Chapter 5
Chapter Five
LUCY
I’m not sure I’ve ever thought about bats in any great detail before, but something about Lestat, the geriatric Brandt’s bat, is getting to me.
He’s a tiny thing, barely the length of my palm in these unwieldy gloves Fiona has had me wear to hold him.
I’m amazed he made it a year, let alone forty-two, which she tells me is his minimum age.
He’s baring his teeth at me, mostly broken now but for two prominent fangs.
It’s no wonder they called him Lestat. It’s perfect for an ancient vampire.
I kind of love him.
He’s not sure about me, though, and I don’t blame him.
I’m not the most confident bat handler, and while I’m being extra careful not to hurt his injured wing – the reason he’s in the sanctuary – I’m just trying to make it through this intense anxiety that I’ll damage him in some way and have the murder of Britain’s oldest bat on my conscience forever.
I hear Bram clear his throat just to my left, and that reminder that he’s right there seems to soothe me and unsettle me at the same time.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when Fiona and I opened that shed door to find him there, arms at full extension over his head and a good three inches of perfectly toned midriff exposed as he stretched to stack the box.
Fiona even took a photo of the whole scene, which I thought was bold, but each to their own.
She hasn’t explained what he’s doing here, and he hasn’t offered the information either.
My curiosity is piqued. It’s not often that I feel my reporter senses tingling, but they’re tingling like crazy now.
There’s a story here, I know it. But right now I have to focus on the story that is currently trying to nibble his way through the leather gloves I’m wearing.
Fiona chuckles a little to herself as she reaches to grab the little vampire from my hands, and I’m simultaneously disappointed and relieved.
‘Do you want to hold him before we let him have a rest?’ she asks Bram, and I can almost feel the tension that ripples through his body. He clearly doesn’t want to do that at all.
‘I will,’ he says gruffly, and I whip my head around to look at him. I wasn’t expecting that. He hasn’t said a single word since I called him over, just stood there the whole time looking at Lestat with the same expression on his face – an expression like he’s barely holding himself together.
Is this gruff, six-foot-whatever man scared of bats?
I almost want to laugh, but I don’t, especially when I shake off the leather gloves and he takes them from me with a heavy sigh. He obviously doesn’t want to hold Lestat at all, but he agreed to do it almost immediately. Why?
I study him while he pulls the gloves on and nods to Fiona.
She eases the writhing creature into his waiting hands, and I see the tension grip him even more tightly as Lestat’s tiny claws sink into the leather.
His shoulders are halfway up to his ears now, a muscle in his jaw ticking as his lips tighten together.
It has entirely the opposite effect on Lestat.
As soon as he’s placed in Bram’s gloved hands, the elderly bat seems to relax entirely.
He stares at Bram, who is staring right back, but while Bram looks as if he’s a millisecond from panicking and flinging Lestat towards the ceiling, the tiny bundle of fur makes himself even more comfortable, sinking down into the worn leather with his broken teeth bared. It almost looks like he’s grinning.
I quickly pull my camera out of my bag to start taking photos, and Bram catches my eye and raises an accusatory eyebrow. I can’t help but laugh. The contrast between Bram’s clear discomfort and Lestat’s absolute relaxation is just too much to resist.
‘He likes you,’ I say, and Bram looks up at me, a shocked smile breaking through his tension.
I snap another photo before that smile can drop, and when I check it, it’s the best one yet.
The backdrop of black denim and tattoos adds just the right amount of drama to the shot, and out of context, the slight curl of Bram’s grin looks totally different – almost seductive.
‘Like a bat out of hell,’ I mutter to myself, and then I scribble the phrase down in my notebook before I can forget it. It’ll make a great headline.
And then Bram is squirming, fidgeting, looking up at Fiona with something like desperation in his eyes as he thrusts his handful of bat towards her.
‘Ok,’ he says, his voice as tense as his posture, ‘that’s my limit.’
Fiona chuckles, gently gathering the bat out of Bram’s hands and putting him back into the cage, where he nestles into the folded towel in the corner and eyes us all with suspicion.
‘Thanks for today,’ Bram says to Fiona, pulling the gloves off and wiping his hands on his thighs when she takes them from him.
She just shakes her head. ‘I should be thanking you,’ she says. ‘You’ve been a huge help. If you wanted to come back and help out again at any point, I wouldn’t be mad about it.’
He grins at her, that same grin I’ve seen a few times, somewhere just this side of flirtatious. I wonder if he even knows he’s doing it. I can’t imagine he has any shortage of women throwing themselves at him. Even Fiona’s blushing, and she’s easily old enough to be his mother.
‘I hope you get what you need from this,’ she says, which sounds like it’s part of an earlier conversation that I wasn’t party to, and the loaded nod he gives her in return intrigues me even more. I look away despite my curiosity. It seems like the right thing to do.
And then Bram is leaving, nodding a goodbye to both of us as he sweeps out of the door. It feels like some of the air in the room leaves with him, and I suddenly have to take a deeper breath. What is that feeling? Relief, maybe?
I shrug it off and make the most of the rest of my time with Fiona.
She introduces me to some of the other bats, and tells me the story of how Lestat was found, and the buzz of excitement when they discovered that he was first tagged forty-two years ago, making him officially the oldest known bat in the world. It’s a great story.
A rush of inspiration hits me, and I get the urge to get it all down as quickly as I can. I thank Fiona and grab my things, thumbing through my phone as I go to find the number of the taxi firm that brought me here.
Bram’s leaning on his car when I get outside, as cool as ever, one foot propped up behind him with his sunglasses on and that well-worn leather jacket slung over one shoulder. He looks up as he hears the crunch of my shoes on the car park’s gravel.
‘How are you getting back?’ he asks, his voice deep and smooth. I hadn’t noticed before, but there’s a rumble to it that resonates somewhere inside my chest, like it’s just exactly the right frequency for seducing women. I can’t help but wonder if that’s something he’s practised.
I cock an eyebrow. ‘Who’s asking?’ I’m half teasing, and by the tug of the smile at the corner of his mouth, he gets it.
‘Well, my car is here,’ he says, patting the car door he’s leaning on, ‘and then there’s only that Corsa over there, so unless Fiona teleported here, I’m guessing that’s hers, and you need a lift back into Whitby.’
I do. And it would be ridiculous not to take him up on his offer. If that was even an offer.
‘I was going to call a taxi,’ I say, too awkward to ask outright, not to mention that for some reason it’s important to me that he knows I had a plan.
But he just holds his hand up. ‘This weekend? You’ll be waiting ages.’ He gestures to the immaculate Mini behind him. It’s black, obviously. ‘I’m going anyway, so you might as well hop in.’
It took less than ten minutes for the taxi to pick me up earlier, but I don’t argue with him. It’ll save me twelve quid, after all. That’s at least two books, or a hell of a lot of chocolate.
Instead, I smile at him. ‘Thanks,’ I say, and I follow him as he walks to the passenger side and opens the door for me. I mean, I can open my own car door, but there’s something about the way he does it that I like – casual, like he’d do it for anyone.
The inside of his car is as clean as I’ve ever seen anyone’s car be, and though I can see that his back seat is rammed full of some kind of equipment, even that’s neat, the boxes stacked smartly, cables wound into perfect figure eights.
I can’t help but smile to myself. I wouldn’t have expected that at all.
He fills most of the driver’s side when he climbs in, and when he pulls the door closed, there’s a moment when I’m overwhelmed by how close we are – by the scent of his aftershave.
He smells amazing, like cedarwood and sea salt, along with something warmer, which I can’t quite put my finger on.
I’m trying to identify it when I realise that he’s probably close enough to notice me dragging in lungfuls of his scent like a teenage girl.
I blush as he clears his throat next to me.
He drops his phone into the charging cradle on his dashboard, and the screen lights up with messages and missed calls.
I feel like I shouldn’t be looking, but I can’t help but sneak a look.
The content’s hidden, but I catch some names before I look away: Samira, Angela, Emmy, and four from someone who’s just listed as Foxy AF.
All women, which doesn’t surprise me, given the way he looks. Not to mention that grin, of course – the slight catch of his lip over his canines, a whisper of something dark about him.
I jump when my phone buzzes in my hand, and when Jon’s name pops up on the screen, my already raised pulse kicks into overdrive.
He doesn’t often text me, and the optimist in me wonders if this might be a personal message, but when I swipe to read it, I find that he’s just letting me know that tomorrow’s interview has been moved to tonight at 6pm.