Where Loyalty Lies

by Hannah Valentine

  “Ben!” I hollered.

  A quick glance in the living room told me that he wasn’t in there. I dumped the shopping in the kitchen, cursing my landlord for refusing me the right to put a dead bolt on the door. I’d offered to pay to have the thing fitted myself but apparently, when you rented somewhere, you weren’t allowed to put up any permanent fixtures, even if you were getting broken into. This was the last straw though. On my next day off I was going to the nearest hardware store to buy the biggest dead bolt I could get.

  A walk down to the end of the hall showed that Ben wasn’t in the bathroom or the tiny little box room that my landlord had optimistically called a second bedroom.

  A clattering noise from behind the closed door of my own room was enough to push my frustration way up into anger. I actually growled under my breath as I stalked toward my room.

  “What the hell do you think you’re....” My sentence trailed off as I pushed through the door and froze in my tracks. It wasn’t Ben. Oh God, I wish it had been Ben. Fear hit me just like it had that night almost three years ago. It was him, the man with the jet black eyes and fangs who’d saved my life.

  “No.” The single word escaped my mouth but it was filled with more terror than I’d have thought possible.

  My feet started moving before my brain and I stumbled like a new born foal across the hall towards the front door.

  I didn’t hear him move but his weight crashed into me from behind, his hand covered my mouth. Instinct overtook and, as my flight option was gone, I tried to fight. I lashed out in a mess of limbs. I could feel my feet, hands and elbows making contact with his body but it seemed to have no effect. The self-defence videos I’d watched online came into my mind. I slammed my elbow into his gut as hard as I could and got the satisfaction of a slight “oof”. I swung my elbow again, this time aiming for his face, but he caught it in his hand. There was a brief moment of movement that only lasted for seconds but, at the end of it, I found myself immobile.

  He was still behind me with his body almost pressed up against mine, one hand over my mouth and the other managing to hold both my wrists behind my back in an iron grip. I was upright on my knees and a heavy weight on my calves gave me the impression that he was sitting on them. A desperate whimper tried to escape me, but it couldn’t get past my barricaded mouth.

  No. I would not give him the satisfaction of hearing me cry and beg in the moments before my death. Deep down I’d always known this would happen. I’d known that one of them would find me, despite my best efforts to keep hidden. I gritted my teeth together, closed my eyes and hoped that it would be quick.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” His voice was calm and low with a gravelly tone. “I’ll repeat this as many times as I need to, but the sooner you listen to me and understand me, the sooner I can let you up.”

  There was a pause, almost like he was waiting for me to reply, even though I quite obviously couldn’t.

  “My name is Holt Altham. I know you’re thinking that I’m here to hurt you but I’m not. Yes, I was there that night but I wasn’t the one that wanted to hurt you. My only intention was to help you. Do you hear me?”

  There was a pause and then I nodded my head as best I could. Yes, I’d heard him but I didn’t believe him.

  “I know you probably don’t believe me so I’m going to tell you why I’m here. I know that you’re different. I saw that night that you’re faster and stronger than most people and I’m sure there are other differences too. Better vision? Hearing? The way you affect people? There are reasons for it all and that’s why I’m here, because I want to help you understand.”

  My stomach clenched. He’d just listed everything that I’d spent my entire life trying to hide. I had a horrible feeling I knew what was coming. The other guy that night had told me what he... we were, but I’d spent the last three years trying to forget it.

  For as long as I could remember, I’d been careful not to let anybody get close enough to see the occasional moments when I slipped up and lifted something that I shouldn’t be able to, or heard the postman coming when he was still four houses away. I’d never seen anybody who was like me until that night when I’d met Holt and the other man. They’d both been stronger and faster even than me. I also knew what else I’d seen that evening and, although I’d tried to tell myself over and over again that I was just imagining things, I knew deep down that I’d seen fangs and impossibly black eyes.

  My breathing grew shaky and my thoughts took over. I’d spent so long pushing all these memories away to the back of my mind where I hoped they’d fade or, one day, just slip away.

  I was more like Holt than anybody else I’d ever met. I shared impossible qualities with him that nobody else I knew had. No, I’d never sprouted fangs and my eyes were blue rather than black, but I had more in common with this... I couldn’t finish the sentence. I knew what word I thought I should finish with but it seemed so ridiculous that I couldn’t even bring myself to say it in my head.

  “Faine.” Holt’s voice snapped me back to the moment. My heart pounded as I realised that, somehow, he’d managed to find out both my name and address. “I’m going to let you up now. Please don’t try to run or scream because I’d much rather we had this conversation like civilised people.”

  He moved his hand from my mouth then, after waiting a few moments to make sure I kept quiet, he slowly moved away from me. I leapt up so that I was standing about five feet away from him and then I stopped, unsure of what to do. Part of my brain was yelling at me to run or scream even if it did seem pointless, but the larger part of my brain was telling me that he could have easily killed me by now and he hadn’t; maybe there was a tiny possibility that he was telling the truth.

  We stood facing each other, both trying to re-evaluate the situation. He didn’t look scary now, no fangs, and his eyes were hazel, but I knew what I’d seen that night. I thought of a million things to say but none of them seemed right. He broke the silence.

  “I’m sorry about that, I really am, but there was no other way to get you to listen to me.”

  I wanted to scoff at his comment but again words failed me. My mouth must have eventually tired of silence because I finally spluttered, “What am I?”

  Well, wasn’t that the million dollar question? Holt’s face changed from tense to soft, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly how it had happened. I’d have guessed him to be somewhere around his early thirties but the wisdom-filled look he was giving me seemed like it belonged to somebody much older. The line of his mouth didn’t alter; there were no wrinkles in his perfect smooth white skin. I realised it had been merely an alteration of his hazel eyes that had caused the change. Whereas they had looked hard and intense, the look had melted into something more like... pity. As I realised what the expression was, my already clenched stomach lurched in a way that made me grateful I hadn’t eaten in a while.

  “What am I?” I asked again, surprised by the steely tone in my voice. That ridiculous word came back to me and repeated over and over in my head. I didn’t care how stupid it sounded, I’d read enough books and seen enough films to know what fanged monsters were supposed to creep around at night and, if that’s what he was, then that’s what I was too. Different.

  “Tell me!” I shouted, and this time I couldn’t keep the quiver from my voice.

  “I’m a vampire,” he said. “And I believe you’re half-vampire.”

  Chapter 3

  There it was, that word. The same thing the other man had told me and now Holt was confirming it. He’d just stood there and told me that he was a vampire, like it was a completely normal thing to say.

  “Oh my God.”

  I needed to sit down. Getting to the living room seemed like an impossible task so I leant back against the wall and sank down on the floor, resting my head on my bent knees. A stirring of the air was the only sign that Holt had moved and, when I lifted my head, I saw that he was sitting against the wall opposite me, but instead of huddling up in a
ball like I was, he was resting his elbows on his own bent knees. The casual position seemed at odds with the white shirt and black trousers that he was wearing. I knew nothing about fashion or designer names but it was clear that his outfit probably cost more than my monthly rent.

  “You’re eyes aren’t black and you don’t have...” I couldn’t bring myself to say fangs so instead I just vaguely pointed at my own front teeth.

  “They only show in states of heightened emotion, usually we just look normal.”

  Despite the situation, I smiled. I wouldn’t ever have described Holt as normal. I had no idea if it was a trait of being a vampire or if it was just Holt, but there was something about him that stood out. It was nothing in particular but, at the same time, it was everything. Maybe it was just because I knew what he was now, but it suddenly seemed so obvious.

  I believed him, maybe not about everything but I believed that he was a vampire. It should have taken me longer to get my head around it; I should have been thinking there was a crazy person in my apartment but I wasn’t.

  Growing up as a child I’d thought my differences were down to some freak genetic anomaly, but the night I was attacked it had all become so clear. Hundreds of times I’d tried to come up with a logical reason for what I’d seen but there wasn’t one. If it had just been the black eyes and the fangs that I’d seen then maybe I could have put it down to contacts and false teeth, it would have seemed strange but I could have believed it was some freaky cult thing. It had been the speed and the strength that had pushed me over the edge. They had been different too and that was what I couldn’t ignore. It had been easy to put the pieces together and, although the final picture seemed crazy, I’d had three years of it sitting at the back of my mind, so Holt saying it out loud came as more of a relief than a shock.

  “What would you do if I tried to run?” I asked.

  “I’d stop you,” Holt replied simply. “All I want is for you to hear me out, listen to what I have to say and then I promise, if you never want to see me again, you don’t have to.”

  He looked like he genuinely meant it. I wasn’t so sure but, really, what choice did I have?

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  Holt considered his answer for a moment. “I want to help you.” He paused, thinking his answer over carefully. “I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you all these years, when you’ve had to pretend that you’re something that you’re not, but I want to help you understand it all.”

  I gave a disbelieving snort. “What? You get your kicks out of finding confused supposed half-vampires like me and helping us come to terms with what we are, so that we can finally fit into the world?”

  Again I got a piteous look; I was starting to get sick of them already. “There are no other half-vampires.”

  “What? How can that be?”

  “Well, your father would have been a vampire and your mother human. In vampire law, it’s forbidden for a vampire to impregnate a human woman. They can have a relationship, but he must not make her pregnant. But that’s what must have happened with your parents.”

  That statement itself created a whole new bunch of questions that I wanted to ask about both vampires and my parents. I was going to have to start writing them down.

  “So you’re telling me, that law has never been broken before?”

  Holt gave a shrug that indicated a yes but I had a feeling there was more to it than he was telling me. I made a mental note to bring it up again later and carried on with my list of questions.

  “You said there’s a vampire law; does that mean that there are a lot of you?”

  “About a thousand currently in the UK.”

  “So many? And you’re all just living normal lives without anybody realising what you are?” I was aware that I was saying “you” instead of “we” but I was past caring.

  “Yes, for the most part,” Holt answered.

  I shook my head in disbelief and let my head drop back against the wall with a small thud. It felt strange that, out of everything I’d learned in the last couple of minutes, I was less surprised that I was a vampire, or rather a half-vampire, and more surprised that there were not only so many of them in England but that they looked like Ralph Lauren models. I mean, from my previous experience, I’d learned that they didn’t run around in white waistcoats and black capes but I’d expected something a little more supernatural than the man who was sitting across from me.

  “Who’s Ben?” Holt asked, breaking what had stretched into quite a long silence.

  “What?” my brain was so occupied that the name barely even registered.

  “Ben,” Holt repeated. “When you came home you were shouting at somebody named Ben.”

  “Oh, right.” I finally caught on. “He’s nobody, just some kid that lives down the hall. When I saw the door open I thought he’d broken in again.”

  “Again?”

  “Yeah, little bugger has nothing better to do all day than break in and try to find more cash to steal.”

  “He stole from you? Why don’t you change the locks or call the police?”

  I hesitated, unsure why Holt was so bothered about my locks. “You should be grateful that my landlord won’t let me put a dead bolt on the door. It would have stopped you breaking in.” I said with a pointed look. I didn’t care if he was here for supposedly good reasons, he’d still broken in and that meant he was in no position to judge.

  “Ah, yes, I really am sorry about that. I knew what your reaction would be when you saw me and so I wanted to make sure that, when we met, it was in private.”

  “Okay,” I said, “but that still doesn’t explain why you were lurking around my bedroom.”

  “I was hardly lurking, I was just looking,” Holt replied with a hint of indignation in his voice.

  “Oh, just looking? Well, that’s alright then, I mean there’s absolutely nothing wrong with breaking into someone else’s home and just looking through their things!”

  “No, I didn’t mean that.” Holt looked shocked. “I wasn’t going through your things; I was just looking because I wanted to make sure this was the right place. I was trying to see if you had any photos up or something with your name on it. I just didn’t want to scare the wrong person.”

  I gave a twisted smile. “Nope, you just scared the hell out of me.”

  Holt gave me an apologetic look which somehow meant more to me than a worded apology.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  Holt looked like he was considering his answer. I waited patiently, curious to hear what he had to say. Since the day I had run away from Mary’s, I was careful not to leave a paper trail that could lead someone to me. I’d taken every precaution possible, so I knew that Holt must have really wanted to find me, if he’d tracked me down here in Hull.

  “All vampires have the basic abilities like strength and speed but, when we reach a certain age, we each develop something extra. For some, it’s the ability to hear people’s thoughts, some can sense emotions, some have visions. I fall into the latter category. I have visions of the future and, last week, I had a vision of you and me sitting right here in this hallway. When I woke from that vision, I just knew where I’d find you.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “All-knowing visions, they must be pretty useful.”

  Holt didn’t miss the scepticism in my voice. “I understand that it must sound overly convenient to you, but ever since that night when I first saw you, I was intrigued by you. I wanted to find you and offer you what I’m offering you now, but there was no sign of you. It was like you just vanished. So although it may seem like I just had a vision and found you, I’ve been hoping to have that particular vision for years.”

  He had a valid point but it still seemed too easy.

  “So you already know how this conversation is going to go?” I asked.

  “No,” Holt answered. “I knew that I’d find you here and that I’d have this chance to talk to you, but I don’t know any more t
han that. The visions are very similar to dreams, giving images and impressions but that’s it.”

  “Is that how you knew my name as well?”

  “No, I learned that back on that night when you first saw me. I came back to find you after I chased down your attacker. It wasn’t difficult to find out your name, you were all that anyone could talk about. When I learned that you’d left, I tried to find out where you might have gone, but nobody knew.”

  “Why were you there that night? Why was he there?” I asked and the question felt heavy coming off my tongue. That thought had echoed around my mind for three years. As much as I had tried to forget the whole ordeal and put it behind me, that question being unanswered had weighed on me more than I’d ever realised, until now.

  “I don’t know who it was that attacked you. When I fought the other guy, it turned into a kill or be killed situation, so I killed him.”

  A long shaky breath left me and such a sense of relief washed over me that I even felt tears prick my eyes. It bothered me that I’d never know who he was or the reason for his attack, but knowing I no longer had to be scared of him finding me was immense. Maybe now even the nightmares would stop.

  “Thank you,” I said to Holt, thinking that the words barely seemed to convey my gratitude. “But that still doesn’t explain why you were there in the first place?”

  “It was a coincidence really. I was driving through your village after visiting a friend who lives in a nearby town and I sensed another vampire was close. It’s not often that you find a vampire in such a small place, it makes it harder for them to keep themselves concealed. On gut instinct, I pulled over and was walking towards your house when I heard you scream. It was when I saw you running and noticed how fast you were, and the fact that you were carrying that woman despite how small you are, that I knew you must be half-vampire.”