“Is that Theodore?” I whisper to Rita, in the smallest voice possible.
“I’ve never seen him in the flesh before, but from my mother’s description I’d say that’s him. He has a bit of a unique fashion sense.”
“You can say that again,” I reply.
Theodore seems to walk on the tips of his toes like a graceful ballet dancer, he is the oddest individual I have ever encountered. He even does a little pirouette when he gets to the head of the crowd, finishing off his performance. And what a performance it was.
The fair rides are still moving, and the house looks like something out of the Addams Family. I find it strange that nobody is shouting abuse at him or breaking out in violence. From what I’ve been told, Theodore had been very much hated in his day, so I can’t understand why these people are simply standing motionless and saying nothing as he makes his display.
“Vampires, Dhamphirs, Warlocks and Witches of Tribane I thank you for your attendance at my homecoming,” says Theodore, in the accent of a man who has lived a long, long time, a voice that should no longer exist amongst the world of today. I cannot place it as I have never before heard anything like it. “I see some new faces and some old ones, and some very, very interesting ones,” he continues, and I would swear his dead eyes fell on me for the briefest fraction of a second. I feel like crawling inside of my own skin at the thought that he’d been referring to me.
“I have been gone for quite some time, yet it feels as though I have never left. I am very pleased to be home, and I am ready to take back the territory I left behind,” says Theodore, eyeing Antonia closely. She looks just about ready to burst.
“What makes you think you can do anything of the sort?” she hisses, seeming even deadlier in the darkness that has descended.
“Would you like a demonstration?” Theodore chirps. “Although I do believe you have already witnessed exactly what I am capable of. How is good old Howard by the way?” he asks, twisting the knife.
“We vampires will not submit to you Theodore,” says Antonia, anger and hate seething from her in waves. “There will be war before you ever control us again.”
“Let there be war then, and once you have perished I will take my territory. I have already made a deal with Siegfried Pamphrock. I will stay away from North Tribane, but the South, well, I believe there is a vacancy there for the position of Governor is there not?”
“I am to take over my late husband’s post,” says Antonia, her voice confident, despite Theodore’s obvious power.
Theodore laughs now, bitter and evil and completely devoid of any humour. “My dear Antonia, I could kill you now if I so wished. But I don’t want to turn my happy day into a blood bath. Now, be a good girl and submit, you are weak, and no amount of bodyguards can protect you from what I could do to you if pushed.”
Ethan speaks up then. “Are you so confident Sorcerer, that you think you can take on the entire vampire population in this city?”
“I’m sure my warlock friends will help me out on that one,” Theodore replies with a cruel grin.
“Is that true?” Ethan shouts over to our side. “Will you let this tyrant speak for you all? Declare war against your enemies on your behalf?”
“We will follow the orders of our Governor, and if he has made a deal with Theodore then we accept that,” replies a warlock with long grey hair.
“Blind obedience as usual,” says Ethan dismissively with a shake of his head.
“Spineless bastards,” says Rita under her breath, eyeing the warlock who’d spoken up.
“I thought everyone hated Theodore, why would Pamphrock make a deal with him?” I ask her, as Antonia continues her battle of wits with the Sorcerer.
Rita makes a “humph” noise through her nose. “Pamphrock would do anything to get one over on the vampires, even if it meant allying himself and his followers with an old adversary.”
I look around at the crowds upon crowds of people, each side seems to be hovering on the periphery of the divide, waiting for even the slightest opportunity to attack.
“Do you think maybe we should get out of here now?” I ask Rita. “It looks likely that there’s going to be trouble.”
“Yeah,” Alvie agrees. “Come on Reet, let’s make some tracks.”
Rita nods and the three of us make our way out of the crowd. We don’t get far because the place is even more packed than it had been when I’d arrived with Finn.
I hear someone shout. “Do you actually think we’d ever join forces with you parasites? We’d rather have Theodore on our side than fight with our sworn enemies.” This is an indication that things are going sour, my brain provides. Rita and Alvie notice it too, and the three of us quicken our pace, though it doesn’t do much good. We hardly get a couple of feet away from where we’d been standing when someone on the vampire side throws a petrol bomb into a group of dhamphirs a few feet away from us. Glass shatters when it hits the ground, and I see several people get hit in the face.
All hell breaks loose, and caution is thrown to the wind when it comes to sticking to particular sides. Punches are thrown, more petrol bombs are pitched across the space. I’d been holding onto Rita’s hand, but quickly we get split apart as more and more bodies cram into the area, fighting and struggling. I can’t see her anywhere as I peer around and a big muscular guy pushes past me, knocking me to the ground.
I fall on my own ankle and it hurts like a bitch. I hold onto it and try to rub away the pain when more people rush past me and somebody trips over and kicks me in the ribs as they’re running. I grab my stomach and struggle to breathe, feeling like I’ve cracked a bone.
Quickly I run my hands down my body to make sure I’m not bleeding anywhere. That would be unfortunate, since I’m injured in the middle of a riot where one side is made up entirely of vampires. No blood, thank God. I still can’t see Rita anywhere, and I wish she’d use that light trick of hers to find me again. However, it’s probably difficult to cast a spell amid this level of chaos. I hope she hasn’t been hurt, and Alvie too.
Beside me a dhamphir and a vampire fall to the ground, I’m getting good at telling one from the other. The dhamphirs are less pale and have more of a human aspect to them, the vampires look like they are built from solid marble and they seem too beautiful to be real. I have always been suspicious of perfection.
The dhamphir has his hands around the vampire’s throat, but the vampire rips out of the hold and scampers off. Strange, I’d thought the vampires would be a lot stronger than the dhamphirs, and yet this one runs away? The dhamphir rises to his feet and chases after his opponent, disappearing out of sight. I try to get up but the pain in the left side of my ribs is a killer, and I was never one to handle pain well. The slightest twinge and I’m out for the count.
I need help, even one of the vampires would do. Hell, I’d even accept Marcel at this point. I hadn’t realised it until this moment, but as I peer down at my hands I notice that they are shaking. A human riot is frightening enough, but a supernatural one? Well that’s just a little past my capability level.
Something dances past my vision, twisting and twirling in a swirl of black and white. The next thing I know Theodore’s face is right in front of mine, and I almost faint out of shock. At the head of the crowd earlier he had just about passed for human, but up this close, close enough that our noses could almost touch, he seems absolutely alien. His face is bizarre, like it’s been painted white even though you know that it hasn’t. He reminds me of the late King of Pop, completely chillingly surreal.
He tilts his head to the side, and a horrible grin forms on his sardonic lips. I can smell him now, like church incense and clove oil. It stings my nostrils. Theodore is scary the way a clown is scary, he looks absolutely ridiculous, and he shouldn’t be frightening, but he is. You can tell that his aesthetic is a cheap fraud. Beneath it he is a demon.
For some reason this is worse than if he simply looked like the monster that I know he is. Instead he looks like
a character from one of the old black and white cartoons. He is the pleasant, ordinary looking stranger you feared would kidnap you as a child and you’d never see your parents ever again.
“Well, well, well,” he sings. “I haven’t found one of your kind for quite a number of years, lucky, lucky me.”
“I’m just j-just a human,” I tell him through chattering teeth.
“A human yes, but die Äußerste Macht also. Quite the find I must say.” Theodore laughs coldly.
“How do you know that?” I ask in bewilderment.
“I see everything my dear little child. Now come, I am taking you with me.” He puts his hand out and grabs my arm, pulling me up without any effort at all. His hand feels like claws digging into my skin.
I try to jerk away but it’s no use. He feels me make a move to break free of him and his eyes find me, scolding my actions with the briefest of looks.
“Let go of me!” I scream, hoping that someone will hear, perhaps Ethan, and come to my assistance. Theodore raises his hand and makes a small pushing motion and suddenly it feels as though somebody has stuffed a sock in my mouth. I heave and choke on it, unable to make a sound.
A fraction of a second later, as Theodore appears to be getting ready to cast another spell, a massive metal chain comes whipping into my sight. It folds itself around Theodore’s neck and his grip on me falls away. I stumble backwards to see Dru pulling the chain on him.
“Run now!” she shouts at me, and I follow her orders just as Theodore manages to grab onto the chain and cause it to melt away into liquid. Dru lets go of the chain that is now burning orange, but I don’t stick around to see what happens next. I run as fast as my legs will carry me, and that isn’t very fast since I can barely breathe after that blow I took earlier. I’d thought Theodore had been gaining the upper hand by melting the chain, but that must not be the case because I can hear him wail out in agony as I’m stumbling away from them.
I’m still running a few minutes later, back in the direction of the city, when I hear somebody jog up beside me. Thinking it might be Theodore coming after me I quicken my pace, but then a hand pulls me back.
“It’s okay, it’s just me,” says Dru, not panting at all, despite having been running. I, on the other hand, am completely out of breath.
I fall back into her. “Oh thank God, I thought it was him again, I – thank you for helping me.”
“Not a problem. I managed to break his casting hand, that’ll keep him out of action for a couple of hours before he figures out some way to heal it.”
“How did you know which hand he casts with?”
Dru grins and scratches her jaw. “I didn’t, I just broke them both for good measure.”
We’re far away from the port now, but you can still hear the sounds of the riot. Shouts and bangs and things being broken. I try to catch my breath, my chest heaves up and down frantically. At least whatever spell Theodore had cast to shut me up is gone. But now that the imminent danger has abated I can feel the pain in my ribs again, I put my arm around myself, holding onto the painful part. I must have been so afraid of Theodore, because I don’t know how I ran this far, I can barely breathe as it is.
“Are you hurt?” Dru asks with concern.
“I took a bit of a kick to the stomach from someone running by when I fell, I think I might have cracked a rib.” I cough.
“Oh shit,” she says, sucking in a breath. “You want some blood to heal it?”
“Huh? What do you mean?” I ask in confusion, trying to feel past the agony.
“Vampire blood, it can heal human ailments. Physical stuff, like wounds and broken bones, didn’t you know that?”
“Um – no, but I think I’ll pass, I need to go to the hospital.”
Dru smirks. “Don’t be such a baby, I’ll give you some blood and you’ll be right as rain in a few minutes. It will take weeks for you to heal naturally.”
I sit down on the curb and try to think clearly. Under normal circumstances I would never even consider it, but right now I will do anything to be free of this absolute agony.
“How much would I need to take?” I ask in an unsure voice. Dru smiles and comes to sit down beside me.
“Not a lot,” she answers, “two or three mouthfuls at most.”
My stomach heaves in protest at the idea of it, but I try my best to ignore it. “Okay, let’s get it over with then.”
Dru smiles. “You could be a little more grateful, it isn’t often that I make an offer like this to a human.”
I struggle not to roll my eyes, after all, I’m the one who’s going to have to drink her horrible vampire blood. “Fine. Thank you. I’m oh so very grateful,” I tell her. Unfortunately, my sarcasm doesn’t manage to evade her. She quirks an eyebrow and shakes her head.
“You haven’t had vampire blood before, have you?” she asks.
“Nope,” I answer past another twinge of pain, every breath hurts.
“Right,” she replies, with some kind of unspoken knowledge in her eyes. I haven’t got the energy to question it. Then she lifts her arm up and bears two sharp white fangs, she bites into her own wrist, breaking the skin for me, before raising it to my mouth. Nervously, I lean in and gently put my lips to her skin. I’m too embarrassed to go ahead and begin sucking so I simply kiss away a drop that’s running down from where she pierced the skin.
A light chuckle escapes her. “That tickles. Don’t be a wimp, just go ahead and get it down you.”
I ignore my weak stomach and drink deeply, my hands clasped around her wrist. I expect it to taste coppery, the way blood tastes when you’ve got a nose bleed and it goes down your throat, but it doesn’t. It tastes sweet, sort of like honey but not quite. It’s nothing like what I expected, but then again, vampires are a whole other species, why would their blood taste anything like that of a human?
I take another two gulps and fall into a minor state of calm. Dru pulls her wrist away and I’m almost inclined not to let her. I haven’t felt this chilled in a long time. Dru studies me with sparkling hazel eyes as she wipes her wrist on her trouser leg.
She laughs quietly. “Easy there sugar, we don’t want you draining me dry,” she jokes and then helps me to my feet. “How do you feel now?” she asks.
I take a deep breath and run my hand down my chest, stopping to prod a little where I’d been hurt, nothing stings anymore. “Really good, actually,” I answer.
“I told you it would help,” says Dru. “No need to thank me.”
Now that I’m focusing on how I feel, I am actually better than I have been in quite a while. I feel energised, alive. It’s an amazing feeling. Dru begins walking in the direction of the main street. I grab her arm and pull her back. “Thank you,” I tell her sincerely, truly grateful that I’m not going to have to spend the next several weeks in pain.
Her eyes pierce me, and one side of her mouth quirks up in a slant ways smile. She runs a hand gently down the side of my face, before replying. “Not a problem, darlin’.”
“Where are you going now?” I ask.
“We’re going back to Crimson,” she answers, emphasising the fact that she’s not going to let me wander off on my own. “The others have taken Antonia there. Theodore injured her in the scuffle. Lover boy told me that if I found you I was to take you back to the club.”
“Lover boy, you mean Ethan?”
“Yeah, he was pretty freaked when he couldn’t find you. You really have him wrapped around your finger, what have you got, chocolate flavoured blood or something?”
We’re walking down an empty street now, where only every second street light is working. “Ugh, I’ve never let him drink from me. Have you considered that maybe it’s my winning personality that he’s after?” I joke.
Dru smirks. “I’m not saying that you haven’t got one or anything, but I highly doubt that’s the reason Ethan Cristescu is interested in you. It’s more than likely the way you smell.”
“What way do I smell?” I ask with int
erest.
“Like the sun,” Dru answers without missing a beat, “and flowers, but that’s probably just your perfume.”
“I’m not wearing any.”
“Well believe me, you don’t need it,” says Dru, with an intense expression.
It’s funny how she says I smell like the sun, since a single drop of my blood could erase her sensitivity to it.
“How do you know what the sun smells like? It’s bright, but I never really considered it to have a smell.”
“If you had to spend your life without it, you’d know what it smelled like too,” she answers solemnly. I’m almost inclined to feel sorry for her. We continue our walk in silence.
Chapter Seventeen
Runs in the Family
It’s a long walk to Crimson, and a couple of dhamphirs nearly jump on Dru when they catch her on the North side of the river. All she does is reveal the gun strapped to her waist and they back off immediately, but not before calling her a dyke for good measure. Jesus.
It takes us another twenty minutes to get to Davis Street, and bizarrely we spend the time talking about art. We’re both big Giger fans. The conversation reminds me of how much I actually miss my studies. It makes me ever more determined to get back to college, if I ever get free of this vampire mess.
I’m beginning to like Dru, past the fact that she is quite gorgeous, in an androgynous kind of way, but that’s just my shallow side giving its opinion. She’s the kind of girl I could see myself being friends with, if it weren’t for the fact that she’s a vampire bodyguard. She probably kills people as part of her job on a daily basis. That fact sort of makes me re-think my evaluation of her.
When we get inside the club the place looks like the casualties section of a war zone. Antonia is laid out on one of the tables, her trouser leg ripped off to reveal a gaping wound that one of her male bodyguards is working on cleaning up. It appears to be slowly healing before my eyes. The barman with the dreadlocks is attending to Delilah and Lucas who sport various scrapes and wounds.