48. Brody
Brody
Ithink I held my breath the whole drive as my heart beat a drum inside my ribs.
I don’t know what happened. One moment I was running, willing myself not to look behind me, the car in front of me, headlights on like a beacon drawing me home.
Then they were in front of me. A flurry of teeth and rage, like a nightmare bought to life, bearing down on me.
This is it, I told myself and felt my whole body brace for death as if it was the only inevitable conclusion.
But then there was a flash of red, a swirl of silk and the route to the car was clear once more.
Somehow – and I was sure it must be a trick and there would be someone, something, waiting for me on the back seat – the keys were in the car and the engine was running.
The whole drive back across Dartmoor I was expecting to see a vampire pop up behind me, or for a vampire to land on the top of the car, the screech of metal as the roof was peeled back like a tin of sardines.
But no one was inside. And no one chased me.
As soon as I pull onto the driveway, Matt and Ivan come running out, helping me from the car and into the house. I tell my story, breathless and terrified as I recount the details. Or at least the parts I remember; so much is a blur, as if it was a movie I was only half watching.
“They didn’t chase me,” I say, stunned that I’m alive and in one piece, sitting on my sofa with a cup of sugary tea.
“They did,” Ivan says with absolute certainty.
“But wouldn’t a vampire be able to outrun a car, especially on the twisty country roads around Hele House?” I ask.
“Of course. I guarantee they were with the car the whole way.”
“So how am I here?”
“Cars are like houses.” He shrugs, as if that makes any sense at all.
“Of course,” Matt says. I’m so glad everyone else gets it. He catches the confusion on my face. “They can’t enter the car without your permission.”
“Oh.” That kind of makes sense actually. “And I guess I wouldn’t have seen them in my mirrors if they stayed behind the car.”
“Exactly.”
“Jesus,” I whisper as I think of a hundred vampires following me down those narrow lanes, watching, waiting. “They were hoping I’d crash,” I realise as I say the words out loud.
“Yes,” Ivan says simply.
I lean forward. Vomit threatens to erupt from deep within me and it takes all my mental and physical capacity to keep it down.
I take a few breaths, counting slowly to five before releasing for eight.
Yetty taught me this once, told me it would help with my anxiety – which ironically she was the principle cause of – and it almost pains me to admit that it does actually work.
No one says a word as I compose myself. And then my brain clicks into logic mode, even if, as usual, it fixates on the wrong part of the problem. “How was my car running when I got to it?” I ask.
“Clara,” Ivan says and there’s a touch of pride there. “The moment the whole human reveal happened, she went and swiped your keys and then when the half hour warning for the hunt came, she got one of the human staff to start the car for you.”
“She saved my life.”
“She did.” Yes, it’s definitely pride in his voice.
“Sometimes she can be a little weak, a bit slow to stand up for what’s right.
And yes, it’s hard for her when her dad is Andrei Hele, self-proclaimed saviour of vampire-kind.
But tonight she really put herself on the line.
She even had a little scrap with the couple who caught up to you first.”
“It was her.” I realise now that the swirl of red silk was the dress she was wearing. “Is she alright?” I ask, remembering the scream that pierced the night as she flew at the others.
“Just a cut. It’ll heal.” Ivan flaps his hand to dismiss the notion but Matt winces. Vampire skin is different to human skin. It takes more force to cut, but the pain is infinitely worse than I would feel.
Silence falls over us and I can see Ivan shifting in his seat as if he can’t get comfortable. Or that he wants to say something but he doesn’t know how to. Eventually he clears his throat. “Ari didn’t mean those things she said,” he says softly.
“I know,” I reply.
“Andrei made her say them to buy you a head start in the hu—”
“I know. It’s fine,” I interrupt him. It isn’t fine. Of course it isn’t fine. She told me that what happened between us meant nothing but I don’t think I can actually deal with all of this right now.
“There’s one more thing you should know,” Ivan says and then he looks at Matt as if to ask him to do the honours.
“Oh, right,” Matt says. “Yes.” He moves over to sit on the arm of my chair and slides his arm around me. “Umm…” he pauses for a moment. “So… Ari had kind of done a deal. A while back. A loan I suppose more than a deal. Yes, a loan is a better word, seeing as she needed to pay it back.”
“Get to the point, Matt,” I tell him. “Please,” I add softly. I don’t know how much more I can take.
“Right. Yes. So, Ari had this deal with a demon called Victor and she only had six months left to pay him back. But Andrei summoned Victor to offer to buy the debt for Ari.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He wants Ari to marry some family friend vampire called Benedict.”
“Ari hates him. I think they used to be a thing but—”
Ivan interrupts me. “He’s a bastard. A narcissistic sadist.”
“Right,” I say. “So she’s hardly going to marry him, is she?” It’s a rhetorical question. But he answers anyway.
“Yes, she is.” He moves to crouch in front of me.
“I know you two,” he motions to me and Matt, “don’t come from old vampire families so you might not know all the ins and outs.
But vampire law has some quirks.” He shakes his head.
“Actually quirks make then sound like harmless oddities like that whole ‘you can kill a Welshman with a crossbow fired from the walls of the castle after midnight on a full moon’ kind of thing you humans have. These old vampire rules aren’t quirks.
They’re serious old-fashioned hangovers with significant impact. ”
“Can you please get to the point?” I ask him.
“Sorry. So under vampire law both parties must agree to the union for it to be binding. You can’t be coerced into marriage.”
“Great. So Ari doesn’t have to marry him,” Matt says.
“That’s where the demon comes in. Andrei offered Victor a deal. He will buy the debt and offer Victor sanctuary from hell, in return for Ari becoming his ward.”
“Ward? What century are we in?” Matt asks. But I stay silent. These past few weeks, as I’ve got to know Ari and her friends, I’ve realised just how archaic some elements of vampire culture are.
“If Andrei becomes Ari’s ward, then he can give permission for the marriage on her behalf,” I say quietly. Everything suddenly clicks into place.
“Yes,” Ivan confirms. “We need to find a way to fix this.”
“When?” I ask, trying not to think about the love of my life marrying someone else. Someone brutal and abusive.
“We have a year.”
I can’t sleep and so I find myself sitting on the balcony, cross legged on the floor staring through the railings at the street below. Suddenly Ivan is by my side as if he’s just appeared out of thin air and I jump.
“Sorry,” he whispers.
“It’s alright,” I whisper back.
“You OK?”
“No.”
“Why are we whispering?”
I shrug. “Because it’s dark out here.” I always whisper in the dark, it feels weird to talk at full volume, like you might wake the monsters hiding in the shadows. Ha. I’m literally sitting next to a vampire.
“Do you want to talk?” Ivan asks.
“I do have a question,” I reply.
“Shoot.”
“Can a human make a deal with this Victor?”
“Humans don’t make deals with demons.”
“Don’t?” I ask. “Or can’t?”
He stares at me for a few moments. He’s obviously trying to work out if he should tell me the truth.
“Just be honest,” I tell him.
Ivan closes his eyes for a few seconds and then opens them. “Fine,” he acquiesces, following it with a deep sigh. “Humans don’t make deals with demons.”
“But they can?”
“Technically.”
“Which means?”
“It means that you’d be a fucking idiot to even contemplate it, OK? And I don’t mean an idiot like it would be kind of a mistake but it could all work out in the end. I mean totally fucking stupid. Like you couldn’t come back from it kind of stupidity.”
“What are the terms?”
Ivan stands up and begins to pace the length of the balcony, running his hand periodically through his hair until it sticks up at crazy angles. eventually he stops and turns to face me. He’s no longer even trying to conceal the look of horror on his face. “What is worse than death?” he asks.
“Umm…” I need a moment to think about the answer here. It’s not a question that really means anything to a vampire, given the whole immortality thing. And I need to ensure I don’t insult him too badly, because let’s be honest, the idea of living forever is fundamentally horrifying. “Ummm…”
“I know you’re thinking it’s never dying,” he says. “And you’re right. But there’s something even worse than that.”
“I don’t know…” I trail off.
“The thing that is worse than living for eternity, is being a slave for eternity. You know what a demon is?”
“I…” Jesus, I’m starting to realise I know nothing at all. “Look, Ivan. Can we stop with all the questions I blatantly don’t know the answers to and you can just tell me what you’re trying to say.”
He huffs loudly. “Fine. But I’m getting another glass of wine first.” He stomps into the house and returns with a bottle of red and a corkscrew, thrusting them into my hands. “Open that and I’ll tell you.”
I busy myself with the bottle as he begins to pace again.
“So,” he says. “A demon is a trapped soul inside a slightly hypothetical body. The body is like an illusion, a way of the soul walking and talking and generally not being mistaken for a ghost.”
“Ghosts are real?” I ask.
“Not the time, Brody,” he admonishes and motions for me to hurry up with opening the wine. “Anyway, demons need a physical form of sorts, but really they’re just the trapped soul.”
I hand him the now open bottle and watch as he sloshes a healthy helping into his glass. “Trapped how?” I ask.
“Not how, the technical details aren’t important. The main thing is they’re trapped. Condemned. Destined to spend eternity as the puppet to a higher power, making deals and selling loans, collecting the futures of those who can’t keep up with the repayments.”
“What happens to them, the ones who can’t pay?”
“He can compel them to do his bidding, but in reality it’s kind of banal stuff. Like collecting coffee and answering emails. A demon will make them an eternal PA.”
“OK. So that doesn’t sound too bad.”
He pauses with his glass by his lips. “That’s what happens to the vampires and other supernatural species he strikes a deal with. You, on the other hand, are human.” He wrinkles his nose slightly.
“So what happens to me?”
“You, my dear boy, would become the demon. Your soul swapped for theirs.”
“So my freedom for theirs?”
“Exactly.”
“But surely this is the kind of deal a demon would make in a heartbeat.”
“It is. Except that no human is stupid enough to make the deal.”
I don’t say anything else. I have a lot to think about. But at least I now know what I might be offering.