policed them, and he would always be proud of that.
It did not, however, mean that he was keen to involve himself again, and he had said as much to Greg when he rang with the proposal that had become SSL.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “I’m in, on two conditions. Firstly, I don’t want there to be anything I don’t know. I won’t work in the dark again, like we did with Kevin, so, if there’s anything you’re not telling me, I want to know about it right now, before we go any further. Is that clear?”
“Clear,” said Greg. “That’s absolutely fair, mate. And there is something. The funding for SSL is coming from a series of charitable foundations, backed by private donors who wish to remain anonymous. Which means I can’t tell you the names of the people writing the cheques, because I honestly don’t know them. If that’s going to be a problem for you, I understand, but it’s the only thing I can think of that you don’t know. There’s loads of stuff that still needs working out, but if you come on board you’ll be making those decisions with me. You’ll be in the loop on absolutely everything, I promise.”
“All right,” said Pete. “That’s fine.”
“Great,” said Greg. “What’s the second condition?”
“I want you to promise me that this has nothing to do with revenge,” said Pete. “That it’s not about Matt, or how much you hate Blacklight and the way they treated us. Because if it is, you’re on your own. I won’t say anything to anyone, but I won’t be a part of it. I’m done with all that, Greg.”
“Me too,” said his friend. “I’m not angry any more, mate, I promise you. All I want to do is try and help.”
“I believe you,” said Pete. “So what’s the next move?”
“I’m taking office space in Lincoln,” said Greg. “You can work remotely if you want, but to be honest, it would be good to have you down here in person. What do you think?”
“I think I can handle it,” said Pete. “Let me sort some things out up here. I’ll give you a call in a couple of days.”
Pete roused himself from his memories and returned his attention to his computer. He was reviewing the entire log of calls made to their helpline, aware that it was almost time for him to help Greg welcome the latest batch of volunteers. The public response to SSL had so far been beyond their wildest expectations; the projections they had given to their board had predicted three hundred calls a day by this point.
The previous day, they had taken nine hundred and twelve.
The phone operators were working incessantly, starting early and staying late for no reason other than faith in what they were doing. The blood drives, where SSL volunteers took fresh, clean blood from slaughterhouses into communities and made it available to any vampire that wanted it, were also proving massively popular; in Birmingham two nights earlier, they had run out of blood in less than two hours. Pete was in the process of trying to secure more stocks as Greg worked to bring in new volunteers, both for the main Lincoln office and to run the regional projects; after barely three months, SSL already needed every pair of hands it could find.
What struck Pete most as he scanned through the call logs was how often the same names appeared, time and time again. SSL did not record transcripts of the calls it received – they had promised their callers anonymity, and Pete was adamant that they adhere to it – but each call did have a number of acronyms marked against it. Some were obvious – a capital V for vampire, a capital H for human – whereas others were harder to decipher: SI for suicidal ideation, TTCH for threatening to cause harm, ATHK for admits to having killed, and many, many others. Most callers did not identify themselves in any way, but perhaps as many as fifteen per cent gave their names; it seemed to Pete, from the acronyms beside those particular calls, that they were largely men and women who were dealing with crushing guilt, who were searching for absolution. The phone calls he was looking at represented probably the only chance vampires had to speak openly about the things they had done, about the life that had been thrust upon them.
Pete scrolled through the log list, and paused. A name halfway down the fifth page had caught his eye, a name that seemed familiar. He realised why at the same moment Greg Browning knocked on his office door and stepped through it.
“Morning, mate,” he said. “Ready?”
“Morning,” said Pete. “Come in for a second.”
Greg frowned, but closed the door and walked across the office. “What’s up?” he asked.
Pete pointed at the name on the screen. “Recognise him?”
“Albert Matheson,” read Greg out loud. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Should it?”
“Not really,” said Pete. “He was the vamp the Night Stalker killed a couple of months ago. I read about him at the time.”
“No shit?” said Greg. “ATHK too. I guess he was confessing.”
“He was a convicted child molester,” said Pete. “He probably had a lot to confess.”
Greg shrugged. “Poor bastard,” he said. “Does it bother you, mate? That he’s dead, I mean? Because given what’s going on out there, he probably won’t be the last vamp who calls us and ends up getting killed.”
“I know that,” said Pete. “And no, it doesn’t bother me. It was just weird to see his name on the call log.”
“Weird,” said Greg, and nodded. “Close that down, mate. It’s time to meet the new recruits.”
Pete rolled his eyes and got up from his desk. He followed Greg out into the open-plan centre of SSL, full of people talking into phones and concentrating intently on computer screens. As they made their way across the space, several of the volunteers looked up and nodded; Pete nodded back, smiled, and stepped through the door in the corner of the office that his friend was holding open for him.
Standing at one end of the small boardroom was the latest group of men and women who had volunteered to be a part of SSL. There were eleven of them; they were mostly young, apart from a couple of middle-aged women and one man who looked to be in his sixties, at least. They all appeared nervous, and Pete moved quickly to calm them down.
“Morning, everyone,” he said. “I’m Pete Randall, and you’ve already met Greg Browning. Thank you all for volunteering to help us out here at SSL. We appreciate it more than you can imagine.” He watched smiles rise on to several of the new volunteers’ faces and continued. “I’m not going to go over why Greg and I founded SSL, or what we’re trying to do here, because I’m going to assume you wouldn’t be here unless you already knew what we’re about. What I am going to tell you is that what we do here is really, really important. The existence of the supernatural is the biggest social issue to hit this country in many decades, quite possibly the biggest there has ever been, and everybody’s struggling to keep up with the pace of change. Including us.
“As you know, the second S in our name stands for Survivors. It’s a big word, and to us it means anyone who has been adversely affected by an experience with the supernatural. We’re not just talking about people who have been attacked, or whose family or friends have been killed. We’re also talking about vampires themselves, the majority of whom never wanted to be turned and are simply trying to get through each day without doing any harm. They are survivors too, of a monstrous violation.
