by Dannika Dark
“What makes you think I’ll give it to you?”
“I’ve worked very hard to not exist. There’s no need for you to fret over insignificant details.”
I thought about Big Dog, the security guard at Pawn of the Dead, and how they’d found him strangled, with his skull smashed against the floor. Big Dog was a big guy. No way could someone Houdini’s size take on a man like that. Houdini was around six feet, but he was on the leaner side than most men, like some kid out of college who didn’t have time for working out.
I turned around, my lips pressed tight.
“You still don’t believe I’m a Vampire, do you? Just because of my eyes.” He touched the black plug in his earlobe, elbows still on the table. “I could assume the same about you with that peculiar condition of heterochromia.”
How could he know I was a Vampire? Unless he’d charmed it out of me, which meant he really was a Vamp.
“I have your box. What do you want for it?”
He essayed a smile and stared up at the ceiling, his hands in a prayer-like gesture. “That’s not really on my agenda. It’s funny how the fates intervene.”
“You want the key, you don’t want the key. Make up your mind. Why am I here?”
“You’re here because of the ad, of course.”
“The ad…”
Oh fuck. Not only did we piss off this guy during one of our pawnshop expeditions, but this was our notorious Vampire trafficker. In the flesh.
Thanks, universe.
He folded his arms, and I found it difficult to read his expression. “The real mystery is how you figured out I was using a human website.”
“You’re a bad speller.”
His cool façade evaporated. “In what way?”
I laughed and turned sideways so I wouldn’t accidentally look him in the eye again. “I’ll try to be discreet about it,” I said with derision. “Your bad spelling not only helped me link several black market auctions, but it also revealed where you were getting your women. I found that site by accident and might have kept looking had your post not been one of the top messages on the front page. With the same word misspelled. Not so discreet, huh?”
I heard a shaky sigh come from his side of the glass. Clearly he was displeased with his glaring mistake. It made me want to find his button and push it.
“That’s okay, Harry. Not everyone’s the brightest crayon in the box.”
“It’s Houdini.”
I kept my hands beneath the table while I struggled to pull off the bracelet. It was too damn small, and despite how narrow it was, I couldn’t bend it for anything.
“So this is where you brought all those innocent women?”
“Innocence is an illusion. Each woman I select chooses to be here. If their interest in our world didn’t matter to me, don’t you think it would be easier for me to just steal a woman off the street? You can’t fault me for something that was their decision. No one ever knows what the result of their choices will be, but I’ve never brought anyone here against their will.”
I kicked the glass wall from beneath the table. “You clearly kept them against their will.”
“I’ve bettered their lives.”
“By turning them into bloodslaves? Bravo. You’re such a hero.”
He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “I’ve given them immortality. So few of us enter this world truly knowing what lies in store for us. No one has a red carpet rolled out for them—not even those chosen by the Mageri or Vampire elders are better off. In fact, they’re put under more scrutiny than the rest, and if they don’t make the cut, they get put down like a lame horse. How you’re brought into a circumstance isn’t as important as what you do with your life afterward. And yes, Raven, we always have a choice. You can either choose to be a victim or choose to take control. Not one of those women had family or friends who would miss them. They had nothing to live for. I’ve given them all a chance at something more.”
“As their maker, don’t you have any sense of loyalty? All those women you turned have your blood in them. They’re your younglings. You don’t feel any obligation to care for them and protect them?”
Houdini rose to his feet and disappeared into the shadows of his living room. “You seem to have a personal stake in this. I create… and I release. The world will teach them all they need to know and decide if they are worthy enough to live in it. Immortality is the greatest experiment known to mankind, and I’m more than happy to give the gift of life.”
“Well, bless your heart.”
“Buyers don’t want to turn them. They say it’s because they don’t want anything that could connect them to the youngling should they be caught. But I think they’re afraid they’ll grow a conscience.”
“Yes. We mustn’t actually care for the people we feed on.”
“You assume all requests are nefarious. Not true. Vampires are lonely creatures, and not all of them have the strength or experience to turn another. Some merely want companions.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Forgive me if I don’t clap.”
Houdini reappeared at the glass wall and leaned his shoulder against it. “Do you hate the cattle farmer for auctioning his cows? He doesn’t know if the buyer will slaughter them, trade them, milk them, or set them to pasture. He cares about making a living.”
I continued staring at the floor. “I forget that I’m arguing with a slave trader. You probably think having great black leaders, inventors, artists, and entrepreneurs justifies the sin of slavery.”
“Humans are idiots. They enslave people because of their skin color or religion.”
“And Shifters? They were once slaves.”
“That was a necessity.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
“You should do your homework. Long before recorded history, Shifters were savages. They lived in the wild, hunted, and had no desire to connect with the world outside their own. They killed for land and acquired a lot of it. Some of them lived in animal form most of the time, losing all sense of their humanity. It didn’t take much back then to stir up fear, and people didn’t like how fast they were breeding. Some were slaughtered. Entire generations… gone. The lucky ones were taken alive, and a mass effort rose to contain the risk of them overpopulating. It was a numbers game. Didn’t anyone teach you that?”
“I skipped history class so I could learn survival skills.”
He turned toward me. “Anyhow, Shifter trading was the norm in a time when man was still a savage himself. Some used them as warriors, others in profitable fighting rings. But don’t think they all had it bad. Many wealthy immortals took them into their homes as guard dogs, servants, spies, or a trusted team of horses.”
I laughed. “Are you kidding me? Do you think that’s why people make slaves—to help them? No. They do it to help themselves. Otherwise you wouldn’t be asking for money. You’d be making immortals and giving them to loving homes out of the goodness of your heart.”
“I’ve seen people come out of chaos with a better sense of purpose than those who came from what you call a loving home.” Houdini rested his forehead on the glass, arms folded. “You’re a fascinating woman, Raven Black. It’s a pity you can’t remember our chats.”
“Nothing we talked about at the club was noteworthy. And I don’t remember seeing you at Patrick’s party.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“You’re probably lying.”
“While we’re here, I should warn you how dangerous it is to sleep with your bedroom window unlocked, even in a fortress. To think that you might have drowned in the bathtub had I not carried you to bed.”
Pain pierced my temple, and I rubbed at it. I knew exactly what he was talking about. It was my first night in the Keystone house and I’d fallen asleep in the tub. I’d somehow wound up in bed with no recollection of having walked there myself.
That fanghole had snuck into my room and carried me naked—ass cheeks to the wind—to my own bed. And then what?
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I gripped the edge of the table, incensed by the truth. He’d stalked me before the incident with the key. Did he have a vendetta against Keystone? I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I considered he might have been one of my past victims who got away. I didn’t remember him, so he would have had to erase himself from my memories. Was he toying with me while plotting his revenge? “You’ve been erasing my memories. You bastard.”
He moved until his mouth was near one of the airholes. “I regret it, you know. We’ve had good conversations. You’re one of the few people I enjoy talking to, but I can’t take chances with my identity.” He quieted for a moment. “Do you want to know what your biggest flaw is?”
Had I not been wearing the bracelet, my Mage energy would have been dripping out of my hands.
“You want so desperately to believe in good and evil, to fit yourself somewhere in that spectrum. There is no good and evil. There’s only cause and effect.”
I scooted back, eyes low. “Murder is evil.”
He sounded as if he was losing patience. “If you kill someone to save lives, is it good or evil? Do you really believe killing all those men in your past makes you evil? It’s the glass-is-half-full argument. You always want to see it as empty.” He sighed and leaned his shoulder against the glass again. “We’re not so different, and deep down, you know it.”
It horrified me to think how many pieces of my life he had in his pocket. Did he know all my secrets? Had I told him about my father?
My God, what have I done?
I stood up and hurled my chair against the glass over and over. The wall vibrated, but the only damage was to one of the metal legs on the chair. I threw it at the door and paced the room like a caged animal. This guy was the crème de la crème of the criminal world to have captured me without a fight, but that wasn’t the insufferable part. No, the real icing on the cake was how many times he’d gotten to me. He’d taken his time.
“I apologize for the Sensor-spiked moonshine. You’re more reserved working for Keystone, and it holds you back. It was a mixture of trust and courage, but the intention was for you to trust your instincts—not a complete stranger. I can never predict how emotions will mix.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Sometimes you need a little push.”
Out of breath, I lifted my gaze but stopped at his Adam’s apple. “I thought you were a Vampire?”
“You’re too clever for an asinine question. Anyone can buy Sensor-spiked alcohol. When you appeared in the club just after the unique request went up on the message board, I knew you were behind it. It was fun watching you work.” He traced his finger around one of the holes in the wall. Despite my predicament, he struck me as innocuous. “I hadn’t planned on abducting you. Had the human not shoved you down, I would have kept driving. The fates had something else in mind.”
I collapsed in the upholstered chair. “I feel sick.”
Houdini disappeared, his footsteps traveling around the dark room. After another moment, he reached through the rectangular opening on the other side of the room and placed a water bottle through the opening. I briefly saw his hand.
“Sometimes charming has side effects, especially with alcohol. Do you want coffee or tea?” he asked, turning away. “It’ll take me a minute to heat up the water. Be right back.”
I stared down at my studded boots with the red soles. Somehow, this hazel-eyed imposter was a Vampire. Or at least that was what he wanted me to believe. Maybe he had a Vampire buddy hiding in the back, and this was all a ruse to throw me off. How could I know for certain?
Several minutes ticked by while I stood up and analyzed every detail of my surroundings. The mattress on the floor didn’t have a box spring for me to rip apart and search for wood or coils. Usually upholstered chairs like these were made of wood, but turning it over revealed plastic elements. No carpet on the linoleum floor, and when I peered inside the bathroom, there wasn’t a curtain rod or toilet tank lid. The bathroom didn’t even have a door, just a light piece of fabric hanging from one end with pushpins.
I stood in there for a minute so I could have some privacy to think.
What the hell was his motive in kidnapping me? To find out more about the key? If he’d crawled into my room once before, then what was stopping him from getting the box himself? I thought about it and realized I kept my windows locked. One of the jobs that now belonged to Kira was to do a daily check of all the windows to make sure they were locked and unbroken. Could Vampires shadow walk up a wall to the third story? What did he stand to gain from my abduction? He certainly couldn’t set me free now that I had all this information.
A cold chill ran up my spine when I realized the most likely scenario was Houdini scrubbing my memory of this whole thing and planting a suggestion for me to drop off that key somewhere in the city. Right now that key was the only thing keeping me alive.
I vowed not to look him directly in the eye. The times before, I must have still been in his thrall long enough for him to wipe my memory. Otherwise I would have staked him. Houdini seemed like the kind of guy who thought out his moves like a chess game and didn’t like making things difficult. Now that the charming had worn off, I could use it to my advantage. He’d have to enter the room and physically force me to look him in the eye, and that opened up a window of opportunity—if even the smallest one—to get myself out of this mess.
“Your tea’s ready,” he announced. “It’s the one that you like.”
My jaw slid forward. The one that I like?
I took a deep breath and glided through the doorway. “How would you know what I like?”
“I know tea isn’t something you drink very often, but when you do, you prefer this particular flavor.” Scratching the back of his head, he strode back to the table. Houdini’s hair had a mind of its own. Not short spikes but longish chunks sticking out every which way. He still had on his leather pants but now wore a white tank top.
I collected the steaming cup from the cubbyhole and then set it on the table. After righting my chair, I sat down, the legs now wobbly after my tirade. The lemon tea went down smooth, a hint of honey lingering on my tongue.
Damn him. I needed to know more.
“Did we go to tea parties or something?”
He folded his arms on the table. “I have incredibly good hearing. Sometimes you mention personal things in conversation with strangers.”
“How’s your vision? I noticed I’m all lit up in here while you’re in the dark.”
“Better than average, but not up to par.”
“Then turn on the lights on your side. I like to see who I’m talking to.”
He drummed his fingers on the table once before getting up. Houdini strode toward the far side of the room and switched on a yellow lamp. The mellow light revealed a rather unremarkable living room. His brown leather sofa looked old, and there was no television. I suppose the person locked in this room was his entertainment. I furrowed my brow at his coffee table, which looked like a giant rock with a polished top.
Houdini tapped his foot against the base. “It’s lava stone. I could have used wood that isn’t an impalement weapon, but it’s got a unique look, don’t you think?”
Ignoring him, I kept looking around, hoping to gain some sliver of knowledge from his home. No magazines or glasses sitting where they didn’t belong, and a low counter separated the living area from a small kitchen on the right. It looked no bigger than some low-rent apartments I’d seen. No windows. No vents that I could see. Yep. This could very well be a dwelling in the Bricks, but either underground or in a basement.
When he returned, he gripped the back of his chair. “Anything else before I get comfortable?”
I trained my eyes down to his Adam’s apple. “You play a smooth game at the club. Pretending to be a nitwit who can’t pick up chicks. That bit about your uncle was a nice touch.”
He sat down and touched the large black stud in his earlobe. “Your partner was e
avesdropping, so I had to dumb down the conversation a little. I don’t pass for a Vampire, but sometimes people give away their age when they open their mouth. Everything else we talked about is all me. I’m not pretending to be someone I’m not. Are you?”
I sipped my tea and suddenly froze. For fuck’s sake, how gullible could I be?
“I didn’t spike it,” he assured me. “It’s just tea and honey. As I already explained, I regret that decision.”
“You almost sound remorseful.”
“I’m not without feelings.”
“Then let me go.”
He chuckled. “I’m also not without intelligence. Do you really think your plan was well constructed? Even had your trafficker been anyone else, he would have smelled the trap a mile away. I looked up heterochromia. Having two different eye colors is incredibly rare. Usually the condition partially affects one iris. Complete heterochromia is more common in animals than humans. It makes you wonder about the variations in genetic makeup that makes one person different than the rest of the population.”
“We’re all different.”
He waved his finger like a metronome ticking back and forth. “Not exactly what I meant. Yes, your eyes make you different. But have you ever wondered if that one genetic flaw has something to do with your being a crossbreed?”
I rested my arms on the table, all out of patience. “What exactly do you know about me?”
“That you’ve developed a bad habit of waiting for things to happen instead of making them happen. I thought spiking your drink might be the push you needed. I do miss the old Raven.”
Fuck it. I slurped down half my tea and shoved the cup away. “I don’t need you to psychoanalyze me with your demented version of the truth. You know what I’m asking.”
“Your immortal name is Raven Black. You’re a Vampire and a Mage, but you don’t seem to give a damn about the Vampire side. Guess what? That’s the side that counts. You’re only half a person.” Houdini leaned forward, and I could feel his eyes searching mine. “Embrace your darkness, and you might actually see the light.”
