by S. J. Coles
Even if that did mean signing a contact with Jon Ogdell. I shook my head. Meg’s voice was in my ear, saying I was paranoid.
‘You can’t ever just see good luck for what it is,’ she’d said to me more than once, most recently in connection to Brody.
When I turned out the light that night, the dark emptiness of the house was heavier than it had been in years. I thought I heard my father’s heavy, stumbling tread on the grand staircase. Then the scrape of a vampire’s fingernails on the window. It was nonsense. I was alone. Completely alone, just as I liked it.
It was a long time before I fell asleep.
* * * *
I wasn’t sure what I was feeling as I lowered myself into the passenger seat of Meg’s Mazda a week later—anticipation and trepidation in equal measures for sure. But what I found more alarming was how much I was thinking about Brody.
Meg teased me mercilessly. She had plenty of time to do so since the drive to Ogdell’s lodge took almost a full hour longer than it should have been. Snow had finally begun to fall, feathering through the air and coating the twisting lanes in a thin layer of white, slushy powder.
“I could have driven myself, you know,” I finally said, cutting her off mid-taunt.
“Cinderella drive herself to the ball? I wouldn’t dream of it. What would the prince think?”
“It’s not—” I grumbled for the hundredth time. “Jon Ogdell invited me, not Brody.”
“You don’t like Jon.”
“You don’t either. Which is worse, since he’s your client.”
“Yes, but unlike you, Alec MacCarthy, I can hide what I’m thinking.”
I sighed. “So what do you think we can expect at this thing?”
“Like the club opening but dialed up to eleven, I expect,” she said, a trifle doubtfully. “Fewer people. More drugs.”
I eyed her warily. “Do you actually want to go?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “He’s invited some business partners. It’s important that I go. And besides, I wouldn’t want to miss the chance to see your romance burgeon and blossom.”
“Meg,” I snapped.
“Oh, relax and let me have a little fun, will you? It’s been long enough.”
“Can’t you just focus your energies on your own love life?”
“I don’t have time for one,” she said after only a second’s hesitation. “That’s why I have to live vicariously through you.”
“I hope you weren’t doing that whilst I was with your brother.”
She laughed. It was only a little strained. “No one envied you that particular shit storm.” I fidgeted, suddenly uncomfortable. “You’re not nervous, are you?”
“No,” I replied, looking out at the worsening weather with an answering chill building in my belly.
“I thought you wanted to go.”
“I want…something…” I stared out into the swirling snow. “I’m not sure what.”
“Well I’m sure, between Jon’s wine cellar, the luxury guest bedrooms and Mr. Harris’ willingness, you’ll get it figured out.”
It was dark by the time the Mazda pulled into the smooth swoop of snow-dusted driveway in front of the opulent hunting lodge. I stared out at the towering stone facade with my mouth open.
“It’s huge,” Megan breathed.
“It’s an old keep,” I said quietly, taking in the tall walls, the porticoed entranceway and many lighted windows. “It used to be a ruin.”
“There can’t be much of the original left?”
“That stonework used to be the tower,” I gestured to the rough section to the right of the front door. “Fifteenth century. I’m surprised he got planning permission.”
“Jon Ogdell usually gets what he wants.”
I tried to unpick if there was a warning in her tone, but she wasn’t looking at me as she undid her seatbelt. I hurried after her through the swirling snow. The wind was picking up, icy cold. Black clouds had closed overhead. Meg swore as her carefully arranged hair whipped about her face. She hurried to ring the bell.
“Will you be…indulging tonight?” she asked, too casually.
I blinked. “Is that as personal as it sounds?”
“You know what I mean,” she said more firmly, eyes fixed on the wooden door.
“No,” I said, quietly. “You were right. There was a reason I stopped getting high.”
She gave me a grateful glance, then a tall man with a bald head, a blank face and a smart suit opened the door.
“Megan! Lord Aviemore!” Jon Ogdell bustled forward whilst the butler took our coats. He was in a tailored, if tasteless, tartan smoking jacket. His smile was wide, his small eyes glittering. “You made it. I was wondering if you would. The weather’s turned fouler than Egyptian brandy.”
“Jon,” Meg said, flashing her smile and shaking his hand. “Thanks for having us.”
“Please, it’s my pleasure. And, Alec, good to see you again. How’s the Jag coming?”
He didn’t let me answer but chattered on, ushering us through a large, brightly-lit hall, soft and warm with a plush, forest-green carpet, to an equally sumptuous sitting room. I breathed in the smells of synthetic leather and wood smoke. Deep, evergreen sofas and armchairs were arranged around a roaring fire. A gigantic flat-screen TV reeling a slideshow of photographs of the mountains was mounted on the wall. Top-of-the-range speakers fluted Vivaldi into the air. If it weren’t for the tartan upholstery on the throws and cushions, we could have been in any luxury hotel in any part of the world.
Olivia rose from her chair, smiling broadly, holding out her thin, white hands. She was clad in a delicate lemon yellow that, along with the oversized pearls at her ears and neck, only succeeded in accentuating her wan complexion.
“Alec… So glad you could come,” she said, clutching my cold hands in her warm, dry ones and once again ignoring Meg. “Jon’s so eager to know what you think of his new place, aren’t you, Jon?”
“Always enjoy entertaining the gentry. You know that, Olivia. Champagne?”
Meg and I accepted our glasses from the butler, who had appeared silently at my elbow.
“Shall we join the others in the dining room?” Olivia twinkled.
We followed her through to a vast dining room containing a mahogany dining table so deeply polished and loaded with silver and candles that it was almost too bright to look at. I shook my head to rid myself of the memory of stepping into the Glenroe dining room during one of the prolonged dinners my father had made me attend. I remembered my stiff collar interfering with the swallowing of the endless courses of pretentious food. The air would be heavy with cigar smoke and conversation that was painfully boring where it wasn’t blisteringly impenetrable and, of course, there was always far too much wine, followed by port, followed by brandy. That was back when he could still afford to feed fifteen guests and didn’t drink alone.
I blinked and the vision was gone. This room was lighter and the tableware newer. The people were brightly dressed, younger and smiling.
“This is my husband, Matthew,” Olivia sparkled, indicating a tall, square-faced man at the end of the table. He inclined his head, then Olivia also introduced about half a dozen other unremarkable people, who I almost immediately forgot the names of.
“And Hans you know already,” Olivia finished as the Swede inclined his head from where he sat near Jon, his pale eyes fixed on me.
“Good to see you again, Lord Aviemore,” he purred in his swaying accent.
I examined him but couldn’t see past his eyes. “And you.”
Brody rose from his seat near the fireplace with a wide smile. He looked ready for a photo shoot for Versace or Ralph Lauren in his exquisitely tailored dinner suit. I was suddenly very aware that my own hung a little loose on me and that the wind would have pulled my always-unruly hair into even more disarray. At least I still had a good razor at home.
“You sit next to Brody, Alec,” Ogdell said, so pointedly that I was embarrassed for both of us,
“and Stanley can start wheeling in the food.”
“Is he drunk already?” I murmured as I took my seat next to Brody. Meg sat opposite, already deep in conversation with a good-looking woman sat next to Karlsson. I regarded the woman closely, trying to remember if she was an MP.
“The champagne’s been flowing since lunch,” Brody murmured, glancing around the room at the chattering gathering. A telltale flush riding on his cheeks told me he’d not resisted following Ogdell’s lead. “You look good.” He wore a rakish smile.
“Thanks,” I returned awkwardly. “So do you.”
His smile grew suggestive and my blood started to rush.
I drank sparingly at dinner. The food was excellent and Brody was good at helping me relax, but the conversation with Meg was still repeating in my head. I decided I needed to know what I really wanted by the end of the evening, rather than just what my body wanted. Brody seemed disappointed every time I waved away the wine bottle, but he covered it quickly.
When the cheese course had been cleared away and the port was being poured, Ogdell stood, a little shakily, from his place at the head of the table.
“My friends. I want to say thank you for joining me here tonight and helping me christen Auchallater Keep. I always say a house is only as good as its hospitality, and I’m grateful for you all for coming to let me know how mine measures up.”
There were some calls of encouragement, clapping and clinking of forks on glasses. Brody pressed his leg against mine under the table.
“To friends, to neighbors”—he raised his glass to me—“and to a night we’ll never forget.” People drank the toast and clapped. “And on that note…what do you say we move on to the main event?”
There was an enthusiastic response, then everyone stood and followed Ogdell out of the room. I questioned Brody with my eyes, but he merely smiled a devilish smile and followed suit.
“What’s going on?” I asked Meg as everyone crowded into the hall.
“I don’t know,” she murmured, keeping her face carefully blank. Ogdell had stopped at a secure-looking door, its heavy frame and key-code lock pad incongruous amongst the luxurious furnishings. The rest of the party were murmuring excitedly and a little nervously. Brody squeezed my hand but his eyes, glinting, were fixed ahead.
Ogdell thumbed in a code and a light above the door changed from red to green. He swung it open and proceeded down some stairs. We followed. A hush descended as we stepped into a brightly-lit subterranean room with a bare concrete floor and walls.
I craned my neck, trying to see over everyone’s heads. There was some sort of table in the middle, some machinery next to it and a large refrigeration unit next to that. I frowned, trying to figure out what I was looking at. Meg had gone very still.
“Oh my God,” she breathed, then covered her mouth with her hand.
“What is it?” I said, then the cluster of people shifted and I was able to see. It wasn’t a table. It was a hospital trolley. And there was someone strapped to it. No. Something. Something living, though the only indication of life was the juddering rise and fall of a thin chest under some ragged, stained clothing. Not human. The shrunken, boney thing couldn’t have been a person and still be alive. But alive it was. It shifted, causing the guests to take a hurried step back.
The skin was a shade closer to gray than flesh. Blue veins like cords roped over the backs of claw-like hands. The thin wrists were shackled to the trolley in an almost comically unnecessary display of security. It was hard to see much of a face behind a black mask, which obscured the mouth and nose. A tube protruded from it and fed into one of the sleek, unfathomable machines at the bedside. The eyes were closed, the eye sockets sunken and shadowed. Fine hair, in a shade of blond so white that it was almost blue, fell back from the skull-like face and tangled on the trolley, plastered with sweat and dirt. Small tubes, dark with liquid, protruded from both exposed forearms and fed into another machine, which purred and reeled unfathomable readings on a small display.
“Here it is, ladies and gentlemen.” Ogdell was slurring, a hungry smile on his wide face, his rapt eyes fixed on the machine rather than the captive.
“How did you get a donor?” the woman Meg had been talking to at dinner asked in an awed voice. “The security controls are so strict…”
“Hans can get his hands on anything.” Ogdell beamed at the older man, who bowed slightly.
“This must have cost you thousands,” another guest murmured, staring at the donor with the same expression of part awe, part fear.
“Tens of thousands,” Olivia put in, her expression pinched. “Jon, we need to feed it.”
Ogdell opened the refrigeration unit, revealing rows of blood bags. He took one and fastened its tube to the machine, turning a little release tap. The bright red blood flowed down the tube into the creature’s mask. The thing twitched and shuddered. Its eyes flickered.
“Relax, everyone,” Ogdell said, waving and airy hand. “It’s pumped with enough sedative to take down an elephant. And we’ve taken every precaution.” He nodded to a large handgun mounted on the wall. “You’re quite safe. I promise.”
“That’s enough now, Mr. Ogdell,” Karlsson said, and Jon took away the half-full bag.
Olivia shook her head. “It’s even thinner than yesterday. We’re not feeding it enough.”
“Liv, we’ve been through this,” Ogdell muttered whilst the rest of the guests stepped closer and talked in hushed whispers. “Karlsson says half a pouch every three days.”
“That is the perfect balance of nutrition and sedatives, Mrs. Ogdell-Paige,” Karlsson said smoothly. “Any more than that and it could gain enough strength to fight the drugs and the restraints.”
“I don’t want the biggest investment of the year expiring in my brother’s basement because you two men are afraid to feed it.”
Ogdell’s face went red. He drew his sister aside and hissed at her. She hissed back. Her husband attempted to placate her with a hand on her arm but she threw him off and left the room, head held high and a blotched flush across her pale cheekbones.
Ogdell straightened his bowtie and flashed his smile at everyone. “Shot of Haemo Blood, anyone?”
Chapter Three
I watched in a daze as Ogdell turned a tap and filled crystal shot glasses with a thick, red liquid, so dark that it was almost black. A curiously heady scent filled the air, somewhere between red wine and late autumn bonfires. The creature on the trolley jerked, white eyelashes flickering against the rounded bones of its eye sockets.
“Is it awake?” I heard someone ask in a quavering voice.
“It’s impossible to sedate them completely,” Hans Karlsson intoned like someone delivering a biology lecture, “but the balance of sedative in its feed combined with the correct level of nutrient-deprivation keeps it well under control.”
I turned away as Ogdell handed the shot glasses around to the wide-eyed guests.
“Come now, Alec,” Brody said in my ear. “Not squeamish, are you?”
“It’s alive,” I breathed.
“Of course it’s alive. Can’t get Blood from a dead donor.” He frowned at the look on my face. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s alive,” I repeated.
“Now don’t you worry, my lord,” Ogdell drawled, coming forward with a tray of shot glasses filled with dark Blood. “Hans knows everything there is to know about managing donors. It’s not any danger, I promise.”
“It looks like it’s in pain.”
Brody laughed. “It’s not human, Alec.”
“Come, come,” Ogdell said, holding out the tray. “This is not in the spirit of the party. Here.”
“I’ll pass,” I said.
“Me too,” said Meg, with slightly more grace and a much warmer expression than me. “It’s a bit too much for me, Jon, if you don’t mind. I have court on Monday.”
“If you’re sure,” he said, grinning at Meg, who smiled, inclined her head and hurried from the room. The othe
r guests were filtering back upstairs with their glasses, breathing in the scent of the Blood and chattering excitedly, any initial reservations quite forgotten.
Brody and Ogdell stood looking at me expectantly—Brody holding his shot, Ogdell holding out the tray with a broad, foolish smile.
“I swear to God that you’ve never tried anything until you’ve tried this.” Ogdell’s glance slid to Brody and back again. “It’s at its absolute best when enjoyed together…if you know what I mean.”
“Not for me,” I said firmly. “Thank you,” I added when their looks darkened.
“Suit yourself,” Ogdell said, slightly mollified. “But you don’t know what you’re missing.”
Brody was watching me with something in the back of his gaze that I didn’t entirely like. He held the glass out to me so I could smell it. The overly-sweet, thick fragrance filled and dizzied me. My heart sped and my blood throbbed in my temples and groin. Brody’s slow smile oozed suggestion.
“And that’s just the smell,” he murmured.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “This is wrong.”
“Alec,” Brody said with exaggerated patience, “it’s not a person. It’s barely an animal. Besides, it’s not our fault drinking its Blood is better than fucking.” He held the glass out.
“Thank you. No.”
His face hardened a second before he shrugged. “Fine.” He leaned in and brushed his mouth over my ear. “But I’ll bet you any money you change your mind.”
I shivered. He gave me another wicked smile then made for the door. I glanced back once more at the twisted figure on the trolley and hurried from the room.
The butler was drawing the curtains across the windows when I returned to the sitting room. The snow was already piled inches high on the sills and I could hear the wind howling in the chimney. The fire in the grate danced and sizzled in the cold, snowy gusts.
No one else had noticed. They were sprawled in the deep chairs and sofas, drinking from their shot glasses, breathing heavily, grinning and laughing. The volume of conversation had risen by the same amount as the tone had lowered. The champagne was flowing and the entire gathering lounged with hooded eyes and suggestive smiles, flushed cheeks and heaving chests. They ran their hands slowly over the soft furnishings and each other in dazed fascination. The staining the Blood had left on their lips gave the whole spectacle an otherworldly, ghoulish air. I spotted Meg in a corner with one of the younger men mouthing in her ear.