Kathy’s lip curled. “And you’d know.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Think on this: are you a First Lifer or Blood?”

  I shook, as my chest ached. How much had I lost because of that choice? “I reckon that’d be bleeding obvious.” I caught the cloth before it could thwap across my grazed cheek. “What’s all this then?”

  “Do you want them or me?” Kathy demanded. She was quivering, but when I tried to grasp her hand, she pulled back. ‘Because it’s a choice; it always was. Only, you don’t want to see it. There’s nothing excites you like a hunt; the way you came back last night like you were someone else…wild, alive, and dangerous…but this is about saving the babies. You can’t save us, if you can’t see that.”

  I pulled back from Kathy. My breathing was suddenly too painful and rapid. “What the bleeding hell do you think I was doing last night then…?”

  “Fangs and fists,” you replied, flatly, “aren’t enough.”

  With a snarl, I lobbed the cloth across the room. It stuck with a wet suck to the far wall like a red mouth. “Why does it even matter to you? It’s not like we know them.”

  Kathy shrugged away from me, and her shoulders slumped. “The fact that you can ask that…? There’s the problem, Light. You blood abstain but…”

  I grasped Kathy’s hands, whilst a desperate feeling fluttered through me that I wasn’t actually touching her at all. That within the space of one night, I’d lost the right. “It isn’t enough? How about that I love you?”

  Her gaze, however, slid from mine. I felt nauseous with the loss. “You think that you see us alike, First and Blood. But you don’t. You only see me.”

  I shook, gasping in shallow breaths.

  She was right. But when had it started? When had Kathy become the world alone to me?

  Kathy uncurled from the bed. The water in the bowl coiled in angry coppery tendrils when she shoved it away, dragging the blanket around her shoulders. “I wish that we hadn’t seen the truth of this town and its lost babies. Then we could’ve gone on kissing and playing in the dark. But do you reckon that I can now? That I can forget?”

  I leapt off the bed, pacing — up, down, up, down — caged as I’d ever been.

  Why are you always naked when you need a smoke?

  My hands didn’t know what to do with themselves. I crossed my arms to contain their jittering. “If I take on these Blood Lifers, then we’re buggered. We won’t be hidden, alone—”

  Crash — Kathy slammed me back against the wall in a hissing blur. “Safe? Do you reckon that I’m suited to be hidden, alone, or safe? The world’s bigger than simply the two of us, no matter how large our love is. Don’t lose yourself, not to anyone. Even me.”

  When Kathy’s lips caressed mine, I melted against them, trying to press myself deeper and lose myself, just as she’d said, in the kiss. Yet she pulled back, assessing me with a serious look that flayed me.

  “But I’m yours.” Christ, why couldn’t Kathy hear the truth in my howl? Understand the desperate plea in my gaze? I belonged to her. “And I’ll rescue Joelle if it’ll make you happy.”

  “It shouldn’t be about making me happy. What do you want, Light?” She twisted away.

  I caught her arm, yanking her back. “Leave it out. I want you, and I’ll do whatever I have to in order to make sure I keep you. You want honesty? I’m trying here, but I’m still a Blood Lifer…it’s just, I’m your Blood Lifer.”

  Kathy didn’t reply, but when I caught her chin and tilted her head, she was smiling. “You’re not a superhero, but I guess you could be my superhero…?”

  I nipped at her lip. “Always.”

  Kathy’s smile suddenly became sly. “Then you know that promise I made you swear not to steal?”

  “Engraved on my heart, love.”

  She bent down, before chucking my jeans at me. “Get dressed because I didn’t say anything about breaking and entering into police stations.”

  I grinned, dragging on my jeans, even as I shivered at the danger of attacking the very heart of First Lifer justice.

  Why did I forget that Kathy was closer to a Blood Lifer than any First Lifer I’d ever met and loved the thrill of a caper just as much? Yet sticking around to solve this French mystery of missing babies entangled us with Blood Lifers who wanted to either kill or love us, and I didn’t know which was more deadly.

  7

  It was easy to break into Cherbourg’s police station, but the true danger lay in what I had to steal once I was inside. The only way to beat your enemy in a hunt was to know more about them, than they knew about you, and right now Kathy and I were losing that game. If I could work out what was going on with the baby snatching, then maybe I could stop us from being the prey.

  I crouched in the corridor, peering around a corner at the front office. A gang of frenzied locals crammed the small space, jabbering at the officers, puffed up with both fear and rage at the baby snatching. They pounded the desk like a class of naughty schoolboys had taken over the station.

  Kathy didn’t want us to hide anymore either from the First or Blood Lifer worlds that’d hunted us. Instead, she insisted that this should be our stand because whatever was happening in Cherbourg revolved around the missing kids. If rather than running, I faced my Blood Lifer nature, like the First Lifers who feared me, then maybe I’d finally choose humanity, instead of simply losing myself in her.

  I knew Kathy was desperate that I’d choose her First Lifer world. She didn’t understand that since I’d first heard her voice singing in the 1960s, I’d been caught in her spell: I was lost in her and I always would be. She was my blazing obsession.

  I was doing this break-in alone, however, no matter how much Kathy had fought me over the decision. If the police caught me, then at least I’d know that she was free. This was her plan, but my mission. She wasn’t the one in need of redemption.

  Why did I have the feeling that whatever I discovered, however, would pull me away from Kathy, back into the shadows of the Blood Lifer world, rather than free us?

  I’d had to hide in doorways, back alleys, or crouched behind dustbins reeking with fish guts to crawl across town because the streets had been boiling with mobs of locals and policemen who’d been carrying batons. I’d eyed the civilians’ makeshift weapons: bread knives taped to broom handles, rolling pins, leather belts, and straps. Here and there, the First Lifers had jostled rifles over their shoulders but they hadn’t been hunting rabbits.

  If they’d caught me — male, English, rocker, different — as well as being with the woman who’d cooed over Joelle only moments before she’d disappeared...?

  I’d have been stood up against the wall and shot. And bullets have a way of hitting your heart when you’re executed.

  I shuddered, glancing down the police corridor again. A stooped policeman fiddled with the polished buttons on his fancy uniform. A commandant, maybe? When he slouched towards the huddle of locals, calling out weary platitudes, I stiffened.

  This could be my chance, whilst the bloke was distracted, trying to send the locals home.

  Good luck, mate.

  I hunkered down. I didn’t fancy playing Hide and Seek with Mr Policeman but I had to find the Records Room and not one of the doors along the corridor was labeled. I shook my head, trying to focus against the clanging of the police phones, which were like the warning of an apocalypse. Enhanced senses were less of a blessing and more of a curse in the modern human world. Crouching low, I sneaked down the corridor. The commandant still had his back to me as he gestured to the crowds. I pushed open the first door.

  In the darkness was the stark outline of a single table and chair: Interview room.

  I backed up, closing the door, before pressing myself to the wall. Then I froze.

  The commandant wasn’t sweet-talking the mob any longer, he was glancing straight behind him, down the corridor…towards me.

  I bit hard on my lip, holding my breath.

  The commandant, however, glared straight over my head; in his flustered state, he didn’t even notice the Blood Lifer in the shadows. Cringing, I twisted my neck to look up at the policeman who stood to attention at the other end of the corridor, as if I was an antelope trapped between two lions.

  And why had I become the wankering prey again?

  Finally, the officer gave a smart nod to his superior before swiveling on his heel and marching back the way that he’d come.

  I held my breath as I darted through the next door.

  It was the Records room or at least, filing cabinets in a dusty little backroom. Did it contain the answers to the missing kids?

  I prowled to the cabinets, sniffing the damp. Light from the waxing moon broke through the high window. I slid open a drawer, flipping through the files until I found the one that I’d been searching for.

  Curiosity: it’s always been my greatest strength and my greatest weakness. Kathy wanted me to snatch the file, but my memory was photographic, so I could just as easily read it now and bring the information back in my mind.

  Yeah, that’s the bollocks.

  All right, so I held those papers in my hand and the hunger to find out why my hidden, alone, and safe life had been shattered, raged through me. I ripped open the file, spreading the papers across the floor. My knees ached, as I knelt on the stone. Then I ran my fingers across the lists of names, numbers, and dates.

  Three cases of the lost. Three baby girls. Three photos: one blonde and two dark.

  And three dates: 1st June, 28th August, and 27th September.

  Three, three, three.

  I hugged my arms around my middle, as firework-bright, the magical number lit my brain until I quivered with it. Numbers have always built pretty pictures in my mind: I’m a savant. Spider-webbed connections shook me, until I could almost catch them and see the truth behind the numbers.

  The pattern.

  This was why I should care; just for a moment, I caught the edges of Kathy’s humanity and the meaning of what she’d tried to explain to me back in our rooms: it was in these tiny faces, the grief-wrenched mum’s statements, and the loss of innocents.

  But it was in the three as well; I could taste it. Whilst I thumbed over the pictures of the kids, I flicked through the memories in my mind, like the banks of a computer, searching for references to three that could fit, selecting and rejecting as theories failed, until finally I discovered one that did fit: Blood Gods.

  I scrambled back, as if the dark could reach out from those papers and snatch me too. The files ripped, skittering to the corner.

  Sodding hell, I wished that I could clear my mind even of the name, yet it repeated itself on a loop now that I’d discovered the pattern: Blood Gods, Blood Gods, Blood Gods…

  Three virgins, each born on a full moon, were sacrificed by the Moon Cult to the only gods that our species (or at least those fanatics deluded enough to follow them) believed in: The Blood Gods.

  Each god was worshiped by a different Long-lived, who was a powerful Blood-Lifer who’d survived for longer than most, and together a Blood God and his Long-lived worshiper were the only thing that most Blood-lifers truly feared because they were always beautiful but monstrous. No Blood Lifer was meant to be able to resist the pull of their Moon Cult. Yet were these the bastards who wanted Kathy and me to join them?

  And now the Moon Cult hunted Cherbourg and in two days the moon would be full.

  Bollocks.

  I shoved myself up, but my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I could fight most things, but I’d never come up against my own world’s gods before. In frustration and fear, I booted the cabinet — clang.

  Suddenly, the upraised voices outside in the police station stilled.

  I groaned. Piss-poor attempt at playing Bond, mate.

  When footsteps drummed outside, I backed towards the wall. There was nothing to hide inside or behind and nowhere to run.

  So, I might as well be caught in style.

  I lounged, raising a ciggie to my lips; I lit it with a snick. “Evening, officer.”

  The commandant’s neck reddened, whilst his face blanched. His shoulders vibrated with outrage.

  The insolence was worth it, for all of the long moment that the commandant took in the state of his Records Room, before studying the scattered files on the missing babies at my feet. I hid the tremble in my lips with another deep drag of my ciggie. The commandant sneered at me, before turning to scream for his officers.

  They arrived in a thunderous pack.

  I didn’t look up, instead stubbing out my ciggie under my boot, grinding it hard into the stone to leave my mark. The commandant growled, raising his baton. The other officers shifted and crossed their arms like they were waiting for their turn, but the commandant had pulled rank and got first shot at me. I don’t know why I’d expected him to at least try and arrest me peacefully, but First Lifers never failed to disappoint me.

  On the other hand, I also loved to disappoint First Lifers. The commandant didn’t expect me to dodge his blow; he thought that I was playing by the rules and would take my hiding like a good little boy.

  I was never one for playing by other people’s rules.

  The commandant struck again, swinging harder this time. If this was the beating before the interrogation even started, what would the interview be like?

  There was no way that I was sticking around to find out.

  I spun around the commandant’s back, slamming into the cabinet, before clouting the commandant in the kidneys. He groaned and staggered, whilst his officers muttered.

  I wasn’t winning the crowd.

  They didn’t intervene though, so maybe they’d give me a chance at a fair fight each or maybe the commandant was enough of a bastard that his own men enjoyed one of the criminals turning the beating back on him.

  I rolled my shoulders, bouncing on my toes.

  The commandant eyed me, before swinging for my head like he meant to split open my skull. I ducked and — clang — his baton dented the cabinet instead. Cursing, the commandant gave up on his manly one-on-one fight, instead waving wildly at the other policemen to flood into the room. I scowled at his cowardice, shrinking back as a blue and white sea crashed towards me. Then my arms and legs were grabbed and pulled, as if the officers meant to tear me apart.

  I struggled. “Take it easy with the goods, gents.”

  The officers crushed me against the wall, pressing their arms across my stomach, chest, and throat. I gasped in short, panicked breaths.

  The commandant’s face swam into my teary view. He strolled towards me, as casually smug as a bloke who knows that all he has to do is slaughter the lamb.

  I was no sodding lamb.

  Yet these were First Lifers, and the number one rule was not to reveal Blood Lifer existence. I’d only ever broken that with Kathy. I couldn’t risk baring my fangs to this many humans. Even when, with a casual brutality that must’ve been perfected over the years, the commandant punched me in the guts.

  I coughed, struggling to breathe, as an officer pressed his arm harder at my throat. Then I retched, when the commandant booted me in the bollocks.

  The muttering from our audience transformed into an excited buzz. When the commandant split my lip with a ferocious left hook, they cheered. The commandant’s shoulders were no longer stooped; he was a proud leader on the battlefield, feeding off his soldiers’ applause, the violence, and being the hero. He’d caught the perverted foreign criminal and was dishing out justice: vigilante-style. Justice is only revenge prettied up in posh clothes.

  In the moonlight, the commandant was the true face of the law, as he twirled his baton and struck it against my already broken ribs.

  I screamed to the laughter of the good folks of Cherbourg.

  Why was I risking Kathy — our love — for these First Lifers? What type of humanity did Kathy want me to learn from them?

  The commandant’s eyes narrowed, as he tipped up my chin to study my face. His onion breath puffed against my bruised cheeks. Then, with a flick of his wrist, the policemen were dragging me after the commandant towards the corridor, and I knew with blinding certainty that they weren’t hauling me to the Interrogation Room.

  They were going to lynch me.

  They didn’t know, however, that the creature they’d been hurting was harder to kill than a First Lifer, or that I could kill them with a single bite.

  They didn’t know what I’d sacrificed for them.

  I thrashed in their hold, desperate to escape before they handed me over to the mob at the front desk. But blue heaved on all sides, whilst the moon glared down through the window.

  Sometimes you’re buggered no matter what you do, it’s simply a different type of buggered. All I knew was that I couldn’t die, not whilst Kathy was still in danger. Nothing mattered but her.

  I closed my eyes, just for a moment, before launching myself unexpectedly backwards, which unbalanced one of the officers who was holding me. He stumbled, and I clutched his shoulders before climbing up to use him like a launching pad. I snatched onto the wide window ledge. My knuckles bled white, as I wrenched myself up to rest on my elbows.

  I ignored the yells from below, whilst my chest ached with the thudding of my heart. Hands grasped my ankles, trying to pull me down into the swirling blue. I pulled back my fist, smashing it through the glass. The shards shattered, nicking my face and arms. Flooded with adrenaline and fear, I didn’t even feel the slices of the glass, only the cold drip of my blood, as I booted the clinging hands away and wriggled through the hole and out into the silent street.

  I lay for a moment, staring up at the moon. Then I groaned, picked myself up, and staggered towards the only place that I wanted to be…the warmth of Kathy’s side. Because something worse than any First Lifer was in town: The Moon Cult and its Blood God.

 

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