Page 39 of Be Still My Unbeating Heart

Later, though, when they had found their footing, the cat showed she cared, in her own way. Sometimes, she prepared his flask of pig’s blood herself, using her teeth and claws to transport the blood bag from the fridge to the counter, and from the counter into the flask. She made a mess of it every time, but the pride in her tone as she summoned him—as if to a gourmet dinner—meant Bastian thanked her sincerely and always made a show of enjoying the meal.

“I won’t run off again,” Bastian told the cat. “Pinkie promise.”

“I don’t have pinkies.”

“Well, I toebean promise.”

Whitby nodded and leapt onto the harbor wall. A crowd had gathered as word about the body spread. The beach jostled with holidaymakers in their swimwear, all attempting to get a look at the second victim. Bastian recognized a woman in a pink dress: Aunt Agata. A wicker basket was hooked over one arm, out of which poked two oversized knitting needles, and the shopkeeper watched with a shrewd glint in her eye as, on the rocks below, a crime scene photographer battled the tide to take pictures of the body.

Emilio.

“Poor boy,” Whitby murmured.

“He was sweet,” Bastian agreed, feeling bad for the waiter. Sure, he’d given them the runaround, but he didn’t deserve to die.

“I wonder if news has reached the mayor yet,” Whitby said.

“It’s certainly reached everybody else.”

The cat’s ears flattened against her skull. “Mayor Moretti deserves a slap for what she pulled in her office. Offering you human blood like that. Does the woman have a death wish?”

Bastian nodded. “It was peculiar.”

“Supporting vampire rights is one thing, but keeping a stash of human blood in your office is quite another. Even if we ignore the question of where shegotthe blood, that is troubling behavior all by itself.”

“Yes,” Bastian said, trying to rid his mind of the image of the goblet. Every time he thought of it, his stomach gave a queasy gurgle, like it had been denied something it deserved.

“You were tempted,” the cat observed, no judgment in her tone. “When you ran, I had thought maybe…maybe it was like…”

She trailed off, and Bastian had an idea what she was thinking.

“It made you think about the park,” he said. The cat nodded.

The park happened early in his period of getting clean. The hunger had been so intense, he thought he was losing his mind. When the pangs got so painful that he nearly started to chew on his own flesh, he broke out of their Shoreditch flat and prowled the streets hunting for a victim. When he grabbed a homeless woman in the park and prepared to feed on her, he had been thinking only of the blood. The taste. Theneed. But then an image of Whitby had leapt forward in his mind—Whitby pacing the flat, worrying about him, scratching at the door, yowling with anger and disappointment—and he couldn’t do it. He hated that he had even tried. He let the woman go.

Hours later, Whitby found him sitting on a park bench in full sun, his skin crisping, his eyes red and weeping. He had intended to sit there until he caught flame, until the sun scorched him to dust, because dying would be easier than trying to change his nature. But Whitby had talked him round. She assured him that setbacks were normal. He’d had a slip-up, that was all. She escorted him back to the flat, and she fixed him a meal, and she didn’t mention it again. A few days later, when the burns had healed and the hunger had settled, he renewed his efforts to get clean. There were no further setbacks.

“I’m glad you ran from the mayor,” Whitby said, bringing him back to the present, “even if it meant we lost you for a while.”

“Thanks.”

With the sun beating down from the cloudless sky, his vision swam and he knew he needed to get back inside soon. His thirst had dulled but the sun was beginning to take its toll.

He shook himself, tried to focus. He was about to tell Whitby about what happened with Salvador and Matteo when he caught a familiar musky scent on the breeze and turned to see De Luca approaching.

Something in Bastian’s chest loosened.Relief?Or some other emotion Bastian couldn’t place? The inspector was prickly and rigid, but Bastian found the sight of him oddly reassuring. So far, De Luca had been nothing but completely—some might sayaggravatingly—honorable. He only wanted the best for his people, and he listened when Bastian spoke.

Of course, he looked good in his uniform, too, but Bastian wasn’t thinking about that, was he? Not even slightly.

De Luca’s expression was grim. His large ears were pink with stress.

“We don’t have long,” he said, checking over his shoulder, as if somebody were following him.

“Until?” Bastian asked.

“Did you do this?” De Luca said. He looked at Bastian with those bright blue eyes. They were so intense, they could only be an asset to the inspector. It was impossible to lie to a pair of eyes so pure.

“No, Inspector. I understand how it must look, but I promise you, I had nothing to do with Emilio’s death. I liked the kid.”