Spider's Bite

20

Finn was calling, which meant our prey for the evening had arrived. Damn and double damn Charles Carlyle. Because no matter how much I wanted Donovan Caine, no matter how much he wanted me, tracking the vampire came first. Finding out who his Air elemental boss was came first.

Avenging Fletcher came first.

I sighed. “Sorry, detective. Duty calls.”

“I know,” Donovan said in a husky voice. “I can feel your phone vibrating against my thigh.”

Our gazes locked. Desire still brightened the detective’s eyes, along with something else — relief. I wondered at the emotion. Relief about what? That he wouldn’t betray his dead partner by fucking me? That his morals would remain intact for another night? Or that he wouldn’t discover how good it would be between us and hunger for more?

My phone kept vibrating. I slid off the detective’s lap, pulled the cell out of my jeans pocket, and flipped it open.

“What is it, Finn?”

“Carlyle just walked in the front door, in case you were wondering,” Finn said in a wry voice. “Or would you rather keep dry humping the good detective?”

My gaze cut to the front of the club. It took me a few seconds to pick out Charles Carlyle, aka Chuckie C., from the rest of the crowd. But once I did, it was easy enough to track him. The short, stocky vampire sported a black suit with wide, white pinstripes and white wingtips. The black lights spread throughout the club made the stripes and shoes glow a bright fluorescent. Better than GPS. A black fedora covered Carlyle’s bald spot. He also had two other accessories — a girl on either arm. The women sported the heart-and-arrow rune necklace of the club’s workers. Chuckie C. was starting his tab off early.

Carlyle headed straight for the giant manning the entrance to the private VIP rooms. Carlyle said something to the giant. After a moment, the taller man stepped aside, and Carlyle and the girls entered the hallway.

“Where are you?” I asked Finn.

“Back past the VIP entrance in a booth with Roslyn.”

I spotted the two of them, as close together as Donovan Caine and I had been a minute ago. “Stay there. We’ll come to you.”

I snapped the phone shut and turned to the detective. “Carlyle’s here. Let’s go.”

*

We left the bar and slithered through the crowd until we reached Roslyn and Finn. One of the vampire’s hands was out of sight under the table. Judging from the smile on Finn’s face, Roslyn had been stroking more than his ego. At the sight of the detective and me, the vampire got to her feet and smoothed down her skirt. Roslyn stared at the sequined fruit glittering on my black T-shirt.

“Cherries. Cute,” she said.

I grinned.

“Follow me.” Roslyn headed toward a door in the very back wall of the club.

Donovan Caine fell in step behind her.

“Stay out here and keep an eye on things,” I told Finn. “Carlyle might have friends coming to join him.”

“Not a problem. I’m feeling a bit thirsty anyway.” Finn winked, got to his feet, and wandered off toward the bar.

I caught up with Roslyn just as the vampire opened a door set into the red velvet that covered the walls. The opening led to a small hallway that stretched out in either direction before branching off at both ends. Roslyn closed the door behind us, lessening the rocking beat of the music.

“This way,” she said and turned left.

We followed her down the passageway. A variety of rooms lay on either side of the hall. Offices with computers and printers, private bathrooms for the staff, a break room with vending machines and rows of metal lockers. The business side of the nightclub. The walls back here were covered with black velvet instead of red. It matched the carpet underfoot.

Roslyn made several more turns, leading us deeper into this rabbit’s warren. Each hallway was slightly narrower than the one before, until the final one we came to was just wide enough for one person to comfortably walk through. This passageway was constructed of dark paneling instead of velvet. A variety of narrow slits lined either side at eye level. Each one had a knob on the side so you could open and close it. Reminded me of something you’d find on the door of an old-fashioned speakeasy.

Roslyn stopped at the entrance to the hallway and fixed us with a flat stare. “Carlyle’s in the third room on the right. You’ve got thirty minutes before I send one of the bouncers to check on the girls. Be gone by then.”

I gave her a curt nod. The vampire stared at me a second before she turned on her boot heel and stalked back the way she’d come.

“C’mon,” I said in a low voice. “Let’s see what our friend Chuckie C. is up to.”

Donovan counted the doors, and we stopped in front of the appropriate slit. The detective looked at me. I nodded, and he grabbed the knob and slowly, quietly, slid the panel to one side. The opening stretched out horizontally about two feet, but it was barely taller than an eye. There was enough room for both of us to stare inside.

Donovan Caine and I put our eyes close to the opening. The slit revealed a small room with a plush couch off to one side, along with a round table and a few chairs. The tops of several liquor bottles sat on a shelf just below us. A bar set against this wall hid the peephole. A mirror ball spun around overhead, splashing silver light everywhere.

Charles Carlyle hadn’t wasted any time. One of the girls already had her head buried in the vampire’s crotch. He had his hand up the other one’s skirt, and his tongue down her throat. Smacking and sucking noises drifted out to us, along with a few moans from the ladies. The girls were pros. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought they were really enjoying themselves.

Donovan Caine shifted beside me, no doubt thinking about what had happened between us at the bar. A shame, really, that we’d been interrupted.

The scene went on for maybe three more minutes before Carlyle got his rocks off. The hooker who’d been on her knees wiped off her mouth, crawled up, and joined the other one on the couch beside Chuckie C. Both of them murmured nonsense about what a big, big man he was and how they only pretended with other guys, but with him, their pleasure was real. My lips twitched. Funniest damn thing I’d heard all night.

Carlyle fondled the two girls for a moment longer, then spanked them both on the ass — hard — and zipped his pants up. “Scram, girls,” he said. “I’ve got company coming.”

Company? That sounded promising.

Carlyle threw a couple of C-notes at the girls, which they tucked into their push-up bras, before blowing him kisses and leaving the room. Chuckie C. let out the sigh of a satisfied man, then got to his feet and hitched his pants back up into their proper position. I hoped the bastard had enjoyed that blow job. It was going to be the last one he ever got.

The vampire headed toward the wall where Dono van Caine and I stood peering at him. For a moment, I thought perhaps the stocky vampire had spied us spying on him. But he reached for a bottle and splashed some whiskey into a square glass. Getting himself a drink. He was so close to us I could have stuck one of my knives through the peephole and given him a shave. That moment would come soon enough.

Carlyle had just knocked back his first slug of whiskey, when the door on the far side of the room opened, and a man stepped inside. Carlyle blocked my view, but I could still see the other guy was a giant, with salt-and-pepper hair and a bulky frame that was slowly going to fat.

“About time you got here,” Carlyle said.

“Sorry,” the giant replied. “Some of us have been busy.”

Donovan Caine stiffened beside me. Because the deep baritone of the second man belonged to his boss — police captain Wayne Stephenson.

“Whaddya want to drink?” Carlyle asked.

“Whiskey, and a lot of it.”

Carlyle made a couple more drinks. Stephenson took a seat at the table, and Carlyle handed him one of the glasses and set the bottle on the table. Stephenson knocked back the amber liquid like it was water and poured himself another. Took a lot to get a giant drunk. Dwarves too. Humans and vamps were the only ones who couldn’t hold their liquor.

“I told you on the phone, meeting was a bad idea,” Stephenson muttered and downed his second drink. “Everybody’s crawling all over my ass about the Giles murder. Did you know the bastard was a personal friend of the mayor? His college roommate or some such shit. Pompous moron’s called me twice today.”

Carlyle took a seat opposite the giant “And I told you she wanted an update. In person.”

Stephenson’s pale eyes flicked toward the door. “She’s not coming here, is she? Bad enough I risk being seen with you. If she walks in the door—”

“Don’t worry,” Carlyle said. “This place is totally anonymous. Nobody cares what you do or who you do it with, as long as you don’t skip out on your bill. As for the elemental, she had other fish to flay tonight and sent me instead. So your skin will stay right where it is — for now.”

Stephenson drew a white handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his suit and mopped his forehead with it. I could smell the stench of his relief all the way across the room. “I wish I’d never gotten involved in this mess.”

“You wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t fucked all those ten-year-old girls on your daughter’s soccer team,” Carlyle’s tone was light, conversational, like he was talking about whether it might rain tomorrow.

Donovan Caine let out a low, guttural growl. The sound a wolf might make before it ripped out your throat. His hands clenched into fists, and I heard his teeth grind together through his clenched jaw. So Stephenson was a pedophile. Would have been easy for the Air elemental to get her hooks into him. All she’d need would be a picture, just one, and the police captain would have been hers.

“What about the assassin?” Carlyle asked. “Anything on her?”

Stephenson snorted and poured himself a third drink. “Bitch is a fucking ghost. None of my snitches know who she is or what she looks like. And none of the tips we’ve gotten have been worth a damn, I’m starting to think that sketch Caine gave us was total bullshit. I think she’s gone. Out of town and out of the picture.”

Carlyle digested the information. “What about the old man’s son? The banker?”

Stephenson shrugged. “Finnegan Lane told his bank he was taking a vacation because he was so heartsick over his father’s murder. I imagine he’s on an island somewhere by now.”

“What about Caine? Has the detective surfaced yet?”

Stephenson mopped more sweat from his forehead. “No, I can’t find the fucker anywhere. He wasn’t stupid enough to go back to his house. He hasn’t reported in for work, and none of his buddies have seen him. He’s gotta still be in Ashland, though. He doesn’t have the resources to disappear like Lane does.”

Carlyle leaned forward and speared the giant with a hard, flat stare. “You need to find the detective. Caine is a loose end that needs to be clipped off before he starts unraveling things. The elemental wants you to find him — ten minutes ago. I showed you the picture of the old man at the barbecue restaurant. You know what happens when she doesn’t get her way.”

Stephenson tossed back another drink. Some of the liquid courage must have finally kicked in because he glared back at the vampire. “I called Caine just like you wanted. If your crew had done its job and held on to him until the elemental got there, we wouldn’t be wondering where the detective is and what he’s up to. And I wouldn’t be wondering when your boss is going to kill me. She’ll kill you too, you know. As soon as she thinks she doesn’t need you anymore. Bitch is crazy. Does she really think nobody will notice what she’s doing? All the wiseguys she’s hired? The fact she’s building her own crew to take on Mab Monroe’s organization? And that she’s using money from Mab’s own company to do it?”

“Nobody did notice the embezzling or anything else, until Gordon started digging around,” Carlyle replied.

My eyes narrowed. So that’s what this was all about. The Air elemental had been stealing money from Halo Industries to try to wrest control of the city away from Mab Monroe. To build a crew and fund a war against the Fire elemental. Gordon Giles had known about her embezzling and was going to blow the whistle on her to the cops. That’s why he’d had to die. The Air elemental couldn’t afford to let Mab get wind of her plans, not before she was ready to make her move. But since killing Giles outright herself would have drawn Mab’s unwanted attention to Halo Industries, the Air elemental had hired me to take the fall — to come in and be Giles’s conveniently dead killer.

But Stephenson was right. Bitch really was crazy if she thought she could take control of the city away from Mab Monroe. Because before the Air elemental could even get to Mab, she’d have to take out her flunkies first. The lawyer, Jonah McAllister, might not present much of a problem, although he had his own guards. But Mab’s giant enforcer, Elliot Slater, he’d be a hard weed to mow down. And then there was Mab herself, the toughest task of all. David had had a better chance against Goliath than the Air elemental did of knocking off Mab Monroe.

But the revelation also told me something else — the Air elemental almost certainly had to be Haley or Alexis James. Nobody else was high enough up in the company to manage something like this. Carlyle was going to tell me later exactly which one of the sisters it was — no matter how bloody I had to get in the process.

Instead of arguing further with the giant, Carlyle sat back in his seat. He ran his finger around the lip of his glass, then gave Stephenson a sly look. Considering something.

“Perhaps you and I could come to an agreement,” Carlyle said in a smooth tone. “Since you seem to be rather tired of working for the elemental.”

Stephenson eyed him. “What kind of agreement?”

“We both agree it’s only a matter of time before the elemental implodes,” Carlyle said. “Who’s to say after that happens you and I can’t pick up the pieces?”

“What exactly are you proposing?”

Carlyle shrugged. “Nothing right now. Except you watch out for me, and I’ll watch out for you until things settle down. After that, well, we’ll just see what happens.”

“What about the elemental?” Fear crept back into the giant’s voice. “If she even thinks we’re plotting—”

“Don’t worry about the elemental.” A smirk filled Carlyle’s blocky face. “I’ve got a little insurance policy in place to keep her in line.”

Insurance policy? There was only one thing Carlyle could have that the elemental wanted — Gordon Giles’s secret flash drive with all of her dirty deeds on it. The vampire was going to be more useful than I’d anticipated.

Stephenson didn’t respond to the other man’s offer. But I could see the desperate hope in his eyes. The police captain would do anything to get out from under the elemental’s thumb, even fall into bed with a hood like Carlyle. He didn’t realize the vampire would treat him exactly the same, in the end.

“Just think about it,” Carlyle said. “But not too long.”

He finished his drink and jerked his head toward the door. “Now leave. I’ve got other things to do tonight before I see the elemental again.”

Stephenson didn’t need to be told twice. The giant mopped a final bit of sweat from his forehead, got to his feet, and walked out the door. Carlyle waited a few moments before putting the bottle of booze back in the bar and slapping his fedora on top of his head. He was leaving too.

Beside me, Donovan Caine pulled away from the peephole. I did the same and pulled the knob, covering the slit.

“That bastard,” Caine muttered in a low voice. “That fucking bastard set me up.”

The detective started to charge past me down the hallway, but I grabbed his arm.

“No,” I said. “We’re not here for your boss. We see what Carlyle has to say first, then you can go after Stephenson. That was our agreement, remember?”

Anger simmered in Caine’s eyes, and the muscles in his arm bunched under my hand.

“You get Stephenson,” I repeated. “You can deal with him any way you like — but not tonight. Carlyle’s leaving. We need to grab him. I’m tired of running around and hiding in the shadows, detective. I want a fucking name. And Carlyle can give it to me. Now, are you coming with me? Or do I knock you out and leave you back here for Roslyn’s giant bouncer to find?”

After a moment, Caine let out a tense breath. “All right. We’ll do it your way.”

I nodded. “Good. Let’s go get the bastard before he leaves.”