All Rotting Meat

by Maleham , Eve

  They stared at each other.

  ‘I think I’m going to visit Banes,’ she said.

  * * *

  Khalida arrived at Banes’s flat early the next evening, her hair lank from work, and the smell of antiseptic and sweat clinging to her skin. The light, fine flakes of snow felt wonderfully fresh on her face as she walked towards his street. She had expectations in mind for what sort of place she imagined Banes to live in, and was surprised to find herself outside a new and completely soulless tower of apartment complexes near Kings Cross. It was the sort of place that was geared towards young professionals and city workers; she knew that some of her doctor friends were celebrating moving into flats just like it across London.

  She reached the intercom system and pushed for his flat.

  ‘Hullo?’ he answered, his voice crackling.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said, ‘the hunter.’

  ‘Ah fuck,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll buzz you through, then.’

  The door rang open, and Khalida stepped through into the building, taking the time to turn on the sound recorder that she had hidden in her bag. She noticed that he had chosen one of the most mundane apartments the building had to offer; not one of the lower-levelled and marginally less expensive flats, not one of the higher floors, which grew increasingly greater in price before they reached the multi-million penthouses on the top, but one in the square middle of the building.

  She reached his apartment and knocked, her fingers curled around the water pistol in her pocket. Banes opened the door and yawned widely, showing his fangs, wearing a King Crimson t-shirt, patchwork harem trousers, and a fluffy pink dressing gown.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said, leaning on the doorway and rubbing sleep from his eyes behind lopsided sunglasses. ‘No guy this time then, and was I that drunk or are you a different person? Want to come in so I can get a better look?’

  ‘Hello, Banes, sorry if I woke you,’ she said, as he led her through into the open plan living area, which backed into the kitchen. It was dark inside; she saw heavy, black curtains drawn tightly over the windows though he turned on a string of pink heart-shaped fairy lights which ran along the ceiling to light room for her. There were a few bits of mismatched basic furniture; a black, framed sofa next to a worn, floral patterned plush armchair, centred around a coffee table that was half covered by a semi-complete mosaic pattern, which Banes was obviously doing himself. There were a few house plants around and the lingering smell of alcohol and cannabis.

  ‘I like your clothes.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said cheerfully, flicking off his glasses. His startling eyes were no less shocking in the half-dark of the room. His gaze shifted across her body and lingered on the bandage on her neck. ‘God, you’ve changed race. Incredible.’

  ‘So, my disguise was effective?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t think I could have picked you out from a line-up, and you’re hot either way,’ Banes said, ‘so, yeah, it was effective.’

  ‘You don’t remember me then?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course, I remember you,’ he said, ‘you just look so different.’

  ‘No,’ she said, tucking a loose stand of hair back behind her ear. ‘A few weeks ago you broke into my house in Archway. You were attacking that girl? She stole your rucksack? Remember?’

  ‘Oh shit!’ he said. ‘Yeah, you stabbed me, I remember that. Sorry for breaking in by the way, it wasn’t personal. So, do you want a drink or something? You look like you need it.’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she said, setting herself down on the sofa. She noticed that there was a beaten first-edition copy of Watership Down resting on the armchair. Her gaze crept towards a bookshelf sat on the floor, which contained more Richard Adams books, along with modern fantasy books and battered pulp fiction, Ken Kesey’s and Bret Easton Ellis’s books, the entire Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire series, several modern classics, and books with bent spines and Cyrillic script on them.

  ‘Nah, I’m getting you a drink,’ he said from the kitchen. ‘You look half dead.’

  ‘I’m fine, really,’ she said. ‘You don’t have many women authors on your bookshelf.’

  He looked over from the kitchen, ‘that’s a fair point. Got any recommendations?’

  ‘I’ll write you a list,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘So, did you do it? Did you kill her?’

  Khalida nodded. ‘I wouldn’t be here if had not.’

  His face split into a smile. ‘Then, congratulations is in order. Honestly, killing Ling is quite an accomplishment. You should feel very proud as a hunter.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it was tough,’ she said. ‘I think we got lucky in surprising her.’

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘do you know if anyone’s found the body yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said, ‘it’s a very old and privately-owned building in an isolated place; there’s no reason for anyone to go in.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he said, bringing over two glasses, and a bottle of vodka, along with a bowl of dried meats. ‘Relax,’ he said when he saw her stare at the meats. ‘It’s just chorizo. And this puts our deal off to a great start. I’ve taken the pleasure of drawing up a list of others you can go after. Now, I don’t know for sure if they’re still in the country, or if they’re dead yet, but we can work on it.’

  ‘No, I have a task for you instead,’ she said.

  Banes took a seat in the armchair, moving the book out of the way, and poured himself a generous amount of vodka. ‘Oh yeah?’ he said, ‘what about?’

  ‘Just after I killed her, a man called Clarence Marr phoned her. He mentioned that Cecilia had passed on a message from someone called Feigrey, and that if Ling was to continue with the Vlads, then she had to leave the country, since she had pushed it too far and they were after her. Does any of that sound familiar to you?’

  He shook his head. ‘Can’t say that it does.’

  ‘And you don’t know anyone by the name of Cecilia or Feigrey or Amoako?’

  ‘Feigrey is an old vampire family name,’ he said. ‘Most of its clan are now dead, though. I don’t know anyone by the name of Cecilia or Amoako though.’

  ‘So, you don’t have any idea about which Feigrey in particular the call was referring to?’ she asked.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Do you know Clarence Marr?’

  He shook his head again, taking a handful of meat pieces. ‘No idea who that is.’

  ‘Great,’ Khalida said, ‘can you find out?’

  ‘Why the hell would I want to do that?’ Banes said, leaning forward in the chair.

  ‘Because you don’t have a choice, remember,’ Khalida said. ‘So, the Vlads, who are they?’

  ‘They were a bunch of vampires who wanted humans to know that they existed, kind of a mix between a dining club, a street gang, and the Freemasons,’ Banes said. ‘They began as a weird vampire dining club in Oxford, full of narrow-minded vampires like Leopold Papon and David Osborn. But they quickly attracted vampires more on the fringe like Zhu Ling.’

  ‘Clarence said that someone called Amoako was taking Ling’s allies away and getting them to go onto his and Amoako’s side,’ she said.

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything to me,’ Banes said.

  ‘Well, can you find out?’ she asked. ‘It sounds like an organised group of vampires, the same sort that you told us were a threat in the first place.’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ he said. ‘Jesus Christ, you’re not giving me a choice here anyway.’

  He sat back away from her, taking a drink of vodka.

  ‘There was another thing about Ling,’ Khalida said. ‘Her eyes.’

  ‘You noticed them, then?’ Banes asked.

  ‘How could you not? They were terrifying, worse then yours,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said drily.

  ‘Did…were they normal?’ she asked. ‘Like yours are just strange colours but hers seemed…off.’

  ‘It’s black eye,’ he said, ‘it�
�s got a lot of different names, but that’s basically what they all mean. Black eye is what happens when you starve a vampire.’

  ‘Like a disease?’

  He shrugged and took a drink, ‘yeah, kind of.’

  ‘So you just go crazy and have your eyes turn black?’

  ‘Nah, there are three stages of it,’ he said. ‘The first is the vampire gradually becomes really weak, mentally and physically. Like, we have to prey on humans to survive so we can’t really care about them…are you vegetarian or vegan?’ he asked her.

  Khalida shook her head, ‘no, I eat meat.’

  ‘Right,’ Banes said, ‘you probably like the idea of chickens, cows, and pigs and if you met one in a pleasant environment like a field or a petting zoo. You’d pet them, think they’re cute and funny, then you’d go home and have sausages or something. It’s the same for us, we can’t really get too sentimental about human life. Black eyes changes that…it’s not that it makes us care for humans but rather we become too submissive to hunt anymore. We lose our ability to be indifferent to the violence we commit. And the less blood we drink the less effective we are at hunting. Ling had the second stage of it, it’s kind of the body’s last-ditch attempt before dying where a sudden and final burst of energy will be released. It turns the vampire in question into some sort of feral animal, driven entirely by instinct. No rational, no logical, just food. Anyone who gets close enough to them will be ripped apart and eaten. Even if you managed to drink enough blood to survive during this period, it’ll leave scars on your mentality. The blackness might never fade away. Which is why Ling was so weird.’

  ‘And what’s the third stage of black eye?’ Khalida asked.

  ‘Self-destruction,’ Banes said, ‘crawling about in the sun, eating yourself, that sort of thing.’

  ‘It looked like Ling had people chained up in her house,’ Khalida said. ‘Like she was eating them alive.’

  Banes shrugged, ‘yeah, that happens sometimes. It used to be really popular a few years back when people could have a big household. I know that a bunch of European vampires emigrated to the Americans so they could have slaves for that purpose.’

  Khalida winced, ‘that’s horrible.’

  ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘It’s mostly fallen out of practice, but I can’t say that it still doesn’t go on. Sometimes all you have to do is to peel back the curtain.’

  Chapter Five

  Hardly Fond Of You

  The moment the hunter left his apartment, his phone vibrated. He later that day he had a date and chores to do. But for a few minutes he remained sat down in his apartment, chewing on meat.

  That night when he had first been shanghaied by the hunters he had lipped away from the nightclub, his phone glowing hot in his pocket as he hailed a taxi and the flesh on his leg burning where he had been hit with holy water. He could tell that it had been diluted a great deal, it was a painful sting but nothing that wouldn’t faded into nothing by tomorrow.

  ‘Rough night?’ the driver asked as he awkwardly clambered into the back.

  ‘Couple of idiots trying their luck,’ he said, ‘thought it best I just go home.’

  ‘Good on you.’

  It was a very short journey back to his new flat in Kings Cross, the apartment building was so new he was only the second tenant the place had ever. Candice had urged him to take it since only two-thirds of flats had never been occupied while the rest remained empty, owned by various people who had never put them up for rent, or were unwilling to lower the unflattering sum it cost to live in them. But he liked the lack of neighbours and the greater anonymity it brought him.

  Just as he stepped out of the taxi the screen of his phone lit up with a message; the name of the street he was standing on. He frowned, sucking his teeth, the hunters hadn’t been buffing. He entered the building from the back entrance used by few people who occupied the less expensive flats on the lower floors since the concierge’s office was by the front entrance. He felt deflated, returning home barely into the night. A pang of hunger filled his stomach as he stepped into the lift. He had wanted to good night out which would have hopefully ended in blood and sex. There was another message on his phone.

  Look up to the left and smile :)

  His eyes were directed to the lift’s CCTV camera. He rolled his eyes and with as much venom as he could put into it flipped whoever was looking off as the lift doors opened on his floor. Once he was through into his flat, he headed straight for the kitchen and poured a cocktail of blood, coconut water, and vodka into a large plastic skull-shaped cup and drank the entire thing down in a long, greedily gulps. He was trapped.

  He had given them Zhu Ling’s details in the hope she would kill them. But he didn’t mind too much that they had killed her instead, since several years ago he had stolen some jewellery from her and she had let it be known if he ever returned to London, she would kill him. Not that he was ever bothered by the threat, but more the inconvenience of it. What he hadn’t expected was for the hunters to actually discover anything wider about the vampire world. Banes sighed and poured more vodka into his cup, letting seconds tick away before he actually had to do anything again.

  ‘Fuck.’

  It was dark by the time he left his flat and the streets were slowly draining of commuters. He sped up slightly into the heart of the City of London, suppressing a shudder as he passed in sight of the great, white walls of St Paul's Cathedral. The newer, domed building had a much less ominous edge than the old one, with its sky-stabbing spire, but he could still feel the heavy presence of the cathedral on him, the walls watching him down.

  On the other side of rush hour, a familiar quietness had settled in. Office workers huddled under heat lamps outside pubs, smoking in the gently falling snow. Two blaring fire engines shot past him while a helicopter whirled overhead. He turned down into the City’s narrow streets; small clusters of rough sleepers were moving in for the night. Just off from Leadenhall Market stood one of the country’s oldest family businesses, officially founded in Sixteen-Eighty, though Banes knew that versions of Baxon and Sons had stretched back for centuries.

  It was quiet inside, with only a few customers waiting on chairs for their orders. The butcher’s had found their current niche back in the late Seventies; prime and exclusive cuts of meat for luxury restaurants and private chefs. He eyed the selection of marbled steaks imported from Japan and aged cuts from France.

  There was a young man with a mop of light blonde hair who was serving a customer; he gave Banes a single glance and the briefest of nods as he walked past, through a door that was labelled for staff and private use, and into the back of the shop. Here, there was a smaller, secondary counter which mirrored the one at the front. The sound of classical music softly filling the room made the waiting silence only slightly less awkward.

  He looked around, not sure who he was expecting to see, and less sure if he wanted to see anybody. There was a man with ginger hair sat at the far side, bent over his phone. Banes moved his gaze onto a short woman with dark hair and burning orange eyes, who prickled his senses with a nagging sense that he knew her from somewhere, and a tall, dark-skinned, muscular man who was reading a book.

  ‘Intuneric!’

  Bestyia Benkowski’s voice cut through the air; he turned to see a tall, muscular woman, with her long, glossy, golden blonde hair in plaits pulled back in an elaborate bun, standing behind the counter.

  ‘Hey, Bessie,’ he said, leaning over the counter. When butchered properly, human meat didn’t look too different from any other, though the parts which couldn’t be overlooked were available only on request. Though he had come early in the night, the display was more than half empty. There were a few half rib cages, some mince, a few lesser cuts of meat, but the counter was mostly full of sausages.

  ‘Glad to set my eyes on you again - you’re looking as magnificent as ever.’

  ‘It’s been a while,’ she nodded. ‘Two secs…Drey!’ she called back. ‘Come out here and see t
o Mr Shepard’s order, will you?’

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Banes asked. ‘Are you running short, or something?’

  ‘We’ve taken on a new client base since you’ve been away,’ Bessie said. ‘Come on,’ she grabbed his arm. ‘I need a catch up.’

  She led him back into her office, passing her granddaughter, Drey, who gave Banes a wink. It was a small, cosy, cluttered, out-dated room; most of the space was taken up with a large desk. Bessie switched on a kettle, which sat on the windowsill, and threw a couple of tea bags into two mugs.

  ‘I heard that Zhu Ling is after you,’ she said. ‘Are you sure it’s safe to be in the country?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Banes said, taking a seat. ‘Britain’s a good place to be right now.’

  ‘Still, though,’ Bessie said over the sound of the kettle rumbling, ‘after all these years, she’s had enough. She wants you dead, Banes.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said.

  ‘I’m serious,’ she said. ‘Word will get out that you’re back, then she’ll come after you.’

  ‘Bessie, don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘It’s been taken care of.’

  ‘How?’ she said, rounding on him. ‘Once she’s made up her mind – ’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Bessie,’ he said.

  ‘I mean, it’s not that I can blame her, really,’ she said, ‘but there aren’t too many of us left, and it would be a shame to lose you, too.’

  ‘We only see each other when I come here to buy meat,’ he said.

  ‘Still, it matters,’ she said. ‘Honestly…what we’ve lived through. And, to be honest, I’m surprised that you of all people made it out of the Eighties alive.’

  ‘And there’s that charm I’ve missed,’ he grinned, as she handed him a cup of unsweetened tea. ‘You know, you’ve really got to stop being so surprised that I’m alive.’

  ‘It’s just unexpected,’ she said.

  ‘Though, speaking of the Dreyrigr crowd, I’ve been hearing that Feigrey’s around,’ he said, ‘and that he’s up to something.’