“May we speak with you for a moment?” Vlad asks.
She looks between the three of us, eyes flaring with recognition when they land on Margot. Margot might not have spoken to her, but Helen has some idea who she is, anyway. This close, Helen looks to be in her early forties, though her energy feels to me like she’s been a vampire for almost a century.
“Do I have a choice?”
Vlad smiles. It’s not overly pleasant. “No, not really.”
Helen sighs but follows as Vlad leads us all down the street and around the corner. There is an alley where we can stand out of sight, and he gives me a significant look, but he doesn’t need to. My magic is already feeling for anyone who might be nearby—there are people in the houses, of course, but if we speak quietly enough, they won’t hear us—as well as raising wards around our little group.
We’ll be as safe as we can be. I’ll make sure of that.
And Vlad goes straight in for the kill. “What can you tell us about the vampire Jakob?”
Helen looks at me dispassionately, then back at Vlad. “That he’ll be more interested in your boy than you.”
A muscle in Vlad’s jaw ticks. “That is not what I am enquiring about. What do you know of him? Where might we find him if he is not at the club?”
“How should I know?”
“Because you are one of a handful of vampires left in this city and considering that Jakob is working with someone far more powerful than you or me, I can only presume that he hasallowedyou to stay.”
Two spots of colour appear on Helen’s pale cheeks. Right on the money, then.
“That’s not why.”
“Oh no? Why, then?”
“I just haven’t managed to leave yet.” Helen crosses her arms over her chest. “There were more of us months ago. Before he introduced us toher.”
“Introduced?”
Helen studies Vlad for a moment. “You’re from London?”
“Not the clan, but yes.”
“You know the clan, though?”
“Yes.”
“We had something like that here. Not so formal as theirs seems to be, but we could all work together. No one was fighting for territory. In the past few years, some vampires have gone back to where they were before the wars began, but we mostly like it here. There’s a large enough population to sustain us, and in the summer, they’re transient enough that we don’t raise suspicion.”
Margot snorts. Helen glares at her.
“And a few months ago?”
“We hold our own kind of town meetings. Vampires and their attendants only. Jakob brought her with him three months ago. I don’t know what she is, but that power—” Helen shivers. “We all felt it. Some of the elders looked worried as soon as they saw her.”
“What did they say?”
“Jakob said she wanted to work with us. Do some research on vampires. They shut him down straight away. Not a chance.”
“And then?”
“And then two of our elders turned up dead. The next night, two more. She’d wiped them all out by the end of the week.”
“How do you know it was her?” I ask.
“She came and told us.”
