As the couple next to us had their drinks delivered – tall glasses of a thick red liquid – my stomach cried out in pain. It was the worst pain yet, in fact. I clutched at my midsection, trying to hide my discomfort, but Miles was watching every move I made.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen all I need to see.’ He stood up, grabbed my hand, and led me outside. ‘I’m sorry, Melissa. I think it’s probably clear to you by now that I took you to the Fruit of the Vein for a reason. I had a theory, and I needed to test it out.’
I glared at him. ‘You really like your little tests, don’t you Miles? This is just another example of you being a superior so-and-so, and I’ve just about had it up to here with–’ I stopped, clutching my stomach once more, wincing as yet another sharp pain took hold.
He came to my side and walked me to a nearby bench. And yes, I really did need him to help me walk. Because if he hadn’t, I would have crawled on my knees towards what I now knew was the only thing that could satisfy me: blood.
When we were seated, he pulled a card from his breast pocket and handed it to me. ‘This is the address of a woman you need to see,’ he said. ‘And you need to see her immediately.’
I glanced at the card. There was a doctor’s name listed, with an address below.
‘A doctor? Miles, I don’t need a doctor. Anyway, this address is in a human enclave.’
He nodded. ‘It is. But she’s not a human. She’s not a witch healer, either. She deals with people like you.’
‘People like me? I have no idea what you mean by that.’
‘Yes you do. You know exactly what I mean, Melissa.’
I looked stubbornly away. Sure, I knew it now. I finally knew what the problem was. But I did not want to discuss it with Miles Master. I could deal with this my own way. Just as soon as the pain subsided long enough for me to stand. ‘I don’t need a doctor, or a healer, or a quack who peddles snake oil. I don’t need to see anyone, Miles. I’ve just … I’ve obviously got some sort of stomach bug or something.’
He sighed. ‘Earlier on you told me you believed I had abandoned Goldie. I hope that by now you know the truth. That was part of your test, and nothing more. I would never have let him plead guilty to a crime he didn’t commit. And if I don’t let my clients down, Melissa, then how do you think I treat my friends?’
‘I’m not even sure I want to work with you yet,’ I said through gritted teeth, trying to push down another surge of pain. ‘And I’m definitely not your friend.’
‘Not yet, perhaps. But I’m absolutely certain that I’d like to be yours. And as a friend, I will not let you down on something so important. I’m telling you – go and see the doctor now, before it’s too late. If you refuse, I’ll just have to drag you there myself.’
20. Doctor Dillis
I stood in front of a butcher’s shop on Moore Street, in the human part of Dublin, looking down at the address on the card again. This was definitely where the doctor was supposed to be, but there was no entrance other than the one into the butcher’s shop.
I approached slowly, standing as straight as I could and doing my best to ignore the sensation in my stomach. The pain was changing by the minute. I felt so empty, empty with a throbbing ache that seemed to call out for blood.
There was a sign on the door saying: Open all night, every night. Considering this place most likely had vampire connections, the hours didn’t come as a surprise. But was I really about to go and see a vampire doctor?
I took a deep breath, and walked inside.
A short, sturdy-looking woman was cutting beef into steaks. ‘Help you there, love?’’
‘I’m em … I’m looking for Doctor Dillis,’ I told her.
‘Ah. Go on up them stairs, love.’ She nodded towards a winding staircase, each step coated with sawdust. ‘Dillis is up there so she is. You won’t need to knock. She’ll know you’re coming.’
The butcher was correct. As soon as I got to the top step, a metal door was drawn open, and a woman wearing sunglasses, a scarf and a hat stood in front of me. She moved aside, giving me room to enter.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said in a strong inner city accent. ‘Physician, heal thyself. Well, the dayturner virus isn’t such an easy fix. But maybe you will be. It’s Melissa Wayfair, isn’t it?’
When I didn’t reply (due to nerves rather than rudeness), she tapped her nose. ‘Don’t worry. Everything you say here is confidential. You wouldn’t just shut that blind behind you though, would you? I had to pop out to get some milk and I’d rather not keep my night gear on while I’m inside.’
I moved to the blind, pulling it down. The room went into total darkness for a second before the doctor turned on an electric light. As she peeled off her many layers, I felt a pang of pity. The dayturner virus meant that darkness was unbearable to vampires. They’d break out in a horrific rash – one that could be lethal in certain circumstances. Vampires with the virus had to cover their skin completely if they ventured out at night. The hats and sunglasses sector were probably the only people who hoped the virus would never find a cure.
Good goddess, I felt so sorry for the woman. I wouldn’t wish her illness on my worst enemy.
‘Don’t pity me, Melissa,’ she said. ‘Pity yourself. You were an expert at shielding your thoughts form other vampires. Why did you stop?’
I sat down, staring at her. She was incredibly pretty now that I could see her. She had short black hair and vivid red lips, and she looked to be around forty or so, but seeing as she was a vampire she was probably far older than she appeared. ‘How do you know what I was or wasn’t good at?’
She snorted. ‘Because it’s all there in your unshielded mind, my love. And I have to tell you, I’m not a particularly powerful vampire, either. I can only read other vampires’ minds – and only if they’re as open as yours.’ She gave me a sympathetic smile. ‘Let me guess. Your brush with the Dark Team made you decide that your vampire powers were something you’d rather not develop. Well tough luck, love. You have them. Stronger than most and in perfect balance with your witch power. Or at least they were in perfect balance until you decided to pretend they didn’t exist.’
She moved to the kitchen counter to pour herself a glass of wine. Other than a desk and a metal wall cabinet which looked like it might be used to store medicines, there was little to suggest a doctor worked out of this flat. Maybe she was a shrink? There was a chaise longue by the window that looked like a fairly nice place to lie upon and tell her your deepest darkest fears. Y’know – if she hadn’t already plucked them out of your mind without permission.
‘Want some wine?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t want wine. And I’m not pretending my powers don’t exist. I don’t have anything against being part vampire. But it’s a tiny part. Insignificant. I don’t, like, crave blood or anything.’ Or at least I didn’t until very recently. And yet here I was, still trying to deny the truth of what was happening to me.
‘Oh?’ She placed her glass on the counter and moved to the metal wall cabinet I’d noticed. She opened it with a key, then pulled out a box filled with vials, extracting one and attaching it to a syringe. ‘So if I told you that this little concoction could stem the cravings until you have things under control, you wouldn’t want it?’
I stared at the vial. The liquid was bright red. ‘What is it? I’m not taking blood. I never want to take blood.’
‘Of course you don’t,’ she said. ‘What with you being a veggie. But it’s what things are going to come to if you don’t take control. Because I know how bad it’s getting.’ She moved towards me. ‘And no, there’s no blood in this, love. A lot of iron, B vitamins, some herbs that you as a witch should be familiar with … it’s a super-cocktail. It’s fast acting – should take hold within a few seconds, in fact. But you’ll need to take it for a week or so, until you’ve gotten the vampire side under control again. And believe me when I tell you, this is the only thing that’s going to help. Over-
the-counter vitamins will do you no good.’
She handed me the box that the vial had been in so I could read the ingredients. High doses of vitamins. Plenty of herbs I recognised – some that our family healer used to treat anaemia. No blood. I nodded with relief. Could this really be as easy as taking a shot? ‘Okay then. Give me the jab, Doctor Dillis.’
She smiled softly. ‘Just Dillis, my love,’ she said, gently administering the shot. For a moment a sharp pain coursed through my arm, but it passed just as quickly as it arrived, and then … then I felt like me.
I stood up, rubbing my arm. ‘Thank you so much, Doctor … Dillis. I can’t believe it’s worked so quickly. Do I need to come back and see you for the rest of the shots or …?’
She nodded. ‘You do. Seeing as you’ve got an incredibly rare problem, there aren’t a whole lot of doctors who can deal with it. I’ll need to see you every day over the next week or so, so that I can keep track of your progress. But we’re not done here yet.’ She moved back to the kitchen counter, pouring a glass of wine for me. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Sit down. Have a drink with me and relax. It’s time I told you a story.’
≈
‘Now, I said that things are confidential between us, and they are. What I’m about to tell you about Miles is only what he’s asked me to tell you. Though why the stupid sod couldn’t just tell you himself, I have no idea.’
She sipped slowly, perhaps thinking about her next words. ‘The Master coven are powerful in England, Melissa,’ she said after a few seconds. ‘Sort of like if the Berry coven and the Plimpton coven had a love child, and that love child went on to take over the country. But for all their power, they don’t have a whole lot of compassion. They know perfectly well that they have vampire blood going back to about three centuries ago, but they’d rather forget all about it. The witch gene usually comes out strongest, so they thought they could pretend that it didn’t exist. Until Miles.’ She arched a brow. ‘Because Miles is just like you, Melissa. A perfect hybrid between witch and vampire.’
Sometimes things are so obvious, and yet you don’t see them. The truth about Miles had been staring me in the face all along. The second I met him I’d felt that non-romantic stab of recognition. No wonder he knew exactly what was wrong with me. He was just like me.
‘Like you, Miles didn’t discover he had vampire abilities as well as magic until he was in his teens. Until then he thought he was all witch. As soon as the vampire powers started to manifest, he asked his coven for help. Instead he got some very bad advice – push it down, they said. Push it down, or we’ll kick you out of the coven.’
I felt myself well up a little. Sure, Miles was a posh, irritating twat. But I didn’t like to think of anyone going through what I went through alone. My coven had helped me figure things out. I’d learned to control myself with their help. Sure, I’d abandoned everything I’d ever learned in the past few months, but still …
‘That must have been hard,’ I said.
‘Incredibly. But he’s a tough nut, is Miles. He did push things down. Right up until he couldn’t anymore. With perfect hybrids like you and Miles, your witch and vampire natures can operate in total harmony. But only if they’re both given space to breathe. Miles pushed his vampire abilities so far down that they went haywire. He was compelling people without meaning to. He was hungering for blood. If it had gone on any longer, he could have given in to his vampire side and lost his witch abilities completely. Now, being all vampire isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it’s an awful shame to lose your magic if you don’t have to.’
‘Miles really almost lost his magic?’
‘Very nearly.’ She nodded. ‘Lucky for him he ran into a friend of mine, Jay Jones.’
‘The guy who owns Times of Yore?’
‘The very one. Jay was over in London at an antiques’ auction, and he met Miles at a vampire feeding joint one night during his stay. Miles hadn’t actually fed on blood yet, but he was right on the cusp. Jay sensed that Miles was a hybrid. He talked him down, then he brought him over here to me, and together we sorted him out.’
She took another sip of her wine. ‘It was nearly too late for Miles, and he doesn’t want it to be too late for you. My shots will only work for so long. You’ve got to start to use your vampire powers again, Melissa. If you don’t, they’ll be all you have left. So if that’s something you want, then fine. But if not …’
‘I don’t want that.’ I shook my head, realising I was crying like an idiot. ‘I love being a witch. I don’t want to lose my magic. I just … I didn’t want to get targeted again. You’re right. My granny was right, too. I didn’t want to be like the Dark Team. I thought … I dunno … I don’t know what I thought.’
‘That’s fine. The main thing is, you now know that whatever you thought, you thought wrong. Miles has already told me that he thinks you’re beginning to get cravings to feed. But you know, that’s not the only sign that clued him in. He’s been keeping more of an eye on you than you might have known – the fact that you’ve left your mind unshielded has made it easy for him. He mentioned a few things that have happened to you in the last few days. Melissa, is it possible that you’ve begun to compel people unknowingly again, the way you did when you were a teenager?’
I stared at her, once again feeling that horrible sinking feeling that comes when you realise you’ve totally overlooked the obvious. ‘I … I couldn’t have done, could I? I mean, the wards to my boyfriend’s – my ex-boyfriend’s – house, well they stopped working after I said I wished they would. The security company can’t figure out how to fix them. But it must have been a glitch, mustn’t it?’ I let out a little cry of irritation. ‘It wasn’t a glitch, was it? None of it was. It was all me. But … what do I do now? Can you help me get my power back under control so I can undo the things I’ve done?’
She smiled. ‘You don’t need my help. I wouldn’t even know where to begin with power like yours. Now that you know what’s been going on, you’ll be able to fix whatever little messes you might have made. All you have to do is own your power, Melissa. You learned how to use it before. You won’t have forgotten any of that. But once you’ve corrected any mistakes you might have made, you can’t stop there. You need to keep training your power and using it whenever you can.’
She sat forward, grasping my hands in hers. ‘Nurture it, Melissa, or it’ll take you over again. You have a vampire relative who wants to help, don’t you? So take her up on her offer.’ She gently pulled her hands from mine and stood up. ‘You can do this, Melissa. I’ll see you again tomorrow night for your second shot.’
I left my seat and we moved towards the door. ‘Thank you, Dillis,’ I said, undoing the latch.
Just as I was about to step out, she said, ‘One last thing. As far as Miles’s coven is concerned, he’s dealt with his problem by pushing it down. They don’t know he’s using his vampire powers. No one does but me, his friend Jay, and now you.’
I blinked in confusion. ‘But why would he do that? Keep what he is from his coven? It’s not like he needs them anymore.’
‘No. But if he wants to keep funding all of these charities he has on the go, then he does need their money and influence. So can you promise me that you’ll keep his secret?’
I thought back to the last few days with Miles – that uptight, obnoxious man who’d tested me to my limits. But I knew he was nothing like that now. He’d called himself my friend, and I was beginning to think I wouldn’t mind being his friend in return. ‘I promise,’ I said, as I waved Dillis goodbye.
21. Mack and Me
I stopped at home to borrow a broom from Wanda, and then I headed out into the night. As I flew over the Wandering Wood and made my way towards Mack’s cabin, I could see that the She-Wolves still hadn’t abandoned their watch. There were even more of them now, peering through binoculars and taking photos of his house, going through his bins and, well, just generally being as cuckoo as I’d known they were from the start.
&
nbsp; As I looked for a place to set the broom down, I saw a car edge its way into the bark-chip driveway and attempt to drive through the hordes. It was an old, beat-up red Cadillac full of guitars, keyboards, speakers and sheet music. Mack’s car.
I felt a leap of relief as I saw that he was alone in the vehicle. No Julie Rayn. Not a single gorgeous supermodel in sight. Maybe I wasn’t too late. Of course, if the She-Wolves didn’t stop surrounding his car and thumping on his doors and windows, then he might get here late – or never.
I settled down as close as I could get to his front door, while a dozen or so She-Wolves screamed at me and tried to jostle me out of the way.
As he – somehow – managed to make his way closer to the house, I called out ‘Mack!’ Unfortunately, so did a hundred other women. Crap. This wasn’t going to work. As soon as they stopped staring lovingly at Mack they’d turn back to me and recognise me – and that would probably lead to them breaking yet another broom so they could pin me down and use me as Mack-bait. Before, when Mack had a clue who I was, he’d been able to save me from the She-Wolves. But this time, well … he might just let them have me.
I turned to the fans, hoping that Dillis was right. I could still do this – I mean, I’d done it by accident, so surely I’d be able to do it on purpose, right? Right?
I took a deep breath and pointed my finger towards my throat, giving myself a loudspeaker spell, and then I stared around at the She-Wolves, willing them to look in my direction as I cried out, ‘You want to go now. You don’t know what you’re doing here, but it’s way past your bedtime and all you want to do is go home and crawl into bed with a nice cup of hot chocolate.’
Legally Red Page 14