Episode 5: The Weight Of Blood
709 Words
CHAPTER FIVE
The Weight of Blood
The two nights before the full moon passed like a held breath.
Lila did not see Elias. They had agreed to stay apart, to prepare separately, to meet again on the night of the gathering. But she felt him everywhere—in the empty streets, in the silence of her flat, in the space beside her that she had not known was empty until he filled it.
She fed sparingly. The hunger kept her sharp, kept her human. She wandered Hampstead, touching the walls of houses that had stood for centuries, walking paths she had walked as a girl.
On the second night, a knock came at her door.
Eleanor stood in the hallway, her red hair hidden beneath a dark hood. Her hands were shoved into a coat too thin for the cold. She was trembling.
"I didn't know where else to go," Eleanor whispered. "Cassius knows I spoke to you. He's looking for me."
Lila pulled her inside.
The girl had not fed in days. Lila could smell the desperation on her, the hunger sharp in her eyes.
"When did you last eat?" Lila asked.
"I won't. If I feed, I'll become like them."
"You'll die if you don't."
"Maybe that's better."
Lila caught her by the shoulders. Eleanor flinched, but Lila held firm.
"I know what you're feeling," she said. "The hunger. The shame. The fear that you'll lose yourself. I felt it too. For years."
"How did you stop it?"
Lila released her. "I learned to live with it. To take only what I needed. To remember that the people I feed on are human. Like I was."
She moved to the cupboard and pulled out a leather pouch—animal blood from a butcher who asked no questions.
"It's not enough," she said, handing it over. "But it will quiet the hunger."
Eleanor stared at the pouch. Her hands shook. Slowly, she raised it to her lips and drank.
---
They sat together in the dark, two women made into something they never chose.
"The hunter," Eleanor said. "Elias. He looks at you like you're not a monster."
Lila said nothing.
"I thought no one would ever look at me like that again. After he turned me."
Lila thought of Cassius. Of the way he had looked at her—like a painting he had acquired.
"Someone will look at you like that," she said. "When you're ready. When you know who you are beyond what he made."
Eleanor was quiet. Then: "Do you think I can be that? Someone beyond what he made?"
Lila met her eyes. "I know you can. Because I did."
---
Before dawn, Eleanor left. She had somewhere to go, she said. A woman in Spitalfields who helped vampires who wanted to hide.
"Will you be there?" Eleanor asked at the door. "On the full moon?"
Lila nodded. "I'll be there."
Eleanor embraced her—quick, fierce, like a sister.
"Don't let him take you," she whispered. "Don't let him win."
---
The full moon rose over London like a coin of blood.
Lila stood at her window, dressed in black, her mother's pearls at her throat. The wooden stake Elias had given her was hidden in her coat. She had fed, just enough to strengthen her.
A knock came. She opened the door.
Elias stood in the hallway, his face pale, his eyes fixed on her.
"It's time," he said.
She stepped out and closed the door behind her. She did not know if she would return. The flat on Church Row had never been a home—only a place to wait. But as she walked away, she touched the door once, lightly, like a goodbye.
Elias fell into step beside her. He did not take her hand, but he walked close enough that she could feel the warmth of him.
"Are you afraid?" he asked.
She thought of the house on Philbeach Gardens. Of Cassius waiting in the dark. Of the hundred years she had spent running.
"No," she said.
He looked at her. In the moonlight, his eyes were the colour of winter sky.
"Then let's end this."
They walked into the fog together.
---
END OF CHAPTER FIVE
- Writer
