Chapter Twenty-Two

Zan looked as though he had changed especially to come over. The silk shirt had been exchanged for a linen one, topped with a thigh-length black wool coat lined in red satin. The trousers were velvet, and fine calf-leather black boots finished it all off.

‘You look like you’ve dressed for the blind,’ I said. ‘Very tactile.’

‘You don’t want to know what it says in Braille.’ Sil slumped down on to my desk. Liam began fiddling with his computer.

‘Honestly, Zan, I’ve got Malfaire on my tail, threatening me with God knows what and you’re dressed like the poster-boy for the new undead revolution. Boy, do you have a problem with priorities!’

Green eyes laced with gold met mine and locked on. ‘Who gave you the mark, Jessica?’ Zan’s voice was deceptively gentle. ‘Did some demon feed from you?’ One long finger flicked the collar of my crumpled shirt away from the bite, still bruised and tender. ‘Was it with your permission?’

‘And you are changing the subject!’

‘It was mine.’ Sil shuffled paperwork, looking as though he was trying to keep his hands occupied. ‘It demanded payment in blood for getting us out of the river.’

‘Interesting,’ Zan hadn’t let the collar go yet, kept his finger between the cotton and my skin. ‘And how did it taste?’

Sil’s eyes were cool as they met mine, but there was a shivering remembrance of the rush behind them. ‘It was amazing, Zan. I’ve never tasted anything so powerful. It nearly knocked me out for a while. Back when I was human one of my friends … well, there was opium involved, and it was a bit like that, only more.’

‘Hmmm.’ Zan looked at the wound. ‘That may be her blood combination. Human and ghyst, something in the mixture of the two. Interesting.’

I didn’t like the thoughtful way I was being looked at. ‘Oy, excuse me guys. Things are bad enough without you two looking at me like I’m some kind of living happy-pill! Could you try to control yourselves for a few minutes? At least until you tell me why you came over here. I’m sure it wasn’t to give me the pleasure of watching you walk in velvet trousers.’

Liam went and fetched the bottles of synth for the vampires and two more coffees for him and me, then sat down on the edge of my desk, watching Sil.

‘We came to collect you, Jessie.’ Sil raised his head so that the light drew attention to his perfect bone structure. ‘Malfaire will need to make an example of you now you’ve actually tried to kill him, so we’re taking you back to where we may protect you.’

‘But surely, if Jessie can’t kill Malfaire, he’ll leave her alone.’ Liam kept his eyes on Sil, as though he expected him to leap up and defile me at any moment.

Zan was on his feet now. ‘Jessica,’ he said, and his words were heavy as stones, ‘you are in danger. You are also our only weapon against Malfaire, however you may be used. And Sil has invoked the Protection Act.’

‘But I didn’t kill him …’

‘No. And yet.’

I felt my pupils distend with shock. ‘This is big, isn’t it?’ My voice crouched low in my throat and came out as a whisper. ‘He’s going to try to fight?’

Zan nodded slowly. ‘Everything we have worked for may be in danger. Malfaire is rallying all those who have been held in check only by their fear of a war that they would never win. This may be the end of peace, Jessica.’

‘Jessie.’ Sil managed to get past Liam. ‘Zan is right; you know it.’ He touched me then, just the lightest of brushes against my arm with his hand but I jumped like he’d burned me. ‘Please – ’

And I wanted to tell him my peace had ended as soon as I’d felt his body against mine. But this was about so, so much more than me and him. And yet … yet … Even though I knew we were in danger I wanted to make him forget his long-gone family, his Christie and the horror of the loss of his children, I wanted to say ‘I love you’ into those sea-grey troubled eyes, to feel his body eager against me again, that soaring hugeness inside my heart. But instead I whispered ‘Jonathan’. Watched him go still.

‘Oh, Jessie,’ he said.

‘I know.’

‘It’s – maybe – I need – I don’t know. But it – ’

‘I know.’ And I did know. I’d always known I couldn’t have him. That was all there was to it. He was vampire, and that would always win out.

‘Wow, you two are erudite this morning.’ Liam broke the silence. I became aware that all three men were standing very, very close to me. I could have walked into either one’s arms with only half a step.

‘Can you lot back up a bit?’ I said, clearing my throat, ‘only it’s kind of hard to breathe with all this testosterone in the air, and I’d quite like to be able to turn around without facing a sexual harassment charge.’ I could do this. ‘Okay, I get it. We bed down at Vamp Central and try to work out what to do next. But please can we take the office stuff with us?’

‘You are dedicated to your job, Jessica.’ Zan moved obediently a few steps away.

‘Not really. End of the world or not, you know what they’re like if the tracker programme isn’t backed up every twenty-four hours.’

Sil was looking at me, unblinking. I had no idea what he was thinking, and that worried me.