Nine Shillings

Prison With a Difference

London - 1842

I hit the cobbled path face down with a crescendo of crunches. Vampires were designed to land on their feet, not their faces.

'Well, that was embarrassing,' I muttered into the leaf litter, it didn't feel like it had softened the blow.

My shoulder cracked back into place and my ribs reset like a macabre piano accompanying a rousing rendition of imaginative Irish curses. For a man who didn't curse, Bran had taught me quite the selection.

Groaning, I pushed myself to my feet, jerking every time something popped and snapped. Josef had told me I'd be fine as long as I didn't land on my head, his definition of 'fine' was proving interesting and I didn't have time for a lie down.

I staggered along the path, steps straightening as everything worked out where it belonged. Falling from the church tower was going on a long list of things Brennan owed me for. It was ever increasing as he was excellent at getting into trouble, but incapable of getting out of it.

The slapping of Father Brennan's running feet against stone escaped the church, echoed by his would-be assassin's. I snapped a bare branch off a tree as I passed. Brennan burst out of the church, red and sweaty. I swung the branch. It struck his pursuer's head with a crunch. The man's feet carried on forward, his torso went back and he tumbled down the steps. He stopped at the bottom staring at the smoke-clogged sky.

I stumbled against the wall. 'If anyone's going to kill my brother, it's me.' With any luck Brennan wouldn't notice the fella wasn't breathing, killing people in church was probably on the list of major sins, though he was technically more out than in.

Father Brennan sucked in air before he said, 'What happened?' He coughed. 'I worried, maybe –'

'I took a shortcut.' I tossed the branch aside and nodded towards the dead fella. 'Thought I told you to play nice with other children?'

He pulled a handkerchief from inside his cassock and dabbed his face. 'Lord Wentworth doesn't like me suggesting workers should have fair treatment.'

'Suggesting,' I murmured and hefted his new friend over my shoulder, my freshly healed bones protested.

Brennan's eyebrows raised. I was a woman who habitually climbed buildings rather than walk the street, why shouldn't I be able to lift a man?

'What are you going to do with him?' Brennan asked, and sat down on the church steps, paying no heed to the autumn dampness.

'I thought I'd bury him in the graveyard, seems the right place for a dead man,' I replied, shifting his weight.

'You're not funny,' Brennan said.

I might not have told him over the years I'd added a few corpses to the church collection. It was a good place for a corpse, but there were only so many I could add, they needed to be spread round.

'God didn't bless you with a sense of humour.' I walked away, the assassin's knuckles dragging on the cobbles behind me. Strong as I'd become, I was still only four foot eleven.

I stepped into the first alley I came to and bumped into Josef.

'Need a hand?' he asked, brushing crushed leaves off the front of his waistcoat.

'No.'

'You need to work on your balance.'

My balance had been perfect until the assassin hit the church bell with a metal cosh. The sound had been agonising, with notes so high I thought my ears might bleed. I wasn't going to make excuses to him, excuses implied he'd wounded me.

'Are you going to keep following in the shadows, like the old days, Josef?' I made to step by.

He caught my arm a gentle tap to make me stop. 'As far as anyone knows you're my progeny,' he whispered. 'I have duties to fulfil and there are appearances to maintain. You're still a young vampire, anger The Council and... the results will be dire, Charlotte.'

'Thank you for that wonderful lecture on common sense, Sef. I wouldn't have considered the ramifications of having my head chopped off if you hadn't told me.'

Josef gave me his cold-eyed stare that had sensible folk running a mile.

I dropped the fella at his feet. 'If you think me incapable, why don't you tidy him up?' I turned away.

'Don't you have any respect for the dead?'

I swung back to him. 'The man killed innocent people for money. If you think he deserves respect, go dig him a little grave and put some flowers on it.'

'You're being irrational,' he said with annoying calm.

'Irrational? I've spent the last six months only going out with supervision. You might as well have put me in prison.'

'By rights, I should've taken you out of the city to somewhere... less populated.'

'Oh, so you're doing me a favour,' I snapped. 'Take your self-righteous shit and fertilise your new friend's grave with it.' I stuck both my middle fingers up at him. 'I'm going home.'

'There's no-one to watch you.'

'I'll try not to decimate the population in the next half-mile.' I walked off.

My stomach grumbled and I sighed, I needed to find some dinner. Regenerating could take a lot of energy but, as a vigilante, the night had become an all I could eat buffet with a side of moral justification.

There was always someone more monstrous than a vampire.

I had a list.