Falling Apart (18 page)

Sil sat on the bale of hay in the big barn and waited, his demon almost mirroring his necessary patience by lying quietly at his centre. In the doorway, Liam was leaning against a piece of machinery, updating his Twitter feed with, Sil could see, innocuous banter. Keeping up a pretence of being in the office, half his tablet device still tuned to the Tracker program. Convincing all that he was where he should be, not lurking in a chicken-infested straw-stack that, if Sil's eyes did not betray him, was set to leak mightily if the predicted rainfall should arrive.

‘Why do you consider this to be a more secure location than the house?' he asked eventually, wondering if the relentless itching that was causing his legs to twitch came from the hay or the trousers. ‘Are we not ridiculously exposed up here?' He peered again past Liam, out through the open double-doors and across the paddock which separated them from the house.

‘If you're going to be exposing yourself, then better out here than in the house,' Liam fiddled with the tablet, turning it sideways and giving what Sil considered to be a slightly sinister, thoughtful nod. ‘'Sides, up here we've got a better field of vision. Can see anyone coming, y'know the kind of thing.'

‘Oh.'

‘She'll be here.' Liam didn't even look across. Sil wondered what it was about himself that was betraying anxiety and tried to lean back in a ‘careless' attitude.

‘I don't doubt it.'

‘You know Jess: she won't walk away from a problem, not until she's kicked it to death, anyway.' A quick glance. ‘You lucky bastard.'

‘Liam—'

‘Yep, I know.' Liam slipped the tablet back into its protective sleeve. ‘You and Jess, the air practically boils when you're together – oh, bloody hell, that sounds like something out of one of Sarah's books, disregard above comment, please. I just mean … it's you and her. Always has been, whatever you might say, whatever you might have done, she'll be there for you, mate. If it turns out that you've … don't expect her to walk away, will you. She won't go easily, our girl.'

‘I know.' Sil slithered off the hay bale and sank his hands deep within the pockets of the jeans, the fact that the pockets were deep made him shudder inside his skin, no designer worth his salt would
ever
produce jeans with usefully workable pockets. ‘But I may have to make her, do you understand? If … if there truly is no solution to this problem, I cannot expect any mercy from any quarter, and I will not have Jess brought down with me. She … I …' Sil felt the words, their shape and meaning, but could not allow them their freedom and stammered into silence, pushing his hands up to his head and using the distraction of feeling the ragged ends of hair where once he would have run his fingers through skeins of silk.

‘Yup, well, they're going to terminate your shampoo advertising contract, that's for certain.' Liam inclined his head and Sil was grateful for the lack of emotional follow-up. Vampire he may be, but he was also a man, and if Liam had decided to follow his feminine side to a discussion about feelings and how much Jess truly meant to the pair of them, then he was rather afraid that he might have had to bite him just to shut him up.

The sudden jerk in his abdomen felt like temptation and he was flooded with a sudden, sweaty sickness.
Is this it? Is this what I felt – is this what drove me into that crowd? Is this blood-lust?
Then he recognised it, welcomed it. ‘She's here.'

‘What?' Sil didn't know whether Liam realised that he was straightening his shirt collar and shaking his hair into shape. ‘Where? Can't see anything …'

‘Nevertheless. She is here.'

‘You really can feel her? Shit, man, that's a useful ability, could do with that round the office, stop her from—'

‘I am waiting for the end of that sentence, Liam.' Jess spoke from the far side of the barn and Sil felt his face relax into a smile. She wore the tension of the situation lightly, only betraying it in slightly raised shoulders and a small, new crease of worry between her eyes. She had her hands on her hips and a ‘waiting for a male confession' expression – he was glad he wasn't the cause.

‘I was just going to say that it would stop you creeping up on me, but the picture was worth a thousand words, I thought.'

Her eyes met his and his demon rose to greet her, flashing into life behind his welcoming smile. Sil could feel the way it twisted and rolled under the weight of her gaze, like a dog greeting a returning owner, and his mouth carved itself into a grimace, despite his best efforts to keep the smile active and engaged.
By the gods, loving this woman is turning me into a shadow of myself
 …
but I never liked that shadowed self. She is making me a better man.

‘Right, bitey-boy. Liam and I have approximately twenty minutes of our most valuable time to spare you, and if your fang-faced leader gets onto us it will be a lot less than that. So let's talk.'

‘I was hardly about to suggest a tea party.'

‘Ooh, sarcasm! Look, Liam, this is what being vampire turns you into, forget the whole demon thing, it gives you an excess of irony masquerading as cool.'

Liam flashed him a glance. Overtly it said, ‘You see? I
told
you this was how she'd be,' but beneath, in the dark space that humans could not cover, Sil could read his fear for Jess. The terror that there was nothing to be said here that would make a difference. ‘I double-checked what Liam saw on the film. There is no evidence of my leaving the Records Office. I went in and I did not come out.'

‘Until—'

‘Yes, all right, Liam, I think we all know what happened next, you don't need to do the DVD commentary.' Jess's tone was as sharp as the words, and Liam subsided into silence, his raised eyebrows serving as his only rebuke. ‘I've had … no, it's not as much as an idea, it's … well, I was at the hospital earlier and …'

‘No anal probes.' Liam bowled the reply and Sil felt a little more tension leave him. If these two could banter, then nothing bad could happen. ‘At least, not unless you warm them first.'

‘Liam! No, it's …' Jess turned to him. ‘Do you remember when we had that boy that killed Daim Willis? He'd been glamoured, and Zan got you to re-glamour him to try to overcome the first glamour?' Her gaze flicked quickly back to Liam. ‘Keep up, Liam.'

‘Can I take notes?'

‘Shut up. Well, I thought … you said, when you tried to remember …' She tailed off.

She was nervous, shifting her weight like a horse about to shy and his demon tangoed on the feelings.
Why is she
 …
Oh, no. She wouldn't suggest
 …
would she? Madness. Utter—

‘Madness. No.' Sil turned away so he didn't have to see her expression. Afraid and yet pushing the fear away, overcoming it for the sake of … what? For him? Did she not remember? ‘I cannot guarantee your safety, Jess.' And now his voice was almost a whisper, the words containing all that he felt about her, bulging with the emotion like an overpacked suitcase. ‘I dare not. After London … I fed to surfeit. I did not stop.'

‘All right you two.' Liam knocked against the wooden door, the sudden rap of his knuckles making them both jump. ‘Let's back up about a decade here, and someone explain to me what
exactly
is going on; I accept both diagrams and line-schematics if words fail you.'

‘Jess wants me to bite her,' Sil said, hoping that the simplicity of the statement would prevent any comeback; then he rolled his eyes at his own stupidity.
I know these two. They could argue over the colour of socks.

‘I just thought … Sil said that when he tries to remember what happened to him, it feels like he's been drugged. The only thing that we know will drug a vampire is my blood, and if glamour counteracts glamour, then maybe …'

‘Drugs will counteract drugs? That's bloody ridiculous! It's like saying if you get savaged to death by a lion, getting savaged again by a tiger will bring you back to life!'

‘That is a stupid analogy, Liam, and you know it.'

Sil felt himself bound to interject. ‘Can we all keep our voices down? I am supposed to be in hiding out here, and I fear that your current volume will make us audible to anyone with sophisticated listening devices or, in fact, an ear trumpet.'

‘You are
not
going to let him bite you!'

‘Or even just quite good hearing.'

‘Look.' Jess sat down on the bale of hay that he'd recently vacated, hitching herself up so that her legs swung. ‘We've got absolutely nothing to go on here, and Zan is probably only one shave and a Spartan breakfast from working out where Sil is.' She turned to him again. ‘Seriously, what the hell is it with him? Does he really never sleep? It's like living with a spring-loaded Dracula; he's only missing the sinister accent and the cloak and we could enter him in competitions.'

‘Zan would look great in a cape.' What frightened Sil more than anything was the slow way that Liam spoke, as though he'd seriously considered her suggestion. ‘He's got that whole tall, dark, mysterious thing … you could be on to a winner with that one. Oh, if he wasn't so
Rainman
in social situations, obviously. Oh, and no, I'm still not going to let him bite you.'

‘Then what else have we got? Eh, chaps? Because from where I'm standing, letting Sil take a little bit of my blood to see if it counteracts whatever was done to him is looking an awful lot better than just blundering around in the film archives like we're trying to win fifty quid from
Vampires do the Funniest Things
!'

Liam dropped his head forwards. Sil could see that his fingers were twitching, hitting keys on an imaginary keyboard, which didn't have any answers either. ‘I don't know,' he said, quietly. ‘It's dangerous, Jess. He might not …' His glance slid over Sil, chilly as a winter breeze. ‘What if he can't control it?'

‘I am no happier than you about this.' Sil had to weigh in. ‘But she is right. We haven't got anything else.' And as he accepted the truth of what must happen his demon dived, hovering low down in his stomach region like a swimmer waiting to break surface.
Waiting for me to feed on the ultimate. On the absolute joy and elation that her blood brings
 …
Sil raked through the memories that brought his demon such anticipation, finding that he remembered little of that feeding, only the memories of the aftermath, of the sex and the remembrance of his long-gone family. An uncertainty such as he hadn't felt for decades crept its way into his veins.

‘What's the worst that can happen?' Jess's voice broke through the raging memories. ‘Seriously?'

‘He can go mental again, tear out your throat and … and I want you to bear this in mind above all things in your considerations – he can come after me. And I'm a third-generation coward on my father's side.'

‘That won't happen.' Jess was beside him, her skin as smooth as a mirror untroubled by reflections, her eyes like syrup. ‘Will it?'

And he knew. Knew that if they stopped and debated that they would keep on debating, arguing this way and that, pros and cons, for and against; up and down and round the houses. This was Jess, giving him the power. He took it, and was grateful.

Even though I'd seen the demon rising and braced myself, the actual blow came as a shock. Sil's demon knocked both of us to our knees and then bent over me, no trace of my lover in those eyes now, nothing but the desire for blood and a cold acknowledgement that I was food. I heard Liam shout, ‘Jessie!' and then the faint sounds of his moving towards us. But by then my body had hit the shock-barrier and I could do no more than move a hand in a vague ‘go away' motion.

The demon moved faster even than a vampire: there was a sudden heat at my neck and then he was against me, anchored by those fangs deep in my skin. There was an abrupt pain that made me jerk back, and then his body wrapped hard around me, as though Sil was trying to claim my skin. Rigidity forced itself down my veins and kept my head angled away from his, and, gradually, a gathering dizziness broke through from the back of my brain. ‘Sil …'—I tried to speak without moving—‘that's enough.' No reaction, apart from a gathering up of the body above me, and an increase in the speed with which the dizziness was marshalling. His skin was heating now, I could feel the warmth beginning in his lips and radiating out until it reached the hands that held me still, or perhaps it was the chill that was starting to invade my extremities that made him seem warm, made his scent intensify until it almost echoed inside my head and made my body feel as though I were dropping towards some cold centre, my limbs spiralling outwards as I broke into fragments, falling … falling …

A commotion, and my eyes flickered upwards to see the demon's head being dragged backwards, my own following because of the fangs still embedded in my skin, until we moved like a pair of conjoined twins. There was a loud smack, followed by such a sudden retraction of fangs that I fell away and ended up draped across the hay bale with Sil crumpled down on the floor. Liam was walking away, one fist gripped firmly under an armpit, and a hunch of agony dipping his shoulders.

‘Did you …' My voice was barely more than a sigh. ‘Did you punch him?'

‘No, I gave him a goodnight kiss!' Liam spun around, still cradling his hand. ‘Of course I bloody punched him! He was going to … well, I thought you'd passed out, and someone had to stop him.'

I inched my way up the bale, dragging myself by the string until I could sit and watch the grey veil before my eyes start to tatter and the world become more real. ‘That's actually quite brave.'

‘You'd think so, wouldn't you? Turns out it's a set of broken knuckles. Vampires are really
hard
.'

I looked down at where Sil lay on the barn floor, his mouth hidden behind a smear of blood and his whole body relaxed into an almost-human posture of sleep. ‘You … er … you might not want to be standing around here when he comes round: he might be a bit … cross.'

Liam sat, pointedly, next to me on the bale. ‘Nope. I've asserted my masculinity now; I'm going to see this right through to the end, whatever shape that comes in.' He withdrew his hand from his armpit and shook it gingerly. ‘Although if he goes all fangy again, he's your problem. This is the hand I use to wa—'

‘Don't you dare.'

‘I was going to say water the plants, oh great jumper-to-filthy-conclusions.' He looked down at Sil. ‘They look pretty good when they're out cold, don't they? Plus, it's nice when he's not constantly being all dour and rational at us. Perhaps we could market your blood to anyone with a particularly sarcastic vampire problem.' He laid a hand on my arm. ‘How are you feeling?'

‘A bit dizzy still, but not too bad. You stopped him before he seeded and before he took too much blood.' To Liam's evident surprise, I laid my hand over his. ‘Thank you.'

‘Oookaaay, either you want something, or you've lost so much blood that you don't know what you're saying, because I don't get gratitude as a general rule. In fact, I'm thinking that you had your gratitude genes removed when you took the job – hell, with York Council it's probably an employment requirement.' But his hand stayed under mine and we sat, Liam squeezing his damaged fist between his knees and me breathing deeply and trying to force the mist of hovering faintness back where it belonged, until Sil gave an involuntary jerk and his eyes flickered open.

He stared upwards for a moment, his eyes a blur of black and grey, like wet newsprint; then he let out a long, open vowel sound, almost a groan.

‘Are you all right?' Removing my hand from Liam's and fighting my wobbly knees, I moved to crouch down beside him. My blood had crystallised around his lips, his skin was warm to the touch but tinged almost blue and his eyes moved quickly from side to side until following their motion made me feel sick. ‘Sil?'

A short, inward gasp, stopped on a held breath and his eyes closed again.

‘It's just like you when you've had one HobNob too many,' Liam observed from a precautionary position over by the door. ‘Try rattling a gin bottle. Always brings you round.'

I ignored him and bent lower, trying not to yield to the urge to run my fingers over his cheekbones, to trace his beautiful mouth. ‘Sil, are you all right?'

The speed with which his arm came up and grabbed the back of my neck nearly dislocated my vertebrae; I heard Liam shout and saw his sudden movement as he loomed over the pair of us, then felt the press of Sil's mouth as he brought my head down level with his, so that his words blew into my ear with the minimum of intervening space. ‘It was you …'

My spine was bent uncomfortably double, and I had to put my hands on his chest to prevent myself from sprawling on top of him, but his hand gripped me so tightly around the base of my skull that I couldn't move back without either breaking his arm or my neck. ‘Me? What was me? Sil, please …'

‘Memory. Yes, that's it. Memory. Looking for … for you, no, not you … mother. Down there, in the dark, all papers and files and … couldn't find my pen. And a girl, laughing …'

The ice crystal that had sat in my heart while he'd been lost reformed around my core. ‘Girl? You were with a girl?'

‘I'm getting it all.' I saw Liam holding up his tablet, RECORD ENABLED flashing across its screen, and I'd never been so glad to see a mechanical device in my life.

‘Sil. Concentrate. Where were you?'

His head whipped away from mine for a second and he took two shallow breaths. ‘Quick. Metabolising.'

‘Then talk fast. Where?'

‘Records … Office. Looking for the file. Knew the right year, picked her up from census result … right year, right book but … not there. Numbers were right, just … no certificate. Oh. Then … shot.'

‘Jesus.' That was Liam. ‘This is bad, Jess.'

‘Then … voices. Arguing about what to do … they wanted to kill me but I would be missed, then … starving. So … hungry. I called for you, but you weren't there, it was dark and … fear. Hunger.' Tears pooled in the corner of his eyes, against the closed lids. ‘You weren't there …' A deep breath, almost a sob. ‘You weren't
there
.' Then the words stopped coming, his grip loosened and his hand fell onto his chest. ‘Losing it now.'

‘What does that mean? Jess?' Liam pushed the tablet closer, almost between the vampire and me, as though he could capture the meaning of the words by proximity.

‘He's working through the blood. He'll be back in the land of the living in a minute.' I glanced up and met Liam's worried stare. ‘We're not going to get any more. That must be all he can remember.'

‘Oh, shit, Jessie …' Liam grimaced. ‘I don't like this.'

‘I can't process this right now. We need to get away, back to the office or … somewhere.' I rubbed the back of my hand over my face, feeling the sweat of low blood pressure clammy against my forehead. ‘We need to get where Zan can see us, so he doesn't suspect anything. I'll take the car back to the hospital, you come and pick me up there – he thinks I'm there anyway, so we can do that legitimately. Then …'

‘Then we can panic.'

I flashed him a grin without humour. ‘Yes, probably.' I found my hand inadvertently cupping itself around Sil's head, treasuring the feel of what was left of his hair. ‘I'm going to get him back to the house first.'

‘No.' Sil spoke quickly, decisively for someone who was still half-stoned. ‘Let … let Liam take me. You need … get clear.'

‘No. This is down to me. Liam, you get back to the office and I'll meet you there. If Zan calls then I'm … out on the streets somewhere. You don't know where I am.' Liam hesitated, but then held out a hand. ‘What? I'm not going to tip you.'

‘Car keys. I need to get your car under cover, just in case someone spots it. And don't hang around, Jess. I need you back at HQ; there are a lot of implications here.'

‘Yes, boss.'

Liam closed his fist around the keys, screwing his fingers tight enough that he was going to have Volvo embossed on his palm. ‘Be careful.'

‘Just go.'

I waited until we heard the sound of the car moving into the lower yard before I tried to lift Sil to his feet. He staggered against me, the feel of his cool, firm body triggering the desire to coil myself around him, hide somewhere dark and pretend that none of this life-threatening stuff was really happening. To lie in his arms again with his cool body above me and his eyes fixing mine, to feel his whisper against my bare skin and that tremble at the edge of my soul that was my love for him.

But that was a weakness I couldn't afford. Not right now. There was simply too much at stake for me to give in and cry in the arms of my lover for a world we couldn't have.

‘Jess.' Sil's voice was a breath in my ear that licked its way into my brain and short-circuited away all good sense and resolution. ‘I did not betray you … In London. There was no other. There can
be
no other for me now.'

I tried to keep him upright as we wobbled out of the barn and down the stony track to the farmhouse. ‘It did cross my mind that you'd gone to … well, to do vamp things. Without me knowing.'

‘You believed I would do that?' He moved away from me slightly so that he could turn his head and look down on me. ‘To
you?
But surely, Jessica, surely you must know … how could I ever do something that would cause you such pain?' His eyes were oddly shaded, the various colours that usually gave them tone seemed to be twisting, undecided how to settle. ‘That I would do that to
you
 …' he muttered, dropping his gaze to the cobblestones as we reached the back door. ‘I would have to be insane.'

‘What are we going to do, Sil?'

My question seemed to stop him in his tracks. He paused in the hallway that led through to the living room, almost rocking to a standstill. ‘Keep breathing. Keep hoping that there will be an answer to all this.'

‘No.' I followed him as, motion restored, he stepped over a cat in the living room doorway. It flicked an ear, but didn't wake. ‘I mean about us. You and me. This … whatever it is that we've got going on. You're vampire, you're pretty much going to live forever and I'm human, well, human where it counts, and …'

His mouth was on mine, stopping the words, swallowing them down into a place where they never existed. His hands pulled me so close to him that we could have worn the same trousers. ‘
Jessica
,' he whispered into my hair as his mouth slid along my jawline, ‘however long my life may be, I cannot imagine one second of it without you. I do not
want
to imagine it without you. You are my all, do you understand? You are my purpose and my rationale – whenever I think of the times before you it is as though I am staring into the darkness.'

My heart seemed to climb up through my ribcage, trying to get even closer to his touch and I knew he could feel it, his fingers were cupped under my chin, trailing against my jugular. ‘I … don't know.' I stammered, but I did. I knew from the cool strength of his body against me, from the warm flicker of his eyes as they drilled into mine, as though the secret of the universe was printed on my pupils. The way he held me, half in supplication and half in protection, the utter, pounding
presence
of him. My blood raced itself to a standstill.

‘Love.' He pushed me back half a step so that I could focus on his face. ‘I am talking about love. And it is no longer a word to justify actions, it is a true
thing.
For the first time in a century, since my wife … since
Christie
, since the children …' Both hands moved to rest along my cheekbones, holding me so I couldn't look away. ‘I have found my purpose. The reason I have this demon; my strength, my speed, it is all so I may better care for you.'

My inner cynic, the one that sat on my shoulder whenever I had to deal with the sheer splendour of vampires and whispered in my ear that they were only out for what they could get; the thing that protected me from their glamour and poked holes in their film-star sexiness, muttered,
Yeah, right
, but it was almost inaudible. Everything else inside me had hung out the bunting, put on the party music and was blowing vuvuzelas and whooping. ‘I am capable of taking care of myself, actually,' I said, but my grin was growing as I said it. ‘But thanks for the thought.'

He was grinning back. ‘I know. It doesn't stop me from wanting to assist you though.' Then the grin fell away and he moved to hold me as though we were about to step into a rumba. His lips brushed my ear. ‘You hold my entire long life in your hands, and my demon heart beats with yours. Without you, the thought of eternity is unbearable; I wish to fight with you, to love with you and to be by your side whenever the end may come.'

That cynical voice vanished.

When it returned, it was too late to have any input at all. I was wrapped in Sil's arms, my head on his chest, in a lazy blur of emotion. ‘Wow,' was all I could say.