Mortal Coil

“You need me to do this?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Very well.” He stepped up to her, one hand at her shoulder, the other sweeping her hair slowly from her neck. “I’m sorry to say this will hurt.”

“I’ve been bitten before,” said Valkyrie, and gritted her teeth.

Caelan pulled her towards him and she waited. When she was this close to Fletcher, she could feel his warmth, the heat emanating from him with each rapid heartbeat, but there was no warmth coming from Caelan. He was cold as smooth stone. Even though his mouth was a centimetre from her bare skin, she felt no breath. The fingers of his right hand curled in the collar of her jacket, the fingers of his left in her hair. She waited for his teeth. His cold body sagged, and he stepped back.

“I can’t,” he murmured. “I’d tear your throat out.” He took a penknife from his pocket, slid the blade free, and gave it to her. “Just a drop. No more, Valkyrie, OK? I should be able to handle a drop. I think.”

She pressed the blade into the pad of her fingertip, wincing as it pierced the skin. A drop of blood swelled up, and she brushed it with the knife and handed it back to him. Caelan hesitated, then brought the knife to his lips, running his tongue the length of the blade. He worked the blood around in his mouth, and as he did so, he folded the penknife and put it away. His movements were slow and deliberate; his eyes were closed. He swallowed, and licked his lips, like a lion standing over a felled deer.

Valkyrie had a sudden urge to step away.

“Caelan?” she said softly.

He was on her, lifting her off her feet and driving her back, teeth bared and diving for her throat. She twisted in his grip and hit a tree and he moved from her throat to her mouth and kissed her, his mouth crushing against hers. The kiss took her by complete surprise, and she hung there for a long moment before she realised she was kissing him back. She felt her arms wrap round his neck, felt his hard chest press against her. Then something sparked in Valkyrie’s mind.

She pushed off against the tree with one foot while she tripped him with the other. They both fell to the ground, and she rolled off him and got to her feet. She tried to speak, but he was already behind her, his cold hands on her face, turning her head to kiss her again. Valkyrie folded into him, weakness flooding her body, before she forced strength back into it. She broke off the kiss and leaned away.

“This is not going to happen,” she breathed.

“It already is,” he said, his eyes dark.

“What did you see? Caelan! My blood. What did you see?”

He smiled. “Nothing. I tasted your blood and saw nothing.”

“You’re sure?”

“I don’t know what insight Dusk gained, but I gained nothing. The only difference between your blood and anyone else’s is … history.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s old blood. It stretches back to power.”

“To the Last of the Ancients?”

“That’s probably it.” His hand reached out to her and she slapped it away. His smile broadened. “But everyone knows you’re descended from the Ancients. I can’t see why it should come as such a big revelation to Dusk.”

“Maybe he saw something else.”

“Very possible. I’ve changed my mind, you know.”

“About what?”

“About how we should spend some time apart.”

“Caelan …”

“Now I think we should spend more time together.”

“I think I need to go now.”

Valkyrie went to walk by him and he laughed, and grabbed her hand. When she swung back to face him, his laugh was gone. “Fletcher’s a boy,” he said.

“That’s why they call it a boyfriend.”

“We’re meant for each other.”

“Holy God,” she said, “do you always come on this strong?”

Caelan looked like he was about to sneer, then he frowned, and backed off. “I told you,” he murmured, looking away. “I’m not … I’m not always in control.”

Valkyrie took the opportunity to hurry away.

“Thank you,” she called over her shoulder.

Caelan didn’t answer.

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he refrigerated van pulled in to the side of the road. Seconds passed, and the driver got out. He was a middle-aged man with bad skin. He wasn’t very bright and tended to say stupid things that annoyed his master. His master was a great and terrible man. His master was the Killer Supreme. His master was the Zombie King.

Thrasher opened the rear door and Vaurien Scapegrace, the Zombie King, stood there majestically, blinking against the cold afternoon sunlight.

“We have arrived?” he asked imperiously.

“We’re here,” Thrasher said, nodding his idiot head. “We got lost for a little bit. I took a wrong turn, had to stop and ask for directions. I had a map with me, but it’s pretty old, and with all these new one-way systems it’s pretty hard to …”

And he prattled on, annoying the Zombie King with mind-numbingly boring detail. Not for the first time, Scapegrace wished he’d picked someone else to be his first zombie recruit. Every recruit after Thrasher decayed at the normal speed for a dead body, but Thrasher had – unfortunately – inherited some of Scapegrace’s longevity.

But even the great Zombie King was looking poorly these days. Months earlier, his face had been badly burned by Valkyrie Cain. He had tried to peel the burnt skin off in giant flakes, but that only made things worse. His body would not repair itself, and so the disfigurement stayed, and occasionally another bit of him would fall off or stop working. Survival had become his only ambition. He went everywhere in this refrigerated van, he stayed out of the sun as much as possible, and he covered himself in car fresheners that struggled to mask the stench of rotting meat with sickly wafts of pine.

Survival. That’s what it was all about. And that’s why he was here today. Scapegrace stepped out of the van, on to the road.

“What do you need me to do, Master?” Thrasher asked, eagerness ripening his features.

“Stay here,” Scapegrace replied, “and don’t annoy me. How is my face?”

Thrasher hesitated. “It’s … good. Fine. The make-up is … it really hides the, uh, the worst of the scarring.”

“And my suit? Do I have any bits on it?” His ear had fallen off the day before. He’d stuck it back on with glue.

“It looks clean, sir.”

“Excellent. Back in the van you go, Thrasher.”