Ravenfall

by Narrelle M. Harris

  Gabriel approved of the flat and the offered room. Spacious, with convenient shelves in which to store his art supplies, and enough clear floor to work by the window, if Helene couldn’t find him studio space somewhere else.

  The window overlooked the narrow back garden. A convenient trellis ran beside it, holding up an unhealthy ivy vine; evidence that perhaps there had once been a garden. Gabriel leaned out of the window to check the trellis’s strength. It wasn’t great, but he could fix it later. The door to the ground-level laundry was immediately below, and that could be useful too.

  ‘I experiment sometimes with pigments and finishes,’ said Gabriel, figuring a full confession now would save being tossed out later, which had happened before, ‘But I’ll do that in my room rather than the common areas. I’m a trained chemist, so it’s unlikely I’ll cause any real explosions.’

  Sharpe raised an eyebrow. ‘Real explosions?’

  Gabriel’s mouth pursed because once more he’d run off at the mouth, being frank rather than politic, and he’d blown it. Damn.

  But Dr Sharpe was grinning at him, as if the idea that he could get blown up in a pigment experiment was divertingly funny.

  ‘I did say it was unlikely,’ Gabriel said cautiously.

  ‘You can use the kitchen table if you like, as long as you clean up the aftermath,’ Sharpe said good-humouredly. ‘Any other potential hazards to life and limb I should know about?’

  ‘I may have guests at odd hours,’ confessed Gabriel, ‘I’ll keep it to a minimum. I expect I’ll see most of them in the garden.’

  ‘Day or night?’

  ‘It could be any time. Is that a problem?’

  ‘Give me a bit of warning if you can.’

  ‘If it’s a problem–’

  ‘No, no, it’s not.’ Sharpe pursed his lips. ‘I like to know when new people are around. I’m… Look. I should be frank, if you’re going to live here. I have post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s okay, except when it’s not. Hence the insomnia Baxter was talking about, and… other things. I can get a wee bit fractious if there are unexpected visitors at strange hours.’

  Sharpe looked unhappy, and Gabriel found he didn’t like Sharpe looking unhappy. The poor bastard seemed so withdrawn. He’d met men like that before, not all of them veterans. They all held themselves like Dr Sharpe, though. Wary and reserved and so lonely.

  ‘I knew an army veteran once,’ he offered suddenly, ‘Used to get the heeby jeebies at the smell of oranges, and he couldn’t ever tell me why. Nice guy, though. He watched out for people.’

  A little furrow of confusion made a wrinkle between Sharpe’s eyebrows.

  ‘All I mean is – I’ll be mindful and let you know when I have callers if I can, or as soon as they arrive. They can’t always let me know in advance. If that’ll help.’

  ‘Cheers, yeah.’ Sharpe, satisfied, changed the subject. ‘Well, you know I’m a GP. What do you do for a crust? You mentioned pigments.’

  ‘I’m an artist, but I work part-time at an art supplies factory for regular dosh. I’m a qualified chemist.’

  ‘Hence the pigment experiments?’

  ‘Hence, though mostly they’re for fun. If they’ll be a problem…’

  ‘No, that’s fine. Surprisingly, loud bangs aren’t my issue. Just unexpected midnight visitors, and only sometimes then.’ Sharpe shrugged. ‘Your visitors – are they… buyers… or…?’

  ‘I’m not a drug dealer, Dr Sharpe. Or a user. I make a living with pigment chemistry and my art. My work’s at the Dupre Gallery on Sutton Street, if you want proof.’

  ‘No, that’s all good. Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.’

  ‘That’s fine. Not a stupid question, under the circumstances. You don’t know me. I could be a coke fiend.’

  ‘No, I could tell you’re not a user.’ Gabriel raised an inquiring eyebrow. ‘I’m a doctor,’ said Sharpe, ‘I know what to watch for.’

  Gabriel wasn’t inclined to take that at face value but it wasn’t, for the moment, important. ‘My visitors seek my help on other matters.’

  ‘Oh-ho, I was right. You are intriguing. Care to tell me what kind of help and on what kind of matters?’

  ‘If I don’t care to, is the deal off?’

  Sharpe grinned. ‘Hell, no. I won’t try to solve your mysteries if you leave mine alone too.’

  ‘Unlike the late Baxter?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call him late. He was still breathing, wasn’t he?’

  ‘And still had both kidneys, as far as I could tell.’

  Sharpe grinned again. ‘Aye, he did. Surgery’s not my thing.’ The grin faltered and Sharpe retreated to the kitchen to flick on the kettle by the sink. ‘Tea?’

  Gabriel watched the man’s back, the sudden hunching of the shoulders and wariness of stance. Maybe working patime at a community clinic was a sore point. Not surprising, if he’d been invalided out of the army on the grounds of PTSD. Sharpe didn’t show signs of permanent physical injury, like some of the people Gabriel knew from the streets. Trimboll, for instance, who limped badly and got sick at the smell of oranges and cried himself to sleep on hot nights, and had got himself stabbed one night protecting an old bloke from a pair of drunk arseholes.

  ‘I thought I’d get my things,’ was all he said, ‘Move in today. That is, if we have a deal.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Good. Well.’ Sharpe turned back to him, a set of keys in his hand. He dropped them into Gabriel’s outstretched palm. ‘Welcome to Flat Four, Ivy Gardens, Mr Dare.’

  ‘Call me Gabriel.’

  ‘Call me James.’

  And that was that.

  Chapter Three

  James watched Gabriel Dare stride down the road in skinny jeans that accentuated the delicious length of his legs and a well-worn, black T-shirt sporting a rainbow flag. The man had radiated a faint aroma of shaving soap, tea and oil paints, which should not have smelled as good as it did.

  James wondered how he had so suddenly lost one irritating flatmate and acquired a brand new, sexy as all hell substitute. A braw lad, Granda would have said. Tall and very lean (maybe a touch undernourished), hair dark and tousled, sharp cheekbones and a sensitive mouth; a graceful mover, with beautiful hands and green eyes that shone with quick intelligence. James had always liked his men tall, smart and a tad unpredictable.

  Stop that now.

  That was no longer possible. That was no longer his life.

  And yet, he had a new lodger.

  James vowed he could appreciate the lean work of art that was Gabriel Dare, but nothing else was ever going to happen. He’d keep those old impulses – nothing but dead echoes of a real life now – well under wraps. Wouldn’t do to frighten away his fortuitous new lodger, and it wasn’t as if anything could actually develop. James wasn’t sure what was physically possible any more, and surely you needed a soul to love. So, no. No future in that. Dinnae even think on it. Gabriel Dare was going to be a lovely-to-look-at lodger, and nothing more, ever.

  A nothing-but-a-lodger who was moving in to the spare room in a few hours’ time.

  James’s mouth tilted in a small, pleased smile. He caught himself doing it and stopped. When he looked down the road, Gabriel had vanished from sight.

  I’m allowed a friend, though. Aren’t I? Maybe we could be that.

  A friend. As though he hadn’t already withdrawn from everyone he knew. Civilian or army friends, how could any of them hope to understand who and what he’d become? He barely understood himself any more.

  All fash and blether, Granda would have called it. Truth, Jamie, is you’re nae the first soldier tae come back aff yer heid.

  Finally, annoyed with his own see-sawing thoughts, James spent the next few hours checking out Mr Bernetti’s story about the red- eyed wolf near his Barking Road flat.

  The plain brown brick flat was situated above a mobile phone shop and a used furniture store, both closed up with roller doors painted respectively
yellow and grey. The parking area in front smelled of engine oil and foot traffic. The scent emanating from the pie and mash shop two buildings down, mingled unpleasantly with the oil, traffic fumes, and the stale beer and worse smells from the pub on the next corner, and the dampness in the wind blowing north across Leamouth and the Thames.

  The reek of London. He’d grown used to it again, and found comfort in its familiarity, even if it was so much more intense than it had been when he’d had merely human senses.

  Unfortunately, steeped in all those other homely smells was confirmation that Mr Bernetti wasn’t entirely delusional. The footpath, three cars and the trunk of the plane tree by the road were pungent with werewolf – wild, predatory and unnatural.

  James could detect no scent of blood though, human or otherwise. No killing had taken place here. Perhaps the wolf was simply passing through. James dismissed the idea of seeking out the assistance of another vampire. Selfish pricks, the lot of them, he’d so far found, mainly interested in prancing about pretending to be Byronesque princes in make-believe courts, based on way too much sensationalist fiction.

  The only useful information he’d got about being a vampire had come from a human hanger-on who donated blood to his… patron. The kid had been extremely proud of the service he offered. When James expressed his horror that the boy could be a true victim one day, the kid was filled with scorn. ‘Blood given willingly is a hundred times more potent than blood taken by force. Don’t you know anything?’

  And no, James didn’t, because the arsehole who’d made him hadn’t bothered to share any details at all, let alone important ones like “murder isn’t necessary if you can find a willing donor”.

  James would have scoffed at the purely metaphysical rule, if not for the fact that he’d proven it at the clinic. His patients didn’t know the blood samples he took for tests were used in part to feed him, but the samples were willingly given at least. When that wasn’t enough, animal blood was sufficient to curb his thirst until his next shift at the clinic. He’d never again be reduced to that thing that had woken from death.

  Vampires. James loathed them.

  Not that there were many of them in London, as he’d discovered when he went seeking answers. Vampires, it seemed, were not plentiful and, James was assured, very difficult to make. Most people lacked the significant level of willpower it took to survive the transition from dead to undead. That knowledge gave him little comfort, though at least it meant that London wasn’t as full of bloodsucking homicidal maniacs as he’d feared when he returned home.

  James followed the trail of the werewolf west then south, down Plaistow road, but he lost the scent of it at the A13. Too much car pollution.

  James wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or relieved. It wasn’t like he knew what he was supposed to do with a werewolf if he found one. He’d keep an eye out for trouble, though. He wasn’t going to tolerate some monstrous thing threatening his community.

  He returned home as the light was falling to find a van parked outside the flat. A woman was talking with Gabriel as he stood on the kerb with a rucksack, a small suitcase, an easel and half a dozen canvases propped up on the red brick fence. The woman was in her mid-40s, James guessed, impeccably dressed, her dark hair dyed with red streaks and twisted up in a chignon.

  Gabriel lifted his chin in a minimalist greeting. ‘James.’

  James eyed the stuff on the kerb. ‘Is this it?’

  ‘I live simply,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘You live like a vagrant,’ said the woman, with affectionate frustration. She held her hand out to James. ‘You must be Dr Sharpe. I am Helene Dupre. Please let me assure you that Gabe isn’t half as irresponsible as he sometimes appears.’ Her accent retained a blush of French.

  James shook her hand, noting the softness of her skin, her subtle floral perfume, the way her nails were trimmed and painted in the barest of colours, and that her grip was firm and confident. ‘Oh, I don’t mind if he’s exactly as irresponsible as he appears. I promise I’m only about half as civilised as I look.’

  She hooted with delight. ‘Oh, I see what you mean, Gabe. No wonder you like him.’ She turned an impish grin on James, ignoring Gabriel’s pained expression. ‘He said you had an outré sense of humour.’

  James cocked an eyebrow at Gabriel, a smile ghosting his mouth, which pulled an answering one from his new lodger. ‘No humour here, Ms Dupre. Mr Dare and I were in deadly earnest when we mutually agreed not to murder each other in our sleep.’

  She waved her hand dismissively. ‘Oh, please, it’s Helene. And this is for you.’ She produced a cheque from her purse. ‘Though I can give it to you in cash tomorrow, if you prefer.’ At James’s puzzled frown, she expanded: ‘Gabe’s rent for the next month.’

  James took the cheque but the puzzlement didn’t vanish.

  ‘It’s my advance,’ explained Gabriel, ‘She’ll take it out of my sales. Assuming there are any.’

  ‘Of course there’ll be sales,’ Helene admonished him, ‘your work is gaining its audience at last.’

  ‘It’s not why I do it.’

  ‘I know, Gabe, but be a dear, shut up and enjoy the money while it’s coming in.’ Helene opened the side of the van. Gabriel picked up one of the canvases by the fence and placed it onto a shelf inside.

  The van was set up to carry a number of canvases securely, each on an individual shelf with a length of Velcro to hold the canvas in its slot. James examined the next painting Gabriel lifted into the van.

  At first glance, the painting was nothing but smudged shadows, sombrely coloured, moody and almost threatening. Even so, the patterns and colours were arresting – and then James saw the figure emerging from an oppressive atmosphere. The figure was indistinct. Her eyes – definitely her eyes – were old and full of pain; yet dignity, too. Here was a wisdom that came of knowing too much, too soon, and the defiance from having survived the experiences that had given her such knowledge. She had strength in her. Courage. The darkness hadn’t beaten her yet.

  ‘That’s extraordinary,’ James said when he found his voice, ‘There’s so much hope in it.’

  Gabriel paused in the act of picking up the third canvas. ‘Not depressing? Or brutal?’

  ‘No,’ said James, ‘Why would you say that?’

  Helene grinned at Gabriel. ‘You’re right. He’s smart as well as funny.’

  Gabriel looked pained again. James tried not to preen too obviously. He thinks I’m smart and funny.

  ‘Don’t you have somewhere to be, Helene? Somewhere far away from here?’

  ‘Oh, no doubt,’ she said breezily, ‘But I can’t imagine it would be as fun as this.’

  Gabriel finished loading the last canvases into her van. ‘I’m sure it is. Much more fun. Unless you’d rather witness the unparalleled entertainment of me unpacking my worldly goods.’

  ‘Pfft,’ Helene plucked her keys out of her handbag, ‘As if that will take you more than three minutes.’

  Gabriel lifted his rucksack onto his shoulders and reached for his suitcase, encountering James’s fingers as he, too, went to pick it up. They both pulled away as though an electric current had zapped through them.

  Helene spared them further observations, though not a delightedly smug smile. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘I have places to be, and you have worldly goods to unpack and the charming Dr Sharpe–’

  ‘James,’ said James.

  ‘And the charming James no doubt has a list of house rules to give you, beyond “Rule one, flatmates will not attempt reciprocal homicide”.’

  ‘Rule two is about not drinking milk straight from the carton,’ said James, ‘So the list isn’t all that interesting.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Gabriel, grinning slyly at him, ‘I’m looking forward to negotiating Rule Three about helping each other hide the bodies.’

  ‘As long as you pay the rent on time,’ said James faux-sternly, ‘I’m open to negotiat
ion.’

  ‘I’ll leave you two to flirt,’ said Helene, getting into the van.

  ‘I’m not!’ James began to protest. The van pulled away.

  He turned to Gabriel. ‘I don’t flirt. I don’t do that. Relationships. I don’t. And anyway, I’m straight.’ Which was a lie, lie, lie. When he’d been alive, James had dated both men and women. Now he was… whatever he was.

  Alone.

  Gabriel, he finally noticed, was just as mortified. ‘No. Of course not. I’m not… I mean. No. It’s fine. Helene has a ridiculous sense of humour, pretty intrusive at times, and she…’ He swallowed hard. ‘Helene has known me since I was very young. She was my au pair, and she likes to tease,’ he ended awkwardly.

  Until now, Gabriel had mainly spoken with a wry humour. James found this new flustered version quite appealing too.

  ‘Ah,’ said James, smiling mock-ruefully. ‘Perhaps hers is the first body we’ll dispose of together, eh?’

  ‘The second,’ replied Gabriel in a like tone. ‘I have a relative who tops my list.’

  James had someone else entirely on the top of his, but since his was a real list, and if he ever got his hands on the bastard who’d turned him there’d be nothing but dust and no corpse to dispose of, he chose not to mention it. Instead, he reached for Gabriel’s suitcase – once more, just as Gabriel did – and their hands met. This time, James left his fingers on the handle.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ he said.

  Gabriel resettled his rucksack over his shoulders and hefted the easel. ‘All right,’ he agreed. Then he followed James into the flat.

  It had been a mistake, Gabriel thought, to walk behind James Sharpe upstairs into the flat, because the doctor did indeed have a lovely arse, and it was shown off very nicely in those formfitting dark jeans he wore. With James a few stairs ahead of him, too, the loveliness was at eye height. Also mouth height. Biteable height. Fortunately, Gabriel had excellent impulse control.