Chapter Two
brAM
I don’t know which one of us that awful scream came from.
Ok, that’s a lie. I know exactly who it was, and it’s a secret that I will carry into eternity.
My reputation is in tatters anyway, and it won’t do me any favours if people know that I, Liam Bramwell, supposed local hard man and literal vampire, screamed like a toddler at the sudden appearance of a random girl outside my bathroom door.
Girl or woman, I’m not entirely sure which.
If I had known which, that might have affected my decision to grab her as she dropped, before she fell head first down the stairs.
Actually, that’s a lie too. I would have grabbed her either way.
I’m not about to let anyone fall to their death.
I’m actually surprisingly anti-death considering … well … the whole undead thing.
It will affect how I get out of this situation, though. I’m pretty sure my towel untucked itself as I grabbed her, and there’s a good chance the only reason it’s still around me at all is because of the weight of her body on mine.
Oh yeah, did I mention that I was still holding her? Not in a creepy way, it’s just that she’s still coming round, and I would really prefer she didn’t fall down and die. That’d be a real buzzkill.
Anyway, none of that is the point. Who the hell is she, and why the hell is she here?
It sounds kind of arrogant to assume she’s here for me, but people have attempted it before.
But weirdly, it’s usually the bartender thing, rather than the vampire thing, that draws them in.
See, I own one of the most well-known vampire-themed bars in Yorkshire, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I do, on occasion, flirt with my customers to get them to spend more money on drinks.
Ok, I’m a little ashamed, but I’ve got to keep the lights on somehow, and it’s a surprisingly effective method of turning a first-timer into a repeat customer.
So they occasionally get a little obsessed with me.
They’re only human. Do any of them believe for a moment that I’m an actual vampire?
I suspect not, and that’s exactly the way I like it.
I can count on my fingers the number of people I trust with that information.
You can’t be too careful in this day and age.
Especially with the ever-present threat of vampire hunters.
It’s never actually happened to me, but I’ve heard enough tales of the vampire hunters from Elias to see me through the next few centuries.
Elias is … well, he’s my mentor, of sorts.
It’s complicated. He’s the one who turned me, but he’s also my oldest and best friend.
And when I say oldest friend, I mean that literally. The dude predates flushing toilets.
Though, when he spoke about the hunters, I always imagined them to be imposing warriors or middle-aged geeks, not young, beautiful women like the one I just caught.
Anyway, whatever she’s here for, it’s the first time anyone’s managed to get close to me unnoticed, and it’s throwing me off my game.
That said, I’m usually at my own cottage on the other side of the harbour, and my security is a hell of a lot tighter than W?adek’s.
I mean, the year Dracula came out, for God’s sake.
In our circles, that’s like having ‘password’ as your password.
What I don’t get is how she’d have known I’d be here.
Up until a few hours ago, I didn’t even know I’d be here.
I mean, renting out my own place for the Goth Weekend is a no-brainer.
I’ve been doing it for years. I usually stay with Quinn in the flat attached to the bar.
He’s our head bartender and terminally late, so it made sense to rent the flat to him.
It meant he had at least a chance of getting to work on time.
It’s not the biggest space in the world, but there are blackout blinds on the windows and an oversized sofa in the living room that usually has my name on it.
But I got there this evening, and the bastard shooed me away. Turns out his new girlfriend showed up to surprise him, and he’s planning to spend the weekend ‘boning her on every last surface of the flat’.
His words, not mine.
It seems having your undead mate knocking around while you’re trying to get your groove on is not exactly conducive to romance, so that’s how I ended up here, back at good old Harker Cottage. With an intruder, apparently. An intruder who finally appears to be waking up.
Good. The sooner she wakes up, the sooner she can get the hell out.
‘Hi,’ I mutter, for want of anything better to say. I decide I’ll give her a hard time for turning up outside my bathroom door when she’s come round a bit.
Only, this is the point at which she starts to scream.
And I’m not proud of it, but the sound of a woman’s scream takes me right back to those disastrous early attempts at feeding.
I’ve only fed from humans a few times, but every one of them was an unmitigated disaster.
So when I hear the shrill sound start in her throat, a more primitive part of me takes over.
What can I say? I panic.
I try to extricate myself from underneath her, but it’s no good. I doubt I can move at all without unbalancing her.
‘Stop screaming,’ I snap, as if I didn’t also scream the house down not two minutes ago, and, to my surprise, she does.
Then all I can see is the blue of her eyes blinking up at me, terror replaced by something quieter.
It’s something like shock, which is rich, considering that she’s the one breaking and entering.
‘I’m wet,’ she manages eventually, feeling at the fabric of her top. Her voice sounds small, like a wounded bird, and I’m a bit annoyed at how quickly it rouses something protective in me. I need to remember that she’s the one in the wrong here.
‘I caught you,’ I say, making a special effort to sound gruff and suitably annoyed by the situation. ‘You were about to fall down the stairs.’
Those blue eyes blink a few more times. ‘You’re wet?’
‘Yeah. Showers do that to a person.’
‘Ok.’ There’s a strange quality to her voice, like she’s not fully awake, and I see her nod slowly, looking away for a moment before she trains her eyes on me again, brows pulling together in confusion. ‘Who are you?’
Christ, she must have hit her head as she went down. Or else she’s trying to pull one over on me. The idea annoys me a little.
‘Who am I?’ I grumble, a little more bite to my words this time.
‘Who are you?’ I take advantage of the slight shift in her weight and manage to shuffle out from under her, though I end up flashing her more than an eyeful before I snatch the towel back and wrap it firmly around my waist. ‘And what the hell are you doing in my family’s cottage in the middle of the night? ’
At that, she jumps away from me, too, backing herself into the corner of the landing.
I could swear that I hear my name as she moves, but I don’t think it comes from her.
It sounds further away. Perhaps I imagined it.
Maybe the shock of a random woman appearing in front of me when I’m half-naked is starting to play tricks on my mind.
But there it is again, my name, clear as day. And then a strange sound. It’s familiar, but it isn’t, all at the same time. Is it laughter maybe? But pained laughter, like there’s something a bit wrong with whoever it’s coming from. This night is getting weirder by the second.
But something about the sound seems to shock my little trespasser into action, and she starts looking around wildly.
‘Mina?’ Her voice is more panicked now, and her movements are so erratic they’re making my anxiety spike even more. Until I register what she just said.
Mina?
‘I’m still here, Lou,’ the faraway voice says, and as the stranger makes a grab for her phone, a few steps down the staircase, the voice gets even louder, and even more familiar. ‘And it sounds like you’ve met Bram?’
The stranger eyes me curiously, then taps the speakerphone button. I can’t tell whether it’s for my benefit or hers. Either way, I can’t help but grunt a laugh. This is too ridiculous.
‘Mina?’ I ask, as if there was any doubt.
My favourite cousin, Mina. Of course it is. I’d know that voice anywhere. But she isn’t supposed to be here. Not anymore. Her unexpected illness was the only reason that W?adek let me have this place.
‘I thought you weren’t coming? W?adek said you had to call it off.’
‘Yeah, I’m not,’ she counters. They might have taken out her appendix, but they sure as hell didn’t remove any of her snark. ‘I’m in my bed, at home. Do I need to talk you through how phones work?’
I roll my eyes, even though I know she can’t see me. She always has an answer for everything. Hopefully she’ll have one for this.
‘No, but you can tell me who the strange woman that just scared the life out of me is.’
There’s not a whole lot of life left in me, but that’s beside the point.
Mina chuckles again, and I hear her tut quietly. ‘Don’t be rude, Bram. She’s not strange in the slightest. This is my best friend and colleague, Lucy. She’s taking my place on the job and my bed at the cottage.’
I rear back in shock. ‘Since when?’
‘Since about thirty-six hours ago when we confirmed it with Peggy. I thought you were staying with Quinn like always.’
My gut knots. Am … am I the intruder? I feel uncomfortable all of a sudden, and I tighten the towel around myself like Lucy hasn’t already seen every detail of my naked body.
‘Yeah, I was, but he ran me out. He’s got a new girl he wants to tie in knots and he didn’t want me around for it. W?adek said that since you bailed, the annexe was free.’
Mina scoffs. ‘I didn’t bail, Bram. I had emergency surgery to prevent me from dying. Did you double check with Pegs? You know what W?adek’s like.’