Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Woven Anew

Clutching a mug of tea in one hand, Clara sat in bed while her finger busied itself feeling her gums. Hana slapped her hand away while she inspected her teeth properly. Fran sat on the bed with her lover, possessively cradling her. It was only natural. Clara felt comfortable, almost sedate as she sipped her tea whenever the intrusive fingers receded.

“I don’t understand it. Your mouth was like a fountain.” The older vampire cursed while Eddie’s voice travelled from the other room. Making his excuses to the precinct, most likely. Mary hadn’t returned from her call to Cavendish. “Your fangs aren’t even there. And they shouldn’t have formed a week later. What the fuck is wrong with you?” She continued, her observations drawing exasperation into her voice.

“You’re taking this well.” Clara grumbled up at Fran, her voice filled with weariness. She wasn’t quite sure why but the fit or seizure or whatever vampire nonsense it was had taken a real hammer to her energy. Already she could feel sleep calling her as if she’d accidentally started sunbathing in the Sahara.

“I’m sure I’ll have a fit over it later.” Fran answered with light sarcasm, tussling the vampire’s hair with a smile. She felt a tremor pleasure travel down her spine, easing her head into the crook of the artist’s arm. It was a curious thing. She had only sparse memories of Fran. But her inner lizard brain said this person was safe, that she was good. The almighty reptile brain remembered, even when monkey brain had long forgotten. “You’ll have to find someone else to give you blood though. I faint at needles. Never mind your fangs.” She informed the vampire, using her fingers to show her roughly what they looked like. It seemed to be multiple fangs on the upper and lower jaws. Pretty neat. Most vampires only had two.

“The dickhead coming to see me runs a club for that.” Clara smirked. She spoke through half-lidded eyes, almost dozing as she carried on the conversation. “Maybe he’ll tell me I’m a super special type of vampire that shoots lasers out of my eyes. Or I’m just a defective model.” She explained casually with a hand wave. It all seemed so blasé now. Pretty soon she’d be drinking deer blood in a forest as a unique vegetarian variety. Sort of put a dampener on the whole curse aspect. Then again, it wasn’t exactly a curse to be undying, strong, fast and regenerative. A sip of blood for that? A steal!

“You were never a defective model.” Fran reassured with a kiss, confusing her slightly. It had been a joke, in her mind. Hana looked on with a mixture of understanding and what seemed to be a note of sadness. Clara’s fatigue-addled brain quickly caught up then.

“Right so I had self-esteem issues. Let me guess. Dad’s a dick?” She asked up to Fran who stifled a laugh, tapping her nose as if they were playing charades. Clara nodded with an accepting expression. “That explains why you’d shack up with a bird as bougie as me. Fuckin’ Cassius Devereux.” She opined while falling into a peak British accent that was more Birmingham than anything else. Though from the amused expression from her girlfriend, she imagined it was an imitation rather than her usual accent. With a last name like Deveraux, she was probably as posh as she sounded if she were honest with herself.

“Settle a bet me and Mary have.” Hana perked up after noting her observations in her patient log. Clara peeked at her page, which seemed to be filled with inconsistencies she didn’t even know were symptoms. How very reassuring. “I think she was an English major. Mary thinks she was a detective.” She posited to Fran, who shook her head with an incredulous laugh. Clara thought they were solid choices in all honesty.

“She was a journalist.”

“Fuck no not a journalist.” Clara groaned with hand clapped to her forehead in dismay. The older vampire hopped to her feet and raced out to inform her girlfriend, excitedly telling Eddie that his theory had some water. The lovers looked to each other for a moment before Eddie, who could see them through the open door. He shrugged at them, explaining that he’d suggested she’d discovered vampires and got whacked for it. Fran’s eyes widened at the suggestion. “That’s why I got so mad when you talked about people being animals!” She perked up, pointing a finger to her large friend who seemed to take her suggestion. Journalists, depending on where they worked, saw a lot of the filth humanity was capable of. “At least tell me I worked for someone good. If I worked national, I’m going back to the swamp.” Came her slightly slurred comment.

“You worked for a website. The Union.” Fran answered before grabbing a laptop from the side of the bed she presumably slept in, turning it on. After waiting for it to boot up, she showed Clara a few articles with the hope, she thought, of jogging her memory. The vampire skimmed a few with a critical eye. Pompous polemics against the corporatocracy, by the looks of it. She had to admit it looked like her. “You are a passionate woman. I had to tell you to tone it down. A lot.” The artist added with a broad grin. As she opened the internet to show her a few of their pictures in cloud storage, Clara noticed a tattoo on her wrist of interwoven vines. She asked whether she’d had tattoos. “Ah no. I tried to make you get one with me. Instead, you just had to hold my hand.”

Clara tilted her head back, once more settling into the pillows. Was it just a memory of Fran? Had it morphed over into herself? The pieces were coming together, like some great investigation. But so many questions remained unanswered while Sam remained in the winds. Livia had said he was untrustworthy, that she would handle him. Another element of the letter confused her. That if she found out who she was too quickly, they’d all regret it. What could that possibly mean? She was an upstart, barely two inches out of the grave. A monster like Livia or Cavendish had nothing to fear from her. To be sure, resurrecting yourself was a neat trick. But they still didn’t know for sure what had happened. Fran asked her what she was thinking about.

“The pieces still don’t fit. Who is Livia to me?” She asked her lover, who looked at her with incredulous eyes. The truth slowly dawned in them, and she spluttered slightly.

“She’s your boss.” The artist replied with a confused air. Clara repeated the statement with growing concern. This woman had been following her before she’d woken up. Was even Jemma part of this game? “She bought the Union a few weeks before you vanished. You didn’t like her. Said she was too critical in editing.” She expanded with an increasingly concerned air as the vampire’s face turned furious. “You’ve got that look again you know.”

“Vampires have been hovering around me since before I was one. What child of prophecy bullshit is this?” She relayed. Her mind worked with all intensity, collating all the available information. Maybe her family was a bloodline capable of resurrecting themselves as vampires. It was a waiting game. But nobody who knew that would attempt to kill her. Unless they wanted her to become a vampire. Had Livia orchestrated this charade?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a flustered-looking Cavendish who wore his evening suit. He hastily applied a comb to his hair as he ducked into the apartment, catching sight of Clara thereafter. He demanded to know why he’d been summoned so boorishly, that his clients needed him. Curious he’d come at all, she thought. Mary hovered at his shoulder, Eddie bringing up the rear with a hand on his belt. An unsettling development.

“Being as you’re the oldest friendly vampire outside Sam, I wanted your input.” Clara informed him cagily as she propped herself up on the pillows. The bone necklace grew hotter, as if Irene were attempting to contact her again. “What kind of vampire has six fangs?” She asked, pausing to check the number with Fran before committing to six. Four up, two down. Teeth like a wolf. Like the spectral woman’s, the journalist realised with a start.

Cavendish recoiled at the inquiry, as if Clara had shot him. He gathered his wits with a growing trepidation, eyebrows knitting together as he seemed to come to several realisations at once. As he put it all together, he whipped out his phone and contacted one of his associates. He gave the order to move the relic, teeth revealing themselves as he was denied.

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“I don’t care if it’s been speaking to you. Get it out of there!” Cavendish howled at the phone, hanging up promptly thereafter. He then turned back to Clara, moving over to the desk that sat in the corner of the bedroom before sitting himself down on the swivel chair. He looked to the four people facing him with a mixture of resentment and incredulity. Fran shuffled away from him, sitting herself beside Clara almost possessively. Eddie looked his ostensible employer over with a suspicious eye, finger thumbing his holster subtly. “I’m sorry Clara, truly. But if Livia’s in the city and you have six fangs things are worse than you know. I hoped you had more time.” Cavendish spoke with surprising compassion, which drove Clara’s hackles up all the further. She wrapped her fingers about the finger bone, trying to call some of its power. “For you and for vampires everywhere, this is the kindest thing I can do.” He intoned before a golden blur emerged from his jacket.

There was a gunshot, Fran screaming as her girlfriend’s head snapped back. Her temple had been shattered, blood oozing down her face. With a whisper of purest hatred, Clara gave her instructions to Livia’s gift.

Mary and Eddie leapt into action, Hana surging into the room as she heard the shot. Cavendish was howling orders at them, trying to reason with a tearful Eddie who’d drawn his weapon. Mary had moved further into the room, pulling her own handgun from its holster. Small arms might have been ineffective when killing vampires, but they’d slow him enough to let Hana tear into him. Her bared fangs and a kitchen knife spoke to that commitment all too well.

“We have to finish the job, quickly!” Cavendish shouted, pointing his gun at Mary. “That thing was never your friend, it only pretended to be! It wants nothing more than to enslave us all!” He reasoned desperately, giving momentary pause to the trio. A momentary pause Fran used to her advantage. As Cavendish took their silence for ascent, he returned the muzzle of his gun to the bed. Confusion expanded over his face as he saw nothing, searching the room desperately. “No, no, no, no. This isn’t right. How could you let it escape?!” He paced, holstering his gun and attempting to push past. Hana shoved him back and attempted to make him explain himself.

Fran and the semi-conscious Clara didn’t hear anything more after that. The lovers had to struggle against the blindness, hunger and fear to the lift where Fran eased Clara to lean against the wall. A good strategy. Her leg wasn’t working right. She couldn’t even raise her left arm. She wasn’t sure whether the shot would have killed an ordinary human but the faces of the onlookers who’d emerged from their apartments told her that it certainly looked bad. The vampire couldn’t see all that well anymore. Whether from starvation or brain damage, she couldn’t be sure. The pain was blinding enough all its own. An iron spike shoved through her forehead. What a pity Cavendish wasn’t edible.

“Treasonous bastard.” Clara winced as she removed her jacket one-handed. With a feeble attempt to tear it, she gave up on impromptu bandages. “We can’t go to the hospital or the police. We need the church right now.” She instructed Fran, who was busy pacing whilst muttering to herself in Romanian. It was a cute habit. One that she couldn’t appreciate with half her skull missing.

“Are you going to pray your head closed?!” Fran demanded with tearful eyes as the doors behind her opened. With a grunt of effort, she hauled Clara to her feet and began to drag her through the maze of concrete pillars that was the building’s parking space. As the pair limped their way toward a silver car Clara presumed was Fran’s, the lights of the garage went out. Her girlfriend gasped fearfully. To her, the world had gone black save for the distant streetlights from the ramp beyond. To Clara everything had merely gone monotone, like infrared from the police procedurals. Within that grey landscape, she saw the form of Cavendish stalking toward them. His head turned to and fro, frustration evident on his face.

“You should really take the stairs. They’re far healthier.” He taunted. Hoping to scare them into a mistake, Clara reckoned. She pushed Fran onward with what weak urging she could. It seemed she’d chosen well, and the woman was made of stern stuff, dragging the vampire forward with a grim look on her face. Determined, even through the tears. “I wonder if they know. Your friends. Might help them see what side they’re on when they realise what a monster you were.” Came the continued taunting, perilously close this time. Clara took her phone and set a timer for thirty seconds. Another shot rang out as she placed it on the ground. The bullet passed so close to her arm that she felt the searing air of its passage. With a curse, Cavendish dropped his magazine and loaded a fresh one. Seemed he’d not replaced it from the last time he’d used it. A small bit of luck at least.

Fran used the time to unlock her car, attracting another shot that shattered the passenger side window. It was then that her girlfriend threw open the driver side door, diving inside and turning on the engine. Clara grunted with pain, dragging herself one-handed into the back seat.

The car roared to life along with its headlights. Cavendish screamed in pain as the blinding radiance hit his face. Fran began to drive directly at him, hip-checking him with two tons of metal as he tried to dive out of the way. He lay on the ground behind them, firing shot after shot at the car. With a scream of rage, he realised he’d hit nothing immediately important as the car pulled away at frightening speed. No doubt he’d already be ordering his lackeys at the precinct to put out an APB on them. There was now only one course.

The car roared down the streets of New Orleans as Clara desperately tried to remain conscious. The blood loss was staggering, driving her hunger to endless new heights. She felt a prickling sensation along her gums that she instinctually knew to be her fangs emerging. But she wasn’t weak. She wasn’t going to hurt anyone. 

“I’m sorry, Fran. I decided to tell you about me. I decided to come here, bring Cavendish.” Clara apologized in the darkness of the back seat. She lay on her front, hoping that this position at least would keep her brain in her head. The exit wound didn’t feel too big, at least to her untrained fingers. Already, she could feel the vampiric healing desperately working at the wounds. The jagged bone had become smooth, spongy as it grew in accordance with some invisible design. “I should have listened to Hana.” She added ruefully, remembering well the older vampire’s reservations.

“My parents grew up in revolution. We saw horrors, even after.” Fran shot back almost defensively, taking an eye from the road to see how well her lover was doing. The bruising had already begun to show. “We don’t choose who we love. And they don’t always choose their enemies.” She continued before turning off down the same street Mary had driven her down. It felt like a lifetime ago. Even as the church came into view, Clara struggled to keep her vision. The cross, gleaming and gold atop the steeple, signalled hope in that moment. She’d never believed in their god. She’d never called out even in her darkest hour. But if anything was willing to spare her, to show her an ounce of mercy, she’d pray until her heart gave out.

She felt herself lifted from the car, dragged by the armpits toward the church as sirens sounded in the distance. Fran grunted with exertion as the doors opened behind her to flood the pair with light. It seemed that the father was in residence as Clara vaguely made out his greying, balding features. She made a weak joke about claiming sanctuary as the pair carried her into the church. It was an older building with mason work, wooden pews and stain glass. The whole nine yards, really. Given the sheer number of gaudy displays, she imagined the church was catholic. Fran’s grandparents were orthodox, she remembered that much. Secretly, of course. The USSR had never taken kindly to religious types.

Then the iconic look of a nun hovered over her, expert hands checking several elements. There was an instruction for blood to be brought while the father tended to Fran. She wept openly, worrying over every element as the nun fired off orders. As she returned to Clara’s side, the vampire clutched at her wrist desperately.

“Care not for my salvation. But abide with her earnestly.” Clara hissed in the nun’s ear with sudden energy. “She will depart from me and walk abroad unmarred.” The vampire added as the darkness took her vision. It took her strength soon after and she began sinking. Rest was only ever the intention, after all.

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