***
A month before the crash, Adelaide had visited Spain with Sam and baby Harriet. The holiday had been wonderful. Perfect weather, glorious food, and best of all, proper time together as a family of three. It made a change from the long days followed by the crazy nights that characterised her and Sam’s life at Meridian and Lamb. Despite the fact that he ultimately ran the company, she hadn’t heard anything from Augustine since the night of the party. Much as she loved Sam, hardly a day went by when he didn’t cross her mind, and she barely ever took his necklace off. Sometimes she wondered whether she’d imagined everything that had happened.
On the last night in Spain, they went to a wonderful restaurant on the coast. She’d spent a while getting ready, showering after a day on the beach (perhaps the last time she’d ever really experienced sun), slathering on a coconut scented aftersun and tropical perfume, delicately adding a touch of bronzer, mascara and lipstick. Harriet had been asleep, and Sam had come up behind her in the bathroom before she’d had chance to dress.
“I have the most beautiful wife in the world,” he’d said, and proceeded to kiss her all over her tanned body.
The trip to the restaurant therefore ended up a little delayed, but eventually they made it. They sat at a table on a balcony directly overlooking the bright blue sea. Even as the sun began to go down the warmth of the day lingered. They tucked into Rioja and a plate of freshly caught seafood.
The conversation began lightly enough, but after a few drinks, Sam grew serious. “Haven’t you enjoyed spending so much time together?”
She’d intended some light, charming answer to disarm him.
“Haven’t you enjoyed actually seeing Harriet and actually acting as if you’re her mother? Do you know she cried when I tried to take her home from my sister’s last week?”
Adelaide tried to answer but for once, she couldn’t find the words.
“She’s going to end up thinking Kate’s her mother if this carries on.”
This time she managed to speak, “Look at her gorgeous face. Her bright green eyes. She could never mistake your fat, plain, dull sister for her mother. She’d never choose her over me.”
Sam gave her an angry glance. He never liked her to be bitchy about people, especially his family, but she’d never been able to help herself.
“I’m as harsh about my own family,” she always said to defend herself. “The only worthwhile one is Steph. She’s one of the sweetest babies I’ve ever seen.”
“I think we should both quit. Seriously. I’m not saying you should be some 1950s housewife. Let’s just both try to get more sensible jobs.”
“Maybe,” she said. The comments about Harriet had got under her skin. She looked at the sleeping baby. She’d always felt disdain for most people and had a feeling of superiority that she knew was unacceptable but just couldn’t avoid. Whenever she looked at her little girl though, she understood what it meant to care more about someone else than about herself. “Let’s give it a few more months after we get back, see how we feel.”
A couple of weeks later, the things Sam had said during the holiday still played on Adelaide’s mind. As she danced and drank and chatted in the glamorous King’s Road nightclub, she became more and more aware of the fact that once again she’d left Harriet in the care of Kate. It amazed her that her sister-in-law apparently had no wish to go out on a Friday night, not even to a local pub.
The night wore on and the idea that she wanted to see Harriet became all-consuming. “I’ve been thinking about what you said,” she shouted to Sam over the music. “I want to try and be a proper mother. Just once I want a nice quiet weekend, taking her to feed ducks or something, not hanging around in over priced clubs.”
Sam nodded enthusiastically. “Sounds perfect. We’ll head home soon and get up early tomorrow to drive north.”
Adelaide gave him a stern look. How typical of her husband. Take the easy, conventional route. Take your time; don’t rush. “Darling, I want to head back tonight.”
“It’s after midnight,” he replied, but it didn’t take her long to make him agree.
She’d barely drank anything all night, so it seemed perfectly safe to jump in the Porsche and head up the M1. Maybe she’d driven slightly too fast in her haste to see her daughter, maybe she’d just not been paying attention, but slightly north of Birmingham, the car spun off the road.
She must have passed out. When she became conscious again, it took her a few minutes to understand what had happened. The car was upside down, her head resting near the floor. Pain pounded through every part of her body. She struggled to keep her eyes open even more than she did during 6am starts and midnight finishes at the office, but it seemed unlikely that a few cups of coffee would fix the problem this time.
She grit her teeth and forced herself to look. Blood covered the seats and the windows. Sam will be horrified, she thought. His fastidiousness around keeping the car in a perfect state was a standing joke. And then her mind caught up with her eyes and she realised that Sam would not be expressing an opinion on anything anytime soon. He lay slumped unconscious, blood streaming from a gash in his forehead.
Outside, utter darkness surrounded the car. Adelaide had always believed in being strong in a crisis, believed that there was nothing that she couldn’t deal with. She tried to force herself to stay conscious, to think of a way to get help. She knew that their carphone was somewhere in the vehicle, but she couldn’t see it and there seemed a good chance that it hadn’t survived the crash.
A wave of nausea overcame her and it hit her that unless help came soon, they were probably both going to die. She tried to shout out, but couldn’t form words. She tried to reach out to Sam, perhaps to rouse him or at least to hold him, but her body refused to cooperate. Mind over matter, she thought to herself, but the attitude that had pushed her through endless painful aerobics classes didn’t seem to be enough to allow her to move her arm a few inches.
Defeated, she closed her eyes and allowed her body the unconsciousness it so desperately wanted.
A sense of movement jolted her back to her senses. At first, she thought she it must be a hallucination, but no. Someone picked up the car, turned it over and placed it back down. Next, they ripped off the roof, and lifted Adelaide smoothly out of her seat. She lifted her head, surprised that she could suddenly do so without pain, and looked into Augustine’s eyes.
“I’m using my power to keep you awake and pain free for five minutes so that we can talk,” he said levelly. “But try not to move. Most of the bones in your body are broken.”
Something akin to an electrical current vibrated around her body and it allowed her to speak and to think much more easily than before. She would not allow herself to fall back into that hopeless state.
“What happened?” she asked, trying to sound dignified rather than hysterical.
Augustine didn’t answer. “I’ve called 999 of course, but I have a greater experience of death than most people, and in my expert opinion, it’s already too late. Do you remember the first thing I ever said to you?”
“Of course,” Adelaide replied. The words were engraved on her memory. “You said I reminded you of your wife, the first person you killed.”
Augustine flinched slightly at the second part, but he quickly regained his composure and continued. “I’ve had you watched at Meridian and Lamb. You behave just like her. I’ve had the most psychic vampires I know focus on you. I have no more doubts. You are Antonia. Maybe the gods finally believe they’ve punished me enough. ”
Adelaide saw that he was offering her an escape route. “Save me then,” she said firmly.
“Through organisations such as the Cavaliers I’ve overseen the changing of hundreds of people, but in over 2000 years, I’ve never changed someone myself. Even from the beginning, I was too powerful; I didn’t want others to have a share in it, to potentially challenge me.”
He paused and examined her broken, blood-covered body. “But I s
uppose that when fate gives me another chance, I can make an exception.”
With that, he bit into her broken neck and drank with a wild fervour. Without breaking contact, he took a knife from his pocket and sliced into his neck. “So much more personal than the wrist I feel,” he murmured.
She drank hungrily, clinging onto her last hope of survival, and as she began to relax, she experienced a happiness unlike anything she’d ever felt before.
He let her drink a lot of his blood, more, she learnt later, than was usual to effect a transformation. After a few minutes though, he lifted her head so she couldn’t drink anymore and proceeded to drain her. She slipped from her human life with a smile on her face, hands clinging to her saviour.
The next thing Adelaide knew, she came back to life in an ambulance, tearing down the motorway. The grim fact of being in a bodybag didn’t faze her. She ripped through the tough fabric and jumped to her feet. She saw Augustine sitting there, watching her, and Sam hooked up to some kind of life support system.
Augustine beckoned her over to him. He took hold of her and kissed her hard. She made no move to resist.
“There is one last thing you need to do to complete the transformation,” he said.
She tilted her head to one side and thought hard.
“My dear, you’ve attended our summer parties. You know the procedure.”
She shuddered as she remembered Jamie bearing down on her with orders to drink to the death. Augustine pointed silently to her comatose husband. She hesitated for only a moment, and then the new part of her life really began.
Chapter Ten
Oxford Blood (The Cavaliers: Book One) Page 25