1
“Ireally need a fucking drink.”I kicked an empty beer can that lay on the front step of my shitty walk-up apartment as I headed out for thenight.
The sky was its usual ominous slate grey as I headed out, wandering down the busy streets of Camden Market under the darkening sky. I was lost in my own thoughts as I walked, trying desperately to think of anything but the night that haunted me. The rain drizzled heavily from above, and heavy raindrops fell down my cheek. My hair was soaked and my clothes were dirty, but I didn’t care. All the better, really. No one would bother approaching me in my direstate.
A horn honked violently in front of me as I stepped onto the road, forcing me quickly back up onto the sidewalk as I let the small car go by. I heard shouting from the other side of the passenger door and the person in the car flipped me off as they drove past. “Sorry,” I muttered to myself after the car had driven away. I glanced down the street to make sure no more cars were coming before I crossedtheroad.
Puddles had formed everywhere and my boots were soon soaked, but I hardly even noticed. My feet carried me thoughtlessly forward, down the winding street in the direction of the one place that Ifeltsafe.
Most of the shops were closed by now, and the late autumn sun had already long set behind dark rain clouds. The streetlights casted a misty orange glow around me as I walked down the rainy streets towards the pub. I stopped at a busy intersection just on the north side of Camden Market and waited for the lights to change. I looked at my reflection in a nearby storefront window, and hardly recognize my ownappearance.
The girl looking back at me was not the person that I once knew. The choppy blond hair, thick black eyeliner and overwhelmingly defeated eyes that stared back at me were foreign. I came to London one year ago as Charlotte Joyce, a fairly high-up member of the paranormal investigations team with the Chicago Police Department. We had tracked a coven from Chicago all the way across the pond, and I had worked undercover for nearly eight months before the incident. I had been young, bright, and eager, but the eyes that looked back at me now were sad andbroken.
I was snapped out of my daze by another honk of a nearby car, and turned to see an exasperated-looking driver waving me across. I waved my thanks and proceeded to walk across the street, willing myself to think of anything other than the person I used to be. My name now was Charlie Rose and I lived in Camden. I repeated those words in my head as I walked towardsthepub.
I didn’t mind living in Camden, for the most part. The people were diverse and the shops were interesting. I was surrounded by eager young CEOs of various startups, goths and punks, students, and tourists at any given time. It was a circus on the streets and a great placetohide.
My hand unconsciously rose to my neck as I walked, my fingers tracing the two small scars just below my jawline. It had become a habit that I didn’t even notice I did anymore, and I was totally lost in my thoughts as my fingers traced around the two puncture wounds from the vampire that had marked me againstmywill.
My heart pounded against my ribs and the familiar chatter at the back of my mind grew louder. My hand went into my pocket and clutched the bundle of sage that I kept near me at all times as I focused my mind away from the chatter and towards my muddy feet. One foot in front of theother.
I didn’t change into a vampire when I was bitten, and I have noideawhy.
It has been two months since it happened, and I was still in hiding. I have no idea how I survived, let alone how I showed up safe in my own bed after it had happened, but I was grateful to be alive and determined to stay that way. The first thing I did when I woke up after the incident was look up every paranormal cure for vampire bites that I could possibly find. The one thing that consistently came up in all my searches was sage. It was meant to block your connection to any paranormalbeing.
I couldn’t tell you how well it worked, but I wasn’t willing to risk not having it on me at all times. Ever since the bite, the mental connection that had been forged between us now grew stronger every day. There was this strange mental string that pulled me towards him, a desperate need that I felt in the pit of my stomach, and a longing to be with him. I knew none of it was real, but it was hard to escape when it was in your own mind. Fuck, he made meangry.
The idea of him always being in my head made me feel sick, as I knew it was only a result of the magic from his bite. I crushed the sage in the palm as I walked, determined to block out the mindless chatter that echoed in my head that belonged to the head vampire of the largest and most dangerous coven inEngland.
When I let my guard down, I could hear him call to me and I knew I had to do everything I could to protect myself. To hide. I knew that if I let the call pull me towards him, then that would be the end of my life as I knew it. I barely escaped to begin with, and I was determined to preserve what little life I still had. No matter how shitty and pathetic it maybenow.
We had finally found and broken into the local vampire coven; myself and my team of five detectives, after a long eight-month undercover investigation. We had them surrounded, and between our team’s stakes, silver bullets, crosses, and all the typical ridiculous shit you see on television and read about in books, we had won the standoff. That was until I let my guard down and the leader of their coven swooped in on me and clamped his sharp fangs onmyneck.
The rest of the takedown was a complete blur, and all I remember is waking up alone in my apartment a few days later, shivering and near death. The rest of my five-man team had disappeared, and there was an ongoing investigation back at the Bureau as to their disappearance. They were presumed dead, but I hoped that they at least still had people searching for them. Part of the reason I stayed was so that I could find them myself. At least, that’s what I told myself atnight.
For now I was stuck in London alone, disguised as someone I hardly knew, determined to stay as far away from the whole thing as I possibly could. None of my ex-colleagues back in Chicago knew where I was or who I was, and it was the only way I could stay safe. And to remain amongst theliving.
I tried leaving the city, of course. Many times. But the farther I went from heart of London, the harder it was to remember my intentions. I made it all the way to Dover once, hoping to board a train to France, and was about to go when my mind went blank and I couldn’t remember where I was going anymore. I realized pretty quick that the farther I got from the vampire I was linked to, the less control of my mind I had. It was a good thing I didn’t get on aplane.
As a result of the shitty mental link we share, I was stuck here in rainy, dreary London, with no friends, no life, and no prospects. I spent my days lurking in the shadows, staying away from as many people as I possibly could, and drinking myselfunconscious.
I picked up the hobby of drinking over the past few months as I discovered the more I drank, the less I noticed the mental connection to the vampire. The alcohol would numb my mind, and it was a welcome escape from the constant tug that I felt towards him. Alcohol numbed my awareness of him, and for that I was eternally grateful. Whiskey had become my bestfriend.
It may not be great for my body, but the result was amazing on my mind. It was a challenge, at first. His nagging and anger grew loud in my mind every time I began to drink. But after a few, it always subsided. He didn’t like that I drank, and I liked that he didn’t like it. It simply propelled me to drink more, and the result was purebliss.
I suspected the drinking also helped me stay hidden from him. I was pretty sure that wandering the streets aimlessly at night, hammered beyond control, confused him just as much as it confused me. If I couldn’t find my own way home, then he had no hope of finding it either. It made the idea of waking up hungover in a back alley that much moreappealing.
My plan seemed to work too, as not one vampire had come seeking me out since I escaped that night. I was still alive and I thanked the whiskeyforit.
“Hey,Charlie.”
I jumped back in shock at the voice. Placing my hand over my heart, I managed to catch my breath after a moment of panic. “Oh, hey Joe.” I smiled up at Joe, the large bouncer at the O’Riley, a great little pub just on the other side of the market. I had been so lost in my thoughts that I had no idea I’d already arrived at mydestination.
“Here for a drink?” He looked amused, but didn’t comment on my dire state ofun-keep.
I nodded and looked around me at the rundown pub, and paused before going in. The sign above the door was cracked and hanging from one hinge, and the paint peeled around the large wooden door frame. What surprised me, though, was the long line of people outside the door. In my two months of frequenting the pub nearly every night, I had never seen a line up outside. It was early on a Monday night, and the O’Riley wasn’t exactly a local hotspot. That was one of the reasons why I liked it so much. “What’s with theline,Joe?”
Joe laughed and shook his head. “Rumors of some dumb shifter group spread that they were going to come drinking here after some gang meeting tonight. Or some shit like that,” he said, rubbing his neck as he so often did when he was bored. He then shrugged, “I figure I might as well keep the groupies out for now to let the locals enjoy a few drinks before the carnagebegins.”
