by Cat Thomson
James realised he would have to take action, and fast, if he was to keep Katie for himself.
***
Location: London
Sunday, 19 April 2026
Sunrise: 05:56
Sunset: 20:04
Katie was walking down a black, endless corridor, her footsteps echoing on its stone floor. She felt an uneasy sense of someone close behind her, his breath tangible against her skin, his breathing audible in the stillness. She turned to see if anyone was there, but could see nothing but the blackness that surrounded her. She began to walk faster, but the stone floor was slippery and she had to slow down again.
Katie came to a dead end and began to beat her hands against the cold, damp wall in desperation.
"Help! Help me!" she screamed, her nails scratching, clawing at the wall.
Suddenly, the audible breathing became loud and rasping. She felt something move along the length of her arm from her wrist to her shoulder and she shuddered.
"Who's there?" she cried out, fear blatant in the tone of her voice.
She couldn't bear to turn her head now, she was so terrified at the prospect of what she might see. Desperate tears streamed down her face.
Then a hand came into her range of vision, close enough to her face for her to see it, and she was able to discern that it was nothing more than bone, decaying flesh hanging from it. The rotting hand turned her head, forcing her to look at its owner. She felt light-headed; no, it couldn't be. But the face she now looked at was undeniably that of the charming man who had seduced her the other night; decomposing, but still recognisable. The cadaver that now stood before her was the silver-haired man, his eyes leering out of fleshless sockets, his hair thin and wispy, his skin putrid with decay.
"Kiss me," he whispered.
She could distinguish his sharp canines in the gloom.
"Kiss me," he repeated.
And he slowly moved his bony mouth towards her full, pink lips. She struggled against his strength, trying to release her head from his grip to avoid his decomposed visage, his putrid breath, as his face moved closer and closer to hers.
She screamed.
***
Katie opened her eyes and slowly became aware that she was in the shelter, lying in bed. She felt a searing pain as the glare emanating from the ceiling lights penetrated her eyes, and she shut them momentarily. When she re-opened them and looked up at the light above where she lay, they were slightly less sensitive to the brightness. She moved her limbs and realised with disappointment that she was still weak after her encounter with James and the mysterious man in her flat the other night.
"Hey!"
Katie jumped at the unexpected voice alongside her bunk.
"Don't stress, Katie, it's only me."
She rolled over and found herself looking into deep blue eyes framed by golden hair. "Hi, Tom," she said quietly.
Tom scrutinised her face, as though seeking out evidence of something. "Did something happen the other night, Katie? You're pale, on edge, lethargic; basically, not your usual self."
"I was just really scared, Tom. It was awful being alone in my flat, listening to those screams out-of-doors."
Tom stroked wisps of Katie's hair gently away from her face. His touch felt good, like a welcome antidote to the poison of the nightmare she had just had.
"Are you hungry?" said Tom. "I could cook up a Full English for the both of us."
Katie was ravenous; she nodded.
***
As Tom stood manoeuvring eggs in a large, sizzling pan, Ed approached him.
"Have you noticed anything different about Katie since she wasn't able to get here in time the other night?" he asked Tom.
"She's definitely very edgy, but as she said, it's pretty scary up there at night. I'm not surprised she's acting that way."
"But she's also very pale, Tom, and she's been wearing a scarf round her neck since she got here yesterday morning. Have you asked her about that? And she spent most of yesterday in bed asleep."
"I did notice the scarf. I'm sure it's nothing, Ed."
"Not a wise thing to say with things the way they are. We're going to have to find a way to confront her about what exactly happened on Friday night."
***
"You make an excellent cup of coffee, Tom," said Katie.
"I'd say I make an excellent breakfast all round," said Tom.
"True, but I think I really needed the coffee. I've been feeling so tired over the past couple of days."
Katie spontaneously stood up and went round to Tom's side of the table, where she put her arms round him and kissed him on the cheek. She had been feeling so distraught and was grateful that he had shown her that he cared by making her breakfast.
But Tom pushed her away. Katie looked at him, startled. There was a fear in Tom's eyes which made no sense. And then he spoke, his words chilling her.
"Your neck; your neck, Katie."
The tone of Tom's voice was hard with hostility and suspicion. Katie's fingers travelled to her neck. Her scarf had somehow come loose and fallen to the ground as she had rushed over to hug Tom. She said nothing. Ed had been sitting close by, waiting for Tom to begin the awkward conversation with Katie about Friday night, but fate had intervened, and now she couldn't deny the damning evidence of the bite marks. Ed approached Katie and held up a crucifix in front of her face. She winced in response to this confrontational gesture, even shut her eyes for a second, but she remained standing where she was, ultimately silently unperturbed.
Tom took hold of Katie's upper arm, and his tight grip caused her to cry out.
"What the hell is going on, Katie?" said Tom.
"Tom!" Ed called out.
"Let go of me!"
"Tom, let her go," Ed persisted.
Tom released his hold on Katie and she immediately turned and ran off down the tunnel.
"Katie, come back!" Tom called out to her.
Some of Ed's crew had gathered behind Ed and Tom, and they all watched as Katie disappeared from view.
"Do you think she'll give them the code?" said Alex.
"We'll change it before nightfall," said Ed.
"What the hell is going on, Ed?"
"Whatever's going on, Tom, it's unsettling. She has bite marks and yet she hasn't turned; she's still human. Maybe you could go to her place today; see if you can get her to talk."
"I think I really upset her, though. I doubt she'd want to see me today, if ever again."
"You were a little aggressive, Tom. Still, she likes you and you're probably the only one she'd let in, even taking what's just happened into consideration."
"What about one of my cameras?" Martin had also now joined the small group gathered round Tom and Ed.
"You want me to plant a camera in her flat, Martin? I can't do that," said Tom. "That would be an absolute betrayal."
"Tom, she has bite marks on her neck and she didn't want us to see them. I wonder if Katie's the one betraying us, not the other way round," said Ed.
***
Katie could no longer stay with them; she felt herself to be an outcast. Her secret was out and she feared that they would find James through her and then kill him, and so she had returned to her flat that morning, resolute that she would join James, whatever that may entail.
Tom had come to her flat and rung her doorbell several times, calling out her name as he stood beneath her window. Later, Sharon had turned up, and Katie had stood viewing the street through a tiny, inconspicuous opening in her drawn curtains, watching as Sharon and Tom had struck up a conversation, a surreal white sliver of moon present in the cloudless, blue daytime sky beyond them. Tom had been sitting on the steps leading up to the entrance to her block of flats, his legs sprawled out in front of him, a lit roll-up between his fingers.
"I've been here for well over two hours and I've had no luck," he had said to Sharon, before taking a drag on his cigarette.
"If you've been out here that long, what makes you so sure she
's here? And who are you anyway, her latest boyfriend?" Sharon had asked.
"Just a good friend of hers," Tom had replied. "And she's up there in her flat; I'm sure of it."
"What's your name?"
"Tom."
"Strange, I'm her best friend and yet she's never even mentioned you."
Tom had finished his cigarette and had stood up and stretched.
"She was supposed to meet me today," Sharon had said. "I've tried calling her, but my calls just keep going to voicemail."
"Do you fancy going for a coffee?" Tom had said. "We could always come back later. I get the feeling we've got a lot to talk about."
"I'm actually dying for a cup of tea, Tom."
***
Katie had watched them walk down the street. They hadn't returned and she now sat waiting on the sofa as the sky changed from pale blue to grey to black as the sun set. She didn't turn the light on when it became necessary to, but it wasn't all that long after nightfall that Katie heard the main door to the building open. Footsteps echoed in the entrance hallway and up the stairs as someone climbed them to her floor. A key clanked as it was inserted in the lock of her front door, and she turned to watch as the door slowly opened.
James entered her flat. Now that Katie had seen him in his undiluted vampire form the other night, James felt there was no longer any need to hide his vampire characteristics from her. He did not avert his eyes as he approached Katie, and they glinted red in the darkness. James sensed Katie's intense fear as he sat down beside her on the sofa, and he reassured her with gentle words, before leading her to her bedroom.
Katie began to feel the influence of his hypnotic powers and she gradually relaxed. James suddenly pushed her back, onto the bed, and he followed her freefall. As he kissed her, his hands explored her lithe body. She moaned in pleasure at his touch. James stopped to remove their clothes with slick, swift movements, then straddled Katie, his body weightless above hers, and watched her for a moment. Then, in a move too fast for Katie to anticipate, he shifted his body over hers and penetrated her, hard with desire. He wrapped his arms round her and it felt to Katie as though they were levitating, rising up towards the ceiling, their bodies floating as though gravity had been rendered redundant. She saw that James's gaze never left her face, his red eyes simultaneously disconcerting and captivating to her. As he watched her, he continued to move his phallus slowly, deeply inside her, its every ebb and flow a titillation of her senses. As heightened pleasure overwhelmed Katie, she wrapped her legs tightly round James, and her hands began to wander over his arms, his back, his buttocks, relishing the texture of his non-human skin, taking in every contour of his celestial body.
James bit into his wrist and held it above Katie's mouth, and as she recalled the intoxicating nectar she had drunk from the stranger's wrist, she grabbed James's wrist with both hands and greedily drank from it. James spun his body round so that she was now on top of him. She could see that the floor, the bed, everything, was far down beneath them. She and James were floating. As she drank, she looked into James's soulless red eyes, seeking, but not finding, an explanation in them.
Then James prised his wrist away from Katie, and they slowly began to move away from the ceiling; and yet it was as though the bed rose up to meet them. James rotated round so that he was above Katie again, mere seconds before they landed on the bed. Her mind was in a state of confusion, with space appearing to shift its shape with her every breath and she was beginning to feel as though she was melting into her surroundings. James's hands gripped her waist as he rode her to climax.
As Katie lay, with James observing her, she tried to speak but her tongue was inert and, she soon discovered, so was the rest of her body. Minutes passed as she lay in a state of paralysis. She could feel and hear the blood pumping its way through her body. Then she began to see things more and more clearly in the darkness, in vibrant colours that had previously been unknown to her. She began to feel anxious; what was happening to her?
Then James spoke. "You're not a vampire, Katie, but I have made you a dhampir. It's the only way I could protect you from that vampire."
"What have you done, James?"
James sat upright on the bed. The dark form of the silver-haired man stood before them. He reached out and took hold of James, and threw him across the room. There was a smack as James's body hit a wall.
"You seem surprised to see me here. The living room window is broken; it wasn't exactly difficult to make a quiet entry whilst you were levitating. I most certainly enjoyed the show, by the way," said Nikolas.
Nikolas now focused his attention on Katie. Her breath caught in her throat as he took hold of her naked waist and swung her through the air, until she found herself pinned against the bedroom door. Her skin chafed against the rough surface of the door as he lifted her up so that her breasts were level with his face. He brushed his lips lightly, lingeringly, across them before releasing his grip on her, and she slid down and felt her feet make contact with the floor.
"What a pity I'm too late to make you mine," he whispered as he stroked her lips provocatively with a purple-painted fingernail.
Intense desire surged within Katie and she struggled internally to fight it off.
Nikolas's laughter splintered the darkness. "You'll find that your capacity for sensual enjoyment is heightened, Katie, now that you're a dhampir," he said. "But there is a downside to what you've become. Only James can give you sustenance; without him, you will die."
Nikolas returned to the living room window. When he had disappeared out of it, Katie shut her eyes and tears spilled from them, not the blood-red tears of a vampire, but instead the luminous, diamond-like tears of a dhampir, which only made her ever more beautiful to behold to James, who watched from where he had fallen as they rolled down her cheeks.
Katie's life had gradually spiralled out of control in the vortex of James's dark world. Her mind was alert with a new and alien life force, but it was also swimming with muddy, swirling thoughts as she tried to make sense of the strange world she now found herself in. Things were moving in a new and unexpected direction, becoming more complicated, and as she felt the dark force of James's ambrosia in her veins slowly envelope her, she wondered how long it would be before she was entirely consumed by the darkness that he was governed by.
***
When the sun had set Ed, Martin, Jonathan, Tom, Mark and Gareth had retreated to the shelter's small, brick-faced Control Room with its security monitors that covered most of the limited wall space. That afternoon, Tom had managed to install one of Martin's cameras at the alcove entrance to Katie's building, and they now sat viewing tonight's events at her place unfold in real time on a large tablet screen. They watched as James confidently walked off the street, up to the main door of Katie's place, swinging a set of keys in his hand, the light at the building's entrance capturing the red glow of the interior of his eyes, thereby revealing his vampire identity.
"This must be the culprit," said Ed.
"You mean the guy that gave Katie the bite marks?" said Tom.
Ed nodded.
The camera revealed nothing new for some time, and they began to talk amongst themselves. Gareth disappeared, eventually returning with a box of lagers, and their conversation was replaced by the distinctive sound of aluminium pull tabs being peeled open.
"Quiet! Look! It's him!" Ed yelled.
Everyone turned to face the screen again. It was undeniably Nikolas, with his distinctive red-black irises, his unique style of dress and his trademark silver hair who now sauntered into the camera's view, ominously grinning. He suddenly veered off to the right.
"Jesus, he's literally climbing the wall with his hands and feet."
"Shoes, Jonathan, he's wearing shoes," said Tom. "Which I guess would make climbing even more difficult."
Katie's flat was beyond the camera's scrutiny and they impatiently awaited the next piece of action in the real-life drama taking place before their eyes.
"
What the hell is going on up there?"
They ignored Ed's question. The suspense was unbearable as they leant forward in their chairs, their lagers forgotten, their eyes fixed on the screen, determined not to miss a thing.
Eventually, Nikolas floated into the camera's sight again on his downward journey back to the ground. They watched as he walked off.
It was at least half an hour later that the main door of the building opened and the vampire who had first entered now exited, his arm interlinked with Katie's, who was carrying a small suitcase in her free hand.
"He looks weak," Ed commented.
"Yeah," said Tom. "It's almost as if Katie's supporting him, as though he might fall at any moment. He wasn't like that when he first arrived."
When Katie and the unknown vampire had disappeared out of the camera's range of vision, Ed turned the tablet off, assuming their entertainment for the night to be over. Gareth and Mark were on duty in the Control Room tonight, and so they remained where they were and began to observe the security monitors, feeling guilty that they had neglected their duties while they had been watching the fascinating saga unfold on the tablet. The rest of them picked up their lagers and wandered off back to Collingwood.
***
And so they didn't see that after James and Katie had left, a beautiful woman had appeared in front of Katie's property. She had stood there for some time, her serene facial features belying the raging torrent of pain drenching her to her very core. She was Nikolas's mate, Charlotte, and she had been trailing him for days. A vampire never withheld anything from its mate, but she had sensed that Nikolas had been unnaturally preoccupied of late and he had kept whatever was on his mind from her.
Tonight, she had observed Katie and James leaving together. And she had also keenly listened when Nikolas had attacked James and, especially, when he had whispered into Katie's ear, his ardent, selfish lust for her evident in the tone of his voice. His desire for this human was deviant in its secretive, obsessive nature and his motives were inexplicable to Charlotte.
