Decision made I picked up the glass and slugged the sour-tasting blood down. My stomach clenched as it hit, then I grunted as it spread through my body like battery acid, burning me from the inside out.
‘Okay, that’s just . . . gross.’ Katie’s quiet mutter made me look at her.
‘What?’
‘Your face,’ she said, quickly dropping her gaze back to the sheet she was cutting. ‘It’s moving like there’s something running around under your skin.’
Nice! ‘It doesn’t feel too good either,’ I mumbled around what felt like a mouthful of tiny crab apples. Not to mention my rippling skin was making me nauseous, or maybe that was Mad Max’s blood. I started picking at the sheet round my right ankle, hoping I wasn’t going to puke.
Katie cleared her throat, the sound nervous, then keeping her gaze fixed on her scissors, said, ‘Did anyone get back to you about last night? The Carnival or the police?’
Inwardly I cursed myself. Of course she’d be worried about the flasher, whereas I’d totally forgotten about it. Some friend I was. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I haven’t had chance to check my messages.’
Katie jumped up and retrieved my backpack. Fishing out my phone she checked, then looked up disappointed. ‘Nothing.’
‘I’ll call a bit later and ask,’ I said, hoping I’d get some sort of answer that would reassure her.
She gave a small nod. ‘Thanks.’
‘I’m pretty sure it’s nothing to worry about. The police said they’d had reports of flashers in the park before, so it was just really bad luck we were there. It’s horrible, but there’s nothing personal in it.’
‘Yeah, I know. I talked to Mum about it last night. But then when I went over it in my head I realised I’d seen something else.’
Had she seen a vamp? Worry pricked goosebumps on my arms. ‘Something else?’
‘Yeah.’ She stopped snipping and fixed me with an odd expression, half excited, half anxious. ‘Remember I said the man sort of collapsed, and then I saw that weird animal? Well, I think, instead of the man looking for the animal, I think they’re the same. I think the man turned into the animal.’
I stared at her. ‘You think he was a shapeshifter?’
‘Yes!’ She leaned forward. ‘Is it possible?’
Hmm. I hadn’t seen the naked man, or vamp as I’d thought he was. I hadn’t seen any weird animal. All I’d seen was an odd shadow of movement, and even that might have been my imagination. And the only pings I’d got on my inner radar had been the old man and his dog, who, when I mentioned them to the police, had confirmed the man was a local, and kosher . . .
Except, what if the male had been a vamp, and had turned into an animal. It was possible and it would explain how he had vanished so fast, and why my Spidey senses hadn’t pinged him. After all, Mad Max turned into an Irish wolfhound, and when he did I couldn’t tell he wasn’t anything other than the dog he seemed. Not to mention if someone wasspying on me, Mad Max was the obvious candidate.
Only Katie had said the man in the park was dark-haired. Mad Max was blond. But the Autarch was dark-haired, and he’d given Mad Max the gift. Vamp powers ran through the bloodlines, so it was possible that the Autarch could turn into some sort of animal. Plus, I’d asked Malik if the Autarch could go out in daylight if he stayed in the shade and he’d never answered my question. Just told me the Autarch wasn’t the Emperor. Crap. Maybe my paranoia was spot on and the Autarch had been spying on me last night.
‘I looked up shapeshifters,’ Katie said, interrupting my worrying thoughts. ‘Did you know the only non-fae shapeshifters are werewolves? There used to be other animal/human-shifters but they were all hunted to extinction.’
I blinked at her, surprised. ‘You think it was a werewolf last night?’
‘Well, they exist, so it’s possible, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ I said slowly. Possible didn’t mean probable. ‘I suppose so. There aren’t any werewolves in Britain, though.’
‘Not living here, no,’ Katie agreed, dipping her head so her ponytail fell to hide her face, then went on to tell me werewolves had been hunted to extinction in Britain sometime in the 1700s, as had real wolves which was around the same time the rest of the world’s therianthropes or wereshifters had been killed off. However, werewolves – lycanthropes – had managed to escape total extinction when they were given ‘full human rights’ status in Russia by Empress Anna Ivanovna, who used them as part of her security police force. Apparently, there were only about hundred packs left worldwide, which amounted to just under a thousand lycans in total, the majority of those were in Russia. As usual, Katie’s research was thorough and gave more detail than I wanted or probably needed to know.
‘It also said that once they get the scent of a virgin,’ Katie finished, ‘they hunt them down so they can Change them.’ She stopped cutting, scissors poised above my foot. ‘I’m still a virgin, Genny.’
Well, your mother will be pleased to hear that!Not that I’d thought any different. But I’d heard the hitch in Katie’s voice. She was worried some imaginary werewolf was going to come looking for her. I knew it wouldn’t happen.
‘That’s just an old wives’ tale,’ I said, trying to reassure her. ‘Far as I remember, new werewolves get recruited from long-serving members of the military or police. I’m pretty sure they’re all volunteers, and I doubt any of them are virgins. You know Wikipedia isn’t always right, don’t you, Katie?’
She snorted and jabbed the tiny scissors back into the knotted sheet hard enough to make me flinch. ‘I didn’t get this from Wikipedia, but from the witch archives in the British Library.’
‘They’re password protected,’ I said, wondering how the hell she’d got access.
‘Tavish gave me one.’
Crap. ‘Tavish has a lot to answer for,’ I muttered. I wasn’t surprised he’d hacked the archives, just that he’d given Katie the password.
‘So do werewolves hunt virgins?’
I sighed. ‘Told you, it’s an old myth, and even if it were true, I doubt the male was close enough to you for it to be a problem.’
‘Genny! I know you told that policeman something last night, that you didn’t tell me.’
Damn. Sometimes Katie was too observant for her own good. I picked at the knot I was working on for a moment, then sighed; if she was going to worry about something, it might as well be the truth. ‘I think the male you saw was a vamp who was following me. One that can shapechange. Only I won’t know for sure until I get some answers. When I do, I’ll let you know. And I’ll make sure that you’re not in any danger this time.’ Whatever I have to do. ‘Okay?’
She stayed quiet for a long moment, head down, blonde hair covering her face. ‘A vampire?’ She glanced up, a mix of anger and fear flashing in her grey eyes, just as I felt the skin of my face twitching like it had popcorn jumping beneath it. She grimaced and looked down again. ‘Okay. Actually that’s less worrying than thinking he was a werewolf.’
I blinked. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I know you’re sort of half vamp, and I know they’re not all bad. And I know you can deal with the bad ones anyway.’
What was I supposed to say to that? It was good she had confidence in me, but I wasn’t sure I could live up to it. Only if I said that, it might only make her anxious again.
‘And I’ve got these.’ She grabbed her huge designer bag and upended it on the bed between us. In amongst the make-up, hair products, glossy mag and other girlie stuff were half-a-dozen bulbs of garlic, three tubes of minced garlic paste, one of chilli paste and a bag of red chillies, the tiny super-hot ones, and a thin bundle of what looked like brass chopsticks.
She’d got her very own vamp-repelling kit. Eating the garlic and chilli wouldn’t put them off, but the paste smeared on skin would stop them biting; charred lips are a quick, easy way to kill a vamp’s appetite.