Turned

by David Bussell

  ‘The man that belonged to was a priest,’ Lauden replied. ‘A sexual abuser. The church wouldn’t do anything about him, so I did. Okay, did I need to chop him into pieces and put him in a wine barrel? Technically, no, I’ll give you that, but I promise you, the man deserved no less.’

  ‘You’re a real gent, you know that?’

  His brow knitted. ‘The point is, we don’t kill for sport or satisfaction, we only kill to survive, and when we do, we’re choosy about the life we take.’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ I said. ‘You’re not going to convince me you’re a good guy just because you’re a faddy eater.’

  ‘Unlike your kind, we don’t take the lives of our prey en masse. We don’t keep our food locked up in cages so we can murder them on conveyor belts. We hunt as we need to. As we have to.’

  I tightened my grip on the dagger and continued my advance.

  ‘It’s not too late, Abbey,’ he said, backing off. ‘This doesn’t need to end in violence. You don’t have to be the unthinking weapon they made you.’

  What if he was right? I could stick him with my knife, but then who would I have left? My family were long gone, Neil was dead, the angels were my enemies. Like it or not, Lauden was all I had now. A man who’d saved my life. Who was rich and powerful. Who seemed—in his own nutty way—to actually want to make the world a better place. Yes, he’d killed, but then so had I. Maybe he had the right idea. Maybe we were better off together. God knows I dressed like something from a horror movie, perhaps it was time to finally act the part.

  But no, I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t some creature of the night. I just dressed a bit moody.

  The brand flared blue and hot and a felt a slice of adrenaline. I flipped the dagger into the air and snatched it so the point of the blade was facing down. ‘Nice pitch, Lauden, but I’m giving you a hard pass.’

  His charming grin hardened into a death’s-head rictus that all the cuddly cardigans in the world couldn’t disguise. The nice white smile had vanished, revealing the howling maniac inside. ‘Typical,’ he spat. ‘You humans are so squeamish - one little severed head and it's tears before bedtime.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry to disappoint.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, girl. Do you have any idea how much effort I put into this whole scheme?’

  ‘The scheme to turn my boyfriend into a vampire and have him rip my throat out?’

  Lauden smiled, showing off that rictus grin again. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Abbey. That’s not why we turned him. Not at all. We turned him to show you that you could learn to be with one of us. To share a bed with a vampire.’

  ‘If that’s true, why did you kill him?’ I asked, feeling my eyes turn wet.

  ‘Oh, we didn’t kill him, Abbey, but that’s a story I don’t have time for. Not now. The only thing left to do at this juncture is kill you.’ He shook his head, disappointed. ‘And all because you had to have some cheap fucking cheese.’

  He snarled and his facial features turned sharp and feral. The letter J flared on his forehead and fangs ejected from his gums, long and sharp. How had I mistaken Lauden for anything but a monster? He was a bloodsucking hellspawn with ice water in his veins and screaming bats in his skull, and no amount of charm or sophistication was going to change that.

  In a way, it was refreshing to find out that the Judas Clan were evil after all. In this world of political double-dealing and fake news, when you could never be sure who’s on your side, when even Nazis dressed in polo shirts, it was heartening to learn that there were some old-fashioned villains out there who just wanted to watch the world burn.

  ‘I don't know how I ever saw humanity in you, Lauden, because you're not human. You're a different species.’

  ‘A superior one,’ he hissed. ‘I was here first. You're just a trespasser on my world. And now you’re going to die.’

  ‘Suits me,’ I replied. ‘This was getting a bit talky for my liking anyway.’

  I went for him in two fluid strides, dagger raised, ready to strike—

  But he was faster.

  It happened in a flash. No warning. No cue. No dramatic swell of music. One second I was going for him, the next his fist was sinking into my gut, knocking the air out of my lungs. As I unfolded myself I saw his other hand eject a set of claws, then the talons were raking across my face, scoring my cheek with four deep red lines.

  He licked his fingertips, tasting my blood. 'Rhesus negative. A rare vintage.’

  I swung the dagger at him but he evaded it easily, twisting his body to one side and leaving me swinging at air. The speed that he shifted out of my way made me feel like I was moving in slow motion. Like I was fighting underwater.

  He struck my throat with a deft knife-hand strike, crushing my jugular. I gasped and coughed, clawing at my windpipe, suffocated until the brand kicked in and healed the damage. Before it could do that though, Lauden delivered a punch to my face that knocked me flying. A jolt of pain thundered through my skull and I stumbled back, gagging as blood pooled in my mouth.

  ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ he crowed, smirking infuriatingly at me.

  I went at him again, all martial, no art, running at him like a train, dagger extended in front of me. Again, he clobbered me, but this time I went down, arms flailing, legs flopping, a squid in a washing machine.

  I hit the ground. White hot pain, cold hard stone. My head was thumping a real club banger. My brain was in screensaver mode.

  Lauden was ridiculously strong - far more powerful than any vampire I’d encountered so far. I could run at him as many times as I liked but I was never going to beat him. I couldn’t afford to keep making the same mistake. To be a fly banging against a window pane until it dropped dead on the sill.

  ‘You know,’ I croaked. ‘You’re pretty spry for a dead guy.’

  He grinned, showing his fangs, then landed me with a backhand that sent me crashing into a wall of wine barrels. The impact cracked open a cask, spilling its contents, soaking me in gallons of blood and offal. I was covered in the stuff, head to toe and hip to hip, one tiara away from looking like Carrie on prom night.

  ‘Well, don’t you look tasty?’ Lauden trilled.

  He beat on me some more, punching me, kicking me, carving me up with his razor-sharp claws. I staggered about under the onslaught, ankle-deep in blood, human organs squashing under my feet like grapes. I was groggy, weaving erratically, punch drunk.

  A smirk decorated Lauden’s lips. ‘So you’re the chosen one, are you? Who chose you, Stevie Wonder?’

  This guy could seriously choke on a vertical mile of dick. ‘I’m… the Nightstalker,’ I wheezed. ‘And I am going to fuck you up.’

  ‘You’re no Nightstalker,’ he shot back, staring at the dagger I was only just about managing to keep a hold of. ‘All you are is a gullible little girl with a piece of oversized cutlery and bad table manners.’

  He kicked the dagger out of my hand and it disappeared to the bottom of the blood pool.

  This guy.

  Anger bloomed in my belly and heat travelled up my gullet like acid, cloying in my throat. I looked down at my hand and saw the lines on my palm light up, turning into a glowing blue delta. The brand kicked in like pharmaceutical cocaine, energising me, revitalising me, filling me up with rocket fuel.

  I roared and lashed out with a super-charged fist. This time I was fast enough. This time Lauden was the one moving in slow motion. My fist collided with his cheekbone, making his head snap back like a streamer caught in a hundred-mile-an-hour wind. While he was reeling from the whiplash, I punched him again, and again, each blow slamming home with the force of a sledgehammer, battering him, pummelling him, beating him to within an inch of his life. I recalled the dagger to my weapon hand and grabbed him by the balls with the other, squeezing his nads until the pips squeaked.

  I was about to deliver the death stroke when a shadow fell on me from behind. Lauden's two henchmen were there, toting a hooded prisoner.

  ‘We
found this one lurking outside,’ said one of them.

  He whipped off the hood, but I knew who was under there before his hand even touched the cloth.

  They had Gendith.

  29

  Drop the knife,’ ordered one of the henchman (doesn’t really matter which one).

  I did as asked, placing it on the lid of one of the few intact wine barrels. I kept hold of Lauden’s nuts though.

  ‘Jesus, you look terrible,’ I told Gendith, and she really did.

  ‘I just got the shit kicked out of me. What did you expect, Helen of Troy?’ She spat some blood on the ground, which hardly messed up the decor.

  For the first time since I’d known her, Gen didn’t look like she just stepped from the pages of a fashion mag. Not only was she banged up from the fight we’d had, she’d been knocked about by the two lugs either side of her too. Her skin was lumpy and patterned with all the colours of a rainbow. Actually, more like all the colours of a swamp.

  ‘Why are you dressed in a bed sheet?’ she asked, not unreasonably.

  ‘Forget about that. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Where else would I be? I’m your guardian angel, remember.’

  ‘Shut up, both of you!’ ordered one of the henchmen (again, it doesn’t really matter which one).

  ‘Just a minute!’ I fired back, tightening my grip on Lauden and making him squirm.

  I was bloody and battered, but far from beaten. Trapped in a stand-off, the henchmen could only watch from the sidelines as Gen and I continued our conversation.

  Gen explained that while I’d been busy burning down the gas tower, she and Viz had been with an eaves, trying to figure out my location so they could reason with me. That’s how she’d managed to track me to Lauden’s mansion. She was lying in wait on his grounds, observing, when she heard a commotion in the basement and came to check it out. She didn’t make it far before she was set on and captured though. Obviously.

  ‘Even after everything I did, you were still looking out for me?’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘We're a team. Whether you like it or not, we’re a team.’

  The mushy cow. Still, I felt myself weaken as she said it, and as I did, Lauden took the opportunity to free himself of my grip. One second I had him, the next he was six feet away and back on his feet.

  ‘Well, this has all been very touching,’ he said, mocking us, his voice a dainty little bell. ‘You know, you two would make a charming couple.’

  I glared at him. Gen did too.

  ‘Ooh, daggers,’ he said, feigning fright. ‘Speaking of which…’ He twitched his hand at me, gesturing for me to hand over my weapon.

  ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ I said, grabbing the dagger. ‘Why the fuck would I go and do that?’

  I felt a sharp tug then realised the dagger was no longer in my hand. Lauden had somehow eaten up the distance between us, snatched it from me, and retreated out of range again, all in the blink of an eye.

  ‘Because if you don’t, I’ll just take it off you anyway,’ he smarmed.

  I’m telling you, when it came to motherfuckery, that guy took first prize.

  I shot out a hand and willed the dagger to return to my fist, but Lauden tightened his grip, refusing to let go. I felt sweat prickle my forehead as we engaged in a heated tug o’ war, wrestling over the blade, fighting for dominance. I poured all of my concentration into the task of retrieving what was mine – pictured the brand as an electromagnet, pulling on metal, dragging the dagger back to my hand. Finally, Lauden’s grip broke and the dagger fired back into my grasp, making me scream in full-throated triumph.

  A fleeting grimace appeared on the vampire’s face before he dismissed it with a shrug. ‘Dagger or not, this little display is over.’ He ordered his henchmen to bring Gen closer; close enough that I could see the panic in her eyes. ‘You don’t stand a chance. The fight is three against two, and one of you is incapacitated.’

  ‘I can work with those odds.’

  He chuckled. ‘I don't think you fully understand the situation you're in, Abbey.’

  ‘Oh, I think I do.’ My eyes flicked to Gen’s. ‘Duck!’

  I swung the dagger in a wide arc, and as it cleaved the air, its blade transformed into a sword. A heartbeat later, a pair of very surprised-looking heads were splashing down on the cellar’s bloodbath floor.

  ‘I make that two-to-one in my favour,’ I said. ‘How do you like those odds?’

  That shut him up, but not for long.

  Lauden was quick as a viper’s strike. Before I could even twitch, he’d snatched Gen by the wrist, whirled her about like a spinning top, and appeared behind her with a pistol pressed to her temple.

  ‘Enough!’ he cried.

  I stared at the gun. ‘You’re telling me you had that thing stuffed down your dressing gown the whole time?’

  ‘I like to be prepared,’ he sneered.

  Another bloody Girl Scout. Maybe I should have just left him and Gen to it, I thought, I’m sure they’d have got on like a house on fire.

  I pressed the tip of the sword to the ground, making it dagger-sized.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Lauden. ‘You’re thinking you can hit me with that thing before I shoot this gun.’

  ‘Very clever,’ I said. ‘You don’t even need a knife with that super sharp mind of yours.’

  I took aim and his lip curled. ‘You should know that even if you score a bullseye, the resulting muscle contraction will ensure that I pull this trigger and your girlfriend dies.’

  ‘I’m not her girlfriend,’ said Gen, kind of missing the point if you ask me.

  ‘Enough chatter,’ said Lauden, ‘either you toss that knife to the ground or I give this angel a new set of wings.’

  I held the dagger beside my head, muscles tensed, feeling like a Jack-in-the-box, ready to spring.

  Gendith’s eyes were about as wide as a person could open them.

  Lauden’s finger stroked the pistol’s trigger, daring me to make a move.

  The room was so silent that when I blinked I heard the crackle of my own eyelashes scraping against each other.

  I wrestled with what to do, wracking my brain for a solution, stumped by the impossible problem I faced—

  Then I saw the loophole.

  I hurled the dagger.

  Not at Lauden.

  Not even at the wall behind him, so I could kid him into thinking I’d missed, then get him with the boomerang as I recalled the blade.

  No.

  I hurled the dagger at the gun in his hand, shattering it to bits.

  He stared at the pistol’s trigger guard, which hung uselessly from his index finger like an oversized ring.

  Checkmate.

  ‘Sorry to shit on your picnic there, old boy,’ I said, snatching the dagger from the air as it rubber-banded back to my hand. ‘By the way, I totally faked it.’

  ‘No you didn’t,’ he replied.

  ‘Well, the third time I did.’

  Gendith grimaced, then elbowed Lauden in the gut. He shrank from us like a whipped puppy. The tables had turned. He couldn’t take us both on and he knew it.

  ‘Don’t do this,’ he pleaded. ‘Please don’t do this.’

  You’d have needed a mop and bucket to clear up all the flop sweat coming off him.

  I stalked towards him, face emotionless, eyes unblinking.

  ‘You’re more than this, Abbey. You're more than just a weapon.’

  ‘I am more than a weapon,’ I replied, keeping the dagger level, ‘but not today.’

  I darted out a hand and grabbed him by the collar of his gown before driving his head through the lid of a wine cask.

  Crack.

  My muscles knotted as I held him down, pressing his face to the bottom of the red stuff. His legs kicked behind him like he was swimming the front crawl, but I refused to let go, performing an unholy baptism, absolving him of his sins. He arched his spine violently, forcing himself upright, and for a
moment his head appeared above the surface of the blood, his skin full of splintered wood, needles in his cheeks, needles in his lips and eyes. He gasped, sucking down a breath of air, blubbering, begging for his life.

  His life.

  Lauden didn’t have a life. Yes, his kind needed oxygen, just like we did, but I knew now that the similarity between us ended there. Lauden was a monster, and monsters didn’t get to live.

  The brand throbbed and I ducked him again, holding him down with the fury of God’s own thunder, until finally, mercifully, Lauden’s legs stopped kicking. I let go of his collar and he slid to the ground, dropping to his knees in a ghoulish parody of prayer.

  I stood there, panting, feeling the effect of the brand wear off, feeling my limbs lose all tension. Gendith draped an arm around my shoulder and we stood there a while, looking down at Lauden’s body as if he might pop back up on his heels like a cheap slasher villain. But he didn’t. Lauden was dead and he wasn’t coming back.

  ‘That’s strange,’ said Gen, cocking her head. ‘His aura, I’ve seen it before.’

  ‘Where?’

  Gen turned to look at me: ‘I’ve seen it on Neil.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’ And I did not. Like, not even close.

  Gen turned me around so we were looking directly into each others’ eyes. ‘It means this is the vampire who sired Neil, and if you kill the sire, you cure the kin.’

  ‘But... Neil’s dead.’

  She clenched my arms. ‘Not necessarily…’

  30

  You’re telling me Neil was just sleeping?’ I cried as we ploughed through the mansion’s front gate in a stolen BMW.

  I’d scrubbed the blood from my face and snatched my clothes as we hurried out of there, so I looked vaguely respectable in the passenger seat, or at least not like I’d done a naked slip-n-slide across a cattle house killing floor.

  ‘Not sleeping exactly,’ Gen replied, twisting the wheel and blasting the beamer through a set of red lights. ‘More like a deep coma. A chrysalis stage before a human goes from being alive to undead.’