Witchblood (11 page)

         I wondered if Eva had a hand in this room, because it housed a normal-sized television and a DVD player set into one alcove, while the focal point of the room was a beautiful Victorian fireplace with a richly-coloured woven rug in front of it. The floor was wooden, and there were two very stylish, but comfortable, sofas set around a heavy oak coffee table. My eyes were drawn to a neat pile of women’s magazines and my suspicions were confirmed – this must be Eva’s doing.  I settled myself on the nearest sofa and sank gratefully into its cushions with a current copy of my favourite magazine, wondering idly how long it would be before I could go shopping again, and where I’d get the money.

         I was still sitting on the same sofa an hour later when Eva arrived, rushing into the house through the front door like a whirlwind. First she went to Daniel’s door.

         ‘Hi Dan, how’s the little witch doing? I take it she’s woken up finally?’

         I heard his grunt of ascent and realising she wasn’t going to get anything more from him until the end of the game, she headed on down the hallway to me.

         ‘Hey witch-girl, broken any more mirrors? You realise
you
are going to get the seven years bad luck for breaking my mirror, not me?’ Her words were antagonistic, but as soon as I looked up I realised she was just trying to wind me up. Smiling, she flung herself down on the other sofa and propped her feet up on the table.    

         ‘I love the twenty-first century, I really do. Can you imagine how constricting it was to be a girl in my world? It was all corsets and never speaking unless you were spoken too. I’d have been whipped senseless for even thinking about putting my feet on the table. I couldn’t have thanked Sebastian more for releasing me from that half-life. Your world has its issues, but I much prefer it to mine,’ she said smiling again.

         I smiled back thinking of my fascination with period dramas and Jane Austen. In my head it was all imagined, but in hers it was very real memories. I couldn’t wait to grill her, to see if she had a real life Darcy, but I needed to apologise first.

         ‘I’m sorry about your dressing table Eva. I’ve no idea how I did it. It’s never happened before, and that table was so beautiful. Can you get another mirror for it?’ I asked quietly.

         ‘Don’t worry little witch, Sebastian is sorting it out for me. It will be beautiful again next week. I was more upset by you turning your nose up at the meal I’d chosen for you. I thought he’d have your taste buds tingling and begging for more.’

         I decided to be honest. ‘Actually he did, well initially anyway. If Daniel hadn’t put his hand on my shoulder I think I might have drained him dry, I don’t think I could have stopped.’ I broke off, horrified as I realised I’d put my fears into words.

         Eva nodded thoughtfully and grinning again said, ‘Hmm, I wonder if Sebastian would have preferred to be sorting out my broken mirror or an accidentally drained corpse? Tough one, but I suspect you wouldn’t want to know the answer!’

         I stared in horror at her joke, but she just laughed and carried on. ‘Jessica, we’d never have allowed you to drain him. We could have pulled you off him between us, and his memory had to be corrected regardless. I think Daniel made an error. If he’d let you give in to your new instincts, things would be easier for you now,’ she explained.

         ‘How do you know that? The thought of it makes me feel sick, Eva. I’m not normal, not like you,’ I said, trying to make her understand me.

         ‘Jessica, no-one is normal in the beginning. Anyway, what’s normal? Everyone has a different perception of it. You may not realise it yet, but most vampires are different to each other in some ways, just like humans. We all carry a little of our past with us and that effects the vampire we become. Some are cruel, some are kind, and some have certain skills, like you…’

         ‘So why is everyone calling me the witch then, if some other vampires have special skills too?’ I asked.

         ‘You
are
different. Your power, shall we say, is definitely witchcraft-based. I know of no vampire who can move things telepathically. Typical vampire skills are things like flying, although that’s dying out, mind–reading, or in Sebastian’s case he can tell whether people are intrinsically good or bad from tasting their blood. This is of course another reason why he wanted to taste you,’ she added. ‘He’s weeded out a couple of traitors that way. Talking of which, he won’t be impressed if he finds out you know that about him, so I wouldn’t mention it,’ she said, as she smiled and relaxed back into her sofa with a magazine.

         After Daniel’s football finished, he joined us and we all chatted and read magazines. Sooner than I expected, the sun was setting on my first day back in Manchester.

        At around eight o’ clock in the evening, Daniel left the house to meet up with some friends and go to Exodus, and I realised with a jolt that he’d never left me before. I felt a strange pull as he smiled at me, I could feel his warmth as he intruded on my thoughts and fears, then he suddenly pulled me into an embrace.

         ‘You can come with me if you want Jessica, but we
will
be hunting and I don’t think you’re ready yet,’ he murmured.

         I shook my head slowly. ‘No, I don’t want to come, but I don’t want to be left here either,’ I said quietly.

         ‘You’ll be fine with Eva. You can have a girl’s night in and watch one of the films you were mentioning. You know I need to feed, it’s what we are, but no one will be hurt; they won’t even remember me. Just like a mosquito, remember?’ he said and grinned at Eva, who scowled at the idea.

         I smiled hesitantly back and a couple of seconds later he was gone.

         After curling up on the sofas again, Eva grinned and produced ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, an old favourite of mine. Around midnight I grew bored and went to bed, out of habit rather than tiredness, and ignoring Eva’s jibes I trudged up the stairs and sank into bed. I wondered what Alex and Luke were doing, and whether they were out in town, or in bed like me.      

         Thinking of them I got back out of bed, went to my bedroom window and stood in the dark watching the still night. I could have gone then, through the window. I could have tried to find them, but what would I say? Plus of course, with Eva’s hearing, she’d be on my back within seconds. No, I reasoned, now was not the time.

         The rest of the week passed with such boring repetitiveness that even I was amazed at my control, managing not to bolt in the middle of the night. But every night I told myself the same things. There’d be no point in leaving without their approval, they'd catch me before I could blink, and then they’d never trust me again. Plus I didn’t like thinking it, but Eva was starting to fill the huge empty void that Alex had left. She was chatty and fun.

         Daniel was different. Every time I looked at his beautiful face I felt guilt, like I was betraying Luke. If I felt uneasy Daniel calmed me, when I felt sad he made me smile, and when I felt totally and utterly alone he held my hand and watched TV with me. He never said a word about my forbidden thoughts of finding Luke, never chastised me, and never corrected me. He was in my head. He knew what I wanted and who I missed, but he never mentioned it. He gave me the privacy to mourn my own death.

Luckily by Friday a couple of things happened which thankfully led to me getting out of the house, and after six days of house arrest I was starting to waver on the meal options. In the hope that consuming more would have a positive effect on my image transformation, I’d doubled my intake to four packs a day, and as I sat in front of my mirror in the morning, I decided it was time to convince Eva and Daniel that I’d changed enough to go out.

         Essentially I was still the same girl, but my eye colour had totally changed from the sparkling darker, but still natural blue they were when I first awoke, to the same dark chocolate that Eva and Daniel’s were. They were so dark they looked almost black, but if you looked really closely they had red flecks in them. To any regular person glancing at me they would look like very pretty, dark Mediterranean eyes, but they stood out like deep, dark pools against my super-pale flawless skin and blonde hair, which had become lighter, shinier and smoother. My face had changed to become slightly more angular and defined. I had cheekbones for the first time in my life and they looked great.

         Where I’d been an average, curvy size twelve before, my body had now become much harder and leaner. The clothes which Eva had bought the first week now hung from me, and I realised with a smile that I probably needed to go down two dress sizes - another reason for a trip out. Consequently, I dressed and clothed myself in my baggiest clothes, to accentuate the need for a shopping trip. She loved shopping, so I skipped down the stairs and into the kitchen to put my case forward.

         I was met in the kitchen with two serious faces waiting for me. Daniel looked concerned, sad even, and Eva averted her gaze and looked down at the table.

         ‘Jessica, we have some news that may be quite hard for you to take, but you have to understand that when we’ve told you, you cannot, at all costs follow your instincts and leave this house without us. We will stop you straight away,’ Daniel said gently, yet firmly.

         Oh dear! This was not sounding good; in fact it was starting to sound very, very bad! Eva pushed the daily newspaper across the table to me. I looked down confused, and then my eyes zoomed in and saw my dad’s face staring up at me from the middle of the page. I grabbed the paper, and frowning, sat down to read as Eva pushed a freshly filled mug across to me.

         Even though I didn’t exactly need the intake of air, I still gasped as I read the headline, ‘Father of murdered girl attempts to take his own life.’ I read the story, and a feeling of desperation grew within. I read of how he’d tried to kill himself the previous night by taking a packet of paracetamol on his usual stomach full of whisky. Luckily for him, an unknown person had found him and called the ambulance; strangely they hadn’t stayed around to wait for the paramedics to arrive. The police had launched an enquiry and were asking for the person to come forward. According to the paper my father was alive but unconscious.

         I looked up and realised both of them were watching me intently, maybe expecting me to bolt, or maybe they knew something more. ‘You know more than this. Eva, tell me, who found him, what’s going on?’ I asked.

         ‘Nothing, this is all we know. Why should we know more?’

         ‘Daniel, I can tell you know something. I can feel it. Tell me the truth,’ I said, turning on Daniel, knowing I was right.

         ‘Eva, we have to tell her something. Sebastian will only tell her tonight anyway,’ Daniel said, as Eva merely shrugged.

         ‘OK Jessica, the newspaper
is
right, he did try to kill himself. However, it was one of us that found him.’

         ‘You?’ I interrupted.

         ‘Not me, it was one of Sebastian’s staff. Sebastian has his people watching all of your close family and friends to make sure they don’t figure out what really happened to you. It’s just a precautionary thing,’ Daniel finished.

         ‘But I don’t get it. Why would Sebastian go out of his way to order one of his flunkies to actually go in and save my dad? As I understand it, he’s just protecting our secrecy? He wouldn’t care if my father lived or died.’ I’d hit a nerve, and caught them both glancing furtively at each other before Daniel took a deep breath and carried on.

         ‘You are right of course, Jessica. There is more to it. You remember last week Sebastian said he was going to send a guy in to recover your childhood photo albums?’ I nodded.

         ‘Well he’s seen the albums, and they don’t really clear up the question of your maternal bloodline. Unless there’s another album?’ he added.

         ‘What do you mean? They go all the way back through my childhood and my mother is the same woman in all of them,’ I argued exasperated.

         ‘Not all the way, Jessica. They only go back to age two. There are no baby photos. Have we missed an album somewhere?’ he asked.

         ‘Oh that, no. There are no baby photos. I remember asking about them when I was about ten, and they told me they’d lost that first baby album during a house move.’