Chapter 1
Archer
“The hell is this?”
Archer Radcliffe, with his back to the door, hunched his shoulders and screwed his already stony face into an angry frown. Hadn’t he asked Manrick that he not be disturbed? More to the point, was there anything more disturbing than an unannounced visit from Julian Bigelow? Archer sipped his neat pour of Blood Oath and then sucked in a slow, deep breath before turning to greet the kid.
“What happened to The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in E Major?—”
“Julian.” Archer interrupted him. Tension clawed its way into his shoulders, the back of his neck, just as surely as if Manrick’s damned hell cat Baal hung from his shoulders by his claws. Dressed in baggy jeans, rolled at the top of black combat boots, and what appeared to be a vintage black leather jacket, Julian looked like every other teenaged thug on the streets. He set a beat-up laptop on the glass-topped coffee table and straightened slowly to look Archer in the eyes.
The kid’s flaming red hair was spiked with shiny goo that looked like the whale fat mortals had burned for warmth in Alaska back in the 18th and 19th centuries. Archer would know; he had lived there for a short time. Oddly enough, the frigid temperatures had driven him to roam further south and take up residence in California for a while.
“The Lumineers,” Archer told Julian now.
“Sorry?” Julian shook his head and looked around the room. “Did I leave a light on in the hall or something?”
“The group, Julian. The music. The song?” Archer tucked his free hand in the pocket of his tailor made dress trousers and eyed the kid and the laptop warily.
“I didn’t know you listened to brooding contemporary music.”
Julian was partly right. Archer didn’t often choose any sort of pop music. He rarely strayed outside of the classical realm, but his last girlfriend—ex-girlfriend he corrected himself—had left a few of her compact discs at his mansion. Bored with Rachmaninoff one day, Archer gave Cleopatra, the band’s sophomore release, a listen. No use in bothering to explain that to Julian. The kid probably had no idea what a CD was.
With a long-suffering sigh, Archer crossed the cavernous sitting room and motioned with the hand that held the rocks glass at Julian’s laptop. The black case was cracked in three spots, because Julian was careless, and covered with stickers that claimed things like Wickedly Dangerous, Dud Power (The e was torn off, but Archer found that more accurate anyway.) and WhyNot State, where Julian had finally graduated with a useless degree in social media communications at the young age of 200.
“What brings you by?”
The quicker he got Julian to the point of the visit, the quicker he could get rid of him.
Gods love Newton Bigelow; he and Archer had grown up together in Europe. They had been friends for hundreds of years, and then Newton slept with that dingy mortal, which resulted in Julian. An anomaly. Archer had no idea if the kid had any sort of power other than being nearly immortal, but he did know he lacked a little in the brain power area.
Archer cursed himself often for stepping up and promising Newton he would look after Julian, but then what could he have done? Watching his best friend get staked in the heart by a riff raff vampire slayer had made him emotional, not to mention scared bloodless. Archer had tried to attack the slayer, but something about the guy’s scent had been very off-putting, and it had thrown Archer off his game. Like Superman in the presence of kryptonite, driven to his knees, Archer had watched helplessly while the slayer drove the stake into Newton’s heart.
Before fleeing—still on his knees until he was far enough away to ditch that horrid feebleness—Archer had looked Newton in the eyes and nodded and vowed to watch over Julian.
“New job!” Julian’s grin revealed his mother’s dimple and his father’s elongated canines.
“Congratulations!” Archer said sincerely. He hadn’t expected that. After all, it took Julian thirty-three years to get through WhyNot State, the local college. “When do you start?”
“Yesterday,” Julian told him.
Archer slipped his hand from his pocket and tilted his wrist to look at the Piaget watch. A sliver of annoyance poked at him. If Julian started a new job yesterday, why was he here at lunch time on a week day?
“What’s the job?” Archer sipped at his bourbon again, willing the kid not to say he was the new cashier at the convenience store on the corner or tending bar at the Vyper Lounge. Although, a good bartender at the Vyper could bring in some good tips.
“Love Bites dating agency.” Julian threw up jazz hands and offered Archer a dazzling smile. “Which…”
Archer squeezed his eyes closed in anticipation of whatever Julian was going to say. It didn’t matter; nothing he said after the words Love Bites would be good. When he blinked, he found Julian squatting in front of the coffee table with his laptop open. He tapped a few keys, frowned at the screen like what he was reading was a matter of national security, and finally nodded.
“…is why I’m here…”
“Why are you here?” Archer grumbled as Julian stood again and stared at him like a nurse calling him back to see a doctor—expectant, courteous, as if Archer were his…
Client.
“Well, we are going to set you up with a page on the app, and I’ll show you how to use it.”
“No.” Archer ground the word out like clenched teeth.
“Do you have your phone on you?” Julian looked around the room, as if Archer made a habit of stashing his mobile between the books on the shelves or maybe in the vase on the fireplace mantle. His phone, as usual, was in the right hip pocket of his trousers. As a powerful business mogul in WhyNot, Archer liked his phone handy, the way policemen liked their guns at the ready.
“No.” The lie rolled off his tongue without hesitation.
“No?” Julian shook his head and stared at Archer in shock. “Well, okay. No matter. We can do it on my computer.”
“No.”
Julian, still ignoring Archer’s blunt refusal, picked up the laptop by the screen and carried it to the far corner of the room where an old mahogany desk sat. Archer’s desktop computer was dark, but when Julian put the laptop down with a thud, the screen lit up. The golden RI logo—Radcliffe Incorporated—bounced over the screen like the first video games in the 1970’s. If Archer remembered correctly, it was called Pong.
Ignoring the desktop and Archer’s deep sigh of frustration, Julian yanked the cognac-colored leather chair from under the desk and plopped into it with the force of a jet plane crashing. Archer flinched.
“Okay.” Julian typed something else and finally looked up at him. “Just need to ask you a few questions, and we’ll get you set up.”
“No.” Archer glowered at him. Julian, as usual, was too thickheaded or too familiar to be afraid of him, even though he was well over six feet tall and two hundred pounds of solid muscle.
And a very old, wealthy, powerful vampire.
Who had zero interest in dating games or apps.
Or women.
“Look, dude.” Julian flopped back in the chair, making Archer flinch again. He didn’t particularly want whale fat or Brylcream or even J Crew men’s styling cream smeared all over the leather.
“My name is not dude.”
“I really need you to help me out here,” Julian continued as if Archer hadn’t spoken. “I got the job, but I’m on a thirty day trial basis. There’s this guy in the office named Steve. He’s already got it out for me. If I don’t have a match in the first fifteen days, I’m out. If I get a match by that time, but it doesn’t work out, I can still work for the full thirty days and try again.”
“And?”
“I need this job,” Julian groaned. He pinched the bridge of his freckled nose and sighed. “Please, Archer? I have rent due next week. And I’m kind of in a bind…” Whatever bind he was in, he mumbled it unintelligibly so Archer wouldn’t catch it.
“I’m sorry.” Archer put his drink down on the desk and stared at Julian with all the parental aggravation he could muster. This was why he’d never had kids. “What did you just say?”
Not true. There was that pesky problem of never finding the right woman in hundreds of years. But, still. Archer had been a thorn in his side since the day Newton had died.
“I bet on a boxing match at Sully’s. Ralphie Sagamore’s after me for ten grand.”
“How can you be on the hook for ten grand?” Archer remained calm, though he wanted to throttle the kid. “You don’t have ten grand to bet.”
Julian shrugged. “Borrowed from the Gannady family.”
Archer leaned over the desk to get in his face, palms flat on the desktop. “The Gannady family? Julian, they’re demons. You know that. What were you think?—”
“I know!” Julian lurched from the chair, nearly knocking heads with him. “I know. I messed up, Archer. I know.” He danced away from Archer, finally showing the fear, the deference Archer deserved, both as the powerful vampire he was and as Julian’s guardian.
“Your father would be so disappointed.”
Julian’s body folded in on itself at Archer’s sharp words. “I know. Which is why rather than asking you for the money to cover the bet and the loan, I really want to do this job. I really need to do it, Archer. But I will need your help.”
If Archer didn’t help him and Julian couldn’t pay off his debt, odds were Ralphie Sagamore’s henchmen would beat him to a pulp and the Gannady family thugs would take what was left of him and throw it on a fire as an offering to their high lord.
“And what do I get out of this?” Archer tipped his head, again staring at him with that fierce parental threatening look. At least he hoped his face looked like that.
“You fall in love!” Julian’s smile lit up the room once again. Archer didn’t believe in love, and he had no reason to believe Julian did, either, so apparently the kids had been brainwashed with Love Bites propaganda. “What more could you want, Archer?”