by Alexis Hall
I just couldn’t imagine her waiting for me. It wasn’t like she could order a shot of blood and ask the bartender to keep it coming. She was probably shagging the waitresses by now. I was tempted to go over there to see what the hell was going on. There was no way she’d still be there.
Wait. No. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.
I was going to sleep.
Two hours later, I was in a cab heading for the Forty-Four.
Well, fuck.
The Forty-Four was an all-night blues and pudding bar—the sort of place that had invested in a hazer when the smoking ban came in. Truthfully, it was my kind of joint, full of miserable, lonely people drinking whiskey and singing about it. It was owned by an MP’s son following his dream. A pretty specific dream.
I stepped through the door into the smoky darkness. Mournful growling emanated from the stage. Julian was sitting in a booth near the back, her chin propped on her palm.
It was three in the morning, it was drizzling outside, I’d paid off my cab, and I honestly hadn’t planned past this point.
Backing out seemed too much like hard work, so I went over and sat down.
“I bought you a drink,” she said, “but I’m afraid it’s warm.”
“As long as it’s still wet.”
Julian gave me a mischievous look. “You make it too easy.”
I lifted the glass and took a sip. The whiskey was smooth and rich, and probably expensive. Truthfully, I’m not that much of a connoisseur. I just like to get drunk. “Yep, that’s alcohol. I recognise it right off.”
There was a pause. On the stage, the singer started on one of those classic blues songs where a guy shoots his wife and is sad about it.
After a long silence, Julian looked up at me. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“Neither did I.”
“I’m really sorry about earlier.” I’d expected the apology to involve big blue kitten eyes, but it didn’t.
“Just don’t do it again.”
“People usually enjoy it when I show up unexpectedly.”
“I don’t like surprises. And I’m not most people.”
Finally, she grinned. “I noticed.”
I took another drink to stop myself from smiling back. “So,” I said into the awkward, “what are we doing here?”
“We’re having a good time.” Lounging in the booth, with her arms stretched over the back of the seat, Julian looked like she actually was.
“Oh great, nice of you to tell me.”
She shrugged. “I thought it might be your kind of place.”
“You mean weird and trying too hard?”
“I kind of like it. It’s just what it is, you know?”
“Deep.”
She leaned forwards like she had when we first met, watching me like I was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. “Are you always this cagey?”
“With vampires, yes.”
“Did we torch your village and eat your family?”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little bit funny.” In the dim light, her eyes glinted like glass. “Come on, what’ve you got against us?”
“You mean apart from the fact you’re all a bunch of amoral, bloodthirsty megalomaniacs?”
She laughed. “And I thought you didn’t like me.”
“Cute.”
“I could find out for myself, you know.” She shrugged. “It’d be less trouble. And probably cheaper.”
“That would really piss me off.”
“So you’d better save yourself the aggravation and tell me everything I want to know.”
I finished my drink. “That’s the worst logic I’ve ever heard.”
She leaned in a little closer. Beneath the familiar burn of whiskey, I caught a faint and dusty sweetness, like a swirl of roseleaves. “Let me buy you a dessert. Maybe it’ll sweeten you up.”
What the hell? Was she planning on seducing me or eating me? “I don’t want a pudding.”
“Oh, go on,” she purred. “Everybody wants dessert.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“It’s an escalation thing, sweeting. One minute I’m watching you eat a delicious sugary nothing and the next . . .”
“Do not go there.”
Julian gestured in the smoky air, and within seconds, a waiter was at her elbow. “What’s on the menu tonight?” she asked, sitting up eagerly.
“Well, Madam, we have an Eton Mess—”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“It’s a mixture of strawberries, meringue, and cream.”
She closed her eyes blissfully. “That sounds wonderful. Does it melt in the mouth? Describe it for me.”
The waiter looked a bit panicky. “It’s, uh, nice?”
“You can do better than that.” She poked him lightly in the ribs.
“Well it’s . . . it’s . . .”
“Does the tart flavour of the strawberries perfectly complement the dry sweetness of the meringue, like dust motes dancing on an April morning?”
“Absolutely, Madam.”
She clapped her hands excitedly. “Excellent. All right, what’s next?”
I had the feeling this could go on a long time. “I’ll take the Mess.”
He thanked us and withdrew hastily.
Julian sighed. “Some people have no soul.”
“What was that about?”
“What was what about?” She gave a dismissive little wave. “Have you ever had an Eton Mess before?”
I wasn’t letting it go that easily. “No. But I’ve also never asked a waiter for an oral rendition.”
“Maybe not,” she said plaintively, “but you haven’t spent eight hundred years on an all-blood diet.”
“Boo hoo.”
“You’re so mean.” She pouted. “I’m bad with things I can’t have.”
“No shit.”
“And, besides, when I was alive the desserts were shit. Have you ever had a white rose pudding?”
“Doesn’t sound that bad.”
“Hah. I’ll make you one someday. It’s flower-flavoured goop in a bowl. And I wasn’t even allowed it very often—sins of the flesh and all that.”
“Aren’t you all about sins of the flesh?”
There was a pause. “I used to be a nun.”
I nearly choked on the dregs of my whiskey.
Julian made a face. “Well, career opportunities were pretty limited for women in the late twelfth century. Can I get you another drink?”
“No, but I could stand to hear the adventures of Sister Julian, Pudding Nun.”
“Could you now?” She smirked. “How about you tell me what you’ve got against vampires, sweeting, and I’ll lingeringly assuage all of your curiosities.”
I sighed. “I dated one, okay? Move on.”
“We’ve all have bad relationships. And anyway, I heard you used to be with Eve Locke. Does that mean you’ve sworn off humans too?”
“So you did have me checked out?”
“Hah, no, checking you out is a pleasure I reserve for myself. But Locke is dangerous, and I make it my business to know her business.”
“Don’t you start.”
She widened her eyes, flashing a million miles of blue. “Now what have I done?”
“I’m just sick of being told how dangerous everyone is.”
“Sweeting, we’re all dangerous, even you.”
That was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me.
At that moment my pudding arrived. It kind of lived up to its name, being a mess of strawberries, cream, and meringue muddled into a tall glass.
“Oh, wow!” cried Julian. “That looks amazing. Like fresh blood on new snow. What does it taste like?”
I dug out a spoonful. “Like dust motes dancing on an April morning.”
“Get your own simile.” Julian scowled. “And eat it slowly. Savour it. Roll the flavours across your tongue.”
“Are you getting off on t
his?”
“Of course I am.”
“I’ll eat at whatever damn speed I choose.” To prove the point, I stuffed down an enormous mouthful.
“That’s so sexy,” said Julian dryly. “Hamster cheeks totally do it for me.”
“Mrmff you.”
And then she leaned over and swiped a smudge of cream from my lip with one cool fingertip. I tried not to dissolve into spun sugar.
“So, come on,” she pressed. “Who put you off vampires?”
“Patrick Knight,” I mumbled.
She cackled delightedly. “Oh my God, that was you? Weren’t you seventeen?”
I ate my pudding.
“Didn’t you nearly start a war between two werewolf families?”
I ate my pudding.
“Didn’t the Queen of the Wild Hunt attack your school?”
I ate my pudding.
“Didn’t he think you were dead and come back to London to petition the Prince of Swords to execute him?”
“Look.” I pushed away the pudding. “I know it’s probably this enormous joke to you but it was fucking awful, okay? He took my entire life and cut out everything that wasn’t about him. Because he—” I did sarcastic air quotes. “—loved me.”
At least she’d stopped laughing. “Sweeting, that’s awful. Shall I have him killed for you?”
“That’s exactly what Patrick would have said.”
She looked crushed. “But I was joking. Sort of.”
“You’d still have done it, though.”
Julian pondered. “No, I don’t think I would. I don’t want to get into your pants so badly I’d risk pissing off the Prince of Wands.” She was silent a moment. “I get it,” she said eventually. “And you’re even basically right. I enjoy power. I enjoy control. As previously established, I’m a motherfucking vampire prince. But I’ve also been around for eight hundred years, and I’m kind of over it. I’ve got enough going on in my unlife that I don’t need you to be the centre of it.”
“Huh.” This was new.
“I won’t break into your house again unless you say I can. I won’t try to kill myself if you leave me. I don’t care who your friends are, and I don’t think it’s my job to look after you. I’m also a hedonistic, bloodsucking narcissist with nearly a thousand years’ worth of enemies but—” She flashed her fangs at me. “—I’m never dull.”
“Maybe I like dull.”
“I don’t believe that for a heartbeat. Not that I have one.”
It was quite a sales pitch. There was just one snag. “I don’t date vampires.”
“Sweeting, you’re dating one right now.”
“This isn’t a date.”
“Oh, it’s just a late-night meeting where I buy you pudding and try to seduce you?”
Okay, so I was on a date with a vampire. But I still didn’t date vampires. Keep telling yourself that, Kate.
I suddenly realised I’d stopped staring at my drink and was staring at Julian instead. No wonder I hadn’t sounded very convincing. It’s kind of hard to pretend it’s not a date when you’re gazing longingly into someone’s eyes.
For a dead woman, she seemed more alive than anyone I’d met in a long time. I wasn’t sure I’d have said she was beautiful, and she certainly wasn’t pretty. She was too vivid and complicated for that. There was something about her face that made me want to keep looking at her. It was like watching the sky or the sea, never changing but never the same. I wanted to inscribe the arch of her cheekbones with my thumbs, shape her mouth beneath my mouth.
“This is such a bad idea.”
Julian’s eyebrows waggled. “All the best ideas are.”
“Your place or mine?”
“That was sudden.”
“What, you’re changing your mind now?”
“No, no, God, no. You just surprised me.”
“Well. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise, I like being surprised.” She smirked at me. “I’m an eight-hundred-year-old vampire prince. It doesn’t happen very often.”
“Your life is so hard. No pudding, no surprises.”
“Come back to my place and console me in my dreary immortality.”
This was a really, really bad idea. I could tell because I really, really wanted to go with it.
Julian had a ground floor flat in Lennox Gardens—the sort of place so damn swanky it was probably technically an “apartment.” We stumbled through the front door, kissing.
“You taste of strawberries,” mumbled Julian happily. “And meringue.”
Her tongue slipped eagerly into the warm corners of my mouth. I tried to press her up against the nearest wall, but there wasn’t one, just an archway leading into a bijou kitchenette. We careened, entangled, into the pristine white fridge. Julian made a slightly surprised noise against my lips, and we went sliding sideways across the fitted cabinets, knocking over a really expensive coffee grinder and a stainless steel toaster that looked like it had never been used.
“What are you doing?” asked Julian, as I hoisted her into the sink.
“No fucking clue.” I smothered her words in a deeper kiss. Her mouth yielded eagerly to the contours of mine, and she tasted of wine and roseleaves, madness and power, red velvet rooms and centuries of forbidden indulgence. She made my blood dance.
She braced herself on the taps and twined sinuous legs around my waist, pulling me closer. “You know I have a bedroom, right? Just down there.”
“You mean you’re not hot for the kitchen?”
“Well.” She squeezed me gently with her knees. “I’ve never been in here before, so it’s a novelty.”
“God, this is such a vampire shag pad. I bet there’s no food in the fridge.”
Julian ran her tongue over the tips of her fangs. “I ordered in.”
I kissed her very carefully. What can I say? I’ve had practice kissing vampires. I liked the danger of it, the promise of softness behind her wickedly sharp teeth, a prize in a castle ringed by briars. Beneath mine, I could feel her lips curving into a smile, and I claimed that too. It’s not like I’ve had masses of experience getting it on with supernatural beings, but there was something about Julian. It was five in the morning and I should have been barely conscious, but I felt more awake—hell, more alive—than I had in a long time.
Everything was brighter and sharper and clearer. I could have lingered a lifetime on the pearl-pale curve of her cheekbones. Her eyes were as endless and shifting as the sea, the blue as rich as lapis lazuli. Between my fingers, her hair was cool as silk and soft as feathers. Her face was fascinating, as though she was a puzzle I couldn’t quite solve. Time’s cryptic crossword, ageless and ancient, fragile and eternal . . .
Oh, whatever. She was hot. And she wanted me. And I was high on wanting her.
But maybe not in the sink.
I swung her back onto her feet. It was totally suave.
Her lips touched the edge of my jaw, tooth-edged kisses tumbling here and there against my throat. “You know,” she murmured, “I have twelve houses. You can have your pick of weird rooms. Coal cellars. Pantries. Airing cupboards.”
“Oh, shut up.”
I pulled off my blazer and slipped the frockcoat from Julian’s shoulders, half-tripping over the pile I’d made as we staggered back into the hallway. That never happens in the movies.
Julian was staring. “Wow, you really are armed.” She unstrapped my knives and cast them to the floor. And then: “Ow. Fuck.”
“Sharp things tend to be sharp.”
“You are a walking deathtrap, lady.” She put her finger to her lips and sucked away the blood.
“Wait, aren’t I the one who’s supposed to cut herself, and aren’t you supposed to freak out over it?”
“I’m sure you’re delicious, sweeting, but I’m not the Cookie Monster.”
I reached for her hand. “Here, give me that.”
“Are you going to kiss it better?”
“I’ll kiss whatever you like.”
“Promises, promises.”
“Shouldn’t this have healed by now?” I lightly kissed the nick on her fingertip.
“It’s too close to dawn.”
“It’s tiny.”
“It really stings.” She pouted.
“Then I’d better take your mind off it.”
I tore off the ridiculously ruffly shirt, which I’d been wanting to do since I first saw her. Maybe just because I hated it. She was moon pale against the black lace of her lingerie, her skin so delicate I could see the frail hollows of her collarbones and a lace-like tracery of blue veins at her pulse points. I put my mouth against her silent flesh and breathed heat. Julian gave an unabashed whimper.
A few more steps and we were in the bedroom. At least I assumed it was supposed to be a bedroom. It was showroom tidy, with wooden floors, French windows, a king-sized bed and, for some reason, a bath in the corner. I gaped at it.
“What?” Julian blinked innocently at me. “I enjoy bathing, especially in company. Why restrict it to the worst room in the house?”
I tossed her onto the bed and pulled my T-shirt over my head. Julian propped herself on her elbows and grinned at me. This was turning out to be pretty decent evening.
And then the French windows burst open. In came a rush of cold air, a wash of grey morning light, and an honest-to-God tentacle monster. It was a ball of pulsating, translucent viscera, covered in twitching mouths and sucking orifices, and it went straight for Julian.
Way to kill the mood.
What happened next happened fast.
I didn’t see Julian move. She was on her feet, hissing like an angry viper, all bared fangs and burning eyes. The creature erupted towards her with a speed I hadn’t expected from something so . . . gooey, but she’d already gone. I looked up and saw her clinging to the ceiling, out of reach.
So Mr. Squidgy went for the closer target.
I dropped to one knee, going for the dagger strapped to my left calf. It was at this point that I really really regretted wearing my pulling jeans. Unable to get at the damn thing, I looked up and got a faceful of monster.
I’d thought it was ugly before. Up close it was even worse. A fetid pile of discarded organs and stretched ligaments. It was enough to put you off everything. Forever. It lashed out at me with distended cords of flesh. I threw myself backwards, but one of its pulpy tendrils latched onto my arm and I could feel things that weren’t quite teeth scraping at my skin as it began to suck. For one sickly fascinated moment I watched as my blood seeped up its feeding tubes, staining them a dull red.