Suzanne McLeod - The Sweet Scent of Blood

‘Shit, Hugh.’ I snorted, throwing an unbelieving glance at the overweight constable. ‘If you think she’s slim, what do you think I am?’

‘Oh, you’re just skin and bones, Genny,’ he blurted out. ‘Not as bad as you used to be, maybe, but you still look like a good gust would blow you away.’

And there was I thinking I’d actually filled out, that my curvy bits had finally got enough curves on them to justify the description.

Hugh’s face screwed up in dismay. ‘I’m sure you look very pretty to another fae, Genny—or even a human.’ He was getting flustered. ‘Look, I can’t let you see the victim, not with this injunction, but let me ask the DI if you can at least see the initial report.’ He pushed himself up out of his chair and hurried out of the office.

Suppressing the twinge of guilt because I’d deliberately embarrassed him, I picked up one of Hugh’s overlarge pens. Pulling the Waiver of Responsibility towards me, I did my own few seconds of wavering, then signed on the dotted line. Taking a deep breath, I picked up the piece of paper and flapped it at Constable Curly-hair.

She ambled over, a sneer playing round her mouth. Plucking the Waiver form from my hand, she looked down at me. ‘What made Hugh dash off like that?’

I looked innocent.

‘Never mind, it doesn’t matter.’ She slipped the form into the folder with a satisfied air. ‘Suckers are kept in the basement. You’d better follow me.’

‘No problem.’

Time to go have dinner with a vampire.

The cell had a dead, airless feel to it, a wrongness that made my chest ache. The white-painted walls and floor should have felt cold, but the temperature in the small box-like room made London’s current heat-wave feel like a cool winter’s day. Coughing at the faint scent of blood that caught the back of my throat, I looked , but there was no magic, not even the flashing pink spell I’d expected to see at the constable’s wrist.

The heat was making sweat prickle down my spine ... of course, the fact that it was going to be just me and a murderous vampire, alone together, might be another reason why I was less than cool and collected. The Waiver form had specified total privacy for a blood visit and not even the lawyers were given that. I was gambling that Mr October wasn’t just angling for a quick bite, but wanted to tell me his secrets, in secret.

‘The heat’s keeping the sucker docile.’ Constable Curly-hair gave her truncheon a swing. ‘Can’t have him getting all agitated now, can we?’

Roberto October, aka Bobby, huddled on a plastic mattress against the back wall, long legs drawn up, arms clutched tight across his chest. His eyes were scrunched shut, his face half-hidden by his lank hair. The black leather had been replaced with a white paper coverall that covered him from neck to ankle, leaving his feet bare. He looked more lost boy than dangerous seductive vampire.

‘C’mon, Sucker,’ Constable Curly-hair crooned, ‘wake up. Dinner’s here.’

What was her problem?

Bobby didn’t move, didn’t even open his eyes.

‘Life and soul of the party, Handsome is,’ she smirked. ‘Maybe he’ll be more fun when you’re alone together.’

She was really starting to piss me off. ‘Oh, I’m sure he will be,’ I said sweetly.

‘Right.’ She waved at the cell. ‘There’s a silver lining beneath the white: walls, floor, door and ceiling. So don’t bother trying any of your funny magic stuff.’

Mentally, I raised my eyebrows. They were painting the cells in liquid silver now? The new DI must be really busting the budget on that one. Even the HOPE clinic didn’t have that particular magical mod con. Still, it explained why I couldn’t see any magic: the silver was blocking it. And that was why the air felt like sludge in my lungs. I’ve always reacted badly to silver, more so in the last three years.

Constable Janet held up an electronic keypad and slapped her truncheon against the steel door. ‘Just bang when you’re finished and I’ll come and let you out.’ She didn’t need to add if I feel like it ; it was made plain by her tone of voice. ‘I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone then.’ She pressed a button on the keypad and the door slid open.

My gut clenched. Crossing my arms, I walked towards the silent vampire. Was this really such a good idea? He might look helpless, but that didn’t mean he was.

‘Constable?’ I called over my shoulder.

She stopped and turned back to me, scowling. ‘What?’

I smiled, like I knew a secret she didn’t. ‘You won’t forget to turn off the CCTV, will you?’

‘No,’ she snapped, then muttered, not so sotto voce, ‘sucker slut!’ as the door hissed closed between us.

I snorted. The insult was apt, even if she didn’t know why ... but I wasn’t planning on opening a vein or anything else for this particular sucker if I could help it.

‘He said you’d come.’ Bobby’s voice was rusty, as if he hadn’t used it for a long time.

My pulse sped up. I swung back to face him, working to slow my heartbeat. ‘Who said I’d come?’

Bobby sat up, arms hugging his knees. ‘My Master.’ He lifted his face to me. ‘He said you’d be able to help.’

Shock sparked through me as I recognised him. I’d been right with my ‘lost boy’ thought: I’d met Bobby, four years ago, and he’d been sitting in the exact same position, saying the exact same words to me.

‘They’ve got her in there.’ He lifted his arm slowly and pointed behind him at the blank wall.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

‘She’s in the basement.’ His shoulders hunched over again.

I stared in disbelief. He was either auditioning for an Equity Card ...

‘The Master said to wait here, to tell you where she is.’

... or somehow Bobby was reliving the past.

A past that was burned into my brain.

Bobby hadn’t been a vampire then, just one of their blood-pets. He’d kept watch all that night, after the girl had been found, waiting for the morning. Waiting for me to come.

‘I tried to get her to come out once they’d gone.’ His face crumpled. ‘But she started screaming ...’

It had been January. I took a deep breath and hugged myself, unwillingly replaying the scene in my mind. The morning sun was a cold disc in a sky streaked with red warnings. The place had been a rats’ nest—or rather, a fang-gang’s nest—of squalor, right in the heart of Sucker Town. My stomach roiled. Even now, I could still smell the gagging stench of urine, fresh blood and pain...

Bobby’s expression was bleak with horror.

I’d scrambled into the basement to get her. By then her screaming had disintegrated into whimpers. Her rainbow eyes dripped tears of ice that shattered like glass as they fell. After a while, she let me pick her up. Her fingers dug in my shoulders even as she flinched from my touch. I wrapped my coat around her, smearing the ruby dots that pitted her green skin like a macabre sprinkling of bloody sugar balls. The bastard suckers hadn’t left her with enough blood for the bruises to bloom.

‘How could they do that to her?’ Bobby’s whisper was harsh. ‘Siobhan’s so tiny.’

Siobhan, the girl, was Mick’s sister—half-sister really—seeing as she was a full-blooded leprechaun. She’d been twelve years old, here on a holiday visit from Ireland to see her brother, too young to fight back when the fang-gang had snatched her from her bed. She’d been gone for five nights when Mick had sought me out and begged for my help. If she’d been human, any hope of rescuing her alive would’ve died within twenty-four hours, but those with fae blood last so much longer.