I scrunched into the back of the wardrobe, encircling my knees with my arms. I listened intently, as the attic door swung open. There were sniggers, and then Wakefield shushing the others dramatically.

  Then the boys crept towards my hiding place.

  My fists clenched, whilst I cowered in the black. I held my breath so long that I felt lightheaded.

  “Blickle, Blickle, where are you, little pig?” Wakefield: his voice was soft and mocking, yet almost loving in the same way that he spoke to the Prefects who hung around his neck and swooned.

  Yet I knew the true cruelty that lurked underneath. He needed to break his conquests, not love them.

  The wardrobe door opened in one vicious, victorious swing.

  Wakefield stared down at me coolly, surrounded by a gallery of grinning gargoyles. The cane swung snake-like at his side. “Now, Blickle,” he tilted his head as if concerned, “we truly can’t allow you to think that’s how a boy behaves at this school. It’s imperative that I help you. How about we teach you those manners?”

  Hands — touching, holding, and pinching — hauled me out of the wardrobe, whilst I struggled. Wakefield watched with crossed arms and a pinched expression like my continued resistance was an affront to his personal kindness. Yet I also caught the gleam in his eye, and I knew that my resistance excited him.

  The boys yanked me over to the bed, stripping the gown over my head and pressing me face-down onto the dusty blanket. I retched, choking on the damp and humiliation. When I squirmed, a stinging smack to my naked arse shocked me into stillness.

  How could Wakefield do this? Strip me naked and punish me in front of the boys that I’d have to face in the daytime? We all got whacked in front of each other but not like this. The charged heady atmosphere disturbed me in a way that I didn’t even have words for but made me squirm even harder.

  My arms were dragged above my head, whilst my ankles were held apart by small hands.

  When Wakefield stroked down the center of my back, I struggled. “Are you still not man enough to take your punishment?” Wakefield whispered into my ear. “Dear, dear, what would your papa have thought?”

  And just like that, I froze.

  Please don’t talk about him, not here, please, please…

  Suddenly, the desperate need to face up to all of it swallowed me. The truth, rather than the fantasy in the dark.

  Papa was dead. Mama, Nora, and Polly were gone. I’d never see the willow tree or my home again.

  There was no safety, and lying waiting to be beaten was my real life. I was the orphan misfit about to be thrashed and I was no coward. Somehow, I needed the pain to make me remember this truth or punish me for it. I didn’t know which, but even as I feared the agony, I welcomed it.

  I shuddered, as the cool wood of the cane tapped across both defenseless cheeks, two seconds before the swish and shocking sting of the first cut.

  I yelped, and my stomach twisted, as the stinging built.

  But that was only the first cut.

  I didn’t count; in the red, agonizing haze, I’d never have been able to force out the words around the screams. This was no normal six of the best thrashing. I’d broken the school rules, but Wakefield broke them too with the beating. I’d sensed it with the danger of being cornered in the attic. Up here in the dark, naked on the broken bed, there were no rules to what Wakefield could do to me.

  I floated, dislocated from the mess of my own body.

  After, when Wakefield finally stepped back, panting from the exertion of thrashing me, a bigger boy on either side hauled me upright. I howled with the pain, whilst I shook.

  Then Wakefield held out his hand to me, arching his eyebrow, and I merely gawped at it.

  To my surprise, one of my classmates sidled closer. His face was ashen, as if he’d enjoyed the hunt but not the part where the fox was torn apart bloody. He muttered, “Shake Wakefield’s hand and then thank him for punishing you. For God’s sake, Blickle, there’s being plucky, and there’s sheer foolishness. None of us wish you to be…for this to continue further.”

  I gritted my teeth but I shook Wakefield’s hand.

  Wakefield’s eyes glinted, as he smoothed his hair, which had fallen into his eyes, and watched me, whilst I swayed, unable to stand on my own. He then sighed, holding out his hand again. Reluctantly, I allowed him to help me stand — and play the hero again.

  Whilst crimson snaked down my thighs, I choked out, “Thank you for punishing me, sir.”

  Wakefield ruffled my hair, smiling affectionately. “There, was that so hard? I won’t have one of my boys weak and crying at night like a girl. You’re an orphan and should by rights be left on the streets or sent to the workhouse. Instead, my parents help pay for your place here, which makes you mine. Are you grateful, Blickle?”

  My teeth ached, I’d been biting down so hard, but I nodded.

  This was my life now. I should be grateful to the pain because it helped me to remember.

  When Wakefield twisted his grip in my hair, forcing me up onto my toes, I gasped. His haughty face twisted into a snarl. “Then damn well show it. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how. And no more hiding. Have the decency to remember, your sort will always be the prey.”

  I nodded, afraid.

  Throughout my short First Life, I never forgot Wakefield’s lesson, until I died and was shown a glorious world where I could become the predator.

  Then I made certain that I wasn’t the one who was either afraid or the prey. Yet in Cherbourg, there were Blood Lifers and First Lifers both treating orphans like Wakefield had. I knew that I’d never allow those orphans to be hunted like I was, even it meant that I became the hunted.

  11

  When I watched the First Lifer orphan dying in Exitus’ arms, I hissed with the same impotent fury that I’d drowned in, naked and beaten, on the night that Wakefield that hunted me to the attic of the Orphan School.

  I was no prey. Yet now I had the fangs to prove it.

  I’d show these elitist First Lifers, who were using orphans like snacks for their Blood Lifer friends, that I was now a predator…and that the poor and oppressed had a savior, although not like any superhero that Kathy had been imagining.

  The suited First Lifer kissed Exitus on the cheeks, ignoring the corpse of the young man that he’d offered up like a sacrifice, even as his hands brushed it. Then he waved a casual goodbye, before turning on his heel and shambling towards the medieval town center.

  He was now my prey.

  The boys in the Orphan School had understood that they couldn’t take on the injustice of the teachers, Matron, or the system that trapped them there, but they could take out their frustrations on anyone who they thought was weaker or younger than them. It stood to reason that at long last I should copy them: I couldn’t take on the two Blood Lifers, the Long-lifer, or the whole belief system of the Blood Gods, but I could find out why there was a First Lifer cozied up to them.

  I buzzed with howling righteousness. I don’t reckon I’ve ever been blessed with that before. It was addictive, the same as human blood.

  Maybe there’s something in this redemption lark?

  I prowled through a grand square that was cold in the shadow of a statue of Napoleon. Gothic spires made my shoulder blades throb for wings. The traitor First Lifer disappeared up steps that paraded between archways. I whistled, shoving my hands in my pockets.

  Why had he entered the mayor’s office…?

  Yet even as my shoulders stiffened at what it could mean, I couldn’t even pretend to be surprised. Power and politics were hatched from the same diseased egg, and a First Lifer who traded First Lifer orphans with Blood Lifers for nuclear secrets was a man who was desperate for power.

  A light sprang on like a winking eye on the first floor.

  I narrowed my eyes: time to catch the little pig…

  I sprinted across the square, whilst the blood throbbed loudly in my ears. I couldn’t think beyond the noise. I darted up the steps and through the archways. The wrought-iron doors swung open on my first wrench.

  The First Lifer was so arrogant that he hadn’t even locked the door…? Was he important enough that no one would steal or hurt him? Yet didn’t he know to fear the dark, even though he kissed what lurked in the shadows?

  I scowled, slamming against the wall. I’d teach him to fear: Teach him his manners. Yet in my rage, I was jolted to a stop by the image of Kathy hunched on our bed with the blanket around her shoulders.

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

  I drew back, wrapping my arms around myself. Bugger it, how could I fight the dark, without becoming a predator? Yet did I want to become the Blood Lifer that I’d once been with Ruby? Simply another flavor of killer to Exitus and Maverick? Hadn’t I fought for a decade to be something apart from that through my love for Kathy?

  Nothing was worth destroying my love…or Kathy.

  I slipped out a ciggie with trembling hands and then cursed as I struggled to light it. I steadied myself against the wall, whilst smoke wound around me. Slowly, my rage and distress at the memories of the Orphan School settled, until I’d smoked the ciggie all the way down. I sighed, grinding it out on the marble.

  Sometimes it takes a man to catch a monster: even if the man is a Blood Lifer and the monster is a First Lifer.

  Bloody annoying thing, irony.

  I wiped my hands down my jeans and swaggered up the staircase on steps that were worn low by generations of humans who grew old and died as I lived on, never changing. I was wrong to try and be a savior or an avenger to any First Lifer, but I could be a man for Kathy and that meant stopping the mayor of this city from hurting orphans and trading with Blood Lifers.

  When I swept into the office, the mayor was leaning over his marble-inlaid desk, stroking his fingers greedily over a blueprint: the papers that Exitus had passed to him.

  I frowned. What the buggering hell were they?

  When the mayor caught sight of me, he scrabbled to conceal the blueprint under a pile of files, before piercing me with his flinty gaze.

  I’d guessed wrong: this First Lifer had never known what it was to be the prey. No wonder he didn’t lock his doors.

  Here was the predator of Cherbourg.

  The mayor opened his mouth to snarl at me, but I held up my hand to silence him. His eyes widened in shock at my daring. “Change the channel, mate. In English, yeah?”

  The mayor raised an eyebrow, with an insolent shrug of his shoulder. “Je m’en fous.”

  In one jump, I was across the desk, clutching the mayor by the throat and smashing him against the leather-bound books that lined the office. Blood smeared Voltaire and Sartre. “I didn’t say that I couldn’t speak the lingo. Would you like to repeat that because I don’t think that you were being very polite?”

  The mayor spluttered out a laugh. He had some balls, this one. “So, what do you want, Mr English?”

  I cocked my head. “A lot of things, but I’m not going to get them. So, right now, I’d settle for knowing why the mayor of Cherbourg is mad enough to meet with Blood Lifers.”

  The mayor shifted under my hand, licking at his lips, which curved into a sly smile. “I don’t know what—”

  I slapped him hard. “Try again.”

  He wheezed. “Please — Blood Lifer?”

  I sighed. Then I let my fangs descend.

  Silence.

  I waited for it: the mayor was a good little actor. Any moment now…

  The mayor reddened, struggling in my grasp, as spittle foamed on his lips. “My god!”

  “My name’s Light.”

  The mayor babbled, scuffing his feet against the bookcase.

  I’d been right, he was a blinding actor.

  At last, I rolled my eyes, snatching the mayor by the scruff of the neck and tossing him onto a stuffed armchair. His suit ripped, and a button pinged under the desk. I wrinkled my nose at the sweat dripping from him. “Cut it out, you prat. You’re practically shagging a Blood Lifer, from the vibes that you were giving off with Exitus, or he’s shagging you — no judgment on which way you prefer it.”

  I pulled in my fangs, crossing my arms.

  The mayor sneered, as if he hadn’t just been begging for his life and almost pissing himself. He settled onto the seat like it was throne, carefully crossing his legs at the ankle. When had I missed our switch in roles? He assessed me with his hard gaze. “You are one of the dark heroes, yes?”

  I startled, before trying to mask my emotions as well as he did. I tilted my head. “And what would they be then?”

  The mayor gave a contemptuous snort. “Non, you are clearly not one of our dark heroes. They have better manners.”

  I shifted, as if reduced to a sniveling school kid again. “Killing orphans is better manners? Plus, you’d pick a Nazi as a dark hero?”

  The mayor’s face soured. “We’ve moved on from human wars. I’m surprised that a Blood Lifer would even care about them. Have you not evolved as well?” More than he’d ever know. When I gave a sharp nod, he steepled his hands. “Then, if you’ll excuse me, I have work. It’s been…sadly, I cannot even say a pleasure.”

  The mayor gestured at the door, as if expecting me to step through it like a good little boy.

  He didn’t know me, did he?

  I slammed down my hands onto the arms of the mayor’s chair, trapping him; he jerked back. “Listen here, you git, tell me why you’re making nice with Blood Lifers, and more to the point, why they’re making nice with you. Or…” I leant closer, sniffing at the mayor’s neck. For the first time, he quivered with genuine fear, and it was delicious. “…I’ll find myself hungry enough to even drink from your corrupt throat. I don’t care who you think your protectors are, I’m not the sort of Blood Lifer who plays by the rules. Maybe you reckon that you’re safe because of your dark heroes, but it doesn’t matter who they are, to me your life is worth less than the orphan’s who you fed to them.”

  When I drew back fractionally, the mayor’s face was bone-white.

  “After the war,” the mayor breathed, “they came: our dark heroes. But not simply them, also their leader: Versailles.”

  “Versailles?”

  The mayor nodded with a sudden dreamy expression like he was remembering a lover…or a cult leader. “Versailles would never treat a First Lifer like you do… He’s a blessing. Like a…”

  “God?”

  The mayor’s cheeks flushed. “How can you understand? Cherbourg had been destroyed by the war. We had nothing and no future.”

  “Yeah, so? Wait, I get it. Versailles came to you on a cloud of sweet talk, smiles, and a sexy arse, and you made a deal with the devil, did you?”

  Slap — the mayor’s handprint scolded my cheek. I fought not to scrub away the sting.

  The mayor’s eyes blazed, whilst his breathing became ragged. “Versailles saved us. He chose our town because he loves us. Business, manufacturing, and nuclear… He gifted us knowledge and talents that—”

  “I get it,” I ground out, “he’s part Father Christmas and part jinn. But the problem is, Blood Lifers aren’t big on charity and this isn’t a fairy tale, so, what did you gift these dark heroes in return?”

  Even before the mayor’s gaze had darted away, unable to hold mine for the first time, I knew.

  My grip tightened on the armrests; my nails clawed into the fabric.

  “The heads of industry and I hold a lottery.” Sweat fought through the maze of the mayor’s mustache, where it was speared on the strands. “Only the poorer families are entered, of course, and those who’ve behaved badly, as well as…”

  “Orphans?” I supplied.

  I fought to remember Kathy and the way that she’d pinned the poppy onto her scarf like she’d granted me a piece of her humanity. Otherwise, I’d have dived onto the bastard’s neck and sunk in my fangs like every instinct roared.

  The mayor actually smiled like I was at last understanding how the system worked in his town. “That is it! The children must be born on full moons because our dark heroes need the perfect sacrifice for their god.” Then he patted my hand. “My apologies, of course, he is your god too.”

  “He’s no god of mine,” I muttered. “Why did Versailles choose Cherbourg?”

  The mayor pulled back, turning up his nose as he straightened his cuffs. “Insolent pup, why not us when we need them? Although, the dark heroes help other French towns and have done for centuries.”

  Other towns...?

  I staggered backwards.

  Blood Lifers were supposed to be camouflaged, hidden predators, who didn’t reveal ourselves to humans. I’d broken this rule for Kathy out of love, and paid for it with exile. Yet here was a cult of Blood Lifers sharing our world with elite First Lifers, all in the name of the Blood God.

  For centuries.

  The danger was so immense that I shook from it. The Blood Life Council and the Order of Electors who policed our world must know, yet they hadn’t stopped this abuse. Why hadn’t they?

  I roared, sweeping books from the shelves in waves. The mayor swore, cowering back and shielding his head. I smashed my fist, one, two, three times against the oak, shuddering at the agony as my knuckles broke.

  Blood tinged the air.

  The sainted Versailles secretly dealt with First Lifers and was worshiped for it, yet I was punished for telling a single First Lifer.

  I could no longer trust anyone but Kathy.

  The mayor watched me through hooded eyes. “You do not understand, Monsieur, the great good that the dark heroes bring to our town. Because of our nuclear submarine we no longer have to fear. And so, three die.” He shrugged. “But in the balance…? It is the few for the many. I would have thought that was a sacrifice you understood, English.”

  ‘They’re not dark heroes,” I replied, sucking the blood from my knuckles, “they’re dark wankers.”

  Yet they still had the babies and a sacrifice on the full moon.

  12

  When Kathy and I sprawled on the freezing black of the Monument to the Dead in the public gardens, we were wrapped so close to each other that I couldn’t tell where one of us began and the other ended.

 

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