"We don't really need to take anything back, do we?" her father croaked.
"There's plenty for us when we want it at home," Natasha said. "But still, there's something exciting in taking it from the hunt."
"Surely you're not still hungry?" her mother asked. She was a thin woman, slight, and her skin displayed evidence of at least four healing bullet wounds.
"I'm always hungry," her father said, glancing above Natasha's head at something out of sight. He smiled, and even though his teeth were back to normal by now, it still looked like a growl. "I'm a berserker. Eating people is what we do."
Natasha turned to see what he had been looking at, who he had been talking to. Standing above her on the boat's main deck, eyes bearing their own peculiar human hunger, a soldier watched the continuing bloodshed. The soldier whom her parents referred to as The Man. To Natasha, he was like a scary monster from a children's book, and she called him Mister Wolf.
Tom snapped awake, panicking. He had no idea where he was. He looked around the car, expecting sea water to flood in at any moment, wondering why he could no longer feel the boat leaping from wave to wave. He could smell blood but there was no one else in sight, no one but the shriveled thing suckered to his chest.
"No!" He pushed away, wincing as the pain roared in his lower back. Cole. I saw Cole through Natasha's eyes. Watching them, and enjoying it. "Leave me alone!" he said.
Natasha rolled back against the leather seat. Wet blood glittered around her mouth. She did not move, but Tom sat up anyway, pressing his hand to his chest and feeling the warm trickle of blood running onto his palm and down his wrist.
No Daddy, she said, it's not like that, not always. And never for you. I'm trying to help you. Can't you feel, can't you sense the pain drifting away?
Tom pushed back against the front seats, staring at Natasha's mouth as he heard her voice in his head. No, those lips were not moving. No, her limbs had not shifted position. She was propped against the backseat and there she remained. And yet his blood surrounded her shrivelled mouth, and the pain in his back from the bullet wound was a fist of fire twisting in his insides, its fingers flexing and reaching and tearing … but it was bearable. Awful, making him want to scream, but bearable.
Can you feel it? Fading away? Listen to me and it will get even better.
"How?" he asked. "Why? Am I in shock?"
Not shock, Natasha said.
Tom almost laughed. Almost. "I've never been shot before. I am shocked, let me tell you."
Not shock, she said again. I'm feeling better, so you are too.
Tom glanced down at his chest, the lip of Tom skin there that still dribbled blood into his opened shirt. "Have you been drinking my blood?"
Only a little. Her voice was quiet and tentative, the voice of a child found doing wrong.
"You told me you weren't a vampire."
Were not! she said, more determined now. They thought that at first. Especially him, Mister Wolf. Teased us with garlic and crosses and … She laughed, a dry rustle that matched her physical appearance. My mummy and daddy went along with it because it amused them. They did their best to sleep in the day and wake at night, even though it upset my brother and me, and Mister Wolf and the others thought they knew what they were doing. Funny. It was funny. Even the day they found out we were fooling them, it was funny. She trailed off, as if that day were the last time she had found cause to truly laugh.
"I've been shot," Tom said. "I've been shot!" He leaned forward over Natasha's body and rested his forehead on the backseat, turning slightly so that he could look along the road at Mister Wolf. He was still lying half-in a ditch beside the road, an arm and leg splayed out onto the tarmac, the rest of him almost hidden from view. He was not moving. Tom wondered what Natasha had done to him, and how, but he thought he had a good idea; he had felt her dark psychic fingers exploring his own mind, and he had no doubt they possessed strengths other than those he had already experienced.
We really do have to go now, Natasha said. He'll be awake soon, and he'll have more bullets.
"But I've been shot, I'm bleeding. I can't drive like this."
Listen to me, Daddy. If you listen to me you can do it.
"I think the bullet's still inside." He checked his stomach and abdomen, feeling gingerly for an exit wound, but he found none. Only the pounding pain in his lower back, and the feeling of something being very wrong inside. Is that just the bullet grinding around, he thought, or has it moved stuff in there?
We have a connection, Natasha said, and Tom suddenly thought of her dried mouth clasped to his chest, his blood leaking into her desiccated body. The image was thrust into his mind, not conjured, held there for his inspection and turned by memories other than his. He sensed the blood flowing from beneath his skin, and felt it enter Natasha's mouth. He could sense the draining from his veins, and taste his own blood upon another's tongue. And wherever he looked, whichever way he turned, he felt calmed and soothed by the exchange. It was as if bad blood were being bled from him, taking pain along with it, and yet it was good blood when imbibed. Strength came to him, and something unknown seemed to stir in Natasha's mind.
There, Natasha said. See?
"But I don't understand," he said, reaching back and feeling the ragged mess of his back. Blood still coursed between his fingers, and when he shifted a fresh flow warmed his skin.
You don't need to, she said. It's enough for now to accept it and let it help. We have to go.
"I don't think—"
You can drive.
"I'm not sure—"
Daddy …
Tom looked down at Natasha's body, her face, eye sockets holding the shriveled eyes like old raisins. And even though he saw no movement, he felt her smile.
Thank you, she said.
From outside the BMW, above the rumble of the engine, Tom heard a groan. He looked across the road at Cole's arm and leg, saw the fingers twitching and the foot dragged across the ground. "He's waking."
Natasha was silent but her smile remained in his head, the gratitude apparent. I cant let it end like this, he thought. Not here, and not now. He moved slightly, waiting for pain to tear up his insides, but it was little worse than a bad toothache. A toothache the size of his entire lower body, true, but it was a rich, vibrant pain, not debilitating. He shifted some more, stepping carefully from the rear seat, standing, turning, closing the door and resting in the driver's seat. I've just been shot in the back and now I'm going to drive, he thought, and the idea was so alien that it made no sense whatsoever, gave him nothing to grab onto. Here was Tom, entire life spent behind a desk, most daring exploits usually involving having four pints instead of two on Friday evening pub visits, who now sat covered in his own blood, a ten-year-old body talking to him from the backseat, an ex-army killer lying twenty feet away, and his dead wife in a car farther along the road.
There's still Steven, Natasha said then, and she knew exactly what to say to turn his mind back to the present.