Suzanne McLeod - The Bitter Seed of Magic

‘Yep.’ I grinned. ‘Definitely dingy.’

Lucy jumped up and down with excited impatience. ‘Hurry up, hurry up,’ she muttered. ‘We’ve been too late to see Darius the last three weeks; someone’s always got in before us and booked him up for a private party. That’s why we wanted to be first tonight.’

We reached the ticket booth. Abraham the mini-Monitor goblin was still there, his highchair drawn up to the window. He looked perkier now his earlier methane hit was wearing off, but Gareth was gone, replaced by a tall, thin vamp. The hollows under his cut-glass cheekbones gave him a cadaverous appearance that went with his tailed undertaker’s suit.

‘Hands,’ he intoned in a bored voice, waving a UV torch at the Monitor goblin.

I hung back as the Moths all crowded forward and stuck their hands out towards Abraham.

The vamp sighed. ‘One at a time, girls.’

The three giggled and shuffled, cooing at Abraham as they got their palms checked, until the vamp waved them past.

I stepped up to the booth and stuck my own hand out. Abraham touched his nose, then my fingers. ‘S’okay to enter, Miss,’ he said in a soft sing-song.

The vamp waved the torch beam over my palm, lighting up the diamond mark, then stopped and sniffed. He sniffed again, then bent down so he was eye-level with me. ‘Oh,’ he murmured, his mouth dropping open to show his two sharp canines, ‘oh, you’re her ,’ he whispered, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed again. ‘ Sweet. ’ His pupils dilated, spreading blackness over his iris and sclera, his top lip curled back and his two needle-thin venom fangs sprang down below his front teeth. A glistening drop of clear venom seeped from the left fang. His mind-lock brushed weak as mist against my mind, which told me he was probably no more than fifty vamp-years old. And that he was a total idiot if he thought he could catch me in a mind-lock, not to mention the fact that he didn’t appear to have got the memo about my protection. I sniffed myself, exasperated. He might be an idiot, but I didn’t want his true death on my conscience because he got over-excited and stupidly forgot himself.

I shot my fist out, punching the vamp on the chin, shutting his mouth with a snap. ‘Hey, fang-boy, listen up!’ I growled. ‘Either you stop with the sniffing and go off-line, or your body’s going to end up without a head soon.’

Comprehension and fear crossed his face and he scrambled back and grabbed for a plastic sandwich box sitting on the shelf next to the goldfish bowl full of wristbands. He jerked the lid off and buried his face in the box. A faint reek of garlic drifted towards me. Seconds later he came up coughing and spluttering, pink-tinged tears streaking his cheeks.

‘Sorry, Ms Taylor,’ he whispered, still huddled at the back of the booth. ‘You took me by surprise, that’s all. I didn’t mean anything.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Apology accepted. Now, can I go in?’

He nodded vigorously and I strode through the double doors and into the club’s interior. The circular space was empty of Moths—and anyone else, other than the usual human girl sitting stoically at the cloakroom counter next to the door marked ‘Office’. As for where the Moths had got to, well, I had a choice of the restrooms, the private rooms behind two doors marked 1–15 and 16–30; the gift shop—DVDs of the vamps lying in their coffins were on special offer!—or the glass double doors opposite me.

The doors led into the Room of Remembrance. The room was set up like a church nave with about twenty glass coffins on top of ornate marble plinths, arranged either side of a wide aisle instead of pews. And a raised stage at the end where the chancel would be. A few vamps, dressed in a variety of military or heroic outfits, were up and milling about among the first few members, so the coffins were empty, but on the stage was another coffin, the blood that smeared its sides glittering in the spotlights. It had to be where the staked Fyodor was stashed. Nobody appeared to be taking much notice, so maybe he wasn’t going to be the draw Mad Max hoped.

The Moths descended on me again from out of the gift shop.

‘Darius has Room Eleven.’ Rissa waved an electronic keycard. ‘We ’ave booked him for a private party.’

‘We’ve phoned Yana to let her know, so she’s coming over.’ Viola gave me a big grin.

‘So exciting, isn’t it?’ Lucy jumped up and down. ‘I can’t wait to see him.’

‘Great,’ I smiled, ‘but I’m not into the whole, you know—’ I did the crooked fingers thing next to my neck. Nor was I up for the mini-orgy Darius and the girls were likely to have to celebrate their reunion. ‘So why don’t you all go on and I’ll join you in a bit?’

‘Sure thing, Genny.’ Rissa swiped the keycard and the door opened into a long, carpeted corridor indistinguishable from any cookie-cutter hotel. They all ran off, whooping, towards door number eleven.

Now to find Mad Max.

I walked over to the cloakroom. Usually I waited for the security guard to take my bagged blood and give me a receipt, but this time I hopped up on the counter and swung my legs over. I landed with a soft thud behind it and the coat-check girl jumped up in surprise. ‘Hey, you can’t—’

I reached out and touched her face, entering her mind as easily as driving through an open gate. ‘Hi’—I checked her name badge—‘Cheryl. Can I have your keycard, please?’

She reached down, unclipped it from her belt and held it out to me.

‘Thanks,’ I smiled, taking it. ‘That’s great. You just forget about me now, and carry on with whatever you were doing.’ I reversed out of her mind just as easily and let her go.

She sat back down again.

I swiped the card down the lock and pushed open the ‘Office’ door. The room inside was a standard security centre doubling as a staffroom. One wall held a row of grey metal lockers; the other wall was banked to the ceiling with TV monitors showing shots of the club above a long bench full of blinking lights and switches. I quickly scanned them: entrance, coffin room, gift shop, the toilets—yep, the loos really were coffin-shaped!—and what had to be the vamps’ private rooms. Sitting bolt-upright in front of the TV screens was the human security guard with his eyes fixed intently on the monitors. A cup of tea was steaming on the bench in front of him.

He ignored me.

But of course. Mad Max was expecting me.

I walked past him to the door on the opposite wall, opened it and strolled inside.

‘Cousin, how nice to see you again.’ Mad Max stood and came round the desk to pull out one of the guest chairs for me. My backpack sat on the other. He gave me a wide beam of a smile and said, ‘Please, come and have a seat.’

As offices go it was pretty basic: desk, grey chairs, grey carpet, grey filing cabinet, a flat-screen LCD—currently showing the cloakroom girl—instead of a window. There was nothing to say vampire, or even well-heeled executive about it, other than Mad Max himself. His bright red Hussar jacket, worn over white shirt and blue trousers and with highly polished black boots made him look like he was playing dress-up, which of course he was.

‘Thanks,’ I said and sat. Of course, there was one thing that said vampire: the three bags of my blood sitting on the desk, one of which was squashed into a clear pint tankard with coffins decorating the outside. A black curly straw was sticking out the top. Nice—all it needed was a paper umbrella! Next to the bags of blood was my phone.

‘Glamouring a human carries the death penalty, Cousin,’ Max said cheerfully, waving at the cloakroom girl on the screen as he sat opposite me. ‘Or were you not aware of that particular law?’