Twenty
"I thought you'd never come." Celsia cool voice was at her shoulder.
Saben had her face turned to the mic, resolved not to turn and betray any emotion to the vampire. She could still feel the phantom of Tobias mouth, the taste of his heartbeat through his swollen tongue, it made her feel dizzy.
"How did it go?"
"My…he's safe-"
"And we will not be returning to see him again I trust."
Saben's mouth opened and closed unable to make that promise.
"That life is lost to you now, Saben, you are vampire now."
"Don't you think I know that?" She asked softly.
She glanced behind her shoulder to see Celsia's blond brow arched.
The guitar player and drummer appeared, acknowledging the ladies with nods of their head. Celsia had found them from obscurity. Timeus had played strings since his Turning, Celsia liked to boast he played in the Orphic temples of Lesbos, progeny of the fallen god himself but Saben had her doubts.
She found it hard to believe that people simply sprouted from the sands or from a severed head but then she had not always believed vampires a reality.
Victor was young but even to Saben eighty years was sixty years too old for how he looked. Victor was silent, they had barely exchanged words but he played his kit with a speed and accuracy that frightened her.
The band had an awful kind of efficiency to it that never quite seemed to fit with Saben's erratic and organic song writing.
"We will talk later." Celsia said with a cold smile.
Saben's jaw clenched at the idea.
The club, Ad Mortem was packed to the rafters that night.
Saben stood with the lights focused on her, painful to her sensitive eyes and the crowd would see those lights thrown back at them from the pools of her eyes like an animal's.
She put the mic to her lips, she didn't need it but it felt good to be there again. To work out the aggression through throat shredding screams, reaching the heavens with her fury. She lead the band with screams more profound than when she had been human.
Eyes glowed in the dark and she knew each and every face that stared back, People and their human guests tearing at each other in a crowd that had become a vile bucket of writhing flesh. She commanded them truly with a magic of her own: violence, lust, silence.
Celsia cast a particular look her way. Worried. Worried she'd lose it. Saben gave one hundred and ten percent. She was draining her body of all that it had as if she were that human girl again.
There was no softness left in her voice nor her heart. Her illusions had been cruelly shattered. She shouldn't have gone back but she had to see it for herself. Tobias. Lark…Daniel. Pain, fury, relief flowed from her, through her voice and into the crowd…
After the set .Saben sat alone on the roof of the building staring into nothingness and waiting for the sun to come up.
She wanted to escape Celsia, avoid the immanent talk. The talk of leaving her past behind. She closed her eyes for an instant and horrific images tinged in blood scarred the back of her eyelids.
"It's been a while."
She opened her eyes, squinting to see who had spoken, she raised a hand to shield her eyes to find Abberline silhouetted against the new day. Her heart seemed to spasm to life for a moment, the cord that bound them wound tight about her throat. He was beautiful. She was weak. Her false breath released in a sigh. "Far too long."
She should have known he'd come, she should have read it from Celsia's tone. Her insistence that she be in Ad Mortem that night. The worried looks cast in her direction. Saben clenched her fists and turned her face away from Abberline's sight.
"How's your throat?" He asked.
"Not as raw as yours." She mumbled.
He smiled touching the old wound.
"Why are you here?"
"I was…concerned."
She snorted indelicately but her throat closed, thick with the threat of tears of anger. She had not seen him in years, instead he had sent Celsia to find her as the madness consumed her over the first few weeks.
She could remember with startling clarity the first victim she had taken, indelicately feasting on his skin, bathing in his blood, collapsed on the corpse unable to move, clinging to him like a junkie.
Saben rushed at Abberline with vampiric speed and slapped him hard across the cheek. He remained as cold as stone, a dark eyebrow raising in enquiry.
"Come down off the roof, the sun is too bright." He said as if she hadn't hit him at all, as if his skin wasn't zinging from the strange connection they shared.
He walked away and did not glance behind him to ensure she was following. She had no choice but to follow him. He lead her to a room sumptuously decorated. An office converted to a suite. Celsia was sprawled across a chaise longue. She was once again impeccably dressed in an expensive black suit looking untouched by the sweaty minions and stage lights of the show that had ended only a few hours ago.
Abberline stood by the window, staring out at the street.
Saben looked from one vampire to the other, eyes settling on Celsia. "An ambush?"
Celsia smiled.
"I was concerned." Abberline said with his back to her.
"You said that before."
"It's no less true." Celsia added.
"I don't need your commentary." Saben snapped.
Celsia smile froze on her lips and she turned her face away to hide her fury and offer the other two some kind of privacy.
"You can keep your concern. Why are you here?" Saben folded arms across her chest.
"The same reason you are." Abberline replied.
"I doubt that, daddy." She hissed, at first angry and then afraid, was he here for Lark?
Abberline didn't flinch he slowly turned to face her and his expression was unreadable. His electric blue eyes were startlingly bright and she felt dizzy in the vortex of his stare.
Celsia was angry, gently simmering between the two.
"Celsia, leave us." Abberline commanded without sparing a look.
She looked startled, her anger deepening but she obeyed.
Saben watched her leave. Celsia was a snake, dangerous, she liked to inflict pain and she had no doubt Saben would have a price to pay for this night. A breeze ran through the room that made Saben shiver.
"How have you been?" He asked, an empty hollow question from his lips.
"She reports my every move to you." There was nothing more he needed to known from her. He knew her every fibre from their link. Between the two he knew all, well almost. She sunk down onto the chaise, the fabric warm from when Celsia had been sitting.
He was suddenly in front of her, his hand wrapped around her wrist, squeezing too tight. She resisted seeing into him, tripping down the path of their chord that was tugging her near irresistibly to look. Pulled her hand away though his grip burnt her skin.
"It was a fling." She hissed between her teeth. "We slept together a few times, it doesn't make us married, it doesn't mean I belong to you." But she remembered his hot mouth, Say it.
The stubborn residue of her human self, fouled her speech and made her mouth ugly with hate. Typical of a human of this age, Abberline thought. To brush of the deep soul magic as if It were a tawdry fling and he wanted to throttle her, to force her to soften but he didn't move.
"You went to the Day?" He asked instead.
"I did."
He didn't seem happy, a crease formed at the corner of his mouth but his eyes were cold. No, he was not happy, not happy Celsia had allowed it. "You told them about Mezereon?"
She froze. Yes, she had told them everything she knew about Mezereon but had never reflected on the betrayal. She was of the Night, her loyalty to the people of the Night and she had told secrets to the Day. Of course there would be a penalty. She lifted her large eyes to him.
She licked her lips. "Maybe."
"You understand that was a mistake?"
"So what?" She whispered.
"Saben." His voice, her name. "You sold our secrets to the Day, do I need to ask why?"
She shook her head. She hadn't sold a thing, she had volunteered the information.
"Look at me."
She did. His instruction irresistible.
"Is he in any danger?" She asked.
"Yes." No lies. No point. Her eyes closed. "Celsia tells me that you've sworn it means nothing to you."
"Celsia hears what she wants to hear."
"You will leave this place and never come back, do you understand?"
Her temper flared, eyes glowing fiercely. "That's not fair."
"It's not supposed to be fair, sweet heart."
"And if I do come back?"
His eyes were electric. She could read the answer in his eyes: punishment, pain. She tore her eyes away, what use would punishing her be? She was numb. Her eyes said so. They had only been quickened momentarily in four years and it was by the sight of her son. She turned her face away completely and could still offer no promises.
"You do not want to fuck with Mezereon, or test the boundaries of the Night." Abberline said gently.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because."
She put her head in her hands. She could leave it and let her son be the victim of Mezereon, child snatcher. She could go guns blazing and reveal her son's true identity which would only damage his reputation and send it on a downward spiral. She could try and save her son to be punished by the Night, executed and maybe her son with her. There seemed no way out.
"Abberline, wait."
He stood at the threshold, glancing behind his shoulder.
She was going to say something, a secret perhaps but decided against it. "Why did you lie to the Elders?" He went absolutely still. "Why did you tell them Celsia Turned me?"
"Isn't that obvious, Saben?" He replied and suddenly altogether disappeared from sight.
*
"So?" Celsia asked.
She leant beneath the awning of Ad Mortem as Abberline stepped outside, he pulled up his collar and pulled out a cigarette.
"Filthy habit that." She said.
He shrugged. "It comforts me from time to time."
"I know." She smiled and snatched the cig from his lips and sucked on it. "Filthy fucking thing."
"You'll keep an eye on her." He said.
"I always do." She said from between her teeth and chucked the cigarette to the floor and ground the butt out beneath her heel.
"Did you see the boy?" Abberline asked softly without sparing a glance in her direction.
Celsia shook her head, no.
"She'll try to run." He said.
"I know."
"Keep an eye on her."
"I always do." She repeated and watched him walk away.$