NIGHT 3
No blood but black coffee. Again?
You can’t diddle me, sweetheart, I know what your game is.
Enlighten me.
Sleep deprivation. Caffeine? It lights up the nerves like fire.
Torture was Ruby’s cup of tea - not mine. She’d swum in those dark waters since the Inquisition; I remember her playing with this one poor sod, feeding him mug after mug of coffee. Agony amplified until he was aflame.
Isn’t that how you take it? Black with two sugars?
I’m only surprised you don’t have the Jade Spider pulling the wings off me. I’ve heard the rumours about that bloke.
Shame you’ll have to put up with me.
All the cruelties of the slavers..? Your Author taught them everything they knew.
Captain loves to see his own species burn. Family? What the buggering hell does that mean to him?
Yet he didn’t betray his family. Unlike yours.
Do harp on about that, don’t you? Where is Captain? Wanker hasn’t spent his quality torture session with me yet.
What..?
Don’t tell me you’ll have to waste ink redacting..?
Lies don’t suit you. You shouldn’t say things like--
Redact?
This is a serious inquiry, Mr Blickle.
I’m being serious. Tell Captain to get well soon and I miss him.
No one’s fed you?
Don’t need to make it sound like I’m a bleeding pet.
Tell me what I want to hear, then I’ll ensure--
I’m not killing. Not human.
You still think you’re in control? You truly are cute. We’re Blood Lifers. It’s a shame to see it’s true you’ve been tamed.
I have a solution to your little problem. We anticipated your squeamishness; you will drink fresh human but not kill.
First I want your secret.
You’re an emotional vampire, you know that?
I’m a barrister.
Guess I’m right.
It’s society that teaches us the rules: who to help or ignore. Strangers? Foreigners? Who’s fagged if an earthquake or famine does in thousands of those blighters? Yet if your sister gets a cold, then you’d better post it all over the sodding Internet.
We’re as connected to every other individual on this planet as we choose to be…or don’t.
That’s the secret truth, which it’s easier to ignore, because once you open your peepers to it – First or Blood – you’ll never see your life the same way again.
SEPTEMBER 1866 LONDON BRIDGE, LONDON
‘We are gaining supporters to the League every day, sir. My brother says the vote seems like to go in our favour.’
I studied the bloke’s earnest bespectacled mush, as he weaved his small hands animatedly. A single brunette curl fell over his right peeper; he brushed at it with a quick smile. Not quite up at Oxford yet, Edmond was only just younger than me.
Yet it felt like centuries separated us.
We strolled in the early autumn evening along London Bridge, which arched elegantly across the Thames; the moon was masked by mist. The air was sharp; my nostrils stung.
I dragged my overcoat closer around me. It was new and shimmered like a seal’s skin: I’d half inched it last month from some poncey bloke, who got his jollies from sightseeing on the poor: roll up, roll up and see the freak show! When we’d shown him some true freaks? He’d been less keen.
It was a blinding coat.
Even in the dark the roadway was alive with bustle and roar: broughams, growlers, whinnying nags and drivers hollering.
My London: thriving and thrusting.
Birds hurried with bundles of umbrella frames and cages of hats, mingling with dirty coster girls and oily sackmakers with humungous piles of sacking balanced on their nuts. Waifs. Strays. Roughs. Working men and women ebbing and flowing across the great river, whilst the rich rode in their carriages.
Then there was us: one First Lifer and one Blood, in the black freeze of the evening.
I paused against the lip of the bridge, resting my arms on the granite.
Surprised, Edmond stopped. In his top hat and velvet collared evening cape, he looked like a startled but posh bat.
I avoided his eye, gazing out instead over the Thames.
A chaotic shock of houses overhung the water. Through the grey fog was the pencil outline of railway station and cathedrals: chimney pots and cupolas, steeples, gables and towers.
London.
A grey shrouded ghost.
I couldn’t help smiling.
All right then, so here’s the truth of it: this was the end of a game Ruby had set in motion a fortnight before.
Ruby and I had been in The Anchor, which clung to the banks of the Thames, sprawling in a beer stinking nook, with etched glass and emerald tiles, when we’d overheard the blathering of a pompous ass.
George Darrington.
The puffed-up leader of the Reform League had been spouting claptrap to a rapt audience.
I’d seen Ruby’s peepers spark. Her body had coiled, snake stiffening.
Darrington had transformed to prey.
Suffrage for the common man? Democracy? That was the trendy cause back then. Of course, democracy has turned out to be the saviour of us all…
Bugger. That.
It terrifies me the blind faith folks have in the system.
This tosser was a hypocrite. He didn’t believe in the working man or his vote. Even in the democracy, for which he was battling.
Ruby? She wanted to show the world: unmask him.
Seduce, change his vote, and then kill.
That was the game.
Anyone can be manipulated to change their beliefs. Love? That’s the weapon. Ruby was the queen of that sport – and my mentor.
Ruby had sashayed round to Darrington’s table. Darrington had been stiff in starched formal suit, with a ginger beard and moustache, like an overgrown ferret. When he’d seen Ruby, he’d licked his lips and grown a stiffy; he’d been hooked.
But George? He had a brother: Edmond.
It was my job to discover Edmond’s weakness, turn his beliefs, and then…
What’s a belief anyway? Why do we hold close these few mantras, prejudices, or faiths? Anyone can be convinced of anything.
Your mind is your own. Or anyone else’s. We’re all wide open, if only we knew it.
Tentatively Edmond plucked at my sleeve. ‘Even Gladstone--’
‘Oh let’s not waste a fine evening speaking of Gladstone; your brother has entertained us quite enough.’
Edmond chuckled but then hung his nut. ‘My sincere apologies.’
‘Who taught you to apologize all the time?’ Edmond blinked, his hands fluttering in confusion. ‘Afeared of your brother? Of another caning?’
Edmond’s butterfly hands flew automatically to the back of his trousers. Then he reddened. ‘Sir, I--’
‘Your brother’s a brutal man. I’ve seen him blow up at you and I am more than acquainted with the type; I’ve suffered them.’ I couldn’t help the shiver: the memory of everything I’d endured at the orphan school because my uncle hadn’t sent for me, threatened to overwhelm me. I swallowed. ‘Now, however, you’re a man. The same as your brother. What are you campaigning for if not freedom? Choices and opportunities? Where are yours?’
It was Edmond’s turn to shrug. ‘He’s family.’
‘Bugger family.’ I don’t know where it came from, this…tidal roar rage against… Except that’s the bollocks because deep down? I did. When I met Edmond’s gaze, it was understanding. He suddenly looked older than me. Then it was my turn to redden. ‘Believe me when I say it’s not safe,’ I urged softly, ‘the affairs he’s leading you into. He doesn’t believe in the League. It’s just for the thrill. The chase,’ I gave a bark of laughter, ‘and I am one who lives by such games. Truly.’
‘It’s nothing but a diversion. Men’s lives are pawns to be played with, between the brandy and cigars,’ when Edmond leaned in closer, I felt his breath warm against my cheek. ‘I comprehend this, sir. They rant and discourse but then they guffaw, decrying the working men as brutes.’
Edmond whispered the last word, as if he’d be caught out and whipped. His peepers were wide at his own daring; his pale mush delicate and beautiful. His ever moving fingers worried at the buttons on his evening cape.
I’d done it.
It’d been so easy. Beliefs are as intangible as mist. They shift and vanish in the light just as swiftly too. It’d taken so little to transfer Edmond’s loyalty.
To break him.
Now to the next step.
I had a shufti around the bridge.
A copper was directing traffic in the center. The bridge was blocked. Steaming horses stamped, their hot breaths spirit white, as drivers flicked their reins. An oik, with bruises staining his starkers chest, weighed us up as he limped by; I glared, and he turned away.
Too many witnesses.
I’d lure Edmond into Southwark: there were plenty of narrow alleys, which would do the job.
I should be elated. This was it: time to feast. Yet I couldn’t shake this squirming sense of unease.
I could tell Edmond was waiting for me to say something; I forced myself to still his hands, before they pulled off one of those expensive buttons. ‘I know you have pluck, but men like your brother? They incite rebellion. Then when it gets bloody? They walk away.’
‘We’re so close--’
‘Other men will campaign. Reform. They always do. But your brother? He’ll take you to hell with him.’
My fangs were aching to spring out. I’d gripped Edmond’s arm and was hustling him with me south along the bridge, shoving the working girls and business men in their bowler hats out of the way.
Edmond gasped, gripping his tile hard to his nut.
Why was I so het up? This whole lay was intended to strip away the poor sod’s beliefs at the moment of death, yet they were the cub’s only comfort.
And I couldn’t quite do it.
What the hell was wrong with me? I was new to this dark Blood Life, learning to swim in its crimson tide; I wished I had Ruby there to guide me.
This was a test, however, to prove I was a true Blood Lifer.
Guess I was failing then.
Edmond’s soft hand curled around my arm. ‘You can help me. Please, sir? I know I have no right to ask.’
Edmond wrenched back from my grasp with unexpected strength.
Ruby would be sinking her fangs in right about now, deep into George’s whiskery throat. Pumping in the toxin. She’d leave him paralyzed amongst the sheaves of papers he’d forsaken to sign and then feed at leisure.
I imagine politicians taste nasty.
Befriend. Then end. That was the game.
Simple.
So why couldn’t I finish it?
I shook Edmond off – he was trembling.
I’d told him to make his own choice and break from his old beliefs.
Looked like he’d taken my advice.
I screwed shut my peepers; Ruby would rip off my baubles if she ever found out…
When I opened them again, Edmond was studying me with deep concern. How long had it been since anyone had looked at me like that? ‘I hope I did not distress you..?’
‘If I…help you…then you’ll have to leave and not merely London. England - forever. No coming back. More than that, you’ll have to change who you are.’
To my surprise, Edmond nodded. ‘I would happily be someone else. If I can escape this life.’
‘Don’t go saying that too loudly. Trust me.’
Edmond blushed. ‘But I’m hard up; I don’t have the needful. You see, my brother doesn’t allow me--’
‘I’ll stump up.’
I don’t know why I said it. Why I reached into my pocket and handed over the folded wad of notes from my latest lay. Ruby would give me such a slating, when I told her I’d lost the cash during the kill.
Edmond took the readies with unsteady hands. ‘I shall pay you back.’
‘You shall certainly not,’ I snatched Edmond by the shoulder, twirling him towards Southwark with a shove. ‘Take a cab, book passage…somewhere and start living. Give me your word?’
Edmond smiled at me over his shoulder, as he pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose. ‘Only if you promise me the same.’
Blood Lifer to First? There was no safe answer to that.
I forced myself to nod.
Then he was gone, lost amongst the throng, and I was alone in the dark cold bustle of London Bridge.
No one ever discovered I’d let that boy live.
I reckon he did a better job at changing my beliefs, than I did his.
Still, I promised to live and I always keep a promise.
And that? To you? Is a warning.
To me?
It’s hope.
Let me check I’ve understood this correctly. You save a Victorian boy (having manipulated him quite masterfully). Then over a century later you stumble upon a homeless boy and save him too?
That’s not--
At least, you want to save Will. By killing and electing him.
You don’t have to make it sound--
Is it guilt? So unusual in a Blood Lifer. You’re quite the curiosity. Unique: Captain says.
Me? I never buy into hype.
If I did everything out of guilt, I’d spend my whole bloody life rescuing fragile humans.
Don’t you?
Guilty as charged, m’lud!
Wait, what’s this then?
You were right. I investigated; it turns out you were indeed being starved. That’s unacceptable.
So you may feed now from this boy.
You’re off your trolley, if you reckon--
The cuts are shallow; he won’t die. Suck like a baby, Mr Blickle, no need to let in the venom. He can be your pet snack. Captain is fond of this one; he uses him in the same way. In fact, he uses him in many ways.
Does he now?
He’s pretty: such lovely curls. For a First Lifer.
Humans have other uses than--
My, aren’t you prudish? I’d imagined after your enslavement as a sex slave--
Don’t pretend you know me. How about this? I’m not sodding drinking.
You truly want this dance?
I don’t dance.
Then I suggest you drink, or that torture you mentioned..?
Been there. Done that.
Not you. The boy.
That’s it… Doesn’t it feel better to feed directly from a First Lifer? To be wild again? Unleashed?
Tell me, Mr Blickle, why do you see yourself as a protector for these humans, when you can never be human again?
Humming “London Bridge Is Falling Down”, I sauntered over London Bridge in the dead of night. My skin stung, assaulted by the ice freeze. The concrete and steel bridge bled out into the Thames; light puddled in crimson blood pools. The Shard was bright on the horizon. Taxis honked, as blokes in hoodies with their hands deep in their pockets scurried by.
I swaggered south out of the City, back towards Southwark and our apartment. I’d been scouting the posh shops for clothes to half inch for Sun. She hadn’t lost her taste for the designer after her election, but our salaries at Peter Pan’s didn’t exactly stretch to her old wardrobe.
I had a scarlet Alex Highbury-Lord dress stashed under my jacket, with which to surprise Sun.
I couldn’t give Sun the world. Not how I wanted - not yet. But I’d give her every last bleeding thing I could.
Kathy, my human lover for fifty years, had knocked the light-fingered stuff on the head. After Abona, however, and what the human slavers had stolen from us..?
I reckoned we were entitled.
I only took from those First Lifers who had. Like a modern-day Robin Hood. Except he never existed, and I don’t give to the poor. Unless we count..?
Family was coming first now. Any rules? I was making them.
I passed where once the severed nuts of traitors had been displayed impaled on iron pikes (boiled and dipped in tar first, of course), when I clocked dusty blonde curls and intense blue peepers.
Will.
Hunched over in the cold, Mutt padding at his heels, Will was hurrying over the bridge too.
‘London Bridge is falling down,’ I sang softly, as the hunt began.
So here’s the truth of it: every night since that first one outside the comic shop, I’d been following Will. I lied to myself that it was pretend hunting, just to keep my hand in.
Yet that was the bollocks.
It was to keep the little git safe, and I knew it.
Then there was the ache - like being edged, when you’re not allowed to come. It was this desire to Author, yet also knowing it had to be his choice because wasn’t that what I’d always preached? Didn’t I despise Blood Lifers who elected kids too young to understand the glories of evolution?
As Aralt had done to Alessandro?
I watched as Will drifted down the side of the bridge to the embankment, above the river’s marshy estuary, as he had every other night.
‘…Falling down…’ I hopped after Will down the embankment, crunching on the gravel. Will disappeared under the bridge; he was swallowed into the darkness. ‘…My fair… Sodding hell…’
A shank.
Right between my shoulder blades.
It’d bleeding ruined my leather jacket.
I scrabbled frantically behind me but I couldn’t reach the blade.
When I heard a snort of laughter, I twisted round.
A First Lifer bird with a huge Afro, khaki military jacket and low-slung trousers was assessing me with crossed arms and a smirk. ‘Problem, wasteman?’
‘Little help here?’
She raised her eyebrow.
Writhing like a snake, I managed to curl my fingers around the shank’s handle, before wrenching it out with a holler. When I chucked it into the glass surface of the Thames, it disappeared silently. ‘You’re no lady knifing a bloke in the back,’ I felt the ragged rips in my jacket, remembering everything it’d been through with me since the ‘60s. ‘This is bloody vintage. Bleeding kid like you wouldn’t know decent clobber if it bit you on the neck. Bugger me, that hurt.’
‘Yeah? I shank to kill, you get me?’
She’d edged closer to the embankment but her fight was still up.
‘Should learn your left from your right then. The heart’s not… Sorry, no, you shouldn’t. You ever considered not going around assaulting innocent…men?’
‘You ain’t no man.’
Interesting.
‘That right?’
Suddenly, she was up in my face. A tiny fury of hair and gangster. ‘You be slipping. Lucky I ain’t got my gat, you hearing me?’
‘Not bloody guns again.’
‘Why you following my Will?’
There was something about the way she said my. The possession and protectiveness, which I recognized.
Hated.
I wanted to tear out the bitch’s throat. And that? Terrified me.
I shrank back. Not from her but myself.
The bint’s peepers, however, lit up. Like she’d been the cause and was reveling in scaring the monster.
Power: anyone who says they don’t get off on it is a damn liar.
She shoved me in the chest, hard enough to send me stumbling backwards into the freeze of the Thames.
Splash.
Sopping wet, I dragged myself up.
A woman in a scarlet dress was drifting south on the currents.
Shocked, I was about to dive after the bird (all right, so maybe I do have a hero complex), when I remembered Sun’s gift: the Alex Highbury-Lord dress. My reason for being out here and away from family. Why I was now bleeding out from my back and shivering like a bastard.
Whilst Sun’s present wraith-floated away.
I stalked out of the river. This time? I couldn’t stop the fangs shooting out.
I hadn’t expected the giggles.
‘Drowned rat, innit?’
Not exactly the big reveal moment. Deflated, I retracted my fangs, sweeping my dripping hair back from my forehead. Grumpily, I shrugged.
‘My mandem – Will and others from the streets – we close. Move to me, blud, and you click get shank. Again. ‘Cos we know what ‘tings in the shadows.’
‘Do you now?’
Her gaze was hard. ‘You eat us.’
I shuffled my feet. I hadn’t figured on coming face-to-face with a hunter. We were the Lost: camouflaged predators.
It looked like we were doing a piss poor job of it.
Hunters weren’t meant to exist. No hunters, torches or pitchforks. If they did? This wasn’t how I’d imagined the meeting going down: an awkward chinwag, whilst I dripped with stinking Thames water.
I circled the hunter, whilst she prowled round me. ‘Kids like you – homeless – hearts must give out all the time. Tragic. So--’
‘I’m poor; I ain’t stupid. Hidden in doorways: we see. We be invisible even to you. We watch and we die; the same as the suits and the rich bitches with the bling.’ The hunter raised herself on tiptoe. Her lips were dry against my wet. ‘You suck us too. How we taste?’
‘Lighter,’ my mouth brushed against hers at each word, but like a confession I couldn’t move back, ‘diet flavor. Not as rich.’ The hunter slammed towards me. Her headbutt stunned me. ‘Truth,’ I gritted out, ‘never bloody easy, is it?’
She was breathing hard. ‘You ain’t like the others.’
I rubbed my bruised bonce. ‘They’re not like me. No one’s like me. And I don’t eat you First Lifers. Not anymore.’
Confusion fluttered in her peepers. Then she grinned. ‘Who be you? A tamed bitch?’
I burned to smash the knowing look off the hunter’s calculating mug. ‘I’m Light and all I want is to get the little man safely back. So he’s staying here? You’re keeping him…looking out for him? I am too.’
But it was a lie because it wasn’t all I wanted. I bloody knew it.
Somehow the hunter seemed to know it too. She gave me an intent stare, before nodding. ‘I be Trinity, and this be my yard. Will? He be blessed with us.’
I glanced towards the dark mouth underneath the bridge.
Will’s new home: with Trinity, her shanks, gats and crew. I tried to suppress my scowl. ‘So if I skulk sometimes, you cool with that?’
‘Yeah, but you owe me another shank. Does Will know?’
‘What?’
‘That he has a guardian angel.’
I sighed, as I shook the water from first one boot and then the other, preparing for the long walk still left back to my home. I mustn’t forget the dawn: I didn’t reckon my welcome to Trinity’s crew extended as far as sleepovers. ‘Don’t go calling me that: it’ll give God a coronary. And no, he doesn’t.’
‘Yeah, he does.’
Bloody hell…
Will poked his curly sunshine nut out of the shadows. He was shaking from the cold; I’d have to nick him a wool coat next time. Then Will bounded towards me with a grin. ‘Safe, man, my own angel.’
‘For the last time, I am not an--’
‘So what are you?’ Will was beaming at me but then bemused, patted my arm. The leather stuck to my skin clammy. ‘Why are you wet?’
‘I felt like a swim. And let’s just say I’m something you kiddies shouldn’t know about.’
‘Who you calling kiddie? Shanked you, bruv.’ Trinity licked her lips.
Will launched his slight form at Trinity. It would’ve been comical, if he hadn’t been in deadly earnest.
Trinity held Will back with one hand and a bored expression, before finally snapping, ‘Enough, boi.’
I scooped Will around the waist, spinning him to face me. His peepers were gleaming, like he was fighting to hold back tears. ‘None of that. There’s no harm done, except there’s a bloody big…’
I shucked off my jacket…and found Will stroking over the hole with quick light fingers.
‘I can fix it and that if..?’
‘That’d be blinding, cheers.’
I wondered if Will felt it too. This belonging. A need for family after a lifetime of rejection, loss and abandonment. I needed that more than anything; I reckoned maybe – just maybe – Will was the same.
Fantasies.
We live in dreams our whole lives.
It’s why we can convince ourselves of anything.
Trinity was considering me thoughtfully. ‘If you ain’t feeding, then you be in the market for blood. So come to my yard to see your boi, then we talk. Maybe we can come to an arrangement?’
Redemption?
Sometimes the choices we make for our family mean we sacrifice personal morals, even our chance of being saved.
‘Don’t bogart the blood, man.’ Donovan jittered on his seat like an excited toddler.
I took a single lick, like a cat, at the red liquid, blinking rapidly, before passing the brimming disposable coffee cup over to Donovan.
Donovan was quivering with need. Excitement. Vibrating with an addict’s first hit after years of forced abstention. He was already flying from the smell alone.
We were huddled on the dusty oak floorboards of our tiny apartment. We’d stuck strips of cardboard to the windows: now we lived in a perpetual twilight. The stars were lost; we couldn’t see the bright open tapestry of the skies.
You’ve no idea how much that booted me in the goolies. Because locked in the dark I’d dream of freedom, and it looked just like the crystal sharp night sky.
The apartment’s walls were painted sky blue (as if to compensate). They were punched with random holes. Faint screams and creative strings of swear words floated up from the couple below us. Somewhere a baby wailed.
The electricity was off again: three cheers for the slum landlords of London. We’d balanced candles in used teacups; the flames cast wild shadows. Sun had been narked we couldn’t afford scented candles, so I’d nicked a load the next time I’d been in the City. Except they’d been incense, so the apartment stank like a medieval cathedral.
Sun hadn’t spoken to me for a week.
We’d shoved the one sunken scarlet sofa back and were sitting in a Wiccan circle: the only time we felt safe.
Hartford’s navy sleeping bag stuck out from behind the sofa because after a decade of imprisonment he could still only sleep in confined spaces. Donovan? He drank, smoked whacky backy, stripped and shagged more than the psychotic bastard ever had because that’s one escape.
Me?
I had the nightmares.
You can free a slave, but if you don’t free his mind?
He’ll always be in chains.
Donovan was taking these quick, panting breaths, as his tongue lizard-licked his lips. ‘Human, right on. I never reckoned you’d…’ He glanced down at the thick crimson.
‘Ethically sourced. So no snacking. This is all there is for now.’
With difficulty, Donovan nodded. Then he passed the coffee cup to Hartford, without even taking a sip. I couldn’t help noticing how hard his hand trembled.
‘Aw, that java for me, baby?’ Hartford took a deep swig.
Then I had to dive for the cup.
Donovan caught Hartford around the shaking shoulders. Hartford’s peepers rolled back, as he juddered like he was demon possessed.
Alarmed, Donovan stared at me. ‘He’s wigging out--’
‘It happened to me,’ I couldn’t meet Sun’s eye, ‘when I was with Master. Human blood after so long. He’ll be hunk-dory by tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ Donovan hissed, clutching Hartford to his chest. Hartford was convulsing with cramps.
I shrugged. ‘Maybe. Get him to drink it all down; he needs this.’
I stared across at Donovan’s stormy mush and Sun’s stony one. The incense was a choking entity between us. Frustrated, I shoved myself up, breaking the circle. ‘Why can’t you trust me? Hartford’s a Long-lived. He shouldn’t be tame. I promised to free you - all of you. And I will.’
I swung the Triton towards London Bridge and the embankment, cutting across the tangle of traffic in a hail of furious honks. Parking up, I hopped off, unloading my precious bundle under my arm. I couldn’t help the grin.
The others reckoned I was working another shift at Peter Pan’s. Instead, I was sneaking off to see my…mine. Let’s leave it at that.
My snake betrayal coiled inside. Secrets – I was tangled in them.
I knew that Emo kid was still in the shadows. Hunting. My new obsession, however, was wound too tightly around my heart to let go.
I was weak as any junkie.
Obsession has always been my heroin, and I was hooked.
Sand skittered away in fine storms, as I scooted down the embankment. Before I could even holler, Trinity was in my face – all swagger and despot style – waving a brown paper bag of fresh blood like it was groceries.
The stash.
Trinity – our new dealer – snatched the crumpled bag back. Her smile was razor sharp. ‘What’s the drilly, cuz?’
‘Let’s just do this.’
‘Alright, blud.’ Trinity ran her hand down my chest, circling my nipples with her long finger. ‘Tell me, Mr Angel Man, how our Will taste?’
‘What?’
Then I chucked up in my mouth… The needle pricking into Will’s too thin arm… The crimson drawn out… Life from him to us… My single lick…Then Hartford drinking…
My predator roared retribution. Possession. Revenge.
Except I did remember that one sublime taste: the bubbling universes meeting all at once and then exploding – end of days and dawn of new ages.
I didn’t know if it made Will prey or bonded him closer than anyone before.
Yet Hartford had tasted too, and once we’ve got your scent, we never forget the hunt.
‘You promised,’ I gritted out, ‘our deal was for my protection; I’d keep all of you safe. In return, no blood from Will.’
‘I lied.’
I flung myself at Trinity, crushing her against the embankment. The paper bag crumpled between us. When I looked down, I saw the steel shiv pushing hard against my heart.
I knew it was a mistake to teach her that.
‘This is mine, I believe,’ pulling together my tattered self-respect, I snatched the brown bag with an air of dignity, before backing away.
‘Don’t be vexed. The rest’s got no Will flavouring, you get me?’ Trinity crossed her arms. ‘That was bare jokes – you were shook.’
‘Dead funny: this is me splitting my sides.’
I threw the two finger salute, before spinning on my heel and marching towards the bridge.
The bint made me feel like we were siblings: ones who bloody hated each other.
I peered into Trinity’s dark world underneath London Bridge. Smoke stung my peepers from fires, which were burning in overturned steel barrels, built-up from scrap wood. I coughed; thick smoke wound into my nostrils and lungs. Through a watery haze, I made out blurred ghosts, who were living on the banks of the salt-brine Thames.
The wind blasted from one end to the other; battling against both smoke and wind, I staggered between sprawled meth heads, who were huddled over sweet smelling foil chasing the dragon (and who could blame them for seeking an escape from this reality?), a bloke who was ranting at an invisible adversary and a gang of kids.
A heap of curls and tiny body: my Will.
He smelled…like mine.
Will was scrunched against the wall under a nest of cardboard, like a mouse. He was as far from the others as possible. Mutt was by his side, a wag of black and white fluff. Will was fidgeting ritualistically at that neon friendship bracelet again.
I sighed, before lobbing my gift at him.
Will jumped out of his bloody skin. Mutt didn’t even wake up.
I laughed. ‘Easy to hunt, you are.’
Will tried to pout but then broke into a broad smile. ‘Only ‘cos you ain’t hunting me, innit?’
‘Touché.’
Will nudged my gift with his foot, before glancing up at me hopefully. ‘That for..?’
‘It’s a tent. Pop-up. There’s a sleeping bag too; I reckoned with it being cold at night...’
I hadn’t expected the armful of First Lifer. I stiffened. Then I heard sniffling.
Buggering hell.
I patted Will’s back. ‘Alright?’
‘Yeah,’ Will disentangled himself, before hunkering down to investigate the tent.
Good luck with that: I didn’t have a scooby.
‘Here,’ I chucked a luxury bar of chocolate at Will.
I’d been carrying it around since last night, when Hartford had given it to me as a peace offering or a cheers for the unleashing. Maybe it was a breaking abstention pressie.
Donovan still looked ready to rip off my goolies.
Hartford, however, was buzzed. All singing and dancing. A Long-lived in the world once more.
Regrets..? Helping Hartford back from the dark wasn’t one of them.
Will caught the chocolate with one hand – good reflexes – whooping like it was bleeding Christmas. When he ripped open the golden wrapper, however, the blanket shifted.
‘What’s this then?’ I plonked down the blood, snatching up the long handle of a gangster-sized shank. I waved it like it was confiscated contraband in front of a naughty schoolkid. ‘Little man..?’
‘Protection.’
I tucked the blade into the back of my jeans (and that’s one place you don’t want it to slip). I thumped my chest. ‘Here’s all the protection you need.’
Will was picking at his chocolate, his nut twisted away from me. ‘You ain’t always here.’
‘What does that..?’
‘Just put it back, yeah?’ It was hardly more than a whisper.
Reluctantly, I drew out the shiv. Kid like Will shouldn’t even have touched a shank: no kid should. Real rebel, right? All these shoulds.
There’s no such thing as should, yet we still pretend.
Kids like these don’t exist. Hidden under bridges, down alleys or in squats. They’re invisible as we stroll by and every day we choose our own reality, escaping into coke, meth or acid. Puff on joints or shoot up. Medicate on alcohol or prescription pills. Hide away from the real world in TV boxsets or the Internet.
Because who asks for help in there? Who needs you to be strong?
Will took the shank from me with trembling hands, before burying it under his blankets. Then he drew something back out with a flourish.
My jacket: mended.
I twisted it round first one way and then the other. You could barely make out the rent.
Will was blushing, staring down at the syringe littered floor.
I tipped his nut back with one finger. ‘I won’t forget this. I promise.’
‘Filthy whore.’
A hyena burst of laughter.
I hadn’t missed it. Even over the birds yapping into their iPhones, the rumble of traffic and hip-hop blasting in bass thrumming beat out of the bar on the corner.
It’d come from the bench outside the comic shop.
Where my Will sat.
I raced towards the over-excited cluster of bladdered suits. A pinstripe platter of red mushes hawing to themselves, as they booted and grappled with the whimpering figure at their feet. Swollen with power and coke, they stamped their place in the world by stamping on someone else.
And the crowds thronging either side, whilst these business men got their jollies with a homeless boy?
Didn’t do a sodding thing.
‘Oi, you!’ The blokes glanced up at my holler, which was when Mutt launched her attack.
Growling like a bitch possessed, Mutt didn’t know which bastard to bite first. So she circled the whole pack, snapping at their ankles. Until one tosser kicked backwards, and I heard a crunch.
Then Will’s only defender was lying still.
‘Mutt!’ A muffled wail from the pile of blood and bruises trapped beneath the suits.
Not Will’s only defender because then I was there.
The boss turned to me with a smile, like he recognized another predator. His thinning hair was sweaty, and his grey tie askew: beating on kids is a good workout. He knelt next to Will, flipping him onto his stomach with what could only be practiced ease and ripped down his jeans. The other wankers cheered like they were at a gallery opening.
Will began to sob.
Then the boss leered up at me. ‘Want to join in the fun?’
He had no idea.
I smiled too. The blokes cheered again: another damned soul for their club. Before – dead slowly – l let my fangs descend. ‘How did you guess?’
There was this long moment: not one of them moved. Then they screamed - I’d say like little girls, except that’s an insult to women - they screamed like coked-up drunken rapists, who’d just had their illusory power crumbled to ash. They legged it, stumbling, falling and grabbing onto each other: predator to prey on the turn of a coin.
The boss, however, I had by the neck. He scrabbled at me, scratching and gouging at my mush. He stripped piercing shards of pain down my cheeks. I didn’t loosen my hold. I could hear the beat of his galloping heart and feel his sticky sweat.
One bite.
My lips were on his madly fluttering artery…
‘Don’t.’
That was all it took.
Will. His humanity - my humanity - I no longer understood the divide or why it mattered. Only that Will did.
Will had pulled himself up onto his knees; he’d dragged his jeans back on and was hugging his stomach (broken ribs, I reckoned). He was watching me through swollen peepers.
I shoved the bastard away from me; he probably would’ve given me heartburn anyway.
The boss crawled away but before he could scarper, I said, ‘Apologise.’ The bloke’s nut snapped round. I could tell by the lemon sour of his mush that he was struggling to get out the words to a homeless kid. ‘Or I could just eat you.’
‘Sorry, OK?’
‘Alright, toddle off then.’
Managing somehow to look affronted, the suit dusted off his muddy knees, straightened his tie and shakily wove away towards London Bridge and the City.
I turned my attention to Will. He was a mess. ‘Bloody work of art you are.’
He tried to shrug but stopped with a gasp. Yeah, broken ribs.
‘I ain’t had no shank. If--’
‘Not gonna happen.’
I suddenly realised my fangs were still out.
I don’t know why I was ashamed of them. After what happened at Abona? With Master? I shouldn’t have any shame left.
Except I did.
When I ducked my nut, Will’s fingers shot out, touching a fang.
I wrenched back.
Will cringed. ‘I ain’t mean nothing…’
‘They’re toxic.’
Yet it was more than that - a violation.
Humans had taken my fangs once, and no one was touching what was mine again. I guess Will had felt the same with the suits. The only thing was?
I was no longer powerless.
‘You said you ain’t an angel?’
‘Want to know what I am?’
Will studied me gravely but then his smile was back. ‘Nah, man. You’re still my Angel of Light. You’re safe, all that matters, innit?’ I blinked rapidly to hide my shock. ‘He got you good and that.’ Will pointed at the crimson beaded tears streaked down my mush. Guess I wasn’t exactly in tiptop condition either. ‘You alright?’
Something caught at me. A whispered memory of a bird called Susan. She’d asked me if I’d been alright, helping me believe someone could care if I hurt. So maybe I should too. All it took was that hint of tenderness. To be treated like it mattered if I hurt, broke and bled.
Will was looking at me like I was…human. No: like it didn’t matter that I wasn’t.
No way was I letting him see me bawl like a nancy. ‘Where’s your teenage rebellion? Your Marlon Brando--’
’Who?’
‘The world hates you,’ I couldn’t help it. The words were spewing out; I couldn’t hold them back. ‘Look at it: what it does to you. What it’s done. Where’s your rebel fire?’
‘Reckon you’ve enough for all of us, innit?’ Will turned away, his dirty fingers – little one dislocated – stiffly playing with his frayed jumper. ‘The world has a beef with me? That’s wack, ‘cos I ain’t got no beef with the world. Just so you know.’
I was a wanker and feeling half an inch tall.
Just then I caught a glimpse of a black-and-white body.
I scooped up Mutt, laying her next to Will. At least she was still breathing.
Thank Christ for that.
I half-convinced myself I only gave a rat’s arse for Will’s sake.
Will stared up at me like I could perform miracles. Resurrect the dead.
Oh yeah, I could.
I swept my hand over Mutt’s furry body. She was surprisingly soft and warm. I rubbed my hand backwards and forwards. Her heart was thudding, slow but still beating. I laid my head close to hers.
Something wet slobbered across my mug from top to bottom.
Mutt was awake, and I’d just experienced a Mutt tonguing.
I glowered at her. ‘Bad dog.’
Will, however, was grinning. ‘Good dog.’ He tried to wrap his arms around Mutt but groaned. No way was his walking anywhere.
‘Let’s get you to hospital because that’s the craze for you humans.’ Will scooted away from me on his arse, however, squeaking with pain. ‘Bloody stop it now.’ Will stopped but still eyed me warily. ‘No hospital?’
Will shook his nut.
‘I’m not taking you to that…under London Bridge.’
‘I ain’t asking you for nothing.’
‘You don’t have to.’ And he didn’t. It didn’t mean I wouldn’t tear the world asunder for him, lie to my family and betray promises. Give him my very blood if he’d have it. Sodding hell, I wished he’d be ready for election soon, and that he’d want it - unlike Kathy. The waiting was agony. ‘Come back to my home.’
There – I’d said it. Exploded myself out of the water; it was too late to go back.
I was buggered.
‘Not cool man,’ Donovan whispered, glancing at the closed bedroom door.
Scarlet candles dotted the floor in upturned beer bottles, their flames votary offerings in the black.
It’d been Hartford who’d offered to take the bloody pile of rags and curls from my arms and sweep Will into the kitchen to patch him up like my latest stray, before the hollering could begin; Hartford had an uncanny nose for that.
See here’s the thing: that coffee cup of thick crimson – human – blood? Will’s blood? Hartford acting all demon possessed on the floorboards?
Don’t reckon I hadn’t figured on one unleashed Long-lived scenting Will’s grazes and thinking grub’s up.
Yet there was something about the way Hartford took Will from me – Will’s skinny arms transferring from my neck to Hartford’s, as if he’d always known him or he was family.
Like he trusted him.
And trust? It’s harder to find than love.
You can lose it too, twice as fast.
Donovan’s intent stare could’ve set the chipped bedroom door aflame. ‘You told us you were at Peter Pan’s? You lying to us now, man?’
Heat flooded my cheeks. ‘Sorry.’
Sun was sprawled on the lumpy mattress, her hands clenched in the faded sheets. Her ash blonde hair hung in a veil masking her mush; I could just see the laser slits of her peepers. She was dressed in a tight pair of jeans and a flint-speckled top, which she’d returned with from a charity shop. Wearing them, I always reckoned, was a protest.
‘Sorry?’ Donovan shook his nut, ‘What’s happened to you and my baby? These First Lifers..?’ He spat out the words like they were venomous. ‘Bringing one into our home..? Unless he’s a snack…’ I had my hand around Donovan’s throat, as I slammed him backwards and onto the bed, so fast I didn’t even know I was doing it, until we were both breathing hard and staring into each other’s startled peepers. ‘Hey, no need to wave the fangs around.’
Surprised, I licked my teeth with my tongue and then yelped. I drew my fangs back slowly.
Donovan could’ve kicked my arse, if he’d chosen to take offence at my alpha display. He was one step up the Plantagenet bloodline and Plantagenets are…stronger…faster…bastards.
I include myself in that.
I hoped I’d never meet that wanker Plantagenet. He probably wore other bloke’s fangs as trophies: or poncey cravats.
I eased away from Donovan, who edged away from me.
Donovan was eyeing me warily, like a bloke who discovers a rattlesnake in his boot.
‘No one eats him,’ I ordered, ‘the boy’s hurt and our guest.’
Sun shot up. ‘Ya huh! We can’t afford him.’
I should’ve known. The bottom line. The profit margin.
‘If I take on extra shifts--’
‘Where the frig were you tonight?’
I shifted awkwardly. ‘I’ve kept you safe so far. We’ve this place and jobs--’
Sun’s laugh was so sharp it could’ve cut glass. ‘You’re soft if you reckon I’m grateful. This place should be, like, condemned on account of it’s a slum.’
Right on cue came the scrit scrat of Mr Rat.
Cheers, mate.
It wasn’t meant to be like this: Author and elected.
I wanted to plan such fantasies with Sun. To thrill our dark pleasures. To know if I couldn’t be mentor, then we’d swagger side by side into our Blood Life together.
I forced myself to saunter closer to Sun. ‘If you figure you can do better, luv…’
‘I do.’ Cool and considered.
Devastating.
‘What?’
‘Reckon I can do better.’ I kept my expression blank: I didn’t want Sun to know how brutally that one had hit home. ‘And you want a pet? Human? That’s a whole notha deal.’
‘Funny you should say that,’ I wiped my hands surreptitiously down the back of my jeans to wipe off the scent of wet dog. Sun still wrinkled her nose. Oh yeah, my mush snogging by Mutt. ‘What’s that..?’
‘Will’s not a pet. He’s--’
‘You know what’d be mint? If I start trading again. Then we’d be wealthy enough to afford your young First Lifer.’
Bloody hell, it was like the burbs arguing over popping out another baby. And somehow? I’d become the sodding housewife.
Donovan had thrown himself back against the pile of black satin cushions, which I’d nicked to poncey up the place. His arms were linked casually behind his nut, like a teenager getting off on his parents’ shouting match.
‘First,’ reasonable voice (I was not the nagging wife), ‘we don’t have the readies; you’re not getting your mitts on our wages either. Second: you’re dead. Your daddy killed you; I know because I had to watch, before I sank my fangs into the bastard’s throat. So no identity. No Grayse.’
‘You don’t reckon I know that?’ Sun’s voice was dangerously low.
‘I was only saying--’
‘I’m dead ‘cos I chose you. And I’m alive? ‘Cos you made me.’
I swallowed. Even Donovan had tensed. I tried to reach out to Sun, but she backed away.
‘I’m sorry--’
‘That you elected me?’
‘Never that.’ I tried to smile but it came out wrong, as twisted as my insides. ‘Don’t be such a daft bint. I love you.’
Sun slammed her palm – slap – against her own thigh. I flinched. ‘Then why are you frickin’ chaining me?’
Terror moth fluttered in my belly. Tremors shook every nancy boy inch of me. Because what Sun had said, gave wings to the torment I’d suffered under Ruby. For a hundred years I’d been happy, lost in the fug of a false freedom. When in fact all along I’d been – chained – by her love. I’d sworn I’d never control another First or Blood Lifer as she had.
Never chain them.
‘It’s to keep you safe,’ I spluttered, when all I wanted was to hold Sun – snog her – force her to take it back. Make her swear she was free and I wasn’t the same as my Author. Because I wasn’t, was I? ‘If you traded now, the only bleeders you could deal with would be other Blood Lifers.’
‘I know. Donovan told me.’
When I shot Donovan a look – no whacky backy for you tonight, mate – he shrugged. He didn’t seem to be enjoying our set to much now either.
‘These Blood Lifers? Bankers, traders, financers? They’re the most powerful tossers there are. Money and power: this is Light 101. They control everything.’
Sun’s gaze was mocking. It burnt me. ‘Fear, huh?’ I startled, when she sidled so close her dry mouth brushed my lobe, as she whispered, ‘You’re infected by it.’
I tried to jerk away, but her arm was tight around my shoulders, holding me in a false embrace.
Then Sun was shoving her wrist, in its thin sweater, in front of my nose like an accusation.
‘Gonna need to breathe any moment.’
‘You smell it?’
I sniffed.
Stale smoke, baked beans from dinner woven into the fabric and the fake tang of Tahitian Gardenia: the exotic sharpness of the perfume I’d managed to buy with my first pay.
Bought - not nicked.
It carried me back to Grayse’s apartment in Primrose Hill, when we’d been mistress and slave, and the scent of her posh candles had freed me, even if only in my mind.
Now we were truly free.
Sun might not smell of gorse and sunlight anymore: but that had been Grayse. The aroma of Fernando’s perfume.
Now she was Sun? She wore mine: and she smelled of freedom.
I grinned. My lips were soft against the scented threads.
Yet when Sun pulled back her wrist? Her mush was cold. ‘That? Is the stink of poverty.’
My smile faded. All the sodding light from the room faded, along with the feeling from my body.
When were Blood Lifers caged by labels? Rich? Poor? When had I become trapped in a nightmarish rerun of my First Life, when I was sticky Post-it noted by my poverty?
In this twilight world – caught tame between First and Blood – in which we’d found ourselves, it turns out even freedom costs.
‘Hey man, you wiggin’ out?’
A tunnel of grey…. Me at my orphan school… Memories unkindled for decades roared monstrous. Abuses long suppressed awoke to shank cruel.
I stumbled backwards, my heel catching an empty Guinness bottle. It skittered over, rolling with flying hot wax. The scarlet candle flared extra bright, as if it’d escaped.
I dived on it, stamping it out with my boot – stamp, stamp, stamp. The wax stuck like dried blood to my sole. The flame died under my boot.
When I looked up, Hartford was leaning in the open doorway, watching my fire dance. His mush was very still.
Then I realized.
No Will.
Lucky I can’t have a coronary.
‘Where’s my Will?’
‘Ankled it out of this joint once all the hollering started.’
‘And you didn’t…I dunno…stop him?’
Hartford’s expression was troubled. ‘Say, mac, was he our prisoner?’
Why did Hartford always have to be so bloody right?
I found Will on London Bridge. Or I hunted him there – I no longer knew the difference.
What I did know was that his feet were dangling over the edge of the freezing curl of the Thames. He was just as battered as before, but I’d underestimated him. He’d taken some bootings in his life to be counted amongst the walking wounded.
It’s never a good sign when you know how to take a beating.
Him and me both.
Will’s arse was parked on the ledge.
A fine drizzle wetted us in tears. Pedestrians pressed by but not one of them stopped. That’s London. There was the rumble of buses and the rattle of black cabs. All a watercolour wash: nothing but background.
Because my kid (what was the point in pretending?), was hanging over the Thames.
I was going to kick his arse.
‘Alright?’
Will shuffled closer to the edge. ‘Why are you trying to stop me?’
I took a drag on my e-cig, holding it between trembling fingers, as I tried to lean nonchalantly against the granite. ‘Maybe because you’re a stupid little git.’
Will’s nut twisted round, his swollen peepers shocked. ‘You ain’t gotta bother, man. Go back to your fam.’
Family.
Will hated that word, as much as I had at his age.
‘They’re not perfect; this isn’t simple though, and Hartford’s--’
‘Safe,’ Will reluctantly shrugged one shoulder, ‘but you got a home, and it be shabby.’
I imagined the holes in the wall, faulty taps and Mr Rat: Sun’s dismissive slum. Then I saw it through Will’s eyes; compared to living in that world under London Bridge, it was shabby (and I was pretty sure in Will speak that was a good thing). He’d smiled – just for a moment – anyway.
Now Will was hugging his wrist close to his chest, stroking that green snake bracelet like it was all he had to say goodbye to.
‘That’s why I took you there, until you had a case of the runaways.’
‘I ain’t gonna lose you fam, wifey and home. Or cause you bother; it’s all I do.’
‘Save the sodding self-pity. I’m a big boy; I can make my own decisions. Now you’re going to turn your arse around and come over to me, or you’ll discover what a truly pissed off angel looks like.’
The smile was back - sly now. Will looked at me through his curls. ‘Thought you ain’t no angel?’
‘I can be anything I bleeding want. Now get a wiggle on.’ Will swung his legs back but too fast. For one breath catching moment he was slipping on the damp over the dark mouth below. Then my hand was bunched in his thin sweater. I yanked him – none too gently – to me. Then I was cradling him. Sod the fact I was babying him. Will didn’t pull back. ‘Do that again and I’ll…tear out your bloody heart.’
‘No you won’t.’
Will was vibrating, like a mouse when it’s played with by a cat.
Problem was? I was beginning to reckon I was the cat.
Reluctantly, I set down Will. Of course, he immediately legged it - or tried to. His knees buckled, however, and he hit the pavement.
I took a drag of my e-cig. ‘Now that’s out of the way, let’s have a chat.’
Surly, Will glared up at me from his heap on the bridge. Then he gave a cautious nod.
‘What’s up with this business then?’ I pointed at Will’s bracelet: two entwined greens knotted together. An eternal snake. I don’t know what made me ask, except there was something about it, like there was with my leathers. The one thing Will had held onto at the end.
Will jolted, as if I’d cattle prodded him. His left hand shot out to cover the baggy bracelet. Then he shuffled closer. I hunkered down, until our mushes were close. I hadn’t seen him look so solemn - or less like a kid.
‘My sis made it me when we were…’ Will’s voice dropped to a whisper, ‘I done run from the rents; that be why I ain’t going no hospital. No po-po, no going back and no kiddies’ home neither.’
Poison roiled through my chest, melting my heart to a swirling pool. ‘Hold your horses, little man. You told me--’
‘Foster, yeah?’
I could’ve sung hallelujahs.
‘Why?’
Will was caressing those green threads again, as if they were strands of hair. ‘My sis. She’s safe. All that matters.’
I’d caught it, however, the darkness in Will’s peepers.
I knew it was in mine as well.
I was going to sodding dismember those bastards. Slowly.
Then I was frightened by the inferno of my own rage.
Will must’ve read it in my mush too because suddenly he was slipping off that bracelet and forcing it over my left wrist. It dug into my skin. As if Will – his humanity – was touching me, even when he’d pulled back. I blinked my confusion. ‘Now you be safe; I ain’t need it no more. I have you.’