Vampire State of Mind Read Online Free PDF

charge of the Otherworld’s administration in the city of York for sixty years, and had held the city apart from the worst of the Troubles, and he still looked like Colin Firth’s younger brother, perfect pale skin and come-to-bed eyes, the bastard.
    â€˜Come on Zan, what’s happening? I know as well as you do that vampires only like a knees-up if the knee in question is connecting with someone else’s soft bits.’
    â€˜It’s the Dead Run,’ he said at last, sulkily. ‘Thursday night. At the Hagg Baba restaurant.’
    Liam widened his eyes. ‘Hang on. I read about that …’
    â€˜Oh God!’ I slumped back in my chair, an unheeded piece of sandwich falling into my lap. ‘I can’t believe they’ve let this happen here!’
    Liam was searching for the e-update sheets that periodically got sent to us. He actually prints them out and archives them when they arrive, in case of computer failure. I roll them up and use them to kill wasps. ‘Where is it?’ he muttered. ‘I’m sure I put these in date order. Jessie, have you been using them to stand on again?’
    â€˜Well, you will keep putting the Kit Kats in the top cupboard.’
    â€˜That’s because
someone
has to keep you from overdosing. Ah, here it is.’ He pulled a two-year-old issue free and it slid from the pile with a shower of dust.
    â€˜It was supposed to be Manchester!’
    â€˜I know.’ Zan sounded aggrieved. ‘I know, and honestly, Jessica, I would not have had it happen here. Can you
begin
to
comprehend
the amount of paperwork this is involving? But somewhere along the line something happened and the powers-that-be moved it to York. Believe me, I am not happy about it either, do you have any idea of the complexities – ’
    I leaned forward and turned my computer off at the mains switch. Liam gave a tiny moan of protest, but I think my expression stopped him complaining out loud. ‘So why have they switched it to York? ‘
    Liam gave me a pained look. ‘If you hadn’t just shorted out our entire system I think Zan might have been about to tell you.’
    â€˜I only turned it off.’
    â€˜Without backing up.’
    â€˜But …’
    â€˜It was felt that York was more conducive to atmosphere for an interspecies competition.’ Liam and I swivelled away from the computer and towards the interrupter’s voice. ‘After all, the whole point is to allow Otherworld races to compete against one another and it was decided that Manchester was insufficiently, how shall I put it … impressive.’
    â€˜For the Goth Olympics,’ Liam said, helpfully.
    â€˜And who on earth are you?’ I stared at the man sitting perched on the edge of Liam’s desk. ‘And, more to the point, why are you here?’
    â€˜This is the guy who came asking for you yesterday.’ Liam was taking the opportunity of my gawping at the stranger to re-boot my computer. He thought I couldn’t see the reassuring way he stroked its casing.
    â€˜Malfaire.’ The visitor straightened himself away from the desk; didn’t offer to shake hands. But then, that was human behaviour, and this man … My usually reliable senses were letting me down. I didn’t recognise him from Rachel’s description; she’d said he had shoulder-length hair and this guy had his tied up in a pony-tail, she’d also called him ‘strange’, and, as far as I was concerned, this guy had long ago passed through strange and out the other side into ‘read far too many horror novels late at night and practised the look way more than was healthy’. Eyes, seville-orange-dark, swept over me and I felt a cat’s paw of fear stroke down my spine. ‘And you must be Jessica Grant.’
    I drew myself up to full height and tried to project cool, capable business-woman, decently proportioned and not