I screamed out as a need grew inside me like nothing I'd never experienced. It resembled hunger but was a thousand times worse, an ache for something I couldn't fathom. I became frantic, clawing at the top of my prison and this time, the wood broke. And not just broke, shattered, sending a thousand jagged shards tumbling down onto me. It was still dark, but no earthy grave crashed onto me as I'd expected, so I reached upwards, my fingertips grazing metal. Metal that burned like acid. I flinched away, screeching like a banshee. I became wild, flailing, destroying every inch of the coffin except the panel of wood beneath me. And thank god I hadn't destroyed that because the larger metal box surrounding me singed my skin, untouchable with my naked hand.
I tried to scream for help, but all that came out was as an animal-like screech. My voice was strangled by the need in my throat, crushing my windpipes until I thought I'd be driven mad by it.
Light burned my eyes as the lid above me opened, a mechanical whirring sounding as it did so.
Then I smelt it.
I didn't know what it was, but I knew it was the thing I needed to quench this unbearable thirst. Something metallic and sweet at once.
I dove upwards at incredible speed, launching out of the metal coffin into a small room. Two people stood before me, and I knew with a primal instinct, that they had what I needed. I couldn't register what they looked like, if they were male or female, all I knew is that I had to reach the source of sustenance they possessed.
My feet padded across white tiles at such speed, that everything around me became a blur. Too late, I noticed the bars. I hit them before I could stop myself and my skin burnt right off the bone.
I reared backwards, dropping to the ground, cradling my wounds, curling up into a ball.
One of the people spoke, a man, a voice I thought I recognised but couldn't place. “Keep her starved for another day. I want to evaluate her tolerance in comparison to the others.”
“Yes sir,” a girl replied. Their voices rang in my head like their mouths were right next to my ears. And as I listened, more sounds reached me. The smack of footsteps on a concrete floor, the shriek of hungry Vs, the rattle of chains, close and faraway at once. I trembled, cupping my marred arms, gently peeling my hands back to assess the damage. Miraculously, the pain was absent; perhaps my shock was numbing my senses. But when I removed my hands, the bubbling blisters I expected to find weren't there. I sat up straight, turning my arms back and forth, checking every inch of myself. Clean, white skin. No cuts, no burns, nothing.
I lifted a hand to my aching throat, squeezing to try and ease the unbearable pain clawing at my oesophagus.
“Just wait till you taste it,” a voice sounded from beside me.
I snapped around, my head wheeling so fast that I had to blink to clear my vision. A girl sat in the barred cage next to mine. Short, dark hair hung about her shoulders, loose from the usual ponytail she wore.
“Kite?” I rasped in disbelief, moving closer; it seemed as easy to crawl as it did to walk.
She turned to me, smiling darkly, baring her teeth. My mouth parted in horror at the sight of her sharpened canines, her gaunt, hollow cheeks, her deathly pale skin.
“You- you're-a-” I stuttered, cupping my hands to my mouth in terror.
“Dead? Hungry? A Vampire? Take your pick.” Kite smirked, moving toward the bars parting us with a cat-like grace. “And you're not looking all that alive yourself, puppy.”
I clapped my hands to my mouth, brushing my thumbs across my canines and slitting them open immediately.
“No,” I breathed, shaking my head. Then I screamed, dropping my head back and wailing my heart out, never growing breathless, never growing tired, only thirstier than I'd ever been in my entire life.
Varick
“Someone's having fun,” Jameson remarked dryly as the sound of a newborn V's screams carried to us.
“I don't know what it's like to turn into a Werewolf, but changing into a V is hell,” I said, turning my ear away from the panicked screams.
“At least you're done with that pain. I have to go through it every time I turn. Plus, I have to buy new clothes, like...all the bloody time.”
My mind was growing hazy from being drained. Ignus had been merciless, torturing me over and over until I'd used all my energy to heal myself and been left in desperate need for blood again. The harsh rake of claws on the inside of my throat was a constant reminder of what I'd become if I was left in this cage too long without it.
“Tell me about when you were turned,” I said, my throat hoarse. I pushed back against the wall, shutting my eyes, centering my thoughts.
“Like I said...when we get out of here,” Jameson muttered. There was something hidden in his tone: pain, perhaps. Whatever it was, he wanted to keep it from me a while longer. But in the past, Jameson had always confided in me, even if it took a few bottles of rum to up his courage to do so.
I kept my eyes shut, groaning my agony as I knocked my head against the stone wall. It was eight feet thick with a shield of silver four feet in. There were only two ways out of this cell: the gate or through the tunnel beneath the silver plate at the far corner. The hatch that would automatically slide aside when the Helsings started another game, giving me access to the island.
“Missed opportunity to tell me,” I muttered. “'Cause I'm not getting out of here.”
“So you keep saying,” Jameson drawled.
Footsteps pounded down the hall and the retort died on my lips.
Ignus appeared with a clipboard clamped in his hand and two strong-looking men in white overalls flanking him. He tapped the clipboard with a pen. “Move this one to A3.”
“What?” Jameson curled his hands into fists. “I'm not going anywhere.”
I dragged myself to my feet to get a better look, trying not to seem too interested. In the cell beside me, I was given the disturbing view of a starved V gnawing on his own hand.
I moved toward the bars, cautious to keep my skin away from the silver.
“Move back,” Ignus instructed, unlocking Jameson's cage with a swipe of his key card. The door buzzed harshly and slid aside. Both men moved into action. One grabbed his arm, distracting him whilst the other jammed a needle into his neck.
I bit my lip, not wanting to give away our friendship.
Jameson made a very dog-like whimper as he crumpled to his knees, his eyes going blank in seconds.
My pulse skyrocketed.
Ignus shot me a glance as the two men dragged Jameson down the corridor, their arms hooked under his so his bare feet slid across the floor.
“Varick.” He furled a brow, amused by me. “Not looking too peaky today, my friend.”
“I'm not your friend,” I snarled, my neck tensing with the thirst. Beneath the garlic oil and the lavender soap was the intoxicating scent of his blood, reaching to me like a wave rolling over my tongue.
“No, but I miss having you around all the same.” Ignus sneered and I knew he was mocking me. For once, he wasn't afraid of me, leering through the silver bars where he was safe.
Coward.
“How about you let me off with a warning?” I mustered some of my old wit, not wanting him to see me desperate. But I was; my throat was raw with the need to drink. My humanity was balancing on a fine wire, the threads snapping one by one.
Ignus chuckled his irritating laugh, moving closer to the lever that could rain down hell on me. He placed his palm on it, his ice-blue eyes taking in my reaction. I stiffened but didn't move. Terror shredded my insides. One flick of that switch and I'd be in hell.
“Go on,” I urged, trying to bluff him. “Do it.”
Ignus shifted closer to the bars, his lips twisting up into a smile. “I'm training a new V. A pretty one. She likes the scraps I feed her. She's grateful, unlike you.” His chest nearly pressed to the bars and I knew a well-aimed thrust of my arm could rip his heart out. But as usual, his death would equal my own. And I was still undecided on whether to end it all or not. I
at least had to see Jameson out of here. And news of Selena...I needed that, too.
My fingers twitched as I closed the space between us by a metre.
“New Vs aren't going to have the self control I do,” I said, but of course he knew that. He just wanted me to beg to have my position back. It wasn't going to happen.
He tapped his chin. “This one's special.”
The word 'special' twisted my gut in knots for reasons beyond my comprehension.
“Dark hair...a real beauty. Pity she was such a rebel as a human.”
My heart thumped for what felt like the first time in days. He didn't have Selena. She hadn't been turned. He was messing with me, he had to be. His eyes darted back and forth between mine, assessing my reaction.
“Who?” I spat, but I knew I'd given away my fear as Ignus's expression lit up like a Christmas tree.
He laughed again before saying, “You give me too much credit, V. I wouldn't turn that wretched girl if I had her. I'd spill her guts and make you watch.” He rammed his fist against the lever. A ticking, crackling sound filled the air for half a second before the lights above my head flooded on. I had a split second to register that he didn't have Selena. And despite the fact I was about to be baked alive, I took comfort in that.
The sunlamps glared down on me and I choked out a cry. My knees hit the floor as I tried to shield myself, lifting my arms above my head as my skin bubbled and boiled. My heart kick-started amidst the agony and there was a new sensation: life. I sucked in a lungful of the stagnant, dungeon air, then at once released it.
The sunlamps stuttered out and I gasped, shuddering as my body tried to heal itself, using the last of my energy to do so. This would drain me quicker; another reason the Helsings used the lamps. A V could be exhausted, using every drop of blood that remained in them to heal themselves.
I rested a hand against my heart, most of my clothes now burnt to ash around me on the floor.
Tha-thump...tha-thump...thump...
Then nothing. I was drained, done for, lost. My cheek pressed against the icy floor and I felt an eternity of nothingness invading me. The small sparks of life that had remained in my body extinguished one by one. Dusk closed in until all that remained was thirst and the loss of something I couldn't quite recall.
“Not yet,” a voice reached to me and something clinked as it bounced across the stone floor.
A vile of blood rolled into view. I snatched it up, downing the measly helping and gazing up at Ignus with a question in my eyes.
Why?
“I want you aware of the next few days.” He grinned evilly and I tried to understand his motivations.
“Why do you hate me?” I rasped out, unsure if I wanted to know the answer.
Ignus seemed to genuinely consider his answer. “I don't hate you,” he said, surprising me. “But I do enjoy punishing you. I want to see how far you can be pushed. How it will feel when I break you.”
I smiled and Ignus looked genuinely disconcerted by my reaction. “You can't break what's already broken.”
He walked away with a scowl on his face. The way I felt now reminded me of when I'd first been changed. My first drop of blood. How it had tasted like the sweetest thing in the world.
Spring, 1804
Nirena. Her hair was a lush sea of golden browns, her eyes deepest grey. Nirena the V. The Vampire who had turned me.
I expected death to be cold, but at first it was pure fire living in my bones. A new kind of life took hold of me, one where pain only seemed to exist in the form of thirst. My throat ached for something I couldn't comprehend. And waking to that new hell was confusing for a man who had never believed in myths or legends. But there I was, a newborn Vampire, with all the attributes my tale-spinning crewman, Pud, had described.
“Bitter sweet.” Nirena was there when I woke. I'd been buried in a coffin several feet beneath the ground. I'd clawed my way to the surface, dragging my body from the earth with so much strength it frightened me.
“What?” I panted, gazing up at the crescent moon, glinting down from a clear sky. It was early spring, a glittering frost clung to the grass, but I couldn't feel the cold. My heart felt encased in ice though; my emotions were out of reach. I couldn't quite grasp anything human but the need to drink. Something...particular.
“It's bitter sweet, the transformation from man to Vampire.” Nirena was perched on a headstone, her legs curled up beneath her with all the balance of a cat. Her thin, black dress was corseted and much too thin for weather like this. “Your gifts are strength, persuasion, immortality. But the curse...oh Varick you do not yet know of the curse.”
I rose to my feet, steady where I should have been shaking. My body felt powerful, more than I knew how to handle. Every part of me was solid, unbreakable. But my throat was agony.
“The curse?” My voice was different, deeper, stronger. The voice of my father; a man who had always known what he wanted, never faltering and all-powerful. I looked at my hands, assuring me I was still the same person. Thankfully, they still belonged to me; calloused from my time with a sword, steering a ship, and a hard life of labour on deck.
Nirena slipped off of the grave, approaching me on tip-toes, her bare feet having no place in a wintry graveyard. She curled a finger under my chin, looking me over like livestock she was considering purchasing.
“The curse will eat you from the inside out. You will, for a time, enjoy the freedoms gifted to you in your new form. But it won't last.” She clutched her pale neck, pain darting through those beautiful large eyes.“You will want to be human again.”
I cleared my throat, trying to shift the pain in it, wondering if I was dreaming. But I remembered Nirena coming to me at Rockfleet Castle. With a jolt, I gripped her arm. “My men. Tell me my crew are well.”
“There were casualties. I do not have reign over my allies. Though they tried their best to keep the slaughter to a minimum.”
Jameson. Of all my men, he had to have survived. “A man with braided hair. Blonde. His room was adjacent to mine.”
Nirena tilted her head. “Yes, he came to your quarters, moments after your death.” She let out a small laugh, running a finger over her arm. “He cut me. Not an easy feat. But that man has yet to see his potential.”
“He thinks I'm dead?” I asked, flat, but glad he was still alive.
“He thinks you are a Vampire. Which is what you are. I did not see the need to lie to him.” Nirena considered her words. “I believe he wished to follow you into death, but that is not the boy's fate.”
“What do you know of fate?” I glanced around the graveyard, trying to work out where we were. The names on the graves hinted that we were still in Ireland. But I didn't know this place. It was possible we'd travelled far from Rockfleet.
“Much more than you.” Nirena smiled, taking my hand. “Come, you must be hungry.”
“Thirsty,” I corrected, trying to swallow away the burning lump in my throat.
She laughed, but I didn't understand the joke. Vampires...what had Pud said about them?
Nirena tugged me into a run and before I knew it, we were sprinting so fast that the world rushed past me in whirlwind. I followed her closely, not wanting to fall, but my body seemed capable of moving at such speed. I never stumbled, never faltered at all.
When we halted, I wasn't breathless, my muscles didn't ache. It was as if I'd flown on the wind.
I rested a hand over my heart, but it barely seemed to beat at all.
Nirena led me up to an ancient church at the edge of the vast graveyard, its walls falling into ruin. The sea rocked and swayed beyond it and my heart thumped once in recognition of my love for it.
She led me beneath the church through a heavy iron door set into the ground, deep into a crypt lit by fire burning in brackets on the walls.
At the base of the steps was a large room that seemed to have been converted into a laboratory. An old tomb was being used as a bed where a male Vampire was laid out on a sheet. Bot
tles filled the shelves and books and scrolls occupied every other space. A female Vampire stood next to the one on the tomb, both of them looking up as I entered.
“Is it him?” the male asked Nirena hopefully, propping himself up on his elbows. He was stocky with sharp cheekbones and the kind of haircut the Royal Navy favoured.
“Yes, Dixon,” Nirena said. “And he's quite ravenous.”
The girl with her strawberry blonde curls moved to an iron chest, lifting the lid. She produced a bottle of red liquid and the moment she opened it, I lost control.
Lunging at her, the intoxicating smell of whatever was in that bottle made me want to tear limbs off just to get close to it.
The girl didn't put up a fight as I snatched the bottle and downed every drop of the contents. My mind, which had previously seemed weighted, became light. For a moment I thought I was waking from this nightmare, to find myself warm in a bed in Rockfleet Castle. My friend Kaitlin would have breakfast waiting for my crew and I.
I parted the bottle from my lips, facing my reality.
“Better?” Nirena asked and the other Vampires laughed.
“What was that?” I asked, frightened that I already knew the answer.
“Blood,” Dixon said, holding out his hand to me as he dropped from the tomb. “Dixon, good to meet you. I hear you're a captain.”
“Yes...Varick.” I took his hand which was as cold as mine.
“I'm Harriet,” the girl said, smiling. There was something so young about her and yet her eyes were those of a sage.
I glanced at Nirena who moved further into the room with fluid grace. “Welcome to the Lifers, Varick. You're going to help progress our work.”
“How?” I frowned.
Nirena smiled. “Together, we're going to cure Vampirism.”
Jameson
I woke in wolf form. It took me a moment to register my paws as I brushed them against my face – no, not my face, my damn muzzle. Alright, being a wolf had its benefits. But not when I was locked god-knows-how-many-feet under ground in the Helsings' prison.
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