by Alec Dunn
“Did you hear me, sweetie? I need blood, Tristan, or I’m going to die.” Lucretia hadn’t got any strength to speak above a straining whisper. “Help me, Tristan. I need blood, your blood.”
Tristan thought of his friend, Lucretia, the monster, dying, needing blood. He felt grief for Stephanie, his love, who he couldn’t help and he felt grief for Lucretia, his friend, who was dying and who he might be able to help.
“I need you, Tristan. Help me.”
Tristan wasn’t sure whether she was a monster or his friend, or if she could be both together, but they were close and she needed help. He was focused on her pain and the fact that she was dying. She needed him.
“Tristan, help me.”
Tristan knew Lucretia needed blood to live. It was instinctual. She needed to feed or she would die. He didn’t want his friend to die.
He had to help her.
It was the little finger on Tristan’s left hand that moved first, barely a twitch. Then all the fingers of his hand seemed to move together, folding into a rigid claw. His arm flopped across his body. It throbbed numbly and felt dead as though he had been sleeping on it.
He knew he was able to move when he rocked his body over onto his stomach to crawl, but moving was difficult.
The few feet to Lucretia were filled with pain. His limbs were heavy and unfeeling. His clumsy crawl was slow and crude, pain filled. Like a baby with no knowledge of how to control his own body he threw out arms, dragged and pulled, legs slid and pushed and slowly, inch by inch, he crossed the small distance, the great divide, between them.
With a final pull, he rested his head on Lucretia’s body. He was a drowned man washed ashore, beached and spent. He paused momentarily and felt the warmth of her beneath him, the shallow rise and fall of her chest with each failing breath.
He flung the dead weight of his arm across her face and could feel her nose and lips against his wrist. Her breath warmed his skin, soft and moist. Her lips brushed tantalisingly at his pulsing veins, soft and giving. The hard, sharp points that he felt protrude from beneath her lips were not soft. When she bit into his wrist, the pain scalded him, but it was only when she drank that the pain really began.
His veins were now open and she was draining him.
His strength was draining away with his blood, but the sensation was searing and filled his whole body, overwhelming, setting every one of his nerves on fire, it was raw and real and intense.
Then it stopped.
Lucretia had stopped drinking, released her soft lips and stabbing fangs as she flung her head away from him, “Enough. That is enough.” Her voice was thick, heavy with desire for more. “Take your arm away from me, Tristan. You need to keep some strength if you’re going to be of any more use tonight.”
The irresistible pain had ended and he was released, gasping for air. His head was clear and alive after the agony.
It was only after he had moved his arm away from Lucretia that Tristan felt surprise – he could move freely again. His body was his own. He stood up and both heard and felt his warm blood spattering down to the stone floor.
“You need to put a tourniquet on that, quickly.” Lucretia said from the floor, sitting up but looking away from him. When she turned to face him, his blood trickled from her mouth down her chin and smeared thinly across her cheek. Her large eyes, black pits in the shadows, stared at him intensely, followed the freely flowing blood from his wrist. Tristan watched her usual calm disturbed. Elementary emotions bubbled from within her and the battle played out on her face, momentary as the shadow of a cloud passing across a mountainside, so quickly that Tristan wasn’t even sure what he was watching. Then the raw emotions were gone. She mastered them and was herself again.
Tristan gazed on her in wonder.
Lucretia was all business now. She ripped sections of cloth from the bottom of her t-shirt, creating an instant crop top. She started to tightly bind his arm with the strips, stemming his flowing blood. As she bound his wrist, she talked.
“Thank you. I thought I was a goner for a moment there. So, thanks for the blood, sweetie, but don’t get the wrong idea, just because I gave you a little suck, it doesn’t mean we’re a couple, just good friends, yeah?” She appeared to be casual. Her usual confident and flirtatious banter was back. It was a mask. Tristan could sense the struggle within her was still raging and said nothing.
“I never thought we would be in this position when we first met, Tristan. So, listen carefully. You may have already guessed I’m what you would think of as a vampire. But vampire doesn’t mean any of that Brahm Stoker, Dracula, shit – the rules go out the window in the real world. When Max brought a stake to kill the girl in the woods, that was, well, that was theatre, just for you. It was Gregor’s idea. Stakes and sunlight and garlic, they’re all a load of bollocks. Max is – well – what you would think of as a werewolf, and that’s the same. Don’t think you know anything, because you don’t.
We’re Revenants, Tristan. Max and me and Gregor, we’re Revenants. Blood Feeders, vampires, and one of the Clans, werewolves, wouldn’t normally hang around together, yeah? We’re like the outsiders of the – undead – the supernatural, whatever you want to call the things you can’t explain in this reality.” Her eyes flicked to his blank face and she searched for the right words. “We’re outcasts – masterless – like… if we were samurai, we’d be ronin. If we were knights, we wouldn’t fight for a lord. We don’t fit in to the other worlds. We’re the outcasts, banished to fend for ourselves in the wilderness. Revenants are the lost, the condemned. We are meant to be killed off. So sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, groups band together to survive. We banded together to survive, me and Max and Gregor. Do you understand, Tristan? We’re the monsters. We kill and feed on the innocent. And we protect our territory.” She looked up briefly from binding his arms to look into his eyes.
“Now listen very carefully: Gregor is the worst monster among us. He is a necro-monger, a trader in the dead, a slaver. He feeds on the lives of others, their lives, their deaths, their final moments, their very souls. I believe he killed your predecessor, Brad. Brad went through the same ceremony that you did. He could see the future, just as you can. I believe Gregor used him. He told Max and me that he was possessed by a demon and then he killed him. He is dangerous. He will hurt and kill or sell Stephanie. If he thinks she is special, she is in great danger. He has great powers. People are like puppets for him, to control, to bend to his will.” She sounded tense, angry. “I never knew he could do it to me.” She looked into his eyes. “He has betrayed us and we will take revenge. Whatever his plan is, we will spoil it.
You want Stephanie. I want to kill Gregor.
He will be at the library. When you get there, block your nose. The corruption that surrounds him is breathed in. Don’t breath it in.” She finished tying the final tight knot that staunched his blood and held his hand for a moment.
“Now go. You get to the library as fast as you can. Leave Max and Earnest to me. I will follow after.”
Tristan stood looking at his friend, the monster, holding his hand and tried to comprehend. He looked towards the door of the gaol, “Max?”
“Go, Tristan! There’s no time. They will meet at the library. If you want to save her, you must get there before her.”
He looked at her in confusion and looked again towards the door behind which Max lay.
“Go! If you hope to save Stephanie you must go now! Leave them to me. Go!”
As an arrow released from a bow, he ran up the stone stairs. He heard her calling, “Don’t breathe in the library. Hold your breath, act fast.” And he was running back through the museum building and out into the empty street. His heart was straining and his brain burst and throbbed.
His mission was clear: he had returned to life and would save Stephanie. He would get to the library and save her. That was all that mattered. The world was laid out before him and he must find a way.
His feet slammed against the paveme
nt as he sprinted recklessly. His footsteps echoed in the night. The street was deserted. No-one was around. No lights were on.
Tristan surged down the street, his muscles pumping life, but no matter how quickly he ran he would not get to the library before Stephanie. What had Gregor said? Fifteen minutes? Was that when Gregor would get there? He was driving. Or when Stephanie said she would be there? There had to be another way.
He ran faster, looking for help, looking for a way to save her and the empty streets gave him nothing.
How long had he taken crawling across the few feet to Lucretia? How long had she been drinking his blood and binding his wounds? How long did he have?
His body was crying for air, his muscles were hurting, he could feel the cramping pain of a stitch beginning, but he pushed on, faster, he must go faster.
He ran down the dark and empty street and he could see no way to get to the library.
Twenty One : So Close
Tristan ran. He struggled to breath in enough air to power his body and he ran. His stomach and left side was balled up tight like a fist and he ran. Lactic acid burned his muscles and he ran.
The long hours of training he had put in with Max were his reserve. His body was used to pain, though they never ran this fast, the pain was never like this. His mind was used to pushing him further, focusing on what he had to do. Save Stephanie. The agony was forced to the background and he ran.
And still the night gave him nothing – a bus stop – he didn’t even pause to check the times, it would take too long – a passing car – too late to run in front, it was gone – a young couple with arms wrapped around each other – they stared at him but had nothing to give.
The whole world was before him, and he knew that it held everything he needed, that the right combination was there, waiting, brushing against his cheek, so close.
He ran down the main road, back towards the school and the school library that was too far away for him to reach in time. The sickness and pain of running swelled up in a wave. He felt his mind lurch and blackness threaten him and he staggered then.
It was resolution that kept him running. Save Stephanie. Focus. He had to keep running, through the pain, through the exhaustion. And from nowhere the smell of a cheap overpowering cars air freshener filled his nose.
He didn’t stop pushing his legs into the unforgiving ground, but even while his eyes looked at the sodium orange haze from the streetlamps mingled with the blackness of the night and the empty, empty streets, his mind remembered the air freshener.
It had been the shape of a tree. It had stunk. Every time he got in the car it felt like his nostrils were being chemically stripped out from the inside.
He had been twelve and they were living in some hippy commune in France. A boyfriend of his mums who couldn’t even speak English had decided to teach him how to drive. The sunshine spangled in his eyes and the battered and rusted old beige Citroen roared into life.
Luc’s worn sandals sprang into his mind from three years ago. He had sat there as Luc had pointed at his dirty, crusty feet pushing down the levers on the floor. When Tristan had a turn, Luc had tied blocks of wood to his feet so he could reach the pedals.
And the warm light of his memory was coming from a streetlamp. And the smell was fading. And Luc’s laughing smile was three years away. And Tristan knew he had to turn left. He arced round the corner still running and ran down a side road in the wrong direction, no longer running towards the school and the library. The world had reached out to embrace him and he was close. He could feel it. It was just around here, waiting for him, but the road curved away ahead of him and he could see houses without lights and darkness. The street curved away into emptiness and nothing.
There was nothing.
Brain, lungs, and body bursting, he was running in the wrong direction and there was nothing.
A distant yellow light twinkled like the French sun.
He forced his body to give more. The yellow light became a strip of light with a familiar logo – a petrol station!
He knew it was open without knowing how he knew. Twenty four hours.
He forced his wobbling legs to give up their last effort.
The maroon estate car was parked on the forecourt, next to a pump. The door was open and the engine’s low hum purred welcome.
He could see an elderly man in a flat cap at the kiosk turning his face to look at Tristan racing towards his car.
In a blur Tristan was across the forecourt, in the driver’s seat, slamming the door. There was the familiar tree shaped air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. He could feel Luc beside him, pointing out what to do. Clutch down, in gear, accelerate, clutch up, and the car lurched away, clipping the kerb and bouncing Tristan about, but he was on the road and heaving the wheel to the left, gunning the accelerator and hearing the car’s revs whine, second, third gears and away.
When he was going faster it seemed easier to control. Tristan’s mind was focused and clear. Without hesitation, he knew the roads he turned down and he knew the quickest way to the school. The world was at one with his consciousness and he was a part of all things. It seemed as though the breath of the world flowed through him and was taking him where he needed to go. He was surfing a tidal wave of sensations and his mind was tiny, balancing above all things, keeping a precarious balance on infinity.
He tried to cast his thoughts to Gregor as he had at the museum, but could find nothing.
The school approached and the tall grey metal gates were open. The shabby, sprawling building lay in darkness with a thousand cold windows staring out at him. Gregor was here. The evil old man’s Ford Fiesta was discarded in the car park.
Tristan ditched his own ride, snatched the air freshener from the mirror, and was out and running again. The library, he must get to the library. He must save Stephanie.
The building was dark, deserted. The silence and the shadows were appalling. Tristan knew he was here, waiting.
He ran around the outside of the building, taking the quickest route to the library, their usual path when the school was closed, to the door that Gregor unlocked. Before he even turned the corner, Tristan could see the lights from the library blazing, stretching across the dark grass of the field and illuminating the night.
For the first time, Tristan wondered what he was going to do. He knew he had to save Stephanie, but how? Gregor had killed Joshua without raising a hand. He had cast him down and paralysed him with words alone. What could Tristan do to stop him?
It was with that abysmal thought that Tristan turned the corner and it was with that thought that Tristan saw what Gregor had done to Stephanie, to witness the full horror of Gregor’s preparations.
The door was wide open, spilling out light and Tristan took it all in, the table with the chair upon it, the ceiling tile that had been pushed to one side, the wall with the large red rectangle being painted upon it, Gregor in a dark hooded robe, holding a paintbrush and bucket and, in the centre, splayed across a library table, Stephanie. Her arms were thrown outwards like Christ on the cross and they had marks on them, one had blood smeared upon it and was tied crudely with a cotton strip. Tristan felt his own makeshift tourniquet pulling tightly into his arm and thought he knew for a moment what that meant. But then he saw a thin plastic tube was sticking out of her other forearm and it was dripping. Blood was dripping from it into a metal bucket waiting beneath – the same type of metal bucket that Gregor was holding to paint the wall.
He could hear Gregor humming happily to himself and felt disgust for the filthy old man, hatred and disgust.
He stepped inside the library and was surrounded by the stench of decay.
Gregor turned and his face showed his surprise. His face twisted into a sneer, “Tristan, my boy, aren’t you the proverbial bad penny. What an unpleasant surprise.”
Tristan walked into the library his face tense with hatred. There was no point in hiding it.
“That’s quite far enough. Wait ther
e,” Gregor commanded.
Tristan stopped walking.
Gregor tilted his bucket and thrust the paintbrush into its corners before hastily daubing more blood across the wall. He inspected his effort and turned back to Tristan, casually throwing the bucket across the library. “Welcome to my parlour, my boy, though how you made it here I won’t pretend to understand. Still, as I have said before, remarkable, remarkable. It is a shame we didn’t meet earlier. You would have been quite useful to me, but such is life, eh?” Gregor strode across to the prostrate form of Stephanie and swiftly wrapped a cotton tie around her arm, before pulling out the tube inserted there with careful little jerking motions. There was a little jet of crimson blood that spurted out onto his hand before Gregor deftly pulled the cotton tight. He spoke lovingly to Stephanie, “Too precious to waste, eh?” and dabbed the bloody hand to his purple tongue almost furtively. He stroked her cheek with his leathery, mottled fingers.
Tristan’s jaw twitched.
Gregor picked up the bucket lying beneath Stephanie and went back to his painting of the wall. Her blood ran down the wall and congealed in thick strands. As he painted he talked, “How did you get here, Tristan? Traversing such distance with no means of transport, how indeed?”
Tristan didn’t say a word. He couldn’t.
“What? Cat got your tongue? Well, well, so be it. I’m sure I know what you’re thinking anyway. So, firstly, no she’s not dead, and nor will I kill her, you’ll be pleased to know.” Gregor painted contentedly, stepping back to check his own insane measurements. The thicker sections of blood were taking on a sense of depth and solidity. “Doesn’t that make you happy? I know it does, eh. And what should make you even happier is the girl cares a great deal for you. Even when I was bleeding her, she was asking what I’d done with you.” Gregor mimicked a girl’s voice, “Where’s Tristan? What have you done to him? So that should make you happy also, my boy. It’s rare to find a truly caring soul these days.” More congealing blood was splattered against the wall giving it a deeper hue and making it seem like a solid red rectangle. “And that brings us to our second point, her value. She is a rarity, Tristan. Not meant to be in this world. Golden, isn’t she? Like an angel? She will buy my way back. Her and a few others I’ve been collecting.”