Chapter Three

I didn’t go back to the office in the end, I went home.

Just because I work with Others – what the District Council in a superfluity of PCness keeps trying to call the Differently Vital – doesn’t mean I have to live like Igor’s second cousin, so I share a riverside flat with my best friend, Rachel. But then I bet even the best vampire-slayers have someone to record Desperate Housewives and load the washing machine when they’re out. It can’t all be moody silence and classical music, however much they’d like people to think that.

‘You’re late.’ Rach spoke without looking up from the disinfectant bucket, where the Dettol-scented steam was making her hair curl into blonde ringlets. ‘He’s ill again, must be that old lady next door feeding him, I’ve told her and told her about his allergies, but she will keep doing it!’

The place smelled like a hospital ward. The patient was curled in a complacent cushion-shape on top of the fridge, purring slightly and looking anything but life-impaired.

‘Okay, yeah. Is there anything to eat?’

‘I left you some couscous. Oh, and somebody came over looking for you.’ Rachel went back to scraping and sluicing. ‘Some bloke.’

‘What did he want?’ I opened the fridge in search of something I felt like eating, closed it, opened a cupboard and then went back to the fridge.

‘Didn’t say.’

‘What did he look like?’ There was some cheese and salad, which would have to do. Rachel was into everything healthy, so even finding cheese was a bit of a triumph. Too much to hope that she’d weakened and bought some HobNobs.

Rach stopped scraping and sat back. ‘Browny eyes, hair down to here,’ she indicated her shoulders, ‘tall, skinny. A bit …’

I poked the cheese. Things had a tendency to live in our fridge until they evolved, and I wanted to know if the cheese would poke back. ‘A bit what? Warty? Like Tom Cruise?’

She bridled. ‘Tom Cruise is not warty!’

‘There was a full stop in there. What, for the love of God, was he “a bit”, Rach?’

She wrinkled her nose and her body twitched as though trying to shake off the memory. ‘A bit … he made me go all goose pimpled. Good looking, though.’

My stomach rolled. Sil? Here? But why would he? ‘Did he look like a client?’ By which I meant ‘vampire’, but Rachel is sensitive to mentions of my work. She prefers to keep the illusion that my job consists of acting as a kind of PR officer for the Otherworlders, rather than filling them with chemicals ’til they stop moving.

‘You know I can’t tell! He asked if you were in and I said no, and we chatted a bit, then he left. Friendly. Strange but friendly.’

Probably not Sil then. Friendship and he were mutually exclusive and he couldn’t really be described as ‘strange’. And, whispered that dark little memory, his eyes aren’t brown, are they, Jessie? They’re the colour of skies in winter, of a cassowary egg, of a brewing storm … ‘You didn’t let him in, did you?’

‘Of course I didn’t let him in! Honestly, Jessie, you must think I’m stupid or something! We had a quick chat on the doorstep, then he went away. Didn’t leave a message or anything, so I thought you’d know who he was.’ She stood up and tipped the bowl of water down the sink. A cloud of steam puffed up, reminiscent of the mist in the graveyard. ‘I’m only saying what happened, all right? I can’t vet your visitors all the time you know. I do have a life.’

I manfully refrained from pointing out that her life consisted of working in a chemist’s and looking after Jasper, the world’s only Munchausen’s-by-proxy cat. ‘Sorry. I guess I’m just a bit weirded out. Daim Willis’ demon popped by with some misguided warning. Even if it can’t be true, it’s still freaked me a bit.’

Rach stared. ‘God, Jessie, that is sooo cooooool!’ She wrapped her arms across her significant chest, hugging herself in a silent delight. ‘What was it like? Was it hideous – they’re supposed to be hideous, aren’t they? And how did it speak, is it, you know, actual words and stuff or was it that kind of mind-to-mind thing?’ She gave an exaggerated shiver. ‘I can’t believe it, my friend, my really ordinary friend, gets to talk to demons!’

No wonder the vampire-slayers live alone with Beethoven’s Greatest Hits.

‘Imagine Jasper shaved, boiled and sneezed on. That is a demon. I’m going to bed, okay?’

‘Are you taking that cheese?’

I stared at the block of Wensleydale in my hand. ‘I seem to have lost my appetite,’ I said, ‘unless by some huge fluke and complete character switch you’ve got biscuits?’

Rachel pursed her mouth at me. ‘They’re bad for you.’

I tried really hard not to let my eyes flicker, but somehow they did. Rach gave me a mean look. ‘Okay, all right, rub it in. I’m the mound of blubber and you look like a pencil in a wig, with boobs on, but even so! Think of the cholesterol.’

‘I rarely think of anything else.’ I shoved the cheese back on the fridge shelf, but my flouncy exit was spoiled by Rach’s shouting after me.

‘I read today that they think the five per cent of people who can spot vampires are all a bit weird. Did you read that, Jessie?’

I shut my bedroom door, pacified my rumbling stomach with half a bar of Fruit and Nut and then sat on my bed feeling sorry for myself. Here I was, thirty-one, not bad looking (not exactly stunning, but no-one had screamed yet either), responsible job and … nothing else. What I really wanted was a cuddle. Or at least – I stared at my ruined shoes and laddered tights – an expense account at Next. What I actually got was another night in with the telly and my best friend regurgitating Daily Mail headlines at me. Sometimes, just sometimes, I wished I’d handled my whole life differently.

‘Bloke was here for you last night.’ Liam hung his jacket over the back of his chair and sat down, pulling the filing pile across the desk towards him. His dark curls hung like an untidy tablecloth over his face. ‘Said he wanted a word.’

‘Ambidextrous,’ I said, peering at the computer screen.

‘Was he?’

‘It’s a word. Honestly, you do have a sense of humour, don’t you? I’m sure it said on your job application.’

‘Yes,’ Liam said pointedly, ‘I do. Anyway, he left a card.’

‘Journo?’ I turned away from the computer, which was currently running the tracker programme, telling me that all our designated vampires were exactly where they were supposed to be, and that in the city of York the temperature was a cool 18 degrees. It was also, on a minimised screen, showing the Jeremy Kyle show, but Liam didn’t know that.

‘Didn’t say. Don’t think so; looked a bit clean to be from the local rag. Hold on, I put the card in the pile for filing.’

I stared across the desk at Liam. He was the most efficient man I’d ever met. He’d worked for me for five years, since he’d come at nineteen as a Work Experience placement and never left, and in all that time he’d never lost a single piece of paper. He wasn’t bad looking either, as long as he never stood next to a vampire – but then, standing next to a vampire even Johnny Depp would come across as a bit meh – with dark hair and eyes and an onboard twinkle that made people warm to him. ‘You were going to file a card? No, I’m sorry, that’s just weird.’

An outflung arm indicated the knee-deep squalor that was the office. ‘You ever want to see anything again round here, you file it. Well, I do. You drop it and wait for archaeologists. Cards go on the Rolodex … ah, here it is. Might make sense to you.’ He passed me the small square of card. ‘Looks expensive. ’S funny that, don’t you reckon, the more expensive those things are, the harder they are to read.’

‘Mmm,’ I said, without listening, tilting the white oblong back and forth to catch the light. ‘Liam, are you pulling some kind of stunt?’

Liam rolled his eyes at me. ‘Jessica, I am not pulling anything. Look, both hands, all right?’

‘Ha. But this card is blank.’

‘Nah. That would be stupid, dropping in a blank card.’ He took it from me and squinted at it. ‘What would be the point?’

‘And how long have you been around the Otherworlders? Come on, Liam, if there’s an opportunity to be posey and mysterious, have you ever known one pass it up?’

Liam frowned. ‘I’m not actually sure he was an Otherworlder.’

I took the card back again and dropped it on the edge of the imminent landslide that was my desk. ‘You couldn’t tell? And here’s me thinking you were one of the five per cent … So what did he look like?’

He shrugged. ‘He was a bloke – contrary to what you might like to believe in your dirtiest dreams, I don’t really notice blokes.’

Same man as called at the flat? Could be. Definitely not Sil then. Liam and he were … had been friends; even after a night on the Pernod and black Liam would have recognised Sil … ‘Did you tell him where I was?’

‘Course not. I said you were out, that was all. If he was a journo didn’t think you’d thank me for having him turn up all over a tagging, and if he’s not, well, he’ll find you.’

‘You didn’t mention where I live, or anything?’

‘Yes, of course. I also told him that you like reading, you’re a Gemini and you want a man who’s sensitive and smart – of course I didn’t bloody tell him where you live!’

‘Sorry. And what makes you think I want a man who’s sensitive and smart?’

Liam rolled his eyes.

I pointed in the general direction of the card. It had already been subsumed by paperwork and vanished somewhere under a pile of reports. ‘So. He wants me to know he’s been here, but the ball remains in his court.’

‘Being mysterious on purpose. Get your curiosity going.’

I curled my lip. ‘Come on, Liam, did he look like he might want me for something urgent or just as a matter of interest? Or was he competition?’

‘You mean, did he look like a Hunter? Not really. Not enough of the Hugh Jackman thing going on, too skinny.’ Right, yeah, Liam, Mister ‘I don’t notice blokes’. ‘And if he was a vamp, he’s not one of ours – didn’t look right for a vamp anyway, didn’t feel right, if you know what I mean. Oh, and you’re due in that school in twenty minutes, to give your talk.’

Great. Not only do I have to tag the bastards if they get out of line, but I have to do their PR, which is how I regularly find myself standing up on a stage in front of a bunch of kids, giving them the ‘Otherworlders are quite safe, that’s why we have a Treaty,’ spiel, tempered with a little ‘but it’s not cool to be a vampire. Honest. Don’t let the being gorgeous, rich and successful fool you.’

We don’t know how it happened, even after a hundred years we’re still not quite sure where they came from, but we do know this – when it all kicked off, the vampires were at the heart of it. Oh, they weren’t the only species to come through, or pass over or whatever you might call it, the werewolves came too, and wights and Shadows and ghouls and zombies – we got the full set, but the vampires were the ones that fronted it. The acceptable faces of an alternative dimension, at least that’s what the NME call them, but they’ve always been good at the sound bytes. I just call them bastards and have done with it.

The thing that most people don’t understand about vampires is that, basically, when you get right down to it, they’re transport. That’s all. Transport for a nasty little demon, its eyes and ears and food supplier. In their home dimension, apparently, all the demons live without hosts, and even here they can get by on their own but … well, there’s a limit to the amount of fun you can have when you look like an irradiated rodent with an ooze problem and no form of protection. So in this dimension one of the enhancements that having a top-of-the-range demon on board tends to give you, is physical attractiveness. Vampires can be abso-bloody-lutely drop-dead-and-swivel-on-the-ground gorgeous. Demons need that kind of thing, something to do with all the hormones sloshing around, they get off on adrenaline, dopamine, oestrogen, testosterone, the whole alphabet of human regulators gives them a huge high, so they make sure that they are first in line for the thrills.

Here’s how it works – you get bitten by a vamp and you have one of three options. If you’re lucky it just feeds – leaving you weak, lightheaded and looking favourably upon nearly raw steak for a month or two, also wearing a mark that you’re never going to get away with explaining as a love bite. Or, they just kill you, because to a vampire another vampire is competition, but sometimes, you know, if they’re feeling procreative, you get really unlucky, and they inject demon-seed into your blood. Then you’ve got, probably, an hour – ninety minutes tops – to get to a hospital which has a blood-wash system, otherwise, in the words of Liam who tends to panic about these things, you’re screwed. It’s happened to me twice and, believe me, blood-washing hurts, so you try not to get bitten, right?

If the worst happens and you end up with demon-seed in your bloodstream, then you hatch a demon. Inside you. And like any other parasite it forms links within you so that if it dies, you die. And, because if you die, and they separate from you in time, it leaves them unprotected and vulnerable, they like to keep their hosts in tip-top condition, so being demon-infected means that you get a kind of super-human strength, great vision, hearing, speed, all that kind of crap. Oh, and you tend to live a long, long time – not quite immortal, but the Queen’s going to get writer’s cramp doing your telegrams.

Most vampires these days tend to live on synthetic blood and the successful ones spend their time running corporations, becoming hugely rich and powerful and sleeping with supermodels, so you can see the attraction for the kids. But for every top vamp there’s a whole pyramid of lower vampires, the ones that, even with super-human enhancements, are never going to make it. Like Daim. Like the hundreds of other spotty youths who thought that being a vampire was the end of their problems and not the beginning of a whole new load of even more complicated problems. And if you’re even the slightest bit tempted, then go and read your history books, study the Troubles that broke out when the numbers of Otherworlders reached pandemic status, when the humans decided it was time to fight back …

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.