The Cold Kiss of Death

slammed the door shut.

My only wish was that I could dispose of the vamps themselves as easily.

I closed my eyes and massaged my temples, trying to ease my ever-present headache; popping G-Zav tablets like they were sweeties might be keeping a precarious lid on my venom cravings, but the side-effects were about as pleasant as being roasted alive over a dwarf’s furnace. Sighing, I put the towel in the carrier bag with my socks and shoes, then headed for the stairs, the pervasive smell of garlic increasing as I climbed.

The real puzzle was why some enterprising vamp hadn’t just gone straight for the caveman thing, knocking me over the head and dragging me off by my short sidhe hair. Of course, it’s illegal for a vamp to use any form of coercion—physical or psychological—without their victim’s consent (not that vamps have victims any more, now they’re called customers, a.k.a. fang-fans). And the vamps are good at playing the law-abiding game, so the last time one of them won a one-way trip to the guillotine for unlicensed feeding was back in the early eighties.

But the humans don’t think we fae need the same protection as humans, not when the vamps can’t mind-lock us or trick us with their mesma unless they’d infected us, and not when we’re often seen as more dangerous than the once-human vampires. Then there’s the fact that we fae are even more of a minority than the blood-suckers; a minority that’s not as politically aware and not always as pretty. So it’s not surprising we get a less-than-fair hearing when it comes to human justice.

Or that we end up as fair game for the vamps.

What we really needed was a great public relations manager. Idly I wondered if the one that had kick-started the vamps’ Gold-Plated Coffin promotion was still around. Not that I had the money to pay for a no-expenses-spared PR campaign. I could only just afford my rent, and that was with the subsidy I got from working for a witch company.

I stepped onto the third-floor landing and the garlic stench almost overpowered me. I stopped to cough, glaring at Witch Wilcox’s door. Of course, I wouldn’t need the subsidy if she succeeded in getting me evicted.

‘Ow!’ Something stung my bare calf. I hopped and slapped at my leg, then looked at her door.

Crap. It wasn’t just the garlic she’d laid on a bit thick; she’d added to the Vamp Back-Off spell sprayed on her door and the magic now spread over the landing like an enormous sea anemone, its deep purple body fanning out into a multitude of paler violet-coloured fronds that rippled through the air and circled a dark hole that looked disturbingly like a gaping mouth.

‘That’s different,’ I muttered in amazement. The thing looked more like a trap than a vamp deterrent, and my calf was throbbing like someone had branded it with a red-hot poker. Whatever the spell was, no way did I want to tangle with it.

Carefully, I inched my way along the landing, keeping my back tight against the wall. As I moved, the fronds shifted, questing towards me as if they’d caught my scent. I breathed in sharply as one whipped past my stomach and ducked as another narrowly missed slashing across my cheek, the eye-watering smell of garlic and bleach trailing behind it. Then as three more of the lethal fronds flailed after me, I turned and bolted for the stairs, carrier bag clutched under my arm. I jumped, yelping, as the spell stung the back of my neck, then as I almost missed the steps, I managed to grab for the banister and safety.

I sat down heavily on the stair, breathing shakily as I checked the welt on my calf; the skin wasn’t broken, it was just swollen, red and painful. Gingerly, I touched the back of my neck. It felt the same. What the hell was the daft old witch doing, casting ... whatever that anemone thing was? It seemed excessive, even with her paranoia about her beloved granddaughter—never mind the fact that even if a vamp managed to bypass the Ward on the building’s main door, none of them could pass over her threshold; unless of course she was stupid enough to invite them in. I glowered down at the spell. The fronds were undulating lazily now, but I got the impression they were just watching and waiting.

‘It would serve the old witch right if I cracked her spell,’ I grumbled, rubbing my sore leg. Trouble was, true spellcracking blasted the magic back into the ether, which made for a quick clear-up—except the cracking also blasted apart whatever the spell happened to be attached to. Somehow I didn’t think I’d get away with turning the witch’s door into a pile of jagged splinters. I could always tease it apart, the safer, if more laborious, way of dismantling spells, but that would take more time than I was willing to spare. And she’d just replace it anyway.

Damn. I thought about saying something to Mr Travers, but the garlic meant the spell was somehow tagged for vampires—not that eating garlic will stop a vamp from getting the munchies; some of them actually like the added flavour. Mind you, smearing a bulb or two over the pulse points might make them think seriously about dining elsewhere, as would chilli: red swollen lips are bad for the image, never mind the pain. Of course, the garlic smearing only works if the vamp’s brain is still engaged and they’re not lost in bloodlust. Not much stops a vamp then.

I had no idea why the bleach was in there—maybe it just made a handy, albeit nasty base. But whatever the reason, the old witch’s Anemone spell was the business.

And then there was my problem with actually complaining: how was I supposed to explain why magic aimed squarely at blood-suckers was taking its ire out on me? Somehow I doubted that my 3V condition would be enough, never mind it was easy to disprove. And letting everyone in on the real reason—my last secret—would mean not just eviction, but losing my job too. No, there was no way I could complain, not when it meant admitting my father was a three-hundred-year-old vampire.

My phone broke into my musings with something that sounded suspiciously like the theme from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Damn gremlins! I checked the display to see a message from Grace; she was coming round after her shift ended. I texted her back to say I was working and to let herself in, then as I caught sight of the time, everything, gremlins, ghosts, witches and blood-sucking vampires, went out of my mind. I had a job to go to; my ‘hot date with a satyr’ or rather, my boss, Finn, and if I didn’t hurry up I was going to be late.

Then my ‘date’ would be ‘hot’ for all the wrong reasons.

Chapter Two

My ‘date’ was hot; nothing to do with Finn, my boss, but entirely thanks to the gas-fired heaters in the underground tunnel. The air they blasted out was enough to raise the temperature to a level that only a fire-dragon would appreciate. But I could cope with the heat; it was the ghost part of the job that had sweat slicking down my spine.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose as another ghost shuffled into view, his bloated, blackened feet scuffing along the dirt floor, sending little puffs of dust into the still air. A deep cut marred his left cheek; the bone it revealed was white and glistening. His eyes stared blankly out of sunken sockets and the end of his nose was eaten away by a huge black sore. He headed straight towards us and I counted the seconds down—three, two, one—then winced, half in sympathy, half in teeth-gritted anxiety, as he hit the wall of the protective circle in which Finn and I sat. The ghost’s lipless mouth flattened against the magic while his skeletal hands scrabbled for purchase not more than four feet in front of me. I suppressed a shudder, shifting nervously in my deckchair as he slid his way round the circle until he was back on route and shambling off on his way.

Sighing with relief, I touched my laptop keypad and entered the time against the ghost’s name—Scarface—on the spreadsheet, then duplicated the info on my pad, just in case. The laptop might have an extra-strength Buffer spell in the crystal stuck to its case, but I wasn’t taking any chances. All it needed was a stray bit of magic and I’d end up with one cracked crystal, one dead hard drive and an irretrievable ghost survey.

I tapped my pencil on my pad and wondered for about the hundredth time what I’d done to deserve a night sitting under London Bridge counting ghosts, especially after my frustrating run-in with Cosette. And not just any ghosts, but the ghosts of fourteenth-century plague victims. My phobia’s bad enough when the dead look relatively normal, without adding in all the stomach-roiling stuff. Not to mention we were camped out deep in the bridge’s foundations in the area known as the tombs—right on top of the plague victims’ burial pits.