I had been very much surprised to find that mild mannered Theo had seemed to understand that some monsters deserved to die and that the world would be a better place without them. Maybe one of the reasons he hadn’t freaked out was because he felt some sense of responsibility for me. While he hadn’t told me that I must not kill a monster, we had never been truly tested yet. The opportunity for killing had not arisen.
“Will you make a truth serum for me?” I asked. Theo was a skilled wizard. I had no doubt he could whip up the complex potion without too much trouble.
Theo shook his head. “You know I can’t do that. We agreed that if you go down this path, you would have to tread it alone. There are too many eyes on me, and it would be better if there is no trace of my magic on anything that you do. We are still agreed that no one must ever know if you do this? You must be extremely careful?”
I nodded. “I will be careful. I promise.”
Theo still looked worried. “I am not sure this Steffane Ronin sounds entirely trustworthy. Vampires never are. And the Ronin brood is especially powerful. If you must go to their nest then you will need to take precautions.”
He hurried around the shop fetching me a few things, and came back with a little spray bottle, a little metal box, and a rather impressive-looking wooden stake. When I picked it up, it was surprisingly heavy.
“It has a silver core,” he explained. “And you must not use this except under the direst of circumstances. Like the rest of otherkind, even vampires are protected under our legal system.”
I picked up the little bottle. It had the look of a medical spray and the letters VX on front.
“It’s holy water,” said Theo.
“What’s with the weird bottle?”
Theo made a bit of an embarrassed face. “It’s to fool vampires to think it’s got Vaerus X in it. It’s the only known pathogen that affects them. Gives them a nasty illness for weeks. Just waving the bottle around might persuade them to keep their distance.”
“I would happily spray them with the Vaerus X if you’ve got any,” I said.
“It’s very difficult to get hold of. And it’s no good in a fight. It takes a day or so for the pathogen to take effect.”
“Too bad.” I put the bottle and stake in my satchel. “So what’s this?” I picked up the box. It was locked.
Looking pained, Theo unlocked it. Inside was a sleek gun and a row of wicked-looking silver bullets. I whistled.
“I am not sure it’s the best idea to give you this,” Theo said, still looking like he was on the verge of changing his mind. “It would be an extremely bad idea for you to turn up with this. If they saw it, they might think you were there to pick a fight.”
I pushed the box back towards him. “It’s no good anyway. I don’t know how to use it.”
Theo looked both relieved and also upset and astonished at this. How could a would-be killer of monsters not know how to use a gun? “Do you want me to give you a lesson?”
I shook my head. “Maybe later. For now I don’t plan on using the weapons. Now about this truth serum…?” I raised a hopeful eyebrow.
He frowned. “How exactly were you planning on getting them to ingest it?” he asked.
I made a face. “Perhaps they would have invited me in for tea.”
That made Theo laugh. “I doubt it. And I am not certain what the effect would be on the undead. However, you’re welcome to take the ingredients and attempt to make it up yourself.” The encouraging smile he gave me when he said this made it clear that while he was glad I was taking an interest in expanding my repertoire of magical skills, he doubted I would succeed.
Potion-making took magical skill and practice, of which I had none. Theo did say once that he had sensed some inherent magic in me, but I’d turned down his offer to try to teach me to use it. Knowing Theo’s cautious nature I was sure his methods would be more theory than practice and I was too impatient for that.
Theo was looking at me slightly anxiously. “Diana, I’ve been doing some reading up on the Angel of Death and wanted to talk to you—”
“Gaargh!” I said, interrupting him swiftly. “I really don’t want to talk about that now, Theo. Maybe later?” I added that last bit as a gesture of goodwill given how disappointed he looked. I didn’t really want to think about it. I didn’t know whether he or I would like what we discovered.
Searching for a change of topic, I found myself asking, “Do you know anything about dhampirs?”
Theo’s eyes lit up. “A very interesting question!” he said enthusiastically.
He proceeded to give me a lesson on vampire genetics which was far more detailed than I had wanted. But at least he wasn’t talking about Angels of Death anymore.
While vampires largely procreated by turning humans into vampires, he said, apparently in otherworld vampires valued their blood-kin highly. Therefore male vampires would try to sire their own genetic children on human women, but the chances of fertilization taking place using a vampire’s sperm were very low. Even when that did happen, such pregnancies were rarely viable, often ending in miscarriages.
It was a highly celebratory event for the whole brood’s blood-kin if a baby did come to term. The children born of these pregnancies were known as sanguiths, sickly half-human half-vampires with all of a vampire’s weaknesses and none of their strengths. But if these sickly sanguiths survived to adulthood, their sire could turn them into a full blooded vampire in the usual way, thus creating a highly loyal new blood-kin member of his brood.
“So that’s what a dhampir is?” I asked. “Steffane Ronin was awfully arrogant for someone who’d been a sickly kid all his life.” I couldn't quite imagine him as a vulnerable sanguith.
“No, no.” Theo emphatically shook his head as if despairing of my impatience. “Sanguiths, if they survive the change, become normal vampires, no different from a vampire created from a human. A dhampir on the other hand has all of the strengths of a vampire and none of the weaknesses. A dhampir is born, not made.”
“So you’re saying some of these sanguiths are actually dhampirs?”
Theo shook his head again. He explained patiently that a dhampir was a child born of an unchanged sanguith woman and vampire father. But this almost never happened because sanguiths were so sickly that their vampire sires would not risk them to pregnancy when a human woman would do instead. Also, it was even rarer for a sanguith’s pregnancy to be carried to term given that the weak body of the mother could not sustain the growing baby.
“However, and this was the interesting part,” he said, “If a sanguith does bear a living child, the resulting babies vary as to what creature they are in terms of their genetics. It is thought that a quarter are fully human, half are sanguiths, and a quarter should be dhampirs.”
“Should be?”
“Since a dhampir baby would have the strength of a vampire, such a fetus would kill its sanguith mother while it was still in the womb,” Theo explained. “Neither baby nor mother would survive. It’s one reason why dhampirs are so rare that they used to be thought to be myths. Another reason is that the genetics that make a dhampir are thought to lead to few viable embryos. And finally, vampires kill dhampir children, regarding them as abominations.”
My mouth dropped open. “What? But dhampirs are like super-vampires, aren’t they? Able to walk in sunlight. Not really needing to drink blood to survive. Why would vampires kill them? Surely they would value them?”
Theo looked thoughtful. “This is an aspect of vampire custom that vampires are highly secretive about. I have wondered if they regard dhampirs as abominations because they fear them. I read an ancient account which spoke of a dhampir boy gaining the skills of elder vampires quickly, making the elders feel threatened. They destroyed him. Perhaps that is why vampires do not suffer a dhampir to live.”
“So why didn’t the Ronins kill off Steffane Ronin as a child?”
Theo shrugged. “Only the Ronins know that.”
Chapter 8
DIANA
Theo’s thoughts about dhampirs gave me much food for thought as I made my way home. I stalked down to Oxford Street tube station and made my way onto a central line train, finding it packed at the tail end of the commuters’ rush hour. A heap of shoppers jostled me to get onto the packed train when it arrived and I jostled back.
Once inside it was impossible to get a seat so I didn’t even try for one. Instead I stood smack bang in the middle of the train, my body sideways to the direction of travel and played a balancing game, testing how long I could stay upright. The other commuters clung to the handrails for dear life as the train jostled and sped to the next stop.
I was so busy with my thoughts that I had to keep a careful eye out for my stop. I wondered if the Ronins been unable to kill off the dhampir Steffane Ronin, and had conspired to put him in prison instead. What did that say about him if he was a vampire that even other vampires were afraid of? Did I really want to set him free?
The truth was no. If he was that dangerous then he belonged in prison even if he was innocent of the crime that landed him in there. But that was leaping to a conclusion instead of doing my job of investigating, which was exactly what I planned to do. Steffane Ronin was the only one who could give me what I wanted. Devil Claw. So I had to hope that he really was innocent.
Several hours later, back at my apartment in Notting Hill, I ended my third attempt to brew the truth serum. I’d botched it again. It had not turned into the colorless liquid that the spell book told me to expect, but into a gloopy gelatinous mess. And I had now run out of the ingredients Theo had given me. Sighing, I swept all of the empty little bottles and tubes off my small table and straight into the bin.
AngelBeastie had been hovering in the vicinity of my ankles for the past hour. I scooped her up and settled with her and my laptop on my bed. If I was going to have to wing it, I had better know what to expect. I fell asleep googling vampires.
In the morning I woke up feeling eager to go and pay my visit to the Ronins. But I knew there was little point going until evening. The vampires would be fast asleep at this hour. Going into Agency Headquarters was the last thing I felt like doing. I really didn’t want to have to see Storm again today; I was sure he would be able to sense that I had no intention of listening to him about staying away from the Ronins. Storm was able to read me like that.
As soon as I had decided not to go into the office, I felt miserable. Or as mildly miserable as my buoyant mood would allow me to feel. I looked forward to Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays because they were the days of the week that I got to see Storm. For months now I’d been fighting my feelings for him, and working in the same office as him these past three weeks had only made my feelings stronger.
Deciding to not go into the office today meant that I would not see Storm. I wouldn’t be able to loiter around the coffee machines during my breaks and take peeks into his glass tank of an office. The days when he was out in the field only made my desire to see him grow greater.
All of last week had been a drag, knowing that he was not in the office and that I wouldn’t see him, and not knowing what was keeping him away. If I didn’t go in today, then I might miss my chance to find out. Not that I thought he would tell anyone his private business.
If only he would, then maybe he would stop being such an attractive mystery. I’d realize that he was just Joe average. Any other guy. Just one who happened to be tall and muscular and exceptionally handsome, with those intensely deep and penetrating dark eyes that felt like they were looking right into my soul every time they looked at me.
I groaned. Down girl. There was no use obsessing about a man who, if he had had any interest in me whatsoever, certainly wouldn’t have scarpered out of my bedroom so fast the other morning. How much more of a hint did a girl need before she would lose interest in a guy?
It was times like these that I wished that I actually had closer female friendships; people that I could talk to about this kind of thing, and maybe hatch a plot to figure out if Storm did secretly like me or not.
I debated whether to call Aisling or Deepika and ask to meet them for a drink this evening. But they would probably be working a shift at Luca’s in the evening, and I had to go and visit the Ronin nest. And what was I going to say to them anyway? Hey ladies, I haven’t bothered to come and see you or call you in three weeks or take any interest in your lives, but now I really want to talk about a crush that I’ve got on my boss and I was hoping you could help me out? I’d sound utterly selfish.
I resorted to letting myself slip into a little daydream about all of the delicious ways that Storm being in my bed the other night could have turned out. It would have been so intense, but the most amazing part would have been him holding me in his arms afterwards. That’s what I really longed for. To be held and cherished and be told that everything was going to be all right. That I was all right just as I was. And I wanted to hold him, to make him feel safe too, to tell him that whatever was bothering him would work out just fine. That I would magically make it so somehow.
When I glanced at the clock on my phone again, I cursed and leapt immediately out of bed. Dammit! It was 10:00 am already. I guess that made up my mind for me. I was not going to do the walk of shame into the office late again. I sent Storm a text message telling him that I was going to be out on the field this morning trying to track down Finch Greyiron, the goblin, who I hoped knew something that would lead me to Zezi.
Storm replied saying he wanted me to check in with him at the end of the day.
Sure, I typed. I’ll update you on anything I find.
I knew that what he’d meant was that he wanted me to come into the office to see him so that he could keep an eye on me, but what I meant was that I would just send him a text message when I was done to tell him whether I’d progressed any further towards finding Zezi. Or who killed her.
I hummed to myself as I took a shower and then fed AngelBeastie and myself. It was a darned good job that I was in a mostly weird good mood these days, otherwise I’d probably be feeling a bit lonely and miserable right now. I liked my solitude but sometimes I got scared it might be forever. It would have been nice to be enjoying my breakfast with someone for company. Even if that someone was just a friend. Why was it so difficult for me to make friends? Probably because I didn’t bother to put much effort into it.
AngelBeastie was perched on the chair beside me looking at me as if she could read my mind. The look on her face said, ‘Who needs friends when you’ve got me?’ I giggled and tickled her under her chin.
“Thank goodness for you Beastie, otherwise I’d be withering away by myself in here.”
I let myself out of my apartment and Beastie followed me down the stairs to the ground floor of my building. I wasn’t allowed to keep pets, and I used to sneak Beastie down inside my satchel for fear that my landlady would find out. But such fears no longer plagued me. Let her try to evict me if she dared.
The hunt for Finch Greyiron turned out to be far more frustrating than I had expected, almost as if the guy was avoiding me on purpose, which did not bode well for him.
As a student in his third year at University College London, I had already tracked down the halls of residence where he lived yesterday. But when I turned up there, his dorm neighbor, a ginger-haired pink-faced guy who was yawning widely as if I had woken him up from sleep, told me that I must have just missed him. He could have sworn he’d heard Finch moving around next door just a moment ago, but now Finch was nowhere to be found.
I refused to let the guy get back to his bed until he had shown me a picture of what Finch looked like. The guy scrolled through his phone until he found a photo, which he forwarded to me.
I hadn’t been able to decide whether Finch would be unattractive, as stereotypes said goblins usually were, or whether he’d be a handsome hunky fella given the ardent dedication and longing with which Zezi had addressed her diary letters to him. Finch Greyiron was neither. His photo showed just a
n average, skinny, brown-haired kid that nobody would look at twice.
The neighbor had already told me yesterday that Finch was a quiet ordinary guy who kept himself to himself, so I didn’t waste time questioning him again. The psychic music coming from the guy wasn’t exactly interesting, and I had no reason to believe that he was hiding anything from me.
The guy was able to tell me that Finch took his lectures in the building directly opposite the halls of residence where he was studying for a degree in biological sciences. The guy did not have a copy of Finch’s class schedule, but that wasn’t too hard to find after some asking around in the building and the library opposite. I managed to find out a few of the lectures that Finch was supposed to be in, and where he tended to hang out with his friends during breaks, so that was where I headed.
But everywhere I went people told me that he had only just been there and now he was gone. I must’ve just missed him. I began to feel like this Finch guy must know that I was after him, and that he was leading me on a merry dance on purpose. When I got hold of him I intended to teach him a thing or two about manners.
Psychic for Hire Series Box Set Page 75