“She’s a sleepyhead,” Timothy says, passing the kitten to Will where he still sits on the sofa. The kitten blinks up at him, then rolls over onto her baby-large paws and wriggles excitedly for a moment before pouncing on some invisible foe on the cushions beside him.
Will’s about to remark on cats playing with their prey, and ask if that’s what Bette and Timothy are doing with him, when there are the sounds of others—people or vampires, Will can’t tell—approaching.
“Whoops,” Timothy says guiltily, scooping the kitten up again and hurrying her back into the room she came from. Bette’s moment of guilt seems to have passed; she giggles at Timothy’s quick subterfuge.
“… I know you’d rather we kept our holdings modest for the time being, but this expansion’s still well within what we’ve managed in the past. Fortune favors the brave, Alexander. It will be fine.”
“Fortune does no such thing.”
A door opens, bringing a gust of slightly cooler air into the warm room, and two more vampires step inside.
“This is more like it,” the one whose voice Will heard first says, removing a long black coat that’s banded with sable fur at the collar and cuffs. Underneath it he’s dressed in a well-cut dark shirt and vest and grey pinstriped trousers. He’s Caucasian, black-Irish or Italian maybe, and his hair is shoulder-length and dark.
The second vampire’s clothing is paler, a sage-green brocade coat over dark green pants and a cream shirt. His features are Chinese and his hair is tied back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. The look he gives Will seems to drip with disapproval and frustration.
“Timothy had the kitten out here,” Bette says by way of greeting. Timothy gives a protesting ‘hey!’ from the other room.
“Better that than yet another pet human,” the second vampire says in a scathingly dry voice. “Come on, Bette, let’s leave Blake to his ridiculous intrigues.”
“Yes, yes, go away,” the first vampire retorts, apparently not bothered at all by the criticism in his companion’s tone. “Thank you for collecting him for me, Bette.”
“Hm,” she says, non-commitally, shooting Will a final unreadable look before leaving the room with the other vampires.
“It’s nice to finally have an opportunity to speak to you properly,” the vampire—Blake—says, smoothly sitting down on the sofa beside Will. He’s very attractive, even-featured and with a sharp, thoughtful cast to his looks. The red of his eyes and the sharpness of his teeth seem to enhance the overall effect, rather than disrupt the beauty into something horrifying, which is how Will usually sees vampires. On this vampire, everything looks just right, and Will wants to close his eyes and…
“Get out of my head,” he demands through gritted teeth, forcing himself to look away and break the eye contact.
Blake laughs delightedly, reaching a hand out to stroke lightly at the old bruises on Will’s neck. Will shudders.
“I suppose I should be disappointed. I’m not like the talented Timothy; I can’t do very much at all to the thoughts of others. It’s a very rare mind that can even hear the suggestions I offer it. It’s such a shame that you can, but you’ve got the knack of keeping me out.” He takes Will’s glasses off carefully, tracing one cool fingertip down the edge of Will’s cheek. Will remains completely still, feeling like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a cobra. “But I do so love the way you fight so very hard.”
“Please don’t hurt me,” Will says as evenly as he can manage. Begging will just make him seem more like prey.
“But I have to.” Blake smiles, forcing Will’s chin up, exposing his throat. “We always hurt the ones we love.”
Will’s surprised at how long it takes for unconsciousness to claim him. He didn’t think he had that much blood left to give away.
~
He wakes on the sofa, covered by a light, warm blanket made out of a patchwork of warm berry shades. The drapes are pulled wide on the window, and it’s day outside. He sits up quickly, doing his best to ignore the dizzy swim of his head at the abrupt movement. Sunlight. Sunlight means safety.
The door out is locked, of course, with no visible means of picking it from the inside. Will swears under his breath, looking around for other possible means of getting out. The window is sealed, like the windows in high-rise offices. That means the room must be air-conditioned, but Will can’t see the vents.
There’s a stainless steel cup on a small folding table, the kind of cup that milkshakes sometimes come in at cafes. Will can tell even before he looks that the contents are blood. It smells better than anything has ever smelled before, not the skin of a lover, or the first cup of coffee after a long night, or his parents’ garden after a rainstorm. It’s all those things and more.
It’s also almost certainly human blood, possibly that of someone murdered by the vampire gang. Will pulls one of the leather-bound novels down off the shelves lining the walls and balances it over the top of the cup, to keep the scent at bay. Then he goes back to hunting for a method of escape.
The other doors are unlocked. Will hesitates before he opens the first of them, remembering that all the vampires other than Blake left the main room that way. But it’s day, and the main room is drenched in clear bright sunlight. He’s safe in here, at least for now. They can’t follow him in here.
The first room is empty. There’s a faint smell of cat, and the bedding is rumpled. Old fliers for live music shows are framed on the wall. The window in here doesn’t open, either. There’s a plug in and a phone jack, but whatever electronic equipment was in here before has been removed.
The second room is inhabited.
Will has known Jay for a couple of years or so; Jay is one of the kids who’ve formed a familiar clump of faces near the front of almost every show Remember the Stars has played. Will’s signed CDs for him and taken after-show snapshots for profile pages and doled out stray set lists and guitar picks. Ordinary, everyday, happy stuff, the small currencies of the local live music scene. It seems impossible to Will that Jay could exist both there and here, in the real world and in this nightmare in-between place.
He’s staring out the window at the thin daylight, sitting in an oversized armchair with a pair of large headphones over his ears. He looks weary and thoughtful, in worn gray sweats and a faded My Chemical Romance tee.
“Jay,” Will manages, which is only the beginning of what Will wants to say. He wants to tell Jay to run, to get as far away as he can before it’s night, and these predators give chase. But all that Will’s exhaustion-thick slur of a voice can force is the boy’s name. He clears his throat and tries again, louder this time. “Jason.”
Jay looks over at him and pulls the headphones off. The music he was listening to sounds like half-heard whispers in the second before Jay shuts off the mp3 player. “Hi.”
“What are you doing here? How do we get out?”
“I stay here sometimes. And to answer your second question, we don’t.” Jay shakes his head. “I’m only even here because I fought with all of them about it. Blake wanted you to wake up on your own.” Jay snorts. “Sorry, that guy can be a jerk when he feels like it. You get used to it.”
“Wait, wait. You’re going to have to give me a little more exposition than that. I’m suffering from blood loss here,” Will says, sitting down on the carpet with his back against the wall below the window sill. The light isn’t wholly comfortable on his sensitized skin, but he wouldn’t miss it for the world. This may be his last chance to feel it.
Jay gives him a thoughtful look, then nods. “Okay. We’re in the upper level of the gang’s townhouse. Above us there’s only the attic. Below is a recording studio, and then the living area on the ground floor. Blake and Alexander and Timothy live up here, and Bette has been here a lot lately too. She’s the only girl in the gang. I don’t think she feels comfortable down in the general apartments, though she’s never said. There are eighteen living here in total at the moment, not including me. Or you.”
“Why am
I… what reason is there to bring me here? To keep me alive?”
Jay fidgets with his mp3 player, not looking at Will. “To make sure that the vampire infection is strong enough in your system that you’re sure to come back. I don’t know how long Blake was going to let things go on as they were, with Lily a vampire and you still human, but I guess that you getting grabbed by that other gang was enough to force his hand. You’re probably already carrying a strong enough strain right now, but he wants to make sure.”
“So, what, I’m a prisoner here until I’m in the proper state to be executed?” Will tries to keep himself as calm as he can. It’s not a very calm version of calm, all things considered, but it’s the best he can manage. “Why would he do that? Why… Lily’s a better hunter now than she was when she was alive. Why give your enemies extra power like that?”
“Why not ask him, not me?” Jay snaps. “This is his… I didn’t want this. Bette didn’t want this. Alexander thinks it’s stupid and irritating. I think Timothy thinks it’s funny or romantic or whatever, but he knows that Bette and I would be angry if he said so, so he doesn’t. Blake is the one you have to ask. None of the rest of us understand.”
“Jesus.” Will doesn’t know what else to say.
“And…” Jay starts again, tone softer, almost yearning. He looks at Will. “This isn’t being kept prisoner. Don’t think that. This is nothing like that. This is love. He loves you and Lily so much, you have no idea how much. He wouldn’t go to all this trouble for anyone he didn’t love.”
“Jay, it’s… it’s obsession. It’s selfishness and cruelty. Lust an… and what the hell am I saying, you’re fifteen. I’ve just described what you consider love to be. Perfect.” Will shakes his head in frustration.
“You’re a condescending coward,” Jay retorts, anger flashing in his long-lashed eyes. “A soft stupid coward who’s being given something. Something important. And you’re too stupid to see it.”
Jay looks away from Will, blinking hard.
“Jesus Christ.” Will buries his face in his hands. “Jay. You’re—I’m not being an asshole when I say this, I promise. This. Isn’t. Love.”
“You’ll have somewhere to belong. Forever. And Lily. And. And he chose you. Don’t you get it? How important that is? Vampires get bored of people and they leave them or kill them. I was left with nothing when I was ten years old.”
“And I’m sorry that happened to you. But…” Will sighs, thinking hard. He’d been obstinate when he was a teenager, too, and he’d known Lily then as well—and no fifteen year old in the whole span of the human past and future would ever manage to match Lily in the obstinacy stakes. And even with all that experience to draw on, he has no idea what to say to Jay that will get his point heard. “Look, if some creepy guy, forty or fifty or something, started leching on you all the time, you’d know he was a pervert, right? You’d know to stay away. Do you even know how old Blake is?”
Reluctantly, Jay shakes his head.
“He might be hundreds of years older than you. That’s much worse than a couple of decades. I know the movies and TV and stuff make it seem like something romantic, when a vampire falls in love with a teenager, but the only reason older people seduce teenagers is because it’s easier to have power over them.”
Jay laughs at that, a disbelieving, bitter sound. “You sound like a very special episode presentation in health class, you fucking asshole. Can you even hear yourself? Putting aside the fact that Lily sleeps with teenagers all the time and everyone in the local music scene knows it —”
“That’s, that’s different, she’s not that much older and you know her, she’s irresponsible but she’s not – she’d never hurt anyone.”
“So you’re allowed to make special excuses for your team, but I can’t for mine? Okay, fine, so maybe Blake doesn’t love me.” The words are bleak, resigned, like they’re ones Jay says to himself inside his head, hoping that repetition will take the sting out of it. “Maybe he doesn’t need me like I need him. But he wants me. And vampires don’t pay much attention to the difference between need and want.”
~
When they’ve argued back and forth for a while longer, Jay locks Will out of the room. Will double-checks every nook and cranny for anything that might help him escape, then checks again. There’s nothing.
He tries to sleep. He tries to read. He feels sick and hungry, and so thirsty he can barely think of anything but the battering dryness of his mouth and throat. He imagines the blood in its metal cup, cooling as the hours slide by excruciatingly slowly. Warming as the metal warms in the sun. His mouth waters.
He holds out until the sun sets, and feels a small and fragile sense of pride at that. No matter what they do to him, no matter what comes later, he can hold that truth inside himself. He didn’t take the blood, no matter how desperately he wanted to.
Blake comes back when the sun’s been down about an hour. He looks around the room, at the cup with its impromptu lid made of the leather-covered book, at Jay’s closed and locked door. He raises an eyebrow.
“Well, once again you have proved to be a fascinating surprise. Alexander was convinced you’d ruin anything we left in here. I had to promise to replace whatever you damaged. But you haven’t harmed a thing. I do hope you haven’t hurt Jay, either. I’m quite fond of him, and injured humans take so very long to repair themselves.”
“The things that are broken in that kid are on your head, not mine,” Will says. “You’re a monster.”
“Now you’re being dull and trite,” Blake says in a bored voice. “I’ll come back out here later and see if you’re being more interesting then. Here.” He walks over to the small folding table, lifting the book off the cup and placing it back on the shelf. Then he brings the cup over to Will and puts it in his hands.
Will grits his teeth and closes his eyes, but the loss of sight just makes him notice the smell more. His resolve shatters and he gulps at the blood, choking in his haste to swallow it down. It’s wonderful.
“That’s more like it,” he hears Blake say, and the sound of Jay’s door opening and closing. Then Will’s alone again, swallowing down the last thick dregs of the blood, hating himself and hating Blake and thankful beyond measure that Lily retains no memory of her own ordeal and death. He wonders if he’ll forget, too, and finds that he hopes not. Somebody has to remember that Jay’s caught up in all this. Someone needs to care enough about that kid to save him, for once in his life.
Will sits and waits, and wonders if Blake intends to kill him tonight. Eventually, he falls asleep.
~
Will wakes up from dozing with a start. Blake is leaning against the bookcase, watching him, the vague surprise and interest on his features looking exactly as it had years before, back when Will was no older than Jay is now.
“Watching the pair of you grow up has been an utterly fascinating pastime over the years, you know,” Blake remarks.
“Get out of my head,” Will says furiously, and couples the words with the same clumsy mental shove he’d tried to push Timothy away with. Blake’s eyes go almost comically wide.
“And how worth the wait you are. You’re going to make a wonderfully complicated sort of vampire, I think.”
“Why? Why any of this?”
Blake shrugs. “You were interesting. Both of you. I probably would have left you to go on for a few more years—as I said, you became increasingly interesting with every year that passed. But when Lily tried to shoot Timothy, Alexander told me that he planned to kill her whether I liked it or not, and if I wanted to turn her I’d have to go along with his own plans for her. Incidentally, that’s why her memory has a blank in it following her death. The injuries he gave her were… extensive.”
“And me? What’s going to happen to me?”
“I’m going to dump your body in the lake, I think. You’ll be awake again before dawn, more than enough time to get back to Lillian. Send her my regards, please. I look forward to seeing what terrible re
venges you plan to wreak against me.” Blake smiles. “This is rather like waiting for the second act of a favorite play to begin, you know.”
“I’m going to kill you someday,” Will says, because those words seem like the only ones worth saying in that moment. Blake just laughs, straightening his posture from his slouch against the shelves, and approaches slowly.
“Well, I’m going to kill you now, so I think that gives me the advantage, really,” he says, and the last thing Will feels is Blake’s hands on his head, and the crack of his neck.
LILY
Lily fell in love with Will the first time she saw him. Or, more exactly, she saw him and leaned over to Anna and whispered “Holy shit, I am in love with that guy over there, you have to let me have him as our new drummer, he’s the love of my life”, and Anna pinched her really hard and told her not to be such a catty fucking bitch.
Will was small and heavyset then, before his growth spurt, and he’d been wearing stiff department-store jeans and a button-up shirt that might as well have had ‘my mom buys my clothes’ on the pocket. His hair was clean and combed and he was fourteen years old and Lily hadn’t actually been kidding. She really did love him in that moment, when he brought his own drumsticks to try out on the shitty remnants of a kit in the rec room at Anna’s house.
Lily had been fifteen, not really a jock or a nerd or an in-crowder or an outsider but kind of all those things at once, one of those kids pretty and friendly enough - and disinterested in clique politics enough - to flit from group to group without reprisal. She was good at sports, she was good at singing, she was good at answering questions in social studies and getting extra credit. In short, she was an insufferable menace. Anna liked her anyway, which just went to show how crazy Anna was.
If pressed to give a reason as to exactly why she’d imprinted her heart and soul on an awkward boy a little younger than she, Lily would have shrugged in the loose-jointed way she’d had at that age, the vaguely noncommittal insolence of all teenagers. She couldn’t articulate it exactly, even to herself. He was just… cool: earnest and weird and geeky and a little bit lonely. All the things Lily was, but he wasn’t as good at hiding them. It was like he was an imaginary friend from inside her own earnest weird geeky lonely head, only he was real.
The Wolf House: The Complete Series Page 24