Reborn by Blood by Richard Murray Read Free Book Online Page A

feelings generated by drinking the prostitutes blood, I had an insistent throbbing somewhere in the back of my mind.
    “You’re awake” Beth said, pointing out the obvious.
    “Yeah, where’s your phone?”
    “Coffee table, why?”
    I ignored her question and picked up the phone before crossing to the coat hooks by the door and searching in the pockets for the business card Sebastian had given me.
    “Hey, what’s going on?” Beth asked.
    She was standing by the kitchen sink with a mug in her hand, steam rising faintly from the top and looking at me with a bemused expression.
    “No idea, I just really think I need to call him.”
    “Ooh that’ll be Vampire dad doing his Sire thing.” Beth said with a smirk that I did my best to ignore as I dialled the number shown on the card. It rang four times before it was answered.
    “I have a task for you” said Sebastian and as soon as he spoke, the throbbing ceased.
    “What task?” I asked cautiously.
    “I will send you an address. You will go there and collect an item that you will then bring to me.”
    “That’s all?”
    “That is all, yes. A simple task that I would imagine even you can accomplish.” Sebastian said with a hint of mockery in his smooth tones.
    “Are you at least going to pay me for doing this?” I asked hopefully.
    “Of course not.”
    “Come on, you owe me.”
    “I do?”
    “You set fire to my flat.” I said, “I have to give up my job because I can’t sit in a sunlit office all day and I have no money.”
    “That is not my problem.” Sebastian said before he ended the call.
    “Well that seemed to go well” Beth commented.
    “He’s a prick.” I said as the phone vibrated in my hand. I glanced down at the display to see a text had arrived from Sebastian’s number. I noted the address and tossed the phone onto the couch.
    “Looks like I’m going out” I said with a sigh as I pulled on my jacket and shoes.
    “I’ll drive” Beth said happily.
    “You don’t have to come. I’m the one who is stuck working for him.” I said as I put on the baseball cap and Beth’s shades.
    “I have nothing to do anyway and it beats sitting around here or looking for a job.” She said.
    “What happened to your job?” I asked. “The one at the coffee place.”
    “Got fired on Friday, I told you that.” She said with a grin, “Though you were busy being felt up by your Vampire friend so must have missed it.”
    “He didn’t touch me.” I said before asking anxiously “did he?”
    Beth laughed as she led the way out of the door and I followed her muttering to myself before catching up with her as she reached the lift.
    “So where we headed?” she asked.
    “Some place called ‘Magik Earth’ in town.”
    “Oh yeah, I know that place. It sells crystals and all that Wicca stuff.”
    “How do you know it?” I asked curiously as we got into the lift.
    “Remember Mel?” she asked and I nodded, “Well she was into all the new age stuff and when we were dating she insisted that I go buy some crystals to help heal my aura or some stupid thing like that.”
    “I take it they didn’t work.” I said with a grin that she ignored.
    The lift came to a stop on the ground floor and I squinted, knowing that the lift doors opened in front of the glass panelled doors of the entrance to the block of flats and I didn’t want to be blinded by the sunlight.
    Beth led the way out of the flats and along the path that wound around to the car park at the back of the building. Even behind the shades, the morning sunlight was painfully bright and I could feel the beginnings of a headache.
    Two large metal bins sat at one side of the cracked tarmac that made up the car park. Black bin liners full of rubbish were overflowing and littered the ground. It looked like an animal had gotten into the bags as several were split, their contents strewn around.
    “I don’t know why you live in this dump” I said to Beth as I pinched closed my nose to try and