Falling Apart (2 page)

I am vampire. I am top of the food chain, a mover-in-shadow; desired by women, envied by men. I have the grace of a cat, the sight of an eagle and the speed of a greyhound – so why can't I find a bloody biro when I want one?

Sil sighed and rested his elbows on the table. His demon, driven to action by the conflicting emotions scything through his body, scrabbled for attention within him, but he ignored it and rubbed his forehead with a finger, trying to ease the deep ache that he knew wasn't strictly physical.

I am vampire. So why do I feel guilty?

He tried to distract himself by squinting around the tabletop in an attempt to locate the missing ballpoint, closing one eye and then the other and finally running his hands across the surface, riffling the papers that lay there. The girl sitting opposite, eyes fixed on his face with the intensity of a hawk scanning a hedgerow, pushed a pen in his direction. ‘Here.'

I shouldn't be here, with this woman whose desire is thrusting from her in waves that make a tsunami look like a slight swell. It is unfair to let her believe that she and I could share more than a smile and a notepad, when I have a heart engaged elsewhere. And not just a heart, my whole body burns with what I feel for Jessica, and cannot wait to close the distance between us, yet here is where I must be. Only here can I find the answers to those questions she carries so silently, with such strength that it weakens me to see it. Answers that may give her the gift she doesn't know she wants.

‘Thank you.' He picked up the proffered biro but instead of writing twisted it between his fingers. ‘I'm just going to … there's something over here I want to look at.' He stood up and the girl's head moved to keep him in the centre of her vision, as though she was afraid he'd vanish if she took her eyes off him.

‘I'll be here … if you need me,' she spoke in what was obviously her best ‘seductive' voice, and Sil's demon gave an unwanted internal shiver of anticipation which made his fangs lengthen in his mouth and the blood-hunger writhe through his body like snakes dancing in his veins.

He didn't smile at her. She wasn't one of the five per cent of humans who could tell he was vampire, she just thought she'd got lucky with a good-looking man – he knew that much by her flirtatious glances and the way she constantly stroked her hair back off her face.
I wonder why women do that?
He wandered off, further back into the stacks of books.
Makes them look as though they're constantly checking for lice.

And then he saw it, the book he'd come looking for. Not hidden at all, just jumbled with a bunch of identical others, the only difference being the detailing along the spine – a date. Sil pulled the book free, with a little puff of dust, from its fellows and flipped the pages.
I can't remember what it was to read at human speed
. The thought buzzed into his head.
So many human things I didn't remember, until Jess
 …
She makes me remember, the times before I was this creature of blood and high drama, before the demon that makes me live on the edge so it may feed on the thrills. The time when I was a man, a husband and a father.
A flicker of memory, followed by a flare of pain that he extinguished by depriving it of attention.
Not now. I will not remember now. Only when she is here can I allow those memories that call forth the tears and the regret – the loss of my family, of my humanity. Jess eases the pain simply by being. And for that reason, I am here. Because she deserves payment in the only coin I know how to deal.

A hesitation, and then a momentary astonishment made him frown. He started to turn, book in hand, to draw the attention of his companion to the peculiarity, but she was too far away, still sitting at the table behind the manifold shelves, hidden from sight by the ranks of dusty books. ‘This …' he began to say, before he heard the dull telltale thump of a gun firing and a sharp pinch of pain in the flesh of his shoulder. A hand came out, preventing him from falling, another caught his other arm. He was moving, semi-conscious, books streaming past him like dreams. And then, nothing.

Zan lounged in front of his pristine state-of-the-art computer in the middle of his immaculate office. The sight of so much bare floor made me agoraphobic.

‘Do come in, Jessica.' He spoke without looking away from the screen. ‘But please don't touch anything.'

‘There isn't anything
to
touch. It's OCD Central in here.' I went inside, careful not to accidentally knock any piles of books over, even though there weren't any. Liam's and my office was a testimony to the power of faith over filing; I kept most things on the floor. Liam was almost as tidy as Zan, but Zan had staff and cleaners and Liam dragged the weight of my incredible loathing for order and had, on occasion, debated the benefits of being demon-infected just to get to work in a tidy office. ‘Don't you ever just … you know, put something down?'

‘Only humans.'

I
thought
Zan had a sense of humour, although it was almost undetectable underneath his obsessions, social-phobia and general old-womanness, but it was often hard to tell when he was employing it and when he was just being nasty. ‘Okay.' I wiggled from foot to foot as I waited for him to stop looking at the screen and look at me. ‘Anything exciting going on out there?' I saw his reflection freeze for a second, one dark eyebrow rising. Zan was one of the oldest of the vampires, still harbouring a longing for his ages-past world of class structure, impeccable manners and top hats. Despite this, he looked about thirty, with demon-enhanced bone-structure and pale skin counterpointed beautifully by a pair of green eyes and dark hair. Women fell in their droves at his feet, where he stepped over them. We had yet to determine whether Zan actually
had
a sex-drive, and Liam and I quietly speculated that, if he did, it was directed at something a lot more exotic than the vampire-groupies and casual flirts who tested their wiles on him on a daily basis.

‘Have you heard from Sil?' Zan answered my question with his own, but he didn't swivel his leather office chair (another source of friction between our council-funded department and the vampires' – we had to make do with nasty plastic that smelled of wee) towards me. His tone was level, but Zan's tone was always level. I thought he probably practised.

‘No. That's why I'm here.' I moved a bit closer. ‘He's not been in touch and it's not like him. He … he says he can feel me … inside him.' I left the obligatory pause that Liam had trained me into after five years of office sharing but, of course, with Zan no innuendo dropped into the gap. ‘So he knows when I'm thinking about him. If he … feels me …'—another tiny unentendre-filled space, just to make sure—‘he usually phones, or texts or something. But this time'—my throat tightened—‘he just went.'

Zan finally turned to face me, cross-legged in his chair, like a male model turned Bond villain. ‘And you think …?' He slotted his fingers together and held them under his chin, eyes interrogating me.

But I'm immune to the vamp-glamour. In fact, to blow my own trumpet just a bit, I'm better than the five per-centers who can tell a vampire just by looking at them, I can not only spot them, I can react almost as fast as they can to a situation. It means that I'm really good at my job: when an out-of-area vamp shows on our system I tranq them and send them back. I've also got blood that's pure vampire-heroin, but we keep quiet about that. If York Council find out about it they'll think of a way of using me for something else. And
still
not paying a proper salary. ‘I've thought lots of things, Zan, but now I'd really like some actual answers. So, come on. Where is he?'

Zan spun the chair back around to face the screen. ‘Sil is a free agent. With the fiction we uphold of his being the City Vampire in charge of Otherworld York, he is perfectly at liberty to move around without being subject to the permits and paperwork that the Others would normally require.'

‘You don't know where he is.' Sudden panic buzzed behind my eyes. ‘Even
you
?'

In reflection, his eyes met mine. ‘Now, what gives you that idea, Jessica?'

‘Because you
love
to know more than I do. If you had so much as a whisper about where he was, this place would be more full of hints than'—I glanced around for a really good metaphor—‘than it is of anything else,' I finished, rather feebly.

A shrug. ‘He told me he would be away from the office for a few days. That there was some work he wished to do that necessitated his travelling. I have perpetuated this story for the sake of the press and all public agencies; we wouldn't wish to spread the rumour that we cannot keep an eye on our City Vamp, now, would we?'

‘Okay, so what's “a few days” in vampire-speak? Is it “I might not be back for breakfast” or “don't expect to see me for six months”?' My voice was a bit high-pitched and the words came out rushed and jerky, like sheep herded by a collie on amphetamines.

‘I am … concerned.' Zan pushed his chair away from the desk and stood with the smooth speed of the vampire. ‘Not that he has gone, but because he has been gone for so long without word.' He came towards me, his tall, slender figure crossing the beech laminate flooring silently. It was like being crept up on by an egret. ‘And that it may be something to do with you, Jessica.'

‘Oh, now, wait, you're not pinning this one on me! Okay, fair enough, things are a bit … well … awkward between me and some other people'—like just about every human who'd found out that my father wasn't really a retired English teacher but a semi-immortal demon—‘but Sil and I are good. We're strong together, Zan, we …' No, I really wasn't going to go into detail about our relationship, particularly with someone who regarded sitting on a seat previously occupied by another as being too much physical contact. ‘He wouldn't run out on me. He
wouldn't.
'

‘I agree.'

‘You do?'

‘Yes. He could just wait for you to die. And, as ninety per cent of the world seems to have a grudge against you, Jessica, he probably would not have to wait long.'

‘Bitch.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Nothing, just … clearing my throat.'

‘What do you wish me to do?'

I hated it when Zan talked to me as though I were an equal. It was downright scary. Here he was, actual vampire in charge of the Otherworld occupants of York, possessor of a demon that gave him enhanced strength, speed, hearing and all the other
Buffy
stuff plus a ridiculously long lifespan, asking me, York Council Human/Otherworld Liaison employee, possessor of millions of pairs of laddered tights and a store card for Gap on which I owed a fortune, for advice. It made me even more resentful of my undersized pay packet than I already was. ‘Let's give it another couple of days. He might just have got really absorbed in something.' As long as the ‘something' wasn't an acid bath – there was a human faction that opposed the Others and would gladly seize the opportunity to remove one of its more high-profile members. And vampires weren't that hard to kill, a stake or a bullet would do it, as long as you could move faster than a rattlesnake on military-strength drugs. ‘Sil can look after himself. And anyway, if anything
had
happened to him, we would have heard about it – I can't believe that if someone took out a vampire as powerful as Sil it wouldn't be splashed all over the
Ten O'Clock News
, can you?'

Zan dipped his head in a slight bow. ‘Very well.'

I
really
wished he wouldn't do that whole ‘humble servant' thing. I knew that he could tear my throat out in a second if he wanted to. Actually, he probably
did
want to, but the vampires owed their entire success to sublimated urges and artificial blood, and Zan was extremely successful. Only in the wary depths of his eyes could I find any trace of anything other than an obsessively tidy beta-male geek with nice eyes and a
very
understanding dentist.

‘Just … you know, if you hear anything …'

Zan turned back to his computer. ‘You will, of course, be among the first to know.'

Gee, thanks.

‘So, where did you get to?'

After Vamp Central our office looked like something out of a Dickens novel. ‘I went to see Zan. I know it sounds weird but … when Sil went, he didn't tell me where he was going or anything, and I thought Zan might have some kind of insight. But since “Zan” and “insight” are words that cancel each other out and leave a kind of verbal white noise …'

‘Nope, not weird at all.' Liam swung around to face me. ‘What do you mean Sil's gone and you don't know where?'

Even the words were painful.
Gone.
‘If you think about that question, does it not answer itself?'

‘Oh. Yeah, suppose it does, really.' He stood up, scrubbed both hands down his thighs and then patted me on the shoulder. ‘But you don't need to worry about Sil, Jess, let's face it. He's a hundred and thirty years old, give or take a candle, and he hasn't got to that age without learning how to handle himself and if you so much as snigger at that last statement then you've had the last sympathy from me you're ever going to get.' Another pat. ‘Coffee?'

‘Mmmm. But why would he do that? Go off? Okay, I can imagine that he might …' I swallowed down the personal fear of abandonment and faced the practicalities, ‘but not to tell
Zan
?
That would be like me emigrating and not telling you … Oh, no, wait a minute, that's not odd, that's sensible.' I finally let the spiralling doubt move from where it had been hiding low down in my belly and auger its way up to my heart. ‘Do
you
think Sil has run out on me?'

Liam stared. ‘What, you mean like “it's not you, it's me, no forwarding address” time? Jeez, is
that
what Zan said, that Sil's buggered off? I know vampires sometimes have all the subtlety of an
American Pie
film but … seriously? I'm supposed to be Sil's friend – wouldn't he do the whole bloke thing, you know, late night calls from bars, turning up to sleep on my sofa and all that? Just to
go
?' Liam rubbed his hands over his face. ‘No. No, sorry, Jess, I don't see that at all. He loves you.'

‘As much as a vampire can. Come on, Liam, I wrote the pamphlets – they don't really
do
affection. It's like keeping a cat; they love you right up until someone rattles a spoon in a bigger tin, they
have
to, they need the thrills to keep their demons happy.' I was astounded by the calmness of my tone –
what, care, me?
‘Maybe his demon just got the better of him.'

‘Jessie …' Liam reached over as though to touch me, but I reared back. Human contact right now would have cracked my careful facade wide open. ‘Is that what you want to believe? Of
Sil
, of all people? That you mean so little to him that he'd just take off?'

‘Maybe it's not what I want'—my voice choked down the scale—‘but maybe it's what I
have
to believe. He's normally a stickler for keeping at least Zan in the loop. To do this he must have … Something must have happened and it wouldn't be the first time a vampire has upped and run out on a human …' I tailed off; then cleared my throat. ‘Look, it's nearly six. Let's shut up shop for today. I need some sleep and isn't it Sarah's yoga night? You go home and put Charlotte to bed and I'll see you tomorrow.'

I got up and started getting my things together. Liam didn't move. ‘That has to be the longest self-justification sentence I've ever heard,' he said.

‘Do you want me to throw something at you?'

‘It might help.'

I threw the nearest thing to hand; it was the electric pencil sharpener, which trailed through the air like the world's least aerodynamic weapon ever, hit the side of the bookshelf and took a chunk out of the MDF before crashing to the floor.

Liam didn't even duck. ‘Go home, Jess,' he said gently. ‘It's going to be all right.'

It was at
that
point I should have realised it really, really wasn't.