DITCHED - ITALIAN STYLE

Tom thought he might be dead. Or worse. Turned. He was very cold, and so depleted of blood that his fingers and toes tingled. He had blacked out propped in a chair, near the coat-rack. His knees had buckled, and when he woke, he was curled up behind the coats, shivering.

What had Penelope been thinking?

Actually, he knew all too well. She'd stopped seeing him as a person, and started seeing him as a convenience. Most people treated most other people like that most of the time. He certainly did.

He had been afraid she would suck his mind empty.

If she knew about Dickie Fountain, she might kill him on principle, assuming he planned to do to her what he had done to him. That wouldn't have been fair. Penny was different, and deserved different treatment. Tom was involved with her for what he could get, he admitted that. He did not necessarily plan to destroy her.

Though...

He stood up, unsteady. He must have looked as pale as a ghost.

Music still played. 'Papaverie Papare'. Some of the group he had come in with were still here. The Dubrovna chit wasn't getting far in putting the moves on Kent. Tom looked about for Penny, but couldn't find her.

A waiter was ready for him with a tonic, a thick English fruit drink dosed with vitamins and iron. Vimto. He drank it down, not minding the taste, and asked for more. It was provided.

It took a certain genius, he recognised, to spot a gap in the market and fill it. Though never advertised explicitly as such, Vimto was what the living lovers of vampires drank to get their strength back up again after a bleeding.

He had no idea if it did any good.

He was told that the signora had ordered the drink for him before leaving.

That showed some consideration.

His bites itched and it was all he could do to prevent himself scratching them raw. He seemed to have lost substance. His clothes hung loose on him. There was an insect buzz in his ears.

A third Vimto at least got liquid back into him.

What now?

On the street, among ruins, Tom let the brief chill of the dead of night clear his head. The cool wouldn't last. He smoked a cigarette and tried to ignore the feeding and fumbling taking place all around in the dark. Mr and Mrs Addams had forced Max Brock against a column, and were furiously sucking at several bites. Mrs Addams was soothing the poet with threats about leeching away all his talent. Max Brock was looking up at the stars, at a temporary and merciful loss for words. Tom hoped the Addamses had killed the opera singer first. It was important to get one's priorities right.

'Ciao, Tom. You have escaped from Penelope, then?'

It was Marcello, the Italian reporter who was always hanging around, who'd been at the airport when Count Kernassy and what-was-her-name had arrived, who'd been there when that strange Irish dead girl saw the Count being murdered.

'Other way round, old fellow.'

Marcello looked drained too, but had no obvious bites. His cheeks were sunken. The reflective lenses of his dark glasses suggested the empty eye sockets of a skull.

'You look as if you've had a bad night of it,' Tom said.

'You too.'

'I wouldn't argue with that. Damn all dead bitches.'

Marcello bummed a cigarette and lit up, exhaling with weary anger.

'I have been to Hell and back,' the Italian announced.

'I didn't make it back.'

Marcello laughed.

'I would gladly exchange you Signorina Churchward for Signorina Reed.'

'Little Irish corpse?'

It took Marcello a moment to catch on. 'Si. Little Irish corpse. She has a grip, that one. Will not let go. We went to I Cessati Spiriti.'

Tom whistled.

'I don't suppose either of you chaps could lend a hand,' said a deep, bone-tired voice.

It was a dead man, in a suit that had suffered. He'd plainly been in a fight. Several fights. Wounds in his clothes looked like bullet holes, and one sleeve was skinned away completely.

'I think we've something in common. I'm back from Hell and abandoned by a vampire girl too.'

He took a few steps out of the dark and collapsed.

Marcello looked at Tom over the dead man's back. He shrugged.