Chapter 8 Augustin
Hannah: I promise I won’t go outside or answer the door to anyone. I’m staying right here watching Shop Makeover and making more scarves. Tell everyone at the council meeting they’re now two for twenty pounds.
BANG BANG BANG. I LOVE the harsh sound of my gavel slamming down on the desk, closing the council meeting. Komal glares at me from across the table.
I may have banged the meeting closed over her proposal for a festival to uncurse November, but it’s only because we have to vacate the community hall in fifteen minutes for the Naughty Knitting Club, and I need to get Komal alone.
(If I’m being honest, I eighty-five per cent need to talk to Komal, and the rest is that I don’t want yet another absurd festival for Hannah to get excited about that she can’t attend. November is peaceful when it’s cursed.)
The councillors and committee representatives rise and descend upon the Jammie Dodgers and stale cheese scones brought in by Councillor Mowbray.
Komal promised that if she’s elected mayor, she’ll have council meetings catered by her friend Celeste at Glazed and Confused, which is a cheap way of bribing the councillors for their vote.
Judging by the number of raspberry jam stained hands, her plan will succeed.
Perhaps next week I’ll come in with a full suckling pig, and that will win them back to my side.
Note to self: Ask Reginald for a recipe for suckling pig.
People break into small groups, spraying scone crumbs on each other as they chit-chat about the television shows they’re watching.
This is my least favourite part of council meetings.
I’m good with a prepared speech in front of a crowd, but I never know what to say when people ask me about my family or what I’m up to on the weekend.
I usually escape home to Hannah as soon as the meeting is done.
That’s all I want to do now, especially since I’ve been feeling so strange, all rattly and nauseous, like a poltergeist has taken up residence in my chest. Perhaps it has something to do with a foul odour that surrounds Komal tonight – something sharp and Italian that disguises her usually pleasant scent.
Tonight, I must push through this malaise, for I have a singular focus – convincing Komal to work with me.
“Ms Ahuja, may we talk?”
Komal rolls her eyes and excuses herself from Councillor Maxwell. I try not to stare as she wipes scone crumbs off her white Helitours t-shirt. I fail. “What do you want, Durant?”
I beckon her to follow me. She makes a huffing noise, and my chest poltergeist tightens its grip, but then she stomps after me through the small kitchen into the old mayor’s office.
It’s not much – a room with stained carpet and an antique desk and a wall covered in black-and-white photographs and paintings of the village at different periods in history. I can’t wait until it’s my office.
I open the stationery cupboard and gesture inside.
“You want me to get into the stationery cupboard with a vampire?” Her eyes narrow.
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Why?”
“Because no one else on the council knows what I am, and I have something important to discuss with you that I don’t want anyone to overhear. I placed a charm on the cupboard that means anything said inside can’t be heard out here.”
As I speak, one of my vines curls out from the cuff of my shirt and wraps around the door handle. Komal doesn’t notice.
“It’s so annoying that vampires are pretty and have magical powers.” Komal rolls her eyes, but she steps inside. “You coming, Durant? Or is your brilliant plan to win the mayoral race to lock me in here and tell everyone I went on vacation?”
I realise my mouth has been frozen open after her vampires are pretty comment and promptly snap it shut.
She wasn’t talking about you.
The poltergeist disagrees.
Komal fumbles in her pocket. Ah, so that’s what that foul smell is – one of Isis Meriwether’s anti-vampire charms.
Despite the overpowering garlic reek emanating from the hex bag, when I step in beside Komal, I catch a whiff of her distinct perfume – fragrant cedar, rich dark plum, and something uniquely her.
The sharp, iron sparkle of her blood.
I hesitate, my fingers gripping the door handle as the vine shifts beneath.
I’m locking myself in a tight space with a human who smells this delicious? I haven’t been to that feeding club, and I’ve been feeling so strange lately.
My tongue presses against the roof of my mouth.
I’ve made a tactical error.
“Why are you dithering, Durant? Let’s get this over with.” Komal grabs my hand over the handle and yanks the door shut with a CLICK, severing my tie to the charmed vine.
Her touch sings through my body. I can’t remember the last time someone’s touch has made me feel like this – hot and heady and charged.
She glances up at me, yanking her hand back into her pocket, and her eyes are wide and filled with ire.
The sensor light flickers on. In the tiny space, all the things that make her my enemy don’t matter.
What has become keenly important is her hips brushing my trousers, and her right breast pressing against my shirt.
The poltergeist tries to climb out between my ribs.
Her eyes narrow. “If this is all an elaborate ruse so that you can suck my neck, I must warn you that I’m armed against vampire attacks.”
“I have no such desires.” I swallow down the words. “But I must warn you that an anti-vampire charm will do nothing but make a delicious pizza.”
“I figured as much.” She tosses the hex bag onto the shelf beside the printer cartridges. “What are we doing in here, Durant?”
Not any of the things I wish to do in here, alas. “We need to talk about the elections.”
“You know what people are going to think if they see us walking out of the stationery cupboard together?” Her breath is hot on my cheek. “They’re going to think we were making out.”
I must get myself to an Upyr doctor, if one exists. This feeling of a poltergeist playing my ribs like a xylophone can’t be normal. I must have some rare vampire affliction. Perhaps I’m allergic to beautiful, raven-haired annoyances.
“That would be absurd,” I manage to choke out.
“It would be,” she growls. “But it doesn’t change the fact that it will be all over the village by nightfall that we were shagging—”
“Please stop using crass language. This is an important—”
“Shagging! Cock! Ballsack! Cu—”
“You are a ridiculous woman.”
“Tits!” Komal shrieks.
“I need you to drop out of the mayoral race,” I say quickly, hoping that if I push out the words at speed, she’ll agree to them before realising what I’m asking.
I have never been a lucky vampire.
“You dragged me into the stationery cupboard to beg me to drop out?” The smirk in her voice warms my blood. “Aren’t we getting a little desperate?”
“This isn’t desperation, but facts. There are forces in the works that we cannot risk you messing up. More rides on me winning this election than you could ever know.”
Komal tries to fold her arms, but succeeds only in pushing her breasts up against me.
My skin sizzles where she touches me. I bite my lip to prevent a moan escaping unbidden, angling my body towards the pen supply so she doesn’t accidentally brush against my trousers, because I’m aware that of all the things to happen right at this moment, I’m growing hard.
What is wrong with me? I’m no longer in control of my body.
This isn’t how this is supposed to go.
Why can’t I be charming, like Gideon, or dangerous, like Alaric?
Komal shrinks back, her elbow knocking off a stack of staples. “You’d better explain, and no lies, vampire.”
If only I could.
If only I could tell you that I am ill, and that I’m afraid for Hannah, and that being around you seems to make both those things worse.
“I’ve arranged for three representatives of the Conclave to visit the village,” I say instead. “They arrive next week.”
She sighs. “Just what we need, more vampires making a mess of things. Why are these illustrious bloodsuckers gracing us with their presence?”
“I’m helping Alaric with his appeal to the Conclave.
Ostensibly, they’re here for talks about changing the vampiric laws on human copulation.
But we all know that, given recent events, they’re really here to investigate Sanctus Estate.
If we want to avoid an all-out vampire civil war, they need to see vampires in Argleton as a united front.
A vampire as mayor will go a long way to assuaging them and bringing about the changes we all want. ”
“Things can’t be that dire.”
“What Gideon and Arabella are doing has never been attempted before. The Conclave are afraid that if more vampires wish to leave their ranks to live at Sanctus, the courts will no longer have the safety and dominance they once enjoyed. In some ways, that’s a good thing.
But when vampires are afraid of losing things that are important to them—”
“—they get bitey. I understand.” A line appears between Komal’s dark eyebrows.
“But this has nothing to do with me running for mayor. On this rare occasion, you and I are on the same side. I want Winnie and Alaric to get married. Plus, I can manage a vampire truce just as well as you can. Probably better. You lack my people skills.”
“These aren’t humans. They won’t fall over because you flutter your eyelashes at them and offer sausage rolls.”
I know the words are a mistake the moment they leave my mouth. Why can’t I help myself around this woman?
“I do not flutter my eyelashes, and I’m not dropping out.
” Komal’s topaz eyes are storm clouds. “On the contrary, you’ve made me even more certain that I’m the right person for the job.
You can’t have important vampire business being conducted without humans present.
If these talks are as delicate as you say, and all-out vampire war threatens our peaceful village, then the humans of Argleton need someone to represent their interests. ”
“They will not listen to a human.”
“I can be very persuasive.” She smirks. “I managed to convince you to keep the Argleton Gazette open, didn’t I?”
“Only because you threatened to sic your friend’s pet duck on me if I refused. You’re putting your life in danger.”
“I can look after myself, Durant.”
And there it is. Her final answer. She doesn’t want my help.
A vine twitches at my wrist. I tug down my cuff, hoping she doesn’t notice.
“Very well. Then, on the slim chance that you beat me and are elected mayor, you need to be present at these talks so you understand what you’ll be dealing with.
These are important people in our world, used to red carpet treatment.
We want the Conclave to see a village where vampires are welcomed and thriving alongside humans, but obviously, we have to show that without revealing our existence. ”
“This wouldn’t happen to be why you wrangled all the shops to stay open in the evenings? So you can pretend this village is ‘vampire-friendly’? There are no stormwater issues, are there?”
“Oh, no, the drains are a mess. But closing the shops during the day was Gideon’s idea. We need them to see Sanctus not as a threat, but an opportunity.”
And Hannah deserves a birthday treat. It’s been so long since I took her into the village.
“Sanctus is an opportunity to show that humans and vampires can live in harmony outside the courts, but don’t you think that rings hollow without human input? You can’t make decisions that could impact the human residents.”
That’s exactly what humans have done to vampires for centuries.
That’s precisely why we must remain in the shadows.
I want to scream at her, but I force myself to remain calm. “I’ve gone to a lot of effort to arrange this visit. You will ruin it.”
I can tell by her face I’ve said the wrong thing, and for that, she will make me suffer.
“I’ll ruin it? At least I know how to talk to dignitaries. You’ll scare them off with your robot voice and your resting tax collector face. What’s in it for you, anyway? You don’t live at Sanctus. You’re not friends with Winnie and Alaric. You don’t even have friends.”
I purse my lips to keep from yelling my secrets in her face.
She always does this to me. I’m all at sea around her, especially when she’s too close, when her hand brushes my thigh, and I can hear her blood pulsing in her veins, and I am obviously very, very ill because all I want is to be closer still.
“Alaric and I are friends,” I say quietly.
“Fine, don’t tell me,” she huffs. “I promise I won’t ruin your vampire politics, but as your fellow mayoral candidate and the only human on the council who knows about vampires, I insist on being involved.
” Her eyes flash in the gloom. “And as tourism board chair, it’s my job to welcome these high-profile visitors to our village and show them a good time. ”
“I hardly think they’ll want a tour given by a human—”
“End of discussion.” She jiggles the handle. “How do I open this thing?”
“I’d have thought the great Councillor Ahuja would be familiar with the mechanics of door handles. You give it a sharp turn to the right.”
“I am turning it. It’s not moving.” Her voice rises an octave. “Why isn’t it opening? Is it your charm?”
“No.” My vine should still allow the door to be opened. “Councillor McDougal must have locked the cupboard. He probably thought we left already.”
“You mean we’re locked in here? Together?”
Just then, the dim bulb above our heads goes out.