Where Loyalty Lies (26 page)

“Well, I know another very good way of relieving tension if you get bored of shooting.” 

The mischievous look on Roy’s face gave away the dirty line of his thoughts, but it also showed his humour.

“I think I’ll stick with shooting for now, thanks.”

Roy gave a half-hearted shrug. “Fair enough, but at least give me the pleasure of showing you how to use a proper gun. It will relieve a lot more tension than your little toy.”

I chewed my lip in hesitation. A few moments ago I’d been more than happy with my little airgun but the temptation of having something that was bigger, heavier, louder and more powerful was too much. I nodded and Roy’s face lit up.

“That’s right.” He took the airgun out of my hands and left it in my booth before taking my hand and leading me into the next booth along. I watched as he prepared a gun just like the one he’d been using last time.

“Now, what you have to remember is that this will have a lot more clout than your little pistol. Make sure your grip is firm and, when you pull the trigger, just squeeze gently and be prepared for the kick it’ll give as it fires.”

I held the gun up at the target, feeling how much heavier it was.

“That’s it. Now just lower your arms a bit.” Roy moved behind me, pressing his body up against mine and running his hands down my arms until they were over my own hands.

“I’ll shoot you in a minute, if you don’t back off,” I said.

Roy chuckled and backed off with his hands raised in a gesture of submission. “Okay, okay, you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“I can and I will,” I snapped, but I gave him half a smile just so he knew I wasn’t really mad.

Even prepared as I was, I was still taken aback when I fired my shot. It felt like a solid chunk of my anger left me as every bullet left the barrel. When I was out of shots, I couldn’t help but grin.

“Was I right or was I right?” Roy asked.

“You were right,” I admitted.

“So, can I ask what the source of this tension is?” Roy said, taking the gun from me and reloading it.

“You can ask all you like, just don’t expect an answer.”

Roy chuckled again. “Fair enough. But, just so you know, the transition is difficult for everyone. I know that, in your circumstances, it’s a little different, but everyone has trouble adjusting to the vampire way of life at first. The staff have counsellors to help them come to terms with the realisation that vampires actually exist, and, for people who actually get changed from humans into vampires, it’s one hell of an ordeal.”

My anger disappeared as he spoke. Instead I found myself engrossed in what he was saying.

“How do people get turned into vampires?” I asked, realising that, after Holt had mentioned it that first time, I’d never remembered to ask about it again.

Sensing my interest, Roy stopped what he was doing and leant up against the wooden partition that separated each booth. “Well, it’s actually quite straightforward; it’s the one thing that most of the vampire stories seem to get right. A vampire has to drink from the human, right up until the human dies, then, no less than a minute after the heart has stopped beating, the vampire has to cut themselves, usually at the wrist, and let the blood flow into the human’s mouth. There’s a chemical in a vampire’s blood that forces the human’s heart to restart. The human has to drink their blood back from the vampire, but now that blood is vampire blood, not human blood.”

For a moment I stood in silence, trying to take in the gory and graphic picture that Roy had painted.

“So your hearts do beat?” I asked.

In answer to my question, Roy grabbed my hand and held it to his chest. I’d have pulled away at the over-friendly contact but I was too intrigued. Sure enough, I could feel a steady heartbeat.

I smiled at Roy and then pulled my hand away. “So that’s just another myth, then.”

“One of many.” Roy handed me the gun and stood back while I took my shots. My aim wasn’t bad and two of my shots hit the edge of the bullseye. I turned and held the gun out to Roy but, before I could ask him to reload it, he cut me off.

“Not bad, but if you’re going to be coming here regularly to vent your frustrations, then you need to learn how to load it yourself.”

I watched as he talked me through it. It was simple enough. He loaded it once then unloaded it and asked me to reload it. Once I had, he asked me to unload it and then to reload it again.

“Right, I think you’ve got it,” he finally concluded. “Now you’re completely self-sufficient.”

I gave him a smile of thanks, expecting him to move off into his own booth, but instead he stayed next to me as I fired off a couple more shots. My third one hit dead centre in the target.

“For what it’s worth, I reckon you fit in here pretty damn well,” Roy said from behind me.

Remembering Monique’s words in the library earlier, I snorted. “I think you’re in a minority with that opinion.”

“Most people round here are old, stuck in their ways; just give them time and they’ll come round.”

I lowered my gun but didn’t turn to face Roy. “I don’t have a problem with people not liking me.”

That much was true. I honestly didn’t mind about people like Monique sticking their noses up at me, at least she was honest. What I did have a problem with was people pretending to like me more than they did. No, that was unfair of me. The truth was that Saul hadn’t been dishonest with me. It had been me getting ahead of myself, thinking I might finally have found someone special. Saul had never given me any indication that he wanted anything more than a bit of fun. We’d chatted and flirted and been out once on what wasn’t even a proper date. Yes, we’d kissed, but that hadn’t counted for anything really. Just because that kiss had meant so much to me, it didn’t mean it had to Saul.

Humiliation filled me again and it doubled when I realised that Roy was watching me.

“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, so I honestly don’t mind if people have a problem with me. It’s just that I find some people harder to figure out than others,” I said, feeling like I needed to give a reason for my long silence.

“When you’ve been alive for hundreds of years, it becomes very easy to master your emotions. Older vampires don’t seem to react to anything, they’ve learnt how much body language gives away and they’ve learnt not to use it because it gives them an advantage.”

I nodded, remembering the bored faces of The Sénat on the first day I was brought here. “Sounds like a good trick. I wouldn’t mind being able to cover up my emotions sometimes.”

Roy shrugged. “I guess, but I quite like having reactions and body language. It’s a human trait that I hope to never lose.”

That was an interesting point but I barely had time to mull it over when the door opened. For a split second my stomach gave a sickening lurch but then I realised it wasn’t Saul, it was Henry.

“Here you are,” he said. In the seconds I’d thought he was Saul, the panic that had shot through me must have given off a powerful wave of emotion because I saw Henry’s eyes flick to Roy, trying to find out where my source of discomfort was coming from.

“Have you seen Saul? He was looking for you earlier,” Henry said.

I shook my head. What was I supposed to do now? I couldn’t exactly tell Henry that I was avoiding his brother, but, if I tried to lie, he’d more than likely be able to sense that something was wrong. Before I could figure out a solution to my predicament, music filled the room. I jumped before realising it was coming from Henry’s phone.  He pulled it out of his trouser pocket.

I frowned. “Where do I recognise that song from?” I said.

Henry grinned. “It’s Jace Everett’s
Bad Things
.”

I frowned harder; the name didn’t ring any bells.

“Basically known as the theme tune to the
True Blood
TV series,” Roy added.

I nodded as it clicked into place and then laughed at the irony of it.

“Ah, brother, we were just talking about you,” Henry said into his phone.

My laughter stopped so abruptly that I earned two sets of odd looks.

“Well, yes, I did find her; we’re at the shooting range.”

I could tell by Henry’s tone that he could sense I wasn’t thrilled at the thought of seeing Saul.

“Okay,” Henry said before snapping his phone shut and putting it back in his pocket. He looked at me. “Saul’s on his way.”

I nodded a little dumbly. “Right, well, I um... have a bit of a headache, actually, so I think I might just go and have a lie down.” I knew my words were so feeble that even Roy could tell I was lying but I just wanted to leave before Saul arrived and brought a whole lot more awkwardness with him.

I turned and tried to disassemble the gun but, in my haste, I fumbled and almost sent the box of bullets crashing to the floor.

“Here, I can do that for you,” Roy said, coming up and pushing me gently out of the way. “We don’t want you accidentally shooting yourself now.”

I gave him a grateful smile then excused myself from the room. On the other side of the door I sighed with relief. I’d made it blindingly obvious that I hadn’t wanted to see Saul and I was sure that, once Saul turned up, Henry would tell him so. All I had to hope for now was that Saul would get the message and leave me alone.

“Ouch!” I yelled as the bamboo stick smacked me for what felt like the millionth time. I’d learned not to complain when I got struck, but this particular blow had landed across the top of my bare foot and it hurt way too much to go without complaining.

I hopped on one leg, holding the injured foot in my hands and watching as a red line appeared. Peter wasn’t bothered about my injury and swiped the bamboo stick through the air again. I managed to duck and avoid a blow to my shoulder but didn’t recover in time for his next strike and, as I attempted to jump over the knee high blow, I lost my balance and landed hard on my arse.

I gritted my teeth and huffed. “That hurts, you know.”

Peter stopped and stood watching me, gently twirling the stick in his right hand.

“Well, if you dodged the blow it wouldn’t hurt,” he said, but the words were heavy with his accent. Peter wasn’t exactly the chatty type, so I hadn’t found out exactly where he came from but I guessed it was Russia. He was only a couple of inches taller than me but, after my first training session with him when he’d first kicked my arse, I’d always thought of him as bigger. With his long black hair pulled back in a ponytail, I secretly thought of him as Dracula but I was nowhere near stupid enough to voice my thought out loud.

“I am trying,” I snapped, using this moment on the floor to get my breath back.

“Obviously not hard enough,” Peter said, eyeing the welt on my foot.

“Have you ever thought of wrapping that bloody stick in foam or something so it doesn’t hurt as much?”

“That would defeat the point of the exercise. If the blows didn’t hurt, you wouldn’t have the motivation to avoid them.”

I ground my teeth together. He had a point. “At least I wouldn’t be covered in bruises,” I muttered.

“They never last more than a week,” Peter said, as if that made everything better. “Now get up and try again.”

There was no point in arguing. I was barely on my feet when the first swipe came; I dodged to the left to avoid it. The next came across at neck height and I ducked under it. The third swipe swept down towards the foot that was already bruised but, this time, I managed to jump back and avoid it. I grinned, glad that I’d beaten him, but my cockiness cost me as I didn’t see his next blow until it had struck the top of my undamaged foot.

I let out a scream of frustration and stormed across to the other side of the gym where I was further away from Peter and that bloody stick.

“It’s a good job there aren’t any wars taking place here; if you were fighting, you’d be dead before you’d even started,” Peter said, not moving from his spot on the mats.

It took everything I had to keep my sarcastic comment to myself. Instead I balled my hands into fists and squeezed them as hard as I could.

“You’re thinking too much. You need to trust your instincts; your reactions will be faster if you act before you think. Now try again.”

Peter pointed to a spot just in front of him on the mats. Grudgingly, I stomped over and stood there.

“I can’t just turn off my brain. It’s not like there’s a switch I can flick off,” I grumbled.

“Yes there is, and once you learn how to tune out of your brain and into your instincts, you’ll have mastered what many people never do.”

I took a deep breath and tried to relax. This whole process was slow and painful but I couldn’t deny that I wanted to succeed. Out of all the rubbish The Sénat had me doing for my tests, this was the only thing that seemed worthwhile. If I could master this, it would be something that might actually come in handy in my life.

“Okay, I’m...”

Before I could get the word “ready” out, the first lash came at me and I managed to avoid it, and the next six, before my luck ran out and I was struck on my thigh. This time I didn’t complain but Peter stopped and looked at me.

“Do you read?” he asked.