Bloodrush (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 1) (56 page)

‘Twenty-six and a half feet, and ten for luck,’ he ordered his legs.

Rhin hopped from boot to boot as he counted out the steps in sharp breaths.

‘Six … seven … eight …’ Each hop was a foot, more or less. Moments couldn’t be wasted on having to catch up or to run, not at times like these.

‘Eleven … twelve.’

Past the bogie now, and its cow-catcher. Their diagrams were etched into his mind, and now he could almost see them drawn against the night and the dully-shining rails.

‘Eighteen … nineteen.’

Past the second axle now, in the shadow of the engine’s bulbous boilers, all wrapped in iron, with valves jutting into the sky in a trio. Never mind the humongous smoke-stack, standing proud and over-sized on the locomotive’s nose.

‘Twenty-six…’

Now here he was at the back half of the engine, with the bigger wheels and their multi-cogged centres spinning madly.

Now the cab, where the driver and his brakeman took shelter from the soot and steam of the iron beast, and shovelled coal. They were the brains of it, and Rhin couldn’t wait to meet them. Rhin jogged on.

‘Thirty-six,’ Rhin hissed. He could spare the half, he decided.

He heard a screech in the far-off night, and not of any owl or dying thing.
They’d seen his fire.
The locomotive was breaking now, gentle and curious of the blaze in its path. Rhin could see the wake of its lanterns and fire-grate glowing against the sand. It was barely a mile away now and closing fast.

More screeching, and a stammer in its heavy chuffing. Even the clatter of its iron changed. It was not about to risk the Lord Serped’s gold by charging through a fire.

‘Just as planned,’ Rhin smirked, as he rested his sword blade on his shoulder.

Now for the hard part.

*

Nobody offered but a scrap of talk over dinner. The food may have been piping hot and as delicious as before, but the atmosphere was even colder, and the expression on Lord Serped’s face nothing short of terrifying.

Merion placed his spoon and fork neatly in the crystal bowl and chanced another glimpse at his host. There he was, stern as a statue, as he had been for the whole meal. His face did not speak so much of anger as it did intense scrutiny, as if Merion were being sized up for the final course.

With a cough, Lord Serped broke his vigil and got to his feet. It was as if he had heard Merion’s thoughts as clear as a bell.

‘I think we shall retire to the sitting room tonight. We have much to discuss,’ he stated, his voice rough and deep, as if sleep had escaped him the past few nights. ‘Gile?’ he nodded to his servant, who bowed. He had been standing in a corner, quiet as a rock. One blue eye, one green eye, both staring.

‘Yessir,’ he said, before scurrying off into another room.

‘Come,’ ordered Castor, and Ferida, Calidae, and Merion all stood up as one.

The sitting room was warm thanks to the fire. Merion pulled at his collar as he walked into the room, already feeling the heat. Nothing like stewing your prisoner before you question him. Merion took a breath to steel himself.
His destiny, his hands.

Merion was pointed to an armchair right by the fireplace, a deep red thing that looked like a yawning throat. Merion perched on its edge to avoid being swallowed.

‘Brandy, Merion?’ asked Castor, and there it was: the test.

‘Please, Lord Serped,’ replied Merion, without a moment’s hesitation. Although his stomach churned, his face remained a mask of utmost politeness. He caught Calidae’s eye and smiled. She barely returned so much as a pout, much to his dismay. ‘I must thank you, first of all, for your help in keeping my friend Lurk … John, from the gallows,’ Merion said.

‘I have spoken to the sheriff,’ Serped commented as he poured. ‘Your friend shall be kept locked up for now. Until I say otherwise.’

‘He is no traitor, my Lord,’ Merion urged.

‘A drunkard and a brawler, from what I hear,’ he replied. ‘Be that as it may, he will stay behind bars for now.’ Castor took an own armchair directly opposite Merion and placed Merion’s brandy on a small table that sat between them. He did not remove his fingers from it. ‘So, my daughter tells me you have a theory about our beverages, Master Hark. Is that so?’

So Calidae had told him
. No secrets after all.

‘It is, my Lord. I believe I know a little something about what’s in that glass,’ Merion nodded to tabletop. ‘I’m not such a stranger to the practice myself.’

‘And what
practice
is this, pray Master Hark?’ Ferida queried him, two chairs to his right.

‘Blood, my Lady,’ he replied flatly.
Might as well get it out there
. ‘Drinking blood. In this case mixed with brandy, or wine.’

Ferida snapped her head to glare at her husband. ‘So it is true, Castor. He believes us to be vampires. Savages.’

Merion inched forwards on his seat. ‘Not at all, my Lady. I would not dare reduce it to something so crass as nonsense such as vampirism. Please, you must believe me when I say I am the same. I understand what you do and why.’

‘And how exactly?’ Unlike his increasingly distraught wife, Castor was calm and collected. It somehow made him seem more threatening.

‘Because I drink blood also. I’m a bloodrusher, like my father, sir.’

Castor put his hands on the arms of his huge chair and leant back to think a while. He left the brandy alone on the tabletop. Stranded and masterless.

Merion had come this far, he might as well go the whole distance, he decided. The young Hark reached for the glass and brought it slowly to his lips. It smelled as strong and as sickly he remembered. Merion took a liberal swig and cradled the glass in his lap as he swilled it about his mouth. He could feel every eye upon him, making sure he swallowed. He did not disappoint them.

Merion felt the blood bite in an instant. It kicked him hard and made his head spin. This was far stronger than the last batch he had tasted. He winced and squirmed as the blood crept from his stomach to his head to his heart and back again. His skin tingled, as though it was trying to dance. So this was what being a lamprey felt like. Merion did not dare trust himself to enjoy it. His aunt’s words echoed in his head.
Cannibalism. Poison.

Castor had raised an eyebrow. ‘Now, you understand,’ he said. Calidae and Ferida sipped their drinks, and to Merion’s dismay they did not bat an eyelid.
Practice indeed.

Ferida had dropped her mask of indignity, and instead now wore something of a coyer nature, as if she had just revealed a dark and wonderful secret to the room. Calidae was expressionless, staring ahead at the fire. Merion wondered what she was trying to avoid.

‘I do, Lord Serped,’ he replied. The blood was settling now, but the buzzing in his extremities still remained.

‘Come then, show us this rushing of yours, Master Hark,’ Ferida demanded, raising her glass. ‘If it is true.’

Merion shook his head. ‘I’m afraid, my Lady, that I haven’t brought any shades with me. I didn’t expect to—’

‘Shades?’ Castor cut in, that eyebrow of his crawling higher.

‘Surely you mean shade, Merion?’ Calidae asked. ‘Electric eel?’

‘That’s right,’ Merion nodded. He patted his pockets. ‘But sadly I have none with me.’

‘Electric Eel …’ Castor mused, before shouting for his manservant. ‘Gile!’ he yelled.

Suffrous must have been waiting behind the door. He was at the lord’s side in the blink of an eye. Merion swilled his brandy around. ‘Definitely stronger than last time,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘Master Gile,’ began Serped.

Gile bowed. ‘Your lordship.’

‘Would you happen to have the blood of the electric eel on your person?’ asked Serped, as casually as if he had just asked for the time.

Gile grinned, showing a few gold teeth dotted around his smile. Merion felt a little shiver of nervousness.
Surely not …

‘Why as it so happens, my Lord …’ He paused to unbutton his jacket and pull it aside, revealing an astounding collection of vials, all sewn into little pockets that filled the inside of his jacket. As Gile wiggled his coat around to make them dance, Merion could see their colours licking at the corks; brown, red, orange, yellow, green. Even blue. Lilain would have tackled him to the ground already, were she here. Merion had no doubt.

Merion gripped his glass tightly. Was this Gile a leech perhaps? His mind raced. It made perfect sense and yet none at all. The perfect bodyguard. But with so many vials, he could have also been a letter. What if he was Castor’s letter, and Castor was the rusher? A leech
and
a lamprey? Almighty. Merion’s thoughts tumbled down the slopes of what ifs, and all the while he fought to keep his face from betraying him. He had come here with a purpose. He would ride this wave of theirs and see where it took him.

‘Ah,’ said Gile, selecting a dark red vial from the bottom of his jacket. ‘Here we are. For you, sir?’ Gile was looking directly at Merion, as if this had all been staged and rehearsed.

Merion didn’t falter. ‘Indeed sir, thank you,’ he replied, catching the vial awkwardly with one hand. It clinked against the brandy glass. Merion took a deep yet surreptitious breath as he got to his feet. ‘I better make some room,’ he said.

*

‘What in shitdarn is it, Hosh?’

‘I ain’t got a clue. Let me have a look,’ replied a blustered Hosh. Red in the cheek and large in the belly, the locomotive driver was smeared from tip to toe in coal dust and engine grease. He looked as though he had just crawled out of an inkwell.

‘Bring us in to about ten feet, Jaspar. Ten feet and no more. Don’t want to set light to the thing do we?’

Jaspar nodded and worked his brake levers, gently squeezing the train to a halt, almost exactly ten feet from the smouldering fire that had been lit for them.

As Hosh leant out of the cab and put a greasy palm on the railing, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Jaspar wiggled the handle of a gun in his face. ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘Looks suspicious.’

‘Right you are. Keep her hot, just in case.’

‘Aye,’ Jaspar nodded again. He didn’t say much, did Jaspar, though he loved to curse and spit when the mood took him. Hosh throttled the little two-shotter and manhandled himself down the steps and into the dust.

Chuffing just like his very own steam engine, Hosh waddled forwards until he stood at the edge of the crackling fire. He scratched his head. He couldn’t make head nor tail of it, and after some more scratching and sighing, he decided he would tell Jaspar just that. Hosh hurried back towards the cab. They were already late. The Serped men would be waiting to unload their precious cargo, tapping their feet and checking their papers. Hosh wiped his sweaty bald head and hurried on.

‘Can’t make head nor tail of it, Jaspar, I—’ Hosh froze halfway up the steps. Jaspar was on his knees, and there was some sort of huge insect on his shoulder, wrapped around his neck. He knuckled his eyes with his dirty hands, but the thing was still there, all black and grey, with wings and a horridly human face.

‘What in hell is—Want me to shoot it, Jaspar?’

‘Shit no!’ Jaspar hissed.

‘What he said.’ The insect thing spoke, and Hosh almost fell backwards off the locomotive.

It spoke again, and Hosh started to suspect this might not be an insect after all. Was that a sword he spied? Was that armour? His sooty eyes were getting confused.

‘Now be a good man and drop that gun of yours. Not in here, on the ground. Now,’ it ordered.

Hosh opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His jowls just hung loose like a bulldog’s.

‘Now. Or your brakeman here will soon find out what black Fae steel feels like,’ the thing threatened. It moved, turning its hand, and a blade became visible at Jaspar’s throat. There was already a little smudging of blood.

The gun thudded onto the sand.

‘Good man. Now. I want you to back up this engine, and drive straight through that burning brush, and then do exactly as I command. You will drive the locomotive. Mister Jaspar here will do the braking. That sound hard to you?’

Hosh was still trying to figure out what the blasted thing was when he realised it had spat a question at him. ‘Er … no?’ the reply came breathless.