Camdeboo Nights Read Online Free Page A

heard a teacher calling them in class. Somehow the Latin made her think of the Middle East and hanging gardens next to a swirling, inexorable river Tigris. According to her teacher, these trees were invasive aliens that should be chopped down.
    A cloud of bugs already circled a naked light bulb that had either been left on all day or switched on early.
    Damon spoke. “It doesn’t look as if anyone is home.”
    Uncle Reinhardt snorted but did not reply, and climbed out of the car with a groan.
    “Mother?” Helen asked. “You never told us what Granny’s name is.” It had never occurred to her to ask much about a grandmother they’d never met.
     

 
    Chapter 5
    Oh, to be Young Again
     
    Trystan had new neighbors. Or, rather, new people had moved into the old Schroeder house across the road. Unfamiliar voices rang out.
    Pressed against his lounge window, he wished he’d bothered with cleaning the glass that had, by his estimation, not been washed for almost a century.
    Had he really been here so long?
    When he wiped at the window, the dust coated his almost translucent skin with a fine, chalk-like layer that persisted, no matter how much he wiped his hand against his jeans.
    Not much could be seen through the broken slats of the shutter covering his window, but those young voices had unsettled him. Earlier, Anabel had thrown open the upstairs shutters so the windows blazed with warm, yellow light and now feet thumped on the wooden floors next door.
    More than anything, it was the subtle shift in Essence that had aroused his curiosity. Although one individual seemed almost extinguished, two hummed–the one a riot of pent-up potential, containing more energy than he’d sensed in a very long time.
    Eyes closed, he did something he rarely would, and reached with his mind, sorting through a tangle of thoughts. A mother, the dull one. She did not interest him in the least. Her energy points were blocked or leaking away into the aether.
    The son was marginally interesting, darting about the property bursting with fascination, almost able to reach himself, so alert was he.
    The girl, however, caught his fancy. She was the one who scintillated, although she kept herself contained, cautious.
    How would it be to drink her, assimilate that power?
    He locked down that thought. Hunting too close to home would be worse than foolish. The others would find him if even the hint of a mysterious murder so far away from the cities made the news.
    Then again, young women sometimes ran away from home, didn’t they?
    She carried a burden of resentment, which could be pushed–manipulated to serve his purposes. Her young blood flowed fast and she would be prone to making rash decisions.
    Trystan slammed his hand against the wall. Why must it always boil down to his need for blood, for energy? Couldn’t he just enjoy another person for who they were instead of wanting to eat them?
    He could always return to his kin in the big cities. He could abase himself before the elders and plead with the council to grant him some clemency for his crimes.
    Thou shalt not drink the heart’s blood of your brother and sister. Thou shalt not imbibe of their Essence.
    He could still hear that dreadful voice boom in his ears. No. He was better off out here, away from the accusing whispers and stares.
    Blood calls to blood. Always.
    Across the way, his new neighbors were so alive, so enticing, even in their very human dysfunction. Trystan tried to recall what being alive felt like but struggled to evoke all but the basics. There had been London’s dirty streets. He’d worked for an innkeeper, had cared for horses in the stables and also scrubbed floors. His name had been different, then. Matthew–when he had been alive. Yes. The straw, the warm, horsy snorts, it was a blur. He could no longer remember what it felt like to be warm, unless he drank the blood of the living. He dared not indulge too often. The others might discover him–drag him back to