Мишель Роуэн - Stakes & Stilettos

However, Butch had recently requested a few personal days for unknown reasons, which I would assume were personal. This meant that I was currently bodyguard-free, so it was vital that I be with somebody trustworthy at all times.

Frankly, it felt as if I was constantly being babysat, but if it kept me breathing I would tolerate it for as long as I had to. The reputation would fade away and the hunters would move on to something more interesting sooner or later. I hoped it would be sooner.

Lately things had cooled off considerably on the hunter front. I'd been informed there was some kind of vampire-hunter convention going on down in Las Vegas right now that the hunters were flocking to like wooden-stake-carrying birds flying south for the winter.

Remind me to stay away from Vegas at the moment. Only a crazy vamp with a serious death wish would show his or her face down there with all of those hunters lurking about.

"Then I wish you the very best of luck with your interview." Thierry leaned over and brushed his lips against mine. Our relationship had definitely improved lately. Sure, he tended toward the strong silent type, and he did have a bit of a… dark side. To put it extremely mildly.

But kissing me in public was a definite sign that things were better than ever.

After another kiss and a whisper in my ear to be careful, he left the main club area to return to his office to deal with last-minute paperwork regarding the ownership transfer.

Exciting stuff. Yawn.

"Ready?" Heather asked.

I nodded. "As ready as I'll ever be."

The new bartender had already signed in, so Heather and I left the club and headed the short distance to the café, a little place called the French Connection. It specialized in overpriced cappuccinos and pastries. Since my vampire stomach couldn't handle solid food now that I was on a purely liquid diet, I ordered a coffee. Black.

Heather's boyfriend, Josh, sat at a small table in the corner. He was cute, somewhere in his twenties, and had dark shaggy hair and liquid brown eyes. I liked him immediately.

He got up and embraced Heather, kissing her hard on the lips, and then shook my hand very firmly.

"Sarah, it's such a pleasure to finally get the chance to meet you." He settled back down into his chair. The café was empty except for the three of us, and the cashier behind the counter was busy organizing the display of scones and muffins and croissants into perfect high-caloried lines.

"You, too," I said. "Heather's been raving about how great you are. And thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk to you."

"No, I should be thanking you for agreeing to consider my offer." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small stack of bills. "Consider this a small sign of my appreciation. It's a four-hundred-dollar advance on your first paycheck."

I blinked. Wow, this was getting off to a fantastic start.

"Maybe we should skip the interview and I can start right away," I joked.

He smiled and glanced at Heather, who squeezed his hand. "I do have some questions.

Important ones."

Would it be rude if I shoved the cash into my pocket right away? Probably. "Shoot. My life is an open book."

"How long ago, precisely, were you sired as a vampire?"

I frowned. "That's kind of a strange question for a job interview, isn't it?"

He shook his head and laughed. "Yeah, I guess it is, sort of."

Heather laughed, too, and reached across the table to pat my hand reassuringly. "Josh is just trying to get to know you. Besides, the company does cater to vampire clientele."

"Oh." I relaxed a bit. "Well, okay. It was exactly ten weeks ago yesterday."

"Ten weeks." He nodded. "And you've adjusted well?"

"As well as can be expected, I guess."

"I think you've done very well."

"I try." I took a sip of my coffee, cringing a bit at how bitter it tasted. I reached over to grab a few packets of sugar, tore them open, and stirred them into the dark depths.

"And since you were sired, do you notice having any special abilities now?"

I thought about that. "Well… I'd say that my senses have increased a bit, but nothing too crazy. Like my hearing's improved. And I can smell really well. Seeing in the dark is a little clearer. Do you mean things like that?"

He nodded. "That's helpful. And do you have any prophetic dreams?"

"Prophetic dreams?"

"Dreams that seem to foretell the future."

"Uh…" I frowned again. "Actually I did have a dream a few weeks ago that sort of told me that trouble was coming. And a few more that have been rather vivid. Would those count?"

He nodded. "Any other uncanny psychic abilities?"

"I won twenty bucks on the lottery last week."

"Increased strength?"

"Maybe a little, but I'm not signing up to be a professional wrestler yet." My frown deepened. "Listen, these questions are making me a little uncomfortable. What does this have to do with the job?"

"I'm human," Josh said, "And I'm hiring vampires, I need to know these things. It's important."

I glanced at Heather, but she looked completely fixated on Josh and not in the least bit frazzled by his vampire-related interview. I brushed away my sense of weirdness about the situation and took a sip of my now too-sweet coffee. "Okay, if you say so."

"So…" Josh continued. "There's a rumor that you've drunk the blood of not one, but two master vampires. Is that true?"

I grimaced. Another rumor. Just what I needed.

Well, there was Thierry, of course. He'd saved me when my original sire was slain by vampire hunters before I'd had the proper fledgling nutrition to keep me breathing. I got to ingest some of his supercharged vampire blood—apparently the older the vamp the more potent his blood was. Since master vampires rarely, if ever, shared blood or sired fledglings, this caused my vampire side-effects—namely losing my reflection and developing my fangs—to happen months if not years before they normally would have.

Becoming a full vampire apparently took time.

And I guess Nicolai was a master vampire, too. Or was, anyhow, until he'd ended up on the wrong side of a wooden stake. As one of the elder vampires in the Ring—the international vampire council—he'd stopped by Toronto three weeks ago to investigate my

Slayer of Slayers reputation. Unfortunately there was some major bad blood—no pun intended—between him and Thierry. When he found out Thierry and I were involved, the insane vamp tried to kill me to seek his revenge. Before I'd learned about his ulterior motives, I'd had some of his blood by way of his wrist stuck in my mouth when I was near death. A girl can't be too choosy in situations like that.

"Sure, two master vamps," I said after a few moments of silence. "I guess I'm popular.

Why do you want to know?"

Josh studied me without saying anything. From my dark brown shoulder-length hair, currently tucked behind my ears, to my eyes, nose, mouth. Then along my neck to my white camisole tank top, and, if you ask me, lingered a little too long for comfort on the boob area. My black winter coat hung behind me on the chair.

"I think I have all the information I need," he said.

"So do I have the job?" I asked, still forcing myself to ignore the weird feeling.

He glanced at Heather. "What do you think?"

"I think it'll work out perfectly." She smiled and kissed him. "Just like we planned."

I swallowed. The strange feeling of dread that had taken up space in my gut from the very first interview question began to spread through the rest of my body. "Can we talk about

Vamp International now? Do I have the job?"

Heather stroked Josh's face, before kissing him on his lips, and she turned her attention to me, her smile as bright and shiny as it had been all evening. "Okay, Sarah, I don't want you to be mad, but there actually isn't any Vamp International."