by K. F. Breene
“Oh.” I stalled, not really sure what to say. Telling him my friends and I had killed the whole lot of them was probably the opposite of my duty as a friendly ear to help him through his transition to the magical world. “It was resolved, but not traditionally. You’ll probably learn more about that from Sean.”
“He seemed happy enough with the result.” J.M.’s brow furrowed. “If you didn’t bring anyone in, though, I’m not sure how you could call that a win.”
“The crimes will stop. That’s the win.”
He nodded slowly.
“Speaking of, how’s all”—I made a circle with my forefinger—“this going? The magical stuff?”
“We solved that case you helped with.” He beamed.
“Oh yeah?” I looked up from the menu. “Who did it?”
“The daughter.” His grin was triumphant. “We found the sword at her house. She hadn’t even cleaned off the blood.” He shook his head. “She butchered her own father. We’re not sure what she was after yet.”
I tsked and resumed looking over the menu. “I’d find that out before you close the case. If it’s magical in nature, and valuable enough to kill someone over, more people will try to get in on it. Magical people can be ruthless scavengers.”
“Doubt it. It was a family spat.”
I wiped the sudden crinkle from my brow. I didn’t work for the MLE office anymore. Their lack of thoroughness wasn’t my problem. “Right. What are you going to have?”
The dinner passed with stilted conversation, largely due to my continual dropping of the conversational ball. My mind kept wandering, and try as I might, I couldn’t keep it rooted to the conversation. Finally, the dinner was over and we found ourselves outside.
“What’s next?” J.M. asked, standing too close.
I took a step away, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. “You know what? I think I’m going to head off. I have a friend I want to visit.”
“Oh.” His expression fell, and he looked around. “Here?”
“Just”—I motioned—“up the way.”
“Oh. Well…okay. Are you sure I can’t take you for a drink?”
“No, but thanks for dinner. Good luck with the transition. I think you’ll do great.” I put up my hand for a high five. His immediate compliance was a childhood reaction that required no thought, if his obvious confusion was any indication. I threw him a wave and headed away.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The hot, sticky night embraced me. I’d missed New Orleans. Sure, Seattle was green and mild and beautiful, but it didn’t have enough crazy for my taste. It didn’t have enough old-world and deep magical traditions. Hell, it didn’t have enough nudity. What was the fun in that?
Jazz music clattered out of the bars and people danced on the streets as I made my way to my destination. Shouts and laughter filled the night. Empty plastic drink containers and discarded wrappers littered the curbs. I found the man I was looking for where I always did, leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette.
I slipped behind a group of people walking in a mostly straight line until I was near him. Then, for old times’ sake, I stepped out suddenly. “Hiya, Red. What’s new?”
Red flinched and froze, his eyes wide as he stared at me.
I covered his bony shoulder in heavy pats, making him flinch with each one. “Did you miss me?”
He shook himself out of his fear-induced coma. “Reagan. You’re back.” He did not sound happy about it. “I don’t know anything.”
I knew that tone. He did know something. Something good.
Red was the guy I could always shake information out of in this town. If he didn’t know it directly, he always knew a rumor that at least gave me a direction. It took the trip to Seattle for me to realize how much I relied on him.
Lucky for him, I was off-duty. Would be for the foreseeable future. I did not care about his gossip. The opposite, in fact—I didn’t want to know. This visit was for payback.
“C’mon, let me buy you a drink.” I yanked him toward the bar.
“You know I don’t drink.”
“When has that ever stopped you from sitting and watching me drink enough for the both of us?” I pushed him ahead of me and into a booth at the back of the dark bar. After I’d gotten a double shot of whiskey for each of us (I’d be drinking both), I sat down in the booth with him, recognizing his trepidation.
No, I didn’t want anything, but it wouldn’t do to let him get too comfortable. Just because I was leaving the bounty hunter gig for a while, didn’t mean I needed to close the door on information. Insurance, and all that.
“So you heard I went to Seattle, huh?” I sipped my drink, watching him.
“Roger got a call from a shifter named Joe in Seattle. Joe said you did Seattle a service of some kind. Roger didn’t say what.” Red licked his lips, still nervous. Usually he settled down when he realized I wasn’t going to hurt him. He clearly had a really good secret. I still didn’t want to know. “Our orders on you are on hold. We were told not to track and report.”
“Roger had you guys on track and report with me? That explains why you were always hanging around.” I shook my head. That was annoying, but good on the bartender for fulfilling his end of the bargain. “But that’s on hold?”
“Yeah.”
“Not called off for good?”
Red shrugged helplessly. “You’re…you. You cause trouble.”
“I clean up trouble, actually. That’s what bounty hunters do.”
“You cause it in order to clean it up.”
“Well now, that’s just confusing.” I let it go. “Listen, you’ve helped me out a lot over the years.”
He eyed me warily.
“You made a lot of marks really easy to find,” I continued.
His brow lowered. He expected the shoe to drop, and equally expected to be under it.
My manic grin probably wasn’t helping matters.
“So I’m going to give you a whole bunch of gossip.” I waited to see his reaction. It was still one of mistrust.
“About what?” he asked.
“My foray in Seattle. What went down, the mages’ involvement, and how I helped. How Joe’s bar was blown up. You know, a bunch of stuff no one knows but…well, me. And soon, you.”
Distrust crossed his features. “Why would you tell me?” Then the wariness kicked in again. The guy’s face was like a comic book. “Because I don’t have any information to trade. I mean it.”
“Stop taunting me with your secrets. It’s making me want to drag them out of you, and I don’t want to know.” I nearly rubbed my eyes until I remembered I had makeup on. “Why you? Because I’m giving back. But if you don’t want to know, that’s cool. I couldn’t care less.” I made a move to leave.
“No, no, no, no, no!” Red held out a hand. “I’m listening.”
With a smile, I told him the things that were fine for him to know—things that could be spread around and gossiped about without stirring up a lot of drama. Things that would damage the reputation of the guild and make the vampires and shifters look good. Also make the mages of NOLA look good. Sure, there was an ulterior motive—bringing magical people together to combat that corrosive magical force—but Red got to have all of it for absolutely free. It would give him something a small-time player like him rarely had: Roger’s undivided attention.
When I was finished, I leaned over to pat him again—I loved making him flinch; my bad—and headed out. “Good luck, buddy.”
He watched me go with a bewildered expression, probably amazed that I honestly didn’t want the golden egg he was sitting on. My phone buzzed with a text as I exited the bar.
I got a high-dollar case if you want it. It was from the captain. Big money. Dangerous.
Impulse had me unlocking my phone to reply, but I kept from typing yes. The captain’s case was probably directly linked with whatever Red was hiding. And while in the past, the intrigue alone would’ve had me agreeing, not this time. I
had gotten too close to unspeakable horrors in the last week. For my own safety, I needed to take a back seat for a while. I needed to train.
No thanks, I typed back. I quit.
Good. Get a hobby.
I smiled as I headed away, not paying attention to where I was walking, just going wherever my feet took me. It wasn’t long before I blinked up at the large corner house in the French Quarter. A ghost tour had stopped kitty-corner, staring up at it in awe and hearing a tale about the vampire who’d once owned it when New Orleans was young. Little did they know that a vampire owned it now, and he was just as suave and debonair as the one in the guide’s story. Less obvious, though. Probably.
I ran my fingers through my hair, probably fraying the loose curls I’d worked so hard on creating, ruining the hairstyle. Why did it matter?
I chewed on my lip and looked away.
Because I want to look pretty for him for once.
My stomach fluttered as that damning thought curled around my head.
What was I doing? He was a vampire, for criminy sakes! Callie would kill me. Then she’d start talking about ways to kill him without being found out. Dizzy would just nod in agreement with her.
I needed to forget about Seattle. Forget about Darius, and vampires, and the whole thing. The dual mages could rig something up to keep Darius’s minions out of my house. I knew they could. It was telling that I hadn’t asked them to before now. But I should. This had gotten out of hand.
With a heavy heart, I kept on walking, blindly, pretending it was the humidity that made my eyes sting with unshed tears.
Once I was tired of touring the town, I took a Lyft home and had it drop me down the street from my house, where Mince idled, staring at his phone.
“Hey,” I said, climbing from the car.
He glanced up, a big guy with pulpy features and a thick nose. He’d been a boxer back in the day, and had the face to show for it. “Hey.” He gave me a rare smile. “I haven’t seen you around in a while. Smokey said you went to Seattle.”
I leaned against a stranger’s banister as I looked at the cemetery wall. “Yeah. The weather’s really nice there at this time of year.”
“I’ll bet.” He put his phone down. “What were you doing there?”
“Working.”
“You have a job? Huh. For some reason I thought you were unemployed.”
Mince always confused me with the old white lady up the street. “Not really. I’m going to lie low for a while, though. Hang around.”
“Good.” He nodded and went back to his phone. “Mikey relaxes more when you’re here, which means the rest of us don’t have to bounce around on eggshells.”
I laughed at his unique take on the saying. “Anything else going on?”
“Nah.” He gestured down the sidewalk. “Smokey is watching your house. You had a break-in.”
My mouth dropped open. “Really, Mince, you couldn’t have started with that?”
“What?” he asked my retreating back. “You always have break-ins!”
That was true, but still. The guy needed a lesson on what was noteworthy.
I crossed the street hurriedly when I spotted Smokey’s skulking figure in the entrance of the cemetery. He was harmless, but boy did he put out the creepy vibe.
“Hey,” I said, nearing. “Did you get any pictures?”
“Yes.” He dug out his phone, touched the screen, swiped, and then angled it toward me. “That’s the human.”
He was talking like a magical person. That probably wasn’t good, since he was human and technically shouldn’t know about the supernatural.
The picture showed the back of a man’s head. Smokey swiped. The side of the man’s face. Smokey swiped. A blurry shot of the front. No help.
“Cool, thanks,” I said, leaning away.
“Do you want me to text them to you?”
Why, so I could memorize the mundane haircut? “I got it right up here.” I tapped my temple.
He nodded, like he had figured that was the case. I was magical, after all. I should be able to do superhuman things like remember blurry pictures. Little did he know, the images were already forgotten.
“He was the one that broke in?” I asked, turning to face my house. A window glowed.
I hadn’t left any lights on.
My stomach fluttered again.
“No. He left right after you did. Were you followed?”
I frowned. “Not that I noticed. I looked when you texted.”
He grunted. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Another one walked in through the front.” He swiped and showed me a picture of my open front door. Then another. Then the door mostly closed.
“Cool,” I said again. Because really, what else was there to say?
“I took a picture of the person walking in. Then of him facing me dead-on. Then of him closing the door behind him.” Smokey’s eyes held a special twinkle, and also traces of fear.
“Vampire,” I said softly, knowing that was the cause of the twinkle. Also knowing that his mind had quickly moved on to the aswang, a supernatural creature that didn’t excite him.
He nodded slowly and glanced around, as cautious as if the cemetery had ears. And maybe it did, though Smokey would know best, since he practically made a second home of it. “I wasn’t supposed to mention who it was, but my loyalty is to you, not him.” Smokey lowered his voice. “It was the one who always hangs around with you. He let himself in, stayed in there for an hour, and then came out to speak to me.”
I breathed through my mouth, trying to still the flip-flopping of my stomach. I needed to seriously cut that out. “Oh yeah?”
“A gentleman. Very influential, I can tell. He seems important.” Smokey puffed up. “He asked me to watch over you and inform him if you are ever in any danger. He gave me his card.” Smokey patted his pocket. “But I’ll burn it if you want me to. Like I said, my loyalty is to you. Not to him.”
I smiled to myself and glanced away to hide my pleasure. Darius didn’t need Smokey’s help—he had a horde of people who could do the job better. Darius had approached Smokey for me. He knew that, even though it was strictly forbidden to bring non-essential humans into the fold, I threw a bone to ol’ Smokey now and again where it concerned the supernatural. Clearly he had spotted Smokey watching over my house and, knowing his importance to me, decided to make the old man’s night.
“You might as well,” I said, not able to stop the smile bleeding through my expression. “Just in case the house falls down and I get trapped under a beam, or something.”
Smokey nodded and patted his pocket again. “That’s what I was thinking. It’s probably good to have backup in case something comes around you can’t handle.” His expression crumpled again; his thoughts had definitely shifted to that aswang.
“Okay. I’m going to head in. Thanks for your help.” I thought about patting him, then thought better of it. He was still oozing creepy, after all. There had to be a reason for that.
I let myself into my house. Fresh flowers greeted me from a vase by the door. The living room light was on, and sitting in the couch, reading one of the books he hated but couldn’t stop reading, was none other than Darius.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Hi,” I said, suddenly out of breath.
He closed the book and stood. “Wretched book. Wretched series. I don’t know why I keep picking it up.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, dropping my keys into the bowl.
He put the book back and surveyed me. “I wanted to see you. Also, I have something for you that I wanted to deliver in person.” An air of menace crowded the room. “How was your date?”
“It wasn’t a date. And it ended early.”
He glanced at the clock.
“I had a few other things to do in town.”
He nodded, analyzing me for a moment. “You are stunning, Reagan. Your effulgence steals the breath from my lungs.”
I exhaled with a
smile. The man was too suave for his own good. Knowing what three-syllable word to say in times like this was his superpower.
“Want something to drink?” I asked.
“A cognac. Shall I get it?”
“Well, since you offered, I don’t mind if you do.” I lowered onto the comfortable couch.
His lips tweaked into a grin and he zipped into the kitchen. No time later he was back, handing me a glass of wine and sitting down with a snifter.
“First.” Darius reached to the side and picked up a large, thick binder. He handed it over. “For you.”
I scowled at it, because that was what I did when I saw something that resembled schoolwork, and opened it. A picture of a warehouse amid empty fields and a parking lot greeted me. Turning the pages, I saw a lot of documents that looked confusing.
“Uh-huh.” I closed the binder. “And what’s this?”
“Your new warehouse. You need someplace out of the way to practice. It has ample space and is removed from the next property. It should work.”
I felt my eyes widen as I opened it again. “Mine?”
“Of course. Your name is on the deed. Your false name, of course. We can sell it to your various identities as we need to create them. But it is yours. You will also need a car. I nearly bought one, but know that your neighborhood has particular idiosyncrasies.”
Basically, he thought it would get stolen. “Thanks, but I can buy a car.”
“Choose whichever one you would like and inform Mr. LaRay. He’ll take care of the paperwork.”
“I can buy my own car, is what I meant.”
“Don’t be silly.” He waved me away.
I didn’t argue. I’d just do it when he wasn’t paying attention. It was easier that way.
“Now.” He swirled the brown liquid in his glass, his eyes downcast. “I wanted to discuss a sensitive matter with you.” He took a slow sip of his drink. “Reagan, for the second time in my life, and the first time as a vampire, I am falling in love. I didn’t think it could happen after I changed into…what I am. I have never heard that it could. But here I am. I was seeking a solution to undo this change in me, but after Seattle…I have gone too far. I no longer want the antidote. I want to lay claim on you. I want you to let me. And for the first time in my history, I want to feel what happens when love fully matures.”
