Now there was another. And for some reason which she dare not attribute to chance, the thing had come for her still-living brother.
They ran through the night, Rose having to hold back because Marty could only sprint so fast. All the while she felt him burning with questions, but she ran him so hard that he could not find breath to ask them.
Before he even seemed to realize where they were going, they stopped at the end of his street.
“Rose—” he began, but she cut in. She’d spent the time running planning what to say.
“Rose is dead,” she said. “She died five years ago when she was bitten by a vampire. Okay? I’m what’s left of her. A husk. I drink stolen blood to survive, occasionally animal’s blood. I’m not glamorous, I’m pathetic. I’m not your guardian angel. I don’t mourn my old life, Marty. And that is the truth.” She paused, wondering how far to go, how much she should say about what she had become and how it made her feel. Running with Marty had once again displayed to her the constraints of being human.
“But I’ve seen you,” he said. “Always knew you weren’t really dead.”
“But that’s just it,” Rose said, leaning in close so that he could feel her cool skin, smell her stale breath, see the teeth that no living human could ever have. “I am dead, as far as you’d judge it. I’m beyond any life you know. The Rose you think you’re looking at is just a memory.” She stood up straighter again, and she could feel the fear in his gaze.
“So, what do I do now?” he asked. And that was what she was conflicted about: she’d started something by saving Marty. She’d started it years ago by following him, keeping an eye on him, making sure he never came to any harm. Now was the time to move on.
“You’ve got to leave London,” she said. “Tell your mother and father they have to get out, before sunset tomorrow. Daytime’s safe.”
“You mean it’ll come back? It knows where I live?” His eyes were wide, and she hated seeing her little brother so scared. But she couldn’t show him any emotion. Could barely show it to herself. She sometimes thought that undead made her truly dead inside.
“He didn’t like being beaten,” she said. “And yeah, good chance he’s been stalking you.” I would, she thought. Wounds in her side were itching, gored flesh knitting and burning as it healed. The back of her left hand had been stripped of skin and flesh, sucked into his mouth when his teeth had torn her open there. Bones showed through. That would take a couple of days to grow back, she knew. Her long coat hid the terrible damage to her right thigh and buttock, where she knew that pounds of flesh had been stripped away. If she wasn’t already undead, she’d be dead now, but that didn’t detract from the agony of the healing as it commenced. Her only comfort was that he’d be feeling a lot worse.
“But… you’ll make sure he doesn’t, right? You’ll talk to him?”
“I don’t even know him. He’s not one of…” She trailed off, knowing that she’d already said too much.
“There are others like you?”
Rose didn’t answer. Instead she walked along the street, keeping to shadows just in case her old mother or father happened to be looking from their window right now. Awaiting Marty’s return, perhaps. Or maybe just looking out into the darkness that had eaten their daughter.
She heard Marty following her. She’d already said too much, interacted with him when she had no right doing so. She’d planted hope in his young heart when there was no hope. And her own thoughts confused her. To begin with, there had been a subtle sadness at what she had lost. But now it felt more like resentment at the weakness she’d left behind, and at the weak thing her brother still was. And that sat heavy on her vampire heart.
“Get out of London,” she said again over her shoulder. “You’re in danger and I can’t protect you again.”
“Rose…”
“Forget about Rose.” And without glancing back she moved quickly into the night, Marty’s astonished gasp the only sound that marked her leaving.
She moved quickly, climbing to cross the warren of terraced streets across rooftops high above, avoiding chimneys that might crumble, stepping lightly over loose tiles. She became unseen and unknown once again, cursing herself for letting Marty see her. She’d had no choice, but she knew exactly what Francesco would say when she told him what had happened.
And she had to tell. The Humains had to group together again, hunt down and expel this new London vampire. Murder and exposure threatened the delicate existence they had built up for themselves over so long. She knew their history, and she also knew what something like this could do to their future. Once the living believed in and feared them, their days were numbered.
Francesco… yes, she knew exactly what he would say.
2
“YOU SHOULD HAVE LET him die.”
“He’s my brother.”
“You have no human brother! A blood brother, yes. I turned you. Would you do the same to protect me? I wonder.”
“You know I would, Francesco.”
“‘I know you would.’” It was part statement, part echo, but Rose knew that he knew the truth. They were as close as lovers without sex intruding to complicate matters. The same blood ran in their veins. She would do anything for him, and despite his bluster and posturing she knew that he would do the same for her.
“I couldn’t let him die like that. You know it well.”
“I know you’re a fool.”
“What would you do if it was one of your family?”
“My family died out over a hundred years ago,” Francesco said, and there was not a single note of sadness in his voice. “Ypres, the flu, murder, and a suicide finally finished the line.” He chuckled. “I’m the last one left. Irony playing games, perhaps?”
“So you know what happened to them all.” Rose looked straight ahead, but she could not keep the slight smile from her lips. She felt Francesco tense slightly on the bench beside her, and then he chuckled again. It was only in his laughter that he sounded so old.
They were sitting beside a canal; darkness hunkered around them in a hundred shadows. The water stank, rats scuttled to and fro, and smashed bottles and used condoms carpeted the towpath. The canal’s opposite side was lined with dilapidated factory units. The shadow of a forgotten company’s name was picked out by moonlight, and the staggered ridges of a series of pitched roofs were shattered by time and vandals. Weeds had taken root atop the buildings like sparse tufts of hair.
Francesco liked sitting here, and it was the first place she’d come to after leaving Marty. She’d only had to wait for an hour before her friend showed. He hadn’t seemed surprised to find her waiting, but then, he rarely showed much emotion. He claimed that the sixteen decades he’d been a vampire had bled him of trifling sentiment, but she believed he had merely learned to hide it well.
She could smell stale blood on him. He’d fed tonight, from one of the same blood pouches Patrick had stolen from the blood bank three days before. Rose supposed it was a treat, but every time she fed this way, she remembered that one time she’d truly fed. With the memory came a flush of guilt and remorse, and a thrill of excitement and joy that belittled the greatest sex she’d known as a living human. Francesco had found her that night, and held her, and told her that it always took time to adjust. He had not fed on a human for over forty years, or so he claimed. She had no reason to doubt him.