by Alexis Hall
“Uh?”
“I would not have imagined your body could have been fixed so easily. I am greatly relieved that I was mistaken.”
“Uh?”
“Miss Nimue was able to repair you by means of some sorcery I did not understand.”
I turned carefully towards Nim, and then realised I didn’t have to be careful because I was fine. “Since when can you do that?”
“Since you pledged fealty to my court.”
“By the way,” Julian scowled at me, “I’m really not happy about that.”
“If I hadn’t,” I pointed out, “we’d both be dead.”
“Look,” said Maeve. “I’ve done my bit and then some. I’m going to leave you ladies to sort this out. Because I really need to take a bath and sacrifice a goat so I don’t get hepatitis.”
I decided to just let that one slide. “Thanks for your help.”
“Normally I’d say anytime, but if you ever have to fight another deranged sewer god, call somebody else.”
She turned and strode off over the Heath, her hair rippling like red ribbons in the early morning breeze.
“So are you two still at war?” I asked.
Julian glanced away. “We’ve come to an arrangement.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, we’ve come to an arrangement.”
Nim touched my shoulder gently. “I’m glad you’re all right, but I should go.”
“Thanks for, y’know, saving my life and everything.”
“Don’t thank me, Kate. I’ll see you soon.”
Nim tucked her hands into the pockets of her hoodie and walked away.
That just left me, my vampire girlfriend, and the animated statue who I was looking after for a giant rat gestalt.
“Elise,” I said, “can you give us a minute?”
“Certainly, Miss Kane.” She stood there obligingly.
“Um, I meant can you go somewhere else? For longer than a minute. In fact, do you want to go back to the flat? Take the car, I’ll grab a taxi.”
“Certainly, Miss Kane. And welcome home.”
Elise went back to the car, leaving me alone with my vampire girlfriend.
Julian watched Elise walk away. “So, she seems nice.”
“She’s interesting.”
“Honestly. To breathe life into inert matter is one of the deepest, most ancient, and most sacred mysteries known to theurgy. And I swear people only ever use it to make sexbots.”
Julian sat down next to me and slipped her hand in mine. The first suggestion of light was starting to creep across the night sky. “You know,” she said, “you scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be silly, you saved me.” She paused. “Though not without cost, I fear. Poor Aeglica. Still, I think it’s the way he would have wanted to go.”
“What, in a sewer?”
“In battle against an ancient and powerful enemy.”
Well, it wasn’t really what you’d call an ancient and powerful enemy. It was more, sort of, me. That was when I realised Julian had been unconscious for most of the fight and hadn’t seen what actually happened. Shit. How do you ’fess up to something like that?
She sighed. “I’ll miss him, though. In a way. We’d known each other for the best part of a millennium. It seems strange to think of a world without him in it.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. “Uh, sorry.”
“Aeglica wasn’t afraid of death. It was the only thing he truly understood. Though electing a new Prince of Swords is going to be a pain in the arse. I might have a lot to answer for.”
Okay, Kate. If you’re going to tell your girlfriend that you stabbed one of her oldest mates, this is the time to do it. “Look . . . Julian. I . . . I . . . I’m sorry if this causes problems for you.”
Well, that could have gone better.
Julian gave me a sweet little smile. “I’m sure it’ll all blow over. At the end of the day, it’s just politics, and I’m afraid that never ends. It’s one of the downsides to being immortal.” She put a wrist to her forehead. “Along with the utter meaninglessness of existence, the unbearable ennui, and the soul-crushing loneliness.”
“That’s all bollocks, isn’t it?”
Her teeth glinted. “Yes, it is. Being immortal is fabulous. Just think, if I hadn’t been transformed into a bloodsucking abomination against God and nature, we might never have met.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Truthfully, Julian Saint-Germain was the cutest bloodsucking abomination I’d met for a long time.
“So do all your relationships start like this?” I asked. “Murders, faeries, near-death experiences, massive political upheavals, whacky hijinks in sewers . . .”
“I did warn you, sweeting. I’m a motherfucking vampire prince.”
She was. But at least I wasn’t staring at an empty flat through the bottom of a whiskey glass. Yes, I’d nearly been killed, yes, people were dead, yes, we’d blown up Tottenham, and no, it probably wouldn’t last but . . . fuck it, I was feeling great.
I leaned in to kiss her. “It’s one of the things I like best about you.”
She tasted of wine and roseleaves. The sun rose slowly over the Heath, the lake, and the grey concrete towers.
The stylised heart would not, in fact, have been used as a symbol of romantic love at the time of Julian’s confrontation with the King of the Court of Love. And, indeed, the King of the Court of Love himself is a little anachronistic in that he embodies a concept of courtly love, which never actually existed. But given that we’re talking about a magic faery who was taken out by a secret army of demon-hunting ninja nuns, one of whom is now a vampire, I decided anachronism was the least of my problems.
As ever, thanks to my friends and, for want of a less saccharine phrase, loved ones for putting up with me. And to the wonderful Sarah Frantz for, once again, correcting my abuses of innocent commas and making everything better. And, finally, to Riptide for being amazing and, yet again, taking a chance on me.
Glitterland
Glitterland: Aftermath (free download)
Coming soon from the
Kate Kane Paranormal Investigator series:
Shadows & Dreams
Fire & Water
Alexis Hall was born in the early 1980s and still thinks the twenty-first century is the future. To this day, he feels cheated that he lived through a fin de siècle, but inexplicably failed to drink a single glass of absinthe, dance with a single courtesan, or stay in a single garret.
He did the Oxbridge thing sometime in the 2000s and failed to learn anything of substance. He has had many jobs, including ice cream maker, fortune teller, lab technician, and professional gambler. He was fired from most of them.
He can neither cook nor sing, but he can handle a seventeenth-century smallsword, punts from the proper end, and knows how to hotwire a car.
He lives in southeast England, with no cats and no children, and fully intends to keep it that way.
Website: quicunquevult.com
Twitter: @quicunquevult
Goodreads: goodreads.com/alexishall
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