Ravenfall. Narrelle M Harris

‘Aye, he did. Surgery’s not my thing.’ The grin faltered and Sharpe retreated to the kitchen to flick on the kettle by the sink. ‘Tea?’

      Gabriel watched the man’s back, the sudden hunching of the shoulders and wariness of stance. Maybe working patime at a community clinic was a sore point. Not surprising, if he’d been invalided out of the army on the grounds of PTSD. Sharpe didn’t show signs of permanent physical injury, like some of the people Gabriel knew from the streets. Trimboll, for instance, who limped badly and got sick at the smell of oranges and cried himself to sleep on hot nights, and had got himself stabbed one night protecting an old bloke from a pair of drunk arseholes.

      ‘I thought I’d get my things,’ was all he said, ‘Move in today. That is, if we have a deal.’

      ‘Oh. Right. Good. Well.’ Sharpe turned back to him, a set of keys in his hand. He dropped them into Gabriel’s outstretched palm. ‘Welcome to Flat Four, Ivy Gardens, Mr Dare.’

      ‘Call me Gabriel.’

      ‘Call me James.’

      And that was that.

      Chapter Three

      James watched Gabriel Dare stride down the road in skinny jeans that accentuated the delicious length of his legs and a well-worn, black T-shirt sporting a rainbow flag. The man had radiated a faint aroma of shaving soap, tea and oil paints, which should not have smelled as good as it did.

      James wondered how he had so suddenly lost one irritating flatmate and acquired a brand new, sexy as all hell substitute. A braw lad, Granda would have said. Tall and very lean (maybe a touch undernourished), hair dark and tousled, sharp cheekbones and a sensitive mouth; a graceful mover, with beautiful hands and green eyes that shone with quick intelligence. James had always liked his men tall, smart and a tad unpredictable.

      Stop that now.

      That was no longer possible. That was no longer his life.

      And yet, he had a new lodger.

      James vowed he could appreciate the lean work of art that was Gabriel Dare, but nothing else was ever going to happen. He’d keep those old impulses – nothing but dead echoes of a real life now – well under wraps. Wouldn’t do to frighten away his fortuitous new lodger, and it wasn’t as if anything could actually develop. James wasn’t sure what was physically possible any more, and surely you needed a soul to love. So, no. No future in that. Dinnae even think on it. Gabriel Dare was going to be a lovely-to-look-at lodger, and nothing more, ever.

      A nothing-but-a-lodger who was moving in to the spare room in a few hours’ time.

      James’s mouth tilted in a small, pleased smile. He caught himself doing it and stopped. When he looked down the road, Gabriel had vanished from sight.

      I’m allowed a friend, though. Aren’t I? Maybe we could be that.

      A friend. As though he hadn’t already withdrawn from everyone he knew. Civilian or army friends, how could any of them hope to understand who and what he’d become? He barely understood himself any more.

      All fash and blether, Granda would have called it. Truth, Jamie, is you’re nae the first soldier tae come back aff yer heid.

      Finally, annoyed with his own see-sawing thoughts, James spent the next few hours checking out Mr Bernetti’s story about the red- eyed wolf near his Barking Road flat.

      The plain brown brick flat was situated above a mobile phone shop and a used furniture store, both closed up with roller doors painted respectively yellow and grey. The parking area in front smelled of engine oil and foot traffic. The scent emanating from the pie and mash shop two buildings down, mingled unpleasantly with the oil, traffic fumes, and the stale beer and worse smells from the pub on the next corner, and the dampness in the wind blowing north across Leamouth and the Thames.

      The reek of London. He’d grown used to it again, and found comfort in its familiarity, even if it was so much more intense than it had been when he’d had merely human senses.

      Unfortunately, steeped in all those other homely smells was confirmation that Mr Bernetti wasn’t entirely delusional. The footpath, three cars and the trunk of the plane tree by the road were pungent with werewolf – wild, predatory and unnatural.

      James could detect no scent of blood though, human or otherwise. No killing had taken place here. Perhaps the wolf was simply passing through. James dismissed the idea of seeking out the assistance of another vampire. Selfish pricks, the lot of them, he’d so far found, mainly interested in prancing about pretending to be Byronesque princes in make-believe courts, based on way too much sensationalist fiction.

      The only useful information he’d got about being a vampire had come from a human hanger-on who donated blood to his… patron. The kid had been extremely proud of the service he offered. When James expressed his horror that the boy could be a true victim one day, the kid was filled with scorn. ‘Blood given willingly is a hundred times more potent than blood taken by force. Don’t you know anything?’

      And no, James didn’t, because the arsehole who’d made him hadn’t bothered to share any details at all, let alone important ones like “murder isn’t necessary if you can find a willing donor”.

      James would have scoffed at the purely metaphysical rule, if not for the fact that he’d proven it at the clinic. His patients didn’t know the blood samples he took for tests were used in part to feed him, but the samples were willingly given at least. When that wasn’t enough, animal blood was sufficient to curb his thirst until his next shift at the clinic. He’d never again be reduced to that thing that had woken from death.

      Vampires. James loathed them.

      Not that there were many of them in London, as he’d discovered when he went seeking answers. Vampires, it seemed, were not plentiful and, James was assured, very difficult to make. Most people lacked the significant level of willpower it took to survive the transition from dead to undead. That knowledge gave him little comfort, though at least it meant that London wasn’t as full of bloodsucking homicidal maniacs as he’d feared when he returned home.

      James followed the trail of the werewolf west then south, down Plaistow road, but he lost the scent of it at the A13. Too much car pollution.

      James wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or relieved. It wasn’t like he knew what he was supposed to do with a werewolf if he found one. He’d keep an eye out for trouble, though. He wasn’t going to tolerate some monstrous thing threatening his community.

      He returned home as the light was falling to find a van parked outside the flat. A woman was talking with Gabriel as he stood on the kerb with a rucksack, a small suitcase, an easel and half a dozen canvases propped up on the red brick fence. The woman was in her mid-40s, James guessed, impeccably dressed, her dark hair dyed with red streaks and twisted up in a chignon.

      Gabriel lifted his chin in a minimalist greeting. ‘James.’

      James eyed the stuff on the kerb. ‘Is this it?’

      ‘I live simply,’ said Gabriel.

      ‘You live like a vagrant,’ said the woman, with affectionate frustration. She held her hand out to James. ‘You must be Dr Sharpe. I am Helene Dupre. Please let me assure you that Gabe isn’t half as irresponsible as he sometimes appears.’ Her accent retained a blush of French.

      James shook her hand, noting the softness of her skin, her subtle floral perfume, the way her nails were trimmed and painted in the barest of colours, and that her grip was firm and confident. ‘Oh, I don’t mind if he’s exactly as irresponsible as he appears. I promise I’m only about half as civilised as I look.’

      She hooted with delight. ‘Oh, I see what you mean, Gabe. No wonder you like him.’ She turned an impish grin on James, ignoring Gabriel’s pained expression. ‘He said you had an outré sense of humour.’

      James cocked an eyebrow at Gabriel, a smile ghosting his mouth, which