Page 69 of Hupotasso
I don’t know the nurse. But I’d know the doctor anywhere.
“Lady Dragonspur,” the doctor’s familiar voice says, “if you’ll come this way? You’ll need to don full PPE safety equipment before entering the patient’s room. The risk of infection is too high. All visitors must wear it.”
“Of course,” I nod, following her to a nearby staff change room.
As I reach the doorway the doctor turns to my four security guards, and frowns.
“Her ladyship will need to undress in order to don the garments.”
The guards immediately look embarrassed and stop in their tracks.
I can’t help but grin as I turn and she ushers me and the nurse into the room, locking the door behind us before ripping off her mask and embracing me.
I hold her so tightly I don’t ever want to let her go, but she prises me away and holds me at arm’s length to look into my eyes.
“Do you still want to leave?”
“Is the pope a fucking paedophile?”
She grins, and I put my hand over my mouth to stifle my laugh.
“God I’ve missed you,” she shakes her head, suddenly serious. “Listen carefully. You’re going to swap clothes with this nurse. When you leave this room you need to act like her. Return the clipboard to the front desk and then calmly and slowly walk straight back out the front door, past all the paparazzi, and over to the staff car park. Got it so far?”
I nod, my mouth suddenly dry, heart hammering.
“You’ll walk twelve cars down Row X and get into a dark green Audi. The GPS is programmed. Follow every instruction, EVERY instruction, until you reach your destination. When you reach the safe house sit in the car, lock the doors, and don’t move until you see me. No one else, do you understand, Angie? No one else. Only me. If anyone else approaches, you drive off and phone me. There’s a phone in the car. Got it?”
“I’ve got it, Yin.”
52
I know what I’m about to do is not permitted by any vampire law, but neither is half the shit this fuckhead has done, and he’s still living with impunity.
And despite Jag’s assertion, I do believe he has my wife under his control. I haven’t worked out how it all fits together yet with Attracta, Mother, Angie and the selection process, but it’ll make the puzzle a hell of a lot easier to fit together if I take away one big piece that’s obviously part of it.
Spider.
It’s a seven-hour drive to the Count’s estate, but we’ve taken the back roads to avoid any detection and left our devices at the castle to avoid tracking or tracing if suspicion should fall uponus. No staff, no drivers, pilots, or security are aware of where we are or what we’re doing. We’d agreed not to even embroil Wolf in this operation. The only two who know what we’re about to do are us. Jag plants his foot as we near the property, but we needn’t have brought the Hummer to smash into the grounds. The bastard has his gates wide open.
“He doesn’t fear anything,” I snarl.
“He will,” Jag says quietly, his eyes on the road.
It’s late afternoon, and although I’m exhausted from having no sleep for close to twenty-four hours I’m also strangely elated that the long dance between our families will finally be over. This feud has gone on for centuries, passed on from father to son. Although I initially tried to keep out of it, I’d been drawn in via the vilest means. Kidnapping my brother, forcing me into The Games, attacks on my castle from within and without, and now this latest attempt on my mother’s life.
It has to stop.
It has to stopnow.
As we reach the wide, circular driveway fronting the castle, Jag turns off the engine and we get out without a word, black capes drawn tight, our face covered from the sun by heavy cowls. We can’t stand outside too long without the sun sapping our energy and eventually killing us, but we don’t intend to. Walking to the rear of the vehicle we bring out our assault weapons, each loaded with hundreds of rounds of silver bullets. Whether he has vampire or human guards it won’t matter; the lot of them are about to become Swiss cheese. I’m in no mood for theatrics, the rules of war, or fair play.
He dies. That’s all that matters.
Mounting the stairs we look at each other with surprise when we see the corpses impaled on his gouch hooks either side of the doors. Most of us removed those from our castles in the late medieval years, but Spider obviously preferred to keep his castle historically accurate. The hooks, the length and thickness of a man’s arm, are what humans miniaturised to model the hooks they use to hang their paintings upon walls. But once upon a time they were all large and used like this. When a human was hurled upon one they were instantly impaled by the razor-sharp metal, like bugs on a fork — they could take days to die. However, it isn’t the hooks that cause Jag and I to pause; it’s their grisly ornaments. I don’t recognise two of them, a middle-aged man and woman, but the third is unmistakably Isabel.
“No wonder Wolf and I couldn’t find them in Barcelona,” Jag murmurs. “It seems we were beaten to the punch.”
I grit my teeth and kick in Spider’s castle doors, prepared to unleash a bloodbath. But I needn’t have bothered. They’re unguarded and unlocked.
