What Could Go Wrong When a Vampire Gets Bored?

The acid-yellow taxi squealed to a halt against the high kerb, flinging a fan of icy slush across the pavement. Nika leapt out, slammed the door, yanked up the collar of her leather jacket as she went, and instantly regretted the outfit. A collar against the wind here was like a condom against a tsunami: technically protection, but designed for entirely different purposes.

Tonight Glasgow had served up a classic: neither rain nor snow, just a raw grey suspension hanging in the air, where drizzle mixed with factory smog and crept under the skin like a cocky cabbie’s hand under a skirt. And the wind, the third member of the ensemble, tore at her hair as if it owed the wind money, flapped the hem of her jacket, crawled up her sleeves, and generally carried on like a drunk wedding guest who had decided to grope the bride.

For a second her thoughts slid elsewhere, to a place where weather like this passed for normal. There the damp wasn’t an enemy but a familiar backdrop, almost a relative. How did the joke go? “In the Bible it rained for forty days and forty nights, and they called it a flood. In my city, we call that summer.” And suddenly she felt strangely calm at the thought that one day she should simply drop everything and fly back for a couple of days, stand under that familiar rain, not cursing it but welcoming it like an old friend. But now wasn’t the time for nostalgia. Right now she had to avoid turning into an icicle on the pavement.

She cut straight across to the three-storey brick building, not granting the taxi driver, who sat frozen and staring into space, a single glance. The building stood heavy and sullen, as if deliberately built to make passers-by uneasy. Thick brick, rough with soot and age, looked like armour. In the basement lurked the Iron Fang: it smelled of iron, tobacco, beer and rock, and of that peculiar tension that always hangs in places where people and non-people settle business without unnecessary paperwork. Above the bar, floor after floor, ran the departments of the Inquisition: offices with identical desks, identical chairs and identical folders, which stayed empty most of the time. Nika knew perfectly well that the inquisitors preferred to settle everything downstairs, in the hum of voices and the smell of whisky, where tone of voice and the weight of a stare did the work of protocols. The upper floors were kept as scenery: look, we’re a serious outfit. But the seriousness lay not in the paperwork but in how abruptly conversations died whenever Sol, head of the local branch, walked through the door.

Outside the Iron Fang, propped against the heavy stonework, loomed the bulk of Duncan. Six foot six of beard and shoulders: with a build like that, Glasgow offers two career paths, bouncer or biker. Duncan had managed to combine them. He stood there in a biker jacket over a T-shirt with the logo of some ancient rock band, as though the famous “charms” of the weather were a mosquito bite to an elephant.

He watched the departing taxi with a lazy gaze and, as Nika approached, arched one thick brow, like a man who has caught a drunk hooker sprawled across his bike: not so much furious as wearily astonished. Here we go again. What am I supposed to do with this? The streetlamp glinted off his silver inquisitor’s badge.

“In a taxi, eh, Ni?” He grinned. “Whit’s the matter, then?¹ Yer wings at the dry cleaner’s, halo needs charged?² Is the broom back in the cupboard where it belongs? Sweeps better than it flies, I hear. Whit did ye dae tae the poor cabbie? An’ mair importantly, whit for?”

Nika stopped a couple of paces away, pointedly ignoring the heavy “holy” aura rolling over her in waves. Any other vampire would have felt it like a taser. She, on the contrary, felt warmed by it. A walking corpse, if you believed half the films, and here she was, edging toward her natural enemy like a cat toward a grizzly bear. He was no grizzly, and in any way that mattered he was no enemy either. Bloody hell, she wouldn’t have minded warming herself against him right now, but he’d be the last to find out. Ever. Hee-hee. Instead she said something entirely different.

“Duncan! I’m a vampire, no’³ a witch, and definitely no’ an angel!” Nika snorted, burying her frozen hands in her pockets. “And for your information, even witches dinnae fly on brooms any more. I doubt they ever did. Most likely your inquisitor numpties⁴ made that rubbish up, the sort whose sex life happens once an era and only with a protocol. And as for the cabbie…”

Her face twisted in a squeamish grimace.

“I can’t stand it when they undress me with their eyes, weighin’ up how to lay me out in that very taxi and shag me. Macho man, my arse. Half-baked, with a pathetic imagination to boot!” Nika jerked her head toward where the car had gone. “And the funny thing is, he looked like a model family man: wedding ring, photo of the kids on the dashboard, even a keyring that said ‘My Family, My World’. And in his head, a rubbish dump. Fiddlin’ passengers, billin’ for traffic jams that never existed… and thinkin’ that way about customers. I’d get it if he were just some lecherous good-lookin’ bloke who at least knows what he’s doin’. But no! This one genuinely believes he’s entitled to those looks and thoughts. The only reason I didnae kill him is that he’s never assaulted a drunk fare. Sometimes he got handsy, pocketed ‘forgotten’ handbags or wallets, but never crossed the line. That’s his whole virtue: ‘I’m no’ a rapist, I’m just a crook and a pervert.′ Lovely man.”

She sighed, shivering again as a fresh gust hit.

“So I had to lean on his will a wee bit,⁵ just to get his brain back out of his trousers and into the skull where it’s meant to be stationed. Then I wiped every memory o’ me and replaced myself with two old gentlemen who snogged⁶ furiously on the back seat the whole way and kept invitin’ him to join in! Let him start savin’ up for a therapist.”

Duncan shook his head, plainly trying to banish the picture, and, judging by his face, failing. Having savoured his suffering, Nika sighed dramatically.

“Now, about my beloved bike…” she began, and promptly jabbed an accusing finger, its sharp nail painted scarlet, into his broad chest. “One ginger-bearded git, six foot six and built like a bear, has been promisin’ for two weeks to swing by and listen to what’s knockin’ in the engine. But naw!⁷ The second I so much as hint at it, this certain someone melts into the fog like a girl’s illusions. Testin’ my bloodlust, that’s what it is. I’m this close to grabbin’ him by the beard, draggin’ him home and standin’ him next to the bike as a livin’ battery. Let his blood be the fuel for once. I’m nearly convinced that if I poured it into the tank instead of petrol, the bike would start, seein’ as there’s clearly more alcohol in this man’s blood than the legal limit allows. And if the knockin’ finally stops too, the sacrifice wasn’t in vain. Almost like tuning: only instead of a new gasket, an opened artery.”

“Och,⁸ so is that an invitation tae a date, m’lady?” Duncan pressed a theatrical palm to his chest, his voice dripping pathos like a leaky tap.

“Duncan!” Nika barked, jumping in a futile attempt to reach the back of that ginger menace’s head. He dodged with ease, roaring with laughter like a whole garage of Harleys idling. She planted her feet on the wet tarmac and glared up at him, eyes flashing. “We’ve been through this! At least three times. Or are you suggestin’ we act out a scene from that film? The one your department, the one failin’ to disguise itself as a motorcycle club, howled at like a herd of geldings on an outing?”

She put on an innocently roguish look and breathed out, in a dramatic half-whisper, like a cheap actress in a B-grade horror:

“‘Oh, hi, I’m a bloodsucker… shall we greet the dawn, claws locked?’”

Duncan’s whole manner changed. He leaned in, looming over her, which was easy with his size (everyone looms over her, annoying, damn it), and with a lazy huskiness delivered the film’s next line, copying the on-screen expression down to the last detail: anticipation in his eyes, the corners of his mouth turned up, as though he’d played this scene a hundred times and enjoyed it every time.

“…Actually, sounds kinda romantic.”

And he winked, so quickly that anyone who blinked would have missed it. It held everything: mockery, challenge, and the silent I know you’re angry, but we both like this.

Nika smiled after all. She didn’t notice how the corners of her mouth crept upward. She had never been able to stay angry for long when she looked at that mockingly good-natured face. The most she ever managed was to box his ears. Not always, though: the difference in height meant she couldn’t use that move whenever she liked. And dragging a stepladder along just to reach him… She was already a permanent target for jokes, and handing them fresh material herself didn’t appeal much.

‘Fine, fine,’ she muttered, softening her voice, though she hadn’t wanted him to notice. ‘You win. But only cos I’m turnin’ into an icicle, no’ cos your jokes are funny.′

Duncan gave a smug hum, and the thought of the stepladder settled into her head again. She shook her head to drive it out and pulled the mask of weary sarcasm back on.

But other memories pushed through it, from the time when she was still who she had been before she became what she was now. An unexpected invitation to the cinema, to some film that was popular that year. How they had met and sat in a café before the showing, how they had watched the film itself – or rather chatted, paying no attention to the film or to the people telling them off for disturbing everyone – and how, by the end of the evening, they had both understood that nothing beyond firm friendship was on the cards. They spent the rest of that evening and the night wandering the streets, chatting about all sorts of rubbish, laughing at the street musicians who played as though someone were chasing them. That evening there had been no tension between them, only a lightness she had spent a long time afterwards trying to recall, once everything went pear-shaped.

And then came the moment Nika preferred not to remember. Yet another concert, a chaotic drunken brawl that erupted right in front of the stage, and somebody dragged her into the thick of the scrum by accident. She couldn’t even remember how she got out. She came away with two long cuts on her arm, and at the time she paid them no attention. Scratches were scratches.

Back then she still wore trainers with neon laces and thought that ‘cool’ was not about leather jackets and chains, but about the knack of not losing your keys in the dark. Now that version of herself felt like a stranger’s, like an old photograph where you recognise the face but don’t feel the person.

Then came what she first took for ordinary flu – fever one minute, chills the next – but which turned out to be her turning into a vampire. And the hunger. A ravenous, maddening hunger that rots the mind from within. Shrouded in an almost total loss of memory, she tumbled out into the dark night, driven by a desperate urge to quench that thirst on some random drunk or homeless man.

That was the state Radnas found her in, an old energy vampire who became her mentor. He subdued her, helped her through that first hunger, and dragged her unconscious little body straight here, to the Iron Fang. There he all but demanded, practically as an ultimatum, that Sol – head of the Scottish branch of the Inquisition – allow him to raise her to the next level of vampirism, turning her from an ordinary bloodsucker into an energy vampire. Without proper control she was already beginning to lose her humanity, sliding toward becoming a revenant or even a ghoul, and only a second transformation ritual could drag her back.

Being an energy vampire wasn’t just about drinking blood. It meant feeling other people’s emotions become your fuel: someone else’s fear burned the tongue like strong spirits, while someone else’s joy left a sweetish aftertaste that you immediately wanted to wash away with something bitter. That was exactly why the ritual had been so brutal: they hadn’t merely changed her body, they had tamed her hunger and taught it to see boundaries.

Then came the ritual itself. Five endless days of agony, while Radnas and three inquisitors – Sol, Duncan and Kamanch – used blood, potions and the surgical precision of a scalpel to make her wholly what she was today. Of the whole ritual Nika remembered clearly only a few things. Pain. Hunger. Her own screams. And Duncan’s voice – calm, mockingly tender, like a grown-up coaxing a child not to poke its fingers into a socket. He wiped her face with a wet cloth, deftly dodging her fangs as they snapped for his palm, and fed her some nonsense: you can’t do that, darlin’, you can’t, come on now, settle down, lass. At that moment she hadn’t cared in the slightest who he was or what he was. She simply clung to that voice, like a drowning woman to a thrown rope, like a drowning man to a straw.

She shook her head, shaking off the memories and forcing herself back into her usual ironic, mocking tone.

‘That’s old history, Dunnie. But if you think I’ve gone any softer since then on brutal blokes in leather and chains who reek of incense, who prefer forty-per-cent whisky to consecrated Cahors, and who are convinced that a proper blessing means first givin’ the blessed one a good hammerin’ in the liver and kidneys with a cross, then you’re sorely mistaken!′ She folded her arms, shuddering with cold again. ‘And anyway, are you goin’ to let me into the lair of those part-time inquisitors or no’? I’m bloody freezin’! Dunc-a-a-an!′

Duncan literally doubled over with laughter, clutching his stomach. His laugh was the sort that made even the streetlamps seem to flicker in time. Even so, he nodded toward the entrance and even pulled the heavy door open for her, knowing full well that she might, quite by accident, rip it off its hinges. As had happened once, when she misjudged her strength, and they’d paid for it out of their own pockets afterwards.

As Nika slipped past him and stepped onto the first stair, his voice reached her back:

‘But it works, Ni!¹ Sae why change whit’s daein’ the job fine?²′

The girl only snorted, shook her head, and stepped inside.

The fearsome Inquisition. Stern men who guard the normal from the otherworldly and make sure the two never meet. Wild bikers. Yes, of course. In the end they were nothing but boys. And it didn’t matter how old they were – fourteen, when they were usually admitted to the first rung, or three hundred and more, like that High Inquisitor she had never met in person. Who, by her friends’ account, had still not lost his taste for life and wild escapades, even at such a venerable age, and whose favourite saying was: ‘I’m up for any ruckus, bar a hunger strike!’ Nika smiled to herself. No amount of holiness or whisky would ever reform them.

***

The main part of the bar lay deep in the cellar of the old building – roughly level with the city sewers. But for those who knew exactly whose place this was – and for the owners themselves – the underground stench was the last thing on their minds. Besides, in any case there wasn’t one: thick walls and cunning ventilation shafts hidden behind false bricks let through not a drop of damp and not a gram of smell from beneath the city. Here it smelled different – of iron, leather, whisky and something else, almost imperceptible but very important: the smell of a safe place.

For those who lived between worlds, the Iron Fang was a refuge. It made no difference whether you were a werewolf, a vampire, a mage or a warlock: the Incs couldn’t have cared less about your fangs or your spells – the main thing was to keep your hands to yourself.

Nika all but flew down the spiral stone staircase, skipping steps like a little girl firmly intent on breaking her neck. She stopped dead on the very last step – a ridiculous headline had suddenly flared up in her head: ‘Vampire slips and breaks neck descending into inquisitors’ lair!′ She could even picture the lads’ faces and almost hear their thunderous, breathless roars of laughter, should such a story ever surface.

Wincing at the mere thought of such disgrace, Nika froze at the entrance and swept her gaze over the room.

After the cold outside, the warmth of the cellar wrapped around her like a thick blanket: her fingers, curled into fists in her pockets, began to thaw, prickling unpleasantly, as if a current were running through them. The light down here was low and amber – dim lamps under smoke-stained shades plucked tables, faces and the gleam of bottles behind the bar out of the gloom, while the corners drowned in shadow. Beneath the thunder of the speakers ran the clink of glasses and the low murmur of voices.

They never bloody change, she thought, with an affectionate, slightly exasperated sigh. And yet it was precisely that sameness that warmed her: here the emotions were simple, understandable, almost homely – and therefore especially tasty for an energy vampire. Other people’s excitement, other people’s laughter, even other people’s shame – all of it settled on the tongue like a light spark, reminding her that she wasn’t alone.

Behind the bar stood Fox, lazily polishing a glass that was already spotless. He was yet another genuine mountain – almost two metres tall, no smaller than Duncan – and looked like a slow, clumsy lump of a man.

But Nika knew that slowness was a decoy. He moved as though time belonged to him and not the other way round. And when it was needed, he managed everything: catching a falling glass, seizing a brawler’s arm and nodding to an acquaintance by the door all at once – without changing his bored expression in the slightest.

Oh yes, clumsy. Nika remembered only too well how this very ‘clumsy’ giant, with the same look of cosmic boredom on his face, had flung her across the training hall like a rag doll during her first lessons. And he’d done it without moving from the spot – his boots never left the same patch of floor.

A few paces from the bar, a small pack of werewolves had taken a table. Opposite them sat Night Tier – a lean, sharp-eyed inquisitor. Nika’s relations with Tier had always been, to put it mildly, strained, but he still put up with her turning up here at any hour, letting her treat the place like her own living room.

She knew all their real names, of course. But it had somehow turned out that nobody here ever used names – bar the rare exception. Even her own full name, Veronika, was known to barely a dozen of her closest people and non-people.

And although his nickname sounded as though it ought to hint at animal blood, Tier was a hundred per cent human. If, of course, the notion of a ‘hundred per cent human’ applied to inquisitors at all: in his case it meant no fur, no fangs, no animal nose – only steel self-control, impeccable reflexes and a habit of calculating every move three steps ahead.

In front of Night stood an almost empty one-litre bottle of William Lawson’s, with three completely drained ones flanking it. Nika narrowed her eyes, instantly fitting the puzzle together.

A classic. Somebody had given pride free rein by throwing down the gauntlet in the oldest contest in the world: ‘who can outdrink whom?’

The werewolf at the far end had clearly lost the battle already – he was sound asleep, slumped against the stone wall. The remaining two were still holding on, though mostly by holding on to each other. Tier, a true beast when it came to composure, calmly filled their glasses with a steady hand. He didn’t even look at the glasses – he poured as if doing it blindfold, and still not a drop was spilled.

From the two who were still holding on rolled waves of stubbornness – thick and tart, like over-stewed tea – and a warm, drunken brotherhood, the kind both would flatly deny in the morning. Nika drew it in like the smell from a stranger’s kitchen and couldn’t help smiling.

Nika caught a few sidelong glances – one of the werewolves ran his eyes over her, another raised a brow almost imperceptibly. But there was no malice or irritation aimed at her in those looks: rather a habitual, almost everyday attention – as if to say, ‘she’s here again’ – without hostility, without delight, simply a fact.

Suddenly, cutting through the roar of heavy metal thundering from the speakers, a clear, unplugged sound of an acoustic guitar carried across the room. And a high, clear voice picked up a familiar melody with a sly rewrite:

‘Pay the vampire in minted coin! In minted coin! O-oh-o-oh!‘²’

Nika smirked. A modern classic, covered specially for her. Of course Kamanch hadn’t missed her grand entrance, and he certainly wasn’t going to let it pass without a performance.

He was sprawled on the wooden steps of the small stage where a drum kit stood alone. Sometimes Nika herself sang on that stage when she was talked into it. But usually that territory belonged strictly to Kamanch. And, as ever, he had literally grown into those damned steps.

He greeted her with a wave of the beer bottle in his hand. She nodded to him, but first headed straight for the bar.

‘What’s the news, lady?’ Fox asked, not taking his eyes off the glass he was polishing.

‘Felix, please, just don’t start,’ Nika groaned, leaning against the polished wood. ‘I’ve already had my share of grief from Duncan upstairs.’

‘What, did he ask you out again?’

‘No’ again, still!′ she snapped. ‘Listen, Fox, make me a mojito… or… oh, to hell with it, you only live once. Make me a Bloody Mary.’

The giant finally stopped polishing the glass and turned to her with the whole of his massive body, his face inscrutable.

‘And does the little lady have valid ID proving she has reached the legal age for drinking alcohol?’

‘Fox!’ Nika growled, and a real, predatory rumble sounded in her throat.

And then, before she could blink, the freshly made scarlet drink was already standing right under her nose. It was astonishing. Even with her enhanced vampire reflexes and her kinetic vision, Nika had never once managed to catch the movement of his hands. How he did it, and at what incredible speed, remained a complete mystery.

Well, she mused, picking up the glass, a century of experience isn’t something you can simply lose. Even if you try your hardest to drown it in booze.

Nika nodded to Fox, took her glass and turned to look at Kamanch. He patted the step beside him, and Nika, with a casual shrug, went over. Stopping right in front of him, she studied him closely.

Kamanch, like the rest of their crowd, was an absolute oddball. He was tall, nearly two metres, but so thin and sinewy that he looked as if he’d been starved all his life. A walking anatomy textbook – with long fingers and an equally long tongue.

It wasn’t that he talked without stopping, but when it came to razor-sharp sarcasm and insults delivered with an expression of absolute, supreme respect, he had no equal. Usually the meaning of his words reached the listener only after a few seconds.

Nika took a sip of her Bloody Mary and began to sing softly, her voice a low purr:

“Baby, can’t you see?

I’m calling a guy like you

Should wear a warning

It’s dangerous, I’m fallin’.”

Kamanch stopped plucking the strings and raised his eyes to her. Then he sighed heavily and muttered:

‘Bitch.’

‘That’s why you all love me!’ she shot back, and only then finally sat down next to him.

She had no idea why he couldn’t stand that song or why he always took it so much to heart, but why pass up a chance to tease him? Especially considering how he and the others treated her. Not for anything in the world!

At that moment, just as she set down her glass, strong hands seized her by the neck and a fist in a fingerless glove ground into the top of her head.

‘Well, well, if it isn’t sweet little baby Dracula!’ Kamanch giggled in her ear. ‘Did you really think I’d just sit there and not try to get my own back? Ha-ha! Taste the sweet taste of righteous revenge!’

‘Kamanch! You absolute bastard! I’ll rip your bloody arms off and shove them up your arse!’ Nika yelled, kicking and flailing. ‘Holy saints! I only did my hair yesterday! Let go of me, you bony anatomical knock-off of a man!’

Naturally, Kamanch paid no attention either to her shouts or to her attempts to break free, wholly focused on his dark work. Nobody else in the pub even noticed. A vampire and an inquisitor squaring up playfully? Nobody in the Fang cared; it was perfectly obvious that it was all just fun.

After all, Nika could easily rip the arms off almost anyone in that room – as easily as tearing somebody to pieces. And the inquisitors themselves, given the slightest chance, could tie any opponent into a neat knot. So not a single head turned in their direction. Meanwhile Kamanch went on sowing chaos on her head.

‘Bored, were you? Since you decided to drop in on us,’ he smirked. ‘Everything has its price, darling. I’ll just turn you into a proper punk rocker, and then I’ll let you go!’

’I’ll turn you into a punk myself!′ Nika snapped back. Shifting her weight, she twisted round and plopped straight onto Kamanch’s lap. And in revenge she set about wrecking his own hair – which, to be honest, was hardly shorter than hers – turning it into something that looked nothing like a hairstyle. The lad’s fingers tickled her ribs in return, making her writhe and wriggle on his lap every few seconds.

But Kamanch was partly right. She had come because she was dying of boredom. And with the Incs, boredom was physically impossible. Even if in the end she herself turned out to be the butt of the jokes.

Nika pulled a few hair ties out of her pocket. Gathering a lock of Kam’s hair, she was working out what monstrosity to plait it into – something that would take him a good two hours to undo, with a quiet, not especially affectionate curse on her name. Or a loud and very angry one. Depends on the audience.

As she tightened the band, she smiled in spite of herself – a memory from nearly a year ago winked at her over the Welshman’s shoulder. Back then she had been hiding from the same foul, damp weather and had popped into the Fang for a minute – to hand Sol the updated app she had written at his request, the one he had badgered her to make. Instead she had walked straight into the middle of a drunken celebration marking the close of some high-profile case.

Naturally, they didn’t let her go. And, naturally, she was instantly appointed target of the general ribbing. The most dangerous kind of vampire? A deadly opponent to almost any living creature? Without a doubt. But also a slim, green-eyed brunette, one metre sixty-three tall, which automatically made her ‘easy prey’ in the eyes of a crowd of drunken operatives. Size matters, yeah. Just not the kind they had in mind.

She never found out who came out with the line that set it all off:

‘Hey, let’s play! Catch the lady vamp and you win a French kiss!’

And, of course, the only vampire for miles around was Nika. She sized up the situation, weighed the odds and accepted the only sensible offer of the entire year. Knocking back one more shot, she got up from her chair, shouted, ‘Here I am, lads, come an’ catch me!′ and slipped out the door into the pouring Scottish rain.

Behind her the crowd roared, and heavy army boots thundered across the pavement. The inquisitors – drunk, but still bloody dangerous – tore after her like a pack of hounds after a fox.

And off they went. Nika flew through the lanes of Glasgow, bounded up fire escapes and leapt across rain-slicked rooftops, smearing into a pale shadow under the drizzling sky. She teased them: hung about on cornices, blew kisses and vanished a second before somebody’s strong fingers could snatch the hem of her jacket. Laughter, roaring, whistling – the city shimmered with neon below, adrenaline hummed in her blood, and somewhere behind her a decent fifteen of the best monster hunters in Europe were chasing her like lads after a tram.

The lads kept up. The Incs knew the city the way pathologists know the structure of a skeleton: they cut through dark courtyards and vaulted fences with the agility of seasoned werewolves. But Duncan outwitted them all. While the others noisily herded her across the roofs, the ginger rogue was calculating her route three moves ahead.

And when Nika, breathing hard and in a state of deep, triumphant overconfidence, dropped into a dead end full of bins somewhere in the Merchant City and was already rehearsing her victory smirk, the shadow of one of the brick walls lazily detached itself, turning into a massive figure. Duncan. He blocked the only exit, wreathed in the steam of his own breath, with his trademark smug grin on his face.

‘Got ye, hen,’ he breathed.

What came next Nika afterwards remembered not as scenes but as flashes.

His hands found her waist before she had properly pushed off. The wall at her back – wet, cold, rough. His lips – strong ale and peaty whisky. And her own astonishing discovery: she didn’t want to break free. At all. The hunter’s thrill and the fury of cornered prey collided inside her and turned out, damn it, to be the very same feeling.

Duncan caught her up in his arms and claimed her mouth in a crushing, possessive kiss. Nika, still burning from the chase, answered with the same wild energy. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, bit his lips until they bled, and her head spun while her fangs lengthened of their own accord at the proximity of the pulsing jugular vein in the inquisitor’s neck.

There was nothing tender about it. It was two apex predators colliding at the top of their game. And on the very first breath Nika knew this wouldn’t end with kissing. It had never intended to end with kissing.

Duncan only let out a low growl, pinning her harder against the wall and shifting his grip to her thighs, robbing her of the last of her footing. She answered by wrapping her legs around his waist, one hand holding herself at his neck, her lips never leaving his, while the other hand fumbled frantically for the zip – first on his leathers, then, losing patience, on her own.

The rain came down in sheets, the alley stank of rotten vegetables and somebody’s piss, and Nika – who by trade was supposed to turn her nose up at that kind of ambience – could not have cared less. Because Duncan was already tearing the jacket off her. Because his palms were scorching her skin through a soaked T-shirt. Because her own hands were doing things sober Nika would’ve demanded a written explanation for from drunk Nika.

The first time happened right there – against the wall, in the dark, to the applause of rain on tin awnings. He drove into her hard and deep, slamming her back into the brickwork, and Nika, to keep from screaming loud enough to wake all of the Merchant City, sank her fangs into his collarbone. Duncan didn’t flinch. Didn’t stop. Just growled low and moved harder, as if the fangs in his own shoulder were part of the bargain. Part of the prize.

The wall remembered everything: the weight of him pinning her, heavy and hot as an iron stove on a freezing night. Her nails raking his back through the jacket. His hands gripping her under the arse, until the world shrank to his breath on her wet neck, to the smell of rain and sweat and peat smoke. She gave her moans no freedom – swallowed them into his collarbone, his shoulder, his wet beard, and Duncan took every bite the way you take a trophy: with a growl and something close to gratitude.

The second time happened at his place. The third – in the morning. Nika omitted the details even to herself, but the total count for that night and the following day went into her personal ledger under ‘season record’.

The aftermath of that ‘game’ kept both of them paying for a long while. Nika spent two days hiding swollen, bitten lips that stung at the slightest touch, and her knees went traitorously weak at the mere memory of how his hands had gripped her waist in that damp alley – with such commanding assurance, as if the wall had legal rights to her and he had rights to everything else.

Duncan, however, had it far worse. A massive purple love bite sat proudly on his neck, right over the jugular, topped off with two neat fang punctures. Another one on his collarbone – deep, bearing the full imprint of her jaw. A proper vampire’s mark. Twice over.

Sol nearly ate him alive at the morning briefing, suspecting his best operative had fallen under a vampire’s thrall. Fox spent a whole week lazily asking whether Duncan fancied ordering scarves in bulk or borrowing some concealer off the girls at the brothel. Duncan fobbed them off, went red under the beard and flatly refused to give up his accomplice.

Quiet one. He’d earned himself a biscuit.

Nika surfaced from her memories, tightening the last hair tie on Kam’s head and casting a light illusion over it to hide the result from him.

By the time the artistry was finished, a skilfully crafted palm tree made of his own hair and several hair ties stood proudly on top of Kamanch’s head. Thanks to a small illusory spell on her part, Kam himself could see only a few plaits on his head, so from his point of view everything looked more or less normal. The rest of the pub, however, could appreciate the full result of her labours. A werewolf at a far table silently raised his glass in honour of the palm. Fox, without looking, set a glass with a coconut cocktail down next to Kamanch. No explanations. In the Fang they weren’t needed.

And Fox, still without looking, also put a little plate of cheese straws in front of Nika herself. Now that was more interesting. Nika had been sitting on Kamanch’s lap, building a botanical masterpiece out of his hair, and had been unable to see what her friend was doing to her own; now she slowly and reluctantly put two and two together. If he had her palm tree on his head, and Fox was bringing her straws… then, it followed, she had something on her head that had given the barman culinary associations. Wonderful. Simply wonderful.

Having finished, she leaned back and admired her handiwork – the palm really had turned out a sight for sore eyes: a straight trunk, a lush crown, wind-resistant – smiled tenderly and, still smiling, wrapped her hands round Kamanch’s neck. Jokingly, of course, in her wish to throttle this genius on the spot.

‘Drop dead, you swine,’ she sang sweetly.

Kamanch, without changing the expression on his face, calmly lifted her hands off his neck – briskly, the way you take off an annoying string of fairy lights – and reached for the glass that had been brought. Nika was even a bit offended for a second.

‘Gie us a comb,’ she demanded, and dug into her inside pocket for a small mirror.

Her suspicions were confirmed. Not only was her hair standing on end, it was sparking too. Strainedly, spitefully, crackling with static every time she turned the mirror, as if some little ball lightning had taken up residence in her hairdo and was rather pleased with its reflection – a reminder that Kam was, by trade, an energy mage. ‘An explosion at a pasta factory’ – even that would probably have looked more modest. Where she had picked up the expression she couldn’t remember. It came from her childhood, though Nika had never told anyone where she came from, and never shared words from home.

‘Short arms, babe,’ Kamanch answered, perfectly calm, having heard the demand. He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a bone comb. ‘Here, catch. But I want it back.’

The comb looked impossibly old – yellowish bone, worn to a shine along the teeth, as though whole generations had used it. Nika snatched the tool and began to put herself in decent order – and her hair untangled with an ease that insulted the laws of physics, all the more so since a second earlier that very hair had been putting on a firework display whenever she so much as reached for it. Clearly some household spell had been woven into the bone.

Confiscated, Nika decided at once, and began working out what illusion would cover the theft so that the Welshman wouldn’t notice the swap for the next couple of years. But aloud she asked something else:

‘What’s the news? Anything interesting?’

Kamanch nodded towards the far corner, where Sol’s table stood. Nika turned her head and squinted in the dim light.

Sol sat in his usual place. He was a metre seventy-five, of ordinary build, with blue eyes, a straight nose and jet-black hair down to his shoulder blades, tied back in a ponytail; his short beard had already taken on a distinguished silver at the edges. Opposite him sat Mary – an old bloodsucker of a vampiress who, as far as Nika knew, was nearing four hundred. And whatever conversation was going on there, it looked bad: Sol had half risen, looming over the table and shouting at Mary – who shrank on her chair, pressing her fingers together like a young lady at a ball being scolded by her father. Four centuries behind her, and subordination still in the blood.

What exactly he was shouting remained a mystery – the table was wrapped in a sound-dampening sphere that looked like a soap bubble. Only it held far firmer than any bubble, and Nika had no doubt the sound was packed in there for good.

‘Turned a fledgling without sanction, bypassing every rule, couldn’t keep him on a leash and let him slip away,’ Kamanch explained, catching Nika’s questioning look.

‘Oh,’ was all Nika could say.

And she instantly ran through a mental checklist. Turning without sanction. Without training. Without preparation. A hungry wildling loose in the city, at night. Oops. If anyone in this room knew what that smelled like, in the most literal sense, it was her. And somehow that knowledge didn’t make it any more fun. She had been lucky: they had stopped her before she ever attacked anyone, before she tasted a drop of living blood. This one, by the look of it, hadn’t been stopped. In the very app Nika had been finishing, a news item had popped up about several drained bodies found. That news was also her reason for dropping in at the bar tonight.

At that very moment the magic sphere burst with a melodious chime and dissolved into the air, and Sol’s raw roar rolled across the whole room:

‘Get out! An’ if I ever see yer face in this toon again, I’ll personally feed ye tae the rats an’ sprinkle whit’s left wi’ maggots!′

A second later Mary swept past them – a trail of old lace, lavender powder and four centuries of self-regard. Nika, who had barely managed to snatch her glass out of the vampiress’s path, followed her with a thoughtful look. The fury from Sol’s table had left a bitter, dry taste on Nika’s tongue, like ash; Mary’s fear trailed behind her – sourish and old, like lavender gone off in a cupboard.

Of course she knew almost all of Glasgow’s local vampires, but Mary stood out even among that crowd. It was the twenty-first century, and the lady still preferred lavish early-eighteenth-century gowns to any normal clothes. Uncomfortable, to put it mildly! And Nika didn’t even want to think how much time the woman spent on outfits and hairdos. Well, at least no wig – small mercies.

Right on the fleeing vampiress’s heels a glass flew at her back, hurled by Sol. Luckily – or perhaps unluckily – it flew past, smashing against the door in a cascade of shards. One rolled all the way to the steps where Nika and Kamanch sat. Nika picked it up, turned it in her fingers and looked through it at Sol’s now-empty table – from the far end of the room it all looked almost peaceful. Almost.

The picture was completed by Sol himself, tearing past in a fury. He flew up to the bar and vaulted over the counter in one fluid motion – with his build, the sight was roughly that of a whale leaping over a lifebuoy. He seized a full bottle of Glenfiddich with the stag on its label, yanked out the cork and downed nearly half of it in one enormous gulp.

The room went quiet for a second. Even the music seemed to pause – out of respect.

Nika mentally whistled. It took pushing Sol to the very limit for him to drink twelve-year-old single malt straight from the bottle. So the evening promised to be one where she’d do best to sit quietly in a corner. Wonderful. There it was at last, her long-held dream – a quiet, peaceful evening at the Fang.

At last Sol banged the bottle down on the bar and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He swept a heavy, gloomy gaze round the room – and his eyes stopped on Nika.

She was still sitting comfortably on Kamanch’s lap, fingers lazily winding his hair, the inquisitor’s hand resting casually on her waist.

Sol froze. He slowly shook his head, looking at the cosy scene – and then his expression changed. The primal fury didn’t vanish – it thickened into that sharp, ominous grin that usually made his subordinates’ palms start to sweat.

He raised a hand and slowly, with agonising unhurriedness, beckoned her over with one finger.

The room politely looked away. All at once. About fifteen Inquisition fighters and a few werewolves suddenly took a keen interest in the contents of their glasses, and the ghost, hovering as a misty haze by the empty billiard table, studied the baize. Everyone knew that gesture. Everyone knew what usually followed. And nobody wanted to be listed as a witness.

Nika’s insides clenched. She sighed heavily and began to get up, but Kamanch decided to speed things along by sharply and playfully pinching her on the backside.

‘Ow! Bastard,’ Nika hissed under her breath, shooting him an angry look. ‘We’ll deal with this later.’ But she didn’t waste time and headed for the bar.

She felt Sol’s gaze on her – or rather the gaze was following the magnificent ‘palm’ she had just built on his operative’s head. Sol raised a thick eyebrow, appraising his subordinate’s new look. Nika gave him an expression of purest angelic innocence – as though she had absolutely nothing to do with the botanical experiment left behind her back.

And still, walking up to Sol was like being a puppy that had just left a ‘surprise’ on its owner’s carpet. So she went with a straight back and an angelic face – briskly, as to the scaffold, with parade-ground dignity. One silly thought went round and round in her head: ‘I haven’t actually done anything… I think… Fine, definitely not this month!’

Nika walked up to the bar, trying to keep her step steady and unforced, though the familiar, gnawing guilt that Sol always roused in her was still churning in her chest. Stopping in front of him, she hesitated slightly, not knowing what to do with her hands, her feet shifting almost imperceptibly from place to place.

At last Sol raised his eyes. They were bloodshot with exhaustion, and deep in the pupils a faint flame of restrained anger still smouldered. From him came a weariness as thick as wet wool, and under it an anxiety for the city. Sol, like the rest of the inquisitors, never shut himself off from her, though he knew perfectly well what she was and what she could do. He could have. He didn’t. As ever, it felt like trust. Nika stood before him: in one hand a glass of Bloody Mary, in the other Kamanch’s bone comb, hidden away.

Sol, appraising her angelic expression, smirked.

‘Stop looking at me as though I’m about to make you do a bloody striptease on this bar,’ he rumbled. His voice was low and hoarse, making the glasses on the shelves rattle faintly. ‘Though knowing you, you’d probably do it just for fun. Take your Bloody Mary and come on. I’ve got a job for a bored lass like you. That’s why you’ve been hanging round the Fang tonight, isn’t it? Smelled something burning?’

She gave a brief nod, hiding a sharp smile. In her own past there was a similar ‘sin’ – back in her first year after the turning, when she hadn’t yet learned to handle alcohol or to control her new abilities.

She had climbed onto a pole to prove… something. If she was honest, she no longer remembered what exactly she’d been trying to prove, but she remembered distinctly how her ‘dance’ had almost grown into a full-blown orgy – and only the timely arrival of Sol and Radnas had stopped it. Her emotions had poured out into the room with nothing to hold them back – alcohol worked on vampires just as it did on everyone else, dulling control – and the whole bar had drunk them in and been swept along.

She also remembered all too well the brutal dressing-down she’d had to endure from both of them afterwards, along with Sol’s notorious line, delivered with a mentor’s absolute approval: ‘Spanking a grown woman, vampire or not, isn’t perversion, Ni. It’s belated upbringing!’ And Sol, being a man of his word, had put the line into practice then and there. Despite her inhuman, supernatural nature and accelerated healing, Nika’s backside had ached for a very long time after that lesson. Vampires, it turned out, remembered a grievance far longer than humans did – and she still reserved the right to remind him of it.

Grabbing a fresh glass that Fox had pushed towards her, Nika followed Sol to the farthest, darkest booth at the back of the room. She slid onto the battered leather seat and put on her best mask of indifference.

‘Judging by how Mary flew out of here, you’re in “inquisitor lawnmower” mode today, Sol,’ she remarked, watching him activate the sound-dampening sphere with a practised snap of his fingers. ‘I’m just keeping a safe distance. Don’t want to get caught under the blade when you decide to trim somebody’s ego.’

The world changed instantly. The noise of the bar, Kamanch’s off-key humming and the clatter of crockery vanished, replaced by a heavy, almost suffocating silence.

‘Mary’s an auld, daft coo,’ Sol spat, each word dropping onto the table like a lead bullet. ’Four centuries on this earth, and brains like a deid mackerel in the Glasgow docks. She turned a fledgling, Ni. Quietly. Without the say-so of the Vampire Council – who keep count of every bloodsucker in this city – and without the Inquisition’s sanction, without training, without a lick of sense. And that wee brat’s gone and run off on her.

‘Right now there’s a hungry, mad newborn wandering the city, and he doesnae even understand why his veins are on fire. His name’s Victor. And he’s already left three bodies. He’s three nights turned. Last seen heading for the Clyde. Not just corpses, Ni. A bloody mess.’

Drained dry – and then torn to pieces. That told Nika everything about his state: this was no longer feeding, only frenzy.

He exhaled sharply and leaned back.

‘Honestly, I wouldnae be surprised if the auld coo just wanted a young lover to warm her rotten bed and didnae think any further than that,’ Sol added bitterly. ‘Another idiot wi’ power an’ nae sense o’ consequences.′

Nika’s thoughts returned to her own first days. Unsanctioned turning, no control, a ‘fledgling’ flung out of the nest – she remembered only too well what had happened to her. But her own turning had been an accident, which was partly why she’d had to be hauled back and turned a second time, as an energy vampire. Here, in all likelihood, everything had been done by the book – bar the permission.

In the first days after the turning – or the ‘Turn’, as one American writer had neatly put it in his books – a fledgling’s strength rose sharply. In that period they really were capable of moving mountains. When mistakes like that got out of hand, the Inquisition didn’t bother with paperwork: they simply burned down the whole quarter along with everyone who had fangs**, or anything else that wasn’t human**.

Of course he’d come to her: an energy vampire reads another’s hunger and its emotional trail the way a hound reads a scent. That was exactly what frightened her.

‘And you want me to find him?’ She leaned back, trying to hide the trembling of her fingers. ‘Sol, what do you take me for? Yes, I’m a tracker, but going after a mad newborn at the peak of his strength and in full psychosis? That’s not a job. That’s a one-way ticket – in a wooden box roughly a metre by two.’

Memories of the Edinburgh report and of events five years old – the ones the lads had cleaned up without her – flared in her mind. Even that dry, clinical description of what had happened made her hair stand on end.

That newborn had torn apart a team of five experienced hunters before they could understand what had hit them. Their remains were scattered over an area the size of a football pitch. The whole incident had been recorded in cold, detached language, yet those lines had burned themselves into her imagination as something deeply personal. As had the fact that the monster had been stopped only by bringing a multi-storey building down on his head and then flooding the ruins with holy water – which, unlike on Nika, worked on freshly turned vampires like sulphuric acid on humans.

That catastrophe was one of the reasons the Inquisition had watched her with suffocating attention for several months afterwards. And it wasn’t Sol’s lads who watched her: it was an outside team, sent straight from the Vatican itself.

And yet she couldn’t afford to show fear. Now was exactly the time to push all her boundaries. To step right to the edge. After all, it was the only way to grow stronger – to fight on the very brink, or even far beyond the limits of her own strength.

Sol, as if reading her thoughts, leaned forward, and a ray of dim light fell across his face.

‘Don’t play the innocent victim with me, Ni. You’re an energy vampire… lass. A unique little glitch in our bestiary. You can get close to him the way none of my lads ever could. He won’t even smell you until the last second, until you’re right behind his bloody back. To his kind you’re just background noise, a faint hum in the air – until you drive a blade into his heart.’

‘Oh, thanks for the compliment, boss! My heart’s fair fluttering, ready to burst with joy,’ she retorted caustically. ‘But “won’t smell me” doesn’t mean “won’t rip my head off” once he realises I didn’t find him to play hide-and-seek. Send your hunters. Duncan likes swinging a sword more than drinking a pint of ale. And Fox would gladly drown the whole neighbourhood in napalm.’

‘My lads would be like elephants in a china shop,’ Sol cut in. ‘If they start the hunt, the whole bloody city will be gossiping about a vampire incident by dawn. I need silence. I need a surgical approach. I need you.’

Nika took a long swig from her glass. She already knew she’d agree. Boredom was her personal curse, and this job literally smelled of adrenaline – everything she’d just been weighing up in her mind. But agreeing too easily meant losing face.

‘It’s suicide, Sol. Plain and simple. That bastard Victor has more raw power than Mary right now, and not only because his brakes have completely failed. You want me to risk my skin to cover that old bitch’s backside?’ She rose with deliberate flourish, adjusting her collar. ‘Find another kamikaze. I’m no’ signin’ up for this for a few measly coins. Besides, my bike’s died in the garage. And trailing round the city with your lads? They’ll only clog up my senses with all their holiness.′

‘Five thousand pounds, double rate,’ Sol threw at her back. ‘And I’ll personally make Duncan and Kamanch strip your engine down to the last bolt. Original parts, full overhaul, the best oil money can buy.’

Hearing the price, Nika stopped right at the edge of the shimmering sphere. The offer was bloody tempting, but her instinct told her it was still not enough.

She glanced back towards the main hall. Kamanch, still sprawled on the steps of the stage, caught her eye through the warped space. He winked, struck the strings and launched into a song that sent the whole pub into roars of laughter. She was absolutely certain the song was about her, and that her role in it was far from heroic. A plan for revenge instantly took shape in her head.

She slowly turned, dangerous sparks dancing in her green eyes, a predatory smile playing on her lips.

‘Ten thousand, Sol,’ she countered, returning to the table and planting her palms on the wood. ‘Cash. And Duncan and Kamanch are mine for two weeks. At my complete disposal. Personal servants. Cleaners, porters, footmen… I won’t let them cook – I value my life too much – but they’ll lug my shopping bags and dust my shelves at the snap of a finger. In short, everything my damned soul desires – bar physical injury, of course. How about that?’

Sol froze. Nika caught it at once: a flash of pure horror from him, and beneath it a helpless glimmer of laughter. For a split second a vivid picture flashed before his mind’s eye: his two best, fiercest operatives, loaded down with pink bags from boutiques on Buchanan Street. On the TV above the bar, a music video by a famous British band had just started – the one where the frontman and the rest of the musicians were dressed as housewives.¹ Sol could almost see his subordinates in exactly such outfits, vacuum cleaners in hand, curlers in their hair. He shook his head fiercely to banish the awful vision.

‘Two weeks is too much, Ni. You’d wreck my schedule, bloody hell,’ Sol’s face darkened. The situation with Victor really must have been catastrophic. ’Here’s what I’ll say: three days. For three days you can do whatever you like with them – dress them in tutus and make them dance Swan Lake, I don’t care. And as compensation for the rest…′

He leaned down, opened a small safe hidden under the table, and set a tiny dark glass bottle in front of her. The liquid inside shimmered with a dull, oily golden gleam.

Nika’s breath caught. She had seen something like it only once.

She forced herself to keep her expression perfectly neutral, though something inside her clenched sharply at the sight. She could feel it from where she sat: a low hum under her skin, warmth like a stove in a freezing room, tugging at her. Holiness poured from it, but, like Duncan’s aura, it didn’t burn – it warmed. A primal desire flared – to snatch it up and never let go – but she smothered it deep beneath her usual mask of indifference.

‘What’s that?’ she asked, her voice level, almost bored, as though it meant absolutely nothing to her.

‘The Blood of Saint Patrick. A hundred million volts of pure energy charge,’ Sol said quietly. ‘A relic of the Order. Even for you, this little bottle will make you a goddess for a few hours, maybe even days. Strength, speed, accelerated healing… and absolutely no thirst. It’ll also push you straight up to the next level of control.’

Nika swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. It was a royal reward. But the negotiations weren’t over yet.

‘Make it five days, Sol. Five days of “slavery” for the lads, ten thousand and the bike. Plus… the most important thing. If this walking corpse decides to snack on anybody else while I’m tracking him, or if any collateral damage happens during our little showdown – that’s not on my conscience. You give me full immunity. No official charges, no stain on my name in the reports. You pin it all on Mary or on Victor, but I come out of this clean as a whistle.’

Sol looked at her in silence, mentally calculating what it would cost him to tidy the records. At last he held out his broad, calloused hand.

‘Five days. Agreed. Immunity confirmed, for the hunt itself. But you’ll get the vial when Victor stops breathing.’

‘Vial first, Sol,’ Nika covered the bottle with her palm, closing it off. ‘Shrouds have no pockets, and I’ll need all the power in the world to bring you his head and keep my own.’

The inquisitor slowly, finger by finger, loosened his grip on the relic.

‘Fine. But listen to me, Ni: if you fail, I’ll personally make sure your name is the first one written in those reports.’

‘You always knew how to charm a girl, boss,’ she smiled, shoving the vial deep into the pocket of her leather jacket.

***

Nika stopped her bike beside a garage cooperative and killed the engine. It died with a soft, even purr, without a single knock: Duncan and Kamanch had kept their end of the bargain down to the last bolt. On foot from here. She could clearly sense the echoes of death’s emanations and the metallic tang of fresh blood. Death hung on her tongue like cold iron and old ash. And beneath it, from somewhere ahead, rolled something else: not just hunger and rage, but something raw and frightened, a bewilderment that made her stomach clench. Victor still didn’t understand what had happened to him. She remembered all too well how that felt. It meant their hunt was finally approaching its climax.

Five days – five bloody days and nights – it had taken her and the lads to narrow down the search area and pinpoint this district. And in that time Victor had managed to drain at least three more.

Nika sighed heavily and walked past the garages. They were relics of the last century, from when people still didn’t quite trust modern car parks and preferred to lock their cars away behind heavy iron doors with massive padlocks.

She and the lads were both completely wrung out to the limit. In her case because staying in that sensory strain, stretching the net of her perception as far and wide as was physically possible for such a long stretch, did not pass without a trace. Everything had its price, and a net of that scale demanded its payment.

Every evening, when the search stopped simply because she couldn’t hold on for another second, Nika would literally pounce on the lads the moment they got home. Such large-scale, prolonged strain on her supernatural abilities roused in her an irresistible, greedy sexual arousal. She would exhaust herself and the lads in bed until at last she fell into a restless, dreamless sleep.

The lads held no grudge; they understood everything perfectly. They were a tight, seasoned team, and this was not their first hunt together. None of them, not even Duncan, expected anything but fierce, intimate comradeship. She and Duncan both understood that right now they definitely couldn’t be together, but that never stopped them talking.

After all, she was a vampire and they were inquisitors. There was no room here for real relationships or families. They stood on opposite sides of the barricades. And work always came first. For now they were simply working: that they would pass into her personal ‘slavery’ the moment the case was closed, she hadn’t yet told them.

Through the leather of her jacket, against her ribs, the vial of Saint Patrick’s blood gave off a low, warm pulse. She still hadn’t decided whether she would drink it before the fight, but she had brought it all the same: a fledgling at the peak of his strength could easily tear her into a great many little Nikas.

Coming up to the first garage, she stopped. Before going any further, she ran her palm down her shin – the blade was in its place – and then touched her earpiece, speaking in a low whisper. She had no idea whether both of them were on the line or only Kamanch, so she spoke to both.

‘Kam, he’s close. I’m starting the sweep. Tell Dunnie to move out, and you stay on comms. He’s definitely somewhere round here. The taste of blood and death is too sharp. How’s my signal?’

‘I hear you loud and clear, Ni,’ the lad replied instantly. ‘I’m in the pub on Kilpatrick. I’m passing the info to Duncan now. As soon as he picks me up, we’ll tear over to you. And you, babe, if you track him first – don’t play the bloody hero. Leave that filth to us.’

‘So you can take all the glory again? Like in Manchester, where I did the tracking and you took the bow? Figna!¹⁹’ Nika snorted, adding her favourite Slavic word just to wind him up. She had never told them where she came from, but Kamanch and Duncan, if they didn’t know it for certain, at least had a good guess that her roots were Slavic. ‘If I find him first, I’ll let you know, but after that, whatever happens, happens. Over and out.’

‘Good luck,’ came Kamanch’s voice, a little softer.

Soon the stench of blood and death grew so thick that not even the fresh breeze blowing off the Clyde could disperse it. Then she heard a heartbeat. Slow, weak, almost indistinguishable, but distinct. That was how vampires’ hearts beat. That was how her own heart beat. Nika realised she had found him.

She peered round the corner and noticed the half-open door of one of the garages. The padlock lay beside it on the ground – not picked, but savagely torn out together with its locking mechanism. Taking a couple of silent, catlike steps, she looked inside the garage.

There he was.

Inside, under the sickly flicker of a single bulb, lay two girls. Naked. Lifeless. Dumped on the filthy concrete like broken dolls. One was curled on her side, her tangled hair covering her face; the other lay on her back, terror still frozen on her features. Their throats had been torn open by ragged, ugly bites – the unmistakable mark of a greedy newborn.

Victor knelt before them, his back to Nika. Naked as well.

Handsome, flashed through her mind. Whatever anyone says, Mary always had exquisite taste in men. In other circumstances you could even call it flawless.

He stood about six foot two, well built, with clean, defined lines of muscle but no excess bulk. His hair was short and blue-black, his shoulders trembling slightly in the bad light. He didn’t hear her, completely lost in some nightmare that was tearing at his mind. Victor was whispering something under his breath. Nika focused her hearing and caught the words slipping from his lips, broken and hoarse:

‘It’s their… own fault! I didn’t mean to… I never meant to… they provoked me…’

It all became clear without further words. The lad’s mind was entirely gone, leaving only raw instinct and bloodlust. Sol’s promised immunity was one thing, but the sight of Mary’s little pet in action made even her stomach clench. From him rolled denial, bitter guilt and, beneath them, a child’s terror of his own self – so much like her own first hunger that she nearly lost her footing. Pity wouldn’t save him.

She slowly reached for her earpiece, never taking her eyes off the back of Victor’s head.

‘Lads,’ she whispered, ‘I’ve found him. Coordinates sent. Duncan, head for the back alley. Kamanch, set up the sphere on the perimeter.’

Her gaze stayed fixed on Victor.

‘Let’s finish this.’

It would take Duncan and Kamanch some minutes to get there. All she had to do was hold out, not win.

Nika’s fingers brushed the hilt of the dark-steel dagger sheathed at her thigh. The glass vial was tucked into her inside pocket. Saint Patrick’s blood rested there, a silent promise of power – but she hesitated. Greed, or perhaps simple stubborn pride, kept her from grabbing it now. She didn’t want to burn that bridge until there was no other choice. Cold steel and agility – that was the plan.

Victor shattered it in an instant.

The newborn she had taken for a broken, grieving nobody reacted not like a man but like a cornered predator. He spun round with impossible speed, his movements ragged and blurred. In his eyes there was no remorse left – only pure thirst and mad cruelty.

‘Who are you? You’re the same as the rest, aren’t you? Spying. Watching!’ he roared, and the sound rolled through her bones.

A pale blur slammed into her forearm – she threw it up on instinct. The bone held, but white-hot pain shot along her nerves from the blow. The dagger, which she had barely managed to draw from its sheath, was wrenched from her numbed fingers and struck the concrete with a useless clang.

She threw herself into a desperate high-speed roll – the world turned into a smear of dirt and oil. Her hand lunged for her pocket. Not yet. Not like this.

Her fingers closed round the vial – and a split second later Victor’s leg lashed out. It was a brutal kick that landed squarely on her wrist. In slow-motion horror Nika watched a flash of gold trace an arc through the air. The vial – the Blood of Saint Patrick – spun in a glittering trajectory and vanished into the pitch darkness of the thorny bushes beyond the open door.

‘No!’ The word tore out of her in a ragged gasp. The chance to deal with this without effort – gone. She hadn’t even meant to drink it all, only one sip, to level the odds and sharpen her reactions.

There was no time to grieve. Victor was already looming over her – nothing but cold, hard muscle and crushing weight. Nika shrieked – half in fury, half in terror – and, scraping together the last of her adrenaline, snapped her hips up, throwing him off just far enough to leap to her feet.

She had barely straightened when he lunged at her again. Another blow struck her chest and hurled her backward.

Her spine slammed into the corrugated metal wall of the garage with a deafening crash – her teeth rattled. The world tilted. Her earpiece – the fragile thread of contact with her team – flew out of her ear and slid right into Victor’s path. His foot came down hard, crushing the device into a useless heap of plastic and wire.

The signal was gone. The tracker went dark. No link, no sign of her condition.

For the lads racing towards her, she hadn’t just fallen silent – she’d vanished from their radar. They had only approximate coordinates, not exact ones.

Nika drew in a ragged breath, black spots swimming at the edges of her vision. She tried to raise a mental shield, a psychic barrier meant to turn an enemy’s fear back on him, but Victor was a black hole of emotion. He was so consumed by the pain and wild fire of his turning that there was nothing to hook into. All she could feel was his madness, and it tasted of ash.

She ducked just as his clawed fingers slashed through the air where, a second earlier, her neck had been. His nails left a ragged slit in the collar of her leather jacket. She rolled aside, breathing hard, every vampire instinct in her body screaming one word: move.

This newborn was in the grip of a wild blood frenzy. In that state he had more raw strength than three of her put together. Without the Blood of Saint Patrick to even the odds, she was no longer the hunter.

She was the prey.

“Duncan… Camanch…” she gasped through bloodied lips, but the patter of the drizzle swallowed her voice.

Too far. Too late. The bike, the money, the immunity, everything she had bargained for was sinking into the mud of the city streets.

Victor crouched low, his jaw wrenching into a hideous, serpentine stretch and baring glistening fangs. The pleading was gone. The sobbing had stopped. He was no longer a man, just a beast. A low, guttural growl tore out of him, raising the hair on her arms.

Nika pressed her back against the icy concrete. Time was running out, and as he gathered himself for the final, killing leap, instinct delivered a cold truth: next time she wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Run through the options. Fast. Reflexes won’t make it now, so he has to slow himself. Pain doesn’t work. Fear doesn’t work; there’s nothing to hook into. One thing remains that in this state he can’t ignore. The last argument. The one her kind has been beaten with since time immemorial, and which always costs the same: self-respect. Nika winced inwardly, but she had no choice.

The dagger was gone, knocked from her hand. All she had left was the stiletto strapped to her calf, under what remained of her jeans. She couldn’t reach it now, not with him on her every second, but she hadn’t forgotten it. It was her only hope. Wait until the beast gets bogged down. Strike. Simple. Horribly simple, if he buys it.

Victor moved like a blurred shadow. Another lunge, and his claws closed on her jacket with a sharp, ripping sound. Nika twisted away, but the jacket stayed in the madman’s hands, and the next blow flung her into a stack of old pallets. The seams of her blouse gave way, baring her breasts to the damp air. One trainer flew off as she lashed out, and the cold concrete bit into her bare foot.

She breathed hard, staring at the predator, who froze for a moment. No strength left. No earpiece. No holy blood. Only the last, most dangerous card remained.

Nika straightened, no longer shrinking. She squared her shoulders and let the shredded blouse slide completely from her arms. Closing her eyes for a moment, she released from deep inside herself not fear but pure, concentrated desire, the primal call of her kind, honed over the years like a blade one would rather keep sheathed. It came almost too easily: she hadn’t burned off the day’s tension, and it answered at once, rising in her like something that had only been waiting to be asked. An invisible wave filled the garage, heavy, suffocatingly sweet, with the scent of a female in heat.

Victor froze. His nostrils flared wide. The murderous rage in his eyes clouded at once, giving way to a crude, crushing animal hunger. She was no longer an enemy. She had become the most desirable prey: a pliant, willing female.

He’d bought it.

A moment later he was on her.

Nika didn’t flinch as his body pinned her against the cold metal wall. He was almost scalding, hot from the blood he had so recently drunk, and against her own cool skin the heat felt like fire. He smelled of blood, sweat and an approaching storm. His lips, still stained red, crashed into her mouth in a savage, possessive kiss. Rough, calloused hands seized her bare breasts at once, squeezed hard, thumbs dragging roughly over her aching, hardened nipples. A sharp, muffled moan broke from her straight into his mouth.

She answered, locking her arms tight around his neck, pulling him closer, steering his madness exactly where it needed to go. Victor growled, the vibration shuddering through her chest, and wrenched at her jeans. The metal button flew off with a sharp ping, the zip gave way with a furious rip. But the beast didn’t even try to pull them down. With a wild snarl he sank his claws into the denim and tore the fabric along the seams, baring her trembling thighs to the icy air.

Then she heard the unmistakable, agonising sound of tearing lace. Her favourite Italian knickers, fine, sheer silk, were ripped from her hips and tossed aside like rubbish.

Bastard! My favourites… I’ll kill you! I’m going to kill you anyway, but seriously?! You could have just pushed them aside, you bloody animal! Jeans in shreds, underwear ruined… How the hell am I supposed to get across town completely naked?! Her fury over the ruined clothes gave her a moment of icy clarity.

While Victor, utterly lost in her pheromones, buried his face in her neck and scorched her skin with hot, ragged breath, Nika felt his rock-hard cock pressing insistently against her stomach. It pulsed, rubbed desperately against her, too impatient to find the right place.

I’ll have to help him, Nika thought wretchedly. Well, it’s come to this. The legendary nightmare of the city’s cellars, the terror of midnight Glasgow, playing a female in heat, and steering him in by hand, no less. Tactics. It was all tactics. But if she survived and the boys got wind of the details, it wouldn’t be Victor who buried her, it would be shame. Camanch would cook up a ballad. Duncan would laugh for a year and demand an anniversary. No, thank you. Silence to the grave. Theirs.

Her hand slid down between their entwined bodies. She closed her fingers around his thick, throbbing length and stroked it from base to tip, sizing it up by touch out of habit, as though grading the merchandise, then guided the swollen head to her wet, aching entrance. The instant he felt her tight, slick warmth, Victor lost the last scraps of human control.

Nika arched sharply as he drove into her in one powerful, merciless stroke, stretching her to the limit. A hoarse, breathless moan tore from her throat. He was huge, scalding and utterly wild. His hips slammed her against the wall again and again, every stroke deep, heavy and relentless.

She tangled her fingers in his hair, pulled his head down to hers and whispered hotly in his ear:

“Come on, Victor… Take me however you want… Fill me up, big man…”

He answered with a guttural growl, a hand clamping onto her thigh to spread it wider as he drove harder still. He chased raw, animal pleasure, oblivious that with every stroke, every moan, every desperate clench of her body around him, she was draining his essence.

There was no rhythm and no skill, only the blind, primal need to take the pliant little female she was playing. The cold metal bit into her back with every blow, an intoxicating contrast to the frantic heat of his body. Her breasts slammed against his chest. Blood roared in her ears, and the garage filled with wet, indecent sounds: flesh slapping flesh, the slick squelch between them, his low, ragged growling.

Nika locked her legs around his hips, ankles crossed at the small of his back, holding him prisoner. Not for pleasure but for control. The bastard was not going to slip out and lose position before she was done with him.

“Deeper, you great big beast…” she whispered hoarsely in his ear, her voice catching on the force of him. “Fuck me harder. I’m yours… for these few minutes.”

But her body was betraying her.

Despite her cold, clear mind, a thick wave of heat flooded her belly. Each time he struck that sensitive, forbidden spot deep inside, an electric jolt shot up her spine. Her body clutched at him greedily, clenching of its own accord, slick and treacherous. Oh, you little traitor… she thought bitterly, fighting the rising tide of her own climax.

Victor bit her like a wild animal, her neck, her collarbones, her breasts, but his fangs did her no real harm. She was far above him in skill and strength, and with every moment she fed on his emotions her body knit itself back together almost as fast as he could mark it. His ragged breath scorched her skin as he licked and growled in her ear. His rhythm broke, turning desperate, erratic, frantic. His thick cock pulsed inside her, rock-hard and leaking, driving deep and wildly.

What a bloody beast, she thought coldly. Fucks like it’s his last time on earth. Not knowing it really is.

She gave him exactly the moans he needed, low, husky, broken sounds that drive men out of their minds. She arched her back at the right moments, clenched around him, drawing the life force straight from his veins through his erection, pushing him closer to the edge. But her eyes stayed sharp and cold, her pupils narrowed to pinpricks in the dark.

Her right hand slid slowly, carefully down his sweat-slick, trembling back… lower… until her fingers closed around the hilt of the silver-plated stiletto strapped to her calf, now within reach, right where her crossed legs held him.

Silver didn’t harm or burn vampires, whatever the films claimed. But it blocked regeneration, so even an ordinary cut healed like a human’s. She didn’t know why, but that was how it was. And silver really could kill a vampire.

Victor reached his limit. His strokes turned short, jerky, almost convulsive. His fingers dug into her buttocks hard enough to leave a human bruised for days. His body went taut, his breathing broke apart into ragged gasps, and the growling became one long, unbroken, desperate roar.

He was on the verge of spilling everything inside her.

Nika arched harder, pressing her chest to his, and in that very moment her fingers tightened on the stiletto.

“Now.”

Victor roared, loud, like a wolf. His body drew taut as a bowstring and his cock jerked violently inside her, filling her with thick, hot spurts. He came hard and long, completely lost in his madness, pouring himself into her while the excess leaked and ran down her thighs.

And in that very instant Nika struck.

Fast. Clean. Between the ribs, straight to the heart.

The blade slid in as if into butter. Victor jerked, his eyes flying wide in pure, stunned bewilderment. One last powerful spasm ran through his muscles, and then he went limp, still deep inside her.

Nika held him like that for several long seconds, feeling him twitch weakly as life left his body. And as it left, the surge came: the raw force of his death crashed into her, a charge greater than anything she had ever drawn from anyone, more than she could absorb. It filled her to the brim and spilled over, humming under her skin. Only when it began to ebb did she shove the heavy body away. It dropped onto the filthy concrete with a dull, echoing thud.

Silence settled over the garage, broken only by her ragged breathing.

Nika slowly slid down the cold metal wall, breathing hard. Between her legs everything was hot and sticky. Her torn jeans and shredded knickers lay nearby in the dirt. The bite marks and dark bruises on her neck and breasts were already fading, the skin knitting itself back together. The borrowed life of Victor’s death hummed under her skin, and for the first time tonight she wasn’t cold. She ran her fingers along the inside of her thigh, gathering the thick mixture of his semen and her own wetness, then looked at her wet hand with a cold, lazy smirk.

Duncan will clamp his jaw shut and last about two days, she thought. Camanch won’t last two minutes. They’ll both know exactly what I did… and both will picture every filthy detail.

She wiped her fingers on the remains of her blouse, where blood and semen had already smeared into a dark stain, and got to her feet. She picked her jacket up off the concrete, the collar slit by Victor’s claws, and brushed off what was left of her ruined clothes. Better if the boys arrive when I look at least halfway decent. Or at least covered. She fished her phone out of the jacket pocket.

“Duncan? Yeah, I’m alive. We’ve got three bodies. And listen… No, don’t come charging over here. I’ve got a different job for you. And Camanch doesn’t need to come either. Just listen to me! Right now you’re changing your route and heading to Silk & Sin.” The all-night boutique on Buchanan Street, the only luxury shop in Glasgow that never closed and never asked its nocturnal customers any questions. “I need a coat. Any bloody coat. And knickers. Black, Italian, size S.” She fell silent, narrowing her eyes at the faint sound of a breath on the line, and growled: “And don’t you dare laugh, you bastard… Duncan! Hey, Duncan!!!”

From the other end came loud, hysterical laughter, the laughter of a Scottish inquisitor who had completely lost his composure.

“Shop. Now,” Nika said, and hung up.

I wonder what the shop assistant’s eyes will look like when Duncan buys that. The thought warmed her.

Then she froze, phone still in her hand. A sharp knot of unease tightened in her chest. Something was wrong.

A heartbeat. Weak, desperately slow, but beating.

Victor was dead. Definitely dead. She looked at the bodies of the two girls. The one on her back was cold, her eyes empty. But the one on her side?

Nika closed her eyes and spread her senses, still brimming from Victor’s death, out into the damp air of the garage. She’s alive. Barely. But the girl’s life had slipped past the last line at which human medicine could still save her: catastrophic injuries, total blood loss. She had minutes.

Unless…

The wild, reckless idea that flared in Nika’s mind promised a mountain of hell and cosmic hassle. Sol would go berserk, the Council would demand answers, and her hard-won immunity would be tested to the limit. Five days she had spent hunting a newborn made without sanction, and now she was about to make one herself. But it was a chance. The only chance to save at least one of Victor’s victims.

Nika slipped the phone into her pocket, went over to the dying girl and knelt in the pool of blood. She gently brushed the tangled hair from the girl’s pale, blood-sticky face.

What the hell am I doing? she thought, with a wave of desperate, wistful regret.

She raised her wrist to her mouth and bit down hard, tearing her own flesh. Bending over the girl, she carefully pried her lips apart and let thick, dark streams of vampire blood run down her throat. Her thoughts raced ahead. Find the vial. It has to be somewhere out in those brambles. And when the newborn wakes, one drop of the Blood of Saint Patrick will take the edge off her hunger.

And over everything else, one thought beat louder than the rest.

I am so not ready to be a mother!