Chapter One
Angie
The music was so heavy the bass reverberated in my chest cavity. The lead singer of Kegs and Boots’s house band, BloodSin—a vamp who considered himself a heartthrob—had hit an oddly off-key note three times now. It was weird enough to make it impossible to relax fully, to close my eyes and sink into the music and just freaking let go, which I really,reallyneeded after the crazy week and the queen’s reception.
People assumed being goddaughter to the Dark Queen of the fangheads was exciting, and sometimes, rarely, it was. But typically, being royalty was tedium: shaking hands, smiling until my cheeks ached, making small talk, and dancing ancient gavottes with five-hundred-year-old vamps. All that, while wearing a sparkly dress and five-inch heels for five hours straight.
Eardrum-busting rock music usually made all that better, but Labaka’s fourth off-key note made my eyes pop open, which was why I saw the man approach our empty table, circle it, and walk away. I didn’t reclose my eyes.
Our drink goblets and flutes were empty. I hadn’t seen the man drop anything into a glass. My arms over my head, mybody swaying to the beat, I turned my back to the band, keeping him in sight. Good looking, well-coiffed, he wandered the room by a circuitous route, stopping at a table full of men to clap one guy on the back, give a fist bump to another. Friendly guy. Knew some of the regulars. A moment later, he bent over a table full of women, attempting to flirt. The women waved him off, laughing. He left with a smirk that promised he’d be back.Idiot.
Or dangerous.
Deep inside, something whispereddangerous.
My precog gift or simple paranoia? Which one? Was the guy about to actually do something bad, or was he just a guy with the potential to do something bad? Maybe both. He moved on to chat up two women at a solo table. I didn’t have to be a witch to know the two were together and he was wasting his time, but he didn’t give up.
Precog or paranoia—my life litany since I was a kid. I’d once known which was which, back when I had an honest-to-God guardian angel, a vampire knight in shining armor, and unlimited witch power. Now, not so much. Being grown up, single again after a bad marriage, and a royal “princess by decree” wasn’t all popcorn and lollipops.
In the crowd, I found Corry, KeeKee, and Lissa, the girls I’d gone clubbing with. Safe. Or they should have been. That not-quite-precog nudged me again.
I didn’t close my eyes and kept Mr. Smarmy firmly in view. When the dance number ended, I dropped my arms and slipped a hand into a pocket, gripping a small labradorite duck.
The half-inch carved duck had been given to me at the start of my freshman year of college by my Aunt Liz, a stone witch. University was far behind me, but I never discarded an amulet that had been permanently imbued with a working, keepingthem charged on one of the stone batteries Aunt Liz had made me, taking useful amulets with me when I was away from home. There was a hole drilled in the duck’s head so it could be attached to a necklace or bracelet, but I no longer wore my amulets in public. I couldn’t easily hide them under the glamour I wore while out clubbing, and keeping my identity as Angelina Everhart-Trueblood, the Dark Queen’s goddaughter and a princess, secret, was the only way I got to go out and have a little fun.
It was different at work. Everhart Investigations Firm relied on the name recognition from both witches and the vamps to bring in new customers. The hypocrisy didn’t elude me, though the double standards’ sour taste in the back of my throat had decreased over the years.
Tonight, I was thoroughly glamoured in multi-green: eyes, spiky braided green wig, clothing that looked like leaves, even a green tint to my skin. My amulets were hidden in lead-lined pockets, a vamp-killer strapped to my thigh. The witch princess had been replaced by Baby, my club name.
As I made my way off the dance floor, a man’s hand encircled my upper arm.
Instinct seized me. I took one step left, my left hand reaching across my body to his wrist. Ready to use his momentum and my body’s torque to pull him over my outstretched right leg. Fast. Automatic.
“Hey. Baby. Whyn’t you and me have a beer?” Smooth voice. Mesmerizing tones. Labaka, BloodSin’s lead singer. Fangs, slick tone, gorgeous, and dumber than a box of rocks. I released his wrist and gripped his little finger, pulling it back just enough to hurt. Reversed my stance, pulled him around by the finger, and squared off with him, our position still keeping our table in view.
Labaka sometimes claimed Indian and Hindu heritage, other times Khmer Rouge, still others Egyptian. I had never been interested enough to check his dossier. He had long black hair, medium brown skin, dark eyes, and a unique vamp-smolder.
“Not interested, Labaka. Same as last week. Same as the week before.”
“Come on. Gimme a chance, Baby. I can do things—” His other arm went around my waist.
I can do things. Sure you can. No one didthingsbetter than a vamp. Once bitten, twice shy. In this case, literally.
Twisting his pinkie with a rotating gesture, I continued my pivot, going to our table.
He grunted and fell behind, trying to keep up, tripping once over his own feet as I dragged him by the little finger.Idiot. I had never gotten physical with Labaka before. I had never felt this tepid warning of danger in Kegs and Boots either.
I spotted my gal pals together at the end of the bar, still safe in a crowd. I pushed Labaka toward a woman in our path and she grabbed him in a purely physical embrace, cupping his butt in both hands. Labaka forgot all about me.
Sitting, I tossed my wig’s spiky green braid over my shoulder, studying our drink glasses. To the naked eye, they looked fine. But. Under the pretense of shoving the empties out of the way, I touched each rim, the duck in my fingers.
The amulet looked like a simple trinket until it detected certain drugs, like old-fashioned roofies, X, pong—a newer synthetic opiate—and even real oldies like LSD and Mollies. It also detected some common chemical poisons including arsenic, strychnine, cyanide, and a few dozen natural bio-poisons such as hemlock and belladonna. If it came into contact with the drugs, it flashed blue. If it found poisons, it gleamed a pinkish hue, the depth of the color indicating the drug. As amuletswent, the working contained in it was sophisticated, very popular among the college set and bar hoppers. The working had made the Everhart-Trueblood family coven a lot of money when it went on the market.
The duck didn’t change. No flash of color, no lights, no danger that it could detect.
Maybe the good-looking guy was just a random creep checking out the place. I was paranoid with good reason, but still, paranoid was paranoid.
I looked for Smarmy, but he was lost in the crowd. KeeKee’s pink Afro was still at the bar and, near her, Lissa’s brown hair glistened with fairy light. Labaka was suddenly in front of me, leaning backward against the bar, supported by his elbows, his shirt open to reveal a smooth chest and chains that looked like real gold, his gorgeous eyes on me. Vamps were turned only when a Blood Master had a need of, or a desire for, a human. Labaka had been chosen for his looks and his singing voice. I had to give him one thing: he was persistent in his attempts at seduction.
