Part Two: Chapter Forty-One

Part Two

Ten years Later

Remember The Prologue?

That happened.

Chapter Forty-One

I stand in a miserable grey alleyway in Soho, watching the gutter-water slowly creep around my boots.

The door in front of me is appealing and disgusting in one dirty, seedy hit. I know what I will find in there, and I’m fascinated, while trying to remember to be appalled.

I walk through this area of London a lot, almost every day, and I have never seen this door before. I’ve become used to noticing things other people don’t. I’ve become used to realising there are a lot of places which people ignore, places that people are supposed to ignore.

The narrow alley gives me a little shelter from the rain, but I still feel the droplets that have escaped the cracked guttering overhead. The dirty water forms a puddle against the pavement where the drains are blocked. It’s collecting London’s scraps and leftovers, a perfect analogy for that plain black door.

There are only two things to distinguish it from any other door. The door knob is brass, tarnished and antique looking. It’s in the shape of a tiny bat, baring sharp fangs. A tiny sign above the knocker is written on white with black ink, it reads ‘exotic massage.’

Anyone else would walk straight past without a second glance. Unfortunately, the days when I can throw myself in with ‘everyone else,’ are long gone. I’m slightly rattled when a clang sounds my entrance, one short, sharp ding like a bicycle bell. I duck inside to escape the rain and the grey skies.

The room I enter is wallpapered in smutty pictures torn from porn magazines. They cover the entire room from floor to ceiling, mostly depicting Goth girls performing sex acts or pushing their breasts together, smirking seductively. I allow myself quick glances at them. Other than a single black desk there is nothing in the room. A black phone sits on the polished surface, its long cord extended against the wall.

I get the creeping sensation that I’m being watched, and the hairs on the back of my neck prick at me while a shiver snakes down my back. I turn slowly, one hand reaches into my pocket for the silver chain.

She is ‘teen Goth’ from head to toe, right down to the heavy boots reaching her knees. Bright orange flames have been painted up the side. She wears stocking under the boots, the tops disappearing under her leather mini skirt. Her breasts are spilling out of a tight leather corset, a red and orange Chinese dragon tattoo disappearing into her cleavage. Her hair is black Victorian ringlets and her eyes are heavy with black paint.

‘Yes?’ She lazily parts deep red lips. The effect of her is Snow White lost in the forest, my mouth actually waters at the sight of her. She must be twenty or twenty-one, but the gothic make-up makes her look like a teenager, and strangely ageless at the same time. I can’t tell yet what she is. If she is anything more than human, she’s not using it against me, yet.

I almost leap backwards, in-between her legs emerges an enormous black lizard. Its gait and face are prehistoric, steely, emotionless eyes fixed on me. It’s a monitor lizard, grown to almost four foot long. I knew someone once who had a much smaller one, though it was so aggressive no one could go near it.

The girl follows my eyes, ‘That’s Ghost.’ She smiles slowly. I have always been a sucker for a slow smile, maybe she already knew that, I turn up the volume on my discreet earphones. She walks across the room and the Lizard follows, like some grotesque puppy, it’s tail swishing dangerously. I will have to divide my attention between both monsters.

‘He won’t hurt you,’ she smiles again and my insides begin to melt. ‘unless I tell him to.’ She has a poison apple smile, and it’s beautiful.

‘You’re looking for someone to spend your time with?’ Coming from those red lips it sounds like the dirtiest line I’ve ever heard, a promise of debauchery. Her thick London accent makes it so much worse.

‘I want you,’ the words spill out of me in a rush, before I can stop them.

She grins boyishly at me, ‘I’m expensive.’

‘I’ll pay,’ again, the words tumble over themselves fighting to get out of me. I fumble to find my wallet.

That’s when I realise what she is. For ten years, I’ve been unable to think of a beautiful woman, been unable to see anyone attractive without them becoming Elizabeth. If I looked into a beautiful pair of eyes, they would turn pale blue and Elizabeth’s face would burn over their features. If I ever got close with a woman, which had been rare these past ten years, I would feel her push me from her like it was yesterday, feel the shame destroy me again. I looked down at the scars on my fingers and all down my arm, remembering.

This hasn’t happened with my Snow White. She’s still the only woman I see. I want to savour the moment, to feel like every other man she had seduced in this place, everyone who had paid a fortune for her company.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Black rose,’ a pout and another heart-stopping smile.

What’s your real name?’

A girlish giggle, ‘Sophie,’ she shrugs almost sympathetically. I laugh along with her. I am overcome with the need to touch her, stepping closer I run a hand through her soft dark hair. She doesn’t seen to mind, lips parted and eyes half closed. I can’t help but imagine those full lips wrapped around my cock. It’s beautiful to feel no shame or guilt, not to see Elizabeth. I know it can’t last, I’m here to do my job. I breathed in slowly to regain control. I turn the volume up as much as I dare without her hearing.

‘Your touch is very powerful,’ I say after what feels like an age. She doesn’t look suspicious or concerned, but the Lizard has its unwavering gaze fixed on me, a long black tongue flicking back and forth. ‘That’s what I’ve heard doctors call it,’ I explain to her confused face. ‘You might call it something else.’

I smile warmly, but she is beginning to understand, her eyes dart toward the door. ‘It’s okay,’ I say gently, ‘I know what you are.’

She laughs sweetly, ‘you know what I am?’ her eyelashes flutter and my body arches toward her in simple lust. I sigh, it’s so blissful, her turning her powers up to max.

I consider taking out the lizard first, afraid it will attack me if I go for her first. I meet it’s old gaze and see so much wisdom there. I could feel that she was new, it would be easy for me to trap her. I had learned not to show them too much respect, after all, they had a choice, Mark had proven that to me. I had learnt to be quick, I circle her wrist with the silver chain. It comes as such a shock to her that she doesn’t try to fight back at first, surprised by the sudden pain. She cries out in and rage, lunging wildly, with inexperience.

I use the advantage of her youth to move quickly, I slip in the syringe, a garlic concentrate. Sophie makes wild snarls, noises which betray the animal that she is. I allow myself to breath in the sweet smell of her perfume while she lays unconscious in my arms, this angel hiding the evil behind. Then the shame creeps over me, her influence is gone.

She opens her eyes slowly, too slowly, perhaps the garlic was too strong. Her first act is to scream out in pain, as her hands are bound to the chair with a silver chain. The monitor lizard has done nothing to defend its mistress, it is now sitting on the desk, watching me with its suffocating gaze.

‘Let me go you bastard,’ she spits at my feet, trying to wriggle her hands from the chain, wincing with every movement.

‘You need to answer a few questions first,’ I lean back in my own chair, wondering how to play this.

She glances nervously at the door, ‘my boss will be here very soon,’ she snarls, ‘and he’ll kill you.’

‘He’ll have to get through the locked door first,’ I say calmly.

‘Why couldn’t I make you stop?’ All tenderness and sweet smiles have evaporated, left only with revulsion and hatred.

I tap my ear with a smile, ‘Napalm death,’ I explain, ‘aggressive music is the only thing I’ve found which works for me, keeps my mind too tense to let you in.’ I don’t think it’s right to tell her that she still got to me.

‘You’re new to this aren’t you,’ she’s still struggling and biting her lip as the silver cuts her deeper. ‘You’re giving away secrets, so you’ll be of no use to me and my boss. I bet this silver chain is the only weapon you bought.’ She laughs, ‘I’ll be picking pieces of your flesh from between my teeth.’ Despite her threat her eyes dart wildly to the door, I realise she must be afraid of her boss.

‘Just when we were getting on so well,’ I say. The bare light bulb above us casts heavy bright light, I have to be good cop and bad cop if she’s going to tell me anything, but I have to leave before her boss manages to knock the door down, if she’s afraid of him I should be too. That damn lizard watches me calmly all the while.

‘Who is your boss?’

She spits at me again, and laughs. ‘As if I’d tell you that.’

I reach into my sleeve and draw out a short wooden cross. ‘You wouldn’t,’ I hope I gave her an evil smile. ‘But this might loosen your tongue.’ I draw closer to her with the cross and she backs away, baring her teeth. Just before the cross touches her milk white cheek she screams and I feel a full hit of blissful lust for her, I turn up the music a fraction.

I can’t help but laugh, ‘there are so many things which hurt you,’ I say, ‘how can your kind ever be described as immortal?’ She glares at me. ‘Let’s start with an easier one. What do you do here?’

‘You already know that.’ She looks brave but her eyes are still fixed on the cross in my hand.

‘You feed on the men who pay for your services?’

‘We don’t kill anyone.’

I snort, ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s true,’ she nods wildly, ‘we slip a sleeping pill into their drink and take the blood, we harvest it, no one kills. The men wake in a few hours assuming they’ve gotten drunk.’

I snort again, ‘no vampire I’ve ever met has that sort of self-control.’ Well, there was one, I think silently to myself, the one that haunts my dreams.

‘We’re not all Vampires, some of the girls think they’re working for the an illegal medical supplies company.’

I resist the urge to snort a third time. ‘Equally amoral.’

‘What would you have us do?’ She snarls, ‘kill and destroy everything without a backwards glance, like so many do. This is a better way.’ She paused to let me breathe in the significance of her words. ‘I was taught to resist,’ she carries on, ‘I was wild before, but he taught me to control it, it’s all we can do.’

‘It’s still wrong.’

‘Wrong!’ She screeches, ‘who are you to say what’s wrong? You’d rather these men were ripped apart? Let me tell you about right and wrong.’ She intakes a breath harshly as I fold my arms across from her, I know she’s going to feed me some sob story. ‘I didn’t ask for this. Two years ago I was grabbed in the street and dragged into an alleyway, I counted five people watching, they did nothing. The pain was like nothing I’d ever experienced, I never saw his face, but I heard him laugh. He made me beg for my life, and this is the life he gave me. So why don’t you tell me about what’s wrong?’ It was her turn to snort angrily at me, ‘not all of us are evil, some of us are just trying to survive.’

‘I only knew one of your kind who wasn’t evil, and the guilt led him to kill himself.’

She shrugs, ‘then he was braver than me, I’m only trying to live with the hand I was dealt.’

A moment of silence passes between us while I process what she’s said. ‘Who taught you self-control?’

‘I’ll never tell you that. That man saved me, and I’ll never betray him.’

I know there’s no use in trying, I can see it in her fierce eyes. ‘This is the third brothel I’ve been to,’ I explain, ‘they all operate a similar system.’

‘Then that proves it works,’ she nods.

‘But it’s not the bigger picture.’

She laughs, ‘I took you for an amateur.’

‘You’re going public.’ It’s not a question, all accounts I’ve followed add up.

‘I for one am sick of hiding in the shadows,’ she explains, eyes sparkling. ‘The world has changed. It’s not pitchforks and angry mobs anymore, the P.V.R has been active for almost twenty years.’

‘You think a bunch of Anne Rice nerds is going to be of any use to you?’

‘Do you know how much money the Twilight movies made? Have you considered the hordes of teenagers who lap up this paranormal romance crap? We would be worshipped.’

‘There would be those who would oppose you, kill you.’ I point out, but part of me is terrified she’s right. This is the same story that’s been fed to me everywhere I’ve gone.

‘The churches? The morally righteous?’ She laughs again, ‘that only makes it more delicious, society has fallen into chaos. People want sex and temptation more than they want God.’

‘I will try to stop you at every turn,’ I say, and I mean it.

‘Go ahead.’ Her eyes twinkle and I want her again. She’s has one of the most powerful Touches I’ve ever experienced.

I’m too busy trying to shut out the powerful urges to grab her and fuck her to notice that she has slipped free of her silver chain. She shows me her hands with a sly smile.

‘I’m going to rip you open,’ she says sweetly.

Sophie lunges at me, quick as a striking panther, but I’m no stranger to death anymore. The stake is buried in her heart just as her teeth graze my shoulder, cutting through fabric and drawing blood. I manage to get her off me as her body turns grey and stiff, the sweet smooth skin giving way to thick ash. She falls apart as she hits the ground. The Lizard shifts position, the only grief show for his dead mistress. I needn’t have asked her who her boss was, he was in this country hiding from me, but I could feel his eyes on me everywhere I went. Sooner or later, I would have to face Jarl.