by Tim O'Rourke
Leaving the room, I went back out into the hall and opened the second door. I peered into the kitchen. The floor was made of stone, which felt cold beneath my bare feet. There was a wooden table with four chairs around it. Cupboards were attached to the wall and I opened some of these to find plates and cups. And just like Trent said there would be, there was a stove which was filled with glowing coals. On the stove was a cast-iron kettle, which I filled with water and began to boil. I searched some more of the cupboards and found an old packet of teabags and a jar of instant coffee. Taking down the coffee, I spooned a heap of it into a mug I’d found. As a waited for the water to boil, I was startled by a sound coming from the hallway.
Holding my breath, I listened and heard the front door swinging shut. On tiptoe, I crept across the kitchen and peered around the edge of the door. In the gloom, I saw a figure moving toward the foot of the stairs. Slowly, the person began to climb. As carefully as I could so as not to make a noise, I snatched up the candle and headed out into the hallway. Standing at the foot of the stairs, I held the candle up showering the staircase with light.
“Where do you think you are going?” I said.
Slowly, the figure turned and looked back down the staircase at me. “I thought you were still asleep,” Calix said.
And even in the near darkness, I couldn’t help but notice the blood that was smeared over the backs of Calix’s hands.
Chapter Eight
“Get out!” I shouted at him.
“Who’s rattled your cage?” Calix said, coming down the stairs toward me. “I think I preferred you when you were asleep. You were way less argumentative.”
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, I looked him up and down and said, “You bit me.”
“I saved your life, sweetheart,” Calix said.
“For now,” I said, turning my back on him and heading down the hallway to the front door. I swung it open, and then stood tapping my foot waiting impatiently for him to leave.
“And what’s that meant to mean?” Calix said, still rooted to the spot at the foot of the stairs.
I looked incredulously at him. “What does it mean? It means you don’t have the faintest idea of what a werewolf bite might do to me.”
Calix shrugged his broad shoulders at me like he didn’t have a care in the world. “You look okay to me.” He sounded completely indifferent about the whole thing. “You’re still as mouthy as ever.”
“You think this is funny, don’t you?”
“Who’s laughing?” Calix said. “I thought you would want to show your appreciation...”
“Appreciation!” I was astonished by his nerve. “Since I met you, you’ve done nothing but grope me, be sarcastic, rude, bite me, and creep around uninvited in my home. Now tell me one good reason why I should show you any kind of appreciation whatsoever.”
“Have you forgotten how I saved your life in the tunnel?” Calix shot at me. “How about the time I helped you get up that rope? How about the time when I shot those vampires in the face, which were just about to drag you out the windscreen? How about the time I shot the lock off those gates so we could escape from the grounds of the human farm? How about you show me some gratitude instead of prancing about the place with that stuck-up attitude you have?”
“I don’t have a stuck-up attitude,” I said, placing one hand on my hip as I continued to tap my foot.
“Yeah, you do,” Calix said with a nod of his head. “You walk around the goddamn place like your shit doesn’t stink. Well let me tell you, it does. Your shit stinks just as much as mine and everybody else’s, so quit with the airs and graces. I bit you so as to save your life. But on second thoughts, maybe I should’ve just let you die.”
Feeling somewhat speechless by Calix’s sudden outburst, I watched him remove the rucksack he was carrying. Again I couldn’t help notice the blood streaked across his hands and smeared between his fingers. Once the rucksack was free, Calix threw it at me. With my free hand, I snatched it out of the air. In doing so, the dressing gown I was wearing fell open. Holding the candle in one hand and the rucksack in the other, there was little I could do to close it. Calix eyed the flesh that I now had on show. I dropped the rucksack at once and pulled the dressing gown tight about me.
Brushing past me in the hallway, Calix looked me up and down and sneered. “Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. You haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before and better.”
As I watched Calix storm from the house, I thought that maybe I’d been just a little too harsh on him. Perhaps I did owe him a certain amount of gratitude and thanks. After all, he had saved my life and if he hadn’t have bitten me, I surely would be dead.
Knowing I should call him back, but unable to find the words to apologise, I said, “What’s in the rucksack?”
Stopping dead in his tracks halfway down the garden path, Calix turned to face me. And in the daylight, I could see the front of his long black coat was open offering me a glimpse of his hard-looking and muscular chest and stomach. I diverted my stare and looked up into his dark eyes.
“There’s food in the bag and some other supplies,” Calix said, wiping the blood from his hands against his jeans. “I’ve been out hunting in the woods all morning to find you some fresh meat but now I wish I hadn’t bothered.” He turned to go again.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I take back what I said. I’m just feeling a bit cranky that’s all. I didn’t mean it.”
Calix looked back at me. He looked shocked at hearing my apology. “Are you really sorry?”
“I am, honest.”
“Prove it,” Calix said, jutting out his stubble coated chin at me.
“How?”
He headed back down the path toward me. “You can cook breakfast for starters,” he said, brushing past me and stepping once more into my home.
I swung the front door closed behind me and followed Calix down the hall and back into the kitchen. I placed the rucksack on the table. “I boiled some water, so perhaps you can make us both a mug of coffee while I go and get changed.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Calix said, heading across the kitchen to the stove where the water was bubbling and frothing in the kettle.
Once upstairs, I headed back into my room and shut the door. Hunting through the drawers, I found some clean underwear, a pair of jeans, and a sweater with a hood. I put the clothes on. The jeans were a bit too long for me, so I turned up the bottoms. Feeling more comfortable now that I was dressed, I pulled my hair into a ponytail and headed back downstairs to the kitchen. Calix was sitting down, leaning back in a chair, his feet up on the table. He was drinking from a mug of coffee and he nodded in the direction of the drink he had made for me. I picked it up and took a sip. It was hot and tasted bitter, but it was good. While upstairs, Calix had taken the supplies from the rucksack and placed them on the table. There was another jar of coffee and a box of teabags. There was a packet of biscuits, a box of crackers, a tub of powdered milk, cans of soup and baked beans, soap, toilet tissue, and to my delight a bar of chocolate.
“Where did you get all this stuff from?”
“Some of the shops in town are full of the stuff,” Calix explained. “The humans must have left it all behind when they were… you know… taken, rounded up and carried off to the human farm. So before you accuse me of stealing, it was all just sitting there and would’ve gone to waste…”
“Who said anything about stealing?” I frowned at him. “Why would I accuse you of stealing?”
“You’ve accused me of pretty much everything else,” Calix said, leaning back in his chair.
Amongst the supplies and rations Calix had brought me, I could see some cuts of fresh meat wrapped in muslin cloth.
Calix watched me eying it. “Before you accuse me of killing anyone, that meat isn’t human, it’s rabbit.”
Could I really blame Calix for his sarcasm? Picking up two slices of the meat, I said, “Do you think we should try and make a fresh start of things? I
mean, it looks like we’re going to be stuck in Shade together for a while, so we might as well try and get on. I really don’t need any enemies.”
Before I’d given Calix a chance to reply, I turned away and took a frying pan from a cupboard next to the stove. Setting it down, I placed two strips of the meat into the pan. It wasn’t long before the meat began to sizzle and spit and the kitchen was overwhelmed with the mouth-watering smell of freshly cooked food.
As I stood and prodded the meat with a fork, Calix said, “I’m sorry that I bit you, Julia. But I couldn’t think of what else to do. You were dying right in front of us, face down in the snow. Now, I’ve been through my fair amount of fights and scrapes in my time, but I can tell you, I’ve never seen so much blood. I was scared, that was all. That’s the truth.”
As I forked the strips of cooked meat onto two plates, I said, “Scared about what? I couldn’t imagine you being scared of anything.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Calix said, lifting his feet from off the table. He pushed the coffee dregs to one side. I placed the meat down in front of him and he picked it up between his fingers.
I sat opposite him and tore a strip of meat into small chunks. I popped a piece into my mouth, and the meat was succulent and tender. Sensing that Calix really didn’t want to talk about the reason why my imminent death had scared him, I changed the subject and said, “So why are you sleeping in some derelict brick house?”
“I dunno,” Calix said. He ran one hand over his whiskered chin then through his black unkempt hair. “I guess I’ve always been a bit transient – you know, never really been able to settle down.”
“That’s sad, don’t you think?”
“Is it?”
“Well, to not have someplace to call home, I think that’s kind of sad, don’t you?” I asked, washing down the meat with a gulp of coffee.
“I don’t like feeling like I’m being hemmed in,” Calix tried to explain. “I like to be free. I never stay in one place for too long, if I can help it.”
“Apart from Rush, your brother, do you have any other family? A mother and father?” I asked him.
Calix pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “Thanks for the breakfast, but I think it would be best if I got going.”
“You’re leaving so soon? You’ve only just got here,” I reminded him.
“Yeah and you look tired and I’ve got things to do,” Calix said, heading around the table.
I knew I’d rattled him in some way. The mention of his parents and family had made him close up on me. It was definitely a subject he didn’t want to talk about, not to me anyway. It wasn’t the first time I’d got the feeling that, like me, Calix had secrets he wanted to keep solely to himself. At the kitchen door, I reached out with one hand and took hold of his arm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s nothing,” he said, brushing my hand free and heading into the hallway.
I got up from the table and followed him. He swung open the front door then stopped. “Who told you I was sleeping in that derelict brick house?”
“Trent told me.”
“Trent,” Calix whispered, eyes narrowing into slits.
“Is there a problem with that?”
Calix looked at me. “Julia, you said you didn’t want to make enemies, so I’d be careful if I was you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, feeling a little unnerved by his comment.
“Trent has spent a lot of time here while you were asleep,” Calix said.
“But didn’t you all take it in turns to watch over me?”
“Yeah, sure we did,” Calix said. “But Trent spent more time here than most.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “So?”
“So, such a thing didn’t go unnoticed by Rea,” Calix said as if in warning. “You’re pissed off because I bit you, but let me tell you something for nothing, Rea’s bite is a lot worse than mine if you make an enemy of her.”
Without saying another word, Calix stepped out of the front door, heading away from me along the garden path.
Chapter Nine
I swung the door closed and went back into the kitchen. I tidied away the remains of the food and cleaned the plates and pan. Calix had stayed with me for such a short time, the coffee he had made was still warm. The effects of the shower I’d taken earlier that morning had begun to slowly wear off. Once more, my bones and joints felt tired and sore. In fact, despite the breakfast I’d eaten with Calix, I felt a little lightheaded and tired. So taking the mug of coffee with me, I went back upstairs to the bedroom.
On my way, I stopped in the study and went to the bookshelf. I’d once been a teacher but that seemed like such a long time ago now. It seemed like it had happened in another place – a completely different world. I guess that in some respects it had. And as I recalled those days, I felt my heart twist with happiness. There had been a part of my past life that hadn’t all been bad. Teaching children to read had been just one of those delights. And as I delicately brushed my fingertips over the spines of the books lining the shelf, I smiled as I remembered the rows of children sitting before me in the classroom where I’d once taught, soaking up the books I’d read to them. The children – Wicce, vampire, werewolf, and human all loved stories. What child didn’t? Each book was a doorway into another world – a world where it didn’t matter whether you were wolf, vampire, Wicce, or human. Perhaps that’s why the children loved tales of adventure so much? It was an escape from the daily grind of suspicion, mistrust, and fear that bound all the species together.
But there were no children’s books on the shelf in the study where I now stood and sipped the last of the lukewarm coffee. The shelves were crammed with mystery and detective stories. However, as I looked more closely, to my surprise, a couple of the books included tales about werewolves, vampires, and witches. The humans liked to write such stories. And although such creatures did exist, the stories the humans read and wrote about them were just works of fiction. Because in these stories, vampires could be thwarted and killed with crucifixes, garlic, and holy water. The vampires could be dispatched and sent straight back to hell by driving a stake through their hearts. Werewolves could be slain with silver bullets. But of course none of this was true. The Beautiful Immortals had invented such ideas for the humans to believe in, so if and when war came, the humans would have no idea of how to defeat their enemy.
As I stood and looked at the creased and wrinkled spines of the books, there was one that caught my eye. Like so many of the other books crammed onto the shelves, it was a mystery story about a young female police officer who was sent to a remote village to investigate a series of unexplained murders. But as I stood and read the blurb on the back, I could see that these murders have been committed by vampires. Setting down the mug of coffee onto the desk, I thumbed through the pages of the book. Words like, layers, pushed, and wheres and whens caught my eye. So, wondering if the human who had written this book had perhaps known more than most about vampires and werewolves, I took the book with me and went to my room.
The curtains were still drawn and I left them that way. My eyes felt tired. I wasn’t sure that I could put up with the glare of sunlight, however weak and wintery it might be. Taking the box of matches and a candle Trent had left behind, I lit it and crossed the room to the bed. Placing the candle on the bedside table, I lay down on the bed. In the dim light of the flame, I began to read the book I’d brought with me from the study.
I hadn’t been reading for very long when my eyelids began to feel heavy. However hard I tried to keep my eyes open, I eventually gave in and let sleep take me…
…From my hiding place behind a large rock at the side of the road, I watched the police officers chase him into the woods. The carnage that we had left behind was almost incomprehensible to me. I’d never seen so much blood, so many dissected limbs and disembowelled bodies. This wasn’t meant to have happened. This hadn’t been part of the plan. Theo had assured me that
it would never come to this. But as I cowered behind the rock, my heart racing and hands shaking, I knew that no amount of magic could undo what had been done. The humans were dead and nothing could bring them back. What had seemed like a game, like some fun, had become something far worse. It had turned into a nightmare. A nightmare that I doubted I would ever be able to wake from. But hadn’t the elders, my parents, and friends warned me about this? Hadn’t they told me getting too close to a vampire was a risk? All of my people had spent a lifetime telling me and warning me that although there was a fragile peace, the vampires couldn’t be trusted. Had I not been told that the vampires were reckless? But I hadn’t listened to them. I’d never listened to them. It was Theo who had my ear. It was Theo who told me everything would be okay – what we were doing was just harmless fun.
But as I peered once more from around the edge of the rock and looked at the scattered bodies and the overturned vehicle, I knew that there was no real fun to be had in it. What I had become and involved in with Theo wasn’t a game – if it ever had been. How could the deaths of innocent humans be fun? And as I listened to the hollow shouts of the police officers frantically searching for Theo in the woods, the realisation of what we had done struck me like a crushing blow to the body. I bent forward and vomited into the earth at my feet. Screwing my eyes shut, I retched. I wanted to rid myself of the guilt I was now feeling. I wanted to cleanse myself of the nightmare Theo and I had started.
