“I know that,” I said crabbily. The human world has sodium pentothal and lie detectors; the supernatural world uses luduans—when it can find them. But this one had gotten fired from his job, wasn’t at his apartment and hadn’t been seen for two days at any of the places he liked to hang out.
A trio of trolls erupted with stomps and hoots from their primo place in front of the large mirror on one wall. It was currently reflecting the qualifying heats for the insane mage sport of ley-line racing. The World Championships were coming to town, and it was all anyone could think about. Including Fin, who was raking in the bets hand over fist.
I waited while he took some money off a Merrow, who of course was favoring an Irish driver. She wrapped her webbed hand around a pint and moved off, and I leaned over the bar. “I’m getting desperate, Fin. I don’t have time to wait around days or weeks for this guy to show. I’ve checked everywhere, and it’s like he just fell off the face of the earth.”
Fin shrugged. “All I know is he put a couple bets down with me a week ago, but never paid up. So I sent the boys after him.”
The “boys” were a couple of cave trolls, short and squat like the rest of their breed, but with the long arms and huge, shovel- like hands needed for excavating large areas of earth. Those hands were also good for slapping around welchers, so much so that Fin rarely had a problem.
“Did they find him?” I asked.
He scowled. “Not yet. They went by his job, but he wasn’t there.”
“He isn’t going to be. The management fired him after they found out about his gambling debts. I think they were afraid he’d walk off with some of the merchandise.”
Fin paused to serve another customer, with the molasses-type beer trolls prefer. I suppressed a face. You can eat that stuff with a spoon. “You’re talking about that auction house he used to work for,” he finally told me. “He got another job last week—at a gambling den in back of a pharmacy over there.”
I got out a notebook. “What pharmacy?”
He shook his head. “Don’t bother. Didn’t I tell you I sent the boys?”
“No disrespect to the boys, but tell me anyway.”
A spear of light interrupted the cheering going on around a big-screen TV mounted to one grimy wall, washing out the horse race it was showing. “SHUT THE DOOR!” we all yelled, and it quickly slammed closed.
“The owner had some trouble a few months back with mages coming in and cleaning up using spells to cheat,” Fin told me.
“There are charms against that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, but they’re expensive and have to be renewed regularly, and he wasn’t exactly making a killing. So he started keeping a luduan on-site so whenever somebody started a major run, he could have it question them. Make sure it really was a lucky streak.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Yeah, it worked pretty good. Until the damn thing stopped coming in. The owner said he didn’t show up for work last night or the one before. And he didn’t call in.”
“Great.” He’d either done a runner, in which case it could take weeks to track him down, or one of his other disgruntled bookies had decided to make the lesson a little more permanent. Either way, I was screwed. “I need to talk to this guy, assuming he’s still alive, and I need to do it today.”
I got back sympathetic eyes and nothing else. And that wasn’t promising. Everybody came to Fin’s, and he kept his tiny ears open. He was my first stop on most jobs that involved the fey, although today he’d been last because I’d already been in Manhattan so I’d checked there first. If Fin didn’t know, nobody did—with one possible exception.
I called Mircea on my way home. “I need a favor.”
“What a coincidence.”
It took me second. “You need me to make that pickup.”
“Yes.”
I looked around and finally found the folder sticking out from under the seat, half hidden by a couple of crumpled fast-food bags and my tennis shoes. So that was where I had left them. I tossed them in back and flipped through the file.
It was another seedy nightclub owner with a smuggling habit, only this one preferred weapons to drugs. Same old, same old. “Okay,” I told him. “I need a luduan. No name—apparently they don’t use them—but supposedly he’s the only one around.” I gave him the particulars, such as they were.
“Very well. I will have inquiries made.”
“I need him by tomorrow at the latest, Mircea.”
“And I need the vampire alive.”
“Yeah, you made that point already. I’ll call when I have him.” I hung up. This shouldn’t take long.
CHAPTER 10
Everything was going great until I cut his head off.
That sort of thing tends to shock someone into silence, but not this time. The body’s arms were flailing around uselessly, the crocodile skin loafers were making scuff marks on the bathroom floor and the detached head was screaming bloody murder. Great.
I stuck a wad of paper towels in its mouth and hurried to the door. Fortunately, it seemed that the DJ’s pounding beat was enough to deafen even vampire ears, because none of the black-clad “bouncers” were rushing to aid their fallen boss. Instead, the short hallway contained only a couple making out and a guy waiting for the bathroom.
“This is for employees,” I told him. “There’s one for customers up front.”
“Yeah, but there’s a line. Can’t you two get a room or something?”
“Sorry.”
He tried to peer through the crack in the door behind me. “I thought I heard a scream.”
“I’m being mean to him.”
He took in my black leather jeans, bustier and cropped jacket—chosen for ease of cleanup—and a slow grin spread over his face. “I wouldn’t mind if you were mean to me.”
“You know, I really think you would.”
I ducked back inside to find the body’s hands feeling around the floor, trying to locate its missing piece. That was a no-no, as freshly severed vampire parts could often reattach. I picked the head up by its spiky black hair and tossed it in the sink.
My knife, a ten- inch bowie, had fallen to the floor in the tussle. I took my time cleaning it, giving the vamp a moment to adjust to the new state of affairs. I’d finished and tucked the head back in my duffel bag by the time he managed to spit out the towels.
“You cut off my head!” Shock and outrage warred in his pale blue eyes.
We both regarded his remains, which were still twitching. They were undeniably headless, but also strangely lacking in gore. Vampire hearts don’t pump unless the vamp is trying to appear human, so there’s nothing to cause any inconvenient spurting. I had a few drops on my jacket, but they weren’t too noticeable against the leather. Most of the rest had pooled beneath the body, leaving it looking oddly pristine.
I glanced back at the sink and found the head glaring at me. It looked like outrage had won. “You crazy bitch! You can’t just walk into my club and—”
“The name’s Dory.”
“—try this shit on! Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Of course.”
“Because when I—” Thin eyelashes fluttered in confusion. “What?”
I dragged the file out of my duffel. “It never ceases to amaze me how many people think I kill for fun.”
“Don’t you?”
“Well, not just for fun.” I bent the file’s front cover back, showing him the photo that had been paper-clipped to the inside.
His eyes crossed as they focused on the image of his own narrow face, overgrown nose and sulky expression. “This is a hit?”
“If it was, you’d be dead by now.”
“What the hell do you call this?”
“Temporarily inconvenienced. A fifth-level master can live for up to a week without a head.”
“And how do you know that’s what I am?” he asked haughtily. He’d probably been telling people he was third or something. There are rare vampires who can hide their true levels, appearing stronger or weaker than they actually are. But this joker wasn’t one of them.