The blood settled in her stomach, the power thrummed through her, and she looked to the ceiling and sighed, closing her eyes and seeing the wide, frightened eyes of a man in a suit.
“Rose,” Francesco said, and she was glad. “We need rest, but before that we have to discuss what the night will bring.”
“Death,” Rose said. As she turned, she chuckled at the melodrama in her statement. But Jane was sitting up now, Patrick was staring at her, and she could see that they already had an inkling that something significant had happened.
“We need to gather the others,” Francesco said to the other two. “Two hours, then back here with whoever you can find.”
“What is it?” Jane asked anxiously. Rose could see that the older woman had fed well that night. She looked strong, so she must have caught death just in time.
“A vampire?” Patrick guessed. He looked from Rose to Francesco and back again. “Oh, great. I remember last time.”
“Rose has already met him,” Francesco said. “He’s a true vampire, and he might not be on his own. Lee might have heard something, but either way we’ll likely meet this thing again tonight. We have a plan.” He looked at Rose, an eyebrow raised. “Don’t we, Rose?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “A lure, and bait. Just not sure which one I am yet.”
“You’ll be fine,” Francesco said. He sent Patrick and Jane out into the tunnels to see if they could find any other Humains. There were a dozen more living in London, some willing to be included in group decisions and discussions, others more inclined to live on their own, but all dedicated to preserving their secret and avoiding targeting humans. That was the one principle that did unite them all, however reclusive some might be. Taking humans would bring attention; attention would eventually reveal the truth; and if people knew the truth and believed in them, there would no longer be any fear. Vampires—and that’s what the Humains were, whatever they might call themselves—relied on fear for survival. Without that, there would be only hunting, and violence, and killing. Eventual extinction.
And however conflicted they might be with the facts of their existence, they were nothing if not tenacious.
To begin with, the suit is all she sees. It’s a camouflage and a marker, a shield between the man and his humanity. It makes him an object, not a living, breathing thing, and the briefcase he carries is an extension of that objectivity. It makes what she wants to do all right.
The platform is crushed with people, and she is cold amongst their warmth. Sometimes she’s enveloped in a crush—she doesn’t like it, but she can do little to avoid it—and a pair of startled eyes glance at her. She stares back and they look away, their owner clawing away from her through the crowd. People are everywhere: women with families waiting for them at home; men laughing and muttering and looking forward to seeing their lovers; children chattering excitedly about all the London sights they’ve enjoyed today. The train trundles quickly away, and the crowd moves en masse toward the exit. All of that blood, none of it allowable, but there is the suit, only a few people ahead of her now, heading for the escalators and up into the night. She follows, avoiding the people around her as much as she can and concentrating on the suit. It moves with the crowd but contains nothing like them. They’re all human and protected by the oath Francesco made her take as soon as he’d turned her. They are forbidden.
But the suit is food. She can smell it inside, hear its passage through veins, sense the heart beating in a healthy rhythm.
As she mounts the second escalator and smells the night beyond, she has lived this moment a thousand times before. That does nothing to lessen the thrill of what is to come, and the excitement is real and rich and pure. Everything is familiar—the faces around her; the smells; the electronic adverts promoting books she will never read and shows she will never see; the sense that all these people are cattle, herded this way and that by convention and time and the need to do what is expected—and still the suit draws her on, enticing her with its thrilling warmth.
Her hunger is a solid thing. She’s surprised that the people around her don’t start bleeding beneath its weight. She closes her eyes and someone asks if she’s all right. She glances at the woman and she pulls away, running down the up escalator to annoyed comments from fellow travelers.
Through the station lobby, up the steps, out into the night, pavement thronging and lights glaring, heavy traffic poisoning the air, people talking on mobile phones because they can’t wait five minutes to reach home, and the suit turns left and settles into a steady pace. She doesn’t know how close or far away its home is, but she is settled in her course now, and she’s ready to—
That’s a man in there with a lover and maybe children: someone expecting to see tomorrow.
She coughs and growls, fisting a hand into her stomach to try and ease the hunger throbbing there. Her mouth is aching and she does her best to keep it closed. She wants to slaver, and growls, and feels her tongue swelling and becoming slick with saliva.
The suit turns left, right, passes into and out of a shop carrying a bottle of red wine. She laughs. The suit glances back and she looks away, and now it’s walking more upright, more cautious.
Not much time.
He’s human. You’re not allowed.
Her mouth hangs open now, tongue tasting the air and the blood pulsing through the suit’s veins. Her teeth feel heavy and sharp, and she’s more aware of them than ever before. Someone laughs in the next street and the suit glances that way, as if pleased that there’s still normal laughter somewhere. She can see a nervous smile on the man’s face.
A man, see? A man. Turn and flee, find Francesco, let him teach you what he says you need to know.
But the hunger is strong upon her now, and the suit is leading her toward food. There are no vestiges of her old humanity as she considers what she will do to him; it’s hardly even conscious thought. Instinct takes over as she slips into shadows, darting ahead, past the suit and across a series of rooftops to where she will set her ambush. Cars pass by but no one sees her. She has melded with the early night, and the sunken sun in the west is not even a memory.
There are no more pleas, not even as she recalls this moment. There is simply the hunger, and the blood, and then the suit is in her hands and pressed back against a wall, his eyes wide and his mouth opening to scream in terror. She presses one hand across his mouth and holds his scream inside, feels his heavy breath warm against her palm as for an instant he thinks, perhaps, that this is something else. And as she lurches forward and bites into his neck, it’s as if the blocked scream is building pressure, tensing his muscles, hardening his cock as his neck is constricted, and then softening again as she rips her head sideways and tears out his life. Blood sprays and gushes, muscles relax. His eyes roll and then turn glassy.
There’s no shame or guilt as she feeds. Only instinct.
“They’re here.”
Rose snapped awake. She sat upright and looked around the pitch-black basement. Francesco squatted beside her, and he blinked slowly as he saw her engorged tongue and split lips. He had never commented about her dreams, though he knew what she was reliving. They all understood that their subconscious must battle with decisions they made consciously.
“How many came?”
“All those Patrick and Jane could find.”