furrowed, he quickly returned to his computer. “Now that I’ve got a name, I have something to go off of.”
I carried our mugs and plates to the sink and poured soap on them, leaving them to soak. At that moment, Angel returned.
“Talia’s on her way, and so is Rafé. Charlie’s waiting on Zone. I’ll just set up the connection on the break room laptop.” She crossed to the rolling cart that had a laptop on it, booting it up before setting up the video meeting with Charlie.
College agreed with the young vampire. Charlie had been turned a couple years ago, when he was barely nineteen. We met him when we needed to interview him on a case, but he had quickly become friends with first Viktor, then Herne. Now, he worked for the Wild Hunt and Herne was putting him through college to finish his degree. When he graduated, Charlie would take over as the accountant for the business. Currently, he did data entry for us and sometimes came into the office in the evening hours to polish and service the weaponry.
He appeared on the screen. A far cry from the scruffy, self-conscious vampire we had first known, he was neat and tidy, and had his hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail. There was something appealing about him, in a boyish way. His vampire glamour was beginning to shine through.
“I’ve been watching the news,” he said, as soon as the feed was clear. “Do we know what they are? I saw that the Vampire Nation, the East Coast rep at least, says they’re not vamps.”
“We just found out—” Yutani started to say, stopping as Herne entered the room. Behind him was Rafé. He silently took a seat next to Angel, first holding her chair for her. They were dating, and while he was Dark Fae, Rafé wasn’t particularly welcome in TirNaNog, the Court of the Dark Fae. He had always been a black sheep in his family.
“Talia will be here in a few moments,” Angel said. “She was getting ready to come in, anyway. Apparently, her apartment is right next to a new construction zone and it’s only making her headache worse.”
“We’ll wait till she gets here so we don’t have to repeat anything.” Herne looked at me. “You guys have any luck figuring out what we’re dealing with?”
Yutani nodded. “Yep, we called Raven and she tracked it down. Like you, though, I’d rather wait till we’re all together before discussing it.”
Angel turned the volume back up and we continued watching the news reports that were coming in from all areas of the country now. The vrykos seemed to be everywhere, or at least, all of the major cities. Via the laptop, Herne waved to Charlie, who waved back. Five minutes later, Talia entered the room.
“All right, I’m here. Somebody get me a cup of Head-Eze.” She slid into the chair opposite me, grimacing. She glanced over at the laptop. “Hey, Charles. Good to see you.”
He waved at her. The old myth about vampires not being able to be seen in the mirror or on camera was just that—a myth.
Angel jumped up to fix the tea—she was a tea snob and didn’t like it when anybody else thought they knew the proper way to brew tea. Even herbal tea.
“Hangover?” Yutani asked, giving Talia a sideways grin.
Talia bared her teeth at him. “Be nice. I may look human but I’m still a harpy, even if I don’t have most of my powers. I could gnash that pretty face of yours before you had time to shriek, pretty boy.”
Yutani snorted. “Good luck on that. But I take it booze is not at the bottom of your condition?”
“No. I’m not sure what caused it. Maybe change in air pressure, maybe a strained neck or something. But I woke up in a fog and with a headache the size of Mount Rainier.” She rubbed her temples.
I glanced out the window. The weather was bright—too bright for my liking. We had had a bit of a heat wave in May, then pleasant weather in June. Now, at the end of July, we were experiencing another heat wave and the weather was gearing up to be hot and muggy. But I could feel some moisture in the air and I knew that a thunderstorm was likely within the next week.
“Thunderstorm weather. Don’t be surprised if we have a doozy of a storm over the next couple days.” I shifted in my seat. Thank gods we