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'What?' she said, stroking his neck with one warm hand and unbuttoning his shirt
with the other.
'No, wait,' he said, drawing back again. 'Something's out of whack here. It isn't
right. In fact, it's very wrong!'
'What is?' She fell back against the bed's headboard.
'I'm talking about those people on the Evening Star,' Jake answered. 'What about
them? They must have had shots. Yet they became victims, and it doesn't seem to have
affected Malinari or Vavara one little bit!'
'Oh, that!' Liz said. 'Well, Ben asked the Minister Responsible the same question.
It seems that Porton Down didn't have the capacity to manufacture enough of the
antidote for the entire population, so they tendered it out to other manufacturers. And of
course it was all done in a big hurry. Also, a decision was taken to only inoculate people
who were entering or leaving the country. If you remember, that's what the Australians
did, too, at ports and airports, et cetera.'
'I remember.' Jake nodded. 'So?'
'The Evening Star cruise was a package holiday,' Liz went on. 'All the
passengers had flown out from Heathrow, where they were given their shots, to
Limassol where they boarded the ship. But... certain batches of the plague antidote
were defective! They were harmless enough to the people who got them, but they just
didn't work. And the Heathrow batch was one of them.'
She had begun to unbutton his shirt again, but Jake wasn't happy with this as
yet. 'Okay,' he said, 'but the crew of that ship weren't all Brits.'
'No,' Liz answered, 'but Trask speculates that just as you would be turned off by
the smell of rotten food, so might vampires be able to detect inedible people. He also
said something about pheromones: that Malinari and Vavara would probably feel
repulsed by people who weren't "right" for them.' She had finished unbuttoning his shirt
and was shrugging out of her own.
'Pheromones,' said Jake, looking at her ample breasts, her delicious, stiffened
brown nipples only inches from his hands, his chest, his mouth. 'Well, I don't know
about vampire pheromones, but right now mine are working overtime!'
'Mine, too,' Liz answered. And:
'The blood that's good still has its blue hue,' Jake said, ready now to believe it.
'Moreover, the vassal is locked in my castle.'
'What?' Liz said, turning back the covers.
'Nothing,' he said huskily, ridding himself of his clothes and trying to reach for her
all at the same time. And a moment later when they were both naked and she opened
her arms to him between the sheets, everything else was forgotten as they came
together like human magnets, but warm flesh as opposed to cold steel.
Then, riding that wildest ride, they lusted and loved, and lusted again, deep into
the night. There was little or no foreplay and there were very few words, only sounds of
endearment. For when bodies and minds join like that, the sensation itself is joyous
beyond any such requirements...
_
_
Several rooms and many walls away from Liz and Jake, Ben Trask was preparing for
bed. As he left the bathroom and entered the bedroom, Millie sat up straight in bed and
said, 'Ben, there's something I'd like to tell you a situation but first you must promise
not to do anything about it.'
He looked at her a little suspiciously, cocked his head on one side and growled,
'It's been a hell of a long day, Millie. Can't it wait?'
'Yes, but if it waits until tomorrow you'll be mad at me.'
'No, I won't,' he answered. 'Not unless it's earth-shattering, in which case you'd
have told me already. But okay, since you insist, I won't do anything about it. What is it?'
'Jake's back,' she said, then bit her lip as Trask came to an abrupt halt beside the
bed.
He took a long moment to think about what she'd said, then asked her, 'Where,
back?'
'He's here at the HQ, with Liz,' Millie answered. 'I mean, you know, he's with Liz.'
Again Trask thought about it, and slowly got into bed. But in a little while: 'Good!'
he rasped, making it sound anything but good.
Really?' Millie seemed delighted, perhaps cautiously sceptical, certainly
surprised: a mixture of all these things.
'Yes, really.' Trask put the light out, then folded her in his arms. 'Because she
needs him in order to... in order to be whole, I suppose. The way I need you. And I need
him we need him because he's the Necroscope. So if Liz has got him, I've got him.
But on the other hand, I still think Harry could have made a better choice. And the same
goes for Liz.'
He felt Millie stiffen in his arms. 'What?' she said. 'But we know Harry's reason
now: unfinished business, Luigi Castellano and his organisation, those vampires we
knew nothing about who were survivors of Harry's lost years. Jake and Harry, they
shared the same agenda, which made Jake the obvious choice! As for Liz: you can't
blame her for being attracted to Jake. He's a very attractive man.'
'He's a bloody obstinate man!' said Trask, 'He thinks only of himself, and right
from the start he's been a loose cannon. But now... well, now he's our cannon.'
Millie snorted and pushed apart from him. 'And is that it? Is that how you see it?
Just another ace card up your sleeve?' Before he could answer she broke their
unspoken rule, searched his mind and saw the truth, which was as integral to Trask as
his blood and bones. And:
'So that's it!' she said. 'Now that we're together Liz has taken over my kid-sister
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