Chapter 26

The stuff covering the teapot seemed to be baked on in places. “I’m going to need something to clean this.” I turned it over in my hands, noting how smooth the ceramic was in the spots where it wasn’t covered in the strange, hard residue.

“You took samples off it?” Padma asked.

“Yeah. I sent off the kit to the labs.”

“So why are you bothered about cleaning it?”

I looked up at her, pondering her question, and I honestly didn’t know why.

“Oh. My. God.” Merry popped her head into the room. “Look what arrived.”

Padma and I exchanged glances before quickly following her out into reception where a large box sat on the counter with a picture of a barista-style coffee machine on it.

Kaster had come through. “Nice.”

Edwin joined us a moment later, his eyes going round. “This is top of the range. It must have cost him a fortune.” He ran his hand over the box. “I’ll get it set up. Might take a while.”

“There’s a note too.” Merry held out a white envelope, and Padma went to take it, but she pulled it away. “Addressed to Orina.”

“Me?” I took it with a frown, suddenly the object of scrutiny while I opened it. “You’re going to watch me read it, aren’t you?”

“Yep,” they said in unison.

“And then demand to know what it says.”

“Of course.”

Yeah, of course. I couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t as if there was a shit load of exciting things to do at the office. Cataloging was mind numbing.

I scanned the note, unable to help but smile.

Dear Miss Lighthart,

As promised, you have your coffee machine. Thank you for acting quickly to retrieve our agent. On a more personal note, may I say how beautiful you looked in the midnight-blue dress. It brought out the flecks of blue in your eyes.

If it’s not too presumptuous, I would love to take you out for dinner sometime. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kaster Black

His number was on the bottom of the letter.

“Well?” Merry asked. “What does it say?”

I tucked the note into my pocket. “It says thanks for getting his operative back.”

“And…” Edwin made a rolling motion with his hand.

“He wants to take me to dinner.”

“I knew it!” Padma said. “He thinks he can control us by getting into your pants.”

“Or he may just want to get into her pants,” Edwin pointed out.

“Or buy her some pretty new pants,” Merry added with a giggle.

“Can we please stop talking about my pants?”

Padma put her hand on my shoulder, her expression serious. “You need to be careful. He’s a sucker. They’re all fucking suckers, and they can’t be trusted because to them, we’ll always be food.”

“I have no intention of getting involved with a vampire. But it might serve us to keep his ear.”

She considered this. “I suppose so.” She nodded. “Fine, you can go.”

I chuckled. “Not that I needed your permission, but thanks, Mom.”

She looked sheepish.

The rest of the day was uneventful with more filing and setting up the coffee machine. I checked in with Micah to be told he was still working on my manpower problem, and my call to Lorenzo went straight to voicemail. Again. Okay, so now I was getting a little worried.

It was late afternoon when the bell above the door tinkled.

I was first out to reception, in time to see two guys hurry in looking spooked.

“Hey, how can I help?”

“This the Order?” one of the guys asked.

“We are indeed. What’s the problem?”

“We’re with the tour bus.”

Tour…It took a moment, but then I remembered that Dracul allowed yearly tours of its territory in the hopes of recruiting new blood voluntarily. Why anyone would want to tour was beyond me.

“How can I help you?”

“Our girlfriends were taken by vampires,” the stockier of the two said.

“You won’t see many vampires outside till sundown. How and where were they taken?”

“Look, we went to this bar, okay, and it’s like this all-day all-night place, and there were vampires there, and they took our girlfriends. We didn’t know where to go to get help. That other place, the big shiny building, the sangua…something they just laughed at us. Laughed!”

Typical. “What’s the bar called?”

“Cosmic Stars?” Padma said from behind me.

“That’s the one!”

I arched a brow her way. “You know it?”

“Yeah, I know of it. There are underground passages all over the territory for the suckers to get around during the day. Cosmic Stars is a hub of debauchery.” She glared at the guys. “You had no business going there.”

“Yeah, but we did, and now those suckers have our girls. You got to help us, please.”

They were young. Younger than us. What the fuck had they been thinking coming here? “Padma? What’s the protocol on this?”

“Sangualex deals with human safety, but if they laughed them out of the building, then…We have to be careful, though; we’ll be dealing with high profile vamps. The progeny of old ones and nobles.”

“I don’t care who they are. If they’re holding humans hostage against their will, then they’ll have to answer to my blade.”

Padma dropped me a nod. “Agreed. Let’s weapon up.”

Cosmic Stars was basedin the fancy-ass part of New Town, two blocks from Longlier and the Sangualex offices. It was a door with a peep slot and a buzzer. There was no sign, just a symbol above the door: a star with smaller stars around it. How had the guys even found this place?

I glanced up and down the ominously quiet street. “You sure this is it?”

“Yep,” Padma said curtly.

“We’ve been here before,” Edwin said.

We’d left Merry back at the office. It wasn’t wise to take a half-blood into a den of vampires. Fae blood was supposedly delicious, and although Merry took special herbal pills to mute her scent, we couldn’t take the risk.

“You ready?” Edwin asked.

I nodded.

He pressed the buzzer.

Long seconds passed before a gravelly voice fringed with static answered. “How many?”

“Three.”

“Breed?”

“Humans,” Edwin said.

The door buzzed and clicked. Padma pushed into the darkness beyond, a small entranceway dimly lit by a single tube light. The door closed behind us with a buzz and a click, and another one opened in front of us leading into a room with a cloakroom area where the largest man I’d ever seen, larger than Ordell, which was saying something, stood chatting to a petite woman.

He turned his craggy face to look at us, his gaze going to the sword hilts at our backs. “No weapons. You check them in here.”

“Really? What about all the vampires inside there? Do you make them check in their fangs?”

His eyebrow lifted, and he took a longer look at me. He had beautiful eyes, a warm hazel shade fringed by thick, dark lashes. They were the only soft thing about his brutal face. He rubbed his jaw, bicep flexing against the cotton of his button-down shirt.

“Never thought of it that way,” he said finally.

“They have to check in,” the woman said. “Them’s the rules.”

“True.” He swept us up and down. “Less you got an exemption.”

I walked closer and pulled my Order badge from my pocket. “This do?”

He studied it for a beat, then settled his gaze on my face again, looking down at me as if I was the most interesting thing he’d seen in a while.

I resisted the urge to shift from foot to foot because his scrutiny was making me feel awfully uncomfortable.

Padma cleared her throat, and he blinked, finally releasing me from his eye hold.

“You planning on making trouble?” He addressed us all.

“No plans to do so,” Padma said. “We’re here on official business.”

He dropped a nod. “Works for me.”

I pulled my phone from my pocket and flipped to the photos of the women that the guys at the office had given me. “You seen these two? They came in here a couple hours ago.”

He scanned the photo. “Came in with a group. The group left. They stayed.”

“Thanks.”

“You get stuck in there, you come find me. Name’s Crush.”

“I’m Orina.”

“Nice to meet you, Orina.”

Padma sighed. “For fuck’s sake, if you’re done flirting.”

My cheeks burned. “I was not flirting.”

A rolling gravelly rumble rubbed against my senses, and I realized that Crush was laughing. “You’re good, pet. Get in there and find ya gals, although I got to warn you, they may not want to leave.”

Compulsion. Typical. “I’ll deal with that. Thanks.”

Another buzz and another door and we were in the club proper. The thumping bass beat vibrated through my soles and up my legs to settle low in my belly before spreading across my chest. Strobe lights slashed across the dance floor in rainbow colors, making it impossible to distinguish human from vampire.

I pinged over the photos to Edwin and Padma, then leaned in, raising my voice to be heard over the music. “We’re gonna have to split up.”

Padma nodded and pointed at the spot we stood in. “Meet back here in fifteen.”

“There are VIP rooms,” Edwin yelled. “We can check those after.”

I nodded my agreement and broke away from them. I skirted the dance floor while Edwin dove into the bopping crowd and Padma headed for the bar area.

In the shadows, away from the dance floor, it was easier to spot the vampires. Their preternatural stillness, despite the movement saturated into the environment, gave them away. The way the light turned their eyes crimson also helped. They were taller, more beautiful. Lethal.

Humans hung off their arms like designer bags. They sat on their laps, heads tipped back while the vampires fed, or sipped cocktails, wrist held up to a vampire’s mouth. Were these veins or compelled humans? Hard to tell, and not my problem right now. I had an official case to work.

I studied each female face but didn’t spot our targets. Edwin was waiting for me at our meeting spot when I circled back. He shook his head as I approached. Padma joined us a moment later.

“VIP,” Edwin yelled.

We followed him past the bar area and up a flight of steps to a balcony where several vampires hung out sipping from goblets. Silk shirts, dark pants, slicked-back hair, the dress sense was just off. Like they hadn’t quite caught up with the times.

Piercing eyes followed us to a set of double doors and into the VIP lounge, where the music was muted and the hum of conversation dominated.

Cushy booths took up one side of the room, and a curtain cut us off from the other half. The lights were low, the only bright spot a long bar at the other side of the room manned by two humans who looked as if they’d rather be anywhere else.

I joined them, pulling my phone from my pocket. “Hey, you seen these girls?”

The barman studied the photos, then nodded and pointed at the curtained-off area across the room.

“Thanks.”

We strode over, and Edwin yanked back the thick curtains to reveal a large space dotted by cushy seating, tables, a couple of chaise longues, and several vampires lounging with humans. I spotted our girls right away. They were sitting between two vampires, giggling and having a whale of a time, and Crush’s warning came to mind: They may not want to leave. Still, we had a job to do, and they could be compelled. Compelled into having fun. Yeah, it sounded dumb, even in my head.

Best get this over with. I led the approach and flashed my badge.

The vampires frowned up at me. “What is the meaning of this?” one of them asked.

“We had a report that these two women were taken against their will. Angela Harmen and Katherine Brown, are you here of your own free will?”

“For fuck’s sake, this is just like those two tossers,” one of the women said. “We’re not even with them. They just want us to be. We came here to meet vampires, and we have.” She stroked her vampire escort’s lapel. “Tristin has asked me to be his vein. He has a mansion.” She smirked, looking like the cat that got the cream.

Her friend nodded enthusiastically. “Bart wants me to be his vein too, don’t you, Bart?”

Bart didn’t look too convinced but nodded anyway.

One look in these women’s eyes showed normal pupil size. No compulsion. No crime.

“We’re sorry to have bothered you,” Edwin said. “Enjoy your evening.”

Waste of fucking time. We were almost at the curtain when several vampires strode in. It took a moment to recognize them in their casual clothes, but when I did, my heart sank.

Their attention fell on me, and surprise morphed to something dark and sharp.

“Orina?” Padma stepped closer to me.

I swallowed past the dryness in my mouth. “They’re the fledglings from the Exciatio.”

Edwin and Padma flanked me as the five vampires approached.

“Fancy seeing you here,” the sandy-haired one said.

“We’re here on official business,” Padma bit out. “And we’re leaving.” We made to step around them, but they sidestepped to block us.

“Seriously,” Edwin growled. “Move.”

Dominic fixed his dark eyes on Edwin. “You don’t get to give us orders, human. You can get on your knees.” The last was delivered with the authority of a compulsion, and Edwin wobbled, fighting the command. Ordained were trained to resist mental coercion, but we were still human. Still susceptible. I had an amulet to help me, but Edwin didn’t.

“What are you doing, Dominic?” Bart called out. “Compulsion is forbidden here.”

“Fuck you, Wentworth. This bitch is the reason Eloise is dead. My sister is fucking dead because of this whore.”

The room fell into silence as we became the focus of attention for every vampire in it.

This was bullshit. “Your sister is dead because you tried to feed on me against my will.”

“We were within our rights!” sandy boy screamed, spittle flying from his rubbery lips.

I exhaled and fixed a flat look on my face. “Doesn’t matter how loud you scream it; it doesn’t make you right.”

“You fucking bitch?—”

My blade was at his throat before he could finish his sentence or his lunge.

He stilled, his gaze dropping to my deadly steel.

I shook my head slowly. “Don’t be stupid.”

His lips pulled back from his teeth, exposing his elongated canines. “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to drain you dry.”

“What you’re going to do is step aside so we can leave.”

“Do it,” Dominic said to his brothers.

They stepped aside, and that’s where I made the mistake of lowering my blade because as soon as it was down, someone hit my back.

Padma let out a bellow, a warning too late, and then all hell broke loose.