Serafina and the Silent Vampire - By Marie Treanor Page 0,95
you like, that’ll be affected. He’s needed a lot for what he’s doing, and it sort of feeds itself on a loop as he uses it. We’re going to smash the loop. And that will leave him with a hell of a lot less than he started with. At the very most.”
Sera frowned at Melanie’s back. “You mean we could kill him?”
Mel hesitated, then shivered and glanced back over her shoulder. “I don’t know. But we certainly won’t do his health any good. Do you want to call it off, Sera? Look for some other way?”
Sera spread her hands on her knees and regarded her fingers, spotting an uneven nail, a random scratch on her thumb. “There isn’t another way, is there?”
“There’s always another way. We just have to find it.”
“I don’t think we’ve time for that, do you?”
Mel shrugged. “I don’t even know how often we’ll have to do the spell. I don’t imagine you get many vampires with one shot. And this is going to use up a hell of a lot of my own energy. I’ll need to sleep in between.”
Sera stood up with decision. “Then let’s start. Why don’t you use the inner office? I’ll mind the shop as well as watch for you.”
****
There were no words, but Blair sensed their grim, silent presence. As he gazed down on the still, burned husk on the bed, all those with whom he or Phil had links hovered in his mind with grief and anger. It was rare enough for one of them to die that they all felt Phil’s pain and the shock of his imminent passing.
Possible passing.
Again, Blair had to break his own skin before holding his wrist to Phil’s lips, pressing hard enough for some of the blood to spill over his lips and teeth. At least this time, he felt the weak, instinctive suck, and knew there was hope.
Abruptly, Davie spoke in his mind. “I’ll be coming over now.”
“Now would be good,” Blair said after a pause, willing Phil to keep drinking. Surely the pull was growing stronger? “Keep hidden and wait for my call.”
For once, there was no dispute, no posturing or defiance, only a subdued murmur of assent as they drifted away.
“You have them well in hand,” a very different voice said in his mind, mingling amusement with admiration. Relief washed over him, almost like a pain.
“Ailis.”
She was Phil’s best chance, and, as if Phil felt her too, he sucked harder, drawing Blair’s blood greedily into his own mouth. The blackness of his skin began to recede and lighten to blistered redness in places.
“I’m on my way,” Ailis said. “But it will be well after dark before I can reach Edinburgh.”
Blair sent her a nod, gritting his teeth. His blood was doing its job, reviving Phil, giving him the strength to remember his greed. He could drain Blair dry and it still wouldn’t be enough blood to heal him.
Reluctantly, he pulled his wrist free. “Enough for now. Rest.”
****
On his way out of the police station to begin his shift, McGowan was surprised to see Steve Paton slumped over a desk, apparently doodling with pencil and paper.
“You still here?” he said in surprise. “I thought you were on night shift.”
“Yes.” Steve grunted, throwing down his pencil and rubbing his face with one hand. “I feel like shite. Need my bed. I just wanted to draw this character before I forgot what he looked like.”
Steve wasn’t a police artist as such. He was just a police constable with a talent for sketching. Over the years, he’d done caricatures of McGowan and most of their colleagues and superiors. They hung on the walls of the canteen and the locker rooms.
“Who’s he?” McGowan asked without much interest.
“You heard about the Fountainbridge fire? Definitely arson. I saw this guy running away from it, carrying someone else. I suppose you could say he’s our chief suspect. I’ll give it to Sal before I go.”
McGowan nodded and was about to pass on when, as Steve stood and reached for the picture, he glanced at it himself and stopped dead. Snatching it from Steve’s surprised grasp, he stared at it.
It showed a good-looking, lean young man with thick, wild hair, and large, deep-set eyes, looking out of the picture as if he was dropping from the sky. He had the sort of bone structure women swooned over and the lips of a sensualist. He also looked furious, and his skin seemed to be peeling.