Vampire State of Mind, page 11
‘Perhaps not.’ Zan gave an alien shrug. ‘But worth a try.’
‘I haven’t done this in a long time.’ Sil shot Natalie a quick look. He was turning her on, and that was exciting his demon, which was ratcheting up the tension and locking the pair of them in a self-feeding loop. Oh, I knew how it worked all right. I bet he was loving it. ‘Here we go.’
Grey eyes darkened. His pupils seemed to bleed out, the grey shrinking further and further under the darkness, and then further out, beyond the iris and into the pale whites, until the whole eye was a black, mirrorlike surface. ‘Mike. Look at me.’
Mike was a mass of fear. Sil’s voice added to that fear and I watched with a measure of pity as a large damp stain spread across the front of his jeans.
‘Look. At. Me.’
I had to fight my own feet from turning me round, the voice was that compelling. Natalie took two steps towards Sil and I put my hand on her arm to stop her from walking right into the vampire glamour. And glamour was the right word for it. Sil looked amazing. The huge, dark pits that his eyes had become made his skin look translucently pale, and his hair look like slashes into midnight where its blackness trailed across his face. His perfect bone structure stood out like a porcelain mask and he looked taller, more alien than ever before. Something inside me squeezed painfully.
‘I can’t …’ Natalie moved another step closer.
‘Don’t look at the eyes,’ I said, keeping my voice low so as not to break the hold Sil had on Mike. ‘Try the groin,’ I added, rather tightly. ‘It seems to be distracting you already.’ She gave me a sharp look which I returned with extra edges. ‘You’re welcome to him, believe me, just don’t start choosing curtains. He’s typical vamp, all about the novelty.’
After a few seconds of mental lock-down, Sil released his hold and Mike crumpled to the floor, sprawling on Daim’s less-than-savoury floor covering with his face in something that looked like the remnants of a pasty. ‘He’ll remember killing,’ Sil said, his voice sounding rather far away. ‘I thought that was punishment enough, to remember killing your best friend.’
‘But you couldn’t tell who glamoured him first time round?’
‘No. I couldn’t take him back that far. There’s a block in there, something that cut out whenever I got close to the memory.’ Sil shook his head as though clearing a thought. ‘Something that could stop me getting deep into his head. Into a human’s head.’
Forgetting Natalie, forgetting Zan, we stared at each other for a moment. ‘Something powerful,’ I whispered.
‘Really powerful.’
‘But then, you’re not exactly Mister Alpha Vampire, are you? I mean, couldn’t someone higher up the chain break through it?’
‘Hey, you do know I run this city, right?’
‘Well, yeah, but it’s not like you’re all thews and biceps, is it? You’re more the cerebral type.’
‘Was that a compliment?’
I looked him up and down. ‘No.’
‘It wasn’t another vampire, Jessie.’ Sil came in close. I was uncomfortably reminded of those last days in the office. ‘It’s something else.’
‘What, then? I thought, apart from your lot and the weres and the zombies … that was it for the human-based component. And I can’t imagine a vampire, even one with Daim’s lack of attributes, letting anything else get close enough to glamour him.’
‘Neither can I.’ We were nearly nose to nose now. I could feel the static from his hair pulling at my skin. There was a huge chasm of ache inside me, regret, loss, grief, and I nearly fell into it when he reached out a hand and touched my wrist. ‘Something is very, very wrong.’
Zan’s voice brought me down. ‘Can I suggest that we leave Mike to come round in his own time and go and complete all the necessary paperwork back at the office? I need to charge the Blackberry.’
The spell holding me to Sil broke completely when I saw him move towards Natalie. ‘Yeah, good idea. Get the bod-squad in, deal with the mortal remains, then send someone to check that the boy is okay, will you?’
Zan typed the notes.
‘You softie,’ I said.
‘Yeah? You were the one who wanted to let him go. I’m letting him go.’
‘Knowing what he did.’
‘Should make sure he never does it again then, shouldn’t it? Nothing like the memory of death to …’ He stopped suddenly.
‘Sil?’
No response.
Natalie looked from Sil to me. ‘Do you two do this all the time?’ she asked.
‘Pretty much.’ Sil leaned closer to her. ‘We have a kind of hate-hate relationship.’
‘We don’t have any kind of relationship,’ I said, and marched out of the flat.
The music was loud, the lights garish and the dancers as desperate as they always were. If he weren’t so fucked-up right now he’d feel sorry for them, for their oh-so-transparent ploys and desires, their pathetically human mindsets. But not tonight. Tonight even the interlude he’d enjoyed with Natalie hadn’t been enough to wipe the memory of Jess’s expression from his mind, even sex hadn’t helped him to lose himself enough. He needed more to rid himself of the thought of those flame-coloured eyes scorching his, the weight of loathing in her voice as she’d dismissed any thought of him. Needed to forget …
The beat thrummed. Want. Crave. Choose carefully, choose one who knows what you’re asking. Who wants what you offer. You don’t want even a hint of coercion.
Sil circled, feeling the power and the grace that the demon lent flowing through him, muscle and bone. He found it increasingly hard to remember those days of humanity before this wondrous new vitality gripped him; all that came to mind when he tried was an overbearing sadness. But one of the most incredible things about carrying this demon was that he never had to recollect those times. Never had to live on ‘befores’ or ‘yesterdays’ because ‘now’ swept all in front of it. ‘Now’ was all that mattered. Carpe diem might have been composed for vampires – the day was theirs to seize. A girl slithered past him, all silk and lace and scent of willingness, and he turned to watch her pass, watching her watch him as he did so.
He had a sudden, unwanted, image of Jessica as he’d once caught her, trying on a dress in the office. Horrible, mismatched underwear and cartoon-covered socks, yet so, so desirable, even when her cold fury and hot embarrassment met to floor him in the resultant snowstorm of insults. Hell. Here I am, surrounded by eager women and I’m still thinking about Jessica. Who doesn’t want me. What am I, some kind of masochist? Am I getting off on wanting a woman who must be about the only female on the planet who doesn’t fall for the vampire image? What is wrong with me?
And there she was. A tall girl, all dressed in black, one of the vampire groupies. Not ideal; he would have preferred someone a little more innocent but hey, beggars and choosers and all that.
‘Not seen you in here before.’ She leaned up against him at the bar. ‘You new?’
Sil laughed. ‘Oh no. Far, far from it, in fact. Old as they come.’
‘Then you don’t come here often.’
The laughter died. ‘No. Shall we … dance?’
And as she cruised in his arms and he sated the other hunger, he closed his eyes and wondered what Jessie would say if she could see him now, what she would say if she knew about the emptiness that still lay in that corner of his heart. Felt her presence with another tug along that invisible wire that bound them, and wished he knew what the hell to do about it.
Chapter Twelve
In comparison to CSI-type Enforcement, the hell-hound hunt and the staked body, the next week was dull, dull, dull. Hey, I wasn’t complaining, I got to nag Liam into sorting out some bugs in the computer system, while I caught up with a filing backlog that had been propping the inner door open for weeks and finally read the instructions for that damned electric pencil sharpener. Dull was good. Dull was reassuring.
‘Uh oh, bad news, Jessie.’ Liam was checking his e-mails.
‘Please tell me they aren’t cancelling Doctor Who? Not sure I can stand you if you can’t do the “plot rundown” every Monday morning. And anyway I’m still not speaking to you.’ I was watching the tracker screen. Numbers of Otherworlders had returned to near normal now, which made boring viewing so I was also ordering a Tesco delivery. Extra HobNobs. ‘I do not have a moustache.’
‘It’s not my fault your nose throws a shadow on your upper lip – ow! No, look, it’s a mail from the blood-checking service we sent that sample to.’ He swung the screen of his computer around so that I could see. ‘They can’t do anything.’
I read. ‘“Due to lack of current data … blah, blah we are unable to verify the type stroke variety of lifeform stroke creature, any further queries please contact …” What on earth is that all about?’
‘Even they don’t know what Mr Malfaire is.’ Liam flipped the screen back around to continue checking eBay for mint-condition Cyberman suits. Wasn’t sure what he wanted them for and certainly wasn’t going to ask. ‘We’ll have to try something else.’
‘How much blood is left?’
‘Quite a bit. More than enough for another test. Why, do you know somewhere?’
‘No, but I think Sil does. Give him a ring and ask him, would you?’
Liam looked at me levelly. ‘You call him.’
‘He was horrible to me the other day.’
‘Sil’s only horrible to people he likes. It’s when he’s polite you have to worry.’
‘Okay, fine, if you’re going to make a big deal of it, I’ll ring him!’
‘Or you could go over there.’
‘Don’t push your luck.’
But, as the unpushed luck would have it, two minutes after I’d agreed to call, just as I was gathering up the necessary vitriol for a conversation with Sil, he arrived in the office.
I tried to pretend to type but the alphabet had become meaningless.
‘You’ve decorated,’ he said.
‘You left stains. Look, did you just come round to criticise the décor, or what? Only, we’re busy.’
‘So I see.’ Sil looked pointedly at Liam’s computer, showing the list of items that he was ‘watching’ on eBay. ‘I came over to see whether you’ve found out anything about Malfaire. Any inside information.’ He gave the last phrase a spin.
‘You mean you’ve come to pry into my sex life, don’t you? It’s a bit of a menial job, isn’t it, for a city vamp? Don’t you have henchmen for that sort of thing, or is it that you’re getting all prurient in your old age and want all the details first hand?’ And … breathe.
Sil just looked at me. He was standing inside the doorway, as though reluctant to enter any further into my territory, looking thin and drawn. His hair was straggling down over the collar of the big velvet coat he wore and his customary dark stubble seemed almost to be drilling holes in his unusually pale skin. He looked awful.
‘And anyway, it’s none of your business what I might – or might not – get up to with Malfaire. My private life is just that, private.’ I half-stood, daring him to accuse me, to make something of it.
‘What Jessie means,’ Liam threw me a querying glance, obviously unable to work out why I was being so short and snappish, ‘is why didn’t you phone?’
Sil swayed and his eyes half-closed. One hand reached to grab at the doorframe and missed, then his whole body crumpled inside his coat, going down on to the floor in a tangle of fabric, limbs and hair like a collapsing tent.
‘Shit.’ I shot out of my seat and over to the fallen vampire, checking for a pulse and feeling the clamminess of his skin against my fingers. ‘Sil? Can you hear me?’ I pulled open the neck of his shirt and slid a hand inside, groping across his smooth chest until I could feel the reassuring heartbeat and the tiny, settling movement of his demon reacting to my touch. ‘Sil.’
‘He needs blood,’ Liam observed. ‘He looks as though he’s starved.’
‘Is there any in?’
‘I think there’s a half-bottle of synth in the cupboard in the kitchen. Hold on, I’ll go and see if I can find it. It’s not out of date yet, shouldn’t be clotted.’
I stayed where I was, crouched down beside Sil, trying not to admire his long eyelashes fanned out across his cheekbones or the blueish, sloe-black of his hair contrasting with his bloodless skin like a monochrome photograph. He had the kind of sharp good looks that sit best on young faces. Fortunately he’d been infected nearly a hundred years ago, at the age of twenty-nine and had aged approximately half-an-hour since then. So, so beautiful. My fingers itched with the urge to touch his skin again. Except that, at the moment, he had all the sex appeal of a picnic table.
Eyelids fluttered, but when they opened his pupils shone in white irises and I couldn’t tell whether he could see me. ‘Jessie?’
‘I’m here. What’s up?’
‘Is there anything to drink around here?’
‘Liam’s fetching something.’
‘I can’t –’ Sil struck. Jerking himself forward as smoothly as a snake he missed my neck by a whisker, biting into the air as I moved away.
‘Sil!’ But he wasn’t listening. Crouching to his feet he hunched under the drape of his coat, lips drawn back to protect them from impact. He was hissing too, a long, blown-out breath of anger and frustration at missing his target, and when a vampire is hissing then it’s time to leave the room.
It was amazing how quickly I switched from admiring his unconscious beauty to trying to put as much furniture between us as possible. He was in front of the door otherwise I’d have run; instead I slid myself down behind my computer.
But, Sil? Attacking? All right he’d got that vampire attitude that made even cats look shamefaced, but this was way, way outside his normal behaviour. I dared a quick look between the legs of the office chair.
He was huddled, arms around his body, crawled up against himself as though resisting an invisible enemy. He was shaking his head and muttering. His eyes were closed and there was a feeling in the air as though ropes and nets were being woven from his words.
I closed my eyes and fought the ache. The urge to put my arms around him was almost a solid lump in my throat; the terrible, terrifying desire to touch, to ease his pain. I forced it away with every ounce of willpower that I had, trying to let common sense come to the fore – did I want to get bitten?
Oh, hell! Did I?
No. Stupid, stupid. Come on Jessie, you know what a vampire’s life is like. Do you really want to say goodbye to having proper, deep, real feelings? Do you want your entire existence to be ruled by the constant need for sex and thrills, all buzz and highs and never caring about anyone else?
And the one final thought. Just to be close to him?
My fingers grasped a wooden object from the floor. An HB pencil, not a stake – we weren’t allowed to keep any in the office – but it would do in an emergency. ‘Sil.’ I braced myself against the desk and came up sharply, my weapon held pointy-end first. ‘If you can’t explain yourself – and you’ve got two seconds, mate – then I’m coming for you.’
‘What are you going to do, sketch him to death?’ Liam appeared in the doorway, bottle of blood steaming gently in his hands.
‘He went for me!’ I said, aggrieved. ‘I mean, really.’
Liam stared. He knew, we both knew – all of us knew – the penalties for a vampire attack on a human and it made his skin pull tight and pallid around an expression of disbelief. ‘Jessie …’
I gave my head a tiny shake. Found that I would even have been prepared to lie and say that I’d invited the bite, it being illegal to solicit blood but not to actually drink it, in one of the Treaty’s more convoluted sub-clauses. What was done between consenting, if somewhat deluded, adults, was not a matter for the law. This was one strike that would go unreported.
Sil grabbed the bottle from Liam and chugged it down in one long, long swallow, still crouched down on the floor. ‘More,’ was all he said, casting the empty away so that it rolled off behind the water-cooler. ‘Quickly.’
‘What the hell is up with you?’
Sil looked at me, a vampire-fast flick of a glance. ‘Talk later. More blood.’
Liam and I exchanged a look. ‘I’ll pop across the road to the newsagents,’ he said. ‘They’ve usually got some, if you ask. Are you sure you’ll be …?’
‘Can you run?’
‘Sure.’ Liam was looking as though leaving me alone with Sil was probably even higher up his list of ‘things not to do’ than forgetting to record Misfits, but he took off anyway.
‘Right, you. Talk, now. I don’t give a bunny’s uncle how hungry you are, you can still talk, and I warn you, bitey-boy, you’d better make it good.’
Sil opened his eyes and I was reassured to see that they were their usual shifting grey. ‘Aren’t you afraid?’
‘What, of you? Nope. Was that the object of the exercise?’
‘I don’t – shit, Jessie, I didn’t bite you, did I?’ Again he huddled back into his coat, crossed his arms over his head and pulled it down on to his knees. ‘I can’t – I tried, God, I really tried, but it’s like – a craving, a need, like, worse than sex, worse than anything.’
‘The blood?’
‘Yeah. Coming round there, with you bending over me … I can smell you, I can feel your blood, feel it beating in your veins and I was so hungry.’
‘Sounds like me, with doughnuts.’
Sil gave a little smile. His fangs were still down, stained with the blood he’d drunk. ‘Yes, I remember you with doughnuts.’ The smile died. ‘But it was – I’ve never known it like that, yes, I’ve been hungry before, we all have. This was beyond that, it was all-consuming.’
Liam battered back up the stairs, arms full of bottles of lukewarm blood. ‘They didn’t have any in the heater, so these were the best I could do.’
‘You,’ Sil grasped two bottles, opened them both with his teeth, ‘have probably saved all our lives.’ Down went the contents of the bottles. I deliberately didn’t notice the overspill that trickled across his chin and ran into his hair. His skin was already a healthier colour, even his eyes had darkened.
