Chapter 4.30 – Into Darkness

“It sure feels as if you have added a lot and taken away a lot,” Kitty said uneasily, looking at the pile of curls Faith had brushed up and the blunted kohl pencil. “Are you quite sure that I look good?”

“Trust me,” Faith grinned back, replacing the scissors into their sheath. “You’re going to look amazing. I know what I’m doing.”

Kitty pouted at the empty mirror and then echoed Faith’s grin. “Oh, I trust you! I am sure that I will look simply ravishing! Oh, Faith!” she gasped, patting at the towel wrapped around her skull. “My head feels so featherlight after your succour!”

“Uh, my what?”

Kitty smiled, reminding herself to modernise, that is, to dumb things down for her new friend. “Your kind assistance. I would wager that my hair feels as soft as silk! When may I remove the wrap? I am simply dying to feel how I look.”

“If you don’t want it to be a puff of frizz, we need to keep it wrapped up with the oils for a while. It was drier than an old man’s— oh,” Faith stopped abruptly as half the room flickered, faded and blackened.

“Oh darn!” Kitty sighed. “In all this excitement, I paid no mind the candles and now we are about to be plummeted into darkness. Allow me leave and I shall return with some more.” She lifted one dainty foot out of the bucket of water and essential oils that Faith had placed them into, but Faith intervened.

“I’ll get them,” she insisted. “You stay here and soak. Um, candles, candles… where are they?”

“There is a fresh box in the kitchen pantry.”

“Sure, kitchen pantry… and the kitchen is…?”

“Adjacent to the dining room.”

“Which is…?”

Kitty laughed a little. “Down the main staircase, back along the servants’ corridor, eighth door on the left.”

“Right.”

“No, left.”

“Yes, I got that. Never mind. Why is this place so huge anyway?” Faith asked. “Weren’t there only five of you in your rogue group?”

“We had grand plans for a few more, but it was not to be,” Kitty shrugged.

Over the past hours while they had preened and pruned, laughed and lamented, Kitty had divulged a few details about the Reprobate vampire quartet that had once resided here, which Faith had found highly interesting. Faith seemed to fancy herself as a rogue vampire, and she certainly had the disposition of one raised in destitution.

“Not a great place to lay low, though,” Faith mused. “Pretty high profile, a whopping great mansion right next to the river.”

“You would be surprised,” Kitty said softly. “Besides, in terms of vampire dwellings, it was not so large or grand. Especially not compared to the likes of the Straud Manor, or even the Vatore one.”

“Woah, the Vatores had a manor once? Did they servants and stuff too?”

“Oh yes! Silas – that is Caleb’s father – had quite the estate. He was known among vampire circles for his, ahem, lavish tastes.”

“Huh,” Faith said. “Caleb didn’t mention that he was rich.”

“He is not.”

“Oh. Does it still exist, the Vatore mansion?”

Kitty shook her head, but even that vigorous movement couldn’t threaten to topple her securely fixed towel. “Alas, no. The villagers were not kind. It was ravaged by flames shortly after Silas was beheaded.”

“Ouch,” Faith murmured, rubbing her neck. “No wonder Fringey never mentions it. Where is Caleb anyway?”

“Missing him already?”

“No, when we’re done here I’m going to grab a bite to eat. I thought he might like to go hunting with me.”

“I doubt that,” Kitty said softly. “He will be visiting with his girls.”

At Faith’s pout, Kitty sighed gently and patted her hand. “It is not a slight on you, dearest Faith. A vampire man has many needs; you cannot satisfy them all. Perhaps Seth will join you?”

“I’m not going out with him,” Faith huffed.

“Faith, you cannot be sore with him forever. Oh, but you should definitely head on out to seek sustenance! You must be starving, all that energy you have exerted today!”

“Are you… are you teasing me?”

Kitty giggled. “Is that not what girlfriends do?”

Faith couldn’t help but smile every time Kitty showed her frothy side. “Oho! So that’s how you wanna play it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Frecklehead. I’ve brought grown men to tears with my razor wit.”

“As have I,” Kitty purred.

Faith got up as another candle dwindled to nothingness. “I’ll be back in a bit to rip you a new one but let me go get these candles – eighth door on the left?”

“Right.”

“Right?”

Kitty giggled again and Faith returned in kind. The tea had infected them both – they had both been tittering like schoolgirls all morning. “It is left,” Kitty confirmed. “Eighth door on the left is correct.”

“Right,” Faith replied, setting Kitty off again. “No touching that wrap until I get back!”

Kitty crossed her heart and fixed Faith with a saccharine smile as she retreated.

Her smile quickly fell when she was alone. All this grinning and giggling was giving her jaw ache and laughter lines, she was certain of it. Still, it served a sure purpose.

She scratched her head gently, alarmed at how little hair she felt like she had. She thought to remove the wrap, to assure herself that she still had any hair at all, but now was not the time to shatter the fragile trust she was building with the vulgar vampire. She promised Faith she would trust her judgement, so trust her judgement she would.

She only hoped that her overall appearance was more visually pleasing than Faith’s ghastly colour choice of lipstick.

Jessica had expected that, when they’d lifted the lid of the crypt, her fellow GliTS would have been knocked sideways by the scent of death and decay. But although it was clear that this place hadn’t been touched in years, the crypt smelled surprisingly fine. Musty, yes, with the small air vents clogged with moss and spiders, but generally, fine. Someone must have known what they were doing when they brought the poor souls down into this stone prison.

Jessica had to wonder who built this, and why. It struck her as odd that vampires would have a crypt, with their surname on it, but without them in it.

At least she hoped they weren’t in it.

Again, her present status ruled her out of going down first, so the brave GliTS, plus Yibbo, ventured down first into the dimly-lit depths. She could hear them scooting down some steps with their tiny flashlight, could hear the moment that it stopped working, leaving them fumbling around in the dark. The sound of shins against stone and toes bumping metal. The cries of ‘ow! That was my foot!’ and ‘eek! Is that a spider?’ slowly faded into the distance. Jessica leaned over the open crypt and tried to listen but couldn’t hear anything.

This was ridiculous. She was an almost-trained police officer, she should be in the thick of it, solving the mysteries, not sitting on the side-lines being too pregnant. With some effort, she swung her leg over the edge of the opening and eased herself inside, finding the first worn step with her sandal and lowering herself in.

She used the torch on her phone to illuminate the way and joined up with her fellow GliTS in what appeared to be the main room of the crypt. Her eyes gradually adjusted to the dark as the light behind her faded. She placed the phone face down on the nearest surface, dimly lighting the whole space with a cold, eerie glow.

It was grim down there. A dank, dusty room cluttered with bones and coffins and layered with thorns. Personal artefacts were clustered in a corner, offering snippets of the stories of those long gone. A pair of swords. A pamphlet for a craft show. A neat stack of old currency. A tiny toy bear.

Jessica hadn’t expected it to be neatly-organised storage of the deceased, but something about the haphazard way that many of these people had been left in upset her greatly. It looked like the first few had been given their own coffins. It appeared that the latest ones had been chucked into a rusty old bathtub.

The more they looked around, the worse it became.

After Jessica had endured Pixie telling her off for climbing into the mire, the group, under Jessica’s instruction, began to take small items and bone samples in tiny bags. It was too dark down here to really investigate properly and they needed to act fast to gather as much evidence as possible as fast as possible and replace the stone lid, before the sun went down or the bloodsucking monsters returned to throw in a few more bodies.

Easily tired now, Jessica took a seat on a closed casket and allowed her eyes to adapt to the dark, noticing, as she did, a faint purple flash appear behind Pixie.

“What is that?” she asked.

“What’s what?” Yibbo asked, standing up and seeming to get tangled in something.

“AAAAAAAAGH!” she screamed. She flapped her arms and jumped about as something creaked around her. “Something’s got me!”

“Hold still—” Morag began.

“I’m too young to die!”

Morag carefully examined what was ‘attacking’ her friend. “Calm down; it’s not alive.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of!” Yibbo shouted back. “What is it? Get it off me! Get it off!”

“I think…” Morag said carefully, untangling Yibbo and looking at what was in her hands. “I think it’s… a tree.”

“A tree?” Jessica asked. “As in, the roots of a tree?”

“No, as in tree branches. It looks like it’s actually growing in here.”

“That’s so weird,” Jessica said, walking a slow circle of the mystery tree. “Look at the trunk, it’s got these glowing purple streaks on it. Look! There’s one. There’s another!”

“And it’s got these weird fruits too,” Morag said, plucking one from the branch and rolling it around in her hand. “It feels like an apple but,” she took a sniff. “It smells like a scrap yard.”

“What on Earth is this?” Pixie asked, poking the fruit and then the tree itself. It seemed to respond to her touch, the trunk glowing purple where Pixie’s fingers traced it. “What kind of tree grows underground in pitch darkness, glows purple and produces metallic fruit?”

Morag was still toying with her not-quite-an-apple, mesmerised by it. “Should I eat one?” she asked.

“Why on this blue planet would you think that eating that thing is a good idea, Morag?” Yibbo asked, still shaking slightly from her ordeal.

“I don’t but… I really want to bite it…” Morag whispered and brought the plump fruit to her lips.

“Stop,” Jessica ordered, snapping Morag from her trance. “We’ll take one with us. Put it in a bag. We’ll take some photos of the leaves and branches too, see if a horticulturist can identify what this thing is.”

“You sure I shouldn’t just—” Morag gnashed her teeth. “Might just be a weird apple tree.”

“Stop trying to eat the evidence, Morag.”

“A weird tree, a pantry full of organs, and a crypt full of human remains and personal belongings. What the heck were these vampires up to?” Yibbo asked as she used Jessica’s phone to snap photos of the blackened leaves.

“Maybe they sold organs on the black market,” Pixie guessed, carefully removing a twig and placing it into a bag.

“Maybe these fruits are organs,” Morag whispered, taking a little lick.

“You lot are so weird,” Rose scoffed from somewhere in the corner. “And don’t forget to take samples from the ones in the bathtub.”

“It’ll be hard to analyse those, Rose; they’re all so intermingled,” Jessica admitted.

“Well you need to try!” Rose insisted. “I’m in there, I’m sure of it.”

Jessica sighed. “Rose is in the bathtub.”

“Oh, should we, uh, look away?” Yibbo asked sheepishly.

“No, she’s not bathing, I mean – her remains are in the bathtub.” Jessica walked over to the iron tub and prodded gently at the skull on the top eliciting a little whine from the ghost girl. “Is this one you?”

“No, but I’m close to that one.”

“What about this one?”

“Hotter.”

“This one?” Jessica asked, gently touching the frontal bones of another skull.

Rose shook her head. “Colder,” she muttered.

“Hm,” Jessica scratched her chin. “Do you think you could identify yourself if we separated them, Rose?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. Yes?”

“Then I guess we’d better get sifting.”

Every turning brought her to a dead end.

Or a corridor with no doors, let alone eight.

Faith felt like she’d been walking around in circles for hours.

“Ugh!” she whined. “This place is ridiculous! I need a fucking map!”

“Can you read a map?”

Faith snapped around at the familiar voice. “Oh, it’s you. I thought it smelled musty down here.”

“It does,” Seth smiled. “Must be your perfume; eau de fornication?”

“The smell of success.” Faith smiled sweetly. “Five times,” she whispered.

“What was five times?”

“Five times,” she repeated. “In one day.”

“Good for you.”

“The man is a beast.”

“Yes, that’s one way to put it.”

“He always finishes.”

“Ah,” Seth said softly. “Yes, your hang up. The one thing you wanted from me and never got: punctuation of the ending.”

“Bet you wish you’d just let go now, huh?”

“No.”

Faith stretched and made an exaggerated groan. “Ooh, I can barely walk; I’m so saddle-sore. Thankfully I practically slid down these stairs.”

“Ah, a delight with phrasing, as always, Fledgling.”

Faith had him almost cornered by now. She didn’t miss the set of his jaw as she got closer and that little action made her flutter way more than Caleb did. Not that she’d ever admit that, of course.

“So, what have you been up to?” She pouted and pushed her tits up a bit. “Raiding any more brains?”

“A few.” His gaze fell for the briefest second.

“Oh, do you like my new tattoo?”

“Delightful,” Seth murmured and looked away.

“Don’t you want to know what I’ve been up to?”

“I know what you’ve been up to.”

“Oh? Go ahead then.”

“Let’s see. Dodging the sun by seducing misguided men, spending far too many nights copulating indiscriminately, turning your skin into a picture book and rueing my very existence. Am I close?”

Faith pouted. “Don’t flatter yourself, I’ve barely thought about you at all. I’m only speaking to you now because Kitty thinks we should be civil if we’re sharing a house.”

“We are not sharing a house. I’m only here for research.”

“Are you sure?” Faith sidled closer. “Are you really only here to look at crusty old books, or are you here to spy on me? Wait, have you been spying on me for the last couple of months?”

“I haven’t.”

“Really. ‘Cause you found me awfully fast when you thought I needed your help just now. Like you were just waiting for me to leave Kitty’s bedroom…”

Seth licked his teeth, conditioned to reply truthfully, it took a minute to turn it back around, by which point Faith was smirking.

“You’re so predictable, Fledgling. Thinking the whole world revolves around you.”

“Not the whole world, just your world.” She smiled. “Just face it; you still want me. That’s why you’re really here, isn’t it? You’re stalking me. You sad, sad man.”

Seth suddenly moved closer, causing Faith’s heart to jump into her throat.

His voice was a smooth growl. “Is that what you want me to say?”

“I just want you to be honest with me.”

“Honest,” he licked his teeth, ran his gaze down her neck, to her peekaboo bra and back up to a point past her shoulder. “I’ll admit one thing; you do make rather a more interesting case for hanging around.”

“Even though I hate your guts?”

“Most do.”

Faith slipped closer; her lips against his ear. “Maybe if you weren’t such an asshole you’d have some other friends. Besides, I’m going to be far too busy to entertain you and put up with your bullshit, Seth.”

“You deserve so much more than to be a sex doll to him.”

“Jealous?”

His response was a growl, low in his throat. Faith pressed closer, her tattooed tits against that belt thing he always worse across his chest. She locked Seth against the door behind him and felt him yield. He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her in for a kiss.

She held him, just a wisp away from her lips.

“Do you still love me?” she whispered into the brief space between them, around a lump in her throat the size of a watermelon.

Does it matter? he whispered back, to her mind, her core.

Did it matter?

Faith’s senses came flooding back as this game stopped being fun. This man had hurt her, manipulated her, made her attack her sister. Him being in love with her made no difference; it hadn’t then, it wouldn’t now. What was she doing?! Why was she teasing him?

She stumbled back, throwing off his embrace.

“No. It doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “None of it matters. Everything we were – it’s ancient history. We are ancient history.”

He wiped the trace of her lipstick from his lips with his gloved thumb, but he didn’t respond.

“I hope you’re miserable forever,” Faith hissed. “I hope you watch from the side-lines while I screw Caleb every single day and that you hate it, and it chews you up.”

Seth snorted. “That boy—“

“—Might be a cock with legs but at least he’s honest with me,” Faith huffed. “You don’t deserve me.”

The self-assured vampire hobo deflated like a beach ball with a puncture.

“No,” Seth said quietly. “You’re right, I don’t deserve you. But for what it is worth, I’m truly sorry, Faith.”

Faith scoffed. “Whatever.”

“I deeply regret how I treated you.”

The rage flared up against for one last blast before it withered and died completely. “Good!” she snapped. “You should! I hope that regret chokes you.”

Faith turned on her heel, leaving Seth in her dust. She had to get away from the pitiful bastard before she did something stupid, like… like… fuck him against the door, or, worse, forgive him.

Taking the steps two at a time, she tried to find her way back to Kitty’s chamber, candles forgotten.

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