Pretty When They Collide (Pretty When She Dies 0.5)(10)

“Really? My package that I paid for isn’t here? And you two yahoos were out in the hall doing what while my package disappeared and the courier ended up as much garden mulch?” Frank kicked the pile of decomposing vampire. “One of you has to explain this to me.”

“There was a woman with him, but she’s not here now,” Ramon said immediately.

“A woman?” Frank arched both eyebrows. “Ah, yes. You said he was having his dinner. So, what was she? Some sort of magical invisible woman?”

“No, no. She was just a stupid bimbo,” Tyson said.

“Not so stupid if the courier is dead and the relic is gone, huh?” Frank poked Tyson’s chest with one finger, knocking him back a few feet. “What did this bimbo look like?”

“Blond, lots of makeup, lots of plastic surgery. Red dress. High heels.” Ramon shrugged. “She looked like a thousand other girls with dreams of being a movie star. I just don’t get how she got out of the room. The windows are sealed shut and there is only one door in.”

Aimee felt Frank’s eyes settle on her and she looked up at him.

“Well, my little witch? How did she get out? Because I think we’re all on the same page that she is behind the theft of my package and the murder of the courier, am I right?”

Ramon and Tyson reluctantly nodded.

Aimee scrutinized the suite from her chair. She felt like shrugging, but knew that would not go over very well with Frank. Standing, she strolled over to the closet, then the bathroom, holding her palm an inch over the surfaces. “I don’t feel a spell of any kind.” She turned to find Frank right behind her. His vampire stealth annoyed her.

“So then what? Are they spelled?” Frank pointed at the two very nervous guards.

Aimee strolled over to the two men and raised her hands. Closing her eyes, she flexed her power. It trickled over the men, tasting their aura, and dipping into their minds. Dropping her hands, she shook her head. “They’re not spelled and they’re not lying.”

“I really hate mysteries, did you know that?” Frank glared at Aimee.

“What do you want me to do?” Aimee asked, anger in her voice.

“Figure it out!” Frank barked at her. “Is my relic really stolen, or is it here?”

Closing her eyes, Aimee exhaled, her liquid gold power filling the space around her. It searched out other magicks, but found nothing. “It’s not here. There isn’t a spell either.”

“So I have sealed windows, one entry, guards who aren’t lying, a missing relic I paid a shit-ton of money for, and an invisible woman!” Frank’s rage was a black fire on her skin and she shrank away from him. “How the hell did our bimbo get out of here? Did she turn into a mouse and crawl through a hole in the wall? Or maybe into a bug and went under the crack in the door?”

“Or through the air vent,” Tyson suggested, partially jokingly.

Frank glared up at the vent. “No one could fit through there. Unless they were a vampire and turned to mist and that would have to be a powerful, old vampire.”

“She wasn’t a vampire,” Ramon said confidently.

“She was just a human girl,” Tyson agreed.

“That somehow fit through an air vent that a cat couldn’t–” Frank stopped in mid-sentence and became frighteningly still.

Aimee took a timid step away from him. It was dangerous when he acted this way. Violence usually followed.

“Fuck me.” Frank stared up at the vent in awe. “Fuck me.” Leaping onto the wall, he clung to it and ripped the cover off the vent. Flinging it to the floor before dropping down, he grinned triumphantly. “We have a winner. Tyson, you don’t die tonight.”

Ramon squatted and touched something on the cover. “That’s putty. But there is no way anyone could fit through that.”

Frank looked absolutely gleeful which made Aimee even more nervous. “No, no. Someone can. My boneless brethren, the dhamphir, could easily fit through there.”

“Dhamphir?” Ramon appeared mystified.

“The vampire killers,” Tyson answered. “They’re offspring of vampires and humans.”

“Extremely rare,” Frank said as he wrapped his arm around Ramon’s shoulders. “Very, very rare. And now I want one. This one. The one who stole from me. If you want to live, I suggest you figure out where our dear little bimbette dhamphir crawled out of the air ducts.”

“Yes, sir.” Ramon headed toward the door, Tyson in his wake.

“Ivan, call the cleaners,” Frank said to one of his personal guards. “We need this suite cleaned up immediately.”

Aimee stared at the cover to the vent at her feet. She had felt something powerful and mystical when she had touched the mysterious woman. It was unlike anything she had ever felt before. Though the woman in the elevator had not fit the description of the bimbo that Tyson and Ramon had described, Aimee knew without a doubt that she was the one who had ended the vampire’s life and taken Frank’s relic. The thought made her smile.

“I want a dhamphir of my own,” Frank said, startling her. He nuzzled her cheek. “My very own little dhamphir would endlessly amuse me.”

“Wouldn’t she just try to end you?”

“That’s what silver and your spells are for. Of course, I could just sell her to the highest bidder to make sure she didn’t do me in like stupid Leonard here.”