by Lexi Blake
Neil’s eyes lit up as he looked at Sarah. “Daniel’s apartment is bland, but our night wasn’t.”
He launched into a recounting of the events from the night before, but my mind was still on Daniel.
I spent a lot of time the night before thinking about that apartment. It was cold and impersonal. It was aesthetically pleasing in an Architectural Digest way, but there was nothing of the owner reflected in the home. The neatness of it bothered me, too. Daniel had been many things, but neat was not one of them. I had no rosy reflections of living with Daniel. He’d been a slob. The corner of the apartment where he had his desk had always been an intricate disaster area.
It was a miracle he’d been able to get out the door with books in hand most mornings. It annoyed me at times. Daniel’s brain was just wired differently. He could take a subject he knew nothing about and become a near expert in a short time. College had been like Disney World for Daniel.
There hadn’t been a single book in his apartment. I guess that bugged me most of all.
“Tell me you didn’t eat the bear.” Sarah, the vegan, shivered at the thought.
Neil simply grinned. “Well, he was trying to kill me at the time.”
Sarah’s voice came out on a huffy little breath. “Do you know how close some bears are to going on the endangered species list?”
Neil snorted, a sound he made elegant. “Sarah, he wasn’t some polar bear. He was a schmo from Jersey from the sound of his accent.”
“Well, I don’t think that gives you the right to eat him,” Sarah said primly. Today she was wearing a vintage Clash T-shirt over a micro-mini and brilliant purple tights. A sassy beret covered her shock of pink hair. She turned her attention to me, and her expression changed. Her dark eyes glittered. “Speaking of horribly murdering people, how was your date with the man I’m going to kill? I hope you enjoyed it because I have a few things to say to him the next time we meet.”
“He was really sorry, Sarah.” With everything that happened last night, I managed to forget how humiliated Sarah had been. “His name is Dev, and he feels awful about the whole thing. He’s actually a really nice guy. He’s just not that great at magic.”
“I looked like an idiot. I actually drooled, Z,” she complained. “He made my mouth water. Daniel had to stop me from chasing after him. I also wanted to kill you for taking my man. I thought of him as ‘my man’ like I was stuck in a Tammy Wynette song. Do you know how humiliating that is for a feminist?”
“Again with the sorry.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. I would have been angry, too. But I wanted to see Dev again, and I didn’t want to worry about Sarah murdering him.
Sarah’s brown eyes narrowed as she thought about her problem. “You know, the most brilliant witches are almost always female. There’s something about the female psyche that lends itself to witchcraft. Can you imagine the hexes they created and what those hexes can do to a penis? Have you ever seen one twist into a pretzel?”
“Ouch!” Neil waggled a finger her way. “You don’t want to do that to him. He’s really cool and super rich. He also just happens to own Ether.”
“The club you were at was Ether? OMFG!” Sarah was squealing now, and I felt old. Though I was only a few years older than the pair across from me, sometimes their ability to switch gears emotionally shocked me.
“Good, so you leave his penis in the proper shape, and I’ll make sure you get into Ether. That is if it’s still standing after the number we did on it last night.” Albert had only told me that Dev was alive and still asleep. It made sense. He ran a nightclub. I was lucky Albert was an early riser.
“I’ve been trying to get into that place since it first opened. Everyone says it’s awesome. If you can get me on the list, I will take that as a favor.” She smiled, and I could see she was already thinking about what she would wear and what color she should dye her hair. “By the way, I did you a favor, silly girl. You totally forgot to lock your door. It was wide open when I got there this morning. I was a little surprised since you’re usually so careful. It’s okay, though. I locked it on my way out. It didn’t look like anything was missing, not that you have much anyone would want. Have you seen that TVs don’t need rabbit ears anymore?”
Sarah kept talking, but I shoved my way out of the booth, my brain hanging on one thought. Someone opened my apartment door. Daniel wouldn’t have left it unlocked. No way. No how. He was careful, ruthlessly so.
I slammed out of the diner and crossed the street at a dead run, desperate to get to my apartment.
A thief can never be too careful. Given our internal knowledge of how many crappy things can come between a person and said person’s prized possessions, one might think a thief would be particularly careful about security. One would normally be right.
On any regular night, I have what I like to call my security ritual. It consists of securing several doors with a variety of locks. There are three deadbolts, two keyless, and another two security chains. The chains aren’t really meant to keep anyone out as even a human could simply kick through them, but the actual chains themselves are made of silver and built to burst on impact, hopefully hitting whoever decided it was a good idea to kick in my door. There are several wards in my apartment meant to keep out various and sundry undesirables. Sarah even set up one on my front door that made humans wary about knocking. It made it hard to get pizza delivered, but on the plus side the Jehovah’s Witnesses stopped pestering me.
There was a separate ward on my bedroom, and I knew for a fact that I didn’t take it off or knock it down before I left the night before. I placed the ward on my bedroom door because when I had something important, I kept it under my bed. My father made fun of my hiding place, but it was more complex than just shoving something in between the mattress and floor and hoping no one glanced there looking for dust bunnies. My heavy antique four-poster sat on a thick rug. If someone managed to push aside the bed and roll up the rug, they would have to look for the seams in the wood to find the door that leads to my safe.
That safe was my baby. I spent everything I had on it. It was custom made, with three-inch thick steel walls and nylon wheels to make the noise of the serrated tumbler wheels almost soundless. I eschewed electronic devices in favor of solid structure. I picked this apartment because of its placement on the first floor.
When I moved here, Daniel helped me rip up the flooring and tear up the foundation to install the safe. Sarah and Neil knew the safe existed, but only Danny, my father, and I knew the combo.
There was five hundred thousand dollars in that safe right now. My hands shook as I opened the door to my apartment. There was no way anyone could find the safe, much less open it and take the contents. I said this over and over like a silent prayer.
I stepped into the living room and breathed a small sigh of relief. There wasn’t anything out of order. It was just as I had left it. Surely if someone had broken in they would have left a horrible path of destruction.
“Is everything okay?” Sarah asked, breathing heavily. It was obvious she’d been running to try to keep up. “I’m so sorry. I just thought you forgot to lock it.” She ran her hands across the walls. “The wards are still strong. Even without the locks, they should be enough to keep people out.”
“It isn’t people she’s worried about, dearie.” Neil walked in, inhaling deeply through his nose. For someone like Neil, scent was a multilayered object and needed to be analyzed. “There’s no brimstone. I smell vampire, witch, your dear self, that delicious faery of yours and…hmm…Irish whiskey.”
“Dad was here.” My dad really liked his whiskey.
“That explains it then,” Neil said, seemingly satisfied with his analysis. “No one else.”
I let my shoulders sag in relief. My whole plan depended on being able to return the money to Lucas Halfer. I still wasn’t sure it would even work, but I needed that money to be able to hope there was a way out. Without it, the job became difficult. There was still equipment to buy a
nd people to bribe. Thievery, when done properly, was not cheap.
“Good, then we can relax.” Sarah flopped down on the sofa. “We should probably get started on the prelims for the job. I have an in at the hotel. Bruce, that guy I dated about six months ago, is one of the assistant managers. I gave him this great sob story about a loan shark and getting tossed out of my apartment, so he’s giving me and my roommate some cleaning shifts starting this week. Hope you look good in gray, Zoey.”
“We’re not doing the job,” I said sharply. Something still felt off. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something wrong.
Sarah looked at me like I’d gone insane. “We can’t back out. That’s tantamount to breaking the contract.”
“I haven’t signed the contract, not really.” I absently looked around, trying to figure out what was wrong. “The way I look at it, until I actually spend the money, I should be able to return it all. There’s been no real exchange if I give every cent of the money back.”
She twirled a piece of pink hair, winding it around her finger. “I don’t know if that will work.”
“Don’t even try,” Neil advised her with a sigh. “I spent most of last night trying to convince her, and she isn’t listening. Something about our immortal souls or something. Immortal souls won’t buy baby wolf a new car.”
I took Neil by the arm and started to pull him into the bedroom. I wouldn’t be satisfied until I saw it was there with my own eyes.
“Move that bed for me.” I could do it myself, but why bother when Neil wouldn’t even break a sweat?
“I can make a bed move, honey. I can make the earth move when I put my mind to it, but you’re just not my type,” Neil said with a snap of his fingers.
“Now.” I growled, not interested in wasting time with Neil’s humor.
“Yes, ma’am.” He effortlessly shoved the heavy bed halfway across the room. Before I could bark out my next order, he rolled the rug up. “See, Zoey, everything is fine.”
I knelt down and pushed at the floor. The hidden door popped up, and there was my lovely safe. It was secure. And yet I still found my fingers spinning the wheel.
“Is everything all right?” Sarah asked from the door.
“It’s fine,” Neil replied as I heard the final notch click into place. “Zoey is just being careful.”
But Zoey hadn’t been careful. No, Zoey had been the opposite of careful I discovered as I pulled the door open and looked into my lovely safe. At least the bastard, whoever it was, had left my guns. They were gleaming in the dim light like a lonely beacon.
“Shit.” Neil looked down into the safe that no longer contained any money in it.
I could feel myself start to shake and then the tears started. I hated the way I always cried when I got really angry, but there was nothing I could do about it. Everything I’d worked for was gone. My soul was in question. I really could spend the rest of eternity on the Hell plane with my father saying, “I told you so.”
“Zoey,” Neil pulled me out of my nightmare momentarily. He was breathing in deeply, looking for a scent. He shook his head in confusion. “Was your father in here last night?”
“No, I don’t think he’s been in my bedroom in months.” My father rarely came to my place. The night before had been one of three times he’d ever been in my apartment. I usually went to his house.
Sarah shook her head. “He left with me, and neither one of us went into her room. After you left with the hot faery, we were here for maybe ten minutes.”
Neil frowned. “If your father wasn’t here, then why does the whole room smell like whiskey?”
I let the door slam with a satisfying thud, but not until I pulled out my faithful Ruger. I made sure to grab an extra clip. I needed to be ready, after all.
I had a date with dear old Dad.
Chapter Ten
Compared to most of the places we lived while I was growing up, the house my dad owned was a mansion. I drove through the manicured lawns of North Dallas, anger rising steadily with every mile. Driving up Mockingbird Lane, the traffic was always rough, even in the middle of the day, but it bothered me more than usual. I took a hard left the first chance I got and sped through the expensive neighborhood my father had called home for the last thirteen years.
Sometime around the time Daniel’s father died, my own father decided to get serious about putting down roots. In our world, that meant being a big enough predator that you didn’t need to be on the run. When the rest of the world feared your talents enough, they tended to leave you alone. My father carefully cultivated his reputation. Some of it was true, and a whole lot of it was the product of his devious, inventive mind, but the important thing was the world’s perception of Harry Wharton. He was a bastard with a cold heart who got the job done and got rid of anyone who was in the way. Those beneath him on the food chain feared him and those above him respected him enough to leave him alone. There were some powerful people out there who owed Harry Wharton, and to Dad’s credit, he knew how to hold those vouchers to his best advantage. To the supernatural underworld, Harry Wharton was a powerful man.
I, however, knew he was really just a horny old bastard who loved his whiskey a little too much, and twenty-year-old girls way too much.
There was one thing in Harry Wharton’s life that held his heart, and that was me. Sometimes this was a blessing, as every Christmas he showered me with gifts, but at that moment, it felt like a curse. He’d been meddling in my life for the last several years, and I was ready for it to stop.
It had all started, as most of the crappy things in my life, with Daniel’s death. Up until then, Dad was willing to cede protection of me to Danny. He trusted Danny and loved him like a son and knew that Danny would never let anything happen to me. Since his turn, Dad had decided to be overprotective once again. He’d interceded on my behalf during jobs when I first started working. I suppose that in a way it helped to build my reputation, but having Daddy bail me out when I could have handled it on my own rankled.
But this was the last time, I thought as my rage threatened to turn volcanic. He’d meddled in my life for the last time. This wasn’t just my fate he was messing with now. It was Daniel’s and Neil’s and Sarah’s fates as well. I led this crew, and I made the decisions. No wonder the demon had chosen me as his bitch when my own father thought he could manipulate me so easily.
“Sweetie…” Neil said, worry evident in his voice. “Maybe we should stop and get a glass of wine—or maybe three—and talk about this. You just seem tense. You know you shouldn’t go see your dad when you’re this pissed off.”
“Neil is right.” Sarah chimed in from the back seat. “You need to calm down. I’m sure your dad was just taking it someplace he thought was safer. He’s just trying to protect you.”
“Well, he needs to stop thinking about protecting me and start wondering about who can protect him,” I said between clenched teeth as I pulled into the circular driveway. My heart raced, but I chalked it up to adrenaline. So I was mad—madder than I’d ever been—but I had the right to be mad. I didn’t look back as I slammed the car door. The crepe myrtles that lined the drive usually held my attention at this time of year, but today I blew by their glorious blooms without so much as a glance. I used my key and threw the heavy front door open.
“Dad!” I yelled up the stairs. “Get your drunk Irish ass down here this minute and give me my money!”
I passed through the foyer. Somewhere along the way, one of my father’s assistants had decorated it in what passed for post-modern, but I ignored the art and tasteful accents as my impatience grew by the moment. I hit the stairs, taking them two at a time, which wasn’t easy given my short stature. I heard Neil and Sarah behind me but paid them no mind. I just wanted that money back in my possession. I realized my hands were shaking a little bit and the briefest of thoughts flitted through my brain.
Something wasn’t right and I knew it, but the overwhelming emotion I felt shoved aside that bit o
f logic.
I needed to get that money. That was all that mattered.
My father’s office was the first room at the top of the stairs. This was his private office. Dad kept two. The downstairs office was where he took clients and held meetings, and the second was a private office upstairs where he went about his business. The second floor office contained all the good stuff. This was where he kept his books on arcane treasures and magic, and all the files he compiled on various people of import. It was where the weapons were hidden and where the skeletons were kept. Well, there was only one actual skeleton, but he really tried to keep a careful eye on it because if it ever woke up…
“Zoey, what are you doing here?” Christine came out of the private office dressed in a too short, too tight skirt that she undoubtedly thought looked professional. Christine was one of those girls who was actually quite intelligent but seemed so unsure of herself, it took a while to realize she had a brain.
“Where is he?” I didn’t want to deal with Christine. Christine hadn’t taken my money.
She shrank back a bit at my tone. “He’s still in bed. He’s been sick all morning.”
I turned and dismissed her as I walked down the hallway straight to his bedroom. Christine would know he’d been sick since she shared that bedroom with him. The minute I moved out to go to college, the first in a long line of twenty-something assistants had moved in with my dad. Christine was the latest. Most of them knew very little about my father’s actual business. He billed himself as a private detective and security specialist. He tried to keep his “girls” out of the darker aspects of the work.
“I actually think something might be wrong with him.” Christine hurried to catch up with me. “I was just about to call you to see if you could help.”
Though it was starting to get difficult to think, I stopped. “Call a doctor. I can’t help him.”
