by Karen Payton
Lying in the dirt, he opened his eyes and he was still alive. Fuck, what happened to make that vampire more animal than fake human? Greg wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Being captured by the bloodsuckers in London was a picnic compared to being in the hands of that sick bastard. Poor fucking Stan.
Chapter 6
Rebekah spent a moment of stunned confusion swaying on her feet after the vampire doctor vanished. Waking up to see his silver-gray gaze boring into hers had sent a shockwave through her system. It was as though her dream summoned him. He caught me off guard. And now, all she could think of was running. In the cold light of day, her fantasies of him were easier to rationalize. I fear Douglas, and he disgusts me, next to him, of course the doctor is attractive, or would have been, if he was a human.
Her fingers trembled, and tasks which should have been easy became incomprehensible. Giving up on attempts at folding, she rammed her belongings into a backpack. The positive action quelling the storm of foreboding which told her that he would return. He’ll be back with a farmer. He has no reason to help me. And she couldn’t understand why that hurt.
When his arm had closed like a band of steel across her chest, fear short-circuited her brain. And yet, she’d found it hard not to do the mindlessly suicidal thing and press back into him.
“He’s a vampire, for Christ sakes,” she muttered under her breath. The thought scared her more than she could say, but even the throbbing of the bruises he had left on her flesh did not bring her to her senses.
His citrus scent lingered, and in the same way a flashbulb burst marks retina, when she closed her eyes, his image became more vivid. She ruefully acknowledged she knew nothing of vampires. This Doctor Connor is not the unfeeling block of ice I expected. And the warmth in the wake of his cold touch was undeniable.
Her fingertips tingled as if they remembered the texture of the chilled cotton covering his chest when her palms molded to his smooth hard muscles. It was to hold him back, she told herself. His kiss, fleeting though it was, played on repeat. She could still taste the strangely tart infusion which slicked her mouth before finally, his snarl had shredded her nerves, and then, he disappeared; he had left her struggling for balance, in every sense.
The fleeting contact plagued her. Her heart thudded loudly. Too loud. She checked her watch. He’s been gone more than half an hour, an age for a vampire. Is that good?
“C’mon Rebekah, get a grip,” she muttered as she shoved the last of her clothes into the bag. Cursing under her breath, she fought with the zipper.
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Connor was tempted to appear at her side and help her with the zipper, but he was not sure her heart could cope with racing any faster. He was grimly amused at the ease with which he had once more entered the house, descended into the basement, replaced the access hatch, and moved across the concrete skimmed floor without her noticing. Humans are such easy prey.
Resting back against the wall with his fists tightly clenched, Connor stood for much longer than necessary, watching Rebekah’s backside sway as her body flexed and turned in the agitated packing process. He opened his mouth and pulled air into his lungs, tasting the atmosphere and gauging his own resolve. He felt satisfied when the level of chest burn cooled from blast-furnace white to poker-red, although it still pushed at the limits of his one hundred years of control.
Her hips rocked as her weight shifted from one foot to the other, and the shadow between her legs tantalized him. Connor decided most of her five feet and six inches of height appeared to be in those long, lithe limbs. The whisper of her denim-clad thighs brushing together shrieked, not so much in a ‘nails down a blackboard’ moment, but a ‘her nails dragging down the tight skin of his back’ kind of moment. Shit. The sooner I get her out of here the better.
His jaw clenched as fire burned in his groin. His rap-sleep fantasy was so close he could almost taste it, but he knew that unleashing his yearnings would grind her bones to dust. A vampire’s touch could never be considered gentle. God, trench warfare had been easier than this.
Connor had been a mysteriously lucky surgeon working the battlefront in the First World War, miraculously cheating death and saving countless lives. Smiling grimly, he recalled times when he also helped a few on their way, but he had labeled them mercy killings and filed them away in the clear conscience drawer.
In 1910, the human Connor was a twenty-four-year-old medical student studying in London’s Royal Eye Hospital under the tutelage of Sir John Creedy. His mentor specialized in ocular surgery, and, keen to gain experience, it was Connor’s misfortune to volunteer to run an errand to the mortuary.
That day had started badly when his horse had thrown a shoe, and the farriery blacksmith said, “Sorry, Guvnor, nothing we can do ‘til the morning.”
Connor remembered tossing the grain boy three copper pennies to pay for a day’s feed and livery, and patting the horse farewell. After walking the remaining four miles to the hospital, he donned his starched white coat and threw himself into his grueling schedule.
Pulling on the gold chain which dropped his pocket watch into his palm, Connor peered at it and grimaced. That was sixteen hours ago. It was ten p.m., and his thighs ached as though he’d been wading through molasses. As he made his way to Sir John’s study, his body longed for a bath and a bed. Even the thin mattress of the cot in the students’ quarters will feel good tonight, when I finally get to lay my head down.
Announcing his arrival, Connor rapped on the thick oak paneled door.
“Come in.” Sir John’s muffled command forced him to move.
Connor leaned against the door like a slowly felled tree, and when the solid support swung away, he pulled hastily back, recovered his balance, and stepped into the room.
Sir John looked up and smiled ruefully. “As I understand it, you are going nowhere this evening, Sanderson?” He paused, allowing Connor the grace of agreeing with his assessment, before continuing. “That being the case, I wonder, might I call upon you to perform one last task?”
Brushing his fingertips over his clipped beard, Sir John contemplated the ceiling for a moment before turning his attention back to Connor. “Go to the mortuary and tag two bodies for tomorrow’s lecture.” Sir John lifted the top sheet from the pile of papers on his desk and peered at the one underneath. “Mr. Donaghue. He had a monocle in his personal effects, so we’ll have him. And can you choose the second? See what catches your eye, if you’ll excuse the pun.”
Connor could still hear Sir John’s rumbling appreciation of his own humor when he walked away along the ceramic tiled corridors. His footfalls echoed as he descended into the basement. ‘Mr. Donaghue, and one for you’ was the metronomic chant which focused his tired mind, and the chill in the air cramped his skin into gooseflesh.
His heart pumped. I’m being tested. It was an honor to be asked to choose a specimen. Entering the mortuary, the doors hissed at the disturbance, and as their rubber-lined edges sealed closed behind him, an offended silence thickened.
Shaking off the feeling that eyes were watching him, judging him, Connor walked along the line of rigid bodies, flipping back the linen cloths and angling his head to gaze into their stiff faces, until he found Mr. Donaghue. That part of his task done, he rubbed both hands down over his face, hoping the stimulation would wake him up, and he walked the line again.
He peered into each face more closely this time, gently applying his thumb pad to peel back sticky eyelids.
And, it was then that he discovered what a vampire’s eyes look like in the moments before they feed.
The blown pupils of the eyes he stared into, suddenly contracted. He recoiled as a spark of laser-blue awareness made his skin crawl, but too late. The sharp pinch to his neck stole his consciousness in less than three seconds, and when the clouds rolled away again, he was laid out in the vampire’s place. His face and shirt were soaked in his own blood, and keen fish-scale blue eyes in a translucent ivory face laughed down at him.
The va
mpire’s voice seemed to reside inside Connor’s head when he finally spoke. “There are three things to remember.”
Connor became transfixed by the thick brown paste oozing from the open wound on the vampire’s forearm. The same congealed paste blocked Connor’s throat, and he gagged. He couldn’t tear his eyes away as the creature’s blood engorged tongue licked over the gash and it closed to barely a scratch.
“Sunlight, sleep, and strength.” His blood smeared lips bowed in satisfaction. “The first will kill you. The second will save you, and, with the third, you will live forever.”
Connor learned quickly. The war in 1914 saved him from hiding. Although he could not feed in plain sight, no one looked closely at dead bodies in a field hospital. The clearing stations acted as holding areas for patients waiting to being shipped out to a base hospital, and many never survived Connor’s triage. He was too young to be a qualified surgeon, but the Army was not about to be picky. It helped him to perfect his control, and, if ever he lost it, there was always someone in need of his ‘help’. He could easily detect a failing heart.
But, through all the bloodshed and pain, detachment had never presented a problem, until now-
Connor pulled himself back to the present, zeroing in again on Rebekah’s movement, and the mouth-watering symphony of whispering fabric. She mumbled under her breath, although, every word chimed loudly in his ear like a note struck on crystal. Connor buried his clenched hands in his pockets, and admitted to needing all his hard fought for control, and then some.
“You can’t take any of that with you, it stinks,” he said quietly.
Rebekah’s heart leapt into her throat and cold sweat broke out over her body.
His eyes darkened, silver becoming lead as her fear-slicked aroma enveloped him. About to speak again, he chose caution, slamming his vocal chords shut and staring into her eyes with undisguised hunger. He would not breathe, laugh, or cough again, unless he willed it, and an eerie hush filled the empty space.
Connor allowed her scent to wend its way up into his nostrils before he risked speaking again. “You stink, too,” he said, deliberately provoking her, playing with fire.
Assessing the mutinous expression on her face, and guessing that she was about to tell him to go-to-hell, he said, “The plan is to get out of here, yes? Well, to us, you smell. Fear has a delicious odor, and in you it is thick honey, slightly warmed.” He pulled in a deep lungful. “Very enticing, exciting, to me.”
As Rebekah opened her mouth to reply, Connor’s cool lips molded over hers, and he swallowed her words as his cold hands closed on her warm buttocks. His citrus-scented flavor filtered into her mouth as before, and then, as before, he snarled. His fingers flexed, pressing new bruises into her body. His tight expression leeched his face to bone-white and he peeled himself painfully away.
Retreating to a safe distance of ten feet, he smoothed his features to a blank, and adopted a relaxed pose, belied by the panting that vampires shouldn’t do, but which helped dilute the effect she had on him. He said colorlessly, “You’ll need to wash and scrub your skin. Now.”
Connor baldly laid out the plan of escape as he set the bowl of water he had collected from the kitchen sink onto the wooden bench in the basement and dropped a bar of unperfumed soap into her hand.
While Rebekah’s head was still spinning, he said, “You have five minutes to wash up while I find a car and bring it around front.” He glowered at her in the dim light, silver-gray flecks in his eyes glittering with his thoughts as he added starkly, “Five minutes, or I will come in and get you.”
The whirlwind of his departure whipped feathered strands of blond hair across her eyes, and when she brushed them quickly aside, she was alone. She toyed with rebellion for ten seconds before, yanking clothes out of her backpack, she stripped off the ones she wore, and in record time washed, rinsed, and pulled clean garments onto cold damp flesh.
Barely seven minutes later, a grimly satisfied Connor pulled the car away from the curb. A truculent Rebekah slouched low in the seat beside him, wearing the only clothes she possessed. When she’d joined him in the room above, he had tossed her rucksack back down through the basement hatch and made it clear that shopping was their first stop. The new clothes smell will cover my stink, apparently. Mentally ridiculing his condescending tone failed to improve her mood.
“Feeling cold?” Connor asked, glancing at her stubborn profile.
Rebekah shot a sarcastic glance at her tormentor. “Of course I’m cold.” Her skin was still tight from being doused with icy water.
“Good,” he said briskly, and then stole her anger by saying, “It will help us get you out of here.” His pewter-soft regard absorbed the spark of indignation in her brown eyes, and he added on a sigh, “Thank the Lord its dark, at least.”
Her cheeks burned as she muttered, “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Shopping, in London?” Connor laughed quietly. “Why, Oxford Street, of course. Things have not changed that much.”
Rebekah folded her arms and slumped lower in her seat. “Well, I wouldn’t know. Your lot saw to that.”
“I’m sorry.”
An awkward silence settled between them while Connor concentrated on driving the five miles from Clapham, north over Vauxhall Bridge, and on to Victoria. The districts of London slipped by, dark and silent, save for the occasional appearance of graceful immortal figures weaving smoothly in and out of the shadows.
Staring out at the streets in dread-filled fascination, and watching the ink-black landscape of Hyde Park trickle past the car window, Rebekah could no longer bear it as she realized they could jog faster than the moving car.
Connor’s grip on the steering wheel was sure but static, and she felt certain she could do better, despite having been only seven years old when humans stopped driving cars on the roads.
Greg had made sure Rebekah, Leizle and Thomas learned the skill. In his view, ‘if you can drive across fields at dusk then you were ready for anything’. His military precision came into its own out in the field. When vampires took to the roads, driving the delivery trucks taking harvested crops to the human farm, he used the activity as camouflage. The additional sound of one small vehicle to the rumble of tires and growling of engines of the convoys going past went unnoticed, if you timed it right.
Rebekah had the urge to shoulder Connor aside and take the wheel. Some getaway this is turning out to be.
“Why are you driving so slowly?” she asked in frustration, wanting the journey out of the way. She was already breaking into a sweat, and waiting for him to comment. Or kiss me again. She hoped she’d be ready next time, because living dangerously was not alien to her. I’ve had to grow up quickly in this post-pandemic world. So, bring it on. Call it research, curiosity, madness, or all of the above.
On what sounded suspiciously like a chuckle, Connor said, “I’m driving like a vampire. It’s not about getting quickly from a-to-b for us. It’s about the curiosity of propelling a metal box along and marveling at how it felt to be human. Well, not marveling, scoffing is probably closer, reminiscing, for some, I guess.”
“How about you, are you scoffing or reminiscing?” she asked, letting go of her irritation.
“Ah, fishing, huh? Well, as an apology for saying you stink, neither one. When I lived, my preferred mode of transport was a brougham carriage, horse drawn. London was a mad melting pot of trolley buses, cars, and bicycles, but a few of us hung on to our carriages.” He glanced at her intrigued expression. “1910.”
Studying the moonlit relief of his perfect profile, Rebekah pictured him dressed in a waistcoat and starched shirt with a wing-tipped collar, complete with pocket watch. Yes, starched and pompous suits him to a T.
Connor pulled the car over to the curb, shrugged out of his jacket, and handed it to Rebekah. “Here, put this on, it will help hide the stin- er, smell.” His lips twitched when she nearly took the bait.
“I’ll stay in the car,” she grumbled.
His stern look withered the words of protest on the tip of her tongue, and Rebekah resigned herself to doing things his way.
Stepping out of the car, Connor walked around the hood and was on the sidewalk opening her door before she had time to think. Her legs felt weak as she joined him, and his eyes glittered in the dim moonlight. He looked down at her and said, “Stay close.”
They walked into the cave-like gloom of the unlit department store. Vampires certainly like to dress. Every section now held only clothes. I guess they don’t need tableware, silverware, or ornaments, just wall-to-wall clothes and shoes. Though, Rebekah could not imagine a world where the companionship of sitting together while eating and drinking did not exist.
She focused on the vampires moving around the shop floor. Silhouettes slipped through the shadow like silent apparitions, and she decided with alarm there were far more shoppers than she had expected. Connor suddenly stopped walking, and she guessed he had the same thought.
Panic was about to wring her heart dry, when Connor hissed, “Restroom, now.”
Feigning casual, he led the way. When they reached the door with a jaunty female effigy wearing a puffed-out skirt stuck onto it, her throat ached with the hysteria bubbling up inside her. Salvador Dali would love this.
Pushing the door open, Connor reached back, closed his fingers in a cold bracelet around her wrist, and propelled Rebekah inside ahead of him. “Okay,” he said. “We’re in trouble, this won’t work. Shit.” His chest rumbled in frustration. No dressing it up, no frills, he pinned her in his gaze, and said, “I’m going to bite you.”
“What? Oh no, no you’re not. You did this on purpose.” Rebekah hissed, backing away.