wasn’t Kaspar’s lack of concern that bothered me, (although I was keen to avoid the subject of him) but the assumption that I was hanging around. I nodded, trying to look unbothered.
‘So vampires can get headaches? You’re not immune to all that?’
She laughed. ‘God, no. We can get headaches, stomach aches, sore throats, that type of thing, but not anything serious or complicated. And not any STDs, luckily for the likes of my brother. Still, vigilance at all times. Use condoms and all that.’ I blushed at her reference, trying not to think too much about it. She walked into her bedroom and I made for the door, clothes in hand.
‘Hey, no rush,’ she said, smiling. ‘I get bored of just having the guys around. Female company wouldn’t go amiss.’ She patted the cream sofa in the corner of the room and, after hesitating, I joined her, letting the pile rest on my lap. After a moment of awkward silence, I spoke.
‘Do the others live here?’
‘Fabian and Felix and the rest of them? Yes. This is their second home,’ she answered.
‘Why?’ I probed.
‘Oh, they like to go hunting together, kick slayer butt, that sort of thing. Passes the time.’
‘Right,’ I replied, pretending that her answer sounded normal. More questions bugged my racing mind, but I knew better than to ask them. I had to be tactful with those questions if I wanted to remain alive.
Back in the relative privacy of my own room, I curled up on the ledge beside the window. It was raining again – what little sun we would get for the year had been and gone in June. My eyes began to droop, and I walked over to the bed. I couldn’t be bothered to change, so I just slipped off my shoes and swung under the covers. I hadn’t even shut my eyes, however, when there was a loud bang, which sounded as though it came from the walls itself.
There was a second bang and I sat bolt upright. I stared in fear across the dim room; I was sure it was coming from the opposite wall, and therefore, the walk-in wardrobe. My fingers tightened over the sheets.
But there was no other sound and I plucked up the courage to slip out of bed and investigate. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the door open and dove for the light switch in one move, not wanting to look up until there was light. Yet there was nothing there and my hammering heart calmed a little. Glad of the carpeted floor as it cushioned my steps, I crept forward, until … bang!
I jumped back, startled as I realized it sounded like a door slamming, or heavy furniture being pushed across the floor in the next room – Kaspar’s room. With it, came a voice and my cheeks flushed so bright that I would put a tomato to shame.
‘Oh, Kaspar,’ someone giggled. A woman. ‘You’re so dirty.’
I back-pedalled out of the wardrobe, followed all the way by groans I didn’t want to hear. I bounded back into my bed and tried to muffle the sound by smothering myself with a pillow. But it didn’t work. I lay awake, my eyes wide like I had placed matchsticks under my lids, pulling out my hair in frustration as I was forced to listen as they went on and on and didn’t stop.
TEN
Violet
‘Annie!’ I screeched, running flat out down the downstairs corridor. ‘Annie!’ I repeated as I slowed down at the servant’s staircase, which spiralled downwards into the bowels of the mansion. At their bottom was a vast network of kitchens, used to cook for the royal family upstairs at formal events. Beyond that were launderettes and small, dim rooms for the servants to sleep in. It was here that I was spending most of my time, away from Kaspar and Fabian and the others. Here, no one took any notice of me, nor lusted for my blood because most of them hated drinking it as much as the idea revolted me – it was here, at Varnley, Annie had told me, that the vampires who never wanted to be vampires came. The vampires turned, not born.
I followed the walls of the unlit kitchens, hearing my footsteps echo off the stone walls and curved ceiling, shaped like a cellar. I knew Annie would have heard me a mile off, and sure enough, she stood at the opposite end, arms folded and her tone a little exasperated.
‘You shouldn’t be down here this late.’
I brushed her off. ‘But I have a favour to ask.’
She nodded her head, the blonde curls that she tried so hard to maintain – a throwback to when she was a teenager in the 1940s, she said – flat and dropping around her ears. Her usual cap and pinafore had gone, but the black dress remained.
‘You clean the bedrooms, right?’ I asked, biting my lip because I didn’t know how she was going to react. She nodded once more. ‘Could I help out?’
She gave me a puzzled look. ‘Why?’
‘I have a little surprise for Kaspar,’ I blabbered; keen to get it out as fast as possible.
A sceptic smile grew into an excited grin on her face. ‘What are you planning?’
I had not slept a wink in three nights. Every night had been interrupted by various moans and groans. Each morning, a girl would leave. The previous morning, I’m pretty sure it had been two girls. In the end, I resolved to do something. I hadn’t expected Annie to agree, but she hated the Prince: he treated the servants like the dirt beneath his feet and worse. But when we reached his door, my resolve began to weaken.
Annie knocked and called in a timid voice through the door. ‘Your Highness?’ There was no answer. Again she knocked, harder this time. We waited a minute, and there was still no answer. She poked her head in.
‘All clear,’ she muttered and, entering, quickly began sweeping up.
‘Where did you say he kept them?’ I said in a hushed tone, afraid he might return at any minute.
‘Try the drawers in the bedside table, under the bed, behind the clock and the bathroom cabinet.’
In the back of my mind, I questioned what the hell I was doing, knowing that pushing things too far with Kaspar could get me hurt or killed, yet getting revenge on him for bringing me here, even in the smallest way, was just too tempting.
Besides, they would have hurt you by now if they wanted to, wouldn’t they? my voice said, putting into words what I had become more and more sure of over the past few days.
I began dashing about, pulling open drawers; checking under the rugs. Sure enough, in the bathroom cabinet there was a box, three behind the clock and two boxes in the drawers.
I lay down on my stomach and crawled under the bed. I fought the urge to scream as something scuttled in the shadows and disappeared between the skirting boards and floor. But I hit gold: there were boxes and boxes here, all unopened. I gathered them up and piled them on the newly made bed, along with the others. I did one last sweep of the room, checking to see if I had missed any. I hadn’t.
I returned back to the bed and began ripping the packaging open, emptying the boxes of their contents. I tipped each upside down and chucked all but one of them into the empty boxes into Annie’s rubbish bag and stuffed what had been inside them into my pockets.
‘I’ll be right back,’ I whispered. I slipped out, stopping to check if the coast was clear. I tried to walk casually down to the kitchen, knowing my eyes were shifting from one shadow to the other; sure someone was going to appear. When I reached the kitchen, I headed straight for the fridge and pulled an almost empty bottle of blood from the shelf, pouring the thick ‘drink’ down the sink. There was a definite sweetness to the smell, although that was overshadowed by the pungent stench of congealing blood. And they drank this stuff? Rank.
I left a few drops of blood in the bottom before taking the packets out of my pocket and ripping them half-open. I poked each one into the bottle, before tightly screwing up the lid and shaking it, coating each packet in the sticky liquid. I placed it the back of the fridge and headed back upstairs.