Slap.
Shocked, you stared at the crimson handprint on my cheek and then at your hand, as if the two couldn’t possibly be connected. Your peepers pricked with wetness, as you chucked the suit trousers at my mug. ‘Just put the frickin’ things on.’
Then you stormed out – bang - there went the bathroom door.
By the time we caught a black cab to Brixton that evening, you were in full on business mode, and I was suited, Brylcreemed and bouncing on my seat with pent-up energy.
All day waiting on the outing, I’d made up for being shirty earlier, with deliveries of chocolate cupcakes (which I’d ordered from that bakery on Gloucester Avenue), bacon sarnies for lunch (you were a convert) and frappe (at your request).
I dived out of the cab before you, holding out my hand to help you descend.
You were surprised. Then pleased. Come on, Victorian here.
We were in a narrow alley in front of a tall, brick warehouse with depressingly small windows, like a prison. It was tagged with red-and-black graffiti. There was the delicious aroma of fried fish; Jamaican music pulsed through the still air.
I turned to you. ‘Now, what’s this meeting..?’
The words died on my lips.
Low black motorbikes, with razor red slashes down the side, were parked up in ranks across the street; the vivid memory of their roar, whilst I crashed into the arms of oblivion, painted the inside of my brain crimson.
My gaze must’ve held all the betrayal I was feeling because you rushed to explain, ‘They’re not here for you, Light, I swear. Look,’ you pointed at the sign above the grimy building, which the bikes circled: M.C.’s Mixed Martial Arts Gym.
MMA? Was that how they’d discovered me? The network of tournaments, fighters and promoters? My own stupid, death wish recklessness? Sod’s bloody law that our two worlds had collided?
At last it filtered into my overloaded mind, who owned the gym.
‘Bloody hell, your sister?’
Now I knew why you’d acted dodgy, when I’d told you how I’d been kidnapped. Were you scared of my revenge? Or feeling guilty of your Cain name?
‘Retrieval and Acquisitions is Marlane’s department. Those punks in Bangkok… They’re M.C.’s crew.’
‘Wankers.’
‘Don’t,’ you nervously glanced towards the silent gym and the rows of black bikes. ‘Marlane gets them, like…young. Poor and hungry, she says. It makes them the best fighters, once she’s trained them up. She runs these underground tournaments.’
‘Underground? Well blow me down with a feather.’
‘The core has grown up with her. She’s their mentor. And they’re family.’
‘Her gang?’
You didn’t deny it. ‘They’re loyal. They’d die for her.’’
‘Kill for her? Wait, what am I saying? I imagine they already bloody have.’ A kid, with a snarling fighting dog on a too long leash and no muzzle, swaggered past. We edged back. ‘Why didn’t you sodding tell me?’
‘What does it change?’
I shrugged. ‘You seen them? Fight?’
You shuddered. ‘Na-ah. Not with all that…violence…pain…blood…’
‘Give over. You do understand how your family makes its cash? They’re not florists.’
Your expression hardened. ‘Let’s see if we can’t get to the meeting on time, huh?’
‘Forced labour,’ I muttered.
‘Work,’ you hissed back.
We let ourselves into the warehouse with a security code, riding up in a steel life to your sister’s apartment, which took up the whole of the converted third floor. The lift stank of piss. Before it stuttered to a stop, I couldn’t help asking, ‘Why’s she live here?’
You didn’t look at me. ‘It’s her home.’
Enough said.
When the lift doors clanged open, we were hit by a primal roar of musical rage. An anarchist’s mantra, overlaid by a raucous burst of electric guitar and drums, which were duelling with a relentless, driving bass hook.
I couldn’t stop the daft grin spreading, as I bounced on the balls of my feet.
You glanced at me, alarmed and then grimaced.
I shrugged. ‘It’s punk: Fuck Off.’
‘What the frig..?’ You were making shushing motions, casting frightened glances down the hallway.
‘Name of the album,’ I explained, ‘Good Throb.’
‘I know.’ I hadn’t even raised my eyebrow, before you were grinning too.
‘Your sister would make one bitch of a Blood Lifer.’
You shoved me back into the manky lift. ‘Never let her hear you say that.’
Christ it was difficult to be close to you. The water’s muddied now, don’t even try and act like it’s not.
We battled through the raging, nihilistic explosion of alienation, into the vast open plan but scruffy apartment. Its walls were unfinished brick, which were still tagged here and there with graffiti, and the floors were raw cast concrete. Yet there were goat skin rugs, chandeliers dripping crystals and a drinks bar curved out of natural stone, which was stocked with glistening bottles of booze. The warehouse had been bisected by an immense white cloud, which was pierced with holes, as if the daytime sky had rebelled and invaded the inside.
There were also the same art pieces, mixed in with the second-hand, as you had in your apartment. Except there was a darkness in these, which wasn’t there in yours. A baroque chair looked like it’d been singed with a blowtorch. It was beautiful in its destruction.
When we rounded a corner of the cloud divider, there was M.C.: she was sprawled on a blackened chaise longue, in all her tartan miniskirt, fishnets, ripped and safety pinned t-shirt with decorative bloodstains, glory.
‘Alright, sis?’ M.C. tossed the glossy photos, which she’d been perusing, like she was an editor at a fashion mag, onto the ‘50s Japanese coffee table. Strike that, like a porn director, deciding on her next casting.
Close-ups of starkers Blood Lifers spilled over the coffee table.
Please let there not be one of me…
You nodded over the clash of the music, with a wince.
M.C. stretched, before strolling to her sound system to press it off. The silence seemed suddenly louder. ‘You brought it then?’
‘He’ll behave.’
I put on my most angelic expression.
M.C. snorted. ‘You be crazy if you believe dat can behave.’ I tensed, when M.C. prowled closer. She met my gaze shrewdly. ‘You be in my manor now, liccle leech, you get me?’
‘Yeah,’ straight face, straight face, ‘I get you.’
Your arm was already around my shoulders, tugging me away. ‘He knows what’s expected. You set up the table?’
You two First Lifers settled opposite each other across this pale, bone-white table on spindly, skeletal chairs, whilst I - the Blood Lifer - stood behind you, with my hands clasped behind my back. I was the eternal servant: although in my Savile Row suit, I was a bleeding overdressed one. There was a life-size replica of a M16 behind M.C., as if that was what served her.
Suddenly, the surface of the albino table shifted, like a million particles of sand. It reshaped into a 3D projection of the globe. Glowing lights were dotted across its surface, connected by a spider web of threads and photos of Blood Lifers. All projected in a moving display from within.
I blinked. ‘Bugger me.’
You glanced back at me warningly.
M.C. smirked. ‘It be still bad, I told you.’
‘He’ll behave,’ you repeated, like a ward against evil.
As you and M.C. leant across the table, which was shifting with statistics and the haunting images of the enslaved, I let my mind drift.
I stood ramrod straight, with my chin up, and peepers down: the statue you First Lifers wanted. Yet it niggled - the thought of that miniature globe - as if you truly did have the world in your hands.
Those dots could only be other Blood Lifers like me. My own kind, pet slaves now in rich
humans’ homes or else earmarked for capture.
When I listened in to the meeting, it was as if you were chin-wagging about any corporate product on sale globally, using sanitised business buzzwords to mask the horror, compartmentalizing Accounts from Retrieval and Acquisitions, so your hands wouldn’t be dirtied.
M.C. was fudging and hedging, side-lining you when you questioned her. You were clearly being trained to be the money woman. Whilst M.C. was the bitch with the blood on her hands, so you didn’t have to be. What are big sisters for?
‘£2, 633714327332.34127,’ I said absentmindedly, ‘you forgot the £3, 327432.34127 at the end.’
Both women were staring at me.
Bollocks.
You’d been working on the numbers for bloody hours, and I’d been shifting about to keep my legs from going numb, daydreaming.
There was a stylised Manx illustrated across the brick wall in creepy graffiti, and I was imagining I was back with my Manx cats. Except in the background was the annoying buzz of you and M.C. working on this problem. I didn’t even realise I’d solved it out loud.
M.C. sprang up. ‘I thought you said you got me, liccle leech?’
‘Before you take him down…’ You were tapping away on the pale table, as if it was a laptop. A figure spread across the surface in tiny black pixels: £2, 633714327332.34127.
‘How you do dat?’ M.C. was still poised to pounce.
‘I worked in a bank?’ I offered weakly.
You laughed.
After a moment, so did M.C., but there was a nastier edge to it, as she sank back into her chair. ‘Well done, sis; only you could buy a blow-up doll and end up with a neek instead, innit?’
I wasn’t sure which half of that sentence hurt more.
Your expression stilled. ‘Sit down, Light,’ you dragged back the skeletal chair next to yours, ‘let’s see what you reckon to these figures.’ I didn’t move. You repeated more slowly, ‘Sit. Down.’
Finally, what you were offering filtered through to my shell-shocked brain.
M.C. looked as amazed as I felt.
I plonked myself down, linking my hands behind my nut and grinned. ‘Alright.’
I felt the most like…a man…Blood or First Lifer….that I’d felt in a long time, sitting there with you at your work. Almost like…an equal.
I should’ve known it wouldn’t last.
When the accounts were finally swiped to one side and a – disgusting - catalogue of Blood Lifers was brought up for your viewing pleasure, I noticed the small Manx tattoo on the inside of M.C.’s wrist, which matched yours, as she leant forward.
The mark of Cain.
I also didn’t miss how M.C. lingered over several of the snaps, as if reminiscing or…anticipating..?
When M.C. paused on Donovan, whose dark mop of hair was pushed back, whilst he posed starkers against a grey wall at Abona, I swear the bint glanced at me.
‘Da product,’ M.C. tapped the table, enlarging Donovan’s image. She knew - she bloody knew - he was my cousin. ‘Thing about da leech be its unique. Secret to most. Dat be its value. All around da world’s after unique. In Afghanistan beardless young boys be sold for bacha bazi: fucking and dancing, innit? In India, dey after fair Nepalese girls: only virgins. But a virgin can only be deflowered once. A boy grows up, sprouts dutty hair and becomes a man. A leech? Dey stay a leech always. If dey a virgin, dey heal: a Blood Clubber can deflower dem every night for the rest of dere lives, you get me? No growing up. No changing. What you see, be what you get - forever. Unique. Like your boy dere, when da bitch be trained.’
You were squirming in your seat, worse than me. That’s when you said something, which knocked me for six, even though it was so quiet I almost missed it, ‘When’s daddy getting here?’
‘Any time, little sis. What’s wrong? Missing him?’
If I hadn’t been frozen in terror (my hands gripping my seat, so I was close to snapping it), by the imminent arrival of Master to the party, I’d have analysed the gleam in your sister’s eye.
Suddenly I remembered I was meant to meet another Blood Lifer tonight, like two mutts playing together at the park. My heart fell. The poor bastard must be from the Estate.
The word at Abona was Master trained slaves one-to-one for the super-rich, who preferred their toys to be thoroughly housebroken. Maybe the point of this whole exercise was to show me how a proper slave behaved.
Bugger. That.
I was surprised when under the table, your fingers soothed over mine, slipping them out of their death grip.
Or maybe you were just worried about the survival of the chair.
The last time I saw Master… Let’s say it dispelled my sentimental notions of coexistence. I reached out to him for help, but instead was slapped down so hard I finally learnt the lesson that times had changed.
I’m a product now: that’s my value and my life sentence. I’m the hunted. The slave in the new world of the Blood Club.
Unless I find a way to fight back.
You two Cains were chatting away again in low voices: pricings, balances, assets and costings.
I’d gone to that happy place of denial, where I’m still with Kathy out on the moor by the Twelve Apostles; there are sprigs of bracken in Kathy’s pixie cut, so she looks like one of the fairy folk and her blue eyes…
He was there. Finlo Cain. Your daddy. Master.
Master was standing by the daytime inside the night cloud, which separated this section of the apartment off, like being in the centre of a honeycomb. I could see him over M.C.’s shoulder.
Your nut, however, was low over your work, and you didn’t notice.
Master had seemed like a giant, when he’d been behind me, and I’d been overloaded with fear. Yet now I could see he was a short bugger but burly - gruff looking - with coarse grey hair and a full beard. Like your sister, he hadn’t got the memo about it being a business meeting: his clobber was faded blue jeans, thick belt and a tatty black sweater. He wasn’t what I was expecting as CEO of Cain Company.
But then when are folks ever what they appear?
Master was silently examining his daughters, as if for flaws. His flint peepers – the same as yours – softened when they scrutinised you. Master passed over me, like I was merely another piece of furniture.
I worried at the horn buttons of my suit jacket.
‘Well,’ Master’s expression remained hard and impassive, ‘what’s strange with you two today?’
‘Daddy!’ Shocked, I watched as you tore out of your seat, knocking it backwards. You flung yourself into Master’s arms. When you clung to him, he patted you awkwardly on the back. M.C. sprawled further down on her seat, as her and Master exchanged a glance, before M.C. shrugged. At last, Master prised you away. ‘You..?’
‘Middling.’ I cringed back, trying to avoid notice. ‘How’s your boy working out?’ No such sodding luck then. ‘I reckoned it not fit. In fact, I thought I may learn this one at the Estate.’
Say something. Please, please, please…
‘Naw, he’s mint. You were right. He’s just what I need to learn about the business, like, hands on.’
M.C. snorted.
Master frowned. ‘But a suit? Sitting on a chair?’ I leapt up. I may be many things but I’m not a bloody pillock when it comes to recognising other predators. And right then..? I had a hunter’s shotgun pointed at my goolies. ‘Care you don’t spoil it. I admire you,’ Master smiled at you, almost tenderly, ‘what with all these…degrees and the like. But you’re new to my world. I’m putting my trust in you.’ You flushed, girlish. That was cracking, that was: you had a bloke in your life already and his name was Daddy. Now I understood who you were both knackering yourself for and stamping on your half-formed morals to impress. Who my true rival was. And it wasn’t Fernando. ‘Trouble maker that Blood Lifer of yours was, oh the neck of him! Do you want to return him and choose again?’ I nearly forgot I wasn’t truly dead and had to bloody breathe. Thank Christ your face fell. �
��No need to make a great fuss girl. It’s your goog; I won’t take away your plaything. I know you’ll train him into a darling slave. You never disappoint me.’ Master’’s smile widened, but you avoided his gaze, tearing at your nails.
‘What about me?’ M.C. demanded, crossing her arms. ‘What if I want a goog?’
Master’s smile died in the instant. Note to self: never be on the receiving end of that look. ‘You’ve already got too much of a feel for the business,’ he told M.C. darkly. ‘You’d never get a stitch of work done with such a distraction.’
‘Where’s Captain?’ You asked, before M.C. could protest.
Master glanced at his watch. ‘The boy has the codes. He’ll join us soon.’ Surprised, I glanced between you. Master allowed his slaves such freedom? When you sat back down, Master planted himself at the head of the bone-white table. He swiped until the spiderwebbed globe glowed ghostly with the demise of my specie’s freedom, whilst I stood there bloody impotent. ‘The latest retrieval..?’
M.C. shrugged, drumming her fingernails on the projected world. ‘No problems. The product be at Abona now.’
Master nodded.
The way they worked? It was slick. Practised. Informal. I wondered how many years it’d been in the making.
But you? In your business suit, all bright-eyed and bushytailed, looked like you were striving to be initiated into a multinational on Canary Wharf.
Not a Blood Lifer trafficking and slavery ring.
‘You still hear from that feller?’ Master rubbed his hand across the bristles on his chin, as if it was a casual question.
I kept my nut bowed respectfully but bugger me, Master had you trapped already.
‘Professor Zuniga Sanchez?’ You were so proud. So excited. And so blooming naïve. ‘Yah, he’s still at Harvard. He has a Research Fellowship in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.’
There went that snort again from M.C.
‘Aye, Fernando: the Mexican feller. I wasn’t pleased how he was shaping. From what I heard.’
Your gob was gaping. I should’ve felt sorry for you except…this was Alpha Geek we were talking about. ‘What does..? Mexican? I mean, what does that even..? And heard..? Who told you..?’
Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2) Page 12