Chapter Five
Chapter
Five
I spent my first week at Tynahine mainly in the tunnels and taking my meals with my new friends.
During my classes, instead of paying attention, I made lists of the different tunnels and staircases.
Luckily enough, I only saw Astra from afar, entering Ambrose Hall surrounded by her flock, with an arm around a different girl every day.
But every single day, just for a split second, she’d look across the hall at our table and lock her eyes with mine.
“The Red Ribbons?” Ife whispers Thursday afternoon, after I ask her about them.
A few times, I’ve wandered down to the stuffy gallery where I assume they hold their meetings, and though I’ve not had a run-in with any of the Ribbons, the chairs have changed position each time I go.
Both Ife and Julia stiffen at the mention of the group, though Stephan is as oblivious as I am.
“Did they say anything to you?” she asks, looking around Ambrose Hall, afraid we might be overheard. I shake my head.
“Who are they?”
“Vampire supremacists,” Julia whispers.
“Convert supremacists,” Ife adds. “We knew they were some sort of student club, but we didn’t know what kind until they tried to recruit Julia last year, after the Integration was announced.”
“I said no,” Julia adds in a matter-of-fact way.
Vampire supremacists. So much for Tynahine being safe for humans.
That night, I grab a bike from the rental shop on the edge of campus and make my way through the woods.
When I reach the gate, I double-check that I’ve got my weapons.
It’s already dark out, and the small Highland roads are sparsely lit, but I remember the route the Familiar took from the city when I first got here.
Once I find the motorway, it takes me just twenty minutes to reach Inverness.
I’m going to a pub called Silverbirch, next to a warehouse where several girls have been found with just enough blood to keep them alive, and no memory of how they lost the rest. Each attack has happened on a Thursday night, and Penny is convinced that the vampire behind the attacks must either be doing night shifts in the pub or is a regular customer.
River Ness glitters with the reflection of streetlamps, a thin mist rising from its surface. It feels good to be out of campus, even if it’s just for the night. The crisp air bites my ears, and I find a line of bike racks, right across from the bridge leading to the river islands.
I chain my bike, and a bloated seagull lands on the handlebars, watching me with yellow eyes. “Shoo,” I say, and it lifts into flight.
It starts to drizzle, and I make my way across the first Victorian footbridge.
I follow the path amongst the woods, illuminated by old-fashioned lampposts.
The trees, firs and red cedars, are staggeringly tall, some so wide they must be centuries old.
There are seagulls here, too, perched on branches.
Silverbirch is small, with a carpet that smells of sweat and spilled beer. The music is loud, and the staff all look human.
I order a plate of chips and an Irn-Bru and scan the premises.
There’s a hen-do taking up four tables, all the women wearing tiaras, while one has a cheap white veil sticking out from hers.
They’re noisy, singing over the music, but no one seems particularly bothered by them.
Closer to me is a table of three, parents with a daughter in her late teens.
Roughly the age I was when my parents died.
All three of them are alive, bickering over meaningless things.
The last time I went out for dinner with my parents was shortly after prom.
Prom night had been a blur, even though I’m pretty sure I didn’t drink.
My girlfriend at the time, Vicki, broke up with me after the party.
She said I cheated on her, but I have no recollection of it.
She’s not worth it, hen, my dad had said. I wish I’d agreed with him.
I wish I’d thanked them for bringing me out for dinner, instead of sulking the whole night.
If I’d known it was going to be our last time going out together, I would have enjoyed it.
I would have told them that there was something fishy about a prize for a competition they had no memory of entering.
I would have told them not to go to London, and they’d still be alive.
And maybe we’d be sitting here as a family, just as those other three are.
My gaze shifts over to the bar, and I spot him, holding a glass of water and smiling at the waitress. She’s mousy, her uniform ill-fitting, and I wonder, based on the glint in the man’s eye, if her blood is like mine. Type-S.
I keep my head down but continue watching him.
Then he does it. His eyes glow red, and the waitress’s flustered expression slackens.
No one in the pub notices. Humans never do.
It’s only once you’ve faced them, once you’ve felt it, that you sense their power.
His thin lips move, uttering an order. He gets up, dusting down a black blazer.
His long fingers glide across his phone.
A second later he heads out the main entrance.
“Going for a smoke,” the waitress says, loud and clear. I don’t waste time. I’ve studied the layout of the Silverbirch in advance, so I know where I’m going.
I slip my mask on once I reach the narrow stairs leading to the roof and pull up my hood. The wind hits me as I take in my surroundings. The roof is riddled with rusty pipes, and a flock of seagulls perches on the ledge, watching me.
The warehouse is in complete darkness. I remember Penny’s intel.
A Thursday night, just like this one, and a girl with amnesia caused either by alcohol or compulsion.
The waitress is not drunk. And if she survives, I’m sure the leech will compel her to forget everything.
I tighten my boot laces, that familiar giddiness spreading through me. I stretch, breathing in the greasy air.
The waitress steps out, walking straight to the entrance of the warehouse. The door creaks open, and she disappears inside. I don’t waste another second, leaping across the street and landing silently on the roof.
The gabled roof has a dozen windows. The back of the warehouse looks like an old train station, with a glass ceiling overlooking a dark hall.
I’m twenty metres above the ground, so I hook a wire to a pole, tugging it to make sure it’s sturdy.
When I look back down, the waitress enters the hall.
And across from her, half a dozen vampires.
Fuck.
This isn’t what Penny told me to expect.
Quickly, I snap a picture of them, sending it her way.
She wanted intel, that’s all. But even though saving people is none of my business, I can’t let them hurt that girl.
I find the window sash and give it a small push.
It opens just enough for me to hear their voices.
“That’s all?” a woman asks.
“She’s the only one with passable blood,” another vampire, the one who compelled her, replies.
“Blood?” the victim asks. A small part of her is still lucid, despite her eerie, doll-like stillness.
The vampire’s eyes flash red again. “You will forget that you ever saw us. When someone asks where you went during the following hour, tell them you walked to the river and then came back.”
They’re keeping her alive.
The girl nods. I try to open the window all the way, but find it jammed. And I’m too slow. One vampire holds the girl, keeping her upright, while the one who compelled her drags a dagger across her clavicle. My heart drops. The girl doesn’t make a sound, shocked as blood spouts around her.
I smash the window, leaping in.
“Hunter!” one of the vampires shouts.
A thin fog fills the warehouse as they turn into bats, all before I can even show them a cross.
They fly out the same window I jumped through.
The girl collapses. “Get back here!” I scream, just before I realise that one, the vampire who compelled her, has stayed behind.
He leaps on me, knocking the gun out of my hand as his eyes flash red.
“What is Callisto doing here?”
I draw a knife from my sleeve while he clasps his hands tight around my neck. I stab his hand, and blood sprays the side of my mask, dripping onto my clothes as I try to wrestle my way out of his grip. His cold blood sticks to my jacket. This is why hunters always wear black.
Despite the wound in his hand, he tightens his grip, pinning me to the ground.
“Take a bite and I’ll tell you,” I choke out through my mask, lifting my left wrist to his lips.
The leech smirks, not thinking twice before sinking his fangs into my skin.
Pain sears through my nerves, but it’s worth it.
He swallows, and his grip around my neck loosens.
His eyes widen as he chokes, and I pull out a wooden stake. I slam it into his chest, and I wish he’d take a little longer to die. But once his heart is pierced, his rotten soul slips out of his body in an instant. His corpse turns into a cloud of smoke, leaving nothing but a pile of dust behind.
The girl’s glasses are tangled in her hair.
Soon her co-workers will realise she’s missing.
I press my hand to her neck, feeling a faint pulse, and use her phone to call an ambulance.
I tell them there’s an unconscious girl in the street behind Silverbirch and that they should be quick.
Luckily enough, I always carry a small but basic first aid kit on my body.
I cover the wound on her clavicle with gauze and a large plaster.
Hopefully it’s enough to stop the bleeding.
I leave her slumped against the wall of the pub, her pulse dangerously slow. I need to get out of here before the ambulance arrives. Why did they run away? Surely six vampires would at the very least think they’d be able to take on a hunter?
More important, why are they sparing their victims?
If it was just one vampire, I would understand keeping their targets alive to ration their blood and avoid the attention that a string of murders or disappearances would bring to a small city like Inverness.
But there were six of them. And there was something almost clinical in the way they stood around her. Measuring her.
For what? A blood party?
I stash my bloodied mask under my jacket and run back to the Ness Islands.
By the time I’m crossing the old metal bridges, the wound on my wrist is burning.
I locate my bike, and the seagull I saw earlier this night is perched on the handlebars once again.
“Fuck off,” I tell it. I need to get out of Inverness.
The other vampires might be following me in bat form.
They’ll be able to smell the blood on me if they fly close enough.
I cycle into a residential area before joining the motorway. I don’t see any bats following me.
But that doesn’t change the fact that my clothes are soaked in vampire blood.
Tynarrich Hall has a laundromat on the first floor, and luckily enough, it’s deserted.
I dump my uniform in the washing machine and look at the time.
It’s already four a.m. If anyone asks why I’m up this late, I can tell a half truth.
I wanted to hit the town. The fact that I killed a vampire is irrelevant.
My bedroom is quiet and empty, no signs of my roommate. I take my bag into the bathroom, scrubbing my mask of any extra blood before stepping into a scalding hot shower. Crimson runs down my body, blood and hair dye mixing on the porcelain shower tray, while I rest against the cold glass.
I’ll have to lie low for the next few weeks. Five vampires got away, and now they’re probably looking for me.
I glance at the moon-shaped wound on my left wrist. I turn the tap, water running cold, and think of the girl. Will she truly not remember anything that happened?
I wrap a towel around myself, another around my hair, and brush my teeth.
And it’s while I do this, as the bathroom becomes quiet, that I hear it.
Slurp.
I stop brushing for a second, wondering if I just imagined the sound, before it resumes, another long slurp. My roommate is here. I take a deep breath and continue brushing, taking my time. I think of all the art books they have lined up on the wall and try to picture what my roommate looks like.
I towel-dry my hair and realise I didn’t bring a nightgown in with me. Shit. Then there’s my wound. I glance at the puncture marks, next to the slight indent caused by his other teeth. How am I supposed to explain this? I rummage through my bag; the first aid kit doesn’t have any plasters left.
I just have to keep it hidden. I make sure my towel is wrapped and tucked tightly, and after a deep breath, I unlock the bathroom door.
The window is wide open, the crescent moon gleaming through clouds.
She’s sitting on the coffin, facing me. Her white hair is messy, and a metal straw is stuck in her mouth. There’s a paper cup in one hand, and a book in the other. I blink, certain that I’m seeing things.
But I’m not. She’s really here.
“Why are you in my room?”
It’s her.
Aliz Astra.
She doesn’t seem surprised to see me. Her dark eyes sweep down my body. “Your room?” Her voice is low, and she lifts a brow. “I’ve been living here for five years.”
“What?” I ask, breathless, and she jumps down from her coffin. No. Aliz Astra owns the hunting lodge. Why would she be here? I tighten the grip on my towel. This isn’t happening. She’s not my roommate.
She can’t be.
She walks towards me, and she’s somehow even taller than I thought. I take a step back, hitting the bathroom door. Her gaze trails down my neck. I don’t have a weapon on me. “What are you doing?” I ask.
Her black eyes narrow as she smiles.
She steps closer, and I grip my towel even tighter, until my knuckles turn white. Something truly demonic flashes across her eyes when she whispers: “Having dinner.”