by Lexi Blake
“Please don’t blame yourself, Mr. Donovan.” Halfer’s lips curled up in a smug smile. He turned to me. “Like I said, I have done my due diligence. I knew you worked with a vampire before I contacted you. He’s one of the reasons I believe you’re perfect for this job. His skills will come in handy, as will those of your witch and werewolf.”
His information was surprisingly up to date. Neil and Sarah were fairly recent additions to the crew. Daniel and I worked with a lot of contractors before settling on those two.
“As we don’t know what the job is yet, I can’t say I’ll be using my skills at all.” There was no lack of arrogance in Daniel’s voice. His handsome features were set in a sullen pout. He didn’t like having his cover blown and knowing less about the client than he knew about us. I didn’t need a crystal ball to see a hearty lecture on our vetting process in my future. Daniel was staring down our potential client like a lion waiting to pounce.
This was why I handled the clients and Daniel sat his perfect ass on a barstool ten yards away and listened in. Daniel wasn’t what I would call a “people person.” He was somewhat of a misanthrope before he died. Getting hit by a drunk driver and waking up on the autopsy table had done nothing to fix his view of humanity.
The arrival of the aforementioned kick-ass piccata eased the awkwardness of the moment. The sight of Daniel’s mouth tightening dimmed my enthusiasm. I knew he missed food. He’d been an enthusiastic eater before his turn. We spent our college years finding the absolute best spots on campus for burgers and pizza and the occasional splurge on high-end Italian. I counted it as the best time of my life. Those years between leaving my father’s house and Daniel’s untimely death were precious memories. I set my fork down. Daniel touched my arm. He smiled that slight smile of his I rarely ever saw since his return. It was his way of giving me permission to enjoy that which he could not. I glanced at the client. The satisfaction in his dark eyes told me we’d just given valuable information away. Daniel pulled back and straightened into a rigid posture that proved he regretted the intimacy.
“Can I get you anything, sir?” the waiter asked Daniel politely. “Perhaps a specialty drink from the bar?”
Daniel nodded. “That will do. I like my drink at the proper temperature.”
The waiter assured Daniel he could provide the service and went to fetch the drink. The specialty drink was O positive. The proper temperature was 98.7 degrees. Once again, the mob knew how to treat a customer. I tried not to think about how they procured this specific vintage.
Halfer inhaled the scent of the marinara sauce before digging in with the gusto of a man who truly enjoyed the decadent pleasures of life. “This is excellent. I’ll have to remember this place the next time I’m in Dallas.”
“We were getting to the job,” Daniel said, letting impatience settle into his tone.
Halfer looked amused and all but ignored Daniel. Instead he turned his unsettling eyes to me. I wondered exactly how not human he was. “I need you to steal the Light of Alhorra for me.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of it.” Honesty was usually the best policy at this stage. There were too many ways to screw up and look foolish by embellishing the truth. There would be time enough for lying later on in the relationship.
“I’m not surprised,” my client replied, nonplussed. “It’s an obscure artifact. It is very old and not of great consequence.”
“Dark magic?” Daniel asked as the waiter placed a brass goblet on the table. The rest of the restaurant’s barware was glass, but blood looked like blood even in the gloom of low light.
Halfer waved off Daniel’s question. “Not at all. Please feel free to vet the artifact. It is of the purest white magic, I assure you. It brings good fortune to the one who possesses it. You’ll suffer no ill effects by your brief guardianship.”
“Did this artifact belong to you?” I didn’t actually care about the answer. Usually people stole things that didn’t belong to them. That’s why they call it stealing. Sometimes I get the rare client who is seeking to get back what’s rightfully theirs. These are usually the ones who try to pay the least and almost always balk when the bill comes due.
“It belonged to a colleague,” he replied. “I’m merely representing her interests. As I said, in the arcane world the object is of little consequence, but my client has a fondness for it. It was a gift from her father and means the world to her. The artifact is a medium-sized ornate box weighing approximately twenty pounds. It was stolen two weeks ago. My intelligence places it in St. Louis. It’s scheduled to be moved here in two weeks’ time. It’s all here in a report I prepared for you. That is, if you take the case.”
I took a short swallow of the excellent Chianti. “I never take a case until I’ve discussed payment.”
“Of course.” He picked up the briefcase he’d carried in and handed it to me. The weight of the case surprised me. “It’s five hundred thousand up front, with another five hundred on delivery of the object.”
“There’s five hundred thousand in this case?” I asked, not managing to keep the “holy crap, that’s a lot of money” out of my voice.
“Yes.”
“Dollars?”
Halfer smiled, obviously amused at my shock. “Yes, Miss Wharton. There is five hundred thousand cash in this case. It should cover any expenses. I take it you find the rate acceptable?”
I took a deep breath and tried to find my dignity. I forced my hand back in my lap. I was almost overwhelmed with the sudden, profound need to stroke the case and maybe give it a little kiss. Suspicion creeped along my spine. “That’s an awful lot of cash.”
Halfer shrugged lightly. “I’m asking you to do this job in a very short amount of time. This is important to me. I’m willing to pay top dollar to make sure it gets done right.”
Top dollar was right. The lure of all that money had my head spinning, and I responded before I could really think about it. “Yes, Mr. Halfer, I believe I can get the job done for this.”
I looked at Daniel, expecting to see his disapproval, but he hadn’t taken his eyes off the briefcase. His fangs were slightly out. “Yep,” was all he managed to say.
“Then I will take my leave of you.” Halfer pushed his chair back and slid a manila folder across the table. “Here’s all the information you’ll need, including my contact numbers. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.” He turned to walk away but looked back at me one last time. “I expect great things of you, Zoey Wharton.”
My stomach turned over slightly as I wondered what this man would do if those “great things” he expected failed to materialize. I thought it best not to find out.
As the door closed behind Halfer, I was left with more money than I’d ever made on a job before and the promise of much more to come. I stared at the door he’d just disappeared through. I’d never before accepted a client on the first meeting. It was one of the things my father taught me about the business. The first meeting was about learning the job and getting information on the client. My instincts failed, thrown over by the glitter of cash and the promise of glory. If I pulled this off, I would move into an entirely different playing field. I would be competing with the best and my reputation would be made. The little girl in me whispered in a small voice that my father would have to acknowledge me. If I pulled this off, he would have to be proud of me. He would have to treat me as an equal.
When I looked over at Daniel, there was a panicked look in his eyes. He was staring at the chair recently vacated by Lucas Halfer.
“What is it?” I asked, not really worried. I was still thinking about the money and the potential glory. I would be the talk of my professional world. I could start being choosy about my clientele. I might even get an office and an assistant.
“Z, I am so sorry.” If possible, his face was even paler than usual.
My pulse sped up, and I started paying attention. Daniel didn’t usually apologize, so I knew this was something he considered a big mistake.
&
nbsp; “I didn’t feed before I came here. It’s my only excuse. I was running late,” he stammered. “It’s so subtle. He’s damn good, but I should have caught it.”
“Caught what?”
“That smell.” He breathed in again, his nose turning up in distaste.
“What smell?”
“Brimstone. He’s a demon, Zoey.”
I pushed the briefcase away as though my rejection of it would solve my problem. What seemed for a moment to be my glittering future now looked like a potential tomb with a one-way ticket to a vacation spot I didn’t want to visit. I sealed the deal by taking the money. There was not a lot I could do. The damage was done.
The waiter slipped the check onto the table. I absently took note of the shockingly large amount.
I had made a deal with the devil, and the bastard stuck me with the bill.
Chapter Two
The briefcase sat in the middle of my kitchen table, the overhead light shining down like the money was about to sing a solo in a Broadway show. My entire crew sat in still silence watching the money with equal parts awe and fear.
“Dollars?” Neil pointed to the briefcase.
“Yes,” I replied testily, though I’d asked the same thing myself not an hour ago. “Yes, I meant dollars. I meant five hundred thousand dollars from a demon.”
“And we get another five hundred thousand dollars after we get this light thingy?” Neil never took his eyes off the briefcase.
“Another five hundred thousand from a demon,” I reiterated, hoping he would get the point.
“And it’s not really light, right? I’m assuming that’s a metaphor. Is it like the time we got paid to steal the Essence of Tor and it turned out to be goblin dung? Because I don’t see how we steal light. Did he give you something to catch it in?” Neil gave me his best confused cute-boy look.
I was not in the mood. My one-way ticket to Hell was staring me straight in the face, and Neil was playing dumb. “According to the demon, it’s a box. But as I said, this is according to the demon, who is by nature evil and probably lies a lot.”
Sarah, dressed in her ever-present skinny jeans and a concert T-shirt, held herself away from the table as though it was diseased. She looked like she’d stepped straight out of a Deep Ellum club to come to this meeting, and she probably had. “This is a bad idea.”
“You think?” My panic was on the verge of taking over. I reached out and brought my now lukewarm beer to my lips, swallowing gratefully. It was cheap beer I bought in a convenience store, nothing like the ultra-expensive vintage Halfer had ordered. I put the whole bill on a credit card because I didn’t carry that kind of cash and I sure as hell wasn’t about to open up the case and start flinging money around. The beer was cheap, but it tasted safe and normal.
“If it’s such a bad idea, then just give it back.” Neil crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “But I just can’t see that two hundred fifty grand apiece is such a bad idea. I could finally buy a car and go to Mexico, and OMG, makeover!”
Neil clapped his hands together looking nothing like the werewolf I knew him to be. It was times like this that Neil’s true value came out. In his human form, there was absolutely nothing to hint at his ferocious other nature. Of course, this was also the reason he was a virtual outcast in the dual-natured world. Werewolves tended to look like bikers or roughnecks. There was nothing butch about Neil. He gravitated toward eclectic pieces he found in thrift stores and used far too much product to ever be accepted in a biker bar. In a small, tight-knit world, Neil was in the minority. It was one of the reasons he had come to me looking for work. After the rather terrible death of my last werewolf, I found myself persona non grata among that set. But I also had no problem working with and being friends with that rarest of species—the gay wolf.
Sarah smiled indulgently at her friend. “You don’t need a makeover, gorgeous. You also don’t understand the nature of a demon contract.”
Neil ran a hand through his curly blond hair and sighed. “I understand that the last job we pulled, I got silver shot up my ass and we barely cleared ten grand a piece. I’m sick of mass transit. Do you know what a packed bus smells like to a werewolf? Have you ever had super smell on a 105 degree day? August is intolerable for me.”
“Hell is hotter, buddy,” Sarah said.
Neil rolled his eyes. “It’s not like we sold our souls. At least I didn’t sell my soul. I sure didn’t give Zoey permission to sell it, and I don’t think Daniel has a soul to sell.”
Daniel, who had been silently brooding up until now, turned his seriously blue eyes on the werewolf. “Laugh all you like, Chewbacca, this is serious. By accepting that money, Zoey signed a contract. She might not have actually put pen to paper, but trust me, there is a record of the deal in some accounting office on the Hell plane, and it is binding. It doesn’t matter that Halfer didn’t properly represent himself. This is the way they play it in Hell. It’s a classic demon trick. He offered far too much money for the job and Zoey took the bait.”
“Don’t blame it all on me, Danny.” I turned on him, slamming my beer down. “You were there. You looked at that briefcase like it was an open-all-night blood bank.”
“Well, I could really use a new bed.” Daniel ignored my outburst. “The one I have right now is crappy, and I have to spend twelve hours a day in a dead stupor in it. Do you know what kind of a crick that can put in your neck? I was thinking of getting a Tempur-Pedic. The other vampires say they are really undead friendly.”
Vampires are very concerned with comfort. I suppose it’s because they live so long in a single body that they become somewhat preoccupied with pampering it. The myth of the vampire hunting in the shadows is just that—a myth. Most vampires wouldn’t be caught dead in a dark alley. They prefer the comforts of hotels and beautifully decorated homes.
The sunlight thing is true. Something about the disease makes the flesh susceptible to ultraviolet light. Despite what Hollywood will tell you, Daniel’s heart beats just fine as long as he keeps his blood volume up. I vividly remember laying my head against his chest and hearing the sound of his heart beating the night he rose. His skin is only a little colder than a human, though it gets icy if he doesn’t feed properly. Garlic doesn’t bother Daniel at all, and he can certainly see himself in a mirror and have his photograph taken, though he’s not too big on the latter. The Council advises against photography as the picture can be found years later and questions would almost certainly come up.
I turned to Sarah, who seemed to always have a perpetually amused look on her face. Sarah was barely twenty-three, but she always seemed so much older despite her fashion sense and ever-changing hair. This month it was cut into a pixie-like bob and dyed hot pink.
“Would you like to complain about your supernatural powers to the mere mortal?” I asked, bitterness creeping into my voice. It wasn’t easy being the only human in the group.
“Nope. No complaints here,” Sarah said with a hint of a smile. “Although, since we’re stuck, I think the best thing to do is donate the money to charity. Let’s get some good karma out of this. Given the way half this crew lives, might I suggest PETA?”
The boys managed to groan in unison.
I shook my head, adamant in the belief that I could find a way to fix this. There had to be a way out. I hadn’t spent any of the money. As long as we didn’t spend a dime, maybe we could finesse our way out. “We’re not touching this money. There’s no way I’m taking this job.”
“You already took the job.” Sarah shook her pink head in a sympathetic fashion.
“There’s no way out, Z.” Daniel pondered the money quietly for a moment, and the rest of us waited as he thought.
After a brief silence, he stood and closed the briefcase. “We do the job. There’s nothing else to do, so we do the job professionally and with absolutely no emotion. Emotion is where the demon will try to trip us up. I have no doubt that Halfer wants the object, but he won’t turn down the opportunity to
screw with us in the meantime.”
It wasn’t what I had hoped for, but I knew deep down that Daniel was right. Demon contracts were not something one just got out of by saying “I want a mulligan.” We would need to tread carefully, but if we played our cards right, we might survive intact and be richer for it. Demons liked to play the “win either way” scenario. If we succeeded, he got his object. If we failed, he got our souls to munch on for all eternity. We were trapped, and the only way to get out was to plow our way through.
“Fine.” I resigned myself to the task at hand. I pulled out a thick manila folder and slapped it on the table. “Then we should get down to business. I’ll read through the material the client gave us. Sarah, find out whatever you can about this Light of Alhorra. Daniel, see if you can find out anything about Halfer. This object is apparently going to be housed at a downtown hotel, so we need to see if we have any contacts who can get us inside. We’ll need security information and possibly one or two of us should take a job there.”
“How about me, boss?” Neil was the only one of the four of us pleased with the outcome of this meeting. I could see license plates dancing in his eyes, and I was betting they weren’t attached to an economy car.
“Tomorrow night’s a full moon. Try not to eat anyone,” I said sarcastically. Neil was pure muscle. I really had no use for him in the planning stage.
He smiled brightly as he stood and slipped into a preppy jacket that matched his shoes perfectly. There was no small amount of mischief in his eyes. “No promises. I know every other wolf in the world will be running through the woods, but I have a date tomorrow night. They can run. I get really horny at the full moon. I intend to howl. His name is Trevor, he’s a telekinetic, and a Libra. I can’t wait to see how that works. I finally got matched at my dating site.”
