by Michele Hauf
“Now for that kiss,” she said.
Halo held in one hand behind my back, I leaned in to kiss her on the neck, and she moaned so erotically, it was all I could do to keep from unzipping and claiming her right there.
Three
I may have glossed over the actual heist, but I certainly won’t skip over the high that followed. It’s the same thrill every time I find a halo. The joy of discovery, of claiming something that could be so big, ethereal, even. It’s hard to put into words. But suffice to say, my adrenaline pumps, and the few occasions I’ve had a girlfriend during a hunt, I’ve always celebrated with sex.
Venezia followed me to my room, and before I could turn to feel out her mood, she slammed the door and shoved me onto the bed.
Nice.
“Venezia,” I started.
“Don’t call me that. It’s an old lady name.”
“Vinny sounds like some bald, beer-bellied Mafioso.”
She crawled onto the bed, and over me, and pulled my hand to place it over her stomach. “Does it feel like I’ve been overdoing the beer?”
“Nope.” Drawing her onto me, I leaned back on the bed. The halo dropped to the floor with a tinny clatter. It would be fine. Those things were indestructible. “I suppose you want the rest of your cash now,” I said.
“It can wait until after you’ve ravaged me and rendered me speechless.” She shoved up my sweater.
“Ravaging and rendering? That’s a pretty full order.”
“You can do it, Michael. I have faith in you.”
“You have a lot more faith than I seem to have.”
“You trust me now?” she wondered.
Sitting upon me, her thighs hugging my hips, she tugged off her purse belt and tossed it aside. A flip of her fingers rolled down her dress, revealing perfect jewels of nipple.
“Trust and desire are two very different things,” I said on a throaty groan. “Come here, Vinny.”
She leaned forward, putting her breasts into my palms. I massaged them and squeezed, drawing deep, delicious moans from her.
The sound of a woman’s pleasure does crazy serious things to a man’s desire. Some say we’re all about the visual. Yeah, that’s awesome. But the sound of a longing moan? I didn’t think my hard-on could get any tighter.
“It’s almost morning,” she said, licking a trail along my jaw. “Let’s make this a quickie.”
“What? Wait.” Want to deaden a man’s desire? Chat about how soon you want to be away from him. “A quickie? You have another engagement? Another secret mission designed to lead an innocent man astray?”
“No, I just…don’t think so much, Michael.”
“I wasn’t thinking at all until you poked me with the quickie stick. What’s wrong? You want to take the money and run? You’re not obligated to do this, Vinny. I just kind of thought we were both on the same page.”
“Michael, I want this.” She reached down and squeezed my erection. So it was still hard. Sue me. “You wouldn’t understand though. I need to leave. Soon.”
Suddenly glass shattered and flew inside the room. I instinctively grabbed Vinny and rolled on top of her. Something twanged close to my head. I shoved Vinny toward the edge of the bed. “Get on the floor!”
“What is it?”
I spied an arrow juddering back and forth, stuck into the wood headboard. “I’m not sure. Either Robin Hood is romping about the countryside, or this might be the bad situation you mentioned when we first met.”
I looked at Vinny, peering up from the floor over the edge of the bed. She swallowed, and then did something completely unexpected. She ran for the door, leaving a trail of hundred-dollar bills—that had been stuck in her purse—fluttering out behind her.
The train back to Paris was empty again.
Venezia—correction—Vinny, was gone. And I was up one halo. I’d also recouped seven hundred dollars from the initial payout, which didn’t make me as happy as it should.
Why had she fled like that? She’d been nervous about leaving even before the arrow had nearly given me a lobotomy.
I’d known from the start the chick was not your average “hey, I know all about you” kind of chick. I’d wanted to be cautious. And I had been until my cock had decided to throw caution out with the scattered hundred-dollar bills.
She had to be working with someone. Maybe she’d tried to do the deal on her own and her partner had shown his displeasure with the Robin Hood act? But why sell the halo so cheaply when it could have easily been taken and sold for ten times the amount online?
I tapped the outline of the halo in the army-green duffel on my lap. None of it made sense. I should leave Paris for New York as soon as I could get a flight. But a big part of me didn’t want to leave until I’d seen Vinny again.
Just to make sure she was all right.
A black Renault with a lion’s head hood ornament followed me as I strode along the quai Saint-Michel. I knew it was following because the windows were blacked out and it kept getting honked at by passing vehicles for its slow pace.
Swinging abruptly, I jogged across the street to the black car. I took them by surprise, because the back door actually opened when I tried it. A wave of clove scent gushed out at me. I reared back and coughed.
“Get in,” a brisk, German-accented voice said.
I leaned inside, but wasn’t about to get in. “Who the hell are you and where is Vinny?” I don’t know why I said her name. Instinct told me they knew more than I did.
The blond man with dark sunglasses wore a scarf so high it covered his bottom lip. And his fedora was pulled low. Avoid the sun much?
“She wants you to get in,” he said.
That didn’t feel right. Never let them take you to crime scene number two. Hey, I catch Oprah once in a while when I’m traveling.
“Just tell me where to find Vinny.”
“I will take you to her!” he shouted.
I slammed the door and stepped back to the curb. The car remained, and the door didn’t open. Weird as hell. Obviously the guy in the back wasn’t going to risk coming outside to grab me. And he had no thugs.
I scanned down the sidewalk, spying an alley between two buildings, then took off. As I did, I scanned the car’s plates. There were no plates.
Exiting at the end of the alley that turned left and right onto a cobbled touristy area, I turned and tucked myself against a door to a little hotel. Perfect. I went inside and registered.
I hastened to my room. Crossing to the window, I spied the car driving away. As I’d suspected, they didn’t follow. Which was strange. Why not? If they’d followed me in the first place, then why give up so easily? It wasn’t as though I even had a weapon to defend myself. And the Renault had sat there a good five minutes after I’d ran off—as if they expected me to return.
I glanced to the duffel where the halo peeked out of the unzipped bag. Besides holding an angel’s mortal soul, it was rumored to serve as a weapon in the hands of an angel. So which was it? The weapon or the soul?
Had the guy in the car been an angel?
I’ve been doing this too long. My crazy desire to believe was edging insanity. Maybe I should give it up? Find a job as a private detective in a big metropolis, wear leisure suits in the summertime and sip mojitoes with prospective clients under the sun.
I exhaled. This was the first hunt that had resulted in someone following me. Something was different.
And Vinny had the answers.
Four
I’d spent the morning searching the Internet for anyone named Venezia, but ID’ing someone is difficult without a last name. At one time I’d had a contact in the NYPD who would check police databases for me. That was all well and fine until I’d asked about a Columbian drug dealer who hadn’t liked being snooped on. I hadn’t known he was looking to finance his cartel by selling a halo.
A sudden downpour kept me inside, ordering takeout from a Greek restaurant—I know, sacrilege in Paris—and spending some tim
e chipping away the paint from the halo. I’d had the metal on one of these tested once. The guy in the shop wanted to know where I’d got it because he couldn’t match it to any known substance.
Cool.
And while it was thin and looked no more fabulous than a circle of unpolished tin, a strong man could not bend it. The outer edges were not sharp, nor was the inner circumference. If it supposedly served as an angel’s weapon, shouldn’t it be deadly?
A crackle of lightning was quickly followed by a boom of thunder. Swell. I’d lose a day just sitting around. But what was I really after here in the city of lights?
I already had the halo in hand. But for some reason, I couldn’t get excited about this find. And how strange was that? I lived for finding these things.
It had been too easy.
Vinny had been too interesting, too mysterious, too…sexy.
I could still taste her kiss, laced with a memory of raspberry. When I thought about it, she’d smelled just like the sugar cookies with pink raspberry frosting my mother made when I was a kid. I hated those things, yet the smell always drew me to the kitchen in anticipation of something tasty. Mom would smirk. She knew she’d have the whole batch to herself. She’d never been the chocolate chip type, unfortunately for me.
Lying back on the bed, I tilted the halo to catch what little light shone through the window. Turning to reach for the lamp, I jolted upright when the door slammed inward.
Losing my balance, I rolled to the floor in a graceless flop. Vinny strode over and inspected my spectacular klutz move.
“Didn’t mean to surprise you,” she said, dusting her knuckles on the front of her red sundress. Rain dripped from her hair. “Did you fall for me? That’s so sweet.”
“Where the hell have you been?” I jumped to my feet and shook the halo at her. Then I realized how silly that looked and tossed the thing on the bed. “You ran out on me this morning. I was worried. You could have been killed by whoever shot that arrow through my window.”
“I wasn’t.” She strolled to the window and followed the rain drooling across the glass for a few seconds. “I don’t do sunlight, Michael.”
“Ah. Right. You said you were a vampire when we first met.”
Sitting on the bed and crossing my hands behind my head, I took offense that she’d just marched right back into my life. As if she had the right to. As if I wanted to see her.
Okay, so I was relieved to see her alive, and wearing yet another sexy skin-baring dress. Black spike high heels this time. Baby, poke me just once, please?
“There’s something I need to tell you, Michael. Things are not working out the way I had planned.”
There it was. The jig was up. She had been playing me, and now she’d hit a snafu. Lovely, just lovely.
When the lightning flashed it blazed upon her face, eerily lighting her profile. But the residual glimmer on her lips reignited my fantasies about celebrating a job well done. We hadn’t gotten farther than second base. I’m all about the home run.
“Antonio is pissed at me,” she said. Crossing her arms, she paced before the end of the bed. She didn’t look at me, and I hated that. She was avoiding some truth. And it was never good when a girl brought up another man’s name.
“Antonio? Is that the name of the guy in the back of the Renault?”
“That was Stellan. He’s the one who sent me after you.”
“I see. Because he wanted me to get the halo for him and needed a sexy young thing to convince me to do so?”
“Yes.”
Her honesty threw me over the edge. She unsettled me, yet I wasn’t about to stand down.
“So what’s changed? Your boss—wait. Does Stellan have an aversion to the sun? What is it with you people? You act like a bunch of vampires. And, baby, I don’t even believe in angels—” I lifted the halo “—despite the proof.”
“Michael.” She crawled onto the bed and over my legs. “You said you wanted to believe?”
“Everybody’s got to believe in something, sweetie.”
“Well, believe in this.”
She smiled, revealing the bottoms of her teeth. And growing down over her bright red bottom lip were two brilliant white fangs. They got longer, and curved a bit, even.
“Holy shit!” I shoved backward, but couldn’t get far enough away with the headboard and wall behind me. Groping for God knows what—a weapon, some means of defense—only yielded a handful of pillow. “You’re…”
“I told you what I was when we first met.”
“Yeah, but you were joking.”
“My humor is always misunderstood. I have to work on that.”
“Seriously?” Okay, the show was over. The joke was on me. My fear dissipated, and I leaned forward to tap the false teeth in her mouth. “They feel pretty real. You must have an expensive dentist.”
She shoved my hand away and sat back on her feet. “Don’t patronize me, Michael. They look real because they are real. I’m a vampire. I don’t do daylight. I avoid crosses and holy water. And I suck blood.”
I clamped a hand to my neck.
“I don’t do humans,” she replied to my outrageous fear. “Not yet, at least. I wish I dared, but I don’t.”
She turned and sat at the end of the bed, her back to me. Catching her chin in her palms, she leaned forward, elbows to her knees.
“You see, that’s why I can’t do this anymore. Antonio has such a tight hold on me, and I thought maybe this would be a way to get free. To buy my way out with the ten grand, you know? The money wasn’t part of the original plan. Stellan just needed me to lure you to him, with halo in hand.”
“Stop. Slow down.”
I swung my feet to the floor. Why I was moving as if in slo-mo was because a self-confessed vampire sat not five feet away. If I could have made a break for it, without hurting her feelings, I would have.
I’d been presented with something so bizarre it could only rival my quest to see an angel. But instead of halos sitting upon a glowing being’s head I’d gotten the macabre opposite.
“What do vampires have to do with angels and halos?”
She flipped wet hair over her shoulder. “My tribe, Anakim, is descended from the Nephilim.”
Tribe? Must be a vampire thing. But I wasn’t buying her explanation. “The Nephilim are sons of fallen angels. They are not vampires. Try again, sweetie.”
“We’ve Nephilim blood in us. Don’t you know your bible lore, Michael?”
“Haven’t cracked the good book open since Sunday School.”
“Nephilim are bloodthirsty giants who feed upon the animals of the earth and the blood of man. They are the original vampires.”
That statement, said in complete seriousness, really threw me.
This is what I know about Nephilim and fallen angels. Apocrypha is much more interesting than the much-edited and altered Bible. Thousands of years ago, a couple hundred angels called Grigori—now termed Fallen—fell from the heavens to have sex with human females. Those who were successful got the women pregnant. Those women gave birth to Nephilim, who were supposedly giants, and were feared for their ferocious, bloodthirsty natures.
Okay, so even though it had never been explained quite as Vinny just had, I could go there with the vampire theory. It made weird sense.
“I still don’t understand how I fit into all this.”
“The Fallen were banished from earth thousands of years ago.”
“By the great flood,” I added knowingly.
“Yes, but they weren’t killed, only put away somewhere dark and empty.”
“Enoch theorized they were imprisoned in the ninth void,” I offered.
“Whatever. All I know is that Antonio is summoning them, one by one, in hopes the Fallen will find their earthly muses and birth Nephilim so we can strengthen our breed.” She sighed. “Their breed. I hate them.”
“The vampires? You are a vampire, sweetie. Hell,” I muttered, looking away from her. “You’re a vampire.”
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“I didn’t choose it. I was attacked a year ago by three nasty vampires. They left me for dead, but I didn’t die. I changed. Antonio took me under his wing, and since has developed a steel grip on my actions.”
“So that’s the bad situation.”
“Yes. I want freedom, Michael. And I think you can give it to me.”
Five
I pressed my palm to the cool window that offered a view of Notre Dame just across the Seine. It had stopped raining and night had fallen. I guessed that’s why Vinny had come now.
“You can’t do daylight?”
She shook her head. “Not strong enough yet. Our tribe is old and not inbred with the newer vamps who can do that kind of thing. If Antonio is successful in breeding a Nephilim, we’ll drink its blood to become day walkers.”
I turned my head to hide a wince. Not the kind of cocktails I’d expect little Miss Spike Heels to favor.
“You’re taking this very well,” she said. “I just told you I’m a vampire, Michael.”
“Show me the proof, and I believe.”
She tapped the bed beside the discarded halo. “Oh yeah? Thought you weren’t a believer?”
She had me there. I still didn’t truly believe angels walked the earth. Yet vampires did. You didn’t need to bite me to prove that. “I suppose if I can accept you I have to make the leap about the angels, too. I just wish I could see one.”
“If you get involved with Antonio, you may. Michael.” She rose and crossed the room to stand before me. She didn’t touch me, perhaps giving me the space she thought I needed.
Man, did I need space.
“Thank you,” she said. “For not freaking. Since I’ve changed I’ve come to the conclusion that no man will ever be interested in me again, let alone hold a conversation with me.”
I touched her cheek, then pressed my forehead to hers. Screw space. “You interest me, Vinny.”
She sniffed away a tear. “You can’t imagine what that means to me. But don’t worry, I don’t expect anything from you. You know, like we were doing before you knew what I was. I know the whole blood-drinking thing probably turns you off.”