Hungry is the Night - Page Six
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"Oh my."
"Finally, an opportunity that isn't going to get me slapped," Damien grinned. "C'mon, darling, your toy boy has seen the error of his ways, and is staring at us in disgust."
"Has he? That's nice."
"How much did you have to drink?"
"Two screwdrivers. One from you, one from him."
"Well, either he was fall-down drunk, or he gave you a bit more than you asked for, pet."
Damien glared at the boy, who suddenly decided that he needed to be elsewhere. He plucked Catlin's glass out of her hand, and sniffed it.
"Smells like a shot of orange in a glass of vodka there, darling. Can you walk straight?"
"Dunno. Think so."
Catlin wound her arms around Damien's neck.
"You really are one of the best looking guys I've ever met."
"Yeah, and I've got money and a charming personality too. C'mon darling."
Catlin snorted, and allowed herself to be led to the front door.
"I suddenly don't feel very well."
"Serves you right for accepting drinks from strangers. Don't worry, we metabolise quickly, you'll feel fine in 15 or 20 minutes."
"Well how else was I meant to bite him?"
"Nobody said you had to drink the drink he gave you, darling."
"But how else was I meant to get the taste of his aftershave out of my mouth?"
"Spit?" Damien suggested, gently guiding her out into the porch. "Got any water around here, Tony?"
"Sure. Here, Cat, have some water."
Damien had sat her on a bench, and Catlin smiled up at Anthony, accepting the bottle he handed her.
"Nobody in there smelled as nice as you," she told him.
"That's good to know," he replied with a smile.
"I could do with a bathroom."
"Here."
It was obviously the bouncer's bathroom, and Catlin used the facilities quickly. True to Damien's word, the 10 minutes it had taken for them to navigate their way to the front door had helped, and she was starting to feel better. After five minutes of leaning on the sink with her hands in the water, she thought she could even walk by herself. She dried her hands and emerged from the bathroom.
"That was horrible. I have half a mind to go and find that creep, wash his neck and-"
Catlin stopped as a couple left the club. Damien chuckled.
"Ready to go home, darling?"
"Yeah. Anthony, thank you for a lovely evening."
He grinned.
"You can come back any time. I'll maybe see you in a couple of days."
"Oh?"
"I'm coming to visit."
"That'll be nice," Catlin smiled.
"C'mon, darling."
Catlin waved to Anthony, and followed Damien out to his car.
"Thanks for taking me out."
"Any time."
"You're not as obnoxious as I expected."
"Your confidence in me is overwhelming."
"I didn't mean anything against you by that. It's just that I'm usually attracted to your type, and they usually end up being assholes."
"My type? What type is that?"
"Devastatingly good looking bad boys."
He threw back his head and laughed at that, then grinned at her, flashing fangs.
"You sure know how to throw a back-handed compliment, darling."
"Something's been puzzling me though."
"What's that?"
"Your accent. You have the whole Norse God look going for you, with the exception of the darkness of your hair - though I'd bet that was lighter when it saw daylight," Catlin mused, allowing herself the pleasure of reaching over and running her fingers through a section of his hair, enjoying the feel of the silky smoothness running over her skin. "But you sound like one of the good ol' boys from Nashville. It doesn't quite fit."
"I did spend some time in Tennessee, but I gathered the accent in Louisiana," Damien replied, watching her play with his hair, disappointed when the last strands slipped through her fingers, and she didn't do it again.
"New Orleans?"
"I spent some time in New Orleans."
"Oh, that's so Anne Rice."
"Indeed. But it was just what I needed."
"How's that?"
"It built the family. Shall we go in? Gabriel has looked out the upstairs window at us three times already. If it gets to five, I'm going to end up with a black eye."
"Don't change the subject. What do you mean, it built the family?"
"It helped Gabriel and Jade and Alex and I get to know each other better, find out our strengths and weaknesses and how we work together. It made us a unit, rather than Alex and Gabriel, and me the outcast and Jade the woman. Can we go in now?"
"Yeah, sure."
Catlin got out of the car, and looked over at Damien.
"Why Damien?"
"As a name?"
"Yeah."
"Because that's what Alex picked. It's from a Greek name."
"Yes, Damianos. But why?"
"That story would take a lot longer to tell than we have time for."
"Why? You going somewhere?"
"I'm about to get beaten up."
"Will you quit that?"
"Honey, you don't understand. Gabriel is feeling very protective of you right now. I got away with taking you out because he wasn't home when we left. But he's going to want to know where we went and what we did, and why I took you out hunting when I knew he hadn't taken you out yet, and the longer we stand out here, the worse it's going to be."
"Clearly, I don't understand anything," Catlin replied with mild sarcasm.
"Don't worry, darling, you'll learn."
"How did your hunt last night with Damien go?"
Jade closed the greenhouse door behind her, and poured herself a cup of tea from the pot sitting on the table.
"Alright, I guess. The guy's aftershave tasted disgusting, though."
"That'll happen sometimes. Or they don't wash their neck. Or they've taken drugs, which taints the blood."
"It does?"
"Of course it does. The same as alcohol. You can get drunk from sipping from an alcoholic, just the same as you can by drinking the stuff yourself. Of course, we metabolise quite quickly, so the buzz never lasts long."
Jade sat on the chair opposite Catlin, and watched her surveying their surroundings.
"You like the greenhouse?"
"Yes, I do," Catlin replied, thoughtfully. "It's strange, because of course I miss the sunlight and the day time flowers, but the night-time flowers are just as beautiful. Some of them perhaps more so."
"I used to sit in here a lot, in my first century."
"You've been here all that time?"
Jade laughed.
"No, not at all. Shortly after I joined the group, Alex took us all to Spain. We spent 26 years there, healing. Then we came here, dusted off the house, established ourselves and spent some time learning about vampire power structures and the importance of our house. That's when I sat out here."
"How long did that take?"
"We spent 57 years in England, give or take. Then we went to France to put it all into practice. You see, the vampire council meets once every 100 years. It was formed in the year AD500. It took them five years to get everything sorted, like a list of all the vampires and diving them up into the groups by who sired them, as there wasn't any records back then. And since AD505 they've met every 100 years to "discuss" vampiric business matters. Personally, I think it's nothing more than an excuse to show off, but that's just me. Damien and I didn't go to the first meeting I was around for. I'd only been a vampire for 8 years, at that point, and Damien said he didn't want to go. So Alex and Gabriel went. That one was hosted by the Heliotropes, in Spain, which is I think why Alex chose to locate us in Spain for that time, so he and Gabriel could come home and check on us each morning. So after Spain and England, we went to France and practiced our manners on other vampires."
"Vampire etiquette classes?"
"Fairly accurate definition. France is one of the territories Alex holds, so we spent 24 years there, practicing our manners on his subjects, for want of a better word. Come 1705, we all went to Africa to put them into real practice at the council meeting. That one was held by the Blackthorns. They have a very interesting territory. I was 108, and Alex told me I could come to the meetings, but that I shouldn't worry if nobody spoke to me. I think he only said that to reassure me. I sat quietly at Gabriel's side, and every single vampire in the room made a point of coming to talk to me. Some of them were trying to get information out of me, some of them were just being polite. It was very difficult to determine who wanted what. That was Damien's first council meeting too. He fared better than me, though, if people got too pushy he put on his "leave me alone or I'll tear your guts out" face, and glared at everyone until they went away."
"He'd never been to one before? I thought you said he was older than you."
"He is, but either he didn't want to go, which seems likely, though I'm not sure how he would have managed to get away with that, or he wasn't a ranking member of a house before then, which seems unlikely. Perhaps whoever he was with before he met up with Alex didn't realise what an asset he was - I've never managed to get an answer out of him about that. As for why he'd never been to one after meeting up with Alex and before I was turned, I gather he wasn't considered a ranking member of the house until just before I was turned, and so could get away with not going to the first one. We did fairly well at the meeting, apparently, and returned to France for another 80 years."
"Gosh. You say it so casually."
"80 years in one place isn't so unusual in vampire society. In 1785, we left France for the Americas."
"Why?"
"Well, Alex foresaw the French Revolution, and didn't want to be there when that happened."
"That was 1789?"
"Yes, 1789-1799. We were settling into life in New Orleans at that point."
Catlin bit her tongue, to avoid repeating the comment she'd made to Damien. Jade grinned.
"Yes, it's very Anne Rice, I know."
Catlin grinned back.
"I wasn't going to say that again."
"Who did you say it to the first time?"
"To Damien. He told me he picked up the accent in New Orleans. Or rather, Nawleens."
Jade laughed.
"Yes, well, we spent a long time down there in the deep south. Damien adopted the accent after 15 years or so. The rest of us managed to resist it, though."
"You enjoyed it there?"
"Yes, I think we all did. It was a quiet time, where we really got to know each other. As people, I mean. Before then, Alex was our head of house, but in that time we got to know him as a companion as well. It was a good time."
"Was there another council meeting in there?"
"Yes, the third one, in 1805 was hosted by the Violets. It was in Canada, so not that far for us to go. The fourth one in 1905 was much further away."
"Where were you by then?"
"We were still in New Orleans. We spent 169 years in New Orleans and surrounding areas. It really was a wonderful time."
"Where was the 1905 one?"
"Australia. The Hellebores hosted it," Jade added, pulling a face. "I don't like them very much, and I don't think the others do either."
"Why not?"
"They just seem a little... slimy."
"Oh."
"Sorry, I can't describe it any better than that. In any case, we went back to New Orleans after the meeting, and eventually, when we were all in agreement, we came back to England."
"When was that?"
"1954."
"And you've been here since then?"
"Yes, we have."
"May I ask a personal question?"
"What is it?"
"You said you spent 26 years in Spain healing. Healing from what?"
"The past. I needed time to come to terms with what had happened, and a new name in a new place was the best way to put it behind me."
Catlin nodded.
"I understand that."
"I don't think you could."
"I wasn't born a Catlin, you know. I was christened Sarah Elizabeth. When I was eight, my father and my brother were killed in a boating accident. When I was 10, my mother remarried. When I was 14, my step-father started... becoming over-friendly, shall we say?"
Jade's face was a mask of stone.
"I ran away three times over the course of my fourteenth year, and when I was 15, he tried to rape me."
"What happened?"
"I kicked him in the balls, broke his arm, knocked him out and ran away again. I was a little more thorough in hiding my tracks that time. I withdrew all my money and hopped on a bus, and a train to Manchester, and then a bus that not even I knew where it went."
"That was dangerous."
"I didn't care. I needed to get away from there. That's when I met Mary-Kate."
"She is the witch that Gabriel mentioned?"
"Yes. How do you know she's a witch?"
"They smell different. Some people say they're supernaturals too, others that they're only human, but that they hone their abilities. Personally, I'm reserving judgment until I've tasted one."
"Oh. Well, yes. That's MK. Anyway, she took me in. She convinced me to change my name. She looked after me; made sure I got a job, finished my GCSEs and went to University. She was my driving force for getting over the past and putting it behind me."
Jade was silent for a long minute.
"So you see, I think perhaps I do understand the need to change one's environment to get over the past. Not forget, because that will never happen, but to get on with your life, yes."
Catlin picked up her teacup and sipped, listening to the insects in the flowers. Twenty minutes slowly ticked past.
"When I was fourteen," Jade said quietly, "my marriage was arranged. He was an older man, from a good family, and my parents approved. We were married three days after my fifteenth birthday. His mother had died only the month before, so I moved in with him straight away. I tried to be a good wife to him, but I was clumsy sometimes, or too noisy, or didn't bring him his slippers or his sake or his dinner fast enough, and then he would hit me."
Catlin gasped in the darkness.
"He visited me each night, and often hit me afterwards for not pleasing him properly. Within five months, I was carrying his child. For a time, then, he stopped hitting me. I was good then, I had done the right thing, I was bearing him a son. In my heart, however, I knew it was a girl."
Jade took a deep breath.
"When I was six months pregnant, I noticed that my cleaning girl had a black eye. She told me that she had tripped in the dark and hurt it on a doorframe. I believed her. A month later, just after my 16th birthday, on our one-year anniversary, I found my husband and my maid in his study. I don't know if he was raping her, or if she had said yes because saying no would mean the loss of her job, but she had her face turned away from him and was crying silently. I could see the bruises all over her body. I knew then how I had managed to escape his fists for all those months. He didn't see me, at first, and my maid's eyes were begging me to leave, to not make it worse. But I couldn't leave. I wouldn't leave. That was my husband, pounding a twelve year old girl into the floor. Did I mention that she was only 12? I said his name, and he looked over and saw me in the doorway. He leaped up from the floor, and I turned and ran out into the garden. He followed me, and I yelled at him. I called him a monster, I told him I hated him, and I told him that his precious son was going to be a daughter. If I had thought about it a little more rationally, I wouldn't have said that. He knew I had gone to see the wise-woman, and assumed that I had made sure that the child would be a girl. So he hit me. It was like all the seven months worth of beatings at once, and I passed out. When I finally woke again, I had miscarried. I was laying on the floor in the house, and my maid was tending me. It was clear that my husband had beaten and raped her after he had finished with me. She asked me if I wanted to hold my baby, and I did. She had fingers and toes and hair and eyebrows, but she was so very tiny, and so very cold. My maid told me that my husband had commanded her to bring me inside but leave the baby outside, as he did not want it in his house. She had disobeyed him, but my baby died anyway. We buried my baby in the garden, and then I gave my maid all the money in the house and told her to go to her brother. I wrote her a letter of recommendation, gave her a herbal drink to make sure she would not be cursed by my husband as I was, and told her to heal herself before looking for new work. And I told her that I was going to kill my husband."
Catlin was sitting, silently, her tea forgotten as she listened to Jade's story.
"When my husband returned home, I feigned submissiveness. I told him I had sent away my maid because she had displeased me by throwing herself at my husband, and I told my husband that I had been wrong to go to the wise woman and ask for a girl - even though I had not! I apologised to him, and begged his forgiveness for my awful behaviour. He told me he would not forgive me easily, but he would not throw me out either, and that I should go and fetch him some food, as he was hungry. Perhaps he didn't trust me, as he made me eat some before he would touch it. But I hadn't poisoned his meal. I waited until he was engrossed, and then I stabbed him with my kitchen knife. I waited an hour, until I was sure he was dead, and then I left the house and walked into the rice paddies. I was preparing to kill myself, when Alex appeared out of nowhere. He said, "I can see that you have nothing to live for here. I can show you a life that you could never have imagined. Will you leave your old life behind and join me and my sons?" I accepted. And we left."
"Oh, Jade."
"You were lucky, you understand, that women these days are taught how to protect themselves."
"I was lucky that I knew how. Your story is so sad. And your daughter!"
"She has long ago been reborn, into a better life than I could have given her. I no longer mourn her loss."
"Would you ever consider..."
"No. Vampires cannot have children."
"I gathered that, but what about adoption?"
"No. It is illegal to turn a child, and it's no sort of life for a live one. I was only 16 when I left my home. Alex made me wait for two full years before he would allow me to accept his offer in full. He made sure I realised all the implications of the change. I will never have a child."
There was a long pause.
"I'm sorry."
Jade sighed through silent tears.
"Thank you."
They sat together in silence for the remainder of the night.
Catlin swayed down the hall in a stunningly beautiful sapphire blue gown. It had appeared on the back of her door whilst she slept, and so, remembering Jade's advice, after a long and luxurious bath, she'd dressed in the gown, the matching shoes, and the glittering sapphire jewellery. The front of the dress was fairly plain - a halter-neck gown with silver beads embroidered around the neckline, but the back of the dress was stunning. The beads on the strap around her throat ran down the edge of the non-existent back, down to the base of her spine, from which point the full skirt swished most satisfactorily around her legs, and trailed beautifully as she walked. Catlin had been admiring the back of the dress in the mirror, when there had been a knock on the door. The woman standing in the doorway when Catlin opened it proclaimed herself there to fix Catlin's hair and makeup. It was at that point that Catlin began to suspect that something else was going on. Once her hair and makeup had been done, Catlin had fixed the platinum and sapphire drop earrings to her ears, fastened the matching bracelet around her left wrist, and started towards the stairs. It was here that she found Gabriel, wearing a grey suit and a sapphire blue shirt that matched her dress.
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