Blood Lines

‘Truth serum. That’s what most people know it as. Isn’t that funny? Isn’t that ironic? I couldn’t be less interested in your truths, my darling. I’ve had to put up with them for long enough. I think it’s much more worthy of reflection that this stuff is also used in executions.’

The face of the woman manages to contort with fear – no mean feat given the amount of paralysing drug she has willingly swallowed.

‘You betrayed me. You put your truths before everything. Before me. Before our love. Do you know what that does to someone? To me?’

She cannot answer, she cannot plead for her life or use her words to escape the fate she knows is awaiting her. Flecks of spittle foam around the mouth of the one she loved to kiss. She longs to wipe them away, to show a caring touch even with the knowledge that her lover has become her executioner. Pins and needles start in her fingers as the feeling spreads throughout her entire body. The winding sheet starts at her feet as her beloved ineptly wraps her in a shroud. This will be her bridal dress, this will be the culmination of their love.

‘My love, my love – why did you make me do this?’ asks the undertaker of her heart.

A tear escapes the woman’s eye as she is wrapped tenderly in her beloved’s arms who, struggling with the dead weight, lays her roughly in the grave. Still the woman cannot speak. The tears run down her face unchecked – her hands are close enough to scratch her nose but they are bound and crossed on her chest where there is no strength to break free.

The shovel of earth hits her heavily, knocking the wind and the life out of her body. Painstakingly, the grave is filled, each load crushing her body and stealing her soul.

There is hope.

Her head and neck are uncovered. She tells herself that this is no more worrying than a game children will play at the beach when they bury each other in the sand.

At any moment, her love will release her, they will embrace and their betrothal will continue.

As the knife pierces her cheek, the sensation returns to her body as pain slices through – as does the awareness that this is no childish game, this is no lovers’ diversion. The metallic smell of blood joins the stench of terror. The woman’s face is warm and wet as her beloved rubs dirt into the open wounds over and over again. Finally, strength returns to her fingers – as the first dirt lands on her face.

She tries to claw her way out.

She breaks her fingernails to the quick.

She feels the blood run down.

She cannot see for the suffocating darkness.

She cannot breathe for the earth in her nostrils.

She cannot scream for the muck in her mouth.

What starts in pleasure always ends in pain.

As the final words of the treasured one scrape against the ancient stones, the Wolf of Badenoch enjoys what he sees, savours what he hears.

‘Who will love you now?’ asks the beloved one as the knife cuts, the blood pours, and the Wolf howls with delight.

Chapter One (#u16ed8790-2977-5cfd-997e-9d1574345488)

My knickers felt cold and squidgy when I pushed them into my jacket pocket. I tried not to notice the embarrassingly large bulge that they created. If I didn’t look at it, it wasn’t there. I liked that view of the world. At least for now. I was obviously quite good at only recognising what I wanted to recognise, given that whatever I had expected when I left the office last night hadn’t involved squelchy undies and drunken sex.

Especially with him.

I’d felt so moral going in on a Saturday – it’s usually the quietest time to work, much better than Sundays when people sometimes panic and decide to get a head start on the week. Even Lavender sometimes isn’t there to give me directions on how I should spend my time. But yesterday, a combination of dull reports and accounts followed by too much rotten wine in a nameless Rose Street pub had brought about a distinct lack of continuation of my moral superiority.

Where the hell was my left shoe? I was at the stage where staying and looking would have probably been more embarrassing than leaving in my bare feet and answering lecherous questions from a taxi driver.

‘Are you looking for this?’ a voice called from the bedroom.

Shit.

No escape.

I’d have to go back and retrieve it now or have him think I was too lovestruck to face him rather than too hung over to think about it. If only I had just gone home after the office. If only I hadn’t bumped into him making his way back from a Saturday shift. If only I hadn’t said hello and noticed how bloody gorgeous he was. I hobbled my way along the hallway like Long John Silver on a bad day – although, for all his worries, I’m sure he didn’t have to deal with not taking his mascara off and being covered in stubble rash the morning after.

With one shoe off and the other dangling from his hand, I lurched towards him. Towards it. Towards my shoe. Towards Mr Jack Deans, Esquire.

I was very upset. Very, very upset. Unlike me, the bastard looked good. Even in the morning light after a very heavy session I could see why I’d finally been unable to resist. Before last night, I’d only ever seen him in his work clothes – crumpled suit, clichéd raincoat. Now, covered only by an impressively white bath towel, he looked damn fine. Just back from the South of France – research, I’m sure, not a piss-up – he was dark, handsome, and absolutely chock-full of himself. A very useful bout of food poisoning had knocked a stone off him and there wasn’t a moob in sight.

‘I bet you’re just thinking what a lucky girl you are,’ he crooned as he launched himself off the bed and walked towards me, twirling the shoe on one finger.

‘No, no … I was “just thinking” that fat looks better when it’s brown.’

‘Liar,’ he whispered into my ear, giving it a surreptitious lick for good luck.

I was back to our familiar double-act of winding each other up much quicker than he was. I took the end of my jacket and wiped the inside of my ear dry. My gesture of dismissal was wasted because Deans was already in the kitchen – with my shoe.

What had once looked a very attractive half of an LK Bennett leopard-print combo was now just pissing me off. It was a shoe, not the bloody Holy Grail, yet he was dragging it from room to room as if I was in thrall to the wonder of a well-turned heel at the cost of my pride.

The offending article was on top of the kitchen table.

‘Don’t you know that’s bad luck?’ I said, forcing my foot into the shoe. It scraped on my skin, hurting my little toe. Actually, come to think of it, they’d always nipped – I should have left the buggers whilst I had the chance.

‘Let me guess, Brodie – that’s one thing you don’t need more of?’ He wriggled his pelvis at me in a way that would have put a geriatric Chippendale to shame. ‘Aw, I don’t know – looks like your luck might have turned. Do you want sugar in your coffee?’

‘You know I don’t take sugar.’

‘With a face like yours this morning, you look as if you could do with a little sweetness.’

‘You weren’t complaining about my face last night.’

Damn. I was the first one to obviously refer to the sex thing.

‘Last night I thought I was the sugar you were needing, darling.’

‘You must have been drunker than I thought then. But definitely nowhere near as comatose as me – obviously.’

‘Frankly, Brodie, I was a bit hurt that you were going to sneak out without saying goodbye. I felt used. A piece of meat. Just a plaything for you.’

For the first time that morning I actually looked into his eyes – only to see his smile lighting them.

‘I’m in no mood for jokes, Jack. I’m pissed off, I’m late, and my shoes hurt.’

‘I can see that. Well, I can see the pissed-off bit anyway. Christ knows what you’ll be like when you get a look at your face – it’s dragging along the ground.’

I tried to ignore him, took my coffee and wandered round his tiny kitchen. I did what I could to avoid facing the fact that he was almost naked.