Ravenfall

by Narrelle M. Harris

  ‘No. Be still. Be still.’

  ‘I can smell…I can…I can smell blood.’ Michael twisted, teeth bared, and looked wildly around. His gaze alighted on Tavisa first and she took an involuntary step back at the ravenous, unthinking hunger in it.

  ‘Michael. Michael!’ James banged Michael’s head on the concrete to make him listen. ‘I know you’re thirsty. I’ll get you all the blood you need. Soon. Right now you have to look at me.’

  The vampire who used to be Michael Dare glared at him.

  ‘Breathe. It helps.’

  Michael began to moan.

  ‘I know,’ said James, his voice almost breaking with what he knew. ‘But you’re not going to die again. It feels like it, but you can wait. I promise you can. Tell me your name. Your full name.’

  ‘M-Michael B-b-Balmoral D-d-Dare.’

  ‘And what are you?’

  A keening followed by a growl. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Yes you do. Tell me.’

  ‘A-a-a-a…’

  ‘Concentrate.’

  ‘I’m a… civil servant.’

  James grinned at him, without letting him go. ‘Aye, you are. The most civil civil servant on the planet, except when you’re being an enormous prick. Aren’t you?’

  Michael panted a despairing laugh. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘You’re a disciplined man. So start being disciplined. Inhale.’

  Michael took a breath. He gave James a look of distress and doubt.

  ‘Exhale now. Slowly,’ said James. ‘Now in. Good. Concentrate on that.’

  Michael concentrated. Breathed in. Out. In. Out. Physically unnecessary but psychologically calming. James kept Michael pinned with one hand and reached out to the pool of blood under them with the other. He swiped his hand through the congealing mess and wiped it against Michael’s mouth. Michael whined.

  ‘Lick it up. It’ll help.’

  Michael licked and whined again, more softly.

  ‘There you go.’ James scraped more of the blood up, stuck his fingers in Michael’s mouth. ‘Good, good. Calm down, now. I cannae feed you till you calm down. Shh, now. Shh.’

  Michael suckled his own blood from James’s fingers and quieted.

  ‘Where the hell is that blood,’ James scowled.

  ‘I’ll check,’ Tavisa said, backing away from his feral growl.

  James flinched. He checked on the others.

  Anthea’s eyes were fixed on Michael. They were filled not with horror, which would have been the sensible reaction, but hope.

  Gabriel, though, was looking at James with understanding and… and anger. James flinched again.

  ‘I’m not angry at you,’ snapped Gabriel impatiently. ‘I want to kill that bastard Cael West all over again. He did this to you. He left you to wake up like that. Alone and terrified, and starving. No wonder you–’ He snapped his jaw shut on the sentence. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Jamie.’

  James swayed slightly.

  Michael bucked again, teeth snapping, and James battled to keep him still.

  ‘I cannae get him down to the blood stores, like I hoped,’ said James. ‘I’m not strong enough. I can barely keep him under control here. You two, off the roof. If I lose him, he’ll go straight for you.’

  But Anthea knelt beside him. She held out her arm. ‘He needs blood. Give him mine.’

  Michael surged towards her; James slammed him down again.

  ‘Dinnae be stupid,’ snarled James. ‘If he gets his teeth into you, he’ll nae know how to stop. He’s thirsty. He’s starving. He doesnae truly remember who he is yet. He could kill you, and when he finally comes to himself again...’

  Anthea rolled her eyes at James. She drew a small, sharp knife from an ankle sheath and held it to her forearm. ‘I never said he should bite me. Come on, sir,’ she said to Michael, who was staring at her avidly. ‘You don’t want to waste any.’

  He opened his mouth wide. Anthea drew the blade along the skin, deeper than comfortable, but not dangerously so. Blood welled and dripped. She held it over his mouth and he gulped at it. Licked the drips from his lips and opened his mouth for more. Like a baby bird.

  She didn’t seem to notice that James stared at the blood just as avidly.

  After a short time – too short if Michael’s enraged growl was anything to go by – she withdrew, wrapping her hand over the wound.

  ‘Blood given freely is best,’ observed Gabriel quietly. ‘Is it enough?’

  James shook his head. ‘He woke up with nothing much in him but vampire blood. It’s nae enough. I cannae describe it, the thirst.’

  He flinched again as Gabriel’s hand pressed against his scalp.

  ‘In case you havenae realised,’ said James shakily, ‘I dinnae know what I’m doing. I havenae done it from the outside. I can only make educated guesses. I dinnae think it’s enough. Look at him.’

  Michael looked tortured, and debauched, and terrifying.

  Gabriel held out his arm. ‘We’ll give him some of mine, then.’

  James used his thumbnail to score a wound in Gabriel’s arm. Michael opened up again to swallow the drips greedily. A few minutes later, Gabriel held his arm up for James.

  ‘You can close the wound. And you need the blood, too.’

  ‘I cannae. I dinnae know if I can stop. Best back away now, love.’

  Gabriel did as he was told.

  Finally, Tavisa and the agent returned, bearing bags of blood. The team leader froze, even this hardened field agent shocked at the carnage in front of him. Tavisa thrust a bag of blood at James. ‘I’m assuming blood type doesn’t matter.’

  James grabbed the bag, tore a hole in it and pushed it into Michael’s mouth. Michael sucked greedily on it.

  James put his hand out for another and had it ready when Michael had drained the first.

  On the third bag, James carefully released Michael’s hands and let him hold the bag, squeezing it for every drop of blood it contained.

  ‘Jamie,’ Gabriel tried to push a pouch of blood at James. ‘You need this.’

  But James was shaking his head, and his hands were shaking too, and he was whimpering without realising it. ‘He needs it, he needs it. He’ll be so thirsty. I remember… the raging thirst. I… the things I did, Gabriel. I was so thirsty. I cannae let him do… I cannae. I cannae let...’

  He was shoving the blood that Gabriel had tried to give him into Michael’s mouth. ‘If this is nae enough, he’ll kill you. He’ll kill all of you. I cannae let him. God. This was a terrible idea.’

  Gabriel stroked James’s hair soothingly, softly. Tears welled and fell. ‘You’re doing fine, baby.’

  Michael was blinking in a daze, less savage now, but more lost.

  ‘James?’ said Michael in a bewildered voice.

  James turned instantly to his patient. ‘Here, Michael.’

  ‘Has it… have I… did it work?’

  ‘Aye, but you need to stay there right now. All right?’

  Michael frowned and looked around. He saw Gabriel first, and his frown deepened.

  Then he saw Anthea, her clothes stiff with drying blood. She was wrapping a length of cloth she’d torn from her shirt around her arm. ‘Anthea?’

  ‘The genuine article, sir,’ she said, as calm and cool as ever, while looking like a murder scene.

  Michael snapped suddenly back into focus. Fully aware. Of everything. Every single thing from the last fifteen minutes.

  He’d looked lost before. Now he looked damned.

  He buried his face in his hands, as much to not see them as to hide himself. ‘Dear god. Dear god, what am I? This is not. This is…’ He swallowed convulsively.

  ‘You havenae killed anyone,’ said James gently. ‘We can help you through this.’

  Michael felt a gentle hand on his cheek and dared to open his eyes. Anthea was stroking his cheek with the back of her fingers. ‘You’re not alone, sir,’ she said, wit
h that Mona Lisa smile of hers. ‘We’ve got you. Like I promised.’

  She stroked his cheek, and Michael leaned into her touch.

  ‘I’m so sorry, my dear. I always meant for there to be time, but the time was never right.’

  ‘Don’t fret, sir.’

  ‘You’ve botched the timing wretchedly today,’ said Gabriel suddenly, the attempt at waspishness not covering the tremor in his voice.

  Michael, more like the man of old, guarded and in control, looked on his brother. ‘I realise that I made a mess of your plans. It was difficult to do otherwise, with him increasingly invading my thoughts. It was necessary to not consider what you might be planning. By the end, what I knew, he was starting to know. At that moment, when I began to realise what you were planning, I had to act to keep the knowledge from him.’

  ‘So you tried to shoot yourself in the head?’

  ‘It was effective,’ said Michael, his own voice quivering. ‘The pain did keep my mind off your schemes. It seems to have paid off.’

  His urbanity was in sharp contrast to his state of bloodied dishevelment and the exhausted vampire sitting on his legs.

  ‘Doctor Sharpe, I think you can get up now,’ said Michael, trying for acerbity and failing. When James didn’t respond, Michael repeated, more firmly. ‘Doctor Sharpe.’

  James raised his head slowly. Stared at Michael. Blinked. Showed his fangs and hissed.

  When Gabriel knelt beside him, James snarled wordlessly at him.

  ‘Blood,’ snapped Gabriel, holding out his hand. He wiggled his fingers impatiently. ‘Come on, Datta, blood.’

  ‘We only brought the four bags.’

  Gabriel glared at her.

  ‘I didn’t realise. There’s not exactly a study unit on this at the police academy!’

  ‘Well, get more.’

  Tavisa and the agent obeyed.

  Gabriel slid his arm around James’s shoulders. James hissed at him.

  ‘Shh, Jamie,’ said Gabriel as soothingly as he could. ‘You’ll get blood soon.’

  James lunged for Gabriel’s throat, fisting his hands in Gabriel’s jacket, pushing his face into that warm hollow, and the tips of his teeth were pressed to that delicate, fragile skin.

  Gabriel held perfectly still.

  James whimpered, pushing his nose into the scent of him. He hung onto the leather; he pressed into the stripe of warm, bare skin where the T-shirt had been sundered. He whined and shivered.

  ‘Gabriel,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Help. Me.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Gabriel rocked James in his arms, trying to soothe him. James whimpered again, inhaling deeply of the scent. Blood, yes. But wool. Paint. Gabriel. Nest. Safety. Home. Gabriel. Not food. Home home home. James clung to that, desperately.

  Gabriel tried shoving his bleeding arm into James’s mouth, but James recoiled, terrified that once he started he wouldn’t be able to stop. Gabriel gave it up and resumed rocking him instead.

  ‘Tavisa’s getting blood for you,’ he said. ‘Michael, are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fi– Oh. You mean, am I safe? I… believe I am quite restored.’

  Gabriel returned his attention to the man in his arms.

  Michael, sitting in a pool of his own dried blood, peered at them. ‘What’s wrong with his leg?’

  James curled his body into a smaller space, getting closer to Gabriel, an injured creature seeking shelter in its burrow – but his leg wouldn’t obey. His wounded thigh was swollen horribly, and black blood crusted the skin and torn cloth.

  ‘He was stabbed with silver while he was rescuing Helene,’ said Gabriel. ‘I need to flush it clean. Any taps up here?’

  Anthea found an outlet by the side of the staircase, where some enterprising hospital worker was growing a pot of personal-use marijuana. Beside the planter was a green enamel watering can. She filled it and brought it over to them.

  ‘I need to see to your leg,’ Gabriel murmured to James, who didn’t reply, but shivered and huddled against him. Awkwardly, Gabriel reached around, but couldn’t get in the right position. Anthea crouched and cut away the cloth around the wound with her little knife.

  The injury was worse once revealed. Dark purple lines radiated from the shallow stab wound, and congealed black blood oozed from it. Anthea passed the steel knife to Gabriel. Using the tip, Gabriel pressed. A gout of congealed blood pulsed out and James hissed in pain. Gabriel prodded with the hilt of the knife and more gunk came out. Anthea then poured water over it, washing the foul matter away.

  ‘This’ll hurt,’ Gabriel warned him.

  ‘Hurts now,’ James said.

  ‘It’ll hurt more.’

  James managed a laugh and released his grip enough to allow Gabriel to manoeuvre. With his hands, Gabriel spread the cut wide, and Anthea poured water over it. Gabriel dug a finger into the wound, clearing out congealed blood until James’s dark, sluggish vampire blood was all he could see in the flesh. The veins began to clear, James’s vampire skin to return to its normal pallor. The flesh and skin began to knit together again, and James relaxed marginally.

  ‘You should have seen to that,’ Gabriel admonished him gently.

  ‘If I’d taken the time,’ mumbled James, ‘you’d have died.’

  Gabriel rested his cheek on James’s hair. ‘Do you think you can drink from me now?’

  ‘I dinnae know. I’m afraid to try.’

  ‘Can you hold on, then?’ Gabriel raised his head, listening. ‘They must be on their way back.’

  James nodded. Gabriel kissed the top of his head, then rubbed his cheek against James’s hair, tender amidst the carnage. He was so glad he could hold him like this, so he could breathe in Gabriel’s scent and feel safe.

  The click of the opening door was loud in the stressed silence. Tavisa and the Bureau man, carrying bags of blood, emerged onto the rooftop with a young man who carried two more.

  ‘Oh!’ said the young fellow, ‘Mr Merriweather was right.’ Smiling, he strode up to them. ‘This is for you, Mr Dare. God, you’ve been in the wars, haven’t you?’ He handed a bag to his seated boss, unfazed by all the drying blood.

  Michael stared at the bag as though offended, but Anthea pursed her lips impatiently, so he tore it and drank from it, though more daintily than before.

  ‘And one for you,’ said the young man, crouching beside Gabriel and James. James stared dumbly at the offered bag.

  ‘Come along then,’ the fellow repeated in a jolly-you-along tone, jogging the bag at him. ‘Mmm, yummy blood. Just what the vampire ordered, eh?’

  ‘You’re disturbingly chirpy today, Jay,’ observed Anthea.

  ‘I’m disturbingly chirpy every day, Miss Webb,’ he countered with a grin, then flinched as James snatched the bag from his fingers. ‘Ah, that’s the idea. Get that in ya.’

  James tore the bag clumsily open, spilling blood over his hands. With a desperate whine, he sucked at the opening, slurping the blood down ravenously. He threw the bag away and licked at his hands, sucked at his shirt where the blood soaked in, until Jay pushed another into his hands.

  James bit it this time – bit and sucked and whimpered, and reached out for a third even before he’d finished the one in his mouth. It was animal and wretched, the way he drank.

  Instead of recoiling, Gabriel rubbed James’s back and tried to shield him, as much as possible, from those on the rooftop who had never seen him like this. Gabriel glared at Tavisa Datta, who gave James a look of bewildered compassion and turned away.

  Michael was staring, though. Horrified. Gabriel’s lip curled at his brother. ‘Don’t you presume to judge him, Michael.’

  ‘No. No you’re right. I’m sorry.’

  While James drank, cradled in Gabriel’s arms, Gabriel contemplated their saviour with puzzlement. ‘What did you mean about Mr Merriweather being right?’

  Jay’s eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘You don’t know about Mr Merriweather? I
thought everyone in the Bureau knew about Mr Merriweather.’

  ‘I’m not in the Bureau,’ said Gabriel through gritted teeth.

  ‘But I thought Fudge here… Oh, sorry, Mr Dare. I thought your brother was getting you in and, um, I’ll shut the fuck up now, sir, yes I will, look at me, disciplined as all fuck, sir, not a word.’ He pressed his lips together.

  ‘My brother, Mr Ren, has a different calling,’ Michael said severely, though the effect was ruined by the fact his legs were trembling too hard to allow him to rise without stumbling.

  ‘Probably just as well. It’s a whackadoodle life, isn’t it, Miss Webb?

  Anthea refused to be a participant of this ludicrous conversation. ‘You were explaining Mr Merriweather to young Mr Dare,’ she said pointedly.

  ‘That’s right. Mr Merriweather’s our ghost, Young Mr Dare. He works in the hospital mortuary. Worked, rather, back in the 1950s. I suppose he still works there, in a way. He likes to give me advice.’ Jay’s nose wrinkled, as though that advice was not always welcome.

  ‘Anyway, he told me to wrangle a few pints of blood to bring up here, ‘cos shit was going doooooown on high.’

  At Michael’s glare, Jay settled again.

  ‘Not that Mr Merriweather talks like that. He is very much a genteel man. So, ah, here I am, and everything is hunky dory, yeah?’

  Gabriel looked at him, looked around the rooftop at the people caked in blood, the vampires drinking from bags of blood, at all the torn clothing and the aftermath of terror, near death and actual death. He wanted to cry.

  ‘Never dorier,’ said Anthea. ‘Thank you for the blood, Jay. Back to work you go. Shoo.’

  Jay, thankfully, shooed, after shoving the last of the blood bags into Gabriel’s hands.

  Anthea shrugged apologetically. ‘Mr Merriweather has a wealth of knowledge but for some reason he’ll only talk to Jay, so we’re stuck with him, I’m afraid. He waffles on like a toddler on speed, but he’s very useful.’

  Beside her, Michael finally started to rise. ‘Anthea, if you would…’

  She took his hand to steady him and he made it to his feet with the slightest wobble, though his suit had to grotesquely unpeel from the coagulating blood on the ground. Despite the gore and ruination of his suit, despite his wax-pale skin and mussed hair, he had gathered around himself an air of self-possession and command that would have been eerie, if it hadn’t been exactly how he operated when he was human.