LITMIR.BIZ

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boots. He looked like a cowboy on the verge of retirement; all that was missing was a worn ten-gallon hat. He extended a hand towards Jamie.

      “Mr Carpenter,” he said, and the teenager gasped. Grey’s voice was unearthly, a rolling blast of bass and treble, a sound that was both swaggeringly large and charmingly soft. “It’s an absolute pleasure to meet you. My name is Grey.”

      In the living room, Larissa’s heightened ears heard this greeting, and crimson spilled into her eyes. She reached out, grabbed Lawrence by the lapels of his suit jacket and threw him across the room. He was taken utterly by surprise, and didn’t react until he crashed into the wooden wall, splintering the planks, shattering the glass in the window above him, and shaking the entire house.

      Morris started to say something, but Larissa was already moving. She crossed the room in a flash, threw open the door of the study, and disappeared inside.

      Chapter 31

      ONE RULE FOR EVERYONE

      The door to the study crashed open and Jamie jumped round in time to see Larissa fly across the room, her eyes molten red, and grab for Grey’s throat with hands that were curled into claws.

      Surprise flashed briefly across the ancient vampire’s face, but then centuries of instinct took over. He reached out, gripped Larissa by the neck, flipping her over in mid-air and slamming her on to the floor on her back. The air rushed out of her, and he knelt across her chest, pinning her shoulders with his knees, looking at Jamie and Frankenstein with dark, gleaming red eyes. Morris rushed into the room, and gasped at the scene before of him.

      “What is the meaning of this?” Grey said, his voice like midnight ice.

      Jamie looked at Larissa, who was squirming and cursing under Grey’s weight.

      “I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “Larissa, what the hell are you doing?”

      The vampire girl howled, bucking and kicking like a wild colt.

      Then, abruptly, she stopped struggling, lifted her head and spat in Grey’s face.

      He recoiled, disgusted, and wiped his face with his shirtsleeve.

      “Ask him!” she yelled. “Ask him why he didn’t just kill me and get it over with!”

      “Oh God,” said Jamie, realisation flooding through him like cold water. This was the man with the tattoo from Larissa’s story. He reached for his T-Bone without realising he was doing so, until Frankenstein stepped forward gripped his arm.

      Grey’s eyes reverted back to dark green. He looked down at Larissa, and Jamie saw recognition leap into his face. Then he looked at Jamie and Frankenstein, remorse contorting his features.

      “I didn’t recognise her,” he said. “I thought she was here to kill me.”

      “I am,” spat Larissa. “I’m going to kill you for what you did to me.”

      “What’s she talking about?” rumbled Frankenstein.

      “He’s the one who turned me,” said Larissa, her voice dripping venom. “He bit me and left me for dead. But I didn’t die.”

      “This is the man you saw in your garden?” asked Jamie. “The one from the fair?”

      Morris looked at him, confusion all over his face.

      “This is him,” said Larissa. She had stopped struggling, but her chest was rising and falling rapidly. “I’ll remember his voice forever.”

      Grey looked down at her, and an expression of such anger crossed his face that Jamie was absolutely sure that he was going to reach down and kill Larissa there and then. But the moment passed; instead Grey stood up slowly, and reached a hand down towards Larissa. She slapped it away, and pushed herself to her feet. The two vampires stood, eyeing each other warily.

      Then suddenly the room was full of vampires, and everyone started shouting at once. Lawrence was first, his eyes a blazing red, his neat suit rumpled and torn. He stared at Larissa with fury in his eyes, then saw the expression on Grey’s face, and went to his friend. The residents of Valhalla followed him into the study, drawn by the commotion. Their faces were full of concern for Grey, and suspicion for the outsiders who had punctured their peaceful village.

      “What’s going on in here?” demanded one of the vampires, a woman in her thirties wearing a pretty yellow sundress. “Grey, are you OK?”

      “I’m fine, Jill,” he replied, and gave her an unconvincing smile. “Everything’s fine.”

      “Everything is not fine,” said Larissa, fiercely. “This is the vampire that turned me four years ago. I don’t know how you make that fit with your precious rule.”

      Jill clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide.

      “What’s she talking about, Grey?” asked John Martin.

      There was a murmur from the rest of the vampires in the room. Jamie looked around, saw that there were at least fifteen of them in the study, and a chilly thread of fear crept up his spine.

       If they turn on us, we’re dead.

      Grey looked at the men and women crowded into his study. His face wore a shiny veneer of calm, but it faltered under the gazes of his friends. An expression of terrible misery emerged, as if from a great depth.

      “She’s telling the truth,” he said.

      There were gasps throughout the room, and a vindicated snarl of triumph from Larissa. “I told you,” she said. “He—”

      “Shut up,” said Lawrence, his eyes almost black. “Not another word from you.”

      He turned to Grey, who was standing alone in the middle of his study.

      “What do you mean, she’s telling the truth?” Lawrence asked, his voice almost a growl. “How can she be telling the truth?”

      “I mean I turned her,” said Grey, simply. “She reminded me of my wife, my Helen. So I followed her, and when I found her on her own, I drank from her. Then I came home. I thought she was dead.”

      Jill, the vampire in the yellow dress, started to cry. A young vampire in a red T-shirt put a hand on her shoulder, and she gripped it, tightly.

      “What about our rule?” said Lawrence, his voice like thunder. “What about everything we stand for? Everything you started?”

      Grey looked at his friend, his eyes wide and pleading. “I’m weak,” he replied, his voice hitching. “I always have been. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help it. Do you understand me? I can’t help it.”

      Clarity flooded into Jamie’s mind.

      “This wasn’t the first time, was it?” he asked, softly. “Larissa isn’t the only one.”

      Grey looked at the floor, and a chorus of gasps and groans filled the study.

      “How many?” asked Lawrence. “How many innocent humans?”

      “A lot,” replied Grey, in a strangled voice, his eyes fixed on the uneven wooden floorboards. “One every few years, since the beginning.”

      “Every time you told us you were going away to clear your head,” spat Lawrence. “Every time you told us you were going out into the world to remind yourself why Valhalla was so important, you were taking human lives. You were betraying the one thing we stand for above everything else.”

      Grey said nothing.

      “I can’t bear to look at you,” Lawrence said, his voice shaking. “You’re worse than any of them, the vampires out there killing and feeding. At least they don’t pretend to be something they’re not.”

      “What do you want me to do?” cried Grey, his face hot and full of shame. “I can’t bring any of

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