Chapter 21
My vision stutters as traffic, lights and cold air swirl around me. I spy a cab just up ahead, pulling up on the corner of Greek Street, and run towards it. A man in a grey suit gets out as I lean into the cabbie’s half-open window.
‘Dunraven Street in Mayfair, please,’ I say as calmly as I can, while my ears scream and pulse.
He nods and I get in, slamming the door after me.
‘Careful,’ he says into the rear-view mirror.
‘Sorry,’ I say.
He just nods, and starts to drive. We edge forward, the cars bumper to bumper, horns beeping, and my ears keep ringing and that pull towards him is even stronger now. Maybe I should just get out and run there. But I won’t make it, I’m too dizzy, I’ll fall over.
At least Oscar’s voice has shut up now.
I frantically tap through Google Maps—how long until we get there?—and that’s when my phone starts ringing: Es.
I send the call to voicemail and type Dunraven Street into the search bar. Eleven minutes. We should be there in eleven minutes.
A text flashes up on my screen.
Es: Are you in the loo? Everything okay??? xx
I go to text back but I can’t think, I can barely breathe right now, and besides, how could I possibly explain this to her? I just need to get through it. We’re on Charing Cross Road now, and the traffic has thinned. We’re moving faster.
I sink back into the seat and close my eyes and try to conjure Jonathan’s face in my mind’s eye. But I can’t think of anything other than the ringing in my ears and the searing pain in the centre of my head. All I can do is grit my teeth and get through it.
‘You all right, love?’ comes the cabbie’s voice and my eyes flick open. He’s watching me in the rear-view mirror. ‘Tell me if you’re going to be sick, right?’
I nod and look out the window—we’re almost there, we’re slowing down. And then: relief. I can see the door to the club up ahead. We pull to a stop outside.
I pay the driver, then tumble out into the cold air and rush up to the door, press the doorbell just like Daphne did, and as soon as the door clicks open, I pull on it and go inside.
* * *
The very moment I step beyond the threshold, the ringing, the dizziness, it all stops. My ears throb with the silence, the aftershock, and I’m shaking a little. I’m okay, I made it.
And I’m done with this. It won’t be happening anymore. I don’t care who Oscar is or even that he made me, or that he thinks I’m weak. If I don’t want to be a regular vampire, I don’t have to be. He lost the right to an opinion on that a long time ago.
The same hostess from last night, with the short black bob, is standing behind the console, looking me up and down. ‘Name?’ she asks, glancing down at her iPad.
‘Sorry, I’m Aubrey, I’m here for—’
She looks up. ‘Oscar,’ she finishes for me. ‘He’s waiting for you. This way.’
As I follow her up a long hallway, her heels clicking on the floorboards, I frown, thinking: She’s human—I can smell her blood, hear her heartbeat—and she works with Oscar. Does she know what he is?
We stop outside a door and she knocks.
‘Come in,’ calls Oscar, and something clenches in my stomach.
She twists the handle and I get a flash of last night, how he was entirely in control, how I couldn’t leave, and then that ringing in my ears tonight, and I want to tell him this has to stop. But as we go inside, it’s not anger I feel, even though I want it to be. It’s . . . fear.
The office we step into is lit by several lamps emitting an orange glow.
The air smells of old wood and cigar smoke.
And Oscar is sitting behind a huge desk, wearing a crisp white shirt, the light reflecting off his silver cufflinks as he raises a lit cigar to his lips.
I can feel the latent threat pulsing off him.
‘Thanks, Kimberly,’ he says, polite and cold. The hostess nods, then scampers out of the room like he makes her nervous and closes the door behind her. It’s just us in here now.
I swallow hard and stand there, watching him as he watches me. He takes a drag and blows a smoke ring, like he’s enjoying his control. Like he knows that with each moment he makes me wait, I’ll get a little more anxious. A little more unsure of myself.
‘You’re late,’ he says, his eyes still on mine. He’s giving me the same hypnotic look I know probably wins human women over. But it makes my skin crawl and it’s slightly irritating that he thinks he can boss me around like this.
‘I was busy,’ I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
He gives a small smile, like I’ve amused him, then he stands, stubs out his cigar in an amber glass ashtray, just like one I had in the 70s, and walks past me towards the door. ‘Come.’
I don’t follow him.
Because I can’t. He told me last night he wants me to feed off the vein. I know where that leads: once I start, I can’t stop. Then someone dies. Or a few someones.
I won’t do it.
‘No,’ I say, trying to be strong, but my voice cracks, betraying me.
And then I add, ‘I’m sorry.’ Why am I apologising?
He’s the arsehole. But he’s frowning now and there’s something I can’t read in his eyes.
Panic spurts through me. ‘I know you’re trying to help me,’ I add, not wanting to appease him, but knowing I have to.
‘I’ve always been careful, even you said so.
I’ll stay careful, I promise. But I need to live on my own terms. Please, I’ve never let anyone find out who I am, I’m not going to start now. ’
This is a lie, of course—I told Freddie—but minor details.
He stares at me and says nothing. But it doesn’t feel like he’s forcing me to stay, not like last night, so I take a step towards the door, then another.
Soon I’m standing right by him, I can smell the leather of his cologne.
But the moment before I step outside, he grabs onto my upper arm. I look up and our eyes meet.
‘Aubrey,’ he says calmly, looking down at me, ‘I don’t have time for this. I said come.’
I have a split second to make a choice. Do I force my way out of here and see what he does?
Even though my ears still feel like they’re full of cotton wool from whatever the hell he did before?
Even though I know he won’t let me go? Or do I appear compliant, try to win him over to my way of thinking?
I choose the second option.
I nod slowly.
‘Good,’ he says.
He waits as I step through the doorway. But as I make my way down that hallway, his footsteps echoing on the wooden floor behind me, my stomach churns. Because I’m pretty sure I just made a big mistake.