I rubbed the hand-shaped bruise on my calf, frowning. It didn't seem possible that someone could do this much damage just by grabbing it; I wasn't sure why I hadn't expected it. Perhaps it was because I wasn't used to the idea that Marilyn wasn't human.
I hadn't seen the vampire since the day before, when Leia had had a go at her for eavesdropping on her conversation with Feila. It would have been a lie to say it wasn't a relief, since her limited interactions with me got more uncomfortable every time. It was like she was being forced to talk to me at all.
I sighed, and pulled on my trousers, covering the injury so that I didn't have to see its ugly mottled surface. I grabbed my pile of clothing for the washing and left the room, limping despite my painful efforts to walk normally. When I got to reception I found Thea in there as usual, with David leaning over the desk to look at something on her computer screen. He looked up when I entered, throwing a perfunctory glance at the bundle in my arms.
"You after the washing machine?"
"Please."
He pushed away from the desk and led me out, down a short corridor that led to a room under the stairs. It smelled of dust and detergent and hummed with the sound of machinery. "They're all free at the moment," David said, stepping aside to let me in. "If you have a smaller pile of one wash-load, leave it in there and someone'll add to it eventually."
"Okay. Cheers."
The huge man left me to it, and I started separating my pile into white, dark and colours.
"Are you doing a dark wash?" someone drawled behind me, and I twisted round to find Marilyn silhouetted in the doorway. She reached out to one side; there was a click and the light came on. "That might make it easier. Stick these in for me."
She chucked a dark bundle of clothing at me that I barely caught. I added it to my pile like she asked.
"Why'd you grab me yesterday?" I said, before she could disappear. I continued piling clothes into the nearest machine as if I couldn't feel her glare.
"I would've thought that was obvious."
"It might have been if you hadn't been so rough."
"Want me to kiss it better for you?"
I turned and gave her a heated stare but she only raised an eyebrow, completely unfazed. I returned to my washing.
"I'm good, thanks," I replied through gritted teeth. "I was labouring under the impression that bruising someone that badly warranted an explanation at least. Sorry if I'm wrong in that assumption."
She scoffed. "I just touched you."
I pulled up my trouser leg so that she could see the extent of the damage. "Sure you did. And I'm a sandwich."
"That's nothing," she said, but I was sure I heard a waver in her voice. She looked like she wanted to say something else, but instead turned and left as abruptly as she always did.
I sighed, and clicked two of the machines on, leaving the whites in the last machine as David told me. On my way up the stairs I was almost mowed down by Lorien, who stopped just in time to stop us both flying to our deaths on the hallway tiles. He swallowed, wide-eyed, and seemed to take a moment to recognise me. Then he grabbed my hand and started pulling me back up again with surprising force. He ignored my protests as he continued to the top floor, where he stopped at a closed door.
"I cannot get her to open it," he whispered, and I realised that this was Courtney's room. "She left these in my room last night, so she must have forgotten to take them today!"
He pressed a small box into my hands. The label on the front told me they were Courtney's, and I couldn't help but be surprised at the half-covered antidepressant brand. I'd never have guessed Courtney needed them.
I knocked on the door – since it was worth a shot – and heard someone move on the other side.
"Courtney?"
I heard her swear. Her voice sounded choked when she eventually responded. "Now's not a great time, Damien."
"I know," I replied. "I understand that. Being on your own isn't going to help you, though." I paused. "Lorien's here, too."
"I kinda guessed he would be," she said, and chuckled, but it morphed into a strangled sob partway through. Lorien looked stricken and ready to force his way inside.
"You left your medication in my room," he said, putting a hand against the door as if trying to reach her through it.
"Oh."
"I have it here. You should take it."
She let out a shaky sigh. "Yeah. I should, shouldn't I? Wait there a minute."
I heard her moving around on the other side of the door; a cupboard opened and closed, and there was a light tinkling noise as if she was sweeping up broken glass.
The door opened after a few tense minutes and Courtney emerged, looking completely different to her usual well-presented, collected self. She wasn't wearing any makeup, but the grey streaks on her cheeks betrayed that she had been at one point. Her hair was straggly and unkempt, and all she had on was a large t-shirt that barely covered her up. She crossed her arms over her chest as if hugging herself, and took the box off me when I offered them to her. She looked forlornly at the pill packs inside, and a few tears rolled down her face. Lorien made a small noise of distress in his throat.
"Courtney?"
I turned to see Thea coming up the stairs, breaking into a jog when she saw what state her friend was in. They embraced fiercely, and Courtney promptly broke down on Thea's shoulder.
"What happened? Tell me what happened, honey."
Courtney shook her head, and Thea sighed, starting to guide her back into her room.
"Thanks, boys," she said over her shoulder. "I'll deal with this. Don't worry, Lore, she'll be just fine," she told the distressed elf on the landing. She mouthed 'look after him' at me and closed the door behind her.
"Hey, Lorien," I said, waiting for a long moment to see if he would stop staring at the closed door. He peeled his gaze from it. "What d'you say to hanging out in my room for a bit?"
He didn't respond, just turned back to the door.
"You can go in my bath again."
That got a response; his face lit up, and he let me lead him back down to the first floor and into my room. When he disappeared into my bathroom, I made a beeline for my photo album and put it on my lap when I settled on the bed. I didn't open it. I was thinking about Courtney, how surprising it had been that she suffered from depression. I knew she wouldn't have told me, though.
I heard Lorien slide into the tub and squeak in surprise; some water splattered on the floor and I rolled my eyes.
I opened my album at the page I'd last looked at, and slipped the picture of me in Trafalgar Square back under the plastic covering before turning the page. It was like looking down on the documentation of someone else's life, which was both fascinating and inexplicably saddening. The photo was one of Tori and I – at first I wasn't sure, since my first memory of her had been in a darkened nightclub, but the makeup and hair made up my mind. She reminded me of Leia, if Leia had been a Goth. I looked a stark contrast to her, wearing a white shirt and khaki half-lengths next to her predominantly leather ensemble.
We were in a park somewhere, I assumed in London from the soaring buildings on the skyline behind us. I resolved to go and look there, when Leia raised her ban on letting me out of St Martin's. Perhaps Lorien would agree to go with me again – I hated to think that Leia had managed to make me paranoid, but she had. Lorien, despite his surliness outside of the building, was an invaluable asset.
"Oi, Damien." Someone knocked on the door and called through it. I got up and went to open it, hopeful. It was Leia. Maybe she was going to tell me I wasn't stuck here for another twenty-four hours? A fine mist of cold came into my room with the sorceress; beads of moisture clung to her hair. I turned to her expectantly.
"I went to this restaurant you had the problem with," she began. "The waitress in question had no recollection of ever having seen you."
I began to speak, but she held up a finger to silence me.
"I know what you're going to say," she said. "But hear me out here. She pulled the same stunt with someone else while I was there. I watched the whole thing. She was controlled by an outside source. It's a very invasive, very illegal branch of black sorcery most commonly used to create spies or weapons." She sighed. "I would have thought that it was just some cult or other collecting data for an experiment, or maybe they were trying out something else illegal... But there was another thing that bothered me. This other victim was also male, about your age, with dark hair and brown eyes."
I frowned. "He looked like me?"
"A little, yes. Not exactly the same, obviously, but the same hair and eye colour within the same age range."
"And why's that a problem?"
"Spies and weapons always have one thing in common, Damien. Do you know what that is?"
"No...?"
Her eyes flashed. "A target, Damien. They always have a target. That woman was probably programmed to approach anything with your description, and not remember it afterwards. We could assume that you happened to match the real target of this sorcerer, whoever it is, but that they aren't after you."
I gave her a blank look. She'd lost me.
"But," Leia continued, "It seems too weird that it matches you. We can assume, but we can't safely assume."
"What exactly is your point?"
"Black magic uses all sorts of strange ingredients, from any race or species. Some are very rare and valuable, and those particularly devoted will go after a source with persistence if it becomes available," Leia said, starting to walk back to the door. "How often do you think they find a Syren on land?"
-
When I went to retrieve my washing loads from the under-stairs room, Marilyn appeared behind me again. She didn't make an effort to talk to me, but I felt her eyes on me as I separated her darks from mine.
"There," I said, handing her the pile. She didn't move or thank me, so I just gathered up my own stuff and left. She followed me up the stairs, and stopped at the side of my door when I had to pause to unlock it. There was only so long I could ignore her.
"Why are you following me? Is there something you want to ask?" I growled.
I was pissed off; annoyed because Leia had stretched my ban on the outside world to a week, and annoyed because I was fed up with Marilyn's cryptic signals and weird ways of communicating. She couldn't expect to get anything across by just staring at me and encroaching on my personal space.
"You seem more irritable than usual," she drawled, following me into my room. I shot her a glare which she ignored. "You're under house arrest, aren't you?"
"I don't see why I should talk to you about that," I replied, forcing calm. "You seem to get everything you need from listening to conversations you aren't meant to hear."
"You're an idiot," she said. I blinked, but I knew I shouldn't have expected anything else.
"Then leave. God forbid I start to bore you with my stupidity."
She smiled coldly. "God doesn't forbid many things, Damien."
"Save yourself then," I spat. "If you're not going to have a conversation with me... Actually, scratch that. If you're not going to make sense, leave me alone. I think we'd both be happier that way."
"You think?"
"Well, I personally don't like being looked at like something you stepped in walking through the park. I'm not the crap on your shoe. If I'm so below you, why the hell are you here?"
She cocked her head to the side as if trying to figure me out. I almost found that amusing.
Without another word, she left, leaving me with my own anger. Were all vampires so empty?
When someone else knocked on my open door, I was ashamed to admit to almost throwing something at them, but it was only Thea.
"Hey, Damien," she said. She looked uncertain. "Is this a bad time?"
"No." I sighed, sitting back on my bed. "Just tired, that's all." I forced a smile. "What's up?"
"I'm going out to get some stuff from the shop down the road. I was wondering if you could keep an eye on Courtney for me."
"Sure. How is she, anyway?"
"Better." Thea smiled. "She just needs a bit of company, that's all. Lorien is with her, but we both know he can only just look after himself."
"You've got that right," I said, remembering the huge puddle of shampoo on the bathroom floor from that morning. It hadn't been water, after all. "Should've seen the state of the bathroom when he was done. Are you going now?"
"Yeah. Thanks, Damien. Is there anything you need while I'm there? I heard Leia's keeping you in this week."
"Shampoo would be great if they've got it."
"Okay. I'll see what I can do." She waved and left.
Courtney was in normal clothing again when I reached her room a few moments later. She was stretched out on the bed, her head on Lorien's chest, and he was busy brushing knots out of her hair. They both looked up when I entered, Lorien with an inordinate amount of surprise – as usual – and Courtney a little sheepishly.
"Hi," she murmured, settling back down but propping herself up on the elf's shoulder this time.
"Hi," I replied, closing the door behind me and inviting myself to the chair beside her bed. "How are you feeling?"
"Tired." She smiled at me. "I'm so sorry you had to see that this morning. I missed a dose."
"That's okay. I know." I offered her a smile back, but said nothing else. She didn't look like she wanted to talk about it.
"Thea's gone to get cake," Courtney said, sitting up. "And coffee. As if the way to my heart is a great slab of sponge." She scoffed, but was grinning.
I laughed with her. "I ended up sending her for more shampoo, so it's mutually beneficial."
Lorien went a delicate shade of pink.
"I am sorry for that." He said. "I did not expect the tub to be quite so slippery."
"I don't mind, Lorien." I yawned until my eyes watered profusely. "I'm getting some more, aren't I?"
He just hung his head and buried his face in Courtney's hair. She gave me a questioning look.
"Lorien's become quite attached to my bathtub," I explained. She nodded, frowning slightly, and reached back to scratch Lorien's neck. His ears trembled.
"Say, err... Is it normal for Marilyn to follow people around?" I asked, after a moment of wondering whether it was really worth it. Courtney's frown deepened.
"She normally tries to avoid us all as much as possible. Why?"
"She's been appearing everywhere at the same time I do," I replied, now feeling distinctly unsettled. "Saying something cryptic and then leaving again. Or doing something she won't explain and expecting me to ignore it."
"What sort of thing?"
I lifted my leg onto the bed and pulled up my trouser leg so that she could see the deep violet handprint there. It was swollen now, after a night of pulsing and twinging every time I moved. Courtney gasped, running her finger over it.
"Marilyn did that?" she whispered. She stared at me, shocked. "Have you had it looked at?"
I shook my head. "Leia already yelled at her for eavesdropping."
"That bit's not so unusual," Courtney murmured, pulling my trouser leg back down for me. "Jesus, Damien, that's awful."
"She didn't explain why," I said. "But she did look surprised when she saw how bad it was."
Courtney looked indecisive, and sat back against Lorien, tugging on her lip with two fingers and grooming the elf with her other hand.
"It is strange," she finally murmured, and I nodded.
I couldn't shake the feeling that things were only going to get more confusing.