be silly,' Mel said. 'You'll stay with me tonight.'
Greaser shook her head. 'Now who's in a rush to die?'
'You can mind the car,' Mel told her, and Greaser mumbled, 'Well, just remember that I get your flat when you kick the bucket.'
NINE
They'd been told to report immediately on arriving at Thorn, but Reece was taking a detour.
'We'll be late,' Felicity said as they rode the lift.
'Better late than dead on time,' Reece said.
'You think we're for it?' She trembled, and he admired her control as she pulled herself together in a matter of seconds.
'Clock's ticking. I want to see if Mira can buy us some time.'
'She can't even tell the time.'
'We'll see.'
They got out on 11 and stepped through the sliding doors into the ward: off-white walls, rows of beds, tinted windows. A suffocating scent of antiseptic, the stale-breath hint of blood, clouded around them. Hospitaller Dr Tran and esteemed Treasurer Tony Campbell had their heads together at the far end of the room, right outside the restricted area. They looked up like startled emus as Reece and Felicity approached. Campbell jerked his head in their direction, an action akin to throwing a stick for a dog, and Tran strode toward them, his hands in the pockets of his white smock, stethoscope looped around his neck like a snake.
'What are you two doing here?' the doctor demanded to know.
'Wanted to check on the boss,' Reece said.
'No visitors in isolation.'
'Since when?'
'Since now.'
'How is she?' Reece indicated the sealed door at Campbell's back, marked by a No Entry sign and the newly placed scarlet psi symbol marking it as a mental isolation room, dangerous to enter.
'The cacophony has worsened. The Strigoi is deep in bedlam now. Any deeper, she may never surface again.' He shrugged. What was one to do?
'I need to talk to her. It's important. About a case.'
'It is hard enough for her to manage her internal world, without you muddying the waters.'
The door to Mira's room opened and Vee emerged. Reece groaned, and felt rather than saw Felicity's warning glance. Vee smirked at him, minced across in her — his/their — knee-high pumps.
Tran stepped back as Mira's understudy reached them, as though Vee radiated cold.
Vee looked as though he/she/they had come out of a freezer: short hair frosted silver, eyebrows shaved to the skin, eyelashes and lips silvered, a figure-hugging sheath of white PVC. Sexless, no tell-tale bumps anywhere. Bluish fingernails glinted like shards of ice.
Pale malamute eyes regarded Reece, the unblinking gaze settling on his throat, his wrists, his groin. 'Back again, Hunter? Getting thirsty?'
Reece's hand was on his sidearm before he realised it, closely followed by Felicity's restraining hand.
'We're late,' she said.
'In trouble again, are we?' Vee asked, feigning ignorance.
'I'll be back,' Reece said. 'Mira is my bludger, after all.'
'Bludger?'
'Host.' Reece savoured his minor jargon win over Vee.
'Was your "bludger", I think you mean,' Vee replied, unabashed. 'The Hospitaller has declared isolation. There are no visiting hours. For anyone.'
Tran added: 'Regardless of who they are; or were. It's for her own good, and that of her visitors. Someone in bedlam cannot be expected to react rationally.'
Campbell sauntered over to eye Reece over the top of his narrow, frameless glasses. He didn't stand too close to Vee, either. 'Don't they want you upstairs?'
Felicity tugged on Reece's arm, mumbled, 'Better not keep the Old Man waiting.'
'Nice seeing you, Hunter Reece.' Vee smiled, a corpse-like grin.
Felicity pulled Reece into the lift and hit the button for 13. Boardroom. His last view was of Tran, Campbell and Vee watching him leave, like Macbeth's three witches, all but rubbing their hands at his impending fall from grace.
Reece breathed out, trying to relax the tension in his muscles. 'I hate that fucking mutant.'
'Your prejudice is showing, old man. I think Vee's the most honest person in the building.'
'How's that?'
'Vee's all vampire. Not male, not female. Just vee.'
'Well, I still don't trust he/she/vee; whatever.'
'With Mira out of commission, Vee is Strigoi.'
'That freak's no Strigoi.'
'Someone's got to do the mojo.'
The door chimed open. 'Bend over, here it comes,' Reece said, and she slapped his arm; then she straightened her jacket as they walked side by side into the reception.
'Go in,' the red-eye Familiare behind the desk said. His uniform patches showed him to be one of Maximilian's, loyalty all but guaranteed by shared blood. All the board members had such lackeys, although younger members such as Treasurer Tony Campbell preferred to call them personal assistants — a sign of the gulf between the bright young things and their ancient leader. Reece imagined it must be frustrating for the up-and-comers; what was the retirement age for a vampire warlord?
The boardroom was utilitarian: a long table, a blank wall with a retractable projection screen, a side door to a kitchen area, another to the toilets. Another wall was taken up with a framed tapestry of knights butchering pagans in a dark forest under the banner of a black cross. Wide windows looked across the river to the mountains in the west; traffic pulsed over the bridges and along the riverside expressway. On South Bank, the sightseeing wheel rotated in a slow blur of colour. If only the wheels turning inside Thorn were so brightly illuminated.
Hochmeister Maximilian von Schiller stood statue-still, arms clasped behind his back as he took in the view. He was five-foot-six, as solid as a brick shithouse, with no neck to speak of. His jumper hung to his mid thigh; combined with his bowl haircut, it gave him a certain monkish air, but the man's demeanour always reminded Reece of a member of the Inquisition. He could imagine Maximilian extracting confessions with hot pokers and cages of rats. It made his own Special Branch interrogation techniques seem incredibly amateurish. The man's eyes were reflected green dots in the window and Reece could feel them shift their focus to regard the two of them.
Maximilian's second-in-command stepped from a patch of darkness between two downlights. Preceptor Heinrich had a reputation for blending with the shadows, despite being a full head and shoulders taller than Maximilian and even wider in the chest. He wore a shiny jacket open to reveal a tight shirt, his narrow waist sporting sword and sidearm.
'This
