Page 71 of Fallen Thorns
Marianne was swift in her explanation of the plan for the evening. The mission that night was to explore the area around the abandoned swimming baths — a location that was deemed to be of high interest for rogue vampire squatters and where most of the sightings had been. Marianne had made it a staple that every night, without fail, at least two Thorns were placed on watch there.
Tonight, it was my turn.
I’d always been interested in abandoned buildings — especially those with a vast, complex history. The more reclaimed by nature, the better. In the past, I’d dabbled in a bit of urban exploration and photography myself, though I sacrificed that hobby once I realised how difficult it was to get into places without being arrested and regardless, I was not one for taking risks or deliberately getting myself into unsafe and unpredictable environments. Thus, after my most successful visit — a trip with my then best friend to an old industrial warehouse where we encountered out of place, rusted medical equipment and heard multiple unexplained sounds that indicated rooms surrounding us could possibly be occupied — I quickly decided I was not cut out for this hobby and hung up my exploring boots.
But I didn’t hesitate when Mars informed me of where we would be visiting that evening because I knew that with those two, I’d be safe.
The plan:Mars and I would explore inside while Marianne would patrol the outside, and then we would eventually reconvene in the early morning to discuss our findings.
Marianne met us at midnight, dressed in all black with her hair slicked back and nothing but a small pouch strapped to her side. She directed us around the side of the building, through the gate to the disused car park and we climbed over a wall to arrive at the only visible entrance through a low, slate roof. I’d been warned beforehand that my usual outerwear might not have been very practical and therefore had elected to wear layers of jumpers under one of Rani’s oversized bomber jackets (she insisted I took it, regardless of if I ruined it or not). I took extra care regardless.
We were prepared for broken glass and other sharp and potentially dangerous objects lurking in the pitch black. We clad our hands in thick gloves and the two of us equipped ourselves with the strongest torches we could find. A scene replayed in my head that on the other side of every door was either a police officer or a drug addict, but I let Mars take charge and stride ahead — they had been here many times before.
After safely manoeuvring into the main swimming pool area, my skin began to crawl as despite our whispers, our voices echoed, and the vastness of the room unnerved me. Perhaps this would have been quite enjoyable in the day, with the torches illuminating graffiti covered walls — the floor to ceiling tiles bludgeoned in colour. But at night, I felt trapped in a real-life video game simulator, waiting to turn and shine my torch on a figure behind me.
“Keep the torch pointed at your feet otherwise you’ll trip,” Mars aggressively whispered close to my ear, treading carefully around the debris surrounding the empty pool. I’d been distracted by my thoughts, waving my torch in every direction, stupidly not considering the fact that the centre of the room was essentially a death pit. I had searched for images of the building’s layout beforehand and concluded that we had entered through the shallow end, though even then, it would still have been a rather hefty fall without the buoyancy aid of water.
Much to my relief, I heard nothing out of the ordinary, even with my heightened senses. The deeper we walked into the building, the more confident my footing became. Mars must have heard my breath falter on multiple occasions and reassured me that as long as I kept my voice down, we’d be virtually undetectable. A bold statement for them to make but this time I allowed their exaggerated optimism to pass me by without a worry.
“Will we even find anything if we’ve already cleared this place out?” I asked, nearly stumbling over a plank of nailed, rotting wood. I caught myself inches away from a full fall, with Mars swiftly turning, ready to catch me if necessary. They laughed.
“It is one of the few places in the city where people can hide for quite some time without being detected, human or otherwise. Even once you scare them off, they’ll always come back eventually — usually after a month or so when they think you’ve given up. We’re not here for humans, as you know, so if we stumble across a squatter, no we didn’t. They won’t remember anyway. You’ll know what we’re looking for when you come across it, a vampire scent, that I’m sure you’re aware of now — something a vampire has touched, sat on, or held. They give off a lingering trace that is undeniably easy to detect. We’ve found things here before, there is a more than likely chance that we shall discover something again.”
I nodded and kept my head down as instructed, torch lighting my limited path, moss sticking to my shoes. I think I subconsciously started taking in deeper breaths to hunt for a scent, but all I could smell was mould and rot and occasionally, gagging upon detection, human waste.
Mars sped up a little as we edged along the side of the pool, their footsteps squelching ahead as they appeared to have a destination in sight, though I myself could not see nor smell anything out of the ordinary.
“What is it?” I rasped in the loudest whisper possible.
Mars shushed me with the waft of their hand. In the brief moment my torch cast a light upon them, they looked to be in a low crouch. I heard a rustle of movement and Mars cleared their throat.
“What?” I asked again, this time a barely audible whisper, but more to sate my own confusion.
After a beat, Mars stood back up to their full height. “Human blood.”
What?
They waved a full ball point pen under my nose, and I shone the torch directly into their eyes by accident. The smell was obvious then. It crawled all the way to the back of my nostrils, burning my throat with sweetness.
“The pen?” I asked.
“Look.”
I was urged to shine a light down onto the object Mars now held in their hands, and as they slowly twisted the pen around, I realised that the blue lid and base did not correlate with the thin slither of red-tinged ink concealed in the centre. Blood. Fresh and very human.
“Why?” was all I managed to ask.
Mars shrugged. “We all have our means of storing blood for long journeys. Not a choice I would have opted for but it’s far from the weirdest method.”
“But that means they’ve been here, recently. Don’t we patrol here every night?”
“Indeed we do. This was left today. A scent that strong is unavoidable for us, can’t have been missed. If you’d stepped but an inch closer, you would have found it too.”
I suddenly felt like I was being watched, as if the empty rooms and corridors behind us were swimming with eyes like we were not, and never had been, alone.
“Will that help us?” I questioned.
Mars shrugged. “Anything could be evidence. It’s not much, but it may end up being of use. Anyone with but a spec of their human conscience left, will avoid drinking the blood of a human, especially that fresh. This blood has been extracted and stored very, very recently.”
