by L.H. Cosway
“Very well then,” says Ethan, he turns slowly and walks back toward his car.
“Are you just going to leave them like this? Won’t somebody find the bodies and call the police?”
“No. The DOH keeps GPS tracking devices in all of their vehicles. Once they see that this van has been stationary in a remote area for a long period backup will come for it. Then they will take away the bodies.”
“You seem experienced with this kind of thing.” I say, my voice hard.
“I have been defending myself and my race for a very long time, it’s only natural that I have also learned the procedures of my enemy.”
I follow Ethan back to the car, my body on autopilot. I have no idea why I’m getting back into a vehicle with a man who has just committed an obscene act of violence before my very eyes. But in my gut I know that though he may be a monster, he will not harm me. All the same I get in the back seat. I can’t be close to Ethan right now. His clothes are drowned in blood, and I can smell its salty, coppery scent.
“I will take you home now,” he tells me in a quiet voice, and for the rest of the journey we sit without speaking to one another.
Chapter Seven
Minus the Rose Tinted Glasses
Somewhere along the journey from that abandoned, blood-soaked industrial estate my rational mind kicks in. For at least ten minutes I sit in the back seat of Ethan’s car, unmoving, not hearing, not seeing, barely even breathing. It must be the overload of information that causes me to zone out.
In a single night I have seen with my own eyes that: One: Vampires are real. Two: They drink human blood. Three: Their eyes go red and their veins go black when they feed. Four: One vampire is a match for at least six humans, could even be more. Five: They have little or no remorse about murder.
That last one is the part that really gets to me. But what could I expect from these creatures of horror stories? Back in his office Ethan had told me of his race, and he had described vampires as misunderstood beings, peace-loving even. But from what I have witnessed tonight I can see no connection between his description and the reality. In my mind one single image keeps replaying itself over and over, Ethan’s hands gripping that slayer’s neck. I had heard of the term, to rip a person’s throat out, but I had always considered the saying to be metaphorical.
After a couple of minutes I gain some focus and return to the present. I notice that Ethan has turned the radio on and “Country Roads” by John Denver is playing. The song couldn’t be more benign, but in this moment it’s terrifying. Ethan is actually humming along, like a serial killer who likes to listen to Country and Western music after a kill.
By the time we get back to the city I’m just about ready to die of mental exhaustion. This must be a dream. A nightmare.
Ethan turns around slightly in his seat, there are still some flecks of blood on his face.
“Would you like me to bring you to my home?” he asks. “I can take care of you there.”
“I want to go to my apartment. And I don’t need taking care of, not from you. I’m fine.” I answer.
“You don’t look fine, you look frantic.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere other than my own home. Thank you.” I tell him, trying hard to stay strong.
“Very well then,” he replies without emotion.
A couple of minutes later he pulls up outside of my block. As soon as he hits the brakes I’m out of the vehicle and running toward the lobby door. A strong hand grabs me by the arm and pulls me back.
“I do not want for you to fear me Tegan.”
“Too late.” I mumble and try to pull out of his grip.
He lets me go this time and I run for the door, swiping my card over the door entry system. I almost jump out of my own skin when I go to open the door and before I can grab the handle, Ethan’s hand pushes it open for me. I step inside and turn to him.
“I don’t recall inviting you in.”
“We have matters to discuss.”
“Don’t vampires need an invite before they can enter a person’s home?” I ask in a matter of fact voice.
“That is a ridiculous superstition. Besides, even if it were true, I could still enter your apartment as you invited me in before, remember?” he replies.
I feel like screaming. I cannot let him inside. I need to be alone. Just when I think that my life can’t get any darker I find out that monsters are real. I feel sick to my stomach with the knowledge that I had been allowing Ethan to romance me, and I had been falling for it hook, line and sinker. Idiot.
I contemplate retorting with some witty comment. Covering my fear with humour seems to be becoming a habit of mine. Instead I turn on my heels and run up the flight of stairs to my floor. I know that Ethan’s following close behind me. I know that no matter how hard I try I could never in my life run fast enough to escape him. With that in mind, I nevertheless turn my key in my door, twist the handle, step inside and slam the door in the face of a two-hundred and seventy-six year old vampire. Perhaps not the cleverest of moves.
I dash into my bathroom and shut the door tightly. Then I sit down on the cold tiled floor. All of the blood and the killing is in my head now. My stomach heaves. I taste bile in my mouth. I swallow and take a deep breath. I cannot vomit. I can-not vomit. But the more I try to contain the food that is trying to regurgitate itself, the less hope I have in stopping it from coming up.
One. Two. Three. Another second passes and I get sick. One, two, three times, until there’s nothing left.
A cold sweat slicks itself over my entire body. It makes me shiver and I feel like there are tiny spiders crawling over my skin. Then I hear the most gentle of knocks on my front door.
“Tegan, let me in,” says Ethan, his voice is a sea of calm.
“Go away.” I shout, because I really can’t face him.
“I could knock down this door if I wanted. I’m merely refraining out of respect for your home,” he replies, through gritted teeth.
“I’m ill Ethan. Leave me alone.” I’m on the cusp of begging now.
“Then let me take care of you.”
I don’t reply. Perhaps if I stay silent he’ll get bored and leave. For several minutes there is quiet. Then, abruptly, I hear a loud bang on the door.
“Goddammit Tegan, I’m not going to wait much longer.”
I hear my neighbour’s door open and somebody steps out into hallway.
“Could you keep it down?” says the old man who lives by himself in the apartment across from mine.
“You will go back inside and return to sleep,” says a cold and mechanical voice. It takes me a minute to recognise it as Ethan’s.
“I will go back inside and return to sleep,” repeats my neighbour, he sounds like he’s in a trance. Then I hear his door close, the lock flick over and he’s gone. It’s quiet again. Except I can hear a vague scratching sound. What the hell is that? A moment later my heart jumps when the bathroom door opens and Ethan steps inside.
“How did you get in?” I ask, stunned.
“I have my talents,” he replies, nonchalant.
“Breaking and entering is illegal you know, I could call the police.”
“Ah, but you see there was no breaking involved, I merely entered. Go and check the lock and see for yourself.”
“Ethan,” I say, tired and weary. “Will you please just leave and let me rest?”
“I wish to speak with you about what happened tonight,” he says as he stands in my bathroom doorway, tall and threatening as a hunting tiger. “But could we please go to another room?” he continues. “This place reeks of blood and death.”
“Well,” I reply, “you’d know all about that now wouldn’t you,” my voice is snappy, desperate almost, and my stomach churns at his use of the word blood. The image of it is far too fresh in my memory.
“It goes with the territory I’m afraid,” he replies gravely.
I grab a piece of tissue from the holder beside the toilet and do my best to dab the cold sweat fr
om my forehead.
“Wait a minute,” I say, my thought processes finally catching up. “What do you mean my bathroom reeks of blood and death?”
“A man took his life in this very room did he not? You may have washed away the evidence of that act, but for one of my species the scene is as it was before any of his blood ever got cleaned away. I can smell and sense it all around me.”
That must be another special ability of vampires, they know if blood has been spilt in a particular area. My stomach clenches, heaves, trying to make me be sick again, but there’s nothing left inside for me to throw up. My head tilts to the side of its own volition, like a wilting daisy. Then, without even a passing second, Ethan is crouched before me, he picks me up and I allow him to do so.
He may be a bloodthirsty killer, but right now my options are to either spend the night on my cold bathroom tiles or allow a vampire to carry me to my bed. I decide to go for the latter option. Yes I’m selling out, but there are times when a person has been through so much that they no longer hold the conviction nor the inclination to do what is morally right.
I submit to his strength, his lean, comforting arms, his charade of protection. I should not be taking the easy option. But God, as Ethan pulls back the duvet and lies me in my bed, I don’t think I care any more about good and evil, vampires and slayers. All I want to do is sleep for a month. A year. A decade.
I lie back and sink into the pillows, as I feel Ethan removing my boots. The heavy weight of them drops away as I hear them fall to the floor. He then sits me up and takes off my jacket. I allow him to manoeuvre me as though I were a rag doll.
“For modesty’s sake,” he says in a gentle voice. “I will leave you in your dress.”
I’m consumed by a mixture of exhaustion and stark wakefulness, and if I had any energy at all I’m sure I would have something to say about Ethan mentioning the removal of my dress. However that doesn’t happen, because a moment later I drift off into a deep and heavy sleep.
I don’t wake up until well into the afternoon hours the next day. My eyes are crusty, my throat is dry and I’ve been drooling on my pillow. As I turn over I hear paper crackle from under my head. I reach beneath my hair to find a note. From Ethan. At this moment all of my memories from the previous night suddenly come crashing down on me.
I had vague nightmares of slaughter. Snap shots of the fight between Ethan and the slayers mixed up like a surrealist painting with the imagery of a butcher slaughtering pigs in an abattoir. I suppose that was what Ethan had been doing, because compared to his superhuman strength those slayers were akin to pigs in a slaughterhouse.
I take the note and do my best to de-crumple it. It’s written in a severe joint script, the handwriting of an earlier era I presume. It reads:
Dear Tegan,
The approaching daylight meant that I could not wait for you to wake up.
There remains much for us to discuss. Particularly in relation to your new
place of work. It would please me if you came to the club this evening at
six so that we may finalise matters.
Yours Always,
Ethan.
P.S You are even more delectable when you sleep.
I throw the paper away, angered. What business of his is it where I work? I decide in favour of going to meet him only so that I can set him straight as to the fact that he has no right at all to tell me where I can and cannot work. Fucking vampires. Total control freaks. But I can’t help worrying that his dislike of where I am working is not the only reason he wants me to come to the club. I know his secret. That makes me a liability. And I shudder to think how Ethan Cristescu deals with liabilities.
Upon giving myself a sniff, I decide that a shower is on the cards. I’m sure I excreted at least several litres of sweat last night. Fear seems to be conducive to perspiration. Ugh. I peel off my dress and walk straight to the bathroom. It still smells faintly of vomit. I grab the bleach and pour half its contents down the toilet to kill the odour.
Cold water hits me first and I gasp audibly. I lather on a generous amount of my new jasmine shampoo, then I exfoliate until there’s barely any skin left to scrub. If I scrub my skin hard enough will it scrub away the memories too? Probably not.
When I get out of the shower I wrap up in a massive towel and make myself some tea and toast for breakfast. Then I get back into bed, food and all. I might as well allow myself to relax if I’m going to be meeting up with a killer vampire later this evening.
I pull my phone out of my bag and dial Amanda’s number. I need to speak to her to see if she’s okay, but I also want to know if she remembers anything from last night. I hope she does if only so that I don’t have to carry the burden of this knowledge all on my own. It would be a comfort to be able to talk about the vampires with a fellow human being.
The phone rings five times before she picks it up sounding tired. Her throat is scratchy when she answers, “Hello?” as though she chain-smoked one too many cigarettes the night before.
“It’s Tegan, how are you?” I ask, thinking the question is open enough for her to tell me anything odd that might have happened to her last night, with Lucas for instance.
“As good as I can be considering I’ve got a killer hangover,” she replies. “God Tegan, what did I drink last night?” Yeah, the keyword there being killer.
“You probably drank more than I’d recommend,” I tell her. “Although you did get off with that guy Lucas,” I continue as a prompt. “How did that happen?”
“Oh my God, I didn’t actually believe it when he came and started talking to me. But I think I must have drank too much because soon after we went out to the back of the club and he was kissing me and then I just blacked out. All I know is I woke up in my bed this morning fully clothed. How did I even get home?” she asks, her voice a little nervous.
She’s clearly telling me the truth about not remembering anything. I’d be nervous too if I’d experienced that kind of a memory lapse. Right, so she definitely doesn’t recall the whole “feeding” scenario. Damn. Can I tell her what really happened? My stomach turns over on itself, as though to warn me that the vampires might not take too kindly to me revealing the truth of their existence to my friend. So, like the coward that I am, I lie to her.
“Oh well, you were very drunk, so I told Lucas your address and he drove you home.”
Yeah, more like Lucas rifled through her purse, found her address on an ID card, and then brought her there. They seem to like to be in control these vamps, as I’ve already noted.
“Did he really?” Amanda gushes. “What a gentleman! Oh but I didn’t get his number, do you know it?” she asks hopefully.
“No, I don’t have his number.” I tell her flatly. Although I can tell by the tone of her voice that she’s already infatuated and determined to find some way to see Lucas again. It’s going to take a lot more than me not having his number to ward her off.
“Oh well, that’s too bad, but he works in Crimson right? Maybe I’ll go there again to see him. Hey, why don’t we go tonight?”
“I’m not really in the mood for clubbing tonight Mandy, besides, I already have to drop into Crimson today to see Ethan.” I tell her on a sigh, and immediately regret having said it. There’s no doubt she’ll try to hint at me inviting her along any minute now.
“Ethan?” she asks in a questioning tone. “Who’s that?”
“The owner of the club.” I reply.
“The owner? Why on earth are you meeting up with the owner of a night club?”
“Long story,” I tell her, a really long story. “Apparently we’ve got unfinished business to discuss.”
“Oh Tegan, you’re not in any trouble are you?” she continues with worry.
“No, at least not the kind you’re imagining.” I say, wishing I could just tell her the truth.
“Oh I remember now, Nicky told me that some guy who works at Crimson was into you. She never said it was the owner though, wow, lucky girl.�
��
Not lucky in the slightest, I think to myself, but little does she know. There’s a moment’s silence, and I can almost hear the cogs turning in the machine that is her love-hungry brain.
Then she asks, “Hey, you wouldn’t want some company on your visit to Crimson, would you Tegan?” as if butter wouldn’t melt.
I smile to myself. I might as well give in to the inevitable. “You aren’t going to quit asking until I say yes are you?”
“Nope.” She answers sweetly.
“I suppose I’d better say yes then,” I reply, consoling myself with the fact that Ethan can’t try anything too extreme if Amanda is with me. I tell her to meet me around the corner from the club on Davis Street, outside a little café called the Butterfly Inn at five to six. Then I hang up. The time on the screen of my phone reads 14:13. I lie back and cuddle into my duvet, making a nest of it, and try to get some shut eye before an evening that could very possibly lead to anything at all.
I don’t wake up again until a quarter past five, so I only have time to quickly brush my teeth and put on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a royal blue mack before I run out the door to meet Amanda. As predictable as a girl desperate to attract a man can be, Amanda is dolled up to the nines. It’s actually surprising because she never was one to go out of her way to please a man. It must be that special vampire attraction that has her acting out of character.
Her electric blue hair is stylishly messy, her eyes are charcoal black, and she’s wearing a stunning purple dress with shiny black heels. Next to her I feel as plain as a Jane could feel, but my task here isn’t to impress, I’m here to set a very sexist record straight. I will not allow a man I hardly know to tell me what I can and cannot do, even if he is a vampire.
As we take off from outside the café, I lock eyes with a man who has just sat down at a table by the window. He’s handsome, with light brown crew cut hair, dark eyebrows and bright blue eyes. He’s medium height and well built, and for the first few seconds after our eyes meet I don’t actually remember where I know him from, but I would swear that he’s smirking at me.
