Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2)

by Rosemary A Johns

  ‘The bettermost people are in Manx,’ Master continued, as if your views were an irrelevance: welcome to my world. ‘I’ll introduce you to some of them. But not yet. Right now, work comes first. In fact, work always comes first.’

  I felt less smug, when I realised you were about to cry. Yet I couldn’t even rest my hand on your shoulder to comfort you.

  ‘Good evening all!’ I jolted when a young Blood Lifer – obviously this Captain – strolled in like he owned the whole apartment and possibly us with it. He had a jaunty peak of strawberry blond hair and a dark blue shirt casually open two buttons at the neck, worn over pressed dun cargo trousers, as if he’d stepped out of a Young Tory Convention (maybe he had, when he’d been elected to Blood Life).

  What I couldn’t figure, however, is why not one of you First Lifers howled with outrage, when Captain sauntered to a spindle chair at the opposite side of the table to Master and threw himself down.

  I drew in my breath, shuddering on Captain’s behalf. This empathy for other Blood Lifers was new: solidarity in oppression. I tensed, expecting a tech war of three trackers pointed, like lasers, at Captain’s boyish self, followed by agonised yowls.

  Instead, I heard Captain’s drawl, ‘It’s been a long week: dinners, events, yada yada… You know how it is. So let’s make it snappy, yes?’

  What the bloody hell was going on?

  The humans were looking awkward but…

  Oh no, didn’t this take the bloody biscuit?

  This Blood Lifer wasn’t a slave. Nor did you Cains intend to make him into one.

  Cain Company, which traded in Blood Lifer slaves, also traded with Blood Lifers. Leech…bad…stupid…worthless…dirty…whore…slut…bitch…parasite… I’d started to believe those words. Yet you First Lifers didn’t even believe them. They were merely convenient tools.

  If Captain was free and treated with respect for the sake of dirty money, then you truly had been right: everything my people were suffering (and I’d endured), was down to the profit margin.

  And that was infinitely worse to live with.

  Captain must know I was a Blood Lifer: we can always sense each other. I was, however, suited and booted, so how was Captain to know I was a slave, even if I was standing like a sodding choir boy?

  Captain still had his fangs and venom.

  One bite.

  A single bite from him and I’d be free of the whole bloody lot of you. Not you, I don’t mean…

  And so would the world.

  If I could only catch his eye…

  Captain looked up and smiled. The baby actually had dimples. I reckon in First Life he’d been a real beta because they’re the sort, who christen themselves when they’re reborn things like Captain, Ace, or Goliath – the types of nicknames they wet dreamed someone had called them in First Life. Rather than Carrot-top, Loser or Shorty.

  I risked a significant glance at Master. Then down at myself. Mimed bowing my nut and then took an even greater risk with a nod back at Master.

  Captain’s smiled broadened. ‘Cute. I think he’s trying to signal me.’

  You know the type of silence you want to tunnel away from?

  You were suddenly as still as me.

  Then M.C. bared her gnashers in what could’ve been an attempt at a smile but it was one, which said the tiger now had its prey in its jaws. ‘Come on, liccle leech, no secrets.’

  I knew my peepers were comically large. My mouth was too dry to answer.

  ‘How precious,’ Captain stretched back in his seat. I could tell how much he was enjoying my discomfort. I wondered whether he would, if he’d ever felt a bullwhip ripping up his arse. ‘I think he’s under the misconception I may save him.’

  Babe to Blood Life, Captain couldn’t have swum these dark waters more than half a decade, yet here he was taunting and tormenting me: 150 years old but a toy to be batted about.

  I blinked away tears; no sodding way were they falling.

  ‘So you wanted to meet about..?’ Your tone was ice cold.

  Captain turned his gaze (and lazy smile), on you. ‘He’s yours?’

  You nodded stiffly.

  ‘He’s Plantagenet?’

  You shrugged.

  ‘Everyone at the Blood Council was keen as mustard to get as many of those caught as possible. I mean, they’re not all Long-liveds but still…what a bloodline. You do know about the bloodline?’

  ‘It be a liccle bitch that ain’t got no respect, dat’s what I know.’

  ‘Marlane,’ Master shot M.C. a look. She subsided. ‘The boy acts the gor,’ Master expanded, ‘makes trouble.’

  Captain waved an airy hand, as if he was the authority. ‘Plantagenets always do. They challenge authority and try to change things with respect to the natural order: our authority and our order, come to that.’

  This time I snorted and then quickly ducked my nut.

  The Blood Life Council. It wasn’t a single Blood Lifer but the entire equivalent of Blood Lifer Westminster dealing with the Cains. Slave trading with them.

  I couldn’t point the finger of blame any longer at First Lifers alone.

  Blood Lifers aren’t the compassionate sort as a rule, but this was beyond anything I’d imagined them capable of. I should’ve guessed there was a silent partner. How otherwise did M.C. Crew know the secrets of us Blood Lifers: how to hunt, capture and defang us? How had you First Lifers even discovered our existence?

  I felt like I would hurl, when I thought about the details Captain must’ve casually taught you in this room, so Sir could train us at Abona: how long it took to reduce us to living skeletons, how taking away our acute senses would mess us up and how to motivate us with blood.

  Had Captain looked so cheery then, enthused by his dinner and events?

  Captain was eagerly passing on the names of the best families to target. I recognised some of them – Sringara, Hardy and Dulcinea. Long-liveds and their authored kin.

  Then there were place names and businesses. The wanker even passed over maps with marked locations, along with an analysis of each Blood Lifer’s weaknesses. I wondered whether I’d ever get to have a gander at my file; they must’ve had fun putting together my weaknesses.

  Then I spotted a pattern. The Blood Life Council was crucifying its political rivals, or anyone with a bloodline strong enough to challenge these newbies to evolutionary advancement.

  The sneaky little bastards.

  Black betrayal. It hit me, twinned with a rush of rage: a screaming insistence for revenge.

  We’d been sold out by our own kind, who were the true puppet masters in the shadows, merely to further their own political ambitions.

  And the worst of it? They were so blinkered in their arrogance they couldn’t see that they were next. They’d opened the door to you First Lifers, revealed the existence of the Lost and the profits to which we could be turned. Only a fool would think it could be closed again. Once the Long-liveds were tamed, next would come their bloodlines, and then, who would be left? Kids like this Captain? Who did he reckon would protect him, when the roar of the motorbikes was at his back?

  ‘You must only take these families,’ Captain arched his fingers self-importantly, ‘or else you’ll risk depleting the stocks.’

  Stocks? As if we were fish to be farmed and netted.

  And that was it: I bloody lost it.

  Captain’s smug, red-cheeked mug ballooned, until it was all I could see, as I firework exploded.

  I launched myself across the table with its spinning globe of servitude, tackling the wanker and – snap – there went the bloody stupid skeleton chair.

  Captain tumbled backwards in a flurry of boots and clouts – crack - his nut took a blinding bang to the concrete. He howled.

  I lifted Captain up by his ripped shirt, before smashing him down again. ‘Why, you bastard, why?’

  Captain was a bleeding coward; he had enough bottle to send untold numbers of Blood Lifers to centuries of abuse, but I bet he hadn’t bee
n in a fair barney in his life. He didn’t fight back, even though the little git was the one with the fangs.

  My attack was so fast and sudden – Kenpo Karate, cheers for that – you First Lifers reacted as if you were floating in space.

  I straddled the conniving weasel, getting in as many good ones as I could because I wanted to make this count: for me, Donovan, Hartford, Ashanti, Vesper, even marie antoinette…

  White, blinding, shuddering agony.

  I collapsed backwards off the now sobbing Captain.

  Wracked through every nerve - right to the fingertips and tingling toes - I absorbed the searing pain; I didn’t even have the strength to scream. Then it was gone. Instead there was a curtain of black, tipped with scarlet: M.C.’s hair, my brutalised mind supplied.

  ‘Dis be my yard,’ M.C. hissed. ‘A leech disrespect my yard..? Nah, we be having a boot party.’

  M.C. dropped the tracker onto the table, before dragging me onto my knees. She booted me in the stomach with the heel of her foot – Kick Boxing – next my chest – Shotokan–– and then with her open hand across my mug – Karate.

  Through my bruised peepers, I watched M.C.’s blurred outline pace behind me, before the sudden agony, as she shoved me down onto my mush. She wrenched my wrist and hand up to my neck, like I was being nicked by a brutal copper.

  Bloody blinding, she knew grapple holds too.

  I tried to roll M.C. off, but she intensified the pressure, until my shoulder was about to pop out of its socket.

  I could hear you yabbering in the background, through the haze. When at last I felt you drag your sister off me, I carefully lowered my arm. The joint settled back into place. I panted, before shakily hauling myself up.

  Unfortunately, that meant I was staring at Master, who was giving me that look: the one, which I’d promised I’d never give him reason to direct at me.

  Captain was quaking, his bloody stupid hair at all angles, as if he’d just had a wild session of hanky panky; scarlet dripped from his lips. He huddled next to Master - gormless prat that he was - as if for protection. He was prodding at his bloodied teeth. ‘My fang,’ he whimpered, before pointing at me dramatically, his finger quivering. I looked back innocently. ‘You broke my fang, you…you…yob!’

  I flipped him the two-finger salute.

  Captain’s cheeks puffed with righteous indignation, as he dived for M.C.’s tracker. M.C. stopped him, however, with a hand pressed to his slight chest. ‘Humans only.’

  Captain swivelled to Master, as if this must be a mistake. Master merely patted him on the back. Captain winced. ‘It’s been a right good meeting,’ as Master steered Captain out of the apartment, I heard him placate, ‘with your helpful information, we know the best tack.’

  Then came Captain’s wailed protest, ‘But - I mean - this is an outrage…’

  ‘We’ll learn the boy, don’t you worry.’

  Finally, we were alone.

  M.C. scuffed her boot against a table leg. ‘If it was mine--’

  ‘Well, he’s not,’ you edged between M.C. and me, ‘and he never will be.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  I didn’t like how M.C. smiled; apparently neither did you. ‘What does..?’

  ‘You be a wallad if you reckon dad’ll let you keep it, if you can’t control da liccle bitch. Dis be a business. We be professionals. Either you get with that or…’

  ‘What?’

  M.C. clicked her tongue. ‘Are you a Cain or what?’

  Master marched back in, before you could reply.

  M.C. leant against the graffiti Manx with crossed arms.

  ‘It…’ Master dragged his thick black belt through its loops - thwap, thwap, thwap - and hurled it onto the white table with a clatter. The particles of sand quivered, as the globe trembled and then shivered out of existence. I stiffened. ‘…needs learning. Or do you want to send it back? Or mark it for the Estate?’

  ‘He’s mine,’ you clutched my wrist so tightly I could feel blood rushing into bruises. ‘No one’s… I can do it. I’ll train him on account of it’s my responsibility. I promise - I’ll prove it to you.’

  ‘Don’t work yourself into a fidge. I trust you.’ Master’s expression softened. ‘Our books on slaves are plentiful. Did you read them?’

  ‘She destroyed dem,’ M.C. sneered, ‘paper massacre, yeah?’

  ‘It was an accident, like, when I was studying them,’ you muttered.

  ‘Marlane, ready us some drinks at the bar,’ Master commanded.

  M.C. looked as if she might argue but then she slouched further into the apartment.

  Master slid his hand significantly down the coiled belt on the table, tapping the heavy bronze buckle, before tenderly clasping you by the shoulders. ‘Learn it respect. Learn it what it means to belong to a Cain. Or I will.’ He kissed your forehead. ‘Show me you’re still my daughter; I know I’ll be fair proud of you.’

  Then Master too was gone. And that left you and me.

  Buggering hell.

  You stood, head bowed, staring at that belt, as if it was one of your Fiendish Sudoku. You were sinking into black. I recognised the struggle. Except you’d already drowned in the dark.

  Your daddy was too overpowering to fight.

  Subdued, you reached out a shaking hand to pick up the belt, like it was venomous. You got as far as doubling it over, before not seeming to have the least clue what to do with it. It was a hell of a piece of leather.

  I had the sudden urge to make this easier on you. Yet I didn’t know where that impulse came from.

  I sighed, limping over to the table. ‘Get on with it.’

  I wrenched off my pale grey jacket, tearing the ivory satin lining. I tossed it over a chair, before bending over the table. I planted my feet firmly a shoulder width apart. Then I rested my forearms on the cool surface, with my fingers splayed. Their imprints ghosted. I raised my nut and shoulders to stare at the opposite wall, so my back arched and offered you the best target (and me the worst bloody humiliation). It wasn’t like I didn’t remember the position.

  Yet I’d come to hope – dream – it never would be for you.

  Somewhere in the fantasy, which I’d spun in the long hours alone in the apartment, I wasn’t really your slave.

  I was simply Light, and you were simply Grayse.

  I held my breath, when I heard you hesitantly come up behind me. ‘Light…’

  I wasn’t dropping my kecks. I bloody wasn’t. You’d have to use the wankering tracker on me, if you wanted to heap on that added schoolboy shame. And please don’t make me count. And please – please - don’t order me to thank you for every stroke. ‘Go on.’

  There was the swish of heavy leather and then – crack.

  I jerked and gasped but I didn’t cry out. I wouldn’t give M.C. the satisfaction of hearing me bawl.

  I realised, however, that I wouldn’t be able to help bucking and squirming because you didn’t have a scooby what you were doing, so your aim would be off: too high or too low. That’d bloody hurt.

  A second swish – crack.

  That one got my lower back. I stifled a yelp. My fingers curled.

  Yeah, I was right, it did bloody hurt.

  Swish – crack.

  That third strike stung my thighs. I pulled to the side and then stilled myself with an effort. I could already feel the three raised welts glowing. I waited for the next blow.

  Silence.

  I clenched in anticipation.

  Then I heard the thump of something heavy hitting the concrete, before I was gripped by the shoulders.

  To my alarm, you spun me round to face you: it was the belt, coiled primeval-like, and it was you, not me, who was bawling.

  ‘Are you happy now? You think I wanted to..? That I like..? Are you soft..?’ You pounded your fists against me, and I let you. Then you were embracing me tighter than anyone has since Kathy. But just as fast, you shoved me away, furious. ‘You know what? I hope it was worth it.’

&nbs
p; So you want to know if it was worth it?

  My arse hurts, so do my ribs, nut, guts, shoulder, wrist, thighs, back and every single nerve.

  Yet the only thing I regret is that I didn’t get to rip out Captain’s heart. That’s why old-fashioned pencils have their uses - at least then I could’ve staked the bastard.

  The thing is, I’m haunted by those I left behind. By the memories of what I witnessed because of Blood Lifers like Captain.

  You’re a slaver.

  Whether you like it or not, blood money buys you all your pretty things. Don’t you want to hear how that blood money’s earnt?

  Then you can judge for yourself if it was worth it.

  MAY 28

  Every day I’d still fantasize someone besides Sir would come through those dark oak doors. But the daydreams were less substantial. Nothing was real except Sir. The blood I sucked from his fingers. The water (which I could now drink from a plastic cup like a big boy). And the chains around my contorted body.

  I’d learnt commands for positions, which I could drop to at a word, only needing mild correction from Sir’s bloody riding crop.

  That was my narrowed world – the tiny, damp cell, with its constant overhead light and no demarcation of night or day - and I was slowly losing my mind.

  Then came the time I heard the locks and scrambled to kneel: my legs spread, with feet together, sitting back on my heels but back held straight, my hands on my knees, with the palms up and peepers downcast.

  The perfect little slave.

  Yet next there wasn’t the click of Sir’s Oxford shoes, rather the pad of bare feet...

  Shocked out of my obedience, I peeked up.

  Another Blood Lifer.

  He was starkers too, except for a silver ring, the same as mine. He looked young, like a matinee idol. His shining golden hair was slicked back over the crown of his nut. But with the power radiating from him, I knew he was a Long-lived.

  Yet somehow there he was, standing scrutinizing me – todger out – plastic cup of water in hand and a bright smile, as if we were meeting over cocktails in a jazz lounge.