Blood Winter

by S. J. Coles

  “I hope you’re not done yet, Lord Aviemore,” he purred in my ear. “We’ve got all night, you know.”

  * * * *

  When I came to, an unknowable amount of time later, darkness had fallen. I sprawled on the bed, my skin cooling in the air-conditioned air, feeling pleasantly empty for the first time in…a long time. Even the fading swirl of alcohol and coke felt mild, warm and comfortable.

  “You need to come down from the mountains more often,” Brody drawled whilst searching out clean glasses for more whisky. “Clearly you don’t get the chance to relax as often as is healthy.”

  “You sound like Meg.”

  He chuckled softly. The bed dipped as he sat, holding out the glass to me. “Seriously, though. What’s it like?”

  I sipped the whisky. It was good. Not my favorite, but good. “What’s what like?”

  “Living at Glenroe.”

  “It’s quiet.”

  “And you like it quiet?” he ventured.

  I shrugged one shoulder. “I’m used to it.”

  He shifted a little closer. “And it doesn’t freak you out? Living alone, in the middle of nowhere?”

  I took in his serious expression. “No. Should it?”

  It was his turn to shrug, but it seemed some of the easiness had left him. “It would freak me out these days, with vampires out of the closet and all.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Vampires?”

  “Haemophiles…whatever.”

  “There’s no such thing as vampires, Brody,” I said, smiling.

  “They’re not so sure there’s any difference back home.”

  “No,” I said carefully, looking at my drink instead of him. “I heard that.”

  “Seriously,” he said again, shifting closer still. “You feel safe up there?”

  “There are no vampires in the Cairngorms,” I said, trying not to sound too desultory. “And no haemophiles either.”

  “Caves, mountains, crumbling castles? I would have thought it would be perfect Dracula territory.”

  “You’ve read too much Stoker. They live in purpose-built communes, down south. There are none registered this far north.”

  “What about the unregistered ones?”

  I shook my head. “Tabloid scaremongering.” He raised an eyebrow. I couldn’t help but smile. “Seriously, Brody. You come from a country where kids take guns to school and you’re scared of things that go bump in the night?”

  He looked wounded. “It’s just freaky, okay? At least guns we understand.”

  I drank more whisky. “Well, I’ve never seen one. Hard to be freaked out by something you’ve never seen.”

  “Boogie-monsters aside,” he went on, smiling again, “you don’t get lonely?”

  “Now you sound like Meg again.”

  “You mention her a lot,” he said after a pause.

  I tried to see if there was anything going on his face, but I was tired, a little drunk and far too sated to engage in any effort figuring out subtext. “We’re friends.”

  “Good friends?”

  “Old friends.”

  “Uh-huh.” I couldn’t tell if something had shifted in the air. He was, if anything, even more beautiful lounging against the headboard with his blue eyes heavy, his hair tousled, his surfer’s body—straight out of a swimwear catalogue—toned and tan against the white sheets. But his quiet now had a different quality.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  He laughed, laying a warm hand on my thigh. “Jesus, Alec, relax. It was just a question.”

  “I should go.” I hadn’t meant to say it. But then it was out there, hanging between us like black smoke, and I realized it was true.

  “Sure,” he said, easily enough. “It’s late. I should get some sleep before my breakfast meeting. And I’m certain that if you stay I won’t get much sleeping done.”

  I managed a half-smile and started searching amongst the discarded clothing for my jeans. I dressed, trying not to hurry, but Brody seemed unaffected. He rinsed the glasses, said goodnight, went into the bathroom and shut the door. I heard the shower start. I stood holding my shoes, trying to untangle what exactly had happened.

  * * * *

  “You’re overthinking it,” Meg said. She hadn’t stopped grinning since I’d dragged myself out of the spare bed the next morning for what breakfast my abused stomach could handle. “It was just sex. Good sex, by the look of you.”

  “Hey,” I scowled, stirring the coffee, “let’s not.”

  “Oh come on,” she said, setting down a bowl of sliced fruit and yogurt in front of me. “It’s just what you needed. Admit it.” I grumbled something under my breath and picked up the spoon. “Are you going to see him again?”

  “No,” I said quickly. Then added, “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to see him again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She dropped her spoon into her bowl with an exasperated gesture. “Honestly, Alec. You are useless.”

  “I just… Forget it.”

  “What? You just what?”

  I pushed the berries and nuts around in the yogurt. “He’s not. We’re not… I don’t know.”

  She sighed. “You’re worse than a woman.” I glared at her. She grinned then looked at the clock. “I’ve got to go to work. You gonna be okay getting back?”

  “Yeah. I got enough sleep, I think.”

  “Perhaps you should have got less and stayed a little longer.” I leveled another bleary look at her. She beamed and kissed me on the cheek. “It was good to see you, Alec.”

  “Thanks for having me.” I managed a more genuine smile.

  “Let’s not leave it so long next time, okay?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself not to lie. She patted my shoulder and left. I finished the fruit and left too, a tangible weight leaving my shoulders as I drove out of the city.

  I passed the drive deep in thought about the events of the previous days and looked forward to the relative peace of my normal routine.

  Clem had a lot to say when I finally dragged myself into the workshop so late that afternoon that it was starting to get dark. The fact that we barely had enough work for one person, let alone two, was not something he ever let bother him. I felt better for the long, hot shower I’d taken at Meg’s and for being back in my overalls in the chilly, drizzly mountain air.

  I could still feel the heat of Brody’s hands and hear the sound of his laugh. It had been good, I decided. Invigorating, like a day at the seaside. But I couldn’t deny that I felt more like myself with the peaks glowering over me, the smell of heather dripping with the cold rain in my lungs and the crumbling hulk of Glenroe squatting like a broken boulder on the bluff above the workshop.

  I tried not to analyze that too closely.

  The rain continued, grew colder and turned to hail. More holes became evident in the hall’s roof. I was forced to do temporary patch-jobs with tarpaulin when it became too cold and slippery to be out on the slates for long. The days grew shorter. Our last two restorations were sent back to their owners and nothing else had come in. I began to mentally prepare myself for another long, cold winter.

  I was unpacking bottom-shelf wine and tins of beans into the larder and trying not to think about another winter subsisting on little else, when I stopped, listening. The noise came again. I moved into the dining room, straining my ears until it came a third time. There was someone knocking on the front door—the one I never used.

  A frisson of disquiet ran up my spine. I approached the door after discarding the half-formed notion of retrieving one of my father’s shotguns. Through the whorled glass I could just make out a figure on the step. The bolt clanked and the key screeched. I heaved but the door didn’t budge. I wrestled with the lock a moment more, heard a louder clunk then dragged the door open. It scraped an arc in the dust and dead leaves on the tiles, the hinges screaming like banshees.

  Brody stood on the step, looking utterly surreal, sunny and well-dr
essed against the backdrop of drizzle and wind-swept mountainside.

  “Alec,” he said, smiling brightly, “I was beginning to wonder if I’d got the wrong castle.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  My tone caused his smile to slip. “Jon sent me.”

  I blinked. “Why?”

  He frowned. “I’ve brought his Jaguar. He said he’d arranged it with you.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, craning my neck to scan the empty, weed-riddled drive. “Did Clement not take it in at the workshop?”

  Brody frowned harder. “Sure he did. But he said you were up here, so I thought I’d take the chance to come and, well… Did I do something wrong?”

  I shifted on my feet. The shadows of the house felt heavy behind me. “I don’t normally use this door.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “I’m not used to visitors.”

  “No kidding.” He was angry now, his brow creased, mouth suddenly a hard, flat line.

  “Do you want to come in?” I said, but the silence had been so long that it shouted forced politeness.

  “Only if you want me to.”

  Heat rose in my face. “Of course.”

  He examined me for a long moment then stepped inside. I heaved the door shut and clanked the heavy locks back into place.

  “Wow,” he breathed, gaping at the grand staircase then up to the vaulted ceiling and the filth-encrusted chandelier. “This is really something.”

  “Coffee?” I hurried to the kitchen but Brody followed slowly, staring around at the shrouded furniture, the paintings stacked against the walls, the yawning fireplaces, the leaves that had drifted around mountains of moldering books and tarnished silverware. The brightness of the kitchen made him blink. I sensed him examining the clutter as I turned the kettle on and hunted out the coffee.

  “I gotta tell you that this is nothing like I imagined.”

  “Reality rarely is,” I said. When I finally had the coffee ready, he took the mug with an irritatingly sympathetic expression.

  “I’m making you uncomfortable.”

  “No, you’re not,” I lied.

  He sighed and pulled out one of the plastic chairs from around the table. “Did I misread this?”

  I shifted on my feet, staring into my mug. “It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  I set my drink aside untasted and made myself sit opposite him. “I don’t get visitors.”

  “You said,” he said, casting an eye around my tiny, chaotic living space.

  “You don’t understand.” I heard the words like they were coming from someone else. “No one comes here. This place… It’s not…”

  He leaned forward in his chair. “Go on. Tell me.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “No one but me has set foot in this house for years. Not since…”

  He tilted his head to one side. “Since your dad died?”

  I glared at the table, angry with myself for reacting.

  “That’s a long time not to have anyone in your house.”

  “It’s not my house.”

  A pause. “Your dad didn’t like you having people over, huh?”

  “No.”

  “Especially not…guy people?”

  The bottom fell out of my stomach. A red fog was boiling just under my skin. If he’d have tried to comfort me, reason with me, draw me into talking, I’d would have kicked him out, slammed the door and resolved never to think of him again. But he didn’t. He just sat there calmly, his expression mild, his blue eyes warm.

  “What about your mom?” he asked eventually.

  “She left when I was five.”

  “And where is she now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t maybe wanna try to find her?”

  “She never wanted to find me.”

  He sipped his coffee. “It was just you and your old man then, huh?”

  “Until I went off to boarding school.”

  “What happened to him? Jon wasn’t clear.”

  “He drank himself to death.” I finished my coffee and put the mug aside with an air of finality.

  “But you don’t want to sell?” He asked it carefully. It was a natural-enough question. It always was.

  “Is that something Ogdell wants an answer to?”

  He didn’t react. “No. I’m just interested.”

  “Again. Why?”

  He paused a moment, face very still. Then he sighed and shifted, leaning in to look into my face. “What happened to you, Alec?”

  I fought back images of Dad’s drink-reddened face, ordering me out of the house. Of David, lying in a drug-induced coma in a hospital bed, all tubes and sallow skin. The property developer goons who had hammered on my door day and night. I breathed until I could control my voice. “I’m fine. I just don’t want to sell.”

  “Okay,” Brody said, with a half-smile, putting his hand on my arm. “Okay. I’m sorry I upset you.”

  “You didn’t,” I replied then, after a moment, with more feeling, “You didn’t, Brody. I upset myself.”

  “Yeah, you did,” he said, tone light again. “So you wanna come see this car or what?”

  I glanced out of the window at the gathering dusk. “It’s too late to start any work today. Clem’ll have all the paperwork ready for you to pick up on your way back out.”

  “Oh. Sure.” He sounded hurt again. He glanced at my bedroom door then back at me, raising an eyebrow. “But I do believe you and I have some unfinished business?"

  I dropped my gaze, rubbing my neck. “You can’t sleep here, Brody. There’s no room.”

  Half his mouth turned up in that devil’s grin. “Who said anything about sleeping?”

  My blood stirred. I remembered his skilled hands and the summery smell of his skin. My chest tightened, but the thought of having him, having anyone, under this roof was a more efficient buzzkill than a bucket of cold water. “I…I’m sorry.”

  “Okay,” he said, easily enough. “I get it. Not here. That’s fine. I can live with that.” He leaned in so close I could feel his breath on my face. “So how about Jon’s hunting lodge? Jacuzzi bath? King-size bed? Would that put you more at ease?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  His smile broadened. “The other reason I’m here. Jon wants to invite you to a weekend at his new place. He’s bought a lodge just on the border of the national park. It’s only about an hour and a half from here. They just finished doing it up last week.”

  I stared at him. “Jon Ogdell has bought a place in the Cairngorms?”

  “Only on the edge. I think Jon likes the idea of the countryside, but anything this wild, well…” Brody cast a glance out of the window at the slate-strewn mountainside and white threads of rushing burns. “Let’s just say he likes his comforts.”

  “Why here?”

  Brody laughed. “You’re worrying too much, Alec. Jon’s always doing this. His current thing is aspiring to be the landed laird—like you, I guess, but more like the storybooks. Either way, he’s having a party and you’re invited.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he likes you. And because I like you.”

  “You do?” I asked before I’d thought it through.

  “Sure,” he said with a smile so charming it couldn’t possibly be real. “Tendency to imagine the worst aside, you’re intriguing. Not hard on the eyes either, as I’m sure you know.”

  I searched for words but couldn’t find any.

  “Your friend Meg’ll be there.”

  “She will?”

  “Naturally. She’s Jon’s lawyer now. She’d like to see you, right?”

  “She would…”

  He was looking at me expectantly. I thought about getting away from the drafty, cold house to somewhere with unlimited hot water and good food. And Brody. Willing, gorgeous, easy-going Brody. Brody who made it so easy to forget, even if, deep down, I had the sneaking suspicion that it was al
l he was good for. “I’d like that.”

  He beamed. “That’s great. Next weekend, okay? I’ll email the details.”

  “No,” I said, rummaging in the kitchen drawers for a notepad, “I don’t get good Internet. Can you write it down?”

  He laughed and took the notepad. “Yeah, Jon couldn’t deal with the reality for sure, caves or no caves.” He scribbled an address, date and time on the piece of paper.

  “He knows about the caves?”

  “Everyone knows about your caves,” he said, holding out the paper. “Glenroe has a Wikipedia page too, you know.”

  “Property developers have said they would be a lucrative tourist attraction.” I watched him carefully.

  “They’re right. But they’re your caves.” He smiled. “Just wait, Alec. You think Jon throws a good party in the city? Wait until you get him out in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors and nowhere to run.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  He took my hand and drew me closer. “Don’t worry. I’ll look after you.”

  “You’re not scared of the boogie-monsters?” I joked.

  “Not at Auchallater Keep,” he replied, something glinting in his eyes. “Jon’s more than prepared.”

  I couldn’t untangle that one, but he was looking at me like he was going to kiss me. I thought I wanted him to, but I knew that if he did, it wouldn’t stop there.

  He saved us both by pulling away. I showed him out through the side door, directed him down the path then watched him pick his way through the heather to the drive. I couldn’t deny the relief I felt when I shut the door and the silence of the house was restored. But neither could I deny the flicker of something heated that had lit within me, knowing I was going to see him again. I frowned into the shadowed hallway, wondering whether I should be worried at how easily he seemed to be able to change my mind.

  I shook my head, waited until I was sure he’d be gone, then made my way to the workshop to examine Jon Ogdell’s Jaguar. My mood lifted further when I found the thing a virtual wreck. The panels were rusted, the engine clogged and corroded, the soft top rotting on its broken frame. It had no tires, bent axles and the whole thing was caked in a thick layer of dust that had set into the wax and would need sanding back. It could be a big enough job to keep us going for the winter.