by Lola Gabriel
“Okay,” Maddie said. “How are we going to get across the car park? It’s—”
But Nills had already removed his windbreaker. He handed it to her.
“We’re going to that building, do you see? The townhouse…” He pointed, his skin reflecting the sun violently.
“Yes,” Maddie said, as all she could manage was the one syllable. “Okay, let’s go.” But Nills was already several strides ahead of her and she had to jog to keep up, reminding herself not to run too hard and do the weird, super-speed vampire crap in view of the humans. The humans, of which she was no longer one. What she wouldn’t give to be sitting in a beer garden now, with the same work friends as last night, even. She wished she had stayed for more stupid shots. Wished she’d spent today hungover as hell, bitching with Allan. Maddie, always making stupid mistakes, even when she tried her best.
When they were across the small road and in the front garden of the townhouse, deep in its shadow, Maddie handed back the windbreaker. Again, there was a moment of smelling that awful dry rot smell. Maybe she had PTSD. Of course she did, she had been murdered and then she’d… she didn’t want to think it, even.
Nills had taken the windbreaker with one hand, barely looking at her. “My comrades may be sleeping,” Nills said. “I will show you to the bathroom so you can wash, and then you can meet them all, yes?”
“Okay,” she said. But she was just thinking about the sweet shade inside. The way the darkness felt like a loving, knowing embrace for her skin that was cold burning despite the windbreaker. The house was old and ill kept. It smelled damp. It smelled like moss and mushrooms. But there was no sun in there at least, and really that was enough for her. She stood, leaning against the hallway wall, and brushed off one foot and then the other. Twigs and ring pulls dropped ting ting ting onto the floorboards.
“Up the stairs, to the right,” Nills said, his voice quiet now. Then he stood still for a moment, considering, and said, “I will show you.”
Nills was insect-like on the stairs, taking two at a time, and he showed her into a master bathroom with a claw-foot tub. The tub had spots of rust, but apart from that, the room was fine. He opened a tall, slim cupboard and uttered, “Towels,” and then he left the room without excusing himself.
Maddie was a little surprised, but also glad to see the back of him. She searched the door for a lock, and eventually found an old iron bolt, which she pulled closed. She was, finally, alone with herself. She began to run a bath and peeled off her horrible bloody clothes. She had been wearing clothes soaked in her own blood and the blood of some poor stranger—apparently murdered too—for hours. She wanted to cry again, but she couldn’t, she was spent, dry, she had reached the limit. Instead, she went over to the old tub and turned on the tap. A hot bath wouldn’t fix anything, but maybe it would help her feel human again… not that she was, really, not anymore.
She sank into the water when it was almost too hot. She wanted to feel every inch of herself. She wanted to wash off the last 18 hours, but that, of course, was impossible. Naked again, she couldn’t help but think of the sex she’d had with Rex. Thinking of it turned her on—it had been wonderful sex. She was scared by how good it had been. Scared that she could feel so complete, feel so much joy, with someone who was... what? Evil? Apparently. What did that say about her? If she was honest, she hadn’t ever been very good at being a person. She was nearing thirty, alone, with a cat and a studio flat and a crappy job. Would she be good at being a vampire? And what did that look like? Killing people? Living in a castle? Or joining the resistance and eating foxes?
Maddie closed her eyes and ducked her head under the water. She held her breath, and then she realized she didn’t have to breathe anymore. She could stay under here as long as she wanted. This realization freaked her out so thoroughly and unexpectedly that she burst out back through the hot water’s skin and into the air with enough force that half the bathwater splashed onto the floor. Vampires lurking in the shadows, lurking under water… this had been going on all the time. All the time she’d been waking up and going to work, been growing up collecting shells on the beach, been sleeping with the wrong men and crying about the wrong men, been sleeping with her cat, Sonny, curled on the pillow beside her head so that sometimes she woke up to a vision of nothing but fur and a mouth full of it too.
And now she knew. She was one, in fact—a monster in the shadows. She looked at her hands. They looked the same as ever.
She was one, and yet all she could think about was another crappy man. A man worse than crappy. Evil. A man who had done this to her, made her a monster. With a grey streak in his hair and a strange accent and that body, those strong shoulders and the trail of hair down to…
Maddie shook her head, literally shook it, to clear the vision of Rex. There was no shampoo, only a greyish bar of soap, so she had to lather her hair up with that. It would be dry and disgusting but it would also be free of dried blood.
She was wrapped in a towel when the handle of the door began to jiggle, making her jump.
“Hello?”
Nills’ voice came through the door. “I brought you clothes,” he said. “Yours are disgusting.”
Right. He was a strange fish, always just on the verge of rude, and his eyes were always moving, fingers always drumming. Maybe it was hunger. Speaking of which, Maddie felt empty. She had eaten most of that bag of blood. She could hardly bear to think about it, hardly bear to think about the next time she would eat. Would feed. Maddie pulled the bolt open, and promised herself she would wait as long as she possibly could before she drank blood again. Even with these vampires who were, apparently, ethical. She would have to ask more questions, of course.
Nills was standing in the hallway with a bundle of clothes in his hands. She took the clothes. “Thank you,” she said, and expected him to move away, but he just stood there.
After an oddly long time looking at her, Nills said, “We are going to wait for you in the kitchen.”
“Okay.” Maddie backed away, hoping this would encourage Nills to do the same, but he was still there when she closed the door and pulled the bolt across. He could be handsome, Nills, if he wasn’t so strange. His eyes were cold, but his cheekbones were lovely, his thin lips and wide mouth oddly intriguing. He needed a haircut. Perhaps this group of vampires were like anarchist students, bumping about this big old house, living on the edges of society.
He had brought Maddie a men’s shirt and a pair of what looked like leggings, but might actually have been long johns. Whatever, she wasn’t entering a fashion show any time soon. Vampire fashion show. Maybe she should start one. There would be a cloaks round, right after swimwear, though sunbathing was out now, wasn’t it? Oh well, she had always burned easily.
Maddie’s silly train of thought cheered her up slightly. There was no mirror in the bathroom. She supposed if the mirror myth was true, they wouldn’t be much use to her anymore anyway. She tied up her wet hair and headed out to the hall and down the stairs, realizing she didn’t actually know where the kitchen was, and she was unlikely to catch a whiff of delicious home cooking to guide her in a house full of ethically feeding vampires.
7
Rex
He had gone out to the hall a few moments after Maddie ran from him, thinking maybe a second or two to cool down was a good idea for both of them. But she wasn’t there. Rex was almost impressed at the strength it must have taken to bust through the chained-up door to the stairwell. Even for a vampire, that was some power, but he didn’t have much time to think about it as he ran down the concrete stairs, hoping the door at the bottom half proved more of an issue for his newest creation.
It hadn’t. And he was still barely dressed, and could hardly run around outside trying to find a woman covered in blood without attracting attention until he put some clothes on. So, more precious minutes were lost as he sped upstairs and into his bedroom, the scene just a couple of hours earlier of their lovemaking. That was what it had felt like anyway,
to Rex. Like something real. Something desperately real and meaningful. The taste of her skin and the smell of her… He was getting a little hard thinking about Maddie, so he banished memories of earlier and imaginings of a possible future in which they could once again be naked and entwined. Instead, he thought about where she might go. He thought about it as he pulled on a t-shirt, as he found a pair of socks, as he tied his laces.
And he didn’t know. He had no bloody idea. What had he even asked her about herself? Fuck all. Admittedly, it had been a whirlwind. But he didn’t know where she lived, where she worked. She could be married and have three kiddies waiting for her, for all he knew. He doubted it, but he didn’t know for sure either.
Outside, though, Rex’s problems seemed less severe. He could smell her—or rather he could smell the blood she was covered in. There were a group of teens who seemed, oddly, to be explaining something to one of those yellow-jacketed police support officers. The officer didn’t look amused. They were usually so eager. Maybe the kids had been setting the bins on fire again. Human children, and human adults at times, were oddly obsessed with fire. Not enough destruction in their lives in the modern world.
Rex tried to look casual, sauntering in the direction of the scent trail, but he was anxious to get as far as he could before it faded. It seemed to be leading into a scrubby copse of trees, and he stood on its edge for a while, trying to wait out the police officer and, if possible, the kids too. He bounced up and down on his toes and looked at his wrist, which didn’t actually have a watch on it. Whoever tried to kill Maddie last night, well, they might want to tidy up their mess, their loose ends. And if he could smell the blood, well, so could they. They would be able to smell what was all over her, the blood they had fed on, even more keenly than he was getting the scent.
He hadn’t bothered tuning into the conversation between the kids and the officer, but as the officer finally shook her head and turned away, he heard her say into her radio, “They swear they saw a woman in her twenties, covered in blood, but I’ve had dealings before. They’re stupid kids. Got creative this time, though.” Then the officer was on her bike and cycling off, and Rex’s skin was prickling with fear for Maddie as he slipped into the woods.
Not only could he now follow the smell, but also the trail of destruction Maddie had left as she galumphed through the trees. There were broken branches and flattened shrubs, and…
A tent. A dead fox. He had no doubt what had killed it. Rex was going to have to start moving a little faster, whether or not it caused suspicion. At least, he was going to have to if he wanted to see the woman he was becoming worryingly, painfully, achingly sure he was supposed to be with, ever again.
8
Maddie
It was a big family kitchen, with the oddest family Maddie had ever seen sitting in it. The vampires were all male, most of them looking about her age, except for one who was older, perhaps in his fifties, wire-thin and grey-haired. When she walked in holding her bundle of dirty clothes, they all looked at her. Nills hurried over in his funny, flitty way and grabbed the laundry.
“I’ll just wash them,” he said and walked away. Maddie turned to speak to him and saw that he had brought them to his face. He had his eyes closed. Was he smelling them?
“It won’t come out,” Maddie said, and he snapped round to look at her.
“Of course,” he smiled. “I’ll…I’ll leave them here and we can put them in the bin outside later.”
“Great,” Maddie said, trying hard to convince herself she hadn’t just seen what she thought she had seen. A little weird was one thing, a clothing sniffer was another. She was starting to feel a little uneasy about her decision to follow a strange vampire she had met in the woods, but where else was she supposed to go? She didn’t know how to do this.
“You look lovely,” Nills said, catching Maddie off-guard with his compliment.
“Oh, thank you,” she said. “I feel much better.”
“We don’t often have female visitors,” Nills added. “Please excuse our manners. Some of us were alive when mixing with the opposite sex was not encouraged.”
She nodded, though really, what kind of an excuse was that when you’ve had the span of multiple lifetimes to catch up on the complexities of talking to women? Rex managed just fine—more than fine, in fact. Thinking about him, Maddie was hit with a surprising pang of longing. Did she…miss him? Did she miss a monster?
These vampires, she decided, were just a group of geeky boys who stuck together. She was going to have to deal with them, whether or not they were creepy. So, she went over to the table and took a seat. “Tell me more about how you keep things ethical, then. Do you always feed on animals?”
The chubby man closest to her looked disgusted at this suggestion. “God, no,” he said, his accent a faded cockney. “You think I’d maintain this body on animal feeding? Don’t think so.” And the rest of the lads laughed.
“Blood banks,” Nills said, a little too loudly from where he now stood, just behind her. Maddie jumped.
“Right,” she said. “I see.”
“And criminals. Are you hungry?”
“No,” Maddie said, “I’m fine, thank you.” In actual fact, she had never felt so empty.
“He fed you?” Nills asked.
“Yes,” Maddie said. “Is that bad?” Maybe there was a rule about it or something. She felt her cheeks trying to blush, but failing.
The big guy shook his head. “Bet he’s got the best of the best, our lord and master, up in his high tower.” Again, the other three laughed. Apparently Maddie didn’t really get vampire humor. Though Rex had seemed to have a sense of humor. But, she reminded herself, also a bloodlust that led him regularly to murder.
“Lord and master?” she asked.
“He didn’t brag to you?” asked the older-looking one. “He’s the vampire king. Not even truly British, and still, some old marriages and he gets the top spot.”
“There’s…a king? That’s old-fashioned.”
“We’re old, love! And don’t you, I mean, don’t humans still have a queen in this country?” The older vampire fixed her with his grey eyes.
That was true. But Rex was some kind of royalty? His flat was very nice. And she had slept with him. Had, if she was honest, connected with him on an intense level.
“He doesn’t like the way we live,” the old vampire continued.
“How we only kill criminals and drink from blood banks,” Nills added quickly, as if Maddie might have forgotten in the last five minutes.
“Right,” Maddie said, “I remember. Just…what’s the plan now? I have a cat I need to feed. Can I come for lessons on being a vampire? Or, what exactly happens next?”
The old vampire visibly sneered. “There are no lessons on this life,” he said. “You have to earn it every day, sweet girl.”
She was beginning to feel very uncomfortable. Like maybe she should have just taken her chances on her own. She could be watching TV with Sonny on her lap, sitting on her lovely comfortable bed. She could just carry on, couldn’t she? Get some pig’s blood from a butcher, maybe she could just eat black pudding.
Again, Maddie jumped. Nills’ hands were on her shoulders. “You can stay here,” he said. “You can stay with me.” Was he massaging her shoulders? He was. His thumbs were digging into her back. She found herself seizing up, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“I’ll need to get my cat.”
The final vampire, the one who hadn’t yet spoken, said in a reedy voice, “I thought you weren’t hungry.”
But Nills, behind her, his hands still on her, said, “We can fetch the kitty, no problem at all. Where did you used to live?”
She was very much beginning to get the impression that giving these men—these creatures—her home address would be a bad idea. She should distract them. “What does a king of the vampires do, then?” Maddie asked. Her palms would usually be sweaty now, her heart beating like the clappers, but the lack of either physica
l reaction somehow made the situation more scary rather than less.
“Vampire king,” Nills corrected her. “We have councils, laws, blah, blah, blah, just as humans do. There are also alphas for the other immortals, of course. The fae, the warlocks—they now share one royal family after that marriage—the witches, all the shifters…” One hand was lifted from her shoulders, presumably for some kind of a dismissive gesture to be performed.
“The other immortals? Did you say witches?” Maddie didn’t know if she believed all this, but she figured keeping the weirdos talking might be a good idea until she could come up with an exit plan. Why hadn’t she just gone home? And, immortal? Despite all this talk of how damn old everyone was, she hadn’t thought about that aspect of her new situation. Everyone she loved would die, and she would see it. But she had to focus. For now, she had to focus.
“Witches with, like, magic?” Maddie asked.
But Nills just said, “Of course,” and then carried on with his diatribe about Rex.
“He hates us for our way of life,” he said. “He hates us because we have different values from the rest of them. We are ancient creatures, you know? We have needs.”
“Not killing is a need?” she asked. The massage stopped for a moment, and when it started up again, his thumbs were like an attack, digging far too deep into her muscles so that it was all she could do not to shout out.
“Morally,” Nills said. “A moral need, indeed.”
That was when the hammering on the door started. For the third and final time, Maddie jumped. Then she took the opportunity to stand and to step away from Nills and from the table of vampire men, who had all turned their heads to the noise.
“It’s him?” asked the older one.
Nills shrugged. “I expect so,” he said. “But, you know, I think I want to keep her. She’s pretty, isn’t she? And feisty!”