by Elle Adams
“Yes, but the vampires will want to catch the person who bit me more than the human police will,” he said, his gaze turning mournful as he looked at Alissa digging into a muffin. “Their rules are strict. No biting. Unless there’s a rogue on the loose, someone from this town did it.” He looked around the cafe, his gaze downcast. While he’d adapted to the physical changes enough to be let out of the hospital, it’d take longer for him to get over the psychological impact of being turned into the living dead. And he was now going to be stuck as part of that society forever. Eternity was a long time.
“Do you think… I mean, how common are criminal vampires?” I asked, of nobody in particular.
“Depends who you ask,” Alissa said through a mouthful of muffin. “Objectively—no more than any other paranormals. Probably less, considering how strict their rules are. On the other hand, if you ask one of the shifters, they’ll insist that vampires break the laws all the time and don’t get caught. Meanwhile, vamps say the same about the shifters.”
“I can imagine,” I said. “I’m assuming the vamps are looking for the killer? Vincent probably is. He was pretty mad.”
“He would be,” said Alissa, sipping her drink. “Immortals are close-knit. The older ones, especially.”
That didn’t surprise me. The small group of elder vampires were old enough to have known one another for centuries. On the other hand, I couldn’t even imagine the fortune you could amass over the course of that many years. Whoever inherited the vampire’s possessions would be set for life.
“Did they ever find a will, do you know?” I asked.
“They didn’t,” said the vamp. “Because it looks like he never wrote one. He thought he’d live forever.”
“Seriously?” I put my smoothie down. “No plans for any accidents, or…?”
“We’re hard to kill.” He said this with a hint of bitterness. “You can stake a vampire, but most people would never be able to catch us. We’re fast and strong and resilient, our senses are enhanced, and we’d see or sense anyone creeping up on us. And that’s not counting the mind-reading.”
“Wait—can you do that?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. But I will.”
Wow. All the perks of being immortal… except now he’d have to watch his family age and die, and not even magic could undo what’d been done to him. Under his dismal attitude, he might easily be angry enough to kill the person responsible.
“How long have you been in hospital?” I asked him.
“A week,” he said. “Just long enough to get used to all the blood. Then I get inducted into vampire society.” He didn’t sound thrilled at the prospect. “I get some time off now to recover, and I guess one of them then shows up to tell me what to do. Vincent has already visited me every day.”
“Wait, he has?”
I supposed as the eldest, he’d have more of an insight into the process, but it’d have been a long time since he went through it.
“I offered to lend an ear,” said Alissa.
More than an ear, by the look of things. With some difficulty, I managed to refrain from saying that aloud.
I took another sip of my drink. “Did you see or hear anything odd at the hospital when he died?”
The vampire shook his head. “No. My ward was nearby, but since he was poisoned, I guess he died quickly. I’m under watch all the time in case my bloodlust goes out of control, so I didn’t see when the police showed up.”
True—and I probably should have asked Alissa for more details beforehand. If he was being watched, he couldn’t have got hold of the poison. Especially if he’d been stuck there for a week.
“Anyway.” He gave the menu a last sad look and got to his feet. “I should get home. Tell my parents I’m out of hospital. It’ll be awkward, but what isn’t awkward about being one of the living dead?”
“I’ll see you later,” added Alissa. “Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”
“Sure.” Keith cast a mournful look around the café, then slouched off.
“He’s not wrong,” I said, returning my attention to my drink. “That must be a weird conversation to have. By the way, I’m going to live forever.”
“No kidding,” said Alissa.
“Also, you seriously underplayed the chemistry,” I said to her. “You two couldn’t have been closer if he’d been sitting in your lap.”
“That’s my line,” she said, her cheeks going pink. “You and Nathan—”
“It’s not happening anytime soon, at this rate.” I drank the last of my smoothie.
“They still have him running around after monsters?” she asked.
“Yep. He hasn’t called or texted, so I assume he’s run off his feet.” The forest remained under guard, as far as I knew, and so did the falls. As long as they didn’t catch the monster, I hadn’t a hope of finding out if my family had ever been there.
I definitely shouldn’t be thinking about slipping past the gargoyles to have a look, just to see if my relatives had left another clue behind.
Or the murderer.
I shoved the thought aside. It bounced back like a jack-in-the-box.
Alissa’s gaze shone with sympathy. “It’s his job, right? He has years of experience. He’ll be fine, and as soon as it’s done, the two of you will become official.”
As opposed to becoming one of the undead. Monsters weren’t the only threat out there in the woods.
Operation ‘don’t think about it’ was going swimmingly.
“Hmm. Yeah. I guess.” I cast about for a change of subject. “Keith, though. I forgot he was under watch all week.”
Alissa’s mouth pressed together. “It’s the reason the police quickly dropped him as a suspect. He doesn’t know who bit him, and besides, he can’t undo what was done to him. There’s no point in holding a grudge, let alone attempting retaliation.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I don’t think he did it.” He might be extremely resentful of his new status as an immortal, but he’d had no access to poison in the hospital, and wouldn’t have known who to target. Not knowing who bit him must be tough to deal with, though.
She exhaled in a sigh. “He’s not having a great time of it. After he tells his family, he then has to be inducted into the vampires’ society while knowing one of them illegally bit him.”
“Maybe it wasn’t one of them,” I said, thinking of the body in the woods. “Maybe… it was a rogue. Just how strong is a vampire? I’ve never seen one in action.”
I’d seen Vincent move so fast that he was little more than a blur, but I couldn’t imagine him ever being surprised by an attacker. Which made the killer a creative one, if nothing else. It’d be easy, however, for one of them to sneak up on a human and bite them without ever being detected. Even by a wizard.
“Strong,” she said. “They can snap a man’s neck with their bare hands, but most of them rarely use that strength. If anything, it’s a disadvantage. We spent most of the week having to remove things from the ward after he accidentally broke them. And when a vampire flies into a tantrum, it’s terrifying. Okay, it’s not quite as scary as when a werewolf loses it and shifts, but still. And then there’s those enhanced senses of theirs.”
“Hmm. Can’t one of them sniff out who planted the poison?”
She shook her head. “Like I said—too many people go in and out of that room. And Steve had people charging around all over the place, so they’ve left their scent all over the hospital. Also, the presence of so much fresh blood tends to dull a vampire’s other senses.”
“It seems to me that the police are really good at missing clues,” I said, checking the time on my phone. I had a lesson with Rita this evening… and I hadn’t checked if she’d left me any assignments. “Wouldn’t a vampire make a better detective?”
“You’d think so, but they tend to dislike paperwork.”
“Speaking of, I just remembered I have homework for today’s lesson.” I dug in my bag for my notes. “Recko
n I can fill this out in five minutes?”
“Sure you can. Good luck.”
I didn’t need luck. I needed to grow a magical bone in my body.
5
Rita studied my scribbled notes, her glasses sliding down her nose. “You grasp the theory well.”
I tried not to breathe out a sigh of relief. No reason to let on that I’d filled out the worksheet in the five minutes I’d had to spare before I’d had to dash to my lesson. I’d perfected the skill when I’d been a student, but it’d been a while since I’d spent an extended period of time in a classroom.
A redhead who wore an incalculable number of bangles on both her arms, Rita was eccentric but a good teacher. Despite my lacklustre studying skills, our one-to-one classes were pushing my knowledge of the magical world forward with every lesson. Pity my practical abilities had yet to catch up.
Rita put my notes aside. “Right, Blair. It’s time to try the colour-changing spell again.”
Time for round forty-seven.
I pointed my wand at the cup on my desk and rotated my wrist. Carefully. The colour-change spell had been the first spell I’d used, accidentally. You’d think that would make it easier for me to use on purpose, but that would be putting too much faith in my capabilities.
A burst of light from my wand’s tip hit the wall, turning its surface… liquid.
“Undo!” Rita spun around and pointed her own wand at the wall, and the bookshelves stopped melting. “You were too far to the right. Circle. Like this.”
“I don’t have a steady hand.” I waved the wand again, but the spell missed the cup and hit the desk, which promptly collapsed.
Another wave of her wand repaired it. “Again.” She grabbed my arm and guided my motions. Her grip was like steel. I winced, but slowly rotated the wand—
“Hey, I did it!” The cup was purple.
So was the rest of the room.
I lowered my wand. “Maybe I need more than the safety setting.”
She waved her wand to undo the spell and pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, you need to learn to apply moderation. Put your wand down and try with this.” She passed me the practise stick I’d spent entirely too many hours swirling around in an attempt to learn how to aim a wand properly. Despite the weeks of practise, it wasn’t paying off in practical lessons.
Swirl to the right, left, flick. I could do it in my sleep, but when it came to aiming at the right target, my focus levels weren’t the greatest. When I was experienced enough, I’d only have to think of a spell and it’d work with a casual flick of my wand. Attempting to slow my racing thoughts was like putting a harness on a unicorn.
Flick. I nearly poked Rita in the eye and stammered an apology. I turned so that my left hand faced towards her instead. Swirl, left, right—
The cup turned maroon. I was so startled, my wand slipped from my grip.
Not a wand. The stick.
I gaped at Rita. “Er… was that supposed to happen? Did you do that?”
She shook her head slowly. “No, I didn’t.”
I stared at the stick, then at my wand, which lay where I’d left it on the desk. Had the spell come from the wand? It’d happened too fast for me to tell. I’d seen Ava cast a spell without a wand, but that level of skill was reserved for advanced witches and wizards only. Without a wand, we weren’t necessarily powerless, but I’d thought casting a spell without one required years of study.
“I think we need to ask Madame Grey to turn on your safety setting,” Rita said, firmly planting the wand in my hand again. “I will go and discuss the matter with her. You’re dismissed early.”
Dismissed. I’d worked magic without a wand and ended up chastised for it.
I returned my wand to its case, my cheeks burning with humiliation. What in the world was wrong with me? The wand certainly worked, if in an unorthodox manner, but the circumstances I’d acquired it under meant that it didn’t have the same restrictions as other witches’ and wizards’ wands. What if it was permanently defective? I’d been struggling with the most basic spells for weeks, and now magic had finally worked for me and I couldn’t even conjure up so much as an explanation.
Maybe Madame Grey would be able to help. She’d be in a coven meeting now, so I headed out into the entrance hall to wait for her—and instead found Nathan, standing outside the door to the classroom.
“Hey, Blair,” he said.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s the case going?”
“Not great,” he said. “I’ve just spoken to Madame Grey about upping the town’s defences. Unfortunately, that means working with the shifters, and they’re less than thrilled about being asked to act as guard dogs. Or wolves.”
“Or badgers, foxes…” I cut myself off before I got carried away. “So you’re working with them?”
“No, I’m working alone.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” I said. “You’re the only security guard here, so surely they need backup. You can’t watch the entire forest at once.”
“Oh, I’m not,” he said. “The gargoyles are there, too.”
“Yeah, but they can’t properly fly in the woods, right? And it’s not your job to hunt monsters any longer. Is it?” I was genuinely curious.
“No, but I’m liable to be called back into the field at any time,” he said. “My whole family is in the business, so there’s no real escape from it.”
“I didn’t know that.” I really should have made an effort to ask more questions. Maybe now was finally the time to admit I wasn’t fully human… but how in the world to broach the subject? “Erm, do the others in your family hunt monsters in the area?”
“Not here, but close. They’re based in Grasmere.”
“Wait, are you saying there have been monsters roaming the Lake District the whole time? Is there a Yeti of Scafell Pike?”
His mouth twitched into a smile. “No yetis. They prefer a less wet climate.”
I didn’t even know if he was joking or not. At least I’d improved his mood, in preparation for the bombshell I was about to drop. “Actually, there’s something I have to tell you. I—”
The door slammed open and a vampire ran in, so quickly that he collided headfirst with a pillar.
Nathan ran towards him. “What is it? You’re bleeding.”
“Lord Goddard’s blasted house,” said the vampire. “I need a witch or wizard to help me undo the wards.”
“Er, I’m a witch,” I said. “What kind of wards are we talking about? Is it to do with his inheritance?”
I felt Nathan’s eyes on me, but I’d explain how I knew later.
“You might say that,” said the vampire. “That paranoid fool left defences on his house that none of us has been able to penetrate. I think they require a witch or wizard to break in.”
“I’m still learning, but…” I looked behind me at the door to Madame Grey’s office. “I can ask someone to help you.”
I knocked on the door. A moment later, Madame Grey herself answered. A tall woman dressed in grey to match her name, with white hair grown past her shoulders, she looked me up and down through a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles. “Blair? What is it?”
“Trouble,” I said. “Vampire-related trouble.”
The vampires lived—or unlived—up to their reputation. They stood like particularly loud wax statues, arguing with one another. Several were bleeding from trying to get into Lord Goddard’s house, but they’d persisted until it became clear all the ways into the house were protected by magical defensive wards.
Madame Grey hadn’t been able to get any other witches to volunteer to help her, which left me to go along as her temporary assistant. Not that I’d pass up an opportunity to see whatever Lord Goddard had wanted to protect so badly. As a bonus, I had Nathan at my side, keeping an eye out for trouble at Madame Grey’s request.
“How are you holding up, Blair?” he asked, as Madame Grey left me awkwardly holding her props while she went to set up a spell around the house’s p
erimeter. The entire building was covered in wards, and she was now on round three of unlocking spells after the first two had failed.
“Not too bad. He was one paranoid vampire.”
“It makes sense, given how long he lived,” Nathan said. “They’re difficult to kill, but that doesn’t lessen the paranoia.”
I tilted my head. “Have you ever killed one?”
“You’re asking me delicate questions in front of people with enhanced hearing again.”
“Oops. Sorry.”
The vampires seemed more interested in debating over who was going to get the inheritance. There was a rumour of a solid gold coffin, which struck me as a bit excessive. Being next to Nathan gave me a level of comfort I couldn’t deny, though now he’d reminded me everyone would be able to hear what we said no matter how quietly we spoke, this wasn’t the time to tell him about my fairy family. Yet.
Madame Grey returned to the front of the house. Despite the mud from the recent rain, she must have doctored her long coat with a spell that stopped her from getting any on her, which was more than I could say for the state of my boots.
“The wards seem to be designed to be activated by the owner only,” she said, beckoning me over again. “However, Lord Goddard did not consult the coven before setting them up. I believe they may work for his living relatives, but nobody else, not even me.”
Grumbles came from the vampires. Of course, none of them was related to him, so they wouldn’t actually know his living relatives.
“Why can’t we just walk in?” asked one of the vampires. “Where’s the will?”
“The will is likely inside the house,” she said. “Did any of you visit him while he was alive?”
“Yes, a few times,” one of the vampires said. “But there weren’t any visible defences then.”
“The wards must have been set to come on after he expired,” Madame Grey said. “If he ever expected to.”
Lucky Keith the newbie vamp wasn’t around to witness this major crash course in the disadvantages of being one of the undead.