‘So it’s true that all the stuff about garlic is a myth?’
‘Sometime we’ll have lunch at Rudi Bertolino’s place. He makes the most amazing ragu sauce. Loaded with garlic. And you’ve probably noticed you can still see yourself in the mirror, too. As if the laws of physics don’t apply to us, just because we’re not human.’
‘And what about crosses?’
Alex popped open a button on her blouse as she drove and fished out the little gold chain she wore around her neck to show him the tiny crucifix dangling from it.
‘Frightened? On a scale of one to ten.’
‘Uh, I’d say that’s a one,’ he said, peering at it.
‘There you go. We can walk into churches, drink the damn holy water if we feel like it.’
‘So, basically, what you’re saying is all these old legends are bullshit.’
She shifted in her seat and didn’t reply.
‘What?’ he said, noticing her expression.
All but one, she was thinking. ‘Nothing. Don’t worry about it.’ She drove on, and the tingle of apprehension soon passed.
‘What’s the key for?’ he asked. She glanced at him, and saw he was looking through the open neck of her blouse at the little black antique key she wore on a thong around her neck beside the crucifix.
‘You ask too many questions. And keep your eyes out of my blouse.’
‘Sorry.’
There was silence between them for a while. Greg broke it by asking sheepishly,
‘So where to now?’
‘I’m dropping you back at HQ. You’ve got paperwork.’
He looked at her. ‘Vampires do paperwork?’
‘Every piece of fieldwork has to be written up for the official record. Harry wants me to show you the ropes; that means from now on you get to take care of the boring stuff. I have better things to do.’
After she’d offloaded Greg at the office, she headed into Soho. It was mid-morning, and the hunger was pressing. She needed someone’s blood. Now.
She knew the backstreets and alleys as well as anyone would who’d been stalking them on and off for a hundred years.
‘You,’ she muttered to herself when she spotted the guy coming out of the cafe.
She could smell the red juice in his veins as he walked up a narrow street. There was nobody else about. Nothing but piles of rubbish bags and a scuffed yellow builder’s skip at the kerbside. She followed, gaining on her target.
She gave a little cough as she got close behind him. He turned, and his eyebrows rose as he took in the sight of the tall, attractive, elegantly dressed woman approaching him with an alluring smile.
‘You dropped this back there,’ she said, holding out a twenty-pound note.
He looked at it with a puzzled expression. ‘Did I?’
‘It fell out of your pocket.’
‘Really? Wow. I didn’t even know I had—’ He shrugged, took the money and thanked her.
The fish had taken the bait. She stood there, smiling, one eyebrow raised suggestively. He hesitated. The hand with the wedding ring slipped unconsciously into his pocket: sure sign he was interested. Alex sidled up to him, letting him feel her breasts crush up against his chest. He seemed to be up for it. She moved up as though to kiss him. In her mouth, the long curved fangs were extending into place, ready. His neck was exposed, a fat blue vein pulsing enticingly. She moved in and he didn’t back off.
It was in the bag. The blood rushed to her eyes and her predatory vampire instinct took over as she went in for the bite.
And then the phone went off in her pocket, distracting her, and the guy came to his senses and walked off, flushed and bemused and still holding her banknote.
She answered the phone.
‘Damn it, Harry,’ she said irritably. ‘You just cost me a feed and twenty quid.’
‘How fast can you get over to Oxford?’
‘Pretty fast. What’s in Oxford?’
‘There was a car accident late last night. Single driver, a teenage kid. The police took him to the John Radcliffe hospital. I’ve got a report from one of our people inside that the kid was ranting and raving. Something about a ritual blood sacrifice taking place.’
‘The V-word get mentioned?’
‘Said he found a whole nest. Apparently he was running away from it when he crashed his car.’
Alex frowned. ‘More rogue activity?’
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘Or it could be just the usual Hallowe’en hysteria. We get this every year, Harry.
I’ll bet you anything this kid was on drugs.’
‘He was. But I think you should check it out nonetheless. We can’t afford to take chances here.’
‘Why does it have to be me? Can’t you send Gibson?’
‘Gibson’s in Athens.’
Alex sighed. ‘Fine. I’m on my way.’
Chapter Thirteen
Ever since the conversation he’d overheard in the canteen, Joel hadn’t been able to shut the story of Declan Maddon out of his head. Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe he’d been working too hard and his brain was going into meltdown.
But he’d just had to go and talk to this kid. After a fraught and unproductive morning of pushing paper around, he’d seen a ninety-minute window open up in his schedule and grabbed it. The John Radcliffe hospital was on the edge of the city, off the Oxford ring road. Joel rode fast. Just before midday and the sun was shining brightly now — it was turning into one of those beautiful autumnal days that seemed to be getting rarer with each passing year.
The staff nurse looked as perplexed at Joel’s request as she was by his appearance in bike leathers and boots.
‘Again? The police were here last night talking to him.’
‘I have just a few more questions,’ Joel said.
Dec Maddon was on the second floor, sharing a near empty ward with a frail old guy who looked like he was dying. The kid was propped up in his narrow bed with his left arm in a sling. His face was pale and his eyes were rimmed with red, with dark circles around them. He stared up in sullen indignation as Joel approached his bed and flashed his police ID.
‘Hello, Declan,’ Joel said cordially.
‘I told them I didn’t take the fucking pills,’ the kid said sourly. ‘And my name’s Dec. Not Declan. Nobody calls me Declan.’
Joel scraped a chair across the tiles and sat down next to the bed.
‘How about we start again? Hello, Dec. I see you’ve been in the wars.’ He glanced over at the old man at the other end of the ward, but he didn’t seem to be in a fit state to overhear much. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking you a few more questions?’
‘Haven’t we done this already?’
‘Tell me what you thought you saw last night,’ Joel said, as quietly and patiently as he could.
‘I don’t think,’ Dec said. ‘I know.’ His dark-ringed eyes were fixed on an invisible point somewhere above the foot of his bed. There was a grim set to his jaw. ‘I know what I saw, and there’s only one word to describe it.’ He
