Chapter 22
‘Stop here,’ he says as I reach a door. I can feel him behind me, and a shiver runs up my spine. I do as he says, and he steps in front of me and reaches for the handle. But the moment before he turns it, he lifts his forefinger to his lips. ‘Shh . . .’
He pushes the door open and we go inside.
The first thing I notice is the amber and spice of perfume. Then I see some flimsy, barely opaque red curtains hanging across a separate room. He closes the door gently and we move towards the curtains.
As we draw closer, I can make out what’s on the other side.
There’s a room, windowless, and empty aside from some bookshelves against the walls and a huge red chaise in the middle.
Two women sit on it, talking. One has ash-blonde hair and is wearing a lime-green camisole, while the other has a short chestnut bob and is wearing a strapless black dress.
They’re both sitting with their legs crossed, hunched over their phones, little handbags beside them. What do they think they’re waiting for? Why are they so calm?
Is he going to kill them? How can I stop him?
A voice in my head is screaming, RUN! But Oscar senses it, and his hands find my shoulders.
He grabs me, stares deep into my eyes and I’m thinking, I should never have looked for him.
I should never have gone to that club. I should never have stepped outside the safety of my carefully built little life.
‘Relax,’ Oscar whispers, but there’s nothing in his tone to make me relax. Then he adds, ‘They will both walk out of here alive . . . unless you do something stupid.’
‘I can’t do it,’ I whisper back, my insides twisting. Then in a small voice I beg, ‘Please don’t make me.’
He frowns. ‘They’re for me, Aubrey. Just watch and learn.’
Then he leaves me there by the curtain and I watch helplessly as he strides towards them. I can see their faces as they gaze up at him.
‘You will both sit still, you will stay calm,’ he says in a soothing voice, looking from one to the other. Their eyes glaze over and they nod and he sits down between them. Dread settles over me and I press my hand to my mouth in case I yelp.
He turns to the chestnut-haired one, cups her face in his hands and murmurs, ‘Aren’t you beautiful?’ And I can see her face, she’s looking deep into his eyes and just letting it happen.
And then one of his hands finds her breast, and she arches her back and leans in and he kisses her. First on the mouth, then on the jawline, then his mouth moves to her neck . . .
And he bites.
She flinches, lets out a small cry, but she doesn’t fight.
She just stays there, growing limp, while he keeps feeding.
The blonde one gazes out at the room vacantly.
Oscar pulls away and the chestnut-haired woman flops forward like a rag doll, then he turns to the other woman.
He doesn’t even bother kissing her, he just leans in and bites her neck immediately. My other hand comes to my mouth now.
Oscar’s eyes move up and meet mine, and something electric moves between us. I look down. Away.
All I want is to leave. But if I do, what’s he going to do to them? At least if I’m here, there’s a witness, not that I could take this to the police.
He pulls away and the blonde one’s head leans against his chest.
Are they okay? The first woman’s fingers are twitching and neither of them have collapsed, so they’re definitely still alive . . .
Then I watch as he bites his own wrist, and with an expression I can only describe as boredom, he moves it to the wound on the first woman’s neck, pressing his own blood into the bite. Then he does the same to the second woman’s wound. And before my very eyes I watch them heal.
And . . . what?
I’ve seen this trick performed in TV shows, but always thought it was just lazy scriptwriting, because I never saw Hans heal anyone with his blood—though granted, that wasn’t really his personality type.
Plus, like I said before, I’ve bled into a human’s wound—not on purpose, but still—and it did nothing to heal them.
It just made an even bigger mess.
So why is it working for him? Because it’s undeniable: their wounds have vanished.
The first woman is moving, coming back to life.
He turns to her, lifts her face to look at his and whispers something I don’t hear.
She nods. Then he turns to the second woman, sits her up, looks her dead in the eye, and this time I catch it: ‘You came here tonight, but you and your friend got bored, so you went home early. We never met. This never happened. You spent a couple of hours scrolling through social media before bed, which is why most of the night is a blur . . . a big black hole . . .’
This is how he gets away with it.
He must have hypnotised Daphne last night too, I realise. Because that’s exactly what she said about her night. Now anxiety brews inside me because: What exactly did she tell him?
Woman number two nods. They get up, sling their little handbags over their shoulders and then Oscar leads them to a door on the other side of the room. They walk through it without even looking back.
And then they’re gone. And still alive.
Relief pulses through me. It’s okay. That wasn’t so bad. He just wanted me to see how it was done.
He comes over to me now, and he looks well, healthy.
His fangs have retracted and there’s not even a drop of blood on his expensive-looking shirt, nothing on his teeth, on his face.
You’d never guess he was a monster. But at least it’s done.
I’ve watched his demonstration, now I want to go home, thanks.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘That was really helpful. I should probably be going though, I have things I have to do before work tom—’
‘Absolutely not,’ he says. My breath catches and the room swells with silence.
And then: Creak. The door on the far side of the room opens, and another woman comes inside. She has strawberry-blonde hair and is wearing a short silver sequined dress and stilettos.
Oscar looks at me. ‘Now it’s your turn.’