Vampire State of Mind (15 page)

‘Well, obviously. Thirty-one years is a long time to keep a secret, especially one like this. Did he seduce you? I could see how you might –'

My mother turned around, her back to the Aga now. She looked furious. ‘How could you ever think such a thing! That I would ever do
that
with a monster like him!' Her hands were fists on the Aga rail. She stood in such contrast to the cosy farmhouse kitchen that I began to wonder if this was really the woman I'd known all my life, or some impostor.

‘Um … Mum, I
do
know the facts of life, you know.' I held up one hand. ‘Malfaire. Father.' I held up the other. ‘Mother. You.' I linked the fingers together. ‘Me.' She stared at me. Just stared, her hair coming loose from its pony-tail, wisping down over her face. ‘Oh.' I said, realisation trying to break through but being pushed down by hope and horror. ‘Oh. No.'

She nodded. ‘Yes.'

‘You're not my mother.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Shit.'

‘Mother or no, I will
not
have swearing in this house!' And it was so familiar, so dear, that I couldn't help smiling.

‘Sorry.'

A confusion of dog at the back door, and my father entered breathless from what must have been a down-hill sprint, the two farm collies circling his feet in their attempts to get into the kitchen, and Sil, looking as though mud was a foreign language, stepping over them to come inside.

‘Oh, thank heavens!'

‘What on earth is the matter? This young man wouldn't tell me anything. I thought I was being abducted for a moment.'

‘She knows, Brian.'

‘Knows? Knows what?' He hung his full-length waterproof on the inside of the back door and turned to warm himself at the Aga, standing next to my mother and illustrating, once again, how unlike them I was.

‘She knows about Malfaire.'

Sil twitched but he didn't react any more than that. Instead he scooped a ginger cat off the sofa and held it to his shoulder, where it sat, stunned.

‘Oh. How much does she know?' The kettle squealed and, without thinking, my father began making tea for all of us.

‘I wanted you here before I told her.'

‘It isn't my decision, Jen. It's up to you to say.'

‘Please, someone.' My voice sounded very little, very far away. Sil's grey glance settled on me with physical weight. ‘You can go now.'

‘I will not leave you.'

I was tired, too loaded with weariness to fight him. ‘Please. Just … go and look round the farm or something.'

My parents exchanged a glance.

‘Sil …'

He plopped the cat gently back on to the cushions and came over to me. ‘Jessica. The Protection Act. It isn't just words you know. Not just something we
say
. It's …' A clenched fist crossed his chest in an almost ceremonial gesture. ‘It's here.
I
am here. And I will not leave you.'

My stomach felt as though someone was twisting a knife in it and I looked up at these two people I no longer understood. Betrayal turned the knife again. They were so familiar, they'd been so predictable, and all the time …
this
. I met Sil's eyes again. His gaze was steady and his hand cupped my shoulder briefly in a touch of support.
He might be vampire, his moral high-ground might be at sub-sea level, but he'd never lied to me about who I was.

‘All right.'

And while we all sat around the pale pine table, handling mugs of tea strong enough to have run the farm on their own, my erstwhile parents told me the story of my life.

‘When we lived in Exeter, it was a war zone.' My mother –
Jen
– sipped at her tea. ‘And there was such misery, such suffering …' She put out a hand and touched my arm, as though to reassure herself that I was still there, still alive. ‘You have to remember, Jessica, that this was at the height of the Troubles, the prejudice and the discrimination were terrible things to see, and the hatred.'

She looked across at my father. He would never be anything other than Dad, this man who'd taught me to read and helped with my homework. Malfaire was never going to qualify for the title for anything other than DNA input. My father looked back, reached out a hand and covered her fingers with his. ‘Go on, Jen,' he whispered. ‘It's time. You know it.'

A deep breath and she went on. ‘I worked as a volunteer when I wasn't teaching. In a women's shelter. It was a frightening time, Jessica, more than you can ever imagine, back then, even admitting to
knowing
someone who wasn't human was to invite a petrol bomb through your window. Whole areas had zero-tolerance policies, there were zombies and ghouls walking the night, you'll never know.'

‘I read my history, I've seen the films. What has it all to do with anything?'

‘There were women … little more than children some of them, starving, out on the streets. Parents dead, often killed by the mon–' a flick of a look in Sil's direction – ‘by Otherworlders. The welfare system was hard to negotiate if you had no home … these people were
desperate
, Jessica, alone, terrified, hungry, some of them had children of their own to feed, they would do whatever it took to keep themselves alive. Even … Well. You said you've read your history. You know what people had to do.' She dropped her eyes, fingers plucking at my sleeve as though she could pick a conclusion into my mind through the wool. ‘And there was a girl …'

‘My mother.'

A nod over the cooling tea. ‘She came to us so shocked that she barely knew her own name. She'd been in … well, one could hardly call it a relationship … she'd been the plaything, I think is the best way to put it, of a demon. Who had grown tired of her and thrown her back on to the streets with only the clothes she stood up in, and they weren't good for much by then, either. And then she'd found out she was pregnant.'

The cold finger that ran down my spine was so distinct that I half-turned to check that Sil was still sitting at the table corner. My fingers were blue around my mug and I couldn't think of anything to say. Sil was concentrating on the floor, looking a bit embarrassed. Let him, he'd been the one who insisted on coming; if my family's dirty laundry was going to get aired in front of him it served him right.

‘She … her name was Rune, by the way. Rune Atrasia. Rune was so,
so
scared. She said that everyone knew about her and the demon, that everyone would know that the baby was his and … There were mobs out, killing children –
children
, mind you, for being Otherworlders. And I think …' There was a bit of a pause. My parents' eyes met over the tabletop clutter that had once been so comforting and was now so alien. ‘I think that she was afraid the child would be born … not quite right.'

‘We tried to persuade her to move somewhere.' My father …
Brian …
went to refill the kettle. ‘We had friends, someone who would take her in, help her make a new life. But she … ah, never mind. Dead set on staying put.'

My entire body was cold now. ‘She didn't want me.' I had to take my hands from the table and sit on them to stop the shaking.

‘You mustn't think that.' My mother moved her chair a scraped inch closer to me. ‘She was afraid.'

‘Of
me
? Of her own
baby
?' The tendons in my neck were so tight that my mouth was pulled open.

‘Things have changed so much. You see, Jessie,' her eyes rose to mine, a half-smile of fondness curved her mouth, ‘you must understand, it wasn't like it is now. Nowadays you can –' her glance rode over Sil like a ferry over a queasy sea – ‘you can date Otherworlders, even,' she swallowed hard, ‘even
sleep
with them and nothing is said. It's fashionable, I think, isn't it?'

I refused to admit to anything. Sil kept on staring at the floor. From the carefully cultivated blankness of his expression I had to assume that there was something really
fascinating
about those flagstones.

‘She was very young and very scared and things were very different. You can't … you
mustn't
judge her, Jess.'

‘Don't you
dare
tell me how to feel!' I'd jumped to my feet; the kitchen was suddenly full of scattered cats in states of alarm and a silence you could have bent nails around.

‘Sit down.' Sil's words dropped into the silence, heavy as bricks.

‘This is none of your business.'

‘
Sit. Down.
' Power flared, Sil was pulling Otherworld on me. I could feel the movement of his demon inside him. ‘You need to know this, Jessica. Losing your temper won't achieve anything.'

‘Except make me feel better,' I muttered.

‘No, it won't.'

I sat, reluctantly. Waited for more words until the gap made me look at my mother again. There were tears on her cheek and an old pain in her eyes. ‘We'd just … your father and I … there was a baby … but I was too old and …' My father dropped a hand on to her shoulder and squeezed it lightly. He didn't need to speak. She straightened her back, gave her head a slight shake and went on. ‘So we offered to adopt Rune's baby. She didn't want her child to carry the stigma of being Otherworld, so we came up with a plan; and I know this sounds very odd, but everything was so confused and impermanent back then, and I'd only just lost … we didn't tell people that it wasn't my baby. Rune came and hid with us, I wore lots of loose clothes, Abbie only came on a home visit once during those months.'

‘Not safe to travel, you see.' A tin of biscuits materialised with the refreshed tea pot. ‘Abigail was at a Protected boarding school and they weren't keen on letting the children move about the country much. She came home for that Christmas, I think, wasn't it, Jen?'

‘Probably. We told her she was going to have a baby brother or sister, but she wasn't much bothered. I think she'd got a crush on some teacher or other and that was all she could think about back then.'

‘Mr Collins.'

‘Are you sure, Brian? I thought it was that Matthew chap, the one that taught French, you remember, with all that limp hair, looked like he needed a good scrub.'

‘No, it was Collins. Had a saxophone.'

‘
Please.
' Everyone looked at me. ‘Just tell me.'

‘Always so impatient, Jess!'

‘Yes, well, I've got work to do.'
And I want to get out of this place that isn't my home any more.

My mother raised her eyebrows. ‘All right, dear, we understand.'

‘No. You really don't.'

Sil rolled his eyes.

‘I delivered you, in fact, such a little scrap you were, all eyes and these
strange
expressions.'

‘No change there,' Sil muttered.

‘We thought everything was all right. Even so, we moved up here, to be safe, to be sure.'

There was a long, concrete-filled silence. ‘So,' I said slowly, ‘can I meet her? My mother? You must know where she is.' My other mother glanced quickly at my father, and in that second I knew. ‘She's dead, isn't she?'

How
could
I feel sad about the death of a woman whose existence I had only just discovered? But I did. Believe it.

‘We don't know what happened and we only found out quite recently. We'd been in touch, on and off, over the years … just photographs sometimes, just so she could see the kind of woman you'd become, and then … one day a phone call from Exeter police, they'd found our address in among her things.'

‘How did she die?'

‘I said, we don't know.'

Questions were flashing into my mind, a whole series of them at light speed, barely chance to register each new one before the next came screaming through.
Does Malfaire know, what does this make me, who am I really, what really happened to my mother, how many people know, can anyone tell I'm not fully human by looking …
and over and above it all
WHAT AM I?

‘Jess.' My father's voice was gentle, calm. ‘Whatever Rune did or didn't do, she loved you. She couldn't keep you, but she loved you. And we wanted you so much … We all did what we did for you. To keep you safe.'

‘Safe? Is that what I am?' I stood up abruptly again and the cats all repeated the flat-eared run for the worktops. ‘I have to go now.'

My mother stood up too. ‘Come to supper tomorrow,' she suggested. ‘We'll have Abbie over as well. Maybe your father could bring out some of his sloe gin.'

‘I don't know. I'm not sure how I feel about playing happy families at the moment.' It was cruel, I knew it as I said it. But hadn't they lied to me for the last thirty-one years? It was unfair of them to even
ask
me to pretend.

I climbed into the car, knowing that they were watching me drive away, as ever, hand-in-hand in the doorway to the cosy little house, which had once been my home, my retreat, and was now a place I knew I would never feel safe again.

‘Do you want me to drive?'

‘Shut up, Sil.' My hands were shaking on the wheel but driving would keep my mind busy, stop me thinking about the implications of the story I'd been told. ‘I'm fine.'

‘You, Jessie, you're anything but fine.'

I turned to him so suddenly that the car twitched in the lane and scarlet hawthorn tips ran a squealing line down the paintwork. ‘How did your life change when you were vamped?'

‘God, I don't know.' He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘I don't remember. It was a long time ago!'

‘Over ninety years. You've been a vampire for over ninety years. You've lived with it, every day, knowing that you used to be human.'

‘But you're not vampire.'

‘No.'

‘Jessie.' There was a curious note in Sil's voice, an undercurrent. He hid his expression by turning his head to look out of the window. ‘You are still
you
. Nothing's changed. You haven't had to spend six months wondering what you're going to turn into when the demon inside you hatches, you
know
what you are. You'll never have to face all your friends, all your family growing old and dying while you stay young, watching your children –'

‘You had
children
?'
How long had I known him? And he'd never mentioned …

‘Two.'

‘Sil.'

‘They're dead now.'

Oh God, I
really
didn't need this. ‘But at least you started out human. I look human, I walk and talk human, but –' my flesh was creeping on my bones. ‘What the hell
am
I?'

‘At least we know you're half-ghyst. Gives us something to go on, and now we know what Malfaire is we can work on a way to defeat him.'

Oh yeah, that would
really
help. Here I am finding out that I'm half-demon and I'm supposed to get all enthused by the fact that it might give us a hint as to how to get rid of my biological father? I stared out of the windscreen as though I'd never seen this world before. ‘Did it hurt? Becoming a vampire?'

Beside me Sil took a deep breath. ‘Jessie, you're aren't vampire. You aren't going to change, you are going to go on being the same irritating minx that you started out. All right?' His voice softened. ‘Let's get back and get our respective geeks on to the problem of finding out what being half-demon is going to mean for you.' A sly smile. ‘You might be able to do tricks.'

‘Bastard.'