by Ranae Glass
You’d think I might be used to little things like that, things that drove memories of happier times into my mind like railroad spikes, but it still managed to catch me off guard sometimes. It still managed to sting. In a technique born of months of practice, I brushed the pain away. It wasn’t as if he’d done it on purpose. This was just how Shane did casual. His normal attire was a bit more polished, but this was my favorite version of him, all comfortable and homey.
“Somehow,” I said, stuffing the device in the tiny purse, “I don’t think your boss would appreciate that, even if it didn’t work.”
I took a step toward Shane, stopping to run a hand over my hair. Since I couldn’t get it to straighten, I’d given up and twisted it into a knot at the base of my neck with tendrils of wavy, brown hair hanging loose around my face.
“Do I look alright?” I asked, which was stupid. I knew better than to ever ask a man if I looked all right. If you asked a boyfriend that, he was obligated to lie and tell you how stunning you were, but an ex-boyfriend was almost as obligated to be brutally honest. Or at least brutal.
He took a step forward, folding his arms across his chest as he examined me studiously before finally giving me a reluctant nod.
“Passable. I would add one thing, though.”
“Garlic?”
I blinked, and he vanished in a whoosh of vampire speed. Before I blinked again, he was back, holding a small piece of metal in his hand. It was about the size of a stick of gum with a red button in the middle. He slipped it between his fingers and held it out to me. I took it before I realized what it was.
“A panic button?” It was a piece of tech I’d picked up off the Internet. It was designed to send a signal, like a silent alarm, to a special receiver that looked like a pager. I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up a hand.
“Just put it in your purse. It’ll make me feel better.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “What sort of trouble do you think I’m going to get into in a public jazz club?”
“Knowing you? It could be anything. Seriously, with your luck, a pack of rabid leprechauns will burst into the place and hold everyone hostage with nuclear weapons.”
The sad thing was that he was right. That was exactly my luck. Equal parts stupid, impossible, and devastating. Slipping the panic button into my purse, I frowned.
“What is it?” he asked, picking up on my sudden mood change.
I held the purse open to him. “I can’t fit my .45 in here.”
The gun was about as useful against a vampire as a Taser probably was, but I always felt so much better when I had it. Ideally, I’d holster it on my hip and cover it with a long jacket, but it was going to be hot and crowded. Plus, the whole reason I got my concealed permit was so people wouldn’t freak out every time I went in to the grocery store with it.
He took the bag and shook it, puckering his lips. “Maybe if you leave the lipstick out?”
I snatched the purse back. What did he think I was—an animal?
“Okay, what about that thigh holster I got you?”
I snorted. “Sure, if I want to walk like I’m on horseback.”
He held up his hands in surrender and stepped backward. “Fine, just leave it then. Don’t blame me when you want to shoot someone and can’t.”
“Lucky for me, the only person I want to shoot is making popcorn in my kitchen.”
He clutched his chest. “Ohh. I’m wounded. And Izz, have fun tonight.”
I sighed. “It’s not about fun. It’s about a job. You know, those pesky things we need to do every once in a while to pay the bills around here?”
He lifted one eyebrow. “Whatever you say.”
I looked back down into the purse and when I looked up again, he was gone. Biting my bottom lip, I shook the bag futilely and zipped it up. Honestly, I was about three heartbeats from calling the whole thing off despite my growling stomach when the car horn blared out front. I opened the door to see the sleek, black limo Xavier had sent for me. Complete with a driver holding open the door, it was like prom all over again. I shuddered mentally.
Hey, it wasn’t a party until there was a girl crying her mascara off in the bathroom. Hopefully, this time, it wouldn’t be me.
The club wasn’t nearly as crowded inside as I expected, judging by the obnoxiously long line at the door. One bouncer was holding people behind a velvet rope just like what you might find at a trendy bar. From the flaming neon sign, I half expected there to be topless girls suspended from wire cages inside, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. The place was stunning. Literally. The main room was large and two stories high, the top floor being a balcony that wrapped around the edge of the room so every table had a great view of the stage below. Everything from the tablecloth to the dangling light fixtures were red and gold, as if giving the illusion that the entire place had erupted into flames. A grand staircase led diners up to the top level where dinner was being served. The ground floor was much more like a club than a restaurant. Cushy-looking chairs and lounge sofas dotted the room, all facing the main stage, which was currently closed off with a red velvet curtain. There were a few tall tables filled with people drinking and talking, but it looked like the food was strictly upstairs. That explained the long wait for dinner reservations. There couldn’t have been more than ten tables up there. A young woman dressed all in white was hosting from a glass podium near the stairs.
“Reservation?” she asked, her southern drawl thicker than it probably needed to be.
“She’s here to see Mr. Ambrose.” The limo driver had walked me in and escorted me to the hostess stand.
Looking flustered, the girl glanced upward over her shoulder to an empty table. “Of course. Please follow me.”
She sauntered up the stairs in front of me, not bothering to hold onto the thick, brass railing. She probably didn’t need to. She probably walked these stairs a million times a night in her impressively tall heels and tight dress. Then something else occurred to me, something that made me pause a step behind her and really watch her as she moved.
In fairness, I should have expected it. I mean, it was a Conclave-owned club. I supposed it was just the fact that it hadn’t been immediately obvious that bothered me. Some older vampires were good at pretending to be human. But there was always a grace, a stillness, even to the new ones that gave them away. This girl, all blonde hair and blue eyes, looked about twenty-three, but she was definitely a vamp. The question was, was she so new that she still had her human tells, or was she so old that she’d learned to fake them?
She stepped to the side, and I saw Xavier. He stood as I approached and moved to pull out my chair. “Good evening, Isabel. I’m glad you could make it,” he said.
Hey, good manners were important, even for the undead. “Thank you for the invitation.”
We both took our seats and the hostess, who announced herself as Rebecca, was going over the wine list and the specials. But Xavier never took his eyes off me. His black hair was perfectly combed back off his face, not slick, but obviously styled. He was pale, but not unnaturally so, and his green eyes shone like emeralds, perfectly set in his face. He managed to look relaxed even in his dark grey suit. His tie was the color of his eyes, which were still focused on me.
He leaned forward. “You look stunning tonight.”
I fought off the blush by looking up at Rebecca, who had completely lost her train of thought and was staring down at Xavier like he was a rock star.
Total newbie.
Without looking up at the poor girl, Xavier dismissed her. “Thank you, Rebecca.”
If she felt the brush off, it didn’t show. She smiled like a deer in headlights and glided off, leaving us alone.
I laid my napkin over my lap. “That wasn’t very nice.”
He snapped up, looking truly shocked. “What?”
I motioned with my head back to the stairs. “That poor girl clearly thinks you hung the moon, and you didn’t even give her a glance.”
“Young Rebecca has recently come to us from the Virginia Conclave. I brought her here in hopes that she would be able to spend some time with Melanie—be a calming female presence. Though, to be honest, Melanie doesn’t seem to… get along with any of the ladies in the Conclave.”
I sat back, relaxing into the soft chair. Melanie was four years old, or at least, she had been when, dying of cystic fibrosis, her father had tried to use vampire blood to save her and ended up turning her. After her father—did I mention he was a deranged psychopath?—had been killed, she sort of adopted Xavier as her surrogate. And he was happy to let her.
“How is Goldilocks?” I asked, wishing I had a big glass of wine myself.
Melanie was a pretty little thing. She’d woken up from the change without any of the bloodlust that required most new vamps to be caged up until they could learn some control. As a matter of fact, aside from her unnatural beauty and need for blood, she was growing. Not at the speed of a normal child, according to Shane, but enough to be noticed. For that and so many other reasons, she really creeped me out. Just thinking about her made goose bumps break out across my arms. I rubbed them unconsciously.
Xavier chuckled at my nickname for her. “She’s doing well. I have been looking for a nanny of sorts for her, but she complains about everyone I’ve sent her.”
Not really a surprise, the way he spoiled her. All she had to do was ask, and he would give her whatever she wanted on a silver platter.
Finally, a waiter brought me a glass of wine, which I drained in about five seconds. So much for those years my mother spent trying to teach me manners.
“Have you considered a human nanny? If she really is growing, maybe part of her is still human,” I offered, looking over the fancy linen menu. “I mean, the way she was changed, it wasn’t supposed to be possible to do it that way, right? It’s all kind of an anomaly.”
I didn’t realize my faux pas until it was already out of my mouth. Maybe Shane wasn’t supposed to share that information with me. I glanced over the top of my menu at Xavier, who was leaning back in his chair, smiling like the cat that ate the canary.
“What?” I asked nervously.
“I was just thinking the same thing. This actually brings me to the purpose behind this meeting.”
Part of my brain cheered.See, it wasn’t a date at all.
“I knew it would take some kind of business to lure you to go out with me,” he said, still smiling.
I laid my menu on the table. “Well, I admit the flowers have been nice. They make the office smell great. But seriously, you don’t have to do that. I mean, you are probably single-handedly keeping the Charleston floral industry in business.”
He waved over a server, who’d been discreetly waiting somewhere behind me. “I do my part,” he said with a wink as a young male vampire made his way over to us.
We ordered and the waiter departed with a bow.
“I really am glad you came,” Xavier said, filling my glass from the bottle the waiter had left behind. “I have discovered a new talent. A young woman from Georgia. I was able to steal her away from a low-rent place outside of Atlanta. She has the voice of an angel.”
I smiled. “I’m looking forward to it. Now, about that job you mentioned…”
“Yes, yes. I’ll get to that. But first, would you dance with me?” He held out his hand, which I gaped at.
I wanted to say no, I really did, but when I looked up at him, I saw something that surprised me. He expected me to say no. His smile was soft around the edges, almost sad. He looked so… vulnerable. Before I could form a coherent thought, my hand was in his and he was leading me down to the dance floor. The main act wasn’t there yet, but at some point, the curtain on the stage had opened and a small band was playing. I recognized the tune; it was Beyond the Sea. My mom was a huge Bobby Darin fan and she used to listen to it over and over on nights when Dad was on stakeout. Long after she’d put us down for bed, she’d sit on the couch, listen to this song, and wait. I fell asleep to the tune more than once.
Xavier took me by the hand, snaked his other around my waist, pulled me in close, and started swaying. For a few minutes, I was lost in that memory, in the lull of the song, and in the feeling of his hand on the small of my back. He was wearing cologne, I was sure. No one could smell that much like fresh cotton and sunshine, especially a vampire. I breathed it in. We were so close, almost cheek to cheek. Without warning, I felt my pulse speed up. My breath hitched in my throat. I pulled back just a little, just enough that I could look in his eyes. His pupils were like pinpoints, making the green part of his eyes look huge.
I blushed and the warmth of it crawled up my neck and burned my cheeks. I slid my hand from his shoulder until it rested on the back of his neck. “So why did you name this place The Inferno?” I asked, trying to ease the tension that was weighing down on me.
“You are familiar with the Divine Comedy?”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, in the Inferno, Dante writes about the nine circles of hell. Many people believe they represent a sort of divine revenge on the wicked. I find it a brilliant reminder that a man is punished because of his choices and not his destiny.”
“That’s kind of beautiful. Disturbing, but beautiful.”
“It is a good thing to remember, especially for my kind, that to do nothing is to be damned. We, more than most, have a very long time on this earth, and we must choose how we act upon it.”
I shuddered. My family had never been overly religious, but I’d always believed in God. When my mother whined about Shane being soulless, it never occurred to me that she might be right. I never considered that even vampires might fear for their souls. But that was exactly what Xavier was really talking about.
“Do you worry about it? I mean, about your soul. About what happens next?”
He pulled me closer. “At this moment, I am finding it difficult to think about much, except how lovely you look when you are taken aback. It’s something I will strive to do more often, just to see that look upon your face.”
I froze, my breath catching in my throat as the air around us thickened, hot and relentless. I could feel him leaning forward, as if to kiss me, but so slowly I wasn’t sure if he was actually moving or if I just wanted him to be. Was he going to kiss me? Did I want him to?
Before I could decide, the song ended, flowing into a much faster beat as I pulled away. Xavier kept a hold of my hand and as he led me back to our table. Before he let go of it, he grazed a kiss across my knuckles, making knots low in my stomach clench as he deposited me back into my chair. Then he sat across from me, shifting to the side as if crossing his legs under the table. He smirked, looking way too pleased with himself.
I took a deep breath and another drink. “So, on to business?” I asked, setting down the almost empty glass and folding my hands in my lap. My hands felt shaky. Maybe I needed to ease off on the wine a little.
“If you’d like.” He smirked, and I had the sudden desire to throw my napkin in his smug face. He could tell I was off balance—and he was enjoying it.
“I’d like.”
“What does your schedule for the next few weeks look like?” he asked, swirling the wine in his glass.
“I’m pretty open. I’ve just been working on organizing and digitizing my dad’s old records. Well, that’s a bit of an understatement. Dad’s filing system was something akin to throwing all his papers into a banker’s box and shoving them in the closet.”
Taking all of that information, organizing it, and scanni
ng it into the computer was a nightmare. But business had been really slow, so I was trying to use my downtime productively. Besides, when I was going through his notes, I felt close to him. Closer than even before he died. Maybe I just understood him better now that I’d stepped into his shoes.
“Good. As I’ve said, Melanie is in need of a female presence in her life. A human, perhaps, someone who can help her adjust to her new life. I was hoping—”
I cut him off with a glare. “You brought me here to ask me to babysit? I thought you had a case for me.”
“If you’ll let me finish.”
I sat back, crossing my arms as he continued. “I believe that she may yet have some human family. Gerard was able to locate a great aunt on her mother’s side. I’d like to hire you to investigate the woman.”
“What are you looking for, exactly?” I asked just as the waiter rushed to the table with my meal.
“I need to know if she shared her nephew-in-law’s dislike for vampires. Specifically, I need to know if you believe she would be worth contacting. If having some human family around would help Melanie, and if this woman can be trusted, then I will bring them together. If not… I’ll have to look elsewhere.”
I nodded. “I get it. You need to know if she’ll keep her mouth shut about Melanie’s condition and if she’d want to meet her great niece.”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“And you want me to do itbecause? I mean, you could just have Gerard follow her for a while, right?” Gerard Von Swietten was Xavier’s number three and the Conclave Cleaner, which was exactly what it sounded like. He cleaned up the Conclave’s messes. One of those messes had been Melanie’s father.
“If a vampire approached you and told you that your nephew was a crazy anti-vampire zealot and had caused his own daughter to be turned into one of us by experimenting on her, what would you think?” he asked, taking a bite of his steak.