“No. That’s as far as I’m going down this path. Just look for that chick and you’ll probably find your killer.”
Slade shifted on his desk and his face took on a devil’s advocate slant. “You know, her presence at the scene is no more proof of her guilt than it is of yours.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
He shrugged. “Some might speculate that you hung around to admire your own handiwork.”
I choked out a laugh. “Give me a f**king break. Even if I was still feeding from humans—which we both know I’m not—I’m smart enough to clean up after myself.”
His expression cleared and he pushed away from the desk. “I know that. Which is why I want you to help me find the idiot who did this.”
“Why?” I didn’t even try to hide the suspicion in my tone.
“Why do I need help? Or why you?”
“Why everything?”
I’d worked for him on a job months earlier—before Maisie was taken and shit went down in New Orleans. He’d asked me to rough up a strip club owner named Tiny Malone who owed Slade some money. I’d delivered the threats but then Tiny turned the tables on me and I barely escaped. The altercation had sparked off some emotional shit for me and I’d ended up calling Slade for help. Which is what led to us sleeping together. So needless to say, his request made all my warning bells shriek with alarm.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not asking you to come on my payroll permanently or anything. I know you’ve got your own… stuff going on.” The undertone in that one sentence was strong enough to give me pause, but he kept talking. “This is more of a favor that I’m willing to pay you for. But I need you to promise you won’t tell any of your mage buddies about it for now.”
I swirled my hand through the air so he’d continue. I wasn’t promising not to tell anyone about it until I knew everything. Slade was notorious for “forgetting” to mention important—and damning—details.
“It worries me that the cops are involved.” He spat this out like a gunpoint confession. Like he hated admitting he worried about anything. “Usually we’re able to clean up these messes and put the mortals off the scent of vampire involvement. But they’re all over this. Right now they’re calling it a murder, but once the press gets ahold of the details we could have trouble.”
I leaned back and crossed my arms. “So you’ve got a vamp who sucks at covering her tracks. Why do you need my help?”
He hesitated. “It’s complicated.”
I rolled my eyes. Since when weren’t things complicated with him? “Save your breath, Slade. I’m not looking for complications in my life right now.”
“Hmm.” He pursed his lips.
He was baiting me. I knew it. “Whatever.” I started to rise. “I’ve given you my answer.”
“I have a bad feeling about this, Sabina.” He stepped forward, his eyes pleading. Something about his tone told me he wasn’t bullshitting me this time. I paused and crossed my arms, ready to listen. “If word gets out that I can’t control the local vamps, the Despina might find someone else to take over here.”
Satisfied I wasn’t about to walk out the door, he approached the bar and held up a decanter filled with amber liquid. I shook my head and took a swig of the drink I’d forgotten I had. “I know you want to stay out of this, but if the Despina appoints some West Coast vamp to take control of the local population, the results could be potentially explosive. Especially since most of the local vamps escaped L.A. because they didn’t want to live under the Dominae’s dictatorial laws anymore.”
The words “potentially explosive” had been used on purpose. He knew me well enough to know that no matter how much I claimed to want peace in my life, part of me would never fully be out of the game. On the other hand, working with Slade again had its own potentially explosive ramifications. Ones I was determined to avoid at all costs.
“New York’s vamps are right to be wary. I don’t buy Tanith’s new kinder, gentler vampire party line. But none of that’s my business anymore. I’m done with vampire drama.”
Slade snorted and dropped a piece of ice in his glass. “Sabina, please. Let’s not bullshit each other. You might have everyone else convinced you’re cool with domestic bliss, but I know you better than that. I left the assassin life behind once, too, remember? Even tried to live the straight life for a few years. But the boredom almost killed me. Luckily, I wised up and got into organized crime. Otherwise I’d probably be a serial killer by now.” He chuckled at his own joke, but we both knew he wasn’t far off the mark. He took a casual sip of his drink. “How long has it been since you killed anyone?”
I schooled my features. “Only a psychopath would keep track of something like that.”
“A psychopath is just an assassin without pay.” A slow smile spread across his lips. “You don’t want to admit what you really are? Fine. But don’t be surprised when that darkness inside you rises up and you’re forced to deal with it.”
“That’s the difference between you and me, Slade.” I set down my drink and rose with deliberate slowness. “I’m actually happy no one’s tried to kill me in months. It’s a nice change of pace. I’m done with that dark shit. I’m embracing the light now.”
He laughed out loud. “Sweetheart, you might like to pretend you’re a mage now, but you’re still half vampire. And we all know what happens to vampires who embrace the light.”
Our gazes locked. Sounds from the bar intruded into the tense silence between us. I was so intent on glaring at Slade that it took me a second to register what I was hearing. The music had cut off and had been replaced by screams. But they weren’t the shouts of a happy audience. They were the shrieks of terrified patrons. Slade heard them, too. One second he was by the desk and the next he ran past me to the large one-way mirror that looked down on the bar.
“What the—” he breathed. Curious, I joined him. By the time I reached the window, beings were running around like spooked animals.
In the center of the chaos, Tansy was screaming and covered in blood. Slade ran to the door and threw it open. I followed him onto the landing.
“Tansy?” he shouted.
The nymph looked up with wide, spooked eyes. “Someone killed my client!”