Archangel's Viper

22

According to Janvier, Battersby was a broker who acquired coveted items for wealthy immortals. Janvier’s distinctive Cajun accent dark honey down the telephone line, he said, “Neither my Ashblade nor I have ever met him, but we’ve heard his name in connection with stolen antiquities and gemstones.”

Of course this mysterious broker didn’t live in the tormented, dangerous darkness that Zeph and Arabella and Brynn called home. He lived high up in an exclusive skyscraper that was all glitter and gloss. When Venom stopped his beautiful and very expensive car out front, the valet looked like he was going to have a heart attack.

Venom threw him the keys. “Don’t dent it.”

The poor young male looked caught between ecstasy and terror. He still hadn’t managed to utter a single word by the time they were out of earshot. “You enjoy doing that,” Holly said, trying for a scowl when she wanted to grin. “Making people lose their shit.”

Eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, Venom said, “It’s an amusing little hobby.” He nodded politely to the composed mortal doorman, then waited for Holly to enter the grand marble lobby before entering behind her.

Holly shivered.

His hand brushed her back over the top of the hoodie he’d called “a monstrosity that may burn my irises to blindness.” To be fair, she’d told him he looked like an Indian Ken doll in his gray shirt and black suit; he was still wearing the suit jacket, having managed to find a rag at the clinic to wipe off the worst of the dirt and blood that had gotten onto it.

Dark as the fabric was, the damage was no longer visible to the naked eye.

“You’re cold?” A low murmur of sound that sank into her bones.

“No, not really.” Holly told her hormones to cut it out . . . and heard that stealthy second pulse she’d thought had gone mercifully silent.

Her blood turned to ice. “It’s all this marble,” she somehow managed to say, “it’s cold.”

Walking over to the reception desk, Venom asked the receptionist to buzz Walter Battersby. The cool-eyed and black-haired vampire on duty, her cheekbones like razors, nodded and did as asked . . . before offering Venom a deep smile with lush lips painted a rich pink. As if to make sure he didn’t miss the silent invitation, the slinky woman leaned forward, her impressive cleavage plumping up in the deep vee of her dark blue top.

“You could lose a chicken leg in there,” Holly muttered under her breath.

She thought she’d said it quietly enough that Venom wouldn’t hear, but he shot her an amused look before thanking the receptionist. “My pleasure,” the woman said in a lightly accented voice—Welsh, maybe?—before sliding her hand forward to shake his.

Holly turned away and rolled her eyes.

Waiting until Venom joined her out of hearing distance, Holly said, “Did she slip you her number?”

He showed her the card in his hand. “Unfortunately, she didn’t pair it with a chicken leg or you could’ve had a snack.”

Holly snorted out a laugh, blocking it with the back of her hand before it could echo off the marble. Slipping the card into a pocket of his jacket, Venom nodded ahead. “That elevator—it’s coming up from the basement garage and is programmed to stop for us. Mr. Battersby has invited us up.”

“How nice.” Holly folded her arms and stared at the doors without saying a word. She wasn’t bothered he’d kept Chicken Leg Breasts’ card. “I thought you had better taste than that.”

“Really? She has big eyes, soft lips, and enough curves for a racecourse.” A shrug. “Fits the bill for pleasurable sexual release.”

Holly turned very slowly to stare at his insanely perfect profile. “You’re laughing at me.” She could feel it.

Leaning close, his lips curved, he slipped the receptionist’s card into a pocket of her hoodie. “You make it so easy, kitty.”

Holly hissed at him just as the elevator doors opened. The well-dressed matron on the other side, her skin near Venom’s brown but her eyes like Holly’s, looked taken aback. “I say, young lady. Didn’t your mother teach you manners?” was the stern question, followed by an intense second look. “You’re Daphne’s second oldest.”

Holly prayed desperately for a sinkhole to open up under her feet and swallow her whole. No such luck.

Groaning inwardly, she stepped into the elevator with a silent Venom.

How in the bejeezus did her mother know everybody? It wasn’t as if she was rich and swanky like this matron with her necklace of gleaming black pearls and a handbag that probably cost five grand. She looked like she was getting back late from an upmarket party. Daphne Chang, in contrast, ran a little deli beside the dress shop run by Holly’s dad. Yet that damn deli was like a pot of honey that drew every single nosy matron in the city.

The elevator doors closed, cutting off all avenues of escape.

“Yes,” she said, putting on her sweetest manners. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

The matron gave her a considering look up and down and just shook her head, before turning her attention to Venom. That he was a vampire—a very dangerous vampire—seemed to escape her. Or maybe she didn’t care. At a certain age, Daphne Chang’s friends seemed to stop giving a flying fuck about anything. In a very ladylike way, of course.

“Lovely suit, young man,” she said, her tone warm with approval. “So nice to see young people who care about their appearance. My Everett used to wear a suit very well.”

Her eyes landed once more on Holly’s jeans, painted canvas trainers, and hoodie. Not saying a word—loudly—the matron stepped out of the elevator two floors below their destination. “Hissing, my dear. Really.”

The doors shut.

And Venom’s shoulders began to shake. She punched him in the side but it had zero impact. “Shut up. I’m going to be getting a call from my mother at the crack of dawn.”

“The hoodie is an insult to clothing, but I like your shoes.”

“I swear I’ll stab you if you keep going.”

Laughter still lingering around his lips, Venom put his hand on her lower back as the elevator arrived on their floor. He glanced right. “There. That looks to be Mr. Battersby’s apartment.”

The door opened at that instant, the vampire who stood within the doorway a compact and dapper man of maybe fifty with short silver hair and a skin tone that fell between Holly’s and Venom’s. He was wearing an old-fashioned smoking jacket. Deep blue velvet, it boasted lapels of black satin. Below the jacket, Walter Battersby wore silk trousers in the same black, along with fancy slippers of dark gold that curled up at the tips.

Unlike Kenasha, he pulled off the flamboyant outfit with aplomb.

“I’m afraid you caught me just as I was retiring for the night,” he said genially when they reached him, holding out a hand to Venom.

The men shook before Battersby turned his cordial face to Holly. “And who might you be, my dear?”

Holly smiled her “matron smile,” dead certain he hadn’t needed to ask that question. “Just Holly.” She wasn’t quite sure what to make of Walter Battersby. He didn’t set off her creep radar, but he was dangerous, of that she had not a single doubt.

“Ah, Holly.” No surprise in the pale hazel of his eyes, his features so even and unremarkable that Holly had the thought this man could blend in anywhere, become anyone.

“I’m being rude,” he said right then. “Do come in.” He led them into a spacious apartment decorated with furniture that was a little too dark and heavy for Holly but tasteful nonetheless. Three framed black-and-white prints lined one wall, all depicting people in clothing at least a hundred and sixty or seventy years out of date. Those people stood stiff and formal . . . and one of them was a young Walter Battersby.

“Were you born in the 1800s?”

Battersby smiled at her question. “1812,” he said, before going to a decanter in the corner and pouring two glasses of blood. He offered one to Venom, the other to Holly.

When she demurred, he asked her if she’d like to try a “raspberry liqueur with bite” that he’d recently acquired from a collector in Bavaria. Still unable to pigeonhole this man into the category of “unscrupulous asshole,” Holly nodded, and he poured the liquid into a beautifully cut liqueur glass with a short, faceted stem.

“You must tell me how you like it,” he said after she accepted the drink. “I have a terrible addiction to all things fine and I couldn’t resist when I saw this bottle on the market . . . But that’s not why you’re here. Please sit.”

Venom took a chair that gave him a view of Walter in his leather armchair, while he’d catch any movement from the direction of the door with his peripheral vision. By contrast, Holly chose a chair that put her back to the wall but also placed her directly across from Battersby. She trusted Venom to kill any threat that came through the door, but this intelligent and cultured man, he was another kind of danger altogether.

“Five million?” she said softly, holding the clear hazel of Walter Battersby’s gaze. “I’ll get an inflated opinion of myself if you’re not careful.”

To the vampire’s credit, he didn’t attempt to pretend he didn’t know what she was talking about. “The client’s choice, I’m afraid.” He took a sip from his glass. “I did try to advise said client to lower the bounty so as not to be inundated with false reports, but . . .” An apologetic shrug. “The client was insistent.”

“Have you alerted this client that I’m currently in your apartment?” Holly asked, her eyes on him and only him. There was no view behind him, the windows blocked out by heavy blackout blinds. An interesting choice in a city where views fetched a premium. Maybe Walter Battersby didn’t like looking out and seeing the twenty-first century looking back at him.

Everything in this room, from the handwoven silk rug on the floor, to the ornaments on the mantel, to the chair in which she sat, came from another time. There was even a candelabra on the writing desk to the left, and the melted wax on the candles as well as on the metal of the candelabra itself told her Battersby used it often.

“No, no my dear.” Walter Battersby shook his head. “I would never dip my hand in the cookie jar.” Setting his glass aside on a small occasional table that was probably a valuable antique, he steepled his hands under his chin. “My job is only to facilitate certain transactions. I get paid handsomely for that. I don’t need to make enemies of mercenaries and bounty hunters by poaching their target.”

“How about the Tower?”

Venom’s silken question had Walter Battersby’s face going stone-still for an instant. It was the first time the urbane male had shown any indication of fear—and he recovered quickly.

Spreading his hands, he said, “I wasn’t aware that Holly was special at the time I accepted the commission. I knew she lived in the Tower, but word on the street was that she’d earned that room by dint of her work with the darker denizens of the city. No one high-end, so to speak.” Another look of sincere apology. “No one the Tower would miss.”

Holly knew the Tower kept track of all its people. No one was expendable. “How much did you get paid?” she asked as the unashamedly opulent scent of the liqueur rose to her nose. “How much was enough to risk going after even a small fish in the Tower pond?”

“Two million.”

That meant someone had laid out seven million to get her. Seven fucking million. Her head spun. “How much is this apartment worth?”

Battersby smiled. “Fifteen million. No, I’m not hurting for money—but one must have intellectual challenges or one fades away into ennui and that’s a waste of near-immortality, is it not?”

He leaned forward. “Now that I know of the Tower’s interest, I’ll be returning the payment to my client and pointing out the clause in our contract that says they have to warn me of any unexpected dangers. Hazard pay is extra, you see—and this hazard, I do not wish to chance. There is a difference between acceptable risk and foolish stupidity.”

Holly stared at him. “There’s a contract?”

“I’m a businessman.” Battersby rose—after glancing at Venom—and went to a sideboard where he picked up a document. “This is it.”

Holly examined it first. It was a contract and it laid out the responsibilities of both parties “in the matter of the live capture of one Holly ‘Sorrow’ Chang.” It was signed in blood on Battersby’s part—the gold-banded fountain pen she’d noticed on his writing desk suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

The client had accepted the contract via a short e-mail that was attached to the contract. “There’s no name on the e-mail,” Holly said, handing the contract to Venom.

“No, my dear.” Once more ensconced in his armchair, Battersby picked up his glass. “This client isn’t unintelligent. I don’t dig too deep, but I try not to work with distasteful types—for example, I don’t truck with those who wish to do adult things with little ones, or who want to Make a mortal unwillingly—but I couldn’t find anything on this individual. As he or she wanted to capture an adult vampire, there was nothing overtly wrong with the request.”

“Except for the fact it was a kidnapping,” Holly pointed out, the entire well-mannered conversation so surreal that she felt as if she’d fallen down the rabbit hole.

Battersby smiled at her dry tone. “Facilitating such things is part of what I do, alas.” Pausing, he said, “If I may be indelicate . . . your fangs are rather small. Was your Making unsuccessful?” He actually looked distressed. “If you’re under Tower care for medical reasons, I do apologize. I don’t work with clients who target the unfortunate.”

The unfortunate?

Holly looked at Venom, unable to believe this guy was for real.

Putting away his phone, Venom tucked the folded contract into his coat. “The Tower has accessed your technical devices. We’ll wait while they verify your story.”

Battersby leaned back in his seat, his eyes wide. “My protections are state of the art. I may have been born more than two hundred years ago and still prefer the mores of that time, but I’ve kept up with the changes in the world.”

Venom didn’t say anything, didn’t explain. Taking off his sunglasses, he just waited in an unblinking silence that had Battersby’s fingers going bone white around his glass. Holly, however, was deeply curious—and since they had the time . . . “How did you end up in this line of work?”

A touch of color returned to his cheeks. “It’s what I did before I was Made—for mortals, you understand,” the other vampire said. “After my Making, I realized immortals had a need of the same type of discreet service and began while I was yet under Contract. My angelic master at the time was intrigued by my ability to build connections and obtain information while facilitating transactions, and gave me carte blanche so long as I hid nothing from him. We are friends to this day.”

“Why don’t you live in the darker part of the city?”

“Fleshpots and pain citadels are not my drug of choice,” he replied with a smile that didn’t quite reach eyes tinged with fear so deep, it couldn’t be hidden. “As I can afford to live near the art galleries and fine wine bars that are my drugs of choice, I do.”

“But you retain your connections in the streets?”

“Yes. A man in my profession only needs a few trustworthy go-betweens to ensure the word gets out about certain matters. Such as the significant bounty on the head of a just-Holly.”

Holly smiled at his gentle mimicry of her butter-wouldn’t-melt tone at the door. “Aren’t you afraid of angering the wrong person and losing your life?”

“That, my dear, is the point.” Battersby put aside his half-empty glass. “The thrill of risk.” He turned to look at Venom. “If I may be so bold, why have you never displayed any signs of ennui?”

Venom’s tone was impossible to read when he replied, his eyes still trained on Battersby, “Why do you perceive I haven’t?”

“You’ve never been spotted in any of the usual haunts of those pushing their senses to the edge in an effort to feel something—and when photographed by the magazines that seem to enjoy following you, you are alert and aware. There’s no sense of boredom to you.”

It was true, Holly thought. Venom could give an impression of languid carelessness when he wanted, but he was never actually careless. He was interested in the world, noticed everything. Tonight, he smiled. “You are an intelligent man, Walter,” he said. “But unfortunately, if you’ve crossed the Tower, that intelligence won’t save you.”

A fine layer of perspiration broke out over Walter’s upper lip, but he didn’t beg or plead. “I accept that I let myself down by not digging below the surface—I should’ve realized Holly was the Tower’s.” Returning his attention to Holly, he said, “In an effort at redemption, I’d like to warn you that much of my information on you came from an individual you may trust.”