by Helen Harper
Chapter Seventeen: Showers and Heels
As soon as I get back to my room, I know that something is different. I can’t tell whether it’s a smell in the air or just a spooky sixth sense that I’ve now gained from the turning, but I know that things are not the way I left them. It doesn’t take long to work out what. Underneath the pillow there’s a laptop. Since I’m fairly certain that even in my weakened state I’d have noticed if I’d been sleeping on its hard shell, I assume that Michael left it very recently.
I open it up, waiting for it to whirr into action. The cursor blinks at me and I’m asked for a password. I lean back, frowning. Whoever left it, whether it was Michael or someone else, expected that I would know what to put in. I think for a minute, then type sanguine. Satisfyingly, the computer immediately accepts it and I’m through to the main desktop.
‘Take that, computer,’ I tell it, with just the slightest tinge of gloating.
There’s almost nothing there, not even wifi access so that I can sneak a look at what’s happening in the world. All that I can see is a folder marked Personnel and a desktop of picture of O’Shea grinning out at me. I roll my eyes at the virtual daemon and click on the folder.
Scanning through the contents, it’s clear that Michael Montserrat has come good. There are 497 names, accounting for all the members of the Montserrat Family, and one section marked with an X which I take to be those vampires who are no longer with us. I scroll down and, although I don’t recognise most of the names, I can’t stop myself from halting at Michael’s to open his file. It reveals a single sentence.
Naughty, naughty, Bo. I don’t think you’ll find your traitor here. M x
I smile. Clearly, I’m just too predictable. I close down his file and move on, deciding to start with the people I’ve already met. It’s easier to think about those I know than those I don’t. I find Ria’s name and open up the file.
Ria, who was originally known as Maria Temple, has been with the Montserrat Family for almost forty years. She was recruited back in the seventies after suffering a horrific car crash. I feel a brief shiver as I read that she’d been drink driving. What was not widely revealed at the time was that she was the then Prime Minister’s secretary. I think of her clipboard and brisk efficiency. Yeah, it fits. She had a son who was told she had passed away and who, by all accounts, is now close to retirement himself. She seems to have risen through the Montserrat ranks remarkably quickly but I can’t find anything to suggest that she would be involved in all this. Lucy – or Charity, as I keep reminding myself to think of her – made it very clear that this new Family Head was female. It fits with what I know of O’Shea’s enhancement spell as it only works on males. However, despite her apparent wariness towards me, I can’t find any shred of evidence or a gut feeling that points towards Ria. I create a new folder and mark it ‘Unlikely’ before dropping in her file.
I pull out all of the other files pertaining to Montserrat’s female vampires and place them in a separate folder too. Other than Nicky and Nell, I’ve not met any other female vampires, so at this point I have nothing more to go on than the hard facts detailed by the Montserrat record keepers. There are fewer than two hundred and I wonder why fewer women than men choose to turn bloodguzzler. I’ll have to ask Michael next time I get the chance.
I pick a new file at random and start reading. Alison Jones, recruited in 1892, lives off site in the Lake District. Goodness only knows what use she is there. She apparently killed her husband after years of domestic abuse. I try another: Ursula Hauptman, 1921, works for a famous celebrity publicist. She was a suffragette who used arson to draw attention to her cause. Good grief. Linda Tomkinson, 1753, journalist. Back in her day, she worked as a back-street abortionist and many of her patients died as a result of her ministrations. I shudder. An inordinate number of these vampires seem to have done bad things in their former lives. I guess the human race has more capacity for, if not black evil, then at least several shades of grey. After skimming through eighteen files, I massage my temples. Even if I knew what I was looking for, I doubt whether I’ll find it.
I give up on the women and switch to the X files. The ache in my shoulders and the persistent throb in my forehead stop me smiling at the name. I open the most recent additions; these have to be related to O’Shea and his spell, which means they have to be linked somehow to the mysterious killer queen.
Five of the vampires are missing, presumed but not confirmed dead. Either that or they’re holed up somewhere plotting against the other Families. The other eight have been discovered. The first few bodies were mutilated to avoid identification but the Montserrat labs are top-notch and it didn’t take the boffins long to find out who they really were – even the first two, who were virtually cremated. Whoever was involved in their deaths must have realised this, because the more recent ones have simply been dumped at random locations around the city. No one has, as yet, discovered a pattern to the drops. All of the victims were male and several showed signs of increased libido in the weeks before their deaths. I smile grimly to myself. O’Shea’s spell. But did they take it voluntarily or was it forced upon them?
I think that Michael must have been remarkably restrained in his dealings with the daemon to allow the deaths of several of his flock to go unpunished. Whether O’Shea intended it or not, it’s his spell that links them together. I’m no forensic investigator but I’d love to be able to pull apart his enhancement potion to find out how it really works.
My thoughts are interrupted by a loud thump. I hastily return the laptop to its hiding place and go out to investigate. On the floor, in a tangled pile of limbs, are Peter Allen and the blonde.
‘Smegging Jesus,’ she hisses, ‘get off me!’
He mutters something from underneath her, which I think is an admonition about taking the Lord’s name in vain. It’s difficult to be sure.
I’m tempted to reach down and help them extricate themselves but it’s far more entertaining to watch. The zipper of the blonde’s jumpsuit seems to be caught up in Peter’s clothes. He’s not yet changed so he must be on his way to the shower room. They roll around, banging against the walls, and several other doors open. I realise from the number of heads peering out that most of my fellow recruits have now turned. Like Peter, they look drawn and tired. The blonde, irritatingly, appears fresh faced and well rested. I’m amused to note that instead of the standard issue slip-on shoes, she’s still wearing her stilettos. She digs one into Peter’s calf and he yells.
Ursus appears from nowhere. He growls at all of us – the curious onlookers as well as Blondie and Peter. Something in his manner terrifies me, so I crouch down and help the flailing pair to separate. As soon as they’re free, they leap up. Peter looks embarrassed.
‘What in hell is going on?’
‘He wasn’t watching where he was going!’
‘If you’d not been lurking around the corridor,’ Peter grunts, with more vehemence than I’d have thought he was capable of, ‘then I wouldn’t have banged into you.’
Ursus snarls, ‘Beth, you’re supposed to be on the tour. Why are you still here?’
I watch her carefully. Yes, Beth, why are you still here? Peter’s words suggest she was hanging around outside my door.
‘I’m tired,’ she sniffs, ‘I was going back to bed.’
She doesn’t look in the slightest bit tired. There’s definitely something going on – and that means it’s time for me to put on my best friend-making face.
‘You too?’ I exclaim. ‘My head hurts, my muscles ache and all I want to do is sleep.’
She turns to me with a look that’s more wary than grateful. After staring at me for a long moment, she finally mutters, ‘See? I’m not the only one who’s feeling crap after this turning nonsense.’
Ursus’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘Turning nonsense? You volunteered.’
I’m hoping to hear her response, but he launches into a tirade about her shoes. I let him continue while Beth does her best to s
tand up to him about her choice of footwear and sidle over to Peter instead. ‘How are you doing?’ I whisper.
‘Okay.’ He gives me a wan look, raising one hand to his neck then suddenly dropping it again.
‘I’m glad you made it,’ I tell him, and I mean it. I rather like the quiet man.
His mouth turns up at the edges but it’s a forced smile.
‘What actually happened?’
He shrugs. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going. But she,’ he jerks his head at Beth, ‘couldn’t have been moving or I’d have noticed her. She must have just been standing here.’
Right outside my door, I think. Stilettoed Beth is definitely my new pet project. I interrupt Ursus’s lambasting. ‘I think Beth’s shoes are lovely,’ I say. ‘Who cares what we wear?’
‘It’s not about what you wear,’ he growls, ‘it’s about doing what you’re damned well told.’
‘Come on, Ursus,’ I coax. ‘A pair of shoes is hardly going to bring the Montserrat Family crashing down upon our heads.’
A shadow crosses his face and he opens his mouth to say something but thinks better of it. I take Beth’s arm and smile. I can feel her tense under my touch but she doesn’t pull away.
‘Fine,’ he snaps eventually. ‘But the whole lot of you need to get to bed. You’ve got a long night ahead of you tomorrow.’ There’s a threat in his tone. I continue to smile. Smiley, happy Bo, that’s me.
Ursus turns on his heel and stalks off.
‘Thank you,’ Beth says once he’s gone. ‘I appreciate the help.’
‘Hey, it’s all in the name female solidarity, right?’ I hope I’m striking the right note. It doesn’t make sense for a recruit to be the new Family Head but I’m more and more certain that blonde Beth is involved somehow. I spot Nicky’s face peeking out from behind her door, her dark eyes a striking contrast to her pale skin. I give her a reassuring grin.
‘We should do what he says and get some rest,’ I tell them all. ‘This turning stuff is bloody hard.’
‘Speaking of blood,’ Beth murmurs giving me an arch glance, ‘have you drunk yet?’
I scan her face. It’s obvious that I’ve not, so I’m curious why she’s asked the question.
‘No, not yet. I want to hold out a few more days. I’ve heard that the longer you last without drinking, the more powerful you eventually become.’ I pat my stomach. ‘I can cope with a few hunger pangs.’ As if in immediate response, my tummy growls and I flinch slightly. I can’t tell whether Beth is displeased or not at my comment.
‘Well, thanks again, Bo,’ she says, and glides off down the corridor to her room. I watch her go. She just made the same mistake that I did with Ursus: I hadn’t told her my name.
I smile at Nicky and Peter, say goodnight, then slip back into my room. I take the jug and glass off the bedside table, place them on the floor and move the table to the door. It’s not particularly heavy and won’t stop someone who is trying to get in. One hard kick of a stiletto and it’ll open, but it’ll give me enough warning if I’m asleep. Then I pull out the laptop again and search for Beth’s file.
***
I awake up all at once, like a cat. Considering I used to doze in bed for hours, I’m not sure I like this vampire side effect. I sit up and glance at my makeshift barrier. It remains firmly in place; no one has tried to get in while I’ve been asleep. Satisfied, I put the table back in its original position and go for a quick shower. Unfortunately for me, Matt is standing, stark naked, in the middle of the room.
He gives me a slow lazy smile. I try to quash my shudder of disgust but don’t quite manage it. I’d have thought he’d be a bit shame-faced after giving into the bloodlust so quickly. Clearly, he’s not ashamed at all.
‘I was hoping for Beth,’ he drawls, ‘but you’ll do.’ He points to the nearest shower cubicle. ‘Let’s get clean.’
My eyes travel down his body and I register that he’s fully erect. I give him and his penis a pointed stare.
‘It’ll take more than that to interest me,’ I tell him with a sniff. Determined not to let him think I’m intimidated, I push past him into another cubicle. It’s not until I’m under the hot scalding spray of water that a thought suddenly occurs to me and I yelp in alarm. I twist round and wrench open the shower door, leaping out.
‘Matt!’
The shower is running in the cubicle he’d gestured me towards. I thump on the door. ‘Matt!’
He doesn’t answer. Shit. I step back and lash out with my right foot, attempting to kick it in. With my bare feet slick from soap and water, I do little damage. I slam my shoulder against the door instead. It doesn’t budge. Cursing, I jump up and curl my fingers around the top edge of the door. There’s about a foot gap between it and the ceiling so I pull myself up and peer over. As soon as I see Matt, his jumpsuit wrapped tightly round his neck at one end and to the shower head at the other, I climb over to join him. His lips are blue and his eyes are bulging, tell-tale shots of red blasting through the whites of his eyes as he suffocates.
I grab his waist and try to haul his body upwards to take his weight. He’s bloody heavy, however, and he keeps slipping down. I start yelling and kicking the door behind me, making as much of a racket as I can without dropping him. I hear someone’s voice on the other side as they try to open the shower door. They have more success than me and it springs open, catching my back and making me fall down and drop Matt’s body.
‘Smeg.’
Beth pushes me out of the way and grabs hold of him. Even without her heels, she’s considerably taller than me so she has more success at holding him up. She still struggles, though, and it won’t be long before he falls again.
I leap up, my hands and arms on opposite sides of the cubicle walls, and shimmy upwards. I reach over for the jumpsuit noose but no matter what I do, I can’t undo it: Matt’s body is stretching the knot too tightly.
I bring my legs up and over Beth’s body and squeeze round Matt’s hanging form. Then I jump with as much force as I can muster onto the shower head. I slam my weight down onto the metal several times until I feel it breaking away from the tiled wall. I pull and pull until I’m falling backwards onto Matt’s inert body.
Beth scrabbles out from underneath him and rips into the jumpsuit with her fingernails, loosening its hold around his neck. Without saying anything, she moves to his face and tilts his neck back while I crouch by chest and begin to pump.
‘Dah, dah, dah, dah, staying alive, staying alive,’ I sing to give myself the rhythm we need to start his heart again. As soon as I finish my final ‘alive’, Beth pinches his nose and breathes into his mouth.
We do it again. ‘Dah, dah, dah, dah, staying alive, staying alive.’
She breathes and I start pumping again. It’s not until the fifth time that he finally chokes and his chest moves of its own volition. I lean back, exhausted, and stare at Beth and then at Matt.
‘Interesting technique,’ she says.
I shrug. ‘As long as it works.’
She glances down at Matt’s face. ‘It doesn’t seem right that he could die like this. He’s meant to be a smegging vampire.’
‘A newly fledged vampire.’
I look up and see Michael watching us, a grim expression on his face. He gestures at someone behind him and two vampires appear. ‘Take him to the infirmary immediately,’ he instructs.
Beth stands up. Water is still gushing from the hole in the tiled wall where I yanked out the shower head, and she’s soaked from head to toe. At least she’s still wearing her jumpsuit, I think, suddenly abashed. I’m not usually particularly modest but crouching naked on the slippery tiles in front of them is making me feel vulnerable. Michael hands me the towel that was probably meant for Matt.
‘You’ve only just been turned. For the first six months at least, it’s easy to find ways to die if you want to kill yourself,’ he says.
I take the towel and wrap it round myself. I meet his eyes for a moment; we both know this is no
botched suicide attempt.
‘I don’t understand why he’d want to do that.’ Beth is apparently oblivious to our shared look.
‘He drank last night,’ I inform her. ‘I think he wanted to hold out for longer. Maybe he felt like he’d failed.’
Beth’s expression is sceptical but my mind is whirring. Although I found little in her file to suggest she is with the traitors, I’m still convinced she’s wrapped up in all this. It doesn’t make sense that she’d help me save Matt’s life if that’s the case, though. And the blood that Matt drank – it had been sitting unguarded in the social area for at least two hours. Anyone could have dropped O’Shea’s spell into the goblets, and whoever drank would be affected. I wonder what the side effects are on women. I need to talk to O’Shea again.
Troubled, I turn back to Michael. ‘Will he be alright?’
‘I don’t know.’ His voice contains a note of barely controlled rage. If he finds out who’s responsible for this, they will wish they’d never been born. ‘You two should get yourselves cleaned up,’ he says tersely. ‘Your training is due to begin in an hour or so.’
I can’t believe that everything’s going to carry on as normal but I have no idea what the alternative could be, so I nod stiffly. Michael glances at Beth before looking at me for a long drawn-out moment. Then he turns and leaves.
Chapter Eighteen: Love and Blood
When we gather later, the mood is subdued. The news about Matt obviously whipped round the other recruits like wildfire. I note that Nicky’s hands are shaking. I take special care to downplay my part.
‘I heard something like choking,’ I tell them. ‘Something just didn’t feel right. Thank goodness Beth was there or he’d probably have died.’