ONE
SHADOWS NIGHTCLUB, CALDWELL, NEW YORK
There was no knock. The door to the office just flew open like someone had hit it with C4. Or a Chevy. Or a—
Trez “Latimer” looked from the paperwork on his desk. “Big Rob?”
—cannonball.
As his security second in command stuttered and went into all kinds of hand flapping, Trez glanced over his shoulder at the twenty-by-ten-foot one-way mirror behind all his Captain Kirk, command central. Down below, his new club was poppin’, humans milling around the converted warehouse’s open floor space, each one of the poor sick bastards representing a couple hundred dollars of profit, depending on what their vice was and how much of it they needed to juice up.
It was opening night at shAdoWs, and he’d expected trouble.
Just not the kind that would make a veteran bouncer go twelve-year-old girl on him.
“What the fuck is going on?” he demanded as he got up and came around.
“I—you—I … the guy … he…”
Find your vocab fast, Trez thought. Or I’ma have to bitch-slap some words into you, my man.
Finally, the bouncer choked out, “Need to see this for yourself.”
Trez followed Big Rob out and jogged down the stairs. His office was self-locking, not that he had any secrets shut in there. He did, however, have a couple of nice leather sofas, and some video-monitoring equip that could go the eBay route—plus he didn’t like people in his spaces on principle.
“Silent Tom is containing the issue,” Big Rob called out over the noise as they hit the ground floor.
“Like it’s a chemical spill?”
“I don’t know what it is.”
T.I.’s “About the Money” was so pumped it formed a physical presence in the air, becoming something that Trez had to fight through as they made their way past the security guy guarding the entrance to the private lounges hallway.
As with his other club, The Iron Mask, there had to be little slices of Nobody Can See for his customers. It was tricky enough running a prostitution ring in Caldwell, New York, without having people flash their slappin’ body parts out in the open.
“Back here,” Big Rob said.
Silent Tom was a wall of human in front of the closed door of the third private room down. But Trez didn’t need to have any reveal for him to put two and two together: His nose added that math up just fine.
The sickly sweet stench of a lesser permeated the hall, prevailing over the sweat and sex of the humans that were all around.
“Lemme have a look,” he said grimly.
Silent Tom stepped aside. “Still moving. Whatever the hell it is.”
Yeah, the slayer probably was. Those fuckers had to be killed in a specific way or they just kept on keepin’ on—even if they were in pieces.
“We’re going to have to call an ambulance,” Big Rob said. “I did it. I didn’t mean to—”
Trez held up his hand. “You’re fine. And hold off on the nine-one-one.”
Opening the door, he grimaced as the stench ramped up, and then stepped inside the ten-by-ten-foot room. The walls and floor were painted black, the ceiling mirrored, a single inset light glowing softly overhead. The slayer was curled up in the far corner under the built-in fuck bench, moaning and bleeding an oil slick that smelled like dead roadkill mixed with fresh-baked oatmeal cookies and Johnson & Johnson baby powder.
Nauseating. And once again, it put him off Mrs. Fields, which he did not appreciate—and children, which he didn’t care about.
He checked his watch. Midnight. Xhex, his head of security, was enjoying a rare evening off with her mate, John Matthew—and Trez had had to force the female to take the break, because it was the only time that week her hellren was off his rotation with the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
He was going to have to deal with this himself.
Trez stepped back out into the hall. “Okay, so what happened?”
Big Rob discreetly flashed a handful of small cellophane packets with powder in them as well as a wad of bills. “We found him pushing this. He got mouthy. I popped him and then he fought back—he was a fucking demon, and when he pulled the knife, I realized I was in trouble. I did what I had to do.”
Trez cursed as he recognized the symbol stamped on the heroin bags. It was nothing human—and the second time he’d seen it.
It was the vampiric Old Language—and the shit was on a lesser again? This time as a dealer?
He took the drugs and put them in his pocket. Let his bouncer keep the cash. “You were lucky you weren’t killed.”
“I’ll talk to the police. Everything’s on tape.”
Trez shook his head. “We’re not involving the CPD.”