Bloody Acquisitions (Fred Book 3)

by Drew Hayes

  “You’ve seen me in a suit before,” I reminded her.

  “Yeah, for the job, or when we went somewhere swanky. Why are you dressing up for these shitbags?” Her hands moved quickly, pulling apart the tie’s interwoven areas until it hung limply on both sides of my neck once more.

  “I thought it would be only proper. I want to show them respect.”

  “This isn’t a business meeting, Freddy. It’s a pissing contest. Don’t try to impress them, make them try to impress you. Dress in a way that’s comfortable, familiar, and lets these bastards know exactly who you are.” Krystal yanked the tie off, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the corner.

  “You think I should stick with the khakis and sweater vest?”

  “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” She leaned in, kissing me firmly and running her hands through the hair I’d just recently finished combing. “Go meet these people as yourself. That’s my advice. And I hope you’ll take it, since we both know you’re about to insist I not join you for dinner.”

  “Did Charlotte tell you?” I rose from the bed as I spoke, beginning to unbutton the crisp white shirt and eyeing my closet for something with a bit more life to it. I’d long ago brought a small stash of clothes, given how often I slept over at the manor, and it was preparation that paid off as I surveyed my choices.

  “She offered to serve Arch and I meals in the sitting room, so that was a bit of a tip-off,” Krystal replied. “By the way, I accepted the offer, but he didn’t. If this is a formal meeting between the representatives of two vampire houses, an agent has the right to sit in and bear witness. That should make sure things stay peaceful, and Arch has a long-standing reputation for remaining fair and unbiased, so they won’t have any room to bitch.”

  “Will Petre be okay with that?” I found a light blue cotton button-down and tossed it over my torso.

  “Who gives a shit? Part of the fun of being an agent is getting to swing our dicks around when the occasion strikes. It’s all in the treaties, so Arch is allowed to be there. Which means if Petre has an issue, he’ll take it up with Arch, and no vampire lives to be that old by being stupid enough to pick that kind of fight.”

  With the shirt on, I swapped out my dark suit pants for khakis, and then topped it all with a gray sweater vest. I did feel more comfortable, more like myself, and it seemed to have helped with the nerves. Turning to face Krystal, I held out my arms and did a quick spin. “How do I look?”

  “Like Freddy. Like the man I love. Like someone who’s going to make it work tonight.” Just like that, she was across the room and kissing me once more, though this time, she left my hair alone.

  “You’re really okay with all of this?” I asked once more, just to be certain. “It’s going to change things, you know.”

  “Aren’t you the one who told Albert about how everything changes, and sometimes, it makes our lives a lot better?” Krystal reminded me. “I’m not super thrilled with the plan overall, and I’ve got a plane on standby if it’s needed, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little impressed. You went to all this trouble, just to avoid running.”

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to run,” I told her. “I just didn’t want to leave so much behind.”

  “Well, then, get your cute ass down there and go fight for your town.” She smacked me on the butt and pointed me toward the door. “Oh! And Charlotte is doing place settings; make sure you get the seat designated for you. I left you the extra special cutlery, just in case.”

  “You realize this is supposed to be a peaceful discussion, right?” I asked.

  “Freddy, if you don’t come ready for war, then you’ll never manage to bargain your way to peace. Now scoot, I’ve had a long day, and I need a shower. When it’s all wrapped up, I’ll come join you, and we can go from there.” With that, she disappeared into the attached bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  I took the cue and headed downstairs, two envelopes of documents tucked securely under my arm. With a brief detour to the dining room to drop the papers off at the seat with a white placard bearing my name, I headed to the front hall, where my guests would soon be arriving. Lillian was already there, as was the old woman version of Charlotte. The former was wearing a new outfit, and she gave me a discerning glance as I walked in.

  “Didn’t feel like dressing up?”

  “This is a business meeting, and you’ve seen that this is how I dress for business.” Though I expected to feel a wave of self-doubt over the fact that I’d gone too casual, I actually weathered the comment decently. Krystal was right, feeling centered with myself and who I was mattered more than impressing these people.

  Arch stepped in from outside, the lingering wisps of cigarette smoke still clinging to his form. “Looks like your guests are here. Three in the car that’s pulling up, no idea if more are lying in wait on the road.”

  Though, from most people, such thoughts might have seemed paranoid, with Arch, I knew it was just him thinking tactically. He strode past us, on track for the dining room, where he’d no doubt be waiting to oversee the meeting. It was quite comforting, actually, to know he’d be there. I’d never really expected the night to devolve into violence—Petre seemed the type to be more cunning than that—but having Arch on hand made it all the less likely.

  I stood as straight as possible while the three figures made their way up the porch stairs, finally pushing through the front door. Petre was flanked on either side by thick-necked vampires dressed in impeccably tailored dark suits. They were tall and strong, likely nurtured by a healthy diet of therian blood. Despite the size difference, Petre himself still stood out the most, his pale blue eyes taking in every detail, like he was deciding which nearby knick-knack would be best suited for killing us all.

  “Mr. Fletcher, a pleasure to see you once more. I trust your new employee is working out well?”

  “Quite well. She’s been a tremendous help, and I think she’ll only grow more useful as she’s trained.” We exchanged bows, and I looked to the hulking slabs of undead muscle near him. “And may I ask your friends’ names?”

  “They are unimportant, only here to assist me with details. Please, ignore them. I try to whenever possible.” Petre smiled, his fangs just the slightest bit extended. He was enjoying this, and didn’t mind letting me know. I hoped he kept his good humor when the situation changed. “I must say, Mr. Fletcher, I’ve been doing my research, and you are quite the interesting character. Tell me, what do you consider a higher honor, having won the esteem of a dragon, or having bedded an agent?”

  “Ah, right, the rumors. Those do come up on occasion. That’s part of why I called you here for a meeting. But how rude of me, let’s head to the dining room. No point in standing about the hall when there’s comfort and drink to be had.” I motioned down the hallway, hoping I’d kept the temptation to sneer at him off my face when he talked about bedding Krystal. This was the game I had to play if I wanted to win the right to stay in my town. I wouldn’t let him beat me so soon.

  The night was just beginning, and I had a few cards of my own to surprise him with.

  8.

  To his credit, Petre waited until the drinks were poured and a plate of appetizers was set on the table before getting down to business. Somehow, a part of me doubted he’d have shown such courtesy if Arch hadn’t been sitting there, helping himself to the bruschetta while the rest of us stewed in anticipation for what was to come. Once the agent was eating, however, Petre clearly felt the time had come.

  “I’ll be brief, Mr. Fletcher, as I’m sure you have much to do with your evening. Having learned what we did about your incredible achievements over the past few years, the House of Turva has decided to do something we’d previously ruled out: offer you membership in our clan.” Petre held out a hand, and one of the nameless goons sitting to either side of him slipped a large piece of paper into his fingers. He set it down and slid it expertly across the smooth wooden table, where it halted inches from my plate.


  “Feel free to look things over—and that goes for you as well, good agent—the pertinent information is all there. We extend this as an olive branch to one who has been left alone for too long. However, as an abandoned vampire, you have little means to refuse the invitation. We wouldn’t want fear of something new to make you miss out on such a wondrous opportunity.” Petre smirked, a small gesture that wasn’t even properly suited for the amount of gloating he obviously wanted to do. No doubt, he expected this to be an easy win. Maybe he even hoped to walk out tonight with his new pet accountant—taken right out from under an agent, no less.

  “It is a very kind, generous offer,” I replied, careful to keep civil. I was pushing my luck more than enough without adding a personal grudge to the mix. “Unfortunately, I must refuse it. Renowned as the House of Turva is, I’m afraid the invitation comes a bit too late. You see, I am no longer an abandoned vampire. I’ve already joined a clan.”

  Petre’s small smile receded back into his sour expression as I reached under my chair and pulled out my first envelope of documents. Rather than slide it like Petre had, I merely held it up, allowing one of the waiters to take it from my hand and walk it over to the other side of the dinner table. Petre snatched it and ripped open the top, eyes darting down the pages as he took the information in. I used the brief moment of silence to take a deep gulp of wine from my glass. This next part was going to require all the fortification I could muster.

  “Surely this is some poor attempt at humor.” Petre dropped the documents carelessly, as though he could no longer bear them sullying his fingers, and several slipped from the table to the floor below. “A temporary authorization for a one-person clan? That is what you would choose over the millennia-old House of Turva?”

  “I’m really more of a modern vampire anyway, not much for older styles,” I replied. Not exactly the most neutral way to decline, but it was hard to tell someone you didn’t want to join their club without hurting their feelings in one way or another.

  “This is preposterous.” Petre’s eyes danced to his muscle, who stirred at his gaze, but then his attention turned to Arch and the activity came to a standstill. He calmed himself, looking back at me and speaking with forceful intention in every word. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Fletcher, as I’m sure you didn’t truly understand what you were doing. Founding a clan is not something to be done lightly. Even assuming you correctly jump through all the hoops to be recognized under the treaties, what you have done is form a new a clan in territory currently being controlled by another, much larger house. The agent here can attest that such situations are very rarely amicable, and there are no shortage of treaty-sanctioned ways for us to deal with a rival on our territory.”

  Petre paused, waiting for Arch to say something, either in agreement or disapproval. Instead, Arch merely nodded to a waiter for more water, staying devoted to his role as overseer and refusing to get unnecessarily involved.

  “I’ll give you one more chance, Mr. Fletcher.” Petre wasn’t even hiding behind the veil of civility anymore. He leaned forward halfway from his chair, and as he spoke, I caught sight of his fangs, further extended than they had been in the hallway. “Throw off these ridiculous notions. Submit to the House of Turva now, while the doors are still open to you. Or is it truly your intention to fend off an entire house of real vampires with a clan consisting solely of yourself?”

  And here it was, time to hit him with the sucker punch that would determine whether or not this plan was a total bust. “As a matter of fact—”

  “As a matter of fact, you’re bad at counting, fuckface.” Krystal’s voice rang through the dining room, cutting me off and causing Petre’s goons to start in their chairs. She was no longer dirty or tired; in fact, she seemed to blaze with a light all her own as she strode into the room. Her rough boots stomped on Charlotte’s wooden floors, and the gun belt strapped to her hip jingled slightly with every step. I’d seen this Krystal before, only in fleeting glimpses, but it was unmistakable for any other version of her. This was Krystal in full-on, ass-kicking-agent mode.

  “Who in the nine hells do you think you are, interrupting a private meeting?” Petre motioned to the goon on his right, who started to stand. A very audible click filled the air, and all eyes turned to Arch, who’d produced a gun and had it expertly trained on the vampire halfway out of his chair.

  “I’m going to have to insist that you not make any aggressive moves toward an agent. For everyone’s safety.” With his free hand, Arch helped himself to the last of the bruschetta, and a waiter whisked away the plate as if there wasn’t a gun suddenly out at the table.

  “Sit down,” Petre hissed to his muscle, glaring at Krystal with a sudden influx of fear. A few seats over, Lillian grinned, taking a sip of her wine for the first time. She obviously couldn’t meddle or show me support, but the sudden appearance of Krystal had caused all our controls to slip a bit.

  “I see, so you’re Mr. Fletcher’s lover.” Petre seemed to be regaining his self-control. He did know how to roll with the punches; I had to give him that. “Then, as an agent, you’d know that you are not permitted to interfere in conflicts that adhere to treaty conditions. Bluster about all you want, but if you so much as put a toe out of line in defending this one-vampire clan, I’ll have your badge.”

  “First off, there’s a lot of shades of gray in those treaties, and you shitbags aren’t the only ones that can use them.” Krystal leaned forward, stopping inches from Petre’s face. Whatever aura of confidence and intimidation he’d spent centuries perfecting was wasted on her as she met his sneer with a grin. “And secondly, I just told you that you counted wrong. Freddy’s not the only member of his clan.”

  “Ahem. Um. Is that my cue?” We all turned to find Albert, standing in the dining room doorway, talking to someone out of sight further down the hall. Evidently, he received an affirmative answer, because he stepped forward and looked the entire dinner party in the eye, one by one. “Fred—I mean, Mr. Fred, also has me.”

  “Am I expected not to notice that’s a zombie?” Petre asked. At this point, I think he was temporarily more confused than anything else, which made two of us. While I’d certainly come to the meeting with a crazy, long-shot plan, this hadn’t been part of it. So when Krystal began to explain, I was paying just as much, if not more, attention than my adversary.

  “Notice all damn day if you want. We checked the treaties up, down, and sideways. Any newly founded vampire clan has ten parahuman spots. It’s just that none of you ever bothered using them for anything besides vampires.”

  “Why would we?” Petre turned from her to me, clearly under the misimpression that I was in on this spectacle. “Is that the best you can do? Padding your ranks with a mere zombie?”

  Two heavy footsteps were the only warning we got as a new figure arrived in the doorway, this one far less concerned with protocol. Neil was decked out in a full set of robes, similar to the ones I’d seen the mages wear during Albert’s fight with the chimera—though his were darker, and he clutched a black tome in his thin hands. From how tightly he gripped the book, it was clear he was annoyed, even before he began to bark at Petre. “Watch your mouth, or I’ll make you rip your own tongue out.”

  In a few steps, he’d joined Albert by my chair, resting his free hand on my assistant’s shoulder, near where the top of Albert’s sword poked up. “This ‘mere zombie’ happens to wield the Blade of the Unlikely Champion. Show some damn respect.” He paused, apparently remembering that he was supposed to do something other than just stick up for Albert. “Oh yeah, and I’m a member of the new clan as well. And no, I’m not a vampire, either. I’m a necromancer. I’m the puppet master who can pull all your undead strings.”

  “You align yourself with the ones who can control us. How desperate are you, Mr. Fletcher?” Petre asked.

  “I mean . . . honestly, right now, I’m a lot more confused than I am desperate,” I admitted. My eyes turned to Krystal, even I as heard h
eavy footsteps making their way to the doorway. “What is going on here?”

  “I told you I was in the loop,” she said, unabashedly savoring the surprise on my face. “It was easy to figure out. And when I talked it over with everyone, they agreed that this was doomed to fail if it was just you. So we decided that if you were willing to go to this much trouble to stay with us, then the least we could do was have your back. Officially. Well, they can. I’m an agent, so we’re not really allowed to belong to any organization.”

  “But . . . but I didn’t want any of you to be drawn into this.” Now that I finally understood what was going down, my mind was reeling, so forgive me if perhaps my word choice wasn’t quite as keen as it should have been.

  “We know you didn’t. And we know you’d never ask us to do somethin’ like this. Which is prolly the exact reason we all agreed to.” Bubba’s thick, deep voice resonated from the doorway as he walked into the room. “And for y’all in here who don’t know me, I’m Bubba Emerson. Therianthrope and currently a member of the tribe led by Richard Alderson.”

  “This is getting beyond ridiculous,” Petre snapped. “A therian cannot belong to a clan and a tribe at the same time.”

  This time, when the footsteps echoed, there was no mistaking their owner. Bubba might leave a hefty boot print, but no one in the room, or probably the city, carried the same kind of bulk as Richard Alderson. He ducked his head to step through the doorframe, and suddenly, the entire atmosphere seemed to change. Up until then, I’d have guessed that Petre considered himself to be dealing with annoyances, something he’d have to pick apart later. Richard, however, was a peer. This man wielded most of the power in Winslow, power the House of Turva very much didn’t want turned against it.