not on my radar.”
Rhys tilted his head, nodding with weary acceptance. Vail could smell the man’s feral nature, and it reminded him of open fields dotted with summer blossoms, edged by verdant forest. And he could see a faint, red, ashy aura surrounding him, which proved there was vampire somewhere inside the man.
“That all you want from me, old man?”
“What’s that stuff?” Rhys pointed to Vail’s eyes. “You go out to a nightclub last night?”
“I do the clubs every night.” Vail smeared a forefinger under his eye, smudging the black ointment he wore. “It’s for the faeries. I need to be able to see them.”
“Hmm.” Hawkes nodded. “I suppose.” But he could never understand why.
When a mortal wanted to see a faery they smeared an herbal ointment around their eyes. When a vampire wanted to see one in the mortal realm, he did the same. The magical, mythical elixir never worked for mortals. It worked for Vail because he’d come from Faery and knew the right ointment to use—the ingredients could only be obtained from a sidhe healer.
“Makes you look like a rock star with a heroine addiction,” Rhys commented.
“I have no addictions,” Vail said, but was ashamed his voice faltered on the word addiction.
“Right.” Rhys leaned back in his chair, assessing Vail to the very marrow. A certain faery, Mistress of Winter’s Edge, had utilized the same assessing gaze on Vail. He had never liked that look, and so openly defied the man by stretching back his shoulders and looking down his nose at him.
“I need you to come to work for me,” Rhys said, repeating the same words he’d spoken the last three times he’d phoned Vail.
“Not this again—”
“This time it’s different,” he rushed out. “No office work. No pickups. This is a recovery mission. Actually, it’s a private investigation thing.”
Vail lifted an eyebrow. He had no such skills. “You lose something?”
He glanced to the wall where a large safe door hung open. The firm stored smaller items here in Rhys’s office, with a massive storage area in the basement of the building, which was entirely owned by Hawkes.
Inside the safe were priceless artifacts, totems, magical objects, currency in all denominations (and from all centuries), and other collectibles. Hawkes Associates was a security house for the paranormal nations, and took in objects of value and stored them for as little as a week or as long as centuries. If you were an immortal, it was a good thing to have a storage facility that would be there as you walked through the centuries. This Paris office was one of about half a dozen locations all over the world.
“As a matter of fact, something was stolen from us about a week ago. But that’s not the assignment. Well, it is, but not.”
“Don’t have time for this, old man, just spit it out.”
“Charish Santiago, kingpin for a splinter group of vampires unaligned with any tribe, wants me to find her daughter. She’s been kidnapped.”
“You want me to track a missing vampiress?” Vail thumbed his chin. “You know I don’t do vampires.”
“Yes, you can’t stand them. And yet you are one. How does that work again?”
“They disgust me.” Vail leaned forward. “They are weak, reek of mortal blood, and are unworthy of regard.”
Rhys sighed heavily and tapped his fingers on the desk. They’d had this conversation before. Vail didn’t need to convince the man of his prejudices. Hell, he knew it was a ridiculous prejudice. But when a vampire was raised in Faery, he developed certain dislikes, and vampires were one of them.
“What if I told you this mission isn’t going to benefit the vampires, but rather Faery?”
“I don’t get it.”
“A valuable Seelie court gown was also taken, along with the vampiress. Her name is Lyric Santiago. Seems she was wearing the gown at the time because she was about to hand it over to the Unseelie prince, or some dark lord—I don’t recall his title.”
“Lord of Midsummer Dark?”
“Yes, that’s him. I believe Zett is his name. You know him?”
The muscles strapping Vail’s jaw tightened. Zett had been his nemesis since childhood. But Vail had had the last laugh before being banished from Faery months earlier. Zett had been outraged. Heh.
“Ever wonder where the title Vail the Unwanted came from?” he tossed out.
Rhys nodded. “I see. So you don’t like the guy.”
Vail blurted out a huffing chuckle. “To put it mildly.”
“More reason to help me recover the gown.”
“And the vampiress?”
“Yes, her, too. But it’s the gown I’m focused on. Up until ten days ago, that gown was in the safe here in the office. We’d taken it in from the Seelie court as a means to cleanse it of some dark sidhe vibes. Something like that. I don’t understand it, only that it needed to be in the mortal realm a fortnight. They intend to reclaim it after that fortnight. Which is marked four days from now. Someone stole it from me, and I’ll give you one guess who that someone was.”
“The Santiago clan?”
Vail had heard the name muttered in the dark nightclubs as a connection to deeds even he could not fathom. The Santiagos were old-school vampire mafia, a self-styled tribe that followed none of the legitimate tribes’ ways. Thieves, cutthroats and murderers populated their ranks.
Vail avoided tribes—he didn’t require any modicum of family, no matter the form—but most especially he avoided the vampires.
“So why steal the thing, then put it on her daughter and hand her off to the Unseelie lord?”
“I’m told she was merely trying it on, and had intended to take it off before the exchange. I’m guessing the gown was leverage for something.”
“Not the daughter? What, is she ugly and has a snaggle-fang?” Vail chuckled to imagine a vampiress with such an affliction.
“She’s known as the ice princess, and I’m told she is stunning. Well, I’ve a picture here.” Rhys thumbed through a row of files in his bottom desk drawer and tossed a photo across the desktop to Vail. “I’m not sure what sort of deal was made between Santiago and the Midsummer darkness—”
“Lord of Midsummer Dark.”
“Yes, whatever. All I know is I need to get that gown back before the Seelie representative returns for it. The sidhe are the last nation on this earth I want to piss off.”
“You are not a wib, old man.”
“I don’t know Faery speak.”
“It means you’re not stupid.”
Vail leaned forward to glance at the photo. He wasn’t about to touch it—that would show too much interest—but then he did. Bright white teeth. Brilliant whites surrounding blue eyes. And long ribbons of white-blond hair. She was a stunner. And he could appreciate a gorgeous woman.
But not a vampire.
“So how is this not helping the vampires?”
“You find the woman and retrieve the gown,” Rhys explained. “We give the woman back to her mother, but—oops, we couldn’t retrieve the gown. The mother is happy to have her daughter back. And I have the gown in hand, ensuring the Seelie court is pleased with my work.”
“And Zett is left empty-handed.”
“Exactly.”
Vail thought about it. Why would a faery lord make