Hotel Sanguinaria

Chapter Two

She felt like she was burning.  It was ecstasy – it was agony.  The feeling of the sharp teeth in her neck was somehow sweet pain and she could almost see the surge of blood, hot and angry, rushing to the wound.  Slowly, the world began to go hazy.  Shiloh’s eyes rolled back in her head; her body jerked and fell still.

*    *    *    *    *

Shiloh felt herself steadily begin to come round.  The reason for it, she noticed after a beat, was the vivid green light that had lit up the area for a mere moment, but had been enough, somehow, to drag her from unconsciousness.  A young woman – maybe about twenty-five – was standing in the street a few metres away, looking around, her red hair vivid in the low light and seemingly out of place against her rich olive skin.  After her stepped a second young woman.  She looked grim, shadows sliding off her shoulders like silk off a tabletop.  The pea-coat that she was wearing was tightly buttoned up, her straight, dusty brown hair in a messy bun and her lipstick dark against her pale features.

Mere moments after they appeared the fangs were withdrawn.  Shiloh gave a weak cry as agony lanced through her – the fangs felt like a pair of sharp pencils buried in her neck.  The two women whipped round.

“Skatá!” the redhead snarled, striding towards them.  She lunged forwards, seizing the homeless girl by the collar.  “Are you registered?” she barked.  The apologetic babbling from the homeless girl was apparently answer enough.  She was flung to the floor as the redhead turned to her companion, shaking her head – but the other woman had her eyes fixed on Shiloh.

“Kora…” she whispered.  The fear in her voice made her partner whip round, and when she saw Shiloh she cursed again – in Greek, Shiloh realised dimly, if her accent was anything to go by – and turned back angrily to her attacker.  The dark-haired woman laid a hand on her arm and then brushed past, dropping to her knees beside Shiloh and gently turning her head to one side.  She hung her head.

“She’s been this way for at least half an hour… There’s not much we can do, except take them both with us.”

Her soft accent – French – was somewhat comforting to hear, even from a total stranger.  She murmured something soft into Shiloh’s hair as she began to pull her to her feet.  Everything ached, and yet she felt like doing everything.  Kora – the Greek woman – had a pair of black gloves on and had handcuffed the homeless girl’s hands behind her back.  The faint smell of burning flesh, coupled with the way the homeless girl was snarling and jerking and spitting, led Shiloh to assume that she must be allergic to whatever was in the handcuffs.  Then again, if her imprisoner had to wear gloves, it must be a shared allergy.

Everything was spinning.  Shiloh couldn’t make any sense of what was happening – some hobo attacked her and started sucking her blood like a Twilight junkie and then two woman appeared out of nowhere and started discussing things that she couldn’t make head or tail of.  She was about to open her mouth, ask what was going on, but then she noticed a large gold coin, unlike anything she’d ever seen.  Kora was turning it over and over in her hand.

“I’ll take this one back, get her fed and give her a couple of questions to answer.  This is starting to get serious.”

“I know.  I take it that means I’m taking this poor thing back and explaining the fact that her old life is pretty much over?”

“Mariella, you’re a darling, but I think there are a couple who’ve been looking into this stuff who’d like to ask her –” here, she nodded to Shiloh “– a couple of questions about what happened.  Mo’ll definitely be in on that.”

“Well, it’s best we get them back…  I hope she’ll be alright.”

“They’ll be okay, both of them.  Well, once we get this one registered,” she jerked on the collar of her captive, “ and get yours settled and logged, maybe start feeding them…it’ll be fine, don’t worry.”