Witchblood (3 page)

         The exhilaration faded and was suddenly replaced by a bone-splitting ache. I tried to scream, but my mouth had dried up again, and I was unable to peel my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I dozed off in a haze of pain-filled hallucinations, unable to wake, unable to move, unable to make a sound, as I heard my hammering heart come to a shuddering stop and everything blacked out.

         Sometime later I heard voices, strained and far off, and I blacked out again, as a fresh wave of pain flooded my body. Another time I heard a horrible high-pitched wailing, a keening, crying noise, muffled, as if coming from inside a box. I tried to respond, to tell whoever it was that I was alive; but I was in the dark, unable to move. I could see nothing but a thick blackness and I couldn’t move a single part of my body, even though I was very aware of every tiny, aching bit of it. My tongue remained concreted to the roof of my mouth and I felt an excruciating need for liquid. My eyes were sealed shut, and every bone in my body was paralysed. They thought I was dead, maybe I was, and yet again everything went black.

         Finally the pain stopped, but the paralysis remained. The blackness enfolded me like the shroud it was, and I continued to slip in and out of a long, deep sleep. I woke as loud thuds vibrated around me and stirred my consciousness. My thirst had increased, and I found I could move my fingertips. The thuds continued, and I wondered what on earth was making them. I realised I could hear more than the banging, if I listened carefully. There in the background, muffled and far away, I could hear voices, some talking, some sobbing. They became more distant with each thud, and eventually it became quiet once again and I dozed off.

         What seemed like days later, but looking back was probably hours, I once again woke to loud thumping noises, which eventually turned into a horrific scraping, and with a jolt of surprise I realised that I could hear my heartbeat again, very quietly, very slowly. In fact it hardly seemed to beat at all.

         I heard nothing for a while and then suddenly I could see again. I was lying in a coffin which had been lifted out of the ground and placed under a large oak tree. It was a dark, cloudy, moonless sky, yet I could see perfectly. I could see for miles. I could even make out the silhouette of an owl, sitting in a tree several fields away.

         Two faces looked down at me and I recognised them instantly. I tried to move, but to my dismay found nothing would move, apart from my fingers and toes. My panic must have been apparent, as the woman leaned forward and spoke.

         ‘Daniel, she’s still paralysed. Carry her to the car, quickly. I’ll put the earth back and join you in a moment.’

         I felt his arms move underneath me, as he picked me up effortlessly and carried me silently into the dark night. In a matter of minutes, I was being laid gently in the back of a car and covered with a blanket.

         ‘Jessica, it’s ok. I know you can hear me. The paralysis is unavoidable, but you’ll be up and about tomorrow. For now, just go back to sleep.’ The man called Daniel spoke softly, his words calming me, and I soon felt myself drifting off. I heard car doors slamming, an engine revving and murmured voices in quiet conversation, but eventually I drifted back into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Two

When I came round I didn’t recognise anything, even myself. I was in a darkened room, but could see colourless winter light sneaking round the drawn curtains. The terrible pain had vanished and I felt full of life and vitality, as if I’d just been for a good swim session and come out hungry and energised. For those first few blissful seconds, I’d forgotten everything, and wondered idly what had happened.

         From my prone state, I peered around the gloomy room. I decided to get out of bed, find whoever had been looking after me, and ask them where the hell I was. Maybe Luke or my father had brought me here, though the latter was unlikely. It couldn’t be Alex, as I obviously wasn’t in our student accommodation. The more I tried to recollect what had happened, the duller and more clouded the memories became.

         I sat up, and saw through the gloom to where somebody was seated in a corner of the room. It all flooded back. The glamorous couple in the club, the girl gang, and the man’s head bent over my face, his eyes full of compassion, my dark red blood covering his chin.

         No! I lay back down on my pillow and willed myself back to sleep. In fact, I was obviously still asleep anyway. One of those dreams where you think you’re awake when you’re not. Maybe I was in a coma and this was some weird dream world that my crazy imagination had thought up for me. I screwed my eyes up and tried to ignore the man’s gentle voice and my heart pounding to a different, slower beat.

         ‘Jessica, it’s ok. I’m here. You’re safe. Jessica?’

         Reluctantly I sat up and slowly opened my eyes once more, willing myself to see a different, more familiar scene. No such luck!

         I looked over again to the man who was sitting in the darkest corner of the room, and found I could easily see his every feature. I’d always had less than perfect eyesight and had even worn glasses for a short time when I was at school, but now I could make out every little detail in the room with a quick glance. The room was decorated in a country style, with a pale wallpaper covered in tiny rosebuds, the floorboards polished. There was a beautiful antique-looking quilt folded at the foot of my bed, and the man I recognised to be Daniel from the club, was reclining on a rather old but comfy looking armchair, his long legs stretched out ahead of him.

         ‘Jessica, you have slept for two days and nights since we brought you here. I didn’t think you were ever going to awaken. How do you feel? Hungry, I expect,’ Daniel said, his eyes twinkling, but his face looked serious, concerned even.

         Suddenly the nightmare became real and I struggled to keep up with the events flashing through my memory. I couldn’t believe this was real. No way was I awake! Deciding I was definitely in a coma and hallucinating, I decided I may as well go with the flow. Hell, it would make a good story when, or if I woke up.

         ‘Where am I? What the hell are you? And where are Luke and Alex? I yelled at him, and then carried on more quietly. ‘Those girls...they were punching me, kicking me.... I was dying.... I couldn’t move my legs.’ I quickly wriggled my toes and changed my position with relief. ‘Then you came. What did you do? Who are you?’ I asked, immediately regretting the question.

         ‘Shhh, I know it’s confusing, but you should be feeling fine now. I saved you,’ he said, as I frowned at him.

         ‘Where are we then?’

         ‘We’re in the Lake District, in a house belonging to a friend of mine. We got you out of Manchester immediately after the funeral.’

         I looked at him, uncomprehendingly trying to process his bizarre words. He was still the most beautiful man I’d ever seen and I was a little distracted by that. His burnt chocolate eyes searched mine out and this time they felt very different to look into. They no longer held me captive, but they soothed me, calmed me.

         ‘Why? What? I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I feel strange, not myself. I remember things, I remember those girls, but I don’t understand what you’re saying. My funeral? But I’m not dead!’ I whispered, a feeling of dread surrounding me like a thick fog.

         ‘You know why, Jessica. If you let yourself believe it, you know what I am, and you know what you’ve become. You can feel the hunger inside you. A hunger like no other, and if I’d left you, you would have eventually dug your own way out of your grave.’ He paused for breath and as I just waited silently, he continued. ‘You most likely would have killed the first person you came into contact with, drained them, and moved on to the next. You would have notified the media and the governments of the world of our existence, and whilst we have dealt with worse, it would have been an awful lot of unnecessary mess to clear up. We try not to let newborn vampires go on killing sprees,which would ruin our fairly safe position in this modern, disbelieving world.’

         His gaze was most distracting, so I dragged my eyes away and lay back down, pulling the soft blanket over my head to block out the room. I giggled quietly to myself, and felt tears pricking the corner of my eyes as hysteria began to rise within.
Now
would definitely be a good time to wake up. I thought of all the books I’d read and films I’d seen, as I tried to remember how people were woken from comas. As I obviously didn’t have a family member or friend playing me my favourite music, I decided to opt for pinching myself on the arm.

         So, pulling the blanket from my head, I sat up again and ignoring the man in the corner, I pinched as hard as I could.  I felt nothing and tried again. Weird! I felt the skin on my arm. It felt the same: soft and smooth, slightly paler, but I’d obviously lost a lot of blood, so that made sense. I could see the skin going whiter, almost translucent, where my fingers were pinching it together. It should definitely hurt, but I felt nothing. Maybe I’d suffered some kind of nerve damage, when the girls attacked me?

         ‘Jessica, you can’t hurt yourself’, his voice interrupted. You won’t feel pain the same anymore,’ and my eyes were once again drawn to his, which were now looking more than a little confused.

         ‘You must be hungry. Eva will be here soon and you can feed.’

         ‘Feed? I’m not an animal. Why do we have to wait for Eva anyway? Has she gone to the supermarket?’ I said, refusing to accept the niggling little feelings creeping up on me. A dry, aching thirst was building in my throat. A thirst like nothing I’d felt before. A thirst for …No!

         But his words remained in my head, buzzing around like a swarm of belligerent bees. It couldn’t be true, could it?

         ‘I need to see Luke, and Alex. Oh God! What have I done? No! What have you done? You did this to me! I’m supposed to be having my eighteenth birthday party next month.’ He started to interrupt, but I railroaded him and carried on, picking up speed and volume along the way. ‘You probably got those girls to attack me. I remember it. I heard you saying that you knew I was the one you wanted, when you saw me in the club.’ Fury raged within me, unstoppable, and I leapt from the bed in one swift cat-like jump and was on him, punching him, tearing at his hair, and clawing at his face.

         He did nothing to fight me off. There was a slight noise behind me, then someone incredibly strong ripped me from him, and with a wrenching noise, a handful of his hair came with me.
She
propelled me backwards and pushed me unceremoniously down onto a soft stool she’d pulled over from the dresser.

         ‘Here drink this,’ she said. A mug of warm, thick, dark red liquid was thrust into my hands and I looked from the stunning dark-haired girl to the drink with disgust, until I caught its smell and something inside me took over. Its sickly sweet taste made me think of rare fillet steak, and strangely, dark bitter chocolate at the same time. I gulped it down and needed more, which she must have anticipated as she handed me a second, and then finally a third. 

         Coming to the end of the final drink I looked up at them. Daniel had deep, dark scratches on his face and there was a small wound on his head, the size of a fifty pence coin, where I’d torn out his hair. It was raw and bloody, yet even as I watched it, I could see the blood clotting, the skin healing, bit by bit, as the tissue knitted together again. By the time I’d finished my drinks, his face was once again perfect and his hair was even beginning to grow back.

         The girl watched me studying his healing wounds and smiled.

         ‘Think of it as one of the perks of our life. We may have to hide out when something occasionally goes wrong, but at least it’s difficult to hurt us! Try it again, if you feel the urge. Daniel likes it; it eases his guilt. It probably arouses him as well! Notice how he didn’t fight back?’ I looked at her in horror, but couldn’t tell if she was serious or not and she carried on. ‘Though it may be a different story, now you’ve fed. You’ll be stronger, so go easy.’

         ‘You’ve got to be joking? You want me to fight him?’ I questioned. She shrugged, a half smile crossing her face as Daniel frowned at her, before interrupting.

         ‘Eva, stop it, you’re distressing her,’ he said, but she just shrugged again and carried on.

         ‘You should know though, that in your case he actually did save you, and he didn’t even get to drink your blood.’