Lust Bites (15 page)

Zack was her best friend as well as her lover – and everything was possible with him at her side.

Forever.

She's running down the corridor. She hasn't stopped running since the letter came this morning. Running, running, running, running on adrenaline.

She tried to go to the library. The one here and the one at her parents' house, but she was so damn jumpy that the words wouldn't lie still on the pages of each book she tried to read.

But that doesn't matter. She doesn't need to read up on vampires now. She's known about such monsters since before she could talk.

She has to be at the castle by six. Time is getting short. She practically crashes though the door of the private hospital room at Cobalt.

Her mother looks up blearily, as though she might have been asleep in her chair – uncharacteristically crumpled. Her usually tight precise up-do is all skew-whiff and shedding tendrils of grey-brown hair around her face. Her eyes are red. She's been crying. Did she cry herself to sleep?

'Merle!' her mother says as she gets to her feet, the upper-crust bark of her voice shadowed with fatigue.

'How is he?'

'He's ... He's ...' Her mother trails away a couple of heartbreaking times and in the end she has to steady herself to stop the falter in her voice. 'He's the same. Comfortable. Critical.'

This is it. Merle just wishes she felt numb right now – blank. She doesn't. She feels like she's going to be sick. She looks at her father in the bed which – along with the machinery that surrounds it – takes up much of the room. He seems to be nothing more than a mass of pipes and tubes and skin and sheet. Not really a person. Just a body. The beeping, flashing machines that are doing the work of his traumatised internal organs seem more alive than he does.

She crosses the room until she is close enough to touch the pale skin on the back of her father's limp hand. Her fingertips look so pink next to his. Thrumming with life. With blood. But she doesn't want to start thinking about things like that. About blood. Her blood. Her blood and who might want it. 'There's no chance of us finding an antidote ourselves?' she says, knowing there isn't, not knowing what else to say.

Her mother shakes her head. 'I'm not even sure what's in the poison. A cocktail of magic and science. Classic vampire work. Black Emerald Clan written all over it. He must have got it from their vaults. I've managed to identify some of the components but I'm nowhere near.' She indicates the bottles of failed potions on the window still. Each one contains a sparkling liquid. Some are rusty or red in colour. Most are golden – glittering with their broken promises.

Merle looks back at her father. 'Right.'

Merle's mother has this face. This this-is-my-final-word face. That's the face that is looking at Merle right now. 'I'm still not going to let you take up Cole's offer. This isn't your fight.' Merle has never defied that 'final' face before. She's also never got such a strong sense her mother
wanted
her to defy it before. She's telling Merle not to take up Cole's offer – of course she is, she's her mother. What else can she say?

Doesn't mean that's what she wants.

'But it is my fight,' Merle says. 'It is now.'

Merle's mother turns away and picks up Darius Cole's letter which is lying on the table by the bed. It's so typical vamp. Thick vellum, sealing wax and words designed to devastate. Merle's mother peers at it like she's looking for a loophole.

Merle knows she isn't finding one. 'It's the only way,' she says, coming up close behind her mother and touching her shoulder.

'Look, Merle.' Merle's mother turns and she's really close. Merle can smell her expensive old-fashioned heavy perfume lying over the scent of her grief. 'Your father and I ... We never meant to involve you in anything like this. In our work. And the thing about Darius Cole, well, the thing about vampires in general, is they play games. They can out think humans. They find it fun to trick them. What it says in this letter, well, it just won't be as simple as that.'

'What it says in that letter is that if I don't go and spend 25 days with Cole dad will die.'

Merle's mother just looks at her. And Merle sees it sudden and sickening. Her mother is being asked to choose. Being made to choose between her daughter and her husband, and of course her mother knows she should choose Merle, but it hurts. While Merle is thinking this, her mother shakes her head and turns away.

'You want me to go, don't you?' Merle says to her back. 'Part of you does. Deep down.'

In a very quiet voice Merle's mother says. 'He's dying. We have to do something.' But when she turns back to Merle her face is severe and familiar. 'But not that. Charles would never forgive me if I let you anywhere near that vicious undead creature.'

Almost before her mother finishes speaking, Merle's father bucks up and begins to convulse in the bed. He screams loudly in real agony and starts to thrash around. The sheet slips and Merle sees his half-naked body, pale-grey and sheened with sweat. It hits her so hard it's like being winded. My father. My dad.
Daddy.
Broken and suffering. Dying. Merle takes a shocked step backwards.

Merle's mother has already grabbed a syringe of something from a trolley of medical ephemera. She dashes around the bed, shouting at Merle to get back and sticks the needle into the IV line. Merle's father stills quickly.

Merle's mother turns away from the bed. She's out of breath, her shoulders heaving. 'He's already so full of morphine I keep thinking the next dose'll kill him. And maybe that'd be kinder.' She looks like she's going to cry.

'Well, then,' Merle says. 'Look at him. You can't tell me not to go. How can I not?'

Merle's mother doesn't say anything.

'I have to be at the castle by six,' she says, knowing for sure now she has to do it. If she ever had any doubts they're gone now. If part of her hoped her mother was going to expressly forbid it.

Merle stiffens and takes a step towards the door. Then stops and look back at her mother who seems to be frozen by the bed. What is there for her to say?

Merle holds her eye. 'And when I get that antidote I'll do what you should have done years ago and put a stake through that bastard's silent heart.'

It takes a tube, a train, a taxi and a little more than an hour to get to Cole's castle. Merle takes the time to give herself a pep talk. Now this is really happening. After the distinct lack of any kind of eleventh-hour reprieve.

As the daughter of two of the most famous vampire hunters in the world – as the daughter of the founders of Cobalt – Merle knows more about the undead than most. She knows that they exist, for a start. She also knows that they are disgusting, rotting things and that the only good thing they ever did was decide to keep themselves completely separate from human society centuries ago. Darius Cole was a vampire who didn't agree with the Clan Council's ideas about segregation. He wanted to overthrow humanity. Enslave them for food. Taking down Cole was the reason Cobalt was set up in the first place. It represented human and vampire working together for the first time in hundreds of years – probably for the first time ever – all because of Darius Cole. And they'd succeeded. Thirty years ago Cole had been captured and Cobalt had handed him over to the Black Emerald Clan to be dealt with under their laws.

Merle grew up with Darius Cole as her personal bogeyman. She has always hated him more than anything. And that was before he escaped, killed or enslaved the Black Emeralds and started poisoning Merle's family.

One of the most dangerous things about Cole is that he has super highly developed psych-powers, even for a vamp. Cole can control minds like no other vamp recorded: telepathy, suggestion, persuasion, hypnosis. Merle knew that in 25 days he could potentially do anything to her. Twist her mind.

But she also knows that vamp psych-powers aren't irresistible. It's just a matter of keeping her emotions in check.

A lot of what is said about vampires isn't really true according to Merle's mother. But one of the legends definitely is. You have to invite them in.

Like all vamp places, the Black Emerald Clan's castle is heavily warded. Invisible and undetectable. Merle has the taxi driver drop her off in what looks like the middle of nowhere and throws the little iron ball that came with the letter into the trees. Reality fractures like broken glass, and suddenly the huge stately castle in front of her is so real it is impossible to imagine how this view looked without it a moment ago.

She crunches up the drive and pauses outside the castle door, waiting for the exact dot of six. When her watch says 5.59 she reaches up, poised to grasp the enormous door knocker, but before her hand touches it the door creaks open.

The woman who peers around the doorframe, taking care to keep out of the last shards of sunlight, is clearly a vampire – she is also an image of pure decadence. She has a bird's nest tangle of blonde hair wound lopsidedly on top of her head. Her breasts, hips and lips are all lusciously plump. She is wearing a white froth of a dress that seems to reveal more of her luscious body than complete nudity would. She looks like Marilyn Monroe cast in some pornographic version of the life of Marie Antoinette. Except she looks like she'd been the one eating all the cake.

There are fangs in her mouth and some dried blood on her bottom lip.

She makes Merle feel totally sexless with her short straightish hair, and short straightish body. She's wearing plain blue jeans and dark-blue T-shirt with a muddy brown cord jacket. She hadn't wanted to look like she'd got dressed up. But the woman at the door makes her wish she'd found something a little more exhilarating to wear.

The woman not only exudes sex, she makes Merle feel like exuding sex is the only acceptable way to be. She feels herself starting to hunch her shoulders in the hope that the woman won't notice her comparative lack of breasts or hips. She takes a deep breath. 'I'm Merle Cobalt.'

'I know who you are, dear,' says the woman, before turning away and stalking into the castle. She looks like a ship at sail, rolling, swirling and billowing with every silky step.

Merle trots after her. The space beyond the imposing front door is an enormous entrance hall, five times the size of the reception at Cobalt. It's magnificent, totally old school vamp – circular and cold with echoey flagstones.

'Leave your case here,' the woman says, not looking round. 'You will follow me to the dungeon.'

'The dungeon?' The hairs on the back of her neck are tingling. Her stomach is flipping over and over. She's been feeling so sick with nerves for so long it's almost become normal.

The woman is already approaching a small wooden door that is secured with heavy bars. She draws them back and heaves the door open to reveal a flight of dank steps leading down into the realms beneath the castle. Then the woman glances back at Merle once – her gaze like steel – before starting to descend.

Swallowing hard, Merle follows her.

The steps go on for ever. Down and down, getting darker and colder and damper. The real world recedes. The only light is from some pathetic candles guttering in little recesses set into the walls. If this whole descent into the dungeon is meant to intimidate the wretched prisoner, it really works.

At the bottom of the stairs is a narrow corridor and leading off it at regular intervals are four small wooden doors with barred windows set into them. Cells.

Merle digs her fingernails into her palms as she follows the woman all the way along the corridor to the fourth and final door.

The woman turns and gives Merle a cold smile. 'You might know this story,' she says darkly. 'After your parents captured Darius Cole they turned him over to the Vampire Clan Council. He was found guilty of treachery and sentenced to live. To live here. In the custody of the Black Emerald Clan.' She yanks open the door which squeals on its hinges like it hasn't been used in centuries. Merle gets a glimpse of a tiny dark space. A slickly wet floor. Black stone walls. A wooden bench along the farthest wall. 'In this very dungeon cell. He rotted for twenty-five years. Let's see how well you endure twenty-five days.'

Merle takes a deep breath, lifts her chin and stalks inside.

It isn't until she hears the bolts being drawn that she feels her throat start to ache with the effort of not letting herself cry.

She really didn't think she would be able to sleep in the cell. But sometime later – must have been the next morning – she wakes up on the wooden bench. Her whole body aches.

She's hungry and thirsty and cold. And yet, despite how awful she feels, weirdly, she can't help thinking about Darius Cole. About the fact that she's facing 25 days like this, when he endured 25 years.

Did vampires feel the cold? Did they feel hungry and thirsty like this?

She's still thinking about this when the door to the cell squeals open. She must have become accustomed to the dark, because she has to screw up her eyes at the sudden invasion of light. A man is standing in the doorway.

'Darius Cole?' Merle says, her voice sounding scratchy thanks to her bone-dry mouth.

Despite growing up in a house of vampire hunters. Despite learning to fear Cole above all vamps. Merle had never seen a picture of him. She has no idea what he looks like. Vamps don't photograph and all the drawings that were done of him were handed over to the Black Emerald Clan by Cobalt along with Cole himself.

The man doesn't reply. Instead he takes another step into the cell and Merle can see him properly. He's smiling and he's so damn vampirey it hurts. He has a swirl of silver hair, a refined jawline and a stance that is almost too erect. There is a strange sour smell in the room that seems to have come in with him. But is he Cole? Merle feels pretty sure he isn't going to tell her straight out.

He is carrying a small wooden tray that holds a plate of toast and a glass of water. Merle bites at her dry bottom lip and finds herself staring at the water.

The man sets the tray down on the floor and takes a few more steps towards Merle until he's standing right in the middle of the cell. She finds herself shrinking back against the wall.

'Hello, Miss Cobalt,' he says. 'Are you hungry? We don't really have much food, I'm afraid. I sent Kristina out last night to buy something for you – but she didn't really do very well.' He looks down at the tray with an expression of disdain.

'That's OK, really. Could I have the water now?' Merle stands up and takes a step forwards.

'Sit down!'

Merle sits right back down at once. The wisp of intimidation that she had felt from the moment the cell door opened suddenly explodes inside her chest. God, he can be scary when he wants to be.

'No manners, really,' the man mutters to himself then he meets Merle's eye. 'You should be chained.'

'What? Why?'

The man doesn't bother to answer. He just walks over and in a simple and business like way begins to unfurl a set of manacles mounted into a bracket above the wooden bench. The chains are rusty. They clatter and clank as he picks up one wrist cuff. This close up, the sour smell coming from him is almost overwhelming and undercut with a taint like rotting meat.

'I'm here of my own free will,' Merle says, trying to talk and hold her breath against the stench at the same time. Not easy. 'You don't need to chain me up.'

'Yes I do. For –' he pauses and looks thoughtful for a moment'– for authenticity.' And then he snaps a sudden cold metal bracelet around Merle's right wrist.

Merle stares at it in disbelief. Feeling the weight of the metal along with the weight of what he is saying. 'Authenticity! You mean they kept you chained for 25 years?'

'He
was chained. You should be chained so you know how it was for him. That is the point of this, I believe. That you should know what they did to him. How he suffered for you.' He starts on the second cuff.

'"For me"? "How
he
suffered for me"? So you're not Darius Cole? And why was it for me?'

The man doesn't answer. Answering Merle's questions is clearly not his thing. He snaps shut the second bracelet and takes a step back. The cuffs around her wrists are attached to long chains, so long that the manacles would really only be a mild inconvenience rather than a restriction. The man smiles. 'Very nice. They suit you.'

Merle shakes her head with exasperation. She just wants to know now. She doesn't even care about the manacles or his creepy comments.
'Are
you Darius Cole? Was it you who was chained up down here for 25 years?'

The man laughs. 'Maybe.'

Merle frowns. She looks past him at the tray on the floor. Suddenly she stops caring about who this man is as the glass of water starts calling to her dry throat. She looks up at her captor. 'Are you going to let me have something to eat now?'

'Maybe. If you earn it?'

'If I earn it. How do I earn it?'

'Kiss me. Kiss me nicely and I'll bring the tray over.'

'Kiss you. I'm not kissing you, Cole, you murdering traitor.'

'Ah, so I am Cole?'

'They said Cole would play stupid games, so, yeah.'

'But all vampires love to play games with humans. Perhaps I'm just a friend of Cole's. Perhaps I just wanted to play with his new toy while he was busy. Perhaps I actually find you just as repulsive as you do me, blood sack.'

'So, you're not Cole?'

'Kiss me and I'll tell you.' The man bends down, his lips inching closer.

'Get away from me!' Merle lashes out at him, not really thinking about anything except how really, really grossed out she is. But she hits the man right in the face. Not so very hard, but it is enough of a shock that he staggers backwards. Away from her, taking his death-smell with him.

When he recovers himself – backing up even further – his face is livid.

Merle is shaking.

'Oh, now that wasn't nice,' he says. He turns and makes to leave. As he passes the tray on the floor he kicks out with his foot. The water spills, the glass breaks and the toast scatters on the dirty floor. 'Oh dear,' he says. 'That's a shame.' As he reaches the cell door and opens it he turns. 'See you tomorrow, Miss Cobalt.'