The Ghoul Vendetta

by Lisa Shearin

  It also didn’t help my nerves that my manager was a vampire. He reminded me of a really pale Anderson Cooper, which meant he was as cute as he could be, but that didn’t change the fact that humans were food and I was human. I knew I didn’t need to worry about that, but sometimes your lizard brain outvoted your logic.

  I didn’t know exactly how old Alain Moreau was, but I suspected he’d been around longer than America had been a country. The first time I’d found myself in trouble with the boss was when a shapeshifter had disguised itself as me to gain access to SPI headquarters and wreak havoc. My innocence had been proven by surveillance footage showing me and my evil twin at the same time, but in separate places in our headquarters compound—with one notable difference. The shapeshifter had copied the clothes I was wearing that day, but it didn’t replicate one important accessory—powdered sugar. It’d been the week before Christmas and I’d been eating cookies and wearing some of the powdered sugar they’d been rolled in.

  Saved by my sweet tooth.

  Before I’d been cleared of wrongdoing, I had been afraid of losing my job. I liked my job. Heck, now I loved it. I was good at it, and lives were saved as a result. There weren’t many places where you could get that kind of job satisfaction. Alain Moreau had assured me that my continued employment at SPI as well as my continued survival were important to the agency.

  All that being said, my vampire manager didn’t look happy. He didn’t look pissed, but he definitely wasn’t amused.

  He and Ian made a nicely matched set.

  And Alain Moreau was in charge of SPI for the next three weeks. Vivienne Sagadraco was taking her first vacation in over a century. Everyone needed time off, and a multi-millennia-old, fire-breathing dragon in charge of a worldwide supernatural protection organization needed it even more.

  The press was left cooling their heels outside of a very impressive police barrier. As guests finished giving their statements, they were escorted to where their cars and drivers waited to take them home.

  Rake had driven us himself in one of his cars, an older model Range Rover. It wasn’t what one would expect a rich spy master/sex club owner would tour about town in. Unfortunately, it was also parked outside of where the police had set up their no-media-allowed barricade. We’d have to walk right past Baxter Clayton to get there.

  I saw Rake’s eyes go from Baxter to his car and back again.

  I smiled sweetly. “Give you a lift?”

  Yasha had parked inside the police barrier.

  Rake glanced from Baxter to where Ian and Alain Moreau stood next to the Suburban, arms crossed over their chests, expressions set on disapproving scowl, and sighed.

  Ian and my vampire manager had just been declared the lesser evil.

  I linked my arm through his. “See? Now you don’t have to get a microphone shoved in your face. Your evening’s looking up.”

  “That’s open for debate.”

  4

  IF you wanted to kidnap a master vampire, you needed to break out the big guns.

  A kraken and a couple dozen swamp creatures had done the trick.

  “Sounds like they went a bit overboard,” Ian noted. “No pun intended.”

  “None taken,” I said. “Even though quite a few of us did go for a swim.”

  My partner definitely hadn’t made a pun, intentional or otherwise. He would have had to have been in a joking mood for that, and Ian Byrne most definitely was not in a joking mood. By now my hair had more or less dried, and so had my dress, but dry didn’t get rid of the eau du river aroma I was presently wafting in all directions.

  “This is getting to be a habit,” Ian noted, glancing over to where Rake was “answering a few final questions” from the police, that were neither few nor probably final.

  “Hey, ninety-five percent of our dates haven’t had the police involved,” I reminded him, “and none of them were Rake’s fault.”

  “He just happens to be places where all hell breaks loose.”

  I gave my partner an arch look. “May I remind you that two of those three times, you were there as well?”

  The first time was my and Rake’s first date. By what was an authentic coincidence, Ian and Kylie O’Hara, SPI’s director of media and public relations, were at the same restaurant, having their first date as well. Needless to say, that arrangement was awkward. Then the occasion took a hop, skip, and a jump from awkward to downright bizarre as a man there for a business lunch had a drug-induced freak-out and was suddenly able to see every supernatural being in the restaurant. The situation went to Hades in a handbasket from there, ending with the restaurant burning to the ground.

  The second time involved a gang of drunk teenage werewolves who decided that their wolf cousins at the Bronx Zoo needed to be set free. Their attempted jailbreak had unfortunately coincided with the zoo’s largest annual fundraising event. I’d been there with Rake. Ian had been there with Kylie. Chaos happened.

  “Best of all, we didn’t have to lie,” I told Ian. “We just left out the little details the police wouldn’t believe anyway. That kind of honesty will get you sedated and sent to the hospital for psych evaluation. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson, ‘They can’t handle the truth.’”

  A few of the police on the scene had recognized Ian from his time on the force. He’d honestly answered their questions about how he had been and where he was working—he was doing great, and was working for a private security firm. All were true, while not being the whole truth.

  A few minutes later, Rake made his way over to us, looking neither left nor right, not rushing but not dragging his feet, either. The press had spotted him and were shouting to get his attention. My date was a center of near-Zen calm as he pretended that none of them existed, especially Baxter Clayton. All I can say is that it was a good thing there was a police-guarded barricade or Rake would have been mobbed, and that would not have ended well. Goblins were rather like cats: neat, fastidious, mostly aloof, with an intense dislike of being dunked in water. If you did anything to them that they considered to be degrading or annoying, you’d better prepare to be shredded.

  Rake Danescu was wet, his tuxedo was likely ruined, and though his expression was carefully blank, I knew that inside he made Grumpy Cat look like a cheerleader. But when he got close enough to us, he did at least acknowledge Ian.

  The goblin inclined his head. “Ian.”

  “Rake.”

  There was no handshake, and definitely no bro hug, but no one ended up injured and requiring hospitalization. Considering how Ian and Rake felt about each other, the use of a first-name greeting rather than fists meant they were starting to get downright friendly.

  Rake repeated the gesture to Moreau. “Alain.”

  “Lord Danescu.”

  The use of Rake’s goblin court title didn’t indicate dislike, at least not necessarily, but instead was due to Alain Moreau being many centuries old and French. Moreau’s body was undead, but not his sense of etiquette. Those same exquisite manners helped smooth over the next awkwardness.

  “May we drive you home?” Moreau asked Rake.

  The goblin glanced to his Land Rover and the swarm of media types that were smack-dab in between. A growl vibrated low in Rake’s chest. “Yes, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  “None at all, I assure you.”

  It would also give Moreau the benefit of time to get the answers to his questions. Rake knew it, he didn’t like it, but like I said: lesser of two evils.

  Yasha was driving, Moreau was in the front passenger seat, Rake and me were in the middle seats, with Ian right behind us on the third row. I had no doubt Ian arranged it that way to make Rake uncomfortable. If it did bother Rake, he gave no sign.

  Rake and I told them everything that happened—and what the police had been told.

  “At least that’s the story everyone seemed to be going wit
h,” I ended.

  “Your professional opinion?” Moreau asked.

  “As a seer, everything was exactly what it looked like, even though I didn’t know what they were.”

  “The Creatures from the Black Lagoon?” Yasha asked.

  “Those were the ones.”

  My Russian werewolf friend loved classic horror movies—and classic musicals. I caught a flash of a grin in the rearview mirror with a nod that said “cool” loud and clear.

  “I’ll have the archivists pull everything we have that is bipedal and aquatic,” Moreau said.

  “That kraken was aquatic,” I told him, “but it certainly wasn’t bipedal.”

  “Are you sure it was a kraken?” Ian asked.

  “Uh, a tentacle the size of a power pole?”

  “It was a kraken,” Rake said from beside me. “In my world we have a similar creature. However, that creature would not have stopped once it began attacking a ship. It would drag it under, crushing it, then consume anything edible that tried to escape from the wreckage, or any bodies that floated away. The one we encountered tonight not only ceased its attack, but seemed to stop on command.”

  “Did you sense a mage in the area?” Moreau asked.

  Rake shook his head. “Other than those who were guests on the Persephone using their magic to defend themselves, no.”

  “So we’ve got kidnappers out of a bad horror movie—” Ian began.

  “Creature from the Black Lagoon is classic,” Yasha objected.

  “Excuse me, kidnappers out of a campy, cult horror classic, who grabbed the nephew of the head of the most powerful vampire family on the East Coast, using a kraken that was trained like an attack dog.”

  I nodded. “That pretty much covers it. Though that seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a kidnapping. Wouldn’t there be an easier way to get Bela Báthory?”

  “His uncle, Ambrus, is notoriously private,” Moreau said, “and seldom leaves his family compound on Long Island. When he does leave, he’s surrounded by enough security to make it impossible to even get close to him, let alone abduct him.”

  “Unless you have a trained kraken at your disposal, who plays fetch with a hundred-and-fifty-foot yacht,” I noted. “Whoever has him, they went to a lot of trouble. The next question is why.”

  Alain Moreau almost snorted, but it sounded elegant coming from him. “That list is as long as Ambrus Báthory’s life, Agent Fraser. One of his family’s many enemies is very happy tonight.”

  5

  WE dropped Rake off at one of the buildings he owned in Lower Manhattan where he conveniently kept a car in its parking deck. I guess free parking was one of the perks of owning real estate in New York. Then Yasha drove to my apartment in the East Village, and Ian insisted on walking me up the stairs to the fifth floor.

  I didn’t say a word to try to change his mind. Ian hadn’t been there to protect me tonight and it was bothering him. I think it bothered him even more than Rake being there instead of him. My partner and I had had the talk more than once about me being a big girl who could take care of herself against the Big Bad Wolf that was Rake Danescu. I think deep down, Ian believed me when I said that, but he also believed that when it came to keeping me safe against who or whatever had been responsible for the deaths of three of SPI’s seers, he could do a better job than even a goblin dark mage.

  When we’d slammed that Hellgate and unfortunately turned Bacchanalia into a crumbled crater cookie, Ian and Rake had made a great team.

  I thought it prudent to keep that opinion to myself. One of these days (or years) they’d either come to the same conclusion or kill each other, but I’d let them figure it out on their own.

  I unlocked my door, then stepped aside so Ian could do his thing, which was to thoroughly check my apartment to ensure that no one or nothing was there, had been there, or would stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being there.

  While Ian conducted his security ritual, I stood beside the now closed and locked door and waited for him to finish.

  The same elf dark mage who’d opened the Hellgate had planted demon eggs in my apartment’s ductwork that had subsequently hatched and would have attacked and eaten me in my sleep. Ian and I had eradicated the infestation using an assortment of weapons including guns, a machete, a baseball bat, and a can of Raid.

  Yeah, there’d been quite a mess to clean up.

  After that I’d given serious consideration to finding another place to live. Rake had offered me a rent-free apartment in his building on Central Park West, with no strings or obligations of any kind attached. I’d thought about it, but ultimately had turned him down. Call me old-fashioned, but I simply couldn’t do it. Besides, this was my home, and I wasn’t going to let an elf dark mage’s baby demon minions run me out of it, even if it had meant sleeping with a small armory around my bed for the first few months.

  And it had.

  “All clear?” I asked Ian when he finished his patrol. It hadn’t taken long; it wasn’t like there was a lot of area to check out.

  “All clear.”

  Neither of us had really expected any different. In addition to paying for the repairs, Vivienne Sagadraco had two of the agency’s mages put down a serious layering of wards and spells that would not only keep anyone or anything out, they’d also let me know if anyone had tried. So far, so good.

  But Ian hadn’t been on the Persephone tonight to do his guard thing, so I let him do it now by checking my apartment.

  “They weren’t after me,” I said quietly.

  “That’s not the point. You could’ve just as easily been collateral damage.”

  “I, or anyone else in this city, could be collateral damage by a cab jumping the curb.”

  “You aren’t anyone else.”

  Rake had told me the same thing once, when he was trying to convince me that he wanted me for me, not some ulterior motive involving me being a talented seer. I had believed it from Rake then, and I believed it from Ian now. I also knew what was coming next.

  “Rake shouldn’t have taken you there. It wasn’t safe.”

  “Because of a kraken. It’s not like anyone could’ve predicted that.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I did. We’d also discussed it before. Though “discussed” made it seem like we’d reached some sort of an agreement. We hadn’t.

  “It was on Bela Báthory’s yacht,” Ian said.

  Now we were getting to the real reason.

  “Báthory has security out the wazoo,” I reminded him, even though Ian knew that only too well.

  “That’s not the point,” Ian said.

  “He invited some of the most influential people in the city to his little soiree,” I said. “It wouldn’t be in his best interests to let anything happen to any of them.”

  “Getting that many wealthy people together in one place creates a target.”

  Time to cut to the chase. “And as long as I’m seeing a wealthy man, I’ll be a target.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Silence.

  Yasha and Alain Moreau were waiting downstairs. Ian couldn’t stay much longer and he knew it. I didn’t want to leave this unresolved. It was Friday night. I wouldn’t see Ian again until Monday morning. I didn’t want this to fester. Whether you’re married or just work partners: never go to bed angry.

  “Ian, I took good care of myself tonight. I nailed two of those fish guys right through their beady yellow eyes. Unfortunately, it didn’t kill them, but that doesn’t change the fact that I made killing shots, under pressure, while keeping my balance on a deck being tilted by a kraken.” I gave my partner a little smile. “Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. And it was you who taught me all of that.” I broadened the smile. “Good job, partner.”

  Ia
n’s breath went out of him in a rush and he nodded tightly. He still didn’t like the circumstances behind what had happened tonight, but what I’d just said had made him feel better.

  It wasn’t a resolution, but it was one more step in the right direction.

  6

  IT started out as a typical Monday morning in the office. It’s amazing how quickly things can go to crap.

  In the U.S., it’s not in the least bit unusual to flip to any of the cable news channels at any time of the day or night and be able to watch a crime or disaster live as it’s happening. Unfortunately, that was becoming the new normal, a normal that didn’t make anyone look twice or think much about what they were seeing, let alone surprise or shock them.

  This morning’s crime du jour was different. Oh boy, was it different.

  A gang of ghouls had robbed a bank last night. We knew about it because the security footage was being played live on CNN.

  The anchor was amazed at how realistic the robbers’ makeup looked.

  I wasn’t.

  With that, I knew the Báthory kidnapping had just been booted from the top spot on our caseload. The bank that’d been hit wasn’t just any bank. Their customers were the cream on top of the one percent, and a lot of that cream was supernatural.

  The ghouls had been caught on the bank’s surveillance cameras; though saying they had been caught would imply that they’d tried to hide. They hadn’t.

  I, for one, really wished they would’ve made the effort.

  I recognized the gang’s leader as the same creature who had nearly killed Ian on two occasions. The first time had been five years ago when Ian and his then NYPD partner had responded to a robbery. The leader had killed and eaten Ian’s partner, and had put Ian in the hospital for a month. The most recent attempt had been two years ago in a subway tunnel below Times Square on New Year’s Eve.