Wild Knight (Midnight Empire: The Tower #1)(7)

A server appeared with a glass of water for me and another whisky for my client. She lingered for a moment, her gaze fixed on him as though hoping for some kind of acknowledgement.

“That will be all,” he finally said. The dismissal was firm, like the hint of muscle that strained beneath his cloak.

The server’s mouth turned down at the corners and she scuttled away.

What was she hoping for? A brief moment of plug and play on the table?

“Why don’t you tell me what you want?” The sooner I extracted the information, the sooner I could get out of here and far away from him. The close proximity to a vampire was making me deeply uncomfortable. And my primal reaction to him didn’t help.

His finger circled the rim of the glass. “I need you to recover something for me.”

I leaned against the back of the booth. “I’ll need a little more information than ‘something.’”

“Do you treat all your clients with the same kind of irreverence or am I special?”

Special didn’t even begin to cover it. “As you can imagine, I can’t track something without knowing what it is. At the very least, I need a description and where you last saw it. You know, the basics.”

What could a vampire possibly need someone like me to track? They had the best knights at their disposal. Official ones like Mack, yet the vampire was seated across from me in need of my help. Something didn’t add up.

His penetrating gaze unsettled me. “You seem…uncomfortable. Is anything the matter? If it’s the location, we can meet elsewhere. I was told this was your preferred meeting place.” He surveyed the room. “Rather clandestine.”

I had a bad habit of wearing my feelings on my face. I hid my species, yet I couldn’t hide my dismay or suspicion. You’d think after thirty years, I’d be better at that.

I tore my gaze away and snapped to attention.

Whatever the job was, I couldn’t do it. I avoided vampires at all costs and now here I was, sharing a table with one of the deadly bloodsuckers.

No thanks.

I slipped out of the booth and rose to my feet. “Sorry. Mack was mistaken. I don’t have room in the schedule.”

He looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and…respect?

“I think what you really mean to say is you won’t work for a vampire.”

“I couldn’t possibly say that.”

His mouth split in an amused grin. “Only because you’re worried about repercussions, not because it isn’t true.”

“I’m sorry I wasted your time, but you’ll have to find someone else.”

Lightning-fast, he reached out and grabbed my hand. The movement was so swift and unexpected that I nearly drew my dagger on instinct. I was relieved to have exercised self-control. Pulling a weapon on a vampire in a public place was madness.

“And what if I don’t want anyone else?” he asked in a low voice that promised so much more than a paycheck.

Nice try, sexy beast, but no dice. I extracted my hand from his firm grip. “As I said, my dance card is currently full. You’ll have to seek another partner.”

There was nothing else I could say that wouldn’t get me in water hot enough to boil my skin, so I exercised the only option left to me.

I walked out.





3





I left Hole just as the streetlights dimmed to indicate nighttime. I headed straight for the headquarters of the Knights of the First Order. Despite the hour, I knew Mack would be there and he had a lot of explaining to do. He didn’t know my secret, of course, but he knew how our banner felt about vampires. Before the Eternal Night began, no one knew vampires even existed. They still lived in the shadows—until those shadows extended across the globe and became the norm. Humans weren’t designed to live in a world without sunlight, but vampires were. The rise of vampires prompted shapeshifters and magic users to emerge from hiding as well, but their abilities proved no match for the strength of bloodsuckers in a sunless world. Humans were pushed toward the bottom of the food chain, forced to register as potential blood donors at government tribute centers. Under House Lewis, the system was set up as a lottery, much like jury duty.

I strode through Covent Garden and replayed the meeting in my mind. Minka would have a coronary if she knew I turned down a vampire. She’d worry about repercussions for the banner if he decided to file a complaint. We didn’t want to court the negative attention of vampires. They could make life very difficult for a small operation like ours. We could lose our license to use magic, which would render us useless and unemployed. My infrequent meals would become even more so. Still, better hungry than dead.

Halfway through Covent Garden I passed one of the largest memorials in the city. A team of artists had created a ring of ten volcanoes to commemorate the Great Eruption. Each one was identified by a small plaque. La Garita Caldera that spanned Colorado, Utah, and Nevada in the United States. Lake Toba in North Sumatra. Cerro Guacha, a Miocene caldera in southwestern Bolivia. Yellowstone Caldera in Wyoming in the United States. Lake Taupo on what was once the North Island of New Zealand. Cerro Galán in Argentina. Island Park Caldera, one of the world’s largest calderas that crossed the borders of Idaho and Wyoming in the United States. Vilama, the Miocene caldera in Bolivia and Argentina. La Pacana, the Miocene age caldera in Chile. Pastos Grandes, the caldera and crater lake in Bolivia. Scientists had reassured people for decades that they had nothing to fear from the supervolcanoes.