Bone Hunter

by Thea Atkinson

  "You said vampires," I said just to be sure.

  "Yes," the warlord said.

  His legs were making me dizzy and I reached out to stop them swinging.

  "Not the sparkly Edward Cullen kind or the sexy Damon or Eric kind," I said. I had to ask again. Just to be clear. "Real Bela Lugosi vamps. The kind that drink human blood."

  He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "All blood actually," he said. "They prefer human blood but aren't too picky in a pinch."

  He was being entirely too amiable with this information. It couldn't possibly bode well.

  I thought of Fayed, my bartender friend at the Rot Gut Tavern. I was pretty sure after my last visit that he was a vampire and he was pretty damn sexy even for a mortal man. So maybe they didn't all have to be dangerous and deadly revolting like the ones in the Bazaar.

  "So these vampires," I said. "Why can't you send one of your fae minions to do this thing?"

  He smiled. "Didn't you watch True Blood?" he said.

  I hitched in a breath without meaning to. Had he just read my mind?

  "Why do you ask?" I said, wary.

  "Most fae won't get in the way of a vampire. We taste too good."

  "Why do I think you're pulling my leg?"

  He shrugged. "Maybe I am. Or maybe I just want you to repay a little kindness with kindness. Maybe you just owe me, and I want my due."

  This last was said with a sort of baldness to it, like he wanted me to pay attention to the words.

  I chewed the inside of my cheek.

  I had the feeling it wasn't because he couldn't retrieve the relic himself or that he was too important to fetch it. He was keeping from me his motivation and was exploiting my position for his own gain.

  Not that it bothered me. I'd been exploited plenty during my lifetime for far less than the ideal of safety.

  The real problem was that except for Fayed and the vampires in the bazaar, I had no network or connections to the vampire world. I hadn't heard from Kassie since I'd lost her when I'd jumped the portal to the bazaar back into my own world.

  And I did have that other lead. One I'd already invested a lot of time in. I'd watched word of the excavation for weeks via a back channel to a social media group set up to show the fascinating items pulled one by one from the muck of a peat bog in Wales.

  Fragments of pots, spoons, torques, and a tantalizing glimpse of a bog mummy believed to be the legendary brother of Chu Chulain who had killed his brother in a jealous rage. The cache was said to rival Tut's tomb, and our humble museum had it all.

  But the most interesting things were the hushed and coded mentions of things they couldn't show. The entire cache was rumored to be hastily cataloged with dozens of artifacts still uncatalogued or cataloged under time duress, a most unusual thing for a museum acquisition.

  Filled with tiny trinkets and larger items alike, the dig had been fraught with firings and theft from start to finish.

  A perfect opportunity for the light fingered and criminal minded.

  And it was all going to be on display, right down to the bogman and all those pottery shards and jewelry, along with numerous smaller items, including a coin of some sort covered in electrum and stamped with a symbol that language specialists were still arguing over.

  It was delicious, the thought of all those undocumented items, small and large just waiting in a storage basement for someone to appreciate them on deep, economic and mercenary level.

  One thing the fae warlord had not mentioned was the patronage exhibit was in about four hours. All those heavy financial hitters and their plus ones would get first peek at the goods before the rest of the world, and hopefully foot more money to continue the search for 'items undoubtedly still lying invitro' to be rescued from Mother Earth's womb.

  I'd already picked out my gown and heels and found a sleek ginger colored wig that would just touch my shoulders. The dress had no back and very little front, and most guards I knew ogled cleavage no matter how much they were paid to be diligent.

  I was as good as in.

  But it wasn't the wig and dress that was the showstopper. It was a my very own QR code ticket, altered to bring up the website of a surveillance video from a camera I'd installed a week earlier.

  For a man who made a living with old things, I happened to know the curator had a fancy for all things young and he owed a good deal of money to a high classed escort agency that specialized in acquisitions for those who had 'alternate' tastes. I had a revolting forty seconds of video on a masked cloud drive with a time limit to destruction. A one time viewing opportunity and I couldn't let it go to waste.

  Of course, the curator wouldn't know that. I planned to trade that forty seconds for ten minutes alone with the uncatalogued items while the gala unfurled in all its glory. I had stashed a heist bag in the dumpster out bag big enough to hold a few smaller items that no one would miss.

  A fair trade, in my humble opinion, compared to a job for a fae I really didn't need.

  The surveillance set up had cost me dearly from my bug-out stash and I was far too close to abandon now to go on a goose chase of fae proportions.

  "Not a goose chase," the fae warlord said, indicating I'd said some of that out loud. Or worse, that he was reading my mind. He swirled his toe in the air, studying it with a little too much attention I thought.

  "My task for you is real. And it's life or death for you."

  CHAPTER 5

  Whether the vampires were sparkly or not, I wasn't ready to get mixed up in the supernatural 'other world' again. It had cost me too much even if it had provided me pretty good cover for the last month. But if someone, namely this someone, had the key to my front door, what good was the lock? Besides, my accidental foray into this other world had cost me a perfectly good networking connection.

  Poor Kassie was no doubt still in hiding after her experience with it. I'd thought about her a dozen times a week, telling myself she'd pop up when she was ready. She had yet to show, proof that she was beyond traumatized.

  And there was something about the way he looked at his foot, to be honest, that bothered me. I crossed my arms over my chest as I regarded him.

  I shook my head, deciding finally.

  "Doesn't matter," I said. "I'm not going to do it. If the gala pans out, I can move if I have to. No worries about Scottie."

  He eased down from the counter and canted his head at me. If he was surprised I would refuse, he showed only a mild disappointment. It was the way his eyes sparked purple and then fire red before they settled back into the icy blue that revealed the most. Maybe some normal folks mistook that beautiful blue for a calm and restful sky. I knew the calm before the storm always looked peaceful like that.

  I guessed he wasn't used to being refused.

  I tapped my fingers against my biceps.

  "It's not a good time," I said, trying to drive home the refusal while at the same time softening the blow. I might not want to fetch some bones for him, but I didn't want him zapping me into Kingdom Come either.

  "I was willing to ask," he said slowly, enunciating each syllable clearly. "In light of you being new to the world of the fae, I thought to try the mortal way. But I am warning you. If you owe the fae, they like to be repaid."

  "But I didn't ask you for the favor," I said. Surely a race who liked to be repaid favors would understand exactly who owed them.

  "True," he said. "It was Errol who requested it. But it was for you and that's a close enough affinity for me to make this small ask of you. You are benefiting from it, after all."

  "Way I see it," I countered. "I paid Errol. I'm still paying Errol everyday I don't turn him in to the police. Go see him to fetch your fairy goddess bones."

  His reaction to the word fairy made me think of a few less politically correct terms thrown about in the human world by some pretty bigoted folks I knew, and I realized I'd made a mistake. I might have wanted it to come out like a flippant quip but once a word like that is out it can't be retracted.
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br />   He stopped playing amiable.

  "I was going to tell you more," he said icily. "I was going to offer everything I had to help you. Not now. Now you will have to find it all out the hard way."

  I felt my feet shuffle backwards to the fridge. He hadn't made a single move toward me, but I felt as though he was pressing me back, cornering me. My lungs squeezed out their breath in a wheeze that made my throat hurt.

  He inclined his head ever so slightly toward me and I felt a rush of power emanating from him that might have moved my hair. I reached up to touch it and discovered it was still plastered against my head.

  I tasted blood again. Stronger this time. My hand flew to my mouth.

  "That's you, isn't it?" I whispered, knowing as soon as my fingers came away clean that the taste was something he was doing to me, that he was the reason blood had filled my mouth in the first place. Not memories of Scottie. Not biting my tongue.

  Him.

  He didn't answer; instead he asked me another question, one as strange as whether a glass in my real apartment broke at the same time as the fae one did.

  "Do you like things easy or hard?" he said.

  "What?" I said, running my fingers across my mouth to be sure the blood wasn't there.

  "Easy like the button at the office supply store," he said. "But you're not the easy type, it seems."

  He went all gray and blurry, the same smudgey sort of blur he'd arrived as, and I started to panic. He'd be gone and not have answered my question at all, and it seemed important.

  "The taste of blood in my mouth," I said again, afraid he'd disappear completely before I could get my answer. "Tell me; is that you?"

  "Did that happen?" he said as though he hadn't expected it. "You really are a strange human."

  And then the smudge merely evaporated as it walked back toward the sofa, and I was left alone.

  My knees felt like over-steeped teabags and I sank to the floor, my knees up to my chin.

  I had the sure feeling I'd dodged a bullet, and I wasn't entirely certain I was all the way out of its path.

  I sat there until the cat peeked out from the bedroom and, assuming I was on the floor to feed her, strolled out to curl in and out of the spaces between my legs.

  She mewled at me once or twice before I found the energy to roll onto all fours. I crawled over to the broom closet to lift out a bag of dry food and dumped it into her bowl.

  She bumped into my hand and the kibble sprayed across the floor.

  I took one look at the spray of kibble and noted it had fallen into what looked like a pair of wings, taunting me.

  I ran my hand through it and fisted a handful. Pebbles of it crunched in my fist.

  "I've never been easy," I said to the air, and I thought I heard a dry chuckle coming from someplace I couldn't pinpoint.

  The cat purred as she ate, and she stared at me over her bowl as though I planned to steal it.

  "Don't worry," I told her. "I'm not destitute enough yet to eat cat food."

  I pushed myself to my feet and pulled down my t-shirt. I was a big girl. Things needed to be done. No sense waiting around and feeling sorry for myself.

  I had an exhibit to catch. And now that I'd ticked off what I assumed was a very powerful fae, I'd best be on that exhibit like stink on herring.

  I dressed as hurriedly as I could, taking the greatest care with my make up and wig. I'd learned the art of contouring from a foster sister back before I'd cared enough to use makeup on myself and spent endless hours in front of a mirror as her model while she practiced changing my face shape.

  You don't spend that much time watching careful application and not pick up a few things. I knew I had a heart shaped face and I knew how to draw it out to give the illusion of it being longer. Fake eyelashes, a wad of highlight and contour, enough to make me feel like I was wearing a mask, gave my cheeks a sharp edge and my chin a longish angle.

  More than a modicum of smoky detail to the eyelids allowed me to stretch my infuriatingly wide-eyed innocent look into a sultry, almost Asian affect. I stuck a beauty spot to my cheek on the left side so that if I had to be identified, they'd pick out that detail along with the hair color.

  I applied a very expensive temp tattoo in the shape of a long-stemmed black rose right in the crevice of my cleavage so that the stem dipped toward my navel and the bloom circled the curve of my left breast, which itself was much plumped up by a sticky push up cup.

  I slipped in some expensive colored contacts Scottie had bought me back in the day and voila. Brown eyed Sue became green-eyed Ginger.

  If I wanted to be anonymous, I was going about it all wrong.

  But I didn't want anonymity.

  I wanted something akin to it, the next best thing, actually. One thing I knew from experience was that people's memories get foggy. Even three people seeing the exact same thing will have different memories of it, depending on where they focus.

  Perspective is everything.

  And I was counting on putting that focus where I wanted it.

  Since melting into the crowd would be impossible, I needed to exploit that small idiosyncrasy of the brain. As Isabella, I was plain and ordinary, but even plain and ordinary could get noticed under the right circumstances. A luscious redhead with a dozen other thing for folks to focus on except her face was a sure-fire way to distract and exploit people's memories.

  I wanted people to see and take note of all the wrong things.

  Of course, the cat hissed at me when I exited the bedroom and into the kitchen in my six-inch stilettos that went along with the slinky khaki colored dress. Most days, I would have scooped her up and petted her to calm her fears of stranger danger.

  This time, I stuck my tongue out at her and shooed her into the bedroom. I hadn't forgiven her just yet for her suck up to the fae warlord.

  As was my typical practice, I left the brownstone and walked four blocks before hailing an uber from my app.

  "This is fine," I told the driver when I saw the line up of impressive cars and queue of cabs. Valets were flipping keys and cabbies were spilling out three high class attendees at a time. I doubted anyone would notice one redhead in the mill of expensive RSVPs all dressed to the nines.

  I strolled to the queue confidently, pulled out my QR code 'invite' that should have sent the scanner to a barcode that would immediately blip me on the way it did for each person ahead of me.

  I was running my thumb along the back of it, trying to pick out the target of blackmail when I caught sight of an all-too familiar sandy head.

  Scottie.

  And he wasn't alone.

  He had muscle with him.

  A young lady that looked to be about fourteen at the maximum stood nearby, running her gaze along Scottie and his men with a certain kind of agitation. I wasn't surprised to see Scottie hale and healthy because the fae had told me as much. But I felt crushed to see him here, all the same, right when I had an important job on my agenda.

  The invite got all but crumpled in my clenched fist as I reacted despite my brain's fervent message to remain calm. He hadn't seen me yet. He might never see me. Not the real me, anyway.

  I started second guessing my disguise. I'd made a mistake. Scottie loved women. He wouldn't look twice at a mousey and unassuming woman but would find a way to introduce himself to a tall, barely dressed red-head. I could at least be grateful I'd worn khaki and not a more eye-catching black or red.

  I jerked my gaze toward my ex and then over to the teenaged girl. Her eyes flitted about anxiously. They never rested on a single thing long enough for me to worry about catching her eye and Scottie, following her gaze, to find me. But I felt my gorge rise at the way he crowded her as though she wasn't there at all, the way she quailed away from him when he got too close.

  It was that movement that told me all I needed to know: he was bullying her. He wanted her here and she wanted nothing to do with him.

  My heart ached for the poor thing.

  Scottie col
lected women of all ages the way a man collected antique coins or luxury cars. He didn't always take one out for a spin, but he knew they could be valuable if he held onto her long enough.

  As abhorrent as the thought of what he might be doing with that young girl, I was even more afraid of what he'd do if he caught sight of me. I knew I needed to melt into the crowd, and like, yesterday.

  I fumbled to pass the doorman my ticket when I felt a whisper of touch move along my bare arm.

  I spun around, terrified for a moment that Scottie had actually caught sight of me and sent an unseen thug to collect me.

  I came face to face with a set of eyes I'd not seen in weeks. He'd lost the man bun and his fox-colored hair was slicked back neatly behind his ears instead of his usual man-bun, but it was Maddox all the same.

  His suit was another Desmond Merrion, this time a burnished sort of grey.

  He looked incredible and terrifying in the same instant, because he was reason number two that my new heist was in jeopardy.

  "Hello, Kitten," he said.

  CHAPTER 6

  Maddox. My poor heart did a ridiculous flip flop at the sound of his voice. I'd met him in an alley after a bust heist, and I'd been full of blood and pepper spray. He turned out later to be the same cocky SOB in the pawn shop where I'd tried to divest myself of the wares from said botched heist. Later still, I discovered him to be the proprietor of the Shadow Bazaar. Gorgeous, arrogant, tall Maddox.

  I had to remind myself that this man dealt with supernaturals of all sorts, and by his own admission was not human. That should be enough for me to focus on the real reason I was here.

  Even so, standing in the cool breeze of the museum's circular drive, poised to get inside, for a fleeting moment, my sense of vanity stroked the ego that had me wearing a sexy dress and high heels.

  And then I realized one very important thing.