Kim Harrison - The Witch with No Name

Trent held the door for me, and the wind blew my hair back as I went in. The first floor of the lobby was almost empty, and noise from the second- and third-floor offices filtered down the huge stairway. I looked up at the glass railings and desks, feeling my stomach knot. Head down, we angled toward the bank of elevators. There were at least seven levels downstairs, maybe more. I’d never been there, but Ivy had told me about them one night when she’d had too much to drink.

“The treasurer is on the third floor,” Trent said, eyes flicking from the information sign.

“You think they’d let us post bail and leave with her?” I said, and Jenks snorted.

Trent’s arm slipped from mine. “It will get their attention.”

It would at that, but I figured we already had their attention. I’d sat outside their building for almost an hour. “I say we go down as far as we can,” I said as I pushed the button for the elevator.

“Excuse me!” a somewhat feminine voice called out. “Yes, at the elevator?”

We turned to the tall man coming down the stairway. He was in a trendy suit, a living vampire by the way he moved, having confidence and fear mixed in all together. “Jenks, don’t go too far but see what you can find out,” I muttered, and he tweaked my ear before flying away, his dust matching the color of the marble floor exactly.

Trent sighed as he pulled himself upright and found a professional expression. The sharp taps of dress shoes on the stairs echoed as the man jogged down, his hands free and arms swinging. “Ms. Morgan?” he said as he got close, clearly nervous and more than a little excited. “Could you accompany me downstairs?”

“Maybe.” Damn it, this felt wrong.

The clerk moved as if to put a hand to my back, and I jumped to avoid him. Flustered, the man tried to find his aplomb. “Mr. Cormel would like to speak with you,” he said, all civilized, but there were two big guys at the lobby doors now, and people lined the glass railings, watching.

Trent scratched the side of his nose, not being ignored as such, but clearly not the focus of the man’s interest. “I want to pay Ivy’s bond,” I said, though it was actually Trent’s money that would do it.

Nodding, the clerk pushed the down button on a different panel. “He can arrange that.”

“I bet he can,” I said as the door opened and Trent and the clerk got in. Eyes wide, the clerk gestured for me to join them, and sullen, I stomped into the lift. “This is not a good idea,” I grumbled as the doors closed and the clerk ran a card. Jenks hadn’t made it, but elevators had never stopped him before.

“It’s better than having them come at us over dinner,” Trent said softly, and the clerk caught back a snort.

My eyes went to the panel. Sixth floor? Way out of reach of a ley line.

“Cormel is a reasonable man,” Trent said, more for the aide than me. “He’s not going to shove us in a hole.” Trent’s voice had been confident, but the tension in his fingers against my back gave him away. He was wire tight, and my own alarm ratcheted higher.

“Yeah, well, if he tries, I’m going to burn his office down to his red stapler.” I could talk to the aide, too, and Trent’s hand fell from my back as the doors opened to show a wide, brightly lit carpeted hallway. Two more pretty men and one sexy woman waited by the narrow table against the wall. Orchids and cut flowers made it less six stories under and more thirty stories up. The silk, linen, and jewelry they wore made no attempt to hide the scars.

The clerk with us hit a button to freeze the lift, clearing his throat and holding his hand out. “Your purse, Ms. Morgan. And your cap and ribbon, Mr. Kalamack.”

My grip on it tightened. I’d lost contact with the ley lines at about level three. There wasn’t much in the bag to begin with, but I was loath to let it go. One by one, I was being stripped of my defenses.

“And your phones?” he added smugly.

Sighing, Trent dug in his pocket. Expression amused, he handed the clerk his phone, cap, and ribbon.

I hesitated, but when Trent glanced at his watch, I shoved my bag at the clerk and stomped out of the elevator. Was I a demon, or was I a demon?

I swear, Trent was smiling when he caught up, slipping an arm in mine and slowing me down. Ivy was here somewhere. If they didn’t give her to me, I was going to tear the place apart. “I hope your chess game is better than mine,” I said softly.

“Me too,” he breathed, and I wondered where Jenks was.

“This way, please,” one of the men said, and I stifled a shiver at the two guards following. The walls were bright, and with the artwork from multiple periods and schools on the walls and pedestals, it felt as if we were in a museum. The air stank of vampire. No wonder Ivy had worked so hard to get out of here. Damn, my scar was tingling.

“You okay?”

“Ask me tomorrow,” I said as the escort stopped before a glass-and-wood door and gestured for us to enter. Heart pounding, I went first, thinking it looked like any other corner office apart from the no-window thing. “It’s better than an interrogation room,” I said, then spun when Cormel bustled in right behind us, his motions vampire quick.

“I don’t like it much either,” he said as he moved behind the opulent, but largely bare, desk. “This is my office. Please, sit down. We have time to chat before everyone arrives.”

“You mean Ivy, right?” I said, and he laughed, gesturing at the chairs.

“Sit down, Rachel.”

That made me feel oh so fuzzy and warm, and I eased into the leather chair closest to the door. Trent hesitated, then took the other. “I wasn’t aware that you worked for the I.S.,” Trent said.

Cormel laced his fingers atop his desk, clearly pleased. “I don’t. The office came with Piscary’s title. I do enough business here to warrant keeping it, but not enough to have a secretary. Thank you for saving me the effort to find you. Can I get you anything?”

My eyes narrowed. “Ivy,” I stated, and he smiled. It was the smile that had saved the free world during the Turn, but it fell flat against me.

“Pleasure before business,” he said, chuckling.

Lifting the chair under me, I scooted it forward until my knees were almost touching the desk. Sitting back, I put my ankles up on it. It was meant to bother him, and it did, but instead of pushing back, Cormel leaned forward until I could see he wasn’t breathing. “Would you like something to drink?” he said, the words precise and clear.

I took my feet off his desk and leaned over it, the flat of my arms stretched out until my fists were right under his face and I could watch his eyes dilate to a full, angry black. “Where’s Ivy?”

Trent cleared his throat. “I’d like a black coffee,” he said pleasantly. “I don’t know what Rachel wants. Second-guessing her is a mistake.”

He’d given me a way to back off, and I took it, settling into the leather chair and trying to keep my breathing shallow and avoid taking in so much vampire pheromones. My God, they were thick down here. “Coffee,” I said, and the man eased out of the room, shutting the door behind him. “Cormel, this is stupid. Felix walked into the sun. How much proof do you need?”

“Right to the point,” Cormel said, sighing. “But wrong nevertheless.”

“It will kill you,” I continued, wanting to get out of here. “Don’t ask me why, but I don’t want to see you dead.”

“Dead?” Cormel’s pupils shrank, and I breathed easier. “No, you simply don’t want to see us progress out of the trap we’re in. Felix was not sane. I am.”

“You think you’re sane?” I said, almost laughing. “The longer you’ve been sucking people dry, the harder it is to survive the trauma of your soul. Give me Ivy and I’ll see what I can do for the newly undead, but you having your soul will cause you to suncide. Landon knows it. He’s counting on it. Why are you listening to him?”