No Shelter from Darkness (39 page)

The windows of the house had blown out, and Mary could see the flickering orange light of flames bouncing off the walls inside.
Her surroundings had also been illuminated. It was the most she'd seen for a while. With her heart in her mouth, she picked herself up and rushed over to the house, mindless of the bits of mortar that still hailed down, missing her by inches.

The front door had been blown clean off and lay in the road, while smoke began to plume out from inside, crawling across the ceiling before rising up from under the top of the frame. Fearing the worst, her tears began to well. She looked in and saw that everything had been devastated. The flames lit up the place in a horrible shade of flickering daylight. She sniffed back tears and, shielding her face from the heat with her arm, went into the house.

Its layout was a mirror image of the Wade's house. She crouched under the smoke and went from the hall into the sitting room. The kitchen was on fire and the flames were growing stronger, but from what she could see there was no one in there. Outside the whistling of bombs continued, but they were moving on. The drone of the planes had peaked and was now fading into the distance, in danger of being drowned out altogether by the roaring fire.

Restricted to the two sitting rooms, Mary realized there weren't enough possessions around for the house to be lived in. It was deserted, and all that had been left behind was a few bits of furniture. What possessions there were had been smashed and lay around in pieces.

Oliver and Beth were nowhere to be seen. Mary leant against the sitting room wall, crying. She slid down and put her head in her hands. Oliver was dead, and so was Beth. The little brother she never had, and the best friend who'd tried to save him. It was the day before she was escaping London, but the war was determined to take even more away from her. She couldn't go through it all again. She felt broken.

In the corner of her eye, something moved. She stopped sniffling and lifted her head, looking at the wide, overturned armchair against the wall. Someone coughed.

Mary jumped to her feet and rushed over, pulling the chair with all her might away from the wall. Under it laid Beth, cradling her brother. Both of them were covered in dust. Beth lifted her head, dazed. Oliver's eyes were the next to flitter open, but his face immediately screwed up in pain. He groaned as Beth took her arm away from his. She'd been protecting him; Mary could see the wound now, and the
bone, and the blood to which dust had stuck. She felt a little woozy, but kept it under control. Beth rolled back a little and Mary saw the lengths to which she'd gone to save and protect her brother. Her right arm was covered in small cuts, and the fabric of the dress covering her shoulder was slowly turning red.

Smoke began to steal breathable air. They all started to cough.

“Come on,” cried Mary, taking Beth's hand and pulling her up. The two of them got Oliver to his feet, then struggled through the house and out into the street. Crossing the road, they propped him up against the front of a house. Beth stayed with him, visibly exhausted. A bell was ringing from somewhere. Mary turned around to see a fire truck turn onto the road, followed by an ambulance.

“Stay there,” she ordered, before running up the street to ensure the ambulance would come for them. While she waved her arms at the turning for Moravian Street, she heard a shout.

“Mary?”

She turned and saw Lynne outside the door of the house, who then started trotting down toward her with tears in her eyes.

“Mary, thank God you're safe. Where are Beth and Oliver? Are they with you? Are they all right?”

Mary took her down the road, following the rescue vehicles. Lynne focused her attention on Oliver while a nurse took him into the ambulance. Everyone had varying cuts and wounds; they would all be accompanying Oliver to the hospital. Mary waited for Lynne to climb in after her son and then Beth staggered toward the open doors of the wagon. She stopped and glanced at Mary. In that second, they both understood each other; they both knew what the other knew.

Beth wasn't human, but she would die before letting anything happen to her family.

A flash of light abruptly interrupted their silent understanding, but this time there was no accompanying boom. The rough and ready would-be journalist offered a quick, sympathetic smile, before pointing his camera toward the burning buildings.

FORTY-TWO

MARY HAD BEEN LYING IN BED
listening to the clock tick away for what felt like hours. She'd hardly slept over the past week. Each day had been a battle to keep awake through the boring bits, but when darkness came she woke up. She got an hour here, forty minutes there, but it wasn't enough.

Last night was an exception to this.

When they arrived at the hospital, things were pretty quiet. The raid that was taking place over London was, in fact, a small one. It made Mary realize that it didn't matter how big or small a raid was; if you were unlucky enough to be caught in the middle, it was hell. At Lynne's request, the ambulance took them to her hospital, The London Hospital, rather than Bethnal Green Infirmary.

All three women young and old wanted to remain with Oliver, but at varying times they all had to leave him. While he had his bone set and then a cast molded, Mary was seen to for a few cuts and grazes. Beth disappeared somewhere, but was back in time for her turn with the nurse. She had her shoulder seen to and the wound in her hand cleaned and bandaged.

The all clear sounded while they were still there, waiting for Oliver's cast to set. Afterward, they returned home, driven by the same kindly driver who'd taken them there. They'd got home in the early hours of the morning to find Mr. Wade waiting for them, pacing back and forth across the room. He'd apparently done all he could while on duty, but with his leg burdening him from doing any more, he came home to check on his family. He'd only been waiting thirty minutes, he said, but it was thirty minutes of total fear.

With everyone tired and exhausted, they all turned in. Beth was on her way to the shelter when Lynne stopped her.

“Oh no you don't, young lady. That shelter's far too cold and wet,” she'd said.

For a brief moment Mary's fear returned, but she and Beth looked at each other with the same look they'd had earlier that night. Mary turned the corners of her mouth up, silently confirming that it was all right for Beth to sleep in her own room. Mary trusted her.

She'd lain awake for a few minutes, wondering if it was a good time to start asking questions. But before she could decide on the first one to ask, she'd slipped away from the waking world.

She had finally risen from her slumber, awake in the darkened room with bright light trying to invade from the edges of the blind, for no other reason than excitement and sadness wrapped up in one emotion. Today, she was going to see her Uncle Patrick, the only member of her blood-related family left alive, and the only one to whom she'd been close. But she was leaving behind what had become a second family.

By the side of her bed, from the floor, she heard Beth groan sleepily.

“Mary?”

“How did you know I was awake?”

Beth hesitated for a second. “Your breathing isn't heavy enough,” she said finally. “What time is it?”

Mary looked at the face of the clock in the gloom. “Just gone eight.”

“No one's up,” noted Beth.

It was a moving gesture, that the entire Wade household would take a day off from life just to see Mary off at the station. It warmed her and made her sadness at leaving all the stronger. She wondered if she still would have decided to leave if it wasn't for her fear of Beth. Ultimately, she concluded that it would still be best. Uncle Patrick needed looking after, by the sounds of it.

But what of Beth? Mary still had a small, healthy fear—not of what Beth could do, but of what she was. How could she not? But while she had no doubt of the darkness that existed within her best friend, she also had no doubt that it was under her control. Mary had always thought of Beth as a bit of a do-gooder, an angel. She still thought that way now after last night, only now she thought of her as an angel
with a dark secret. She wondered if she should try to discover more about that secret.
Do I even want to?
she wondered.

“You're not afraid of me anymore, then?”

Beth had made Mary's decision for her. She was put on the spot and didn't quite know how to answer. “No. I mean, I don't know. I don't think so.”

In the darkened room it was just her voice and Beth's. She suddenly remembered how Beth was able to climb over rubble in the dark without putting a foot wrong and her curiosity took control once more. “How much can you see? I mean, right now? In the dark?”

“Everything,” came the reply.

Mary found it unnerving, but at the same time intriguing. “Is it like daytime to you?”

“It is daytime,” Beth reminded her.

“You know what I mean.”

“No. I know it's dark. Colors are duller than usual and a lot of detail is missing. I could probably read a book just about, but I'd have to hold it quite close.”

“Is there anything else? Your hearing has always been pretty good.”

“That, and smell.”

Mary remembered back to when Beth had smelled what was for dinner when they weren't even in the house. “Is it annoying?”

“You get used to it. You learn to ignore most of everything.”

The girls fell silent for a while and Mary processed what she was hearing. Yet again it was Beth who took the conversation to the next level. “You know what I am. Right?”

That was the question Mary had wanted to ask all along, but didn't know if it would be rude, offensive, or just plain dumb. “I think so, but it's … it's a little hard to believe.”

“You're telling me,” said Beth. “Do you want me to say it?” she offered.

“Vampire,” said Mary. She waited a second. “Even though you like garlic.”

“What's that got to do with anything?”

“Isn't garlic supposed to scare you away or something?”

“How can a herb scare someone away?”

“It works in the old folktales. I think.”

Again there was silence. A long silence.

“How did you know?” asked Beth.

Mary didn't really want to think about
that
night and tried to keep the images away as she spoke. “I saw you … do … or drink, or whatever. Last week.”

“I'm sorry you saw that. It couldn't have been nice.”

“No. It was bloody terrifying.”

Silence.

“So are there others like you?”

“Yeah.”

“How many?”

“I don't know, actually. It's a good question. I'll have to ask Dad.”

“How does he know?” And then a flurry of questions occurred to her. “How did you find out? Have you always known?”

Over the next half-hour or so, Beth spoke quietly of her life so far. She spared no detail about the animal in Victoria Park, the attempt at hunting, and her own internal conflicts, but never really explained how her father knew so much. Mary doubted that Mr. Wade simply “picking up on a few things and reading lots of books” was the full story, but she didn't push it.

“You're not supposed to know any of this, Mary. I've only told you because you figured it out yourself. I can't tell you how important it is that you don't breathe a word of this to anyone. Ever. Not for me, but for you. For your safety.”

“I don't think that's going to be a problem. I don't really want to get locked away, do I?”

“And,” continued Beth, “it's probably best if Dad doesn't know that you know. That's for my safety.”

FORTY-THREE

IT WAS IN STARK CONTRAST
to the day before that an autumn sun shone through a slight haze of cloud. Everything had glistened that morning. Since those early hours, on the way to Liverpool Street Station, the roads were drying and evidence of the rainfall was evaporating. It had been the first good bit of rain in a while and though people might have complained, it always refreshed the atmosphere. It took away much of the dust that was constantly in the air from the bombings, and in these times of horror it brought with it a certain hopeful cleanliness.

Mary's emotions seemed to be mirrored in Beth. She was undeniably sad to see her best friend go, especially now when she had finally found someone to talk to about everything. Mary was an outsider and the small amount of time that they'd spent that morning talking had helped lift a great weight off Beth. She was also helped by her newfound trust in herself. It was the reason she allowed herself to feel happy.

The night before, she had beaten the monster inside of her. In her darkest hour, at the most crucial time, she'd been tested more thoroughly than she could ever imagine. And she'd passed. She'd beaten back the thirst and held it at bay, and she continued doing so all night.

Once at the hospital, she had found herself surrounded by vials and bottles of blood. It had been one test after another, but still she kept the monster hidden inside until she could satisfy it discreetly. There had been enough going on that things were missed, and one of those things had been a blood transfusion bottle, left by an empty bed. It still had blood in it. It wasn't more than a couple of days'
worth for her, and she was still in deficit. But with the promise of fresh blood from Jeff, a little was all she needed to see her through the night.

Using sleight-of-hand and sneaky moves, she had liberated the bottle and found a darkened cleaning cupboard. Hidden inside, she drank the cooled blood. Without the warmth, the taste was impeded and its effects not quite as strong, but it would do. When they all got back home, Beth was confident enough to accept Mary's unspoken invitation to sleep in her own room, and was thankful for it.

That morning, after she and Mary had finished chatting away when others stirred, her father kept to his word and left upon rising. With a full house, it was back to some cloak and dagger tactics, but when Beth finally got to the shelter, she guzzled the first pint of blood and took her time with the second, meeting her needs. For the first time in a fortnight, she felt no thirst at all.