Suzanne McLeod - The Cold Kiss of Death

‘Are you sure the humans won’t remember anything?’ I asked, worried.

‘They may dream.’ He touched a finger to the platinum ring that banded his thumb in what seemed a vaguely troubled gesture. ‘It is not the ideal way to force human minds as I did, but I had neither the time nor the fortitude to gain their compliance in any other way.’

‘Has it done them any harm?’

‘No, but the two doctors’ minds were difficult.’ He lifted one hand, indicating that he’d done what he could. ‘If they think about anything too hard, they might recover their memories.’

‘Grace is my friend,’ I said, frowning, ‘she’s going to wonder why I left. What did you tell her?’

‘You saw she was busy and did not want to disturb her.’

I tapped my thigh; Grace wasn’t going to believe that! She’d have expected me to hang around and help. I dug out my phone and texted her to say I’d found my alibi and I’d talk to her later, after I’d been to the police. Then I noticed I’d missed a text from Finn, saying Tavish was home and his place was safe; he’d see me there. I texted back okay and left it at that, not wanting to tell him where I was going, and unsure just how safe Tavish’s place really was, thanks to the sidhe queen’s curse thing.

‘The girl kept saying she had something to give me.’ I looked up at Malik. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve any ideas?’

‘Do you know what this is?’ He produced a length of bloodstained white ribbon from his pocket.

‘It was tied round the girl’s neck,’ I said. Something was nagging at my mind about the ribbon, but as I tried to catch the thought it was gone. ‘And no, before you ask, I don’t know what it means. So perhaps you could hold off on being mysterious for the moment and just tell me what’s important about it?’

He smoothed the ribbon between his fingers and I shivered at the sensation as if he’d smoothed the ribbon around my own throat. Mesma .

‘It is a tradition amongst us that when we wish to court another’s favour we will offer a gift,’ he said, his expression pensive. ‘The colour of the ribbon signifies the giver’s intentions. Red is an offering of blood, black is an offering of sex, and white indicates the gift is available to do with as you will, to use for food, or sex, or with the addition of the venom and the knife there is an added option of a different entertainment.’

Watching someone cut them themselves and bleed to death is entertainment? I frowned. But if it was a vamp thing, why had Moth-girl been sent to find me? I looked down at the scraped skin of my knuckles and remembered Bobby pleading for me to talk to Rosa, my supposed master for him.

And then my mind went click! ‘So, Moth-girl herself was the actual gift.’ A bloody box of chocolates, vampire style. ‘So some vamp wants something from Rosa’—much like Bobby had—‘but they can’t find her, so instead they stoke up Moth-girl and send her to me, presumably thinking I’d know to pass the gift on to Rosa, because they all think Rosa’s my “master”?’

‘The situation has escalated further than I had imagined,’ he agreed.

So now I knew the what , and the partial why , but I still didn’t know the who behind Moth-girl, or how they/she’d found me at HOPE. Something still nagged at me.

‘It is an issue that needs to be resolved,’ he carried on, ‘before it spawns any more problems. If one vampire has conceived this idea, no doubt others will.’

Fuck! ‘And I thought it was bad enough when all the invitations started turning up,’ I muttered, angry that yet another vamp problem had decided to metaphorically bite me. ‘But at least they weren’t hurting anyone. No way do I want any more gifts like poor Moth-girl—’

He captured my wrist, his fingers cold against my skin. ‘What invitations?’

I blinked, wanting to pull away, but then a feeling of languor slipped over me; there really was no need. All I had to do was answer his questions, nothing more. Wasn’t it more comfortable just to chat? Of course it was. I settled back into my seat, smiling at how pleasant it was to sit here, my hand in his, his thumb gently stroking my sore knuckles ... Only it was as if the conversation was in another room and I was watching us through a window, not quite able to hear, no matter how hard I tried to listen. Then the glass separating us dissolved ...

‘—and you have had invitations from vampires of all four blood families?’

‘Yes—’ I frowned, then yanked my hand from his. ‘What the hell did you just do to me?’

‘Nothing, Genevieve.’ His mesma soothed over my body with the barest touch. ‘It is a small trick to aid the recall of any information that the conscious mind might have dismissed as unimportant. That is all.’

‘Fine,’ I huffed, slightly pacified. ‘Only next time, try asking first, it might make me feel a bit friendlier towards you.’

‘You wish us to be friends?’ An odd inflection sounded in his voice.

‘I’m just saying’—I rubbed the back of my hand, still feeling the gentleness of his touch—‘ask before you pull any more of your tricks on me.’

For a moment I thought I saw disappointment in his eyes, then his mouth curled in a mocking smile. ‘My apologies, Genevieve. I will try and remember.’

He turned away to look out of the taxi window. Unsettled, and not entirely sure why, I looked ahead, seeing the Ferris-wheel of the London Eye loom bright against the night and recognised the road we were on. We’d be at Old Scotland Yard in another few minutes.

Curiosity edged out the last of the languor in my mind. ‘So, what did you find out about the invitations with your little trick?’ I asked.

‘It is as I suspected,’ he said. ‘Those vampires who are not yet masters of their own existence might look to Rosa if they are in search for a new master, while those who have reached their autonomy are eager to offer her challenge in an attempt to annexe you as their prize. As they have not been able to discover her whereabouts, they have resorted to asking you directly, in the hope that you will accept their invitation to their blood. If you were to change your allegiance this way, then Rosa would become the challenger if she wished to regain you—her property ... or not, of course, as she wished.’

‘It all sounds so-o-o-o civilised—well, if you ignore the fact we’re talking about annexing me as their blood-pet prize,’ I said sarcastically.

‘The custom of sending invitations is a little-used caveat among our laws. We may not appropriate another’s property, but we can lay down a challenge, or we can offer enticements to the willing, as it were.’

‘Right, so that’s why no one’s clubbed me over the head and carried me off, and of course, they can’t find Rosa to challenge her because I haven’t used the spell.’

‘The situation is one that can be easily resolved,’ he said decisively. ‘All you need do is tell me where to find Rosa’s body and how to release her from whatever magic holds her, then once we have finished establishing your alibi at the police station, I will deal with the matter and it will no longer need concern you.’

I grimaced. ‘Sorry, Malik, but that’s not going to be possible.’

Pinpricks of anger sparked in the black of his eyes. ‘I will not allow—’ He stopped. ‘Genevieve, you cannot continue to walk in Rosa’s skin as you have been doing,’ he continued, his voice soft with threat. ‘You must see that it has become too dangerous for all concerned.’

Sweat prickled down my spine; he’d once promised to kill Rosa, when he’d first discovered she was no longer her , but I’d really thought we’d got past that stage. Maybe not, whispered a small voice at the back of my mind .