13. Alaric

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ALARIC

Gideon: Here’s my weekly invitation that you’ll ignore as usual – meet me at the Sanctus Club on Friday night. Nothing removes a stick from up your arse like the sins of the flesh, and you don’t have to marry a lady to have some fun for once. You could even bring along the human. That would be delightfully taboo. As long as she doesn’t mind a friendly nibble…

I crouch in the overgrown garden running along the side of Nevermore Bookshop, my favourite sword resting over my knees. A large stick pokes my posterior, but I don’t dare shift my position to remove it.

Did she see me?

I assume not, because Winnie strikes me as someone who wouldn’t keep to herself the fact that she’d caught her employer spying on her book club. If any of the Nevermore Murder Club and Smutty Book Coven members knew I was outside, they’d be upon me, torches lit and claws out.

Not even my vampiric strength would save me from their wrath.

I no longer have a heart that beats with human haste, so I don’t have to wait for it to stop racing. But something is wrong with me. I’m hot all over – something that shouldn’t happen to the undead – and I’m filled with a strange, pulsing energy, even more intense than when I’m in the throes of a creative distraction.

Something has been wrong with me since Winifred Preston arrived at my home. I’m drinking twice as much as usual, but the blood doesn’t have its usual effect. And despite furnishing her with a knife, I find that I can’t bear the idea of letting her out of my sight.

Not daring to lift my head again, I scan the street, searching out every darkened nook for signs of trouble. My fingers close around the hilt of my sword, and for a moment, I am back in another century, with dust in my throat and hate in my heart…

This village may appear innocent, but I have been upon this earth too long not to fear the shadows. As long as Winifred is here in Argleton, she is in danger. From men like Danny, and from much worse creatures.

I will not allow anyone to hurt her.

After several minutes, I determine that no book club members are coming to stake me. I shuffle through the weeds to another window and dare another peek inside.

The book club appears to have finished. Winifred helps two of the women straighten chairs, fold blankets, and stack books. Of course, she couldn’t leave the meeting room in a mess.

I duck into the bushes just as the front door opens and the book club members file out. They hug and chatter on the street, clutching books and tinfoil parcels of baked treats under their arms. They head off in different directions.

Winnie is the last one out the door. She chats to Arabella Lestrange and another woman while she waits for Reginald. I duck through the other end of the garden and circle around to the parking lot of the Rose & Wimple, where my loyal butler waits for me, the boot of the car open into a yawning maw.

“You do not look well, my lord.”

“It’s being in close proximity to all these wretched humans,” I mutter. “I shall feel better when we return at Black Crag.”

“I think it is the proximity to one human in particular.”

As I climb into the darkness that hugs me like a coffin, a wave of nausea hits me. I know what I have done is wrong. Winnie would not wish me to follow her and skulk in the shadows.

But when the night is filled with monsters, you need the worst monster of all on your side.