by Jenny Doe
"Um, like what?"
She chuckled at my confusion. "Girl things. You already know we live for a couple of hundred years, but we can have babies right up until we die, more or less. Our pregnancies are a bit longer though - eleven months."
I hadn't even considered the possibility of babies. Good grief. I imagined making babies with Angus, and blushed furiously. Fortunately the tea tray arrived, and I was able to drag my thoughts away from the man who would be my husband in a few days. I stood up and scooted across to the tea tray, where a motherly looking middle aged woman was pouring it out. She handed me a cup and saucer, and when our fingers touched she jumped slightly.
"Sorry. It's my shoes," I tried to explain. For the past couple of days I'd been shocking anyone I touched, like you do when you wear rubber shoes on a fuzzy carpet. I'd blamed the new trainers Angus got for me and insisted I wear for generating too much static electricity, and decided I needed to replace them as soon as possible. It was getting on my nerves.
"My shoes sometimes do that on this carpet," Lucy appeared out of nowhere and smiled at me. I grinned at her, relieved that she appeared to have ditched the rude teen thing. "If you want," she continued, " I can show you the rest of the house later. Most of it has wooden or stone floors, so no static."
"That sound's great." I lied. I wasn't that keen on rambling through this enormous house - I had a strongly proletariat background, and this grandiose display of affluence didn't sit well with me. The cost of one of these couches could probably feed a village in Africa for a year. But I guessed was here to build bridges, not burn them, so I pretended to admire the opulence. Eventually I looked up and caught Oliver staring at me. He shrugged apologetically, and winked at me. I grimaced back at him and he grinned. Angus looked up suddenly, frowning slightly at Oliver. I guess he must have sensed what Oliver was thinking, and he didn't like it. I wandered over to where he stood, and put my arm around his waist. He smiled down at me and pulled me closer.
"I am going with Lucy to have a look around the older parts of the house," I told him in a low voice. He kissed the top of my head, and I stood for a while, wrapped in his arm and leaning against him, and listened to Marcus holding forth about his research. Mrs Colborne had joined them earlier, and seemed fascinated with everything that he said, but Mr C had developed a glazed look in his eyes. I felt sorry for him. Marcus was a lot to take in one go, and from the sounds of things he had found a kindred spirit in Mrs C and was using even longer words than usual. Mr Colborne cleared his throat genteelly and muttered something about checking on a mare in the stables, and made his escape. Angus and I exchanged a glance, and I giggled.
"I have to go," I told him, looking across the room to where Lucy stood expectantly. "See you in a bit."
"Don't leave me," he pleaded teasingly.
"You're a big strong man, you can take it," I assured him, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"Traitor," he whispered in my ear. "You and I will have to discuss this later."
I giggled and blushed like a little girl. Pathetic.
"You coming?" Lucy appeared at my elbow, and smiled radiantly at Angus.
"Absolutely," I stated, deciding that she needed to be removed from Angus' vicinity as soon as possible. She really was very pretty when she wasn't having a strop. Angus didn't seem to notice, though. He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at me and grinned wickedly.
"Let's go," Lucy didn't seem to like not being the centre of attention. I was happy to oblige - my face felt like it was on fire, and the fluttering sensation in my belly was back again. I kept my eyes on the floor until I was sure we'd left the sun room.
"OK, I was thinking we could start in the older parts of the building. One of the wings dates from just after William the Conqueror, and you can see all the old roof beams. One of them looks like they just split a big old oak tree in half and used the two halves to form an arch. It's all smoke stained and filled with old nails. It's beautiful." Lucy chattered as we wandered down a large passage, the soles of my trainers squeaking on the polished stone floor. In spite of myself, I was starting to get excited. Lucy's enthusiasm was contagious, and I had always had a soft spot for history. Especially the kind where you didn't have to learn loads of facts, but where you could just stand in an old building, and close your eyes, and inhale the ancient odours and feel the rough hewn walls and worn floor boards, and actually feel that connection to people who had lived there centuries ago.
"So this is the wing I was telling you about," Lucy said as we entered a new room. The beams were lower than those in the passage, and you could see they had not been near any modern machinery. The tool marks from ancient adzes and axes were still visible under the soot stains.
"It's beautiful," I breathed, gazing at the beams and at the supports embedded in the stone walls.
"Isn't it just? And the next one is even better - it's bigger, and we think it was probably some sort of meeting hall..."
We stepped through a doorway into a beautiful old room with soaring beams and a great solid door set in the far wall. There was a more modern looking table in the centre, capable of seating dozens of people, and there was someone sitting at the farthest end. I turned to ask Lucy who that could be, but she was no longer there. I watched as a thick wooden door swung shut behind her, and heard the creaking of a key being turned in the lock. It took a few seconds for the whole situation to sink in.
I had been locked in a room with a stranger. Great.
CHAPTER 7
Rebecca
"You can come closer - I won't bite," a very male voice echoed slightly from the far end of the room.
Yes, but I might, I thought, irritated. It didn't occur to me to be afraid. Ever since I'd been abducted by Jack's mercenaries and had to drink one of the kidnappers' blood to escape I'd been less nervous in general around normal people. I guess biting someone's neck and sucking out their blood till they died would do that to you. I wondered if I would have to bite this man's neck too. The idea made me salivate slightly, even though I'd had my iron tablets this morning. I felt slightly shocked at my reaction, but then I remembered the heady power that had coursed through my body the last time I'd drank blood. Hmmm.
"Thanks but I'll stay here."
"I am sure Eric will help change your mind." The door behind him opened and an enormous hairless creature dressed in a shiny tracksuit shuffled through it, and shut it carefully behind him.
Seriously, an evil henchman?
I turned towards the door that Lucy had shut behind her and tried to open it. It didn't budge. Yup, definitely locked. Eric took a few steps into the room and pulled a chair out from the table and bowed to me as if he was inviting me to sit down, which I suppose he thought he was.
"You had better sit down before you hurt his feelings," the voice said with a sinister chuckle.
I considered my options. I could ignore the offer and continue to stand here, but then fat Eric might lumber over here and from the looks of him bathing was not a priority, so having actual physical contact of any sort with him was going to be seriously gross. Biting necks was one thing, but I had standards. Plus, it looked like I'd have to chew long and hard before could penetrate all the lard covering his carotid. Uck. Option two involved walking across and sitting down. A minor capitulation from me with a major benefit - no Eric contact.
"Fine. Back away from the chair, Eric." He glanced at his boss, and shuffled a couple of metres back from the chair. I walked across the room and plonked myself down in it.
"Thank you. My name is James, and you have already been introduced to Eric."
"Lucky me," I muttered. "What do you want?"
He leaned back in the chair, legs stretched out before him. He had black hair and thick black eyebrows and a sardonic expression played through his glittering dark eyes. He looked good for an older guy - maybe in his forties or fifties, so he was obviously not a vampire. The fingers of his left hand curled lazily around the stem of a wine glass, which was half filled w
ith a rich blood coloured liquid which smelled like port. It was eleven in the morning, and he looked halfway drunk. I wondered idly whether I would get drunk too if I drank his blood. I might be willing to take the chance. I stared at him through narrowed eyes.
"I want you to meet my brother."
"Really? Couldn't you phone or email or something like a normal person? And who are you anyway? And how did you get Lucy to cooperate with your scheme?"
"Lucy is my niece. Her father is my brother."
"Well then you can let me go, I've met him already."
"Ah," he smirked. "It's not him I wanted you to meet, but my other brother. Well, I say brother, but he's more of a brother-in-law. He's Julia Colborne's brother, see. I think you may have heard of him. His name is Jack."
As the meaning his words sank in I felt my panic start to soar. Maybe he was talking about a different Jack, I hoped fleetingly. It's a very common name. But by the expression of faint pity on his face and the way I had been trapped here, I knew my foul nemesis had struck again.
But I was damned if I was going to sit here and wait for him to arrive. I started to push my chair back as the man sitting opposite me stood up and nodded to Eric. For a big guy, Eric moved very quickly and I felt a stinging sensation in my thigh. I glanced down to see his pudgy hand depressing the plunger of a syringe filled with clear fluid, and my elbow came up and instinctively smashed into his nose, squashing it against his face. I smelled blood and grinned, turning towards him. He was clutching his nose, and when he saw my hungry expression he squealed and backed away pretty quickly. I stepped towards him and stumbled slightly. My limbs felt rubbery, and I swayed. I had to sit down, but my chair seemed to be miles away. I sat down heavily on the floor and put my hands out behind me to steady the world, which was spinning around in a sickening way.
"Ketamine is obviously not your friend," a derisive voice rasped above me.
"An..." I tried to speak, but my tongue wouldn't work. I lay back and turned my face so my cheek was pressed against the cool stone floor, and watched as the demons came for me.
Angus
I listened as long as I was able to Marcus and his new friend discussing Mendelian principles. Fortunately Fergus came to my rescue. He had discovered that the younger of the two brothers, Simon, had drawn up a family tree, and had an electronic copy sitting in the hard drive of his desktop computer. Marcus suddenly stopped talking, and raised his eyebrows. Julia Colborne smiled and nodded.
"Why don't you gentlemen go and have a look. It goes back a few generations, so it might be helpful for your research, Marcus."
"Thank you, Julia, we would love to see it." Ha! Marcus was on a first name basis with Julia Colborne. I wondered how old she really was.
"Lovely. Now, if you'll excuse me, I will just go and check on the progress of our lunch."
Fergus and I watched Marcus as he watched her walk out of the room. We grinned at each other. Simon led us all down a passage and to his room, which was more of a suite, with its own sitting area, and an en suite bathroom. He went straight to a massive oak desk and started tapping on a wireless keyboard.
Within seconds a large convoluted diagram appeared on the adjacent monitor, each entry containing a small amount personal information about the individual - date of birth and death, occupation and manner of death. Each person was represented by either a male or female symbol, and was either red if they were iron metabolisers, blue if they were not and yellow if there was no evidence either way. Marcus was instantly fascinated, and oohed and aahed like a grandmother over an infant. I noted that Simon and Lucy were yellow, and Oliver red. Their mother was red, and the father blue.
"Are you in contact with your cousins?" Fergus asked, pointing to a couple of extra branches that jutted out next to Julia Colborne's entry.
"Not really. We occasionally see Uncle James, my dad's brother, but he never had kids, and Uncle Jack hasn't been seen by anyone in the family for a hundred and sixty years, I believe. Dad thinks he's popped his clogs. Probably a good thing - he sounds like a real toe-rag. Mum says he's evil, and she's his sister!"
"Uncle Jack, you say," Fergus looked at me pointedly. "Where's Rebecca?"
"She's gone for a tour of the house with Lucy," I informed him. "I think we'd better find out where she is." The hairs on the back of my neck rose.
Simon looked at each of us in turn. "I'm sure she's fine," he said, picking up on our alarm, and looking puzzled by it.
"Will you help us find her now please? Lucy was going to show her the older part of the house." I struggled to keep the tension out of my voice.
Simon shrugged. "Sure."
He led us down a few corridors and I soon picked up Rebecca's scent. We arrived eventually at a thick wooden door which was closed and appeared to be locked.
"Odd," said Simon. "There is usually a key in this door, and it's never been locked as far as I remember."
I stepped up to the door, and sniffed at the keyhole. "I smell blood. Fresh, but not Rebecca's. Is there another way in?" The door was clearly ancient, and I didn't want to smash it down unless I had to. I could smell that Rebecca was no longer there, so destroying the door would be pointless.
"There's a back door that leads to the service driveway. We have a separate smaller entrance to the estate for deliveries and servants," he explained.
"Let's go," I said, pushing him in front of me so he could lead the way. I felt the dread building, and I was almost shaking with the effort of suppressing it. Simon must have picked up on my tension, because he trotted back the way we had come, and then down a few other corridors and through a massive kitchen. Outside the wind wrapped it icy fingers around us all - the sun had retreated, and the day was grey and bleak. Our feet crunched on the ubiquitous gravel as we rounded one of the corners of the house, and entered through yet another ancient wooden door, this one pocked and weathered. The room beyond it was large with high ceilings criss-crossed by elderly beams. There was a massive table surrounded by dozens of chairs. But there was nobody inside the room.
"Wait!" I barked, and held the others back with one arm. They froze. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, letting the molecules from the air drift over my sensory receptor cells.
"Two men, not vampires, and Rebecca were in this room. Lucy also, but briefly. Seems she left early on in the proceedings."
Fergus looked at Simon in an accusatory manner, as if his sister's actions were somehow his fault. Simon just looked bewildered.
"Also a drug I am not familiar with. Someone was punched in the nose too, one of the males. Probably by Rebecca." I was becoming very worried. If Rebecca had punched someone, she must have felt threatened. Seriously threatened. It had to be him.
Jack was back.
Rebecca
I woke up in a different room. This one looked like it had been built a week ago by a drunk on a bender. No wait, that was just me. The room was revolving nauseatingly around my head like some nightmarish solar system, and at first I thought I was still hallucinating. The handcuff gripping my right wrist clanked against the metal frame of the bed I lay on as I moved. I yanked on it, scraping the skin around my wrist. Definitely not a hallucination. Probably something a lot worse.
I closed my eyes but that made the spinning worse, so I opened them and tried to focus on the contents of the room. Lets see. Ceiling - sort of white - check. Walls. Yup, four of them, with a cheap wooden door at the far end - closed, of course. Some furniture between me and the door - table, chair, big blobby thing. Ah, yes, Eric the Evil Henchman. I rattled the handcuffs again and Eric stood up slowly and lumbered over to where I lay. I pretended to be frightened - it wasn't that hard, if I'm honest. He leered at me.
"Not so feisty now, are we?" he smirked, the effect somewhat spoiled by his broken nose that squatted in the middle of his face like a blood encrusted boil - red and angry looking.
"Nice nose," I taunted him. Why would you do that? I asked myself as Eric's face turned purple with anger.
I had no comeback for that. Seriously, the idea of being handed over to Jack scared the bejeezus out of me. Eric leaned over me.
"Get away from me!" I yelled at him.
He grinned, revealing surprisingly even white teeth.
"Too late, sweetie. Uncle Eric has already had a good feel. If you're a good little girl, I'll let you touch me too."
I looked down and saw how my jumper had been pulled up, exposing my skin to cold air and Eric's lecherous gaze. It dawned on me slowly what must have happened while I was unconscious.
Then it came. I felt the fury flood through me like a tsunami, washing away everything that was me - my conscience, my sense of right and wrong, everything that made me a good person, until there was only a feeling of emptiness, and a shimmering red hot rage.
Mr Blobby reached out a pudgy paw to pat my cheek and instead of flinching like he expected, I jerked my head up and bit his wrist as hard as I could. I felt blood squirt into my mouth.
Result.
I bit harder, my teeth tearing into layers of fat and muscle, and transecting blood vessels and probably some nerves too. I sucked at the wound while I gripped and ground at his wrist with my teeth until they grated on bone. Eric screamed - a high pitched undulating wail, and slapped at me with his other hand. I held on, his hot blood running down the back of my throat. Eventually his frantic slapping and tugging paid off - he pulled free and hurtled backwards, falling heavily on his backside. I had a chunk of his wrist still in my mouth, so I spat it out at him. It missed, but when he saw his mangled flesh lying in front of him he turned to one side and vomited all over the floor.
I waited until he looked up at me again, and licked my lips and grinned, blood running down my chin. He scrambled to his feet and ran, still screaming, out of the door.
Teach you to mess with a vampire, I thought with satisfaction.