Suzanne McLeod - The Cold Kiss of Death

‘Yes, miss?’ he asked in his deep rumble.

Hari wasn’t in on the little plan Grace and I had come up with, so I leaned against the chest-high reception counter, still catching my breath, and aiming for desperate, panted, ‘I’ve got to see Dr Hartwell; I’ve run out of gear.’ At least the gasping would give my venom-junkie play-acting an edge of realism. Trouble was, with all the chasing and running and adrenalin speeding my sidhe metabolism, it wasn’t going to be play-acting for much longer—like I really needed something else to worry about.

‘What’s the name?’ he rumbled.

‘Debby, with a y,’ I said, giving the name Grace had told me to use.

‘Well, Debby-with-a-y, you just go and sit yourself down in the waiting area. Dr Hartwell is a very busy lady’—he treated me to another deep-fissure frown—‘but I’ll let her know you’re here.’

I walked past the bank of lifts and the fire-exit stairwell door, trying not to give in to the urge to push through it and run straight up to the fourth floor where the clinic was. Instead I played my part, letting my eyes glaze over while staring at the stippled peach wallpaper, the gold-framed botanical prints and the beige vinyl wipe-clean floor tiles. I wrinkled my nose at the strong smell of pine disinfectant, which didn’t quite cover the underlying scent of liquorice and even fainter trace of blood. Two rows of pumpkin-orange chairs lined either side of the waiting area, along with a slightly battered vending machine and the token magazine table with its collection of out-of-date glossies. As I approached, my steps faltered and my heart thudded in my chest. One of the chairs was occupied. Damn. I’d forgotten about him. I thought about turning back, but I couldn’t think where else to go—and I wanted to see Grace.

How much trouble could one vamp be anyway?

Vamps were always trouble, so okay, that was a stupid question. But Bobby, the vamp sitting in HOPE’s waiting area next to the soft drinks machine, was just a youngster; he’d only taken the Gift three years ago. And he was supposed to be on his best behaviour.

I stood opposite him, leaning against the wall, hands stuck in my pockets.

He lifted his head and looked me over, his lips quirked in a sulky, sexy way, his grey eyes shadowed and moody. The expression was one he’d perfected for the camera as Mr October, one of London’s hot celebrity calendar vamps. The hair in its French plait, the ankle-length leather coat, jeans and silk T-shirt, all of them black, completed the look—a look that had teenage girls and not-so-teenage woman swooning with desire and queuing out the door of the Blue Heart Vampire Club in a desperate effort to Get Fanged by the month’s star attraction. Of course, his recent arrest for the murder of his human girlfriend and the subsequent, very public clearing of all charges had done nothing to hurt his popularity. If I didn’t know better—having been instrumental in the ‘clearing’ bit—the words Publicity Stunt might have entered my mind.

The silver circlet encrusted with yellow citrines that banded his head and the silver handcuffs that shackled his hands together added a touch of the mediaeval to his übermodern Goth look, and enhanced his bad-boy persona. Luckily neither the media nor the vamp PR machine had yet caught onto that fact, otherwise they’d probably have had him posing for the camera with all that magical hardware.

Not that the cynic in me couldn’t see the attraction. Mr October, a.k.a. Bobby, made a very handsome picture. But unlike his devoted fang-fans, he wasn’t a picture I wanted hanging on my wall ... there’s nothing sexy about a frightened sixteen-year-old blood-pet on a frozen January dawn in the middle of Sucker Town, which is what Bobby was the first time I’d met him, on one of my rescue missions for Grianne. Of course, that was four years ago, and he’d accepted the Gift since then, which sort of changed things for him. But hey, maybe his chemistry just wasn’t right for me.

Although by the way he was giving my Glamour the glad-eye, his own chemistry was thinking something different.

His quirk widened into a smile and his nostrils flared as he sniffed. Then he took a longer, more noticeable sniff and consternation replaced the smile. ‘You told Hari your name was Debby,’ he said accusingly. ‘Debby-with-a-y.’

Vampire hearing, gotta love it. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘You’re her, aren’t you?’

‘You going to grass me up to Hari?’

He glanced at the glassed-in reception booth, where the troll’s bald yellow and brown head was bobbing in time to his iTrod, the overlarge iPod made for trolls. ‘No, of course not,’ he said, sounding aggrieved, ‘not after the way you helped me.’

I nodded as if it was the answer I’d expected, but inside the knot in my stomach loosened.

He made a show of studying the handcuffs round his wrists. ‘I’m here to see my dad, y’know,’ he said. ‘Or I will be as soon as the guard comes to take me up,’ he added, resignation dimming his face.

Bobby’s dad was a regular human, and was hospitalised in a regular human ward—albeit a private room—in the main part of the hospital, but Bobby being a vamp meant he had to be processed through HOPE before he could visit. The magical silverware was a precaution to stop him using his vampire tricks on any of the other patients, a compromise Bobby’s lawyer had won after he’d complained not allowing Bobby to visit his sick father was in breach of Bobby’s ‘human’ rights.

‘How is your dad?’ I asked. ‘Has there been any change recently?’

‘There’s been the odd brainwave fluctuation.’ The cuffs chinked as he clasped his hands, his knuckles turning white with tension. ‘But he’s not come out of the coma.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and I was, and not just because I felt sort of responsible for his dad’s condition—part of the whole ‘clearing Bobby of murder’ thing had involved Bobby’s dad ending up in the way when a paranoid clairvoyant had tried to kill me. I’d met his dad, and the guy hadn’t deserved to end up as another victim.

‘Can’t Hari tell who you are?’ Bobby asked, curious.

‘Trolls can’t sense magic.’

‘So they’re not like the goblins then? They can’t tell if a vamp is using mesma , or putting a mind-lock on someone?’

‘They’re like goblins in that magic doesn’t affect them, but whereas goblins are super-sensitive to any magic, trolls are mostly impervious to it.’ I folded my arms. ‘But trolls have fantastic eyesight. They can see for miles.’

‘But Hari, he can’t see through’—he waved his joined hands at my body—‘what is it?’

‘A Glamour, it’s a spell that changes the surface appearance only.’

‘It’s a bit ...’ his voice trailed off as he ran his eyes down my body. ‘I mean, you look totally hot, but it’s the type of figure that’s going to get you noticed.’

I sniffed. ‘Yeah, well, the look wasn’t my choice.’ I pointed at his own outfit. ‘It’s not like you’re toning it down yourself, are you?’

‘I’ve got to go to work later. My shift starts at ten and it saves time if I come here dressed. And anyway, it’s the only coat I’ve got.’ He gave the leather coat an almost embarrassed look. ‘I haven’t got the hang of regulating my temperature yet.’

The lift dinged, and I looked up, hoping that it was Grace, or even Bobby’s guard come to take him visiting, but it was just a couple leaving. Doing small-talk with a vampire was making me itch, and itching is never a good sign around vampires, not when you’ve got 3V and it might be the early stages of a venom-flush.

‘I mean, I know I should’ve worked out how to do the temperature thing by now,’ Bobby carried on, getting up and staring morosely into the depths of the vending machine. ‘All the others had it down pat six months after they accepted the Gift.’