There was a beauty in the woman's flesh, underneath the dirt that lingered on her skin, underneath the grease that weighed down her lank hair, underneath the stench of cigarette smoke that seemed to infiltrate every pore of her body.

As I held her close, I admired the sharpness of her cheekbones, the gentle curve of her brow and the smooth lines of her throat. I didn't see the needle marks that punctured the thin, the bruised skin on her arms, nor did I see the deviated septum of her nose, decimated by too many years of slavish drug abuse. She was beautiful to me. When she took her last breath, the wound on her neck still sluggishly pumping out the blood I could taste on my lips, I told her so, whispering into her ear until she was gone and I was left holding the empty husk of her body.

And all the while as I hunted and fed, I felt the intrusive gaze of the seer.

I should have grown used to it by now, that constant crawling sensation over my skin, however the weight of it was so heavy that I couldn't move without feeling the burden of it pressing down upon me. From the moment I had lured the woman with the promise of money for the small bag of coke stuffed in her inside jacket pocket, to the point where I had crushed her against the wall and pierced the soft yielding flesh of her throat with my incisors, muffling her screams with my hand, Josiah had kept those cold white eyes fixed on my every move.

When it was done, he helped me dispose of her body, just as I had assisted him earlier after he had fed and we had done all this in complete silence, not uttering a single word to one another since we had left the Chapel. In truth, there was a lot I could have said to Josiah. And I could have kept saying it over and over again, spewing out my hatred and frustration, fuelled by grief and anger, but I knew it would do me no good. My anger did nothing but amuse him and I was tired of being the resident entertainment. As much as it pained me to keep my opinions to myself, I had done just that, nodding wordlessly when he ordered me to leave the Chapel with him, assuring me it was perfectly safe to leave Lucius and Harper to go hunt the dark backstreets of Holborn. There, not far from Josiah's home, I had stalked the unlit alleyways, seeking out a victim, with the seer shadowing my every step. I had tolerated his oppressive presence with gritted teeth and fake nonchalance. I might have belonged to him, but I sure as Hell wasn't about to become his plaything.

It was on the short journey back to the Chapel that Josiah broke the silence between us. I wasn't sure what I preferred: silence or having to speak with the seer and being forced to resist the urge to crack his jaw with my clenched fist. Admittedly, busting his mouth open would have brought me tremendous satisfaction, but I had no doubt the retaliation would be quick and far harder than any punch I could throw.

Stopping at the end of a narrow alley, he motioned for me to hold back as he peered around the corner, checking the street beyond. "I never thought I would see the day that this city would be ruled once again by fear," he admitted in a gruff whisper, his breath painting clouds in the chill of the night air. "The Great Cleansing was something told to the fledglings. Horror stories passed down to each generation of vampire to educate them about the fucked-up world they'd just been reborn into." He sniffed and raised the hood of his zip-up jersey. "We'll have new stories to tell now. That is, if there's enough of us left to create a new generation."

I snorted derisively. "I'm surprised you have the guts to walk these streets at all considering your kind was a much desired commodity during the last Cleansing. I mean, if the Varúlfur don't find you first and use you to help them hunt the last of us hiding out, maybe a vampire who remembers what the seers did will find you and drain you dry before you can be used again?"

Josiah leant back against the wall, thrusting his hands into the jersey pockets and assessing me with one eyebrow raised. "Ah," he said. "I see the Garrick brothers told you something at least. I suppose they told you that the seers are traitors? That we sold out what was left of the vampire race to save our own kind?"

"Well, didn't you?"

"I didn't do anything. I wasn't around during the first Cleansing."

"But that is what the seers did, isn't it? They informed on the survivors?"

"And what would you do, Megan, if you had to sit back and watch the beasts tear into your brother or sister? What if you had to watch the flesh being torn from their body and their blood draining out onto the floor in front of you? Would you have the strength to see it through till the end or would you do anything to save them?"

"I'm not saying it was an easy decision, but your kind handed what was left of the vampires over to the Varúlfur on a plate."

"Oh, I don't know about that," he mused with a grin. "I happen to think it was a bloody easy decision and one that most vampires, seer or not, would make without batting an eyelid. We've become a desperate, grasping race and most of us would sell out our neighbour just to keep ourselves alive a little longer. And if anyone says they wouldn't do the same for someone they loved, then they might just be the only noble vampire in existence. Put it this way: If you could return to that battlefield and save Garrick by sacrificing the rest of your little army, would you? He could be here now, standing by your side. Think about it. What would you give to have him back now? I'd be willing to bet you'd betray them all without a second thought."

I squirmed uncomfortably under his steady gaze but the seer just chuckled.

"See? It's never quite as black and white as you think is it? You might want to consider that before casting your divine judgement down on others."

"I'm not judging anyone," I snapped. But I was and we both knew it. And he was right about Garrick too. The very thought of him being here now sent a brief spark shooting into the empty space in the pit of my stomach, the place that switched constantly from grief-laden nausea to barren numbness. Would I have given up the rest of my kind for another life with Garrick? Standing there under the scrutinising stare of the seer, I wasn't so sure I would have said no.

"Anyway," Josiah said, as he peeked his head out again and scanned the street. "I reckon we seers might just have done some of them a favour."

"By condemning them to death?"

He looked back at me then, his face half-shrouded in shadow by the jersey hood, giving him the look of the dark reaper himself. "Sometimes there are worse things than death, Megan."

His words gripped me like the ghostly hands of the undead, cold and clammy upon my skin and I shivered involuntarily.

"Come on," he said, that hateful smirk returning. "Let's go before the Varúlfur find us. I'd hate to lose my prize now when I've worked so hard for it."

******

I watched with a strange yearning in my stomach as Josiah sliced the bread for the sandwich that he was preparing for Lucius. Each swift movement of the knife through the crust, each swipe of the blade as he spread the butter, even the smell of the bacon frying on the portable stove stirred memories of my previous life that I wasn't prepared for. I wasn't hungry for human food but I didn't realise how starved I had been of those human memories. Soon however, I felt the pain of remembering as if I had eaten something bad and it was now ravaging my insides.

Taking the plate from Josiah, I sought out Lucius, perched comfortably on his favourite cushioned seat in the old baptismal pool and handed him his meal. With a wide, toothy grin, he took the plate from me and sank his teeth into the sandwich, wiping away the smears of tomato sauce that dripped down onto his chin. Giving me a thumbs up, he went back to his reading, with the sandwich in one hand and a dog-eared copy of a Famous Five novel in the other that Josiah had gifted him from the book hoard he had salvaged from the old library. Lucius' voracious appetite for words never ceased to amaze me, as did his ability to polish off any meal in record time.

I curled up on one of the chairs, my hair still damp from the shower I had taken when we had returned and wearing the clothes of another that Josiah had obtained from goodness knows where. I had to admit, there was some small sense of peace garnered from sitting there with the candle light flickering off the walls around me. A break from the chaos that existed outside these walls. A break from the chaos that raged inside my head. When Josiah entered the room and sat himself in the chair opposite, I didn't feel so inclined to start an argument with him as I often did, instead letting curiosity win out over my usual obstinacy.

"What did you mean earlier, about how you think the seers did the survivors a favour?" I pulled my legs up onto the chair and wrapped my arms around them, hugging them into my chest.

Josiah peered at me from over the top of the boxing magazine he had picked up to read, but didn't lower it. "In the mood for a bedtime story, are we?"

I rolled my eyes and bit my tongue. "I'm genuinely interested," I tried again. "Please."

He made a big show of closing the magazine, folding it up and placing it on the table beside him. "Alright, seeing as you asked so nicely." He settled back into the chair, appearing to mull over what he was going to say as he studied me. "What exactly did Garrick and Harper tell you about those times?"

I shrugged. "The minimum I guess. I'm not sure they liked to talk about it that much. I know what happened, how the Varúlfur hunted the vampires across the city, just like they're doing now. They told me how the survivors hid themselves away, how some of the injured either died in their hiding places unable to seek help for their injuries or they tried to get themselves to safety, only to be found by the beasts and slaughtered or dragged out into the daylight to burn. They told me about what happened after, how the vampires segregated themselves from one another, losing all hope that they could ever beat the Varúlfur."

"Oh," said Josiah. "I see you got the PG version. How typical of the Garrick's to give you the watered-down tale, instead of the horror story that it was." He gave a wry grin. "Their version isn't wrong, of course, that's exactly what happened, but they've missed out a hell of a lot. They didn't tell you how those that survived were so afraid to come out of hiding that they eventually starved to death, rotting away in their filth-infested holes? That vampire turned against vampire, seeking out the only blood they could find even if it was the blood of their own kind? Of how the ones who managed to survive became so overcome with hunger that they succumbed to the thirst and became Feeders, going on desperate rampages and killing without thought or care to their own safety, never mind the safety of the other vampires? Did they tell you how the Feeders had to be destroyed to protect the already dwindling numbers of vampires left? How their throats were cut and their bodies burnt to nothing?"

"No," I whispered, tugging my legs in tighter. "No, they didn't."

"I'm not surprised. Garrick was never keen on revealing the truth about those days. He thought it would undermine his efforts to revive the vampire army. He wanted to talk of nothing but the promise of glory and power, he wasn't interested in reminding everyone of what might be in store for them if his big plan failed."

"And what's wrong with that?" I shot back angrily. "A general doesn't take his army to war with the stories of past lost battles ringing in their ears. He fills them with the hope of victory and the belief of a better life if they triumph."

"Oh there's nothing wrong with that, of course," Josiah said. "But he told those stories so many times, I think even he forgot what it was really like after the Cleansing."

"How do you know all this anyway? You said yourself that you weren't even there?"

"My maker told me."

"Was your maker one of the ones who betrayed the vampires?" I said it before I could stop the words tumbling out of my mouth. Holding my breath, I waited for the onslaught, but instead the seer just smiled, almost as if he sensed my anxiety and was enjoying my discomfort.

"Well if he had been, then I wouldn't be here to tell these tales now," he replied with no hint of irritation.

I frowned. "I don't understand?"

Josiah rubbed a hand over his short-cropped hair, scratching at his scalp. "No, I don't suppose you do. You get told how the seers sold out their own kind to the beasts, of how they gave up the lives of many to save the life of just one and you think that's it? The End? There's always a sequel, Megan, even if the writer never puts his pen to the page. What do you think happened to those seers captured by the Varúlfur? Do you think they got their happy-ever-after?"

"No," I said. "I think they were killed as soon as the Varúlfur got what they wanted. They always kill once they've got what they want."

"Hmmm, except where you're concerned it seems." His eyes wandered over my face. "I guess it pays to know friends in high places. Or husbands maybe?"

"Meaning what exactly?" My neck stiffened at the thought of Brandon.

Josiah laughed then, clapping his hands down on the arms of the chair in mirth. "Megan, Megan! Don't be so defensive, girl! I was merely saying that you were one of the lucky ones. It's a rare thing for a vampire to escape death when dealing with our enemy. Even the great Benjamin Garrick himself never managed to pull that one off. In fact, the only people I know who've survived have been yourself and Cain. He served a purpose, doing their dirty work when they needed to make sure there was no connection to the firm. You managed to survive thanks to a husband who can't let go of the past. So, yeah...like I said, you're one of the lucky ones."

"Funny," I remarked dryly. "I don't feel so lucky right now."

"You're alive, aren't you?"

We locked eyes for a moment and I saw the silent challenge there. He was daring me to refute it, daring me to proclaim otherwise when so many had already died when the Varúlfur had swept through the north of the city. The truth was that I was one of the lucky ones, whether I wanted to accept it or not.

"Was your maker a seer too?"

"No, he wasn't. And fortunately for me, he held none of the prejudices against seers that the rest of the vampires did. I'm not sure I would have made it past the first night otherwise."

"He didn't know what you were when he turned you?" I asked.

"I didn't know what I was until he turned me. A seer's powers are triggered when he or she is transformed. As a human, we display no signs, not like you can see now." He gestured at his cold white eyes. "He bit me, made me drink from him, I writhed in agony until I thought I would die from the pain and then eventually, I did. Well, the human in me did anyway and when I woke up, I opened my eyes and I bore the mark of the seer."

"And your sister? Caelan bore the mark too?"

There was no movement, no flinch at the mere mention of her name, but his utter stillness revealed everything I needed to see; his hurt, his pain, his love for the sister who had thrown herself to the sun. She was his weakness, the one chink in his armour through which to stab my knife. I sat as still as he did, suppressing the urge to smile at my discovery.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "I shouldn't have asked. Forgive me."

His eyes widened. "Manners at last? Maybe the Garrick's didn't wring the last vestige of humanity out of you after all?" Exhaling deeply, he slouched further into his chair. "As for Caelan, well, the mark of the seer always strikes twice in a family. She was turned after it was discovered what I was. There must always be two. That's just the way of things. Sometimes I wish it wasn't, because maybe...." He trailed off, looking away, seemingly transfixed by the shadows that danced on the Chapel walls.

"Maybe she wouldn't have met Harper?"

"Maybe a lot of stuff wouldn't have happened," he retorted a little too sharply. "But it did. Like I said, it's just the way of things."

We drifted into an uneasy silence for a moment.

"Yes," I finally said. "I guess it is. Tell me something though, because the more I've thought about it, the more I can't get my head round it: how is it that you didn't see what would happen? You see everything else. You saw what decision I would make and you knew that I would escape from the compound. And yet you didn't know what was going to happen with Harper and Caelan?"

A small sad smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he continued to stare at the shadows, his eyes following their movement over the cracked plaster. "Ah, now that's the irony of it all. We can see everything but ourselves and our own blood. And the Nephilim's offspring of course." He nodded towards Lucius. "That's the curse of the seer. Caelan's future was as blind to me as is my own. I couldn't help her and by the time it had happened, it was too late. Harper had screwed her and thrown her away like she was nothing."

I felt my heckles rising instinctively at the bitter tone in his voice and I plunged headlong again, unable to suppress my anger. "What would you have preferred, Josiah? For Harper to pretend that he loved her, just to keep her happy? It wasn't his fault that he didn't care for her, he was married for goodness sake!"

"Yeah," sniffed the seer in distaste. "And he cared just as much for his marriage as you did for yours."

The words cut deep but it was nothing that I didn't deserve. Not that Josiah was done with me yet, not by a long shot. He leant forward slowly, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes boring into me again and his face bristling with anger.

"Now you tell me something, Megan. Do you feel privileged to be loved by Harper Cain? Does it make you feel special? Give you that warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of your stomach?"

I shoved my hands down by my side, clenching my fists and feeling my nails cut into my palms. "It's not like that."

He sneered. "It's exactly like that. I spotted it the moment I saw you together. That must make you feel good, right? To know you've got the love all those other women desired? Caelan? Jenny? Not to mention the countless others he's fucked along the way."

"He loved Jenny."

Josiah waved me away dismissively with a swipe of his hand. "Oh come on, Megan! That wasn't love. She was infatuated with him and he revelled in being her saviour, rescuing her from the man who couldn't have given a toss whether she lived or died. Typical Cain. Always somebody's hero. Jenny's. Garrick's. And they lapped it up, like the idiots they were. Except you...you're different, aren't you?" He jabbed a finger at me. "Only that's what you're telling yourself, eh? You're thinking that somehow you've won because he loves you."

"That's not what I think."

He laughed coldly as he stood up, towering over me. "Well, it's best for you if you don't. To love him and to be loved by him is nothing but a curse and pretty soon you're going to learn the harsh reality of being with him. I just hope for your sake it won't be too late because if it is, then your fate will be the same as Jenny's and Caelan's and all the love in the world won't help when Harper Cain destroys you, just like he did them."

With that, the seer turned and stalked out of the room, the breeze created by the swinging doors catching the flames of the candles and whipping the shadows into a violent frenzy as they whirled and spun over the walls. I hated him then. I hated him with everything I had. And yet as I watched him leave, I couldn't stop myself from smiling and thinking about how much I was going to enjoy ripping a hole in that armour of his and stabbing him in the heart until the floor of this very Chapel was bathed in his blood.

Josiah Hope was going to regret the day he made me his property.