My own bloody betrayal had.
Secrets: we all have them worming at our Souls.
Sir never told Donovan why he’d been punished, but I knew, and that was the bleeding point.
The sacrifice of Hartford or Donovan: that’d been the choice. Biological or chosen family. And I’d chosen one of the greatest sacrileges in Blood life by choosing to betray my blood, and everything comes down to blood. If Ruby, my Author who’d elected me into Blood Life, had been alive to see what I’d done to her brother, then her revenge wouldn’t have been pretty: my bollocks and trampling comes to mind.
I tell myself that I betrayed Donovan out of fear for Hartford: to save Hartford from Master. He survived Master’s loving attentions once; I barely came back from it. Not even a Long-lived could come back twice. Deep down, however, there’s still a trembling what if…?
What if I grassed on Donovan because of my own unnatural fear of the dark? The black of that hood? Sir’s control?
So, Liberty, you wanted a secret that I’ve never told anyone? Tonight, I’ve offered you a secret that was a secret. Do you reckon that I’ve ever confessed this sin? Not bloody likely. You’re the first person I’ve ever told.
Donovan is still, as he was then, in the dark.
Secrets stain, fester, and ultimately corrupt. We can all hurt and betray those around us, especially those we love. It just takes the right pressure.
Who do you trust?
Let me get this straight, Mr Blickle, you tell me this sob story, and I apologize on behalf of the wrongs sanctioned by the Blood Life Council: is that how this works?
I dare to dream.
There will be no apology for our involvement in the slave trade of Blood Lifers, official or otherwise. The Blood life Council established the human Blood Club to enslave our own kind…is that the atrocity, which you expect to expose? You’ve already set Master’s Estate on fire.
What you fail to understand is the justification and necessity for the Blood Club.
This’ll be good.
Only certain Blood Lifers were selected for slavery: the most powerful lines, Magnificoes and their descendants.
Play another tune, I’ve heard this one.
Blood Lifers like you are throwbacks to wilder, darker times. You’re politically destabilizing to our new world: nothing but fundamentals and fanatics. The Blood Life Council was attempting to bring in the Highbury Edict, which would modernize and regulate our society worldwide.
It was Hartford — the humans’ cupid — who was the first to refuse.
You mean to say that you enslaved him simply because he didn’t agree with your bloody politics…?
Of course. That’s why Hartford was our first acquisition. He was trying to stop important changes going through and blocking the Council’s authority.
Now listen here, sweetheart, there are only two words to justify the cruelty of one species enslaving its own: power and money. All the rest is spin.
Extermination: that’s a third word. Captain used it, if slavery didn’t work. The rest of the Council had to find an alternative that saved the old families because Captain would’ve killed them if they couldn’t be controlled. Which is preferable? Slavery or extermination?
That’s like asking a bloke how he’d prefer to be castrated: starting at the right or left bollock.
Still, at least it’s a choice. Yet you never gave us that, did you?
I don’t speak for the Council.
It bleeding sounds like you do.
I’d start worrying more about how you’ll sound when this testimony is used in court.
Don’t think that I’ve forgotten that because I haven’t for a second. Anyway, your plan backfired, didn’t it? The Blood Life Council’s attempt to neuter your political enemies and screw over the strongest bloodlines only made us stronger. It doesn’t surprise me that Hartford stood up to you then because he’s the most courageous Blood Lifer that I’ve ever known. Did you ever wonder if maybe he was right?
You call those of us who survived being slaves tamed Blood Lifers, but who’s your Most Wanted now? On your Red List? In chains—
There are no chains.
Metaphorically speaking. See, I can use big words too. In my human life I was a Victorian bank clerk, and we were the most viciously pedantic berks that you’ll ever find.
Then it’s a shame that you sound — and look — like a ‘60s Rocker.
And it’s a shame that you’re too young to know that we Blood Lifers cleave to the times we pass through, nicking what we love best. Babes to this world, your Council don’t even know how to be Blood Lifers.
When were you elected? A mere decade ago?
I’ve walked these streets generations before both your birth and rebirth. And the ‘60s brought me to life. They saved and freed me. I learned that we’re not predators alone who have a right to treat humans as prey—
Play another tune, I’ve heard this one.
Ha–bloody–ha. How about this then? Us tamed Blood Lifers are the terrorists in your new world. Yet we only enslave, imprison, and scapegoat blame those who we fear, which means that you must be terrified of me.
Would you enjoy that? After your period of…impotency?
My what now?
I believe you said that you knew big words.
Your fangs were removed, as part of Abona’s slavery regimen. You haven’t had them back for long; I can only imagine how disempowering that must’ve been.
Does it feel good to cause fear again? Instead of tremble with it?
Yet it’s interesting that you don’t fear me. Why is that? Despite the obvious?
Who are you?
I’m Liberty. I’m born of Captain’s fangs, and he’s told me all about you — traitor.
I’m the traitor?
See here’s the thing: you can betray love, family, country, your own species, the world…or yourself. I’ve done all of that, at one time or another. Our identities, however, shift like chameleons.
Still, if you’re Captain’s elected (my commiserations, by the way), then he knows by my fist what it’s like to be defanged. Does that make Captain impotent too?
You can ask him tonight when he returns.
I can’t wait. I’ve missed being brutally tortured. Hang on a tick…no, I haven’t.
Don’t be anxious; you’re under my protection. I have the lead on this inquiry, so no one will hurt you for the next thirteen nights.
If you say so.
You asked who I trusted. It made me wonder, Mr Blickle: who do you trust?
You’ve got your one secret. Isn’t that enough? What more do you want from me? Blood? Wait…don’t answer that. Just an e-cig and my coat, that’ll do me.
This isn’t voluntary. So, I ask again, who do you trust?
You’re betrayed by your own people to your enemy. All it needs is the right pressure...? When it was applied to the Renegades they buckled, choosing to hand over their leader for burning on Easter Sunday to save themselves.
Don’t blame us that you don’t like the outcome of their vote. After all, we didn’t rig it.
Everything’s rigged. If you can’t see that, then it only means you haven’t worked out how yet.
For the purposes of the Light Inquiry, I wonder if you knew that your family was a nest of Judases.
If they’re Judas, then does that make me Jesus?
Only if you have a messiah complex. Do you?
A woman once accused me of having a hero complex.
Betrayal’s a funny thing: it hurts the one who does it, more than the one who suffers it.
Will you still be saying that in two weeks, when you’re facing the flames?
I didn’t think that my death had already been decided? My witness—
Is the witness of a traitor, terrorist, and betrayer. Tell it and see if it saves you.
Don’t fret, I get that this is my Last Will and Testament. I won’t hide from you, Captain, the Council, or the danger of words because I�
��ve spent most of my life hiding in the shadows and hoping that invisibility meant invulnerability.
But it doesn’t.
Remaining the Lost species condemned us to slavery, and I reckoned that I could keep my misfit family safe by skulking on the edges in the dark.
Yet when you hide in the wardrobe — alone — that’s when the monsters come, both in First Life or Blood.
They always find you.
The Cannibal Tarantula — that’s what they called him. He was the Blood Lifer who I met one night in Southwark.
Met? Maybe that’s too strong a word.
The Tarantula was a Blood Lifer tourist attraction back in the ‘60s. He nested in a crypt beneath Southwark Cathedral choir. I’d crossed London Bridge, prowling through derelict warehouses, which had been bombed out in the Second World War and left to rot, home to squatters and junkies.
Ruby would’ve delighted in exploring such horrors back when she’d first authored me. But by then she’d become distracted by her brother Aralt and his money and power. Plus, blood sharing with him. I’d been left that summer in ’68 to wander London alone.
There was always going to be danger in that.
I jumped the last two steps, landing in a fog of bone and stone dust. I spluttered, as it caught in my nostrils, stinking of decay and the merry dance of death.
Just my kind of joint.
I bowed my head under the low arch, peering through the black. Corroded lead coffins lined the crypt, which was sealed to humans, whereas Blood Lifers had our own way in. Sweat trickled down my neck; it was like being baked in a stone oven.
“Mr Tarantula, I don’t fancy playing the fly but I’ve come for tea, yeah?” I called.
There was no reply, only the faintest rustling at the far reaches of the crypt.
Sighing, I swaggered towards the sounds, which became dry snaps, cracks and scraping that had my fangs aching.
I needed my bleeding head examined.
An albino web of bones tangled out of the gloom.
“Bloody hell…” I choked.
A Blood Lifer crouched inside the white cage, hiding in the shadows, but it didn’t look up… Snap… Its long hair covered its face, but its industrious fingers never paused… Crack… A femur was shaped, pushed into the intricate framework of the web… Scrape… Just for a moment, glowing eyes darted to mine and then away. Yet although it was as grubby as any street urchin, it was dressed — he was dressed — like a gentleman, in striped boater jacket and dove gray waistcoat. His grimy socks stuck out comically, as he worked hunched over.
It was as if someone had dressed him up doll-like to keep up appearances.
“The shame of it is, he won’t feed from First Lifers,” an aristocratic voice sighed behind me.
“Christ in heaven…” I jolted.
If I hadn’t been so distracted by the sight of a bloke building his own human bone cage, whilst dressed like he was watching a 1920s Boat Race, I’d have sensed the Blood Lifer who must be his Author, sidling up behind me in an emerald flapper dress. She was the type of woman who I would’ve both idolized and been too much of a mouse to raise my gaze to in First Life; her majesty grabbed you by the bollocks.
If I hadn’t already been leashed by Ruby, she’d have collared me.
The Flapper caressed my shoulder, tracing over the gold ace of spades on the back of my leathers, as if this was a new sign language. When she stroked lower between my legs, I jumped.
“It’s a damn bother, but he needs Blood Lifer. Blood, I mean. Yet he won’t feed from me.” The anguish in the Flapper’s eyes made a lie of the studied boredom in her words, as well as her wandering hands, which were crawling over my arse like she was laying claim to it. How many times had she repeated this routine, as if she was the sideman in a freak show? When she pressed her palm to the web and a bone clattered to the stone floor, I flinched. “Will you feed him?”
When I shook my head, the Flapper’s mask slipped; such fire burned that she could blaze continents to ash. I took a step back. Then her expression was blank again. She swung her pearl necklace in tense arcs, as if winding a hidden weapon. “Don’t be so horribly wet. Put your arm through.”
At the sound of the clattering bone, the Tarantula had become still. His head twisted towards us. Then he…sniffed…scenting the air.
The Flapper had circled me predator-like, until she was between me and the way out of the crypt.
How voluntary exactly was this donation?
My t-shirt was sticking to me like a damp layer of skin, but I wasn’t taking off my jacket. Not in this place, no bloody way. I inched my arm towards the cage.
When, however, was I ever frightened of being bitten?
I thrust my arm into the web with my hand tightly fisted because I didn’t want my fingers to look like delicious nibbles.
There was a scuffling scuttle and…
Suddenly, the Tarantula was there. His warm breath gusted over my tender wrist — right over the pulse point. I shook because Blood sharing was intimate, and I was about to break one of those rules with…
He was beautiful. His black hair hung in matted waves over a face as pale as his bone prison. His violet eyes were…blind.
The Tarantula was so thin that his ribs showed through like knives. His delicate fingers were searching, smoothing over my wrist in quick motions.
“The darkness,” the Tarantula muttered. “The black feeds. Three…three…three…”
Each three lit up spectacular explosions in my brain: my magical number. Hearing it gunshot chanted, with the sensation of the Tarantula’s soft strokes over my pulse point, was orgasmic.
Shuddering, I breathed, “Have yourself a good feed, mate. It looks like you need it.”
Tarantula startled, like he hadn’t expected to be spoken to. I wondered how long it’d been since any one had said a word to him or truly seen him at all. I don’t know why I’d felt the desperate need to reassure this stranger. Why did I care if he shriveled to nothing in his web?
Yet the idea of being trapped and invisible like he was tugged at me, awakening a confusion of new feelings.
That’s why when Tarantula sank in his fangs deep, I hissed, yet — just as fast — I was lost. I closed my eyes in ecstasy. I could feel the steady suck, the touch of his lips, and the swirl of his venom: it was firework in heaven glorious. I was caught in the bond, and every molecule was alive with it.
Sod it, no hunt or feed could equal blood sharing.
Why did Ruby deny such joy to me, rationing her own bite, as well as other blood sharing? She might as well have forbidden me to wank.
The Tarantula was mad. Some of us don’t survive the rebirth whole, put a match to our Souls after, or else the snowflake patterns of difference were there to start with and Blood Life merely amplified them. What I couldn’t figure, as I swam in the bubbling flow of our bonding, was whether Tarantula had caged himself or been caged. Whether he truly was mad, or if this treatment of him (and didn’t I bloody remember it well from Bedlam?), had turned him mad?
I smiled, sinking deeper into the bond, whilst imagining Ruby’s expression if I brought Tarantula back to Advance with me. What if I saved him from this dark…?
Then suddenly — agonizingly — the bond was broken, and I shot up. I stared at the Flapper who was standing next to me, clutching a human rib, which was painted crimson with the Tarantula’s blood. She dropped it — clatter — so loud in the silence.
Woozy, it took me a moment to realize what had happened…
Tarantula sprawled on his back in the bone cage staring up at the ceiling of the crypt with his unseeing violet eyes, whilst red crept out of his waistcoat…over his heart where his own Author had shanked him. I’d been a distraction, nothing more than a toy to dangle, whilst she murdered her own elected.
I didn’t know whether it was the blood sharing, but I was shaking.
“He came back wrong,” the Flapper whispered, staring down at the boy who she’d authored and then sl
aughtered. “The Order of Electors warned me, but I thought it no account. I stole him away, before they could kill him… I hoped that I would be enough.”
I didn’t hesitate, and she didn’t stop me.
When I rammed the same rib through the Flapper’s heart, she fell next to the cage like an emerald butterfly. She was broken, just the same as the kid who she’d authored. Her pearls spilled like shining tears into the crimson, as she stretched out to try and touch the Tarantula’s fingers with her own but couldn’t through the layers of human bone.
How’s that for bleeding irony?
It turns out that you can’t hide in the shadows. You’re not safe in your cage. And the dangers in life come from those who you love, as well as from across the divide of the species.
You know what I learned that day…? There’s no way to tell who’s the predator, and who’s the prey.
2
NIGHT 2
I keep my promises; I hope that’s duly noted.
No need to get your knickers in a twist, sweetheart, it’s only…all right, it’s not only anything, but it’s an e-cig and a leather jacket, not the promise to save me from the flames or to let my family go.
I thought that you told me that family made you weak.
I was wrong.
I’m glad that we have that recorded because I have the impression that you don’t say it often.
That only shows how little you know me. So, you were listening yesterday then?
That’s why I’m here.
What you do in here is anything but listen. Analyze, twist, and manipulate…I haven’t fully figured it out yet. But you’re not here to listen.
This room is smothering me: red floors, ceiling, and cherry desk, as if this is an interrogation suite for billionaires. I could sink in my fangs and drain the whole sodding room. It does match your lipstick though…
We’re Blood Lifers. Unlike the human slavers, we don’t need training on — interrogation — was it? Because that, Mr Blickle, is the point of the Red Room.
Red Room? If you wanted to spank me, then you only had to ask.
Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series Page 56