The Vampire's Control (Fatal Allure Book 9)

by Martha Woods

  “I’ve been careful to not be noticed Amy, I keep the magic to a minimum when I’m anywhere other than my office, and I request the same of my workers, how would they know anything about me?”

  “Because even though it’s not outright confirmed to him, Rick probably already suspects that your workers were witches. The fact that I was so invested in the case would only cement that for him and anyone else he’s going to let into the loop, plus he was tailing me a few months ago the night we killed the Kitsune. He probably saw me go into Faye’s store, which means he probably saw you go in as well.” I frowned, not liking the fact that I was most at fault for their identities being known. “I’m sorry, but if he’s on the warpath like I think he is then he’s going to be gunning for you as well.”

  * * *

  Alexis sighed, placing her head in her hand and slumping her shoulders. “You really don’t make things easy on me, do you?”

  “No,” I chuckled, “No I just kind of make everyone’s lives difficult don’t I? But I swear, once this is all over I-”

  * * *

  A knock at the door interrupted my apologies, her brother not waiting for an answer before he walked back in hurriedly, walking to her desk on the other side of the room and leaning in close to her ear. I didn’t hear what he was saying, but whatever it was made her eyes shoot wide open and her gaze to flick over to me in obvious worry. Now that couldn’t possibly be good.

  “Thank you for telling me,” She said to him, waving him out of the room and standing to walk over to me. “The police are here, no doubt following up on exactly what you were just telling me. I would suggest that you hide until they are gone, I don’t want to have to kill anyone in my club tonight, especially cops. I don’t need that kind of trouble around here.”

  * * *

  I nodded quickly, accepting the hand that she extended to me and pulling up shakily to my feet. Being found by cops in my condition wasn’t an optimal outcome to me either, I only had my knife for defense and I wasn’t exactly in good enough shape to close the distance if it came down to that. She led me over to a curtained wardrobe, shoving me in not so delicately and grabbing a dress off the shelf next to me just as the door opened, barely giving me a split second view of the two cops marching in before she slid the curtain closed and stepped out with her dress.

  * * *

  The curtain reached to the floor, and it was dark in the wardrobe, but I still felt helplessly exposed with only a thin layer of fabric between me and the people who were at best unwittingly going to lead me to my death, at worst just outright going to do it themselves out in the alley. My greatest defense against that also just so happened to be the woman who had up until recently been at my throat over my relationship with Damon, who I am almost certain she is still in love with, so if she was looking to get rid of me this was a prime opportunity to do so.

  Not that I thought that she could be capable of that but… I’d also thought that Rick couldn’t be capable of the things that he’s been doing.

  * * *

  Shit.

  * * *

  “Officers,” Alexis said from behind her desk, drawing my attention back to the topic at hand,

  * * *

  “What cause exactly do you have to go storming into my office this late at night?”

  “We have reason to believe that an acquaintance of yours could be in the area, we were thinking that she might have decided to call in with an old friend.” I didn’t quite recognize his voice, but it had that same oily quality as one of the countless cops I’d overheard in the station making dead stripper jokes so many months ago. He was doing a decent job of toning down the sleaze for now, but you could always tell when it was someone’s natural state. “So what do you think? Has Amy come around lately?”

  * * *

  “Amy?” She said with that exaggerated tone of voice you always put on when you were about to dial up how much of a smartass you already were, “Ah I remember now, she was the only one intent on actually doing the job that us taxpayers pay you for no? When my workers were being killed and you were content to pawn them off as just more dead sex workers?”

  * * *

  “Uhh…” The lead detective clearly hadn’t stepped in expecting someone to jump right into verbally sparring with him, usually the sight of a badge was enough to intimidate people into just giving them what they wanted. I guess time was only going to tell how long he could keep down his sleazy side when he came up against resistance. “Look, Amy is in trouble, she hurt some people very badly and we’re just trying to find her before she can do it to anyone else. Given that the two of you have crossed paths before…”

  * * *

  “You assume that she would come bursting through my door asking for my help, even though the only interactions we’ve ever had was when she questioned me regarding the employees of mine that had been butchered?” I could hear her unimpressed eyebrow, having to place my hand over my mouth to stifle a snort. “I can hardly believe that is the deduction someone of your paygrade came to, but now that I know I can say it’s not much of a surprise that none of you could work out that there was a serial killer in this town. I believe you just had another one as well didn’t you?”

  * * *

  Their interrogation skills were starting to fail them, clearly assumption and persuasion weren’t going to get them anywhere, which meant that it was time for them to up the ante. Negotiation and intimidation.

  * * *

  “Alexis, can I call you Alexis?”

  * * *

  “No, but I’m guessing that won’t stop you.”

  “Alexis, we know that you’ve met Amy on more than one occasion, we also have it on very good authority that the two of you really do not get along well together. Which also means that by telling us that you’ve only met her once you are also in fact lying to us, which is a crime.”

  * * *

  The creak of wood from him leaning against her desk made my heart rise into my throat, intimidation was the very last thing that I would suggest trying with a woman like Alexis, she was liable to remove your balls and tie them around your throat just for having the audacity to think her so weak willed to be swayed by a few tough threats. “What do you say? You give her up and not only do you get to be rid of one of the biggest pains in the ass that you could ever have, you get to see us walk back out that door without tearing this place apart looking for her. Sound like a deal?”

  * * *

  For a moment I was actually terrified that she might take the deal, my hand curling around the handle of my knife to prepare for the moment that I would have to burst through the curtain and run as fast as I was able to for the exit. It’s not that I thought she was itching to betray me, though thoughts of Damon were enough to give me a slight feeling, but the fact of the matter is that it wasn’t an unappealing deal. Give up someone who you’ve never gotten along with to get off the hook for just about anything that could have happened in the meantime, stop your business from losing customers from the sheer amount of police that would come pounding through your doors every hour of every day until they managed to either find something or plant something to find.

  Which meant that her next few sentences shot through me with more force than the bullet that had torn a hole in my leg, relief flooding through my veins when she shut her mouth in a tight frown and spat through clenched teeth, “Get out.”

  * * *

  Definitely not the answer they had been expecting, me neither to be honest. “What?”

  * * *

  “I said get out, you’ve overstayed your welcome and barged into my office without any permission or warrant to speak of, I am in every right to have you vacate the premises, by force if need be.” The taps of her heels against the carpet made my hair stand on end, I had no idea before now that you could so easily sense anger in some people, but she was really oozing it in waves. “How dare you, how dare you come into my place of business and act like you can treat me like some common crimin
al with absolute impunity! Now you have thirty seconds to get the hell out of my business before I call the bouncers up and announce to the rest of the crowd that it’s open season on the two of you!”

  “Now hold on, listen here-”

  * * *

  “Now you have ten seconds, my bouncers hate cops just so you’re aware.” I could feel the force of her glare even through the curtain, the quick sound of retreating steps and a closing door telling me that she had been more than successful in driving them off and getting some heat off of us. Of course I was still going to wait until she opened the curtain for me, she would know more than I would in regards to how safe it was, besides I couldn’t think of anything more embarrassing than remaining hidden for so long only to be revealed when one of them came back to collect their coat.

  * * *

  “You thought I was going to give you up, didn’t you?” She asked, sliding the curtain back and looking me up and down to make sure I hadn’t bled on her carpet. “I can’t blame you, for a moment there the offer really was quite tempting…”

  * * *

  “Well I’m glad you decided I was worth more than nothing then,” I laughed, accepting the hand she offered me and stepping out of the wardrobe, “Do you think they’ll stay away?”

  “I think that they’ll either get a warrant or fake getting one just so that they can come back and tear the walls down looking for you, so time is still of the essence. Even after you’re gone I need to make sure my employees are taken care of, that we’re all secure in case things go wrong.”

  Stepping over to the window overlooking the stage, she watched the two detectives being escorted somewhat roughly out the front door, the lead who I assumed had been in charge of negotiating with a hand clasped around the back of his neck and being shoved forward. You wouldn’t be blamed for being nervous about someone handling a cop that indelicately, especially not when you realized just how deep corruption and power imbalances were it turned out, but I was fairly confident that those two cops especially would be smart enough not to escalate and just leave more or less peacefully. They wouldn’t be able to exert their power later if they made the wrong move and ended up spitting their teeth over the ground in the back alleyway after all.

  * * *

  “Did you drive here Amy?” Alexis asked me, shaking her head a moment later, “Of course you did, you didn’t walk here on that leg. Did you at least hide the car before you came in here?”

  * * *

  “Yeah,” I replied, “I parked it out in the back alleys, covered it up with a tarp so no one would see it. The only way you’d be able to separate it from the other cars already there is if you already knew which ones were there before and which one was mine.”

  “Good, good, that makes things easier for us at least.” She pulled the drawer out, rummaging around before pulling out a set of keys. “By now they probably have an APB out on your car, every cop from downtown to the suburbs is going to be on the lookout for it. Take the keys to this car, it’s parked out in the garage just behind the club, and my brother will hide your car until everything blows over.”

  * * *

  “And if everything doesn’t blow over?” I asked, “What then?”

  “If everything stays the same then I guess that we have something to sell to bring in some extra income, don’t we?”

  * * *

  Rolling my eyes, I grabbed the keys and briefly spun them around my finger, humming to myself and slipping them into my pocket. Not what I would have considered to be the ideal outcome before I’d stepped in here, but a new car to make my escape in and someone to store my old one until the heat died down was far from the worst thing that could have happened. Of course, I still had to make my own way out of town and to the hiding place where I could meet up with Damon and Vincent, but it was going to be much easier now that I wasn’t going to be driving down the road at sixty miles an hour riding in the equivalent of a siren screaming “Arrest me!”

  * * *

  “Thanks Alexis, really. You’re sticking your neck out for me and… I just wanted to say that it means alot.”

  “You did too.”

  She wasn’t even looking at me when she said it, focused more on checking the cameras to make sure that the two cops were well and truly down the block and away from the club. “You didn’t have to come and give me a warning, you could have just gone off to wherever it is that you’re going to go and lay low, but you decided that you should come to the business of someone who doesn’t even like you to warn her that danger might be coming her way. That’s a pretty brave thing to do Amy.”

  * * *

  “You really don’t like me?” Maybe I was missing the point of what she was saying, scratch that I was definitely missing the point of what she was saying, but despite everything that had happened the thought of that still made me rather sad. “Not even a little bit?”

  * * *

  Definitely not the best time to get into a conversation like this, but it was all starting to hit me that this really could be the last time that I saw her. Joseph was going to work to find a solution sure, but there was no guarantee that it was going to result in me being able to live my normal life again.

  * * *

  Killing Tristian was a certainty, as soon as the alliance could deliberate a bounty was going to be placed on him and everyone within three hundred miles of the city was going to be after his blood. He was a formidable hunter, and a very influential one within his circle, but to the outside world he was a nobody, I don’t know if he even still exists in the eyes of the normal world.

  * * *

  But Rick, Rick was someone that people knew, worse he was someone that the people looked up to. If a nobody, a tourist goes missing then no one in the city is ever going to notice, they’ll just think that they moved on to somewhere new without saying goodbye, that sort of thing happens everyday, but if a community leader, a cop goes missing then that makes everyone stick their heads up and look for where they could have gone. Which means that whatever route they decide to take when dealing with Rick, I don’t know if they’ll actually be able to remove him and keep the rest of themselves a secret, they may very well decide that it’s not worth it after killing Tristian. Because really who am I? Aside from someone who can be convincing and can offer my support when I’m needed, am I really worth the risk of being found out and having to run and hide when the world comes looking for all paranormals?

  * * *

  But none of that mattered to Alexis, all she was doing right now was rolling her eyes at me for choosing now of all times to try and heal our fractured relationship, when really I should just pack my things and go, leave word with someone who can reach her and continue on with whatever life I’m granted after this. “I don’t… hate you Amy. I think that you’re arrogant, you don’t think things through, you’re seemingly convinced that you’re absolutely invincible and untouchable when history has shown that you are anything but. You’re a mix of things that I can’t stand in people, and yes, just so you know, I am still in love with Damon, which doesn’t really make things easier does it?”

  * * *

  “No,” I said, shaking my head, “No it doesn’t.”

  * * *

  “But despite all of that, with time I’ve come to think that… you’re what the alliance needs. You’re impulsive and arrogant when it comes to what you can do, but at the same time you’ve shown incredible patience with everyone else, regardless of where they came from. Hunter, werewolf, vampire, witch, it doesn’t matter who someone was, you treated them with the same care and courtesy that you showed everyone else. At first I thought you were misguided but… now I see that I was wrong in that.”

  * * *

  It was never easy to admit that you were wrong, even if you were talking to a friend, so for Alexis to be saying this to me of all people… it was difficult to put into words how it made me feel.

  * * *

  “Throughout everything, and at great personal cos
t to yourself I should add, you’ve kept fighting to make sure that everyone has a future where we can truly be happy and together with one another, even when everyone outside and in is seemingly dedicated to tearing the whole thing apart for the smallest reasons.” She grabbed my arm, leading me towards the door while she continued speaking, “And since I brought it up before… I know that the issue with Damon is something that I will have to get over on my own time. I lost, he loves you, it was foolish of me to ever think he could do otherwise, and… though I might not understand it, it’s clear that you are happy with Vincent as well. And since I haven’t seen the two of them fighting to the death on what few occasions I’ve seen them, it’s clear that they have no problem sharing your love either.”

  * * *

  “No, they don’t,” I said with a smile, “I think I’ve gotten impossibly lucky there, huh?”

  “You did,” She said, “Don’t rub it in.”