Poison Promise

by Jennifer Estep

  The bum gave me a suspicious look, but he snatched the money off the aluminum and tucked it into one of his pockets.

  I winked at him, then turned and headed back toward my car, whistling all the while.

  • • •

  No one else was lurking at or around my vehicle, and no one had planted any bombs on it, so I was able to slide inside and zoom away without any more problems or delays.

  While I drove, I pulled out my phone and called Bria, to let her know what was going on. But instead of picking up, my call went straight to her voice mail. Hi, you’ve reached Detective Bria Coolidge with the Ashland Police Department . . .

  I growled in frustration, but I didn’t leave her a message. The way things had gone between us last night, she was probably screening my calls, so I doubted that she’d listen to any voice mail I left her right now.

  I tried Xavier next, since Roslyn was his main squeeze, but he didn’t answer either. He was probably busy working with Bria on the best way to use Catalina’s testimony against Benson. I dialed Owen too but struck out for a third time. Then I remembered that he had some big business meeting planned for this afternoon, so he was probably tied up with that.

  But there was one person I called who actually picked up his phone.

  “You have reached the always awesome, ever charming, and obscenely handsome Finnegan Lane,” he chirped in my ear. “How may I be of service to you today?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Work. At the bank. Why?” His voice sharpened with every word.

  I filled him in on Roslyn’s call and her request for me to come over to Northern Aggression to pick up my nonexistent bottles of gin. Finn was silent for a moment, then let loose with a string of curses.

  “You want me to come help you?” he said. “I can grab my guns out of the safety-deposit boxes in the vault and be right over.”

  “No. Roslyn said that there were only three of them. I should be able to handle that. See if you can track down Bria and Xavier. I’ve called them both, but their phones go straight to voice mail.”

  “I’ll round them up and bring them over to the club as soon as possible,” he promised. “Watch your back.”

  “You know I will.”

  I hung up and tossed my phone into the passenger’s seat.

  I drove fast and reached Northern Aggression in record time. I’d told Roslyn that I wouldn’t be here for at least an hour, but I had no intention of sticking to that timeline. The element of surprise could help me rescue my friend, and I intended to exploit it to the fullest.

  But instead of zooming into Northern Aggression’s main lot and screeching to a stop in front of the entrance, I parked my car two streets over in an alley where no one would notice it. I glanced at my duffel bag on the passenger seat, debating whether I wanted to dig a gun, some ammo, and a silencer out of the dark depths. But I decided not to, since I was carrying my usual arsenal of five silverstone knives—one up either sleeve, one tucked against the small of my back, and one in the side of either boot.

  My knives were my best weapons, especially in a situation like this that called for quick, quiet action. So I grabbed my phone, got out of the car, and tucked the device into my pocket. I also checked the dead vamp’s phone, but there were no more messages, so I slid it back into my pocket as well and headed for the club.

  I leapfrogged from one alley and side street to the next, until I ended up crouching behind a weeping willow at the far end of the parking lot in front of the club. I peered through the swaying screen of long green tendrils.

  From the outside, Northern Aggression looked like an office building, plain and featureless, except for the sign mounted over the entrance—a heart with an arrow through it. Roslyn’s rune for her club. Since it was midafternoon, the neon sign was dark, but when the crowds came out tonight, it would glow a bright red, then orange, then yellow, as though the pierced heart were a living, beating thing, pulsing in agony from the wound it had received.

  A guy was standing by the entrance, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes sweeping from left to right and back again. I didn’t recognize him as one of the bouncers, and he wasn’t wearing a gold heart-and-arrow rune necklace that would mark him as one of the hookers, bartenders, or other club workers. He shifted on his feet, his unbuttoned black suit jacket flapping around enough for me to get a glimpse of the gun holstered on his belt. Well, that certainly clued me in to the fact that he was up to no good. I grinned. Me too.

  But I left the guy alone, since there was no way I could sneak up on him without him seeing me coming, given the open, empty pavement that stretched between us. Instead, I darted from tree to tree, skirting around the edges of the parking lot until I had worked my way over to the back of the building.

  Another man was stationed at this entrance, a younger guy who had his head down and his eyes glued to his phone instead of keeping a watch out for me. Careless fool.

  Lucky for me, a line of Dumpsters stretched from my position all the way up to the back door where the guy was standing, so I was able to use the containers as a screen between the two of us. It took me less than a minute to move from the edge of the lot to the Dumpster closest to him. But there was still about a twenty-foot gap between this container and his position at the door, which would give him more than enough time to let out one good, long, loud scream if he saw me coming.

  So I reached down, picked up a loose bit of metal, and chucked it over his head. The metal hit the wall off to his right and then tink-tink-tinked across the pavement, and the guy finally looked up from his phone. He cursed and swiveled in that direction, his free hand yanking the gun from the holster belted to his waist.

  I skirted around the Dumpster and crept up behind him, moving fast. I was so focused on the guy that I didn’t see the broken glass littering the pavement behind him until it was too late.

  Crunch.

  At the sound of my boots hitting the glass, the guy brought his gun up and pivoted toward me, but I was close enough to surge forward, dig my fingers into his hair, yank his head back, and cut his throat. His legs went out from under him, and he died with a raspy whisper, his phone and gun slipping out of his suddenly slack fingers and clattering across the pavement.

  I moved over to the west corner of the building and pressed myself up against the wall, wondering if the noise of the phone and the gun tumbling end over end would carry all the way around to the front of the club and trying to guess which side the first man might approach from. But a minute passed, then another, and the other guard didn’t come to investigate, so I figured that it was safe for me to slip inside the club.

  I tried the back door, which was locked, so I reached for my magic and made a couple of Ice picks. Less than a minute later, the door snicked open. I tossed the picks down onto the ground to melt away, eased inside the club, and closed the door behind me.

  A long hallway stretched out in front out me, with rooms and corridors branching off on either side. I didn’t know where in the club Roslyn and her captors might be, so I tiptoed down the hallway, peering into every room I passed, careful to keep up against the wall at all times, where it was less likely that the bamboo floor would creak and give away my position.

  But no one haunted the back of the club. No hookers were in the locker room, putting on their makeup and heart-and-arrow necklaces and getting ready for another night of sin. No bouncers were carrying around cases of liquor to restock the elemental Ice bar out front. No one was waiting in Roslyn’s office to talk to her. They must be out in the main part of the club, then.

  I had started to slide down another hallway, to see if I could get a glimpse of what was going on out there through one of the many peepholes that were cut into the walls, when a toilet flushed in a men’s room off to my left. I moved forward and stopped outside the door. A few seconds later, the door opened, and a familiar figure stepped out into the hallway: Silvio Sanchez.

  He was once again wearing a gray suit, and he pau
sed long enough to straighten his matching tie, which gave me plenty of time to strike. But instead of cutting his throat like I had done to the other two men, I snaked my arm around his lean waist and pressed the point of my knife against his neck, right where his carotid artery was.

  Silvio stiffened, but he did the smart thing and didn’t try to fight back. If he had, I would have fileted him like a fish.

  “Blanco?” he asked.

  “Surprise, surprise,” I hissed.

  Silvio tried to step away from me, but the scrape of my knife against his throat persuaded him to stand still.

  “Where’s Roslyn? How many more men are in the club?”

  “Just me and two more,” he said. “That’s everyone who’s inside. I swear.”

  He didn’t say anything about the men waiting outside, but I hadn’t expected him to. Still, his head count lined up with what Roslyn had told me, so I decided to let Silvio keep breathing—for now.

  “Where?”

  “Out in the front part of the club. In the middle of the dance floor. He wanted to be able to see you coming.”

  I didn’t have to ask who he was. “Well, that was smart of him. Otherwise, he’d probably be dead already.”

  “He hasn’t hurt her, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Silvio said, trying to save his own neck and his boss’s too. “He just wanted to talk to you. There’s no need for this to get violent.”

  “Oh, this has already gotten violent,” I drawled. “Just ask the man you stationed by my car or the one at the back door here. Oh, wait. Silly me. You can’t, because they are indisposed at the moment. Forever, actually.”

  Silvio swallowed, his Adam’s apple bumping up against the edge of my knife, but he didn’t respond to my taunt.

  “While you’re here, I am curious about one thing,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I know you saw me and the girl in the parking garage. So why didn’t you rat us out? Why leave that pill next to Troy’s body and walk away like you hadn’t seen anything at all? Did you think you could blackmail me? Get me to pay you to keep quiet?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  I dug my blade into his neck, breaking the skin and drawing blood, to encourage him to start talking. Silvio stiffened even more, feeling more like a board pressed against my side than flesh and bone, but he remained silent. Whatever he was holding back, it would take more than a scratch from my knife to get him to spill his guts. I admired him for that—but only a little.

  “Well, then, on to other matters. You and I are going to go out and do the whole meet-and-greet that your boss so desperately wants. Don’t make any problems for me, and you might live through this.”

  “And if I do make problems?” he asked in a wry tone, even though he already knew the answer.

  “Make so much as a whimper, and I will slit your throat,” I hissed again.

  Silvio nodded once. Smart man.

  “Move,” I ordered.

  Silvio walked toward the door at the end of the hallway. I gripped his left shoulder with one hand and used the other to keep my knife at his throat, so our progress was slow but steady. We reached the door.

  “Open it—slowly.”

  Silvio started to nod again but thought better of it, given the blade against his neck. He leaned forward enough to turn the knob and crack the door. The murmur of conversation drifted over to me.

  “. . . good to see that you’ve done so well for yourself, Roslyn,” a familiar nasal voice said.

  Silence.

  “Thank you,” Roslyn answered, her normally light voice tight with tension. “But I don’t see the need for this.”

  A low laugh sounded. “Oh, I think we both know that I couldn’t meet with your friend under any other circumstances. Not without killing her. And you wouldn’t want that, now, would you?”

  This time, Roslyn laughed. “You always were confident. In this case, too confident.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Silvio slowly opened the door the rest of the way. I leaned to one side so that I could see over his right shoulder.

  “Walk,” I ordered him.

  Silvio moved forward, his steps slow, careful, and steady. He didn’t want to get sliced open. We would see if the same could be said for his boss.

  We stepped through the door and into the main part of the club. The inside of Northern Aggression was all opulent glamour, from the springy bamboo floor to the red crushed-velvet drapes cloaking the walls to the glittering elemental Ice bar off to my left. The air was cool, bordering on frosty, to keep the bar intact until the elemental who maintained it with his magic came in for his shift, but the chill swirling through the room was nothing compared with the cold fury running through my veins.

  Roslyn was sitting at a small round table that had been moved to the middle of the dance floor. In her teal-blue suit, she looked every inch the successful club owner she was. The bright color set off the dark luster of her black hair and the rich toffee color of her skin, while her understated makeup highlighted her toffee eyes and perfect features.

  And she wasn’t alone.

  Beauregard Benson sat opposite her at the table. Long, gangly arms and legs, rumpled black hair, blue eyes behind silver glasses. He looked much the same as he had in the garage last night, wearing white pants and sneakers, with a pale pink button-up shirt and matching bow tie. I didn’t see his white lab coat anywhere, but adding to the geeky-scientist illusion were the plastic protector and the notepad and pens once again lined up inside it in a neat row in his shirt pocket. He had one ankle crossed on top of the opposite knee, his pant leg pulled up enough to expose his sock, white with a pink argyle pattern in the center.

  Benson’s posture was easy and relaxed, but another guard stood a few feet behind the vamp, his arms crossed over his chest and his hard stare fixed on Roslyn, as if he expected her to cause trouble at any second.

  That was my job.

  At the sound of Silvio’s footsteps, Benson looked in our direction. “Ah, Silvio. There you are. I was wondering what was taking you so long—”

  Benson’s mouth puckered at the sight of me and the knife I had at his minion’s throat, but the expression quickly melted into a smile as he got to his feet. His figure was lean again, instead of having the bulked-up look it had last night after he’d drained Troy of his emotions. I wondered what he’d done to expend all that stolen life and energy so quickly. Probably best not to know.

  “Ah, Ms. Blanco,” he said. “So glad you could join us. And ahead of schedule too.”

  “Well, I got your invitation and hurried over here as fast as I could,” I drawled, my voice as calm and even as his was.

  His smile widened. “I don’t think that we’ve been properly introduced. My name is Benson. Beauregard Benson.”

  12

  Beauregard Benson bowed to me, as low, gallant, and charming as any old-fashioned Southern gentleman. But his blue eyes were as empty as mirrors, despite his veneer of manners and civility.

  The third man cursed and started to reach under his jacket for his gun, but Benson snapped his fingers, as though he were calling off a junkyard dog. The other man froze at the sharp sound.

  “There’s no need for that,” Benson purred again, although his high, nasal voice ruined his smooth words. “Is there, Ms. Blanco?”

  Instead of answering him, my gaze went to my friend. “Roslyn?”

  She slowly got up from the table and stepped back, removing herself from the line of fire, should it come to that. “I’m okay, Gin.”

  Benson gestured at the table. “Please, Ms. Blanco. Let’s sit and talk.”

  “If you wanted to talk, you could have just called,” I said in a sweet tone.

  “Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer face-to-face conversations.” His voice was as fake and syrupy as mine was.

  He might as well have substituted confrontations for conversations, but I decided to play along—for now. Roslyn was unharmed, and I wanted to
keep her that way. Going along with Benson was the easiest way to ensure her safety. Besides, part of me was curious about what the vampire possibly thought he had to say to me. Ah, that damned old curiosity. Going to get me stabbed in the back one day.

  Maybe even right now.

  “All right, then,” I said. “Let’s chat.”

  I dropped my knife from Silvio’s throat and shoved him away. He stumbled forward a few steps before he managed to right himself. Silvio’s hand crept up to the cut on his neck, and then he pulled his hand away and stared at the blood glistening on his fingertips. I thought he might shoot me a dirty look for ruining his clothes, but instead, he sighed, pulled a gray silk handkerchief out of his pants pocket, and wiped the blood off his fingers and neck. Silvio went to stand with the third man.

  Benson gave his minion another curious look, as though he were interested in Silvio’s wound, before resuming his seat at the table and gesturing at the empty chair across from him.

  Keeping one eye on the vamps, I stalked across the bamboo floor to where Roslyn was standing. I touched her arm, and she nodded.

  “I’m fine,” she said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “Really.”

  She turned away from Benson and made a show of smoothing her black hair back over her ears. Then she whispered out of the corner of her mouth, “Whatever you do, don’t let him touch you.”

  Still looking at the three vamps, I kept my face blank, as though she hadn’t said anything, although I was wondering at that strange piece of advice. Did Roslyn know that Benson liked to feed on people’s emotions? I was going to heed her warning. After seeing what Benson had done to Troy last night, I had no intention of letting the vamp put his hands anywhere on me—ever.

  “Roslyn, my dear,” Benson called out. “Why don’t you fix us a drink? You know what I like. And I assume you know what Ms. Blanco likes too.”

  His words indicated that she did know him. I wondered exactly how well they were acquainted.

  Roslyn nodded at no one in particular. “Of course.”

  “Stay behind the bar,” I murmured to her.