by Alexis Hall
“Din ate all the bourbons.” Maeve grinned. “Fecker.”
I’d never seen the court in session before, but I assumed the empty seat was for me.
It wasn’t.
Ector sniggered. Apparently trying to sit in the wrong chair is a major fucking faux pas.
“That chair waits for the one who will fill it,” explained Nim.
Well, that cleared that up. I took my place, standing in the centre of the circle.
Nim spoke first. “I, Nimue, hereby convene this court to hear the petition of Katharine Kane of Consett. Let those here present make themselves known.”
And then the others spoke in turn:
“I, Gabriel, Guardian of the Watchtower of the North, recognise the petitioner.”
“I, Maeve, Priestess of the Quiet Gods, recognise the petitioner.”
“I, Ector, Knight of the Watchtower of the South, Keeper of the Nine Keys, Pilgrim on the Burning Path, recognise the petitioner.”
“I, Dinaden, some guy who works in a shop, recognise the petitioner.”
Nim smiled encouragingly. “Over to you, Kate.”
“Uh, right. I was wondering if any of you knew what would leave marks like this on a body.” I fished out my phone with the photos, and the ziplock bag with the goo in it, and passed them both around. “It appeared in an alley on Brewer Street around 4 a.m. on Sunday, exsanguinated a fully grown man, and vanished without leaving a trace.”
Ector shrugged. “Not my bag, not my problem.”
“The trouble is,” said Maeve softly, “it could be one of a dozen things. It probably didn’t come out the river, but there are creatures you can call down from the stars if you know how.”
“How many of you have that kind of power?” I asked.
Nimue met my eyes. “You know I won’t answer that.”
“Well, if wasn’t a mage, what else could it have been?”
“Something from Faerie,” she suggested. “It’s not common, but it’s possible.”
“Or something demonic,” added Dinaden. “Hell is full of oogly things that suck stuff out of people.”
Gabriel had popped his kid in a baby carrier and was now cradling my smartphone in the palm of his hand, his eyes unfocused. “This creature came from below. It serves a power that is ancient and fallen, something that is not what it was.”
I’m not really a fan of vague prophecy, but that seemed to be pointing demonwards. In my line of work you don’t have to worry about things standing up in court, and a lead is a lead, but it wasn’t like I could go back to Julian and say, “Well, I know it’s not the mages, because they told me so.”
Nimue took the phone from Gabriel and handed it back to me. “Is there anything else?”
I couldn’t think of anything, since there’s only so many times you can ask somebody if they’re guilty as fuck. I got the rest of my stuff back and thanked them for their time. Nimue pronounced the court dissolved, and walked me to the door.
I stuck my hands in my pockets and tried to sound casual. “So how’ve you been?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “But I’m not the one working for a vampire prince. I’m not going to tell you to be careful, but I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Do I ever?”
Nim’s fingers brushed lightly over a strand of my hair. “You do okay. I don’t know how.”
“Blind luck, bloody-mindedness, and dashing good looks.”
That made her smile. “You know what they say about people who fight with monsters.”
“They have really good sex?”
“Safe journey, Kate.”
There was excellent service on all lines from Seven Sisters.
When I got home that evening, Julian was lounging on my sofa with her booted feet resting on the coffee table.
“You don’t call,” she drawled. “You don’t write.”
“You don’t knock.”
She grinned. “I know. Aren’t I terribly spontaneous and exciting?”
It was Patrick all over again. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
She raised an eyebrow. Her expression seemed to suggest it was completely unreasonable of me to expect a bit of privacy in my own damn home. “It’s been four days. And it didn’t seem like you had any intention of coming to me.”
“It’s been three days and I was waiting ’til I had something to report.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.
She pulled her feet off the coffee table and sat up. “You spoke to the werewolves without consulting me.”
“I do lots of things without consulting you.”
“You used my name.”
“You broke into my house.”
“You should get better locks.”
“You should give clearer instructions.”
She grinned suddenly. “Well, you should stop distracting me with your purple eyes and your come-hither scowl.”
Under very very different circumstances, I might almost have found her charming. As it was, I was just pissed the fuck off. “You need to stop flirting with me, and you need to get out my house.”
I’d never seen anyone look genuinely crestfallen before, but Julian’s crest fell pretty damn hard. “Okay,” she said, in a small voice. “I can see I’ve fucked this up really badly. I was going to ask you out for dinner but . . .” She ran a hand through her hair. “Yeah, that’s probably not going to work now, is it? Wow, I haven’t blown anything this badly since I tried to shag Catherine of Aragon.”
I pointed to the door.
“Look.” She spread her hands in an I give up sort of way. “I really like you. I didn’t mean to come here and freak you out. Well. Not in a bad way. I’ve got a booth at the Forty-Four. You could come join me. I’ll wait for you.”
I pointed to the door.
She peeped up at me through her lashes. “I’ll wait all night if I have to.”
I pointed to the door.
“I’m going, I’m going.”
She unravelled into shadow and was gone like smoke from a cigarette. It was a cute trick, but I was still too angry to be impressed.
I slumped onto the sofa and put my head in my hands. Fucking vampires. She bloody well would be waiting all night. There was no way I was going.
I sorted miserably through the bottles on my coffee table until I found one that still had liquid in it and poured myself a drink. I wasn’t really in the mood to think about the case, and dodging the TV licence fee had lost its thrill. So I watched the last of the light leaking out of the sky until I was sitting in the dark like the moody loner I am.
This sort of behaviour comes across way better in movies where you can have a convenient montage and get the whole thing over with in about three minutes.
I picked up my phone and fiddled with it. Archer was still on speed dial. I rang him.
“This is Archer, leave a message after the beep. Beep.”
Then the evil robot woman told me the mailbox was full and that my message may not reach the recipient.
Well, no shit.
I hung up.
What would I have said anyway? I’m sorry you’re dead. I’m sorry I had sex with the woman who shot you. I’m sorry I seriously considered letting her go. I’m sorry I didn’t even find that statue thing you were supposed to be looking for.
So that’d killed a good ten seconds.
What the fuck had happened to me? I was sitting alone in my flat at ten past eight on a Wednesday evening, with nothing to do except ring my dead partner and play Teeter, which I suck at even when I’m sober. I cast around for something to distract myself with. When Eve had been living with me, there’d been a bunch of game consoles, but during the division of assets we agreed that we’d each take away what we brought with us. So Eve got the Xbox, the PlayStation, and most of our friends. And I got the Tom Waits CDs and the mortgage. She tried to pay it off when she turned into the lesbian Mark Zuckerberg, but I wouldn’t let her. The Tom Waits CDs, the mortgage, and my pride. And at least I’m not pi
cking her socks off the floor and wiping cheesy wotsit dust off the furniture anymore.
I never thought I’d miss that.
Fuck it, I was going out.
I went into the bedroom to change my shirt. I had no idea what trendy young lesbians were wearing these days, but it was almost certainly not something they’d already slept in more than once. I shuffled through my work clothes, trying to remember who I used to be, and finally dug out a pair of skinny jeans, a soft cotton V-neck, and a fitted blazer, in which I could conceal at least three knives.
I am such a catch.
I was halfway to the Candy Bar when I realised that Julian probably owned it.
I told myself I didn’t care. And twenty minutes later I was in a basement full of drunk, badly karaokeing lesbians.
Well, fuck.
No wonder it had been free entry.
I squeezed through the crowd, trying to find someone who didn’t look twelve. I must’ve got old when I wasn’t looking. I somehow reached the bar, and was evaluating their fine selection of Sourz, when somebody beside me put their lips to my ear and bellowed “HI!” over a terrifyingly sincere rendition of “Sometimes When We Touch.”
“HI, YOURSELF,” I replied. Suave.
“YOU KNOW,” she yelled confidingly, “I KNOW ALL THE WORDS TO THIS SONG!”
“SO DO I.”
“GREAT. WE’RE FAIL-MATES.”
I took a deep breath. It was really hard to be pithy at this volume. “SOMETIMES WHEN WE TOUCH, THE IRONY’S TOO MUCH.”
“LOL.”
“DID YOU ACTUALLY JUST SAY LOL?”
“TOTES.”
Could I really sleep with someone who said LOL in cold blood? Could I really not sleep with someone who said LOL in cold blood?
We took a moment to appreciate the music.
“I LOVE,” said the girl, “THE WAY IT RHYMES ‘DIE’ WITH ‘CRY.’”
“I LIKE ‘WRITER’ AND ‘PRIZE FIGHTER.’”
“OH YEAH, THAT’S GOOD SHIT.” There was a pause. “SO WHAT DO YOU DO?”
“I’M A PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.”
“THAT’S HOT.” My pullee was not uncute. Tomboyish. Gelled hair. Tattoos. Knew all the words to “Sometimes When We Touch.”
It was too loud to offer any penetrating insights into my surprisingly unglamorous profession. “YES,” I said. “YES, IT IS. YOU?”
“I’M HOT, TOO!”
Oh help. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say except How does that pay? which made it sound like I thought she was a prostitute. I fell back on old reliable. “BUY YOU A DRINK?”
“I’LL HAVE A J2O.”
“A WHAT?”
She pointed at the soft drinks fridge. “I DON’T DRINK.”
“I’M SORRY.”
I bought her a ludicrously overpriced bottle of orange juice.
“I HAVE OTHER VICES.” She grinned.
She was a demon, wasn’t she? I have the worst taste in women.
“OH YEAH?” I said, with a mounting sense of dread.
“YEAH, BUT IT’LL TAKE MORE THAN ONE DRINK.”
Okay, she was probably wasn’t a demon, and I moved my hand away from my sanctified knife. My love life was so fucked.
“HOW ABOUT TWO DRINKS?” I asked, to get things back on track.
“IT’S A START. I’M TASH.”
Tash the Teetotal Lesbian. I guess I wouldn’t forget that in the morning.
“KANE, KATE KANE.”
“SING ME SOMETHING KANE KATE KANE.”
“OH, HELL NO.”
She kitten-smiled up at me. “IT’LL BE WORTH IT.”
So this was what it took to pull human women these days. Fine. I hustled round the tiny stage. There seemed to be a queue for the public humiliation, but I caught the eye of the cute drag king in the bowler hat, and the next thing I knew I was clinging to the mic and belting out a surprisingly girly rendition of “Little Drop of Poison.” About halfway through, I realised it was a fucking weird song choice. And probably hit a bit too close to home. Although Eve had actually left in late summer, and I’d never been one for keeping pictures.
I finished to confused applause and slunk back to Tash the Teetotal Lesbian.
“YOU’RE REALLY GOOD,” she lied. There was a pause. “NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING.” There was another pause. “DO YOU WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE?”
Wait. That had worked? Unless she meant because I’m sick of the sight of you.
“SURE.”
We spilled out onto Carlisle Street, kissing clumsily while the queue yelled at us to get a room. Her tongue was sharp with overpriced citrus, and she smelled strongly of hair product and faintly of sweat. We zigzagged, liplocked, her hands roving and groping. And then we crashed into the window of a Pizza Express. Her palm slid under my shirt and zoomed upwards like a breast-seeking missile.
Ah, to be young and horny.
This was probably a bad idea. I could tell because I really wanted to go with it.
“You’re so fucking hot,” whispered Tash the Teetotal Lesbian.
Okay, Kate, be strong. Tell this nice young lady you’re fucked up and walk away. And don’t wait until you’ve shagged her first, because that would be wrong.
She gave me an enthusiastic squeeze and popped the button on my jeans. Well, this was going faster than I expected.
“Easy, tiger.” I covered her hand with mine. “I’m thirty-three. If I have sex in a doorway I’ll feel it in the morning.”
“Okay,” she said cheerfully, “do you want to come back to my place? My roommate’s at her parents’ and it’s only fifty minutes on the Tube.”
“I can see why you prefer doorways.”
“Shall we go to yours, then?” She wriggled against me and turned her face up to mine. She was really very pretty in a pixie-ish sort of way. And there was something just a bit familiar about that cat-who-got-the-cream look.
I’d got all dressed up and gone to all this trouble, only to go home with a twenty-year-old girl who looked a bit like the eight-hundred-year-old vampire I was trying not to think about. Wow, that was pathetic. There was no way I could shag her now. Not even a little bit round the edges.
“Look, Tash.” I tried unsuccessfully to disentangle myself. “I don’t think this is going to work.”
“It’s fine, we can get the night bus.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed the edge of my jaw and started working her way downwards.
“No, no, I mean this,” I flailed. “I’m just—” Kiss. “—in a bit of a weird—” Lick. “—place right now.” Nibble. “It wouldn’t be—” Kiss. “—fair on you.”
Tash the Teetotal Lesbian left my neck alone, took a step back, and put a wrist to her forehead. “Oh noes. The hot older woman wants to take me home and use me for sex. Who will save me from this terrible fate?”
“Seriously, Tash, I’m in a bad place. The love of my life left me for a tech startup, and I had to send my rebound girl to prison for murdering my partner. That’s not the cool kind of fucked up.”
“Whoa.” She blinked at me. “Is that true? Because you could’ve just said if you didn’t fancy me.”
“It’s true.”
“And in what way was that supposed to make me not want to sleep with you?”
“Tash, I’m as surprised as anyone about this, but it turns out I’m not looking for a random hook-up. You’re great and, under different circumstances, you’d totally be my type.” Too much my type, that was the problem.
“Okay, okay.” That was the second time this evening I’d seen somebody’s crest fall. “I get it.” She pouted. “I was really looking forward to fucking a PI. I bet you’ve got handcuffs and everything.”
“I’m a detective, not a dominatrix.”
“A girl can dream, can’t she? Give me your phone.”
“Promise you won’t smash it or steal it?”
“Just gimme.” I handed it over. She faffed with it a moment and then snapped a picture of herself, grinning cheesily and throwing devil horns.
“There’s my number. In case you change your mind and buy some handcuffs.”
I gave her my card. “Fine. There’s mine.”
“Oh wow!” she cried. “You’ve got a card and everything. I’ll call you the next time I want something private investigated.”
She blew me a kiss and headed back towards the club.
I ran away.
I got the Tube home, and sat slumped in a corner seat feeling confused, but mildly less shitty than I had when I went out. I stared at the picture of Tash the Teetotal Lesbian and wondered if I’d been a complete idiot. Had I really just turned down a night of erotic gymnastics with a hot twenty-something for an empty flat and a cup of Bovril? Had Julian really screwed with my head that much? I’d only spoken about two hundred words to her, and most of those had been fuck off.
I made it back to the flat and was shocked to discover that no vampires had broken in while I was out. I was starting to wonder if I’d overreacted earlier. I was about to take nearly two and a half grand of Julian’s money, and she had no idea what I was doing for it. Way to be professional, Kate.
There was nothing for it but to go to bed. And I’d finished all the Bovril, so I had to go alone.
I lay staring at the ceiling.
I seriously considered calling Tash and telling her I’d changed my mind. I was pretty sure if I phrased it right, I could get it to sound sexy and impulsive, instead of lonely and fucking pathetic. I pulled out my phone and looked at her picture. She really reminded me of Julian. And so did everything else.
Well, fuck.
There was no way I was going there again. Blood loss and mind control are not a good basis for a relationship. But to give Julian her due, when I told her to fuck off, she did, at least, fuck off. And I couldn’t remember Patrick ever apologising for anything.
How long was she going to wait for me, anyway? She’d said all night. It had already been about six hours. I think Eve camped outside Game at midnight to get Wrath of the Lich King, but I’ve never waited six hours for anything in my life. True, I’m not immortal, but Julian looked like she got bored easily.
