‘You’ve got nothing to lose.’
‘No, butyou’vegot everything to lose.’ She glanced at my expression and sighed. ‘Fine. I’ll give it my best shot.’ She was easier to persuade than the police.
‘Thank you. I’ll go and find some holy water. Meet you here in two hours? Will that give you enough time to harvest the garlic?’
‘Should do.’ She gnawed at her bottom lip. ‘But listen. There’s more to life than money. Cash is not worth risking your life for.’
I waved a hand to suggest airy confidence. ‘With your special vamp spray, there won’t be any risk.’
Otis snorted sarcastically. ‘Yeah,’ he said, under his breath. ‘Right.’
I turned to him. ‘The only risk will be to the undead.’
‘This isn’t you, Daisy,’ he said mournfully. ‘You don’t take unnecessary risks and you’re not usually over-confident.’
‘It’s not over-confidence, Otis. And it’s not risky. They’re only vampires, they’re not that big a deal.’ I smiled and repeated, ‘They’re only vampires.’
His bottom lip jutted out. ‘I wish Hugo was here.’
So did I, desperately. But I didn’t need him for this. Even without his help, bagging a few vampires would be easy:undeadeasy.
Chapter
Fourteen
‘Ithink the best plan is for you to sally forth, Daisy, while Otis and I wait here,’ Hester said.
‘I thought you’d changed your mind and you were behind my plan?’
She nodded. ‘I’m all the way behind it. At least half a mile behind it, in fact.’
It would be for the best: if I didn’t have to worry about Hester and Otis getting hurt, I could concentrate on any vampires who appeared. ‘Alright,’ I said. ‘But you stay right here. You do not leave this spot.’
‘Don’t die,’ Otis whispered.
Hester agreed. ‘We need you to get us back to where we belong.’
‘You’re all heart.’
She bobbed her head solemnly. ‘You know it.’
I raised my hand in farewell and slipped out of the dark alleyway. The bottle of vamp spray that Tracey had concocted lay nestled in my pocket, and I’d swallowed as much spider’s silk as I dared. I was as ready as I could be – but now that I wasout here in the cold, quiet night, my earlier confidence was deserting me.
‘Only vampires,’ I muttered to myself. ‘Only vampires. Nothing to worry about.’
Unsurprisingly, the Edinburgh streets were empty. Local people clearly heeded the dangers presented by the burgeoning population of fanged fuckers and hurried home as soon it was dark.
There were plenty of lamp posts, and their orange glow provided more than enough light to see what was up ahead, but somehow their eerie reflections in the small puddles of water and on the slick cobblestones discomfited me. The whistling breeze that was echoing up and down the empty street and ruffling my hair didn’t help matters.
I turned up my collar against the chill and moved quickly. With any luck, a passing vampire would notice me and come running over for a quick meal. I only needed one; I didn’t need to be greedy.
I turned right at the bottom of the hill and passed a dilapidated building that I knew would soon be torn down and replaced by student flats. There was a flicker of movement and I half turned, pausing for a moment until I spotted a small mouse scurrying in the gutter. I tipped an imaginary hat in its direction then continued on my way.
I didn’t have a particular destination in mind, and I’d hoped that a direction-less amble would quickly yield results, but when several minutes passed and the tiny mouse was the only creature I’d seen, I decided to alter my approach. There was an old graveyard past the next row of tenements; maybe I’d hit paydirt there.
As soon as I stepped off the pavement to cross the road, I heard snuffling.Yahtzee.
The vampire was a sorry-looking creature. His clothes were hanging off him in tattered, rotting strips, and his flesh was sunken and grey. He was shuffling along the middle of the cobbled road, dragging his left foot behind him; from the angle, it was badly broken. Vampires rarely felt pain; they possessed less awareness of their physical situation than the mouse I’d passed. Even so, as I watched his slow approach I reasoned that I was doing him a favour by putting him out of his misery so he could be laid to rest for good.
