Vampire State of Mind (9 page)

‘Are you all right?'

‘Help me.' The vampire seemed to be in shock, eyes frozen wide and, despite the fact that vampires don't have much of a circulatory system, she was shivering and pumping blood on to the fancy paved walkway. ‘My leg – '

‘I can see.' I pulled off my shoes and tights and wadded the black mesh into a ball. ‘Press this up against it.' She did as I said, which shows how far gone she was; normally a vampire will chew off their own arm rather than obey a human command. But I didn't have time to be diplomatic. ‘You're Caro?' I had to get her talking, keep her mind off her injury. ‘Keep pressing, it'll stop the bleeding. What happened?'

‘There was this thing, came at me out of nowhere. It slashed my leg and I think it would have eaten me, except – ' she winced. ‘The zombie, he came along that road there.'

‘I didn't see him.'

‘No,' she said, rather pointedly.

‘Oh.' This wasn't a race, it was a bloodbath. ‘I think we ought to keep moving. Whatever took him might still be hungry.' I tied the remnants of my tights around Caro's leg, tightly enough to stop the bleeding and, with her leaning on me and hopping, we managed to make some progress through the eerily deserted centre. ‘There's something not right about this race.'

‘I think, maybe. Yes.' Caro hopped carefully beside me.

‘I thought it was a bit of fun!' I wailed. ‘I mean, come on! Against a
Shadow
? What chance did I have?'

‘You think that the race was purposely made to be dangerous?'

‘Someone entered me in that draw,' I said, thinking aloud. ‘I think something was supposed to happen to me in the Run.'

Caro was shaking her head. ‘You must be very important then, for someone to rig the race.'

‘But I'm
not
! I'm not even on the sodding
council
. I don't do deals, I don't have any power over anybody, unless you count Liam, and getting me killed would be a bit extreme; he could just not send me a Christmas card.' I shook my head. ‘I'm a filing clerk.' It came out as a wail. ‘Who'd want to kill a filing clerk?'

Caro shrugged, exotically. Clinging together, we hauled ourselves through the narrow exit and out into the open space behind the shopping mall. There, where Clifford's Tower should have stood, was a pair of bone gates, the matching pair of those in the Hagg Baba.

‘So what will you do?'

‘I don't know. Try not to get killed.'

Caro gave me a peculiar look out of her green eyes. ‘Welcome to our world. Do you know how many humans want vampires killed? At the last count? The Britain for Humans party comprises fifty thousand people. Fifty
thousand
, Jessica, would happily see me dead tomorrow. Today. Five minutes ago. Trying not to get killed is a way of life for us.'

‘I thought things had settled down after the Troubles.'

‘For some people things will never “settle down”. Those were bad times, a lot of people on both sides got hurt.' The vampire sighed. ‘And a long life isn't necessarily a good thing, when it comes with memories like those.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said, and meant it.

Caro gave a brief smile. Her fangs weren't visible and the smile made her look almost human. ‘You do the best you can, and your liaison work makes people more tolerant, so, it's not your fault.'

‘Well, thanks for that.'

The bone gates arched above us. ‘All this place needs –

– ‘is a Foo Fighters track playing in the background. Whoa!' And we were, as they say, back in the room.

The crowd were gathered around a huge glass sphere, which must be the watching device, but they stepped back as we reappeared and there was a very respectable round of applause. I let go of Caro and headed off to the toilets, spent a couple of minutes in there fiddling with my remaining tranq tube, and by the time I came out, she'd been declared the Dead Run winner (there was still no sign of the ghoul). She threw me an apologetic look over the heads of her congratulators, but I just shrugged and went off looking for Malfaire.

He was sitting in the crowded main restaurant, obviously not bothered enough to even watch the race. Sil was hovering in the background, talking to a waiter – he clearly
had
watched the race because my appearance didn't even cause him a raised eyebrow. When he saw me walk in, Malfaire jumped to his feet.

‘Jessica!'

‘Yup.' God, I even impressed myself. I'd ruined yet more tights, had sweat staining and – I did not
believe
it – I'd broken another heel, but I was positively refrigerator-cool. ‘I'm fine. It was a bit bloodthirsty in there – did the ghoul get out?'

Malfaire shrugged. Over his shoulder I saw Sil shake his head slowly and I let my macho façade slip a fraction as tears welled behind my eyes. ‘Come and have a drink.' Malfaire led me to a now-empty table, filled a glass from the wine bottle that stood on it and we both sat down. In the circumstances, in fact, in
any
circumstances, drinking with Malfaire was the last thing I wanted to do, but I had an ulterior motive here, and tried to stop myself from fingering the tube in my pocket. Malfaire raised his glass to me, ‘You survived the Dead Run! Let's drink to that.'

‘I'd rather drink to the ones that didn't make it.'

‘As you like.'

Sil was looking daggers at me across the room but I ignored him. I was enjoying upsetting him; after all, he didn't know that I found Malfaire creepy.

‘So.' Malfaire pushed his chair away from the table a little so that he could tip his head back and look at me. It was the kind of ‘so' that quite often precedes a night of debauchery, and I felt a tingle down the length of my spine. Magic? Possibly. ‘How do you usually wrap up a night like this one? I bet it's not by drinking in a closed restaurant with a vampire onlooker and the staff tidying up around you.'

No, I thought, do you really think it's as easy as that? A bit of magic, a flick of your highlights and I'll fall into bed with you? Time to put my plan into action. Feeling a bit
Agatha Christie
I flipped a hand around my head. ‘Sorry. There's a wasp, there, look. Bloody things, they get everywhere.'

Malfaire's eyes were intent on me, almost hypnotic. ‘I really think I'd like to come home with you tonight.'

Well, all right, everyone seemed to think he was totally gorgeous except me, but even so there was something in his persistence which was off-putting. A bit full-on and up-front … surely I merited some flowers, maybe chocolates, some casual charm, perhaps. ‘That's very sweet and everything, but …' hastily trying to think of an excuse, ‘my place is a bit difficult. I share, you see, with my friend Rachel.' Who might, judging by the way she'd been looking at Zan when they left, be entertaining in her own right. If it were possible to ‘entertain' Zan, and the jury was still out on that one.

‘Anyway, didn't
I
promise to walk you home?' It was Sil. I wasn't sure if he was coming to my rescue or letting rampant jealousy get the better of him. ‘We have things to talk about.' He glanced at Malfaire. ‘There's a lot of catching up to do.'

But at least he was a distraction. I performed a little dextrous jiggery-pokery under the table while the two men eyeballed one another and Malfaire jumped. ‘What the –! Ow! Something stabbed me in the leg!'

‘I told you there was a wasp – rub some vinegar on it.' I kept my eyes on Sil. Didn't want my expression to give anything away, and looking at Sil made me think of other things, disturbing things.

‘I shall complain to the management.' But the mood was broken. Malfaire no longer seemed to want to seduce me, which was good, and anyway I make it a rule never to sleep with someone until I know what species they are. Sil was already pulling me backwards out of the Hagg Baba and before I knew it I was out on the chilly pre-dawn street, stumbling over the cobbles with Sil beside me, looking severely disgruntled.

‘You would have, wouldn't you?' he said, before we'd even got halfway down the road. ‘You'd have bloody well shagged him! And what was all that “ooh look, a wasp” bullshit? What was he supposed to do, fight it to the death in front of you?'

‘What the
hell
is the matter with you?' I stopped blundering over the uneven surface and turned to face him. Sil had completely dropped the concerned act, and was standing with one hand around a lamp-post as though he wished it was my neck. His knuckles were white, and his face was, too.

‘It's you! All that fawning over the creep as though he is your ideal man, flashing your bosom and your legs and flicking your hair like a cheap streetwalker chasing a penny tumble!'

‘Excuse
me
! Fawning? I did no such thing, and anyway, am I not now walking away? Did I not just turn him down? Although, may I point out, that going home and being given a good time by Malfaire pales in comparison to being shouted at and called a ho by you!'

‘Did I say that? Did
I
call you anything? I don't think
so
.' Sil's eyes were hard. ‘But, okay, maybe you enjoy being treated the way he was treating you, like you're nothing more than a piece of ass.'

I felt the shock hit me. Something in Sil's anger had unlocked it and the cool calmness that had held me since I'd passed back through those bone gates evaporated; a bone-numbing horror crept in in its place. I stumbled as though I'd been struck.

‘Jessie?' Sil grabbed my arm, held me up.

‘Oh, God! Oh, God, Sil, I could have been
killed
.' My legs gave out and my arms felt that gravity-suction again as though I still hung from the side of that building. ‘Oh, God.'

‘Yes. You could. But you weren't.' For a second – the briefest flash of time – his body was against me, rigid and strong. ‘Listen. You're the only human ever to have run and you came back, helping a
vampire
over the line. That is pretty impressive, you know that?'

He took half a step back, but his arm stayed, still supporting my weight.

‘I nearly died.' A shrill giggle. ‘That is so
stupid
.'

Sil flipped me round, gazed at me with huge eyes. ‘I'm taking you home. You're hysterical.'

‘You're pretty funny yourself.'

‘Jessica. Shut. Up.'

So, you see why I couldn't work with Sil? He marched me to my door, where he let go of my arm as though it smelled of wet fish and turned away into the night. I was left, leaning against the front door, legs trembling and with the terrible feeling that I might be sick.

I let myself in, cautiously, but I needn't have worried. The buzz-saw snoring from Rach's room told me that she was sleeping alone, although the disgust on the face of Jasper, regarding me severely from the top of the freezer, told me that she had let Zan accompany her past the front door. Jasper liked vampires about as much as I did, right now.

I couldn't sleep. The shock left me alternately freezing cold or drenched-sweaty and I spent the hours lurching up and down the temperature scale thinking of all the clever remarks I should have made to Sil.

I didn't fall asleep until an hour before I had to get up, so when I finally dragged myself into the office I probably looked more vampire than human.

‘God, I heard the Run was tough, but you look
terrible
!' Liam exploded up out of his seat and, for the first time in his employment, held the door open for me.

‘And where did you hear that?' Feeling about a hundred and three, I lowered myself into my chair and fired up the computer. There was a vase of flowers on my desk. Hmmm. I hoped Liam wasn't getting all mushy over me, just because I nearly died.

‘Caro came over. She was just leaving, heading back to, where's she from? Halifax, Harrogate, yep, Harrogate, that's it. She brought some flowers for you, to say thanks, said that she wouldn't have won without you. Said she owes you one, and those are not words that vampires utter very often, unless it's in the context of bitey-bitey.'

‘Right. That's nice.' Only a vampire would have selected a vase full of white lilies. ‘Liam, you remember that blood-analysis we had done that time, can you remember which lab did it for us? Only, I've got another job for them.' From my bag I withdrew the narrow metal tube.

‘That's a tranq,' Liam said, clearly thinking I'd gone completely barking.

‘No, it's not.' I held it out to show him the inside of the unit.

‘That looks like – is it
blood
?'

‘I emptied the tranq down a toilet and used the syringe to get a blood sample from Mr Malfaire. Hopefully,' I held the narrow cylinder up to the light, ‘this will tell us exactly
what
he is.'

‘Hang on. This is all a bit James Bond, isn't it? Isn't it illegal to obtain genetic material surreptitiously?' Liam sounded dubious but actually looked thrilled. I suspected he'd always wanted to be ‘Q', or was it ‘M', some mid-alphabet letter anyway, hence all that fiddling with the computer.

‘Ah, now that's interesting. There
is
a law, but it only applies to humans.' I grinned across the desk, ‘Don't you
love
discrimination?'

Sil stared across the office at Zan. ‘The Run was rigged?'

Zan inclined his head. ‘I strongly suspect so. Jessica has repeatedly stated that she didn't enter her name. Somebody did, somebody prevented the Committee from cancelling the Run, and somebody allowed a demon, a Shadow and sufficient magic to animate statues to gain ingress. To what end we must wait to establish.'

‘Not a fluke. Not a joke.'

‘No.'

‘Shit.'

Another graceful inclination. ‘As you say.'

‘But why?' Sil started to pace the floor, the bottle of O swinging between his fingers. His demon, liking the feelings of uncertainty, moved inside him. ‘Why do that? She could have died, nearly did by the sounds of it.'

‘Yes.' Zan's fingers clattered over his keyboard. ‘If she hadn't broken all the rules by going armed, she would have done.'

‘They broke the rules first.' Sil knew he sounded sulky. ‘Humans do not run.' He took a huge swig from the bottle, wincing a bit at the chalky aftertaste. Tonight he was
definitely
going out to score. It had been too long. ‘So. Someone wants Jessica dead. Why?'

‘Because of you, maybe?' Zan didn't look up from the screen. ‘Someone who knows that you … she is your weakness, after all.'

‘Oh, that is absolute damned bull!' Sil took another long drink.
Jessie, with your slow smile and your quick mouth, if someone harmed you, what would I do? Would anyone survive?
‘Bull,' he repeated and the bottle hit a fang, sending a sharp pain spearing through his skull.

‘All right.' Zan leaned back in his chair, stretching out his legs. ‘Then maybe it is personal. Someone she has upset.'

‘In that case, no-one's beyond suspicion. Jessie upsets people like we drink blood. It's practically her hobby,' he added, thinking of her perpetual ability to scrape down his nerves like a hot wire inside a tooth.

‘You have a meeting in ten minutes,' Zan said, checking his Blackberry. ‘Chief Constable. Do you want me to cancel so that you can go and make sure she's all right?'

Sil put the bottle down and wiped his hand over his mouth. ‘No. No. Jessie made it very clear to me that she doesn't want me, doesn't want anything to do with me. I am not about to start protecting her just because she's aggravated someone. Let her work it out for herself.'

Zan wrinkled his nose. ‘You're not going to start charging about like some kind of animal, breaking things, are you?'

‘No.'

‘Because you did last time she rejected you.'

‘Yes, I know.'

‘And it was expensive.'

‘Yes, Zan, I
know
. It's all right, I'm a vampire not a teenage girl. I have coped with a few rejections over the years, I think I'll manage.' He scraped his hair away from his face with both hands and sauntered out of the office.

On his way to the conference room he kicked a table and broke a large and valuable statue.
Didn't say I was perfect, Zan, did I?