Page 33 of Inhuman Natures #1

Rake

Rake drummed his fingers on his knees as DJ drove them towards the car park connected to the chain hotel where Christopher had requested they meet. As per Shaun’s advice about going out after dark, they’d left whilst it was still light and gone for a pub dinner outside of Brighton on the way.

“I wonder where Christopher lives,” DJ said as he drove through the small town. “Do you think he took the train or ran here?”

Rake only grunted in response.

“Maybe he made us meet him at midnight to be more mysterious,” DJ continued.

“I don’t know, Deej.”

DJ chuckled. “I bet he did.” He pulled into the deserted car park, a few dim street lamps the only source of light on the cloudy night.

Rake couldn’t see anyone around. “This would be a great place to invite someone to murder them.”

“Nah,” DJ said distractedly, craning his neck to look out the back window. “Far too much CCTV.”

“Not for how fast a vampire can move. ”

“True.” They sat in silence for a few more seconds until DJ put his hand on the door handle. “Let’s go out and see if he’s here.”

Rake was tempted to grab DJ’s arm and keep him in the car where he had a modicum of safety, but they had another half-baked plan to enact. So Rake got out of the car too, rounding it as fast as possible to stand beside DJ.

Rake checked his watch. Twenty minutes till midnight. “We’re early.”

“Rake!” DJ grasped at his hand, making an excited little noise.

The guy that approached them from the hotel looked, on the surface, almost nothing like he did in the photos.

Yet, even from a distance, Rake could tell he hadn’t aged a day.

Gone were the angelic curls, and in their place, an obvious black dye job and straightened hair.

Thick-rimmed dark glasses—surely fake—obscured his eyes, and the ring in his nose made him look like a throwback scene kid.

“Christopher?” DJ called as the guy drew closer.

“I go by Kit,” he replied, stopping a couple of metres away. “Rake and DJ, I take it?” Kit glanced between them, clearly trying to figure out who was who. He didn’t have an English accent like theirs, but Rake had never been adept at telling where people were from.

“I’m Rake. This”—Rake nodded towards DJ—“is DJ.”

“I won’t be telling you what it stands for, though,” DJ interjected.

Kit raised a curious brow. He was at least a head shorter than them, so his chin tilted up as he spoke. “I’d say I’m pleased to meet you, but that would be a lie. What do you need to ask me about Lawrence?” The way Kit spat Lawrence’s name told them everything they needed to know.

“We need help to get Lawrence away from our, uh, Shaun,” Rake stuttered, unsure of how to contextualise their relationship for Kit.

“ Your Shaun?” Kit stood so still he could have been mistaken for a statue.

“Ours,” DJ confirmed.

Kit narrowed his eyes. “You’re aware of what we are?”

“Yes,” they replied at the same time.

“Then you’ll understand that mine and Shaun’s creator is stronger than both of us.”

“We don’t need you to fight him alone,” DJ said. “We need you to help Shaun. He went to the territory leader here? Lynette?”

“I’ve heard of her. Been around a lot longer than either of you.”

“We’re worried,” Rake said. “Shaun left days ago to get Lynette’s help and hasn’t returned. We don’t think Lawrence has him, but something else must have happened.”

“I came here to meet you because you needed information on Lawrence. Not to come into Brighton and speak to Lynette.”

“You won’t help?” DJ sounded affronted at the notion. Rake silently echoed the sentiment.

Kit folded his arms over his chest. “I didn’t say that. Just that I have my doubts about trusting you both, given you lured me here under false pretences.”

“Emailing and asking to meet isn’t ‘false pretences’,” DJ said, irritation clear on his face even as he did quote marks in the air. “I explained everything in the email without spelling out that the paranormal exists.”

“How do I know you aren’t working for Lawrence, or planning to get me to drop my guard before staking me?”

“Compel us,” Rake said. “You’ll see the truth.”

“We’ve got nothing to hide,” DJ added.

Kit eyed them, but didn’t follow through on the invitation. “Regardless, coming into Brighton would involve putting myself in danger.”

“But you’re already here,” Rake pointed out. “Which makes me think that you’re willing to take the next step, too.”

“What’s in it for me?” Kit asked.

“Revenge.” That assumption, Rake was confident in. “Neither of us intends for Lawrence to walk away from this. He hurt Shaun. He needs to pay for what he’s done.”

Kit’s lips pressed into a flat line. “You would take the risk of involving me on the small chance it would help Shaun?”

“Of course,” DJ said.

“Even though I might be as bad as Lawrence and drain you both dry in seconds?”

“Given how the relationship between you and Lawrence seemed to be, we didn’t think you would,” Rake said.

“And what do you mean by that?” Kit asked, his voice as sharp as the fangs in his mouth.

“We saw the photos.”

Kit’s jaw tensed, visible even in the flickering light of the streetlamp. “He kept those.”

“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” Rake offered, knowing the words were lacking even as he said them.

“Lawrence did similar to Shaun,” DJ added .

There was a flash of… something on Kit’s face. An indecipherable expression. Kit tucked his hair behind his ear, getting the strands stuck in the frame of his glasses. Rake wondered if he’d dressed in disguise specifically for meeting them.

Rake readied another argument, but Kit sighed and looked towards the sky. “I suppose I’ll help. If I must.”

Huh. Well, that had been easier than Rake expected.

“Thank you,” DJ said, effusive.

“So…” Kit said, wafting a hand in the air as he trailed off.

“So what?” DJ asked.

“So what’s your plan?”

“Plan? Our plan was getting you to agree to help us.”

“And then what?”

“You would tell us what to do?” DJ said. He looked at Rake. “That was the plan, wasn’t it?”

Rake rubbed at his brow. “Yes,” he said, somewhat abashed.

“If you’re relying on me as your last option, then you must be desperate,” Kit said.

“We are. Shaun told us not to risk going to Lynette in case she compelled us to forget about his existence. Well, he also told us not to go out at night. But we thought it was too important to meet you.” DJ rambled on, which is what he tended to do when nervous.

“Shaun told you not to go out at night?” Kit asked, eyes narrowing.

Rake grimaced. “He thought Lawrence might come after us.”

Kit looked around the car park, as if he expected Lawrence to jump out from behind the beaten-up Honda Jazz parked closest to them. “Why would he care enough to come here to kill you?”

The fear that Lawrence had done exactly that struck Rake. “We broke into his house.”

“You broke into his house,” Kit repeated in a monotone.

“Yes,” DJ said. “It was how we found what we needed to contact you.”

“You broke into Lawrence’s house?”

“Yes.”

Before Kit asked his question for a third time, Rake shot one at him instead. “Do you think he might have followed us?”

“How should I know?” Kit asked. “What precautions did you take?”

“We left Brighton before it got dark,” DJ explained. “So he couldn’t have trailed us even if he’d wanted to.”

Kit nodded. “And you’ll stay here until it’s light before going back?”

“Um,” DJ said, looking at Rake. They had work in the morning, so couldn’t hang around in a hotel car park till sunrise.

“Well, we hoped you might come back with us tonight to speak to Lynette as soon as possible,” Rake said.

“Christ, you two are hopeless,” Kit said.

Rake let his irritation show. “Apologies if our plan isn’t up to your standards. It’s not every day we have to deal with vampire bullshit.”

“Hmmph. Fine. I’ll see what Lynette knows.” Kit jerked his head at the hotel. “Give me a minute to get my stuff.”

It was more like thirty seconds, and then Kit was standing right next to them again, with a rucksack now on his back. Rake flinched at his sudden reappearance. It hit him then, how reckless they’d been. Neither of them could have faced a creature like Kit and come out on top.

“Well, let’s get a move on,” Kit said breezily as he walked towards their car. Of course, he must have been watching them pull up in the first place.

When they got back on the road, awkward silence filled the car until DJ asked, “Kit, where are you from?”

Kit didn’t answer for a few seconds. “A town outside of Glasgow,” he said finally. That explained the unfamiliar accent.

“Cool! I went to Edinburgh for a long weekend when I was younger.”

“Bully for you,” Kit said.

“I mean, not all of Scotland is the same, of course. But it’s the closest I’ve been.”

Kit clicked his tongue, but didn’t engage further.

Apparently, DJ wasn’t done. “I grew up in Worthing, but Rake and I met at uni in Brighton.”

Rake thudded his head back against the headrest. It was like the ghost of the most talkative taxi driver in the world had possessed DJ. At this rate, Kit would give them a one-star rating.

So, Kit surprised him when he spoke up again. “What about you, Rake?”

He tried to tamp down the uncomfortable feeling he got when asked about his family. “London.”

“If you’re trying to ask where he’s really from—” DJ started, but Kit cut him off.

“No! I was just making conversation. It’s… been a while.”

Rake looked in the wing mirror at Kit. He was staring out of the window, streetlights flashing against his glasses, absently nibbling on a thumbnail. Rake took pity on him. After all, he knew that a good way to establish bonds of empathy was to provide personal information that people connected to.

He’d read about it.

“All of my grandparents are from India,” he explained. “My parents’ marriage was an arranged one. I have one younger sister, who I think is at university now. My family doesn’t acknowledge my sexuality, so we haven’t talked since I left home at eighteen.”

DJ gawped at Rake from the driver’s seat. It was rare for him to speak about his family to anyone, including DJ. He hadn’t even had the chance to tell Shaun much about his background yet.

“I—” Kit started, then broke off, turning to gaze out of the window again. “A sister. I had a sister, too. She’s the only one I miss.”

“That’s good she was there for you,” DJ said.

Kit just gave a humourless laugh. “Yeah, being gay in the eighties wasn’t much fun.”

Rake nodded to himself. “Can’t say I envy you.”

“It was lonely,” Kit said in a voice almost too quiet to hear.

Rake didn’t know what to say to that. His throat felt tight, and he snaked a hand over to grasp DJ’s thigh.

The car was quiet for the next mile until DJ broke the silence again. “Okay, Kit, but can we talk about how you’re speaking about being alive in the eighties when you look like you aren’t old enough to have celebrated the millennium?”

“If we must.”

“How old are you?” DJ asked, no pretence at tact .

“Mid-fifties.”

“Damn. You’re the same age as my parents.”

Rake didn’t miss Kit’s eye roll. “Yes, yes, I’m ancient. Rub it in, why don’t you.”

“There’s something else I meant to ask Shaun, but didn’t get the chance to,” DJ said.

“Go on.”

“Does your hair stop growing?”

A small smile played on Kit’s lips. “It does. Once it’s cut, you’re stuck that way.”

“Damn,” DJ said. “One haircut for the whole of existence.” It was so like DJ to focus on such a small part of vampirism that most others would overlook, that Rake couldn’t help but snort with laughter. “What?” DJ asked, speaking in a low voice. “It explains how Shaun’s so smooth everywhere.”

“Uh, TMI?” Kit said.

“Shit, sorry. I forgot about the vamp super hearing.”

Kit huffed. “I’m pretty sure I would have heard that even without it.”

“Well, I’m also a chronic oversharer,” DJ explained.

“Okay?” Kit drew out the word, sounding confused.

“Just telling you!”

“I didn’t need to know that either.”

“See? Oversharing.”

Rake pressed his lips together to stop himself from laughing. “So, Kit. Do we take you straight to Lynette?”

“To your place first. I need to make sure that you get back safe. Then I’ll find out what’s going on with Shaun.”

Kit said no more, so Rake turned in his seat to face him. “And you’ll help us take Lawrence down?” he asked .

Kit met Rake’s eyes. “I will.” The promise lacked true conviction—a minute tremble in Kit’s voice giving his apprehension away.

Nevertheless, Rake nodded. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”