I was desperate to tip my nut back, stare up at the stars and howl at the crescent nibbled moon, like I was off my bloody trolley.
Yet I didn’t dare.
You just kept on walking, tense as I felt.
When we reached the long, low stable block, I couldn’t repress the tremble, which ran through me. I wished I could forget my last trip there but I was still welted in rainbow stripes.
You glanced at me. ‘Cold?’
‘Yeah, it is rather parky, darlin’.’
You gaped at me, as if you’d been expecting me to speak some strange Blood Lifer tongue and not the Queen’s English. Like you hadn’t assumed I’d sound…human. Then you gathered yourself together. ‘Here,’ you led the way to a sheltered trio of arches, which made up the poncey fakery of a loggia. ‘Better?’
‘Almost like I wasn’t starkers.’
You gave a tight smile.
I leant against a column, as I had a gander back at the silhouette of the great house, its steep terrace, the wood encircling it beyond and the drive sweeping down to it, between the dark sentinels of oaks.
In some screwed up world, this was the worst Jane Austen scene ever.
Well, maybe not ever…
You were giving me these quick, surreptitious looks. ‘This is, like, fried.’
I shrugged. After the year I’d had, this new twist to my existence had some dead stiff competition in the fried department.
You edged closer. ‘You don’t have to look so scared; I’m not gonna scoop ya.’
I raised my eyebrow. ‘Good to know.’
That flummoxed you.
You ran your fingers nervously through your ash blonde hair, which I now noticed hung in a bob to your shoulders. I had the sudden thought of how soft it’d feel on my lips…and then wanted to scrub my brains out.
I haven’t long been alone - utterly, truly alone - since my first death. Since I lost the only person, who mattered to me in this brutish world, I feel too easily.
Us Blood Lifers do that; every emotion is amplified.
I looked down, but you forced my chin up.
Reluctantly, I met your sharp gaze.
‘I meant it. I didn’t want…one of those broken things. Though you’ve gotta be soft making trouble for daddy. He’s the one, who’s insisting I buy one of you. He’s eager for me to learn about the business now I’m back. It’s not like I want…’ Embarrassed, you looked away.
‘Don’t worry, I wouldn’t want me either.’
‘Naw, it’s just…I’ve never even looked after a dog before.’
‘Lucky I’m not a mutt then.’
The wind whipped through the gaps in the arches, goose bumping my skin. The air was fresh and sharp. For the first time, I could smell more than my own blood and sweat.
‘Look, it’s late. I’d better get you back.’ Bugger it - me and my big gob. I hopped from sore foot to sore foot after you down the drive, leaving a crimson snail-trail in my wake. ‘Just tell me what luggage you’ll need sending with you?’
I built up the bottle to reply, ‘I had a coat. A leather motorcycle jacket – studded - with a gold ace of spades on the back. I don’t know where it is; the buggers took it. It’s vintage, from the ‘60s. It’s a bit faded now but…’ You were staring at me in surprise. I dropped my gaze. ‘It’s a blinding coat,’ I muttered. When I looked up again, I almost caught a smile.
You may be a Cain, but it doesn’t have to mark you. We’re more than what our families, ancestors or species make us.
At least I used to reckon so.
There isn’t bleeding anyone, who won’t try and control you. The system’s set up like that, cradle to the grave.
But that doesn’t mean you have to play their game.
For the first time in months, as the Stuart shadow of Abona swallowed us again, I let my mind wander to escape – and it smelled just like you: of gorse and sunlight.
Then again, you’ve shut me up in solitary now, so I got that wrong, didn’t I?
Maybe you are marked by Cain.
MAY 6
Your little pinkie stroked mine, when you passed me my blood just now, so that’s progress..?
No, you’re right, I’m barmy: too much blood and boredom.
I noticed something though, when you handed the blood to me, inked on the inside of your wrists, before the delicate pulse points (and trust me, you don’t want to know why my gaze was drawn there).
Tribal black outlines of a Manx cat, with long hind legs and shortened, stumpy tail.
There’s one other place I’ve seen the same design. It signifies white, searing agony. Snaking fire. Schumann playing wild carnival.
Do you have the tracker?
That thought makes me shudder. I remind myself just who you are – a daughter of Cain.
The Manx is marked out by its genetic mutation: the shortening or nonexistence of its tail. That makes it no different to us Blood Lifers.
It’s all in the evolution – venom and fangs – which are from Komodo dragons, if you’re interested (although I reckon your sort isn’t).
We’re simply numbers on a page. Cash in the wallet. You prefer to commodify us. Pretty up the image.
Trap us in a tattoo.
MAY 9
I’m writing this in your kitchen: humungous, blinding white and stainless steel affair, with silver brocade wallpaper, Smeg fridge and a Rangemaster gas stove, which has more dials than I know what to do with (and looks like it’s never been touched).
I’m writing this entry because you stuffed the journal in front of me, before ordering me to do something quiet, since you had like so much work. You’d reckon I was a snotty nosed brat with a colouring book - not a century and a half old Blood Lifer.
It’s not as if the last week has been a picnic, shut up in my cell.
This evening started the same. Except that the call of the blood – the night, in all its electrifying glory – beat in my veins. Until my nut felt like exploding bloody firework. Until I struggled not to scream from the pulsating migraine agony.
All I wanted was to drive the pain away…bang, bang, bang…to the beat, beat, beat of the blood. My nut against the wall, painting it crimson.
The new pain grounded me. There was no thought or sensation, except the…bang, bang, bang…
I didn’t even hear the door open.
The next thing I knew, you were dragging me away from the wall and hollering at me.
My blood was dripping sticky into my peepers. Shadowing you into a spectre.
Then you quietened. To my surprise, there was the light touch of your fingers down my cheek, followed by the firm grip of your hand in mine, as you led me out of the cell for the first time.
You parked me here in the kitchen, before swabbing me with balled cotton wool, pinking a bowl of tepid water, as you cleaned my cut.
Ruby would’ve licked the blood from me like a proper feast. Then buzzed, we’d have shagged right there on top of the gleaming counter, shoving the avocado knives, nut milk bags and kombucha jars smashing to the marble white tiles.
You, however, just threw the used cotton wool into the rubbish. ‘Well, that was frickin’ stupid.’
I shrugged.
‘Ya huh! You’re not getting off so easy. You’re telling me what that was about on account of I don’t want you decorating my tasteful apartment a vivid shade of red.’
All right then, veiled truth time.
‘I don’t like to be caged. Alone. I’m sorry.’
And there was that piercing look of yours.
Then you sighed, settling down on the stool next to me, before piling out an iPhone (that was miraculously charging inside your monochrome tote bag), workbooks and a handful of rollerballs onto the counter. So definitely no shagging then…
Your hair was hanging in damp strands, as if you’d recently been caught in a downpour.
I flipped open one of the workbooks. ‘Masters in Management?’
You snatched the workbook ba
ck, as if I’d sully it. Right, I’ve got the memo, sweetheart. ‘It’s why I’ve been…distracted this week. Daddy wants me trained. But it’s so intense. I mean, wicked exciting, with global experts and networking, you know? But this week there’ve been evening summits and--’
‘So you reckoned… What? You could stuff me in a spare room like a…hoover?’
‘A hoover?’
I couldn’t help grinning. ‘Alright, not my best analogy.’
You shivered, running your fingers through your wet hair. Tiny rivers streamed down the vast bay window out in the dark. I craved to feel them coursing down my skin too. ‘It’s wick raw out. Does it do nothing but rain in this city?’
‘Drizzle. It drizzles mostly. And making small talk about the weather? That marks you as an honorary Londoner right there.’
‘Yah, I’m from Boston; it’s not like I don’t get it.’
‘So, that’s it then? I mean…’ I ducked my nut.
‘I grew up with my aunt in Beacon Hill. After that it was Harvard, of course. Do you wanna see my resume too?’
‘Right little bluestocking.’
‘Right little killer.’ Your peepers were hard now.
Bugger. My chest was tight. Breathe, bloody breathe. ‘You don’t know the half of it, sweetheart.’
The look on your mug was worth it. When you slipped off your stool, however, stalking down the hallway towards my cell, I tensed for flight.
Fight or flight – they’re our two most basic, ancient responses. I used to imagine I’d always fight. That’s been tested, however, these last few months.
We none of us have one identity alone and immutable.
To the Blood Club I’m shadow. But my true name is Light.
Yet what does that even mean?
In First Life I was Thomas. In Blood Life we must all transform, when we’re rechristened into our new world: I chose Light. I was, however, to change again, when I met… Let’s just say she was a First Lifer - like you - and I never saw anything the same way. I was never the same. I shed the Blood Lifer I’d been, like snake skin.
Now she’s gone. And who am I without her? In the blackness of this new life and grief?
It was Sir who rechristened me once more as slave shadow.
So who am I now? The type of bloke who scarpers in terror from a First lifer?
When you returned to the kitchen, however, just as I was poised to leg it, I saw you were only holding this journal. When I caught a glimpse of its blood-red cover, it was strangely comforting.
You thrust the journal down in front of me, with that order to do something quiet.
Since then you’ve been tapping away at your laptop.
I don’t know what’s wrong with pen and paper.
You know, it’s not as comfortable as you’d reckon travelling by crate. No, you’re right: no one reckons it’s comfy.
That first night, when they delivered me to you like the product I’ve become, I’d been travelling for so long in the stink of brittle straw and the dark, that the bright light of your chandelier blinded me.
I lay there, wedged in and tied down by red nylon ropes, which had bruised my wrists and ankles (even purpling my throat), gasping for air and slowly opened my peepers.
I squinted up at the light refracted by the vast chandelier, which my muddled mind realised was hundreds of pieces of plastic rubbish, the type that could be washed up on a beach: bottles, bags, balloons and fishing lines.
Then I could feel rough hands dragging the tight ropes off me. Finally, I was hauled upright, like a sodding statue.
You were simply standing there – watching - your hands clutched together. I didn’t know which of us was paler.
Your apartment was Georgian, panelled in polished mahogany, with a classical, fluted fireplace at one end and two high bay windows with heavy blinds and silver velvet curtains. It felt Bohemian, however, rough around the edges. The furniture was a mix of antiques, modern pieces (more like art than anything else), and junk shop finds. There was a tree trunk bench along the back wall: a huge log, with traditional chair backs stuck into it. I wondered whether the plan was to similarly domesticate me.
The apartment reminded me of how a Blood Lifer would decorate, picking out what they liked from across the ages. It felt like…home.
You muttered something to the workers and they left, taking that bleeding torture device of a pine crate with them. You didn’t tip. My kind of bird.
Then we had a silent staring contest. It was more awkward for me, considering I was starkers, except for the silver S.L.A.V.E ring. Somehow the ring only made me feel more exposed.
I hugged my arms close around me. ‘Where might this be then?’
‘My apartment.’ Not a flicker. You should play poker, you’d be bloody blinding at it.
‘And that’s where? Exactly?’
‘Exactly where it’s meant to be.’
I wandered over to the far bay window and peered out.
A city.
Towers, small blocks of flats and the low black ghosts of estates. The occasional sharp church spire, like needles.
Yet only in the distance because the apartment was overlooking a park, with an avenue of tall sweet chestnuts guarding the street and the black hump of a hill to the north.
It was so familiar, my skin itched - of course, that could’ve been the nicotine withdrawal. Still, I couldn’t help the smile, as I spun to you. ‘London?’
Suddenly a memory flashed back with such vividness, I could taste the blood warm.
AUGUST 1866 PRIMROSE HILL, LONDON
Ruby and I had stalked this reprobate through the steaming heat of Regent’s Park. He was a right ruffian in a dirty crimson choker and a crooked tile, which he kept pressing to his nut, as if expecting it to be swept off.
He stank of onions and sex.
The wanker was a kidsman; all evening the little ones had flocked around him with their petty thievings - a billy or a jenny - as he knocked them around, whilst fondling their arses.
Ruby had let me pick our mark for tonight; the kidsman might as well have offered me his neck himself.
I reckoned he must be up to some caper or other, when he skulked into the park shifty-like; it suited us just fine because so were we.
Ruby grasped my hand, as we prowled under the London planes and oaks.
Authored in Elizabethan times, for a century Ruby was my red-haired devil, Author, muse and love. Together we were alone against the world - or so I’d thought.
I’ve since learnt never to trust such simple appearance.
We tracked the bloke past avenues of sweet chestnuts and limes, darting underneath the spreading arms of ancient oaks. The air was fresh, in a way it wasn’t on the streets. You don’t know what pollution is, until you’ve been in a pea-souper.
I sparked with the freedom, twirling Ruby round and unbuttoning my shirt.
We passed the darkened tea-rooms of Chalk Farms and their pleasure grounds. The bull croak and bark of the frogs from the preserve called out in the black. The rogue was still slinking onwards, up Primrose Hill.
I hadn’t been back here since my election to Blood Life. I remembered, however, my papa bringing me and my sisters, Nora and Polly. We’d munched on Barcelona nuts from sellers and cocktail sticks of treacle and peppermint. We’d climbed to the top, out of the smoke of the city. I’d stared in awe over the vast lake of Barrow Hill Reservoir, the crowded cottages and public houses, the zoological gardens and Wren’s domed St. Paul’s, which was like a decoration on the horizon.
London.
It hadn’t seemed large enough to me, laid out like that; I never could find a world, which was big enough. I reckoned I had, when a second life opened up, like a puzzle unfolding, in Blood Life.
But I’d been bloody wrong.
That day with my sisters when we’d reached the summit, my papa had picked two creamy primroses - sun yellow in their centres - and laced them into their long locks. Papa had gently kissed each of
them on their foreheads.
A year later papa had been dead, and I never saw my sisters again.
I guess my little sisters are dead too. I hope they were allowed some happiness in their short First Lives.
At last, when the kidsman reached the junction at the top, we saw a whole gang of coves gathered in the darkness. I wondered what they were plotting. Their dark seeds, however, wouldn’t make it past tonight.
When Ruby stepped into the dim glow of their gas lanterns in all the beauty of her crimson silk, the kidsman smirked.
I knew then he was going to have his baubles trampled.
The ruffian leered at her. ‘You looking for a tup, pretty pinchcock? You show us your cunney, I’ll show you my weapon. Here’s something for your troubles.’
A copper tuppeny bit landed on the grass at Ruby’s feet. There were sniggers.
I remained in the shadows, waiting for my cue.
‘Faith, you are foolish slaves. Nothing but base beasts. By this hand, you will cry mercy before this night is over.’
The laughter died.
‘What, you bitch..?’ The kidsman tried to backhand Ruby, dropping his lantern. In one practised movement, a steel shiv had flicked into his paw.
Ruby twirled the ruffian round, however, as if he was a ragdoll. Then she sank her fangs into his neck.
I heard the bloke’s shocked scream, before he began to shake, as he fought the paralysis that was setting in. Soon the second ingredient in the venom would stop his heart, just as it’d already sealed the holes in his throat.
And that’s why we’re the ultimate camouflaged predator: we leave nothing but natural death behind. We were always meant to be the Lost species. Being dragged from the shadows was Ruby’s greatest fear. She was my Cassandra.
Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2) Page 2