She cut me off. ‘Violet, you might think we are all murderers, but we have a basic standard of hygiene here and that includes changing your underwear. So while you’re here, you play by our rules.’ She shot a warning look in my general direction and I closed my mouth. There was nothing I could say to that.
My thoughts wandered as she continued to pick out clothes for me, insisting they were cast-offs she never wore. The scene with Kaspar yesterday preoccupied my mind as it kept playing itself over and over like a stuck record, tormenting me. I hadn’t told anyone about it. I didn’t plan to. Not out of consideration for him, but for the sake of avoiding even further humiliation. It felt private.
‘Earth to Violet,’ an exasperated voice called. ‘I said try them on. You’re bigger than me and I want to know they fit.’ She pushed me into the washroom and one by one, Annie handed the outfits through.
When I emerged, she was draining a glass of something red that smelt faintly of alcohol. ‘All good?’ she asked, turning to me as I walked out. I nodded. ‘Vodka and blood,’ she explained, noticing that I was eyeing the drink. ‘Enough of that and that’s about as close as a vampire can get to sleep.’ She drained the last few drops and handed Annie the glass. ‘Fetch me another one. I’ve got a blasted headache.’ Annie curtsied with the faintest trace of a disgruntled expression, but Lyla didn’t seem to notice the rudeness in her words.
I began to pick up the clothes when she piped up again. ‘If you ask me, it would be far easier just to buy you more clothes – I mean, you’re going to be here a while – but Kaspar doesn’t seem to think you’re worth it.’ My hands balled into fists around the handful of clothes I was carrying. ‘No offence, of course,’ she added, watching me.
It wasn’t Kaspar’s lack of concern that bothered me, (although I was keen to avoid the subject of him) but the assumption that I was hanging around. I nodded, trying to look unbothered.
‘So vampires can get headaches? You’re not immune to all that?’
She laughed. ‘God, no. We can get headaches, stomach aches, sore throats, that type of thing, but not anything serious or complicated. And not any STDs, luckily for the likes of my brother. Still, vigilance at all times. Use condoms and all that.’ I blushed at her reference, trying not to think too much about it. She walked into her bedroom and I made for the door, clothes in hand.
‘Hey, no rush,’ she said, smiling. ‘I get bored of just having the guys around. Female company wouldn’t go amiss.’ She patted the cream sofa in the corner of the room and, after hesitating, I joined her, letting the pile rest on my lap. After a moment of awkward silence, I spoke.
‘Do the others live here?’
‘Fabian and Felix and the rest of them? Yes. This is their second home,’ she answered.
‘Why?’ I probed.
‘Oh, they like to go hunting together, kick slayer butt, that sort of thing. Passes the time.’
‘Right,’ I replied, pretending that her answer sounded normal. More questions bugged my racing mind, but I knew better than to ask them. I had to be tactful with those questions if I wanted to remain alive.
Back in the relative privacy of my own room, I curled up on the ledge beside the window. It was raining again – what little sun we would get for the year had been and gone in June. My eyes began to droop, and I walked over to the bed. I couldn’t be bothered to change, so I just slipped off my shoes and swung under the covers. I hadn’t even shut my eyes, however, when there was a loud bang, which sounded as though it came from the walls itself.
There was a second bang and I sat bolt upright. I stared in fear across the dim room; I was sure it was coming from the opposite wall, and therefore, the walk-in wardrobe. My fingers tightened over the sheets.
But there was no other sound and I plucked up the courage to slip out of bed and investigate. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the door open and dove for the light switch in one move, not wanting to look up until there was light. Yet there was nothing there and my hammering heart calmed a little. Glad of the carpeted floor as it cushioned my steps, I crept forward, until … bang!
I jumped back, startled as I realized it sounded like a door slamming, or heavy furniture being pushed across the floor in the next room – Kaspar’s room. With it, came a voice and my cheeks flushed so bright that I would put a tomato to shame.
‘Oh, Kaspar,’ someone giggled. A woman. ‘You’re so dirty.’
I back-pedalled out of the wardrobe, followed all the way by groans I didn’t want to hear. I bounded back into my bed and tried to muffle the sound by smothering myself with a pillow. But it didn’t work. I lay awake, my eyes wide like I had placed matchsticks under my lids, pulling out my hair in frustration as I was forced to listen as they went on and on and didn’t stop.
TEN
Violet
‘Annie!’ I screeched, running flat out down the downstairs corridor. ‘Annie!’ I repeated as I slowed down at the servant’s staircase, which spiralled downwards into the bowels of the mansion. At their bottom was a vast network of kitchens, used to cook for the royal family upstairs at formal events. Beyond that were launderettes and small, dim rooms for the servants to sleep in. It was here that I was spending most of my time, away from Kaspar and Fabian and the others. Here, no one took any notice of me, nor lusted for my blood because most of them hated drinking it as much as the idea revolted me – it was here, at Varnley, Annie had told me, that the vampires who never wanted to be vampires came. The vampires turned, not born.
I followed the walls of the unlit kitchens, hearing my footsteps echo off the stone walls and curved ceiling, shaped like a cellar. I knew Annie would have heard me a mile off, and sure enough, she stood at the opposite end, arms folded and her tone a little exasperated.
‘You shouldn’t be down here this late.’
I brushed her off. ‘But I have a favour to ask.’
She nodded her head, the blonde curls that she tried so hard to maintain – a throwback to when she was a teenager in the 1940s, she said – flat and dropping around her ears. Her usual cap and pinafore had gone, but the black dress remained.
‘You clean the bedrooms, right?’ I asked, biting my lip because I didn’t know how she was going to react. She nodded once more. ‘Could I help out?’
She gave me a puzzled look. ‘Why?’
‘I have a little surprise for Kaspar,’ I blabbered; keen to get it out as fast as possible.