“I had a little snack via the Major.” I sighed. I was in for another lecture.
“You’re going home, getting your glad rags on and then we’re going out!”
“We don’t have time to party.” My legs wobbled from under me, and Marshall caught me yet again.
“You’re lucky I’ve put a barrier around you or you’d be dipping into everyone else’s sins. Why are you so stubborn?” Adram’s heart was in the right place but I had to get moving on the case or Clockwork could vanish again.
“We could always stop by and grab some takeout if she’s that hungry.” Marshall was trying to help but takeaway wasn’t going to help,
“She needs to eat sin. S.I.N you idiot. She’s left it too long and look at her? She looks like she's been dragged through a bush backwards. Xan you can’t carry on anymore. If it makes you feel better I’ll put the word out with other surface demons.” I smiled because Adram was still looking out for me even after all these years,
“We need to go see the Elk.”
“I know, I was there! If you don’t get your backside to the strip I’ll drag you there myself and wouldn’t that look freaky?”
“I hate to say it, but the Grinch is right. As much as I want to find Clockwork and my daughter, it’s pointless if we’re not at our best. I don’t want him cornered and then have to let him go because one of us was too stubborn to eat. I’m not sure about the sin thing but maybe we’ve all been through enough for today.” I hadn’t noticed Marshall holding his ribs and now I could see the pain on his face,
“I hope I didn’t hurt you?”
“Nah, women’s elbows are always pointy,” he laughed and I smiled,
“Let’s change and have a drink…or two.” It was pointless because I was way too tired to argue. Adram was trying not to panic at the state of me but I could feel the burn inside me. I’d left things way too long.
“Oh crap.” Adram picked me up and lay me on the back seat of Betty as the first spasm hit.
“What’s happening to her?” Marshall jumped in the driver’s side and started the engine, “Shit, everything’s back to front!” Marshall said forgetting Betty was a British car with her steering wheel on the right hand side,
“No shit Sherlock! We have to get her somewhere before she leeches the sins off everyone here. She’d never forgive herself and I can’t put a shield up over everyone.” I heard Marshall crunch Betty’s gears and I wanted to say something sarcastic but even my mouth wouldn’t move anymore.
“Where to?” Marshall was looking panicked as I managed a moan from the back seat,
“Drive and I’ll show you.” That was the last thing I heard before I passed out.
When I finally came around, I had Adram’s face pressed up against Betty’s window looking at me,
“She’s awake!” I rubbed my eyes and immediately knew where we were.
“Are you ok?” Marshall peered over the front seats and smiled at me.
“Could be better.” I felt like I’d been run over by a train, several times,
“Come on Xan, get your skinny arse up and suck on some sins. If you pass out again I’m dumping you on the street.” Adram was pacing but I could tell he was worried.
“I’m ok. I’m coming!” I managed to crawl from Betty but I soon fell on my arse,
“Do you know how close she came to dying? Do you?” Adram was glaring at Marshall, who shrugged,
“Stop exaggerating. It’s not my fault I couldn’t find the gears!” Poor Betty would need some TLC after tonight. “So, are you going to finally tell me why we’re here?”
“Adram!” I wanted to shout at him but I needed him to lean on, “You should have told Marshall. He may have wanted to sit this out, be law abiding and all.”
“It doesn’t look that bad.” Marshall looked down the street and I could see how puzzled he was.
I sighed and nodded to Adram who helped me walk down a dark alley, with Marshall following behind us. The sun had gone down while I’d been unconscious, which meant this part of the city was now in full swing. I saw Marshall’s eyes go wide and it made me smile. He may have a big, dark sin brewing inside him but even he felt uncomfortable. That was probably due to the naked woman sitting in a window flashing her gyrating bits at him.
“Yeah, we’re in the red light district.” I smiled. It was like a bad joke; a demon, a cowboy and a sin eater walk into a bar.
“She’s…” Marshall was pointing and I smacked his arm down.
“Madam Cassandra?” Adram’s smile told me everything. I just hopped he didn’t flirt too badly.
I had to literally pull Marshall down the street because he kept stopping and staring at the variety of women gyrating in the windows. Adram was still holding me up but was waving at the women, who shamelessly waved back. In a den of sin, demons were worshipped.
We crashed through Madam Cassandra’s door, which was, surprise surprise, a brothel. Marshall looked mortified as Adram handed him a ‘menu’,
“Why don’t you chill out while we’re here?”
“What the hell is a seventy one?” Marshall’s eyebrows nearly jumped off his face,
“Oh honey I could show you that.” Madam Cassandra swayed out from behind a curtain and looked at Marshall like he was a lollipop. I suddenly felt territorial
“I…errr…” Marshal was stuttering as she scraped a long, red nail down his chest and was going lower. I slapped her hand away,
“You like this one eh?” I blushed. I never blushed! “Shame you look like death.” Truth be told everyone looked like death compared to Madam Cassandra.
After five hundred years she still looked like a supermodel. Most vampires usually did. She was taller than me in her red heels, and was dressed in a red velvet dress that screamed Bride of Dracula. Her blonde hair curled around her shoulders, and her makeup was done flawlessly. And yeah, she still scared the crap out of me. Adram introduced me to Madam Cassandra when he realised I needed more than food to keep me going. Apparently they bonded over dresses at the first ever New York fashion week in 1945. He knew I had morals and couldn’t just feed off people without knowing and Madam Cassandra knew a lot of people who wanted to lose some of their sins. I only took from the Major because he annoyed me and needed a taste of his own medicine.
I didn’t really like taking sin because I always had a brief glimpse of it and some people deserved to be damned to hell. Although Madam Cassandra was a vampire, she helped women. Most people would still condemn her because the women she helped, worked for her. She didn’t force the women into anything they didn’t want to do, and she protected them fiercely. Many a man ended up in the river without his blood for hitting one of her girls. The only problem was, that prostitution collected its own sin and the women here didn’t deserve the damnation. Some of the newer ones had already collected enough sin to reserve them a front row seat in the bowels of hell.
I helped the women relieve their sins and Madam Cassandra gave me a supply of sins to keep me going for a very long time. Like I said, she’d do anything to protect these women, even from the devil himself.
“I think I may have over done it.” I was propping myself up by the wall and as I hadn’t changed from blowing up the Librarian I looked like I’d been sweeping chimneys,
“I have a new girl that needs to confess her sins. If that doesn’t fill you then your usual's have some free time in between clients in half an hour.”
“You two wait here. Adram try not to get into any trouble!”
“These ladies love me. I’m more worried about the cowboy.” He nodded towards Marshall who was being draped over by two busty women. He looked mortified and I couldn’t help snorting.
I peeled myself from the wall as Madam Cassandra beckoned me through the curtain and into her back room. It wasn’t very often she had a new girl, but when she did they usually came with a lot of baggage.
“One moment Xan. Help yourself to tea and biscuits.”
I decided to sit on the pl
ush red love seat that adorned one side of the room. Madam Cassandra had a thing for red velvet, but many vampires were stuck in their ways and it was very good at blocking out the sun. It looked like a Victorian parlour, dark and spooky. Even the lamps had scarves over them. Vampires had no sense of personal safety and I could just see Madam Cassandra swooning elegantly into a fire.
The curtain opened and a small, pretty woman shuffled towards me. That was until Madam Cassandra pushed her with such force she fell over her own feet and landed with her head between my legs. Trying to hold back my laugh, I helped her to her feet and gave her shoulder a squeeze in support,
“I…I’m sorry…I’m…I’m suck a klutz. I’m Julie.” She pushed her chestnut hair from her face and I could see tears glistening in her blue eyes,
“It’s ok. Madam Cassandra forgets her strength sometimes.” I gave Madam Cassandra the stink eye and all she could do was shrug. She turned on her heels and left us alone. “Did she tell you what I do?”
“I’m not sure.” Trust Madam Cassandra to skim details. I’d had this conversation so many times over the years it was making me feel old,
“Are you religious?” This was where it got sticky,
“I suppose so, but after everything I’ve done...” She let out a sob, “Look at me.” She wafted her arms at herself and sighed,
“You don’t have to stay you know. Madam Cassandra would understand…”
“I’ve got nowhere to go, and I make more money doing this than a normal job. No one else would employ me because…because of what I did.”
“Why don’t you sit and we’ll talk about it over tea?” I pointed to the chairs and she nodded. We sat and I poured us both tea. I hated the stuff but it made people feel at ease. Personally, it made me want to gag.
“I don’t want to be rude but I’m not sure what you do.” She was clutching at the cup and saucer like it could shield her from the freak in front of her,
“Do you know what Madam Cassandra is?”
“She’s a…a vampire. I didn’t believe her at first but then…”
“I guess she vamped out?”
“She saved me.”
“And that’s what she wants me to do. I can save your soul if you want me to.”
“I…I don’t understand?” She sipped at her tea but I could see the fear in her eyes,
“If you believe in vampires then you understand there is more out there than what we can see. That it is possible that heaven and hell exist…”
“I suppose.”
“That each one has rules and laws. If you break the laws of Heaven you go to Hell.”
“You mean if I sin I go to Hell?”
“Yes.” At times like these, I wished Madam Cassandra would leave me a bottle of vodka rather than tea.
“Then I’m going to Hell.” It was a statement rather than a question,
“That’s what I’m here for, but you have to give me your sins willingly.” I never told someone I could take them regardless. In order to live with myself I needed to know that they at least repented and what they’d done was wrong. After all, I was opening the gates of Heaven to them when they died,
“I didn’t mean to do it but I didn’t have a choice! You have to believe me.”
“Tell me about it.”
Chapter Nine
I could see how much she was struggling with herself. Struggling with the idea of what I was offering,
“Like some sort of confession?” She lifted her eyebrow and sipped her tea,
“I suppose. They say confession is good for the soul.” I really, really wished I was sipping vodka and not tea because if I had to drink anymore I’d end up dry heaving on the floor, “It’s ok really. I’ve done some pretty nasty things too.”
“It was an accident or rather that’s what I tell myself. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to marry my pimp but I had no one. I’d been abandoned all my life by the people I loved the most and Eric was just there for me. I’d convinced myself that I was in love with him and when he gave me what I wanted I was so thankful. I looked after him and our son while he pimped me out but he was so angry. I never understood why he was so angry, and he would never hit me because he didn’t want to hit his merchandise. I started finding bruises on my son and he explained them away as normal accidents toddlers got into. I knew he was causing them. Knew he was hitting an innocent child.” She was clutching her teacup so hard I thought it would shatter under her vice grip.
“Go on.” I had a feeling what was coming,
“I’d arranged everything, even had a bag packed. All I had to do was act normal, look after my client and then grab my son while Eric slept off his drink. It didn’t work out that way. Someone must have told him. I thought I’d been so careful but Eric had so many people loyal to him. I should have known better. When I got home he was in a drunken stupor and raging. Our apartment was a wreck. He said…he said if he couldn’t have us no one would. Georgie was only five years old. What sort of monster does that to a five year old?” She was wailing and I felt her sin bubbling to the surface,
“It’s ok…”
“No it’s not! He stabbed me fourteen times until I managed to wrestle the knife free. I thought I was already dead. I stabbed him over and over again. I didn’t care. He deserved to die for what he’d done. I don’t feel remorse for killing him; I feel remorse for not dying with my son. He was so perfect and innocent.” The tears were free flowing now and if she hadn’t killed that bastard he would have been my next trip,
“Madam Cassandra?”
“She was helping me. She was going to help us vanish and when I didn’t turn up she found me. She found me close to death…”
“And she gave you her blood. Not enough to turn you, but just enough to let you live.” Madam Cassandra didn’t offer her blood lightly,
“She couldn’t save Georgie, it was too late for him and she should have left me bleeding out on the kitchen floor. Instead, she called an ambulance and the rest is history. I wanted to die that night and be with my child but she explained afterwards that would never be possible if I’d died. I’d killed a man so my fate was sealed.”
“And then she told you about me?” One day Madam Cassandra would tell me why she cared so much. Most vampires were self-centred and vain but she always seemed to be clutching to humanity. It was no wonder she helped me because in turn she helped so many women like Julie. Madam Cassandra would never see the gates of heaven but she made sure innocents would. Sins were fickle at the best of times.
“Can you help me see my son again?” Her eyes pleaded with me,
“If that’s what you want? You know selling yourself is still a sin?” It was a catch twenty-two and it was a price Madam Cassandra asked all the women to pay. She may be a ‘good’ vampire in some respects but she was still a vampire – no soul.
“Madam Cassandra explained that you help the others here…”
“I do and you understand that suicide is the biggest sin of all? If I take your sins, you can’t just end your life and pop up in heaven to see your son. Life isn’t easy, but you’ll have to live it.” The reason Madam Cassandra was so protective was because she didn’t want her girls to die before I could take their final sin. A sheltered life as a prostitute in return for protection and the gates of Heaven wasn’t that bad of a deal if someone waited for you up there.
“Yes.”
“Then let me help.” I nodded and she put her teacup down.
I took hold of her hands over the table and sort out her sin. It was still fresh and raw. Guilt made sins much worse than they should be, and Julie was feeling a lot of guilt for being alive. Deep inside I could see the spark of hope that touched at her soul. As soon as I saw this, I knew she would be ok. Hope can be a beautiful thing, and she believed that I was helping her see her son again. I felt her sin crawling up my arms, little flashbacks of that night skimming across my brain. There were some things I wished I didn’t have to see and this was definitely in the top ten. I coax
ed the sin into me and felt it settle into my skin. Before it hit my soul it started to squirm inside me as my body began to absorb its energy. Piece by piece the sin started to unravel until it was nothing more than a spark that fuelled my soul. I felt complete and utterly satisfied. Madam Cassandra was right; it was a biggy.
I let go of her hands and gasped. It would take a few minutes for my brain to understand that the sin wasn’t mine and what I’d seen hadn’t been done by my hands,
“Are you ok?”
“Vodka.” I gasped. People wondered why I drank; this was one of the reasons. Well, that and the scourge of the earth that was tea.
I heard Julie run outside screeching for vodka, probably because I was deathly pale. It wouldn’t last long and only happened when the sin was too big but it always scared the person I took the sin from. My body was just trying to figure out where this new found energy needed to be put to use and I’d had a bad few days. I felt the warmth of it flow all over me,
Madam Cassandra came in with a glass of vodka and smiled, “Thank you.” There was something about a vampire smiling with their fangs out that always disturbed me,
“That bastard deserved to die.” I took a gulp and sighed,
“Oh I agree and I only hope he’s getting what he deserves in hell. I’ve already promised when I meet my true death I’ll take great pleasure in tormenting his eternal soul.”
“Wouldn’t that be like your personal Heaven though?”
“One has to make the most of hell my dear.” She grinned, “I must say you look positively glowing.” That’s probably because I was and I was starting to feel much more like my old self,
“Thank you Madam Cassandra. Now pardon my bluntness but what else do you want?” She was usually too busy clucking around the women to come and thank me. Something was a foot!
“Ah…” she sat down and started to drum her fingernails on the table, “I hear you have taken a mission…”
“Mmmm I bet you have.”
“You may want to listen to what I have to say.”
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