The Iron in Blood Page 3

CHAPTER 3

  Rebecca

  Monday morning. I had dreaded this day since my accident five days earlier, and its inevitable arrival did nothing to lessen that dread. The cast encasing most of my left leg had started to crumble slightly around the edges, so I wandered around the house shedding Plaster of Paris flakes. Some of them went down the inside of the cast and added to the cacophony of itches and prickles marching up and down the skin of my leg. The cast, despite all its crumbling, felt like it had doubled in weight, but I had been practising with the crutches, and was able to swing myself around without endangering lives, including my own.

  I modified my school uniform with a pair of Joe’s black track bottoms, and a thick black sock encasing my left foot, and examined the effect in the mirror. White shirt, tie, dark green jumper. I glanced at my face. I looked tired, grumpy and slightly scruffy. Never mind. Dressing up had never really been my thing. I tied my hair back and went to have breakfast.

  Mark was already at the table, calmly eating Cheerios with a fork. He was, as usual, dressed way before anyone else, except Mum, who had left for work thirty minutes ago. Mark was the good-looking one in the family, with wheat blonde hair and sky blue eyes, but he didn’t care. He lived inside his own head most of the time, preoccupied by his own thoughts. I often wondered what he was thinking, that could keep him so fascinated and so detached from the world around him.

  “Why are you eating Cheerios with a fork?” I just had to ask.

  “Am I?” Mark looked at the fork, surprised, and then he shrugged. “Seems to work OK.” That was a typical Mark conversation. Bizarre, peculiar, and not quite right, but not completely wrong or obviously mad either. Mark walked a fine line sometimes.

  “I see those people from across the road are completely gone now. There’s even a sold sign stuck to the wall.” The sign was new and shiny and looked like it didn’t want to be there. The top right hand corner had already detached itself from where it had been tacked to the crumbling brick and was waving slightly at the gusts of wind that teased it.

  Mark grunted. “Good riddance.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I didn’t know that you knew them?”

  “I didn’t.”

  I left it at that, and went to pour bran flakes into a bowl. Ten minutes later, and Mark was standing outside waiting for Harry. Harry lived a few blocks away, and the two fourteen year olds had drifted into the habit of walking to school together. I don’t know why, they hardly ever seemed to speak to each other. I propped a book that I was reading for the second time open with a tin opener, and ate my breakfast at a leisurely pace. I read loads of books; for me it was a way of escaping the cocoon of unnecessary anxiety my mother wrapped around us. As if any anxiety could ever be considered necessary. But my mother seemed to worry most when you wouldn’t think she had a reason to worry. I didn’t want to add to all of that by actually having a social life, and I don’t much like other people, so it’s not a strain to avoid them. Weird, I know, but I like books.

  Today I was reading slowly, enjoying the words as they rolled off the page. I wasn’t worried about getting to school on time. I glanced down at my cast, my iron clad excuse.

  Angus

  I was at the house by eight in the morning. I stood outside for a few seconds, absorbing the general air of neglect and crumbling mortar that surrounded the place. I went inside and dialled Fergus.

  “This was the best you could do?” I teased him. “It’s a tip.”

  “So?” Fergus, buoyant with his success. “What do you want now?”

  “A cleaning service, to start. And renovators. Today.”

  “Hmm. Fussy. I’m on it.” He hung up.

  I wandered around inside. I knew the cleaners and renovators would be arriving soon, but I didn’t feel like going back outside and loitering. I didn’t mind the cold or the wind, not at all, but I might draw attention to myself. I wasn’t ready for that yet. I don’t think I ever will be.

  So; sitting room downstairs, also a kitchen and a tiny utility room. The sitting room had yellowing walls, dark pink carpets and numerous stains on the walls. The carpets looked newer and more garish in patches where the furniture had stood. Dirt had improved things, apparently. There was a page from a magazine taped to one of the walls with discoloured sellotape. It showed some woman in what looked like a pink velour tracksuit and gaudy make-up. She was eating an ice cream.

  The kitchen was filthy, each available surface crusted over with unidentifiable residues. The cupboards were covered in beige and brown linoleum. The floor was green and sticky. It reeked. I decided to go upstairs to escape from the sights and smells that assaulted my senses. It wasn’t much better; there were two bedrooms and a small bathroom, which was filled with cracked tiles, faded wallpaper, and mould. Lots of mould. The bedroom that overlooked the front garden was slightly larger than the other, and didn’t have the same sweaty socks and dirty body stench. The wallpaper was pink with green and yellow stripes. I was starting to detect a theme. I wandered into the smelly sock room and opened a grimy window. Wide.

  Something caught my attention then. I smelled pain and fear, but it was not human. I glanced around the room, trying to pinpoint the origin of the smell. It didn’t take long.

  A battered looking cardboard box sat in a corner, untidily, as if it had been thrown there. Inside a small, dirty white kitten looked fearfully up at me. It moved its head and front paws slightly, and mewled weakly. Its hind limbs seemed useless. Dried diarrhoea encrusted its thin hindquarters.

  I stood looking at the small creature curled up in its cardboard box, in its own filth and pain and misery, and I felt the rage howling in the recesses of my soul. I fought to suppress it, grinding my teeth and clenching my fists at my side. It took at least five minutes to bring myself under control, and then I was able to consider the problem at hand, if not dispassionately, then at least more levelly.

  As I saw it, I had two options. I could simply reach down and snap the creature’s neck, ending its agony quickly and easily. Or I could try to help it. I looked into the innocent blue eyes of the little cat, and dismissed the first option. I had a duty to humanity, even if I barely represented it myself. This animal had known nothing but the cruelty of people. It was time for it to taste the kindness.

  Decision made, I bent over and gently lifted the box, and carried it downstairs and outside, trying to minimise the jolting of my steps to prevent inflicting further discomfort.

  I stood outside next to the car I’d bought a few months earlier, wondering where the nearest vet was. I was debating whether or not to call Fergus again, or to do some research on my iphone, when a simpler solution presented itself.

  “Excuse me,” I called to the blonde teenage boy leaning against the wall of the Harding residence. Where can I find a vet that’s open?”

  He looked up at me, surprised.

  “There’s one a few miles up the road. It should be open now. It’s got an emergency surgery too.” He had a deep voice for his apparent age, and he spoke articulately. “Why?”

  “I’ve just bought this house,” I inclined my head towards my latest purchase, grimacing slightly. “And I found this in one of the bedrooms.”

  The teenager raised his eyebrows. He glanced at the house. “A bit of a fixer upper.”

  I smiled wryly. “Yes, I know.”

  He pushed himself away from the wall and crossed the road, obviously curious to see the contents of the box. The kitten squeaked at him as he peered inside. His face darkened and he made a decision.

  “Well, I can’t direct you there, because I’m rubbish at directions, but I can show you where it is. You can drop me at school afterwards, if you want. I’ll hold it,” he added.

  “Thanks.” I nodded, and handed the box over to him while I unlocked the car. He took it carefully, as if it were a precious gift, and waited for me to open the passenger door for him. He slid in one movement onto the front passenger seat, where he placed it on his knees before buckling his
seatbelt.

  “Nice wheels.”

  “Thanks,” I grinned at him. I liked powerful cars, but not the ostentatious ones. I was somehow pleased that he recognised the monster that lay beneath the unobtrusive metallic shell. I started the engine, and it roared into life. The CD player came on automatically, blaring slightly. I liked loud music while I drove. I turned it down.

  “That’s my sister’s favourite.”

  I froze for a second, slightly stunned by the casual reference to someone who had become so profoundly significant to us over the past few days. Then I felt absurdly pleased that she liked the same music that I did. I shook my head, and pulled out of the parking space and onto the road.

  “I’m Mark,” he glanced up.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mark. I’m Angus.” It was typical of me to forget to introduce myself. Human interaction was not one of my strong points. It was quite funny in an almost tragic way that out of the three of us, I would be the one who would have to become the people person. I chuckled at the thought.

  “Left here, then right just after that pub.”

  “OK,” I replied and we spent the rest of the journey in silence. When we arrived at the Hillcrest Veterinary Surgery, Mark insisted on coming inside with me. I explained the situation briefly to the receptionist, who cooed gently at the white scruffy kitten. I asked her to get the first available vet to have a look at it, and then do whatever was necessary to help it. I gave her my mobile number, and asked her to contact me as soon as she knew what the problem was.

  She glanced up at me from her position leaning over the box, and raised her eyebrows. “It could be expensive.”

  “Money is not an issue.”

  She nodded, and carried the box into one of the consulting rooms, talking in a high pitched voice to the kitten as she left. It mewled in reply. I turned to Mark.

  “Let’s get you to school.”

  He nodded briefly. “Thanks.”

  I dropped him outside a large brick building surrounded by a six foot chain link fence, and teeming with school kids. The sign said St Paul Secondary School. He hopped out of his seat as soon as I stopped, waved, and disappeared into the crowds. I sat for a moment, wondering what it was like to go to school, and wondering if I would have liked it. Probably not. I had never been to school, nor had my brothers. My father had wanted to minimise our exposure to normal life and normal people. I guess he must have believed that what we didn’t know, we wouldn’t miss. He had known that we would have to leave school before we all changed, and just being around other people became too risky. Mostly for other people, of course, but for us too, in a way. There’s nothing that upsets people more than when somebody gets killed. Declaring emphatically that it had been an accident wouldn’t have cut it - there would have been too much blood. People would have been angry and vengeful and we would have been locked up, if we were lucky.

  I turned the car around and headed back to my newly purchased property, hoping that the cleaning staff had arrived. They had, and shortly afterwards a huge white van with the name of a renovating company pulled up. A stocky man in overalls got out, looked at the property, and grunted something to his passenger, a young man with a slack jaw and acne. Next thing the place was swarming with people. I got back in the car and went to find some breakfast.

  Rebecca

  I hadn’t even realised that Mark had disappeared until Harry knocked on the door, looking forlorn and embarrassed.

  “Mark here?” Chatty Harry.

  “He went outside to wait for you.” I tried to look over his shoulder, which was difficult. At fourteen Harry was already way taller than me, and bulky. He had a mop of unruly, suspiciously black hair that was combed forwards and covered half his face, and an stud in his nose.

  “He must have left early,” Harry shrugged, and then grinned at me. “Bye, Rebecca.” He enunciated each syllable of my name separately. I smiled back, vowing to chew Mark out about sharing his annoying enunciation of my name with his friends. Harry left, and I reluctantly abandoned my book, slung my bag over my shoulder, and hobbled outside, crutches in hand. I locked the door behind me and set out slowly for school, which was a couple of blocks away, less than a mile. It felt much longer. The bell went about three minutes before I finally swung myself through the big double gated entrance on my trusty crutches. I’d started to appreciate them a few hundred yards into my journey. I was still exhausted by the time I got to school, and my upper arms were burning. I stood for a few minutes, catching my breath before heading off to my first class of the day.

  I had forgotten about Mark’s disappearance this morning until I saw him standing next to Harry during break. They were both leaning against the south facing wall of the school hall, eyes closed, absorbing the weak sunlight that played over their faces. I left them to their easy companionship and went to explain my late arrival to the headmaster.

  I was halfway there when I almost bumped into Shanice. I had been watching the ground for cracks and crevices that could ensnare one of the rubber tips of my crutches and send me flying to land in an undignified heap in front of all these curious onlookers.

  I sensed her malignant presence, stopped, and looked up into her mean piggy eyes. Shanice and I had a history that spanned at least ten years of mutual animosity. We had first encountered each other in primary school, where Shanice had tormented me relentlessly for about six months, until one afternoon I had snapped and punched her in her the face, breaking her nose. I still cherished the memory. Shanice felt differently, obviously, and although she had stopped pestering me, she had developed an intense loathing of me that manifested itself in hateful stares and the occasional sneered remark. I managed to ignore her most of the time, but I had known I would be in trouble today. I was vulnerable, see, and there’s nothing a bully likes more.

  “Oi! Freakface!” Original, Shanice. Nice one.

  I said nothing, just watched her, anticipating the blow, and wondering if I could do anything about it. I could put weight in my injured leg, but I would be clumsy, and my hands were tangled in the handles of the crutches.

  “Not so brave now, are we?” she taunted me.

  “Shanice Smith!” the headmasters voice rang out. “To class please. Now!”

  The bell must have rung. I hadn’t noticed it. Shanice flushed angrily, her bloated face turning an unhealthy puce colour.

  “Whatever!” she said in her whiny voice. “See you later, Freak,” she hissed at me, and then she turned and left.

  “Well, Miss Harding, I can see why you were late for school today. Carry on.” Our headmaster was a harsh but fair man, but he still made me nervous, so I nodded and left as soon as I was able to coordinate the crutches. I knew Shanice had detention that afternoon, so I would be able to escape home unharmed. But I also knew I’d see her tomorrow again. I shuddered.

  Angus

  I was halfway through my second coffee in what was supposed to be an upmarket breakfast café type thing, when my mobile started vibrating. It was Marcus. He sounded jubilant.

  “She’s one of us!”

  “I know. You said we had a match.”

  “No, no, that was just a blood group match.” Marcus always became impatient with us when we failed to grasp something, even when he had neglected to actually explain it properly. It was like he expected us just to know what he knew. It was flattering in a strange way, but also very frustrating.

  “She has an unusual subgroup that I had Fergus flag when it came up. It’s the same subgroup that we have, sure, but I wasn’t certain that she would have any of our peculiar genes. But today I ran the second DNA comparison. She’s got all three genes, Angus.”

  “Which means?” Sometimes I could be a little slow.

  “She’s a vampire!” Marcus was really getting excited now. I looked around to make sure nobody had heard his yelling.

  “God, Marcus, don’t use that term. You know Father hated it.”

  “This is brilliant, I can’t believe it, it’s
just fantastic.” Marcus sounded a bit hysterical.

  “Explain, Marcus,” I said. “Don’t you have to be a, er, like us to have children like us?” Our father and mother had both been iron metabolisers, people who can use iron in a different way to normal people. Traditionally, I suppose we would have been called vampires, but we no longer had to drink blood to fulfil our iron needs. Iron tablets sufficed, and we had become slightly more civilised as a result. Well, Marcus and Fergus, certainly. But the underlying physiology was there, and we still really liked blood; we just didn’t need it.

  Marcus had coined the new term for what we are. And even though I didn’t like hearing the word vampire out loud - force of habit, I suppose - I found the political correctness of Marcus’ term a bit offensive. Call a spade a spade, dammit. Just not where anyone can hear you do it.

  “Apparently not. This is so exciting! A recessive set of genes! I can’t believe it!” Exclamation marks all over the place.

  “So why doesn’t she behave like one?” I wasn’t convinced. “She’s past puberty now, surely.” When our hormone levels started changing, especially with the surge in steroid hormones, like testosterone and oestrogen, our bodies switched to a kind of a dual metabolism. So we could metabolise normal food like normal people – fats, carbohydrates, proteins. But when we had enough iron in our systems, our bodies could use it ways we couldn’t yet fully understand. Marcus was still working on figuring that one out.

  Marcus was silent for a few seconds, considering the question. “Well, she’s female, and they store less iron than males, and she’s probably a vegetarian. She most likely hasn’t had her first hit yet.” Marcus’ use of drug terminology was strangely appropriate. It was how I had come to think of being a vampire – I subconsciously flinched at that word again. We had a set of unique receptors which responded in an unusual way to iron, that everyday substance, like an alcoholic responds differently to a shot of whiskey than a normal person would. Except maybe an alcoholic was not the best analogy. The craving was there, certainly, but our drug did not incapacitate us. Instead it made us invincible and powerful, strong enough to break boulders, and fast enough to run alongside speeding cars. I closed my eyes and recalled the heady rush, the clarity of vision, the enhanced senses, the sensation of muscles ripping through the sluggish air, the crystallisation of all pleasure and wonder into this perfect rush of being.

  Our father had explained the situation to us one day when we were twelve. The signs were all there that we were going to hit puberty soon, and he wanted the transition from slightly strange but mostly normal boy to utter freak to go as smoothly as possible, I suppose. He was a good man, my father, strong, obviously, but compassionate too, and intelligent enough to have figured out the basic metabolic reason for our unusual abilities. He had met my mother towards the end of her life, still youthful looking, another benefit of being able to use iron as we do. We heal fast, restoring aging and damaged cells rapidly, so we look as if we are just out of school, or in our early twenties, for most of our long lives. Adult, but never old.

  We were the inevitable result of their union, and our birth sapped whatever life our mother had left in her, and she died a few days later. My father, to his credit, never blamed us for her death, but set about educating his three small, precocious boys, and loving us as best he could. And when we hit puberty, and our lives changed forever, he was there to guide us through the changes, and reassure us that we always had a choice. We could harness the power, or we could let it harness us and become monsters. I like to think that we did the former, but sometimes I’m not so sure.

  And now Marcus was telling me that there was someone else like us out there, someone who would need guidance through the changes that she would inevitably go through, one way or another. My father had always worried that if we did not expose ourselves to the effects that huge doses of iron had on our systems, and learn to control them, that we would eventually succumb to some profound and overpowering instinct and actually kill someone and drink their blood. It made sense. There’s a lot of iron in blood.

  I imagined Rebecca biting someone’s carotid artery, responding to some deep, unacknowledged desire, and drinking their warm blood as it was pumped directly from the heart to her open mouth. I thought of how her family would react, and flinched again. It was bad enough knowing that you are a freak without everyone else knowing it too. I would have to do something to help the girl. I wondered, not for the first time if I was the right person to do it. I considered asking Marcus or Fergus to take over the task, but a stab of what could have been jealousy made me dismiss that thought. I would do this myself, and let the dice fall where they may.

  Rebecca

  Mark came bounding through the door as soon as he got home. I’d arrived a few minutes earlier, and had scrambled out of my uniform, and was munching on a slice of toast in the kitchen and reading my book. It was nearing the end, and I already knew what was going to happen, but it was well written, and by one of my favourite authors, so it didn’t matter.

  “Met our new neighbour this morning,” he announced out of the blue, saying just enough to pique my curiosity, as usual. At first I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but then I remembered the commotion across the street yesterday.

  “Already?”

  “Yep. He found an injured kitten, so I showed him where the vet was. Seems OK.” Then he was gone, bounding up the stairs two at a time. I shrugged. I wasn’t sure if it was the kitten that seemed OK, or if it was the neighbour.

  “He’s got a fab car too,” shouted my typically male sibling from upstairs. I chuckled. Amazing how some things are important to some people, and not one bit significant to others.

  Angus

  The vet’s receptionist phoned just after breakfast. I was driving back to my hotel. I pressed the speaker function on the phone set.

  “Hello, is that Angus Byrne?”

  “Yes.” She paused, maybe waiting for me to go on.

  “You brought the kitten in this morning?”

  “Yes.” I wondered, not for the first time, if I should try to be more talkative, but I had nothing else I felt I needed to say.

  “Just to let you know that it’s got a broken pelvis. Vet says it looks like someone’s stomped on it.” My knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. Another pause. “Anyway, she’s going to need a few wires to stabilise the pelvic fractures, if that’s OK. We can do it for you this afternoon, and you can fetch her tonight.”

  “What time?”

  “Between six and seven pm?”

  “OK.”

  Pause. “OK. Bye then.”

  As I hung up I thought of the kind of person who would stamp on a small animal hard enough to break its bones. I wondered how anyone would ever be able to justify doing something like that, and yet I knew from experience that there were people out there who hurt animals for fun. They were one of my favourite targets. Them, and the monsters who abused children.

  Fergus and I had developed a kind of partnership a decade or so back, when I realised that being a legitimate policeman was not a very efficient way of fighting crime. You’d hunt for a certain perpetrator for ages, and when you eventually found them, you would have to hand them over to what was essentially a deeply flawed system, and hope that justice would prevail. Yeah, right.

  So Fergus hunted the crime online, looking on sites like youtube for video footage of cruelty of any description. He would send me the footage, and whatever information he could garner from the IP address. I did the rest, finding those deeply repulsive individuals who were responsible for such atrocities, and I hurt them. Sometimes I hurt them quite a lot. And then I would rewrite their mean little minds so they would feel physically and mental agony if they even considered being cruel in any way to anything ever again. Paedophiles were a bit more difficult to find, but find them we did, and they were the ones I usually killed. Sometimes a mind will be so dark and foul and evil that repairing it is just not an option.

&n
bsp; As I drove, I realised that it was going to be difficult for me to keep a kitten in a hotel room. I thought of Mark, and of his obvious compassion for the little animal. I decided to ask him if he would watch the cat overnight. I could always smuggle it into the hotel, but I had something I needed to do tonight, and I didn’t know how long it would take. I didn’t want to leave the small feline invalid unattended in some empty hotel room. I phoned Fergus’ mobile.

  “What?” Fergus answered. “We’re busy here, you know.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I need the names of those people who lived in that house you just bought for me, and their current whereabouts.”

  Fergus was suspicious. “Why?”

  “They left something behind.”

  “OK, I’ll do some checking up and send you the details in a few. Bye!” He was gone. I guess not being talkative must run in families.

  Rebecca

  The doorbell rang at half past seven that evening. I was going to get up to answer it, but my cast got in the way, and anyway Mum got there first. It was a bit of a novelty to have someone ring the doorbell of the Harding house. It sounded weirdly unfamiliar.

  “Hello,” said a deep velvety voice from the darkness outside. “Is Mark here?”

  “Yes, of course,” breathed my mother, apparently hypnotised. “Come in,” she continued, stepping back into our little crowded sitting room. “Mark?” she called, just loud enough to be heard upstairs. Mark spent a lot of time in his bedroom, reading books and contemplating the world around him. I guess he liked his own company. I know he didn’t like football, which was what Joe was watching tonight. I was here as a kind of moral support for my mother, who also disliked football, but who disliked being on her own even more.

  The stranger stepped inside our house. He was tall and dark, and dressed in dark trousers and a white cotton shirt with the cuffs rolled up to the elbows. He held a brand new pet carrier in his left hand, and he extended his right.

  “Hello,” he said again. “My name is Angus, and I believe I’m your newest neighbour.”

  Mum shook his hand, and gushed, “Pleased to meet you, Angus. My name is Rose. I am Mark’s mother. These are my two other children, Joe and Rebecca.” She indicated us with a sweep of her free hand.

  I stood up to say hello, curious about the man who stood towering above my mother. He turned politely to greet us, a smile forming on his lips, but when his eyes met mine he froze, and all trace of a smile disappeared. His eyes widened slightly, and his nostrils flared, and he looked both shocked and angry. I felt my face flush, and I looked at the floor, mumbling a greeting. My mother was calling for Mark again so she failed to see his expression. Joe had waved casually from his spot on the settee, and had turned his attention back to the television. I looked up at the stranger through my lashes, unsure of what it was that I had done to offend him. As I watched his expression seemed to change within seconds to benign watchfulness. I started wondering if I must have imagined the fury I had seen on his face.

  Mark hurtled down the last few steps when he saw who was at the door.

  “Hey, Angus!” he called out, covering the intervening space like a rowdy puppy. “How is the patient?”

  The stranger smiled warmly at Mark, and held the carrier out for him to inspect its contents. “She’s going to be fine. Had an operation this afternoon to stabilise the broken bones of her pelvis, but she’s already starting to move her hind legs. She’s a brave little thing.” As if to corroborate his version of events, the kitten mewled from inside the carrier.

  “Sit down, sit down,” my mother gushed again. “Would you like some tea or coffee?”

  The stranger appeared to consider the question for a second or two, glancing sideways at me, before answering. “Coffee would be lovely, thanks.”

  He stepped further into the room, and I was struck by his apparent size. He was probably about as tall as Joe, six foot and some change, but he seemed a lot bigger. He stood, tall and confident, radiating some sort of aura of power. I looked again at his face and was struck by the pallor and smooth evenness of his skin, the symmetrical regularity of his features, dark eyes, thick dark lashes and eyebrows. He looked back at me and I felt a thrilling tightening rush of sensation in my abdomen. I looked away, confused and embarrassed.

  He handed the pet carrier with its small passenger to Mark, who took it gently, and placed it on the settee between him and Joe, bending over to look inside and speaking softly to the kitten inside. Joe seemed similarly fascinated, and I watched the two large teenagers speaking in soft high voices to the little cat. I chuckled. The picture seemed so incongruous. I risked another glance at the man called Angus. He was sitting at ease in an ancient leather armchair next to the television, with one arm draped sideways along the back of the chair, watching my face closely, and frowning slightly, as if he was concentrating on some hidden thought. I felt the hot blood racing up under the skin of my face, and I hurriedly turned back to watch Mark and Joe.

  Mum finally came in carrying a tray with our eclectic collection of mugs. She placed the tray on a small oak side table and began handing out mugs. It was a given in our house - if someone made tea we all got a mug of it. We drank a lot of tea.

  Angus took his mug from my mother’s outstretched hand with a murmur of thanks, glancing towards her briefly before his eyes settled on my face again. His dark eyes seemed to grow darker, and his brow furrowed. I felt that flipping, rushing, tightening sensation in my lower abdomen again, and looked towards the television, trying to breathe normally and not blush, all the time acutely aware and completely fascinated with this man who sat opposite me.

  “I was wondering if you’d babysit the kitten for me tonight, Mark.” That devil’s voice, deep and rich and seductive. I sat motionless on the settee, eyes glued to the television. I was starting to feel dizzy. I never feel dizzy. Ever.

  “Absolutely!” was Mark’s enthusiastic reply. “Can we, Mum?” he turned to my mother, who had perched herself on the armrest of the settee, just next to me.

  Mum looked a bit doubtful, until the stranger looked enquiringly up at her, one eyebrow raised. “Of course,” she said. Clearly she was not immune either.

  “Thank you. I would prefer not to leave her in a hotel room tonight. I have an urgent matter I need to take care of tonight.” Angus drained his mug, and stood up, towering above us. “It was good to meet you all,” he said. I could feel his eyes on my face again, and I glanced up at him. The intensity of his gaze was almost shocking. Fear and excitement mingled erratically in my chest. Abruptly he looked away, shaking hands with my mother and nodding to my brothers, who barely noticed him leaving. I noticed, and I felt bereft and drained. I wanted to cry, for some strange reason.

  Angus

  I wasn’t prepared for that.

  I knew intellectually that I was possibly about to meet a female vampire, so to speak. But I wasn’t prepared for that.

  When I first glanced at her sitting curled up on that settee with that unnecessary white plaster cast, I was struck by her luminosity. Silvery blonde long hair, slightly darker eyelashes and eyebrows, pale flawless skin. Unremarkable in many ways, but with her it all worked together to create something that was finer and far more attractive than the individual features themselves. I shook hands with her mother, gently touching her mind and feeling the kindness and bewilderment. And then I stepped inside the house, and was battered by the heady, intoxicating scent of a female of my own species. Jesus. I have never felt such a raw, powerful need for anything in all my years. I wanted to take her right there, to taste her skin, feel her heat. I thought about how I could kill her family, I went through the process in my mind; mother first, then Mark and Joe. It would have been so easy, and so quick. Then decades of rigid self control came to my rescue, and I was furious with myself for even thinking those thoughts. I knew they would haunt me, and I used the anger to subdue my hunger for this young woman. I was only partially successful.

  I drank the coffee, watching
Rebecca, seeing her vulnerability, feeling the quick intelligence and courage in her mind. I sensed her confusion, and what could have been the beginnings of desire, and I felt intense satisfaction. But it was gruelling having to sit there with her so close, so alluring and so easily overcome. I waited as long as I could, and then I left. She will never know how much it cost me, to walk out of that door and leave her untouched.

  Rebecca

  Mark sat with that kitten for ages, feeding it milk with a teaspoon, and stroking its little head. It seemed incredible that a teenage boy who seemed to be so disconnected and disinterested in pretty much everything around him could be so fascinated with something as simple as a kitten. It was a charming little thing, though, purring and rubbing its head against Mark’s fingers. I could definitely understand the attraction.

  Mum seemed a bit more dazed than usual for the rest of the evening. Whether it was due to suddenly having a cat in the house, or the unexpected visit from our neighbour-to-be, she didn’t say.

  Joe went back to watching football on television. I sat next to him, gazing at the moving figures flickering across the screen, but without actually watching the game. I don’t like football, but I didn’t want to be left alone with my thoughts tonight. I tried to ignore the intrusive images of Angus the almost-stranger, but I was only half successful. And when his face shimmered across my imagination like a dark prophecy, it made me feel deeply uneasy, and disturbingly intrigued.

  Angus

  I drove for an hour in silence, pondering my extreme reaction to Rebecca Harding. It was hard to rationalise something like that. I felt tremendously guilty about contemplating killing her family. They seemed to be very likeable people, especially Mark. It was much easier to think now that I was out of the clutches of that heady aroma. That kind of desire was crippling, and the possibility that I would always feel that way around her worried me. I was used to being more or less invincible.

  I turned my thoughts reluctantly to tonight’s mission. I had two people to take care of, to reprogram. I wondered whether I would be able to somehow engineer it that they too would be abandoned, their pelvises shattered. Probably not. It would raise too many logistical problems. It was going to be difficult enough to snatch two adults from a house with another occupant, even if the third occupant was eighty-two and hard of hearing.

  I gave up thinking about it. There were too many variables. Nothing was set in stone. Tonight was about reconnaissance firstly, and if the opportunity arose to take them, then I would do it. I turned the CD player on. The familiar introductory rhythm of Spaceman filled the car. I liked the Killers. I remembered that Mark had said that Rebecca liked them too. Irony, my constant companion.

  Rebecca

  I couldn’t sleep at first, I lay tossing and turning, twisting the sheets around my burning limbs. And when I finally drifted to sleep, I dreamed of Angus - huge, vivid, terrifying dreams, and I woke that morning to the screeching of my alarm clock. I felt drained and listless, but I dragged myself out of bed and downstairs to say goodbye to my mother before she hurried out of the door. She was flitting around the kitchen searching for her mobile phone, but she stopped as soon as she saw me.

  “Rebecca!” she looked concerned. “Are you OK?”

  “I don’t feel very well, Mum,” I admitted reluctantly. I didn’t want her to fret. Surprisingly, she didn’t.

  “Well, baby, I think you should stay home today. You’re probably exhausted from going back to school so early after the accident. Go on, back to bed, and I’ll call Mr Parker and let him know you won’t be in today.”

  I was a bit taken aback. Mum always seemed so indecisive, but then I remembered how cool and calm she had been during the occasional emergency that had befallen our family. Mum only panicked when there was no real reason to do so. Even when I had been knocked down by that idiot, she had been worried, but she hadn’t actually panicked. This was no emergency, sure, but I was still impressed. And relieved. I nodded my head, and stumbled back upstairs. I remade my bed, crawled into it, and fell asleep almost instantly.

  Angus

  Turns out it wasn’t as difficult as I thought. I arrived around midnight outside the small terraced house. The garden out front was overgrown, the windows dirty with paint peeling in long untidy strips from the window sills. I sensed at once that there were three people inside, two upstairs sleeping in the same bedroom, one downstairs probably asleep on a sofa. I reached out and gently touched the mind of the closest slumberer. I’d always found it easier to feel minds when people slept, and the enamel of their thoughts had dissolved. Tonight was no exception. The sleeper downstairs was male, by the glimpse I got of his dreams, although it was hard to tell sometimes. Must be the thirty four year old son. I probed a bit deeper, and found something that surprised me. On balance, a fairly decent soul, but very afraid of his mother, and deeply resentful of her constricting hold over him. He hated her. Interesting.

  I reached out slightly further, and felt a very different mind, fuzzy and confused, and clinging to distant memories. She was terrified of her daughter, and did not want her here, but she was too scared to confront her.

  I reached even further and felt what must have been the mind of the man’s mother and the elderly woman’s daughter. Vile revolting cesspit of a mind. There was smugness there, a sense of controlling and harshness, and a memory of satisfaction at the horror in the eyes of her son as she stood on his kitten, and pleasure as she felt the breaking of tiny bones.

  I looked for a way into the house, and found it. Someone had left a window upstairs open just enough for me to unlatch it and climb silently onto the upstairs landing. I made my way into the small upstairs bedroom, and using the trail of my target’s mind, I placed a muffling hand over her mouth and snapped her neck just as she began to wake up. I paused. There was no break in the rhythm of the elderly woman’s snores. I lifted the woman’s body and carried her carefully to the head of the stairs, where I held her upright, her head hanging oddly from her shoulders. I launched her lifeless body down the stairs, and was out through the window, and in my car before the son woke up. His grandmother slept through everything.

  As I drove home I marvelled at how well it had all gone. The son would find his mother at the bottom of the stairs and assume that she had broken her neck in the fall. The police would hopefully make the same assumption. Neat and easy.

  I arrived back at the hotel at about three in the morning. I don’t sleep every day; sometimes I can go for weeks without sleeping at all, but tonight I felt worn-out. I fell asleep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow.