Twenty-Two
When Saben Frost had first become a vampire she had ran from the antiseptic blood soaked maternity ward that had been her tomb to the bitter soot and grime anonymity of the streets. She had run far away from the maddening scent of her son and the living blood beating through his newly formed body. Though she could not escape the ancient blood beating through hers.
The first few weeks were a blur. She fed on anyone, anything, mostly vagrants that were unfortunate enough to stumble upon her sleeping place. She wandered aimlessly by night. Hungered for oblivion. For a cure…
Pretending to sleep beneath a soggy piece of card board, ink of the logo bleeding and unrecognizable, she used it to block the rays of burning light. Celsia Verain stared down at her, mouth curled in distaste. "Here you are."
Saben shook her head gravely to clear the phantom of those memories.
She leant in the dark awning of a derelict store, waiting as the heat evaporated to the midnight chill.
A hulk of black leather hunched over the handles of a motorbike pulled up to the curb and gloved fingers peeled the black helmet from the head. Buddy Shenker or Shen as he liked to be known raked gloved fingers through the stiff black spikes of his hair, crude features drawn in a stern expression and he hadn't changed very much since she had first seen him a shadow behind Celsia as she scooped the new born Saben from the street.
"I must say I was surprised when you called, little girl." The werewolf smiled, a gold tooth winking in the rise of lamplight. Darkness lived behind his eyes, a wild, violent entity lurking in the depths. "It's been a long time."
She knew how to play the vampire game, slow smiles, pin prick points of fangs, intent for violence never too far from the surface. "You're the best, you shouldn't be surprised."
He climbed off his bike and stood beside her, taking shelter in the slim shadow of the awning and lit a cig. "So what does Verain want this time?" He asked, reams of smoke escaping his nostrils like ghostly tusks.
"Not Celsia. Me."
"You?" He laughed catching sight of her from the corner of his eye. A meat appraising look, a look that had weight, like fingertips prodding at her concealed parts. "What could you possibly want found? You're not old enough to have lost something."
Saben's expression was grave for a brief moment and then she forced a smile, it stretched painfully across her mouth. "I lost a little something, a gift for my Maker's Maker."
He nodded, sucking another mouthful of smoke. "Ah, that old bastard. I heard he was in town."
She didn't like the tone with which he said it, grit her teeth and relaxed her face. "It was a special little something that would have pleased him and it was snatched from under my nose."
His lips pursed. "Careless of you, little girl."
"I'm learning."
"Of course I'll help you find it."
"You'll be paid well." She said as an afterthought.
"I never doubted it."
She looked around her, eyes careful to consider every shadow, the scent and sound of each passer by. Strands of dark hair fell into her eyes and she raised a hand to brush the strands away, Shen's eyes were on the bruises on her slender wrist, an eyebrow raised. It had taken hours to work the hinges of the cuffs.
"One of your strange little games again, is it?"
She shook her head vaguely. "I don't want Celsia finding out about this-"
"Rivalry, eh?"
She smiled showing the tips of fangs. "Something like that."
"It's been too goddamn long since two sweet meats have fought over me." He sighed and held out a spare helmet. "Get on, little girl, lets go somewhere we can discuss this matter, somewhere a little more comfortable."
*
Tobias sat with an ice pack held to the swollen lump forming on his forehead and a splitting ache sat deep in the soft tissues of his brain. Blaise sat beside him her manicured nails drumming on the table before them whilst she stared into nothing. "It had to have been her." She murmured.
"Maybe she was right." Tobias sighed. "She came here to warn us."
"No. She took him." Blaise hissed utterly convicted of Saben Frost's guilt. "If she wanted to warn us she should have come earlier. Scylla is dead because of her and Daniel…Daniel…"
"That would be so very easy, wouldn't it?" Tobias laughed throwing the ice pack across the room.
"Toby?"
"Blaise. It's not right."
"Toby-"
"You should know the truth."
Blaise stared at him. "What do you mean? What truth?"
He shook his head, unable to meet her eyes, his mouth trembling with guilty laughter. "The night, Daniel was born, Saben didn't just leave…"
He told Blaise everything, taking hold of her hand and touching the diamond ring that marked her as his wife the same ring he had chosen for Saben Mariley Frost's hand all those years ago. He explained in soft tones how he had convinced the vampire to Turn her, the days they had concealed her in the private hospital bed using magic tricks to keep the humans away.
Blaise withdrew her hand, the ring burning on her skin now. He told her how Saben had woken one night as a vampire, how had he had found Lord Cebren with his throat slashed and the bloodied banner declaring Lark's name.
Tears rolled down Blaise's cheeks though she remained silent and patiently listening. All these years she had believed Saben had abandoned the child for another lover and Tobias had valiantly brought him up in the face of such betrayal. All lies.
She remembered Saben Frost's icy sad stare after every slap, after every bitter word and left her lips. Blaise put her face in her hands and her shoulders trembled. Crying. Crying because she was a fool. Crying because a mother would never know her son.
"Blaise?"
"You haven't stopped lying, have you?" She said tremulously and pulled yanked the ring from her finger and flung it toward him.
"Blaise, wait."
She was already on her feet and spun round with a mild expression on her face. "I'm going to find my…my son." She tried to sound firm, her hold on Daniel becoming weak, but she had raised him from a baby and it was Blaise he called mother. "I'm going to get him back myself."
Tobias stared at her, his eyes rimmed red from renewed grief and frustration. "We have to find Saben."
"And what good would that do? I'm surprised she hasn't come here to punish you herself."
"If we find Saben we'll find Daniel." He said firmly.
She looked at him, the diamond ring clutched in one fist. Her resolution to lay the blame squarely on Saben's shoulders had disappeared and an awful kind of sympathy reared up instead. She couldn't bare to look at Tobias an instant longer and nodded her head.
"And Tobias, his name is Lark."
*
Saben's heart was racing as she looked up at the human body tied with piping cord to the crudely put together crucifix. Brilliant bright blood ran in tantalizing rivulets down the creamy pale skin. The body was punctured with the impression of vampire mouths and Saben's fangs were fully exposed and she was drawn to the sight, the scent, the taste…
"Just a taste, girl." Shen winked, gold tooth glinting.
She put her hand on the death cold pale shin and lifted blood on her fingertips. She licked it from her hands and the blood sung in her mouth, a pure symphony. This was what it was to be a vampire. The blood.
Shen grabbed her arm hard and yanked her away. "Just a taste, I said. We have business."
She was disorientated and then furious because he had pulled her away from the feast suspended before her so beautifully horrific. The human's broken mouth, blood bubbling on the ragged edges of its lips, the last rasping breaths before death…
She closed her eyes. "Yes." She said and forced herself to focus.
"You're still too young, eh girl?" Shen laughed and guided her into another room leaving the crucified sacrifice to rot alone.
He led her to a small locker room where he dropped his helmet and hung his jacket. Wearing a muscle shirt to show off his incredibly large muscles, he pulled up a small stool and sat at the fold out table and took out another cigarette.
She stood watching him, her chest rising and falling with breath she didn't have to take. Trembling with the strength of desire for more than just a small taste of blood.
"So tell me what is it you want me to find?"
"A child."
He grunted. "I'm not into child meat myself, not enough to chew on."
Good. She thought, she didn't want to expose Daniel to Shen's appetites anyway all she needed was a way into Mezereon's confidence, his dens, his soirees. "I know who took my prize."
"You do, eh?" He smiled staring at the firefly end of his cigarette.
"Mezereon."
Shen's thick eyebrows rose. "Now that's a big name. A big order I think."
She sat opposite him taking his cigarette from his fingers and sucking on the stick. She blew smoke in his face. "You too little to take it on, Shen?"
He smiled, a dangerous, dark lurking kind of smile that said he shredded flesh between his teeth. "I can do it, princess, I'm just wondering if you can." He motioned toward the room, the tormenting stench of human blood that so easily distracted and ensorcelled her. "It's a dangerous game you want to play."
"This is not a game." She said and stubbed the cig on the table. "This is life or death."
"For your Maker's Maker?"
She thought of Abberline…Cebren, his face highlighted in her mind, his eyes so intense and yet beneath the alien danger of what he was, beneath the exterior as hard as diamonds he was the other half of her soul. "Yes." She said with a slight hiss.
"I can do it for you, girl. It'll take a bit of time, I think. Like I said Mezereon is no small order, even if I get you to his domain you will still have to find the meat and then you'll have to take it. Mezereon will kill you if he even imagines you will betray him."
She nodded. "I understand."
He laughed. "Good. Then let us talk about the matter of payment."