Blood Winter

by S. J. Coles

  It took another three days for the promised thaw to loosen the stranglehold of snow. Rivers of icy water trickled off the mountains, washing dirty slush in rivulets down the paths and gullies around the house. The sound of the burns swelled with meltwater echoed loudly, bouncing off the mountainside and filling the air with an eerie rushing noise. The sky refused to lighten from its low, leaden glower.

  It took almost that amount of time for me to regain my strength. I’d avoided frostbite, somehow, but I still tired easily, and now that the Blood had worn off, my muscles and bones ached even in the warmth of my bed. I’d gotten off lightly and knew I should have been grateful. But it just didn’t feel as simple as that.

  By the fourth day I was finally able to lift a spade and spent two hours shoveling slush away from the garage doors. I climbed into my Jeep and roared it down the drive and onto the road, pushing Meg’s entreaties to the back of my mind. Melting snow flew up in sprays around my wheels. I kept my hand on the gear stick and wrestled it along the winding, pot-holed tarmac, skidding in meltwater. I reached the crossroads and turned toward Auchallater Keep.

  It seemed to take forever, even at my ill-advised speed. Part of me marveled at how Terje had managed to get us most of the distance on foot in a storm. I pulled up in front of the lodge in just over an hour. The door was shut. The blinds were drawn. I hammered on the door, still wondering what I would do or say if someone answered it. Nothing happened. I circled the building, blood pulsing in my ears, peering in at windows, but all was dark and silent.

  I stood on the front steps, staring up at the stone, the neat, new-cut blocks crowding in on the uneven walls from the original keep, trying to decide if I was disappointed or relieved. I thought about the basement beneath my feet and my skin crawled.

  When I got back to Glenroe, there was a missed call from an unknown number on my mobile. They hadn’t left a message.

  * * * *

  I nodded distractedly whilst Clem moaned that we were going to be late getting the supply order in. The smell of oil was heavy in my nostrils. I maneuvered tools on autopilot. I was up to my elbows in a 1963 Corvette Stingray, its innards exposed like the spilled guts of a hunted animal, working hard enough to sweat despite the freezing air, but everything seemed to be held at a distance. We were lucky that another job had come in—I couldn’t bring myself to work on Ogdell’s Jaguar, so that had fallen entirely to Clem—but I didn’t feel lucky. It was like a mesh curtain hung between me and the real world. If I thought about it too long, my mouth would go dry and I’d have to close my eyes and breathe until the feeling passed.

  Clem had thrown himself into getting back to normal the moment the workshop had become accessible. I could sense the storm had unsettled him and his routine, his precious form of normalcy. I wasn’t even sure what normal was anymore.

  At night I dreamed of a hot mouth and strong hands. Of eyes holding several lifetimes’ worth of secrets, lips that had smiled once but hardly spoke. I dreamed of lying in a blanket of snow with those hands on me and my skin on fire.

  And I dreamed of blood—dark rivers of it pooling on a concrete basement floor. Brody’s blood, thick and rapidly cooling, viscous on my hands, staining my clothes, filling the air with the smell of metal. And Terje’s haemophile Blood, hotter and sweeter than melted chocolate laced with cognac, richer than the finest liquor I’d ever had, restoring my life and lighting fires along my veins, waking me aching with need.

  It was only Clem’s rough bark from the kitchen doorway that made me realize I had been staring at the engine for several minutes without moving. I blinked at him but he was nodding past me toward the window.

  I turned just in time to see Hans Karlsson climbing out of a black Ferrari on the forecourt. He stared around with a faintly disparaging expression. His silver hair was combed back from his high forehead, immaculately styled and resisting the gusting wind. He wore a suit and dark wool overcoat that I could tell cost more than our profit margin for the entire year. A large man in anonymous black got out of the driver’s side and stood to attention by the car.

  I opened the door just as the older man reached it, stepped out and purposefully shut it behind me. The other man gave a smile that didn’t reach his ice-blue eyes. “Lord Aviemore.”

  “What the hell do you want?”

  One of his white eyebrows twitched slightly. “Good to see that you are quite recovered from your ordeal.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Either tell me what you want this second or get that piece of Italian crap off my forecourt before I get my gun.”

  Karlsson shook his head regretfully. “Such hostility? After everything we’ve done to protect you?”

  “Protect me?”

  “Of course. You must realize how quickly this would turn nasty for all of us if the truth of what happened at Auchallater Keep got out.”

  “There is no ‘us’, Karlsson.”

  “Oh, but there is, my lord. We’re all in this together.”

  “I’ve got nothing to do with—”

  “Please, sir. We must be frank. Mr. Harris died, after all.”

  “Because of you.”

  “Not the way I see it.”

  “Whose fault was it then?”

  “First and foremost? The haemo, of course. They’re so strong, you see…and unpredictable. Keeping them sedated is a very delicate balance. I’ve always been hesitant about donors in the hands of private citizens.”

  “And yet you arranged it all.”

  “It’s true.” He tilted his head to one side. “I am a businessman, after all. You understand business?”

  “Blood is business?” I shook my head. “Leave. Leave now—”

  “The creature is still out there somewhere,” he cut in. “It would be irresponsible for me to not at least check in on you. You had a very lucky escape, Lord Aviemore.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “As you wish. But I regret I cannot leave until important matters have been settled.”

  “If you’ve come to do Ogdell’s dirty work—”

  “Jon?” Karlsson let out a laugh. “Jon Ogdell is a good client. He’s also an upstart and a fool, an indulgent fool.”

  “Who wants to hush up a murder,” I muttered, glancing again at the man-mountain by the Ferrari, who hadn’t seemed to have blinked since he arrived.

  Karlsson nodded toward the path to the house. “Shall we walk?”

  “Why?”

  “I have a proposal that it would be in your best interest to listen to in private.” His gaze slid over my shoulder and I glanced back to see Clem hovering at the window. I turned on my heel and crunched up the path. Once the workshop was out of earshot, I faced him, folding my arms. Karlsson stood gazing at Glenroe with a quiet smile on his lined face.

  “You’ve got two minutes,” I stated.

  His eyes drifted to mine. “Okay, MacCarthy. Time to be frank. Brody Harris was killed. You were there.”

  “So were you.”

  “Not in the basement.”

  I kept my face blank. “Your donor went berserk.”

  “That is what the wounds would suggest.”

  A slow churning starting in my belly. “What else is there to suggest?”

  “By me? Nothing. Right now.”

  “I’m not going to the police, if that’s what you’re scared of.”

  “Scared?” His smile could cut glass. “I’m not scared.”

  I shifted in the snow, my face suddenly hot. “Spit it out, old man.”

  “It really is a very impressive home you have here,” he said, gazing up at the house. “You really should reconsider your position on selling, you know. The possibilities of this place in the hands of a developer…”

  “Like Ogdell?”

  He smiled, showing all his teeth, shining white but blunt, with a gap at the front. “We have the means to make the place great again, like you would never even dream.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You want it?”

  H
e put his hands in his pockets, gazing at Glenroe like he was selecting a wine from a rack. “Pictures don’t do it justice. It’s astonishing but wasted, decaying. Can’t you see it’s dying?” His eyes were suddenly bright. “I could make your legacy worth something.”

  Realization dawned. “The caves…” His eyes flickered. “You want it for storing donors, for Blood dealing…”

  He shrugged his slim shoulders. “Business is business. Business means money. Money means the restoration of your heritage.”

  “My heritage is my business.”

  He shook his head sadly. “Oh, but it’s not, Mr. MacCarthy. Not anymore.” He produced a phone from his pocket. The screen displayed a photo of me and Brody, snorting coke at Lure. He swiped. Another one of us in the Glasgow restaurant, his hand pressing mine on the table. There were two more—us arriving at his hotel, him leaning in to talk into my ear. Then, lastly, one of us sitting together at the dining table at Auchallater Keep, heads bent close, smiling knowingly.

  “You were obviously very fond of young Mr. Harris,” Karlsson purred, putting the phone back in his pocket. “It really is a great tragedy that he died so horrifically, with you standing right by. And given your obvious connection, the police will be very keen to know more.”

  “The haemophile—”

  “We know you fed it, MacCarthy.” His voice and face had lost their veneer of charm. His pale eyes were like ice. “Several of the guests saw you leave the sitting room. We found the empty blood bag in the basement. We know you gave it the strength to break loose, kill Mr. Harris and flee.”

  “He was going to die. You bastards had starved it to the point—”

  “So it’s okay that Brody Harris died instead?”

  “I didn’t know—”

  “The death was a tragic accident, so long as you sell me Glenroe. If you refuse, well…” His brow creased. “It would be an even greater tragedy if these pictures were to show up just as his body was discovered.”

  “Those pictures prove nothing.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, but the police like connections like this. Love them, in fact. In the current climate, they also love avoiding trouble involving haemos. They will want to believe another human killed Harris. And with your record…” I went cold as his eyes narrowed. “Assault… Battery… Who would have thought?” He shook his head rather sadly. “It doesn’t look good, my lord.”

  “That was years ago,” I bit out. “After university. I…I had a rough patch.”

  “Criminal records don’t list extenuating circumstances, I’m afraid.”

  I groped after some semblance of calm. “If you go to the police, what’s to stop me telling them everything?”

  “You could, of course. Though Mr. Ogdell has much better lawyers than your friend Miss Carlisle on his books. And Miss Carlisle? Well…she’s in a very vulnerable position, close to you as she is. Sadly, it would be all too believable that she would want to help cover up your mess.” I bristled. The blood rushed up my neck and pounded in my temples. I stared at him. He didn’t even blink. “You have two days to think it over,” he continued, holding out a business card. “If there is no deal by then, well…Jon and I will be forced to take matters into our own hands.”

  I took the card with numb fingers. I stared at it, navy blue with white lettering. “This was the plan all along, wasn’t it? With the club opening, Brody, the Blood Party. It was to bribe me to sell. And if that didn’t work, blackmail.”

  Karlsson adjusted the cuffs of his suit. “Have a good day, Lord Aviemore. Do pass my regards on to Miss Carlisle when you speak to her.” He turned on his patent-leather heel and trudged back down the path.

  “Tell Ogdell the Jaguar deal’s off,” I yelled after him. “If he doesn’t send someone to pick up his scrapheap, I’ll burn what’s left of it.”

  He didn’t look back. The wind moaned in my ears and tried to yank the business card out of my grip. I nearly let it go, but after a moment, I crumpled it in my fist and shoved it into my pocket. The Ferrari’s toothy roar was fading into the distance as I reached the forecourt.

  “We’re going to fall even more behind if you keep slacking off for visitors,” Clem barked from the workshop door.

  “Stop work on the Jaguar.”

  “What?”

  “I said no more work on the Jag,” I gritted, glaring at the dissipating exhaust trail from the Ferrari. “Dump it out here and leave it.”

  I didn’t listen to his answer. The workshop door slammed. It felt like the earth was shifting under my feet. I pulled out my phone and paced about until I found a signal.

  My already-racing heart lurched in my chest when the messages and voicemails began to ping through.

  Alec, ring me, please.

  Meg didn’t pick up. I swore, tried again, and it went to answerphone. I tried to think what I could possibly put in a voice message, swore again, hung up. I was just about to head back to the workshop when the thing buzzed in my pocket.

  “Meg?”

  “Alec…” Her voice was choked.

  “Meg, what’s wrong?”

  She drew a shaking breath. “I’m sorry. I had to get somewhere I wouldn’t be heard.”

  My chest clenched. “Did Karlsson come to you too?”

  “Karlsson?” She sounded bewildered.

  “Ogdell’s dealer?”

  “No. It’s Matthew Ogdell-Paige.”

  “Who?”

  “Olivia’s husband.”

  “What about him?” I asked, feeling something inside me sink.

  “He’s disappeared.”

  “What do you mean?” I made myself ask when the pause had stretched on.

  “I mean that he’s vanished.”

  “Done a runner, more like,” I muttered, looking at the crumpled card in my hand.

  “No, you don’t understand. He was…taken.”

  My mouth dried out. “Taken?”

  “In the middle of the night two days ago. Olivia woke up and he was gone. She’d taken a pill, so she heard nothing. All the doors and windows were locked, but there was blood on the bedroom carpet.”

  I stared at the swollen burns cutting gullies in the drifts of melting snow. I took a slow breath, trying to make sense of what I was hearing. “How do you know this?”

  “The actor guy who gave me the lift… He rang me. He’s scared.”

  “Scared?”

  “That’s not everything.”

  “Go on,” I managed.

  “Another guest from the party, the MP. She’s vanished too.”

  “What?”

  “Last week. Apparently, there’s some scandal about to break in her personal life. Everyone assumed she’d skipped town to avoid the heat. But now Matthew too…”

  “What are you suggesting, Meg? Ogdell’s taking everyone out to stop them talking?”

  “It’s not Jon,” Meg said. “He came to the firm for a meeting this morning. He looks like death. He’s scared shitless.”

  “But if it’s not him…” The silence hung between us. I could hear her breathing. “You think it’s the haemophile?”

  “It must be,” she said, voice high. “Out for revenge. Working its way through everyone who was at the party.”

  “No,” I said, though my throat was closing.

  “What else could it be?”

  “I just…” I started, then lost the words.

  “Alec, I’m scared.”

  I clenched my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose. My body was throbbing, my mind swirling. She was speaking again, but I couldn’t hear the words.

  “I’ll come through,” I said eventually. “Sit tight. I’ll come to you.”

  “Then what?” Her tone was harsh, but I could hear her fear.

  “Stay calm,” I said in a flat, lifeless voice of my own. “I’ll be there soon.”

  “Get here before dark,” she said. “Please.”

  * * * *

  The X-Trail ate the miles, despite the slush and
driving sleet. Other drivers swerved and beeped their horns, but I was racing the night. I rang Meg as I got into Glasgow, told her to come meet me rather than lose precious minutes battling through city center traffic. I heard her reluctance to venture out in the gathering dusk, but the sense of it won out. I parked and waited, watching the sky. Eventually I spotted her light-colored coat among the crowds. She hurried toward the car, wrestling with a black umbrella and small, wheeled suitcase. She opened the back door, hesitated when she saw the shotgun lying across the seat and shoved her suitcase into the footwell. She was shaking when she climbed into the passenger seat. I pulled her into my arms. We clung to each other. We didn’t speak for several long moments.

  “I don’t understand, Alec,” she said into my coat. “How can this be happening?”

  “It’s fine,” I said pulling back to meet her eyes. “It’s going to be fine.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  She must have heard something in my voice because the lines of her face eased and she looked more like herself again. “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  I steered into the traffic, checking every car around us despite myself. I took a round-about route back out of town, toward the outskirts. The buildings got dingier, the roads quieter. Meg peered out of the window as we drew up to a tall, exhaust-stained building with boarded-up windows and large, barricaded doors plastered in shredded flyposters.

  She got out into the sleet and stood staring at the rain-slicked stone with a dazed expression. “I didn’t know you still had this place.”

  “No one does,” I said, grabbing her suitcase, my backpack, our shopping bags and the gun from the back seat. She followed me down an alley cluttered with rubbish, sticking so close that she was almost treading on my heels. We made our way up the rusted metal staircase at the rear of the building, overlooking an abandoned carpark, rampant with weeds and litter. I punched a code in a keypad on the door at the top and slipped an ancient key into the Yale with a prayer. It was stiff with years of disuse, but it turned.