The Sweet Scent of Blood

‘No,’ she snapped, then muttered, not so sotto voce, ‘sucker slut!’ as the door hissed closed between us.

I snorted. The insult was apt, even if she didn’t know why ... but I wasn’t planning on opening a vein or anything else for this particular sucker if I could help it.

‘He said you’d come.’ Bobby’s voice was rusty, as if he hadn’t used it for a long time.

My pulse sped up. I swung back to face him, working to slow my heartbeat. ‘Who said I’d come?’

Bobby sat up, arms hugging his knees. ‘My Master.’ He lifted his face to me. ‘He said you’d be able to help.’

Shock sparked through me as I recognised him. I’d been right with my ‘lost boy’ thought: I’d met Bobby, four years ago, and he’d been sitting in the exact same position, saying the exact same words to me.

‘They’ve got her in there.’ He lifted his arm slowly and pointed behind him at the blank wall.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

‘She’s in the basement.’ His shoulders hunched over again.

I stared in disbelief. He was either auditioning for an Equity Card ...

‘The Master said to wait here, to tell you where she is.’

... or somehow Bobby was reliving the past.

A past that was burned into my brain.

Bobby hadn’t been a vampire then, just one of their blood-pets. He’d kept watch all that night, after the girl had been found, waiting for the morning. Waiting for me to come.

‘I tried to get her to come out once they’d gone.’ His face crumpled. ‘But she started screaming ...’

It had been January. I took a deep breath and hugged myself, unwillingly replaying the scene in my mind. The morning sun was a cold disc in a sky streaked with red warnings. The place had been a rats’ nest—or rather, a fang-gang’s nest—of squalor, right in the heart of Sucker Town. My stomach roiled. Even now, I could still smell the gagging stench of urine, fresh blood and pain...

Bobby’s expression was bleak with horror.

I’d scrambled into the basement to get her. By then her screaming had disintegrated into whimpers. Her rainbow eyes dripped tears of ice that shattered like glass as they fell. After a while, she let me pick her up. Her fingers dug in my shoulders even as she flinched from my touch. I wrapped my coat around her, smearing the ruby dots that pitted her green skin like a macabre sprinkling of bloody sugar balls. The bastard suckers hadn’t left her with enough blood for the bruises to bloom.

‘How could they do that to her?’ Bobby’s whisper was harsh. ‘Siobhan’s so tiny.’

Siobhan, the girl, was Mick’s sister—half-sister really—seeing as she was a full-blooded leprechaun. She’d been twelve years old, here on a holiday visit from Ireland to see her brother, too young to fight back when the fang-gang had snatched her from her bed. She’d been gone for five nights when Mick had sought me out and begged for my help. If she’d been human, any hope of rescuing her alive would’ve died within twenty-four hours, but those with fae blood last so much longer.

And even though I’d known it was an inside job—no vampire could’ve crossed Mick’s threshold without an invitation—and that Mick was only the messenger, I agreed to the bargain when it was offered.

Siobhan was the first fae I’d managed to save. There’d been others in need, before Siobhan, but I’d found them too late. After Siobhan, I’d been much more successful, but by then I had my own insider information.

That bargain, the one I’d made then, was why I was now standing in a locked cell with a vampire accused of murdering his girlfriend, and it was why that vampire was taking me on an unwelcome trip down memory lane.

He was delivering an invitation.

So what the fuck was wrong with using the phone?

Chill air crawled over my flesh. I backed up and leant against the door, not sure if Bobby would say any more. He rocked from side to side, grey eyes glazed, mouth half-open revealing a glimpse of fang. He might have hit the jackpot and graduated from blood-pet to blood-sucker over the last four years, but he was still just a puppet, jerking on his Master’s strings. It would be decades before Bobby would reach his Autonomy.

I wondered if he’d known what the Gift had meant, or whether, with his looks, he’d truly been a sucker? Poor bastard. But then, he was better off than Melissa, his girlfriend. At least he wasn’t lying in the morgue. Yet.

Another blast of frozen air hit me. I rubbed my hands over my arms and shivered again. What had happened to the heating? I looked up at the vents, puzzled. Then it hit me: Constable Curly-hair must’ve cut the heat. That same heat that was keeping Bobby, the vampire from getting agitated. Bitch! I rapped my knuckles against the cell door. Time to go.

Movement caught in the corner of my vision. I turned back to see Bobby on his hands and knees, head hanging down.

This was so not good.

I slammed my hand against the door again.

Bobby started moving, his movements more fluid now as he crawled across the floor towards me.

I kicked the door with my heel, feeling the reverberation of the hard metal. Surely she could hear it out there?

Three feet away, he lifted his head and scented the air.

My heart thudded. I shifted, arms loose and ready at my sides. Maybe I was staying for dinner after all.

Two feet...

Calm. Don’t get him excited. I willed my pulse to slow, but the trick wasn’t working. Instead, the silver-laden air tightened my throat and panic pumped my blood faster. C’mon, think calm!

His hand touched my shoe.

I clamped my jaw to stop from screaming.

He wrapped his arm round my knees, curling into my legs. ‘Help her,’ he whispered. ‘Help Siobhan.’

My head dropped back against the door and I let out a relieved sigh. Bobby was still trapped in the memory. Cautiously, I brushed his hair aside, offered him a reassuring smile. ‘It’s okay, Bobby, Siobhan’s safe now.’

Pink tinged tears glistened in his eyes. ‘She is?’

I cupped his cheek, feeling the urge to comfort him. ‘She’s gone back to Ireland,’ I said softly.

He made a quiet snuffle, then turned, pressing his nose against the inside of my wrist. My stomach jumped. His arm tightened round my legs, his hand convulsing around mine, the points of his fangs sharp against my pulse. The back of my neck throbbed in answer. I breathed in the heady smell of liquorice and the venom craving hit me. Need and want flared hot through my veins, drew a cry from my mouth and flooded my skin with a blood-flush.

Damn. I was neck-deep in trouble ... and there was nothing I wanted to do about it.

I closed my eyes, anticipating the sting of his bite—

The pain didn’t come.

A tremor shuddered through me.

I stared down at him, and carefully, slowly, pulled my wrist away from his mouth.

He didn’t try and stop me, just watched, awareness sliding over his face.

Tension spiralled inside me.

‘You’re the sidhe.’ Anticipation laced his voice. He flowed to his feet, the movement almost faster than I could see, crowded me back against the door, shoved his hands in my hair. The liquorice scent bled into my mind, holding me captive. Hot breath seared my jaw. He bent his head to my throat. Then he hissed, the noise loud and angry, and punched the door next to my face. I flinched and he flung himself away from me, yelling with rage.

I risked a look at the dented door and shuddered. What was wrong? Why hadn’t he bitten me? He was young, a baby vamp, and even if he wasn’t hungry—which he had to be—no way could he resist a feed that close to a venom-induced blood-flush. He should have broken skin at the very least.

Fuck. And I hadn’t been about to stop him.

I almost cried at the irony. How stupid was I, to think I could deny it twice in one night? So much for telling Hugh I had the 3V under control: the desire to offer my blood was so desperate that I had to fight the urge to scratch at my own bare arms. And there was worse to come.

I gritted my teeth as the cramps hit. I clutched at my stomach, sliding down the wall, tears pricking the back of my eyes.