Chapter Seventeen

I would have loved to have spent the rest of the evening under my duvet, alternately crying and swearing, eating Mars Bars and reading The Bell Jar. But by the time I’d endured half-an-hour of Sil yelling at me for not letting him die – yep, I didn’t really understand that either, but vampires and gratitude? Not so much – I’d rather lost the urge. Now I wanted … I wanted to be out, where real people were enjoying themselves. I wanted to reinforce my humanity with vodka and coke, cheesy chips and drum and bass. I wanted to shake my hips to music I wouldn’t even have on in the car, to drink overpriced alcohol in a dark club and dance with men I’d never have to see again. I e-mailed the office while Sil took some deep breaths and a delivery from his staff, brought personally by possibly the flunkiest flunky I had ever seen. It looked suspiciously like a suitcase of clothes, but Sil’s sartorial arrangements came underneath cleaning the oven on my list of topics to worry about right now. Liam’s answering mail came back before I was even changed. He’d spoken to Zan in Vampire High Command but found out nothing about ghysts.

His rapid reply meant that he was sitting at his computer with not enough to do, always a disastrous combination, so I decided to go in and spoil his fun. There were a couple of hours to kill before the clubs got warmed up and the men got drunk enough to dance; I might as well spend the time annoying Liam. It was that or sit in Costa eating chocolate brownies and, given the dress I’d chosen, any extra calories might be a bit of a disaster. Actually, from the look on Sil’s face when he saw my sartorial choice, the dress might be a disaster anyway. He’d wrinkled his lip and walked three steps behind me all the way to the office, and whenever I’d caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye, he’d been trying to avert his gaze, as though he was ashamed to be seen in the same space-time continuum as me.

When I got there, Liam was waiting for me with a hold-all slung over his arm.

‘You off somewhere?’ I asked.

‘It’s the gear. There’s a ghoul, gone to ground in a kids’ play area. What on earth are you wearing?’

‘I thought I might go out tonight.’ I took the bag from him. ‘Give me that. You know Head Office doesn’t like you going outside.’

‘You weren’t here.’

‘I am now. You go and … scrub the software or whatever it is you do. I’ll tranq the ghoul and hit the clubs afterwards.’

Liam gave me a dark look. ‘Oh, yes? And why? Something I’m still not allowed to know anything about?’

‘Ask The Incredible Mouth over there. He can’t seem to shut up about my business.’ I nodded towards Sil, who was standing by my desk, looking over a clipboard with a list of names and addresses on it. ‘No, it’s all right, Liam. I just want to – ah, have an evening out. Don’t think I’m really in the mood for an evening of Made in Chelsea with Rach.’ She’d wandered in just before I left, with unfocused eyes, a headache, and no memory of letting Malfaire in to the flat, and started making one of her meat-, fat- and dairy-free meals. Vodka and cheesy chips had increased their appeal at that point. ‘I want to get on the outside of a few drinks, have a bit of a dance.’ Get off my face. Forget any of the stuff that happened today. ‘Nothing big, personal stuff. Anyway, what’s wrong with what I’m wearing?’

Liam gave me a look up and down. ‘It’s a bit sexy. You’re ghoul-bagging, not walking the ring-road touting for business.’

‘Thank you, mother. And what about Sil, he’s wearing less per square inch than I am; how come you’re not telling him off?’

‘He’s a vampire, he’d be sexy in a Tesco bag and slippers. You look like you’re off to see the wizard. What the hell are you going to do with the ghoul – cover yourself in sequins and try to gay him into submission?’

I was wearing a body-hugging, strappy and largely backless dress in dark red with shoes to match. ‘I wasn’t anticipating a tranquing. I only popped in here to make sure you weren’t wasting tax-payers money, or at least the pitiful amount of tax-payers money that we get. Then I thought I’d go straight out.’

‘Yes.’ Liam gave me a look more pointed than a tranq dart. ‘That’s pretty much how it looks. I just thought I’d familiarise myself with your outfit because I have a very strong feeling – I dunno, call me psychic if you like – that you’ll be wearing exactly the same clothes tomorrow morning when you turn up for work.’

‘You think I’m going to seduce some innocent clubber?’ Behind my desk Sil made a sarcastic blowing noise. ‘That’s rubbish! Anyway, I’m an adult woman; I can make my own decisions.’

Sil snorted now. ‘Looking like that, the only decision you’ll have to make is which position doesn’t make you look fat.’

‘Oh right, from a man in leather trousers and a shirt you could use to catch cod!’

‘Yes, what’s with the fishnet and leather look, Sil? You on a promise, tonight?’

Sil didn’t look up from the clipboard. ‘If she’s going clubbing then I’m rather obliged to go along as well, and I’m steering her towards the club down by the river.’

‘I thought you were supposed to be guarding me, not enjoying yourself!’

‘Oh, I can enjoy myself at the same time.’ He looked up at me. ‘You’ll fit right in there. They have pole dancing on Fridays.’

Liam sucked in a breath. ‘For a straight guy, Sil, you can be a real bitch, you know that?’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure about the straight.’ I checked the contents of the bag and prepared to move out. ‘Not dressed like that.’ Pulled my big coat down off the rack and used it to cover the offending dress. ‘Mind you, Liam, sometimes I have my doubts about you.’

‘I’m in touch with my feminine side,’ Liam came back. ‘You should be grateful!’

‘Yeah, if this tranquing goes pear-shaped, at least we can sit around afterwards and talk about Hollyoaks. Is all the gear in?’

‘You’re ready to go. Good luck.’

‘Cheers,’ and Sil and I were off, running down the stairs with a hold-all swinging against my thigh – just like the old days, except in the old days Sil wasn’t dressed like a rent boy and I wasn’t wearing heels.

The ghoul had been caught by the dawn and had hidden all day underneath a ramp in a skate-park cum playground right on the edge of our jurisdiction, but out of area for the ghoul and, therefore, fair game for us.

‘It’s under there.’ I pointed with the handle of the tranq gun. ‘You can see it, faintly.’

Sil held the bag open for me to find the tranq darts. ‘I always wondered how you did it, you know. How you managed to be so quick, so good at finding the mark. I guess it was obvious, really.’

I screwed the special darts into the barrel of the gun. ‘It’s my job, I have to see, have to be quick, or I’d be getting even worse headlines in the local press than I do now.’

‘And you never thought there might be more to it than that?’

‘Oh yes, every day I’d wake up and think, “gosh, I wonder if my parents were both human?” It’s not the sort of thing that springs to mind, you know?’

Leaving Sil with the gear, I advanced on the area of darkness behind the skate ramp. Ghouls aren’t actual killers, not intentionally anyway. In their own dimension, apparently, they’re quite solitary and live off wild creatures. In this one they’re a bloody nuisance, but at least they’re not Shadows.

‘Jessica Grant?’ The scratchy voice came from the shadowy angle hard against the ground, where the windblown cigarette butts collected half-a-dozen deep. ‘They send you?’

‘Yeah, James Bond was busy.’ I couldn’t get a shot in if I couldn’t see. ‘Who are you?’

‘Carrerwear. I am ghoul.’

‘Uh-huh. I sort of guessed.’

‘I ask this, that you hear me.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘The demon who wants you. He wishes you to know, he no longer acts alone in his desire for war.’

‘Who? No, don’t tell me, Malfaire.’ Deep inside me, anger fought with reason. ‘Am I really meant to be intimidated by that?’

The ghoul snapped out at me, caught me on the wrist, sent the gun spinning from my hand across the grass. ‘Yes,’ it said, simply, and flowed forward out of its hiding place.

The gun was too far away, over the other side of the concrete skate ramp. If I threw myself across the half-tube then the ghoul would be on me before I touched the ground and I didn’t trust myself to be able to fight it off. Damn! Ghouls usually had all the tactical ability of a pub darts team, but this one was intelligent, careful.

‘So then, what do you get out of this? You lot hunt me down, then what happens? Some kind of reward thing?’

‘We become allied to the demon Malfaire. There will be advantages, in the war to come.’ The ghoul was standing over the gun. Bastard.

‘Everyone’s talking war all of a sudden. I thought the pact was working well.’

‘He will lead us and there will be power. No more hiding.’

Okay, so I couldn’t get the gun, couldn’t run away, couldn’t fight. What could I do? I could think.

Dropped to the ground like a felled bullock. I hurt my shoulder on impact, but that didn’t matter. The ghoul hesitated, then began to come towards me, moving off the gun and into the space between us. It seemed uncertain; flowed almost reluctantly, keeping its edges against the side of the ramp. I jerked myself to my feet, one smooth quick movement, and I was behind the ghoul, picking up the gun before it could react. Levelled the gun, braced my wrist and pulled the trigger, all in one, and hit it square in the mid-section where it solidified as the chemicals took effect.

‘You were a fat lot of good.’

‘What did you want me to do?’ Sil curled a lip at me. ‘Only one gun; what was I supposed to do, bore it to sleep?’

‘You could have distracted it.’

‘You were having a nice, cosy chat.’

The gun was still in my hand. I ran my fingers over the familiarity of the handle, felt the way it balanced against my palm. ‘Your eyes look different.’

Under the new moonlight his eyes were dark. Sil’s eyes never looked that dark.

‘I’m hungry, all right?’

Uh-oh. ‘This club that you want us to go to? Would it happen to be the kind of club where consenting adults get together for a bit of bitey-action?’

Sil slid over the grass space between us almost without moving and was in front of me in a fraction of a second. ‘What’s your problem, Jessie? I’m vampire, a fucking vampire – blood, sex and high emotional drama are rather the point!’ He was shouting at me now, his eyes shone black as polished coal, while his skin was whiter than white. ‘And after that … thing with Malfaire I need blood, warm blood, gushing into my mouth with the pound of a pulse! Okay, yeah, I can get by on the artificial, but sometimes I just want to be what I am, let all the dark come out. Feed my demon properly.’

Behind me the ghoul gave a muffled whimper. I reached my gun-hand out and fired another tranq straight into the rolled shape, without looking. ‘It’s illegal, Sil.’ I dropped my eyes so I didn’t have to look at him. It was like lemon juice in a mouth ulcer, hearing his careful enunciation of exactly what it was that made him so alien, so unavailable to me.

‘Not if they offer blood. What’s done behind closed doors is no-one’s business but the people’s concerned. And no-one ever complains, Jessie, no-one ever runs to the police. They’re there because they want it; we’re there because we do it. Cause and effect, supply and demand.’

‘You tart.’

‘I’m not the one running out to pull in a tight dress and high heels, because I’ve had some family drama, am I? You be careful throwing stones, Jessie, because some of them might bounce right back.’

He turned and began walking away, leaving the bag of paraphernalia on the ground. ‘You’d better phone in to Enforcement to take this guy.’

‘Are you going?’

‘Like I said, I’m hungry.’

‘But you’re supposed to be protecting me. What if Malfaire turns up?’

Sil glanced over his shoulder and gave my outfit a once up-and-down look. ‘I’m sure you’ll manage to – talk your way out of things.’ His shoulders were set absolutely rigid under the lacy shirt as he turned away again.

The animosity hurt. ‘What’s pissing you off so much, Sil?’

Maybe it was the serious way I asked, not shouting, only raising my voice enough to cross the air to him. He stopped walking. ‘On this occasion, or generally? You, Jessie. Always, you. Judging me for what I am, what I have to do. I didn’t choose to be what I am. I got unlucky one night down a dark alley with a woman who wasn’t what she seemed to be.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Ninety years ago things weren’t like they are now. There were stories … sightings, but Otherworlders were hiding, creeping in the night, not knowing what reaction they might get in this new world. Most people didn’t even know what a vampire could do, or would do. My wife refused to see me and took the children away. I think she told them I was dead.’

‘Sil.’

‘When you’ve lost something, Jessie, something that really mattered, you lose a little part of yourself as well. The part that feels. I know you all think we have no emotions; that we can’t experience anything that doesn’t feed our demon, but it’s not true, Jess. Vampires can feel as much as any human. More, in fact, given the number of years we have to feel in.’ He stopped talking and raised his face to the newly dark sky. ‘You have no idea,’ he added softly. ‘No idea what I feel.’

‘But I thought … everyone says …’ He could feel. So why didn’t he?

‘Yes. Everyone who isn’t vampire says. Us, now, we say nothing. And do you know why we say nothing?’

I shook my head. He was still staring upwards, his eyes searching between the stars.

‘No. You don’t know, how can you?’ A sigh that sounded as though it contained a century of held breath. ‘Now we’re something new, a bit dangerous, the perfect partner for those with the jaded sexual palate, but what it is, you see,’ and again he’d crossed the space between us without me seeing him move, ‘I bite and I drink and I fuck, and I’ve learned not to let any of it touch me. But I was prepared to die for you today.’ He’d lowered his voice so much that I had to get right up close to hear him. ‘To give it all up, all this …’ His hands went wide to indicate the chilly park. ‘The blood, the sex, all of it. I’d give it up for you, Jessica Grant. And that seems to mean nothing to you.’

His eyes were completely black now. Empty holes. There was a frisson shuddering in the air, a tangible wall of things unsaid.

‘Come on then.’

‘What?’

‘Let’s go. To this club.’

Sil shook his head, slowly. His hair swung free from the collar of the fishnet shirt and blew back to drag over his face. ‘Thought you didn’t agree with the bitey-action. Why the change of heart?’

I didn’t know how to begin to say what was in my head, in my heart. That his death would have killed something deep inside me; that his speech about loss could just as well have applied to me. But I couldn’t. He was vampire. As he said, how could I know what that felt like? ‘You’re set on going there, I’m under your protection, so,’ I shrugged, ‘I guess I have to come. Besides, they do have music, don’t they? And dancing?’

There was a slow nod and the moon came out again to highlight his cheekbones. ‘Yes.’

‘Right then.’ And then I looked up and met the jet-black stare. ‘Are you all right?’

Behind us, the ghoul rolled and fell gloopily into the mud.

‘Nothing wrong with me.’

‘Are you sure? All that about your wife and children – ’

He was standing closer than was comfortable. ‘My business, Jessie, my pain.’

My heart had come loose in my chest. Vampires can feel. They simply choose not to, for alien reasons of their own. He can feel pain. The memories hurt him – I could see that much in those nuclear eyes. ‘Sil.’

‘Right, come on then, let’s get to the club. But you can buy your own drinks.’

‘I’d insist on it.’ My voice held a pretended strength, a pretended carelessness.

‘And no getting uptight if things get a bit rough.’

‘Check.’

‘Okay,’ and he smiled, but because his fangs were down and his eyes were a couple of featureless pits, it wasn’t pleasant, ‘call Enforcement and let’s go.’

Sil strode along. She was following, he could sense her heat and uncertainty bobbing along behind him. What possessed me? Why in the seven hells did I bring up the children? He swallowed and focused on keeping his steps even and slow enough for Jessie to keep up with.

He could see her now, if he looked sideways. Looking good in that dress, however much he might deride her for her choice; it hugged her curves and revealed enough of her long legs to make a lesser man dream of heaven; she walked tall and strangely sure of herself for someone whose life had just been destroyed and rebuilt on new foundations. I would have done it, Jess. I’d have taken the lives of my demon and myself to keep you safe from that bastard Malfaire. And for you I lowered the barriers enough to talk about my children …

Through his open-weave shirt the night air was cool against his skin, soothing his demon into temporary peace, even as it drove through his brain with the need for the blood. And what on earth did he think was going to happen at the club? She’d freak, almost certainly. Freak, then maybe get a little angry, a bit sick perhaps. But she has to know. What I am, what lies at the heart of me. What I have to do to stay sane.

He didn’t need the turned heads to know he looked good. Women, some men, breaking stride as he swept along the pavement. Are you seeing, Jessie? They want me, every one of them. All I have to do is stop, smile, speak and I can have any one I choose: blood and sex. But it won’t stop the hunger. Only you can do that, Jessica Grant. I think you’re the only one who can make the pain go away. But you don’t want to. I offered you my life and you still dismiss me. I am a monster in your eyes, and after tonight it’s going to get worse … He tried to force himself not to care.

The club was incredibly hot, the amount of energy being generated by the bodies inside pressed close together could have powered the National Grid. A blue cloud of smoke hung over the heads of the occupants, the air smelled of perfume, BO, machine-smoke and regurgitated alcohol and amid all this, people were dancing. Groin-to-groin couples swayed in time, more or less, to the beat of a relentless dance track.

Sil was, by now, one of the dancers. Almost as soon as we’d walked in he’d found himself a companion: a small, blonde girl with very long hair and a white lace dress which made me look positively nunnery-bound in my body-hugging red number. She was all over him now, out on the dance floor, wrapping her lean limbs up and down his body as they simulated something multiple-orgasmic to the electric rhythm. He danced well, fluidly. As if he was trying not to think.

‘Hey!’ I looked at the person who’d arrived next to me. He was tall, skinny and dark with hair caught up in a pony-tail at the back. Werewolf. ‘D’you want to dance?’

‘I’m –’ I was going to make an excuse, maybe cite the greasy cocktail I was drinking, but one look at Sil’s ecstatic face as his partner danced in closer, and I changed my mind. ‘Yeah, why not?’

I let myself be whirled into the press of bodies on the dance floor. To my surprise, the werewolf was a pretty good dancer, and we bounced along in harmony for a while. Then he leaned in close. ‘Didn’t you use to go out with Cameron? Thought I recognised your face. Who’d you come with tonight?’

I jerked a thumb at Sil, dancing with his eyes closed now as his new friend gyrated herself against him.

‘Him.’

‘Oh, yeah, right. Are you two, y’know, like an item, then?’

‘No. Absolutely not. In fact, about as far away from an item as you can get. Decidedly single.’

‘Cool.’

The rhythm changed to something slower, silkier; the lights became blue. The smell changed too, the chemical scent from the smoke machine replaced by something heavier, deeper, more like incense, woody and intense. A wailing vocal harmonic started up over the top of the music and the werewolf moved in closer, put his arms around me. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Tobe.’

Pressed together like this, it was a lot easier to talk. ‘And you knew me when I was with Cameron?’

‘Yeah. It was terrible, what they did to him.’

‘The court said it was a misunderstanding. Tragic but not anyone’s fault.’ I trotted out the party line; inside I was clenched.

‘Yeah, I heard you gave evidence. Cameron would never have hurt anyone.’ Tobe leaned into me. He smelled of Aramis and dope, and it was vaguely comforting. ‘Never.’

‘No.’

‘And it wouldn’t have happened if he’d been human.’

I felt a sudden jolt to my stomach. Humans and Otherworlders. Which side did I belong on? Did I have to choose? And what would happen if I did?

We were dancing very, very close now. I could feel the particular werewolf energy against my skin, dancing along with us. This Tobe was well in control of his nature but there were other parts of him he couldn’t control and I could tell that he thought his luck was definitely in tonight. ‘You’re a great dancer, Jessica.’

‘Thanks.’ I was watching Sil but because Tobe was taller than me I had to look sideways around his chest. When we next circled, Sil had his face tight into the neck of his partner. A thin trickle of blood was running down her shoulder into the white lace of her dress, but her head was thrown back, her mouth curved into a slack line of acquiescent bliss. ‘God!’

‘What?’

‘He’s feeding off her!’

Tobe shrugged. ‘That’s why she’s here. Tell you what,’ he dropped his mouth against my ear, ‘they’ve got rooms, why don’t we go on back there? I could, y’know, change for you.’ His tongue flickered out along my neck. ‘Did Cameron ever change while you were doing it? It’ll drive you wild, know what I’m saying?’

Sil was a vampire. Well, I’d hardly thought he was some guy with odd dentistry and an especially effective skin-care regime, had I? Vampire. Yes. Blood-sucker. Hormone-junkie. Otherworlder. Not my problem.

Tobe was running his fingers up and down my spine, lingering a little longer each time around the lower levels. I moved a step back. ‘Look, I’m sorry, you’re very sweet, but –’

‘It’s the vamp, huh? You two’ve been watching each other all night. What is it, you into threesomes? I can do that, yeah.’

‘No, it’s – what do you mean, watching each other?’

‘You can’t take your eyes off him and he’s been looking over here every time that blonde bitch took her hands off his cock long enough for him to focus.’ Tobe looked curiously into my face. ‘You sure you’re not together?’

The music was still playing, a curious throbbing tone like a metal pulse. Hypnotic. ‘Positive.’

‘Then maybe you should be.’ And Tobe released me, walking off into the crowd circling the dance floor. Bodies coupled, parted, writhed. Down on the floor a demon of some kind was indulging itself, feeding on the aura of a young man who squirmed and gasped in the kind of rapture I would normally expect to be on-screen and faked. I seemed to be the only single-unit in the room.

A touch on my shoulder and I whirled, ready to punch. But it was Sil, flushed and panting as though he’d run the circuit, pupils dilated to almost cover the silver of his eyes. ‘Hey.’

‘You didn’t tell me it would be like this.’ I waved a hand at the conjoined bodies, the occasional spray of blood, the sounds of moaning overlaying the regular thump of the beat.

He shrugged and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. ‘It varies. Sometimes it’s crazy, other times it’s more laid back. Like this.’

‘How often do you do this?’ I asked, thinking – this is laid back?

‘Not often. It’s just …’ And he shrugged again. ‘Do you want to go?’ His eyes were unfocused, sliding from my face to the action and back again, and for all the healthy glow of his skin, he was shivering slightly.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I – yes, I – ’ I saw the blonde he’d bitten, sitting on the floor at the other side of the room with her head on her arms. ‘I think we should go.’

‘She’s not going to change, is she? You haven’t vamped her?’

‘What?’ Sil dragged his eyes back to me, reluctantly. ‘Oh, her. No. I let go before the demon seeded into her.’ Again his eyes went back to the bloodstained floor.

‘You old romantic, you.’

A smile and a flash of fangs. ‘Yeah, well. That would be illegal.’

We walked unnoticed back to the entrance of the club, where I collected my tranq bag from a human cloakroom attendant. I saw Tobe deep in discussion with a pretty dark girl, her braided hair piled on top of her head. As we walked past he looked up and winked.

‘He try to pick you up?’

‘A bit.’

‘Yet you’re leaving with me.’ Sil lurched and put a hand against a bridge parapet to steady himself. ‘Wow. She’d had a skinful, that young lady. Second-hand vodka always gets me this way. Why didn’t you go with him? Bit scruffy but that’s the wolves for you; when the Dimensional attributes were being handed out, the vamps definitely got all the style.’

‘You think? You’re creaking.’

‘That’s the boots. Seriously, Jessie, why didn’t you go? Even as a recreational shag? I mean, it’s not as if you’ve not done werewolves before, meant to be pretty good as a species, so I hear. Lots of howling action.’ He wiggled his hips suggestively, lurched again and hiccupped. ‘Bugger.’

‘You’re pissed.’

‘Mmmmm.’ Light, gymnastic, he leapt up on to the bridge parapet, began walking along with his arms outstretched. ‘At least I’m not singing. So, go on then. Why didn’t you go make jiggy-jiggy with the beasty-boy there?’ He turned a graceful, if wobbly, cartwheel along the handrail, landing back on the pavement next to me.

‘Do you really think I’m the kind of girl to go off with some bloke she’s just met in a club? What about the danger?’

‘Oh come on, you’re not that dangerous.’

‘Ha, ha. Do you really think I’m that much of a tart?’

Sil leaned back against the edge of the bridge. ‘It’s been a long time since Cameron. I wouldn’t blame you for wanting a bit of action. Werewolves are supposed to be addictive, you know. One’s never enough.’

‘I wouldn’t know. I never slept with Cameron.’

The instant the words were out I wanted to shoot myself. I covered my mouth with my hand and bit my lip. Sil’s eyes widened.

‘But … but it looked as if you and he were practically living together! What were you waiting for, a ring?’

‘I didn’t say – look, I’ve been drinking, too. Let’s forget it, okay?’

Sil put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me around. ‘No. What really happened with you and him, Jessie?’

‘I can’t tell you!’ I could smell vodka coming from him, but it wasn’t on his breath, it was more like it came from inside him, making his skin and hair smell of it. ‘I can’t, Sil, it’s not safe!’

‘He’s been dead, what, a year?’

I nodded. ‘Ten months.’

‘So, where’s the harm?’

I took a shaky breath. Ever since that showdown, when Enforcement had turned up mob-handed and Eleanor had ended up ripping Cameron to pieces with silver bullets, I’d sworn that everything Cam had told me would die with him. It had been terrible, tragic, a mistake. ‘He –’

‘Didn’t you love him? Is that it, Jessie?’

‘I did, but not like that. Sil, Cameron was gay. I was his cover.’

Sil let go of my shoulders and leaned his head so far back over the edge of the bridge I was afraid he’d fall. He was laughing. ‘A gay werewolf? I didn’t even know that was possible! Oh, that’s terrific!’

‘You don’t understand! Werewolves are all about dominance, about power. Imagine what it’s like to be so in love with your dominant male that you have trouble staying the same shape when he’s about! How long do you think you can last, if you won’t fight him, won’t mate with the ones he’s chosen for you, can’t think straight when he’s around? So Cameron asked me to pretend. It took some of the pressure off; people stopped asking awkward questions.’

‘And the day he was killed?’

‘Cameron had formed a focus for gay shifters. They were going to come out en masse, form their own group. Not a pack, because there were wolves and cats and all sorts, but a group. Word got out, someone overheard and misunderstood the nature of his rally. It got round that he was going to stage a challenge for the leadership of his pack, that he didn’t care who got hurt and – ’

‘Enforcement, silver bullets, the end.’

I blotted my cheeks with my fingers. ‘It wasn’t fair. He would never have hurt anybody. It shouldn’t have happened.’

‘I’m sorry.’

This time I shrugged.

‘God, I am sooooo pissed.’ Sil hiccupped again. ‘Jessie – ’

‘What now? More intrusive questions about my love life? You must swear, Sil, not to say anything about what I told you. Because Cameron died the other gay shifters never did come out; there’s a lot of people could get hurt if it became general knowledge.’

‘You are lovely, you know that?’

‘Sil, don’t.’

‘Don’t?’

‘Don’t come on to me when you’ve got a stomach full of some girl’s blood.’

‘My side of the fence now. Remember? When it comes to it, Jessie, when it comes right down to it, you aren’t human any more. You don’t have the luxury of being all censorious and upright about it, not when half your genetics is something worse than vampire. You don’t know yet, you’ve not been put in the position, but one day – you’ll be faced with some situation and something will out. It may be demon.’ He shouldered himself away from the stonework and took a staggering few steps forward. ‘And when that happens, we’ll go back to the club. See what you think of it then, when you’re one of the ones down on the floor with someone’s life hanging there, right in front of you, for the taking.’ His fangs slid into place, locked down, and for a moment I thought he was going to lunge at me, he looked so tense and excited.

‘You certainly know how to sweet-talk a girl. No wonder you’re never short of them.’ The bitter edge to my voice seemed to bring him down a bit.

‘Yeah. And doesn’t that just screw you up.’

‘What are you insinuating?’

‘You know.’

‘You reckon that I’m desperate for you?’

‘Oh, you’re fooling no-one. You’re avoiding it.’

I smacked him in the face, said, ‘Avoid that, you bastard,’ and stalked off.

Sil followed her home without being spotted, and leaned against a convenient garden wall, waiting until her bedroom light went out. He listened to the distant sounds of taps running and tried to ignore the soft sound of crying that came two minutes after the darkness. My side of the line now, Jessica. He rubbed his head. Drawing out his demon had hurt more than he’d expected, and he certainly hadn’t expected to be around for the aftermath – his demon writhed at the memory of its near-death experience. You broke Malfaire’s magic. Are you thinking about that, up in your room, with the chocolate wrappers and the old school photographs? Are you wondering how you did it, what it means? What you might become?

The crying broke into hiccups and he felt something drag inside him. His demon, still reeling from the double effect of fresh blood and second-hand alcohol, was reacting sluggishly to her misery. Or rather, to his reaction to her misery. Never done that before. But maybe I’ve never felt like this before, have I?

A flashback, and suddenly his demon sobered up. Watching from a distance, the doctor arriving. His white face, shaking head, at the door, my wife … God, my wife, breaking down, and I couldn’t touch her, couldn’t reach her to tell her … The funeral, one among many in that vicious influenza-ridden time, two small wreaths and the bunch of hastily picked daisies that I barely had time to lay before the other mourners arrived. The white coffins …

He wiped his hand across his face, amazed to find it wet. Sadness? Where did that come from? His teeth gritted, fangs nicking his lip, as he felt his demon squirm for a second under the sensation. If only Jess knew, just for one second, what it was to be vampire. What it felt like to have to live without emotion, to know it was there and be forced to ride the instinct and the reaction without allowing any of the repercussions to cut through and let you see what you had become.

The hiccups had stopped now; the only sound coming from Jessie’s room was a kind of sleep-sob as she settled into troubled dreaming. Sil stared at her window for a moment longer, his demon whirling smugly, then bunched a fist. I look great. I’m strong. I’ll live another two hundred years at least. I can glamour humans into doing anything I want them to. Fuck you, Jessica. Fuck you, fuck the Protection Act, fuck it all. A stride that broke into a jog and then into a run and he was out into the main street, heading back towards the club by the river.