Vampire State of Mind (14 page)

Sil dropped his eyes as though he was ashamed. ‘I'm the disposable one. Anything happens to me, things run on as normal. They just appoint someone else to do the high-visibility stuff, because all the real negotiations and political stuff is being dealt with behind the scenes by the same vamp who has been doing it for the last sixty years. Before me there was Strel, he was killed in a firefight during the Troubles, so Zan asked me to take his job. I do the face-to-face stuff but Zan briefs me on what to say and who to say it to. Except now, obviously,' he added quickly. ‘This is just me.'

‘That's quite clever.' I almost smiled for a minute, before I remembered that I was more than a bit aggravated with him. ‘Oh, for a bunch of bloodsucking, parasitic life-forms, of course. What about if something happens to Zan?'

‘Who the hell would want to take out an admin assistant? You've got to admit it, Jessie, he plays the part well, all that fussing with computers and being obsessed with the state of the technology; he's like Über Geek.'

‘You mean it's like protective colouration?'

‘No, he actually is a geek. But a much more powerful one than anyone thinks. So then. What do you think?'

‘About Zan really being the one who runs the city? Why should I care? It's only your bit he's in charge of, after all, the Otherworlder part. I still have to work my way through ninety layers of council authority before I even get near anyone who can give permission to buy new biros.'

Sil snapped to his feet, vampire-fast. I carefully didn't jump again. ‘No! Jessie …' He let out a brief hiss and his fangs slid over his bottom lip. I found myself looking around the room for potential weaponry. ‘I told you all that so that you'd trust me!'

There was a wooden candlestick with a fairly pointy end on the table. It would do as a stake if nothing else presented itself. Why,
why
, had I left the tranqs in my room? ‘Oh yeah, 'cos you look
really
trustworthy right now.'

‘Sorry.' He put both hands on the table again and took a deep breath. ‘You are winding me up beyond all mortal understanding.'

There was a pain where my heart should have been. I wanted to stretch out an arm and touch his cheek, make him look at me, make him smile … I shook my head fast enough to descramble my brain.
God, I have got to get out more.

‘Remember … remember how it used to be?' His voice had softened a bit and the fangs were gone. ‘You and me working together? We were a good team, Jessie; you could trust me then to watch your back. In fact, I saved your skin a few times, if memory serves.'

‘I might have …'

‘
Jessica
. When trouble came, it was you and me. Oh, and Liam, but then trouble rarely comes in the form of something that can be beaten off with paperwork.'

‘Unless it comes from the Town Hall.'

He nodded slowly. ‘True. For beating off bureaucracy, Liam heads the team. But for other things … without me, you wouldn't be here, in this room!'

‘Being shouted at by you!'

‘At least you're alive to
be
shouted at.' Now he touched me, just the tips of his fingers against the back of my hand, but I felt every single nerve-ending go into overdrive. ‘I'm vampire, as you take pleasure in pointing out at every single bloody opportunity. All right, I got glamoured, but that
will not
be happening again, and I have the speed, the strength, the power to protect you. Whatever this Malfaire is, whatever he wants from you, you can't win against him.'

‘But he knows I've survived so far. The hell-hound and you attacking me and all the other stuff – I got through it.' The feel of his skin against mine was beginning to twist my thoughts, turn them hot and uncomfortable.

‘Yes.' Now Sil lowered his voice until I had to lean closer. His fingertips slid to my wrist, where my pulse was banging away …
no, not banging, don't think about banging …
beating fast. ‘Now he knows
exactly
how strong you are. He's taken your measure, do you see? Now you've turned against him, next time he's only got to –' a sudden sweep of his elbow and he knocked the wooden candleholder to the floor, where it cracked and the end fell off in a particularly illustrative way. ‘Please, Jessie,
please
take my protection.'

I stared at him. ‘I don't think I've ever heard you say please before.'

‘I will recite the works of William Shakespeare if it means you'll do it.'

The air was thick and heavy and smelled of singed cat fur. I looked at the immobile figure of Rach, her arms still posed as though holding Jasper. He could do that. He could glamour, he could move like a rattlesnake and he had the power of every vampire in the city at his disposal – or at least, as I now knew, Zan did, but same thing.

And, call me Missus Superficial, but
damn
, he was gorgeous.

‘Oh, all right then,' I said, aware that I sounded less than bowled over. ‘I'll take your protection stuff.'

‘All
right
!' Sil said, more schoolboy than vampire. Trouble was, he'd been a schoolboy when
Dracula
was first published. ‘Then, Jessica Amelia Grant, I extend to you my protection.'

There was a momentary silence.

‘Is that it? I'm still waiting for the fireworks.'

Sil gave me a sideways grin. ‘No, Jessie. The fireworks come later,' he said, in a tone I wasn't quite sure I liked.

‘You look – is that expression
happy
?' Zan swivelled to watch Sil's entrance to the office.

‘Better believe it.' Sil leaned against the doorframe for a second longer, enjoying the other vampire's incredulity. ‘Jessica Grant has taken my protection.'

Zan whistled. ‘And you, of course, made her aware of all the … ahem … implications of this? Having you watching her for all the hours of the day?'

Sil shrugged. ‘I skirted round those.' Deep inside his demon was turning cartwheels in the hormonal soup that he had become.
Jessie. Why the hell do I want her so much? And why did it feel so good when I touched her hand?
‘And I had to tell her about you.'

Was it his imagination or did Zan jump a little. ‘What about me?'

‘About the city.'

‘Oh. Should I be concerned?'

‘Not sure.' Sil slithered into the seat opposite Zan and put his feet up on the desk. ‘That Malfaire creature is up to something. Been mouthing off about vampires being thrown from this dimension and war coming, usual megalomaniac ramblings, but there is definitely something different about this one. You found out what he is yet?'

Zan shook his head. ‘Feet. Off.'

Sil wrinkled his nose, but complied. He let his eyes unfocus, riding the ridiculous high that simply having a conversation with Jessica had brought
.
His fingers still tingled with the warmth of her skin, but the rest of him was a nameless ache. His demon moved and he was suddenly hungry. ‘Think I might pop into Hagg Baba,' he said, trying for casual. ‘Anything you want?'

Zan, debugging a file, barely looked at him. ‘I've eaten.' He was nodding towards the empty bottles when his body gave a sudden twitch, and the old vampire's green eyes slid to Sil's. ‘Oh, no.'

Sil shrugged.

‘I felt that one. You are seriously affected by something, aren't you? You've not got a problem …? Because, you know, this new synth is as near to the real thing as I have ever tasted.'

Sil felt slightly insulted. ‘You cussed fool; it's easy to tell it's been a long time since you were human. It's not the blood. It's her. Jessica. She makes me feel …' He wasn't even aware that his fangs were locked down until he bit his own lip.

‘Yes, I take the point, she is an unwilling doxie.' Zan looked back to his screen. ‘Either bite her or let her go.'

‘She doesn't want me to bite her.' Sil licked the blood off his mouth. It made his stomach rumble.

‘
Oh
.' Zan kicked his chair back away from the desk and leaned towards Sil. ‘Right. I see. If you truly wish her blood … Would you like me to oblige you by concealing her death? Let me see … an unplanned trip to the Americas, possibly? Or would her fellow worker find that suspicious?' He sighed. ‘These damnable portable telephone devices …' Another sigh. ‘Bodies were so much easier to dispose of in the old days …'

‘What?
No.
You'd do that? No.'
Wow! We like the idea of that way too much. No. Jessie is different. It's not sex, it's not blood, it's something else that runs separate to those and yet entwined. And she won't give me blood, I'm pretty sure of that, and I will not take it without permission, not from her – not from anyone. The sex… yes, she might go for the sex, she looks at me sometimes as though … but sex is nothing, it's just a means to an end.
‘Truly. It will be fine.' Sil got to his feet. ‘So, I'll go and get food, then.'

‘To the Hagg Baba.' It wasn't a question.

‘What's wrong with that?'

‘To the only place in the city where you can obtain the genuine article? Apart from the clubs, which you know that I frown upon. Biting is biting and we cannot afford to sully our reputations, however willing the participants may be. Are you sure you don't have a problem?' Zan's stare was like a needle. ‘Not going to run rogue on me, are you?'

‘No. It's Jessica, something about her makes me …'

The old vampire raised an exquisite eyebrow. ‘And she's asked for your protection? I sincerely hope you both know what you're doing.'

Sil threw him a grin and wondered if he had time for a cold shower.

Next morning, things got worse.

My first indication of this was, as I went to leave the flat to walk to the office, Sil fell into step beside me. Or tried to, but the overall effect must have been that of the trial run of a push-pull device.

‘Go away.'

‘You want my protection.'

‘Ah, but “
quod custodiet ipsos custodes
?”'

Sil gave me a pained look.

‘“Who guards the guards”?'

‘Yes, I know what it means, Jessica. And it's “quis”. Not “quod”. I may have a demon, but I also have a classical education.'

‘Ah, so you'll know that saying about vampires, then.' I accelerated and managed to put a few strides between us.

‘Which saying?' He caught up, effortlessly.

‘That they should piss off and leave me alone.'

‘Very funny.' He fell back a few steps, his big, black coat swirling around his ankles like an enthusiastic dog on its first walk of the day. ‘Anyway, get used to it. You have my protection for as long as Malfaire is still around.'

‘I'm surprised Zan can spare you for babysitting duties. I'd have thought he needed you closer to home in case he had any dry-cleaning to pick up.'

‘Cheap shot, Jessica.' Sil shoved his hands into the pockets of the coat and walked along with his elbows jutting out and his shoulders hunched. ‘And that thing about Zan? I told you in the strictest confidence. We don't want it getting out, and if it does – well, then I may have to kill you.' He flashed me a look out of eyes that were gull-grey. ‘So. What's on the agenda for today?'

I was instantly irritated. ‘Oh, I thought I might go out and wrestle a few werewolves into submission, then bait some Shadows.'

We'd arrived at the main door to the office building, ajar because Liam had already gone up. I went to push the door fully open, but Sil leaned across in front of me, barring my way. When he spoke, his fangs showed.

‘You are not taking any of this seriously, are you, Jessie? Getting my protection is no laughing matter. It ties us together for the foreseeable future or at least until Malfaire is dealt with. Now, neither your office nor mine have even got close to finding out what this guy is, or what he can do, so I suggest that you keep your head down and do your job, and
let me do mine
.'

‘Okay, Lord Machismo,' I pushed his arm until I could get past, ‘you've made your position clear. But I only signed up for your protection, not for you following me around like we're the result of some new surgical procedure. So, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do.'

I stomped up the stairs, aware of him following me, not noisily because he was wearing suede boots which made no sound, but his presence filled the narrow passageway as he whirled along at my heels.

‘Morning, Liam!' I flung myself down into my seat and fired up my computer. ‘Anything to know?'

‘Er, we appear to have a vampire stuck to our spare chair? Honestly, Sil, isn't a protector supposed to be looming around all mysteriously, rather than forming part of the workforce?'

‘You're thinking of Batman. Where's my coffee?'

‘Here. It's a bit cool; you're late.'

‘Yeah well, I had to do the “Me and My Shadow” dance all the way here.'

Liam and Sil raised their eyebrows at each other. ‘You don't think, maybe, you're over-reacting a bit?' Liam asked. ‘After all, you know Malfaire has been trying to kill you, or at least mangle your carcass into something unrecognisable; surely it can't hurt to have a bit of protection?'

‘
That
is not protection, that is an impediment! No, don't make him
drinks
.'

‘Bottle of O, if you're going to the kitchen, my dear friend.' Sil waved a lazy hand. ‘Anyway, how come you know that Jessie finally saw sense and agreed to accept my protection?'

Liam blushed. ‘She Facebooked me.'

Sil looked at me steadily until I had to pretend a very sturdy interest in a file. ‘It was a private message,' I muttered. ‘It's not like I plastered it all over the 'net. Anyway,' I rallied, ‘if you're going to be hanging around, you can at least make yourself useful.' I shoved a pile of envelopes at him. ‘Here's this morning's mail, get reading.'

Sil stood up and I thought for a moment he was going to walk out, but he just took his coat off and hung it on the back of the chair, then sat down again, legs crossed at the ankle, looking elegant and in it for the long haul. ‘What do you do with them these days?'

‘They'll mostly be complaints; we've got a tray for those. Where's the complaints tray, Liam?'

‘Box marked recycling.' Liam's voice drifted back from the kitchen.

‘There you go. Anything else, well, I'm sure it will all come back to you quickly enough.'

I turned to my screen and called up the Tracker sheet, but after a few moments I realised that Sil was looking at me and swivelled my chair to face him. ‘What?'

‘Nothing.' He had his head tilted to one side and was looking at me, one hand combing the hair away from his face. ‘Just wondering.'

Liam came back with a bottle of blood for Sil and a new, improved coffee for me. ‘So, you two do anything nice last night?' he asked, brightly.

‘Facebook. Bit of telly and then off to bed with a new Katie Fforde,' I said.

‘Right. How about you, Sil? Let's hope you had a salacious night of bouncing off the walls, because Madame Dull here is
not
doing much for the gossip quotient lately!'

‘Well, you know how it is. The clubs, the sex, the sex-clubs.' Thankfully at that point the telephone rang and I lost the end of the run-down on a vampire's night-time exploits as I answered it.

‘This is OBSU. You sent us a sample yesterday? Only, you haven't sent us a human contrast.'

Oh
damn
! All I wanted was one simple blood test. It really shouldn't be
this
hard. ‘I'm sure we did.'

‘There must have been a mix-up then.'

‘Must have been.'

‘Only it's going to cost more than the estimate, you know that, don't you? We had to provide the contrast blood ourselves, using a neutral donor.'

‘That's fine. Give me a rundown.' I listened to Richard at OBSU. Then I thanked him politely, put the phone down, shut off my computer and stood up. ‘I have to go out.'

‘I've just made you a coffee!'

‘Yeah, sorry Liam, but I have to.'

Sil looked up from Liam's screen and something in my face made him flinch. ‘I'm coming, too.'

‘No. You stay here. This is private.'

Sil was already standing, pulling his coat from the back of the chair. ‘You can still get killed on private business. I'm coming.'

Our eyes met with an almost audible clash. Liam ducked. ‘You two are scary,' he said. ‘Next time, I'm working with ghouls – they might be horrible but at least they're predictable.' His gaze ran over me. ‘Jessie? Take Sil. You look like you're going to need backup, wherever it is that you're going.'

‘You can't come,' I said to Sil, who was staring me down.

He'd wrapped both his arms around over his coat like he was hugging himself. ‘Not negotiable. You get killed, it's all right for you but then we have the whole Malfaire thing flying around, and maybe the reason that you're not dead yet is that he wants you alive for something.' Sil's pupils were huge but his eyes were cold. ‘And until we know … I won't interfere. I'll be there, in case.' He was getting wound up now, his demon was flickering around in the background, feeding off the emotion, casting shadows over his face. ‘Jessica, you asked. You asked for my protection. So I must give it.'

‘And it gives you the right to order me about.'

Sil shrugged. ‘I'm trying to do what I think is best.'

I opened my mouth to argue that how could he possibly know what was best for me? Right now I hardly even knew. But the effort was beyond me. ‘Oh, come on then, I haven't got time to play games.' Or the inclination. Things were getting very, very bad and I couldn't,
daren't
, confide in anyone.

I drove out of town and north towards the moors. ‘Where are we going?' Sil eventually asked, after staring out of the window for twenty miles.

‘Up on the moors,' I answered shortly.

‘Yeah, I can see that. Anywhere specific, or do you just fancy a drive around?'

‘Don't.'

Sil glanced at me. ‘What is it, Jessica? What happened back at the office? And don't tell me it was nothing, because you're acting even more fucked-up than usual right now.'

I shook my head. Tears weren't far away and I didn't trust myself to speak. Instead, I turned the car down a narrow lane between two high hedges acned with hawthorn berries and sloes, bumping over the grassy line that grew down the middle of the road. The track eventually led down the hill, over a cattle grid and between two paddocks filled with grazing Jacob sheep. I pulled up in front of the low, two-storied house, with the tiny windows and off-centre front door.

‘Nice,' Sil said, getting out. ‘Very homely.'

I pushed on the front door, which was never locked. It opened on to the stone-flagged hall, where coats decorated the walls and Wellingtons covered the floor. An old Labrador padded up to greet us with a wet nose in the groin before following us down to the big kitchen at the back, heated as usual by the Aga, which bubbled like a spell. The air was full of baking and drying cotton.

‘Jessica!' My mother, coming out of the pantry, held a hand to her heart. ‘My dear girl, you nearly gave me a stroke! Why didn't you say you were coming? And who,' her eyes widened at the sight of the vampire, ‘is
this
rather lovely specimen?' She couldn't help it, I knew, but I saw her eyes flicker to my left hand. She'd have a long wait to see an engagement ring on it. ‘Was there something you wanted to tell me?'

‘Yes.' My voice sounded strangled. ‘You'd better sit down. Where's Dad?'

‘Oh, he's up at the top paddock, fixing some fences. I keep telling him we ought to get a man in, but you know how he is.' Her eyes were worried.

‘Sil.' He was looking around, seeing those things that I never noticed anymore, the hairy dog-beds in front of the Aga, the big, scrubbed table in the middle of the room, scattered with baking in various stages, the three generations of cats squeezed on to a sofa, the dresser scattered with family photographs. I felt sick, wanted to smash things. ‘Will you go up to the top field and fetch my father?'

His head came up. ‘But –'

‘I'm safe enough here. Please. Go.' I needed him gone, I needed my father here.

‘Jessie – '

Without thinking I touched his arm. ‘Please, Sil.' And our eyes met. His held an expression that I didn't want to analyse, not right now. ‘Just go.'

With an inclination of his head towards us both, Sil took himself off back down the hallway and through the front door, the old dog getting up to follow in the hope of a walk, but waddling stiffly back to his bed by the Aga when Sil outdistanced him.

My mother pulled two chairs out from the pine table, and sat down carefully on one. ‘So this isn't a social visit then?' she asked, resting elbows on the table and rubbing at the back of her neck. ‘Not work, I hope?'

I sat down, but jumped back up again. My mouth was dry. I ran a fingernail down a crack in the wood grain, an action so familiar from childhood that it was like an echo. ‘Mum – ' My eyes roamed the walls, up to the ceiling, where they carefully enumerated all the items of clothing drying on the rack suspended above the Aga.

‘Is it something to do with that young man? I must say, he's very nice looking. Could do with a square meal though. I do hope it's not frustrated mothering instinct with you, dear.'

‘He's a vampire.'

‘Ah.' And a world of anxious pain was contained within that single syllable.

‘But he's not the problem.'

‘Oh?' And how could the fact that her daughter was involved with a vampire
not
be a problem, I could see her thinking. ‘So then, what
is
the problem?'

I dug my nails into my hands. ‘You are.'

‘Ah.' And my mother, my usually unflustered mother, began tugging at her sleeves, trying to pull them down over her hands, fussing with the cuffs of her wrap-around jumper. ‘And what makes you say that?'

‘Mum, I
know
. Look, before Dad gets here, you'd better tell me – how did you meet him?'

‘Your father? I'm sure I've told you, we were at teacher-training together.'

‘No! Not Dad! My
real
father! Malfaire!'

My mother's face closed down. Fell into itself, as though fifty years of ageing had caught up with her all at once. ‘How did you – ?' she whispered.

‘Blood tests. We sent a sample of his blood, and one of mine as the human contrast.' I gave a snuffly giggle of irony. ‘They assumed there had been a mistake because the two samples were so similar. One was a blood sample from something they called a ghyst, the other was only partly human. When they did the full range of testing they found that it only made sense if the ghyst was the paternal relative of the other. So, what happened? Does Dad know?'

‘Oh, my God.' My mother covered her eyes with her hands.

‘Who am I, Mum? More to the point,
what
am I? What on earth is a ghyst? What does it do? What has it done to
me
?'

She stood up and went over to the Aga, fussing with the kettle. She shook it to check for water, put it down, picked it up, filled it and put it down again. ‘You weren't supposed to find out,' she said, and her voice was different, strange. Like I'd never known her.