‘Yeah. Weird.’ She was busy adjusting her tights again. I took advantage to look around once more, fingering the tranqs. ‘Don’t look now,’ Rachel whispered at me from a semi upside-down position behind the table, ‘but there is a very gorgeous man over there, and he’s looking right at you!’

  Gosh. Now that was something else that didn’t happen every day. ‘Where?’ I whispered back, hunching forward across the table to try to see behind me.

  ‘Over near the stage area. Oh, God, Jessie, he is really, absolutely, pant-wettingly, amazingly stunning; quick, look, I can’t bear it!’

  I glanced across the heads of the crowd between us and the area set up with microphone and notepad for the announcement of the race.

  ‘Shit! What’s he doing here?’ I flicked back around and fixed my eyes firmly on the cutlery.

  ‘Jessie? You’ve gone all pale. What’s up? Do you know him?’

  Standing in a clear space, with his gunmetal-grey eyes turned our way, was Sil. Tall, with the effortless elegance inherent in the vampire added to by his own titanium-sharp cheekbones, a surprisingly gentle mouth and dedicated stubble in the planes and angles of his face that drew attention to their sharp definition. Totally gorgeous. Totally devoid of human emotion. A total heartbreaker.

  With obvious interest Rach stared across the restaurant. ‘He’s very pretty, isn’t he?’ she carried on. ‘Who – oh, I see, he’s with that dark girl.’

  ‘What? Which one?’ My neck cracked as I swivelled, in time to see Sil sliding his dinner-jacketed arm around a coffee-skinned young beauty, her long hair tied in a high ponytail, but still long enough to cascade down her bare back to where her dress, and bottom, started. He was no longer looking our way, but speaking animatedly to his companion, so I covertly studied him. He was thinner but as casually glamorous as ever with his night-dark hair messy over the collar of the dress shirt and his bow tie askew. So attractive that he didn’t need to try, and he knew it. Unfortunately, so did I.

  ‘Jessie? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing!’

  ‘Well, stop banging that wine bottle with the spoon, it’s really irritating.’ Rach stared around her again. ‘You never see vampires going round with their teeth out, do you? I mean, out fangy out, not, like, gummy. I suppose they get fed up with biting their own tongues. They sort of slide them back in when they don’t need them, don’t they?’

  I laid down the spoon very carefully and set my jaw. After all, Sil was nothing to me, had never been anything to me, apart from my assistant. Okay, so he was good looking and all that jazz, and we’d had a great time working together but, well, really, that temper. ‘Yes. Like cats’ claws.’

  A whine of feedback indicated the opening of proceedings and Rach and I pulled our chairs to the same side of the table to watch. To my astonishment, Sil left the girlfriend at a table and came up to the microphone.

  ‘Now, we all know why we’re here,’ he began – there were a couple of catcalls but he ignored them – ‘so I’ll cut the crap and get down to it. Tonight’s race will be –’ a dramatic pause gave me long enough to wonder why Sil was acting as MC; it was hardly the sort of thing I’d expect to find him doing – ‘through the carefully hand-crafted vision of York. And the runners, chosen by random draw from those who have applied, are,’ Sil opened the envelope handed to him by one of the uniformed human flunkies, ‘for the vampires, Caro.’ A very pretty female vamp stood up and acknowledged the cheers, looking stunned. ‘Tangent D, running for the Zombie nation.’ There was a small, muted cheer from a party seated so far over to the left that we couldn’t see them. ‘The Hog, running for the Wild Folk,’ a more raucous cheer. The whole audience looked over. The Hog turned out to be something I had taken to be someone’s guide dog. ‘Tasster, for the Night,’ a ghoul, I presumed, but couldn’t see, ‘and, running for the Humans,’ Sil’s eyes were fixed on the piece of paper he held. Watching his face I saw his mouth move and his eyes darken. ‘Jessica Grant.’

  I imagined it. I must have done. ‘What!’

  ‘Jessie?’ Rachel was on her feet, knees banging against the table, forks jostling out of the way. ‘You didn’t tell me you’d entered anything!’

  ‘That’s because I didn’t!’ I stormed out of my seat and began to zigzag between the crowded tables towards the Master of Ceremonies with sheer indignation overriding my desire to never speak to him again. ‘Look. You know as well as I do that humans don’t do the Dead Run.’

  Sil seemed to be struggling with himself for control, a muscle twitched in his nicely stubbled cheek. ‘Jessie.’ Eyes narrowed in an artificial smile. ‘It’s been an age.’

  ‘Just drop it, Sil, I’m not impressed,’ I snapped.

  ‘Don’t tell me, you can’t keep away.’ Sil’s grimace-grin became more real. ‘I ought to have known that even you couldn’t keep up the defiance forever.’

  ‘Don’t start changing the subject, you bastard!’ I hissed. I must have looked serious, because Sil started back, hands held defensively in front of him.

  ‘Hey, hey, calm yourself! I’m only saying.’ He lowered his arms and bent down to look into my face and the sudden familiarity of the smell of him took me back so fast that the breath puffed out of my lungs. He always smelled good, Sil, a mixture of dark chocolate and earthy scents, like a wooden box of cocoa overlaid with the subtle alluring vampire fragrance. The bastard. ‘Jessie, there is danger brewing, a whisper that something big is going on. I came here to try to find out what it is and now I am beginning to think someone has fixed this draw.’ He was almost whispering now. His dark hair had fallen across his face and was curtaining us from the room. ‘Someone wants you in the Run for some reason.’

  I lowered my voice to match his. ‘But the Run … well, it’s just a race, isn’t it? And I’d stand no chance against a vampire or a zombie … I know how fast you lot can move. Or shuffle, in their case. Does someone want me there just to prove how useless humans are?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Sil’s mouth was so close to my ear that I could feel his lips moving against my skin. I toyed with the idea of shoving him in the chest to force him to back up a little, but stopped myself. Physical contact with Sil – not a good idea. ‘But, as you said, humans don’t participate. There must be a way to get you out of it.’

  I stepped away and his head came up. His eyes followed my movements, as vampires tended to do, like cats watching very clever mice of whom they are slightly suspicious. ‘What, you think it’s beyond me? You think I can’t even stagger a couple of miles to prove a point?’ All my earlier indignation had gone, subsumed under the desire to demonstrate that I was just as good as a vampire. Well, maybe not as good, but certainly partially adequate. ‘Don’t you dare dismiss me like that, Sil!’ Being angry with him was the only thing that kept the feelings at bay. It’s hard to want someone when you want them to shut up and leave you alone.

  He raised a hand and long, pale fingers flickered as though he was about to touch me. ‘Jess…’

  ‘Back off, Sil.’ I turned so that my whole body indicated the end of the conversation. ‘My name got chosen. I’ll run.’

  ‘In that dress?’ There was a momentary heat in his words, whether desire, anger or sartorial comment I couldn’t tell. ‘I thought you always said you needed considerable undergarments simply to walk briskly?’

  ‘Excuse me.’ An intentional elbow caught me in the ribs, as purposeful as a pickaxe in a pavement. ‘Do you know this person?’ It was the long-haired girl, returning from the bar with jealousy raging in what passed for her heart. Thin as a knitting needle, she looked like someone who wore three wisps of lace under her frock, and had never needed the full-on support of a cantilevered bra in her life.

  ‘This is Jessica. I used to work with her.’ His eyes were calm now, misleadingly gentle.

  ‘Really? You never said. Was that how you learned so much about the human way of doing things?’

  Sil’s eyes met mine as we both remembered that night, the spectacular fight that had led up to him storming out. ‘Yes,’ he said smoothly, but there was a flicker of yellow across the grey, ‘that was how I learned.’

  ‘How lovely. Well, if you’ll excuse us,’ and she grabbed his elbow and steered him away, deep into the crowd, not wanting a proper introduction, not wanting history. If only it was that easy.

  Sil edged himself gently away from his date and rubbed the centre of his chest. Jessica. You can’t feel it, can you, that impenetrable net that encases us both, that unknowable, indefinable essence that binds us. You look at me and you see – what? An enemy of the kind that only a friend could become? He turned to watch her as she stood sulkily, both hands bunched down by her sides, talking to the chunky girl she’d arrived with. Despite everything, he had to force himself not to grin at the sight. She’d still got that aggressive out-thrust jaw, still kept her head up so that all that wonderful, curly hair sprang from its restraint, coiled around her face and made her look … innocent. Was that what attracted him, her innocence? Or just the body? Was he really that shallow?

  He breathed carefully and fixed his eyes on the dull carpet until the incipient erection subsided. Yep. He was that shallow.

  So. She was still Jessica. And someone had entered her into the draw. She’d never have come over so aggressively if she’d put herself in; besides, as she said, humans didn’t run – it wasn’t the point. Vampire versus zombie versus ghoul … that was how it went; putting a human in the mix was like entering a chicken in the Derby.

  He ran his tongue over the tips of his fangs, descending now as the anger burned its way through his bloodstream. His demon shifted, feeding on the rising adrenaline, pushing its way towards the surface and making him ride the situation in a way no human could understand. She couldn’t run, of course she couldn’t. She’d be a laughing stock. Or, more to the point, she’d annoy the other entrants until everyone started fighting everyone else and in that other dimension he wouldn’t be able to wade in and stop it. Hell, there must be some way that he could pull her out or rearrange the Run, something. Because if anything happened to her – what would happen to me?

  Rach came up, panting. ‘Wow, quick work there, Jessie! He is gorgeous, did you get his number?’

  ‘I’ve had his number for years,’ I said, sarcastically, watching covertly as Sil stood surveying the crowd. ‘A difficult man, our Sil. I hope that hag knows what she’s doing.’

  ‘Oh, so that’s Sil? The guy you used to work with?’ Rach stopped wrestling with her gusset for a second. ‘Wow. I thought you said he was a complete bastard?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘He doesn’t look like a bastard.’

  And there’s everything you ever need to know about Rachel in a nutshell. ‘Don’t let the looks fool you,’ I said, my upper lip curling as though I’d bitten into something delicious only to spot the mould when it was too late.

  Rach fiddled with her underwear again. ‘And you’re being very hard on his date. I thought she looked quite sweet.’

  ‘I meant it literally. She’s a hag. Like, you know, a kind of witch.’

  Rach’s mouth fell open. ‘What, really? Wow!’

  Yeah, wow. And she’d better not cross me one dark night, quota or no quota. ‘Look, I’m going to have to run, Rach.’

  ‘But I thought you said humans didn’t run? And anyway, you’re not dressed for it. Remember that time at school when they made you do the hurdles and you hadn’t got your kit and you tucked your uniform into your pants and one of the boys said …’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’ I thought about Sil’s offensive dismissal of my chances. ‘But I reckon I know more about the streets of York than anyone else who’s running out there. I just might be able to sneak ahead – and what will it say about humans if I can actually beat even just one Otherworlder?’

  ‘So you will run?’ A familiar, soft voice beside my ear made me jump.

  ‘Malfaire!’

  ‘The very one. Hello.’ He’d carefully subverted the whole evening dress thing and was wearing a ruffled shirt with no tie, a tail coat and a pair of exquisitely cut trousers. I couldn’t see his feet, but I’d take bets he wasn’t wearing Jesus sandals and grey socks. I introduced Rach but Malfaire’s eyes kept swinging back to me, almost as though he couldn’t believe I was actually here. They were the clear gold of syrup tonight.

  ‘I will, yes.’

  ‘Good.’ I felt the brief pressure of his hand on my shoulder. ‘Someone needs to show these vampires that they are not as supreme as they think.’

  ‘I’m not sure that they do, actually.’ And besides, my chances of beating a vampire were less than remote, more like non-existent. My only real hope was that I could cut off some corners unknown to the others and maybe get home before the zombie. They weren’t fast but they didn’t let a little thing like a leg half-off slow them down.

  ‘We’ll have to see, won’t we? I am sure that you have hidden depths, Jessica.’ And, with a scalding smile, Malfaire let the ebb and flow of the crowd take him across the room, leaving me wondering where on earth he’d got his opinion of me from, because it certainly wasn’t the local press, with their sarcastic taglines and peculiarly angled shots of my nose.

  ‘So, he’s going to try to get you out of it?’ Rach had stopped yanking at her tights and was staring after Malfaire.

  ‘No, I’m running,’ I said, still wondering about Malfaire’s faith in me.

  ‘Ooh, Jessie, your face! Are you in “luuuuurrrve” with the luscious Malfaire? Or is it something a bit more – primitive?’ And Rach did a lewd dance, with much recourse to her rapidly lowering gusset.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Mmm. Think I’d rather have the other one, Sil. Malfaire’s a bit smooth for my liking; give me a bit of the scragged-up rough stuff any day.’

  I let her words flow over me as I performed the metaphorical equivalent of tucking my skirt into my knickers. Malfaire seemed very keen on my performing well and I wondered why – there had never been a human runner in the history of the Dead Run. The whole point of the Run was supposed to be for the Otherworlders to show each other their individual prowess, not for some poor outclassed human to get stomped into the mud. They can stomp on us any time.

  The restaurant was so crowded that at first I didn’t notice what was happening. There was a general current of people moving towards the corridor which led, via the toilets, to the kitchens, funnelling out so that they passed through the doorway in single file.

  ‘Where’s everyone going?’ Rach popped up at my elbow.

  ‘Dunno. Maybe they’ve all got cocaine habits.’ I tried to smile at her, but my mouth wasn’t cooperating.

  ‘The doorway has opened.’ I twisted my head to the other side and found myself gazing at Zan, dinner-jacketed and with his hair slicked back, looking establishment for all he was worth. He was very tall, at least six foot three, and quite slender, so he should have looked like a well-dressed broom handle, but there was something eerily imposing about him. ‘They are heading down to the viewing point. Jessica, are you all right?’

  ‘What’s going on, Zan? Sil said he thinks something is happening …’

  Zan looked at me directly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, and normally Zan knew everything; like I said, he’s run the paperwork for this area for sixty years. ‘But Sil thinks you are at the centre of it.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Trying to stop the Run.’

  ‘So, do we go now, or what?’ Rach stepped forward and Zan put out a hand to stop her.

  ‘I’m afraid you cannot join us, Miss Marwood. Humans are forbidden from entering the portal. Even Otherworlders will not be actually present for the race but will watch through a special scope device. I’ll see that you are escorted home safely, however.’ Then, catching my glance, ‘Honestly.’

  ‘Not even a tiny nip, Zan.’

  ‘You truly believe that I would break the Treaty? That it would be I who would bring back the warfare and the times of fear?’ His smooth, impeccably handsome face creased into lines of horror at the thought.

  ‘Joke, Zan.’

  Rach looked from me to Zan. ‘You mean, he’s a – ’ Her eyes widened. ‘Gosh. Really? You look perfectly normal to me.’

  ‘She doesn’t mean to be rude.’ I soothed the vampire, who was looking rather taken aback. ‘She’s a bit over-excited.’

  There was a smooth movement at my elbow. ‘Obviously.’ Sil appraised Rach, who, with her shining eyes and blue satin dress, looked a bit like a hyped-up nine-year old at her first sleep-over and was gazing at him as though waiting for something to happen.

  ‘Is he another one?’ Rach whispered but, since she was amplified by the loud hailer of overexcitement I think the bus queue outside Tesco’s heard her. ‘You never told me he was a vampire, too!’

  ‘Oh yes.’ I heard the tone in my voice and even though I was using it, I didn’t really understand why it was there. ‘He’s a vampire, too.’

  ‘Would you like me to prove it?’ Sil addressed Rach directly, drawing back his top lip to let his fangs descend. It changed his whole face; rather than the slightly untidy, casually sexy young man he had appeared, he was now a predator: marble-hard eyes and a sense of coiled elasticity.

  Rach squeaked. ‘Don’t tease her!’ I said, rather more sharply than I would have done if I hadn’t been facing an ordeal that sounded less fun than painful surgery, and Sil moved away from Rach to stare directly into my face.

  ‘You would give me an order?’ His fangs were still down and now locked into striking-position, his expression and voice cold enough to blister skin. ‘Jessica? Really? You think you still have the right to tell me what to do?’

  Sil’s demon was moving inside him. I could sense it scratching and scrabbling its way to the surface, eager for confrontation, resolution – anything which would provide it with more of the hormones it was currently getting off on. Anger, stress, sex, it’s all the same to demons. They’re like little chest-dwelling junkies. And Sil’s was driving him to the edge. I’d seen him let loose, I’d even seen him close to killing before, but I’d never seen him in danger of losing control like this.

 

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