"Where does this Griffin hang out?" Maya asked. Her mother had lent them her car—an old banger of a thing, the converse of what Justin was used to driving. Maya drove like a beginner, peering cautiously over the steering wheel all the time. A legacy, she said, of driving all the time before she'd passed her test and not wanting to attract attention to herself.

In the back seat, Lewis looked out the back window. "You're attracting attention anyway because everyone thinks there's a fucking grandmother behind the wheel. Take the next left. Griffin hangs out at this old jazz club. Reminds him of when he used to be human."

They turned down the street, a road with tenement buildings either side the space so slight the building pressed in on the car. The streets were deserted, the few cars parked either side half up on the pavements and bashed on both sides—a result of traffic passing through too quickly down a narrow space.

Lewis ordered Maya to stop outside a building two doors from the end. "Will the car be here when we return?" Maya asked as they got out. "Sharon will kill me if it gets stolen."

Lewis slapped the top of it. "Maya, no-one's gonna nick this heap of shit, believe me. Come on."

He led them down a narrow set of metal stairs that descended to a basement—tables and chairs set outside for smokers. A black gloss-painted door swung open as they approached, and a vampire stuck his head out. He nodded a welcome to Lewis, sliding out from behind the door and standing in front of it. "Who are your friends?" he asked, nodding at Justin and Maya, and then doing a comedic double-take as he clocked Justin.

"It's true, then? You're a twin?"

"Yup. Is Griffin in?"

The vampire took too long to answer. Lewis grabbed him by the throat, shoving him up against the wall, his feet kicking out furiously as he struggled for breath.

Maya clutched Justin's arm.

He knows what he's doing, sweetheart.

Sure, I do.

If you insist. Looks like a whole lot of willy waving to me.

Justin grinned at her. That's what it looked like to him too. But the bully-boy tactics worked. Lewis dropped his grip on the vampire and the man slid to the ground, choking and nodding at the same time.

"He's in," choke choke, "the back room."

Lewis stepped over him, beckoning Justin and Maya to follow. Justin stopped her before she put a foot over the threshold. "You can wait in the car."

"Justin!" She brushed his hand off her shoulder. "If I do that, how will I be able to save you when you and Lewis screw up?"

God, had she ever looked so beautiful? Years ago, Alice told the twins off all the time whenever they made disparaging comments about people's looks. Beauty, she would say, is in the eye of the beholder, and Maya proved that sentiment time and time again. Plant him in a room filled with models in bandage dresses, the walls covered in Old Masters' paintings, Meissen pottery dotted about on tables and Chippendale furniture all around, and Maya would still catch his eye, her presence dominating the space. The glow that came off her, the warmth her skin, eyes and body gave off and that sense that being in her company was the only place he wanted to be...

Stop it. You'll make me big-headed.

She smiled at him, a gentle tilt of the lips but it set off that glow that turned her almost beacon-like.

Also, ditto.

With that, he clasped her hand once more and in they went. There was a bar to the right, its patrons, all vampires, busy talking among themselves. A lone saxophone played something familiar—its notes piercing the dark gloominess of the room. Booths lined the back wall, giving Justin that sense of déjà vu. Hadn't Griffin sneaked up on him in a booth weeks ago, desperate to tell him about that cure...?

Lewis nodded towards the booth at the far end, its interior hidden by the thick drapes that covered it, one bit of the cloth twitching. Justin whipped it back. Griffin cowered in the far corner, his face changing from the avuncular uncle look Justin remembered from his time at Dunrovia College to something decades old and far more malevolent.

"What do you want?" he snarled.

Justin slid in next to him, as his twin took the seat opposite. Maya's thighs burned against him as she shuffled in too, the three of them hemming Griffin in.

"Why were you so keen for us to progress the vampire cure?" Justin asked. Lewis fiddled with the glasses on the table. Griffin appeared to have been here for a while, drinking his way through far too much whisky.

"For obvious reasons! The salvation of our kind."

"Liar!"

They said it at once—Maya, him and Lewis, all of them attuned to each other and to the obvious misstatement.

"Do you want to break his scrawny neck?" Lewis asked him, "it'll take me three seconds and then I can rip his head off."

Next to him, Maya shuddered. Trying to suppress laughter. There was something ridiculous about threats uttered by almost baby-faced assassins. And yet, the floor underneath his feet vibrated. Griffin must be quaking in his boots.

Something flickered on Maya's face, the sudden fright startling Justin. He glanced at Lewis. Ah. Without realising it, the two of them had changed appearance too. Most of the time if you didn't get too close you might mistake them for humans. Two statuesque young guys in the prime of life and all that. Now, though... teeth visible, eyeballs black and that dark energy that encircled the four of them. Its intense coldness was enough to make anyone shiver.

"No need to be so threatening," Griffin said. "I don't know anything anyway. They just told me to find Dorothy a safe place and persuade young, prominent vampires to take the cure. Vampires like you," he tipped his head towards Justin, "so that everyone got to hear about it."

"Who's 'they'?" Maya asked.

"Let me guess," Justin said, wondering now why it hadn't been obvious all along. "At first the cure would be free. Then, Sunshine Health would swoop in, pay over the odds for a patent and the price would shoot up? The company was worried that at some point the Liberal Life Party might be successful in establishing universal healthcare so that everyone got free vaccinations. This was a way of ensuring there were another rich source of income for the future."

Maya gasped. "Oh my God!"

Griffin's expression turned sulky. "I don't know. I'm only the messenger."

"Who's 'they'?" Maya repeated, again getting no reply.

The impulse overtook Justin. He shoved the table as hard as he could. The edge of it jammed against Griffin pinning him against the back wall, as the glasses smashed to the ground. Justin leant over it and grabbed Griffin by the neck. The actions had drawn attention. The other vampires closed in on the booth, muttering furiously, and reaching for Lewis and Maya.

His brother swivelled, twisting out of his seat and onto the floor in front of them in one fluid movement. "Stand back!"

One foolhardy youngster attempted to punch him. Lewis caught the fist in his hand and yanked the arm up and over in a move that would have dislocated a human's shoulder. The vampire pain threshold was much higher than a human's, but the guy screamed anyway, prompting the barman to urge them all to be quiet. Did they want security patrols bursting in here?

"Answer the question!" Justin hissed. He freed Griffin's neck.

"They never told me their names. But they were human. They wore these pin badges. A serpent twisted around a pole."

"Carly Wang," Justin and Maya said it together. He'd noticed the pin badge when he'd first encountered her.

"Employed by Vampire Security," Maya threw in. Griffin neither confirmed nor denied it.

"What did you get for it?" he asked, Griffin's answer 'money' made his brother shake his head.

Justin shoved the table harder. You couldn't cut someone in half with a blunt wooden edge, but he was willing to try it.

"And," Griffin choked out, "freedom to hunt."

"I've recorded all this," Maya said, brandishing her phone. "Gives us that little more evidence. Vampire Security turning a blind eye to vampires killing humans."

The vampire behind the bar edged towards them. "Look, I don't want any trouble. This is just a place where we hang out. Bitch about our lives and how much immortality sucks—ha, ha!—but I've got a licence for this place, y'know, and if there's trouble, I'll lose it and it'll be back to cleaning office blocks late at night, which is..."

They took the hint. The other vampires didn't look as if they would attack—Lewis had put paid to that—but no-one was shooting them friendly looks, and what else could Griffin give them that would be useful.

"Fine," Justin said, taking his hands off the table. It dropped back into place with a noisy crash. He, Lewis and Maya headed for the door, their vampire audience parting Red Sea-like to let them go.

They were a bit further forward—suspicions added to, though not yet confirmed in concrete—but still no idea of what to do next. He didn't need to read Maya or his brother's mind to sense disappointment.

"I know where they took those chemicals. And the vaccinations your chemist created." Griffin—the smirk that little bit too triumphant as they turned to face him once more. "Fetch me some more whisky, and I'll tell you the precise location."

AUTHOR'S NOTE - thanks for reading! Next update, Tuesday 24 August, 2021.