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“Hey, yourself. Where did you come from?” he asked, bending down to kiss her lips.

“I stopped by on my way out.” She flicked her strawberry-blonde mane. “It looks like you’re too busy for me tonight.”

“For now,” he replied. “I should be free in a couple of hours. Why don’t you stay here and wait?”

“Nah.” She gave a tiny shudder as she stood, picking up a miniscule handbag on a chain. “I don’t like your place tonight. I’ll come back later.”

“Where are you going?” Malatest asked, his voice hard.

“Out.”

“Where?”

“Where the mood takes me.” She blew him a kiss as she sashayed past Izetta and through the door.

“Be careful.”

“Be good and I’ll be back before dawn.”

Izetta watched her go and tried to ignore the faint growl coming from the vampire who’d hired her. Sadie wasn’t playing the obedient female, and Izetta could hardly blame her. Still, she had questions about anyone who went dancing with a murderous fae.

“You hired me to find the Magician,” Izetta said, opening with the most basic fact.

Malatest circled the desk and sat. He leaned back, the glow from the green banker’s lamp highlighting the clean lines of his face. He did not invite her to sit.

“Did you find him?” he asked.

“I found much that will interest you, but I have a question first. Are you aware that the Magician’s been seen in the same clubs that Sadie visits? That they’ve been seen together?”

Izetta wished she still had her phone with the video, but that was lost somewhere in the fae way station. She’d meant to show it now, as proof of her investigation.

“I wondered.” Malatest glared down at his hands resting on the desk. Then he looked up again, erasing every hint of vulnerability from his face. “I didn’t know when we last spoke. Now I’m certain.”

Finding that answer was probably the motivation for hiring Izetta—or at least part of it. “And you know about the drug because you’ve been talking to Henry.”

“Yes.”

“Sadie is in danger.”

He made a strangled sound. “I’ve tried reason, and I’ve tried locks. She will not be tamed.”

There was no question an Undead with his power could make Sadie obey. The fact that he hadn’t made Izetta like him better. “Your only course of action is to get rid of the Magician.”

“Yes, so tell me what I don’t already know,” he said, making it an order and not a request. His eyes darkened, taking on a dangerous glow.

“Of course,” Izetta agreed pleasantly. “I will, according to our arrangement.”

He accepted the hint with a lift of one brow and turned to the safe. The ornate gold scrollwork had worn away, but it still had presence. He extracted a key ring from his vest pocket and unlocked the heavy door. When he turned back to Izetta, he held a stack of hundred-dollar bills. “Start talking.”

“I coordinated with one of the Devries wolf shifters,” she began. “We tracked the Magician to a dwelling in the wilderness off the highway east of town.”

As she continued, he counted out a bill for every tidbit of useful information. She had just got to the part where they’d broken in when a figure appeared in the doorway and lingered there, clearly intrigued by Izetta’s story.

“Did you see where the drug was made?” the newcomer interrupted, pulling a spiral-bound notebook from her large shoulder bag.

“This is Errata Jones,” Malatest supplied with a touch of exasperation. “A reporter.”

“A reporter?” Izetta echoed in confusion. Vampires—especially those with vaguely criminal pedigrees—usually avoided the media. Or drained the blood from its representatives.

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