by E. S. Moore
I clenched my fists under the table and counted slowly to ten. Mikael knew too much. Anyone else would be dead.
“What did this guy look like?” I spoke slowly and even managed to force a smile. “Just tell me so I can get out of here. I have some things that need taking care of tonight.”
Mikael’s smile faded. “I don’t need to tell you.” He spoke at a near whisper. “I can show you.”
I quickly stood and looked around the room. No one was watching Mikael and I do business. Most of the tables had three or four occupants, drinking and laughing amongst themselves. There was a medley of faces at the bar itself, but if any one of them was the questioner, they didn’t show it in any way.
It wasn’t until my eyes fell on a table in the far corner and its lone occupant seated with his back to me that I knew. All I could make out from where I stood was his long brown hair and square shoulders. He wasn’t drinking anything, wasn’t eating anything. He was looking out the window as if he were waiting for someone.
“Exactly,” Mikael said, following my gaze. “What are you going to do now?”
I stared at the man a moment longer before answering. Loud music blared out over the speakers nailed to the walls in all corners of the room, drowning out individual conversations. Bart stood at the bar, paying me only casual glances—most likely making sure I didn’t start any more trouble. The patrons were all involved with their own drinks and friends, oblivious to anything but whatever was in front of them.
I smoothed down my coat and brushed back my hair. How did this guy know to find me here? I guess I would find out.
I glanced down at Mikael and gave him a smile that wiped the grin clear off his face. His eyes widened a little and he scooted farther back in his seat.
“I’m going to introduce myself,” I said, my voice cold, calculated. “It would only be polite.”
19
My coat swished around my ankles as I approached the man sitting alone by the window. I walked slowly, never taking my eyes from the back of his head. Eyes followed me as I passed. Soft snickers and whispered words barely registered on my conscience. I had a vague impression that Bart was watching me with a disapproving glare.
I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do when I met the man. He was asking about me but didn’t know what I looked like, what my real name was. He only knew me by my reputation, which meant he could be anyone. There was a chance I could get information out of him, pretend to be someone else and hope he let something slip. If he was working for someone, I wanted to know who.
If he was working alone, he would be easy enough to handle. He was just one man and I was a practiced killer. I wouldn’t be able to do it here, of course. I could wait for him to leave The Bloody Stake and follow him back to whatever hole he crawled out of and finish him there. It would be quick and as painless as I could make it.
Then again, if Mr. Questions was working for someone, I would have to be a whole hell of a lot more careful. He might not be the only one watching for me. He might not truly be alone either. Any one of the patrons could be working with him. Hell, half the bar could be for all I knew.
I took a wide berth around the table and sat down across from him. He looked at me without blinking, as if my joining him was exactly what he had expected. His face was made up of harsh features, dominated mostly by a beak nose that jutted from his face like an ice pick. Eyebrows too narrow and too angled to be natural looked to be painted on above his eyes. His cheekbones formed shelves under those dark blue eyes, giving him a decidedly haunted look.
“I knew you couldn’t resist,” he said. His eyes drifted over my shoulder and back out the window. The curtains were slightly parted, giving only a partial view of the parking lot. “I knew if I waited here, you would eventually show up.”
“And who in the hell do you think I am?”
He smiled, revealing a jagged collection of teeth. Shit. Those teeth could mean only one thing.
I was dealing with a werewolf. An old one.
“I had heard a certain lady of the night frequented The Bloody Stake. I learned there was also a high probability that she would be coming here quite soon.” His gaze turned back to me. “I presume you are she.”
It felt like a hundred spiders were crawling up and down my back. The man’s gaze was so penetrating, I was sure he could read my every thought. I no longer cared why he was looking for me or whom he might be working for. This guy was a danger all his own.
I ran my hand over my mouth to gather myself before speaking. I wouldn’t show fear. It had been a long time since anyone had been able to unsettle me so much with just a look. This guy was more powerful than I had given him credit for at first. Then again, I had been looking at the back of his head. It’s hard to judge someone when you couldn’t see their eyes.
“Okay,” I said. There was no point in denying who I was. He would probably sniff out the lie. He probably had seen me with Mikael and put two and two together. “What do you want? Who are you? Who are you working for?”
“I am here because I have a proposal for you.” His gaze shifted from my face to my hands, which were now precariously close to my weapons. He didn’t seem too concerned. We were in a no fighting zone, after all. “As for who I am working for, that is my business, not yours. If you decide to take me up on my proposal, then we shall discuss the benefits of our cooperation and what it means to those who now lay claim over me.”
The night had just begun and I had already had enough of it. I motioned for Bart to bring me a drink. He was already watching me, so I figured I might as well put him to work. I kept both my feet firmly planted on the floor as I shifted my chair around so I didn’t leave my back exposed to the window, while at the same time keeping myself as far away from the wolf across from me as I could.
He had me in a precarious predicament. There was no way I could watch the window and the door and him all at the same time. He probably sat where he had for that reason alone.
“What kind of proposal are you offering, Mister ... ?”
“Davis.” He gave me such a sinister smile I just about drew on him then and there. This guy gave me a serious case of the heebie-jeebies. “My name is Adrian Davis. I’m sure you have heard of me by now.”
If my blood hadn’t run cold long ago, it sure as hell would have then. It was like ice tearing through my veins, and it took all my self-control to keep from lashing out at the first mention of his name. This was the bastard who had sent the wolf after me. He was a rebel Luna Cultist who had refused to play by the rules, making up his own rules instead.
And here I was sitting across from him in a crowded bar where violence was met with a shotgun blast to the head. My night was just getting better and better.
“I know who you are,” I said, barely concealing my anger. I was damn near frothing at the mouth.
“Jonathan has probably already told you enough lies about me to set you on edge, to make you wary of me. I can smell your anger, your fear. You are a vampire, correct? I hadn’t believed it possible at first. A vampire walking into the Luna Cult and coming out with her head intact? It almost defies belief.”
Bart arrived with my drink and set it down in front of me. He glanced at Adrian before giving me a warning glance. He walked away slowly, mumbling to himself.
“I only know your name,” I lied. “Jonathan didn’t tell me much. What else do you know about me?”
Adrian smiled bitterly. “Not enough, obviously. Let’s just say my information has been limited as of late. I know only what I was able to gather from the streets and a few choice informants. Not good ones either.”
“What do you want with me?” I took a drink from my bottle. It was cold and would have been refreshing if I could taste anything other than the bile in my mouth.
Adrian looked past me again to stare out the window. I wanted to turn around and see what he was looking at out there, but I didn’t want to turn my attention away from him. He was dangerous. He might not abide b
y Bart’s rules. He could have my head off before Bart could pull his gun, I was sure. This guy seemed the type.
“I know of what you have done to the vampire Houses during the last dozen years or so. I know how many vampires and werewolves died by your hand alone. I know you have been asked by the Luna Cult to assist in extracting Simon from a Minor House. House Tremaine, to be exact. He wants you to risk your life, send you into a risky situation in which there is a good chance none of you will sur vive.”
“That’s my business,” I said, acid on my tongue. I hated that this guy knew so much. I’m used to keeping my business my own.
“All I ask of you is that you join me. Forget the Luna Cult. Forget House Tremaine. They are minor concerns in the greater picture.”
I set my bottle on the table. “How so?”
“Tremaine is a mess, the Luna Cult is fractured. They pose almost no threat to the city as a whole, despite what they want you to believe.”
I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t so sure he was right about the Luna Cult. Any type of organization that large was a threat to someone.
“I could use someone like you,” he went on. “I have had enough of the politics, all the bullshit that goes with the Cult and the vampire Houses. With you, we could take down any House we choose. We could make them serve us. This city could belong to us.”
“High aspirations, I see.”
“There is no sense in striving for mediocrity.”
“If you wanted me to join you, then why did you send your goons after me?” I asked, unable to keep the anger out of my voice. I leaned forward, clutching my bottle of beer as if I was going to hit him with it. I wasn’t so sure I wouldn’t.
A faint smile played on Adrian’s lips. He closed his eyes and sighed, seemingly unconcerned by my aggression. “Look at your little encounter as if it were a test. I needed to make sure you were who I thought you were. I needed to make sure you could handle yourself in stressful situations, situations that you didn’t plan for. You did well against impossible odds.”
“I wouldn’t call a single wolf impossible.” I nearly growled the words. “I have handled more than that often enough.”
“But not wolves as special as Eugene, you haven’t.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what he was talking about, but then it hit me. That wolf had been damn near impossible to kill. Silver hadn’t bothered him. He had seemed half crazed, willing to die for the cause, whatever that cause might be. What had Adrian done to him to make him that way?
Before I could pose the question, he turned his dark gaze back to me, pinning me to my chair with the power in his eyes. “Do you accept my proposal? Will you join me against the vampire Houses? Will you cast aside our petty differences, turn away from your current life, and seek to achieve something greater?”
Petty differences? I wanted to laugh in his face. The guy had sent someone to kill me and he called it petty. He was as crazy as the wolf trapped in the cell below the Luna Cult Den if he thought offering me the city would sway me away from my chosen path.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “You can take your proposal and shove it up your ass. It stinks enough to be right at home.” I leaned forward. “I don’t make deals with people like you. I kill them.”
“This opportunity will not come again,” Adrian said. “If you continue down your current path, you will end up dead.” He paused and stared long and hard at me before finishing. “Or worse.”
“I don’t take threats lightly either. Who the fuck do you think you are to threaten me?” I was shouting now. The entire bar was watching us. “You know who I am, what I am. You know what I am capable of.”
Adrian shrugged and leaned back in his chair. He gazed out the window as if I no longer mattered. Maybe in his mind, I didn’t. He had delivered his proposal and I had rejected it. It seemed like I was no longer a concern.
“It’s a shame,” he said after a long moment. “We could have done so much together, you and I. You are far more pleasant to look at than they say. Some paint you as a demonic whore with horns and a tail.” His eyes flickered over to me and I saw a hunger deep within them. It made me physically ill to imagine what might have fluttered through his sick mind just then. “I am sure we will meet again.”
I rose, taking the last as a dismissal. My hand trembled near my gun and I considered risking having Bart blow my head off with his shotgun. Just as long as I got the satisfaction of killing this asshole before I died, it would all be worth it.
I took a deep breath and spun to face the door. No, I couldn’t risk getting myself killed over something so petty. I didn’t look around at all the gawkers. I stalked out the door of The Bloody Stake, leaving the wolf to sit at the table. I could feel his eyes following me through the window.
I went to my bike and started it up, cursing all the way. I tore out of the parking lot in a flurry of tossed gravel. The night had turned out to be one major disaster. What the hell was I going to do about Adrian? He knew who I was, what I looked like, and I hadn’t killed him. I shouldn’t have even approached him in the first place.
I knew I could have waited outside the bar for him to come out, but I had a feeling he had no intention of leaving until first light. He was a werewolf. He could wait as long as it took. I couldn’t.
I sped down the street as if I were being chased by a pack of demons. I just wanted to get home, to spend some quality time alone with my own thoughts. I needed to figure out what I was going to do now. Tomorrow, I had to deal with House Tremaine. After that, I would need to figure out what to do with my newest problem.
My week was shaping up to be a real son of a bitch.
20
Ethan was waiting on the front stoop when I arrived home. The garage was open and I parked inside before going to meet him. He had a cool glass of lemonade in hand and was staring off in the distance. His face was covered in dried sweat, and he smelled of perspiration and hard labor. His He-Man shirt was stuck to his back.
“How’s the work going?” I asked, leaning against the side of the house next to him. I knew he didn’t like the outdoors all that much, so it was rare when I got to talk to him under the night sky. I looked to check out his work and was surprised to see nothing different. “Haven’t gotten this far?”
Ethan took a long pull from his lemonade glass and shuddered before turning to face me. “I’m pretty much done,” he said. “I’ve got some wiring to do downstairs, but in general, we can get this thing set up.”
“Done already? That was fast.”
He smiled, though it was a nervous one. He glanced over his shoulder toward the trees. “There wasn’t much else for me to do tonight. I figured I could get it done and over with.”
I studied the door, searching for any sign that the lock was in place. Everything looked just the same as it had when I had left. “So, where is it?”
“Flip up the doorbell.”
I reached out and wiggled the doorbell. The button rested on a matchbox-sized square. It always had, if I remembered correctly. It didn’t want to move at first, but then I found a tiny little switch at the bottom of the base. I flipped it to the right and the doorbell base came up with ease. Underneath was the shiny black surface of the fingerprint reader. I lowered the doorbell back in place, smiling at his ingenuity.
“I figured it would be best to hide it,” he said. He seemed to almost have forgotten the wide-open world behind us. “If we want to give the impression that two young lovers live here, hi-tech electronics would look out of place.” He reddened at mention of our cover story.
“Does the doorbell still work?”
“It does,” he said. “The old keys will still fit in the locks, but they no longer unlock the doors. If anyone tries to use a key or pick one of the locks, an alarm will go off in the basement, the lab, and in each of our bedrooms. You should be able to hear it all over the house.”
“The wiring you need to do is inside, I take it?”
“Yeah.” Ethan used
the condensation from his glass to moisten his hand, then wiped the dried sweat from his face. “I so need a shower.”
“When did you leave to get all of this stuff?” I asked, checking out the reader. It was just like the back door. I imagined there would be one at the door connecting the kitchen and garage. “I didn’t think anyone would be open this late and I didn’t hear you leave this morning.”
Come to think of it, I had never seen him leave the house. Deliveries were never made to the front door. So where did he get all his supplies? I doubted he had an endless supply of electronics and silver in his lab.
Ethan started at me, mouth slightly agape. The question seemed to have struck him dumb.
I stared right back. Normally, I didn’t ask him questions about how he did what he did. I had no idea where he got the illegal silver to work on my weapons, or how he knew how to modify my gun and motorcycle. I had taken him in when he was a teenager. I just figured he was some sort of savant. As far as I knew, he had the knowledge of the world trapped up there in his head.
“Out with it,” I said, crossing my arms. After the day I had, I wasn’t in the mood to be screwed with.
“I, uh ...” Ethan looked back toward the trees like he expected something to burst out of them at any moment. “Can we go inside?” he said. The worry was clear in his face.
“No diversions,” I said. “Spit it out.”
“Um.” He ran his fingers through his hair. He looked about ready to explode. “I really think we should go inside for this.”
“Is there someone out here? Is that why you are so nervous?” My words came out a bit more heated than I wanted.
“I don’t know. There could be.” He gave a nervous laugh. “But that’s not the problem.”
“Then what is.”
“I don’t want you to kill me.”
I froze at that. Kill him? Why in the bloody blazes would I kill him? Without Ethan, I wouldn’t be where I was today. He might not want to admit it, but he was as important to what I did as my ability with my weapons. Without him, I doubted I would have survived this long.
