WUTHERING BITES

Chapter Eight: Winter Nights

Chapter Eight

Winter Nights

Finally, Heath shone the torch on the dusty old shoe box he was looking for.

'This should satisfy her imagination,' he thought.

Inside lay a pile of photographs, taken pre-digitally, tied in a bundle with a red ribbon. The photographs were of the Spencers, as children, at the local primary school and playing together on Hampstead Heath. There were more taken at boarding school in Scotland. They had not been looked at or moved for almost twenty years and the top of the box was thick with dust, but other than that, the photographs were in remarkably good condition.

Heath rubbed his arms. He could anticipate need now, the need for his medication, the need for blood. Heath could feel the surge of want and desire in his venom. The tightness in his calves and wrists would move through his body as his strength seemed to decrease physically. He'd neglected his pint of blood this evening, which he always drank before eight pm, but then he'd never had visitors to distract him. He looked at the photograph in his hand.

'Your beautiful face,' Heath whispered, fingers tracing the paper outline of her jaw as he held the edge of the torch in his mouth He dropped it when he heard the dog bark and the girl cry out. He rushed down the stairs to the drawing room.

Rain streamed in through the broken window creating a fast-growing puddle of water in the drawing room. He walked over to block the window with a chest of drawers as the girl shrank into the corner of the wall...

'I... I went to close the shutter and someone tried to grab my hand.'

Heath paused.

'You must have imagined it Katarina. It was the wind and the rain. The winds are strong; it's so isolated out here. A noise sounds louder than it really is. Shadows seem like people. Now, calm yourself. Here, take a seat and have a sip of your drink. I'll make some tea.

Katarina sat on the couch, shocked and shaken.

'How did you do that? Move the chest so easily? Pull down the window as if it was as light as a feather?'

Heath finished his drink and paused.

'It's not as heavy as it looks'

The answer seemed to satisfy Katarina who continued with her description...

'The fingers, they were so cold...her skin was...white. She wore a nightgown...'

'Honestly Katarina, you sound like you've read too many horror stories...'

'Suddenly, I feel like I'm living one...'

'Only suddenly?' Heath said sarcastically. 'You wouldn't be the first to say that. I'm thinking of selling it.... But nevertheless, it's not safe to leave now.'

'It's not safe to stay...'

'Nonsense...mind plays tricks in here. I'll take you home the minute the storm finishes or morning comes...whichever arrives first.'

Katarina sighed as Heath smiled and helped her to her feet. Her father had clearly exaggerated. No stranger could have been more welcoming.

Heath smiled again as he settled a mohair rug around the girl. Katarina accidentally touched his hand and was shocked. His palm was as cold as ice. He withdrew his hand quickly and rubbed his fingers together.

'Thank you,' Katarina said, pretending not to notice. Little did she know what an effort it was to play nice. Heath had managed to take a few more sips of blood in his bedroom before going to find the photos and was feeling somewhat revived. He had no attraction to this girl's blood. In any case, it was strange. He hadn't even thought of drinking her, especially as he was hungry. He'd trained himself to withhold when it came to people he liked or met as friends. Perhaps this came from being "mixed-race". Heath's specialist had once considered him that rarest of things; a vampire-human hybrid. Now, he felt more vampire than hybrid.