Redlaw - 01 Read Free

Nikola recognised. “ Jó estét ,” he replied. Good evening.
    “Ah,” said Redlaw. “Hungarian. Magyar ?”
    Nikola nodded. “ Igen .”
    “You speak English?”
    “A little. Please, not shoot.”
    Redlaw glanced at his gun, then back at Nikola. “Don’t give me a reason to shoot and I won’t. You understand?”
    Nikola did, just about. The SHADE officer’s expression was, if not gentle, then marginally less severe than when he’d been addressing the Stokers. His face’s solidity had softened just a fraction, though his eyes remained hard and watchful.
    “It would help if you stopped staring at the blood from my nose.”
    Nikola averted his gaze guiltily. The fresh blood sang to him. Its sweet ferrous smell was unbearably enticing. As a boy—a human boy—back in Miskolc, the most wonderful aroma he’d ever known was his grandmother’s hot chocolate, warming on the stove, and the most wonderful flavour he’d ever known was the drink itself, laced with spices and a dash of apricot palinka . But blood was a hundred, a thousand times more wonderful than even that.
    Redlaw dabbed at his upper lip with a linen handkerchief. “Lucky shot. I should never have let the idiot catch me unawares like that, or get so close. Old man. Losing my edge. Although, having said that, I did fancy a bit of a scrap. Listen, sonny.”
    Dark eyes bored into Nikola’s.
    “From the looks of you—incompletely emerged fangs, still a trace of pink in your complexion, only the faintest reddening of the sclera—it wasn’t so long ago that you were turned. My guess is you don’t just look young, you are young. So I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. It’s not something I often do. Ever do, actually. But I’m prepared to make an exception. You wanted to see the outside world. I get that. Don’t. Don’t ever want that. You can see why.” He indicated the four Stokers strewn in their various poses of agony and semi-consciousness. “You don’t belong out here. No one wants you out here. The Sunless Residential Area is your home. Your only home. Forever. Clear?”
    More or less. His tone, if not his words. Nikola nodded.
    “Then go. Get back behind the fence. Before I change my mind.”
    The Cindermaker continued to point, unwaveringly, at Nikola’s beatless heart.
    Ropes loosened, Nikola ran no longer in an ecstasy of dread, but suffused with relief and joy.
     
    Learned his lesson , thought Redlaw as the boy vanished from view.
    The four Stokers had doubtless learned theirs too.
    Redlaw pulled out the crucifix that hung round his neck. The wood was warm against his lips as he kissed it briefly. He murmured a prayer of thanks—for victory, for deliverance from his enemies. The prayer was perfunctory and low, so much so that even the Almighty might have missed it.
    As he was returning the crucifix to its rightful place next to his sternum, Redlaw’s phone sounded. His ringtone was the opening chords of ‘Jerusalem’ played on a thunderous cathedral organ.
    “John.” The throaty, no-nonsense tones of Commodore Gail Macarthur.
    “What can I do for you, Commodore?”
    “GPS puts you down Mile End way.”
    “That I am.”
    “But your car’s not moving and you’re not in it.”
    “How do you know I’m not in it?”
    “Well, if you were you’d have heard the bulletin from dispatch and be en route already. There’s a disturbance at the Hackney SRA.”
    “What a surprise.”
    “Local units have responded, but they need backup. Someone with some seniority.”
    “Me.”
    “Anything better to be doing?”
    Redlaw scanned the street; eyed the Stokers. “Not much, marm.”
    “Right, then. Off you go.”
    Redlaw ended the call with a sigh.
    It was going to be a long night.
    But then weren’t they all?

CHAPTER TWO
     
    The Hackney Sunless Residential Area was the largest SRA in all of Greater London and the most densely populated. It consisted of forty hectares of former local authority property plus an