I gazed, exhausted, at the train’s tunnel-darkened windows and, stifling my regrets over Finn, made a promise to myself that that was an end of it. No more wishing for something that couldn’t be. I slumped in the seat and checked out my reflection: black baseball cap hiding the telltale amber of my hair, tinted glasses over my eyes, loose black T-shirt, charity shop jeans, heavy motorbike boots and a knee-length black jacket that had me sweating in the stuffy heat. My only accessory was the pearl-handled flick-knife that nestled against my spine: six inches of silver-plated steel.
Apart from the knife, my venom-junkie outfit fitted in right along with the other occupant of the carriage.
The goth leaned against the doors, arms folded loosely across his chest. Only he wasn’t the real deal, just a cheap copy. His ankle-length coat was PVC instead of leather, his dye job was patchy and safety pins featured heavily in his attempt at low-cost adornment. Heavy-handed eyeliner gave him the naïve panda look, and the black, round-necked T-shirt shouted out his inexperience. A true sucker wannabe would’ve worn a muscle vest. Or nothing. As I’d stumbled past him onto the train, his lip had curled, showing crooked teeth, and I’d recognised him. Cheap Goth was Gazza, the dirty-mouthed pot-washer from the Rosy Lee Café. No prizes for guessing why he was off to Sucker Town.
Ignoring him, I closed my eyes, tucking my hands under my arms to stop from scratching.
The goblin woke me.
I opened my eyes to the blank stare of his dark wraparounds and was reminded of Jeremiah, the goblin who’d died at the police station. But this one was smaller, with his pale grey head-fur crimped into artificial waves and fanned out like a miniature peacock’s tail. His white translucent ears flicked like a rat’s and he clutched a gold lamé satchel tight to his chest, almost obscuring the London Underground badge on his navy boiler-suit—a gold embroidered ‘G’ that marked him as a Gatherer.
He slid a thin grey finger down his twitching nose. ‘Rubbish, miss.’
My disguise wasn’t good enough to trick a goblin, or even a vamp—not that it mattered. It was only the witches I was trying to fool.
I shook my head at the goblin, then touched my own nose in reply.
He patted the flap of his satchel. ‘Thankee, miss.’
The goblin clomped along to Gazza, his trainers flashed green with every step. ‘Rubbish, mister.’
Gazza sneered again. ‘Bugger off, you little creep.’
The goblin grinned up at him, baring black serrated teeth, three of them studded with square-cut garnets. He opened his mouth wide, leaned forward and snapped his teeth together with a loud crack, right next to Gazza’s cheap PVC-covered groin. ‘Rubbish, mister,’ he demanded.
Huddling against the door, his eyes wide, Gazza fumbled in his coat pocket, found something and offered it warily to the goblin. A stick of chewing gum, still wrapped.
Thin fingers plucked at it, then tucked it away inside the gold lamé satchel. ‘Thankee, mister.’ The goblin stamped his feet, leapt onto a seat and curled up in a ball, his arms hugging tight around his bag.
Gazza subsided like a pricked balloon.
I tucked my chin down, hiding a smirk.
Two stops later, the doors hissed open at Sucker Town North and Gazza jumped out and raced along the platform, coat flapping behind him like the Night Hunt was nipping at his heels.
Following at a slower pace, I shambled onto the escalator, closing my eyes briefly against the headache pounding behind them. I stuck my hand in my pocket and smoothed my fingers over Jeremiah’s Union Jack badge I’d found outside the police station, then touched my fingertips to the other two just like it that I’d picked up from home.
My lucky charms.
Reaching ground level, I fed change into the turnstile and pushed through into the ladies. A miasma of bleach, ammonia and sickly-sweet weed clung to the white brick-laid tiles and my stomach roiled. I shuffled along the row of cubicles, gave each door a push, checking for the cleanest.
Two girls, one with dirty blonde hair, the other a more brassy yellow, sat on the counter facing each other, bare feet in one of the washbasins. Giggling, they took it in turns hitting the tap and splashing water over their toes. Brassy threw me a quick furtive glance, decided I wasn’t anyone to be bothered about and took a long drag of her spliff.
Dirty gave me the finger. ‘Piss off, cow,’ she hissed.
Ignoring her, I choose a so-so cubicle at the end and locked myself in. It wasn’t the nicest place to change, but it was the most convenient available. The poster on the door advertised HOPE, and warned against 3V and the perils of Sucker Town.
I hung my jacket over it.
My heart started palpitating and I braced my hands on my knees, and panted shallow breaths until it calmed down. I wiped the sweat from my face and neck, pulled off my boots and then stripped down to my underwear: Lycra black crop-top and hipster shorts. Once I’d donned my jacket and boots again, I’d be good to go as Gazza the Cheap Goth’s twin.
Easing down the shorts, I stared at the spell-tattoo on my left hip. Its hard black ridges stood proud against the honey-colour of my skin. Licking my lips, I traced the knotted Celtic shape, and a shudder of power echoed through me.
A door banged, making me jump.
‘Give it ’ere, you silly mare,’ one of the girls shouted.
‘In a min,’ the other sniggered back, ‘but I wan’ some more first.’
I pulled out my knife and flicked it open. The silver gleamed sullenly in the stark light of the fluorescents. Resting my left hand against my thigh, I hesitated. Was using the spell the reason I wanted so badly to sink my teeth into Finn’s neck? Was that why his blood smelled of berries? I’d never had that happen before with a fae. And why now? Had something changed? The doubts edged their way into my mind, until something wild and eager and alien pushed them away. I was too far gone to turn back now. I sliced a deep diagonal cut down the bone, bisecting my life line in two.
Nothing happened.
No pain. And no blood.
‘Fucking G-Zav,’ I breathed out in a whisper.
I chewed my lip, trying to decide whether to tap the vein in my arm—then hot, viscous fluid seeped out of the wound like blood-coloured tar. Inhaling the rich honey scent, my heart beat with shallow thuds. I watched as the blood pooled in my palm. I took a deep breath, then smeared the sticky blood across the spell on my hip. It ran liquid into the knotted design, flooding out over the black ridges and misted in a thin red haze around my body.
My heart stuttered, and stopped thudding in my chest.
A moment’s vertigo made me lurch.
The heat fled my skin, my flesh tightening as though I’d walked out into a chill winter’s day.
My heart wouldn’t beat again now until I fed.
‘Open the bog door,’ a girl’s voice screamed, followed by loud thumps. ‘Open the bogging bog dooooor!’
I could smell them, smell their blood, hear the fast rat-tat of their hearts in their chests. Running my tongue cautiously over my teeth, I touched the sharp points of my fangs. I could almost taste the girls: hot and salty and coppery. My jaw ached with need and my stomach pinched with hunger.
‘I can see you,’ the girl sing-songed.
Stretching my arms, I flexed muscles like a cat.
‘I can see you too.’ More giggles tumbled out.
I wiped the knife clean on the T-shirt and swung my hair forward so glossy black waves settled over my shoulders. I didn’t need to see my eyes to know the colour was like frozen blue gentians. I checked my hand. The wound had already healed to a thin pale red line; it would be gone in another few minutes—part of the expensive spell package: injuries healed fast, even those caused by silver. I pulled up my shorts, smoothing them over my wider hips, and pressed a hand flat against my stomach as another cramp hit. I tugged at the Lycra top, stretching the material over my fuller breasts, tracing the map of blue veins under the paleness of my skin. Lifting my chin, I inhaled, drawing the girls’ bl
ood-scent deep into my body. Anticipation hardened my nipples and wet heat throbbed between my legs.
‘C’mon.’ The whining tone grated like nails on a blackboard. ‘You goootta give me it. It’s my turn nowww.’
I tucked the knife against my spine and shrugged into my jacket. Leaving the old clothes behind me, I opened the door of the cubicle. Brassy was kneeling on the floor, arse in the air, arms reaching under a cubicle door.
I hissed, lips drawn back.
She peered at me over her shoulder, mouth falling open as she saw me. ‘Fuckin’ell,’ she gabbled and scrambled back on her haunches, ‘there’s a bloody sucker out ’ere.’
I crouched next to her. She didn’t move; the drug suffocating any fear. I stroked my finger along the blue vein under her jaw, felt her pulse jump, then pushed back a straggle of her hair. The skin covering her neck was smooth, unmarked, virgin. My gut spasmed again. I stood, inhuman quick, and snatched my hand away.
She had nothing I needed.
And everything I thirsted for.
Brassy fell forward, fingers crawling over my boots. ‘Wan’ some blood, sucker?’ She flung her arm up, waving her wrist in the air, shrieking, ‘Bloodsucker!’
I ran, her cries of bloodsucker chasing me through the night.
Chapter Fifteen
Crowded terraced houses blurred into unkempt semis with junk-filled gardens and peeling paintwork. Light spilled around half-closed curtains to pool on the pitted, uneven pavements. Graffiti-scarred tower blocks thrust into the night sky like giant tombstones and here and there houses squatted like waiting nightmares, their windows shuttered with blank steel plates. Sucker Town in all its midnight glory.
I stopped running, not even winded from my sprint.
A large pub, the Leech & Lettuce, complete with plastic Tudor beams, dominated one corner of the crossroads. The sign above the entrance creaked, even though the air was hot and still. Baring an impressive set of sharp cartoon fangs, the Leech on the sign was poised, ready to sink them deep into the plump juicy lettuce leaf it slithered across. A large blue heart thumped in the leech’s slimy breast.
I’d reached my destination.
Gold script above the pub’s door proclaimed Archibald Smith is Licensed to Sell Beers, Wines and Spirits to be Consumed On or Off the Premises and Licensed for Vampiric Activities.
It wasn’t one of my usual hangouts: they didn’t need to be licensed. But then, not all the vamps in Sucker Town are as law-abiding as the Leech’s locals.
As if my thoughts had conjured them, a hoard of Beater goblins trotted past, trainers flashing red, blue and green, their foil-wrapped bats hoisted on their shoulders: one of the squads from Sucker Town’s private security force, paid for by the vampires. It’s not as strange as it seems, since goblins are all about the job. I watched them warily as the leader, his red hair in tight Shirley Temple curls, threw a glance my way. But I was on my own and close enough to a blood-pub that he didn’t stop to challenge me.
I pushed through the Leech’s door into a fug of alcohol, blood and deep-seated staleness. The clamour of voices and heartbeats almost drowned out the Eurythmics singing ‘The First Cut’ on the jukebox and I almost staggered from the overload on my hypersensitive vampire senses. I stopped breathing and concentrated—like any other vampire, I need oxygen, but like everything else a vamp needs, my body filters the oxygen direct from my blood, not from sucking it in through my lungs. Half-a-dozen non-breaths later and my senses were tuned back to comfortable levels. After three years of using the spell, muting was coming easier. It had taken me six months to get it right; I might have mastered it sooner, but black-market magic doesn’t come with instructions.
I looked around. The Tudor theme continued with more fake beams criss-crossing the low ceiling and hunting scenes chasing each other round the walls. The booths in the rear bar—partitioned by high wooden panels—were busy, but the tables in the open area were mostly empty. A line of hot and cold bodies propped up the counter, the humans burning bright to my eyes as their venom-thickened blood pumped round their bodies. The vampires were almost shadows by comparison. Scanning the cool faces, I saw one I recognised: Mr June, another of the Blue Heart’s Calendar vamps. He stood with two other vampires. Oddly, they were the only group not chatting up the menu options.
I picked out the perfect spot, near enough to listen, far enough away not to be noticed ... only my perfect spot was already taken by a hot black-leather-clad body hulked over his drink. About the only thing that doesn’t change with the spell is my height. I’m still five-five. I tapped the leather-clad shoulders and they straightened up and turned towards me, giving me a view of a chest that would’ve looked at home on the cover of a romance novel—the ever-popular throat-ripping kind, going by the fang marks that trailed from his left nipple down to disappear beneath his leather waistband. Lucky me. I’d found a real goth.
His handsome, chiselled face was framed with tawny waves of hair, also model-perfect. He smiled down at me, human teeth gleaming and eagerness lighting up his hazel eyes. ‘The name’s Darius and the answer’s yes.’
Mentally I rolled my own eyes: not just eager, but cocky with it. ‘You haven’t heard the question yet.’
His hand skimmed down the trail of bites. ‘Doesn’t matter, it’s still yes.’
I ran the tip of my tongue over my fangs. Maybe I should just get this part of the night out of the way—not that willing humans were hard to find in Sucker Town, but strike while he’s hot flashed in my mind. Given that a couple of his bites were obviously recent, Darius was nothing if not on fire.
As I stroked my fingers over the little red wounds his smooth skin trembled under my touch. My hand brushed his stomach ... there. I found what I wanted: the bite was swollen with venom and radiating heat like a furnace. Pressing my palm flat against it, I felt him sigh.
‘Anything,’ he murmured, his eyes fixed not on my face but lower down my body.
Of course he’d noticed my enhanced assets. The mounds of my breasts swelled above the Lycra, the blood-starved veins under the pale flesh like a blue lace bodice. Darius—or anyone else—could tell I needed to feed just by looking.
He shifted closer, pushing against my hand.
I slid my hand lower. He had his own enlarged assets. Sex was obviously available as a side dish. But then, it usually was. It also made the medicine go down so much better. I placed my lips over the bite near his heart and the faint taste of liquorice sparked across my tongue.
I caught a glimpse of Mr June and his pals out of the corner of my eye and shook my head: business first. There was always another Darius, or Roberto, or whatever name they’d chosen.
‘Move.’ I shoved him away.
He gave me a mock pout. ‘Tease.’
I jabbed my index finger into his sternum.
‘Okay, okay. I get it.’ He gave me a hopeful look. ‘Later?’
‘Maybe.’ I flashed fangs at him.
He grinned. ‘Cool.’
Leaning my elbows on the counter, I gestured at the bartender, a sky-born goblin judging by her lack of black wraparound shades. She flipped her glass cloth over her hefty shoulder and hurried across. ‘What can I get you, luv?’
‘Stoli,’ I said, ‘Cristall if you have it.’
She adjusted the floppy bow on her acid-yellow blouse. The colour matched her bulging eyes. ‘Got the new Blueberi flavour in, if you’re interested?’
I shook my head. A lot of vamps liked their spirits sweet, even added sugar to the alcohol. I preferred the pure stuff.
Extending her arm, she snapped her fingers. ‘Coming up in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’ Then she tilted her head, her stacked coils of plaited white hair threatening to tip over, like a top-heavy wedding cake. ‘Don’t recognise you for a regular, luv, so I’ll just let you in on the rules round here.’
Rules? I raised my eyebrows. The place was more civilised than I’d thought. A coaster materialised on the counter between us. It looked like a pl
aying card, the King of Hearts, except the hearts were blue.
She tapped it with her yellow-varnished claw. ‘Most of my vampire clientele belong to the Heart bloodline, but I don’t discriminate.’ Her chin wrinkled, the long thin cats’ whiskers curling and uncurling. ‘So long as there’s no trouble.’
‘Not what I’m looking for.’
‘Good to hear it, luv.’ An empty shot glass, frosted with condensation, appeared on the coaster. ‘Now, if you find yourself a compatible guest, alcoves are for wrists or necks only. We’ve a nice selection of private rooms underground if your taste runs elsewhere, rates are very reasonable. There’s a credit card deposit against any medical expenses and check-out time is one hour before dawn, otherwise we charge for a second night.’
‘I’ll remember.’
The glass filled with clear liquid, then slid towards me. It was standard brownie magic, except that part of the whole ‘not being affected by magic but able to sense it’ usually meant that goblins couldn’t use magic themselves. I was curious enough to want to check it out, especially after my own brownie-magic problems. Maybe brownies sold their magic like the witches? Not that I’d heard anything like that. Only I couldn’t, not in this guise—the sidhe magic part of me shuts down. That’s probably why goblins never recognise me like this, or grant me the usual greeting.
‘First drink’s on the house, luv.’ Her lips parted in warning, letting me glimpse sharp silver-plated teeth studded with citrines. ‘Enjoy.’
‘Cheers.’ I touched my fingers to the chilled glass and nodded, but didn’t drink.
An age-spotted mirror behind the bar offered a panoramic reflection that included the three vampires, as well as me. That old myth about vampires not reflecting in mirrors is just that: a myth. I didn’t even have to turn my head to watch them, or the rest of pub. Mr June looked like that fifties movie star, the Grant guy. His shorter pal had the round cheeks of a cherub. The last of the trio had zigzags shaved into his close-cropped hair and a gold dumbbell through one eyebrow. Something silver-coloured would’ve looked better against his black skin, but hey, maybe he couldn’t afford the platinum-plated stuff.
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