Turned: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (Branded Book 2) Page 10

  ‘I’ve gotta go,’ I said, climbing to my feet and grabbing my jacket.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but can I ask a quick favour first?’

  ‘I can’t let you out of that bed, Neil.’

  ‘I know, I know, big scary vampire, grrrr.’

  He always did know how to make me laugh. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Can you give my nose a scratch? I’ve got an itch that’s driving me absolutely mental.’

  I smiled.

  Now that I could do.

  16

  You’d be amazed by some of the stuff that goes on in this city without you knowing about it. Terrified, really. There’s a whole other world lurking behind the one you see, a world of crazy, hiding at the heels of the mundane. The realm of the Uncanny is a message scrawled on the leaf of a notepad, an indentation pressed almost invisibly into the page below it, but it’s there all the same; a psychopath’s death threat embedded in an ordinary shopping list. The world you think so drab and boring is actually a madhouse. An open-air asylum.

  Take The Beehive: a pub full of monsters, hiding in plain sight in one of the busiest parts of London. A clandestine drinking hole tucked away where only Insiders can find it, closed off to the likes of you and me. The only reason I’m on the invite list nowadays is because I have the brand, which works like a nightclub hand stamp that won’t wash off.

  How to describe the place? The Beehive had a sort of Tudor feel to it—dark wooden beams, leaded windows, hand-painted sign—but if someone told me it had been standing in its spot since the dawn of forever, I’d have probably believed them. It had an ancient feel to it. Timeless.

  I pushed open the tavern's stout oak door and watched as curls of cigarette smoke crept through the gap like Cthulhu’s tentacles. While the rest of London’s drinking establishments smelled like stale beer and body odour these days, The Beehive’s landlord, Lenny, somehow missed the memo on the smoking ban, and continued to let his patrons brown the pub’s ceiling with tobacco.

  But something else curled out of the door besides the smoke that day, something besides the usual jangle of voices and the clinking of glasses. Jazz music bled into the blind alley, saxophone notes, jumping and dancing, swinging along to the rhythm of an upright bass. I squinted inside the hazy tavern and saw a three-piece band performing in the far corner. They were fronted by a smoky-voiced chanteuse dressed in a figure-hugging sequined red dress, the kind you see draped over grand pianos in old detective films. The patrons who were paying attention to the band were rapt, but then they would be. The singer was a siren, and when I say siren, I mean a real siren, the kind ye olde sailors dashed their ships on the rocks to get a look at.

  It’s funny, before I got Sanctified, the closest I’d come to the supernatural was meeting a guy at a nightclub who told me he was a clairvoyant. When I asked him what my future looked like, he told me that I’d be rich one day. Oh, and that he could see me getting laid that night. Given the way that evening turned out—not to mention my three-figure bank balance—I seriously question that man’s supernatural credentials.

  These days, things were different. These days I was surrounded by bone-fide weirdos: angels, vampires, ghosts, fairies, canal hags (sorry, river hags). And now here I was, stepping into an invisible pub, trying to hunt down a woman who belonged to a cabal of witches. Or used to at least. According to Vizael, the founding members of the London Coven had been wiped out years ago, leaving Stella Familiar on her Todd. Viz didn’t say how the Coven had met their end, just that there were a lot more monsters on the loose since the witches were taken out of the picture. Maybe that’s why I was being set on from all sides by vampires. Maybe that’s why my boyfriend was tied up to a bed and sporting a mouthful of fangs.

  I had to wonder why the angels were so keen for me to hook up with someone who belonged in a coven. Weren’t Christians and pagans meant to be at odds with each other? Witches consulted the dead, and there was stuff in the bible that strictly prohibited contacting the spirit world (Leviticus, if I remember right – all the nutty stuff is in Leviticus). Just another example of the angels playing fast and loose with God’s law, I supposed. No wonder the big fella was so tight-lipped with the two of them.

  I took a look around the bar but didn’t see anyone who looked like she’d be comfortable stirring a cauldron. How was I meant to find this woman exactly? Look for the pointy hat? Follow the trail of tarot cards? Wait outside in the car park and see who left on a broomstick?

  The pub landlord, Lenny, eyed me warily. ‘Help you?’

  Lenny was a giant. A grizzled man-mountain who towered over his bar, standing a clear three heads higher than what I’d consider tall. He was a brusque man, known for his no-nonsense attitude and hair-trigger temper. With his enormous size and his surly demeanour, I sometimes wondered if Lenny would be happier menacing Tokyo than being cramped behind a row of beer taps.

  I took a seat on a nearby bar stool. ‘Hi, Lenny. I’m after a woman called Stella. Know her?’

  ‘She ain’t here,’ he said, wiping the counter with a rag that looked dirtier than the thing he was trying to clean.

  In old detective films—the type that featured smoky-voiced women in red dresses sprawled across pianos—barmen were typically rich sources of information. Not so with Lenny. You’d find looser lips on a clam.

  ‘Don’t suppose you have a number, do you?’ I asked him.

  Nothing.

  I shouldn’t have expected to find any hospitality at The Beehive, much less help. The only reason anyone went to that place at all was to get away from the normals and kill themselves one beer at a time.

  I felt my hand get hot and looked down to see the brand glowing blue.

  I scanned the bar for any signs of danger, eyes flicking from patron to patron until something brought my eyeballs to a screeching halt.

  Lauden Crowe sat at the other end of the bar with his back to me.

  What the hell was he doing here? How could I be bumping into him again, twice in as many days? He had to be following me, right?

  My hand instinctively went inside my jacket for the hilt of my dagger.

  I saw Lenny’s features curdle. Fighting wasn’t permitted in his establishment. The Beehive was a safe zone, where blood enemies sat side-by-side.

  I let the dagger stay where it was. Lenny wasn’t to be messed with.

  Shuffling along the bar, I approached Lauden and gave him a tap on the shoulder.

  He swivelled around on his bar stool. ‘Abbey? What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was about to ask you the same.’

  ‘Me? I’m having a beer.’ He showed me his half-drained pint glass.

  ‘I thought you lot only drank the blood of virgins.’

  His eyes crinkled as he smiled. ‘Is that an offer I hear?’

  I snorted. ‘Sorry, mate, that boat sailed a while ago.’

  Lauden chuckled and shook his head. ‘Virgin blood. You know, that Bram Stoker fellow has a lot to answer for with his cobwebbed castles and his vampire bats fluttering out of garret windows. It’s thanks to him that my kind are severely misrepresented in the media.’

  ‘What about those sparkly Abercrombie models from the Twilight movies?’

  ‘Oh, God,’ he replied, ‘those are the worst. I’ll take Vlad the Impaler over those empty-headed miserabalists any day.’

  I sat down on the stool next to him.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked.

  ‘What are you really doing here, Lauden?’

  ‘Abbey, if you’re trying to insinuate that I’m stalking you, let me stop you right there. I come to this place regularly, anyone here will tell you that. Now, can we please dispense with all this suspicion and move on?’

  Hmm. I suppose I had been the one to happen across him, and The Beehive was the City’s number one Uncanny hotspot. ‘Okay then,’ I said. ‘Truce.’

  He held up his hands in surrender. ‘So, how are things? Are you’re continuing your mission to "cur
e" your friend?’

  I was about to correct him and say "boyfriend", but didn’t bother. Not sure why. ‘You seem really invested in Neil keeping the fangs. What do you care so much about one vampire?’

  ‘I don't. Not in the grand scheme of things. What I care about is you.’

  Huh?

  ‘That’s nice and everything, but I’m doing fine.’

  ‘Are you? I heard you were attacked by another Wild Blood, and that you put yourself in danger by consorting with Giles L'Merrier. If you’re not careful, you’re going to get yourself hurt, and that would be a real shame.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Why’s that?’

  ‘Because I’m starting to grow rather fond you, Abbey, even if you have fallen in with a bad crowd.’

  That I found genuinely funny. A bloodsucking creature of the night telling me that my angel friends were up to no good. What could I do but laugh at that?

  ‘I’ll take that drink,’ I said.

  I mean, fuck it, right? Even Jack Bauer took an hour off once in a while.

  A moment later, Lenny was pushing two tall glasses of beer across the bar and taking Lauden’s money. I watched the vampire take a sip of his beer and wondered, was he really enjoying it, or was drinking just something his kind did to pass for human?

  ‘What did you get from L’Merrier’s shop then?’ Lauden asked. ‘What’s this magical cure-all of his?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘Nothing, I suppose, just making conversation. Or would you rather we sit here and talk about the weather?’

  I thought about keeping the details a secret, but what did it matter? The phial was in safe hands with the angels. Besides, Lauden already knew where we were bunked up, so if he really wanted to mess with our shit, he’d have a thousand opportunities to do it.

  ‘Pope blood,’ I told him. ‘L’Merrier sold us Pope blood.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ He punctuated the sentence by pounding a fist on his thigh. ‘That's what the angels sent you there for? Wow. Did they get you to pick up some tartan paint and a bucket of steam while you were at it?’

  I felt the corners of my mouth turn down. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘It’s all mumbo jumbo. I already told you about the priest who wanted to revert to “one of the living” and ended up experiencing rather the opposite effect. I’m sorry, but Pope blood isn't going to change what Neil’s become. Whatever it is you’re planning on doing, it’s only going to hurt him.’

  I narrowed my eyes at the vampire. ‘Why would L'Merrier give me the blood if he didn’t think it was going to help? You weren’t there. He told me this whole big story about how he got into a fight with the Clan back in the olden days and—’

  ‘Don’t tell me, the one with the mirrors?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘If I were you, I’d take anything Giles L'Merrier says with a pinch of salt. The man is a well known fabulist. Did he tell you the one about the giant menacing a village too? Or the kraken ravaging the beaches of Blackpool? He slayed them all you know... with a mere flick of his wrist of course.’ He took a swig of his beer. ‘Complete bunkum.’

  ‘Bunkum? Fabulist? What did you do, swallow a thesaurus?’

  He threw back his head and laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been around a long time and I forget that some words have fallen out of fashion.’ He sighed. ‘I’m just an old fuddy duddy, really.’

  Hardly, I thought, the guy was sex on a stick. Why was that? As a vampire, he could use his powers of mesmerism to get pretty much anything he wanted, so why did he need to be a pretty boy too? From an evolutionary point of view, it would make more sense if he was plain-looking. The kind of person who slipped through the cracks, another face in the crowd. Handsomeness seemed like an unnecessary extra. A hat on a hat.

  ‘You’re wrong about the Pope blood,’ I said. ‘We got our information from a very reliable source.’

  ‘Oh yes? From whom?’

  ‘From God.’

  ‘Okay, well I suppose that would trump what I have to say. Well, for your sake, I hope He’s right.’ Lauden pointed to my empty pint glass. ‘Top up?’

  I waited a couple of seconds. ‘Go on then.’

  I was starting to think Lauden might not be such a baddie after all. Evil people didn’t get a round in, that’s a fact. You think Hitler ever plonked a twenty on the bar and said, “This one’s on me, lads”? Of course he didn’t. He’d have made a sudden trip to the loo and hidden there until Goebbels picked up the tab.

  Lenny set down another couple of beers and Lauden clinked my glass.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, looking me in the eye, his lashes so thick and lustrous that I wondered for a moment if he was wearing eyeliner. ‘To frenemies.’

  ‘Cheers,’ I replied, and clinked him back. I wet my top lip with foam. ‘This is going to have to be the last one though. I’ve got shit-loads of work to do.’

  I realised I was corkscrewing my hair with my finger and set my hand on the bar like a naughty girl who’d earned herself a rap over the knuckles. Why was Lauden having this effect on me? I mean, aside from the fact that he was charming, witty, and devastatingly handsome, what was the attraction? None of it stopped him being a vampire. Through a cleaner lens, Lauden was nothing more than a horror book villain in a nice cardie.

  ‘Tell me about this Judas Clan of yours,’ I said. It was a tactical request. I figured the more I learned about him, the less I’d like what I saw, and the weaker his allure would become.

  He smiled like sunshine, which was ironic, given what he was. ‘Are you asking me to willingly provide the Nightstalker with information that could lead to the extinction of my race?’

  ‘I just want you to tell me something about your home life. Like, what do you get out of being in a Clan?’

  He considered my question carefully. ‘In the Clan I get to be part of something. Part of a family. That’s a strong word to me, Abbey. A big deal. To know that I have people who I can count on. People who accept me, no matter what. I’m talking about blood. Do you know what I mean?’

  I didn’t. Not really. My parents had gone their own ways when I was a teenager. “Marriage is like a magic trick”, Dad used to say. “It makes a man disappear before your very eyes.” He was talking about his sapped masculinity at the time, but he put his credo into a practice more literally when he fucked off to the Costa Del Sol with his mistress. Mum… well, Mum didn’t stick around for long after that. She stopped taking her meds and hanged herself in the garden shed. So no, I didn’t know much about blood, at least not the way Lauden meant it.

  ‘Family,’ I muttered. ‘People you can count on. Must be nice.’

  ‘Did I say something wrong?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  Aside from feeling a bit sorry for myself, I felt worryingly at ease in Lauden’s company.

  In fact, the more I prodded and pried, the lower my defences seemed to get. I tried to stay on point, tried to remind myself that he was the enemy, but it was getting harder and harder to see the monster in the man. The longer we talked, the more I began to wonder if he was telling the truth about his kind. I mean, what if some vampires weren’t evil? What if they just got a bad press because of all the rest? Was it possible that the Clan were less like the coffin-dwelling monsters from a Hammer Horror than the glittery glampires of a Stephenie Meyer novel?

  Glampires?

  Okay, now I was punning, which meant I was definitely starting to feel the effect of those beers. How many had I necked now? Two? Three? Whatever the number was, it was either too many or too few. Or was I not as drunk as I thought I was? Was Lauden hypnotising me, worming his way into my brain and places more southern? Of course not, the brand made me immune to mesmerism. Christ, I was a mess. Stupid sexy Lauden.

  It was only when I looked back to him that I realised he was still talking, and had been the whole time I’d been wrapped up in my thoughts.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, sensing my mind had wandered elsewhere. ‘You looked like you were miles
away.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I insisted, forcing a smile. ‘What were you saying?’

  He picked up where he left off—something about his early life and how he came to be in London—leaving me to return to my contemplations.

  I had to get my shit together. I had a sick boyfriend counting on me. A sick boyfriend I’d been with for a long time. A very long time. God, we were young when we met. Too young, really. Falling in love at seventeen is easy, but it’s a hard thing to hang on to. Would me and Neil really last? How many people who fell for each other as teenagers ever went the whole hog? Marriage, kids, growing old and wearing matching slippers; I just couldn’t see it, and even if I could, would I have wanted it?

  The brand throbbed in my hand as though it were reminding me of what I was meant to be doing; curing Neil of his vampirism, not knocking back beers with a vampire… with this drop-dead hunk of man meat with his swimmer’s abs and his chiselled—

  I felt a pang of disgust as I stepped back from myself. God help me, but Lauden had an edge to him that Neil just didn’t have. Christ, he had more edges than one of those silly-shaped dice Neil used for his funny board games with the little plastic men. He was such a nice guy though. My boyfriend, I mean. Such a nice guy. Okay, so he wasn’t exactly man candy in the Tom Hiddleston sense, but he was good for me. Great for me. Neil was my man broccoli: maybe not as tasty as candy, maybe not as desirable, but wholesome, and chock-full of goodness.

  ‘...don’t you think?’ asked Lauden, rounding off a line of dialogue that I hadn’t heard a word of.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said, taking a punt. ‘Totally.’

  He nodded, leading me to believe that I’d guessed correctly. ‘One for the road?’ he asked, polishing off his beer.

  No chance. I was already getting close to the staggering around the place with the back of my skirt tucked into my knickers phase. One more drink and I was going to get super sloppy. And handsy. Handsy as a drunk uncle.

  A druncle.