Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (12 page)

His modern attire, slightly stained with blood and dirt, gave me the instant impression that he was a man of the current world—perhaps worked a regular job and mingled with humans. His gait and stride matched that of a confident human with a slight timid pace as if he were walking into a situation that requires either great reverence or perhaps fear. He clasped a straw fedora between his hands, taking a sneaky look at me before lowering his eyes to his bare feet.

“Trey,” Drake said with a circular wave of his hand, “you will kneel beside our guest and give your life.”

“Yes, my King.”

My jaw dropped as Trey bowed and walked toward me without even a hint of fear.

“Wait.” I shuffled uncomfortably in my seat. “He doesn’t have to die. I can—”

“He will die,” Drake said absently, looking at a newspaper. “He is prepared.”

“But…” I leaned away from the man as he knelt and angled his head, exposing his neck. The pulsing vein there bulged, though, and suddenly I didn’t much care for his life. I just wanted his blood—all of it. Yet, if I killed him, I knew I’d wear the guilt for the rest of my days. “Why don’t I keep him?”

Drake looked up from the paper. “Excuse me?”

“I could keep him—for the duration of my stay—feed on him when I get hungry.”

This piqued his interest. “Like a pet?”

My eyes shifted sideways to see what Trey thought of that; he gave no indication of his desires either way. “I guess,” I said.

Drake looked at Trey, then at me, then back down at his paper. “Very well. But he is to be chained up in your quarters—preferably in the cellar. Am I clear?”

“Why?”

“He is a criminal.”

“What did he do wrong?”

“Robbed a bank.” Drake sounded bored with this conversation. “Got himself arrested by human law enforcement.”

“Oh.” I looked back at the criminal. “Why did you rob a bank?”

He looked at Drake, as if waiting for permission to speak.

“We do not care for the whys and wherefores of crimes, Amara,” Drake said flatly. “He is guilty, and he can either accept death by venom or fifty years supreme torture.”

The man physically cringed. My guess: he had a low pain threshold. “Well, then I’ll be sure to kill him when I’m finished with him.”

“I’m sure you will,” Drake said, eyes on the newspaper, voice intoned with disbelief. “Now are you going to eat from him, or shall I have him sent to your room for later?”

My mouth went completely dry as I considered my options. I wanted it bad, but blood drinking was just too private an act to perform at the dining table, so I asked Drake to send my blood-on-demand away.

We ate in silence then, the unfamiliar sounds of an old castle still settling into its soil keeping my ears and thoughts everywhere but breakfast, until Drake quietly said, “I have a hearing to attend today.”

“Oh?” I said after he added nothing else.

“I’ll be in the southern wing for most of the afternoon. And tonight we have a tour bus coming in.” He looked up from his paper. “Perhaps you’d like to mingle with the humans—as a tourist. You might enjoy the theatre show.”

I shook my head fiercely, straightening my already straight napkin. “I can’t go to the southern wing.”

I felt his gaze on me for a while. “Very well then. I’m sure you can find something to amuse yourself today.”

“I plan to invade David’s privacy while sitting under a tree in the courtyard.”

“Invade his privacy?” he asked, with a hint of humour in his voice.

“Mm-hm.” I nodded, smiling. “I’m gonna read his journals. If I can find them.”

Drake had a glint in his eye then. “Are you certain that’s a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

He didn’t respond. He just pushed his black brows up his head and sipped his coffee, shaking his head.

“Any clues as to where they might be?” I asked. “The journals, that is.”

At first I thought he didn’t hear me, or perhaps wasn’t going to answer, but it seemed more like he was just not a morning person—kind of like me—and did not appreciate so much talking before he finished his coffee.

He closed the newspaper, laid it and his hands on the table, pushing his chair out. “In the interests of keeping you busy and therefore not focusing on all your worldly problems I will tell you only this—” He leaned down and whispered, “All in David’s chambers is not what it seems. Where there is darkness you may find light; where there is a dead end you may find passage.”

My whole face slipped off my bones, leaving behind a cheap yellow circle with two black eyes and a small lopsided line for a mouth.

Drake laughed. “The confusion will do you good. It will keep your mind alert.”

“Thanks,” I said, rolling my eyes into my coffee cup. “I appreciate it.”

***

My skinny arms flexed as I tugged the small black ring to open the trapdoor again. It squealed and groaned, finally giving way, and the light of a new and sunny day tumbled down onto the wooden steps. This was the only dead end or dark place in here that I could think of. It also happened to contain a very juicy vampire for me to feed on.

“Hello?” I called into the darkness.

“Who… who’s there?” Trey said nervously.

“It’s just me. Ara.”

“Who are you?” I heard chains rattling. “What do you want with me?”

I ducked down as I came to the last step and peered into the cellar, finding my blood-on-demand seated in the dirt, both hands chained up beside his head. “We met downstairs, remember? I’m supposed to kill you.”

“Oh god.” He cried, resting his head back on the wall. “I knew he’d choose death. I don’t want to die. I don’t—”

“Wait, don’t you remember meeting me at breakfast?” I walked over and sat cross-legged in front of him, mindful of the dirt blackening my jeans. “I decided not to kill you—that I’d just feed on you.”

He lifted his head and one eye popped open. “You did?”

I nodded, crossing my heart.

His head went back against the wall again, this time in relief. “Thank God. I… I have a family—a human family. They need me. We… we have no money, I—”

“So that’s why you robbed the bank,” I said with a nod.

“No one was supposed to know. I was gonna be in and out before anyone came. But… the manger… she… there was a group of them. Too many to kill. And I couldn’t let them know what I was, so I had to let myself get arrested.”

“Where’s your family—do they know?”

He shook his head. “No one in the vampire community knows I have a family. So there’s no one to tell them where I’ve gone. They’ll think I… that I…”

“That you left them?”

He sobbed loudly then, his shoulders shaking. “Their father ran off when they were young—too young to know any better. I’m all they’ve ever known, and…” He wiped his eye on his shoulder. “Their mom, she can’t work now—she has this human condition that put her in a wheelchair. I was doing my best to support them, but the taxes—the King’s taxes. I just…”

“Couldn’t keep up.”

He turned his head and cried into his arm for a moment. He was young—maybe about twenty-six—and quite nice looking if you could see past the dirt and blood clumping his shaggy brown hair into mats. “You’ve been beaten,” I said, getting up onto my knees.

“Severely.”

“Why?”

He tried to shrug. “I spoke up to the guard—called him a fat cock.”

Very carefully, with a touch as delicate as a butterfly kiss, I moved his hair from the cut in his eye. They were a pretty pale blue, and I could see why a human would fall for him. That vampire charm and allure, combined with naturally good human looks would be enough to sway any girl. “I’m going to try to help you, okay? And get you back to your family.”

“Drake will never set me free.” His face sunk then and his eyes turned down on the corners. “They’ll end up on the streets now—without me. I let them down in the worst possible way.”

I reached out and wiped a tear off his chin. “Don’t cry. You’ll be okay.”

He didn’t believe that. I could tell. But he was weak and worn by worry, and none of his cuts had healed. I’d been at breakfast for only half an hour since he was brought up, and it must have taken only a few minutes to beat him, but even then, he should have healed by now. “I’m going to give you my blood to heal you, okay? And then I’m going to drink yours.”

He nodded, then frowned up at me. “You’re one of those Lilithians, aren’t you?”

“I am.” I rolled my sleeve up. “I’m a Pure Blood.”

Realisation set in like cold, waking his mind. “Then you didn’t bring
venom
to kill me—your teeth can do it. You’re tricking me.” He rattled the chains. “You mean to kill me! Please. Please don’t—”

“Calm down.” I steadied his shoulders. “I won’t bite you. I promise.”

He didn’t hear me though. He cried and whimpered and prayed to God, and I knelt back, watching for a second, until I’d had enough; I swung my arm back and slapped him hard. “Snap out of it!”

He snapped instantly.

“I am not here to kill you,” I repeated, offering my wrist. “Now drink.”

He looked at my arm then my eyes then my arm.

I offered again. “Drink.”

He moved his mouth quickly and bit into me like an apple. When his teeth cut my sensitive flesh and the blood rushed up to its fate, I used everything in me not to push him away, or to fall under the spell of seduction. I missed David so badly I could easily take comfort from another. But as soon as the bloodlust wore off, I’d be left with nothing but guilt, and I was smart enough now not to fall for it.

“That’s enough.” I jammed my palm into his forehead and shoved him away, pinching the wound closed with my thumb.

Trey healed right before my eyes, his skin knitting a new path over the small cuts, revealing a very attractive face beneath.

He grinned at me, his teeth stained with lines of red. “You don’t taste any different to a human.”

“I know.” I gently pulled my sleeve down to cover the bite. If Drake knew I was feeding Trey, we’d both be in a lot of trouble. “Now you need to feed me.”

He rolled his head to one side, a confident smile warming his face, while a sliver of fear darkened his eyes.

“I promise you,” I assured him again, sweeping my hair away from my mouth as I leaned in. “I won’t bite you.”

***

One thing I’d learned since discovering my powers is that energy is residual. It sticks around long after a person is gone, telling a kind of… story.

I walked up and down the lengths of the castle’s west wing, following the ‘feeling’ of Jason, taking detours when that feeling led me to the southern wing, and eventually ended up on the first floor. After running down several corridors and around many many bends, the energy led me to a hallway with some fifty-odd doors all the way down, squished so close together I figured the rooms behind them must be awfully small. And very clearly where the low-ranking members of the Set lived.

In my short three days here so far I’d already pieced a lot together: World Council leaders roomed on the third floor; Lower Council members, which made up the New England Set Leaders, were on David’s floor; and all their minions were down here. None of these doors had locks from what I could see, and no one even bothered with torches to light the way. Were it not for the very small window at the end of the corridor casting a thin strip of light down to the other end, I would’ve had to come back with a candle.

Jason’s energy buzzed and pulsed when I reached the seventeenth door. I stood outside for a moment, listening closely for movement inside, but it seemed like no one was home today—anywhere on this floor—so I twisted the handle and let myself in.

The curtains were drawn and the room smelled musty, like wet paper and rusty iron. There were piles of books gathering dust in every corner, a single steel bed in the middle of the room, like something from an old asylum, and one chest of drawers by the window. Enough light came in through a tear in the curtains to make me feel very sorry for Jason.

I shut the door quietly behind me and moved the curtain aside to let in a little more light. His view was of a wall in the courtyard—grey cobblestone that ran what seemed the entire length of this floor, set far enough back to allow light into the room but to also completely block the view of green grass and trees. The worst thing was, the wall actually didn’t look as though it had a purpose at all—as if it were built here purely to show the lower class how much they mattered.

With my arms folded, I leaned on the window-frame and took a good look around the room. Unlike David’s room, spiders had taken up residence in here, gathering in the corners for family reunions and community egg-laying, abandoning their dust-covered webs to build in better locations. The cities of books in piles about the room had become watch towers for mice, evident by the chewed corners and brown droplets left behind. However, judging from the way they were stacked, spines facing outward, I knew the seemingly chaotic mess was actually well organised.