Chapter 27
London was still recovering from the impact of the First World War and the Spanish flu, Princess Mary had just had her wedding, and there was a sense of optimism in the air, a feeling that things were on the way up.
I’d only been a vampire for forty-six years—so I was still young enough to believe that might be true.
I was living in a small apartment not far from Coventry Street that I told people my father rented for me—the fewer questions, the better.
This was still seven years before women were allowed to work night shifts as telephone operators in London, a job I would come to have in time, so I was still working as a hostess at a nightclub in the West End—think jazz music and dancing, sticky floors, and the smells of cigarette smoke, aldehyde perfumes and brandy—the kind of place where you could get a drink (and many other things) until the wee hours, despite the laws prohibiting such behaviour.
The kind of place where a girl like me was routinely propositioned, sex for money.
I said no, though I didn’t judge the women who said yes—we do what we need to, to survive.
But I couldn’t help but watch the men who fed on their desperation with a certain level of disgust. They had plenty of money.
They could have simply helped. Been kind.
Early one morning, after work, I was on my way home.
Sometimes, in the darker months, I’d go for breakfast with the other women.
The aromas of cigarettes and fried eggs and bacon would fill the air as we swapped gossip about the clientele until our eyelids were heavy.
Then we’d go home and sleep through the day.
But it was mid-spring by then, so by five am dawn was coming; soon the streetlights would switch off.
And I was starving, I needed to get home to the little blood I had stashed away in the icebox.
I was halfway home when I heard the first cry.
My insides froze. I listened harder.
Then came a thud, another cry.
I moved quickly towards the sound, then stood at the corner of the street and peeked around it.
Not far from me stood a man, holding up his fist. There was a woman in front of him, cowering, her arms covering her head.
From her lack of shawl and bonnet, her low-cut neckline, I suspected she was a sex worker, though I didn’t recognise her.
Then she moved her arms aside and looked up at him, and said, ‘Please . . .’ And her face was sheer terror.
I recognised the look from the little boy Hans had killed . . .
My gums tingled, darkness swirled, but no, no, no. I tried to push it down, control it. I almost managed.
But then the bastard struck her again.
My ears rang, my vision blanched, my fangs came out, and a volcanic rage rushed through me.
I lurched towards them, attacking him from behind. I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him backwards, and as he hit the ground, she ran away. Instinctively, I dropped to my knees and my teeth sank into his neck.
As soon as his blood started to run onto my tongue, bliss sparked from my veins, my vision snapped to high definition and the entire world sounded like an orchestra.
After forty-six years of feeling half-dead inside, of never letting myself go, of pushing down the darkness and holding myself in chains, I felt . . . alive.
And I wanted more.
But then—ow. Something sharp plunged into my stomach. I pulled away, looked down—the man was lying limp beneath me, but he was holding a bloodied knife and I was bleeding all over him. His chest, his neck. His face. My blood mixing with his.
And then I heard voices coming towards us.
The rage turned to panic.
What am I doing?
But also, I felt fucking fantastic. I wanted to laugh, even though nothing was funny. But I needed to go.
So I left him lying on the ground, and ran home, light on my feet and hidden by shadows.
I was healed by the time I got home, washed the blood off me, got into bed, and tried to go to sleep.
The problem was, now that I’d tasted blood from the vein again, I didn’t just want more. I needed more. And I needed it NOW. It had awoken something inside me, something I couldn’t lull back to sleep any more than I could lull myself to sleep.
I got up and paced the floorboards, need gurgling in my stomach as I watched the sun rise, thinking I should sleep, I should sleep.
But I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to eat.
I was no longer scared of the darkness; now, I wanted to swim in it.
The strangest thing was, as the sun rose in the sky, I didn’t feel the same intense sluggishness I usually felt during the day.
I was certainly a little weaker than I had been just two hours before when it was dark, but not as weak as I’d usually be. And . . . I had the munchies. Bad.
Maybe I could just get one more little taste . . . I felt like with my increase in strength, I could do it.
I’d be careful this time. Only have a little bit.
I fed twice more before a velvet night descended.
And as I sat in the bath afterwards, completely unslept, I remember thinking that maybe I’d found a new way forward, maybe I’d been wrong all along.
Because, I reasoned, I wasn’t really that bad.
The first guy had deserved it, and the other two hadn’t been hurt.
Not really. Just a little puncture wound.
Sure, I might have gone too far if I hadn’t been interrupted both times, but that didn’t matter.
They’d be fine. So, maybe I could live like this forever .
. . I could be strong and alive, light and razor-sharp . . .
Life could be liveable.
I was still thinking about that as I climbed out of the bath and got ready for work.
As I made my way back to the club, I was grinning, congratulating myself. I thought I’d found the elusive answer, the holy grail I’d been looking for. Everything would be better from now on. The pain of living was finally over.
But then I passed a newspaper vendor. The headline screamed: VAMPIRE ATTACKS ON COVENTRY STREET!
Everything inside me froze. But I kept putting one foot in front of the other.
Act normal. It’ll pass. Maybe nobody will believe it.
I mean, who believed in vampires?
Lots of people, apparently.
When I got to work, everyone was talking about it.
Apparently, the woman I’d saved now remembered me as a huge shadow in the dark who’d come forth and attacked them both.
She’d sold her story to the papers. It didn’t help matters that all three men—one dead, two in hospital—shared the same puncture wounds on their necks.
My only saving grace was that according to the survivor descriptions, I was all sorts of horrifying things.
I was a monster, grotesque, terrifying, huge!
But I wasn’t a mere woman. A woman could never have brought them to their knees.
Hearing myself described that way reminded me of all the books and legends that had made me decide never to do this. Never to become this way. Because they were right. Two of my victims had been entirely innocent. What sort of monster would I become if I left my hunger unchecked?
How much worse would I get?
Guilt pulsed through me, followed quickly by pure revulsion. How had I slipped?
How had I been so reckless, so lacking in control?
What would I do if one of my victims saw me one day, recognised me, remembered the true turn of events?
Was I going to get caught? I mean, they’d hired a vampire hunter!
What if whatever Professor Van Helsing they’d entrusted with the task actually found me?
The public hysteria just got worse over the next two days, the effects of the blood I’d fed on quickly dwindled, and soon it was four days later, I hadn’t left the house, I was starving and weak, and the full gravity of what I had done was hitting with full force—I was sickened.
I hated all that I was, all over again. How had I let this happen?
All I could think as I stared into the mirror, loathing everything I saw, was NEVER AGAIN.
I quit my job, moved to Paris, and stayed there until the end of 1928, when I cautiously ventured back to London. But I was extra careful, and I always avoided the West End, even though I loved and still love the theatre . . . just in case.
Every time I caught a Tube that passed by Piccadilly Circus or Leicester Square, I’d renew my vow: Never again.
I would always be good. No matter what. And I would be careful too, even more careful than before. And aside from that one weak moment when I told Freddie things I shouldn’t have, I have been careful.
But tonight, I wasn’t careful. Cautious. Measured. Or safe. I was reckless. And I can blame Oscar’s blood, or pin it on my need to know who I was as a human. But that wouldn’t have saved me if someone had seen me scaling that wall.
Still, who am I kidding? All of that is still far less of a threat than Oscar’s Chat soon.
Because here’s what I know about darkness: it feels good.
Really good. It sucks you in. Once you start to feed on the vein, it’s almost impossible to stop—the books and movies got that much right.
I’ve been lucky thus far—each time I’ve slipped, something has pulled me out and stopped me in my tracks: the terror in that little boy’s eyes, ending up in the papers, hearing myself described as a monster .
. . something to ignite my humanity before it was lost to me completely.
But what if I’m not so lucky this time? What if this time, nothing stops me, and I can’t stop myself?
What if, this time, the darkness pulls me in and never lets me go?
What will I become?