Redlaw - 01 Read Free Page A

additional ten hectares of buildings wrested from private ownership by compulsory purchase order. Within its boundary lay architecture spanning a century and a half, from Victorian semi-detached villas to modern brutalist blocks, all now forming one large convoluted warren where Sunless roamed freely in their thousands.
    It was a notorious trouble spot. Had been since the start, but more so now than ever. There was always something going on in the Hackney SRA. That, along with its sprawling size, made it a blight on the entire borough. Hackney was now considered all but uninhabitable to anyone with a heartbeat. A few hardy Somali and Eritrean refugees lived here, deeming it safer than their war-torn, drought-blighted homelands, but that was all.
    Redlaw arrived to find a half-dozen SHADE patrol cars stationed outside the Residential Area’s main entrance and twice that number of officers standing around seemingly at a loss to know what to do. From beyond the fence could be heard a chorus of howls and gibbering, shrill and loathsome, echoing up to the bronze-tinged night sky.
    The highest-ranking person on site, until Redlaw turned up, was Sergeant Ibrahim Khalid. He gave Redlaw a token salute, more than a little glad to be able to hand over responsibility for the situation. More than a little glad, too, that it was Redlaw who would now be carrying the can for this one. There was no love lost between these two men.
    “What’s going on here?” Redlaw demanded.
    “As you can hear,” said Khalid, “we have some very unhappy campers. Details are sketchy, but the gist of it is, a regular consignment of cattle blood went in at twenty-three hundred hours, as scheduled. That was forty-five minutes ago, and the truck hasn’t come back out. Thirty minutes ago the drivers—standard two-man unit—radioed in a mayday to base. Since then there’s been no further contact from them. Judging by all that caterwaul, it’d be sensible to expect the worst.”
    “The hauliers?”
    “BovPlas Logistics, of course. Their guys are pros. Trained for all outcomes.”
    “Training isn’t always enough. Why haven’t you mounted a rescue attempt yet?”
    Khalid’s eyes flicked downwards briefly. “As I said, no one’s heard from the truck for half an hour. Closer on thirty-five minutes now. It would be unreasonable to expect—”
    “Unreasonable, sergeant?” snapped Redlaw. “I’ll tell you what’s unreasonable. A dozen fully-armed officers hanging around with their thumbs up their fundaments while two human beings are trapped inside an SRA surrounded by God knows how many vampires. That’s unreasonable.”
    “Sir, with all due respect...”
    “Don’t ‘with all due respect’ me, Khalid. You damn well should have gone in, and you know it.”
    Redlaw swung away from Khalid and strode towards the Residential Area entrance.
    “Captain!” Khalid called out after him. “The ’Lesses are in bloodlust mode. They’ll tear anyone who goes in there apart.”
    “Much though I appreciate the concern, sergeant,” Redlaw replied, holding his crucifix up above his shoulder for Khalid to see, “I have this to protect me. And failing that, I have this.” With his other hand he waved his Cindermaker. “What the Good Lord doesn’t provide, gunpowder and the laws of physics will.”
     
    The steel arch surmounting the entranceway bore the SRA’s name and the SHADE logo along with the legend “Working For A Safer Community For All.” Over this someone had spray-painted the words:
     
    Undead Zone
     
    And under, in loopy tag lettering that dripped like blood:
     
    Theres a Sucka Born Every Minute
     
    The gates stood wide open. No reason for the BovPlas Logistics drivers to have bothered closing them. Had this been a routine run, the truck would have made its delivery and been back out, ten minutes flat. Nobody was likely to saunter in through the entrance in the interim. At least, nobody with any sense.
    As Redlaw passed through, he