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I didn’t need telling twice this time.
Fleeing, I glanced behind every few seconds, convinced that hands were grappling at my flesh, though they were not gaining. Yet I could hear them. Leaves rustled and branches groaned; the mist swirled as though something was moving – and moving fast – through it.
My feet carried me deeper into the forest, but I knew I could not keep this up for long. I was gulping down air but my lungs were empty and another side-stitch clung to my ribs. They would catch me and something told me they would not be so merciful this time.
All of a sudden, I broke free from the trees into a large clearing. I flung out my arms, teetering forward on my toes as I came to an abrupt stop. The earth crumbled beneath my feet and I shuffled back, raising my gaze and taking in my surroundings. I was standing on the banks of a small lake, its dark depths shimmering in the morning sun, a low mist clinging to the opposite bank.
An eerie silence descended. There was no crashing, no sound of footsteps, nothing. I took a lengthy look behind, searching the forest for any sign of the killers I was sure were following me.
The quiet was even more unsettling than the noise and I began to edge around, speeding up to a bolt as my hairs stood on end. As I started moving again, the crashing returned, definitely footsteps this time and they were following me around. As I sped up, so did they, and reaching the opposite bank, I realized they were circling on the other side too. I had nowhere to run.
I backed up as far as I dared, waiting, like prey herded into a trap.
Without warning, six figures leapt from amongst the trees, and in fright I scrabbled backwards, forgetting that I stood on the very edge of the bank, and with a shriek, I was sent floundering down into the water.
Before I even hit the surface I felt its chill and saw my skin turn an icy blue. As the water erupted around me, it poured into my still shrieking mouth. I coughed and spluttered, gulping down even more. My legs flailed and searched for the bottom, more resembling an octopus than a human being. Nevertheless, I broke the surface long enough to snatch a breath. But it wasn’t long enough to scream as something that felt like seaweed wrapped around my ankle. With one yank, it pulled me back below the surface. Looking down, I realized it was a tentacle wrapped around my leg, and that I was face-to-face with what looked like a giant squid.
I groaned in my mind. Why can’t my life be normal?
Panicking, I started attacking the tentacle, trying to pry it from my skin but the squid didn’t seem to notice and just pulled me deeper. My lungs began to burn and scream for air and I realized there was nothing I could do but give up.
My mind became fuzzy as something white flashed in the corner of my eye. A white light. How very original. I vaguely recognized that it was moving and that its blurred outline resembled a body before my eyelids fluttered and then shut.
Kidnapped by a vampire, death by squid. How tragic.
FOUR
Kaspar
‘Violet! Wake the hell up!’ Fabian said, bending over her limp body and slapping her cheek. He raised his hand to hit her again when her eyes flew open, water spewing from her mouth. I caught sight of the fleshy roof of her mouth and her teeth, fangless. Fabian sprung back, yanking his hand away. But I stepped forward, finishing the job for him. My hand came into contact with her skin with a satisfying crack and her cheek became a bloody red.
Fabian turned to me, his eyes becoming black. Kaspar, he growled in my mind.
I shrugged, pushing my dripping fringe from my forehead. ‘Just making sure,’ I replied, aloud. Her dress had become sheer and my eyes roamed over her body, wondering what I had done to have such a good specimen cross my path. Fabian pulled his jacket off and slung it around her shoulders as she sat up, his consciousness lingering around the edge of mine.
But she didn’t miss my gaze either. ‘Oh, Kaspar, my hero,’ she said between gasps of air, her voice thick with sarcasm.
‘And yes, you are the damsel in distress,’ I answered, equally sarcastic, pulling my soaking T-shirt up and over my head.
‘That’s all the thanks you’re getting, so I suggest you take it,’ she muttered, clearly thinking I wouldn’t notice her stealing a glance at my chest. I ignored her, shouting to Cain and the others to start heading back. Two of us should be able to handle a half-drowned human girl, even if she was a little feisty.
Fabian offered her a hand and she got to her feet, only to drop again, her eyes – such an unusual colour for a human – becoming unfocused. Fabian caught her and I stepped forward, sighing, resigned to the fact I would have to carry her. Her eyes slid back into focus and back out again as she squirmed and buried herself deeper in Fabian’s arms.
‘You take her,’ I said to him, figuring she would be less likely to kick up a fuss. He whispered a few words in her ear and picked her up. Sure enough, she was good as gold. I raised an eyebrow at him and he winked, his hand wrapping around the back of her bare knee. I turned away, stepping into the shadow of the trees.
Behind, I heard her question him about the squid. His reply was vague as he glossed over the details of where it had come from and who had given it to us.
Around us, the mist was lifting and the main grounds came back into view. I extended my mind, curious, and touched upon hers. Right away I was hit with a barrage of emotions, the first being fear and the second anger. Images of the water and her phobia of swimming blurred with those of Trafalgar Square, which floated again and again to the forefront of her mind like a stuck record player. Snapshots of her friends and family passed through too and one of an ageing man in his fifties caught my attention. I focused on it and then recoiled from her mind like I had been slapped.
I stopped and whipped around. ‘Girly, what is your surname?’
‘Lee,’ she said. ‘I already told—’
‘Who is your father?’ I demanded.
‘He’s a very powerful man,’ she retorted.
‘Quit with the damsel stuff, it really doesn’t suit you,’ I growled. ‘And besides, I would bet my inheritance that my daddy could beat the crap out of your daddy. But what is his name? What does he do?’
She raised her chin, triumphant. ‘Michael Lee and he is the Secretary of State for Defence.’
I exchanged a glance with Fabian who looked as though he might drop her.
‘Shit,’ I said.
‘You’ve done it this time, Kaspar,’ Fabian groaned in my direction, his eyes changing to become colourless, matching my own and betraying his worry. The girl stared openly; as soon as I met her gaze she looked away and I was glad that despite her sharp tongue, I retained power over her. ‘The King won’t like this,’ he added.
No, of course he won’t. Neither will the council. I said nothing and surged back towards the mansion, Fabian following at a slight distance as he fussed over her, adjusting her body in his arms so he wouldn’t hurt her.
The run allowed time for panic to set in. I was already on thin ground with the council, where a no-confidence vote against my position as heir was only ever a misdemeanour away. Bringing the daughter of a man so high up in government into our world, therefore breaching multiple treaties, was definitely in the sin category.
Why didn’t I just kill her?
When Fabian caught up I immediately grabbed her wrist and dragged her up the steps. She winced and trod lightly, and I briefly took in her battered feet. With a resigned sigh, I tugged harder.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, digging her heels in despite the obvious discomfort.
‘Getting out of this mess,’ I responded, relieved to see my sister, Lyla, waiting at the bottom of the staircase inside.
‘Do you think you could get out of this without slicing my wrist up?’
My stride was shorter than usual as I faltered slightly, struck by a sudden admiration at the ease with which she accepted our existence, mixed with irritation at her boldness. This girl just does not give up.
Lyla – more irritating than any sopping wet human girl could ever be – worked her features into a scowl, which was particularly effective on her usually doll-like face. She took Violet’s wrist without a word to her, instead focusing on me.
‘You really screwed up this time, little brother,’ she growled. Violet stared up at the other woman – who was almost a head taller and considerably slimmer – with utter awe. Lyla ignored it. She knew the effect she had on both sexes. Have fun with your fucking human war, she finished in my mind, sweeping upstairs with Michael Lee’s daughter in tow.
I wasn’t concerned about any war. I was highly unlikely to survive to see it, with the King’s wrath progressing across the entrance hall.
Fabian dropped to his knees in a very low bow, screwing his eyes shut and crossing his fingers at his sides. ‘Your Majesty.’
I straightened and clasped my hands behind my back, looking at anything but the hollow grey eyes piercing me. Pleading ignorance of her namesake wasn’t going to work, and so I accepted the brewing storm with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. ‘Good morning, father. I brought breakfast.’
FIVE
Violet
‘Here,’ said the girl who introduced herself as Lyla. She smiled as we stopped by an open door about halfway down the corridor. She stepped through. I hesitated but, after a moment, followed her.
The room was huge. The wooden floor gleamed, although a large black rug covered most of it; on that rug a mahogany four-poster bed stood, deep indigo drapes falling to the floor. Black and purple voiles hung around French doors, boxed in by iron railings on the outside. Beside them were several arched windows with ledges just large enough to sit on.
I soaked it all in as Lyla began bustling about, pointing out different things, although I was only half-listening. ‘That’s the wardrobe – walk-in – over there. We’ll get you some stuff, but until then, you can have some of my clothes. I mean, you can’t be that much bigger than me. The bathroom is just across the hall.’ She frowned. ‘We thought you probably shouldn’t have an en-suite, but there’s a washbasin if you need it in the wardrobe,’ she added, brightening. She smiled again, but it faded as she turned back to me. ‘Don’t say much, do you?’
I stared at her. If she thinks I’m going to start having a friendly chat, she has another thing coming. Especially as I was beginning to feel quite sick: I wasn’t sure I had coughed up all of the water I had swallowed in the lake.
She shifted. ‘Well, you should get out of that dress, so I’ll leave you.’ She began to back away and then stopped. ‘I’ll get the servants to bring some food up to you too. You’re a veggie, right?’ she asked. My eyes widened even more. How can she know that?
I didn’t reply and after a while of just standing there, she headed towards the door. But just before she left, I spoke.
‘You don’t seem like a murderer,’ I blurted.
She laughed, like an adult who laughs at a child asking a stupid question. ‘That’s because I’m not.’ With that, she closed the door and left.
As soon as she had gone I dashed towards the wardrobe, diving in and finding the basin in a small room within the wardrobe, which was as large as my bedroom at home. I leaned over it, gagging a few times and wishing I could just throw up so the horrible lurching in my stomach would go away. Eventually, I did.
Splashing my face with water, I sipped a few drops from my cupped hand, holding them beneath the cold tap. My eyes never left the mirror but all I could see was Claude Pierre falling to the paving, dead, over and over again.
You shouldn’t dwell on that, the voice in my head said. Focus on your own survival.
It had a point and I wrenched my gaze away from the mirror, walking back into the wardrobe. A full change of clothing had been laid out for me and I flung it on, glad to take off the soaking and torn dress. The jeans were a little tight around the hips, digging into my skin and it took some effort to pull the T-shirt down over my breasts. But they were dry, so they would do.
When I went back out, a tray had been left on the bedside cabinet. On it was a plate of sandwiches cut into minute triangles, a rectangle of paper and a glass of water, which I drained in one swig. Picking up the paper, I left the sandwiches untouched. I unfolded it, revealing a note written in a sprawling and almost illegible script.
Violet,
You are free to roam the house whenever you please, but do not go into the grounds. If you come across my father, curtsey and address him as ‘Your Majesty’. I will do what I can if you need anything – just ask the servants to call me.
H.R.H Lyla
P.S. Murderers kill for pleasure. Vampires kill to survive.
I read it through twice more before crushing it into a ball and throwing it into the corner of the room. ‘Screw you,’ I muttered, walking over to the French doors. I tried the handle, fiddling about for a minute. It was locked. I guess they’re not taking any chances. Not that I would come out too healthy dropping from the first floor anyway.
I leaned my head against the cool window, smashing my palms against the glass, frustrated, feeling the huge barricades I had thrown up around myself beginning to crumble. I knew I could not be strong much longer and my eyes stung as tears started to prick them.
The hope I had maintained dissolved, replaced with an increasing sense of frustration as I realized I had no control of the situation.
I walked back and pulled the huge silken blanket from the bed, wrapping it around my shoulders as I curled up on the ledge of one of the windows, listening to the gentle tapping on the window as rain started to fall. It lulled me in my exhausted state. After a while, the drizzle became great sheets that battered the grounds, which in the sunlight had looked lavish, but just looked bleak and hostile now; or maybe that was because I now knew what stalked those grounds.
How cliché, I thought as the first claps of thunder sounded, shaking the window. A storm. I closed my eyes, holding the tears in as somewhere deep within the mansion a clock struck nine times.
I will not cry over a bunch of messed-up murderers. Never.
SIX
Violet
The rain still pummelled the glass when I woke up. It was dark outside and the blanket that I had pulled from the bed had slipped off my shoulders, piling in a heap on the floor. A few drops of water slid down my cheek as I prised it away from the window-pane, which I had steamed up with my breath. My hand wandered to my neck. Vampires. It was all completely crazy.
Yet you can’t deny it, the voice said and I shook my head, trying to mask it with other thoughts.
A few drops of rain plummeted from the top of the window outside. I blinked. Drip, drip, drip. Behind my closed eyelids, I could see a stained body lying on the pavement.
No, I can’t deny it. I don’t want to deny it. If I do, that would mean a human had done that to another human. Vampires are monsters. Monsters do horrible things. Humans don’t.
The clock beside me read 5 o’clock in the morning. I rubbed my eyes, realizing this was the earliest I had been up in years and that it must be the next day, August 1st. One day. One day would be long enough for the police to find witnesses, set up a search party and start to find me. There was so much evidence. The friends I was with. My heels. The man who worked for my father had even seen me. Yet he had done nothing.
An uneasy feeling crept through my chest. What if he had known about vampires? Had he kept away because he knew he would put his own life at risk? It wasn’t too far a stretch to assume that people within the government would know about vampires – someone must know about them. If he knew and he didn’t do anything, does that mean they won’t come after me? I didn’t want to think about it. My father would come find me. My father wouldn’t abandon me, not even to vampires.
Or would he? said the voice in my head.
I glimpsed Lyla’s note, on the carpet. Picking it up, I read it through once more. She had mentioned being free to roam the house and I was desperate for a wash to get rid of the grime on my feet.
I dropped the note and darted towards the door, stuffing one of the sandwiches – dry and stale now – into my mouth. Pressing my ear flat to the door, I listened. It seemed to be silent outside, but the door was wooden and probably thick so that didn’t mean much. I took a deep breath and opened it, to find the corridor empty. A little way down on the opposite wall there was a door, which must lead to the bathroom that Lyla had mentioned. Opposite that, on the same wall as ‘my’ room, there was a set of double doors. They were panelled and would have blended in with the wall if they were not set back a little into an alcove. Two gas lamps hung on brackets, one either side, although they were not on, leaving the corridor to be lit by the natural light that was beginning to stream in from the window at the other end of the corridor. I edged down, tensed and ready to spring back into my room if I needed to.
Nobody came and I began to relax, allowing my hand to wrap around the knob of one of the doors. It was smooth and warmed at the touch like glass, although it had the same appearance as the marble downstairs. I placed my other hand on its twin and turned. The one on the left glided around and clicked with no effort, but the one on the right was stiff and would not turn. The left door swung open a fraction. I stared at it. Should I?The temptation was strong but curiosity really would get the cat killed this time.
Just as I started to shut the door again I heard footsteps coming from the stairs. My heart hammered and I jerked forward, bursting through the doors. Shutting it with as little noise as possible, I kept hold of the handle to stop it from turning and clicking shut.
I waited, petrified, and only when everything went silent again did I allow myself to take in the room. It was huge – much bigger than the one I had slept in. All the walls were wood-panelled, and an all-black, wrought-iron four-poster dominated the one side and a fireplace the other. Above the mantle, which was strewn with magazines, there hung a painting of a man and a woman. The man resembled Kaspar, although he looked older. I took a guess that it was his father in his younger days. The woman beside him must be his wife, Kaspar’s mother, judging by the hand of the man placed on her bare shoulder. She sat upon a stool, her emerald dress hugging a curvaceous figure, dark chestnut curls tumbling down to her waist, which was so tiny it must have been encased in a corset. Her eyes were wide and bright, full of the same colour and sheen as her dress. But what really caught my gaze was her skin: whilst her husband’s was pale and papery, her skin had a tinge of olive in it, although the sunken sockets of her eyes were encircled by deep purple rings – she was without doubt a vampire.
I trod as softly as I could around the bed, almost tripping over a guitar that poked out from under the bedstead. A breeze stirred my ankles and, as I neared the fireplace, the black drapes that hung around the open French doors moved. A feeling of unease crept up my arms. Doors are left open when someone is not far away. The lamps dotted about the room had been left on too, although first light was beginning to filter through the trees and across the grounds.
Forcing myself to be calm, I reached up on my tiptoes and ran a finger across the canvas of the painting. It was thick with dust and as I wiped it off it floated away in clouds, smelling heavily of musk mixed with that of expensive cologne, which already hung in the air. I waved my hands in front of me, coughing and spluttering. I can see – or rather smell – why they left the doors open. I grabbed one of the magazines to try waft the dust away, but took one look at what was on the cover, blushed, and dropped it, realizing just who this room must belong to.
‘Crap,’ I breathed, backing away towards the door. I didn’t bother to check whether anyone was outside as I practically fell out of one door and through another into the bathroom. It slammed behind me and I was relieved to find it had a chunky bolt for a lock, which I slid across.
Turning, I was once again struck by the grandeur. The whole room was almost entirely made out of red marble, even the bath. The shower was of the same larger-than-it-needs-to-be proportions and would fit three and still leave room to move. It was spotless too: there wasn’t an old toothbrush or squeezed-to-death tube of toothpaste in sight.
I fiddled about with the shower dials for a while, confused by the settings until water poured from the shower head. I began to strip down, but caught sight of my reflection in the mirror and stopped. I was not a pretty sight.
My hair looked as though electricity had been passed through it and bits of twig clung to the knots. There were countless cuts and grazes dotted about my neck and mud was smeared across my face, mixed in with my smudged make-up. The rest of my body did not look any better. Dried blood caked my arms and my feet were brown and muddy and I realized I must stink. But it was my eyes that looked the most pitiful. They looked old and weary, as though they had seen a hundred years of suffering, not two days.
I shook my head and turned away, disgusted and angry. I continued to strip down and stepped in, letting the water run over my sore muscles.
I got out when the water ceased to feel warm on my skin. I grabbed a towel, dried myself and got dressed, slipping back into the T-shirt and jeans. I wrung as much water as I could out of my hair and darted back to ‘my’ bedroom, freezing as I noticed somebody had been in and tidied up.
The blanket that I had moved the day before had been spread back out on the bed, the sheets tucked in. The plate of food had been removed and, right on cue, my stomach growled. I ignored it, dropping onto the bed. But it only got worse and I realized I would have to go and search for Lyla to get some more food. She didn’t seem that bad, but the prospect still wasn’t a great one.
Outside in the corridor, things were still quiet, although I sensed that wasn’t because everyone was asleep. I passed the double doors, unnerved at the fact the room must belong to Kaspar. When I reached the top of the staircase, I leaned over, thinking I could ask the butler where Lyla was. Just as I did, Fabian emerged from the downstairs corridor. I jumped, trying to scamper back into the shadows but he spotted me and smiled.
‘Morning,’ he said cheerfully, stopping. I didn’t reply but eased back towards the banisters, eyeing him with caution. ‘Hungry?’ he asked. The mention of food set my stomach off growling again and he chuckled. ‘Guess so. Come on, I’ll find you something.’ He gestured for me to follow him and started walking towards the living-room door. When I didn’t follow him, he paused, smiling again. ‘I’m not going to do anything to you. I promise.’
He looked sincere enough and I scrambled down the stairs until I caught up with him. He opened the door and led me across the living room and through another door. It was like stepping through a time portal. Whereas the main entrance hall didn’t look as though it had changed in hundreds of years, the passage we walked down was thoroughly modern and, as we entered the kitchen, I was hit by an array of stainless steel and glass counters, cabinets and tables, although the floor was made of the same marble as the entrance.
Fabian rounded the breakfast bar and began searching through the cupboards. ‘Do you like toast?’ he asked, his head popping up above the counter. I nodded, hoisting myself up onto a stool. ‘Toast it is then,’ he said, dropping a couple of slices of brown bread into a toaster. I watched him as he pulled a plate from another cupboard, fascinated by his fluid movements. He met my gaze.
‘Hey, I know I’m inhumanly hot, but you don’t have to stare.’ A huge grin appeared on his face and he winked.
