Vampire State of Mind, page 3
And that, give or take the occasional use of bad language, is what I tell the kids. Takes twenty minutes, half-an-hour, then we do the Q&A, and I’m back in the office by lunchtime.
‘I bought you egg-and-cress.’ Liam dropped the sandwiches in front of me. ‘Any amusing questions today?’
‘Not really.’ I tore into the packet. I was starving, my own fault for getting sniffy and not eating the Wensleydale last night. ‘A Year Nine boy asked if you could catch vampirism from drinking out of the same glass as a vampire, that’s about it.’
‘And you said?’
‘I said you’re in far more danger of getting vamped if you spill his pint.’ I chewed. ‘Anything happen while I was out?’
Liam flipped his computer screen. ‘A lot of movement,’ he said. ‘And I mean a lot. They all seem to have permits though; they’ve been scanned through from their city of origin, no probs.’
Every city has a vampire quota. Stops anywhere getting overloaded, and keeps the Hunters in work. God knows what they’d do if all the vamps stayed put and behaved; form a rock band probably. Our quota for this area of York is seventeen, and most of them worked for Sil.
‘How many do we have?’ Liam tilted the screen towards me. ‘Two hundred? What the hell is going on? And it’s not just vampires, we’ve got zombies, ghouls, were-creatures. When did we become undead central?’
‘There’s some kind of thing on, apparently, a gathering.’
‘Right. So the vamps are having a social? That is weird. No, it’s more than weird, it’s nasty.’
Liam gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘I’m only telling you what I know and, given that there are dust-mites in this office that rank higher than me, that’s not a lot. The Enforcement team might have some info, it’ll be an “all leave cancelled” occasion.’
‘Harry didn’t say anything last night. I’m not sure they’ve even heard about it.’
‘You’ll have to call Sil, then.’ Liam solemnly pulled an overlong piece of cress from his mouth.
‘Is that meant to be a joke?’
‘I’m only saying.’
‘Well, don’t.’
There was a slightly stiff pause. I concentrated far harder on my food than an M&S sandwich really merited, and it was Liam who cracked first. ‘Why not ring Zan?’
‘Could, I suppose. But is it really his brief? Sil is meant to be in charge of York.’
‘Yeah, but Zan is the nearest thing to an assistant he has. He might know something, and that’s more than we know now.’ Liam averted his eyes. ‘If you’re serious about not speaking to Sil.’
‘I’m not merely serious about it, I’m stony-faced.’
‘Yeah,’ Liam said slowly. ‘I can see that.’
Sil had come to the office and offered to work with us … how long ago now? Three years, four? Said he wanted to get some experience in how things were done from the human perspective and he’d sounded so keen, so eager to make things work, to make the city a better place … And, of course, he’d looked so amazing, with that switch of dark hair and those eyes … not that that had influenced me at all, of course. No. He’d purely come to assist and he and I had worked together so well … so well until … We’d been talking about that day’s tagging – Sil had been investigating a Hunter we suspected of taking bribes – and then he’d curled his fingers into my hair, cupped my chin with his other hand, and kissed me. Nothing more, nothing less. But I’d responded. For that one moment I’d given Sil the benefit of years of pent-up emotions, stresses and lustings. The desires I’d kept locked away for so long – he’d got it all.
Because I wanted him.
And then I’d felt the fangs and I’d pulled away. Shouted something, I can’t remember what, slapped my open palm against his face and watched him grow even paler, felt his demon react to the sudden withdrawal of desire – and known that I’d blown it. And it was anger with myself more than with him that had caused the huge argument with accusations on both sides, mine of his taking advantage of his position, of trying to indoctrinate me, cultivate me until he could infect me, his of my prejudices, my unfounded fears.
You don’t love a vampire. You can’t.
‘I’ll give Zan a call. When I’ve finished eating. I can’t talk to him with my mouth full of egg, you know what he’s like.’
‘You could get in touch with Head Office. They might know something.’
I snorted. ‘Yeah, right! They think that you are a five-year-old child prodigy and that my name is Maximillian Snowbottle.’
Head Office set up the Liaison department to run as back-up to Enforcement, but they seemed to get a bit embarrassed about our role as communicators. In a lot of people’s eyes (particularly that ninety-five per cent of the population who couldn’t tell a vampire from any other slightly deranged person) vampires shouldn’t be acknowledged, as long as they stuck to their side of the Pact and we stuck to ours. Talking to them, in the eyes of the tabloid fraternity, only made them worse. The only good vampire was one who blended so totally with the human population that it was invisible; and it ought to be hard working and clean living, too. Therefore Head Office thought it more politic to forget all about us, so although we’re technically part of the York District Council, in practice we look after ourselves. They pay the wages and throw occasional lumps of money our way, for ‘equipment’, but apart from that we’re on our own. Certainly as far as the media is concerned, anyway. We work stupid hours, three weekends in four, and supposedly have days off ‘in lieu’. We haven’t worked out what they’re in lieu of yet – a living wage is our best guess.
I finished my sandwich and put an Internet call through to Zan. He’s sort of my equivalent in the vampire world; while it’s Sil that keeps the Otherworlders in line, Zan is the one who has to file the complaints. He’s very together, stupendously attractive, and makes me feel clumsy and stupid. Which, I think, is intentional. And, probably, not hard.
‘Ah, Jessica. How lovely to see you again.’ Just my luck, he was web-camming. ‘You appear to have egg on your chin.’ His eyes moved off me and took in the office background. ‘Also, you seem to have been burgled.’
‘Sorry,’ I muttered, and wiped the egg off with my wrist. The jibe about the untidiness of the office I ignored. I could see behind him a team at work, and the Otherworlders believed in keeping everything electronic. They had a budget; we had Liam and me. ‘What’s this big do that’s happening, Zan? And how come I didn’t know anything about it?’
‘You probably need to talk to Sil. I’m not sure I can say anything.’
‘Zan …’ I let the inflection do the work for me. His general distaste for personal interaction meant that he hated any display of emotion, and putting a tiny ‘I might just cry’ wobble into my voice worked more often than you’d think.
‘A get-together, a gathering of the clans.’ Zan’s voice, even when he was trying to avoid ‘distressed female’ syndrome, sounded like old silk being rubbed with cat-fur. ‘Vampires like to have a knees-up as much as the next man.’
‘There’s zombies and werewolves as well,’ Liam helpfully pointed out over my shoulder.
‘Yes, well. We are very sociable.’ He moved so that the camera focused fully on his face. He’d been in charge of the Otherworld’s administration in the city of York for sixty years, and had held the city apart from the worst of the Troubles, and he still looked like Colin Firth’s younger brother, perfect pale skin and come-to-bed eyes, the bastard.
‘Come on Zan, what’s happening? I know as well as you do that vampires only like a knees-up if the knee in question is connecting with someone else’s soft bits.’
‘It’s the Dead Run,’ he said at last, sulkily. ‘Thursday night. At the Hagg Baba restaurant.’
Liam widened his eyes. ‘Hang on. I read about that …’
‘Oh God!’ I slumped back in my chair, an unheeded piece of sandwich falling into my lap. ‘I can’t believe they’ve let this happen here!’
Liam was searching for the e-update sheets that periodically got sent to us. He actually prints them out and archives them when they arrive, in case of computer failure. I roll them up and use them to kill wasps. ‘Where is it?’ he muttered. ‘I’m sure I put these in date order. Jessie, have you been using them to stand on again?’
‘Well, you will keep putting the Kit Kats in the top cupboard.’
‘That’s because someone has to keep you from overdosing. Ah, here it is.’ He pulled a two-year-old issue free and it slid from the pile with a shower of dust.
‘It was supposed to be Manchester!’
‘I know.’ Zan sounded aggrieved. ‘I know, and honestly, Jessica, I would not have had it happen here. Can you begin to comprehend the amount of paperwork this is involving? But somewhere along the line something happened and the powers-that-be moved it to York. Believe me, I am not happy about it either, do you have any idea of the complexities – ’
I leaned forward and turned my computer off at the mains switch. Liam gave a tiny moan of protest, but I think my expression stopped him complaining out loud. ‘So why have they switched it to York? ‘
Liam gave me a pained look. ‘If you hadn’t just shorted out our entire system I think Zan might have been about to tell you.’
‘I only turned it off.’
‘Without backing up.’
‘But …’
‘It was felt that York was more conducive to atmosphere for an interspecies competition.’ Liam and I swivelled away from the computer and towards the interrupter’s voice. ‘After all, the whole point is to allow Otherworld races to compete against one another and it was decided that Manchester was insufficiently, how shall I put it … impressive.’
‘For the Goth Olympics,’ Liam said, helpfully.
‘And who on earth are you?’ I stared at the man sitting perched on the edge of Liam’s desk. ‘And, more to the point, why are you here?’
‘This is the guy who came asking for you yesterday.’ Liam was taking the opportunity of my gawping at the stranger to re-boot my computer. He thought I couldn’t see the reassuring way he stroked its casing.
‘Malfaire.’ The visitor straightened himself away from the desk; didn’t offer to shake hands. But then, that was human behaviour, and this man … My usually reliable senses were letting me down. I didn’t recognise him from Rachel’s description; she’d said he had shoulder-length hair and this guy had his tied up in a pony-tail, she’d also called him ‘strange’, and, as far as I was concerned, this guy had long ago passed through strange and out the other side into ‘read far too many horror novels late at night and practised the look way more than was healthy’. Eyes, seville-orange-dark, swept over me and I felt a cat’s paw of fear stroke down my spine. ‘And you must be Jessica Grant.’
I drew myself up to full height and tried to project cool, capable business-woman, decently proportioned and not harassed, scruffy council-employee, wishing that she’d worn a suit rather than these elephant-arse jeans. ‘Why were you looking for me?’
He couldn’t be a vamp; there was something Otherworld about him – he certainly wasn’t human – but I couldn’t get a fix on him. And it felt as though he was trying to work something on me; some obscure kind of magic I didn’t recognise was washing up and down the surface of my skin like an oily psychic skincare product.
‘I came to tell you about the relocation of the Dead Run, actually. Seems that I’m a bit late on that score. Still, never mind.’ He gave a smile, but it was an unsettling one. ‘Please excuse me for letting myself in, but you were concentrating on some vampire or other.’ The way he said vampire made me think he wished it rhymed with ‘turd’. ‘And I also came to invite you to attend. Well, it’s not so much of an invitation as an order, but you know what the vampires are like. They’ve heard of Free Will but to them it’s an interesting concept.’
‘Sil sent you?’ There was something ‘off’ about the proportions of his face; that was what was so strange about his appearance. It was symmetrical, should have been good looking but … I inwardly berated myself for judging him for not being as stupendous as the top-notch vampires; he wasn’t exactly a gargoyle, just … odd.
‘Not exactly. Anyway. Here’s your invite, I’d better not outstay my welcome.’ A thick envelope was pressed into my hands and I felt the soft motion of a velvet sleeve as it brushed against my skin. ‘Please do come.’ His head inclined my way and he was gone, leaving only the trademark magical exhaust fumes which smelled like rubber.
‘Jessie?’ Liam had to shake my shoulder to attract my attention. ‘You all right?’
‘That,’ I said, carefully, ‘should be on screen, putting sinister character actors out of a job.’
‘But you fancy Christopher Walken,’ Liam said, mischievously. ‘You wouldn’t want him starving on the streets.’
‘He was just …’ I rubbed my hands up and down my arms as though trying to remove any molecules that Malfaire might have touched. ‘Weird.’ The envelope contained a classy, gold-printed invitation to attend ‘The Dead Run, Thursday at 8, Hagg Baba restaurant. Jessica Grant plus One.’ ‘I wonder why Zan didn’t just post the invite. Or mention it when we were talking … oh, no, silly me, it might mean he had to sound like he was inviting me himself and that would be dangerously close to sociability for Zan.’
‘Zan’s got social phobia.’ Liam brought up the tracker programme on my screen again.
‘It’s a good job the Troubles are over. Can you imagine a vampire hunting on the streets who hates actually having to have contact with people? He would starve to death.’
‘And who on earth am I going to get to come with me as my Plus One? That sort of thing always has press attending and I don’t want to be photographed standing on my own, they might give me some “comical” caption like “Liaison once again without a liaison”.’
‘That really upset you, didn’t it?’
‘It was a Charity Ball! I had a lovely dress on and all I got was that stupid subtitle.’
‘I’ll go with you.’ He lowered his head so that his hair hid his blush and coughed a bit, then said, ‘I mean, like, as a works outing kind of thing. Not as, like, a partner, thing. It would save money – we could call it our works Christmas party. Eight months early. To beat the rush.’
I patted his arm. ‘Nice thought. But Sarah would kill you, and quite rightly so – why should she get babysitting duties by default while you go off and have a night out? It’s okay, I’ll think of someone to ask.’
‘There’s always Sil.’ Liam kept his face averted.
‘I’d rather take my chances with the humorous tagline.’
‘Yeah, okay.’ He stared at the screen for a few moments. ‘Exactly what goes on at this Run thing?’
‘I thought you read the handout?’
‘Yep. I’m just checking that you did.’
‘They pick names of volunteers out of a hat, the runners have to make their way down a course and the winner gets the honours. Do I get extra points for mentioning that it’s taken place every year since the Pact was signed?’ I looked at the back of Liam’s head as he read through the list appearing on the screen of all the incomers’ names. ‘Liam.’
‘Mmm?’ He clicked the mouse over a name, nodding when ‘permitted’ flagged up.
‘That guy, that Malfaire, were you getting anything from him?’
Liam swivelled the chair. ‘You, too? Thank God. I didn’t want to say anything, thought I must be losing my touch. I’ve been sitting here worried to death that you’d chuck me out if you found out.’
‘I’d never chuck you out, you’re the only person who can get the computers to work. And, you’re right, I wasn’t getting anything either.’
We shared a round-eyed look. ‘And – tell me if I’m talking out-of-turn here, Jessie, but you’re the best I’ve ever seen at scanning the Otherworlders. You even knew about that Ian, and he’d fooled a whole television crew. You never get it wrong, you never even mistake one form for another. I’m an amateur in comparison.’
‘Are you after a rise or something? ’Cos if you are, a mention of my ravishing beauty never offends.’
He grinned. ‘It’s true though, isn’t it?’
I shrugged. ‘It’s a knack.’ I began to pace the floor of the office; it didn’t take long, there’s barely room for Liam, me, two desks and our computers. ‘So, any thoughts?’
Liam steepled his fingers and rested his chin on his hands. ‘Not vamp, we’d be able to tell. Didn’t seem to think much of them, either. A were?’
I shook my head. ‘Nah. Too slick. They at least feel half-human, this was way beyond. Could you do a computer search for me?’
‘I can try, but I think this might be a bit outside Google’s parameters. Might have to hack in to Zan’s system.’ Pause. ‘Again. I’ll have a poke around, see what I can turn up. You off out?’
I grabbed my coat and hunted round the office for my mobile. ‘Thought I’d go and ask Rach if she fancies coming out on Thursday night. Then I might just take a turn around the streets, see who’s out and about – someone might know something about our mystery man.’
‘Like his phone number, perhaps?’
I threw my mobile at his head. ‘I take it all back, you’ve suddenly become dispensable. Anyway, someone should be out there checking up on all this movement. There’s a lot of kudos goes attached to getting chosen and I don’t think the organisers care overmuch about whether or not the runner has all his paperwork properly signed and his movement permit in order.’ And besides, I wanted to get some fresh air. Our ‘mystery man’ had left me feeling as though I’d been in the vicinity of some kind of chemical accident, all clammy-skinned, and even my teeth felt dirty. Plus the little shop around the corner sold HobNobs, and Liam still hadn’t got the message that real meals should be at least 50% biscuit.
