Page 7 of Kissed the Mark
“Fine, fine. I’ll assist you. But if I domost of the leg work, you’ll have to take a reduced price.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You’rehiding something from me. If you really want my help, you have totell me what it is. I don’t want to stumble over any more deadbodies.”
“So you admit my tip led you right where youwere looking?” she asked, head cocked.
I froze at the implications. Had she knownthe body was here or that the werewolf had been in this area? Wasshe admitting to a crime? “What the hell does that mean?” Idemanded.
“It means we will be spendinglotsoftime together.”
“I’d rather be dead.”
“Rather be undead?” she asked, making agesture like she was going to bite my neck.
“Not ever.”
Chapter Five
Bloody Vampires
THE THING ABOUT TRYING TO validate a secret vampiresociety problem was that the vampire queen was essentiallyinaccessible to non-vampires. I sent requests through differentcontacts to verify Leandra’s alleged bounty and got back littlepremade business cards that all said: THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST!PATRICIA IS VERY BUSY NOW AND WILL BE BACK TO YOU IN 45-70 BUSINESSNIGHTS. Theotherthing about trying to validate a secretvampire society problem was that when it came to punishingvampires, the mayoral council often allowed inner-species governingbodies to handle the situation as they saw fit. For example, it wasdisrespectful for a Seelie fairy to bring food from their court tothe Unseelie court, but as there was no rule about bringing foodfrom one place to another among the mayoral council, they had theirown customs for dealing with it. Vampires seemed to be even moresevere about this than some of the others, being, again, thehaughtiest creatures on the planet.
So, there very well could be a bounty outfor a lesser-known vampire that only Leandra had been givenclearance to advertise. The council was unlikely to give me answersif they were confidential by Patricia’s request. The money was alittle over a years’ worth of my rent, if Leandra wasn’t completelypulling my leg as some sick little mind game to make immortalitymore interesting.
The murder was all the talk of the Guild. Isipped at a sour ale from the human bar and watched the chaos.People had all kinds of theories. It’d gotten out that the werewolfhad been associated with the Chicago community of vampires, becauseit had to be disclosed in my public report. There were conspiracytheories involving the CIA, the Chicago vampires working in tandemwith the St. Louis area vampires to knock out werewolves once andfor all, a staged death that only made itlooklike avampire had done it. It didn’t help that werewolf and vampiretensions were always so high anyway. I mean, writers even pick itup in fictional media; it’s like elves and dwarves. Stephenie Meyerknew it, for God’s sake. It was common knowledge even for humanswho’d never met one.
Drew, a werewolf from the Gamma Pack, sidledup next to me. He was a newer bounty hunter and younger than mostof us. “Hey,” he said, swirling around a toxic pink drink from TheBluebird.
“Hey.” I noticed that his leg bounced withnerves. Distrust of vampires was normal for all of us, but now Drewwould be fearing straight-up murder. “Doing alright?”
He was very to-the-point and didn’t likeniceties or lying for the sake of courtesy. “I dug up some info onthat wolf that was killed. Bill Dyer had been to human prisonbefore for attacking someone with a lethal weapon. Then, somewherealong the line, he got bitten in an alleyway and turned. There’s atrail of violence he’s left behind, and that’s only from what weknow of those who lived. Not a very nice guy.”
“So it could’ve been targeted? I wonder ifhe attacked a vampire or something and pissed them all off.”
Drew scratched at the back of his neck andtook a big gulp of his drink. He was barely twenty-one, almost adecade younger than I was, and already he showed a lot of promisein the bounty hunter community. “You’re from Chicago, aren’t you?”he asked.
Unease stirred in my gut. I pissed off a lotof people doing this kind of thing—not that that didn’t come withits own fun—but I had family in Illinois’s Unseelie court, and Ididn’t like people to know about it in case of retaliation. “Thissounds like an accusation.”
“It’s not. Just thought you would know howdifferent things are there. This guy wasn’t part of a pack. That’shistorically considered the worst kind of werewolf.” Until Drew hadmoved to Mayfair, he had also been on his own, but he’d beenaccepted immediately—assigned, actually, by the council to becomepart of a pack before he behaved out of line. He meant that citieshad a lot of separated wolves. Packs liked less populatedareas.
“What’s he doing passing messages tovampires?”
“Now,that, I don’t know.” His strawmade a hollow sucking sound at the bottom of his drink. “Maybe heowed them something? Or had a warning to pass along?”
The thought of werewolves and vampiresgetting along well enough to pass warnings to each other had neveroccurred to me, but really, what warning would be worth riskingyour life for?
?
I made the mistake of not having my housesaged in all the commotion. I came home to Leandra sitting on mypatchy carpet, petting my undead cat, Yuki.
Yuki had been run over some decades ago andrevived by a necromancer, who had not himself escaped death; theabomination had been given to a shelter when he passed away. I’dvisited one day and seen all the normal cats and known somethingwas off about this one, from its one eye to its half-chewed ears toits splotchy fur. Yuki had a bad habit of showing up only when shewanted to and eating all the food I left out for more than thirtyseconds unattended even though, as an undead cat, she didn’t needany to live. “Damn it,” I said. I set my groceries by the door.“Yuki, you traitor.”
The cat left her new friend to rub abare-skinned patch against my leg.
“I like that thing,” Leandra said. “It’scute.”
“Remember when you said youwouldn’tdrop in randomly? Whatever happened to that promise?”
Leandra stood from her spot on the floor.Her elaborate velvet dress was comically coated in a layer ofzombie cat hair that did not come off when she brushed at it. “Inever promised you that. I always keep my promises.”
