The King of Clubs 3 Read online

  The King of Clubs 3

  Savannah Skye

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  9. Jack’s Story

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Introduction

  The gripping conclusion of Ursula and Connery's story!

  Ursula Lee has been through hell and back. First, with the nefarious vampire trickster, Jack, and his mystical games that have haunted her dreams. Then, with her love, Connery. Now that they’re back on the same team, the action ramps up full throttle as they try to take on the King of Clubs, whose thirst for blood seems unquenchable.

  Can they save the people on the Topside of London as well as the Undercity dwellers from the most ruthless vampire of all? Or will their efforts to protect the city fail, leaving it all in the hands of a madman?

  Chapter 1

  When darkness falls across London; they come.

  The Night Wraiths. Stealing out from the secret entrances, the cracks and cave mouths that find their way into the drains and subways of London’s underground. Creeping out into the moonlit city to wreak their havoc, to prey on the unsuspecting, to feed their master: The King of Nightmares.

  Grim and grotesque, they are. Their skin is pale, even for a vampire, their hands are clawed, their eyes are wide, with pinprick pupils. For now, their appearance remains recognizably human, but over time, they will become still more gargoyle in their appearance as they adjust to their troglodyte life of slavery under their King, who keeps them in a mesmerized thrall.

  They move like shadows, making no sound as they walk, scrabbling up walls and through narrow gaps like rats or cockroaches. They are your worst nightmares come to hideous life.

  But tonight, they were the ones who needed to be afraid, because I was hunting them. And I wasn’t alone.

  “There,” Connery breathed the word, barely loud enough for me to hear, as he pointed. Across the street, a wraith emerged from the shadows, moving in that distinctive noiseless fashion that seemed at once smooth and silken but also somehow awkward, as if he was being animated by an unseen hand, learning how to move with each stilted step. His hair was dark, although it had already started to turn white, as the wraiths’ hair did, his clothes were tattered – they no longer mattered and when they deteriorated to the point of dropping from his body, the wraith would not replace them.

  As Connery and I watched, the creature that had once – probably only a week or two ago – been a normal vampire, stole to the side of a house and turned its wide-eyed gaze upwards. An open window. Careless. The wraith began to climb up the sheer wall with ease, its clawed fingers digging into the brickwork.

  “Come on,” I urged. Wraiths were not particularly strong fighters, but they were very good runners, and if you attacked one too soon then it vanished off into the shadows and you had lost it for good. You had to wait until it was focused on something else, like climbing, and preferably until its back was turned.

  Connery and I ran out across the street; now we were making our move, we had to reach the wraith before it reached the window. As his feet hit the pavement, Connery sprang up, launching himself towards the wraith with the vampiric strength I could only look at and envy. The wraith noticed Connery soaring towards it just before he landed, and it reacted swiftly. With a hiss of anger, it threw itself backwards off the building, away from Connery. When it landed it would be off like lightning to hide, burrowed in amongst the houses. But we had known it would try this and had been prepared.

  The wraith hadn’t noticed me on the ground, and when it landed, I was there to meet it with a roundhouse kick that would have stunned a horse. The wraith dropped to the street, unconscious. Connery jumped back down from the building to land beside me.

  “Nice kick, Ursula.” He kissed me.

  “Nice jump.”

  “Thanks.”

  I looked down at the unconscious creature. When they were unconscious, a strange peace came over the wraith’s tortured features, which made me wonder what was going on inside their heads when they were awake. The Night Wraiths that currently plagued London on almost a nightly basis were the slaves of the 1st King of Clubs, the King of Nightmares. They had no will of their own, they simply obeyed his psychic instructions. All they heard in their empty heads was his voice, pulsing in their brains, driving them on relentlessly to do things they would never have done before.

  That was the thing you had to remember when out hunting the wraiths; all of them had been normal vampires until recently. It was only the influence of the King of Nightmares that drove them to act like this. They weren’t evil, this wasn’t their fault. That was why, unless there was a life at stake, we did not kill the wraiths.

  “CU team requesting pick up for one.” Connery spoke into his radio.

  The radio crackled and the voice of a woman came back. “On my way, CU. Well done.”

  “Good start to the night,” said Connery.

  “I prefer it when we can take them down in groups.” I shrugged back.

  “You’re never happy.”

  I smiled at him. “I’m with you. I’m happy.”

  Connery winked at me. “I’ve seen you happier.”

  “We’ve got a job to do. Keep it in your pants. For now.”

  London was at war. But it was not the kind of war in which armies of men hurl themselves at each other, nor the kind in which bullets, bombs and missiles are blasted away until both sides are reduced to smoking ruin. Vampires don’t wage war like that, partly because total war is difficult for a species that can’t fight during the day for fear of bursting into flames. I guessed that it was a good thing they didn’t wage war like that, but vampire war was insidious and terrifying. They wore down their enemies with fear. They weren’t after territory; what good would Topside London be to them? They couldn’t live in it. All they wanted was food. So, each night, the King of Nightmares sent out his Night Wraiths to take their terrible harvest.

  The 1st King of Clubs had declared war on the humans of Topside London, but also on the current King of Clubs – the Boy King – who ruled over Undercity London – Lundercity – the vast, subterranean metropolis that lay beneath the ground, mirroring actual London. It was an odd kind of war, but it was war nonetheless. And I was one of the soldiers.

  “Early hit,” commented Katya as she got out of the van. To all appearances, Katya was a girl in her late teens, but if you looked in her eyes, there was something in them that spoke of a greater age than that; wisdom, perhaps. I wasn’t sure how old a vampire Katya was, but four or five hundred years seemed about right, and she was the most knowledgeable vampire I knew. Also, a good fighter – a vampire doesn’t reach that sort of age without knowing how to take care of herself. “Hi, Ursula.”

  I liked Katya, but I sometimes wondered what she saw when she looked at me. I was the only human in the vampire resistance – for complicated reasons. I was about ten years older than Katya looked – and I maybe looked a little older than that; I’ve had a tough life – but my whole life was a flash in the pan to her. Still, I liked to think that the wise vampire also saw someone of worth; I was slim, toned and tough, with curly hair that I tied out of the way on jobs like this. I might not have had Katya’s level of knowledge, but I had street smarts and unrivalled experience in hunting vampires
from a career as a bounty hunter, specializing in rogue vampires. All that said, I wondered if I had lost some of the hard-bitten authority I had always commanded, since I had become all loved up.

  “We aim to please,” said Connery, hauling the wraith up and chucking it into the back of the van.

  Connery was tall, and strongly built, wearing his muscles with casual ease and using them the same way. His smile was quick and mischievous, reflecting at least one aspect of his personality; his hair was dark and unruly, which reflected another. His eyes were green and active, flicking this way and that, missing nothing, and lingering on me in a way I found flattering and ceaselessly wonderful. That Connery liked to look at me still made me happier than pretty much anything else in the world. He was my boyfriend – I guess that’s the only word, but I never felt it did us justice. He was my partner, my friend, my soulmate, my love and my lover. He made my world turn around.

  “I’ve got another call to answer,” said Katya. “I think Sandor is going for the record tonight.”

  “Who’s he with?” I asked. The record was ours and, though the point of this wasn’t competition, I wanted to hold on to it.

  “Danielle.”

  “They’ve got a shot,” admitted Connery.

  Katya grinned as she got back into the van. “I won’t go far. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be hearing from you two. Good hunting.”

  As she drove off, Connery looked at me, his green eyes sparkling. “Shall we?”

  It was important work we were doing. Though London was at war, it was only gradually coming to terms with that fact. The Night Wraiths were still relatively few in number and their master had the sense not to overwhelm his adversaries. He started slow; a few missing persons here and there, gone unexpectedly from their beds. It was only as the numbers grew that the human authorities had started to listen to what we and the Court of Clubs had been trying to tell them. Now everyone knew to lock all their doors and windows – but that wasn’t always enough.

  It was our job to stem the tide and do what the human police struggled to do; to take down the wraiths. Every wraith we caught meant that we had saved actual lives and that was what mattered. It was important work and it was serious work. And yet, as I ran through the moonlit streets of London after midnight, with Connery by my side, I could not suppress that thrill that I had always felt in the hunt. Right or wrong; I loved it. The adrenalin lit up my body, it made me feel invincible. My heart pattered eagerly in my chest with the raw pleasure of it. When we found another wraith, my breathing quickened, and when we realized that we had found a group, I could feel the excitement tingling across my skin, enervating every limb.

  It was almost sexual. In fact, it was better than sex with some men…just not the one I was currently with.

  Was there something wrong with me? Quite possibly, but that was a question for another time. In London’s current situation, it needed people who were as fucked up as me.

  I gave a couple of brief, sharp hand signals to Connery; you go that way, I go this. He nodded in reply and we broke.

  Again, wraiths were not tough fighters. They outnumbered us here five to two but those odds troubled neither me nor Connery. What troubled us was making sure that none got away. Fighting five was easy, keeping track of five was difficult. Hence the pincer movement – we had a standard tactic for this situation.

  I charged. Two wraiths immediately ran to meet me, claws flashing in the dark, illuminated by a street lamp above us. I dodged one, caught the wrist of the other and flipped it over while driving my foot into the belly of the first. From the corner of my eye, I could see two of the others splitting while the third dithered, unsure what to do.

  This was why I made the initial attack while Connery held back. He had the vampire’s gift of speed, and when the two made a break for it, he was on them in seconds, knocking one into a wall and taking the other one to the ground. The ditherer, on seeing all four of his fellows in trouble, finally came to a decision and rushed off in the opposite direction. Again, Connery’s speed came into play as he leapt after the runner, his legs a blur.

  I had now knocked out one of my wraiths, banging its head against a lamppost, and was grappling with the other when I saw the two Connery had initially knocked down starting to recover. Driving my knee up into the belly of my current adversary, I tossed it to one side and ran toward the two trying to get away. I made a flying tackle for one, grabbing its hips and dragging it to the ground. It kicked at me viciously, managing to spring back up, but I swept out its legs and down it went. To my left, I saw Connery returning, sprinting after the other one trying to escape, which was currently scrabbling up a wall at terrific speed. With an almighty bound, Connery grabbed it by the leg and dragged it back down, where a punch to the face put its lights out.

  Did we have all five? Yes.

  But before we could celebrate, a horrific scream erupted from the darkness.

  I didn’t hesitate, running towards the sound and yelling back at Connery. “You secure these, I’ll deal with this.”

  “Ursula!” Connery knew better than to try and stop me but I knew how much he worried about my habit of charging into fights. I was the fragile human, he was the big tough vampire – he was the one who should be taking risks. But by the same token; he could secure five wraiths who weren’t going to stop trying to escape, I couldn’t.

  I didn’t have far to run. In the next street, I saw a policeman, desperately fighting off a wraith, struggling to take out his stake, which had become standard issue only last week.

  I didn’t slow down as I approached the struggling pair but leapt into the air to land on them, taking both to the ground. The cop rolled free and the wraith tried to get away but I had a hand on its ankle and I held on like grim death. It turned back, hissing from between fanged teeth, then slashed at me with its claws.

  I grunted in pain as the claws bit into my defensive arm, but I didn’t let go. Flexing my body back onto my shoulders, I drove both my booted feet up into the wraith’s face with merciless force. As it hit the ground, I slammed my fist into its face and its head hit the tarmac, knocking it out cold.

  “Ursula?”

  I turned at the sound of my name to see the policeman, now back on his feet, staring at me. It was my old friend Petersen.

  “Am I glad to see you,” he said.

  “You alright?” I asked; the wraiths scratched and bit horribly.

  He nodded. “A bit cut up but I’ll survive. Saw that bastard trying to get into a house. I thought I had the drop on him but they move like lightning. Is your arm alright?”

  “I’ve had worse.”

  “Ursula?” Connery jogged up. His eyes flicked from me to Petersen, gauging the situation.

  I made the introductions quickly. “He’s another hunter,” I explained to Petersen.

  The cop nodded. “You’re a vampire, yes?”

  Since the Night Wraiths had started their attacks, many humans blamed the vampires. I could understand why, and not so long ago I would have joined them, but antagonism between the two races was unhelpful at a time when we desperately needed to be working together.

  “I am,” said Connery.

  Petersen nodded. “Thanks for your help.”

  Petersen was always a decent man. Perhaps that was what made this encounter resonate for me. I knew there were others out there, fighting the wraiths or just becoming their victims, but it’s always different when it’s someone you know. Petersen had a family.

  As we took the wraith back to where Connery had secured the other five to wait for the pick-up van, I could not stop my mind from going back to that night when everything had changed.

  It should never have happened. We should never have ended up here.

  Chapter 2

  It had been just two months ago that the resistance, with my help, had located the long-lost final resting place of the 1st King of Clubs, hidden in the ancient catacombs of Lundercity, used by vampires since the dawn of the speci
es. The 1st King, who had started the building of Lundercity, was killed before his city’s completion by an assassin named Jack – a man about whom little was known, although I had had some uncomfortably close dealings with him involving kidnap, blood-drinking and weird dreams.

  In life, the 1st King had been the sworn enemy of the King of Hearts, who ruled Undercity New York, and who was now contemplating the invasion of Lundercity. The only thing stopping him, it seemed, was knowing that the ashes of his old enemy were still out there and that he could be resurrected with blood. So, the Court of Clubs, which was in the pay of the King of Hearts, had set out to find those ashes and disperse them so that the 1st King of Clubs could never be resurrected. By strange quirks of fate, I was the only person who could find the ashes, and I led the resistance there, the idea being that they would keep the ashes safe so the King of Hearts would not invade.

  It was a complex and confusing chain of intertwining events, but the main takeaway is; it did not go according to plan.

  As we stood in a large chamber in the catacombs, having taken the urn containing the 1st King’s ashes from its vault, we realized we were not alone.

  “You will hand over the urn or you will face the consequences.”

  We had been followed down here by a platoon of the Imperial Guard, the police/military of the Court of Clubs.

  And that wasn’t all.

  “I would also like the urn.”

  Jack and his follower, Bathsheba, had also trailed either us or the Guards down into the catacombs. What he wanted the urn for was hard to say, but he was powerful enough to be a serious threat in his own right.