Then I realised I could move.
I had to get out of here, wherever here was. I struggled to sit up, my hands slipping on the stupid satin sheets, my arms and legs feeling like they belonged to someone else, the numbers on the monitor at the side of the bed flashing ever faster as my heart beat a crescendo in my ears—
The bedroom door opened.
A man walked in carrying a large wooden tray, a worried frown on his fortysomething chalk-white face. He wore jeans and a rumpled T-shirt and white gauze bandages were wrapped thickly around his wrists and elbows. He stopped at the bottom of the bed and looked at me from eyes magnified like a startled owl’s behind his wire-rimmed glasses. His hands were trembling enough that the contents on the tray chinked. Then the frown disappeared and he smiled, showing even white human teeth.
‘Oh good, you’re awake, Ms Taylor.’ Little wooden legs clicked out under the tray as he placed it down on the bed. ‘I was beginning to get concerned about you.’
Chapter Seven
I stared at the tray’s contents: a chilled bottle of Cristall—my brand of vodka—sat next to two glasses, one empty, the other filled with orange juice; a small porcelain dish of liquorice torpedoes, and what looked like a BLT sandwich. Other than the red rose in a cut-glass bud vase, the tray held all my favourites—if it wasn’t for the fact that he was a vamp’s flunky, I’d be worried I’d picked up a stalker instead of a slightly worse-for-wear jailer.
‘Who the hell are you?’ I demanded.
Owl Eyes flinched as if I’d hit him. ‘Doctor Joseph Wainwright. Joseph. Didn’t Malik tell you—?’ A high-pitched alarm cut him off and we both looked at the heart monitor. The little red numbers were flashing 302: 302 beats per minute. I pulled the electrodes off my chest, wincing as the skin ripped away with them. What the fuck were they stuck on with? Superglue? The red numbers blinked out, the heart graph flatlined and the monitor’s alarm started squawking loudly. I slapped it quiet.
‘Whose blood-pet are you?’
His eyes were wide with shock. ‘You should be dead with a heart rate like that.’
Duh: not human. ‘C’mon, Doctor Joseph Wainwright—Joseph—which vampire is your master?’
‘Malik al-Khan, of course.’ His frown returned.
‘Not the Earl?’
‘The Earl’s dead—’
‘The Earl was just here talking to me,’ I snapped. ‘He bit me—’ I stuck out my wrist to show him, then jerked it back and peered at it. There were no fang holes.
‘It’s the morphine,’ Joseph said in a conciliatory voice. ‘It can cause—’
‘Hallucinations, dreams, yes I know.’ I frowned as confusion filled me. It hadn’t felt like a dream. ‘He turned the TV on, showed me the news.’
Joseph glanced behind him at the muted screen. ‘I’ve had it on the news channel while I’ve been watching you. You’ve probably just absorbed the information.’
Had the Earl just been a nightmare? Of course, if I was going to have nightmares, the Earl would certainly be up for a starring role. And DI Crane, she was an understudy nightmare star if ever there was one. With her on the telly, no wonder my brain was playing tricks on me. But what if it hadn’t been a dream? What if the Earl was alive? No way was I waiting around for him to pop up again. My heart speeding, I slid over to the edge of the bed and swung my legs off. My feet sank into the soft plush red carpet and a sudden attack of vertigo made me sway. I clutched at the slippery sheets, bewildered. What was I doing? Oh yeah, getting out. Getting dressed, and getting away before they came back, him and the inspector ...
‘Ms Taylor, I really don’t think you should get up.’
I frowned up at him—no not him, them: the two startled owls looking back at me.
‘I’ve been looking after you,’ they said, ‘and so far your injuries from the explosion haven’t been improving. I really don’t think you should—’
I tuned him out and squinted at the mirrored wall of wardrobes instead. Wardrobes meant clothes. Only the expanse of red carpet I had to cross was rolling like the sea. Why the hell was the room so big? I squinted again and a figure peered back at me, glistening with sweat, chest, neck and arms as red as the sea. All the red was making me hot and dizzy. I wiped my face, and the red-faced girl wiped hers. I looked down at my hand; it was damp with pink-tinged sweat. I had an instant of clear thought: I was crashing into a mega blood-flush. A sick feeling roiled in my stomach. If I didn’t do something, I’d end up having convulsions, maybe even a stroke, which meant I’d be unconscious, helpless ...
Panic bubbled up in my throat again. There was something—
A hand clasped my wrist.
Flinching, I jerked back.
‘Just keep calm, Genevieve.’ The words sounded firm, in control, and I looked up at Joseph, who smiled confidently back, his face slightly distorted behind a clear face-mask. I frowned; the mask meant something, something good. The panic started to recede and my mind started remembering what needed to be done. I took a breath.
‘That’s it, Genevieve. Now I want you to kneel down on the floor.’ He pulled me gently and I slid to my knees. ‘Good.’ He crouched and placed a green plastic bucket between us, his expression grim. ‘Now, I’m going to take some blood, nothing to worry about, so just relax.’ He held up another shunt, its clear tube trailing down to an empty blood bag.
‘S’not quick enough,’ I slurred, ‘need ... knife.’
His eyes lost some of their confidence. The shunt disappeared, then he held a scalpel in front of me. The blade glinted in the mirrors behind him.
I nodded, my heart pounding frantically under my ribs, a fine tremble shivering under my skin. ‘Do it.’ I pushed my arm into the bucket.
He touched the point of the scalpel to the red vein bulging down my inner arm. Watery pink sweat dripped off my chin and splashed onto his gloved hand. I heard him gasp and looked up, catching the nervous expression in his owl-like hazel eyes.
‘It’s been a while since I’ve done this.’ He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
I grabbed the hand holding the knife, felt him start, then I sliced deeply, scoring the vein from my elbow to my wrist. Sharp pain flipped into pleasure that rushed like electricity through my body. My blood welled, thick and viscous like molten tar, and the scent of liquorice and copper and honey filled the air. The urge to cut my skin again, to chase that pleasure, to see more of my blood sparkling bright along my skin was a seductive whisper, calling me, urging—
‘For the love of God!’ Joseph yanked his hand from mine, flinging the scalpel away. It clattered off the mirrors and landed noiselessly on the thick carpet.
Taking a deep breath, I sat back on my heels and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the warm, wet trickle of blood running down my arm. I listened to the faint splash as it fell into the bucket and the slightly fast cadence of his breathing as I waited for my heart to slow back to normal. Venom junkies had been known to die from blood loss once the desperate bliss of spilling their own blood short-circuited their minds.
After a while, I asked, ‘What day is it?’
‘Friday,’ he said quietly.
Damn, last I remembered it was Tuesday morning. I’d lost three days. I opened my eyes. Blood the consistency of runny honey still slopped into the bucket, but it was slowing. I squeezed my arm just below my elbow, pulling the cut apart; the small pain rippled into a promise of pleasure that had me squirming.
Joseph frowned. ‘Why are you doing that?’
‘My blood’s too thick’—an aspect of the venom—‘and if I don’t do this, I won’t lose enough and the venom will throw me back into another blood-flush.’
‘Ah yes.’ He looked down at the bucket, then up at me. ‘You’ve been heading for a blood-flush since yesterday; you’re hypertensive, and your red blood cell count is the highest I’ve ever seen. I was debating whether to bleed you or not before you regained consciousness, but your other injuries haven’t been healing, so I wasn’t sure if it would do more harm than good.’ His frown deepened. ‘I’ve never treated a sidhe before.’