Darke Academy 2: Blood Ties Read online

  ‘What?’ said Cassie.

  ‘Extra Latin tuition first thing. Pain in the derrière, non?’

  Cassie could only laugh weakly and nod, but she didn’t miss Paco’s sly wink, aimed only at her. She ignored him as Sir Alric called them into the room and the door closed on the boys.

  ‘Cassandra. Isabella.’ He bestowed reassuring smiles on each of them. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  ‘Not really optional, is it?’ pointed out Cassie dryly.

  Sir Alric gave a brief laugh. ‘Isabella, welcome. Cassandra tells me that she has spoken with you about her … special needs. And that you have agreed to become her life-source. I take it you’re still sure about your decision?’

  Isabella smiled tightly. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Not many people have the luxury of choice in this matter,’ said Sir Alric gravely. ‘As you know, most roommates are unaware of the true nature of the Few.’

  ‘Yes, Louis for example?’ Isabella interjected, arching an eyebrow disapprovingly. ‘He does not know that Paco is feeding from him?’

  ‘No, he does not. But let me assure you that whether or not the life-source is aware of what is happening to them, if it is properly performed, the feeding process is entirely harmless.’ Sir Alric gestured towards two large, dark leather chairs. ‘Please take a seat, both of you, and I’ll do my best to answer any questions you have before we begin.’

  He sat opposite them, folding one long leg over the other and regarding them expectantly. Cassie’s heart raced – she didn’t know where to begin. She glanced over at Isabella, but she seemed at a sudden and uncharacteristic loss for words as well. Sir Alric broke the silence.

  ‘Well, firstly, perhaps it might be useful for you both to think of these sessions in the same manner as any of your other lessons. What we are hoping to achieve here is part of the core aim of the Academy – to prepare our students for life outside these hallowed walls. Indeed, you may wish to think of the Academy itself as a training ground of sorts.’

  ‘Training ground?’ Cassie ventured.

  ‘Yes. As you know, here at the Darke Academy we select students that we believe have the potential to be suitable hosts for the Few. The academic setting provides the chosen Few with the opportunity to obtain the skills and personal connections necessary to become leading members of society.’

  ‘And the rest are just here as snacks?’ Cassie was becoming less sure about this idea by the second.

  ‘The other students,’ continued Sir Alric, unruffled, ‘serve a vital role in our world. And by extension, the world at large. In giving of themselves – their life-energy – they help to nurture our future leaders, artists and scientists – individuals vital to humanity. And in return, they are the beneficiaries of an unrivalled, world-class education that will stand them in good stead in their own lives.’

  Cassie let out a mirthless laugh. ‘Vital to humanity … ?’ she began, but Isabella leaned forward and held up one hand.

  ‘But why do you have to do it without our consent? And why does each member of the Few have to feed on their roommate, in particular?’ she asked, her brow lined with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

  Sir Alric steepled his fingers and began again cautiously. ‘Over the years, we have found that secrecy is the best policy. Not everyone would be as accepting of the Few as you have been, Isabella. If the world knew the truth about us – about our strengths and skills and what we need to do to maintain them – how long do you think it would be before we found ourselves branded monsters? Feared and persecuted wherever we went. No. There is safety in secrecy, and it is for that reason that most members of the Few choose to keep their roommates ignorant of what is happening to them.’

  Isabella nodded.

  ‘As for why we insist that each member of the Few feeds only on their roommate,’ continued Sir Alric, ‘if the Few were allowed to feed at random, there would be the risk that one student might be fed on by more than one of the Few, losing too much of their life-energy. It is when that happens that feeding can become dangerous. But if each member of the Few only feeds from their roommate, that danger is avoided. It is merely a precaution, another measure of how seriously we take your safety.’

  Cassie was shaking her head.

  ‘Is there a problem, Cassandra?’

  ‘You make it sound so easy. But what about Keiko and Alice? What about what happened to Jess, huh? What about the Few who decide that they’re not going to follow the rules of your so-called system?’ She almost spat the last word.

  ‘In any society, there are those who stray from the path of law. When that happens, they are punished.’

  Cassie laughed incredulously. Jake’s angry words from their computer science lesson rang in her ears. ‘So Katerina was punished for killing Jake’s sister by being expelled? Call me unreasonable, but that’s one case where the punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime.’

  Sir Alric unfolded himself from his chair and stood up, his expression hardening. Cassie felt a pang of fear alongside her anger and nerves.

  ‘I understand your feelings, Cassandra, but we are not here to discuss Katerina Svensson. Her punishment was decided by powers beyond your knowledge and my control. What is more important now is that you are given proper training in how to feed, and monitored to ensure that you do not make the same mistakes she did.’

  Sir Alric’s tone carried a definite ring of finality. Question time was over.

  ‘Now, I have another appointment shortly, so we should begin. Isabella, if you could please come over here.’ Sir Alric gestured to the space in front of him. ‘And you here, Cassandra.’

  Cassie took up the position indicated in front of Isabella, her palms sweating. Isabella giggled nervously and puckered her lips.

  Sir Alric arched a perfect eyebrow. ‘What are you doing, Miss Caruso?’

  Isabella glanced uneasily between Cassie and Sir Alric. ‘Cassie said that when Keiko fed on Alice it was like she was kissing her. So I thought …’

  ‘Keiko’s method was not the manner by which we recommend this process should be undertaken. Her proclivities were cruel, and her decision to feed in that manner merely reflected those proclivities. Direct mouth-to-mouth feeding is more powerful, but also more harmful.’

  ‘Phew! Finally some good news!’ Cassie managed to crack a smile. ‘No offence, Isabella, but you’re not really my type.’

  ‘None taken, darling,’ Isabella replied, winking.

  Sir Alric smiled as well, then shook his head. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Cassandra, take hold of Isabella’s wrist, like so …’ He demonstrated, wrapping his index finger and thumb tightly around her own wrist. Cassie reached over and did as he said, shuffling her feet uncomfortably.

  ‘So far, so good,’ Isabella said, nodding encouragingly to Cassie.

  ‘A little tighter,’ said Sir Alric briskly. Cassie tightened her grip on Isabella’s wrists, watching her roommate closely. She could feel her pulse underneath her thumbs. Sir Alric continued.

  ‘Now, you must think, all the time, Cassandra. Think about what you are doing, about the importance of it. Think about Isabella as well as yourself. Don’t ever let yourself go onto automatic pilot; that’s when you’ll lose control. Start slowly. Do you understand?’

  She nodded, swallowing.

  ‘Now, Isabella – this may feel a little unusual,’ said Sir Alric, his voice calm and level. ‘But I am here. You have my word that you will not be harmed.’

  ‘OK,’ said Isabella, sounding uneasy.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ asked Cassie.

  ‘Sure. Honestly, Cassie. I trust you.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m not sure I trust myself,’ Cassie mumbled, her mind flying back to Cranlake Crescent and the moment she had attacked Patrick.

  ‘Then I will trust you for both of us.’ Isabella’s smile was shaky, but her voice was firm.

  ‘Right,’ said Sir Alric, putting a hand on Cassie’s shoulder. ‘B
oth of you close your eyes.’ He paused. ‘Now, Cassandra. Take a deep breath and try to relax.’

  Cassie did as he said, but nothing seemed to happen.

  ‘Once more. Concentrate.’

  Sir Alric’s voice faded as Cassie drew a second deep breath. This time there was a change. As she breathed in, her senses seemed somehow to be heightened. Beneath her fingertips, Isabella’s pulse was pounding, racing. She could sense the life-energy flowing through her roommate’s veins.

  ‘That’s it,’ murmured Sir Alric.

  Now Cassie could feel a prickling sensation all over her skin, a humming inside her head, a bright glow behind her eyelids. She was at once both light-headed and totally, completely alert, and she realised she was still inhaling, her lungs seemingly no nearer to being filled.

  ‘Concentrate,’ came Sir Alric’s voice once more, over the buzzing in her head. Cassie slowly opened her eyes, still breathing in, her fingers coiled tightly around Isabella’s slender wrists. Blinking, she noticed Isabella’s own eyes were squeezed shut, her mouth hanging slightly open, a barely perceptible sigh emitting from her lips, and Cassie instinctively knew that the endless breath coming out of her friend and into her was the life-energy she needed. Filling her with power …

  Yes, my dear! That’s it! Feed me, Cassandra!

  With a choking noise, Cassie dropped Isabella’s wrists and took a pace backward. Isabella’s eyes opened lazily, and she coughed, rubbing her eyelids as though she was trying to wake up from a deep slumber. Cassie’s heart was racing, not just out of alarm at what she had been doing, or the reappearance of Estelle’s voice, but from the huge, almost overwhelming rush of vitality. She’d never felt more alive. It was as though her senses were all snapped into hyper-focus.

  ‘Yes. Good control, Cassandra,’ said Sir Alric. Cassie jumped, almost surprised to find he was still standing beside them. ‘Well done, both of you.’

  Cassie turned to Isabella tentatively. ‘Are you OK?’

  Isabella paused, then let out a short laugh.

  ‘That’s it?’ Incredulity flooded her voice.

  ‘Isabella? Are you sure you’re—’

  ‘I’m absolutely fine,’ Isabella said. She looked up at Cassie and grinned, then threw her arms around her friend in a tight hug. ‘See, I told you, Cassie Bell. There was no need for all that build-up! No sweat.’

  Cassie nodded, still a hint of doubt lingering in her mind.

  ‘Yeah. That was … I guess it was less involved than I expected. Still, I don’t know if it’s something I want to do on a regular basis.’ Her head was spinning.

  ‘Regular feeding is a must, Cassie,’ said Sir Alric seriously. ‘As you have seen, if done properly, it is a simple and harmless procedure. But if you leave it too long – if you let yourself become too hungry – that is when you make mistakes and lose control. And that is when people get hurt.’

  He walked to the door and placed a hand on the doorknob. ‘For the moment, the Tears of the Few will help to sustain you. As long as their effect lingers, you will not need to feed as regularly as the other Few. You have done well today, but as soon as you feel the hunger growing, Cassandra, you must let me know, and we will meet again.’

  Sir Alric Darke opened the door. ‘Until then …’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘I look ridiculous.’

  ‘You do not. You look gorgeous!’

  Cassie and Isabella stood together in front of the mirrored wardrobe, Isabella impossibly elegant in jeans, leather boots and red cashmere, Cassie obsessively smoothing and tugging at the dark-green silk of her borrowed dress.

  ‘You don’t like it? You don’t like my dress!’

  ‘Isabella, I love your dress. It’s what’s inside it that looks like an idiot.’

  ‘Tchah! You are blind as well as stupid.’ Isabella tossed her hair. ‘I’m looking stunning, darling, and you look twice as good as me. Of course, I’d like to think I am at least a little bit responsible for that.’

  Cassie grinned. Things between her and Isabella had been surprisingly normal since the feeding tutorial, much to Cassie’s relief. Even so, whatever Sir Alric said, she was planning to stretch things out as long as she possibly could before putting her friend – and herself – through the strange experience again.

  She blinked at her reflection in the mirror. Her light-brown hair had had a proper cut – courtesy of Isabella again: how was she ever going to pay the girl back for this kindness as well as all the others? Now styled and smoothed, it had a satiny gleam. Isabella had chucked all Cassie’s congealed and broken old lipsticks and eyeshadows into the bin, and worked some kind of magic with her own vastly expensive make-up kit. Staring into the mirror was like looking at a different person – a new, way-better-looking version of herself. She chuckled sardonically at her reflection and again pulled at her dress uncomfortably.

  Isabella was right about one thing: she’d let herself get too thin – an invading spirit and the subsequent trauma would do that to a girl – but the colour of the fabric did bring out her eyes. The contrast with the rich, dark green made her yellow-green irises look brilliantly pale and piercing.

  Her friend gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Trust me, you look fabulous, OK? Now get your Jimmy Choos on. You’re going to party with your beau!’

  ‘Get your Jimmy Choos on, you mean,’ remarked Cassie under her breath, but she felt a thrill of glamour as she slipped into the gorgeous stilettos. ‘Am I going to be able to walk?’

  ‘In these shoes you do not walk, Cassie, you stalk.’

  ‘Sure, whatever you say. I just wonder where I’m going dressed like this. I wish we were going to Coney Island with you guys.’

  Perhaps she might even have had a chance to talk to Jake about his extra-curricular activities. Jake was still avoiding being alone with Cassie, and she was certain it was so that she couldn’t pressure him to give up the hunt for Katerina.

  ‘Don’t be silly, your date will be so glamorous.’ Isabella shook her head and sighed. ‘Though mine is romantic, isn’t it? Jake and I shall stroll on the boardwalk, arm in arm. We shall eat Nathan’s hot dogs. We shall ride the Cyclone!’

  ‘Uh-huh, so you have an excuse to scream and hang on to his neck.’

  Isabella gave her a suggestive smile. ‘What else is a rollercoaster for? Ah!’ She gave a shriek of delight as a knock rattled the door of their room. ‘Here he is!’

  Here, as a matter of fact, were both of them, though they obviously hadn’t planned to arrive together. Ranjit and Jake stood awkwardly, as far apart as they could reasonably be, their body language screaming their discomfort. As Isabella flung the door wide, their relief was palpable.

  ‘Hey, gorgeous.’ Jake’s stiff expression melted into a huge grin as he swung Isabella in his arms. ‘You look terrific!’

  ‘Do not sound so surprised!’ She kissed him with shameless enthusiasm. ‘Shall we go and be tourists?’

  ‘I am dying to be a tourist in my own city. Even if I can’t take you somewhere expensive,’ he muttered, with a slightly resentful glance at Ranjit’s tuxedo.

  ‘Hey! Just being with you is priceless!’ Isabella punched his arm.

  Meanwhile, Cassie found she couldn’t meet Ranjit’s eyes. She made herself clasp her fingers just to stop herself fiddling with her dress. Oh, God. What if she’d got this horribly wrong? What if he was embarrassed to be seen with her? What if …

  His shoes were right there, though, so she had to look up and smile at him. That was when she knew it would be OK. His expression was one of startled awe, and there was even a hint of crimson in his dark cheekbones.

  ‘Cassie.’ He drew in a long breath, and shyly offered a yellow rose. ‘You look … beautiful.’

  ‘You too,’ she blurted before she could stop herself. It was true, though. The tux must have been hand-made for him, perfectly fitted to his lithe body. She swore she could make out the lines of his muscles under the expensive fabric.

  ‘Well, you guys.’ Jake was
clutching Isabella’s hand, hesitating at the doorway and clearly desperate to leave. ‘Have a good time.’

  Ranjit cleared his throat. ‘You too. Enjoy yourselves.’

  Isabella was stifling laughter. ‘Happy Valentine’s Day,’ she mouthed at Cassie. Then Jake was pulling her out of the room, the door swung shut, and they were gone.

  Ranjit released a huge sigh of relief, and Cassie giggled.

  ‘Cassandra Bell,’ he grinned. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  It wasn’t a long ride by yellow cab, but Ranjit insisted they couldn’t walk – ‘not in those fantastic shoes’ – even though Cassie would have liked the fresh winter air. She only realised they had a deadline when the cab was pulling up on the corner of 57th Street and Seventh Avenue.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she breathed as she stepped out of the cab. ‘I’m at Carnegie Hall.’

  ‘How do you get to Carnegie Hall?’ smiled Ranjit. ‘Practise, practise …’

  She giggled as she took his arm. ‘That’s a terrible joke.’

  ‘That’s a really old joke.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’d better take our seats. Come on.’

  Cassie would have been happy sitting behind a pillar in the back row of the balcony, but they were guided to a box on the first tier, right at the front and overlooking the stage directly. It was such an exposed position she would have felt quite self-conscious, if it hadn’t been for Ranjit’s comforting hand in hers.

  Then the curtain rose and she was instantly swept away by the music. Funny, she’d never heard anything by Richard Strauss in her life, and barely a note by Tchaikovsky or Beethoven, but straight away the music felt as if it belonged to her alone. Mesmerised, she was only vaguely aware of Ranjit’s glances in her direction, but her senses sprang into overdrive when his fingertips stroked her hand. Crazily, tears pricked at her eyelids and she blinked them back. It would be stupid to cry, when she felt happier than she had in as long as she could remember.

  Still, too many feelings were coming alive. She couldn’t do anything to stop it, and she didn’t want to. She was supremely aware of everything: the warmth of Ranjit’s hand and the sharp tingle of her own nerves in response; the music, overwhelming her brain and her emotions, every single instrumental part sounding distinct in her head but every one harmonious with the next. She could taste the warmth and scent of the audience, breathing out and in, some of them occasionally holding their breath until the music made them release it in a rushing exhalation. She could hear the people as well as she could hear the music: the breathing, the rustle of silk and the occasional squeak of a leather shoe, the creak as someone shifted in a seat; the scrape of a bow across strings, the feathery whisper as a page of music was turned.