Sucks to Suck – Chapter 18

            The silence within the car was heavy. To say it felt like Marion could cut it with a knife was, without a doubt, a tired cliché, but she still struggled to find a more suitable metaphor in her mind. Outside, the rain rushed by the large windows of the black SUV. Isabella and Marion shared the backseat, and Skye’s thrall, the quiet woman with the thick glasses and the curly hair, was driving, and the tall vampire herself sat on the passenger seat. Neither thrall nor the mistress had seen fit to put some music on the radio, and Isabella and Marion did not request it. So the sound of the engine running, the drops falling on the roof, and the tyres sliding slowly through rain-soaked asphalt were all they heard as they headed deeper into the industrial area of the harbour. Skye had mentioned a place called the ‘Fridge’, and it had piqued Isabella’s curiosity. It had also made Marion a little unsettled as she sat in the car, knowing that there was a real chance Skye was driving her to the Court, to the Prince, and potentially to Mother. She had promised otherwise, and Marion felt like the woman was very strict in keeping her word, but all she had to go was the impression she obtained from interacting with her for a few minutes. It was not enough to put her mind at ease.

            Isabella, on the other hand, seemed restless. She was shaking one of her legs by raising and lowering her heel while keeping the tip of her foot on the floor. It bounced rapidly in that position as her hands fidgetted with the seatbelt across her chest, and her mouth moved at times, not mouthing any word specifically, but always seemed close to. While Marion had her own ways of dealing with her concerns, she could relate to Isabella’s restlessness. Whatever was to happen next, they were now officially too deep in to get out. They had crossed that line the moment Skye stepped inside Isabella’s circle and got trapped. Perhaps before, even; since the spell to attract Skye was cast.

            ‘The only way out is through,’ Marion told herself, thinking about how that phrase had come to her earlier in the week. And as she did, the car shook as it climbed from the asphalt onto the concrete platform between warehouses. It was still a path meant to be driven by vehicles, but they were not within the harbour area itself. The first obstacle was an automatic boom barrier that must’ve read some device on the car, or perhaps its license plate and decided that it had access because soon it was lifted, and they entered deeper into the area between rusty ship containers and old red brick buildings.

            Skye’s thrall took a turn to the right as the vampire wordlessly pointed to a narrow space between two buildings. She steered the car into it and even though the large, thick black SUV was barely able to fit, they drove through it, coming out on the other side towards a slightly wider open area of concrete between a row of old warehouses and the edge of the harbour. The Puget Sound was just a flat darkness, barely reflecting the distant yellow lights on the other side, making it seem like they might be suspended over a dark infinity. Keeping it to their right, Felicia took them to the edge of the chain link fence surrounding a large, abandoned-looking facility on the harbour. It seemed like something built in the 1950s or early 1960s. There was a happy penguin painted on the side of the building, now fading, and the large windows made of dozens of small panels of glass were almost entirely located on the top of the building, near the roof. It was massive, with a few bays and garage doors that once were used to load trucks but were now abandoned and covered in graffiti. Two men in dark suits, holding submachineguns openly and without the badge or sign of any security company, were guarding the entrance. Standing there in the open, despite the rain.

            Their driver brought the car to a halt, facing the gate, and one of the men approached Skye’s window. Instead of an ID, she reached into her pocket for something else. A ring, a golden ring attached to a chain. The kind that carried some sort of symbol or monogram, as large as a nickel, on the front. Marion couldn’t see what the symbol was, but it was still enough to grant Skye entrance without another word being exchanged.

            “What’s with the ring?” Isabella asked, breaking the silence of their journey as Skye’s thrall followed her mistress’ finger to bring the car closer to a metallic orange door in the building. Another armed guard was protecting it.

            “I do not understand your question,” Skye said in her usual serious and detached tone.

            “The ring… It’s like identification? Isn’t your face enough? Have you never come here before?” It seemed that now that Isabella had breached the barrier of asking questions, she couldn’t restrain herself to one at a time.

            “I have,” Skye said, reaching for the door handle as the car stopped but not opening. Instead, she turned to Isabella and, with gravitas and not a hint of humour, said, “But there are others out there who can wear my face. Not as many that can carry the Prince’s favour.”

            Isabella seemed undecided between being scared or excited at Skye’s reasoning. Marion knew that scared was probably the correct answer. She tried not to show how nervous she was though, how unsure. The deal she made with the vampire hunting her was that she’d aid in her investigation in exchange for being let go. It hinged on Skye believing Marion could help her, and showing confidence was part of it.

            As they began to disembark, Marion noticed that as the woman behind the wheel started to stand up, Skye placed a hand on her shoulder and just informed her casually:

            “No, you stay, Felicia.”

            That was it. There were no complaints and no questions. Felicia simply nodded and leaned back on the seat, preparing herself for a long wait. Marion felt a pang of jealousy that Skye was able to command such easy obedience when she seemed to not even need to use her glamour ability to do so. Assuming she had a glamour ability. Marion had seen her do things that, as far as Marion knew, she couldn’t do herself.

            The trio stepped out of the car and made their way through the rain, sheltered under the overhang of the old food plant’s facade. The guard by the orange door was shown the same signet ring before he moved to unlock the padlock and take out the heavy-duty chains that even a strong vampire would have trouble breaking.

            The interior of the factory was mostly dark and abandoned. But Marion didn’t need to wait long for her eyes to adjust to the minimal light making it through the high windows, just the golden light of the city bleeding through. But she felt Isabella’s hand on her arm soon after. Of course, humans, even witches, couldn’t see in the dark as well as she could. There was a trade-off, though: Whenever her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the colours of the world seemed to fade. It didn’t become entirely black and white, but perhaps ninety per cent of the way there, and there was a blueness that lingered over everything. Any glint of light was just a flat, shimmering streak of white that was almost offensive to the sight when her vision was like that. In the areas where Isabella would just see the vague silhouette of ancient rusted machinery, Marion could see each individual pipe and rivet that was placed across the factory floor, mostly connected to one out of two conveyor belts, each shaped as a U. Skye’s feet made almost no sound on the floor despite the fact she was wearing boots, so it was mostly Marion’s and Isabella’s steps reverberating across the empty plant. The sound of the rain outside was almost entirely muffled by the thick walls. But a few spots on the roof were leaky, and each drop of water fell from a great height before hitting the middle of a large puddle.

            The floor was slightly sloped, guiding liquids to drainage channels across the middle of the factory. But the drains themselves, or the tubs leading out of them, probably had been clogged for decades, so instead, Marion saw an uneven, rippling mirror reflecting the raw concrete ceiling and exposed steel beams holding it and the metallic industrial catwalks above in place.

            The sound of an engine running got to Marion’s ears as they approached the end of the long production line, and Skye took a turn to the left, moving through a large rectangular passageway separating two sections of the factory. That next section was much smaller than the canning main floor and was perpendicular to it, forming the short leg of an L. The north side had several loading doors, all closed with padlocks and chains but still marked with tons of graffiti. On the opposite wall, a very large electricity generator was connected to the building’s electrical wiring, next to a massive metallic door, just one of three, but only one of them had light behind the small square window.

            ‘The Fridge,’ Marion thought. It made sense now. Skye stopped in front of the large metallic door, allowing the two girls walking together, Isabella leaning onto Marion’s arm, to come closer.

            “The corpses are stored here,” Skye said.

            “Corpses, plural?” Isabella said, shock transparent in her voice.

            “Yes,” Skye clarified, deadpan, “I understood that you’d be able to locate our quarry if you had access to the cadavers.”

            “I said I might,” Isabella clarified, and Marion felt her hand gripping tighter on her arm.

            “Very well. Then we shall unearth the answer to that soon,” Skye voiced. “Your thrall might be cold.”

            “Thrall…” Isabella muttered, unhappy with the word.

            Marion didn’t blame her. She could imagine that humans didn’t enjoy thinking about how vulnerable they were to vampire’s blood. Would the trick work on witches, though? Were witches even humans? Marion didn’t know that. What she knew was that Skye’s assumption that she controlled Isabella was useful for her then. So, she gave Isabella’s arm a quiet squeeze back to dissuade her from pushing on the point.

            As the tall vampiress pulled the door to the fridge chamber, a pulse of cold air licked across Marion’s skin, especially down against her shins and feet. Her vision was taken by a white flash for a heartbeat before it adjusted to the light. Within the industrial fridge chamber, the walls were also adorned by the omnipresent urban decay of graffiti, but less than outside. There were three mortuary gurneys, each of them with a sheet covering the mortal remains of a human lying on top of them. It was all mismatched; both the sheets and the gurneys were of different colours and materials. Hospital blue, hospital grey and what seemed like decay and stained pink sheets, and for the surface on which they rested, one seemed like it had been pulled out of a vintage horror movie, dark metal, rusted to the point of having holes in the surface, while another was modern aluminium with few signs of usage, and the third was a little older, the type with big wheels and a large tray for tools underneath.

            The sight of bodies wasn’t exactly comfortable for Marion, but it wasn’t a strange one either. She had never killed anyone, but she had been around death a lot. A lot more than anyone should, probably. Isabella, on the other hand, seemed to almost faint. She let out a squeal of fright and took a half step back. Skye lifted a single brow, surprised with the lack of stomach on the witch that had been able to trap her.

            Isabella broke from Marion’s arm and retreated from the fridge, into the darkness. Marion and Skye exchanged a long glance. Emotionless on the part of the Prince’s Sheriff; Marion wasn’t sure she had been able to match Skye’s emotional detachment. Most likely, she was showing at least some of the concern she felt.

            “A moment, please…”

            “Do not dally. Sunrise encroaches,” Skye warned but gestured her permission for Marion to depart.

            Marion knew that the vampire had no reason to believe she would run. By confronting her, Marion had shown her hand. If she was willing to run away, she would’ve tried it first. By choosing to face Skye, Marion informed her that she would go through great pains and not leave her current situation. So, Skye knew where to track her next if she was ever to disappear. Logan. Marion felt her barely beating heart drop as she thought about Skye landing her hands, or worse, her fangs, on her roommate.

            She stepped out, and her eyes once again adjusted to the gloom as she spotted Isabella hugging herself a few steps out of the fridge. Slowly, Marion approached, a hand moving to her elbow.

            “Isabella…”

            “The fuck we are doing here, Marion? This is so sus…”

            “Sus…?”

            “This is creepy, okay? That’s dead people in there…”

            “You… You do magic. Witch magic… How can this even phase you?”

            “I never dealt with dead things! Like, maybe a dead mouse once, for a spell. And I hated it. This is… Fucked up. Those were people.”

            “Yes. And something did that to them. Or someone,” Marion said. “And they might do it to Logan if we don’t stop them.”

            Isabella raised her eyes to Marion. She was probably barely able to see her in the dark, but she managed to find Marion’s eyes. Marion could see her well enough to see the accusatory glare marking her visage. Intense and resentful.

            “Don’t you fucking try that with me,” she said, without her usual warmth, not a single drop of it.

            Marion felt a pang of rage. She furrowed her brow.

            “Why not? That’s exactly what you did to me.”

            Isabella didn’t relent, but the shift in posture told Marion she had pushed a nerve. She was speaking the truth, of course. Isabella had used how much Marion cared for Logan to get her to stay instead of running away. Now Marion was pulling on the same string, and she didn’t quite like the taste of that medicine.

            “Fuck. Fine. But I hate it,” Isabella said.

            “Noted,” Marion mentioned. “Next time we ought to help another vampire track a killer, I’ll specify no corpses involved.”

            Marion’s attempt at humour seemed to have landed flat as she placed a hand on Isabella’s shoulder blade and tried to stir her towards the Fridge. But a second later, Isabella let a tense exhale of almost laughter through her nose before she scoffed in half-playing annoyance.

            “Well, you better!”

            With that, they entered the chamber, and Skye closed the door behind them, mostly to prevent more of the cold from leaking out and overtaxing their generator. Marion wondered how often vampires needed to preserve bodies that they were spending that many resources on that place. But then again, maybe a handful of guards and a generator wasn’t even that much compared to what the Court could swing. The truth was that she had no idea.

            Skye moved to the first body, pulled the pink stained sheet from over it, and revealed a young woman. In the mid to late twenties, Marion judged. Short brown hair, tattoos. A nose piercing. Her neck had the indentation of a choker, which was long removed, but not before it left a permanent impression on her corpse. She was naked, but the utter absence of colour, of heat and motion, meant that Marion didn’t feel the blush she was expecting to feel of second-hand shame and awkwardness in the presence of a living naked human. She was very much now an object. As attractive or remarkable as the cold gurney she laid on.

            “The human death keepers said she perished three weeks ago. I only discovered her remains a couple of nights ago. She is the first victim that I am aware of, even if she was the one I unearthed most recently.”

            “Young,” Marion noticed.

            “Yes. Take note of that,” Skye said before she pulled the second sheet, the blue hospital sheet.

            The man beneath it was of similar age, though without any piercings or tattoos. Marion studied his body with passing curiosity, doubting she would spot anything on it that Skye had missed when she looked at it.

            “Also young,” Marion noted, and Skye nodded.

            At that point, the shorter vampire turned around to find Isabella a step behind her, visibly uncomfortable and shivering from the cold. None of them had come prepared to spend time inside a refrigeration chamber, Marion reckoned. Especially one cold enough to preserve bodies. Clouds of condensation came out of Isabella’s mouth and nose, which wasn’t happening with Marion and Skye. The fragility of her body suddenly struck Marion, and she pulled her hoodie from above her head to hand it to Isabella.

            “Here… Put this on. Layer it…”

            Isabella’s eyes opened wide, looking at the black sports bra Marion was wearing underneath the hoodie and her very pale skin. First in surprise, then confusion.

            “You’re going to freeze to death!” she complained as the hoodie was shoved into her hands. “Or redeath? True death?”

            “Our kin may feel cold, but it cannot destroy us,” Skye clarified to Isabella.

            Marion nodded. She actually didn’t know that for sure, but she had a few winters in the past where she was sure she ought to have died of hypothermia, and all it did was to make her slow down, almost to a crawl. It was as if her blood had become thicker in her veins from the cold, but it was still flowing.

            “Oh… Okay, I guess…” Isabella accepted the cat hoodie, putting it on and pulling it down across her waist.

            It was just a little oversized on her, so it fell almost down to the beginning of her thighs. She approached the two bodies, and Marion saw her eyes going to the necks. Timidly, she moved to touch a bite mark there.

            “So… We are sure it was a vampire, right?” she asked.

            “Not in the absolute. Exsanguination has been confirmed, which would suggest so…”

            “And yet…?” Isabella asked, leaning forth to look closer at the neck. “These bite marks look very vampy.”

            “Our kin often heals the prey as it dies,” Skye explained. “A way to obscure our presence to any who may find it, you may say…”

            “Every one of you does it? Every time?”

            “Perhaps not… But it’s a strong instinct.”

            “Like a cat burying poop?” Isabella asked.

            Skye looked puzzled for a moment, and it was strange to see her expression shift from the usual emotionless face to mild confusion and surprise. She tilted that swan neck to the side in contemplation, folding her arms before nodding.

            “Yes. That’s sufficient approximation…”

            “So… It’s totally possible this guy just got sloppy once, right?” Isabella said.

            “Are you assuming it’s a man?” Marion asked, raising an eyebrow.

            “When you watch enough True Crime, Marion, you realise… It’s always a man.”

            Marion did not dispute that, but Skye moved to the final sheet, pulling it dramatically to reveal the third body. Another male, that one perhaps in his mid to late thirties. Her finger pointed to his neck.

            “That they lapsed once it would be easy to believe… But all three were left with the mark of the Kiss upon their skin upon death,” Skye said.

            Isabella frowned. And so did Marion as she looked at the last body.

            “Huh.”

            “What? What is it, Marion?”

            “The side of the bite…” Marion said and raised her finger to point to the bodies one at a time. “Left, left, right.”

            “So?”

            “Well… Whenever I feed… I almost exclusively bite people on my right side. So, their left,” Marion said.

            “Wait… Is that a thing? Do vampires have a favourite side?”

            Skye nodded slowly.

            “Right, as well,” she said.

            Marion felt a strange kinship with the other vampire. A kinship that wasn’t there before, and thus not born of the simple fact they were both cursed in the same way. Even though, in all likelihood, around half of vampire-kind shared a side preference for biting with Marion, that was the first time she discussed that with anyone. And now, suddenly, she wanted to ask Skye if she had ever gone for the left side and just felt… Wrong doing it. Like putting a shirt inside out. She didn’t, though.

            “Okay, so… Changing sides. What does that mean? Multiple vampires?”

            “No… The fangs are unique to each of our kin. Spacing, size, depth, shape. These bites were done by the same mouth.”

            “Fuck… This is a head-scratcher,” Isabella complained.

            Marion felt her skin begin to ache from the cold, and her mind was starting to slow down. Usually, the cold would not affect her that much if she had been fed recently. She was annoyed at how often that was the case. How often just having more blood in her would make her more comfortable. Even when she wasn’t starving, her body found a way to tell her she could use a bit more.

            “Okay… I guess you didn’t bring me here for my deductive skills, right?” Isabella muttered, moving to grab her small gel-cover notebook from her purse.

            Marion had watched her take a sigil from that book once to turn her finger into a blowtorch. And as she did it, Marion felt the sting of silver on her wrists. She had entirely forgotten about it when she took off her hoodie, but looking down then, she could see the still healing mark of the cuffs placed on her.

            Skye’s eyes went to Marion’s wrists as she lifted them to contemplate the wounds, and Marion could swear she spotted a tiny, almost invisible contortion of guilt on Skye’s face. It was there an instant and then not at all. Or perhaps she just imagined it? Either way, Isabella opened her notebook and looked over the pages for a moment, trying to figure something out. Marion could see in her eyes how hard she was thinking, trying to figure out how she could help. When it clicked, it was visible too. Her brows raised, her eyes went wide for a second, and her lips tensed. And then her expression returned to normal.

            “Okay… I think I know how to help,” the witch said.

            She took out a sharpie from her purse and, leaning on one of the gurneys, she began to draw a sigil, copying the ones on an open page of her colourful grimoire. It was a spiral with jagged teeth pushing out, with a sigil in the centre that looked like a simplified hourglass.

            “I’ll need… Blood,” Isabella said. “A drop from each.”

            Marion and Skye exchanged a glance of understanding. To give blood never felt… Right. Not unless it was one’s own choice. It was against their nature to give it. They wanted to drink it. Hoard it. But Marion wanted the shadow of Skye’s hunt for her to be banished, and Skye wanted to find the creature that had been eluding her. Both wanted it bad enough that they seemed to agree, within that glance, to do it.

            Skye offered her finger, poking it with her stiletto knife and letting a single drop of her blood fall onto the table. Marion looked at the crimson drop at the centre of Isabella’s strange rune, and a part of her wanted to lick it. Drink it. Vampire blood was even stronger than human blood. But it was a sin to drink from another kin. Not outside rituals like blood bonds. Not without their express permission and even then, just a single drop. Yet, the smell of blood was maddening.

            Skye offered her knife to Marion, and she took a moment before gaining the courage to pierce her own skin and join her blood to the offering. The two drops merged as one on the table, and for some reason, that made Marion flush. It felt… Intimate and erotic, to pour their blood together. She returned the stiletto knife but could not look at Skye as she did it.

            “Okay… Thank you, ladies,” Isabella said, cracking her knuckles. “Now for the hard part…”

            And she lifted her hands above the sigil. The black ink of the sharpie began to shiver, and then it seemed to concentrate and form into smaller dots, bubbles, on the surface of the gurney. These bubbles were pulled towards Marion and Skye’s blood. The pure crimson became tainted with ink, and that struck Marion as borderline sacrilegious. And perhaps it was. Ink and blood became a large blob of dark red, and it shimmered and danced. Isabella’s hand above it trembled, and that was when Marion noticed her lips moving. She was mouthing something, and her eyes were losing focus. And then rolling, until her pupils were gone and all she could see was the white of the witch’s eyes and those tiny red veins. Then it was like Marion was watching a glass of milk, and someone released a drop of ink into it. A cloud of black formed in Isabella’s eyes. Black and red. Marion looked at the table to see the drop there gone. It had turned into a hair-thin snake, slurping up and entering Isabella’s palm. Her throat made a gurgling noise. The lights in the chamber flickered and then briefly went off before returning with a loud clank.

            As they did, Isabella dropped to her knees and then lost her lunch. Or dinner. Or whatever her last meal was. She retched on the floor. And in the middle of unpleasant hues of browns and yellows, Marion spotted a string of darkened crimson. A sound of ripping skin came from the bodies, and Skye stepped back.

            “Foul sorcery…” she cursed under her non-breath.

            Marion had gone down to her knees to wrap her arms around Isabella’s shoulders and pull the girl’s hair back so she wouldn’t throw up on it. Isabella dry heaved a few times before she seemed to finally stop.

            “That was… Fucking… Nasty.”

            “What… What did you do?” Marion asked.

            “I… I thought about… Healing… Hiding…” she tried to explain incoherently.

            Marion just helped her go from being hunched on her knees to sitting on her heels and gently stroked the back of her head to help Isabella calm down and look up. But by then, Skye had closed in on the bodies with an expression of astonishment.

            “What… What is it, Skye?”

            “Marks of the Kiss…” she said quietly, almost in reverence.

            “The bites? We saw those.”

            “Not those… New ones.”

            Marion looked at Isabella, deciding she was more or less stable. She tapped her shoulder gently and gave a quiet thanks before she stood up. She approached the girl’s body, and she understood what Skye had said. There were several bite marks across the right side of her neck. At least three or four sets of twin punctures from fangs. The space between them even, their shape perfectly identical. But these new holes that had emerged on the skin did not match the mark of those on the other side.

            “How… How did those get there?” Marion asked.

            “I… Reversed… Your healing…”

            “Our healing?”

            “Vampiric… Healing… I took it away.”

            “You can do that?”

            “It’s… Easier on the dead, I suppose… I can… Reverse the influence. I can… Take away something. Like it never happened…” Isabella explained, slowly bringing herself up.

            “This person was bitten by the same kin… Several times,” Skye said.

            “But they didn’t kill her?”

            “No. They did not,” the hunter agreed, moving to the next. “Different kin, once again.”

            “Different from the killing mark, or different from the feeding marks?”

            “Both,” Skye added, even more puzzled.

            The third body was the same. Marion knew as soon as Skye lifted her eyes from the fresh wounds Isabella had opened. Nothing made sense.

            “So… Let me understand this…” Marion said. “Each of these people was bitten several times by a different kin?”

            “Yes. Likely, they were their blood dolls. Cattle,” Skye said. “Addicted to the Kiss. Willing to give themselves for it.”

            “And… They were all killed by the same kin… Which wasn’t any of those three?”

            “That is correct,” Skye said.

            “Why? Why would a vampire go around killing the dolls of another? Won’t that… Piss them off? Like, a lot?”

            “It is a very serious provocation… A very deep insult, and often a very personal loss,” Skye said. “And I’m afraid the matter is even worse than just that.”

            “How… How can it be worse?”

            “These fang sets… Two pairs up. One pair down. Celts.” Skye shook her head slowly, taking a step away from the table. “These dolls belonged to people under Ronan… All of them. His indignation was not feigned. I doubt this was a coincidence.”

            “Wait… Celts? Ronan? What does all that mean?”

            “Court affairs… It would take long to explain…” Skye said dismissively before turning to Isabella. “Can you tell us anything more about what happened with them, sorcerer?”

            “N-no…” Isabella shook her head. “And… That spell took something out of me. I really need an energy bar and a lie-down.”

            “Very well… The sun won’t be long showing its face now. I’ll have my thrall drive you to your abodes before she takes me to the Prince. I must see him tonight.”

            “Great…” Marion said as Skye opened the refrigeration chamber door and held it open to allow them out. “I don’t suppose you can fill us into those Court affairs during the ride home?”

            “I could. But I was operating under the impression you had turned your back to the Court.”

            “I did. Until I ended up in silver cuffs,” Marion said bitterly.

            “That…” Skye began, taking a rare pause mid-sentence, “…is fair. I will tell you what I can… But simply knowing about this might put you in harm’s way. Even more so than you are now.”

            “I don’t think… I can get out of this mess now, even if I want to. Not until I see it through,” Marion said, slowly realising it herself. “I guess what I’m saying is… I’m all in now, so… Just tell me, what the hell is going on?”

            “I cannot say for certain, Marion of the Black Rose,” Skye said, ponderous as she strutted with purpose back towards the entrance of the factory, her long legs making her hard to keep up with, especially as Marion carried Isabella leaning onto her side. “But I suspect someone is trying to start a war within the Court. And they might be very close to getting their wish.”

            “A war?” Marion said sceptically. “Is it too late to take my ‘all in’ back?”

            “Yes,” Skye informed her.

            ‘Well, shit,’ Marion thought.