And it didn’t.
Every step I backed away from that cage and the motionless, weeping Hartford, who’d been silenced good and proper, I lost part of myself: family and home.
I was swallowed into the darkness.
Here’s the thing though: it was my choice.
Plantagenet would always be wrong: a leader mustn’t make sacrifices.
He was the sacrifice.
Plantagenet was stretched out like a panther on the bed. Except he wasn’t wild. Under the Oberon green cast by the ivy screen, the moss sheets and the steel roses..?
He was an exhibit in Blake’s zoo.
It was time to set him free.
Plantagenet studied me lazily, his arms crossed behind his nut, as I stalked. Then pounced.
Lips soft as I remembered, opening on a gasp. That scent and taste of ripened oranges. No fight, only surrender. Black curls coiling round my fingers. One hand slipping down the slash of his silk catsuit, questing onto golden skin. Stroking over one peaked nipple.
Plantagenet mewed, squirming under me, as if I was working his todger.
I had a quick shufti at the CCTV camera, which was winking at us from the corner, before tweaking Plantagenet’s nipple again. Plantagenet pouted, as his hips worked. I leaned in, allowing myself – just once – to feel closeness of blood.
Just once.
Then I twisted Plantagenet’s nipple, and as he closed his peepers caught between agony and ecstasy, I edged out the shiv from the back of my jeans.
Trinity had sworn it would do the business: small enough for a bloke to hide but deadly enough to do in a Blood Lifer. She’d bought it for Will to carry, except he’d told her that he didn’t need it. Not now he had a guardian angel.
I was no bloody angel.
As I raised the blade, I wished I could shut my own peepers, so I wouldn’t have to always remember this. The feel of it and the blood on my hands.
But my name was Light: I was cursed to remember. Even when the world forgot.
So I raised that blade, as Plantagenet shivered and purred his delight underneath me, and I brought it down over his chest. Into his heart.
Just enough…
Plantagenet’s gold-flecked peepers flew open. Then he screamed, as his back arched feline.
I rolled away from Plantagenet, staring dumbly at the shiv sticking from the wound, which was oozing thick burgundy down the white of his catsuit.
Blood. It was staining my hands. I shook.
Death. All great stories need a death. Weren’t you hoping for this?
I raised my panicked gaze to Plantagenet’s. He ripped out the shank, hurling it – clang – against the wall. He was breathing hard, as he pressed his palm over the wound to slow the bleeding.
‘We talked about this,’ I rushed to explain.
Christ, I felt like a wanker.
‘Indeed?’
‘Realistic, yeah? So when I show those Blood Lifer tossers the CCTV recording… They’d see through anything staged; we just have to edit it right. Now I can hand them me taking out the head of the Renegades; it gets me in.’
‘Was it truly needful to bed me? May you not, well-beloved, have murdered me over cake?’ Plantagenet whimpered, as he pulled himself up. I winced, knowing what it was like to have holes carved into you; when I’d been a slave, Sir had made sure of that.
‘Hartford was about to sacrifice himself like the daft – heroic – berk he is,’ I shrugged. ‘I had to stuff him in the cage downstairs. He’ll be furious when… I just wouldn’t get into any more barnies with him because I wouldn’t figure on you winning.’
‘Still,’ Plantagenet beckoned me closer. Reluctantly, I slid across the bed. You shank a Magnificoe? You’re a dim pillock if you accept an invitation to see how big his teeth are. ‘You tease and torment me, playing at my lover. You hold me down, as if you wish to do the deed of darkness. But instead, traitor? You hurt me, thus…’ He held out his bloody hands to me.
‘Put like that? It does sound bad.’
‘In faith, it makes me wonder: do you love me? Or merely Hartford and Donovan?’ Plantagenet traced a crimson trail down my cheek: a flaming brand. ‘Would you betray us – the Renegades – if thou had to choose a side? Villainy of shame! I see the answer writ upon your face.’
‘Weren’t you the one who told me there were different loves? I don’t have to choose. That’s the point.’
‘Wrong, I’m afraid.’ Blake was leaning in the doorway, his mouth set in a tight line. He was examining Plantagenet’s injured form, like he was only stopping himself from sweeping him up into his arms damsel-like by an iron will. ‘Loyalty: it’s the key skill essential to be employed at RE. No one gets in without it.’
‘Lucky I’m not applying then.’
When Sun slunk into the bedroom, I smiled. She avoided my eye, however, slicing her fangs into her wrist, before offering the snaking scarlet to Plantagenet, who eagerly suckled.
I bristled, but Sun cut me off before I could protest. ‘Ya huh! You didn’t offer to help Plantagenet, even though you hurt him. I haven’t forgotten a word you wrote in your journal. How Hartford and Donovan fed you from their wrists, when you were starving. We bleed for our frickin’ family.’
Sun was right. Plantagenet was right.
Hartford and Donovan were mine to care for: my misfit family forged through slavery. After what we’d been through together?
They’d always come first.
So what could I possibly say?
I straightened my shoulders. ‘Let’s murder you. Deliver me to the Blood Life Council. And sodding save the day.’
Let me clarify: you intended to trick us? The entire Blood Life Council?
That’s about the long and short of it.
Did you truly believe we’d be taken in by that CCTV footage? That we wouldn’t also demand a body? Habeas corpus?
Bless you. You’d be gobsmacked what folks are tricked by: smoke and mirrors. We only needed enough evidence to get me in the door long enough to free Donovan.
But instead they double-crossed you, pretending you were the Renegades’ leader..?
No need to rub it in. See what happens when you’re not a team player?
Betrayal. It seems to haunt you, Light.
Or I haunt it. Either way, I’m the one in this Red Room, whilst you scribble down my witness. What I can’t figure? Why didn’t you let Donovan go?
Come now, did you truly believe we would?
So what happens if…when I die? To Donovan?
When…if you die..?
Captain will have two pets.
NIGHT 13
I’m sorry, Light, they were meant to walk you down a different way; you shouldn’t have seen…
The bonfire? All that wood stacked up below in the courtyard, with the stake to tie me to, ready to burn the heretic?
Pull the other one; you wanted to put the fear of hell in me (or the Witchfinder Captain did), before the trial tomorrow. You’ve arranged an Easter to remember, with me blubbering out my guts today.
Did it work?
Here’s your answer…except the two-finger salute works better when you have two fingers.
Good god, what happened?
Captain promised you wouldn’t be hurt anymore; this is my opportunity to employ my methods. Torture is never effective at burrowing underneath the skin because ultimately we’ll all say anything – the lies mixed in with the truth – to make the pain stop.
Yet we all crave to tell our story. To be heard and seen. There’s power in words. I weave them, without the crudity of pain.
I don’t even have to touch my--
Victims?
And they don’t touch you, right? That’s a cold way to live.
Still, they die the same, don’t they? Once you’ve wormed under their skins, flaying them bare. They’re punished, the same as if you lit the match.
What happens after is not within--
Don’t say your bleeding remit. We’re resp
onsible for every moment we live. If you tear a bloke apart - his secrets, weaknesses and guilt - then you don’t stand back, wash your hands Pontius-like and call what comes after justice.
Right now? You’re a cog in a machine, which is grinding down the rest of the Blood Lifer world. What’s worse? When pure death is developed, it’ll be the First Lifers caught in its gears.
But I’m just a cog. How do I..?
We both know you’re not just anything. It only takes one cog to stop turning for the whole machine to stop working: that’s how revolutions start.
I’m not one of your Renegades, Mr Blickle.
You’re not Captain’s puppet either…or his cog.
So tell me, how were your fingers burnt?
A reward.
Because here’s the thing: when we chinwagged about your sister? You never told me you had a brother.
Black.
Banshee panic echoed through my mind so loudly I didn’t know if I was hollering or only on the inside. My chest was sticky with blood from my torn fingernails; I’d scrabbled at the wood every day. A terror-stricken let me out, let me out, let me out…
A waking nightmare flashback to my slave days.
Swaggering bravado? It lasted just as long as it took for the lid to be nailed down.
I bet Captain had a right laugh. Or gloat: he was the sort to gloat listening to another bloke reduced like that because he’d never been broken. A beta like him?
I’d have given Captain a day tops in Master’s hands.
Then I heard the sound, which was like angelic choirs: nails being ripped out.
The coffin lid slid across. I blinked against the heavenly blue, shivering at the sudden rush of frozen air.
‘Diddums, he’s cold. Maybe you can warm him up?’
Two mugs appraising me, as if I was the latest toy.
Captain’s hand resting on the shoulder of…
Buggering hell – Emo.
I banged my nut against the bottom of the coffin; maybe I could knock myself out.
Captain chortled. ‘Look how pleased he is to see you.’
When Emo leant over the coffin, his stripy scarf tickled my nose. ‘He’s mine?’
‘You were such a good boy watching him and reporting back. I knew you could be motivated. You simply needed the right reward system.’
‘Gold stars didn’t work then?’ I tried to clamber out of the coffin, but Captain slammed me back.
‘Donovan could be substituted if..? No? Well, I have grownup’s work now; you know how it is…’
‘You’re not leaving me alone with that psycho?’
Captain’s hand clamped over my mouth and nose.
I flailed, as my peepers flew wide open, and my lungs speared sharply dissonant in agonizing bursts.
‘That psycho?’ Captain whispered; his mush was inches from mine. ‘Is my elected, a karate champion and your owner for the next hour. You really do have authority issues, don’t you?’ At last, he lifted his hand.
I took a deep lungful of air and then another; I’d never reckoned breathing a privilege before.
‘Just remember,’ Captain straightened, before tapping Emo on the shoulder, ‘no killing.’ Emo’s black rimmed peepers were so puppy-dog, you’d have reckoned his daddy had just forbidden him from texting his mates. ‘But torture? Well,’ Captain spread his hands expansively, ‘it is your reward…’
When Captain met my gaze, his look was considering. Then he turned on his heel and he was gone.
Reluctantly, I had a gander at Emo, who was assessing me like he was deciding which limb to hack off first.
‘Captain’s your Author then? You work for him?’
Emo flicked his green fringe. ‘Work for myself. Do what I like.’
‘Didn’t sound like it.’
Emo scowled. ‘What does he know? He’s old and stuff. After all, didn’t tell anyone, did I? Didn’t tell them about the kid.’
I hardly dared breathe – Captain might as well have still had his hand over my gob. ‘Why’s that then?’
‘Told you: I work for myself. Keep my own secrets.’ Emo ducked down.
I forced myself to remain motionless, when I heard rummaging, followed by the clinical snap of gloves being pulled on.
Nothing good has ever come of that snap sound.
And I should know.
When Emo loomed over me in thick black rubber gloves, clutching a metal tube with a look of intense concentration, I shrank back.
‘When they burn you, how will we know what it feels like?’ Emo traced one rubbery finger down my chest, all the way to my stomach and then up again, before crossing from nipple to nipple. I fought to keep my breath steady. ‘Captain promises I can watch Easter night, when you go up like a candle. I told them: burn him slowly or wet the wood. Then we can make him tell us: how it feels as first his feet, then his legs, dick, guts, chest and arms burn.’ I shuddered, when Emo slid his gloved fingers through my hair. ‘Even as your head flamed – before your tongue melted – you could’ve screamed. Something.’ Emo pulled back sulkily. ‘They said no. The Council. Tradition and that.’
‘Bloody shame,’ I forced out through dry lips.
‘But Captain said I could burn you now. That will still hurt, won’t it?’
Emo scooped gooey paste out of a metal tube, before painting it down the path he’d traced on me – a cross down the center.
It was sodding cold.
Christ in heaven – white phosphorous.
If that ignited..? I was about to become sodding hot.
I watched, as Emo slipped his hand into his hoodie pocket. He smirked, pulling out long matches slow inch by slow inch, like a striptease.
I never reckoned I’d be frightened to look into the fire. Yet I’d never been seared by white phosphorous before.
This brat could learn about my pain, but he wouldn’t learn about my fear. Instead, he’d get a lesson in how a bloke faced the flames.
‘I don’t smoke anymore but thanks for offering.’
Emo’s smirk faltered. Immediately, he struck the match: a beautiful white flare. We were united by its fragile power. The heartbeat moment.
Then Emo held the match to the phosphorous…and I screamed.
White fire. A flaming cross. Searing agony, larger than me or the world. Bubbling, blistering and bathing me in blinding agony.
The fire burned out, sizzling down into a pattern of red scars. But the pain? It had burrowed so deeply under the skin that I didn’t know how to free myself.
Emo had marked me.
Through my blurred peepers, all I could see was Emo’s winged cartoon vampire, mocking me, as he asked, ‘How does that feel?’
I shakily raised my hand in the two-finger salute, only to have the sadist in training clutch the fingers in his phosphorous smeared hand.
No way was I losing my swearing hand…
I tried to wrench back, but Emo had already flared the match to life and…
White fire.
And this time? Emo made me sing sounds I didn’t even know I could make.
Emo scrutinized me, as I cradled my burnt hand. ‘How does that feel? We have a whole hour to play. If you don’t want to talk…’
‘Maybe,’ I forced out, as I shook from the shock of the sudden burns, and my whole body shut down, ‘you should try out these fun games on yourself? Then you’d really know how it sodding felt.’
Emo tilted his nut, as if actually considering it. ‘Did. Used to. Daddy said no more.’
‘Daddy?’ I hissed, as my skin split raw. ‘We talking First or Blood Life?’
‘We’re talking dead. He wouldn’t let me join the Black Parade, but Captain would.’
‘And that’s what this is?’
Deluded kid.
‘Dunno. I can’t feel. Anything. I think I’m dead. I’m everything I ever wanted to be. Powerful. Free. Only,’ a crushing sadness swept across Emo’s mush in one single lightning flash, ‘you can’t see the scars anymore. They
always heal now, but I can see them on others when I make them pretty.’
My insides curled black.
That was why you didn’t author kids.
In the ‘60s my best – and only – mate had been a kid. Alessandro. Trapped in a twilight world between First and Blood Life, he’d been controlled. Never allowed to grow up, no matter how many decades he lived. Never allowed to witness the glories of the world. Election amplifies emotions and hormonal teenagers aren’t exactly known for handling those well. It botched the process.
No wonder this bastard was off his trolley.
I’d been blinkered to consider authoring Will. Deluded myself to reckon it’d be different.
I was making a piss poor attempt at redemption.
Yet love – in all its forms – will put out your peepers, until you’re stumbling in the black.
Even though cringing agony was still washing over me in waves, I had a shufti at the kid, who’d never known anything of Blood Life but Captain, in his fanged vampire t-shirt and black-and-green fringe, which he hid behind.
I was shot through with hot shame that I didn’t even know his name. ‘So what do they call you?’
Emo shrugged. ‘Who cares?’
‘Power to a name.’
Emo considered this; his phosphorous gloved hand hovered dangerously close to my goolies. ‘Blink. Does it help to know what to scream?’
‘Helps if we’re having a chinwag to know what to call a bloke.’
‘Rebel?’ That sneer again. ‘I’m the true rebel ‘cos you’re all wrong: the Council, Government and Renegades. There’s no such thing as rules. Family. Home. Only what you want. What you can take. I don’t need anyone: there’s just me. You shouldn’t fear each other.’ Emo bent closer, as fanatical as Plantagenet. ‘You should fear me.’
Blink seized my blistered hand, bending the two scorched fingers – snap.
I howled.
‘Now - how does that feel?’
Blood Renegades (Rebel Vampires Book 3) Page 24
