I pushed through the lighted marble portal leading into Martini’s. I could already taste the dirty vodka martini I’d be ordering. Bax dogged my heels to the dim back of the bar.
“But,” he sputtered, “demons want only one thing—world domination.”
Okay, maybe I hadn’t sold it as well as I thought. I spun on my stiletto, planted a hand in the center of his chest, and pinned him with a flinty stare. “What of it? Someone has to be in charge. I’d rather have Satan and all his spawn running the show than Koszlov.” Satan’s hijinks at least came with a smidgeon of democracy and a pinch of decency. He was a fallen angel after all.
He gasped and stuttered to a halt. “You’re…you’re joking.” It wasn’t a question, but it might as well have been.
If Baxtard was around long enough, he’d learn when I was joking. But my plan was to send him packing before our third day on this mission. After sending a stinging scowl his general direction, I swept toward an unoccupied booth. A couple canoodled in the booth adjacent to the one I’d chosen. As I marched past, I accidentally touched the man’s shoulder, channeling a suggestion for him to vacate the seat and take his woman with him. Like most vamps, I excelled at Neuro-Linguistic Programming and had been properly flattered when George Lucas borrowed the idea of NLP for Obi Wan Kenobi. I accompanied the glamour with a pert smile for the booth’s occupants.
When they scurried away, satisfaction surged through me. The thin cotton of my strapless sundress turned cool when I slid across the luxurious leather banquette that faced the door. My back was to the corner of the room, the way I preferred it, so I could see any potential threats heading my way.
And right now, that was the highly inexperienced operative T had stuck me with.
The tadpole plopped onto the opposite bench and propped his elbows on the table. Toned, taut biceps strained the cuffs of his short-sleeve polo. A half-smirk on his lips transformed his youngish face.
I squashed the long-suffering sigh that had been building since Baxtard had knocked on my door five minutes early. “I’m not joking,” I resumed our conversation. “There isn’t an ounce of humanity in Koszlov. If there’d ever been a shred, it disappeared decades ago. At least Satan clings to a portion of his angelic origins, not that the tiny blessing does him much good. But humans find the idea that the big baddie had once been a resident of heaven useful when confronted with the possibility that Satan does exist. And besides, demons come in many forms, Tamsyn. Why, you might even have a bit of a demon in you.” He was so young. In his mid-twenties. Any demon in him probably wouldn’t be fully developed until he was forty…if he actually had one. But I’d wager good money that he’d never been much of a hellion as a youngster.
“Now, that’s just insulting, Bond.” The tips of his ears turned an unattractive shade of red.
I was saved from justifying myself by the approach of a waiter slinky and sexy enough to walk the runway in Milan. I eyed him with interest as I gave him my order. “Dirty martini with blue cheese olives.”
“Very good. And for you, sir?” The waiter’s accented English came out sing-song.
Baxter stopped fidgeting with his laptop bag and scanned the drinks menu. “I’ll have a beer. Whatever you have on draft.”
“How unimaginative of you, Tamsyn.”
He shrugged. “I like beer.”
The waiter disappeared with our order, and I returned to my explanation to my not-so-co-worker. “Viktor makes Satan look like a choir boy. And according to Lucien, that ticks Satan off. Good ol’ Lucifer wants to be the baddest badass in the universe. But in a Viktor versus the devil situation, well, let’s just say you don’t really want to get on either of their radars.” Of the two, I’d rather be on Lucifer’s watch list. I’d never been a guest of the demon in his torture chamber. And other than Lucien, I didn’t like to play with any of the creatures of the underworld.
With Baxtard silent for a minute, I took the opportunity to scan the room, just in time to see Pete and Re-Pete skulk through the archway. I cast a fast glamour, hiding us from their view. We could see them, but they had no clue we were there.
It was a cool tool, something I’d learned in World War II, when I’d been inclined to wear Chanel frocks instead of camouflage. I’d hidden in plain sight in a Nazi general’s private train car wearing a cherry-red shift. The enemy didn’t see me until I was ready to kick some ass, meaning, I had my firepower ready and the enemy in my crosshairs.
However, holding the glamour too long would drain a portion of my energy. I’d have to feed later. I curled my lip into a grimace. I’d never really loved the sanguine aspect of my nature, preferring to feed off the elemental energy surrounding me. It was so much easier to simply open my senses and absorb the power of the wind, sun, water, and earth. But with a prolonged glamour, a blood feed was an absolute must. Hmm, maybe the cat-walk-ready waiter would do.
I banished my wandering thoughts in time to witness the confusion stamped on our shadows’ Slavic features. They carried on a fast quarrel in Russian. My enhanced vampire hearing caught snippets of their conversation, each accusing the other of losing sight of me.
“The concierge said she’d come through,” the bigger of the duo said, his countrified dialect making his words difficult to understand.
“Do you see her?” His companion was easier to comprehend, but the bloke’s voice had risen sharply.
I spun my glamour to encompass them, suggesting they take a seat at the bar and wait for us to appear.
“Ve should wait here at ze bar,” the big guy suggested.
I rubbed my palms together, a tad gleefully.
“Jayne, what are you doing?” Baxtard queried.
“My job, grasshopper. Now shush.”
His cheeks pinked brightly. He really was going to have to learn to dim down those blushes.
The waiter returned with our cocktails. Well, my cocktail and Baxtard’s beer. I replaced my impatient look with a winning smile while slipping a couple twenty quid notes to the waiter. “See those two gentlemen who just entered? I’d like to buy each of them a flirtini. Oh, and find a way to work it into conversation that Ms. Jayne Bond hasn’t arrived for her reservation yet.”
The two rugged Slavs would look so adorable sipping the candy-pink, mango-based beverages with charming paper umbrellas while they waited.
Our waiter left, a quizzical look adorning his lovely face. But I’d given him plenty of cash, meaning there was a healthy tip in it for him to do as I’d requested, no questions asked.
“I know I’m a mere mortal, but isn’t the idea behind a spell to avoid detection?”
“Sure, but if I don’t remove the glamour and still send them the drinks, they’re expressions will be—”
“Priceless. But, darling, I saw through your glamour. Must try harder.” Lucien drifted into the seat next to me, crowding against my side. He tucked a lock of my dark hair behind my ear and kissed my cheek.
The touch of his lips made pleasure fizz across my nerve endings. “You old handsome devil. I’m not trying to hide from you. And you know a glamour can’t disguise me from another supernatural.”
That earned me a wink and a twinkle in his obsidian eyes.
Sliding his arm around my shoulders, drawing me intimately close, Lucien gave his attention to Bax. “You’re the newbie?”
“I really wish people would quit calling me that. I’m not as wet behind the ears as you seem to think.” Bax glared pointedly in my direction as he thrust out his hand. “Baxter Tamsyn.”
Lucien deigned to grasp Bax’s hand. “Lucien DiAvola. Would you be a good lad and fetch me a Manhattan from the bar?”
The glare Bax had been giving me shifted toward Lucien. “I’m not her lackey, and I’m certainly not yours.”
A grudging respect for Baxtard prickled through me. I was…encouraged that he wasn’t a total gutless wonder.
I narrowed the focus of my glamour on just the guys at the bar, and lifted my hand to signal the waiter, wh
o trotted over. He could see us, but only him. After Lucien placed his order, we got down to business.
“I have new intel to share,” Lucien began. “Tectonic activity in the area has nearly doubled in the past six months.”
Something we already knew. I propped my chin on my fist. “What’s your theory about the origin of the shifts?”
“The DIA believes that the displacement is due to increased drilling into the earth’s mantle. Koszlov, or whoever is building the underground city, is digging deeper than good sense suggests. The depth is undermining the stability of the tectonic plates.”
That piqued my interest. “Do you have reason to suspect it isn’t Koszlov?”
“I was merely being diplomatic, Solo. There really isn’t anyone else with brass balls big enough to build a subterrestrial facility on top of an active volcano.”
“How are you getting this information?” Baxtard opened his laptop and tapped furiously on the keys.
“That better be encrypted, guppy,” I growled at him. The last thing we needed was for Koszlov to get his hands on the information we had available.
His head jerked back to me, and he widened his blue eyes. “Of course. But you know if they have the technology to build a subterranean hive in a remarkably short time, they should be able to crack just about any code.”
“Lesson thirty-two, mentee. Vampire computer code is unbreakable.”
Lucien nodded. “In this, she’s right.”
Didn’t matter how attractive he was, it was offensive for him to intimate I could ever be wrong. I jabbed my stiletto down on Lucien’s instep.
“Ow! That wasn’t very nice, Jayne.” His plummy Italian accent took on an aggrieved tone.
“Of course, I’m right, you daft demon.”
“You didn’t write the programming code, my little vamp. Therefore, you can take no credit. We’ve been trying for years to crack the VIS algorithms without success.”
I shoved my shoulder none-too-gently into the smarmy demon, dislodging him a few inches away. He pushed right back into my space and dropped his very warm palm to my thigh.
Despite how much I loved his touch, I couldn’t allow the touch. “Not in front of the children, love.” I tipped my head toward Duet and removed Lucien’s hand.
Good ol’ Bax rolled his eyes. “Back to the question… Where did you obtain this information?”
Lucien’s voice took on a hard edge. “Our technicians used radar technology and reversed the direction. Instead of looking down through the clouds, they looked up through bedrock.” He twisted to face me. “We’d like to overlay your schematics taken from above on ours taken from below.”
“I don’t remember telling you we had drawings.” That information had come with the pesky Eyes Only label.
Lucien’s grin was breathtaking. “Not every secret you have is safe from us. Your superiors told mine that subsurface images existed. See, we are working together. Lucifer confirmed he’d spoken to your Director, and she approved the collaboration.”
“News to me,” I fumed.
Lucien spoke over me. “Combining our info should give us a highly accurate blueprint. With that, we’ll have a starting point for infiltrating the facility and snooping around.” He handed me a thumb drive.
Sometimes in the spy game, you had to choose sides and decide who deserved your trust. I hadn’t been expressly told I couldn’t share information with the DIA, and instinct told me we’d need all the help we could get. Plus, according to Lucien, we were working together. So, even though I couldn’t confirm that detail and despite the sharp, guilty feeling I was going rogue yet again, I chose Lucien. Hesitating only a beat, I accepted the drive.
Spinning Baxtard’s laptop so we could all have a clear view, I directed the guppy to call up our surveys of the area.
“Are you sure, Jayne?” The guppy lowered his brow, and something dark and unidentifiable flickered in his eye.
“Lesson fifty-three, don’t question a superior officer.” Yeah, I knew I came across as a bit of a bitch, but I didn’t need him second-guessing me. I was doing that just fine on my own.
The two Slavs had just been served their flirtinis. I was right; their expressions were priceless. Nevertheless, one of them sipped from the flared glass, then smacked his lips together. The other man nudged his glass away and threw a suspicious glance around the bar.
Lucien cleared his throat, regaining my attention. I plugged in the flash drive and launched the file he indicated. Through the magic of technology, I merged the two documents and rendered it in three dimensions.
“Bloody hell. Thirteen levels. Really, who pushes their luck by building thirteen floors?” Where was the fourteenth so they could skip thirteen on the elevator buttons?
Lucien grunted. “Just as we thought. He’s got an entire underground city.”
“Is this all we have? Radar and the subsurface imaging schemes? Actual blueprints would be helpful.” Good ol’ Bax, stating the obvious.
“How likely is he to have applied for a building permit or submitted his drawings? I can just hear him, ‘Say, Mr. Government Agent. Okay by you if I build a science facility eight hundred meters down?’” Lucien’s voice lacked patience.
But mine would have also had I deigned to say something to Baxtard. “Can you identify a point of access?”
I peered at the rendering as it twisted on an invisible axis. I didn’t see a single marking that said you are here and there was no big red X marks the spot visible anywhere.
So unhelpful.
Lucien rapped his knuckles on the table. “Can’t find anything.” He threw himself backward and folded his hands over his taut abs.
I slid a sideways glance toward Lucien. “Do you have any Pitcairn officials on your payroll? We might be able to buy some information if we had a government flunky or two in our pocket.”
“Fortunately for us, there is a junior demon employed in the foreign office here on Pitcairn. We have a meeting with him tomorrow. But I’d caution against revealing you are with the VIS.”
“Why? Isn’t our working relationship approved by Lucifer?” I hooked my fingers in the air, like air quotes.
“The government flunky is a lesser demon. There are certain things he isn’t privileged to know.”
I quirked an eyebrow at Lucien. “Got it. You can’t be sure he is trustworthy.”
Lucien inclined his head and confirmed my guess with a sardonic smile.
“Why would he sell us intel?” Bax interrupted, confusion written across his sunburned face.
I rolled my eyes so hard my head ached a little. “From the mentor play book, chapter one, paragraph one—everyone is after something—power, money, prestige. A secure spot on Satan’s payroll is huge among demons. Am I right, Lucien?”
“As always, my darling vamp.” He beamed a charming smile at me.
Suck-up.
“So, my guess is this junior demon wants to be not so junior anymore. He’ll trade whatever he’s got for something with more power and prestige.”
Baxtard’s brows pinched together. “Maybe a higher rank in Satan’s army.”
“Jayne, my lovely little night creature, I hope you’ll convey to your mentee that he’s to be seen and not heard during our meeting tomorrow.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that will be necessary. Baxter is a rule follower, right Bax?”
That earned me a scowl.
I gathered up my sleek black vintage clutch and nudged Lucien. “We’ve booked a table at Luigi’s for dinner, lover. Are you joining us?”
“By us, do you mean you and the trainee?”
“Of course. Who did you think I meant?”
“I was hoping for the adorable chambermaid who provided turn-down service for my room. She was delectable.”
His words might’ve stirred jealousy in a normal woman, but when I’d been turned, all traces of jealousy had disappeared. Envy was one human trait I was thrilled I no longer possessed. “Nope, just VIS agents.”
Lucien stood, offering me his hand. “I’ll pass, love. I’ll see you later in your suite.” He brushed a kiss on my knuckles.
One nice fact about Lucien was he’d been around for generations. He hadn’t forgotten his charming manners. Chivalry was second nature to him.
Baxter shoved his computer in the case then shouldered the satchel. He preceded Lucien and me on our way toward the marble archway.
I paused next to my two Slavs and lifted the glamour, materializing in front of them out of the blue. Flies, they could have trapped flies for as low as their jaws dropped.
“Hope you enjoyed the drinks, boys. Be seeing you, but you won’t be seeing me.”
With a wicked chuckle, I recast the glamour on Bax, Lucien, and me, leaving their stunned silence in my wake.
4
Mission Day 2
Pitcairn Foreign Office
Our appointment in the Foreign Office had been set for half past ten, which brought Baxtard to my door at half-nine, a full hour before arranged. The prat. He caught me climbing out of my shower. His cheeks turned an unnatural shade of crimson when I answered the door wearing the lush, hotel-supplied robe that gaped open to the waist, with a towel wrapped around my damp hair. I didn’t feel bad for embarrassing him. Hadn’t the guppy ever had a girlfriend? He should know better than to show up too early.
“You’re being an overachiever. Come back in thirty minutes,” I groused, swinging the door shut.
The arc stopped short. Bax had planted a hand right under the peephole. “I’ve ordered coffee from room service.”
Okay, points to him for displaying some intuitiveness. And for coffee. Relenting, I waved him into the room. “I take mine black when it comes.” I sauntered away toward the still steamy bath.
“I know.”
That gave me pause. Had we had coffee together? I didn’t believe so. Nope, I’d ordered a martini after dinner. I turned around and pegged him with my best evil eye. “You know?”
The color that had receded flashed back into his face, all the way to the tips of his ears. He stammered. “Uh—Penn must have brought some to you at our meeting with T.”
Licensed To Thrill Page 4
