‘G’night, miss, g’night, mister.’ The goblin slid a triple-jointed finger down his nose and stamped; his trainers flashed green. Another gust whistled past and the leaves in the nearest trees rustled. I wondered if the trees had recognised me and were passing the message on to the dryads, but the goblin didn’t react, so maybe it was just the wind.
As I returned the greeting Malik held out a small black velvet pouch to the goblin. ‘Any dealings between my companion and I are not to be repeated or conveyed in any shape or form,’ he said.
The goblin took the pouch, his spring-green eyes narrowing to a squint as he upended it carefully into his palm. Three black stones the size of misshapen marbles glittered in the interior light from the taxi. The goblin’s squirrel-like ears twitched as he brought the stones to his nose and sniffed.
‘Are we agreed?’ Malik asked.
The Stick goblin rebagged the stones. ‘Sure thing, mister.’ He patted his wrinkled grey hand over the Gold Goblin crest embroidered on the chest of his blue boilersuit and stamped his foot again.
Malik inclined his head, then ushered me into the cab. ‘After you, Genevieve.’
I hesitated for a moment, wondering if we were going to the Metropolitan Police Magic and Murder Squad’s headquarters or not. Even as I thought it, Malik said quietly, ‘Old Scotland Yard is the correct destination, is it not, Genevieve?’
Reassured, I nodded, and he repeated it to the goblin. I stepped into the taxi and scooted to the far side of the back seat, the plastic cold against my bare thighs. Malik sank down next to me, stretched out his long legs and closed his eyes. The goblin jumped in, crunched the taxi’s gears and off we rumbled.
I tugged my jeans back on, struggling to stay on my side of the taxi as it rounded a bend. I glanced at Malik, noticing the map of faint blue veins under the pale skin of his hands and along the fine line of his jaw. He was hungry. I’d thought he’d been about to lose it and go into bloodlust back inside HOPE before he’d bitten me. But so far that hadn’t happened, so maybe I was working on faulty info from my stepmother, or maybe being a revenant made him different. Of course, he still could go all murderous with bloodlust, and trapped in a taxi with him like this, it wasn’t going to be the healthy option. For me anyway.
‘I am not so in need of blood that I will put you at risk, Genevieve,’ he said softly.
His words answered my unspoken fears, but still they made my pulse hitch.
He opened his eyes, giving me an almost amused look. ‘But it would be less difficult if you could calm your heart rate.’
Yay! The monster says he isn’t going to eat me. Yet.
I breathed in, aiming for relaxed; and instead a curl of lust twisted inside me as I inhaled his dark spice scent. I banished it with thoughts of Fabergé eggs, necromancers, Moth-girls and Bobby, and finally narrowed them down to the more immediate question of my alibi, or rather, Malik turning up with my alibi at the top of his to-do list—he hadn’t even fed properly before coming to find me. So why had he really sought me out? I opened my mouth to ask, then decided not disturbing him might be a better idea for now. The buttoned-up suit made him look distant, unapproachable—then I realised it wasn’t just the suit. He’d shut down. He’d stopped his heart from beating, stopped his lungs from drawing breath and dialled his hypersensitive vampire senses back to less than an average human’s. It’s something most vamps pick up pretty quickly after taking the Gift; it makes it easier to integrate into human society, a way to avoid the siren calls of beating hearts and fang-aching blood scents. Unauthorised nibbling to satisfy those midnight-munchies is a sure-fire route to getting the chop—literally—with a one-way trip to the guillotine. Of course, snacking on a willing victim isn’t a problem, so long as it’s on licensed premises—
The lens of the taxi’s CCTV camera caught my attention and suddenly alarm bells started ringing. I leaned forward and tapped the glass partition. ‘We need to go back to the HOPE clinic,’ I said to the goblin driver.
He shifted his head slightly and in the rear-view mirror I saw the rear lights of the bus in front reflecting red in his shiny green eyes.
‘Keep going,’ Malik said quietly.
The goblin gave a sharp nod.
Damn. I turned to face Malik. ‘The hospital’s got security cameras,’ I said, keeping a tight rein on my frustration. ‘They’ll have caught Bobby feeding, it’s not licensed premises, and his being out of it isn’t going to make any—’
‘The cameras were not focused on that particular part of the incident,’ he interrupted. ‘The humans will believe it was their efforts that were successful in saving both the vampire and the girl; they will not remember otherwise.’
So he’d adjusted their memories during the mind-lock, which made sense—
‘But what about the troll? And the Beater goblin and the Souler, they all know the truth.’
‘There have been recent meetings between the Vampire High Table, the Goblin Queen and the Matriarch of London’s troll clan.’ He pushed the fall of black hair back; the stone piercing his earlobe glinted black against his pale skin. ‘We have negotiated several new treaties to ensure the current confidence the humans have in their safety around vampires does not become compromised.’
Surprise winged through me. The vamps and the goblins had always talked, but the trolls were new to the mix. It wasn’t just the venom hits I’d missed since I’d given up my regular trips to Sucker Town—as Rosa—but all the gossip too.
‘The incident tonight would have been blown up out of proportion by the media,’ Malik carried on, ‘particularly as it involved Mr October. He has only recently been cleared of murder charges; ally that with the current anti-fae feeling and it is possible that it would incite the humans to turn against anyone Other. It is in the best interest of all to minimise any such incidences.’
Of course, it didn’t help that I was in the frame for murder, heating up the simmering anti-fae discrimination almost to boiling point. Still, even if Malik was for minimising any problems, he hadn’t appeared too thrilled by the idea back at HOPE.
‘If keeping a lid on what happened is for the greater good’—although mostly for the vamps’ greater good, a cynical voice in the back of my mind added—‘why were you getting all worked up about sorting things out back there, then?
‘If I had done nothing, Genevieve,’ he said, soft-voiced, ‘the outcome would ultimately be the same. Mr October would still be a hero, albeit a dead one, and the girl would be just another sad statistic. It was the method used to save their lives, which would have been sensationalised, as you so rightly surmised.’
I ran my hand anxiously over my hair then stopped as my fingers tangled in the Glamour-spelled ponytail. I could just imagine the headlines: VAMP CHOWS DOWN WHILE DOCS WATCH or even, HOSPITAL FOOD JUST GOT BLOODIER. The media would make a five-course meal out of it all. And Grace would lose her job!
‘Are you sure the humans won’t remember anything?’ I asked, worried.
‘They may dream.’ He touched a finger to the platinum ring that banded his thumb in what seemed a vaguely troubled gesture. ‘It is not the ideal way to force human minds as I did, but I had neither the time nor the fortitude to gain their compliance in any other way.’
‘Has it done them any harm?’