CHAPTER Twelve
Aubrey was still under the table when I re-entered. There was an empty plate on top of the linen table cloth, however, signifying exactly what he’d been doing while I’d been attempting to avert World War Three. I moved back to my original seat, and picked up my knife and fork to begin eating again. Unfortunately, my food had cooled considerably in my absence. Something else to blame those idiots for, I thought sourly.
“Mack,” hissed Aubrey. “Where were you? What happened?”
I ignored him, and instead continued to chew. I’d been interrupted enough as it was. I was going to enjoy the rest of my meal without letting anyone else disturb me. Aubrey continued to mutter at me from underneath the table, but I let him continue without bothering to answer. I noted from across the road that Lucy had pulled out a mobile phone and was fiddling away with it, her eyes intent on the screen in a manner that any technologically astute teenager would be proud of. At least she was taking the hint and trying to look less out of place. A couple of clatters sounded from where I presumed the kitchen was, but I let the sounds wash over me and instead poured myself more coffee. Life wasn’t so bad after all.
Eventually, when I was done, I leaned down, picking up the edge of the tablecloth, and peered at Aubrey. He looked abjectly miserable, scrunched up into some bizarrely uncomfortable foetal-like position. There were some remaining crumbs of black pudding around his mouth. He was clearly a messier human eater than he had been vamp. When he saw me looking at him, he pouted.
“You were ignoring me,” he stated plaintively.
“Imagine that. Get out from under there, Aubrey. You’re making a fool of yourself.”
“Are they still there?”
“One of them is. It doesn’t matter though,” I said casually, “I told them what you are.”
“What?” he shrieked, lifting up his head and banging it yet again on the underside of the table.
“You heard me.” I pulled myself back up.
Aubrey crawled out backwards, and then sat back on his haunches and glared at me.
“You betrayed me!”
I shrugged and put my coffee cup down. He lunged abruptly towards me, fingers curled into claws. I grabbed him by the throat and held his snarling face away, trying to avoid the remnants of black pudding tinged saliva that were spraying out in my direction. He choked and spluttered.
“Let’s get one thing straight, oh master vampire,” I said sarcastically, “you are here on sufferance. If you want to leave, then you are more than welcome to do so. I rescind my previous instruction. If you want to stay, then you need to goddamn well start behaving yourself. I know for a fact that there’s a were-honey badger across the road who will quite happily rip you from limb to limb, whether you’re human or otherwise. I am becoming mightily sick of all this emotional bullshit. Get your shit together or get out.”
His eyes bulged, glaring at me even through the pain, then he finally blinked in agreement and I let him go. He collapsed onto the floor.
“You’re a mean bitch,” he choked out.
“Oh yeah? Well, ten minutes ago you were telling me how nice I was.”
“I lied,” he spat.
“There’s the door,” I stated calmly, pointing.
He put on a grumpy expression. “It’s too sunny outside.”
“Suit yourself.” I pulled out my laptop and opened it up. It was time to get to work.
A creak signalled the return of the waitress. She raised her eyebrows slightly at the sight of Aubrey on the floor, and flicked a concerned glance at me.
“I’m sorry about my companion,” I said. “He’s going to sit on his chair now and behave.”
Aubrey scrambled up with a groan, no doubt still under compulsion, and sat down on his original chair. I raised my eyebrows at him. He looked away and scowled.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“I don’t think she quite heard that.”
His eyes sent daggers towards me, but he turned to face the waitress and spoke up. “I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I suffer from panic attacks from time to time. It won’t happen again.”
“Oh, that’s alright, hen,” she clucked, “I understand.” She patently didn’t, of course, but the pair of us remained safely silent as she cleared away the table.
“Can I get wifi here?” I asked, hopefully. “And maybe another pot of coffee?”
“Of course.” She reached into a pocket in her apron and pulled out a small strip of paper, handing to over to me. “Here’s the password. I’ll just put some more coffee on to brew.”
I smiled gratefully, watching as she headed back out again, then turned my attention to the laptop, opening up the internet so I could get to my email.
I could feel Aubrey bristling beside me. “What the f*ck is wrong with you now?” I murmured, without looking at him.
“She called me hen,” he said disgustedly. “As if I’m a piece of poultry. If I wasn’t human, I’d…” his voice trailed off.
“You’d what?”
“Nothing,” he muttered, subsiding.
I looked over at him thoughtfully. He was tracing something onto the table top, eyes downward. Was that how I sounded when I got pissed off? All whiny and self-centred? He felt my eyes on him and flicked me an upwards glance. I looked away, logging on instead. I was not going to start comparing myself to an ex-undead Otherworld nastie. I had enough inner turmoil to deal with as it was.
Thankfully, there was a message from Alex to divert my attention. I opened it up, scanning its contents, then frowned, my stomach suddenly dropping and a churn of bloodfire flaring up.
I held my hand out to Aubrey, palm outwards. “Phone,” I demanded, rudely.
“Huh?”
“Give me your f*cking phone,” I repeated.
“Well, there’s no need to be so ill-mannered,” he snapped. Fortunately for him, he dug into his pocket and handed it over.
I dialled Alex’s number and waited for him to pick up.
“Mack Attack? Is that you?”
“Yeah,” I answered without preamble. “I just read your email. Tell me in more detail what you saw.”
“Dude, you have no idea. You didn’t tell me what the shop assistant was going to be like, I mean, jeez, it’s enough to give a grown mage nightmares.”
“Alex, just tell me.”
“Okay, okay, dude, don’t get your knickers in a twist. So I was watching all night to see who went in and out. Like I said in the email there was a steady stream of people. A couple of vamps, some shady looking characters, a few who were clearly using masking spells to hide what they really were, I think I even spotted a couple of mages. Then I saw her, the Batibat, when she went to see somebody off. It was just for a split second but, damn. Not only does she look as if she’s in serious need of a personal trainer, she is also as freaking naked as the day she was born. That image is going to be seared into my brain for the rest of my natural life. I know you shouldn’t judge people by their appearances, but, man, that’s one unpleasant looking lady.”
I flicked a glance over at Aubrey, to check to see whether he could hear Alex’s feedback, but he wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention. He’d gone back to examining his fingernails again, picking away at a small hangnail, then watching in astonishment as a tiny bead of blood formed at the edge.
“Is this the first time you’ve seen a Batibat, Alex?”
“Dude, I’d never even heard of one till you told me about her the other day. I wish I’d still never heard of one.”
I could almost feel his shudder from across the airwaves. I was coming close to shuddering myself. I didn’t like coincidences.
“Has there been any sign of the owner?”
“Not that I can see. How long do I need to stay here? I could do with a shower after all that.”
“I need you to stay there until you can work out who’s really in charge, Alex.”
“Mack Attack, you know I’ll do what I can to help you. Just,” he paused for a moment, “eurgh.”
“Hang in there, killer,” I said drily, then rang off.
I drummed my fingers on the tabletop. This was not good. Not good at all. I barely noticed the waitress wandering back in with another pot of coffee. A couple of other customers walked in and sat down at a nearby table, chattering away to each other. I stiffened noticeably for a second, however a quick glance proved that they were clearly just two locals – and human locals at that. Picking up the phone again, I dialled the number for the bookshop, hoping that I’d catch Mrs. Alcoon around.
The voice that answered was definitely familiar – and definitely not the elderly Scottish woman.
“Clava Books,” it stated gruffly.
“Slim?” I asked doubtfully.
“Oh, it’s you. What do you fecking want?”
I paused for a moment. Could I trust him? He was definitely in the mages’ pocket. I had to wonder whether he was still hanging around the bookstore even though it was all ready for the grand opening on Monday because he thought he might be able to keep tabs on me. That seemed kind of stupid though. I already had two mages pretty much here with me to find out what I was up to. The Arch-Mage didn’t need to give up the academy’s librarian to do the same when I was no longer anywhere near London. I shrugged to myself. Okay then.
“I need some help.”
“Why am I not fecking surprised?”
“You can always put Mrs. Alcoon on if it’s too much for you. Is she even there?” I asked suspiciously.
“She’s in the back. Making tea. What do you want?” The little gargoyle sighed heavily at the apparent trauma of being forced to talk to me.
“I need you to look through the books and find out whatever you can about Batibats. They’re…,”
“Nocturnal Indonesian tree spirits. Yeah, yeah, I fecking know,” he grumbled.
I started. Tree spirits? “You mean like dryads?”
He snorted. “Hardly. Batibats are daemons that reside in trees. They’re completely responsible for bangunot, you know.”
“Er, no, I don’t. What’s bangunot?”
“Nasty fecking disease. Usually affects young men. They die unexpectedly and immediately in the middle of the night. Apparently you can beat it by wiggling your toes because it snaps your heart back to its fecking natural rhythm before cardiac arrest. Don’t you fecking know anything?”
“Apparently not. Can you find a picture of one and email it to me?” I rattled off my address.
“S’pose,” he grunted, grudgingly. “Can I go now?”
“Just one more thing. Why are you there?”
“Huh?”
“Why are you still at the bookshop?”
“You got a fecking problem with me helping out a bit?”
“No. It’s just weird, that’s all. Are you behaving yourself?”
He made a spitting sound and hung up. Okaydokay. I hoped I’d not pissed him off so much that he wouldn’t send me what I needed, but fortunately my laptop pinged a few moments later with the arrival of a new email. I opened it up and stared at the image. Yeah, pretty hideous and very naked. I moved the laptop round to Aubrey. He paid me no attention whatsoever so I thumped him on the arm. He recoiled and growled at me. I motioned down at the computer and watched as his eyes widened when he saw what was on the screen.
“That’s the thing that attacked me! It sat on me! See? See? You thought I was lying.”
My heart sank a little further. “I didn’t think you were lying, Aubrey, I just thought you’d hit your head a little too hard, that’s all.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. It couldn’t be the same Batibat in London as who’d attacked Aubrey; that just didn’t make any sense. But there was no way in hell that the two weren’t connected. It just so happened that Balud needed help beating a little extra competition from a Batibat at the same time that the dryads needed help avoiding some kind of whole-scale massacre that also involved a Batibat? A creature that I’d never even heard of until a couple of days ago? No, sirree, there was no way that these two things weren’t somehow linked. The fact that Batibats were apparently also tree dwellers did not lessen my worry. At least now I knew what it was I had to do next.
I jerked my head over at Aubrey. “Come on. I’m going to pay up and then we’re going to get going.”
“Get going where?”
“Back to Haughmond Hill.”
“What? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m not going back there.”
I lifted a shoulder, carelessly. “Okay, then stay here.”
“No, no, no, no, no, no. You can’t leave me. No.” Panic filled his eyes and he shook his head emphatically from side to side.
“It’s your choice.” I stood up and pulled out my wallet from my now rather bedraggled looking plastic bag, replacing the laptop back inside it. Smiling at the waitress, I beckoned her over and paid the bill, leaving a rather hefty tip. After all, she’d performed rather admirably in the wake of Aubrey’s antics.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “Please do come again.” The look in her eyes suggested that even with the tip included, she’d prefer it if we never darkened her door again. I didn’t blame her.
I walked out, leaving Aubrey to decide for himself whether to tag along or not. I couldn’t really have cared less either way. He followed at my heels, however, crying out in overly melodramatic pain once we hit the sunny pavement.
“So you’re coming then?”
“You compelled me to stay with you, remember?” he said sourly, continuing to try to shield himself from the sun with his arm.
“I cancelled that. You can leave if you want to.”
“Maybe it didn’t work. Maybe because you told me to stay with you, and never leave no matter what, your initial compulsion can’t be cancelled.”
“You didn’t come with me when I left you up beside the ward on the hill,” I pointed out.
“Because you’d not gone far away then. How the f*ck should I know how it works anyway? You’re the one who’s doing this to me, not the other way around. Perhaps you’ll be stuck with me for life.” There was a malicious tone to his voice.
Heavens forbid. I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what I thought of that idea when he suddenly clutched my arm.
“Look!”
Alarmed, my eyes followed his finger, my body already tensing for a fight. But I couldn’t work out what he was pointing at.
“What? What do you see that I don’t?”
“Are you stupid? There’s a charity shop. I can buy some clothes to cover myself up from that f*cking sun.”
I must have been the first person in the history of compulsion to allow my subject to call me stupid and be this bloody annoying. I shot him an irritated glance. “It’s not really hurting you, you know. It’s all in your head.”
“Like fat naked creatures of the Otherworld sitting on me are all in my head too?” he inquired.
I sighed, giving up. “Fine. But you’ve got five minutes and that’s it.”
He beamed a grateful smile at me, and then trotted across the road. Lucy came up behind me as I watched him go.
“He’s a vampire?” she asked doubtfully.
“He was a vampire,” I corrected. “And a pretty f*cking scary one at that.”
“How in the hell did he turn human? I’ve never heard of a cure for vampirism before.”
I shrugged. “Beats me. I think something he ate just didn’t agree with him.” I gave her a serious look. “He doesn’t know what I am, and he can’t know what I am. He might be human now, but he still thinks like a vamp and can’t be trusted.”
“Right,” she said slowly, “except I don’t know what you are either.”
I gave her a startled look. “Corrigan didn’t tell you?”
She snorted. “As far as our Lord Alpha is concerned, any gossip about you is off limits. He sent three werecats to scut duty for a month because he caught them talking about why he was so interested in you when you’re not a shifter.” She glanced at me, curiosity clearly eating her up. “I don’t suppose you’d like to elaborate?”
I tried hard not to feel too happy that he wasn’t broadcasting my heritage to the world. “He’s interested in me only because the mages and the Fae are interested in me. It’s nothing personal,” I said dismissively.
“Right,” she said sarcastically, “because the Brethren Lord gives a shit about what a bunch of wizards and faeries do.”
“You guys are all part of the same world. You’d think that you’d learn to play nice.”
“You’re living in a dream world if you think we’re all ever going to get along, Mack.”
“A bit of idealism never hurt anyone,” I retorted.
“Without a bit of realism, you’ll end up getting killed,” she said quietly.
I had nothing to say to that. The rivalry between the different groups had me baffled, but, other than Mrs. Alcoon, I trusted pretty much no-one so I could hardly argue. All the others had too much of their own vested interests at heart for me to not be realistic about what they wanted from me. I couldn’t even really trust Tom and Betsy, my old childhood friends who I’d known for years, because as members of the Brethren and the Pack their ultimate loyalty would always lie with Corrigan. Alex, for all his laid-back attitude, would spring to orders if the Arch-Mage gave them. And Solus was a Fae. Even without the potential threat of the Summer Queen in Tir-na-Nog hovering around, his very nature meant he couldn’t be fully trusted. It all struck me as rather pathetic and made me feel incredibly sad.
“Your vampire doesn’t look particularly scary at all,” commented Lucy, breaking me out of my reverie.
I looked over at Aubrey emerging from the shop. Good grief. He was wearing a large brimmed purple hat of the sort that wouldn’t look out of a place on the mother of a bride on her big day. He’d added a long dark trench coat and a pair of stripy woollen gloves. He jogged over to the pair of us, tilting the brim of his hat up so he could give Lucy an appropriately suspicious look. She gave him back as good as she got.
I sighed. “Come on then children. Let’s go.”