Witchblood (6 page)

         I stared at the images on the PC and suddenly it all became clear. I realised what I’d lost, and also what Daniel had saved me for. The three people who meant the world to me deserved to know I was still here. I had to find a way to still be there for them; Daniel was to thank for that. He found me. He saved me and gave me this new life, and I wasn’t going to waste it.

Chapter Three

I looked up and into his dark, almost black eyes. This man who said I’d called to him, this man who had given me another chance at life. He looked young, maybe only a couple of years older than me, yet his eyes were full of history, knowledge and experience.

         ‘Daniel, how old are you?’

         ‘I was born in 1891 in India. My father worked in the Indian Civil Service for the British Raj. So I suppose I’m 118,’ he said with a grin.

         ‘What happened to you? Did Eva turn you into a vampire in India?’ I asked.

         ‘No. I left India when I was packed off to boarding school at eight. I only went back to India once and even when my parents came back to England, I rarely saw them.’ The lack of emotion in his voice both surprised and disturbed me. I could see no glimmer of sadness in his eyes. Why? Was it a vampire thing or was it just so long ago that his memories meant nothing?

         ‘So how old were you when Eva turned you? You don’t look that much older than me.’

         He contemplated it for a moment and then replied.

         ‘I was twenty-four. It was 1915. I left my new wife at home in Brighton, pregnant with our first child and enlisted for the war. I never saw Ellie again, and my last year as a human was spent surrounded by the filth and death of the trenches.’ He got up from the sofa and left the room.

         Whoa! He was married and he had a child. How could he not see her again? Why didn’t he feel the pull I did with Luke. I couldn’t leave it alone, so I followed him into the kitchen.

         ‘You say you never saw your wife again, ever? How could you not go back? At least to see her, to check she was alright? Didn’t you want to see your baby?’ I accused, the words tumbling out in one long string, my voice getting higher as I ran out of air.

         His voice turned cold, steely, and he glared at me.

         ‘Do not presume you know me or what I may have felt for Ellie. I could
never
have gone back to her. I promised myself I would never endanger her
or
our child. I loved her and I knew I was only too capable of killing them both. Her scent would have been irresistible, all the more so because of our bond. I would never have risked their lives to satisfy my own curiosity.’

         ‘I’m sorry. You're right I don't understand. I'm not like you,’ I said, worrying I’d gone too far and feeling a strange invisible barrier spring out of him, pushing me away with powerful energy blasts that felt like pins and needles. Our connection was crushed and disintegrated as he marched past me. It had all happened so fast. I hadn’t even been aware that we had such a strong connection, until he tore it down. I felt torn. There was a gaping hole which I hadn’t even realised had been filled by him, and what was with the needle thing? It suddenly occurred to me that he was a lot more powerful than I initially imagined.

         He left me mulling his words over, as I applied them to my own circumstances. I didn’t feel as convinced that I would kill Luke, as he seemed to have done with his wife. I had drunk the blood he’d been giving me, but it wasn’t like there were any other options, as there were no normal foodstuffs in the house. I’d checked the cupboards already, much to his amusement. I didn’t have this mad craving to go out killing people that they kept talking about. Yet he assured me that if I put a slice of toast to my lips, it would make me retch, and if I saw a human pass by the cottage, I would pounce and kill. Interestingly, he also said that after a year or so I’d be able to eat regular human food, if I had to, without giving myself away. Why then, if what Daniel said was true, was I wondering what it would be like to eat toast, and not wondering when I could get my teeth around a juicy human!

         Maybe I
was
different to him after all. Maybe I’d be able to see Luke and resist killing him. I needed to test myself; I needed to get out of this house and test my resolve, and to do that I needed to get Daniel back onside and convince him I was ready for the next step - the move back to Manchester.

         The night was a long one, especially as Daniel was keeping his distance, with the excuse of business emailing. What business, I wondered, but I got no details or even any conversation, so I went to bed early with a pile of books.

I heard Eva before I saw her. It was early in the morning and I’d slept all night, which I think was another point of consternation with Daniel, who seemed to think I slept too much for a vampire’s requirements. I heard their voices murmuring below my room, so I crept out of bed and down the stairs. I loved the way I could move now, sinuously and totally soundless, and I smiled a sad smile as imagined my mum’s shock if she could see me now. Her words ringing in my ears, ‘Jessie love, do you think you could try to be a little quieter? It’s like a herd of baby elephants coming down the stairs!’

         I paused and frowned. My mother was gone and I still missed her. I started to wonder if I’d be with her now, if Daniel and Eva hadn’t found me in that alley, or if I’d just be rotting away in a church graveyard. My knowledge of the universe may have recently expanded to include vampires, but I was no nearer answering my questions on Christianity.

         I stopped, as Eva’s words re-focused my attention on the task in hand.

         ‘…..toast? Ugh! I don’t think I even
considered
a human diet after I changed. All I wanted was my next kill,’ Eva was saying.

         ‘I know. I don’t understand her. She sleeps every night for at least seven hours and she's only drunk about two thirds of the blood we stored for her. In fact I’m not convinced she needed that even, or maybe she did it to pacify me,’ Daniel went on.

         ‘Do you think she could have witches in her bloodline? Has she mentioned anything to you yet? Surely she’d know if she had witch blood in her family, but it might explain why she isn’t letting go.’

         ‘She’s here….Jessica, come in.’ Daniel raised his voice to include me. I entered the room as nonchalantly as I could, after hearing that they thought I might be a witch, but I couldn’t hold it together for more than a moment.

         ‘How did you know I was there?’ I asked him.

         ‘Hasn’t she even worked out your blood link yet?’ Eva said to Daniel.  Then she turned to me. ‘You share blood, honey. He can read you - know what you want, how you feel and if you are close by, he’ll know where you are. Surely you must have known that by now?’

         ‘…of course. I guess I knew there was a connection of sorts, but I wasn’t exactly given a ‘vampire manual’ you know.’ Why should she just waltz back in and have a go at me? I wondered.

         ‘Daniel, you should have warned her, tested her, commanded her a little, so it wasn’t such a shock.’

         ‘What do you mean, commanded?’ I asked, my eyes blazing.

         ‘You should have felt it by now, but Daniel isn’t as pushy as some out there. Me, for instance. You’re lucky. He doesn’t agree with breaking his subordinates’ wills unless necessary,’ she went on.

         ‘Eva, stop this. You're worrying her unnecessarily,’ Daniel interrupted.

         ‘It’s not like she has a choice. She needs to know how things work. I’m your master and you’re hers. I’m in your head and you’re in hers. The sooner she stops with her silly memories and takes on our world, her new life, her
improved
life, the sooner she’ll settle.’

         ‘My memories aren’t silly. Luke isn’t a silly memory. I’m
going
to see him again and no one will stop me. What if I don’t want to take on your world?’

         Eva’s eyes hardened and she coolly considered me before answering with her final blow.

         ‘You have no choice Jessica. You
will
do as Daniel says. He controls you now. You will bend to his will, and not
if
, but
when
he orders you to forget Luke, you will. He made you, you belong to him, and with his blood running in your veins you have no choice but to follow his orders. And if
I
tell him that it’s time you forget your human friends, then he’ll do as I say.’

         ‘You mean to say if he shouts ‘sit’ I’ll sit, and if he orders me to get naked, I’ll remove all my clothes and say ‘ok’ as I jump into bed? I don’t think so! That’s completely ridiculous!’

         ‘Eva, I don’t think it’s that simple with Jessica; that’s what I was trying to explain. I can read her thoughts and feelings to an extent, but so far her will is elastic. I feel it bending towards me, then it suddenly snaps back into place. She’s her own person.’

         ‘Right, well if she’s a witch, she’ll need to see Sebastian. It complicates things for everyone concerned. We all will…’

         ‘A witch? This is getting more surreal by the minute. I’m not a witch and have never practised witchcraft, or Wicca, or whatever it is. Well, apart from dabbling in teenage spell books to try and get the boy I fancied to go out with me when I was fifteen, and that didn’t work at all,’ I argued, trying to keep my face a calm mask to cover the confusion of emotions bubbling under the surface.

         ‘Ahh, so you
have
had an interest in witchcraft. It seems likely then. I’ll get Sebastian to check her bloodline.’

         ‘Oh, for goodness sake, all my friends had an interest in it. But as I said, the spells didn’t work. Nothing did. We tried tarot and that was no good either. I’m not a witch. There’s no such thing, I thought Wicca was just a religion celebrating nature and paganism?’ I replied, trying to ignore the fact that a month ago I would have laughed in the face of anyone who tried to tell me that vampires were real.

         ‘Those spells you tried as a teenager would never work. They’re dreamed up by human writers, who daydream about controlling the minds of the men they cannot have. I bet it was bound in a beautiful velvety cover with a ribbon to tie it up,’ she said as she smiled condescendingly. ‘Do you have a familiar?’ she asked.

         ‘A familiar? What? You mean like a witch’s pet? No!’

         ‘So you’ve never had a pet you felt very close to? Or felt an affinity with animals?’

         ‘Well, yes, I’ve always had pets. I love animals, but that hardly makes me a witch. I grew up with a cat, but it wasn’t a witch’s cat, just a fat, fluffy, tabby cat with very little brain,’ I said grinning as I remembered my childhood pet.

         ‘And more recently?’ she probed.

         ‘Hmm, well yes, I suppose so. I had a beautiful Siamese cat, but I didn’t buy him. He just turned up on my doorstep one day and wouldn’t leave me alone. But that doesn’t mean anything either. Cats often find themselves new homes.’ I suddenly felt myself pulled towards the black hole of information overload and badly needed to sit down.

         Ignoring me, Eva turned back to Daniel. ‘There you go, maybe we can find her cat. I’ll get onto Sebastian. He’ll want to know,’ and with that Eva once again left the house as soundlessly as she entered.

         ‘He’s just a normal cat, Daniel. I loved him like a pet, but that is it. There’s nothing else to it,’ I explained.

         ‘Maybe,’ he said, sounding unconvinced.

         Ten minutes later, Eva walked back into the room. Her bossy, pushy attitude seemed to have abruptly disappeared and she was all smiles.

         ‘Right Jessica, you get your wish. We’re heading back to Manchester. Sebastian wants to meet you, and we can test out these allegations for you. I think it must be very unsettling for you and we realise that you’ve no idea about your past, so try not to worry about it and we’ll sort it all out.’

         I smiled warily at her, suspicious of what the ‘testing out’ may mean and what Sebastian, who was no doubt very powerful, meant to do with me. Me - a newborn vampire, who seemingly didn’t want to tow the line, and didn’t quite fit into the neat little newborn vampire boxes they had laid out for me.