by L.J. Hayward
Chapter 8
I think I was having some issues about going home. Watch shopping, dropping by to see Jacob when a call would have sufficed, roaring right past the turn off for the ’Cliffe and heading for the Sunshine Coast or Gympie or heck, the glorious tropical far north reaches of Cooktown. Roberts isn’t the only one who thinks speed limits are a suggestion. I was nearly at Maroochydore before I took my foot off the pedal and slowed down.
I like driving. It’s soothing. Not in peak hour traffic, though. Then it’s just homicidal-maniac making. But on the highway, in the fast lane, cruising along with some good music, it was sweet. Let my brain go white out, let my subconscious work on the issues and hopefully come up with some answers.
Don’t think it worked, because when I turned around and really headed home this time, I once more bypassed Newport and hit the Scarborough pub. I don’t go out much, to social places that is. I like the movies. Something about the dark and the anonymity, I guess. Whatever. But pubs and clubs and me haven’t had much truck with each other for a while now. Still, I like the Scarborough. It’s on the beach, it’s not too busy and it’s got this deck out the front where you can take your beer and sit, put your feet up and just zone out watching the ocean.
But I’d obviously pissed off some cosmic fish or something, because the moment I sat down with my beer and local rag to catch up on things, this old fart came and sat at my table.
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Can I help you?”
Maybe irritation added slight exaggeration to my description. He wasn’t that old. Around fifty, with what I believe is called a ‘distinguished’ amount of grey in his dark hair, a close cropped beard just a little too wide to be called a goatee and, I freakin’ kid you not, a tweed suit. He was still a fart, though. A fart in expensive sunglasses.
“Actually, I believe it is I who can help you.”
Fantastic. British. This would be Mystery Man then.
I put down the paper and took a long pull of beer, wishing I’d gone with a scotch. “Well, if that ain’t a cliché then I don’t know what is. You here to teach me about the Force, Kenobi?”
He actually smiled. “I probably deserved that.” Reaching across the table, he said, “My name’s Theodore Aurum.”
Eyeing his hand, I said, “Matt Hawkins, but you already knew that.”
He lowered his hand and nodded once in agreement. “You’ve made something of a name for yourself in, ah hem, our particular circle of people. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a while now.”
“Neat. I didn’t know there was a, ah hem, particular circle of our people. Do we have leather jackets with a flaming skull on it?”
Another indulgent smile. I wondered how long he could keep it up.
“No, and it is a loose circle at best. Just various practitioners, psychics and warriors, such as yourself, around the world who pool their information together to help each other out. We’ve been watching you these last couple of years, wondering if you had the tenacity to keep going. I think you do.”
The flood of responses that came barrelling forth at those words was just too much. I couldn’t pick. It was like trying to chose which child you loved the most. They all had their special traits. I settled for a snort and drank some more.
Aurum sat back in his chair and looked out over the water. “I have come here to offer you support, Mr Hawkins. You’ve acquitted yourself rather well against the local supernatural element, but there are a lot of things you don’t know. Things that could get you killed, and your tame vampire with you.”
My eye twitched and the cold beer bottle slipped a little in my tightening hold. “What do you know about her?”
“I know her name is Mercy Belique. I know she was turned two years ago and I know that if it hadn’t been for you, she would have either died with the first sunrise or turned into a particularly vicious killer.”
“All vampires are vicious.”
“Yes, but there are degrees to their intelligence, ruthlessness and power. You are aware of the different castes of vampires?”
I glanced at him. He was still looking at the ocean, hands folded over his crossed legs. His skin was that typical Pommy white and he held himself proper-like, stiff and formal. A genuine British gentleman. If he’d said he lectured at Cambridge or something I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“They have different psychic flavours, yeah. We call them clans.”
“Interesting. Psychic flavour. I like that. Do you mind if I use it?”
“Go for it.”
“Flavour is a very apt description. You must have a strong psychic touch if you can feel the difference between the castes.”
I grunted noncommittally. Can you see any authority issues in my behaviour? I can’t.
“When did you come into your abilities?”
Okay, even I know when I’m getting childish. I faced him, leaning on the table, beer cradled between my hands.
“The first thing was a mental link to Mercy. Before she’d even developed her own psychic whammy.”
“Psychic whammy?”
“Yeah, you know the blast of paralysing power they discharge when they’re about to jump you. Their stun gun.”
He nodded and smiled. “Yes, the feeding compulsion. You formed a link to the vampire within the first month of her condition? That is fascinating. Of course, your whole case is fascinating. I don’t believe it’s ever occurred to anyone to attempt to tame a vampire. You and your pet are quite unique.”
I spent a moment picking at the label on the beer bottle. Pet? Who did this guy think he was? Kenobi would never have been even unintentionally insulting. Certainly wouldn’t have opened his big fat trap on something he didn’t know dick about.
“I didn’t set out to tame Mercy,” I said when I could speak without growling. “I thought I was saving her.”
“You didn’t know about vampires before she was turned?”
“Not a freaking drop. Well, I’d seen that Dracula movie with whatshisname, Oldman. Had a girlfriend once who watched that Interview with Brad Pitt one over and over.” I shuddered in horror. “Learning about Mercy was an eye opener.”
“She was something special to you before the change?”
“Yeah. No. It’s complicated.” I shoved aside the painful memories before they could damage my calm. “She was just special,” I muttered.
“I understand. It is a hard thing to witness the transformation. Usually, when a person is turned, they’re kept within the clan where they can be protected and nurtured. They’re rather like birds in that regard. The new vampires tend to attach themselves to the first thing they see when they awake.”
My spine did a little shimmy. “Yeah. I worked that one out for myself. Mercy was in hospital. I was with her when she woke up.”
“How did she come to be in hospital?”
“She was found in a park by a woman walking her dog late at night. Beat up, scratched, puncture wounds. They thought rape at first, but it was all negative. They topped up her blood tank and she slept for about three days. It was… difficult when she woke up.”
“I can well imagine.” Aurum looked over the ocean again. “So she was turned and abandoned. Very strange.”
My guts twisted around the sloshing beer. “Strange, but maybe not the only occurrence.”
“Indeed? Care to elaborate?”
“Last night we took out a dozen young vampires. Couple weeks old at most. Not a mature one among them. They’d been marauding a beach strip on the Gold Coast for about a week.”
Air hissed in between Aurum’s teeth. “That is disturbing. A dozen of them? Loose after only a week? I’ve not heard of such a thing. What clans do you encounter here?”
“Well, I don’t know how you classify them, but we use colours that kind of relate to how they taste.”
“Yes, colours. That is how we look at them as well. Red, blue, yellow, orange, violet and green.”
“Nice. So we have yellows, reds, blu
es and a possible green. Orange has passed through once or twice. Didn’t know about violets. Kinda sound like the pansies of the vampire camp.”
“Oh no. The Violets are very dangerous. They have the strongest psychic powers of the lot of them. Major whammy capability, you would probably call it.”
I laughed. Maybe he wasn’t such a fart after all.
“I’ll talk to some of the others and see if they’ve noticed a trend to abandon the young too soon.” He stared at the water, composed but disturbed. After a moment, he shook his shoulders elegantly. “But, we were talking about you and Mercy. As I said, your situation is unique. I was wondering if you would allow me to observe you and her together.”
Vampire voyeurism? Ugh. “Nah. I don’t want to be part of an experiment. I have enough issues as it is.”
Aurum studied me steadily. I tried not to fidget. If he was trying to change my mind, boy was he going up the wrong one-way street.
“As you wish, but I wonder if you fully understand your situation. The danger you’ve put both yourself and Mercy in. Don’t you worry about the peculiarities of it?”
“Merce and I are doing just fine.” I threw back the last of my beer and refused to look at him. “Being peculiar is something we’re both used to.”
The old man made a noise in the back of his throat which could only have been described as disappointment. It made me think I was back in school, completely missing the point of a lecture and feeling like shit for it. It made me want to beg his forgiveness.
And I hate that.
“You’re a smart young man, Mr Hawkins. Have you truly not discovered it yet?”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to discover it with you dropping worse hints than a cryptic crossword. What was the point of this entire conversation, Mr Aurum? Because it sure as hell hasn’t been a welcome speech into the Society for the Kicking of Supernatural Arse.”
He sighed, another jab at my inner school boy. “Then I shall spell it out for you. Each clan of vampires are the descendents of a particular being. These beings are not, in the sense applied to the term today, vampires. They’re something else, something older, bigger. On a scale you’ve never even contemplated. We refer to them as the Primals. These beings have never got on well with each other. You might say there are long-standing family feuds between them. Each member of a particular clan is a soldier in this continual war, and it is also a source of strength for the Primal of the clan. Strength is channelled through the psychic link between parent and child vampire. All the way back to the Primal. Do you follow this?”
I ground my teeth together. Now he was just patronising me. Not to mention that I wasn’t particularly liking the way he was going with it. Ultimate beings? Wars? Fucking hell.
He took my scared silence for understanding. “Good. Then you should be able to add that to what you’ve already mentioned about vampires to me now.”
I took a moment to line up all my ducks. They were tricksy little bastards and didn’t cooperate. I managed to grab a few and squeeze them till they quacked.
“It doesn’t make much sense for them to be abandoning new recruits then, if they’re in the middle of a war.”
“No, it doesn’t. But think deeper.”
“But how I can see with the blast shield down?” I mumbled. Smacking a fist on the table, I said the thing I didn’t want to admit. “They all have a psychic link back to this ultimate vampire poobah. You’re trying to draw comparisons between these Primals and their children and me and Mercy.”
He smiled, and it wasn’t nice. “I knew you would understand. Do you see now why you’re so fascinating?”
“It’s not the same. I didn’t make Mercy what she is.”
“Didn’t you? You were there when she woke up. You guided her through her first steps in the dark. You established a link to her. You feed her. You tell her where and when to fight. Where is the difference?”
I resisted, but the need to vent was strong. One kick and the chair opposite me smacked backward into the railing surrounding the deck. There was a sharp, satisfying clang of metal on metal and few startled gasps from the other patrons, but it didn’t entirely ease the tension building inside. Which I guess was apparent from the way Aurum stood and straightened his coat, readying to leave.
“I can see that this conversation is at an end. I’m sorry to have upset you, Matthew, but I felt you needed to know. This is a number where you can reach me. I’ll be in town for a while. I’ll let you know when I’m returning to England.”
He laid a white card on the table and pushed it in my direction. I wanted to shove it right back, tell him what he could do with it, but something stopped me. It sounded suspiciously like Dr Campbell telling me that pride and anger went hand in hand, and that both went before the fall. Still, I couldn’t let him think he’d won.
“I don’t believe it,” I said as he began to walk away.
He paused and faced me again. “Then I’ll leave you with this question. What flavour is Mercy?”
And he left.
