Don’t Bite the Messenger Read online

  “I’m sorry if I offended you,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Let’s start over. Can I buy you a drink, or will you just pour it on yourself?”

  “Alas.” I peeked around him to see if I had enough room to make a break for the front door. “I have a drinking problem. Can’t get the shot glass all the way to my mouth.”

  I regretted mentioning my mouth since he was now staring at it, looking like he’d recently put serious time into contriving a list of wicked ideas for it. Why couldn’t I find a normal, super-handsome guy? Or a regular-looking guy who was thoughtful and didn’t think he needed to buy me off? Or an ugly guy who would always be kind? A sigh escaped before I could stop it.

  “What are you thinking about?” His voice softened, and my body threatened to melt along with it. Which meant it was time to get moving. I slipped my hand into my back pocket, wondering how far he’d let me push him.

  “I’m wondering which you’d prefer.” I lowered my voice, shifting closer to him. His eyebrows drew slightly together, as though my not yelling at him was perplexing. Cute. I raised my hand and showed him the little silver canister I always carried. “Mace, or me screaming until a bouncer comes over and kicks your ass. They’re probably all tired of cowboy cock fights and wouldn’t mind helping out a lady in distress.”

  I braced myself for the “you’re no lady” comeback, but instead he tapped a finger against his lips. I narrowed my eyes.

  “I’m thinking,” he said. I flicked the release on the spray. He smiled—that dimple mocking me—gave a curiously formal bow and walked away. I scowled at the women who turned to look at him as he slipped into the denim-clad crowd.

  “Le sigh,” I muttered. I settled my bag against my hip. It was time to get to work.

  ***

  Three weeks, two days and thirteen hours, and I would be done with working through endless, below-zero nights for McHenry the Doughboy, putting my neck on the line during every damn job I ran and having to stand in a foyer for a half hour while snow melted down the back of my calf. Not that I was counting. The Realtor had texted to say that our offer had been accepted, and I was about to become a resident of the west coast of Oahu. She’d even contracted movers for me. Normally, I paid my own way, but I had a vague idea of the commission she was making.

  I swept the toe of my boot back and forth through a gritty puddle of melted water. I was on an early night call at a house I wasn’t familiar with and, if the customer didn’t hurry up, I was going to be late for my scheduled stops. I wasn’t a fan of unknown places, but beachfront homes didn’t furnish themselves.

  Classical piano music played loudly somewhere upstairs, almost drowning out the irregular smacks and muffled cries of someone getting worked over. Definitely female, probably human. Some vamp chew toy too dependent on the bite to walk away from a degrading situation. Humans are funny like that, walking themselves straight into cages without bars. At least this pretty crash-test dummy—they were unfailingly beautiful, the humans vampires consorted with—was receiving some pleasure, however fleeting. I’d seen humans in the throes of a bite, and the unfettered ecstasy didn’t look like the sort of thing you could ignore one day at a time. Psychologists had opened clinics to treat feeders, but instead of twelve steps there was only one: stay the hell away from vampires. So you could either be trapped at the feet of a vampire, or locked away from them for the rest of your life. Either way, you were handing control to someone else.

  My mom sold herself to my dad for a shitty life without even occasional good times. He wasn’t a vampire, just an asshole. For a while, I followed her pattern, running away from home straight into a pair of arms that could never figure out whether to hit me or hold me. It had taken me the better part of a year to build up the courage to walk out the door. But after I did, nothing could have made me go back.

  A door opened above me and the music shut off. The woman went quiet as well. Maybe cleaning up. Maybe passed out. Maybe worse. I knew better than to ask, and if I focused hard enough on breathing steadily I could hold my own fist-filled memories at bay. I saw a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye, a vamp moving through the shadows above me. I didn’t look up, didn’t react. It’s not a good idea to peer into the shadows of a sucker’s house, just like it isn’t a good idea to look them in the eye. All those rumors about vampires, all of them, are true. But they aren’t universal. Some vamps are lethally strong, others are capable of worming into human minds or extracting blood without breaking through the skin. I wouldn’t be shocked to see one turn into a bat and fly out the window.

  Another sucker slipped up behind me, silent and cold, emitting the low, steady hum of undead energy. The first vamp manifested out of the shadows at the top of the stairs, a sickly-slim figure, and the one behind me moved closer. My heartbeat did a giddy-up and the back of my neck prickled, but I stayed in place. I could probably get the Mace out in time to do some damage if they moved on me. Mace was effective on humans, but devastating to vampires, with their preternatural senses.

  “Ms. Pike,” the vamp said as he stalked down the stairs. The gooseflesh on my nape spread outward like a stampede and I was glad—goddamn grateful—that he didn’t know my real name. I had a feeling that hearing “Sydney Kildare” leave his thin lips would signal the beginning of the end of my careful life. His hand slid down the banister, leaving a red smear of blood behind. Shadows wriggled over the back of his hand, then disappeared, and my stomach lurched at the realization that he was absorbing blood through his skin.

  “We have a package that we would like you to deliver to Master Bronson. You know of him?” His accept was thick and Russian, and the hollow timbre of his voice gave goose bumps to my goose bumps. My hand strayed toward my bag and the knife I kept there. I could always go for the Mace if I had to, but I longed for the solid reassurance of the hilt in my hand.

  “I’ll check the database at I&O.” It was the standard reply. I knew four Bronson homes and two hangouts, one of which wasn’t even in the database, but this guy didn’t need to know that.

  The vampire reached the bottom of the staircase. He loomed over me, freaky skinny, his eyes sunken into dark holes, the skin tight over the bones of his face. I flexed my legs to still my knees, which were trying to move me toward the door. My knees are smart, and it takes a lot of willpower to overcome smart.

  “Richard, could you please provide our messenger with the package?” Skinny stretched his lips before settling them against his teeth, the fangs still partially extended.

  I swiveled ninety degrees on one heel so that I could see both of them. Richard, the one that had been behind me, smirked. With straight yellow hair combed forward and to the side, he looked like he was trying out for a movie role as an aspiring Hitler youth. He stretched his arm out and I waited until the motion ended before I gingerly took the foot-long cardboard tube from him. It was surprisingly heavy. I tucked it under my elbow and handed him the small clipboard I’d been holding. The paper curled around the damp fingerprints I’d left.

  “Sign there please.” I glanced at the green digital readout of my watch while keeping an eye on the vampire at the bottom of the stairs and half listening for signs of life up above. “The time is eleven twenty-three.” The Nazi signed with a flourish and I tucked the clipboard back into my bag.

  “Delivery is guaranteed for tonight, sir.” I turned toward the door. Richard backed away, the movement too quick, and I swung around, fists clenched. Skinny was right in front of me, his thin lips parting grotesquely wide to exhibit his fangs. He leaned forward and inhaled, and I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from punching him in the throat. I’m such a goddamn professional.

  “You stink,” he said, his breath coppery.

  I fumbled through the door and all but ran, the sound of my steps muffled by deep snow and the thud of my heart in my ears. I slid as I turned halfway down the path, but the door had closed behind me and I was alone. Years of conditioning allowed me to slow to a walk
, but I was spooked in a way I hadn’t been since my first year running. He’d tried to take my scent, hadn’t even disguised what he was doing. That couldn’t be good.

  They’d erected a vinyl tent in the middle of the circular drive, for which I was thankful. I’d left my car running, but the snow was coming down thick, and this saved me from having to brush and scrape. I disengaged the security system with a code and the print from my ring finger and popped the trunk, one eye still on the house. I secured the tube in a heavy plastic bag, squeezing the air out of it and sealing it with a zip tie before locking it in a lead box. My own invention after Tens, one of I&O’s first couriers, was found dead in his car half a decade ago. Poison gas, they’d said. I threw myself inside the car and skidded out of the drive.

  I picked up a tail on Dimond Boulevard, an older maroon sedan with cockeyed headlights. It had all-wheel drive but skinny tires and the muffler rattled ominously. I shook my head. I can’t stand when people don’t take care of their cars. I cranked up Shinzu Cormera’s death-metal cover of Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. The original is a classic, but evasive driving requires something less nuanced than a symphony orchestra.

  We took it slow off the green light, trading leads for ninety seconds while I tried to get a look at the driver through his dark smoke tint. He had a passenger with him, a big guy who looked like they’d have to use a tire iron to pop him out of his seat. The next light turned red and I bombed through—rear end sliding out before the electronic stabilizers growled to life—then shot into a twisty neighborhood with only one hard-to-find exit. The sedan crept down the center of the street while I jackrabbited through the subdivision, losing them with a couple of quick turns and the use of an unmarked alley.

  With that cheap a car and that much muscle, they were probably prowling for money-runners—vampires don’t trust the banks—not couriers. Still, if they caught me, they’d try to make me worth their time. My job might give me protection from vampires, but to the low end of human society, I was another girl on her own. The scarecrow vamp had me on edge, and I wasn’t in the mood to set a couple of idiots straight on how little I liked being messed with.

  I left them to their prowling and popped out onto the Seward Highway. I cruised for a half mile to see if they had followed. Nada. I melded back into the sparse late-night traffic, smiling wide enough that my cheeks hurt. That part of the job never got old.

  I got lucky, finding Bronson and his modern court in the second residence I tried, a big house in an older neighborhood of large lots and full-grown trees. I waited in the entryway, empty but for a heavily carved wooden table holding a bowl of waxy red apples, and a thick-necked doorman with a similarly ruddy complexion. The house was warm but not uncomfortable and, more importantly, I couldn’t hear anyone getting their teeth knocked around. Lucille didn’t make me wait long. She breezed out in a smart gray suit tailored to her long, sinuous lines. She dismissed the beefy doorman and pulled her ash-blond hair to drape over her left shoulder. It ran almost to her waist in a smooth cascade. I pulled my stocking cap tighter to my scalp.

  “Hey, Luc.”

  “Good evening, Mary.” Lucille smiled a genuine smile that reached her eyes but didn’t quite reveal her fangs. I shivered at the memory of Skinny grinning at me. Lucille reached for the brown-paper-and-twine-wrapped package that we delivered three times a week after FedEx flew it in.

  “I have something else for you,” I said. “In the car.”

  “Big delivery this week,” she murmured, checking the contents of the envelopes.

  “Not from your regular sender. It was a whistle-stop. In-town.” Her hands stilled and she looked up, her smile tightening.

  “One moment, please.” She disappeared back down the hall from which she had come. I pulled my hat off and ran a hand through my hair, wondering if I had something dangerous in my car. If I did, I wanted it out. The Audi was paid for. I pulled my hat back on, blinked and then almost fell over backward.

  Bronson stood not a foot in front of me. He was shorter than Skinny, slightly over six feet, but built deep and dense, and energy ran riot in the air around him. The doorman was back as well, hovering behind the Master, tense as a live wire.

  “Who sent it?” Bronson asked, and I stared dumbly at him. Just wavered on my feet, looking him right in the eye like a complete moron. I swallowed and dragged my gaze to the clipboard.

  “The name he gave was Price.” Bronson glanced at Lucille and she shook her head. Not somebody they knew, then. I couldn’t reveal the address, but I had a little wiggle room before I said something that could justify the state pulling my license. “I’ve never made a pickup from this location before. Don’t think anyone at I&O has.”

  “What did he look like?” Bronson’s deep baritone filled the room and made it seem oppressively tight. Though I wanted to step back, I cocked my hip against the wall, almost shaking from the effort of feigning calm.

  “Tall. Gaunt. Dark hair, slicked back, silver on the sides. Dark eyes. He was older, could absorb blood through his skin.” I tried to remember any other details. “His suit looked expensive.”

  “Whose blood?” Bronson asked, and his harsh tone surprised me into looking up at him again. Lucille took a half step forward, her eyes scanning me.

  “Not mine,” I squeaked. Vampires could track blood to the square foot you occupied once they’d tasted it. It was a far more effective lure than scent. When a courier got bit, she was out of a job. End of story. She was also usually on her way to a short, shoddy life in some vampire’s back pocket. I took great pride in evading fangs.

  “He was…engaged with someone when I arrived. His buddy gave me the package. Richard, I think. Regular tall guy, hair like cheddar cheese. The color, not the texture.” I looked back at Lucille, whose face was now blank. That wasn’t a good sign. When vampires go poker face it’s scary, both because it means they’re hiding something from you, and because it makes them look a little bit alien. They go still in a way that no human can, and end up looking like smooth wax sculptures. It’s disconcerting to see them for what they are: unliving.

  “Mary,” Bronson said quietly. “I need you to take that package to an associate of mine so that he can examine it. Can you do that?” His words brushed over me like a cool sea spray across my eyes, then repeated inside my head, a cold whisper pressing against my mind. I blinked against the throbbing ache that accompanied it. Then I got mad.

  “I’m a runner,” I said through gritted teeth. “Delivery is my freaking job. You don’t have to will me. All you have to do is sign a goddamn form.” Maybe it was my short-timer’s attitude or maybe I was spooked beyond common sense, but I blew a cardinal rule. I antagonized a vamp. Brilliant fucking work, Kildare. I stared at him, holding my breath, unable to pretend I was anything but terrified.

  He laughed, actually opened his mouth and chuckled. Lucille rolled her eyes, and I would have relaxed, but my heart was pinballing through my chest and I was afraid that if I let go at all, it might break out. Behind Bronson, the doorman had gone pale.

  “My apologies.” The Master’s voice was pleasant with mirth. “Believe me when I say I did not mean to upset you. Lucille will provide you with directions.” Bronson shook his head as he walked away, and I think he laughed again as he disappeared through a door.

  “I’m so glad he finds me funny.”

  “My master has an odd sense of humor,” Lucille said apologetically. “He likes you, you know. He told me that once, that you’d worked your way up like he did. He finds it an admirable quality sorely lacking in today’s mortal youth. Come with me.”

  I followed her around the corner into what was once an oversized coat closet, but which now housed a roll-top desk lit by a small, antique lamp. Yellow sticky notes dotted the surface of the desk.

  “How is Mr. McHenry?” Lucille scribbled out a note on thick, white paper. I blinked, wondering why she was asking about him.

  “Grumpy. He’s on a diet.”

&nbs
p; “He should stop by.” Lucille winked. “I have a plan that I’m certain would work for him.”

  “I think he’s interested in better heart health,” I said. “Losing blood weight isn’t quite what the doctor ordered. Wait a minute, do you have a thing…for Doughboy?”

  “No.” She hastily folded the note.

  “Oh my God, you do.” I couldn’t help but laugh, and Lucille’s creeping blush only confirmed my suspicion.

  “That’s nonsense. What would I do with that…that…”

  “Sweet apple dumpling of a man?” I finished for her. She snorted out a distinctly unladylike laugh, then looked around as if afraid someone had overheard. I drew myself together. Even though it was only the two of us, one never knew who was listening.

  “Mr. Kelly is outside of Anchorage. Approach his home slowly, and offer him this. He’ll want the explanation first.” She reached her hand up to her mouth and swiped her thumb across a fang. I stared intently at my boots while she pressed a bloody fingerprint into the paper, making the vampire equivalent of a wax seal.

  She handed me the folded note, followed by a thick, white envelope. I opened it and my eyebrows jacked up at the sight of a wad of hundred dollar bills. Lucille, smiling her warm smile, leaned close and whispered, “It’s for Hawaii.”

  “I can’t take this!” I whispered back.

  “Yes, you can.”

  “Holy shit, Lucille.”

  “It’s just a few grand. Consider it a housewarming present, though I’ll be sad to see you go. The other couriers are so boring.”

  “No, they…actually I can’t argue with that.” The doorman knocked lightly on the door, and I crammed the envelope and note into my bag. I looked up at Lucille and mouthed “thank you.” She pulled me into a bone-crunching hug, then straightened my scarf and led me out the door.