Vampire State of Mind, page 26
‘Well, you wouldn’t, I suppose. It would be like giving birth to a life-sentence.’ I swallowed hard. ‘My mother – what was she like?’
Malfaire gave a little smile. ‘Ah. There was a lot more to your mother than met the eye, my dear. Very much more.’ The smile thinned at the corners. ‘But, if it is all the same to you, I don’t think it a good idea to give you too much information. Added incentive to keep me alive and well, do you see? If anything happens to me, all knowledge of your parentage will die with me.’ He studied his nails. ‘And, of course, when we rule her picture will hang –’ a glance at the walls – ‘just there, I think.’
He has pictures of her. He knows all about her, my mother, Rune Atrasia. The information I most want in the world. But …
‘Would you like some wine?’ I blurted out, trying to cover the tumult of emotion that was rioting through me. If I’d had a vampire demon it would have been a very, very happy bunny right now. ‘Zan keeps … kept a pretty swanky cellar; there’s some expensive stuff down there.’
Malfaire shrugged. ‘You need alcohol?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, with very heavy emphasis. ‘Right now, I think I do.’
‘Then we shall share a bottle of the vampire’s finest. Order your human to fetch us some.’
‘I’ll go and find him.’ Leaving the demon lounging in an antique chair, I fled down the corridor to the living room, where Liam had all the office equipment. He was crouched in front of the fridge. ‘Jessie, this had better work,’ he said, straightening up as I came in. ‘I am really not up for spending the rest of my life as that man’s domestic servant.’ He handed me a bottle. ‘Well, not unless it comes with a really smart uniform,’ he added.
‘This is it?’
‘Yeah. Zan helped out. He’s ace at mixing cocktails, it seems. Particularly this sort, which makes you wonder. Jessie, are you …?’
‘Don’t. Please. Where are the vamps now?’
Liam nodded at the wall. ‘Secret passageways run all over the house. Perfect for that mob-and-blazing-torch moment.’
‘They think of everything. Right. You know what you’re doing?’
‘Yep. The boys are waiting for the cue. They’ll let me know when you’re ready.’
‘You mean they’ll be watching? What if this,’ I shook the bottle, ‘doesn’t work?’
Liam gave a little grin. ‘Then I think we all die horribly in some kind of cinematic slo-mo.’ Then he reached out and unexpectedly touched my cheek. ‘Are you all right?’
I felt the tears heavy behind my eyelids. ‘I have to be. Otherwise …’ I choked off and shook my head. ‘I don’t think we’d like the alternative.’
‘Well, look at it this way. There can’t be many people who’ve had to get drunk on very expensive wine to save the world.’
‘Thanks.’ We stood a moment longer, then I waved the bottle and left. Couldn’t speak for the lump in my throat. If I messed this up then I’d never see Liam again. Not alive, anyway.
Sil waited in the passage behind the panelling for Zan to catch up. ‘She’s good, you’ve got to admit.’
The old vampire nodded. ‘Clever. Devious. Almost like one of us.’
Sil half-laughed. ‘I think that is what frightens her most.’ He pressed his eye to the crack, which gave a fish-eye view of the room beyond. ‘She has left the room.’ His stomach lurched in a way he recognised from when he’d been human. He was actually scared. It had been a long time since anything had had the power to frighten him, but the thought of Jessie alone with that demon was sending adrenaline spurts through his system and making his own demon writhe inside him. He closed his eyes for a second, feeling the thrashing monster that lay within him as though for the first time. The trade off. The thing that gave him long life and the strength to hunt, the thing that fed off the blood and the power and the thrills. The thing that made him what he was. His mind choked on the thought. Jonathan died in the alley with a vampire’s bite in his throat and a vampire’s seed in his blood. Sil walked away. And now I co-exist with a creature that has the power to kill me simply by leaving, a creature I sustain by allowing it to feed on any emotion which connects me to humanity.
He drew his fingers down the rough plaster inside the wall, digging his nails through the surface, trying to reach a sensation that would bring his mind back to where it should be. But all he could think of was her expression when she’d known she had to fight Malfaire alone. Her golden eyes holding all that fear and all that terrible knowledge as she’d tried to send him away. His demon pinched at his lungs. I can’t let her face it alone. It’s going to hurt her, it’s going to make her feel a little less human. She shouldn’t be alone.
Malfaire had moved into one of the State receiving rooms. An enormous desk, which must have been built in situ, took up the centre of the room. The remainder of the furniture, a green velvet chaise-longue, some over-polished mahogany woodwork and some truly horrible paintings, were all racked along the walls, leaving the desk looking like an island in an over-fished sea.
‘Ah. There you are. Thought I was going to have to come looking.’ Malfaire was reclining on the velvet day-bed effort, like Byron on his day off.
‘Liam found us this.’ I waved the bottle, and the two glasses. ‘So we can drink to our success in style.’
Malfaire took the bottle and scrutinised the label. ‘Not bad. Chateau Latour Pauillac. 1990, too. I almost revise my opinion of vampires.’
‘He’s opened it for us, but I’m not sure it’s had time to breathe.’ I put the glasses on a side table, hoping he wasn’t going to come over all posh wine critic and insist on giving it time to reach optimal drinking temperature. I wasn’t sure I could keep polite conversation going for much longer. ‘Shall I pour some?’
The demon yawned. ‘Why not? It may relax you sufficiently to begin discussions of our future together. I am considering giving you the North to rule.’
‘Lovely!’ I said brightly, wondering why Malfaire merited London and the ports, while I got the chilly half and the pigeon racing. Still, at least the M25 would be his problem. I wondered if that would hold up his plans for world-domination. I poured two glasses of the black-red wine. It was thick, almost gloopy, and smelled of blackberries with a metallic edge.
He raised his glass to me. ‘Let this be the first of many.’
I clinked my glass against his and took a small swallow. It tasted foul, but then I’ve never had much of a palate for wine. Give me a bottle of lager and a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps and I’m happy; the expensive stuff always reminds me of paint-thinner.
Malfaire, however, seemed to appreciate it. He sniffed his glass, took a sip and followed this with a larger gulp. ‘Hmm. A little tinny. Odd sort of aftertaste … seems to me that this has been massively over-rated.’ He did the whole slooshing about in the mouth thing beloved of professional wine-tasters. ‘But drinkable. Very drinkable.’ At last he swallowed. ‘Now. What do you think of my proposal?’
I refilled his glass. ‘Have some more.’
‘Jessica, are you trying to get me drunk? I’m a demon. It won’t work.’
‘Then there’s no problem. Drink up.’ I pressed the glass into his hand. ‘Can we negotiate for Birmingham, or do we have to draw lots or something?’
Malfaire gulped the whole glass down in one, clearly pleased that I was going along with his plan. ‘I will take the Midlands. Sheffield, however, is all yours.’
‘That’s … very nice. Trams. Meadowhall. All the … shopping I can take. Wow, you must be thirsty. Another?’ Without waiting for an answer I refilled.
‘There will be no need for shopping.’ Malfaire drained the glass in another single swig; he’d clearly stopped worrying about the bouquet and the after-taste. The wine, and its addition, must be cutting in already. ‘That is why we have the humans. They may be a nuisance, but we need to retain some to feed the vampires that we choose to keep alive.’ He smiled. ‘I am thinking we may spend the weekends hunting them for sport.’
‘Well, I’ve never liked football much.’
‘I thought of starting with your pet. He looks as though he could run quite quickly, doesn’t he? Particularly with … what, Shadows after him? Or wights? Which would you prefer to see tear him apart, Jessica?’
‘No!’ I wasn’t fast enough to keep my mouth shut and a sudden flare of magic sparked between us, sending a flash of pain all the way up to my shoulder. ‘Ow!’
‘I apologise. Automatic response.’ Malfaire smiled that cat-like smile again. ‘Purely defensive, you understand, nothing personal.’
So he doesn’t really trust me, I thought. He’s not completely stupid. I tried to move smoothly, unthreateningly and not say anything inflammatory. ‘No, I should apologise. I’m still getting my head around …’ I waved an arm. ‘It’s taking some getting used to.’ My heart raced as he slumped back against the velvet of the chaise. His expression had changed to surprise, tinged with a vacant kind of bliss and I felt a momentary relaxation of the muscles between my shoulder blades. This just might work. But it means …
Malfaire breathed heavily. ‘What is this? It’s like my whole skin is alive … dancing.’ Another deep breath. ‘I’ve never felt anything like it.’
‘You obviously don’t go to the right parties.’
I waited until his eyes rolled closed, then moved towards the door. ‘Where are you going?’ Malfaire’s voice was slurred as though his tongue was numb. ‘Jessica?’
Keep him calm. Don’t risk him firing off more spells; someone could get hurt. ‘Yeah, I’m here. Just getting myself another glass of wine.’
I tiptoed over the carpet to the door. I’d been expecting Liam, but it was Sil crouched behind it holding my gun.
‘What are you …?’ I began, but he raised a finger to his lips.
‘Hush.’ He pushed the tranq gun into my hand. ‘I don’t want you to be alone, Jessie.’
‘Do you mean now, or generally?’ I whispered.
‘Still not the right time for this conversation,’ he hissed back.
‘Jessica? Jessica, where are you?’ Malfaire’s voice floated from the chaise. ‘I feel fantastic.’
‘I’m here.’ I motioned to Sil to follow me but he stayed where he was, eyes fixed on my braless chest and I had to poke him quite vigorously before he’d shift.
Malfaire’s eyes were black. No trace of the gold now; just two huge pupils trying to focus. ‘I’m flying.’
‘Damn straight.’ I approached his slumped form and hefted the tranq gun. Felt its familiar weight against my palm and looked down on the demon. He’d begun to laugh, bonelessly sprawled across the velvet, unsuspecting. This wasn’t right. I didn’t have the power to take a life, not when he was so out of things, so unable to defend himself or even to know what was happening. I lowered the gun again. ‘I can’t do this.’
Malfaire was suddenly focusing. On me. On the gun. I heard Sil shout, ‘Jessie, look out!’ and then there was a confusion of movement and a sting of energy flipped the gun from my hand to slither underneath the chaise; suddenly I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, wrapped in those coils of magic and held rigid.
‘I’m impressed, I really am.’ Malfaire’s voice was dreamy, the blood that we’d mixed into the wine was still pounding through his system; the lack of coordination it produced was probably the only reason that I wasn’t already dead. ‘But you do realise, don’t you –’ my body rotated until my head pointed downwards and I started to feel sick – ‘that getting you on my side for the war was purely out of the goodness of my heart. I was always going to end you, Jessica, whether you were with me or not.’ A vomit-inducing movement wafted me into the air above him and he raised his head to smile an unfocused smile into my face. ‘And the killing part is always so much fun. It’s a shame you can’t ask your mother about it.’
Sil shouted, some wordless sound, and charged, getting halfway across the room before the magic caught him in its coils and flung him through the doorway. I heard the crack as he hit the door frame on his way, a rising shriek which ended suddenly in a loud bump, and then the regular thumping and scuffing sound of a body sliding along the tiled hallway, hitting panelling and furniture all the way to the front door.
‘Sil!’ I moved and the magic surrounding me turned to jelly then to air and I was down on the floor beside the chaise, hand closed around the gun. I felt shakily cold and my fingers were numb but the tranq gun sat easily in my hand, slightly warm.
I brought it up suddenly, slid it over the edge of the chaise, along Malfaire’s side to rest against the bottom of his rib cage. ‘Sil,’ was all I could say. Then I bit my lip, hard, and pulled the trigger.
There was a moment of confusion. Malfaire gave a gasp. I stood up to make sure my shot had hit home and he grabbed me, pressed me against his chest. He was smiling. Then I saw his eyes clear, the effects of my blood falling from him. ‘What’s happening?’
‘It’s called dying.’ I wrenched myself from his grasp and knelt beside him. ‘And I’m sorry. Really I am. But you shouldn’t have killed my mother and hurt Sil.’
‘I am immortal!’ It was a choked shout, one with more hope than expectation behind it. ‘This cannot …’
A sudden backwash of loathing scalded through my veins. ‘Yes, it can.’ I held up the gun. ‘You can only be killed by your own flesh and blood. Remember?’ Thanks to Liam, thanks to his organisation, his compulsion to keep, to file, we’d kept the rest of my blood sample that I’d taken for the testing unit and Zan had mixed it in with the wine. The tissue sample from Malfaire, the sample I’d stolen in the Hagg Baba for testing, Liam had loaded into an empty tranq cartridge. And I’d fired it. Without the needle, it had scythed through his flesh into his body and passed right through whatever organ he had that stood in place of a heart. ‘Your own flesh and blood, armed with your own flesh and blood. That’s what it takes,’ I leaned down and hissed into his ear, ‘for future reference.’
Then my knees gave way and I collapsed backwards, off the chaise and on to the carpet, as Malfaire writhed once more and lay still. The room became silent; an odd, cold silence that crept under my skin and into my veins with the chill.
‘I killed him. I killed him.’ The words were sobbed out with my breath. ‘I killed him.’
Sudden arms around my shoulders. I shrugged them off but they came back. ‘Jessica.’
‘I killed him.’ I looked up. Zan was standing, staring at the body with an expression of hunger. Liam was beside me, drawing me into his chest. ‘I killed him.’
Liam looked into my face. It clearly took some effort and I wished I’d had time to find my bra. ‘Oh, Jessie. You did it.’
‘Sil. We must go to Sil. Malfaire threw him …’ I couldn’t even finish the sentence.
‘We saw.’ Liam stood up, pulling me from the blood-soaked carpet with him despite the weakness in my legs.
‘Is he all right?’ I was shivering now, uncontrollably, leaning against him simply to stop myself going down again. ‘Is he?’
‘He’ll be fine. He’s lying there groaning, but he looks way too good to be dying, if you ask me.’
I tore from the room, my feet leaving bloody prints and sticking slightly to the carpet as I went. ‘Sil!’ Down the hallway, half-noticing the broken newel-post, the shards of wood, the random splinters of plastic and the shine of electrical components from the smashed telephone. ‘Oh God, Sil.’
He lay against the front door, his body coiled around itself and his eyes a complicated colour. ‘Hey, Jessie.’ He managed a grin. ‘You got him then.’
‘Don’t you dare die, you bastard.’
‘I don’t intend to.’ A wince and a grimace. ‘But I’ve damaged a leg, I think.’
‘I thought he’d killed you. I couldn’t have pulled the trigger otherwise.’
Sil smiled. ‘So my plan worked?’
‘That was not a plan! That was the opposite of a plan, the antithesis of planning. That was dashing in and ruining what would have been a perfectly good plan if you hadn’t spoiled it all by trying to be a hero!’
‘So, you did have a plan, did you?’
The adrenaline was beginning to slide out of my body, leaving me cold. I watched his demon take the last draught of my elation and panic, moving behind his eyes like an unwanted thought. ‘No. No plan. Just terror.’
Sil stretched out a hand, palm up and I stared at it for a moment. I couldn’t tell if he meant it as a gesture of surrender or to ward me off until he spoke. ‘Help me up, will you? I’m healing but I’m not that fast.’ I reached out and pulled and he slid easily against me. ‘I promised your mother I’d keep you safe,’ he said quietly. ‘Didn’t do much of a job, did I?’
I gave a half-sob but muffled it. ‘I’m fine. Well, feeling a bit sordid, but it could have been worse.’
Oh-so-gently he touched my face. ‘You aren’t a monster, Jessie. You did what you had to do for all of us.’ Those grey-green eyes looked down through mine, into my heart. ‘He would have mustered an army of the Dark against the Treaty, killed everyone who stood against him. Hell, you’ve probably saved the world.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s something.’ I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes. ‘So why do I feel like I’ve lost everything, Jonathan?’ I whispered.
Sil flicked his eyes along the corridor. Zan and Liam were hanging around trying not to look as if they were listening. ‘Give us a second, guys.’
‘Jessie?’ Liam half-called. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Sil. ‘We need to put an insurance claim in to the council, you could write it up. Do a spreadsheet; you know it always calms you down, writing a spreadsheet.’
He laughed. ‘Okay. As long as you’re all right with Mister Bitey.’
I felt Sil’s demon move, reacting to my proximity. ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.’ My voice shook a bit but sounded strong. I was proud of myself. As Sil said, I’d probably saved the world and that was pretty good going for someone who wasn’t sure what HTML was.
