“Anna” Chapter 6 – NaNoWriMo08

Sixth chapter of “Anna” by literarydeadkittens; vampire novel, I’ve rated it adult, so if you’re not, or if you’re offended, don’t look below the fold. See the preface here, chapter 1 here, chapter 2 here, chapter 3 here, chapter 4 here and chapter 5 here. Same proviso applies to the links as to below the fold.

“Anna – The Art of Coincidence” (Chapter 6)

The sword slid into my chest like a stick into water; a familiar scene for me, but this time I was on my feet and, as I turned, I saw a woman standing behind me, her face the same wispy shade as before. Her incredibly long black hair wreathed her naked body like smoke. She moved away from me, just floating backwards it seemed, until I realised that I was the one who was moving, tumbling back into a void of darkness.

I could sense them all around me, unified, no anger, but creating instead an impenetrable barrier. There, trapped in the cage they had made, something floated with me, malevolent and furious. Something sharp, like a barbed hook, struck, sinking deep inside me and I struggled like a fish on that hook, knowing I could never get loose…

I awoke screaming, my t-shirt sweat soaked and clinging to damp skin. I rolled and

sprang from the bed, as the danger were here, in the room with me. But all was silent, night-time had begun.

Still quaking inside I made my way to the bathroom and stepped into the shower. The effect of the dream must have still shown in my face by the time I dressed and made my way downstairs because Elenor felt compelled to make a comment.

‘Bad dreams?’

‘Well duh!’ I thought viciously. The nightmare had disturbed me severely, even more so because I could not identify the real danger, or object of terror in it. Ok, so I was dead, but I lived with that one every day, it wasn’t exactly a surprise.

‘Come now Anna, be nice. It isn’t my fault you had a bad night.’ Eleanor arched an eyebrow, looking me over speculatively. ‘You really do look terrible. What was it about?’

‘Death, naked women, swords… What else?’

‘Mmm… interesting. I didn’t realise your tastes ran to the exotic.’

I greeted her eyes with a steady gaze, letting her know I wanted the subject dropped; but she merely smiled at me and went on buttering a slice of toast. I frowned slightly and nodded towards her plate.

‘I thought you only ate at mixed parties.’

‘Not always dear. I like a treat occasionally and marmalade on toast is particularly nice for breakfast.’

‘Late breakfast isn’t it? Being dark and all.’ I was feeling vindictive and couldn’t help the sharp edge to my voice. She laid down the knife and picked up a slice of toast.

‘If you’re going to be a misery Anna, go find one of your clubs and suck a few people dry; that should make you feel better.’

I stood. It was no good trying to best Elenor in verbal battle at this time of night, she was in far better form than I and my lack of peaceful sleep gave her an extra edge over me.

‘I’m going out.’

I didn’t go into the town, I didn’t feel like clubbing tonight; and I thought I vaguely remembered some kind of prior engagement Elenor had dragooned me into. Instead I made my way to the very end of the garden, among the trees and shrubbery that gave cover to a few dotted stone benches. Throwing down my jacket, I wasn’t really cold, I lay down on one, staring up at the black spidery shadows of the bare winter trees splicing the starry sky above me and let my mind drift; in any direction really, as long as it wasn’t in the direction of the dream.

Sleep came at some point, I’m not sure when. The stars above me came into soft focus and the inkspill of branches was still. The breeze which had been so strong even among the shelter of the trees, was gone.

Confused by the sudden stillness and silence, I sat up, looking around before I stood. My bare feet sank into the dry grass to touch the soft warm earth beneath. The lights from the living room shone through the open patio doors and I made my way towards them, feeling uneasy in the oppressive silence.

Glancing up, I could see the stars still shone, but there was no sign of the moon, which was odd for some reason. I kept moving, across the grass, passing by the rose bed, the red petals leached black in the otherworldly light of the stars. Ahead of me, the stone steps led to the patio and I saw a figure move past the doorway, although I couldn’t see who it was.

A flash of white caught my eye, and I turned back to the rose bed. A white silken full-length nightgown lay there on the dark earth. I leant over, my fingers reaching out to touch it. Suddenly a figure rose into it, filling the empty gown; an arm reached up, fingertips meeting mine and I saw Elenor’s face, stained with blood as her dead blue eyes looked into mine. Her lips never moved but her voice whispered in my ear nonetheless. Her arm, streaked in dirt and blood rose and her index finger pointed, touching the scar that had almost gone.

‘It’s inside you.’

And I awoke on cold damp ground, shivering in the chill breeze washing over me. The branches above swayed across the cold stars to the sound of Elenor’s voice, calling me.

‘So what’s this all for?’ I asked the question, shifting uncomfortably in a stiff formal dress. ‘I thought most of your parties were more…exotic!‘ I bit off the last word, alluding to the last few parties we’d been to.

Vampiric life seemed to consist of a constant string of pleasures, especially parties. Well, what the hell else were you going to do when you didn’t work, didn’t deal with the normal day-to-day shit of the world and came out only at night?

‘The gallery is being opened by Lord Josef Handall. Although it’s more of an artistes gathering, the man himself is far more formal and prefers more conservative or traditional dress at his venues.’

The high heels I wore pinched slightly and the choker part of the black dress that caught around my neck felt restrictive. The tight long skirt didn’t help; if trouble occurred, I certainly wouldn’t be running anywhere. Hobbling would be more like it. I shook off the thought, in mortal life any trouble I came up against involved fighting or fleeing and that simply wasn’t the way things were handled in vampiric society. At least, it didn’t seem that way, to me back then.

We made out way to the car; curiosity pricked and I kept asking questions.

‘So why does he sponsor events like this. They aren’t exactly a conservative bunch; more bare skin, flimsy scarves and tattoos. I’m surprised he even pays attention to them.’

‘Think Anna. For once in your life, can you actually think?‘

‘About…?’ I was equally irritated by her insulting manner.

‘He’s a businessman. He does a great deal of business at the opera, over dinner, at a concert, or at private art functions such as these. Art is often used as a counterpoint to business talk; if you talk about the latest up-and-coming painter and compare his style to the greats whilst haggling out the details of your latest joint venture, you impress your to-be financial partner.’

‘Do you?’

‘Not really, since everybody does it. But because everybody does it, no one wants to stop doing it in case it puts them at a disadvantage.’

‘Isn’t that slightly ridiculous?’

‘As you live Anna, you’ll learn there’s very little that isn’t ridiculous. The most ridiculous thing of all is that to succeed, you’ll have to play along and know that everyone around you thinks it’s equally silly.’

‘Even Jasmine?’ I gave her a sly look fro the corner of my eye and I saw her expression harden slightly.

‘There are exceptions to every rule.’ She turned and smiled as the car swept into a parking space and drew to a smooth halt. Reaching out she squeezed my wrist briefly and her face lit with a bright smile that seemed to make her glow from within.

‘Come Anna. Let me show Mr Handall that he isn’t the only one to bring up-and-coming young stars to a party.’

I followed her out of the car, a smile growing slowly on my lips. Elenor had just delivered me her first compliment; perhaps she thought I was a little less of a disappointment than she usually led me to believe.

The party was already going strong. Quiet chatter and small bouts of soft laughter were the loudest sounds to be heard; low voices kept the sounds from echoing around the spacious rooms of the gallery.

Paintings and photographs were spaced along the walls, as pedestals with glass cases and sculptures were spaced around the floor. Velvet ropes and silver posts framed each object of admiration to keep back the enthusiasts and allow ample room for many to gather and chatter about the ’style’ and ‘hidden meaning’ of the piece.

Elenor swept through the large doors in her usual dignified, yet exuberant style. Mr Handall was apparently nowhere to be seen and she was soon whisked away by Marcus and a pretty blonde woman in a blue dress who was not much taller than five foot nothing. She had a vague familiarity about her, but I couldn’t place her face.

‘Mingle darling. When our host returns I’ll come back for you.’

‘No hurry.’ By now her casual abandonment of me at parties and functions no longer irritated, but more amused. I think she could hear it in my thoughts, for a faint chuckle whispered though my mind before her presence was gone. I could still feel her though, like you still feel your numb arm after falling asleep on it.

‘Dead weight,’ came the errant thought in my mind; I snickered, Eleanor would not appreciate that.

”And so I do not. Watch your tongue; and no smart answers miss,’ came her reply. Smiling I moved off into the brightly coloured crowd.

The usual gaudily dressed vultures were there, naturally. Jasmine in the ever-original black dress, Shavai wandering aimlessly through the crowd, panels of gauzy material floating about her, sometimes ignoring, sometimes greeting people, in that ‘eccentric’ way if hers. More erratic and idiotically vapid if you ask me; not that anyone ever did.

Or ever would, I thought sneeringly. Goddam it, I was bored. Bored out of my stupid little dead mind of parties and empty courtesies and snivelling around people I didn’t give a toss about. Marcus was a pillock, Jasmine was creepy and annoying, Shavai was about as much use as a chocolate teapot and I still hadn’t learned to screen out her psychic blasts of emotion from her performances; it was one of the main reasons I avoided her.

I barely knew David Orell, a tall dark-skinned vampire, twin, I learned later, to the man I had seen at Marcus’ party, draining the girl on the sofa. Elenor was forever sodding off and leaving me to my own devices, and I was picking up names faster than I expected. Joel Fraser, Marley Charles, Charity, Grace Longdell and Frax to name but a few. I’d rather have been back at the house helping Sebastian clean or run errands.

Humming aimlessly, I wandered over to the nearest display, an old book, ancient by the looks of it. The yellowed and brown pages were cracked and the thing was held together in the loosest sort of way. I had seen the effect before, using smoke and flame to age a piece of paper, make it look old; but never had I seen a book look so fragile as this one, as if one breath of wind would crumble the pages into dust and the gentlest breeze would blow the dust away until it was nothing.

Unconsciously my hand rose, my fingers brushing the cold glass gently. Someone had spent laborious hours of care and attention and work on that book. The interlaced spirals and knotwork along the edges of the page, the faded illuminations and the swirled writing, inscribed on non-existent lines. New, it must have been a work of art in its own right; the thickness of the volume indicated that a lot of work had made this, perhaps a lifetime’s worth, and now it was flaking away, bit by bit, until nothing of that person and their work remained.

Their existence, reduced to ashes in the wind; and then there would be no record of them, except, maybe, a name and a date on a piece of stone which in turn would wear, or perhaps had been worn, away. All transient, all…

‘… ashes in the wind,’ I hadn’t realised I had spoken until Jasmine’s voice answered from behind me.

‘Is that the title? Or are you just wandering away from me again?’ She paused, her mouth tightening slightly into a grimace that attempted to be a smile. ‘Or should that be running away?’

I smiled for politeness sake, but inside I seethed, would the bitch never let me forget my first venture into vampiric society? It wasn’t my bloody fault I hadn’t known what to expect. Her cheerful friendly demeanour, that night she gave me a lift had been as fleeting as the owner of this book apparently.

‘No, no, nothing like that. I was just thinking how transient the maker of this book and his life’s work were. Soon this book will be nothing but dust and ashes, and no record of the maker and what he achieved will remain.’

‘Except you.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You, Anna; you will remain, and remember. As long as you remember, then his work will never be lost, his name never forgotten. We are living history if you will. The world moves on, the world forgets, but we remain and we remember what came before.’ She smiled again, a slightly more honest attempt than the first.

‘We are keepers of time Anna, yes I like that. Keepers of Time; Custodians of History, although she prefers to tell herself in riddles and keep the mortal world wondering. I think it’s a quirk of hers.’

Involuntarily I found myself smiling as I watched her face. Her eyes were fixed off in the distance and she had a dreamy quality about her I hadn’t noticed before. I had thought her shallow, but the words that dropped from her lips were unexpected; but, I found, not unwelcome.

‘She reminds me of Elenor,’ I thought, and was shocked at myself. Since nothing followed, I can only assume Elenor wasn’t listening.

She looked back at me, smiling a little wider and laughing slightly. ‘Oh, listen to me, I do go on so sometimes. I must be boring you, although you are sweet to be so attentive.’

Jasmine looked at me so directly, I dropped me gaze to my wine glass and could almost feel myself blushing. Laughing again, she wound her arm through mine and led me round the other side of the case where a few loose pages from the book were being displayed.

‘It truly is a lovely piece of work. Are you going to bid for it? Or, I should say, is Eleanor going to bid for it?’

‘I’ve no idea. I wouldn’t know what to do with such a thing. I hope whoever buys it takes care of it.’ I didn’t even notice her little jab about my living on Eleanor’s money.

‘Then we shall charge Mr Handall with the task of finding a suitable owner when we meet him.’ She giggled conspiratorially, as if we had just shared the secret of some great dare between us. Okay, so she was erratic and bitchy, but I had nothing else to do, and any attention was better than none. Smiling back, I found myself pulled along to the next exhibit.

It was a statue, carved in a white stone that I couldn’t identify. I couldn’t have told the difference between granite and limestone anyhow, I had skipped science at school too much to know any useful information.

The sculpture was an image of a priest, his ceremonial gowns swathed around him as his arms raised into the heavens, the sword in his hand pointing directly downwards as his face was lifted to the sky in unadulterated exultation. At his feet curled the body of a young woman, her clothes torn and ragged, her hands bound behind her. Her face was a mask terror as she looked at, through and beyond, the priest; as if she could see the crone of Death herself standing behind him with withered arms outstretched to receive her.

Or as if she could see the god behind the priest and all the horror and perversion it encompassed and channelled to its devoted subject. The bloody fervour of the sacrificial rite shone through every curve; holding me fast in fascinated horror. The image burned into my mind, the oh-so-obvious similarity to my own death fixing my attention on the statue.

Sometimes, the artistic world, especially that of the vampire, is a sick one; but the fascination with our own dark side is one that is hard to resist. I turned away, shuddering, from the lifelike tableau before me. This image could not fade to dust soon enough for me, the surfaces could not become weathered and indistinguishable quick enough. I almost pitied the girl, frozen, perhaps to centuries to come, in abject terror with Death looming, sharp and glittering, above her.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Jasmine watched Anna scan the image before them, the girl cowering in fear below the priest’s ritual blade. The young brunette’s face blanched, pity mingling with old fear. A secret smile flickered across her mouth; an innate sense of twisted cruelty made her enjoy the subtle, sweet torture she was inflicting on Eleanor’s protégé.

‘It’s a favourite of mine, Rachel created it and I adore her sense of the moment. All her works embody equally strong emotional or dramatic points, frozen in time for all to see, when in real life that second, that clean and sharp second of pure emotion is lost, smothered in the flurry of activity that surrounds it. From her face, I think you get a real sense of the girl’s terror, and yet there’s something worshipful and serene, as if she knows she’s moving on to something better.’

Jasmine laughed outright, ‘it’s a shame of course that she won’t be rescued at the last moment by an immortal willing to give her life. You know, I think I’ll bid on this.’

She knew, she ached with knowing, the circumstances of Anna’s resurrection and the temptation had been too much not to hint at what she knew. Anna turned her way with a searching expression, and Jasmine smiled back, all innocence.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

I was surprised, I’ll admit, Jasmine apparently wasn’t as shallow as I thought her, although her tastes ran a little dark for me really, still if she wanted to witness the moment preceding death over and over again in her living room, that was her business.

‘But such moments aren’t over in a moment, and they are rarely lost or forgotten. To the person who feels them, they can last almost an eternity. Or maybe the mind speeds up and you think more in that moment than you ever have before.’

The gaiety fled the evening for me as the memory welled up, listening to her words, of my own moment under the glinting point of a dagger. I never knew how slow time could go until that second; my life didn’t exactly flash before my eyes, but events of some significance, even if I didn’t recognise what their importance was at the time, bubbled up in my head, from the well that held the sum and total of my life so far. A well that was far from full.

I felt a touch on my arm and turned back towards an expression of concern in Jasmine’s eyes, so blue, so like Eleanor’s that I wondered why I hadn’t seen the similarity before. Smiling automatically I shook myself slightly as if throwing off the reverie, although the chill of the memory stayed with me.

‘Some of us have those moments too Anna. I died once as well you know.’ She waved her glass impartially at the room, sloshing the wine slightly. ‘Many of us here have died at some point, even if we can’t consciously remember it.’

‘I do forget that at times.’

‘No doubt, your own death is still so fresh in your mind. For many here, death was pleasant, perhaps wonderful. Or so I hear.’ It was her turn to look sober, she seemed sincere enough but part of me felt that she was lying about something; not the tale itself, but as if she herself were a lie embodied. I mentally shook myself; what the hell did that mean?

‘Your death wasn’t all you dreamed it would be either huh?’ I cracked a smile, a wry grin that poked the finger of irony at a shared secret. She smiled and shook her head.

‘It was pain and darkness and blood Anna; something I never wish to go through again, although I would if it would free me of the thorns that bind….’ Her voice tailed off and she shrugged, breaking the mood by laughing merrily and shaking her head, bouncing her dark curls and setting her tiny earrings, golden crosses, tinkling slightly as they swung on their chains. For a moment everything in my head crystallised, brittle and bright as the sounds in the room rose and I heard every tiny little sound.

With a wince of pain I tuned out the background noise. A vampire’s hearing is sensitive, we’re creatures of the night and you need something to make up for the low lighting; I had learned weeks ago to zone out the cacophony of background noise, listening to Jasmine’s earrings had opened my hearing to everything and I shifted the muscles in my jaw to make my ears pop. Having highly tuned hearing was a pain in the neck.

I couldn’t say though, that pain and darkness and blood seemed all that terrible to me; from speaking with Eleanor I had discovered that most vampires are turned in a similar way to feeding off prey. Blood and pain and pleasure mixed to turn the body’s awareness away from the fact that it was dying, to stop survival in its tracks and allow the parent to guide the newly minted vampire into a life of blissful darkness within its own body.

I stilled a pleasurable shiver that ran down my spine. Although I was unconscious for most of my transformation, lately hidden memories had begun to surface, along with details of those who had presided at my mortal death; the trauma was moving far back enough for me to remember it more clearly. I paused at that thought, the memory itself meant I would dream again tonight. I often did when I dwelled on the subject or remembered somewhat of the visual or emotional experience.

Nightmares again.

‘I understand.’ What else could I say? Especially after such a long pause, when she stood there waiting for an answer. It would have been a touch insensitive to reply with ‘mmmm, yeah, that brings back memories,’ and lick my lips in anticipation of sweet nightmares of blood and pleasure.

Jasmine shrugged delicately, as if it mattered little to her one way or another anymore. I was sure she had told me the truth, but something inside me wouldn’t be stilled, believing that something about the woman was a fundamental lie, underlying everything she said or did.

I dismissed the problem for now; it would only drag on the rest of the evening.

Jasmine had already turned away, waving cheerily to an odd couple, one standing uncomfortably next to the other, before sweeping me over to them with her. Glass in hand, wine sparkling in the tiny overhead lights, she introduced me to them with a smile and merry words.

‘Rachel, this is Anna Knight, a colleague of mine, Rachel is our sculptress Anna, the one of the moment.’

Rachel Carter-Stein, blonde, slim and petite, in a glittering blue dress, openly stared, and though she took my hand, I felt it were only for politeness sake. After she let go, I could feel her eyes on me, studying me even as I turned away.

‘Paul Mathers, Anna Knight,’ Jasmine continued as if Rachel were not watching me with all the intensity of a cat watching a mouse. He was tall and skinny, with long sandy coloured hair falling over large brown eyes, and the look of a happy puppy chasing across the beach. He offered his hand with a good-natured smile. ‘Paul is an artist too, Anna.’

‘Really, what medium do you work with Paul?’

‘I’m a painter,’ he waved his glass in the direction of the wall opposite. ‘I’ve a painting or  two over there if you’d like to see?’ The question was sincere and the smile unwavering so I accepted and he graciously offered his arm to escort me the few feet across the room. Hiding a grin, I took it and walked with him, Jasmine and Rachel trailing behind us, deep in conversation.

When we reached the wall, we stopped a few feet away, the soft ropes hindering our progress.

The painting before us was one of shadows, black and white and greys. A woman lay within the painting, as if she lay beneath the water. Hair as black as night surrounding her and long as her body wreathed around her like smoke. She was naked, her skin as white as snow. I felt the hairs creep up on the back of my neck as I looked into the face of the woman in my nightmares. She was surrounded by space, but it might have been inside a cave, truly under the water or out in the vastness of space for all the detail I could detect.

I turned to Paul, thinking rapidly of how to voice the question without sounding like a total mad woman. The chilling coincidences of the evening were beginning to raise my suspicions. Although he could not have possibly painted this picture in the time between my dream and the exhibition, even if it were possible for him to know its content, there must have been a common factor that had given us both this image.

But Paul’s attention was on the painting, watching the image of the woman with an almost reverent smile on his face. He looked so innocent I was loathe to believe him capable of deception.

‘There she is, ‘ he almost whispered. ‘My glory, my muse… my Goddess.’ He turned back to me, the smile showing a saintly joy at beholding the painting. ‘Some people think I’m mad Anna, but my Muse, like so many, isn’t an abstract thing of luck and inspiration, but a living form of beauty who shows herself through everything I do.’

No wonder people thought he was mad; but I had seen more than most and I wouldn’t have been incredibly surprised to find out that he was right. Especially in light of my dreams. ‘Who is she?’

His smile became somewhat bemused. ‘I told you, my Muse. She’s a Goddess of beauty and she favoured me with her light. I was blessed the day she took me on and I work my hardest and create my best, all for love of her. She was the one who drew me to this city, and it was here that I found her.’

‘Found her?’ My voice must have had some sharpness to it, I wanted to know all he knew of her; instead my voice alerted him because his smile became boyish again and he laughed. ‘Yes, my painting has been better since I arrived here, so she must be stronger here, perhaps she has most of her followers here.’ Despite the genuine seeming answer, I knew he was lying or omitting something.

‘What about her Anna? Does she inspire you too?’ It was Jasmine, appearing silently behind me. I jumped slightly, laughing it off as I turned to her.

‘Not at all, she looks like someone I saw in a dream once; that was all.’ I looked back at Paul as I said this, knowing Jasmine would never give anything away, and I was right to. He reacted, although he covered it quickly, to my confession. But his reaction wasn’t a start of disbelief or even of guilt at being caught out. His expression showed a fleeting joy and pleasure before he smothered it quickly. Had Jasmine not been there, I think he might have said more.

As it was Jasmine smiled, making her apologies to Paul and Rachel as she whisked me off to another group, this time composed of human patrons, no immortals or artists. But beneath the surface of her genial façade I detected a simmering anger, I didn’t know over what, probably that little scene back there. Some of it, at least, was directed at me.

I smiled impartially all round, wishing I could find some way of politely leaving, but I wasn’t as skilled at this as my peers, so I stayed, exchanging mindless courtesies as I was introduced.

‘Moira Hartley, Anna Knight. Anna, Moira,’ my personal hostess introduced me to the curvaceous brunette next to a blonde whose name I had already forgotten.

‘And this is her husband, Stephen Hartley.’ Steven inclined his head, taking my hand, he had black hair and blue eyes that shone startlingly out from under dark brows with a smile that would have made my knees melt a few months ago; it went to my head a little now as I smiled back willingly; the evening had just brightened again. His wife watched with an indulgent smile of her own; either she was used to her husband, lean, tanned and devastating in his tux, having young woman swoon at his feet, and was sure of his fidelity or was tolerant of any dalliances he chose to perform.

Although I didn’t quite fall into the category of ’swooning young women’, I did wonder if that lingering smile meant the latter was the situation with him and his wife. I made a mental note to make myself available during the rest of the party. I definitely wanted to see more of Stephen.

‘He’s quite the charmer isn’t he?’ Elenor’s voice sprang out of nowhere as usual; she had been silent for a few hours now and I almost dropped my glass, but recovered, pushing back a strand of hair that had fallen in my eyes with a toss of my head, hopefully covering any small slip I had made, even if the gesture looked hopelessly affected.

‘Well, that’s wrecked my chances,’ I thought back irritably. ‘What do you want?’ I smiled even as I turned to the next in the party, a man of his own good looks, but not as gorgeous as the one I had left behind. Eleanor waited for me to shake hands and repeat that I was pleased to meet him before replying, thankfully. I had seen her mentally speak to me with one breath and listen to my reply whilst she spoke normally with someone else, carrying out two conversations virtually simultaneously; although she could not speak both mentally and physically at exactly the same time.

‘Just to see how you fared darling. How is the lovely Jasmine’s company this evening?’ The sarcasm in her voice was not lost on me.

‘Here. Unlike yours.’

‘Now now, none of that, I told you I have other things to attend to.’

‘I’m well aware of that; I thought it was a tad callous of you to throw me in the deep end.’ I couldn’t stop the bitter bite at the end of that sentence.

‘How are you finding Josef’s hospitality Anna? Jasmine tells me it’s the first time you have attended one of his gallery parties.’ This from Kelly Masterson; the last of the little group and a friend of Jasmine’s it appeared.

‘Lovely, he seems most aware of his guest’s tastes, I haven’t heard anything uncomplimentary since I arrived,’ I replied with a small laugh, trying desperately not to appear distracted.

‘Anna, you thrive in the ‘deep end’ as you put, else you wouldn’t be who you currently are. Now play nice, keep your claws out of Steven unless his wife gives you the green light and I’ll see you upstairs soon; the bidding will be starting and I want you to come watch and learn.’

‘His wife what?’ I took the meaning alright, but I wasn’t sure she meant it that way. I thought Moira might be aware and unbothered by Steven’s extra marital affairs, but I thought I’d misheard it when Elenor said Moira had to give me a green light. Did she pick her husband’s playmates than?

But she was already gone; I could feel her amusement for a short while but it died out as I felt her attention turn elsewhere, presumably to her current companions. Smiling politely at the party I listened to a little more of the gossip, turning to meet Rachel’s prying gaze as she joined our group. In any other situation I would have had it out there and then, probably ending it with a bitch slapping session. But that wasn’t appropriate behaviour here and I could only content myself with meeting her gaze until she turned away with a small toss of her head. I watched her still, wondering what it was that fascinated her about me. It wasn’t sexual attraction, I could feel that across a room and she wasn’t a vampire, so it wasn’t hunger either.

Maybe she was just a half-wit, but she didn’t look like it. With a final smile, I made my apologies and escaped, still thinking of the individual problems that Miss Carter-Stein and Moira Hartley presented, and how to get a word alone with Paul. Going upstairs, I stared around for a few minutes before catching sight of Elenor. Waving a hand, I pressed my way through the crowd, shrugging off the problem of Rachel; maybe it was just one of those things. Some people simply took instinctive dislikes to each other, possibly we’d pissed each other off in another life. Without another thought of her, I joined Eleanor, losing myself in the introductions around the group she was with, caught up with trying to memorise another round of names and faces.

In retrospect, there were far too many things I shrugged off that night; things I would come to regret. At the time though, it never struck me as odd that I never even mentioned the coincidences to Elenor.

Elenor was in her usual party mood, dazzling her companions, paying attention to those small details that only an experienced hostess would notice, even though here, she was technically another guest. Marcus caught up with us a moment or so after I arrived, standing on the other side of Eleanor and doing much the same as she, playing the attentive host, putting their companions at ease. With a small catch of my breath, I realised what a perfect couple they made, the perfect socialites, two beautiful people, that final decorative addition to any gathering.

As if she caught my thoughts, Eleanor turned to me with a smile, her blue eyes softening as she leaned toward me to point out Josef Handal stepping up onto the erected stage draped with red at the front of the room. I felt her mind become heavier against mine, as if she mentally as well as physically leaned toward me, bringing her presence closer. I breathed in sharply as that pressure exuded a desire, a wanting that left me shivering; it came from Eleanor, but it wasn’t her desire for Marcus, or anyone else in our group, in the room. It was for me, and I resisted the sudden overwhelming feeling of wanting to turn and grab her, to kiss her savagely, shove my tongue into her mouth and drink her in. Images flashed across my mind, and I bit the inside of my lip until the metallic bright taste of blood ran into my mouth and washed over my senses, calming me like water over fire. Taking a few deep breaths I turned to look into her eyes, bright with lust and mischief as if she knew, which she did, the effect she had had on me.

Steven and his dark hair, bright smile and tux faded in my mind in comparison to the desire that ran through my veins like mercury for Eleanor. The feeling of lust from her suddenly dropped, as if a lid had been snapped shut in her mind and I breathed again to steady myself, bring the world back, and Josef’s opening address into focus.

‘Pay attention now Anna, I want you to know the subtle play in an auction, its good preparation for the next one we will attend; it’ll be a purely vampiric gathering, but you need this experience to know the difference between the two.’

Pay attention? After what she just did? Forcing my mental voice to some coherency, I didn’t trust myself to speak aloud yet, I replied. ‘What difference?’

‘The items themselves for a start, but that’s all in the future, for now…’ Her voice was suggestive but with a flicker of a smile she indicated the room ahead to draw me back the auction itself. Swearing at her silently, I turned back and tried to pay all my attention to the proceedings. Yet all through the rest of the evening I was aware of her standing there, a few inches from me, but given our current surroundings and the lack of opportunity it gave me, she may as well have been on the other side of the moon.