I managed to get a better butchers at the library, which was next door to the pool room. It was circular, with stacks of books ranked in spirals up to a high ceiling, arranged around an oak desk. There was a giant ash and elder triskelion mural on the floor. It must be Master’s study as well – jackpot.
I forced my excited gaze down. I hadn’t a clue if I’d be able to snatch a chance to rifle, especially now Master had added this choke chain. Yet for the first time since butting heads with Master, I reckoned maybe I wouldn’t be the one with the antlers torn off bloody.
A tug on the leash – and isn’t that a sodding humiliating thing to write? – and I crawled more rapidly after Master into the pool room, which was like a futuristic gentleman’s club: the pool table was crimson velvet, shimmering silver chairs sprawled on each side below globular lights that were like space pods and a dome-shaped ceiling light bathed everything Midas-touched.
A summer storm was lashing the wide windows out in the dark; clouds veiled the stars.
Master tied one end of my chain to a leg of the pool table, like a bloke leaving his mutt outside the boozer, before setting himself up a game.
I still hadn’t been fed or watered since arriving, although after my stint at Abona, the gnaw of starvation and claw of dehydration was at least familiar - reassuring even - like being tortured by an old nemesis, rather than a stranger.
I knelt there - shivering, starving and starkers - whilst Master casually leant for a shot. In every exposed inch of skin I felt I was just another one of this rich man’s possessions.
‘What do you think the wild leeches would say,’ Master wasn’t even looking down at me, as he lined up a shot, ‘if they took a sight of you now, boy?’
Clatter – the ball hit the pocket.
I didn’t look up. ‘I dunno, Master.’
‘Is that a lie?’ Master bent low over the crimson table for another shot.
I stiffened. ‘No, Master.’
‘Would they accept you back as one of them? Respect you?’
I don’t bloody care, you wanker - rebel here. ‘No, Master.’
Clatter – another pocket.
I could hear Master taking a slow, appreciative drink. I licked my dry lips. ‘Of course, they already can,’ that same relaxed tone, the one Master had used with you about Fernando. ‘Captain has a file on you. Photos. What do you reckon a Blood Lifer like him would’ve done with them, after your great fuss?’ He ran the cue up and down between his fingers speculatively. I’d never felt so sick and…violated. ‘This is your life now: as my goog. You can’t ever return to your old life again.’
Clatter – and another onion layer was lost.
Later, Master perched on one of the silver chairs in the pool room, balancing a tray of spuds and sweet Manx Queenies, which had been brought in by one of the short, sturdy servants, who I caught glimpses of moving between rooms with total indifference to me. It was like the imprisonment and torture of Blood Lifers was as humdrum, as if their employer was simply keeping a mistress. How many years had your dad been practising his skills for the local servants to be so blasé?
Hartford had said he’d been the first Blood Lifer bagged by Master. The thought of Hartford and the reason why I was suffering, steeled me…
Let my people go…
Sir had only ever been the slave driver: the true Pharaoh was seated on a silver throne, shovelling queen scallops into his bearded gob, whilst I knelt at his garlic stinking feet.
When my stomach growled, Master raised his eyebrow. ‘Do you want some blood?’
Confused, I hesitated.
Rule 5A in Rules for Blood Lifer Slaves was… A slave has no direct desires… So could I want anything..? Rule 7B, however, was… A slave will always be honest and tell the truth… And I was bleeding hungry… Yet again, Rule 13A stated… A slave will tell their Master all their needs, thoughts and secrets.
‘Your slave is hungry but it will only feed if you wish it, Master.’
Was that body, mind and Soul enough?
The stroke of Master’s hand though my hair, told me it was. ‘I knew I could learn you, boy.’ Then he continued to munch his spuds, studiously slowly. When Master finally rang one of the stony-faced servants, and they delivered the blood, I sodding wished they hadn’t. It was in an over-sized bottle with a rubber teat, like the ones you’d offered me. Then the wanker settled himself, holding it out between his knees, as if he was feeding a lamb. I scowled at the bottle and then up at Master. ‘Don’t be acting the gor. Drink.’
I shuffled closer, bending my lips to the teat. When I suckled, the blood oozed out, thick and freezing. I immediately gagged.
Human.
I fell back in shock, spitting out foaming globules onto the pristine white carpet, whilst Master swore and booted at me. But it was too late: I was swimming on the high. My peepers rolled back, my muscles juddering, as I giggled, at the same time as tears crept down my cheeks.
The bloody bastard.
At last I lay still, glaring up at Master.
Then Master was tapping his belt buckle, holding up - three fingers already?
I swallowed but I didn’t stop glaring.
Didn’t Master understand what abstention meant? The effect human had on a Blood Lifer, after a diet of animal alone?
Of course he did. Master had that file on me, courtesy of Captain, with all my weaknesses.
After five decades of blood abstention, the sadist intended to break it - break me - as if to prove I’d never been more than a parasite.
Starving and now overloaded, I shook, as I pulled myself back to my knees.
Master’s peepers were crushed ice. ‘Rule 2D states--’
‘Yeah, yeah, a slave only eats what the sodding Master gives him and when he’s told to. But that’s human blood, and I’m not eating it.’
Tap, tap, tap - three more fingers – six.
Flushed with a creeping sense of mania, I wondered if Master would keep counting, once he’d passed his ten digits. Then I remembered, however, just how many implements Master had hanging from the training room’s walls and sobered. ‘It’s human.’
‘Aye, the Manxie donate it,’ Master set the bottle down, before grabbing my leash and hauling me back to the snug, so fast I was dragged behind him along the wooden floor, bruising my jaw when I didn’t react quickly enough to catch myself. ‘The Cain family have been here on Ellan Vannin since before records began. Now we put money into schools, building works and jobs. Mann is our fiefdom.’ Master unfastened the leash from my collar, slamming me into the cage. ‘I’m an Independent MP in our Parliament: Tynwald. It’s the oldest governing body in the world, boy. The Isle of Man Constabulary? Chief Constable Quayle’s a keen member of our Blood Club. So the Manxie donate, and you’ll never refuse food from me again.’
And I never did.
The next day, when Master held out the bottle, like it was feeding time at the farm, I latched onto the teat and sucked.
It was so freezing I nearly choked and pulled away. But Master’s hand was suddenly twisted in my hair, holding me on. I had no choice but to keep drinking.
I took panicked breaths through my nose, as I forced down the manky blood, which still zinged through my bloodstream, awakening instincts I’d forgotten: a desperate wildness and howling power, which shifted me side to side.
I watched as Master’s fingers moved to his brass belt buckle – one. ‘Don’t work yourself into a fidge. If you’re a good boy, I’ll take you out into the Estate, so you can have a pelt up and down in the woods. I need to cut some fresh switches anyway.’
I straightened. I needed to be outside now my cells were rushing with human blood and screaming for the chase of a hunt. I’d do almost anything for that.
When I caught Master’s smile, I realised he’d engineered my response.
All evening, I was dead careful, trying to earn my reward. I couldn’t sleep the day in the cage, restless with need.
That night, Master waited
for me to open my gob obediently, like a baby bird, before he shoved in the teat.
When I suckled on it, I found the blood had been heated. I met Master’s gaze over the bottle and felt this rush of…appreciation. It must’ve been reflected in my peepers because Master smiled warmly.
Master had never looked at me like that before: it felt bloody good. I hated myself. But at the same time? I was strengthened by Master’s approval. No bloke had shown me that. Not since the day Nora, Polly and I had been playing out by the willow, and mama had stumbled towards us, her haunted peepers telling me the truth about papa, before she’d even begun to speak.
When I finished drinking, Master patted my nut. ‘Good boy, let’s take you for a run.’
I should’ve wanted to smash Master’s patronising mug in.
Instead, I grinned.
When Master walked me on hands and knees out of a narrow back way, I sneaked a glimpse at the security code – 6 digits. Yet there’d also been four other codes between here and the private rooms.
I was beginning to grasp just how tough this caper would be. And I’d already been here… I didn’t know how long. The days and nights melded into each other.
At least I’d survive as Light – I am Light, Light, Light – and return to you.
I risked a smile, remembering you hot against my back, as we tonned towards the coast on the Triton.
The carpet of wild garlic under the trees drove my newly blood heightened senses into thrashing overdrive; at last I understood the garlic scent on Master’s boots.
When I darted and dove between the Manx oaks, ash, elders and wych elms, disturbing raptor-eyed pheasants amongst the brush, the heady scented mix of raw nature sang heavy metal beat, beat, beat to the resurrected Blood Lifer in me and called me to hunt in the warm of the summer night.
My partial fangs shot out. I laughed to the skies.
Christ in heaven this was glorious.
Master was somewhere in the black, with a 20-bore sidelock shotgun, held loosely over one arm; he used it to hunt the pheasants, which he bred on the Estate. He hadn’t needed to say a word for me to know I must return when he called, like a hound.
But for now? This was my reward. And I was free.
I was running again at last – not crawling - an equal to First Lifers. I didn’t know if I could ever be caged again. And I didn’t mean in my new home behind the sofa in the snug.
Master had unleashed me.
Still high from the chase through the woods, which Master had boasted the Cains had planted themselves, since their Manxie forebears had sliced down almost every tree on the island, I dropped to kneel, as Master left me unchained in the hallway.
When the landline rang in the snug, Master shot me a warning glare, before clumping to take it, slamming the door on me.
This was it - my chance to spy on Master’s study.
I peeked all around – no dour, sneaking servants. I had a gander through the library door at the circular oak desk.
Spurred on by the blood and the adrenaline kick of my night of freedom, I legged it into the library, over the mural of the three-legged man and launched myself at the Arthurian desk. I tore at the drawers. They were locked. I was too buzzed to do caution, ripping out the drawers, cracking the joints and then frantically searching the papers.
Nothing: just accounts. I began to panic.
The second drawer, however, held a list of names and locations, with slave names next to them. My stomach clenched. I quickly memorised them. Just in case.
Who am I? Patron saint of Blood Lifers?
I tore open the third drawer.
Reams of numbers - six digit codes - with a coloured key, which matched them to a layout of the Estate.
It was whilst I was absorbed in studying the codes, however, that I heard the polite cough.
Startling, I looked up.
Master was standing, with his hands clasped behind his back, examining me. To my alarm, he didn’t look furious, more…disappointed.
Ashamed, I dropped the papers, folding to kneel. Vaguely, I wondered what was bleeding wrong with me. But it was buried beneath the wailing terror.
‘You slink! I reward you, and in turn you be disobedient?’ Master didn’t raise his voice. Somehow that was worse. ‘Why are you in here?’
I hesitated… A slave will always be honest and tell the truth… I struggled to shut out the oily, insistent voice in my mind. ‘I dunno, Master.’
‘Don’t lie, you bad boy, or I’ll have you scrooging and screwed-up for days.’ I flinched, waiting for Master’s fingers to move to his belt, but they didn’t. ‘What do you want with that?’ He nudged the codes with his boot.
‘Nothing, Master.’
‘Were you trying to memorise them, so you could escape?’
‘No, Master, a pathetic leech like me couldn’t do that.’
Master relaxed then and laughed. ‘That’s true. You’re such a stupid slowan you couldn’t even remember your slave rules.’
At last my punishment for the deliberate mistakes in the test seemed worthwhile. ‘Master, may I?’
Master stroked his beard. ‘Aye, boy.’ Then unexpectedly he gripped me by the chin, his thumb digging into my jaw. I winced. ‘I’ll know if it’s the truth.’ He released me with a shove.
‘I’m sorry, Master.’ It wasn’t a lie: my skin pulsed with the need for punishment.
‘You will be.’
‘I was looking for a copy of my file,’ I forced myself to silence the nagging git slave voice inside my brain, ‘the one you gave to Captain. It made me dead upset what you said. I wanted to see what it--’
Master gripped my hair, wrenching my nut back. ‘Wanted? You’re not fit, boy. A slave has no desires. You exist only to serve. But I’ll learn you.’
I’d expected many things but not…
I was ordered to the low whipping bench in the training room, forced to lie on my stomach. My feet were raised on a strange wooden contraption, my big toes tied to it by a thick red string and ankles cuffed. I was restrained to the bench by my wrists, with a wide leather strap over my waist.
Master said nothing at all. He hadn’t tapped the buckle on his belt, held up a number of fingers, laid out implements or told me a number of strokes.
It was giving me the collywobbles.
Strapped face-down as I was, I might as well have been blindfolded. It was only when the first leather tawse whacked down bastinado-style on the vulnerable pink of the tender side of my right foot that I got what I was in for.
I yelped and struggled but I was tied down tight.
Master attacked both feet in turn with straps and rubber paddles, up and down from toe to heel, focusing on the arches. He turned my feet this way and that, as delicately as if he was examining them for injury, not thrashing the hell out of them.
I didn’t start bawling and begging, however, until Master broke out the canes.
At last, through the blurry fog of agony, I realized Master had stopped and was unfastening the restraints.
I was floating somewhere - not quite in my own body - but the tug of the leather being pulled around my middle dragged me back to a reality in which the punishment wasn’t over.
Because that’s when Master commanded, ‘Stand.’
Quailing, I twigged that the psychological games were now beginning: on Master’s order, I had to torture myself.
Cautiously, I swung myself round on the bench and then pushed myself up. My legs nearly buckled at the pain, which shot up from my bruised feet. Gasping, I tried to stand lightly on them, but Master placed his strong hands on my shoulders and pushed down.
I hollered.
‘In the corner. Hands on head.’
I blushed. Bugger it.
I limped to the far corner, wincing on each step. When I finally heard Master’s order to crawl and dropped to all fours, there were tears of gratitude in my bleeding peepers.
We Blood Lifers are all about the speed and skill of the hunt, and M
aster had given me a taste of that in the woods, only to steal from me the ability to even stand without pain.
After that, it felt as if there was nothing Master couldn’t strip away from me.
Master led me back to the cage, locking me in without looking at me. I don’t know why that hurt, after what the bastard had done to me.
Instead, Master left me alone in my cage, with nothing to do or see, except those white walls and the worn back of the leather sofa, for a long time.
I could hear him moving around the other rooms in the wing. He never came back into the snug, however, except once a night to feed me, through a panel in the bars of the cage.
The blood was freezing again and thick; I choked on it, as I struggled to get it down.
Master never spoke to me.
I asked permission to speak on the first night, although I’m not sure what I’d have said. Master, however, had simply shaken his nut.
As soon as Master had clumped out of the snug, I’d thrown myself side to side in the cage in frustration. My muscles were cramping, trapped in so small a space, yet buzzed on human blood.
I was blood addicted again: dependent on it and Master’s feeds. I was restless and agitated when my blood sensed it was time, even though all this was artificial and against nature. Here I was, drinking human blood from a bottle, through the bars of a cage, instead of through the silk soft skin of a human neck.
I couldn’t stop the blood dependency, or my dependency on Master. I was equally addicted to both.
I tensed in anticipation when I sensed Master was about to enter the snug, waiting in desperation for him to look at me. Speak to me. Even give me an order.
For him, I understood finally, to forgive me.
At last, one evening when Master was feeding me cold blood through the bars in stony silence, I couldn’t take it anymore. ‘Master, may I?’
Master started to shake his nut but then seemed to change his mind. ‘Aye, boy.’
Shocked I’d been given my shot, I collected my confused thoughts. I no longer knew what was acting and what was real, as if too many layers had been peeled back for the masks to remain. ‘Your slave is sorry it let you down, Master. It’s learned its lesson.’
Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2) Page 25
