"Some honeymoon," Kyle grumbled as he pushed open the door to the Argist Academy ahead of me, "three sodding days!"

I pinched his bottom. "Three excellent days, though. And if it went on any longer, I'm not sure I could have coped."

That drew a smile, Kyle liking the reference to his non-stop virility. And even with everything that whirled through my head every minute of the wedding day, the honeymoon had been fabulous. In a publicity move meant to endear Dunrovia's elected members of the assembly to their voters, we'd chosen to stay in Dunrovia.

The honeymoon took place in a hotel in the city. I'd wanted to rent a cottage in the mountains, but my security team stamped their feet. No way. The hotel had its own cinema, casino, gym, 5-star restaurant and small shopping mall. Apart from a quick ten minutes in the sauna, and the meals eaten hurriedly in the restaurant, we'd spent most of the three days in the room.

Sex on the bed, in the bathroom, on the chaise longue, up against the door as a waiter knocked, "Is everything okay, Sir, Ma'am?", and we stifled giggles.

My wellbeing had wobbled temporarily the morning after our wedding when I'd switched on the TV as Kyle showered. A news item showed people in handcuffs being led out of Bodella's, a new club in the east end of the city—Justin among them.

I switched off the TV before Kyle caught me but made a discreet phone call later. He'd been given a hefty fine for a public disorder offence and damage to private property but had been released.

"What's the big deal anyway?" Kyle asked as we got into the lift that would take us up to the boardroom. I still hadn't told him about the Lois and Mabel conversation. Not deliberately, but I struggled to find the right moment on our wedding day and on our wedding night... well, obvious reasons for distraction there.

The revelation made me nervous now. But at least, I'd have people around me when Kyle found out. That would stop him from turning to me and demanding, "Who do you want cured first, Maya, eh?"

"Do you remember the wedding crashers?" I asked him as the lift took us upwards. "And how they thought they knew Kirsty?"

Kyle nodded.

"Well, there's a bit more to the story than that."

"What? What is it?" Kyle asked as the lift doors drew open. Gregor stood there, sardonic grin in place.

"Maya! Kyle! Back so soon."

I shot him a filthy look, still not 100 percent convinced he hadn't joined the Argist sweepstake on how long our marriage lasted. And those awful jokes he'd made at our wedding rankled.

He swept an arm behind him. "Come on then. Exciting news, eh?"

"What news?" Kyle asked, voice now petulant. "No-one will tell me what's going on."

As a trained Argist and tutor at the academy, Kyle knew most things. But today's revelation needed secrecy. Nell sat at the top of the table, Kirsty and Dr Ellwood to her right, and Lois and Mabel on the left. They waved enthusiastically, though Kyle returned the greeting, puzzled. He wouldn't recognise them. Lois had been wearing a wig, and Mabel make-up to disguise her vampire status.

There were a few other familiar faces there. Senior figures, mostly.

Amelie pulled out the seat next to her. "How was the honeymoon?" she asked, smiling at us both. I sat down, breathing in that citrusy perfume she always wore.

"Wonderful," I said, "we'll be remembering it for years to come." At that, I flashed her the same bland smile she'd given me on our wedding day. Stuff that in your cake hole, Amelie. Our marriage will last longer than a year.

The door opened. Cheryl. She nodded at Kyle and I and took the seat next to Kirsty, exchanging whispered words with her and smiling a brief hello to Lois and Mabel. She must know about the cure too.

Nell clapped her hands. "Thanks for coming, everyone," she said.

"As I indicated, we're about to discuss something highly confidential. Word of this must not go beyond this room. Is that understood?"

The memo inviting us to the meeting had already outlined top secrecy. Nell's seriousness underlined the point. Confidentiality agreed on once more, Nell asked Lois and Mabel to repeat what they had told me three days ago.

"A cure?" Amelie burst out once they'd finished talking. Everyone at the room joined at her to stare at Lois. Today, she wore another outfit that would not be out of place at a wedding. The green silk jumpsuit and the floral scarf knotted at a jaunty angle differentiated her in a room of people dressed in jeans and hoodies.

"But how is that possible...?"

"I've run several tests on Lois," Dr Ellwood piped up. "Blood pressure, blood samples, brain scan, MRA scans, liver and kidney function tests, etcetera, and they all show the same thing. Human. No long-term effects caused by living hundreds of years."

Mabel reached for Lois's hand. "Though of course it means Lois now has the same life expectancy as all of you. What is it in this country?"

"Eighty-four point two for a woman," Dr Ellwood replied.

"All the more reasons for you," Mabel directed her gaze at Kirsty, "to come up with that cure as quickly as possible. I want to age at the same time as my dearest friend. We intend to leave this world at round about the same time."

Nell cleared her throat. "The cure for vampirism," she said, "is rather like the vaccine. It is part of a plan and not the entire solution to the problem."

One of the Argists, a tutor I recognised from my lessons at the academy leant forward. "What do you mean? A cure would be amazing."

Agreement from many of us, not least Mabel, Lois and me. But Cheryl's face told a different story. In theory, she ought to support a cure one hundred percent. As she'd arranged to have her daughter—Kyle's sister—converted to vampirism years ago, wouldn't a cure be a dream come true? And yet, she didn't look delighted enough.

I sneaked a glance at Kyle. The realisation a reunion with his sister might be on the cards was plain to see. But other emotions rumbled there on his face. God almighty. How could this be difficult for people? A cure. No more vampires. No need for expensive vaccinations nor overpriced security services. Win-win.

Nell held her fingers up, ticking off the points as she ran through them.

"First, and most important, is that we don't yet have the cure. Just as we don't have the money or facilities to mass produce the vaccine. Second, who is to say all vampires will accept a cure when offered it? The young ones might because younger people often think they are immortal anyway. Will ancient vampires who have roamed the earth for centuries feel the same way? And if a cure is to succeed, we would need to cut vampire numbers down drastically, i.e. persuade 90-95 percent of them to take it."

Cheryl shifted in her chair. "My life's work has been to convince people vampires are not that bad," she said. "The same as us, blah, blah, blah. Altering our messaging to 'cure yourselves of vampirism' smacks of hypocrisy. As if we were wrong all along, and vampires are as dreadful as everyone always thought."

A fair point. Once upon a time I convinced Justin to bare his teeth and flash those eyes at me, so I could look him in the face as a monster and tell him I loved every bit of him?

"A cure would be wonderful, but it cannot be our main focus." She fiddled with her hair, the gesture almost exactly like her son's.

"Why not?"

Other Argist voices joined my protest. Next to me, Kyle shifted in his seat. The vibrations on the floor told me one foot beat out an agitated rhythm. An explosion waiting for its ignition.

"There's a third problem," Chery continued, as Kirsty smiled ruefully. So far, she'd been quiet. Whenever I visited Kirsty in her makeshift lab, she cursed the lack of resources and funding that made her mission to develop an alternative to the vaccine almost impossible.

Nell smiled at her. "Quite. This is the biggest problem, I'd say."

Mabel tipped her head. Agreement from her then.

"I'm not vaccinated," Lois said. "Vampires see me as prey."

Mabel smiled at us. "Luckily for both of us, Mother Nature imbued me with colossal amounts of willpower but yes, it's tricky for us. Lois is my lifelong friend and yet sometimes I look at her and lick my lips."

The excitement I'd felt ever since the two of them had wriggled under the partition door of the toilets trickled away. A cure programme would have to run alongside a vaccination one. The Argist Academy did not have enough money to mass-produce the vaccination for humans, never mind newly cured ex-vampires.

"Can we raise taxes, Cheryl?" I asked. As a leader of the Liberal Life Party and our prime minister, Cheryl worked with the country's chancellor to try to redistribute the country's wealth and ensure it was spent equitably. A higher income from tax could fund the research and production needed for a cure.

"I've raised them already," Cheryl said, "and it made me and the party very unpopular."

Unfair because Cheryl and the chancellor worked hard to limit the tax rise for ordinary citizens, concentrating on targeting the top 2 percent of earners. As we did not have a majority government, Cheryl had not managed to get the massive tax increased she needed. She'd also done her best to increase corporate taxes. Well-paid lawyers acting on behalf of those multinational companies performed sleight of hand tricks. Shell companies here and there. Domiciling headquarters in low tax/no tax countries and rerouting services and products through those places.

"Ordinary citizens only see the slight tax increase they pay," Cheryl added. "No amount of explaining that in the long run it will benefit everyone convinces them the Liberal Life Party works for their benefit."

True. When the tax increases came into force, the angry protests lasted for days.

Nell reached for Mabel's hand. "Forgive us," she said, "but in the meantime, we can't sanction any further work by Kirsty to investigate or manufacture a cure. Our priority has always been, and must remain, the vaccination. I'm sorry."

The awkward silence stretched out. Mabel got to her feet. Like Lois, she'd chosen flamboyant clothing for today's meeting—a silk shirt I recognised as designer worn over denim-look leggings, and high cork wedges.

"That's perfectly understandable," she said. Lois rose from her seat too. "Would it be okay if we continue to stay here?"

She tipped her head towards me. "As I said to Maya, nasty people have been following us ever since Professor Green's lab got blown up. I don't think it's safe for us to go anywhere else."

Nell gestured to Amelie, who stood up. "I'll take you back to your rooms."

They left, Amelie quizzing Mabel about the shirt she wore, and where she and Lois shopped. As she closed the door behind them, silence descended once more. What an anti-climax. I'd come here today expecting all-round enthusiasm. A cure. It's the answer to all our problems.

We were stuck in situation normal—held back from progressing philanthropic goals because we couldn't afford them. I chewed the inside of my lip as the wild optimism I'd experienced since finding out about the cure seeped away.

Nell said her goodbyes. Everyone else took their cue from her and left, apart from Cheryl who exchanged her seat for Amelie's.

"We've talked about nothing else but this wretched cure for the last three days," she said, "and I wish we could come up with a way to progress it, but Nell and Kirsty are right. The vaccination must come first."

Kyle grunted. "Yeah, well, we wouldn't be here if you hadn't handed Berna over to vampires."

"Kyle!" I hissed.

Cheryl closed her eyes. "No. That's fair. Anyway, did you enjoy your honeymoon?"

I made up for Kyle's moroseness with way over the top enthusiasm. Most fantastic three days, ever. Lovely hotel, the best in the world, and thanks to Cheryl for her helping with Mirac's care.

"Your mum and I have persuaded him bottle is the best," she said, and I heaved a sigh of relief. Thank God. Breast feeding must be up there in the list of most disgusting things to do.

"We better go get him," I said, tipping my head towards the door. Mirac was with my mum and Rosie in the Argist Academy accommodation.

Cheryl hugged me. Kyle never let her do the same to him. One day he might forgive her, and I would stop having to smooth over his rough edges whenever the two of them got together.

The door closed behind her. The atmosphere in the room nose-dived, as Kyle's right hand drummed on the table and his other hand raked his thigh.

"A cure, eh?" he said. "No wonder you've been so cheerful the last few days. Bet I know what was going through your head. Imagining him cured, right?"

I blew out air, stalling as I tried to find the best words.

"Right?" he yelled, making me jump. "You'll be off, won't you, abandoning me and Mirac as soon as he's cured. Why the fuck did you marry me?"