Chapter Three
“Big things are coming, team!” Bradley clapped his hands from the doorway of his office as Soph slunk towards her cubicle. Sorry, she mouthed when Bradley caught her eye. His gaze narrowed slightly, but he turned back to the team without reprimand and she slid into her chair, booting up her laptop as she did.
“Hi, Soph,” Rosie whispered from the cubicle beside her while Rhonda leaned over from the desk opposite, a sour look on her face. “You’re late.”
“No fucking shit, Rhonda,” Soph muttered under her breath.
It was the same most days. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t seem to get herself into the office by eight in the morning.
“- Tenders are in final stages,” Bradley was saying to the group at large. “If they cross the line, you can expect some changes around here! Soph, where are you with the Prince Cafe logo?”
“I’ve got three concepts ready to send them.” She pulled them quickly up onto her screen.
“I like that one with the crown,” Bradley said, peering over her shoulder. “Good job, Soph. Send them to me and I’ll do the final sign off. Taylor, have you got the new style guide for Mixxi Co?” He moved off and Soph shot Rhonda a smug look over the top of her laptop. She might be late, most days, but her work got more compliments than anyone else’s.
Rhonda rolled her eyes and turned away to take a phone call.
* * *
It was well after five when Soph left for the day. She paused outside the door of the Paxus office, stretching her neck from side to side. People flowed around her, heading home for the day, though she’d missed the first rush. She started to dig around in her handbag for her headphones when movement across the street caught her eyes.
A throng of corporates in blue and white uniforms exited the building across the road and behind them, wearing a navy pinstripe suit and a leather satchel slung over his shoulder, was her vampire.
She’d caught only the briefest glimpse of him when he’d saved her nearly two weeks ago now, but his face was etched in her memory. Despite that, she’d begun to consider him a figment of her imagination.
The man across the road was definitely not of her imagination and she stared at him as he turned right out of the building and strode along the street, tapping away on his phone. Vampire, the voice in her head was distinctly Luie’s. Dangerous.
“Shut up,” she whispered. Decision made, she darted out to the street, glancing both ways before shooting across the road and racing after her vampire.
“Sorry, sorry,” she muttered as she bumped into people heading the opposite way. Ahead, she saw the man turn right again into an underground carpark. Soph made to follow him - acutely aware of how stupid it would be to confront a vampire in an underground carpark - but was stopped by a security guard.
“Where’s your pass?”
“Oh, I don’t -”
“No pass, no entry.”
“But -”
The security guard wouldn’t budge. A moment later the roar of an engine filled the air and a black Audi shot out of the carpark and onto the road. Behind the wheel was her mystery vampire, sunglasses on. Soph watched the car race through the traffic and a thread of disappointment settled over her, followed by a jolt of realisation.
The vampire worked in the same street as her and now that she knew what he looked like, she’d be able to keep watch.
Hauling her handbag over her shoulder, she started the ten block walk home.
* * *
For the next week Soph didn’t see her vampire again, and she wondered if she’d chased some totally random man down the street that day.
The following week, she saw him leaving the building across the road once again, but once again she lost him to the carpark, the security guard telling her to bugger off or he’d call the police if she tried to get in again.
For a few days after that, she left work early when she could, watching the building across the road for up to forty-five minutes before conceding defeat when he didn’t show. Throughout her hunt, she refused to dig too deep into why she wanted to find him. What morbid curiosity was she trying to sate with this stakeout? What would she even say to him if she crossed his path again?
They were all questions she had no answer to, and yet she was obsessed. She wanted to see his face close up once more and not for a fleeting second; she wanted to hear his voice, to know what he sounded like. She wanted to know why. Why had he saved her when he could have just walked away?
It was a Wednesday when she saw him again. He exited the building across the road and paused to look up at the sign that adorned it - SinCorp - before taking his usual route towards the carpark.
Soph didn’t think she’d make it in time, but her legs propelled her through the afternoon exodus of corporates and across the street. She thought she’d lose him to the carpark again, figured she’d be begging the security guard to let her through once more, but today her vampire surprised her.
Instead of going to the carpark like normal, he kept walking, head down, eyes on his phone. Soph slowed momentarily, but when it didn’t look like he’d stop before the next block, she clutched the straps of her bag and hurried after him.
He walked another block, and she’d almost caught up when he turned into a laneway between two buildings. Soph slowed and poked her head around the corner. A cobbled pathway cut a winding track through a tropical garden that was the City’s attempt at a green space. Overhead, festoon lights crisscrossed the space. They were on, though it wasn’t yet dark enough for them to glow. Her vampire was nowhere in sight, and she figured he’d used the laneway to cross to the next block.
She made it to the first bend in the path when hands grabbed her from behind, yanking her back against a hard chest. Fingers slipped over her mouth before she could scream and lips touched her ear.
“Why are you tailing me, Witchling?”
His voice was deep, smooth, and deadly. Fear spiked painfully in Soph’s chest and she tried, rather futilely, to wrench herself out of his grasp. Idiot. Founders fucking idiot. Why had she thought it would be a good idea to find this man? To follow a fucking vampire into an alleyway. She hadn’t even charged a damned crystal.
His arms tightened against her attempts at escape. “Are you looking for a hit?”
“A hit?” Her voice was muffled against his hand, but he seemed to understand her well enough. Before she could even register what was happening, he moved quickly, one hand now grasping her inner thigh, the other snaking beneath her blouse, under the wire of her bra to grasp her breast.
“I heard this is the currency for a hit, though I’ve no idea why a witch would want one.”
“Fuck.” Her mind went blank, her muscles seized. His fingers stroked higher on her thigh and alarm bells went off in her head, screaming at her to get away, but all she could wonder was how he’d known she was a witch.
“I’m not - I don’t want a hit,” she choked out and his hands slowed, though his breath still warmed her ear. “I just wanted to say thank you for saving me from that truck a few weeks back.”
For an entire heartbeat he stilled, then suddenly he was gone from behind her, leaving her back cold and instead she found him standing in front of her. He looked perplexed and not at all like a vampire that had just accosted and felt her up from behind.
“You remember that?”
She cleared her throat and tugged down her skirt. Oddly, she wasn’t as afraid of him while he stood before her, though she knew she should be. “One doesn’t generally forget a near-death experience. So thanks,” she stuck out her hand, “for saving me.”
He stared at her offer, his steel-grey eyes giving nothing away, then he took it with the same hand that had just been on her breast and shook it.
“Let me thank you with a drink,” she found herself saying like a fucking idiot. She’d never planned to buy him a drink. She’d never planned to be felt up by him, either. “Benny’s tomorrow at five?”
“Benny’s,” he echoed faintly, as though he’d never been invited to a bar in his life. His hand tightened briefly over hers. “Okay.”
And then he was gone in a flash, leaving her standing alone in the leafy laneway. Exhaling a trembling breath, she straightened her blouse and sank down to the edge of a garden bed.
What was she thinking? Inviting him for a drink after he’d just pinned her from behind. Luie would have a heart attack if she found out. Her fingers grazed her thigh where his fingers had just been before rising to her throat where her amulet sat cold against her skin. Maybe it didn’t work against vampires… It hadn’t warned her of danger at all.
With a heavy sigh, she shouldered her bag and began the trudge home.