Then suddenly, you were gone.
My peepers snapped open. I met your frustrated ice gaze.
You stood rigid, with your hands on your hips.
My burgundy journal had been abandoned on the counter; its spine was dented. I don’t know why that hurt so much.
Your voice was low and sharp, ‘I don’t care if you are 150 years old, you’re still a chowderhead.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Because I guess what you’re missing,’ you continued, your stare so intense I pulled my leather jacket tighter around me, ‘is you may not be free to love on account of being a slave, but I’m free to love whoever I frickin’ like. Don’t you dare say that’s not loving you back.’
I gawked at you. It’s not often I’m stunned into silence, so I’ve got to give you credit.
Before my overloaded brain rebooted, however, you were back to business again, as if you hadn’t just used the ‘L’ word for the first time. You pulled out your mobile, flicking through screens. ‘So I’ve been thinking about how to bring down that sick website. I had this tute about ways the Internet can be used to compel companies to behave better--’
‘Hang on a tick,’ at last, my dazed mind cleared, ‘we’re not only yakking about taking down a website. If we do this, I’m going for the jugular: the whole slavery Empire.’
‘I know.’ You sounded quiet but determined. ‘This is the twenty-first century though. Everything doesn’t need to be…fangs and fists.’
I smiled. ‘Does this mean I’m doing the whole Spartacus thing with or without you?’
‘With.’
You grasped my hand. ‘Landmines were banned because of an Internet campaign, you know.’
‘I’m not sure we have the same sympathy factor. Plus the Internet’s not such a bastion of good, when the most searched for three letter word is sex, not god. I’m not throwing stones here because I’m all for porn me, but it’s both why and how M.C. used it to whore us.’
‘How about,’ I could feel you instinctively pulling me away from the counter, closer to you, ‘we see if we can’t simply get the info democratized? Let the world know--’
‘What? Turn the Lost into a protected species? Like endangered Bengal tigers? Because that worked out so well for the other apex predators on this planet besides you First Lifers.’
‘We wouldn’t--’
‘Because the first use you found for us wasn’t as a nifty fucktoy? What’s next? Eternal organ donors, whose organs always grow back? You can bet someone’ll justify that. Military’s controllable super soldier? Zoo exhibit? Safari trophy?’ I’d wrenched free from you and was pacing the kitchen. ‘Or then there’s the expendable worker wherever jobs are deemed too dangerous to risk breakable humans: on sea-beds, oilrigs or down mines…’ I waved my hands above my nut, as if a rocket shooting into space. ‘The perfect astronaut, ‘cos we won’t cop it before the end of the space flight.’ I jabbed a finger at you. ‘That’s if you don’t exterminate us in a single mass genocide or drawn out, desperate guerrilla warfare, in some terror-stricken kneejerk reaction.’ I stopped, leaning against the marble counter. ‘Yeah, let’s go with your option.’
You pouted…actually bloody pouted. ‘So we don’t tell the world. Only the site on the Dark Web.’
‘You’re saying the only tossers we’d tell would already be Blood Club members?’
‘We could redirect consumers to the conditions behind the trade. No one’ll be blind to it.’
‘Or think we’re pretty, vacant toys, born to be slaves? Bloody cracking.’ We grinned at each other. Then my grin faded. ‘I don’t want to be the one to throw a spanner in the works but I’m no hacker. How about you?’
You shook your nut.
Disappointed, I deflated. ‘That’s that, then.’
‘There’s Fernando.’
Of course there was. Mr Alpha Geek himself: he probably hacked into the US Government and Space Command to search for evidence of extra-terrestrials on his evenings off.
I stiffened but bit back my pride. ‘King of the Hackers, is he?’
I hope someday other Blood Lifers appreciate how much saving them has cost me.
‘He calls it ethical hacking.’
‘I couldn’t care less what label he sticks all pretty on it, if it works.’
You brandished your mobile, holding it between us. You touched the screen and after a moment a check shirted Fernando - chirpy in some kind of tech lab, which was flooded with enough sunlight to make me automatically recoil - pinged up.
Fernando sprawled in his chair. His white-toothed grin was so wide it looked painful. ‘Hey Grayse Cain, my favourite Manx, ’sup?’ Then I sidled sheepishly closer to you, and Fernando caught sight of me. His smile narrowed. ‘What the frak is he doing there? You said--’
‘I lied.’
When Fernando tensed, I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
‘Are you..?’ Fernando twisted away to face a wall, which was tacked with posters issuing safety warnings in urgent red, whilst stick men acted out scenes of biological terror, as he muttered, ‘Is he forcing you to..?’
‘Naw,’ you quickly reassured, ‘he’s not... That’s not what this is.’
Bloody hell but did the bloke look betrayed. ‘So, you two, you’re..?’
Good question. You glanced at me, and I studied you. Your call.
The silence was dragging on uncomfortably.
At last, you smiled at me. ‘It’s complicated. But yah, we are.’ I could’ve run laps around the bleeding kitchen. I contented myself, however, with grinning back. The Professor might’ve been able to give you the family, Harvard and the day. But you’d still chosen me. ‘There’s a whole notha nightmare goin’ on here. It’s a secret. For now. We haven’t told anyone else. We’re trusting you.’
Fernando nodded. Yet I recognised the pain in his dark peepers. I don’t reckon you have an inkling how in love the Professor is with you. ‘Is that all? Because I’ve got work…’
‘You’re this important Professor of Evolutionary Biology and whatnot then?’
‘I specialise in Mathematical and Computational Biology, primarily evolution, yah..?’
‘That so?’ Alpha Geek might’ve lost in love but he’d think he’d won the lottery when he hacked into the site on the Dark Web and discovered an entire evolutionary branch of biology lost to humanity.
Fernando swung back to his lab, panning his phone, so we could see the ranks of high-tech gadgets and humming screens. ‘Plus I get to play with nizza computers all day, so I’m happy. Talking of which, this rat has to get back to his race, so--’
‘Fernando, we need you. This is wicked serious, it’s--’
‘Whoa, what’s goin’ on?’ Fernando glanced between us, gnawing at his lip, the picture of concern: the perfect wanker.
‘You hack, don’t you?’
‘You wanna say that a bit louder – unencrypted - just in case the FBI aren’t monitoring?’ The screen blurred, as Fernando waved the phone in his agitation.
‘Paranoid much?’
‘Come on Grayse, you’re killing me here. I can’t risk nothin’ now I’ve got the Research--’
Frustrated, I snatched the phone. ‘Wink, wink, ethical hacking; we got it. Will you help us?’
Fernando only wavered for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t--’
‘Open your peepers and do something about the world around you for once in your life.’
‘Goodbye.’
‘No, wait,’ Grayse grabbed the phone back, ‘ignore Light. He’s…’ Exasperated, I scuffed my heels against the white kitchen units but stopped at a glare from you. ‘Don’t do it for Light, do it for me.’
Fernando’s look was hard. ‘You always were good at twisting the knife.’
‘I was wrong. Don’t do it for me. I’m gonna send you the links to a website on the Tor Network--’
‘Whoa, what the frak are you doin’ messing with that?’
‘I told you it was serious.
Just look at it and know what you’re refusing to bring down before you pussy out on account of your Professorship.’
Fernando flushed. ‘It’s not like that.’ Mr Perfect wasn’t looking so bleeding perfect anymore.
In fact, neither of you could meet each other’s eye.
‘You’ll see,’ you were quiet, thoughtful-like; it took me by surprise, ‘something wondrous, which you’d never imagined possible. But also in such danger that I promise, when you do - like Light said - you won’t be able to do nothing on account of I know you’re a better man than that.’
Shocked, I glanced at you. We were leeches and parasites. But now we were wondrous..?
Moreover, I was right about something..?
Fernando swallowed. Then he nodded, before he blinked to black, as he cut the connection.
You breathed out, still staring at the blank square. ‘What if he goes public? Fernando’s all into info belonging to everyone, you know? It’s what hackers do.’
I shrugged. ‘Then he goes public. Look, it’s pointless taking down Cain Company, if the trade’s still out there, with eager consumers. All we’re doing is creating a vacuum for the next slave trader to step into your dad’s shoes. Then who knows, they could be sodding worse. We can’t get the genie back into the bottle. But we can smash the bottle.’ I’d known since the long nights squatting with my family, when I’d been psyching myself up to return to you, that I’d only completed part of what I’d sworn that day in Abona: to rescue Ashanti’s girl and every other enslaved Blood Lifer. To save my race itself. That was the promise, which I’d secretly made to myself. To keep it, however, meant facing my greatest fear: Master and the Estate. Of course, I hadn’t yet told you; I reckoned that was a drink and sitting down type of conversation. ‘Would kill for a coffee right about now.’
‘Shame I’m not your slave then, isn’t it?’
Right, figures.
We settled on the sofa, your nut resting on my shoulder, which felt like it fitted. I sipped my coffee in silence, building up my nerve. Tentatively, I stroked your soft hair. You allowed it.
I could get used to this.
Except, I couldn’t allow myself that luxury.
What you’d said: complicated? Wasn’t that the understatement of my second life? Still, you’d told Fernando we were…something. As far as we went, that was the clearest it’d been stated. Yet now I had to persuade you…
‘You’ve gotta send me to the Estate.’
You shoved yourself off me with comic speed. ‘Are you zoo’n’ on me?’
‘Dead serious.’
‘Na-ah, not happening. You’ve only just come back.’ You didn’t add to me, but I heard it; I’m sure I did.
‘The website. It’s not enough.’
‘What will be for you, huh?’ You snatched my mug, slamming it down onto the coffee table with an ominous crack; black seeped down the edges, pooling at its base in a dark sea. ‘What is it with you and this…hero complex?’
I laughed but I knew what a bitter sod I sounded. ‘I’m not a bloody hero, just a bloke with a promise to keep.’
You stared at the dark puddle of coffee, rather than turn to me; you traced patterns in it with the pad of your finger. ‘You’re soft if you reckon you can survive…as you are…if I send you to the Estate.’
‘But that’s the belly of it, don’t you see? We’re only pissing around the edges here. But the Estate? That’s the true blood and guts of the operation.’
‘Why do you think I don’t wanna..?’ You twisted back to me. ‘I’ll go down Mann, see what daddy’s--’
‘No good. They’re only letting you in on the sanitised face of the company. If I go, then I’ll see the worst. Much as that gives me the collywobbles, I’ll be there undercover. I can remember things: human camera here. Trust me, it’ll be alright.’
‘Naw, it won’t be.’ Your voice was dead small. ‘What if daddy…breaks you?’
It was hard to shake the memory of Master behind me on that inspection line, his calloused fingers tracing the small of my back… 100 lashes of the bullwhip… I forced you to meet my steady gaze. ‘Not gonna happen, darlin’.’
‘You don’t know my daddy.’
‘You don’t know me.’
We stared at each other for a long moment, before I started backwards, as you launched yourself at me.
Then you were hugging me, like my death sentence had just been announced.
Maybe it had.
Gently, I patted your back. If I allowed myself to wrap my arms around you, I might not be able to let go. The feel of your warmth melting into me, made it even harder. ‘Ring your sister; it’ll look better non-direct like. Tell her the training of your leech is going well but it needs something more.’
You gazed at me through wet peepers. ‘What? Now?’ Your arms tightened around my middle.
I nodded. ‘You gonna be OK with the acting?’
You sniffed. ‘Trust me, I can act.’
Yeah, that’s what I’d figured. Still, you didn’t move.
‘Any time now, sweetheart.’
‘Light, please…’
‘I’ll take a gander, plan the caper and then come back to you, the same daft wanker of a Blood Lifer as I ever was. I promise.’
Reluctantly, you rang M.C., never taking your gaze off me, nor letting go with your other arm; it felt like you were telling me that you’d be with me, no matter what happened next.
That meant the bloody world to me.
‘’Sup Marlane?’ You still didn’t look away from me, stroking my side. ‘Sorry, M.C., I get you. What’s doin’? Well, I’ve been training my leech on account of that’s what daddy wants, and you were right…they need disciplin’.’ I was unable to hold back the shudder, when I heard M.C’s tirade on the other end about the bastard tracker. You held the mobile pointedly away from your lughole, however, before leaning in and kissing me softly down my neck. Then I shivered for a whole different reason. Finally, you held the iPhone back again. ‘So I’m wicked busy with my course and… You think that’d help? But a whole month?’ My stomach cramped. A month..? I’d reckoned on a week, maybe a fortnight if I was unlucky. I didn’t know whether I could hold out under Master’s loving care for a whole month. You were looking uncertain, however, so I forced myself to smile and nod: this was our only chance. ‘Don’t take his fangs though.’ Why hadn’t I thought of that? ‘Leave it ‘til after, then I can watch. It’ll be, like, informative…’ I heard M.C. snort with laughter. When your gaze met mine, I saw the apology in it. ‘Just remember it’s still mine M.C.; I want the promise that after a month, it’ll be my toy again.’
When you finally ended the call, we sat for a long time in the dark of the mango scented lounge. The candles were sharp pricks of light amidst the black. The spilled coffee was now nothing but a congealed stain, sticking the cracked mug to the glass; its bitter aroma soured the mango.
We didn’t say anything because what more was left to say?
All right then, I guess it’s time for me to be learned.
AUGUST 27
Well, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Bloody longer than the four weeks your sister promised. A long time since I’ve been myself enough to write in these buttery cream pages. Or even to know my true name.
My name is Light. Light. Light. Sodding Light…
I must’ve given you a right fright. For that, I’m sorry. Sorry I lost myself in the dark, letting myself sink into its safety and hide the last kernel of my Soul so deep no one could hurt me anymore. I’m dead sorry I couldn’t fight my way back to you sooner. Most of all I’m sorry you were right: cocky wanker that I am, I didn’t know Master.
And Christ in heaven did he break me.
Yet I still came back to you because only you were real to me.
There are things I’ll never tell you - or anyone – about that month on the Estate. Methods of training. But others? I owe you an explanation for why I returned to you marionette-like: learned, as Master said. We
got into this together. You deserve to know what went wrong.
I underestimated both Master and M.C.: their creativity, cruelty and the added skill of the mind fuck - you never truly submit until your mind’s in bondage. That’s where they succeeded. And Sir failed.
So, Cain reputation well deserved.
Maybe one day soon I’ll feel strong enough to give you that explanation. Then you’ll understand.
SEPTEMBER 2
There’s no darkness conjured in Blood Life that humanity didn’t invent first.
When I lay starkers, except for my slave ring, in the pine crate at the Cain Estate, the red nylon ropes were roughly dragged from around my bruised throat, wrists and ankles.
I blinked up at the crystal star above me; the chandelier scrolled with letters. Dazed, I spelled out C – A – I –N: your name amongst the constellations.
Here at last facing my worst fear at my own insistence, I steadied my breathing, before I was yanked out onto the black terracotta tiles. I instantly went to kneel.
Master’s worn jeans and muddied work boots, which stank of garlic, were within licking distance – I hoped he wouldn’t take that literally.
‘I hear my daughter’s not pleased at the way you’re shaping, boy. I reckon you’re not fit, but she wants you trained.’ I remained motionless. We’d decided I’d play this, as if you’d already partially broken me, but I still had some spirit left. Master was most likely to buy that charade. ‘I haven’t forgotten the neck of you at Abona. Don’t worry, I know the bettermost way to learn you. And I will, I promise.’ I didn’t bloody doubt Master would try. ‘Mr Yates was soft on you, blinded by his favourites. I have no favourites: leeches be nothing to me. I will learn you respect. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Master.’
There was a silence. I’d surprised the wanker. Maybe I’d better pull back on the compliance.
‘You’re a goog. Good for nothing but pleasure. You obey and serve.’
‘Bugger that.’
I glanced up, meeting Master’s gun metal peepers, which had darkened with outrage. I couldn’t help flinching, when Master tapped the brass buckle on his heavy leather belt and then held up one finger, as if counting.
Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2) Page 23