by Sam Hall
“And to look at her fated consort,” Kat said with a laugh. “We should’ve never allowed a member of the aristocracy to survive. It’s just cruel.”
“I made a promise to Ariana that at least someone would. Of course, she had no idea what that would’ve meant back then. I’d hoped Sasha would find something useful to do with herself, but she remains fixated.”
“You and the avatars,” Kat said with a shake of her head. “Sometimes I think you want to recapture some of what you had.”
“No, Sasha’s not the avatar,” Nathaniel said with a definite shake of his head.
Kat shrugged. Her brother was always prickly about this. Didn’t change the fact that he got involved with every damned one of the avatars, the relationships following the same stupid trajectory. She assumed this was the way it played out, this was Nathaniel’s role, no matter where they went, and the little lost princess wanted to be the latest manifestation of that.
“Enough of your love life,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’m glad you’ve found a soft place to land, even if it’ll prove to be short-lived. Now, tell me what’s going on with the Horde and that little pissant, Rohan.”
“There’s some blokes who’ve approached me looking for a safe space for their partners to have their kids without being sent to the Crèche.”
Kat shook her head. “We’ve done this a few times. I’m not sure how many more I can get the Council to take, especially if they turn out albino.”
“We need to come up with a better long-term solution, but…”
“I’ll ask,” Kat said with a sigh.
11
Lethe
Temple of Kai and Lyra
Ground Zero
The Quarter
“We have to go out,” I said, looking at the supplies in the box by the wall. “We’ve got no food, no milk, no coffee.”
“Let me have a look,” he said, walking towards me.
“No, no, stay away. You’ve got pants on, which is awesome, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to stop us fucking. Seriously, if you take one step, I’m out of here.”
“You act like I have no control,” he said with a smirk.
“We have no control, none whatsoever. We baked some old flour mixed with water last night rather than go out and get something palatable to eat.”
“Yeah, OK, I guess I can slide on my bike, your legs wrapped around me, the throbbing engine sending vibrations right through your...”
“Shut up! Just shut up. Oh gods, I’m going to have an orgasm on the back of your bike, aren’t I?”
Which is how we found ourselves out the front of the nearest store, me jumping from one foot to the other. “Just run in and get lots, like heaps of food, with enough calories to get us through the next few days.”
“Heaps of food, lots of calories, gotcha. You OK?” Nathaniel said.
“No, I didn’t come, thankfully. That would just have been embarrassing but I’m kinda wishing I did.” I burrowed into the shelter of his arms, breathing the sandalwood and smoke scent of him deep into my lungs. “But my clit aches and there’s this horrible emptiness inside me…” My description was abruptly cut off by a hand across my mouth. His hazel eyes bore into mine, softened by a small smile.
“You keep talking like that and I’ll yank your jeans down and bury myself in you, right here in the car park like I should’ve this morning. I don't care if you frighten the shoppers away, I’ll have you screaming my name before the end.”
“Right, food, calories, go.”
He smiled and dropped one of those fleetingly sweet kisses lovers do and I congratulated myself when I didn't drag him back to do just as he’d described. Instead, I settled against the bike, trying to finger comb some order into my wild locks. I should’ve asked Nathaniel to grab a brush as well, I realised. You’ll be dead before it matters, my mind pointed out helpfully. I looked around at the ruins of what would’ve been middle-class housing before the Revolution. So I would.
It occurred to me that it should upset me, that I should be midway through the stages of grieving by now, but I couldn't muster the energy. Instead, I felt a quiet, insistent simmer of happiness sitting low in my gut. I hated for life to end but for once, I felt like I had enough. Enough pleasure, enough fun, enough companionship, enough touch. I don't kid myself that Nathaniel loved me or vice versa. I don't think I’d ever dared to dream of such a thing. But the time we’d spent together was so much more than I’d anticipated for my life; I was somehow satisfied that it would end in a couple of days.
If I wasn’t doomed I’d begin to think, then worry about the future. If I wasn’t doomed, I’d begin to have hope. If I wasn't doomed, I’d have to worry about how to integrate Nathaniel in with my life and the boys or if I even wanted to. If I was safe, I’d have to look him over for signs of where this was going and decide how I felt about it. Instead, I was in a perfect place, able to surrender wholly to the moment and experience fully the pleasures there. I was going to let Nathaniel feed from me, I realised. Why would I deny either of us that pleasure? I realised then I was as free as I was ever likely to be in the Quarter.
Which was perhaps why the next thing happened.
“Lethe?” I looked up to see the familiar black car pull up, Bennett out of it before it even rolled to a stop, Gavin hastily parking alongside the road. “Thank the gods, it’s you. We’ve been going out of our minds!” Bennett said. Gavin scrambled out of the car, running over to where we stood.
“Whose bike is this?” Gavin said, his eyes raking over it.
“Morning, boys,” a familiar deep voice said from behind me. “Everything OK here?”
Their eyes jerked upwards, hands straying to weapons. “Boys, wait,” I said.
“Him?” Gavin said, his eyes going wide. “You’ve been with him? We’ve been scouring the Quarter. You only have two days...”
“You reek of him,” Bennett said, his nostrils flaring. “You’re saturated with his scent.” They moved as one as I’d always suspected, Gavin pulling a gun from its holster, Bennett yanking a bloody great big knife from his boot.
“Guys,” I said, moving into their path. “Guys!”
“Get out of the way, Lethe,” Bennett growled, ducking around me.
“Stop right fucking now!” I snarled. Amazingly, they did.
“That should’ve been us if it was anyone,” Gavin said, pacing. “It’s always been us, always!”
“Like the first white you fed from? The first one you fucked? Was that supposed to be me?”
“If it could’ve been safely, it would have. We put off feeding for ages, trying to show we had the control, but we were so damned hungry. I still see the face of the girl who’s throat I ripped out,” Bennett said. “You can’t blame me for not wanting that to be you.”
“I’m not blaming you for anything. If that's what this is, you have my blessing and can go. This wasn't about us. For once, it was just about me. I wasn’t drowning in memories and bonds, history and obligation. I just was. I was free.”
I saw their eyes flick, searching, looking for some way through this, some way to make it work like they always had. They were nothing if not loyal, something that I’d always loved them for.
Love, I considered the word. A great insidious spider of a thing, a cage we willingly sought to lock ourselves into. My heart ached for the pain etched on their faces. I did love them, had always loved them, had wanted to find a way where we could be together without sacrificing so much of each other there was nothing left to share. We’d had it in those moments in the warehouse before they’d slipped away. What we had now was the constant reaching for and denial of that love.
I looked back at Nathaniel, waiting there, his mysterious blank expression had returned. I was never free, it’d just been an illusion I’d been keen to perpetuate, the skin hunger we experienced enough to make the lie convincing. “I have to go with them,” I said and he just nodded, hefted the box of supplies up into his arms and then tying
it onto the bike.
“You know where I am if you need me,” he said. I dropped my head and waited until I heard the roar of the motor kick over and felt the movement of air that indicated the bike had been driven away. Once it was gone I moved to the car, pulling away when Bennett tried to steer me to the front seat. He let me take my place in the car, alone. When we arrived at the house I walked inside, my head feeling like it was stuffed full of cotton wool. No sound, no sensation, no feeling could get through. I walked up the stairs, the boys following hot on my heels and stopped outside of the bathroom door.
“I need some clean clothes, something warm I can sleep in,” I said.
“Got it,” Bennett said and walked down the hall to my room.
I left the door to the bathroom open, Gavin stood in the doorway as I peeled off my stale clothes. We both stared at my naked body in the mirror. My hands were broad palmed and long-fingered. My hair was an uneven fall of white that stopped just above my breasts. My body was so, so pale, shadows seemed to be reflected back rather than absorbed by it. I felt Gavin’s eyes on me as I stepped under the hot water of the shower, even the heat unable to bring a blush to my skin. I looked into the dark of his eyes when I finished, rubbing the towel filled with his scent all over my damp body. Bennett had returned with the clothes. My body brushed past Gavin’s as I moved to stand between them and dress in his offerings. We walked down the hall in tandem, I opened the door to their room and we all slipped in, silent as ghosts. I pulled back the covers as they shed their leather and weapons, coming to the bed barefoot and in soft thermals and jeans. They slipped under the blankets on either side, the bed giving way with a low sigh.
What we wanted, to get back what we’d lost, was no longer possible. The tracer in my shoulder put paid to any ideas of a future where we worked through the hurts of the past and found a compromise we could live with. So, what did we have?
I turned to face Bennett, my original golden boy. I touched the side of his face, dragged my hand down the rasp of his stubble to graze my knuckles against the softness of his lips. He drew my hand closer, placing a single gentle kiss upon it. A thousand memories came to me of him. Of fighting like devils against the other kid gangs who would hurt us, of patching scraped knees, of sobbing in my arms when a puppy had died, of laughing in the summer sun as we rode some clapped out bikes down a hill. His eyes flicked, meeting one eye, then the other, searching my face for some kind of explanation of my weird mood. I didn't know what was going on. I felt like a penitent, seeking to absolve herself of her sins before she headed off to ceremonial slaughter.
I left my hand in his when I turned over to face Gavin. His was smooth to the touch, the smile lines etched permanently now even though his expression was solemn. I pushed my thumb inside the side of his mouth, he frowned as I dragged it quite deliberately across the sharp tine of his fang, it hurt a bit at first but the symbiote soon turned it into a lovely warm burn. He was always the harder, more brittle one. Ready to pull away before risking getting hurt. Quicker to anger, more likely to act. I shifted into a seated position, cocking my head as Gavin’s mouth closed around my thumb and he began to suckle. This wasn't so bad, I thought, as I offered my wrist to Bennett. They, we, needed so much from each other but found it so hard to give it. It made my sternum ache, that difficulty. They were right in a way, I was a limited commodity, a finite resource and they’d worked hard to deserve their share.
“Feed,” I said, pushing my wrist towards Bennett. He went to say something, to argue but I was done talking. “Feed.”
My bones lost their ability to keep me upright as Bennett’s mouth closed over the wound he’d made. Gods, I thought as I fell back on the bed, now it all makes sense. Nathaniel had talked about the sensuous dark undertow sucking us both under, but it paled in comparison to this. I could no longer feel the clothes on my skin, the bed supporting my body. Instead, I was pleasure. Boom, boom boom! The sound of my heart thundering in my ears kept me anchored in a sea of red. Cell-like shapes jerked and twisted before my eyes as the fire spread. I was slipping, tightening, slickening, budding, parting, surrendering. I was at the Ladder of the Gods. A woman appeared before me, pale as a ghost except for the elaborate black rim of kohl around her eyes. She twined her arm through the rungs of the Ladder, then reached out for me with her other hand. She smiled as she cupped my chin, her teeth ragged and sharp as a shark’s. “See you soon.”
12
Lethe
Gavin and Bennett’s house
Vampire Sector
The Quarter
My remaining days were spent feeding and being fed. They wanted more, I could feel the hard thrust of their cocks against my thigh, the frantic push of their bodies against mine. “On the last day,” I promised, unable to go that step further yet, then offered them my wrists. They hungered for me and it left me feeling cold. Choice wasn’t a common currency in the Quarter, so its rarity made me long for it. I’d felt obligated to come to them, obligated to demonstrate my love for them by feeding them and obligation didn’t make me slick between my thighs. Because they were taking so much blood from me, in small, manageable donations, they were then forcing me to eat all the time to replenish. What was left unspoken was they needn’t have bothered. I’d be dead, one way or the other, so what if the act was completed by those that loved me, rather than an impersonal little chip in my shoulder?
The day we were supposed to re-consummate our relationship I woke up in the very early hours of the morning. I slipped out from under the heavy weight of the boys, one grasping for me as I moved. “Just going for a piss,” I said and they fell still again. I went to the toilet and then dressed in my warmest clothes. I knew where I needed to be. Marley’s compulsion rode me hard despite the fact we weren’t going to seal the deal until sunset. Perhaps he knew that if he didn’t get me organised beforehand, I wouldn’t be there in time. I grabbed Gavin’s keys off the kitchen table and went outside to start the car. I wasn’t the most confident driver, having few opportunities, but somehow right now, I could do it. I didn’t turn on the headlights until I was clear of the house.
I wound my way through generic streets, each one dark and surrounded by clutter. Occasionally something would run out on the road, sometimes it would stay there and try and make me stop. I ploughed on. Go, go, go, my heartbeat urged. By the time I reached the cliffs beside the Isle of Talos the sun had just started to rise. I looked around for Marley, he wasn’t here yet. Maybe he wouldn’t turn up at all. For some reason, that didn’t matter. I looked at the chain-link fence, the massive heavy gate through which I could see the Isle, and began to climb.
It’s probably electrified at the top, my mind shrieked, booby-trapped or worse. It didn’t matter. The metal bars were smooth and difficult to get purchase on, my shoes slipping frequently. It didn’t matter. I got to the top and stopped for a moment, breathing in the air, feeling the sun on my face and then dropped over the other side. Once on the cliff edge and the wrong side of the fence, I toed off my shoes, pulling off my jacket automatically. I wouldn’t need them. When I was down to a thin t-shirt and a pair of undies I dived off. Below were many rocks thrusting up like spikes through the water, more under the water’s surface I was sure. Somehow, I landed in the sea, plunging into the dark ocean in a swirl of bubbles.
For a moment, I paused, the cold, blue depths peaceful despite the fact my oxygen would run out soon if I didn’t rise. I could feel the pull of the tides as I floated, shifting me against my will. I was at its mercy. Up, up, up, my heartbeat demanded as my chest grew tight and so up I went. Keeping my head above the gently lapping waves, I swam towards the island I’d only ever been to, heavily escorted, for Reunion. I pulled myself up on the pebbly shore, shivering, walking past the glass boxes of religious relics that created a circle around the Ladder. Each was supposed to have belonged to the gods themselves, used last time they walked the earth. A wide ring of paving stones surrounded the Ladder, that was where we used to perform, kept from the L
adder itself by a ring of soldiers around it. I smiled and quickly sketched a couple of the steps, something I’d had to do every year since I was a small child. There was no answering call inside me that said that was why I was here. No, my heart still urged, up, up, up. I walked over the stones, one reluctant step after the other, looking up at the sky, but it was still a reassuring pale blue. My hand reached out for the cold black metal.
Touching the Ladder was like when the boys fed from me: oblivion. My sense of body dropped away; all I was disappeared into a muzzy consciousness, vaguely aware I was moving up. Winds picked up as I climbed, I felt the shift of my body, the precariousness of my grip on the metal rungs as the forces of air fought me for purchase but up I went nonetheless. I climbed until my skin grew cold and I began to shiver. I climbed until my limbs began to shake with the effort. I climbed past the tangled skeletons of other climbers. I climbed until the blue of the sky faded away and was replaced by darkness. I climbed until the breath stopped coming in and out of my chest because there was no more oxygen to be had. I climbed until I found her. She hung from the Ladder, only tethered to it by one hand and one foot, the shark-toothed albino. “This is the point where I have to take over,” she said, her teeth glinting in the gloom. “If I can’t take over, if I can’t help you, you’ll die.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I croaked, my throat feeling like it was made from sand and gravel. “Dead anyway.”
“Perhaps,” she said with a wink and then climbed down towards me. She slipped into the space between me and the Ladder, hanging on to me instead. One hand rested gently on my waist, the other cupped my chin. “And what do we have here?” she said, then smiled impishly. “Let’s see!” She leaned closer and then she kissed me.