by Claire Luana
I let out an audible growl and the guy next to me scurried down the train car. Damn it, Kiki.
I let my forehead rest against my hand. She was right. I had what I’d been looking for—the truth about Dad’s death. It just wasn’t the truth I’d expected. Instead, it was proof that there was nothing to find. Maybe it was time to start picking up the broken pieces of what life I had left, rather than diving deeper down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and wild suspicion.
I didn’t relish the conversation I’d need to have with the med school dean.
I made it back to the apartment a little before noon.
Kiki emerged from her room, which we called the “Keek-Cave,” as it was piled high with computer monitors, external drives, and a million blinky lights I couldn’t even begin to understand. “You okay?” she asked.
No. I nodded, though. “Sure.”
“Nearly time for you to go get your purse. Want me to come with?”
I shook my head. I didn’t think I could manage small talk, even with a best friend. I also really didn’t feel like getting back on the subway. “Can I borrow your phone to call an Uber? I’ll pay you back.”
“Of course.” She pulled her phone from her back pocket, handed it to me, and disappeared back into her cave.
I was halfway through calling my ride when a text popped up. I read it before I could help it. It was from a contact labeled as “K.”
Vizol didn’t want her involved.
The breath whooshed from my lungs. What the hell was this? Why was she talking about my dad with someone named K? I spun around so my back was to Kiki’s doorway and quickly tapped the text to take me to the prior messages. I hastily remembered to raise my mental shields how Kiki had taught me, shielding my thoughts from her.
The text chain appeared on the screen. It was only four texts, all from the last few hours.
Kiki: I gave it to her.
K: Good.
Kiki: I feel bad. Doesn’t she deserve the truth?
K: Vizol didn’t want her involved.
My hands shaking, I quickly tapped on K’s contact information and memorized the number. Then I closed out of the texts and called my Uber. I dropped Kiki’s phone on her desk beside her. “All done. I’m going to wait downstairs.”
She was already absorbed in her screens. “’K. Bye.”
I hurried to the entryway table and wrote down the number on a slip of paper before I forgot it.
What the fuck was going on?
In the Uber I ran through the messages in my head, trying on different interpretations. Scenarios where Kiki hadn’t just horribly betrayed me with some mystery person who’d known my dad. I kept coming back to one explanation. “I gave it to her” could only mean the report. “Doesn’t she deserve the truth?” could only mean that the report Kiki had given me had been a fake. Or doctored somehow. Otherwise, she’d have been giving me the truth when she handed it over. And Vizol didn’t want her involved… well, I didn’t know what the hell that meant because Dad couldn’t have been involved in the coverup of his own murder, could he have?
Adrenaline sang through my veins. I felt more alive and alert than I had in a long time.
Vindication tasted good.
I’d been right.
What I didn’t know was what the hell I was going to do about it. Kiki wouldn’t just admit that she’d lied and given me a fake report, right? I needed to find a way to catch her in her deception. Something more than the text messages.
The Uber driver, a young Ethiopian guy named Mehari, waited for me while I ran into the EMS station and retrieved my purse. I didn’t get any particularly weird looks from the bored receptionist when she handed over my purse, which told me either she hadn’t fished around in it, or she didn’t know an illegal card duplicator when she saw one. Fine by me.
I pulled out the UN keycard with my face on it. I’d forgotten about it after Kiki had agreed to give me the report, but maybe it would come in handy after all. If I could get the real version of the report and prove that what Kiki had given me was fake, I’d have the evidence I needed to confront her and find out what had really happened to Dad.
Settled on a course of action, I relaxed back into the seat.
Until we got to the intersection just before my apartment, and I saw Kiki trotting down the stairs and into the back seat of a black car.
I surged forward between the front seats, pointing. “Follow that car!”
Mehari shot me an incredulous look. “This isn’t a cab, lady. You have to book through the app.”
I grumbled, fishing in my purse and pulling out some of Martin’s cash. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you follow that car. Off the record.”
He blew out a sigh but took the money, sliding the car into gear. “You get half an hour, then you’re out wherever we end up.”
“I can live with that.”
I wasn’t sure what type of clandestine meetup I’d been expecting, but a trip to the park was not it. We followed Kiki’s car across the Queensboro bridge, circled back around, and took the small Roosevelt Bridge onto Roosevelt Island, a long narrow strip of land between Long Island and Manhattan. At the very tip of the island was a triangular park called Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park (a mouthful, I know), which was where Kiki’s car dropped her off.
Puzzled, and slightly irked that I’d just paid $100 bucks for a ten-minute ride, I hopped out and followed at a distance.
Kiki had never mentioned this park before. What was she doing here? Meeting someone? K, perhaps?
I’d never actually been to this park, either, despite living in New York most of my life. The tree-lined thoroughfare gave way to a stone monument at the tip of the island, and that was where Kiki was headed. I ogled the breathtaking skyline while trying to keep far enough back so she wouldn’t see me.
Opening my glands wide, I took in her scent of coffee and coconut shampoo. It would be easier for me to track her at a distance this way.
I lingered behind the last tree before the open stone monument, as there was nowhere to hide from her if I continued. There were a few folks looking at the monument today, but they strolled back my way before too long. Kiki took a little set of steps leading down to the end of the island and stood there, looking out into the East River.
And then she disappeared.
I blinked twice. A third time. Flared my nostrils. But her smell was only a faint memory. She was gone.
What the fuck?
I jogged forward, no longer caring if she popped out from somewhere and caught me. Where had she gone?
My steps stilled at the spot where she’d disappeared. Her scent was stronger—she’d definitely been here. And she was definitely not here now. I peered over the edge into the water. Had she jumped? Gone for a swim? That made no sense. Kiki didn’t even like hot tubs.
There was definitely something fishy going on here. Something I didn’t understand, and Kiki was in on it. I turned on my heel and walked back towards the trees, settling down on the ground, my back to a hard trunk.
I was looking for answers. And there were answers here to be found. I could feel it. So I would wait.
In the meantime, I couldn’t help but gaze at the United Nations tower, glittering like a shining jewel in the afternoon sun. It was directly across the channel from here. Could that be a coincidence?
I used to love coming to visit Dad at work when I was younger. The whole city was like some alien world, and within it, the MASC offices felt like home. Filled with supes of all shapes and sizes, Auntie warned me not to stare half a dozen times before she simply gave up.
I could just make out the statue in the center of the courtyard from here. It depicted the moment that everything had changed. The Lupine Offensive. When a pack of French wolf shifters had saved an Allied battalion pinned down by enemy fire. The day the world had learned that supernatural creatures existed.
After World War Two, in those brief shining months when the world had
resolved to find a better way and had still been naive to all the conflicts to come, the United Nations Charter had been signed, together with the Treaty, officially recognizing supes.
MASC had been created as a division of the UN, and over the next decades, supes had started feeling safe to come out of the shadows. Wanting recognition and the benefits it brought—employment, security, access to financing and resources. There were currently six hundred and twelve recognized races of supernatural creatures. And that number grew every year. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was still miraculous as fuck. I knew I was lucky to live in a time where I could walk through New York City without hiding what I was.
My thoughts were interrupted as a figure appeared at the end of the island—right where Kiki had disappeared.
But it wasn’t Kiki.
It was a man.
I breathed in deeply. He smelled like the space between—night air and the nothingness of fresh snow. This man was like a black hole for my senses. No heat signature. There, but not there. I took pride in my tolerance of the diversity of all forms of supernatural life, but I couldn’t help the thought that darted through my mind, bright as a comet. Unnatural.
This man was a vampire.
5
I pretended to be fiddling with my phone as he stalked past where I sat, his gait graceful as a jungle cat.
It took every ounce of effort not to examine him as he walked by, to keep my eyes fixed on my phone. His beauty was breathtaking—sandy-blond hair pulled back in a tight knot at the nape of his neck, sky-blue eyes framed by slanting blond brows, an aquiline nose, square jaw, and dimple in his chin—just a few of the gifts he was graced with. He was well over six feet tall and built of lean, roping muscle, and though he was dressed in dark jeans, a white collared shirt, and a charcoal sports jacket, my animal senses had no problem identifying him for what he was.
Dangerous. Predator. My snake sense withdrew, even as my human side was fascinated. Drawn like a moth to a flame. Vampires had that effect on people.
Could this be the person Kiki was texting? Did this man know my dad somehow? I shoved to my feet, watching him as he walked away.
Only one way to find out.
I pulled the scrap of paper with the phone number out of my pocket and ducked behind the trunk of the closest tree. I turned my call blocking on and tapped in the number, biting my lip as it rang.
As I watched him break his stride and pull a cell phone out of his pocket.
Holy shit.
“Hello?” His voice was a deep baritone. “Who is this?”
I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, first one, then the other. Damn, this was more nerve-racking than prank calling our history teacher in fourth grade. “I’m looking for Kiki.”
Pause. “Wrong number.” He had a hint of an accent. I couldn’t place it. I needed to keep him talking. To find out something more about him. He was still moving in the distance, and I started to follow. I could track him on scent alone, or rather, lack of scent, but I wanted to keep him in sight.
“I have a job I need done.”
“What kind of job?”
I was freewheeling into space here. But I figured this guy fell into one of two categories. Either he was government, like Dad had been, or he was a bad guy. I needed to know which. “I need…some intel from a high-level government target.”
“Not exactly what we do.”
“What is it you do then? I have a number of jobs I need completed, and I’m looking for…some special talent.” I hardly recognized the bullshit coming out of my mouth, but I needed to get the guy talking. Anything. I needed a clue.
“We don’t take third-party solicitation. Don’t call this number again.” The line went dead.
I frowned at my phone. His accent seemed European. German perhaps? Or Dutch?
Well, I hadn’t learned much from the phone call, but I knew this was the right guy at least. Maybe he would lead me to my next clue.
I looked up and found him gone.
Damn it!
Shoving my phone in my back pocket, I trotted ahead, past a derelict stone building corralled behind a chain link fence. Where’d he gone?
I sniffed the air for his scent of starlight and black space. Emptiness, where the rest of the world was a tumble of smells. I smiled. Gotcha.
I jogged down the path after the mysterious Mr. K, my mind whirling to put the pieces together. I didn’t have enough yet, that was about the only thing that was clear.
K was a vampire. He knew Kiki and my dad. He wasn’t willing to access classified government data for me, which meant he could work for the government. Or he could just be a bad guy with a different skill set. I needed more—
A blur of golden darkness collided into me and my back hit the trunk of a tree hard enough to send a parade of stars dancing across my vision.
The vampire. He was attacking me!
Instinct kicked in and I spun and twisted out of his grip, thanking Dad for subjecting me to nearly two decades of mixed martial arts training. I ducked low and swiped my leg across the ground to knock him off his feet.
God, he was fast. He jumped and moved in close, grabbing one of my wrists.
But I was fast too. I flipped over him, freeing my wrist, and danced back, my pulse roaring in my ears.
The vampire was already coming at me again. He went for my wrists a second time, trying to restrain me. I darted back, but he was too fast.
His cold hand closed around my wrist like a shackle and when I went to spin—this time he was ready. He grabbed my other wrist and wrenched it up and over my head so both hands were pinned behind me, twisted at a painful angle. I kicked out at him but stumbled as he barreled me backwards against the truck of a tree, pinning me with his body—his powerful thighs pressing into and immobilizing my legs so I couldn’t kick him.
I screamed with rage and struggled in his grip. No one had bested me like this in a long fucking time. Certainly not in twenty seconds flat.
“Who are you?” He growled, pulling my wrists tighter, straining my shoulders in their sockets. “Why are you following me?”
I bared my teeth at him, showing my fangs.
He did the same—revealing straight white teeth and two wickedly pointed incisors. “I won’t ask you again.”
Something about the sight of those two fangs brought me back to myself, clearing the red clouding my vision. Leaving something small and frightened. Mortal. Of course this supe bested you—you’ve been fighting for eighteen years. He could have been fighting for hundreds. Thousands. There was no telling how old he was.
The vampire’s nostrils flared, and I could feel his hard body relax slightly against mine. “That’s better.”
I hated that he could smell my fear. Stupid human hormones.
I glared at him. With my draining anger, my awareness returned to my body. To my predicament. To the man pressed up against the length of me.
This close, he was even more breathtaking—surrounding me, gazing down at me with fury in his eyes. There was a ring of silver around his irises, surrounded by the blue of a glacier. His pale skin was as flawless as marble. His breath was cool on my cheek; his scent this close carried a hint of mint leaves and musky cologne.
My body responded in another way, my fear mingling with something new. An undeniable warmth deep inside me. Desire. Suddenly, I was glad he was pinning me to the tree because I wasn’t sure my knees would hold.
No. No, no, no—
My cheeks heated as his nostrils flared again and I knew he could smell my desire. His chest heaved where it was pressed against mine and his eyes dropped, lingering on my lips.
“It’s common,” he murmured. “Human physiology interacts with vampire pheromones in a predictable way.”
My mortification doused any semblance of sexy-feelings.
“But you’re naga,” he said. “Not human.” Dear lord, his eyes were still on my mouth.
“Half-naga.” My words were breathy.
Hi
s eyes flicked up at that and he recoiled slightly. Coming back to himself. “If I step away, can we talk? You won’t run?”
I nodded and he dropped his iron grip on my wrists, taking a big step back.
I sagged against the tree. With the heat of the moment gone, everything hurt. Rolling my shoulders, I rubbed my wrists. I’d have a bruise where a knot of tree bark had jammed into my back.
“Who are you?” he asked again.
“I think you already know,” I hazarded a guess. The way he’d reacted to the fact that I was half-naga, and the fact that he knew my father…
“Zariya Chanji.”
“In the flesh.” I gave a little fake bow with a twirl of my hand. “Your turn.”
“The name’s Bauer.”
“Uh-uh.” I made a little buzzer noise. “Try again.”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Konstantin Bauer.”
“How did you know my father?”
“We worked together. In the past. I know it may be hard to believe when we met like this, but I cared about your father. He was a good man. His death grieved me.”
I scrutinized Konstantin, trying to get a read on him. I could generally detect lying in humans, as my glands picked up their increased heart rates, their raised body temperature. But Konstantin was a black hole of cool, his body giving nothing away.
Yet his face did appear sincere. His annoyingly perfect face.
“What really happened in Turkey?” I asked. “How did he die? I know that report Kiki gave me is bogus.”
“It’s not bogus,” he said. “I did edit out a few confidential details. You have to understand that much of the work your father did was classified. He wouldn’t want you involved. Knowledge can be dangerous.”
“I don’t care! I know Dad’s death wasn’t an accident. Someone killed him, and I have the right to know who. I have to know who. Don’t you get it?” I hated the thickness in my voice. The tears that threatened to spill.
“I understand you’re grieving—”