Dog's Blood

Prologue - The Crone

The emergency lights pulsed slowly, washing the room in emerald as police sirens wailed in the distance. The man's trembling fingers hovered over the frosted glass table before scrabbling like spider's legs, rearranging the line of pills into a gradient. He'd never seen so many colours.
"Where'd you get all these, Granny?" The young man breathed, eyes flicking nervously across the table. There were so many, and not one of them legal. He was already over the limit.
"It doesn't matter," the crone's breath rattled in her withering lungs, her face shrouded in green darkness, "you remember the order, don't you my boy?"
He nodded, pausing to glance at the window. The city lights winked back at him and uncertainty wavered through him. He wasn't stupid. He would never walk those streets again, never shoulder through crowds of blank faced ghosts to get to work on time. Would it be worth it?
"Recite it to me," the old woman croaked from her arm chair, frail hands curled over the arms of her chair like bird's feet. The skin was mottled and sagged from her bones and wiry hair furred her upper lip. She leaned out of the shadows, giving him a reassuring smile that revealed grey gums and all her missing teeth. She was too weak to harvest from now, her grandson thought. They wouldn't waste their time trying; the ancient secrets running through her veins would run dry, a genetic anomaly that was too old and stubborn to yield up its riches now.
"Red rage and scarlet scorn," the man whispered as he brushed his fingertips slowly along the line of pills, flinching as the sirens howled closer, "pink posies for your pretty darlings, purple to ponder your place in the world. Sapphire waters to wash away your tears, emerald envy beneath the grasses glad in their green..."
A bang downstairs. Sweat beaded on the man's forehead, prickling his skin. Would it be worth it?
"Finish it, my boy," his grandmother egged him on, leaning forwards in her chair. The multicoloured dress hung loosely from her thin frame, the tie dye cotton painted in every colour imaginable. She had refused to go in anything else.
"Granny, I'm scared."
"That's a start. So am I; just imagine what you'll feel in ten minutes," she rasped. He looked up at her and his wide eyes wandered her wrinkled face; crow's feet creased at the corners of her rheumy eyes and thick lines bordered her mouth. Scars left behind from smiling, laughing and crying too much. Feeling too much.
"Yellow and gold will chase away the cold," the young man watched helplessly as his grandmother scooped up the pills, plopping them one by one into the glass cup still steaming hot with water, "and happiness will touch your heart."
More banging downstairs, and the snarls of ravenous dogs. More doubts. He had his whole life ahead of him, but what was that worth if you can't feel a damn thing? The crone stirred the water with a spoon, her eyes brimming with tears as they both watched pills fizz in all their different colours. It eventually settled as black as charcoal.
"Drink, my boy," she said, her chin wobbling as she hesitated, "do you think I'm selfish?"
"What? Granny, no, why would you ask that?"
"Look at you. You're so young. I shouldn't have let you waste your life hiding me for so long," her wizened face contorted in pain, "I feel regret, the weight of what I have done."
"I want to feel too. I asked for this," the young man leant across and took her fragile hands in his, resolute in his decision, "I don't want to be made of stone anymore, even if it's only for a heartbeat. They would kill me for harbouring a fugitive anyway; I love you for allowing me this."
"I love you too, Donny," his grandmother sniffed, cringing at the sound of the hounds bounding upstairs, "you'd better drink now, before they come."
The young man took his hands from her lap and picked up the cup, revelling in the warmth between his fingers as he leant back into the plastic sheets covering the sofa. A sofa that wasn't his, that belonged to a newly married couple honeymooning somewhere hot by the Adriatic. He pitied them for a moment, and wondered if they'd ever be told of the ghosts condemned to haunt their flat. It really was a nice flat, overlooking the Thames glittering with reflections of light and the London Eye shining yellow. Gold to chase away the cold...
"They're here!" A guttural voice barked through the door, which with all its bolts and locks could never hope to stand against them. Donny shut his eyes and pressed the cup to his lips, draining the foul tasting liquid in one massive gulp. He wondered if it would kill him before he even had a chance to feel that spectrum of emotion denied to his species, that even the dogs and cats seemed to understand more than mankind. His stomach turned, trying to reject the chemicals coursing through his veins and lighting up synapses in his brain that were used to staying dark. He gagged a little, grabbing his grandmother's hand as he had done since he was a boy.
"They've bolted it, Ragna," a cruel voice sniggered through the doorway above the growls and snapping jaws of hungry dogs.
"Open up," another voice snarled as a fist banged on the door, "what's the point? We're getting in one way or another."
Donny gasped for air, his hand sliding under one of the cushions and closing around the handle of the pistol. He rose to his feet and helped his grandmother up, her aching joints creaking beneath spotty pink socks. He smiled at them and looked up at this crone, the smiles and tears and scowls that came to her so naturally relics of a bygone time. A time of humanity, of feeling. He thought maybe he was starting to feel too as he reached for her, taking her narrow shoulders into his arms and squeezing her, never wanting to let go. The smell of mothballs rose from her unwashed hair. Donny never wanted to let go.
"They're not letting us in," the first voice rasped on the other side of the door, "we're hungry, Ragna. Feed us."
The snarls grew louder as more fists banged on the door, and then the sound of slashing. The young man turned and unbidden fear rattled through him as he saw the three claw marks that carved holes through the wood, and the wild yellow eye that glared through. Then the smash came. Donny stuck out an arm, shielding his grandmother from the splinters of wood that came flying through the air as the door fell to the floor in a cloud of dust. Eyes glowed through the doorway and sharp teeth snapped like mouse traps, the light from the hallway casting long shadows on the floorboards.
"Donald Needham," a female stepped into the green lit room, boots thumping heavily beneath a long black coat, "we have a warrant for your arrest. For concealing the identity of a Sensitive from..."
The Hound's head tilted to one side, moonstone eyes sliding to the old woman. A merciless grin touched her lips.
"This her?" Knowing the answer already, she looked back to Donny, "you know if you'd filed a report when you found out and had her admitted, you wouldn't be convicted. You have a brain though, you know that she's too old to harvest from. Just a shame she dragged you down with her, a fucking shame."
Donny's guts writhed when he stared at this creature, but not in fear. His cheeks were flushed, reminding him of the first time he'd popped a red into his mouth behind his mother garden shed with some school friends. This was anger he was feeling, that made his hands curl into fists and itch to punch something. He raged at the thought that these monsters, like the worms and beetles in the earth and birds of the sky were entitled to something closer to morality than the rest of them. Conscience they lacked, but they knew rage and the joy when they played or made kill. Even these primal instincts had been mostly stripped from the rest of humanity, the masterful inoculations and wonderful vaccines that had eradicated so many sicknesses from the world had left them all empty. Husks of human beings who had to buy emotions from their local chemists, requiring a pill to watch a movie and understand what the actors were pretending to feel. Donny raged at all of it.
"Old woman," another Hound barked, golden eyes flashing above a slavering grin, "we've got clearance to kill you. Your grandson too. Come here."
Donny marvelled at the tears stinging at his eyes, pouring down his face. He looked back at his grandmother, his thumb stroking over the trigger of the pistol in his hand. She smiled at him, all gums, and he smiled back. He felt happiness then, happy that she'd given him this. It had been worth it.
"Fine," the female Hound snorted, lurching forwards with talons flexing, "if you're going to be stubborn..."
The shot went off, an impossibly loud cracking noise that ricocheted around the walls of the flat and shook the floor. Crazed bright eyes looked on, stunned and angry at what had been stolen from them. Donny's breath caught in his throat, choking on the mucus filling his mouth as sobs racked through his body. His grandmother had fallen to her knees and then sideways, her paper thin body leaning against the sofa. Blood bubbled and poured from the steaming hole in the side of her head, and her old eyes were glazed over, the smile still curving her lips in death.
"That was greedy of you," the yellow eyed Hound snapped, his voice cutting through the silence, "that was for us."
The leader with her eyes as pale as frost stared on though, silently. She was listening closely to Donny's heaving lungs, scowling at the salt wetting his cheeks above a broad smile.
"How much have you taken?"
Donny didn't answer, dropping the gun to the floor with a clatter. His grieving snivels turned to quiet laughter, slowly growing louder until it filled the room and echoed off the walls as the gunshot had. He laughed so hard that he started crying again, doubled over and clutching his ribs.
"I've had enough of this," another voice snarled through the green darkness, "he concealed a Sensitive and now he's on something too strong to be legal, can we just..."
Donny howled, drowning out their rumbling snarls. His body was light under his clothes, and he felt everything he ever had. He felt his rage at the injustice of the world. He felt the warmth for his parents he'd never been compelled to show them, never saw the point in showing them. He mourned for his parents, for not letting them know how he felt. How he now knew he felt.
"He's more than buzzing, this..."
Something closed around his throat. Donny's eyes flew opened and he shrieked into the darkness, sharp teeth puncturing and sinking into the flesh on his neck. He felt blood gushing out and dripping onto his hands as he desperately shoved at the female, felt his shoes slip on the redness pooling around him. Black clouds blossomed across his vision and he gasped for air, fighting the pairs upon pairs of talons descending on him and shredding the clothes from his back.
He felt the weight of it all.