Chains of Blood Page 2

  It’s one of the things I like about Mum – she takes shopping seriously and she has great taste in clothes. We staggered out of the mall two hours later with two pairs of trousers, three tops and a pair of new boots each. Mum also had a pair of pink open-toed, high heeled shoes and a huge floppy hat and I had new trainers and a wide silver bracelet. Power shopping, Mum called it. We both felt much better and ready to tackle Mona Vale and the Adventures of Robin Hood.

  As we pulled into our driveway, Grant straightened up from the garden he had been weeding and by the time we had unloaded our parcels he had the electric jug boiling and the coffee mugs set out on the kitchen bench. I was about to take my coffee down to my room when the phone rang. Grant answered then handed it to me.

  “It’s Australia. Your dad.”

  I grimaced, but took the phone as there was no way I could get out of it.

  “Hi, Dad. How’s it going?”

  As I spoke to him I watched the expressions on Mum and Grant’s faces. They could only hear my side of the conversation and, although I was tempted to turn it to speaker phone, I knew Dad would hear the change and it wasn’t worth the hassle. I knew that Mum could figure out what he was asking from my replies.

  “No, Dad, I am not coming over to Australia next week.... I told you I am running the sound desk in a show.... no, I can’t leave it to someone else.... I don’t want to even if I could.... I know you have a new baby.... yes, I realise that she is my sister (Mum smiled at the face I made).... you called her what? Is that a real name? .... I said no, Dad.... not these holidays.... not a chance.... oh, for heaven’s sake, Dad, it is not a plot by Mum to stop you seeing me.... I am busy.... okay, okay, I will try to come at Easter – how does that sound? .... yes, I realise the baby will be bigger then.... so what?.... I would rather wait till it’s bigger... sorry, till SHE is bigger.... I don’t like little babies, I’d probably drop her.... sorry, Dad, but that’s my final offer – Easter or not till way later in the year.... oh, don’t give me that ‘don’t see you very often’ rubbish – you’re the one who chose to stay in Australia. If you want to see me more often you could move here, or at least pay the airfares.... yeah, yeah, whatever.... bye, Dad.”

  I hung up and banged the phone down on the bench.

  “Arrgghh!! As you probably gathered, he expects me to drop everything and rush over there just so he can show off his new toy.”

  “She is your half sister,” Mum said calmly. “Don’t you want to meet her?”

  “Not particularly. I am not a huge fan of babies. I might like her when she can walk and talk, but right now – no, don’t care. Mind you, I feel a bit sorry for her – poor little thing is going to look like either him or her, or a cross between them. And I don’t feel like rushing across the ditch just to goo over something that probably looks like a monkey.”

  Still angry, I stamped around the kitchen, muttering swear words and making myself a second coffee which I managed to spill over my hand. That was the final straw! I screamed, swore, threw the coffee mug into the sink, where it promptly broke, and then remembered enough about burns to realise I was supposed to have my hand in cold water. Ten minutes of cold water on my hand and Mum fussing in my ear was enough to calm me down.

  “What are you really angry about?” Mum asked as she picked the broken mug out of the sink. “Or can I guess? Is it because your dad doesn’t see you very often and you miss him, or because he has a new girlfriend and now a new baby and you feel left out?”

  “Left behind, more like,” I admitted. “It’s like you and I were a nuisance and he was glad we left, but now he has a new family and they are exciting and he likes being with them. I hate him!”

  “But he obviously wants to include you,” Mum reasoned. “He keeps on begging you to go over there.”

  “Yeah, right! I’m not sure if that is so he can gloat or so I can be a handy babysitter so they can go to the pub. I am not going!”

  “Fair enough – it’s your choice. You can always wait till the baby is older and has her own computer and you can talk to her on webcam.”

  I laughed, apologised for breaking the cup, threw the broken pieces into the rubbish bin, made a third coffee in a new mug and took myself off to my bedroom to think. With the stereo playing loud “thinking music”, I fired up my computer where, hopefully, there would be an email from Severn to cheer me up. There wasn’t. But there was a lengthy email from the Reverend with his troubleshooting tips for the speakers, so I printed it off and prayed that I wouldn’t need it because everything would go right tonight.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As if! But it wasn’t just my department – everyone seemed to be having a bad day. As we pulled into the carpark we could see Danny kicking the door of the large container that held all the technical equipment. I opened my door and heard him swearing. Grant raised his eyebrows.

  “I wonder what’s eating him?” he asked. Pulling on his happy face, Grant stepped out of the car and walked confidently towards the container. “What’s up, Danny? Got a problem?”

  Too angry to speak, Danny pointed. We got the message. Someone had backed their car into the side of the container, bending the door just enough to jam the mechanism. Danny aimed another futile kick. Grant hunted in the car boot till he found a tyre lever which he took to Danny and between the two of them, with a lot of grunting and groaning, they managed to bend the door back into shape. A bit more heaving and shoving and it finally opened. That disaster over, Mum and Grant helped us unpack the gear out of the container onto the two big trolleys we were using to push the gear across the lawns to the stage.

  Danny’s two followspot operators arrived as we were loading the trolleys so with their help the next hour disappeared in a blur of cable-laying – around trees, up trees, through trees, under the stage and up the scaffolding tower. By the time everything was plugged in and actually appeared to be working, I was hot, sweaty and dirty. Did I say that this was NOT FUN! Still I was reassured by the fact that noise was coming from all the speakers and all the microphones tested okay. I should have known it wouldn’t last.

  The musicians arrived. The theatre company has some wannabe-famous band from the posh high school on the hill and every day we went through the same ritual. They would set up their gear then complain because the mix wasn’t right. It had only taken me two days to figure out that this really meant that each of them wanted to play louder than the guy beside him, so I quickly got very good at nodding and waving from the sound desk and pretending to turn dials. End result – they were happy and the sound levels were exactly where they had been before we started the daily nonsense. Hmm, maybe I really was getting good at the job. As they declared themselves happy I picked up a radio mic, flicked on its channel, panned the channel to put my voice through the musician’s foldback speakers and threatened the guitarist with very specific examples of extreme bodily harm if he touched a single one of my cables tonight. It might not have achieved anything but it felt good.

  But if my day was starting okay, Danny’s wasn’t. Two of his lights had blown bulbs so his crew were climbing up and down the scaffolding like monkeys while Danny was muttering about budgets and complaining about getting replacement bulbs. I got out of their way by heading backstage to deliver the radio mics to the actors in their makeshift tent dressing rooms.

  In the ladies’ tent Heidi McCormack was delivering a grand speech that no-one was listening to. I caught something about “professionalism” and “setting the correct tone for family viewing”. Her accent fascinated me. I’ve got used to the difference between New Zealand speech and my own Australian vowels, and I can tell the difference between the actors’ every-day accents and their rounder on-stage voices, but hers was something else again. She managed to sound as if she was rolling plum stones around in her mouth and imitating the Queen of England at the same time. As she continued to rant, I began to feel sorry for the rest of the Mad Hatters Theatre Company. If they had to put up with her all the time, why did they stay? I filed it away in my brain to ask Mum about later – maybe she could poach a few for our company when the show finished. I looked around and spotted a couple of the ladies from our company who were, like Mum, helping out in this show. They did not look too impressed with Heidi’s behaviour. Like most of the other women they were changing into their costumes, doing their make-up and making faces to each other behind Heidi’s back. Mum was putting on false eyelashes and trying not to laugh. As Heidi finally ran out of breath and turned her attention to applying a hideous shade of red lipstick, I got on with my job. When the lead characters all had the transmitters for their tiny wireless microphones safely tucked into the cloth packs they wore under their costumes, the wires run up their backs and into their hair and the tiny lavelier microphones taped to the edges of their cheeks, I headed over to the men’s tent to repeat the exercise over there.

  Because of the way the little stream meandered through the site, to get to the men’s tent I had to cross over a temporary and rather dodgy bridge made of a couple of wooden planks. I stopped and looked down the stream before I dared to cross the wobbly contraption. At the back of the stage I could see the stage manager and her crew checking the pieces of set and off to one side the wardrobe lady was hanging costumes on a rack for those actors who had quick changes and wouldn’t have time to go back to their tents. Looking the other direction I could see one of the lighting crew checking a light on the small second stage while a couple of guys dressed as Robin Hood’s Merry Men looked on. Tommy the Wonder-Brat was with them. He was supposed to be waiting in the tent for me to come and put his mic on him. I so hate that kid.

  Feeling a bad temper coming on, I stormed over the bridge to the men’s tent where, at least, everyone else was where they were supposed to be. Grant raised his eyebrows at my grumpy mood but didn’t say anything. Just as well as I might not have been polite back. Even the usually pleasurable task of taping a mic to the impressively built body of the leading man failed to cheer me up, and the men picked up on it enough so that they didn’t make any of their usual rude comments as I threaded the wire down the back of his trousers. “You don’t look happy,” was the leading man’s only comment.

  “Good spotting! Now all I have to do is find that little monster and tape this mic so far up him he will have to be a contortionist to get to the mute button.”

  “Not too far up, if you don’t mind,” Rob, the leading man, laughed. “I have to take it off him and hand it on to Alice for Act 2 and I don’t fancy fishing it out of where I think you are suggesting putting it.”

  “Well, if it got stuck there, then maybe his father would get enough extra crew on board so we could have a specialist fisher-outer back here and you wouldn’t have to get your hands dirty,” I sneered.

  “15 Minutes!” came over the speakers. Damn, I’m running out of time. And I still have to find that snotty kid!

  Snotty kid was still down at the second stage, leaning on a tree talking to the woman in the flouncy, multi-coloured skirt. She had her hand on his shoulder and was smiling at him like he was the star of the show. Which he thought he was. She glared at me when I butted in.

  “Hey you!” I couldn’t be bothered being polite. If he wants to complain to his daddy, great – bring it on! “You were supposed to be at the tent to get your mic on. It’s not my job to have to find you. Take your shirt off, turn around and shut up!”

  Not giving him any time to complain, I grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him round and set about attaching his mic pack in the very centre of his back where I hoped he wouldn’t be able to reach it.

  “It’s not comfortable there,” he whined.

  “Tough!” I retorted.

  “I’ll move it for you,” weird-dress woman offered.

  “No, you will not!” I hissed at her in as low and menacing a tone as I could manage. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know if you are wardrobe or make-up or one of the gardeners but I sure as hell know you are not on sound, so you will not touch any of my equipment. Do you understand?”

  She was about to reply when the 10-minute call came over the speakers.

  I raised my finger to them both. “Touch that mic and you die!”

  Still fuming, I ran back to the tower and climbed the scaffold to take my place behind the sound desk.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Once the rehearsal got started, I began to calm down. I seemed to be the only one not having major problems. Danny was still muttering away beside me, swearing repeatedly into the comms to his operators who I could hear swearing back. On stage it wasn’t going any better. The director yelled at actors for forgetting their lines, the musical director yelled at the musicians for playing too fast, the stage manager yelled at the crew for stuffing up scene changes. Finally we staggered to the end of Act One and the director called for a break. It was now nine o’clock. Act One should only take 50 minutes but with all the stuff-ups and repeats it had taken double that. It was now dark and getting cold and we still had Act Two to go. It was going to be a long night.

  I was just about to take off my headphones and leave the sound desk for a break when I heard the stage manager’s voice asking if Danny and I were still listening.

  “Yep,” we both replied at once.

  “What’s up?” asked Danny suspiciously.

  “The director wants four more microphones across the front of the main stage, two more speakers and an extra lighting tower in the far right corner,” the stage manager ordered.

  “You are kidding!” Danny was not impressed. “What the hell for?”

  “He wants more light on the fight scene and the chorus without radio mics aren’t being picked up and can’t be heard unless they are standing beside someone with a mic on,” the stage manager replied.

  “Well tell him he sure as hell isn’t getting it tonight,” Danny growled. “I can’t pull a lighting tower out of my backside.” He snapped off his comms, ran his hands through his grey hair, looked at me and shook his head. I must have looked like a stunned goldfish.

  “I don’t even know where to get more microphones. And I haven’t got any lines left on the desk to plug them into,” I felt crushed. “Or speakers. Their sound guy got this gear – he brought it in before he left. What am I going to do? I can’t do this.” I burst into tears.

  “Oh crap,” said Danny. “I’m going to talk to the president.” He took off down the tower.

  I fished a hanky out of my pocket, dried my eyes and blew my nose. Crying was not going to help. But I still had no idea what to do. Maybe Mum and Grant could help. The sound operator from our own theatre company was out of town touring with a fashion show but if Grant could get hold of him, he could at least tell me what to do.

  Then my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I hauled it out and stared at it blankly. A message from a withheld number. Curious, I opened it.

  “angels r us look up look left”

  I looked up, peered through the darkness of the encroaching night. Looked left – towards the carpark. And they were there. Three figures emerged out of the gloom, striding side by side like the baddies in a b-grade western or the chorus-line for a musical version of the Matrix, long black coats flowing behind them. Before I could get out of my chair the one in the middle had broken into a run. I have never climbed down the scaffold as quickly, but I was still not at ground level when he reached me, picked me off the scaffold and pulled me into his arms.

  When I came up for breath I could see Mum and Grant standing up from where they had been sitting on the grass and walking towards David and Aiden, hands outstretched in welcome.

  “What? How? When?” I stuttered, wrapping my arms around Severn’s waist under his coat as we walked to join the others.

  “Sounded like you needed help,” Severn smiled, his arm around my shoulders.

  “And we needed sun,” Aiden added.

  I gave him a quizzical look. “You? Needed sun? Umm...?” The “have you forgotten you’re a vampire?” question left unasked.

  “Oh no, not in the want-to-hang-out-in-the-daylight way. We were just sick of snow. It is so cold in the mountains.”

  “And we were bored,” the Reverend added. “Sounds like we got here just at the right time. We were in the carpark. We heard the director’s little request.”

  Of course they did. A normal person sitting beside me wouldn’t have heard it unless they were wearing headphones but of course the vampires heard it. I wonder how long it takes for things like that to change – my hearing hadn’t changed at all yet and it had been three months since I had drunk Severn’s blood and started the change-over. I must ask them how long it takes and what the symptoms are.

  “How did you get here so quickly? I only emailed you yesterday?”

  “We flew,” Severn replied with one of his pedantically correct and obvious answers, complete with raised eyebrow over his fine, tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses.

  I gave him a similar look back. “Flew? Um, flew... as in...?”

  “As in the Lear Jet,” Severn laughed. “You weren’t thinking...?” and he flexed his shoulders so I could feel his wings move under his t-shirt. “We are not that fast – or that fit.”

  “Weren’t you worried about coming back so soon after ... what if they stopped you at the airport? Don’t the police still want to talk to you about the body at New Brighton?”

  Severn smiled and pulled a passport out of his coat pocket. I looked at the name – Benedict Bailey. The passport was French.

  “Benedict Bailey?” I whispered. “Is your passport guy an alcoholic or something? You left here as Father John Benedictine on a Vatican passport, now you’re named after two types of drink, not just one.” I shook my head in disbelief. Severn laughed.