02 Blood Roses - Blackthorn
Read 02 Blood Roses - Blackthorn Online
Authors: Lindsay J Pryor
Published by Bookouture
An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.
23 Sussex Road, Ickenham, UB10 8PN
United Kingdom
Copyright © Lindsay J. Pryor 2013
Lindsay J. Pryor
has asserted her
right to be identified
as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
ISBN: 978-1-909490-02-4
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For Moth
With very special thanks to:
Anita and Christine
For keeping your faith in this story ever since New Voices.
Lesley and Rhyannon
For helping me believe I could do this.
My amazing team of supporters, especially:
Tracey, Fiona C, Kelly, Aimee, Fiona W, Jane, Linzi, Tima and Incy.
And not forgetting Oliver/Bookouture for continuing to believe in this series and making this such a fantastic journey.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
I
t was the last place on earth Leila should have been. The thought of what she was about to do sickened her to her soul. She was supposed to kill vampires, not save them. Those were the rules. That was the lore.
But then again, the lore never accounted for wayward younger sisters.
Leila stepped out of the car and into the darkness of the dank alleyway. The breeze swept her hair from her shoulders, wafted the hem of her dress against her thighs. If she’d had time to go home and change, she would have put something more suitable on – something that may have at least made her feel a fraction less vulnerable.
Clutching the straps of her rucksack, she scanned the several storeys looming above, rain trickling down the dreary walls. Yells echoed down from the road, suppressed by the low monotonous beat of trance music vibrating through the open fire-exit doors ahead. The air in Blackthorn felt alien in its density, its toxicity. Her head buzzed as if she’d just taken off on the runway but hadn’t yet reached that comfortable height. She couldn’t just see the darkness – she could feel it.
It was the final confirmation that she was making the worst mistake of her life.
A mistake she’d had no choice in making.
Alisha had been missing for days but, based on her track record, it still wasn’t long enough for the authorities to act.
Sleep-deprived, sick with worry and brimming with fury at the possibility of her youngest sister’s ongoing nonchalance towards her feelings, Leila had stayed behind for another late night at work rather than face the flat alone. But as soon as darkness had arrived in Summerton, so had the call.
‘Lei, it’s me.’
Despite the flood of relief, irritation had won out. ‘Alisha? Where the hell are you? I’ve been going out of my mind! Four days! Four days and not a single call! You know how it’s been. Have you any idea—’
‘Leila, just shut up for a minute. Please. I need you to listen to me.’
In that instant she’d known something was horribly wrong. Whether it had been the uncharacteristic strain in Alisha’s tone or that gravel effect she only got after crying, one thing was for certain – this was not like the other times.
‘I need your help,’ Alisha had said, seemingly biting back the tears – tears of desperation that had been verging on panic. And Alisha never panicked. Ever.
‘Okay,’ she’d said, softening her tone. ‘Take it easy, Alisha. What is it? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?’
‘No. No, I’m okay.’
Leila had held her breath at her sister’s hesitation.
‘But I need you to do something for me,’ Alisha had added. ‘You know the purification book – the one Grandfather gave you?’
Tendrils of unease had squeezed. ‘What about it?’
‘I need it.’
‘What do you mean you need it? For what?’
‘I’m in serious trouble, Lei.’
Something heavy had formed in the pit of her stomach. Every tiny hair on the back of her neck had stood on end. Already two steps ahead of what her sister was about to say, she’d backed out of earshot into the depths of the library’s storeroom. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in Blackthorn.’
Hearing it slip from Alisha’s lips had been the equivalent to a punch in the chest. The same feeling of sickness had encompassed her as when she’d been told the search for Sophie had been abandoned – that their sister had been gone too long.
She’d instinctively switched to a tense whisper. ‘What the
hell
are you doing there?’
‘I’ll explain later, but I need you to come here and bring the book with you.’
In the dense silence of the storeroom, Leila had slumped into a nearby chair before her legs had given way.
‘Leila? Lei, are you there?’
‘What on earth have you got yourself into this time, Alisha?’
‘Tell me you’re coming. Please.’
‘I want to know what’s going on.’
There had been an excruciating moment of silence. ‘Someone needs a purification.’
Leila had already known the answer, but still she’d asked the question. ‘Someone?’
‘A consang. He’s drunk dead blood.’
Consangs, short for the consanguineous, was a new political term adopted by vampires who’d resolved that the representation of a kinship, an affinity by blood, would create a more positive image than the negative images of well-established clichés. But a simple superficial change in terminology didn’t alter what they were: they’d always be vampires – every last parasitic, deceitful, devious and manipulative one of them.
And her little sister was amongst them.
‘How do they know about the book, Alisha?’
‘I can’t explain over the phone. You have to come here. Now.’
‘But you know I can’t bring the book there. If that book—’
‘Please! If you don’t, they’ll kill me!’
Her stomach had flipped. ‘I’m going to call the Intervention Unit—’
‘No! No, if you do that you’ll never see me again. Leila, listen, you have to get to the top border of Lowtown and wait at the café on the corner. Someone will meet you there in a couple of hours.’
‘A couple of hours? Alisha, I’ve got to get across three districts, through two border offices—’
‘There isn’t much time. When you get there someone called Hade will meet you. He’ll escort you through Lowtown, get you across the border and bring you into Blackthorn.’
‘Who the hell is Hade?’
‘Please, Lei. Please tell me you’ll do it?’
Leila had tried to convince herself that it wasn’t happening. That it couldn’t be happening. But it was. Her worst nightmare had finally beckoned, just as she’d dreaded all her life. The vampire-infested Blackthorn district wasn’t safe for any human. For Leila, it was deadly.
‘Promise me they haven’t hurt you.’
‘They haven’t. Not yet. They said I’ll be fine if you bring the book. Leila, please, you’ve got to help me.’
Leila had closed her eyes. Swallowed hard. ‘Just do as they say until I get there. I’m on my way.’
They’d been waiting when she’d arrived at the café a little over two hours later. She’d assumed the one who’d greeted her to be Hade – a tall, blond twenty-something with piercing grey eyes and a crew cut that was as harsh as his chiselled and stubbly face. Two silent bulks had accompanied him. All three, to her relief, were human. None of them would answer any of her questions, refraining even from eye contact with her. Their orders had clearly been to collect her with maximum speed and minimal explanation. Minimal explanation being a flash of wallet-sized, photographic evidence to confirm they had Alisha.
It had been a reality made even more painful by the fact it was Alisha’s favourite snapshot. It was six years old now and Alisha had been just nineteen back then. She was hugging her two big sisters like there was no tomorrow, each of them grinning inanely at the camera. Sophie was doing her best cross-eyed look, irreverent Alisha had her tongue poking out and Leila, the eldest and standing out from her fairer sisters with her russet hair, was laughing at them both.
They’d driven to the border of Blackthorn. A far cry from the sophisticated and flawless high-security control of Summerton into Midtown and the lesser but still effective security from Midtown into Lowtown, Lowtown to Blackthorn had been a law unto itself.
The border office into the notorious vampire district had resembled a cattle market – people busily sweeping through the barriers, no one recording the movements, security officers marking the perimeter more as a deterrent against trouble rather than active involvement.
The mass of milling bodies had been overwhelming, the air dense with the alien scents of everything from smoke to sweat. Leila had tried to hold her breath, desperate not to let any of the intoxicating substances into her lungs as Hade and the bulks had escorted her through the crowds, their presence ironically reassuring amidst the swarms of both humans and vampires.
A black Mercedes had been waiting for them out on the street on the other side of the turnstiles.
Removing her rucksack and clutching it to her chest, Leila gazed out of the back-seat window as she was driven even further from all she’d ever known.
Blackthorn was everything she’d imagined it to be and worse. Her beloved vibrant-green spaces and sporadically spaced houses had been replaced with a sprawling mass of compacted, characterless buildings on dark, dismal streets. Noise boomed out from neon-lit basements and shopfronts. Pollution merged with the stagnant smell of street-sold food. The overfilled streets were chaotic with people milling and partying. People laughed, tussled and argued as noise poured from every open window, alley and recess.
She’d tried not to stare at the people lingering in doorways and on corners, something she never witnessed in Summerton. People back there had pleasant homes to go to, purposes. Now the sanctuary of home felt a million miles away and the phone call from Alisha like a dissipating nightmare.
The minute the Mercedes had slowed outside a nightclub, the crowds having parted to reveal an alleyway, fear had consumed her.
As she’d stepped out, Hade at least having the manners to open the door for her, her legs had nearly given way. Pulling her rucksack back on, she’d taken a deep steadying breath, a cold spray of rain hitting her upturned face as she’d told herself for the fiftieth time that she could do this.
Now her attention switched from the dreary storeys above back to Hade.
He cocked his head towards the open fire-exit doors and she followed him inside.
They stepped into a dimly lit corridor, the bulks behind keeping so close that she was virtually frogmarched along the concrete tunnel.
She followed Hade down one corridor then another, through double doors after double doors, Hade only stopping to key in security codes. Keeping a firm grip on her rucksack straps, the weight of the book and her Kit Box to assist the spell starting to tug, her five-foot-six-inch strides were no match for the swift and purposeful march of the six-footers escorting her.
The music gradually evaporated into the distance, the density of the corridors making her ears thrum. As Hade led her into a stone stairwell, they finally hit a wall of silence. He nodded to the bulks, both of whom promptly turned back the way they came, leaving Leila and him alone.
She glanced anxiously into the darkness above before following Hade up the steps, the low square heels of her boots scuffing against stone as they climbed three floors.
Passing through a final door and stepping out into another dim corridor, Hade stopped outside the lone elevator and keyed in a code.
Entering first, Leila backed up and clutched the handrail behind her. Despite taking slow, steady breaths as they ascended, her breathing involuntarily became shallow again as the doors slid open.
‘Is this it?’ she asked, still clutching the handrail as Hade stepped out into a broad hallway.
‘Sure is.’
‘And my sister’s here?’
He gave her a single nod.
‘I’ll want to see her before I do anything,’ she said.
‘That’s up to Caleb.’
‘Is that who I’m meeting – Caleb? Is he the one who has my sister?’
‘He’s also the one who doesn’t like to be kept waiting. And tonight less than ever, so I suggest you move.’
Reluctantly, she uncoiled her damp palms and stepped out.
The hallway was surprisingly luxurious. The richness of the dark cream walls was deepened by the soft glow of the elegant, cast-iron wall lights. The dark floorboards were highly polished, the blue-and-gold runners plump and soft under foot.
Hade stopped at the ornate mahogany double doors at the end and keyed in another code. As the doors clicked open, her tension surged as she followed him inside.
The extensive open-plan room was immaculate. Four broad oak steps led down to three black leather sofas positioned in a horseshoe central to the expanse. A low glass coffee table segregated the sofas, a large flat-screen television marking the opening. Midway on each wall to her left and right were hallways that mirrored each other – seemingly wings to opposite sides of the building. Dominating the top right-hand corner of the room was a highly polished mahogany bar. Straight ahead, glass doors opened out onto a generous stone terrace, the late-night breeze inciting the voile to momentarily mask the otherwise unspoiled view across the district.
Hade led the way down the steps. ‘Wait here,’ he said before taking the hallway to the left, marching down to the door at the end.
Leila wrapped her cardigan and jacket tight around herself. Folding her arms, she took a couple of steps forward. She glanced down the silent corridor where Hade had disappeared, peered out onto the terrace before turning to the hallway to her right as she searched for any sign of her sister.
She felt him before she saw him, the physical presence behind striking her sixth sense. The sudden chill was encapsulating, the tension excruciating. She had to turn around – like a tiny mammal knowing the bird of prey was looming above, Leila had to look.
From the way her hackles had risen, she would have pitched him at over seven foot tall with the physique of a heavyweight wrestler, but the male that stood behind her was maybe just short of six foot. Absent of bulk, his lithe body was nonetheless clearly honed and powerful beneath his fitted, short-sleeved grey shirt.
Her attention was immediately drawn to his perfectly toned forearms and biceps by the black tattoo scrolling out from beneath his left sleeve, another coiling up around the right side of his neck. His handsome face was framed by dark hair cut close around his neck and ears. Loose bangs scraped his low straight eyebrows and emphasised his intoxicating dark-framed eyes. If he was human she would have guessed him to be in his mid-thirties.
Leila caught her breath, a warm flush engulfing her as his vibrant green eyes fixed pointedly on hers – eyes encased by thick, dark lashes that only exacerbated their intensity – eyes that were sharp, intelligent, astute and merciless.
The eyes of a vampire.
She could feel it as clearly as if she were holding a white-hot coal.
As those vampire eyes assessed her slowly and purposefully, she instinctively took a step back and clutched the straps of her rucksack tighter.