I sat upright, reanimated.
Bonds, currencies, and stock market indices. They whizzed past in choirs, dancing glorious shapes: U.S Treasury bonds, British pounds, Russian T-bills, light sweet crude, heating oil, soy-beans, copper, silver, and gold.
They spoke in a language of numbers of a whole world, which was still out there and turning. It was so easy to forget that, when I was on my knees scouring.
My world had shrunk. But the real one outside the front door of this apartment? It was still vast, infuriating, and sublime.
I had to get out. I was getting out.
You were as engrossed as me in the screens. You weren’t simply watching the markets: you were dipping your toe into the maelstrom and trading via an Internet brokerage site.
“You’re a day trader then?” I asked. “Amateur speculator?”
“There’s nothing amateur about my trading.”
There was a strange new companionship between us, which was built by the numbers. Foreign to most, yet translated by us both. First or Blood Lifer, numbers are a constant.
Like money.
As I watched you trade, I saw that you were right: you were no amateur.
You were a bloody genius.
At last, you swiveled on your chair, tilting your head to assess me. “Come on,” your smile was gentle, “want to see?” I hopped up, diving to your side. “This must be boring for you.” You waved your hand at the monitors, as if to dismiss them.
“Not when it reminds me of the world. Look,” I sidled closer, leaning against the desk; it felt good to have its solidity under me, whilst I looked down at you, conquering the Earth through your fingertips, “you have that tracker, right? And I’ve been good; I told you everything you wanted to know. It seems to me—”
“What do you want?”
“To go out.”
“Of the apartment?”
“One night, that’s all.”
You stared at me like I’d demanded to gobble your firstborn (and believe me, that’s not my cup of tea). “Na-ah, not happening.”
I swallowed, fighting not to show my devastation. “Why?”
“I don’t trust you.”
Up front and to the point. I met your gaze full on. “I’ll earn it.”
First you looked shocked and then…disgusted. You recoiled, blushing.
I simply gawped at you, before I cottoned on: you thought that’d I truly would whore myself…?
A bloke doesn’t like to think that an offer of himself (even in misunderstanding), however, disgusts a woman. It bruises the ego. “I didn’t mean…” I wondered whether you were imagining a certain Professor Alpha Geek in his buttoned up checked shirt; how could a bad boy Rocker slave compete with that?
You rapped your fingers on the arm of the chair. “You’re not going out. End of.”
That’s what you think.
I relaxed back onto the desk. “Is this your idea of fun then?”
I swear your blush deepened. Score one to me… “I like playing with numbers. The risk. You wouldn’t get it.”
I grinned. “Want to bet on that?”
You blinked at me, as if you’d never seen me before. “London’s perfect for currencies; I’m seeing consistent 35% returns. This year I’ve already made…”
You clicked a couple of keys, before pointing at a figure, which was so long it barely fitted on one line.
“That’s not…in pounds, is it?”
You nodded.
“Bugger me.”
“It’s not, like, important.” You shrugged, shrinking into yourself, child-like. “Daddy says I’ll be too busy for it soon on account of I’ll be working full time for him. But I’m good at this. It’s what I’d do if…” You glanced away, your hands wringing the lap of your check dress. Bloody hell, were we having a moment? “If I had a choice,” you finished.
Sod moments, when the dirty truth of this unequal world we labor in screams to be laid bare.
I always was my own worst enemy.
“You’re smart. Yet you’d choose to use that huge brain of yours for nothing but spinning money from other virtual money...? Globalizing and capitalizing, until the world’s reduced to a greedy baby bird’s mouth begging after investors’ gold.” I leant forward, desperate for you to understand. Why did I wish that I could stroke your arm, just to touch you and know that you were safe? “I’ve seen this before in my first life, and if you think that you’re exempt from the tempest, simply because you’re a Cain—”
You stared at me shrewdly. “Whoa there. I thought that you wanted to go out sometime in your lifetime?”
Score two to you…
I caught myself, giving an apologetic shrug. “Right, sorry.”
“I majored in Mathematics.” Did you really just caress the back of my hand? My skin tingled from your touch. “And what excites me isn’t the gold. It’s the hunt. OK, I’m not a heart surgeon, Nobel Prize winner, or researcher into tropical diseases. So, sue me. This is what I’m good at it. It’s me. What have you ever been?”
More than you can ever imagine.
That’s when I caught a glimpse of the Fiendish Sudoku on the edge of the coffee table. You’d been working on a page last night, hissing between your teeth in frustration. You were halfway through the book now, where the puzzles were graded 10 stars. It was taking you the better part of a day to complete one. What had I ever been? “A gambler.”
“What?”
“You like risks?” My lips quirked. “How about a little bet?” I swaggered to the Sudoku, snatching it up. “If I manage one of these, then you let me go outside.”
You smirked. “Trying to prove a point?”
“I thought you liked the hunt — the prey’s right here.” I spun in a circle, my arms held wide at my sides.
You considered me. “If you complete a puzzle in less than an hour, then one night this week you can go out for an hour.”
I took a steadying breath. “And if I don’t?”
You frowned, as if you’d never considered a consequence for my inevitable failure. “You’re cooking tonight.”
At long sodding last.
I nodded, flicking open the book to the next puzzle. Then nonchalantly as I could, I offered, “Tell you what, how about we up the ante? If I finish it in less than half an hour, I get to go out alone for the whole night?”
You instantly shook your head.
“Please?”
“Not happening.”
I raised my arm to hurl that bleeding Sudoku against your monitors, which were windows out to a world that I couldn’t even touch, when the tingling memory of your caress of my hand made me lower my arm again. “Bollocks.”
Defeated, I opened the book at the right page.
“The whole evening,” I heard you say quietly, “but with me.”
I glanced up, surprised. “I will earn your trust, you know.”
“But do you trust me?”
“Do you reckon that I’d have told you…just…what I have, if I didn’t?” Uncomfortable, you shifted, unable to meet my eye. “Anyway, it’s not like I’ve a choice, is it? You’ve got my life in your hands.”
You glanced down involuntarily, as if you expected to discover a doll-sized version of me balanced in your hands. “If you don’t win the bet, you’re cooking for a week.”
I grinned. “Suits me.”
“Get started, the clock has.”
28 minutes later…
You stood in the center of the sitting room, underneath the bright light of the beachcomb chandelier, holding the Fiendish Sudoku, as if it might sink fangs into you.
You’d rigorously checked my solved puzzle seven times.
Your mouth hung open, as you gaped between it and me (who was lying full-length on the sofa with my legs crossed comfortably), like you’d just had the reality of the tooth fairy proved to you. “How...?”
I smirked. “I’m good with numbers too.”
I’d forgotten the pure joy of immersion in a
puzzle: no room to think or remember beyond its matrix.
Your eyes narrowed. “Na-ah, what the frig are you?”
I stiffened. You First Lifers are obsessed with rooting out the imperfect (as if perfection is even attainable).
What am I?
That’s the question, which has dogged me for over one hundred and fifty years.
If you meant how had I completed the puzzle so fast...? I’m a savant. Everything I’ve ever seen in this long life I remember, stored like a computer database in my brain.
Believe me, it’s not a blessing.
And numbers? There’s my talent. They’re like a landscape: undulating shapes, with their own colors and textures. Some are angelically beautiful, whilst others are monstrous. Yet I’m drawn to the deformed, as much as to the heavenly.
When I was so young that I couldn’t yet read, I’d hide in the dark underneath my bed because it felt safe, numbers sliding through my mind like winding silk. Sometimes, I’d lie on the Oriental rug in papa’s study at his feet: papa with his clay pipe and crisp sheets of the Times, me with the photographic studio’s business books.
For years, I hid my secret talent, terrified that I was destined for Bedlam or worse — that I was possessed. Evil. Different.
At night, I’d weep silent tears as I’d send up prayers to God to take away this curse. He never answered. Yet one day when the truth was revealed, my papa didn’t condemn me, rather he celebrated, calling me his human camera.
Photography means writing in light in Greek. And so, the nickname stuck — my papa’s Light.
Light’s not merely a name, which I took when I was rechristened into Blood Life: it’s the name that my papa blessed me with before I died. The one that meant it was bloody all right to be different.
That’s what Sir ripped from me. That’s why I can’t bear to lose it again.
“What am I?” I forced myself to calmly reply. “One evening out with you better off, that’s what I am.”
You looked like you might argue. Then you deflated. “Later in the week, OK?” At last, a smile spread across your face, as you studied me with something akin to admiration. You wildly waved the Fiendish Sudoku. “Less than half an hour! I took, like, two days—”
“Take a breath, darling.”
You chucked the book at my head, and I ducked.
Then we both grinned.
Who cares who bloody scored? I was getting to go out; it was like the world had lightened.
Until the doorbell rang.
I dove into a ball in the corner of the sofa. No one ever came here. Billy no mates, remember?
You hunched, guiltily. “Stay there.”
It was back to doggy commands then.
I listened, as you clacked your way to the front door, its click when it swung open, and then muted voices — definitely female. Next, two sets of footsteps coming down the hallway…
I tensed, weighing up my options, which were obeying you and remaining curled up on the sofa or making a dash for the relative safety of my cell.
As you and the strange woman strolled together towards the sitting room, I was frozen with the thought: you meant to sell me…to some First Lifer in bondage trousers and bullet belt, more zippers and chains than anything else and graded black hair, which was spiked crimson at the edges, like blood tipped spears.
She was just my type of punk. Except for the way that she stopped in the doorway and examined me, as a queen might a traitor who she found both handsome and contemptible…in the moment before the ax fell. “It be wearing clothes?”
It?
You hovered behind the newcomer, as if uncertain of entering your own sitting room. I clutched onto my motorcycle jacket; no one was getting that off me without losing something that they bloody cared about. “Marlane, sorry, I mean M.C., I just thought…it’s wicked raw still and—”
“So? And it be on the furniture…?” I shot off the sofa, pressing my back against the fireplace. The punk smiled. “Good little leech. They have to learn that they not people, only property. That’s why we give them a new name.”
Marlane...?
Christ in heaven, this stranger was the older Cain sister. The one who everybody whispered about at Abona: the specter in Brixton, just as your dad was the ghoul of the Estate. She was the shadow who’d been behind the slave books, the bottles, and the starvation.
M.C. looked me up and down scornfully. “Dad would’ve trained up a bitch alright for you. One that knew how to behave.”
Your voice was icy. “I didn’t want a broken doll.”
“Or a slave?”
“Well, it seems like I got one, doesn’t it?”
M.C.’s lips curled. “Nah, sis, it don’t.”
At last, you brushed past your sister, snatching up a pad of paper and a rollerball, before perching on the edge of the chair. M.C., however, slunk towards me, which was like being stalked by an anarchist tiger with added attitude. “The wallad’s not kneeling. Kneel.”
Not sodding likely.
“Bad,” M.C. admonished. Now I knew why you spoke to me puppy style. “First thing you need to understand about Blood Club, sis, is that it be all about image, innit?’ M.C. was lecturing you — half-bored and half-matter-of-fact — but she was facing me, her black nail varnished fingers sliding down my chest… “That’s why it be unique, safe, and guaranteed,” …having a cheeky tweak at my nipples through the thin cotton of my t-shirt… “But the product? That’s got to be perfect,” …around my arse… “That’s why they be sourced from all over the world. Then Yates trains at Abona. Dad on the Estate for the tailored, individualized orders. Specialized shit. And you…” …and then for a wank wander…
That did it.
I tried to jerk away, but M.C.’s other arm cradled round, holding me trapped against the fireplace.
I stared over M.C.’s shoulder at you for rescue. But you were deliberately scrutinizing the notepad that was balanced on your knee. Were you also frightened of your sister?
I guess it was time that I stood up for myself.
Just as M.C.’s black-nailed fingers curled around my jean encased bollocks, I whispered close to her ear, “A little lower, love. I think you missed a spot.”
M.C.’s hand froze in its exploration. Then she was swinging it in a hissing arc — slap.
My head snapped back, hitting the wall. My pride hurt more than my smarting cheek, but M.C.’s spiked bracelet had caught my mouth. I licked at the coppery blood: waste not, want not.
I’d never seen a punk First Lifer about to explode with fury before. It was fascinating.
“You’ve got to discipline the bitches, you get me? Don’t you use this...?” M.C. took something out of the pocket of her bondage trousers and swiped her finger over the display.
Shooting, spearing agony, like a white-hot tree: it branched down my spine and then every nerve inside my body, until I was consumed by it.
M.C. played around with the touchscreen. Yet all I could fixate on was the black logo of the Manx.
I tried to form words, but none would come. My heart was thundering. My palms sweating. Still I didn’t kneel (let alone prostrate myself): not to that bitch. Not to any First Lifer. Not anymore.
Instead, I braced myself to endure.
I hadn’t heard your approach behind M.C. “Light, go to your room and wait for me.”
I’d never heard you so coldly furious. It was too late now. I assumed that you wanted to compare notes on effective discipline measures. And you know what?
It was bloody worth it.
Another swipe of the touchscreen by M.C., followed by the agony falling away, leaving a low-level tingling buzz.
I edged around M.C., who sneered at me, like older siblings everywhere when they’ve told on you and earned you a spanking. Then I made my escape to my cell.
The last thing I heard before I slammed the door behind me (because I never pretended that I’m mature), was M.C.’s disdainful snort, “Light? That’s its leech name.
Its name be shadow, boy, or slave.”
I paced the room, counting each circuit.
Stand, sit, even bloody kneel, I’d start to do one and then freeze.
Permission, I hadn’t been given…
Yeah, everything was hunky-dory: I couldn’t even take a decision on where to park my arse for fear of getting it wrong because bad here. Stupid. Worthless.
At last, I risked perching on the edge of the bed, my hands resting flat on my knees, with my palms up, as the least offensive position. Except, that’s when the traitorous thoughts came burrowing their way in.
OK, so I was going to cop it. Nothing new there.
You’d not…done that before, but it was only a matter of time: you’re a Cain after all. Yet you’d sounded so enraged and you hadn’t defended me, not even when I’d been reduced to an it.
That’s when the thought squirmed, which wobbled my stiff upper lip: what if my punishment was to lose my name again?
Its name be shadow, boy, or slave.
Beat me bloody but don’t steal my name. The first time I survived it. The second time…?
That’s when my mind went bye-byes.
Silently, I stretched out on my back, on top of those Egyptian cotton sheets and then lay there, still as a corpse, staring up unseeingly at the ceiling.
I don’t know how long I was like that.
All I remember is your arms wrapped around me — my cocoon — and your cheek against mine, as you whispered, “She’s wrong, I promise. You’re Light still. Your name is Light…”
When I blinked, flexing my fingers, like I’d woken back into my body, which after only the briefest break from the fear and anxiety was rejuvenated — like rebirth — you were gone.
But I was back. I’d survived. And I was going out this week.
You have no bloody idea what that promise means to me.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe — just maybe — you do.
Do you need to be freed as much as your slave?
15
Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series Page 32