by Foz Meadows
She felt a slight pang for her house-mothers. They'd done their best, and if – as the Vampire Cynic strongly suspected – some sort of force had ultimately been responsible for keeping her in the group home, then Sarah and Daisy had been bound by it, too. Politely, the word magic kept knocking at the door of her vocabulary, but Solace stubbornly refused it entry. Magic, she reasoned, was not an explanation: it was what happened when you snapped your fingers and a rabbit appeared. Magic was, by popular definition, outside the laws of nature; and if Solace really was a vampire, the laws of nature would accommodate.
‘There must be others like me,’ she said aloud. ‘Or if I'm a freak, there must be a reason for it.’ She chewed her lip, not liking the second notion nearly so much as the first. A tremor of loneliness shook her. To combat it, Solace ate the last of her apricots, scrunching up the plastic wrapping and dropping it in a nearby wheelie bin. Squinting, she glanced skywards, trying to gauge the time. She'd never owned a watch, but guessed by how sore her legs were and the sun's general position that it was sometime around noon, and therefore a very good time to stop. Looking around, she spied a patch of public-looking greenery and made for it, picking herself a spot to lie down beneath a smooth, lean grey gum.
Running her hand across the trunk, she was made aware of her own exhaustion. There wasn't much water left, but she drank it anyway, slumping down with a sigh of relief. From where she was sitting, the sun was visible only as the branches of surrounding trees moved, lancing through the foliage like winks of light off a faceted crystal, dappling the ground beyond without impinging on her chosen shade. She smiled, trying to remember the last time she'd simply sat outdoors on her own, let alone at midday. The park was completely deserted – unusual, she supposed, but hardly a source of complaint. She closed her eyes.
‘I really shouldn't have come.’
With a startled yelp, Solace jerked awake and tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to shuffle backwards and stand up all in the one motion, cracking her skull on the tree in the process. Swearing, she cast around for a culprit, but whoever had spoken, assuming she hadn't simply dreamed it, was nowhere to be seen. Puzzled and a little scared, she peered around behind the tree, in case whoever-it-was had a sense of humour.
Nothing.
‘Right,’ she gulped. ‘Okay. I'm hearing things. I've just been out in the sun too long. Way too long,’ she added, in a mutinous undertone. Staring around for a final time, she resettled herself, and after some wary lash-fluttering, let her lids fall shut.
‘Don't panic. More importantly, don't open your eyes.’
Solace felt her heart speed up. Someone was hunkered down quite close to her, she could hear it in the crunching twigs and hissing grass. Judging by the voice, her uninvited guest was definitely male. Still – and this was important – she felt no dread at his presence. She took a deep breath. The scent of mint and lemongrass pervaded, underwritten by crisp vanilla. Hardly a menacing perfume. Twisting her head, she listened to his calm breath, felt the stillness of his posture, sensed the steady echo of his heart. This man, concluded the Vampire Cynic, is not the man from the alley. A stranger, yes, and strange, but not a threat.
The nape of her neck began to tingle.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked. The man laughed, his voice mahogany-rich, and now she'd overcome her initial shock, pleasant.
‘To help.’
‘Acts of random altruism?’ Solace asked, sarcastically. ‘Or do you mean me in particular?’
‘The latter. There's a place you need to find.’
‘Why?’
‘Because.’
She felt a tickle of motion cross her face, and concluded that the man had waved his hand.
‘You must. Or rather, you will. Sooner or later. It's where everything starts. Once you cross the threshold, everything changes. The world is changed. Sooner or later. But sooner is better.’
‘Why can't I look at you?’
He chuckled. ‘Like I said, little nomad. I shouldn't be here. Eventually, we'll meet. But you won't remember this. Specifically, you won't remember me.’
‘What?’ Angrily, Solace shook her head. ‘If I won't remember, then what's the point?’
‘This is.’
Softly, she felt something brush her forehead. She gasped. A vein of ice shot through her temples, spreading through her flesh. The force of it made her spasm, back arching like an epileptic. Knowledge fizzed through her: urgent, potent, a warning, a path. She opened her eyes, chest heaving. Her vision swam. She forced herself to sit up straight, clutching her head, staring around for – what? It was like she'd been dreaming. Her fingers twitched. There'd been something, someone she had to remember, and then it was gone. The memory popped like a soap bubble.
Solace Morgan shook her head, yawned and glanced at the sky. She'd slept for maybe an hour. In summer, one o'clock was worse for her than midday, but this was late autumn. A cool breeze blew by, making music with a park's worth of fallen leaves, a crackling susurrus.
‘Better keep going.’
Standing, she stretched her back and shoulders, finding satisfaction in how strong they felt. At this rate, she'd reach the CBD by early evening.
Somewhere in the final few kilometres, a storm blew up. At first, it was little more than an intensification of the breeze, swirling leaves, plastic bags and aluminium debris down gutters and footpaths with childish enthusiasm. Then came the rumble of distant thunder, sonorous as cracking stone. The wind began whipping harder, and a few lonely drops came pelting down at an angle, dashing themselves on the tarmac in dramatic Rorschach blots. Then the heavens opened. Solace was drenched within minutes, but persevered, propelled forwards by some nameless directive. If asked, she couldn't have said why she didn't just wait it out, or why, once she reached the CBD, she took this particular turning, that little side street. As lightning jagged overhead, she found herself laughing, revelling in the wonderful, stupid freedom that was getting caught in the rain, running down unfamiliar paths that narrowed and narrowed until she was gloriously, purposefully lost.
In a slender, nameless lane, her madness finally gave out. Tucking clumps of rain-scraggled hair behind her ears, she sized up the right-hand wall, found a doorway midway down its length and tucked herself – gratefully, tiredly – out of the storm. Surprisingly, she wasn't even cold, although her jacket had started to cling and chafe uncomfortably. Cramped by the space, she started to peel it off. Wet jeans were even worse, she decided, but unlike the jacket, they weren't exactly optional.
As the rain drummed down with renewed vigour, Solace turned her head and paused, noticing a strange, repetitive noise. Peering out from her alcove, she saw lights at the lane's far end: two of them, in fact, set high on her wall and tilted down to illuminate – what? She could just make out the glint of a metal banister, and realised that it must lead down to a basement club. With that, the noise became obvious: it was music, bass line thuds strained through tarmac, brick and concrete.
Self-consciously, she looked at her clothes. Even without the jacket, she was drenched, if no longer technically sopping. Her hair was a tangle of rats’ tails. The chances of any self-respecting bouncer letting her in on sight were slim to none, especially as, if there were any kind of cover charge, she wouldn't be able to pay it. Still, the club was close, and the rain was going nowhere. She wanted to dry off, sit comfortably, maybe even talk to someone, none of which was going to happen in a doorway. She did as best she could with her hair, combing it with her fingers. Her shirt, at least, was starting to cling less, heated by the warmth of her body, but the jacket remained a lump of wet cloth. Regretfully, Solace decided she'd be better off without it, at least for the time being.
That still left the problem of how to get in. She had no money, and while she was convinced of her own physical strength, she was hardly going to tackle the bouncer. Which left persuasion. Slyly, the Vampire Cynic brought up the question of thrall, or rather, what Solace had come to think of as thrall. It was t
he one ability she'd never definitively proven: control, compulsion, making someone do what she wanted for no better reason than that she wanted it done. Now there was power. In another life, it might even have been tempting. But Solace had learned the hard way what it was like in other people's heads, the kind of secrets that Luci, Leonie and Annamaria carried. Most of what she'd learned, she'd never meant to ask. Such a gift demanded responsibility. But still, she thought, I've never actually done it on purpose. Who knows what I might learn? And maybe, a smaller voice added, maybe you never did anything in the first place. They could've just been honest, all those times. You need to know.
‘Yes. I do.’
Standing, she stuck a hand out, testing the rain. It fell more lightly now, though still not done. It was good enough. With a final glance at her discarded jacket, Solace stepped out into the alley, hugging the right-hand wall for what little shelter it offered.
Heart beating fast, she surveyed the club entrance. Partially hidden down a flight of stairs and shielded by an awning, a massive man whose stance screamed ‘security’ guarded a solid basement door. As she watched, it half-opened to reveal a pair of girls, struggling with the weight of the door and perhaps unsteady for other reasons, too. When the bouncer lent a hand, they giggled, high heels clattering on the metal stairs. At street level, one even turned and blew him a kiss, blushing before she linked arms with her friend, who made a teasing noise. Heads together, they lurched off into the evening, laughing loudly at such drunken boldness. The simple human silliness of it made Solace smile.
She approached the bouncer.
The Gadfly
The wrought-iron banister was peeling and old, but the touch of the metal was comforting. Solace's Blundstones clumped on the stairs. The bouncer, who'd been checking his watch, looked up.
There was a split-second pause. The man opened his mouth. Solace honed her concentration, willing the man to perceive her as properly dressed, willing that she be obeyed, let in. See me. See me. See me.
Slowly, the bouncer shut his jaw, blinked and considered her again, his expression suddenly dim and owlish.
‘Cover fee,’ he slurred, and Solace was startled to see that his pupils were dilated, as if he'd been injected with a muscle relaxant. ‘Fifteen dollars.’
‘Here you go,’ she said, not daring to break eye contact. The man raised a massive hand, and stretching it out towards her, made the kind of plucking motion necessary to take money from someone. His fingers closed on air and rain. Without looking, he pulled his hand back and stuffed the money Solace hadn't paid him in a small bag strapped to his hip. At the same time, he withdrew a stamp, removed the lid, stamped her outstretched wrist. He let her go, replaced the lid and returned the stamp to his bag, all with the kind of studied concentration common to small children using a proper cup for the first time. There was a pause. He stared at Solace. Solace stared back. And then, as if he'd only just remembered, the bouncer stood aside and let her in.
‘Thank you,’ said Solace. Success left her feeling heady, so that she hardly noticed when the door closed heavily behind her.
I did it, she thought. I thralled him.
The Vampire Cynic said, I know.
Inside, the music was loud, but not quite deafening. People milled and danced in a massive open space at the foot of a curling flight of stairs. Coloured lights alternately illuminated and concealed the various corners of the club, so that it was impossible to rest her eyes on any one place for more than a few seconds. Solace looked around as best she could, making out the location of the bar and two other exits through the visual confusion. When she did descend, nobody noticed. Silent and swift, she slipped through the crowd like a minnow through a net, never making physical contact with anyone despite the rush and press of bodies, joyful with the strangeness of it all.
In the far corner of the basement lurked a battered, mismatched collection of armchairs and lounges. As a new song began, Solace found a fat, cushiony chair big enough to curl up on, which she promptly did. Tucking her boots up, she leaned back and watched the club. Hidden in the noisy, unfamiliar warmth, everything seemed connected: drinkers, dancers, talk, movement. The basement seemed to hum, inhale, exhale, flowing like breath in the lungs of some single, weird organism. The effect was somewhat like falling into a magic-eye puzzle: she didn't know exactly what she'd done, but was too fascinated to risk losing the trick of it. Wide-eyed, Solace sank deeper in, stared and smiled.
A sudden bump to the chair, and her concentration broke, shaking her from whatever state she'd entered. Even more startlingly, she found she was being spoken to.
‘What?’ she said, stupidly. The speaker, a youth around her age, sat down opposite and frowned. He had a curved jaw and dark blue eyes, set off by messy, rough-cut black hair. Slender without being truly skinny, he was dressed in a T-shirt several shades darker than his eyes and jeans several shades lighter than his hair, a fetching symmetry that made Solace grin. Only a little hesitant, he smiled back.
‘I said,’ he repeated, ‘I'm sorry for bumping you.’
‘Oh.’ She blushed, feeling absurdly at fault. ‘That's okay.’
The stranger waved amicably, leaning forward. ‘No problem. Hey, have you been here before?’
‘No. Have you?’
He nodded. ‘Mm. I was just wondering how you got in, that's all. No offence,’ he added hastily, as if she'd taken any, ‘it's just that you look a bit, well –’
‘Damp?’ Solace supplied.
The youth grinned. ‘Just a bit. Where've you come from?’
She shrugged. ‘Around. I sort of wandered in.’ She hesitated, but only briefly. ‘My name's Solace.’
‘Solace? As in, peace and comfort? Cool. I'm Evan.’
He held out a hand. Solace shook it. His palm was cool and dry, slightly calloused but not unduly so, and his grip was strong.
‘Nice to meet you.’
‘You too.’
At this point, the conversation dried up, as each of them realised that, barring pleasantries, they had nothing to say to one another. Solace chided herself – couldn't she think of a single topic, a single question? Evan himself seemed uncertain of where he should be looking, reaching an awkward compromise by continually glancing at her and out over the club, all the while smiling easily. Thankfully, the music was loud enough to compensate for their silence, and after half a song had come and gone, Solace finally ventured a query as to the name of the club, unable, despite her best efforts, to think of anything more relevant.
‘Name?’ Evan looked puzzled, then laughed. ‘I don't think I've ever asked. Maybe it doesn't have one. We just call it the Downstairs Club.’ He stood up fluidly, as though he'd been planning the movement for some time. ‘Come on. We can ask my friends. They'll know.’
‘Friends?’ A little uncertainly, she accepted Evan's outstretched hand and rose. ‘I'm not sure I –’
‘You'll be fine! Unless you were thinking I'm a creepy, friendless liar looking to get you on your own, which I'm not, or that I'm nuts, which I probably am, but in a good way. So humour me, and come sit with us. Please?’
Solace had to laugh at that, or at least chuckle. She let Evan keep a hold of her hand as he led her through a maze of people. The giddiness she'd felt upon arrival returned in a rush. The bouncer hadn't remarked on her appearance, but only because she hadn't given him the chance – how would she look to a group of complete strangers? Come to that, how must she look to Evan? The Vampire Cynic was outraged at such concerns, while another, smaller, more human voice pointed out that, before tonight, the last boy she'd actually spoken to had sold her the Blundstones, and since when had she known how to socialise in a group?
Oh, shut up, said the Vampire Cynic, crossly. That's not helpful.
Begrudgingly, the rest of Solace agreed.
When Evan finally pulled her free of the press, she felt like a cork jettisoned from a bottle of particularly rambunctious champagne. Nearby, a group of about fifteen people loitered o
n or around a matching set of dark-red leather lounges, separated from the main throng by a solid partition. As Evan made to lead her into the light – and it was steadily lit here, though still not bright – she found herself holding back. Sensing her reluctance, he grinned and gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze.
‘It's okay. They don't bite. Well, not to the best of my knowledge, anyhow,’ he amended. ‘But, hey – I've been wrong before.’
At the sound of his voice, several people in the group looked up. The strangers were a mix of men and women. One or two waved, while a black-haired, blue-eyed girl who couldn't be anyone other than Evan's sister glanced up from an animated conversation. On seeing them, she smiled welcomingly and beckoned them over.
‘Hey, little brother,’ she called, confirming the relationship.
‘Hey, Jess.’ He turned to Solace. ‘This is my –’
‘Sister,’ Solace finished, somewhat shyly. ‘So I can see.’
‘Hey, Evan's friend,’ said Jess, peering cheerfully around her brother. ‘How are you?’
‘Good, thanks.’ She paused, but only momentarily. Jess had an open face, an expressive mouth and friendly, mischievous eyes. Even had she not been smiling, Solace would have been hard-pressed to find her intimidating.
‘My name's Solace,’ she added.
‘Solace? As in, peace and comfort? Cool. I'm Jess.’
Solace blinked, then burst out laughing, to her surprise as much as anyone else's. ‘You're like echo-twins!’ At the expression on Jess's face, she added sheepishly, ‘Or, possibly, not.’
Evan grinned. ‘That's verification by an independent source, O sister mine. We must be related after all.’
‘Tell no one.’ With a humorous roll of her eyes, Jess turned back to Solace. ‘You want to come and sit down? We don't bite. So far as I know.’