Chapter Six
Not knowing what to do with herself, unable to relax in the unfamiliar environment with thoughts swirling in her mind, Michelle wandered back to the bedroom.
She sat down on the bed, which someone (perhaps Mrs. Frost?) had made in her absence.
Going over what she had found out so far, which felt incredibly limited, she decided that at the very least she would have to call in sick to work.
Her fear of the demon returning was strong enough to keep her right here for now, as mysterious as the inhabitants of this mansion were.
She rang her line manager. The call was brief as Michelle explained she had sprained her ankle on the way home and wouldn’t be able to come into work for the next couple of days.
The lie rolled off her tongue with ease—a surprise, as she had never called in sick with a falsehood before.
The hospital was always so short-staffed, and the thought of slacking off work was diametrically opposed to her sense of duty towards both her colleagues and patients.
After the night she’d just had, though, those concerns seemed increasingly remote.
She was no use to her patients dead. And it wasn’t like she could tell her manager that a demon had attacked her.
Michelle knew exactly what that would sound like. No, she would keep the truth to herself. Her manager wished her a speedy recovery and hung up.
She sent some texts to her mum, sent a quick message to Iris to let her know she was still alive, and scrolled through a couple of social media apps.
The pictures of happy couples and food-smeared toddlers did nothing to relieve the feeling of estrangement.
Frustrated, she stuffed her phone in her back pocket and padded downstairs again.
Mrs. Frost was in the kitchen, slicing a mountain of vegetables.
At the sight of her grey hair and bright green sundress, Michelle almost turned around to flee. Then she thought the better of it.
“Can I help you with anything?” Michelle asked. Giving her hands something to do sounded very appealing right about now.
“No.” Mrs. Frost continued her assault on a massive cabbage without looking up.
Michelle was not above begging. “Please?” Even the intimidating woman seemed less of a challenge than the abyss of her own thoughts. She could deal with difficult patients and even more difficult parents—she could deal with one old housekeeper with a temper.
“No, thank you. I have a system.” Although Mrs. Frost continued as she had been, Michelle thought she noticed a small, almost imperceptible softening in the woman.
“All right, I’ll leave you to it. Did you prepare my room upstairs?”
That earned her a short glance before Mrs. Frost turned back to her chopping. The cabbage was being decimated into tiny shreds at a terrifying speed. “I did.”
“It was perfect. Thank you.”
For a moment, Michelle thought she saw a smile tug at the corners of Mrs. Frost’s mouth. She must have imagined it: when she blinked, the woman’s features were as stoic as they had been before.
A woman dressed all in black strode into the kitchen.
She had an olive skin tone and wore her hair shaved at the sides, the longer strands from the crown of her head grazing her angular face.
This woman must be yet another Sister. She had the same quiet strength, the same edge of predator that the others had possessed as well.
But where Lavinia exuded a calmness, this woman gave off an air of barely contained aggression.
She was the kind of person Michelle would mentally label as a troublemaker.
The woman walked up to Mrs. Frost and snatched a piece of carrot.
“Those are for later, you heathen,” Mrs. Frost complained, and waved her large kitchen knife threateningly at the latest Sister. Michelle flinched at the blade flashing so close to the Sister’s bare arms.
“Just having a taste,” the woman answered, easily dodging the knife and pinching another two pieces of carrot.
“Both of you are bothering me. Go do something else, Quintia, and take Michelle with you.”
Quintia sighed, looking eerily like a castigated teenager for a second, before she turned to Michelle.
“Fine. Come on.” Quintia marched out of the kitchen without looking to see whether Michelle was following. Despite her misgivings, she found herself doing so, walking through a hallway that led to a narrow staircase. This house felt like a maze, every door hiding yet another revelation.
As they descended, she asked tentatively, “Where are we going?” The stairs were notably less fancy than the upstairs had been—no oil paintings or expensive wallpaper, instead presenting swathes of exposed concrete. Why were they going into the basement?
“I’m not sitting around babysitting you. Might as well do something useful.”
“I’d be happy to do something useful.” Anything was better than staying in her room, waiting for Lavinia to find whoever wanted to kill her. She chose not to be offended at the insinuation that she was a child.
Quintia ducked into a room, Michelle close behind, still unsure what a person like Quintia would consider “useful”.
The hallway opened up into a modern and well-lit gym, with various gleaming black exercise machines dotted across the room.
The middle of the room was kept free, however, and was covered with fall protection mats, the kind used in martial arts.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Quintia said, grabbing a wooden stick from a rack against the wall.
“Uh, I’m afraid I haven’t got anything at all.
I don’t know how to fight.” Besides some very basic grips to ensure a child wouldn’t hurt themselves while she was giving an injection or to deal with a temper tantrum or two, Michelle didn’t even know any real self-defence.
It had never before seemed particularly necessary.
“Doesn’t matter. Come on.” Quintia kicked off her black trainers and positioned herself on the middle of the mat. She gestured to the empty space before her.
It didn’t seem she had much of a choice. Quintia looked at her with an impatient scowl, her brown eyes hard in the bright overhead lights.
“Right.” Michelle took off her sneakers, setting them beside Quintia’s.
She also removed her jumper, which would surely be too bulky and warm for any kind of exercise.
Luckily, she’d worn an old tank top underneath.
She walked onto the mat, testing its firmness underneath her feet.
It was less squishy than she thought. When she reached Quintia, the woman tossed her the stick.
It was smooth wood, with only some tape to improve the grip on one end.
Both ends were blunted, fortunately. Michelle didn’t feel particularly confident in waving around large sharp objects.
“Hit me,” Quintia said, gesturing for Michelle to come forward.
“But you don’t have a stick.”
“I don’t need one.”
“Oh.” Michelle looked down at the weapon in her right hand, trying to get somewhat of a feel for it. She adjusted her grip, looked back at Quintia, and hit her.
Or at least, she tried to hit Quintia. With offensive ease, the other woman stepped aside and the stick swung into air, dragging Michelle off balance.
“Again.”
Stepping forward, faster now, Michelle struck, this time thrusting straight ahead instead of using an overhead swing, aiming at the middle of Quintia’s stomach.
Again, she dodged, as naturally as if she knew exactly what Michelle intended to do before she did it.
Again and again, Michelle advanced, hacked, slashed, and once even followed up with a punch of her left hand.
Quintia deflected the blow with one hand as if it was nothing.
“Better,” Quintia said to that, and Michelle tried to be more creative, seeking out ways in which to surprise Quintia.
She wasn’t nearly as fast as her, and nowhere near as strong, but she found she enjoyed the challenge.
It felt good to move, to feel her muscles protest under the strain of this unexpected usage.
Michelle had never been tempted to join a gym or play any sport, but this… this was fun.
“Let’s pause,” Quintia said after a particularly unsuccessful swing of the stick.
Michelle’s top was sticky with sweat, and her breaths came fast and shallow.
Quintia looked just as cool as she had before they’d started.
It was incredibly unfair. “Have some water.” She handed over a large refillable bottle taken from a small fridge beside a treadmill.
Gratefully, Michelle drank several large gulps, relishing the cool water on her tongue.
“You’re so good at this,” Michelle said once she had found her breath again. Somehow, Quintia had become less intimidating, the harshness of her personality somewhat mellowing as they had sparred. There was a certain wildness inside of her, but clearly she also had excellent control of herself.
Quintia shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of experience.”
“I think I could train for years and not be as fast as you.” Michelle took another sip of water.
“Well, that’s just because I’m a vampire. Our reflexes are much faster than a human’s.”
The sip of water didn’t quite make it to its destination, and Michelle coughed, for a moment unsure whether she’d heard Quintia right. “Wait, what?”
Quintia raised one eyebrow. “We’re all vampires here. I thought Lavinia had told you.”
“Vampires,” Michelle repeated.
“Yes.”
“The blood-sucking kind?”
“That’s right.”
“The have-to-be-invited-in-and-hates-garlic kind?”
Quintia leaned casually against a rack of weights, her arms folded. “Well, having an invitation before you enter someone’s house is just polite, and I do love a good garlic naan. But still vampires.”
Michelle’s thoughts whirled at this new revelation.
She thought back to Lavinia last night. How quickly the wound on Lavinia’s stomach had healed.
Her eyes hadn’t betrayed her, but she hadn’t understood what had actually happened.
Quintia was a vampire. So was Lavinia. And Lucretia, and the woman who had opened the door last night, Proserpina.
She was surrounded by vampires in this mansion.
She was completely out of her depth.
“But I’ve seen Lavinia go outside while the sun is up. I thought vampires could only go outside at night,” Michelle said, her brain struggling to keep up with the new information thrown at it.
“Oh, we can go outside, sunlight just hurts like fuck. Burns. The sun is less of a problem for us than you might imagine. It’s England. It’s cloudy all the goddamn time anyway.”
“Right.” Michelle thought for a moment. “Are there any other revelations you want to get out of the way? A troll lives under the bridge, the tooth fairy’s real, or anything else like that?”
“No, that’s all. Although don’t go wandering in the forest around the full moon. Our neighbours are werewolves.”
Michelle couldn’t tell whether Quintia was joking or not. It felt like she should laugh right now, but Quintia’s expression was dour.
“What will you do, now you know?”
“What do you mean?”
Quintia pushed away from the weight rack, uncrossing her arms. She stepped forward and pinned Michelle with her stare. It made her feel small, insignificant, like a bug that Quintia could squash without any effort. She probably could.
“Will you betray us to your human friends? Tell them our secrets, lead them here?”
Michelle frowned and held her ground. It took everything not to step back and show her very real fear. “No, I wouldn’t. I haven’t told anyone about the demon either.” And she wasn’t going to. Her friends and family would only think she was suffering from a nervous breakdown.
Quintia stood painfully close, invading Michelle’s space. Assessed her, measured her up, before she stepped back with a huff. “Keep it that way, human.” She walked back to the middle of the mat. “Let me show you some basic stances,” she said breezily, as if she hadn’t just threatened Michelle.
Michelle took a shaky breath, her shoulders unclenching, and stepped back onto the mat.
Quintia showed Michelle how to place her feet to improve her balance, how to jab without losing her footing, and some basic strikes.
Throwing herself into the training, Michelle could almost forget what Quintia had just told her.
She let the movement banish any thoughts or questions from her mind.
All that mattered right at this moment was hitting the target Quintia held up for her, punching again and again, until all that existed in the world was her burning muscles and Quintia’s sparse encouragements.
Despite Quintia’s intimidating demeanour, she was a good teacher.
After an hour, Michelle could barely lift her arms. She felt her weariness in her bones, and apologised to Quintia that she couldn’t continue. “Lasted longer than I’d thought,” Quintia responded, the corner of her mouth twitching upward. “Not bad, for a human.”
Michelle couldn’t help grinning. She left Quintia in the gym to practice in earnest, and dragged herself back up into the inhabited part of the house, up the grand staircase and into her room for another shower.
The thoughts that she had so carefully avoided for the last hour or so came crowding back immediately as the shower’s hot water soothed the stiffness from her muscles.
Vampires. They were all vampires—Quintia, Lavinia, Lucretia, Proserpina…
Even Mrs. Frost? What about Zachary? She wondered where Lavinia was right now, what she was doing.
Whether she was safe. Would she have to fight more demons or other, even worse monsters?
Come to think of it, were vampires immortal, like in the stories?
How old was Lavinia? Michelle had thought she was in her late twenties, like herself.
But maybe her youthful features were an illusion, and she was actually centuries old.
She wondered what that would be like, to live for so long.
Wondered whether she seemed terribly young to Lavinia.
Also, did they really drink blood? How did that work?
She imagined a classic scene from a gothic romance, herself in a decadent gown stretched out on a fainting couch, Lavinia kneeling before her in a velvet suit, drinking from her wrist. Michelle shuddered.
She wasn’t entirely sure whether it was in horror or something else.