by T. A. White
“Why do you think I can track it down for you?” I asked. It’s not like I’d ever done anything like that before.
“Your reputation. They say you’ll help anyone because you don’t care what they are,” he said, his expression avid.
“Who says?” I asked. Of everything he’d said today, that seemed the closest to a lie.
“Everyone. People have been talking all summer about how you found that werewolf who’d been missing, and how you’re the reason we no longer have any trouble with the draugr.” He sounded enthusiastic as he listed off the events of the past few months.
I shifted, his words making me uncomfortable. It was true I’d been involved in all that, but I hadn’t been the only one.
Inara chortled. “You want her to be a detective for you.”
He nodded.
I sighed. This had been a waste of my time.
“I can pay,” he blurted out as I turned toward the door.
I hesitated, interested in spite of myself.
“Natalia said your rates were very reasonable. A hundred dollars per hour,” he said.
I kept my surprise hidden, watching the stranger with a cool expression. I hadn’t charged Natalia for the kobold. Interesting that she’d given him made up rates. Not that I was arguing. That sort of money could do a lot for me. It was way more than I’d ever make at the gas station.
Still, I had no experience and wouldn’t even know where to start.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Fred.”
I paused, the utter simplicity of the name throwing me.
“Alright Fred, I don’t know why Natalia pointed you to me, but I can’t do what you’re asking. I’m sorry.” I ignored the crestfallen expression on his face and grabbed the door, opening it.
“Please, I don’t know where else to go. If it gets out that my vaults were breached, I’ll lose everything,” he said.
I sighed. His desperation tugged at me, making me feel guilty when I knew it shouldn’t. “Try Jerry with Hermes Courier Service. He’s expensive, but he should be able to help you.”
While Hermes was primarily a courier service, it also accepted jobs like this sometimes. If Jerry could, he’d help the man—for a fee, of course.
Surprise crossed Fred’s face. “Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?”
He looked between Inara and me. “He’s shut down the shop.”
“Bullshit.”
“Impossible,” Inara said at the same time.
I spared her a glance before glaring at Fred as he tried to make himself as small as possible. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but that’s not possible. He wouldn’t do that.”
He held up his hands placatingly. “I’m not lying. Check around. Everyone is talking about it. They’re saying he got picked to join a court of the High Fae.”
Inara’s wings stuttered and she dipped momentarily, sinking about a foot toward the floor before she caught herself. “Which court?”
Fred flinched back from the pixie. Inara suddenly seemed much larger than the length of my hand as she stared menacingly at the sphinx.
“I don’t know their names. Several have been spotted around Columbus over the past few weeks. Most of the Fae in the city have made themselves scarce, so it’s hard to get much information,” he blurted out.
Inara processed this before zooming out of the room without another word.
I watched her go with concern. My pint-sized roommate was prone to odd behavior, but this seemed out of character even for her.
“Please, just think about my request. Here’s my card.”
I reluctantly took his card, a simple white piece of paper with the words Sphinx Vault written in gold lettering. The body of a lion was etched on the back of it.
“I’ll be waiting for your call,” he told me as he stepped past. He dropped to the ground below with little effort, landing lightly. He turned and waved before walking away.
“That was weird,” I said softly, pulling my head back into the apartment.
I frowned at the open door for several minutes, feeling slightly off-balance after the sphinx’s visit. Worry niggled at me over Jerry.
Closing Hermes was out of character. In all the time I’d worked for the courier service, there hadn’t been a single day that I could remember where Jerry’s business wasn’t open. Not one. Even on holidays, during rain storms, and winter blizzards. He always accepted jobs. Always.
I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and dialed the number from memory.
It rang and rang. After twenty more rings, I hung up. The feeling that had started with the sphinx’s news changed from slightly concerned to outright worry.
I tapped the phone against my lip as I considered my options. There weren’t many. Jerry had fired me, effectively ending our relationship. I owed him nothing and there was no reason to stick my nose where it probably wasn’t wanted.
“Where are you going?” Inara’s voice rang out as I started for the door.
My silence answered for me.
There was knowledge on her face as she flew closer. “You have a date with the vampire.”
“But—”
“Leave the half-blood to his business.” Her words were harsh. Her face softened. “Jerry wouldn’t want your interference on his behalf anyway.”
For half a minute I thought about arguing, or at the very least ignoring her. In the end, I sighed, conceding she was probably right. I’d gotten in trouble more than once by sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.
“Are you going to help the sphinx?” Lowen asked, changing the subject. More than once he’d acted as peacemaker, smoothing over the rough spots when Inara and I butted heads.
“I don’t see how I could,” I said, letting the matter go for now. “I’m not a detective, and Hermes has services similar to that.”
The last thing I wanted to do was set myself up to cross him. I had to believe whatever his reason for closing the service, it was temporary.
“Similar, yes, but not the same,” Inara said. “I doubt your former boss would take you to task should you choose to find the sphinx’s lost scroll.”
I gave her a questioning look. “You think I should do this? Aren’t you usually the one telling me to keep my nose out of other people’s business.”
She gave me a haughty look. “He’s offering to pay you. Those others never did. We both know you could use the money to keep this roof over our heads.”
I suspect it was worry over the supply of hummingbird nectar I’d been providing them drying up that motivated her rather than the threat of losing the apartment. They were small and easily overlooked. They could live here for months with no one the wiser.
“The job at the gas station is beneath you. At least this will be more in keeping with your status,” she observed, her chin tilted up.
“What status?” To my knowledge, I had none. I waved a hand before she could answer. “Never mind. This is all pointless until I find out what Liam wants.”
Inara shook her head and rose from the shelf, her wings moving impossibly fast as she flew back the way she’d come.
I grabbed my bike, using a rope wrapped around its frame to lower it to the ground.
“I’ll pull the rope back up and make sure to lock up,” Lowen said from the doorknob. He balanced on it as I prepared to descend.
“Thanks, I’ll be back soon.”
“We’ll see,” Lowen said. “Don’t worry about this place. Inara and I will protect it until you return.”
I nodded and stepped out. The ground rushed up to meet me. I landed with a thump, not nearly as lightly or gracefully as the sphinx. Still, I was in one piece and nothing was broken. I’d take that as a win.
I unwrapped the bike, then waited as the rope slithered back inside. I didn’t know how the pixies managed to pull it up, considering it weighed much more than them. I never asked. The door swung shut in the next moment.
My home a
s safe as I could make it, I rolled the bike to the street, pulling up short at the sight of the man waiting for me there, his long, rangy frame leaning up against the twin of the black Escalade in the lot at my back.
“What are you doing here, Nathan?” I asked.
CHAPTER THREE
Nathan gave me a lazy smile, lifting one of the two take-out cups he held and handing it to me. I took it with a frown, balancing the bike against my hip.
“I’m your chauffeur for the night,” he said, stepping away from the Escalade. He matched the car, dressed in black jeans and a tight black shirt that outlined his wide shoulders and muscled arms.
Nathan was one of Liam’s men, and also the vampire who’d been responsible for my lessons over the past few weeks. He was the opposite of Sir Grumpy Pants in many ways. Blond and handsome, it was rarer to see him frowning than smiling. His lips always seemed to be tilted in a half-smile, as if in response to a joke only he knew.
He liked to push people’s buttons, but he was also a big kid in many ways, I’d discovered.
“I should have known he wouldn’t trust me to come on my own,” I said in a sour voice.
Nathan gave a charming shrug. “You can’t really blame him, given your track record. Besides, I’m not here at his behest.”
I gave him an interested look. “Oh?”
He gave my bike a significant glance. “I figured you would try to bike there, which meant you would never make it in time. Decided I’d save you the trouble and the inevitable ass chewing.”
“I could have made it,” I responded defensively. I could have too. As a former bike messenger for Hermes, I was used to such trips.
He scoffed. “Maybe, but then you would have been sweaty and out of sorts by the time you arrived. This puts you there ahead of schedule and in a presentable state.”
My frown deepened. “Do you know what this is for?”
He shrugged. “You’ll see when we get there.”
“Does that mean you know?” I asked, already considering ways I could get him to reveal his secrets.
His mouth curled in a secretive grin. “Oh no, little student. You won’t get that information so easily.”
I sighed and held up the cup with straw he’d handed me. “And this? Or are you keeping it a secret too?”
“It’s a blood smoothie,” he said smugly.
My face wrinkled with distaste as I looked at it.
“Don’t be proud,” he said when it looked like I’d try to hand it back. “You can use the nutrients. I know you’re not getting all you need because you won’t drink live blood. This’ll top you off.”
That might be, but the thought of sucking down the smoothie made me feel slightly nauseous. Lately, bagged blood made me feel sick to my stomach, and it could be difficult keeping it down. That hadn’t always been the case. At one point, I’d lived for it, craved it with the same passion I craved black raspberry ice cream.
Those days were long gone. Ever since Liam had given me some of his super-charged blood, it had gotten harder and harder to satisfy myself with the pale imitation I insisted on sticking to.
Nathan knew some of my troubles, but not all of them. I’d kept the particulars carefully hidden. It was harder to keep the weight loss from him, especially since he headed up my combat training. Who knew vampires could lose weight? I guess that’s what came of not getting enough blood for weeks on end.
Surprisingly my grip on the bloodlust had not faltered. Not even once. It was strange, but because of my control I decided the risk was worth it, until I could figure a way out of this that didn’t involve turning humans into slurpy straws.
Nathan believed my troubles stemmed from the taste of rot that seemed to permeate bagged blood. I needed to keep him thinking that, if I wanted to keep some control of my life and not lose the last pieces that made me feel human. Not drinking from humans might seem like a strange place to draw my line as a vampire, but emotions didn’t always make sense.
“If you have an episode, our fearless leader will make you drink from a live donor,” Nathan said. His expression turned sly. “That donor might even be himself.”
I gave him a dirty look. It was a reference to the few times Liam had fed me from his own wrist. His blood seemed to be catnip to my vampire, turning me into a brazen hussy who threw caution and good sense to the wind, becoming a hedonistic creature who couldn’t get enough of the grumpy vampire.
To say the weakness was embarrassing was putting it mildly.
In defiance, I lifted the straw to my mouth and took a sip, making a pleased expression at the taste.
“That’s good,” I told him, impressed.
“I know.” He gave me a wink. “It’s my own special recipe. All the nutrients and vitamins a growing baby vampire might need.”
I snorted, my laugh muffled.
“You can call me master any time you want,” he said, referencing an ongoing argument as he stepped to the back of the Escalade and opened the trunk.
He took the bike from me as I shot him an acerbic stare.
“I’m never going to call you that,” I told him.
“How about sensei then?”
“No.”
“I’m the teacher of all things mystical and vampire. I should get a cool name,” he complained, slamming the trunk shut.
“Not happening.”
I slid into the car and buckled my seatbelt, before chancing another sip of the smoothie. It tasted surprisingly like strawberries and chocolate. Decadent and refreshing all at the same time.
I’d have to ask him what was in it before the night was over. This just might be the answer to at least one of my problems.
“Did you know he was coming back?” I asked with studied nonchalance.
Nathan shot me a look out of the corner of his eye before pulling onto the road. “You mean why didn’t I give you a heads-up.”
I shrugged.
“He didn’t tell us of his arrival,” Nathan said. “Just showed up last night.”
“I hear you’ve been giving him reports of my progress,” I said.
His lips quirked up. “That is true.”
I made a harrumph.
“Come on, you didn’t really expect me to do anything else, did you?”
I suppose not. Liam was Nathan’s sire in truth, not to mention his boss. Nathan’s loyalties would always lie with him.
“There are things going on that you don’t understand,” Nathan said, his face turning serious.
“There are always things going on that I don’t understand.” I propped my chin on my hand and stared out the window.
“I’m just saying maybe you shouldn’t be so prickly about it.”
My head snapped toward him as I gave him a glare. “Prickly?”
“If the shoe fits.”
I grunted and went back to staring out the window. I wasn’t prickly. Okay, maybe a little.
“You’ve been a very grumpy porcupine since he left.”
I gave him a look. “Thanks, Dr. Phil. I really appreciate your armchair psychology.”
“You know I have a degree in psychology, right?” he asked.
It was just strange enough to be true. Vampires were long lived. It meant they had more than enough time to pursue anything that interested them. They had vampires who’d attended medical school, why not vampires who’d attended shrink school as well? If nothing else, having a better understanding of a human’s psychology would make them more effective hunters.
Nathan might seem easy-going, like a really energetic puppy at times, but he was every inch the vampire that Liam was. He might hide it behind a charming smile, but at his core he was a killer. We all were. It’s why I fought my instincts as hard as I did.
“You have hidden depths,” I told him seriously. I would do well to remember that.
“As do we all, baby vampire,” he said with a meaningful glance.
The drive passed in silence after that, the city sliding past the window. In the end,
I was grateful Nathan had stopped to retrieve me. It would have taken me forever to bike this far north of the city, past the outer belt to one of the suburbs. The road curved and winded as the flatter part of the city was left behind in favor of the dips and bumps of small hills.
The houses got further and further apart until we mostly drove on tree-lined roads. We had to be up near Galena or Westerville. I didn’t know the area well enough to tell which it was.
I had only been here a few times since returning home, preferring to stick closer to the heart of Columbus. When you’re reliant on getting places through your own pedal power, it meant your travel radius was smaller than if you had a car.
Nathan turned down a small, easily overlooked road, one that didn’t see a lot of traffic. The street sign was barely visible, the overgrowth from trees mostly shielding it from view.
The tires of the Escalade crunched as he turned onto a gravel driveway lined with tall trees on either side. These weren’t the overgrown bushes we’d seen on the drive up. They were mature, standing tall as their limbs arched overhead, forming a canopy over the driveway.
“Woah,” I said, getting my first look at the house.
It looked like a turn of the century farmhouse, only about three times the size of most that I’d seen. It boasted a large wraparound porch and loomed over the surrounding grounds. Three stories tall, it had a dramatic roof and the large windows characteristic of that period.
I got out, stilling when I noticed a family of deer across a long stretch of grass from me. Their heads came up, ears alert, as we watched each other.
A rustle of branches distracted me, and I glanced over, my heart thumping as a large form stepped out of the shadows. His coat was silver in the moonlight, while antlers jutted from his head in a proud rack.
There was a crash as the other deer took off, dashing back into the woods surrounding the house.
I looked back at the stag, to find him gone as well. The place he’d stood empty as if he’d never been.
Nathan came around the car, his face questioning as he looked from me to the place I was staring.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.