Free Midnight's Choice by Kate Thompson Page B

away from her teeth in an automatic, defensive sneer.
    â€˜You’d better not be hungry,’ Martin went on. ‘Not really hungry, I mean. We can live for a long, long time on these streets without raising anyone’s suspicions, but not if we let our appetites run away with us.’
    â€˜I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Tess.
    â€˜I’m talking about the difference between keeping the wolf from the door and having a real feed. The fact is, you can’t be that hungry, any more than I can, because you’ve had your breakfast and your dinner and your tea at home, haven’t you?’
    Tess was about to tell him that she hadn’t, in fact, what she had eaten that day was breakfast, lunch and dinner, but she decided against it. ‘More or less,’ she said.
    â€˜Right,’ Martin went on. ‘But if you hadn’t, and if you didn’t have them yesterday, either, then you’d be really dangerous.’
    â€˜To who?’
    â€˜To us. Because when you pulled someone in. and started feeding, you wouldn’t be able to stop.’
    â€˜So what?’
    â€˜So they’d find a dead body, drained of blood, wouldn’t they? With two tiny incisions on the neck.’
    â€˜But no one believes in vampires these days.’
    â€˜No. But they soon would if it happened often enough, wouldn’t they?’
    Tess shrugged. ‘Who cares, anyway?’
    â€˜I do,’ said Martin, with cold determination. ‘I plan to live in this city for a very long time. A very, very long time. And I don’t plan on being discovered. That means we have to go carefully, drink little and often, so as not to make people suspicious.’
    Tess looked up and down the street, sighing with incredulity. ‘You’re mad, do you know that?’ she said. ‘You’re going to feed off a different person every night and you think you can get away with it? You think your victims are going to shake your hand and say, “You’re welcome, come again?” Don’t be ridiculous! All right, the police won’t believe the first, person who complains, but they’ll believe the tenth and the eleventh and the twenty-first!’
    The creamy quality slipped back into Martin’s voice. ‘You haven’t read the literature, have you?’
    â€˜What literature?’
    â€˜All there is. On vampires. Our victims forget, didn’t you know that? They pass out as we feed and go to sleep. When they wake up they feel a bit weak and fuzzy-headed, but they have no memory of us at all. And who’s going to notice a couple of pinpricks on their throat? Specially if we’re careful.’
    Tess looked Martin straight in the eye, still wishing she could win the point but knowing she was beaten. At last she smiled mischievously, and nodded.
    â€˜Understood,’ she said.
    They resumed their patrol, silent and agile as cats on the frosty street. They turned again, following the darkness wherever they could and then, as they passed the open doors of an abandoned coal-merchant’s, Martin stopped and sniffed the air. Tess joined him and immediately caught the same scent. There were two people nearby. Very nearby.
    Stealthily; the two vampires slipped into the yard. In the nearest corner, hidden from the street by the open corrugated iron door, a car was parked. Quite a new car, clean and without a scratch. Martin crouched low and crept up to the driver’s door, Tess on his heels. Under the cover of almost perfect darkness, they peered into the car, their vampire eyes penetrating the dim interior. Tess had expected the couple to be kissing, but they were sitting apart in total silence as though they had just had an argument. The man, in the driver’s seat, was grey-haired and well-dressed. He was staring straight ahead of him, smoking a cigarette. The woman was much younger, with long brown hair and a heavy sheepskin coat. Her