New Dawn

by Sharon Stevenson

  “Not exactly.” I’m not sure about showing her the letter, but what choice do I have? I have no other evidence of the man who sent me here. She has no reason to trust me otherwise. I pass it over and fold my arms.

  She reads in silence, tears filling her eyes. “He’s alive.”

  I guess she knows his handwriting. So, next question... “This might seem like a weird thing to ask right now, but who the hell is Connor?”

  She blinks and I wince. Her eyes are still watery but no tears have fallen. I’m relieved since comforting strangers isn’t something I’ve ever been any good at.

  “What happened exactly?” She straightens and starts to seem more suspicious than sad.

  “I was a vampire,” I tell her, taking it slowly and wondering when she’s going to call me crazy and kick me out of her flat. “Another vampire bit me and I woke up... demon free and with zero blood lust.”

  Her frown darkens. “You were freed. Without killing your maker.” She sounds sceptical. “There are no documented cases of that ever happening.”

  “I’m only telling you what I know.” I have nothing else. I’m starting to wonder why I came. “Do you know Tristan?”

  She shakes her head. “Who?”

  “Never mind. I’ll let you get back to... whatever. I don’t know why I came.”

  “Sit down,” she tells me, a strangely compelling tone to her voice.

  I move toward the green fabric sofa and take a seat. There are crystals scattered all over the coffee table, and beauty magazines piled up on the chair across from me.

  “Connor sent you here for a reason. I just need to figure out what that reason is.”

  “So, really, who is he? Because I never met him and I don’t understand what any of this is about.”

  “He’s my step-brother.” She takes a breath after her voice hitches. “He disappeared six months ago. When I couldn’t find him...” She shakes her head. “I knew he must be dead. I just didn’t think about what else that might mean.”

  I look around slowly. “Do you have a picture of him?”

  She shakes her head. “He hated having his picture taken.”

  There goes that thought. I’m still slightly terrified by the fact that I’m not breathing. “What am I?”

  She blinks at me. “You don’t know? You don’t know.”

  “I’m not breathing. I don’t know what that means.”

  “You died to become a vampire. That can’t be reversed. You’re not completely human anymore. You’re not really alive either.” She shrugged. “We don’t have a proper name for what you are. Abomination is the term witches use for it, but most don’t suffer any of your kind to live.”

  “I’m not really alive?” I should have known that. I did die, after all. “So, I’m not a zombie then?”

  She smiles at me. “Do you want to eat my brain right now?”

  “No, but I could murder a cheeseburger.” Hunger was kicking in. I was going to blame the stress. A salad just wasn’t going to cut it.

  “You’ll have human urges and if you eat and drink and sleep like a human would you’ll be able to live almost as if you’re still one of them.”

  “Sounds weird.” I could tell from the look on her face there was something she wasn’t telling me. “So, what’s different about it then?”

  Her gaze went blank. She either didn’t get what I was asking, or she didn’t want to answer the question.

  “He said I’d be safe here,” I told her, almost certain that Connor had to be Tristan’s human side. Nadine didn’t really look or sound anything like him, but there was a slight, vague resemblance that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “I’m not sure what he thinks I need to be kept safe from.”

  She slowly shook her head. “You’re stronger than a human now, and you don’t have the weaknesses of a vampire. Whatever he’s warning about, it must be bad.”

  Blood thirst and the inability to be in direct sunlight without bursting into flames; the weaknesses of a vampire. I’d already realised those were gone. The other part, though...

  “What do you mean I’m stronger than a human?”

  She got up and left the room. I took the chance to look around. There were no photos around the room, nothing that looked very personal. Everything seemed clean and arranged neatly.

  She had a knife in her hand when she came back into the room. I blinked at her.

  “Um, what the hell...”

  She moved quickly, grabbing my hand and slicing it open. I jerked back.

  “What... That... didn’t hurt one bit,” I said, confused as I watched blood seep from the wound. The shock passed at what she’d done. I wasn’t hurt. Had I become numb to pain as a vampire?

  “It’ll heal up in a few seconds.” She pursed her lips, keeping the knife in her hand. “I wish I knew why he sent you here.”

  “So, I’ve retained the healing power I had as a vampire?”

  She nodded. “A few other things too.”

  Clearly, she didn’t want to go into detail about what those other things might be.

  “You can’t stay here,” she told me. “I’ll find you another place. You need to tell me if Connor contacts you again.”

  “I will. I kind of don’t have any money right now.” I hadn’t really expected her to take me in. She didn’t know me, and if what she’d just told me was true, I was a pretty dangerous lodger to take on.

  She sighed. “I can get you a job. What have you done before?”

  “Um, retail work mostly. Some waitressing.”

  “Ever use a computer?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Okay, good. I can get you into basic admin work.” She put a hand on her hip. “You can stay here tonight. I’ll sort something else out tomorrow.”

  Chapter Four

  I decide to leave to go and get some of my things. If I’m sticking around, I’ll need a change of clothes at the very least.

  Reading over the letter a second time, Nadine tells me I should get back before nightfall. Connor’s warning worried her, enough that she told me I’d have to come back alone. We couldn’t risk anyone seeing us together if she was to be my safety net. Whatever the danger was, we couldn’t risk exposing where I’d run to.

  The sky has brightened, the clouds parting overhead. I have time. I move quickly, walking the route the bus took and breaking into a run when there’s no-one around. The speed I can build up is incredible. Not needing to breathe has its advantages. I could go forever, but I make sure I slow my pace whenever there are people around. I know I’m moving too fast to register as anything but a blur to them, but I need to try not to rouse any suspicions, to stand out in the crowd.

  Testing my limits properly can come later. When I’m under Nadine’s protection, and far from the danger Connor warned about.

  I rush the rest of the way home at a more human pace. Noticing I haven’t even broken a sweat occurs to me only when my building is suddenly in sight. And that revelation slips away as my gaze follows a girl across the street, her sorrowful voice singing something beautiful. I stop. It’s her, Nisha’s final chosen victim, and she’s fine. I watch her walk slowly to the house across the street and push the creaky gate open. Her red-streaked hair stirs in the breeze.

  I move on into my building when I realise I’m standing on the pavement smiling inanely at nothing. Anyone walking by would think I just got out of the loony bin.

  The world is starting to feel like a good place to be in again. I’m lighter on my feet as I get to my flat. Knowing the girl Nisha tried to take as a victim is okay erases some of the pain of the nightmare I’ve been through. Everything is messed up right now, but it can get better. Things can be okay again.

  I sort through my wardrobe, leaving the dresses Nisha has filled it with. I want to rip them to bits, to tear up that chapter of my past. But I know if I do it, I’ll spiral into darker thoughts. There’s nothing I can do now. She took what she wanted and she’s gone. I can’t have revenge. I can only
move on.

  There are so many things I have to leave behind. The furniture was never mine, but bits and pieces that are too bulky or awkward to take were. The cutlery, the couch cushions, a lamp, framed work by a local artist. Too much else to mention. Standing in my living room, I feel the first pangs of loss hit me. Leaving everything behind isn’t going to be easy. This was the first place that had been mine. I’d worked hard to pay for things I couldn’t take with me.

  Forcing myself to get moving was hard, but I didn’t have time to mess around. The suitcase and duffle-bag were stuffed solid and surely heavy though they didn’t feel it. Super-strength was coming in handy already. My handbag was crammed full of make-up and toiletries. I hadn’t forgotten anything, except...

  I put my bags down and went back into my bedroom. I’d avoided the bedside drawer the first time I walked into the room, purposefully. My hand hesitated on the handle. I didn’t want or need to open the drawer. I could walk away now and forget it. It meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  That night in the park had always seemed different from the others, but I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just my memory playing tricks on me.

  Tristan had given her a rose, and Nisha had wanted to drop it. I’d willed her not to. He’d looked different that night, his eyes seemed softer. His kiss had been tender. She’d hated that, but she wasn’t the only one who got to feel it. That rose was as much mine as it was hers.

  I open the drawer and look at it. It’s dried out, but intact. I take it and go into the kitchen. Snipping the stem short, I put it into a freezer bag and place it into my handbag.

  I call a taxi and get ready to spend half of the money I have left to get to my new place. Nerves start to slip in as it hits me what I’m doing. Starting over, away from my old life. I’d never thought it would be something I’d ever need to do. But then I’d never thought I’d become a vampire either.

  Nadine was putting a lot into helping me start over in a new town, and I knew she didn’t need to do any of it. She could have thrown me out. I was grateful that she hadn’t, even if I did seem to freak her out a little. I don’t think it was me, exactly. It was what I was.

  Abomination. It seemed like a harsh term for what I was now, if kind of appropriate. I shouldn’t exist. I’m dead. The thought made me shiver.

  Nadine seemed to know a lot about vampires. I wondered at the crystals scattered around her coffee table, the knife she’d used to cut my hand. I hadn’t known about any of this before Nisha happened to me. Vampires had been horror movie monsters, not a real thing that could attack a girl and turn her into something inhuman.

  Not that I remembered much about my initial abduction. I don’t remember being bitten. There was no seduction, no lure to some dark alley by a handsome stranger. Nothing like that. I was just out one night with friends, drinking and dancing until the night became a blurry swirl of laughter and fun. It was all good, until I woke up in a strange place and realised I was no longer in control of my own body.

  I shiver at the thought of that day. I’d thought I’d been drugged, and it was the worst thing that could ever have happened to me. I was wrong. The demon’s invasion of my body was horrific. Being pushed into a corner and forced to watch it take me over was terrifying. Feeling trapped as it did awful things, killed people while I was forced to observe its actions; that was the real torture. Not being able to do anything to help the people she killed had slowly been tearing me apart.

  Being free again was heaven and I wasn’t going to let anything, or anyone, destroy that. Whoever ‘he’ was, the man Connor/Tristan warned me about, I was going to make sure he didn’t get a chance to hurt me. I wasn’t a weak little human now. I was strong, stronger than a vampire, and more than willing to fight for the life I’d reclaimed.

  Thoughts of Tristan warmed my blood. He’d saved me from that hellish existence. Maybe that meant something, maybe it didn’t. He’d cared enough to leave the note. I shook my head. He didn’t know me. He’d known the demon. So why save the girl inside the vampire? It didn’t make any real kind of sense.

  I doubted it ever would, but something inside me still warmed at the thought of seeing him again. I’d know then, for sure. If he looked at me, like he looked at her...

  I shook it off as I made my way down the stairwell. There were better things to think about. I wait outside the apartment for my taxi, the sky darkening overhead with storm clouds moving in. I pull on my jacket and stare up at those ominous grey clouds. The disappearance of the sun made me nervous. Nisha had been able to walk the streets on overcast days. The absence of light had allowed her to do that. The thought of it made me shudder.

  Thankfully, my ride wasn’t long in showing up. I got inside as the driver put my case and bag in the boot.

  New life, here comes Dawn.

  I glance out at my old building as the driver gets in and closes the door. He confirms the address with me before he starts the engine.

  I stare into the hallway of my apartment block and my jaw drops. A familiar silhouette comes closer until his form exits the building. Tristan waves at me before he crosses the street. I try to tell the driver to stop, but my brain doesn’t catch up with my mouth before Tristan disappears from sight.

  The taxi moves on through the first lashings of rain. I keep glancing back, hoping to catch another glimpse of the man who’d freed me. He was gone.

  I relax in my seat. I’ll see him again. He knows where to find me.

  My nightmare is finally over. I’m getting a second start and I’m not going to waste it.

  New Dawn: Part Two

  Best Laid Plans - Connor

  Chapter Five

  The spell was a trick Tristan knew, a loophole buried in the back of his nasty little brain. It was a horror story for him, a way for someone to kick a demon out of a vampire’s skin. I couldn’t be sure it would work, but I had to pray that it would. The precious moments when I was in charge of the vampire were getting harder to come by. He didn’t know, yet. He hadn’t figured it out, but I had no doubt that he would.

  I move her to the bed and watch her sleep through the spell. I’ve only ever caught brief glimpses of the real woman who lived in this skin. She was more trapped than I was, more constrained by the demon. I didn’t know how close she was to having her soul absorbed by Nisha, but I knew she had less time than I did to avoid that terrible fate.

  Her name is Dawn, and I know her body intimately. Her heart, not so much. It’s a fucked up situation, but for me that’s just life in general.

  I get up when I realise I can’t stick around. Tristan is sleeping right now, but he’s going to come back, and when he discovers Nisha is gone, he’s going to be pissed.

  My half-baked plan doesn’t seem so hot now. I start to write Dawn a note, and realise I’m going to need to do a lot more than just tell her she’s not a vampire any more. She needs to run. She can’t be here when Tristan awakens. It’s the first place he’ll look.

  Nadine. She’ll be safer with a witch, and who better than my half-sister? She might ask questions, but she has too big a heart to close the door on a woman who needs help. When the note is done, I compel the ‘gift’ Nisha brought Tristan to go home and get some sleep. The girl is pretty out of it, so I walk outside and follow her at a distance until she disappears into a house.

  This is when I realise I can’t go back to the flat. The clock is ticking and I need to find something to do to keep Tristan under until daybreak. I go to my place, a few streets away from Dawn’s. The basement level apartment is roomy and virtually windowless. It was perfect for a vampire’s lair before I even became one. I lock myself in and think about casting the same spell on myself that I did to Dawn.

  Free myself of the demon. It’s a nice thought even if it would be impossible, and really, honestly, some people are just meant for hell. This punishment is long overdue and I’m not interested in getting out of it.

  I adjust the sheet that’s hanging over the mirrored coffee table. There ar
e few things that wake Tristan up more surely than mirrors, a lesson I learnt the hard way. Not doing enough to keep busy is another way to shake him conscious. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, so I keep mine busy.

  The bank of security monitors on the far wall show the streets around town. Most of them are devoid of movement this time of night. I study them intently until I find something worth making a move for. The train station is at the far end of town. I recognise one of the men on the screen, and my lips quirk at the realisation. My night is about to get interesting.

  Chapter Six

  The super speed that comes with being a living dead man is one of the best perks. A walk that might have taken me forty minutes when I was human only took a couple of minutes at top vampire sprint.

  I get to the bridge above the railway just as my former boss’ lackeys’ drag the sobbing man up onto the wall to dangle him precariously above the lines.

  “How’s it going, boys?”

  They turn, making their victim scream as one hand drops from his shirt front in surprise.

  “Con?” Mad could barely contain the shock from his expression. The scar on his right cheek had been weeping again. He really needs to get that seen to. “We thought you were dead, man.”

  Apparently, some of them had seen me have my head ripped off. Throat ripped out, head ripped off; same difference, eh? I just shrug and nod to the dangling soon-to-be-victim. “What’s the crack with this one?”

  My gaze drifts over the second lackey. This guy is new to me. He’s big, a real bruiser. Too bad he’s only human.

  “He was fucking the boss’ daughter.”

  “So?”

  “He’s with the Blackburns.”

  Family rivalry and mob mentality. It’s a brutal blend. I walk over and stare the bruiser down. “You gonna kill this guy?”

  Said guy sobs loudly, white knuckles showing as he holds onto the bruiser’s wrists for dear life. Christ. He barely looks eighteen.