Shadow Over Sea And Sky

by K H Middlemass

  Simone’s petulant expression swiftly melted away to one of concern. She was not so insensitive as to not know when she’d crossed the line.

  A thud shattered the quiet, causing everyone to start and for Simone to curse softly under her breath. Cordially, Abrahms went to inspect it and returned with four or five envelopes clutched in this hand.

  “A letter for you, Emily,” he said in distinctly sombre tones, tapping on the top envelope with his finger. He picked it up and passed it to Emily, who took it and cast an eye over the elegant, curving handwriting and felt a chill shoot through her whole body. She opened the letter with shaking fingers, feeling nothing as the paper slashed through her skin. She pulled out the paper, unconsciously smearing blood across it. She read the letter in silence, leaving her companions to stare at each other and wonder. The little colour that was in Emily’s face drained away as she came to the end, staring fixedly at the signature for what felt like a long time.

  Simone, who had always lacked patience, asked, “What does it say, Emily?”

  Emily felt the paper fall from her hands. She looked down at the streaks of blood along her palms, the cuts blossoming with scarlet pearls, and was surprised to see it.

  “It’s from Volkov,” Emily said. “He wants me to go to the house tonight.”

  Everyone broke out at once, three voices shouting over each other with their own ideas and opinions about this latest piece of news.

  “Hey!” Emily screamed as loudly as she could, and it crashed above the voices of the others. “One at a time.”

  “You can’t go,” Simone said.

  “It might be dangerous,” Nick said.

  “Let us come with you,” Abrahms said, the only one that understood that Emily would go no matter what.

  With great effort, Emily swung her legs off the sofa and onto the floor, pushing herself up with a grunt of pain. Abrahms instinctively went to help her, his good manners deeply ingrained, but she gently refused him. “I’m all right.”

  She stood unsteadily, unable to keep an agonised grimace from twisting her lips. Her hair felt greasy and tangled against the back of her neck.

  “I’m going to go,” she said, telling them what they already knew. “One last time. Now’s the time to launch the final attack. It’s time to finish this.”

  “Emily,” Abrams tried to reason with her, “You must let us help you.”

  “He’s right, Emily,” Simone added. “We only just became friends again, and we’re all here to help you. I didn’t mean to be a bitch before; this whole thing is just so fucked up I can hardly get my head around it. I’m sorry, but please, please don’t go to that house alone!”

  Simone’s eyes were shining, and Emily felt her heart twinge with love. She hated to see her friend unhappy, always had. Nick kissed Simone’s cheek and whispered something in her ear, eliciting a small, sad smile from her. But it didn’t stop the tears slipping down her cheeks, taking with them black eye make-up that stained a trail on her skin.

  “You’re my best friend,” Simone whispered.

  Emily felt guilt threatening to weigh her down. “You’re my best friend too, Si. But I need to do this. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I have a plan. I promise.”

  “And does this plan involve us?” Nick put his arm around Simone again, rubbing her arm in a soothing gesture. “Because unless you want Simone to really start wailing, you’d better make sure that we’ve all got a part to play.”

  Emily smiled. “It does.”

  “Okay then,” Nick said, sitting back again. “Let’s hear it.”

  ***

  The plan was set, and everyone had left knowing exactly what it was that they needed to do. Now, all that was left was to wait.

  Alone again, Emily hobbled up the stairs and into the bathroom. She turned on the shower and waited for the boiler to creak into life, sitting on the toilet with her head between her knees. Only when the room began to fill with steam did Emily get up and step under the hot stream of water.

  She remained there for a long time, eyes closed and ears attuned to the atonal rushing sound that filled her ears. It was strangely soothing, that sound, and after a while she felt herself relaxing. She leaned on her good leg, trying to keep as much weight off her injured foot as possible without toppling over on the slippery floor. She washed her hair slowly, working her fingers against her scalp luxuriantly. Her paper cuts stung a little under the flow, but it seemed that most parts of her were aching to varying degrees of severity so she barely noticed it when shampoo seeped under the parted skin. The water was like an elixir, one that magically relaxed the tight knots in her muscles and soothed her jagged nerves. The water even seemed to be helping her foot a little, as if the heat could somehow suck out the discomfort and agony that plagued her.

  After she rinsed out her hair there was a new pain, a short and sharp throbbing sensation that started in the pit of her stomach before working its way across her lower back with burning insistence. Emily groaned and fell forward, her hand resting against the marble as the other clutched at her belly. It was a gripping, rolling pain that surged over her like the waves against the rocks, and it was a pain that she knew all too well. She had experienced it many times before, ever since she was thirteen years old.

  “Oh God, not now,” she moaned, voice obscured by the crashing of the water. “Please, not now.”

  Her plea was met by a hot gushing sensation from between her legs that made her feel sick in a simple, childlike way. Her hand drifted downward, testing for what she already knew, and when she brought it back her fingers were coated in the thick clots of menstrual blood. She stared at it, watching the blood be washed away by the water and down the plughole. She could feel it coating her inner thighs, slick and slimy, and it made her lightheaded.

  Emily was expected at the Volkov house, and she had come on her period. He was a vampire, and she was bleeding. She was the lamb to the slaughter, Andromeda chained to the rocks. She laced her fingers through her wet hair and screamed through her gritted teeth, squeezing her eyes closed so tightly that spots of light exploded against the darkness. Her throat was raw and ragged, her scream shredding it to pieces. In her frustration she bit down on her tongue, the teeth sinking into the pink, spongy flesh until it broke. The taste of copper flooded though her mouth and she gagged, coughing furiously between the steamy streams of water. She spat, bright red and viscous, into the drain, which took along with it the tiniest chunks of meat taken from her tongue.

  Emily pulled her mauled tongue back into her mouth; it felt fat and swollen against her teeth. Her mouth throbbed and ached in the most terrible way, burning like fire, white hot and intense.

  Her tongue was not so swollen that she could not speak coherently.

  “That’s enough.”

  She turned off the shower with a sharp twist, which slowed into a drizzle, and then only a steady drip, drip, drip. Emily worked some spit into her mouth and swirled it around her mouth before spitting more blood into the drain, which was carried away on the thinning trails of water. Emily swallowed and grimaced at the taste that tainted her mouth, and regretted her clumsiness. She had often bitten the inside of her cheek while eating and was prone to accidents like this now and then, but Emily was starting to feel persecuted. She was already a mess, it hardly seemed fair that things should somehow get worse for her.

  “You’re not going to win. Do you understand?” Emily stepped out of the shower carefully, taking care not to slip on the damp floor. “Do you hear me? You’re not going to win!”

  Her heart was racing, the taste of blood persisting in her mouth. She wondered how much of it she had drunk and would go on to drink. The thought turned her stomach. God, how her mouth hurt. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself hastily, holding it closer to her, suddenly very paranoid of who might be watching her in her nakedness, here in this little bathroom. She rummaged through the bathroom cabinet one last time and found, at the back, a much-hated box of tampons th
at her mother kept for emergencies. Emily preferred to use sanitary towels and resented the invasiveness of tampons, but it was the only thing that would do the job right now. She grabbed the box and went about the unpleasant task of inserting the tampon, wincing as she did so and struggling to relax, as she always did when she had to wear the wretched things. Her stomach clenched in protest, bitter cramps wracking through her lower half and causing her to grit her teeth against them. When it was done she sat heavily on the edge of the bath; her legs were smeared with blood.

  “You’re not going to win,” she said, head down and hair hanging in her face. “I won’t let you.”

  The sound of dripping went on, predictable and in its own way comforting. Eventually she staggered back to her bedroom and painstakingly wiped the blood away with wet wipes until she was clean again, and once she was dressed she sat herself upon the window seat. She would take more painkillers soon; there was no way she could cope with all of this unaided.

  But just for now, Emily looked out at the sea, at its wide and grey and constantly shifting expanse. The sea was a restless thing, she thought, so changeable and yet constant. Such a sea would carry anything across it just as soon as it would consume them. She wondered how many boats and ships had sunken into the depths of its embrace, and wondered if it was across this sea that the horrors of Richard Volkov had been brought to Caldmar Bay.

  Water dripped from her damp curls onto her shoulders, soaking through her jumper. She turned her head towards the hill, eyes drifting along the cliffs from which her mother had almost fallen, those cliffs that had taken Sarah Wilson and hidden her murdered husband away from discovery. Her gaze finally settled upon the house, that place that was once a place of fondness but was now only a place of misery. She remembered how she had done this same thing not so long ago, before this whole nightmare began, and how much things had changed.

  Then she turned to the papers strewn across her bedroom floor, the stacked canvases in the corner. Her room was a mess; Victoria and Christopher shared household duties but Emily had never been particularly adept at domesticity. There were so many pairs of eyes staring out from the paper at her and everywhere she turned she was met with another set. He was everywhere; in her home, in her head, and even in her hand.

  Tonight is the night, she told herself. She picked up the pad that she kept on the windowsill, found a pencil, and began to draw. Art was all things to all people, and those that create can easily destroy.

  7

  Night came slowly, but Emily found a way to pass the time well. She had swallowed down more painkillers, propped up her ankle, and practiced and practiced until she could create Volkov’s face by rote, and her sketches were added to the pile that she had created the night before, growing ever taller by the hour until darkness began to creep into her room. She had kept her windows shut but couldn’t bear to close the curtains against the sunlight. Though she and the sun had never really gotten along, she had developed a newfound appreciation for it in the last few days. It made her feel safe, and now that it had gone Emily realised that she hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye to what may have been her last day. She was still alone in the house; her father hadn’t come home.

  Perhaps he had gone to see her mother straight after work, and had forgotten to come by and pick Emily up. Perhaps he’d had to stay late because of Howard Wilson. She didn’t know what he was doing, but he wasn’t here. Emily shivered; without her mother and father, the house seemed to be perpetually cold, almost unfriendly. Her own room couldn’t offer any comfort, not with Volkov’s face staring at her what seemed like hundreds of times over. She limped about the room, gathering them up and trying to arrange them into order. All the time, she tried to keep her eyes from the ones that she had created. She threw them into a drawer, pushing it shut with more force than was necessary.

  Then Emily began to gather up her materials, putting her paints and pencils in her bag and lifting the canvases and shuffling out of her room. Her foot felt a little better when she tested it, and she put a bit more weight on it and attempted to move faster. It hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been before, so she could only take this as a sign to push on. She clumsily slipped her feet into simple flat shoes and straightened up her clothes. She placed the strap of her canvas bag around her shoulder. At times like this she wished that she could drive.

  A horn honked three times, each longer than the last, and Emily jumped with fright and swore under her breath, blood thundering in her ears. She still ached everywhere, her whole body in protest her mind. She made herself open the door.

  There was a car in the driveway, the engine purring softly as it waited for her. Volkov’s Bentley shone in the light of the street lamps, the driver concealed by well-placed shadows; all she could see were the hands on the wheel, bound in leather gloves. One of the doors was open, inviting her. It wasn’t a long journey on foot, but Emily could tell by the way her foot felt in her shoe that she wasn’t likely to be able to walk it tonight. She limped towards the car, clutching her canvas bag to her, and got in. She was not surprised when the door closed behind her, even though the driver hadn’t moved from his seat.

  In any other circumstances she would never have done anything as reckless as getting into someone else’s car when invited. This was an exception. Volkov had said it himself: he did not wish for her to die. She would be safe in this strange, elegant car with a shadowed man for a driver, whom she dared not speak to for fear of what he might say. Once the door was shut and Emily had settled awkwardly in the back seat, the driver kicked the car into reverse and turned the car around with a screech of the wheels. Emily groped for a seatbelt; that this was an older model than she realised, one created before such safety measures were a legal requirement. Did Volkov allow this man to drive him around in this death trap? She glibly supposed that road safety was irrelevant to the undead. From what she had seen, he rarely used it anyway.

  They drove towards the house in an uncomfortable, heavy silence. Emily stared down at her hands, which gripped at the straps of her canvas bag so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. She tried to relax her fingers, but without a seatbelt she couldn’t help but feel anxiety on top of her nervous fear of going back to that place again. She concentrated on the contents of the bag: the paints, the pencils, the brushes, these were her weapons. Emily reminded herself of this, over and over again.

  As the house grew closer, Emily felt her chest growing tighter. She thought back to the days when she would come here in happiness, where she would have tea with Hugo and discuss books in the library well into the afternoon. What had happened to those days? They were gone, lost forever and alive only through the precarious memories of those who experienced them. She longed for those days again. Now, the house seemed like something out of a dark fairy tale, the palace of a beast. She felt like Beauty, approaching her doom secure in the knowledge that this beast would not love her and woo her and ask her to marry him. No, this beast would surely eat her pretty flesh if she let him. The question was whether she would offer him her throat willingly, or fight him to the very end.

  The car pulled up the gravel drive until it came to its familiar parking spot, where it stopped suddenly and with an abrupt shake. Emily wondered if the driver would get out this time and if she could get a good look at his face, but the door on her side swung open without her touching it. They were close to the door; it would only be a few steps along the gravel. She thought that she could manage that. She slid out of the car as quietly as she had entered it, offering no thank you to her mystery driver, his face hidden beneath the brim of his hat the whole time. What kind of man would work for Volkov? She was morbidly curious to know, but she wasn’t to get such answers tonight. She left the car without looking back, limping as quickly as she could to the great oak doors of Fairbanks Manor. And of course, the doors opened for her, courteous and utterly unnerving. She stepped inside, walking once more over the threshold, and they closed behind her with a slam that echoed t
hrough the cavernous hall. The disruption sent dust flying around her, settling against the cloth-covered mirrors. That cold feeling of dread settled over her again as she stood alone. He had not come to meet her, and she was both glad and afraid.

  Dim light spilled into the hall as the door to the drawing room door lazily swung open at the far end of the room. Emily limped with as much grace as she could muster, hobbling down the hall toward the light, where the beast awaited, hungry and waiting. Her stomach still ached with insistent throbs beneath her skirt, and she prayed that he couldn’t smell her.

  She went inside, and there he was, waiting in his chair, smiling. There were fresh candles studded across the room, freshly lit flames flickering in disturbance as Emily painfully staggered across the room. A canvas much larger than she was used to was standing ready in front of her chair; she took in the sight of it silently, but inside she was panicking. She wasn’t used to large scale art like this; she preferred the intimacy of smaller canvases. But then Emily suspected that he knew that. It was like a surprise test near the end of class that the teacher’s been dropping hints about throughout the lesson, horribly surprising and yet entirely expected. The canvas was the same size as the one that held the portrait of Countess Marika Fenenko, standing lonely and proud above the staircase. This would take her all night, a thought that made her heart sink. This wasn’t a part of the plan, and there was no way for her to let the others know.

  Volkov, who had not yet spoken, only widened his smile and indicated that she should sit. His eyes followed her lazily as she tripped across the floor.

  “Are you quite well, Miss Emily?” he said finally, as she eased herself into the chair with her teeth gritted and her eyes squeezed shut to bite back the yelp of pain brewing in her as she did so.

  Emily snapped her head in his direction, suddenly ablaze with fury. She didn’t speak, only stared, which was an act bolder than she would have dared not long ago. As ever, he met her small act of defiance with wry amusement, raising an eyebrow at the angry face in front of him.