Does blood smell?
I know for a fact that it is an odorless substance. Science says, when it is exposed to air for too long, it may smell metallic due to the presence of iron in hemoglobin. The crime novels I have read in the lazy Sunday afternoons mentioned it more than once. Blood smells metallic, even sweet at times, considering what species the main characters are.
Being a human, when I got a whiff of this smell, it made me nauseous. It was metallic like the books say, and it was also sweet, but what made me dizzy was the sickness in it. It was like there was a disease, a fruit that was rotten and was going to rot the whole world along with it. It was like a drug that I knew was going to harm me irreparably, I knew I was going to throw up if I kept on breathing in this stench, yet I could not move from my place. I stood there like a puppet whose strings were given in the hand of the tall, dark lady in front of me, and I continued watching everything, smelling the blood.
I stood there as my puppeteer continued hunting them down. Six men, handsome, mysterious, and powerful, and she was throwing them around like rag dolls.
"Fran, how do you feel?"
The person sitting beside my bed is Lucy, my step-sister. If she is here, that means Dad is here too. Lucy is the sickly, pale child of my family, who is never allowed to go out of the house alone. Dad is scared of losing her. She wears a pink, short summer dress that makes her legs look even more scrawnier than they are.
"Do you want something?"
I try to ask for some water, but my parched throat seems like sucking away every little bit of sound my organs produce. After trying vainly, I finally motion towards the jug full of water kept on the bedside table. Luce gently grabs a glass, fills it with water, and puts a straw in. She helps me up with great care and holds the glass in front of me.
After drinking the water I try to speak again. This time, it works. "What happened?" I ask in a hoarse voice.
"You had some kind of seizure. Aunt Josette brought you back. She said during dinner you were triggered by something." Lucy stares at me with confusion and questions etched on her face. I frown.
"Dinner?"
"Yes, dinner. She took you out, remember?"
I look down at my body. I am lying on my bed, wearing an oversized tee, with no undergarments on. Being in my room gives me some sort of consolation. When I first gained consciousness, I half expected myself in another place. Like a flash, I see the mansion before me. The spacious hall, where the six of them stood around me, waiting for something to happen, and where the lady appeared.
"You don't remember it, do you?"
"What?"
Lucy looks at me with something very similar to pity in her eyes. I don't like it at all, but at the moment I don't have the energy to tell her off. "I asked everyone about you before and after dinner, but nobody said anything to me. I had my doubts, but when they brought you home like that, I was sure. Aunt Josette took you too, like the others."
"Yes, and I am supposed to be the next matriarch of the family," I say bitterly. Then it strikes me. "You said 'they'. Who brought me here?"
"Aunt Joseet and one of her friends. A man, older than us, said his name was Lazarus. He had something strange about him, but you were in such bad shape that nobody questioned anything."
My heart skips a beat. That man was here. Lazarus was here.
"Instead of bits and pieces, can you give me all the information at once, Luce?"
She inhales deeply and looks around, like a kid who is about to steal cookies from the kitchen. "I have been ordered strictly to not share anything with you. Dad will kill me if he finds out."
I run two of my fingers over my lips to zip them up. Of course, I will keep this secret. I draw a cross over my heart and look back at her questioning.
"After midnight I heard a car stopping at the porch. Someone was whispering your name. When I looked out of the window, I saw Aunt Josette's rolls royce waiting on the porch. She was carrying you with the other man, Lazarus. Someone else was there too, inside the car. I think another man, and he was injured."
"How do you know he was injured?" I frown, trying to get the calculation done in my mind.
"I saw blood. His shirt was soaking, like he had been decapitated or something. I could see only one side of the man. He was shivering. But you were more terrifying." Lucy stops speaking and leaves her seat. She treads lightly to the door and peeks outside. She looks certain the next minute. Tiptoeing, she returns to her seat and settles down.
"When I saw you, I thought you were dead. You were so pale, it was inhuman. The dress you wore was torn to the sides like someone tried to take it off. I ran downstairs to get you. Dad was there too, he held me back as the man, Lazarus lifted you and brought you to your room. Aunt Josette followed him, and so did we. I was continuously screaming, but Dad looked surprisingly calm. I think he knew what was wrong with you." Lucy shudders.
"Dad knew?" Why wouldn't he charge at the strange man carrying his daughter in that state? Shouldn't he shoot him for touching me?
"Wouldn't that make sense though? All the women from our family went with Aunt Josette, do you think it would be possible without their parents' consent? You are still not an adult, legally, at least for another six months." Luce leaves her seat and sits on the bed. She touches my hand and whispers, "You are the youngest one, do you know that?"
"What do you mean?" I watch her fingers clutching around mine as we speak.
"All of the women who went with her were older than you. Lazarus said something that keeps on bothering me. He said that you were special. I thought all the women in our family were special, but apparently, you are something else entirely, and that makes you vulnerable. Do you understand what I am trying to say?"
We fall silent suddenly. Somebody is walking into the room. Heavy footsteps follow a steady beat. "Dad's here," I whisper and lie down. Luce returns to her seat and closes her eyes too, leaning her head back. Pretension is nothing new for the two of us.
He enters the room, stands for a miniute and then leaves.
Lucy breaks the silence after some time. If she didn't, I would have fallen asleep again. "He's left."
"Good. I don't want to talk to any of them now," I say. It has always been we versus them. the children of teh family against the adults. The curiosities against the skeletons hidden in the walls of this mansion.
"Saira has been asking about you since yesterday. Be ready for the interrogations," Lucy says before leaving my room.
I flick my eyes towards the small digital clock on my bedside table. It was a gift from Felix and Art in exchange of my help on a science project. I have been unconscious for two days. What happened around me during that time?
The most important question strikes me after that. What happened to me? Why was I unconscious, and what made me look like a corpse? More importantly, what happened at that hall?
I remember the smell. It came suddenly, hitting my nostrils, and then all my senses. I start taking backward steps in my mind, and return to that hall, with them. They were closing in, their eyes roaming all over my body. They looked hungry, not in a sexual way, in a more animalistic way. I couldn't think of how they were going to end me.
Then she appeared. Along with her, the smell.
Of course, they were all injured. Alp had blood on him. Ayo was so shocked that he could not move for a while. Lazarus had a gash on his right cheek. Felix had fallen on the floor in an impact, and Art was saying something. The last man, he just stood there, in a distance, out of the way of danger.
I am starting to understand the night now. Along with that, I am starting to understand the smell. The atrocious stench. I don't know how I know it, but I know it was the stench of blood.