NIGHT 5
Love was always your greatest weakness, wasn’t it?
Not family, loyalty or obsession.
Love: the fear of losing it.
Come on, Thomas, wake up. There are only nine more nights before your trial. You must give me something more than dead papas, homeless boys and--
Kidnapped cousins? Sorry to bore you, sweetheart. How do you know my weaknesses flayed bloody? Seems you’ve been reading Captain’s file on me.
Sod it, I’m right?
There were photos in there; Master got off on telling me. Starkers ones of me: chained, collared and leashed. Enjoyed them, did you? Had a good laugh?
Or did you touch yourself instead?
Mr Blickle, I assure you--
Right cozy feeling to know my torture and enslavement does it for you.
What would do it for me, would be some tangible evidence. You dance around like a boxer. This is your second life: I’m trying to save it.
I investigated, and you were right: you were being starved and sleep deprived. Plus of course, you’re no leader for the Renegades.
I’ll be off then, shall I?
We still need our Spartacus. Yet I don’t like being tricked, as much as I do like a puzzle.
That’s what this is to you?
Isn’t it to you? A vast world of infinite puzzles? A continual search for a challenge worthy of that astounding brain, which you attempt to hide behind the banter? Come, we’re not so different.
I’ve been around for 150 years. I’ve learnt a few things, like when you struggle – sacrifice – and finally open that puzzle box, and it’s empty..?
It wasn’t worth one single bleeding thing you lost.
Silence. Crimson. Cold.
I couldn’t stop shivering. Water trickled down my back, through my soaked t-shirt. When we’d dashed out of our flat into the freezing rain, I hadn’t even paused to grab my leathers.
Hartford’s pale body gaped with wounds, like an abused voodoo doll, scarlet against the pale. He lay motionless on the top of Aedan’s stripped bed, in the flat above Peter Pan’s. He looked so small on the grand four-poster, underneath the kitsch mosaic of Adam reaching (and failing) to touch God’s outstretched finger; Hartford’s damp hair was as golden as the thick wallpapered walls.
Hartford stared at the ceiling, but he didn’t even blink. For a horrifying moment, it was like we were back at Abona House, and he was laid out after some sadistic john had got his jollies from shooting holes in him.
Aedan hovered at my shoulder. All things considered, the chinwag when we’d turned up as if out of a warzone, hadn’t been as awkward as it could’ve been.
‘So what gobshite did..?’ Aedan’s green peepers gleamed, as he waved into the bedroom. He was whispering, like Hartford was sleeping - I wished he had been. ‘So I can ball him, before I castrate him with my teeth.’
‘You’ll have a bloody long queue,’ I patted Aedan on the back. ‘Cheers for this and sorry for…’
‘Not being human?’
I shifted. ‘Never for that. Lying. Missing work. Getting blood all over the bed.’
‘No bother, I’ll dock your wages,’ Aedan grinned, slapping my arse.
I could hear Aedan nattering to Sun, as he tramped downstairs. There was the stink of pigs’ blood – alien, thin, wrong – after breaking abstention. Hartford wasn’t up to sinking his fangs into me, however, for his fix, so the 24 hour butchers it was.
Hartford would heal but only if he drank.
I perched next to Hartford, sweeping my hand through his hair. ‘Hey, helmethead.’
Not a flicker.
‘Tasty blood - alright, pigs’ blood - but it’ll take away the pain.’
Still nothing.
I leant closer. My clothes stuck to me, as cold tremors shook me. I couldn’t – didn’t want to – think of Donovan with Captain. What Captain was doing to him.
My predator roared. My fangs were owned - again. I was an idiot to think I could be free; we were none of us free. Donovan was abducted, whilst Hartford was silent and unmoving.
Frustrated, I threw myself up from the bed. ‘Not bloody good enough. Snap out of it.’
Nothing.
Furious, bubbling, impotent rage, which had been repressed from the moment Captain had slipped on that knuckleduster, whilst holding a gun to Hartford’s nut, erupted. I swung my palm.
Slap.
Shocked, I stared at the crimson handprint on Hartford’s white cheek. His motionless doll cheek.
‘You’re a Long-lived. Sir didn’t break you. Master couldn’t. After everything they did to both of us – our species – you protected us all. Then you tore those bastards apart, remember? You. I know this hurts; I’m bleeding out here too. You need to transform that pain to rage because what we did to the Blood Club will look like child’s play by the time we’re done with the Blood Life Council. I promise. Right now? It’s fangs and fists; it’s not time to hide. Please, Hartford?’
And then?
Hartford blinked.
He saw me; he heard me. He was a Long-lived once more.
‘What’s the plan, mac?’ Hartford’s voice was croaky but determined.
There was a sound in the doorway; Aedan was behind me. He’d heard. At least…enough. He simply slipped to Hartford, however, his red braids swinging over his cheeks, as he pressed a mug of blood to his lips, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Confused, I no longer knew who was predator or prey: Blood or First.
Yet I did know my family were both species. And that?
Sodding terrified me.
‘Grayse Cain, upon my Soul. Where the frak have you been?’ Fernando (perfect prat that he was), glared out of the smeared screen at the Internet café.
In checked shirt, which was buttoned up to the top and backlit by a tech lab of computers, which were glowing as if they’d bloody invented sunlight, it was like Fernando had been trapped in amber: unchanged from when he’d helped us take down the slavers. Maybe the whole world was in amber, and it was only Sun and I – under the false light of the café’s computers – who’d moved on.
Evolved.
Grayse Cain had. Now she was Sun.
Only Fernando didn’t know that…yet.
Sun shifted next to me on her plastic seat – squeak, squeak – as awkward as me. ‘Hey, ‘sup Prof? I know this is fried, but we had to book it outta there that night and--’
‘You forgot my number?’ Fernando’s mouth was twisted like he wanted to twist something else. By the way he was casting these furious glances at me? I reckoned it was my neck. ‘Like I’ve just been sitting on my thumbs waiting..?’
‘Shut your mush.’ To my shock? Fernando actually did. ‘There are bigger things here than your petty pride. We had to keep safe.’
‘Whoa, calm down there, little man,’ Fernando fluttered his long dark eyelashes, as if he was the reasonable one. All right, point made. ‘Why were you hiding?’
I bristled. ‘Don’t call me little man.’
‘Can’t you tell?’ Sun leant in closer to the computer. The bustle and chatter of the café was suddenly too loud; the neon blue of the streetlamp reflected through the glass was too bright. The sweaty stink of the teenagers, who were pressed up next to us intent on their fantasy multi-player game, was too powerful. Sun licked her lips. How was she getting off on this? ‘Your family were mine on account of I was alone in Harvard. Your cuz? He was like my brother. But would they have me over for a keg party or lobster roll now?’
Fernando pushed himself closer to the screen as well, as if he was able to climb through it. ‘You’re one of them,’ he hissed.
‘Not Invasion of the Body Snatchers.’
Fernando’s dark gaze flickered to mine. ‘Yah, it is. You murdered Grayse. So I don’t know how but I’ll have vengeance.’
‘Think that line’s taken.’
‘What do you want? Humans working here.’ Cold and dismissive. Fernando’s mask melted in the golden warmth of that humming lab.
Now it was Sun, rather than Grayse?
The tosser didn’t give a monkey’s.
Somehow Sun had known.
‘Ya huh! You don’t pull that one on account of Blood Lifers are dying here. You study this: evolution. So you wanna study that or extinction?’
‘Always were a drama queen, whoever the frak you are now,’ Fernando sighed. ‘What miracle do you want my magic fingers to pull off this time?’
‘I have the brains; you have the…ethical hacking. When I was at Mann with that right bastard Master, I broke into his study. Paid for it mind. I found a list though: all the specialist slaves sent around the globe, their masters and locations. I memorised it. You hack--’
Fernando frantically waved his hands around like he was swatting an invisible wasp. ‘Wanna say that word any louder? Another time? Unencrypted? Where even are you? You’re not on a private computer…’
‘How do you know? Been hacking us?’ Exploding Alpha Geek. I couldn’t help hopping in my seat in expectation. Until Sun grasped my hand, and I noticed her stormy expression. All right then, best not to poke the bloke with a stick, whilst you’re asking for help, even when he is your lover’s ex. ‘It’s safer this way. You don’t need to know where we are.’
‘Southwark, man,’ the pink haired teenager, who was plugged into an online dragon game on the computer next to ours, helpfully offered with a grin, ‘our ends, innit?’
Fernando smiled – white and wide. ‘London? Why don’t you come down Boston? To the university?’
‘Nice shiny lab with matching dissection tables all ready for us?’
Fernando tried – hard – to look hurt.
I could see the thoughts, however, whirring; I sodding wished I hadn’t given him ideas. ‘All we need is for you to h – a - c – k Abona’s records. Then match the slave names to the original Blood Lifers. Also see what’s been happening at the locations because it turns out some bleeding heroes – the Renegades – have been rescuing these high end slaves. The poor gits who got the same treatment as me, before being sold to princes and billionaires. Trust me, it won’t be a hard trail of breadcrumbs to follow because they’ll be dripping crimson.’
Fernando examined me in silence. It made me feel like my insides were on display bloody. Then he gave a sharp nod. ‘I’m warning you, this time it’s not a freebie. If I do this? Here’s the deal: I wanna research him.’
The glint in Fernando’s peepers, as he pointed at me, gave me the willies. I could already imagine the scalpel in his hand. ‘Hey now, I’ve had enough of being poked and prodded by so-called doctors.’
‘Then goodbye.’
‘Wait, buggering hell, alright then.’ I was panting; my heart was thundering.
When had that started?
Sun had slipped her arm around my waist; her fingers dug into me like a claim, as if she’d never let me go. Never let this wanker own me, like the slavers had, the Doctor, Captain…
‘I’ll call you this time tomorrow,’ when Sun licked up my neck I jumped; Fernando did too. ‘Light? He’s mine. You want him? Na-ah, not happening. You find us what we need to know. Then we’ll talk.’
The screen went blank.
‘Off the hook: that was some serious live action role-playing or something?’ The pink haired kid gazed at us in awe.
‘Yeah, something.’ When I stroked Sun’s hand, she eased her death grip. ‘Still reckon Fernando’s a decent bloke?’
Sun shrugged, but her mush was shuttered. I wished I could’ve snogged the sun back into her.
‘We’ll get Donovan back. Sod the Blood Life Council and wankering Captain. Bugger Fernando. We’re--’
‘Don’t you dare say safe.’
Sun’s murmur was like a slap in the mush. Her python gaze was hypnotizing. ‘You don’t get to leave me. You’re soft if you reckon you can just sacrifice yourself. You’re my Author.’
‘Am I now? I didn’t reckon I meant that much to you.’
Sun’s peepers widened. Then she was snogging me.
Her hand grasped behind my neck; her body wound round mine. Her fingers were playing with strands of my hair; my scalp bursting in delicious tingles. I could hardly breathe: nothing but Sun, Sun, Sun… The whoops and catcalls from the teenagers sounded far away.
I was soaring. Lost in Sun: her touch, taste, love…
Until Sun suddenly drew back; snake ready to strike. ‘Remember that Emo kid, who was spying on us?’
I risked a nod.
‘Don’t you think it would be wicked strange, if he wasn’t connected?’
Reckoning I was hunting Emo but realising he was hunting me... The fight outside the gleaming Shard where he shot me… A shooter the same as the Blood Life Council were using… The games of hide-and-seek ever since, even when I was with Will, except I’d let it go because of Will…
Sun was right.
This was my fault.
I must’ve allowed my thoughts to show because Sun’s gaze sharpened. ‘No more lies. You knew that something was up?’
‘I didn’t, luv. But that kid…’
‘You saw him again?’
I risked another nod.
‘Since when didn’t you tell me on account of I’m family? Na-ah, I don’t wanna hear it. Ever since that human pet? It’s like you’re not even with us anymore.’ When Sun stood up, I could see she was shaking. I didn’t know how to reach her. Not now. ‘I wanna get Donovan back. But you? That’s a whole notha matter. How am I gonna get you back?’
Then she was gone – bang – there went the Internet Café’s door.
‘You just got owned,’ the teenager sniggered.
I slumped back in my plastic chair – squeak. ‘You’re not wrong, mate.’
Water tears snaked down the café’s front, as I rested my forehead against the freezing pane and shivered. I splayed my fingers, their imprint ghosted against the glass. Rain wormed down the back of my neck. My pompadour dampened to curls.
I sneezed, snuffling mournfully.
I didn’t go in the light and warmth, however, to the teenage crews, blokes rewriting their CVs or practising for their citizenships. Not again. That was Fernando’s territory. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to return to Peter Pan’s and Sun either.
Not yet.
So here I was. Dreary no-man’s-land. Sodding cold, it was.
Fernando had looked like he was wet dreaming, when the monitor had sprung on, and he’d caught a gander of me slouched on the plastic seat for our meet up…and no Sun.
I’d rather not have known what his come face looked like.
Fernando had drooled over my every word. I hadn’t blamed him. No Sun? Meant I’d been back on the market: free to be possessed.
Looked like he’d been eager to slip on the collar.
Still, if I was going to be Fernando’s lab rat, then I’d demanded results: names and locations sent directly to Hartford’s iPhone.
Aedan had gifted the snazzy little number to Hartford. How’s that for a get well pressie? That way Hartford could work even whilst healing in Aedan’s bed. Hartford’s dark despair was now tinged with determination. It was bloody terrifying.
I wouldn’t be the Blood Life Council for the world.
‘There’ll be a pattern; there always is,’ I’d told Fernando. ‘It’s just a matter of looking right. Someone’s hushing it up. A terrorist’s M.O. is fear, right? Panic? Control? So where are the corpses? The fires? If these Renegades hate the slavers anywhere close to as much as I do? They’re not going to be asking nicely for them to free their property over a cup of tea.’
Now I should be going home again, except Sun and her silent accusations sucked up the air until I choked.
Sun had been this pissed at me only once before.
We’d just moved into the apartment – with the holes in the wall, the taps that never worked and Mr Rat – and I’d discovered Grayse’s crimson evening dress balled at the bottom of the bedroom wardrobe. Bloodstained and still smelling of gorse and sunlight: Grayse in every bursting miraculous breath. The memory had cocooned me; I’d been safe in it.
I’d straightened out the dress, curling around it, as if I could bring back the shape of Grayse out on the moors. It’d held me in its embrace: how I’d bleeding craved I could hold her one more time.
That night had come crashing back: when Grayse’s dad – Master – had shot her. The moment – that agonising moment - when I’d known I was going to bring her back as a Blood Lifer.
Yet Ruby hadn’t been one to share her secrets. I’d been led like a puppy on a string, rather than apprenticed into the dark arts of second life. In my hesitation, both Hartford and Donovan has grasped my hands, their fangs springing out to guide my own to the back of Grayse’s neck and her spinal column: the very place Sir had desecrated with the tracker and branches of fire.
Then I’d injected the venom, as Grayse had died. Because our life? It’s not only in the blood. It’s in our venom. That’s our evolution.
Our strength.
I’d felt Grayse’s heart stop. Then there’d just been my own fast pulse. My venom seeping through tree-like nerves. We’d been one, as I’d authored her – and she’d evolved.
Into one of us.
When Grayse, however, had opened her peepers? I hadn’t kidded myself. She hadn’t been my Grayse any longer. She’d become someone else. New born to this brutal world. Born of my fangs.
And she was formidable.
‘She’s not me,’ I’d opened my peepers to discover Sun standing over me. Her mush had been death white.
Tumbled in our wardrobe, wrapped in Grayse’s dress? My nose pressed to the satin? Silently crying?
I’d been so buggered.
I’d tried to push myself up but tangled in the threads, I’d landed on my arse. ‘I know that, sweetheart.’
‘She’s dead.’
‘Again, I--’
‘You’re in love with a ghost.’
Sun had slammed out then – bang.
I’d sodding wished she’d clouted me instead.
Then there was Will. I couldn’t even think about Will.
I couldn’t work out what was worse: my guilt for not seeing him or the guilt I’d ever seen him at all.
I’d caught up with Trinity along the back of Borough Market, as she’d been strutting home. I’d wanted to know if she’d heard any whispers about Donovan’s kidnap.
Trinity had looked me up and down like I’d crawled out of the Thames. ‘That bare jokes, bruv. We your invisible army?’ She’d snorted. ‘Or this mean you be seeing mandem now we useful to you?’
‘Bugger that. You and me? We’re--’
Trinity shoved me in the chest. ‘‘Cos you’re sorry for us? Reckon we’re the same as some creature?’ I’d drawn back; Trinity knew how to grab a bloke by the throat. ‘This Donovan? He be the same one as wanted to snack on my Will?’
‘Heard about that, did you?’
Suddenly Trinity had been so close to my mush, her lips had been touching mine. ‘It don’t matter how much chocolate and BS you been feeding Will, I ain’t helping you find no monster.’
‘He’s my bloody family, you stupid bint.’ I’d twisted away before I’d been able to say – do – more.
I’d reckoned I was learning this friendship lark but I was still paddling in the shallow end.
Sighing, I slipped out my e-cig, clenching it between my trembling lips in the cold. A few more drags, then I’d have the balls to go home to Sun.
Crash.
Screaming agony.
Crash.
Blood dripping.
Crash.
Nose broken.
Dazed, I scrabbled behind me at the bastard, who was slamming me headfirst into the glass.
There was copper in my mouth. Lights fairy danced.
I shot back my elbow, hearing the satisfying oomph of a connection. Pressure was pushing me flat against the café’s front.
The teenagers must be getting quite a show.
Elbows, neck, back… It was organised. A team.
First Lifers.
Not again. Not this time.
I kicked my foot out, before pushing back, thrashing wildly. I was desperate to at least see my hidden enemies: the bleeding cowards who’d attack a bloke from behind.
A holler, cursing, and then…
Crash, crash, crash.
I yowled.
Sun…a dark tunnel of grey…Sun…
She wasn’t here. She was meant to be. Yet because of my secrets she was safe.
Sun was safe.
A sharp prick in my neck.
The wankers plunged the needle deeper. Somewhere in my scrambled brain, I remembered. The thick transparent liquid: our venom in pure form.
Silverman’s experiments.
I was the lab rat.
I laughed – I couldn’t help it - at the sodding irony, as paralysis cramped my limbs and our toxin held me prisoner in my own body. I couldn’t even blink the blood out of my peepers.
I was a poseable doll.
True terror set in then. What did they want me for?
Strangers’ hands seized me like they had every right to touch. Then fingers on my eyelids – intimate and wrong - closing them.
Forcing me into the dark.