Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (16 page)

He went completely and very suddenly limp then. His bowels released themselves and his chest sunk, he even stopped breathing. But I knew he was still alive, and I felt not a pang of guilt for his impending humiliation. If anything, I felt energised and charged, as if I’d just avenged one of the humans he’d killed.

“You can send the receipt in the mail, jerk,” I said, kicking him in the shin as I stood up.

When I shut the door as I left his room, it was with a clear conscience. He would have no memory of me tomorrow, or how he came to wake with a major headache and faeces in his pants.

When I reached the top of the tight, curved stairwell to David’s floor, Drake was already poised to rap on my chamber door.

“Drake.”

“Oh, Ara.” He turned, surprised. “Where have you been?”

“Exploring,” I said with a shrug.

His stunning blue eyes fixed on my shoulder.

When I looked down self-consciously my heart skipped a beat. I quickly covered the fresh blood in my hair. “I um…”

“No need to explain.” He put a hand up. “Everyone craves the hunt now and then.”

“Yeah,” I said awkwardly. “I kinda got tired of being spoon-fed, if you know what I mean.”

“Perhaps you’ve tired of Trey then.” He went to push the door open. “I can have him removed and bring in a—”

“No need,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Trey’s great. I prefer his blood to that guy I just ate.” I pretended to wipe something icky off my face, even though Urine Guy was probably the tangiest and most satisfying feed I’d had since I became immortal.

“Very well.” He patted my hand; I drew it away from his arm. “But you will be sure to notify me at the first moment you tire of him, won’t you?”

“I will.” As I went to walk past, Drake held me in place.

“The tour,” he said suggestively. “I would very much like it if you came.”

“Maybe next time.” I pulled my arm free from his grip.

“Amara, wait.” His voice carried the softness and kindness of a caring friend.

With a bit of hesitation, I stopped to humour him.

“You could be here for some time. I imagine you must already be feeling isolated and likely bored,” he said softly. “The tours could be good for you—not only to see that this place of nightmares isn’t real, but you could also help out—sell tickets or greet the guests. You might find you really enjoy it.”

He sighed and stepped a little closer when I showed no signs of budging.

“Amara please. Just come tonight—see the show. And if you hate it, I’ll never ask you again. But I would really love your opinion.”

From all the stories about this evil vampire, I knew he’d grown up without a father and that his mother shunned him when he first killed, and right now he looked like the hopeful little boy he would have once been—so long ago before all his heartache. And damn it if that made the mother in me want to be there at his stupid show!

“Okay,” I said, and Drake clapped once. “But I reserve the right to walk out at any time if it’s terrible or wrought with clichés.”

“Oh, it is wrought with clichés, my dear.” He laughed, tucking my hand into the crook of his elbow. “And you’re going to
love
it.”

***

Two giant buses parted and drove separate ways, revealing a large group of people congregating outside the murky tower of the southern wing. Unlike the other side of the castle, the bricks here weeped black mould from the mortar, like the very stones that held up the gothic peaks were crying for the sins within them. There was something more sinister about the clock tower on this side—the way the hand moved around the numbers; the way the iron spike at the top pierced the sky.

I stepped back a little, pushed by the weighty spread of fear.

Drake moved in and cupped my shoulders from behind, leaning close to whisper. “When you were freed from this castle and taken away, Jason was left behind—believed dead by all. For many weeks the castle was unmanned—no residents, no life. Just Jason.” He angled his head to the clock tower, and my eyes followed. “I have cameras hidden on almost every surface. Nothing gets past me here, Amara. I knew he was not dead. And I also know what he did in those days following your rescue.”

A group of people near us turned when they saw Drake, and started snapping pictures, saying something about the tour beginning already.

He put his lips right to my ear and spoke quickly, the warmth of his vampire breath chilling the hairs on my neck. “Forget what you suffered here for one moment, and think instead about how Jason felt—to lift you from that car—” He pointed to where the car had been parked, “—to carry you through those doors.” He pointed to the heavy castle doors. “To lay you in that cell, knowing what he would do to you.”

I swallowed hard.

“Perhaps it will keep your mind occupied as you relive it all through his eyes.” Drake released me and stepped away, holding his arms out to his adoring crowd as he disappeared among them.

The tears in my eyes thickened thought by thought until they spilled from the corners in fat droplets. I quickly swiped them away, hiding my face in the curtain of my hair. Drake was right about everything. This castle had left scars that were never given time to heal, but facing my demons and seeing the demons Jason also faced could be therapeutic.

The tourists filed up the stairs behind Drake, while he aimed a finger at certain points on the castle walls and talked about its history. When he mentioned hanging men, all heads turned to the left, and it was only then that I noticed the three pairs of feet dangling above a wooden platform.

“How does he make it look so real?” one woman asked, her British accent catching my attention.

“Not sure. But look.” Her friend pointed. “That one’s kicking his legs.”

So I looked too, covering my mouth when I saw the true struggle for life. They weren’t props. They were vampires! I could smell their blood.

“That’s amazing,” a man said. “I came on the tour last year, and there was a woman impaled on spikes instead of hanged men.”

“No wonder Molly couldn’t come,” said the woman on his right. “She’d have nightmares for weeks.”

So would I.

The tour group moved on inside then, but I lingered back for a moment, imagining Jason standing there at the base of the steps, with me in my wedding dress, safely cuddled into him—believing that he meant to keep me safe. He loved me, even back then, and it filled my gut with a horrible sensation to see things through his eyes—through his mind. Since then, I’d felt his arms around me many times—knew the softness of his touch and how stress or anguish changed that touch. If I thought back to that night, I could see now that the fear and hesitation was there in his arms. I just didn’t know what it was.

As I walked through the high doors into the stone surrounds, all the creepiness I imagined rose up to meet my expectations. The walls were grey and wet with moisture, but the eye-catching feature was the spiralling staircase leading up to a very dark and eerie-looking floor. The peaked arches here were menacing and ghostly, like something from a haunted cathedral, and on the walls by the staircase were four large paintings of sallow-faced women whose eyes seemed to follow as we passed.

Drake spoke of fictitious Vampire Lore as he led his tour through the castle, stopping in the drawing room for blood and coffin cakes before leading us all down toward the cells—the dungeons.

With each step I took, something held a memory for me. My hands slowly turned icy cold as we followed the same corridor Jason led me down after we’d finished in what I now knew was the Court Room, and though my mind took in very little detail that day, seeing it all again in a situation without fear made me realise that I saw more than I thought; each door had a small gold number on it, and as we walked, I counted them, knowing that when we reached the dark stone stairwell, the last number I’d see would be ninety.

“Ah,” Drake said, cupping a hand behind his ear and leaning toward the echoing scream down that stairwell. “I believe there is a vampire being tortured down there as we speak.”

A silent wave of excitement trickled through the crowd.

My stomach churned. If those hanging men were anything to go by, then whoever was in that chamber down there was being tortured for real—just as I was.

Drake sent the tourists ahead with the other guide, and lingered back to catch me. “What do you think so far?”

“It’s all very… informative.”

He looked down at my hand as he cupped my elbow, and frowned. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine.” I jerked my hand back.

He took off his cloak and wrapped it around my shoulders, even though I tried to shove it off. “Keep it on, Amara. I beg of you.”

“Why?”

“Because your pulse is slow and you’re pale. You could be in shock.”

I twisted the cape in an elegant swirl off my shoulders and shoved it at Drake. “I said I’m fine.”

And I was fine. I wasn’t in shock. I was just… I don’t know. But I didn’t need his help.

With my big girl panties all the way up around my ears, I placed my hand on the stone wall and followed each slimy brick until I heard voices at the bottom. Drake overtook then, and stepped into the room to talk about ancient methods of torture—including the one Walt planned to use on me: the Pear of Anguish.

While everyone watched that poor guy on the chair suffer at his torturer’s hands, I walked slowly around the crowd and listened to what they were saying. For the most part, no one believed it was real. But, shamefully, those that did were very clearly turned on by it. I could feel their energy.

When the other tour guide led everyone back upstairs to witness a real vampire feeding, I held back to see that the tortured vampire was okay. Drake stayed too.

“How do you get away with this?” I said to Drake, eyeing the victim’s cuffs to see if I could loosen them. “Don’t people send those photos to the authorities?”

“Yes,” Drake said simply. “And the authorities investigate—almost every time.”

“But—”

“But what?” He laughed. “They come to find the very person in the picture to be in perfect health—no cuts or scars.”

“Healed.” The torturer snapped his fingers. “With a gulp of blood.”

“That’s clever.” I nodded, raising my brows. “I’ll give you that.”

“Of course, this showmanship also benefits the vampires in question.” Drake patted the victim’s ankle. “In exchange for exhibitionism, they get a lesser sentence—often only two weeks.”

“And you’re okay with this?” I asked the pale, bloody-looking victim.

“I k…k…killed a human,” he stammered. “That’s t-t-twenty-five years in prison normally.”

“Several humans,” Drake added. “Purely for the pleasure of hearing them cry. He deserves this, Amara, there is no question there.”

Even the victim nodded.

I took a step back from him. “Did you parade
me
like this when I was in that chair?”

Drake glanced up once at the camera in the corner. “No. I would never do that,” he said, and something in the way his eyes spoke with his words made me think he held some small pocket of regret. “I’m not a completely evil man, Amara,” he added, “no matter what you may have heard.”

“No one is completely evil,” I snapped, turning to walk up the stairs. “I’m sure even Hitler was an innocent child at some point in his past.”

“You liken me to Hitler?” He followed me.

“You’re right. That was unfair,” I said, looking back down at him. “Unfair to Hitler,
Drake the Impaler
.”

“Touché.” He laughed, and it sounded out of place in the dark stairwell. “But surely I am allowed to change and learn from my mistakes—perhaps even seek forgiveness for my sins?”

Back in the somewhat warmer light of the corridor upstairs, I wiped my feet on the red rug to rid the feel of moisture and slime. “You killed those children, Drake—after locking them away for centuries. You are not redeemable in my opinion.”

His shoulders rounded and he let out a little sigh. “If only I could make you understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That what happened that day…” He swallowed the sentence down and instead said, “Everything was not as it seemed.”

My eyes narrowed at him, studying him. “Are you saying you have some sick justification outside of revenge for what you did to those babies?”

“I can say only this.” He took a step closer, lowering his voice. “If I wanted to hurt David for what he did to Morgana, I would have killed him—or kidnapped and tortured him at the very least. But
you
have done me no wrong. Why would I hurt
you
to punish David?”

“But you did hurt me. In the worst way—”

“Precisely. So ask yourself this: if, in my attempt at revenge, you were to feel the ripple effect, why would I choose to take the one thing you cared for most?”

“I…” I started, but I didn’t really have an argument for that. He was right.

“If I wanted to hurt him without hurting you, I could have taken Arthur. Jason. And yes, you might have shed a tear, but it wouldn’t have devastated you as the deaths of those children did.”