She waited until the door had closed and everyone had sat back at their respective desks before she leaned her head close to Luke. “Can we really pull this off?”
“Making a fake demo?” He shrugged. “It’s a lot easier than some of the requests that come as part of Deals, for sure.”
“Can you actually fake a demo? Or is that lying?”
His look turned inward. “I can’t fake a demo. But I canmake a demo that resembles what Brad is saying he wants as long as someone specifically tells me what it’s supposed to look like. And I’m not the one claiming it works. He can lie as much as he wants.”
“That’s some sophistry, there.”
“That’s how we get Deals done.”
“Think the vampires will notice?”
“I’m less worried about the fact they’re vampires than the fact they’re venture capitalists,” Luke admitted. “If people fake demos all the time, and venture capitalists see lots of demos, won’t they know what it looks like when a demo is faked?”
“Maybe they see so many faked demos, they don’t even care anymore,” she said. It came out more fatalistic than she’d intended.
“This would be funny if we didn’t have to be in the conference room.” Luke said, equally gloomy. He slipped his foot over to rest on hers, behind their bags where no one could see. It helped a little.
Sensing the mood, Rix lay his head on Morgan’s knee. Luke wordlessly handed her the roll of aluminum foil he now kept on her desk, and squeezed her hand. She slipped a sheet under the dog’s head to catch the acid drool before it could burn through her pants and got to work.
***
The conference room at Ravenfell was somehow exactly what she had been expecting.
There were no windows; it made sense that a firm of vampires would prefer interior offices. The enormous table looked to have been constructed out of a single piece oflacquered dark hardwood; if there were joins, they’d been hidden cleverly by matching the woodgrain. The floor, she noted, was carpeted in a dark gray with enough of a pattern to make spills, whether of coffee or blood, easily concealed. Indirect lighting flattered the complexions of the occupants, especially if they had paler skin. The walls were hung with abstract art, largely in shades of red and brown. Ravenfell did not advertise that their executive team were creatures of the night, but they made sure that if you knew, you wouldn’t forget.
The receptionist who seated them and taken their beverage requests projected cool competence, never raising her voice above a murmur. She wore a sleeveless knit turtleneck.
Morgan clutched her bougie blueberry-pomegranate-scented sparkling water like her life depended on it. Her eye watered a bit; she dabbed cheap perfume next to the concealer to cover any scent of bruise, but the sweat was making the makeup melt a little into her lashes. Next to her, Luke jiggled his knee. His invisible tail lashed against her calf and he gave her an apologetic glance. Under the table, she slid her foot over to touch Luke’s. It helped ground her a little, and she thought his knee-jiggling slowed a hair. She didn’t dare leave it long, though, and when she moved her foot back in front of her chair, it felt cold for the lack of him. Kelly sat quietly, spine straight, her thumb stroking her fountain pen over and over. Brad paced, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, ignoring the triple shot of espresso he’d requested.
Everyone heard the heavy oak door open, but somehow no one noticed the vampire until he was standing among them. His dark hair was tousled just so, a contemporary cut that briefly confused her before she realized that, if theundead were sufficiently wealthy, they could simply have someone on staff to cut their hair every night when they woke up with a previous century’s style. He was exquisitely dressed in a suit that fit him so perfectly Morgan could tell it had never touched a rack. She didn’t know the details of what all the pockets and seams were called, but it oozed money. He hadn’t bothered with a tie; the collar lay open, leaving a hint of clavicle. He would be one of the few people in the building with his neck visible. Morgan’s satin bow stuck unpleasantly to her nape when she was outside in the summer heat, and continued to stick unpleasantly now that the aggressive air conditioning had chilled her sweat. She’d mentioned to Kelly the day before that she’d heard a rumor that decolletage was unwise at this particular firm; Kelly had raised her eyebrows without commenting, but also worn a high collar. Poor Luke couldn’t wear a turtleneck without looking like a bad Steve Jobs cosplayer, but he’d buttoned his shirt all the way up and wore a tie, giving off painful ambitious intern vibes. Brad, of course, had his unbuttoned. Morgan hadn’t said a word.
Brad jumped a little but recovered quickly, sticking his hand out with a blinding grin. The vampire smiled slowly without revealing his teeth. He crossed to where Brad was standing, gliding with the efficient movements of a consummate predator. Morgan stayed very still, willing him not to even look at her. She had not, until this moment, fully appreciated how lucky they would be to leave the room alive, let alone with funding.
Kelly was making her way around the table now. Morgan tried not to fret. Kelly intimidated the hell out of her, but that didn’t mean she wanted something to happento her. She shouldn’t have worried though. Kelly exuded competence without warmth as the vampire tried to turn her wrist so he could turn the handshake into a kiss across her knuckles. Her wrist tightened a little as she refused to allow it to be turned. The vampire could have easily overpowered her, Morgan knew, but he smiled a hair and backed off instead. Kelly might not have knowingly dealt with vampires before, Morgan realized, but she was a female sales executive. She’d likely dealt with more than her fair share of powerful creeps, and had protocols of her own.
“Auberon Vesper,” the vampire introduced himself, his baritone sending a frisson down Morgan’s bones. “I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to share.”
He sat himself at the head of the table, steepling his fingers. He’d taken the cue from Brad and ignored Morgan and Luke entirely.
The black-haired woman who had followed him in unnoticed did not, however. She made eye contact with Morgan and then Luke and gave them each a tiny nod. Her suit was not as expensive-looking as Vesper’s, but was still a lot nicer than anything Morgan anticipated ever being able to afford. She sat at Vesper’s right hand, placing a tablet on the table.
Brad launched into the presentation.
After a few minutes of intro slides (each of which Morgan anxiously scanned for typos), they made it safely out of the parts Morgan had worked on directly. Brad mostly talked, with the occasional addition by Kelly. He was good, she realized, and then felt chagrined at her own surprise. The bombastic tone that felt so awkward in the office worked in this context. Actually, he was magnetic. Maybe he wasn’t as completely incompetent as she’d thought.
The vampire watched, fingers still steepled. His eyes glittered. Occasionally, he gave a minute nod, but otherwise said nothing. He reminded her of a large jungle cat, hiding motionless in the shadows, waiting tirelessly for the right moment to pounce.
The question was whether the pounce would be figurative or literal.
The woman at his elbow jotted notes on her tablet. An assistant? Associate? Morgan wished she’d gotten a proper introduction. At the same time, she remained grateful that her superiors’ rudeness kept her relatively anonymous. The note-taker already looked at Luke more often than she would have liked. Then again, Luke was very good to look at. Could that be all it was? Someone with a high collar at the right hand of a vampire surely had at least some knowledge of the magical world, but how much did she know?
The faked-up demo looked surprisingly good. It clearly matched whatever Brad had had in his head, as he proceeded smoothly through talking points that were entirely foreign to Morgan. Who knew their platform could increase employees’ reported wellbeing by twenty-three percent? Lying certainly gave him no pause. It was all so high-level that she wasn’t entirely clear on exactlyhowthat wellbeing was increased. He kept coming back to the importance of driving employee sign-ups and she couldn’t understand why. There were a lot of pretty analytics with ‘anonymized’ data in tasteful colors, so clearly it had to be true.
Brad wrapped up, and she waited for the vampire to puncture the entire thing with a pointed question. She herself had so many questions. What did the product actually do? Why had they wasted two minutes on a genericsign-up screen, other than as padding? Surely Vesper had seen a thousand bullshit presentations before; he was going to eat them alive. Metaphorically. She hoped metaphorically.
Vesper leaned back in his chair, finally unsteepling those damn fingers and laying his hands flat on the table.
