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‘It is done,’ Malik said. He stepped over to where Moth-girl had lain and picked up the bloodstained white ribbon. Bringing it to his nose, he sniffed, then carefully folded it up and stowed it away into his pocket. He walked to reception and started to speak quietly with Hari. As I looked around to locate my discarded jeans and trainers I strained my ears, but couldn’t hear what they were saying. I bent to pick up my clothes.
‘Ms Taylor.’ Neil Ba
‘The delicate matter involving this supposed legacy,’ I said, folding the jeans over my arm and holding them in front of me. I’m not shy, but he suddenly seemed to be. ‘Before we go any further, I want my solicitor to see the will.’ Once I find one, I added, to myself. ‘Is that acceptable?’
‘Of course,’ he said, holding out a card. ‘My contact details. Just let me know when you’re ready. The sooner the better—tonight even—the head of the Order is keen to get this dealt with.’
Way too keen, I said to myself .I tilted my head, time for a bit of probing. ‘How does you being a necromancer fit in with all this religious stuff? Don’t most faiths consider you evil?’
‘Ah, I wondered if you would understand when I told you about my ability to see souls.’ He gave me a half-smile. ‘But it is not the gift that is given to us that matters, but what we do with it.’
‘Okay, I understand that.’ I wanted to ask him to talk to Cosette, but my bullshit ante
‘ Genevieve.’ Malik’s voice came in my mind. ‘ It is time for us to go. I have other matters to deal with this night, as well as your problem with the police.’
I half turned, obeying his command—until I realised what I was doing. I shook my head and made myself stop. Damn a
‘The person who left you this legacy,’ I said to Ba
Neil Ba
The Earl had never struck me as religious, but I hadn’t spent more than a couple of hours in his company before I killed him, so who was I to know?
‘Fair enough,’ I said, taking his card. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
I looked anxiously over at Bobby and the girl, now being separated by Grace and the security guard. ‘Are they both going to live?’
‘If God wills it they shall.’ He clasped his hands earnestly in front of his chest. ‘Both of their auras are brighter, more solid now. Thaddeus and I will continue to pray for them both’—his mouth lifted in a solemn smile—‘and offer them more secular help once they recover.’
‘ Come, Genevieve.’ Malik’s voice sounded again in my head. ‘ Leave the doctors to take care of their patients.’
I wanted to wait until I knew they were both okay. I also needed some answers: what had Moth-girl wanted to give me—and how had she known where to find me? And who had sent her and why? And I wanted to talk to Grace. But the insistent need to go with Malik pulled at me like an overstretched wire, and the stiff set of his shoulders under the black suit jacket and the tense line of his jaw told me his patience wasn’t endless. So with my pulse thudding for more than one reason, I followed the beautiful vampire away from HOPE.
Chapter Sixteen
AGold Goblin taxi waited outside, the sour smell of its methane-fuelled engine hanging like a pall in the damp night air. The Stick goblin jumped out and held the cab door open. His lime-green topknot looked like a hairy tarantula had taken up residence on his head. A gust of chill wind flattened his navy boilersuit against his body and his tall, lanky frame reminded me of the turban-headed dryads who’d chased me earlier. Not surprising really; the goblin queen had cross-cloned tree trolls with indentured sky-born goblins to get workers tall enough and with eyesight good enough to pass their driving tests.
‘G’night, miss, g’night, mister.’ The goblin slid a triple-jointed finger down his nose and stamped; his trainers flashed green. Another gust whistled past and the leaves in the nearest trees rustled. I wondered if the trees had recognised me and were passing the message on to the dryads, but the goblin didn’t react, so maybe it was just the wind.
As I returned the greeting Malik held out a small black velvet pouch to the goblin. ‘Any dealings between my companion and I are not to be repeated or conveyed in any shape or form,’ he said.
The goblin took the pouch, his spring-green eyes narrowing to a squint as he upended it carefully into his palm. Three black stones the size of misshapen marbles glittered in the interior light from the taxi. The goblin’s squirrel-like ears twitched as he brought the stones to his nose and sniffed.
‘Are we agreed?’ Malik asked.
The Stick goblin rebagged the stones. ‘Sure thing, mister.’ He patted his wrinkled grey hand over the Gold Goblin crest embroidered on the chest of his blue boilersuit and stamped his foot again.
Malik inclined his head, then ushered me into the cab. ‘After you, Genevieve.’
I hesitated for a moment, wondering if we were going to the Metropolitan Police Magic and Murder Squad’s headquarters or not. Even as I thought it, Malik said quietly, ‘Old Scotland Yard is the correct destination, is it not, Genevieve?’
Reassured, I nodded, and he repeated it to the goblin. I stepped into the taxi and scooted to the far side of the back seat, the plastic cold against my bare thighs. Malik sank down next to me, stretched out his long legs and closed his eyes. The goblin jumped in, crunched the taxi’s gears and off we rumbled.
I tugged my jeans back on, struggling to stay on my side of the taxi as it rounded a bend. I glanced at Malik, noticing the map of faint blue veins under the pale skin of his hands and along the fine line of his jaw. He washungry. I’d thought he’d been about to lose it and go into bloodlust back inside HOPE before he’d bitten me. But so far that hadn’t happened, so maybe I was working on faulty info from my stepmother, or maybe being a revenant made him different. Of course, he still could go all murderous with bloodlust, and trapped in a taxi with him like this, it wasn’t going to be the healthy option. For me anyway.
‘I am not so in need of blood that I will put you at risk, Genevieve,’ he said softly.
His words answered my unspoken fears, but still they made my pulse hitch.
He opened his eyes, giving me an almost amused look. ‘But it would be less difficult if you could calm your heart rate.’
Yay! The monster says he isn’t going to eat me. Yet.
I breathed in, aiming for relaxed; and instead a curl of lust twisted inside me as I inhaled his dark spice scent. I banished it with thoughts of Fabergé eggs, necromancers, Moth-girls and Bobby, and finally narrowed them down to the more immediate question of my alibi, or rather, Malik turning up with my alibi at the top of his to-do list—he hadn’t even fed properly before coming to find me. So why had he really sought me out? I opened my mouth to ask, then decided not disturbing him might be a better idea for now. The buttoned-up suit made him look distant, unapproachable—then I realised it wasn’t just the suit. He’d shut down. He’d stopped his heart from beating, stopped his lungs from drawing breath and dialled his hypersensitive vampire senses back to less than an average human’s. It’s something most vamps pick up pretty quickly after taking the Gift; it makes it easier to integrate into human society, a way to avoid the siren calls of beating hearts and fang-aching blood scents. Unauthorised nibbling to satisfy those midnight-munchies is a sure-fire route to getting the chop—literally—with a one-way trip to the guillotine. Of course, snacking on a willing victim isn’t a problem, so long as it’s on licensed premises—