51. Ari
Ari
Iarrive at Aberdeen station just after eight in the evening. I’m exhausted and my back aches from sitting down for far too long. But I step onto the platform to find my dad waiting for me and all of a sudden the world feels a little less shitty.
He wraps his arms around me and draws me to him, holding me tight as if he will never let me go. I allow myself to relax into his embrace. He doesn’t ask me what’s happened. Or if I was the one who caused it. He’s just there. And in this moment that is everything I need.
“Let’s get you home, eh?” he says into my hair before pulling away and taking my bag from my shoulder.
I didn’t bother to go home on my way to the station, so all I have with me are the few things I took to Hele Hall.
Dad doesn’t comment on how light the bag is.
He doesn’t ask any questions, just lets me head straight to bed when we get to the small house with its crooked chimney and thatched roof.
I sleep like a corpse, only waking up the following afternoon, just as the sun is starting to set below the horizon.
I haven’t slept like that since I was a teenager.
Adult vampires don’t normally sleep for more than an hour or so at a time and I feel utterly disorientated, like the whole world has tilted on its axis.
Dad feeds me bacon sandwiches, the bread cut so thick it could double as a doorstop. And then he clears his throat. “I think it’s time we talked,” he says.
I nod. I can’t avoid it any longer. “Can we do it over a drink?”
We head out in search of a pub. My father doesn’t like the company of other vampires and spends his life with the humans, avoiding vampire clubs and other places where our kind congregate.
Apparently there’s a place up the road that’s Dracula themed; it was a church once upon a time and now it’s a real favourite with newbie vampires who love the whole kitschy faux-gothic vibe.
They even have a statue of Vlad the Impaler.
But we obviously avoid that like a stake to the heart and instead go to the Trinity Arms. It’s a human place, but Dad is able to catch the eye of the barman who invites us inside.
“What are you drinking these days?” Dad asks.
“Still the same,” I tell him.
We take our drinks – red wine for me and a pint of bitter for him – to a table in the corner. The pub is cosy, a fire burning in the grate and hundreds of fairy lights wound around the old wooden beams. “Nice place,” I remark.
“You didn’t come here for the pub,” Dad says gently.
“Well no,” I admit.
“Or even to see your dear old dad.”
“No.” I fiddle with the stem of my wine glass.
“What happened?”
I look up into his grey blue eyes and take a deep breath. And then I tell him everything.
I start right at the beginning. With Benedict and all the toxicity of that relationship.
“You should have come to me back then,” Dad says, reaching out to touch my hand.
“You didn’t approve of him.”
“So? I would still have been there when he broke your heart.”
I move on to talking about what came next. The rebound boyfriend who turned out to be a conman and who drained my savings. Then the attempts to make it on my own. The failed ventures and the constant worries about money.
“And so in the end I called on Victor.” I allow the words to marinate between us as I take a large gulp of wine.
“Victor? As in the demon, Victor?”
I nod. “It was stupid.”
“Well... yes. Yes, it was stupid.” He cocks his head. “Something tells me this isn’t the worst bit though.”
I shake my head. “No it’s not.”
“I’ll get us another round,” he says, standing up and picking up the two empties.
When he comes back, I immediately launch into the last part of my sorry tale. I tell him about Brody and Only Fangs and then Hele House and all the rest of it, my words coming thick and fast as I desperately try to get to the end of the story before the tears come once again.
Dad sits quietly, his mouth hanging open as he listens, but when we get to the part where Andrei Hele takes me as his ward his stoic demeanour cracks and his fist comes crashing down onto the table. “Over my fucking dead body,” he shouts.
“Sit down,” I hiss, conscious that the five other patrons in the pub are looking at him like he’s grown another head.
“Sorry,” he says, his quiet voice returning. “But he can’t do that. You’re my daughter.”
“Do you really think you can stop him?”
His shoulders slump slightly. Of course he can’t. I haven’t come here to get my father to rescue me. “Why didn’t you come to me?” he whispers. “Instead of going to Andrei for the funding, why didn’t you just ask me?”
“I thought you wouldn’t approve.”
He frowns at me as if he doesn’t understand what I mean. But then realisation begins to dawn. “Of the whole Only Fangs thing? Why wouldn’t I? I get it, the desire to connect with people like you, with the same kinds of experience.”
“It was always kind of a joke though. Only Fangs.” I do a feeble version of Clara’s jazz hands.
“It was just a great name and a way of meeting other vampires for dates and stuff. It wasn’t meant to become a propaganda tool.
It wasn’t meant to support all that pureblood rubbish that Andrei rambles on about. ”
“I know you don’t believe in all that stuff,” Dad says.
“But I’m still a vampire and I move in vampire circles…” I trail off. In some ways Dad and I are very different.
“Being friends with the vampires you grew up with, Clara and Ivan who you’ve known since you were little, that’s a good thing.
I don’t think you’re wrong for holding on to your friends.
Or for dating other vampires.” He smiles but there’s a sadness there.
“If I hadn’t met your mum then perhaps I would have found myself with someone else of our kind. ”
“Perhaps.”
He excuses himself to go to the loo and I take the opportunity to get us yet another drink. I know alcohol is not the key to solving the predicament I’m in. But I need to numb the edges.
It turns out that I’m definitely going to need that third drink, because Dad isn’t alone as he heads back to the table.
“Victor? What are you doing here?”
He looks pissed off, which is never a good idea for a demon with a huge mace.
The other patrons look at him before turning away, muttering into their pints.
I guess I should be glad that this is the kind of pub where people mind their own business, even if they might gossip when they get home to their wives.
“Your dad called me.”
“I thought you were going to the bathroom,” I say to my father.
“I went first. But there was an alcove in the corridor on my way back to the table. And it looked so inviting. Such a perfect place to summon a demon.” He shrugs as if this is nothing, as if it’s the kind of thing people do every day.
The barman comes over to the table, a pint of lager in one hand and a shot glass filled with something black and viscous in the other. “From the gentleman in the other corner,” he says as he places the drinks in front of Victor.
“Thanks,” Victor replies. He raises the shot glass and turns to catch the eye of the man who sent it over. He’s holding an identical one and they both raise them a few inches before downing the contents in unison. “An old friend,” he says turning his attention back to us.
“We need to talk about the deal you’ve struck with Andrei Hele,” Dad tells him.
“What about it?” Victor asks.
“I’m her father.” He points to me, in case Victor was a little simple and hadn’t made the connection.
“I understand that.”
“So he can’t just become her ward.”
Victor shrugs. “Under the rules of engagement he can.”
“So it’s done?”
“Well…” Victor leans back in his chair and it creaks in a way that doesn’t give me huge confidence about its structural integrity.
“Here’s the thing about men like Andrei.
They’re greedy. They like to stack the deck in their favour all the time.
So when Clara managed to get you a reprieve for a year…
” he pauses to take a sip of his pint. “She’s a good one, you know.
You’re very lucky to have a friend like her. ”
“I know.”
“Well,” he continues, “Andrei told me he would wait for a year before our deal was finalised. No point in him spending any money until he has to. And he doesn’t need you to be his ward until the day of your wedding to Benedict.”
“That sounds like Andrei,” Dad says. “Always was a tight fisted bastard.”
Victor takes another drink. “It did create an opportunity,” he says with a little raise of his eyebrows.
“An opportunity for what?” I ask, instantly suspicious. There’s something he isn’t saying.
“Well, you know how much I love to make a loan.” He grins at me, flashing his perfectly straight white teeth that any American movie star would kill for.
“Who did you loan money to?”
His grin widens. “Oh, he’s such a sweet boy. I really do think he loves you very much.”
“Tell me who you loaned money to,” I demand. But deep down I think I know.
“That lovely human of yours. Brody Jackson.”
“But why did he—”
Victor interrupts. “He wants to build Only Fangs.”
“But… why?” A picture of him springs into my mind. The pain etched into his face. Why would he want to make Only Fangs after everything I put him through?
Victor shrugs. “You know I don’t have time to care too much for the details. He wanted to borrow the money to get Only Fangs off the ground. And he bought your debt too.”
It’s too much money. He will never be able to make that much. “And if he can’t repay?” I ask, my voice quiet.
But of course I know what happens to humans who can’t pay their debts.