Chapter 9 #2
Before coming to the gathering, I mentally prepared myself for offering an uncomfortable truth.
Not too personal, but personal enough, so whoever I was conversing with would feel more inclined to share something with me to even the playing field.
Lies, even when well crafted, didn’t seem to have the same effect.
However, just because I was willing to share, didn’t mean she wouldn’t have to work for it. “It’s not the sort of thing I talk about with strangers,” I admitted.
“Come, now, darling, we’re hardly strangers. My mark on your neck can attest to that.” She took ahold of her glass, and sipped, somehow managing to keep her little finger elevated.
“You don’t even know my name.”
“I’ve never paid much attention to names people are given. I prefer those that are taken. Claimed.” She batted her eyelashes. “Besides I rather like No-one-of-consequence. You chose it yourself.”
Carmen’s comment distracted me. I’d never given much thought to my name. I knew about the whole Sampson and Delilah dynamic, but I never really considered who named me. Whether it was my adoptive parents, or a remnant of people I’d never met—my birth parents.
Sensing the beginnings of a thought spiral, I cleared my throat and got back on track. “Last time I drank—” Why was this harder than I expected? “—someone slipped something into my drink… I can’t bring myself to go through something like that again.”
Carmen almost spat out her martini.
Instead, she took a moment, then placed her palm on my knee. Concern lined her flawless features, as the real human in her slipped through. And it was the real human within her that said, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, I’m fine. Everything is fine.” It was. Really. Nothing happened. Except that fucking Mads breaking into my apartment, and he’d done that more than once. And I didn’t like the feeling one bit. “I just don’t drink. Especially, if I’m looking to enjoy myself.”
“At least your man-toy makes sense now.”
She had jumped to the assumption he was on protection detail. But her comment inadvertently left an opening to bring up the real reason Todd and I ventured into this vampire hell-hole, and make her think twice about whatever she had planned for the two of us.
“Fun fact about my man-toy.” I still hated the feel of those words when talking about Todd. It didn’t give him the respect he deserved. “He’s currently on-the-job.”
“Ooh, private security?”
“Something like.”
“Private eye?” Her tone was more serious.
“Think more… official.”
Eyes widening, Carmen skipped right over cops and went directly to— “FBI...?”
Trying to keep things light, I winked. “Bingo.”
“What are you—you signed the consent forms, right?” She removed her hand from my knee, her persona faltering. “You know the safe words. Lenore assured me no one gets in without knowing the safe words.” Self-preservation was top of mind. That much was clear.
“I’m well aware of the safe words.” I added a warmth to my voice to keep Carmen’s alarm at a minimum. “And I’m not FBI, but I did come here looking for answers. Just like my friend, Special Agent Galt.”
I could sense the contempt and curiosity dueling within Carmen as she rapped her nails on the countertop. This was not how she had envisioned her evening. Red creeped up her neck in strange mottled blotches. I knew better than to comment. Vamps cherished the thought that they were absent of blood.
Carmen went still.
So still, I was certain no good could come from whatever plan she was forming.
Slowly, and with her fangs on display, Carmen resurrected her persona. “You have questions, I presume?”
“Do the names—”
“Ah ah ah…” She placed her finger on my lips. “You and I have a deal. You agreed to play a game of my choosing before you’d be free to roam on your own.”
“If you were feeling so inclined,” I parroted her choice of words back to her, making sure to highlight the condition. Perhaps she would feel differently about playing a game if she realized I was looking to collect information related to the murder of five people. Five familiars, no less.
“Oh, I am so.”
Damn it.
I did the mental math. The amount of effort to get answers from Carmen without the game.
The repercussions of just getting up and leaving to ask questions to someone else.
How fast I could get the answers I was looking for if it was built into the game.
And I was good at games. “What are we playing?”
?
She had to be kidding me.
Downstairs, we stood at the mouth of a caged corridor.
Black chain-link walls led twenty feet away to a dead end.
It was a lane. For target practice. And suspended near the far end of the lane was a human-shaped target.
Though it was made of paper, there were points printed onto the silhouette, which increased in one-point increments towards the center.
Five points for hitting the shoulder.
Eight for the head.
Ten for the heart.
The tallest woman I had ever seen stood next to us holding an ornate platter. On it, were two hunting knives.
This was going to be a walk in the park.
It didn’t matter that I was over two years out of practice. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t allowed a weapon. I was good with knives. Better if the knife was mine. Carmen didn’t stand a chance.
Relief threatened to flood my face. “Best two out of three?”
Carmen flicked a large swathe of hair over her shoulder, and handed her martini to Xander—who had seemingly materialized out of nowhere.
“Oh no, darling, this will be very tit-for-tat. Five throws. Five questions.” She grabbed a hold of one of the knives, bouncing it in her hand, judging the weight of it.
“But every time I win, you lose a question.”
Carmen’s choice of game had put the odds in my favor. But the phrasing was vague. If I was able to ask a question, it didn’t mean that she would answer honestly, or in full. I needed to clarify the terms so there would be no ‘misunderstandings’.
“Only if for every question I ask, you respond in full. With what you know. No half-hearted ‘maybes’. No dancing around the question.” When Carmen blinked her agreement, I said, “You’re on.”
I felt good about this. Yes, good. I wasn’t being insensitive. Right? After all, I wasn’t gambling with people’s lives. Or playing a game of chance where information on five people who died was being held ransom. I was getting answers. Through skill. It was all but guaranteed.
That is until I picked up the knife.
Fuck.
The weight was off. The handle heavy, too heavy.
I ran my thumb over the blade—yep, blunted.
The knife was for show… which meant I was effectively throwing a bedazzled butter knife.
With the blunt edge, I’d need to use more force to get it to stick to the target.
The harder I needed to throw, the less accurate I would be.
“Something wrong?” Carmen purred. The tip of the blade, balancing vertically on the pad of her pointer finger, didn’t go unnoticed. With a practiced flick, she flipped the knife over to rest on the hilt. Then back to the tip.
An impressive party trick… that didn’t bode well for me. Or the victims.
I hoped Todd was having more luck than I was. At least my efforts had gotten us in. So, no matter where this game ended up, I wasn’t entirely useless.
But still, the situation felt gross. I felt gross. A pin prick of bile tinged the back of my throat.
Fuck it, we should have just gotten the warrant. That way they’d need to answer our questions without all this guilt-inducing runaround. People were dead.
Even though I didn’t think the vamps, on the whole, were responsible, they should have known something.
I took a steadying breath and reminded myself why we were doing this. We wanted the vamps to give information willingly, without shutting down. This was just the first phase. The warrants could come after.
“Shall I show you how it’s done?” Carmen stopped flicking the knife and grabbed hold of the handle.
“Please, do.” It was better to go second. That way I could know what I was dealing with. And all I needed to do was better.
Carmen stepped to the blood red line drawn across the floor, and took aim. She radiated confidence. But as she prepared to throw, she kept a firm grip on the handle, rather than the blade. Interesting.
Thunk!
Though her form was lacking, she still managed to lodge the knife in the target’s shoulder. Five points.
The throw was better than I would have liked.
Carmen spun with another swish of her hair, content with herself. “Think you can do better?”
I cocked my head, rolling my palm over the hilt, as I stepped to the line. I flipped the knife over and pinched the blade between my thumb and forefinger. It was an unsettling how natural the movement felt, despite everything wrong with the knife.
“You really shouldn’t hold it like that.” Carmen swallowed the rest of her martini, before handing the glass back to Xander. “That handle is there for a reason, darling.”
And with that, I tuned her, and everything else around me, out. My first throw might be shaky. I had to be okay with that. I would be okay with that, so long as I learned from my mistakes.
Then in a movement as natural as breathing, I flung the knife.
Thunk!
The knife lodged next to Carmen’s.
Unluckily for me, it was a fraction of an inch higher, gracing the white outside of the silhouette, which meant Carmen had won the first round. And I was down to four questions.
As the tall woman returned with our knives, it was hard to miss the disbelief from Carmen and Xander. My knife throwing had been far better than either of them expected.
Carmen sized me up as she grabbed her knife from the platter, and stepped back up to the line.
Thunk!
Seven points.
I didn’t give myself time to over think before I threw.
Thunk!
My knife was wedged halfway between six and seven. Damn. Carmen’s throw was still better. If only just.
And I was down to three questions.