Suzanne McLeod - The Sweet Scent of Blood

‘So what happened to that new pot-washer?’ I asked. ‘Did Freddie sack him yet?’

‘Nah, the creep pulled a sickie.’ She turned one of the silver invitations over, studying it minutely. ‘Got his mum to phone in for him. Claimed he got beat up or something.’

Relief filtered through me. He’d run home, just as I’d told him to.

‘This one’—Katie flicked one of the invitations—‘is from the Earl. It’s got his name stamped on the back. And you can tell by the size of the sapphire. Did you know they’re made by dwarves in Iceland? And the sapphire’s from Ceylon. And they’re all limited editions. You’ve got number thirty-six out of one hundred here.’

‘You know way too much about the vamps,’ I mumbled past the last of my BLT.

She stuck her tongue out. ‘Now this one doesn’t have a name stamped on it, and I’ve never seen it on the website.’ She put the invitation back on the desk. ‘Guess what edition number it is?’

I shrugged, ‘Lucky thirteen?’

‘Wrong!’ She slid the oblong towards me. ‘Look.’

I leaned over and peered at it. Underneath the gemstone was engraved, 1/1 .

She blew her fringe up. ‘That’s what’s called an original, I think. What d’you s’pose the stone is?’

I pushed the card back. ‘Jet, probably.’ Picking up the gremlin job details and my phone, I tucked them in my bag.

‘Nah, s’not jet. Its got little red splatters on it, like blood.’ She shot me an excited look. ‘Hey, I bet its bloodstone—that’s really cool.’

‘You get all this off the website?’

‘Yep.’ She held up both the invitations and waggled them. ‘So which one d’you think murdered Bobby’s girlfriend?’

My mouth fell open. ‘What?’

‘Well, one of them must’ve, else they wouldn’t have invited you. Murderers always want to find out what the detective knows, in case they’ve been twigged.’

‘Katie, I think the vamps are more interested in the fact that I’m sidhe.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I get the whole thing about humans tasting like water and fae like a fruit smoothie.’ She pulled her you’re-such-an-idiot face on me. ‘But you’ve always been sidhe, Genny, all your life, and they weren’t sending out invitations before, were they?’ She waggled the silver oblongs again. ‘So, c’mon, Miss Detective, which one d’you think did it?’

‘I am not a detective.’

‘’Course you are! Look, it’s easy.’ She leaned towards me, her long pony-tail falling onto the desk. ‘All you have to do is go there and talk to the staff, y’know, like the tea-boy, or the janitor.’

‘I don’t think the Blue Heart has tea-boys.’

‘Y’know what I mean.’ She flicked her hair back. ‘I see it all the time on the telly when me and Mum watch murder mysteries together. You just listen to what everyone has to say and put all the clues together and then you work out who the murderer is.’ She frowned. ‘Either that or the killer bumps you off to stop you blabbing his secret.’

‘Thanks, Katie—that is so reassuring.’ I stood up. ‘Anyway, I’ve got gremlins to deal with, and I expect Freddie will be tearing his hair out if you don’t get back soon.’

She ducked below the desk, searching for her shoes. ‘Freddie’s bald.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Ha, Ha.’ She shook a flip-flop at me, then gave me a pleading look. ‘You’re going to go, aren’t you, and find out who killed Bobby’s girlfriend for him?’

‘Decision time—let me think: should I visit a vampire club where every sucker wants to drink my blood and turn me into a blood-slave while I’m looking for a murderer who wants to kill me, or not?’ I gave her a mildly sarcastic look. ‘Definitely a no-brainer, Katie.’

Her face turned serious. ‘Well, it’s always possible the murderer might try and kill you anyway, unless you can find him first.’

Damn . She was right. And attack was said to be the best form of defence, wasn’t it?

‘Sometimes you’re way too smart.’ I took the two silver invitations from her and dropped them into my bag.

She chewed her lip. ‘You will be careful, won’t you, Genny?’

‘As a vampire in a thunderstorm,’ I muttered.

Iwalked into Leicester Square, my heart thudding in my chest. The bright signs of the clubs, pubs, cinemas and restaurants flashed like gigantic goblin badges. It was a couple of hours before midnight and the Square heaved with punters. Their voices hummed against my ears. Popcorn and excitement scented the air, and the hot dryness of the heat-wave coated my skin. I touched tentative fingers to the silver invitations lodged in my jacket pocket and stopped a not-so-comfortable distance away from London’s premier vampire nightclub.

The Blue Heart had been a cinema in its former life and the outside still looked much the same. Two-foot-high silver letters hung down over the entrance, with the ‘a’ in ‘heart’ replaced by an actual blue neon heart that pulsed like it was alive. Film-style posters advertised the current Vampire Calendar Celebrities: Mr September had top billing as a neck-ruffed Elizabethan, Mr August in his twelfth century Crusader get-up was the outgoing act, while Mr June in his WWII uniform was obviously the understudy for October’s absent star.

It had taken nearly an hour on the club’s website, and three trawls through my wardrobe, to finally settle on something to wear: a black Lycra top, banded round my neck and waist, that covered my front and left my back bare, and a Lycra wraparound skirt, also black. It was one of my Sucker Town outfits. But as bare flesh to vampires is like wearing a come-and-fang-me-sign, I’d topped it off with a knee-length bronze silk coat. The shoes matched the coat: bronze Vintage Westwoods with two inches of platform and six inches of thin metal heel. Okay, so they weren’t that easy on the feet, but hey, what girl wouldn’t suffer for some killer heels?

‘Mm-mm-mm: don’t you smell just totally delicious,’ the contralto voice purred in my ear.

My pulse jumping, I took a step away, then turned sharply to face Rio, the manager of the Blue Heart. I recognised her from the publicity shots on the club’s website, and from her fuzz of tight curls dyed her trademark pale blue. What the photos hadn’t shown was her height. She had to be an inch or two over six feet tall, but the thigh-high platform boots of electric-blue leather added at least another six inches to her long legs while her blue leather hotpants looked spray-painted onto her narrow hips. She stood grinning at me, her huge lavender-coloured eyes dancing with mischief in her café-aulait face, while the sheer fabric the blouse tied at her midriff did nothing to hide her almost nonexistent breasts, or her obvious excitement.

Shit. How had she managed to creep up on me? My vamp radar was usually better than that. Maybe last night’s G-Zav was still screwing with it.

She brought her hands together with a soft clap. ‘Oh, did I scare you?’ A pink tongue darted out to lick her full bottom lip. ‘I do hope so. Fear adds such a piquant flavour to the blood.’

Trying to calm my speeding pulse, I held up one of the silver invitations between my thumb and forefinger. ‘Sorry to disappoint.’ I smiled, with just a touch of smirk. ‘Invited guest, not part of the catering.’

She made an exaggerated pout as she plucked the invitation from my hand. ‘And there I was getting all tingly at the prospect of a sip of sidhe.’ Handling the silver slab carefully by the edges, she scraped the metal with a sharp blue fingernail, turning it over and around as though it were something new she’d just discovered.