NIGHT 10
I need not remind you that only four nights remain.
Then don’t. A counting clock of doom brings a bloke down.
A man cheating me makes me not care. Your secret – where was it yesterday?
And where’s my ciggie today?
Waiting on a missing secret.
Fun as your game is, Liberty, I don’t play games – not over love or death.
Then it appears you do break promises.
You broke yours first: how many days with Captain must I… After suffering with him, you reckon I’ll still dance to your tune? I can barely stand. Now don’t get all prissy, with your rustling papers and whatnot, as if I suddenly don’t exist.
If you can’t keep me safe, you don’t have a witness.
I can do anything--
As long as it’s ratified in triplicate first?
We can’t all be rebels.
Try it on for size sometime; I reckon it’d suit you.
Let me be sure I have this straight: if I do something about Captain, then you’ll bear witness?
It’s all about choices. We have as many as there are stars in the sky: if we’d only look up from the ground to see them.
The stars were accusing peepers, furious and cruel; in the clear night sky, just turning to spring, they burned.
Yet I was out of RE, free and away from Blake. In the fresh (all right polluted) London air, but it was my London, which was the only thing that counted.
I knew I was being tracked; I’d immediately spotted the two First Lifers tailing me.
It was out on the blood bathed London Bridge, however, my own turf, as the cabs coughed by and the Thames silver-licked underneath, that I realised a bloke needed distance.
When you’re caught in a trap, it’s hard to see the bastard who’s set it – or the way out.
Sun had pulled back.
When I ran my hand through my hair, there was my wrist – empty. No bracelet.
Breaking us.
I was a moron for reckoning I was free of any trap.
Blake’s First Lifers were waiting for me on the other side of the bridge.
And Will was dead.
Where was Mutt?
I was guilt-cramped, when I thought of her shaggy black-and-white mug and her growling, barmy bravery, as she’d leapt to Will’s defence against the world. Then I imagined Blake’s expression, if I brought an adopted dog into his pristine home of silk sheets and designer squeaking sofas.
I’d like to see Mr Darwin try to bully his new brother…
Mutt was also something of Will’s – I can admit that. Not him, but a memory. I needed that, at least.
Whistling to myself, I jumped down the side of the embankment in a crunching avalanche of sand. There was a holler on either side of me – Blake’s wankers hadn’t been expecting that.
I laughed, before I choked.
Barbed wire was looped around my throat, razor-sharp. I could feel it slicing through skin. One tug: I’d be headless.
‘What’s the drilly, cuz?’ Trinity’s lips were hot against my ear. When she twisted the wire, I gasped. ‘You come like a tourist to my ends, acting all guardian angel. Next ‘ting? My Will be missing. So where my Will, Mr Angel Man?’
I blinked back tears. ‘I only came to fetch Mutt.’
‘Why? ‘Cos you wanna eat him too? I knew you were gonna switch on us. This be ‘cos I made you drink my Will’s blood, innit?’
And just like that I was crying.
For Will: the life born of my fangs that never was.
I knew Trinity was going to do it. Pull that wire. She’d meant to the moment she’d wrapped it around my throat.
It turns out the myth about vampire hunters isn’t bollocks after all.
I was only still breathing because Trinity was desperate – terrified – I’d tell her Will was dead but she had to know for sure.
Although she was wrong I’d gone all Hollywood vampiric on him – she was also right. It was going to break her, the same as it had me.
The wire at my throat was proof of Trinity’s love.
So I knew I was going to cop it on the murky banks of the Thames, under London Bridge, to the curdled tang of brine and piss, as the stars watched without giving one bleeding sod because why should they?
I can be all Emo when I feel like it, and when you’re about to be done in..?
You feel like it.
The wire eased. Then it was whipped off, and I was kicked sprawling into the marshy mud.
I spluttered, holding my hand to the jagged slash. I hissed, as my blood trickled scarlet.
Trinity was scrutinizing me, her cheeks as wet as mine. ‘No one cares. A tear ain’t shed for one of ours.’
I pushed myself onto my knees. ‘He was one of mine. No different.’
A bark. Black-and-white in sudden blur. Then Mutt – in all her wagging glory – tumbled me back into the stinking mud. Her warm tongue licked my tears.
‘Mutts been missing my Will, same as all mandem. He stays with us; this is his yard.’
I stroked Mutt to hide the tremble in my hand. ‘I’d only have got peckish and noshed him anyway.’
Trinity flung down the wire, before shoving her hands into the pockets of her khaki jacket: definite shiv reaching territory. Then she scuffed at the embankment; the gravel wept down the dark sides. ‘Where be your crepes?’
I took a shufti down at the scarlet nicked soles of my bare feet. ‘Lost a lot lately.’
‘You ain’t gonna tell me where my Will at? But you be telling me he dead?’
‘I’m sorry.’ She was a bright bird: that was enough.
Trinity nodded. ‘Alright, blud,’ her peepers were black with cold rage, ‘now tell me who we shank.’
I wobbled to my feet, before edging towards her.
An enemy of my enemy was…
Still my psychotic, unstable, drug dealing enemy.
Yet we had a common goal and grief. Trinity could be my ears out into the world; First united with Blood.
Life consists of such crossroads: decisions that’ll save you from the flames or roast your goolies.
Maybe it was an unholy alliance.
But for Will?
I’d have worn lipstick for the devil.
‘If we work this right, you won’t need to shank – fun as that is - because we’ll make every bloody bastard care: about you, me and Will. We won’t be the Lost. You won’t be invisible. They’ll see us at last.’
The lounge was in blackness, when I crept in just before dawn; I’d reckoned to kip on the sofa to save myself from She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.
When in the silence Blake touched the light by that ratty designer chair of his, and Plantagenet sprang to life kneeling at his feet with Sun at his shoulder, like Blake was a medieval king at an execution, I couldn’t even convince myself I was surprised.
‘Like that, is it?’ I glanced between them wearily. ‘You want me to tinkle the high notes on the Steinway, add some more dramatic tension?’
‘Come and chat. Or do I simply call security..?’
‘Those great elephants blundering after me around London?’ I slouched over to the sofa, throwing myself down with an eek of dying toys; I was too knackered to keep running. I smirked, when Blake grimaced at the snail trail of scarlet on his biscuit carpet; he’d know better to give me boots next time. If they wanted a barney, then they wouldn’t find me the rollover and take it sort anymore. Sun hid behind her veil of hair, as I pointed at her. ‘Dead classy, grassing on me to teacher. What did Blake promise? A shiny head girl badge?’
Blake patted the back of Sun’s hand.
My Sun Girl.
Not Blake’s or his Renegades’.
Mine.
Blake smiled. ‘Head of department, actually. She’s our star.’
I burst to my feet. No way, no bloody way. Then I caught a glimpse of Sun’s peepers: they were glistening. She looked as stricken as me. ‘Still, most stars are just dying suns from our pasts, right?’
Sun exploded at me then, as I’d hoped she would, because I hadn’t been able to see her standing there united with Blake against me. Not after what we’d fought for together. After all she’d lost and betrayed for me.
Not when she was my elected.
Sun bowled me onto my back, her arm pressed against my throat. It reminded me of how Plantagenet had pinned me under the curtain of his curls, as he’d wept for his lost family.
His legacy.
Sun’s lips pressed hard to mine, as if to prove she was still burning molten, even though wet was dripping from her peepers like an anointing.
‘Sun,’ I mouthed, ‘please…’
Sun was pulling away from me, however, leaving me alone on the floor.
It didn’t hurt less the second time.
When I forced myself to look up, Sun was a shadow again at Blake’s shoulder. Plantagenet was studying me tenderly – almost regretfully. ‘Is this where you take me down to that dungeon of yours and get happy with the rack again, or am I demoted to lab rat permanently?’
‘I told you not to ask questions,’ Blake could’ve been a mafia boss, ‘and accept what I told you. You’re going to be a challenge to teach obedience.’
‘I wouldn’t hold my breath,’ I pushed myself up: no way I’d let that wanker continue to recline there looking down on me. ‘You’re my… We’re blood.’ Plantagenet was shaking. ‘I reckoned you were some sort of saviour, rescuing us from that research lab, but it turns out you were the bastards who put us in there.’
‘Great gods, find no treason well-beloved! Nay, I knew not,’ Plantagenet tried to rise, his slim hand outstretched to me, but winced when he was yanked back by Blake; I hadn’t noticed that Plantagenet’s curls were wound round Blake’s strong right hand. For just a moment I reckoned Plantagenet would break free anyway, but instead he crouched back to kneel. ‘I was ignorant of such…’ Plantagenet glanced from underneath his eyelashes at Blake. ‘Yet ignorance does not excuse my part. We wish no harm but only for you to listen to the winding path behind these wicked machinations.’
Another cruel twist on Plantagenet’s hair; this time he groaned.
To my surprise, it was Sun who growled.
‘It was before… I didn’t know Plantagenet,’ Blake was the most awkward I’d yet seen him, darting glances anywhere but me, ‘or any Blood Lifer existed. This woman came to see me about a private and highly confidential subcontract. It’s not unusual. It turns out they were a new department: the CIE.’
‘Just what we need. Another sodding acronym.’
‘They wanted a new military facility fitting out, everything from examining tables to our most advanced genetic tests, except when the specs came through – for my eyes only – it was to fit a human or something very like.’
‘And you pulled right on out?’
‘I tried to but I was committed. Plus they added a bonus,’ Blake gentled his hold on Plantagenet’s curls to a stroke. ‘They opened my eyes to all of it: the Blood Life Council and a whole new species. They promised me the best slave.’
One stride and – bam. A hook straight to the tosser’s neb.
Blake howled, as he cradled his smashed mush.
I told you that us blokes always go for the nose.
Whilst Blake stemmed the crimson with his poncey violet handkerchief, I stood back, waiting for the wrathful whirr of Plantagenet thrashing my arse.
Instead Plantagenet let me clock his master. And that? Was the most blinding thing of all.
Stunned, Blake opened his gob once. Closed it. Twice. A third time.
I gave a scornful laugh. ‘Cat got your tongue? Some bint offered you enough lolly to tempt your greedy capitalist heart into overlooking the dodgy villain vibes. Then when you figured out the true darkness, you were bribed with a toy. Did I miss something out?’
Blake merely shook his nut.
‘Now what are we going to do about it? Our venom? I’m guessing you didn’t know about that fun part of the plan? All in hand? I should cocoa.’
When Plantagenet glanced at Sun, I felt like the new kid in school. ‘Is not this sufficient? The Blood Lifers we save as Renegades and being together as a family? You are all hail and thunder, but glory comes from our mission. What has the world to do with us?’
Plantagenet meant it – bloody hell did he.
‘Pure death won’t merely be used as a weapon against other countries or political assassinations but the undesirables too. Our own country’s misfits - to tidy up the imperfect, sway agendas or cut costs: immigrants, old folks, or those taking up hospital beds. The disabled and the homeless.’ Will’s dusky blond tumble of curls, as his manga peepers peeked up at me outside the comic shop, like he was waiting to be swept away with the rest of the rubbish: ciggie butts, chewing gum and abandoned coffee cups. Then the black body bag wheeled through the bronze guts of the lab – murdered by my venom. ‘Who’d miss them?’ When had I started yelling? Yet I couldn’t stop. ‘A spike in heart attacks in vulnerable groups like that? Who’d care?’
I finally noticed Plantagenet’s gentle hand was on my shoulder; Sun’s was on my other. Blake was left stranded – silent – on his throne.
‘I would, well-beloved,’ Plantagenet was all serious determination, ‘because you do.’
Why are the Blood Life Council working with the CIE? Sodding First Lifer Westminster? Come on, give it your best because I don’t have a scooby.
It’s new Council policy – Captain’s policy – to work with whoever best suits need: including First Lifers, governments or the CIE.
Cracking that is. Just who are these CIE wankers?
Committee on Interspecies Evolution. Julia Kane is human liaison.
Yet you have the cheek to call me traitor?
First you were sell-outs to slavers. Now military weapon developers. Did Captain and his cronies fly the nest from their Authors too soon to learn even the basic Blood Lifer rules?
They slaughtered them – so the records say.
I’ve been doing my homework, Mr Blickle, since we last chatted.
Well blow me down with a feather: the ruthless bastards are going to get us all done in.
This bird from the CIE isn’t all sparkly dolls and fairy dust. She’s studying us; how to hurt and kill us. But first? The CIE will use our venom. Wipe out a city. Slip it in the Thames and bye bye dear old London town.
It’s more than a handy tool to assassinate Russian spies or terrorists in deserts. Pure death could enslave the world.
Or end it.
See beneath the paperwork, procedures and petty divides, you silly bint: see me.
That’s not my job. All this other business is hardly your affair. We work with the British Government. The divide I see? We’re legitimate; you’re the terrorist. That’s why you’re the one who’s going to be burned alive.
Am I still silly?
You’re deluded.
We’re slipping, one small choice and deed at a time, towards the edge of an abyss.
And it’s bloody dark down there.
Now maybe that’s none of my beeswax. But apathy? Not one of my weaknesses, sweetheart.
So I stole out of bed as soon as Sun was kipping, before riding the lift down to the ground floor. Something was going on in Blake’s research labs, and although daft heroics had cost me in both First and Blood Life, I’d never lost the naïve hope that this time I’d pull off the caper.
Yet now I had a secret weapon. I wouldn’t be alone; I had a fangirl.
I had Kallis.
‘Awesome, you’re…’ Kallis struggled to explain why I was hanging about the back of the lift. I knew I was staying out of sight of the CCTV for as long as possible, whilst waiting for Kallis to sashay by, but I wasn’t helping her out on this one. I smiled encouragingly. ‘…scoping the territory for other predators?’
‘That’ll be it, luv,’ when I dragged Kallis into the lift with me, she gasped. Her heart was thudding – beat – beat – beat – like a tribal drum message straight to my brain. My fangs shot out, as I licked up her neck. Kallis sighed, pressing her thighs onto mine, before she giggled because my fangs weren’t the only thing excited by the blood.
Sodding evolution.
I shoved Kallis back, as I shoved my fangs back in.
‘Neat,’ Kallis’ fingers with the sweet rings were like soldiers; as fast as I batted back their raids on my fast wilting todger, they regrouped and charged. At last, I grabbed her wrists and squeezed. She squeaked, drawing back.
‘I didn’t come here for that. Instinct: hell of a thing. The blood--’
‘Blood is life.’
‘Appreciate it if you didn’t quote me; it creeps me out.’
Flustered, Kallis nodded. ‘So why’s Our Light walking amongst us again?’
‘Touch of the risen Christ, but first things first. I’m being a bad boy here; I haven’t got permission. Blake’s not gonna like that in a he’ll be doing more than spanking me way.’
‘Hold up,’ Kallis rubbed the back of her hand down my cheek; it was surprisingly tender, ‘Blake’s hurt you? He would hurt you or any Blood Lifer?’
I bit my tongue.
Here was the crux: how much true darkness to unveil to a First Lifer.
It was the way Kallis had touched my cheek – that flash of awareness – which prompted me to admit, ‘Blake’s built himself a fortress here, training a team of fanatics, who he separates from family and friends. He’s seated himself at the head. You do know you Renegades kill? Think about all that and then tell me you reckon us Blood Lifers stay here because we love being stuck with needles, defanged and wheeled out like prize exhibits? Blake’s a bloody tyrant. Me? I’m the rebel who’s going to burn this fortress to the ground. I’ll free you all for real, but you have to decide right now whether you’re going to turn me in, or join the true rebellion.’
There was a long moment.
Kallis stared at me. Then gave a quick nod, before holding out her long-fingered hand.
We shook.
A Komodo dragon.
Dead.
It was laid out on its side – a greyish green – five-foot-long (as tall as Kallis); its claws hung as motionless as its muscular tail. Its guts coiled worm-like, spiralling onto the plastic of the examining table.
A tiny bloke in olive operating overalls – a sodding kid – was jabbing a humungous needle into the Komodo’s neck through its chainmail scales with gusto. He glowered at us when we tore into the research lab, slamming the door – bang.
I tottered to a meshed steel basket by the autopsy, before I chucked up.
‘For God’s sake, Kallis, why on earth would you bring in this creature, whilst I was engaged in..?’
‘Don’t blame me…’
I wiped my gob. The lab spun me back to Frankenstein’s: the powerlessness, the burn, melting and the scalpel… Do I cut it off all at once at the base? Quick. Or slowly slice by slice?
I chucked up again. This time I missed the bin.
‘Get him out of here,’ the scientist hopped up and down like an enraged bug, ‘he’s contaminating--’
‘You’re the one contaminating, you little oik; Komodo died a natural death, did he?’
If the Komodo was still so green that meant he was only a kid too. The poor git’s forked yellow tongue lolled out of its round snout; I remembered that indignity. I wished I could gently press the tongue back inside and give it some dignity at least, after this violation. Yet the guts gory on the padded plastic? How could I ever heal that wound?
I don’t know why it was getting to me, but deep – biologically – there was a connection; it was my venom fizzing with fury at the outrage.
We weren’t the prey to be sliced open with our insides on display.
‘Neither did you,’ the brat pointed the needle at me, ‘that’s nature.’
I slammed him against the wall, so fast he didn’t even have time to eep.
More Komodo dragons. Another and another and… Photo after photo pinned to the walls. Living, mid-autopsy and dead. Green, grey and uniform stone. Close-ups of teeth, saliva and venom glands. In fierce barnies and slaughtering prey. I stared between them in silence, mesmerized.
‘Your ancestor,’ the brat was scrutinizing me like he was deciding where to jab the needle first.
‘You say that about yourself whenever you see Mr Darwin?’
The tantrum scowl again. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand the finer points of the Island--’
‘Monitor. Known to natives of the Komodo Island as ora, buaya darat, the land crocodile or biawak raksasa, the giant monitor.’ Finally, the tosser lowered his gaze. ‘See, I know more about these buggers than you do and I knew it before you were born. I’ve saved the world, you condescending prat. This is a dangerous thing you’re playing with. Us Blood Lifers? We’re not the school science project.’
‘You’re right: you’re the Holy Grail, little man.’ Fernando gave a casual wave, as he sauntered into the lab. He was wearing green scrubs, so had taken the time to be avenged on my ancestors too.
My world was spinning. Even Blake couldn’t have..?
Yet Fernando had been working on the Komodo, as if he’d just finished up torturing me and abusing Sun.
When I dived for him, I found myself instead nose-to-nose with Kallis. ‘Professor Zuniga Sanchez is on our team now.’
‘Not my team. You reckon you had vengeance? You don’t have a scooby but you sodding will.’
I met Fernando’s glare: he was pressed against the door, sweat shining him doll-like. Yet he was too cool for a bloke facing death.
Why wasn’t he playing the part of prey?
Then Fernando smiled, and it was my insides liquefying.
‘You don’t know what he did,’ I muttered.
‘We know,’ Kallis shrugged, ‘Plantagenet made him tell us.’
I could feel the heat like beacons in my cheeks, as Fernando’s smile broadened to reveal those not quite perfect teeth. ‘In a memo, was it?’
‘More like a team bonding session.’
I recoiled. ‘Bloody hell, why don’t I just prance starkers through the office?’ Then I regretted the outburst because of the way three pairs of peepers lit up for entirely different reasons. ‘You all forgave the wanker? Trust him?’
Kallis’ mush hardened. ‘Never. I told you though, we arrive here by different paths; we don’t have any other home. Now Fernando’s the same.’
‘He doesn’t touch me: rule one. Rule two? You tell me right quick why I don’t rip out his throat and none of this team bollocks.’
‘Whoa, always the frackin’ drama queen,’ when Fernando pushed Kallis out of the way, there he was: the bloke who’d betrayed me into the hands of my torturers. Who’d started all of this out of jilted love – a love I no longer knew Sun even held for me.
Except everything had been set in motion long before Fernando had made his choice, one that’d ended in Will’s death by my venom. One small choice, after one small choice. Fernando had been caught in a web, which had been spun by someone – or something – too large to see. Yet if you traced those silk threads back…
Suddenly it was so obvious.
Frankenstein’s research lab was the Blood Life Council’s, the same as it was CIE’s: that’s how Blood Lifers were sanctioned as lab rats. And lucky old me? With Hartford left on the outside to keep up the search for the Renegades, desperate to get Donovan back, it would’ve been like lighting a fire under the arses of your enemy - thumbing a nose at the Renegades to rescue me.
I was the trophy for either side: Our Light.
I’d made the ultimate mistake: underestimated the enemy. Captain was even more conniving than I’d reckoned.
‘I’m still waiting on rule two.’
‘I get it: straight down to business. I respect that.’ Fernando leant closer, almost touching but not quite. I tensed. ‘Because I’m the guy working on the antidote to the separated venoms.’ I startled, bumping our noses. Fernando chuckled. ‘Hey, come on, no touching now.’
‘You’ve got a second chance here. Only one mind. We have some heroics ahead. So the question is: are you in on the rebellion or not?’
‘It’s not like I ever wanted to kill any…humans. But I can’t just magic--’
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that first bit. Have you tried primroses for the paralysis? Maybe there are other natural antidotes to the pure death. Everything doesn’t always come down to Blake’s science of the future.’
When Kallis stroked my arm, I had a shufti: security. With a fuming Blake and Mr Darwin clinging round his neck, scowling.
Another round of playing monkey chew toy then…
I saluted Kallis and marched out of that Komodo graveyard, before I could be hauled away.
A bloke's got to have his dignity.
And a plan.
The truly blinding part? For the first time – I did.
I didn’t even care when Mr Darwin pushed me out of bed again that night. Let him gloat.
My time was coming.