He shook his head.
‘Vampire obviously.’
‘And that’s the only possibility? Bernstein said …’ she swallowed hard. She’d worked it out now. ‘That the blood, Rachel’s blood was all there. None had been taken. Puncture wounds was all it said. Vampires can’t bite. No teeth.’ She was quiet a moment. ‘Surely it could be a human, trying to frame the vampires. It could be RAGE.’
Simon shrugged,
‘I doubt it. Not their style. They’re not murderers. All I do know is they’re using the credits records from the entry to get a list of all suspects.’
‘But that could be hundreds.’
‘It is hundreds. They’ve no idea about the weapon either – it would be impossible for a sucker to have got away with keeping his killer canines intact. They don’t know what time he was actually in the club, if he was still there when Rachel was found even. They think though, such a confident killer could have waited to see the results, if you like.’
‘Confident? Results?’
‘Yes. Taking the life of another in a public place, it’s hardly going to be some recluse, never been out before.’
‘But it wasn’t a public place. It was dark, crowded. No one takes any notice of anyone there. We’d not seen Rachel for ages, and we were meant to be her …’ her voice crumbled into a choke which almost swallowed her final word ‘friends.’
Simon reached across the table to take her hands, but she pulled them away to cover her face and muffle her sobs.
‘Emily …’
She raised her hand, and mercifully he was silent as she fought to regain control.
Once back within herself, she raised her eyes once more to see he’d begun typing again.
‘It’s done. It’s only a first draft. Bernstein will probably want me to tweak it a bit. Here – check it through, see if it’s okay by you. Let me know what you want to change.’
As she did so, Emily was surprised to feel so distant from what Simon had written. He’d given her words that showed the facts, but not shown her. He’d even only referred to her as ‘a source within the club’. She queried him on that.
‘That way no one will ever know it was you. Bernstein gets his interview and your friends won’t have to know anything. I presume that’s okay.’
It was. His courtesy spoke of what? His care for her or simply his professionalism as a journalist protecting a source? She nodded when she’d finished and handed the device back to him.
‘What now?’ she asked, watching him close down and then shrug his coat on.
‘Now, I take it to Bernstein, make any changes he wants and then it’ll go out in the special edition tonight.’
‘Oh.’ She nodded, made no attempt to move.
‘You need to go home. You look awful.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You know what I mean. You need to go home and sleep. I could …’ he hesitated, ‘I could come round tonight, if you want, keep you company.’
‘No.’ Her reply was camera flash quick. She should temper it with politeness. ‘No thanks, I mean.’ Her brain fumbled for the reason his quickly fading smile clearly demanded. ‘I’m going to Sadie’s. Yes. That’s right. I’ll probably stay over too. I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.’
‘As long as you’re not going to be on your own.’
Did he believe her? Did she care? Yes, she did. But she also knew that on her own was exactly where she wanted to be.
‘I’ll be fine, but,’ Simon had turned to go, but stopped and looked down at her. ‘If you hear anything, you know, about it, you will let me know?’ Emily asked.
He was silent a moment, then he dropped a kiss onto the top of her head.
‘Of course. Trust me.’
Emily watched his progress through the eatery, watched him move through the people, going in and out as if dancing to an unheard tune. She wondered at his final words. Trust me. Trust him? But what choice did she have? He’d lied for her, was still lying for her. He could probably lose his job for this. A guilt edged dagger stabbed at her insides. He was doing all that for her, and she’d just lied to him, rejected his offer of company. She allowed the knife to lacerate further. Trust him? It was the least she could do.
Would she sleep tonight? She wondered. Emily stared at the ceiling above the bed for a while, her duvet tucked tight around her. Her body was tired, she knew that, but would her sleep be stolen by flashbacks? She rolled over and shut her eyes.
She woke. Her clock said 2.30. Rachel had come first, not a flash back, but a dream, still dead, still that hideously slumped form – but then the dream had shifted to a bedroom. To Emily asleep. She had been viewing herself as an outsider, from a high corner of the room. She was not alone in the bed. A man was curled into the curves of her sleeping form. His arm was around her. It was a stranger. She zoomed closer. No. Not a stranger, but still a man with no name. A man, whose eyes, although shut, she knew were the colour of polished mahogany, with hair as dark as the bark of any tree. A man who was keeping her safe.
She stared at the clock, used the sweep of its second hand to slow her breathing and beat down the question most insistent in her mind. Who was he?
Thirty One
Lucas had come back home after work determined to carry out the task that lay before him.
Ignoring the messages that had been sent since he last turned his computer on, Lucas clicked into the folders that contained his photographs. He found the folder he wanted and tapped for the menu. His eye tracked down to ‘delete all contents’, but his finger betrayed him, refused to answer the command to delete her.
He knew he had to. He’d come too close to her to keep her image locked up any longer. She was real to him now. She had reached for him. He had touched her. They were linked. He couldn’t go back to her as pixels; she had too much life for that.
The Judas finger selected ‘open folder’. He shook his head as the images scrolled before him. Even if he flicked through them at top speed, or ran them together using movie software, it still wouldn’t bring her to life enough. To do that, he just shut his eyes and relived the grip of her fingers. Did his imagination add the heat that pulsed in his chest? Ignition at her touch.
There. That was the best one. He knew that now. She was tucking her hair behind her ear. A small frown of concentration was beginning to crinkle her forehead like a breeze whispering through silk. The curve of her mouth was just starting to half-moon into a smile. How he knew that this was really her from what little he’d seen in the club, how the horror of that situation translated into the perfection of this knowledge, Lucas didn’t know and didn’t really care.
He would allow himself this one at least – he clicked to send the photograph to the printer, adjusted sizes, paper, colour density – as if changing a percentage could bring her close again.
Once printed, he did delete the photos. Deleted them so totally that he knew he would not be able to get them back. One photo and what was seared into his head and heart was what he had now. He did not even bother to look at the picture as he retrieved it.
Crossing the room, Lucas stood before the shelving that held the boxes with the rest of his printed photograph collection. As ever his fingers were hesitant about alighting on the box on the top shelf. Was it appropriate for her to join the memories that inhabited that space in his life? His eyes narrowed. In some ways it would be more than fitting – his mystery girl had rescued him from himself on that E-Day after all. But…
But placing her there, in that particular box, meant opening it, meant taking the risk of eyes seeing what already resided there, and that still ripped at his heart too much. Closing his eyes for a second, he leant his head against the vertical metal shelf support.
No. She wasn’t going in there.
Opening a box on a lower shelf, he tucked the photo in amongst the others. If what was burned in his head ever began to fade, he knew where to look for her. She was safe.
Task done, Lucas flicked through the message
s on his computer. Nothing interesting. Nothing new on the news channels either, Rachel Buckingham was still an unsolved murder. A new article had appeared on the Entertainment Times website. Simon Jones interviewing a witness. Was it her? He scanned it. It could be her. It could be. He’d never know though, would he?
His skin itched. It felt too tight across his bones. He should feed. Squeeze it down and then what? Bed, he supposed, but that didn’t feel quite right somehow. He went into the kitchen.
The phone rang just as he was finishing. It was Gabriel.
‘Hi,’ Lucas began.
‘Hi. I’m guessing you’ve seen the news. About the club on Friday? What happened.’
‘Yes. Had you gone before they found the body?’
‘Had to. I suddenly needed my bed.’ Lucas heard the laughter jangle down the phone. Gabriel continued, ‘Did you see her, this Rachel whatever she’s called?’
‘Yeah. Sort of. Not a lot to see though.’
‘Do you think it was a vampire?’ Gabriel questioned. ‘The news is saying so, but I don’t see how it can be – no pointy little teeth for us.’
‘I didn’t see that close up. News claims puncture wounds as if bitten,’ Lucas replied, thoughts hurrying to her, blocking his view, reaching out to him.
‘That’s what I heard too,’ Gabriel said. ‘Do you think someone might actually have escaped the Dreaded Dentist?’
Unconsciously Lucas ran his tongue over his canines. When he’d first been fitted for his replacements, he’d been glad. It had only been hours after his change, he had still been whirlwind spun by the process and by the drug given to help forget it, still weak from his departure from the living world. Yes, he had been glad when someone had humanised him once more. He had welcomed the screech of the dentist’s drill, the tight, red-brown blood smell of his tooth as is it been filed into nothing. Two gaps. Too swiftly filled for him to probe with his tongue. Fake teeth, aged perfectly to match those that had already serviced him for thirty years of life. Why bother? he had wondered later. He would never have the need to chew his way through anything again. And then, he realised. A grown man, two tell-tale gaps? A vampire for certain.
‘I don’t know. Maybe. The Committee would know about it surely?’
‘I guess so,’ Gabriel agreed. ‘Could be a human with a weapon then?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lucas said. ‘Could be I guess.’
‘Maybe someone should pass that idea on to the Security Forces. Stop them coming after us.’
‘What do you mean?’ Lucas asked, rubbing his forehead. He was tired, yet Gabriel seemed full of energy. Hard day at the Gallery, no doubt.
‘Have you seen the RAGE site?’
‘RAGE?’
‘This is exactly what they want, Lucas. A mad killer vampire on the loose.’
Lucas’s brain ticked over. What Gabriel was saying was true. There were still people out there who would use this as a reason against their kind. His brain clutched at something,
‘I expect they’ll have forgotten all the vampires that have gone missing though. Bet there’s nothing on the site about that.’
‘There is actually. They love it that someone’s taking us out. There are tons. More than on the Security Forces site, or the newspapers – except the Entertainment Times.’
The word bit at Lucas. Us. Gabriel was so accepting of their status.
‘Do you think it’s revenge then? A vampire taking out a human?’ Lucas suggested.
‘I suppose it might be,’ Gabriel said.
He paused, but Lucas sensed there was more.
‘What was it like? Feeding from a human?’ There was a tremor in his voice. ‘I know they’re reporting that that didn’t happen, but still? All that blood …’ His words tailed off.
Nausea made Lucas’s insides swim. Only a remembered feeling, but enough to make him unsteady.
Continuing, Gabriel said,
‘I know you did, back when you were changed.’
‘Not through choice.’
‘Not for you maybe, but others did. It must have been so warm. Fresh. Tell me.’
Lucas did not reply. Did not care to go back there. Long ago, but never forgotten. And the tone of Gabriel’s voice. Was that envy?
Eventually, Lucas said,
‘That’s not how I remember it.’
‘But, you do remember it. I know you do,’ pushed Gabriel.
‘Yes.’
‘Come on, Luke. You know by the time I was changed, our first tastes came from the Donation Centre. Fresh but not pumping. Come on.’
Lucas sucked breath in. Swallowed the memory back down.
‘It wasn’t like it is now. The change. It wasn’t a glorious act, or however you see yours. Those first changes were desperate. Necessary.’
Lucas ran a hand over his face. Sighed.
‘After the three drops were forced into me, that was it. I refused to feed.’
‘Refused?’
‘Yes. Until I was made to.’
‘But, then?’
‘It was repellent.’ Lucas spat the words out. But that hadn’t been quite true. Yes, it had been forced on him. Yes, it had repelled him. And excited him. And at once satisfied and teased him into wanting more. Just recalling it now sickened him. And scared him.
‘That’s it,’ Lucas said. ‘I was made to do it. I hated it.’
‘Not everyone was like you though,’ Gabriel persisted.
‘No. No, they weren’t.’
Lucas would not be drawn further. He had no answer for his friend.
There was a moment’s silence, then Gabriel said,
‘Have you been called by the Security Forces? It said on NetNews that everyone who was in the club that night would be.’
‘Friday. Before I go to the office. All very convenient. How about you?’
‘Oh, I don’t go till next Monday. Midnight. Rather inconvenient for me actually. I’ve got a big show that night and I really could do without this.’
‘But you’ll still go?’
‘No choice.’
‘True enough. Let’s just hope they catch who did it,’ Lucas said.
‘Human or vampire,’ Gabriel added. ‘I’ll call you Saturday. See what the security forces asked you. Don’t want to mess it up.’
‘What do you mean? I don’t think you were even there when the body was found. I hadn’t seen you in a while at least.’
‘I was long gone. I’d got what I went there for,’ Gabriel laughed.
‘And her name was?’ Lucas tried to inject a note of genuine curiosity into his voice – when he thought about it, he was surprised that it had taken Gabriel this long to spill the details of that night’s conquest.
‘Caitlin. The blonde.’
‘Seeing her again?’
‘I doubt it. Fun for an evening. Although it made a pleasant change to go with one of us, rather than a human.’
‘Could be a match made in eternity then?’
‘No. Definitely not. Look I’ll call you Saturday. You can tell me all about the Security Forces interview and I can tell you all about Caitlin’s vitals then.’
‘Sounds like a really fair exchange to me. See you Saturday.’
Despite the jovial ending to their conversation, Lucas felt unsettled. Sometimes Gabriel was just what he needed to draw him out, but tonight, Gabriel’s questions had taken him back too far. To a time he didn’t want to remember.
Thirty Two
How gloriously satisfying. Such a fuss about one small, insignificant girl’s death.
I have kept quiet. Kept myself from you for a while. Time to reflect has given me fresh insight. And fresh inspiration.
And I know now that my method of delivering a beautiful death, a peaceful death, and, more importantly a quiet, unobtrusive death, works to perfection. And, of course, keeps everyone’s attention firmly fixed on the vampire community.
The only question that remains for me to ponder upon now is how long to wait before I create the n
ext sensation? Do I let this tidal wave of shock and grief recede from the shore or do I simply ride this crest that has been so brilliantly created?
Thirty Three
Emily kept her head down and her hood pulled very firmly up. Her hands were forced deep into her pockets and she strode with a determination that was supposed to keep the rain at bay. She was rapidly coming to the conclusion however, that all she was doing was actually driving the rain deeper into her layers. How could rain possibly feel worse than snow? Snow had to be colder by default surely? She shook her head.
Shook her head too, at the fact that she had almost forgotten the Donation appointment that she was now hurrying to. She never forgot. Still, with everything that had happened, maybe it was little wonder.
It was nearly a week since Rachel’s death; she still could not bring herself to use the word murder. Was she starting to feel better? Was everything getting back to normal? No. Of course it wasn’t. And yet, here she was, going about her business, all mundane from the outside. To anyone looking at her, she was just a normal woman, doing her normal things, stopping to donate on her way home from work. Little as she wanted singling out, she couldn’t help imagine a neon sign flashing above her head, advertising the fact that she was a friend of the dead girl. No. She didn’t want that, but normal still felt wrong too. And the world, of course, had begun to move on, to consign Rachel’s death to old news, not forgotten, nothing so disrespectful, but now, there was other news too. And pleas for donations. Levels had dropped sharply in the days after the murder. Club takings were down too, according to a few of her regulars. But, like the donations, as time turned, life stabilised and returned to normal.
Simon had, as ever, offered to accompany her. She had managed to put him off when she told him where she was headed. She’d seen a comment bubble below his surface and was surprised when he didn’t allow it voice. She knew what it would have been – something along the lines of: how could she, bearing in mind what a vampire, no he would have used the word sucker probably, how could she, bearing in mind what a sucker had just done to her friend?
Symbiosis: A Vampire Psycho-Thriller Page 15