Sleeping Angel (Ravenwood Series) (36 page)

‘Gabriel,’ she called, scrambling to her feet. ‘Gabriel, are you there?’

And then she stopped, transfixed by the bizarre scene in front of her. Gabriel was strapped to what looked like a dentist’s chair. One arm had tubes running to a hospital drip and there were wires attached to his temples. He was staring straight at a large flat-screen TV on which was playing what looked like a home-movie of a dog fight – pit bulls tearing bloody chunks out of each other. But it was Gabriel’s face that made April catch her breath. It was blank, literally blank, as if all trace of personality had been removed. His eyes were open, but there was no other sign of life. He looked like a waxwork in Madame Tussauds.

‘Gabe,’ she said softly, taking a step closer. ‘It’s me, April. Can you hear me?’

She reached out to touch his hand – and suddenly he moved, grabbing her wrist, squeezing.

‘Please Gabriel,’ she said, trying to twist away, ‘Gabe, you’re hurting me.’

He turned to face her and April recoiled. His eyes were fierce, his lips drawn back, just like the snarling dogs on the screen. It was the same vampire face she had seen that morning on top of Primrose Hill when he took the Dragon’s Breath and turned back into a vampire, but this time there was no recognition, no trace at all of the Gabriel she knew. The creature straining against the straps of his chair wanted to kill her.

There was a sudden crash and the room was filled with people, hands pulling her backwards, as a figure in black bent over Gabriel with a large syringe.

‘No!’ she screamed, ‘Leave him alone!’

‘I don’t think that would be a good idea, April.’

Whoever was constraining April twisted her around and she saw Charles Tame standing in the doorway.

‘Bring her,’ he said with a malevolent smile. ‘There’s someone I think will want a word with her.’

April’s arm was twisted behind her back and she was frog-marched out of the lab and back along the corridor. As they got to the steps, she looked back and saw Gabriel being hauled from the room, slumped between two men, his head hanging forward, his toes dragging along the floor.

‘What have you done to him?’ she yelled. ‘If you’ve hurt him, I’ll kill you!’

Tame stepped in front of her and grabbed her face. ‘No, April, I think not,’ he said, his fingers pressing painfully into her cheeks. ‘You will do exactly as you are told.’

‘Do you know who I am?’ she hissed. ‘Do you know who the King is?’

Tame laughed. ‘Of course I do. I’ve known since I came to Ravenwood, we’ve been working side by side, you could say.’ He looked over at Gabriel.

‘
You
did that to him? What have you done to his head?’

‘It’s my speciality, April, you knew that. The mind is a surprisingly simple thing when you know how to re-programme it.’

‘What did you do?’ screamed April.

Tame stepped forward and slapped her. April’s head jerked back, her mind reeling.

‘Tonight is too important to let your hysterical teenage nonsense get in the way. Either you cooperate, or your boyfriend has an unpleasant, and fatal, accident. Is that clear?’

Tame’s eyes were sparkling in the light, his mouth a fixed grin.
He’s mad
, she thought.

‘Is that clear?’ he repeated.

April nodded.
We’ll see who has an unpleasant accident,
she thought. Her defiance must have shown on her face, because Tame slowly shook his head.

‘Oh no, don’t think you’ll be getting special treatment,’ he said. ‘The King has been very clear on that from the beginning. You will see our point of view and fall in line, or you will be joining dear Gabriel in his shallow grave.’

He stood watching her, that grin still there, clearly waiting for a reply. April nodded again.

‘Fine, then I think it’s time for your reunion.’

In front of her, the double doors to the school hall were opened and April was pushed through. April had been expecting a party, perhaps something along the lines of the reception at the Crichton Club, but this was different. A long wooden table had been placed in the centre of the floor, surrounded by perhaps two dozen high-backed chairs – and sitting in each of them were serious-faced men and women. April didn’t have time to recognise any individuals because Tame pushed her elbow, causing her to stumble to her knees at the foot of the table.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Tame, ‘may I introduce Ravenwood’s Head Girl, Miss April Dunne? Miss Dunne, it seems, has been on a rescue mission,’ he said. ‘And I suspect she was also planning to disrupt our little meeting.’

April had expected an angry shout or at the very least  a hum of discussion, but instead the hall remained silent, as if everyone was waiting for someone to give them a signal.

‘Pick her up,’ instructed a low voice. April felt hands behind her, and she slowly straightened up, her stomach turning over.

‘Hello Princess.’

April looked up into the face of her grandfather.

‘Come, April,’ said Thomas, gently lifting her chin with one finger and looking into her eyes. ‘You will sit next to me. As you were always meant to.’

But April could not move, she could only look at him, her mouth open. All those months, looking everywhere, searching for clues, she had missed the glaring truth, the thing that had been right in front of her. |Her mother, her grandma, Uncle Luke – her whole family were vampires. And Grampa Thomas, her rock, her protector, he was the most dangerous of them all.

‘You’re the King?’ she said. ‘The King Vampire?’

She had to ask, had to hear him say it.

Thomas just smiled, not the twisted smile of a tyrant, but the warm smile of a doting grandparent.

‘Yes April, I am the King. Now join me.’

He led her to a chair next to him at the head of the table. April noticed to her horror that all eyes in the room were focused on her. Did they expect her to say something? But instead Grampa Thomas began to speak.

‘This, you will have gathered, is my granddaughter, April,’ he said.

To April’s surprise and bewilderment, the group began to clap. They were all smiling at her!

‘This means a minor deviation from the plan, but now I see that fate has brought her to our meeting. April is the last of my line and my natural heir.’

This snapped April out of her daze.

‘What? No!’ she said. ‘Gramps, I can’t, I don’t ...’

He laid his huge hand over hers and bent his mouth to her ear. ‘Don’t rush it, Prilly, I know this must be strange for you, but this is the future. Our future.’

Thomas looked down the table with pride. April could now see David Harper, DCI Johnston and a few other faces she thought she recognised from the TV news or perhaps from the meeting at the Crichton Club. They were all looking at her expectantly.

‘Are they the governors?’ she said.

A twitter of polite laughter ran around the table.

‘No darling. This is the Council of Light.’

‘Light? I thought it was all about darkness.’

‘This is not a Hammer Horror film, April,’ said Thomas. ‘Look for yourself, these people are just like you – they’re humans not vampires. But they are forward-thinking humans, people who simply want the world to be different, who want society to finally recognise and accept that vampires live among them and wish to share in the government of the land.’

‘No! I’m not like any of these people.’

She pushed herself up, away from the table, as if to distance herself from them.

‘Don’t you realise what you’re doing?’ she cried. ‘Do you realise who you’re dealing with?’

‘April, please,’ began Thomas.

‘No, Gramps,’ she said. ‘Tonight I saw exactly what your people are capable of. I saw an innocent schoolgirl savaged, her blood drained by a monster.’

‘We are not monsters, darling,’ said Thomas, his demeanour calm, but his eyes betraying annoyance. ‘Vampires simply have a different physiological make-up. We need plasma to survive and it is society’s inability to accept our difference that has forced some into such desperate acts.’

April laughed incredulously. ‘So now you’re presenting vampires as some sort of oppressed minority? Crap, gramps! That Sucker didn’t
need
to feed, she did it because she could, because she liked pain and suffering and terror. That’s your idea of a bright new future?’

She saw Thomas glance towards the watching faces around the table.

‘No, that is my idea of a dark past which we must distance ourselves from and control. We cannot allow that perception of vampires as skeletal ghouls lurking in the shadows to hold us back.’

There were a few more claps.

She shook her head. She still couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘It’s not a bloody PR problem!’ she shouted towards the people the table. ‘These people are going to destroy your world!’

There were indulgent smiles from the table and Dr Tame sat forward.

‘There will be no war, April, no revolution; there is no army waiting to storm the palace gates. This is a peaceful alliance of like-minded individuals who only wish the nation to benefit from our mutual gifts.’

‘NO!’ shouted April, slamming her hand on the table. Couldn’t they see? ‘You can’t negotiate with them. They will slaughter you like cattle!’

Thomas stood up, raising his hands.

‘I think this seems a good point to call for a break,’ he said. ‘You’ll find drinks laid out in the refectory; we’ll reconvene at –’ he checked the clock above the stage ‘– shall we say eight?’

It was all so genteel, all so polite and calm, as if they were a group of regional sales managers who’d come for a team-building conference, not some of the most powerful figures in the country here to plan the entire destruction of the society they knew. Dr Tame ushered the council through the double doors and closed them behind him, leaving April and her grandfather alone. April looked at Thomas, then moved towards the doors.

‘April, stay. Please.’

‘I’m going to find Gabriel,’ said April. ‘He needs me.’

But Thomas caught her arm. ‘
I
need you, Prilly,’ he said. Something in the way he said it made April stop.

‘What do you mean, you need me?’

‘I’m dying, April,’ he said.

Despite her anger, April’s heart lurched. At that moment this wasn’t the King Vampire, this was her Gramps, the man who had bounced her on his knee, the solid immovable rock at the centre of her life, the one thing she could always rely on.

‘You’re dying ... What’s wrong, Grampa?’

Thomas gave a sad smile.

‘I am old, darling, worn out. Even purebred vampires age eventually and I am very, very old now. I feel it in my bones. Don’t worry, I have time to do what I set out to do, but I need your help.’

April wanted to throw her arms around her grandfather, to hold him and be held, reassured. But she was still too angry, too confused.

‘Why didn’t you tell me, Gramps?’

‘Your mother. She said I should wait. I wanted to tell you about our family and our legacy – I tried – but Silvia insisted she wanted to raise you as a normal child.’

‘I am – I
was
– a normal child. Just because you are ...’ she gestured helplessly.

‘A vampire?’ said Thomas. ‘Yes, I am a vampire, April. So is your mother, so are
you
, April. We have been the royal line for countless centuries ’

‘So all that stuff about the Black Prince? It was true? I thought it was just you trying to make our family look important.’

Thomas chuckled, his back straight with pride.

‘You are a true princess, darling. Some believe we ruled in the dark ages, before even the Mayans and the Aztecs, before the others –’ his mouth curled in unconscious distaste ‘– before they bred their way across Europe like rats. And now it is time for us to return to our rightful position, as Kings and Queens.’

April shook her head. ‘You sound like a mad dictator, Gramps.’

‘There is nothing mad about it, Prilly,’ he countered, bristling. ‘It is pure logic that we should rule. We are superior in every way – stronger, faster, more intelligent.’

‘
You
might be. I’m one of the cattle, just waiting to be tapped for blood. I’m just one of the Bleeders, remember?’

‘No, Princess, you are not. You are of royal blood, you are exceptional.’

‘Why not mum? She’s a real vampire. Why not put her on the throne?’

‘She turned away from me,’ he said, his anger plain. ‘When I reached out to her, offered her the crown, she rejected me and told me I was crazy. But I always knew you would come to me.’

He put out his hand to stroke April’s hair, but she pushed it away.

‘No, Gramps!’ she said, turning and running towards the hall’s double doors. ‘I don’t want this. I don’t want any of it!’ She had to get out of the hall, out of this trap her grandfather had set for her. She needed to find Gabriel, take his hand in hers and run far, far away – anywhere but here, away from all this craziness. She was twisting the door-handle when Thomas pushed the door shut.