CHAPTER 1. SLAVE SHIP.
The English Channel - 2.35am, February 10, 2011
KWAN Mei, eighteen and with her dreams of a better life shattered, cowered on the deck of the yacht.
The girl she cradled in her arms was crying and begging to go home. But home was gone. It had been left behind. Their villages in Northern China abandoned for the cities of Europe. For one city in particular.
London.
"We pay for you to bring us, and you treat us like slaves," said Mei to the man.
He wore black - leather jacket, roll-neck jumper, jeans, Doc Marten boots. Acne scars pockmarked his face.
He snarled at her and raised the machete, threatening to chop her up and toss her overboard with the rest of the dead unless she was quiet.
His voice trembled as if he were nervous.
But this man hadn't been scared of anything during the whole journey. What did he have to fear? Not the authorities. They'd passed through many countries that were more unwelcoming than England.
The captain, a Frenchman who spoke Mandarin, told the man in black, "We're coming into Ramsgate soon, so you need to keep them quiet."
The captain licked his lips. His knuckles were white on the wheel. Sweat poured from beneath his baseball cap. He took a sip of water from a jerry can.
The yacht, a forty-footer, rocked over the English Channel. Mei had never been to sea before this journey. She never wanted to go again.
The girl in Mei's arms whined. The child was only twelve or thirteen. Her parents had died on the journey here. After that, Mei had looked after the youngster. It was difficult. The kid cried a lot. She wanted to go home. She was constantly in hysterics, and the traffickers threatened to get rid of her unless Mei shut her up.
"You're still not shutting her up, are you?" said the man in black. He sweated and paced the deck.
"She is upset, can't you see?"
"I don't care."
"We pay you, and this is how - "
"Shut your mouth. We are nearly in England. This is what you wanted, yes? You wanted England. England is here. We give you England, and you complain. I don't care, girl. I don't care if I kill you here, when you are this close to your England, because you are - "
He trailed off. He was going to say something.
"What?" said Mei.
"Nothing. Shut your face. I don't want to get caught, okay? I've not seen my family in three months because of you, and if we get caught, I won't see them for years. I'll go to prison. So you be quiet. Or I will cut you into pieces and feed you to the English fish. All of you."
"You're not scared of prison," Mei said.
"Shut up," he said.
"You're scared of something else."
"Be quiet."
The girl in Mei's arms cried again, and Mei told her it would be all right. But it wouldn't be.
She'd known that as soon after they'd left Shanghai.
She knew it when the men smirked and slammed the truck's back door, casting her and the other fifty-seven migrants into darkness. She knew it when they shoved them on the boat in Hong Kong and ignored their cries for help when the hold became so chilly that frost glittered on their skins.
She knew it when the men came down to take the dead away, and when she asked what they would do with the bodies, the men said they'd be fish food and she'd join them if she didn't stop asking questions.
She knew, but she still told the girl, "It'll be all right."
By the time they got to Spain, twenty-one of the migrants had died. Men, women, and children.
In Spain, the traffickers herded the survivors on to this yacht, cramming them below. There wasn't much room, so Mei and the girl found themselves on deck with the captain.
Hunger gnawed at Mei's belly. She was so thirsty she could barely speak to comfort the girl.
They'd not been given water since they got on the yacht, and that had been at least twelve hours ago. Moans and cries wafted up from below, where most of the migrants were stowed. It was cold, and the rags they wore were the clothes they'd been dressed in when they left Shanghai three months previously. Their luggage had disappeared by the time they reached the Philippines. Stolen by pirates, said the traffickers. Mei didn't believe them.
Is this the price of freedom? she thought.
She wasn't sure it was worth it.
England had been a dream since she was a little girl. Her dad, a schoolteacher, had shown her a tattered old book called Teach Yourself English, and she'd learned the language.
The captain told the man in black, "Find me VHF channel 14 on the radio, so we can contact port control."
The man in black grumbled. He fiddled with the radio. Static burst from the console. He handed the mic to the captain, who spoke in English:
"Good morning, Ramsgate, this is the Bloody Mary, requesting permission to enter the harbour."
A crackle came over the radio, then a voice saying, "You have permission, Bloody Mary."
A shudder went through Mei. At last, after a murderous journey across the world, they were in England.
She said to the man in black, "Where do we go? You said there'd be work. You said you'd give us contacts."
The man said, "I have told you to shut up."
"But this was what we paid for also. We paid for contacts, for work. You said - your friends said, they - "
The man slashed with the machete.
The captain said, "Not here, not now."
The yacht bobbed. Mei wondered how the refugees below deck were coping. The journey had been difficult. They had been sick. There had been deaths. This was no way to be treated after they'd paid so much money for freedom.
Mei peered towards the harbour. Light beamed from the port control tower, showing the entrance to Ramsgate, to England.
Her heart raced.
"We're here," she told the girl in her arms. "We're safe - England."
The girl cried. Mei realized she'd have to look after her in this new country. The child had no parents. Mei was her family.
The feeling of seasickness that had been with her all the way faded as the yacht drifted into the harbour. Mei saw masts reach into the sky. She gazed up. Dark clouds filled the night, hiding the moon and the stars
It made her think of what her mother had said:
"England is a land of monsters, Mei. Our government says it is a dangerous place. They have a plague there, a plague spread by fanged demons."
But Mei didn't believe. She was trying to escape superstition. She'd heard about the monsters and tried to find out about them on the internet. But Beijing blocked or censored most websites. The only news you got was what they wanted you to get. And it was all bad news about England. That's why she didn't believe it.
The yacht bobbed into a berth and stilled.
Only the whining of the refugees below broke the silence.
The man in black tensed. The captain's gaze flitted around.
"Are - are they here?" said the captain.
"They said 3.00am," the man in black answered.
Mei furrowed her brow. Tension filled the deck. The men were anxious about something.
"What is happening, Mei?" the child asked in a whisper.
Mei stroked her hair. "Waiting for friends to come for us."
"We have no friends, Mei. We have nothing."
"Shut it," said the man in black. His eyes were wide, and Mei saw fear in them.
The captain said, "Get your boys down below to shut that lot up."
The man in black started to walk away, but the captain grabbed his arm, and the men froze, staring out.
"They're here," said the captain. "There's the truck."
"It hasn't flashed its - "
Headlights beamed from the harbour.
"Yes it has," said the captain. He crossed himself. "Mother Mary protect me."
"Shut up," said the man in black.
Mei trembled. "What is it? Why are you frightened?"
The man in black stared at her. "You're free. Go. Take your little friend. Go." He took a walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it in French. The yacht rocked. Cries came from below. The man in black hooked the walkie-talkie back on his belt. "Go," he told Mei, "go now - up along the walkways, to the gate at the far end. Someone will open them for you - go!"
Mei rose.
The captain, staring ahead, said, "Oh my Lord - the dead, the dead."
Mei grabbed the machete and slipped it inside her jacket.
CHAPTER 2. FEEDING TIME.
A MINUTE after Travis had flashed his headlights, the Chinese immigrants started to pour out of the Bloody Mary. They raced along the jetty. The wooden landing stages shook under their feet.
Travis said, "Oh fuck, here they come."
He raced around to the back of the lorry. He checked that the piece of leathery material the employers had given him was tight around his wrist. He sweated and trembled. He fumbled with the keys, managing to unlock the trailer.
Inside, they hissed and clawed.
Travis nearly pissed himself. He always did. He knew he'd be okay, protected by the red rag around his wrist. But that didn't make him feel better.
"Open the door, you cunt," said a voice from inside. "We're fucking hungry."
Travis moaned. The voice felt like acid going through him. It was filled with hate, tainted with evil.
Travis's legs shook. "I'm doing it, I'm doing it."
He eased the door open, and the smell of death drifted out of the trailer. They didn't give him a chance. They clambered up the door as Travis lowered it to the ground.
He whelped. He let the door go and stumbled backwards. The door crashed to the ground. They poured out, a dozen of them. They hissed and bared their fangs.
Travis, on his backside, screamed.
"Open the gate, open the gate!" he said.
"All right, give me a chance," came the voice.
Travis looked. Les unlocked the gate leading to the jetties. The Chinese immigrants flooded towards him.
"Hurry, Les," said Travis as the vampires ran passed him.
Les opened the gate just in time. The vampires piled through, shoving him out of the way, hissing at him. One of the creatures fancied a bite and went for him. But when it saw the red rag pinned to Les's boiler suit, it balked and followed the others onto the jetties.
The vampires headed straight for the immigrants.
They're having a Chinese, thought Travis, and he laughed nervously.
"Let's get out of here, Les - before the feeding starts."
As he hopped back into the cab, Travis heard screaming.
It made him sick. He shut his eyes, blanking it out. This was a job. He got paid to do it. What happened to those people wasn't his business.
As he started the truck, a growl came from the distance.
Engines, he thought. He ignored the sound and drove away, trying not to think about the refugees getting killed by the vampires.
CHAPTER 3. YOUR ONLY HOPE.
MEI clutched the girl tightly.
The others raced along the jetty. It wobbled, and a few people fell into the water. Everyone was screaming. The spotlight from the port control tower swept over them. A siren blared in the distance.
A group of men and women raced towards Mei and the others along the jetties. These people had pale faces and angry expressions.
And as they came closer, Mei saw their teeth.
She screamed.
The fanged demons.
Shrieks filled the air. The refugees panicked. The girl tore herself from Mei's arms, and Mei said, "No, come back," but the girl ran down another jetty, following a group who were clambering across a berthed yacht in an effort to escape.
Four fanged demons broke off from the approaching pack. They went after the girl and her group.
Mei screamed. She brandished the machete. Refugees poured past her. Some leaped into the water. Others tried to run back towards the Bloody Mary. But the yacht sailed away, leaving the harbour.
"No, please," said Mei, unable to move.
The fanged demons leaped and sailed through the air. They fell on the fleeing immigrants. One creature swooped on the girl. Demon and child dropped off the jetty and into the water.
Mei ran towards them. Ahead of her, the demons killed the refugees. They tore out their throats and when blood spurted out of the wounds, they drank it. They held some people down and bit into their necks.
In the water, the demon held the girl and sank its fangs into her white neck. The creature was female. Its long, dark hair hung wet over its shoulders. A red glint sparkled in its dark eyes.
The child shrieked. Mei reached for the youngster.
The feeding demon snarled at Mei and pulled the girl under the water.
Mei went on her belly and hacked at the water with the machete. She screamed for the girl.
The noises of dread were all around. Horror and pain and death everywhere. The demons laughed as they attacked the Chinese. They killed them like predators killed prey.
The girl bobbed to the surface of the water, dead.
Mei said, "No, please, no," and she stretched out her arm.
The demon reared up out of the water, springing back on to the jetty. It landed behind Mei. She rolled on her back and slashed the air with the machete.
The demon dripped water on the walkway. It laughed at Mei and showed its bloody fangs.
Mei gazed at the creature. Once it had been a beautiful woman, for sure. The striking face remained. But it showed hate and cruelty now.
"I like Chinese," said the demon. "And the girl there was a good little starter. But I'm still hungry, sweet one. You can be my main meal."
The female demon came for Mei.
As it closed on Mei, the sky behind the female demon lit up, and a roar filled the air.
The demon wheeled. "No," it said, "no, not them."
The motorbike landed on the jetty. The wooden stage jerked. Another bike sailed over the fence that surrounded the berths. The bikes roared along the walkway.
The riders wore red leather.
They stopped their machines and vaulted off them and barrelled into the demons without fear.
One of the riders brandished short swords made of bone. They looked like elephant tusks to Mei.
The other rider looked like a woman from her movements, her body lithe and long. A quiver of wooden stakes was strapped to her back. She whipped out a stake and slashed at a demon.
The first rider came at the fanged female threatening Mei. The creature bristled, hissing. It seemed fearful, shrugging its shoulders and making itself small, like an animal cornered.
"Hello, Nadia," said the rider.
"Don't kill me," said the demon.
"You're already dead," the rider said.
He stabbed the demon in the chest with one of the tusk-swords. The demon screeched. The air seemed to fill with fire. Mei smelled burning. The demon cried out, clawing at the weapon buried in its chest.
The rider drove the sword deeper into the creature's breast. Sparks flew off its body. Fire raced up its arms and its neck, into its hair. The scalp burned. Flames burst from its body, and then it disintegrated into a cloud of ashes that flapped away on the wind.
The rider leaned forward and whipped off his helmet.
Mei stared into the steel-grey eyes of a man who looked to her like a god. Scars peppered his face, but they took nothing away from his beauty. His crow-black hair fell to his shoulders. He wore a red handkerchief over his face in the style of a cowboy.
Nothing else mattered to Mei now except for this man. She couldn't take her eyes off him. The noise of carnage surrounding her faded away.
He removed the handkerchief from his mouth and offered Mei his hand, and with an iron will in his steel-grey eyes said, "My name is Jake Lawton. I am your only hope."
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