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someone on our side of things too. You will see. I came here to find someone useful, from within your organisation.” He sounded pleased with himself. “To tell the truth, I am glad it is you, not that other woman, Trevelyan. You are far more … interesting.”
    “What things are coming?” I asked again. Something brushed against me. For a moment I was certain he was standing right beside me, and that his arm had slid around my side, his fingertips brushing my hip. I jerked around instinctively, but there was no one on the stage with me of course. He was right where he had been all along, in the rows of seats, keeping the audience and the media entertained with whatever he was saying to Cloves.
    My sudden movement seemed to capture everyone’s attention, and all eyes flicked onto me. Great , I thought wincingly. I just had a little seizure on stage by myself … smooth. My ears seemed to pop, and suddenly I could hear the room again. Allesandro’s voice was no longer in my ear but back in the audience, where his body, I think, had remained.
    “… If the Cabal representative insists, however, I will of course bow to the wishes of the masses and remove myself from the hall. I came here through curiosity only,” he was saying, in a friendly and amiable way. “Much like the other, more human members of the public, I presume.”
    Veronica Cloves smiled her tight media-friendly smile. “I think given that this is indeed primarily a meeting to discuss scientific results for the outcome of human led research for a human cause, it may well be appropriate for you to leave, Mr. Alexander.”
    “Allesandro,” he corrected her gently. “No ‘x’. I understand.” He turned to the stage. “Dr Harkness, my apologies if I have in any way disturbed your presentation. My people may well, as you so rightly put, have been a help to mankind, but as we cannot yet vote or truly class ourselves at citizens, perhaps my curiosity into human affairs should be elsewhere.” He grinned, much for the sake of the media presence, and put his hand over his heart contritely. “I confess I have an unquenchable thirst for all things scientific.”
    He bowed courteously, his hair tumbling forward, and just like that, he left. Leaving his row and walking without a backward glance the length of the auditorium, banging out of the double doors. At least half of the media crew followed him.
    The room erupted into chatter and gossip. Veronica Cloves, her face a thinly disguised mask of white fury, shot me a look of death, and began calling for order.

 
    7
     
    “Holy fucking shitting crap!”
    Such were the first words uttered to me by Lucy when I eventually appeared backstage, released from the presentation. The girl was practically jumping up and down on the balls of her feet.
    “Did that really happen?” she squealed. “He was one of them, wasn’t he? I mean really? You got hit on by a GO?”
    I grabbed her by the elbow as I unpinned my thankfully deactivated microphone and practically dragged her down the corridor, wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of the building before Veronica Cloves, or any one of the press or audience members, could find me.
    “Can we just go? Please?” I almost begged. “Yes, it was a vampire, I mean, a GO, and no, he wasn’t bloody hitting on me. Jesus, could that have gone worse? In any way, shape or form? Vampires aside, I was just forced to report that in our ongoing quest to find a vaccine serum to reverse the effects of the Pale infection, our greatest success of the quarter has been to make a rat explode.”
    Lucy was optimistic as always as we made our way through the college. “I don’t think Trevelyan could have done any better, Doc,” she assured me. “I mean, who knew one of them was going to turn up and cause a big scene. God, I was only listening from backstage, but the way he and that lady from Cabal were going at each other, GO rights here, legislation there, it was like the most