Текст книги "The Cold Kiss of Death"
Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
‘Just so you know—’ I started, turning back to Malik, then blinked as I saw him texting on his phone. Why, or rather whowas he texting? He’d always struck me as a loner, not like the rest of London’s vamps, who could call on others of their blood-families. I shook my head and went on. ‘When I remove the Wards, the magic might do something to me, but don’t worry about it, okay?’
He looked up, curiosity in his gaze. ‘What will it do?’
‘Difficult to say, maybe knock me out for a second or two, or it might just make my hair stand on end, or maybe even nothing at all. The magic can be a bit capricious when it wants, but the effects wear off quickly enough. So just get out safe and come back at sunset with my alibi.’
‘As you wish,’ he said, and went back to his texting.
I gave Tomas one last look, not really wanting to leave him but knowing there was nothing I could do for him now other than find his killer. Then, I took a deep breath, held out my hands and calledthe Wards.
The magic hit me like a ton of bricks falling on top of me, smashing my bones and pulverising my flesh, filling my lungs with dust until I felt like I was inhaling razorblades. Somewhere in my mind I screamed as hot flames scorched through my body. Fire destroyed the edges of my vision. Hard hands circled my wrists, lifting me, jerking my shoulders from their sockets. Blood, thick and copper-sweet, filled my mouth; the reek of burning flesh was in my nose. And the bricks kept falling, and falling, burying me beneath a mound of magical rubble.
Chapter Six
‘Genevieve, my dear, I would very much appreciate it if you woke up now.’ The Earl sounded faintly bored, but as he was one very dead vampire, I decided I must be having a nightmare and went back to floating in the sparkling mist and golden sunlight he’d distracted me from.
‘ Now, my dear,’ the Earl repeated, more insistently, and a sharp pain in my hand made my eyes snap open.
A blur of red and black and pink resolved itself and my startled reflection looked down at me from the large mirror on the ceiling. I blinked as I took in the details. I was lying on black satin sheets on a bed the size of a small football field. There was a surgical shunt taped to the back of my left hand, delivering clear fluid from a drip, and three heart monitor pads stuck to my chest, their wires trailing out of view. My honey-coloured skin was mottled yellow and green with bruises, except for some pink shiny patches that looked like newly healed burns.
I didn’t look so good; to be honest, Frankenstein’s monster probably looked better. Oddly, I was dressed in a slinky red satin negligée that clashed with what was left of my singed and frizzled amber hair. The red slinky number was also at least two sizes too big in the bust area: it gaped down the front, not leaving much to anyone’s imagination. Around me the rest of the room’s décor kept going ad nauseam with the red and black theme: carpet, walls, even the ornate curtains framing the French doors and the pre-dawn sky. Yep. Definitely dreaming; hospitals don’t usually go for Bordello Tacky.
‘Good morning, Genevieve.’ The Earl sat on the bed next to me, blond hair flopping over his pale, aristocratic face, the blue of his Oxford shirt bringing out the azure colour of his eyes. The blue blazer and grey flannel trousers all contributed to his relaxed At Home in the County look—but the look was an illusion; he was the top dog in London’s vampire food chain ... or at least he had been before I’d killed him. Damn. Why couldn’t I have a normal nightmare, like running through an eerie forest being chased by something horrible and nameless, instead of a surreal dream about dead vampires in the middle of a weird hospital make-over show?
He smiled broadly, flashing his fangs. ‘I was beginning to feel a tad concerned for you, my dear. I have been attempting to awaken you for quite some time now.’
‘Go away,’ I said, only it came out more gawwwrr.
‘I knew you’d be delighted to see me.’ He patted my red satin-covered thigh. ‘And just to put your mind at rest, I am not a dream, nor some drug-induced hallucination’—he lifted my unresisting hand up from where it lay on the bed—‘in spite of the morphine in your body.’ He flicked the shunt and the sharp pain came again.
‘Grreeoffmee,’ I slurred, wishing he would go pop!or whatever dead-dream vampires were supposed to do.
‘I see that you are finding this hard to accept.’ He released my hand and we both watched as it thudded onto the mattress and bounced. ‘I must admit, I did myself at first, but I have become used to the idea that I am not truly dead.’
The pain in my hand receded and I tried to roll over in an effort to go back to the sparkling mist and end the nightmare. Or at least in my mind I did. My body stayed where it was. My own horrified eyes stared down at me as I realised I couldn’t move, my heart thudded slow and heavy in my chest and fear crawled into me on shuddering, drug-muted claws. Maybe this wasn’t a dream.
‘Iwatchedgoblinsscatterashes.’ My words still slurred, but I was getting a little more control now.
‘Yes, so you did. That was rather an unpleasant surprise.’ He smoothed a hand down his blazer lapel. ‘It was a much more pleasant revelation when I realised I had not quite shuffled off this mortal coil’—he flashed fangs again—‘or, in my case, immortalcoil.’
‘Happywithyoudoingshufflingbit,’ I muttered in disgust.
He sighed. ‘The medication is stifling your thoughts, my dear. It is annoying; I particularly wished to converse with you. Allow me to remedy it.’ He picked up my hand again and jerked out the shunt. I struggled in cotton wool-wrapped terror as he sniffed my inner wrist. ‘Your blood is as deliciously sweet as ever, even with the drugs.’ His two needle-thin venom fangs extended between his sharp canine teeth. Gripping my forearm tightly, he plunged all four fangs into my flesh.
Pain ripped through me and my arms and legs twitched like a dying fish as my brain’s message to fight struggled to reach my muscles. I screamed, but he clamped his hand over my face, muffling the sound as he pressed my head back into the black satin pillows. Then the world turned hazy and silver as his venom flooded my blood and hit my heart like a sledgehammer, and the pain dissolved in the rush of promised pleasure. My heart beat faster and faster. Heat and lust suffused my body as the venom-induced adrenalin sensitised every inch of my skin.
He reared up his head and inhaled deeply. ‘You know how this works, don’t you, my dear? With so much of my venom in your blood, your body will continue to crave sexual release, but it will unable to reach it other than through my feeding.’ He leaned over and pushed aside the negligée, smiling as he pinched my left nipple. I arched into his hand, the pain/pleasure nearly destroying me. ‘Of course, it would be quite crass of me to take advantage of you in this condition, when you are unable to defend yourself.’ The Earl gave a satisfied sigh and licked a spot of my blood from his bottom lip. ‘But it is edifying to know I haven’t lost my touch, as it were.’
I swallowed back the urge to beg, trembling uncontrollably as my body tried to cope with the venom. It’s like any other addictive substance: the more you get, the more you need—for vamps, it’s a great way to ensure your food follows you around like little blood-bloated sheep: a quick hit of venom with every bite keeps the sheep happy and healthy, and unwisely trotting back for more.
The Earl had given me more than a quick hit. If I’d been human, I’d be halfway to a heart attack. And that’s the bottom-line reason why fae blood is such a sought-after commodity by the vamps; it’s not our magic, or that we taste sweeter than humans.
We just don’t die so easily.
There’s somuch more fun to be had when your victims can survive whatever torture you choose to inflict. And leaving me primed and desperate was just another form of torture.
‘Bastard,’ I finally managed to gasp.
‘Now, now, my dear.’ He placed a warning hand on my stomach. Sharp need rippled through my body, forcing another desperate moan from my throat. ‘I would prefer you to keep a civil tongue in your head; our time together will be so much more enjoyable if you do.’
I gasped a couple of breaths, willing myself to ignore the cravings itching through my veins. The venom had cleared the clouds of the drug from my mind and my body. If I moved fast enough, maybe I could escape—
I still couldn’t move.
Fear blasted full-force into me.
The Earl could do anything he wanted with me.
Panic constricted my throat.
I couldn’t stop him.
I gulped for air, calm, wanted to scream again, stay calm, tears pricked my eyes. I opened them wide, not wanting them to fall, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, but felt their wetness roll down the side of my cheek.
He watched me, his blue eyes cold, detached.
Another tear followed.
He leaned over me—his breath in my face was musty and stale—and pressed his index finger to the corner of my eye. He followed the path of the teardrop, stopping when he reached the terrified pulse under my jaw, which beat slow and weak against him. He inhaled, his nostrils flaring in satisfaction. ‘Good. I see you finally understand the situation, my dear.’
‘What do you want?’ I whispered, hating the catch in my voice.
‘I would like us to watch the news together.’ He pinched my cheek, then lifted a remote control and pointed it at the wall in front of the bed. A soft hum filled the room and a large painting of an over-endowed nude male reclining on an uncomfortable-looking chaise longue smoothly gave way to a huge plasma screen.
‘Ah, here is the delightful Inspector Crane,’ the Earl said cheerfully. ‘I believe she has been searching for you, my dear.’
I stared numbly at the screen as I slowly pulled myself back from the yawning chasm in my mind. After a time the patrician lines of Detective Inspector Helen Crane’s face came into focus. I recognised her severe expression, her blonde hair pulled back into a tightly contained bun. She looked every inch the ‘I’m in charge here’ fortysomething poster woman for the modern police force, guaranteed to encourage ambitious new recruits everywhere. Factor in that she was a powerful witch, not to mention high up in the Witches’ Council and she sowasn’t someone to have as an enemy.
Trouble was, neither of us liked the other. We’d butted heads during the Mr October murder, and it wasn’t just because she’d wanted me to stay out of the investigation. No, our main bone of contention was Finn, my boss. At some point in their past, DI Helen Crane and Finn had jumped the broom together, and even though he said it was over, anyone could see she wasn’t of the same opinion. It didn’t matter that my relationship with Finn was nebulous at best; if DI Crane had been here, her feelings towards me where anti enough that I had no doubt she’d be cheering the Earl on from the sidelines.
I was thankful she was just on the TV.
And as she headed up the Metropolitan Police’s Magic Murder Squad, seeing her giving some sort of news conference outside the MMS headquarters, Old Scotland Yard, wasn’t any sort of surprise. The Earl turned the volume up.
‘—nothing more to report on the disappearance of Genevieve Taylor, the sidhe fae who is believed to have information about the tragic death of Tomas Eriksen, a local baker and businessman,’ Inspector Helen was saying. ‘Mr Eriksen was a much-liked and well-respected figure within the community of Covent Garden, and he will be sorely missed. Should anyone have information about the whereabouts of Genevieve Taylor, we ask them not to approach her for their own safety, but to call Old Scotland Yard immediately on the number now showing on the bottom of the screen. All calls will be treated as confidential.’
‘Detective Inspector Crane,’ someone shouted, ‘is it true that the sidhe is a suspect in the murder of Tomas Eriksen?’
Flashbulbs popped. The inspector’s three jade brooches and dangling garnet earrings glittered and for a moment I thought I could almost see the spells she’d stored in the gemstones. ‘We want Ms Taylor to help us with our enquires—’
‘Inspector, Kim Jones for the Daily Mailhere, what evidence do you have that the sidhe murdered Mr Eriksen?’
‘If she’s not the killer,’ came a shout from the crowd, ‘why are you saying she’s dangerous?’
The inspector held up her hands, her collection of rings looking like expensive knuckledusters. ‘It is believed Ms Taylor was injured when the bakery exploded, and is thus not fully cognisant of her surroundings; we don’t think she would deliberately hurt—’
Shock sliced through me. ‘The bakery exploded?’ I blurted.
‘How else did you think you were injured, my dear?’ The Earl muted the sound. ‘I understand there was a lot of loose flour around; the news bods have had an expert on to explain the chemistry, something about starch being easy to burn and dust catching fire at the slightest of sparks, and then, boom!’ He threw his hands in the air to illustrate his point. ‘The explosion looks quite extensive.’
Questions jumped into my head; I picked out the most important. ‘Was anyone hurt?’
‘Only yourself and Malik al-Khan, who is sadly much worse off and unlikely to be around in the near future to provide you with any aid.’ He smiled happily and briefly squeezed my thigh, causing another wave of craving to wash painfully over my body, effectively silencing my other questions. ‘Oh look, this is my favourite part,’ he said, pointing the remote at the plasma again. Through lust-blurred vision I recognised the bakery. The CCTV recording showed the back of someone– me—dressed in running shorts and sweatshirt talking to the florist’s lad. I glanced around, giving the camera a good look at my profile and then stripped off my sweatshirt ... The date-time stamp on the picture flipped to around half an hour later when the front of the shop exploded outwards, spraying large amounts of broken bricks, debris and dust into the air. Bright orange flames started to flicker amongst the devastation. The TV screen switched back to a picture of a silent talking head.
‘You do have a capacity for upsetting people.’ The Earl brushed a speck from his knee. ‘It really is rather careless of you, my dear.’
I stared at the TV, my mind sifting through everything. Was he right? Had I angered someone enough for them to kill poor Tomas just to set me up? Or was there some other reason? Whatever it was I wouldn’t know until I—or the police—found his murderer. Trouble was, if I walked into Old Scotland Yard without an alibi, DI Crane would have me banged up faster than I could say I’m innocent. She’d already convicted me in her own mind, and very nearly to the world. No way was she going to be looking for anyone else, let alone another sidhe, to pin Tomas’ death on—especially when I was the only sidhe in London. And then there was the fact that I amsidhe fae: unlike a human, there’d be no sitting in jail serving my time for me, just a quick one-way trip to the guillotine.
The Earl was gazing at me expectantly, and since he appeared to be offering me the carrot after effectively threatening me with his fang-tipped stick, I dutifully asked the question. ‘What’s the deal?’
‘Direct and to the point as usual. It is one of the several aspects I cherish about you, my dear.’ He licked his lips. ‘But of course, business before pleasure.’ He waved at the TV screen. ‘I can make this problem go away.’
Surprise, surprise. ‘How exactly?’
‘Why, friends in high places.’ He gave a quick frown. ‘Or is it low?’ Then he smiled as if I should get the joke. I didn’t. ‘Well, anyway,’ he carried on, ‘friends who have the same ideals that I do, and who are, very rightly, concerned about the current situation.’
It was my turn to frown. ‘What situation?’
‘Why, my tragic demise, of course.’ He squeezed my thigh and a slither of lust made me gasp again. ‘My passing has left a breach in London’s vampire community. I fear the lack of true leadership will result in utter chaos. All my careful planning, my nurturing of our current status, will be destroyed by incompetence.’
‘What the—?’ I stopped at the Earl’s admonishing look, conscious of his hand on my leg. ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’
His expression turned condescending. ‘Allow me to explain, my dear. I have worked tirelessly this last eight hundred years to ensure vampires here in my country are both respected by and respectful of humankind.’ He adjusted his cuffs. ‘It is how we were able to successfully recover our human rights; it is why we have not been hunted almost to extinction as in the Russias and the East. It is why we do not have to barricade ourselves into our castles as they do in the rest of Europe.’ He spread his arms wide as if to a larger audience. ‘To ensure that continues, I conceived the idea of vampires contributing to the entertainment and media industries, and thus elevating ourselves from the common perception of blood-sucking parasites subservient to the Witches’ Council to revered celebrities with the power to influence the human world as we so desire.’
Megalomaniac soap-box, much!
‘With my presence gone and me no longer the dominant voice,’ he carried on, ‘I fear that the reactionary elements within our society will force a situation where we have to return to hiding our faces, to pretending that we are something we are not in an effort to live lives of precarious comfort.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘That still doesn’t tell me what you want.’
‘You are my blood-bond, Genevieve.’ He beamed at me. ‘You will be my avatar.’
‘What?’ I was still none the wiser.
‘All will become clear, my dear.’ The Earl waved a dismissive hand at the French doors. ‘Sadly, though, our time together has run out. Dawn approaches, so I will leave you to rest until later.’ He smiled his charming smile and then vanished.
Stunned, I stared at the empty air, not entirely sure if his fang-filled grin had remained like the Cheshire cat’s.
Then I realised I could move.
I had to get out of here, wherever herewas. I struggled to sit up, my hands slipping on the stupid satin sheets, my arms and legs feeling like they belonged to someone else, the numbers on the monitor at the side of the bed flashing ever faster as my heart beat a crescendo in my ears—
The bedroom door opened.
A man walked in carrying a large wooden tray, a worried frown on his fortysomething chalk-white face. He wore jeans and a rumpled T-shirt and white gauze bandages were wrapped thickly around his wrists and elbows. He stopped at the bottom of the bed and looked at me from eyes magnified like a startled owl’s behind his wire-rimmed glasses. His hands were trembling enough that the contents on the tray chinked. Then the frown disappeared and he smiled, showing even white humanteeth.
‘Oh good, you’re awake, Ms Taylor.’ Little wooden legs clicked out under the tray as he placed it down on the bed. ‘I was beginning to get concerned about you.’
Chapter Seven
Istared at the tray’s contents: a chilled bottle of Cristall—my brand of vodka—sat next to two glasses, one empty, the other filled with orange juice; a small porcelain dish of liquorice torpedoes, and what looked like a BLT sandwich. Other than the red rose in a cut-glass bud vase, the tray held all my favourites—if it wasn’t for the fact that he was a vamp’s flunky, I’d be worried I’d picked up a stalker instead of a slightly worse-for-wear jailer.
‘Who the hell are you?’ I demanded.
Owl Eyes flinched as if I’d hit him. ‘Doctor Joseph Wainwright. Joseph. Didn’t Malik tell you—?’ A high-pitched alarm cut him off and we both looked at the heart monitor. The little red numbers were flashing 302: 302 beats per minute. I pulled the electrodes off my chest, wincing as the skin ripped away with them. What the fuck were they stuck on with? Superglue? The red numbers blinked out, the heart graph flatlined and the monitor’s alarm started squawking loudly. I slapped it quiet.
‘Whose blood-pet are you?’
His eyes were wide with shock. ‘You should be dead with a heart rate like that.’
Duh: not human.‘C’mon, Doctor Joseph Wainwright– Joseph—which vampire is your master?’
‘Malik al-Khan, of course.’ His frown returned.
‘Not the Earl?’
‘The Earl’s dead—’
‘The Earl was just here talking to me,’ I snapped. ‘He bit me—’ I stuck out my wrist to show him, then jerked it back and peered at it. There were no fang holes.
‘It’s the morphine,’ Joseph said in a conciliatory voice. ‘It can cause—’
‘Hallucinations, dreams, yes I know.’ I frowned as confusion filled me. It hadn’t felt like a dream. ‘He turned the TV on, showed me the news.’
Joseph glanced behind him at the muted screen. ‘I’ve had it on the news channel while I’ve been watching you. You’ve probably just absorbed the information.’
Had the Earl just been a nightmare? Of course, if I was going to have nightmares, the Earl would certainly be up for a starring role. And DI Crane, she was an understudy nightmare star if ever there was one. With her on the telly, no wonder my brain was playing tricks on me. But what if it hadn’t been a dream? What if the Earl wasalive? No way was I waiting around for him to pop up again. My heart speeding, I slid over to the edge of the bed and swung my legs off. My feet sank into the soft plush red carpet and a sudden attack of vertigo made me sway. I clutched at the slippery sheets, bewildered. What was I doing? Oh yeah, getting out. Getting dressed, and getting away before they came back, him and the inspector ...
‘Ms Taylor, I really don’t think you should get up.’
I frowned up at him—no not him, them: the two startled owls looking back at me.
‘I’ve been looking after you,’ they said, ‘and so far your injuries from the explosion haven’t been improving. I really don’t think you should—’
I tuned him out and squinted at the mirrored wall of wardrobes instead. Wardrobes meant clothes. Only the expanse of red carpet I had to cross was rolling like the sea. Why the hell was the room so big? I squinted again and a figure peered back at me, glistening with sweat, chest, neck and arms as red as the sea. All the red was making me hot and dizzy. I wiped my face, and the red-faced girl wiped hers. I looked down at my hand; it was damp with pink-tinged sweat. I had an instant of clear thought: I was crashing into a mega blood-flush. A sick feeling roiled in my stomach. If I didn’t do something, I’d end up having convulsions, maybe even a stroke, which meant I’d be unconscious, helpless ...
Panic bubbled up in my throat again. There was something—
A hand clasped my wrist.
Flinching, I jerked back.
‘Just keep calm, Genevieve.’ The words sounded firm, in control, and I looked up at Joseph, who smiled confidently back, his face slightly distorted behind a clear face-mask. I frowned; the mask meant something, something good. The panic started to recede and my mind started remembering what needed to be done. I took a breath.
‘That’s it, Genevieve. Now I want you to kneel down on the floor.’ He pulled me gently and I slid to my knees. ‘Good.’ He crouched and placed a green plastic bucket between us, his expression grim. ‘Now, I’m going to take some blood, nothing to worry about, so just relax.’ He held up another shunt, its clear tube trailing down to an empty blood bag.
‘S’not quick enough,’ I slurred, ‘need ... knife.’
His eyes lost some of their confidence. The shunt disappeared, then he held a scalpel in front of me. The blade glinted in the mirrors behind him.
I nodded, my heart pounding frantically under my ribs, a fine tremble shivering under my skin. ‘Do it.’ I pushed my arm into the bucket.
He touched the point of the scalpel to the red vein bulging down my inner arm. Watery pink sweat dripped off my chin and splashed onto his gloved hand. I heard him gasp and looked up, catching the nervous expression in his owl-like hazel eyes.
‘It’s been a while since I’ve done this.’ He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
I grabbed the hand holding the knife, felt him start, then I sliced deeply, scoring the vein from my elbow to my wrist. Sharp pain flipped into pleasure that rushed like electricity through my body. My blood welled, thick and viscous like molten tar, and the scent of liquorice and copper and honey filled the air. The urge to cut my skin again, to chase that pleasure, to see more of my blood sparkling bright along my skin was a seductive whisper, calling me, urging—
‘For the love of God!’ Joseph yanked his hand from mine, flinging the scalpel away. It clattered off the mirrors and landed noiselessly on the thick carpet.
Taking a deep breath, I sat back on my heels and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the warm, wet trickle of blood running down my arm. I listened to the faint splash as it fell into the bucket and the slightly fast cadence of his breathing as I waited for my heart to slow back to normal. Venom junkies had been known to die from blood loss once the desperate bliss of spilling their own blood short-circuited their minds.
After a while, I asked, ‘What day is it?’
‘Friday,’ he said quietly.
Damn, last I remembered it was Tuesday morning. I’d lost three days. I opened my eyes. Blood the consistency of runny honey still slopped into the bucket, but it was slowing. I squeezed my arm just below my elbow, pulling the cut apart; the small pain rippled into a promise of pleasure that had me squirming.
Joseph frowned. ‘Why are you doing that?’
‘My blood’s too thick’—an aspect of the venom—‘and if I don’t do this, I won’t lose enough and the venom will throw me back into another blood-flush.’
‘Ah yes.’ He looked down at the bucket, then up at me. ‘You’ve been heading for a blood-flush since yesterday; you’re hypertensive, and your red blood cell count is the highest I’ve ever seen. I was debating whether to bleed you or not before you regained consciousness, but your other injuries haven’t been healing, so I wasn’t sure if it would do more harm than good.’ His frown deepened. ‘I’ve never treated a sidhe before.’
I looked down at my patchy skin. ‘This isn’t bad for a couple of days.’
‘That didn’t happen in a couple of days. Malik gave you his blood as soon as he could. He carries the true Gift, so he healed you to this in about an hour. But there’s been no change since then.’
It was my turn to frown. That didn’t sound right. No pain, no gain; the words teased at the edge of my mind, nothing to do with exercise—wasn’t there something about fae needing to feel some pain for the magic to kick in with the healing? Then I remembered I’d been floating somewhere golden and warm, riding along with the sunshine, until my subconscious mind reconstituted the Earl and dropped him into my nightmare. ‘You had me stoked up on morphine, didn’t you?’ I asked slowly.
‘Of course, you were in a lot of pain; I didn’t want to see you suffer. Your metabolism works a lot faster than a human’s. I had to up the dose quite a bit before it took effect.’
Was that why I hadn’t healed? Too much morphine?
‘I shouldn’t worry about getting dependant or anything after this short period of use,’ he added. ‘When morphine’s used for pain relief it doesn’t appear to affect the addictive centres of the brain.’
I blinked. ‘I’ve got 3V, Joseph. It negates the effects of any other chemical addictions and it kills off any diseases or infections. ’ If it wasn’t for the obvious side-effects, 3V could keep humans as healthy as the proverbial horse. ‘Or didn’t they teach you that at doctor school?’
‘Sorry, yes, I know.’ He pushed his glasses up with the back of his bandaged wrist. ‘The reassurance stuff is standard spiel; you end up saying it all the time. Everyone gets all concerned about morphine being derived from opium.’ He shrugged tiredly. ‘But 3V only contradicts other infections when in the host; they’re still carried by the blood, and blood transference can still pass them on to someone who doesn’t have 3V.’ He tapped his face-mask. ‘That’s the reason for the get-up.’
‘You haven’t got 3V?’ I stared, surprised. ‘But you said Malik was your master?’
‘I didn’t, not exactly.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘You didn’t look like you were ready for a long explanation. I do a lot of work in Sucker Town—I’m part of the Health Department’s monitoring group—and I’ve seen the effects of 3V and I didn’t want to be infected.’ He indicated my arm dripping blood into the bucket. ‘Malik and I are friends; he would no more go against my wishes than fly to the moon.’
Friends? Wounded vamps don’t have friends, they have automatic survival responses. In other words, they mind-lock the nearest blood supply, sink fangs into it and the venom overdose turbo-charges the red blood cell production while making sure the victim doesn’t get the chance to run away, usually because they’re unconscious and paralysed by a stroke caused by the venom-induced hypertension. Great for the vamp, not much fun for any of his friends.
I looked at the bandages on Joseph’s arms, assessing him. ‘Malik can’t be too hurt, not if you’ve been feeding him.’ I pulled and squeezed my arm again. ‘If he’d gone into bloodlust, you’d be just another blood-slave by now.’ Or dead.
‘Yes, Malik’s explained all that to me.’ He sighed. ‘We’ve worked out a failsafe plan: a tranquilliser gun. If he’s hurt in any way, I shoot first, then ask questions later, once he comes round. The tranquilliser is the same one they use on big cats, like lions and tigers. I’ve been keeping him under the last few days so he’s safe enough to look after.’
Ri-ight!Well, that was certainly one way to deal with an injured vamp. I gave my arm another squeeze. It hurt, no ripples of anticipated pleasure this time. I checked my colour out in the mirror. The red splotches had gone, my skin was its usual warm honey—with the added pink and shiny bits—and my heart thudded a calm tattoo in my chest.
‘I’m about done here,’ I said. ‘You got a spare bandage I can use?’
He didn’t seem to hear, just stared thoughtfully at my blood plopping into the bucket.
‘Joseph?’
His head shot up. ‘There’s just over a pint there.’ Speculation lit his eyes. ‘Do you think you could manage some more? I wouldn’t ask but I’ve already transfused two pints of my own and Malik still needs more.’ His hands trembled where he clutched the rim of the bucket. ‘I didn’t trust anyone else to help, not with your problems with the police.’
