Blood Relations - Chapter 2

1937

Glasgow, Scotland

Victoria stepped off the train and onto the platform, keeping her head low while she walked past the rest of the disembarking passengers. She was excited about finally being in Glasgow.

The temptation was strong to gawk like a tourist, but there were too many people around, and most of the Europeans still held onto their old superstitions. It would be safer for her to get away from people before she could allow herself to look around. Her first view of the station was only of the tiles below her feet.

She wore pancake makeup that made her appear more human, but she had to be careful not to move her head too much and wipe her “skin” on her collar. Gloves covered her hands, sleeves hid her arms, and a white bonnet cap held her hair to prevent it from glimmering with blue highlights.

A casual observer would look at her modest clothing and think she was fervently religious for how much she hid of her body. But then she wasn’t much to look at with all the dieting she’d been forced to endure on her journey.

Victoria arrived in Glasgow with nothing beyond her one traveling bag. It carried her spare clothes, her makeup, and a flick-knife, her primary method of venting her victims.

She’d owned nothing else for close to two years, when a mob in New York burned down the building she lived in. It was ironic, because the mob was rioting over a lack of work, and not one of the men knew that they were destroying the home of a vampire.

She’d lost everything in the fire. Her clothes and jewelry were gone, as were the books of vampire lore that she’d been given by her father, Otis. She’d lost the stack of funds she kept hidden in a hatbox in her closet. But the loss that stung most was the only photo she had of her parents. It was the only photo they’d allowed her to take, and it had come to mean everything to Victoria once they’d abandoned her.

Victoria had never seen another of her people after her parents left, and her sense of isolation led her to speak to the photo frequently. She would imagine what her mother and father would say, and in that way, she kept a connection to them, even if she never saw them in person again.

But the photo was reduced to ash, along with everything else in Victoria’s life. Having nothing to keep her tied to New York, she chose to visit Europe, with her final destination being Glasgow, the city where her father was born well over five hundred years before.

The voyage on the cruise ship had been the hardest part of her journey. First Victoria made a torturous daylight trip to the Manhattan cruise terminal, and then she starved herself for the full week and a half long trip. By the time she’d arrived in Dover, many of the passengers were looking mighty tasty.

But she held out until later in the night, when she tracked down a trio of brigands. She took a flick-knife from one man, using it to slit all three men’s throats before she drained them. The cash they carried helped to pay for her train tickets, and only after she’d expended her funds did she go hunting again.

For two years, she wandered. She’d first drifted in a meandering path through Ireland, spending four months in the country before she took a much shorter ferry trip to England. Taking meals was hard with the frequency of the police patrols in most British cities, and so she’d spent less than two months there before she took a ship to the Netherlands.

There, meals were much easier to find, with the country boasting a vast array of nightlife activities to draw out both locals and tourists. Victoria kept herself on a strict diet to avoid drawing attention to herself, but when she needed to eat, there was always food available.

Keeping fed wasn’t what enchanted her. On many nights, Victoria had ventured into human clubs and bars to listen to music. Complete strangers would approach her to strike up conversations, and between the music and the company, she was able to forget how lonely she was.

Victoria had spent the longest amount of her time exploring every city in the Netherlands. But eventually her destinations merged into one long blur of dark streets, and the visits to the clubs became bitter opportunities to watch human couples flirt with each other. Then she could remind herself once again that she had no one.

Finally, she’d grown tired of exploring, and she booked passage to Scotland.

At the end of her journey, Victoria had plans to make a new home for herself. She could put her life back together after her long, wandering journey. But first, she had to take care of her stomach. She’d skipped far too many meals to avoid creating a trail, and her first goal upon leaving the train station was to find something to eat.

Victoria made it outside the station without catching anyone’s attention, or so she thought. Once she was on the street, the wind moved at her back, and it alerted her to a man behind her. He had an odd scent, one which was vaguely human. But there was an exotic mixture of pheromones coming off of the man that suggested he was something else.

She had a memory of her mother, Florence, warning her about people with strange scents. Florence had said, Trust your nose, Victoria. If they don’t smell fully human, it’s safer to avoid them.

Victoria wanted to heed the advice, and she walked for several blocks, taking random turns to try and shake the man. She checked the display window of a dress shop, pausing to turn her head. The man stopped walking, and he also tried to feign interest in something in a shop window.

Victoria got nervous, and she took a few steps before an accented male voice spoke inside her head. You don’t need to fear me.

Victoria stopped walking and turned around to stare at the man with a look of confusion. Did you just project a thought at me?

The man smiled warmly as he approached Victoria, his silver eyes glinting in the lamplights lining the side of the cobblestone street. Indeed I did, milady, he sent.

He was dressed a grey tailored coat which was well-worn, though not threadbare by any means. The same was true of his loose black pants, and of the grey-checked knit cap he wore over his curly, auburn hair. When he moved between the circles of light cast by the lamps, his face fell heavy with shadow under the brim of the cap.

He stopped in front of her and drew his hands out of his pockets, leaning over in a bow as he took Victoria’s hand and pecked a kiss on it. “I’m charmed to meet you, Victoria. My name is William McCullough.”

Victoria drew her hand back. “How did you know my name?”

“I’m a halfling. I can read your thoughts as easily as you could smell me from four blocks away.”

“I know what a halfling is,” Victoria said.

“And I know what you are too, vampire.” William raised his hands in a calming gesture when Vicky took a step back. “Relax, child. I mean you no harm.”

His accent was odd; not quite Scottish, not quite Irish, and yet, not quite English either.

He nodded at her assessment and said, “Like you, I suffer from wanderlust, and my accent has changed over the years.” William leaned his head over as he listened to her thoughts. “You must be starving after such a long trip. We should find you something to eat.” The right corner of his mouth ticked up in the tiniest of smirks. “Or, perhaps someone?”

Though Victoria didn’t know her true age, she was nineteen, and she was not yet full of self-confidence about herself. Having William give voice to her thoughts upset her, and she took another step back to get some space between her and him.

William took a step back as well, and then he reached around his back.

Victoria tensed at the quiet hiss of a knife blade sliding free from a leather sheath. She was starting to backpedal when William brought the knife up and slashed his other hand. The blade was razor keen, and though he’d barely whipped the knife over his skin, a wide slit unfolded in his palm. His hand filled with blood, and a thin trickle spilled over the folded crease of skin under his pinky.

Victoria stopped, her gaze frozen on the overflowing blood.

William put away the knife, never grimacing as he offered out his wounded hand. Then he waved to her with the other. Both his warm smile and the inviting gesture made him look like he was trying to attract a stray animal with an offering of food.

Victoria bristled with anger, thinking to drain the halfling through the wound he’d given himself. He laughed at her, and a moment later, she realized why. The cut would never bleed out, and in order to drain him, she needed to go for a vein.

She found herself stepping toward William, her hunger moving her legs just as much as her curiosity. She thought, What do halflings taste like?

William’s blood pooled in his cupped palm, but the wound was already reduced to a weak flow, allowing her only a few sips.

To Victoria’s delight, she found him free of vices. There was no taint of nicotine, nor of alcohol. He carried no diseases, making his blood so clean that Victoria could almost believe he was a virgin.

His blood still held the coppery taste of human, but there was something else, a strong taste like iron on the back of her palate. There was also an oddly sweet odor to his blood, and the odor translated to a flavor on the sides of her tongue.

“That little sip won’t hold you for long.” William drew a handkerchief from his coat to wrap around his hand and staunch the cut. “Come with me, and I’ll find you someone to feast upon.” He took her hand, and Victoria didn’t know why, but she followed him willingly, eagerly even.

When they passed under the next streetlamp, she appraised his smooth, angular face, noting that he was almost as pale as she was. He had a hawkish nose, lean cheeks and a flaring, round jaw line. His silver eyes had changed to a bright emerald green, and with his curly hair drifting down over them, he looked roguishly handsome.

Or, he would have if his cheeks carried even the slightest signs of stubble. Victoria wondered if touching his face would be like running her fingers over silk. His chin and lip bore only faint wisps of hair, and in her estimation, he was boyishly handsome. She had no idea of how old he was, but she had to guess he was at least in his forties, because he’d called her a child.

She was distracted from the thought when she caught scent of a drunken man who staggered out of a pub. Only then did she look around and realize how far they had walked. She’d had the impression of looking at William briefly as they passed under one light, but when she glanced back over her shoulder, none of the darkened brick buildings were familiar.

Even the cobblestone street was different. It was narrower, and she guessed that William must have guided her away from the main thoroughfares. The change of scenery was so jarring, because she’d had no sense of time moving when she watched William.

William clasped her upper arm, urging her to quicken her pace, and they fell into step behind the drunk, following him for several blocks. There was no one else on the street, and Victoria glanced at William to ask what they were waiting for. Her voice caught in her throat when she saw that his eyes were silver again.

What stunned her wasn’t the shift in color. She noticed how the patterns of his irises constantly moved. Victoria knew very little about halflings aside from the lore she’d learned from her parents. But she knew halflings were telepathic, and she could guess that his eyes being silver meant he was using his powers.

Still, Victoria had no clue that William had compelled the man to leave the pub, nor did she know that he had mesmerized her while she fed from him.

The reasons for his selection were also a mystery to her, but William chose the hulking brute because he was an ex-con. The brigand had been planning the murder of another, much wealthier patron of the pub when William scanned his thoughts. Both his large size and his murderous thoughts made him the perfect target, in William’s opinion.

The drunk wandered into a darkened alleyway. William stopped walking, and he offered Victoria a bow. “I shall wait here.”

Victoria peered down the alley. Her gaze locked on the man, who leaned against one wall for support. She asked, “Then what happens?”

“Then I’ll take you someplace safe to sleep for the day,” William said.

Victoria nodded, and she opened her bag to take out her knife. She handed William the bag and said, “I’ll be right back.”

William laughed quietly. “Take your time, Vicky.”

The pet name would quickly become the only name she answered to.