Free By Blood We Live by Glen Duncan Page B

D. It was what he used to call me. It hurt my heart to hear it now. It hurt my heart not enough.

14
    I T WASN ’ T EASY . Doubly difficult since I mixed truth with lies.
    “It’s one of Jake’s journals,” I said. “I thought I had them all, but apparently not. There are at least another half dozen.”
    We’d gathered in what we called—since it had an untuned old upright piano in it—the Music Room. Seating was two cream corduroy sofas and a wicker rocker. Eggshell walls, a black cast-iron fireplace, an odour of patchouli and fresh air and dust. The big bay window looked out into a front garden as beardily overgrown as the one at the rear, with the added attraction of a pond of thick dark green water watched over by two lichened demurely kneeling stone Nereids, one with a missing nose. Zoë had calmed Lorcan down, though he sat under the piano with a face of compressed fury. Two nights ago, in a rage, he’d put his bare foot through the conservatory’s glass door. I’d had to hold him down while Walker tweezered the shards from his flesh.
    “God knows how this Olek character’s got them, but he’s offering them in exchange for something. I don’t know what yet. Probably just money. He sounds a little desperate. He wants to meet.”
    The
wulf
in Lucy and Trish was trying to get hold of whatever it was I wasn’t saying, the other thing … something … But I kept it moving, just out of reach. The room’s atmosphere was dense.
    “You’re not going to meet him, obviously,” Lucy said. She was in the rocker, not rocking but tipped forward, elbows on knees. She’d changed into black jeans and an olive green blouse. Any green set off the auburn hair and hazel eyes. She’d put on mascara and eyeliner and warm peach lipstick. The Curse had rebooted her interest in the way she looked, now that she was never going to look any older.
    “No. Not yet.”
    “Not yet?”
    “I’m thinking about it.”
    Trish, who’d been looking out the window at two scuffling feral puppies (our canine vibe kept the grounds full of them), turned. The Chili Peppers t-shirt had been replaced by a white cheesecloth
kurta
and sawn-off 501s. Bare legs of lovely Gaelic whiteness. But her
wulf
’s irritation (this thing I wasn’t saying was like the comedy bar of soap every grab flipped from one hand to the other) had reddened her small face.
    “How can you be thinking about it?” she said. “Thinking about going to meet a vampire? It’s a trap. It can
only
be a trap.”
    “I’m not so sure,” I said. I had Quinn’s book in my hand. My hand pulsed, surely visibly. I thought: Any minute one of them’s just going to snatch it from me.
    “Look, I don’t want to make a big thing out of it,” I said. “It’s not something … I don’t have to decide anything right now. Besides, we’ve got Saturday to get through.”
    Saturday. Full moon. The kill. And everything that went with it. Only the fourth time we’d be going as a pack. It had become an occasional necessity. Not every month, and not on any recognisable cycle; but when the need spoke none of us argued. None of us except Madeline, who went her own way, who had fuckkilleat partners queueing, who had honourable reasons for staying out of mine and Walker’s way that one night of the month. She was stopping by tomorrow en route to Spain, where she had arrangements in place. She would land early in Rome, spend the day with us and the night fucking Cloquet’s brains out (it had become a pre-Transformation ritual for her, a last hit of human warmth before the beast got out) then leave on Friday. She had to keep their encounters brief. It was bad enough he was in love with her. If she fell in love with him, she’d end up killing and eating him. Since that would be the worst thing she could do to a human. Since doing the worst thing to humans is the thing we do. Hot tip: If you’re a human having a fling with a werewolf, break it off. Now.
    “I don’t like it,