Blood Knot

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  Winter’s silky white blouse was thin to the point of transparency and as soft as a kiss against her skin. The suit jacket and skirt were black pinstripe, but that was the last conservative thing about them. Their cut and style screamed chic and sexy and the heels of her court shoes were higher than any she had seen in the building so far.

  Her blonde hair curled at the edge of her collar and framed her face in a sleek bob that still managed to be feminine and business-like at the same time.

  She had spent ninety minutes pouring over the laptop in front of her, managing to look frantically busy while the food court emptied out and the clock moved around to seven p.m. and Sebastian plied her with coffee from the Starbucks vendor in the corner.

  Most of the food vendors had shut up shop a long time ago. Now there were only one or two plying their trade, including the Starbucks store.

  Winter glanced at the time on her laptop. “Time to go,” she said and logged off.

  “Time to see if those passes work,” Sebastian said, standing up.

  “Of course they work. They’re the real thing.” She folded up the laptop and slid it into her briefcase. “And I went to a lot of trouble stealing them.”

  “I know, I watched you.” He grinned. “It took you a whole twenty seconds per mark.”

  The walk from the food market to the Flatiron building took mere minutes, for the market was the one where many of the workers from the Flatiron went for their meal breaks, including Patty Williams and Greg Everson, two of the junior lawyers working for Rolland, Gold, Pritchard and Grant. Patty Williams happened to be a svelte blonde and Greg Everson a tall dark-haired green-eyed barrister who spent more time around Patty Williams than was natural.

  Tonight, the real Patty and Greg were enjoying front row seats at the late Knicks game, that Greg had found on his desk from a grateful client. But that was after Winter had lifted their building and office security passes from them when they had been sitting eating a quick dinner in the food hall, an hour ago.

  Then Winter had disappeared into the Ladies washroom and re-emerged thirty minutes later a blonde, close replica of Patty Williams, and settled at the table opposite Sebastian, now a dark-haired substitute for Greg Everson, and handed him Everson’s passes.

  They walked into the foyer of the building, Winter carrying her coffee cup and briefcase in plain view, and both of them laughing and talking, their gazes on each other’s faces. They wandered over to the security scanner and Winter dropped her briefcase onto the sliding belt, still chatting about the case she was working on, and what a bitch the discovery phase was going to be.

  Both of them unclipped their passes and flashed them at the bored guard, who nodded as they stepped through the scanner one at a time.

  Winter picked up her briefcase from the conveyor belt and they headed for the elevator, still chatting.

  It was quiet in the building and no one stood waiting for an elevator, so when Sebastian pressed the button to call for a car, the doors immediately opened.

  They stepped inside and the doors shut, and Winter took a breath, falling silent. Sebastian pulled out his security pass and slid it into the slot above the floor keys and pressed the button for the second-last floor.

  It obligingly lit up and the elevator moved into gear.

  Conscious of the security camera in the corner of the car, Winter didn’t look at Sebastian. They were in their roles now. Instead, she sipped her coffee.

  The doors opened on their floor and they stepped out, almost running into a cleaning cart piled high with mops, brooms and cleaning supplies. Winter yipped in surprise, jostling her coffee cup.

  The cleaner was vacuuming the carpet, his back to them, his hips moving in a steady hip-hop beat in time to silent music.

  Winter’s little sound of shock brought a security guard out from the little office next to the elevator.

  Sebastian tapped the cleaner on the shoulder. “Hello?”

  The cleaner straightened up and pulled an earbud from his ear. He had long, greasy hair that hung in clumps, halfway down his back, and hanging in his eyes despite a dirty red bandana tied around his forehead to hold it back. Three days’ worth of beard shadowed his cheeks and chin. He wore a black tank top underneath a pair of wildly over-sized and filthy coveralls and steel-toed work boots that had seen more than their fair share of use and abuse. The steel was gleaming in one or two places on the toes, where the leather had worn away or peeled back and the heels were run down.

  He looked at Sebastian with bored, black eyes. “Man?”

  “Think you can move the cart a little further over? We nearly ran into it when we stepped off the elevator.”

  “Sure, man. Whatever.” He shrugged and dropped the vacuum hose, which was still running, and pushed the cart a few inches further down the corridor and a smidgen closer to the wall.

  Then he picked up the vacuum again without waiting to see if Sebastian approved, turned his back and started vacuuming.

  Sebastian, staying in character for the security guard’s sake, turned to Winter. “He has to be new. I’m going to talk to Randy in the morning. The insolence!”

  “The cart is just plain dangerous, parked there,” she added, playing along. She leaned closer. “And did you get a whiff of him? He smells like he hasn’t showered in a month!”

  Sebastian nodded and looked at his watch. “Anyway, if I’m going to get home at all tonight, I gotta go do some of that work thing.”

  “Me, too,” she agreed. “Thanks for the coffee!”

  They each turned and headed in opposite directions down the corridor, Winter sidling past the oblivious cleaner. As she turned the corner to head for Patty William’s office, she saw that the guard had returned to his rabbit-hole, satisfied that they were simply returning to their offices to work back for the night.

  There were still a few offices showing lights through the opaque door glass as she passed them. Murmured telephone conversations. Rolland, Gold was still a busy place even at seven-thirty.

  Winter used the security pass to open Patty’s office door and let herself in. She didn’t put on a light and she locked the door behind her. Instead, she sat down in Patty’s chair to wait—the hardest part of any job—and watch the minute hand of her watch sweep around the dial two and a half times.

  The offices of Rolland, Gold emptied out over those one hundred and fifty minutes, which was exactly what they had been planning on. Winter listened to the corridors quieten and the lights dim through the glass panes at the top of Patty’s office walls as office lights were turned off and the corridor lights were turned down for the night.

  At nine forty-five Winter stepped out of the office, moving casually like she had every right to be there. She still carried the briefcase, although she had left the coffee cup in Patty’s wastebasket.

  She moved in the opposite direction to the one she had taken to arrive. The offices were laid in a great triangle around the outside of the floor, with amenities in the middle, including the elevator shafts, and the senior partners were closer to the apex of the triangle. Duke Rolland himself had the famous pointed office.

  By heading in the opposite direction, Winter would eventually end up back at the elevators, but she would walk past the senior partner offices—including Greg Everson’s—and the vault room to do so.

  There was a guard floating along the corridor when Winter turned the final corner. She flattened out her spike of adrenaline and took a calming breath. She kept her stride even and painted a small smile on her face. “Evening,” she said as she drew closer.

  The guard frowned a little. “Ms. Williams. I thought you were catching the Knicks tonight?”

  “I was going to. Those tickets of Greg’s were hard to pass up. Front row! But this case of mine is driving me into the ground.”

  Five feet away. She stuck out her hand, as if she wanted to shake his. “You have a great evening now,” she told him.

  The response was automatic. He thrust his hand into he
rs, even as he was puzzling through the inconsistencies in her appearance, her words.

  But it was too late. Winter rammed endorphins through his system and he smiled at her. “I’ll have a great evening, for sure!” he told her, beaming.

  She leaned forward, flashing cleavage. “Hey, Teddy, do you want to step inside here, just for a minute?” She reached out with her other hand, the one holding the briefcase, and pressed down on the lever door handle, to open the door on the small anteroom to the vault. “It’ll be so worth it,” she crooned.

  “Sure,” Teddy said, drooling.

  She tugged him into the room and he stumbled after her, as she adjusted his arousal levels, building his lust so that all he could think about was sex.

  As the door closed behind them, Teddy grabbed her and rammed her face-first up against the wall, making her drop the briefcase and winding her. “Gotta have you,” he muttered. He squeezed her ass and tried to reach her breasts except that she was mashed up against the wall so hard he couldn’t get to them.

  So he fumbled at the hem of her skirt, yanking it upwards.

  He was no longer directly touching her. Winter couldn’t adjust his biology. Couldn’t bring down his runaway sexual urge. She tried to push away from the wall, to get some leverage, but he shoved her back, too quickly for her to reach inside him.

  She glanced to her right. The vault door was within reach. She could lay her hand on the cold metal. But it wasn’t going to do her any good right now.

  Teddy’s hand grabbed the back of her thigh under her skirt and pinched. Winter yelped and shoved back. It forced Teddy backwards a staggering step or two, enough for her to turn and face him.

  He was smiling. “Yeah, fight me,” he begged. “I like it that way.” Clearly, the endorphins were wearing off. He was coming down from his natural high, but the challenge of taking her was still planted in his mind.

  Winter had to get him close enough to touch him again.

  The door to the tiny room opened and Martie Shakeel stepped in. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  Winter hid her shock. Where was Sebastian? It had been his role to monitor Shakeel and warn her if the man headed in her direction. Something had gone wrong.

  Teddy glanced at Shakeel. “Fuck off,” he said curtly. “I’ve got this one.” He brought his gaze back to Winter and licked his lips.

  Shakeel’s eyes widened. “You’re crazy, Teddy. You fuck her on the premises, Williams will sue your ass to Purgatory and back.”

  “At least,” Winter said coolly, as facts connected together. Teddy and Shakeel were date rape buddies.

  Teddy unfastened his trousers, the heavy belt and accessories and keys hanging off it jingling. “Don’t care,” he growled, watching her. “Why don’t you keep her quiet for me? She fights too hard and I don’t have stuff on me.”

  “I don’t have time to stand around watching you slide your prick into some blonde bitch,” Shakeel snapped. “Tie her down for all I care.” He turned back to the door, which opened again, making him step back.

  The cleaner with the long hair stood framed in the doorway, a mop in his hands. He looked around, a frown between his brows, clearly trying to puzzle out what was going on.

  “Help me!” Winter said instantly, and tried to move between Shakeel and Teddy toward the door.

  Shakeel shoved her back. “Turn around and leave, if you know what’s good for you,” he told the cleaner. “Now.”

  The cleaner hesitated, looking from Winter with her disheveled clothing, to Teddy with his open trousers, to Shakeel.

  “You’ve got ten seconds,” Shakeel warned.

  The cleaner blinked at him. “You’ve got five.” He broke the handle of the mop over his knee, used the broken off handle like a blackjack on the back of Teddy’s skull, and dropped him to the floor, unconscious.

  Even as the cleaner was moving, Winter reached for Shakeel’s hand and shot his system full of every relaxing and happy juice his body could produce, countering the adrenaline and the arousal she found there. Shakeel relaxed, his eyes taking on a sleepy look.

  Nial dropped the mop handle, pushed Teddy’s legs back into the room and shut the door. It was a squeeze, for the room simply wasn’t that big.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Winter told him.

  Nial pulled off the bandana and the wig. “Yes, I did,” he said flatly.

  “Now he’ll have a headache we can’t explain away.”

  “Oh well.” He shrugged and ran his fingers through his hair and looked at Shakeel. “Bet he has some of his funny juice on him.”

  “What happened to Sebastian?” Winter patted Shakeel’s jacket pockets, looking for an auto-injector pen.

  “I’m not sure yet. I heard your yelp and came running when Sebastian didn’t.” Nial stripped the oversized coveralls off. Underneath, he wore black trousers and the tank top. He dumped the heavy boots, unrolled rubber slips-on and put them on.

  Shakeel watched and listened with a placid, dreamy expression on his face.

  Winter found a cigar box in his inner pocket and pulled it out. “Look at this,” she said, opening it. There were two injector pens inside. “One’s empty.”

  “Sebastian.” Nial grimaced. He looked at Shakeel. “Did you use the pen on Greg Everson?”

  “The guy who was pretending to be Greg? Sure,” Shakeel said. “Fucker was up to no good.” He said it with a dreamy lilt in his voice.

  Nial sighed. “Where did you leave him?”

  “In the office where I found him. Security can deal with him.” He sounded completely indifferent and vaguely tired.

  Winter adjusted his hormone levels, making him more alert. It wouldn’t do for him to drop off to sleep right now. He straightened up.

  Nial was frowning. “Will he take my suggestions, or only yours?” he asked her.

  “Yours, but only for a few minutes until his levels adjust back to normal,” she said. “You want me to go find Sebastian and rouse him?”

  He nodded. “I’ll get Shakeel here to open the vault for us. I’ll grab the memory stick, meet you at Greg’s office.”

  “Oooh, but the memory stick isn’t in the vault,” Shakeel said, sounding jovial.

  They both looked at him, startled.

  Shakeel was grinning, like he had a delicious secret to share.

  Winter pushed her face into a smile. “Really?” she said. “Do tell!” She nudged his endorphins up a little more. The man was getting high on his own hormones. Clearly, he wasn’t used to be simply happy. It said a lot for his life.

  He put a finger to his lips and giggled. “I’ve seen it. Ol’ Ducky Rolland himself has it. In his desk, can you believe it? Biggest piece of evidence of the twenty-first century. Crafty bastard.”

  Nial was smiling. “I bet it’s in amongst a bunch of other memory sticks, right? Protective coloring. Martie, my man, you’re smart to have figured it out.” He let admiration color his tone.

  Shakeel swelled with pride. “I know!” he said simply. “I saw it there. Recognized it straight away.”

  “What were you doing rooting around in the senior partner’s desk drawer, Martie?” Winter teased.

  “I take women there,” Shakeel said, smiling with the same distant smile. “Fuck ‘em on his desk. They get a kick out of the corner office.”

  “And you didn’t take the memory stick, Martie?” Nial asked.

  “Couldn’t figure out a way to use it yet,” Shakeel said wistfully. “But I’m working on it. Vampires…who knew? And the Speaker! It’ll blow the roof off the White House.”

  “Who, indeed,” Nial murmured. He looked at Winter.

  She desperately wanted to let go of Shakeel’s hand and wipe hers on her skirt. But the longer she controlled his biology, the longer it gave Nial when they parted.

  Nial grabbed Shakeel’s arm. “How about you show me where the memory stick is, Martie? Show me how clever you were finding it the first time?”

  “Sure…” Shake
el said.

  Winter handed Nial the injector pen, then bent to touch Teddy’s ankle and wipe his memories as Nial led Shakeel from the room.

  She picked up her briefcase and shut the door on the sleeping Teddy, knowing he would wake puzzled and with a sore head, wondering why his trousers were undone. It would be enough to keep him quiet about the strange circumstances, especially as he was a mate of Shakeel’s.

  She hurried to Greg Everson’s office and forced her way past the locked door.

  Sebastian was sprawled in the executive chair, his arms hanging over the sides. The black wig lay on the floor beside him. His eyes were closed, but she knew he could hear her. He was still conscious.

  “It’s me,” she murmured, touching his cheek. “I’m fine. Nial came instead.”

  His breath escaped in a rush.

  “Now to get this crap out of your system,” she told him, ripping his shirt open and placing her hand over his heart and the other against his neck. “I’m going to do this fast, so it might be a bit uncomfortable.”

  She reached inside and found the same ugly unnatural amino acids and long protein chains as before. Now she was familiar with them and went to work tearing them apart with a vengeance.

  Sebastian groaned.

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “On the positive side, you’re not going to be thirsty for a day or so.”

  “Nial…?” Sebastian muttered thickly.

  “He took Shakeel to get the memory stick. It wasn’t where we thought it was.”

  The chain reaction was underway now, but still she shepherded it, speeding it on its way by spiking Sebastian’s metabolism. Sebastian groaned again. She winced, wanting to apologize for a second time. But there was no help for it. “I have to get you on your feet fast,” she explained.

  His hand came up and gripped her shoulder. “Deserve it,” he said.

  “Probably,” she agreed.

  He tried to laugh but it emerged as a weak cough. His eyes blinked open. “Feels like Singapore. Sort of.”