I follow Baz into a deep, low-ceilinged room with no overhead lights. The bar runs down the middle, and ornate, private booths line the walls on either side, each booth lit by a hanging yellow lamp.
Everyone sitting along the aisles turns to look at us. A woman near the door drops her glass, and the man next to her catches it.
They don’t look like vampires.
Are they all vampires?
They just look rich. And … grey. But they don’t look beautiful or thin or cheekboney like they do in the films.
It’s Baz they’re checking out, not me. He’s got to be scared, or at least nervous, but he doesn’t look it. I swear he gets less ruffled the more that he’s threatened. (When I’m the one threatening him, that’s infuriating. But it’s kind of cool now.)
Every one of them must be so jealous of him. He’s everything they are, plus magic. Plus he looks the part, like he was born to be some sort of dark king.
Baz stops at the first booth. “Nicodemus,” he says, and he doesn’t even make it a question.
A man with grey hair and skin, and a shimmering grey suit meets Baz’s eyes and nods towards the back of the room—then looks at me and sneers. I wonder if it’s my cross or my scent that’s getting to him. Or maybe he knows who I am. The Mage’s Heir. (The Mage kills vampires; he doesn’t think it’s murder.) (Why hasn’t the Mage killed these vampires?)
I follow Baz through the room, wishing I’d worn all the posh gear he tried to push on me before we left Hampshire. I’m wearing my Watford trousers and one of his Scandinavian jumpers—and I only took the jumper because he said my Watford uniform made me look 12.
Baz is walking so slow, I keep kicking the back of his heels. It’s like he wants everyone here to get their fill of him. (Maybe he’s also trying to hide his limp.) The room gets darker, the deeper we go. I scan the booths for Nicodemus, but I’m not sure I’d recognize him, even if there were enough light. Does he still look like a mean, boy version of Ebb?
We reach the back wall, and I’m ready to turn around, but Baz continues through a doorway I didn’t even see. I follow him down a free-standing spiral staircase with a loose rail. By the time we get to the bottom, I’m dizzy.
Then we’re in the basement, I think. It’s like a cavern—much larger than the room above us, with an even lower ceiling, and dim blue lights set into the floor, like at the cinema.
It’s hard to tell how many of them are down here, because I can’t really see, but I feel like I’m in a room full of people. There’s electronic music playing, but it’s so soft, it sounds like it’s coming from far away.
Baz stands at the bottom of the stairs with one hand in his trouser pocket, scanning the room like he’s looking for a friend.
They could just set on us now, if they wanted—the vampires—and tear us to pieces. We’re hopelessly outnumbered, and we wouldn’t have time to cast any good spells. I don’t even have my wand on me, though they don’t know that. (Baz knows. He couldn’t believe I left it at Watford.) (I was in a hurry!)
I could take on some of them with my sword, but probably not all.
I could go off. And then, who knows what would happen?
Baz starts walking. The clothes are less posh down here. Are these the down-on-their-luck vampires? How do vampires get down on their luck? Even though we’re in the basement, everything and everyone is clean. I don’t know what I was expecting. Bloodstains? Blood cocktails? It looks like most people down here are drinking gin. I see bottles of Bombay Sapphire on the tables. Someone makes eye contact with me and holds it, so I let my magic come to my skin—I just think about it overflowing. He looks away.
We’re so deep into the cavern now, I’ve lost track of where the door is. Baz pulls on someone’s sleeve—a man almost twice his size. “Nicodemus,” Baz says, still not asking questions. The man flicks his head behind him, and Baz lets go.
We walk on, till we get to a row of pool tables.
Baz stops. He pulls a pack of fags from inside his jacket, then lights one with his wand. Everyone standing at the table