Relinquished Hood (Red Hood Chronicles Book 2)

by Kendrai Meeks

  “That shouldn’t be hard, seeing as I’m going to be working 10 AM to 6:30 PM each day, and the sun isn’t even setting until 7 or 8 this time of the year.”

  “True, true. But like your wolf says, keep your eyes open. It’s the best way to see things.”

  And so, I went forth in my summer position as a corporate gopher and busboy.

  A WEEK INTO MY POSITION, what I’d learned so far sounded more like a book report than any sort of espionage communiqué.

  I’d already known that WWL occupied the bottom third of the building. I’d come to find out, however, that there were an additional three floors underground, one of those only an executive parking garage. The company trafficked in a number of industrial and consumer goods and had researchers in material science, engineering, chemistry, biological endeavors and of course, genetics. The glass in the lobby, for example, wasn’t only for vampire benefit; it had actually been developed for use in regions of the world where solar rays were so strong, air conditioning threatened energy supplies. Big buck customers reigned from places like Singapore and Dubai. Hospitals treating patients whose therapies or conditions made them sensitive to the sunlight also purchased large lots.

  The two subterranean floors beneath the parking garage required the highest clearance to enter. I knew this from experience, as security guards had cornered me both times I tried to go beyond their elevator lobbies, guns drawn. As Tobias had predicted, saying my presence was beginner’s mistake and claiming ignorance got me out of any trouble.

  From a glance in daylight hours, the vampire-run corporation didn’t vary from what I imagined Huey-led corporations were like. Workers typed, mid-level managers held meeting after meeting, and every floor had a breakroom and a stout but kindly receptionist ready to guide visitors and employees alike.

  A few things, however, differed. Firstly, Inga Rosenthorn’s office, as well as those of the “v-staff”, wasn’t located on the executive floor. Those, I assumed, were to be found in the subterranean levels and behind heavy layers of security. Secondly, as demonstrated by the woman outside the orientation room who had called Igor on his attempts to enthrall her, not all Hueys were completely ignorant of the supernatural leadership. Those entrusted with the knowledge bore two telltale signs. First, the most obvious to my eyes, two aligned circular scars on their necks suggested they’d been fed upon. Second, like Thelma, they wore eye glasses in which the lenses had been tinted pink. How odd, I thought, that they were simultaneously being used as food, and being shielded from enthrallment.

  Doug Marsen didn’t wear the pink glasses and try as I might, I saw no way his collar could ever be loose enough to serve as a meal. Doug was my supervisor. Not my boss, but my supervisor, he informed me when I reported to the mailroom. As in, he had a superior overview of how things in the mailroom worked. Doug had come to WWL six years before from an Assistant Manager position at a shipping and office supply store.

  “Personally, I have no idea why you were assigned to me,” Doug said. “I certainly don’t need the help. I have three fulltime employees, and we handle everything just fine.”

  “I’m not sure either, sir,” I answered, even though in hindsight I realized he hadn’t asked a question. “But I’m happy to do whatever you need me to do.”

  Doug planted fisted hands on his hips. “Oh, you’ll do whatever I need you to, but you won’t be happy about it. A mailroom is an essential part of the modern company. Your generation thinks everything can be electronic. Mail, meetings, books. Some things, however, must be wrought in the physical world. We are the anchor that keeps all they do up there—” he pointed at the ceiling “—grounded in reality.”

  True to Doug’s prognostication, I didn’t find that my work made me happy. I spent the first half of my day sorting bins of mail on to different carts. I spent the second half of my day pushing those carts around the various floors and offices of WWL and dropping off their deliveries. Even though, as Tobias suspected, my duties gave me an overview of the movers and shakers in the company, because I worked the day shift, I only ever saw Hueys, and very few of them those who wore the pink-paned glasses.

  By the end of the week, I was pretty sure my internship at WWL was a waste of my time. Then, one package changed my fate.

  Chapter Eight

  “Floor twenty-seven?”

  I looked at the box in my hand, branded with the logo of the online retailer from which it came, and thought for sure there was a mistake – despite the fact the shipping label clearly said WWL on the company line. First, we didn’t have any offices on the twenty-seventh floor. And second, there was no customer name for me to make the delivery anyway.

  I held up the box for Doug’s examination, shaking it a little. “Should I drop it with the mailroom of one of the other companies?”

  “Nope, that’s the correct address. It’s a mixed use building you know.”

  “So you said. I don’t know what that means, though.”

  “It means that parts of the building are business use, and parts are residential,” Doug lectured as though he were talking to a child. “All of WWL’s corporate offices are on floors B4 to 12, but some bigwigs live in the upper stories. Seeing as there’s no name on the label, it’s probably a sex toy.”

  The package in my hand suddenly felt dirty. I dropped it on my cart, deciding that I’d work my way up the building, finishing my shift with the twenty-seventh floor deviant.

  “Don’t you mean B3?”

  Consumed with the tablet in his hands, Doug said, “What?”

  “B4,” I said. “You said our corporate offices run from B4 to 12. But the cargo elevator only goes down to B3.”

  Doug outstretched a hand and shooed me away. “Don’t waste my time with details, okay? I have far more important things to do.”

  “I didn’t mean any disrespect. I’m just curious, is all. Is there a B4?”

  My modicum of reticence earned me invisibility, which I supposed was better than rebuke. Doug said nothing more as I turned heel, and pushed my overburdened cart toward the cargo elevator.

  Officially, my shift ended at six-thirty, but on the eighth floor, I had the opportunity to meet Ms. Theodate Lamare, though her reputation had long preceded the formal introduction. As one of the regular mailroom staffers had told me, Theo, as she was called for short, was the company gossip. “Talk a rooster out of his feathers,” were the exact words. She pinned me with her grin and set about interrogating me in the kindest of ways for my life story. When all I gave was my place of birth, and the fact that I was a student on a summer internship, she instead rambled on for a half-hour about her own life. By the time I’d managed to escape her cubicle, the clock read seven and I still had two more floors to go. Even though I knew the workers would most likely be gone, I also knew that Doug’s head would explode if I left undelivered packages in the mailroom over the weekend.

  The moment I stepped off the elevator, I felt like I had emerged into some alternate universe, where the WWL building wasn’t labs and offices but a five-star hotel. Gone were the off-white vinyl floors, replaced by a shiny black stone surface. Dark purple walls covered in silver scroll work reflected the soft light of the interior fixtures, confusing the visual landscape. At intervals, stained wood doors alternated with the sort of minimalist framed art that could only have been created by a kindergartener or a master.

  Dark. Everything was so dark. This place definitely housed vampires. Wolves and hoods both preferred greens, reds, and yellow environments – things that reminded us of forests and fields. Vampires and slayers, however, lived lives clinging to shadows, shunning not only the sun, but also the moon. Consequently, their crèches and their clutch compounds were said to be pale, colorless, gothic abodes washed in blacks, browns, and blues. The twenty-seventh floor was like walking into a room meant to be outfitted with black lights.

  Without a name, I didn’t know who to ask for when the door opened. If the door opened. The vamp resident at this hour, in this t
ime of the year, would be on the edge of waking for the night. Even though the interior hall didn’t have any windows, instinct told me that the sun outside had begun to sink into the horizon.

  The low-level hum of an air conditioner beyond the thick, wooden door muffled the soundscape. As I counted to ten, then knocked again, I had begun to accept that the vamp wasn’t up yet. No sooner had I taken out my clipboard to mark the delivery as incomplete than the door opened.

  All I saw was taut olive flesh, and white, fluffy cotton, riding low and hugging hipbones sculpted by either Satan or the gods.

  “Can I help you?”

  His words should have had me raising my face to meet his. Unfortunately, my eyes had grown a mind of their own, and independently decided that his washboard stomach had spoken.

  Rudolph Valentino’s doppelganger stared back when the gravity of her grin drew my eyes up at last. A little younger, maybe. At most, I’d put him at twenty-five. God had blessed him with a face that proved His existence, while the devil had given him the kind of body that would make you question your own. The only thing darker than his eyes was his spiky black hair. The fact that he was more or less naked, with an asterisk being the towel wrapped around his waist, didn’t seem to bother him in the least. That I was gawking bothered him even less. He might have expected it. Women had probably fallen down at his feet all his life. He might have wondered how I still remained standing.

  That made two of us.

  The pulsing vein on his neck and healthy skin tone ruled out him being a vamp. Huey executive, then. A freshly showered one at that.

  I pushed the box forward. “You have a package for me.”

  My cheeks burned when I’d realized what I’d said.

  He reached out, wrapping his hands around the box. “I think you mean that the other way around.” He held up the label for inspection. “Oh, my new frosting tool. I’ve been waiting for this.”

  “Frosting tool?” I asked. “That’s not really what’s in there, is it?”

  It was probably inappropriate of me to ask. It was definitely inappropriate for me to imagine the things I wanted to be in the box.

  “Think just because I’m all buff and have no body fat, that I don’t enjoy the delicate art of making buttercream rosettes?”

  “No, I don’t think someone like you eats much sugar.”

  “I assure you, I’ve been known to enjoy the occasional sweet.” He maneuvered the box inside and set it down. “The key is to make sure you work off the calories right afterward, but tell you a secret? Working off the calories is twice as fun as eating them.”

  The air in my lungs went AWOL. “I’m sure. Well, goodnight.”

  He stepped into the hall, towel and all, as I began to push my cart back toward the elevator. “Don’t you need me to sign for this?”

  “Internal mail delivery, no need.”

  “But how else am I supposed to ask what your name is?”

  Turning to look over my shoulder, my brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

  He crossed his corded arms and leaned against the wall, as though he wasn’t nearly naked. “The second I saw you checking me out, I said to myself, ‘Self, she’s into you. Find out who she is.’ I tried sneaking a peak at the ID badge hanging from your belt, but I can’t pull off staring below the neckline as well as you can. So instead, I was going to wait until you asked me to sign, and then say it was unfair that you were finding out my name, when I didn’t know yours. Now, it’s not a great plan, but it’s the best I could come up with in the fifteen seconds that have passed since I opened my door and now.”

  “Do you make plans often?”

  “Deliberate ones.” His eyes quickly skimmed down my frame. “My success rate is practically Roman.”

  “Even the Romans lost some battles.” I turned to leave.

  “Caleb.”

  “What?”

  “My name,” he repeated. “It’s Caleb. Now we’re uneven. Settle up, or ruin your reputation as a profiteer, mailgirl.”

  Were all city guys this slick? “It’s Geri. Geri Kline.”

  “Well, then, Geri Kline, the next time I have a package, I’ll expect to see it in your hands.”

  Chapter Nine

  By the time I’d crossed town and hopped off the El, the blue sky above had softened to shades of pink. I pictured Tobias, huffing and puffing and brooding by the door. I dashed into the small Asian grocer near home to pick up something for dinner. The ethnic fare was so foreign to my backwoods understanding, but one thing I could say for certain was this: Thai food wasn’t half bad. More than that, it was cheap, and surprisingly well-liked by a werewolf who thought that blood pudding was the height of haute cuisine.

  Suddenly, there was a buzz against my hip bone. I pulled the phone from my pocket, prepping myself for a sales pitch from the unfamiliar number. “Hello?”

  His voice arched in confusion. “Hello? Geri?”

  “Tobias?” I looked around, like I expected him to be hiding behind the mango display. “How are you calling me?”

  The wolf refused to engage in chitchat. “You were supposed to be home an hour ago.”

  “I got hung up at work.”

  Best not to mention the terry-clothed hottie. Not only was it none of Tobias’s business, but I didn’t have to rub it in his face that while his love life was tragically over at the age of twenty-four, mine was still wrought with possibility.

  “What number is this?” I continued. “Where are you calling me from?”

  “I got a mobile.” The tone he employed sounded like he was admitting to getting picked up by the cops for public indecency.

  “Because you finally realized it made sense and it was the best way to stay in touch with me when I’m not home?”

  “No, because Cody ordered me to,” he huffed. “Also, I got myself a job.”

  I double blinked, standing with a plum in my hand. “Why?”

  “Because it’s not right of me to take advantage of you,” Tobias said. “If I’m going to stay here, I have to help. It’s only right. Plus, it helps keep me from thinking too much.”

  “It’s going to get better eventually, Tobias. I promise.” I knew I should offer a kinder ear, but I wasn’t in the ideal place to have a conversation with a werewolf about his lost mate, even if one-sided. “What’s the job?” I asked instead, hoping to distract him.

  “Dog walker.” The wolf coughed a laugh. “Another reason for the phone. I needed something that would pay cash. I’m still not legal here, am I?”

  “I guess not. Dog walking, huh? I think that’s a great idea. Domestic dogs fall into line for someone like you, don’t they? That’s what my mother said when I asked why we didn’t use them as tactical tools.”

  The smile came back into his voice. “The dogs I walk will tow the line if they know what’s good for them.”

  “They sure will. Listen, I’m sorry I’m late, but I’ll be home soon. No need to worry.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried,” he rushed to assure me. “If there was a problem, I’d sense you needing me.”

  I moved towards the front of the store, toward the cash register. “And therefore, I’m okay?”

  “It at least means you’re not being choked to death by a vampire in an alley. I’m not sure you’re ever really okay.”

  Good, a short line. Just one old woman at the counter, and one shifty looking guy in front of me.

  “Did you pick up on anything when I got that horrible papercut around two this afternoon?”

  “Don’t joke. If something happens to you, Cody will kill me. Like, literally. Where are you anyway?”

  “Just a few blocks away at the Thai market.”

  Like a dog spotting a ball, excitement peppered Tobias’s words. “Are you getting dumplings? Please be getting dumplings.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m getting dumplings.” I shook the package as though he could see it, stepping forward as the old woman collected her things and left the shop. “I’ll
be home soon. Put a pot of water on to boil.”

  “Okay, but I’m not doing it for you, hood. I’m doing it for the dumplings."

  “Tobias Somfield, I never imagined anything but. Bye.”

  I slid the phone into my pocket and let my backpack fall from my shoulder onto my forearm. With wallet in hand I looked up, surprised to see the elderly Asian man behind the counter taking out a wad of cash to hand back to the man in front of me. Guy must have given him a hundred for the avocado in his hand.

  Only, I suddenly realized, he wasn’t holding an avocado.

  He was holding a gun.

  No sooner had my blood pressure shot up than the man pivoted. I must have gasped, maybe even cursed, though I couldn’t remember making a sound. Something brought his attention to me, and the second it was there, his bloodshot eyes settled on the wallet in my hands, open and dotted with green bills.

  “You know what they say. Every little bit.”

  He reached out to snag my cash, grinning, until I turned to stone. A hood’s strength taunted my resolve as I held back what was mine. My attention fractured, taking in every aspect of the scene, analyzing what worked for me, what worked against me, and what could go either way.

  A gun, pointed at me. Could I survive a shot? Not this close. Not a chance.

  The door, behind the man with the gun. Even running my fastest, I’d never make it.

  The old man, gathering the money and putting it into a paper bag, like a well-rehearsed act. Even if I did run, there was no way he could. I could throw my wallet toward him, creating a distraction and shifting the gunman’s attention long enough to sneak by, but where would that leave the shopkeeper? What kind of person would that make me?

  A survivor, my mother would say. A hood triumphs.

  The power welled up inside me, longing to be unleashed. Even a nascent could take on this foe. Yes, if I managed to unarm the thief, there was no doubt I’d win in a hand-to-hand battle. Only, that camera over the counter would capture every moment of it. I’d save myself, and doom my ability to keep my secrets at the same time. Even if I was willing to expose myself, it would be unfair to subject Tobias to the consequences. He was my secret now too.