Bloody Acquisitions (Fred Book 3)

by Drew Hayes

  “Very well, then. In respect to Mr. Alderson, we will move past the customary small talk, assuming that is all right with you, Mr. Fletcher,” Petre said. I nodded my agreement, and he immediately continued.

  “I called this meeting because I wished to know more about the vampire who survived in the same town that Quinn, the traitor, oversaw. The House of Turva needed to assess if you managed such a feat by wit or might. Now, I see that you had no hand in it. You were simply one of Quinn’s experiments. What he intended for you, we may never know, but it seems you’ve made something of your life regardless. Since I do not deem you to be a threat, my clan has authorized me to make a gesture of friendship.”

  “That’s appreciated, but unnecessary,” I said, doing my best to head off this line of talk. One thing I’d learned from watching Richard, these sorts of gestures never came without strings. Whatever they offered, it would make me indebted to them, and that was the last place I wanted to be.

  “Mr. Fletcher, as an Abandoned, I understand you might not know this, but to refuse a gesture of friendship is akin to declaring us your enemy.” Petre didn’t make it sound like a threat, which was exactly what told me how serious it was. When people moved past the bluster, it meant they weren’t worried about your reaction. Things just were what they were.

  “Oh? Then I do ask that you please forgive me. As you said, I have not been properly educated.” I’d been backed into a corner; my only hope was that it would be something small and easily repaid.

  “It is to be expected from an Abandoned,” Petre replied. “As I was saying, the House of Turva wishes to make a gesture of friendship. After some inquiring, we heard that you were looking for a helper to swell the ranks of your growing company. Thus, it is my pleasure to present to you the newest employee of Fletcher Accounting Services.”

  He gracefully opened his hand, gesturing to Lillian, who gave me a small wave paired with a wide smile.

  “Looks like you’re my new boss, Fredrick.”

  3.

  “I don’t like her.” Krystal didn’t bother keeping her voice low; Charlotte could block the sound between walls so well that not even vampire ears managed to hear through them. My girlfriend was leaning back in her chair, arms crossed and a scowl etched into her face. “A little too nice, a little too charming. And what’s with that ‘Fredrick’ shit? Getting pretty familiar pretty fast, if you ask me.”

  “Well, that is my actual name,” I tried to point out, but the glare I received shut me down quickly.

  “Missing the point, Freddy.”

  Dinner had wrapped up not long after Petre dropped the bomb named Lillian on me; he’d excused himself and drove off, leaving his fellow vampire behind. Under the pretense of handling some private business regarding his books, Richard and I had left Lillian in the dining room to have a quick consultation with Krystal. I’d hoped she could shed some insight on how to deal with the situation, but her ideas were . . . less than productive.

  “I’m just saying, accidents happen all the time, and it’s not like Freddy doesn’t have a reputation for ending up in trouble. Maybe he goes on a call that runs a little long, and she gets stuck out in the sunlight while he barely survives.”

  “I know you’re kidding, but just that joke made my blood pressure go up,” Richard told her. “Petre is the number two in that clan, and he showed up to personally deliver Lillian as a token of friendship. If anything happens to her that smells even remotely suspicious, I’m going to have a ton of trouble on my hands.”

  “Think the Turva clan will get violent?” I asked.

  “Worse. They’ll drag me through meeting after meeting in diplomatic hearings.” Richard shuddered, which made the chair he was seated on wobble violently. “I can handle a brawl or two, and my people vastly outnumber theirs. But when they invoke the treaties and pull me into that mind-numbing diplomatic bullshit, that’s the real torture.”

  Krystal snorted, then looked up to the ceiling. “Charlotte, is she doing anything weird? Anything we could use as grounds for her being here under malicious intent?”

  “She is sitting quietly at the dinner table, eating the cold crab cake left in front of her.” Charlotte appeared between me and the doorway, wearing her usual antique dress. While Krystal and Richard seemed disappointed by the news, I found it a bit intriguing. It seemed Lillian didn’t entirely agree with the Turvas’ stance on blood being the only acceptable food for vampires to touch. Maybe there were other things they didn’t see eye-to-eye on, as well.

  “Charlotte, please book a room for Lillian,” I instructed.

  “Excuse me?” Krystal whipped her head around so fast that the fake glasses ended up cockeyed on her head.

  “Like it or not, we’re stuck with her for now,” I explained. “Petre drove off in the car they came in, so I get the feeling she’s not heading home anytime soon. I don’t want to bring her to my apartment, so getting a room here is the best place to house her. Plus, if she does do anything suspicious, Charlotte will know about it and give us warning. We just have to make sure to tell Arch before he gets back from whatever assignment he’s on; I doubt it would do well for her to realize she’s bunking with agents.”

  “I can send a message to him,” Krystal said. “And while I’m not crazy about sharing a house with that girl, I like it a lot better than having her try to crash with you. Not that I don’t trust you, Freddy, but it would probably get awkward. This situation has “honeypot” written all over it.”

  Despite what you may expect, that term did not go over my head. I had taken in more than enough cinema about spies and subterfuge to know that a honeypot was when a covert operative attempted to seduce a target in order to gain information or trust. Unfortunately, knowing what Krystal meant just made it all the more awkward, as I considered that possibility for why Lillian was being handed to me as an assistant. It was a small mercy that vampires couldn’t blush; I suspect I would have ended up on the receiving end of Krystal’s wrath if my cheeks had suddenly gone red.

  “Her plans are irrelevant. I intend to keep this relationship as detached and professional as I can manage.” Krystal still looked a bit wary, though my words seemed to somewhat mollify her. “If anything, this might be a blessing in disguise. We all agree that she’s most likely here as a spy, but knowing that means that we can control what she sees. After a week or so of working on accounts and doing filings, she’ll realize that I truly am nothing more than an accountant, and can report her findings up the chain of command. I’ll bore the House of Turva out of any interest in me.”

  Richard, Krystal, and Charlotte all exchanged a look. It was a brief one, but volumes seemed to pass between them in the span of that glance. After a moment, Richard rose from his chair to address me. “I’m not saying that’s a bad idea, because it’s not. But . . . come on, Fred. You have to know as well as we do that dealing with parahumans means a certain element of the unexpected. It wasn’t even a couple of weeks ago you were trapped inside a pocket dimension with a pair of mages.”

  “Those . . . incidents, while unavoidable, happen few and far between,” I replied. “How long do we really expect Lillian to hang in with me doing accounting work? A week, maybe two or three, at the most? Even if we do hit a chaotic incident, at most she’ll see that the services come with a certain amount of risk, but that doesn’t make me into a threat.”

  “No, but she might realize you’re the vampire all those rumors are about.” Krystal looked worried, which was all the stranger to see in her frumpy get-up. “They are still looking for that guy, too. The exploits got so exaggerated by the rumor mill that no one suspects it’s you; however, if that vamp gets to see up close and personal what your job entails, she might put two and two together.”

  “So I stick to simple, easy accounts with minimal chance of things going nuts,” I replied. “I think I’ve even still got some human clients I can check in on. This can work; we just have to bore her into submission.”

  “It’s a be
tter idea than refusing the offer and starting a feud with the House of Turva,” Richard agreed. “Quinn really screwed you good, Fred. If you were actually part of a clan, they could intercede for you, keep others like the Turvas from just deciding that you were going to hire one of their people.”

  “From what I’ve seen, I actually think I prefer being on my own,” I told him.

  “Hey now, these people might be dicks, but there’s something to be said for clans and tribes.” Richard stood a little taller, which caused his sizable head to scrape against the bottom of the bedroom ceiling. “A lot of the ones who get turned lose their old lives, their old families, and end up alone in the world. Clans and tribes give them new people to turn to, and help in rebuilding their suddenly broken worlds. When done right, we’re something of a surrogate family, and a lot of people need that.”

  “My apologies, Richard. I know how deeply you care for your people, and maybe if I’d been turned into a therian, things would be different. I just meant that, based on the vampires I’ve encountered, I think I’m a lot happier with how being abandoned turned out.”

  “And I think we can all agree that Fred has done an oddly good job at constructing his own makeshift family,” Krystal added.

  “Just to let you all know, Lillian has finished her food and is currently sitting at the table, looking bored,” Charlotte reported. “Shall I bring her the next course?”

  “No, we should probably head back to the table, anyway.” I looked over at Richard, who’d ducked back down after bumping his head on the ceiling. “Will you be joining us?”

  “Officially, I still need to make sure she isn’t going to kill you,” Richard replied. “Unofficially, if you think for one hot second I’m skipping out on Charlotte’s cooking, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  I could hardly fault the man there, but as we headed for the door, I noticed we weren’t alone. Krystal had fallen in behind us, only a few steps behind Richard, whose bulk blocked out the door frame.

  “Um, Krystal? What are you doing?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Since the official meeting is over, the other tenant in Charlotte Manor is going to head down and get some food.” She adjusted her glasses and tugged on the oversized sweatshirt. “Besides, if Lillian is going to be crashing here, then she should probably meet your girlfriend sooner rather than later. If she asks, my place is being fumigated and that’s why I’m living in a B&B.”

  “A supposedly haunted B&B,” I pointed out. “And dating a vampire. Crap. What sort of parahuman are we going to say you are?”

  “My grandparents were a quarter Fey.” There was no hesitation in her explanation; clearly, Krystal had already thought this story through. “Still connected enough to the parahuman world that I’d have been raised around it, but my blood is so diluted that there’s no longer much sign of magic. While I’d like to claim I’m a full human who found out about the world by chance, it’s just too risky without knowing what she’s been feeding on. If it’s something that can perceive magic, then I’m sure to trip her senses, so putting in a little Fey ancestry will cover my ass on that front.”

  That was news to me; I didn’t realize there were creatures out there that could sense Krystal’s true nature. It really shouldn’t have been, though. I’d learned time after time that the parahuman world was bigger and more complex than I could imagine. There were bound to be all sorts of different creatures with various talents out there, almost all of which a vampire could copy abilities from. That’s what made us so dangerous, and so feared, even among other parahumans. Every time I met a new client, they were always a bit wary of me, never quite sure what I was capable of, and if I was looking at them as a source of income, or blood.

  We made our way back down the hall, and Krystal grabbed my hand just outside the dining room door. She said nothing, though. With the doorway open, not even Charlotte could muffle the words away from Lillian’s hearing. Instead, she just held me there as we watched Richard make his way into the dining room and roughly greet Lillian. It occurred to me for the first time that as long as my new employee was around, we were going to have to keep up the facade of Richard, of pretty much all my friends, not caring for me. The ruse would be for my protection, as I couldn’t very well be marked as best buddies with a therian, or a mage, or a wielder of a weapon of destiny. All the same, even the idea of it felt lonely, and I found myself hoping Lillian would give up quickly so that things could get back to normal.

  A tight squeeze on my hand reminded me that Krystal was still there, that she’d found a way to stay with me even with Lillian hovering around us. I felt a surge of love and gratitude for her, leaning in for a quick kiss while we were momentarily alone. She reciprocated warmly, then pulled away and carefully mouthed a single soundless word.

  “Showtime.”

  With that, Krystal slouched her way into the dining room and let out a squeal of mock surprise. “Oh my goodness, Freddy didn’t mention that his guests were still here. I’m so sorry to interrupt your dinner.”

  Awkward, deferential, and apologetic; this version of Krystal was about as far from the real one as she could get. Whether I liked it or not, the pageant had begun.

  4.

  “Are you sure I can’t come along?” Albert stood in the doorway as I packed up my computer bag for the night ahead. Having managed to make it through dinner without anyone getting killed, I’d retired back to my apartment and spent the entire day working out a plan for the coming week. I’d gone through all my accounts, choosing the safest, least likely jobs to turn into anything exciting. Lillian was going to accompany me on boring client visits and assessments until she either quit or I ran out of dull situations to shove her in.

  By this point, you’re no doubt wondering why I didn’t just stick my unwanted employee in front of a mound of paperwork and be done with her. The idea did occur to me—it was an obvious solution to the problem—however, it came with a serious drawback: if I let her handle any aspect of the real accounting, I’d be trusting her with my clients’ confidential information. Since I didn’t even trust her to know things about me, I certainly wasn’t going to allow her access to any of my clients’ private fiscal records. Better to drag her around town and risk my own exposure than allow her clan to get its hooks into the people who trusted me.

  “No, Albert. I’m afraid it’s too dangerous. Besides, I need you handling the more delicate work while I’m saddled with Lillian.” Much as I might have enjoyed Albert’s company, he was too high profile to bring along. The Blade of the Unlikely Champion took serious issue with being left behind, and Albert always seemed out of sorts when it wasn’t close by, but one look at the ornate weapon and she might be able to figure out that he was the town’s resident destiny-weapon wielder. And I really was leaning on him to handle a fair amount of tasks while I was busy. Parahumans didn’t often go in for digital delivery, and there were several clients expecting contracts, budget projections, and filing receipts to be delivered in the very near future. Some of those, Lillian and I would be handling, but all the ones with the potential to get more . . . exciting . . . had to be entrusted to Albert. Neil would also be tagging along, in case he needed backup.

  “You can count on me, boss.” Albert saluted, then lowered his hand slowly as his cheerful expression became tinged with concern. “Is this lady really that dangerous?”

  “She’s probably stronger than me, whatever little that says, but it’s not actually her I’m worried about,” I told him. “It’s her clan as a whole. If I can fall off their radar, be just an anomaly they know about but have no regard for, then that’s our optimum situation.”

  “What’s the bad situation?” Albert asked.

  I jammed the charging cord, portable Wi-Fi hotspot, and array of flash drives into the top pocket of my briefcase. “Honestly, I’m not sure. Maybe they try to drag me into their clan. Maybe they do a hostile takeover of the business. Maybe they . . . encourage me to leave town.” That actually wasn’t wh
at I wanted to say, but there was no sense in worrying Albert with the least likely option. Even if I struck their interest, the chances of them deciding to kill me were slim. I hoped.

  “All I know is that I’d prefer not to deal with them at all, if possible, and that’s what this week is about.”

  “Got it.” Albert walked over to my desk, where I had neatly arranged all his assignments for the night. “But it’s too bad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been saying for a while that you needed more help. I just mean, it’s too bad that this Lillian lady can’t actually lend us a hand.” It was hard to argue with Albert as we both stared at the mound of assignments I’d set aside for him. Had Arch been in town, I’d have never been able to lay such a heavy burden on my assistant’s shoulders, but while the agent was gone, their training was on break. And he was right; the company did need to grow if I was going to keep up with demands. Just not like this.

  “I’d far rather keep working overtime than accept any help the House of Turva wants to give,” I told him. “This business might not be much, but at least no one else can lay claim to it. That’s worth something to me.”

  “To me, too,” Albert agreed, beginning to carefully scoop up his assignments and pile them into his backpack.

  With my own accessories stowed, I said a quick goodbye, and then headed out into the crisp new night. The last of the sunset had only just fallen away, so the sky was still a bit lighter than usual. I did miss seeing the blue skies and sun, even if I was now able to glimpse them through enchanted windows. It wasn’t the same, though. I’d never really cared much for standing in sunlight during my living days; mostly, I’d considered it an inconvenience. Now, I’d have paid an obscene amount for the experience. But that was life; everything was a transaction. Nothing came free. Ageless existence and mystical powers were a comparatively small price to pay for giving up the ability to tan. I just still missed the sun, occasionally.