by Lily Luchesi
The way it was standing, their bullets would be unable to hit its heart.
“We need to draw it out, get it to rear up on hind legs,” Mr. Quinn said. “I will be the bait this time. And you’ll owe me.” He gave a sly smile before quickly moving to the left. “Here, you bloody sick monster. Come on. Wouldn’t you like to taste me?”
Even amidst his fear, Finnigan thought, Yes, I would.
The wolf might not have been able to understand the words being spoken, but it was plain to see that it knew it was seeing easy prey. However, it did not rear up like Mr. Quinn had predicted. It pounced instead, sending the thin man flying into the pile of gore that was once a human named Francis. Finnigan watched in horror and then it hit him: he needed to save him!
He fired two bullets, but only hit the wolf in the side. It snarled, turning fully towards him. Finnigan ducked, and felt hot drool dripping down his head, but better saliva than blood. He kept his mouth decidedly closed, knowing now that saliva was how they infected their victims.
The wolf was tearing his bowler hat in its fangs and it charged at Finnigan again, and the doctor fell back, his arm being sliced with a loose stone in the ground. He groaned in pain, but this was the perfect angle for a shot at the heart of the beast.
Raising his aching and bloody arm, he fired two shots, hitting his mark.
As he struggled to stand, he felt strong hands help him up.
“Brilliant work, Doctor,” Mr. Quinn said admirably. “You were in the Army or were taught by someone who was. That is quite a precise shot.”
Finnigan nodded. “My father was in the Army. Are you all right, Mr. Quinn?”
“As well as to be expected. Linwood should be on his way. Come, I live right up that avenue. We can get you cleaned up,” Mr. Quinn offered. “We must be quick, or else we’ll be spotted looking like this.” He gestured at the blood that coated both men’s bodies.
Dr. Finnigan nodded and they took off down the darkened cobblestone street, lest people see them wearing torn garments while covered in blood and think the worst. While they ran, Finnigan began to laugh. Quinn looked back at him, saw his laughter and also began to smile, and then laugh as he ran.
Eventually they reached a modest grey building, and Quinn had to struggle to get his key in the lock due to his laughter. Neither man even knew what exactly they were laughing about, just that something about running around London in the small hours of the morning covered in sticky werewolf blood was somehow humorous.
He did manage to get the door open, and after Finnigan shut it behind them, they both collapsed against the wall in another fit of laughter. The type of laughter that shakes you, makes your eyes tear, and wakens something in your very spirit.
“Ah, I can’t catch my breath,” Quinn gasped. “What exactly is it we’re laughing about?”
Finnigan burst into another peal of giggles. “I’ve no idea!”
They barely stopped their mirth when there was footsteps on the staircase. A middle-aged woman appeared, looking as if she had just woken up. Knowing what time it was, Finnigan figured that she had.
“Mr. Quinn, is everything all right? Who is this?” she asked.
He waved a hand. “I am perfectly fine, Mrs. Ludlow. I do apologize for waking you. Dr. Finnigan, this is my proprietor. Her late husband was the one who got my brother and I into this life, after my parents were killed.”
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Ludlow. I’d tip my hat, but I’m afraid a werewolf ate it,” Finnigan said, making Mr. Quinn laugh again.
“That blood isn’t yours, is it?” Mrs. Ludlow asked, concerned.
“No, no. I am perfectly fine, just a small cut on my arm,” he assured her.
“Mrs. Ludlow, we need to go and clean up. Please, go back to sleep. We’ll be quiet, I assure you.” Mr. Quinn bid her goodnight and led Dr. Finnigan up to his flat, which was very nice, but a bit disorganized. Apparently hunting monsters left little time to clean.
“Discard your clothes. They’ll never be able to be cleaned,” Mr. Quinn said. “You need to have plenty of spare garments in this life. It often gets messy.”
Feeling more than embarrassed and extremely self-conscious, Finnigan stripped down to his underclothes, which had mercifully escaped the blood splatter. Mr. Quinn unceremoniously tossed him a black robe to put on, but didn’t allow him to don it.
“Let me look at that injury on your arm.” He beckoned for Finnigan to sit on his divan and the doctor rolled up his sleeve, seeing a shallow, but still bleeding slice caused by the werewolf’s claws. “Ah, nothing to worry about. I’ll get some whiskey and a cloth to cover it.”
“I’m the doctor here, Mr. Quinn. I’ll take care of it,” Finnigan protested.
“Nonsense. You can’t cover your own wound properly. I know— I’ve tried.” He sat next to him with a bottle and a clean rag. “And please, you can call me Benjamin. Ben is also fine, but in moderation.” He smiled fleetingly before he began to dress Finnigan’s wound.
“And you may call me Michael,” he said, wincing at the pain. “You know, I can’t remember the last time I felt so alive as I did tonight. Thank you.”
Benjamin didn’t respond, just continued dressing the wound. “I know about you. There was talk when you opened your practice.”
“Talk?” Michael’s face felt hot, and his stomach rolled. In Whitby, where he’d come from, he had made a very big mistake, one that almost cost him his freedom. He had very nearly been executed for his “crime”, but he had managed to dodge all charges and move to London to start a new life, one where people did not look at him as if he were some diseased, perverted creature. If word got out about his past, he would be ruined.
“Yes, talk,” Benjamin said, knotting the tourniquet. “About how strange it was that you up and left a very promising practice to come to London without warning. I asked the constable to send a letter to Whitby, inquiring about your past.”
“Why the Hell would you do a thing like that?” Michael cried, suddenly not caring about propriety. “You didn’t even know who I was! Do you know that you could ruin me, here and now, when I did nothing wrong?”
“I was intrigued by you for quite some time, from the moment I laid eyes on you. And in the eyes of the state, you did something very wrong,” Benjamin commented. “It was a wonder you escaped charges. Is it true, what you did?”
Michael jumped off the sofa, his face aflame and his heart racing. “As if I would ever admit to an illegal act to a man who works so closely with the constable!”
“Oh, calm yourself. You’re being very irrational, you know. Why do you think I’d give you up to the guards?” Benjamin wondered.
“Because…” For the life of him, Michael couldn’t think of a single reason aside from the fact that what he had done— what he was —was illegal.
Benjamin leaned back against the cushions. “Come and sit back down, Doctor. I assure you I have no intention of going to Parliament over such a trivial matter. And aside, where would you go in only a robe and underclothes? You’d surely be picked up on indecent exposure charges!”
“Trivial? There is nothing trivial about what happened to me, and what has happened to so many others before me!”
Benjamin sighed. “For the love of everything rational, sit down. You’re quite an excitable fellow, aren’t you?” When Michael still didn’t sit, Benjamin gripped his wrist and tugged him down.
To say Michael was surprised at his forcefulness is nothing compared to how he felt when he realised where he landed: in Benjamin’s warm lap! He scrambled to get up, his head at war with his body. His head knew it was wrong, but his body only knew the pleasure of being so close to a man as physically stunning as Benjamin.
Ben was quite strong, and Michael’s struggles proved fruitless. He was not going anywhere. Ben’s arm snaked around his waist, holding him close, while his other hand entangled itself in his dark blond hair.
“Don’t you want to know why I asked about you?” he asked, his voice low
in his throat.
“W-why?” Michael asked. He felt his heart pounding, and he also felt his blood rushing downwards. Not good. Were Ben to feel that, there was a chance he’d kill him.
“Because you intrigued me. You still do, Doctor.” With that, Michael was nearly helpless as Benjamin gripped the back of his head, tugging on the short strands of hair, and pulled him down to crush his impossibly full lips on his.
Michael’s emotions went from startled to aroused in a matter of seconds as he tasted the salt on Benjamin’s lips, inhaled his scent of whiskey and gunpowder, and folded himself into his embrace with no more resistance. Ben pulled him closer, his arms becoming a most welcome prison.
Michael caressed Ben’s cool cheek, running his fingers over his cheekbone before caressing his throat. His other hand weaved in his dark curls, feeling their softness in his palm. Ben’s hands gripped his hips and held him closer, so that Michael could feel that he, too, was aroused. He opened his mouth to let out a small, shocked gasp at the feeling, and Benjamin took advantage of it, slipping his tongue in Michael’s mouth.
As Michael moved away to take a breath, Ben went downwards, kissing his throat with those hot, sinful lips. Michael whimpered as Benjamin’s teeth scraped at the sensitive flesh, and he felt Ben chuckle against his throat. Playfully, he squeezed Michael’s bum, and the smaller man yelped, surprised, which caused Ben to laugh again, pulling his lips from his skin to look at him.
Ben’s hair was mussed, his lips were swollen from kissing, and his smooth, porcelain cheeks were bright red. He was, in a word, perfect. Michael knew without a doubt that he was in love. Those eyes stared at him and through him, as if reading his heart and soul. They were such an unusual colour, and so expressive. In the short time they’d known each other, Michael felt that he could read Ben’s every thought from just glancing into those eyes. There were skies, universes, and oceans in their depth; beauty and tragedy, and even Heaven and Hell were held in that sea green gaze. Michael would be quite content to be forever lost in them.
Ben’s hands ran down the front of Michael’s chest, and he could feel their warmth through his underclothes. “Do you see now?” Ben asked, his voice a low rumble in his chest. “I do not wish to have you prosecuted. I wish to have you by my side. And if we were to be found out, I would gladly go to gaol for the sake of love.”
“You would not go to gaol,” Michael said. “We would be executed.”
“Then I would gladly die for you!” The fire in his eyes and the vehemence in his voice did something to Michael that no physical touch could ever do. It ignited something inside of him, something he had never quite felt before.
Michael kissed him again with a fervour he had never known. He needed this man. He needed him more than he needed air or food. He needed him at the very base of his soul. How could this be illegal? How could any God, least of all the God Michael believed in, abhor such true and pure love? Man may object to their courtship, but deep down Michael knew that his loving God could never smite him or Ben for what they shared. Man might hate him, but it was not man’s favour that he sought.
“Does this mean you will join me?” Ben asked, his breath hot on Michael’s lips.
“Yes. I will hunt with you. I will join you.”
Ben’s hands held Michael’s waist tightly. “Will you stay here with me? I know I am being forward, and I know that this is illegal. We can say we’re flatmates, nothing more. No one will be the wiser. ...Please? Now that I have you, I cannot bear to let you go so easily.”
Michael laughed. Was he truly beginning to cry? He was! “I am a sentimental fool, and it appears you are as well,” he commented, hands cradling Ben’s jaw. “Yes, once again, my answer for you is yes.”
Chapter Three
“You’re mad, Mr. Quinn.”
“Tell me something that I do not know, Constable,” Benjamin said to Linwood as he sat in the constable’s office, smoking a cigarette.
“Well, do you know the consequences of your actions?” he asked.
Ben sighed, crossing his legs and tapping his booted foot on the floor. “Who do you believe yourself to be speaking to? I am not a stupid man, but you are making me question whether or not you are one.”
“All right, enough with the insults. You know I don’t give a rat’s ass whom you sleep with. Really, I don’t care if you are prosecuted. It’s your funeral— quite literally, in fact. I just do not wish to see the physician hanged,” Linwood said.
“Ah, sensitive as ever, are you not?” Benjamin scoffed. “Michael knows the risks better than I do. He is the one who warned me of what could happen, and I told him that I did not care. I don’t. He does not, either. We are more than prepared to die if we must. In reality, we will probably be killed by one of the things we are hunting before we are killed for our love.”
“That is actually a very possible outcome, unfortunately. Speaking of, read this case. One of my officers spotted this happening, and it sounds like it might be your type of killer.” Linwood slid a piece of paper across his desk.
Benjamin picked it up and skimmed it. It claimed that a guard outside of the Palace had witnessed a well-dressed man assault a woman in his view. By the time he had gotten to the scene, the man had fled. The woman’s anaemic corpse had been brought to the morgue. He was scheduled to perform an autopsy on it that afternoon.
“May I have your leave to interview the guard?” he asked.
“Ah, have at it. It’s certainly not my division. What do you think it is? A bloodsucker?”
Ben nodded. “Let me go and get Michael, and I will perform my autopsy as scheduled. Hopefully, she really is deceased and not waiting to turn at sunset.”
Ben walked down to Michael’s practice and said hello to his nurse, who smiled and flushed. He felt sorry for her, that she would never receive the attention from him that she was seeking. “Nurse Cecelia, can you please go and get Dr. Finnigan for me? I have need for him to observe an autopsy this afternoon.”
“Oh, sure. Was it a patient of his, Mr. Quinn?” she asked.
“No, just a rare disease that I’d like for him to learn about. In case he ever has to treat it. Nothing to concern yourself with,” he said. He waited as she got the doctor from his office.
He looked worried as he entered the lobby, as if there was something amiss. “Mr. Quinn,” he said. “What brings you here again?”
“I have an autopsy to perform this afternoon, and would like for you to be present,” he said. “Please come, sixteen-hundred hours. Have you the location?”
“I do, and I shall be there. Good day, Mr. Quinn.” Michael had a wonderful skill in being able to conceal his real emotions. It was something to be admired.
Ben smiled and tipped his hat. “Good day, Doctor.” Thanks to his coat, no one could see the arousal he was hiding, and he was also a master at schooling his facial features to never betray his inner emotions. Looking at them, no one would know what they had just shared the night before, and what they would be sharing the rest of their lives.
Later that day, Ben was donning his protective eyewear and putting on his gloves to begin the autopsy when Michael walked in.
“Well, you certainly look quite appealing in your work clothes,” he commented.
“I could say the same about you, Doctor,” Ben replied. “Come here and take a look at this.”
Michael stepped next to Ben, and if he was put off by the lack of a physical welcome, he did not show it as he stared at the body of the attractive young woman on the slab.
“What happened to her? And what is on her neck?” Michael asked, his face contorting in disgust.
The deep gashes, puncture wounds, and the dark bruises on her neck were quite shocking to look at. They were deep, the wounds, and Ben recalled how horrified he had been when he had first seen a vampire bite.
“A vampire got to her,” Ben said. “Poor soul. Wrong place at the wrong time, I suppose. Linwood sent me the body today to perform an autopsy, to be sure it
was a vampire. Form’s sake, you know. While I do this, can you go into my desk and fetch me the Jane Doe file? Thank you.”
He had long ago realized that he was a different person when he was at work. The playfulness was gone, replaced by a man as focused on his task as a hound is on a hare during the hunt. He had been called cold before, and he knew that he could very well be, especially towards those who didn’t know him. His mother and father had been killed by a vampire, leaving him in the care of his elder brother. He became a hunter, as did his brother.
Of course, his brother was not one to get his hands dirty, so he spent most of his time at his position in Parliament, making laws that could be seen as progressive from other politicians, but were really just ways to keep humans safe and let hunters kill more monsters.
Ben was not cold, he was simply focused and very determined. If he could rid all of Earth of those vile creatures, he would.
“Jane Doe,” Michael began reading aloud. “Found at three in the morning on...oh, today. Found at the steps of St. Bartholomew’s Church by a passer-by. Victim appears to have bite marks and bruising around the jugular vein, and vampiric activity is suspected.” He closed the file. “You’re not keeping Linwood’s vampire reference in the report, are you?”
Ben smiled. “Of course not. Do I look like a fool to you? Come, let me show you what a vampire does to the veins of a mortal.”
Michael stepped across the table from him, and looked down at the cuts Ben had made in the corpse’s bloodless body.
“You can see here, the veins are nearly empty.” Ben showed him the sliced open vein, which was barely leaking any blood at all. There was very little left in the entire body. The heart looked cracked, like a sponge that had not been used for at least a week. Without blood to pump, it had ceased to work.
“Does the bite of a vampire mean she will turn into one as well?” Michael asked.
“The usual transformation period lasts between one and three days after death, unless the vampire feeds the victim much more of their blood, which will turn them instantly. Usually, vampires will break the necks of their victims to ensure they do not turn. Her neck, as you can tell, is not broken. I think she is truly dead due to the lack of any blood in the body, however I will be taking precautions to ensure that she stays dead.” He looked up and said, “Watch and learn, my good friend.”