"You must have had questions though?"
"Not really.” I shrugged my shoulders. I was as honest as I could be. I had never given much thought to my father. When I was a small child I'd asked why I didn't have a dad like some of the other kids in school, but I was so happy with my little world that I had never given it more thought than that. Now, of course, I had lots of questions - not least establishing what Kurt meant when he said that my father hadn't been around when my mum's letter arrived on their doormat.
There was an uncomfortable silence while my companion seemed to try and gather his own thoughts, trying to guess where to take the conversation next or pre-empt what I might say. I wasn't ready to take the conversation any further. This was about enough weirdness that I could handle for one day and I was feeling increasingly claustrophobic confined in such a small space.
"Look," I said, trying to take charge of the situation and regain some much-needed control. "I'm sure that you have a reason for seeking me out and for being here and at the end of the day I reckon there's probably part of me appreciates the gesture. I don't mean to sound harsh but if you want me to pretend that I'm overjoyed at a potential reunion with my father or his family, then you've got another thing coming. "
Before he could get a word out, I carried on. This time, my words took on a slightly more conciliatory tone. I handed him back the plastic mug, still half filled with coffee, and glowered at him.
"This has been," I searched for words, "well, weird if I'm honest. I hope that you can understand when I say this is all getting a bit bloody heavy for me and it's just too much to take in.”
I felt like I was about to break up with him or something - it's not you, it's me. He took the cup from my hand and avoided my gaze. The words had hurt him. I turned away and grabbed the door handle and swung the door open. The rain was still pelting down outside, but I didn't care. I needed to escape this. Planting one foot firmly into a puddle, I remembered that no matter what I thought or felt, this man had ultimately done nothing himself to hurt me. I turned back to face him.
"I'm sorry.” I exhaled the words. "I've gone through a lot of stuff lately and this is a lot to take in."
He nodded to confirm that he understood. I didn't want to appear cold and considered trying to force a smile, but I wasn't that good an actress.
"You obviously know where to find me,” I added, stepping out into the rain. "Maybe we can talk again, another time. I just need some time to process all this. I'm sorry."
As the door closed behind me, I heard him mutter something but it was too quiet for me to hear properly. It sounded like "I know."
20
I was all guts and bravado when I slammed Kurt's car door behind me, but the shaking soon succumbed to weeping and later to cursing.
I cursed every man that I knew. I cursed the father I didn't know. I cursed the uncle who had ignored by mother's distress. I cursed Mickey for reappearing in my life when he knew he wasn’t emotionally ready to be mine fully, and I cursed every bloody vampire that had crossed my path.
"I've had enough of this shit," I said to myself, digging my nails into the steering wheel. "You can all just fuck the right off."
My moment of hysteria was wrangled back to resolve after listening to four Depeche Mode tracks, played violently loud on the car stereo, and once I'd had enough time to work through every thought flying through my head. I decided I would file them all away in the back of my mind until such time that I could deal with them, ideally individually, and hopefully not for a long time.
Vampires were leaving me alone so there was no point worrying about them, I thought. Until I could determine whether vamps had issued a fatwa on me, expelling energy on panicking about it seemed utterly pointless.
Mickey was in Ireland and for all I knew was going to stay there. He hadn't phoned me or text me since the early hours. It was definitely too soon to say if he had given up entirely, but I was committed to leaving him to work out his grief. If we were meant to be, then we would be. For now, we couldn't just be friends, but we couldn't be ‘together’ either.
The final bucket of shit that I knew I had to deal with was this surprising reunion with an uncle I had never known about. This was the trickiest of the three issues. I suspected that if he'd taken to following me, then he might approach my mum and I wasn’t going to have her blindsided by that. Neither did I want her thinking that I had been sneaking around speaking to my father's family behind her back, so this was probably the most pressing issue.
That said, the question of my uncle could wait, so once I’d wiped my eyes dry and shook off my anxiety, I drove over to mum's house.
“Wow, twice in one day! Just in time too, I was going to stick a film on. What have you been up to?” she asked, wrapped in her fluffy dressing gown, her pyjama bottoms tucked into booties. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” I lied, following her into the living room. “I was just coming back from the gym so I thought I’d pop in and say hi. So, hi!”
Mum patted the empty seat on the sofa next to her. “Take a pew. Red vine?” She thrust the bag of confectionery in my face.
My hand rummaged through the bag. “Ta very much,” I said pulling out three long, red laces. “The food of champions. A perfect post-gym workout.”
She placed a palm on my forehead.
“What?” I asked.
“Mmm, “she said. “Are you alright. You look a bit off. Are you coming down with something? You shouldn’t be going to the gym if you’re under the weather. You should rest. Do you want to stay here tonight?”
I adjusted my position, lifting myself onto a bended leg, swinging the other over the sofa. “No, I’m fine. Maybe it’s low blood sugar or something,” I said, chewing. Mum always knew if something was wrong; thankfully I could do a reasonable job of hiding what the actual problem was. Sometimes she was too polite to mention anything, but I knew she always twigged that something was up.
Mum’s freckled forehead furrowed a little. “Okay, well, get some multi vitamins or something, and take it easy. You don’t have to kill yourself, running about at auctions, visiting tenants and all that. We’re very comfortable as we are, you know. I’ve no expectations of you. You know that, right?”
“I know,” I said, a half-smile on my face. “Honestly, I’m fine. C’mon, what were you going to watch?”
Mum picked up three DVDs from the coffee table, just a small example of the collection we’d amassed over the years.
“We’ve got ‘The Ghoul’, ‘American Werewolf in London’ or ‘Dracula’, the one with Frank Langella in it, “she said.
“Oh, that’s new!”
Mum nodded, a red vine hanging from the corner of her mouth. “Oh yeah, I got it online, only a fiver! It arrived in the post yesterday. Fancy it?”
I did love it, but I had had my fair share of vampires, and was in no mood to watch ninety minutes of them. “Mmm, maybe one of the others?” I said.
Mum shrugged her shoulders, confined Frank Langella to the shelf under the coffee table, and went about setting up the DVD player.
We finished off the bag of red vines, followed by a massive bag of salted popcorn and half a Mars Bar each.
Before I knew it, it was late. I stayed for both movies, eventually falling asleep on the sofa. When I awoke, Mum was sparked too so I covered in her in a throw blanket, locked up the house and snuck out quietly.
I was half asleep wandering to my car which I had parked on the street. Although the January air was cold, it was still milder than usual for the time of year. I was surprised when a sharp chill tickled the back of my neck. I wished I hadn't left my hooded sweatshirt in my gym bag. I jumped in the car, turned the ignition and let the blowers go. Hot air warmed my feet. I thought I saw a figure lurking in the shadows of the lane, but when I took a second glance it was gone. Jeez, Sophie, talk about jumpy. I yawned and put my foot to the pedal.
A note through my front door was not what I expected to find when I got home. T
o say that there was text on it would be an overstatement. It simply said ‘Kurt’, with an address and telephone number scrawled underneath. I folded the paper into four and shoved it in the fruit bowl so I wouldn't have to think about it until morning. I was too tired to deal with any more shit and my bed was calling.
Darren Thomas cranked the music up loud on his Bose speakers, sank into the oversized black leather couch and swigged his Bud. It had been a weird couple of days.
First, there had been that whole thing with the vampires. He hadn’t seen one for a while. The last thing he expected was to be renting his house out to some. He knew he should have thought it was suspicious – the whole no need for a viewing, cash only deal.
The last time Darren had seen a vampire had been in Bristol. He could smell the dude from right across the bar. He stank of blood and hadn't looked like he'd updated his wardrobe since the late eighties. He was all "Madchester,” baggy cord trousers and bowl cut. Nobody in their twenties dressed like that anymore - he certainly didn't.
Darren had been renting out his grandfather's house since he was eighteen. His parents had retired to Marbella as soon as he had left school and gone off to university. He'd shared the house with some friends while he was a student, then rented it out privately, covering the cost of his rented flat in Cardiff Bay and a regular deposit into his savings. Since then he'd rented it to a mixed race family, half human/ half werewolf, a Korean business for a corporate let, several young families and a weird guy who’d left the whole place stinking of cabbage.
The quick, no questions asked letting to the vampires would make him more cash than he normally would, twice his asking rate in fact, but it unsettled him. Werewolves he could understand. They were essentially people most of the month. Everyone was allowed to have a few off days from being normal, and at least you could plan for a full moon.
He had rented to a Were family once. He guessed from the deep scratches on the cellar wall, and the beat-up furniture, that he'd had to replace, that they had attempted to keep themselves locked away during that difficult time of the month.
Vampires were different though. He could tolerate their existence as long as they kept off the street and out of trouble, but they were, well, vampires, all month around. They never got a day off from wanting to maim and kill. Fair enough, from what he could gather they were all blood packs and only eating what they needed now, but he'd heard his grandfather's stories.
The second weird thing that had happened that week, was meeting the peculiar girl at the property auction, Sophie Morgan. He couldn't stop thinking about her and he had no idea why. She wore scruffy jeans, baseball boots and a grey knitted tunic that resembled Joan of Arc's chainmail and was surprisingly socially inept for someone who owned their own business.
He thumbed the business card in his hand. Yep, that was one boring card. He put down the bottle and picked up the sketch pad and Magic Markers that he kept habitually on the glass table next to him. He began to scrawl a logo for Morgan Properties. Scarlet and shades of grey were definitely her colour.
21
Ferrers peered at Richard over steepled fingers, listening to his debrief. The information from Richard’s surveillance of Sophie had added little to what they already knew - shops, properties, and mother - blah, blah, blah - all terribly dull. Then came the most intriguing information.
"But then, out of the blue, that Andersen guy is there and she is going at him like she's going to kill him,” Richard said, wide-eyed.
Ferrers eyes narrowed. "The professor?"
"Yes!” Richard replied. “Whatever he said to her, she wasn't happy."
"Interesting," Ferrers sucked on a fang, rooting around for the right word. "Tell me, was there anyone with him? A younger man perhaps?"
"No. Nobody. But there was a guy hanging around her mother's house, later on, before I came back here. I didn't get a good look at him. Felt odd though."
"What do you mean, odd?" Ferrers squinted at Richard, the eyes of an interrogator, confessor and enforcer.
"Well, I can't shake off the feeling that I know him, but I don't know from where."
"Yes, odd indeed, “said Ferrers, releasing his fingers and placing them down on the table. “Well, thank you Richard you've done very well. Why don't you retire for the evening? There's blood in the fridge."
Richard rummaged around the top shelf, eventually picking up a bag of O Negative. "Would you like one?” he asked. “I can warm it in the microwave if you like?"
"Thank you, Richard, but I'm fine. Rachel may be in need of something though."
Richard nodded. "Of course."
Richard grabbed another bag, paused to consider warming them, but stopped himself.
"Did you want to ask me something?" Ferrers asked. Richard seemed unsettled, well, as unsettled as someone who didn't care much about anything could be.
"Do you need me to do anything with the professor? I could pay him a visit, or Rachel even. There's not many men who would say no to her at the moment."
Ferrers shook his head silently. No, this job was for him and him alone, at least for now.
It had been a busy couple of days for Kurt and Kasper, both venturing out to spy on Sophie at different times. They had agreed to go their separate ways and reconvene to swap notes.
The brothers met at The Rising Sun, huddled away in Kasper’s room. It was an awkward meeting, not least because of the strangeness of the surroundings. The room at the ‘hotel’ offered only one chair which meant Kasper had to sit on the edge of the bed while they talked about their respective stalking of the Morgan women. It made him look very small and young to Kurt, whose oversized frame was squeezed into a tiny chair.
The plan, they had formulated, was a simple one. Kurt would keep an eye on Julie and Sophie during the day, his work schedule permitting. Neither Sophie nor Julie would likely recognise him. The sight of Kasper, however, could give Julie a heart attack, so nocturnal observations were better for him. Kurt didn't relish the thought of Kasper prowling around either of them, but given that he was going to do it anyway, Kurt was willing to negotiate.
“So you are sure?” Kasper asked. “She is human, all human?”
“From what I can tell,” Kurt replied.
“Did she ask about me? What did she say? What is she like?” Kasper asked, rubbing his hands repeatedly.
Kurt sat, knees open, shoulders down, hands grasped together. “I don’t think she knows much about you. It doesn’t seem like Julie has told her much at all. She’s angry I think. Angry at me. Certainly at you.”
Kasper nodded. “Of course, I understand. Does she know what I am though? No, wait, of course not, how could she, Julie hasn’t even told her about me.”
Kurt remained silent. He wished he had a drink in his hand. He spotted the no smoking sticker on the wall. Great, not even a cigarette, he thought.
“Well,” Kasper said. “Whether she knows about me or not, whether she has any vampire in her or not, she’s at risk. If anyone even suspects that prophecy is true and that she is mixed blood, then her life is in danger. We don’t know any more now than we did before. We were foolish to wait. We’ve lost time.”
Kurt nodded in agreement. He and Kasper had spoken of this issue at length in the comfort of his drawing room, with a warm fire and even more warming whiskey. If the prophecy meant that Sophie, or some other half-breed, could recognise or somehow ’out’ vampires, there were a couple of possible outcomes, none of them good.
Vampires, who saw humans as inferior, might initially support their existence being made public. But their support of Sophie's potential purpose would be short-lived. Eventually, they'd enslave humans; it would be a return to the gory old days that Ferrers had warned him about, Kasper had told his brother. Although these vampires were most likely in the minority, a human-vampire war would ultimately be bad for Sophie and for humanity, which Kasper was still very fond of.
A second scenario was simply one of literal self-preservation. Vampires
and other supernatural beings had been hunted for years, but they largely moved untouched within the world. If Sophie was capable of identifying vampires on sight, or by sense, or indeed in any other way, then she might use her ability to destroy them. With the right training and mental attitude, she could be the ultimate vampire hunter. Even the lowliest vampire might take her out if they saw an opportunity.
There was a further scenario, just as likely and very real. Kasper had travelled extensively in his time as a vampire and he'd mixed with people and vampires of varying social strata. He'd also spent a year living with Ferrers, who had spent several lifetimes working as an enforcer and ‘fixer’ for many old and prestigious vampire families. He knew how the system worked. Vampires were everywhere, even in big business. Your chances of success in life would always be greater if you had more time to learn, longer to amass wealth, physical stamina and mental agility. Factor in that sleep wasn’t necessity for a vampire, and it was no surprise that they did well in the corporate world.
Keeping the status quo was in most powerful vampires' interests and they'd have the resources to destroy the manuscript and Sophie if needed. He wouldn't be surprised if they'd had that manuscript hidden away in a vault somewhere. They were probably the true owners and they'd want it back, even if they didn't know about Sophie and her parental origins.
“But it’s not too late,” Kurt said.
“No. I hope not. We must destroy the manuscript.”
Kurt squeezed his palms together, closed his eyes and nodded.
“We must, Kurt,” Kasper said evenly.
Sophie Morgan (Book 2): Death in the Family Page 18