Necromancing Nim (3 page)

“Well. Thank you for your professional opinion.” Eric’s voice was laced with sarcasm.

That blurry gut feeling changed to boiling, acidic anger. I wished I’d accepted his offer of coffee so I could throw it at him. “Take it or leave it,” I snarled. It sounded ridiculous even as I said it. I shouldn’t have bothered—I don’t really have the right kind of face for snarling.

Eric visibly backed off his increasingly aggressive stance, easing into a more cop-like, neutral demeanor. “Why are you defending him? Wilson said you slapped him.”

I shrugged, hiding my discomfort. “Misunderstanding.”

“He said something to you. What was it?” Eric pressed. Maybe I hadn’t hidden that discomfort quite as well as I’d hoped.

I shrugged again. It probably wouldn’t work any better this time, but hey, worth a shot. “Just stupid vampire shit. ‘I bet you’d make a good dessert,’ that kind of thing—” I broke off, feeling my eyes widen. The pieces had suddenly fallen together in my head. “He can’t have killed her. He was too pale.”

Eric frowned. “Not following.”

I didn’t mention that a little more knowledge about vampires in general might help him with his job. It would just lead to a rehash of the argument we’d had during our spectacularly unsuccessful last date. “If he’d fed on her, his skin would have been a more natural color. He was really white—he hadn’t fed in several days, maybe a week.”

He tapped his pen on the evidence folder. “A week?”

“Yeah.” That little niggling feeling that had plagued me made total sense now.

“And you know this how?” Eric still didn’t seem convinced.

“I work for a vampire. I pay attention. He’s crankier when he’s hungry.”

Eric seemed disappointed I’d given him solid evidence. He nodded, though. “Okay. Thanks for the additional information.”

“Can I go, then?”

“I suppose.” Fishing a card out of his breast pocket, he handed it to me. “Call me if you think of anything else.”

“Sure.”

I took the card almost as if I didn’t still have his number programmed into my phone, then went to reclaim my weapons. Time to face the wrath of Colin.

Bernstein & Carter’s Lower-Lower Downtown headquarters is perfect for vampires. Which, of course, means it’s a pain in the ass for everybody else. The office is located at the end of the underground mall, a downward extension of the 16
^th
Street pedestrian mall. In its favor, it’s convenient to the parking garage, so I don’t have to walk far in the dark. Plus I was able to get a Humans Only after-sunset permit, so I park right next to the underground mall entrance where I’m less likely to get ambushed or bitten.

Why do I work for vampires again? Yeah, I wonder sometimes too.

Kim, the receptionist, who’s also human, gave me a sympathetic smile when I breezed through the door. She works about half the night, three nights a week, to pay for tuition at DU during the day. I’m not entirely sure when she sleeps. Then again, she’s nineteen, so she probably doesn’t need to.

“How mad is he?” I asked her.

“About an eight point five,” she answered.

I nodded. Considering Colin usually ran at about a seven, that wasn’t too bad. “Thanks.”

Winding my way through cubicles, I made my way to my office. Yes, I have my own office, but don’t be too impressed—it’s roughly the size of a family bathroom stall—you know, the kind with the fold-down diaper-changing table—and the only reason I have it is because I deal with sensitive client information. Plus on occasion I call folks who are in arrears and swear at them. Loudly. Which I was told disturbed the half-dozen employees in the call center who have cubicles. Sometimes it’s good to be a bitch.

In my tiny office, Colin was sitting on my desk, cross-legged, effectively occupying most of the width of the room. He had my appointment book spread out on his lap, and when I walked in, he gave me a glare fit to drop a grown man in his tracks. I mostly ignored it.

“Where the hell have you been?” He unfolded from the desk to stand in front of me, the better to glower down from his superior elevation. He’s a bit over six feet tall and has shoulders that fill up a doorway, so he likes to try to intimidate people with his size and his healthy glare. Okay, he’s damn hot too, but in that way that makes you wish he’d stop being hot so you can dislike him more efficiently.

I rolled my eyes and pushed past him to the desk. My hand brushed his dress shirt as I went by. It was dark gray and felt like a silk blend. It figured. I could barely afford to replace my hoodies, and he was wearing designer shirts. Maybe I should ask for a raise. “Give me that.” I gestured toward the appointment book, still in his hand. “I need it.”

His glare turned cold. “What for? You already blew the rest of your night.”

“No shit. I need to reschedule.”

He handed me the book. “I gave your other two stops to Mitch.”

I sighed. Shit. “Yeah, I figured. Fine.” I flopped down in my chair and stared at nothing for a moment, trying to calm down. Out in the call center, phones shrilled, followed by the rise and fall of voices. I would have gotten up to close the door if Colin hadn’t been in the way.

The office of Bernstein & Carter is small but busy. The phones ring most of the night, when respectable people should be asleep. Then again, we don’t really deal with respectable people, and most of the phone calls are vamps wanting to know why their most treasured belongings have been repossessed, or why the annoying chick with the shaggy black hair keeps coming by to pester them.

Colin gave me another glowery evil eye. It was a scary damn glower, assisted as it was by dark, low-slung brows, deep-set eyes, and a mouth that could curve into a brutally harsh line when it wanted to. It was the kind of glare that could make grown men piss themselves. I was used to it, though. I regarded him impatiently. “You haven’t answered my question,” he finally prompted.

“Police station.” Colin, who had been about to plant his ass on my desk again, instead settled into the chair across from it. Which meant he was okay with my excuse, because he wasn’t trying so hard to intimidate me anymore.

“That’s not good,” he stated.

“No. Not good.” I opened the appointment book and glanced over it, trying to work out what else I could get done tonight.

“And why were you at the police station?”

I slammed the appointment book shut, annoyed with it, with Colin, and with…well, with most of the rest of the Western Hemisphere. “I almost got eaten by that asshole Mr. Smith, but this vamp came out of nowhere and helped me out. Then the cops showed up and dragged him off under suspicion of murder. They held me for questioning.” Just talking about it made me tired. “Oh, and he said hi.”

“Who said hi?”

“The vamp. He told me to tell you he said hi.”

“He knew me?” Colin seemed perplexed. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him perplexed before. It was an odd look on him.

“He said, ‘Tell Colin I said hi.’”

Perplexed morphed quickly into annoyed, which was much more familiar. “Well, did he give you his name?”

“No, but the cops did. Sebastian. Marcheleto.”

Colin went suddenly still. Which, with a vampire, is really, really still. A strange light came into his eyes that, for a split second, struck me as fear; then it disappeared.

“Is he okay?” His voice came out even, easily conversational, without a trace of sarcasm or annoyance. Very atypical of Colin.

“I don’t know. He’s in lockup. I don’t think he did it, though.” I paused, trying to interpret his expression, which was gradually changing from that hint of gob smack to his usual scowl. “Why are you so interested?”

Colin shook his head. “Not your business.” There. That was the Colin I was used to. His glower had returned. “Nice waste of a night’s work.”

“Not my fault.” I jotted a few phone numbers onto a stack of sticky notes. I could wrap up a couple of things tonight, hopefully. Preferably at home. I didn’t feel like hanging around the office with Colin in this kind of mood. “Was there anything else?”

His dark eyes flicked toward me. Something about Sebastian Marcheleto had Colin tied up in a knot. I’d never seen him like this.

He seemed to mull something for a time. I watched him patiently, hoping he would get the hell away from my desk and get a mug of blood or something. Maybe it would help his mood. Not that there was any precedent for that—he was usually fairly cranky, freshly fed or not. I had a theory about his crankiness. It involved him never getting laid. Maybe I was projecting.

He came to his feet in a lurch that made me jump. “Forget the calls. We’re going out.”

I blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Out. Going. Us.” He turned toward the office door, then glanced back, realizing I still had ass planted in chair.

“Us? Out?”

“Yes. Hurry up.”

Reluctantly, I came to my feet. “Out where? And why me?”

“I want to find out what’s going on. And you saw Sebastian last.” He trudged through the door and out into the office, leaving me with no choice but to follow.

Well. This certainly hadn’t ever happened before. I shook my head, wondering what the hell I was getting into, and followed him. He was, after all, the boss.

JOHNNY: Mom, the neighbors suck.

MOM: Honey, that’s not nice.

JOHNNY: No, I mean they really SUCK! They’re VAMPIRES!

(hysterical audience laughter)

—from
The Neighbors Suck
, NBC sitcom, 1972-1980

Chapter Three

The 16
^th
Street Mall has as many fang bars as it has Starbucks, and that’s saying something, since there’s a Starbucks on every corner. Between that, the fang bars and the medical marijuana dispensaries, it’s a happy place.

I’ve been in a few fang bars. I don’t have to do it often, but every once in a while I have a contact who’s never home because he’s spending all the money he should be spending paying for his Lamborghini on high-quality blood. I don’t like going to them. It’s uncomfortable, to say the least. I always feel like I’m being evaluated to see if my bodily fluids are worthy of inclusion on the menu board.

I wasn’t sure why Colin felt the need to drag me along, but he was so surly and frowny as we walked up from the underground offices that I didn’t want to risk telling him no. I had to assume from his earlier reaction that he knew Sebastian well enough to identify him and didn’t need me along for that task. Maybe he just wanted the company. Right.

The temperature had dropped since I’d come back from my ordeal at the police station. I pulled my hoodie closer around me, earning an odd, sidelong glance from Colin. I forced myself not to respond, afraid eye contact might encourage him to put an arm around me or something. He didn’t have much body temperature to offer by way of warmth anyway.

The night streets were nearly as busy and bustling as they are during the daytime. There aren’t as many vamps in Denver as there are humans—humans outnumber vamps about a thousand to one worldwide—but there are enough to keep the fang bars and vintage boutiques hopping until sunrise. We passed the first three fang bars—and three Starbucks, all closed for the night—before Colin finally veered toward a doorway.

I glanced up at the sign above the door as we entered. Bloody Bob’s. It was a locally owned bar. The other three we’d passed had been Fangs You Very Much franchises. If I had to guess, I’d say Colin was personally acquainted with Bloody Bob himself.

The worst thing about fang bars is the lighting. Or, rather, the lack of it. Vampires can see in the dark, so they have a deeply stupid habit of not bothering to use artificial light. They’re required to use a certain amount by law and can get sued if a human hurts himself due to insufficient lighting, but vamps aren’t big on regulations, as my job aptly and constantly demonstrates.

Bloody Bob’s had the minimum required lighting, so it wasn’t pitch-black, but it was darker than I was comfortable with. Instinctively, I moved a little closer to Colin’s broad presence, then wished I hadn’t. Getting closer to the boss wasn’t my idea of a great time. The last thing I wanted to do was give him the wrong idea.

He seemed oblivious, however, and strolled to the bar, where he swung himself expertly onto a barstool. I struggled up onto the stool next to him. Barstools aren’t made for short people.

The bar was polished wood and immaculately clean. Because they deal in blood, fang bars are held to an extremely high level of hygiene. I think they’re the only business whose major product is classified as both a food item and a hazardous waste.

The chalkboard on the wall listed several specials as well as standard menu items. Like most fang bars, the standard items were all animal blood—pig and beef shots. The specials were all human blood. Types and quantity always depended on what was available.

“Mr. Colin,” the man behind the bar said. Apparently, he didn’t know Colin’s last name either.

“Evening, Bob,” Colin replied. He tapped the bar. “Two B pos and a pig shot.”

I wrinkled my nose. He’d said that as nonchalantly as I might have ordered an appletini. Bob just nodded and poured the order, selecting two bottles from the warmer and pouring them neatly into oversized shot glasses. He passed the glasses, now filled with thick, viscous red, to Colin. Colin nodded thanks. I averted my eyes as he upended the first shot, deciding I’d rather check out Bob.