Anne Billson - Suckers

I took another look at the shape, and realized it was not a single entity, but two separate figures conjoined in an unnatural manner. The first figure was hunched over the second, which was skinny and male and slumped on the ground. The first figure was Violet, and she was making small bobbing movements — rather suggestive movements, I thought, only it wasn't a blow-job because whatever she was doing was concentrated around the head and neck. I could see by the way the other figure sagged that she hadn't been giving him the kiss of life — the closely cropped head lolled in a state of open-mouthed narcosis. One of his legs was locked in a violent spasm, the other crooked back at an unnatural angle. Then she stood up straight and wiped her chin with the back of her hand. She gazed down at him impassively, as though getting her breath back, before gripping his shoulders and dipping her head once again.

Then it all got confused, but for a few seconds I'd had a grandstand view, and I'd seen what had been left of the side of his neck. The blood which was still pumping gently out of the wound — which was turning his white shirt dark and his dark anorak even darker — had-been black and not red in the half-light, so I don't think it was that which was now making me feel queasy. I might have been hyperventilating, and I hadn't been eating properly for the past few days, but more probably it was sheer physical shock. Just because I believed what I was seeing didn't mean I was taking it in my stride. I felt a sound forming in the back of my throat. I knew I had to stop this noise from happening, so I jammed my fist into my mouth and retreated as far as I could into the deepest shadow. I would have turned and made a run for the gates, but I didn't altogether trust my legs.

Then she looked up again and I almost choked. She was looking right at me — but she didn't appear to see me at all. Later on, I would learn it wasn't the shadows which saved me. They can see in the dark, these people, like cats, and Violet had been around for so long she could scent dinner at fifty paces. If she'd been operating at full throttle, she would have been on to me in an instant, ripping my throat out with her teeth, or slicing my jugular with her fingernails, or cracking my head open on the flagstones, laughing as she did so. I found out later she was capable of all these things, and that there were several circumstances which combined to save my neck. First, she hadn't fed for several nights, and now this over-hasty blow-out was blunting the sharp edge of her senses. Nor was she behaving in orthodox undead fashion: she was ignoring all the recommended procedures, pursuing impromptu strategies of her own, taking risks, leaving herself wide open. Just because she was in love for only the third time in three hundred years, she thought it gave her the green light to behave like a complete idiot and forget what she was being paid to do. But then Violet didn't care about that. She didn't care about anything, except maybe Duncan.

And she had deliberately picked nourishment she knew would be contaminated with additives — Cow Gum and, at a guess, Lamb's Navy Rum, Carling Black Label, speed — whatever the pathetic squirt had managed to pour down his gullet prior to having it ripped out. Later, I realized she had provided him with most of these substances herself. It was how she had lured him there in the first place.

So when she stood up straight and wiped her mouth and looked around, she didn't see me, and neither did she, pick up my scent. I didn't know it then, but she was completely out of her skull. For the next few minutes she stood over the crumpled body, staring down at him as if to establish the state of play. He was either dead or dying, and she didn't give a damn. She brushed her hair back from her face, and, for the first time, I saw colour in her cheeks. She looked astonishingly beautiful in a predatory sort of way, but I thought she also looked weary. It was the weariness of someone who needed to catch up on a few hundred years' worth of sleep. It was then I knew she wasn't just old, she wasn't just weird — she wasn't even human.

This time I didn't think I could suppress the noise. It really had nothing to do with me, but it was coming up anyway, and now I knew for sure it was about to turn into something louder than a whimper or a gurgle — it was going to be a howl. I decided I could no longer fight it, and it would have been all over then and there, if my mouth hadn't suddenly been clamped shut so abruptly I felt the sharp edges of my front teeth slice into my gums. The howl died, smothered at birth by a hand smelling of whisky and tobacco and soap. I plucked at it feebly, but a tentacle wrapped itself around my waist and I was being pulled up and away, and I was kicking my feet in the air. My first thought was that she'd got me, but I could see Violet was still somewhere up ahead, and the tentacle wasn't a tentacle at all — it was an arm. I felt, rather than heard, a wet whiskery mouth pressed up against my ear and a hoarse whisper, 'Don't move. Don't make a sound. Do anything and you are dead .'

Up ahead, in a foggy vignette, I saw Violet delve into her coat pocket with a leisurely, almost dreamlike movement. When her hand emerged, there was a small cylindrical object in her fingers. I didn't realize what it was, not until she swivelled the gilt casing and began to apply the lipstick to her mouth. Her hand was sure and steady; she had no need of a make-up mirror. Which was just as well, because even if there had been a mirror she would not have been able to see herself reflected in it.

Andreas Grauman was tall, but he was made even taller by the snakeskin boots with stacked heels and platform soles. They were the most ridiculous boots I had ever seen. Grauman told me later they were not particularly to his taste, but Violet had taken a fancy to them and bought them for him, and he had worn them ever since, out of respect.

The last thing I remembered was Violet putting on her lipstick, and the next thing I knew I was lying on the back seat of a car and a long-haired hippy with wire-rimmed spectacles was leaning over me with his hand up my skirt. My reaction was instantaneous and unthinking. I slapped the offending hand as hard as I could, and said, 'Stop that immediately! ' He laughed. But took his hand away.

I suddenly remembered what I'd seen and sat up in a panic. 'Where is she? Where am I?' I twisted around, trying to look out of the windows, but they were all misted up. 'You are in my car,' he said, 'which is parked near the cemetery.' There was a slight accent. He wasn't English.

I thrashed around, trying to find a way out, but we were in the back seat of a Ford Cortina and the doors were at the front. 'Let me out ,' I said. There wasn't a whole load of room to manoeuvre. One of my elbows caught him on the edge of his jaw, and he reacted as though he'd been cuffed by the heavyweight champion of the world, shying abruptly away, rubbing his chin and gingerly feeling around inside his mouth. 'Shit,' he said. 'Please be careful.'

'Sorry,' I said without thinking. Then I did think. This man was going to rape me, or worse. 'I've got to go,' I said, tipping up the driver's seat and lunging for the door handle.

He grabbed my wrist and hauled me back. 'Go where? After her ? Oh no, you stay here with me.'

'I left a note; my parents know where I am; they'll call the police…'

'Bull shit ,' he said, peering into my face. His attention made me feel uncomfortable and I quickly looked away. 'You are on something, yes? I can see from your eyes. What have you been taking?'

'Nothing,' I said, pulling my wrist free and rubbing it sulkily. 'I think you'd better let me out.'

He chuckled. 'Maybe later. Tell me, have you been introduced to Violet, or is it just the guy you are interested in?'