for the other shoe to fall. Greaser had his car, his weapons in the boot.
'Music?' she asked.
He nodded, and regretted it as the stereo pumped hip hop.
'Maybe something softer,' she said, thumbing a remote. A rippling piano tune filled the space.
An iPod, he realised, jealously.
'How do you do all this?' he asked. His life on the run with Taipan had been one of abandoned houses and sheds, of — he shuddered — murdered inhabitants in isolated homesteads: food and shelter.
'There are people who fix such things. One advantage of being plugged into Maximilian von Schiller's network. Someone to pay the power bills, keep the landlord off your back.'
'Does Blake live here, too?'
'Too quaint for him. He's got a nest in Paddo, kind of an artist's commune with some of the Romantics on tap.'
'You and him—'
'He turned me. A while ago, before he came to seek "inspiration in the Antipodes". An act of undying love, he called it. Quite the stalker, he was.'
When he said nothing, she filled the silence. 'Would you like to see?' She held out a pale, slender wrist.
He shook his head, looked again at the view, the flat; anywhere but at those purple veins.
'You've got a lot of music and stuff.'
'I like to stay up to date,' she said. 'Not always easy. Things change so fast. Would you like a drink?'
'Sure,' he said, not thinking, and then wondering if he could change his mind as she grinned, teasingly, triumphantly. She reached down a wine glass from a display cabinet, studied it against the light with a sniff of 'good enough', then pulled a knife from a block.
He opened his mouth to say 'no' but the word drowned in the scent of blood as she opened her wrist and let the blood half fill the glass before the wound closed.
'Bedlam?' he said as she walked to him, glass out. 'Oh, that's right: you've got an aptitude.'
'For giving and receiving.'
He took the glass and she stroked his cheek, his chin.
'You aren't like him.'
Did she mean Taipan or Blake, or both? Just how much had she seen in his blood? He kept his eyes on the glass, the liquid sloshing with the trembling of his hand.
'You said you were plugged into Maximilian's organisation.'
She cocked her head, eyes hardening. 'You aren't dead yet, are you?'
He hesitated.
'You can trust me, Kevin.' Her fingers guided the glass to his lips. 'Let me show you.'
He drank. Swayed, as the sound of the sea rose up, a crimson surf dragging him down.
Felt, distantly, her lips on his throat. Her teeth. The sharp, tearing pain, but her grip was strong. Together, they fell.
A long, bright pier; cards on a velvet-covered table, one a picture of a man done up like a medieval prince, another of a tower collapsing; a woman running on a pebbled beach and dragged down into the swash, her blood running out, dark in the froth. Blake: wielding his cane like a cudgel, and then, terrifying, twisting the knob in response to a shout to cease; twisting it clockwise, a click, the whisper of steel leaving its home a counterpoint to Blake's fevered whisper, 'There is no going back'; and Blake ramming the naked blade into Mel's chest, and the syrup gushing from her mouth as she falls in slow motion, and then her coughing fit as the sword is withdrawn to leave her to recover, and him holding her, telling her how much he needs her; her, his muse.
They had something in common, Melpomene and Danica. Other than being very good at keeping secrets.
From what little they had allowed him to see in their blood, it was obvious they were both bloodhags; like Mira, they were able to use blood in almost magical ways that most vampires could not. He suspected Mel's powers were much narrower than Danica's whose, he gathered, were off the scale. And Mel kept that small aptitude a secret, for fear of being recruited into Maximilian's inner sanctum.
Back in the day, both women had made a name as soothsayers. Danica's fame had drawn Maximilian. Mel's had drawn Blake. And both women had ended up being dragged in the slipstream of the men who'd made them. Danica had already rebelled. And Mel?
You aren't like him
He wasn't so sure. He was using Mel to get to Mira; Mira had used him to get to Danica. And Maximilian, he realised, the knowledge suddenly apparent, had used Mira to get to Danica.
Maximilian had come calling, looking for a Strigoi, and when Danica knocked him back, he'd found a more receptive ear in the daughter. Where daughter went, mother followed, two for the price of one, but Mira turned out to be her new father's daughter and Danica had run.
Perhaps that was where the mess had started: some hovel in a European backwater, a mother desperate to keep a daughter already lost to her — a daughter who eventually tried to kill her mother, to consume her.
That was the reason he was here. Mira had already consumed one life too many. If he couldn't recover his mother, he could at least make sure no one else had to go through this. Whatever it cost.
He turned to Mel, caressed her cheek, murmured sleepily, 'So, tell me again what you know about Maximilian's tower.'
They were in the bedroom, shielded behind the velvet curtains of a four-poster bed, a border of grey light above the rail like a twilight horizon. He felt heavy and hot with blood, exhausted by the heat of the day. He had seen little of Mel's life. A measured dose, she'd fed him. How much had he shown her? He had no way of knowing. She hadn't killed him in his sleep, which was a good sign.
Not so good was what she knew of Thorn. The entrances were few and thoroughly screened, and access to the upper floors was even more strictly controlled. To sneak inside with a stolen ID was possible; to penetrate to where the vampires lurked, highly unlikely. Not without "considerable bother".
He regarded the sleeping woman beside him, her smooth, pale shoulder naked above the sheet. Would Mel help him? Was that what last night had been about? She was already risking her life by having him in her home. Is that why he was awake so early — guilt?
Or was it because bother had come calling, and he'd been too busy plotting revenge to notice the sound of the door opening?
A footstep. Beside the bed!
His heartbeat tripped.
Greaser reefed aside a curtain. She stared at them with a stony expression.
'Shouldn't you be in school?' he asked, clutching for a sheet as he jack-knifed into a sitting position. Mel sat up, hair mussed, face ruddy, chest unselfconsciously naked.
'It's almost sundown, arsehole,' Greaser said. 'Besides, I haven't been in school for years.'
'Greaser does not play well with others,' Mel said, sounding weary.
'Depends
