An Immortal in London: Corruption

by Hardie, Bethanie

“How old are you?” he asked quietly.

  “Twenty three, but you know that.” I turned onto my side and met his eyes, “How old are you?”

  “How old do you think?”

  “Older than me,” I traced the lines around his eyes, but shook my head, “No, you’re younger. Your eyes,” I said smiling lightly, “Clarence was older than you, wasn’t she?”

  He nodded slowly and pulled at the ends of my hair, “Our brother, he died very young. I was given his name and his place.”

  “Clarence was only twenty one, that makes you, no, surely you’re not…”

  He shrugged and pushed himself up onto his elbows, his huge body sheltering mine. As my fingers found their ways around his body his lips curved up into a devilish smile and suddenly I saw him for what he was. I traced my index finger around his bright young eyes and graced his youthful cheeks lightly.

  “A teenager,” I whispered, not able to believe it myself.

  He smiled once more and his lips came down to mine. His kisses were not those of a teenage boy, far from it. His body, my temple, was one of a man, a warrior. His deep emerald eyes shone down into mine and I saw his life, I saw his pain and his joy, the world in which he had lived was nothing of what surrounded us today. He was a man, no boy, he was an ancient Lord.

  “I was a day off being twenty, or something like that,” he said as I sat up and stretched my arms above my head.

  He caught my hands and wrapped them around his shoulders as he knelt in front of me, his hands at my waist. I leant up and kissed him once before I relaxed down and ran my right hand through my hair. “Four years,” I sighed, “You look about thirty, you know that, right?”

  “Ouch,” he said laughing. He pulled me up and twisted his hands through my hair, “Times have changed.”

  I let out a knowing moan as I kissed him. “You wanted me to ask, why?”

  “I wanted to tell you.”

  I sat back and pulled my knees to my chest, his hands fell from my waist to rest onto my feet.

  “She won’t leave you. I can feel your fear,” I said as I came up onto my knees and relaxed down, my feet touching the back of my legs. I put my hand onto his cheek and smiled, “I know your fear, but in time it will fade. You will forget it, life will overwhelm you again, you will meet new sisters, parents, friends, lovers, and you will carry on because they will never stop taking from you, and once you accept that you learn to love quicker, letting go is easier, you learn to catch yourself when you fall.”

  “It is a fear that you should never have known,” he said, taking my hands and kissing them softly. “I don’t understand why you keep coming back.”

  “Yes you do,” I said simply.

  “Where did you run off to yesterday?” Jesse said as he caught my arm, passing by me on the street.

  “What are you doing out?”

  He held up his hands and shook the shopping bag, “I still have to eat.”

  “I forget that you’re not one of us.” I laughed as he did and I pulled open the bag to look into it, “Very…”

  “Fast, just how I like it.”

  “Fast, right, there is nothing like a processed food sandwich.” I took the bag from him and dropped it into a bin.

  “Hey, what did you do that for?”

  “I’m going to cook for you.”

  “You can’t have your progeny eating common food now, can you?”

  I sighed, “I haven’t always had money Jesse, but even then I still had a half decent diet, it doesn’t take much.”

  “Have you seen the price of carrots today?”

  “I’m sure I can find the change somewhere.”

  We crossed through the high street and Jesse waited outside of the green grocers, I handed him a bag of fresh produce and he pulled his face as he looked in. I shook my head and rested my hand on his shoulder, “Come on, this won’t take long. You take these and go sit down in the café over there; I’ll be in and out, five minutes.” I kissed his cheek and waited a brief second as he stepped off of the pavement and out onto the road.

  The wheels hit the black ice and I saw myself in the back window of the car as it graced past where I stood. My finger tips felt the wet grey metallic body, and in my mind I could feel the flames licking my bare skin as I was thrown around what was once my home in Killin.

  As my breath, body and mind returned to me I could hear shouts and sirens.

  As I stood on the edge of the pavement my greatest fear struck me. Jesse lay in the snow, blood and bones exposed to the frozen air.

  “Clear the area, give him space. Is there anyone here that knows the boy’s name?”

  The boy, my hand came to my chest. Lying in the snow, his skin almost transparent, he looked like a child. I involuntarily stepped forward and stood above where the paramedic knelt above him. There were police, firemen, paramedics, people upon people crowding him, crowding me.

  “His name is Jesse,” I said, “is he…?”

  The paramedic stood, handing her equipment to another nameless uniform. There were five people working around him, their faces told me that they had given up on him, but they would take him to the hospital, pretend like there was hope for him, offer me useless words and leave me with his useless body to weep over him.

  “Miss…”

  “Jewels,” I said hurriedly.

  “Miss Jewels, we will do all that we can to help Jesse. First we need to get him to the hospital, what is your relation to Jesse?”

  “I’m his sister.” The lie slipped from my lips with any thought.

  The corridor was empty, nurses would come and go, but none ever stopped. The coffee in my hands was cold. I pushed my right hand through my hair and sighed.

  “You can sit in with him now if you want, ten minutes, then you’ll have to leave.”

  She held the door open for me, I whispered a thank you and she wandered down the empty corridor.

  I paused inside of the door and looked around the drab room, “How is anyone supposed to get better here?” I muttered, before I looked over to Jesse’s broken body.

  “Me and my big ideas,” I said as I took hold of his hand and sat down in the pale blue cushioned seat by his bed. I kissed his fingers lightly and smiled as I graced mine across his cheek. “I need you to listen to me and remember everything that I tell you. I need you to calm down,” I said and I laughed a little. “I can feel how scared you are, I’ve got knots in my stomach,” I sighed and squeezed his hand, “I haven’t felt this sickness in centuries.”

  I shook my head, “But that’s not important, what you need to know is that I love you. I will love you no matter what and that’s about the only thing that is certain right now, the only thing that I can promise you, because I can’t say if everything will be okay.”

  I sighed and took a breath, “When I leave tonight I won’t come back, it’s too dangerous for me and you. When you wake up you will need to stay calm, breathe through your fear and confusion. Once you’re awake, focus on me, focus on my face, my voice, my smell. I’ll leave my scarf right here next to your bed. Find me, as soon as you feel me, come, and don’t hesitate. If anyone gets in your way, run, don’t stop.”

  I rested my head against his hand and smiled, kissing it again, “No matter what, I mean it, you run as fast as you can and you come to me.”

  Chapter 24

  “This almost feels normal,” Victor said as I got into his car.

  “Don’t get used to it.”

  He sighed and started the car, “You don’t need to say it, I know, but this doesn’t mean that I’m giving up, give it a year, or ten, and I’ll be back.”

  I nodded and met his eyes, “So this is goodbye?”

  He shook his head and turned to me with a devilish grin on his face, “Think of it as see you later.”

  I took my hand back and shook my head, “It would be good to have you here, even if it isn’t as we had hoped.”

  “We,” he repeated quietly, smiling, one of his rare honest smiles
. “We have a deal,” he said, “and sticking around to play your doting dead friend wasn’t part of it.”

  “I will keep my word.”

  “Francis’s name has been cleared, are you not worried?”

  “Surely you know me better than that.”

  “Of course, what will you say to Levi?”

  “Why do I have to say anything?”

  “I would hate to be on the wrong side of you,” he said, laughing as he pulled up outside of Rainbow’s End.

  “You don’t know how close you have come on so many occasions.”

  “Well, you can take your anger out on me in training.”

  I smiled secretly as I led the way through my father’s London home, down a set of aged stairs, to where the servant’s living quarters had once been, that had long since been converted into an empty white room, lit only by skylights. A punch bag hung in the far corner of the lengthy room, and weights were lined up across the back wall.

  I dropped my jacket by the door and walked into the centre of the room. Victor seemed to glide over the concrete floor, the only part of the room that spoke of its past.

  “Something is on your mind, we’re not here to train are we?” he asked as he walked around me, his fingers gracing my skin.

  I shook my head and turned to face him, stopping him where he stood, “I have always been more interested in what is on your mind Victor.”

  “Are you sure that you want to know?”

  I smiled and laughed a little, my eyes coming up to meet his sharply, “Why do you think that you’re here?”

  “I was beginning to wonder.”

  “London is suffocating me, they are suffocating me.”

  “What are you saying?” he asked, his eyes fixed onto my hand as I slipped it across his chest and down onto his waist.

  “I am saying that when this is over, when we win and Francis is back where she belongs, I am leaving.”

  “Leaving?”

  “I have been considering it for some time; something happened last night and it made my mind up for me. The corruption will surely continue, and I will do all that I can to help, but I can’t stay here.”

  “Why are you telling me this, here, now?”

  I sighed and turned from him; I looked up at the ceiling and closed my eyes, “Because, you’re the only one who I can trust not to talk me out of it.”

  I could feel him smile before he rested a cool hand onto my shoulder, “What about Levi?”

  “He will live.”

  Victor nodded and let out a breath of laughter, “And the others?”

  “They will understand.”

  “What about me?”

  I turned to him once more and rested my left hand on his cheek. I met his fierce dark eyes and my lips quirked up slightly before I dropped my hand and stood back from him, “Tell Marcus that I will uphold our deal.”

  He bowed his head knowing that I wouldn’t answer his question, because I couldn’t answer it. I was leaving with Jesse and I wasn’t going to come back. When did I decide it? I wasn’t even sure myself. I had called Victor the morning after I returned from Jesse’s bedside, why I didn’t know, not until the words left my mouth. Gabriel had always tried to talk me into making a life for myself outside of hunting, outside of my duty, and I was finally going to take his advice. It would be for the best. Levi would take my place and I would return to the sidelines. Was I being selfish? Probably. We were in the middle of a war, and I wanted out. It was as simple as that. After a century of fighting I was tired, sick, and lonely.

  Victor turned from me and left Rainbow’s End.

  I ran across the room and let my passions escape through my fists.

  I was lying on the concrete floor, a sheen of sweat on my forehead, I tightened my stomach muscles and pushed my back down onto the floor as I used my inner strength to pull my body up, again and again and again. As I reached my knees, on my descent back to the floor I paused. I turned my head to the door and calmed my racing heart as I listened.

  Voices.

  Someone was in my house and from the shadows that swept through the door and across the floor I knew that they hadn’t come for a cup of tea and a chat.

  I pulled myself up to stand and crept to the door, pushing it open slightly.

  “Well, is she here?” The voice was low and impatient, young, a man of little experience in death.

  “Shut up! How am I supposed to do anything with you nipping at my ankles like a…” His companion’s voice was agitated, he was the body carrying the bulk of the shadows and he was the one in charge.

  “Like a what?”

  “Shh!”

  I rested my hand against my chest and paused my breathing. I allowed the shadows from my guests and Victor to cloak me, bringing my light deep within myself.

  “Someone else has been here.”

  “Dead or alive?”

  “Dead, very dead.”

  “Very dead?”

  “Old,” the second voice said, his annoyance growing.

  I rested my hands on the steps before me and crept up the stairs, keeping as close to the ground as I could, feeding from the shadows.

  The door at the top of the stairs was open. I slipped through the small gap and rested against the wall, I was in the servant’s corridor. To my left was an old plain oak door leading to the kitchen and to my right, a few feet away, was a much grander door that opened up into the main entrance hall.

  I made my way into the entrance hall and stood at the foot of the first staircase, I waited and listened; I then made my way across to the second staircase and walked down the corridor to my father’s study.

  “Come on, she’s not here, let’s just go back.”

  Stood outside I could hear just how young the first voice was. He was a teenager, and I knew from his darkness that he was newly immortalised. He sounded almost relieved that they hadn’t run into me. There was something about the boy that reminded me of Jesse, and I already felt guilty for what I was going to do to him.

  “Bernadette told us to scare her, and that’s what we are going to do.”

  “I’ll wait outside, in case she comes back,” he added, so as not to alert his friend of his desperation to leave my home.

  As he left the room I clasped my hand around his mouth and pulled him back, so that I was hugging him to my chest.

  “Don’t make a sound,” I whispered into his ear.

  He nodded beneath my grasp and I walked him backwards and through the entrance hall, pushing him through the front door.

  We walked to the end of the driveway and I pushed him into the cover of the conifers that marked the boundaries of the land.

  “I will take your heart without second thought if you try anything, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” he gasped as I released my hand from his mouth.

  “Good,” I rested my hands on his shoulders, my grip tighter than perhaps it had to be. “What do you know about Bernadette?”

  He met my eyes and stuttered as he tried to find his words, I loosened my grip on his shoulders and he instantly relaxed. After a breath he thrust his hands into his pockets and began to talk, “She turned me a month ago, last week I found out that she isn’t who she was telling everyone she was.”

  “What do you mean you found out?”

  “Well, I did some… research, and the real Bernadette Francis survived the 1827 explosion, I did some asking around and the real Bernadette is the woman who has been locked up since before I got here.”

  “Locked up where?” I asked, not considering the implications of ignoring the source of his knowledge.

  “That’s the thing, once I found out I went back to where she was when I was on guard and they had moved her, with each new guard there is a new location, I can only assume that it’s so that if this,” he said motioning between us both, “if this ever happened we couldn’t tell you.”

  “That’s inconvenient,” I muttered, “Why did she send you here?”

  “
To scare you some more.”

  “Why?”

  “She reckons that the more scared you are the better chance she will have killing you on Tuesday.”

  “You know about the ball?”

  “That’s what we… they have been waiting for. They think that you will be off guard, unprepared, but I’m guessing that’s not the case now, right?”

  I bit my bottom lip, a nervous habit from when I was a girl, and shook my head, “Right, you’re coming with me.”

  “What about Q?”

  “Q?”

  “The other guy, they don’t give us names, just letters and numbers.”

  “Oh,” I looked around and then down to my alphabet hostage. I took his arm and with one fast hard pull I tore it from his body, my hand shot over his mouth as he yelled. I held him close to me, shushing him, and I rocked him to help ease his pain. Once he had calmed I released him and motioned to his arm as I said, “If you want it back, stay here, I’ll be back out in five minutes.”

  He stood motionless and watched without a sound as I ran back into the house with his arm.

  I stopped at the door and hid the boy’s arm in the umbrella stand, an addition since Jesse’s arrival I noticed.

  Walking back through the house I stopped outside of my father’s study and at the sight of Q’s destructive sweep, anger boiled in my blood. I heard a crash in one of the rooms above me and without hesitation I rushed up the stairs and threw open each door until I reached the room in which my sister had slept each night. In his hand was a vase, my mother’s vase, and as he span around he dropped it in shock at the sight of me. I leapt across the room and caught it before it hit the oak floor. He stood stock still, a scared little boy in a man’s body.

  “Not who you were expecting?”

  His head wobbled from side to side and I laughed.

  I saw his eyes catch the blood on my hands and I nodded in answer to his thoughts, “Yes,” I said quietly.

  “Q5…”

  “Q5? How… impersonal.”

  “I’m just following orders.”

  “I know,” I said casually, “but you have to understand that I have a duty, and my orders come from a higher power.”