First published by Clan Destine Press in 2017
PO Box 121, Bittern
Victoria 3918
Australia
Copyright © Narrelle M Harris
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including internet search engines and retailers, electronic or mechanical, photocopying (except under the statuary exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-In-Publication data:
Harris, Narrelle M
Ravenfall
ISBN: 978-0-9954394-6-7 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-9954394-7-4 (eBook)
Cover Design © Willsin Rowe
Design & Typesetting: Clan Destine Press
Clan Destine Press
Chapter One
‘Those bastards are still watching me, Dr Sharpe.’
The heavy-set man’s gaze darted about the surgery, momentarily alighting on the doctor’s face and then away again. ‘The pigeons at Boleyn Ground. My neighbour’s bleeding cats. A mongrel outside the offie on Queen’s Road followed me all the way into West Ham Station last week, right onto the platform. And last night a wolf followed me home.’
James Sharpe made a note in Mr Bernetti’s file but didn’t bother to point out London didn’t have wolves. Mr Bernetti imagined he was watched by a lot of things, from the ducks in Regent’s Park to tiny people hiding in post boxes. He claimed that zombie mice were living in the walls of his Barking Road flat, when he wasn’t suspecting the council workers of casting spells on the traffic. Poor sod.
So many people claimed to see monsters, but most people were utterly self-delusional, or, like Mr Bernetti, labouring under a messed up brain chemistry that wouldn’t leave them be.
‘We’ll look at that prescription of yours, then see if it helps.’ A faint rolling of the r’s, a mild flattening of the vowels, betrayed a residual Scots accent, the remnants of James Sharpe’s Edinburgh childhood.
‘Please,’ Mr Bernetti’s palms pressed to his bald head as though to keep it from splitting. ‘I can’t sleep. Fucking cats watching me all night. And that wolf downstairs, rooting around the bins and setting off all the car alarms. Big red eyes and howling at the moon.’
The moon had been full last night, and would be again tonight. Something for James to check out, then. He knew Mr Bernetti’s address and it wouldn’t hurt to go for a walk and take a sniff around. The poor beggar might be delusional, but from time to time, even the delusional were not mistaken.
After all, James Sharpe hadn’t come back eighteen months ago from the war in Afghanistan, undead and with an inconvenient craving for human blood, just to believe that all monsters were imaginary.
James referred Mr Bernetti to the psych clinic in Upton, renewed his anti-psychotics in the interim, and sent him on his way.
The nurse ushered in the next patient. The boy was skinny and unkempt, not at all unusual for the people who came to this clinic. The Lester Avenue Community Clinic in Plaistow had a waiting room full of people surviving on the poverty line; and many who were barely surviving at all. This boy was one of the many who had no real address. “In the alcove under the railway bridge” was hardly something the Royal Mail would recognise anyway.
James gestured towards the chair.
‘How can I help you,’ he glanced at the paperwork the nurse had handed him, ‘Peter?’
‘Don’ call me that,’ said the boy irritably.
‘All right. Can I call you something else?’
The boy peered at him. ‘Folks call me Blue.’
James made a note. ‘All right, Blue. How can I help you today?’
‘I need me blood done.’
James’s fingers tightened imperceptibly around the biro he held. His teeth itched but remained retracted, and he heard his grandfather’s voice in his head. Shouldnae be hungry. Fuck yer dain, Jamie? Damn. Mr Bernetti’s full moon wolf story had him twitchy.
With deliberate calm, he asked, ‘You need a blood test?’
‘Yeah. Make sure it’s clean an’ that.’
‘Do you think you have an infection?’ James’s fingers relaxed. Gud lad, said his grandfather’s voice, that angel on his shoulder.
Cheers, Granda.
‘Nah, I reckon I’m good. I ain’t done any needles since last test, an’ I ain’t even give a blow job wivout a condom neither since then, an’ I don’t never do fucking, so iss prob’ly fine.’
‘I don’t like to order blood tests without a good reason, Blue. If you’re confident, and your last test was clear, you don’t have to.’
‘But I want to. Iss like a promise I made, see? He said iss all right, but if he’s gonna take care of me, like he said, I thought this would be proper.’
‘Who’s taking care of you?’ James laid the pen down so it was clear he wasn’t going to make notes, but Blue shrugged awkwardly and said nothing.
In the silence, James inhaled. Held his breath. He could smell a confusing bundle of scents, most of them unpleasant: body odour, unwashed feet, stale beer, halitosis. The boy had made some attempt to bathe with rainwater in the last week. James couldn’t detect anything more sinister, and while he wasn’t happy with the implications, Peter – or rather, Blue – was recently eighteen and legally capable of making his own decisions, even terrible ones.
‘Do you feel safe with this man?’ said James.
Blue stared at him with large eyes, astonished that anyone would care. ‘He’s all right.’
‘You know you don’t have to–’
‘Better’n most,’ Blue said, regarding James through narrowed eyes, ‘An’ better’n the street, y’know?’
James knew, in a roundabout way. He’d walked the streets a lot in the months he’d been back in London after his medical discharge from the army. Night after long night, week after lonely week, month after interminable month, he’d walked away his unsleeping nights. He’d seen things that might have shocked him, if he hadn’t already spent years in Afghanistan, seeing many things that were so much worse.
Doing things that were so much worse.
James shut down that unhelpful train of thought. ‘I can order a test if you want to be sure.’
‘Yeah. I do.’
‘I’ll give you a general exam as well.’
Blue shrugged again, but nodded too, so James gave Blue a physical and took two vials of blood. Apart from being undernourished, the boy seemed in good shape.
‘Come next week for the result,’ James said, ‘I’m here Wednesdays and Thursdays. But I don’t think you’ve anything to worry about.’ The blood smelled healthy, but James couldn’t exactly say that.
Blue scurried out of the surgery. James waited until the door shut before he took up the second vial of blood.