Asil’s Fifth Date Scheherazade #2
He had no intention of allowing Mr. or Mrs. Alvarez to think him too eager, so he waited until a call came that his ride was outside before he put the jacket on and paused for a final look in the full-length mirror.
He could not fault his friend’s taste, but modern formal dress was not his favorite.
He looked amazing, of course. The severe black and white highlighted the rich tones of his skin and eyes.
There was nothing to take away from the perfection of his features, but there was also very little room for creativity.
The sole color choice he had was his boutonniere.
Three of them had been delivered, all roses: deep red, white, and, because his friend was truly amazing, a Black Baccara.
Asil touched the black-dusted deep red petals gently.
But his date was wearing blue this evening, so he pinned the white rose to his coat and headed out.
The front desk had advised him to look for a gray BMW, and such a one, an i7 M70, was parked in the pickup area just outside the hotel entrance, headlights striving to cut through the darkness and driving rain.
The storm had increased since the last time Asil had been outside.
It was also colder than last night had been—just a hint of the possibility of snow in the air.
Waiting beside the car was a man dressed in unrelieved and very expensive black, entirely unruffled by the rain.
As Asil approached close enough to get a good scent off him, he could tell the driver was human. Given his recent dating experiences, Asil wasn’t taking anything for granted. The rain did a good job of keeping Asil’s nose from telling him much else, so he used his other senses.
The driver’s trimmed beard was dark and there were more years on his face than Asil wore. He was probably somewhere between thirty and a well-maintained forty-five.
Experience of violence dictated the man’s balance and foot placement.
He carried a gun in a shoulder holster. It was a good holster, and someone less observant than Asil (which meant most anyone else) might have missed it.
Probably there was an ankle holster, too.
Scarring on the man’s knuckles indicated that he might not need a gun to hurt someone.
He was, perhaps, bodyguard as much as driver.
Asil found him interesting.
“Mr. Moreno?” The man’s voice was neutral. He took in Asil’s appearance without a change in voice or posture. That was unusual. Asil was very pretty and people, regardless of gender, noticed.
He is very angry and he doesn’t even know us yet, observed Asil’s wolf.
Asil didn’t sense that, but he trusted that his wolf observed things Asil did not. He always had.
It was going to take Asil a while to get used to the return of his talkative companion. It was undoubtedly a good change. Without the constant battle for control, Asil felt a return of flexibility in his decision-making process that had been missing.
“I am Asil Moreno,” Asil agreed.
The driver’s head jerked up; possibly there had been an unintended edge in Asil’s voice. Whatever had been angering the man hadn’t been Asil, because the driver’s attention was fully focused on him for the first time.
Asil waited for the driver to decide what he was going to do. Saw intention change from immediate violence—or possibly just an intimidating warning—to caution. After a moment, all that personality was tucked back behind an aura of impartial service.
Like you when you want to hide me, noted the wolf. Did we just startle him? Or do you think he noticed that we are dangerous, too?
Rhetorical questions.
“Welcome, sir.” The driver was all propriety. He went to the back of the car and opened the door with a single touch on the latch. Some sort of pressure switch. Asil didn’t think that would be useful in Montana. In Montana, sometimes you needed a door handle for leverage to break the ice.
He slid into the back of the car, smelled new leather, shampoo, and a hint of a woman’s vanilla perfume.
He caught the driver’s various lotions and potions—more of those than most straight men in the US used unless they were courting—overlaying fainter scents of people who had been in this car only briefly.
Only when the driver shut his own door, enclosing the two of them together, did Asil catch the hint of vampire.
A vampire in Seattle.
Asil pulled his cell phone out and texted Angus, the Emerald City Alpha.
Asil: I thought you had rid yourself of vampires here?
Angus: Wishful thinking. No organized seethe, though Bonarata is building a house in Medina—a very excusive suburb.
Asil remembered that now. The Marrok had been concerned that the Lord of Night, who ruled all the vampires in Europe, had decided to build a house in Seattle. It signaled a challenge of some kind. Doubtless one that would be answered in the future.
Angus: He owns several buildings in Downtown, and has since the nineteen eighties. But I have not seen him or any of his retinue. None of my people have caught a hint of vampire, not even in Medina, where his house is still several months from completion. What do you know?
Asil had not explained why he was in Seattle when he’d arranged the visit with Angus.
But Alan Choo had known enough to approach Asil’s Concerned Friend to arrange his date with Ruby.
Asil felt sure he could assume Angus knew as well.
So Asil was able to describe his current situation quickly and briefly.
Angus: The driver is a vampire?
Asil: No. Nor a sheep.
Sheep, people who were regular meals for a single vampire, began to smell like vampires after a month or two.
Possibly because the feeding became mutual, or because the vampire’s magic began to infest their sheep from simple contact.
Asil had no desire to find out the true reason.
But if the driver had been a vampire—or even a sheep—Asil would have scented him from the door of the hotel.
Asil: But I would lay odds that a vampire has fed from him recently—and more than once. Maybe to keep control of a useful servant.
Angus: I would never dream of offering one such as the Moor advice, but the only vampire I know of who has any ties in my city is Bonarata.
Asil: I would know Bonarata’s scent, and it is not his, though it is familiar.
Angus: One of his lieutenants?
Asil was old. He had met a lot of vampires over the centuries, and Bonarata surrounded himself with a mass of servants…
minions…lieutenants—vampires and other creatures who did his bidding, whatever they wanted to call themselves.
Those changed from time to time, but most of them Asil felt he would know.
It was in the raging time that we met this vampire. His wolf was thoughtful. Or I would be of more immediate help. I will consider that memory further and let you know when I remember.
Asil didn’t ask if by “raging time” his wolf meant after Sarai died or centuries earlier, when the wolf had first quit speaking to him. He didn’t want to distract the beast from his self-assigned task. The wolf had a longer and better memory than Asil did for scents.
Angus: Bonarata is no one to play with, my old friend.
Asil: Is he not? It has been a while since the Lord of Night and I engaged in a dance.
His phone chimed almost eagerly.
Angus: I can dance, too.
Asil smiled. That was more like the Angus he knew than the mealy words of caution.
Asil: I will keep that in mind.
“Good news?”
Asil looked up to meet the eyes of the driver in the rearview mirror. In his day, a servant would never draw attention to himself. But modern manners were different, especially in this hotbed of democratic thought he now lived in.
“I have friends who enjoy a waltz now and then who are envious of my evening plans,” he said with absolute truthfulness.
The driver held his gaze as long as he could—which was longer than most people. And when he looked away, Asil was not absolutely certain that the traffic was a convenient excuse for looking away—or the actual cause.
Interesting.
No more than ten minutes after they left Asil’s hotel, they pulled into a parking garage beneath one of the modern skyscrapers. The driver got out but left the car running.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I will go escort Mrs. Alvarez to the car. Won’t take long.”
Asil waved to him dismissively, sparking another assessing look. Asil supposed that male escorts paid two thousand dollars for their services did not generally treat drivers the way that eighteenth-century aristocrats treated servants. Ah well, he wasn’t here to win an Oscar for best performance.
The car was parked so that Asil had a clear view of the elevator. He watched the driver—who had not introduced himself. It had taken Asil this long to notice that, because in the old days, a servant would never introduce himself. But here and now, that was unusual.
There were creatures out in the world that you wouldn’t want to give your true name to.
He sent a text to Angus.
Asil: It is possible that your vampire has been treating with the fae. His human minion is oddly reticent about giving his name.
Angus: My vampire?
Asil didn’t respond to that. He was still pondering on other reasons why the driver would not want to give Asil his name, when the elevator door opened and a woman, dressed in the long ice-blue gown in the photo he’d received, stepped out. The light caught her face.
It was a countenance he knew. For an instant he stared at the face of a dead woman.
Then Asil’s wolf went mad and Asil had more immediate concerns.
Asil won his battle by a razor’s margin. When he could focus on his surroundings again, he found himself outside of the car and about eight feet away. The back door was open but not damaged. One of his hands gripped the concrete support post like it was all that kept him still.