Blood Dragons (Rebel Vampires Book 1)

by Rosemary A Johns

  Contents

  TITLE

  COPYRIGHT

  EPIGRAPH

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  REBEL VAMPIRES 2: BLOOD SHACKLES

  DID YOU LIKE THIS BOOK

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  HOOKED ON REBEL VAMPIRES?

  ONE LAST THING

  BLOOD DRAGONS

  ROSEMARY A JOHNS

  Ruby and I swaggered through the shadowed streets, towards the promenade and Palace Pier - her in crimson silk, me in military Great Coat - two creatures from another world and time, unnoticed by these petty First Lifers because we weren’t painted in the colours of their tribe. We twirled each other round, dancing in the carnage and the flames.

  FANTASY REBEL

  Copyright © 2016 Rosemary A Johns

  First Edition 2016

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters, places and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

  Cover design by JD Smith

  Fantasy Rebel Limited

  rosemaryajohns.com

  King James Bible – Leviticus 17:14

  ‘For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof; therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh; for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof; whosoever eateth it shall be cutoff.’

  1

  You know those vampire myths? Holy water, entry by invitation only and sodding crucifixes?

  Bollocks to them.

  Because you know what? There are no monsters and no immortals. There’s just us: the Lost.

  Somewhere deep inside, you know it’s true.

  I can see a glimmer Kathy - give me something - the slightest flicker in those glazed blue peepers.

  You remember me today, don’t you, love? At least you used to and wouldn’t need me raking it up. If I can just get this down, or if you can just remember, I won’t lose my last thread of humanity. Sanity. Otherwise there’s no one with the pretty pictures in their mind but me. Of what I’ve seen. Or what I’ve done.

  Do you even remember my name? Your Light?

  You laughed when we first met and said my parents must be right hippies. You were direct like that: I loved it. But I couldn’t explain. Not then.

  How many months since you’ve looked at me and said my name? Looked at me and known me?

  After all these decades, you’re lost. And I’m alone.

  Ilkley Moor’s bleak when you look out at it under the crisp snow of winter; sod it, it’s bleak when the sun beats down in the broiling heat of summer too.

  Not that I’ve seen more than photos of the daytime. I don’t fancy bubbling to a stinking pool.

  Yet now, when I can’t even see the heather, just rolling mounds of snow, which cast blue shadows and make burial mounds of the hills (the boulders the gravestones), it’s bloody bleak. So the tourists, dog walkers, day-trippers and climbers, don’t come out here in the freeze of the dead months.

  Except we’re here because I wanted to bring you somewhere familiar, which you’d recognize: for the end. For your end.

  The docs say – oh, you know, so much bollocks. They’re wankers, the quackmongering lot of them.

  This last decade, as you’ve slipped, and I’ve had to watch, useless as a…

  Dementia they call it. They always have a pretty label, don’t they?

  Dementia.

  Box it in. Mask the nasties with their lists and tick boxes. I reckon the physicians of this age figure themselves dead brainy fellows.

  So I brought you back here to Ilkley Moor, in the howling wind roar of December, because I wanted you to feel at home. I hoped you’d remember one last time.

  Only now I realise all it’s done is haunt. And we’ve a hell of a lot of ghosts clamouring on our backs.

  I’ve a Soul to haunt, the same as you. Of course I died (hollering, I don’t mind admitting). Yet when I was reborn into my second life, my Soul was stuck to me. They’re fat, mewling consciences, until we choose to carve them away, slice by crimson slice, with every First Lifer we slaughter. But others? We tend to our Souls’ shreds, chaining the pulsing migraine hunger.

  We’re individuals, get what I’m fixing at? More so, because after election, every emotion is amplified: the good, along with the bad.

  It’s not as if freewill is your headline act alone. We Blood Lifers decide the body count, how fast the tune plays and how deep the darkness bites. Because little by little – year by year – it consumes us all eventually.

  It was you who taught me that.

  I stand most nights in the damp of our whitewashed stone farmhouse, where everything has been changed from when it was first our home. The shell, however, remains. No one can gut the core of a house. Its beams. Walls.

  Soul.

  I can taste our life still throbbing warm.

  I stare out at the rugged wilderness, which is shrouded in the haze of mists that threaten to swallow us, because I don’t have the balls to turn and watch you.

  To see you rock backwards and forwards in the crumpled mess of our bed, wringing your hands until the nails rip the skin, like there’s something dirty you can’t clean off.

  That should be me, love. It’s all on my hands. Not yours.

  On those nights, I know you’re lost in the past - not with me - when you say one word, like a bloody mantra: ‘Advance, Advance, Advance…’

  Why can’t I wash it clean for you? And I’m too much of a coward to turn round.

  So this – here - is me turning round. This. Here. Now.

  I can’t change the past. I never thought much about it before. I never had to. I was always the one, who lived in each fleeting second, high on its intoxicating splendour.

  You never got that. Not like Ruby.

  Sorry, that’s a jinx just there. The blood talking. Calling to me. But now I see the tracks left behind are more than the picture perfect moments in my brain; not clinically still, but blurred bloody lines.

  I want to share them with you. Fully, unabridged and unedited. All the nasties and wankery. The truth (as far as that exists), before you no longer understand me. I’m writing it down because then I can cut it straight. How I want you to hear it.

  If these are the last words I ever say to you, then I need them to be right, so let me get it in at the start: I love you.

  From the moment I saw you…no scratch that…from the moment I heard you, I loved you.

  All right, there was awhile I reckoned I hated you, and you thought I was a pillock and a bad boy Rocker too, let’s not leave that out. Have you forgotten what a hard time you gave me? But these last five decades..? Although of course to you our love was forever. Yet to me? It flamed brighter than the bloody sun, but it’s not forever because that’s so much longer than you’ll ever know.
>
  Your First Lifer world doesn’t get that theirs is only the starter, not the main. None of us know what’s for dessert. I fear I haven’t been a good enough boy for that and I wager I’m most like to be sent to bed without any.

  We tell ourselves lies, however, to maintain the pretence of safety, as if the folks in our civilized country wouldn’t burn the world around their ears if they missed just three square meals.

  So you see, if anyone but you reads this book, then that instinct for self-deceiving self-preservation (along with every other fib in the web of status quo that bind First Lifers), will kick in.

  Still reckon they’ll believe? Think this more than fiction?

  You lived it. Breathed it. Bled it. I want this to bite to your Soul. But to them?

  It’ll appear merely ink stains on a page. Not the howling of a vast new world opening up in the shadows.

  2

  Rough leather motorcycle jacket, studded and faded, decorated with a worn gold Ace of Spades, collar firmly turned up, over a black t-shirt, jeans and tall motorcycle boots, topped by a light brown pompadour, tamed with Brylcreem.

  ‘That’s what you kids are wearing now, is it?’ Your new carer for Wednesdays was studying me, like she’d just revealed a manky specimen in your bedpan. ‘Latest fashion?’ Her gaze curdled; you could tell it would’ve done, even when she was half a lifetime younger and not dried up with defeated dreams.

  Karen the little thingy on her blue overall read. But after years of an endless parade of day to night handovers, these birds blurred into a day of the week, rather than a name.

  I grinned, as I slouched against the wall. ‘No, luv, these’ve been around awhile.’

  Wednesday flinched at the luv. Babes to this world, you First Lifers bristle at words, which are deemed outdated, as if they had more power than echoes. I’m too old, however, to change more than I already have (and that’s more than most).

  How about a bit of bloody appreciation?

  Wednesday was shuffling around your bed, as if checking for hospital corners. Now I knew she was pissed because no carer ever does that. They stick to checking your pills, pressure sores and signing timesheets, before dashing out of the piss stink of this room as fast as they can.

  I try to cover the old woman smell with your Chanel No. 5. You’d have bit my bloody head off for spraying that around mist-like, back when you could speak. But the sweet scent of you darling, it’s faded, as if you’re withering. I can’t even smell the blood in your veins. It’s like you’re being fossilised inside out, every day one drop less.

  Are you still inside there?

  As I watched Wednesday’s disapproving rearrangement of the sheets, I dragged out my pack of ciggies, clenching a fag between my teeth. Then I rummaged in my jean’s pocket, pulling out my gold lighter. I snapped open the smooth lid, flicking on the heady orange surge of flame: I’ve got to get my kicks somewhere and there’s nothing like looking into the fire.

  When I lit the fag, Wednesday emitted a squeal, as if I’d sacrificed her newborn to a Druid god (and yeah, I’ve seen that done a few times, although it’s not my cup of tea).

  I raised my eyebrow. ‘Sorry,’ I proffered the lit fag to Wednesday, ‘want one?’ She drew back, her lips pursed. Wednesday’s peepers were puffy with exhaustion; little burst blood vessels threaded her cheeks. You looked dead small in the middle of that big, white bed without me. I wanted to climb in with you and hold you against the emptiness of that white but I didn’t reckon Wednesday would’ve got it. ‘Suit yourself,’ I withdrew the ciggie, rubbing the tumbling ash between my fingers and thumb, as I took a deep drag. Wednesday looked significantly down at you. ‘Oh right,’ I wedged the fag between my lips, shrugging. ‘Pretty sure she’s not gonna want a puff.’

  ‘Second-hand smoke,’ Wednesday hissed.

  ‘Christ, reckon she could die from..? Wait, she’s already snuffing it. And I can honestly say - hand on heart - smoking’s not gonna kill me.’ When Wednesday swung her bag onto her shoulder, slamming towards the door, I sighed. Then I flicked the stub to the wooden floorboards, before stamping it out. ‘The world’s now safe one more night.’

  That’s the thing about you First Lifers: you’re burnt up so fast, like fire consumes oxygen, that every second’s precious. Yet your bodies with their fragile cells are open to attack by mutation. Bacteria. Decay.

  The worst of it, is that you understand enough of the threat to fight your own desires, impulses and urges. The joys of life, see what I’m fixing at? Smoking. Drinking. Sex…

  Life is fear.

  Just the act of living for the whole bloody lot of you. And yeah, you’re right to fear.

  Us Blood Lifers? We died already. We evolved past all that.

  At least, that’s what we’ve conned ourselves.

  The butcher’s delivery service had left the box in the cold of the stone porch, as per monthly instructions. They’re good like that - dead efficient.

  As always, I’d waited until I’d heard the roar of their van struggling away down the snowy track, skidding on sheets of black ice, which were treacherous underneath. One year, when the winter bites too deep, maybe they’ll not be able to make it with their bloody titbits. Then we’ll see how well I’ve chained the hunger: or whether I’m the one in chains. Either way, Wednesday would be top of my nosh list.

  Oh yeah, there’s a list.

  As soon as Wednesday had stomped down the stairs, huddling like a malting owl in her coat, and then out into the smudge of shadows, I snatched up the box.

  Bugger me it felt blinding: warm in the cold, beating and pulsing. Alive even in its death. I slammed the door shut against the frost of the night air. You were asleep up in the bedroom, shrivelled in that vast white bed, and I held red life in my hands.

  I panted, wiping my knuckles across my lips. I hugged the box to my chest, as I darted across the hallway towards the dark of the connected garage. Your light-proofing’s still holding up for the glass panels above the shelves.

  I clicked on the over-head. It was fetid; mould seeped across the far wall in black blossoms behind the empty jam jars, which you were going to use six summers ago before…

  So many sodding befores. Like before this thing got its teeth in you, munching through your mind, piece by bleeding piece. Before it took you away from me. Before it took you away from yourself.

  I dived further into the garage, dropping the box, so I could start dinner preparations.

  It’d been a long wait; the hunger had become a part of me. This isn’t sodding milk we’re talking about. It can’t be left in the fridge for later: this is kill or be killed. Basic predator 101. You hunt and then you feast. Want to recreate that artificially?

  Eat fresh.

  I pressed by my Triton motorbike - a slash of crimson in the drear. She was nudging me to take her out. She hates the winter slumber as much as I do. It makes her restless trapped inside.

  I selected a latex glove, stretching it out – it’d do.

  The blood from the butchers was thick, fresh pigs’ blood. I must be their most regular customer: I’m one for black pudding me. It was your idea to drop that in, when we set up the order. You still knew what was what back then, at least for some of the time. You always got how to cover, well, you know, what I am. You First Lifers act like blood drinking’s manky but you still nosh it with your fry ups, don’t you..?

  I heated the blood in the microwave, which was stowed behind the broken plant pots, waiting for the ping. When I poured it into the glove, it bulged out each finger: a fat blood hand waving. Then I tied up the top tight.

  Here comes the best bit, when I hold back, anticipating and letting the thirst build: that blinding, intoxicating thrill. How could a First Lifer understand the rush?

  You never got it - how all life is laid bare in a moment - no matter how many times I tried to explain. Even though I’d see this look, as if you were laying yourself open, exposed to anything I gave you. Yet it didn’t matter: you weren’t o
ne of the Lost. You’d never tasted the gush of blood. Words are simply the shadow. The memory of our real lives. But what else do we have?

  So right, the glove? It’s the closest thing I’ve found to human skin. Then I can mimic the glorious sensation of violation, when the fangs sink in deep. It’s about more than the blood, you see.

  Slowly, I extended my fangs: two thin canine needle points. As I closed my peepers, I imagined…

  Said I’d tell you all the nasties and wankery, didn’t I? Flay myself bloody?

  I imagined it was your neck, as my mouth closed on that glove. I always have done. I imagine, as my teeth pierce the latex in dual sharp points, it’s your skin I’m breaking. Your blood I’m sucking. Faster and faster. Harder and harder. That the warm coating the back of my throat is your life drawn into mine.

  There’s a dizzying buzz, like the world’s exploded into multi-coloured connectedness, after a month of monotone loneliness. Then the glove’s empty, and you’re in me - all in me - completely. Then I climax.

  It was over. My fangs retracted, as my peepers snapped open. I dropped the sucked dry glove into the bin, wiping the blood away with the back of my hand.

  Now, don’t get narked. You’re to blame (or to be thanked, I don’t know bleeding which), that I have to drink this animal piss to start with.

  For my abstinence.

  It was an ultimatum - yeah, yours. Give up First Lifer blood or lose you. I reckoned you were barmy.

  Not bloody likely, I said.

  Then we rowed. I swore. Bargained. Begged…

  Of course you didn’t get it (you never did), what First Lifer blood truly is to us Blood Lifers: it’s our very breath. No drug blows your mind to such a high. And the dead sweet part? There’s no down.

  When it hits, you actually feel each chamber of your heart pumping, as every cell, nerve and synapse sparks. The atoms of the world unite in flowing motion, as if you’re part of something infinitely bigger than you or the world. You could touch the face of sodding…god, nature, the universe because you’re truly alive. In that moment more than when you slithered from your mama’s bloody womb.