Witchcraft (#2 Witchblood Series) (12 page)

‘
Okay, so I know I’ve never been
out on my own, blah blah blah, but you’ve got to let me do it one
day. You know I don’t bite people. You know no-one would recognise
me, and you know I’m in control of my magic now, so what’s the
problem?’ I said.

‘
There’s a fairly good chance Alex
would recognise you, and maybe some of your other friends too if
you started poking round all the places you used to hang out. You
know I can’t let you go.’

‘
Firstly Alex is gone, so she’s
not going to see me. Luke thought it might have something to do
with
us
… but what if it
something to do with another vampire? What if it’s the girl gang
that killed me? I need to find her,’ I said.

‘
He just wanted an excuse to come
and see you, Jess. She’ll be fine. The other vampires would know
not to go anywhere near Alex, because of the connection to you. Seb
would kill them.’

‘
Well there’s one vampire on the
loose that doesn’t worry about Sebastion. He drained Sophie, didn’t
he? What if he’s got Alex?’

‘
Look, you’re worrying about
nothing Jess. Whoever drained Sophie was probably just a rogue vamp
passing through. We’ll catch him, but he won’t have seen Alex.
She’s probably gone home. Maybe Luke just missed her. Maybe she’s
got a boyfriend Luke doesn’t know about,’ she added with a
grin.

‘
Eva, I’m going. If you want you
can come with me, but if you try to stop me I
will
use my magic. Please Eva, just let me do
this. I don’t want things to go bad between us. Just come with
me.’

With my mention of magic, Eva’s face
momentarily fell. She looked hurt, and I knew I was wrong, but I
needed to know that Alex was okay.

‘
Fine, I’ll come, but make sure
you’ve had breakfast before we go,’ she said, and saving face she
walked from the room.

Breakfast, now there was a thought!
Obviously Eva was referring to the bottles of blood packs neatly
lined up in the secret refrigerator in the utility room, but
instead I headed over to the ‘show’ fridge. Daniel kept a ‘human’
fridge just for show, in case of any sudden visits by our student
neighbours, or any unwanted visitors. I opened the door and peered
in. There wasn’t much to see, in fact it seemed pretty typical for
a student fridge – beer bottles, coke cans, a pint of milk, two
days old and some cheese. I was about to close the door again when
my eyes caught sight of something vacuum-packed on the top shelf. I
reached up and lifted it out - a sirloin steak. Steak for
breakfast?

I smiled as I imagined just how freaked
out Eva would be when she smelt frying steak wafting through to the
lounge. I quickly unwrapped it and hunted through the drawers for a
frying pan. Bingo! I didn’t expect to find any olive oil, or oil of
any kind, so I just turned up the gas and slapped the steak in the
pan. Suddenly, as it began to sizzle the rich earthy scent hit my
nostrils, and my mouth filled with saliva. A few seconds later, I
watched as the red juices began to ooze out of the meat and
smiling, I ran my tongue gently over my fully-formed fangs. I
decided I was going to try my steak rare and bloody!

‘
Oh my God! What has got into you
today?’ Eva said, as she stormed into the kitchen seconds later, to
see me lifting the barely browned steak, still dripping blood, out
of the pan and slopping it onto a plate.

‘
I’m having breakfast, like you
suggested,’ I said, grinning.

‘
And this I’ve got to watch,’ she
said, pulling up a seat opposite.

‘
You’re not going to rant?’ I
asked.

‘
Nope. Jess, you’re a vampire. If
you want to make yourself sick by eating cow, then that’s for you
to learn.’

‘
Fine. This looks good actually,’
I said, and grabbing my knife and fork I started to eat.

The meat really was rare, I could taste
the blood running over my tongue as I chewed, but irritatingly I
found the act of chewing difficult with my fangs fully extended. A
vampire was meant to bite once, and then drink. With each act of
chewing, my fangs rubbed uncomfortably against my gums, scratched
my lips and caught on the meat. Maybe a bloody steak wasn’t the
best idea, but it satisfied both my personas, and though awkward to
eat, I enjoyed the taste more than the previous day’s bottled
blood. It satisfied me, being able to feel real food in my mouth,
which I could swallow. It made me feel normal.

As I finished the last mouthful Eva sat
back, one eyebrow raised.

‘
I didn’t think you’d manage it. I
mean we can eat human food if pushed. It won’t harm us on occasion,
if forced, to have a mouthful or two, but it tastes awful. It feels
like swallowing lumps of coal, our stomachs feel leaden, full of
hard pebbles that won’t digest. For you to eat all that… Jess?...
Jessie, are you okay?’ Eva asked, as I suddenly let out a
groan.

‘
Ughhhh, I think I’m going to be
sick!’ I said, running with all the vampire speed I could muster up
the stairs and into the sanctuary of the bathroom.

Five minutes later, Eva knocked lightly
on the bathroom door.

‘
Jess, are you alright? Can I come
in?’

‘
Sure,’ I groaned. I’d emptied the
contents of my stomach, flushed and cleaned up. I was now sitting
on the floor, my head resting on the cool tiles, feeling more than
a little stupid.

‘
Hey, try this. It will help,’ Eva
said, handing me a mug of warmed blood.

‘
Thanks.’ I took the mug,
breathing in its soft chocolaty aroma, grateful not to be laughed
at.

As I sipped at the liquid I felt my
stomach settle, and I looked up again, my lips curving into a small
smile.

‘
I guess I’m still not able to eat
human food then,’ I said.

‘
I don’t know. I mean it was
something that you actually cooked and then you ate the whole
thing. Most vampires wouldn’t manage that,’ she said with a
shrug.

‘
I think it was just the smell of
blood that enabled me to eat it all. It was really difficult
actually, I kept biting myself with my fangs,’ I said with a
laugh.

‘
Crazy girl! I thought the last
few months were interesting, but I have a feeling things are only
just getting going,’ she said, as we both looked at each other and
laughed. The ridiculous situation hit me and still giggling, she
grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet.

‘
So where were you planning on
going then?’ Eva asked when we were back downstairs.

‘
First I thought I’d go back to
our old flat, see if I can get in, if it’s still empty and have a
look around. Maybe she went back there, or left something
there?’

‘
I don’t know. If it’s empty I
guess we could have a quick look, but quick, okay? I don’t want us
to get caught,’ Eva said. ‘And if there’s nothing there, or new
tenants? What then?’

‘
Hmm, not sure. Maybe just check
out a few old haunts - a coffee shop, the students’ union
maybe?’

‘
The coffee shop yes, but we can’t
go in the union without passes and we can’t use your old one - too
much of a risk.’

‘
Right, let’s start with the
flat,’ I agreed.

Due to Alex only officially moving out
of our flat a couple of weeks earlier, and it being mid-term, it
was still unoccupied. I had found the original key from my old
key-ring, which Eva had kept after my transformation, and now I
found myself slowly pushing it into the shiny lock and turning it,
giving it a little jiggle as I had done so many times, to get it to
open.

I half-expected to see it fully
furnished, our colourful Ikea rug covering up the disgusting old
carpet that had served a decade of freshman occupants. The old sofa
would still be covered with Ikea throws and blankets, while a
couple of little square coffee tables would be covered in coffee
mugs and beer bottles the lads brought round and never cleared
away.

Alex should be curled up on the sofa
with her latest murder mystery novel in her hands…but she wasn’t.
The flat was empty, gutted. The rug was gone, as was all our
furniture, and our overstuffed bookshelves were bare. The old
stains on the sofa and carpet stood out like blood spills at a
murder investigation.

‘
I don’t think we’ll find anything
here, Jess,’ Eva said, startling me out of my daydreams.

‘
I know, I just want to check…’ I
said, as I walked through the tiny lounge area towards the two
bedrooms.

I went into hers first, to see if she’d
left anything, even though I had no idea what I was looking for.
Where would she have gone? As Eva said, home was the likely option.
Maybe Luke had just missed her, or maybe she’d been staying with a
different relative. But why had she gone to the trouble of moving
flats and staying in Manchester, if she couldn’t hack it after only
a week of lectures? Alex was tough, she watched forensics
programmes non-stop on television, and was studying forensic
psychology at university. If Alex had decided she was up to
returning to Manchester, she wouldn’t have left after just one
week.

Her bedroom was empty, with just a bed
in the middle, stripped down to the old, battered mattress. Alex
had left nothing behind and had never returned. After a brief check
under the bed, I walked across the tiny hallway and opened the door
to my old room. Like Alex’s it had been stripped of all my
possessions, the wardrobe door hanging open on one side, revealing
its empty interior. The small desk had been cleared of my towering
pile of books and coffee cups, the bin emptied of my
record-breaking amount of Crunchie wrappers. But as I walked
through the door I didn’t see any of this, because my eyes were
instantly drawn to the bed, which like Alex’s had been stripped
down to the bare mattress, only where the pillow should have been
was a small bunch of hand-tied daffodils. They were dead now, but
only just. Their petals dry and colourless like an old woman’s
cheek, their green stalks browning and sticky.

Whilst white winter pansies may have
been my favourite flower to get me through the dark, cold months of
autumn and winter, daffodils were a sign of spring, a signal of
sunshine, warmth and new-life. I always bought them by the dozen,
filling pint glasses with them and lining them up along the
window-ledges.

‘
Someone’s been here,’ Eva said,
looking over my shoulder.

I nodded and walked over the bed, but
there was nothing else, no note.

‘
These can only be a few weeks
old, I think,’ I said.

‘
Yes, but I don’t think Alex put
them there, do you?’ Eva said.

‘
Well, who? Oh! I didn’t think. Do
you think Luke brought them? But why? I mean... he hates me
now.’

‘
No he doesn’t. Don’t be stupid.
He hates
us
, he hates what you
are, but he doesn’t hate you. Who planted the pansies at your
grave, Jess?’

‘
Oh! It never occurred to me.
After I saw him at the cricket club, he was so awful…I forgot all
about the pansies.’

‘
Well, anyway, that would be my
guess. I think angel-boy is having a hard time letting go of the
old you, but doesn’t like the new you, which works in Daniel’s
favour,’ she said, one corner of her mouth turning up in an ironic
twist.

‘
It doesn’t matter in whose favour
it works out, it’s
my
choice
and I
do
choose Daniel. Not
that I’ve had much of a chance to tell him, since he went all weird
about our bond. Too much has passed between Luke and I, and he lied
to me for so long. He could have told me about my past, my DNA, but
instead he waited till it was too late. And that’s not even
counting how much of a jerk he’s been recently,’ I said.

‘
Good. Let’s get out of here.
There’s nothing to see.’

We headed to the coffee shop just down
the street from the student accommodation, and ten minutes later we
were sitting in the corner by the window, our mugs of tea steaming
in front of us.

‘
Remember, this was your idea
Jess, so drink up,’ Eva said with a wicked grin.

‘
Very funny! I didn’t want to have
a drink, but I don’t think the owner would be too impressed if we
just came in, sat down and didn’t order anything.’

‘
True, but we could have just gone
home and drunk something more nutritious,’ she said.

‘
But, it’s nice to feel normal, do
normal things. I used to have a coffee here with Alex every Monday
morning before our ten o’clock lecture, and a full breakfast every
Sunday.’

‘
Yes, but she’s not going to
magically appear Jess, and if she did you wouldn’t be able to speak
to her,’ Eva said quietly.

I sighed. I
was
going to find Alex and when I did, I was
going to find a way around the whole non-disclosure policy
Sebastian had warned me about.

‘
Great! Looks like we’ve got
company,’ Eva said, frowning.

Looking up towards the door I saw Luke,
dressed in his usual human jeans and rugby shirt combo, wings
hidden, student stubble making him look irritatingly attractive in
a relaxed, unkempt way. His face was barely concealing the anger as
he wrenched open the door and barged through the nearby tables to
get to ours.