by Tabatha Wood
Despite the comfort I felt when I was with Noah, I still kept many of the details of my old life a secret from him. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the whole truth. I told him I didn’t fully remember being Changed; I told him nothing about Jason, or about what I’d done.
Through Noah I learned how to find my inner calmness, to suppress any rage or resentment I might still feel. He taught me about the Laws, how and why they had been written, and what they meant to us. I learned so much about our kind’s history, the sacrifices made by those before us, which ensured our safety, and meant we were no longer hunted and destroyed. I’d had no knowledge of our history, and I’d been both enlightened and amazed. My attack had been violent, my Change brutal, a violation of the Laws itself. I suspected Pete had been an outsider, a renegade who had chosen to embrace his rage and shun the Laws. It happened, Noah had said, that sometimes an individual could not keep full control of their instincts and they would go rogue. The Darkness took them; both their bodies and their minds.
The Elders had set up groups to help those who had found themselves in such circumstances, to try and bring them back and calm them, but most struck out on their own and never returned. Not every rogue could be rehabilitated. Many were sentenced to destruction; apparently to grant them peace, as much as to maintain the safety and reputation of our kind. I was terrified to realise that such punishment could be meted out to me.
Noah, Karrianne, and the others, they opened up my eyes to a new way of being. Of understanding and celebrating what I was. I could be part of a community that valued me and kept me safe. So it surprised me greatly when I learned the truth about Karrianne.
I found out by accident. Her dirty little secret. I saw her in a coffee shop in Newtown late one winter afternoon. She was sitting with an older woman. Grey flecks in her dyed blonde hair, her nail polish chipped and chewed. She was very clearly distressed. Karrianne was comforting her, one pale hand held over hers, the other passing her napkins with which she used to wipe her nose and eyes. I couldn’t tell straight away if she was one of us or not. Karrianne leaned close to her, whispered into her ear while stroking her hand very gently. I could see the woman start to relax, her sobs reducing and her calm returning. The other patrons made furtive glances in their direction occasionally, trying to hide their curiosity. They didn't see what I could see.
I realised quickly that the woman was mortal, and that Karrianne was very carefully manipulating her. Hamish had told me about the Motives; words and phrases which only we know and can help us get what we need. I am not skilled in these abilities, but even I knew a Suggestion Motive when I saw one. I was immediately intrigued. I knew the the Laws prohibited such an act in public, and certainly not without a very good reason.
The woman stood up from the table, leaving half of her coffee untouched. She walked to the door as Karrianne followed. I couldn’t really say why, but I knew I didn’t want either of them to see me, and I slipped around the corner of the building to hide.
I heard them talking quietly as they passed me on the street.
“We must do this now, before he gets much worse,” Karrianne said. “No interruptions. It must be quick.”
The woman merely nodded and let Karrianne lead her by the arm.
I followed them carefully, staying unseen. They crossed the road near the hospital and used the main entrance. I thought this very unusual. I knew it was unlikely she was meeting our blood agent; it was customary to only go alone to such meetings, to avoid any possible problems or misunderstandings. Certainly never with another who was not like us.
They walked through the foyer and took the lift with three other people. There was no way I could join them without being seen, I had to wait and watch the light-up numbers above the doors, hoping I could follow them after. The light on the lift illuminated floor number five and paused. I knew someone must have got out there. I squeezed inside an adjacent carriage just before the doors closed, and pressed the number. A map on the wall showed me this would take me to the Children’s Ward.
My ascent ended and I exited the lift, scanning the corridor left and right. There was no sign of them. I stood still, listened carefully, and inhaled deeply. I caught the unmistakable scent of her leading away to my right, and I set off in pursuit.
I don’t really know what was going through my head, why it seemed so important to me. I could have just asked her casually about it the next time I saw her, and it would most likely amount to nothing, but a part of me felt like there was something not quite right. The movements she had used, the way she had leaned in, it all felt wrong to me. It smelled like the prelude to a kill, and yet her actions didn’t fit with such intentions. Not least of which, I knew that breaking any one of the Laws would result in serious consequences.
Her aroma led me towards the Children’s Ward, and I became uneasy. This was not the right sort of place for one of us to be. They held too many memories; reminders of who and what we are; the promises we could never keep. Even the worst of us knew to avoid these kinds of places, and the terrible temptations they might offer. Hospitals in general were usually best avoided, unless you entered with a purpose, could get in and out simply and without issue. Having a blood agent, a ‘Renfield’ as they were often called — a nod to a popular myth which surrounded our kind — or someone who could help you and provide you with what you needed, was essential.
I tried not to inhale. The sensory glands in my nose and palate are incredibly sensitive. I knew the sharp smells of innocence, pain and fear could be overwhelming to me. They might trigger a Change I could not control, or make me act irrationally. I did not want to repeat my past mistakes.
No-one stopped me entering the ward. I gained access far too easily. I must have looked like so many of the other worried mothers visiting their children. I followed Karrianne and the woman towards a ward filled with small children, most of them attached to multiple monitors and drips.
They stopped at a bed holding a young boy, probably eight or nine years old. His skin was grey and pallid, stretched tissue-paper thin over sharp and crooked bones. He lay there, eyes closed, practically motionless, only the slow rise and fall of his tiny chest showed any sign that he was alive. He was attached to numerous instruments which were monitoring his breathing and heart rate, an oxygen tube snaked its way up both his nostrils. I blended myself as best I could near the nurses station, picked up a file and pretended to read it, hoping I would be mostly unnoticed unless directly challenged.
The woman, who I now assumed to be the child’s mother, sat down on a chair by the side of the bed, reaching for the boy’s hand. She grasped it tightly, leaning in towards him with tears streaming down her cheeks. Karrianne whispered something to her. She looked up, nodded slowly, and pulled her hands away. Karrianne turned and I ducked away quickly to avoid being seen, but she was not looking for anyone, she merely grabbed the edge of the blue curtains around the bed and pulled them closed. I was shut out, with no way of knowing what was going on behind the fabric wall.
I turned my head, listening as hard as I could, but I couldn’t hear them speaking, or indeed any noise at all. I could see their shoes underneath the curtain, they were standing over the bed. Minutes passed in almost complete silence, until one of the monitors gave out a high pitched wail. It was quickly muted, as if someone had yanked the electric cable from the wall. I glanced around the ward, but it seemed like no-one else had noticed the sound, or were simply too busy to investigate.
Seconds later there was rustling from behind the curtain. The fabric moved slightly to one side, perhaps caught as one or the other had moved around the bed. It left an opening in the folds. I could see the boy, now sitting upright on the bed, his eyes open and bright, his cheeks glowing a healthy pink. He looked bigger now, and stronger; no longer bent and haggard. The monitors attached to him showed blank, black screens, their assessment no longer needed. The mother was still crying, although now her tears were coupled with a wide smile as she embraced her chi
ld.
Karrianne interrupted her.
“We need to leave. Now.”
Mother and child started pulling out wires and tubes, removing sticking plasters and unhooking sensors. The woman helped the boy to get down off the bed, and Karrianne passed him a dressing gown. She stuck her head through the gap in the curtains, looked up and down the ward. I ducked down so that she didn’t see me. Once she was sure no-one was watching, she pulled the curtains back and motioned for the woman and child to follow her. They crossed the ward quickly, heading straight for the exit. I expected them to be challenged, to be stopped in some way, but no-one seemed to even notice they were there. They dashed through the doors and were away.
I waited for a moment, unsure what to do, before replacing the file and following them. I knew exactly what had happened, but hardly dare admit it. The scent of the boy as they had passed through the ward was unmistakable.
He had been Changed. He was one of us.
I sat on a bench in a park just down the road from the hospital for a long while, watching the light fade away into nothing, before finally deciding what to do. I pulled out my mobile and called Noah. I told him to meet me at my house, that I needed to talk to him alone. I knew I couldn’t deal with what I’d seen all by myself, and I didn’t know who else I could trust.
I caught the bus near the shops and was home in fifteen minutes. In the dark I could see straight away that the house was not quite how I had left it. There was a lamp switched on in the main room, the curtains not fully drawn. I stood outside for a moment, listening hard for any movement from inside. I couldn’t hear anything, only my neighbour’s dog barking momentarily before its owner called it inside. I put my key in the lock, somehow not surprised to find that the door was already open. I entered the hallway and inhaled. She was inside.
I called her name as the latch clicked closed behind me.
“Karrianne? I know you’re here.”
I caught a blur of movement out the corner of my eye and turned quickly. She was standing down the hall in the kitchen doorway, holding something long and shiny. I moved swiftly to the other side of the lounge and put the bulk of my coffee table between us.
“You saw me,” she declared. Not a question. I nodded in reply. I realised what was in her hands; a barbecue skewer like the kind I kept in my utensil drawer. Sharp and thin; a metal stake. The implication was very clear.
“I knew you were there. I could smell you. I shouldn’t have let you see me. I actually really like you, you know? But I can’t let you tell the Elders what I’ve done.”
“We can talk about this,” I told her, trying to keep my voice steady. Keeping a watchful eye on her and the weapon she held. “What you did was wrong, but maybe we can fix it somehow.”
“Fix it? I can’t exactly turn him back, can I?”
“I don’t understand. Why did you do it? The Laws were made to protect them as well as us. You turned that boy, and that’s not what we do. Not children. Never children.”
She laughed then, a dark and hollow humourless laugh.
“What about me, then? What am I? It’s not like I was born like this.”
I stayed quiet. I didn’t know how best to respond to her, or what she might try to do.
She sighed deeply and looked away from me, passing the skewer backwards and forwards idly between her hands. I watched her carefully, waiting for her face to change, for her to rush towards me, but she seemed swallowed by her own memories. When she finally spoke again, she seemed eager to tell me everything, to rationalise what she’d done. Perhaps she hoped I’d understand, or forgive her in some way.
I could have tried to run away, or even fight her, but I was intrigued. I liked her too, she’d done a lot for me. I at least owed her the chance to explain.
“You don’t know the whole story,” she began. “It’s complicated.”
She told me she was ten when her father was sent away, to serve with the New Zealand forces. She never saw him again, he never returned, but others who did brought with them more than just memories of the horrors of war. The soldiers came home in 1918, their relief that the conflict was over, soon turning to dismay, as they realised they had another enemy inside them.
The viral pandemic was brutal. Her sister got sick in November. Soon after, her mother and brothers fell ill too. When the headache started and her body began to ache, she knew it would not be long before she too succumbed. There was no medicine available to cure them, no vaccines or antibiotics. She did not know how to help them, no one did. They lay on the family bed together, waiting only to die.
A man came to the house that evening. She did not know who he was. He told her his name was William, and that he had something which could help them. She thought he was a doctor. She invited him into the house. He stood in silence at the bottom of the bed, watching as her family struggled to breathe. Their skin was grey, their lips tinted purple, they were crippled by the lack of oxygen in their blood. The man laid his hand on her shoulder and told her there was nothing he could do for them, that they were already gone. There was a window of time, he had said, before the grip of death could squeeze too hard, and sadly her family had missed it. But he could save her.
She barely had a chance to say a word before he Changed.
He killed her then, and resurrected her. Brought her back as something new.
She began her new life with William that night, left all her family behind. She kissed them on their foreheads before she went, inhaled the stench of death before it came. She did not know what would happen to their bodies, or who would bury them, as he took her by the hand and led her away.
They travelled together for many years. She fell in love with him, but he never loved her back in the same way. She was a replacement, she realised, for his family, the daughter he had lost himself. Her desire for greater intimacy pushed them apart. He did not, and could not, see her as she saw him. She wanted a lover; he, a child. They arrived in Auckland in the late 1930’s, not long before the Second World War began. William volunteered for army service, said he could do more good by helping those who were fighting overseas. He asked her to travel with him, but she refused.
She never saw him again.
“I didn’t know about the Laws then,” she told me. “What they meant to me. After the chaos of the war, the few others like me were rounded up by the Elders and put in a special home, supposedly to protect us and keep us safe. But we were an embarrassment. An aberration. We looked like children, but we had the minds of adults, and we made mortals uneasy.
“The Laws were just appeasements; the Elders rolled over and succumbed. I was given a choice: if I wanted any kind of life outside the home, I had to find others to adopt me. I had to pretend to be something I wasn’t and agree to move every year or two to avoid drawing suspicion. I was given a family, but it wasn’t real. It was just a role I had to play.”
Her face showed a mixture of sadness and anger. Frustration at a situation she had been unable to control.
“The Elders were wrong to make that Law. They didn’t understand. They were old already, even before they turned. I decided that no family would ever be separated by death or illness, if I could do something to prevent it.”
I moved a little further away from her, put some more distance between us before I spoke. I understood what she had told me, but I couldn’t condone it.
“You changed that little boy. Even though you know it’s wrong.”
“His parents needed my help, just like so many others. Parents with children who are dying or very sick. They don’t want to lose them, to be torn apart like I was from my family. I offer them another choice. A second chance.”
I shook my head.
“No. You offer them hope, but you give them death. You know how hard it is. The life you offer them, it’s not a real life. Those children, they will never grow old. They will never become what they dreamed of. Like you, they’ll never be able to stay in one place, never go on to have real families o
f their own.”
“They wouldn’t have had that anyway! They were dying!”
“You couldn’t know that. Not for certain. Some of them might have recovered, they could have beaten those illnesses. You’ve taken that chance away from them.” She scoffed at my words but I continued.
“The Laws protect us. They help us make some sense of this affliction. Allow us to have some semblance of a life, even if we cannot truly live. That’s why we never turn children. What you did, it makes you no better than a rogue. The Elders were right. They should have kept you in that home.”
Her eyes went dark and she bared her teeth at me, a low growl escaping from her throat. I knew that sound. I’d made it many times myself.
She leapt towards me, vaulting over the coffee table. She was smaller than me, but twice as fast, and I stumbled as I ran for the door. I didn’t want to fight her; I didn’t want to risk the rage that might come out, but I couldn’t let her kill me either.
She stabbed the air, and the skewer barely missed my right ear. She lunged again, this time grazing my shoulder with the sharp point. I screamed, not so much in pain but in surprise. I rolled my body away from her as best I could.
I heard a noise from the front door. I heard Noah’s voice calling out.
“Hello? Is everything okay?”
I turned and tripped, and fell into the hallway with Karrianne close behind me. I tried to get up, but my foot was caught under the hallway table, preventing me from moving. I heard noises behind me; a shriek, and then loud grunts and sounds of a scuffle. As I twisted my head I could see Noah struggling with Karrianne, his hands pushing her backwards into the front room. I freed my leg and rose unsteadily.
Noah held her in a tight grip; one arm pinned behind her back, his elbow around her throat. The skewer was on the floor at her feet. She struggled and snarled. The primal rage had overcome her.
