Blood Dragons (Rebel Vampires Book 1)

by Rosemary A Johns

  As I gazed at Ruby standing there, starkers apart from her fiery hair, which hung down between her breasts (every inch my Ruby of old), all I wanted - Christ in heaven how I wanted it - was to forget what had happened in the study and that damn dining room. But one word, three times over – boom, boom, boom – resounded in my brain.

  How’s a bloke supposed to forget that?

  ‘Darling Light, how serious you look,’ Ruby crept onto the end of the bed, her Bristols swinging alabaster white, as she crawled on all fours towards me. With a wicked grin, she licked up my leg. I closed my peepers. She wasn’t making this sodding easy. With a shake of my nut, I threw myself off the covers away from her. Ruby stared at me, confused and then lay back luxuriously. ‘Come, I want to play.’

  There was something twisting inside me, bursting to get out. If I didn’t say it now, Ruby would touch me again, and my body would betray me, sinking down into the memory of her. ‘I took a shufti around the other night when you were… I went out into the streets. I discovered something: this time…these First Lifers…they’re not like I remember them. They’re--’

  ‘Do you still cling to First Life?’ Ruby arched her arms behind her nut. ‘What is it you so love in their world, when I granted you the wonders of Blood life?’ Her gaze was intense and ice cold. It would’ve frozen me to silence. But that was before she’d shared blood with her brother.

  Before she’d bloody told them…

  ‘You’re not getting it.’ Frustrated, I paced closer. I wasn’t explaining it right: the vibrant buzz of Carnaby Street and the shock of recognition, which had forced me to see that our species were not divided in the way that had always been preached - with all the terrifying implications when your food turns round and looks you in the eye and then into your Soul… ‘It’s changed. They’ve changed. I don’t reckon we have to choose between Blood or First Life. What if we’re close cousins or something?’

  Ruby’s smile was mocking. ‘A revelation, was it?’

  I opened my mouth to answer but then stopped.

  Sod it, I didn’t want to share that bubbling, joyous memory with her. For the first time in our bloody exploration of a cruel world, I didn’t want to share something, which Ruby would rip apart.

  For the first time in a century, I felt truly alone.

  Had Ruby ever needed me as I’d needed her? Was I love or only something to while away the years?

  I made one final effort. ‘I got you a gift,’ I pulled out the Union Jack mug from the drawer I’d hidden it in, so I could surprise Ruby when we were alone, and she was awake for once. I held it out to her, like a peace offering. The last glimmer of hope flared that this ritual, at least, wasn’t broken. ‘I pinched it from this cool shop--’

  ‘Why?’

  Nonplussed, I stared at Ruby, the mug still held out in my stiff arm, ludicrous between us. ‘I don’t… What..?’

  ‘Why did you steal, like a common thief? We have money now.’

  I slowly crouched down, placing the mug back in the drawer; I patted the mug gently, before I pushed the drawer shut. When I straightened, I couldn’t look over at Ruby. ‘You’ve never… It’s their money. This. All this is your brothers’.’

  ‘Ours,’ as I glanced up at her, Ruby stretched her pale legs out, one after the other. ‘It was mine first, do you not understand that? You know the two most beautiful scents in the world? Blood and money.’ Ruby threw herself up onto her elbow, laughing at my stony expression. ‘Don’t fret, darling Light. It’s yours too now.’

  With Ruby I’d always had this awareness of her, down to her very heartbeat and breath. I knew the sound of her footfall and rustle of her silk dress from streets away in the dark of the night. I knew she was going to speak, even before she opened her mouth. She was in my blood and I was of her blood. It wasn’t pathetic adoration, it was a bond forged by familiarity. A bloody century of it.

  Yet now it was gone: I knew because I didn’t recognise the words Ruby had spoken as hers. All that was left to me was silence.

  It chilled me like I’d never be warm again; Ruby had killed me for a second time.

  I scraped my nails down the wall, hearing the wallpaper tear and the umber leaves fall apart. They shredded, as my nails ripped. I embraced the pain.

  I don’t know how I got the words out but I did. ‘But you see, no one owns me. Not even you.’

  7

  Look, us Blood Lifers aren’t the only ones with bollocks myths: you First Lifers have them too. And the first one, which is branded on your grey matter? That you’re above the sodding animals, solely because you tamed fire.

  Here’s where the bollocks lies: there’s no taming something as crazy wild as fire. You know it, deep squirming in your gut. You can only borrow a slice of its blazing Soul. But mercurial, it’ll burn you to blisters, or light your way to salvation.

  That’s why it fascinates you, as it dances in the dark.

  Who can look away from the flames?

  You were quieter tonight, sitting up for once in the high-back chair by the window.

  I draped blankets around your shoulders and the checked rug over your knees.

  The snow was melting on the creases of Ilkley Moor and dripping from the fingers of the birch and elder; the moon was shrouded behind the heavy mists.

  Moth-like, you were transfixed by the wavering flame of my lighter. I knelt in front of you, playing the game you loved, or at least I guessed by your smile that you did: there’s never more to go on now than that.

  On, off, on, off…

  Your smile. Bloody hell I’d flick my lighter all night to see that smile, rather than be cocooned in your low wailing or sodding stillness.

  Does it help you remember me? Is that why you’re smiling? This bloody thing as you called it? My gold lighter (flint and spring, smooth lid but barley pattern on its body), which I’d pinched off the suit on Carnaby Street?

  I only kept it all these years because it became my talisman for the lightning strike moment, when I realised that losing our Souls, quivering piece by quivering piece, was a choice, rather than an inevitability of election.

  There’s no such thing as evil: there’s only decisions, day in and day out. My lighter became the icon for the moment I twigged that if Blood Life was an evolution, then it was one I could share with the day dwellers. And love them.

  I discovered a different way: not First Life and not Blood Life – my way.

  See, rebel to the core. You woke me to that because you were my light. You still are.

  Is that what you remember when you smile?

  AUGUST 1968 LONDON

  It was a Saturday night and I was working at the Heartbeat Club in a fug of smoke, lounging at the bar with my pint of Watneys Red and a fag. Yet all I could do was obsess over what Ruby and Aralt were up to, whilst I was playing in the shallow end.

  Simply because the sun sleeps, doesn’t mean the whole planet does too. Think of all those productive night hours; although of course I never did before those bloody twins.

  Reckon I gave a damn, as if I was turned on by the scent of cash as well? Do me a favour. I learnt my lesson on that before I was elected and I didn’t need teaching twice.

  No, what Advance made clear to me was that First Lifers work in the daylight, whilst we snatch our shut eye, and at night, when you get your kip, we work or play in the shadows.

  Once it was all about the play. But times change. Hadn’t Ruby made that bleeding clear?

  It’s a perfect symbiosis or at least, it could be. The animal kingdom, however, is more brutal than that - First Life or Blood.

  It was dark and close with heat in the club, reeking of youth and desire. The tables and chairs were like giant spools, dotted in the bar area. A dance floor spiralled in front of the live stage, which was jammed with gyrating First Lifers, in a rainbow burst of mini-dresses or Mod smart. Bugger, I hungered to drain every one of their bouncing, twisting bodies dry.

  I wiped my shaking hand across my gob.


  I still hadn’t fed. I didn’t reckon Ruby had noticed yet because since that night we… Since I’d dared to assert my own control and separate identity, I’d faded in Ruby’s eyes. She hadn’t even needed to say anything. I guess that was the point.

  Suddenly this bleeder in suede jacket and fisher-man’s corduroy cap, like he fancied himself another Lennon, knocked my arm as he leant across the bar.

  My Watneys Red spilled onto the counter.

  Mr Suede Jacket’s gaze flickered across me and then away. ‘Hey, sorry man.’

  I pushed myself off my stool.

  Everything had slowed - the band muffled - nothing but the thud, thud, thud of my own heartbeat in my lobes.

  I could lunge at the bloke’s jugular and taste the sweat on his skin, as I sank my teeth deep. He’d not even have time to… I blinked. ‘Wasn’t thirsty for beer anyway.’

  I shoved the glass away, flicking the stub of my fag into the malty sea, where it crumpled. I padded my jacket for another.

  And then…that voice. The one from Radio Komodo.

  Do you remember this? You used to laugh about our first meeting and what a pillock you reckoned I was, lurking in the shadows by the bar in my leathers. How I just stared at you, like I could devour you.

  And you were right, I could’ve done. I bloody wanted to.

  Yet it’s because you laughed that I never told you - and I won’t ever get another chance to, unless I do it now - that it wasn’t your blood but rather your sultry, fragile voice, which mesmerised me. It called to me across the divide of our species. It disturbed me in a way no one but Ruby ever had. It cut under the skin.

  You were singing the same single, “Life’s a Photograph”, with your mouth so close to the microphone it was a part of you… Everything’s changing, so we’ve gotta change too… You looked like some little Moon Girl, shimmering in silver: silver-spangled trousers, plastic biker jacket, with poppers and white ankle-length boots. I would’ve blasted into space with you in a bleeding heartbeat… We’re all memories, faded photographs… The First Lifers were whipped up into a frenzy; the dance floor teemed with hormones… But I’m alive, we’re alive, so we’ve gotta live…

  I leant across to the barman, a hulking man, who was an ex-crim by his stance. ‘Kathy..?’

  ‘Freeborn.’

  ‘Right then, after her set send her over.’

  The barman nodded.

  When you’d packed up and the next band had started, you didn’t seem amused to have been summoned. ‘You the Advance lad?’

  ‘Well, yeah, I’m the Advance--’

  ‘So? What do you want?’ You raised your eyebrow with one impatient tap of your boot. You were cloaked in Chanel No 5. Your ebony curls were loose, tumbling around your mush. Your feline blue peepers, which were flicked with eyeliner, were coolly appraising me; their lashes were so thick they looked like they’d wing off around the room when they got bored. We Blood Lifers forget the paint you First Lifers hide your beauty behind, familiar instead with the naked skin, rather than the artifice. I found myself tracing the pretty patterns you’d masked yourself in. ‘Something up with my face?’

  ‘What?’ I dragged myself back from my daze by the scruff of the neck.

  I tried to lean casually on the bar as I lit up, but my elbow sank into the puddle of beer; I pretended not to notice.

  You were just standing there, staring at me.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Not when I’d imagined it. And not between a Blood Lifer and a…

  See, you were only a First Lifer, newly signed to the twins’ label. In a century of discovery and revel, I’d never stooped to notice one of you. Except as a passing snack.

  Yet now I had these pins and needles - weird little tremors - like I didn’t know what to do with a body I’d had more than enough years to be versed in. But it was happening. There was no denying that.

  Ruby had told me once that she’d kept this dim First Lifer as an experiment. More a pet than anything. She’d wanted to examine him, and I can imagine the kind of games she put that poor sod through. Eventually, however, Ruby had cocked up. She never elaborated because she wasn’t one to admit failure easily (at least not to me), but she did tell me that the First Lifer - idiot as he might’ve been - had worked out Ruby wasn’t quite human. Then that was that. Ruby had done him in because those are the rules: no evidence, no vampire hunters and no pitchforks. Vampire bollocks myth number...

  But now here I was.

  What was I bleeding doing?

  All because I had this crater of emptiness, where Ruby should’ve been? And with some bitch, who looked like she thought I was as big a tosser, as I reckoned she was an evolutionary monkey?

  Yeah, sorry, not really the hearts and cupid stuff, right?

  ‘My face? You’re gawpin’.’ You sighed, shifting your chainmail bag on your shoulder with an impatient jerk. ‘Is your gaffer..?’

  ‘I’m the boss.’ I straightened, drawing on my ciggie. When you laughed, the blood in my throat pounded.

  ‘When the real gaffer wants to talk--’

  ‘Your song, did you write it yourself? That’s rare. A female creator in this industry. The lyrics…there’s a line--’

  ‘You going to give me a right nice, shiny medal?’

  We glared at each other. Did you know two animals only look at each other like that, when they’re going to fight? It triggered my flight and fight, and I don’t sodding run.

  I knew I’d insulted you but not how. This first contact was making my mind blaze; it’d been too long since I’d had to straightjacket myself in First Life convention. The skin was too tight. I felt like was I going to burst, bewildered with desire.

  I slunk closer, so I could taste the scent of your sweat - my Moon Girl - sniff out the flowing strands of Soul underneath the painted beauty. ‘I meant they’re different… You’re different to--’

  ‘You’re fair coming onto me?’ You stepped back, eyeing the exit.

  ‘No, what..?’

  ‘I’m not into the whole Rockers scene,’ you zigzagged your finger down, from my jacket to my scuffed motorcycle boots.

  Confusion and humiliation, with something blazing at its core, which I wasn’t going to bloody well accept (not this Blood Lifer and not again), shuddered through me.

  I hurled down my ciggie, grinding it into the patterned carpet. ‘That wasn’t… As if I’d… And you know what? You were off coming into the third verse.’

  Silence.

  Your peepers were hard now: definite hit nerve. Yeah, bloody genius I was. I’d just risen in the rankings from insignificant to loathed. You crossed your arms, and I mirrored you.

  ‘You ever tried not being a total prat?’

  ‘Once. Didn’t stick.’

  You edged towards the door. ‘Fab as this hasn’t been, I must get on. My cousin’s walking me home.’ You tossed your nut at a bird with a thick fringe and Beatles do, who was perched at a spool table by the exit, glancing curiously over at us.

  ‘I wanna take your picture.’ The words had spilt out of my gob, before I’d even realised myself that I meant them.

  I imagined my trusty camera snapping you from every angle, so I could possess your image to study without the accusation of gawpin. And then, before I could stop myself, the second image of tossing myself off over your smiling face, as Ruby shared blood with Aralt downstairs in his study.

  See, I promised all the nasties and wankery, didn’t I?

  You were still heading for your cousin. ‘Does it work with the other chicks? Pretending like you’re David Bailey?’ I darted after you through the hot jiving bodies, which stank of blood so strongly I gagged with the effort of keeping my fangs retracted. My own blood was up because this - what was happening between us? It was dead close to a hunt. I had to chain every instinct deep to stop myself from going for the kill. I grabbed hold of your arm. ‘That the best line you can come up with? Think I’m a little fool?’

  You shook me
off, and I let you; it was more exhilarating this way. I wove after you through the crowds, catching you before you could reach your cousin. I was panting now, not out of breath but from the effort of controlling the bloodlust. ‘It’s for publicity, all right?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Reckon I’d want to spend time with you?’

  ‘Happen you can give my agent a ring and set it up,’ you admitted defeat with a weary sigh. ‘I do take a good likeness.’

  My quarry felled.

  ‘Tomorrow evening?’

  You frowned. ‘Why evening?’

  ‘That’s when I work best, darlin’.’

  You started towards your cousin again: a flash of silver. Stardust fallen to earth. Then you stopped and turned back to study me. ‘You know you’re a freak?’

  I shrugged: one Blood Lifer lost in a sea of stinking humanity. ‘No shame in flying that flag.’

  For the first time your frown cleared and you seemed to see in the dark beyond the pompadour and the leather – see like a Blood Lifer - to the Soul and emotions buried underneath.

  You First Lifers suck at that.

  ‘You like Hendrix?’

  ‘Of course.’ I knew you’d have dead cool taste. It was in your scent. Your voice. And the way you were throbbing in my blood.

  You stepped closer. ‘What’s your name?’

  You hadn’t even bothered to ask before. Now the hunt was really over. I smiled. ‘Light. My name’s Light.’

  So I took your photo and it was one of the best nights of my life. You in gold catsuit and that bloody mask of make-up, which I craved to claw from your skin and find the woman underneath.

  Flash, flash, flash…

  In an empty room at the back of the Heartbeat Club. Your cousin and cigar-smoking agent hawk-like in the door. You in a strop refusing to say a single word.

  Yet there was me, you and my camera, alone in a way I’d never been with anyone but Ruby and never cared to be, not since I was elected.