Day 9

'Is he coming again today?' Merle says, wondering if there is any chance her enquiry sounds casual.

Kristina looks up from where she's clearing away the dinner plates. She's smirking. 'No. He said he was busy today.'

'Oh.' Merle squishes the urge to ask what Cole is busy doing. Trying to find another conversational tack, she says, 'So are you and Oberon all that's left of the Black Emerald Clan now?'

Kristina shakes her head. 'Yeah,' she says. There's no emotion in her voice. But usually, when Kristina speaks, it is all about emoting something.

'So did Darius kill all the rest of them? Why did he keep you and Oberon alive?'

'I really don't know,' says Kristina tightly. 'And much as I'd love to spend the evening entertaining myself by trying to guess Darius Cole's motives, I can't help thinking we could find something more fun to do.'

'What? We could?' It seems like forever since Merle got to do anything that could be described as 'fun'.

'Well, Darius said I should make sure you don't get bored.'

'Bored? I've been down here nine days!' Merle points at the place on the wall where she's been making scratch marks to count the days. (Almost halfway.) 'Why is he considering my mental health now?'

'Oh, don't be like that. He really is trying to make this OK for you, you know. I think it took him this long to even work out that you might be bored. Vampire minds and humans are ... different. And he's even more out there than just a normal vamp. He might have jaw-dropping powers of psych, but, really, sometime he misses the little things. Come on.'

Merle realises that Kristina is holding the cell door open for her. As she stands up, her legs start to shake.

Feeling slightly giddy with the freedom, Merle follows Kristina along the narrow corridor outside the cells. She stops outside the last one before the steps to ground level and looks in through the barred window. She beckons Merle over.

Oberon is sitting in a cell much like Merle's. He's manacled and sitting on the wooden bench, slumped up against the wall.

'Is he OK?'

Before Kristina can answer her, Oberon's eyes snap open and he's off the bench and rushing forwards, stopping just short of the door at the limit of his chains. Merle screams and jumps back.

Kristina laughs. 'Don't worry. He's just going a bit crazy because he hasn't had any blood since Darius locked him back in here. You smell like food to him right now.'

Merle steels herself and peers back through the window. Oberon has slumped to his knees on the floor just inside the door. 'Will he die?'

'Already dead, technically. But, no, if he doesn't get any blood he won't die. He'll just get strange. He's already losing it. The only records about what happens to a vampire if you starve them are the ones on Darius. But he was very strong mentally. Oberon seems to be breaking down much more quickly.' Kristina shrugs. She really doesn't seem to care.

'Well, what's going to happen to him?'

'Ah.' Kristina's face lights up. 'That's where you come in. Darius says you should decide if he gets fed today.'

Oberon obviously overheard this because from behind the door his thin voice says, 'Please.'

'What? Why? Why do I have to decide?'

Kristina shrugs. 'Darius thought that would be appropriate after what he did to you.'

Inside the cell Oberon moans, 'Please, Miss Cobalt, I'm sorry. Please have mercy.'

Merle feels queasy. She doesn't want anything to do with Oberon. She certainly doesn't want to hear him begging her for mercy. 'Well it isn't appropriate,' she says sharply, sort of holding it together. 'It really, really isn't. If this is what you brought me here to see I'd rather be back in my cell.'

Kristine nods calmly. 'OK. Then he starves. I'm not allowed to feed him unless you say so.'

Merle can't bear it. She remembers how scared she was when she was first brought here. How unsettling it was to be locked in, hungry, thirsty and not even knowing if she'd been forgotten about. 'Fine,' she says, tightly, 'feed him.'

When Kristina reappears from Oberon's cell – Merle elected to wait outside – she looks a little breathless. She's been a long time.

Merle raises her eyebrows at her, but she just says, 'OK, now follow me,' and begins to lead the way up the steps out of the dungeon.

'What? Where are we going now?'

Kristina smirks back over her shoulder. 'Come on.'

They emerge into the entrance hall. Merle blinks and sways. Kristina leads the way to a huge sweeping flight of red-carpeted stairs. Merle pauses at the bottom. 'Kristina? Where are we going?'

Kristina turns. She was already halfway up the first red-carpeted flight. 'Your bedroom.'

'My bedroom?'

'Yeah. You're going up in the world. Darius has decided you can have a room with a window. Although you won't be able to open up the curtains, of course.'

Merle is still at the bottom of the stairs. 'This is an actual room. With a bed.'

'Yeah.'

'And it's not, like, in Darius's own bedroom or next to it or anything.'

'No,' says Kristina, with teasing chastisement in her voice. 'You're on the first floor, same as me. Darius is on the second. But don't be disappointed. The rooms are nicer on the first floor. And Darius can walk down a flight of stairs if he wants to bother you in the night.'

Merle feels that damn blush start and she puts her head down as she follows Kristina up the stairs.

The rooms on the first floor are indeed nice. Very nice. Merle's is turquoise and gold, with frills and fantasia dripping from every lacy surface. She has a real bed, too. A four poster. She drops onto it gratefully. The softness of the mattress – after nine days and eight achy nights on a wooden bench – is almost orgasmic.

Kristina laughs as Merle sighs out loud. 'I'll tell him you're pleased then.'

Merle rolls over onto her stomach, remembering something, and says, 'What were you doing all that time? In that cell with Oberon?'

'What?'

'In the dungeons. You were a long time and there were noises.'

Kristina smirks. 'Nothing really. Just giving him his blood.'

'You were just feeding him?'

'Kind of?' Kristina tips her head on one side. 'Look, a girl with your lineage has got to know about Blood Rites, right?'

'My lineage? You mean because of who my parents are? The stuff they taught me about vampires was more about how they're a stinking abhoration.' Merle bites her lip. 'Sorry.'

'S'OK. I know what Cobalt think about vampires. I know you're a Cobalt.' She shrugs. 'So you don't know about the two sorts of blood?'

'Er, no.'

'You don't know about ... OK, well, there are two types of blood to a vampire. It's like food-blood and sex-blood. Feeding, that's drinking human blood, that's, like, food. Then there's tasting, that's completely different. That's when you take a little of another vampire's blood. It's like sex. Just like sex. When you taste the blood of another vampire that's like the orgasmic part of sex.'

'That's, uh, weird.'

Kristina shrugs again. She's the shruggy sort, really. 'Seems normal enough to me.'

'And it can't be with a human. Between a vampire and a human?'

Kristina almost spits her response to this. 'No. It can't. Not ever. Vampires do not perform the Blood Rites on humans. Never.' She looks almost angry to be asked. She jabs a vicious finger at Merle. 'You could have sex with a vampire, with Oberon, say, and he could fuck you, make you come and everything. That could happen. But he wouldn't feel anything much. He'd stay hard no matter what you did. Vampires don't get off on doing it with humans. It's the biggest myth out there. Vampires don't get turned on by humans anymore than you get turned on by looking at a plate of spaghetti Bolognese. Humans are food, other vampires are for sex.' Kristina is shaking. Enraged. Not so shruggy now.

Merle actually shrinks back a little across the bed. A moment ago she was feeling so friendly toward Kristina that she felt guilty telling her how her parents had taught her to think of vampires. Now she's suddenly terrified of her. After all, she is a vampire. A monster. 'Humans are food? Isn't that like a Righteous Power thing?'

Kristina shrugs. 'Righteous Power is illegal now.'

'Even in Darius Cole's house?'

'This isn't Darius Cole's house. This is actually Oberon's house. You should hear him on that subject right now.' She even cracks a smile then but Merle can still see her bristling anger.