by Kelly Goode
I checked the filing cabinets and even behind the artwork on the walls, feeling that at any second, the vampire would come crashing through the door and catch me in my act of treachery.
‘Think, think, think,’ I said to the empty room. ‘If I had secrets where would I hide them?’
An answer came back as a squeak and Mari, in her rat form, appeared through an air vent in the wall. She wiggled her small hairy body between the slats and scurried towards me.
I sank to my knees and the rat ran up my arm and across my shoulder. Her tiny, sharp claws smarted on my bare skin but I was too pleased to have an ally to grumble.
‘I’m so glad to see you.’
Mari squeaked again, her whiskers vibrating as she burrowed her head into my skin.
‘You need to get a message to Harvey. He’s somewhere in this club. Tell him Darrick is meeting a Mr Smith in one of the private rooms and he mentioned something about having the stone. If Harvey can follow them, he might see where Darrick keeps his safe.’
Mari squealed and then nipped me with her teeth.
‘Ouch,’ I said, pushing her off my shoulder. She twisted her body so she landed safely then immediately scampered off into the corner of the room. I was about to make a grab for her but she was too quick, and all I saw was her long tail disappearing through the slats in the air vent.
56
Harvey entered the men’s restrooms, pleased to find it empty. He needed a moment to compose himself, somewhere quiet where the stench of booze and sex didn’t invade his senses.
Watching Ember kiss that bloodsucking vampire had been worse than watching her dance on the podium. He had it bad for the sassy fire-witch, and that knowledge frightened him. The last time he’d felt this way for a woman he’d lost his wings and ended up in hell.
Somewhere he did not intend ever to return to.
Harvey walked towards the hand basins and splashed some cold water on his face. He had his own assignment to think about now and couldn’t let his feelings for Ember put his chance of freedom at risk. He would push all thoughts of her deep inside that vacant space in his decayed heart.
Once he left this damn First and Only team, he wouldn’t see her again. Sure, he’d toyed with the idea of taking her to dinner, getting to know her away from the prying CCTV and constant guards, but he was a demon.
There were no happy ever afters for demons.
Harvey wiped his face and then flinched when a brown rat landed on his shoulder. His first instinct was to scream, but he managed to hold himself together enough to flick the animal into the hand basin.
‘Fucking hell, Mari! What are you doing in here?’
The rat squeaked and scrambled to get up the sides of the slippery basin.
‘Where’s Ember? Is she ok?’
So much for not thinking about the redhead for the rest of the night. The rat only squeaked in reply and he wondered whether it was, in fact, Mari or just a plain, dirty, ugly rodent.
Harvey grabbed the rat by the tail, holding it away from his body. He wasn’t scared he told himself, just cautious. Rats were vermin and he didn’t want to catch anything.
He wasn’t scared.
‘Mari? If it’s you, you have to find a way to let me know or else I’m flushing you down the toilet.’
The rat stopped wriggling and the air shimmered until Harvey was no longer holding a rat’s tail but a woman’s arm.
A naked, old woman.
Harvey released Mari and spun around, wishing he could erase that image from his mind.
‘There’s no time to be shy, demon,’ she scolded. ‘Ember is in Darrick’s office searching for the stone but she overheard the vampire talking about meeting someone called Mr Smith in one of the private rooms. He has another stone to sell so she wants you to find him and see what Darrick does with it.’
‘Ok.’
Harvey already knew someone was going to try to sell a stone to Darrick tonight. Finding the seller was his real assignment. His individual task set to him by his handler that he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone else about.
‘You can follow me through the air vents. It leads directly into the private room.’
‘Are you going to shift first?’
Her reply came back as a squeak and Harvey turned around, grateful for the first time in his life to see a rat and not a naked woman before him. The small animal traversed its way up the wall and through the grill in the ceiling.
Harvey followed, turning from man to smoke and filtering through the air vent. He kept pace with the rat who eventually stopped next to another grill. A terse voice came from the room below them.
Harvey’s smoke cloud seeped out of the vent. There was only one occupant in the room. A fat, bald man who was too wrapped up in his telephone conversation to look up and notice the smoke. He paced the room, gesturing wilding at a bag on the table beside him while he barked instructions down the phone.
Harvey headed towards the table. His cloud was silent and odourless, and once he’d settled over the bag, he was able to remove the blue gemstone from inside and then drift back into the air vent.
Mari was waiting for him in the ventilation shaft, and she squeaked when she saw him return. The act of stealing the stone had taken less than fifteen seconds and the fat man hadn’t noticed a thing.
Harvey was about to head back to the restroom when he heard Darrick’s voice.
‘So you’ve come to negotiate a sale have you, Mr Smith?’
There was no doubt in Harvey’s mind that the vampire would have noticed the black cloud floating around the room and he realised he’d made it back to safety just in time.
‘The price is ten million,’ Mr Smith wheezed.
Harvey heard Darrick laugh and so drifted back to the grill so he could see what was going on in the room below him.
‘The price was ten million if you had the stone I require.’
‘I do.’
The man reached into the bag and Harvey saw the wild panic register in his eyes when he found it empty.
‘Something wrong?’ Darrick asked.
‘It’s gone.’
‘What do you mean it’s gone?’
‘I had it when I came in and now it’s missing. Is this some vampire trick? Did you steal the stone?’
Harvey saw Darrick blur and reappear behind Mr Smith. He fastened his hands around the fat man’s broad throat and squeezed until his eyes bulged.
‘You think you can come into my club and accuse me of stealing?’
Mr Smith gurgled as he tried to claw the vampire’s hands away from his throat.
‘You think you can pull some shit about a missing stone so you can extort more money from me?’
Darrick grabbed the man’s right arm and yanked it from its socket. Blood spurted across the room and the screams of pain and terror even turned Harvey’s stomach. He’d heard cries like that when he’d been in hell.
Harvey didn’t need to see Darrick remove the rest of Mr Smith’s remaining limbs. He didn’t feel guilty about stealing the stone.
Business was business.
He drifted back through the ventilation system and reformed to man once he was in the restroom. Mari squeaked at him through the grill.
‘Go check on, Ember,’ Harvey told the rat. ‘Darrick is going to be pumped up from that violence. She could be in danger.’
Harvey desperately wanted to check on her himself, but he’d reached a crossroads in his process with the First and Only team.
Help Ember or deliver the stone to Chief Andrews and receive a full pardon?
When faced with those odds, a demon was always going to choose himself.
57
I examined the small cut on my collarbone. It was only a scratch so I didn’t believe Mari meant to hurt me, but she was obviously trying to tell me something.
‘What are you doing?’
I froze at hearing Darrick’s voice directly behind me. I stood up and turned to face the vampire.
�
�I was looking for the alcohol,’ I lied. ‘Have you changed your clothes?’
Darrick ignored my question and crossed the room, opening the door on the sideboard I’d already searched, and extracting a bottle of red wine from the rack.
‘Cabernet Sauvignon ok for you?’
‘Sounds perfect.’
He opened the bottle and poured the deep red liquid into two glasses. He was definitely wearing a new suit, even though it was the same colour, it was a different cut. What had he been up to since he’d left?
‘Here you go.’
‘Thank you. What shall we toast to?’
‘To you, Ember,’ he said, raising his glass.
‘Not to tonight’s business? Did it not go as expected?’
Darrick shook his head.
‘No.’
‘Why was that?’ I asked, looking at him through my lashes. I knew I was chancing my luck but I was hoping he was in a chatty mood.
‘I was looking to acquire a stone,’ he said and I noticed his blue eyes were rimmed red.
‘A stone like a diamond? Can I see it?’
‘Do you like diamonds?’
‘What girl doesn’t?’
I lifted my glass and sipped my wine. The vampire mimicked my action. The subtle taste of blackberries brought back happy memories of picking fruit with my mother. Before Roger started hurting me.
Before she was taken away from me.
‘I didn’t think vampires could drink wine,’ I said, dragging my mind away from that dark time in my life before my mother’s incarceration.
‘I like the odd glass now and then,’ he replied, shrugging out of his suit jacket and placing it over the back of a chair. ‘Mainly when I’m trying to appear civil or impress someone.’
‘I’m flattered,’ I replied, placing my glass on the edge of the desk. I couldn’t afford to drink too much alcohol as the way Darrick was staring at me, was making me want to take my clothes off and start dancing.
Damn his mind tricks.
‘You’re very beautiful, Ember.’
Harvey had said the same thing and yet I couldn’t help but think they were both having a joke at my expense.
‘I bet you say that to all the girls,’ I said, trying to deflect the compliment.
Darrick turned his head to one side, as if analysing my comment.
‘No, I don’t. I’m very choosy when it comes to women.’
I tried to swallow the laugh that was simmering below the surface but failed.
‘Why do you find that funny?’ he asked, his dark eyebrow arching with confusion.
‘That wasn’t the impression Gary gave me. He seemed to imply that I was just the next conquest to pass through your revolving door.’
Darrick took my hand in his.
‘Gary is an idiot,’ he said. ‘You are the first woman ever to set foot in here. This is my sanctuary. If all I wanted was a one night stand, Ember then you’d be in my bed already.’
‘Such confidence,’ I mocked though I knew he was more than capable of coercing me into having sex with him.
‘It’s not confidence. It’s certainty.’
Darrick leaned in to kiss me but stopped. His blue eyes shimmered inside his pale face before turning bright red.
‘You’re bleeding.’
His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper and I watched in morbid fascination as his fangs extended.
‘I…I scratched myself,’ I stammered.
Darrick pressed his finger over the nip that Mari had made on my collarbone and came away with a droplet of my blood, which he immediately brought to his mouth. The sound he made as he sucked his finger was primal and greedy.
‘I want more,’ he growled, fastening his mouth over the small scrape before I could object.
58
Carter entered the control room, closely followed by Chief Andrews. The rest of the team scrambled to look busy, shuffling papers and pressing buttons. All four walls were covered with various pieces of high-tech electronic equipment and surveillance screens, which gave off a constant humming noise. In the centre, Pete sat behind a smaller terminal typing on his keyboard.
‘What’s going on?’
Carter directed his question to no one in particular and was met with silence.
‘Come on. Someone give me an update.’
‘We thought we caught a break earlier.’ Pete finally said. ‘Our intel suggested Darrick was going to meet with someone looking to sell another toothstone. We put Harvey on it, but he hasn’t reported back yet, so we don’t know the outcome.’
‘Who was the seller?’ Carter asked.
‘Mr Smith,’ his friend said. ‘It’s an unimaginative alias so could be a serious player or some punk off the street.’
‘And where is this Mr Smith now? Can we pick him up for questioning?’
Pete shrugged his shoulders. ‘We’re not sure.’
Carter felt an immediate surge of adrenaline.
‘Where’s Ember?’ he asked, concern for her safety hitting him hard in his stomach.
‘Still in Darrick’s office. She’s been trying to get him talking about the stone again, but the vampire has other things on his mind.’
‘What happened to our eyes?’ Chief Andrews asked, moving closer to one of the large monitors on the wall. ‘Why are the screens blank?’
‘The subject is too close.’
Pete’s words hung in the air, and Carter folded his arms across his chest in an attempt to control the emotions that were surging through his body.
‘What do you mean they’re too close? That camera is in her damn necklace. Is she in danger?’
‘I wouldn’t call it danger,’ Pete answered ambiguously.
‘So what are they doing? Put it on loudspeaker.’
Pete shook his head.
‘You don’t need to hear this, mate.’
‘Put it on the loudspeaker,’ Carter repeated. ‘And don’t call me mate as if you’re doing me a favour. She’s my charge. I should know what the hell she’s doing.’
It annoyed Carter that Pete still looked at the chief for agreement before switching the sound on. A few seconds later, Darrick’s voice boomed out of the speaker system.
‘I can’t get enough of you, Ember.’
Carter tensed as a series of heavy breaths followed. As vampires had no need for air, it was a safe bet that they belonged to Ember.
Were they the noises she made when she was excited or scared?
‘I’ll treat you like a princess if you let me,’ Darrick continued. ‘You’d want for nothing. You desire stones then I’ll give you diamonds as big as your fist.’
Carter did his best to ignore the kissing noises though internally he was ready to pummel something.
‘Drinking your blood is the closest I’ve ever come to feeling warm,’ Darrick groaned. ‘I need more.’
Carter heard Ember inhale painfully, and he imagined the vampire’s fangs perforating her delicate skin. He wanted to kill him.
Slowly. Painfully. Forever.
‘Shame we have no visual,’ Chief Andrews said. ‘We could be drawing up plans of his office. I thought the rat was supposed to be helping. Where’s Sommors?’
‘Here, sir,’ came a voice from the back of the room. ‘Mari is aware of what is expected of her. Her individual assignment is to the kill the vampire as soon as Ember finds out where he’s keeping the stone, but they’ve been going at it for ages, so she hasn’t been able to move forward with the task.’
Carter shot Mari’s handler a stern look.
‘Hey, it’s your girl that’s slacking not mine,’ Sommors said, although he wisely returned his attention to the blank monitors at the look of pure fury in Carter’s eyes.
Ember’s breathing was growing more erratic, but it was her feminine groan of pleasure which was Carter’s undoing. His blood was boiling, and he was visibly shaking.
‘Turn it off,’ he demanded.
‘I can’t do that,’ Pete said. ‘What
if he slips up and gives something away.’
‘I think Ember’s the only one giving something away tonight.’
Pete reached over to switch the sound off, but Chief Andrews stopped him.
‘You wanted to listen to this, Carter, so listen. After our conversation earlier, you should be pleased your charge is taking this mission more seriously than you.’
The sound of a zip being unfastened was unmistakable in the quiet room.
‘Come on. She’s out of control, sir,’ Carter said. ‘She’s lost sight of the objective.’
‘And I fear that you have too, son. Ember is an expendable asset. Let her do her job.’
‘This isn’t a job,’ Carter said, heading towards the exit. ‘This is a fucking mess.’
‘Stay where you are,’ Chief Andrews boomed but he didn’t slow down.
‘I’m sorry, sir. I can’t do that.’
Carter banged his fists against the door as he left the room. He’d never disobeyed a direct order before but he’d accept the consequences. The chief could kick him off the team if he liked.
He was passed caring.
59
I felt one of Darrick’s hands move to cup my breast, while the other unzipped the back of my dress. His cold breath on my neck caused me to shiver which he mistook as a sign of pleasure.
‘You taste amazing.’
I tried to smile. His compliments came so easily that I wished I felt an attraction to him or at least could separate my feelings as Sasha did. She craved sex with any willing participant, but my moral compass was going crazy. This wasn’t right.
I wasn’t in control.
Darrick forced me backwards until I was spread across his desk like a scene from every naughty secretary’s fantasy. His erection pressed against my inner thigh and I tried not to tense when his mouth once again latched onto my neck.
His fangs penetrated my skin at the same time he thrust his hips into mine. An unwilling groan escaped my lips. I’d heard that vampires had ways of ensuring their feeding was mutually pleasing for their human donors and as the pressure on my neck increased, so did the tingling between my legs.
