Authors: Debbie Johnson
My nan rubbed at her wrist, and I felt a pang of guilt, knowing there’d be finger-shaped bruises there later in the day. I might be screwed up, but that didn’t make me feel good about committing assault and battery on a pensioner.
‘There’s nothing I can tell you,’ she said. ‘Nothing you need to know. So shut up and drink your bloody tea. This is your life; this is who you are. Sorry if the surroundings aren’t grand enough for you, milady, but you’re Lily McCain. From Anfield. Live with it.’
I shut up. I drank my tea. I tried to talk to her, about my life, about hers, all the time feeling the impenetrable barrier she’d always kept up still firmly in place. Coleen was the definition of the term ‘tough old bird’. I didn’t know why I’d even tried.
Eventually, mug empty and heart saddened, I agreed to leave. She said she wanted me to. Said she had to get to Mass, had things to do. She always had things to do. And none of them were ever going to involve honesty, I knew.
She was lying, had been lying for so long that maybe she’d lost sight of the truth. I paused in the doorway as I left, saying goodbye.
‘Take care of yourself,’ I said, recalling that image of her in the hospital bed. The tubes. The machines. Me having to make the decision to switch them off. She might be a bitch, but she was the only family I had.
‘I always do,’ she replied, a rare truth from cigarette-puckered lips. ‘Make sure you do the same, kiddo. No bugger else will, that’s for sure.’
The Costa was full, as usual. The station was cold, as usual. And I was confused, as usual.
I sat at a table for two, feeling the familiar melancholy I always get at train stations. I’ve never understood it, but think it’s something to do with the swirl of emotions that congregates there. People saying goodbye. People being reunited. People lost, or worried, or just waiting for a train that never comes.
What can I say? I’m a sensitive flower.
I gripped my mug, wondering how long my body could last sustained by nothing but hot beverages, and looked around me, also wondering if Gabriel would even show up. If it wasn’t all some sick practical joke, that is. The three calls I’d already missed from Carmel told me otherwise, but I lived in hope.
He arrived exactly as the hands of Lime Street’s grand station clock clicked on to ten. He might be a raving insaniac, but at least he was punctual.
And he was, still – I couldn’t help but notice – drop-dead gorgeous, his muscular torso encased in a snug-fitting black sweater, his dark hair falling in thick waves to touch his shoulders. In daylight, his skin was even paler, his eyes darker – still with that hint of violet, but less supernatural outside the confines of the nightclub. He smiled, sat down and placed what could only be described as a man bag on the floor next to him. It probably contained a laptop; maybe some back copies of
Psychic Weirdo Weekly
.
‘I’m glad you came,’ he said, eyeing my cup as though he was about to swipe it.
‘Get your own,’ I replied. ‘I don’t know you well enough to be sharing saliva.’
‘Don’t you? My mistake. Maybe you didn’t see what I thought you did, then …’
His gaze travelled slowly across my face, resting on my lips, which I was now nervously biting. I felt a slow blush crawling up from my neck as I remembered the vision. All that skin. The curves and planes of his musculature. The throbbing need that engulfed my body as he explored it.
The blush raced up to my cheeks, and I knew they were now as red as my hair.
‘That’s pretty,’ he said, his voice a sultry Irish whisper. ‘Does it go all the way down?’
I shuffled the collar of my coat a little tighter around me, even though I was feeling suddenly very hot. His knees brushed against mine under the table, and I could tell from his laugh as I jumped back that he’d done it on purpose.
‘Why did that band look … dead?’ I asked, surprised that that was my first question. There was so much to ask, but for some reason, that was what snuck out. The image had been bothering me ever since I saw it, lying there dormant behind all my own personal identity issues. I mean, I’ve seen some odd shit in my time, but skeletons playing bass? That’s is pretty much at the top of the list.
‘They looked dead because they are,’ he replied, still staring disconcertingly at my mouth. ‘They’re vampires. You’d be amazed how many successful rock bands are.’
‘Hmm,’ I muttered, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I should have been totally freaked out. Should have been running for the nearest exit. Should have been surreptitiously dialling 999 on my mobile under the table. Yet somehow … it rang true. I knew what I’d seen, and while I’d never got to grips with my visions, I’d also never known them to totally lie. That’d be like fibbing to myself, wouldn’t it?
Even that incident with the monks on the school trip had turned out to be scarily rooted in reality, when I looked into it years later. There
were
monks there, centuries ago, and they did ferry people across the Mersey. And that band last night … they
were
dead. Surprisingly good musicians for the tragically deceased, but dead all the same. As for other bands, he was right – the very best, the very biggest, they had a certain charisma, a certain appeal, that went beyond their music and their Goth-chic clothes. So. Vampire rock. Brilliant.
‘You don’t seem surprised,’ said Gabriel, who was now playing footsie with me, forcing me to shuffle my boots around like a demented tap dancer to avoid his touch.
‘Stop it!’ I snapped, stamping down on his feet with all the weight of my size-eight Doc Martens. He grimaced, issuing a small ouch. It felt surprisingly good to see him in pain.
‘Is that what
you
are, then, a vampire?’ I asked, struggling to believe I was having this conversation at all. Never mind in full public view, in front of Costa Coffee, with the hissing announcements about the delayed 10.20 to Newton le Willows echoing in the background. Also struggling to believe that as I asked it, I found myself checking out Gabriel’s luscious lips, imaging what it would feel like to have them pressed against my neck …
‘No. Don’t be stupid. I’m here, aren’t I? Haven’t you ever watched
Buffy
, for goodness’ sake? I’m not disappearing in a puff of smoke, ergo, I’m not a vampire. I’m something entirely different. I’m something like you.’
‘You mean you’re a socially retarded music critic with parent issues?’
‘No. And you’re not retarded, Lily, you’re just … waiting to blossom. As for the parent issues, isn’t that what you really want to know? About them? Your parents?’
Ah. He’d done it. Cut to the chase. Gone to the heart of the matter. The matter I was subconsciously trying to avoid. Because while I knew that being Lily McCain, orphaned granddaughter to a cold-hearted fake nan, isn’t ideal, it’s what I know. It’s who I’ve been for most of my life, and it’s all I have. Having this conversation could change everything I’ve assumed to be true. And does anybody really like change that much? Speaking as a person who’s been wearing the same brand of eyeliner for the last twelve years, I can could safely say I don’t.
‘My parents,’ I repeated, looking into his eyes for … what, reassurance? He was the one who’d started all this. He was the one who’d exploded my dull but perfectly satisfactory life into chaos.
‘It would have happened anyway, Lily, with or without me. It’s time. People are coming for you, and you need to be ready.’
‘What the hell are you talking about, Gabriel? And stay out of my bloody mind, will you?’
He smiled, and my heart thudded extra hard at the curve of his lips, the flash of white teeth. Inappropriate reaction, I told myself. Think fear, think anger, think escape … think anything but sex.
‘I’m not in your mind all the time, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just get little flashes every now and then. I have no control over it, so your secrets are safe … most of them, anyway. And other things I can figure out for myself. Like the fact that your heart’s beating faster than normal. That your pupils are dilated. That you’re feeling warmer than you should. That you’re imaging what it would feel like if I leaned over and kissed you right now …’
I screeched my chair back, feeling my face flame.
‘Actually, that last one was a guess,’ he added slyly, clearly amused by my reaction. ‘And while this flirting is fun, we need to get serious. I’ll call you Lily if you want, but that’s not your name. Things are about to change for you, for all of us. That’s why I’m here.’
‘But why are you really here? Apart from, you know, to totally freak me out?’
‘I’m here to keep you safe,’ he said. ‘From the people who want to kill you.’
As I let those cheery words sink in, all hell let loose around us. Armed police thundered into the station lobby, wearing body armour and brandishing plastic shields. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared.
‘Get out!’ shouted someone from the entrance to the coffee shop. ‘I mean, leave calmly, by the emergency exits!’
Predictably enough, the words ‘leave calmly’ resulted in a mass exodus of running feet, a chaos of bodies tripping over suitcases on wheels, and several high-pitched female screams. A man pushed to the front of the crowd, wearing a suit and brandishing a walkie-talkie. Gabriel stared at him intently, and I realised he was using that supersonic hearing of his to eavesdrop.
‘Bomb scare,’ he said, standing up and throwing his bag over his shoulder. ‘Come on – we have to leave – now!’
He grabbed my arm, dragging me to my feet and along behind him so fast I felt like I was skating. But instead of heading towards the exit as I expected, along with the rest of the thoroughly spooked tide of humanity, he raced towards the ticket barriers. Stumbling, I followed, and we both burst through the turnstile and on to the platform.
‘Faster!’ he yelled, as we galloped along the platform, right to the edge, to the spot where trainspotters usually stand with their notebooks. ‘Down!’
He jumped deftly on to the tracks, beckoning for me to follow him.
I hesitated, not knowing what to do. Behind me, there was chaos. And potentially a bomb. In front of me, miles of train track, and a man who could read my mind. Over my shoulder I saw two figures in black approaching us. Not running, not panicking, just searching. They homed in on me, seemed to share some kind of communication, then speeded up. Nobody else was here, on the platform – the carnage outside had everyone’s full attention. It was just them and us, with the ‘them’ getting closer and closer every second.
I made my decision – which went something along the lines of ‘better the lunatic you know’ – and jumped. Gabriel caught me under the arms and held me steady, but I still felt the impact of the ridged steel tracks ricochet up my ankles.
‘There’s no bomb,’ he said quickly, ‘it’s just a distraction. It’s you they want. Now run!’
I ran. As fast as my boots would carry me, I ran. Down into the deep, dark tunnel that would ultimately lead to the next station; the tunnel hewn from rock and earth; the tunnel that Gabriel was disappearing off into way too quickly for me to keep up.
I lost sight of him, and felt panic rising up in my throat. I could hear the dull, regular thud of footsteps behind me: whoever they were, they were following. Fast and hard. Gabriel was right – there was no bomb. Or if there was, it was Lily-shaped.
Chest heaving with the effort, eyes half-blind in the subterranean lighting, I fled, all my instincts telling me I had to get away from the men behind me.
As I stumbled over a break in the tracks, strong hands gripped me, pulled me off to one side. Gabriel. He jerked me against him, and I slammed into his body. We were in an alcove, a tiny metal door in front of us. Maybe it was a workman’s hatch. Maybe it was a storage unit. Maybe it was a way into the magical realm of Narnia – I didn’t care, I was just glad when Gabriel threw his bodyweight against it and heaved it open.
He grabbed my hand again, and for once I didn’t stop to worry about the implications of his flesh touching mine. I held on and ran beside him, inside another tunnel now, this one narrow and black, drops of God knows what dripping down on to our heads.
After what felt like hours but had probably been minutes, he stopped and indicated for me to do the same. I panted, my lungs screeching from the exertion, sucking in gulps of fetid air. Gabriel, infuriatingly, hadn’t even broken a sweat.
‘Stay still, stay quiet,’ he said in a voice that I wouldn’t dare argue with. He might have the looks of a Calvin Klein model and carry a man bag, but right now, his word was law. As the thought crossed my mind, a truth clicked into place: his word
was
the law. Because he was the king. Sounded crazy, but hey, I was used to that – and somehow, I just knew.
Before I had time to process that particular snippet of weirdness, he made a waving gesture with his hands, and started to mutter under his breath. It was gloomy in the tunnel, and I was starting to sense the furious scamper of rats around my feet. Gabriel’s eyes were glowing in the darkness, bright and violet. His body seemed to swell, to enlarge, his chest expanding and his arms elongating, until he filled all the space between the ancient arches of brickwork. I hunkered back, not wanting to get squashed, and watched as he threw his fingers forward as though aiming a javelin.
There was a thundering crash, and the air filled with crumbled particles of masonry, covering my face and making me sneeze.
‘Rockfall, further down,’ he said. ‘They won’t be able to get through. We’re safe – for now. Come on, we need to get out of here.’
He stooped over his bag, clicked it open, and pulled out a torch. A bloody torch – of all the mundane, boringly human things. He flicked it on, and a bright beam of light shone into my flinching eyes.
‘You look a real mess,’ he said, laughing and pulling a chunk of plaster from my hair.
‘Yeah, well …’ I replied, fresh out of witty repartee. Near-death experiences will do that to a girl, I suppose. ‘What now?’
‘Now, we walk out of here. We leave, calmy, through the emergency exits.’