Vampire State of Mind (24 page)

A shake of his head. ‘You still do not understand, Jessica. Half-demon, and yet you still think like a human.' He sighed and closed his eyes. ‘Imagine the worst thing you have ever done.' A flicker of a smile moved across his lips, almost invisibly fast, ‘and no, breaking the tracker programme was
not
the worst thing. Worse than that.'

I frowned. ‘I've never …' and then a huge flashback to the sight of Malfaire, hands raking at the air and blood seeping through his immaculate jacket. The terrible feeling that had settled over me before we hit the river; I'd taken a life, and nothing would ever be the same again. ‘Oh.'

His eyes opened, dark now. Brewing-storm dark. ‘I have done terrible things, Jessica. Terrible, evil, wicked things. I have killed, men, women, children, just to satisfy my hunger. I took …' Cool fingers touched my neck and I became aware of my pulse, leaping in my veins as if my corpuscles were taking part in a skipping contest; when I looked up at Sil's face his fangs were down, touching his lower lip and making his mouth flex. ‘I could take you. Now, here, tear your throat out and walk away without even a moment's remorse. Because that is what it truly means to be vampire.
That
is what sets us apart from the humans, not our desire for blood, but our ability to know that guilt exists, and to deny it.'

‘To save you from pain.'

‘Because we are spineless and weak.'

I looked up into a face that should have seemed cruel, predatory. But all I saw was the man behind the predator – the man who'd been willing to die for me, the man who had sat with me as I found out the truth about my parentage. The man who had held me and cried when he'd finally let himself feel. ‘No. You aren't weak, Jonathan. You acknowledge what you've done, and a weak man could never do that.'

‘Thank you.' Now his hands moved to tilt my chin, to cup my cheek as his mouth moved closer. ‘Thank you.'

This time his lips were cool on my mouth, but there was nothing different in the way our bodies reacted to one another. Mine liquefied and his leapt. The mystery was gone but was replaced by a sureness, a deftness. I knew now how much he liked my fingers touching, stroking, rewarded by a hardness that reflected the fact that he was, still, really only twenty-nine. He knew how to make me squirm against the pressure of his hand until I gasped his name, his
real
name, and dug my nails into the skin of his back while he held my weight and looked into my eyes. And then, on the complex woven covering to the intricately carved bed, we rode one another hard. The confusion and the repressed emotion we both carried drove us on to extremes, to wordless sounds and our names, whispered over and over, as our bodies hummed with a passion that was almost flamethrower-strong.

Whoever said that it was better to have loved and lost had clearly never spent any time in bed with a vampire.

And, of course, I woke up an hour or so later, alone.

‘Stupid, stupid,' I berated myself, once I'd blearily opened my eyes and stopped patting the evidently smooth sheet on the other side of the bed. ‘What did you
expect
?' And I climbed out of the bed, although, given the height, it was more like climbing off, and headed for the shower, still chastising myself for having even considered the possibility that Sil would have held me until I woke; would have
stayed
.

My mobile rang as I stood in the shower, my head lathered as I sang ‘Gonna wash that man right out of my hair' under my breath. I shot out from under the water to pick it up, my still-active inner teenager hoping that it might be Sil, whilst my over-thirty outer self knew that he would have just knocked on the door.

At first there was no voice on the other end, and I feared that I'd suffered shampoo-eye for a sales call, until I heard the whispered words, sibilant through the tiny speaker. ‘I have your family.' Malfaire.

Hysteria didn't even come close. I ran from the shower, covering myself with my mobile phone and the hand towel, with my hair dripping soap down my back. I dialled the farm, got the ‘unavailable' tone and dialled again, one-handed, as I mopped water from my eyes. Unavailable. Again. And again, until I'd covered the bedroom floor in wet footprints and stood at the door, screaming. Zan arrived first, actually managing to look reasonably human as he pounded up the stairs still clutching a glass of freshly poured blood. Sil was close behind and Liam puffed along last, carrying an unexplained screwdriver.

‘If this is a spider,' Sil began, but I flung myself at Zan with blatant disregard for the tiny towel.

‘This is your fault, you said they were safe! You said he wouldn't touch them and – oh God, I never thought – he might have Abbie as well; he said he was going to try to hurt me through other people and now he's at the farm, the phones are dead, and they could be
dying
; I never
thought
, I should have
thought …
it's my fault. Why didn't I warn them? My family …
I
need to get up there.' I slapped at Zan's rock-hard chest, wanting,
needing
him to feel my anguish, to hurry, to
do something
.

Zan's hand was so cold on my water-warmed flesh that I nearly dropped the towel. ‘Go and dress, Jessica.' Over my head, he and Sil exchanged a look. ‘Sil, find transport. Take her.'

‘On it now.' Ignoring me, Sil swung away back down the stairs. Liam dropped the screwdriver and I realised that my boobs were totally uncovered.

‘Go and dress,' Zan repeated, seemingly unmoved by my chestal anatomy. ‘And finish washing your hair.'

I managed a world-record shower and hair-rinse and found my discarded jeans and knickers at the foot of the bed. My bra and top were nowhere to be seen, so I pulled Sil's black shirt from where it had fallen and been forgotten, and put that on. When I opened the bedroom door again, Zan was still standing there. He looked me up and down with what might have been a sigh.

‘We need to go
now
!'

Without speaking Zan turned and headed down the stairs. I followed fast and nearly cannoned into Liam who was waiting at the bottom.

‘It'll be all right, Jessie. Don't worry.'

‘Now say that again, to my face this time, Liam.'

He dragged his eyes upwards with an unashamed grin. ‘Sorry.'

The two vampires were muttering to one another in the hallway. Sil was juggling a set of car keys. ‘It's outside. We can be gone in two minutes.'

‘And I shall hold things here.'

‘Yes. But be careful, this is probably …'

‘Can we just
go
!'

The vampires exchanged another look. ‘We cannot take the risk he is lying,' Sil said. ‘We may have been wrong to assume that he would direct his anger at Jessica alone. He really may have her family. He
did
threaten to kill those close to her. First.'

‘Are you armed?'

‘What do you think this is, the
High Chaparral
? Let's leave, now! Sil!'

Sil and Zan gave one another a curt nod, which looked oddly formal and then Sil grabbed my elbow, dragged me out of the door, and I shut up totally. He was tugging me towards the most beautiful car I had ever seen in my life.

‘Is this yours?'

He shrugged and slid into the driving seat. ‘Among others,' he said, as though owning a Bugatti Veyron Pur Sang was meaningless. ‘Get in.'

I hardly dared touch the immaculate chrome of the door; this was less of a car and more of a machine for taking your fingerprints. Behind the wheel, Sil looked so coolly at home that my throat hurt; something about his slender sexiness was perfectly matched to the vehicle. ‘But this car …'

‘Built by vampires, for vampires.' Sil barely waited for me to belt myself into place before we were squealing our way out of the centre of York. It was like being strapped inside a bullet.

I stared out of the dark-tinted window, willing the countryside past faster. ‘He'll have those Shadows with him again, and maybe more wights. Can't this thing go any quicker?'

‘Have you got a plan?'

I shook my head. ‘No. No plan. But it struck me earlier, Sil.
Nothing
is unkillable. If he was, I mean really,
truly
immortal, then why would he need to be able to breed? And anything that
can
produce offspring
must
die. Fundamental rule of the Universe.'

‘Earlier. You mean when we were …?'

He looked so affronted that, despite everything, I laughed. ‘No! Good grief, I hardly had time to draw breath, let alone think deep thoughts.'

‘Well. Good.'

‘Can't this thing go any faster?'

‘You're repeating yourself. No, it can't.'

Capable hands spun the wheel and I imagined my mother facing down Malfaire in the cluttered kitchen, with only the old Labrador as defence. ‘
Please
make it go faster.'

Sil nudged a bit more speed out of the engine. ‘So, we are hurrying now, are we? Have you spoken to your parents since you found out about Malfaire? Or are we dashing to the rescue of some people you're going to pretend are nothing to do with you when this is over?'

I stared at him. ‘Don't you dare moralise to me.'

‘Someone has to, Jessie. Think of what they've been through. First they lost a child, then they took on the offspring of a demon without knowing who or what you may turn out to be. Your own natural mother was afraid of what you might be and yet they lied and dissembled in order to bring you up, to keep you safe; they even moved here, away from what they knew, so that your identity would be kept secret. You are their daughter and a simple fact of genetics doesn't change that. Haven't you ever thought of that? And that they must have worried themselves sick about what you might be – but they loved you all the same, brought you up with human values despite it all?' He shook his head. ‘You need to start thinking about that, Jessie, not just yourself.'

‘Turn here.'

‘You're avoiding the subject.'

‘We need to turn left here to get to the farm,' I repeated. ‘And we're doing nearly two hundred miles an hour.' I kept my tone level and even. The car started to slow, and made the turn with the rear spoiler brake fully extended while he concentrated on the ridiculously complicated gear-change mechanism and the Sat Nav device which was currently telling us we were in the middle of Hampshire.

I made him park in the small paddock out of sight of the house. ‘If Malfaire is still there, if he's holding them there, he'll be waiting for us.'

‘Then what do you suggest?'

‘I spent my teenage years going to parties despite being grounded. I know at least seventeen ways of getting in and out of the house without being seen.'

Sil raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Show me.'

His tight trousers weren't the best things for skulking along the ditch line in, but he never mentioned the mud or the brambles or anything. We hustled along the sunken trench, crept through the old dairy-house door and in the back of the walk-in larder, arriving in the kitchen in time to cause my mother to drop an entire tray of scones.

‘Oh, my dear Lord!' The Labrador, sensing a unique opportunity, began gobbling down the oven-hot scones as my mother … Jenny … collapsed on to a chair. ‘Where did you come from?'

‘Over the fields. Where is he?'

‘Over in the barn, I think. Jessica, I'm so glad you came …'

‘Has he got Dad? Or Abbie?'

She stared harder. ‘Has
who
got your father? I told you that he's in the barn, doing something to that dratted tractor. Abbie will still be at work.'

Sil and I looked at one another. The horrified conclusions that I was drawing were also beginning to drop into place across his features. ‘Oh
shit
,' I whispered.

‘Distraction.' Sil sounded resigned. ‘He's tampered with the phones to get you to come here. He'll be at the house.'

‘You
knew
?'

‘Suspected. But we couldn't take the chance.'

My mother was staring at us. ‘Jessica, what have you got yourself involved in now?' I noticed her trying not to look at Sil. ‘Is something wrong?'

‘Look, Mum.' I touched her hand and her eyes brightened. I hadn't realised how faded she'd looked, how stooped and old, until she straightened and smiled at me. ‘I'll explain everything some time soon. But please, just for now, don't ask me anything. Get Dad in here and lock the door, don't let anyone in except Abbie when she comes over.'

‘Is it Malfaire?' Her voice was thin, papery. ‘Is it all going wrong, what we did?'

‘No.' I patted her arm, felt Sil look at me. ‘No. It's fine. Just a precaution. But we have to go now, Mum, I'm sorry.'

‘Just …' and now she wasn't looking at me but at Sil, ‘keep her safe. Please.'

He nodded once, solemnly. ‘I will,' and then we were off again, racing down to the paddock, spinning the Veyron off the slick grass and out on to the road.

Jessica went quiet, chewing her fingernails and staring out of the window as though willpower could make the car go faster. Sil pushed his foot to the floor. One way or another this wasn't going to end well and dying in a flaming sports car at least had a photogenic quality to it, rather than dying under torture at the hand of a jumped-up, semi-immortal poser like Malfaire.

Jessie gave a little whimper and he eased up. He'd promised her mother he'd keep her safe,
and what the hell was that all about? When did I start kowtowing to their bloody mothers? I'm a vampire, silent killer, sexual predator, not a henpecked husband.
But he let the car slow to a safer speed, despite riding the leading edge of a hormone surge that was trying to push him into mindless acceleration. Malfaire was in York, probably in his house right now; all right, Zan had a few tricks which might manage to fool him long enough to keep them out of trouble but … Jessie really cared about Liam. If anything had happened to him, then maybe she'd lose her last link with the humanity she so wanted to claim.
Maybe she'll go demon on Malfaire's ass. Would that be so bad? She might not be able to kill him, but she might have some kind of demon power to take him down, weaken him, so that the vampires could banish him or something?
The thought made his demon quicken and writhe and a flash of blood-longing made him close his eyes for a second.
Jessie. You know me now, all of me. You've seen the emptiness where my heart once was, and made me feel whole again.
He looked at her now, taking his eyes off the road for long enough to see her shiver.
Is it enough? Would it ever be enough? You excite me in ways I never dreamed of. But is it enough? You say you love me. A human emotion, one of those I cut myself free from a long, long time ago, in that bleak graveyard, between two tiny humps of earth, and now I don't even remember what they felt like. Because, however you try to justify it, Jess, we vampires are craven excuses for beings. The truth is that we are not supreme, we just wish to feel that way, and we do that by pretending …