There was a stream of grumbles and sighs from inside the closet as he shoved back hanger after hanger, shaking his head each time. “What exactly do you do with the money we give you?”
“Rent and shoes?”
Holden took a blue, flowing, peasant-style top off the rack, held it up to me and grimaced, then released it into my arms.
“This?” I inspected it, questioning his judgment.
“That is getting thrown out.” He snatched up another hanger, this one holding a slinky black cocktail dress I’d used once to bait a vampire at the Russian Tea Room. He handed the garment to me, his eyes alight with a triumphant glow. “This is what you’re going to wear.”
“My Russian prostitute dress?” I was incredulous. He couldn’t be serious. It was skin-tight satin cut three inches above the knee and tried its hardest to make it seem like I had boobs. But wasn’t it more suitable for a first date where the guy was paying for something other than the meal?
“You can’t wear jeans on a first date, Secret. Not if you want there to be a second.”
I would have liked to dispute what he was saying, but for the better part of the eighties Holden had been an editor-at-large for GQ. How do you argue with someone who made a living knowing what defined style, even if it had been in the eighties?
Begrudgingly, I admitted defeat.
“I’ll wear this…as long as you tell me about the business once I’m in it.”
“Deal.”
Chapter Two
By the time I found my favorite pair of gold Jimmy Choo’s—paid for by killing a nasty mess of a rogue who’d reminded me of Jabba the Hutt—I was already running late for my date. Holden, for some sadistic reason, was unwilling to let me cancel. He walked with me so we could discuss the council’s business and still make it to Midtown East in time for Tyler’s nine o’clock reservation at a new steakhouse called Red.
I think I was supposed to be impressed a mere detective managed to get us a table at such a popular place, but I didn’t care as long as they knew how to make a good blue-rare steak. I might be able to eat human food, but it didn’t do anything for me nutritionally. I needed blood, and the closest I could get in polite company was eating meat, the less cooked the better.
It did one of two things to the guys I met—either impressed the hell out of them, or they got grossed out. If Tyler wasn’t among the former, it wouldn’t matter what I’d worn. Guys rarely ask for a second date when you’ve physically repulsed them.
I was still trying to feel comfortable in the outfit Holden had chosen and continued to be a bit torn about wearing the heels. When I know I might be working, I like to be as comfortable as possible, especially if there’s a chance running could be involved.
Thanks to the combined agility of both my werewolf and vampire halves, I was capable of running in heels. But if you’ve ever tried to chase a vampire across Battery Park in four-inch stilettos, you’d know agility is the least of your worries.
But right now, Battery Park was miles away from being an issue, and running didn’t seem too likely as we walked south on 6th. The constant noise of the city washed away any concern of us being overheard.
The sky was a pretty shade of night-time blue, and every block or so I’d catch a glimpse of the Chrysler Building on the skyline, grinning at me with its art deco teeth like an upside-down Cheshire cat.
I’d stopped tugging at the hem of the dress before we were out of Hell’s Kitchen and only received one catcall since. Wearing a short skirt on a Saturday night hardly qualified you as interesting or unique enough to warrant sideways glances, especially on 6th Avenue.
“Sig left me a message asking me to come to the main hall after sundown,” Holden explained.
The vampires had their headquarters West of SoHo, on Green, which even the keenest human observer wouldn’t know was there. It was so cloaked by magic the only thing humans would see was an ugly, unwelcoming hole in the wall. What was actually there was a sight to behold. It was a sister building to Grand Central Terminal, and the windows had been replaced by artificial light sources many decades before, giving the interior the ambient glow of a time long past. It was there members of the council ran the day-to-day—or night-to-night—business of all vampires.
It was like a government, only less bloodthirsty.
The hub also housed, in the dungeon-like depths of its basement, the most powerful members of vampire society—the Tribunal. They were the three who kept control and balance in the vampire world.
Sig, the undisputed leader among the three, and the most powerful vampire on the East Coast if not all of North America, was the one who issued all the warrants. And it was the Tribunal who told me who to kill.
Of course, since I was something of a black sheep among the vampire community and therefore persona non grata at headquarters, it fell to Holden to pass the warrants along to me. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d had to visit the hub, and on each of those occasions I’d been in trouble. The current arrangement suited me fine since Sig and the other Tribunal leaders scared the bejesus out of me.
I was waiting for Holden to elaborate on whatever Sig had told him in their nightfall meeting. It didn’t escape my attention, though, that in order for Sig’s message to have arrived before nightfall, he would have been awake during daylight hours.
Most vampires sleep like the dead whether they want to or not. It was only the very old or the very powerful who could escape the daylight death. I was sometimes able to rouse myself in the morning thanks to my mixed blood, but I couldn’t go outside, so there wasn’t much of a point. For Sig, a full vampire, to be awake during the day meant he was either much older or stronger than I’d once assumed him to be.
We crossed the street on a Do Not Walk, narrowly avoiding an overzealous cab, and Holden guided me onto East 33rd by placing his hand on the small of my back and motioning me in the appropriate direction. We must have looked for all the world like one of those beautiful couples people love to hate. He made us pretty, I just helped make us a pair. It didn’t hurt that the dress gave me the illusion of being more stunning than I actually was.
When we were angled the right way, his hand lingered below my shoulders in a protective gesture. His fingers were level with my hair, and from time to time he would catch and hold one of the curls for a second, then release it.
“You realize we’re almost there, don’t you?” I asked, running out of patience.
It wasn’t his touch that bothered me. It was the delay in his narrative. Vampires have no sense of urgency, which drives me mental. They’ll forget what they’re saying and muse silently to themselves for hours if you don’t remind them to resume their story. I guess living for centuries must make time feel different.
He dropped his hand, as though touching me was part of his distraction, then licked his lips as he prepared to speak.
“It would seem, according to the West Coast Tribunal, one of their rogues has crossed into our jurisdiction.” His hands were now stuffed in the pockets of his gray dress pants. Summer or not, Holden Chancery would never be caught dead in shorts. Climate control isn’t really an issue for vampires.
Plus he was already dead.
“Oh?” I didn’t want to say too much, just wanted him to continue speaking.
Holden reached into his blazer and withdrew a familiar white envelope. The paper was a heavy linen finish and smelled sweet but faintly peppery. It was closed with an honest-to-God wax seal, stamped with Sig’s personal insignia.
My heart always caught with butterflies when Holden brought me one of these deliveries, and tonight was no different. With the slightest tremor of excitement, I took the envelope and held it close for a moment. Here it was, the promise of the hunt. The reward of the chase. The killer inside both my monsters lived for this.
I got down to brass tacks. “How much?”
“Ten.” Thousand. Wow, this guy must have been pretty naughty. The average rogue was worth five hundred if they were part of a sect, a thousand if they ran solo.
Yup. I’ve killed vampires for a mere five hundred dollars. But considering rogues would always be an issue, and I had a menacing reputation to uphold, five hundred bucks for a night’s work wasn’t too shabby. The most I’d ever earned on a single job was ten thousand, so this was a pretty nice number to hear again.
The warrant in my hands would cover almost seven months of rent.
Or five months and some new clothes to replace what Holden had insisted I throw out.
I popped the seal with a satisfying crack and was unfolding the paper when Holden’s attention shifted. A second later I knew why.
“Secret?” The voice was low, comforting and masculine without being overwhelming. It did happy things to parts of me I rarely acknowledged. He also didn’t stumble over my name, so he scored points early in the game for that. With a name like Secret McQueen, it was easy for people to make a mess out of it.
I turned away from Holden, the envelope still in my hand, and was pleasantly surprised by what greeted me.
Detective Tyler Nowakowski lived up to Mercedes’s designation of handsome. He was tall, at least six foot two, and lean without bending towards lanky. His eyes were a little too large, but it gave him a look of attentive curiosity. In contrast, his mouth was small, giving his face the appearance of an inverted triangle. His nose and jaw were strong, alluding to the Slavic heritage hinted at by his name. His hair, short and black, was styled with a minimal amount of gel.
He wore dark jeans, about half a size too big, based on how low they had fallen on his narrow hips, and he’d topped it with a white dress shirt fresh from the dry cleaner. I could smell the chemicals under the scent of his nice, but inexpensive, cologne.
Tyler looked at Holden apprehensively, and his thick black brows drew closer together. When he looked back to me, they went the opposite direction, and I accepted I’d made the right choice in agreeing to wear the dress.
“Yes. Secret. That’s me,” I managed to reply, struggling to shove the envelope into my purse.
