rose barrette.
“You should do your makeup. Lay it on a little thick.” She joined me on the bench, leaning forward to check her own face. Raven was wearing a purple PVC corset, a black multilayered skirt with petticoat, a low-slung black belt, and a pair of gold hoop earrings.
“You look great.”
“Let’s hope I can worm my way into the Spooks, or the evening might be a complete bust.” She touched up her eyeliner, which was thick and cat-winged to the sides. As she brushed her hair, the purple highlights shimmered under the light.
I tucked my phone, one credit card, and fifty bucks in cash into a small clutch and slipped into the flats, struggling to place my foot on the edge of the bed in order to tie them up. Raven had me sit down again and she knelt, wrapping the ribbons around my ankles and tying them securely for me.
“Ready?” I asked Raven.
She nodded. “Not really, but let’s go. Oh, you aren’t carrying silver on you, are you?”
“No, why?” Then I stopped. “Oh, right. The vamps.”
Herne took one look at me and tried to veto the mission, but with all of us arguing against him, he finally caved.
Yutani fastened a leather collar around my throat. It was studded with stainless steel spikes and a gold O-ring at the throat. I cringed, but it identified me as having an owner.
Finally, we made it out the door and on the way to Charlie’s apartment. It was nearly six p.m., so we had plenty of time. According to Amy’s information, the Spooks met around nine, and we didn’t want to arrive early in case something gave us away.
We had first met Charlie Darren on a case. Herne had hired him out of pity, I had the feeling, but it had turned out to be a good thing. Charlie was brilliant with numbers.
His sire had been killed by the vamps themselves due to his rogue nature, so Charlie was left adrift without a sponsor in the Vampire Nation, which was pretty much akin to being an orphan in a college frat house that only accepted legacies.
Charlie hadn’t embraced his vampire lifestyle, but his parents had disowned him, his girlfriend had left him, and he had agonized over having to drop out of college.
He had wanted to be an accountant. Now that he worked for the Wild Hunt, Herne had decided to pay his way through night school, so he was training to become a CPA. Once he graduated, he would take over the business end of things as a way of repaying Herne. Charlie came into the office during the evenings, since vamps couldn’t walk out under the daylight, and he often showed up at our parties. He and Viktor were friendly and they hung out together.
“At least he lives in a better place than that rat-infested slum we first found him in,” I muttered.
“That he does,” Yutani said. “And he now has the most important thing he could have.”
“What’s that?” asked Raven, from the back seat.
“Hope. I think that if more vampires didn’t feel so hopeless, they’d be less dangerous and more capable of keeping themselves in check. Look how well most of the bankers do.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but you forget one thing. A lot of those bankers can easily hire somebody to take care of their enemies. They can exact all the revenge they want and get away with it.”
“Say what you will, I maintain that’s different than a vampire who destroys out of despair.” Yutani turned into a parking garage on 27th Place West. The Invest, a five-story building, was gated, with a doorman in front, and a pair of guards who met the elevators coming up from the garage. Residents and visitors had to transfer to an internal elevator system at the main lobby. The building was high security and high tech—the first of its kind in Seattle, built specifically for vampires.
The windows were all tinted and each apartment sported blackout curtains that completely prevented the light from entering. The windows were also barred, though the bars were like shutters that could be opened only from inside. Each apartment contained a reinforced safe room, without windows, that could be locked from inside. Charlie hadn’t been able to afford much beyond a dive until he came to work for us, but now he had managed to secure one of the apartments at the Invest. Most vampires preferred to live down in the Catacombs, but some, like Charlie who wasn’t deeply