Language in the Blood

by Angela Lockwood

  Chapter 21: Roberto

  George would always let me know when he was back from one of his tours and we met regularly. By the late 1990s, I noticed his enthusiasm for army life was waning. He had just come back from Kosovo and I felt there was something bothering him, but he wouldn’t tell me what.

  I’d been staying in Nice for a few years by then and longed to live on a yacht, which I thought would make a wonderful hiding place. The modern world was becoming very complicated with its taxes and never-ending streams of paperwork. I was constantly having to find ways of explaining my existence. However, a yacht would need a crew, and a human crew I could trust, so I asked George to come and work for me. He would only agree if he could continue doing what he loved.

  ‘I have skills that shouldn’t go to waste, Cameron. I feel I owe society,’ he told me.

  ‘Well I’m not stopping you if you want to want to go into some godforsaken hell-hole now and then and kill a few baddies,’ I told him.

  ‘I think you owe society, too,’ he said.

  ‘Me?’ I was indignant.

  ‘Well you can hardly say your existence has made the world a better place, can you now?’ He looked at me sternly.

  ‘Unfair! I fought in both world wars!’ I cried in mock outrage.

  ‘You got killed in your first battle and you only fought in WWII to stop my grandfather from ending his existence.’

  ‘You’re starting to sound just like him, miserable sod that he was,’ I said glumly.

  ‘Well, maybe he had a point. You know, you have all these amazing abilities and all you ever do is line your own pockets and kill small dogs.’

  I knew if I wanted to have a functioning relationship with a human I had to meet their moral demands. I got on so well with young George because he’d had to fight to keep his darker side in check too, although he had become much calmer over the years.

  ‘Now, this is my plan. You’ll like the money side of it,’ he said.

  ‘Money?’ I said with interest. Now he had my full attention!

  ‘I have a contact who has worked with the families of hostage victims. Often, if negotiations are going nowhere, they’re willing to reward a successful rescue,’ he started to explain. He outlined his plans and the role I was to play in them. It was an intriguing idea so I agreed to help him.

  Our first mission in 2006 took us deep into the Colombian jungle, where Roberto Hidalgo, the 18-year-old son of a very wealthy Bogota businessman had been taken hostage by the FARC. The reward Mr Hidalgo was willing to offer for the safe return of his son was five million dollars. Getting a vampire all the way from France to Colombia was going to be a complicated affair however. We decided to set up a dummy import-export company and George hired a warehouse near Bogota which we were going to use as our operations base. Then he purchased a large crate and asked me to get in it.

  ‘So how long is this trip going to take George?’ I asked, looking doubtfully at the crate.

  ‘About two weeks,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not staying in a crate for two weeks! I’ll starve!’ I cried, outraged.

  ‘I thought you vampires couldn’t die,’ he mocked.

  ‘Maybe not after two weeks, but starving is a very unpleasant experience. Can we not put a few animals in for the trip?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Customs would pick that up in no time. I could pack some frozen chicken for you, I mean we would have to change the paperwork but I could send you as frozen cargo,’ he said and I saw he found the whole thing highly amusing.

  ‘I can’t eat frozen chicken, there’s no fresh blood in it!’ I cried in horror. ‘And now you not only want me in a box, you want to freeze me too.’ I was not impressed by his travel arrangements.

  ‘You’re sure you don’t show up on x-ray and the like?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes. I simply don’t register. But isn’t there a quicker way to send me?’ I urged.

  ‘We could do air cargo, but it’d cost four times as much,’ George explained, without much enthusiasm.

  ‘Air cargo it is then and damn the expense! I mean, really, you were planning to put me in a crate for two weeks without any food? Where’s your humanity?’ I threw my arms wide in a questioning gesture.

  ‘You know, in Buffy they bury the likes of you in coffins all the time and they seem to come out ok, even after a few years. Are you sure you’re a real vampire?’ he asked me, still mocking.

  ‘Care to find out?’ I asked, showing him my fangs.

  At that, George made a hasty exit and booked our crate on the next cargo flight to Colombia. Even by air the trip was long, boring and uncomfortable and when I finally arrived in the warehouse I was hungry and irritable. I had an enormous urge to sink my teeth straight into George. He was eyeing me warily, and holding tightly on to the crowbar he’d used to open the crate.

  ‘You alright, Cameron?’ he enquired, keeping a safe distance.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked, looking around the warehouse.

  ‘Noon,’ said George, gripping the crowbar firmly.

  ‘Fuck! Did you get me any food?’ I asked, hopeful there was something to get my fangs into.

  ‘Not had the time to go dognapping yet,’ he said, still keeping his distance.

  ‘Go on and let me bite you,’ I said. I was smiling, but I wasn’t entirely joking.

  ‘Fuck off, Cameron! I’m not your food. You’ll just have to fucking wait,’ he said, lifting the crowbar menacingly.

  I dragged myself off to a corner to sit and sulk. George took pity and braved handing me a laptop.

  ‘At least we have wifi,’ he said, apologetically.

  I felt my mood improving as I logged into Facebook. ‘Ok George, I’ll let you live,’ I said, without a smile.

  ‘Jeez, thanks Cam.’

  It got dark at around seven o’clock, by which time I was feeling very hungry and dangerous. Finally, George got up and grabbed some car keys.

  ‘Right, Cameron. Let’s go see a man about a dog!’

  We drove to a shed somewhere in the outskirts of Bogota and George said ‘I assume you have eaten Spanish at some point and now speak it?’

  ‘Dunno,’ I growled. I was moody and didn’t feel like talking.

  He introduced me to a fat man in his forties called Ernesto. I was dismayed to find that I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I should have bitten Joan Miró when I had the chance! Miró had annoyed me at a party one night and I found him later, alone and asleep in one of the bedrooms of the house. I had been very tempted, but Hélène was there and I didn’t want her to find me in the process of feeding.

  George knew a few words of Spanish and soon the man went in to get the dog.

  ‘What the fuck is that?’ I cried when I saw a white dog being led out.

  ‘I believe it is a bull terrier. She lost her last fight, so he’s selling her cheap,’ said George, not caring one iota.

  ‘That is one fucking ugly bitch!’ I said loudly.

  ‘Easy, Cameron. Don’t insult the man now.’

  Ernesto didn’t speak English, fortunately, so the transaction went ahead as planned and a few bank notes equating to about ten euros exchanged hands. George led the dog to the car.

  ‘Look at all those scars! I don’t like my food pre-chewed George!’ I complained.

  ‘You fucking eat what you’re given, you spoiled brat!’ he scolded.

  I was very hungry and didn’t know the lay of the land so I realised I had little choice. Soon we were back at the warehouse and I eyed up my food with distaste. The bitch took my stare as a challenge and suddenly went for me, locking her powerful jaws around my arm and biting down hard.

  ‘You fucking bitch! Well, two can play that game,’ I yelled and planted my fangs into her muscly neck. It took a long time before I felt the powerful neck relax and then the dog finally let go of my arm. Just a few more sips and she was dead and drained. George had collapsed into a chair and was laughing uncontrollably, tears streaming down his face.
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  ‘That was just the funniest thing ever! Finally one of the buggers got you back. I wish I could have captured that on camera!’ He howled with laughter.

  I was well fed and in a better mood now, so I took a bow and said ‘Glad we could be tonight’s entertainment, but next time get me something prettier.’

  Owing to George’s meticulous research and preparation, we located Roberto’s captors within a week. The thick canopy of the rainforest made it possible for me to travel even during the daytime. To my eyes, there’s no difference between night and day, it’s just that daytime hurts. The fact that I could see the enemy but they struggled to see me made it very easy to overrun the rebels. We had Roberto out of there before they fully realised what had hit them.

  During our trek back to Bogota, we had to come clean with Roberto as to what I was. This was to become one of the risks of the job, but we knew it would be virtually impossible to keep my nature hidden from hostages if we had to travel with them for days on end. They’d need to know why I had to keep out of sunlight during the day and why I had to find something slightly different to eat.

  On that first trip, in Colombia, food proved to be quite easy. One night, I was moving slowly through the forest searching for an animal, when I heard rustling next to me. The next thing I knew, a huge jaguar had jumped on my back, digging its claws into my shoulders. Ya beauty!

  I wrestled the cat to the floor. I thought it might not taste very good given that domestic cats taste so vile, but this animal was rather wonderful. It had an unusual, exotic flavour, almost a tad chocolatey. I didn’t believe it would be right to kill an endangered species, especially a beautiful beast like a jaguar, so I let it go after a pint.

  Roberto was fascinated by the fact that he was now traveling through the jungle with a real life vampire and asked me many questions.

  ‘So you drink blood, Mr Blair?’

  ‘Yes, and call me Cameron, please,’ I said, trying to be friendly and obliging.

  ‘So you need to kill someone every day?’ he asked, looking at me with great interest.

  ‘No, I very rarely kill. I get by on just a few pints here and there and it doesn’t have to be human,’ I explained. ‘Actually, I had some jaguar just the other day.’

  ‘Cameron has a taste for small dogs too.’

  I shot George a dirty look at this remark.

  ‘You eat dog?’ Roberto said and his eyes widened.

  ‘Now, why did you have to bring that up, George? Humans slaughter cows, sheep and all sorts of animals and here is little old me getting judged for eating the occasional pooch. And by the way, I let the cow live! I just take a pint here and there, same as with the humans and there you are making out that I’m the bad guy!’ I pulled ahead of them to sulk.

  ‘The other thing you need to know about Cameron is that that chip on his shoulder doesn’t come off,’ I heard George say behind my back.

  ‘But you did kill those FARC bastards back there?’ Roberto asked, hastily catching up with me.

  ‘Yes, an extra benefit of rescuing you,’ I said dreamily, thinking about the wonderful fresh local food.

  ‘And you two live on the Côte d’Azur?’ he queried.

  I could see Roberto was excited. He seemed to think that George and I had just the most adventurous life ever. When we got back to Bogota, he told his dad that he had always wanted to learn French and that going to France would be a good experience before he went to university. He managed to convince his father to let him enrol in a French class in Cannes and to come and work with me and George. He fitted in very well with all the other rich young South Americans staying on the Côte d’Azur, pretending to learn French but really just enjoying their first taste of freedom.

  It was after my meeting with Rashid in Monaco that I overheard a conversation between George and Roberto. They hadn’t heard me coming back and they were gassing in the kitchen.

  ‘Are you going to introduce her to him?’ I heard George asking.

  ‘Not sure. I’m worried she is going to like him.’

  I smiled. It was rather sweet that Roberto was worrying about his girlfriend falling for me.

  ‘The bastard can be utterly charming. They do say it’s very common for psychopaths to be very charming,’ I heard George say. Psychopath! What the...?

  ‘I know. I am thinking seriously of going back to Colombia, I didn’t think he would murder an innocent woman,’ Roberto went on, sounding serious and concerned.

  ‘Me neither, Roberto. I don’t think I can stay here, it’s just so wrong. The dogs, well I’m not a big lover of dogs and he needs to eat somehow, but this woman... Anyway, let’s get the deck cleaned. He’ll be back soon,’ said George bringing the conversation to an end.

  I quickly ran back on deck and pretended I had just arrived. ‘Evening George! You missed a spot.’

  ‘Fuck off, Cameron!’

  I pretended nothing had happened. So they thought I was a psychopath. Well, maybe it was deserved. I went below deck and put a DVD of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the machine. That stuff always used to cheer me up no end.