Later that night, Ruby slipped out of her dress, whilst I sprawled naked on our bed, in the room that the twins had allocated to us.
It’d been a bland beige box, until I’d nicked some vintage Victoriana from local junk shops. It’d taken some ingenious lays: thick crimson curtains for the four-poster and a green and red Oriental rug. I’d even spent an entire night wallpapering with Gothic leaf patterns. Ruby had poked her head in with lifted eyebrows, before disappearing for the evening, until I’d finished: she never got her hands dirty. Ruby left the decorating to me, no matter where we set up home.
Once it would’ve been hard to unearth these types of pieces. Not in this new London. And Ruby liked me to bring her presents.
As I gazed at Ruby standing there, naked apart from her fiery hair, which hung down between her tits (every inch my Ruby of old), all I wanted — Christ in heaven, how I wanted it — was to forget what had happened in the study and that dining room. But one word, three times over — boom, boom, boom — resounded in my brain.
How’s a bloke supposed to forget that?
“Darling Light, how serious you look.” Ruby crept onto the end of the bed, her tits swinging alabaster white, as she crawled on all fours towards me. With a wicked grin, she licked up my leg. I closed my eyes. She wasn’t making this sodding easy. I threw myself off the covers away from her. Ruby stared at me, confused and then lay back luxuriously. “Come, I want to play.”
I opened my eyes, breathing hard. There was something twisting inside me, bursting to get out. If I didn’t say it now, Ruby would touch me again, and my body would betray me, sinking down into the memory of her. “I took a look around the other night when you were… I went out into the streets. I discovered something: this time…these First Lifers…they’re not like I remember them. They’re—”
“Do you still cling to First Life?” Ruby arched her arms behind her head. “What is it you so love in their world, when I granted you the wonders of Blood life?” Her gaze was intense and ice cold; it would’ve frozen me to silence.
But that was before Ruby had shared blood with her brother.
Before she’d bloody told them.
“You’re not getting it.” Frustrated, I paced closer. I wasn’t explaining it right: the vibrant buzz of Carnaby Street and the shock of recognition, which had forced me to see that our species were not divided in the way that had always been preached with all the terrifying implications when your food turns around and looks you in the eye and then into your Soul. “The world’s changed. First Lifers have changed. I don’t reckon that we have to choose between Blood or First Life. What if we’re close cousins or something?”
Ruby’s smile was mocking. “A revelation, was it?”
I opened my mouth to answer but then stopped.
Sod it, I didn’t want to share that bubbling, joyous memory with her. For the first time in our bloody exploration of a cruel world, I didn’t want to share something, which Ruby would rip apart.
I felt truly alone.
Had Ruby ever needed me as I’d needed her? Was I her lover or only something to while away the years?
I made one final effort. “I got you a gift.” I pulled out the Union Jack mug from the drawer I’d hidden it in, so that I could surprise Ruby when we were alone, and she was awake for once. I held it out to her: a peace offering. The last glimmer of hope flared that this ritual, at least, wasn’t broken. “I nicked it from this cool shop—”
“Why?”
Nonplussed, I stared at Ruby, the mug still stiffly held out, ludicrous between us. “I don’t…?”
“Why did you steal like a common thief? We have money now.”
I slowly crouched down, placing the mug back in the drawer; I patted the mug, before I pushed shut the drawer. When I straightened, I couldn’t look over at Ruby. “You’ve never… It’s their money. All this is your brothers’.”
“Ours.” When I glanced up at her, Ruby stretched her pale legs out, one after the other. “It was mine first, do you not understand that? You know the two most beautiful scents in the world? Blood and money.” Ruby threw herself up onto her elbow, laughing at my stony expression. “Don’t fret, darling Light. You’re mine, so it’s yours too now.”
With Ruby I’d always had this awareness of her, down to her very heartbeat and breath. I knew the sound of her footfall and rustle of her silk dress from streets away in the dark of the night. I knew that she was going to speak, even before she opened her mouth. She was in my blood, and I was of her blood. It wasn’t pathetic adoration; it was a bond forged by familiarity. A bloody century of it.
Yet now it was gone: I knew because I didn’t recognize the words Ruby had spoken as hers.
It chilled me like I’d never be warm again.
I scraped my nails down the wall, hearing the wallpaper tear and the umber leaves fall apart. They shredded, as my nails ripped. I embraced the pain.
I don’t know how I got the words out but I did. “But you see, no one owns me. Not even you.”
Ruby’s silence killed me for a second time.
7
Look, us Blood Lifers aren’t the only ones with bollocks myths: you First Lifers have them too. How about that you’re above the animals, solely because you tamed fire?
Here’s where the bollocks lie: there’s no taming something as crazy wild as fire. You know it, deep squirming in your gut. You can only borrow a slice of its blazing Soul but mercurial, it’ll burn you to blisters or light your way to salvation.
That’s why it fascinates you as it dances in the dark.
Who can look away from the flames?
You were quieter tonight, sitting up for once in the high-back chair by the window. I draped blankets around your shoulders and the checked rug over your knees.
The snow was melting on the creases of Ilkley Moor and dripping from the fingers of the birch and elder; the moon was shrouded behind heavy mists.
Moth-like, you were transfixed by the wavering flame of my lighter. I knelt in front of you, playing the game that you loved, or at least I guessed by your smile that you did: there’s never more to go on now than that.
On, off, on, off…
Your smile. Bloody hell, I’d flick my lighter all night to see that smile, rather than be cocooned in your low wailing or sodding stillness.
Does it help you remember me? Is that why you’re smiling? This bloody thing, as you called it? My gold lighter (flint and spring, smooth lid but barley pattern on its body), which I’d nicked off the posh bloke on Carnaby Street? I only kept it all these years because it became my talisman for the lightning strike moment, when I realized that losing our Souls, quivering piece by quivering piece, was a choice, rather than an inevitability of election.
There’s no such thing as evil: there’s only decisions, day in and day out. My lighter became the icon for the truth that if Blood Life was an evolution, then it was one that I could share with the day dwellers…and love them.
I discovered a different way: not First Life and not Blood Life — my way.
See, rebel to the core. You awoke me to that because you were my light. You still are.
Is that what you remember when you smile?
AUGUST 1968 LONDON
I was working Saturday night at the Heartbeat Club — on Aralt’s orders — in a fug of smoke, lounging at the bar with my pint of Watneys Red and a ciggie. Yet all I could do was obsess over what Ruby and Aralt were up to, whilst I was playing in the shallow end.
Simply because the sun sleeps, doesn’t mean that the whole planet does too. Think of all those productive night hours; although of course I never did before those bloody twins forced me to work.
Do you reckon I was turned on by the scent of cash as well? Do me a favor. I learned my lesson on that before I was elected and I didn’t need teaching twice. What Advance made clear to me was that First Lifers work in the daylight, whilst we snatch our shut eye, and at night, when First Lifers sleep, we work or play in the shadows. Once
, it was all about the play. But times change. Hadn’t Ruby made that bleeding clear?
It’s a perfect symbiosis or at least, it could be. The animal kingdom, however, is more brutal than that, whether First Life or Blood.
It was dark and close with heat in the club, reeking of youth and desire. The tables and chairs were like giant spools, dotted in the bar area. A dance floor spiraled in front of the live stage, which was jammed with gyrating First Lifers in a rainbow burst of mini-dresses or Mod smart.
Bugger, I thirsted to drain every one of their bouncing, twisting bodies dry. I wiped my shaking hand across my mouth.
I still hadn’t fed.
I didn’t reckon Ruby had noticed yet because since that night we… Since I’d dared to assert my own control and separate identity, I’d faded in Ruby’s eyes or else she was punishing me for daring to refuse to be owned.
Suddenly, a bloke in suede jacket and fisher-man’s corduroy cap, like he fancied himself another Lennon, knocked my arm as he leant across the bar.
My Watneys Red spilled onto the counter.
Mr Suede Jacket’s gaze flickered across me and then away. “Hey, sorry man.”
I pushed myself off my stool.
Everything had slowed. The band became muffled. There was nothing but the thud, thud, thud of my own heartbeat.
I could lunge at the bloke’s jugular and taste the sweat on his skin as I sank in my teeth deep. He’d not even have time to… I blinked. “I wasn’t thirsty for beer anyway.”
I shoved away the glass, flicking the stub of my ciggie into the malty sea, where it crumpled. I padded my jacket for another.
And then…that voice. The one from Radio Komodo.
Do you remember this?
You used to laugh about our first meeting and how I’d lurked in the shadows by the bar in my leathers. How I just stared at you like I could devour you. And you were right, I could’ve done; I bloody hungered to.
Yet it’s because you laughed that I never told you (and I won’t ever get another chance to, unless I do it now), that it wasn’t your blood but rather your sultry fragile voice that mesmerized me. It called to me across the divide of our species. It disturbed me in a way that no one but Ruby ever had.
It cut under the skin.
You were singing the same single, “Life’s a Photograph”, with your mouth so close to the microphone that it was a part of you… Everything’s changing, so we’ve gotta change too… You looked like some little Moon Girl, shimmering in silver: silver-spangled trousers, biker jacket with poppers and white ankle-length boots. I would’ve blasted into space with you in a bleeding heartbeat… We’re all memories, faded photographs… The First Lifers were whipped up into a frenzy; the dance floor teemed with hormones… But I’m alive, we’re alive, so we’ve gotta live…
I leant across to the hulking barman who was an ex-crim by his stance. “So, she’s Kathy...?”
“Freeborn.”
“Right then, after her set send her over.”
The barman nodded.
When you’d packed up and the next band had started, you didn’t seem amused to have been summoned. You stormed over, looking me up and down with a sigh. “Are you the Advance lad?”
I blinked. “Well, yeah, I’m the Advance—”
“So? What do you want?” You raised your eyebrow with one impatient tap of your boot. You were cloaked in Chanel No 5. Your ebony curls were loose, tumbling around your face. Your feline blue eyes, which were flicked with eyeliner, coolly appraised me; their lashes were so thick that they looked like they’d wing off around the room when they got bored. We Blood Lifers forget the paint that you First Lifers hide your beauty behind, familiar instead with the naked skin, rather than the artifice. I found myself tracing the pretty patterns that you’d masked yourself in. “Is there something up with my face?”
“What?” I dragged myself back from my daze by the scruff of the neck.
I tried to lean casually on the bar as I lit up, but my elbow sank into the puddle of beer; I pretended not to notice.
You were simply standing there, staring at me.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Not when I’d imagined it, and not between a Blood Lifer and a…
See, you were only a First Lifer, newly signed to the twins’ music label. In a century of discovery and revel, I’d never stooped to notice one of you, except as a passing snack.
Yet now I had these pins and needles — weird little tremors — like I didn’t know what to do with a body that I’d had more than enough years to be versed in.
Ruby had told me once that she’d kept this First Lifer as an experiment. He’d been more a pet than anything. She’d wanted to examine him, and I can imagine the kind of games she’d put that poor bloke through. Eventually, however, Ruby had messed up. She never elaborated because she wasn’t one to admit failure easily (at least not to me), but she did tell me that the First Lifer had worked out that Ruby wasn’t quite human. Then that was that. Ruby had killed him because those are the rules: no evidence, no vampire hunters, and no pitchforks. Vampire bollocks myth number...
But now here I was with you.
What was I bleeding doing? Was it simply because I had this crater of emptiness where Ruby should’ve been? But why was I drawn to a First Lifer who looked like she thought I was as big a loser, as I reckoned she was an evolutionary monkey?
Yeah, sorry, not really the hearts and cupid stuff, right?
“My face? You’re staring.” You sighed, shifting your chainmail bag on your shoulder with an impatient jerk. “Is your boss...?”
“I’m the boss.” I straightened, drawing on my ciggie.
You laughed, and the blood in my throat pounded. “When the real boss wants to talk—”
“Your song, did you write it yourself? That’s rare. A female creator in this industry. About the lyrics…there’s a line—”
“Are you going to give me a right shiny medal?” You hissed.
We glared at each other. Did you know that two animals only look at each other like that when they’re about to fight? It triggered my flight and fight, and I didn’t sodding run.
I’d insulted you but I didn’t understand how. This first contact was making my mind burn; it’d been too long since I’d had to straightjacket myself in First Life convention. The skin was too tight; I was going to burst, bewildered with desire.
I slunk closer, so that I could taste the scent of your sweat — my Moon Girl — sniff out the flowing strands of Soul underneath the painted beauty. “I meant that they’re different… You’re different to—”
“You’re coming onto me now?” You stepped back, eying the exit.
“What…?”
“I’m not into the whole Rockers scene.” You zigzagged your finger down, from my jacket to my scuffed motorcycle boots.
Confusion and humiliation, with something blazing at its core that I wasn’t going to bloody well accept (not this Blood Lifer and not again), shuddered through me.
I hurled down my ciggie, grinding it into the carpet. “That wasn’t… As if I’d… You know what? You were off coming into the third verse.”
Silence.
Your gaze was hard now: definite hit nerve.
Bloody genius I was. I’d just risen in the rankings from insignificant to loathed.
You crossed your arms, and I mirrored you. “Have you ever tried not being a total prat?”
“Once. It didn’t stick.”
You edged towards the door. “Fab as this hasn’t been, I must get on. My cousin’s walking me home.” You tossed your head at a First Lifer with a thick fringe and Beatles do, who was perched at a spool table by the exit. She glanced curiously over at us.
“I want to take your picture.” The words spilled out of my mouth, before I’d even realized myself that I meant them.
I imagined my trusty camera snapping you from every angle, so that I could possess your image to study without the accusation of staring. And then, before I
could stop myself, the second image of wanking over your smiling face, whilst Ruby shared blood with Aralt downstairs in his study.
See, I promised all the nasties and wankery, didn’t I?
You were still heading for your cousin. “Does it work with the other chicks? Pretending like you’re David Bailey? Do you think I’m a little fool?”
I darted after you through the hot jiving bodies, which stank of blood so strongly that I gagged with the effort of keeping my fangs retracted. My own blood was up because this…what was happening between us? It was too close to a hunt. I had to chain every instinct deep to stop myself from going for the kill.
When I grabbed hold of your arm, you shook me off, and I let you; it was more exhilarating this way. I wove after you through the crowds, catching you before you could reach your cousin. I was panting now, not out of breath but from the effort of controlling the blood lust. “It’s for publicity, all right?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you reckon I’d want to spend time with you?”
“Give my agent a ring and set it up.” You admitted defeat with a weary sigh. “I do take a good likeness.”
My quarry felled.
“Tomorrow evening?”
You frowned. “Why evening?”
“That’s when I work best, darling.”
You started towards your cousin again: a flash of silver. Stardust fallen to earth. Then you stopped and turned back to study me. “You know that you’re a freak?”
I shrugged: one Blood Lifer lost in a sea of stinking humanity. “There’s no shame in flying that flag.”
For the first time your frown cleared and you seemed to see in the dark beyond the pompadour and the leather — like a Blood Lifer — to the Soul and emotions buried underneath.
You First Lifers suck at that.
“You like Hendrix?” You asked, softly.
“Of course.” I knew that you’d have dead cool taste. It was in your scent, your voice, and the way that you were throbbing in my blood.
Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series Page 10