Page 87 of Stalk the Dark
“I knew it!” Padma said. “He thinks he can control us by getting into your pants.”
“Or he may just want to get into her pants,” Edwin pointed out.
“Or buy her some pretty new pants,” Merry added with a giggle.
“Can we please stop talking about my pants?”
Padma put her hand on my shoulder, her expression serious. “You need to be careful. He’s a sucker. They’re all fucking suckers, and they can’t be trusted because to them, we’ll always be food.”
“I have no intention of getting involved with a vampire. But it might serve us to keep his ear.”
She considered this. “I suppose so.” She nodded. “Fine, you can go.”
I chuckled. “Not that I needed your permission, but thanks, Mom.”
She looked sheepish.
The rest of the day was uneventful with more filing and setting up the coffee machine. I checked in with Micah to be told he was still working on my manpower problem, and my call to Lorenzo went straight tovoicemail. Again. Okay, so now I was getting a little worried.
It was late afternoon when the bell above the door tinkled.
I was first out to reception, in time to see two guys hurry in looking spooked.
“Hey, how can I help?”
“This the Order?” one of the guys asked.
“We are indeed. What’s the problem?”
“We’re with the tour bus.”
Tour…It took a moment, but then I remembered that Dracul allowed yearly tours of its territory in the hopes of recruiting new blood voluntarily. Why anyone would want to tour was beyond me.
“How can I help you?”
“Our girlfriends were taken by vampires,” the stockier of the two said.
“You won’t see many vampires outside till sundown. How and where were they taken?”
“Look, we went to this bar, okay, and it’s like this all-day all-night place, and there were vampires there, and they took our girlfriends. We didn’t know where to go to get help. That other place, the big shiny building, the sangua…something they just laughed at us. Laughed!”
Typical. “What’s the bar called?”
“Cosmic Stars?” Padma said from behind me.
“That’s the one!”
I arched a brow her way. “You know it?”
“Yeah, I know of it. There are underground passages all over the territory for the suckers to get around during the day. Cosmic Stars is a hub of debauchery.” She glared at the guys. “You had no business going there.”
“Yeah, but we did, and now those suckers have our girls. You got to help us, please.”
They were young. Younger than us. What the fuck had they been thinking coming here? “Padma? What’s the protocol on this?”
“Sangualex deals with human safety, but if they laughed them out of the building, then…We have to be careful, though; we’ll be dealing with high profile vamps. The progeny of old ones and nobles.”
“I don’t care who they are. If they’re holding humans hostage against their will, then they’ll have to answer to my blade.”
