Out for Blood Read online

  “It’s the other guy, isn’t it?” Anita jumped in before I had a chance to speak. “The one with the car. You’re a friggin’ idiot!” I drew breath to answer but Anita continued. “Seriously? What is wrong with you? You score an amazing boyfriend who A”, she raised her right index finger to her outstretched left hand so she could tick off her points one at a time, “spends his life in theatres, exactly the same as you. B,” she ticked another finger, “hangs around with a group who can teach you all the backstage stuff you want to learn to do. C,” a third finger, “obviously, from what you’ve said, isn’t too shabby looking and D,” the fourth finger, “flew half way around the world in his own private plane to help you when you were stuck. His own private plane! So, as well as caring about you, he’s obviously got money to burn.”

  “It’s not his plane,” I objected. “It belongs to the company.”

  “Don’t split hairs! Could I click my fingers and summon up a plane? My point is, how can you possibly be looking sideways at some boy from the east side with a noisy car? Or am I missing something? Is Severn not the nice guy you thought he was? He’s not violent or anything, is he?”

  “No, no.” I waved a hand to fend off the idea. “Not at all.”

  “But it’s not all rosy?”

  “Not quite,” I admitted. “We had an argument the other day. Or rather, I got angry with him but it wasn’t his fault. It was me getting things wrong. And today wasn’t so great, but again, that wasn’t really his fault. Some stuff came up and we’re just seeing opposite sides of it.” Yeah, the human side and the vampire side.

  “And now you’re not talking to him, which is why you’re here, talking to me.”

  “No. Wrong again. I’m here talking to you because he’s asleep. It was stinking hot at the matinee today and Sev got heat stroke. I left him sleeping it off. He was pretty sick.”

  “Oh, that sucks. I hope he’s better by Wednesday. I’ll finally get to meet your mystery man.”

  “Are you coming to the show?”

  “Yes. Caleb and his parents are going so I’m tagging along. Apparently Caleb’s dad taught the actors how to fight with staves for the scene on the bridge.”

  “Small world, eh? We’ll be there an hour or so before you guys, so come and find me. I’ll be somewhere around the big scaffolding tower.”

  “Which one’s Severn? Will I know him when I see him.”

  “He’ll be the one looking serious.” I was about to add more when my phone pinged a message. I pulled it out of my pocket to check the screen. Severn.

  R u ok? can we meet?

  with anita. meet you at edmonds gardens in 30 min

  sweet, c u soon

  “Severn?” Anta asked.

  “Yep, gotta go.”

  “See you Wednesday.”

  Severn arrived like a true vampire and scared the hell out of me.

  There was no sign of him when I pedalled up, so I locked my bike to a metal pole in the car park and walked through the gate into the small Bluebird garden at the back end of the Edmonds Gardens complex. The evening was darkening. Away from the streetlights and under the shelter of the towering trees, it was hard to see the path so I had my head down, looking at the ground in front of me, when I was grabbed.

  An arm swept around my waist, pulling me backwards, a hand pushed against my ear, tilting my head to the side, the sharp edge of a tooth ran along my exposed neck. I screamed. He held me tighter, muttered something unintelligible but low and soothing and licked my neck. His breathing was ragged. So was mine. My heartbeat sped up and I know he felt it, heard it pulsing faster, as his breath quickened, rippling across my skin in waves. I leant back into his embrace, closed my eyes and tilted my head further to the side.

  “Bite me.”

  Severn’s hand smoothed my hair, holding it out of the way as his lips tasted my skin. His breath shuddered. I held mine. There was pressure, a sharp sting then absolute bliss. Like an earthquake, the reality was probably only a few seconds but it felt like forever. I was enthralled, jubilant, yet disappointed when it ended and Severn pulled away with a last lick to wipe away the drop of blood that trickled down my neck. I turned to face him, my body raging with desire. When I lifted my arms and pulled his head down to kiss him, I could taste my blood on his lips.

  There was no need for words, we both knew what we wanted. Severn swung me into his arms and carried me deeper into the garden, turning down the manicured floral aisle to lay me on the green grass of the wedding altar. The sweet smell of roses mingled with the taste of my own blood then both were overtaken by the unique leathery scent of vampire. In a deft move, my underwear was gone and Severn was on top of me, in me, moving me against him. When I thought it was impossible to feel any more ecstatic, that I would burst, he bit me again.

  As we lay on the grass, wrapped in each other, staring at the night sky, I realised the truth – no human male was ever going to be good enough. And I wasn’t sure if being a human was good enough for me. If that was a glimpse into the heightened senses of the vampire world, I wanted more. I wanted to stay there.

  Chapter 5

  What do I wear? Mum is going to notice the bite marks.

  I ended up sleeping by myself. I didn’t want to go home but there was no alternative. Much as we wanted to stay together, Severn didn’t want to take me back to the motel where he knew Aiden would spoil the mood with rude comments, and Severn staying in my room wasn’t an option either – even though he had done it before. But it was different now. Very different. Reluctantly, I kissed him goodnight at the end of our driveway, wheeled my bike into the garage and crept inside, hoping that Mum had gone to bed.

  It took me a long time to fall asleep. Thoughts, feelings, memories swirled in my brain, swept through my body, emotions fighting with reason. Human, vampire, lust, feeding, love, bloodlust – where were the boundaries? Were there any boundaries any more? Had I crossed over the last one? No, not the last one – I was still human.

  I must have slept because it was daylight when I woke up. I lay for a while, enjoying the comfort of my warm bed, letting my thoughts wander back through last night. Eventually the sound of Mum’s voice singing that infernally cheerful ‘Good Morning’ song from ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ forced me into action. She was worse than an alarm clock. I knew the only way to shut her up was to appear, looking awake. Which brought me to the question of what to wear. It was going to be another hot day – no excuse at all for a high necked jersey and if I turned up in a scarf she would be immediately suspicious as that was so not my style. To gain time I yelled out that I was going to have a shower and dashed into the bathroom.

  Not that I needed to worry. I rushed to the mirror, pulled back my hair and tilted my head to look at the bite marks. Talk about relief! I was expecting the classic B-grade movie fang prints on the side of my neck but Severn had bitten me further back, lower down, more on my shoulder than my neck. The marks were tiny, fine, just specks of red. I could pass them off as mosquito bites – if Mum even noticed them. When I let my long, blonde hair go, it cascaded over my shoulders, obliterating the spot completely. I laughed to myself. All through rehearsals in the hot sun I had been so sick of my hair – wishing I had time to get it cut. Now I was glad it had grown so long. It might be annoying but it was useful camouflage. I showered, dressed and went in search of strong coffee.

  The singing alarm clock that was my mother had swapped from musicals to Motown. Diana Ross and the Supremes were blaring from the stereo and Mum was singing along, full blast, while she vacuumed the lounge carpet. I joined in a chorus. It’s not right that someone my age knows all the lyrics of songs from way before I was born, but Mum played them all the time so there was no escape. I could sing them all before I could read or write.

  To distract her from asking questions about me, I filled Mum in on the gossip about Anita and Caleb, including Anita’s decision to train as a preschool teacher. Mum was suitably impressed.

  “What about you?” she as
ked as she lifted an ornament to dust the shelf under it. “Have you decided what you’re going to do? I fully understand why you’re not doing year thirteen – you haven’t exactly enjoyed the last few years at school – but you probably need to make a decision soon on what you do want to do. You’ll be seventeen in a few weeks. Are you going to take your father up on his offer of a gap year in Australia?”

  Yesterday my answer would have been “I don’t know” but all of a sudden it was crystal clear.

  “No. Sorry, Dad, it’s no to Australia but yes, believe it or not, I have actually made a decision. Having the whole sound department dumped on me for this show has been terrifying, and there’s no way I would have coped without Severn and the other guys. It’s made me realise how little I know and how much I need to learn. So, if it’s okay with you, I think I want to enrol in MAINZ and do their certificate in live sound engineering. If I’m going to spend the rest of my life backstage, I may as well know what I’m doing.”

  “The rest of your life, huh? You wouldn’t be planning on touring with a professional crew by any chance? One that we might know?”

  “Yeah ... well ... maybe.” Hell yes, definitely. And if I make the final decision it could be a very long life.

  Mum gave me one of her long, searching looks that make me sure she can read my mind then smiled.

  “I’m sure with your experience, you’ll have no trouble getting accepted onto the course. At least, if you travel off across the world with that lot, I know they will look after you. And maybe once a year you’ll come back and work our show for free.” She walked to the kitchen and put down her duster. “I see they’ve named that woman who was found on the beach. It’s in the paper.”

  “Oh,” I grabbed the paper off the table, “Who is she?” Please don’t let it be Sally Murchison.

  It wasn’t.

  “Oh my god! Mum, we know her. It’s Julia.”

  “Who?”

  “Julia, from our theatre company. She’s crew. She was one of the assistant stage managers last year. You must remember her. Beth worked my side of the stage and Julia worked the other.” I could see Mum’s brain ticking over.

  “Skinny, beanpole of a girl. I remember,” Mum said. “She was always chatting up Seth, the gorgeous flyman with the muscles. Wasn’t he Severn’s boss – the head of the travelling crew?”

  “Yeah, bossy being the operative word. Severn’s pretty happy he doesn’t have to deal with him any more.”

  “Has the crew split up? Is that why there are only three of them this time?”

  I wasn’t going to tell Mum that they had more than split up – Seth was well and truly dead, staked through the heart in true vampire fashion by Severn.

  “Seth’s gone off to do his own thing,” I lied, “but the girls, Meredith and Olivia, are still around. They’re both in France with Finn.” Under guard by Finn to be more precise.

  “They were an odd pair, those girls. Not very friendly. Anyway, that’s a shame about Julia. I’ll have to tell Grant. He will want to attend the funeral if she was one of our crew members.”

  I sat down at the table to read the newspaper article properly. Julia’s body had been found by an early morning dog walker. The police were puzzled as there were no signs of how she got to where she was found. There were no footsteps in the sand and no convenient car or means of transport abandoned nearby. There were also no obvious signs of death. The reporter speculated that she must have walked along the beach below the high tide mark so her footprints had disappeared when the tide came in and the police hinted at death by natural causes but said they would know more after the autopsy. I knew they were missing something and Severn would be in big trouble when they found it.

  This was going to get messy. When the police noticed similarities with the other body found on the beach a few months ago, which they were going to do soon if they hadn’t already, they were going to start looking for Severn. Sure, last time, when Natasha was killed in the theatre and Severn was hunted for it, the vampires got him out of the country, but it was on a false passport, the same way he had come back in, so as far as the police were concerned, he never left. Which meant he was still here, which he was, which also meant they would start looking for him soon and the first place they would look would be the last place they saw him – backstage with us.

  Chapter 6

  “Are you guys listening to me? Do you realise how serious this is?” I waved the newspaper in the Rev’s face. “We need to figure out who’s doing this.”

  “Calm down and breathe,” the Rev said. “And sit down. You came in here like a crazy person. Slow down.”

  He was right, I had barged in like a crazy person. The whole thing had been buzzing around in my head for the past two hours, spinning, growing, spreading, twisting until I was tripping over myself mentally trying to sort out the ramifications. I had tried to find ordinary things to do at home, I had even sat on my bed and remembered all the things that had happened the night before – the biting, the kissing, how the grass felt under our bodies – but the body on the beach kept forcing itself to the front of my brain, obliterating everything else until I gave up pretending, told Mum I was going to the motel, pedalled like my backside was on fire and barged in on the vampires, dishevelled and ranting.

  “Slow down and breathe,” the Reverend repeated.

  I opened my mouth to shout again.

  “Hello, Gorgeous.” Severn’s soft voice stopped me before I spoke. “What’s all the ruckus?”

  At the sound of his voice, all the anger and fear in my head unravelled and I fell into his arms in a flood of tears. Severn hugged me tight, rocking me slightly until the tears subsided to breathy gasps. Looking up at his face I saw his confusion mixed with his love and concern. With a muttered apology I pulled away and ran to the bathroom where I blew my snuffling nose and splashed water on my reddened eyes. By the time I felt composed enough to return, Severn had made me coffee in one of the generic white motel cups. With a weak smile that barely lifted the corners of his mouth, he held it out to me then pulled me gently onto the couch beside him, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.

  “Now, start from the beginning,” he said. “What’s got you so upset?”

  “That,” I said, pointing to the newspaper that lay on the floor where I had dropped it. “The body on the beach – we know her. She’s crew! On the last show, she was ASM on OP side.”

  “Judith? Joanie?” The Reverend tried to remember.

  “Julia,” I said. “But you’re missing the point. She was one of the crew the last time you guys were here. When Tasha was killed. The last time the police were looking for Severn.” I swivelled my body so I was facing him. “If they realise there is a connection to us, they are going to come looking for you again. And the first place they will look is my place. It won’t take them long to figure out we are all working another show and they will turn up at Mona Vale with a warrant and take you away. This is serious.”

  Severn released my shoulder so he could lean forwards to pick up the paper, read the article then sprang to his feet to thrust the paper at the Reverend. He paced back and forth across the floor twice then stopped in front of the Reverend, rocking the top half of his body, his arms folded so tightly to his chest it looked like he was wearing a straitjacket.

  “Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Riley’s right. Shit.”

  “Calm down, everybody,” the Rev said, standing up to place his arm on Severn’s back. “Severn, you’re doing that stress thing that you do. Stop rocking. Sit down, we’ll work this out. I agree it’s not good, but it’s not a problem yet. If the worst happens and we’ve got to get out fast, we’ve always got our alternative Vatican passports, with diplomatic immunity, and the Lear jet is still parked up in a comfy hangar at the airport. We can be out of here in the time it takes to get to the airport and get it on a runway. But just to be on the safe side, Aiden, why don’t you nip out there today and make sure it’s fuelled up.”

  “Sure,” A
iden agreed. “But we are getting so far ahead of ourselves. That show was months ago. It’s not like she’s working this one. The police aren’t going to look for people she barely knew months ago. They’re going to be looking at who she knows now and what she’s been doing recently. They are going to be focussed on her family, her partner, if she has one, her workmates. It will take them months before they widen their search to anywhere near us and by then, Robin Hood will be finished and we will have flown away. You’re both panicking for nothing. Hell, at least this proves I was right – it wasn’t Mad Sally. I told you nobody’ll ever find her.”

  Severn sat down beside me again but continued to rock, his arms still clenched around his chest.

  “So what are you suggesting? That we just sit and wait it out?” he asked.

  “For now.” “Yes.” The Rev and Aiden answered at the same time. “But let’s keep our ears to the ground,” the Reverend continued. “Severn, instead of sitting rocking, turn your brain on and use your computer skills. Get searching. Riley, if she’s part of your company’s usual crew, is there anyone you can talk to? Can you find out what she was doing last Friday night?”

  Seven and I gave each other looks that questioned the point of the Rev’s orders. I shrugged.

  “Don’t be so negative,” the Rev said, picking up on our lack of enthusiasm. “If nothing else it will keep you two focussed. Look, for all we know the police have already figured it out and arrested someone.”

  “Or she had a heart attack,” Aiden interjected, picking up the paper and waving it at me when I started to disagree. “It says it in here. The police are thinking it’s natural causes.” He waved the paper at Severn, “You dumb arse, they’re not looking for anyone. They think she just dropped dead. Get a grip!”