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she described them to the police, or told them anything about them, they’d come back for

her.” All lies. Oh, well.

“Oh Mark! Poor baby. She must be terrified. But that’s not right. The police are involved

already. They were the ones who informed me what had happened.” I heard the reproach in

her voice, and felt guilty.

“I know Mum, but she starts crying if we even mention the police. I think it would be

best to leave it. She can answer some of their questions when she gets back, but I can tell

you now that she won’t tell them much

Mum appeared to accept this. I was pleased. I made that one up myself. Slick.

“Where are you?” She sounded more composed now.

“Aberdeenshire. As soon as Rebecca is awake we will get Angus to drive her back.”

“Angus. How did he get involved?”

“He was the only person I could think of to help. I couldn’t stand about waiting for the

police when so many other people saw what happened and could answer their questions as

well as I could. Probably better. I couldn’t even identify the make of the damn van.”

“Well, he seems like a very nice man.”

“He is.” For a vampire.

“OK, baby. I’ll see you later. Get Rebecca to give me a call when she wakes up.”

“I will, Mum.”

“Love you.”

“I love you too.”

As I hung up, I was profoundly grateful that she had taken it so well. Then I

remembered the kitten, and I phoned her back, and asked her to go across to Angus’ place

and check that it was OK, and give it some food and fresh water. She laughed, a lot more

cheerful now, and promised to go across right away. I tried to remember if Angus had

locked his house; I didn’t think so. Why would he. He probably
wished
someone would try to break in.

Rebecca

I woke up with sunlight streaming through the windows. Bleak wintry sunlight, sure,

but it was definitely sunlight. The events of the previous day came flooding into my mind.

Angus! I needed to see him, to make sure that he was OK. I stood up and stumbled on

uncertain legs through the doorway of my bedroom, and into the passage beyond.

Everything looked strangely unfamiliar in the daylight. I felt disorientated, and dizzy. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply until the giddiness subsided. I turned to my right and made

my way along the passage. There were two more bedrooms and a bathroom, and then

another bedroom. And there was Angus.

He was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his face relaxed and peaceful. My breath

caught in my throat as I stood and watched him. He was so beautiful. I suddenly felt an

almost visceral need to touch him. I crossed the room and stood next to his bed, leaning

over his sleeping form. And then he was awake, smiling up at me, his eyes watching my face

hungrily. I smiled back. He groaned and his arm snaked out and wrapped around me and

pulled me down on top of him. I giggled, and stretched out next to him, my head on his

chest, my eyes closed, inhaling his delicious scent.

“You’re in deep trouble, you know,” his voice was husky.

“Why?” I lifted my head to look at his face.

“Your brother’s on his way up. And you’re half naked in bed with some man.”

“I’ve got clothes on!”

“Not enough,” he growled.

Just then Mark burst through the door.

“Aargh! Get a room!” He didn’t look disgusted, though. He was laughing. “Come on you

two, get up already. We’re waiting for you downstairs. There are a few things we need to

discuss urgently, plus Bex has to phone Mum.”

“Mum! Oh, God, she must be going crazy!” All my happiness dissolved, just like that. I

felt immensely guilty for forgetting about my mother in all of the relief of being alive and

well and with Angus.

“It’s OK, Sis, I spoke to her earlier. Marcus and Fergus phoned her before that, and gave

her a bit of a cover story. I’ll explain on the way down,” he added pointedly, and indicated

the antique wardrobe that stood against one wall of the bedroom. “Put some clothes on,

please.”

“I’ve got clothes on!” I said again.

“Yeah,” he muttered, unconvinced. “Put more on.” He turned and went to stand

outside the door while I reluctantly stood up and went to look through the wardrobe. Angus

stayed in bed.

“Can I wear some of these, do you think?” I asked him, surveying the collection of jeans

and shirts and wondering how I was ever going to fit into them.

“Yes.”

“Don’t look, then.”

“I may have to.” He was smiling at me again.

“Right, then, I’m changing in the bathroom,” I said, selecting a few items from the

crowded rack, and dragged a leather belt from a shelf.

“It’s probably safer,” he agreed. I grinned at him and skipped out of the room, past

Mark and into the bathroom. I dressed as best I could in those clothes, cinching the jeans

around my waist with the belt, and rolling the cuffs up. I washed my face and brushed my

teeth using a disposable toothbrush I found in the mirrored cabinet above the basin. Mark

was waiting for me as I stepped out of the bathroom, and he explained what Mum had been

told so far, as we walked together down the stairs and into the kitchen. It all sounded very

plausible.

Marcus and Fergus were already sitting patiently at the large oak table that took up

most of one half of the sizeable kitchen. They were drinking coffee, and discussing samples;

of what, I wasn’t sure. They looked up as we entered the kitchen, and smiled.

I was struck by their obvious resemblance to Angus, and then by the even more

noticeable differences. They were very good-looking, beautiful, even, but in a different way

to Angus. They looked tamer somehow, more refined. More civilised.

I smiled back, slightly nervous and said, “I need to phone my mother.”

“Yes,” said one, and they turned instead to Mark who rolled his eyes, and said, “You

were right, she was in his bedroom.” I felt my face blushing furiously as I looked in vain for a phone.

Mark grinned at me. “Through there,” he said smugly, indicating a doorway that led out

into a small hallway. I escaped from the room and spent five minutes talking to Mum, and

reassuring her that I was unhurt. Just shaken up. And, no, I definitely did not want the police involved any more. Satisfied at last, she told me that she was off to work for a few hours

now, and she would see me later that evening when I got home. I hung up, immensely

pleased that she was taking this so well. My mother was a strange combination of

bewildered nervousness over a titanium core. We’d all underestimated her.

Angus

I’d been dreaming about twisting heads off and then I was suddenly awake and

Rebecca was leaning over me. I couldn’t resist, and when she stretched her warm body out

next to me, it was rapture and agony for me. Then her brother interrupted us
again
. Next thing she was standing by my old wardrobe in Fergus’ t-shirt and boxer shorts looking for

something to wear, heartbreakingly lovely. I would never see boxer shorts in quite the same

way again.

I closed my eyes as my body remembered the feel of her after she left. Hmmm. I

wrenched my thoughts away from her, and stood up to get dressed. My leg was completely

healed and painless, the skin smooth and unscarred where the bullet had torn through it

last night. I dressed quickly, brushed my teeth, and went downstairs to join the others at the kitchen table just as Rebecca was saying goodbye to her mother on the phone.

“Coffee?” Mark grinned at me.

“Please.”

“I’d love some,” Rebecca said as she came back into the kitchen, her expression

relieved and happy. “Mum’s OK.”

“Yeah, she’s a tough old bird. Who knew?” Mark interjected as he handed out five cups

of steaming coffee. We all sat and sipped our coffee in silence, until Marcus spoke.

“Right. We need to examine the evidence now, so that we can try to understand what

happened last night, and why it happened. To do this we will need to correlate all our data. I suggest we begin with Rebecca.”

“He always talks like that,” smirked Fergus. Rebecca nodded, hiding a smile behind a

curtain of silvery blonde hair.

“I guess that means I should tell you what happened to me yesterday.”

“Yes,” said Marcus expectantly.

“OK.” She paused for a few seconds, then started again. “Yesterday morning I was

abducted by three guys in a white van. They tied me up and put a pillowcase over my head,

and then they left me alone for a while.”

I gritted my teeth. Listening to this was going to be harder than I had thought.

“Then the freaky one, whose name was Oscar, started speaking to someone called Jack

on a mobile phone, saying he had a present for him. I got the impression that the present

was me. He said something about a breeding female, and that he knew I was one of them

because he’d seen a video of me wanting to lick blood off my hands that some idiot had

posted on Youtube.” She grimaced. “He took the pillowcase off my head and took a photo of

me with the mobile, and I think he sent it to this Jack person.”

“They drove for hours, and then they stopped at this place that looked like an

institution of some sort. One of the other men picked me up and carried me to a kind of

dungeon under an old stone barn. I peed all over him.” She smiled at the memory,

completely unrepentant. Mark giggled, and said, “Cool!”

“The two normal looking guys locked me in a cell, then untied me and stood guard over

me. They made all these suggestive comments about what Jack was going to do when he

got there. I wanted to kill them.”

“Then I threw a flask of tea at one of them and Angus was suddenly there. He shot

them.” She smiled grimly. “Angus found the key, unlocked the door and let me out. Then

the man with the gruff voice shot him through the leg. I could see it was broken by the way

it bent when he fell. I was mad at the man who shot him, and I knew I would have to get

Angus out of there. So I bit him, and drank his blood, and carried Angus back to the car. I

even kicked down a wall.”

“Awesome!” Mark breathed. “So that’s why you were covered in blood.”

“Yes,” Rebecca smiled gratefully at him, clearly relieved at his reaction.

“Interesting,” said Marcus. “Youtube, you say. We wondered how they’d found you.”

He turned to Mark. “Your turn, please.”

Mark looked puzzled. “I didn’t do much of anything really. I saw Rebecca being

abducted, called the police, and then thought of Angus. I showed him where they’d taken

her and then refused to get out of the car, which is why I’m here now.” He said it as if he

was having the time of his life. I was starting to have my suspicions about Mark; he was

fourteen and apparently fearless; he probably
was
having the time of his life.

Fergus glanced at me before he spoke to Mark. “I think you did a lot more than you will

ever realise, young man.” I nodded my agreement.

Marcus was impatient. “Now you, Angus.”

“Mark told you how he came to get me. Well, when I smelled that vampire, I suspected

that we had an old style coven somewhere. He smelled wrong,” I explained, “like he drank

only blood and his body was slowly crumbling because of it. We started driving north,

because vampires like the cold, and it’s more isolated up here. I contacted Fergus and gave

him a few things to search for, and he eventually found them. He also got me a couple of

handguns and an exceptional sniper rifle.” I smiled my thanks at Fergus.

“I found the place, and managed to kill ten of the eleven vampires living there. One got

away.” I left out the gory details. “I found where they were keeping Rebecca, and shot those

two men. I should have delivered a head shot to each of them, but I was distracted.” I

smiled as I said it. Rebecca blushed.

“She splinted my leg, and carried me about two and a half miles, running most of the

way.”

“Wow,” said Mark.

“Wow,” I agreed. “She drove me home. My car still works, too.” Mark gave a shout of

laughter at that, and Rebecca scowled at me. God, she was beautiful.

“Excellent,” said Marcus. “Well, when we got there, the place looked like a bomb had

hit it. I assume one had?” he looked at me.

“I had a few grenades in a drawer at home. I rigged up the back door to explode when

opened.”

“Yes, and so it did. Fergus and I tidied up as best we could, wiping away prints and

tracks and suchlike, and placing the heads near the bodies in assorted rooms of the house. I

took some samples,” he smiled, clearly pleased about that. “Then we burned the place

down, barn and bungalow too. And we found the van and abandoned it along some country

road, as per our story…”

“We found some papers in the bungalow, innocuous looking receipts and a few

handwritten notes. I’m going to have to take them back to Russia to analyse them.” Fergus

sounded a bit worried about something.

“And my samples are degrading as we speak, too. We have to leave in about an hour to

go back.” Marcus had a mildly fanatical light in his eyes again. “But first we need to sort out a few matters.” He took a deep breath before he continued, and he looked at Angus

through narrowed eyes.

“Rebecca turns eighteen in eleven days, correct?” She nodded. “You two,” indicating

Rebecca and me, “are going to get married then. Fergus will organise the whole thing, of

course.” Fergus nodded his agreement. “Something small and tasteful, I think. Then you will