by Ella Stone
Rather than offering an answer, Polidori stepped across to a small side table, beside which hung a long bell pull. He tugged on it and a girl soon appeared. She seemed younger than Calin, around sixteen or seventeen and, on first inspection, she fitted in well with the decor of the house. She seemed tidy and well dressed, with polished shoes—everything you would expect of a housemaid in such a stylish place. But a closer study showed something else. The slouch of her shoulders and the way her chest caved inwards, made it seem as if she was in a constant state of recoil or, at the very least, attempting to make herself inconspicuous. Her hair was matted in places and the yellowing tinge of an old bruise showed ever so slightly near her left eye.
Noticing Calin watching her, she looked even more anxious.
“Aylina. This is Calin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Aylina is new to our household. She has just been released from an unfortunate situation.” He turned his attention back to the maid. “I’m afraid it may get a little rough. He is rather inexperienced.”
“That’s all right M’lord.” Her chin bobbed in a minuscule nod, although her calm demeanour did not reflect her racing heart.
“If you would be so kind?” Polidori asked.
Trembling from head to toe, she rolled up the sleeves of her blouse. Calin gasped. Purple and blue markings covered her skin, in some places the bruises were so bad they were black. Among them were dozens of gashes, some healed to a light pink, others still open and raw. This girl must have been severely beaten. Many times.
“It is not painful, I take it?” Polidori asked.
“A little,” she replied.
“My apologies. Here.” He extended his forefinger, flexing it just a fraction. Calin blinked as the nail almost doubled length. Taking the girl’s hand in his own, he scratched a line in her skin. Immediately, the muscles in her face relaxed. Her heart rate slowed.
“Better?”
This time her nod was slower.
“Much, thank you.”
“What is wrong with her?” The tension in the room had now transferred to Calin. “What have you done to her?”
“Nothing, just a little anaesthetic, that is all. Now come. I know you are hungry.”
“I…I…”
“Smell it. You need to recognise this yourself. Take a deep breath. Take it all in.”
“Smell what?” No sooner had the words left his lips, than his nostrils filled with an aroma of something sweeter and more delectable than any food he had ever encountered. The richness of it. He could almost sense the velvety smoothness.
“You know I can’t do this for you,” Polidori said. “You already realise what you must do.”
Hunger, which only moments before had been nothing more than a vague flicker, had now gripped his body. Sweat trickled down his spine, as he licked his lips … only to encounter sharp teeth now jutting from his gums.
“It’s all right. This does not need to define you,” Polidori said, his voice as soothing as a spring breeze. “Take all the time you need.”
Calin’s eyes were now locked on the young girl’s arm and the tiniest trickle of blood that was seeping from the scratch that Polidori had so expertly inflicted. Drop by drop it beaded and grew, as did the hunger that had now gripped his entire body. The cup upstairs. The drink that he had been so desperate for more of. Now he understood. Now he knew what he craved. Blood.
With no notion of what he was doing, he took a step forwards, towards the girl. Her heart fluttered faster than a fledgling taking its first flight.
“That’s it,” Polidori encouraged, barely whispering. “That’s it. You know what to do.”
4
Every mouthful made him yearn for more. Every drop, rather than quenching his thirst, caused it to increase. He needed it. He had to have all of it. Nothing else mattered. Not the missing scar on his arm. Not the way his ears could pick up the sound of her heart beat growing weaker and weaker by the second. All that mattered was slaking his thirst. He pushed the girl’s wrist deeper and deeper into his mouth, sinking his fangs so far in he could taste the marrow in her bones. Yet, even then, he couldn’t stop. She moaned beneath his grasp. Quietly at first, then louder, before fading again. When the flow slowed, he drew deeper still, drawing every last drop possible.
Whether he blacked out, or collapsed, he didn’t know. All he knew was that, when he opened his eyes again, he was lying on the floor. Next to him, drained to white, was the girl.
“What happened?” He was on his feet, almost before he’d even decided to stand. “How? No!” Dropping back down to his knees, he took her by the shoulders. “Wake up! Wake up!” Her body was limp in his arms, as he shook her from side to side with so much force her head whipped with a cracking noise.
“I don’t understand.”
“It happens to all of us at first.” Polidori’s hand gripped his shoulder. “I tried to stop you but… these things happen. It is difficult at the beginning. But you will get used to it. Over time.”
“Used to it?”
Realisation struck. Disbelief was followed by a burning rage. In fury, he turned to his former lieutenant and lunged. Before his feet had started to rot with trench foot, he had been one of the strongest in the platoon. Even partially disabled, he could hold his own against most of the men he came up against. But, as his fist struck the side of Polidori’s jaw, he knew he didn’t stand a chance. The second he made contact, he was knocked from his feet. In one, swift movement, Polidori had twisted him around, pulling his arm up behind his back, stretching it so far the ball and socket were about to part company.
“Argh!” he screamed out, fighting the pain. There was no way out of this vice-like grip. In just a flick of his wrist, Polidori could snap the bone clean in two. “What have you done to me?”
“What have I done? I saved you! I saved you, just like you saved me!”
“No you haven’t. You have damned me.”
“You just need time. I promise, you will come to understand what I have done for you. You will be grateful.”
“Grateful? I’ve just killed a girl!”
“And you killed a hundred or more men in the war. Tell me, did you suffer such contrition about each of them, after you had put a bullet through their chest?”
“That was not the same.”
“Wasn’t it? You killed them to survive. Had there been any other choice, would you have still killed them? Of course you wouldn’t. You are a good man. The same is true now. You did what you needed to do in order to survive. You have to stop thinking about what you have done, and think about what you can do. What you will do.”
“What I will do?”
Polidori gesticulated as he spoke. “You have an eternity. A chance to right more wrongs than you can ever imagine. To change the world in ways you could only have dreamed of before.”
“And Ruth? What about her? What about my wife?”
A flicker of sympathy flashed across Polidori’s face.
“I am sorry Calin. But however it may seem right now, you did not survive the war. That is the only truth your wife can ever know.”
He was taken upstairs, back to the room with the four-poster bed with a large chunk missing from one of its posts.
“You will need to stay in the house for the time being. We cannot risk you leaving while you cannot control your thirst.”
Calin remained silent.
“Rest assured, I will see to it that you have everything you need. And, please believe me, this time will pass, quicker than you think.”
Only when Polidori was through the door did Calin open his mouth again to speak.
“What happens if I leave?” he called after him. “I could smash a window. Leave at night. We’re in London, are we not? I could leave and find Ruth and tell her the truth. What’s stopping me? What’s stopping me from telling her everything?”
“Nothing,” he replied. “That’s a choice you have to make. But, speaking from someone who has been ther
e, the deeper you dig yourself into a hole, the harder it is to climb out.” Stepping back into the room, he let out a deep sigh. “It is for personal reasons that I had to return to London. Now I realise that bringing you here, close to your old life, may not have been the wisest decision. If you would prefer, we can go elsewhere. Travel to Europe. There are plenty of places there where you can convalesce and get used to your new state.”
“Leave London?” The words were as bitter as bile in Calin’s throat. It had taken him so many years to get back here. How many letters had he written in that time? To his mother. To his sister. To Ruth. All telling them how he would survive this war. How he would come home and hold them in his arms again. He shook his head in immediate answer.
“I will be fine. I will do as you say. I will stay in the house,” he said, the whole while thinking about how he would plan to escape from it.
5
From that moment, Calin worked on how to leave the house. How he could divert Polidori’s attention long enough to slip out through one of the many doors or windows. With his senses now transformed since his change, he could hear the whinny of a horse at the far end of the road, or the backfire of a motorcycle engine two streets away. And every sound in the house was amplified at least twenty-fold. He could hear when a maid removed her apron and hung it on the hook in the scullery. He could hear when Polidori sank his teeth into someone’s flesh. He could even hear the movement of a spider, as it scuttled out through a gap in a window. Of course, Polidori would have the same skills if not greater. There would be no way of raising one of the sash windows without his lieutenant hearing. On more than one occasion, just heaving a sigh had resulted in him appearing in his doorway almost instantaneously, suggesting a game of cards or backgammon. All this waiting around, reminded him of being back in barracks, although without the risk of imminent death but with undreamt of luxury. And so, he bided his time, steeling himself to stay strong against the temptation of the housemaids when they passed nearby, while garnering as much information about the creature he had become as possible.
“How many of us are there?” he asked Polidori one night, as he took blood from a cut crystal glass.
Polidori had not run the risk of letting him feed from one of the maids again, although they continued to work in the house during the day. Whenever Calin rose, however, they were gone, no doubt a deliberate scheduling stratagem on the part of his host. Instead, they ‘donated’ their blood, and a decanter was brought to him each evening. Switching to a nocturnal lifestyle had taken little adjustment. Being awake in daylight hours, with all the new audio-visual stimulation he now had to adjust to, caused him to tire more quickly. Besides, asleep it was easier to ignore the scents which would otherwise drive him to distraction, if not worse, all no doubt part of Polidori’s plan.
“How many?” Polidori repeated. “It is impossible to know for sure. I suspect there are far more than even I am aware of.”
“Dozens? Hundreds?” Calin hazarded a guess.
Polidori’s eyebrow arched.
“Thousands? Surely not. How on earth could people not know about us, if there are so many?
With a sigh, Polidori took another glass and filled it from the decanter.
“There are enough of us to make humans wonder from time to time, but few enough encounters for them to be certain, provoking any action.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning if they were sure we existed, they would hunt us. Of course, we are stronger, we are the predators. But, there again, so are lions, so are bears and wolves and that doesn’t always protect them. However, what humans lack in strength, they make up for in pure ignorance.”
“But some people must have found out over the years? We can’t always have been completely hidden?”
“A select few, but their discovery comes with the greatest of risks. Most do not live long enough to make use of their new knowledge.”
So, there it was, those who unearthed the existence of vampires and even, perhaps, thought they could live in some kind of symbiosis with them, which might even be of advantage, didn’t survive long enough to tell the tale. Could he risk that with Ruth? The only way he would know, would be if he told her.
Watching him closely, as though he could hear the thoughts whirring around in his mind, Polidori took a long draw from his glass. Blood moves more slowly than wine—thick and viscous and so much more satisfying. He had taken enough for the night though, and was working hard on rationing himself.
“The position that you find yourself in, is not an easy one,” he said. “It’s hard not to see the hypocrisy in what we do, in the manner in which we feed. Many of our kind have made the mistake of thinking this makes us superior to humans.”
“You do not?”
“I think, for any ecosystem to survive, it is a case of balance, as opposed to hierarchy.”
This time Calin did need further explanation, which was no doubt conveyed by the confusion etched in his brow.
Polidori smiled. “Think about it. A shepherd would protect a lamb in his flock with his life yet, if it was necessary, he would take that same lamb and sacrifice it, to maintain his own wellbeing. It’s the same with any farmer. Just because we feed from humans, doesn’t mean we don’t care for them. It doesn’t mean we don’t understand their worth. We are like the shepherds in this respect. Please. Let me guide you in this. Let me show you the way.”
“A mother cat will kill her weak kitten, so that the rest of the litter can survive,” Calin mused.
A broad smile crossed Polidori’s face. “Exactly.” He placed his glass down on the table and leaned back in his armchair. “You remember I mentioned going to Europe to… convalesce? A friend of mine will be in Paris next month. I thought we could go together. See the country in a slightly more favourable light than the last time we were there?”
“Paris,” Calin said. There was no denying, his memories of France were not ones he wished to dwell on. But this could be a chance to explore the capital city and maybe find some sites to show Ruth on a later visit. “It’s a generous offer, but I have no money to support such a trip and the army certainly won’t be giving me any demobilisation pay, either!”
The broad smile on Polidori’s face, stretched further still. “Now that is one thing I can most certainly take care of.”
“I will be just outside if you need anything, sir,” the man said, as he swung open the final door and switched on a light.
He was well-dressed and portly. Calin suspected that the fact he reeked of sweat had more to do with their presence than any lack of personal hygiene. He had opened the bank that night especially for them and Calin wondered how this special arrangement worked, but decided not to question it. This was his first trip outside since returning from the war, almost three months beforehand, and it was taking some getting used to.
London had changed so much since he had last been there, and in a way that left his heart almost as broken as some of the roads and buildings they had passed. So much destruction. For most of the journey, he had kept his eyes closed. It was tough enough coping with the now magnified sounds of the street, without adding in any of the distressing sights. But now they were deep in the bowels of the bank, there was little to distract him, other than the pounding pulse of the manager. As they had been guided through a series of locked doors, he had focused on the sound of his footsteps to distract himself from the scent of human blood.
“Just call me if you need help,” the man said again, wringing his hands nervously.
“That won’t be necessary, thank you,” Polidori replied.
As they stepped into the room, roughly the same size as Calin’s old kitchen, they were met with walls lined from floor to ceiling with metal boxes of varying sizes. Each had a number, a keyhole and a handle. Polidori turned to Calin with the closest thing to delight on his face that he had ever seen.
“So, are you ready for this?”
For the first time since he had been transformed, he
felt the smallest flutter of excitement.
Placed squarely in the middle of the room was a wooden table with a chair on either side.
Polidori placed his briefcase on the table and unlocked it. It opened out to reveal row upon row of seemingly identical keys, each carefully held in place with a small clip. Looking closer, Calin could see each was also numbered.
“I think five should be enough,” Polidori said, removing a small cluster of the keys and handing them to Calin. “Numbers 109 to 114. If my memory serves me correctly, they should be empty. You’ll find them over there.”
He headed over to the corner indicated and, sure enough, found the matching boxes. Using the appropriate key, he removed the boxes one by one and took them over to the table. Judging by their weight, and the fact that nothing seemed to be moving around inside, they were indeed empty.
Meanwhile, Polidori had moved over to another section of wall, where he too released a box.
“Right,” he said, bringing it over to the table. “Shall we start with diamonds? Always a good choice, after all they never lose their value.”
Calin realised his stunned expression must have made him look somewhat ridiculous. But it was jaw-droppingly unbelievable. It just didn’t seem possible.
A dozen cut diamonds, each bigger than a walnut, sat in a velvet bed.
“I had a stroke of luck with my timing in South Africa,” Polidori told him, as he lifted one out and placed it carefully into one of the empty boxes. He transferred two more into the box before closing and locking it. This process was repeated with similarly sized emeralds. Next came sapphires and, lastly, rubies.
With only one box remaining, it was time for gold. Standing there, watching it all, Calin hadn’t dared speak, or even move other than to return each box to its home. He was staring at the bars of gold Polidori was now transferring, when he finally managed to muster a voice.