by Clare Daly
The fire in the hearth swelled behind Evelyn, its flames licking higher, escaping the grate. She felt its power and the familiar feeling of it growing inside her as her defences readied themselves. Michael ran to the serving trolley, the dish still warm and emptied it like a bucket over Velle’s head. She let go of her charge. Watson fell to the floor. He was dead already. It had only taken seconds.
‘You’ll pay for that,’ she said.
She hurled the empty bowl back at him. He ducked behind a dining chair, the bowl crashing against it. Ms. Rosev ran for the door, making it out into the corridor, running for her life now.
‘Catch her, Baker,’ Velle cried.
‘I have done my part, Madam. The rest is up to you,’ he said.
‘Nice,’ she said sarcastically, sweeping out the door to the hall. Evelyn could hear the sound as Velle caught her, and the thump as Ms. Rosev’s head met the front door. Silence. Was Velle feeding on her? Was Ms. Rosev’s blood spilling out across the chequered tiles?
‘Michael, you need to go, now,’ Evelyn said. ‘Out the window, quick.’
He grabbed her hand, but she pulled away from him.
‘She won’t harm me.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I can’t explain it, but you need to go.’
Michael looked at Baker who nodded in agreement.
‘She’s right. I have no wish to see you die at the hands of such a creature. Your sister is under their care and mine.’
‘I’m not leaving without you.’
Then she would have to protect him. She encouraged the fire within her when she felt a presence she had not felt since the voyage. His voice whispered to her.
You can save your brother without showing your gift. Trust yourself. Trust me. You must keep it a secret.
Velle entered the room. Her complexion was rosy as if sat beside a warm fire but her dishevelled hair, dripping with soup and the large hole in her dress, had dented her jovial outlook.
‘C’mere,’ she said.
‘No. Not him, please,’ said Evelyn stepping between them. ‘He’s my brother. I can’t have you harm him. I wouldn’t be here without him and I won’t survive if he is not with me.’
Brushing her hair off her face, Velle appraised the situation.
‘We don’t leave any witnesses. We can’t. There are rules.’
‘You’re leaving me, aren’t you? Why not him?’
‘You’re special,’ she said. ‘Sasha’s never wrong about anybody.’
Evelyn felt her pulse quicken at the mention of his name. She didn’t know what these vampires wanted with her but she had to trust the voice of the man who had guided her this far.
‘I would hate to distress your sister here,’ Velle said to Michael, her vampire teeth receding. ‘We are to be firm friends and killing you is not a good way to start really, is it? Wade likes you too, you know, but you need to stop with the garlic throwing. You’ve seen for yourself that we can’t be destroyed.’
Michael looked to Evelyn. ‘As long as my sister is safe,’ he said.
‘Look, I know how hard it is to see this and be afraid. But we’re the good guys. Vladimir was giving your sister to us for food. I dare say he won’t be a loss to anyone.’
He looked to her for confirmation and she nodded. Exasperated, he reached for the decanter, not bothering with a glass. He sat back on the steps of the spiral staircase, and took a swig. Evelyn sat next to him.
‘What do these people want with you?’ he whispered.
‘I don’t know, but I don’t think they’ll do that to us,’ she said looking at Watson’s body lying on the rug.
‘This is a dangerous game,’ Michael said. ‘As soon as we can we need to get away from them, do you hear me?’
Biting her lip, Evelyn nodded and Michael saw the glint in her eye.
‘Oh my God, you like him, don’t you?’
‘Who?’
‘Sasha, I knew it. I saw the way you were looking at him.’
‘Don’t be stupid. I met him on the street yesterday. I didn’t know who he was.’
‘Maybe he cast a spell on you.’
‘I don’t think they can do that,’ she said.
‘Michael, help me, will you?’ said Baker as he tried to lift Watson’s body.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Michael sighed taking another swig. ‘What are you going to do with him?’
‘Not our department, thank goodness. Let’s put him in the hall with Ms. Rosev and they can sort them out themselves.’
‘What happened to Mrs. Osborne?’ Michael said.
‘I fired her tonight. Gave her her wages and dismissed her. She was upset, tears and all, but I think she knew that her time here was finished one way or another.’
‘You have a heart, Baker,’ Michael said.
‘Well, keep it to yourself,’ he said and they lifted Watson’s body over the top of the serving trolley, before wheeling him to the hall.
26
This was what Sasha had waited for. His waking thought every night for so long. He had driven himself mad with it, imagining his brother out there in the world and his reaction when he would finally meet him again. Twenty years, over seven thousand days and who knew how many hours. And now the end was in sight, his vengeance but a last embrace away. He had dreamt so long of prolonging Vladimir’s suffering over endless nights of bloodletting, but now that he had him, he just wanted it to be over. It was a peculiar feeling and he felt cheated by it. Was it the girl? Was it that Gabriel had given him another task after this one? One so important that it made him look beyond his revenge to the start of something new?
The distant lights of Bergen County flickered across the water. The Hudson was at high tide, the current circling amidst the choppy waters. Wade and Lincoln had dropped Vladimir in the long grass on the riverbank, where he lay, afraid to move.
‘Please. I don’t want to die.’ His voice a whimper.
‘No-one ever does,’ Sasha said. He circled him like an animal, his eyes never leaving him.
‘You could show mercy. I beg you,’ he said. ‘Please Alexander. I’m sorry for what I did. I could not reverse it but you must believe me I never wanted this for you, not like this.’
‘Not without you to guide me?’ he said.
‘I have only ever tried to protect you. Gabriel said that I would be forever young once the creature turned me. I couldn’t do that and watch you age and die before my eyes. I had to take you with me.’
‘I’d forgotten how much of a burden I was to you.’
Vladimir got to his knees, his hands clasped.
‘I’m begging you, please.’
He had wanted him to beg, yet it was strangely unsatisfying.
‘You should have told me the truth.’
‘Would you have come?’ he said. ‘I needed you with me. I had no idea the creature would choose you. You can’t blame me for that. I am guilty only of my selfishness. I wanted us to share in it together and I lost you because of it. I have never forgiven myself…and you return to me, borne of a creature that terrifies me even still, and you think me lame to take precautions. I am the mouse to your lion. The greatest gentlemanly honour you can do is spare me.’
Sasha bent down, gripping Vladimir’s face in his hands. His brother looked old. Time had not been kind or was it the shock of seeing him again after so many years?
‘Were you not listening? That is a not an option.’
Vladimir began to weep and Sasha held his wilted body. A monster comforting his victim.
‘Then show me,’ he whispered. His fingers grasped Sasha’s coat. ‘Make me like you.’
He considered his plea. What if they had a proper reunion, one that would give his brother a true understanding of the pain of such an existence, and thus a new start? Perhaps that’s why
he had felt so untethered all these years. He had been without his brother, his mentor. The only other person in this world who knew all that he’d endured in his human life.
‘My brother,’ Vladimir whispered, putting his arms around him. ‘Please Alexander.’
Sasha leant in closer, his face almost touching his.
‘My name is Sasha.’
He bit him. Quick and vicious. His teeth opened the jugular, a fountain of blood spraying the air, covering him in scarlet rain. But he did not drink. He pulled back and watched as his brother gasped, his eyes wide, his hand reaching for him. The life he had made for himself was enough. In fact, it was more than that. He had found a new family and without the burden of revenge, could he, dare to think, enjoy it? Vladimir was not a part of that.
He put his hand to his chest, a final goodbye before he lifted him, taking his body to the water’s edge. Without hesitation, he cast him out into the night. The water ebbed to meet him, taking him down into its swell until not a trace of him remained.
‘Your grave is water, brother. I would not taint the soil of this earth with you.’
He hadn’t cried in a very long time, didn’t think he could, his emotions so twisted by vengeance but tears filled his eyes – ones of relief as his desire for revenge had finally been sated, but also tears of grief and self-loathing. An image of his creator came to mind and he shook it away, a distant memory brought to bear in the moment. Maybe it was a goodbye to his past but it rippled across him like the current. Wade and Lincoln came to his side. The only brothers he would ever need and together they disappeared into the night.
27
‘How’re you holding up?’
‘Okay, considering you just killed two people.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that. It’s not pleasant but I guess you get used to it pretty quickly.’
Aside from being visually striking, Evelyn couldn’t help but be taken with Velle’s spirit, her enjoyment of her form and the ease in which she accepted it.
‘How long have you been with them?’ she asked. ‘Was it the same for you, as for Sasha?’
‘Oh, God no, Sasha had it bad. The worst. No, I had a choice. Wade asked me and I fully accepted.’
‘Wade made you?’
‘Not all of us have horror stories. But Wade saved me long before he made me a vampire. He took his time after that, let me fall in love with him, the bastard, and after that it was an easy decision. You ever kissed a man and felt the world fall around you? Lose sight of everything but that kiss?’
Evelyn blushed.
‘Yeah – exactly. It’s a rare and beautiful thing and it took a hundred-year-old man to knock me off my feet. Before that, well, let’s just say I didn’t think that ever existed. He’s a good man Wade. So are Sasha and Lincoln. Just because you’re a monster, doesn’t mean you’re a monster. I’ve met more human ones than any other kind.’
Evelyn thought of Corcoran, his cruelty, his hate.
‘You’ve met them too. I can see it in your eyes. We’re not that different, you and I.’
Maybe she was right. Who was she to judge Velle anyway? She was a killer too.
‘Where are you from?’
‘Athens, Texas but I grew up just outside it on my Grandpa Emery’s farm after my folks died. I was thirteen and ole Emery introduced me to a new working life that year. He was a soldier, injured in battle, not able to run the Indians away anymore so he put his skills to running girls instead. Biggest brothel for miles. Popular.’
She tucked a wet strand of hair behind her ear and for a moment Evelyn saw a glimpse of the little girl she once was.
‘My Grandpa Emery loved my red hair. Said he could charge extra special for me. He had a woman, Kate McCross, crueller than him – Crazy Cross we called her. He’d been paying her for years to take care of him and I guess they grew themselves a little business. To them I was just another orphan, or one of their runaways that ran in there and never got out. I was nineteen before I saw a way to escape. You have to understand, they convinced us so young that there was nothing out there for us. The world wasn’t meant to serve girls like us. We served it. And we had food and a roof over our heads. Nobody outside of there was gonna do that for us. And if you saw the men who came, you’d believe it. They made us believe we were safer there than anywhere else. Sure, I dreamt of escaping but the fear of the unknown… better the devil and all that.’
Her voice trailed off.
‘Did Wade rescue you?’
Velle smiled. ‘On a white horse? No. It was up me to change things or at least try. I knew it wasn’t right. Guess I just needed a place to start and that’s when I found the map. I liked to rummage through the drunken ones’ belongings when they passed out. There’d be hell to pay if we took anything but I liked to look, you know. Anyway, this map was big, like a jigsaw of states, Texas folded to the front. He must have been a salesman or something but he’d drawn a line all the way to the east coast.’
She traced her finger along her skirts.
‘And I thought, I could go there. How much worse could it be? Even though Cross kept us in rotation depending on when we bled, it was only a matter of time before I got pregnant. It wasn’t fool proof and what would I do then? I was already at the crossroads. That map just gave me the shove I needed to try. But before I left there was one thing I had to do.’
She smiled as if the memory were a nice one.
‘He had a name, a real one I guess but I called him The Blade on account that Emery let him use one on me. He told him he could do what he wanted once he didn’t affect my ‘saleability’. He liked the extra he was willing to pay. He would cut me in discreet places, watch me bleed. Each time he was getting more agitated, he wanted more. He joked with Emery that he was gonna come there one day and put a bag of gold on the table and buy me outright. Then he could do whatever he wanted with me. More than running away from Emery, I was afraid he’d come after me too and so I needed to make sure that didn’t happen.
He liked to intimidate me and he’d take his knife and ram it into the wooden post, fly the flag for the adventure to come. I guess I’d normalised it ‘cos I used to let him but the thoughts of that map, the world denied to me, made me brave. I seized the knife and dropped, stabbing him in the foot. It went clean through his boot and he started to curse and hop. That’s when I pushed him back onto the floor, a little rough and tumble and I sat on his chest as he tried to push me off. But I had that knife in my hands and I threw myself down on the handle. It melted into him like butter. I could hear the tip strike the wood underneath. And he didn’t move after that.
I took what I had and ran. I needed to get as much space between me and Emery as I could, or he would be dragging my ass back there. I ran some of the way north east, left my shawl snagged on a branch on the road to Kaufman. Maybe he’d think I’d gone to Dallas. Then I doubled back for Frankston and then Jacksonville. I was so exhausted I crawled under the pilings of a hotel and slept there in the dirt. Best sleep in years. As the people of Jacksonville bustled through the streets, I bustled their wallets. Texas was at the business of fighting the Mexicans at Santa Anna, soldiers marching through the streets. No-one was gonna ask me any unwanted questions. I bought food, new clothes, kept moving – Texarkana, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville. It wasn’t until I reached Cincinnati that my luck began to change. I was surviving hand to mouth, fare to fare, but I needed more than that, enough to set myself up when I reached the coast eventually.’
She let out a sigh. Evelyn had forgotten the room, the dead, everything, her attention held on every word Velle said as if she were there, in Cincinnati with her. As Velle described what happened next, Evelyn could see her in her mind’s eye, perfectly poised as she sat in the bar of the Shelding’s Hotel.
***
She had made the extra effort, wore her finest dress with the green velvet sash, her hair braided and swep
t back off her face. She’d spotted the handsome man immediately when he walked in. He was tall and strong, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his waistcoat open. He joined two other men sitting at the bar, as they offered him a whiskey shot. The men were laughing and as she stared she caught the man’s eye and he raised his glass to her. The other men followed his gaze, one of them saying something that made them all laugh raucously. The man moved off his stool and walked towards her, his stride confident, two glasses of whiskey swimming in his hands. She smiled coyly at him.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he said handing her a drink.
‘Be my guest,’ she replied. ‘Something funny?’ She nodded to the other two men.
‘They reckon you’re a young widow looking for a bit of love in this godforsaken world and that I may be the one you’ve been searching for?’
‘Really? I think you’ve made a wager, is what I think?’ she said taking a drink.
‘They bet me a day’s wage on how quickly I can make you leave with me’ he said his smile disarming, his confidence not diminished.
‘I’m shocked,’ she said, the liquor burning her throat.
‘So was I. They obviously can’t tell you’re not interested unless I have cash to spend.’
He looked at her knowingly, a secret shared between them, an advantage on his bet.
‘I knew you were a whore, the second I saw you.’
She bristled, the smile slipping from her lips.
‘Aw heck I’ve offended you now. I’m sorry. Look I have a habit of putting my foot in my mouth. It’s how most of my conversations with women go.’
‘And there was me wondering why a nice guy like you, would have to pay for it. That mouth must get you in some trouble.’
