© Sadie Rose Bermingham 2008
The usual terms and conditions apply. This is My Underwear. Don't steal it. Don't wear it. Don't post it to your website without my permission. You can sniff at it if you must but when I catch you, you WILL be severely punished! Enjoy... xxx Sadie.
*
Kevan did not ring at all the next day. He did not call around to the flat and he made no apparent effort to send a message. In his absence Rayne slept - quite literally like the dead - when he was not checking his mobile or his answering machine, that is. At 2.33 in the afternoon he drank two pints of cold water and listened to the mechanical voice intoning; "You have no messages" for the fifth time that day.
The Vampire wrapped the telephone cord around the fingers of his left hand and yanked it out of the socket. Then he threw the whole contraption across the room and watched it disintegrate against the far wall.
"Don't need a fuckin' ansaphone anyway!" he muttered to himself caustically. "Don't need 'any' of this crap!"
He went back to bed and curled up under the crumpled duvet cover where he bit down on the knuckle at the base of his left thumb and sucked gently on the watery spill of his own blood. It was comforting but it did not create sufficient distraction to take his mind off the events of last night.
"Should have banged their fuckin' heads together and drained the murdering bastard!" he grumbled under his breath. "Stupid Cops! Stupid fuckin' muppets!"
Restless and angry, he rolled onto his back, kicking off the covers and staring at the ceiling, watching it swim and blur, then blinking his eyes furiously to clear them. It had been ages since he had felt normal and human. After the nightmares of London - the pain of losing so much that was important to him - Rayne had closed the doors on any kind of relationship. Gradually, the warning that Jabez had once given him was sinking in. It was true. He would lose the people he cared about one by one. Either he would alienate them by exposing them to the truth or he would have to cut them out of his life altogether. He was in his forties now and he still looked like a young man. His features would not change. And those who knew him best would begin to notice it. They had 'already' begun to notice.
Worse still than that; he would have to watch them die. It had started to happen, all too soon. Rayne was no stranger to death; it had haunted him from the womb but to watch people he had grown up around slowly wither and fade was agony when he knew that he could not halt it and would never share their fate.
It was why he had come here, to Manchester where hardly anyone knew him. He was lonely for much of the time but it was better than hurting.
"So why'd you do it?" he groaned rhetorically, throwing his forearm across his eyes to shut out the light. "Why'd you let Kevan in like that? Why the fuck did you let him get under your skin so badly?"
He could not answer that question. For months he had been telling himself that he felt sorry for Kev; that he hated to see the man lonely and wanted to help him. Like Rayne, Kevan had been cut out of the picture of his own life; forcibly ejected from the warmth and unity of his family. The vampire knew how that felt; he could empathise. It felt good to have something in common with someone normal and human. Well... someone 'human' anyway! When he was with Kevan, for a little while he could be normal too.
And when Rayne was 'not' normal, Kevan somehow managed not to be totally freaked out by it. Or at least he had managed until last night.
Kev never minded feeding him, but that was a controlled interaction. It was gentle and sanitised; a game of give and take. They had made it a part of their lovemaking and Rayne knew that his mate enjoyed giving of himself. Somehow Kev still managed to convince himself that he could make Rayne stop. Until the other day he had never seen his lover bite a human being in anger. Now he knew the truth, and the truth had not been pretty. It rarely was!
In the end Rayne threw himself out of bed and showered again, then dressed and went for a walk. He could not hide away in his eyrie like Count Dracula. There were practicalities to consider. No one was going to deliver fresh virgins to his door so he would have to find sustenance if he did not want to become a total wreck. Brooding over Kevan Delaney was not going to feed him.
By the time he had washed and decided on his choice of wardrobe it was almost four thirty and the streets were in that grey hiatus between post-lunch shopping crowds and office-emptying, rush hour throng. Rayne was comfortable with that. It was a cool, damp, mid-May afternoon, which also lessened the impact of people on the streets. He could bide his time.
His mentor, Jabez was not an advocate of daylight feeding. The ancient Vampire considered it a risk not work the taking but Rayne had grown up in cities and he knew that there was a sub-strata that existed there even when the sun was shining and people were pretending not to have a care in the world. It was true that some Vampires would not walk in the daylight but often they were the older ones, cautious and stubborn; stuck in their ways. They had grown accustomed to using the night as a cloak to hide their proclivities. Rayne was a creature of an era where there were even clubs and societies for people who liked to pretend they were Vampires; places where they could meet and cut one another, licking up the blood. Hardly anyone was going to bat an eye, even if he took a bite out of someone right here on the street. The old rules no longer applied. Yes the sun could burn you; but for Rayne Wylde who had grown up with a complexion like fresh milk, this was nothing new. He was not going to frazzle to cinders just because the sun was shining. Although he might consider wearing a broad brimmed hat and a decent pair of shades!
(In the end, as it was overcast, he didn't bother with either!)
He wandered down Canal Street and up through Chinatown, taking his time. The smells already emanating from the myriad restaurants in the Chinese Quarter were enough to make his mouth water on their own. He adored oriental cuisine. Even though ordinary food had little benefit for him now, he still loved the flavours and the sweet, sharp, spicy aromas from the countless kitchens, cook-shops and takeaways on his meandering route. There was something so bright and optimistic about Manchester's Chinatown, even set in this district of towering industrial factory and office buildings with their dark, looming facades and high, narrow windows. A coloured banner fluttered here and over there a ceremonial archway broke the gloom. There were neon strips and coloured hoardings all lovingly decorated with flowers and delicate golden Chinese script. As darkness came on and the lights began to shine it sometimes felt as if a festival was about to take place. Rayne was constantly expecting to turn a corner and find a Chinese dragon dancing on the street whilst brightly clad waiters and shopkeepers played discordant, enthusiastic horns and pounded on drums and cymbals. The rhythm of the area made him want to dance.
Popping his earphones in, he thumbed the tactile controls of his MP3 and let the little machine serenade him with random noise. It could hold around 5000 tracks and he never bothered to title them. When the machine was full he deleted things at random and added new ones. He thought that the sound in his head was a Finnish rock band but he was no longer sure; the only thing he could say was that he liked it and the throbbing drums and soaring guitars suited his mood. With his head full of sound he walked the streets, able to drive reality back to the boundaries of his consciousness. It was the perfect relaxation technique. Since childhood he had always been able to lose himself in music and he was no different now. The soundtrack lifted him and carried him. He walked in random circles taking in the streets that were just off tangent; never quite entering the busiest thoroughfares. His route cut across the back ways and skirted the consumer arteries of Deansgate and Market Street, bypassing Piccadilly and sliding across the corner of Portland Street into the bohemian shadows of the Northern Quarter.
A young man wearing a black fluffy jacket and a silver waistcoat with black and charcoal striped drainpipe trousers walked past him heading for Oldham Street and met his eyes with a flirtatious smile. He and Rayne were well matched for height, which was rare enough. The youth's sweeping glance took him in from head to foot. Rayne walked on by and let his feet carry him for three, four, five strides then turned from the waist. The lad was looking back at him, dark eyes sparkling with amusement. He was walking backwards now, unable to avert his eyes. His short dark hair had little blue and white flashes in it which fascinated the Vampire. There were thirteen silver earrings dangling from his left ear and a simple lobe tunnel and a silver hoop with a bead of jet in the curving shell of the right one. Such 'lickable' ears!
Rayne stopped and watched him back into a lampost, cursing and laughing; shaking his head. He fought the smile but it curved his lips anyway and he had to look away. When the young man came back towards him he was not surprised. The soundtrack in his ears subsided to a natural break as he reached up and removed the small, black plugs, casually thumbing the pause control on his player as the lad drew level with him.
"Sexy!" the young man remarked, nodding at his MP3, which was a sleek little thing, no bigger than a credit card; a gift from some music magazine he had recently written for. "Like its owner."
His accent leaned towards the southern reaches of the city. Rayne could not actually tell if it was natural Scally or the boy was putting it on for his benefit. He slid the tiny console into his jacket pocket and looked the younger man over very slowly, taking his time, letting the youth get flustered. Fifteen years in the music industry had given him a good grounding for dealing with flattery. Most people, bestowed with a compliment would either deflect it, choosing to deprecate themselves as a defensive mechanism to gain reinforcement of the appreciation, or preen a little in the warmth of the adulation, whether it was expected or not. Rayne did neither, he simply measured the depth of the compliment and waited for the reality.
"I've seen you before somewhere, 'aven't I?" the boy said at last, recovering the use of his tongue. "I mean, on the telly or something?"
Rayne let him stew for a little longer before he answered. "Not lately, no."
Those dark eyes widened. They were the colour of plain chocolate and reminded him painfully of Matty Greening, though the lad was smaller and looked nothing like his old friend. Just lately everything he came into contact with made him maudlin. Rayne pulled himself severely back to the present. He had a job to do; there was no point getting sentimental.
"D'you fancy a shag?" the lad asked him, almost bringing the smile back to his lips again. There was something so direct about that question; so honest. It almost warmed his heart.
"Here?" he asked, looking around as if he expected a mysterious Narnia-esque doorway to open right off the street leading into the young man's sumptuous bedroom.
"If you fancy it!" His inquisitor laughed hoarsely, shaking his head. "You're a right mental case aren't you?"
