Suzanne McLeod - The Cold Kiss of Death

The Earl was gazing at me expectantly, and since he appeared to be offering me the carrot after effectively threatening me with his fang-tipped stick, I dutifully asked the question. ‘What’s the deal?’

‘Direct and to the point as usual. It is one of the several aspects I cherish about you, my dear.’ He licked his lips. ‘But of course, business before pleasure.’ He waved at the TV screen. ‘I can make this problem go away.’

Surprise, surprise. ‘How exactly?’

‘Why, friends in high places.’ He gave a quick frown. ‘Or is it low?’ Then he smiled as if I should get the joke. I didn’t. ‘Well, anyway,’ he carried on, ‘friends who have the same ideals that I do, and who are, very rightly, concerned about the current situation.’

It was my turn to frown. ‘What situation?’

‘Why, my tragic demise, of course.’ He squeezed my thigh and a slither of lust made me gasp again. ‘My passing has left a breach in London’s vampire community. I fear the lack of true leadership will result in utter chaos. All my careful planning, my nurturing of our current status, will be destroyed by incompetence.’

‘What the—?’ I stopped at the Earl’s admonishing look, conscious of his hand on my leg. ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

His expression turned condescending. ‘Allow me to explain, my dear. I have worked tirelessly this last eight hundred years to ensure vampires here in my country are both respected by and respectful of humankind.’ He adjusted his cuffs. ‘It is how we were able to successfully recover our human rights; it is why we have not been hunted almost to extinction as in the Russias and the East. It is why we do not have to barricade ourselves into our castles as they do in the rest of Europe.’ He spread his arms wide as if to a larger audience. ‘To ensure that continues, I conceived the idea of vampires contributing to the entertainment and media industries, and thus elevating ourselves from the common perception of blood-sucking parasites subservient to the Witches’ Council to revered celebrities with the power to influence the human world as we so desire.’

Megalomaniac soap-box, much!

‘With my presence gone and me no longer the dominant voice,’ he carried on, ‘I fear that the reactionary elements within our society will force a situation where we have to return to hiding our faces, to pretending that we are something we are not in an effort to live lives of precarious comfort.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘That still doesn’t tell me what you want.’

‘You are my blood-bond, Genevieve.’ He beamed at me. ‘You will be my avatar.’

‘What?’ I was still none the wiser.

‘All will become clear, my dear.’ The Earl waved a dismissive hand at the French doors. ‘Sadly, though, our time together has run out. Dawn approaches, so I will leave you to rest until later.’ He smiled his charming smile and then vanished.

Stunned, I stared at the empty air, not entirely sure if his fang-filled grin had remained like the Cheshire cat’s.

Then I realised I could move.

I had to get out of here, wherever here was. I struggled to sit up, my hands slipping on the stupid satin sheets, my arms and legs feeling like they belonged to someone else, the numbers on the monitor at the side of the bed flashing ever faster as my heart beat a crescendo in my ears—

The bedroom door opened.

A man walked in carrying a large wooden tray, a worried frown on his fortysomething chalk-white face. He wore jeans and a rumpled T-shirt and white gauze bandages were wrapped thickly around his wrists and elbows. He stopped at the bottom of the bed and looked at me from eyes magnified like a startled owl’s behind his wire-rimmed glasses. His hands were trembling enough that the contents on the tray chinked. Then the frown disappeared and he smiled, showing even white human teeth.

‘Oh good, you’re awake, Ms Taylor.’ Little wooden legs clicked out under the tray as he placed it down on the bed. ‘I was beginning to get concerned about you.’

Istared at the tray’s contents: a chilled bottle of Cristall—my brand of vodka—sat next to two glasses, one empty, the other filled with orange juice; a small porcelain dish of liquorice torpedoes, and what looked like a BLT sandwich. Other than the red rose in a cut-glass bud vase, the tray held all my favourites—if it wasn’t for the fact that he was a vamp’s flunky, I’d be worried I’d picked up a stalker instead of a slightly worse-for-wear jailer.

‘Who the hell are you?’ I demanded.

Owl Eyes flinched as if I’d hit him. ‘Doctor Joseph Wainwright. Joseph. Didn’t Malik tell you—?’ A high-pitched alarm cut him off and we both looked at the heart monitor. The little red numbers were flashing 302: 302 beats per minute. I pulled the electrodes off my chest, wincing as the skin ripped away with them. What the fuck were they stuck on with? Superglue? The red numbers blinked out, the heart graph flatlined and the monitor’s alarm started squawking loudly. I slapped it quiet.

‘Whose blood-pet are you?’

His eyes were wide with shock. ‘You should be dead with a heart rate like that.’

Duh: not human. ‘C’mon, Doctor Joseph Wainwright— Joseph —which vampire is your master?’

‘Malik al-Khan, of course.’ His frown returned.

‘Not the Earl?’

‘The Earl’s dead—’

‘The Earl was just here talking to me,’ I snapped. ‘He bit me—’ I stuck out my wrist to show him, then jerked it back and peered at it. There were no fang holes.

‘It’s the morphine,’ Joseph said in a conciliatory voice. ‘It can cause—’

‘Hallucinations, dreams, yes I know.’ I frowned as confusion filled me. It hadn’t felt like a dream. ‘He turned the TV on, showed me the news.’

Joseph glanced behind him at the muted screen. ‘I’ve had it on the news channel while I’ve been watching you. You’ve probably just absorbed the information.’

Had the Earl just been a nightmare? Of course, if I was going to have nightmares, the Earl would certainly be up for a starring role. And DI Crane, she was an understudy nightmare star if ever there was one. With her on the telly, no wonder my brain was playing tricks on me. But what if it hadn’t been a dream? What if the Earl was alive? No way was I waiting around for him to pop up again. My heart speeding, I slid over to the edge of the bed and swung my legs off. My feet sank into the soft plush red carpet and a sudden attack of vertigo made me sway. I clutched at the slippery sheets, bewildered. What was I doing? Oh yeah, getting out. Getting dressed, and getting away before they came back, him and the inspector ...

‘Ms Taylor, I really don’t think you should get up.’

I frowned up at him—no not him, them : the two startled owls looking back at me.

‘I’ve been looking after you,’ they said, ‘and so far your injuries from the explosion haven’t been improving. I really don’t think you should—’

I tuned him out and squinted at the mirrored wall of wardrobes instead. Wardrobes meant clothes. Only the expanse of red carpet I had to cross was rolling like the sea. Why the hell was the room so big? I squinted again and a figure peered back at me, glistening with sweat, chest, neck and arms as red as the sea. All the red was making me hot and dizzy. I wiped my face, and the red-faced girl wiped hers. I looked down at my hand; it was damp with pink-tinged sweat. I had an instant of clear thought: I was crashing into a mega blood-flush. A sick feeling roiled in my stomach. If I didn’t do something, I’d end up having convulsions, maybe even a stroke, which meant I’d be unconscious, helpless ...