. There was a row of computers under the windows and a large whiteboard in the far corner –
hang on, what’s that?

A flurry of moving colours, like a reflection on glass. Squinting, April could make out wires attached to the wall and one of those old-fashioned microphones you see crooners singing into. A radio studio? But there was definitely something flickering in the corner, just out of sight – and a dark shape in the middle.

‘What the hell?’ she whispered, her nose pressed against the glass. It couldn’t be – could it?

She tried the door, but the handle wouldn’t move.
Of course not, that would be too easy
.

She turned and went back to the store cupboard looking for a way to get into that room. A broken office chair –
wrong shape
, she thought,
too heavy to pick up anyway
. Behind that was a mop and broom – not heavy enough.

‘Bingo,’ she said, pulling a long pole from the shadows at the back. It was a roll-up viewing screen, the sort used with projectors. The long heavy metal tube was perfect for what April had in mind.

This’d better work
, she thought, hoisting it over her shoulder. Steeling herself, April ran towards room 108 and slammed the end of the tube into the window like a battering ram. The centre of the glass cracked into a spider’s web, bending inwards, but it held.
Dammit, it must be safety glass
. She glanced up the corridor. The sound of the impact in such an enclosed space was like a pistol going off, but she couldn’t stop now. She backed up and tried again, her arms shaking with the effort. This time the tube crashed straight through, taking the frame and the glass with it. April had surely been heard, but she couldn’t worry about that now. She hoisted herself up and slithered head-first through the hole, landing in a twisted heap.