Jennifer Estep - By a Thread

His words were meant to be seductive, the kind of sly double-talk that rich men indulged in with women they thought were beneath them but wanted to fuck anyway. Still, something in the vampire’s tone worried me. There was a smugness in his voice, a note of sly triumph, like he knew something that I didn’t. It worried me—and I didn’t like to be worried.

Finally, we reached a pair of double doors at the end of a long hallway. By this point, we were in an entirely separate wing from the pool where the press conference had been held. Except for the two giants trailing us, I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect spot to have my chat with Dekes. We were far enough away from the south lawn that no one would hear the giants or the vampire scream if I decided to kill them. But instead of making me feel better, the deserted location ratcheted up my tension.

In my experience, nothing was ever this easy. I could almost see a giant cartoon anchor hovering in the air over my head. I just didn’t know when it was going to drop on me—and how bad the damage would be when it did.

“And now, another one of my pride and joys,” Dekes said in a vaguely bored voice.

He threw open the double doors, stepped inside, and turned around, his hands spread out wide, inviting me to follow him inside. By this point, it felt like the giants were hemming me in instead of just protecting their boss. Since I didn’t have another option, I walked forward.

We stood in a massive library, which was just as rich, lavish, and immaculate as the rest of the mansion. Dark, glossy wooden shelves stretched from the floor to the ceiling, with ladders on rollers attached to the sides so that folks could have access to the books on the top shelves. A stone fireplace took up the middle of the back wall, while several chairs, a table, a rolltop desk, and a green leather sofa perched in front of it. Titles by classic American authors like Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain filled the shelves closest to me, the gold and silver foil on the spines gleaming like the pirate doubloons that I’d seen in other parts of the mansion. A pair of French doors set into the far wall led out to a wide patio. Next to the doors, a wet bar was stuffed into the back corner of the library, and a crystal goblet had already been set out, probably on Dekes’s orders so that he could have a nightcap or two after his press conference was over with. I wondered if the vampire preferred blood or liquor to help him relax. I was betting blood.

“A library,” I said. “How charming.”

“It’s more than merely charming ,” Dekes said. “I have several valuable first editions in here, and the temperature is climate-controlled to keep them in pristine condition, given the wretched humidity on this island. One of the joys of being a vampire is the long life span. Books that I bought for a pittance a hundred years ago are quite valuable today.”

Vampires could live a long, long time, just like dwarves. Five hundred years wasn’t an uncommon age for both of those races to reach, while giants and elementals only tended to reach the one hundred fifty mark or so. Finn had estimated Dekes to be at least three hundred, which meant that he’d reached middle age in vampire years.

Some folks even speculated that vampires could live indefinitely, as long as they had a steady supply of blood and took care of their bodies by exercising, eating right, and whatnot. But I’d never heard of a vamp making it much past five hundred. The longer folks lived, the more enemies they tended to make, and the greater the chance was of one of those enemies hiring someone like me to step in and cut a vamp’s life short.

Dekes walked over to the fireplace. I trailed along behind him, with the giants bringing up the rear. My eyes scanned the library for cameras, phones, and anything that looked like a panic button that the vampire might reach out and press when I made my move. Two giants at my back were two too many, and I didn’t want him summoning even more of his men in here.

“Actually, I have a confession to make. I brought you here because I was told that you like books,” Dekes said, turning to face me.

I looked at him, wariness slowly creeping up my spine like a cold finger. “How could you possibly know that?”

“An old friend of mine told me how very fond you are of reading.”

Suspicion surged through me at his easy tone, but I forced myself to play along and ask the obvious question. “And what friend would that be?”

Dekes’s smile widened. “Why, Jonah McAllister, of course. He’s told me quite a bit about you, Ms. Blanco. Tell me, do you care if I call you Gin?”

Fuck. Randall Dekes knew exactly who I was—which meant that things were about to get seriously ugly. I wasn’t just going to have a chat with the vampire and warn him to leave Callie alone. Not anymore. Now only one of us would be leaving this room alive, and I was determined that it was going to be me.

I thought about immediately launching into full-scale attack mode but quickly discarded that idea—at least until I was out of reach of the two giants looming behind me. It wouldn’t do to let them latch onto me, not when I still didn’t know what kind of elemental magic Dekes had and what he planned to do to me with it. I had no doubt that Dekes would kill his own men if it meant taking me down with them.

No, the vampire was the real threat here, and I needed to deal with him first. So instead of reaching for one of my knives and charging at my enemies, I walked over, put my purse up on the mantel so both my hands would be free, and leaned against the fireplace, affecting a nonchalant air. The whole time, though, I was calculating speed, distances, and angles and wondering how much of his weird elemental magic Dekes might blast me with before I put him down for good.

“So you know my real name. Bravo for you. I assume that Jonah told you about my alter ego as well?”

“That you’re really the assassin the Spider? Oh yes. Jonah and I had quite a fascinating conversation about you—and the fact that you killed his son, Jake. Jonah was very upset about that. Still is, as a matter of fact.”

I’d killed Jake McAllister during a party at Mab’s house, leaving his body in one of the Fire elemental’s bathtubs. Jake had tried to rob the Pork Pit, in addition to wanting to rape and murder me, but I showed Jake just what a fatal mistake he’d made by taking me on—just as I was going to show Dekes.

But instead of backing up or moving away from me, Dekes gave me a smug, satisfied, slightly maniacal smile the Cheshire cat would have been envious of. The vampire didn’t seem concerned at all that he was in the same room with a notorious assassin. My worry cranked up another notch. Dekes didn’t strike me as the kind of man to lay his cards on the table without first being absolutely sure that he had the winning hand.

“Tell me, is my good friend Jonah here at the press conference?” I asked, matching Dekes’s calm with a bored, indifferent mask. “Because I’d love to personally thank him for introducing us, so to speak.”

“Sadly, no. Jonah couldn’t make it,” Dekes said. “But we had an interesting conversation on the phone this morning. It was something of a fluke, really. I was dealing with other things, namely the discovery of the bodies of several men I employ that were found floating in the pool of the Blue Sands hotel. It was doubly embarrassing for me, since not only did my men die rather brutal deaths but I’d originally planned to have my press conference there, as I own the hotel. Naturally, I had to change the location. Bodies in the pool are not good for business.”