Ravenfall

by Narrelle M. Harris

  First published by Clan Destine Press in 2017

  PO Box 121, Bittern

  Victoria 3918

  Australia

  Copyright © Narrelle M Harris

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including internet search engines and retailers, electronic or mechanical, photocopying (except under the statuary exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-In-Publication data:

  Harris, Narrelle M

  Ravenfall

  ISBN: 978-0-9954394-6-7 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-0-9954394-7-4 (eBook)

  Cover Design © Willsin Rowe

  Design & Typesetting: Clan Destine Press

  Clan Destine Press

  www.clandestinepress.com.au

  Chapter One

  ‘Those bastards are still watching me, Dr Sharpe.’

  The heavy-set man’s gaze darted about the surgery, momentarily alighting on the doctor’s face and then away again. ‘The pigeons at Boleyn Ground. My neighbour’s bleeding cats. A mongrel outside the offie on Queen’s Road followed me all the way into West Ham Station last week, right onto the platform. And last night a wolf followed me home.’

  James Sharpe made a note in Mr Bernetti’s file but didn’t bother to point out London didn’t have wolves. Mr Bernetti imagined he was watched by a lot of things, from the ducks in Regent’s Park to tiny people hiding in post boxes. He claimed that zombie mice were living in the walls of his Barking Road flat, when he wasn’t suspecting the council workers of casting spells on the traffic. Poor sod.

  So many people claimed to see monsters, but most people were utterly self-delusional, or, like Mr Bernetti, labouring under a messed up brain chemistry that wouldn’t leave them be.

  ‘We’ll look at that prescription of yours, then see if it helps.’ A faint rolling of the r’s, a mild flattening of the vowels, betrayed a residual Scots accent, the remnants of James Sharpe’s Edinburgh childhood.

  ‘Please,’ Mr Bernetti’s palms pressed to his bald head as though to keep it from splitting. ‘I can’t sleep. Fucking cats watching me all night. And that wolf downstairs, rooting around the bins and setting off all the car alarms. Big red eyes and howling at the moon.’

  The moon had been full last night, and would be again tonight. Something for James to check out, then. He knew Mr Bernetti’s address and it wouldn’t hurt to go for a walk and take a sniff around. The poor beggar might be delusional, but from time to time, even the delusional were not mistaken.

  After all, James Sharpe hadn’t come back eighteen months ago from the war in Afghanistan, undead and with an inconvenient craving for human blood, just to believe that all monsters were imaginary.

  James referred Mr Bernetti to the psych clinic in Upton, renewed his anti-psychotics in the interim, and sent him on his way.

  The nurse ushered in the next patient. The boy was skinny and unkempt, not at all unusual for the people who came to this clinic. The Lester Avenue Community Clinic in Plaistow had a waiting room full of people surviving on the poverty line; and many who were barely surviving at all. This boy was one of the many who had no real address. “In the alcove under the railway bridge” was hardly something the Royal Mail would recognise anyway.

  James gestured towards the chair.

  ‘How can I help you,’ he glanced at the paperwork the nurse had handed him, ‘Peter?’

  ‘Don’ call me that,’ said the boy irritably.

  ‘All right. Can I call you something else?’

  The boy peered at him. ‘Folks call me Blue.’

  James made a note. ‘All right, Blue. How can I help you today?’

  ‘I need me blood done.’

  James’s fingers tightened imperceptibly around the biro he held. His teeth itched but remained retracted, and he heard his grandfather’s voice in his head. Shouldnae be hungry. Fuck yer dain, Jamie? Damn. Mr Bernetti’s full moon wolf story had him twitchy.

  With deliberate calm, he asked, ‘You need a blood test?’

  ‘Yeah. Make sure it’s clean an’ that.’

  ‘Do you think you have an infection?’ James’s fingers relaxed. Gud lad, said his grandfather’s voice, that angel on his shoulder.

  Cheers, Granda.

  ‘Nah, I reckon I’m good. I ain’t done any needles since last test, an’ I ain’t even give a blow job wivout a condom neither since then, an’ I don’t never do fucking, so iss prob’ly fine.’

  ‘I don’t like to order blood tests without a good reason, Blue. If you’re confident, and your last test was clear, you don’t have to.’

  ‘But I want to. Iss like a promise I made, see? He said iss all right, but if he’s gonna take care of me, like he said, I thought this would be proper.’

  ‘Who’s taking care of you?’ James laid the pen down so it was clear he wasn’t going to make notes, but Blue shrugged awkwardly and said nothing.

  In the silence, James inhaled. Held his breath. He could smell a confusing bundle of scents, most of them unpleasant: body odour, unwashed feet, stale beer, halitosis. The boy had made some attempt to bathe with rainwater in the last week. James couldn’t detect anything more sinister, and while he wasn’t happy with the implications, Peter – or rather, Blue – was recently eighteen and legally capable of making his own decisions, even terrible ones.

  ‘Do you feel safe with this man?’ said James.

  Blue stared at him with large eyes, astonished that anyone would care. ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘You know you don’t have to–’

  ‘Better’n most,’ Blue said, regarding James through narrowed eyes, ‘An’ better’n the street, y’know?’

  James knew, in a roundabout way. He’d walked the streets a lot in the months he’d been back in London after his medical discharge from the army. Night after long night, week after lonely week, month after interminable month, he’d walked away his unsleeping nights. He’d seen things that might have shocked him, if he hadn’t already spent years in Afghanistan, seeing many things that were so much worse.

  Doing things that were so much worse.

  James shut down that unhelpful train of thought. ‘I can order a test if you want to be sure.’

  ‘Yeah. I do.’

  ‘I’ll give you a general exam as well.’

  Blue shrugged again, but nodded too, so James gave Blue a physical and took two vials of blood. Apart from being undernourished, the boy seemed in good shape.

  ‘Come next week for the result,’ James said, ‘I’m here Wednesdays and Thursdays. But I don’t think you’ve anything to worry about.’ The blood smelled healthy, but James couldn’t exactly say that.

  Blue scurried out of the surgery. James waited until the door shut before he took up the second vial of blood. He only needed one sample for the test, but he always extracted blood himself instead of sending the patient to the nurses, and he always took an extra vial. Not strictly ethical, but so much better than the alternative.

  James unstoppered the vial, held it to his lips and tipped it back. The blood flowed over his tongue and down his throat, but was absorbed long before it ever got to his stomach. He licked at the glass to capture every drop. No sense in wasting any.

  Blue was fine. James could taste the vitality in the sample. Low on sugars, overactive thyroid too, but no diseases, no infections. Provided his new guardian didn’t turn out to be a violent bastard, Blue would be fine.

  James binned the empty vial in the hazardous wastes unit. He’d had his shot of blood now. He ought to
be right for the rest of the day. No more supernatural jitters.

  Last night, a wolf followed me home.

  Ah, bugger. James wondered if he should go walking again tonight to search for that alleged wolf. It would get him away from the suspicious eye of his lodger, Baxter, at least.

  The alternative was to stay at home, holed up in his room so as not to disturb the irritatingly necessary Baxter, and read all night. Or stare at the walls. Or clean his gun. Again. He’d done that every day after his return, as well. Disassemble the gun. Clean it. Reassemble it. Load it. Hold it.

  But part of the curse was that James Sharpe had a fierce will to survive. That quality was what had made the transformation possible, he’d been informed by the sick bastard who’d made him. Without that implacable determination to survive, the process of dying and being reborn as this… this… thing would have foundered at the dying part.

  ‘You’re a long time deid,’ his grandfather used to say.

  You don’t know the half of it, Granda.

  James hadn’t chosen this, but he had fought for it all the same. That will to survive had left him, every day, putting his service pistol back into a box, back into the drawer, away. This transformation had taken almost everything from him, but that drive to continue – whatever it took.

  Yet he clung to the remnants of himself. He couldn’t be a human being any more, but he could try to make up for what had happened after he awoke, changed. He’d sworn he wouldn’t succumb to that again. He’d keep the beast chained, and be as human as possible, with the voice of the best man he’d known as the whisper in his ear to help. He would practise medicine and find a way to make this thing he was, if not of use, then not a danger.

  A little blood once a week from samples he took at the clinic, he found, was enough. Sometimes he supplemented it with animal blood from the butcher – chicken and pig were most easily obtained, and a cup of it every few days was sufficient.

  James washed his hands. He poured a glass of water and swilled it round his mouth, swallowed it down to make sure he got every last bit of Blue’s blood into his system. Human blood was better than animal blood, more satisfying to his physiology. Better still if it was given freely, he’d learned, but that was hardly likely. Granda was long dead, James didn’t have friends, and his lodger didn’t like him very much. At least this way, he got what he needed with minimal harm.

  The nurse knocked to introduce another patient – a teenage girl with her crying infant. James could already scent the ear infection. Surreptitiously, he spat on his finger and smeared it over the ear thermometer. He’d prescribe antibiotics too, to be on the safe side, but as he inserted the instrument in the infant’s ear, he knew the healing properties of his saliva – evolved to cover up evidence of sharp-toothed bites – was the one good thing about being a vampire.

  Chapter Two

  ‘It’s not just a bedsit,’ said the young man, all flash suit and posh aftershave, to the gangly, windswept fellow at his side, ‘More bedsit- and-a-half, a kitchenette to go with the bedroom, and a cupboard for some storage space, which you said you were after.’

  Gabriel Dare peered at the outside of the plain block of flats. Ivy Gardens. Without any ivy, or indeed, any garden. Two storeys of scuffed red bricks, small windows and peeling paint, encompassed by a low brick wall. It didn’t look much. The estate agent’s website pictures of the room-and-a-half for rent were only a little better; the tiny space had been recently repainted, at least. The pantry at the parental home was larger, but then3303 – Gabriel didn’t need much space, and he’d lived in places far less salubrious than his father’s house for many years. Even a tiny room in this unadorned building was better than what he’d had some months. (A couch in a student flophouse; an alcove out of the rain some nights; three weeks under a bridge one year. Something with both a door and a roof was a positive luxury.)

  Gabriel nodded absently as the estate agent rattled on about value for the pound and proximity to buses and the Tube, but he was taking in the setting. A narrow path led down the side of the block to an area containing a communal washing line, bins and a strip of lawn, according to the online photos. That would suit his needs if he had private callers, or needed to get out by means other than the front door.

  ‘The neighbours are pretty quiet,’ the estate agent was saying as a heavy-set man with a suitcase and a scowl pushed past them towards the street.

  ‘Get fucked!’

  Behind him, a pale man with brown hair glared at the other’s retreating back. ‘You owe for electricity and groceries, you bast–’

  ‘I didn’t eat the bloody biscuits!’

  ‘Who else w–’

  ‘And why shouldn’t I, anyway? You’d never eat them. You don’t eat. You hardly sleep. You’re a fucking nutter. Spend another night in your spare room, I might wake up with a fork in my kidney while you sip on a bleeding Chianti.’

  The pale man glowered but made no reply. He opted instead to concentrate on getting his fists to uncurl. He glared at the estate agent and Gabriel.

  ‘What the fuck do you want?’

  ‘Er… problem, Mr Sharpe?’ asked the agent nervously.

  ‘Christ no,’ replied Sharpe with weary humour, ‘What on earth makes you think that?’

  ‘Er…’

  Gabriel scrutinised this fellow, Sharpe. He’d seen him from a distance before, near the Lester Avenue clinic, a few handy streets away. He hadn’t paid much attention. A distinct mistake: he was certainly worth a closer inspection. Average height, but with broad shoulders and a compact, solid musculature of the type Gabriel had always found appealing, being such a contrast to his own lanky physique. Strong arms (Gabriel liked arms a lot, and hands, and… stop that now) and sturdy legs braced on the footpath, as though ready for an imminent call to action, his dark jeans clinging in all the right places. Light brown hair in a neat militarily short cut, clean-shaven, and sapphire blue eyes of a peculiar intensity. Very pale from his upper arms to his elbows, though his hands, forearms and face bore the traces of a faded tan. From his stance and body type, Gabriel suspected that Mr Sharpe had a good arse on him. He tried not to think about that. He liked a good arse on a man, and he’d made himself a very sincere promise not to let such things sway his judgement any more.

  ‘How much?’ asked Gabriel brightly.

  God, he hadn’t even seen the arse in question and his mouth was getting ahead of his resolutions. Story of his life.

  Both estate agent and Sharpe blinked at the non sequitur.

  ‘For the vacated room?’ Gabriel persisted with the cheerfulness, ‘How much?’

  ‘I–’

  ‘And how much space?’

  ‘Two bedrooms, kitchen, living room. One bathroom,’ said Sharpe, curious but wary. ‘On the top floor.’

  ‘Any room for storage?’

  Sharpe regarded Gabriel quizzically, but with the beginnings of a smile. ‘The cupboard under the stairs to the attic. I don’t have much in it. Shared space in the downstairs laundry. The unexpectedly unoccupied bedroom is the larger of the two, faces the back. It’s basic, but it’s furnished. Some linens, though you might want to bring your own. Baxter used to eat in bed, the grubby reprobate.’

  Gabriel found the faint lilt of a Scots accent deeply appealing, however fine or not the man’s arse turned out to be. ‘You own the flat?’

  ‘Me and the bank, though without a lodger it’ll be the bank’s by the end of the year. Want to see the room? Two hundred quid a week. You pay half the utilities, and for your own groceries.’

  ‘Yes, please.’ That was nearly a hundred quid less than the poky bedsit he was supposed to be seeing. Helene insisted he had to move from that nasty basement room in Bexley, so full of damp and mould it might as well be part of the Shuttle River, but the costs of moving were making him edgy. ‘Cleaning roster and responsible for our own cooking?’

  ‘Naturally. Aren’t you worried I’m a nutjob cannibal that’
s going to eat your kidneys one bright morning when I’ve had it to the back teeth with my dead end office job?’

  Gabriel had once met a man who might have been capable of such a thing. Sharpe was nothing like him. ‘Nope. You’re a doctor at the community health centre on Lester Avenue. I’ve seen you there, anyway. Ex-army, I heard.’

  Sharpe grimaced, his fingers automatically going to the lines of a tattoo visible under the sleeve of his khaki T-shirt: red flowers and the tail end of a caduceus.

  ‘Combat Medical Technician; infantry,’ said Sharpe. When Gabriel showed surprise, he added, ‘At the time, being at the pointy end seemed a better use of my medical degree.’

  ‘A bit quieter around here, I’m guessing.’

  ‘Most days. I’m only at the clinic part time. None of that means I’m not planning to eat your kidneys. According to Baxter.’ He indicated the general direction of the recent ex-lodger.

  ‘My reflexes are top drawer, so you’re welcome to try,’ said Gabriel, bouncing on his toes to demonstrate his agility, ‘And anyway, aren’t you worried I’m a drifter looking for lonely victims to seduce and then murder for their army pension?’

  Sharpe laughed, surprised and genuinely amused, which delighted Gabriel. Most people were shocked at his gallows humour. And Sharpe had a fantastic laugh, uninhibited, making him appear younger.

  ‘Well, as you say,’ said Sharpe, ‘I have quality reflexes and you’re welcome to try. Baxter’s already let you in on my worst habits. Still want to see?’

  ‘Sure. Your habits sound no worse than mine.’

  ‘You intrigue me, Mr…?’

  ‘Gabriel Dare.’ He said it with a hint of defiance. He was used to how people reacted to a glamorous-sounding name that in no way reflected his actual life.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘Fine then, Mr Gabriel Dare. If you like the room, it’s yours. I’m James Sharpe.’

  Gabriel tried not to be too swayed by the way that soft accent rendered his name so pleasing to the ear. He turned to the scandalised and uncomfortable estate agent. ‘Thanks for bringing me to see the bedsit. I’ll sort out the rest from here.’ He shook the man’s hand and strode through the gate in the low wall towards his new flatmate.