Suzanne McLeod - The Sweet Scent of Blood

A line creased between Malik’s eyes. ‘Why would he choose to meet you here?’ he asked, then looked over towards the underground. ‘Why not at the station or the café?’

‘Okay, enough with the twenty questions.’ I let out a frustrated sigh. ‘I don’t think that Alan Hinkley’s too taken with vamps just now, and neither am I. And I don’t want you frightening him—so what’s it going to take to get you to leave?’

He stood looking at me, expression enigmatic. ‘It is not the best place for an ambush, but it could still work. This time of night, not many humans enter the park, and should anyone see or hear something untoward from a window above, they might conclude it to be a lover’s assignation and not interfere.’

Apprehension tensed my shoulders. ‘You’re a scary bastard, aren’t you?’

‘You should learn to think like your enemy, Genevieve.’

‘But to think like my enemy, I’d have to know who he is, wouldn’t I?’ I jumped, startled, as a jogger ran past, feet slapping hard against the pavement. He veered away from the entrance to the gardens and pounded across the road to sprint along next to the river.

‘Why are you nervous?’ Malik asked.

‘Why the hell do you think?’ I snapped. ‘Too many vampires taking an interest in me makes me feel like a mouse surround by hungry cats.’

‘I shall wait here with the taxi while you have your assignation. ’ He bowed. ‘Rest assured I will not be seen, and therefore I will not “scare off” your client, or anyone else he brings with him.’ He smiled, and my stomach flip-flopped again. Damn. I was going to have to stop it doing that. And he disappeared.

Mice taste sweet to cats.

I snorted and strode through the gate into the gardens. A cobweb drifted across my face and I swiped it away. ‘I hate vampires,’ I muttered. The gravel path crunched under my shoes, but otherwise the place was quiet. Not even a leaf rustled. I checked my watch again and gave an irritated thought for my lost phone. Alan should’ve been here by now. Maybe he’d called it off?

Malik’s words sat uneasily in my gut, and I was almost glad he was watching. Slowly I headed for the tree in the centre, the one with its limbs propped up on tall wooden crutches, where I was supposed to meet Alan. Why couldn’t I hear the music from the party boats any more? Or the traffic? I shivered. Maybe the sensible thing would be to go back outside. Wait until Alan did finally arrive. I turned—

Wood cracked, the sound loud behind me.

Heart jumping in my throat, I spun around.

A tall, scrawny figure stood under the tree wearing a dirty red T-shirt over stained jeans. He was holding a Beater goblin’s baseball bat on his shoulder. ‘Say, these things work a treat.’ He swung the bat round like he was hitting a home run and demolished another of the wooden crutches propping up the tree.

Fuck: Malik had been right. Tensing, I half-crouched, adrenalin whizzing round my body on overdrive.

Human male, late teens, bad case of acne and no muscle tone: I could take him—except for the bat. The bat sort of knocked my confidence. Only a dead goblin gives up his weapon.

‘Yep, a treat. No wonder the little creeps use ’em.’ He nodded his shaved head. ‘I’m gonna try it on you next, faerie freak. Have us a bit of fun.’ Large black letters across his T-shirt advised me to Remember his name, because I’d be screaming it later.

I screamed Malik’s instead, as loud as I could.

The pizza-faced figure patted the logo. ‘That’s it, freakoid, get some practise in.’

Why wasn’t there a dangerous vampire rushing to my rescue?

I had a nasty thought, so I looked. The railings shimmered with green-tinged spells, as equally nasty as my thought—and green meant stun. Crap, no way could I get out, or Malik get in. Even if he’d heard my shout, which was doubtful, he was more than likely lying unconscious outside the gardens anyway. I could try cracking the spells, but that would turn the railings into so much shrapnel, so it wasn’t worth the risk, not for one scrawny human.

‘Freakoid, faerie freak,’ Pizza Face sang, swinging the foil-wrapped bat around his head.

And then the night got so much better— not! —as another, fatter figure lumbered from the shadows under the tree. His baggy jeans hung from his hips and I could see the flab wobbling under his T-shirt. Small round glasses were stuck like magnifying lenses on his podgy face. ‘Ye’th,’ he lisped, ‘we’re gonna show you, faiwy fweak.’ A picture of a distorted Dalek blowing a speech-bubble shouting Exterminate, exterminate , stretched over his chest and he brandished an arrow-headed pole.

I bit my lip and swallowed a hysterical snort. Exterminating these two felt like a great idea.

Pizza Face moved to the left, putting me between him and Fatboy.

Pulse racing, I back-tracked until I was off the gravel path and on the grass. My gaze flicked from one to the other and back again: who would attack first, Lanky or Lardy?

‘C’mon, freakoid, come to me,’ Pizza Face called.

Fatboy did a shambling run over to Pizza Face. ‘So what’re we gonna do, dude?’ He waved his pole.

‘Do it just do it like I told you, right?’ Pizza Face shoved him on the shoulder. ‘Now get back over there, y’know, we’re gonna be like a pincer action.’

‘Oh yeah, yeah,’ Fatboy giggled. ‘Ni’th.’

I took a breath, concentrated. Pizza Face leapt forward, swinging his bat two-handed. I ducked and it swished over my head. Fatboy swiped low on my other side and I jumped the pole like a skipping rope, my ankles jarring as I landed on the rain-starved grass.

‘Hey, thi’th ith fun, man,’ he giggled.

Shit. I needed my own weapon. Glamour? I had to get within touching distance for that to work, so it was a nonstarter. But a wooden staff would do, and thanks to Pizza Face, there were plenty lying under the old tree; I just needed to get to one.

Fatboy jabbed his pole at me like a spear and as I swivelled out the way Pizza Face’s bat caught me a thudding blow on my shoulder. Pain shot down my arm and I screamed, throwing myself back into a roll that took me away from them. I came up in a crouch, my left arm hanging uselessly at my side.

Fear clamped round my chest—the power behind that blow didn’t feel human—and he’d definitely broken something.

‘Get her other arm, dude,’ Pizza Face shouted.

Fatboy moved towards me, shockingly fast, and jabbed again. I jerked to the side, but too slow. His pole ripped through my sleeve and stabbed into my injured arm. I screamed again, then I almost cried in relief—Fatboy’s pole was one of the iron garden railings—and the pain in my arm started to mute as the touch of the iron numbed my flesh.

‘Not that one, man, the other one!’

Fatboy raised the iron pole, started to bring it down like an axe. I scrambled back, hoping the numb feeling would last—and the bar thumped the grass in front of me.

‘Watch her head,’ Pizza Face yelled. ‘I tole yer, it’s better when they’re screaming. Go for the arms and legs so the freak can’t run away!’

I staggered up, breath heaving.

Pizza Face tossed the bat in the air, caught it. ‘Come to me, pussy, pussy,’ he crooned, then he punched Fatboy on the arm, almost knocking him over. ‘Get it, dude? The freak’s got eyes like a cat, so I called her a pussy!’

Fatboy giggled again. ‘Yeah, man, good one! The fweak’th like a little puthy cat!’

They were high or hyped up on something, and it was making them faster and stronger—the odds weren’t looking good and I needed to even them up, and for that I needed blood, and enough time to activate my Alter Vamp spell. Blood was no problem; it was dripping down my arm from where Fatboy had stabbed me with the railing. So that just left the time part then.