Jeez. This must be Justin's day for unwelcome passengers. And how the fuck had three people managed to sneak into his van without him noticing? He was meant to be a vampire; a being with heightened senses and yet here he was pinned back against his seat by Ryan's arm—again—while Carly Wang whispered her not so sweet nothings in his ear.

"A cure, eh?" she said, "now that's a development I hadn't been expecting. What do you know?"

God, this could hardly be worse. He may well have led them to the safe house where that professor and her cured vampires were hiding out. He'd better hope Griffin had ordered him to stop here when the real location was in the opposite direction.

But there might be a bonus, though. Maybe if Carly and Ryan concentrated on finding out about a cure, they would stop threatening Maya... Justin could feed them a bit of the information he knew, which amounted to very little.

"Griffin introduced someone to me," he said. "A woman who was a vampire up until a week ago. He said the chemist working on the cure was down south. You heard him. She's now up here. Isn't a cure of interest you? All so much better for humankind. You two not up for that then?"

The sarcasm was too difficult to resist. Ryan's grip on his throat tightened in response. Justin's bared his teeth unseen. God, the temptation to opens his jaw as wide as possible and snap it shut on that meaty paw.

"We'll find her first, shall we?" Carly asked. He could see her in his rear mirror. Eyes that would never show compassion, kindness or empathy. "Or rather you will. And then you'll tell us. How many vampires have taken this cure?"

"Two."

No harm in tossing her that little titbit.

"The other one," he said, "is in Dunrovia too, in the company of a vampire. Apparently, she'd been a vampire for more than three hundred years."

Much as he hated handing over information to people as vile as the two specimens who sat behind him, it added up to so little his conscience allowed it. It might mean they left him—and more importantly, Maya—alone. Worth checking, though.

"So, I find the vampire-curing professor, tell you where she is, and you stay away from Maya and her family?"

Carly smirked. Funny, she shared features with Maya—dark hair of a similar length, dark eyes—and yet the combination of them on his ex turned her into someone Justin wouldn't mind staring at forever, whereas Carly's face would be one he'd cheerfully never look at again.

"Ryan, isn't true love wonderful? The girl marries someone else—a great big hint to get lost if ever I heard one—and yet the vampire still pines after her. Sweet."

She placed her phone in his hand.

"Press play on that video."

Oh, God, what now...? These were the two people who'd sanctioned the poisoning of an infant. This might be worse than that. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple moving up and down against Ryan's grip.

The film started—the high-pitched whine of sirens making Justin flinch. The source must be a CCTV camera located on a streetlight as it caught the top of people's heads as they hurried towards a set of gates. The angle changed; a sign coming into view.

Garshake Estate. Two motorbikes screeched to a halt just before the gates and three people got off, not bothering to lock the bikes up behind them as they pelted for the barrier gate before it slammed shut and ducked under.

"We'll spread out," one of them said as he stood up.

"I'll take the far side," a voice all too gut-wrenchingly familiar to Justin replied. They split up, bolting off in opposite directions, Maya's ponytail bouncing.

Someone landed on the pavement at the other side, her fingers spreading out on the ground before she straightened up slowly and turned towards the camera. The estate, one of those that sheltered a lot of unvaccinated kids, used CCTV capable of picking up vampire images.

"We wouldn't dream of hurting Maya," Carly said. If he could describe the tone of her voice, Justin decided, the word purr would do it. "But it looks as if she's got other demons to fight, don't you think?"

The vampire threw back her head, red hair rippling over her shoulders, and directed a triumphant grin towards the camera.

Justin's insides curdled.

*****

After Mirac's birth, Kyle and I agreed. The two of us would never tackle vampire together. That way, if the attack resulted in fatalities—we might be vaccinated; we weren't immortal—Mirac would not end up an orphan.

Besides, my fighting took place in the assembly, where I did my best to change the world, or Dunrovia at least through legal means and by winning hearts and minds.

"Where have they attacked?" I asked, as Gregor checked his bleeper. Sharon freed Mirac from the baby carrier and picked him up for a hug. Apart from continuing to send him death stares, she seemed to have given up on the plan to murder Jonathan Dupont, who was rubbing his neck where Gregor had been gripping it.

"The Garshake Estate," Kyle said. "The new school."

"Shit."

Our former home—a much neglected estate in the city's east end—housed a significant proportion of unvaccinated kids and adults, who spent the bulk of their days trapped in their homes. When the Liberal Life Party came to power, part of our programme was state-funded schools in estates like the Garshake one. They provided heightened security for families who could not afford the private schools that had been the only option for unvaccinated children until then.

Gregor and Kyle were at the front door. "I'm coming with you," I shouted after them.

Kyle stopped, his hand on the door handle. "Maya, we promised!"

"I know, but I campaigned so hard for that school. And I know some of the kids that are in there. I have to come."

Sharon's eyes met mine. Agreement. Sometimes, she expressed guilt about the good fortune that had removed her and Rosie from my childhood home. She hastened to my side. "Be careful, love. I'll take care of this one for you."

She kissed my forehead. I did the same to Mirac, murmuring, "Sorry, little man," to him. "We'll be back as soon as we can."

Gregor had come on his motorbike—the green and black Ducati parked right outside our flat. Kyle got his out of the lock-up garages on the other side of the road, and I hopped on the back behind him. The bikes would get us to the estate much faster than a car would.

As Kyle's bike ate up the kilometres, something struck me. Jonathan Dupont's mind-reading talents suggested he had Argist training or at least a natural ability to fight vampires. Perhaps the one he had passed on to me and my... half-brother (I was still adjusting to that bombshell) and yet he hadn't offered to come with us.

Git. Wank-piece. Useless, cowardly, shitty...

He could forget any further attempts to reach out to me and my family. Once Sharon had put Mirac down for his afternoon nap, she had my permission to resume the tearing him from limb-to-limb thing.

We arrived at the estate ten minutes later. Vampire Security vans cluttered the outside, as did a swarm of people I recognised from the Academy—all of them arguing with Vampire Security guards who insisted only their personnel were allowed in. I gulped back dread. The response showed that this must be a sizeable attack. Twenty vampires? More?

Ahead of us, Gregor pointed to the other side of the estate where there was another entry, and we followed his Ducati as it roared past everyone else.

None of Vampire Security's vans had driven round to the back. Bikes parked, we ducked under the barrier.

Gregor suggested we split up. "I'll take the far side," I said, rushing off in the school's direction.

Deserted streets and the skies too still. Unlicensed vampires did that to an atmosphere—sucked out everything until it felt lifeless. The trees didn't rustle. Birds vanished and even the traffic noise dwindled away. All I could hear was my feet slapping on the roads as I ran, gasping for air.

No sign of anything yet.

Garshake Primary—Education for All. The shiny green and yellow sign the journalists snapped me next to when the school opened, me one side of it and the head teacher the other, the two of us grinning from ear to ear, delighted at what we'd accomplished.

A small group stood outside the school, all of them armed with home-made stakes. Parents and guardians, then. I came to a halt in front of them, pants puffing out embarrassing amounts of air.

"What's happening?"

A woman turned to me, her face pinched and the hands holding the stake shaking. "My baby! My baby's in there!"

The man next to her—a guy a little older than me—swung around. His stake caught the woman's, and hers clattered to the ground, generating a flurry of apologies. She picked it up and dropped it again. The rag-tag army would be useless, but who could blame them for their nerves?

"Thirty of them," the man said, tongue sticking on the thirty. "They're not all in here. Six of them, maybe. The rest are trying their luck with our houses."

The school had a basement and an emergency protocol. The minute the alarm sounded, the teachers would have rounded up the children and shoved them in the basement. Entering it would be no simple task. But underestimate a vampire's determination and strength at your peril.

There was a crash, and screaming started up, jolting our already frayed at the edges nerves. Somewhere on the estate, vampires had broken into a house. But in the meantime, I had to concentrate on the school.

Shaky stick woman held her phone out. "Look!"

One teacher had sent her pictures—the feed from a CCTV camera in the school. It looked like a classroom, the desks overturned, and books scattered all over the floor as two bodies prowled the space. The feed changed to the dining room at the back of the building where three vampires threw themselves against the locked double doors that guarded the entry to the basement.

We spotted more of them in the corridor that ran down the middle of the school and another two, each checking out the toilets on either side. Six, no, far more—eleven, I reckoned, and almost twice the number the group had guessed.

"Do something," the man said, "shaking my arm. You opened this school."

Not sure what he thought that conferred on me, but my mind had been ticking over a plan all the while. More crashing and banging sounded to the right of us, as yet another set of terrified screams rang out. I was on my own here. Kyle and Gregor needed to deal with the families fighting off individual vampire attacks on their home.

"How many children are in the school?" I asked.

"Fifteen."

Phew. It could be worse.

"Okay, I'm going to use my Argist training. Here's what I need you to do. If you follow me in and—"

The best laid plans of mice and men... four Vampire Security guards burst on the scene and ordered me aside. As they all carried automated crossbows, far more effective at firing stakes than the parents would be, we stood back to let them in.

"There's at least eleven of them," I yelled, the guard nearest turning his head back to nod briefly. The woman I'd spoken to first started up a low keening noise, her face twisted in frightened pain. We didn't need to attract further attention.

Another member of the group put his arm around her, mouthing the words, 'I'll take her home' to me.

I nodded. She wouldn't be any good here. He led her away, the woman only putting up minimal objections. I joined the others peering around the school's busted door. The front door opened into a reception area—coat hooks with personalised name plates spread around the walls all hung with small, brightly coloured coats and knitted scarves. The sight of them fired up my resolve. All the owners of those coats and scarves would reunite with their belongings when this was all over.

"Can you see anything?" the man who'd spoken to me earlier asked. Ross, I'd heard someone call him.

I shook my head. The guards had pelted down the corridor in pursuit of the three vampires who'd stood there seconds ago, scarpering as soon as they saw the guards. An almighty bang made the ground shake underneath us, as a shout went up. "Three down!"

The parents cheered. A whoosh of black cloud and ash, the sulphuric stink trailing in its wake, filled the corridor, and forced us to draw back from the door.

"Argh, get off me you—

The scream came from behind me, cut off by an ominous gurgle and a thump. I whirled around; the sight sending my heart plummeting to the ground.

Great, great, great...

Queen Bitch back in town.

AUTHOR'S NOTES - thanks for reading! Next update, Tuesday 18th May 2021, which is also the day I'm going for a long overdue haircut after almost more of a year of on and off lockdown...