Michael straightened his spine – a man readying himself for battle.
‘And thus, here I am, speaking aloud to a voice recorder as a safeguard against the time that I do not remember myself. Here I stand, ready to declare that if I become a threat to this nation, to my duty, it is the duty of others to neutralise that threat.
‘I could perhaps count on my brother to do such a thing, but that is not a burden I would willingly place on his shoulders. I will certainly not take our father into our confidence. He’d never believe me.
‘Instead, I will leave instructions for my staff, and trust their knowledge of me, and their own sworn duty to the Crown, to know when they must act, if it becomes necessary. I must put my trust…’ His voice thickened. ‘Those I trust must save me, if they can. If they cannot, they must save all I have worked for by eliminating me.’
Michael Dare tapped a command onto the screen. He took up a smartphone, then, and placed it in his pocket.
After that, he walked away, along the darkened floor, past building materials and coils of cables.
When he was gone, Anthea gave Tavisa Datta a look that was defiant and sad. Long minutes later, Anthea led Tavisa out to her car.
They didn’t speak until the car pulled up outside Tavisa’s home.
‘This makes everything harder, doesn’t it?’ said Tavisa. ‘You’ll have to keep him out of the planning of his own defence, while making it look like he’s still in on it, or Frazer will get suspicious.’
‘Yes. It’s a brinksmanship game now. We’ll never know if the fox is listening. Even tonight was tricky. Mr Dare simply suggested he might be there tonight and left the rest to me. He knows he’s potentially a tap wire to the adversary.’
‘He has to deceive himself to deceive Frazer,’ observed Tavisa. ‘Shit.’
‘If we have to,’ said Anthea, her voice dull, ‘we’ll eliminate Mr Dare. Those are his orders. He’d rather die than be lost to the enemy. He’d rather die than forsake his life’s work.’
Anthea’s defiant-sad glare collided with Tavisa’s one of concern and dread.
‘If it comes to it, you’ll see to it, won’t you? If I can’t?’ said Anthea. ‘We have no way of knowing how much Frazer knows. If Michael’s lost, he’ll take me out before we have a chance to act. He needs someone he can trust who is out of the internal loop, and he can’t ask Gabriel. You can see that he can’t ask Gabriel.’
He could ask James Sharpe, Tavisa thought, but no. What James Sharpe knew, Gabriel would know in due course, and Michael Dare was right. That was no burden for a brother.
It was no burden for a copper either. But perhaps it was one for a patriot, or a friend.
‘You can count on me,’ she said. ‘But only in the most extreme of circumstances.’
Relief softened the creases around Anthea’s eyes and mouth. ‘Of course. Our plan is to take Frazer out first. If the possession is psychic, we postulate there’s every chance that Frazer’s death will release Mr Dare. Our job is to reach that point before the fox completes the possession.’
Now Michael was Mr Dare again, but Tavisa had no doubt that Anthea – that collection of articles definite and indefinite – was most definitely in love with her boss. Tavisa wondered if the love was reciprocated. She knew that for Anthea it didn’t matter. Anthea was resolved to save Michael Dare’s soul if she wasn’t able to save his body. And she relied on Tavisa Datta to be her back-up.
‘We’ll beat that bastard,’ said Tavisa, ‘Trust me.’
‘I’ll have to.’
Gabriel stood in front of the easel, chewing the end of his paintbrush. It left a dark stain on his lower lip, which joined the general collection of paint smears on other parts of his face and his hands. His thumb, which he’d used to smudge and blend colours in the background, was particularly discoloured with browns and a vibrant red.
For the first time in days, he was calm and centred, his mind cleared of all the endless talk and suppositions and analyses and just plain guesses about what Niall Frazer was planning and how that affected the Dare brothers. Plans were in place. And Plan B. Plans C to F as well – most of those being back-up plans from which Michael had been explicitly excluded, in the event that Frazer’s hold on Michael became more profound.
Gabriel and James had taken to making strange excursions of the streets of London in their efforts to ensure these plans were made well away from Michael and his Bureau of Uncanny Sciences. James used his vampire strength and balance to avoid surveillance. They conducted quiet discussions atop high buildings, down disused tunnels, and once in the London Zoo’s lion enclosure (the lionesses, Rubi, Heidi and Indi, kept their wary distance from the vampire and the chemical-scented human).
Gabriel led James to the abandoned Tube stations where he’d sometimes slept in his more difficult days. There, they watched the trains fly past: squares of light in the darkness, flashing slides of people reading, daydreaming, picking their noses, texting or gazing at someone three seats down, trying to muster the courage to say hello. Gabriel liked to sit in the dark and sketch them, far from the surveillance of prying eyes and ears.
All the participants of this Byzantine puzzle had their scripts and their prompts and their list of what-ifs. They were waiting for the starter pistol, whatever that would turn out to be, and then they could only hope for the best.
It was a piss-poor solution, but until more data came in, it was all they had.
James and Gabriel slept together every night now – that is, Gabriel slept while James was dormant. Before they slept or after they woke, they kissed and explored one another, James taking tender delight in bringing his lover to orgasm. Sometimes he experienced again that fizz of sensation, brain to fingertips.
They worked, James at the clinic, Gabriel at the paint factory or on his art. They filled notebooks with observations on James’s physiology. They discussed and discarded and refined and brainstormed new ideas, new approaches, new ways to tackle the threat of Niall Frazer and the inexorable, inching loss of Gabriel’s brother.
After their most recent meeting, Michael had shown disturbing signs of not being quite himself. He was distracted, as though a voice was whispering in his ear. He swore he was fine and uncompromised, but Gabriel had never known Michael in anything but complete command of himself. Michael’s distraction frightened him more than anything preceding it; even Cael West.
Today, Gabriel threw it all off. His head was too full of questions without answers and the nerve-scraping anticipation of Frazer’s first visible move. He couldn’t stand it. He breathed a sigh of relief when James went to the clinic, then hauled out his paints and unfinished canvases.
Separated from all the concern and strategizing of the last few days, Gabriel steeped himself in the now of colour and light. He revelled in applying paint with the brush, scraping parts of it off again with a palette knife, brush stem, thumbnail or rag; in taking image, thought, heart and instinct out of his head and hands and trying to make the mere outside world carry meaning for which he didn’t have words.
Gabriel had tried to work on other paintings over the last few weeks, but he kept coming back to this one: his portrait of James Sharpe. And every time he came back to it, it changed.
He thought the painting was nearly finished. This blend of dark and light. The background was inky black and midnight blue, but the figure of James glowed. Whether the light was behind him or emanated from him was obscure. James was dressed in the jeans and T-shirt he was wearing when Gabriel first set eyes on him. A hint of James’s caduceus tattoo appeared under the sleeve, along with the lines of a tan that Gabriel now understood were forever – James’s undead body caught in that snapshot of his last moments as a human being, before Cael West had murdered him.
The clear, sapphire blue eyes in the painting were patient and full of sorrowful knowing; the lift of the chin was strong and defiant. The set of his muscular shoulders and his feet, braced apart, showed him willing for
action, but his hands were open, palm up, as though offering help, or asking for it.
His mouth wore an incipient smile, but the tiniest drop of blood red was at the corner, though examination revealed it shaped like a teardrop, and then you could see that the smile was sweet but melancholy too.
Gabriel stepped away from the picture, to where his sketchbook lay open on the bed. That had a more recent picture of James – drawn in soft pencils last night, while James lay dormant in their bed.
In the picture, James was resting on his side, a study in flowing lines. The rise and fall of his shoulder, to the dip of his waist, the rise again of his hip. The light from the window had cast shadows over the sheets draped over his legs and rucked about his waist, and lit James’s face softly. He looked younger, resting like this. Less guarded and less troubled, his descended fangs pushing slightly at his lower lip. One arm was bent, with the hand curled under his chin. The other rested on Gabriel’s pillow, fingers spread like he was absorbing the heat from where Gabriel’s head had rested.
He looked partly like a sleeping boy, and partly like a lion in repose; all that strength under the skin, despite the vulnerability.
Jamie’s extraordinary, thought Gabriel, and then he thought, I will protect him with everything I have. Considering James was a vampire, it was a strange thought to have.
‘Gabriel, Anthea Webb ca- oh.’
Gabriel, startled, turned to see James staring at the painting. His first impulse was to throw the cover sheet over it, but that action was aborted when James walked up to the painting. Gabriel was left with the cloth clutched between his fingers.
‘It’s not finished,’ he blurted. ‘Why are you back early?’
‘I’m not early. You’ve lost track of time.’
After that, James viewed the painting in silence. He took in every whorl of paint, every smear, every soft painted line and hard-edged drag mark.
Gabriel couldn’t tell if James liked it or hated it, but his expression was strange. The edges of his eyes and the corners of his mouth were crinkled.
I want to paint that look.
‘Is that what I look like to you?’
‘Yes.’
Gabriel finally recognised that expression. If James’s eyes had shed tears, he’d have recognised it at once. He dropped the sheet and stepped behind James, winding his arms around his waist so they could view the painting together.
‘I look so… human,’ said James in a hushed voice.
‘Of course you do.’ Gabriel pressed a kiss to James’s temple.
‘Look, this thing with Frazer. You don’t have to–’
‘Neither do you.’
‘We’re both in it for the civic duty of it, then?’
‘And the moral outrage.’
‘And the revenge.’ James leaned back into Gabriel’s arms. ‘That’s not it, though. Cael West’s already dead.’
Gabriel folded his arms more firmly across James’s chest and traced the tip of his nose along the edge of James’s ear. ‘It’s not revenge.’
‘No,’ agreed James softly. ‘It’s fear. He’s done so much, so fast, so cruelly. Who’s going to stop him if we can’t?’
Gabriel kissed the side of James’s neck.
James turned in the circle of Gabriel’s arms and pressed his face up into his throat. It was becoming a frequent gesture. Gabriel loved it. The sensation of James’s cool skin against that vulnerable point; the way James inhaled and sighed softly at the contact.
‘Will you do something for me?’
‘Anything,’ James murmured.
‘Drink from me.’
James recoiled. ‘No.’
‘You don’t have to bite if you don’t want to.’
‘You’re fucking right I don’t want to. You’re not some handy little blood dispenser.’
‘Blood given as a gift is best for you. You’re stronger with it, and you need to be at your strongest for this. If you’re going to take care of me, it’s how I need to take care of you.’
Gabriel cupped James’s glowering face and ran his thumb along the lines at the corners of his eyes. ‘Use a needle to take it.’
‘You hate needles.’
‘You hate biting.’
‘I–’
‘You said it. We need to stop him, and we don’t know if Michael can. We don’t know what that infection is doing to him. If he can’t even be certain of himself, then we can’t be certain of his spook team either.
‘It may end up down to you, me and Datta. And she still looks at me like I might secretly be Jack the Ripper.’
‘She looks at me like I’m a ladybug that turned out to be a wasp.’
Gabriel snorted, then laughed outright at James’s wounded air.
‘Ladybug,’ he said impishly.
‘Are you saying I couldnae be a ladybug?’
‘You can be anything you want. Come here.’ He tugged James back into an embrace. ‘Think about it, will you?’
‘All right, then.’
‘You’ll do it?’
‘It might save your life. Of course I’ll do it. But I’ll bite.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I’m nae sticking unnecessary needles in you, love. Not after what you went through.’
‘I trust you.’
‘Do you trust me to bite you and stop?’
‘You know I do.’
James drew Gabriel close. He nuzzled into Gabriel’s throat. He took Gabriel’s hand in his, lifted it to his mouth. He kissed the paint- smudged fingers, then his palm. He pushed Gabriel’s shirtsleeve out of the way and kissed the muscle of his forearm.
Then he bit and worked the puncture wounds open. Gabriel gasped at the sting, but he stroked James’s back soothingly while James sucked at the wound. James swallowed a few mouthfuls of blood and then licked the punctures. They healed shut under his tongue. When they were gone and the last of the blood gathered up by the tip of his tongue, James kissed the spot again.
He straightened – eyes bright, his skin flushed in a healthy glow – and then, with a quirk of a smile, he rubbed his thumb over Gabriel’s bottom lip.
‘You’re covered in paint.’
‘Occupational hazard.’
James kissed him, sucking on the stained lower lip. Gabriel held him tight, then loosened his grip and smoothed his palms over James’s back and down to his backside. He squeezed and James deepened the kiss.
‘I love how you taste,’ James murmured. ‘Paint and all.’
Gabriel caught James’s lower lip between his teeth but he didn’t bite. He pulled slowly on the lip, smiling as he did so, and James laughed breathily. Gabriel let go, then sealed his mouth over James’s. There was no taste of blood – it had already been absorbed – but he detected a faint, sweet taste, unique and wonderful. It hadn’t been there the first time he’d kissed James.
This is what Jamie tastes like, after he’s drunk from me.
It should have been appalling, not romantic, but Gabriel couldn’t help thinking it fitting.
They drew apart with little soft kisses, ending with James smearing his lips along Gabriel’s jaw until he could brush them against his artist’s ear.
‘I had nothing when I came home, undead, from the war,’ he murmured. ‘Not even who I used to be. Since you came into my life, I’m more me than I hae ever been. I’ve found myself again. What Tavisa sees in that dream is wrong, Gabriel. You wouldnae hurt me. You’re the keeper of my soul. Such as it is. Thank you.’
Gabriel kissed James’s hair. ‘You’ve given me back to myself too, you know. I don’t know if we have souls, but if we do, you have charge of mine as well. We’re good for each other.’
‘We are. Thank you for the painting.’
‘You’re welcome.’
James caressed Gabriel’s cheek again, kissed his mouth, then met his gaze. ‘I’d like to show you something. I think you’ll like it. Tonight?’
The gesture led to kissing, which led to fondling, which led to nakedness and Gabriel sprawled between James’s legs, slowly frotting against James’s pliant body, his cock sliding in the slipperiness of his own pre-come in the crease of James’s thigh as they kissed languorously.
James spread his legs wider and wrapped them around Gabriel’s hips, loving the heat of him there, holding him with his whole body. Gabriel moaned against James’s lips, a harmony of sigh and whimper and wantonness. His hips rocked more urgently and his aching erection slipped from its course against James’s leg, down between his thighs, between the cheeks of his arse. Gabriel’s breathing grew hoarser and needier.
James shifted to let Gabriel’s heavy cock slide more easily in the crease. A few more thrusts and then Gabriel stopped, forehead pressed to James’s shoulder.
‘Jamie. Is this okay?’
‘Oh, my angel,’ whispered James against his skin. ‘It’s fabulous. Christ, you feel good. Do ye like it, mae love? Do you like your cock there?’
‘M-hhn,’ Gabriel confirmed, rolling his hips again, but then he clutched James tight again. ‘But I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘You cannae hurt me, mae bonnie lad.’ James kissed his brow.
‘It fucking can hurt if you don’t prepare right,’ Gabriel said into James’s collarbone.
James wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s shoulders. ‘Did someone hurt you?’
‘He didn’t mean to,’ said Gabriel, but his heart rate tripped up in sudden anxiety.
‘Hey, hey, sshh,’ James soothed him, stroking his back with steady hands.
‘He didn’t do it on purpose, exactly,’ Gabriel confessed into James’s skin. ‘But I don’t think it mattered to him. He said I owed him for the rent, and that I could pay it off that way.’
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