Angels and Rain

In my drugged state I was dimly aware of being dragged by my captor through the darkened city streets. We must have crossed to the other side of town. Orange and grey blurred and puddles proclaimed their hate for the world in the form of stolen neon. Helaynia Ryves, spirited away at nineteen. Left to die at twenty on the altar steps. Found bloodless and dry.

A bird cried.

It was mourning me already.

Sparrow’s Lament.

I was dragged into some sort of large building I had never seen before. The windows warned me
away and the door shouted at me to go, yet I couldn’t find it within my muscles to work. My mouth tried
to form out the words that would make him stop. My feet grated against the flagstoned floor that tried to
hold me, rescue me where no else had succeeded, and only a little light filtered through the leaded
Tudor windows making every shadow look long and distorted. They reached out to me and tried to
take me by the hand. I willed them away with bright light and grey gaze. Grey clouds black haze. His
footsteps sang their desperation to the sky. Laboured breathing cursed and counteracted his
presence but to no avail.

There was a door at the end of the corridor. A door with light. A door with singing. I felt a familiar
sense on the back of my neck. A vampire. A vampire was present. A vampire and I had no protection.
The man carrying me knocked three times on the door in a sort of rhythm. No-one answered. He
knocked again, then opened it.

“Oh for God’s sake guys, how lax can you be about security?”

We were standing in a room that resembled a comfy Victorian living room. A huge open log fire burned
merrily in a grate, two elaborately carved, dark wooden bookcases standing either side of it. On top of
an overstuffed pinstripe sofa, by a CD player belting out Evanesance’s ‘My Immortal’, was a boy of
about sixteen, laughing his head off at something. An incredibly pretty woman with long grey-violet hair
and long model figure legs leapt up out of a chair and embraced my captor in a huge bear-hug with a
delighted cry of “Rowan!”

I knew she wouldn’t hurt me.

He hugged her back. “Hello darling.”

“Where the hell have you been?” She asked, breaking from his embrace, looking him full in the eyes
and holding him at arm’s length. “I was so worried about you!”

“Val, I’m fine.”

She rubbed his shoulders. “I didn’t think you were, it’s dangerous round here, especially with all these
people going missing.”

He looked down at her.

“What?”

“You worry so much its untrue, Valentiene!”

“Oh, I don’t!” She waved a dismissive hand.

“Yes you do, love.” He swatted her on the head gently.

“Anyway, I’ve put your dinner in the microwave for you, it’s ready when you want it.”

“Thankyou.” He kissed the top of her head, which seemed to be the only part of her he could reach as
she was a good few inches smaller than him (but still not as tiny as me. Sob sob), and sat down on
the fat sofa, straight onto the youth’s feet. He jumped up quickly.

“Oh for God’s sake, Nykolai, get off there!”

Nykolai laughed. “No.”

“Nyk!” His voice was warning.

“I can’t! Valentiene superglued my hands!”

Someone laughed a soft musical laugh. I looked round in the second armchair by the fire, the most
beautiful person I had ever seen. He was creamy pale with high delicate cheekbones and intelligent
amber eyes outlined thickly with kohl. His hair was a glossy black and long, with a soft blue tinge and
fell forwards into his face as he was reading. He looked incredibly familiar, but I couldn’t quite place
his face.

Rowan looked at the one with violet hair.

“He was being a twat. I was sort of hoping to stick him to the Scotch bottle” she said, without looking
up from her book.

“So you were drinking too?” He turned to the blonde on the sofa with his hands on his hips. “Nykolai,
you’re seventeen, for God’s sake!”

“So?”

“So you can’t, Nyk! It isn’t legal”

“And since when have I given a shit what’s legal and what isn’t?”

“You really should start, you know.”

Maybe it was the chloroform talking, but Rowan seemed alarmingly unconcerned that the smallish
teenager with blonde ringlets sitting almost on his head would wind up in prison before his
eighteenth birthday.

Valentiene looked up at Rowan. “Look, I told you why I did it!”

I narrowed my eyes to shield them away from the ever brightening light. It did the opposite. It beckoned
me.

“I know love, and I would have done the same, but I’m going to have to get him off now.” Rowan put his
hands on the younger boy’s shoulders and tried pulling him forwards. He burst into peals of high
pitched laughter, but didn’t move. Rowan sighed and flopped backwards onto the sofa, avoiding
Nykolai’s feet this time.

“Maybe it would be quicker just to shoot him.”

I gave a nervous laugh, although the Evanesance CD was starting to get to me.

“Go on then.” Nykolai challenged him.

“Fine! I will!”

I could only watch aghast as Rowan, still in conversation, drew a gun from his back pocket and shot
the boy three times in the chest.

“NO!”

The shots echoed, with the sound of my cry, round the room twice as loud as they ever could have
been. Blood exploded and shone in arcs round the sky. It wheeled, up, up and up to the clouds and
painted them crimson. It fell on the grass and spread like cancer to blackness. My ears rang with the
sound, but the boy just carried on smiling, looked down at his chest and laughed.

“One hundred and eighty, my friend.” He said in a crap Transylvanian accent. “But seriously though,
what was that? You missed!”

The blood dissolved and spiralled back. The wound that had never been there faded fast from human
detection. I could hear Rowan laughing and say something about a Nyko. Then a softer voice joined
in, Valentiene’s. “Rowan, she’s not looking well.”

“Oh shit” I heard him say as fire engulfed me. The lamp was angry. I had not heeded its warnings. It
exploded and sent shards of pain through my heart. The dark nails of malice were pushed through my
veins and my heart fluttered like a wounded butterfly trying to escape. The glass reached my
shoulders and killed them, knitted them together with a single stroke.

I could hear voices. Whether they were talking to, at or about me I had no idea. My ears exploded and
its sound muted all others. I could hear my body consume itself.

It sounded like gentleness.

It sounded like mulled wine.

It sounded like a child.

The ground opened and gave way as I fell into dark.