With an air of one who evidently couldn’t truly believe this, Dalziel said clearly, “Because, Miss Anderson, you are a witch.”
26
CHARLEY
I was notready forthat.Except, as I quickly added up the evidence we’d learned, I realised it made perfect sense. Recovering my equilibrium, because by this point I should’ve known better than to question the existence of anything paranormal, I regaled the room with a new plea. “Please don’t anyone tell me I’m gonna develop new powers now I’ve drunk a witch’s blood. Unless, of course, Iam, in which case I suppose you should tell me.”
Rosie’s eyebrows disappeared under her hairline. “I bloody hope not,” she squeaked. “I don’t think I’m cut out to run a school for vampire witches. I make soaps and hand cream for a living.”
Everyone chuckled. I felt the reassuring weight of Dalziel’s hand on my shoulder as he explained it didn’t work that way. Rosie breathed a sigh of relief, and gave me an unexpectedly firm hug. “Now we’re all good, Eleanor’s going to take me back to Glasgow, where I’ll attempt to make it up to Mr Bru for not coming home last night, and catch up with my chores. It was smashing to meet you, Charley.”
“Yeah, you too. Mr Bru?”
“My cat. He’s bright orange, so Mr Bru, like the drink. Irn Bru,” she qualified when I looked blank.
“Oh, right.” I’d seen TV adverts, but it hadn’t occurred to me the drink actually was as lurid as the ads suggested. “Maybe I’ll see you again, Rosie. Thanks for the blood.”
“Ach, you’re welcome. Seems it did me a turn too. Me, a witch, who’d a thought it?”
With the women gone, it seemed as if the life had been sucked out of the room. Which might be worryingly nearer the truth than I was happy with. Could humans project their life force on a specific wavelength? Had I been subconsciously surrounding myself with human heartbeats in bars and clubs to drown out the lack of humanity I was feeling in myself? God, what a question. I didn’t know I was capable of being that deep, but hey, nothing like learning you were chock full of bitey and wingy genes to rearrange your priorities, to say nothing of a psycho motorcycle club president who was after your blood.
I flopped into the nearest chair, and swung my legs over the arm, watching with some kind of twisted satisfaction as Papa Dearest flinched at my lack of propriety. “So, Dalziel. What is your grand plan to save me from Ledge and his band of thugs?”
Luc shuffled closer, and when Dalziel gave him a frustrated jerk of the head, also sat down. Dalziel himself pirouetted an upright chair around on one expensive-looking carved leg, and swung himself over the seat to rest his folded arms on the top rail. Sinking his head onto his wrist, he seemed to be weighing up the mood in the room.
“Have you two worked through your differences yet?”
Luc’s face flamed. “I’m certainly trying not to be so judgmental, sir,” he offered. “I hate how I reacted to the news about Charley’s Fae blood.” A lightning glance in my direction meant I could flash him what I hoped was a supportive nod. “I’m…hopeful we can rebuild our…our…” He floundered.
“I still want to shag him,” I blurted, then Luc groaned and my eyes widened as I realised I’d confessed thatto my father.Just kill me now. I shoved my face into my hands and waited for the blush to sear the skin off my palms.
But Dalziel chuckled. “That, although being rather more unfiltered information than I required, is exactly what I was hoping. Good. I’m expecting a colleague, friend, to be here about midnight tonight. She’ll explain her part in how we extract you from this mess, and hopefully it will be enough, even if we can’t finger anyone else for the murder.” He sighed, apparently lost in thought, although I suspected he was too clever to actually get distracted. Just when I thought we should leave him to whatever was going on in his mind, he snapped his head up and fixed his shrewd hazel gaze on me. “You have her eyes, Charley. I’d forgotten how blue they were.”
Luc cleared his throat. “I’ll go and find Pavel, see what’s for dinner.” He slipped out of the door before I could persuade him to stay. I took a steadying breath and looked back at Dalziel.
“You mean my mother?”
He nodded. “Malin, yes. Gods, she was beautiful, Charley. I know folk see the likeness between us, but it’s superficial, bone structure and strong eyebrows. You…glow like she did.”
There was a peculiar lump in my throat as I asked him, “Did you love her?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “I’m sure you have all kinds of preconceived notions about vampires, but many of them aren’t true, or at least no more true for our kind than for anyone else. You find good and bad in every species. Vampires aren’t incapable of love. We do tend to lose what you’d think of as our humanity, and frankly that shouldn’t be surprising when you consider how long we can live. Being turned can be a frightening experience, and when you’re reborn, you awake instantly convinced you’re competing for a limited food source. Sneaking about in the dark is not only essential so you don’t get fried, but because you’re scared, and desperate to feed without drawing attention to yourself and getting staked. Sires tend to either practically smother their fledglings or callously ignore them. Plus, of course, we’ve been hunted for as long as we’ve existed. So that encourages paranoia, and before you know it, every vampire is a socially inept, reclusive arsehole with serial killer tendencies.” He sighed, and his lips twisted in a wry smile. “My apologies for the deviation. Consider it Vampire 101, a beginner’s course. But, history lesson aside, please don’t doubt I loved your mother. Or at the very least, would have loved her, if we’d had enough time together.”
I focused on anything but his declaration of love, because it hadn’t done him, or me, any good, and although I didn’t feel any familial pull towards him, Dalziel was technically my dad and I wasn’t sure I needed to learn about his mushy feels. “How come you can be awake in daylight? Can you go outside? You have really dim lighting in here, which by the way thank you for, because it’s so much easier on me than I’m used to. So yeah, would you burn up in direct sunlight?” I cringed at my gaucheness, but I couldn’t think how to phrase it more delicately.
“I would burn, yes. But a full tilt run across the lawns from here to the tower? It wouldn’t kill me. I’d certainly wish I hadn’t done it, and it would take me some time and a lot of blood to recover, but at my age, it’s doable. Please don’t ask me to prove it though.” He shuddered. “A fledgling wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“So it’s dependant on how old you are, and in this case, age is a good thing?”
“Yes, to both questions. With age, vampires become stronger, more powerful, more feared. And more resistant to the damaging and often deadly effects of the sun. I take it you’re not a fan yourself?”
I snorted in amusement. “You’ve clocked my lily-white complexion, right? It’s never been my choice to be outside in bright sunshine, or even bright daylight to be honest. I could tolerate both until puberty kicked in, but I’ve always been a night owl by choice.” I deliberated about asking, but couldn’t help myself. “What about the Fae? Do they like daylight, sunshine?”
“Of course. But many of them are also nocturnal by choice, as are many humans. They’re not restricted by their nature, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Yeah, it was.”
He swivelled on the chair to peer through the leaded windows. They were partially shrouded in ivy, and the light that did make it through was hazy and muted, just the way I liked it. “It will be some time before Baxter arrives. I have work to do. Perhaps you should find Lucien. Maybe have a meal. Rest. Because we will be keeping vampire hours later.”
