Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series

by Rosemary A Johns

  Easy, wasn’t I? Grace was my tempter and destroyer, but I was young and weak — I can admit that now — because I had those bastard papers tight in my hands and could’ve walked out right there and then.

  How would things have been different if I had?

  Moments like that (we all have them), are turning points. Bollocks, they’re simply choices: decisions that we make every day. We can’t go back or change a single bloody one. So, you have to deal with it. Deal with what you decided to do. You and no one else. That fight you took on or didn’t. The time you walked away or stayed to the bitter end. The love you stuck with or gave up on. Every one you and you alone.

  No one takes responsibility — First Lifer or Blood — but the hard truth is yours is the ugly face behind every shred of pain. The paths you took or never walked. No one and nothing to blame or praise, apart from yourself.

  We’re all alone with that reality, when everything’s said and done.

  Alone every breath.

  I could’ve walked there and then with the papers. But fool that I was, I chose to stay because a woman, who I reckoned I was in love with, had taken notice of me for the first time. She’d found out my first name and then had offered me a forbidden drink from her papa’s own booze. I was tempted — more than I’d ever been in my life — to take a sip of this world, which I knew I’d never be a part of, before I brought it crashing down.

  When I rushed to Grace, taking the tumbler from her with shaking hands, she watched me with hungry, admiring eyes. The whiskey was smooth and warm. Suave as I was in those days, however, I choked on it.

  I wasn’t one for alcohol back then: I’d seen what degradation gin could lead to. It was Ruby who later introduced me to those delights.

  Grace pressed me down into her papa’s brown leather chair.

  The throne itself? Sod it, I was sweating now.

  I resisted, but Grace’s hands on my shoulders pushed harder, insistent. Finally, I sank into the soft leather, as the last rays of the sun bled over the dying day, through the arched windows: the eyes out from this cathedral of finance.

  “Don’t you look grand?” Grace caressed my collar.

  Gazing over the desk, my palms pressed on its cold surface, I felt like a cardinal: this was power.

  A new, odd sensation swelled: a biting need twisted my gut for something more. When you’ve had so little (and what you did have has been snatched away from you), it doesn’t take much to corrupt the good in you. Although, as I don’t go in for sticky labels, maybe it’s more that it doesn’t take much to be taken as a mug.

  When I caught Grace’s scent of violets, my lust was lit. The blood rushed down below to my cock, as if at some unspoken signal. I surged up from my chair.

  Bloody hell, this was it at last.

  I was going to crush Grace in my arms and ravish that bowed mouth. Just like I’d wet dreamed, ever since Grace had swept down from her carriage and into these corridors to torture me. But I’d caught her unguarded and unmasked: Grace’s expression wasn’t admiring, as it’d been only moments before. Instead, there was mocking laughter in her eyes.

  Instantly, Grace readjusted her features, catching her smile behind her hand, as she turned back to the drinks cabinet.

  But it was too late because I’d sodding seen.

  I was cold. The room had drained to gray. I was ludicrous playing at king and something that I’d never be, with someone I’d never have.

  I’d never be more than the outsider looking in.

  Yeah, everybody laugh at the clown.

  All passion ruthlessly slaughtered, I felt sick; I loathed the bitch.

  Grace glanced back at me; her gaze still shined with mockery. I snatched the papers off the desk, before storming out of the office with Grace tripping at my heels.

  “Where are you going so fast? Do you not wish to play some more?” Grace tried to catch at me with her betrayer’s fingers, but they burnt red hot, each one a brand of my idiocy. “Thomas, please, you are no fun at all. Thomas…”

  Bang…

  You know how life kicks you right in the balls sometimes, yet when you look at it dead close, you’re actually the one who put in the boot yourself? That’s when it hurts so much worse.

  I bolted out of the director’s office with a bundle of the director’s nicked papers clutched to my chest, his beloved only daughter (and no chaperon), in tow, hot after me and panting my first name, as if we’d just been up to some serious hanky panky, when I collided with the monolith that was Mr Erwood.

  I bowled backwards. The files flew up like white rain. Grace stumbled into an ungainly heap, her dress riding up to show her layers of petticoats and a single glimpse of her drawers.

  “My word…” The other directors were huddled, gawping like a group of schoolboys.

  Grace’s eyes flashed with humiliated rage but then immediately filled with spoilt tears. They fixed on me and in that moment, I knew what it meant: I was buggered.

  The other blokes seemed to suddenly remember their chivalry; they rushed to Grace’s shamed aid.

  I heard Grace’s muffled sniffles, as I forced myself to raise my gaze to Mr Erwood. His mottled, whiskered face that peeped out of his starched collar was crimson, shaking with outrage.

  Bloody hell, I was going to cop it.

  “Take her home,” Mr Erwood curtly ordered.

  I heard the shuffle of Grace’s footsteps, as she was escorted away. Her whiny voice melted to honey, once she warmed to her new male company.

  Now I was alone with her papa.

  Everything told me to run. My body, however, wouldn’t obey me. I shrank back against the wall.

  I wasn’t a brawler back then, not once I was out of the schoolyard. That came later with Ruby. I guess the talent had always been buried under there; Ruby simply unleashed it. But as a First Lifer…? I took the beatings, I didn’t dish them out.

  Mr Erwood had noticed the papers now, which were lying in snowy mounds across the floor. At first, he frowned, as if I really was merely a junior clerk. The nobody, who’d been forced on his consciousness like an irritating flea and who’d disappear again just as quickly. Then, however, realization spread like a dark sea. And with it, a hissing fury, which was greater even than when he’d seen me with Grace because a flea like me trying to despoil his business was worse — to a bloke like him — than me despoiling his daughter.

  Priorities, right?

  I’d tried the hero bit — to save the world. I’d spectacularly failed. Now I knew that I’d pay a high price.

  Mr Erwood didn’t say anything. Instead, he crushed me, like a man would crush a flea.

  Mr Erwood raised his silver-headed cane and brought it down across my cheek. Then he hauled me closer to him with one hand and brought the cane down again on my head. And again and…

  My blood sprayed over Mr Erwood’s pristine white cravat, patterning it with crimson; even through my haze of agony, I saw him grimace at the inconvenience to his suit. I clutched my hands over my head, struggling away from him. That surprised Mr Erwood because what flea fights back?

  I was dizzy, stumbling to my knees, when I saw the shadow of Mr Erwood’s cane swinging above me again.

  This time, however, I grasped hold of the wood as it arced down. I stopped it, inches from my cheek.

  Mr Erwood shook me off, clouting me across the jaw and dropping me sprawling over the cold marble. Then I felt, like fire, blow after shattering blow across my back, followed by the snap of ribs and spine. I tried to crawl away, sliding inch by inch, by my fingertips. I was caught in a daze of blazing agony. I was driven by the one thought of escaping it.

  But there he was, with that sodding cane, blocking me. The hiding continued: me bloody at Mr Erwood’s feet, unable now even to move.

  The thought squirmed that Mr Erwood didn’t intend to stop, not until there was no breath left in me. This was it then: how it ended. I was going to die, beaten and alone on this cold floor.

  It’s strange tha
t when death comes, you don’t have any astounding revelations. The most you think is: is this it then?

  And I was bloody pissed about it.

  It was right then — when I reckoned that I had no more life left on this world — that’s when she came.

  I was stretched out on the marble, with blood trickling into my eyes, so I couldn’t see her.

  But I heard her all right.

  First, the doors banged open down the corridor, then I felt the blows from the cane suddenly stop, followed by the cane’s clatter, when it was hurled against the wall, and lastly, as Mr Erwood followed it.

  “Good God…” Then Mr Erwood’s scream, which was high-pitched like a little girl.

  That was the last noise Mr Erwood ever made. And I’ll admit that was bleeding satisfying.

  Silence.

  Then footsteps came towards where I lay, broken and defenseless…and the swish of a dress… When I blinked the blood away from my eyes, I could see scarlet silk sweeping the floor…

  A lady had done this? Like a bloody avenging angel.

  She knelt next to me, a long veil of red hair brushing against my bruised face, as she peered at me.

  I didn’t have the strength to do anything but lie there. I knew that I was buggered, after what this creature had done to Mr Erwood. Yet I wasn’t scared; for once in my life, there was no fear worming under my skin. The threads of my life were already unraveled. My heart was hardly beating; it was no more than the trembling of a butterfly’s wing in my chest. I’d laugh if I was still able to because what more could she do to me? It wasn’t like she could hurt me any worse.

  That was when she said something, which made me understand how wrong I was…about everything. “You are going to die, dearest prince. After that? We will talk more formally.” She tenderly stroked my hair back from my forehead. “Because then all these petty things, which seem important now, will fade to nothing. I give you my oath. Have courage, for you and I will be twinned eternally, blood to blood. Close your eyes; I shall see you when you open them again.”

  Before my eyes fluttered closed, I thought that I saw her teeth elongate, as she stretched her mouth wide like a python.

  10

  OCTOBER 1968 LONDON

  “Darling Light, see how the flame dances?” Ruby wove the scarlet candle in front of my eyes in the dark bedroom; shadow imps cavorted across the bed’s curtains, as an incense infused lake pooled at the candle’s wick.

  Then Ruby caressed her fingers down my naked body, which was stretched out on the bed. My hands clutched at the wood of the four-poster that had been stripped of its sheets because it’s sodding hard to get out hardened wax. Ruby laughed when she saw how intently I followed the light’s ghost trail.

  Look, there’d been no way out of shagging Ruby, you’ve got to believe that, and all this — play — was more her cup of tea than mine. It always had been. But she was still my Author, and we had decades of history, right?

  A First Lifer can’t understand the bonds of Blood Life. Death and then resurrection are bloody big deals. They’re not something you can just shrug off.

  Yeah, that’s the excuse.

  The truth? I didn’t yet have the bottle to fly solo because I’d be abandoning everything that I’d known in Blood Life. Plus, what would Ruby do to me if I dared to break such a sacred bond?

  Rebel to the core? Who was I kidding?

  Still, this was Ruby noticing me again (or testing me more like it), and with months of scrubbing your scent off my skin, I didn’t have any choice but to make it convincing.

  Ruby slunk even closer. She was lethally beautiful in black lace corset and suspenders; I hadn’t nicked or bought them with my shameful allowance, so they distracted me for a moment. Ruby never indulged in stuff like that for herself. So, who’d gifted them?

  Aralt?

  My hands clenched, as I bit back the growl. Then Ruby’s hand was teasing my cock, and I wasn’t distracted anymore.

  Ruby licked down my cheek and around my lips. As she kissed me, she tipped the wax, burning pretty crimson patterns down my chest and stomach: marking her property.

  I gasped and arched.

  I could take this. It wasn’t any different to the hundreds of other times that Ruby and I had played this game.

  Yet this time it was different because now there was you and the way that your hand curled gently into mine, rather than pinning me down hard into place, like Ruby was doing with that gleam of dominance in her eyes. Now I had a new way. And this…?

  I didn’t want it anymore.

  The realization hurt more than Ruby’s games.

  Ruby smiled, stroking my hair. Then she tipped the wax once more. She straddled me, moving the wax lower and lower down my agonized body. Then she bent to snog me again.

  And that’s when it happened: I messed up. It was one simple movement but it said everything.

  That’s when I turned away my mouth from Ruby’s kiss.

  Ruby sat back, staring down at me in shock. Then she hurled the candle so hard that it smashed against the wallpaper behind my head.

  “Buggering hell…” I covered my face against the flying spots of burning wax. Ruby’s breathing was harsh like a lion about to savage its kill. I carefully lowered my spattered arms. Ruby was still just kneeling over me, glaring down. “Look, I…”

  “Peace be quiet.” Tears sparkled in Ruby’s eyes: it kicked me in the gut, in a way that I hadn’t expected. “We were twinned eternally, blood to blood. But still, I’m losing you, am I not?”

  I peeked up at Ruby, not daring to speak because when you’ve been together as long as we had — crossed continents and centuries, survived wars, rebellions and disasters — you knew the lies in each other’s words.

  Ruby slowly pushed herself off me. “But to lose you to…the disease of humanity and this base time? To have to live with a shadow of the Blood Lifer that you once were…the man you were…? You imagine that I’m ignorant of your blood abstaining? That I cannot tell the signs in one of my own? Such beggarly behavior brings down shame on our line.”

  Furious, I threw myself out of bed and opposite Ruby, scratching off the wax and enjoying the pain, as it ripped tender pink skin underneath. I didn’t want her brand of ownership on me. Not any longer. “Sorry that I haven’t lived up to your name. And what is it again? Plantagenet? Yeah, see the lesson about keeping my nose out still hasn’t seeded.”

  I reckoned for a moment that Ruby was going to fly at me like a flaming arrow across the bed and throw me against the wall. Instead, she shook her head, as her lips thinned. “Why does it matter who my Author was? He’s gone, and we’re his legacy.”

  I leant across in one final effort to reach Ruby, in the bond of blood shared and the burn of a love, which had been brighter than any fire, as we’d reveled in the Bedlam, alone against the world. For those long days and dark nights in the Great War and the years after, when Ruby had tended to me, pressing First Lifers’ necks to my lips.

  For a lifetime together.

  “We were good, weren’t we?” I murmured. “Before we came here to your family. They’re sure as hell not my family. That’s what ripped the heart out of—”

  “You would blame me?” Ruby’s low whisper was deadly.

  “I warned you that I don’t play well with others, or that they don’t with me.”

  Ruby let out a long hiss of exasperation. “My brothers are the best of—”

  “That right? Assassins? Who despise the British, and were murdered by the Black and Tans? This babby’s been doing his homework. So, all reformed, are they?”

  “Being elected does that for you.” Ruby raised her eyebrow as she prowled towards me around the bed. “Prithee, why do you still think like a First Lifer? Petty divisions fade and die, as First Life has faded and died. I pray you, live more years and then you’ll understand.”

  But here’s the thing, I wasn’t sure that Ruby was right.

  Hate’s a powerful emotion, and all are ampli
fied: the bad, the same as the good. Obsession surges through me, just as passion does. It’s no different to how I experienced it in my First Life, only it’s brighter. The emotion worms through us, off-kilter and on a grander scale, like a dream half-remembered when you wake up with a morning glory and a head full of crazy.

  As I dragged on my jeans, Ruby watched me through narrowed eyes. When I wrenched on my t-shirt, she demanded, “Where are you…?”

  I shrugged.

  Ruby darted forward, so fast that she was blocking the door, before I’d even taken a step. “Let us hunt together; it’s been too long. You can show me this street that has so bewitched you: Carnaby, is it not? We’ll eat this city whole together, my dearest prince, and regain your birthright.” She circled her long finger around my lips. “We will anoint you with blood and wine.”

  I caught her finger between my hands and lowered it. “I don’t think so, Ruby.”

  I might as well have cut out her heart by the devastation that flashed across her face because I’d rejected her: my Author.

  How many Blood Lifer rules could I break and still survive?

  After that, I’d ducked out of our room as fast as I could, seeking refuge from Ruby’s humiliated fury in Alessandro’s room.

  Surprised, I’d stared around at Advance’s account books, which cascaded over the desk and floors. Flicking one open, the streams of numbers absorbed me like an exhilarating game of chase.

  Because this…?

  Aralt didn’t see it (clearly didn’t want to), but this was where I was king: buried balls deep in the numbers and giving my mind free rein for once. Aralt wielded effortless control because he preyed on others’ weaknesses, sniffing them out like blood. Yet he never saw their strengths, and that was his weakness.

  By now I knew that Advance was nothing but a front for something dodgy, even the gigs and LPs.