Day 25

Merle rolls over in Darius's arms. The curtains are drawn as always, but it feels like morning.

Darius is awake, looking at her. 'You can leave when ever you want. You don't have to wait until six o'clock.'

'Do I have to leave?'

Darius smiles. 'No. You know that. Do you want to stay?'

Merle smiles back. 'Maybe a little longer. And there was something I told you I'd do.'

'Of course.' Darius runs a cold finger over her collar bone. 'I do have some things to do today, too. I would love to lie with you all day, of course, bleed you, taste you, see if I can find a part of my dead body that hasn't yet made you flush pink and come, but ...' He stops and grazes his plump bottom lips with his teeth.

Merle puts her hand on his cheek and moves to kiss him. 'Perhaps later.'

A little later, down in the dungeon, Merle peers through the barred window into Oberon's cell. He's manacled and lying on the floor staring at the ceiling.

Ten days without blood.

Merle draws back the bolts and steps into the cell. Oberon lifts his head. Lord Oberon of the Black Emerald Clan. The man who arranged it all.

After she's closed the door behind her, Merle keeps her back pressed against it. She knows the exact limit of Oberon's chains very well. He won't be able to reach her where she stands.

'What do you want, Miss Cobalt?'

'I have something for you, Oberon. Food.'

'Food?' Oberon snorts.

Out of her pocket Merle pulls one of Darius's razor blades. 'Well if you're not hungry.'

'Oh.' Oberon's eyes go wide. He starts to get to his feet.

'You can get off the floor,' Merle says gently, 'but then I want you to sit down on the bench. You remember how it goes. You have to earn your food down here.'

'You want me to kiss you?' he says as he sits down, grinning, almost high – on nothing but the promise of her blood. This was going to be too easy.

'No. No kisses. Remember the other time. I want you to answer my questions. I want to know the truth.'

Oberon smiles. 'You know, in the end, that's often all humans want from vampires. Funny. We do know how to make you dizzy so many ways, don't we?'

Merle holds up her left hand. With the razor blade she snicks the pad of her thumb and turns her hand a little so Oberon can see the wound. 'You know, I'm sure there's a huge stash of blood – what did Kristina call them? Plasma packs – somewhere in this castle – but, I thought this might be more effective. You still like it fresh best of all, don't you? Vamps? I remember my mum telling me about how vamps sometimes kidnap people for a little of the warm stuff then do a mind wipe before they send them back. Very occasionally the mind wipes don't take – that's when Cobalt hears about them.'

Merle tilts her wrist so the blood from her thumb starts to run down her arm. 'You ready to talk yet?'

'You really think I'm going to tell you the truth?'

'Actually, yeah. You've been starved down here, haven't you? Makes it much harder for you to spin me tales, doesn't it?'

'Sounds like you got a few psych-powers there yourself, missy.'

'Are you going to tell me the truth, or not?'

Oberon leans over and spits on the floor. When he looks up his face is defiant. 'If you want the truth, why don't you go and ask Cole. He seems very keen that everyone knows his side of the story.'

'He does, doesn't he? Except I'm not sure he really knows the truth. He only really knows what you told him, doesn't he? And why would you tell him the truth? You're a vampire. All his information about what was done to Magdalena really came from you. If anyone has the real answers you do.' A splatter of Merle's blood hits the floor. Oberon's eyes go wide looking at it. Merle waits for him to look back at her. 'Did Cole really believe in Righteous Power?'

Oberon looks sullen for a moment. 'No,' he says quietly. 'No. He was just a trouble maker. He had no line and nothing to lose. He said he wanted the Clan Council reorganised, more contact between vampires and humans, Clan leaders elected, that sort of thing. I doubt he knew about Righteous Power, probably never even heard of it, feral thing like him. But you'll never convince the Clan Council of that. It'll be his word against mine. Darius Cole is a legend. My legend. And every last vampire that heard him speak joined his cause, and every one of them was killed. There's no one left to say what his doctrine really was, but it wasn't Righteous Power.'

Merle nods. 'And was he performing Blood Rites with humans?'

'Oh, yes. Well, with one human.'

'Magdalena. The woman you had killed. The woman whose soul you trapped in a glass prism.'

Oberon's eyes flash like he's suddenly pleased about something. 'Oh no. That part's not true.'

Merle swallows. She knows she's getting close. But close to what? The truth. The truth that she isn't Magdalena at all? 'Talk to me, Oberon, or you can rot here. Starved into insanity. I mean it.' Another red splat fell onto the dirty floor.

'I am telling you the truth,' Oberon says softly. 'You're right. I can't manipulate you right now. I'm too weak. I can't see in your mind, you're just a blood sack to me right now so you might as well listen. I did not put Cole's creature's soul into a prism. Of course I didn't! Have you any idea how much that would cost? Why does everyone think old vampires have unlimited resources? Covering the running of your parents stupid Cobalt operation was bad enough – but then a soul prison on top! If I'd really done that I'd have been ruined. I'm 300 years old; everything is so bloody expensive these days.'

'Oh for God's sake. It's called inflation and I don't see you vamps complaining about it when it works in your advantage. You're all richer than gods.'

Oberon spits onto the floor again. His juices must really be flowing. 'I would never have had to have bought witchcraft in. Vampires and witches, never a good mix. And I had already spent enough on Cole. So I...'

'Oh,' says Merle, her stomach flipping over with the realisation of what Oberon is saying. 'I get it. It was a trick. A vampire mind trick. You just made him think you had her soul. So he wouldn't have hope, right? That's the point.'

Oberon nods. 'That's how vampires operate. It's all games. It's all lies. It's not what you can do as much as what you can make people think you can do. Everyone believed I had Magdalena Wright's soul trapped in a glass prism, and that knowledge destroyed all Cole's hopes as surely as if I had really done it.'

'So why did you change your plan. I mean, why tell him you'd put the soul in me?'

'Because, even with his brain starved of blood he was still a cunning creature. Even when he was rolling around on the floor of that cell naked, filthy and deranged, he worked out, or found out, what keeping that soul secure would have been costing me. He realised I wouldn't be able to afford it forever. He started to get hopeful. Started to believe that one day I would have to release her.'

'So then you came up with the idea of me. Of telling him you'd put her soul in me.'

'Not exactly. Cobalt came up with that one. I thought if I shut down Cobalt Cole would think I was serious about his woman's prison. When I told your parents – mummy and daddy – they basically sold me their firstborn child. You. As a receptacle for Magdalena's soul. They didn't even want to have children until this little problem came along. They were both too committed to making money. No wonder they had such an affinity with vamps. Nice people. But it was their idea to conceive a child, place the soul there, and then raise that child to hate and despise vampires. And to hate and despise Cole most of all.'

Merle puts her hand on the cell door behind her for balance. 'My parents suggested it!'

'You can't blame them. They were desperate. Cobalt was a cushy number and they knew it. I owned them. That nice house you grew up in? That fancy office building just off Whitehall? Who do you think pays for all that? Me. Well, the Black Emerald Clan.' He leans forward on the bench. 'Want to know something really funny? Guess who's been rubber stamping all of Cobalt's expenses for the last two years, since he took this place over?' Oberon's eyes rolled to the ceiling.

'Never mind that.' Merle's shaking, Oberon might be too weak to lie to her, but his truth was still devastating. 'So you fooled Cobalt along with everyone else. They think it's all true, too. They think you really did put her soul into their child. Into me!'

'Yes.' Oberon looks impatient. 'Your parents think it's true, Cole thinks it's true. The only people who know it isn't true are in this cell.'

'So what really happened to Magdalena's soul?'

Oberon shrugs. 'Whatever you believe happens to the soul when someone dies. She was shot. She's dead, that's all I know. I'm sure when you tell him he'll start trying to find her.'

'Oh.' Merle feels her heart drop straight through her body as she realises the truth in what Oberon is saying. She isn't Magdalena. She isn't Darius's lover.

She pulls the stake out of the back of the waistband of her jeans and stakes Oberon before he's finished laughing at her. She's never staked a vampire before. It's surprisingly easy.

Merle slides the bolts of the cell door closed and turns around, Darius is standing right behind her, right up close in the tiny corridor. She starts. 'Darius, are you OK? I thought you were busy.'

'I was. But I thought I'd come and check on you. Did you do it?'

'Yes.' Merle swallows. Oberon's dead. Which means she's the only one left now who knows the truth. 'You weren't in my mind when I was in there with Oberon?'

'No.' Darius smiles, a little confused. 'Why? Were you doing something I wouldn't like, Magdalena?' He catches Merle's left wrist and lifts her bloody hand.

'Darius, I ...' Merle's voice trails away. She isn't Magdalena. But that's her secret. She doesn't have to tell him. But he can read her mind. How can she keep a secret from him? There's a look in his eyes. Something dark and comforting. Unless it wasn't a secret. Unless he'd known all along. 'You know, don't you? You know I'm not ... Not her.'

'I know. And, yes, I've always known. Oberon isn't half as clever as he thinks he is.' He reaches out touches a wisp of hair that's stuck to her cheek. 'She's dead. They killed her because of me. As for where her soul is now. Gone into the ether to find another place to rest. Who knows, maybe you are her reborn.'

'It'd be a billion to one chance if I actually was ...'

'But she brought me to you. Her story. My love for her. Something in what was done to me and the lies I was told drew me to you. Only to you. And when I look on you I feel something that I only ever felt before when I looked on her. Maybe ...' He looks intently at her. 'Maybe there is some part of her. Somehow ...'

'Darius ...' Merle's voice trails away.

Darius brings her bloody hand to his mouth and licks at her thumb with his cool tongue. 'Let me get that for you, Magdalena.'