Night Blessed

by Megan Blackwood

  Twenty-five: Flower Beds

  Seamus's uncle had established his life in a townhouse on the outskirts of London. He had corralled his garden into military-neat rows, every flower that bobbed out of place snipped back into formation. Forest-green shutters nipped his windows closed, and a pristine set of shiny brass numbers stood proud and center on a door so white it reminded me of the hospital sheets.

  "Is your family all from London?"

  "Jesus, no. We're from Derry. Uncle Harold moved this way for work and it stuck."

  Seamus stepped past me and gave the door a short burst of knocks, then waited with his hands in his pockets. I shuffled sideways to hide in his shadow, tugging my shirt to better conceal the still-healing bite wound that marred my skin, and hoped that the long hem of my jeans would do enough to make my injured feet difficult to see. At least the pointless stitches and cleaning had made it so I'd stopped tracking blood, but my feet were still filthy from the long walk here.

  The door swung open, and I plastered on a smile and tried to channel looking mortal. Seamus's uncle Harold was taller than both of us, and though age had seen him gone a bit over to fat, he still harbored some muscle. Piercing green eyes the mirror of Seamus's narrowed at us, then widened in surprise. He took a step back, reaching up to brush a neatly trimmed grey beard with his fingers, and grinned.

  "Seamus, my boy, you should have rung up, I'd have had the kettle on already."

  "Sorry to bother you, uncle, but we were in a bit of a hurry."

  His gaze drifted from the well-known shape of his nephew to me, the oddity on his doorstep. I kept my smile on, and tried to meet his eye whatever the appropriate amount of time was, and not to stand too still. His expression shifted from joyful reunion to wary concern in an instant. I wasn't very good at this pretending-to-be-mortal thing. Especially during the day.

  "Come in." He stepped aside, pushing the door wide, and threw a glance down the lane like he expected us to be followed. Like his nephew, Harold had good instincts. "Who's your friend?"

  "Magdalene Shelley," I said, holding out my hand to him as I stepped over the threshold.

  He took it and gave it a firm shake. "Pleasure. Name's Harold Canavan, though I'm sure Seamus here has already filled you in on those details. Any friend of his is one of mine. Tea?"

  "That'd be lovely."

  "Follow me, then."

  Harold led us into a cozy kitchen. A single, round table stood off to the side with four hopeful chairs around it. The one facing the window was obviously the most used, its backside slightly more worn than the rest. A narrow strip of counter space punctuated by a sink and stovetop took up the exterior wall, pantry shelving opposite, and the whole workspace was set off by a massive window looking out over a back garden just as precise as the front. Seamus pulled a chair for me as Harold went about putting an old stainless steel hisser on the hob.

  "Biscuits in the tin," he said, tipping his head toward the pantry shelving. Seamus was over in a flash, digging custard creams out of a scratched-up blue tin. As if they'd done this routine together their whole lives, Seamus plunked two biscuits each onto three small plates just as Harold was pouring out the tea, and in a swish of synchronized domesticity the goods were deposited on the table and the relatives seated. If only Sun Guard operations could move half so smoothly.

  "Now," Harold said. "What kind of trouble are you in?"

  Seamus became very interested in stirring cream into his tea. "Disagreement with the boss about a way a problem should be handled. We'll be out of your hair soon."

  "Bah. Not worried about getting rid of you. Need an extra set of hands to lay the autumn mulch, anyway. What's the disagreement? You going to be looking for a new job?"

  "Can't say much about the nature of the argument."

  Harold shot me a look. "HR problem? Romance in the workplace?"

  Seamus turned red as the poppies embroidered on the tablecloth. "No, nothing like that. Security measures, I really can't say much. Do you have an outlet I could plug a phone into? Need to look into a few things."

  Harold sighed and pushed himself up, then shifted a pale wooden shelf aside to reveal the outlet hidden behind it. "There you are then, help yourself."

  "Thanks."

  Seamus pulled a long cable from his backpack and hooked it up to the wall and a small laptop that he produced out of the confines of his pack like a magician revealing a rabbit. After a few seconds of furious typing, he looked up into both of our silent faces, a little embarrassed.

  "Sorry. This might take a while..."

  Harold chuckled and looked at me. "We've been dismissed, lass. Know how to lay mulch?"

  "Could learn," I said, smiling.

  He nodded and I helped him gather the teacups, offering them dutifully while he rinsed them out and set them on a mat to dry. He laced his fingers together in front of his chest and pushed out, stretching. His back let loose with a crack so loud I worried he'd collapse into a limp puddle afterward.

  "This way then."

  He guided me out of the kitchen into the back garden. Warm sun speared fitful patches through the cloud cover, dotting the mosaic paths with as much color as the flowers themselves. The paving stones were warm beneath my feet, seeping up into my legs. Though my powers should be at their full, I was so very wrung out from lack of rest, blood, my exertions and injuries that for just a second, with the sun warming my shoulders in dappled freckles, my body weak and drained to nothing, I could imagine I was mortal again.

  "Nothing to it," Harold said as he approached an old wheelbarrow beside a banked bed of herbs. A blue tarp had been meticulously strapped down over the heap within, held in place by narrow straps he undid one-by-one and rolled into neat bundles. As the mulch hit the fresh air the scent of old earth—loam and mold and living things—exploded into the soft breeze. My skin tingled with the liveliness of it all.

  "Got a couple of pitchforks against the shed over there, grab 'em for us, won't you? Spare pair of shoes, too. Bit big but better than nothing."

  I found the pitchforks hanging from hooks, their tines slightly rusted but otherwise clean. A pair of thick, green rubber shoes waited under them and I slipped those on before handing a pitchfork to Harold. I stood a respectful distance off to the side, watching intensely as he lifted a forkful of mulch and spread it evenly around the bases of the plants.

  "You take that bed across the way, there. The one with the cucumbers."

  I nodded and followed his lead, careful to let my breathing increase from the perceived exertion, but not too much to cause alarm. We fell into a steady rhythm, my muscles singing from the joy of doing work—real work—that wasn't killing.

  "We're proud of our Seamus," he said after a while.

  I looked up to regard him, brushing hair back from my eyes. His gaze was fixed on his work, a streak of sweat darkening the grey shirt between his shoulder blades. He didn't pause, just kept on doling out those careful, precise forkfuls, his voice a slow, even keel like he was discussing the weather.

  "As you should be," I said, following his lead, and hoping he didn't notice my lack of sweat.

  "His da', my brother, always said he took more after me than he did himself."

  "But you don't think so?"

  Full pitchfork suspended in midair, he shot me a sly glance. "Sometimes I wish he would. My brother always had an... intense streak in him. It's what made him so good at his work. Seamus has that. He's the brightest seed that's ever sprouted from our tree. I know he can't talk about half of what he does—security and all that—and I wouldn't understand the details, anyway."

  "I work with him, and I only understand half of what he says."

  Harold chuckled. He stuck the fork in the ground and leaned against the handle, regarding me. I looked up to meet his gaze and stood still—but not so still that I would unsettle him. I knew an evaluation when I met one, and so I let him take me in, and wondered what he saw—what person, or creature, existed in the eyes of Harold Canavan?
For some reason I could not explain, I desperately wanted this man to approve of me. Needed him to. As if, in his benediction, I could cling to a thread of my humanity that was rapidly slipping from my fingers.

  "You have what my nan would have called 'the presence'," he said.

  I stiffened. Nans, in my experience, had a keener eye for the supernatural than most.

  "And she, like myself, would mean it as a compliment."

  "Thank you."

  My nerves released their hold on me as his gaze slid away, back to the kitchen window where we could just make out Seamus's head bent over the bluish glow of his laptop screen. His shoulders heaved with a sigh, but I pretended not to notice as I bent my back to the work once more.

  "Just... Make sure he can always come home if he wants to, all right? I believe you can do that."

  "You have my word," I said, and pretended not to notice as his body shuddered with the brief tingle of relief.

  We worked the day away in patches of silence and idle chatter while Seamus was absorbed in his work, my ease with this mortal growing with each forkful of mulch spread or glass of water offered. By the time the sun was leaning against the westward horizon, my muscles trembled from the work. I could remember no time in which that had ever happened. The sensation—so new and intense—made me stop in my tracks. I looked at my shaking arms, holding them to the cloud-scrubbed light, and chuckled.

  Harold looked up, his face creasing with worry. "You right, lass?"

  "Yes, just... tired." What a novelty. I brushed my hair off my forehead, running the back of my wrist over my skin as if I were brushing away sweat. A red smear marred my wrist. I stared at it a long moment, not understanding. Was I injured?

  No. I was sweating. Just not like any mortal could. My whole body began to shake. I tipped my head back, seeking sustenance from the sun, but it was too little, too late. My body cut loose, and I collapsed in the warm mulch.

  Twenty-six: The Beast, and Me

  A quilted bedspread trapped me against a lumpy feather mattress. Whirlwind patches in all the colors of the rainbow, spattered by petite white flowers, were drenched in the warm light of the sun slanting through the window. To my right, the curtain had been hastily yanked aside—Harold would never allow the white lace to bunch like that on the curtain rod.

  White lace. Not the choice of a bachelor, as the rest of his home had indicated. I blinked lazily, feeling my eyelids scrape over my eyeballs like sand. My throat spasmed as I tried to swallow empty air, working my tongue around to lick up some hint of saliva. Nothing. My body was as dry as a grain silo. I wanted to push the quilt back, to let my skin lay free and soak up every last drop of the rapidly setting sun, but as I tried to lever myself upright, my body trembled and I collapsed back against a duck-down pillow.

  "Out of the question," Seamus said, his voice raised, on the other side of my room's shut door.

  "Lass needs a doctor," Harold retorted.

  Shit. Right. Harold had seen me collapse. Didn't matter that I had what his nan had called 'the presence' if I'd gone and keeled over right in front of him. A man like Harold stuck to systems, to habits and methods, and when someone face-planted in your mint patch, you called an ambulance.

  Groaning, I rolled to my side beneath the tight grip of the quilt and wriggled to the edge of the bed, my breath catching as if I were any ill mortal. I hoped I hadn't sweat blood into Roland's sheets. This quilt had the feel of a family heirloom, and I didn't want to be responsible for its destruction.

  "She just needs rest," Seamus retorted. Good man. Keep him from that phone. The last thing I needed was to end up back in A&E. They might give me blood, sure, but I didn't think the biomechanical response of my body would pass muster with them.

  "She needs fluids, and someone in a white coat to tell her what an idiot she's been." I could practically hear him straighten up. "I'm already here to tell you what an idiot you've been."

  "I didn't know she was dehydrated—"

  Their bickering prattled on, guilt hooking deeper into my chest each time Seamus struggled to feint something almost-like-truth to his uncle's complaints. The man had a hard time lying, and I guessed his uncle was well acquainted will all of Seamus's tells.

  With more effort than I thought I had in me, I swung my legs out from the trap of the quilt and dangled them to the floor, carefully establishing my feet's connection with the ground as if it were a tenuous thing to be carefully massaged. What fluids my body had left sunk as my body gave way to the annoying pressure of gravity, making my head swim and my vision threaten to go black.

  Steady on, Mags. Never in all my years of unlife had I felt so drained. But then, never had I been so far outside my usual support network. Was I such a pathetic creature that I required the structure of the Sun Guard to keep me from fainting due to hunger? What a fool I'd been, too used to easy strength.

  Forcing my heart to speed its rate, I pushed to my feet. The world swam a little, but with one hand on the windowsill and one on the edge of the bed I steadied myself. Carefully, I shuffled around the room, keeping one hand on the bed—why hadn't I let myself out of bed on the side of the door?—until I reached the door. I took a moment to steady myself, then gripped the knob and yanked it open.

  Seamus and Harold both jumped.

  "Mags!"

  "Lass—"

  "Stop. Arguing. I'm fine. I just need a drink."

  "You took a nasty turn there, lass." Harold shot Seamus a look that said their argument was far from over, then stomped toward the kitchen.

  Seamus swooped at me, and before I knew what had happened he had me sitting on the edge of the bed, his hands on both of my shoulders as he stared into my eyes, frowning.

  "Don't have time to ask permission. Sorry."

  I had only a second to register his finger darting toward my eye and the dry touch of it as it prodded my pupil—no, my contact lens—and nudged it back into place.

  "Sorry, again. I don't think he noticed."

  "Thanks," I said, blinking to ease the dry ache in my eyes. No good. My lids felt like sandpaper. "I'm sorry, Seamus. I should have thought..."

  "No. I should have thought. I know your schedule."

  "My what?"

  He glanced over his shoulder to make sure his uncle was out of hearing range. "You know. Your feeding schedule. Emeline was last, then me, but you were gone that night and I lost track..."

  "Jesus. You have schedules for us? Like... Like toddlers?"

  He grimaced, then risked a smile. "Well. You fainted without the schedule."

  "I'll get you for that later," I mumbled, and he laughed with a hint of relief.

  "Here you are. Drink it all." Harold appeared with the biggest glass of water I'd ever seen, the sides slick from condensation.

  "This your beer mug?" I asked, trying to give him a reassuring smile as I took the stein in both hands and tipped it to my lips. I hadn't even noticed at first that Seamus had slipped his hand under the cup, supporting the weight, as I drank.

  Harold's posture relaxed and he smiled at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "Only on Sundays."

  "Give us a moment, please?" Seamus asked.

  Harold shoved his hands in his pockets—a gesture I'd seen too many times to count from Seamus—and nodded, but his voice was gruff. "Don't chat too long, now. The lass needs rest, and I want her to down a ginger beer once she's done with the water. Get some electrolytes in her."

  "Not exactly health food," Seamus remarked.

  "Best I got," he grumbled and stomped off once more, making a pointed racket as he set to making another pot of tea.

  Seamus slipped to his feet and shut the door, then turned back to me and raised an eyebrow at the mug in my hand. "Is that helping?"

  "It's not hurting," I admitted, relishing the cold sensation spreading through my throat and down into my belly with each sip. "But it's not enough."

  "Thought so."

  The mattress springs squeaked as he sat on the bed next to me
then turned, cross-legged, and rolled up his shirtsleeve to expose his wrist. My stomach leapt with anticipation, my heart rate kicking up until I felt it clot my throat. With shaking fingers, I downed the rest of the water and set it aside on a nightstand, turning to match his posture.

  "I may..." I licked my lips. "Have control issues."

  He raised both brows at me. "I'll stop you."

  I tried to laugh, but fell into a coughing fit. He put one hand on my shoulder to steady me.

  "Listen to me Seamus. This is... dangerous. I have never been this drained in all my years. And I..." I licked my lips again. Couldn't stop doing that. Damn. "You've seen the taint in my eye. There may be nothing to stop me."

  His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and though he put on a smile for me, all I could see was the heavy pulse of his carotid artery. "I trust you, Magdalene Shelley. With or without your oath. I trust you."

  I don't think I'll ever know if it was his permission, or simply my breaking point, but in that moment all barriers crumbled away and I lunged. His arms I batted aside, pinning him beneath me, his crossed legs digging into my hips as I tangled a hand in his hair and forced his face aside, pressing my fangs into the thick rope of his neck.

  He lurched beneath me, the euphoric wave of my bite commingling with the abject terror of being pinned by a predator. The movement, subtle though it was, raised something within me. A low snarl passed my lips, muffled by his flesh, and I grabbed his arms, shoving them out and down, holding him as if crucified against the sunny quilt.

  My hair fell across his face, hiding whatever expression awaited me there, but I closed my eyes anyway, unwilling to watch—for I was watching, observing my body react as if from a great distance—as I dug into his neck, hot blood rushing past my lips, that certain taste of power that was Seamus sending a shudder of desperation throughout my whole body.

  Power. I needed power. I needed life, and his would do.

  I saw nothing. Not darkness—not void—just an absence of the world. Everything, every sense reduced to meaninglessness under the vital need to feed, to devour, to destroy—no.

  Not destroy. Not Seamus.