One Must Hide

Stares and shivers

The local cat used to leave headless birds and mangled mice on the porch of Robin’s parents’ house in Devon. The neighbours insisted that such offerings were a mark of the cat’s high esteem for them. Robin wasn’t sure about that, and anyway, it didn’t make the grisly little trophies any prettier.

“I wouldn’t look too closely.”

It took a moment for Dwayne’s quiet suggestion to penetrate Robin’s preoccupation; a moment in which she’d already looked more closely than she wanted.  She looked up into black eyes that betrayed no emotion one way or the other for the dead man, and counted herself lucky that her voice stayed steady. “Who killed him?”

Dwayne held her gaze for a long time before replying. “I did.”

It wasn’t a boast, and he didn’t sound pleased about it.  But pleased or not, a man lay dead on the floor, and that shook Robin.  Knowing that they were vampires and that they killed to live was one thing: seeing the bloody evidence with her own eyes was another. Shit.  That’s a corpse.  What have I got myself into?

“If it makes you feel any better,” Dwayne said quietly, “he wasn’t human.”

She made herself look at the body again. “Then he was a vampire?”

“Half,” said Paul, before Dwayne could answer. “And it shouldn’t make you feel any better.  We found him outside your window.”

Robin found herself the object of the Lost Boys’ collective scrutiny.  She looked from one to the next, and the intensity of their stares made her almost as uncomfortable as the corpse on the floor.

After a minute, Dwayne said, “Recon.”

“Turned to order,” Paul added meaningfully. “Because we didn’t set wards for halfs.”

“So some rank’s got wind of us,” Marko finished.  Then he turned to Robin, as if noticing her for the first time. “Welcome back, by the way.”

Robin, trying to reconcile their rapid conclusions in her mind, was too preoccupied to answer. “David, what’s going on?”

David studied the body for several moments.  Then he turned to Robin, smiling.”It’s nothing to worry about.”

She looked from him to Paul. “He was outside my window?”

“Casing the joint,” Paul said, staring accusingly at David. 

“It’s only a half, Robin,” the leader of the Lost Boys told her, ignoring Paul. “He couldn’t have done much except given you a scare.  And even then...I don’t think so.”

“Bullshit,” said Paul.“We’ve been chasing down other vamps all week.  The local ranks want to know why we’re killing them.” He shot a scathing look at Robin. “Which is a good question.”

“He’s right,” Dwayne added.”The locals realise we’re protecting something and they want to know what it is.  This guy was only a couple of nights old.”

David glanced between the two vampires, his face settling into a more serious expression. “Are they more than you can handle?”

Robin saw Paul bristle with the implied insult, but Dwayne seemed unmoved. “Not yet,” he said.

David held Dwayne’s gaze for a long moment.  Then, with one foot, he casually flipped the body of the half vampire onto its back, and its head lolled grotesquely on its neck to reveal a livid bite wound on its throat.

Robin jumped back before she could stop herself, almost colliding with Marko.”Jesus!” Appalled, she looked at Dwayne. “Did you do that?”

Dwayne regarded her without a hint of chagrin. “What were you expecting?”

“But...” She reined in her shock, and tried not to look for traces of blood around Dwayne’s mouth. “You feed off other vampires?”

“Yeah,” Paul said, “and we haven’t been going hungry recently.”

The uncomfortable silence that followed was broken after a moment by Marko. “I’m getting a beer.  Anyone want one?”

“Robin,” said David, “why don’t you go with Marko?”

That wasn’t a request, was it?  Robin looked uncertainly from David to his lieutenants, wondering what he was going to say to them that he didn’t want her to hear.  Then, deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, she followed Marko out.

“Are they in trouble?” she asked.

Marko threw her a grin over his shoulder as he led her past the stairs. “Nah.  It doesn’t work that way.” He pushed open the door at the end of the corridor and paused to add, “They’re just having some creative differences.”

The door opened into a big, friendly farmhouse kitchen, all wood-panelled units and well-scrubbed worktops and copper-bottomed pans hanging from the ceiling.  The tiled floor was cool beneath Robin’s bare feet. “Over me?”

“Oh, yeah, always over you.” Marko’s smirk gave him away.  He went to the fridge and started handing Robin bottles of Budweiser.  There didn’t seem to be much else in there. “So what made you come back, anyway?”

Robin put the first two beers down on the kitchen table. “I saw your film tonight.”

“Ohh.” Marko tucked three more bottles in the crook of his elbow and slammed the fridge door with a foot. “Got freaked out by seeing us all die horribly?”

“You’d think I’d be more freaked out by that body you’ve got in the other room,” she said, with a wryness she didn’t feel.

“See, that’s what makes you different.” Marko knocked the tops off two of the bottles and passed Robin one. “When you start reacting in fucked-up ways, you know you belong to the night.”

Robin sighed with the exasperation she didn’t quite dare show David. “Are you ever going to explain what you want me for?”

“You mean David hasn’t?” Marko shook his head. “Man, sometimes he keeps things to himself just for the fun of it.”

“So?  What is it?”

Marko folded his arms, leaning against the kitchen counter. “We get on, right?  You and us?” He pulled a face. “I mean, if you don’t count the last four days, that is.” He regarded her with a shrewdness Robin hadn’t previously associated with the most carefree of the Lost Boys. “Did you miss us?”

Robin looked at her hands, tilting her Budweiser bottle this way and that, so the beer inside fizzed and foamed. “Yes,” she replied at last.

“David wants you to run with us.”

She raised her eyes to his. “What do you mean?”

Marko shrugged. “He wants you to join us.  Permanently.”

“Do you mean –”

“As a vampire?” Marko shook his curly head. “As you are.  Because of what you are.”

Losing all interest in beer, Robin put the bottle down. “Which is…?”

Marko paused, as if weighing up the wisdom of saying more.  Then he sighed. “To hell with it, what’s the worst he’s gonna do?  You’ve got a little bit of vampire in you, Robin.”

She heard the words, but they didn’t sink in. “What?”

He hesitated again, then went on. “Okay.  How to be a vampire 101.  If you get bit by a vampire, or you drink some of a vamp’s blood, you go half.  Right?  To go full, you have to drink again, human or vampire.  Unless you can kill the one who turned you first.”

“Like in the movie?” Robin asked. “Kill the head vampire and the half vampires go back to normal?”

“Nah, that head vampire stuff was all bull.  It comes down to the individual vamp who did the deed.  Kill him before you drink someone else’s blood, and you revert.  Mortal and human.  Nearly.”

Robin hardly dared breathe in case she interrupted Marko’s explanation. “Go on.”

“Nearly,” he repeated, clearly warming to his subject. “But not completely.  When you’ve had a brush with the night it leaves its mark on you, and once a vampire, always once a vampire.  That’s what we call them. Once vampire.” Marko shook his head. “Anyway.  It’s just a little bit of darkness, a little shadow, but they pass it on to their kids.  And it might show up that they don’t enjoy the sun much, or get a reaction to silver, or just like their steaks real rare.  Small stuff like that, nothing you’d notice.  Not until the bloodlines cross and it all comes out.”

“That I’m – what?” she asked incredulously. “Part vampire?”

“Seems that way,” Marko agreed.

Robin stared blankly into space.  This is madness.  For all the impossible, improbable, unlikely things she’d come to accept about David and the Lost Boys, none of them had made her feel like a stranger to herself.  So she never had enjoyed holidays in the sun much; so she was allergic to silver; so she did like her steak nearly blue.  None of those things made her a vampire.  She ran her tongue over her teeth.  Are they sharper than normal?  She didn’t know. “I can’t be,” she said at last, lamely.

Marko chuckled.  He seemed to be enjoying himself. “Why not?”

“Because…“ Robin seized on the first thing that came to mind. “What about my sister?  If I’m part vampire, she must be too.”

He shrugged. “Not necessarily.  It’s like green eyes.  You don’t all get them.”

“But my mum and dad would both have to be related to – what did you call them – once vampires?” Robin shook her head. “No way.  They’re too normal.”

“Like I said, it doesn’t really show up until it’s crossed,” he said. “And not always even then.” He paused, then asked brightly, “You hungry?”

It took Robin several moments to register the question.  She stared across the kitchen and observed distractedly, “You have an Aga.”

Marko snorted in derision. “We have a microwave.” He opened the fridge again and rummaged around in the icebox. “We have, uh, some Micro Chips.  Micro Chips?” He studied the black cardboard box. “Like microwave fries?” He shook the box. “You want some?”

Robin shook her head again.  How can he be thinking of chips? “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I guess David didn’t think it was the right time,” Marko said.

“It always comes back to what he wants, doesn’t it?” she asked, with more rancour than she intended.

“He’s our leader, Robin,” Marko told her.

“He might be yours,” she replied bullishly.

“Do you really believe that?”

Marko’s eyes were suddenly much older than his boyish face, and Robin found she couldn’t meet them.  She looked aside for a moment, and the silvery glint almost hidden in his hair caught her eye instead.  She nodded at it. “So what’s significant about that?”

He pushed back his curly fair hair to show her the moon-shaped earring. “This?”

“You’ve all got one, haven’t you?”

“It was the thing when we were kids,” Marko said.  He flashed a broad grin. “And since we still are, it still is.”

It was no easier getting a straight answer out of Marko than it was David; he flitted from serious to playful and back so quickly that she felt she was never quite on the same wavelength as him.  But his mercurial nature was part of his charm, just as David’s obliqueness was part of his. “Are you always going to make it this difficult for me?”

“Challenging,” Marko corrected. “And if you wanted an easy life, you wouldn’t be here.”

Robin raised her eyes to his, but she only had a moment to question the approval she saw there before the kitchen door slammed back to admit, in turn, Paul, Dwayne and David.

“Are you guys bringing those drinks or not?” Paul demanded.

“We got diverted,” Marko protested.

“Oh, yeah, real diverted,” Paul said, helping himself to one of the bottles Marko had put on the kitchen table. “Didn’t stop you getting your own.”

“You doing those fries, Marko?” Dwayne asked, pointing at the box of Micro Chips.

“Got the munchies?” Marko asked sympathetically, tossing the snack across the table.

Dwayne caught the box in one hand, and shrugged. “You know me.”

“What else have we got?” Paul asked.

“Check the refrigerator,” said Marko.

Robin looked down at her Budweiser for a moment and tried not to smile, but David’s hand on her shoulder made her look up, and from his expression she realised she’d failed. “Well?” he asked.

“It’s just so...domestic,” she said, nodding towards the other three Lost Boys who, between them, seemed to be doing a reasonably good job of microwaving the contents of the freezer.

“Sometimes we can be domestic,” David told her. “And sometimes…” He let it hang.

Robin registered the weight and warmth of his hand, still resting lightly on her shoulder. “Marko said I’m part vampire.”

David’s expression didn’t give anything away. “Do you believe him?”

Robin let out her breath. “Do I have a choice?”

“You always have a choice, Robin.”

“I suppose it would explain some things,” she said. “I mean, I prefer the night time, I always have.  And I’ve always felt that no one I’ve ever met really understands me.”

David smiled. “Don’t you think that’s just because you’re a teenager?”

Robin drew herself up to retort, stung, and then subsided. “I deserved that,” she admitted ruefully.

He laughed, and squeezed her shoulder, then let go. “Not really.”

“So what happens now?” she asked.

“Now?” David raised his eyebrows. “Nothing has to happen.”

“But you want me to join you.”

“You, join us?” The spark in David’s green eyes intensified. “You think that we want you, Robin Farren Stephenson, to leave your country and your family and your life to join us?”

His use of her full name affected Robin in a strange way, as if the words were a command.  She was only faintly aware that the Boys had ceased their activities and were listening, now, intent on the conversation; she couldn’t disengage any part of her attention from David.

“Is that what you think, Robin?” he asked. “Is that what you really think?”

Part of Robin, a big part, wanted to reply immediately.  She fought the compulsion down, though she couldn’t tear her eyes away from David, and distantly she wondered if he could read her anyway.  Painfully, she assembled the evidence, as if she were constructing a literary argument.  They had pursued her from the start; brought her into their circle and their confidence.  They had tested her nerve and her trust, even to breaking point.  When both had failed, they had endured, waiting for her instincts to return her to them, and then they had accepted her back as though they had always known she would change her mind.  Tonight, they had tested the limits of what she was able to accept from them yet again, nonchalantly presenting her with a dead body.  And finally they had claimed her as part vampire herself, and powerless to pretend the absence of an affinity with them.

“Yes,” she said, defiantly, daring him to contradict her, when the evidence stacked so heavily to support her.

“And,” David said, unhurriedly, “you’d be right.  We do.  But that choice is yours, like the choice you made tonight to come back to us.  We’re asking you to leave your country and your family, Robin.  We’re asking you to leave your life.” He paused meaningfully, as if to let the gravity of it sink in, then went on. “But we’re not asking you to decide now.”

“Thanks for that,” Robin said, feeling even more shaky than she knew her voice sounded.

“You know what we are,” David continued. “And maybe you understand now why we came looking for you.”

“Because you think I’m...” Robin stopped, then began again. “Because I’m part vampire?”

David’s eyes flickered. “You stepped off a cliff on my say so, but I didn’t compel you.  You did it by choice and under no influence but your own, against every human survival instinct and all reasonable logic.” He shook his head slowly. “You may have trusted me, but trust alone wouldn’t have made you do that if you didn’t already know that I could save you.  Your instincts aren’t wholly human; you have some of the instincts of a vampire.  And in that – in that, Robin, we can’t resist you.” Abruptly, David turned his head to stare at Paul. “Even he.”

Robin looked at Paul, and his stricken expression shocked her.  Paul glanced aside, as if ashamed that she had seen the moment of vulnerability.  Robin averted her eyes, feeling oddly embarrassed. “If you’re after someone with a vampire’s instincts, why not another vampire?” she asked, more to smooth the moment than anything.

David cocked his head, as if considering how best to reply. “Have you never wondered why, for vampires who can’t go out in the sunlight, we’re not ghostly pale?”

Robin blinked.  The question hadn’t occurred, but now she thought about it, the Lost Boys really didn’t meet the stereotype of pale-skinned vampires. “Fake tan?”

“What makes the moon bright?” he asked.

“Well, it reflects...” She stopped, feeling stupid for not realising sooner.

“The sun,” David finished for her.

“Then moonlight can hurt you?”

“It’s just strong enough to burn us.  But it brings light and warmth to the darkest and coldest of nights.  And reminds us of what we gave up to be vampires.” The hint of a smile touched his mouth. “That’s worth a little burning, don’t you think?”

He’s not talking about moonlight any more. “I would say it is,” Robin said.

David’s smile broadened, and his eyes blazed.  Slowly, he dipped his hand into the pocket of his jeans. “Then you’ll take this?”

Robin knew what it would be before David opened his fist.  The dragon earring was as flawless and beautiful as she recalled.  She also remembered the rush of images that had accompanied her first sight of David’s gift, the visions that had overwhelmed her, and she steeled herself to face them again as she stretched out her hand to take it from David. 

But they never came.  The earring was just an earring, gleaming faintly in the electric light.  Robin studied it for a moment, weighing it in her hand.  Then she tilted her head to take the plain stud from her left ear, and replaced it with the white gold and topaz dragon.

As she raised her head, the earring swung cold against her cheek, and she shivered reflexively.  The dragon felt heavier than it had looked, an unfamiliar weight, but not an unpleasant one.  Robin explored her new adornment with her fingertips, feeling the sinuous texture of each individual scale, and then, finally, she dared to look at David.

His eyes had darkened, the live green deepening almost to black, and he laughed, a low chuckle of delight from far down in his chest. “Oh, yes.”

Mesmerised by David’s regard, riveted there by it, Robin found herself holding her breath, and it took the sudden, unexpected thump of Marko’s hand on her back to break the spell.  Disoriented for a minute, she looked dazedly at him, and then back at David. “I thought I wasn’t deciding now.”

In that instant of distraction, David had regained his usual self-possession. “You’re not,” he said.”It’s just a token.  But for now, you’re one of us, and it shows you’re under our protection.”

The way he said it sent an oddly pre-emptive chill through Robin. “Protection?  From whom?”

“From all the vampires who wish they’d got to you first,” said Dwayne. 

Robin looked sharply in his direction, surprised that he’d forestalled a reply from David, but the Lost Boys’ leader didn’t seem concerned by the interruption.

“We’re the only ones who know about you, Robin,” he went on, in his quiet way.

“The only ones still alive who do,” Paul said bleakly.

Robin looked from one to the other, dark to fair. “The guy in the other room?”

“He’s not there any more,” said Dwayne. “But yes.”

We found him outside your window.  Robin tried not to shiver. “What would have happened if I’d still been there?”

“Nothing,” said Dwayne. “I was there, too.”

“Like I said,” David murmured, into the extended moment of silence that followed, “we’ve never been far.”

“You’ve been watching me?” Robin asked, torn between gratitude and offence.

“We don’t need to,” Dwayne said. “We always know where you are.”

“And what if you hadn’t been there?” Robin persisted. “What would he have done?”

Dwayne’s eyes shifted minutely to David, as if for permission, but Paul spoke before either of them could. “He would have gone back to his rank and told them about you,” he said harshly, rawly. “And later tonight, or tomorrow night, you wouldn’t have had one half vampire outside your window; you’d have had a full pack, and if they didn’t just kill you for your blood, they’d have turned you, and one way or another you’d never see the light of day ever again.”

His explosion took Robin aback.  She couldn’t recall Paul ever saying so much to her directly, and she wondered if he meant to scare or just confuse.  But as he subsided from his outburst, she saw something in his face, a sick, hopeless look that made her stomach wrench to see it.  Whatever reason Paul had for his attitude towards her, the cracks were fast beginning to show in his armour.  Robin began to shrug it off, to put it aside, as she always did with whatever Paul threw at her, and then she changed her mind.  She moved towards him, half turning away from David, and steeled herself to meet and hold his tall lieutenant’s painful gaze. “What’s your problem with me becoming a vampire, Paul?”

He clenched his jaw, as if against something tender. “Take my word for it.  You don’t want to be turned.”

I don’t think I do either, but that’s not the point “If I’m halfway there anyway, what’s the difference?”

“You have no...” He stopped himself with a visible effort, then began again. “You’re not halfway there.  Not even a tenth.  Not even close.  And you don’t want to be.”

“You keep saying that,” Robin said, and despite herself, she felt her anger flare at Paul’s presumption. “How do you know what I want?  Who put you in charge of what’s best for me?  Don’t think that the fact I came back tonight means I’m just going to accept everything you say!”

For an instant – just an instant – a flicker of something that wasn’t pain or disapproval touched Paul’s eyes, and then he hardened again. “Do you think all vampires are like us?  Do you?  Let me tell you something, Robin.  We’re kind.  We believe in things that most vampires don’t.  Any other rank would have turned you, or killed you, or worse.  Any other rank would only want you for what’s in your veins.”

“And you don’t?” Robin demanded hotly.

He laughed, a short, humourless bark. “If you believe that, you’re not half as smart as I thought.”

“That’ll do, Paul,” David said. “You’ll make Robin think she’s not welcome.” He turned his smile on her, and Robin found herself drawn away from Paul’s hard, angry stare. “I think we’ve all had enough questions and answers for one night – and Lucas’ rank are back.”

Robin noticed Dwayne lift his head, as if that were news to him, though the other two looked unconcerned.  A moment later, she heard the front door clatter open and the sound of many pairs of feet tramping in. “No questions in front of the lessers?” she guessed.

David just smiled and draped an arm companionably over her shoulders. “Come on.”

The lesser vampires of the under-rank stood aside to let David and the Boys pass as they emerged from the kitchen, and Robin was reminded of the distance that existed between the two groups.  The greater vampires didn’t even look at their inferiors.  It’s almost as though they’re not there.  The lessers, by contrast, watched the Boys with varying combinations of respect, wariness, and fear.

Lucas had taken up the best spot by the fireplace in the living room, but like his followers, he stepped aside for David.  Unlike them, however, he met David’s eyes steadily, with only a brief nod to acknowledge his leadership, and then looked to Robin. “Good to see you back.”

Robin didn’t think she should nod, so she just said, “Thank you.”

“Good expedition?” David asked his subordinate.

“Four in Leeds and clear in ten,” Lucas replied.

“Good.  You’ll need to go farther next time.  We’ll be staying a while.”

“Not a problem.” Lucas looked down at the hearthrug, and asked quietly, “Trouble?”

Robin followed the lesser vampire’s gaze, and tensed despite herself.  Where Dwayne and Marko had dropped the corpse of the half vampire earlier, a small but definite bloodstain remained on the thick pile.  David’s fingers tightened fractionally on her shoulder. “Nothing to worry about,” he said.

His dismissal of the matter was as much for Robin’s benefit as Lucas’, Robin sensed, but she still didn’t feel comfortable.  The idea of strange vampires watching her made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.  Marko hadn’t said anything about her bit of vampire blood giving her any protection against hostile enemies.

Then, little by little, it dawned on her that the uncomfortable feeling didn’t arise just from the thought of an unfriendly watcher, but the reality.  Robin’s first thought was of Paul, and she let her eyes find him.  The tall blonde Lost Boy was talking to Marko, apparently absorbed in the conversation and paying not the slightest bit of notice to Robin.

But Kae was staring at her with a look of absolute loathing in her eyes.

The look was so vicious, so poisonous, that Robin had to look away, shaken by the female vampire’s vehemence.  Of course she resents me.  She was the only girl, before.  And then Robin became painfully conscious of the weight of David’s arm, still wrapped around her shoulders in the grasp Robin had interpreted as friendly, and now realised had been carefully chosen to make a point.

Grimly, Robin raised her eyes to meet Kae’s again.  The open hate in her stare, tinged with contempt, would have been ugly to observe, but being on the end of it actually made Robin’s skin crawl.  Kae hated her, despised her, with a passion that could only stem from the one thing they had in common.

David was still talking to Lucas, apparently oblivious to the silent exchange between the two girls in the room.  But Robin couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed.  He was far too perceptive to miss something that had made the air in that room almost palpably toxic.

So what was he doing?  Perhaps this is my situation to handle, Robin thought.  Or my battle to fight.  She held Kae’s gaze, discomfited by it, but enduring.  You can’t force me out with a case of the evils.  She didn’t try to return the malice, or appeal for friendship; she just stared back, refusing to let a lesser vampire intimidate her.  I watched them die tonight.  I’m not going to lose them again because of you.

The moments passed.  Robin hardly dared breathe, hardly dared blink.  Yet the longer she locked stares with Kae, the easier it became.  The more venom Kae poured into the battle, the firmer Robin resisted it.  I don’t hate you, she thought.  But you can’t beat me.

With a soft cry, Kae wrenched her eyes away.  Triumph and relief broke over Robin in a heady wave, even as David finished talking to Lucas. “Anything we can get you?” he asked, as if nothing had happened.

Robin realised that she was breathing hard, and that a fine sweat had broken out on her brow. “No.  Thanks.” I think I’ve gained enough for tonight.

In David, an understanding, perhaps.  The memory of his kiss cut through her sudden exhaustion like strong spirits.  In the Boys, allies – though Paul remained the mystery he’d always been.  In Kae, a bitter enemy.

And the thrill of premonition that shivered through her could have related to any of them.