by Jan McDonald
Beckett frowned momentarily and wafted the partnership agreement at her. “This is dated today and signed by your solicitor today.”
Lane laughed, “You forget we have our own network and support system, Beckett. Doctors, undertakers, lawyers. Ailwyn Jones has been my solicitor for years. He doesn’t sleep either.”
“Ah. I see.”
“I’m leaving my old consulting rooms in the town too. I’ve decided to work from here permanently. I want to keep an eye on my new partner. Speaking of which … Lucy is just finishing off emptying her desk of her personal stuff. The guy she’s running off with, Jerome, Jeremy, something like that, is with her. She’s off to Tibet to some commune or other, doesn’t want me to keep her job open for her. Karma she says. More like drugs if you ask me. Still, they can both witness your signature.”
She moved to the door in a heartbeat and called to Lucy and Jerome or Jeremy or whatever.
“I want you two to witness Beckett’s signature on this document”, said Lane. “And yes, I know he’s already signed it, but only just. The ink is still wet. Here.” She pushed the paper towards Lucy. She bent to sign where Lane was indicating.
“To save you the trouble of trying to speed read while you sign, it’s a formal partnership agreement. Beckett and I are partners now.”
Lucy grinned at Beckett as he penned his signature. “It will be great, I see it in your aura, Beckett.”
Beckett rolled his eyes. Loopy Lucy, as he always referred to her, was about to launch into a plea to read his tarot cards. He smiled at her, “Luce, just sign the form, honey.” Lucy signed in the appropriate place and her drippy looking boyfriend did likewise. They left arms around each other, eyes clouded with dreams of enlightenment in the far reaches of Tibet.
Beckett smiled at Lane. “Tibet? Really? Gotta feel for those poor monks.”
“Okay, Handsome. Knock it off. She’s been a good secretary, once you get past her little eccentricities. I hope she’ll be happy.”
“Me too.” What are you going to do for a secretary?”
“The problem is solved. I’ve hired Angel. She helps out at the Sanctuary now and again. She’s glad of a more permanent post. She’ll be here later and you can meet her then. Think Darius only female.”
Before Beckett could reply he suddenly pulled his cell phone from his jeans pocket. It rang.
Lane smiled at his anticipation of the call. He would be fine.
“Beckett,” he said into the phone. “Yes, oh, hi there. No. No, it’s not a problem. I see. Yes, of course.” He smiled at Lane as he spoke. “I have changed my consulting room. I’m now at The Cedars on the Brecon Road.” He laughed. “Yes, something like that. Four is fine. I’ll see you then.”
He clicked the phone off and returned it to his pocket. “A client of mine. Well, ours now, I guess. He wanted to know if I’d won the lottery. Strange, I haven’t seen him for some time, a couple of months at least. He said he needs to see me urgently.”
Lane put her head on one side and raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“I guess it’s shared confidentiality now. His name is Jude Mason, he’s an ex Special Forces guy. Came back from Afghanistan with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; he’s done several tours of duty out there and I guess the last one did it for him. PTSD is a bitch. Well, he’s started to rebuild his life, moved into a farmhouse over on the Brecon Beacons and runs a pre-selection training school for anyone wanting to get into the army or especially into the SAS. So his clients are civilians and full time soldiers who want to get selected for Special Forces, private of course, nothing whatsoever to do with the MOD.”
Lane nodded, she’d seen the destruction that war could do to a man’s mind and at last PTSD was being recognised as a real diagnosis, it had come a long way from the First World War when it was called shell shock and often disparaged or ridiculed, the unfortunate sufferer often labelled a coward.
Just before four Beckett sat back in the plush leather chair behind the highly polished antique desk. He fidgeted, unable to relax and be at ease in his new office surroundings. He was still off kilter at Lane’s surprise partnership offer and he missed his filing cabinet with its broken lock and his beaten up and cracked leather chair. He shifted his weight around the chair again and shook his head.
Exactly at four o’clock, a tall, slim, black eyelinered Goth girl, put her whitened face around the door. Had to be Angel.
“Hi, Beckett. Mr Mason is here.”
Another trip out of his comfort zone. His broom cupboard, as Lane had referred to his office, had no outer room and therefore no secretary, not that Beckett could have afforded one.
“Thanks, Angel. Er … better show him in, then.”
Angel smiled at his discomfiture. A state of being that dissipated the second that Jude Mason walked through the door.
Six feet four, muscles on muscles, latte coffee coloured skin betraying his origin of Hawaii and the deepest indigo eyes that sparkled and penetrated at first glance, and a set of dreadlocks that would make any Rastafarian proud; Jude Mason would be at home on any movie set.
Beckett was on his feet and welcoming him into his new office. The giant of a man was obvious in his inspection. He grinned at Becket displaying his perfect white teeth.
“You’ve come up in the world, Doc. Can I still afford you?”
“No extra charge, and it’s Beckett, not Doc,” he replied. “It’s been a while, how can I help you?”
“I’m feeling worse. I’m getting more and more flashbacks and bouts of aggression that I can’t seem to control. I thought about ending it all yesterday. Had the means to do it, but in the end, I was just too fucking weary. You’re my last hope, Beckett. Weird things are happening to me, like all of a sudden I’m someone else. And I know how that sounds. The thing is … the thing is, the flashbacks are more like waking nightmares.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, I don’t remember the things I see happening. That isn’t usual, is it?”
“No, it’s not, although hallucinations are a common symptom,” murmured Beckett. He said no more, waiting for Jude to pick up his narrative. He waited.
Eventually Jude let his head fall towards his chest. “And I’m getting memory blanks.”
“Memory blanks?”
“I think that … maybe … maybe I’ve been going out and not remembering it.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Beckett gently.
“I suddenly realise that I’m muddy, or wet, and I don’t know how I got like it. I woke up naked on the kitchen floor today, and not in a good way.”
Beckett continued his gentle interrogation of the fragile giant, feeling his way through the tangle of confusion and scarcely hidden distress, getting nowhere and sensing the barriers shutting into place. After an hour and a half he said, “Will you come and see me again? Tomorrow? No charge,” he said lightly in an attempt to ease his client’s hesitation.
Without warning, Mason jumped to his feet and was heading for the door. “I’ve made a mistake. I’m sorry, Beckett. I’ll be fine.”
Beckett tried to read him but as yet he couldn’t access another’s thoughts. He was glad of it and yet he wished he could get to see past the guy’s barriers. Lane would read him in a heartbeat. He knew better than to argue with a client in that frame of mind, so he simply said, “If you change your mind you have my number. Any time.”
Mason nodded his understanding and left abruptly.
Beckett sat back in his chair, shifted his weight several times then frowned and crossed the corridor to Lane’s room. He sensed that she was alone and after a brief token knock he entered her office.
“I need my chair,” he said.
Lane smiled and gave the pretence of not understanding him. “Sorry?”
“I need my chair. My old chair. And my filing cabinet.”
Lane smiled at him and nodded. “There’s something sacred about one’s chair. Okay. But I don’t understand the bond with that wreck of a
filing cabinet.”
“I know it’s not rational but I need my stuff.”
“Of course it’s rational. You need your old life around you until you can let it go. No problem. You’ll need to empty it anyway. Is there anything else you need? Apart from your records that is.”
He shook his head. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
She narrowed her eyes and he could feel her penetrating his thoughts momentarily then releasing him as she thought better of it. “What is it?”
“My client, Jude Mason. He just left abruptly, said he’d made a mistake and he would be fine. I’m not so sure; he seems to have taken a step backwards.”
“Can we talk clients later? I have news but in the meantime, I want another blood sample from you. There are still anti bodies in your blood and I want as many samples as I can. There is someone I want you to meet. Dr Helena Bancroft. She’s a geneticist who briefly worked with Greg Randall. Well, he’s out of the picture now thankfully and so she has been promoted. We need her Beckett, if we are going to get the anti virus.”
“Can she be trusted? I mean, I take it she’s not a … one of us?”
“No. She’s not one of us. She believes Greg was working on a cure for AIDS. No need to disabuse her of that idea just yet, until we know whether or not she can be trusted. The virus looks very similar and she may accept that it’s mutated. She will also be very attracted to the funding that the council are offering along with the private lab facilities. She is first and foremost a scientist, filled with the need to find answers.”
Beckett nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a big risk.”
“Life is a big risk Beckett.”
“You’re not going to … mess with her mind, are you?”
Lane laughed out loud. “No, idiot. Well not unless I have to.”
“Because I’ve seen you do your Obi Wan thing. I’m not comfortable with that yet.”
“You soon will be. Now. May I please have your arm?”
She had picked up a syringe and tourniquet from the cupboard on the far side of the room. Beckett had seen her every move although human eyes would not have been able to track the movement.
“Dr Bancroft is willing to take up the post we have offered. Of course she doesn’t know the source of the funding but I am fairly sure we can trust her.”
“Only fairly sure?”
“Sure enough. For now.”
CHAPTER TWO: UNCERTAIN FUTURE
They went to The Sanctuary in Newport and in the half light world Beckett sat looking up at the ceiling. It was painted off white against any glare that might damage his newly adjusted retinas, everything was muted, subdued, a twilight world that was to be his own for the rest of his days. And it looked as though they would be many. His last hope for a return to normality, whatever that may be, had died alongside its creator, Greg Randall or Santorini as the vampires knew him. The human anti vampire virus, H.V.V, had been still in its infancy when Beckett had ended the life of the thing that had taken Grace and catapulted him into the dark world of the vampire, the only one that knew of the anti virus because he had created it.
The Sanctuary was quiet as the grave, although he knew that not all graves are quiet. He had heard Lane's silent approach from the other side of the building. His hearing so acute that he could hear the buzz of electricity in the wiring, the quiet sigh of the girl at the desk in the reception area, tired and bored with nothing to do. He felt Lane's hesitation on the other side of the door, heard the deep intake of breath before she entered his room.
For the first time that he could remember there was uncertainty in Lane's eyes. An ancient vampire born of noble lineage Lane had survived for six hundred years. In the now, she was a successful psychiatrist with a flourishing private practice in the foothills of the Brecon Beacons. The Sanctuary was her brain child; discretely placed in the centre of Newport, it was a place of refuge for newly turned vampires where they could find donated blood and learn to handle their new life in a safe environment without causing harm to any human. It was a blasphemy to the Born, those of pure vampire blood whose agenda did not include the Created, vampires who had been turned during a feeding frenzy.
Lane stood in silence, reading him, then she said, “Stage One has kicked in I see.”
“Stage one?”
“Anger. Although as in all things in your new vampire being, everything is enhanced. Anger becomes rage. Denial becomes rejection. Revenge becomes obsession and finally acceptance becomes desire, though not in your case I fear.”
“Never. I will never accept being one of them. There has to be something.” He balled his fists and was on his feet and by her side before a human could blink. “I am not one of them. I never will be.”
"Anger and denial rolled into one. OK handsome. Have it your way. But unless we can recreate the anti HVV, and we are a long way from that, Welcome to my twisted world. And now you need to feed.”
Beckett strode up and down the small room, pulling his hands through his prematurely grey hair. “No. I've already told you. That's not happening.”
“If you don't feed you'll weaken and die, just as a human would. If you stand any chance of working through this and helping us to put an end to the slaughter of innocent humans for the sake of their food, then you have to be strong. I guess you don't remember the emergency 'snack' you had in Greece?”
He spun around and was face to face, almost nose to nose with her. She didn't flinch, keeping her gaze steady and compassionate. Even though it was centuries ago, she still remembered the first hunger.
“What?” he demanded. What the hell are you saying? That I drank blood?” He shook his head. “No. Never. I would never do that. I would die first.”
“You nearly did. I had to Beckett. You would have died.”
He looked at her in disbelief. “But you said a vampire couldn't drink the blood of another.”
Lane put her head on one side and smiled fondly at him. “Not me. The boy.”
Beckett narrowed his eyes and tried to search her mind but she was an ancient and he couldn't get past the barriers she had created to protect herself against such intrusion. Realisation dawned on its own accord.
“Darius?” he demanded.
“He's grown to care for you Beckett. I think he sees you as a hero. Though God knows why,” she teased.
“Darius?” he said again, his disbelief and imagination preventing him from grasping the full import of what she was saying to him.
“You might like to say a thank you to him.”
“He's here?”
“Waiting in reception and last seen chatting up Angel. Now are you going to be a good boy or do I have to get intense with you?”
Beckett had seen Lane 'intense' and knew her capabilities. He doubted his own new vampire strength would be a match for her.
In the dimly lit reception area of the Sanctuary, Darius stood unaware that Beckett was studying him closely. The brother of the vampire who had wreaked havoc in his life, Darius was on a crusade.
Back in his native Romania, his brother Andrei Marinescu had died a mortal then risen a vampire and slaughtered his mother and father without mercy. Darius had fled but had spent every day since then hunting him down. Finally, in Greece, he had witnessed Andrei's end, though not at his hand. Beckett wondered what would drive the boy now. He frowned at the thought of Darius saving his life. It wasn't supposed to be that way. He was meant to be the strong one, not the victim.
Darius became aware of Beckett's intensity and looked up from his flirtation with Angel, the tall, slim, black eyelinered Goth girl who was apparently their new secretary. He tossed his jet black hair and grinned widely at Beckett.
“Ho. You look better than when I last saw you. You doing okay?”
Beckett nodded and walked towards him. He still wasn't used to the way it felt to move in his new being. He could feel the floor under his feet but it felt light, insubstantial somehow. And movement could be accelerated so that to human eyes it seemed that n
o movement of muscle and sinew was involved in crossing a room. He hadn't got the hang of that yet. He hadn't got the hang of a lot of things yet.
He gave a half smile at Darius and laid his hand on the boys shoulder. He almost expected him to flinch, to see him in a new light. A monster like Andrei. But the warmth emanating from Darius reassured him.
“Yeah, I'm doing okay. I'm told I need to thank you.”
Darius shook his head. “It wasn't as though you were sucking at my neck or anything. That I may have had a problem with. Forget it, Beckett. Glad I was there. Don’t sweat it man, you’re a cool dude. For a vampire.”
A hint of a smile betrayed Angel as she fought to keep up her Gothic alter ego, her cultured accent completely blew it. “Hey,” she said. “You'll be my first.” The smile threatened to break through again. “To get my blood that is.”
Beckett's familiar frown creased his forehead as he turned to Lane, eyebrow raised in half question, half protest.
Lane moved silently to Angel's side. “Angel has received all the necessary counselling, Beckett. She's more than ready to be a donor for you. Our donors don't usually know who the recipient of their life force is, but you're different. You are the only one I know that carries some anti bodies to the vampire virus. Angel's blood is the most compatible to yours, without you having a twin brother that is. And I want as few contaminants in you as possible.” She raised a hand to ward off further questions. “So Angel is coming with me and you can kick your heels with Darius. Maybe he can talk some sense into you.”
She put a hand gently on Angel's shoulder and guided her towards the donor suite and closed the door behind them. Beckett wished he couldn't hear the conversation on the other side of it, the sound of the blood pounding against the tourniquet, the slow drip drip of the precious fluid into the collecting bag. He squeezed his eyes shut tight in an effort to block it. Darius broke the spell.
“Is it really tough?”
