by Gray, Sophia
I had been listening intently, and when he stopped a thousand questions came into my head, but only one left my lips. “How did you escape?”
He took a bite of deer and a long sip of his drink, and then looked away like he was ashamed. “I’m not proud of it . . .” He trailed off.
“Tell me,” I said.
“I offered her my men. I screamed out, ‘Wait! You can have my men if you let me go.’ I didn’t think that she would. Why would she? But she did, and she smiled as I shot them all, pulling out my rifle and shooting them in the back. Some tried to fight, but the vampire woman killed them, and the rest soon learnt to just stay still and wait for the bullet.” He looked up at me, and I was surprised to see that his eyes were red. “Do you think less of me, Ben?”
I laughed. Did I think less of him? I didn’t even have to think about it. “No,” I said. “I would have done exactly the same thing. At least you gave them quick deaths.”
“Aye,” he said. “There is that.”
#
I spent a couple of weeks in my room, and after a while it started to feel like a cell. Three times a day someone would open my door and slide a tray of food in; sometimes they’d return to an empty tray, sometimes to a full one. At first Galahad had brought my food in person, but I’d screamed at him and told him to leave. I suspected that it was still him delivering my food, but I couldn’t be sure.
There was nothing to do in my room but think about how Galahad had wronged me. I couldn’t forget the casual way in which he had talked about prostituting me. You’ll have to bed him once, of course. Even thinking about it now made me shake with rage.
I still wanted him, though, and that’s what made it so much worse. I wanted things to go back to how they’d been. I craved his touch and the feel of his breath on my neck. Sometimes I’d dream of running my hands over his muscular body, and when I’d awaken I’d be clutching my mattress. Could I have him, after what he’d done to me?
I found myself wishing that he’d creep into my bedroom at night, that he’d ignore my screams and objections and kiss me anyway. I wanted to feel his lips. It was strange. I hated him and loved him at the same time. My body was like a battlefield, torn between the two.
I waited for a few days, thinking it over, and then one day the loneliness of my isolation got too much. When he slid my food in, I called out. “Galahad,” I said. “Come in.”
A pang of embarrassment went through me. What if it wasn’t Galahad? What if it was some random vampire and I’d just made a fool out of myself? I almost smiled when I saw his green eyes and his bearded face, but I wouldn’t let myself. “Yes, Zoey?” he said, hovering at the end of the room.
I didn’t know what to say. How could I convey my torn feelings to him? How could I let him know that I still felt like attacking him, and yet I wanted to feel him pressed against me in passion too? Were there words to express such a wish? I doubted it, so I just walked the length of the room and stared up at him. “I’m lonely,” I said. “Can we forget everything for a little while?”
He sighed heavily. “Zoey, I want to,” he said. “But you’ll still have to marry the vampire. That still needs to happen. As much as forgetting everything would be lovely, we just can’t. How have you been anyway? Are you—”
I’d slapped him before I even knew that I did it. My hand stung from the impact, and he staggered backwards. I pounced on him, tearing at his flesh with my sharp vampire-nails. I did this for a long while, my heart beating in my ears and my whole body quivering in the moment, before I realised that he wasn’t fighting back.
He was curled up against the wall, letting me hit him. I stopped. “Fight back,” I said. He just stared at the ground. He was bleeding from countless cuts, and the room was filled with his blood’s sweet scent. Without thinking, I lurched at a big cut on his arm and sank my teeth in, and drank greedily.
I thought that he’d push me away or tell me to stop, but he craned his neck back and moaned in pleasure. I knew that sound well, and I knew that he wanted me to carry on. I grabbed his arm with both of my hands, and sucked hard. A wave of lust washed over me as I felt it harden in my grip.
The blood pulsed down my throat, thick and sweet and metallic, and I knew that if I didn’t stop soon I would go into a blood frenzy. Galahad must’ve known it too, because he abruptly pulled away. I stared at him, his entire body covered in blood, and for a moment I forget everything; the way he’d lied to me about having a wife, his coldness about selling me off to another vampire, his insistence that I was going to marry, despite my refusal—it all melted away. It was just him and me, like it had been before.
He was the first to move, stepping forward and grabbing my shoulders. I let him pick me up and drop me on the bed. Part of me was screaming out to stop this now, that I’d regret it later, but another part, a bigger, hungry part, wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything before.
I’d made love to Galahad more times than I could count, but that time, rolling around on an uncomfortable mattress in a dark, dank cellar, for whatever reason, was by far the best.
When we’d finished he rolled off me and immediately started to get dressed. “What are you doing?” I said, my whole body aching.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “It wasn’t fair on you.”
“Wasn’t fair on me?” I said. “I am not a child, Galahad!”
He shrugged. “I must go.”
“Fine, go.”
He lingered for a moment, and I thought that he might turn back and take me in his arms, but then he left. I dressed and walked the length of the room to my tray of food. The chicken was cold now, as was the small glass of blood, but I ate and drank it anyway. The flickering torch guttered out.
I fell asleep in darkness.
#
I spent the next few days sleeping and trying not to think about Galahad. I only left the room to use the toilet and wash, and once when I’d tried to venture past the bathroom, a vampire I had never seen before told me that I wasn’t allowed out of my quarters. I was a prisoner, so my room really was a cell.
Galahad came to me once, in the dead of night, and I made love to him. It wasn’t a collapsing of my defences or anything like that. It wasn’t that I was unable to stop myself; I just wanted to. I craved the pleasure and the respite that his arms brought, and when he came onto me, I didn’t stop him. Why should I? He was married and had betrayed and lied to me, yes, but for some reason I forgot all about that when he was on top of me.
We kept this up for many weeks, it felt like. He’d come to my room and we’d make love, barely saying a word to each other, and then he’d leave. Sometimes he’d try to speak, but I’d tell him to leave. “Your job isn’t to speak,” I’d said to him once. “Your job is to pleasure me and then get the hell out.” I felt bad about those words afterwards, and thought that he may not come again, but he did, a few nights later, and didn’t say a word.
Our lovemaking was better than it used to be. I didn’t know why, but I suspected that it had something to do with the passion that my anger brought. I’d never been as passionate as I was with him in that cell. When he touched me I didn’t just feel the shiver of pleasure that I’d always felt, but something else too: fury. When I bit him, I no longer cared if I hurt him, like I used to. Now I just sank my teeth in and sucked as much as I wanted. If I heard squeals of pain mixed in with his moans of pleasure, I didn’t care. Why should I? He’d caused me pain. Why shouldn’t I do the same?
When we weren’t making love, I sometimes thought of Ben. I longed for my friend, for the kind boy who would never do anything to hurt anyone. He was a sweet, harmless person and whereas before that had made me embarrassed and ashamed of him, now it made me want to see him. Ben would never have hurt me like Galahad had. Ben would never have hurt anymore. He was too sweet, too kind and full of love.
I remembered the time he’d tried to kiss me, standing on wobbly legs in his bedroom, and I found myself wishing that I had let him. S
o what if he had been a little nervous? So what if he wasn’t the muscular, hulking brute that Galahad was? At least he was kind and honest, and harmless. His harmlessness, I found, was what made me miss him the most. I longed to be around someone and know that I was completely safe. He’d never hurt anyone in his entire life, and I didn’t think that he ever would, least of all me. I couldn’t say the same for Galahad.
As if waiting for my cue, Galahad crept into the room. The door opened with a quiet creak and I heard him tiptoe across the stone floor. I moved across on the bed, making room for him, but he stood just beside it. In the dull candlelight, I could barely make out his features, but even so I could tell that he had been crying.
His eyes were red and his lip was trembling. He stayed silent for a long time, and I didn’t want to break it. I got the sense that he was building up to say something, and I didn’t want to interrupt that process. Plus, I didn’t know what I’d say to him if I did speak.
Eventually, he spoke, turning and looking at me in the eye. His green irises glowed luminous and I felt drawn to them, but I controlled myself. “I love you,” he said. He said it simply, like the first time he’d said it, like it was a fact.
“Zoey, I love you.” He crouched down next to the bed and cupped my chin, and I didn’t pull away. His hand was warm and seemed to make the entire cell warmer. He lifted my face to his and leaned in, and when he kissed me I opened up to him.
The kiss was long, and to my surprise I found that he didn’t try to do anything more. We just enjoyed the kiss, the feel of each other’s tongues and the warmth of each other’s hands, and when he pulled away I burst into tears. “I love you too,” I said, unable to stop myself from speaking the truth. “Galahad, I love you too.”
He lay down next to me and held me. I pulled his arms tight around me and started to sob softly. He cried too. After a while he started to talk to me through the sobs, in fits and starts. “You are the best thing that’s happened to me since I became a vampire . . . I don’t want to lose you . . . You are everything to me . . . I just wish things could go back to the way they were.”
“What about my marriage?” I said, dreading the answer but knowing that I had to ask the question.
His body tensed up. He didn’t want to talk about this now, I realised, but I needed to know. Did he still want to sell me? Did he still think that it was okay to do such a thing? He leaned in and whispered in my ear. “We’ll figure something out. I can’t divorce Isadora, but if she were to die, I would be free to marry whomever I wish . . .” He left the thought hanging in the air.
I smiled. Could I kill Isadora? I wanted to; I knew that much. The woman had been part of the rebellion that had killed my father, and she had killed him after his fight with Mordrain had injured him. “Could you do it?” I said, craning my neck up at him.
He shook his head. “We are bonded by the Council. I can’t even try to attack her.”
“Why? What would happen?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I just wouldn’t be able to.”
“I will do it then,” I said. “If it means that we can be together.”
He nodded. “I will come to you when the time is right. Be careful, though. She is a fierce warrior. If you wake her she will kill you. You need to know that, before you do it. If you wake her you will die.
“If I wake her?” I said.
“Yes,” Galahad said. “You’ll have to do it whilst she’s sleeping.”
I shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t make a difference. How should I do it?”
He laughed. “Stab her through the heart, of course. Anyway, I should go now. You have someone who wants to see you.”
I turned over on the bed and stared into his eyes. At the sight of them my heart warmed. We were a team again, I thought with happiness. No longer was he trying to marry me off. It was just him and me; that was all that mattered. “A visitor, who?” I said.
“Your mother,” he said, and then left the room before I could ask him any more questions.
#
“That’s the headquarters of the Council of the Undead?” I said. “But it’s a mountain.”
Johnny laughed. “That’s it, my friend.”
“How the hell do we get in there?”
“Well, this is the most interesting part of the plan, and I’m sorry that I waited until now to tell you.”
He sat down on a log, dropping his gear to the floor. I walked over to him and sat down opposite. The sun was high in the sky, and each wrinkle on the old soldier’s face was clear as he frowned at me. “Well,” I said. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
“You remember the first time we met, the day you came to my house?”
I nodded.
“Well, the day after I got a letter, delivered by courier. It read something like I know where you want to go and why you want to go there. We are on the same side. And then it had the coordinates of the mountain, and then When you get there, wait for me. I’ll know that you’re here. I’ll be able to smell you. With love, Isadora.”
“Who’s Isadora?” I said.
He looked at me like I hadn’t even asked the question. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I have been lying to you this entire time.”
I waved a hand through the air, dismissing his concern. “No, you haven’t,” I said. “You just didn’t tell me. It doesn’t matter. We’re here now, and all that matters is our mission.”
Johnny smiled. “I wish when you were my son, boy.”
I smiled back at him, touched by the sentiment. “Well, I killed my father, so I guess there’s an opening if you’re interested.”
“I am,” Johnny said with a little chuckle. He saluted, and I saluted back, and as easy as that we’d agreed that from now on I would think of him as my father and he would think of me as his son. It was odd, I knew, but I had never had a proper father and I didn’t care.
“So,” I said. “Who’s Isadora?”
“No idea,” Johnny said, shrugging. “She must be a vampire. That much is clear from the smell you bit. But other than that I don’t know. When I got the note I assumed that she was a rebel vampire. They have those, you know. I remember the last vampire war. The rebels slaughtered an entire town full of humans, the bastards.” He spat.
“And you want to work with one of them?” I said. I wasn’t scared; it just wasn’t like Johnny to make such a silly mistake.
He laughed. “Hell no, I want to use one of them. Once we’re inside, we’ll cull the bitch.”
“Ah,” I said, laughing with him. “That’s more like it.”
This trip had become more than simply finding Zoey. Now I was looking forward to killing my first vampire. Johnny had warned me that they were quick and strong, but he’d also told me that they weren’t invincible. They were immortal; they could live forever, if they weren’t killed, but they died just like a human when it came to injuries. I was good with a crossbow, and I longed to see one drop in front of me, a crossbow-bolt through its heart.
We spent the day sitting and talking, and when night came we set out our bedrolls under the stars. We were going to go to sleep, but then Johnny abruptly jumped to his feet. “We have to hide,” he said. “Now!”
I didn’t wait to ask him what was going on, but just gathered my things and followed Johnny. He ducked down behind a rock and I followed suit. “Won’t they smell us?” I said, trying to keep my voice low.
“No,” Johnny said. “Isadora, whoever she is, must’ve acquired my scent at some point. Out here, to a vampire that isn’t looking out for us, we will just smell like any other animal.”
I could hear them walking past. There were about a dozen or so, all walking together towards the mountain. “Who are they?” I said.
“The Council, arriving to speak the Rites of the Council, if what I have read about them is correct.”
“Why do they need to do that?”
“Once they speak the Rites their power will be secured and they will be able to impose their rules on vampi
res easier.”
“Why aren’t we attacking them?” I said, crouching low as they waked away from us.
When Johnny spoke his voice with thick with anger and hunger. “There are too many, but don’t worry; we’ll get them. We just have to wait for Isadora. From what I can guess, she wants them dead too. So we’ll let her help us, and then we’ll kill her. All vampires must die.”
“All vampires must die,” I said, echoing not only his words but the way he said them.
#
My mother stood in front of me. It was weird seeing her, and was doubly weird seeing her sober. She looked like a different woman. Where once she had reeked of whisky and sweat, now she smelt of perfume. Her messy hair had become a carefully styled bob,
and her tired face looked youthful with delicately applied makeup.
