Assail got out and waited for them to decide. Damn it, his hands were shaking, and in spite of yet another round of flurries falling from the sky, he was starting to sweat.
Should he just do the coke? He was close to nonfunctional like this.
Ehric joined him, coming around the back of the SUV. “What ails you?”
“Naught.”
A lie on so many levels.
As they approached the back door, Assail gave up. Digging into the breast pocket of his Tom Ford coat, he pulled out his dark brown vial. Unscrewing the black lid, he filled the interior spoon with a serving of white powder.
Sniff.
He repeated on the other side, and then took a single, double-barreled huff that ensured everything got home.
The fact that he immediately downshifted into “normal” was another warning sign he chose to ignore. Calm and focused was not what he should be feeling after two hits—but he wasn’t going to waste time on it. Some people had coffee. Others had a different coca product.
It was all about whatever got your move on.
As he came up to a heavy steel door—which was a security measure disguised as a commentary on the industrialism of the art market—there was no reason to ring any bell, and certainly not to knock. The three-inch-thick monster was hardly something to waste one’s knuckles on.
And indeed, things were opened promptly.
“Assail? What you doing?” the Neanderthal on the other side demanded.
Such an inspiring command of English grammar. And the greeting also told him that Benloise and his men didn’t know who had done the kills in West Point the night before—otherwise one could assume this titan of intelligence would not be so banal.
Those black masks they’d worn had been such handy equipment. And disabling those security cameras a critical tactic.
Assail smiled without flashing his fangs. “I have something to give your employer.”
“He expecting you?”
“He is not, no.”
“Okay. C’mon.”
“This is my associate, by the way,” Assail murmured as he stepped into the office area. “Ehric.”
“Yeah. I figured. C’mon.”
Striding through the high-ceilinged space, their footfalls on the concrete floor echoed up to the exposed ductwork and wiring above. Talk about organized chaos. A lineup of serviceable desks, stacks of filing cabinets, and random pieces of oversize “art” choked the huge space. No workers. No phones ringing. The legitimate face of Benloise’s wholesale drug business was on after-dark shutdown.
As expected.
Out in the gallery space proper, he shot a quick look around as the guard who’d let them in disappeared through the hidden door to the second floor.
No one but a pair of guards standing watch by the way up to Benloise’s office.
Assail regarded the men. Their stares were sharper than usual, their weight shifting incessantly, their hands moving around as if they felt the need to constantly reassure themselves they were armed.
“Lovely evening, is it not?” Assail commented as he nodded subtly at Ehric.
As the guards froze, his cousin took the cue to go on a wee walkabout, the vampire strolling around an exhibition of shredded newsprint molded into various phallic symbols.
“A little on the cold side, of course. But the flurries are rather picturesque.” Assail smiled and took out a Cuban. “May I light up?”
The one on the right pointed to a laminated notice on the wall. “No smoking.”
“Surely there can be an exception in my case?” He clipped the cigar’s end and let the butt fall to the ground. “Yes?”
The guy’s muddy brown eyes flicked down. Returned. “No smoking.”
“Nobody here but us.” He outed his lighter. Popped the top.
“You can’t do nothing like that.”
Mayhap Benloise specifically screened them for a lack of vocabulary? “In the stairwell, then?”
The genius glanced over at his partner. Then shrugged. “Guess it’s okay.”
Assail smiled again and flicked up a flame. “Let me in, then.”
It all happened so quickly. The one who’d been doing the talking twisted his torso and popped the latch that sprang the door—as, at that moment, the other chose to take a stretch, curling his arms out from his body.
Ehric materialized directly before the back cracker, clapping his hands on either side of his astonished face and snapping that neck around. Not to be o’ershown, Assail stabbed forward with the knife he had surreptitiously taken out of its hip holster, catching the guard who’d been enforcing the rules directly in the gut. Next move was to disappear his lighter and clap his hand over the man’s mouth—stifling the grunt that threatened to give them away.
To finish things up, he freed the blade with a jerk and moved upward.