“If I’m wrong about this, they’ll kill me,” I confessed. No sense in sugarcoating it, the reality of our situation was ugly. “And then they’ll kill you.”
“If I’m wrong about you, I’m already dead.” With cunning vampire speed, he dipped his head and kissed me. It sucked the breath out of my lungs and left my head spinning. Out of instinct I moved my hand to his neck so I could hold my balance, and then found myself kissing him back. The embrace was a whirlwind, and the cool electricity of the kiss swam all the way into my toes and sparked throughout my whole body. His lips were cold, but not in an unpleasant way. It felt like a kiss in the winter, one where you could see your breath when it was over.
He pulled away first, and I didn’t fight him. I staggered a little, surprised by the intensity of the incident. Holden and I had always had a weird chemistry. We ignored it in the past, all but once, but now with the dreams and this unexpected kiss, it was hard not to think about it.
“My life is in your hands, you know.” He touched my cheek, one cool hand against the flushed warmth of my skin. “I need to trust you.”
“I—”
He was out of the room, and the sound of the front door clicking closed echoed through the darkness. I flopped backwards onto the bed and let out a whoosh of air.
Welcome home, indeed.
Chapter Thirteen
“You’re on your own on this one, McQueen.”
I was sitting in the office of Francis Keats, my business partner, mentor and one badass assassin. We were facing each other across a large oak desk in an unassuming study, neither of us suiting the role we filled. Keaty looked nothing like an assassin, which was one of the most genius things about him. He could have been a doctor or an accountant.
His dark blond hair was cut short and styled with precision. His shirt and pants were tailored, but generic enough to not say anything about his income or status, and his face was as unreadable as always.
I, on the other hand, was dressed as low-key as possible in my tank and shorts. My hair, as predicted, was a mess of curls down past my shoulders with no hope of being brushed smooth. I was biting my fingernail and tapping my shoe against the edge of his desk. He remained composed, but I knew him well enough to know I was driving him crazy.
“You have to help me, Keaty.” I was repeating Holden’s words from last night.
“I don’t have to do anything, Secret. You know that perfectly well.” He leaned back in his leather desk chair, lacing his fingers together across his stomach. The expression on his face told me nothing. This was the man who’d saved my life when I first came to the city. The man who had trained me to be the topnotch vampire killer I was today. And here he was, telling me he wouldn’t help me in my hour of need.
“But—”
“No.”
“I—”
His face broke from its meticulous calm, setting into a deep frown, his brow furrowing and all the fake friendliness seeping from his eyes. For an instant he appeared every ounce the killer he could be, and although he was a hundred percent human, right then I was genuinely afraid of him.
I stopped arguing.
If parents knew how to give that look, teenagers would never act out.
“The only time I’ll help a vampire is if it involves killing another vampire. So if you want to let me kill Chancery for you, then by all means I’ll help you. I will not, however, dedicate time and resources to help you prove he’s innocent of some unknown vampire crime I don’t give a rat’s ass about.”
Well, he didn’t beat around the bush.
“I can’t kill someone who is innocent, Keaty. It would be immoral.”
“He’s a vampire,” he said, as if this made it okay.
“So am I.”
“It’s not the same.” For all of his bravado and posturing, Keaty had one hell of a soft spot for me. He, who hated monsters in all shapes and forms, had made a huge exception when he allowed me into his life. Not only was I part monster, I was all monster. He—and Mercedes, who knew only of the werewolf half—seemed able to rationalize their way around this fact by focusing on how much they liked me as a person.
I decided not to fight Keaty on this point. He knew all too well what I was, and I found our relationship worked better when we didn’t discuss it. He only brought it up when it benefitted us in some way.
Francis Keats, ever the pragmatist.
“I can’t do this alone.”
“Then kill him and be done with it.”
I sighed loudly and picked up a large rock with no discernable purpose off his desk. I tossed it back and forth between my hands until he held his hand out, palm up, and waited. I dropped the rock into it, and he put it on the table behind him.
“The displaced soul of a Cheyenne shaman is trapped in that stone. I don’t think he likes to be bounced around like a hacky sack.”
I continued to tap my foot on the desk, and finally he relented.
“I can’t help you personally, because I can’t afford to burn my rather rickety bridge to the Tribunal. I need to stay in their good graces, you understand?”
I did, but I didn’t want to admit it.
“I do, however, know of some people who might be able to steer you in the right direction. As much as it pains me.”
He turned and unlocked the top drawer of a file cabinet behind him, then pulled out a small address book. From inside, he withdrew a business card and handed it to me. It was black, except for a small silver inscription which read Bramley.
“Bramley?” I flipped the card over, and then back, but it told me nothing else. I didn’t know if Bramley was a person, a place or some kind of password. The font was Banknote Gothic, which told me nothing else about the mystery word except that it was pretentious.
Keaty leaned back in his chair again, looking every bit like the cat who’d gotten the cream.
“On 96th and 1st you will find an unassuming little hole-in-the-wall Irish pub. It has no sign, and it is not the most welcoming place.” Sounded like a few werewolf and vampire locales I knew of, enchanted to make them unappealing to the human population. Keaty nodded to the card in my hand. “If you have that, you’ll get past the man at the door.” His lips tweaked into a smile.
“And after that?”
He sniggered a little, the amused sound out of place coming from Keaty.
“Just tell them your name.”
“And how are a bunch of antisocial Irishmen going to help me?” I slipped the card into the front pocket of the ivory-colored linen shorts I was wearing.
“Let’s put it this way, McQueen—if you and I are the Yankees of demon hunting, the folks at Bramley are the farm league.”
My lip curled in disgust. “Wannabe vampire slayers?”
“I’d turn down the snobbery a few levels. In case you missed the memo, your favored status within the Tribunal hasn’t exactly made you popular with the monsters who want to stay hidden. And working with me makes it pretty damned unlikely anyone with any information on your warden—”
“Sentry. He would be a sentry now.” I remembered what Holden had told me about his power shift, and couldn’t stop myself from correcting my partner.
Keaty didn’t amend himself, he just looked annoyed by my interruption. “The bad guys can’t trust you, Secret. You’re too well connected and have too high a profile. The people at Bramley, they can still talk to your average, low-rung vamp or half-demon. If anyone knows anything, it will be them. Ask for Jameson.”
“Well, it is an Irish bar.” I smirked.
“The man, not the whiskey.”
“Obviously, Keaty, geez.” I rose from my chair, and he mirrored the motion, less out of chivalry than a killer instinct to stay on the same level as someone who could pose a threat to him. I was flattered and offended all at the same time.
I was wearing a sheer black top with the shorts, and a short-sleeved black jacket to hide my shoulder holster. After the last two days I had no intention of going anywhere without being armed, so my trusty SIG 9mm was sticking with me. For all the good guns seemed to do me. If I could avoid being knocked unconscious or shot, I could make use of one.
I was also sporting a brand-new accessory—a pretty, three-finger ring made of a heavy-duty alloy. It was a feminine take on brass knuckles. It also wasn’t real silver or I would have no skin left on my fingers.
After my ineffectual smackdown on Holden the previous evening, I wanted more bang for my buck. Leary Fallon, the owner of the gun shop on 8th where I special ordered my silver bullets, was more than happy to sell me something that fit the bill. It even had little diamonds set in it to give it the illusion of a ring set.
“Just see what they know. If anyone can help you, it’s Jameson,” Keaty said, getting the final word.
I stepped out onto West 80th and was greeted by a wall of hot air and the putrid reek of summer garbage festering on the street corners. East 96th and 1st was on the complete opposite side of the city from where I was, and since I couldn’t take the subway, I was left with few options—a cab or walking.
It wasn’t that New York had a no monster hybrid policy for the transit system. The problem was I had difficulty controlling myself in small spaces. It was worse still in small spaces cramped with bodies. That spelled trouble for my self-restraint.
The last thing I needed was my fangs popping out on the A train during the evening commuter rush. I’d taken the subway a few times and the results were always the same—me, dizzy and anxious, desperate to get away from the crush of warm human bodies before the monsters in me decided to stop acting in opposition and finally worked together to create one hell of a memorable massacre.
I’d had my fair share of drama in the subways before. Not to mention, I hadn’t eaten in over a day, which was foolish at the best of times and given my emotional turmoil would be a recipe for disaster.
Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather be one of the good guys and stick to walking. A cab would have been nice, especially one with functional air conditioning, but we’d have to skirt Central Park and double back. Walking across the Park would save me time.
