“Mum!” Christian exclaimed, scandalized.
Just the same, he told her about the time girls had literally hacked through the walls of Bradley’s trailer with an ax, and as Mum refilled their cups of tea, she moved jerkily again and put her hot human hand against the angles of Christian’s cheek.
It felt like she was sorry, then.
He still didn’t belong there anymore. Rory still did not come down from his room. Nothing was the way it had been before, and it never would be again.
The next day the band played to a packed house, and Mum and Rory and a bunch of Rory’s friends were in the front row, watching them with shining eyes, glitter and smoke in the air.
Christian was far enough away then, something to admire and be proud of, but not to take home.
This might be what Faye had meant. Nobody wanted the vampire for real.
Someone had invented the myth that vampires had to be invited in, because people wanted vampires to stay out.
Christian went into his dressing room, and thought, I could just go, now. They were just humans, they didn’t have to be people to him, like Lucille had said.
He might as well go, because soon enough they would all be dead, but he was going to live forever.
He went. He went outside, and Faye’s assistants ushered Mum, Rory, and his friends backstage, and he introduced them around. He was careful not to touch Rory, and Rory sent him a grin, shy and pleased and still a little nervous, before resuming his intense conversation with Josh about lighting and acoustics.
“Chris never told me he had such a—and I use this term advisedly—hot mama,” said Bradley, leering and kissing her hand.
Christian’s mum looked absolutely delighted. Christian smacked Bradley in the head.
Later Mum and Rory went home. Christian did not suggest accompanying them. He went back to the hotel with his band-mates, and Josh was a little more friendly to him than usual, as if it was a revelation to him that Christian had a family and might love them—that Christian could still be that much of a person.
Not enough of a person for his family.
Just before dawn, there was a knock on his door. Bradley stood on the threshold looking as subdued as he ever was, which for Bradley meant he was wearing very subtle glitter.
“I wanted to check if you were all right,” he said, and Christian wondered how much Bradley had seen and understood about his mother and Rory.
He’d never heard Bradley talk about a family of his own.
“I’m getting by,” Christian told him.
When Christian’s coffin lurched and hit something, he assumed Bradley had got bored of playing knock-knock jokes and had decided to use Christian’s coffin as an indoor surfboard in some sort of misguided band-bonding exercise.
He snapped awake and yelled, “Cut it out!”
Christian eased the coffin lid up with care, in case one of the band was actually stupid enough to be on top of it and, when nobody was, he tossed it aside and sat up.
Then he looked around at the dim, gray cell. Josh and Bradley were sitting close together, obviously having a heated discussion. Pez was sitting up by the coffin and rubbing his head.
“Are you hurt?” Christian asked him.
“Not really,” Pez answered, with a grimace. “Our coffee was drugged. It knocked the other two out, but the guy who came inside the tour bus once they were down had to knock me out.”
“You didn’t drink the coffee?”
“No, I drank it,” Pez said. “Found it quite soothing.”
“You found the knockout drops quite soothing,” Christian repeated.
“Sort of a mellow buzz,” Pez told him earnestly.
At that point Bradley turned around and said, “Oh good, Chris, you’re awake. We’ve been kidnapped.”