Unusual People

Copyright © Jackie Lawrence 2016

This book is a work of fiction. The moral right of the author has been asserted. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events are purely coincidental.

All rights are reserved.

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Dedication

Writing these books is great fun and I really enjoy it. What I don't enjoy is all of the stuff that has to be done to turn a whole load of scribbling into a format that can actually be read. That's what I call real hard work and for that I have to thank my sister Anna who is always on hand to tirelessly do absolutely everything but jot down the ideas.

Cheers.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One – Friday

Chapter Two – Sunday

Chapter Three – Monday

Chapter Four – Tuesday

Chapter Five

Chapter Six – Wednesday

Chapter Seven – Thursday – Nine Days to Halloween

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten – Friday

Chapter Eleven – Saturday – Is Anybody There?

Chapter Twelve – Saturday

Chapter Thirteen – Sunday

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen – Monday

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen – Monday

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen – Tuesday

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One – Wednesday

Chapter Twenty-Two – Thursday

Chapter Twenty-Three – Thursday

Chapter Twenty-Four – Friday

Chapter Twenty-Five – Friday

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine – Sunday. HALLOWEEN

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One – Events of Halloween from the Grimoire of Aurelia Blythe

Epilogue

Other Titles by the Author

About the Author

Chapter One

FRIDAY

With the end of morning sickness, Sasha came back to life. She realised this was overly dramatic but it was exactly how she felt. Three months of almost incessant vomiting had been completely debilitating, even if it had very much matched her mood. SEB was dead. That glorious collection of male parts was gone and that had hurt so much that Sasha had feared she would not be able to live with the pain. Only now that had eased as well. As she lay in a morning fug, almost awake, waiting for that miserable rise of bile that indicated a quick dash for the bathroom was imminent, she realised the wretched early morning heartache had eased somewhat. That bought on an attack of the guilts and tears to her eyes. For fuck sake, would this never end? ‘Well, yes it would,’ some steely part of her brain informed her. ‘It's ending now. Get out of bed, smarten yourself up and go and see if Otis wants a day off.’ Right-o, Sasha replied and made her way into the bathroom for a shower.

Summer was over. She had missed most of it, wallowing as she had in bouts of retching and misery over SEB’s death. The chip that the mad Americans had implanted in his brain had not only served as a tracking device. Once she and SEB had successfully pulled off that well-thought-out piece of larceny and obtained the drugs that they would need to keep the big man alive, the minuscule piece of explosive in that chip had been activated and literally blown SEB’s brains out. She had found him sitting in her Jeep waiting for her as planned, blood seeping out of every facial orifice. Just the memory of that was usually enough to bring on a bout of blinding tears and searing heartache. Now she just felt sad. Also hungry.

Her kitchen was pristine, no doubt thanks to the angelic Gwyneth, the little human auger and wife of her boss, DCC Malcolm Drury. She must phone him and let him know she was well enough to come back to work but just now her body was crying out for thick crusty toast with lashings of butter and Marmite. She wondered if there was, in fact, enough bread in the world. Fortunately, and entirely thanks to the wonderful Gwyneth, her bread bin held a large, fresh cheese-topped crusty loaf and her cupboards stored slightly salty butter and the familiar brown jar with the yellow lid.

She managed to get through almost the entire loaf plus two huge mugs of steaming builders’ tea. Blimey, she almost felt happy.

She shivered a little. Not quite time to put the central heating on but the coming of October was perhaps a hint that it was time to dig out the cardigans. She looked down at her swelling belly. Twins. She closed her eyes and leant her head back as far as she could. How did she feel about carrying vampire twins? More to the point, vampire twin girls and therefore the saviours of the vampire race. Sasha supposed that, under the circumstances, she was lucky that Karol Dragan, Prince of all the vampires and father to her gestating embryos, hadn’t got her hidden away securely in a turret somewhere blasted and remote, the better to keep an eye on her.

Sasha remembered the day - how long ago now? She couldn't remember - when she had made her way, heavy of heart and miserably bilious, to her local hospital in Hereford to finally confirm the sex and father of her babies. She had been feeling far too ill to travel to London to see her consultant, the eminent Dr Menaph, gynaecologist to the obscenely wealthy and one time physician to the pharaohs, so he had come to her along with the Prince, at great personal risk, being out in daylight. Conspicuous by his absence was the Shan; that had given her the answer to the paternity question as well as any confirmation from the doctor. After all, the Shan, her father, was a good friend of the doctor and had almost certainly already been given, for him, the bad news. Sasha had wondered how the Shan felt about his long-held paternity of the Guardians coming to an end. Brain-meltingly furious was her guess, incandescent with rage, maybe even killing mad. That boast had been one of his raison d’êtres and one of the reasons why he had come back from the grave on her twenty-fifth birthday - to father the next Guardian just as Sasha came into her first fertile period. The first male to impregnate her would be the father of the next Guardian of the Stones. Unfortunately for the Shan, the vampire had got there first. Still, he hadn't known that so had had sex with her anyway. ‘Bastard,’ she thought. It might have been de rigeur for the bloody Egyptians to dance around the pyramids with their blood relatives but she still felt unhappy about having sex with her father and her grandfather and her great grandfather etc etc. Was absolutely nothing sacred? Bugger, she felt sad again now.

What day was it? Friday. Maybe give it the weekend and go back to work on Monday.

Chapter Two

SUNDAY

Sunday night found Sasha calling Gwyneth and after much thanks and how are you’s were exchanged, asked to speak to her boss.

Sergeant, very glad to hear from you. You're feeling well enough to come back to work then? Sasha confirmed that she was. We don't want you rushing things and coming back too early. Sasha frowned, sensing Gwyneth’s influence. The little auger was probably standing at her husband’s shoulder making sure he wasn't putting any pressure on her. Sasha bet that any other of the DCC’s officers calling to confirm their return from three months’ sick leave wouldn't get this softly softly treatment.

No I'm fine honestly. Can't wait in fact. Anything to take my mind off impending motherhood. ‘Ain't that the truth!’ She had wondered if maybe the vampire was pulling strings to keep her safely away from her desk. Maybe he had a point. A few months ago the worst she and Otis faced was a carp stealing cat and the Eversleighs ignoring the by-pass and driving their heavy machinery through the village. Then the solstice had arrived and, literally, all hell had broken loose. That was all over now though, surely. The Prince had his female offspring pending and the Shan was sulking somewhere after being bought forth from his grave under the alter stone of the great stone monument to the east of the village. Several times in the preceding few weeks she had wondered where the Shan had disappeared to. You meet your father for the first time after he rises from the dead at the expense of six human virgins, he renders you unconscious, has sex with you then disappears in a snit because someone else got you pregnant first. Beat them eggs, Jeremy Kyle.

She was aware that his first stop had been the Manor, cheeky sod. The Prince had only just vacated the property and Sasha wondered how the vampire felt about a final energy bill that ran into hundreds of thousands of pounds after the Shan had plugged himself into the mains to recharge himself.

We need to go through a few things so I'll come down on Monday and we can catch up over a coffee. ‘Whoa,’ thought Sasha, alarmed now. Not once in fifteen months of Sasha’s tenure in charge of the village police office had Malcolm Drury felt it necessary to visit her.

There was a short silence before Sasha said that she would be delighted.

Chapter Three

MONDAY

Otis was overjoyed to see her, despite having often dropped into her cottage next door to the office over the last three months. They were old friends, not just colleagues, having gone to school together. They might even have exchanged a slurpy kiss one birthday or another. But now she was back in charge and Otis was mightily relieved.

They sat in her office as they had hundreds of times before, chatting over Hobnobs and coffee from Otis’s fancy coffee maker. Behind Otis on the glass partition that cut her office off from Otis’s space in the front of the converted cottage was the diagram that Malpurgo, the Doc and she had used to try and make sense of the solstice ceremony that had killed her Gran just over a year ago. They were all there, the main protagonists: vampires, christians, necromancers, druids and her mother, the divine Vivienne. The only one missing was the Shan - oh and the Doc himself, the old gangly, sandy-haired, cigar-smoking, whisky-drinking doctor of the village and something definitely ‘other’. Not a nice ‘other’ as it turned out. He had sacrificed at least six human girls in four attempts to bring the Shan back and deftly deflected Sasha at every turn as she had attempted to find out what had happened at that dreadful solstice. It hadn't ended well for the old man though. When he finally succeeded on her twenty-fifth birthday, over three months ago, the only life force around for the Shan to draw on was the Doc’s. The Shan had drained him and killed him, albeit not deliberately it could be argued but still, the Doc was dead as well as her Gran and with an impressive looking case board carefully compiled on her glass partition that included every single protagonist involved in the affair, Sasha still hadn't even come close to figuring it out.

… and of course with you actually in residence the Eversleighs haven't dared to drive their tractors through the village, which everyone thinks is hilarious. Otis seemed very pleased with this piece of news. So was she actually, anything to piss off the appalling Sheila Eversleigh.

It was at that point that the office door opened and Gwyneth arrived with her husband. He wasn’t in uniform which did nothing to relieve Sasha’s anxiety. Something was definitely up.

Sasha and Gwyneth hugged and she let the little Welsh auger inspect her for any sign that she may have come back to work too early.

You're going to need some maternity wear soon, she said, exactly mirroring Sasha’s thoughts of that morning. I'll get on line and save a few sites for you to look at. Casserole for tonight? she suggested, knowing how much Sasha loved her casserole. Gwyneth patted her cheek and with a peck on her husband’s forehead, left them to it. Was he going to make small talk Sasha wondered? It seemed that he was.

Lovely little village, he said, taking a seat in one of her uncomfortable office chairs. Might nip down and have a look at the stones before I leave. Sasha said something banal about their history - big slate monoliths bought down from the Welsh hills, only active stone monument left in the three lands blah blah. You're looking well. Lost a bit of weight, he said. ‘That's what three months of constant yakking-up will do for you,’ Sasha thought impatiently, wishing he would get on with it.

Finally she said, Sir, am I sacked?

Malcolm Drury looked momentarily shocked and then smiled. No sergeant, absolutely not. You're not plugged into the grapevine down here so I've come to tell you in person that I'm moving on. ‘Blimey,’ Sasha thought, not entirely sure how she felt about that. Pastures new. Promotion actually. Chief Constable of Gwent Constabulary. I'm here to tell you personally because my successor is about to be formally announced and I rather think it's going to affect you quite seriously. ‘Bugger,’ thought Sasha, ‘a new broom.’ How many had her grandmother had to contend with? Mind you, Gran hadn't been a police officer so the consequences of a change of personnel wouldn't have been so acute.

Did you ever come across Miranda Preece in your three years in London? the DCC asked. Sasha did think the name was familiar. She was a fast-track graduate entrant but unlike your average high flyer she insisted on starting at the bottom and did a year in uniform on the beat. Sasha must have looked impressed because the DCC hurriedly dispelled her opinion. Anyone else and this would probably have endeared her to your average copper but I'm afraid Ms Preece has the people skills of Dr Mengele unless you're one of her people. It became clear as she moved rapidly up the ranks that all she was doing in those years was looking for dead or dying wood and as you know, these days staying in budget is an essential but mostly impossible part of a senior officer’s job. He took a very deep, frustrated breath. It's almost unheard of to actually come in under budget. Miranda Preece does it to a significant degree every time. Sasha felt a creeping tingle of suspicion. Cost cutting, budgets - exactly how important was her little outpost these days? Miranda Preece is as deeply unpopular with her peers and the rank and file as it’s possible to be but she's a shining light as far as the powers that be are concerned. She's the youngest officer to ever make DCC at thirty-six. Since she was made aware she was getting my job a couple of months ago I've heard nothing but rumours about what she's going to cut back on. Apparently she's taken a very significant interest in you. ‘Here it comes,’ Sasha thought. When I first heard how many questions she was asking about you and the village I felt it necessary to mention it to a couple of people with a view to someone maybe having a word with her. Do you remember David Shepherd? Sasha did remember him: special police liaison for anything odd, strange or ‘other’. He had been one of the four on the panel that had sent her in search of the Shan once it had become known that he had risen. That's when she came across SEB, a ‘specially enhanced body. Fucking Americans. Not going there!

He agrees with me that you should be left alone so we had a word with her, quite informally. Took her out for a drink. Malcolm Drury didn't look happy at the memory; clearly things hadn't gone as expected. It appears that Miranda Preece doesn't do informal. We were treated to half an hour of her core philosophy and plans for the future of the Force, plans that don't include autonomous maverick outposts answerable to no one and not in any way cost effective as per her cost per unit business model. He looked seriously pained. Sasha hadn’t understood very much of his last sentence. She had a horrible suspicion it was business speak of some kind. She barely got by with normal vocabulary.

Cost per unit? she queried. What the hell is a unit?

Malcolm Drury grimaced. You are, sergeant. Police officers are units now. I believe it's much the same in the armed forces and stakeholders have to keep their costs per unit to a minimum while pushing their effectiveness to its limits.

What exactly is a stakeholder? asked Sasha, now genuinely bemused.

Me, senior officers, anyone that manages a budget or provides a service.

‘Copy that,’ thought Sasha. What about me being Guardian? Does that hold no sway with her? Sasha realised that this was possibly the first time that she'd referred to herself as Guardian and the importance that position held.

Not her problem, the DCC said matter of factly. Civilian issue as far as she's concerned, doesn't fall within her purview. Sasha didn't know what to say. I just wanted to come down and give you a heads up. It's by no means a foregone conclusion that she will be able to make any changes down here. She will have to submit a report for any savings that she may want to make and you do have a few friends in the higher echelons. Just be wary and for god’s sake don't give her any cause to come down on you. No ritual slaughter or marauding gods or blackmailing top secret biological research institutions.

Sasha indicated that she got the message. How long do I have until she's appointed? she asked, hoping that the replacement of a DCC was a lengthy process.

She took over this morning, sergeant. Gwenny and I are off for a week’s holiday in the little cottage that her grandmother left her, pretty little place just on the border. Christ on a cracker, she was doomed. Malcolm Drury consulted his watch. Come on, it's pub o'clock. I'll treat you and Otis to a pint of cider. He glanced at her belly. Well, Otis anyway.

They all trooped off the pub. Otis and the DCC found that they shared a couple of passions, namely fishing and cider. Sasha remembered Gwyneth mentioning that they had actually met her grandmother once at a cider festival. Sasha hadn't known that her Gran even liked cider, just one more indication of how little attention she had paid to her Gran over the years. ‘That's because I spent most of my childhood in here,’ she thought, taking a sip of her tomato juice with a liberal glug of Worcester sauce. She loved the pub. Had it ever been re-furbished in the twenty five years that she had frequented it? Not to her knowledge. Kane had slapped some paint around occasionally and maybe had the banquettes re-upholstered once but in exactly the same maroon leather. It was her second home, one of the four buildings that sat on the corners of the crossroads that ran through the main street of the village.

As a five year old, newly residing with her Gran while her mother went to America for six months with the not-at-all child-friendly Lucien, Sasha had stood at the little wooden gate of her new back garden and listened to the loud metal on metal sound coming from the pub across the road. Her grandmother hadn't said that she couldn't investigate. What was a five year old to do?

She had found her way between the back of the pub and the little barn, onto the back terrace and into the old smithy where the biggest man she had ever seen was about to pour a bucket of water over himself. Kane heard her laughing and chased her along the terrace, threatening to tip what was left of the water all over her. And that was it. She loved him and his big friends, particularly Spangle, so called because she couldn't pronounce his real name. Sasha couldn't even remember what Spangle’s real name was anymore. She hadn't seen either of them for over three months and she was reasonably sure that they hadn't come out of their homes in the forest for all that time. No one could miss the roar of their bikes’ huge Kawasaki engines and Sasha hadn't heard them once.

She wondered who was looking after the pub besides the barmaids, Michelle, Joanne and Deidre. Not that it needed much looking after on a Monday lunch time - it was dead, no other customers at all. Sasha thought that the place felt wrong without Kane and Spangle sat over in the corner, noisily playing dominoes.

Sasha dragged her attention back to the conversation between Otis and the DCC. They were talking a strange fishing language but she caught the odd word.

Where exactly is this cottage? she asked as their now ex-boss finished telling Otis about the small waterway that flowed at the bottom of the cottage’s garden.

Little village on the border near Pant. Very pretty but a bit basic. Gwenny is feeling guilty about deserting you for a whole week but we're only a couple of hours away if you need us. Sasha felt a bit tearful. Gwyneth Drury had come down to the village on Sasha’s twenty-fifth birthday to attend the summer solstice ritual that was due to be held at the stone monument three days later. Sasha remembered how pissed off she had been when her DCC had asked if his wife could attend the ritual, promising that she wouldn't get in the way, a bit bored now that the kids had left home and looking for a new interest. Then this little softly spoken Welsh lady had turned up a couple of days early, announced herself to be an auger and had made herself absolutely indispensable ever since. Two or three days a week she spent at the cottage, sleeping in Sasha’s Gran’s room, making sure that her washing was done and that she was eating properly and that she wasn't about to woash down a handful of paracetamol with a pint of Tia Maria. She also had the invaluable gift of silence. If Sasha wanted to talk, she would be there to listen and if she didn't, Gwyneth was there to make the tea.

I'll be fine, Sasha assured her ex-boss. Make sure she has a good time.

They had one more drink, Sasha really not happy that one of the things that still made her nauseous was the smell of alcohol. Otis went home at Sasha’s insistence, a thank you for holding the fort for three months, and she said goodbye to both the Drurys, promising not to forget to take the casserole out of the oven.

Once the DCC’s Jag was out of sight, Sasha made her way back to the police office and leaving the lights off, locked herself in. Sasha sat behind her desk and gave her attention to the diagram on her glass partition. It was her case board, the diagram depicting a big circle in the middle with lines radiating from it, at the ends of which were leads and ideas that she, Malpurgo and the Doc had thought relevant to the solstice fiasco. The big inner circle was empty now. It had held the death of her grandmother as the starting premise, the actual crime that had initiated the last four months of frenetic activity. But as their investigation - she used the term loosely - progressed, Sasha became less convinced that the death of her grandmother was the central issue around which the whole sorry sequence of events turned. Trouble was, back then, and she was talking nearly four months ago now, she had no idea what was. That wasn't the case now though. She knew exactly who belonged in that centre circle: the Shan.

She shook her head and couldn’t stop her eyes from rolling at the memory of that ridiculous sack of limitless strife. Exactly how much trouble should one being be allowed to cause before he was done away with for the good of one and all? She had been quite happily wedged tightly underneath the glorious Sholtoe, incubus and personal protector while in London, passing her police exams and supposedly learning from the great and good of the ‘other’ world stuff she would need to know when she finally took over from her grandmother as the Guardian of the Stones. That was years and years away though, plenty of time to learn stuff.

Then out of the dreadful blue the call came from the Doc telling her that Amelia, her grandmother and current Guardian of the Stones, was dead. It was time for Sasha to come home and take on her responsibilities. Sasha could barely believe it. Her grandmother, seven-hundred-year-old invincible knower of everything, frightened of nothing, powerful, venerable and much revered protector of the earth, dead. Even Sholtoe had marked the importance of the news by not insisting that they get right back to the sex they had been enjoying. What on the planet could have been powerful enough to kill a being that once a year, on the summer solstice, took the power of the earth up through the stones into her body then thrust it back into the earth, making the three lands fruitful for another year? As the Doc had once joked, a Guardian was made of asbestos. What could possibly destroy that?

Sasha took in some of the words that the three of them had thought important enough to go onto the board, words which told her the answer to the question: druids and necromancers. Sasha groaned for her own relief. If she ever came face to face with a necromancer again it would be ten million years too soon. Nasty, smelly little ‘others’ that took the life force from dying humans and sometimes, for a generous fee, put a little of it back into the dead, creating a zombie for two or three days before the body decayed so much that its insides started ooze all over the carpet. Sasha remembered asking why the hell anyone would raise a zombie. Who had she been talking to? Oh yes, one of the Bishop of Hereford’s aides. What had he said? A zombie could tell you who its assailant had been in the case of a violent death or tell relatives where the new will was hidden or a safe deposit box code or a PIN number. But none of that applied to the solstice ceremony so why were there five necromancers upon the ritual site, slashing the throats, having sex and taking the life force of three human virgins, all to the accompaniment of a mad Arch Druid ranting some strange incantation and three hundred acolytes banging each other's brains out?

So, there was the question that she, Malpurgo and the Doc had been faced with: what had gone on on that hot summer night? Well, in the end it had all come down to the Doc. ‘Blimey that still hurt,’ Sasha thought. The Doc’s name wasn't on the board because he had been one of her two trusted advisors. He was her friend her mentor, almost a surrogate father. Along with Malpurgo, the Doc had been one of her Gran’s oldest friends. She had grown up with both of them, the Doc had been in attendance at her birth for fuck sake. But it seemed that the Doc had a higher master - the Shan, Lord of Misrule, Destroyer of Worlds, Carnage, all titles that the Shan had enjoyed during his long and destructive existence. Strange that the bugger considered himself a saviour of worlds, not a destroyer. Their world anyway, the ‘other’ world, he couldn't give a toss about humans. Given the choice she would rather have had almost anyone else as her father. That had come as a shock, not as big a shock admittedly as discovering that he was also her grandfather and her great grandfather etc etc, all the way back to the beginning, to the first family of the earth. Luckily, in her world that made her stronger. If she had been human she could well have turned out a famous idiot.

However, unknown to Sasha her Grandmother had decided that it was time to bring that particular family tradition to an end. Determined to protect her granddaughter from her own fate she had put the Shan to sleep under the altar stone of the only active stone monument left in the three lands. Sasha had been blissfully ignorant of this chapter of her not uneventful family’s history. When she found out it made her feel kind of fuzzy inside, another example of how much her Gran had loved her. Shame it wasn't entirely true, or the whole truth. Gran had put the Shan under the ground as revenge for killing her lover and she had summoned the vampire to have sex with Sasha before the Shan, therefore causing their shared parent maximum damage. That hadn't hurt at all she thought sadly.

Why not kill him? Sasha had asked when the pieces of the jigsaw started to come together. The answer was that it was a cosmic no-no for an ‘other’ to kill its own parent, though apparently it was alright to have sex with them. But it appeared that wasn’t the whole reason. Her Gran was over seven hundred years old and interfering and annoying as the Shan undoubtedly was, he had been there through it all with her. So she had fashioned a spectacular piece of craft and put the bugger to sleep, hopefully never to rise again. But no one had known about the Doc, that gangly, sandy-haired, dry-witted, cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking village MD. Even Gran, how could she not have known? And Mrs Geranium who lived in the cottage across the road and knew Gran better than anyone, even she hadn't suspected.

Sasha felt very sad about the Doc. She missed him really quite a lot. He was a clever man... or whatever he was. He was definitely ‘other’ - she still didn't know exactly what - but she had begun to suspect that Warlock might be a good guess. Gran hadn't liked Warlocks and she reminded herself to make the effort to find out why at some point. He had really worked hard to bring the Shan back at the cost of six human girls and one all powerful Guardian.

Sasha looked down at her swollen stomach. A god or a vampire as father of her children; she felt so proud.

After shoving down a good half of the delicious casserole along with a generous helping of creamy mashed potato, Sasha lay down for a short zizz before her favourite trilogy of soaps started. Her three months of permanent nausea had begun with abject misery over the death of SEB, followed by rage at the unfairness of just about everything and concluding with a singular apathy and languor over the total meaninglessness of it all. Still, she did have the soaps so it wasn't all bad.

Sadly it wasn't the familiar strains of the opening music to an everyday tale of farming folk that stirred her. She woke from a delightful snooze to see the divine Vivienne sitting in the chintz armchair to her right, one perfectly hosed leg crossed over the other.

Sasha yawned and stretched and said hello. Vivienne didn't see fit to return the greeting.

Well I'm glad to say that you're looking better than the last time I saw you, she said, obviously thinking that Sasha would welcome her opinion. Which she didn't. She did, however, vaguely remember that her mother had dropped in a couple of times during her confinement. Sasha had either ignored her or let Gwyneth deal with her. Should she offer her mother a cup of tea? Sod it, if she was thirsty she could make it herself.

Lucien and I have been talking, Vivienne continued. We are both a little concerned that you are here alone. If anything happened to you I’d never forgive myself so we've agreed that you should come and live with us for the duration of your pregnancy. Sasha found herself grasping the sofa cushion on which she was sitting, presumably because the world had just shifted on on its axis. She even took her mother’s invitation at face value for a few seconds, so shocked was she at the offer, before utter dismay and disbelief set in. She thought to herself that she would more readily accept an invitation from Fred and Rose West. It further occurred to her that there was more chance of Charles having a coronation than Vivienne genuinely wanting Sasha to live with her.

Whose idea was this, mother? she asked when the real unlikelihood of it being Vivienne’s sank in.

Her mother brushed a piece of non-existent lint from her immaculate skirt. Lucien and I have thought for some time that...

It was the Prince wasn't it?

Vivienne glowered and very reluctantly replied, Yes, never one to mince words. He is entitled to be concerned about the safety of his own children. Not her then, just the kids. What would happen if you had a fall or something started to go wrong with the pregnancy?

Then I'd call Mrs Geranium or Otis or Malpurgo or, at a push, you. We're in the village mother not the International Space Station.

Vivienne clearly wasn't going to take no for an answer. I don't think that you quite realise the importance of the children you are carrying, she said, leaning forward to give emphasis to her words. If anything were to happen and you miscarried and the Prince thought that Lucien and I hadn't done everything to ensure that you had a safe delivery... She left the sentence hanging, a resolution clearly not required.

So you're scared that the vampire will blame you if anything goes wrong? That was more like the mother she knew and... knew.

You're taking this whole thing much too lightly, Vivienne snapped. Nothing in this world is more important to that vampire than the safe delivery of those girls.

Sasha shook her head impatiently. Mother, nothing is going to happen to me or... She hesitated, ... the girls. Blimey that wasn't good. In no way was she ready to give the bundle of cells that she carried an identity.

Well don't be surprised if the Prince takes a different view and if he does don't forget to mention my invitation. Vivienne stood and swished out of the cottage, leaving Sasha certain that there was more to that conversation than was immediately obvious.

Chapter Four

TUESDAY

About half way through her second Virgin Mary with Otis and the DCC earlier that afternoon, Sasha remembered that she was due to see Dr Menaph the following day. Normally a consultation with the world’s most pre-eminent gynaecologist would have taken place at his clinic in Harley Street but Sasha had felt too ill to travel to London during the last three months so the accommodating physician had agreed to see her in Hereford which was much closer to home. It was clearly nothing whatsoever to do with the Prince of all the vampires being the expectant father and the one paying his monstrous bill. Sasha supposed that she felt well enough to travel to London now but sod it, who needed the hassle.

She had been half way through pulling on the obligatory stretch leggings, the only items in her wardrobe that fit her around the waist now, when a text came through informing her of a change of venue. For the previous appointment she had travelled to the Nuffield Hospital as a private patient - nothing but the best for the saviour of a species. This time they were to meet at a hotel. What was that about?

At one o'clock she pulled up in front of a glorious Georgian country house hotel, still none the wiser. Dr Menaph, striking as ever in immaculate black slacks and a crisp white shirt rolled up to the elbows, greeted her in the lobby. Sasha had trusted herself to him instinctively even though he was a very old friend of her father’s. He had tales to tell of their exploits in ancient Egypt where Menaph had been physician to the pharaohs. She noticed that he kept all mention of the Shan away from the vampire. Her grandmother had, after all, summoned the Prince in the belief that he could protect Sasha from the Shan, something that he had spectacularly failed to do. Sasha was willing to bet that you could count the Prince’s failures on the finger of one finger. He wouldn't take it lightly.

A small open lift took them up to the top floor, the whole of which, Menaph explained, the vampire had taken for a few days. Vladimir the Handsome met them as the lift juddered to a halt. Sasha knew that for two pins Vladimir would have thrown her off the nearest battlement. He thought her crass and shallow. Well, he could kiss her rapidly expanding arse.

The gorgeous vampire followed them as the doctor led her through the suite of rooms until they came to one that had been set up with various pieces of medical equipment.

The Prince wanted to be present for the examination and the hospital is hardly a safe environment for him. Sasha could see the difficulty in making a hospital light tight. No natural light made its way into this room as there were no windows.

The door opened and the Prince of all the vampires stepped into the room. Sasha had a few seconds of that ‘across a crowded room’ thing, a Tony and Maria moment, their eyes met etc etc. He would always do that to her and she would always feel like this at the sight of him. Three months of miserable regurgitation had killed her libido stone dead but two seconds with the vampire bought it howling and fizzing back to life.

He smiled and said, I am very happy to see you too, in that low tone that ran over her nerve endings like cream over warm bread and butter pudding. He could sense her reaction to him. Bastard, that was so unfair. Then again what the hell and she smiled back, an expression she hadn't worn for a long while. He looked as fabulous as ever. Not many males, human or ‘other’ could get away with white loafers. He was such a peacock.

Dr Menaph indicated that Sasha should remove her jacket and lie down on the black examination table. She felt a bit nervous until the Prince ordered the four attendant vampires to leave the room. At least that's what she assumed he’d said, having spoken in his own language,. another thing she found unaccountably sexy.

The head end of the table was at a forty-five degree incline so she wasn't really lying flat. Dr Menaph moved a mobile monitor closer to the table and began to unscrew the cap from a tube of some clear viscous goo. Sasha lifted her roll neck jumper and the doctor smeared a good dollop of the goo onto her swollen belly. Sasha looked up at the vampire to see his grey eyes fixed on the monitor. The doctor took the little device that resembled a man’s electric razor and began to move it over the gooey mess on her belly. All three of them were gazing at the monitor now but Menaph was speaking directly to the Prince.

See here, two distinct hearts, both beating strongly. They will not be identical, they don't come from the same egg and both are definitely females. Sasha glanced at the proud father. His expression was intense, like when he gazed at her with only one thing on his mind.

Are they the size that you would expect? he asked.

Menaph hesitated momentarily before answering. I don't know what to expect. I'm fairly sure this is the very first vampire/Guardian pregnancy. I'm reasonably certain that the gestation period will be less than twenty-four months as with your females, the foetuses are too advanced for that. I believe that a normal Guardian pregnancy lasts about seven months. They don't happen often enough for any authoritative study to be made. If the babies continue to grow at this rate then I anticipate the birth will be around ten months. We will have to closely monitor her especially in the later stages. The Prince nodded then performed a comedy double take as he realised that Sasha was glaring at him. He seemed to find her exasperated expression amusing which served to annoy her even more.

And how do we think our lovely mother is doing? the Prince asked, grinning at her.

Menaph seemed to find amusement in the question as well. Sasha didn't think that being treated like a vampire baby machine was funny. Well she has lost a lot of weight and the sun hasn't been our friend for a while has it? Menaph said, stroking her cheek with a heavily tanned finger. It's time to start doing regular blood tests, he announced, moving over to a small tray that held all the paraphernalia for taking blood samples. Sasha wasn't afraid of needles but she