My ride was waiting for me where I’d left it – no worries about theft on Gob Lane. I swung my leg over the Butler 1863 motorrad and started the engine. The machine roared to life, and I tore off down the street on three hundred kilos of rubber and steel, my frock coat whipping out behind. I stopped at the gates because I had to, but I couldn’t remember anything John or Mick, the Royal Guards on duty, said to me. I must have given the correct answers because they let me go.

It wasn’t until I neared Wellington district, and my part of it – the area formerly known as Belgravia – that the numbness eased and I began to feel like myself again. I’d entered the plague den and survived, and now I knew where Dede was. It did nothing to make me feel better, but at least I knew.

Bedlam. Fang me.

Why couldn’t she have run off with one of the wolves who were down from Scotland for the season? That was what other Peerage Protectorate girls – and boys – did. Shagged the hairy brutes and protected them at the same time – not that weres needed an abundance of protecting. The Scots were looked down upon by some aristos for being a little too physical, but they were impressive in their strength.

I pulled the Butler to the kerb outside the house my sister Avery and I shared on the upper west side of Belgrave Square. The closer to Buckingham Palace and Mayfair you got, the older the neighbourhood appeared. In the East End they’d repaved some of the streets, and even had tall buildings, but here almost everything looked as it had two centuries ago. Even the parts that were new had been made to look old.

It was the same in most cities across Europe with a strong concentration of aristo citizens. The plague had spread across trade routes, taking the Prometheus Protein with it. There were vampires and werewolves all across the continent – halvies too, though the first of my kind had been born right here in London. Or at least, the first halvie in historical record had been. Aldous James was born in 1900. His father was Devonshire, but this was before we took titles as our surnames.

My house had been built in the 1820s. It was a large town house that used to be part of a huge mansion. My father had bought it for his children, but only Avery and I lived there now. Val had his own flat, and Dede had moved out six months ago, claiming she wanted her own space as well.

I unlocked the door, slipped inside the darkened foyer and punched the code into the alarm. That was as fancy as we got. When you were half-vampire, and trained to survive and protect at any cost, you didn’t really need much outside security.