Chapter 36
Oscar drops Felix’s head into the snow behind him and steps inside the greenhouse. I’m holding my breath, scared to move. And he looks furious—his chest is heaving, his eyes glowing gold in the night, blood all over his shirt. I just stare down at Felix’s body, waiting for him to come back to life.
But he doesn’t.
Oscar rushes over to me, and I panic, thinking how pissed off will he be? But he crouches down beside me and reaches for my face. ‘Did he feed off you?’ he asks through his teeth as he cradles my face in his hands.
I nod. My words won’t come. I just swipe at my tears with the back of my hand, then wipe my hand on my dress—the tears meld in with the red fabric and lace.
He moves my head slightly to the side, his touch gentle, and I can feel his breath as he inspects my neck. Then he lets go and I straighten up and look at him.
‘Did he hurt you?’ he asks, his voice cracking as he searches my gaze. ‘In any other way?’
I shake my head. ‘He tried.’
My gaze moves to Felix now and fixes on his severed head, which is still lying there, leaking blood into the snow, eyes vacant and staring right at me. It looks like that scene from Let the Right One In. Red blood. White snow.
‘Why isn’t he moving?’ I whisper.
‘Because he’s fucking dead, Aubrey,’ Oscar snaps, standing, and reaching for my hand to help me up. ‘Look at him.’
‘But . . . how?’ I ask. Because how can Felix be dead when I’ve never been able to die?
‘What do you mean, how?’ Oscar asks, all tenderness gone now. ‘I killed him.’ He looks back to the manor, probably wondering if anyone knows we’re out here. Then his eyes move back to me. ‘What were you doing out here?’
‘I needed air,’ I lie. My eyes move back to Felix, avoiding Oscar’s gaze. ‘But I’ve tried to die,’ I say. ‘And it never works.’
A flash of that time I went shark diving in Cape Town without a cage, but even the sharks could smell I was toxic and wouldn’t go for me.
Or the week I spent lying on a beach in Spain, certain that it was the shitty UK sun that was standing between me and oblivion, only to return without even a tan.
Or the time I covered myself in silver crosses, forcing down a whole bag of communion breads I’d bought off eBay. All for nought.
‘Well you can’t kill yourself, you morbid little minx,’ he says, looking around, though I’m not sure what for. ‘It wouldn’t be much of an eternal curse if it was that easy to break.’
‘Oh,’ I say, my face very still, as if reality as I know it isn’t fracturing before my eyes. As if a million questions aren’t crowding my head and I don’t know which one to ask first. ‘Does it have to be like that? With, you know, the head? And . . . do we come back again?’
He frowns. ‘Have you never seen a vampire film, Aubrey? There are lots of ways to kill us. Stake. Beheading, obviously. And no, we don’t come back. We’re not human. When we die the second time, we’re dead.’
Screw him and his condescending tone.
‘Well maybe you should have stuck around and told me all that,’ I spit out.
He shoots me a look. ‘Well,’ he says slowly, deliberately, ‘I’m telling you now.’ As he says this, his eyes latch on to something just over my shoulder. I turn to follow his gaze: his keys on the ground. My insides contract.
But he doesn’t say anything, he walks over to them, picks them up and puts them in his pocket, then pulls his hands through his hair and takes a deep breath, saying, ‘Right.’
We’re interrupted by a voice, distant and female. ‘Felix, are you out here?’ It sounds like Carmilla. Did she see Felix leave the party?
Oscar stands dead still, his forefinger to his lips. I dare not even breathe.
The voice stops and he closes his eyes as if listening very intently for something else, maybe footsteps, or breathing. Then his eyes flick open. ‘It’s safe,’ he says.
He bites his wrist, his eyes still on mine, then smears some of his blood on my wound—I’m not sure why, I’ve always healed quickly by myself.
It must be different when a vampire bites me.
He takes his thumb, wets it with his tongue and traces it over my cheeks and hairline, my neck, presumably clearing the red of my tears, of his blood.
He frowns as he glances at my neck. ‘It has healed as best as I can manage, but it’s going to leave a mark for a while, I’m afraid.
’ Then he takes off his jacket and says, ‘Put this on.’
‘I’m not cold,’ I say, momentarily confused. But he throws me a look, so I put the jacket on. He leans in towards me and lifts up the collar, covering whatever is left of my wound.
‘Go back to the house and straight upstairs. You understand?’ he says. ‘Don’t talk to anybody.’
I nod.
‘I’ll deal with this. And Aubrey? We’ll never speak of it again.’
My breath is quick, and the world is spinning triple time, but I nod and stumble back towards the house.
* * *
The sounds of merriment—glasses clinking, chatter and music—assail me as I lift my dress with one shaky hand and grab the banister with the other. I’m halfway up the stairs when I hear a posh voice say, ‘Aubrey, have you seen Felix?’
Icicles seem to form in my veins.
I look down at Carmilla and shake my head. ‘No, sorry. Um, I’m not feeling well, I’m going to bed. Lovely to meet you.’
She shrugs. ‘Lovely to meet you too. I’m here for Christmas so we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other. Hope you feel better.’
I make my way up the stairs to my room. As soon as the door is safely closed behind me, I shrug off Oscar’s jacket and go into the bathroom and inspect my neck in the mirror.
The wound is still there—why isn’t it healing?
A flash of Felix’s fangs, sinking into my neck.
The hard ground beneath me. My breath speeds up, and now the dress is too tight, too hot, I can’t breathe.
I reach back and try to untie it, pulling at the laces, but it won’t budge. What do I do?
Unless I want to go back downstairs and find Mrs Parker, I’m stuck this way.
Panic spurts through me. I need to get it off me; get him off me.
My make-up bag is right there by the sink.
I unzip it, scrabble around and pull out my nail scissors.
Then, standing with my back to the mirror in the bathroom, straining to see, I reach behind me and snip at the dress until finally the ribbons give way and I can breathe.
The dress falls to the floor and I step out of it, strip off my underwear and shoes and take the hairpin out of my hair.
Then I turn on the taps, get under the water and cry.
Blood tears mingle with the water and swirl down the drain.
By the time I’m out of the shower and in my pyjamas I’m numb. I don’t know what to think about anything anymore.
As the sounds of the festivities continue to swirl up from downstairs, I go over to the window and look up at the night sky. Even though it’s the same stars and shimmering moon I’ve seen 55,019 times now since I became this way, it all looks different tonight.
More fragile somehow—or maybe it’s me that’s more fragile. Because everything changed tonight, and I don’t just mean I saw another, deeper—dare I say it, softer—side to Oscar. I mean, because Felix died tonight.
And apparently, I can die too. And I don’t know how I feel about that.