Chapter One: The Last Supper
Archi had a lot of stupid traditions. You couldn’t see the mayor during the daytime. You never spoke to the duke. You couldn’t access media broadcasts from outside the island. You needed a special licence just to own a computer. Stupid traditions that Lisa hadn’t understood until she’d met the Andrastes and realised that having an ignorant populace was the best defence a vampire could have.
And, after a while, the Archians had embraced it. Why should they need anything that the Mainland had to offer? Why bother with culture, or technology, or knowledge? The whole thing was laughable. Not that James laughed at it. No… hubby dearest could be great fun and he looked for the adventure in everything, but when it came to the Andrastes it was all life-and-death.
Which was why they were back here again. Every month, regular as clockwork. In the sitting room of the Andraste mansion awaiting dinner with the vampires.
“You okay?” James asked her.
“Fine.”
“You look tense.”
The portraits on the walls were staring at her again. “I don’t like being here.”
“Do you want to go?” There was the slightest emphasis on the second word. Even if she left, he would stay. She tried telling herself that that didn’t mean he considered her less important than the Andrastes.
“It’s fine,” Lisa said. “It’s safer for me to stay. The last time I left you alone with them, you poisoned them.”
“With aspirin!” James said. “And they deserved it.”
“Chief,” said the smoothest voice she’d ever heard. It rumbled in her bones, like the low thum of a bass speaker. “Missus Paddington.”
And there was Adonis Andraste, Duke of Archi and head of the vampire family. Tall and thin, pale skinned, with an elegant silver moustache. Vertical slitted pupils like a cat’s stared at them with mock warmth as he reached out a dry hand with a strong grip. He looked about sixty, but what did that mean for a vampire?
“All is prepared. Please.” Adonis indicated to the dining room. The vampires were always very gracious. Perhaps that was supposed to put her at ease, but she’d seen too many bad horror films where the villain pretended to be all silk and sugar but turned vicious the moment the hero’s back was turned.
Hah. Not that James was a hero.
They took their usual places side by side at the table as the rest of the Andrastes filed in: Adonis’s wife Lilith; their sons Leander and Melanthios; and their daughters Niamh, Erato, Guenevere, Clytemnestra, Themis, Phaedra, and Ianthe – all dressed in their fancy old finery.
It made Lisa feel somewhat inadequate. Oh, she’d never been unattractive. Actually, by Archians standards she was – she didn’t look like a monkey and smell like horse shit – but by the standards of the Mainland she was perky and curvy in all the right places. And according to James she was an attractive wolf, too, when he was one too. So that was nice.
But before the Andrastes… It was like their every action put her down. The surety and smoothness of their steps made her feel like a toddler stomping along. There was no way she could compete on their level.
James was either unaware of this difference or ignored it, chatting away with them on the state of the island.
“And how are you, Missus Paddington?” asked Adonis, snapping her back to the present. “How goes your plant business?”
“Fine,” Lisa said.
“You continue to breach the Embargo?” asked Leander, the eldest Andraste child and a hulking figure of a man.
“The Embargo prohibits moving people, not plants,” Lisa said, “so until you redraft it, I’ll keep shipping off your precious island one plant at a time.”
“Very entrepreneurial of you,” Adonis said before Leander could respond. “Are sales improving?”
“Steadily.”
“I am pleased to hear that.”
“Why?” Lisa asked. She couldn’t help herself.
“Lisa…” James said.
“Why should you be pleased at my success?” she asked Adonis.
“Conversely, why should I wish you ill?” asked Adonis.
“My husband ruined your plan to end the world—”
“Remake.”
“—but every month we come to dinner like nothing happened. We swap war stories as if no one remembers we were on opposite sides of the war.”
Adonis placed his silver knife on his bone china plate and smiled, a hint of tooth dripping onto his lower lip. “We had a difference of opinion, and have been entirely compliant since then. The military specialists you brought onto my island – illegally – I returned home without punishment. I allow you unrestricted internet access, with which you contact said military friends weekly to forestall their coming here to exterminate my family and ruin the life of every Archian. So tell me, Missus Paddington… who holds the power here? Who is the true source of this enmity between us?”
“Your pretty speech would be more effective if the rest of your family weren’t glaring at me through their slitted eyes.”
“Lisa,” James said. He could be intense when he was excited or annoyed or focussed. Now he was two of the three. “Stop.”
She should. She knew she should. She shouldn’t have started.
“Please, chief, her concerns are valid,” said Adonis. “As I have told you before, the acquisition of knowledge is everyone’s business.”
The sentence hung in the candlelit air as cutlery clacked on crockery and the Andrastes chewed their meat.
“Then tell me what she meant,” James said.
Adonis didn’t need to ask who “she” was. “She” was James’s mother, whose dying words had been “Tell Adonis I was right.” James still had no idea what she meant and it drove him mad.
“Ah, this again,” said Adonis with good humour.
“Yes,” James said, without it, “this again, and don’t tell me you don’t know anything.”
Adonis eyed James longer than usual. Gods he could be still. Like a statue. Or a predator before the pounce. “I can’t propose to know your mother’s thoughts—”
“Those were her final words. She staved off death to—”
“—but I assume it was foolish sentiment,” finished Adonis. “She was speaking about you.”
James’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and back down. “Me?”
“Your mother believed in you. I did not.”
Lisa could see the thoughts colliding in her husband’s head. Andrea had always told James that he wasn’t the man he should be. She’d never shown him much affection, never told him she loved him or trusted his judgement.
James hadn’t helped matters. Maintaining – however rightly – that everything on Archi was stupid was the best way to offend a proud Archian like his mother.
And now Adonis was saying she believed in him? Where was the proof?
“You didn’t know her,” James said.
“You did?” asked Adonis. The rest of the table had long since vanished from the conversation. James and Adonis might as well have been alone in the room.
“At the end,” James said.
“Then what is your assessment?”
“Once I’d stopped the prophecy – stopped you – then maybe.” James dumped his napkin on his plate. “But by that stage she was dying; all she could do was wish me well.”
Adonis frowned. “You think she used her final days to placate and lie rather than reveal the truth?” asked Adonis.
“I think she knew that she could no longer influence me. She could give me hollow reassurances or useless criticism and for once she chose the kinder path.”
Adonis shook his head. “How fascinating.” He dabbed his mouth with his napkin, then rose and rang the bell at the side of the room. The butler emerged and cleared the plates.
“When did you discuss her faith in me?” James asked.
Adonis sighed as if this were an annoyance, but his eyes were steady on James. Watching. Reading. Analysing. “Often.”
“Then since you’re in such a chatty mood tonight,” James said, leaning his elbows on the table and clasping his hands, “perhaps you can answer some more questions about the zombies.”
A shrug. “I am at your disposal.”
“The first zombie, Marion Valdis. How did she traverse the miles between where she was murdered and Samuel Winslow’s house without being seen?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” said Adonis.
“Really? You and your family did everything you could to make that prophecy come true.”
“And you did everything you could to prevent it; what of it?” said Adonis.
“I’m just wondering whether someone at this table escorted Marion to Samuel Winslow’s house… Whether someone here started the whole zombie horde.”
Silence fell. The butler had disappeared with the last of the plates. Each Andraste watched either their father or James. No one moved.
Why couldn’t James just leave well enough alone?
Probably because he was a cop. This was what he did. No loose ends, ever. He had to know everything, no matter what enemies it made him.
“Chief, I cannot answer questions to which I do not know the answers.”
“You’re saying you had no hand in creating the zombie horde?”
“I am saying exactly that.”
The butler re-entered. “Telephone for you, detective chief constable.”
“Guenevere,” said Adonis, without looking away, “please show the chief to my study.”
Constable Clarkson and Mayor Appleby were the only people who knew where they were tonight, making the call both official and important. James broke eye contact and followed the vampire out of the dining room.
Leaving Lisa alone with the whole Andraste family. Great. Another chance for them to call her a trollop. Or worse…
James was alone with one as well. Was this an attack? Guenevere could probably take James in a fight. Well, if she got him before he changed. As a wolf he’d give her a run for her money.
The instant the door shut behind Guenevere, Adonis leaned forward. “We haven’t much time, Missus Paddington, so attend closely: is your husband the man you thought he would be when you married him?”
“I…” What was that supposed to mean? And why were they asking? “I don’t know wha—”
“Please.” There was real pain in Adonis’s eyes. “His character is of the utmost importance.”
“I…” It would be useless to lie to them, but Lisa wasn’t going to let that deter her.
Except… this was the first time anyone had really asked her about her marriage. Did it matter who was asking? She just wanted to voice the truth. “No. He’s the same as before. Shut off.”
James had told her why: it was for her own good. As a kid, he’d been peer pressured by one of the older boys into lifting her dress in front of the whole school. Instead of putting the incident down to a child’s poor judgement or a desire to be liked, James had taken it as evidence of some inherent darkness and a capacity to hurt those closest to him. He had therefore shut himself off, told himself that he was different from everyone else. Worse. Reprehensible. Detestable.
The problem was, Lisa could see the man he could be if he just let go of all that self-hate. That was the man she wanted to be with. She’d thought that after their wedding he’d… get better. Open up. Let her in.
Instead, he was the same. Isolated, by choice, from everyone. He was holding something back from her, something he was terribly afraid of.
“It’s like he’s waiting, but… I don’t know what for.”
“I am truly sorry,” said Adonis. “He has more work to do, but once it is done, then…” Adonis almost smiled, a kindly-old-man smile. “…then you will be blessedly joined.”
“What the feck is that supposed to mean?”
“There is another prophecy concerning the demon.”
Shit.
Lisa felt cold. She should have worn a longer dress. Autumn was nearly over; she needed the extra length. These old manors were so cold and draughty.
Why the hell were the Andrastes telling her all this? All their eyes were on her, but this time she felt nothing but pity and anxiety in their gazes. Gone was the usual derision at her class, her Scottish accent, or her werewolfism. Now they just looked… concerned.
Why were vampires concerned for her?
“Please, Lisa,” Adonis said, rushing through his words, “for both of your sakes, let us help you. You needn’t witness what is to come. Let us protect you until…” He glanced down at her body, then back to her eyes. “…afterward. Then we will reunite you, you have my w—”
Adonis stopped. Behind her, Lisa heard the door open.
“Is all well, chief?” Adonis asked it casually, but Lisa heard the shake in his voice. Was Adonis scared of James? And what had he meant by “both of their sakes”? If he wanted to help James, why wait until James was called away?
James stopped beside Lisa. “We need to go.”
Lisa stared at the Adonis Andraste, Duke of Archi. “Yeah, we do.”
“Everything all right?” James asked, a hard edge in his voice.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ve just had enough Family Time for one night.”