‘My hold is a precaution only,’ Malik said calmly. ‘But if you will vouch for your charge, I will have no hesitation in releasing him.’
Thaddeus nodded, his red and grey horse-tail hair fanning over his wide shoulders. ‘I’ve no problem vouching for him, guv.’
Malik inclined his head and Neil Banner blinked, his blank expression changing to anxious concern. Before he could speak, Thaddeus grasped his arm and steered him to the seat furthest away and pushed him down into it. He started talking earnestly, but his voice was too low for me to hear what he was saying.
I turned back to Malik and asked the question that was bothering me. ‘What did you mean, there’s nothing to be done?’
He stared down at Moth-girl. Her skin was glowing radioactive-red with blood-flush. ‘The girl’s heart is overstimulated by the venom, and despite her increased level of red blood cells and thus the increased levels of oxygen, the blood is moving too fast for her lungs to cope. They are collapsing, her heart is labouring, and her blood has thickened to the point that the supply to her brain is diminishing.’
A classic case of venom-induced adrenalin-based hypertension, and if unrelieved, it was usually followed by a stroke, then probable cardiac arrest. I knew the symptoms—I’d experienced them myself, but I was sidhe fae. Moth-girl was human. I frowned. Other than the flushed skin she looked quite peaceful, the hint of a smile wreathing her lips.
‘Then why isn’t she having convulsions,’ I said, ‘if she’s reached that stage?’
‘I am limiting her distress.’
‘But they’re taking blood from her; the shunt will relieve the pressure.’
‘Taking blood from the jugular will not suffice,’ he said. ‘Piercing the carotid artery would improve her chances, but as a medical procedure it is too dangerous. The flow from the heart needs to be controlled.’
I didn’t need to ask how. ‘Necking’—feeding from the carotid—is a popular, if illegal, entertainment in the less salubrious blood-houses in Sucker Town. Unsurprisingly, the same ones that are usually home to the Moths. One or more vamps stoke a junkie up on venom, then just as the junkie hits the edge, the vamp bites into the carotid, gulping down the blood as if the junkie’s a spurting soda fountain. But even in the most unscrupulous houses there’s always a failsafe: another vamp able to control the junkie’s heart, to stop them bleeding to death and help heal the wound as the vamp ‘necking’ usually succumbs to overindulgence and falls into a blood-dream. Of course, if the vamp was hungry enough, a blood-dream shouldn’t be a problem. I touched my tongue to the small bruise on my lip as an idea formed in my head. ‘If you fed on her, could you save her?’
He gave me an impassive look. ‘Genevieve, it is not possible for me to feed on her.’
‘Why not? Surely you’re hungry enough.’
‘You are correct. I am hungry, but she is human. If I were to feed in the manner my blood insists, she would not survive,’ he said, his voice empty of any emotion. ‘I am not able to stop myself from feeding any other way.’
I had a sudden terrifying thought; maybe he’d bitten my lip because he couldn’t trust himself not to rip my throat out. Then the recent ‘memory’ I’d had of Rosa tracing her tongue over her own fangs as she lowered her head to feed came back to me. I knew how I could save Moth-girl.
I shrugged out of my leather jacket and hopped on one foot while I pulled off a trainer.
Malik regarded me with detached interest. ‘What are you doing, Genevieve?’
I jerked my head at Moth-girl. ‘She needs a vamp to feed on her if she’s going to stand any chance of surviving. You won’t do it—’
‘It would be counterproductive,’ he interrupted.
‘Whatever.’ I pulled off my other trainer and unzipped my jeans. ‘So I’m finding a vamp that will.’ I tugged the jeans down over my hips, then stopped and looked up at him warily. ‘Rosa.’
Pinpricks of rage flickered in the depths of his eyes, then disappeared. ‘I do not see how wearing Rosa’s body will help the situation.’
I swallowed. ‘Rosa—She’s—Her body is still a vamp, so when I activate the spell ... I have the same capabilities as a vamp. That way I can feed on the girl.’ I ignored the nervous twist my stomach gave; I’d never fed on blood before as Rosa, only venom. ‘You can be my failsafe.’ He didn’t answer, so I took it as agreement. I let the jeans drop around my ankles and kicked them off, leaving me standing there in my socks and shirt and the magicked-up white bikini bottoms. There was no sign of the spell-tattoo on my left hip; the Glamour of the bikini covered it. I tugged the briefs down, noting absently that Tavish had made me a true blonde, and looked, but there was still no spell-tattoo. I traced my fingers over the skin of my hip, concentrating. After a month of not using it, the magic should be jumping eagerly, almost forcing me to activate it. But I could feel nothing. Damn. I wondered again if something was wrong with the spell. Or maybe the Glamour Tavish had tagged me with was interfering with it? Time to get rid of it.
‘Scissors,’ I muttered to myself and gazed around. I spied a pair on a nearby trolley. When had that appeared? Didn’t matter, either I wasn’t paying attention, or Malik was still skewing my perceptions. I grabbed the scissors and bent over, flipping the blonde ponytail so it hung down in front of me.
‘Miss Taylor,’ Neil Banner’s diffident voice came from somewhere to the side of me. ‘If I might suggest something?’
I peered impatiently up at him. ‘What?’
‘As I understand it, you and the vampire here think that the only way to save the girl is to feed on her?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Trust him to pick now to interfere. ‘If you’ve got a problem with that, you’ll have to save it for later.’
‘Oh no.’ He smiled, his eyes lighting with happiness. ‘I’ve no problem, not if it will save her soul.’
I blinked at him in surprise.
‘But I think there is a better solution to whatever it is you’re planning,’ he carried on, pointing at the lifts. ‘There is another vampire here, is there not? And one who desperately needs help. Why not let him feed? That way two souls might be saved instead of just one.’
I stood upright and stared at him, trying to get my head round his idea. I looked over at Bobby, slumped in a heap, still clutching the carving knife, surrounded by a wider pool of blood. I’d completely forgotten about him—and by the looks of it so had everyone else. But he was a vampire, he’d survive, except—‘You said he’s dying?’ I asked Banner. ‘How do you know?’
‘God has graced me with the ability to see our souls.’ He steepled his hands together, pressing them against his lips. ‘When our earthly bodies are dying, our auras gradually thin until our souls are released and can travel onwards into the glorious light of God’s majesty. It is a wondrous moment to witness’—his face fell into concerned lines—‘unless our souls are too weighed down by earthly sadness and pain to travel upon their journey.’
‘Sounds great,’ I think, ‘but what has that got to do with them?’
‘Both the young girl’s aura and the vampire’s are almost nonexistent, Ms Taylor.’ He clasped his hands tighter. ‘They are dying. Thaddeus and I have been praying for them both, but it might not be enough. I fear that their souls are too heavily laden to reach Our Lord’s heaven. The girl’s might be trapped here as a ghost or spirit, and as for the vampire ...’ He shook his head, despair settling on his face.
I turned to Malik. ‘Is he right?’
‘I cannot see souls or ghosts, Genevieve,’ he said calmly. ‘But he believes he is right.’
‘No, I mean about Bobby dying. He’s a vamp, he shouldn’t be dying.’
Malik lifted his chin and inhaled. ‘He is young, and if it has been sometime since his master fed him, he will be weakened. The magic in the restraints that contain him will also block his bond with his master, so yes, he is possibly suffering in the same way a human would with that injury.’