Thomas clenched his hand and the glass shattered in his grip. Jagged, razor sharp pieces littered the bar and floor, tinkling like chimes tossed by the wind. Maybe it was an accident, maybe not. It didn’t matter. Thomas opened his hand, dropping shards of glass as he relaxed his grip.
Not a single piece of glass had left as much as a scratch on his skin.
Astonished, Thomas hid his hands beneath the counter, catching Lawrence’s eye. The man observed him with cool patience.
As the surge of energy settled, he risked moving and rubbed his eyes with his hands. His mind felt tired, heavy. Comprehension escaped him.
“How is this possible? How did this happen to me?”
After handing Thomas an old handheld dustpan and brush, Lawrence reached into his suit and pulled out a hand-rolled cigarette. He placed it between his lips and let it hang there unlit. Leaning against the counter, he sighed and rolled the cigarette to the other side of his mouth. He’d decided where to begin.
“Well, believe it or not, kid, I’m not the best at rattling off stories. Well, ones that aren’t about yours truly, but that’s only because stories concerning a certain Lawrence Foxe are always entertaining, just like the man himself. But I’ve flapped my lips about this particular tale so many times I think I got all the facts straight. At least, as many facts that there are to get straight. If the tale is anything more than a legend. There’s a coupla legends out there, depending on what region you’re in.”
Thomas started sweeping up the glass, listening with strained patience as Lawrence avoided a straight answer.
“Now, where was I? Ah, yeah. A long time ago, long enough no one knows for sure all the details, there were these two brothers that were bad eggs. Kays, Caspers, Cadence, Kerrie—their name changes depending on who tells it. I’ve heard some people call them merchants and other people call them thieves, but I suppose those two professions are always close-knit, don’tcha think?”
Thomas arched his eyebrows but remained quiet.
“Anyway, these two brothers went about, fillin’ their pockets with a lot of coin through swindlin’, wheelin’ and dealin’, and generally being what you’d expect two crooks to be. Anyway, the way I understand it, the older brother was the brains of the operation and the younger was more of the wild card, y’know, the muscle. With their combined skills, they cleaned up rather nicely and it all worked out for a spell. But then they ran into trouble. See, there’s a problem when you start makin’ easy money. You want even more of it because you don’t realize the value of a dollar.”
“I’m having trouble seeing how this relates,” Thomas said, handing back the filled dustpan and brush.
“I’m getting’ there,” Lawrence grumbled, taking the dustpan and dumping the glass in a trashcan hidden behind the bar. He returned to the bar with a new glass and filled it. “As luck would have it, they ended up stealin’ from the wrong person, and things got ugly.”
Thomas finished half the glass before realizing something was different. The strange, burning strength he’d initially felt during his first drink had stopped, and the liquid now gave him nothing but a warm sensation in the pit of his stomach. He felt content, almost as if he’d finished an enormous meal but without the bloated or sleepy feeling of overeating.
In fact, he felt quite the opposite of tired. He was on high alert. Presumably another side effect of the blood. Thomas shook his head in bewilderment at this newest development as he set down the half-finished glass, and refocused on Lawrence as he continued the story.
“They happened upon a witch who wasn’t too keen on people takin’ her things. She figured she should give ‘em their due and the witch cursed the two brothers when she caught ‘em, condemning them to an eternity of battle. The curse not only granted longevity but also made ‘em less, or possibly more, than human.”
“She turned them into vampires?” Thomas asked in mystified disbelief.
Lawrence shook his head, holding up one finger.
“Not quite, kid. The older brother was condemned to a life of feedin’ off the innocent as a vampire. Now dependin’ on who you ask, the other brother got it better or worse. When the curse touched him, he became a beast of pure violence and instinct driven by an eternal need to destroy his brother. The first werewolf.”
Thomas tapped the bar with his fingers, frowning at the healed skin. “You can’t be serious. A witch creates the first vampire and the first werewolf in one go? That’s too perfect.”
“Maybe you’re right. It’s just a legend, and folks tell it differently. Who can be certain? All we know is the curse of the vampire forces us to thirst for human blood and gives us the strength and power to take blood by force. But our strength is nothing compared to the curse of the werewolf. As soon as the moon’s full, werewolves shed their human form and become unstoppable killing machines who only regain their humanity after they’ve consumed a vampire.”
Thomas stared at Lawrence. “That’s it? That’s all we get? That doesn’t explain anything. Everyone just accepts this nonsense?”
Once again Lawrence spoke with a gravity in his tone that left Thomas feeling uncomfortable.
“Listen, kid, it may sound a little too fairytale perfect, but you gotta get it into your head this is now your story. You’ve experienced it today. You and I, we share in the curse. We have the hunger. You’ve felt it. Everything we suffer from comes from the witch’s wrath. We can’t touch sanctified objects, can’t cross thresholds without permission, and the sun causes incredible pain. All because of a witch’s revenge. If we don’t satisfy our thirst for blood, it’ll consume us and we’ll go mad.”
Thomas attempted to swallow, but his throat had stopped working. The dark walls of the pub made the room feel smaller, tighter. He struggled to breathe. “I’d like to leave now. Can you call a cab?”
“Now, kid—”
“Stop talking. Just stop talking.” Thomas shouted, backing away from the counter. “This isn’t real.”
With a surprising display of agility, Lawrence vaulted over the counter and landed squarely on his feet. The maneuver should have been difficult for a professional gymnast, but Lawrence made it look effortless.
Thomas scrambled backward off the barstool, a resurgence of the panic he’d been subjected to the night before setting in. He glanced behind him, ready to bolt out of the bar to the relative safety of the street beyond.
He’d barely taken two steps before a powerful hand grabbed his wrist.
Thomas turned, terrified, and tried to break free of Lawrence’s vice-like grip.
“Let go of me.” Thomas raised his free fist to throw at his host. “Let go.”
“Your hand, kid. Look at your hand,” Lawrence spat, using an inhuman amount of strength to force Thomas’ hand upward. “Where are the cuts? Where are the blisters? You watched your skin heal out by the church, boy.”
The entire world stopped for Thomas as he studied his trapped hand. His heart accelerated to a painful speed, thudding in his chest with enough force to crack ribs, and his breathing became shallow and quick.
His hand.
The same hand that had been scorched by the church door, the very hand that had been bitten by that psychopath last night, that same hand was healed.
His skin had mended itself. There wasn’t any sign of scabbing or scarring from where the deep, aching blisters had burned into him from his encounter with the church’s door. Thomas looked at his other hand and touched the spot where he’d been burned by the sun at sunrise. The skin was smooth, leaving in place of second degree burns nothing but uninterrupted skin. He couldn’t feel the pain from his cracked ribs nor his head.
The only sign of any injury at all were two, dark spots on the otherwise pale flesh of his hand. Dark bruises marked where his assailant’s teeth had pierced his skin.
“What—I don’t—this isn’t making any sense,” Thomas said, shock robbing him of all anger and fear. He’d forgotten about his skin healing. “My hand, the burns and
cuts. How? There isn’t any scar tissue.”
Lawrence released Thomas.
“We’re a lot tougher than your average joe, kid. We’re higher up on the food chain now, and it comes with some perks. Especially right after we feed.” Lawrence jerked his thumb over toward the stage across the room and stepped in that direction. “We’re stronger, faster, and as you can see, we heal up quick-like. Now, I wouldn’t go pickin’ fights with every thug who’s built like a tank or go off challenging an Olympian to a foot race as a fledgling, but you get my drift. The curse on us wants to spread, and to do that, it makes us tougher than nails.”
In a daze, Thomas followed Lawrence to the stage. He didn’t know what else to do. He stumbled along, still staring at his hand, as if there was some trick he wasn’t understanding.
“Spread? Like a virus?” Thomas asked, thinking of his medical training. “It can’t kill its host or it will die off, too.”
Lawrence shrugged as he came to a small door next to the stage.
“I dunno about all that, kid. Never known much about that stuff myself, but yeah, it spreads a bit like a virus,” Lawrence said, opening up the door to reveal a stairwell heading downward. “Gettin’ bitten by a vampire doesn’t guarantee you become one. The more bites you get, the more likely you are to turn. Usually the curse takes three days to take effect. That is, unless you got some vampire blood in your system, then the process is almost immediate and, from what I hear, quite painful.”
Thomas remembered his attacker clamping his hand on Thomas’ mouth. He’d tasted blood then but had been unsure if it was his or the criminal’s.
“I guess that explains a bit. I can’t remember everything, but—”
“Don’t strain your noodle too much, kid. It isn’t like I’m gonna quiz you on this stuff afterward.” Lawrence laughed, some of his old joviality seeping back into his voice. “I’m just lettin’ you know the basics. Things can getta little rough during the first little while, I know. That’s why I started the Red Lightning Pub to begin with. It’s a place for folks like us to feel safe and have a drink. Drown your worries if that’s what you want. A bit of firewater can go a long way after a bad week.”
The stairway spiraled downward. Unlike the rest of the pub, this looked like a new addition. The stairs were cement. The lights were built right into the walls, and it all lacked the rustic appeal of the main pub.
Everything looked out of place, especially the enormous, steel door at the bottom of the stairs.
Thomas could tell from a glance the steel doors must have been enormously heavy, but once again Lawrence showed off his inhuman strength by pressing a hand against the middle of the door and giving it a gentle shove. A burdened groan escaped the hinges and the steel door swung open.
“Liquor and good music may do the soul good, but vampires gotta have a bit more to live on, if you catch my drift,” Lawrence said, stepping into this new room. “And you look sharp enough to know what else it is we need so desperately. That’s why I officially invite you into the Red Lightning Pub’s Employees Only section.”
Thomas followed Lawrence into the new room and was surprised to find he was already familiar with the set up. It was brightly lit, with white walls and tiles polished to a sterilized sheen and blue rubber chairs set up at regular intervals. Mirrors lined all the walls, making the room seem larger, and next to each chair was an assortment of medical equipment, including needles, white gloves, and IV drips.
It looked exactly like a blood bank.
“But remember to bring your wallet next time, kid. This is a business after all, and I gotta pay those who donate blood here a competitive price.”
“So I really did drink human blood?” Thomas breathed, doing his best to keep calm, another wave of panic and disgust making him feel weak-kneed. He raised a hand, placing it against the wall to keep himself steady. His pale hand touched the cold, reflective surface of a mirror that ran waist high along every wall, making the room appear bigger than it was.
“Yes. It’s not, whatcha call it, an exact science or nothing, but roughly a liter or so of blood a day will keep the hunger away, or at least keep it from turnin’ you into a real monster. And yes, before you ask, it does have to be human. Don’t ask me why, I didn’t make the rules. The witch did that long ago. But trust me, lettin’ the hunger get the best of you ain’t something you wanna do,” Lawrence said. His voice was sympathetic and understanding. “You’re welcome back here anytime, though naturally our busier hours are after the sun sets.”
Swallowing nervously, Thomas checked the mirror, relieved to see his reflection. The feeling didn’t last long. He was roughed up, ragged and disheveled, his clothes filthy, torn, and blood stained. And his hair was a mess. His skin was so pale the shining white tiles of the blood bank were a stark contrast in comparison. He looked like a monster, but there was something else about his visage that filled him with intense disgust and dread.
Raising his hand, Thomas touched his mouth and felt sharp fangs where his canines used to be.
“Oh, those? That’s the mark of the beast, kid. It’s common in fledgling vampires, young ‘uns like you, for the fangs to be more noticeable at first. They descend when the hunger takes over. You’ll be able to control ‘em when you’re a bit further along. Since you’ve just fed, they should retract any minute now.” Lawrence tapped his own jawbone, no fangs visible from his lips. “I know this is a lot to take in, and I should warn you this first little while is gonna be the roughest. In fact, the first six decades are tricky. But trust me, once you hit ninety years this stuff’s gonna be second nature.”
Thomas stared Lawrence right in the eyes, unable to deny the truth any longer, no matter how bizarre it was.
“I’m really a vampire,” he whispered, every part of his mind telling him those words were too crazy to believe. Not only did he look like a monster, Thomas realized with a shudder—he was one.
Lawrence rested a hand on Thomas’ shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“I’m afraid so, kid. Welcome to the fold.”
3 Humans
Vampire.
Vampire.
Vampire.
The word bounced around Thomas’ mind over and over again, each time sounding more and more ridiculous. He pulled the brim of his borrowed hat lower, hiding in its shade.
While Lawrence had offered to call a cab for him, Thomas had refused, wanting to be alone with his thoughts. There was no point going to the hospital now. What could medicine do against a witch’s curse? He wasn’t treatable by any known medicines and would end up in the psych ward if he tried to explain what had happened to him.
Perhaps rightfully so.
He must have been quite the sight dressed in filthy jeans, a scuffed and torn up coat, pink sunglasses, a scarf, a wide-brimmed hat, and latex gloves, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Maybe he really was crazy.
The latex gloves on his hands were stretched tight, a size too small. Lawrence had grabbed them from the blood donation center in the basement of the Red Lightning Pub. They were a different brand than the hospital used, and Thomas’ hands itched like crazy.
He resisted the urge to tear off his gloves. The itch wasn’t necessarily a physical sensation but rather a mental one, something deep inside of him wanted to rip off the gloves and inspect his hands once more for the bite mark.
Half of him almost believed it wasn’t there anymore, that his predicament had faded away when he left the Red Lightning Pub and now hid somewhere in the gutters of the city.
No matter how desperately he wanted to believe it, Thomas couldn’t rationalize what he’d suffered through since the attack unless he was insane.
Curses, vampires, werewolves, and magic.
It was like a bad dream.
And yet, Thomas had known for a while now there was a weird atmosphere in Colesbrooke. He’d seen things, heard things. Artemis had gotten caught up in the supernatural superstitions back in high school
and later joined some witch community. Her witch beliefs weren’t the weirdest thing Thomas had heard of. The tales of curses and magic in Colesbrooke were right in line with the unexplainable horrors that occasionally befell the denizens of the city. Thomas had seen such an atrocity in the OR the day before, yet he still wasn’t sure any of it was real.
That was the most frustrating part: the uncertainty. More than anything he wanted to be sure whether he was going nuts or actually a vampire.
He’d drunk human blood, for God’s sake. His body had enjoyed it.
Surely that proved beyond any shadow of a doubt he was a vampire.
Or crazy.
Thomas stopped in his path, overcome with nausea. He’d drunk blood, and he’d liked it. That wasn’t normal. He gagged, horrified with himself—he was now one of the monsters wandering the shadows of Colesbrooke. But if Lawrence Foxe was telling the truth, that was his life now.
A woman wearing a golden cross on a chain passed Thomas. The gold reflected the sunlight, searing Thomas’ eyes. He shuddered, his nerves tingling throughout his body. He couldn’t help it. Along with his taste for blood, he’d inherited a reflexive aversion to religious memorabilia. Lawrence had warned him about it, but Thomas hadn’t expected his aversion to be so strong.
Six deep breaths and a sliver of control returned to him. After a seventh breath, he shivered. He couldn’t freak out every time someone wore a symbol that bothered him. In his pocket, he closed his fist around Lawrence’s collapsible umbrella.
Lawrence had insisted Thomas take it. As much as he wanted to hide under its shade, Thomas abstained. It was silly, but by not relying on the umbrella, Thomas felt like he was clinging to what little remained of his humanity. However, he couldn’t deny the umbrella’s presence was comforting.
A flash of anger surged through him, and his lips peeled back into a snarl. He knew he should stop, but he didn’t know how to. Or he didn’t want to. Thomas let the anger flow through him, a different tingle exciting him through his hands, fingers, feet. His life, his humanity had been stolen from him—snatched by a bloodthirsty freak that couldn’t finish the job. Even if it was only for a moment, feeling furious at something was better than being confused by everything.
Shadows of Colesbrooke Page 4
