Ocean of Blood

“My one’s winning,” Yebba whooped as one of the brutes landed a blow.

“You didn’t bet on him,” Wester retorted. “You bet on the other one.”

“Did not!” Yebba shouted.

“Yes you did. He has that mark on his left arm, remember?”

Yebba squinted at the boxers, then cursed. “These humans all look the same to me,” he growled. Larten and Wester laughed and passed the disgruntled vampire another mug of ale — that was guaranteed to settle him down.

After the fight, Larten and Wester collected their winnings and took Yebba to a tavern where they found ladies to dance with. Small towns lacked the dance halls of big cities, but you could always sort out something if you splashed enough money around.

They joined a card game later. All three were drunk and they lost heavily, even Larten, who rarely tasted defeat at the gambling tables. But they didn’t mind. Money was easy to come by if you were a creature of the night.

Larten wanted to do his knife-catching trick again, but Wester wouldn’t let him. He took his friend’s knife away and held it out of reach as Larten tried to snatch it back. If they had been sober, Wester couldn’t have kept it from the faster, stronger vampire. But Larten was woozy and helpless. Wester had a knack of knowing when Larten was going to drink more than he could handle, and he stayed relatively clear-headed on those nights so that he could keep an eye on his reckless friend.

“Ish not fair,” Larten complained to a man with a monocle. “I’m Qui-hic! I’m Quick-hic!” He gulped ale until the hiccups went away. “I’m Quicksilver,” he growled majestically.

“Aye?” the man said, passing Larten a pinch of snuff. “I’m in the leather trade myself.”

“Not my bizzzness,” Larten slurred. “Ish my… ish my…” He pulled a face and forgot what he was trying to say, then fell face down on the table and knew no more until morning.

Larten awoke to savage pain. He was outside in the sun and his skin was a nasty red shade. As he blinked sleep from his eyes and tried to raise a hand to protect his face from the rays, he found that his arms were tied behind his back and he was hanging upside down. His shirt had been ripped away, exposing his torso, which had been burnt as deeply as his face.

Fear flared in his heart, but he thrust it from his thoughts. He didn’t know what was going on – perhaps he had been caught feeding drunkenly – but that didn’t matter. He had to escape quickly or he would burn like a pig on a spit.

Larten set to work on the knots around his wrists. He was hanging from a thick length of rope, swinging and turning in a soft breeze, but he ignored that and kept as still as possible, except for his fingers, which danced over the knots. The long, hardened nails of the vampires were invaluable when it came to picking knots and locks, but Larten would have been able to make short work of these regardless. He had learnt well from Merletta all those years ago.

Once his hands were free, he wriggled loose of the ropes binding his arms and chest. Bending upwards, he grabbed the supporting rope with one hand, tore apart the ropes around his legs with the other, hung in the air a moment, then dropped to his feet and landed in a crouch. His first instinct was to dart for the safety of the shadows, but he forced himself to scan the doorways of the sheds around him – he was in a courtyard – looking for the enemies who had strung him up.

For long, anxious seconds, Larten searched for his foes and readied himself for battle. Then he caught a scent and his nose crinkled with disgust. He rose and brushed dirt from his trousers. He dug out his watch and checked the time – it was for show, as Seba had taught him to read the time based on the position of the sun and stars – then coolly glanced at the sky and sniffed.

“My watch has stopped, Tanish,” he called. “If it’s broken, I’ll have the price of a new one out of you.”

Laughter greeted this statement and four vampires lurched out of a shed. One was a sheepish-looking Wester Flack. The others were Yebba, Zula Pone and Tanish Eul, the vampire who had originally given Larten his nickname.

“The same old Quicksilver,” Tanish snorted admiringly, then hurried forward to throw a cloak over the head and shoulders of his friend and bundle him into the shadows of the shed where a barrel of ale was waiting.

CHAPTER THREE

Tanish Eul was tall and thin, with a stunning smile and carefully groomed hair and nails. He was always stylishly dressed, and spoke in the smooth tones of a silver-tongued rogue. If Larten was a Romeo, Tanish was a full-blown Casanova — his success with the ladies was legendary.

Zula Pone, on the other hand, was one of the shortest people Larten had ever met. He was stout and ugly. Many vampires were rough by human standards, their faces laced with scars and patches from old wounds, but they were considered fair among their own. Poor Zula was ugly by any reckoning. Fortunately he didn’t care, and even wore shabby clothes and cut his hair crookedly to prove he was immune to what others thought of his looks. Despite this, Zula was a surprise hit with those of the fairer sex. He generally repulsed them to begin with, but after ten minutes in his company virtually any woman found herself won over by his charm.

Tanish had run into Zula a few years ago and instantly recognised a kindred spirit. They’d become fast friends and it wasn’t long before Larten and Wester were introduced to the newest member of their rowdy pack.

“You’ve got fairer skin than a baby,” Tanish hooted as Larten rested in the shed and tried not to move — his burnt flesh sent needles shooting through him every time he shifted. “You were only up there half an hour. I’d be a mild pink colour if it had been me.”

“You’ll be red with your own blood if you ever try that again,” Larten said angrily. “What if I hadn’t been able to undo the knots?”

“We were keeping a close watch on you,” Wester said. “We would have seen if you were in trouble.”

“And left you there to burn!” Zula exploded.

Larten found himself laughing along with the others. It had been a good joke, even though he was the butt of it. Wester was the only one who couldn’t see the funny side. He smiled along with the rest of them, but his smile was strained. Larten would be tender for the coming week, his flesh would peel and some of the sores might fester. Wester saw nothing humorous in that.

The vampires drank and chatted for a few hours, telling tall and bawdy tales. Tanish and Zula had been involved in a number of near scrapes as usual and had been run out of the last three towns they’d visited.

“The problem with humans is that they take life too seriously,” Tanish sneered. “Admittedly, we burnt down a storehouse with a winter’s supply of grain in it, so a few children will go hungry this year. So what? It will sort out the strong from the weak. Humans are too attached to their young. The vampaneze have the right idea — humans are only fit for killing.”

Tanish winked at Larten as he said that, then looked as innocent as he could when Wester flared up. “That’s a horrible thing to say! We were the same as them before we were blooded. They have shorter lives than us and are much weaker. If we kill humans, we disgrace ourselves. The vampaneze are soulless scum who will never find Paradise, and more fool you if you can’t see that.”

Wester ranted for another fifteen minutes. His hatred of the vampaneze had set in him like a disease, and though he spoke little of the matter most of the time, those close to him knew of his true feelings. Seba had tried reasoning with him – just because a vampaneze had killed his family, it didn’t mean he should hate all of them – but Wester refused to listen.

Wester’s hatred of the breakaway group of night-walkers troubled Larten more than it worried Seba. Their master had seen this dark bent in Wester many decades before and was convinced the young vampire would meet an early end at the hands of one purple-skinned vampaneze or another. But Larten had always hoped that Wester would come to terms with his loss and put his hatred behind him.

Larten had urged his dearest friend to track down Murlough – the one who had slain Wester’s family – and kill him. He thought that would finally help Wester to put that dark night behind him. But Wester was reluctant to do that. He had come to hate the entire vampaneze clan. He sometimes swore that he would finish off Murlough only when he was done with the rest of the scum, that he wanted his foe to suffer the same kind of loss that Wester had been forced to endure.

Tanish shrugged when Wester finally lapsed into a fuming silence. “The vampaneze mean nothing to me,” he said. “If war breaks out between us, I’ll fight them and be glad of the challenge. But as long as the truce is in place, what do they matter?”

“Desmond Tiny would beg to differ,” Wester growled. “He said the vampaneze would unite behind a mighty leader one night, that their Lord would lead them into war with us and wipe us from the face of the Earth.”

“I’ve never seen the legendary Mr Tiny and I don’t believe he’s as powerful as certain old fools claim,” Tanish said dismissively.

“Seba saw him,” Larten said softly. “He was at Vampire Mountain when Tiny visited after the vampaneze split from the clan. Seba heard him make his prophecy. He takes it seriously.”

Desmond Tiny was a being of immense magical power, who had predicted the downfall of the clan at the hands of the vampaneze. Lots of younger vampires thought he was a mythical creature. Larten might have too if his master hadn’t told him of the night when Mr Tiny visited the vampire base. He had seen the fear in Seba’s eyes, even all these centuries later.

“When I was blooded,” Larten continued, “Seba made me hold on to the Stone of Blood for longer than necessary. He said that the Stone was our only hope of thwarting destiny. Mr Tiny gave us the Stone to give us hope. Tiny craves chaos. He doesn’t want the vampaneze to eliminate us too easily. He’d rather we get dragged into a long war full of suffering and torment.”

Larten stared again at the marks on his fingers, remembering the night when he had embraced the Stone of Blood and surrendered himself forever to the rule of the clan.

“I didn’t mean to belittle Seba Nile,” Tanish said, choosing his words with care. He wasn’t close to his own master, but he knew Larten respected Seba. “If he says he saw Desmond Tiny, I believe him and apologise if I offended you.”

Larten made light of Tanish’s apology, though secretly it made him uneasy. He could feel himself starting to drift away from Tanish and the Cubs. Larten was growing tired of the endless drinking, gambling and womanising. He wasn’t yet ready to turn his back on the human world and its many delights, but he was sure he would return to Seba in a few more years to resume his studies.

He doubted Tanish would abandon the easy life so willingly. Some Cubs ended up rejecting the ways of the clan. They grew attached to human comforts and chose to remain in that soft, safe world. The Generals allowed them their freedom so long as they obeyed certain laws. Larten thought that Tanish would be one of those who never returned to Vampire Mountain, but wandered forever among humans.

“Enough of the damn vampaneze,” Zula scowled. “A pox on their purple skin. We have more important matters to discuss.”

“Such as?” Larten asked, a twinkle in his eyes, anticipating the answer.

“A war pack has formed.” Zula licked his lips and grinned. “They’re no more than a night’s march from here.”

“We thought we’d swing by for you two in case you were interested,” Tanish said.

“You thought right,” Larten chuckled. “We’ll set off at dusk.”

“With your skin as red as a lobster’s?” Wester asked.