by Judy Teel
"Basta—" I started to say, but the painful gagging stopped me.
At his summons, Ms. Fairview eased open the door and crept in. Her gaze shot back and forth between us and her expression turned wary. "I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but the, um," she glanced at me again, "procedure has started."
He raised a brow, quite the calm and elegant homicidal maniac. "And?"
Worry pinched up the skin above the bridge of her nose. "No change yet. I'm sorry."
"Thank you, Ms. Fairview."
If I hadn't known better, I would have said a flicker of grief scurried across his face. I decided that my brush with oxygen deprivation was making me see things. Monsters like Bellmonte didn't feel grief. They didn't feel anything except a lust for power.
Ms. Fairview escaped back to the outer sanctum and the door swung silently closed. Lord Bellmonte steepled his hands and pressed his index fingers against his lips as he contemplated me.
"I don't...respond well...to threats." I clamped my teeth together to keep from coughing.
"I was impressing on you the need for discretion."
The hell he was. "For the record....I wouldn't have died alone."
His jaw tensed and my instincts tingled. "Are you threatening me now?" he said, amazement rippling beneath his flat tone.
I swallowed and gently massaged the muscles around my abused windpipe. "Fact, not threat." Three darts, three doses, dead vampire.
He watched me, curiosity and speculation seeping back into his sharp gaze. "You are a wildcard, Ms. Kittner. The Church does not encourage the continued existence of wildcards."
No kidding.
"Your history includes abandonment on the steps of a cathedral as an infant, no known parents or family, and several arrests as an adolescent, though you were never convicted. You associate with questionable criminal elements and regularly engage in dangerously impulsive acts. My research also shows that you have an almost magical knack for finding what you're looking for, probably because of your foolish determination to never give up."
A satisfied smile tightened his lips. "In other words, you are the perfect hunter: inventive, resolute and no one would miss you if termination became necessary."
"You sure know how to...turn a girl's head." I swallowed down the stinging pain in my throat and the dull ache his walk down memory lane had spawned in the middle of my chest. Palming the needle-like dart, I slouched against the back of the chair and pretended to relax. "Lucky for me, I don't work for you."
"When you accepted payment for the renegades, you became part of an exclusive group, Miss Kittner. My personal hunters are the best in the world, and their pay reflects that."
"I didn't accept your money. I rejec—"
"What you choose to do with your earnings is none of my concern. You took the money and a bargain was struck."
A burning knot of fury clenched my stomach. "You're not going to force any of this crap down my throat, Bellmonte. I am not your—"
He slammed his palms down onto his desk and despite myself, I jumped. The crystal vase of flowers on the corner of the desk teetered and crashed to the floor. Water and flowers scattered in an uneven sprawl across the thick, gray carpet.
"Please feel free to accept a long and unpleasant death, Ms. Kittner," he said in a calm, authoritative voice.
I narrowed my eyes at him and ground my teeth to keep my anger from exploding into words I might regret.
"The standard compensation has been deposited into your credit account. Bring me those responsible for the assault on my nephew, and I might forgive your long list of insulting behavior. Bring them to me alive, and it will be as if those insults had never happened."
Fisting my hand around the dart, I shot to my feet. I'd had enough of this arrogant jackass messing with me. The temptation to close the distance between us and show him exactly how much he was not my boss fired along my nerves.
"My deepest regrets, my lord," I said with a snarl. "I've just remembered that I need to be elsewhere." Keeping my gaze on him, I backed toward the door.
"Do not make the mistake of throwing away my money again," he said in a tone no different than "please have a nice day".
I kept my teeth clamped on the words fighting to get out of me. Pushing down on the cold, thick brass of the handle, I pulled the door open and got the hell out of Hell.
* * *
I came out of the building feeling a little more in control of myself now that I had my gun back. I was also carrying two take-out boxes, which I had mixed feelings about accepting. After my quality time with the great and mighty Bellmonte, I hadn't wanted anything more to do with vamp hospitality, but Ms. Fairview had talked me into it. More like frantically insisted.
As furious as I was at her boss, I didn't blame her for his behavior, and she seemed so nervous about me not taking the meals that I'd finally given in. Maybe the jerk charged her every time food was wasted.
Night was in full swing and the stars brave enough to fight with the ambient glow of the city twinkled overhead. Pulling in a deep breath of relief should have cleared my mind. Instead, it brought me the unwelcome scent of moonlight and forest. I tensed and turned toward Cooper. He was still wearing his FBI uniform, which meant that he was still working. I noticed he'd loosened his tie, at least.
From inside the building, the guards' attention zeroed in on us. I wondered if they'd report to their master that an FBI Were was chatting up one of their newest hunters.
"And I thought my evening couldn't get any worse," I said. "At least now I know why you really brought me in on this case."
Crossing his arms over his chest, he propped his shoulder against the glass of the building. "I told you. The vamps find you fascinating."
"They wouldn't let you past the door, would they?"
Pushing away from the wall, he took the top container of food from me. As he stepped back, the light from the streetlight next to us caught in his hair, making the wolf-pelt silver threading through the brown and black shine like new dimes. "Considering how vamps and Weres are mortal enemies deep down? Nope. Stopped two feet from the door." Pulling off the fork taped to the top of the box, he flipped open the lid and inhaled the rich scent of meatballs and parmesan cheese. "What'd you find out?"
"Do you know where the vamp retrieval team took the body?"
He nodded to the building behind him and dug into the food like he hadn't had a meal in days. As a species, Weres tended to have big appetites. Skipping a meal was torture for them.
"I told you what vamp blood is used for. What do you know about the venom trade?" I asked.
He cut his eyes up as he shoved a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth. "It's illegal," he said around the food.
"Was the vic selling?"
"You show me yours, and I'll show you mine," he said with a wink.
His flirting created a flutter of attraction low in my stomach. I pushed it away. "The esteemed Regent of Charlotte tried to kill me in his office."
"I saw the bruises. Is there a body I need to deal with?"
"Not this time."
"The vic was dealing."
I thought about that for a moment. "Explains the lifestyle he was able to give his donor." Vampire venom went for an astronomical amount on the street because of its rarity. But the fact that he was a dealer opened up an enemy list about a block long.
Cooper scraped up the sauce on the bottom of the container and closed the lid. He eyed the other box. "Dessert?"
"I've no idea, but you're not getting it."
"I'm still hungry." His silver-green eyes heated with a new intensity, and for a moment I was pretty sure that he wasn't talking about cookies.
"You ate tomorrow's breakfast. You're not getting lunch, too."
"Then give me more information to distract me." He tossed his trash into the receptacle next to the streetlight. "You discovered something else in there. I can smell it."
"That's the garlic on your breath." I opened the second takeout box. Instead
of a fork there was a note taped to the underside of the lid. My heart jumped.
"What are you hiding, Addison?" he asked, his voice going low.
I told myself to stay calm and threw out the best distraction I could come up with on the fly. "I don't think the vamp from the alley is dead."
The suspicion in his eyes converted into interest. "Explain."
I met his gaze over the lid of the box. "The secretary said something about a procedure starting, and that there wasn't any change. It seemed to mean a lot to Lord Jackass."
The tension drained out of his shoulders and amusement sifted through his voice. "Lord Jacka—" He shook his head, a touch of admiration and frustration on his face. "And you concluded they were trying to revive him?"
I dug my forefinger into the thick, chocolate frosting covering the slab of three-layer cake inside the box. Snapping the container closed, I made a show of eating the icing. "How should I know what vampires do in their spare time?"
As I'd hoped, Cooper's attention zeroed in on me cleaning the sugary treat off of my finger. "You have a serious mean streak. You know how much I love chocolate."
I decided not to push my luck since he was perfectly capable of snatching the dessert box out of my hands before I could stop him. "I have a bus to catch," I said, wiping my finger on my jeans as I gave him my best innocent smile. "Don't follow me. I'd hate it if you got shot by accident."
"I knew you cared!" he called after me as I walked away.
* * *
I settled onto the vinyl padded seat of the hoverbus and retrieved the note from inside my takeout box. The message was hand written in a non-descript print that could have been from anybody in Bellmonte's employ.
The note was simple. Only a name, address and the words "See her." How gothically cryptic.
As a precaution against being followed, I switched buses three times before I stepped onto the only hover that went out to Morrocroft Estates. When I was a kid, the gated community had been the happy hunting ground of bankers, CEOs and other high flyers who valued perfect lawns, decorative pools, golfing and prestige. When the first paranormal strikes hit, a lot of areas like it went down under the fighting and never came back up.
It was still a gated community, but the pretty brick walls had been built up to about twenty feet using the rubble from destroyed houses. After that, they'd sanded it smooth and coated the stone with something that made the surface as smooth and slick as glass so nothing could climb it and then put spelled barbed wire along the top.
The mansions that weren't part of the wall had been renovated into apartments, and their lawns either paved over for parking or turned into efficiency farms. If you were human and paranoid about things that went bump in the night, then Morrocroft was a good choice for you.
On the way across town, I got busy with my old iC and pulled up what information I could about the property. I needed a cover story and I needed one fast. Info retrieval was slow on the older technology, and I had to admit that sometimes I envied Cooper his toys. Forty minutes later I was the only passenger on the bus and had reached the last stop on the corner of Colony Road and Morrocroft Farms.
"You sure this is your stop?" the operator asked. He was a burly, dark-skinned guy with gray peppering his dense, curly black hair. "Weird stuff lives out here. Weirder stuff lives in there." He jabbed his thumb toward the ribbon of road jutting off to the left.
"Just visiting a friend," I said.
He grunted and pressed a series of buttons on his spaceship-like dashboard. The hover eased down to the platform with a hiss and a few clunks as it connected to the walkway and then the doors slid open. "Last ride back comes at 10:30. I wouldn't miss it if I were you."
I thanked him and headed down the beat-up asphalt road that led to Morrocroft. About eighteen minutes later, I arrived at the imposing gate. The twenty-foot high solid iron composite doors stood open and the night guard lounged in the reinforced gatehouse. He barely glanced up as I approached. Probably because of the yellow, translucent haze shimmering between the fifteen-foot wide opening.
I went up to the window and noticed that the thick grate covering it also faintly glowed yellow. With that level of magical protection, I wasn't sure why Morrocroft even needed a guard.
I gave the fortyish Hispanic man a tentative smile and put on my best young-and-innocent act. "I'm here to see the apartment in 4244. I'm Sandy Hatcher."
"You'll have to leave your para weapon here. There are drop boxes by the entrance. Pick one," he said without looking up from the football game playing on his iC. I noticed he had one of the latest models. Maybe I was in the wrong line of work.
I went around to the gate and found a row of six black boxes sitting against the side of the guard house. They were only a few feet from the gate, and I could feel the pressure coming off the neutralization barrier that blocked the entrance. Placing my gun in the first box, I locked it and pocketed the key.
As I approached the yellow-tinted haze, the whisper of magic played across my face and bare arms like electrically charged air just before a lightning strike. If a human could feel the power of the spell, any paranormal getting this close would be nearly immobilized by it.
Whoever had constructed the barrier not only knew what they were doing, but had some serious magical firepower to draw on. With a running start, a paranormal attacker might manage to dive through the protection, but they'd land on the other side a smoking, charred pile of bones. I bet the same spell was on the barbed wire. Probably explained the bored lack of concern of the guard.
I walked through, feeling nothing more than a warm brush of power across my skin and arrived on the other side. "Take one of the bikes," the guard called from the open window that faced the property. "Go to the left. Turn right at the crossroads. The house you want is down on the right."
Several colorful 1950s-styled bicycles lined the wall on this side. I picked a red and silver number with Schwinn painted on it, turned on its fender light and mounted up.
The sky arched above me bigger than in the city and dense with glittering stars. Dark groves of fruit trees and fields with cows cluttering around their shelters marked the way. A serene atmosphere that I never felt in town seemed to overlay the entire property.
I was beginning to see the appeal of living in a place like this when I passed a pile of rubble set back from the road. A historic landmark sign was planted in front declaring that in 2024 the unprovoked attack by the Fifth Parish Vampire Unit had resulted in the deaths of Senator Tarson and his family. The sign finished up by reporting that the attackers were heroically corralled by neighboring families and captured. Tragically, when Were reinforcements arrived, the terrified community slaughtered them.
Beside the rubble under the gloomy darkness of an old tree, I saw a dozen grave markers with crescent moons carved on them, identifying the Were graves. A shadow of regret brushed across my heart at the sight. I continued on, not nearly as enchanted by my surroundings as I had been.
A sweaty ten minutes later, I propped the bike against one of the white columns of an enormous colonial style mansion, climbed the steps to the front door and pushed the intercom for apartment two, the number indicated on the note. "Lord Bellmonte's secretary sent me," I announced on a hunch when a woman answered.
"Oh, thank God," she whispered as she buzzed open the door. "I'd given up hope."
* * *
Laiyla Billings was a tall, willowy woman with shoulder-length, wavy, cinnamon-colored hair peppered with gray as if it was considering the wisdom of taking the plunge. Her complexion was flawless, her average blue eyes bright with anxiety. I put her age at anywhere between thirty-five and fifty.
She offered me tea in a delicate porcelain cup with tiny yellow birds painted on it. Her hand trembled slightly as she handed the cup to me across the coffee table scattered with magazines that sat between us.
"I'm so relieved the Church is finally taking this seriously," she said as I took the cup. Her voice was smooth a
nd gentle, a perfect reflection of her appearance. "I'd concluded they didn't care as long as it was only renegades."
"Why do you live with people who hate paranormals?" I asked, setting the cup down on the table.
Her eyes widened. "What do you mean?"
"You're a practitioner." I nodded to the ring on her left hand. "Moon and sun symbols woven together on a silver band on your ring finger and a fairy star necklace with what's probably a spelled ruby for protection." I glanced at the gem softly glowing with power.
Her expression remained guileless and full of curiosity as she waited for me to continue. I made a show of pulling in a deep breath. A faint scent like ancient, dark soil that had been soaked with vinegar and set on fire still clung to the apartment. "But it was the smell of a Cupid Spell cooking in the kitchen that really tipped me off."
Six months ago at a certain department Christmas party, I'd had an accidental encounter with that particular potion. Sadly, I knew what I was talking about. "That kind of magic takes skill. Almost as much as the fence around this place."
"You're very unusual," Laiyla mused. She tilted her head slightly as if that might give her a better view of me. "How do you know this?"
"I'm a private investigator. I'm paid to know. If I don't know, I'm paid to find out."
"And you work for the Church?"
"In a temporary, mutually unfriendly capacity. Did you poison the tea?"
A smile flickered across her mouth. "Of course not." Her gaze swept above, around and through me as if she could see things no one else could. "You have an old wisdom and a heart that could love, but you've closed yourself off. There is no family in your life. I'm sorry."
I hid my surprise. Dealing with practitioners, at least the strong ones, meant being prepared for exactly this sort of thing. In varying degrees, all of them had the ability to see beyond the physical and to work with those other levels of reality. That was how they infused items and potions with energy.