Vampire Money (Paranormal billionaire erotic romance) (2 page)

“Yeah, well, this is vampire hunting, not a trial. We both know you're a vampire, hell, you admitted to it! Just what do you expect me to do?”

He shrugs, his lips still smiling but his eyes far away. “This isn't to the death.” It's not a question. I spend all day doing math and programming and he's a hundred-year-old mythical creature. I'd never be so stupid.

“We've come a long way from stakes and pitchforks.” I can't meet him eye-to-eye. But it's a survival trick, I mean, he could glamour me or something. “The worst that'd happen is you having to leave town.”

He laughs, shakes his head. “The worst part is, I can't get it out of my head that I recognize you. It's not just your job. We've met before.”

“We can't have.”

“It's like you're someone I used to know. It's the strangest thing...”

“I'm sorry.” Why am I apologizing now? This is getting ridiculous.

It's just a fucking job. I need to do it or I won't be able to afford food or plane tickets. It's not like it can ruin his life – the guy's fucking immortal, he doesn't have a life! Calm down.

He sighs again, smiles again. “It's alright.” Stands. “You should go.”

I almost don't want to. I've got questions, but I don't trust his answers. So I go, deciding to rush this through, get it over with as quickly as I can. This is the weirdest case I've ever had, and I'm not liking it one bit.

It's much easier for me to set up a scandal than it is for me to get him on any kind of real fraud or money laundering or whatever. I don't even have to set him up with a real person. All I gotta do is make the person real online, and you know how easy that is.

In a few days, it hits the papers that a top executive of Seward, Morris, and Holmwood is sleeping with the wife of another executive. The other executive is a guy I brought down a few months ago so he's not really around to get in a fight about it. And, okay, when I say “hits the papers” I don't mean front page, but it's enough. There's no way his career would survive something like that. If there's one thing I know, it's that reputation and gossip are way more important than your actual skill at your job.

It's a cheap job, kinda sloppy, wouldn't stick under close investigation, but, hey, I'm not that invested here any more. He bothers me. I just wanna get my cash and go. Preferably to another continent.

When it goes live, I'm already gone. Or I would have been if I hadn't fucked up majorly and left one of my fake passports behind. It wouldn't be a problem if there wasn't the chance it'd get turned in to the police, and that'd just be horrible. That's the kind of thing that can absolutely ruin you.

I'm lucky in my own way, though, the coast is pretty clear when I get back. I've had a vampire track me down at my rooms before, and let me tell you it's one of the worst things that can happen to us vampire hunters. We're not fighters any more, we're geeks.

I pick the lock on the door and crack it open. From where I'm standing, there's nobody in the room. It's dark, though, tough to see what's going on. This has to be one of the dumbest things I've ever done.

The passport's on the floor under the desk. It's barely five feet from the door to the desk but I have to get past the bathroom, first. That's the ugly part. Bathrooms have always been a problem for me.

Finally, I man up and crack the door open just enough to slip through. The coast still seems clear, don't see him anywhere, even the bathroom. I flick the light switch. Oh thank god, thank god.

I walk over to the desk and pick up the passport. Stand up. Turn around. Fuck.

Yeah, he climbed in the window. I am... probably dead. Definitely. Definitely dead.

“You're skipping town,” he says.

“Hell yeah I'm skipping town,” I stumble, “wouldn't want to get tracked down by some crazy fuckin' vampire.”

He laughs. His suit looks rumpled, day-old. His fangs are fully extended, his skin paler somehow. His pupils are blown. He's ready for a fight and I'm nowhere near ready to put up one.

“I tried to get you to let it go.”

“I needed to get the job done. I've got no money. I mean, a girl's gotta eat, right?” I wipe a sweaty palm down a pantleg.

He takes a step forward. I should – I should barricade myself in the bathroom. Yeah, right, the instant I make a move he'll take me down. I've seen how fast a vampire can be when he's hungry. Just because they found an alternative to blood doesn't mean they can't still kill.

“You spent all that time watching me and you still don't care? You ruined my life. You ruined the life of that poor married girl you framed.”

“A-actually, she's not real. Uh.”

“You don't care at all that you wrecked everything for me? I had to resign. I'm going to have to reinvent myself. Again.”

“You guys are so good at it, you won't have trouble. Really.” He's too close now. I can't move. I don't know what the hell to do. I'm not a talker. I can't calm down an angry vamp. I can't fight the guy.

“I was trying to move past it all! Reintegrate! I wanted to live like a
human
again. I'm sure you don't even know what that means!”

Hands grab my shoulders with bruising strength. I recoil, my heart exploding in my chest. I need to get away but his grip is stronger than I'd even imagined it. It keeps my shoulders down, stops me from hunching into a defensive position, keeps me exposed. His eyes meet mine, I'm sure my terror is showing on every inch of me. All teeth bared, he's frozen midway through a lunge. The look in his eyes makes the blood turn to sludge in my veins.

Instead, I'm shoved into the wall with enough force to knock me to the ground. He's across the room now, a looming black silhouette against the light.

“I can't go through with it,” he says. He diminishes, becomes somehow smaller, somehow less of himself.

He leaves through the window, lithe as a jaguar, the room like a cage too small for it. I sit frozen on the floor, too overwhelmed by my own terror to move. My body wants to vomit, I want to shut down, go to sleep. I realize now that I'd been crying, my cheeks sticky with tears.

It's a long half hour before I get myself together and head for the airport.

Six months later, I'm in Berlin. Vampire tracking isn't going to well so I've been getting more into the city's hacker culture. Spending every night at c-base, we've got a few projects going. Trying to establish contacts. I'm meeting other hunters for the first time, but none of them are people I'd ever want to talk to. Too geeky. None of them really 'get' human interaction.

But still, for the first time in my life I'm making connections. People who are in the know. We might be able to scale up this whole enterprise, with a bit of luck. Go global. We can definitely find a way to single out and take down vampires without having to actually physically go there. The world is tiny now. The Internet is big.

Berlin streets are alive in a way I can't describe. It's not just the people. The walls are covered in graffiti that's often closer to art than vandalism.

Which makes it the absolute last place I expect to ever run into
him
again. But there he is: crisp pinstripe suit and slicked back hair, walking down the street, looking none the worse for my running him out of town.

When he doesn't notice me, my reptile brain immediately scrambles to think of ways I can duck away without him noticing me, but I rebel. As long as I don't walk into any dark alleys, dude can't kill me. No way he'd kill me on a public street. Besides, he didn't do the deed then. Chances of him being able to go through with it now are... minimal, I'd guess.

So I keep my pace the same, pretend I never saw him. If he notices me, I can deal with it. I'm not scared of this asshole.

“Wow,” is what he says.

I laugh, a manic tinge to my voice. “I know, right? Who ever thought a fancy fucking businessman like yourself would ever hang in Kreuzberg?”

“Hey, I know how to have a good time as much as anyone. I'm more surprised to see another American, this time of year. Are you living here now?”

“Well, that depends. You gonna tell me what name you're living under?”

He chuckles, narrow eyed and smirking. “Adrian Flit. You?”

I take a moment to preen. “I'm Lauren Olivier.”

Adrian throws his head back and laughs. “Not really!”

“Yeah! I've been using that name for like four months now.”

A pause, a shy look. With that, he becomes serious, meets my eye. “I swear I didn't try to track you down here. This is as unintended for me as it is for you.”

I study his face, for once unconcerned about him using any kind of powers of suggestion. Yeah, I believe him. In my whole life dealing with vampires, this is the one guy I'd be willing to believe. This is the one guy I don't think is trying to glamour me. “Yeah, I know. I hope I didn't mess things up too bad for you.”

“It's hard to ruin things irreparably for one of us. I've got all the time in the world to fix things, really, and more resources than you can imagine.”

“I'm sure.” Christ, despite myself I am actually enjoying the conversation. He's a nice guy, beyond the fact of who he is. “Tell me, were you really trying to come clean?”

“Yeah, I really was. I can't say I was doing a particularly good job of it, but the effort was there.”

“Shit. You really weren't just trying to mess with me?”

“Sorry. I wouldn't feel bad about it, though, you only set me back the few months I'd been there. Besides, I'm playing much bigger games now.”

“Really?” I sidle up close to him. “You've gotta tell me.”

He laughs again, much looser than I'd ever expect from a vampire. “Like I'd tell a hunter. Ask again when you're older, kid.”

“Is that what you're in Berlin for, then?”

“Does anyone really need a reason to be in Berlin? What about you?”

I shrug. “I move around pretty much at random. It could just as easily have been Prague or Hong Kong. I'm actually trying my own way of coming clean. Y'know. Clean-er.”

“You really made it hard for yourself to stay in one place for long, didn't you?”

“Yeah, never know when a vamp's trying to track you down. You get a good enough support network, though, you can weather anything. I hope.” It's really not the best way of doing things. There are other ways to protect yourself, of course. Most of them involve becoming a vampire yourself or hiring one for protection.

Not a bad plan.

“So you're staying here for good?” he asks

“For as long as I can. You?”

“Yeah, I'm here for good.” He eyes me up and down. I know that look pretty well. Usually it's a good look. Sometimes bad. Here, I'd say it's good. He's a good guy.

“In Kreuzberg?”

“Come on, you know better than to ask me that.”

“I know, but I can't get over the idea of someone as rich as you hanging out with the punks and the immigrants. Where do you live, then?”

“Nothing wrong with punks and immigrants. I've got an apartment in Mitte. Does that work better for you?” he laughs.

“Almost too much, man. I was hoping you were going to shock me.”

“Being a good guy and a vampire doesn't shock you enough? You're the one who didn't believe I wasn't robbing people.”

“You still not robbing people?”

“Nope. No robbery, nothing illegal. I'm as clean as anyone. Well, not really,” he says, giving me a look through lowered lids. Alright, so the vibe isn't just in my imagination. I like that.