'Are all vampires disgustingly wealthy?' I said, as the chauffeured car pulled up at the private airfield in North London.

I was in the back of a people-carrier, next to Maz and Dame. Michael sat with Vincent in the first row of seats, with Bailey wedged between them, who kept peering through the gap to scowl darkly at me.

The car and the private jet both belonged to the mysterious Parisian vampire, Sebastian Dufort, and both had been ready to whisk us off to the famous city of love, and apparently, vampires.

'I mean, it's like hanging out with the Cullens. Aren't any of you dirt poor?

'I don't know about any Cullens,' Dame said, leaning forward so he could talk to me around Maz who sat in between us, 'but I sure as Hell don't need no sunlight to sparkle.'

'Hmm, we'll that's true,' Maz said, giving him some serious side eye. 'The last time you came to my room, you left a trail of glitter everywhere. Spent bloody ages trying to get it out of the rug. And no, Sarah, we're definitely not all rich. Sébastien Dufort, on the other hand, is rich. Like, super-rich.'

'Hideously rich,' chimed in Dame.

'Right,' I said. 'So how does it benefit him to help us?' I noticed Vincent shoot a glance towards Michael. 'In my experience, you can't bargain with the super-rich like you can with other people. They don't need your money. Whatever you offer them, must benefit them in some way. Remember the old saying, what do you give the man who already has everything?'

The door to the car opened and we all jumped out, but I wasn't to be deterred in my questions.

'So, what was the deal?' I pressed Michael, who looked at me like I was a bug he'd like to swat.

'He owes me.'

'He owes you?' I repeated, following as we were led towards the Airbus Elite Business Jet, waiting on the tarmac, by a human – definitely a human, I could tell – in a sharp black suit and an expression that said he'd kill every one of us given the chance and probably enjoy it too. 'A multi-millionaire owes you? Why?'

'He saved his life,' Vincent said, making me think back to what Maz had said about Michael saving their lives too. What was it about this guy that he went around saving vampires all the time?

I climbed the steps to the plane in silence, taking one last look across the airfield of RAF Northolt, spying the parallel rows of streetlights twinkling on the A40 to central London. After spending six months in relative solitude, being out in the open was one thing, but boarding a plane to Paris felt like I'd been thrown slap-bang into the middle of a hamster wheel and the faster I ran, the harder it was to get off.

Into the rabbit hole, Alice, I heard Gran whisper in my ear.

I sent up a silent apology to her for agreeing on this crazy escapade and then stepped into the cabin, wondering if my jaw had hit the floor as hard as it felt it had.

'That's it,' I said, looking around in awe at the plush seating and the décor. 'I'm never flying cattle class ever again. This is something else.'

'Say what you want about Dufort,' Maz said, nodding in agreement as she took her seat, close to mine. 'That man knows how to travel in style. Unfortunately, aside from the return journey, this is probably the only time we'll fly in this level of luxury.'

'That's if we get to return,' grumbled Vincent, clicking his seat belt into place and looking far less enthused than Maz and I at the grandeur of the cabin. I'd already picked up on the vampires' unease at having to meet with the mysterious Dufort, but Vincent's apprehension was like waiting for a giant balloon to burst. The tension rolled liberally from his body, and he might as well have been sitting in a dentist's chair, waiting for his fangs to be pulled without anaesthetic. In fact, from the look on this face, it's quite possible he would have preferred that over meeting Dufort, but why? What was it about this vampire that Vincent disliked so much?

I took my seat, relieved to discover that the two flight attendants were both human and that I wasn't stuck on a plane completely full of vampires. Once buckled in and up in the air, the attendants busied themselves about the cabin, ensuring everyone had everything they needed. Dame and Maz both opted for margheritas, Bailey, a hot chocolate, Vincent, a beer in a frosted glass, and Michael, a whiskey, neat on the rocks. I noticed that he played with the glass a lot, running his thumb over the rim, his face troubled.

I went for a diet coke. I wasn't hugely great with alcohol anyway and figured if I was about to walk freely into another vampire den, then being even slightly intoxicated wasn't going to improve my chances. When the attendant asked if I wanted anything to eat, without asking the others, I realised that the identity of my travelling companions was clearly not a secret to them.

After declining the offer of food, after Maz had prepared something for me before we left for the airfield, I turned to the vampire, who'd already picked up a glossy fashion magazine, and was flicking casually through the pages.

'They know what you all are?'

Maz looked at me, her delicate fingers grasping the corner of the page, mid-turn. 'Of course. They work for Sébastien, after all.' When my astonished expression didn't waiver, she sighed and set the magazine down on the table. 'It might be hard to believe, but not all humans hate us. Besides, with the salary he no doubts pays them to be incredibly discreet, and loyal I might add, I should imagine they wouldn't care if he was Vlad the Impaler reincarnated.'

'That, and the fact he'd have them all impaled on stakes and drained dry if they dared to betray him,' Dame butted in, leaning forward from his seat behind.

'Not helping, Dame,' Maz snapped at him as he lay back in his seat and stretched out, chuckling to himself. 'Although, he is right, I guess. Betraying their very generous employer really isn't in their best interests.'

'To be fair, I'm still stuck on the concept of humans not hating vampires,' I said to which Vincent snorted with laughter, earning himself a sharp look from Michael.

'What?' he said, with a shrug and wide smile. 'It was funny. She was funny.' He looked my way. 'Oh, you weren't joking.'

Michael shook his head and uttered a terse sigh, before draining the glass and gesturing to the attendant for another.

From the look on his face, I had a feeling the short flight to Paris was going to feel like an eternity.

***

After we'd landed at Le Bourget and a customs official – no doubt paid handsomely again by the mysterious Dufort - made the pretence of studying all our passports before we left the plane, we were escorted to two blacked-out Mercedes-Benz S550's waiting on the forecourt.

I'd half-hoped to get into the second car with Maz and Dame, but just as we reached them, I was steered into the first car with Michael and Bailey, and Vincent, Maz and Dame climbed into the other.

Bailey seemed less than enthused to be stuck in between Michael and I, and quickly moved so that she didn't have to sit next to me. I was fine with that. Sitting next to a vampire was one thing but sitting next to a creepy child vampire who had the power to... to be honest, I still didn't understand what her power was, other than scaring me into an early grave, but whatever it was the more distance the better.

Through the windows, the city sped by in a myriad of kaleidoscopic streetlights and traffic. Parisians and tourists alike still milled around despite the late hour, crowding the narrow walkways around bar and restaurant doors. I leant a little closer to the window, touching my fingers to the glass like it was a dream half-forgotten in the haze of post-slumber consciousness. Those first few seconds where you try to remember the places and people who'd lingered in your head while you slept, but everything seems just out of reach. It had been over half a year since I'd been a part of anything remotely like this, and even then, I'd kept mostly to the daylight hours, avoiding the city streets after sunset.

The rolling silence in the car, only made me yearn more for the hustle and bustle of city life. For voices. Music. Even the blast of a car horn or roar of a bus engine. It was like being deprived of a favourite poem, the words and their meaning lost to me.

'It won't be long now,' Michael said, breaking the silence to give me a traffic update I never knew I needed. 'Ten minutes at most.'

'Right,' I said, still looking out the window, wondering what it would be like to step out onto these streets. Wondering how long I'd last before Paris turned into a nightmare, just like London had.

'So, what's the deal with this Sébastien guy anyway? How did you come to save his life?' I asked finally, turning my attention back to Michael, who leant forward and turned off the two-way intercom, so the driver and his companion didn't hear us.

Settling back into his seat, Michael kept his voice low as he spoke. 'Paris was not always run by one vampire leader alone. Once, there was two dens, three even if you count the group of breakaway rebels that hid in the south-eastern suburbs of Créteil. Sébastien's den was growing in strength and numbers, so much so that just before the First World War broke out, the other den leader, Anais Archambeau became so concerned that she decided to have her rival killed. Up until that point, the dens had lived by territory claim. The Duforts remained north of the Seine, the Archambeaus to the south. Archambeau began to encroach on Sebastien's territory, staging raids across the river and goading the northern den into all-out war. Despite his den's growing numbers, Sébastien knew Anais was well-respected by den leaders in other French cities and needed to prove to them all that he was the one true leader of Paris. Knowing he needed the Créteil rebels on side, he sought out their help only to have them betray him in their most crucial battle with the Archambeaus. Cut off from his own people, he was captured, and Anais was to sentence him to death, with the plan to publicly execute him in front of her people.'

'And where did you fit into all of that?'

Michael gave a subtle, almost wistful smile, looking down at his hands in his lap. 'Sébastien knew my parents and more to the point, he knew their secret.'

'You,' I said. 'He knew about you.'

He nodded. 'And he kept that secret and still does to this day. But it has always come with conditions. If he needed something doing that required, let's say, a certain set of skills, then he would call upon me.'

There was tightness in his face as he spoke, the way he clenched his jaw and a darkness in his eyes, that told me he wasn't happy about that particular arrangement.

'You didn't want to do it, these things he asked of you,' I said.

'I am nobody's lapdog, Sarah,' he spat, swallowing back his temper. 'But what else could I do? To have someone click their fingers and have no choice but to obey, can you even imagine? Then, the war of the Parisian sects gave me what I'd been seeking for a long time: freedom. During his imprisonment, Dufort managed to get word to me and requested one final task: save him and he would not call on me again. In fact, he swore that he would repay the favour ten-fold, and that I could instead, call upon him.'

'And so, you saved him.'

He sighed. 'Yes, that I did. Anais met the very fate she had planned for her enemy. The rest of the Archambeaus were either slaughtered or pledged fealty to the Dufort sect.'

'And the rebels?'

'Wiped out completely as punishment for their betrayal.' He winced, almost as if the memory pained him. 'Anyway, Dufort was victorious as I always knew he would be. The truth is that Sébastien was always the stronger leader and it's not just his skill for tactical thinking and military aptitude. He has a certain kind of charm which is undeniable. I have heard some say it verges on the hypnotic.'

'You don't agree?'

The vampire grimaced. 'The Dufort vampires have a strange way about them. To the outsider, it can almost feel like a cult. They're fiercely loyal to Sébastien.'

'Isn't that a good thing?' I asked, curious to hear more. 'We need them to be more devoted to him than to the Elders, right?'

From the look on his face, I knew he didn't agree but I couldn't fathom why not. Before I could question him further, the SUV turned into a road lined with huge, imposing properties and eventually pulled up in front of a gated square. The gaudy gold-spiked iron gates opened, and the car slid smoothly through, coming to a halt. Glancing through the back window, I could see the other car had also arrived.

Without barely waiting for the driver to open the door, Bailey scrambled from her seat and was out of the car, already staring up at Dufort's city mansion, as we followed her, our gaze mirroring hers.

With its grey turrets, blush pink and ivory brickwork and pastel blue door, the house felt like it had been vomited directly from the pages of a fairy tale book and completely not what I had been expecting at all.

'It's not very...' I fumbled for the words.

'Gothic-y?' Maz said, coming to stand at my side, albeit with that arm's length distance she had come to learn that I preferred.

'Welcome to architectural Hell, my darlings,' whispered Dame, clutching a hand to his chest in horror. 'A contemporary Parisian home, trying it's damnedest to present a classy historical façade, and failing so miserably that it looks instead like a Lego house.'

'It's better inside, I swear,' Michael said, unconvincingly.

'I sure hope so,' Dame said, pinching the bridge of his nose. 'I'm already feeling a migraine coming on.'

As Sébastien's men led us towards the entrance, I heard Michael exhale brusquely, any humour from Dame's words now a distant memory. That pinched expression returned to his face, his eyes full of shadow, like the skies had suddenly bruised overhead, an oncoming storm heading our way. As if feeding from him, Vincent bristled and looked visibly pained to have to go inside. Even I felt it, caught in the tempestuous current of Michael's unease, as my curse surged, my skin prickling not only with the sense of the vampires within, but the sudden and very real feeling that this was wrong.

This was all wrong.

I caught Michael's arm, stopping him in his tracks, withdrawing it quickly when he glared at where my hand had touched his cuff.

'Wait. You clearly don't want to do this,' I said. 'You don't trust him.'

Michael stared; his stony gaze unflinching. 'I don't trust anyone other than the vampires at my back. But, for the record, I definitely don't trust Sébastien Dufort.'

'Then why are we here?'

'Because he's the only one who might be able to help us find Montague Kerr.'

'Might. I hate that word. He might help us. Or he might kill us. I'm not sure I like these odds.'

'Well right now they're the only odds we have. Besides, we're here now, we can't just leave.'

'Oh, I'm sorry,' I said, rolling my eyes at him. 'Would it break the laws of some ridiculous vampire etiquette? The chances are he might truss us up like pigs in a slaughterhouse and bleed us dry, and we can't leave because it would be impolite?'

Michael's mouth twitched. 'We can't leave because he's standing right in front of us.'

I turned sharply to see that he was, indeed, right.

If my jaw had dropped like a sack of rocks on the plane, then it had now dislocated itself and dropped off the edge of a cliff, most likely never to be retrieved.

I knew nothing of the vampire now standing in the doorway of his home, other than what Michael had told me. I hadn't spoken to him. Hadn't been party to this supposed hypnotic charm he possessed over his vampires.

But I did know one thing.

Sébastien Dufort might just have been the most beautiful creature I had ever laid eyes upon.