NIGHT 8
Mr Blickle, you do appreciate that if what you told me yesterday is true, then you’ve just saved yourself from burning.
Simply not being the Renegades’ leader was not sufficient. Yet were you to hand over the true leader..?
Plantagenet.
You may warm your hands on his burning instead.
Like that, wouldn’t you?
If the Council were to hear you testifying against Plantagenet at the trial, you’d live. I’d vouch for you--
That’s right good of you. But here’s the thing: I know I was betrayed. Yet I still won’t testify.
What you do with this inquiry..? That’s all on you.
Do you not consider it odd that Captain would grace you with two weeks and a trial?
I simply reckon Captain odd.
Your savant talent: there’s no better witness. His – our – hunch has been justified.
I’m no science experiment, and since when have my darkest secrets become office gossip?
Since you were a slave. Slaves--
Have no secrets. Yeah, I got the memo, in fact the logoed rulebook, on that one, sweetheart.
If I’m such a prize, then why didn’t Captain set the Jade Spider on me? He’s done just about everything else.
I don’t consider I’ve been so--
You don’t keep your word.
An e-cig and your jacket. Delivered promptly.
You said you’d keep me safe.
You reckon I’d testify for that tosser Captain, after the fun and games he’s put me through?
Graced me with two weeks?
I reckon Captain fancied a new plaything, before he threw his toy into the flames.
Captain swore he wouldn’t--
Trust him, do you? Remember the first night? Cannibal Tarantula?
Certainly.
After that…just before dawn the two birds, who’d got touchy-feely on my strip search, shoved me down the bland beige corridors; I glimpsed through the vast windows out to London: a black jagged skyline above the slash of London Bridge. The cruel-bright stars were infinite above.
I could’ve lost myself right there.
The smirking bints in matching denim, however, grabbed my arms and hauled me to a door at the bottom. One more shove to the base of my back, and I was stumbling inside.
Captain told me sleeping arrangements had been made for you.
Did he now? Those sleeping arrangements are why I know I’m going to be all toastie in less than a week: trial or no trial.
Sometimes we need to open our peepers and see the true shadows of the world.
Blue: ceilings, walls and floors. It was like you were flying in the heavens, or had just snuffed it and were looking down from a cloud. It stank of antiseptic – that powerful chemical undertone, which claws at the back of the throat.
Captain wore dun cargoes, pale blue shirt, which was open at the neck, as if he was just back from the dullest swingers party ever; he was leaning in the centre with faux ease against…
I blinked.
Bugger me.
A closed coffin was raised up on rough oak plinths. It was shining black with silver handles and scrolling BLC initials in (what sodding else?), Gothic lettering. It was barely more than kid-sized. Its twin cosied up next to it.
It could’ve been a set in a play.
I wondered how long Captain had been waiting for me and whether he’d practised different poses.
He was the type.
I nodded at the coffins. ‘My condolences. I’d ask if they’re family, but you’ve already noshed your way through them.’
Captain gave a lazy smile. ‘Not my family.’
I tensed. ‘Come again?’
When Captain flipped open the lid, I jumped at the bang.
Empty – thank Christ.
Then Captain studied his fingernails, holding his hand away from him like a bird. The tosser. ‘I’ll see you at the trial, of course. Until then I’m awfully busy but I’m going to make time in my hectic schedule for you.’
‘Dead kind.’
‘I’m that sort of chap. One thing I’d like to know: were you not clear on my owning your fangs?’
‘Crystal.’
Captain’s baby-face reddened. He lost his hold on the shiny surface of the coffin. ‘You joined the Renegades. I gave you a direct order to--’
‘Not one for orders.’
Captain puffed up; he looked like a balloon with a perky Tintin tuft of hair. Then he let out a breath, as he deflated. ‘Then how about this one? Strip.’
Bloody hell…
Reluctantly, I shucked off my jacket, pulling up my t-shirt and pooling it at my feet. I hesitated at the button flies on my jeans.
Captain raised his eyebrow. ‘How precious: he’s shy.’ I yanked down my jeans so fast I nearly did myself an injury, before kicking them in a flying arc. They hit Captain in the goolies. Then went my socks to either side of the room. Boxers… Captain shuddered when they caught his forehead.
I grinned. Tell me to tidy them up - bleeding try it.
Instead, however, Captain’s gaze flickered to the shallow coffin. ‘I’ve promised to hold your hand and treat you like a guest this fortnight. Indeed, I shall. Do you like your bed?’
I stared at the coffin. If I’d reckoned Master’s cages claustrophobic, they had nothing on the kiddie coffin.
I looked the bastard in the eye. ‘A bit of a cliché..? This ain’t Anne Rice.’
Captain bristled. ‘Are you trying to be cute?’
I reckon the wanker had been expecting bawling wet your knickers terror. The scene wasn’t playing out like he’d imagined – practised – in his pathetic dreams.
It was blinding to disappoint.
Even if inside, however, I was that blubbering boy, wailing with my hands over my peepers in case not seeing the nasties of the world meant they couldn’t see me.
Because I knew what it’d feel like to be trapped in that box.
I’d been transported before in pine crates. Once to Grayse and once to Master.
Dark.
For a Blood Lifer to fear it? When we can see in the black?
Don’t reckon I wasn’t bloody ashamed.
Yet the sensory deprivation hood had buggered my senses and now they’d returned, they were amplified to pain.
When you’re bound, helpless and constricted, the dark expands. It fills your mind until you fall into it, so deep there’s nothing left.
Until you lose yourself.
I am Light, Light, Light…
This cruel Hollywood vampiric parody of a punishment replayed my every nightmare in the blackest night.
It was my hell.
And Captain knew it.
I attempted to shrug. ‘Get on with it, pillock; I’m freezing my bollocks off here.’
Captain scowled at me, before stomping to the second coffin. ‘Not for long.’ He snatched off the lid with a snarl.
A burst of frantic breathing…
Donovan.
‘Let me out… Let me out… Let…’ Donovan scrambled upright, sobbing. His fingernails were bloody from where they’d scrabbled at the wood.
All I saw was a steel box, strapped and padlocked shut.
All I heard were the screams.
I dashed to Donovan, dragging him close, as I stroked his wildly trembling back to calm him. My hand was sticky with his slicked sweat. ‘It’s alright, I’ve got you.’
‘You came for me?’ Donovan gasped.
‘Don’t be a daft bugger: we’re family.’
‘When your bromance is quite finished,’ Captain tapped his foot: the impatient torturer with PA and Blackberry. I glared round at him, never letting go of Donovan (who was starkers too). It’s only insecure tossers who play power games. Unnerved, Captain stepped back. ‘There are two coffins.’
‘Congratulations, even Blood Life Councillors can count.’
Captain rapped the second coffin and then tried to hide the wince. ‘Room for two.’
‘Not bleeding likely.’
Captain’s sneer was victorious. ‘See your great leader? A coward after all.’
I gentled my fingers down Donovan’s neck. His gaze was troubled. ‘You have me now; you can get your jollies torturing me, but not Donovan.’
Donovan shook his nut, trying to pull back but he was too weak. ‘Not cool, man. Don’t come in here playing this crazy scene like the hero.’
I started…and I was back there again. Donovan in the steel chrysalis... Let me out… Let me out…
I was no hero. That was my secret, and Donovan didn’t have a scooby: in fact I had more to redeem than I reckoned possible. Maybe this would count in the balance, however, if I believed the good could cancel out the bad – and I didn’t.
Desperation though breeds self-delusion, and fantasies are prettier than reality will ever be.
‘Adorable. You truly still believe you hold the power?’
I swung Donovan out of the coffin. He swayed, steadying himself on me, but didn’t fall. ‘I don’t think, you wanker, I know. You want me to keep spilling my guts? Then you play this my way.’
Captain feigned boredom, affecting the pose with his nails again. ‘Surely you wish to save your own life at your trial? I could ensure we have adequate…prison arrangements, instead of a bonfire. Don’t believe you can threaten me.’
‘Give it a rest,’ I sauntered closer to Captain, which was difficult to do with a Donovan-limpet clutching round my middle like he figured the moment he stopped touching me I’d vanish – puff – into thin air. ‘We both know this is your chance to prove yourself to the rest of the bastards in the Blood Life Council, and you don’t get two of those. You want to risk that because of a game of box your enemy?’
Captain considered me – then Donovan. ‘You have a deal.’ He sidled towards us. ‘I could do with two pets anyway. It’s such a bore how easily that First Lifer boy tires.’ I tightened my arm around Donovan. ‘Into the coffin then. Chop-chop, I haven’t got all day. Take your medicine like a man.’
‘Light, I’m freaking out; I can’t let you do this. You don’t know--’
‘I do.’ I eased Donovan away gently; he was still shaking, but I knew it was for me now - for what I had to do.
There was no way I was letting Captain see me hesitate, however, so I hauled myself up into the coffin.
The coffin was so small I had to hunch to fit. I choked: it stank of antiseptic, like it’d been dowsed in the stuff. Just one more twist of the thumbscrews. Panic clawed at my shocking helplessness. I couldn’t move. Every involuntary twitch of my already cramping muscles knocked me against the cold ebony. My nose would be touching the lid when it shut.
And that image? Of the lid descending and the dark swallowing me up..?
Paled me with terror.
Captain didn’t need chains. He already owned me.
Donovan’s mush – white against the blue of the heavenly ceiling – and then the lid was sliding across.
Nothing.
Nothing but silence, darkness and terror.
And I was lost.
I had no idea. Please believe it was no intention of this inquiry to subject you--
But you did, you are, and I already told you before, remember? You didn’t believe me. What’s different now?
The room you described; I’ve seen it. Captain is more of a delight to be around after he’s spent time there. With you, I assume.
Question is: now you do know – what does it change?
Nothing.
I have my remit, and you have your witness to deliver. We have our arrangement. I will not be distracted by petty details.
Figured.
Because there’s a world of difference between knowing something’s wrong and doing something about it. And even if you do? Deciding what that something is?
That’s the hardest part of all.
I tipped back my nut to stare up at the wild reaches of the night sky and the real stars. Bright, blinding, mine. The wind whipped sharp across my cheeks, stinging them red. I took a drag of my e-cig: turns out no smoking inside means the artificial type as well.
I prowled to the edge of Blake’s flat roof, which was alive with yellow flowers that absorbed the sun’s heat; the flowers were closed now against the moon. I rested my forehead on the laced chain-link: it was meshed into delicate ivy. There was a heart dead centre because doesn’t everything come down to the heart?
Trust Plantagenet to have subverted even the security.
I booted at the fence; the padlock – a gurning monkey mush – shook.
I was beginning to feel we were less honoured guests and more prisoners.
I had a gander down at the courtyard of the beached whale of a mansion, except it was more than a home.
‘Top floor? It’s my hermit-like genius off-limits penthouse.’ Blake had explained with a smug smile. ‘It’s the perfect cover, so you’re safe. There are private lifts down to my garage, swimming pool and gym.’
‘Hear that Light? A gym.’ Sun had dug me in the ribs.
‘This building, however, was designed for my company in seven sections, each a different department. Below here, the future’s decided.’ Blake had ruffled his hand through Plantagenet’s curls.
‘Ever heard of: all work and no play makes Blake a dull boy?’
‘Or very rich.’
‘Point made. So what’s this company all about?’
Blake had stopped – grooming – Plantagenet, instead his fist had tightened, as it twisted; I’d flinched on Plantagenet’s behalf. ‘RE – Revolutionary Evolution. Our strategy? To be seven steps ahead of the trend; our solutions are unique because we base them on evolutionary advancement. How humans are evolving or may evolve. Then we invent: driverless cars, direct neural interfaces, metallic hydrogen… We work with Governments or the private sector. As our company always says: Let’s evolve this!’
‘Anyone would reckon you were after a Nobel.’
Blake had shrugged. ‘A second one? Well, it would always be nice…’
First Lifer workers were still scurrying in and out of the cone-like departments, which were between the concrete ivy-clad plinths.
I wondered if Blake remembered humans slept at night; if Blake remembered he was human.
St. Paul’s was a beacon, hazy in the black; it felt further away than the stars.
When I slammed my fist into the fence, it rattled. Again and again I pounded, until the wire heart was crimson with my blood.
‘Stop acting so screwy and come rest your dogs.’
I twirled round. Lost in my impotent rage, I’d figured myself alone. I was getting sloppy and that meant dead.
Hartford was sprawled amongst the flowers: all cream linen suit and spun gold hair. Yet his expression was more fight them on the beaches, than strawberries and peaches.
I sucked the blood off my knuckles, as I swaggered back and threw myself down next to him. I took a deep vape. ‘What’s all this about then?’
Hartford nodded towards the CCTV cameras, which were perched like eagles on each corner of the security fence. ‘They can’t hear us beating our gums out here; it’s the only place we can talk on the up and up.’
‘I know this whole set-up’s not pukka--’
‘It’s all wet. Blake? He’s feeding us a line of bull. And Plantagenet?’ Hartford’s expression softened, before suddenly hardening. ‘He’s a regular guy, underneath the torturing and visionary leader hooey. But say, mac, there’s only one thing we need to decide: how we’re going to double-cross him.’ I startled. It did me in to see the bitter flash of betrayal in Hartford’s peepers. ‘Not you too,’ he was tearing at a loose thread on his trousers, unravelling it. ‘If you’ve chosen them..?’
‘Bollocks have I,’ I grasped Hartford’s destructive hand between mine, saving his new suit: he was cool and trembling, ‘but there are other ways--’
‘Dry up. What are they doing right now to Donovan? We already know what humans can do; these are Blood Lifers--’
‘First or Blood Life: it’s all the same.’
Hartford snatched back his hand from mine. ‘Then let’s blow this joint and--’
‘Betray Plantagenet? That easy, is it?
‘And how!’
I seized Hartford’s arm, as he turned to rise.
Mistake.
Hartford swung me up dangling into the air and then – slam – down again, crushing the yellow flowers.
‘Bloody well won’t be,’ I choked out, ‘I know I said turn your grief to rage but I was wrong. Turn it to strength because we need to plan a caper, proper-like. Don’t be a pillock.’
I held my breath. If Hartford wanted to go rogue?
The Renegades would have a genuine renegade after them.
At last, Hartford grinned, as he took my hand. ‘I can ab-so-lute-ski not be a pillock. For you.’
I took a shufti at our joined hands, trying not to miss the neon green snake of my bracelet. ‘Hold on, I promise, just hold on.’
I’d left Hartford out on that wind whipped roof, flat on his back with his nut cushioned on his arms in his flowery bed. He’d escaped into the map of stars, adventuring beyond our concrete and steel prison.
I didn’t blame him.
When I’d prowled down the biscuit corridors on the hunt for Sun, however, I soon realised I was the dim prat who was being hunted.
There was a shuffle style scampering behind me.
Slam.
A door on the right.
I sniffed: not First Lifer, nor Blood. But predator…every nerve screamed it.
A good barney would set me straight, yet the hairs on my neck were rising, as if I was in some poncey B-movie; I’d never been hunted like buffalo before.
Shuffle scamper. Slam.
Shuffle scamper. Slam.
The – thing - zigzagged across the corridor behind me.
Every time I twirled round, however, it’d hidden in another room, and there were only expanses of charcoal walls and doors stretching away, as if I was in The Shining.
I gulped.
We choose to be either predator or prey. That’s the truth of it. I used to reckon it was God or our DNA, which birthrighted the glory or the shame.
But that was the bollocks.
We shift between the two, and right now? Fear had transformed me into prey.
So I ran.
Behind me I heard a loping scamper. A banshee scream.
I skidded round the corner to the ranks of pristine lifts. Brains beat…everything.
I smirked: go evolution.
Still, I couldn’t stop myself pressing the underground garage button – press, press, press – frenziedly. As the steel doors clanged shut, I caught a glimpse of bristling black hair, yellow canines and a pink whiskery mush, which grimaced in infuriated rage at losing its prey.
I’d like to see any animal work out a lift.
When the doors pinged open, my heart was rapidly beating, and I was sweating. I hadn’t got a hold of this being the prey lark.
‘Still traumatized by enclosed spaces, Light?’ Blake was leaning in inky black V-neck and trousers, against a BMW i8.
I attempted to swagger out of the lift but with legs like jelly..?
I didn’t even convince myself.
Then I heard a ping behind me.
It couldn’t be..?
Shuffle scamper…shuffle scamper…shuffle scamper…
That was sodding it: no more being the prey.
I spun round to face my tormentor.
A monkey.
A bleeding monkey.
He was now on all fours, with beady black peepers gazing up at me in cutest chimp at the tea party mode. No fangs or shrieking. Then he held out his disturbingly human pink hand.
‘Clear off!’ I pointed at the chimp. ‘This…primate is a bully.’
‘Nonsense. Shake Mr Darwin’s hand.’
‘Seriously? That’s what you went with?’ I sighed. ‘Don’t you dare bite me, you menace.’
I edged closer, taking Mr Darwin’s hot rubbery hand in mine. When Mr Darwin squeezed so tightly my knuckles popped, I hollered.
‘Mr Darwin, stop.’
At Blake’s sharp command, Mr Darwin let go. It was disturbingly like Plantagenet’s obedience; it made me wonder whether Blake had used the same training methods.
‘You taught him to use the lift?’
‘Just a party trick. He has a special one, as well as opposable thumbs. Plus opposable toes, which in some ways makes him better adapted than we are.’
‘Only if I’m figuring on hanging around in trees. And I’m not.’
Nursing my swollen hand, I glared at the smug bastard, as Blake wandered between his sweet shop of luxury cars: Bentleys, Porsche 959 Coupe and an obligatory Rolls Royce Phantom. Of course the tosser also had a Ferrari: yellow because red ones are for the try-hards. Yellow are for flashy pillocks who truly do have it all.
Blake stroked his hand over the cars’ bonnets; I reckoned he was only a whisper away from whisking his todger out and piddling over them to mark them. I wondered if he’d done that to Plantagenet… Then I shook my nut to dispel the image.
I frowned when I realised I was trotting after Blake in his shadow, just like Mr Darwin. I stood still, thrusting my hands in my pockets, but Mr Darwin continued to knuckle-walk his way after his…friend, owner, master..?
Mr Darwin was making these pant-grunts, holding his nut low.
Blake paused by a neon green McLaren F1, which was like a futuristic beast, standing with his hands on his hips, as if an Emperor awaiting tribute.
Mr Darwin squeaked, before crouching and presenting his rump.
Well, I guess it was a monkey tribute…and it was clear who was alpha in this troop.
At last, Blake grinned. ‘Come on then, you.’
Mr Darwin turned and – God’s honest truth – signed something furiously with his little fingers, before grunting softly and launching himself into Blake’s powerful arms.
Blake cradled the monkey, as Mr Darwin clung around his neck.
‘What’s with all the..?’ I gestured with my hands.
Blake sat on the McLaren’s bonnet – bloody sacrilege.
‘American sign language.’
‘You’re taking the mick.’
Mr Darwin gestured up and down in what looked suspiciously like a rude gesture.
‘Did he just..?’
When Blake signed back, Mr Darwin clutched more tightly to him, as he howled with what sounded like laughter.
‘Why do I get the feeling you two are making a monkey out of me?’
Blake’s expression was stern and impossible to read. ‘No speciesism, please.’
Under the garage’s artificial lights, I shifted awkwardly. No one likes to be called out on being a…what now?
I nodded towards Mr Darwin. ‘That bastard was hunting me.’
Blake stiffened. ‘You’re mistaken.’
‘Not a chance.’
Blake stood. Slow and deliberate. Like everything he did it was measured and had an impact.
When he strolled towards me – his rich man’s night black costume against my true rebel’s leather skin – I had to remind myself at every step that I was the Blood Lifer.
Blake pressed so close, I could feel Mr Darwin’s heat and smell his cabbage stench. Mr Darwin’s lips were bunched back; his teeth a furious yellow.
Blake towered over me: he was tall, just like Sun. ‘Let me make something clear. I do not make mistakes, and the people at RE - in my life - do not question.’
‘More fool them.’
Blake leaned even closer. ‘How do I know Mr Darwin wasn’t hunting you? Because if he had been? He’d have killed you and he’d have eaten you. He knows better than to eat my guests though, don’t you, Mr Darwin?’
Mr Darwin grunted: the picture of innocence.
The hairy wanker.
‘Even wild animals can be tamed. Trained. Mr Darwin’s mum died, when I was a kid, in what’s now the Republic of Congo. I was out there with my dad, who was running a study into primates. Now there was a great man. Mr Darwin was…depressed. He wouldn’t eat or play, so my dad gave him to me. We raised each other.’
‘I can tell.’
Blake’s smile didn’t reach his pale peepers. ‘Chimps? They have cultures just like humans – and Blood Lifers. They adapt to environments and to survive. They’re bright with abstract thought and memories. Does that not fascinate you, when you have such talents yourself?’
‘Simply like to know I’ll survive mostly.’
Blake laughed. ‘Follow me; I’ve something to show you.’
Just like Mr Darwin had, I trailed at Blake’s shoulder, this time to the back of the garage.
By all that was holy, no…it was sacrilege.
A white striped travesty, as if some berk had stolen my best memory (Kathy blasting her way through ‘60s London in her little red number and saving me from the sun), buggered it, and then stuck a British flag on top.
All in the name of reinvention.
I glared at the new Mini; it glared back.
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’
‘You’re off your trolley.’
Blake looked thoughtful, as he did his heavy pace forward trick. I wasn’t stepping backwards this time.
Sod it, listen to me feet.
‘Evolution: even in cars. Retaining the original DNA but making it better. That’s what RE strives for, and it’s what you are.’
‘You know,’ this time I took a step forward – good feet, ‘you haven’t a clue what I am.’
Blake assessed me, which was bleeding disturbing with Mr Darwin’s nut right next to his, giving me the once over too. ‘Maybe not or maybe we’ll all find that out together. Anyhow,’ he rapped the Mini’s nose, ‘this is Plantagenet’s. It was my gift to him.’
‘Of course it was. Because it’s hard to buy for, right? That occasion: I chose you as a sex slave and now I realise I’m a big fat guilty prat. So…Mini. Why not?’
‘Do you have any idea what I’d do to Plantagenet if he spoke to me like that?’
‘Unluckily for you? Yeah, I do.’
Blake pressed his left hand to his brow. Blinding – I was giving him a headache.
There was a flash of silver; Blake’s ring (twin to Plantagenet’s), caught the garage’s light.
‘Are you a slave too? Or married?’
‘Both. You have a narrow view of love. When Plantagenet and your website educated me to the truth? I wouldn’t have him wear the S.L.A.V.E ring, but he’s still mine.’
‘That right?’
‘Of course,’ Blake arched a brow, ‘isn’t Sun yours?’
That was different. Wasn’t it?
I satisfied myself by shrugging.
‘I’m also Plantagenet’s, however, more completely than I imagined two creatures ever could be. In fact, before Plantagenet, I needed no one. These rings are bio: made from extracts of bone cells seeded and combined with silver. They’re unique. This one?’ Blake held up his finger, and I was spectre-chilled. ‘Is Plantagenet. He wears me too at all times; I’m always with him.’
‘This bone extract? How’d you get that then?’
I wished I didn’t have to ask. I've written the…memoir…on obsessive love. I knew about needing someone, whilst being consumed by love’s blaze. But this possessive control frightened me because its shackles were as small as a pretty ring, but were as powerful as any chain.
‘Wisdom tooth.’
‘And for Plantagenet?’
‘Fangs, obviously. He has them removed anyway, when he has his venom drained. He sleeps through it regularly like a baby. Which reminds me, when shall we schedule your procedure?’
That was it: no more holding on to plan a caper. Now it would be me acting the pillock because no bastard was ever taking my fangs again.
And this First Lifer? He’d stolen Plantagenet’s fangs? He was still stealing them?
My fangs shot out – take that, you git, this is what a real Blood Lifer looks like – and dived at Blake.
Shocked, it was Blake’s turn to stumble backwards. When I clocked him across the jaw, he let out a nancy yip – and landed on his arse.
Scream…
Suddenly I had a mush full of enraged chimp. Mr Darwin clamped his long arms and legs around me, shrieking and barking. Then he opened his mouth wide and sank his teeth into my neck.
‘Buggering hell…’
It wasn’t like a bite from another Blood Lifer: a mind-blowing pain-pleasure. This was jagged, tearing agony.
I scrabbled at Mr Darwin’s hairy back, before slamming myself backwards and crushing him against the bonnet.
Mr Darwin was heavy and powerful. How had Blake made him appear like a kid? His weight crashed me sideways over a motorbike, which was covered in a dustsheet. In my crazy thrashing, the sheet rose up, revealing a 350cc scarlet Triton.
Still staggering under Mr Darwin, I gawped at my bloody god.
‘Don’t thank me,’ Blake offered, as if I’d been just about to, ‘Hartford was droning on about it – between the screaming. Almost as much as about Donovan and your abductions; I couldn’t get him to shut up.’
My peepers pricked with wet.
Mr Darwin bit harder; I spun round in a wild circle.
Blake was probing his tender jaw, as he watched the battle with cool amusement.
Sod. Him.
I stood still. Simply stood there, whilst that primate prat chomped on me. My blood was soaking my t-shirt sticky to my chest. I didn’t drop my gaze.
Blake clapped lazily.
Smug prick.
‘Mr Darwin, stop.’
Instantly the monkey let go, his lips smeared crimson, before shuffle scampering to Blake’s feet. ‘It’s all about submitting. Anyone can be trained. Even you.’
‘One day,’ I pressed my hands tightly to the teeth marks, as the scarlet oozed between them, ‘your security, guard dog Plantagenet and bodyguard monkey? They won’t be around. And on that day? You’ll be dead.’
A blood packet, followed by a quick wash and brush up in the green glowing bath and I was feeling more – myself – again and ready for a good kip.
At least Blake had decent sheets.
When…shuffle, scamper, shuffle, scamper…
I tucked the white towel (fluffiest I’d ever dried my arse with), closer around my body, as I edged into the bedroom. ‘Mr Darwin?’
I wiped my wet hair back.
Now wasn’t that taking the biscuit..?
A pink mush with whiskers was lying on the plush pillows, with white silk sheets pulled up to his large ears.
On my side of the bed.
‘I don’t think so. On your bike,’ I stomped over, dragging off the sheets. I pointed to the floor, ‘Out.’
Mr Darwin stared up at me – butter wouldn’t melt.
‘Your act’s not going to work on me.’
All I saw were lips bunched in a terrifying scowl, before Mr Darwin was launching himself at me, and I was rolling to the side, losing the towel and all pretence at modesty.
‘Bully!’ I accused, as Mr Darwin wrenched off the steel base of a petal bedside light, before charging at me with it. I jumped onto the bed – not retreating mind – whilst Mr Darwin screamed, slapping his hands and stamping his feet.
Then I watched, shocked, as he dropped the bedside light, staggering instead to the black vase of skeletal flowers. There was a brief stand-off.
I slipped slowly off the bed. ‘Good monkey, now don’t…’
Mr Darwin picked up the vase, before holding it above his nut.
Of course he did.
I bared my fangs at him, but he wasn’t scared. In fact, it only seemed to nark him off.
I only just made it to the bathroom, before – crash – there went the first vase.
Crash – there went the second.
When I peeked out an hour later?
Mr Darwin was asleep in my bed with his long arm slung over Sun.
Sighing, I picked my way around the shards of priceless ceramic, settling down to sleep on the floor, draping the towel over me, as if to hide my shame.
The next evening I groaned stiffly and stretched.
Bloody hell, had I pissed off Sun again?
Then I remembered why I was on the floor: Mr Darwin.
I shot up.
The bed was empty.
Relaxing, I padded into the bathroom. ‘Alright?’
Mr Darwin grunted but didn’t look up from grooming himself in the stainless steel mirror above the ghost double basin.
I ran my fingers though my pompadour; it needed some attention from the Brylcreem fairy. Even here, however, the chimp had me beat.
What did I say about too many alphas?
I turned on my heel back into the bedroom, dragging on my threads – still no shoes or socks – and went exploring.
Plantagenet and Blake only told us what they wanted us to know. Family? Love? Or their version of it?
It wasn’t what I’d learnt, built or needed.
It was intense and dangerous. Yet here’s the thing: I’ve always been attracted to the flames. That moment when the voice inside whispers to throw yourself on the bonfire, until you’re consumed Guy-like?
For the first time, however, I’d found something different with Hartford and Donovan. I’d reckoned with Sun too.
Sun had always loved pretty playthings though, and the Renegades could offer a world, in which I didn’t even believe.
Love – sometimes it truly isn’t enough.
And that bleeding hurts.
Steely piano notes rattled out of the lounge like blues on a business schedule: straightjacketed into the refined neatness of classical perfection. “Rhapsody in Blue” evolved to the robotic.
I stalked into the shadows, pressing closer to the bladdered blokes wallpaper.
The albino Steinway shuddered under the onslaught. I slid over to the Victorian tiled mantelpiece: a black vase stood stark at its centre, which was scarred by cracks like branching veins.
Blake.
No security, Plantagenet or monkey bodyguard.
Blake was still playing, building to a clinically cold climax. He hadn’t even glanced up.
I silently edged closer.
Blake raised his fingers off the keys. ‘Most people request an encore.’
I stiffened, before sniffing. ‘Hartford plays it better.’
Blake’s cheeks flushed, as his hands clenched, before he pointed significantly behind my nut at the CCTV camera and pressed the outline of a Blackberry in the pocket of his purple suit. So that was security then… ‘You don’t like me. In fact, you hate me; Hartford does too. You think that’s new to me? Being hated? I’ve been hated or ignored most of my life. Question is: do you think I care?’
‘Wild stab in the dark here: you don’t?’ Blake gave a sharp, shark smile. I fiddled with the fractured vase, spinning it until the cracks were like holes in the universe. ‘You might’ve broken this, mate.’
Blake’s smile widened to a grin. ‘I smashed it, right where you’re standing now. As hard as I could because it was mine to break. I see it up there every day, remade by my hand: a reminder of that violence and that it’s mine.’
I gave him a long look, as I balanced the vase on my palm. ‘Whatever gets you off.’
Blake shrugged one large shoulder. ‘Now you’re getting it.’
‘Well, cheers for the rescue from the lab, but I reckon we’ll be off. Stuff to do and that.’ I started to sidle backwards.
I could no longer hide my family in the shadows. There were no shadows left. No safety unless we acted. Here with Blake, however, we were prisoners in luxury, whilst the true nasties of the world – pure death and the Blood Life Council – were still out there.
The Renegades with their puppetmaster Blake were so radical they were missing the big bloody picture.
Freedom fighters?
Wankers more like.
‘Leaving us?’ Blake slowly stood. My heart beat faster, as he carefully closed the piano.
‘I’d say it’d been fun but…’
‘Back to that slum? Strip joint? Abductions and being used as lab rats?’
‘It’s not all so glamorous.’
‘Plantagenet doesn’t believe you’re ready to head a family yet, and frankly? Neither do I.’
A hot flood of fury and humiliation prickled me pink.
I opened my hand; the vase tottered and – smash. ‘Whoops.’ Let’s see him glue it back together a second time. A muscle on Blake’s cheek twitched. ‘Wonder what that symbolises now?’
‘How about,’ Blake strolled towards me, his hands casually in his pockets, but I could see they were curled into fists, ‘are you sure your family would even leave with you?’
I stared down at the black shards, trying not to think about Sun nuzzling at Blake’s scarlet arm and sucking at the gash, as she lost herself in the stars. The way she fit: two sets of shoes next to each other on the silk sheets. ‘Anyway, with my company’s abilities, I don’t need to keep anyone against their will; we can track you from here. This is a prison without bars. So go where you like, but I thought you wanted our help with Donovan? Because if you do this? Go it alone and break up the Renegades, along with this family? Just know you’ll also be breaking Plantagenet.’
‘What are you on about?’
‘I could’ve killed you any time I wanted.’ I dodged back, as Blake paced towards me like a black panther. ‘Hartford too. Do you have any idea, however, how desperate Plantagenet has been to find you? Since he saw you on that website? How frantic to save you? Not to mention the time, cost and resources I sank into the rescue at the lab. It was worth it though, to see Plantagenet’s joy. A family, you see, is all he’s ever wanted. If you knew him – bothered to – then you’d understand. Hate me but love Plantagenet.’
Confused, I nodded.
Controlling, self-destructive and obsessive as it was – Blake’s love was real.
Still, I couldn’t help feeling like another gift, frilly in ribbons and expensively boxed, guilt-delivered to Plantagenet to top even the Mini.
Blake threw himself down onto the rubber hosepipe chair, his leg across the arm: the picture of ease. I was better at reading him, however, and that muscle in his cheek was still twitching. ‘If you’re staying? There’s a mission on tonight to liberate a slave. Plantagenet’s leading it and he’s asked you along. I don’t need to tell you what it’d mean to him…or maybe I do?’
My blood was instantly racing…roaring…rushing. The air was alive with orange flames and the stink of melted flesh and ashes. I fidgeted, fresh to be out, free and on the hunt. Slavers were my prey. ‘So this is what you do? Plan capers to rescue Blood Lifer slaves? All for Plantagenet?’
‘He needs this. It’s like a new family for him.’
‘And you’re looking out for him? Touching.’
‘Of course,’ Blake leant forward, ‘this slave? Actually is family: the Plantagenet bloodline. His elected, the same as your Author: Ruby.’ Blake wiped his large hands dismissively down his thighs. ‘I told Plantagenet he should leave her where she is; she’s…mentally unstable. Then there’s the small matter that she’s betrayed him once already. But family is family to Plantagenet, so I’m allowing him this indulgence. I do always prefer to look to the future; maybe our family should leave the past in the past.’
I saw Plantagenet’s peepers, all fire and fervour in the dark, as we crouched either side of the panelled Jacobean door.
Plantagenet held up his gloved hand. ‘One…two…three…’
Then it was like an explosion lit up the night – bang.
The door splintered; Plantagenet sprang through it, and I was at his shoulder. First Lifers with guns (because God help us if Plantagenet were allowed out alone), were hollering: stay down, stay down. An old bloke (minister of something or other), was squealing: this starkers flabby prat with a comb-over.
Mr Minister was gibbering, as Blake’s team handcuffed him and hauled him out of the richly tapestried four-poster bed. The log fire spat and crackled, casting long shadows dancing across the walls; it smelled like nutmeg.
‘Sweetums, call MI5. Call… Don’t hurt her… She’s not… She’s no one…’
‘Fie, sir! I most surely am. And look – my family come avisiting.’ Mesmerised, I watched the Blood Lifer – my new family – stalk starkers on all fours to the end of the bed, her ivory Bristols swinging. A string of diamonds, like burning stars, was fierce around her neck.
‘F-f-f-family, sweetums?’ Mr Minister gawked between us. Uneasy, I was unsure who was truly the slave.
‘Take the most wicked man outside,’ Plantagenet stepped back to allow the First Lifers to drag the confused Mr Minister out and down the stairs.
The bird was still scrutinizing us, as if she was about to pounce; her blonde sweep of hair was like a Godiva. She was a beauty, like Ruby, but there was something off about her.
Was she one of those Blood Lifers who hadn’t survived election? Or had she been touched before Plantagenet had even chosen her?
When her gaze swung to Plantagenet, I had the unexpected urge to step in front of him.
‘How now? Where have you been? I’m just saying…’ Then she gave a bright, false smile, which twisted my guts.
‘It is merrily met, my dear child. Please, clothe yourself. We have business.’ Plantagenet pointedly turned his back.
No licking, sniffing or snogging for her. No gentle intimacy or well-beloved. Just business.
Even if I knew how hard that must be for Plantagenet, he had to have a sodding good reason - and I wouldn’t forget it.
As I turned away too, I clocked her expression: pained hurt but also a dangerous rage.
Plantagenet and I had ridden down to the caper in the back of a blacked out jeep. Plantagenet had been like a kid on Christmas morning. His slender fingers had wound round mine and for once, I hadn’t been the only one bouncing up and down in my seat; I’d been buzzed for the barney, but for Plantagenet I’d reckoned it was the freedom.
‘If this skirt is such a back-stabbing bitch…’ When Plantagenet’s fingers had crushed mine, I’d grimaced. ‘Blake’s words; not mine.’ Plantagenet’s grip had loosened, as he’d stroked my bruised hand contritely. ‘Then why the white horse business? Let her get hung.’
‘Mother’s a slave,’ Plantagenet’s voice had been very low, ‘I know what it is to be captured, enslaved and defanged.’
Plantagenet had been so subdued, I’d wished to tell him: same here.
Plantagenet didn’t know what it was to be a true slave, however, not like Hartford and me.
Or did he?
‘Mother is also family.’
Christ in heaven – now we sounded alike.
‘Mother? Not going to tell me you came over all nancy and authored your mama?’
Plantagenet laughed this full belly laugh, as he slapped my knee. ‘You jest! Mother named herself that because… Well, such is her tale, not mine. Although she is a witch…whore…traitor…’
‘I get the idea.’
‘She may be all but she’s also my elected. I’ve been kept from my family. Held in the dark…it’s no matter how or why. Only that in First Life I was a bastard. You were an orphan, were you not?’
I nodded, avoiding his eye.
Plantagenet gripped my chin, however, as he had when we’d first yakked in the penthouse, forcing me to meet his suddenly serious gaze. ‘In faith to be different is a hard path. My father was a king, but my mother was the daughter of an Italian painter; she was the jewel of the Court. The fame of her beauty was both much spoken of and envied. Edward the Third plucked that rose.’ Plantagenet’s fingers had trembled, before he’d steadied himself. In the rumbling shadows of that moving jeep, we could’ve been the only two blokes left on earth. ‘I was raised on an Estate away from Court. Away from my mother, father, brothers and sisters. I was a shameful secret: the bastard. The servants who weren’t thrashing or mocking me as weak and feeble issue, branded me with that name.
‘Later, when my Author freed me to Blood Life, I watched as civil wars tore my family apart, and one by one they were executed for treasonable and wicked deeds. I learned then that my mother had begged for my seclusion because illegitimate or not? I had a claim on the Crown, and the brothers and sisters who I’d longed many piteous summers spent alone to play knights with in the sunshine, to ensure their own claim, would indeed have murdered me.’ Plantagenet had licked along my lips, resting his forehead against mine, as if for comfort – touch – nothing more. He’d tasted of oranges and – bugger it – family. I could fight it, but it was stronger than it’d been with Ruby, even though she’d been like breathing to me for over a century. ‘The world rejected me, and so I rejected the world. I forged a new family, even after my Author burned to save me. Because what is a good thing to a man if he has all the worldly wealth and power but not love?’
A rustle behind me.
I jumped when a delicate hand touched my shoulder. ‘What’s the sitch, bitches?’
I carefully eased away from Mother’s hand.
Mother looked like a Californian Valley girl: tight gold trousers and pearly halterneck. Her diamonds were still sharp around her snowy neck. She’d slipped her highlighted hair up into a loose clip.
No chance she wasn’t in charge of that poor old pillock’s credit card.
Plantagenet turned without a word.
I shrugged, swaggering at his heels down the wide wooden staircase, under the sombre gaze of Mr Minister’s framed ancestors. Mother clattered after us on her gold leather kitten heels.
At the base of the staircase, Mother’s cool arms wound round my waist, her fingers wank-wandering, as she licked down my throat. Then she hissed, so close to my skin, I could feel her fangs, ‘We are forced to woo because none dare woo us.’
Before I could react, she was shoved backwards against the wall panelling; Plantagenet’s arm was across her throat. ‘Light is not yours to… By this hand, you will not bite.’
Mother laughed: high and delighted.
I shuddered.
‘But he’s so bomb,’ Mother pouted, ‘and he’s family; I can taste it.’
Plantagenet pushed away from her. Gently, he stroked down her cheek; she leant into his touch. ‘Things are not as they were; you cannot simply take. We are all of us changed.’
‘By my Soul,’ Mother gave a robotic tilt of her nut, which was as disconcerting as her shifts in speech, as if she couldn’t remember what time period she was in – slipping into past lives and roles, ‘you have no fangs.’
Plantagenet reddened, his shoulders hunching.
Blake had been right: she was a back-stabbing bitch.
Mother smiled - vicious and victorious - as she stroked his pink cheek. Plantagenet didn’t lean into her touch, however, in fact he shrank away, as if she was poison. ‘Why do you look so melancholy? I am here now. Foolish man to think you did not need me; I am your creature, as you are mine. Now, let’s go kill the kinky minister. I’m so psyched for this!’
Plantagenet finally grinned, before taking Mother’s hand like he’d taken mine.
They twirled each other round, as they danced out into the courtyard garden, like I’d once danced with Ruby in the carnage and the flames – a kid let loose in the world. No conscience or battle for redemption. Nothing forcing me to grow up and face an adult world beyond my own will, wants and delights.
Together? A fanatical Magnificoe and his wicked witch?
The First Lifers didn’t stand a chance.
Frowning, I prowled after them.
The courtyard was in front of a yew tree maze, which stretched labyrinthine into the dark behind the Jacobean mansion. Mr Minister – starkers, shivering and shackled – was on his knees, sacrificial in the centre of the courtyard. The stars above were blindfolded by cloud. The First Lifers in black with the guns were pressed against the red brick walls. Basil, mint and thyme from the raised beds washed me back to Abona and my servitude.
The scent strengthened my prowl.
When Mr Minister took a gander at us, the sobbing started. Then he pissed himself.
Plantagenet’s mush was oddly blank again, as we stood ranked in front of the First Lifer. ‘You are accused of the most wicked deeds against Blood Lifers--’
‘I never hurt Mother. Never. Ask her. I’ve treated her like a princess.’
I took a shufti at Mother; Mr Minister hadn’t used a slave name. I’d been reduced to shadow, yet he’d used her true name.
I half-expected Mother to jump to his defence, but she only gripped tighter onto Plantagenet’s hand, as if for protection from some terrifying sultan.
‘As high heaven is my witness, you shall pay: in this life and I am certain in the next. I give you one chance to make peace with your maker. The sentence is death.’
‘Please, please, please…’
Mother waved, giving that false smile of hers, ‘See ya.’
And I saw it. The deep – genuine – agony in Mr Minister’s peepers: of a bloke who’d been played.
Just like we were being.
Suddenly I knew all this – the First Lifers with guns, the execution-style killing, Mother’s gloating mush – was wrong.
Hartford, Donovan and me, we’d taken out the Blood Club crimson on the Isle of Man, but that’d been fangs and fists in the red-hot heat of battle. In the saving of our species from slavery all or nothing desperation.
But this was more like…
‘Mother? Do you wish..?’
‘Wait,’ I held out my hand, knowing I couldn’t stop them but having to say something.
It was too late.
Mother gripped Mr Minister’s nut, screwed it round like the cap of a bottle, and then pulled – plop. When she tore it off, his lips were still wetly begging.
Mother hurled his nut next to his twitching body, which toppled slowly forward.
I heard one of the First Lifers hurl into the herb bed.
‘The devil rot him,’ Mother spat on Mr Minister’s wrinkled back.
A burgundy pool puddled out of the headless neck. I was sickened at the urge to fall to my knees and lap every wasted – precious – drop.
Breaking abstention? Drinking human blood? Simulated skin?
Unleash a Blood Lifer and the predator will find a way to come out and play.
Plantagenet knelt down, dipping his finger into the blood. Then he spelt out, as if it was paint, onto the courtyard floor: RENEGADES.
Point made.
Plantagenet slipped his arm around my shoulder. His smile was mischievous. Mother snuggled on his other side – and he let her. ‘Watch now.’
I had a butchers back at the red-brick mansion, which was above the sweep of steps.
Bang.
Plantagenet laughed, as I startled.
Whoosh.
Red flames dragon-like flew up into the silence of the night. There was the shatter of windows imploding. The smash of centuries-old walls falling in on themselves. The roar of panelled walls and that posh staircase turned to crackling, as ash billowed into the stormy sky.
I’d seen it before on Mann. I’d been the cause.
I’ve never been frightened of the flames. Yet this time..?
The slavers hadn’t a scooby what they’d unleashed from the shadows – in all of us.
Now I knew what this was more like – what we were – and it wasn’t freedom fighters.
It was terrorists.