I scratched my chin. ‘That’s some tricky thinking. I mean, whichever way you slice it, the man’s still a betrayer.’
‘Not a betrayer, a martyr.’
Bullshit. I told him about my encounter with Judas: how I’d found my way into his inner sanctum, how I’d tried to kill him before he invaded my head and set his dogs on me. ‘Go on then,’ I dared him. ‘Talk your way out of that one.’
Lauden cocked his head to the side. ‘Let me get this straight… you invaded an old man’s home and waved a knife in his face, and you wonder why he didn’t invite you in for tea and biscuits?’
More tricky thinking. ‘Look, you can twist my words as much as you like, but the bloke basically said he was going to start a vampire apocalypse.’
‘Not an apocalypse, a utopia. An end to hunger and disease. Imagine it: people with the wisdom of centuries passing on the gift of eternal life. No more suffering. A world united. We don’t want to bring death, Abbey. We don’t want to hurt anyone. We want everyone to live. To really live.’
I searched his eyes for any trace of deceit but found none. If he was lying I’d hate to play him at poker. Still…
‘Your master said he was going to drain my boyfriend’s blood out of a big hose. Maybe that flies where you come from, but as far as I’m concerned, that is not cool.’
I felt a pang of heartache. Neil had survived all that just to be murdered in his sleep by a couple of angels. There’s irony, then there’s irony.
Lauden saw the sadness etched into my face. ‘Look, I don’t know what Judas said to you, but wouldn’t you say just about anything to intimidate someone who was threatening to kill you?’ He placed a palm on my cheek. ‘The old man doesn’t know you, that’s all. Not like I do. To me, you’re family.’
I pushed his hand away. ‘I never got on with the family I was born with, so why would I want another one?’
‘Look, I’ve been as open as I know how to be, Abbey, what else do you want from me?’
‘Nothing, I don’t want anything.’
With a gentle finger he reoriented my face, holding the gaze I didn't want to give. ‘Then why can I hear your heart pumping inside of your chest like a snare drum?’
He could sense the blood pulsing through my body, the blood of the Nightstalker, which I knew from experience was nigh on irresistible to his kind. And yet he’d never once tried to take it from me. I’d given him every opportunity to drain me to a husk, but he’d always kept himself in check. That had to mean something.
‘I torched the tower,’ I blurted. ‘The angels, I burned their base to the ground.’
Lauden’s eyes widened. ‘You did?’
‘Yeah. And it felt good. But I’m not done. I’m not even nearly done.’
‘What do you need?’
‘I need you to help me finish the job. Will you do that? Will you help me?’
Lauden nodded slowly. ‘Of course, Abbey. I’d do anything for you.’
Something powerful stirred inside of me as I stood staring up at him; an electricity, a hot spike of delirium.
But it wasn’t the brand.
Not this time.
I grabbed Lauden by the lapels of his cardigan and thrust him up against the wall of the hallway, knocking an oil painting off its hook. I pressed myself close to him, close enough that I could feel his body through my clothes. Without asking for permission, I seized him by the back of the neck, pressed my lips to his, and poured my tongue into his mouth. He responded instantly, kissing me back with raw intensity, circling his hands around my hips and pulling me tight against his torso.
I spun him around and dragged him down to the ground, the hallway rug bunching up beneath us as we squirmed around on the waxed wooden floor, our bodies a mess of grasping limbs. Lauden flipped me on to my back and I kicked out with my heel to slam the front door shut. As I unbuttoned my top he pulled up my skirt and I felt his fingers migrate lower, exploring the skin beneath. There was something about Lauden’s touch that lit me up from the inside, making my flesh tingle in a frenzy of static. He was so confident. So capable. Having him on top of me was nothing like having Neil there, all raspy and struggling to catch his breath. Lauden was strong and warm and alive, healthy and as human as I was, nothing like the living corpses the angels had sold me. The ones I’d been told were my enemy.
‘Is something wrong?’ Lauden asked, sensing that I’d become caught up in my own thoughts. ‘Do you want me to stop?’
There was an intensity to his gaze that poured kerosene on my flame.
‘God, no,’ I said, as I arched my back and reached for his zipper.
27
That night I slept well, at least for a little while.
I woke up in the mansion’s master suite, draped across the mattress of Lauden’s four poster bed. Turning over, I gazed up at the canopy, all fine silk drapery and breezy white swags, and wondered what it must be like to be him. To be rich and timeless and powerful. When I thought of my sorry lot in life—my broken family, my piss-reeking tower block, the job I didn’t have—well, it didn’t compare too favourably. Who cared if Lauden’s wealth wasn’t totally legit? What did it really matter where it came from? So what if he rigged the stock market or failed to pay some taxes, everyone was scamming the system somehow. Why shouldn’t I be part of it? I’d played it straight my whole life and look where it had gotten me.
I rolled over and turned to face Lauden’s pillow, only to find his side of the bed empty. I ran my hand over the dent in the mattress. Without him there the room suddenly seemed chilly and foreboding. I checked my phone. It was four in the morning. I sat up and wrapped the kingsize bed sheet tight around my shoulders, wondering where Lauden had wandered off to. After a moment of internal debate I decided I needed to know, so I turned the bed sheet into a toga and headed for the door.
As I padded barefoot down the runner of the mansion’s impressive wooden staircase I saw a crack of light coming from under a door on the ground floor. Someone was awake still. The butler maybe? Or is this where Lauden had got to? I knocked lightly on the door and pushed it open to find myself in a kitchen. The appliances were top-of-the-line stainless steel, the counters, real marble. Sat at a rustic wooden breakfast bar was Lauden, dressed in a nightgown and reading a newspaper.
‘What are you doing up in the middle of the night?’ I asked, then, ‘oh right, yeah, you’re a vampire.’
Lauden folded his newspaper as I sat down beside him. ‘And what are you doing awake at this hour?’ He slapped his forehead playfully. ‘Oh yes, of course, you’re the Nightstalker.’
How had we arrived here? A vampire and the Nightstalker, huddled around a kitchen island, making cute jokes at four in the morning?
I stretched and realised that the crick in my neck I’d been carrying around since my fight with Gendith was gone. ‘That’s quite the bed you have there,’ I told Lauden. ‘It’s like something Mister Gray might own.’
‘What were you expecting? Did you think I slept hanging upside-down?’ he said, smiling.
I laughed at the image he’d conjured, and as I did, I felt a pang of shame. There I was, yukking it up with another man while Neil’s body had barely turned cold. I realised then that I hadn’t really grieved for him yet. Not in any real way. I’d raged, I’d taken out my anger on Gen, I’d thrown myself into the arms of another, but I’d yet to mourn his passing. It would be a while before I felt that true sense of loss, and when it came—when the wave finally hit me—I knew it would be devastating. Until that happened, I’d do what I always did in this kind of situation – stuff my guilt-hole with as much food as I could lay my hands on.
‘I’m starving,’ I said, realising that I hadn’t eaten for the better part of two days.
‘Not a problem,’ Lauden replied, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘Let’s retire to the dining room, shall we? I’ll have the help rustle you up some breakfast...’
He began to steer me to the door.
‘Don’t go waking Jeeve
s on my account,’ I said. I noticed a stout wooden door in the corner of the room. ‘Got anything in that larder? Some cheap cheese will do; Dairylea Slices, or one of those little string bags of Mini Baby Bells...’
I went to the door, and as I did, I saw Lauden flinch.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘Something in there you don't want me to see?’ I was joking, or at least I was until I noticed the giant padlock on the door. I took it in my hand and felt its weight. What the hell was he keeping in there that called for that kind of security? I looked back to Lauden. Had I read him all wrong? Was he a monster after all? Had I found his secret stash; a locker full of corpses hanging by their ankles, suspended from the ceiling by meat hooks? Was I the Devil’s fucking concubine?
‘What’s in there?’ I asked.
‘Are you ever going to trust me?’
I tore the padlock off with one sharp tug, which pretty much answered that question.
It wasn’t a larder. Beyond the door I found a staircase leading down to a basement.
Lauden sketched out a smile. ‘I promise you, that’s not where I keep the cheese.’
I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘What are you keeping down there?’
‘Listen, I don’t know what you’re looking for, but you won’t find it in my cellar.’
‘We'll see about that.’
I marched down the creaking steps, one hand on the wall to steady myself. The air was cool and musty and dark. At the bottom of the steps my arm brushed against something: a cord dangling from the ceiling. I gave it a yank and a row of dim bulbs flickered to life.
The cellar had been dug deep and offered plenty of headroom, its timber beams looming a good four feet above me despite the bed hair I was wearing. The walls were rough-cut stone, and the floor dusted with fine gravel. It reminded me of a dungeon, the kind goblins lurked in, hoarding chests of gold coins, protecting their riches from the clutches of foolhardy adventurers. All that was missing from the tableau were flaming torches fixed to the flagstone walls.
I took a look over my shoulder and saw Lauden’s silhouette in the doorway up above. ‘Go ahead if you must,’ he said, his voice betraying a burr of disappointment.
Was I rooting around in his cellar for nothing, or was he playing with me, acting hurt in a bid to convince me that I was wasting my time? That the knot in my stomach was of my own making?
I turned back and continued into the cellar, moving along a lengthy corridor, racks of wine bottles either side of me, their necks pointing out like the gun barrels of two firing squads looking to catch me in a crossfire. The corridor continued until it opened out into a spacious chamber. Inside the chamber, from a distance, I saw wood, lots of it, and for a moment I convinced myself that the room was lined with coffins. Caskets containing sleeping vampires, or worse, chilled human bodies, ready for consumption.
But no.
The chamber was full of barrels. Wooden casks, the kind used to store alcohol.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and almost bounced off the ceiling, despite the cellar’s generous headroom.
‘You see?’ said Lauden. ‘This is where I keep the wine, not the cheese.’
I felt my shoulders sag as relief washed over me. Wine. Just wine. ‘I’m so sorry, Lauden.’
‘It’s fine. Really.’
‘It’s just… I thought you were a beer man.’
The corners of his mouth crept into a grin. ‘I have a broad palate.’
I shivered as the adrenaline wore off and the chill of the cellar struck me. ‘I need to get some sleep. I swear I’m going head mental.’
‘Totally understandable,’ he replied. ‘You’ve been through a lot.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Now let’s get you out of the cold and back into bed. Vampire's orders.’
I laughed. ‘Okay, but if it’s all right with you, I’m going to have a splash of wine to help me nod off.’ I found a dusty wine glass, gave it a wipe with my bed sheet toga, and went to turn a casket’s tap.
Lauden grabbed me by the wrist. ‘Forgive me, but the contents of that cask are extremely valuable. So long as all you're looking for is a tranquilliser, let me steer you towards a more fitting bouquet…’
I felt that knot in my stomach again. The one telling me I’d read my host all wrong. ‘What’s in that wine barrel, Lauden?’
‘What do you think?’ he replied, daring me to state the obvious.
I felt my heartbeat begin to slow. What was I thinking? What else would be in a wine barrel but fancy plonk? I was being overly cautious. Scratch that; I was being an idiot. I’d jumped into bed with a guy too soon and the guilt of it was making me paranoid. Painting pictures that weren’t really there. There was nothing wrong with Lauden. The only monster in that room was my own sense of remorse. This was my issue, not his, and I wasn’t about to go my whole life being suspicious of a man who’d laid down his life for me.
Then again, fuck it.
I tore the lid off the barrel and peered inside to find—
Wine. Ruby red wine.
Or at least I thought so.
Something floated to the surface of the liquid, something pale that appeared for a moment then disappeared out of view before bobbing up again. I saw a mouth, wide open as if gasping for air, only this was a mouth that had long since drawn its final breath. Buoyed on the wine, staring up at me with pruned, lifeless eyes, was a human head.
It wasn’t wine, it was blood. Barrels and barrels of human blood.
28
Lauden let out a long sigh. ‘After all the hours I put it, after all that work, you had to be nosey, didn’t you?’
I backed away from him, clutching on to the bed sheet, the only thing covering my naked body. ‘What is this…?’
He ignored me. ‘You didn't question the angels when they groomed you—when they turned you into a killing machine against your will—oh no, you fell in line just like that. But I put one padlock on a door and suddenly you’re Miss bloody Marple.’
I was reeling. ‘But the flash drive... they betrayed me.... they killed Neil…’
‘Did you really think we’d let you into The Crypt unless we wanted you there? Did you think we’d make it that easy? You tripped a silent alarm the moment you set foot in the place. It was child’s play for us to hack your download and make it so your drive returned a dummy file.’
‘So… Gen did what she was supposed to do?’
‘Of course, she’s an angel. But it didn’t matter what she did, because her work was compromised before the two of you had even left the bunker. You never had the cure. You never had anything.’
His words washed over me like a bucket of cold sick. What had I done? I’d beat the hell out of Gendith, almost killed her, burned down the gas tower and torched the angels’ home. All because of Lauden. I understood now. Understood it all. He couldn’t set foot on the holy ground the base was built on, so he’d tricked me into razing the tower instead. He’d been hoodwinking me right from the start. Using reverse psychology to bend me to his will. Winding around me like a snake.
Neil wasn't the only one who’d been turned, I had too. Turned this way and that. Turned like a tornado.
I’d been so stupid. I’d let him poison my mind, let him tempt me to his side of the street and set me against my only real friends. I’d let anger get the better of me, let it cloud my judgment. The angels didn’t kill Neil, it was my own stupidity that put him in the ground. The brand made me immune to mesmerism, but a vampire had fooled me anyway. That snide fuck.
I unfurled my fist, and within moments, the dagger had sped from the master suite, flown down two flights of stairs, and snapped back into my hand.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Lauden, retreating a step.
‘Something you should have done, dickhead: killed the enemy when you had the chance.’
‘You’re not my enemy, Abbey.’
‘Oh no?’ I took a step toward him, dagger gripped tight, teeth clenched.
Lauden smiled. ‘We’re way pas
t fighting, Abbey, don’t you see? We’ve come too far for that. Now is the time for us to work together.’
I managed a laugh. ‘You think because you tricked me into sleeping with you there’s a “we” here? And I thought I was the mug.’
‘Don’t dismiss the idea out of hand.’ He used his palm to paint an arc in the sky. ‘Imagine it: the Nightstalker and the Judas Clan, allied, committed to the same purpose.’
‘Why would I ever let that happen?’
‘Because together we'd be unstoppable! Look at the world we’re living in and tell me it doesn’t need to change. The Clan have tried steering humanity in the right direction, but there’s a limit to what we can achieve so long as you’re working against us. Stop fighting and work with us! Together we can build a world free from old age, free from pestilence, free from war. A world where people can live life to its fullest; a life of music and poetry and love. I wasn’t lying to you about any of that. About what we want. About what I want.’
I gave him a look that could have melted steel beams. What was he banging on about? He’d lied to me, manipulated me, turned me against my friends, and now he wanted me to believe he was trying to create a better world: a hippy dippy utopia powered by good vibes and yoga and wheatgrass enemas?
‘So, that’s the plan, is it?’ I scoffed. ‘You, me, and the Clan – one big happy family?’
‘Exactly!’ he replied, failing to detect the sarcasm in my voice, or just plain ignoring it. ‘This is your chance to be part of something that really matters, Abbey. To finally belong. To make a positive, lasting difference.’
‘And I’m supposed to just forget about all of the people you’ve murdered, am I? About the giant monster babies? About the head floating in that barrel?’ I stabbed a finger at the gruesome artefact.
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