James unstoppered the vial, held it to his lips and tipped it back. The blood flowed over his tongue and down his throat, but was absorbed long before it ever got to his stomach. He licked at the glass to capture every drop. No sense in wasting any.
Blue was fine. James could taste the vitality in the sample. Low on sugars, overactive thyroid too, but no diseases, no infections. Provided his new guardian didn’t turn out to be a violent bastard, Blue would be fine.
James binned the empty vial in the hazardous wastes unit. He’d had his shot of blood now. He ought to be right for the rest of the day. No more supernatural jitters.
Last night, a wolf followed me home.
Ah, bugger. James wondered if he should go walking again tonight to search for that alleged wolf. It would get him away from the suspicious eye of his lodger, Baxter, at least.
The alternative was to stay at home, holed up in his room so as not to disturb the irritatingly necessary Baxter, and read all night. Or stare at the walls. Or clean his gun. Again. He’d done that every day after his return, as well. Disassemble the gun. Clean it. Reassemble it. Load it. Hold it.
But part of the curse was that James Sharpe had a fierce will to survive. That quality was what had made the transformation possible, he’d been informed by the sick bastard who’d made him. Without that implacable determination to survive, the process of dying and being reborn as this… this… thing would have foundered at the dying part.
‘You’re a long time deid,’ his grandfather used to say.
You don’t know the half of it, Granda.
James hadn’t chosen this, but he had fought for it all the same. That will to survive had left him, every day, putting his service pistol back into a box, back into the drawer, away. This transformation had taken almost everything from him, but that drive to continue – whatever it took.
Yet he clung to the remnants of himself. He couldn’t be a human being any more, but he could try to make up for what had happened after he awoke, changed. He’d sworn he wouldn’t succumb to that again. He’d keep the beast chained, and be as human as possible, with the voice of the best man he’d known as the whisper in his ear to help. He would practise medicine and find a way to make this thing he was, if not of use, then not a danger.
A little blood once a week from samples he took at the clinic, he found, was enough. Sometimes he supplemented it with animal blood from the butcher – chicken and pig were most easily obtained, and a cup of it every few days was sufficient.
James washed his hands. He poured a glass of water and swilled it round his mouth, swallowed it down to make sure he got every last bit of Blue’s blood into his system. Human blood was better than animal blood, more satisfying to his physiology. Better still if it was given freely, he’d learned, but that was hardly likely. Granda was long dead, James didn’t have friends, and his lodger didn’t like him very much. At least this way, he got what he needed with minimal harm.
The nurse knocked to introduce another patient – a teenage girl with her crying infant. James could already scent the ear infection. Surreptitiously, he spat on his finger and smeared it over the ear thermometer. He’d prescribe antibiotics too, to be on the safe side, but as he inserted the instrument in the infant’s ear, he knew the healing properties of his saliva – evolved to cover up evidence of sharp-toothed bites – was the one good thing about being a vampire.
Chapter Two
‘It’s not just a bedsit,’ said the young man, all flash suit and posh aftershave, to the gangly, windswept fellow at his side, ‘More bedsit- and-a-half, a kitchenette to go with the bedroom, and a cupboard for some storage space, which you said you were after.’
Gabriel Dare peered at the outside of the plain block of flats. Ivy Gardens. Without any ivy, or indeed, any garden. Two storeys of scuffed red bricks, small windows and peeling paint, encompassed by a low brick wall. It didn’t look much. The estate agent’s website pictures of the room-and-a-half for rent were only a little better; the tiny space had been recently repainted, at least. The pantry at the parental home was larger, but then3303 – Gabriel didn’t need much space, and he’d lived in places far less salubrious than his father’s house for many years. Even a tiny room in this unadorned building was better than what he’d had some months. (A couch in a student flophouse; an alcove out of the rain some nights; three weeks under a bridge one year. Something with both a door and a roof was a positive luxury.)
Gabriel nodded absently as the estate agent rattled on about value for the pound and proximity to buses and the Tube, but he was taking in the setting. A narrow path led down the side of the block to an area containing a communal washing line, bins and a strip of lawn, according to the online photos. That would suit his needs if he had private callers, or needed to get out by means other than the front door.
‘The neighbours are pretty quiet,’ the estate agent was saying as a heavy-set man with a suitcase and a scowl pushed past them towards the street.
‘Get fucked!’
Behind him, a pale man with brown hair glared at the other’s retreating back. ‘You owe for electricity and groceries, you bast–’
‘I didn’t eat the bloody biscuits!’
‘Who else w–’
‘And why shouldn’t I, anyway? You’d never eat them. You don’t eat. You hardly sleep. You’re a fucking nutter. Spend another night in your spare room, I might wake up with a fork in my kidney while you sip on a bleeding Chianti.’
The pale man glowered but made no reply. He opted instead to concentrate on getting his fists to uncurl. He glared at the estate agent and Gabriel.
‘What the fuck do you want?’
‘Er… problem, Mr Sharpe?’ asked the agent nervously.
‘Christ no,’ replied Sharpe with weary humour, ‘What on earth makes you think that?’
‘Er…’
Gabriel scrutinised this fellow, Sharpe. He’d seen him from a distance before, near the Lester Avenue clinic, a few handy streets away. He hadn’t paid much attention. A distinct mistake: he was certainly worth a closer inspection. Average height, but with broad shoulders and a compact, solid musculature of the type Gabriel had always found appealing, being such a contrast to his own lanky physique. Strong arms (Gabriel liked arms a lot, and hands, and… stop that now) and sturdy legs braced on the footpath, as though ready for an imminent call to action, his dark jeans clinging in all the right places. Light brown hair in a neat militarily short cut, clean-shaven, and sapphire blue eyes of a peculiar intensity. Very pale from his upper arms to his elbows, though his hands, forearms and face bore the traces of a faded tan. From his stance and body type, Gabriel suspected that Mr Sharpe had a good arse on him. He tried not to think about that. He liked a good arse on a man, and he’d made himself a very sincere promise not to let such things sway his judgement any more.
‘How much?’ asked Gabriel brightly.
God, he hadn’t even seen the arse in question and his mouth was getting ahead of his resolutions. Story of his life.
Both estate agent and Sharpe blinked at the non sequitur.
‘For the vacated room?’ Gabriel persisted with the cheerfulness, ‘How much?’
‘I–’
‘And how much space?’
‘Two bedrooms, kitchen, living room. One bathroom,’ said Sharpe, curious but wary. ‘On the top floor.’
‘Any room for storage?’
Sharpe regarded Gabriel quizzically, but with the beginnings of a smile. ‘The cupboard under the stairs to the attic. I don’t have much in it. Shared space in the downstairs laundry. The unexpectedly unoccupied bedroom is the larger of the two, faces the back. It’s basic,