Ruby tossed the kidsman’s frozen body back to me, as I too now joined in the game. I swung the bleeder round, before rolling him down Primrose Hill: a nice little snack for later. His slack limbs bounced over the holes and hillocks, before coming to rest.
Then there was uproar: shivs, coshes and cudgels appeared, as if by dark magic.
When the First Lifers rushed us, we took those crooks apart one by one, chucking them between us, before hurling them down the hill to join the mound of paralysed treats.
I copped a mouse - a right shiner - before I could drag the giant off me by his Newgate knockers. The ramper bellowed, as I tore tufts out of his greasy whiskers.
I dived for his throat, my fangs extended and sank through his skin, piercing two tiny holes and delivering the toxin. He struggled, trying to thrash away, even in his pain. When I booted him, however, he too tumbled down the hill.
At last, Ruby and I were alone: two Blood Lifers on top of a hill in the black, a pile of First Lifers at the bottom and the velvet sky above pricked by stars.
We were conquerors of our world.
I noticed the primroses then, which had been crushed in the struggle. It reminded me of that day with my papa and sisters, who I hadn’t seen for so many years. Who I knew I wouldn’t see again.
I knelt down and plucked a primrose. Its face was tightly closed against the moon. I knew I’d never see it open. Still, I slipped it into Ruby’s scarlet hair. It suited her.
‘My dearest prince,’ Ruby snogged me, biting my lower lip and sucking at the droplets of beaded blood, ‘how did you like my game?’
‘You were…breath-taking,’ I couldn’t help grinning. ‘But I was taught by my mama not to play with my food.’
Then Ruby’s long-nailed fingers were tight around my throat. Squeezing. She always liked to play rough, this one. I licked my lips. Just as suddenly, however, Ruby’s grip loosened. ‘Prithee,’ she smiled, ‘let’s feast.’
Ruby clutched my hand, dragging me after her down the hill in skipping leaps. I noticed, however, that first she’d stooped to pick up something from the grass.
The boss was still twitching where he lay buried under the rest of his gang at the bottom of Primrose Hill. Ruby grabbed him by the leg, hauling him out. I heard the wet, messy crunch as his neb smashed.
When Ruby crouched over the kidsman, I could see she had something small pinched between her thumb and finger. Then she held it up high in front of the kidsman’s terrified lamps: it was the copper tuppeny bit, which he’d tossed at her feet.
I could see his sauce-box working, like he was fighting to form words. Ruby lowered her mush to his, as if intent on hearing them, but his stiff tongue couldn’t force out more than a garbled, ‘Please…’
Ruby gently placed her soft fingers on the First Lifer’s blue lips. ‘Peace be quiet.’
Faster almost than even I could follow, Ruby was straddling the poor bastard and forcing the tuppeny bit between his gnashers…and then deep down his throat.
I tilted my nut, listening to the coughed, wet rasps, as the kidsman choked to death.
I hadn’t heard someone cop it that way before. I’m a human camera: life is a series of shots, branded into my brain. A day or night is always richer for a new experience.
Then we feasted. Bloody hell, how we feasted.
And that’s how I knew I was home. The memory. The taste.
‘Primrose Hill?’ I gazed at you hopefully.
‘What’s it matter? It’s not like you’re going out. Ever.’
I turned my nut away, trying to hide the sick dread. Yet you must’ve seen it, plain as day.
I hated the whole bloody lot of you First Lifers then. I imagined you in a pile of twitching corpses mounded at the bottom of Primrose Hill – you, Sir, Master –– and felt better.
Bollocks to it all.
I straightened my shoulders. ‘Well, figured. Not with no clobber on.’
You seemed taken aback. ‘I’ll order something. But that doesn’t mean you’ll… Follow me.’ That’s when you led me into this white and silver kitchen for the first time, setting me on a shovel-like, red-and-black stool, as if you didn’t know what to do with me. ‘So, shadow, you hungry?’ I couldn’t hold back the flinch. You noticed. ‘That isn’t your real name, huh?’
I looked away. ‘It’s what I’m called now.’
‘Na-ah, I wanna know. I’ll tell you mine. I’m Grayse. It’s a Manx name.’
I remembered the agony of the belt… My name is Light… Cane… My name is Light… Riding crop… Light, Light, Light… Sir’s boot, fist and the snap of shattered bones.
‘Light,’ I whispered, ‘my name is Light.’
‘OK then, Light, you hungry?’
I nodded. Every molecule roared for blood.
You swung open the fridge, pulling out a baby’s bottle - thick with crimson - which you held towards me with an expectant expression.
Starved though I was, a bloke’s still got to draw the line somewhere.
I raised my eyebrow. And didn’t reach for the bottle.
After a moment, you lowered your arm. ‘I don’t get it. She said this is what you needed on account of your fangs having been removed.’
Suddenly I found myself off the stool and right in your face. To give you your due, you didn’t back away, although your fingers clutched at the marble kitchen top. I didn’t miss that. ‘What’s next? Pretty little bowl with Light printed on the side for my din dins? Or a leash?’
‘At least it’d go with the collar I’ve got you.’ I drew back to study you. Your grey peepers were coolly amused. ‘Joke.’
‘Right. Ha-bloody-ha.’
‘So, what..?’ You waved the bottle of blood at me.
Hypnotised by the scent, I weaved after it, like you were a sodding snake charmer. ‘A cup’ll do me. Warmed.’
Before you turned away, you glanced back at me. ‘You’re not what I expected.’
‘And how did you expect an unwilling Blood Lifer sex slave exactly?’
That amused expression in your peepers, which didn’t quite make your serious mouth again. ‘Not like you.’
‘No one’s like me.’
You busied yourself pouring the thick blood out of the bottle and into a bright red-and-black teacup; I liked that I matched your décor. ‘I’m just figuring that out,’ you murmured.
You look like you’re finishing up now with your work. Your iPhone, however, is still beeping every few minutes, and your fingers are all swipe, swipe, swipe.
Buggering hell, you look knackered.
MAY 14
I guess yesterday you bothered to read my journal because this morning you bit my head off.
I forget you’ll see what I write.
It’s like there’s you and then there’s Reader you.
It’s so much easier to spill my guts to Reader you because with her there’s no consequences. We have an understanding: what happens in this journal, stays in this journal.
I guess you don’t have the same understanding..?
If I wasn’t such a daft berk, I’d be more circumspect and keep both my own counsel and skin.
When you’re scrabbling through a list of chores, however, which have been set by your Mistress, scrubbing at the kitchen floor on all fours in pink Marigolds, it pays to at least still talk the part of the rebel.
But here’s the thing: I’m not playing any part. You can’t flay a rebel’s Soul.
I reckon you learnt that today.
The first night you allowed me out alone in the apartment (because you didn’t want me painting the walls of my cell red again), whilst you were at one of your seminars, I did nothing but sit exactly where you’d placed me on the tamed log bench.
‘I’ve gotta go down the City,’ you said, ‘let’s see if you can’t get into no trouble tonight? Don’t move.’
So I didn’t.
You’d left the chandelier of beachcombed detritus off and candles burning instead - needle pricks of li
ght in the vast dark. Waves of fragrance caught me in their currents: Fig Trees, Tahitian Gardenia and Mango. I was carried on their seas. Transported to faraway lands.
To freedom.
A bloke can dream, can’t he?
Yet in the apartment there was only the blackness and the olfactory illusion as comfort.
It forced me to remember the others - frame by bloody frame - who were still shut up at Abona’s pleasure.
My new family.
How could I have forgotten them? Even for a moment?
When I heard the key in the lock, I tensed but didn’t move. I wasn’t sure what you defined as trouble, but I was desperate not to be shut away again.
You bustled into the sitting room but stopped stark still, when you caught a gander of me. Again the silent staring contest. I was getting the better of it, now I had on some clobber.
‘Have you been..?’
‘All evening. Not budged a muscle. I’ve been good as gold, God’s honest truth.’
You simply stared at me again, before dropping your tote to the wooden floor with a clatter – you should watch that, I bet it cost a bomb. ‘Go to bed.’
Bollocks. Screwed that up, didn’t I?
‘Get up.’
Christ in heaven, make up your mind.
‘What..?’ Groggy, I squinted out of the covers. You were standing with your hands on your hips, glaring down at me. I groaned and burrowed back into my nest. The magic blue ivy was dimmed to nothing on the blind: sun up. ‘It’s morning. Sleep time.’ The duvet was unceremoniously hauled back. ‘Oi, undressed bloke here.’
‘I said, get up.’
Grumpily, I sat straddling the stool in the kitchen, resting my nut in my hands.
You’d already shown me the computerised blinds, which you’d had fitted throughout the apartment to keep the sun out, with a kid’s glee. I’d just had time to drag on my jeans and a t-shirt, as well as to run my fingers through my hair.
Take note: if you want your toy to look smart? Brylcreem.
So, I was sitting there, bleary-eyed, whilst you were all chirpy, blitzing yourself – bzzzzzz – a blueberry and banana smoothie.
You poured the thick swill into a tall glass and took deep gulps. Your neck looked so long and ivory. Bloody inviting…
Look, Blood Lifer here.
‘Coffee – black. Two sugars please, darlin’.’
You slowly lifted the glass from your lips, licking a smoothie moustache away. ‘You can drink coffee?’
‘Well, yeah. How else do you expect me to stay awake at this time of the bloody day?’
‘It’s not like, early. It’s nearly--’
‘Nocturnal here.’
‘Not anymore.’
‘Come again?’
You shrugged your slim shoulder. ‘It’s not working out. I need my sleep.’
‘Me too. And I need it when that thing, which can boil me down to melted goo (called the sun), is in the sky.’
Your peepers were as hard as I’ve ever seen in a First Lifer. ‘Not happening. You’ll just have to…adapt. Can’t you do that?’
‘More than you know, sweetheart.’ I gritted my teeth together not to say more.
Your smile was one of cool triumph. ‘Mint. Now I just need to think of things to keep you busy whilst I’m out, so you don’t…you know. I’ve got a gym; you can work out in there for two hours each morning,’ your mush lit with sudden enthusiasm, ‘I’ll set you a fitness programme from Instagram.’
‘Then I’ll need that coffee.’
You banged through cupboards in search of what must be sodding poison by your sour expression. As a last ditch attempt, you swung open the fridge, which was stuffed with long-stemmed globe artichokes, strawberry punnets, asparagus spears, waxy lemons, aubergines and loquats. You shook your nut.
Seeing all that grub, however, I wasn’t able to keep the glazed-eyed salivation off my mug.
You snatched up one of my bottles. ‘You want some blood?’
‘That’ll only take off the edge.’
‘You mean,’ I could see the cogs turning (thank Christ), ‘you need real food too? Like a…’ You’d been about to say human, but I reckon that would’ve been a step too far. ‘She told me slaves…I mean…Blood Lifers….didn’t need…’
‘That right?’ Again I wondered who this she was. The same she, who’d advised you that we drank from bottles, like baby animals on a farm.
Uncomfortable, you slammed the fridge shut. ‘Why?’
‘There aren't enough calories in blood. Without other food, we’re in a permanent state of starvation. Plus, I like the taste, the same as you.’
‘But I haven’t fed you since…’
You hurled the bottle at the far wall with a holler of sheer frustration. The teat bounced off and cold, glutinous blood splattered across the silver brocade.
I jumped up. Shuddering, I forced myself not to dive on the blood and lick up every delicious, dripping globule of red life.
You Cains have spirit. It makes you prime candidates for election to Blood Life.
I inched towards you, before tentatively patting your stiff shoulder. ‘It’s alright.’
‘Naw, it’s not. I told you, I’ve never even looked after a dog before.’
I smiled. ‘I guess you’ve got the collar though?’
For a moment, you were smiling the first genuine smile I’d yet seen. Then you were shoving the remnants of your smoothie into my hands. ‘Drink that. I’ll get you some more blood. You can have anything you want when I’m out today; there are sweet potato brownies at the back of the cupboard.’
‘I’ll be sure to look out for them.’ I watched you over the rim of the glass, as I tried to take measured sips, rather than down it in one go.
You were busying around, pouring fresh blood into a cup, before transferring it to the microwave. Then you eyed the coagulating mess on the far wall. ‘I had to fire the cleaner because of you. Do you know how hard it is to find a good cleaner in London?’
I shrugged.
Somehow both the tantrum hurling of the blood and the firing of the cleaner had become my fault. But with a slave’s instincts, I knew better than to argue the point.
‘That’s gonna frickin’ stain unless…you sort it. After all, you’re the one with all the free time. Anyway, I don’t want you getting bored. I’ll leave you a list of chores.’
‘There an apron to go with that?’
‘You want one? Or how about a pretty French Maid’s outfit?
Humiliated, I shifted uneasily.
I finished the smoothie, banging down the glass. It wasn’t the strongest rebuttal, but it was all I had.
You tossed pink Marigolds at me and didn’t take no for an answer, until I was wearing them like a right pillock. I knelt on the kitchen floor by a soapy bucket, washing up the gooey blood from the marble tiles and scrubbing it from the silver wallpaper.
It still left the ghost of a stain.
When you bustled out of the apartment, I shook myself awake like a mutt. Then I got down to some serious press ups in the sitting room so I wouldn’t have to explore your poncey gym.
It got out my energy: if it’d been night-time and I hadn’t been about ready to curl back to sleep on the cold, mahogany floor.
When I padded into the kitchen, I discovered that - true to your word - you’d left a chores list for me on a pink Post-it note.
It was neatly numbered too.
I started with the dishwasher.
DISHWASHER: DINNER PLATES, FRONT LEFT. SIDE PLATES, FRONT RIGHT. BREAKFAST BOWLS, BACK LEFT.
I stared at that pink Post-it note, which was a pink bloody rag to bull. My fingers itched. You’ll be living on the wild side from now on with your dishwasher arrangements. I slipped a dinner plate to the back.
Next up: laundry. I nosed into the utility. There were already these smart little hampers, which were marked light and dark, as if even our dirty threads needed dividing.
LAUNDRY: WHITE WASH (WHIT
E ITEMS ONLY). DARK WASH (DARK ITEMS ONLY).
You know sometimes I wonder how you reckon I’ve lived for the last 150 years. And it’s not by merrily mixing colours. But your machine of torture in snazzy scarlet with matching drier? Flashing lights and twenty plus bloody settings?
Sod that.
It’s cotton, delicates or quick wash - that’ll do me.
Chuffed with how well I was getting through the list, I decided to have a snoop around. I pushed into your bedroom. The first thing that hit me was a montage of photos, which covered an entire wall. In each one, you were laughing or smiling.
It was as if you were a different bird.
Some of the snaps were faded. They showed an older woman, elegant but with the same grey peepers as you. She was in Florence. I never forget a place I’ve been.
Most often, however, it was you in the photos with this dark-haired fellah. He was a stud (in an alpha geek way), with his checked shirt buttoned up all the way.
I had the sudden urge to rip off the wanker’s bleeding arms because they were draped over you.
I don’t know why.
You were posed in front of an imposing, white colonial mansion, with an American flag caught just in frame, sprawled on the grass under shady elms or leant on large oaks, in front of redbrick and ivy-hugged buildings. You pulled goofy faces and cuddled, or dived into cool blue pools.
It was confusing and overwhelming. A slice of life lost, except on these walls.
I forced myself to turn away from your private memories. Yet as I did, I only just had time to notice the vast white bed, when instinct booted me in the goolies.
Blood.
A dark pool. At the foot of the bed.
I threw myself to my knees. My phantom fangs ached with their attempt to descend (the shameful reminder of my impotence), whilst I lapped at the blood.
Wrong – taste and smell – chemical wrongness.
Spluttering, I pulled back, wiping my arm across my mouth in disgust. I prodded the solid pool with my nail.
A fake.
A mock massacre, masquerading as a rug. Nothing but a ghoulish decoration.
Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2) Page 3