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tainted, burns so much many new vampires rip through their flesh to ease the fire within.
    But they continue, do it anyway as it's part of the deal. It hurts like having your skin flayed and your exposed flesh soaked in vinegar, but you knock the clock back maybe another few months or years each time you take in that little bit of magic from the poor person laying at your feet, life over.
    The older you get, the more brief the results. It's why the newly turned are so full of life no matter the age they were when infected, and the older ones are grumpy as hell and sleep so much. Just like everyone else, they need a way to escape their lives—the oblivion of sleep. Although I can't imagine what their dreams must be like.
    I admit, I didn't know what to do. I had nothing to go on apart from a scrap of paper and the faint memory of a job I'd taken the day before. Now I had to go see Rikka, pray he didn't just kill me on the spot, and then deal with the mess.
    I'm no Sherlock Holmes, in case you haven't guessed, but I had little choice. Plus, if I'm honest, I was anticipating a little vengeance. I'm not a violent man, but I was seriously looking forward to ripping someone's head off and maybe leaving the country.
    Once we'd weaved our way through the dark corridors and rooms of Taavi's vast home, a vampire never out of sight, we finally made it back to the entrance. To fresh air, and if not sunlight, then at least not gloom.
    Oliver was there, waiting, a smug smirk on his face that made you want to slap him and shake him and shout in his face, "What's wrong with you? Why do you do that?" You know the person I mean? He just has this look about him, this little sneer or smile always on his face that tells the world he's better than everyone else. In other words, the kind of face that needs to be hit. Hard.
    Oliver is extra annoying as he is rather a handsome man—apart from the smackable sneer. For the first few centuries, certainly the first century or so, vampires pretty much remain as they were when first infected by another vampire. So you get all shapes, sizes, and ages.
    This man was a pompous fool when reborn, and remains one to this day. I believe he is at least three hundred years old, although it's not information they often share, but he's kept his looks. A forty-year-old with shoulder length sandy hair, piercing blue eyes, high cheekbones, a straight nose, only let down by a weak chin that I know will break if punched. He's six feet, with an athletic build but weird square shoulders that make him look like a fit clothes hanger. The worst thing of all is that Taavi trusts him, uses him for a lot of business, and Oliver has strong control over the other vampires in Taavi's employ.
    I say employ, but it's more protection than employment, although they certainly get paid, and well. Taavi is Head of the Vampire Council, the only Council where they actually have members, refusing the rest as they see it as beneath them or merely hate that they can't always get their own way. They do send representatives to the Hidden Council when told though. Nobody refuses such an order, not even vampires.
    Taavi needs eyes and ears out in the world to maintain his position, and Oliver is often the man that runs it all. Today was my lucky day as he was strictly mine. What joy.
    "Spark," said Oliver as he nodded and walked with me and the Chinese twins to the car.
    "Oliver." I ignored him then, otherwise I'd say something that would get me into trouble. He smirked. Ugh.
    Back in the car, the fight for a man's right to spread his legs wide, no matter the circumstances, resumed, but we soon arrived back where they'd picked me up and I was dropped off in the city center.
    "How about a lift back to my place?"
    The twins shook their blank heads in unison. Oliver turned around in the passenger seat and smiled at me. How I stopped myself from slapping him is testament to my emotional control. I stepped out into the drizzle. So did the creature