B007XKEWAE EBOK (7 page)

             
His struggling subsided as shock and the loss of blood took their toll on his
fragile human body. Gabriella continued to drain him after he collapsed. She took from him until there wasn’t enough blood left in his body to keep his heart pumping it around. Then she left him there with his trousers down.
Discarded in the back alley with the rest of the rubbish.

Britain's industries had been in decline over the last number of years and the steel industry had been no exception. Sheffield had grown up as a steel city but had been as affected by the decline as everywhere else. There were numerous steel works and factories that had closed
down and sat abandoned waiting for years for an upturn that would never come. As the owners came to the realisation that there was not going to be an industrial revival the steel works were being sold off, demolished to build housing, or shopping centres. One plant on the outskirts of the city had been bought a year before but hadn't yet been raised to the ground. It had originally been purchased several years earlier with the intent of transforming it into some sort of tourist attraction. All the specialised equipment had been removed before the new owner took control. These new owners had begun converting the works into a much more people friendly environment, but in the end their backers decided the location wasn't going to be sufficiently accessible
for the numbers of visitors they would need to turn a profit and they purchased another site for their grand dream. They sold the works on at a manageable loss which they wrote off as the cost of doing business. Once it had been sold the estate agents forgot about it and nobody else had ever cared.

Francesca looked out of her window at the small group of vampires sleeping on the wide floor down below. The old nest had relocated here at her direction. It was larger than the warehouses had been and a little more isolated.

Francesca had converted the supervisors and clerks offices, which had been completed before the project was abandoned, to serve as her private chambers and it was from here that she looked down on the nest. Soft footsteps
padded on the carpet behind her and she saw the faint reflection of Gabriella in the glass. When she turned around she didn’t see the fangs and contorted brow of the vampire on her lovers face. Instead she looked just like the girl Francesca had turned two and a half centuries ago. Just like Francesca, who had lived for even longer than that, she would never age even a single day. Her beauty would never fade.

Fulton was appalled. He couldn't resist it. The urge to kill and feed had become too much for him. He was crouched, waiting in the blackest corner of a dark alley. Sodden refuse surrounded him and the fetid water of the murky puddles stank. He seemed to somehow gather the
darkness around him as a cloak to shroud his movements. He simply didn't want his prey to see him coming and somehow he made it so that they wouldn’t. As instinctual as his ability to hide himself from sight was the ability to dampen his presence to the other senses, smell and hearing.

             
It started to rain again. He ignored the light drizzle and maintained his position. He had waited here long enough in the earlier downpour, he wasn't about to move again until he was ready to make his attack.

             
There, a likely victim strayed away from the safety of the street and into the mouth of the alley. Fulton struck out in an instant and caught the bedraggled creature as it nosed about the alley. The dog stank worse than
anything else in the alley. Fulton spat wet fur out of his mouth as he tore into the dead creature’s throat. Blood and slimy fragments of raw meat slithered down his throat and Fulton relished it.

Xavier Salvatore slapped the young vampiress hard enough across the face that he broke the skin over her cheekbone. "Don't talk back to me," he snarled. His human face was contorted so that it looked almost as monstrous as his other.

The other vampire whimpered and turned her head away. Xavier didn't relent. "You will obey my will."

Francesca looked down from outside her private chambers as Xavier
continued to berate and abuse the other vampire.

"He seems to have let the power go to his head," she said to Gabriella who she sensed approaching from behind.

"He no longer respects you as he should," Gabriella said quietly.

Francesca looked over at her. "He has been given a lot of responsibility," she said. "He must have the respect of the nest to speak in my name."

Gabriella shook her head. "He abuses the power you have entrusted to him. He speaks as though for you but he makes plans for himself."

Francesca raised an eyebrow. "You believe that he has developed a taste for this power?"

Gabriella nodded. "He believes himself to have the qualities of a leader.
He might pretend to be content in a subordinate role for a time. But he is ambitious. He
will
betray you."

Gabriella may prefer to present herself as a capricious creature whose only interests were sex and death but there was more going on in her mind than she would reveal to anyone but Francesca, the older vampire knew this and trusted her lover’s judgement.

"You could be right, my sweet," Francesca said. "He does seem to have forgotten he is supposed to be ensuring that my will be done, rather than his own. He displays initiative in ways that are not always welcome."

Gabriella stood and walked over to Francesca. The navy blue negligee she wore shimmered as she moved but did nothing to disguise her nakedness
beneath it. "Do not blame yourself. Xavier has always been ambitious. Even though you made it clear to him that I was your favourite, he never seemed to be able to accept it."

Francesca smiled. "He
is
ambitious and arrogant to believe that I could ever contemplate having him as a replacement for you."

Gabriella sidled up to Francesca and pressed her body against her. The pair of them stepped away from the edge and returned to their private quarters. Gabriella moved her head up close and they kissed passionately. She broke contact and rested her head on Francesca's shoulder. Her Mistress absently played with Gabriella's hair, twisting and caressing it.

"So, you will have Xavier killed?" she asked softly her cool breath tickling Francesca's sensitive earlobe.

Francesca let Gabriella's hair drop and stepped away. "No. He is still useful."

Gabriella straightened up and waved her hands in the air. "You will add further to his belief that he is important."

Francesca held her arms open, palms upturned at her sides and approached Gabriella. The other vampire backed away folding her arms across her chest.

Francesca stopped moving forwards. "Xavier is still useful. For now. He simply requires some re-instruction."

**********

Fulton had no idea how he had ended up in the middle of the park. He hadn't a clue why he was sat cross-legged on an old blue beach-towel underneath a conker tree. Nor did he care.

A blue-grey squirrel with a bushy tail ran from under a patch of bright green shrubbery and darted deftly up the trunk of the tree at his back.

Fulton didn't care that the sun was shining down and that the mottled canopy of leaves provided no shelter from its rays. Though he did have the strangest feeling that he should have cared. That it was somehow of vital importance to him.

On the faded red blanket, with the edges just a little frayed, that lay on the ground in front of him were little plastic
tubs filled with cheese, chicken or egg sandwiches on little bread cakes. Other tubs held crisps and round cheesy biscuits. Another tub, this one with the lid still firmly in place, contained home-baked buns for after. A vacuum flask contained hot tea for his parents and there was a litre bottle of orange squash for Fulton.

Fulton looked up from the picnic on the rug. His mother sat on the side opposite with a straw hat on her head, wearing a long summer dress with a floral pattern that came down to her ankles. Though he tried Fulton actually couldn't really make out any flowers. She wore sandals on her feet.

"Tuck in, son." Fulton's father was laying out another towel to sit down on
himself. He seemed a lot taller than he should.

Fulton reached forwards to take a sandwich when he heard a quiet panting coming from behind him. He felt warm breath on his neck. Fulton turned around on the orange
(?)
towel. A huge black and gold dog bounded across the wide expanse of grass,
(shouldn't
there be trees?)
, towards him. The dog ran in a circle around Fulton, stopping to spin in place chasing its own tail. As the dog started lapping at his face he heard his mother order it away.

"No, Laddie. Not while we're eating." She looked at Fulton. "Don't encourage him, honey." She tugged her green T-shirt from the waistband of her matching shorts as she sat
(?)
.

"Tuck in, son," Fulton's father said taking a bite of his own sandwich, his mouth was surrounded by a crimson stain.

Fulton leaned forwards and took a triangular sandwich from the pile on the largest plate in front of him. He took a large bite, it was tuna and salad, swallowed and took another. Then he waited for something to happen. When nothing did he was mildly surprised. But nothing was supposed to happen, and it was that that disturbed Fulton most deeply.

Fulton looked up from his sandwich. His parents were gone and he was standing alone in the park. He couldn't see all that far in any direction. It was all fogged and somehow fuzzy. But he knew
exactly where to go and he walked off under the midsummer sun.

Fulton walked up the short flight of steps and stood waiting at the door to his house. At some point during his journey it had got dark. A waning moon, still almost two thirds full, peeked out intermittently from behind pregnant clouds.

There was supposed to be a streetlight at the far end of the garden but it was missing. So Fulton       could not make out any of the other houses that he knew should be on the street. Actually, he couldn't really make anything out clearly, except for the door in front of him.

Then he was inside his kitchen with a can of lager in his left hand. He was surrounded by people but wherever he looked he saw only vague shadowy
shapes describing the people that Fulton knew were there.

Fulton opened the door to the pantry and walked inside. He emerged inside the twins' bedroom. His mother and father, now normal sized, were bent over their cots. His little sisters, Katherine and Kelly, were sound asleep. His father gathered Katherine up in his arms and lifted her from the cot. Fulton's mother did the same lifting Kelly up in her arms.

The next moment Fulton was holding Kelly with his father standing next to him holding Katherine. They were no longer in the twins' bedroom, they were in some other room but Fulton couldn't make out any of the details of their new location.

Fulton looked over to his dad. His father hoisted Katherine as though to kiss
her. Then it was no longer his father holding Katherine. Instead she was being held by a very shapely woman in a low cut blood red dress. Fulton felt an instant attraction to that woman. He wanted her right then and there.

"Francesca?" Fulton said.

The woman nodded and as she did so her face contorted. She ran her tongue across ivory needles. With a seductive smile, that made Fulton want her even more despite the new appearance, she raised Katherine higher and sank those teeth into the babies flesh.

Lifting her bloody face from the meal that had been Fulton's sister, Francesca looked him in the eye.

"Tuck in, Son," she said. "Embrace what you are."

For a brief instant Fulton saw another figure in a bright shirt standing beside the seductive vampire. The second person looked to be male but before Fulton had a chance to see if he recognised him he vanished.

Fulton felt the change over him. He could smell the freshly spilled blood, and the even more fresh blood that was being pumped through Kelly's veins. The impulse took a hold of Fulton. He saw Francesca's smile growing while he lowered his fangs to Kelly's neck. Fulton felt her skin resist ever so slightly before his teeth penetrated and his baby sister's life blood squirted into his mouth.

Fulton snapped awake. The copper taste of his dream sister's blood much too real for comfort. Fulton struggled to bring his feelings under control. It was just a
dream. No matter how real it might have felt, it wasn't truly real.

But to Fulton it felt real. And what disturbed him the most was the feeling that if he did meet Francesca again and she put him in that predicament he would do exactly the same.

Fulton tried to force that thought out of his mind. He was master of his own actions. Not some slave to impulses. If Fulton was faced with his dream encounter he would do the right thing.

But somewhere in the back of his mind a part of him questioned whether Fulton had the mettle to back up his resolve. So far he had managed to resist certain impulses but he knew very well that there were times when resistance was not possible.