Death is Only a Theoretical Concept Read Online Free

greyskin out to gather tourist leeches and
revel in their underkingdom of darkness and despair, and while
Steve knows it’s mostly an act to lure in tourists, it’s a relief
to spot someone who doesn’t bother. He doesn’t even appear armed,
although the flashing lights make it harder to pick out the
tell-tale bulges and lines of a concealed weapon. Steve can almost
call him boring, but there’s something appealing in the cut of a
well-fitted shirt that isn’t flanno, pockets that don’t bulge with
fish lures and jeans that are so crisp Steve wonders if they’re
new. He smells good, too: sandalwood, not even a hint of fish or
seaweed.
    A pretty boy,
sure, but he is pretty, with a clean-shaven face and a
slightly-lopsided smile.
    The vampire
angles his head and looks at Steve in much the same considering
way. “I wish,” he says, the words rueful. “It’s the truth. I
didn’t—it never happened again, though. Fuck Stoker, I
swear.”
    “ Makes emptying a F88 into a feral look like an easy dare,
then,” Steve says, thinking. Jack’s birthday is next month, and
while nobody has seriously discussed what dare they should offer
him, Steve now has an idea too good not to mention in front of him,
just to scare him a little. He won’t insist on it—best mates don’t
hand their mates over to the fae—but Jack deserves a little revenge
for this horrific dare.
    “ Dare?”
    “ Birthday dares,” he says, shooting Sophie a deliberate glare.
If she says anything about the date, she’s so undead and
dismembered. “One of them was for one of my friends to camp out in
the old graveyard overnight. You from around here?”
    The vampire
shakes his head. “I moved down here last year.” He gestures towards
the gyrating vampires occupying the dance floor. “There’s so few of
us in the city, so you get shuffled between humans who—no
offense—stare at you oddly and then write protest letters to the
paper when zombies uproot their rose bushes trying to get at their
buried pet dog. Never mind it happens once a year,
perhaps.”
    Steve can’t help
a snicker, imagining outraged gardeners expecting the coppers to
protect their gardens and Mum’s reaction to such a prospect, and
nods. Old Sian MacGillycuddy had an awesome old English-style
garden, and she protected every inch of it with the help of her
granddaughter, two glaives and a pair of matching wakizashi. She
didn’t ring the cop shop every time a feral popped over her back
fence!
    True, he’s seen
one feral zombie on campus in two years—and one or two undead folk
in his classes, if any at all. If city folk don’t know what to do
with a carrier, how will they react to the actual
undead?
    “ There was a job opening with the council for a town planner,
and Port Carmila doesn’t specify the requirement for employees to
have a heartbeat.” The vampire shrugs. “So here I am.”
    “ Good job?”
    “ Designing aquatic spaces in the CBD is a bit of a challenge.
We need to widen the canals so there’s space for four-lane swimming
channels and access to the market...”
    Steve hasn’t
paused to consider how difficult it would be to plan all town
structures in order to accommodate several different species; he’s
just taken it for granted that someone will provide dark passages
for the photosensitive. “There’s going to be moaning if you have to
narrow the road.” He can just see the letters-to-the-editor now;
the thought is enough to make him shudder. He looks up, somewhat
discomfited to discover that he is being stared at again, and not
by Sophie, who’d drifted further down the bar to stare at the fae,
apparently bored by talk of town planning. The vampire, and while
Steve has certainly been hit on by men before, there’s a surprising
amount of interest in his gaze. “Okay, what? Too much hair gel?
Those fucks down the other end of the club who keep on pointing and
laughing at me? Ignore them. They’re idiots.”
    “ Well, I was wondering about the