Here she is.’
Kirsty turned in surprise to see a woman slinking her way across the library towards them. She was extremely beautiful. Jet black curls tumbled down over her shoulders and the glistening black leather outfit that hugged her lithe figure. Her skin was like ivory in the soft light. Her eyes glittered black as she approached.
‘You called me, Gabriel,’ she said without taking her gaze off Kirsty. Her voice was dark, smoky.
‘I didn’t notice,’ Kirsty laughed nervously.
‘My sister and I are very close,’ Gabriel said. ‘You might say almost telepathic.’
He tenderly stroked Lillith’s shoulder. ‘Would you take Kirsty upstairs now? I’ve left out the costume for her.’
The champagne mist parted as if it had been cleft by a blade. Kirsty frowned.
‘You left it…But how—’
‘That’s right,’ Gabriel smiled. ‘I picked it out for you before I left the house.’
‘My brother always prepares things in advance,’ Lillith purred.
Kirsty suddenly felt edgy. She looked at her watch. ‘Maybe you should take me back to London. We can talk about the film another time.’
‘Come with me, Kirsty. You’re going to love it.’ Lillith took her arm. Her grip was soft but firm. Kirsty wanted to protest, but something in the woman’s eyes made it impossible to resist. She allowed herself to be led away. Lillith spoke gently, sweetly, as they walked together out of the library and up a winding red velvet staircase.
Gilt-framed portraits seemed to leer at Kirsty out of the shadows as Lillith escorted her down a long corridor. Then they were in a room filled with clothes, like the biggest walk-in wardrobe she’d ever seen. Draped over an ornate chaise longue was a beautiful long white silk dress.
Lillith smiled warmly. ‘Go on. Put it on.’
Kirsty picked it up hesitantly. ‘It’s a little low-cut, don’t you think?’
‘You’re going to look gorgeous in it.’
Kirsty took the dress behind a screen and began stepping out of her clothes. It was as if she was someone else, no longer in control of her own actions. Everything felt hazy and distant. As she emerged from behind the screen wearing the white dress, Lillith drew a breath.
‘There. Didn’t I tell you? My brother has an eye for beauty.’ She came up close.
‘Let me zip you up.’ She ran her hands over Kirsty’s naked shoulders. ‘So warm and soft,’ she murmured. ‘Like velvet.’
Kirsty tried to move away from her. The closeness of another woman was strange, and Lillith’s fingers moved on her skin like a lover’s.
‘Come and look at yourself.’ Lillith guided her to the tall mirror and stood behind her, still touching her shoulders. ‘See how beautiful you look.’
Kirsty gazed into the mirror. She looked herself up and down, thinking she looked like the bride in someone’s fantasy. Then she looked at Lillith’s reflection behind her.
Lillith was smiling as she ran her fingers through Kirsty’s hair. ‘You ought to wear it up, like this. Don’t you think?’ Her lips were full and red. Then they parted. Kirsty stared at the white canine teeth that were suddenly grown hideously long and curved and sharp. The fangs bore down on her exposed neck.
Kirsty screamed. Twisted away and burst out of the dressing room. She was screaming wildly as she ran all the way back down the corridor. The portraits watched her and seemed to sneer.
Gabriel was standing at the end of the corridor. Kirsty flew into his arms, and he gripped her tightly. She screamed again as she saw Lillith moving fast towards them, her teeth bared in a vulpine grin.
‘Get her away from me!’ she shrieked.
He pointed at Lillith. ‘Stay back,’ he hissed at her.
Then Kirsty looked up at Gabriel. There was a look in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. Not in anyone’s eyes, not ever. She froze. His mouth opened and he leaned towards her. This time, not for a kiss.
‘The first bite is mine,’ he said.
And the blood spattered down across the white silk of Kirsty’s dress.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The Metropole Hotel, Venice
3.02 a.m. local time
Alex and Joel had made love for hours in the pool of moonlight that flooded across the satin sheets.
‘You’re incredible,’ he’d gasped afterwards, as he held her tight. ‘You’re going to kill me.’ She could have gone on and on, but he was completely spent and worn out, and soon fell back into a deep sleep with his arm draped across her naked body. She lay there beside him in the rumpled bed, caressing his cooling skin, listening to the rise and fall of his breathing, her senses bright and alert.
She was sailing into uncharted waters now and she knew it. If VIA ever had the slightest inkling of what she’d just done, it was all over for her. Not her service record, not even Harry Rumble’s intervention, could save her from the punishment that was carved in stone on the Federation’s sacred list of commandments. They had the power, and they’d use it. She’d be arrested and taken straight to the execution chamber.
Strapped in a chair, hardened steel loops around her wrists and her neck. She’d be forced to watch as the vampire executioner filled a syringe from a vial of Nosferol. Then the needle would come closer, and closer. The jab of pain as it stabbed into her arm.
The agony as the poison ravaged her body, twenty seconds of horrific screaming torment that lasted longer than a century of walking the earth. There was no pain like it. The horrors that humans had inflicted on their own kind, the witches and martyrs and torture victims through the ages, didn’t even come close.
She shuddered. Joel stirred beside her, muttered her name and rolled over, still fast asleep. She carefully disentangled herself from his arms and stepped naked into the moonlight. She picked up the trail of clothes that lay strewn across the rug and dressed quickly and quietly.
The familiar old tingle was coming over her. She needed to feed, and soon.
Glancing back over at Joel’s still form under the sheets, for a few intoxicating moments she could sense nothing but the blood pumping through his veins as he slept. Its rich tang filled her nostrils, and she could almost taste the warmth of it on her tongue, running down her throat. Her heart began to quicken as a force that was stronger than her threatened to impel her towards the bed. Not to love him this time, but to bite him.
Her fangs began to elongate in her mouth.
This was the dangerous time, when nothing that lived and walked and bled was safe.
Get out of here, Alex. Now. You can’t do this to him. Not him.
She tore herself away. Out on the balcony, she glanced down to the narrow street that separated the hotel from the banks of the canal. She looked left, then right.
There was nobody around. But there would be, somewhere out there, walking the street. And they were hers.
She flipped herself over the edge of the stone balustrade, dropped the twenty feet to the ground and landed without a sound.
Now it was time to hunt.
Wallingford
2.06 a.m.
Dec was lying sprawled out on the couch at Matt’s place. On the table next to him were the remnants of a microwave meal he’d managed to stagger into the kitchen to prepare earlier that evening, but hadn’t had the stomach to eat. He had no idea how long he’d been staring unfocused at the television. The images on the screen made no sense to him. Some kind of movie with lots of car chases, but he kept drifting in and out and couldn’t follow it. Feverish extremes of hot and cold kept washing over him, leaving him sweltering one minute and racked with shivering the next.
