Thirst (21 page)

“I’m
sorry I made you think we could skip past it like nothing happened.
But look at you, even now, after everything, you still think I’m
bad. You still think I’m wrong. I don’t understand you. Why would
you even want me to live with you?”

“Can’t
you see what it was like for me?” She clung to my arm. “How scared
I was?”

“How
scared you were?” All of the emotions I’d pushed down flooded
upward as I shrugged her off. I half-turned and lifted my shirt as
a reminder. “Try and remember how scared I was, for a change.” She
turned her head, unwilling to look at the scars she’d allowed a
faux-religious conman to inflict before I reached my tenth
birthday.

“There’s
obviously nothing to talk about then. You’ve made it pretty clear
nothing’s changed.” Ignoring the lump in my throat, I left the
room. I’d given her another chance because deep down I was
desperate for family, desperate to belong. I should have known it
wouldn’t work out, it never did.

“I’m
sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s
fine,” I said without looking back. “I get it, I do.” I didn’t
enjoy being reminded of the past either. Our secrets weighed
heavily on both of us. My mother giving birth to a child that was
more vampire than human hadn’t been easy for anyone, but I was
almost certain it didn’t automatically make me a monster.
Almost.

As I left
her house, I realised I had expected too much from my grandmother.
After a seven year separation, the couple of weeks we’d spent
together had me thinking she’d mellowed with age, that she could be
there for me and provide unconditional love. Some things would
never be true, no matter how much I wished for them. She still
relished the martyr role; I would always be her burden.

Determined to get the woman out of my head, I trudged through
an unexpected rainstorm and arrived home dripping wet and
shivering. My slutty next-door neighbour stared from her doorway as
I opened the door to my flat. I ignored her and her freakishly
strong perfume, and raised the volume on my television when I heard
her male companion arrive. She went through men like I went through
cartons of milk, and she wasn’t quiet about it.

I
couldn’t afford to heat the flat, so I curled up under my duvet and
eventually dozed off. Nightmares plagued my sleep. Over and over
again, I saw Maximus rise up and strike against me. I woke up
shaking, my cheeks wet with tears. He was dead. I killed him, but I
couldn’t let the whole thing go. The idea that he would somehow
come back for me remained a constant torment.

Agitated,
I counted and multiplied until my heart stopped racing. Once the
blood Eddie Brogan fed me while I had been injured wore off, my
anxiety returned. Although I’d feared feeding an addiction to
blood, my thirst hadn’t overwhelmed me in a while. My nervous
habits had been the problem instead.

The sky
darkened, and I sensed the vampires awakening. I went to my window
and sighed; already they were hanging around outside my home. I had
first noticed them three days before standing in front of my
building in pairs. Every night, they came and stood where I could
see them, watching, waiting, keeping me on edge.

I reached
out with my extra sense and observed the world on another level. A
world full of red pulsing, dotted with something . . . other. Even
in my own apartment building, I saw a shimmering presence I
couldn’t explain.

Right
outside my building were some conspicuously empty pockets. They had
no spark of life, no flash of energy, no light of soul; they were
nothing. That’s how I knew they were vampires.

Frowning,
I leaned on my windowsill and watched. The pair stood outside,
silent and idle for hours, conspicuous enough to convince me I was
supposed to see them. But why? If they belonged to Daimhín, this
could be her way of reminding me I worked for her. I still hadn’t
come up with a way of getting out of that one. I shivered, unable
to dispel a sudden chill. Next time I saw her, I had to ask, just
in case they didn’t belong to her.

I made a
cup of coffee and, returning to the window, I noticed the vampires
had been replaced with a different pair. I sipped my drink and
stared freely at them, knowing they couldn’t see me – and knowing
that if they couldn’t see me, they meant me harm. The magical
safeguards around my building guaranteed that kind of protection
from the uninvited who harboured ill intent.

I thought
one looked familiar, but I couldn’t be sure. Like all vampires,
they had mottled, wrinkled skin that looked as though the blood had
been completely drained. To me, most of them looked
alike.

The
vampires shifted uncomfortably, as if they could sense me watching.
I knew I was safe from them for now; there were even more magical
forms of protection on my building than before. Eddie had reassured
my grandmother that he had tightened my defences, but a niggling
doubt made me wonder what else he did. As far as I was concerned,
he sold me out to the vampires in the end so I could never trust
him. I still didn’t know what kind of supernatural being he was, or
even what he was capable of. In some ways, I feared him more than
Daimhín.

Shortly
before dawn, the vampires sprinted away. I blinked, and they were
gone. I couldn’t begin to figure out what was going on, and I was
too exhausted to try. Sleep claimed me as soon as I lay
down.

Yet
again, my dreams brought to the surface everything I had felt while
being tortured. Lack of control was the one thing that overwhelmed
me the most over the last seven years. Being left helpless by a
vampire’s torture methods went a step beyond my coping
limits.

Alone and
afraid, I trembled in the dark. Clutching the cross that had once
magically numbed my thirst, I whispered pointless prayers to
whatever entity was out there messing with me.

A gentle
breeze caressed my cheek, each puff a cold, soothing hand against
my skin. The presence had followed me around for a while and
comforted me every night. I trusted it only because I had to trust
something or I’d go completely insane. What I really needed was for
life to go back to normal, back to me avoiding humans and vampires
as much as possible. Back to me staying out of trouble.

That was
too much to ask for.

When a
call on my mobile showed the name Daimhín, I was tempted to ignore
it. I didn’t dare, even though it was daylight so couldn’t possibly
be the vampire equivalent of a queen.

“Miss
Delaney?” said an unfamiliar female voice.

“Yep.”

“This is…
the day assistant of Daimhín. I’ve been asked to inform you that
your presence is required on Friday evening. I’ll text you the
location.”

“Day
assistant. Right. And if I’m busy?”

Her
hesitation vanished, and her voice turned ice-cold. “Then someone
will come and get you. It wouldn’t be pleasant, so I advise you to
turn up, Miss Delaney. Of your own accord.”

“Fine.
I’ll be there. Hey, wait. Know anything about the vampires hanging
around outside my place?”

She
paused; I held my breath, half-hoping she would say yes. At least
then I would know.

“I
haven’t heard anything about it.” She hung up and sent me the text
straight away. The assistant bothered me as much as Daimhín. I
couldn’t tell if she was lying about the vampires. I was pretty
sure the woman was in a relationship of some kind with Peter, and
he was the one who had told Daimhín I had agreed to work for her.
More betrayal I didn’t want to think about.

One of
the non-life threatening downsides to working for Daimhín was that
it meant less time spent on my own business. Rule one of earning a
reasonable income by buying and selling esoteric relics online
involved maintaining a solid, reliable presence. The supernatural
world had been a major factor in the deterioration of my business
relationships. Feeling weary, I turned on my old laptop with a plan
to make up time for whatever errands Daimhín had planned for
Friday.

A loud
knock at the door soon interrupted a grovelling email. I regretted
opening the door the instant I saw the look on my landlord’s
face.

“Hello,
Mr. McGreavy. How are you?” I gave him my cheeriest smile despite
my expectance of a bad attitude in return.

He glared
and lifted his shoulders, trying to tower over me. When I first
came to view my home, he’d interviewed me in his flat where I’d
seen plenty of old photos of him. He had once been a handsome man
but had apparently eaten his weight in fast food until grease began
to seep out of his pores.

“Where’s
the rent, Delaney?” His squinty eyes almost disappeared under the
enormous frowning brow.

“I told
you already, you’ll get it in a few weeks. I’m still waiting to get
paid.” Total lie. My business had pretty much gone to hell while
I’d dealt with accidentally enthralling a human and trying to avoid
being picked up by two warring vampire clans. Recovering from
Maximus’s torture, I’d not only lost days, but also money, sales,
and a couple of regulars to boot. Catching up proved a struggle. I
had no chance of making the rent anytime soon.

“I’m
still waiting, too. You have until tomorrow.” McGreavy sounded
really happy about that, the greasy sod. My slutty next-door
neighbour could always charm her way into an extra couple of week’s
leeway. Wait. Maybe I could too.

I’d been
thinking about what I did to Carl, spent some time concentrating on
where the power came from to stop me from doing it again
accidentally. Instead of shutting off any supernatural ability I
might have, I had begun to explore the possibilities. It was time
to find out if I could use my persuasive side on
purpose.

McGreavy
turned to leave, satisfied with his intimidation of me. I grabbed
his coat sleeve, forcing him to stop. He tried to pull away and
frowned at my hand, perhaps wondering why I was so much stronger
than him. I stared right into his eyes and let that other part of
me show, not the fangs or the aggression, but the seductive
willpower that had worked so well on Carl, whether I wanted it to
or not.

“I need
more time,” I said, my voice soft and slow. Different. Something
pulsed on the surface of my skin, but I ignored the sensation and
concentrated, kept thinking about how he should feel and tried to
force the feeling toward him.

McGreavy’s face contorted with anger then, all of a sudden,
let it go. I could hear his heartbeat slowing down; the rhythm
calmed me. His loose jowls slack, he stared back at me and
nodded.

“Can you
give me an extra month to pay?” I thought about pleasing me and
pushed the notion toward him, willing him to accept it.

“Yes,” he
said with a fervent nod. “Of course.” He leaned toward me as if to
steal a kiss; I backed off, alarmed.

“Um,
cool, thanks!” I closed the door on his surprised face. Risking a
look through the peephole, I watched his features screwing up with
confusion. Pleased with the results, I stifled a giggle as he
stumbled away.

Cold air
blasted the back of my neck. Apparently, the spirit wanted to show
its displeasure.

“I had no
choice, I can’t pay him,” I protested, but the words sounded dead,
as if even I didn’t believe them. The presence blew directly in my
face, making me blink.

“I’m
sorry,” I amended, hoping it sounded sincere. I hated myself for
forcing Carl to do my bidding by accident. What made my landlord
any different?

I sat,
humbled, and the guilt kicked in, sucking the exhilaration away. I
decided to give Carl a call and check up on him. My reasons were
selfish; I wanted to know he was doing okay, that I had done right
by him after all.

“Ava? Is
that you?” Carl’s familiar voice was completely absent of the dull,
brainless tone he’d taken on while entranced.

I opened
my mouth to answer when a hysterical-sounding woman screamed at him
in the background.

“Shut up,
Maria. I’m on the phone!”

“Um,
sounds like a bad time, I’ll call you back sometime.” I hurriedly
hung up just as his fiancée, Maria, screamed at him
again.

I hoped
they weren’t still fighting because he had gone missing for a
couple of days. The relief she felt when he returned home had
quickly turned to anger, particularly when he continued to visit
me. His visits had dropped off, and I assumed he had gone back to
his own life and taken my advice to forget about my
world.

Not for
the first time, I wished I had the luxury of returning to a normal
life.

I spent
Friday afternoon working, but my appointment with Daimhín never
left my mind, pushing everything else out of my head. By the time I
got ready to leave, I was running on nervous energy.

Getting
ready mostly consisted of putting on silver bracelets and the
cross-shaped talisman Eddie had given me. I still had possession of
the special dagger he had pressed on me before a fight. I had no
intention of returning it. I had adjusted my favourite coat so I
could carry the dagger in a number of different ways; I wasn’t
letting it out of my sight if I could help it.