Marcus stood behind the now-headless vampire, his expensive jacket splattered with blood and brain matter, his pale eyes fixed on Kaine with mechanical attention.
Richard screamed and stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet and landing hard on the asphalt. "What the fuck? What the fuck is happening?"
Kaine sighed and sheathed his scythe. "Questions and answers time, Richard. And I suggest you start with the truth, because my friend here gets cranky when people lie to him."
Marcus tilted his head at Richard with empty curiosity, blood still dripping from his claws.
Richard scrambled backward until his back hit the SUV, his eyes wide with terror. "I don't know what you want! I was just trying to get away from Victoria! She's been acting crazy ever since I mentioned divorce!"
"Crazy how?" Kaine asked, pulling out a cigarette he didn't actually need but found psychologically comforting.
"Paranoid, suspicious, asking weird questions about my schedule and my friends. She keeps accusing me of having affairs, but then she gets angry when I try to prove I'm not." Richard gestured at the headless vampire corpse. "I met Sarah at a bar three nights ago. She said she could help me figure out what Victoria was really up to."
'Setup. Classic honeytrap, but for what purpose?'
Kaine studied Richard with enhanced senses, looking for signs of vampire influence or supernatural corruption. The man's temperature was elevated, but that could be from fear and adrenaline. His pupils were dilated, but again, that was consistent with terror rather than supernatural interference.
"Richard," Kaine said carefully, "has your wife been in contact with anyone unusual lately? New friends, business associates, people who only visit at night?"
"I don't know! She won't tell me anything! Every time I ask questions, she starts screaming about how I'm trying to spy on her." Richard wiped his face with shaking hands. "Look, I just want out of this marriage. Victoria can have half the assets, I don't care. I just want to be somewhere safe."
Kaine considered the possibilities. Victoria Ashford had hired him to investigate her husband's suspicious behavior. Richard Ashford was trying to escape what he perceived as his wife's increasingly erratic behavior. And someone had sent a vampire to intercept Richard, possibly with the intention of turning him or killing him.
'Either Victoria's behind this and she's trying to eliminate her husband in a way that looks like a vampire attack, or someone else is playing both sides against each other for reasons I haven't figured out yet.'
He looked at Richard's pale, sweating face and made a decision. The man was clearly terrified and confused, but he didn't show any signs of supernatural influence or deliberate deception.
"Here's my card," Kaine said, pulling out one of his business cards and tossing it to Richard. "You're going to call me tomorrow night at exactly ten PM. If you don't call, I'm going to assume you're dead or turned, and I'll act accordingly."
Richard caught the card with trembling fingers. "What does that mean?"
"It means you should really, really make sure you call me tomorrow night."
Kaine turned to Marcus, who was still standing over the vampire's corpse like a statue waiting for instructions.
"Come on," he said. "We're going to pay Mrs. Ashford a visit. Something about this whole situation stinks, and I want to know what we're really dealing with before someone else ends up dead."
Marcus followed three steps behind as they left Richard sitting in the alley next to his expensive SUV and the remains of what might have been his salvation or his destruction.
The night was still young, and Kaine had a feeling it was about to get a lot more complicated.
____
A woman entered Velvet Dreams fifteen minutes after the commotion outside had settled. She moved through the club with the aura of a predator, her dark hair cascading over one shoulder and designer glasses that served more as an accessory than necessity in the dim lighting. Her black dress hugged every curve earning envy from a comma, and conversations seemed to pause as she passed.
"Excuse me, darling," she purred to a nervous-looking server, her fingers trailing across his arm just long enough to make him flush. "I'm looking for someone. A man with a large weapon—a scythe, I believe? Tall, dangerous-looking. He would have been with a pale companion."
The server's eyes widened with recognition and fear. "Oh, the hunter. Yeah, he went out back with some other guy. There was... there was a lot of screaming."
"How delicious," she smiled, her lips curving in a way that was both inviting and predatory. "Which way?"
The server pointed the way out back and she walked.
The bouncer near the rear exit stepped forward when she approached, but something in her gaze made him hesitate. "Ma'am, you really don't want to—"
"I want to go exactly where I please," she said, her voice carrying an undertone that made his protests evaporate. "Step aside."
He did.
The alley behind the club looked like a crime scene waiting to happen. The headless corpse of what had clearly been a vampire lay in a spreading pool of blood and brain matter, while twenty feet away, a middle-aged man in an expensive suit was having what appeared to be a heated argument with someone inside a black SUV.
The woman removed her glasses, revealing sharp green eyes that took in every detail of the scene with professional interest.
Gwen.
She approached the arguing man with silent steps, catching the tail end of his conversation.
"—don't care what you saw, Rodri! Just start the damn car and get us out of here!"
"Richard Ashford," she said quietly.
The man spun around, his face already pale from whatever trauma he'd endured. When he saw her, his expression shifted from panic to a different kind of fear—the instinctive recognition that he was looking at something beautiful and deadly.
"Who... who are you?"
"Someone who's very curious about your evening's entertainment." She gestured elegantly at the headless corpse. "Tell me about the hunter. The one with the scythe."
Richard's hands shook as he looked between her and the vampire's remains. "I don't know anything about hunters. Some crazy guy showed up, started talking about my wife, and then..." He gestured helplessly at the blood.
"Come now, Richard," Gwen stepped closer, and her presence seemed to fill the space between them like perfume and danger. "A man doesn't leave behind this kind of artwork without making an impression. What did he look like? What did he say? And more importantly..." Her eyes dropped to his clenched left fist. "What did he give you?"
Richard followed her gaze to his hand, clutching something against his chest like a shield. "He said... he said I had to call him tomorrow night. If I don't, he'll assume I'm dead or turned."
"How theatrical," she laughed, the sound like breaking glass wrapped in honey. "And what exactly are you supposed to call him with?"
Richard's grip tightened on whatever he was holding. "I can't. He'll come after me if I don't—"
"Oh, darling," Gwen moved closer, close enough that he could smell her perfume and see the way the streetlight caught the predatory gleam in her eyes. "You're worried about the wrong monster."
Something in her presence made his bones feel like water. The confidence that had carried him through decades of business deals and hostile negotiations simply evaporated under her gaze. His hand began to tremble, and the business card started to slip from his fingers.
"There's a good boy," she purred, plucking the card from his nerveless grip with movements that were both gentle and inexorable. "Kaine Cross, Private Investigation. How wonderfully convenient."
"Please," Richard whispered, pressing himself back against the SUV. "I just want to go home. I just want this to be over."
"Oh, it will be," Gwen said, studying the card with satisfaction before slipping it into her purse. "But not quite yet."
She turned to leave, then paused, looking back over her shoulder with a smile that managed to be both reassuring and terrifying.
"Don't worry about calling Mr. Cross tomorrow night, Richard," she said, her voice carrying the promise of things both wonderful and horrible. "I'll be making that call myself."
Her heels clicked against the asphalt as she disappeared into the shadows between buildings, leaving Richard alone with his fear, his driver, and the growing certainty that his problems had just gotten much, much worse.