Invisible Monsters

by H L Macfarlane

  “You know, I wanted you to be the mother of my children before I knew about your blood,” Nick drawled, the pace at which he stalked towards Poppy slow in the way only those certain of victory could be. The shadowy, early morning light made him look all the more eerie and sinister, even in human form. And there were times when his shadow broke and bent and flickered in front of Poppy’s very eyes, sending her heart into a desperate frenzy.

  Just another beat. Two. Three. You can do four, Poppy King. Come on, heart, let’s hit five.

  “That’s such an honour,” Poppy spat out, taking a careful step towards the back door out of the facility – the one that led to the meadow at the base of the cliffs, protecting Dorian’s facility from the worst of the brutal northern winds that battered the Scottish highlands.

  “You don’t sound all that impressed,” Nick called back, closing the gap between them once more.

  “I never really saw myself as a stay-at-home mum, you know? Greatest respect to them, obviously. It’s just not for me. Especially when my babies would be giant lizard oxes that even Theseus would run from.”

  “Oh, you know your stuff, don’t you? Are you not curious about us, Poppy? About why we exist? About what our existence means for –”

  “I. Don’t. Care.”

  Nick could only laugh assuredly. “You will. Trust me, you will. When everyone else is trembling in fear of my family – of the legacy you will help me create – then trust me, Poppy King, you will want to know.”

  When Poppy breathed in deeply through her nostrils and could only smell gas she knew it was time. She had no sign from Dorian that he was okay, but Poppy knew she had to get away – if only to stop somebody like Nick from ever getting hold of her. If that meant dying in a ball of flames then so be it.

  Poppy glugged down several measures of rum from the remaining bottle in her hand, tossing it to the side before reaching for the lighter she’d stashed in the pocket of her shorts.

  Nick was so close. Too close. She hated that she could see every triumphant line of his face as he reached out and –

  Was set alight.

  Poppy hadn’t even sparked a flame yet.

  Dorian had.

  “What are you, Poppy King?” he asked, grabbing hold of Poppy and sprinting out of the facility just as the entire building erupted into flames.

  AN UNWILLING PARTNERSHIP

  Dorian

  When the two of them reached the grove of trees in which he was born Dorian could barely recall how they had reached it. His body was thrumming with broken bones and shredded muscles and slashed veins repairing themselves with every step he took. His throat was in agony; each breath was like sandpaper against it.

  “You should have run, you idiot!” Dorian gasped, collapsing in a barely-conscious heap in the exact spot where he’d lain with Poppy on his chest two weeks ago, when he’d been struggling to regain his breath for entirely different reasons.

  Poppy sat beside him, chest heaving. She didn’t quite seem to see – anything. Her pale eyes were made of glass, full of smoke and rain and everything she had witnessed but hadn’t truly taken in yet.

  “You’re…welcome,” she muttered, so quietly Dorian almost didn’t hear her.

  But he did, and he had just enough strength to grab Poppy and slam her to the ground beneath him. “Welcome for what?!” he demanded, even though it hurt to speak. “Welcome for being forced to kill Steven, who was one of my friends? Welcome for having to protect you against others of my kind, though I’m now as good as dead for doing so? Or welcome for allowing you to literally destroy everything I’d been building throughout my career, regardless of what that meant for me?”

  Poppy said nothing. She could barely speak after their impossible climb up the rain-soaked cliff; Dorian was still unsure how they’d actually managed it. She looked away from him, though Dorian only tightened his grip on her wrists as a result, claws digging into her flesh despite the way Poppy tensed up against the pain.

  “Answer me!” Dorian raged, futilely shaking the woman below him until he lost the strength to do so and collapsed heavily on top of her.

  Poppy gasped at the weight of him. “Can’t…breathe…Dorian –”

  “It would serve you right,” he muttered, before rolling off her just enough that one of Dorian’s long-limbed arms was all that weighed down on her chest.

  “You know I meant you’re welcome for me saving your life, Dorian,” Poppy said after she regained her breath, so conversational that he could have slapped her.

  “And who was the one that actually lit the match, huh?”

  “You’d never have escaped properly if I hadn’t filled the place with gas.”

  “And now both of us have delayed death for – what, a few hours? Days, if we’re lucky. Weeks, if the planets have somehow aligned to grant us all our wishes. If you had simply left with your stupid club then you might actually have had a chance at escaping all this!”

  Poppy stared at him out of the corner of her eye; Dorian buried his head against the dirt and leaves and moss to avoid looking at her. “If I hadn’t come back to help you you’d be dead. Is that what you wanted? To die?”

  “Shut up, Poppy.”

  “I won’t shut up!”

  When Dorian felt Poppy move his arm away to clamber on top of him he had to fight every muscle in his aching body from throwing her off. But Poppy nuzzled her way against his neck, sliding her hand through his twisted horns and along his pointed ear until Dorian had no choice but to turn his head to meet her gaze.

  “Don’t touch my ear,” he muttered.

  “I’ll touch it all I want, if it’ll make you talk to me.”

  “It’ll make me do more than talk to you, and you know it.”

  “I’d call that progress, all things considered.”

  “Poppy –”

  “You need to at least drink my blood, Dorian,” Poppy cut in, throwing all ridiculous suggestions to one side. “From the looks of things you’d never experimented to see how long it takes for my blood to affect your system…am I right?”

  Dorian shook his head miserably, inhaling the smell of wet, green things as he did so. “I always meant to. I just…didn’t.”

  “Then drink from me, and feel better. Then we can talk about what’s next.”

  He didn’t want to agree with Poppy – didn’t want to do as she said. After everything that had happened it felt altogether like losing.

  He turn and sat up anyway.

  “You are the singular worst living being I have ever had the displeasure of meeting,” Dorian muttered as Poppy sat in his lap, moving her rain-soaked hair over one shoulder to give him free access to her neck.

  “And I thought the same of you, until today,” Poppy reported, just as Dorian dug his teeth into her jugular and sucked on it viciously. “Jesus Christ, Dorian!” she exclaimed, clawing at his face in the process. “Not so hard! Not so –”

  “I can do what I like,” he said, surfacing from her neck just long enough to speak. Dorian’s face was covered in blood, though he knew most of that was his own. “I had to have my throat slit twice for you. It was agonising sitting there, waiting for it to heal faster than I could die.”

  “Welcome to the club,” she sobbed, though Poppy put up with the pain nonetheless. Eventually Dorian pulled away, yowling in frustration.

  “If you just sit there putting up with it I can’t fucking –”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve grown a conscience now, of all times?”

  “You act as if I’ve never had one!”

  “That’s because you don’t!”

  Dorian pulled on her hair, dragging Poppy’s face up until she was looking directly at him. “I do. Asking me to care about what happens to every member of your stupid club is like asking a human to look after and manually rear every cow they’ve ever eaten.”

  He was gratified to see Poppy beginning to grow unsure. “…you’re really comparing humans to cattle, Dorian?”

&nb
sp; “Are you not?” he replied, unperturbed. “I need to eat you to survive. The more physically fit you are the better it is for me to eat you. Tell me which part is different?”

  Poppy reached up to slap him; Dorian caught her wrist in a clawed hand that could so easily snap it in two. Eventually her wrist grew limp. “A better comparison would be if humans ate gorillas, which we don’t,” she said, unexpectedly resigned.

  “You absolutely would, if they were your only food source.”

  “I wouldn’t –”

  “Don’t even go there, Poppy,” Dorian glowered, head dipped low over her own. “You and I both know it’s an argument you cannot win. My kind needs to eat humans. I need to eat humans. Get over it or leave.”

  “Oh, so now you’re telling me to leave?”

  He crushed her against his chest with as much strength as he could muster. “Absolutely not. If I’m dying then you’re dying with me. If that means stopping Nick or Aisling from stealing you away in the process then so be it.”

  Poppy froze in his arms. “…are they not dead?”

  “What makes you think that – the fire?” Dorian laughed bitterly. “Fuck no. Those scales of Nick’s will protect him against most anything, and Aisling escaped through the damn window before I could get a proper hit on her. It was only Steven who died and, trust me, it wasn’t the fire that killed him.”

  A pause. “I’m sorry you had to kill your friend.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “Are you sorry I had to kill mine?”

  Another pause. “I guess not. Does that make us even?”

  “No,” Poppy said resolutely, reaching up and biting the end of Dorian’s bloodied, broken-and-rehealed nose. “You’ve ruined my life. Nothing can ever make us ‘even’.”

  “You’ve ruined mine!”

  Poppy reached up on her knees until her face was level with Dorian’s. She ran her hands along the length and breadth of his intricate network of horns, even as Dorian wished he could tell her not to touch them.

  “Then I guess we’re just as stupidly matched as you always hoped we were,” she said, the words sounding more like a curse than anything else.

  Dorian wanted to push her away because of it; to vehemently reject everything that Poppy King had done to him – everything he was going to let her get away with doing. Instead he ran a hand through her hair, enjoying the way Poppy winced as the sharp edges of his nails grazed her scalp.

  “Where to next then?” he asked, watching in suspicion as Poppy fidgeted and looked away. He frowned. “Poppy, what have you done?”

  “I haven’t done anything, per se,” she mumbled, still not looking at him. “Though I may have swung Patrick over to the human side of my escape plan by way of Casey, and they may be waiting for us half a mile or so along the south-west shore of the loch.”

  Dorian felt like strangling her. He felt like strangling himself. For what did it say about him, that his best friend from childhood could be convinced to betray him for a human girl?

  But all Dorian had to do was look at Poppy – infuriating, damnable, deadly Poppy King – and his question was answered.

  “Fine,” he sighed, knowing that he’d hate every second of the next few days of his life – if he lived that long. “Fine. Lead the way.”

  Poppy raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

  “No, but I have no other choice.”

  “You could stay here and die.”

  “Do you want that?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s not a choice for me.”

  Poppy chewed on his words like they were particularly tough to digest though, in truth, they weren’t. She simply didn’t want to acknowledge the depth of Dorian’s feelings for her – something which he had long since made peace with.

  And so, in true Poppy King style, she ignored those feelings, just as Dorian allowed her to get away with ignoring them…for now. They both had a lot they had to answer for, but neither could do so if they were dead. But one thing was certain as Poppy crept out of the forest, Dorian following closely behind as if he didn’t know each and every one of the trees surrounding them like the back of his own hand.

  Whether today or a hundred years from now, Poppy King would be the death of him.

  EPILOGUE: FRIENDS ON BOTH SIDES

  Poppy

  If anyone was to ever ask Poppy King what her idea of hell was, it would be the exact scene unfolding in front of her very eyes.

  She, Dorian, Casey and Patrick sat on one side of a gloomy café booth, whilst Andrew, Nate, Rachelle and Fred sat on the opposite side. Poppy couldn’t believe Casey had signed her up to such a meeting against her will.

  “So…you’re not dead, which is always a good place to start,” Fred murmured, grimacing as he took a sip of his grey, discoloured cappuccino. Beneath the table Poppy kicked him, even though he was sitting as far away as possible from her.

  “Why are you here, Sampson?” Dorian outright demanded, in lieu of asking how anybody had been coping since escaping from his murder camp masquerading as a sports retreat.

  “Because he wants answers, just like us!” Rachelle said, which was the most confrontational thing Poppy had ever heard her say to Dorian.

  He stared at Poppy, agape, pointing at Fred as he did so. “You can’t be serious, Poppy. You can’t be serious.”

  Rachelle’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “What do you mean ‘what do I mean’? Do none of you know what Sampson did, aside from Andrew?”

  “Dorian, don’t do this right –”

  “Shut up, Poppy.”

  “Don’t talk to her like that!” Nate exclaimed, immediately furious. Poppy avoided his eyes. She had to.

  “I’ll talk to her however I want, all things considered,” Dorian replied, icily calm. “Isn’t that right, Poppy?”

  A single glance at Dorian’s right hand, shaking slightly around the cup of coffee he’d never drink, was indication enough that she shouldn’t push him right now.

  “Nate, lay off,” she said, waving him down when it seemed like he might protest. “A lot has happened that…justifies the shitty way Dorian is treating me right now.”

  It was Dorian who kicked her leg beneath the table this time.

  “Which brings me back to my original question,” Dorian said smoothly, as if Nate and Poppy had never interrupted him. “Why is it that, out of everyone at this table, I’m the villain, when Fred is sitting right there?”

  Out of the corner of her eye Poppy saw Andrew and Dorian exchange a look of understanding, which was precisely one more look than Andrew had given Poppy since they’d entered the café.

  It was Casey who spoke next, reaching over to take Poppy’s trembling hand before Poppy herself knew she was shaking. “Dorian, what the hell are you talking about? Fred, what is he talking about?”

  “I don’t want them to know!” Poppy blurted out.

  Just as Fred exclaimed, “I tried to kill her!”

  Poppy aimed for his knee this time when she kicked him; Fred recoiled just in time. “You fucking fool,” she muttered, so angry she felt inclined to throw Fred’s coffee in his face.

  Fred held her gaze as if he had done nothing wrong. “They all deserve to know,” he said. “The fact they didn’t know before now is insane.”

  “Trying to kill her makes it sound like Sampson made one attempt and failed,” Dorian spat out bitterly. Beside him Patrick dug into his arms with short, stubby nails, but Poppy knew it was enough to keep him grounded. “Andrew, care to tell your oblivious friends what it was you found in the kitchen, when you came crying to me for help?”

  Poppy slapped Dorian on reflex. “Don’t you dare drag Andrew into this, you sick son of a –”

  “You’re calling me sick when Sampson is literally sitting right there and –”

  “Stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it!”

  It was Andrew who spoke. Of course it was Andrew who spoke. Poppy ached at the sound of
his voice, and how much she wished it was only the two of them talking right now.

  Not for the first time she acknowledged that, though Rachelle had been her best friend all throughout university and general procrastinating from adult life, and Casey was the one who could empathise best with what Poppy was going through right now, it was Andrew who was truly Poppy’s closest friend. Even that didn’t seem enough to describe their relationship properly.

  Poppy wasn’t sure anything ever would.

  “Andrew, I’m sorry –” Poppy began, but Andrew spoke over her, addressing nobody in particular.

  “I went looking for Poppy at four in the morning because I couldn’t sleep and she didn’t respond when I knocked on her door so I went to look for her and when I reached the kitchen the light was on and Fred had stabbed her with a knife so many times all I could see was red and I had to clean it up.”

  The fact that Andrew had missed out arguably the most important section of the story would have made Poppy laugh, if not for the looks of horror spreading on most everybody’s faces, even Patrick. Clearly Dorian had never divulged what happened to his best friend, though Poppy knew for a fact he’d immediately told him about having slept with her in the forest.

  Interesting choice of subjects to divulge to and keep secret from your best friend, she mused, though Poppy supposed she could hardly judge Dorian when she caught sight of Rachelle’s ashen, desolate face. She was looking at Fred as if he were a stranger.

  “How could you?” she whispered. “How many times did I talk to you about leaving Poppy alone? How many times did I –”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered how many times you told me, Rachelle,” Fred said. Poppy hated how genuinely sad he sounded. “I’d have done it anyway.”

  “What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with all of you?!” Nate demanded, standing up from the booth as if he couldn’t bear to sit with them all any more. He turned to Poppy. “Morph, I’m so sorry you had to deal with all of this. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t believe I stopped talking to you just ‘cause I was hurt you didn’t like me back. It was so fucking childish of me, when the whole time you were dealing with – this!” He waved a hand towards everyone but Rachelle.