Brittle Midnight Read online

  The vampire waved towards the rows upon rows of terraced houses. ‘There are almost a thousand of us here. How exactly do you propose to wake everyone up? It’ll only antagonise us. We’re obviously being fingered for the crime. Terrible as murder is, you are jumping to conclusions.’ His voice hardened. ‘And no one is being woken up so you can check them over. What happened to presumption of innocence?’

  ‘Look, you undead piece of shit—’ Felicity began.

  I put a hand on her arm. ‘I’ve got this,’ I told her. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘You can’t deal sensibly with these bastards. They’re tricksy and slippery and always up to no good. They—’

  ‘Enough.’ I turned and faced her and the others. ‘Thank you so much for your help up. I will take things from here.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she protested. ‘Julian told us to help you. We can’t just walk away. You can’t deal with this lot on your own.’

  ‘You can just walk away,’ I replied firmly. ‘And you will.’ I forced a smile. ‘Bye now.’

  She wanted to refuse, it was there in every quivering muscle. I forestalled her. ‘I’m the enchantress,’ I reminded her. ‘I will take things from here.’

  She drew in a deep breath as if counting to ten. ‘Very well,’ she snapped. ‘On your own head be it.’ She whirled round and stalked through the broken barricade, the other wolves following her with narrowed eyes and closed expressions. I wouldn’t hear the last of this but it was for the best.

  Once the wolves had gone, the vampire opened his mouth and ran his very red tongue over his teeth. Those fangs looked decidedly sharp and lethal and I suppressed a shudder. ‘Nicely done,’ he said. ‘Werewolves are so prone to violence. It’s much easier when they’re out of the way.’ His eyes gleamed and there was the definite suggestion of a predatory leer as he looked me over. ‘I’m still not waking anyone up.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d be prepared to answer a few questions yourself,’ I said, maintaining a light tone. I was tempted to shoot off some magic to make my will and power known, but I’d hold off until it was necessary. There were other ways to skin a cat. ‘How long have you been posted out here?’ I asked. ‘By which I mean, when did your post begin?’

  ‘Midnight.’ He watched me, both amused and wary about where I was going with this line of questioning.

  ‘Is this the main entrance to your area?’

  ‘You mean are vampires likely to enter or leave via another route?’

  I nodded.

  He frowned. ‘Anything is possible but, as far as I know, everyone uses this way.’ He pointed behind me to a small desk with a clipboard on top. ‘We keep a tally of who comes in and out. After all,’ he added with a tight grin, ‘one never knows what the werewolves – or the enchantress herself – might accuse us of.’

  ‘Has anyone come in with any visible wounds in the last twelve hours? Any scratch marks? Anything at all?’

  He leaned forward, pausing long enough to build up anticipation. It worked for me – it meant I could get a clearer view of his flaring nostrils. ‘No.’

  Damn it. He was telling the truth. ‘Can I have a look at your tally?’

  He gestured at it again. ‘Be my guest.’

  I walked over, picked it up and scanned down the list. A lot of vampires had left and a lot had returned but, as far as I could tell, nine men and women who had gone out the previous night still hadn’t returned. I yanked off the sheet of paper. ‘I’m going to take this.’

  The vampire folded his arms. ‘I can’t let you do that.’

  I faced him. ‘If I hadn’t stepped in when I did, those werewolves would have broken down every bloodsucking door here, whether you liked it or not. If any of your lot fought back, you and I both know what could have happened next. I think you’ll agree that my way is definitely the best way. Unless you want me to call the wolves back.’

  He didn’t move for a long moment other than tapping his foot. Another nervous twitch, I supposed. ‘Fine,’ he said eventually. ‘You may take the sheet.’ He said it as if were granting me a great, personal boon rather than yielding to my lupine threat. Whatever. As long as I got what I needed.

  ‘Thank you.’ For the first time, I let myself smile. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Do you want to know so you can eliminate me from your enquiries?’ he mocked.

  ‘No,’ I shot. ‘I want to know because it’s polite to know who you’re talking to.’

  He smirked at me. ‘In that case,’ he said with a bow, ‘I am Theo.’

  ‘I’m Charley.’

  His smile grew. ‘I know.’ He permitted me one last flash of his fangs. ‘I’ll be seeing you around, Charley.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’ With slow, measured steps so as not to give away my anxiety, I walked away from the vampire barricade. Unsurprisingly, the werewolves were still waiting for me just beyond.

  ‘Oh, and Charley?’ Theo called out. ‘A vampire didn’t do this. Not in the way that you think, anyway. It would be far too difficult to suck dry an entire human body. Your killer is someone entirely different.’

  I wasn’t convinced by that, even though Julie had already suggested the same thing. But I would keep an open mind. For now.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘You should have gone to see all the vampires with your own eyes,’ Felicity said. ‘It’s the only way to be sure.’

  ‘Sure of what?’ I enquired. ‘The perpetrator could have sneaked out before I reached him. He could be living elsewhere. He could be hiding in a hole somewhere. Hell, he could already have healed. There are hundreds of vampires living there and realistically we can’t wake them all. Besides, I believe Theo when he says no one passed him with any scratches on their face. We won’t find the culprit that way.’ I waved the piece of paper in her face. ‘I’m more interested in the names of the nine vampires who haven’t returned home yet.’ And indeed whether Valerie’s murder had been carried out for no other reason than to give the vampires an even worse reputation than they already possessed.

  ‘They need to learn their place,’ she said. ‘If they want to be part of this community, they need to toe the line.’

  I gaped at her. In that moment, I wasn’t capable of anything else.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re talking about them like they’re second-class citizens.’

  ‘They’re not second-class citizens.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, ‘because—’

  ‘They’re undead. They don’t count as citizens.’

  Good grief. I passed a hand over my face. ‘They’re not undead.’ I had been through all this with Julie and she’d explained it to me very clearly. ‘That’s propaganda put about by the sort of people who hunted their kind to near extinction.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ she enquired. ‘A vampire?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘They drink blood. Human blood. They killed that woman. I’m not saying we should throw them out on their ear, I’m just saying that they need to play ball.’

  ‘And do things the werewolf way?’

  ‘If it ain’t broke…’ She moved away and started muttering to the rest of the group, flicking the odd glance in my direction to suggest that I was a derisible creature who belonged with the vampires because I’d dared to suggest that they weren’t necessarily all evil.

  I watched her. No wonder the vamps had shut themselves away with their own guards and their own barriers. This was not a good situation. Felicity’s beliefs were deeply embedded. I wasn’t going to change any hearts and minds on my own – I needed a werewolf to sort things out because, as far as I could tell, the only person a werewolf would listen to was another werewolf.

  While the group continued to gab about what to tell Julian and how to find the nine missing vampires, I whirled round and marched away. Julian had told me I could find Monroe over to the east of the square. Somehow, I suspected I’d have more leverage with him than with Julian. Besides, it wasn’t yet noon: I reckoned there was still the teeniest t
iny chance I could stumble across a vampire with the marks of Valerie’s fingernails across his face. The longer the culprit ran free, the worse things would get for the vamps.

  Although I walked quickly, I still half expected Felicity and the rest of the werewolves to catch up and continue their escort. Apparently, however, they’d decided I was no longer worth the effort because I was left in peace. Relatively speaking.

  I passed various people of all manner of ethnicities – and all of them stared at me. I suppose it was the blue hair that gave me away. It was an odd sensation being a minor celebrity; maybe I should have offered to hand out autographs. I wondered if this was how Julie felt, given her career as a soap actress.

  There was something ego-boosting about the attention, I reflected as I trotted on. If you are treated as special, you start to believe that you are; it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wondered if the reverse could also be true: if everyone believed that vampires were stone-cold killers, would they become stone-cold killers? I pondered and then discarded the idea. As a gambler, I was well aware that the smallest, weakest players could rise up against all odds and defeat expectations to win the day. I grinned to myself. At the end of the day, gambling had an answer for everything.

  I veered round a corner, suddenly aware of a loud babble of voices nearby. Where there were people, there would be vampires – and maybe even Monroe. I adjusted my course slightly until a large group, which appeared to have arranged itself into a circle, came into view. So what on earth was going on here?

  I walked over to the crowd and pushed myself onto my tiptoes to peer over the tops of various heads. Unfortunately for me, I appeared to be very short in comparison to other supernatural beings and I couldn’t see much except for a flying fist somewhere deep within the circle. I edged round to get a better view but, before I could see much, a werewolf sidled up to me with glinting brown eyes.

  ‘Hundred to one he slams all three of them to the ground,’ he said in an undertone.

  I couldn’t suppress the thrill that ran through me at the prospect of my first real bet in months. Obviously I wasn’t going to take it until I knew more about what was going on, and such high odds immediately made me wary. All the same, this was the life I loved. I didn’t want to be the de facto leader of a bedraggled, whining community in an almost abandoned city that was suffused with dangerous magic; I wanted to be a fun-loving gambler who took unnecessary risks and didn’t worry too much about the consequences.

  ‘I can’t see much to make a judgment,’ I admitted to my new buddy.

  ‘There’s three of them,’ the wolf purred. ‘Young, strong, agile wolves the lot of them. He’s got the experience. They’ve got the enthusiasm.’

  On my other side there was a derisive snort. ‘Enthusiasm is something he’s definitely lacking. He’s been beaten in every fight he’s had since Halloween because he’s got no enthusiasm. He wants to be beaten.’

  ‘Yeah,’ another interrupted, ‘but I heard he’s on borrowed time. A little birdie told me that Julian wants him out. In fact…’

  I moved away. I suddenly knew exactly who they were talking about and I was not a happy little enchantress at all. So this was why Monroe was covered in bruises and too busy to hang around the Travotel with me. I grimaced. I had to see this with my own eyes.

  Ignoring the tightly bunched spectators, I nudged my way through. Some lanky guy aimed an elbow at my face as I disturbed him. I didn’t think: I zapped out a bolt of magic and sent him stumbling back into others. They shoved him, yelling expletives. The scuffle gave me enough room to squeeze through to the front. What I saw there made me want to retch.

  Monroe was facing off against three others who seemed to be working as a team to attack him. They were grunting and hissing, darting forward with jabs and kicks. Blood was streaming from a cut above his eye and his right ear had swollen to the size of a golf ball. I couldn’t call Monroe a fighter because he wasn’t fighting. He was barely defending himself, he just let them continue taking shot after shot. Every time another punch landed, the crowd cheered. Only a few people seemed to be on his side.

  I stared, aghast. How could anyone allow this to happen? I knew that Monroe was in self-destructive mode as a result of his guilt-driven grief, but this was far worse than anything I could have imagined. This wasn’t a fight. This was torture.

  When the dark-haired werewolf nearest to me kicked Monroe in the ribs brutally enough to make his legs give way, I couldn’t take it any more. I stepped forward as Monroe fell to his knees. Someone grabbed at my shirt, ready to haul me back. Monroe’s pain-glazed eyes registered the movement and he raised his head, shock appearing on his face when he saw me.

  I brushed off the annoyance from behind and opened my mouth but Monroe shook his head. Screw him: I wasn’t about to stand by and let him be beaten to a pulp. It would have been one thing if he was actually participating but he wasn’t. He wasn’t trying to win; all he wanted was to get hurt to hide the real pain he was feeling inside.

  I tilted my chin and raised my voice. ‘You have to stop!’

  My words were immediately drowned out by the roar of the watching crowd. As soon as I started to speak, Monroe staggered back up to his feet. He deliberately moved to rejoin the fray to make sure that I wasn’t heard. His eyes held mine for a second, imploring me to keep out of the fight and keep my mouth shut. No chance. I’d use my magic to scream my way through this, if need be. This shouldn’t be happening.

  Monroe blinked, as if recognising what I was about to do. It wasn’t resignation in his face, however: it was determination. He spun round, his leg kicking out at the three young pups. In the time it took me to draw breath, all three of them had collapsed. The middle wolf groaned and rose to meet Monroe once again. All he received for his efforts was a punch to the side of his head.

  I hissed through my teeth, still sickened at what was going on. Monroe had let himself be used as a punchbag and was only fighting back because he knew I was going to interrupt. I watched for another short moment, then I turned away and pushed my way through the nauseating, voyeuristic spectators.

  Julian was standing against a wall, his arms folded and his expression closed. I stalked up to him and jabbed him in the chest. ‘What kind of fucking place are you lot running here? How can you let this sort of thing go on?’ My fury was transcending just about every other coherent thought.

  ‘I’m not in charge here,’ he answered.

  ‘It looks to me like you’re in fucking charge!’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ A muscle throbbed in his jaw. ‘Even with Monroe in the state that he’s in, people around here will still flock to his cause before they’ll flock to mine.’

  ‘The only thing people are flocking to is his demise! If he carries on like this, he’ll end up being killed! He’s grieving, Julian. He wants to be hurt. He needs help, not a fucking fist in his face!

  ‘Charlotte,’ Monroe drawled, his Scottish accent lilting through the air as he suddenly appeared next to us, ‘don’t blame Julian. He’s been trying to stop me fighting. He’s threatened to throw me out.’ He hawked up bloody phlegm and spat it on the ground. ‘Not that he could.’

  Julian pushed himself off the wall. ‘Listen to her,’ he said. ‘You’re on a collision course with hell. This is not sustainable.’ He started to walk away. ‘And I will throw you out if it’s for the good of the community.’

  ‘He won’t,’ Monroe said to me, wiping the last of the blood from his mouth. ‘He can’t.’

  ‘You fucking idiot,’ I told him. ‘You absolute piece of shit.’

  If Monroe was taken aback by my language, he didn’t show it. ‘What? I won the fight. I won it for you, Charlotte. Isn’t that what you wanted?’

  I shook my head in despair. ‘I knew you’d been fighting, I just didn’t think it was like this.’ My voice dropped to a whisper. ‘What are you doing to yourself, Monroe?’

  He stepped forward, leaning down until we were virtually nose to nose. �
��This is who I am, Charlotte. I’m a wolf. A predator.’ He bared his teeth. ‘And I’m fucked up. You’d do better to stay away from me.’

  I drew myself up and eyeballed him. Monroe was not going to intimidate me; I wasn’t going to let him. ‘You’re the one who keeps coming to me, not the other way around. You need to pull yourself together.’

  ‘Do I?’ he asked, his tone dangerously silky. ‘Do I really, Charlotte?’

  I stared at him. He was still high on adrenaline from the fight. This wasn’t the real Monroe. This wasn’t the guy I knew. Not deep down. I inhaled and pulled away slightly. ‘You’re hurting,’ I said, more gently. ‘But you’re not a bad person, Monroe. You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve to be hurt.’

  His response was flat. ‘I’m an arsehole.’

  ‘Right now,’ I answered, ‘you’re acting like an arsehole. But you’re not really like that. Arseholes don’t force the people they know to take a holiday before they collapse. Arseholes don’t help vicious mermaids to relocate. You have to stop punishing yourself for things that aren’t your fault and that can’t be changed.’

  I’d been expecting Monroe to argue or to storm off. What I didn’t expect was the sudden sheen of tears in his eyes. ‘Charlotte,’ he said, ‘I—’

  A hooded figure collided with him, stumbling against him and interrupting whatever he’d been about to say. Monroe snarled and snatched at the figure’s arm. ‘Watch where you’re going!’

  There wasn’t any answer. The man – or woman – staggered off, drawing away from Monroe’s grip before spinning round. ‘Vampires,’ Monroe hissed. ‘They shouldn’t be out at this time of day. Not with the sun as high as it is.’

  Damn it, I hadn’t got a glimpse of the vamp’s face. Was it one of the nine who’d not returned home this morning? Or was it simply a stray vampire who’d wanted to watch Monroe’s fight and lay a bet or two? I twisted my head, trying to make out its shadowed features.

  ‘Charlotte?’ Monroe’s voice was different now. ‘What is it?’

  I looked at him then I looked at the retreating vampire. I gritted my teeth. ‘Sorry,’ I murmured. ‘This won’t take long.’ I jogged away from Monroe towards the vamp, who saw me coming and picked up the pace.